Microsoft Contract Job Trends

Microsoft
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of Microsoft products and/or services. It includes a benchmarking guide to contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Microsoft over the 6 months leading up to 19 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

The figures below represent the IT contractor job market in general and are not representative of contractor rates within the Microsoft Corporation.

6 months to
19 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,543 3,905 5,533
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.54% 13.37% 12.99%
As % of the Vendors category 28.11% 28.05% 30.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,726 2,570 3,636
10th Percentile £213 £210 £189
25th Percentile £375 £346 £334
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £585 £586 £600
90th Percentile £684 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £456
% change year-on-year +5.88% -6.75% +1.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 350 246 463
10th Percentile £13.65 £13.97 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.28 £15.10 £13.00
Median hourly rate £20.09 £18.81 £15.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.82% +25.38% -33.07%
75th Percentile £28.85 £29.00 £24.59
90th Percentile £61.61 £58.45 £55.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.91 £18.51 £15.00
% change year-on-year +7.56% +23.40% -21.05%

All Vendors
UK

Microsoft falls under the Vendor Products and Services category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of all vendor products and services.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 19,721 13,922 18,018
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.05% 47.67% 42.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,493 8,702 11,225
10th Percentile £313 £281 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.49% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £618 £630
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £492 £500
% change year-on-year -0.41% -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 987 568 1,096
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £14.46
Median hourly rate £32.00 £25.50 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +25.49% +15.91% -48.02%
75th Percentile £58.75 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £74.13 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £22.53 £21.42
% change year-on-year +24.28% +5.21% -44.38%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Microsoft relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Microsoft job vacancy trend in the UK

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Microsoft.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft over the 6 months to 19 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Microsoft.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft over the 6 months to 19 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Top 18 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft within the UK over the 6 months to 19 May 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +1 4,859 £500 +5.15% 3,143
UK excluding London -1 2,869 £450 +5.88% 2,710
London -3 2,156 £515 +1.48% 924
Work from Home -1 1,382 £500 - 1,349
North of England -3 759 £450 +8.70% 653
South East -2 663 £475 -0.26% 877
Midlands -3 495 £450 +12.50% 393
North West -2 395 £425 - 349
Yorkshire 0 345 £474 +18.50% 223
West Midlands -6 340 £450 +12.50% 230
South West -2 335 £450 -2.70% 287
East of England 0 316 £375 -23.37% 294
Scotland +5 216 £450 +5.88% 145
East Midlands -1 148 £401 -2.20% 163
Wales +1 86 £325 +8.33% 93
North East -31 24 £450 +30.43% 87
Northern Ireland -4 20 £450 +38.46% 28
Channel Islands -3 1 - -

Microsoft
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 598 (10.79%) SharePoint
2 370 (6.68%) Microsoft Exchange
3 103 (1.86%) Confluence
4 35 (0.63%) Apache Spark
5 25 (0.45%) Apache
6 23 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
7 22 (0.40%) HCL Notes
8 18 (0.32%) CMS
9 14 (0.25%) IIS
9 14 (0.25%) SAS
10 13 (0.23%) Skype for Business
11 12 (0.22%) Mendix
12 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.11%) Camunda
12 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 5 (0.090%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.090%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.072%) Drupal
14 4 (0.072%) Exchange Server 2013
14 4 (0.072%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 552 (9.96%) Microsoft Office
2 480 (8.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 219 (3.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 120 (2.16%) Microsoft Project
5 91 (1.64%) MS Visio
6 55 (0.99%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.31%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.11%) Trello
10 5 (0.090%) Acrobat
10 5 (0.090%) PTC Creo
11 4 (0.072%) InDesign
11 4 (0.072%) SOLIDWORKS
12 3 (0.054%) Adobe Captivate
12 3 (0.054%) AutoCAD
12 3 (0.054%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
13 2 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 202 (3.64%) Dynamics CRM
2 64 (1.15%) SAP S/4HANA
3 23 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
4 19 (0.34%) Dynamics NAV
5 17 (0.31%) NetSuite
6 15 (0.27%) Aladdin
7 13 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
8 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
8 11 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 10 (0.18%) Maximo
9 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
9 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 9 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
10 9 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
11 8 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.11%) Shopify
13 5 (0.090%) Dynamics GP
13 5 (0.090%) SAP Business One
13 5 (0.090%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 2,339 (42.20%) Azure
2 1,409 (25.42%) Microsoft 365
3 945 (17.05%) Power Platform
4 716 (12.92%) Entra ID
5 465 (8.39%) Dynamics 365
6 444 (8.01%) AWS
7 433 (7.81%) Azure DevOps
8 326 (5.88%) Power Automate
9 298 (5.38%) Microsoft Purview
10 293 (5.29%) PowerApps
11 250 (4.51%) GitHub
12 239 (4.31%) Microsoft Copilot
13 215 (3.88%) OneDrive
14 191 (3.45%) Azure Data Factory
14 191 (3.45%) SaaS
15 176 (3.18%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 169 (3.05%) GCP
17 158 (2.85%) Serverless
18 143 (2.58%) PaaS
19 132 (2.38%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 277 (5.00%) DNS
2 253 (4.56%) Firewall
3 204 (3.68%) VPN
4 167 (3.01%) DHCP
5 135 (2.44%) Wi-Fi
6 131 (2.36%) WAN
7 113 (2.04%) LAN
8 108 (1.95%) Network Security
9 101 (1.82%) TCP/IP
10 57 (1.03%) Kerberos
11 53 (0.96%) VLAN
12 45 (0.81%) SD-WAN
13 36 (0.65%) SAN
14 34 (0.61%) SSL
15 33 (0.60%) Wireless
16 29 (0.52%) HTTP
16 29 (0.52%) Skype
17 28 (0.51%) Unified Communications
18 24 (0.43%) IPsec
19 23 (0.41%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 572 (10.32%) Power BI
2 264 (4.76%) SQL Server
3 173 (3.12%) Data Warehouse
4 151 (2.72%) Data Lake
5 119 (2.15%) Azure SQL Database
6 112 (2.02%) Metadata
7 97 (1.75%) PostgreSQL
8 71 (1.28%) Relational Database
9 68 (1.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 47 (0.85%) NoSQL
11 46 (0.83%) Power Query
12 44 (0.79%) Tableau
13 43 (0.78%) Oracle Database
14 41 (0.74%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 41 (0.74%) Star Schema
15 40 (0.72%) Delta Lake
15 40 (0.72%) MySQL
16 30 (0.54%) Spark SQL
17 26 (0.47%) Snowflake Schema
17 26 (0.47%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 251 (4.53%) JIRA
2 168 (3.03%) Git
3 65 (1.17%) Jenkins
4 63 (1.14%) GitLab
5 27 (0.49%) Visual Studio
6 25 (0.45%) Artifactory
7 20 (0.36%) MSI
8 19 (0.34%) Eclipse
9 15 (0.27%) MLflow
9 15 (0.27%) Selenium
10 14 (0.25%) JMeter
10 14 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
11 13 (0.23%) ERwin
12 12 (0.22%) Bitbucket
12 12 (0.22%) Maven
13 11 (0.20%) Postman
14 9 (0.16%) Android Studio
14 9 (0.16%) Browser DevTools
14 9 (0.16%) Gatling
14 9 (0.16%) InstallShield
General
1 1,807 (32.60%) Social Skills
2 1,102 (19.88%) Finance
3 629 (11.35%) Analytical Skills
4 498 (8.98%) Public Sector
5 292 (5.27%) Banking
6 246 (4.44%) Legal
7 241 (4.35%) Organisational Skills
8 138 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
9 99 (1.79%) Manufacturing
10 95 (1.71%) Law
11 90 (1.62%) Presentation Skills
12 86 (1.55%) Retail
13 81 (1.46%) Telecoms
14 80 (1.44%) Marketing
15 74 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 67 (1.21%) Military
17 66 (1.19%) Local Government
18 54 (0.97%) Influencing Skills
18 54 (0.97%) Investment Banking
19 46 (0.83%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 694 (12.52%) Architect
2 595 (10.73%) Analyst
3 509 (9.18%) Developer
4 459 (8.28%) Senior
5 364 (6.57%) IT Support
6 340 (6.13%) Lead
7 309 (5.57%) Consultant
8 260 (4.69%) Support Engineer
9 225 (4.06%) Data Engineer
10 207 (3.73%) Azure Engineer
11 193 (3.48%) Solutions Architect
12 184 (3.32%) Project Manager
13 179 (3.23%) IT Engineer
14 176 (3.18%) Business Analyst
15 164 (2.96%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 162 (2.92%) Administrator
17 136 (2.45%) IT Support Engineer
18 115 (2.07%) Security Engineer
19 105 (1.89%) DevOps Engineer
20 103 (1.86%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 242 (4.37%) .NET
2 166 (2.99%) REST
3 134 (2.42%) Microsoft Graph
4 107 (1.93%) OAuth
5 104 (1.88%) PySpark
6 97 (1.75%) SAML
7 89 (1.61%) JSON
8 83 (1.50%) React
9 79 (1.43%) OpenID
10 76 (1.37%) LDAP
11 69 (1.24%) Web Services
12 67 (1.21%) Middleware
13 55 (0.99%) HTML
14 50 (0.90%) Node.js
14 50 (0.90%) SailPoint
15 49 (0.88%) AngularJS
16 48 (0.87%) ARM Templates
16 48 (0.87%) CSS
16 48 (0.87%) OAuth2
17 47 (0.85%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 297 (5.36%) Onboarding
2 218 (3.93%) Cloud Native
3 173 (3.12%) Product Ownership
4 122 (2.20%) Management Information System
5 104 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
6 102 (1.84%) Data Centre
7 90 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
8 84 (1.52%) Hybrid Cloud
9 83 (1.50%) Security Posture
10 82 (1.48%) AI Agents
11 78 (1.41%) Replication
12 77 (1.39%) Self-Motivation
13 72 (1.30%) Low-Code
14 70 (1.26%) Data Structures
15 68 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
15 68 (1.23%) PKI
16 60 (1.08%) Virtual Team
17 45 (0.81%) Public Cloud
18 44 (0.79%) Driving Licence
18 44 (0.79%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1,193 (21.52%) Windows
2 323 (5.83%) Windows 10
3 272 (4.91%) Windows Server
4 254 (4.58%) Linux
5 110 (1.98%) Apple iOS
6 106 (1.91%) Mac OS
7 104 (1.88%) Android
8 44 (0.79%) Unix
9 43 (0.78%) Windows 7
10 40 (0.72%) Windows Server 2016
11 38 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 32 (0.58%) VMS
13 29 (0.52%) Windows Server 2019
14 22 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
15 15 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
16 12 (0.22%) Ubuntu
17 10 (0.18%) CentOS
18 5 (0.090%) AIX
19 4 (0.072%) Solaris
19 4 (0.072%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 944 (17.03%) Problem-Solving
2 882 (15.91%) DevOps
3 838 (15.12%) Agile
4 786 (14.18%) Migration
5 748 (13.49%) CI/CD
6 624 (11.26%) Business Intelligence
7 604 (10.90%) Analytics
8 549 (9.90%) AI
9 544 (9.81%) Stakeholder Management
10 486 (8.77%) Continuous Improvement
11 455 (8.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 449 (8.10%) ITIL
13 436 (7.87%) Customer Service
14 417 (7.52%) Data Modelling
15 373 (6.73%) Roadmaps
16 349 (6.30%) Decision-Making
17 335 (6.04%) Cybersecurity
18 327 (5.90%) Infrastructure as Code
19 311 (5.61%) Project Delivery
20 308 (5.56%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 714 (12.88%) SQL
2 619 (11.17%) PowerShell
3 585 (10.55%) Python
4 261 (4.71%) C#
5 200 (3.61%) JavaScript
6 176 (3.18%) Java
7 125 (2.26%) Bicep
8 95 (1.71%) T-SQL
9 84 (1.52%) Kusto Query Language
10 76 (1.37%) Bash
11 72 (1.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 69 (1.24%) TypeScript
13 33 (0.60%) PL/SQL
14 28 (0.51%) VBA
15 27 (0.49%) C++
16 22 (0.40%) VB
17 19 (0.34%) Scala
18 18 (0.32%) R
19 17 (0.31%) Shell Script
20 13 (0.23%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,050 (18.94%) Security Cleared
2 825 (14.88%) SC Cleared
3 542 (9.78%) Degree
4 260 (4.69%) Microsoft Certification
5 179 (3.23%) Azure Certification
6 177 (3.19%) DV Cleared
7 121 (2.18%) Computer Science Degree
8 99 (1.79%) CISSP
9 93 (1.68%) BPSS Clearance
10 75 (1.35%) Cisco Certification
11 56 (1.01%) PMP
12 55 (0.99%) PMI Certification
13 54 (0.97%) CISM
13 54 (0.97%) Master's Degree
14 40 (0.72%) AWS Certification
15 38 (0.69%) MCSE
16 34 (0.61%) DBS Check
17 32 (0.58%) CCNP
18 30 (0.54%) MCSA
19 28 (0.51%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 274 (4.94%) Data Quality
2 217 (3.91%) GDPR
3 180 (3.25%) QA
4 147 (2.65%) SLA
5 135 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 118 (2.13%) NIST
7 98 (1.77%) PMO
8 69 (1.24%) Accessibility
9 68 (1.23%) Cyber Essentials
10 48 (0.87%) NCSC
11 39 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 34 (0.61%) GRC
13 26 (0.47%) PCI DSS
14 22 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 21 (0.38%) NIST 800
16 20 (0.36%) MiFID
17 15 (0.27%) SOC 2
18 13 (0.23%) FINRA
18 13 (0.23%) WCAG
19 12 (0.22%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,049 (18.92%) Active Directory
2 217 (3.91%) Docker
3 187 (3.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 93 (1.68%) Hyper-V
5 79 (1.43%) Virtual Desktop
6 76 (1.37%) Virtual Machines
7 54 (0.97%) VMware ESXi
8 48 (0.87%) vSphere
9 25 (0.45%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.41%) VMware NSX
11 19 (0.34%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.29%) Firmware
13 6 (0.11%) NFS
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
14 5 (0.090%) IAG
14 5 (0.090%) Snort
14 5 (0.090%) VMware Workstation
15 4 (0.072%) Squid
15 4 (0.072%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 428 (7.72%) Microsoft Intune
2 340 (6.13%) Terraform
3 246 (4.44%) Kubernetes
4 199 (3.59%) SCCM
5 122 (2.20%) Ansible
6 114 (2.06%) Single Sign-On
7 78 (1.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 46 (0.83%) vCenter Server
9 42 (0.76%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (0.65%) Grafana
11 32 (0.58%) Prometheus
12 21 (0.38%) FortiGate
13 18 (0.32%) Puppet
13 18 (0.32%) SCOM
14 15 (0.27%) AirWatch
15 14 (0.25%) QRadar
16 13 (0.23%) WSUS
17 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
18 11 (0.20%) CASB
18 11 (0.20%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 268 (4.83%) ServiceNow
2 258 (4.65%) VMware
3 220 (3.97%) Databricks
4 218 (3.93%) SAP
5 216 (3.90%) Oracle
6 177 (3.19%) Cisco
7 153 (2.76%) Google
8 111 (2.00%) Citrix
9 99 (1.79%) Salesforce
10 93 (1.68%) Splunk
11 83 (1.50%) OpenAI
12 71 (1.28%) Apple
13 70 (1.26%) Foundry
14 55 (0.99%) CrowdStrike
15 50 (0.90%) HP
16 46 (0.83%) Adobe
17 45 (0.81%) Palo Alto
18 44 (0.79%) Okta
19 43 (0.78%) CyberArk
20 41 (0.74%) Informatica