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 10 February 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
10 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,187 4,174 5,861
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.18% 13.60% 13.04%
As % of the Vendors category 29.23% 29.39% 29.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,520 2,628 3,996
10th Percentile £204 £205 £192
25th Percentile £355 £339 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £586 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £432 £450
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -1.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 370 175 371
10th Percentile £13.57 £15.33 £11.79
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.62 £13.91
Median hourly rate £19.71 £23.59 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -16.47% +33.13% -13.43%
75th Percentile £25.58 £33.75 £35.82
90th Percentile £61.66 £61.20 £52.78
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £22.00 £17.72
% change year-on-year -13.64% +24.15% -11.40%

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 17,748 14,202 19,636
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 45.09% 46.27% 43.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,436 8,435 12,351
10th Percentile £300 £275 £255
25th Percentile £412 £406 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.40% -0.38% -1.87%
75th Percentile £606 £625 £630
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 855 410 924
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £12.99
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.00 £15.50
Median hourly rate £23.83 £29.00 £26.97
Median % change year-on-year -17.84% +7.52% -13.41%
75th Percentile £56.13 £63.63 £57.50
90th Percentile £73.75 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £26.81 £26.00
% change year-on-year -17.95% +3.13% -4.59%

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 10 February 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 10 February 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 10 February 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 4,549 £475 - 2,928
UK excluding London 0 2,803 £450 +4.17% 2,706
London -2 1,915 £501 +0.10% 748
Work from Home +1 1,315 £500 +3.73% 1,166
North of England +1 734 £425 - 635
South East -1 645 £475 - 884
Midlands -5 470 £450 +5.88% 410
North West -1 413 £400 -11.11% 325
South West 0 354 £500 +6.95% 268
East of England 0 327 £413 -8.33% 295
West Midlands -6 319 £475 +9.42% 240
Yorkshire +1 286 £450 +9.69% 232
Scotland -2 197 £450 +20.00% 151
East Midlands -1 150 £400 -1.23% 171
Wales +3 92 £310 -29.14% 90
North East -12 41 £450 +28.57% 83
Northern Ireland +1 26 £450 +38.46% 27
Channel Islands +2 1 - - 2

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
1 594 (11.45%) SharePoint
2 403 (7.77%) Microsoft Exchange
3 112 (2.16%) Confluence
4 56 (1.08%) Skype for Business
5 37 (0.71%) CMS
6 23 (0.44%) Apache
7 20 (0.39%) IIS
8 19 (0.37%) Apache Spark
9 16 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
9 16 (0.31%) HCL Notes
10 14 (0.27%) SAS
11 13 (0.25%) Exchange Server 2013
11 13 (0.25%) Mattermost
12 9 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2010
12 9 (0.17%) Mendix
13 8 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
14 7 (0.13%) iPlanet
14 7 (0.13%) JBoss
14 7 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
14 7 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 632 (12.18%) Microsoft Office
2 516 (9.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 232 (4.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 130 (2.51%) Microsoft Project
5 109 (2.10%) MS Visio
6 72 (1.39%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 11 (0.21%) Trello
8 9 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
10 6 (0.12%) Sketch
11 5 (0.096%) Acrobat
11 5 (0.096%) Adobe Captivate
11 5 (0.096%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.077%) Adobe After Effects
12 4 (0.077%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.077%) InDesign
12 4 (0.077%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.058%) SOLIDWORKS
13 3 (0.058%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 189 (3.64%) Dynamics CRM
2 45 (0.87%) SAP S/4HANA
3 41 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.33%) Dynamics AX
5 16 (0.31%) Maximo
6 15 (0.29%) Dynamics NAV
7 12 (0.23%) Aladdin
8 11 (0.21%) NetSuite
9 10 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
10 9 (0.17%) Loan IQ
10 9 (0.17%) Teamcenter
10 9 (0.17%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 7 (0.13%) Advent Geneva
11 7 (0.13%) Shopify
12 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
12 6 (0.12%) SystmOne
13 5 (0.096%) Primavera
13 5 (0.096%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 2,055 (39.62%) Azure
2 1,272 (24.52%) Microsoft 365
3 823 (15.87%) Power Platform
4 646 (12.45%) Entra ID
5 452 (8.71%) AWS
6 395 (7.62%) Dynamics 365
7 385 (7.42%) Azure DevOps
8 330 (6.36%) Power Automate
9 297 (5.73%) PowerApps
10 241 (4.65%) Microsoft Purview
11 225 (4.34%) GitHub
12 202 (3.89%) OneDrive
13 194 (3.74%) Serverless
14 180 (3.47%) Azure Data Factory
15 179 (3.45%) GCP
16 172 (3.32%) SaaS
17 165 (3.18%) Microsoft Copilot
18 146 (2.81%) Azure Logic Apps
19 135 (2.60%) Azure Sentinel
19 135 (2.60%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 306 (5.90%) DNS
2 279 (5.38%) Firewall
3 195 (3.76%) DHCP
4 192 (3.70%) VPN
5 129 (2.49%) Wi-Fi
6 126 (2.43%) TCP/IP
7 117 (2.26%) WAN
8 102 (1.97%) LAN
9 98 (1.89%) Network Security
10 83 (1.60%) Skype
11 67 (1.29%) Kerberos
12 53 (1.02%) VLAN
13 47 (0.91%) Wireless
14 46 (0.89%) Unified Communications
15 34 (0.66%) SD-WAN
16 31 (0.60%) HTTP
16 31 (0.60%) Internet
17 29 (0.56%) SSL
18 25 (0.48%) SAN
18 25 (0.48%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 509 (9.81%) Power BI
2 235 (4.53%) SQL Server
3 143 (2.76%) Data Warehouse
4 134 (2.58%) Data Lake
5 93 (1.79%) Metadata
6 92 (1.77%) Azure SQL Database
7 91 (1.75%) PostgreSQL
8 81 (1.56%) Relational Database
9 64 (1.23%) Oracle Database
10 50 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 49 (0.94%) MySQL
12 48 (0.93%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 44 (0.85%) Tableau
14 37 (0.71%) NoSQL
14 37 (0.71%) Power Query
15 25 (0.48%) Oracle Reports
15 25 (0.48%) Star Schema
16 24 (0.46%) Delta Lake
17 18 (0.35%) Big Data
17 18 (0.35%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 234 (4.51%) JIRA
2 150 (2.89%) Git
3 75 (1.45%) Jenkins
4 71 (1.37%) GitLab
5 25 (0.48%) Eclipse
5 25 (0.48%) MSI
6 19 (0.37%) Postman
7 18 (0.35%) Android Studio
7 18 (0.35%) Artifactory
7 18 (0.35%) Browser DevTools
7 18 (0.35%) Visual Studio
8 16 (0.31%) Selenium
8 16 (0.31%) Xcode
9 15 (0.29%) JMeter
10 14 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (0.25%) Cucumber
12 10 (0.19%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.17%) ERwin
13 9 (0.17%) JUnit
13 9 (0.17%) MLflow
General
1 2,044 (39.41%) Social Skills
2 1,037 (19.99%) Finance
3 660 (12.72%) Analytical Skills
4 512 (9.87%) Public Sector
5 254 (4.90%) Organisational Skills
6 249 (4.80%) Banking
7 210 (4.05%) Legal
8 161 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
9 128 (2.47%) Manufacturing
10 109 (2.10%) Presentation Skills
11 108 (2.08%) Marketing
12 98 (1.89%) Telecoms
13 74 (1.43%) Retail
14 69 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 54 (1.04%) Influencing Skills
16 47 (0.91%) Military
17 46 (0.89%) Investment Banking
18 43 (0.83%) Law
19 38 (0.73%) Local Government
20 37 (0.71%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 674 (12.99%) Analyst
2 578 (11.14%) Architect
3 496 (9.56%) Developer
4 386 (7.44%) Senior
5 329 (6.34%) IT Support
6 297 (5.73%) Support Engineer
7 274 (5.28%) Consultant
8 266 (5.13%) Lead
9 182 (3.51%) Solutions Architect
10 173 (3.34%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 167 (3.22%) Azure Engineer
12 166 (3.20%) Business Analyst
13 163 (3.14%) IT Engineer
14 155 (2.99%) Data Engineer
15 154 (2.97%) Administrator
16 151 (2.91%) Project Manager
17 147 (2.83%) Support Analyst
18 125 (2.41%) IT Support Engineer
19 110 (2.12%) Security Engineer
20 100 (1.93%) Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 247 (4.76%) .NET
2 169 (3.26%) REST
3 135 (2.60%) OAuth
4 114 (2.20%) SAML
5 111 (2.14%) React
6 104 (2.01%) Microsoft Graph
7 92 (1.77%) OpenID
8 80 (1.54%) LDAP
9 79 (1.52%) RESTful
10 74 (1.43%) AngularJS
11 70 (1.35%) PySpark
12 69 (1.33%) CSS
12 69 (1.33%) JSON
13 68 (1.31%) HTML
14 61 (1.18%) ARM Templates
15 56 (1.08%) Node.js
16 52 (1.00%) OAuth2
17 49 (0.94%) Middleware
17 49 (0.94%) Web Services
18 42 (0.81%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 296 (5.71%) Onboarding
2 193 (3.72%) Cloud Native
3 154 (2.97%) Product Ownership
4 135 (2.60%) Management Information System
5 114 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
6 95 (1.83%) PKI
7 89 (1.72%) Data Centre
8 88 (1.70%) Self-Motivation
9 84 (1.62%) Security Posture
10 76 (1.47%) Hybrid Cloud
10 76 (1.47%) Replication
11 73 (1.41%) Driving Licence
12 71 (1.37%) Low-Code
13 69 (1.33%) Legacy Systems
14 67 (1.29%) Mobile App
15 57 (1.10%) NHS
16 54 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
17 52 (1.00%) AI Agents
18 51 (0.98%) Data Protection Act
19 50 (0.96%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 1,228 (23.67%) Windows
2 362 (6.98%) Windows 10
3 302 (5.82%) Linux
4 284 (5.48%) Windows Server
5 115 (2.22%) Mac OS
6 97 (1.87%) Android
7 89 (1.72%) Apple iOS
8 69 (1.33%) Unix
9 47 (0.91%) Windows 7
10 42 (0.81%) Windows Server 2016
11 31 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 24 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
13 22 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
14 21 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
15 19 (0.37%) VMS
16 7 (0.13%) AIX
17 6 (0.12%) CentOS
17 6 (0.12%) Ubuntu
17 6 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
18 5 (0.096%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,032 (19.90%) Problem-Solving
2 879 (16.95%) Agile
3 766 (14.77%) DevOps
4 669 (12.90%) Migration
5 630 (12.15%) CI/CD
6 595 (11.47%) Business Intelligence
7 565 (10.89%) Analytics
8 538 (10.37%) Stakeholder Management
9 458 (8.83%) ITIL
10 452 (8.71%) Customer Service
11 441 (8.50%) Continuous Improvement
12 425 (8.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 419 (8.08%) AI
14 360 (6.94%) Cybersecurity
15 320 (6.17%) Project Management
16 319 (6.15%) Data Modelling
17 291 (5.61%) Roadmaps
18 290 (5.59%) Change Management
19 278 (5.36%) Infrastructure as Code
19 278 (5.36%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 668 (12.88%) SQL
2 660 (12.72%) PowerShell
3 610 (11.76%) Python
4 261 (5.03%) C#
5 224 (4.32%) JavaScript
6 142 (2.74%) Java
7 112 (2.16%) Bicep
8 105 (2.02%) Kusto Query Language
9 104 (2.01%) Bash
10 85 (1.64%) TypeScript
11 59 (1.14%) T-SQL
12 53 (1.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 34 (0.66%) Perl
14 30 (0.58%) PL/SQL
15 28 (0.54%) Shell Script
16 27 (0.52%) VB
17 25 (0.48%) C++
18 20 (0.39%) VBA
19 18 (0.35%) R
19 18 (0.35%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,014 (19.55%) Security Cleared
2 754 (14.54%) SC Cleared
3 533 (10.28%) Degree
4 328 (6.32%) Microsoft Certification
5 213 (4.11%) DV Cleared
6 186 (3.59%) Azure Certification
7 126 (2.43%) Computer Science Degree
8 116 (2.24%) CISSP
9 79 (1.52%) BPSS Clearance
10 67 (1.29%) CISM
11 60 (1.16%) Master's Degree
12 58 (1.12%) PMI Certification
13 56 (1.08%) Cisco Certification
14 50 (0.96%) ITIL Certification
15 49 (0.94%) PMP
16 48 (0.93%) MCSE
17 45 (0.87%) A+ Certification
18 43 (0.83%) Microsoft Certified Professional
19 39 (0.75%) AWS Certification
20 31 (0.60%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 238 (4.59%) GDPR
2 186 (3.59%) Data Quality
3 160 (3.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 149 (2.87%) QA
5 145 (2.80%) SLA
6 120 (2.31%) NIST
7 116 (2.24%) PMO
8 80 (1.54%) Accessibility
9 54 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
10 35 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 30 (0.58%) NCSC
11 30 (0.58%) PCI DSS
12 22 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 22 (0.42%) EU AI Act
13 21 (0.40%) GRC
14 20 (0.39%) WCAG
15 15 (0.29%) HIPAA
15 15 (0.29%) MiFID
15 15 (0.29%) SOC 2
16 12 (0.23%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,094 (21.09%) Active Directory
2 198 (3.82%) Docker
3 176 (3.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 78 (1.50%) Hyper-V
5 69 (1.33%) Virtual Machines
6 45 (0.87%) Virtual Desktop
7 40 (0.77%) vSphere
8 34 (0.66%) VMware ESXi
9 19 (0.37%) BitLocker
10 17 (0.33%) VMware NSX
11 13 (0.25%) Microsoft App-V
12 9 (0.17%) Firmware
13 6 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 6 (0.12%) RACF
13 6 (0.12%) Tivoli Directory Server
13 6 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
14 5 (0.096%) Oracle RAC
14 5 (0.096%) Snort
14 5 (0.096%) Squid
15 4 (0.077%) NFS
Systems Management
1 396 (7.63%) Microsoft Intune
2 301 (5.80%) Terraform
3 278 (5.36%) SCCM
4 229 (4.41%) Kubernetes
5 165 (3.18%) Single Sign-On
6 105 (2.02%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 102 (1.97%) Ansible
8 48 (0.93%) SCOM
9 46 (0.89%) Jamf Pro
10 39 (0.75%) vCenter Server
11 37 (0.71%) Grafana
12 33 (0.64%) Prometheus
13 24 (0.46%) FortiGate
14 21 (0.40%) HP SiteScope
15 20 (0.39%) WSUS
16 15 (0.29%) WMI
17 14 (0.27%) Puppet
18 13 (0.25%) AirWatch
19 12 (0.23%) Kibana
19 12 (0.23%) QRadar
Vendors
1 273 (5.26%) ServiceNow
2 250 (4.82%) VMware
3 195 (3.76%) Oracle
4 187 (3.61%) Cisco
4 187 (3.61%) SAP
5 179 (3.45%) Databricks
6 152 (2.93%) Splunk
7 150 (2.89%) Google
8 112 (2.16%) Citrix
9 94 (1.81%) Salesforce
10 84 (1.62%) OpenAI
11 82 (1.58%) Apple
12 63 (1.21%) CrowdStrike
13 57 (1.10%) Palo Alto
14 55 (1.06%) Foundry
15 50 (0.96%) Remedy
16 47 (0.91%) HP
17 42 (0.81%) CyberArk
17 42 (0.81%) IBM
18 40 (0.77%) Okta