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 28 June 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
28 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 9 7
Rank change year-on-year +1 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,944 4,184 5,637
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.65% 13.70% 12.98%
As % of the Vendors category 28.50% 28.90% 30.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,917 2,685 3,661
10th Percentile £213 £213 £195
25th Percentile £375 £348 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.21% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £584 £600
90th Percentile £675 £674 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £429 £450
% change year-on-year +4.90% -4.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 370 311 496
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.20 £11.13
25th Percentile £16.50 £15.84 £13.68
Median hourly rate £21.25 £22.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -3.41% +36.99% -32.68%
75th Percentile £35.53 £31.00 £25.54
90th Percentile £65.25 £63.40 £59.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.75 £19.00 £15.89
% change year-on-year +9.21% +19.57% -20.55%

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 20,855 14,480 18,581
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.89% 47.40% 42.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,032 8,882 11,532
10th Percentile £313 £281 £270
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year - -2.91% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £735
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,076 682 1,159
10th Percentile £15.75 £14.84 £12.26
25th Percentile £19.03 £17.30 £14.71
Median hourly rate £33.99 £25.15 £24.19
Median % change year-on-year +35.15% +3.97% -41.06%
75th Percentile £62.25 £53.75 £59.95
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £23.00 £23.58
% change year-on-year +41.30% -2.46% -27.45%

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 28 June 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 28 June 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 28 June 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 0 5,183 £500 +5.26% 2,954
UK excluding London -1 3,147 £450 +4.90% 2,672
London -2 2,281 £510 -0.49% 839
Work from Home 0 1,519 £500 - 1,260
North of England -4 804 £460 +8.24% 616
South East -2 748 £475 +1.20% 849
Midlands -3 529 £450 +18.42% 430
North West -3 421 £450 +5.88% 327
South West -1 386 £475 +11.76% 313
West Midlands -6 377 £450 +16.13% 222
Yorkshire -3 361 £480 +6.67% 208
East of England 0 295 £350 -30.00% 289
Scotland +3 272 £465 +5.80% 110
East Midlands +1 145 £425 +13.33% 209
Wales +2 107 £370 +23.33% 83
Northern Ireland +1 29 £350 +7.69% 69
North East -39 26 £450 +30.43% 95
Channel Islands 0 2 £550 -24.14%

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
1 640 (10.77%) SharePoint
2 385 (6.48%) Microsoft Exchange
3 127 (2.14%) Confluence
4 36 (0.61%) Apache Spark
5 31 (0.52%) Apache
6 28 (0.47%) Apache Airflow
7 18 (0.30%) CMS
7 18 (0.30%) IIS
8 15 (0.25%) HCL Notes
9 14 (0.24%) Skype for Business
10 12 (0.20%) SAS
11 7 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
12 6 (0.10%) Camunda
12 6 (0.10%) Jupyter
12 6 (0.10%) Mendix
13 5 (0.084%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.084%) SharePoint 2013
14 4 (0.067%) Appian
14 4 (0.067%) nginx
14 4 (0.067%) Tomcat
Applications
1 553 (9.30%) Microsoft Office
2 545 (9.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 237 (3.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 124 (2.09%) Microsoft Project
5 104 (1.75%) MS Visio
6 40 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
7 23 (0.39%) Chatbot
8 13 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
10 5 (0.084%) PTC Creo
11 3 (0.050%) Acrobat
11 3 (0.050%) Adobe Captivate
11 3 (0.050%) Photoshop
11 3 (0.050%) SOLIDWORKS
11 3 (0.050%) Trello
12 2 (0.034%) AutoCAD
12 2 (0.034%) Final Cut Pro
12 2 (0.034%) InDesign
12 2 (0.034%) InfoPath
12 2 (0.034%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 205 (3.45%) Dynamics CRM
2 75 (1.26%) SAP S/4HANA
3 21 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
4 19 (0.32%) NetSuite
5 18 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
6 15 (0.25%) Aladdin
6 15 (0.25%) Dynamics NAV
7 13 (0.22%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 9 (0.15%) Primavera
9 9 (0.15%) Sage X3
9 9 (0.15%) SAP MM
10 8 (0.13%) Loan IQ
11 7 (0.12%) Dynamics AX
12 6 (0.10%) Dynamics GP
12 6 (0.10%) NEC Housing
12 6 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.10%) Salesforce CRM
13 5 (0.084%) Infor LN
Cloud Services
1 2,491 (41.91%) Azure
2 1,483 (24.95%) Microsoft 365
3 1,009 (16.98%) Power Platform
4 826 (13.90%) Entra ID
5 529 (8.90%) AWS
6 469 (7.89%) Azure DevOps
7 458 (7.71%) Dynamics 365
8 338 (5.69%) Power Automate
9 321 (5.40%) Microsoft Purview
10 304 (5.11%) PowerApps
11 296 (4.98%) Microsoft Copilot
12 251 (4.22%) GitHub
13 231 (3.89%) OneDrive
14 220 (3.70%) SaaS
15 191 (3.21%) GCP
16 166 (2.79%) Azure Data Factory
17 160 (2.69%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 156 (2.62%) Serverless
19 142 (2.39%) PaaS
20 141 (2.37%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 318 (5.35%) DNS
2 282 (4.74%) Firewall
3 224 (3.77%) VPN
4 193 (3.25%) DHCP
5 158 (2.66%) WAN
6 145 (2.44%) TCP/IP
7 141 (2.37%) Wi-Fi
8 133 (2.24%) LAN
9 128 (2.15%) Network Security
10 56 (0.94%) VLAN
11 49 (0.82%) SD-WAN
12 48 (0.81%) Kerberos
13 44 (0.74%) SAN
14 36 (0.61%) SSL
14 36 (0.61%) Wireless
15 34 (0.57%) Unified Communications
16 32 (0.54%) MPLS
16 32 (0.54%) VoIP
17 30 (0.50%) Internet
18 26 (0.44%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 642 (10.80%) Power BI
2 309 (5.20%) SQL Server
3 177 (2.98%) Data Warehouse
4 137 (2.30%) Data Lake
5 129 (2.17%) PostgreSQL
6 126 (2.12%) Metadata
7 122 (2.05%) Azure SQL Database
8 73 (1.23%) Relational Database
9 70 (1.18%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 57 (0.96%) MySQL
11 54 (0.91%) Power Query
12 49 (0.82%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 45 (0.76%) NoSQL
14 42 (0.71%) Star Schema
15 41 (0.69%) Tableau
16 37 (0.62%) Delta Lake
17 36 (0.61%) Oracle Database
18 31 (0.52%) SQL Server Analysis Services
19 26 (0.44%) Big Data
20 24 (0.40%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 305 (5.13%) JIRA
2 178 (2.99%) Git
3 77 (1.30%) Jenkins
4 58 (0.98%) GitLab
5 39 (0.66%) Visual Studio
6 26 (0.44%) MSI
7 20 (0.34%) Artifactory
7 20 (0.34%) Selenium
8 17 (0.29%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.29%) ERwin
9 16 (0.27%) MLflow
10 14 (0.24%) Maven
10 14 (0.24%) Postman
11 13 (0.22%) Bitbucket
11 13 (0.22%) JUnit
11 13 (0.22%) Visual Studio Code
12 12 (0.20%) Team Foundation Server
13 11 (0.19%) JMeter
13 11 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
14 10 (0.17%) WebDriver
General
1 1,944 (32.71%) Social Skills
2 1,195 (20.10%) Finance
3 654 (11.00%) Analytical Skills
4 538 (9.05%) Public Sector
5 312 (5.25%) Banking
6 254 (4.27%) Organisational Skills
7 235 (3.95%) Legal
8 158 (2.66%) Documentation Skills
9 116 (1.95%) Manufacturing
10 108 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 103 (1.73%) Retail
12 95 (1.60%) Law
13 89 (1.50%) Telecoms
14 83 (1.40%) Presentation Skills
15 80 (1.35%) Marketing
16 79 (1.33%) Military
17 70 (1.18%) Local Government
18 67 (1.13%) Investment Banking
19 63 (1.06%) Influencing Skills
20 45 (0.76%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 737 (12.40%) Architect
2 630 (10.60%) Analyst
3 549 (9.24%) Developer
4 491 (8.26%) Senior
5 394 (6.63%) Lead
6 367 (6.17%) IT Support
7 352 (5.92%) Consultant
8 284 (4.78%) Support Engineer
9 233 (3.92%) Data Engineer
10 228 (3.84%) Solutions Architect
11 207 (3.48%) IT Engineer
12 206 (3.47%) Project Manager
13 202 (3.40%) Azure Engineer
14 183 (3.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 176 (2.96%) Administrator
16 175 (2.94%) Business Analyst
17 159 (2.67%) IT Support Engineer
18 121 (2.04%) Security Engineer
19 115 (1.93%) Cloud Engineer
20 102 (1.72%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 266 (4.48%) .NET
2 204 (3.43%) REST
3 137 (2.30%) Microsoft Graph
4 118 (1.99%) OAuth
5 106 (1.78%) JSON
5 106 (1.78%) PySpark
6 101 (1.70%) SAML
7 88 (1.48%) OpenID
8 83 (1.40%) React
9 82 (1.38%) Web Services
10 81 (1.36%) LDAP
11 64 (1.08%) XML
12 62 (1.04%) Node.js
13 60 (1.01%) SailPoint
14 59 (0.99%) OAuth2
15 58 (0.98%) Middleware
15 58 (0.98%) RESTful
16 56 (0.94%) HTML
17 54 (0.91%) .NET Framework
17 54 (0.91%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 330 (5.55%) Onboarding
2 271 (4.56%) Cloud Native
3 174 (2.93%) Product Ownership
4 146 (2.46%) Management Information System
5 122 (2.05%) Data Centre
6 120 (2.02%) Legacy Systems
7 111 (1.87%) Enterprise Software
8 107 (1.80%) Hybrid Cloud
9 101 (1.70%) Security Posture
10 98 (1.65%) PKI
11 95 (1.60%) AI Agents
12 90 (1.51%) Self-Motivation
13 85 (1.43%) Data Structures
14 75 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
14 75 (1.26%) Replication
14 75 (1.26%) Virtual Team
15 68 (1.14%) Low-Code
16 58 (0.98%) Distributed Systems
17 51 (0.86%) Public Cloud
18 50 (0.84%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1,252 (21.06%) Windows
2 311 (5.23%) Windows Server
3 310 (5.22%) Windows 10
4 261 (4.39%) Linux
5 123 (2.07%) Mac OS
6 109 (1.83%) Android
7 107 (1.80%) Apple iOS
8 41 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 41 (0.69%) Windows 7
9 38 (0.64%) Unix
10 35 (0.59%) Windows Server 2016
11 30 (0.50%) VMS
11 30 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
12 21 (0.35%) Windows Server 2012
13 16 (0.27%) Ubuntu
14 13 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
15 11 (0.19%) CentOS
15 11 (0.19%) SUSE
16 9 (0.15%) Solaris
17 6 (0.10%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,018 (17.13%) Problem-Solving
2 946 (15.92%) DevOps
3 892 (15.01%) Agile
4 837 (14.08%) Migration
5 776 (13.06%) CI/CD
6 697 (11.73%) Stakeholder Management
7 657 (11.05%) Business Intelligence
8 652 (10.97%) AI
9 636 (10.70%) Analytics
10 576 (9.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 573 (9.64%) Continuous Improvement
12 511 (8.60%) ITIL
13 438 (7.37%) Customer Service
14 437 (7.35%) Data Modelling
15 425 (7.15%) Roadmaps
16 404 (6.80%) Cybersecurity
17 387 (6.51%) Decision-Making
18 377 (6.34%) Infrastructure as Code
19 355 (5.97%) Validation
20 352 (5.92%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 766 (12.89%) SQL
2 654 (11.00%) PowerShell
3 617 (10.38%) Python
4 276 (4.64%) C#
5 214 (3.60%) JavaScript
6 182 (3.06%) Java
7 147 (2.47%) Bicep
8 104 (1.75%) T-SQL
9 84 (1.41%) TypeScript
10 82 (1.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 77 (1.30%) Bash
12 76 (1.28%) Kusto Query Language
13 36 (0.61%) VBA
14 30 (0.50%) C++
15 28 (0.47%) PL/SQL
15 28 (0.47%) VB
16 18 (0.30%) VBScript
17 17 (0.29%) Scala
18 16 (0.27%) Shell Script
19 13 (0.22%) X++
Qualifications
1 1,135 (19.09%) Security Cleared
2 879 (14.79%) SC Cleared
3 573 (9.64%) Degree
4 284 (4.78%) Microsoft Certification
5 197 (3.31%) DV Cleared
6 196 (3.30%) Azure Certification
7 120 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
8 113 (1.90%) CISSP
9 109 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
10 99 (1.67%) Cisco Certification
11 61 (1.03%) CISM
12 60 (1.01%) PMP
13 55 (0.93%) PMI Certification
14 54 (0.91%) AWS Certification
15 52 (0.87%) Master's Degree
16 44 (0.74%) CCNP
17 42 (0.71%) DBS Check
18 41 (0.69%) MCSE
19 38 (0.64%) CCNA
19 38 (0.64%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 311 (5.23%) Data Quality
2 231 (3.89%) GDPR
3 194 (3.26%) QA
4 165 (2.78%) SLA
5 155 (2.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 130 (2.19%) NIST
7 113 (1.90%) PMO
8 82 (1.38%) Accessibility
8 82 (1.38%) Cyber Essentials
9 64 (1.08%) NCSC
10 38 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 36 (0.61%) GRC
12 32 (0.54%) PCI DSS
13 31 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 23 (0.39%) WCAG
15 18 (0.30%) NIST 800
16 16 (0.27%) SOC 2
17 15 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
18 14 (0.24%) MiFID
19 12 (0.20%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,123 (18.89%) Active Directory
2 223 (3.75%) Docker
3 195 (3.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 106 (1.78%) Hyper-V
5 91 (1.53%) Virtual Desktop
6 81 (1.36%) Virtual Machines
7 60 (1.01%) VMware ESXi
8 55 (0.93%) vSphere
9 33 (0.56%) BitLocker
10 24 (0.40%) VMware NSX
11 21 (0.35%) Microsoft App-V
12 19 (0.32%) Firmware
13 7 (0.12%) IAG
13 7 (0.12%) NFS
14 5 (0.084%) RACF
14 5 (0.084%) VMware Workstation
15 4 (0.067%) Snort
15 4 (0.067%) Terminal Services
15 4 (0.067%) XenDesktop
16 3 (0.050%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 471 (7.92%) Microsoft Intune
2 378 (6.36%) Terraform
3 258 (4.34%) Kubernetes
4 205 (3.45%) SCCM
5 131 (2.20%) Ansible
6 130 (2.19%) Single Sign-On
7 72 (1.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 56 (0.94%) Jamf Pro
9 48 (0.81%) vCenter Server
10 36 (0.61%) Grafana
11 30 (0.50%) FortiGate
11 30 (0.50%) Prometheus
12 26 (0.44%) SCOM
13 19 (0.32%) Puppet
13 19 (0.32%) WSUS
14 16 (0.27%) QRadar
15 15 (0.25%) AirWatch
16 12 (0.20%) vMotion
17 11 (0.19%) HAProxy
18 10 (0.17%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 353 (5.94%) ServiceNow
2 270 (4.54%) VMware
3 253 (4.26%) Oracle
4 246 (4.14%) SAP
5 212 (3.57%) Databricks
6 206 (3.47%) Cisco
7 175 (2.94%) Google
8 120 (2.02%) Salesforce
9 102 (1.72%) Citrix
10 94 (1.58%) Splunk
11 80 (1.35%) Apple
12 77 (1.30%) OpenAI
13 72 (1.21%) Foundry
14 69 (1.16%) Okta
15 67 (1.13%) CrowdStrike
16 65 (1.09%) CyberArk
17 50 (0.84%) HP
18 48 (0.81%) Red Hat
19 46 (0.77%) Palo Alto
20 44 (0.74%) Zscaler