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 1 July 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
1 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 9 7
Rank change year-on-year +1 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 6,030 4,211 5,597
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.73% 13.69% 12.97%
As % of the Vendors category 28.67% 28.90% 30.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,959 2,701 3,636
10th Percentile £213 £213 £194
25th Percentile £375 £348 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.68% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £580 £600
90th Percentile £675 £669 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £430 £450
% change year-on-year +4.65% -4.44% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 373 316 495
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.20 £11.13
25th Percentile £16.50 £15.84 £13.69
Median hourly rate £21.25 £22.41 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -5.17% +39.52% -32.17%
75th Percentile £35.22 £31.00 £25.78
90th Percentile £65.00 £63.33 £59.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.73 £19.83 £15.93
% change year-on-year +4.54% +24.48% -16.16%

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 21,032 14,573 18,472
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.92% 47.38% 42.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,109 8,938 11,470
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 £713 £734
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,088 690 1,156
10th Percentile £15.75 £14.84 £12.28
25th Percentile £19.17 £17.31 £14.72
Median hourly rate £33.99 £25.15 £24.19
Median % change year-on-year +35.15% +3.99% -40.42%
75th Percentile £62.81 £53.69 £59.95
90th Percentile £80.44 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £22.63 £23.50
% change year-on-year +43.61% -3.70% -27.24%

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 1 July 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 1 July 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 1 July 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 5,261 £498 +4.74% 3,871
UK excluding London -1 3,200 £450 +4.65% 3,299
London -2 2,311 £510 -0.73% 1,202
Work from Home 0 1,531 £500 - 1,754
North of England -5 825 £465 +9.41% 767
South East -2 751 £475 +1.20% 991
Midlands -2 547 £450 +16.88% 540
North West -3 439 £450 +4.41% 398
South West 0 391 £475 +11.76% 341
West Midlands -4 383 £450 +16.13% 290
Yorkshire -3 365 £481 +6.89% 272
East of England 0 295 £350 -30.00% 335
Scotland +1 276 £451 +1.29% 173
East Midlands +1 157 £425 +13.20% 251
Wales +1 108 £370 +23.33% 147
Northern Ireland +2 32 £350 +0.36% 91
North East -35 25 £450 +30.43% 112
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
1 652 (10.81%) SharePoint
2 387 (6.42%) Microsoft Exchange
3 130 (2.16%) Confluence
4 36 (0.60%) Apache Spark
5 31 (0.51%) Apache
6 28 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
7 18 (0.30%) CMS
7 18 (0.30%) IIS
8 15 (0.25%) HCL Notes
9 14 (0.23%) Skype for Business
10 12 (0.20%) SAS
11 7 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
12 6 (0.100%) Camunda
12 6 (0.100%) Jupyter
12 6 (0.100%) Mendix
13 5 (0.083%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.083%) SharePoint 2013
14 4 (0.066%) Exchange Server 2010
14 4 (0.066%) nginx
14 4 (0.066%) Tomcat
Applications
1 559 (9.27%) Microsoft Office
2 551 (9.14%) Microsoft Excel
3 234 (3.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 125 (2.07%) Microsoft Project
5 105 (1.74%) MS Visio
6 41 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
7 23 (0.38%) Chatbot
8 12 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.100%) Adobe Illustrator
10 5 (0.083%) 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 (0.033%) AutoCAD
12 2 (0.033%) Final Cut Pro
12 2 (0.033%) InDesign
12 2 (0.033%) InfoPath
12 2 (0.033%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 208 (3.45%) Dynamics CRM
2 75 (1.24%) 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 (0.100%) Dynamics GP
12 6 (0.100%) NEC Housing
12 6 (0.100%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.100%) Salesforce CRM
13 5 (0.083%) Infor LN
Cloud Services
1 2,525 (41.87%) Azure
2 1,500 (24.88%) Microsoft 365
3 1,035 (17.16%) Power Platform
4 842 (13.96%) Entra ID
5 536 (8.89%) AWS
6 482 (7.99%) Azure DevOps
7 466 (7.73%) Dynamics 365
8 344 (5.70%) Power Automate
9 321 (5.32%) Microsoft Purview
10 315 (5.22%) PowerApps
11 305 (5.06%) Microsoft Copilot
12 252 (4.18%) GitHub
13 234 (3.88%) OneDrive
14 224 (3.71%) SaaS
15 194 (3.22%) GCP
16 161 (2.67%) Azure Data Factory
17 157 (2.60%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 157 (2.60%) Serverless
18 146 (2.42%) Azure Logic Apps
19 143 (2.37%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 325 (5.39%) DNS
2 285 (4.73%) Firewall
3 227 (3.76%) VPN
4 197 (3.27%) DHCP
5 160 (2.65%) WAN
6 150 (2.49%) TCP/IP
7 141 (2.34%) Wi-Fi
8 137 (2.27%) LAN
9 129 (2.14%) Network Security
10 57 (0.95%) VLAN
11 50 (0.83%) Kerberos
12 46 (0.76%) SD-WAN
13 45 (0.75%) SAN
14 39 (0.65%) SSL
15 38 (0.63%) Wireless
16 34 (0.56%) Unified Communications
17 32 (0.53%) MPLS
17 32 (0.53%) VoIP
18 31 (0.51%) Internet
19 27 (0.45%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 661 (10.96%) Power BI
2 318 (5.27%) SQL Server
3 177 (2.94%) Data Warehouse
4 133 (2.21%) Data Lake
5 131 (2.17%) PostgreSQL
6 123 (2.04%) Metadata
7 121 (2.01%) Azure SQL Database
8 72 (1.19%) Relational Database
9 71 (1.18%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 61 (1.01%) MySQL
11 56 (0.93%) Power Query
12 51 (0.85%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 45 (0.75%) NoSQL
14 44 (0.73%) Star Schema
15 41 (0.68%) Tableau
16 37 (0.61%) Delta Lake
16 37 (0.61%) Oracle Database
17 32 (0.53%) SQL Server Analysis Services
18 26 (0.43%) Big Data
19 24 (0.40%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 308 (5.11%) JIRA
2 182 (3.02%) Git
3 78 (1.29%) Jenkins
4 59 (0.98%) GitLab
5 39 (0.65%) Visual Studio
6 28 (0.46%) MSI
7 20 (0.33%) Selenium
8 19 (0.32%) Artifactory
9 17 (0.28%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.28%) ERwin
10 16 (0.27%) MLflow
11 15 (0.25%) JUnit
12 14 (0.23%) Maven
12 14 (0.23%) Postman
13 13 (0.22%) Bitbucket
13 13 (0.22%) Visual Studio Code
14 12 (0.20%) Team Foundation Server
15 11 (0.18%) JMeter
15 11 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
16 10 (0.17%) WebDriver
General
1 1,981 (32.85%) Social Skills
2 1,215 (20.15%) Finance
3 671 (11.13%) Analytical Skills
4 545 (9.04%) Public Sector
5 310 (5.14%) Banking
6 257 (4.26%) Organisational Skills
7 236 (3.91%) Legal
8 161 (2.67%) Documentation Skills
9 116 (1.92%) Manufacturing
10 110 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 103 (1.71%) Retail
12 96 (1.59%) Law
13 93 (1.54%) Telecoms
14 83 (1.38%) Presentation Skills
15 82 (1.36%) Marketing
16 81 (1.34%) Military
17 67 (1.11%) Local Government
18 65 (1.08%) Investment Banking
19 63 (1.04%) Influencing Skills
20 46 (0.76%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 750 (12.44%) Architect
2 635 (10.53%) Analyst
3 563 (9.34%) Developer
4 496 (8.23%) Senior
5 398 (6.60%) Lead
6 372 (6.17%) IT Support
7 361 (5.99%) Consultant
8 294 (4.88%) Support Engineer
9 236 (3.91%) Solutions Architect
10 230 (3.81%) Data Engineer
11 212 (3.52%) IT Engineer
12 207 (3.43%) Project Manager
13 203 (3.37%) Azure Engineer
14 184 (3.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 178 (2.95%) Administrator
16 174 (2.89%) Business Analyst
17 164 (2.72%) IT Support Engineer
18 120 (1.99%) Cloud Engineer
18 120 (1.99%) Security Engineer
19 103 (1.71%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 272 (4.51%) .NET
2 206 (3.42%) REST
3 140 (2.32%) Microsoft Graph
4 118 (1.96%) OAuth
5 109 (1.81%) JSON
6 106 (1.76%) PySpark
7 101 (1.67%) SAML
8 88 (1.46%) OpenID
9 83 (1.38%) LDAP
10 81 (1.34%) React
10 81 (1.34%) Web Services
11 67 (1.11%) XML
12 61 (1.01%) Node.js
12 61 (1.01%) SailPoint
13 60 (1.00%) RESTful
14 59 (0.98%) OAuth2
15 58 (0.96%) HTML
15 58 (0.96%) Middleware
16 57 (0.95%) .NET Framework
17 56 (0.93%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 343 (5.69%) Onboarding
2 279 (4.63%) Cloud Native
3 169 (2.80%) Product Ownership
4 149 (2.47%) Management Information System
5 122 (2.02%) Data Centre
5 122 (2.02%) Legacy Systems
6 117 (1.94%) Enterprise Software
7 108 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
8 104 (1.72%) Security Posture
9 101 (1.67%) AI Agents
9 101 (1.67%) PKI
10 90 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
11 89 (1.48%) Data Structures
12 79 (1.31%) Virtual Team
13 78 (1.29%) Replication
14 77 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
15 69 (1.14%) Low-Code
16 60 (1.00%) Distributed Systems
17 51 (0.85%) Public Cloud
18 50 (0.83%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 1,279 (21.21%) Windows
2 320 (5.31%) Windows Server
3 315 (5.22%) Windows 10
4 262 (4.34%) Linux
5 128 (2.12%) Mac OS
6 110 (1.82%) Android
7 106 (1.76%) Apple iOS
8 41 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 41 (0.68%) Windows 7
9 39 (0.65%) Unix
10 37 (0.61%) Windows Server 2016
11 31 (0.51%) VMS
11 31 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
12 23 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
13 16 (0.27%) Ubuntu
14 13 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
15 11 (0.18%) CentOS
15 11 (0.18%) SUSE
16 9 (0.15%) Solaris
17 6 (0.100%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,023 (16.97%) Problem-Solving
2 965 (16.00%) DevOps
3 891 (14.78%) Agile
4 847 (14.05%) Migration
5 790 (13.10%) CI/CD
6 719 (11.92%) Stakeholder Management
7 674 (11.18%) Business Intelligence
8 660 (10.95%) AI
9 636 (10.55%) Analytics
10 595 (9.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 590 (9.78%) Continuous Improvement
12 531 (8.81%) ITIL
13 449 (7.45%) Customer Service
14 445 (7.38%) Data Modelling
15 430 (7.13%) Roadmaps
16 409 (6.78%) Cybersecurity
17 389 (6.45%) Decision-Making
18 388 (6.43%) Infrastructure as Code
19 364 (6.04%) Validation
20 359 (5.95%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 777 (12.89%) SQL
2 663 (11.00%) PowerShell
3 630 (10.45%) Python
4 282 (4.68%) C#
5 214 (3.55%) JavaScript
6 184 (3.05%) Java
7 152 (2.52%) Bicep
8 110 (1.82%) T-SQL
9 85 (1.41%) TypeScript
10 83 (1.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 81 (1.34%) Bash
12 76 (1.26%) Kusto Query Language
13 36 (0.60%) VBA
14 32 (0.53%) C++
15 28 (0.46%) PL/SQL
15 28 (0.46%) VB
16 18 (0.30%) VBScript
17 17 (0.28%) Scala
18 16 (0.27%) Shell Script
19 13 (0.22%) X++
Qualifications
1 1,163 (19.29%) Security Cleared
2 895 (14.84%) SC Cleared
3 585 (9.70%) Degree
4 292 (4.84%) Microsoft Certification
5 204 (3.38%) DV Cleared
6 200 (3.32%) Azure Certification
7 120 (1.99%) Computer Science Degree
8 113 (1.87%) BPSS Clearance
8 113 (1.87%) CISSP
9 104 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
10 61 (1.01%) CISM
11 59 (0.98%) PMP
12 54 (0.90%) AWS Certification
12 54 (0.90%) PMI Certification
13 53 (0.88%) Master's Degree
14 48 (0.80%) CCNP
15 44 (0.73%) MCSE
16 42 (0.70%) CCNA
16 42 (0.70%) DBS Check
17 38 (0.63%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 314 (5.21%) Data Quality
2 233 (3.86%) GDPR
3 193 (3.20%) QA
4 171 (2.84%) SLA
5 156 (2.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 130 (2.16%) NIST
7 116 (1.92%) PMO
8 82 (1.36%) Accessibility
8 82 (1.36%) Cyber Essentials
9 66 (1.09%) NCSC
10 37 (0.61%) GRC
10 37 (0.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 32 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 32 (0.53%) PCI DSS
12 24 (0.40%) WCAG
13 18 (0.30%) NIST 800
14 16 (0.27%) SOC 2
15 15 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
16 14 (0.23%) MiFID
17 12 (0.20%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,146 (19.00%) Active Directory
2 228 (3.78%) Docker
3 205 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 108 (1.79%) Hyper-V
5 95 (1.58%) Virtual Desktop
6 86 (1.43%) Virtual Machines
7 61 (1.01%) VMware ESXi
8 58 (0.96%) vSphere
9 33 (0.55%) BitLocker
10 25 (0.41%) VMware NSX
11 21 (0.35%) Microsoft App-V
12 20 (0.33%) Firmware
13 9 (0.15%) NFS
14 7 (0.12%) IAG
15 5 (0.083%) RACF
15 5 (0.083%) Terminal Services
15 5 (0.083%) VMware Workstation
16 4 (0.066%) Snort
16 4 (0.066%) XenDesktop
17 3 (0.050%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 482 (7.99%) Microsoft Intune
2 387 (6.42%) Terraform
3 267 (4.43%) Kubernetes
4 204 (3.38%) SCCM
5 134 (2.22%) Ansible
6 130 (2.16%) Single Sign-On
7 72 (1.19%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 60 (1.00%) Jamf Pro
9 50 (0.83%) vCenter Server
10 37 (0.61%) Grafana
11 32 (0.53%) Prometheus
12 30 (0.50%) SCOM
13 28 (0.46%) FortiGate
14 20 (0.33%) Puppet
15 19 (0.32%) WSUS
16 16 (0.27%) QRadar
17 14 (0.23%) AirWatch
18 12 (0.20%) vMotion
19 11 (0.18%) HAProxy
19 11 (0.18%) VxRail
Vendors
1 369 (6.12%) ServiceNow
2 279 (4.63%) VMware
3 260 (4.31%) Oracle
4 248 (4.11%) SAP
5 210 (3.48%) Databricks
6 208 (3.45%) Cisco
7 177 (2.94%) Google
8 120 (1.99%) Salesforce
9 105 (1.74%) Citrix
10 94 (1.56%) Splunk
11 85 (1.41%) Apple
12 76 (1.26%) Foundry
12 76 (1.26%) OpenAI
13 72 (1.19%) Okta
14 67 (1.11%) CyberArk
15 64 (1.06%) CrowdStrike
16 50 (0.83%) HP
17 49 (0.81%) Red Hat
18 45 (0.75%) Zscaler
19 44 (0.73%) Palo Alto