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 11 March 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
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 9 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,346 3,960 5,766
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.56% 13.43% 12.89%
As % of the Vendors category 28.55% 28.58% 29.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,586 2,631 3,863
10th Percentile £205 £206 £190
25th Percentile £363 £348 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £583 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.86% -2.78% -3.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 376 179 440
10th Percentile £13.32 £14.99 £11.06
25th Percentile £16.24 £18.17 £13.25
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.80 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -16.34% +48.19% -24.32%
75th Percentile £25.47 £33.75 £26.50
90th Percentile £63.75 £63.35 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.14 £22.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -14.94% +40.10% -19.70%

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 18,722 13,856 19,311
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.99% 47.01% 43.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,984 8,610 12,045
10th Percentile £306 £284 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £515
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +0.97% -2.83%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £625
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 946 445 1,032
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.62 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.05 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.00 £29.00 £24.65
Median % change year-on-year -13.79% +17.65% -29.63%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £53.56
90th Percentile £75.20 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.81 £27.50 £23.00
% change year-on-year -17.05% +19.57% -30.30%

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 11 March 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 11 March 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 11 March 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 4,690 £492 +3.58% 3,151
UK excluding London 0 2,837 £450 +2.86% 2,833
London -2 1,998 £513 +2.50% 727
Work from Home -1 1,329 £500 - 1,168
North of England -1 743 £428 -4.25% 680
South East -1 642 £480 -2.69% 886
Midlands -6 503 £450 +5.88% 432
North West -1 420 £414 -8.00% 361
East of England 0 353 £400 -8.57% 291
West Midlands -9 347 £475 +9.42% 218
South West -1 339 £525 +10.53% 309
Yorkshire +2 294 £450 +9.09% 222
Scotland +1 179 £463 +23.33% 170
East Midlands -2 152 £409 +2.31% 212
Wales +2 96 £310 -11.43% 102
North East -16 35 £450 +28.57% 111
Northern Ireland -1 22 £463 +42.31% 21
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
1 602 (11.26%) SharePoint
2 422 (7.89%) Microsoft Exchange
3 111 (2.08%) Confluence
4 31 (0.58%) Skype for Business
5 23 (0.43%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.43%) CMS
6 20 (0.37%) Apache
7 17 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
7 17 (0.32%) HCL Notes
8 12 (0.22%) IIS
8 12 (0.22%) SAS
9 10 (0.19%) Mendix
10 7 (0.13%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.11%) SharePoint Server
12 5 (0.094%) Oracle Application Server
13 4 (0.075%) Exchange Server 2010
13 4 (0.075%) Exchange Server 2013
14 3 (0.056%) Drupal
14 3 (0.056%) MS Project Server
14 3 (0.056%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 612 (11.45%) Microsoft Office
2 512 (9.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 223 (4.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 124 (2.32%) Microsoft Project
5 102 (1.91%) MS Visio
6 78 (1.46%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 9 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 9 (0.17%) Trello
9 7 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.094%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.075%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.075%) InDesign
13 3 (0.056%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.056%) Sketch
13 3 (0.056%) SOLIDWORKS
14 2 (0.037%) AutoCAD
14 2 (0.037%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 195 (3.65%) Dynamics CRM
2 50 (0.94%) SAP S/4HANA
3 22 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.34%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.26%) Aladdin
5 14 (0.26%) Dynamics AX
5 14 (0.26%) Maximo
6 12 (0.22%) Loan IQ
6 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.19%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 9 (0.17%) NetSuite
8 9 (0.17%) Teamcenter
9 8 (0.15%) Sage X3
9 8 (0.15%) Shopify
10 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
10 7 (0.13%) Primavera
11 6 (0.11%) Advent Geneva
11 6 (0.11%) SystmOne
12 5 (0.094%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.094%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 2,169 (40.57%) Azure
2 1,378 (25.78%) Microsoft 365
3 871 (16.29%) Power Platform
4 706 (13.21%) Entra ID
5 447 (8.36%) AWS
6 418 (7.82%) Azure DevOps
7 417 (7.80%) Dynamics 365
8 343 (6.42%) Power Automate
9 312 (5.84%) PowerApps
10 282 (5.27%) Microsoft Purview
11 247 (4.62%) GitHub
12 208 (3.89%) OneDrive
13 196 (3.67%) Microsoft Copilot
14 190 (3.55%) Serverless
15 185 (3.46%) Azure Data Factory
16 183 (3.42%) SaaS
17 168 (3.14%) GCP
18 152 (2.84%) PaaS
19 150 (2.81%) Azure Synapse Analytics
20 143 (2.67%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 298 (5.57%) DNS
2 296 (5.54%) Firewall
3 201 (3.76%) VPN
4 181 (3.39%) DHCP
5 148 (2.77%) Wi-Fi
6 137 (2.56%) WAN
7 123 (2.30%) TCP/IP
8 121 (2.26%) LAN
9 112 (2.10%) Network Security
10 57 (1.07%) Kerberos
11 56 (1.05%) Skype
12 54 (1.01%) VLAN
13 43 (0.80%) Wireless
14 40 (0.75%) Unified Communications
15 38 (0.71%) SD-WAN
16 33 (0.62%) HTTP
17 31 (0.58%) SSL
18 30 (0.56%) Internet
18 30 (0.56%) MPLS
19 29 (0.54%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 531 (9.93%) Power BI
2 250 (4.68%) SQL Server
3 167 (3.12%) Data Warehouse
4 143 (2.67%) Data Lake
5 109 (2.04%) Azure SQL Database
6 101 (1.89%) PostgreSQL
7 100 (1.87%) Metadata
8 72 (1.35%) Relational Database
9 68 (1.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 54 (1.01%) Oracle Database
11 50 (0.94%) MySQL
12 49 (0.92%) NoSQL
12 49 (0.92%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 41 (0.77%) Power Query
13 41 (0.77%) Tableau
14 33 (0.62%) Delta Lake
15 32 (0.60%) Star Schema
16 27 (0.51%) Oracle Reports
17 23 (0.43%) Spark SQL
18 22 (0.41%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 239 (4.47%) JIRA
2 169 (3.16%) Git
3 72 (1.35%) GitLab
4 70 (1.31%) Jenkins
5 26 (0.49%) Eclipse
6 23 (0.43%) MSI
6 23 (0.43%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.41%) Postman
8 20 (0.37%) Artifactory
9 18 (0.34%) JMeter
10 17 (0.32%) Selenium
11 14 (0.26%) Android Studio
11 14 (0.26%) Cucumber
12 12 (0.22%) Browser DevTools
12 12 (0.22%) JUnit
12 12 (0.22%) MLflow
13 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
13 11 (0.21%) Xcode
14 9 (0.17%) SpecFlow
General
1 2,011 (37.62%) Social Skills
2 1,030 (19.27%) Finance
3 657 (12.29%) Analytical Skills
4 537 (10.04%) Public Sector
5 256 (4.79%) Banking
6 254 (4.75%) Organisational Skills
7 238 (4.45%) Legal
8 164 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
9 123 (2.30%) Manufacturing
10 115 (2.15%) Presentation Skills
11 98 (1.83%) Marketing
12 90 (1.68%) Telecoms
13 72 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 72 (1.35%) Retail
14 61 (1.14%) Influencing Skills
15 55 (1.03%) Military
16 53 (0.99%) Law
17 46 (0.86%) Local Government
18 43 (0.80%) Investment Banking
19 42 (0.79%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 627 (11.73%) Architect
2 617 (11.54%) Analyst
3 512 (9.58%) Developer
4 423 (7.91%) Senior
5 361 (6.75%) IT Support
6 288 (5.39%) Support Engineer
7 286 (5.35%) Consultant
8 282 (5.27%) Lead
9 190 (3.55%) IT Engineer
10 188 (3.52%) Solutions Architect
11 185 (3.46%) Azure Engineer
12 184 (3.44%) Data Engineer
13 169 (3.16%) Business Analyst
14 167 (3.12%) Administrator
15 166 (3.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 161 (3.01%) Project Manager
17 145 (2.71%) IT Support Engineer
18 124 (2.32%) Security Engineer
19 106 (1.98%) Support Analyst
20 101 (1.89%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 259 (4.84%) .NET
2 184 (3.44%) REST
3 128 (2.39%) Microsoft Graph
4 127 (2.38%) OAuth
5 108 (2.02%) SAML
6 93 (1.74%) React
7 88 (1.65%) OpenID
8 80 (1.50%) PySpark
9 77 (1.44%) RESTful
10 71 (1.33%) JSON
11 68 (1.27%) LDAP
12 67 (1.25%) AngularJS
13 66 (1.23%) HTML
14 62 (1.16%) ARM Templates
15 61 (1.14%) Middleware
15 61 (1.14%) Web Services
16 59 (1.10%) CSS
17 56 (1.05%) OAuth2
18 51 (0.95%) Node.js
19 45 (0.84%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 290 (5.42%) Onboarding
2 214 (4.00%) Cloud Native
3 163 (3.05%) Product Ownership
4 134 (2.51%) Management Information System
5 112 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
6 96 (1.80%) Data Centre
7 93 (1.74%) Security Posture
8 87 (1.63%) PKI
9 86 (1.61%) Hybrid Cloud
10 84 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
11 76 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
12 74 (1.38%) Low-Code
13 73 (1.37%) Replication
14 64 (1.20%) AI Agents
15 63 (1.18%) Data Protection Act
15 63 (1.18%) Driving Licence
16 58 (1.08%) Virtual Team
17 56 (1.05%) Data Structures
17 56 (1.05%) NHS
18 52 (0.97%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1,234 (23.08%) Windows
2 355 (6.64%) Windows 10
3 285 (5.33%) Linux
4 280 (5.24%) Windows Server
5 103 (1.93%) Mac OS
6 100 (1.87%) Android
7 94 (1.76%) Apple iOS
8 55 (1.03%) Unix
9 44 (0.82%) Windows 7
10 42 (0.79%) Windows Server 2016
11 38 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 23 (0.43%) VMS
13 22 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.39%) Windows Server 2003
15 19 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
16 9 (0.17%) CentOS
17 8 (0.15%) AIX
17 8 (0.15%) Ubuntu
18 5 (0.094%) Windows 8
18 5 (0.094%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 996 (18.63%) Problem-Solving
2 864 (16.16%) Agile
3 814 (15.23%) DevOps
4 716 (13.39%) Migration
5 688 (12.87%) CI/CD
6 627 (11.73%) Business Intelligence
7 611 (11.43%) Analytics
8 539 (10.08%) Stakeholder Management
9 477 (8.92%) AI
10 468 (8.75%) Continuous Improvement
11 441 (8.25%) Customer Service
11 441 (8.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 421 (7.88%) ITIL
13 382 (7.15%) Cybersecurity
14 348 (6.51%) Data Modelling
15 314 (5.87%) Roadmaps
16 301 (5.63%) Project Management
17 299 (5.59%) Project Delivery
18 296 (5.54%) Change Management
19 294 (5.50%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 696 (13.02%) SQL
2 680 (12.72%) PowerShell
3 627 (11.73%) Python
4 280 (5.24%) C#
5 223 (4.17%) JavaScript
6 151 (2.82%) Java
7 120 (2.24%) Bicep
8 111 (2.08%) Kusto Query Language
9 108 (2.02%) Bash
10 84 (1.57%) TypeScript
11 73 (1.37%) T-SQL
12 67 (1.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 33 (0.62%) PL/SQL
14 29 (0.54%) C++
15 26 (0.49%) Perl
16 25 (0.47%) VBA
17 23 (0.43%) VB
18 19 (0.36%) Shell Script
19 17 (0.32%) VBScript
20 16 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 1,078 (20.16%) Security Cleared
2 815 (15.25%) SC Cleared
3 544 (10.18%) Degree
4 314 (5.87%) Microsoft Certification
5 219 (4.10%) DV Cleared
6 186 (3.48%) Azure Certification
7 121 (2.26%) Computer Science Degree
8 110 (2.06%) CISSP
9 98 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
10 62 (1.16%) Cisco Certification
11 60 (1.12%) CISM
12 58 (1.08%) Master's Degree
13 56 (1.05%) PMI Certification
14 48 (0.90%) PMP
15 45 (0.84%) AWS Certification
16 43 (0.80%) MCSE
16 43 (0.80%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 36 (0.67%) ITIL Certification
18 33 (0.62%) CCNP
18 33 (0.62%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 244 (4.56%) GDPR
2 213 (3.98%) Data Quality
3 159 (2.97%) SLA
4 157 (2.94%) QA
5 153 (2.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 117 (2.19%) PMO
7 115 (2.15%) NIST
8 77 (1.44%) Accessibility
9 56 (1.05%) Cyber Essentials
10 38 (0.71%) NCSC
10 38 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 28 (0.52%) PCI DSS
12 24 (0.45%) GRC
13 22 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 22 (0.41%) WCAG
14 19 (0.36%) EU AI Act
15 17 (0.32%) MiFID
16 14 (0.26%) SOC 2
17 13 (0.24%) FINRA
17 13 (0.24%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,087 (20.33%) Active Directory
2 209 (3.91%) Docker
3 172 (3.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 78 (1.46%) Hyper-V
5 68 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
6 46 (0.86%) Virtual Desktop
7 35 (0.65%) vSphere
8 32 (0.60%) VMware ESXi
9 20 (0.37%) BitLocker
10 19 (0.36%) VMware NSX
11 16 (0.30%) Firmware
12 12 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
13 6 (0.11%) Snort
14 5 (0.094%) Oracle RAC
15 4 (0.075%) KVM
15 4 (0.075%) VMware Workstation
16 3 (0.056%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 3 (0.056%) Squid
16 3 (0.056%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 427 (7.99%) Microsoft Intune
2 332 (6.21%) Terraform
3 250 (4.68%) Kubernetes
4 242 (4.53%) SCCM
5 148 (2.77%) Single Sign-On
6 108 (2.02%) Ansible
7 102 (1.91%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 42 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
9 40 (0.75%) Grafana
10 34 (0.64%) Prometheus
10 34 (0.64%) vCenter Server
11 25 (0.47%) FortiGate
12 22 (0.41%) SCOM
13 17 (0.32%) Puppet
14 16 (0.30%) WSUS
15 15 (0.28%) AirWatch
16 13 (0.24%) WMI
17 12 (0.22%) CASB
17 12 (0.22%) Nessus
17 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
Vendors
1 270 (5.05%) ServiceNow
2 256 (4.79%) VMware
3 199 (3.72%) Databricks
4 198 (3.70%) SAP
5 183 (3.42%) Oracle
6 181 (3.39%) Cisco
7 152 (2.84%) Google
8 135 (2.53%) Citrix
9 105 (1.96%) Splunk
10 90 (1.68%) OpenAI
11 82 (1.53%) Salesforce
12 73 (1.37%) Foundry
13 70 (1.31%) Apple
14 60 (1.12%) CrowdStrike
15 56 (1.05%) Palo Alto
16 52 (0.97%) HP
17 45 (0.84%) Okta
18 39 (0.73%) Adobe
19 38 (0.71%) CyberArk
20 37 (0.69%) Red Hat