Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 15 December 2018

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for knowledge and experience of Microsoft products and/or services. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Microsoft over the 6 months to 15 December 2018 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

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

Microsoft
UK
6 months to
15 Dec 2018		 Same period 2017 Same period 2016
Rank 7 8 7
Rank change year-on-year +1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 12,619 11,384 12,366
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.11% 11.03% 12.02%
As % of the Vendors category 28.64% 26.11% 26.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,865 7,233 7,952
UK median daily rate £420 £400 £375
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +5.00% +6.67% -
10th Percentile £163 £156 £178
90th Percentile £600 £575 £550
UK excluding London median daily rate £388 £363 £350
% change year-on-year +6.90% +3.57% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 861 736 826
UK median hourly rate £15.43 £15.50 £15.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year -0.48% +3.33% -
10th Percentile £10.38 £10.25 £9.75
90th Percentile £34.50 £37.75 £39.06
UK excluding London median hourly rate £15.00 £15.00 £15.00

Microsoft is in the Vendor Products and Services category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services.

All Vendors
UK
Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 44,054 43,603 46,590
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 42.28% 42.24% 45.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,401 27,332 28,513
UK median daily rate £450 £435 £425
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +3.45% +2.35% +6.25%
10th Percentile £256 £234 £240
90th Percentile £625 £625 £588
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £400 £388
% change year-on-year +6.25% +3.23% +3.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,621 1,401 1,701
UK median hourly rate £17.50 £17.50 £16.50
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year - +6.06% -5.71%
10th Percentile £10.75 £10.71 £10.25
90th Percentile £47.50 £45.50 £46.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.75 £16.78 £16.50
% change year-on-year -0.16% +1.68% -2.94%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Microsoft as a percentage of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in contract jobs citing Microsoft.

Contractor daily rate trend for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Contractor Daily Rate Histogram

The daily rate distribution of IT jobs citing Microsoft over the 6 months to 15 December 2018.

Contractor daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for contractor hourly rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft.

Contractor hourly rate trend for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Contractor Hourly Rate Histogram

The hourly rate distribution of IT jobs citing Microsoft over the 6 months to 15 December 2018.

Contractor hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Top 18 Contract 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 15 December 2018. 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
Job
Vacancies
England 0 11,459 £425 +6.25% 4,550
UK excluding London +1 7,588 £388 +6.90% 3,690
London -1 4,684 £450 - 1,160
South East +2 2,406 £406 +4.84% 748
North of England +1 1,614 £375 +3.45% 1,122
Midlands +1 1,121 £375 +7.14% 709
North West +5 900 £385 +2.67% 578
South West +1 877 £400 +14.29% 415
West Midlands -1 716 £400 +6.67% 433
East of England +1 690 £375 +7.14% 397
Yorkshire -1 575 £375 +7.14% 428
Scotland +2 566 £375 +7.14% 179
East Midlands +1 391 £340 +3.82% 275
Wales -2 254 £381 +17.31% 95
North East -4 140 £375 +1.35% 116
Northern Ireland +20 49 £350 -4.37% 18
Channel Islands +3 11 £475 +16.56% 9
Isle of Man 0 6 £506 +26.56%

For the 6 months to 15 December 2018, IT contractor jobs citing Microsoft also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads with a requirement for Microsoft.

1 4,369 (34.62%) Windows
2 3,125 (24.76%) Microsoft Azure
3 3,053 (24.19%) Active Directory
4 2,680 (21.24%) SQL
5 2,632 (20.86%) Agile Software Development
6 2,465 (19.53%) SQL Server
7 2,408 (19.08%) Finance
8 2,369 (18.77%) Microsoft Office
9 2,193 (17.38%) .NET
10 2,034 (16.12%) Office 365
11 1,999 (15.84%) C#
12 1,549 (12.28%) Windows Server
13 1,448 (11.47%) ITIL
14 1,405 (11.13%) VMware
14 1,405 (11.13%) PowerShell
15 1,375 (10.90%) Microsoft Excel
16 1,374 (10.89%) Migration
17 1,368 (10.84%) Windows 10
18 1,174 (9.30%) SCCM
19 1,142 (9.05%) Security Cleared
20 1,135 (8.99%) Windows 7
21 1,130 (8.95%) Analytical Skills
21 1,130 (8.95%) Problem-Solving
22 1,101 (8.72%) SharePoint
22 1,101 (8.72%) Business Intelligence
23 1,086 (8.61%) JavaScript
24 995 (7.88%) DevOps
25 939 (7.44%) Project Management
26 926 (7.34%) CRM
27 900 (7.13%) VMware Infrastructure

Microsoft
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same job type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 1,101 (8.72%) SharePoint
2 859 (6.81%) MS Exchange
3 414 (3.28%) IIS
4 412 (3.26%) Skype for Business
5 285 (2.26%) Exchange Server 2010
6 197 (1.56%) Confluence
7 183 (1.45%) Apache
8 174 (1.38%) Exchange Server 2013
9 147 (1.16%) Tomcat
10 135 (1.07%) CMS
11 119 (0.94%) WebSphere
12 117 (0.93%) SharePoint 2013
13 100 (0.79%) BizTalk Server
14 90 (0.71%) nginx
15 76 (0.60%) Elasticsearch
16 75 (0.59%) NServiceBus
17 73 (0.58%) Exchange Server 2007
18 68 (0.54%) SharePoint Server
19 63 (0.50%) Jetty
20 62 (0.49%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 2,369 (18.77%) Microsoft Office
2 1,375 (10.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 671 (5.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 473 (3.75%) Microsoft Project
5 369 (2.92%) MS Visio
6 97 (0.77%) Spreadsheet
7 31 (0.25%) InfoPath
8 27 (0.21%) Photoshop
9 21 (0.17%) Chatbot
10 13 (0.10%) Adobe Captivate
11 11 (0.087%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 10 (0.079%) AutoCAD
13 9 (0.071%) Adobe Illustrator
14 6 (0.048%) CINEMA 4D
15 5 (0.040%) Acrobat
15 5 (0.040%) Adobe After Effects
16 4 (0.032%) Adobe Premiere
16 4 (0.032%) CATIA
16 4 (0.032%) InVision
16 4 (0.032%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 746 (5.91%) Dynamics CRM
2 223 (1.77%) Dynamics AX
3 137 (1.09%) Dynamics NAV
4 40 (0.32%) NetSuite
5 25 (0.20%) Eikon
6 22 (0.17%) Oracle Financials
7 21 (0.17%) Primavera
8 16 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
9 13 (0.10%) Endur
9 13 (0.10%) Remedy ITSM
10 12 (0.095%) Markit EDM
10 12 (0.095%) SAP Oil and Gas
11 10 (0.079%) SAP ERP
12 9 (0.071%) Elite 3E
12 9 (0.071%) Oracle General Ledger
12 9 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
12 9 (0.071%) SAP GTS
12 9 (0.071%) thinkFolio
13 8 (0.063%) Infor M3
13 8 (0.063%) SAP BPC
Cloud Services
1 3,125 (24.76%) Microsoft Azure
2 2,034 (16.12%) Office 365
3 893 (7.08%) Amazon AWS
4 575 (4.56%) Dynamics 365
5 473 (3.75%) PaaS
6 469 (3.72%) IaaS
7 426 (3.38%) SaaS
8 418 (3.31%) Azure Active Directory
9 207 (1.64%) OneDrive
10 193 (1.53%) Cloud Computing
11 145 (1.15%) GitHub
12 141 (1.12%) Google Cloud Platform
13 137 (1.09%) Azure Data Factory
14 100 (0.79%) Serverless
15 75 (0.59%) Yammer
16 73 (0.58%) Amazon EC2
17 63 (0.50%) AWS CloudFormation
18 61 (0.48%) OpenShift
19 55 (0.44%) Azure Functions
20 47 (0.37%) Google App Engine
Communications & Networking
1 823 (6.52%) DNS
2 669 (5.30%) Firewall
3 491 (3.89%) DHCP
4 467 (3.70%) TCP/IP
5 444 (3.52%) LAN
6 423 (3.35%) Skype
7 405 (3.21%) WAN
8 391 (3.10%) VPN
9 328 (2.60%) Internet
10 293 (2.32%) SAN
11 185 (1.47%) HTTP
12 175 (1.39%) SSL
13 163 (1.29%) Wireless
14 162 (1.28%) VoIP
15 135 (1.07%) Network Security
16 127 (1.01%) Remote Desktop
17 102 (0.81%) NAS
18 98 (0.78%) Unified Communications
19 96 (0.76%) Intranet
19 96 (0.76%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2,465 (19.53%) SQL Server
2 833 (6.60%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 641 (5.08%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 585 (4.64%) Power BI
5 561 (4.45%) Data Warehouse
6 380 (3.01%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 333 (2.64%) Relational Database
8 264 (2.09%) SQL Server 2008
9 223 (1.77%) Big Data
10 222 (1.76%) Azure SQL Database
11 193 (1.53%) SQL Server 2012
12 184 (1.46%) Data Lake
13 175 (1.39%) NoSQL
14 173 (1.37%) SQL Server 2016
15 165 (1.31%) Hadoop
16 152 (1.20%) MySQL
17 135 (1.07%) MongoDB
18 132 (1.05%) Oracle Database
19 115 (0.91%) SQL Server 2014
20 95 (0.75%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 622 (4.93%) Visual Studio
2 552 (4.37%) Git (software)
3 544 (4.31%) JIRA
4 484 (3.84%) Team Foundation Server
5 439 (3.48%) Visual Studio Team System
6 408 (3.23%) Jenkins
7 292 (2.31%) Selenium
8 201 (1.59%) TeamCity
9 150 (1.19%) Octopus Deploy
10 122 (0.97%) NUnit
11 120 (0.95%) Subversion
12 90 (0.71%) MSI
13 87 (0.69%) SpecFlow
14 84 (0.67%) Cucumber
15 80 (0.63%) SoapUI
16 74 (0.59%) GitLab
17 72 (0.57%) WebDriver
18 69 (0.55%) Bitbucket
19 64 (0.51%) Eclipse
20 61 (0.48%) JUnit
General
1 2,408 (19.08%) Finance
2 622 (4.93%) Banking
3 353 (2.80%) Telecoms
4 352 (2.79%) Retail
5 339 (2.69%) Marketing
6 223 (1.77%) Manufacturing
7 195 (1.55%) Legal
8 180 (1.43%) Law
9 137 (1.09%) Back Office
10 132 (1.05%) Advertising
11 125 (0.99%) Front Office
12 117 (0.93%) Electronics
13 110 (0.87%) Financial Institution
14 99 (0.78%) Investment Banking
15 98 (0.78%) Publishing
16 88 (0.70%) Pharmaceutical
17 81 (0.64%) Military
18 60 (0.48%) Billing
19 43 (0.34%) Automotive
20 40 (0.32%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 2,518 (19.95%) Developer
2 2,131 (16.89%) Analyst
3 1,070 (8.48%) Architect
4 760 (6.02%) .NET Developer
4 760 (6.02%) Consultant
5 603 (4.78%) C# Developer
6 577 (4.57%) Support Engineer
7 518 (4.10%) Project Manager
8 462 (3.66%) Support Analyst
9 446 (3.53%) Service Analyst
10 436 (3.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 406 (3.22%) Service Desk Analyst
12 358 (2.84%) Business Analyst
13 354 (2.81%) C# .NET Developer
14 352 (2.79%) 2nd Line Support
15 337 (2.67%) Desktop Support
15 337 (2.67%) DevOps Engineer
16 336 (2.66%) IT Support
17 327 (2.59%) Azure Engineer
18 320 (2.54%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2,193 (17.38%) .NET
2 858 (6.80%) ASP.NET
3 753 (5.97%) HTML
4 613 (4.86%) Web Services
5 604 (4.79%) CSS
6 520 (4.12%) .NET Framework
7 496 (3.93%) AngularJS
8 492 (3.90%) ASP.NET Web API
9 442 (3.50%) XML
10 410 (3.25%) ASP.NET MVC
11 383 (3.04%) jQuery
12 346 (2.74%) JSON
13 335 (2.65%) REST
14 282 (2.23%) HTML5
15 266 (2.11%) SOAP
16 259 (2.05%) WCF
17 249 (1.97%) React
18 246 (1.95%) Node.js
19 206 (1.63%) RESTful
20 202 (1.60%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 1,130 (8.95%) Analytical Skills
2 452 (3.58%) Data Centre
3 440 (3.49%) Self-Motivation
4 431 (3.42%) Management Information System
5 256 (2.03%) Greenfield Project
6 247 (1.96%) User Experience
7 202 (1.60%) Public Cloud
8 193 (1.53%) Clustering
9 190 (1.51%) PKI
10 184 (1.46%) Mobile App
11 180 (1.43%) NHS
12 149 (1.18%) Blackberry
13 142 (1.13%) Enterprise Software
14 122 (0.97%) iPhone
15 118 (0.94%) Video Conferencing
16 112 (0.89%) Fat Client
16 112 (0.89%) Thin Client
17 108 (0.86%) Driving Licence
18 103 (0.82%) Replication
19 102 (0.81%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 4,369 (34.62%) Windows
2 1,549 (12.28%) Windows Server
3 1,368 (10.84%) Windows 10
4 1,135 (8.99%) Windows 7
5 873 (6.92%) Linux
6 668 (5.29%) Windows Server 2012
7 563 (4.46%) Windows Server 2008
8 328 (2.60%) Unix
9 264 (2.09%) Apple iOS
10 250 (1.98%) Android
11 216 (1.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 216 (1.71%) Windows 8
11 216 (1.71%) Windows XP
12 206 (1.63%) Windows Server 2003
13 117 (0.93%) Mac OS
14 97 (0.77%) Mac OS X
15 85 (0.67%) CentOS
16 56 (0.44%) Ubuntu
17 47 (0.37%) AIX
18 45 (0.36%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,632 (20.86%) Agile Software Development
2 1,448 (11.47%) ITIL
3 1,374 (10.89%) Migration
4 1,130 (8.95%) Problem-Solving
5 1,101 (8.72%) Business Intelligence
6 995 (7.88%) DevOps
7 939 (7.44%) Project Management
8 926 (7.34%) CRM
9 815 (6.46%) Scrum
10 785 (6.22%) MVC
11 693 (5.49%) Analytics
12 642 (5.09%) Test Automation
13 598 (4.74%) Stakeholder Management
14 578 (4.58%) Continuous Integration
15 546 (4.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
16 542 (4.30%) TDD
17 490 (3.88%) Service Management
18 481 (3.81%) Change Management
19 476 (3.77%) ETL
20 471 (3.73%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 2,680 (21.24%) SQL
2 1,999 (15.84%) C#
3 1,405 (11.13%) PowerShell
4 1,086 (8.61%) JavaScript
5 611 (4.84%) T-SQL
6 600 (4.75%) Java
7 463 (3.67%) Python
8 164 (1.30%) VB
9 160 (1.27%) Bash Shell
9 160 (1.27%) C
10 155 (1.23%) VBA
11 139 (1.10%) VBScript
12 128 (1.01%) C++
12 128 (1.01%) TypeScript
13 117 (0.93%) Shell Script
14 107 (0.85%) Ruby
15 104 (0.82%) R
16 100 (0.79%) Perl
17 83 (0.66%) PL/SQL
18 74 (0.59%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 1,142 (9.05%) Security Cleared
2 858 (6.80%) Degree
3 779 (6.17%) SC Cleared
4 771 (6.11%) Microsoft Certification
5 410 (3.25%) MCSE
6 276 (2.19%) DV Cleared
7 232 (1.84%) Cisco Certification
8 215 (1.70%) MCSA
9 183 (1.45%) MCP
10 165 (1.31%) CCNA
11 131 (1.04%) ISTQB
12 130 (1.03%) ISEB
13 128 (1.01%) Computer Science Degree
14 110 (0.87%) ITIL Certification
15 109 (0.86%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 108 (0.86%) CISSP
17 93 (0.74%) PMI Certification
18 92 (0.73%) MCITP
19 87 (0.69%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
20 83 (0.66%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 400 (3.17%) SLA
2 383 (3.04%) QA
3 266 (2.11%) PMO
4 180 (1.43%) GDPR
5 139 (1.10%) Data Quality
6 89 (0.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 46 (0.36%) Disclosure Scotland
8 42 (0.33%) PCI DSS
9 34 (0.27%) JSP 440
10 30 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 29 (0.23%) ISO 9001
12 26 (0.21%) WCAG
13 25 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 24 (0.19%) HMG Infosec
15 19 (0.15%) FINRA
16 16 (0.13%) Government Security Classifications
16 16 (0.13%) HL7
17 13 (0.10%) P3O
18 12 (0.095%) IFRS
18 12 (0.095%) MiFID
System Software
1 3,053 (24.19%) Active Directory
2 900 (7.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 451 (3.57%) Hyper-V
4 316 (2.50%) Docker
5 295 (2.34%) XenApp
6 276 (2.19%) vSphere
7 251 (1.99%) Microsoft App-V
8 246 (1.95%) VMware ESXi
9 189 (1.50%) XenDesktop
10 139 (1.10%) Virtual Machines
11 112 (0.89%) Virtual Desktop
12 63 (0.50%) Xen
13 62 (0.49%) BitLocker
14 58 (0.46%) XenServer
15 54 (0.43%) VMware Workstation
16 44 (0.35%) Virtual Servers
17 40 (0.32%) DFS Replication
18 35 (0.28%) Microsoft Virtual Server
19 32 (0.25%) NFS
19 32 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 1,174 (9.30%) SCCM
2 279 (2.21%) Microsoft Intune
3 271 (2.15%) Puppet
4 245 (1.94%) Ansible
5 227 (1.80%) SCOM
6 222 (1.76%) Kubernetes
7 176 (1.39%) Terraform
8 162 (1.28%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
9 137 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
10 136 (1.08%) Opscode Chef
11 123 (0.97%) WSUS
12 102 (0.81%) Microsoft Clustering
13 100 (0.79%) McAfee ePO
14 89 (0.71%) vCenter Server
15 82 (0.65%) AirWatch
16 78 (0.62%) Forefront Identity Manager
17 51 (0.40%) Nagios
18 50 (0.40%) HP ALM
19 44 (0.35%) Cisco CUCM
20 43 (0.34%) Backup Exec
Vendors
1 1,405 (11.13%) VMware
2 835 (6.62%) Oracle
3 819 (6.49%) Citrix
4 687 (5.44%) Cisco
5 443 (3.51%) SAP
6 429 (3.40%) HP
7 373 (2.96%) Apple
8 296 (2.35%) Google
9 250 (1.98%) ServiceNow
10 237 (1.88%) McAfee
11 199 (1.58%) IBM
12 192 (1.52%) Red Hat
13 170 (1.35%) Ivanti
14 168 (1.33%) Tableau
15 167 (1.32%) NetApp
16 154 (1.22%) Dell
17 132 (1.05%) Remedy
18 127 (1.01%) Symantec
19 100 (0.79%) Salesforce.com
20 99 (0.78%) Atlassian
4,883 Microsoft job vacancies Nationwide