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 22 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
22 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 8 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,244 4,182 5,766
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.86% 13.60% 12.92%
As % of the Vendors category 28.85% 29.22% 29.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,543 2,678 3,910
10th Percentile £204 £206 £190
25th Percentile £360 £348 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.05% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.86% -2.78% -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 369 175 381
10th Percentile £13.48 £15.44 £11.79
25th Percentile £16.24 £17.31 £14.00
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.80 £17.60
Median % change year-on-year -16.34% +35.23% -16.19%
75th Percentile £25.47 £33.75 £37.50
90th Percentile £61.76 £62.55 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £22.50 £17.50
% change year-on-year -15.56% +28.57% -12.50%

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 18,176 14,311 19,397
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.58% 46.55% 43.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,650 8,642 12,143
10th Percentile £303 £280 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -0.94%
75th Percentile £606 £625 £630
90th Percentile £700 £711 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 901 419 946
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.00 £21.25 £15.50
Median hourly rate £24.00 £29.07 £26.97
Median % change year-on-year -17.44% +7.78% -22.47%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £27.13 £26.00
% change year-on-year -17.05% +4.33% -16.13%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 4,586 £485 +2.11% 2,966
UK excluding London -1 2,829 £450 +2.86% 2,786
London -4 1,920 £500 - 731
Work from Home -1 1,337 £500 +0.91% 1,080
North of England -1 736 £428 -1.61% 654
South East -1 652 £475 -1.04% 890
Midlands -6 480 £450 +5.88% 418
North West -1 418 £412 -8.44% 354
South West 0 348 £514 +8.16% 313
East of England +1 344 £413 -8.33% 299
West Midlands -7 328 £475 +11.76% 220
Yorkshire 0 283 £450 +9.09% 204
Scotland -2 191 £470 +25.33% 161
East Midlands -1 150 £409 +2.31% 196
Wales +4 94 £310 -31.11% 82
North East -17 41 £450 +28.57% 109
Northern Ireland +2 28 £450 +38.46% 24
Channel Islands +3 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
1 584 (11.14%) SharePoint
2 409 (7.80%) Microsoft Exchange
3 109 (2.08%) Confluence
4 46 (0.88%) Skype for Business
5 28 (0.53%) CMS
6 22 (0.42%) Apache
7 19 (0.36%) Apache Spark
8 15 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
8 15 (0.29%) HCL Notes
9 14 (0.27%) IIS
10 13 (0.25%) SAS
11 9 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2013
11 9 (0.17%) Mendix
12 8 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2010
12 8 (0.15%) Mattermost
13 7 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
14 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
14 6 (0.11%) iPlanet
14 6 (0.11%) JBoss
14 6 (0.11%) WebSphere
Applications
1 629 (11.99%) Microsoft Office
2 513 (9.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 228 (4.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 126 (2.40%) Microsoft Project
5 105 (2.00%) MS Visio
6 76 (1.45%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.23%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.21%) Trello
9 10 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 7 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
11 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
12 5 (0.095%) Acrobat
12 5 (0.095%) PTC Creo
12 5 (0.095%) Sketch
13 4 (0.076%) Adobe XD
14 3 (0.057%) Adobe After Effects
14 3 (0.057%) InDesign
14 3 (0.057%) Photoshop
14 3 (0.057%) SOLIDWORKS
15 2 (0.038%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 190 (3.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 50 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
3 33 (0.63%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.34%) Dynamics AX
5 16 (0.31%) Maximo
6 15 (0.29%) Dynamics NAV
7 13 (0.25%) Aladdin
8 12 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.19%) Loan IQ
9 10 (0.19%) NetSuite
10 9 (0.17%) Teamcenter
10 9 (0.17%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 7 (0.13%) Advent Geneva
11 7 (0.13%) Shopify
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.11%) SystmOne
13 5 (0.095%) Primavera
13 5 (0.095%) Sage X3
13 5 (0.095%) Salesforce CRM
13 5 (0.095%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 2,096 (39.97%) Azure
2 1,311 (25.00%) Microsoft 365
3 837 (15.96%) Power Platform
4 669 (12.76%) Entra ID
5 452 (8.62%) AWS
6 403 (7.68%) Dynamics 365
7 389 (7.42%) Azure DevOps
8 337 (6.43%) Power Automate
9 300 (5.72%) PowerApps
10 252 (4.81%) Microsoft Purview
11 224 (4.27%) GitHub
12 211 (4.02%) OneDrive
13 186 (3.55%) Serverless
14 182 (3.47%) Azure Data Factory
15 181 (3.45%) SaaS
16 176 (3.36%) Microsoft Copilot
17 172 (3.28%) GCP
18 142 (2.71%) Azure Logic Apps
19 140 (2.67%) Azure Synapse Analytics
20 138 (2.63%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 308 (5.87%) DNS
2 282 (5.38%) Firewall
3 195 (3.72%) VPN
4 192 (3.66%) DHCP
5 139 (2.65%) Wi-Fi
6 124 (2.36%) TCP/IP
7 121 (2.31%) WAN
8 108 (2.06%) LAN
9 103 (1.96%) Network Security
10 73 (1.39%) Skype
11 66 (1.26%) Kerberos
12 62 (1.18%) VLAN
13 45 (0.86%) Unified Communications
13 45 (0.86%) Wireless
14 35 (0.67%) SD-WAN
15 31 (0.59%) HTTP
16 30 (0.57%) Internet
16 30 (0.57%) SSL
17 26 (0.50%) MPLS
17 26 (0.50%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 511 (9.74%) Power BI
2 243 (4.63%) SQL Server
3 152 (2.90%) Data Warehouse
4 138 (2.63%) Data Lake
5 101 (1.93%) Metadata
6 95 (1.81%) Azure SQL Database
6 95 (1.81%) PostgreSQL
7 76 (1.45%) Relational Database
8 60 (1.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 59 (1.13%) Oracle Database
10 52 (0.99%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 50 (0.95%) MySQL
12 41 (0.78%) NoSQL
13 39 (0.74%) Tableau
14 37 (0.71%) Power Query
15 30 (0.57%) Delta Lake
16 24 (0.46%) Star Schema
17 23 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
17 23 (0.44%) SQL Server Analysis Services
18 21 (0.40%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 244 (4.65%) JIRA
2 163 (3.11%) Git
3 74 (1.41%) GitLab
3 74 (1.41%) Jenkins
4 22 (0.42%) Eclipse
4 22 (0.42%) MSI
5 21 (0.40%) Postman
6 18 (0.34%) Artifactory
7 17 (0.32%) Android Studio
8 16 (0.31%) Browser DevTools
8 16 (0.31%) Visual Studio
9 15 (0.29%) JMeter
9 15 (0.29%) Selenium
10 14 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
10 14 (0.27%) Xcode
11 13 (0.25%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
12 11 (0.21%) JUnit
12 11 (0.21%) MLflow
13 10 (0.19%) ERwin
General
1 2,030 (38.71%) Social Skills
2 1,027 (19.58%) Finance
3 659 (12.57%) Analytical Skills
4 512 (9.76%) Public Sector
5 253 (4.82%) Organisational Skills
6 238 (4.54%) Banking
7 222 (4.23%) Legal
8 166 (3.17%) Documentation Skills
9 129 (2.46%) Manufacturing
10 109 (2.08%) Presentation Skills
11 107 (2.04%) Marketing
12 94 (1.79%) Telecoms
13 71 (1.35%) Retail
14 70 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 54 (1.03%) Influencing Skills
16 47 (0.90%) Military
17 46 (0.88%) Law
18 44 (0.84%) Investment Banking
19 38 (0.72%) Local Government
19 38 (0.72%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 658 (12.55%) Analyst
2 598 (11.40%) Architect
3 495 (9.44%) Developer
4 407 (7.76%) Senior
5 351 (6.69%) IT Support
6 294 (5.61%) Consultant
7 292 (5.57%) Support Engineer
8 262 (5.00%) Lead
9 185 (3.53%) Solutions Architect
10 176 (3.36%) IT Engineer
11 172 (3.28%) Data Engineer
11 172 (3.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 169 (3.22%) Azure Engineer
12 169 (3.22%) Business Analyst
13 166 (3.17%) Administrator
14 158 (3.01%) Project Manager
15 136 (2.59%) IT Support Engineer
15 136 (2.59%) Support Analyst
16 113 (2.15%) Security Engineer
17 99 (1.89%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 244 (4.65%) .NET
2 167 (3.18%) REST
3 134 (2.56%) OAuth
4 114 (2.17%) SAML
5 111 (2.12%) Microsoft Graph
6 104 (1.98%) React
7 94 (1.79%) OpenID
8 77 (1.47%) LDAP
9 74 (1.41%) PySpark
9 74 (1.41%) RESTful
10 71 (1.35%) AngularJS
11 69 (1.32%) JSON
12 68 (1.30%) HTML
13 66 (1.26%) CSS
14 63 (1.20%) ARM Templates
15 55 (1.05%) Middleware
16 53 (1.01%) OAuth2
17 48 (0.92%) Node.js
18 47 (0.90%) Web Services
19 43 (0.82%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 300 (5.72%) Onboarding
2 200 (3.81%) Cloud Native
3 156 (2.97%) Product Ownership
4 132 (2.52%) Management Information System
5 108 (2.06%) Enterprise Software
6 94 (1.79%) PKI
7 84 (1.60%) Data Centre
8 83 (1.58%) Security Posture
9 82 (1.56%) Hybrid Cloud
10 81 (1.54%) Self-Motivation
11 75 (1.43%) Low-Code
12 73 (1.39%) Legacy Systems
13 72 (1.37%) Replication
14 68 (1.30%) Driving Licence
15 61 (1.16%) Mobile App
16 57 (1.09%) AI Agents
16 57 (1.09%) Data Structures
17 56 (1.07%) NHS
18 54 (1.03%) Analytical Mindset
18 54 (1.03%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 1,228 (23.42%) Windows
2 359 (6.85%) Windows 10
3 298 (5.68%) Linux
4 274 (5.23%) Windows Server
5 114 (2.17%) Mac OS
6 102 (1.95%) Android
7 92 (1.75%) Apple iOS
8 66 (1.26%) Unix
9 46 (0.88%) Windows 7
10 40 (0.76%) Windows Server 2016
11 34 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 21 (0.40%) VMS
13 20 (0.38%) Windows Server 2003
13 20 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
13 20 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
14 7 (0.13%) AIX
14 7 (0.13%) Ubuntu
15 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
16 5 (0.095%) CentOS
16 5 (0.095%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,023 (19.51%) Problem-Solving
2 867 (16.53%) Agile
3 775 (14.78%) DevOps
4 688 (13.12%) Migration
5 645 (12.30%) CI/CD
6 607 (11.58%) Business Intelligence
7 573 (10.93%) Analytics
8 535 (10.20%) Stakeholder Management
9 454 (8.66%) Customer Service
10 452 (8.62%) Continuous Improvement
11 441 (8.41%) AI
12 439 (8.37%) ITIL
13 434 (8.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 370 (7.06%) Cybersecurity
15 335 (6.39%) Data Modelling
16 313 (5.97%) Project Management
17 300 (5.72%) Roadmaps
18 296 (5.64%) Change Management
19 288 (5.49%) Infrastructure as Code
20 286 (5.45%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 666 (12.70%) SQL
2 660 (12.59%) PowerShell
3 614 (11.71%) Python
4 258 (4.92%) C#
5 222 (4.23%) JavaScript
6 145 (2.77%) Java
7 116 (2.21%) Bicep
8 104 (1.98%) Bash
9 103 (1.96%) Kusto Query Language
10 82 (1.56%) TypeScript
11 68 (1.30%) T-SQL
12 59 (1.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 32 (0.61%) PL/SQL
14 31 (0.59%) Perl
15 27 (0.51%) VB
16 24 (0.46%) Shell Script
17 23 (0.44%) VBA
18 22 (0.42%) C++
19 18 (0.34%) Go
20 16 (0.31%) R
Qualifications
1 1,029 (19.62%) Security Cleared
2 768 (14.65%) SC Cleared
3 532 (10.14%) Degree
4 328 (6.25%) Microsoft Certification
5 213 (4.06%) DV Cleared
6 191 (3.64%) Azure Certification
7 121 (2.31%) Computer Science Degree
8 116 (2.21%) CISSP
9 89 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
10 66 (1.26%) CISM
11 60 (1.14%) Master's Degree
12 59 (1.13%) Cisco Certification
13 55 (1.05%) PMI Certification
14 48 (0.92%) MCSE
15 47 (0.90%) PMP
16 44 (0.84%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 42 (0.80%) A+ Certification
18 41 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
19 40 (0.76%) AWS Certification
20 34 (0.65%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 240 (4.58%) GDPR
2 199 (3.79%) Data Quality
3 157 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 153 (2.92%) QA
5 143 (2.73%) SLA
6 119 (2.27%) NIST
7 115 (2.19%) PMO
8 81 (1.54%) Accessibility
9 57 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
10 37 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 33 (0.63%) NCSC
12 26 (0.50%) PCI DSS
13 23 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 22 (0.42%) WCAG
15 21 (0.40%) GRC
16 19 (0.36%) EU AI Act
17 17 (0.32%) MiFID
18 16 (0.31%) SOC 2
19 15 (0.29%) HIPAA
20 14 (0.27%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,090 (20.79%) Active Directory
2 205 (3.91%) Docker
3 178 (3.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 82 (1.56%) Hyper-V
5 69 (1.32%) Virtual Machines
6 49 (0.93%) Virtual Desktop
7 38 (0.72%) vSphere
8 34 (0.65%) VMware ESXi
9 19 (0.36%) BitLocker
10 18 (0.34%) VMware NSX
11 9 (0.17%) Firmware
11 9 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.13%) Snort
13 6 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
13 6 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
14 5 (0.095%) Oracle RAC
14 5 (0.095%) Tivoli Directory Server
15 4 (0.076%) KVM
15 4 (0.076%) Squid
Systems Management
1 411 (7.84%) Microsoft Intune
2 320 (6.10%) Terraform
3 262 (5.00%) SCCM
4 241 (4.60%) Kubernetes
5 166 (3.17%) Single Sign-On
6 104 (1.98%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 101 (1.93%) Ansible
8 49 (0.93%) Jamf Pro
9 38 (0.72%) Grafana
10 36 (0.69%) SCOM
10 36 (0.69%) vCenter Server
11 33 (0.63%) Prometheus
12 24 (0.46%) FortiGate
13 20 (0.38%) WSUS
14 15 (0.29%) Puppet
15 14 (0.27%) AirWatch
15 14 (0.27%) Nessus
15 14 (0.27%) WMI
16 13 (0.25%) HP SiteScope
16 13 (0.25%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 268 (5.11%) ServiceNow
2 257 (4.90%) VMware
3 196 (3.74%) SAP
4 194 (3.70%) Oracle
5 191 (3.64%) Databricks
6 189 (3.60%) Cisco
7 151 (2.88%) Google
8 132 (2.52%) Splunk
9 129 (2.46%) Citrix
10 91 (1.74%) Salesforce
11 83 (1.58%) OpenAI
12 76 (1.45%) Apple
13 66 (1.26%) CrowdStrike
14 58 (1.11%) Foundry
14 58 (1.11%) Palo Alto
15 51 (0.97%) HP
16 46 (0.88%) Remedy
17 45 (0.86%) Okta
18 42 (0.80%) CyberArk
19 40 (0.76%) Veeam