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 14 May 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
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,522 3,870 5,536
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.61% 13.35% 12.95%
As % of the Vendors category 28.13% 28.10% 30.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,713 2,551 3,640
10th Percentile £212 £209 £189
25th Percentile £375 £340 £335
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +4.21% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £585 £584 £600
90th Percentile £676 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £451
% change year-on-year +5.88% -5.66% -2.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 354 237 459
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.02 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.35 £15.09 £13.00
Median hourly rate £20.22 £18.77 £15.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.75% +25.10% -33.20%
75th Percentile £30.00 £29.00 £24.88
90th Percentile £63.75 £59.83 £55.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.09 £18.51 £15.00
% change year-on-year +8.57% +23.37% -21.05%

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 19,628 13,772 18,132
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.26% 47.52% 42.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,436 8,611 11,252
10th Percentile £313 £281 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.49% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £618 £630
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -0.61% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 996 554 1,092
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.44 £14.46
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.50 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +27.45% +13.33% -47.06%
75th Percentile £58.94 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £78.02 £74.63 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.00 £23.00 £21.50
% change year-on-year +26.09% +6.98% -45.64%

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 14 May 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 14 May 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 14 May 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 4,838 £499 +5.00% 3,050
UK excluding London 0 2,863 £450 +5.88% 2,629
London -3 2,137 £515 +3.00% 908
Work from Home -1 1,380 £500 - 1,276
North of England -2 759 £450 +8.70% 613
South East -2 666 £478 -0.52% 835
Midlands -5 497 £450 +12.50% 392
North West -2 406 £425 - 330
West Midlands -6 346 £450 +12.50% 225
Yorkshire -2 330 £468 +16.88% 207
South West -2 327 £450 -2.96% 269
East of England 0 316 £375 -21.05% 298
Scotland +6 208 £450 +9.22% 144
East Midlands -2 145 £400 -2.44% 167
Wales +2 91 £335 +3.08% 102
North East -24 28 £450 +30.43% 80
Northern Ireland -2 20 £450 +38.46% 32
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
1 594 (10.76%) SharePoint
2 379 (6.86%) Microsoft Exchange
3 105 (1.90%) Confluence
4 35 (0.63%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.43%) Apache
6 23 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
7 20 (0.36%) HCL Notes
8 18 (0.33%) CMS
9 14 (0.25%) SAS
10 13 (0.24%) Skype for Business
11 12 (0.22%) IIS
11 12 (0.22%) Mendix
12 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.11%) Camunda
12 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 5 (0.091%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.091%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.072%) Drupal
14 4 (0.072%) Exchange Server 2010
14 4 (0.072%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 556 (10.07%) Microsoft Office
2 485 (8.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 224 (4.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 121 (2.19%) Microsoft Project
5 93 (1.68%) MS Visio
6 56 (1.01%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.31%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.11%) Trello
10 5 (0.091%) Acrobat
10 5 (0.091%) PTC Creo
11 4 (0.072%) InDesign
11 4 (0.072%) SOLIDWORKS
12 3 (0.054%) Adobe Captivate
12 3 (0.054%) AutoCAD
12 3 (0.054%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
13 2 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 197 (3.57%) Dynamics CRM
2 64 (1.16%) SAP S/4HANA
3 23 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
4 20 (0.36%) Dynamics NAV
5 16 (0.29%) NetSuite
6 15 (0.27%) Aladdin
7 13 (0.24%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
9 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
10 10 (0.18%) Maximo
10 10 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
10 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
10 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 9 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
12 8 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
13 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
14 6 (0.11%) Shopify
15 5 (0.091%) assyst
15 5 (0.091%) Primavera
15 5 (0.091%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,323 (42.07%) Azure
2 1,415 (25.62%) Microsoft 365
3 942 (17.06%) Power Platform
4 711 (12.88%) Entra ID
5 456 (8.26%) Dynamics 365
6 446 (8.08%) AWS
7 421 (7.62%) Azure DevOps
8 322 (5.83%) Power Automate
9 293 (5.31%) Microsoft Purview
10 288 (5.22%) PowerApps
11 255 (4.62%) GitHub
12 238 (4.31%) Microsoft Copilot
13 214 (3.88%) OneDrive
14 193 (3.50%) Azure Data Factory
15 190 (3.44%) SaaS
16 177 (3.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 167 (3.02%) GCP
18 158 (2.86%) Serverless
19 143 (2.59%) PaaS
20 130 (2.35%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 287 (5.20%) DNS
2 270 (4.89%) Firewall
3 205 (3.71%) VPN
4 171 (3.10%) DHCP
5 134 (2.43%) Wi-Fi
6 131 (2.37%) WAN
7 112 (2.03%) LAN
8 109 (1.97%) Network Security
9 102 (1.85%) TCP/IP
10 57 (1.03%) Kerberos
11 52 (0.94%) VLAN
12 45 (0.81%) SD-WAN
13 35 (0.63%) SAN
13 35 (0.63%) SSL
14 33 (0.60%) Wireless
15 30 (0.54%) Skype
16 28 (0.51%) HTTP
17 26 (0.47%) Unified Communications
18 25 (0.45%) MPLS
19 24 (0.43%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 573 (10.38%) Power BI
2 260 (4.71%) SQL Server
3 173 (3.13%) Data Warehouse
4 153 (2.77%) Data Lake
5 119 (2.16%) Azure SQL Database
6 114 (2.06%) Metadata
7 98 (1.77%) PostgreSQL
8 70 (1.27%) Relational Database
9 67 (1.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 48 (0.87%) Power Query
11 45 (0.81%) NoSQL
12 44 (0.80%) Tableau
13 43 (0.78%) Oracle Database
14 42 (0.76%) Star Schema
15 40 (0.72%) Delta Lake
15 40 (0.72%) MySQL
15 40 (0.72%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 30 (0.54%) Spark SQL
17 27 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
18 26 (0.47%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 251 (4.55%) JIRA
2 165 (2.99%) Git
3 64 (1.16%) Jenkins
4 63 (1.14%) GitLab
5 26 (0.47%) Artifactory
6 25 (0.45%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.40%) MSI
8 20 (0.36%) Eclipse
9 16 (0.29%) Postman
10 15 (0.27%) MLflow
10 15 (0.27%) Selenium
11 14 (0.25%) JMeter
11 14 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
12 13 (0.24%) ERwin
13 12 (0.22%) Maven
14 11 (0.20%) Bitbucket
15 10 (0.18%) InstallShield
16 9 (0.16%) Android Studio
16 9 (0.16%) Browser DevTools
16 9 (0.16%) Gatling
General
1 1,814 (32.85%) Social Skills
2 1,094 (19.81%) Finance
3 634 (11.48%) Analytical Skills
4 503 (9.11%) Public Sector
5 288 (5.22%) Banking
6 249 (4.51%) Legal
7 246 (4.45%) Organisational Skills
8 141 (2.55%) Documentation Skills
9 106 (1.92%) Manufacturing
10 93 (1.68%) Law
10 93 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
11 85 (1.54%) Telecoms
12 84 (1.52%) Retail
13 78 (1.41%) Marketing
14 75 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 71 (1.29%) Military
16 64 (1.16%) Local Government
17 53 (0.96%) Influencing Skills
17 53 (0.96%) Investment Banking
18 44 (0.80%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 690 (12.50%) Architect
2 601 (10.88%) Analyst
3 501 (9.07%) Developer
4 465 (8.42%) Senior
5 366 (6.63%) IT Support
6 331 (5.99%) Lead
7 299 (5.41%) Consultant
8 256 (4.64%) Support Engineer
9 225 (4.07%) Data Engineer
10 203 (3.68%) Azure Engineer
11 192 (3.48%) Solutions Architect
12 185 (3.35%) Project Manager
13 179 (3.24%) Business Analyst
13 179 (3.24%) IT Engineer
14 167 (3.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 163 (2.95%) Administrator
16 135 (2.44%) IT Support Engineer
17 113 (2.05%) Security Engineer
18 104 (1.88%) DevOps Engineer
19 102 (1.85%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 236 (4.27%) .NET
2 162 (2.93%) REST
3 124 (2.25%) Microsoft Graph
4 105 (1.90%) OAuth
5 104 (1.88%) PySpark
6 94 (1.70%) SAML
7 87 (1.58%) JSON
8 80 (1.45%) React
9 76 (1.38%) OpenID
10 75 (1.36%) LDAP
11 69 (1.25%) Web Services
12 64 (1.16%) Middleware
13 56 (1.01%) HTML
14 49 (0.89%) AngularJS
14 49 (0.89%) ARM Templates
14 49 (0.89%) CSS
14 49 (0.89%) Node.js
14 49 (0.89%) SailPoint
15 47 (0.85%) OAuth2
16 46 (0.83%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 293 (5.31%) Onboarding
2 218 (3.95%) Cloud Native
3 174 (3.15%) Product Ownership
4 124 (2.25%) Management Information System
5 105 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
6 101 (1.83%) Data Centre
7 91 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
8 84 (1.52%) Hybrid Cloud
9 82 (1.48%) AI Agents
10 81 (1.47%) PKI
11 80 (1.45%) Security Posture
12 78 (1.41%) Replication
12 78 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
13 71 (1.29%) Data Structures
14 70 (1.27%) Low-Code
15 67 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
16 59 (1.07%) Virtual Team
17 47 (0.85%) Driving Licence
18 46 (0.83%) Operational Technology
19 44 (0.80%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 1,191 (21.57%) Windows
2 322 (5.83%) Windows 10
3 270 (4.89%) Windows Server
4 256 (4.64%) Linux
5 107 (1.94%) Apple iOS
6 106 (1.92%) Mac OS
7 104 (1.88%) Android
8 44 (0.80%) Unix
9 42 (0.76%) Windows 7
9 42 (0.76%) Windows Server 2016
10 40 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 30 (0.54%) VMS
12 28 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
13 22 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
14 14 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
15 11 (0.20%) Ubuntu
16 10 (0.18%) CentOS
17 5 (0.091%) AIX
17 5 (0.091%) Solaris
18 4 (0.072%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 947 (17.15%) Problem-Solving
2 866 (15.68%) DevOps
3 846 (15.32%) Agile
4 784 (14.20%) Migration
5 745 (13.49%) CI/CD
6 629 (11.39%) Business Intelligence
7 606 (10.97%) Analytics
8 545 (9.87%) AI
9 537 (9.72%) Stakeholder Management
10 486 (8.80%) Continuous Improvement
11 459 (8.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 452 (8.19%) ITIL
13 438 (7.93%) Customer Service
14 409 (7.41%) Data Modelling
15 371 (6.72%) Roadmaps
16 347 (6.28%) Decision-Making
17 342 (6.19%) Cybersecurity
18 330 (5.98%) Infrastructure as Code
19 311 (5.63%) Project Delivery
20 306 (5.54%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 711 (12.88%) SQL
2 629 (11.39%) PowerShell
3 588 (10.65%) Python
4 252 (4.56%) C#
5 195 (3.53%) JavaScript
6 171 (3.10%) Java
7 123 (2.23%) Bicep
8 94 (1.70%) T-SQL
9 86 (1.56%) Kusto Query Language
10 83 (1.50%) Bash
11 72 (1.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 66 (1.20%) TypeScript
13 33 (0.60%) PL/SQL
14 29 (0.53%) VBA
15 28 (0.51%) C++
16 23 (0.42%) VB
17 19 (0.34%) Scala
18 18 (0.33%) R
19 17 (0.31%) Shell Script
20 14 (0.25%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,052 (19.05%) Security Cleared
2 824 (14.92%) SC Cleared
3 545 (9.87%) Degree
4 258 (4.67%) Microsoft Certification
5 179 (3.24%) DV Cleared
6 178 (3.22%) Azure Certification
7 122 (2.21%) Computer Science Degree
8 100 (1.81%) CISSP
9 91 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
10 72 (1.30%) Cisco Certification
11 60 (1.09%) PMP
12 59 (1.07%) PMI Certification
13 55 (1.00%) Master's Degree
14 54 (0.98%) CISM
15 43 (0.78%) AWS Certification
16 37 (0.67%) MCSE
17 34 (0.62%) DBS Check
18 30 (0.54%) ITIL Certification
19 29 (0.53%) CCNP
19 29 (0.53%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 272 (4.93%) Data Quality
2 219 (3.97%) GDPR
3 188 (3.40%) QA
4 147 (2.66%) SLA
5 139 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 116 (2.10%) NIST
7 105 (1.90%) PMO
8 71 (1.29%) Accessibility
9 70 (1.27%) Cyber Essentials
10 47 (0.85%) NCSC
11 38 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 34 (0.62%) GRC
13 25 (0.45%) PCI DSS
14 22 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 21 (0.38%) NIST 800
16 20 (0.36%) MiFID
17 14 (0.25%) SOC 2
18 13 (0.24%) FINRA
19 12 (0.22%) HIPAA
19 12 (0.22%) WCAG
System Software
1 1,058 (19.16%) Active Directory
2 221 (4.00%) Docker
3 191 (3.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 97 (1.76%) Hyper-V
5 76 (1.38%) Virtual Machines
6 75 (1.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 54 (0.98%) VMware ESXi
8 43 (0.78%) vSphere
9 25 (0.45%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.42%) VMware NSX
11 20 (0.36%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.29%) Firmware
13 6 (0.11%) NFS
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
14 5 (0.091%) IAG
14 5 (0.091%) Snort
14 5 (0.091%) VMware Workstation
15 4 (0.072%) Squid
15 4 (0.072%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 422 (7.64%) Microsoft Intune
2 344 (6.23%) Terraform
3 248 (4.49%) Kubernetes
4 200 (3.62%) SCCM
5 128 (2.32%) Ansible
6 116 (2.10%) Single Sign-On
7 78 (1.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 45 (0.81%) vCenter Server
9 42 (0.76%) Jamf Pro
10 35 (0.63%) Grafana
11 31 (0.56%) Prometheus
12 21 (0.38%) FortiGate
13 20 (0.36%) SCOM
14 18 (0.33%) Puppet
15 16 (0.29%) AirWatch
16 14 (0.25%) QRadar
16 14 (0.25%) WSUS
17 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
18 11 (0.20%) CASB
18 11 (0.20%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 263 (4.76%) ServiceNow
2 261 (4.73%) VMware
3 219 (3.97%) Databricks
4 215 (3.89%) SAP
5 210 (3.80%) Oracle
6 170 (3.08%) Cisco
7 155 (2.81%) Google
8 115 (2.08%) Citrix
9 96 (1.74%) Salesforce
10 89 (1.61%) Splunk
11 85 (1.54%) OpenAI
12 71 (1.29%) Apple
13 70 (1.27%) Foundry
14 55 (1.00%) CrowdStrike
15 49 (0.89%) HP
16 46 (0.83%) Palo Alto
17 45 (0.81%) Adobe
17 45 (0.81%) Okta
18 43 (0.78%) CyberArk
19 40 (0.72%) Informatica