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 3 December 2025, 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
3 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,071 4,785 5,990
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 14.00% 13.36% 13.30%
As % of the Vendors category 29.55% 29.49% 29.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,385 3,009 4,152
10th Percentile £204 £205 £198
25th Percentile £350 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £482 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.45% -3.60% -
75th Percentile £575 £594 £619
90th Percentile £668 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £445 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -1.11% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 400 229 250
10th Percentile £14.49 £15.08 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.46 £15.62 £16.47
Median hourly rate £21.13 £23.66 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.71% +2.87% +15.52%
75th Percentile £31.00 £37.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.35 £21.46 £22.00
% change year-on-year -5.17% -2.45% +17.49%

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 17,159 16,224 20,397
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.37% 45.30% 45.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,893 9,596 13,014
10th Percentile £288 £293 £256
25th Percentile £405 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.96%
75th Percentile £610 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £720 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 853 512 668
10th Percentile £15.32 £15.51 £15.30
25th Percentile £18.22 £19.28 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.00 £29.39 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.92% -33.97% +73.08%
75th Percentile £43.75 £62.50 £64.55
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £76.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £27.13 £44.50
% change year-on-year -18.89% -39.04% +97.78%

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 3 December 2025.

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 3 December 2025.

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 3 December 2025. 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 4,444 £475 -1.14% 3,635
UK excluding London -1 2,814 £445 -1.11% 3,399
London -1 1,829 £500 - 991
Work from Home -1 1,308 £500 - 1,353
North of England +2 747 £425 -5.56% 794
South East +2 646 £463 -2.63% 1,192
Midlands -3 476 £429 -1.15% 505
North West +1 447 £425 -5.56% 438
South West +3 362 £500 +5.26% 321
West Midlands -4 308 £475 +5.56% 310
East of England -1 278 £425 +3.03% 357
Yorkshire +1 266 £435 +5.45% 269
Scotland -3 210 £450 +5.88% 154
East Midlands +2 165 £375 - 191
Wales +2 91 £298 -8.46% 119
Northern Ireland +6 46 £361 +60.56% 29
North East -8 39 £410 +17.14% 100
Channel Islands -2 2 £725 -

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
1 568 (11.20%) SharePoint
2 398 (7.85%) Microsoft Exchange
3 105 (2.07%) Confluence
4 63 (1.24%) Skype for Business
5 37 (0.73%) CMS
6 31 (0.61%) Apache
7 28 (0.55%) IIS
8 20 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
8 20 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2010
8 20 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2013
9 18 (0.35%) HCL Notes
9 18 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
10 17 (0.34%) SAS
11 15 (0.30%) JBoss
11 15 (0.30%) WebSphere
12 13 (0.26%) Apache Spark
12 13 (0.26%) Mattermost
13 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
14 10 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2003
14 10 (0.20%) iPlanet
Applications
1 647 (12.76%) Microsoft Office
2 593 (11.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 259 (5.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 137 (2.70%) Microsoft Project
5 100 (1.97%) MS Visio
6 50 (0.99%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.26%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 11 (0.22%) Trello
9 9 (0.18%) Adobe Captivate
10 8 (0.16%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.16%) Sketch
11 4 (0.079%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.059%) Adobe After Effects
12 3 (0.059%) Adobe Illustrator
12 3 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
12 3 (0.059%) InDesign
12 3 (0.059%) Maya
12 3 (0.059%) Photoshop
12 3 (0.059%) Siemens NX
12 3 (0.059%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 171 (3.37%) Dynamics CRM
2 43 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
3 38 (0.75%) Remedy ITSM
4 19 (0.37%) Dynamics AX
5 11 (0.22%) Dynamics NAV
5 11 (0.22%) Maximo
5 11 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
5 11 (0.22%) Workday HCM
6 9 (0.18%) Aladdin
6 9 (0.18%) NetSuite
6 9 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
6 9 (0.18%) Teamcenter
7 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
7 7 (0.14%) Primavera
7 7 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
8 6 (0.12%) Shopify
9 5 (0.099%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.099%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.079%) Loan IQ
10 4 (0.079%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,821 (35.91%) Azure
2 1,171 (23.09%) Microsoft 365
3 773 (15.24%) Power Platform
4 572 (11.28%) Entra ID
5 458 (9.03%) AWS
6 376 (7.41%) Dynamics 365
7 336 (6.63%) Azure DevOps
8 316 (6.23%) Power Automate
9 302 (5.96%) PowerApps
10 184 (3.63%) GitHub
11 181 (3.57%) Microsoft Purview
12 164 (3.23%) SaaS
13 163 (3.21%) GCP
14 160 (3.16%) Serverless
15 152 (3.00%) OneDrive
16 150 (2.96%) Azure Sentinel
17 123 (2.43%) Azure Data Factory
18 120 (2.37%) Microsoft Copilot
19 116 (2.29%) PaaS
20 115 (2.27%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 332 (6.55%) Firewall
2 267 (5.27%) DNS
3 170 (3.35%) DHCP
4 166 (3.27%) VPN
5 155 (3.06%) TCP/IP
6 94 (1.85%) Network Security
7 93 (1.83%) Wi-Fi
8 86 (1.70%) WAN
9 77 (1.52%) LAN
10 74 (1.46%) Skype
11 56 (1.10%) Wireless
12 43 (0.85%) VLAN
13 41 (0.81%) Cisco IOS
14 40 (0.79%) Unified Communications
15 36 (0.71%) SAN
16 35 (0.69%) VoIP
17 34 (0.67%) HTTP
17 34 (0.67%) Internet
18 30 (0.59%) Ethernet
19 28 (0.55%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 473 (9.33%) Power BI
2 239 (4.71%) SQL Server
3 122 (2.41%) Data Warehouse
4 87 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
5 85 (1.68%) Relational Database
6 84 (1.66%) Data Lake
7 82 (1.62%) Metadata
8 73 (1.44%) Azure SQL Database
9 72 (1.42%) Oracle Database
10 53 (1.05%) Tableau
11 48 (0.95%) MySQL
12 40 (0.79%) Power Query
13 38 (0.75%) NoSQL
14 37 (0.73%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 31 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
16 27 (0.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 25 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
18 18 (0.35%) Big Data
18 18 (0.35%) Delta Lake
19 17 (0.34%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 263 (5.19%) JIRA
2 168 (3.31%) Git
3 101 (1.99%) Jenkins
4 71 (1.40%) GitLab
5 45 (0.89%) Eclipse
6 31 (0.61%) Postman
6 31 (0.61%) Visual Studio
7 29 (0.57%) MSI
8 23 (0.45%) Selenium
9 22 (0.43%) Browser DevTools
9 22 (0.43%) Sonatype Nexus
9 22 (0.43%) Xcode
10 20 (0.39%) Android Studio
11 15 (0.30%) Cucumber
11 15 (0.30%) JUnit
12 12 (0.24%) InstallShield
13 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket Server
13 11 (0.22%) CA Release Automation
14 10 (0.20%) JMeter
14 10 (0.20%) SonarQube
General
1 2,042 (40.27%) Social Skills
2 1,101 (21.71%) Finance
3 685 (13.51%) Analytical Skills
4 527 (10.39%) Public Sector
5 265 (5.23%) Banking
6 220 (4.34%) Organisational Skills
7 178 (3.51%) Legal
8 155 (3.06%) Documentation Skills
9 145 (2.86%) Manufacturing
10 123 (2.43%) Presentation Skills
11 116 (2.29%) Marketing
12 103 (2.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 96 (1.89%) Telecoms
14 85 (1.68%) Retail
15 65 (1.28%) Influencing Skills
16 63 (1.24%) Local Government
17 48 (0.95%) Military
18 41 (0.81%) Electronics
19 40 (0.79%) Investment Banking
20 39 (0.77%) Law
Job Titles
1 769 (15.16%) Analyst
2 490 (9.66%) Architect
3 487 (9.60%) Developer
4 350 (6.90%) Senior
5 324 (6.39%) Support Engineer
6 283 (5.58%) Consultant
7 272 (5.36%) IT Support
8 245 (4.83%) Lead
9 165 (3.25%) Support Analyst
10 159 (3.14%) Project Manager
11 158 (3.12%) Administrator
12 156 (3.08%) Business Analyst
13 154 (3.04%) Solutions Architect
14 146 (2.88%) IT Engineer
15 142 (2.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 132 (2.60%) Azure Engineer
17 125 (2.46%) Security Engineer
18 106 (2.09%) IT Support Engineer
19 104 (2.05%) Desktop Support
20 100 (1.97%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 255 (5.03%) .NET
2 165 (3.25%) REST
3 124 (2.45%) OAuth
4 117 (2.31%) React
5 100 (1.97%) RESTful
6 91 (1.79%) AngularJS
7 89 (1.76%) SAML
8 83 (1.64%) OpenID
9 82 (1.62%) HTML
10 78 (1.54%) CSS
11 65 (1.28%) JSON
12 64 (1.26%) Web Services
13 60 (1.18%) SOAP
14 59 (1.16%) Microsoft Graph
15 57 (1.12%) Node.js
16 54 (1.06%) .NET Framework
16 54 (1.06%) XML
17 49 (0.97%) LDAP
18 46 (0.91%) OAuth2
19 43 (0.85%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 248 (4.89%) Onboarding
2 184 (3.63%) Cloud Native
3 139 (2.74%) Product Ownership
4 136 (2.68%) Management Information System
5 104 (2.05%) Data Centre
6 103 (2.03%) Enterprise Software
7 99 (1.95%) PKI
7 99 (1.95%) Security Posture
8 89 (1.76%) Self-Motivation
9 77 (1.52%) Driving Licence
10 75 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
10 75 (1.48%) Mobile App
11 65 (1.28%) Low-Code
12 63 (1.24%) Virtual Team
13 62 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
14 57 (1.12%) Hybrid Cloud
15 52 (1.03%) Replication
16 49 (0.97%) Data Protection Act
17 48 (0.95%) NHS
18 44 (0.87%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 1,240 (24.45%) Windows
2 336 (6.63%) Windows 10
3 310 (6.11%) Linux
4 269 (5.30%) Windows Server
5 140 (2.76%) Mac OS
6 124 (2.45%) Android
7 83 (1.64%) Unix
8 82 (1.62%) Apple iOS
9 45 (0.89%) Windows 7
10 33 (0.65%) Windows Server 2016
10 33 (0.65%) Windows Server 2019
11 24 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 22 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
13 21 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
14 16 (0.32%) VMS
15 10 (0.20%) Mac OS X
15 10 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
16 9 (0.18%) Ubuntu
17 8 (0.16%) CentOS
18 6 (0.12%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,066 (21.02%) Problem-Solving
2 937 (18.48%) Agile
3 693 (13.67%) DevOps
4 605 (11.93%) Migration
5 558 (11.00%) Business Intelligence
6 555 (10.94%) CI/CD
7 512 (10.10%) Stakeholder Management
8 497 (9.80%) ITIL
9 465 (9.17%) Analytics
10 428 (8.44%) Continuous Improvement
11 426 (8.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 404 (7.97%) Cybersecurity
13 397 (7.83%) Customer Service
14 360 (7.10%) Project Management
15 337 (6.65%) AI
16 318 (6.27%) Change Management
17 254 (5.01%) Roadmaps
18 253 (4.99%) CRM
19 252 (4.97%) Project Delivery
20 248 (4.89%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 638 (12.58%) SQL
2 578 (11.40%) PowerShell
3 551 (10.87%) Python
4 266 (5.25%) C#
5 225 (4.44%) JavaScript
6 170 (3.35%) Java
7 113 (2.23%) Bash
8 99 (1.95%) Kusto Query Language
9 94 (1.85%) Bicep
10 76 (1.50%) TypeScript
11 48 (0.95%) T-SQL
12 44 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 41 (0.81%) Perl
14 37 (0.73%) C++
15 29 (0.57%) Shell Script
16 25 (0.49%) VB
16 25 (0.49%) VBA
17 24 (0.47%) R
18 22 (0.43%) Go
18 22 (0.43%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 939 (18.52%) Security Cleared
2 707 (13.94%) SC Cleared
3 541 (10.67%) Degree
4 364 (7.18%) Microsoft Certification
5 189 (3.73%) DV Cleared
6 179 (3.53%) Azure Certification
7 133 (2.62%) CISSP
8 122 (2.41%) Computer Science Degree
9 84 (1.66%) Cisco Certification
10 82 (1.62%) BPSS Clearance
11 66 (1.30%) CISM
12 57 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
13 53 (1.05%) A+ Certification
13 53 (1.05%) PMI Certification
14 52 (1.03%) Master's Degree
15 51 (1.01%) MCSE
16 47 (0.93%) AWS Certification
17 43 (0.85%) CCNA
18 41 (0.81%) MCP
18 41 (0.81%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 252 (4.97%) GDPR
2 189 (3.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 167 (3.29%) QA
4 161 (3.17%) NIST
5 136 (2.68%) Data Quality
6 113 (2.23%) PMO
7 110 (2.17%) SLA
8 89 (1.76%) Accessibility
9 54 (1.06%) Cyber Essentials
10 39 (0.77%) PCI DSS
11 35 (0.69%) HIPAA
12 33 (0.65%) NCSC
13 24 (0.47%) WCAG
14 22 (0.43%) EU AI Act
15 21 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 19 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 15 (0.30%) GRC
18 11 (0.22%) SOC 2
19 9 (0.18%) COBIT
19 9 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 1,046 (20.63%) Active Directory
2 183 (3.61%) Docker
3 170 (3.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 62 (1.22%) Hyper-V
5 57 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
6 45 (0.89%) vSphere
7 38 (0.75%) VMware ESXi
8 33 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
9 20 (0.39%) BitLocker
10 17 (0.34%) Firmware
11 15 (0.30%) VMware NSX
12 13 (0.26%) NFS
13 11 (0.22%) ISA Server
13 11 (0.22%) XenApp
14 10 (0.20%) Brightmail
15 9 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
16 8 (0.16%) Terminal Services
16 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
17 6 (0.12%) Snort
17 6 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 386 (7.61%) Microsoft Intune
2 312 (6.15%) SCCM
3 255 (5.03%) Terraform
4 213 (4.20%) Kubernetes
5 117 (2.31%) Single Sign-On
6 103 (2.03%) Ansible
7 68 (1.34%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 51 (1.01%) SCOM
9 48 (0.95%) Jamf Pro
10 38 (0.75%) vCenter Server
11 32 (0.63%) Grafana
12 24 (0.47%) Prometheus
13 22 (0.43%) QRadar
14 21 (0.41%) HP SiteScope
15 20 (0.39%) Microsoft Clustering
15 20 (0.39%) WSUS
16 16 (0.32%) Progress Chef
16 16 (0.32%) WMI
17 15 (0.30%) Puppet
18 13 (0.26%) Kibana
Vendors
1 296 (5.84%) ServiceNow
2 240 (4.73%) VMware
3 229 (4.52%) Oracle
4 217 (4.28%) Cisco
5 203 (4.00%) Splunk
6 197 (3.88%) SAP
7 152 (3.00%) Google
8 118 (2.33%) Databricks
9 110 (2.17%) Citrix
10 92 (1.81%) Apple
11 90 (1.77%) Salesforce
12 64 (1.26%) CrowdStrike
12 64 (1.26%) OpenAI
13 59 (1.16%) IBM
14 53 (1.05%) Palo Alto
15 52 (1.03%) Remedy
16 50 (0.99%) CyberArk
17 46 (0.91%) HP
18 44 (0.87%) Adobe
19 41 (0.81%) Veeam