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 10 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
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 9 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,342 3,985 5,767
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.59% 13.48% 12.89%
As % of the Vendors category 28.60% 28.70% 29.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,590 2,646 3,864
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 £587 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £439 £450
% change year-on-year +2.62% -2.56% -3.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 373 183 440
10th Percentile £13.28 £14.99 £11.06
25th Percentile £16.24 £17.87 £13.25
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.80 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -16.34% +48.19% -24.32%
75th Percentile £25.62 £33.75 £26.50
90th Percentile £63.75 £62.90 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.38 £22.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -13.89% +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 18,681 13,883 19,308
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.03% 46.96% 43.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,975 8,628 12,043
10th Percentile £306 £285 £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 -1.56% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 936 450 1,032
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.62 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.02 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.00 £29.00 £24.65
Median % change year-on-year -13.79% +17.65% -29.57%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £53.56
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.93 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.68 £27.50 £23.00
% change year-on-year -17.53% +19.57% -29.23%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 0 4,689 £492 +3.58% 3,174
UK excluding London 0 2,844 £450 +2.62% 2,860
London -2 1,992 £513 +2.50% 731
Work from Home -1 1,330 £500 - 1,211
North of England -1 745 £433 -3.78% 677
South East -1 638 £478 -3.19% 889
Midlands -6 508 £450 +5.88% 440
North West -2 423 £415 -7.78% 361
East of England +1 353 £400 -8.57% 302
West Midlands -9 351 £475 +9.45% 219
South West -1 344 £525 +10.53% 304
Yorkshire +1 293 £450 +9.09% 217
Scotland +1 179 £459 +22.33% 179
East Midlands 0 153 £418 +4.38% 216
Wales +2 97 £310 -17.33% 108
North East -18 35 £450 +28.57% 112
Northern Ireland -1 22 £463 +42.31% 27
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
1 603 (11.29%) SharePoint
2 424 (7.94%) Microsoft Exchange
3 112 (2.10%) Confluence
4 34 (0.64%) Skype for Business
5 23 (0.43%) CMS
6 22 (0.41%) Apache Spark
7 20 (0.37%) Apache
8 17 (0.32%) HCL Notes
9 16 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
10 12 (0.22%) IIS
10 12 (0.22%) SAS
11 10 (0.19%) Mendix
12 7 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
13 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
14 5 (0.094%) Exchange Server 2010
14 5 (0.094%) Exchange Server 2013
14 5 (0.094%) Oracle Application Server
15 3 (0.056%) Camunda
15 3 (0.056%) Drupal
15 3 (0.056%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 613 (11.48%) Microsoft Office
2 504 (9.43%) Microsoft Excel
3 223 (4.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 124 (2.32%) Microsoft Project
5 103 (1.93%) 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%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.037%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 195 (3.65%) Dynamics CRM
2 49 (0.92%) SAP S/4HANA
3 24 (0.45%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.34%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.26%) Dynamics AX
5 14 (0.26%) Maximo
6 13 (0.24%) Aladdin
7 12 (0.22%) Loan IQ
7 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.19%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 9 (0.17%) NetSuite
9 9 (0.17%) Teamcenter
10 8 (0.15%) Sage X3
11 7 (0.13%) Advent Geneva
11 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
11 7 (0.13%) Primavera
11 7 (0.13%) Shopify
12 6 (0.11%) SystmOne
13 5 (0.094%) Salesforce CRM
13 5 (0.094%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 2,163 (40.49%) Azure
2 1,377 (25.78%) Microsoft 365
3 869 (16.27%) Power Platform
4 703 (13.16%) Entra ID
5 449 (8.41%) AWS
6 419 (7.84%) Azure DevOps
7 414 (7.75%) Dynamics 365
8 344 (6.44%) Power Automate
9 311 (5.82%) PowerApps
10 281 (5.26%) Microsoft Purview
11 244 (4.57%) GitHub
12 209 (3.91%) OneDrive
13 195 (3.65%) Microsoft Copilot
14 189 (3.54%) Serverless
15 187 (3.50%) Azure Data Factory
16 182 (3.41%) SaaS
17 170 (3.18%) GCP
18 151 (2.83%) PaaS
19 150 (2.81%) Azure Synapse Analytics
20 142 (2.66%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 295 (5.52%) DNS
2 293 (5.48%) Firewall
3 202 (3.78%) VPN
4 178 (3.33%) DHCP
5 144 (2.70%) Wi-Fi
6 134 (2.51%) WAN
7 124 (2.32%) TCP/IP
8 117 (2.19%) LAN
9 112 (2.10%) Network Security
10 60 (1.12%) Skype
11 58 (1.09%) Kerberos
12 54 (1.01%) VLAN
13 44 (0.82%) Wireless
14 41 (0.77%) Unified Communications
15 38 (0.71%) SD-WAN
16 33 (0.62%) HTTP
17 31 (0.58%) SSL
18 30 (0.56%) MPLS
19 29 (0.54%) Internet
19 29 (0.54%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 529 (9.90%) Power BI
2 249 (4.66%) SQL Server
3 167 (3.13%) Data Warehouse
4 144 (2.70%) Data Lake
5 107 (2.00%) Azure SQL Database
6 102 (1.91%) PostgreSQL
7 101 (1.89%) Metadata
8 74 (1.39%) Relational Database
9 68 (1.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 55 (1.03%) Oracle Database
11 50 (0.94%) MySQL
11 50 (0.94%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 49 (0.92%) NoSQL
13 41 (0.77%) Power Query
14 40 (0.75%) Tableau
15 32 (0.60%) Delta Lake
16 31 (0.58%) Star Schema
17 27 (0.51%) Oracle Reports
18 22 (0.41%) Spark SQL
18 22 (0.41%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 241 (4.51%) JIRA
2 171 (3.20%) Git
3 76 (1.42%) GitLab
4 70 (1.31%) Jenkins
5 27 (0.51%) Eclipse
6 23 (0.43%) MSI
6 23 (0.43%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.41%) Postman
8 20 (0.37%) Artifactory
9 17 (0.32%) JMeter
10 16 (0.30%) Selenium
11 15 (0.28%) Android Studio
12 14 (0.26%) Cucumber
13 13 (0.24%) Browser DevTools
14 12 (0.22%) Bitbucket
14 12 (0.22%) JUnit
14 12 (0.22%) MLflow
14 12 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
14 12 (0.22%) Xcode
15 9 (0.17%) SpecFlow
General
1 2,009 (37.61%) Social Skills
2 1,024 (19.17%) Finance
3 656 (12.28%) Analytical Skills
4 536 (10.03%) Public Sector
5 253 (4.74%) Banking
6 249 (4.66%) Organisational Skills
7 232 (4.34%) Legal
8 164 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
9 123 (2.30%) Manufacturing
10 114 (2.13%) Presentation Skills
11 97 (1.82%) Marketing
12 90 (1.68%) Telecoms
13 71 (1.33%) Retail
14 70 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 62 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
16 55 (1.03%) Military
17 53 (0.99%) Law
18 44 (0.82%) Investment Banking
18 44 (0.82%) Local Government
19 42 (0.79%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 624 (11.68%) Architect
2 623 (11.66%) Analyst
3 515 (9.64%) Developer
4 420 (7.86%) Senior
5 361 (6.76%) IT Support
6 286 (5.35%) Support Engineer
7 283 (5.30%) Consultant
8 279 (5.22%) Lead
9 189 (3.54%) IT Engineer
10 188 (3.52%) Solutions Architect
11 184 (3.44%) Azure Engineer
12 181 (3.39%) Data Engineer
13 167 (3.13%) Business Analyst
14 166 (3.11%) Administrator
15 163 (3.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 160 (3.00%) Project Manager
17 144 (2.70%) IT Support Engineer
18 123 (2.30%) Security Engineer
19 114 (2.13%) Support Analyst
20 102 (1.91%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 257 (4.81%) .NET
2 180 (3.37%) REST
3 125 (2.34%) Microsoft Graph
3 125 (2.34%) OAuth
4 108 (2.02%) SAML
5 96 (1.80%) React
6 88 (1.65%) OpenID
7 79 (1.48%) PySpark
8 77 (1.44%) RESTful
9 71 (1.33%) JSON
10 70 (1.31%) LDAP
11 68 (1.27%) AngularJS
12 67 (1.25%) HTML
13 61 (1.14%) ARM Templates
13 61 (1.14%) Middleware
13 61 (1.14%) Web Services
14 60 (1.12%) CSS
15 55 (1.03%) OAuth2
16 53 (0.99%) Node.js
17 45 (0.84%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 291 (5.45%) Onboarding
2 212 (3.97%) Cloud Native
3 163 (3.05%) Product Ownership
4 134 (2.51%) Management Information System
5 109 (2.04%) Enterprise Software
6 95 (1.78%) Data Centre
7 93 (1.74%) Security Posture
8 88 (1.65%) PKI
9 86 (1.61%) Self-Motivation
10 85 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
11 75 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
11 75 (1.40%) Low-Code
12 73 (1.37%) Replication
13 64 (1.20%) AI Agents
14 63 (1.18%) Data Protection Act
14 63 (1.18%) Driving Licence
15 59 (1.10%) Virtual Team
16 56 (1.05%) Data Structures
16 56 (1.05%) NHS
17 53 (0.99%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1,234 (23.10%) Windows
2 357 (6.68%) Windows 10
3 289 (5.41%) Linux
4 276 (5.17%) Windows Server
5 104 (1.95%) Mac OS
6 101 (1.89%) Android
7 94 (1.76%) Apple iOS
8 57 (1.07%) Unix
9 44 (0.82%) Windows 7
10 43 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
11 38 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 23 (0.43%) VMS
13 21 (0.39%) Windows Server 2003
13 21 (0.39%) Windows Server 2012
14 19 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
15 9 (0.17%) CentOS
16 8 (0.15%) AIX
16 8 (0.15%) Ubuntu
17 5 (0.094%) Windows 8
17 5 (0.094%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,003 (18.78%) Problem-Solving
2 869 (16.27%) Agile
3 816 (15.28%) DevOps
4 713 (13.35%) Migration
5 687 (12.86%) CI/CD
6 624 (11.68%) Business Intelligence
7 610 (11.42%) Analytics
8 537 (10.05%) Stakeholder Management
9 474 (8.87%) AI
10 470 (8.80%) Continuous Improvement
11 445 (8.33%) Customer Service
12 436 (8.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 427 (7.99%) ITIL
14 379 (7.09%) Cybersecurity
15 343 (6.42%) Data Modelling
16 315 (5.90%) Roadmaps
17 300 (5.62%) Change Management
17 300 (5.62%) Project Management
18 299 (5.60%) Project Delivery
19 295 (5.52%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 693 (12.97%) SQL
2 680 (12.73%) PowerShell
3 627 (11.74%) Python
4 276 (5.17%) C#
5 223 (4.17%) JavaScript
6 152 (2.85%) Java
7 121 (2.27%) Bicep
8 111 (2.08%) Kusto Query Language
9 109 (2.04%) Bash
10 86 (1.61%) TypeScript
11 70 (1.31%) T-SQL
12 67 (1.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 33 (0.62%) PL/SQL
14 29 (0.54%) C++
15 27 (0.51%) Perl
16 25 (0.47%) VBA
17 23 (0.43%) VB
18 20 (0.37%) Shell Script
19 17 (0.32%) VBScript
20 16 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 1,078 (20.18%) Security Cleared
2 815 (15.26%) SC Cleared
3 544 (10.18%) Degree
4 317 (5.93%) Microsoft Certification
5 219 (4.10%) DV Cleared
6 187 (3.50%) Azure Certification
7 121 (2.27%) Computer Science Degree
8 110 (2.06%) CISSP
9 97 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
10 60 (1.12%) Cisco Certification
10 60 (1.12%) CISM
11 58 (1.09%) Master's Degree
12 55 (1.03%) PMI Certification
13 48 (0.90%) PMP
14 46 (0.86%) AWS Certification
15 44 (0.82%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 43 (0.80%) MCSE
17 37 (0.69%) ITIL Certification
18 32 (0.60%) A+ Certification
18 32 (0.60%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 242 (4.53%) GDPR
2 213 (3.99%) Data Quality
3 158 (2.96%) QA
4 156 (2.92%) SLA
5 152 (2.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 117 (2.19%) PMO
7 115 (2.15%) NIST
8 78 (1.46%) Accessibility
9 55 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials
10 38 (0.71%) NCSC
10 38 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 28 (0.52%) PCI DSS
12 23 (0.43%) GRC
13 22 (0.41%) WCAG
14 21 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 19 (0.36%) EU AI Act
16 17 (0.32%) MiFID
17 14 (0.26%) SOC 2
18 13 (0.24%) FINRA
18 13 (0.24%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,091 (20.42%) Active Directory
2 211 (3.95%) Docker
3 172 (3.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 76 (1.42%) Hyper-V
5 68 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
6 46 (0.86%) Virtual Desktop
7 35 (0.66%) vSphere
8 32 (0.60%) VMware ESXi
9 20 (0.37%) BitLocker
9 20 (0.37%) VMware NSX
10 16 (0.30%) Firmware
11 12 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
12 6 (0.11%) RACF
12 6 (0.11%) Snort
13 5 (0.094%) Oracle RAC
14 4 (0.075%) KVM
14 4 (0.075%) VMware Workstation
15 3 (0.056%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 3 (0.056%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.056%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 426 (7.97%) Microsoft Intune
2 329 (6.16%) Terraform
3 254 (4.75%) Kubernetes
4 248 (4.64%) SCCM
5 149 (2.79%) Single Sign-On
6 109 (2.04%) Ansible
7 103 (1.93%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 42 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
9 40 (0.75%) Grafana
10 35 (0.66%) vCenter Server
11 34 (0.64%) Prometheus
12 25 (0.47%) SCOM
13 24 (0.45%) FortiGate
14 17 (0.32%) Puppet
14 17 (0.32%) WSUS
15 14 (0.26%) AirWatch
16 13 (0.24%) WMI
17 12 (0.22%) CASB
17 12 (0.22%) Nessus
17 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
Vendors
1 269 (5.04%) ServiceNow
2 256 (4.79%) VMware
3 199 (3.73%) Databricks
4 196 (3.67%) SAP
5 185 (3.46%) Oracle
6 183 (3.43%) Cisco
7 151 (2.83%) Google
8 136 (2.55%) Citrix
9 111 (2.08%) Splunk
10 91 (1.70%) OpenAI
11 83 (1.55%) Salesforce
12 70 (1.31%) Foundry
13 69 (1.29%) Apple
14 59 (1.10%) CrowdStrike
15 56 (1.05%) Palo Alto
16 51 (0.95%) HP
17 45 (0.84%) Okta
18 38 (0.71%) Adobe
18 38 (0.71%) CyberArk
19 37 (0.69%) Red Hat