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 29 October 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
29 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 +4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 4,896 4,828 6,329
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 14.32% 13.12% 13.48%
As % of the Vendors category 30.09% 29.23% 29.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,197 2,998 4,388
10th Percentile £205 £200 £198
25th Percentile £338 £350 £340
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £623
90th Percentile £669 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £440 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -2.22% - +1.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 397 230 264
10th Percentile £14.05 £15.00 £13.35
25th Percentile £16.75 £15.62 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.00 £21.78 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.03% -3.22% +17.86%
75th Percentile £31.00 £44.39 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £55.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.00 £18.75 £22.00
% change year-on-year +12.00% -14.77% +22.22%

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 16,269 16,520 21,176
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.59% 44.90% 45.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,102 9,719 13,636
10th Percentile £281 £290 £262
25th Percentile £405 £413 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% - -1.41%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - +2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 826 532 678
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.00 £14.57
25th Percentile £17.87 £16.85 £19.15
Median hourly rate £25.00 £32.50 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year -23.08% -25.71% +75.00%
75th Percentile £39.31 £63.75 £63.64
90th Percentile £68.72 £70.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.01 £30.00 £41.50
% change year-on-year -26.63% -27.71% +93.02%

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 29 October 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 29 October 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 29 October 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 -1 4,264 £475 -4.04% 5,269
UK excluding London -1 2,759 £440 -2.22% 4,670
London -2 1,740 £500 -0.73% 1,584
Work from Home -3 1,233 £500 - 2,082
North of England +5 735 £437 -2.89% 1,066
South East +2 594 £450 -3.23% 1,764
Midlands -2 471 £415 -2.35% 666
North West +4 432 £433 -3.89% 639
South West +1 361 £475 -5.00% 412
West Midlands -2 308 £450 +3.45% 378
Yorkshire +8 274 £450 -5.26% 281
East of England 0 269 £500 +25.00% 448
Scotland -2 245 £445 +30.88% 210
East Midlands +1 158 £375 -6.25% 283
Wales 0 75 £300 +0.84% 159
Northern Ireland +1 52 £350 -26.32% 40
North East -3 31 £369 +48.99% 160
Channel Islands -2 3 £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
1 506 (10.33%) SharePoint
2 364 (7.43%) Microsoft Exchange
3 107 (2.19%) Confluence
4 64 (1.31%) Skype for Business
5 38 (0.78%) CMS
6 35 (0.71%) Apache
7 31 (0.63%) IIS
8 23 (0.47%) Exchange Server 2013
9 22 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
10 20 (0.41%) WebSphere
11 18 (0.37%) JBoss
11 18 (0.37%) Mattermost
11 18 (0.37%) SharePoint Server
12 17 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2010
13 16 (0.33%) Apache Spark
14 15 (0.31%) SAS
15 12 (0.25%) HCL Notes
16 11 (0.22%) Tomcat
16 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
17 10 (0.20%) iPlanet
Applications
1 605 (12.36%) Microsoft Office
2 570 (11.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 252 (5.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 122 (2.49%) Microsoft Project
5 101 (2.06%) MS Visio
6 33 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.27%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 13 (0.27%) Chatbot
8 12 (0.25%) Adobe Captivate
9 7 (0.14%) Sketch
9 7 (0.14%) Trello
10 6 (0.12%) Maya
11 4 (0.082%) AutoCAD
12 3 (0.061%) Adobe Premiere
12 3 (0.061%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.061%) Siemens NX
12 3 (0.061%) Windchill
13 2 (0.041%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.041%) Oracle Smart View
13 2 (0.041%) Revit
Business Applications
1 166 (3.39%) Dynamics CRM
2 38 (0.78%) SAP S/4HANA
3 37 (0.76%) Remedy ITSM
4 19 (0.39%) Dynamics AX
5 12 (0.25%) Aladdin
5 12 (0.25%) Maximo
6 10 (0.20%) Teamcenter
7 9 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
7 9 (0.18%) Workday HCM
8 8 (0.16%) NetSuite
9 7 (0.14%) assyst
9 7 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
9 7 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
10 6 (0.12%) Endur
10 6 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
10 6 (0.12%) Primavera
10 6 (0.12%) SAP ERP
10 6 (0.12%) SAP PM
11 5 (0.10%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 1,674 (34.19%) Azure
2 1,086 (22.18%) Microsoft 365
3 698 (14.26%) Power Platform
4 525 (10.72%) Entra ID
5 442 (9.03%) AWS
6 342 (6.99%) Dynamics 365
7 317 (6.47%) Azure DevOps
8 281 (5.74%) Power Automate
9 270 (5.51%) PowerApps
10 169 (3.45%) GCP
11 164 (3.35%) SaaS
12 151 (3.08%) GitHub
12 151 (3.08%) Microsoft Purview
13 144 (2.94%) OneDrive
14 137 (2.80%) Serverless
15 131 (2.68%) Azure Sentinel
16 109 (2.23%) Azure Data Factory
17 105 (2.14%) PaaS
18 99 (2.02%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 98 (2.00%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 316 (6.45%) Firewall
2 262 (5.35%) DNS
3 163 (3.33%) DHCP
4 156 (3.19%) VPN
5 149 (3.04%) TCP/IP
6 86 (1.76%) Wi-Fi
7 85 (1.74%) WAN
8 82 (1.67%) Network Security
9 71 (1.45%) LAN
10 65 (1.33%) Skype
11 60 (1.23%) SAN
11 60 (1.23%) Wireless
12 46 (0.94%) Unified Communications
13 42 (0.86%) VLAN
14 40 (0.82%) Cisco IOS
14 40 (0.82%) VoIP
15 37 (0.76%) WebEx
16 35 (0.71%) Internet
17 32 (0.65%) Ethernet
18 31 (0.63%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 423 (8.64%) Power BI
2 244 (4.98%) SQL Server
3 122 (2.49%) Data Warehouse
4 80 (1.63%) Data Lake
5 73 (1.49%) Azure SQL Database
5 73 (1.49%) PostgreSQL
6 69 (1.41%) Relational Database
7 68 (1.39%) Metadata
8 63 (1.29%) Oracle Database
9 61 (1.25%) Tableau
10 43 (0.88%) MySQL
11 38 (0.78%) NoSQL
12 31 (0.63%) Power Query
13 29 (0.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 28 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
15 25 (0.51%) Big Data
15 25 (0.51%) Delta Lake
16 24 (0.49%) GIS
16 24 (0.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 21 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 261 (5.33%) JIRA
2 163 (3.33%) Git
3 112 (2.29%) Jenkins
4 66 (1.35%) GitLab
5 39 (0.80%) Eclipse
6 34 (0.69%) Postman
7 31 (0.63%) MSI
7 31 (0.63%) Visual Studio
8 24 (0.49%) Selenium
8 24 (0.49%) Sonatype Nexus
9 21 (0.43%) Browser DevTools
10 20 (0.41%) Xcode
11 17 (0.35%) Android Studio
12 15 (0.31%) SonarQube
13 12 (0.25%) JUnit
14 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket Server
14 11 (0.22%) CA Release Automation
14 11 (0.22%) Maven
14 11 (0.22%) SoapUI
15 10 (0.20%) TeamCity
General
1 1,918 (39.17%) Social Skills
2 1,088 (22.22%) Finance
3 660 (13.48%) Analytical Skills
4 475 (9.70%) Public Sector
5 263 (5.37%) Banking
6 200 (4.08%) Organisational Skills
7 167 (3.41%) Legal
8 141 (2.88%) Documentation Skills
9 133 (2.72%) Manufacturing
10 123 (2.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 121 (2.47%) Presentation Skills
12 103 (2.10%) Telecoms
13 98 (2.00%) Marketing
14 85 (1.74%) Retail
15 69 (1.41%) Local Government
16 67 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
17 45 (0.92%) Front Office
18 43 (0.88%) Military
19 41 (0.84%) Law
20 39 (0.80%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 817 (16.69%) Analyst
2 470 (9.60%) Architect
3 453 (9.25%) Developer
4 321 (6.56%) Support Engineer
5 308 (6.29%) Senior
6 290 (5.92%) Consultant
7 240 (4.90%) Lead
8 229 (4.68%) IT Support
9 189 (3.86%) Support Analyst
10 163 (3.33%) Business Analyst
11 159 (3.25%) Project Manager
12 146 (2.98%) Solutions Architect
13 139 (2.84%) Administrator
14 123 (2.51%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 122 (2.49%) Desktop Support
16 119 (2.43%) Azure Engineer
16 119 (2.43%) IT Engineer
17 117 (2.39%) Data Analyst
18 110 (2.25%) Security Engineer
19 88 (1.80%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 236 (4.82%) .NET
2 147 (3.00%) REST
3 112 (2.29%) OAuth
3 112 (2.29%) React
4 105 (2.14%) HTML
5 96 (1.96%) RESTful
6 93 (1.90%) CSS
7 79 (1.61%) AngularJS
8 78 (1.59%) SAML
9 74 (1.51%) OpenID
10 66 (1.35%) Web Services
11 63 (1.29%) SOAP
12 62 (1.27%) XML
13 58 (1.18%) JSON
14 52 (1.06%) .NET Framework
15 51 (1.04%) LDAP
16 49 (1.00%) Node.js
17 47 (0.96%) Spring
18 46 (0.94%) Microsoft Graph
19 44 (0.90%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 218 (4.45%) Onboarding
2 162 (3.31%) Cloud Native
3 137 (2.80%) Management Information System
4 121 (2.47%) Product Ownership
5 101 (2.06%) Data Centre
6 92 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
7 86 (1.76%) Security Posture
8 83 (1.70%) PKI
9 82 (1.67%) Self-Motivation
10 78 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
11 70 (1.43%) Driving Licence
12 65 (1.33%) Mobile App
13 64 (1.31%) Virtual Team
14 58 (1.18%) Low-Code
15 55 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
16 54 (1.10%) Hybrid Cloud
17 49 (1.00%) Replication
18 45 (0.92%) Cyber Threat
19 42 (0.86%) Algorithms
20 41 (0.84%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 1,233 (25.18%) Windows
2 344 (7.03%) Windows 10
3 287 (5.86%) Linux
4 282 (5.76%) Windows Server
5 141 (2.88%) Mac OS
6 113 (2.31%) Android
7 84 (1.72%) Apple iOS
8 76 (1.55%) Unix
9 56 (1.14%) Windows Server 2019
10 50 (1.02%) Windows Server 2016
11 47 (0.96%) Windows 7
12 26 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 22 (0.45%) Windows Server 2012
14 19 (0.39%) Windows Server 2003
15 16 (0.33%) VMS
16 12 (0.25%) Ubuntu
17 11 (0.22%) CentOS
17 11 (0.22%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.20%) Mac OS X
19 5 (0.10%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,050 (21.45%) Problem-Solving
2 882 (18.01%) Agile
3 681 (13.91%) DevOps
4 577 (11.79%) Migration
5 514 (10.50%) ITIL
6 486 (9.93%) Business Intelligence
7 482 (9.84%) Stakeholder Management
8 478 (9.76%) CI/CD
9 402 (8.21%) Analytics
10 391 (7.99%) Customer Service
11 379 (7.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 362 (7.39%) Project Management
13 361 (7.37%) Continuous Improvement
14 358 (7.31%) Cybersecurity
15 307 (6.27%) Change Management
16 299 (6.11%) AI
17 256 (5.23%) ITSM
18 247 (5.04%) CRM
19 243 (4.96%) Project Delivery
20 233 (4.76%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 639 (13.05%) SQL
2 575 (11.74%) PowerShell
3 505 (10.31%) Python
4 253 (5.17%) C#
5 215 (4.39%) JavaScript
6 173 (3.53%) Java
7 99 (2.02%) Bash
8 94 (1.92%) Bicep
9 87 (1.78%) Kusto Query Language
10 57 (1.16%) TypeScript
11 43 (0.88%) T-SQL
12 39 (0.80%) C++
13 36 (0.74%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 35 (0.71%) Perl
15 33 (0.67%) VB
16 30 (0.61%) Shell Script
17 28 (0.57%) VBA
18 23 (0.47%) Go
19 20 (0.41%) R
20 14 (0.29%) X++
Qualifications
1 870 (17.77%) Security Cleared
2 648 (13.24%) SC Cleared
3 502 (10.25%) Degree
4 344 (7.03%) Microsoft Certification
5 176 (3.59%) Azure Certification
6 174 (3.55%) DV Cleared
7 116 (2.37%) CISSP
8 102 (2.08%) Computer Science Degree
9 93 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
10 75 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
11 59 (1.21%) CISM
12 57 (1.16%) ITIL Certification
13 53 (1.08%) A+ Certification
14 52 (1.06%) MCSE
15 49 (1.00%) CCNA
16 41 (0.84%) Master's Degree
16 41 (0.84%) PMI Certification
17 40 (0.82%) CCNP
17 40 (0.82%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 37 (0.76%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 241 (4.92%) GDPR
2 179 (3.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 156 (3.19%) NIST
4 147 (3.00%) QA
5 132 (2.70%) Data Quality
6 107 (2.19%) PMO
7 94 (1.92%) SLA
8 85 (1.74%) Accessibility
9 46 (0.94%) Cyber Essentials
9 46 (0.94%) HIPAA
10 38 (0.78%) PCI DSS
11 31 (0.63%) NCSC
12 22 (0.45%) EU AI Act
13 21 (0.43%) WCAG
14 19 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 19 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 15 (0.31%) SOC 2
16 14 (0.29%) GRC
17 12 (0.25%) MiFID
18 11 (0.22%) EMIR
System Software
1 1,018 (20.79%) Active Directory
2 186 (3.80%) VMware Infrastructure
3 146 (2.98%) Docker
4 60 (1.23%) Hyper-V
5 50 (1.02%) Virtual Machines
6 49 (1.00%) vSphere
7 44 (0.90%) VMware ESXi
8 38 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
9 26 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
10 25 (0.51%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 20 (0.41%) Firmware
12 17 (0.35%) BitLocker
12 17 (0.35%) NFS
13 15 (0.31%) VMware NSX
14 12 (0.25%) Microsoft App-V
14 12 (0.25%) XenApp
15 11 (0.22%) ISA Server
16 10 (0.20%) Brightmail
17 8 (0.16%) Terminal Services
17 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
Systems Management
1 376 (7.68%) Microsoft Intune
2 330 (6.74%) SCCM
3 222 (4.53%) Terraform
4 194 (3.96%) Kubernetes
5 114 (2.33%) Ansible
6 107 (2.19%) Single Sign-On
7 62 (1.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 52 (1.06%) Jamf Pro
9 46 (0.94%) SCOM
10 38 (0.78%) vCenter Server
11 34 (0.69%) WSUS
12 26 (0.53%) Microsoft Clustering
13 25 (0.51%) Grafana
14 24 (0.49%) Prometheus
15 21 (0.43%) HP SiteScope
15 21 (0.43%) QRadar
16 16 (0.33%) Progress Chef
17 15 (0.31%) Puppet
18 14 (0.29%) Kibana
19 13 (0.27%) WMI
Vendors
1 320 (6.54%) ServiceNow
2 264 (5.39%) VMware
3 245 (5.00%) Cisco
4 239 (4.88%) Oracle
5 224 (4.58%) Splunk
6 192 (3.92%) SAP
7 145 (2.96%) Google
8 120 (2.45%) Citrix
9 113 (2.31%) Salesforce
10 109 (2.23%) Databricks
11 102 (2.08%) Apple
12 67 (1.37%) IBM
13 60 (1.23%) CrowdStrike
14 56 (1.14%) CyberArk
15 55 (1.12%) OpenAI
15 55 (1.12%) Remedy
16 52 (1.06%) HP
17 48 (0.98%) Adobe
18 46 (0.94%) Palo Alto
19 44 (0.90%) NetApp