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 September 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 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 7,113 4,679 5,034
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.14% 14.31% 13.11%
As % of the Vendors category 31.46% 30.36% 29.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,552 3,019 3,162
10th Percentile £213 £206 £200
25th Percentile £371 £338 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £435 £450
% change year-on-year +3.57% -3.44% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 551 380 284
10th Percentile £13.35 £13.97 £14.16
25th Percentile £14.82 £16.50 £15.15
Median hourly rate £19.00 £22.32 £17.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.86% +31.26% -23.60%
75th Percentile £33.75 £31.40 £44.16
90th Percentile £67.50 £65.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £20.80 £16.23
% change year-on-year -11.04% +28.13% -16.77%

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 22,611 15,412 16,967
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.77% 47.15% 44.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,874 9,444 10,224
10th Percentile £313 £275 £290
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £613 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,249 781 690
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.54 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.72 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £27.00 £25.15 £30.80
Median % change year-on-year +7.36% -18.33% -28.38%
75th Percentile £62.50 £43.21 £63.75
90th Percentile £80.01 £67.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £21.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year +24.48% -30.00% -25.00%

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 September 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 September 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 September 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 6,159 £488 +2.63% 9,096
UK excluding London 0 3,815 £450 +3.57% 6,476
London 0 2,671 £515 +3.00% 3,795
Work from Home +4 1,822 £500 - 3,771
South East 0 993 £475 +5.56% 1,657
North of England -5 954 £456 +5.67% 1,558
Midlands 0 652 £430 +7.50% 1,045
North West -2 563 £450 +4.05% 808
South West -1 456 £470 +15.69% 707
West Midlands -3 439 £430 +1.18% 595
Scotland +5 375 £450 - 534
Yorkshire -6 348 £475 +8.88% 534
East of England 0 272 £345 -34.29% 641
East Midlands +3 206 £425 +17.65% 448
Wales +2 107 £413 +37.50% 190
North East -28 47 £425 +25.07% 241
Northern Ireland -1 37 £350 - 236
Channel Islands -4 4 £525 -27.59% 5

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
1 863 (12.13%) SharePoint
2 403 (5.67%) Microsoft Exchange
3 148 (2.08%) Confluence
4 38 (0.53%) Apache
5 37 (0.52%) Apache Spark
6 31 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
7 27 (0.38%) CMS
8 24 (0.34%) IIS
9 23 (0.32%) Skype for Business
10 17 (0.24%) HCL Notes
10 17 (0.24%) SharePoint Server
11 15 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
12 10 (0.14%) nginx
13 9 (0.13%) SAS
14 7 (0.098%) Apache Superset
15 6 (0.084%) Mendix
15 6 (0.084%) SharePoint 2013
15 6 (0.084%) ThingWorx
16 5 (0.070%) Camunda
16 5 (0.070%) Exchange Server 2010
Applications
1 747 (10.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 735 (10.33%) Microsoft Office
3 311 (4.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 193 (2.71%) Microsoft Project
5 111 (1.56%) MS Visio
6 50 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
7 29 (0.41%) Chatbot
8 15 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 13 (0.18%) AutoCAD
10 10 (0.14%) ProjectWise
11 9 (0.13%) Navisworks
11 9 (0.13%) Revit
12 5 (0.070%) Trello
13 4 (0.056%) Adobe Illustrator
13 4 (0.056%) Photoshop
14 3 (0.042%) Adobe Premiere
14 3 (0.042%) Final Cut Pro
15 2 (0.028%) Acrobat
15 2 (0.028%) MicroStation
15 2 (0.028%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 255 (3.58%) Dynamics CRM
2 82 (1.15%) SAP S/4HANA
3 31 (0.44%) Remedy ITSM
4 26 (0.37%) Dynamics NAV
5 22 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
6 20 (0.28%) NetSuite
7 15 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
8 13 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.17%) Dynamics AX
9 12 (0.17%) Primavera
10 11 (0.15%) Magento
11 10 (0.14%) Integrated Workplace Management System
12 8 (0.11%) Aladdin
12 8 (0.11%) iTrent
12 8 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
13 7 (0.098%) SAP CRM
13 7 (0.098%) SAP MM
13 7 (0.098%) SAP PSCD
14 6 (0.084%) Maximo
14 6 (0.084%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 2,932 (41.22%) Azure
2 1,815 (25.52%) Microsoft 365
3 1,270 (17.85%) Power Platform
4 1,091 (15.34%) Entra ID
5 656 (9.22%) AWS
6 605 (8.51%) Dynamics 365
7 603 (8.48%) Azure DevOps
8 433 (6.09%) Power Automate
9 422 (5.93%) Microsoft Copilot
10 382 (5.37%) PowerApps
11 306 (4.30%) Microsoft Purview
12 296 (4.16%) GitHub
13 273 (3.84%) OneDrive
14 253 (3.56%) GCP
15 240 (3.37%) SaaS
16 193 (2.71%) Serverless
17 187 (2.63%) Azure Data Factory
18 170 (2.39%) Azure Monitor
19 163 (2.29%) Azure Logic Apps
20 157 (2.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 389 (5.47%) DNS
2 332 (4.67%) Firewall
3 287 (4.03%) VPN
4 259 (3.64%) DHCP
5 201 (2.83%) TCP/IP
6 163 (2.29%) WAN
7 159 (2.24%) Network Security
8 144 (2.02%) LAN
9 141 (1.98%) Wi-Fi
10 74 (1.04%) VLAN
11 64 (0.90%) Wireless
12 48 (0.67%) SAN
13 41 (0.58%) SSL
14 39 (0.55%) Skype
15 37 (0.52%) MPLS
16 32 (0.45%) Unified Communications
17 30 (0.42%) BGP
18 29 (0.41%) Internet
18 29 (0.41%) Kerberos
18 29 (0.41%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 784 (11.02%) Power BI
2 414 (5.82%) SQL Server
3 177 (2.49%) Data Warehouse
4 155 (2.18%) Metadata
5 150 (2.11%) Data Lake
6 132 (1.86%) PostgreSQL
7 118 (1.66%) Azure SQL Database
8 85 (1.19%) Power Query
9 77 (1.08%) Relational Database
10 69 (0.97%) MySQL
11 67 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 48 (0.67%) NoSQL
13 47 (0.66%) Oracle Database
14 45 (0.63%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 44 (0.62%) Star Schema
16 38 (0.53%) Tableau
17 37 (0.52%) Delta Lake
18 30 (0.42%) MongoDB
19 28 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
20 21 (0.30%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 339 (4.77%) JIRA
2 232 (3.26%) Git
3 94 (1.32%) Jenkins
4 71 (1.00%) GitLab
5 59 (0.83%) Visual Studio
6 44 (0.62%) MSI
7 36 (0.51%) Selenium
8 21 (0.30%) Claude Code
9 20 (0.28%) Postman
10 17 (0.24%) Cypress.io
11 16 (0.22%) WebDriver
12 15 (0.21%) Eclipse
12 15 (0.21%) Team Foundation Server
13 14 (0.20%) MLflow
14 13 (0.18%) Cucumber
15 12 (0.17%) Visual Studio Code
16 11 (0.15%) Bitbucket
16 11 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
16 11 (0.15%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
17 10 (0.14%) Artifactory
General
1 2,616 (36.78%) Social Skills
2 1,419 (19.95%) Finance
3 919 (12.92%) Analytical Skills
4 631 (8.87%) Public Sector
5 417 (5.86%) Organisational Skills
6 318 (4.47%) Banking
7 226 (3.18%) Legal
8 200 (2.81%) Documentation Skills
9 181 (2.54%) Manufacturing
10 171 (2.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 152 (2.14%) Retail
12 122 (1.72%) Telecoms
13 110 (1.55%) Marketing
14 99 (1.39%) Law
15 97 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
16 92 (1.29%) Military
17 87 (1.22%) Local Government
18 85 (1.19%) Aerospace
19 67 (0.94%) Presentation Skills
20 59 (0.83%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 829 (11.65%) Architect
2 717 (10.08%) Analyst
3 627 (8.81%) Developer
4 622 (8.74%) Senior
5 484 (6.80%) Lead
6 458 (6.44%) Consultant
7 448 (6.30%) IT Support
8 428 (6.02%) Support Engineer
9 294 (4.13%) IT Engineer
10 291 (4.09%) Administrator
11 273 (3.84%) Solutions Architect
12 252 (3.54%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 245 (3.44%) Data Engineer
14 242 (3.40%) Azure Engineer
15 241 (3.39%) IT Support Engineer
16 232 (3.26%) Project Manager
17 183 (2.57%) Business Analyst
18 179 (2.52%) Cloud Engineer
19 137 (1.93%) DevOps Engineer
20 132 (1.86%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 525 (7.38%) Terraform
2 340 (4.78%) .NET
3 270 (3.80%) REST
4 135 (1.90%) JSON
5 128 (1.80%) OAuth
6 110 (1.55%) PySpark
7 108 (1.52%) XML
8 102 (1.43%) SAML
9 99 (1.39%) Microsoft Graph
10 98 (1.38%) OpenID
11 93 (1.31%) ARM Templates
12 88 (1.24%) React
13 85 (1.19%) Web Services
14 83 (1.17%) .NET Framework
15 77 (1.08%) LDAP
16 73 (1.03%) OAuth2
17 72 (1.01%) RESTful
18 71 (1.00%) HTML
18 71 (1.00%) SailPoint
19 65 (0.91%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 555 (7.80%) Onboarding
2 301 (4.23%) Cloud Native
3 269 (3.78%) Management Information System
4 212 (2.98%) Product Ownership
5 208 (2.92%) Enterprise Software
6 157 (2.21%) Hybrid Cloud
7 151 (2.12%) PKI
8 148 (2.08%) AI Agents
9 146 (2.05%) Data Centre
10 131 (1.84%) Security Posture
11 129 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
12 93 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
12 93 (1.31%) Data Structures
13 91 (1.28%) Self-Motivation
14 84 (1.18%) CMDB
15 82 (1.15%) Driving Licence
16 79 (1.11%) Low-Code
17 78 (1.10%) Virtual Team
18 71 (1.00%) Replication
19 68 (0.96%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1,527 (21.47%) Windows
2 456 (6.41%) Windows Server
3 375 (5.27%) Windows 10
4 343 (4.82%) Linux
5 149 (2.09%) Mac OS
6 132 (1.86%) Android
7 125 (1.76%) Apple iOS
8 64 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 48 (0.67%) Unix
10 42 (0.59%) Windows 7
11 39 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
12 38 (0.53%) Ubuntu
13 35 (0.49%) Windows Server 2016
14 31 (0.44%) VMS
15 22 (0.31%) CentOS
16 21 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
17 19 (0.27%) Solaris
18 12 (0.17%) SUSE
19 9 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
20 7 (0.098%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,334 (18.75%) Problem-Solving
2 1,297 (18.23%) Stakeholder Management
3 1,095 (15.39%) DevOps
4 1,087 (15.28%) Agile
5 981 (13.79%) Migration
6 932 (13.10%) CI/CD
7 895 (12.58%) Continuous Improvement
8 835 (11.74%) AI
9 813 (11.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 789 (11.09%) Business Intelligence
11 734 (10.32%) Analytics
12 698 (9.81%) ITIL
13 669 (9.41%) Customer Service
14 559 (7.86%) Infrastructure as Code
15 555 (7.80%) Cybersecurity
16 531 (7.47%) Roadmaps
17 513 (7.21%) Data Modelling
18 490 (6.89%) Project Delivery
19 476 (6.69%) Decision-Making
20 458 (6.44%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 861 (12.10%) SQL
2 788 (11.08%) PowerShell
3 727 (10.22%) Python
4 345 (4.85%) C#
5 263 (3.70%) JavaScript
6 205 (2.88%) Bicep
7 169 (2.38%) Bash
8 168 (2.36%) Java
9 113 (1.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 110 (1.55%) T-SQL
11 105 (1.48%) TypeScript
12 71 (1.00%) Kusto Query Language
13 30 (0.42%) VBA
14 29 (0.41%) VB
15 27 (0.38%) C++
16 25 (0.35%) VBScript
17 23 (0.32%) PL/SQL
17 23 (0.32%) X++
18 19 (0.27%) R
19 16 (0.22%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,541 (21.66%) Security Cleared
2 1,150 (16.17%) SC Cleared
3 637 (8.96%) Degree
4 373 (5.24%) Microsoft Certification
5 297 (4.18%) DV Cleared
6 268 (3.77%) Azure Certification
7 185 (2.60%) BPSS Clearance
8 139 (1.95%) CISSP
9 130 (1.83%) Cisco Certification
10 117 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
11 96 (1.35%) PMP
12 88 (1.24%) PMI Certification
13 76 (1.07%) CISM
14 73 (1.03%) AWS Certification
15 59 (0.83%) A+ Certification
15 59 (0.83%) DBS Check
15 59 (0.83%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 55 (0.77%) CCNP
17 46 (0.65%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 46 (0.65%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 428 (6.02%) Data Quality
2 246 (3.46%) QA
3 231 (3.25%) GDPR
4 201 (2.83%) SLA
5 200 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 199 (2.80%) PMO
7 175 (2.46%) NIST
8 119 (1.67%) Accessibility
9 89 (1.25%) Cyber Essentials
10 88 (1.24%) NCSC
11 56 (0.79%) GRC
12 46 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 43 (0.60%) WCAG
14 37 (0.52%) PCI DSS
15 30 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 22 (0.31%) Disclosure Scotland
17 20 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
18 19 (0.27%) SOC 2
19 16 (0.22%) P3O
20 15 (0.21%) GMP
System Software
1 1,329 (18.68%) Active Directory
2 265 (3.73%) VMware Infrastructure
3 255 (3.58%) Docker
4 143 (2.01%) Hyper-V
5 128 (1.80%) Virtual Desktop
6 103 (1.45%) Virtual Machines
7 67 (0.94%) vSphere
8 62 (0.87%) VMware ESXi
9 33 (0.46%) BitLocker
10 18 (0.25%) Microsoft App-V
11 17 (0.24%) VMware NSX
12 14 (0.20%) Firmware
13 9 (0.13%) IAG
13 9 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
14 8 (0.11%) NFS
15 7 (0.098%) Oracle RAC
15 7 (0.098%) zsh
16 5 (0.070%) Citrix Hypervisor
16 5 (0.070%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 5 (0.070%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 565 (7.94%) Microsoft Intune
2 337 (4.74%) Kubernetes
3 294 (4.13%) SCCM
4 168 (2.36%) Ansible
5 135 (1.90%) Single Sign-On
6 60 (0.84%) Jamf Pro
7 59 (0.83%) Grafana
8 54 (0.76%) SCOM
9 48 (0.67%) vCenter Server
10 37 (0.52%) Prometheus
11 36 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 28 (0.39%) WSUS
13 27 (0.38%) QRadar
14 22 (0.31%) Progress Chef
15 21 (0.30%) FortiGate
16 19 (0.27%) Puppet
17 18 (0.25%) Failover Clustering
18 16 (0.22%) Argo
19 15 (0.21%) WMI
20 14 (0.20%) CASB
Vendors
1 533 (7.49%) ServiceNow
2 344 (4.84%) Oracle
2 344 (4.84%) VMware
3 289 (4.06%) SAP
4 249 (3.50%) Google
5 244 (3.43%) Databricks
6 239 (3.36%) Cisco
7 128 (1.80%) Salesforce
8 124 (1.74%) Splunk
9 109 (1.53%) Apple
10 98 (1.38%) CyberArk
11 91 (1.28%) Citrix
12 86 (1.21%) Okta
13 82 (1.15%) BeyondTrust
14 81 (1.14%) OpenAI
15 79 (1.11%) Foundry
16 75 (1.05%) CrowdStrike
17 66 (0.93%) Red Hat
18 55 (0.77%) Adobe
19 54 (0.76%) Zscaler