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 15 July 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
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 6,264 4,502 5,620
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.91% 13.87% 13.15%
As % of the Vendors category 28.90% 29.18% 30.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,110 2,880 3,662
10th Percentile £213 £213 £195
25th Percentile £375 £350 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -2.96% -2.10%
75th Percentile £588 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £696
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £430 £450
% change year-on-year +4.65% -4.44% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 371 348 481
10th Percentile £13.63 £14.20 £11.50
25th Percentile £16.50 £15.84 £14.00
Median hourly rate £21.25 £22.50 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% +38.63% -27.87%
75th Percentile £35.53 £31.00 £26.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £63.40 £61.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.00 £20.77 £16.06
% change year-on-year +1.10% +29.34% -15.32%

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 21,678 15,427 18,451
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.20% 47.54% 43.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,483 9,438 11,509
10th Percentile £313 £281 £270
25th Percentile £413 £402 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +0.10% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,100 748 1,120
10th Percentile £15.99 £14.75 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.30 £15.00
Median hourly rate £35.00 £25.15 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +39.17% +0.60% -38.27%
75th Percentile £65.00 £51.41 £60.83
90th Percentile £83.88 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £22.56 £24.43
% change year-on-year +50.66% -7.65% -18.57%

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 15 July 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 15 July 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 15 July 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 5,430 £495 +4.21% 4,445
UK excluding London -1 3,327 £450 +4.65% 4,275
London -2 2,388 £510 +1.09% 1,116
Work from Home +1 1,621 £500 - 2,864
North of England -5 829 £465 +9.41% 968
South East -2 808 £475 +0.53% 1,181
Midlands -2 579 £448 +15.86% 631
North West -2 463 £450 +3.69% 505
West Midlands -3 403 £450 +14.87% 326
South West -1 400 £475 +10.47% 426
Yorkshire -4 345 £488 +11.43% 333
Scotland +6 313 £450 +1.18% 354
East of England 0 283 £375 -25.00% 495
East Midlands +2 168 £418 +11.33% 303
Wales +2 115 £370 +25.42% 200
Northern Ireland +1 33 £350 -6.04% 133
North East -41 27 £450 +32.35% 145
Channel Islands -1 1 £550 -24.14% 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
1 684 (10.92%) SharePoint
2 389 (6.21%) Microsoft Exchange
3 137 (2.19%) Confluence
4 37 (0.59%) Apache Spark
5 34 (0.54%) Apache
6 30 (0.48%) Apache Airflow
7 21 (0.34%) IIS
8 18 (0.29%) CMS
9 14 (0.22%) HCL Notes
9 14 (0.22%) Skype for Business
10 11 (0.18%) SAS
11 10 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
12 7 (0.11%) nginx
13 6 (0.096%) Camunda
13 6 (0.096%) Jupyter
14 5 (0.080%) OpenEdge
14 5 (0.080%) SharePoint 2013
15 4 (0.064%) Exchange Server 2010
15 4 (0.064%) Liferay
15 4 (0.064%) Tomcat
Applications
1 575 (9.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 571 (9.12%) Microsoft Office
3 249 (3.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 151 (2.41%) Microsoft Project
5 106 (1.69%) MS Visio
6 38 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
7 25 (0.40%) Chatbot
8 13 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.096%) Adobe Illustrator
10 3 (0.048%) Adobe Captivate
10 3 (0.048%) AutoCAD
10 3 (0.048%) Photoshop
10 3 (0.048%) PTC Creo
10 3 (0.048%) SOLIDWORKS
10 3 (0.048%) Trello
11 2 (0.032%) Acrobat
11 2 (0.032%) Adobe Premiere
11 2 (0.032%) Final Cut Pro
11 2 (0.032%) InDesign
11 2 (0.032%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 225 (3.59%) Dynamics CRM
2 74 (1.18%) SAP S/4HANA
3 23 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
4 19 (0.30%) NetSuite
5 18 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
6 16 (0.26%) Aladdin
6 16 (0.26%) Dynamics NAV
7 13 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
8 12 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
9 11 (0.18%) Teamcenter
10 10 (0.16%) Primavera
11 9 (0.14%) Sage X3
11 9 (0.14%) SAP MM
12 8 (0.13%) Loan IQ
13 7 (0.11%) Dynamics AX
13 7 (0.11%) Magento
13 7 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
13 7 (0.11%) SAP PSCD
14 6 (0.096%) iTrent
14 6 (0.096%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 2,612 (41.70%) Azure
2 1,543 (24.63%) Microsoft 365
3 1,063 (16.97%) Power Platform
4 899 (14.35%) Entra ID
5 565 (9.02%) AWS
6 504 (8.05%) Azure DevOps
7 488 (7.79%) Dynamics 365
8 363 (5.80%) Power Automate
9 326 (5.20%) PowerApps
10 322 (5.14%) Microsoft Copilot
11 301 (4.81%) Microsoft Purview
12 257 (4.10%) GitHub
13 230 (3.67%) OneDrive
13 230 (3.67%) SaaS
14 208 (3.32%) GCP
15 157 (2.51%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 154 (2.46%) Azure Data Factory
17 147 (2.35%) PaaS
17 147 (2.35%) Serverless
18 145 (2.31%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 343 (5.48%) DNS
2 295 (4.71%) Firewall
3 237 (3.78%) VPN
4 207 (3.30%) DHCP
5 166 (2.65%) TCP/IP
6 148 (2.36%) WAN
7 145 (2.31%) Wi-Fi
8 137 (2.19%) LAN
9 135 (2.16%) Network Security
10 57 (0.91%) VLAN
11 45 (0.72%) SAN
12 44 (0.70%) Kerberos
13 40 (0.64%) Wireless
14 39 (0.62%) MPLS
14 39 (0.62%) SSL
15 36 (0.57%) Unified Communications
16 34 (0.54%) SD-WAN
17 31 (0.49%) Internet
17 31 (0.49%) VoIP
18 26 (0.42%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 679 (10.84%) Power BI
2 347 (5.54%) SQL Server
3 179 (2.86%) Data Warehouse
4 142 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
5 123 (1.96%) Metadata
6 121 (1.93%) Data Lake
7 118 (1.88%) Azure SQL Database
8 74 (1.18%) Relational Database
9 69 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 63 (1.01%) MySQL
11 59 (0.94%) Power Query
12 50 (0.80%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 44 (0.70%) NoSQL
13 44 (0.70%) Star Schema
14 43 (0.69%) Oracle Database
15 38 (0.61%) Tableau
16 33 (0.53%) Delta Lake
17 31 (0.49%) SQL Server Analysis Services
18 26 (0.42%) Big Data
19 25 (0.40%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 321 (5.12%) JIRA
2 193 (3.08%) Git
3 81 (1.29%) Jenkins
4 56 (0.89%) GitLab
5 40 (0.64%) Visual Studio
6 31 (0.49%) MSI
7 23 (0.37%) Selenium
8 17 (0.27%) Eclipse
9 16 (0.26%) Artifactory
9 16 (0.26%) ERwin
9 16 (0.26%) MLflow
10 15 (0.24%) Postman
11 14 (0.22%) JUnit
12 13 (0.21%) Bitbucket
12 13 (0.21%) Maven
12 13 (0.21%) Team Foundation Server
13 12 (0.19%) Cypress.io
13 12 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
13 12 (0.19%) WebDriver
14 11 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 2,075 (33.13%) Social Skills
2 1,235 (19.72%) Finance
3 732 (11.69%) Analytical Skills
4 588 (9.39%) Public Sector
5 310 (4.95%) Banking
6 268 (4.28%) Organisational Skills
7 230 (3.67%) Legal
8 163 (2.60%) Documentation Skills
9 129 (2.06%) Manufacturing
10 126 (2.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 112 (1.79%) Retail
12 101 (1.61%) Law
13 100 (1.60%) Telecoms
14 90 (1.44%) Marketing
15 82 (1.31%) Military
15 82 (1.31%) Presentation Skills
16 73 (1.17%) Local Government
17 68 (1.09%) Influencing Skills
18 64 (1.02%) Investment Banking
19 46 (0.73%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 741 (11.83%) Architect
2 668 (10.66%) Analyst
3 596 (9.51%) Developer
4 518 (8.27%) Senior
5 435 (6.94%) Lead
6 392 (6.26%) IT Support
7 378 (6.03%) Consultant
8 330 (5.27%) Support Engineer
9 237 (3.78%) IT Engineer
10 236 (3.77%) Solutions Architect
11 232 (3.70%) Data Engineer
12 222 (3.54%) Project Manager
13 213 (3.40%) Azure Engineer
14 198 (3.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 189 (3.02%) IT Support Engineer
16 186 (2.97%) Administrator
17 175 (2.79%) Business Analyst
18 141 (2.25%) Cloud Engineer
19 120 (1.92%) Security Engineer
20 110 (1.76%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 294 (4.69%) .NET
2 227 (3.62%) REST
3 130 (2.08%) Microsoft Graph
4 116 (1.85%) JSON
5 115 (1.84%) OAuth
6 101 (1.61%) PySpark
7 93 (1.48%) SAML
8 87 (1.39%) OpenID
9 85 (1.36%) Web Services
10 83 (1.33%) React
11 80 (1.28%) LDAP
12 79 (1.26%) XML
13 72 (1.15%) .NET Framework
14 63 (1.01%) Node.js
15 62 (0.99%) HTML
16 61 (0.97%) RESTful
16 61 (0.97%) SailPoint
17 58 (0.93%) CSS
17 58 (0.93%) OAuth2
17 58 (0.93%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 375 (5.99%) Onboarding
2 299 (4.77%) Cloud Native
3 180 (2.87%) Product Ownership
4 162 (2.59%) Management Information System
5 134 (2.14%) Legacy Systems
6 132 (2.11%) Enterprise Software
7 127 (2.03%) Data Centre
8 117 (1.87%) PKI
9 116 (1.85%) AI Agents
10 112 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
11 108 (1.72%) Security Posture
12 91 (1.45%) Data Structures
13 88 (1.40%) Self-Motivation
14 82 (1.31%) Virtual Team
15 81 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
16 79 (1.26%) Replication
17 71 (1.13%) Low-Code
18 67 (1.07%) Distributed Systems
19 56 (0.89%) Driving Licence
20 55 (0.88%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 1,324 (21.14%) Windows
2 339 (5.41%) Windows Server
3 320 (5.11%) Windows 10
4 283 (4.52%) Linux
5 131 (2.09%) Mac OS
6 113 (1.80%) Android
7 107 (1.71%) Apple iOS
8 55 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 45 (0.72%) Unix
10 38 (0.61%) Windows Server 2016
11 35 (0.56%) Windows 7
11 35 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
12 29 (0.46%) VMS
13 22 (0.35%) Windows Server 2012
14 20 (0.32%) Ubuntu
15 12 (0.19%) SUSE
16 11 (0.18%) CentOS
17 10 (0.16%) Solaris
18 9 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
19 6 (0.096%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,076 (17.18%) Problem-Solving
2 992 (15.84%) DevOps
3 941 (15.02%) Agile
4 877 (14.00%) Migration
5 806 (12.87%) CI/CD
6 791 (12.63%) Stakeholder Management
7 702 (11.21%) AI
8 692 (11.05%) Business Intelligence
9 656 (10.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 646 (10.31%) Analytics
11 643 (10.27%) Continuous Improvement
12 564 (9.00%) ITIL
13 485 (7.74%) Customer Service
14 462 (7.38%) Data Modelling
15 446 (7.12%) Roadmaps
16 424 (6.77%) Cybersecurity
17 422 (6.74%) Infrastructure as Code
18 406 (6.48%) Decision-Making
19 386 (6.16%) Project Delivery
20 385 (6.15%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 790 (12.61%) SQL
2 677 (10.81%) PowerShell
3 647 (10.33%) Python
4 299 (4.77%) C#
5 224 (3.58%) JavaScript
6 201 (3.21%) Java
7 156 (2.49%) Bicep
8 111 (1.77%) T-SQL
9 102 (1.63%) Bash
10 89 (1.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 86 (1.37%) TypeScript
12 74 (1.18%) Kusto Query Language
13 37 (0.59%) VBA
14 33 (0.53%) C++
15 28 (0.45%) PL/SQL
16 25 (0.40%) VB
17 17 (0.27%) Scala
17 17 (0.27%) VBScript
18 14 (0.22%) R
18 14 (0.22%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 1,256 (20.05%) Security Cleared
2 968 (15.45%) SC Cleared
3 606 (9.67%) Degree
4 309 (4.93%) Microsoft Certification
5 224 (3.58%) DV Cleared
6 214 (3.42%) Azure Certification
7 132 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
8 121 (1.93%) Computer Science Degree
9 119 (1.90%) CISSP
10 112 (1.79%) Cisco Certification
11 74 (1.18%) PMP
12 67 (1.07%) PMI Certification
13 64 (1.02%) AWS Certification
13 64 (1.02%) CISM
14 55 (0.88%) Master's Degree
15 49 (0.78%) CCNP
16 46 (0.73%) DBS Check
17 45 (0.72%) CCNA
18 42 (0.67%) MCSE
19 39 (0.62%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 321 (5.12%) Data Quality
2 222 (3.54%) GDPR
3 209 (3.34%) QA
4 176 (2.81%) SLA
5 161 (2.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 138 (2.20%) NIST
7 134 (2.14%) PMO
8 97 (1.55%) Accessibility
9 79 (1.26%) Cyber Essentials
10 73 (1.17%) NCSC
11 40 (0.64%) GRC
12 33 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 33 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 31 (0.49%) PCI DSS
14 30 (0.48%) WCAG
15 19 (0.30%) Disclosure Scotland
16 17 (0.27%) NIST 800
16 17 (0.27%) SOC 2
17 13 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
18 12 (0.19%) GxP
System Software
1 1,199 (19.14%) Active Directory
2 236 (3.77%) Docker
3 210 (3.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 107 (1.71%) Hyper-V
5 95 (1.52%) Virtual Desktop
6 88 (1.40%) Virtual Machines
7 60 (0.96%) VMware ESXi
8 59 (0.94%) vSphere
9 30 (0.48%) BitLocker
10 22 (0.35%) VMware NSX
11 20 (0.32%) Firmware
11 20 (0.32%) Microsoft App-V
12 9 (0.14%) NFS
13 7 (0.11%) IAG
13 7 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
14 5 (0.080%) RACF
14 5 (0.080%) Terminal Services
14 5 (0.080%) VMware Workstation
15 4 (0.064%) Snort
15 4 (0.064%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 491 (7.84%) Microsoft Intune
2 418 (6.67%) Terraform
3 288 (4.60%) Kubernetes
4 220 (3.51%) SCCM
5 146 (2.33%) Ansible
6 127 (2.03%) Single Sign-On
7 64 (1.02%) Jamf Pro
8 63 (1.01%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 53 (0.85%) vCenter Server
10 49 (0.78%) Grafana
11 38 (0.61%) Prometheus
12 34 (0.54%) SCOM
13 23 (0.37%) Puppet
14 19 (0.30%) WSUS
15 18 (0.29%) FortiGate
15 18 (0.29%) QRadar
16 15 (0.24%) Progress Chef
17 11 (0.18%) Argo
17 11 (0.18%) HAProxy
17 11 (0.18%) vMotion
Vendors
1 410 (6.55%) ServiceNow
2 295 (4.71%) Oracle
3 285 (4.55%) VMware
4 256 (4.09%) SAP
5 205 (3.27%) Databricks
6 202 (3.22%) Cisco
7 194 (3.10%) Google
8 125 (2.00%) Salesforce
9 109 (1.74%) Citrix
10 99 (1.58%) Splunk
11 93 (1.48%) Apple
12 79 (1.26%) Foundry
12 79 (1.26%) Okta
12 79 (1.26%) OpenAI
13 71 (1.13%) CyberArk
14 61 (0.97%) CrowdStrike
15 56 (0.89%) Red Hat
16 48 (0.77%) BeyondTrust
16 48 (0.77%) HP
17 47 (0.75%) Zscaler