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 6 August 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
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 6,511 4,552 5,065
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.21% 13.83% 12.95%
As % of the Vendors category 29.47% 29.25% 29.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,252 2,916 3,304
10th Percentile £213 £213 £200
25th Percentile £375 £350 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £585 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £437 £450
% change year-on-year +2.97% -2.89% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 407 369 363
10th Percentile £13.65 £13.75 £11.73
25th Percentile £16.01 £16.00 £14.48
Median hourly rate £21.25 £22.32 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year -4.77% +37.49% -31.96%
75th Percentile £38.25 £30.63 £40.63
90th Percentile £71.85 £63.28 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.69 £20.26 £16.23
% change year-on-year +2.16% +24.80% -14.58%

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 22,096 15,563 17,086
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.45% 47.29% 43.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,681 9,530 10,669
10th Percentile £313 £280 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £605 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,141 788 855
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.50 £13.57
25th Percentile £19.22 £17.24 £15.62
Median hourly rate £34.85 £25.15 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.57% -10.18% -33.85%
75th Percentile £65.25 £50.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £22.32 £27.50
% change year-on-year +45.64% -18.85% -22.54%

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 6 August 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 6 August 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 6 August 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 5,695 £490 +3.16% 4,942
UK excluding London -1 3,465 £450 +2.97% 3,978
London -2 2,500 £510 +2.00% 1,654
Work from Home +3 1,689 £500 - 1,890
South East -1 897 £475 - 1,200
North of England -4 869 £450 +3.45% 964
Midlands -2 598 £448 +15.86% 641
North West 0 502 £450 +2.86% 501
South West 0 431 £470 +10.59% 438
West Midlands -4 420 £450 +12.50% 351
Yorkshire -5 340 £475 +8.57% 345
Scotland +8 317 £450 - 220
East of England -1 254 £375 -25.00% 403
East Midlands +2 169 £423 +20.03% 290
Wales 0 99 £413 +60.55% 129
Northern Ireland -3 31 £350 -3.11% 70
North East -38 31 £450 +38.46% 134
Channel Islands 0 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
1 765 (11.75%) SharePoint
2 396 (6.08%) Microsoft Exchange
3 145 (2.23%) Confluence
4 39 (0.60%) Apache Spark
5 37 (0.57%) Apache
6 31 (0.48%) Apache Airflow
7 21 (0.32%) IIS
8 19 (0.29%) CMS
9 18 (0.28%) HCL Notes
10 13 (0.20%) Skype for Business
11 11 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
11 11 (0.17%) SharePoint Server
12 10 (0.15%) SAS
13 8 (0.12%) nginx
14 6 (0.092%) Apache Superset
14 6 (0.092%) Exchange Server 2010
14 6 (0.092%) Jupyter
14 6 (0.092%) SharePoint 2013
14 6 (0.092%) ThingWorx
15 5 (0.077%) Camunda
Applications
1 622 (9.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 599 (9.20%) Microsoft Office
3 262 (4.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 169 (2.60%) Microsoft Project
5 108 (1.66%) MS Visio
6 43 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
7 25 (0.38%) Chatbot
8 12 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 8 (0.12%) AutoCAD
10 6 (0.092%) ProjectWise
11 5 (0.077%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.077%) Navisworks
11 5 (0.077%) Revit
12 4 (0.061%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.046%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.046%) Adobe Premiere
13 3 (0.046%) Final Cut Pro
13 3 (0.046%) MicroStation
13 3 (0.046%) Trello
14 2 (0.031%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 235 (3.61%) Dynamics CRM
2 73 (1.12%) SAP S/4HANA
3 30 (0.46%) Remedy ITSM
4 21 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
5 20 (0.31%) NetSuite
6 18 (0.28%) Dynamics NAV
7 14 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
7 14 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
8 13 (0.20%) Aladdin
9 11 (0.17%) Primavera
10 10 (0.15%) Magento
11 9 (0.14%) Sage X3
12 8 (0.12%) Dynamics AX
13 7 (0.11%) iTrent
13 7 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
13 7 (0.11%) SAP CRM
13 7 (0.11%) SAP PSCD
13 7 (0.11%) Teamcenter
14 6 (0.092%) Dynamics GP
14 6 (0.092%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,750 (42.24%) Azure
2 1,657 (25.45%) Microsoft 365
3 1,134 (17.42%) Power Platform
4 975 (14.97%) Entra ID
5 577 (8.86%) AWS
6 548 (8.42%) Azure DevOps
7 545 (8.37%) Dynamics 365
8 399 (6.13%) Power Automate
9 358 (5.50%) PowerApps
10 354 (5.44%) Microsoft Copilot
11 299 (4.59%) Microsoft Purview
12 276 (4.24%) GitHub
13 247 (3.79%) OneDrive
14 229 (3.52%) SaaS
15 218 (3.35%) GCP
16 170 (2.61%) Azure Data Factory
17 165 (2.53%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 150 (2.30%) Serverless
19 145 (2.23%) PaaS
20 144 (2.21%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 355 (5.45%) DNS
2 328 (5.04%) Firewall
3 263 (4.04%) VPN
4 217 (3.33%) DHCP
5 182 (2.80%) TCP/IP
6 147 (2.26%) WAN
7 144 (2.21%) Network Security
8 139 (2.13%) Wi-Fi
9 137 (2.10%) LAN
10 71 (1.09%) VLAN
11 51 (0.78%) Wireless
12 46 (0.71%) SAN
13 42 (0.65%) MPLS
14 36 (0.55%) SSL
15 35 (0.54%) Unified Communications
16 29 (0.45%) Internet
16 29 (0.45%) SD-WAN
16 29 (0.45%) VoIP
17 27 (0.41%) BGP
18 26 (0.40%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 714 (10.97%) Power BI
2 375 (5.76%) SQL Server
3 190 (2.92%) Data Warehouse
4 132 (2.03%) Data Lake
5 130 (2.00%) Metadata
6 129 (1.98%) PostgreSQL
7 128 (1.97%) Azure SQL Database
8 74 (1.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 72 (1.11%) Relational Database
10 66 (1.01%) Power Query
11 63 (0.97%) MySQL
12 51 (0.78%) NoSQL
13 46 (0.71%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 44 (0.68%) Oracle Database
15 41 (0.63%) Star Schema
16 36 (0.55%) Delta Lake
17 35 (0.54%) Tableau
18 28 (0.43%) SQL Server Analysis Services
19 24 (0.37%) Big Data
19 24 (0.37%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 322 (4.95%) JIRA
2 197 (3.03%) Git
3 88 (1.35%) Jenkins
4 68 (1.04%) GitLab
5 54 (0.83%) Visual Studio
6 37 (0.57%) MSI
7 29 (0.45%) Selenium
8 18 (0.28%) Postman
9 17 (0.26%) Eclipse
10 16 (0.25%) Team Foundation Server
10 16 (0.25%) WebDriver
11 14 (0.22%) MLflow
12 13 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
13 12 (0.18%) Artifactory
13 12 (0.18%) Bitbucket
13 12 (0.18%) Claude Code
13 12 (0.18%) Cypress.io
13 12 (0.18%) ERwin
13 12 (0.18%) JUnit
14 11 (0.17%) Maven
General
1 2,224 (34.16%) Social Skills
2 1,316 (20.21%) Finance
3 818 (12.56%) Analytical Skills
4 614 (9.43%) Public Sector
5 318 (4.88%) Banking
6 303 (4.65%) Organisational Skills
7 226 (3.47%) Legal
8 176 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
9 150 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 134 (2.06%) Manufacturing
11 128 (1.97%) Retail
12 114 (1.75%) Telecoms
13 103 (1.58%) Marketing
14 102 (1.57%) Law
15 87 (1.34%) Local Government
16 84 (1.29%) Military
17 74 (1.14%) Influencing Skills
18 68 (1.04%) Presentation Skills
19 61 (0.94%) Investment Banking
20 57 (0.88%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 745 (11.44%) Architect
2 670 (10.29%) Analyst
3 615 (9.45%) Developer
4 569 (8.74%) Senior
5 462 (7.10%) Lead
6 412 (6.33%) IT Support
7 400 (6.14%) Consultant
8 368 (5.65%) Support Engineer
9 261 (4.01%) IT Engineer
10 249 (3.82%) Data Engineer
11 247 (3.79%) Solutions Architect
12 233 (3.58%) Azure Engineer
13 227 (3.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 217 (3.33%) Project Manager
15 209 (3.21%) IT Support Engineer
16 200 (3.07%) Administrator
17 181 (2.78%) Business Analyst
18 160 (2.46%) Cloud Engineer
19 126 (1.94%) Security Engineer
20 109 (1.67%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 307 (4.72%) .NET
2 246 (3.78%) REST
3 124 (1.90%) JSON
4 115 (1.77%) Microsoft Graph
5 112 (1.72%) OAuth
6 107 (1.64%) PySpark
7 96 (1.47%) XML
8 93 (1.43%) SAML
9 92 (1.41%) OpenID
10 88 (1.35%) .NET Framework
11 83 (1.27%) Web Services
12 78 (1.20%) React
13 73 (1.12%) RESTful
14 70 (1.08%) HTML
15 67 (1.03%) ARM Templates
16 66 (1.01%) LDAP
17 64 (0.98%) SailPoint
18 63 (0.97%) OAuth2
18 63 (0.97%) SOAP
19 60 (0.92%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 446 (6.85%) Onboarding
2 303 (4.65%) Cloud Native
3 192 (2.95%) Management Information System
4 183 (2.81%) Product Ownership
5 163 (2.50%) Enterprise Software
6 138 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
7 135 (2.07%) Hybrid Cloud
8 124 (1.90%) AI Agents
8 124 (1.90%) PKI
9 122 (1.87%) Data Centre
9 122 (1.87%) Security Posture
10 92 (1.41%) Data Structures
11 91 (1.40%) Self-Motivation
12 83 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
13 78 (1.20%) Virtual Team
14 72 (1.11%) Low-Code
15 70 (1.08%) Driving Licence
16 66 (1.01%) Distributed Systems
17 61 (0.94%) Analytical Mindset
17 61 (0.94%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 1,378 (21.16%) Windows
2 378 (5.81%) Windows Server
3 338 (5.19%) Windows 10
4 305 (4.68%) Linux
5 131 (2.01%) Mac OS
6 122 (1.87%) Android
7 113 (1.74%) Apple iOS
8 57 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 44 (0.68%) Unix
10 37 (0.57%) Windows Server 2019
11 34 (0.52%) Windows 7
12 33 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
13 29 (0.45%) VMS
14 28 (0.43%) Ubuntu
15 21 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
16 14 (0.22%) CentOS
17 12 (0.18%) SUSE
18 10 (0.15%) Solaris
19 9 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
20 7 (0.11%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,163 (17.86%) Problem-Solving
2 1,031 (15.83%) DevOps
3 993 (15.25%) Agile
4 938 (14.41%) Stakeholder Management
5 920 (14.13%) Migration
6 850 (13.05%) CI/CD
7 746 (11.46%) AI
8 741 (11.38%) Continuous Improvement
9 729 (11.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 725 (11.14%) Business Intelligence
11 679 (10.43%) Analytics
12 618 (9.49%) ITIL
13 545 (8.37%) Customer Service
14 482 (7.40%) Data Modelling
15 479 (7.36%) Cybersecurity
16 469 (7.20%) Infrastructure as Code
17 467 (7.17%) Roadmaps
18 426 (6.54%) Project Delivery
19 419 (6.44%) Decision-Making
20 413 (6.34%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 822 (12.62%) SQL
2 691 (10.61%) PowerShell
3 663 (10.18%) Python
4 319 (4.90%) C#
5 242 (3.72%) JavaScript
6 187 (2.87%) Bicep
7 185 (2.84%) Java
8 137 (2.10%) Bash
9 114 (1.75%) T-SQL
10 100 (1.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 87 (1.34%) TypeScript
12 67 (1.03%) Kusto Query Language
13 39 (0.60%) VBA
14 31 (0.48%) C++
15 25 (0.38%) VB
16 24 (0.37%) PL/SQL
17 20 (0.31%) X++
18 17 (0.26%) Scala
18 17 (0.26%) VBScript
19 16 (0.25%) R
Qualifications
1 1,353 (20.78%) Security Cleared
2 1,017 (15.62%) SC Cleared
3 636 (9.77%) Degree
4 343 (5.27%) Microsoft Certification
5 261 (4.01%) DV Cleared
6 233 (3.58%) Azure Certification
7 155 (2.38%) BPSS Clearance
8 128 (1.97%) CISSP
9 126 (1.94%) Cisco Certification
10 121 (1.86%) Computer Science Degree
11 88 (1.35%) PMP
12 81 (1.24%) PMI Certification
13 70 (1.08%) CISM
14 69 (1.06%) AWS Certification
15 55 (0.84%) CCNP
16 51 (0.78%) Master's Degree
17 48 (0.74%) CCNA
17 48 (0.74%) DBS Check
18 47 (0.72%) A+ Certification
19 41 (0.63%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 355 (5.45%) Data Quality
2 227 (3.49%) GDPR
3 224 (3.44%) QA
4 193 (2.96%) SLA
5 182 (2.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 162 (2.49%) PMO
7 157 (2.41%) NIST
8 105 (1.61%) Accessibility
9 83 (1.27%) Cyber Essentials
10 80 (1.23%) NCSC
11 44 (0.68%) GRC
12 38 (0.58%) WCAG
13 36 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 34 (0.52%) PCI DSS
15 32 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 19 (0.29%) Disclosure Scotland
17 15 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
17 15 (0.23%) NIST 800
18 14 (0.22%) P3O
18 14 (0.22%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,259 (19.34%) Active Directory
2 240 (3.69%) Docker
3 222 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 121 (1.86%) Hyper-V
5 96 (1.47%) Virtual Desktop
6 93 (1.43%) Virtual Machines
7 59 (0.91%) vSphere
8 58 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
9 27 (0.41%) BitLocker
10 24 (0.37%) VMware NSX
11 20 (0.31%) Microsoft App-V
12 19 (0.29%) Firmware
13 8 (0.12%) NFS
13 8 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
14 7 (0.11%) IAG
15 6 (0.092%) zsh
16 5 (0.077%) Terminal Services
16 5 (0.077%) VMware Workstation
17 4 (0.061%) Virtual Servers
18 3 (0.046%) Snort
Systems Management
1 527 (8.09%) Microsoft Intune
2 466 (7.16%) Terraform
3 304 (4.67%) Kubernetes
4 229 (3.52%) SCCM
5 161 (2.47%) Ansible
6 113 (1.74%) Single Sign-On
7 58 (0.89%) Jamf Pro
8 53 (0.81%) vCenter Server
9 51 (0.78%) Grafana
10 37 (0.57%) SCOM
11 36 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 33 (0.51%) Prometheus
13 23 (0.35%) Puppet
14 22 (0.34%) QRadar
15 21 (0.32%) WSUS
16 19 (0.29%) FortiGate
16 19 (0.29%) Progress Chef
17 15 (0.23%) Argo
18 13 (0.20%) Avamar
18 13 (0.20%) CASB
Vendors
1 467 (7.17%) ServiceNow
2 310 (4.76%) VMware
3 298 (4.58%) Oracle
4 254 (3.90%) SAP
5 224 (3.44%) Databricks
6 216 (3.32%) Google
7 213 (3.27%) Cisco
8 114 (1.75%) Salesforce
9 107 (1.64%) Citrix
10 102 (1.57%) Splunk
11 93 (1.43%) Apple
12 81 (1.24%) CyberArk
13 80 (1.23%) Foundry
14 76 (1.17%) OpenAI
15 72 (1.11%) Okta
16 69 (1.06%) CrowdStrike
17 61 (0.94%) Red Hat
18 60 (0.92%) BeyondTrust
19 55 (0.84%) Zscaler
20 50 (0.77%) Meraki