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 17 January 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
17 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 8 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 4,939 4,274 5,682
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.24% 13.44% 13.13%
As % of the Vendors category 28.79% 29.28% 29.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,354 2,693 3,877
10th Percentile £204 £205 £198
25th Percentile £350 £348 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £585 £619
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +5.82% -5.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 361 193 290
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.49 £12.13
25th Percentile £16.36 £15.62 £14.16
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.59 £20.25
Median % change year-on-year -15.60% +16.49% -1.07%
75th Percentile £27.50 £33.75 £46.18
90th Percentile £63.75 £57.62 £56.76
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.08 £21.46 £18.76
% change year-on-year -11.08% +14.42% -5.80%

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 17,155 14,599 19,145
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 45.99% 45.89% 44.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,074 8,650 12,070
10th Percentile £300 £285 £252
25th Percentile £410 £408 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.42%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 800 433 753
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.89 £19.97 £17.00
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.50 £38.75
Median % change year-on-year -13.36% -29.03% +27.05%
75th Percentile £48.00 £60.75 £61.99
90th Percentile £73.75 £79.50 £75.93
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £25.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -14.16% -37.50% +58.42%

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 17 January 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 17 January 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 17 January 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 4,357 £475 - 3,376
UK excluding London 0 2,643 £450 +5.82% 3,247
London -4 1,856 £500 +0.05% 703
Work from Home 0 1,263 £500 +2.30% 1,299
North of England 0 703 £423 -1.46% 717
South East +1 601 £475 +5.56% 1,026
Midlands -4 459 £447 +5.18% 473
North West +2 404 £400 -11.11% 326
South West +1 356 £504 +7.18% 336
West Midlands -6 306 £485 +11.49% 223
East of England 0 270 £425 -2.86% 427
Yorkshire +1 268 £450 +12.50% 287
Scotland -1 182 £460 +22.67% 155
East Midlands -1 153 £375 -3.23% 244
Wales +3 77 £308 -31.67% 151
North East -16 36 £450 +13.21% 114
Northern Ireland +2 32 £400 +39.13% 46
Channel Islands +1 1 - - 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
1 567 (11.48%) SharePoint
2 379 (7.67%) Microsoft Exchange
3 104 (2.11%) Confluence
4 60 (1.21%) Skype for Business
5 38 (0.77%) CMS
6 24 (0.49%) IIS
7 23 (0.47%) Apache
7 23 (0.47%) HCL Notes
8 21 (0.43%) SAS
9 18 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
10 17 (0.34%) Exchange Server 2013
11 15 (0.30%) Exchange Server 2010
12 14 (0.28%) Apache Spark
13 13 (0.26%) Mattermost
14 12 (0.24%) SharePoint Server
15 11 (0.22%) WebSphere
15 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
16 10 (0.20%) iPlanet
16 10 (0.20%) JBoss
16 10 (0.20%) Mendix
Applications
1 611 (12.37%) Microsoft Office
2 519 (10.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 233 (4.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 123 (2.49%) Microsoft Project
5 109 (2.21%) MS Visio
6 64 (1.30%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.22%) Trello
8 10 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.12%) Sketch
11 5 (0.10%) Acrobat
11 5 (0.10%) Adobe Captivate
12 4 (0.081%) Adobe After Effects
12 4 (0.081%) Adobe Illustrator
12 4 (0.081%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.081%) InDesign
12 4 (0.081%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.061%) Adobe Premiere
13 3 (0.061%) Windchill
14 2 (0.040%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 179 (3.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 40 (0.81%) Remedy ITSM
2 40 (0.81%) SAP S/4HANA
3 17 (0.34%) Dynamics AX
4 15 (0.30%) Maximo
5 14 (0.28%) Dynamics NAV
6 12 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 11 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 9 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 8 (0.16%) Teamcenter
11 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
11 7 (0.14%) Aladdin
11 7 (0.14%) Shopify
12 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
13 5 (0.10%) Loan IQ
13 5 (0.10%) SAP ERP
14 4 (0.081%) assyst
14 4 (0.081%) SystmOne
14 4 (0.081%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,912 (38.71%) Azure
2 1,192 (24.13%) Microsoft 365
3 791 (16.02%) Power Platform
4 573 (11.60%) Entra ID
5 433 (8.77%) AWS
6 380 (7.69%) Dynamics 365
7 360 (7.29%) Azure DevOps
8 324 (6.56%) Power Automate
9 298 (6.03%) PowerApps
10 220 (4.45%) Microsoft Purview
11 213 (4.31%) GitHub
12 185 (3.75%) Serverless
13 175 (3.54%) OneDrive
14 169 (3.42%) GCP
15 166 (3.36%) Azure Data Factory
16 155 (3.14%) SaaS
17 140 (2.83%) Azure Sentinel
17 140 (2.83%) Microsoft Copilot
18 138 (2.79%) Azure Logic Apps
19 123 (2.49%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 281 (5.69%) Firewall
2 263 (5.32%) DNS
3 178 (3.60%) VPN
4 165 (3.34%) DHCP
5 123 (2.49%) TCP/IP
6 106 (2.15%) Wi-Fi
7 105 (2.13%) WAN
8 95 (1.92%) Network Security
9 88 (1.78%) LAN
10 82 (1.66%) Skype
11 51 (1.03%) Wireless
12 50 (1.01%) VLAN
13 47 (0.95%) Kerberos
14 42 (0.85%) Unified Communications
15 38 (0.77%) SD-WAN
16 34 (0.69%) HTTP
17 29 (0.59%) Internet
18 27 (0.55%) SAN
19 24 (0.49%) VoIP
19 24 (0.49%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 480 (9.72%) Power BI
2 232 (4.70%) SQL Server
3 134 (2.71%) Data Warehouse
4 127 (2.57%) Data Lake
5 88 (1.78%) Azure SQL Database
6 85 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
7 83 (1.68%) Metadata
7 83 (1.68%) Relational Database
8 75 (1.52%) Oracle Database
9 46 (0.93%) MySQL
10 43 (0.87%) Tableau
11 38 (0.77%) NoSQL
11 38 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 37 (0.75%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 35 (0.71%) Power Query
14 26 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
15 22 (0.45%) Delta Lake
16 19 (0.38%) Spark SQL
16 19 (0.38%) Star Schema
17 18 (0.36%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 221 (4.47%) JIRA
2 157 (3.18%) Git
3 87 (1.76%) Jenkins
4 76 (1.54%) GitLab
5 34 (0.69%) Eclipse
6 26 (0.53%) MSI
7 23 (0.47%) Postman
7 23 (0.47%) Visual Studio
8 21 (0.43%) Android Studio
8 21 (0.43%) Browser DevTools
8 21 (0.43%) Xcode
9 20 (0.40%) Selenium
10 16 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
11 15 (0.30%) Artifactory
12 13 (0.26%) JMeter
13 12 (0.24%) Bitbucket
13 12 (0.24%) Cucumber
13 12 (0.24%) InstallShield
13 12 (0.24%) JUnit
14 11 (0.22%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,991 (40.31%) Social Skills
2 1,015 (20.55%) Finance
3 631 (12.78%) Analytical Skills
4 501 (10.14%) Public Sector
5 248 (5.02%) Banking
6 232 (4.70%) Organisational Skills
7 194 (3.93%) Legal
8 153 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
9 128 (2.59%) Manufacturing
10 112 (2.27%) Marketing
11 101 (2.04%) Presentation Skills
12 93 (1.88%) Telecoms
13 77 (1.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 77 (1.56%) Retail
14 54 (1.09%) Influencing Skills
15 48 (0.97%) Local Government
16 47 (0.95%) Military
17 44 (0.89%) Investment Banking
18 41 (0.83%) Law
19 36 (0.73%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 642 (13.00%) Analyst
2 526 (10.65%) Architect
3 468 (9.48%) Developer
4 355 (7.19%) Senior
5 299 (6.05%) IT Support
6 295 (5.97%) Support Engineer
7 266 (5.39%) Consultant
8 246 (4.98%) Lead
9 166 (3.36%) Solutions Architect
10 162 (3.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 153 (3.10%) Administrator
11 153 (3.10%) Business Analyst
12 152 (3.08%) Support Analyst
13 144 (2.92%) IT Engineer
14 141 (2.85%) Azure Engineer
14 141 (2.85%) Project Manager
15 136 (2.75%) Data Engineer
16 119 (2.41%) Security Engineer
17 104 (2.11%) IT Support Engineer
18 102 (2.07%) Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (5.04%) .NET
2 159 (3.22%) REST
3 120 (2.43%) OAuth
4 113 (2.29%) React
5 101 (2.04%) SAML
6 86 (1.74%) RESTful
7 83 (1.68%) Microsoft Graph
8 82 (1.66%) OpenID
9 78 (1.58%) AngularJS
10 68 (1.38%) HTML
11 66 (1.34%) CSS
11 66 (1.34%) JSON
11 66 (1.34%) PySpark
12 64 (1.30%) LDAP
13 55 (1.11%) ARM Templates
14 52 (1.05%) Node.js
15 48 (0.97%) Web Services
16 46 (0.93%) OAuth2
17 45 (0.91%) Middleware
18 42 (0.85%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 276 (5.59%) Onboarding
2 189 (3.83%) Cloud Native
3 138 (2.79%) Product Ownership
4 132 (2.67%) Management Information System
5 115 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
6 93 (1.88%) PKI
7 89 (1.80%) Data Centre
7 89 (1.80%) Security Posture
8 83 (1.68%) Self-Motivation
9 77 (1.56%) Driving Licence
10 71 (1.44%) Mobile App
11 70 (1.42%) Low-Code
12 69 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
13 65 (1.32%) Hybrid Cloud
14 57 (1.15%) Replication
15 55 (1.11%) Analytical Mindset
16 52 (1.05%) Virtual Team
17 49 (0.99%) NHS
18 46 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
19 42 (0.85%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 1,183 (23.95%) Windows
2 344 (6.96%) Windows 10
3 295 (5.97%) Linux
4 264 (5.35%) Windows Server
5 105 (2.13%) Mac OS
6 99 (2.00%) Android
7 87 (1.76%) Apple iOS
8 77 (1.56%) Unix
9 41 (0.83%) Windows 7
10 38 (0.77%) Windows Server 2016
11 30 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 26 (0.53%) Windows Server 2019
13 23 (0.47%) Windows Server 2003
14 21 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
15 16 (0.32%) VMS
16 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
17 7 (0.14%) AIX
17 7 (0.14%) Mac OS X
18 6 (0.12%) CentOS
18 6 (0.12%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,012 (20.49%) Problem-Solving
2 868 (17.57%) Agile
3 733 (14.84%) DevOps
4 617 (12.49%) Migration
5 600 (12.15%) CI/CD
6 564 (11.42%) Business Intelligence
7 507 (10.27%) Analytics
8 500 (10.12%) Stakeholder Management
9 462 (9.35%) ITIL
10 426 (8.63%) Continuous Improvement
11 425 (8.60%) Customer Service
12 403 (8.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 366 (7.41%) AI
14 352 (7.13%) Cybersecurity
15 317 (6.42%) Project Management
16 289 (5.85%) Change Management
17 281 (5.69%) Data Modelling
18 265 (5.37%) Roadmaps
19 258 (5.22%) Project Delivery
20 257 (5.20%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 643 (13.02%) SQL
2 595 (12.05%) PowerShell
3 571 (11.56%) Python
4 257 (5.20%) C#
5 216 (4.37%) JavaScript
6 142 (2.88%) Java
7 109 (2.21%) Kusto Query Language
8 102 (2.07%) Bash
9 98 (1.98%) Bicep
10 78 (1.58%) TypeScript
11 54 (1.09%) T-SQL
12 45 (0.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 37 (0.75%) Perl
14 30 (0.61%) Shell Script
15 27 (0.55%) PL/SQL
16 25 (0.51%) C++
17 22 (0.45%) VB
17 22 (0.45%) VBScript
18 21 (0.43%) R
19 19 (0.38%) Go
Qualifications
1 983 (19.90%) Security Cleared
2 733 (14.84%) SC Cleared
3 511 (10.35%) Degree
4 328 (6.64%) Microsoft Certification
5 210 (4.25%) DV Cleared
6 171 (3.46%) Azure Certification
7 123 (2.49%) CISSP
8 122 (2.47%) Computer Science Degree
9 76 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
10 68 (1.38%) CISM
11 60 (1.21%) Cisco Certification
12 55 (1.11%) Master's Degree
13 54 (1.09%) PMI Certification
14 51 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
15 50 (1.01%) A+ Certification
16 49 (0.99%) MCSE
17 43 (0.87%) MCP
17 43 (0.87%) PMP
18 39 (0.79%) AWS Certification
19 33 (0.67%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 223 (4.52%) GDPR
2 166 (3.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 158 (3.20%) Data Quality
4 149 (3.02%) QA
5 136 (2.75%) SLA
6 130 (2.63%) NIST
7 101 (2.04%) PMO
8 84 (1.70%) Accessibility
9 49 (0.99%) Cyber Essentials
10 33 (0.67%) NCSC
11 30 (0.61%) PCI DSS
12 27 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 26 (0.53%) WCAG
14 22 (0.45%) EU AI Act
15 21 (0.43%) HIPAA
16 18 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 17 (0.34%) GRC
18 12 (0.24%) SOC 2
19 11 (0.22%) MiFID
19 11 (0.22%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,015 (20.55%) Active Directory
2 195 (3.95%) Docker
3 168 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 70 (1.42%) Hyper-V
5 57 (1.15%) Virtual Machines
6 37 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
7 35 (0.71%) vSphere
8 34 (0.69%) VMware ESXi
9 17 (0.34%) BitLocker
9 17 (0.34%) VMware NSX
10 12 (0.24%) Firmware
10 12 (0.24%) Microsoft App-V
11 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
12 7 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.12%) ISA Server
13 6 (0.12%) NFS
14 5 (0.10%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 5 (0.10%) Snort
14 5 (0.10%) Terminal Services
14 5 (0.10%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 374 (7.57%) Microsoft Intune
2 272 (5.51%) Terraform
3 271 (5.49%) SCCM
4 229 (4.64%) Kubernetes
5 138 (2.79%) Single Sign-On
6 104 (2.11%) Ansible
7 81 (1.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 48 (0.97%) SCOM
9 39 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (0.73%) vCenter Server
11 32 (0.65%) Grafana
12 26 (0.53%) Prometheus
13 23 (0.47%) FortiGate
14 21 (0.43%) HP SiteScope
14 21 (0.43%) WSUS
15 17 (0.34%) QRadar
16 16 (0.32%) Progress Chef
17 15 (0.30%) Puppet
17 15 (0.30%) WMI
18 14 (0.28%) Kibana
Vendors
1 256 (5.18%) ServiceNow
2 232 (4.70%) VMware
3 215 (4.35%) Oracle
4 188 (3.81%) Cisco
5 173 (3.50%) SAP
6 163 (3.30%) Splunk
7 150 (3.04%) Databricks
8 144 (2.92%) Google
9 113 (2.29%) Citrix
10 83 (1.68%) Apple
11 79 (1.60%) Salesforce
12 75 (1.52%) OpenAI
13 66 (1.34%) CrowdStrike
14 60 (1.21%) Palo Alto
15 52 (1.05%) IBM
16 49 (0.99%) Remedy
17 46 (0.93%) Foundry
18 44 (0.89%) HP
19 43 (0.87%) Veeam
20 38 (0.77%) CyberArk