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 May 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 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,571 3,923 5,530
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.58% 13.35% 12.99%
As % of the Vendors category 28.12% 28.03% 30.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,746 2,589 3,629
10th Percentile £211 £208 £189
25th Percentile £375 £340 £333
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +4.11% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £585 £585 £600
90th Percentile £677 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +5.88% -5.61% -1.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 358 242 463
10th Percentile £13.65 £13.79 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.35 £15.09 £13.00
Median hourly rate £20.22 £18.76 £15.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.80% +25.05% -33.07%
75th Percentile £30.00 £29.00 £24.59
90th Percentile £63.75 £57.21 £55.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.09 £18.51 £15.00
% change year-on-year +8.57% +23.37% -21.05%

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 19,810 13,996 18,024
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.17% 47.64% 42.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,539 8,753 11,210
10th Percentile £313 £280 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.49% -1.90%
75th Percentile £601 £615 £630
90th Percentile £700 £712 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £492 £500
% change year-on-year - -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,006 567 1,093
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.33 £14.41
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.50 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.45% +15.91% -48.24%
75th Percentile £58.88 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £78.02 £74.25 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.00 £23.00 £21.42
% change year-on-year +26.09% +7.40% -44.38%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 4,882 £498 +4.74% 3,156
UK excluding London 0 2,892 £450 +5.88% 2,732
London -2 2,155 £515 +2.79% 926
Work from Home -2 1,394 £500 - 1,428
North of England -2 767 £450 +8.89% 652
South East -2 673 £475 -0.52% 860
Midlands -3 503 £450 +12.50% 406
North West -1 405 £425 - 352
West Midlands -5 347 £450 +12.50% 234
Yorkshire -1 339 £471 +17.81% 218
South West -3 331 £450 -2.70% 285
East of England 0 316 £375 -21.67% 300
Scotland +6 214 £450 +6.51% 159
East Midlands -1 149 £401 -2.20% 172
Wales +2 89 £325 - 102
North East -26 28 £450 +30.43% 88
Northern Ireland -3 20 £450 +38.46% 29
Channel Islands -3 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
1 594 (10.66%) SharePoint
2 377 (6.77%) Microsoft Exchange
3 103 (1.85%) Confluence
4 35 (0.63%) Apache Spark
5 25 (0.45%) Apache
6 23 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
7 21 (0.38%) HCL Notes
8 18 (0.32%) CMS
9 14 (0.25%) SAS
10 13 (0.23%) Skype for Business
11 12 (0.22%) IIS
11 12 (0.22%) Mendix
12 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.11%) Camunda
12 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 5 (0.090%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.090%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.072%) Drupal
14 4 (0.072%) Exchange Server 2013
14 4 (0.072%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 553 (9.93%) Microsoft Office
2 487 (8.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 223 (4.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 121 (2.17%) Microsoft Project
5 92 (1.65%) MS Visio
6 56 (1.01%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.31%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.11%) Trello
10 5 (0.090%) Acrobat
10 5 (0.090%) PTC Creo
11 4 (0.072%) InDesign
11 4 (0.072%) SOLIDWORKS
12 3 (0.054%) Adobe Captivate
12 3 (0.054%) AutoCAD
12 3 (0.054%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
13 2 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 203 (3.64%) Dynamics CRM
2 64 (1.15%) SAP S/4HANA
3 23 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
4 20 (0.36%) Dynamics NAV
5 16 (0.29%) NetSuite
6 15 (0.27%) Aladdin
7 13 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
8 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
9 10 (0.18%) Maximo
9 10 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
9 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
9 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 9 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
11 8 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
12 6 (0.11%) Shopify
13 5 (0.090%) Dynamics GP
13 5 (0.090%) SAP Business One
13 5 (0.090%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,342 (42.04%) Azure
2 1,418 (25.45%) Microsoft 365
3 953 (17.11%) Power Platform
4 719 (12.91%) Entra ID
5 466 (8.36%) Dynamics 365
6 452 (8.11%) AWS
7 428 (7.68%) Azure DevOps
8 330 (5.92%) Power Automate
9 298 (5.35%) Microsoft Purview
10 293 (5.26%) PowerApps
11 257 (4.61%) GitHub
12 238 (4.27%) Microsoft Copilot
13 214 (3.84%) OneDrive
14 193 (3.46%) Azure Data Factory
15 192 (3.45%) SaaS
16 177 (3.18%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 170 (3.05%) GCP
18 157 (2.82%) Serverless
19 143 (2.57%) PaaS
20 133 (2.39%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 284 (5.10%) DNS
2 265 (4.76%) Firewall
3 207 (3.72%) VPN
4 170 (3.05%) DHCP
5 135 (2.42%) Wi-Fi
6 131 (2.35%) WAN
7 113 (2.03%) LAN
8 110 (1.97%) Network Security
9 104 (1.87%) TCP/IP
10 58 (1.04%) Kerberos
11 53 (0.95%) VLAN
12 46 (0.83%) SD-WAN
13 37 (0.66%) SAN
14 34 (0.61%) SSL
15 33 (0.59%) Wireless
16 29 (0.52%) Skype
17 28 (0.50%) HTTP
18 27 (0.48%) Unified Communications
19 24 (0.43%) IPsec
19 24 (0.43%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 577 (10.36%) Power BI
2 260 (4.67%) SQL Server
3 174 (3.12%) Data Warehouse
4 153 (2.75%) Data Lake
5 118 (2.12%) Azure SQL Database
6 112 (2.01%) Metadata
7 98 (1.76%) PostgreSQL
8 72 (1.29%) Relational Database
9 67 (1.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 48 (0.86%) Power Query
11 47 (0.84%) NoSQL
12 44 (0.79%) Tableau
13 43 (0.77%) Oracle Database
14 42 (0.75%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 42 (0.75%) Star Schema
15 40 (0.72%) Delta Lake
16 39 (0.70%) MySQL
17 30 (0.54%) Spark SQL
18 26 (0.47%) Snowflake Schema
18 26 (0.47%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 254 (4.56%) JIRA
2 165 (2.96%) Git
3 64 (1.15%) Jenkins
4 63 (1.13%) GitLab
5 27 (0.48%) Visual Studio
6 26 (0.47%) Artifactory
7 21 (0.38%) MSI
8 20 (0.36%) Eclipse
9 16 (0.29%) Postman
10 15 (0.27%) MLflow
10 15 (0.27%) Selenium
11 14 (0.25%) JMeter
11 14 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
12 13 (0.23%) ERwin
13 12 (0.22%) Maven
14 11 (0.20%) Bitbucket
15 9 (0.16%) Android Studio
15 9 (0.16%) Browser DevTools
15 9 (0.16%) Gatling
15 9 (0.16%) InstallShield
General
1 1,825 (32.76%) Social Skills
2 1,104 (19.82%) Finance
3 637 (11.43%) Analytical Skills
4 503 (9.03%) Public Sector
5 291 (5.22%) Banking
6 249 (4.47%) Legal
7 247 (4.43%) Organisational Skills
8 139 (2.50%) Documentation Skills
9 103 (1.85%) Manufacturing
10 94 (1.69%) Law
11 93 (1.67%) Presentation Skills
12 86 (1.54%) Retail
13 83 (1.49%) Telecoms
14 77 (1.38%) Marketing
15 73 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 70 (1.26%) Military
17 66 (1.18%) Local Government
18 54 (0.97%) Influencing Skills
18 54 (0.97%) Investment Banking
19 46 (0.83%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 698 (12.53%) Architect
2 603 (10.82%) Analyst
3 504 (9.05%) Developer
4 465 (8.35%) Senior
5 366 (6.57%) IT Support
6 341 (6.12%) Lead
7 308 (5.53%) Consultant
8 257 (4.61%) Support Engineer
9 226 (4.06%) Data Engineer
10 206 (3.70%) Azure Engineer
11 193 (3.46%) Solutions Architect
12 185 (3.32%) Project Manager
13 179 (3.21%) Business Analyst
13 179 (3.21%) IT Engineer
14 166 (2.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 164 (2.94%) Administrator
16 135 (2.42%) IT Support Engineer
17 112 (2.01%) Security Engineer
18 105 (1.88%) DevOps Engineer
19 102 (1.83%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 240 (4.31%) .NET
2 167 (3.00%) REST
3 132 (2.37%) Microsoft Graph
4 109 (1.96%) OAuth
5 103 (1.85%) PySpark
6 97 (1.74%) SAML
7 88 (1.58%) JSON
8 83 (1.49%) React
9 80 (1.44%) OpenID
10 76 (1.36%) LDAP
11 71 (1.27%) Web Services
12 66 (1.18%) Middleware
13 54 (0.97%) HTML
14 52 (0.93%) Node.js
15 50 (0.90%) SailPoint
16 49 (0.88%) OAuth2
17 48 (0.86%) AngularJS
17 48 (0.86%) ARM Templates
17 48 (0.86%) CSS
18 46 (0.83%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 298 (5.35%) Onboarding
2 222 (3.98%) Cloud Native
3 178 (3.20%) Product Ownership
4 123 (2.21%) Management Information System
5 103 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
6 101 (1.81%) Data Centre
7 91 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
8 87 (1.56%) Hybrid Cloud
9 84 (1.51%) AI Agents
10 83 (1.49%) Security Posture
11 79 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
12 77 (1.38%) Replication
13 76 (1.36%) PKI
14 72 (1.29%) Data Structures
14 72 (1.29%) Low-Code
15 68 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
16 59 (1.06%) Virtual Team
17 47 (0.84%) Driving Licence
18 45 (0.81%) Operational Technology
18 45 (0.81%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 1,200 (21.54%) Windows
2 322 (5.78%) Windows 10
3 271 (4.86%) Windows Server
4 261 (4.68%) Linux
5 110 (1.97%) Apple iOS
6 107 (1.92%) Mac OS
7 105 (1.88%) Android
8 44 (0.79%) Unix
9 43 (0.77%) Windows 7
10 40 (0.72%) Windows Server 2016
11 39 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 31 (0.56%) VMS
13 28 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
14 21 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
15 15 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
16 12 (0.22%) Ubuntu
17 10 (0.18%) CentOS
18 5 (0.090%) AIX
18 5 (0.090%) Solaris
19 4 (0.072%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 957 (17.18%) Problem-Solving
2 878 (15.76%) DevOps
3 850 (15.26%) Agile
4 794 (14.25%) Migration
5 755 (13.55%) CI/CD
6 630 (11.31%) Business Intelligence
7 607 (10.90%) Analytics
8 551 (9.89%) AI
9 546 (9.80%) Stakeholder Management
10 489 (8.78%) Continuous Improvement
11 463 (8.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 454 (8.15%) ITIL
13 439 (7.88%) Customer Service
14 418 (7.50%) Data Modelling
15 378 (6.79%) Roadmaps
16 355 (6.37%) Decision-Making
17 343 (6.16%) Cybersecurity
18 329 (5.91%) Infrastructure as Code
19 312 (5.60%) Project Delivery
20 311 (5.58%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 718 (12.89%) SQL
2 627 (11.25%) PowerShell
3 590 (10.59%) Python
4 259 (4.65%) C#
5 201 (3.61%) JavaScript
6 176 (3.16%) Java
7 125 (2.24%) Bicep
8 94 (1.69%) T-SQL
9 85 (1.53%) Kusto Query Language
10 83 (1.49%) Bash
11 72 (1.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 67 (1.20%) TypeScript
13 32 (0.57%) PL/SQL
14 28 (0.50%) C++
14 28 (0.50%) VBA
15 23 (0.41%) VB
16 19 (0.34%) Scala
17 18 (0.32%) R
18 17 (0.31%) Shell Script
19 13 (0.23%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,058 (18.99%) Security Cleared
2 830 (14.90%) SC Cleared
3 545 (9.78%) Degree
4 261 (4.68%) Microsoft Certification
5 179 (3.21%) DV Cleared
6 178 (3.20%) Azure Certification
7 121 (2.17%) Computer Science Degree
8 98 (1.76%) CISSP
9 91 (1.63%) BPSS Clearance
10 73 (1.31%) Cisco Certification
11 59 (1.06%) PMP
12 58 (1.04%) PMI Certification
13 55 (0.99%) Master's Degree
14 54 (0.97%) CISM
15 44 (0.79%) AWS Certification
16 38 (0.68%) MCSE
17 35 (0.63%) DBS Check
18 30 (0.54%) CCNP
18 30 (0.54%) MCSA
19 29 (0.52%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 275 (4.94%) Data Quality
2 220 (3.95%) GDPR
3 188 (3.37%) QA
4 148 (2.66%) SLA
5 139 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 118 (2.12%) NIST
7 103 (1.85%) PMO
8 70 (1.26%) Cyber Essentials
9 69 (1.24%) Accessibility
10 47 (0.84%) NCSC
11 39 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 35 (0.63%) GRC
13 25 (0.45%) PCI DSS
14 22 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 21 (0.38%) NIST 800
16 20 (0.36%) MiFID
17 15 (0.27%) SOC 2
18 13 (0.23%) FINRA
19 12 (0.22%) HIPAA
19 12 (0.22%) WCAG
System Software
1 1,056 (18.96%) Active Directory
2 222 (3.98%) Docker
3 192 (3.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 97 (1.74%) Hyper-V
5 78 (1.40%) Virtual Desktop
5 78 (1.40%) Virtual Machines
6 54 (0.97%) VMware ESXi
7 47 (0.84%) vSphere
8 25 (0.45%) BitLocker
9 23 (0.41%) VMware NSX
10 20 (0.36%) Microsoft App-V
11 16 (0.29%) Firmware
12 6 (0.11%) NFS
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
12 6 (0.11%) RACF
13 5 (0.090%) IAG
13 5 (0.090%) Snort
13 5 (0.090%) VMware Workstation
14 4 (0.072%) Squid
14 4 (0.072%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 429 (7.70%) Microsoft Intune
2 345 (6.19%) Terraform
3 248 (4.45%) Kubernetes
4 198 (3.55%) SCCM
5 128 (2.30%) Ansible
6 114 (2.05%) Single Sign-On
7 79 (1.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 47 (0.84%) vCenter Server
9 43 (0.77%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (0.65%) Grafana
11 32 (0.57%) Prometheus
12 21 (0.38%) FortiGate
13 19 (0.34%) SCOM
14 18 (0.32%) Puppet
15 16 (0.29%) AirWatch
16 14 (0.25%) QRadar
17 13 (0.23%) WSUS
18 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
19 11 (0.20%) CASB
19 11 (0.20%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 268 (4.81%) ServiceNow
2 262 (4.70%) VMware
3 221 (3.97%) Databricks
4 217 (3.90%) SAP
5 213 (3.82%) Oracle
6 175 (3.14%) Cisco
7 157 (2.82%) Google
8 115 (2.06%) Citrix
9 98 (1.76%) Salesforce
10 92 (1.65%) Splunk
11 86 (1.54%) OpenAI
12 72 (1.29%) Apple
13 70 (1.26%) Foundry
14 55 (0.99%) CrowdStrike
15 49 (0.88%) HP
16 48 (0.86%) Palo Alto
17 46 (0.83%) Adobe
18 44 (0.79%) Okta
19 43 (0.77%) CyberArk
20 40 (0.72%) Informatica