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 29 March 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
29 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 9 7
Rank change year-on-year +1 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,510 3,917 5,677
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.37% 13.38% 12.83%
As % of the Vendors category 28.47% 28.37% 30.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,703 2,649 3,791
10th Percentile £206 £210 £189
25th Percentile £373 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £583 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £668 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £443 £450
% change year-on-year +1.69% -1.67% -1.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 386 194 426
10th Percentile £13.45 £14.89 £11.03
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.00 £12.89
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.00 £15.93
Median % change year-on-year -13.43% +44.38% -29.06%
75th Percentile £27.50 £30.75 £25.00
90th Percentile £64.38 £60.71 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.50 £21.46 £15.00
% change year-on-year -9.13% +43.07% -23.08%

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 19,355 13,805 18,902
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.45% 47.15% 42.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,373 8,724 11,804
10th Percentile £313 £293 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £514 £514
Median % change year-on-year -2.79% +0.06% -2.10%
75th Percentile £600 £618 £625
90th Percentile £700 £711 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 976 484 1,036
10th Percentile £15.28 £15.62 £12.07
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.22 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.77 £28.75 £23.50
Median % change year-on-year -10.37% +22.34% -40.58%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £55.40
90th Percentile £78.25 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.00 £27.13 £21.50
% change year-on-year -11.52% +26.16% -38.57%

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 29 March 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 29 March 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 29 March 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 4,828 £492 +3.14% 3,243
UK excluding London 0 2,884 £450 +1.69% 2,912
London -1 2,092 £510 +2.00% 867
Work from Home -2 1,380 £500 - 1,234
North of England 0 785 £433 +1.88% 701
South East -2 644 £480 -4.00% 876
Midlands -4 493 £450 +7.02% 451
North West -1 442 £413 -8.33% 370
East of England +1 359 £413 -4.35% 304
West Midlands -7 346 £473 +11.18% 243
South West 0 328 £500 +5.26% 336
Yorkshire +5 317 £450 +12.50% 237
Scotland +1 192 £450 +15.45% 170
East Midlands -2 142 £384 -6.40% 207
Wales +2 99 £310 -4.62% 102
North East -16 32 £450 +28.57% 104
Northern Ireland -2 19 £450 +38.46% 39
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
1 615 (11.16%) SharePoint
2 412 (7.48%) Microsoft Exchange
3 111 (2.01%) Confluence
4 25 (0.45%) CMS
4 25 (0.45%) Skype for Business
5 24 (0.44%) Apache Spark
6 21 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
7 20 (0.36%) Apache
8 17 (0.31%) HCL Notes
9 14 (0.25%) SAS
10 11 (0.20%) IIS
11 10 (0.18%) Mendix
12 7 (0.13%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.091%) SharePoint Server
14 4 (0.073%) Camunda
14 4 (0.073%) Exchange Server 2010
14 4 (0.073%) Exchange Server 2013
14 4 (0.073%) Jupyter
15 3 (0.054%) nginx
15 3 (0.054%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 595 (10.80%) Microsoft Office
2 516 (9.36%) Microsoft Excel
3 229 (4.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 132 (2.40%) Microsoft Project
5 106 (1.92%) MS Visio
6 81 (1.47%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.31%) Chatbot
8 10 (0.18%) Trello
9 9 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.091%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.073%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.073%) InDesign
13 3 (0.054%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.054%) Sketch
13 3 (0.054%) SOLIDWORKS
13 3 (0.054%) Windchill
14 2 (0.036%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 191 (3.47%) Dynamics CRM
2 51 (0.93%) SAP S/4HANA
3 19 (0.34%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.25%) Aladdin
5 14 (0.25%) Maximo
6 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
7 11 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
7 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
7 11 (0.20%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.18%) Teamcenter
8 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 8 (0.15%) Sage X3
9 8 (0.15%) Shopify
10 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
10 7 (0.13%) SystmOne
11 6 (0.11%) Advent Geneva
11 6 (0.11%) Primavera
11 6 (0.11%) SAP MM
12 5 (0.091%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 2,270 (41.20%) Azure
2 1,414 (25.66%) Microsoft 365
3 914 (16.59%) Power Platform
4 701 (12.72%) Entra ID
5 460 (8.35%) AWS
6 452 (8.20%) Azure DevOps
6 452 (8.20%) Dynamics 365
7 349 (6.33%) Power Automate
8 317 (5.75%) PowerApps
9 285 (5.17%) Microsoft Purview
10 270 (4.90%) GitHub
11 208 (3.77%) Microsoft Copilot
12 207 (3.76%) OneDrive
13 196 (3.56%) Azure Data Factory
14 186 (3.38%) SaaS
14 186 (3.38%) Serverless
15 172 (3.12%) GCP
16 164 (2.98%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 153 (2.78%) PaaS
18 152 (2.76%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 305 (5.54%) Firewall
2 293 (5.32%) DNS
3 209 (3.79%) VPN
4 172 (3.12%) DHCP
5 155 (2.81%) Wi-Fi
6 141 (2.56%) WAN
7 124 (2.25%) LAN
8 122 (2.21%) Network Security
9 116 (2.11%) TCP/IP
10 57 (1.03%) Kerberos
11 56 (1.02%) VLAN
12 48 (0.87%) Skype
13 43 (0.78%) SD-WAN
14 41 (0.74%) Wireless
15 32 (0.58%) SSL
15 32 (0.58%) Unified Communications
16 30 (0.54%) MPLS
16 30 (0.54%) SAN
17 29 (0.53%) HTTP
18 27 (0.49%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 562 (10.20%) Power BI
2 273 (4.95%) SQL Server
3 177 (3.21%) Data Warehouse
4 153 (2.78%) Data Lake
5 123 (2.23%) Azure SQL Database
6 108 (1.96%) Metadata
7 102 (1.85%) PostgreSQL
8 71 (1.29%) Relational Database
8 71 (1.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 57 (1.03%) Oracle Database
10 52 (0.94%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 49 (0.89%) MySQL
11 49 (0.89%) NoSQL
12 43 (0.78%) Tableau
13 40 (0.73%) Power Query
14 36 (0.65%) Delta Lake
14 36 (0.65%) Star Schema
15 25 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
16 24 (0.44%) Snowflake Schema
16 24 (0.44%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 252 (4.57%) JIRA
2 177 (3.21%) Git
3 75 (1.36%) Jenkins
4 72 (1.31%) GitLab
5 24 (0.44%) Eclipse
5 24 (0.44%) Visual Studio
6 23 (0.42%) Artifactory
7 18 (0.33%) MSI
7 18 (0.33%) Postman
8 17 (0.31%) MLflow
9 16 (0.29%) Selenium
10 15 (0.27%) JMeter
11 13 (0.24%) Cucumber
11 13 (0.24%) JUnit
12 12 (0.22%) Android Studio
12 12 (0.22%) Bitbucket
12 12 (0.22%) Visual Studio Code
13 10 (0.18%) Maven
13 10 (0.18%) SpecFlow
14 9 (0.16%) Xcode
General
1 2,004 (36.37%) Social Skills
2 1,097 (19.91%) Finance
3 653 (11.85%) Analytical Skills
4 544 (9.87%) Public Sector
5 286 (5.19%) Banking
6 258 (4.68%) Organisational Skills
7 254 (4.61%) Legal
8 165 (2.99%) Documentation Skills
9 120 (2.18%) Manufacturing
10 115 (2.09%) Presentation Skills
11 100 (1.81%) Marketing
12 93 (1.69%) Telecoms
13 84 (1.52%) Law
14 78 (1.42%) Retail
15 75 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 64 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
17 57 (1.03%) Local Government
18 54 (0.98%) Military
19 50 (0.91%) Investment Banking
20 41 (0.74%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 671 (12.18%) Architect
2 636 (11.54%) Analyst
3 527 (9.56%) Developer
4 442 (8.02%) Senior
5 373 (6.77%) IT Support
6 319 (5.79%) Lead
7 292 (5.30%) Consultant
8 279 (5.06%) Support Engineer
9 202 (3.67%) Data Engineer
10 199 (3.61%) Solutions Architect
11 197 (3.58%) IT Engineer
12 186 (3.38%) Azure Engineer
13 174 (3.16%) Administrator
14 173 (3.14%) Business Analyst
15 165 (2.99%) Project Manager
16 160 (2.90%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 151 (2.74%) IT Support Engineer
18 116 (2.11%) Security Engineer
19 109 (1.98%) Support Analyst
20 103 (1.87%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 258 (4.68%) .NET
2 187 (3.39%) REST
3 130 (2.36%) Microsoft Graph
4 124 (2.25%) OAuth
5 101 (1.83%) SAML
6 95 (1.72%) React
7 88 (1.60%) PySpark
8 81 (1.47%) OpenID
9 72 (1.31%) JSON
10 69 (1.25%) RESTful
11 67 (1.22%) HTML
12 64 (1.16%) AngularJS
12 64 (1.16%) LDAP
12 64 (1.16%) Middleware
13 62 (1.13%) Web Services
14 61 (1.11%) ARM Templates
15 60 (1.09%) CSS
16 58 (1.05%) OAuth2
17 50 (0.91%) Node.js
18 49 (0.89%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 286 (5.19%) Onboarding
2 217 (3.94%) Cloud Native
3 184 (3.34%) Product Ownership
4 135 (2.45%) Management Information System
5 113 (2.05%) Enterprise Software
6 96 (1.74%) Data Centre
7 92 (1.67%) Hybrid Cloud
8 89 (1.62%) Security Posture
9 87 (1.58%) PKI
10 83 (1.51%) Self-Motivation
11 73 (1.32%) AI Agents
12 71 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
12 71 (1.29%) Low-Code
13 69 (1.25%) Replication
14 66 (1.20%) Data Structures
15 63 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
16 60 (1.09%) Driving Licence
17 58 (1.05%) Virtual Team
18 56 (1.02%) NHS
19 50 (0.91%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1,237 (22.45%) Windows
2 344 (6.24%) Windows 10
3 288 (5.23%) Linux
4 282 (5.12%) Windows Server
5 101 (1.83%) Android
6 97 (1.76%) Mac OS
7 91 (1.65%) Apple iOS
8 49 (0.89%) Unix
9 45 (0.82%) Windows Server 2016
10 43 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 41 (0.74%) Windows 7
12 26 (0.47%) VMS
13 23 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
14 22 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
15 20 (0.36%) Windows Server 2003
16 10 (0.18%) CentOS
17 9 (0.16%) Ubuntu
18 8 (0.15%) AIX
19 5 (0.091%) Windows 8
20 4 (0.073%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 984 (17.86%) Problem-Solving
2 882 (16.01%) Agile
3 854 (15.50%) DevOps
4 754 (13.68%) Migration
5 721 (13.09%) CI/CD
6 647 (11.74%) Business Intelligence
7 620 (11.25%) Analytics
8 541 (9.82%) Stakeholder Management
9 522 (9.47%) AI
10 509 (9.24%) Continuous Improvement
11 459 (8.33%) Customer Service
12 458 (8.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 415 (7.53%) ITIL
14 387 (7.02%) Cybersecurity
15 386 (7.01%) Data Modelling
16 336 (6.10%) Roadmaps
17 318 (5.77%) Infrastructure as Code
18 301 (5.46%) Change Management
19 298 (5.41%) Project Management
20 297 (5.39%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 725 (13.16%) SQL
2 671 (12.18%) PowerShell
3 639 (11.60%) Python
4 284 (5.15%) C#
5 222 (4.03%) JavaScript
6 170 (3.09%) Java
7 119 (2.16%) Bicep
8 112 (2.03%) Kusto Query Language
9 101 (1.83%) Bash
10 83 (1.51%) TypeScript
11 77 (1.40%) T-SQL
12 68 (1.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 37 (0.67%) PL/SQL
14 29 (0.53%) C++
15 26 (0.47%) VBA
16 23 (0.42%) Perl
17 22 (0.40%) VB
18 18 (0.33%) R
18 18 (0.33%) Shell Script
19 16 (0.29%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,075 (19.51%) Security Cleared
2 818 (14.85%) SC Cleared
3 562 (10.20%) Degree
4 302 (5.48%) Microsoft Certification
5 210 (3.81%) DV Cleared
6 181 (3.28%) Azure Certification
7 133 (2.41%) Computer Science Degree
8 105 (1.91%) CISSP
9 100 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
10 66 (1.20%) Cisco Certification
11 64 (1.16%) PMI Certification
12 62 (1.13%) Master's Degree
13 60 (1.09%) CISM
14 57 (1.03%) PMP
15 42 (0.76%) MCSE
16 41 (0.74%) AWS Certification
17 36 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
17 36 (0.65%) Microsoft Certified Professional
18 34 (0.62%) DBS Check
19 31 (0.56%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 240 (4.36%) Data Quality
2 237 (4.30%) GDPR
3 166 (3.01%) QA
4 156 (2.83%) SLA
5 140 (2.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 121 (2.20%) PMO
7 113 (2.05%) NIST
8 77 (1.40%) Accessibility
9 62 (1.13%) Cyber Essentials
10 44 (0.80%) NCSC
11 40 (0.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 31 (0.56%) PCI DSS
13 25 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 24 (0.44%) GRC
15 22 (0.40%) WCAG
16 18 (0.33%) MiFID
17 15 (0.27%) NIST 800
18 13 (0.24%) FINRA
18 13 (0.24%) HIPAA
19 12 (0.22%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,083 (19.66%) Active Directory
2 222 (4.03%) Docker
3 174 (3.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 89 (1.62%) Hyper-V
5 62 (1.13%) Virtual Machines
6 53 (0.96%) Virtual Desktop
7 35 (0.64%) VMware ESXi
8 30 (0.54%) vSphere
9 22 (0.40%) BitLocker
10 20 (0.36%) VMware NSX
11 16 (0.29%) Firmware
12 11 (0.20%) Microsoft App-V
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
13 6 (0.11%) Snort
14 4 (0.073%) KVM
14 4 (0.073%) VMware Workstation
15 3 (0.054%) DFS Replication
15 3 (0.054%) IAG
15 3 (0.054%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 426 (7.73%) Microsoft Intune
2 349 (6.33%) Terraform
3 261 (4.74%) Kubernetes
4 217 (3.94%) SCCM
5 144 (2.61%) Single Sign-On
6 117 (2.12%) Ansible
7 100 (1.81%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 44 (0.80%) Jamf Pro
9 43 (0.78%) Grafana
10 35 (0.64%) Prometheus
11 31 (0.56%) vCenter Server
12 25 (0.45%) FortiGate
13 21 (0.38%) SCOM
14 18 (0.33%) Puppet
15 16 (0.29%) WSUS
16 15 (0.27%) CASB
17 14 (0.25%) AirWatch
18 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
18 12 (0.22%) WMI
19 11 (0.20%) Nessus
Vendors
1 263 (4.77%) ServiceNow
2 255 (4.63%) VMware
3 210 (3.81%) Databricks
4 206 (3.74%) Oracle
5 199 (3.61%) SAP
6 179 (3.25%) Cisco
7 166 (3.01%) Google
8 138 (2.50%) Citrix
9 105 (1.91%) Splunk
10 97 (1.76%) OpenAI
11 88 (1.60%) Salesforce
12 81 (1.47%) Foundry
13 69 (1.25%) Apple
14 61 (1.11%) CrowdStrike
15 54 (0.98%) Palo Alto
16 53 (0.96%) HP
17 46 (0.83%) Red Hat
18 43 (0.78%) Okta
19 41 (0.74%) Adobe
20 37 (0.67%) Informatica