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 19 February 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
19 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 8 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,252 4,178 5,706
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.90% 13.56% 12.94%
As % of the Vendors category 28.87% 29.22% 29.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,546 2,664 3,867
10th Percentile £204 £205 £190
25th Percentile £356 £340 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.68% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £435 £450
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -2.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 374 173 374
10th Percentile £13.52 £15.45 £11.84
25th Percentile £16.24 £17.00 £14.00
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.80 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -16.34% +34.31% -13.50%
75th Percentile £25.47 £33.75 £37.34
90th Percentile £61.10 £62.90 £52.78
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £22.09 £17.50
% change year-on-year -13.99% +26.23% -12.50%

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 18,193 14,299 19,133
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.68% 46.42% 43.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,643 8,602 11,971
10th Percentile £300 £275 £258
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £523
Median % change year-on-year -3.89% -0.43% -1.42%
75th Percentile £606 £625 £630
90th Percentile £700 £712 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 899 407 930
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £12.98
25th Percentile £17.97 £21.25 £15.50
Median hourly rate £24.00 £30.00 £26.72
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +12.28% -20.24%
75th Percentile £57.63 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £81.45 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £27.13 £26.00
% change year-on-year -17.05% +4.33% -13.33%

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 19 February 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 19 February 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 19 February 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 4,588 £480 +1.05% 3,466
UK excluding London -1 2,835 £450 +3.45% 3,119
London -4 1,929 £500 - 962
Work from Home 0 1,334 £500 +2.04% 1,335
North of England -1 742 £429 +0.94% 731
South East -1 641 £475 -0.78% 971
Midlands -6 474 £450 +5.88% 455
North West -1 420 £404 -10.33% 402
South West -1 362 £500 +6.38% 326
East of England 0 340 £400 -9.86% 368
West Midlands -8 326 £475 +10.59% 245
Yorkshire +2 286 £450 +9.09% 221
Scotland -2 198 £454 +21.07% 208
East Midlands -1 146 £401 -0.99% 208
Wales +4 95 £310 -31.11% 89
North East -13 42 £450 +28.57% 118
Northern Ireland +3 28 £450 +38.46% 33
Channel Islands +3 1 - - 2

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 (11.31%) SharePoint
2 407 (7.75%) Microsoft Exchange
3 111 (2.11%) Confluence
4 49 (0.93%) Skype for Business
5 28 (0.53%) CMS
6 21 (0.40%) Apache
7 18 (0.34%) Apache Spark
7 18 (0.34%) IIS
8 15 (0.29%) HCL Notes
9 14 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
10 13 (0.25%) SAS
11 10 (0.19%) Exchange Server 2010
11 10 (0.19%) Exchange Server 2013
11 10 (0.19%) Mattermost
12 9 (0.17%) Mendix
13 8 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
14 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
14 6 (0.11%) iPlanet
14 6 (0.11%) Oracle Application Server
14 6 (0.11%) WebSphere
Applications
1 631 (12.01%) Microsoft Office
2 516 (9.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 228 (4.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 130 (2.48%) Microsoft Project
5 109 (2.08%) MS Visio
6 75 (1.43%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 11 (0.21%) Trello
8 10 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.095%) Acrobat
11 5 (0.095%) PTC Creo
11 5 (0.095%) Sketch
12 4 (0.076%) Adobe XD
13 3 (0.057%) Adobe After Effects
13 3 (0.057%) InDesign
13 3 (0.057%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.057%) SOLIDWORKS
13 3 (0.057%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 192 (3.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 48 (0.91%) SAP S/4HANA
3 35 (0.67%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.34%) Dynamics AX
5 16 (0.30%) Maximo
6 15 (0.29%) Dynamics NAV
7 13 (0.25%) Aladdin
8 11 (0.21%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.19%) Teamcenter
10 9 (0.17%) Loan IQ
10 9 (0.17%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 7 (0.13%) Advent Geneva
11 7 (0.13%) Shopify
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
12 6 (0.11%) SystmOne
13 5 (0.095%) Primavera
13 5 (0.095%) SAP ERP
14 4 (0.076%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,091 (39.81%) Azure
2 1,306 (24.87%) Microsoft 365
3 837 (15.94%) Power Platform
4 654 (12.45%) Entra ID
5 449 (8.55%) AWS
6 403 (7.67%) Dynamics 365
7 389 (7.41%) Azure DevOps
8 332 (6.32%) Power Automate
9 293 (5.58%) PowerApps
10 251 (4.78%) Microsoft Purview
11 229 (4.36%) GitHub
12 214 (4.07%) OneDrive
13 186 (3.54%) Serverless
14 182 (3.47%) Azure Data Factory
15 178 (3.39%) SaaS
16 174 (3.31%) GCP
17 171 (3.26%) Microsoft Copilot
18 140 (2.67%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 138 (2.63%) Azure Logic Apps
20 135 (2.57%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 310 (5.90%) DNS
2 282 (5.37%) Firewall
3 202 (3.85%) VPN
4 193 (3.67%) DHCP
5 136 (2.59%) Wi-Fi
6 128 (2.44%) TCP/IP
7 119 (2.27%) WAN
8 107 (2.04%) LAN
9 103 (1.96%) Network Security
10 75 (1.43%) Skype
11 66 (1.26%) Kerberos
12 59 (1.12%) VLAN
13 46 (0.88%) Unified Communications
14 45 (0.86%) Wireless
15 34 (0.65%) SD-WAN
16 33 (0.63%) HTTP
17 29 (0.55%) Internet
18 28 (0.53%) SSL
19 26 (0.50%) SAN
19 26 (0.50%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 518 (9.86%) Power BI
2 243 (4.63%) SQL Server
3 154 (2.93%) Data Warehouse
4 136 (2.59%) Data Lake
5 101 (1.92%) Metadata
6 94 (1.79%) PostgreSQL
7 92 (1.75%) Azure SQL Database
8 77 (1.47%) Relational Database
9 60 (1.14%) Oracle Database
9 60 (1.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 54 (1.03%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 47 (0.89%) MySQL
12 42 (0.80%) Tableau
13 39 (0.74%) NoSQL
14 37 (0.70%) Power Query
15 30 (0.57%) Delta Lake
16 25 (0.48%) Oracle Reports
16 25 (0.48%) Star Schema
17 23 (0.44%) SQL Server Analysis Services
18 22 (0.42%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 244 (4.65%) JIRA
2 161 (3.07%) Git
3 75 (1.43%) GitLab
3 75 (1.43%) Jenkins
4 25 (0.48%) MSI
5 23 (0.44%) Eclipse
6 21 (0.40%) Postman
7 18 (0.34%) Artifactory
8 17 (0.32%) Android Studio
8 17 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
8 17 (0.32%) Visual Studio
9 16 (0.30%) Selenium
10 15 (0.29%) JMeter
10 15 (0.29%) Xcode
11 14 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
12 13 (0.25%) Cucumber
13 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.21%) JUnit
13 11 (0.21%) MLflow
14 10 (0.19%) ERwin
General
1 2,048 (38.99%) Social Skills
2 1,036 (19.73%) Finance
3 665 (12.66%) Analytical Skills
4 518 (9.86%) Public Sector
5 255 (4.86%) Organisational Skills
6 248 (4.72%) Banking
7 222 (4.23%) Legal
8 169 (3.22%) Documentation Skills
9 132 (2.51%) Manufacturing
10 109 (2.08%) Marketing
11 108 (2.06%) Presentation Skills
12 95 (1.81%) Telecoms
13 70 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 70 (1.33%) Retail
14 53 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
15 48 (0.91%) Investment Banking
16 47 (0.89%) Military
17 46 (0.88%) Law
18 39 (0.74%) Local Government
18 39 (0.74%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 669 (12.74%) Analyst
2 593 (11.29%) Architect
3 502 (9.56%) Developer
4 399 (7.60%) Senior
5 344 (6.55%) IT Support
6 301 (5.73%) Support Engineer
7 291 (5.54%) Consultant
8 262 (4.99%) Lead
9 185 (3.52%) Solutions Architect
10 174 (3.31%) IT Engineer
11 172 (3.27%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 171 (3.26%) Business Analyst
12 171 (3.26%) Data Engineer
13 168 (3.20%) Azure Engineer
14 160 (3.05%) Administrator
15 156 (2.97%) Project Manager
16 139 (2.65%) Support Analyst
17 134 (2.55%) IT Support Engineer
18 110 (2.09%) Security Engineer
19 101 (1.92%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 246 (4.68%) .NET
2 170 (3.24%) REST
3 133 (2.53%) OAuth
4 111 (2.11%) SAML
5 109 (2.08%) Microsoft Graph
6 104 (1.98%) React
7 91 (1.73%) OpenID
8 77 (1.47%) LDAP
9 76 (1.45%) PySpark
9 76 (1.45%) RESTful
10 73 (1.39%) AngularJS
11 69 (1.31%) JSON
12 68 (1.29%) HTML
13 67 (1.28%) CSS
14 62 (1.18%) ARM Templates
15 53 (1.01%) Middleware
16 52 (0.99%) OAuth2
17 49 (0.93%) Node.js
17 49 (0.93%) Web Services
18 42 (0.80%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 302 (5.75%) Onboarding
2 193 (3.67%) Cloud Native
3 156 (2.97%) Product Ownership
4 133 (2.53%) Management Information System
5 108 (2.06%) Enterprise Software
6 94 (1.79%) PKI
7 90 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
8 86 (1.64%) Data Centre
9 82 (1.56%) Security Posture
10 80 (1.52%) Hybrid Cloud
11 75 (1.43%) Low-Code
12 74 (1.41%) Replication
13 70 (1.33%) Legacy Systems
14 67 (1.28%) Driving Licence
15 64 (1.22%) Mobile App
16 58 (1.10%) AI Agents
16 58 (1.10%) Data Structures
17 56 (1.07%) NHS
18 53 (1.01%) Data Protection Act
19 52 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,245 (23.71%) Windows
2 371 (7.06%) Windows 10
3 302 (5.75%) Linux
4 280 (5.33%) Windows Server
5 120 (2.28%) Mac OS
6 96 (1.83%) Android
7 93 (1.77%) Apple iOS
8 70 (1.33%) Unix
9 48 (0.91%) Windows 7
10 41 (0.78%) Windows Server 2016
11 33 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 22 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
12 22 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
13 21 (0.40%) VMS
13 21 (0.40%) Windows Server 2003
14 7 (0.13%) AIX
14 7 (0.13%) Ubuntu
15 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
16 5 (0.095%) CentOS
16 5 (0.095%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,035 (19.71%) Problem-Solving
2 885 (16.85%) Agile
3 777 (14.79%) DevOps
4 699 (13.31%) Migration
5 646 (12.30%) CI/CD
6 611 (11.63%) Business Intelligence
7 570 (10.85%) Analytics
8 537 (10.22%) Stakeholder Management
9 457 (8.70%) Customer Service
10 449 (8.55%) ITIL
11 448 (8.53%) Continuous Improvement
12 439 (8.36%) AI
13 432 (8.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 370 (7.04%) Cybersecurity
15 331 (6.30%) Data Modelling
16 314 (5.98%) Project Management
17 298 (5.67%) Change Management
18 296 (5.64%) Roadmaps
19 287 (5.46%) Infrastructure as Code
20 284 (5.41%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 670 (12.76%) SQL
2 657 (12.51%) PowerShell
3 619 (11.79%) Python
4 263 (5.01%) C#
5 227 (4.32%) JavaScript
6 145 (2.76%) Java
7 113 (2.15%) Bicep
8 105 (2.00%) Kusto Query Language
9 101 (1.92%) Bash
10 86 (1.64%) TypeScript
11 68 (1.29%) T-SQL
12 59 (1.12%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 32 (0.61%) Perl
14 31 (0.59%) PL/SQL
15 27 (0.51%) VB
16 26 (0.50%) Shell Script
17 24 (0.46%) C++
17 24 (0.46%) VBA
18 18 (0.34%) Go
18 18 (0.34%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,031 (19.63%) Security Cleared
2 768 (14.62%) SC Cleared
3 535 (10.19%) Degree
4 330 (6.28%) Microsoft Certification
5 213 (4.06%) DV Cleared
6 191 (3.64%) Azure Certification
7 127 (2.42%) Computer Science Degree
8 115 (2.19%) CISSP
9 87 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
10 66 (1.26%) CISM
11 62 (1.18%) Master's Degree
12 57 (1.09%) Cisco Certification
13 56 (1.07%) PMI Certification
14 49 (0.93%) MCSE
14 49 (0.93%) PMP
15 45 (0.86%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 43 (0.82%) ITIL Certification
17 42 (0.80%) A+ Certification
18 39 (0.74%) AWS Certification
19 32 (0.61%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 240 (4.57%) GDPR
2 200 (3.81%) Data Quality
3 157 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 155 (2.95%) QA
5 145 (2.76%) SLA
6 120 (2.28%) NIST
7 116 (2.21%) PMO
8 81 (1.54%) Accessibility
9 57 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
10 36 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 31 (0.59%) NCSC
12 27 (0.51%) PCI DSS
13 23 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 21 (0.40%) EU AI Act
14 21 (0.40%) GRC
14 21 (0.40%) WCAG
15 17 (0.32%) MiFID
16 15 (0.29%) SOC 2
17 14 (0.27%) HIPAA
18 13 (0.25%) FINRA
System Software
1 1,095 (20.85%) Active Directory
2 202 (3.85%) Docker
3 180 (3.43%) VMware Infrastructure
4 81 (1.54%) Hyper-V
5 68 (1.29%) Virtual Machines
6 49 (0.93%) Virtual Desktop
7 41 (0.78%) vSphere
8 34 (0.65%) VMware ESXi
9 19 (0.36%) BitLocker
10 17 (0.32%) VMware NSX
11 12 (0.23%) Microsoft App-V
12 9 (0.17%) Firmware
13 7 (0.13%) Snort
14 6 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 6 (0.11%) RACF
14 6 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
15 5 (0.095%) Oracle RAC
15 5 (0.095%) Tivoli Directory Server
16 4 (0.076%) KVM
16 4 (0.076%) NFS
Systems Management
1 414 (7.88%) Microsoft Intune
2 318 (6.05%) Terraform
3 273 (5.20%) SCCM
4 238 (4.53%) Kubernetes
5 167 (3.18%) Single Sign-On
6 104 (1.98%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 102 (1.94%) Ansible
8 52 (0.99%) Jamf Pro
9 39 (0.74%) Grafana
9 39 (0.74%) SCOM
10 38 (0.72%) vCenter Server
11 34 (0.65%) Prometheus
12 24 (0.46%) FortiGate
13 21 (0.40%) WSUS
14 15 (0.29%) HP SiteScope
14 15 (0.29%) Puppet
14 15 (0.29%) WMI
15 14 (0.27%) AirWatch
15 14 (0.27%) Nessus
16 12 (0.23%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 271 (5.16%) ServiceNow
2 256 (4.87%) VMware
3 195 (3.71%) SAP
4 193 (3.67%) Oracle
5 187 (3.56%) Databricks
6 186 (3.54%) Cisco
7 151 (2.88%) Google
8 139 (2.65%) Splunk
9 127 (2.42%) Citrix
10 91 (1.73%) Salesforce
11 85 (1.62%) OpenAI
12 81 (1.54%) Apple
13 67 (1.28%) CrowdStrike
14 58 (1.10%) Foundry
14 58 (1.10%) Palo Alto
15 49 (0.93%) HP
16 48 (0.91%) Remedy
17 46 (0.88%) Okta
18 44 (0.84%) CyberArk
19 40 (0.76%) IBM