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 9 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
9 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 4,944 4,332 5,553
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.47% 13.56% 13.08%
As % of the Vendors category 29.06% 29.62% 29.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,333 2,726 3,821
10th Percentile £205 £205 £195
25th Percentile £350 £350 £320
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £613
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.86% -2.78% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 371 193 234
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.49 £13.29
25th Percentile £16.47 £15.62 £15.29
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.59 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.60% +7.23% +7.47%
75th Percentile £27.83 £33.75 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £57.62 £58.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.23 £21.46 £21.00
% change year-on-year -10.39% +2.19% +5.63%

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 17,013 14,625 18,800
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 46.36% 45.78% 44.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,921 8,668 11,914
10th Percentile £300 £285 £253
25th Percentile £410 £409 £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 £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 805 431 660
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.89 £19.59 £18.93
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.35 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.89% -38.54% +61.82%
75th Percentile £47.00 £60.38 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £25.00 £45.88
% change year-on-year -14.16% -45.51% +88.88%

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 9 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 9 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Top 17 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 9 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 4,352 £475 - 3,151
UK excluding London -1 2,652 £450 +2.86% 2,960
London -1 1,851 £510 +2.00% 661
Work from Home +1 1,261 £500 +2.04% 1,212
North of England +2 701 £420 -3.45% 689
South East +1 606 £475 +5.44% 923
Midlands -4 453 £449 +5.53% 443
North West +2 409 £400 -11.11% 318
South West 0 357 £500 +5.26% 307
West Midlands -6 303 £485 +7.78% 226
East of England -1 268 £425 -4.23% 371
Yorkshire 0 260 £435 +5.45% 277
Scotland -3 188 £452 +13.00% 130
East Midlands +1 150 £375 - 212
Wales +2 79 £295 -30.59% 126
Northern Ireland +5 40 £361 +44.50% 40
North East -14 37 £430 +16.22% 102

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
1 569 (11.51%) SharePoint
2 375 (7.58%) Microsoft Exchange
3 108 (2.18%) Confluence
4 58 (1.17%) Skype for Business
5 37 (0.75%) CMS
6 24 (0.49%) IIS
7 21 (0.42%) Apache
7 21 (0.42%) HCL Notes
7 21 (0.42%) SAS
8 19 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
9 18 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2013
10 16 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2010
11 15 (0.30%) Apache Spark
12 13 (0.26%) Mattermost
12 13 (0.26%) SharePoint Server
13 11 (0.22%) WebSphere
13 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
14 10 (0.20%) iPlanet
14 10 (0.20%) JBoss
15 9 (0.18%) Mendix
Applications
1 614 (12.42%) Microsoft Office
2 529 (10.70%) Microsoft Excel
3 245 (4.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 128 (2.59%) Microsoft Project
5 102 (2.06%) MS Visio
6 60 (1.21%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.24%) Trello
8 11 (0.22%) 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
1 187 (3.78%) Dynamics CRM
2 41 (0.83%) Remedy ITSM
3 36 (0.73%) SAP S/4HANA
4 17 (0.34%) Dynamics AX
5 15 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
5 15 (0.30%) Maximo
6 13 (0.26%) 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%) assyst
13 5 (0.10%) SAP ERP
14 4 (0.081%) Loan IQ
14 4 (0.081%) Primavera
14 4 (0.081%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,875 (37.92%) Azure
2 1,178 (23.83%) Microsoft 365
3 795 (16.08%) Power Platform
4 565 (11.43%) Entra ID
5 431 (8.72%) AWS
6 391 (7.91%) Dynamics 365
7 352 (7.12%) Azure DevOps
8 328 (6.63%) Power Automate
9 303 (6.13%) PowerApps
10 208 (4.21%) Microsoft Purview
11 205 (4.15%) GitHub
12 177 (3.58%) Serverless
13 169 (3.42%) GCP
14 165 (3.34%) OneDrive
15 158 (3.20%) Azure Data Factory
16 155 (3.14%) SaaS
17 143 (2.89%) Azure Sentinel
18 132 (2.67%) Azure Logic Apps
19 131 (2.65%) Microsoft Copilot
20 118 (2.39%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 282 (5.70%) Firewall
2 259 (5.24%) DNS
3 173 (3.50%) VPN
4 162 (3.28%) DHCP
5 133 (2.69%) TCP/IP
6 102 (2.06%) Wi-Fi
7 95 (1.92%) Network Security
8 92 (1.86%) WAN
9 82 (1.66%) LAN
10 79 (1.60%) Skype
11 54 (1.09%) Wireless
12 45 (0.91%) VLAN
13 42 (0.85%) Kerberos
13 42 (0.85%) Unified Communications
14 32 (0.65%) HTTP
15 30 (0.61%) SD-WAN
16 29 (0.59%) Internet
17 28 (0.57%) SAN
18 25 (0.51%) MPLS
18 25 (0.51%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 483 (9.77%) Power BI
2 230 (4.65%) SQL Server
3 130 (2.63%) Data Warehouse
4 127 (2.57%) Data Lake
5 88 (1.78%) PostgreSQL
6 85 (1.72%) Metadata
7 82 (1.66%) Azure SQL Database
7 82 (1.66%) Relational Database
8 75 (1.52%) Oracle Database
9 45 (0.91%) MySQL
10 43 (0.87%) Tableau
11 41 (0.83%) NoSQL
12 38 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 36 (0.73%) Power Query
13 36 (0.73%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 25 (0.51%) Oracle Reports
15 24 (0.49%) Delta Lake
16 20 (0.40%) Spark SQL
17 19 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
18 18 (0.36%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 244 (4.94%) JIRA
2 149 (3.01%) Git
3 89 (1.80%) Jenkins
4 75 (1.52%) GitLab
5 37 (0.75%) Eclipse
6 26 (0.53%) MSI
7 24 (0.49%) Postman
7 24 (0.49%) Visual Studio
8 22 (0.44%) Android Studio
8 22 (0.44%) Browser DevTools
8 22 (0.44%) Xcode
9 19 (0.38%) Selenium
10 16 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (0.26%) Artifactory
11 13 (0.26%) Bitbucket
11 13 (0.26%) JMeter
12 12 (0.24%) Cucumber
12 12 (0.24%) InstallShield
13 10 (0.20%) CA Release Automation
13 10 (0.20%) SonarQube
General
1 2,017 (40.80%) Social Skills
2 1,015 (20.53%) Finance
3 649 (13.13%) Analytical Skills
4 511 (10.34%) Public Sector
5 254 (5.14%) Banking
6 230 (4.65%) Organisational Skills
7 180 (3.64%) Legal
8 151 (3.05%) Documentation Skills
9 133 (2.69%) Manufacturing
10 115 (2.33%) Marketing
11 103 (2.08%) Presentation Skills
12 92 (1.86%) Telecoms
13 80 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 79 (1.60%) Retail
15 59 (1.19%) Influencing Skills
16 51 (1.03%) Local Government
17 44 (0.89%) Military
18 42 (0.85%) Investment Banking
19 40 (0.81%) Law
20 37 (0.75%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 666 (13.47%) Analyst
2 508 (10.28%) Architect
3 465 (9.41%) Developer
4 351 (7.10%) Senior
5 300 (6.07%) Support Engineer
6 288 (5.83%) IT Support
7 273 (5.52%) Consultant
8 240 (4.85%) Lead
9 162 (3.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 158 (3.20%) Solutions Architect
11 157 (3.18%) Business Analyst
12 156 (3.16%) Administrator
13 152 (3.07%) Support Analyst
14 150 (3.03%) Project Manager
15 146 (2.95%) IT Engineer
16 141 (2.85%) Azure Engineer
17 129 (2.61%) Data Engineer
18 124 (2.51%) Security Engineer
19 104 (2.10%) Desktop Support
20 103 (2.08%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 247 (5.00%) .NET
2 159 (3.22%) REST
3 113 (2.29%) OAuth
4 108 (2.18%) React
5 89 (1.80%) SAML
6 85 (1.72%) RESTful
7 79 (1.60%) AngularJS
7 79 (1.60%) OpenID
8 77 (1.56%) Microsoft Graph
9 70 (1.42%) HTML
10 67 (1.36%) CSS
10 67 (1.36%) JSON
11 62 (1.25%) PySpark
12 56 (1.13%) LDAP
13 54 (1.09%) ARM Templates
14 52 (1.05%) Node.js
15 49 (0.99%) Web Services
16 46 (0.93%) Middleware
17 44 (0.89%) SOAP
18 43 (0.87%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 271 (5.48%) Onboarding
2 194 (3.92%) Cloud Native
3 140 (2.83%) Product Ownership
4 132 (2.67%) Management Information System
5 116 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
6 93 (1.88%) Security Posture
7 92 (1.86%) PKI
8 89 (1.80%) Data Centre
9 87 (1.76%) Self-Motivation
10 75 (1.52%) Driving Licence
11 73 (1.48%) Mobile App
12 69 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
13 67 (1.36%) Low-Code
14 63 (1.27%) Hybrid Cloud
15 61 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
16 53 (1.07%) Replication
16 53 (1.07%) Virtual Team
17 48 (0.97%) Data Protection Act
17 48 (0.97%) NHS
18 40 (0.81%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 1,168 (23.62%) Windows
2 332 (6.72%) Windows 10
3 295 (5.97%) Linux
4 260 (5.26%) Windows Server
5 108 (2.18%) Mac OS
6 103 (2.08%) Android
7 90 (1.82%) Apple iOS
8 78 (1.58%) Unix
9 37 (0.75%) Windows 7
10 35 (0.71%) Windows Server 2016
11 28 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 27 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
13 21 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
14 20 (0.40%) Windows Server 2003
15 16 (0.32%) VMS
16 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
17 8 (0.16%) Mac OS X
18 6 (0.12%) AIX
18 6 (0.12%) Ubuntu
18 6 (0.12%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,029 (20.81%) Problem-Solving
2 892 (18.04%) Agile
3 724 (14.64%) DevOps
4 621 (12.56%) Migration
5 579 (11.71%) CI/CD
6 570 (11.53%) Business Intelligence
7 505 (10.21%) Stakeholder Management
8 490 (9.91%) Analytics
9 460 (9.30%) ITIL
10 428 (8.66%) Continuous Improvement
11 413 (8.35%) Customer Service
12 409 (8.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 353 (7.14%) AI
14 351 (7.10%) Cybersecurity
15 330 (6.67%) Project Management
16 303 (6.13%) Change Management
17 280 (5.66%) Data Modelling
18 269 (5.44%) Roadmaps
19 259 (5.24%) Project Delivery
20 256 (5.18%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 626 (12.66%) SQL
2 586 (11.85%) PowerShell
3 555 (11.23%) Python
4 262 (5.30%) C#
5 214 (4.33%) JavaScript
6 150 (3.03%) Java
7 108 (2.18%) Kusto Query Language
8 100 (2.02%) Bash
9 95 (1.92%) Bicep
10 75 (1.52%) TypeScript
11 53 (1.07%) T-SQL
12 44 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 38 (0.77%) Perl
14 27 (0.55%) Shell Script
15 26 (0.53%) C++
16 25 (0.51%) PL/SQL
17 21 (0.42%) Go
17 21 (0.42%) R
18 20 (0.40%) VB
19 19 (0.38%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 972 (19.66%) Security Cleared
2 734 (14.85%) SC Cleared
3 523 (10.58%) Degree
4 341 (6.90%) Microsoft Certification
5 197 (3.98%) DV Cleared
6 177 (3.58%) Azure Certification
7 128 (2.59%) CISSP
8 119 (2.41%) Computer Science Degree
9 73 (1.48%) BPSS Clearance
10 68 (1.38%) CISM
11 63 (1.27%) Cisco Certification
12 57 (1.15%) Master's Degree
12 57 (1.15%) PMI Certification
13 53 (1.07%) A+ Certification
14 51 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
14 51 (1.03%) MCSE
15 47 (0.95%) PMP
16 44 (0.89%) AWS Certification
16 44 (0.89%) MCP
17 34 (0.69%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 222 (4.49%) GDPR
2 169 (3.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 154 (3.11%) Data Quality
4 147 (2.97%) QA
5 135 (2.73%) NIST
6 126 (2.55%) SLA
7 103 (2.08%) PMO
8 86 (1.74%) Accessibility
9 48 (0.97%) Cyber Essentials
10 33 (0.67%) NCSC
11 27 (0.55%) PCI DSS
12 26 (0.53%) WCAG
13 22 (0.44%) EU AI Act
14 21 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 21 (0.42%) HIPAA
14 21 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 15 (0.30%) GRC
16 11 (0.22%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.22%) SOC 2
17 9 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 996 (20.15%) Active Directory
2 189 (3.82%) Docker
3 165 (3.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 68 (1.38%) Hyper-V
5 56 (1.13%) Virtual Machines
6 38 (0.77%) Virtual Desktop
7 36 (0.73%) vSphere
8 34 (0.69%) VMware ESXi
9 15 (0.30%) BitLocker
10 14 (0.28%) Firmware
11 13 (0.26%) VMware NSX
12 11 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
13 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
14 7 (0.14%) ISA Server
14 7 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
14 7 (0.14%) XenApp
15 6 (0.12%) Brightmail
15 6 (0.12%) NFS
15 6 (0.12%) Terminal Services
16 5 (0.10%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 368 (7.44%) Microsoft Intune
2 276 (5.58%) SCCM
3 264 (5.34%) Terraform
4 230 (4.65%) Kubernetes
5 125 (2.53%) Single Sign-On
6 103 (2.08%) Ansible
7 78 (1.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (0.99%) SCOM
9 38 (0.77%) Jamf Pro
9 38 (0.77%) vCenter Server
10 33 (0.67%) Grafana
11 26 (0.53%) Prometheus
12 21 (0.42%) HP SiteScope
13 20 (0.40%) WSUS
14 19 (0.38%) FortiGate
15 17 (0.34%) QRadar
16 15 (0.30%) Progress Chef
17 14 (0.28%) Kibana
17 14 (0.28%) Microsoft Clustering
18 13 (0.26%) Puppet
Vendors
1 265 (5.36%) ServiceNow
2 226 (4.57%) VMware
3 219 (4.43%) Oracle
4 183 (3.70%) Cisco
5 177 (3.58%) SAP
6 168 (3.40%) Splunk
7 146 (2.95%) Google
8 144 (2.91%) Databricks
9 116 (2.35%) Citrix
10 85 (1.72%) Apple
11 79 (1.60%) Salesforce
12 70 (1.42%) OpenAI
13 66 (1.33%) CrowdStrike
14 61 (1.23%) Palo Alto
15 52 (1.05%) IBM
16 50 (1.01%) Remedy
17 47 (0.95%) HP
18 43 (0.87%) CyberArk
18 43 (0.87%) Foundry
18 43 (0.87%) Veeam