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 18 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
18 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 4,912 4,256 5,679
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.23% 13.41% 13.13%
As % of the Vendors category 28.78% 29.23% 29.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,331 2,680 3,874
10th Percentile £204 £205 £195
25th Percentile £350 £348 £321
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 £430 £450
% change year-on-year +4.65% -4.44% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 360 194 293
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.49 £12.13
25th Percentile £16.36 £15.62 £14.16
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.59 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.60% +17.95% -2.30%
75th Percentile £27.55 £33.75 £46.18
90th Percentile £63.75 £57.62 £56.12
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.07 £21.46 £18.50
% change year-on-year -11.14% +16.00% -6.94%

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 17,065 14,558 19,134
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 45.96% 45.86% 44.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,005 8,621 12,066
10th Percentile £300 £288 £252
25th Percentile £410 £409 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 799 432 758
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.89 £19.96 £16.74
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.43 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.13% -26.87% +29.31%
75th Percentile £48.75 £60.94 £61.60
90th Percentile £73.85 £79.75 £75.08
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.48 £25.00 £36.50
% change year-on-year -14.08% -31.51% +46.00%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 4,330 £475 - 3,629
UK excluding London 0 2,636 £450 +4.65% 3,518
London -3 1,839 £510 +2.00% 694
Work from Home 0 1,256 £500 +2.56% 1,291
North of England +2 698 £420 -3.45% 759
South East 0 600 £475 +5.56% 1,091
Midlands -4 457 £447 +5.18% 519
North West +2 401 £400 -11.11% 338
South West +1 355 £508 +7.98% 394
West Midlands -5 306 £485 +11.49% 230
East of England 0 272 £425 -2.86% 474
Yorkshire +1 266 £450 +10.29% 311
Scotland -1 182 £460 +22.67% 155
East Midlands -2 151 £375 -6.25% 279
Wales +3 77 £308 -31.67% 167
North East -16 36 £450 +13.21% 119
Northern Ireland 0 32 £400 +39.13% 54
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
1 565 (11.50%) SharePoint
2 379 (7.72%) Microsoft Exchange
3 104 (2.12%) Confluence
4 60 (1.22%) Skype for Business
5 38 (0.77%) CMS
6 24 (0.49%) IIS
7 23 (0.47%) Apache
8 21 (0.43%) SAS
9 20 (0.41%) HCL Notes
10 18 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
10 18 (0.37%) Exchange Server 2013
11 15 (0.31%) Exchange Server 2010
12 14 (0.29%) 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 (12.44%) Microsoft Office
2 515 (10.48%) Microsoft Excel
3 231 (4.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 123 (2.50%) Microsoft Project
5 108 (2.20%) 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 (0.041%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 179 (3.64%) Dynamics CRM
2 40 (0.81%) Remedy ITSM
2 40 (0.81%) SAP S/4HANA
3 17 (0.35%) Dynamics AX
4 15 (0.31%) Maximo
5 14 (0.29%) 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%) Shopify
12 6 (0.12%) Aladdin
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 1,899 (38.66%) Azure
2 1,187 (24.17%) Microsoft 365
3 780 (15.88%) Power Platform
4 571 (11.62%) Entra ID
5 430 (8.75%) AWS
6 377 (7.68%) Dynamics 365
7 357 (7.27%) Azure DevOps
8 321 (6.54%) Power Automate
9 292 (5.94%) PowerApps
10 218 (4.44%) Microsoft Purview
11 212 (4.32%) GitHub
12 185 (3.77%) Serverless
13 174 (3.54%) OneDrive
14 167 (3.40%) GCP
15 166 (3.38%) Azure Data Factory
16 154 (3.14%) SaaS
17 139 (2.83%) Azure Sentinel
17 139 (2.83%) Microsoft Copilot
18 138 (2.81%) Azure Logic Apps
19 123 (2.50%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 279 (5.68%) Firewall
2 264 (5.37%) DNS
3 178 (3.62%) VPN
4 166 (3.38%) DHCP
5 123 (2.50%) TCP/IP
6 106 (2.16%) Wi-Fi
7 104 (2.12%) WAN
8 95 (1.93%) Network Security
9 87 (1.77%) LAN
10 82 (1.67%) Skype
11 51 (1.04%) Wireless
12 50 (1.02%) VLAN
13 48 (0.98%) Kerberos
14 42 (0.86%) Unified Communications
15 35 (0.71%) 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
1 476 (9.69%) Power BI
2 231 (4.70%) SQL Server
3 133 (2.71%) Data Warehouse
4 126 (2.57%) Data Lake
5 88 (1.79%) Azure SQL Database
6 84 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
7 83 (1.69%) Relational Database
8 82 (1.67%) Metadata
9 74 (1.51%) Oracle Database
10 46 (0.94%) MySQL
11 43 (0.88%) Tableau
12 38 (0.77%) NoSQL
12 38 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 37 (0.75%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 35 (0.71%) Power Query
15 26 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
16 22 (0.45%) Delta Lake
17 19 (0.39%) Star Schema
18 18 (0.37%) Big Data
18 18 (0.37%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 219 (4.46%) JIRA
2 157 (3.20%) Git
3 86 (1.75%) Jenkins
4 76 (1.55%) GitLab
5 34 (0.69%) Eclipse
6 26 (0.53%) MSI
7 23 (0.47%) Visual Studio
8 22 (0.45%) Postman
9 21 (0.43%) Android Studio
9 21 (0.43%) Browser DevTools
9 21 (0.43%) Xcode
10 19 (0.39%) Selenium
11 16 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
12 15 (0.31%) Artifactory
13 13 (0.26%) JMeter
14 12 (0.24%) Bitbucket
14 12 (0.24%) Cucumber
14 12 (0.24%) InstallShield
14 12 (0.24%) JUnit
15 11 (0.22%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,976 (40.23%) Social Skills
2 1,005 (20.46%) Finance
3 630 (12.83%) Analytical Skills
4 496 (10.10%) Public Sector
5 245 (4.99%) Banking
6 231 (4.70%) Organisational Skills
7 194 (3.95%) Legal
8 153 (3.11%) Documentation Skills
9 128 (2.61%) Manufacturing
10 111 (2.26%) Marketing
11 101 (2.06%) Presentation Skills
12 92 (1.87%) Telecoms
13 76 (1.55%) Retail
14 74 (1.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 54 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
16 48 (0.98%) Local Government
17 47 (0.96%) Military
18 44 (0.90%) Investment Banking
19 41 (0.83%) Law
20 35 (0.71%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 638 (12.99%) Analyst
2 521 (10.61%) Architect
3 462 (9.41%) Developer
4 351 (7.15%) Senior
5 297 (6.05%) IT Support
6 293 (5.96%) Support Engineer
7 262 (5.33%) Consultant
8 244 (4.97%) Lead
9 166 (3.38%) Solutions Architect
10 162 (3.30%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 153 (3.11%) Administrator
11 153 (3.11%) Business Analyst
12 150 (3.05%) Support Analyst
13 145 (2.95%) IT Engineer
14 142 (2.89%) Azure Engineer
15 140 (2.85%) Project Manager
16 136 (2.77%) Data Engineer
17 118 (2.40%) Security Engineer
18 104 (2.12%) IT Support Engineer
19 102 (2.08%) Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 245 (4.99%) .NET
2 158 (3.22%) REST
3 120 (2.44%) OAuth
4 113 (2.30%) React
5 101 (2.06%) SAML
6 86 (1.75%) RESTful
7 82 (1.67%) Microsoft Graph
8 81 (1.65%) OpenID
9 78 (1.59%) AngularJS
10 68 (1.38%) HTML
11 66 (1.34%) JSON
12 65 (1.32%) CSS
12 65 (1.32%) PySpark
13 64 (1.30%) LDAP
14 56 (1.14%) ARM Templates
15 52 (1.06%) Node.js
16 48 (0.98%) Web Services
17 46 (0.94%) OAuth2
18 45 (0.92%) Middleware
19 42 (0.86%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 276 (5.62%) Onboarding
2 190 (3.87%) Cloud Native
3 138 (2.81%) Product Ownership
4 132 (2.69%) Management Information System
5 115 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
6 93 (1.89%) PKI
7 89 (1.81%) Security Posture
8 87 (1.77%) Data Centre
9 83 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
10 77 (1.57%) Driving Licence
11 71 (1.45%) Mobile App
12 68 (1.38%) Legacy Systems
13 67 (1.36%) Low-Code
14 65 (1.32%) Hybrid Cloud
15 58 (1.18%) Replication
16 55 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
17 52 (1.06%) Virtual Team
18 49 (1.00%) NHS
19 46 (0.94%) Data Protection Act
20 42 (0.86%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 1,178 (23.98%) Windows
2 346 (7.04%) Windows 10
3 295 (6.01%) Linux
4 265 (5.39%) Windows Server
5 104 (2.12%) Mac OS
6 99 (2.02%) Android
7 87 (1.77%) Apple iOS
8 77 (1.57%) 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 22 (0.45%) Windows Server 2012
15 16 (0.33%) 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 1,006 (20.48%) Problem-Solving
2 863 (17.57%) Agile
3 730 (14.86%) DevOps
4 612 (12.46%) Migration
5 599 (12.19%) CI/CD
6 559 (11.38%) Business Intelligence
7 505 (10.28%) Analytics
8 498 (10.14%) Stakeholder Management
9 459 (9.34%) ITIL
10 425 (8.65%) Customer Service
11 424 (8.63%) Continuous Improvement
12 401 (8.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 366 (7.45%) AI
14 351 (7.15%) Cybersecurity
15 314 (6.39%) Project Management
16 287 (5.84%) Change Management
17 279 (5.68%) Data Modelling
18 264 (5.37%) Roadmaps
19 256 (5.21%) Infrastructure as Code
19 256 (5.21%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 639 (13.01%) SQL
2 594 (12.09%) PowerShell
3 568 (11.56%) Python
4 254 (5.17%) C#
5 216 (4.40%) JavaScript
6 140 (2.85%) Java
7 107 (2.18%) Kusto Query Language
8 100 (2.04%) Bash
9 98 (2.00%) Bicep
10 78 (1.59%) TypeScript
11 53 (1.08%) T-SQL
12 45 (0.92%) 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 (0.39%) Go
Qualifications
1 980 (19.95%) Security Cleared
2 731 (14.88%) SC Cleared
3 509 (10.36%) Degree
4 327 (6.66%) Microsoft Certification
5 210 (4.28%) DV Cleared
6 171 (3.48%) Azure Certification
7 122 (2.48%) CISSP
7 122 (2.48%) Computer Science Degree
8 76 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
9 68 (1.38%) CISM
10 59 (1.20%) Cisco Certification
11 55 (1.12%) Master's Degree
12 54 (1.10%) PMI Certification
13 51 (1.04%) ITIL Certification
14 49 (1.00%) A+ Certification
14 49 (1.00%) MCSE
15 43 (0.88%) MCP
15 43 (0.88%) PMP
16 38 (0.77%) AWS Certification
17 33 (0.67%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 223 (4.54%) GDPR
2 166 (3.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 157 (3.20%) Data Quality
4 148 (3.01%) QA
5 135 (2.75%) SLA
6 130 (2.65%) NIST
7 100 (2.04%) PMO
8 83 (1.69%) Accessibility
9 49 (1.00%) Cyber Essentials
10 33 (0.67%) NCSC
11 30 (0.61%) PCI DSS
12 28 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 25 (0.51%) WCAG
14 22 (0.45%) EU AI Act
15 20 (0.41%) HIPAA
16 18 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 17 (0.35%) GRC
18 12 (0.24%) SOC 2
19 11 (0.22%) MiFID
19 11 (0.22%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,010 (20.56%) Active Directory
2 195 (3.97%) Docker
3 167 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 70 (1.43%) Hyper-V
5 57 (1.16%) Virtual Machines
6 37 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
7 35 (0.71%) vSphere
8 33 (0.67%) VMware ESXi
9 17 (0.35%) BitLocker
9 17 (0.35%) 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%) Brightmail
14 5 (0.10%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 5 (0.10%) Snort
14 5 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 372 (7.57%) Microsoft Intune
2 271 (5.52%) SCCM
2 271 (5.52%) Terraform
3 228 (4.64%) Kubernetes
4 139 (2.83%) Single Sign-On
5 101 (2.06%) Ansible
6 82 (1.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 48 (0.98%) SCOM
8 38 (0.77%) Jamf Pro
9 36 (0.73%) vCenter Server
10 32 (0.65%) Grafana
11 26 (0.53%) Prometheus
12 22 (0.45%) FortiGate
13 21 (0.43%) HP SiteScope
13 21 (0.43%) WSUS
14 17 (0.35%) QRadar
15 16 (0.33%) Progress Chef
16 15 (0.31%) Puppet
16 15 (0.31%) WMI
17 14 (0.29%) Kibana
Vendors
1 254 (5.17%) ServiceNow
2 231 (4.70%) VMware
3 214 (4.36%) Oracle
4 184 (3.75%) Cisco
5 172 (3.50%) SAP
6 163 (3.32%) Splunk
7 151 (3.07%) Databricks
8 144 (2.93%) Google
9 112 (2.28%) Citrix
10 82 (1.67%) Apple
11 79 (1.61%) Salesforce
12 75 (1.53%) OpenAI
13 66 (1.34%) CrowdStrike
14 60 (1.22%) Palo Alto
15 50 (1.02%) IBM
16 48 (0.98%) Remedy
17 46 (0.94%) Foundry
18 43 (0.88%) HP
18 43 (0.88%) Veeam
19 38 (0.77%) CyberArk