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 12 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
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +1 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,362 3,951 5,755
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.56% 13.43% 12.89%
As % of the Vendors category 28.56% 28.53% 29.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,594 2,627 3,854
10th Percentile £205 £206 £190
25th Percentile £363 £348 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £582 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.86% -2.78% -3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 378 179 441
10th Percentile £13.25 £14.99 £11.06
25th Percentile £16.24 £18.17 £13.25
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.80 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -16.34% +48.19% -24.32%
75th Percentile £25.38 £33.75 £26.50
90th Percentile £63.51 £63.35 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.10 £22.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -15.12% +40.10% -19.70%

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 18,772 13,848 19,251
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.96% 47.05% 43.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,009 8,622 12,007
10th Percentile £306 £284 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £515
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +0.97% -2.83%
75th Percentile £600 £622 £625
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 956 446 1,035
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.62 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.09 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.00 £29.07 £24.65
Median % change year-on-year -14.00% +17.93% -29.63%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £53.25
90th Percentile £76.04 £81.63 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.79 £27.63 £23.22
% change year-on-year -17.54% +19.02% -29.65%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 4,701 £492 +3.58% 3,069
UK excluding London 0 2,840 £450 +2.86% 2,749
London -2 2,008 £511 +2.25% 863
Work from Home -1 1,330 £500 +0.91% 1,175
North of England -3 742 £428 -0.47% 641
South East -1 645 £480 -2.34% 865
Midlands -6 502 £450 +7.02% 418
North West -2 419 £415 -7.78% 346
East of England 0 352 £400 -8.57% 289
West Midlands -9 348 £475 +11.76% 220
South West -1 340 £525 +10.53% 307
Yorkshire +4 294 £450 +12.50% 210
Scotland 0 181 £459 +22.33% 156
East Midlands -1 150 £401 +0.25% 196
Wales +1 96 £310 -11.43% 100
North East -17 35 £450 +28.57% 98
Northern Ireland -2 22 £463 +42.31% 25
Channel Islands +4 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
1 600 (11.19%) SharePoint
2 422 (7.87%) Microsoft Exchange
3 110 (2.05%) Confluence
4 31 (0.58%) Skype for Business
5 23 (0.43%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.43%) CMS
6 20 (0.37%) Apache
7 17 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
7 17 (0.32%) HCL Notes
8 13 (0.24%) SAS
9 12 (0.22%) IIS
10 10 (0.19%) Mendix
11 7 (0.13%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.11%) SharePoint Server
13 5 (0.093%) Oracle Application Server
14 4 (0.075%) Exchange Server 2010
14 4 (0.075%) Exchange Server 2013
15 3 (0.056%) Drupal
15 3 (0.056%) MS Project Server
15 3 (0.056%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 611 (11.40%) Microsoft Office
2 513 (9.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 220 (4.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 125 (2.33%) Microsoft Project
5 101 (1.88%) MS Visio
6 78 (1.45%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 9 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 9 (0.17%) Trello
9 7 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.093%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.075%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.075%) InDesign
13 3 (0.056%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.056%) Sketch
13 3 (0.056%) SOLIDWORKS
14 2 (0.037%) AutoCAD
14 2 (0.037%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 196 (3.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 50 (0.93%) SAP S/4HANA
3 20 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.34%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.26%) Aladdin
5 14 (0.26%) Dynamics AX
5 14 (0.26%) Maximo
6 12 (0.22%) Loan IQ
6 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.19%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 9 (0.17%) NetSuite
8 9 (0.17%) Teamcenter
9 8 (0.15%) Sage X3
9 8 (0.15%) Shopify
10 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
10 7 (0.13%) Primavera
11 6 (0.11%) Advent Geneva
11 6 (0.11%) SystmOne
12 5 (0.093%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.093%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 2,173 (40.53%) Azure
2 1,382 (25.77%) Microsoft 365
3 879 (16.39%) Power Platform
4 702 (13.09%) Entra ID
5 448 (8.36%) AWS
6 426 (7.94%) Azure DevOps
7 417 (7.78%) Dynamics 365
8 342 (6.38%) Power Automate
9 311 (5.80%) PowerApps
10 281 (5.24%) Microsoft Purview
11 253 (4.72%) GitHub
12 208 (3.88%) OneDrive
13 196 (3.66%) Microsoft Copilot
14 190 (3.54%) Serverless
15 187 (3.49%) Azure Data Factory
16 184 (3.43%) SaaS
17 167 (3.11%) GCP
18 153 (2.85%) PaaS
19 149 (2.78%) Azure Synapse Analytics
20 145 (2.70%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 300 (5.59%) Firewall
2 298 (5.56%) DNS
3 201 (3.75%) VPN
4 181 (3.38%) DHCP
5 150 (2.80%) Wi-Fi
6 137 (2.56%) WAN
7 121 (2.26%) LAN
7 121 (2.26%) TCP/IP
8 113 (2.11%) Network Security
9 57 (1.06%) Kerberos
10 56 (1.04%) Skype
11 53 (0.99%) VLAN
12 44 (0.82%) Wireless
13 40 (0.75%) Unified Communications
14 38 (0.71%) SD-WAN
15 33 (0.62%) HTTP
16 32 (0.60%) Internet
17 31 (0.58%) SSL
18 30 (0.56%) MPLS
19 29 (0.54%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 538 (10.03%) Power BI
2 253 (4.72%) SQL Server
3 170 (3.17%) Data Warehouse
4 144 (2.69%) Data Lake
5 109 (2.03%) Azure SQL Database
6 101 (1.88%) Metadata
7 99 (1.85%) PostgreSQL
8 72 (1.34%) Relational Database
9 69 (1.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 55 (1.03%) Oracle Database
11 50 (0.93%) MySQL
11 50 (0.93%) NoSQL
12 49 (0.91%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 42 (0.78%) Tableau
14 41 (0.76%) Power Query
15 33 (0.62%) Delta Lake
16 32 (0.60%) Star Schema
17 27 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
18 23 (0.43%) Spark SQL
19 22 (0.41%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 240 (4.48%) JIRA
2 168 (3.13%) Git
3 71 (1.32%) GitLab
4 69 (1.29%) Jenkins
5 25 (0.47%) Eclipse
6 23 (0.43%) MSI
7 22 (0.41%) Visual Studio
8 21 (0.39%) Postman
9 20 (0.37%) Artifactory
10 18 (0.34%) JMeter
10 18 (0.34%) Selenium
11 14 (0.26%) Android Studio
12 13 (0.24%) Cucumber
12 13 (0.24%) JUnit
13 12 (0.22%) Browser DevTools
13 12 (0.22%) MLflow
14 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
14 11 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
14 11 (0.21%) Xcode
15 9 (0.17%) ERwin
General
1 2,017 (37.62%) Social Skills
2 1,033 (19.27%) Finance
3 661 (12.33%) Analytical Skills
4 535 (9.98%) Public Sector
5 256 (4.77%) Banking
6 254 (4.74%) Organisational Skills
7 243 (4.53%) Legal
8 164 (3.06%) Documentation Skills
9 122 (2.28%) Manufacturing
10 114 (2.13%) Presentation Skills
11 97 (1.81%) Marketing
12 90 (1.68%) Telecoms
13 74 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 72 (1.34%) Retail
15 60 (1.12%) Influencing Skills
16 55 (1.03%) Law
17 54 (1.01%) Military
18 48 (0.90%) Local Government
19 44 (0.82%) Investment Banking
20 41 (0.76%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 628 (11.71%) Architect
2 617 (11.51%) Analyst
3 512 (9.55%) Developer
4 430 (8.02%) Senior
5 363 (6.77%) IT Support
6 290 (5.41%) Consultant
6 290 (5.41%) Support Engineer
7 284 (5.30%) Lead
8 190 (3.54%) IT Engineer
9 189 (3.52%) Solutions Architect
10 186 (3.47%) Azure Engineer
10 186 (3.47%) Data Engineer
11 168 (3.13%) Administrator
12 167 (3.11%) Business Analyst
13 166 (3.10%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 162 (3.02%) Project Manager
15 144 (2.69%) IT Support Engineer
16 121 (2.26%) Security Engineer
17 106 (1.98%) Support Analyst
18 101 (1.88%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 262 (4.89%) .NET
2 183 (3.41%) REST
3 127 (2.37%) Microsoft Graph
4 126 (2.35%) OAuth
5 107 (2.00%) SAML
6 92 (1.72%) React
7 87 (1.62%) OpenID
8 83 (1.55%) PySpark
9 76 (1.42%) RESTful
10 71 (1.32%) JSON
11 67 (1.25%) AngularJS
11 67 (1.25%) LDAP
12 66 (1.23%) HTML
13 63 (1.17%) ARM Templates
14 62 (1.16%) Middleware
15 60 (1.12%) CSS
15 60 (1.12%) Web Services
16 55 (1.03%) OAuth2
17 50 (0.93%) Node.js
18 47 (0.88%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 292 (5.45%) Onboarding
2 218 (4.07%) Cloud Native
3 163 (3.04%) Product Ownership
4 135 (2.52%) Management Information System
5 114 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
6 97 (1.81%) Data Centre
7 92 (1.72%) Security Posture
8 87 (1.62%) PKI
9 86 (1.60%) Hybrid Cloud
10 83 (1.55%) Self-Motivation
11 77 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
12 73 (1.36%) Low-Code
12 73 (1.36%) Replication
13 64 (1.19%) AI Agents
14 63 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
15 62 (1.16%) Driving Licence
16 60 (1.12%) Data Structures
17 58 (1.08%) Virtual Team
18 54 (1.01%) NHS
19 52 (0.97%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1,239 (23.11%) Windows
2 357 (6.66%) Windows 10
3 286 (5.33%) Linux
4 280 (5.22%) Windows Server
5 102 (1.90%) Mac OS
6 101 (1.88%) Android
7 94 (1.75%) Apple iOS
8 55 (1.03%) Unix
9 44 (0.82%) Windows 7
10 43 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
11 39 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 24 (0.45%) VMS
13 22 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.39%) Windows Server 2003
15 20 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
16 9 (0.17%) CentOS
17 8 (0.15%) AIX
17 8 (0.15%) Ubuntu
18 5 (0.093%) Windows 8
18 5 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 994 (18.54%) Problem-Solving
2 868 (16.19%) Agile
3 822 (15.33%) DevOps
4 721 (13.45%) Migration
5 693 (12.92%) CI/CD
6 630 (11.75%) Business Intelligence
7 615 (11.47%) Analytics
8 535 (9.98%) Stakeholder Management
9 481 (8.97%) AI
10 471 (8.78%) Continuous Improvement
11 444 (8.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 441 (8.22%) Customer Service
13 420 (7.83%) ITIL
14 383 (7.14%) Cybersecurity
15 352 (6.56%) Data Modelling
16 316 (5.89%) Roadmaps
17 303 (5.65%) Project Management
18 300 (5.59%) Infrastructure as Code
18 300 (5.59%) Project Delivery
19 297 (5.54%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 705 (13.15%) SQL
2 684 (12.76%) PowerShell
3 628 (11.71%) Python
4 279 (5.20%) C#
5 223 (4.16%) JavaScript
6 152 (2.83%) Java
7 123 (2.29%) Bicep
8 111 (2.07%) Kusto Query Language
9 107 (2.00%) Bash
10 81 (1.51%) TypeScript
11 74 (1.38%) T-SQL
12 67 (1.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 33 (0.62%) PL/SQL
14 28 (0.52%) C++
15 26 (0.48%) Perl
16 25 (0.47%) VBA
17 23 (0.43%) VB
18 19 (0.35%) Shell Script
19 17 (0.32%) VBScript
20 16 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 1,078 (20.10%) Security Cleared
2 814 (15.18%) SC Cleared
3 547 (10.20%) Degree
4 315 (5.87%) Microsoft Certification
5 221 (4.12%) DV Cleared
6 186 (3.47%) Azure Certification
7 122 (2.28%) Computer Science Degree
8 109 (2.03%) CISSP
9 98 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
10 62 (1.16%) Cisco Certification
11 59 (1.10%) CISM
11 59 (1.10%) Master's Degree
12 57 (1.06%) PMI Certification
13 49 (0.91%) PMP
14 46 (0.86%) AWS Certification
15 43 (0.80%) MCSE
15 43 (0.80%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 36 (0.67%) ITIL Certification
17 34 (0.63%) DBS Check
18 33 (0.62%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 246 (4.59%) GDPR
2 218 (4.07%) Data Quality
3 161 (3.00%) QA
4 158 (2.95%) SLA
5 151 (2.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 117 (2.18%) PMO
7 114 (2.13%) NIST
8 77 (1.44%) Accessibility
9 56 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
10 38 (0.71%) NCSC
10 38 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 29 (0.54%) PCI DSS
12 24 (0.45%) GRC
13 22 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 21 (0.39%) WCAG
15 19 (0.35%) EU AI Act
16 18 (0.34%) MiFID
17 13 (0.24%) HIPAA
17 13 (0.24%) NIST 800
17 13 (0.24%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,084 (20.22%) Active Directory
2 210 (3.92%) Docker
3 172 (3.21%) VMware Infrastructure
4 79 (1.47%) Hyper-V
5 68 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
6 47 (0.88%) Virtual Desktop
7 35 (0.65%) vSphere
8 32 (0.60%) VMware ESXi
9 20 (0.37%) BitLocker
10 19 (0.35%) VMware NSX
11 16 (0.30%) Firmware
12 12 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
13 6 (0.11%) Snort
14 5 (0.093%) Oracle RAC
15 4 (0.075%) KVM
15 4 (0.075%) VMware Workstation
16 3 (0.056%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 3 (0.056%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.056%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 428 (7.98%) Microsoft Intune
2 336 (6.27%) Terraform
3 251 (4.68%) Kubernetes
4 241 (4.49%) SCCM
5 147 (2.74%) Single Sign-On
6 109 (2.03%) Ansible
7 102 (1.90%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 42 (0.78%) Jamf Pro
9 40 (0.75%) Grafana
10 35 (0.65%) Prometheus
11 34 (0.63%) vCenter Server
12 25 (0.47%) FortiGate
13 22 (0.41%) SCOM
14 17 (0.32%) Puppet
14 17 (0.32%) WSUS
15 14 (0.26%) AirWatch
16 13 (0.24%) WMI
17 12 (0.22%) CASB
17 12 (0.22%) Nessus
17 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
Vendors
1 267 (4.98%) ServiceNow
2 255 (4.76%) VMware
3 202 (3.77%) Databricks
4 198 (3.69%) SAP
5 185 (3.45%) Oracle
6 180 (3.36%) Cisco
7 152 (2.83%) Google
8 134 (2.50%) Citrix
9 106 (1.98%) Splunk
10 88 (1.64%) OpenAI
11 82 (1.53%) Salesforce
12 73 (1.36%) Foundry
13 71 (1.32%) Apple
14 60 (1.12%) CrowdStrike
15 56 (1.04%) Palo Alto
16 53 (0.99%) HP
17 45 (0.84%) Okta
18 39 (0.73%) Adobe
19 38 (0.71%) Red Hat
20 36 (0.67%) CyberArk