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 17 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
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +1 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,388 3,942 5,758
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.48% 13.43% 12.94%
As % of the Vendors category 28.50% 28.45% 30.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,610 2,624 3,857
10th Percentile £206 £208 £190
25th Percentile £366 £348 £334
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £582 £583 £600
90th Percentile £675 £674 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.86% -2.78% -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 379 185 434
10th Percentile £13.36 £14.99 £11.06
25th Percentile £16.25 £17.61 £13.25
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.80 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -16.34% +48.19% -25.30%
75th Percentile £25.47 £33.75 £26.50
90th Percentile £63.75 £62.55 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.10 £22.30 £16.05
% change year-on-year -14.33% +38.95% -19.78%

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 18,904 13,856 19,141
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.79% 47.19% 43.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,088 8,653 11,940
10th Percentile £309 £290 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £513
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +1.46% -2.47%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £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 966 460 1,030
10th Percentile £15.31 £15.62 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.01 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.15 £29.00 £24.65
Median % change year-on-year -13.28% +17.65% -31.53%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £54.89
90th Percentile £76.04 £83.16 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.54 £27.43 £23.11
% change year-on-year -14.18% +18.68% -31.02%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 4,726 £492 +3.58% 3,242
UK excluding London 0 2,840 £450 +2.86% 2,967
London -3 2,032 £510 +2.00% 849
Work from Home -1 1,339 £500 +1.01% 1,174
North of England -3 748 £438 +2.94% 707
South East -1 645 £475 -5.00% 901
Midlands -4 494 £450 +8.17% 442
North West -2 425 £420 -6.67% 356
East of England 0 355 £400 -7.25% 310
West Midlands -8 346 £475 +11.76% 229
South West -1 335 £525 +10.53% 339
Yorkshire +5 296 £450 +12.50% 256
Scotland 0 182 £453 +20.67% 190
East Midlands -1 143 £400 - 212
Wales +1 96 £309 -11.79% 114
North East -18 33 £463 +32.14% 107
Northern Ireland -2 22 £463 +42.31% 29
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
1 604 (11.21%) SharePoint
2 424 (7.87%) Microsoft Exchange
3 113 (2.10%) Confluence
4 30 (0.56%) Skype for Business
5 23 (0.43%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.43%) CMS
6 21 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
7 19 (0.35%) Apache
8 17 (0.32%) HCL Notes
9 13 (0.24%) SAS
10 11 (0.20%) IIS
11 10 (0.19%) Mendix
12 7 (0.13%) ArcGIS
13 6 (0.11%) SharePoint Server
14 5 (0.093%) Oracle Application Server
15 4 (0.074%) Exchange Server 2010
15 4 (0.074%) Exchange Server 2013
16 3 (0.056%) Drupal
16 3 (0.056%) Jupyter
16 3 (0.056%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 607 (11.27%) Microsoft Office
2 515 (9.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 224 (4.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 125 (2.32%) Microsoft Project
5 104 (1.93%) MS Visio
6 77 (1.43%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.24%) Chatbot
8 10 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.17%) Trello
10 7 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
11 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
11 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
12 5 (0.093%) PTC Creo
13 4 (0.074%) Adobe XD
13 4 (0.074%) InDesign
14 3 (0.056%) Photoshop
14 3 (0.056%) Sketch
14 3 (0.056%) SOLIDWORKS
15 2 (0.037%) AutoCAD
15 2 (0.037%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 194 (3.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 51 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
3 20 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.33%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.26%) Aladdin
5 14 (0.26%) Dynamics AX
5 14 (0.26%) Maximo
6 12 (0.22%) Loan IQ
7 11 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.19%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 9 (0.17%) NetSuite
10 8 (0.15%) Sage X3
10 8 (0.15%) Shopify
10 8 (0.15%) Teamcenter
11 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
11 7 (0.13%) SystmOne
12 6 (0.11%) Advent Geneva
12 6 (0.11%) Primavera
13 5 (0.093%) SAP MM
13 5 (0.093%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 2,190 (40.65%) Azure
2 1,383 (25.67%) Microsoft 365
3 893 (16.57%) Power Platform
4 702 (13.03%) Entra ID
5 444 (8.24%) AWS
6 437 (8.11%) Azure DevOps
7 429 (7.96%) Dynamics 365
8 346 (6.42%) Power Automate
9 314 (5.83%) PowerApps
10 286 (5.31%) Microsoft Purview
11 258 (4.79%) GitHub
12 213 (3.95%) OneDrive
13 200 (3.71%) Microsoft Copilot
14 191 (3.54%) Serverless
15 190 (3.53%) Azure Data Factory
16 182 (3.38%) SaaS
17 164 (3.04%) GCP
18 158 (2.93%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 155 (2.88%) PaaS
20 146 (2.71%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 307 (5.70%) Firewall
2 296 (5.49%) DNS
3 204 (3.79%) VPN
4 180 (3.34%) DHCP
5 149 (2.77%) Wi-Fi
6 140 (2.60%) WAN
7 122 (2.26%) LAN
8 120 (2.23%) TCP/IP
9 119 (2.21%) Network Security
10 57 (1.06%) Kerberos
11 55 (1.02%) Skype
12 52 (0.97%) VLAN
13 44 (0.82%) Wireless
14 40 (0.74%) SD-WAN
15 34 (0.63%) Unified Communications
16 32 (0.59%) HTTP
17 31 (0.58%) Internet
18 30 (0.56%) MPLS
18 30 (0.56%) SSL
19 29 (0.54%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 554 (10.28%) Power BI
2 256 (4.75%) SQL Server
3 174 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
4 145 (2.69%) Data Lake
5 118 (2.19%) Azure SQL Database
6 102 (1.89%) Metadata
7 98 (1.82%) PostgreSQL
8 72 (1.34%) Relational Database
9 69 (1.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 55 (1.02%) Oracle Database
11 51 (0.95%) NoSQL
11 51 (0.95%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 49 (0.91%) MySQL
13 45 (0.84%) Tableau
14 43 (0.80%) Power Query
15 35 (0.65%) Star Schema
16 33 (0.61%) Delta Lake
17 26 (0.48%) Oracle Reports
18 23 (0.43%) Spark SQL
18 23 (0.43%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 245 (4.55%) JIRA
2 172 (3.19%) Git
3 71 (1.32%) GitLab
4 69 (1.28%) Jenkins
5 25 (0.46%) Eclipse
6 23 (0.43%) Visual Studio
7 21 (0.39%) MSI
7 21 (0.39%) Postman
8 20 (0.37%) Artifactory
9 18 (0.33%) JMeter
9 18 (0.33%) Selenium
10 16 (0.30%) MLflow
11 13 (0.24%) Android Studio
11 13 (0.24%) Cucumber
11 13 (0.24%) JUnit
12 12 (0.22%) Bitbucket
13 10 (0.19%) Browser DevTools
13 10 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
13 10 (0.19%) Xcode
14 9 (0.17%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 1,996 (37.05%) Social Skills
2 1,052 (19.52%) Finance
3 670 (12.44%) Analytical Skills
4 543 (10.08%) Public Sector
5 266 (4.94%) Banking
6 253 (4.70%) Organisational Skills
7 245 (4.55%) Legal
8 164 (3.04%) Documentation Skills
9 122 (2.26%) Manufacturing
10 115 (2.13%) Presentation Skills
11 98 (1.82%) Marketing
12 87 (1.61%) Telecoms
13 77 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 73 (1.35%) Retail
15 63 (1.17%) Law
16 57 (1.06%) Influencing Skills
17 55 (1.02%) Military
18 51 (0.95%) Local Government
19 44 (0.82%) Investment Banking
20 40 (0.74%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 637 (11.82%) Architect
2 616 (11.43%) Analyst
3 518 (9.61%) Developer
4 430 (7.98%) Senior
5 355 (6.59%) IT Support
6 297 (5.51%) Lead
7 292 (5.42%) Consultant
8 280 (5.20%) Support Engineer
9 193 (3.58%) Data Engineer
10 189 (3.51%) Azure Engineer
11 188 (3.49%) IT Engineer
12 186 (3.45%) Solutions Architect
13 169 (3.14%) Administrator
13 169 (3.14%) Business Analyst
14 168 (3.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 168 (3.12%) Project Manager
15 142 (2.64%) IT Support Engineer
16 123 (2.28%) Security Engineer
17 106 (1.97%) Support Analyst
18 100 (1.86%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 256 (4.75%) .NET
2 185 (3.43%) REST
3 129 (2.39%) Microsoft Graph
4 124 (2.30%) OAuth
5 107 (1.99%) SAML
6 92 (1.71%) React
7 87 (1.61%) OpenID
8 82 (1.52%) PySpark
9 74 (1.37%) RESTful
10 69 (1.28%) JSON
11 65 (1.21%) AngularJS
12 64 (1.19%) HTML
12 64 (1.19%) LDAP
13 61 (1.13%) ARM Templates
14 60 (1.11%) Middleware
15 59 (1.10%) CSS
15 59 (1.10%) Web Services
16 55 (1.02%) OAuth2
17 52 (0.97%) Node.js
18 46 (0.85%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 287 (5.33%) Onboarding
2 219 (4.06%) Cloud Native
3 166 (3.08%) Product Ownership
4 135 (2.51%) Management Information System
5 106 (1.97%) Enterprise Software
6 99 (1.84%) Data Centre
7 91 (1.69%) Security Posture
8 88 (1.63%) PKI
9 87 (1.61%) Hybrid Cloud
10 86 (1.60%) Self-Motivation
11 77 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
12 73 (1.35%) Replication
13 70 (1.30%) Low-Code
14 67 (1.24%) AI Agents
15 62 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
15 62 (1.15%) Data Structures
15 62 (1.15%) Driving Licence
16 56 (1.04%) Virtual Team
17 54 (1.00%) NHS
18 52 (0.97%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1,217 (22.59%) Windows
2 344 (6.38%) Windows 10
3 283 (5.25%) Linux
4 282 (5.23%) Windows Server
5 97 (1.80%) Android
6 96 (1.78%) Mac OS
7 89 (1.65%) Apple iOS
8 53 (0.98%) Unix
9 44 (0.82%) Windows 7
10 43 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
11 39 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 24 (0.45%) VMS
13 22 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
13 22 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
14 20 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
15 9 (0.17%) CentOS
16 8 (0.15%) AIX
16 8 (0.15%) Ubuntu
17 5 (0.093%) Windows 8
17 5 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 999 (18.54%) Problem-Solving
2 876 (16.26%) Agile
3 827 (15.35%) DevOps
4 735 (13.64%) Migration
5 694 (12.88%) CI/CD
6 646 (11.99%) Business Intelligence
7 610 (11.32%) Analytics
8 529 (9.82%) Stakeholder Management
9 488 (9.06%) AI
10 478 (8.87%) Continuous Improvement
11 446 (8.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 435 (8.07%) Customer Service
13 419 (7.78%) ITIL
14 383 (7.11%) Cybersecurity
15 359 (6.66%) Data Modelling
16 316 (5.86%) Roadmaps
17 300 (5.57%) Infrastructure as Code
18 299 (5.55%) Project Delivery
18 299 (5.55%) Project Management
19 294 (5.46%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 711 (13.20%) SQL
2 679 (12.60%) PowerShell
3 630 (11.69%) Python
4 275 (5.10%) C#
5 220 (4.08%) JavaScript
6 154 (2.86%) Java
7 124 (2.30%) Bicep
8 109 (2.02%) Kusto Query Language
9 104 (1.93%) Bash
10 80 (1.48%) TypeScript
11 75 (1.39%) T-SQL
12 70 (1.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 33 (0.61%) PL/SQL
14 26 (0.48%) C++
14 26 (0.48%) VBA
15 25 (0.46%) Perl
16 23 (0.43%) VB
17 18 (0.33%) R
17 18 (0.33%) Shell Script
18 17 (0.32%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,076 (19.97%) Security Cleared
2 815 (15.13%) SC Cleared
3 551 (10.23%) Degree
4 314 (5.83%) Microsoft Certification
5 219 (4.06%) DV Cleared
6 185 (3.43%) Azure Certification
7 125 (2.32%) Computer Science Degree
8 108 (2.00%) CISSP
9 98 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
10 62 (1.15%) Cisco Certification
11 61 (1.13%) Master's Degree
11 61 (1.13%) PMI Certification
12 60 (1.11%) CISM
13 54 (1.00%) PMP
14 45 (0.84%) AWS Certification
15 43 (0.80%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 42 (0.78%) MCSE
17 35 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
18 32 (0.59%) A+ Certification
18 32 (0.59%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 244 (4.53%) GDPR
2 227 (4.21%) Data Quality
3 166 (3.08%) QA
4 157 (2.91%) SLA
5 151 (2.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 119 (2.21%) PMO
7 117 (2.17%) NIST
8 79 (1.47%) Accessibility
9 56 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
10 42 (0.78%) NCSC
11 37 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 29 (0.54%) PCI DSS
13 24 (0.45%) GRC
14 22 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 22 (0.41%) WCAG
15 19 (0.35%) EU AI Act
16 18 (0.33%) MiFID
17 13 (0.24%) FINRA
17 13 (0.24%) NIST 800
17 13 (0.24%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,081 (20.06%) Active Directory
2 213 (3.95%) Docker
3 172 (3.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 83 (1.54%) Hyper-V
5 67 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
6 50 (0.93%) Virtual Desktop
7 35 (0.65%) VMware ESXi
7 35 (0.65%) vSphere
8 22 (0.41%) BitLocker
9 19 (0.35%) VMware NSX
10 17 (0.32%) Firmware
11 13 (0.24%) Microsoft App-V
12 6 (0.11%) RACF
12 6 (0.11%) Snort
13 5 (0.093%) Oracle RAC
14 4 (0.074%) KVM
14 4 (0.074%) VMware Workstation
15 3 (0.056%) DFS Replication
15 3 (0.056%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.056%) Squid
Systems Management
1 420 (7.80%) Microsoft Intune
2 339 (6.29%) Terraform
3 251 (4.66%) Kubernetes
4 230 (4.27%) SCCM
5 145 (2.69%) Single Sign-On
6 112 (2.08%) Ansible
7 103 (1.91%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 42 (0.78%) Jamf Pro
9 41 (0.76%) Grafana
10 36 (0.67%) Prometheus
11 35 (0.65%) vCenter Server
12 25 (0.46%) FortiGate
13 22 (0.41%) SCOM
14 18 (0.33%) Puppet
15 16 (0.30%) WSUS
16 14 (0.26%) AirWatch
17 13 (0.24%) CASB
17 13 (0.24%) WMI
18 12 (0.22%) Nessus
18 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
Vendors
1 255 (4.73%) ServiceNow
1 255 (4.73%) VMware
2 198 (3.67%) Databricks
3 192 (3.56%) SAP
4 188 (3.49%) Oracle
5 178 (3.30%) Cisco
6 153 (2.84%) Google
7 134 (2.49%) Citrix
8 102 (1.89%) Splunk
9 90 (1.67%) OpenAI
10 85 (1.58%) Salesforce
11 75 (1.39%) Foundry
12 66 (1.22%) Apple
13 58 (1.08%) CrowdStrike
14 56 (1.04%) Palo Alto
15 54 (1.00%) HP
16 44 (0.82%) Okta
17 41 (0.76%) Adobe
17 41 (0.76%) Red Hat
18 36 (0.67%) CyberArk