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 1 June 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
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,685 3,954 5,578
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.62% 13.57% 12.98%
As % of the Vendors category 28.43% 28.42% 30.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,779 2,570 3,637
10th Percentile £210 £212 £190
25th Percentile £375 £341 £338
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £586 £586 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 368 274 474
10th Percentile £13.64 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.62 £13.05
Median hourly rate £20.09 £18.94 £15.34
Median % change year-on-year +6.10% +23.48% -32.49%
75th Percentile £30.00 £29.84 £25.00
90th Percentile £65.00 £56.44 £56.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.09 £18.85 £15.00
% change year-on-year +6.58% +25.67% -21.05%

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 20,000 13,915 18,173
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.86% 47.76% 42.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,586 8,630 11,338
10th Percentile £313 £281 £263
25th Percentile £413 £405 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £514
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -0.78% -2.10%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +0.66% -2.10% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,033 599 1,121
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £14.48
Median hourly rate £32.23 £25.50 £22.56
Median % change year-on-year +26.37% +13.03% -46.92%
75th Percentile £58.75 £55.37 £57.50
90th Percentile £76.64 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.29 £22.50 £21.50
% change year-on-year +30.16% +4.65% -45.64%

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 1 June 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 1 June 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 1 June 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 4,981 £498 +4.30% 3,516
UK excluding London -1 2,965 £450 +5.88% 2,962
London -3 2,216 £515 -1.27% 1,072
Work from Home 0 1,428 £500 - 1,433
North of England -3 766 £450 +6.51% 697
South East -1 682 £475 +2.15% 884
Midlands -5 510 £450 +12.50% 460
North West -3 397 £433 +1.88% 385
West Midlands -4 359 £450 +12.50% 264
South West -2 351 £450 +1.41% 331
Yorkshire -2 350 £475 +11.76% 224
East of England 0 319 £375 -25.00% 323
Scotland +5 241 £450 +4.65% 158
East Midlands -1 144 £400 -2.44% 196
Wales +1 97 £358 +25.44% 97
Northern Ireland -1 21 £450 +38.46% 76
North East -34 21 £450 +32.35% 92
Channel Islands -2 2 £550 +84.87%

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
1 606 (10.66%) SharePoint
2 375 (6.60%) Microsoft Exchange
3 107 (1.88%) Confluence
4 40 (0.70%) Apache Spark
5 29 (0.51%) Apache
6 26 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
7 23 (0.40%) HCL Notes
8 20 (0.35%) CMS
9 15 (0.26%) Skype for Business
10 13 (0.23%) IIS
10 13 (0.23%) SAS
11 12 (0.21%) Mendix
12 6 (0.11%) Camunda
12 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
13 5 (0.088%) Appian
13 5 (0.088%) OpenEdge
14 4 (0.070%) ArcGIS
14 4 (0.070%) Exchange Server 2013
14 4 (0.070%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 548 (9.64%) Microsoft Office
2 493 (8.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 215 (3.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 114 (2.01%) Microsoft Project
5 90 (1.58%) MS Visio
6 50 (0.88%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.30%) Chatbot
8 12 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
10 5 (0.088%) Acrobat
10 5 (0.088%) PTC Creo
10 5 (0.088%) Trello
11 4 (0.070%) InDesign
11 4 (0.070%) SOLIDWORKS
12 3 (0.053%) Adobe Captivate
12 3 (0.053%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.035%) InfoPath
13 2 (0.035%) MicroStation
13 2 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 200 (3.52%) Dynamics CRM
2 71 (1.25%) SAP S/4HANA
3 23 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.32%) NetSuite
5 15 (0.26%) Aladdin
6 14 (0.25%) Dynamics NAV
6 14 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
7 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
8 11 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
8 11 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
9 10 (0.18%) Maximo
9 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
9 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 8 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
10 8 (0.14%) Loan IQ
11 6 (0.11%) Dynamics GP
11 6 (0.11%) NEC Housing
11 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
11 6 (0.11%) Primavera
11 6 (0.11%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,414 (42.46%) Azure
2 1,450 (25.51%) Microsoft 365
3 955 (16.80%) Power Platform
4 755 (13.28%) Entra ID
5 466 (8.20%) AWS
6 454 (7.99%) Dynamics 365
7 453 (7.97%) Azure DevOps
8 323 (5.68%) Power Automate
9 307 (5.40%) Microsoft Purview
10 286 (5.03%) PowerApps
11 253 (4.45%) Microsoft Copilot
12 250 (4.40%) GitHub
13 219 (3.85%) OneDrive
14 207 (3.64%) SaaS
15 184 (3.24%) Azure Data Factory
16 177 (3.11%) GCP
17 172 (3.03%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 156 (2.74%) Serverless
19 142 (2.50%) PaaS
20 141 (2.48%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 293 (5.15%) DNS
2 263 (4.63%) Firewall
3 212 (3.73%) VPN
4 182 (3.20%) DHCP
5 139 (2.45%) WAN
5 139 (2.45%) Wi-Fi
6 124 (2.18%) LAN
7 116 (2.04%) Network Security
8 112 (1.97%) TCP/IP
9 54 (0.95%) VLAN
10 53 (0.93%) Kerberos
11 46 (0.81%) SD-WAN
12 38 (0.67%) SAN
13 37 (0.65%) Wireless
14 35 (0.62%) SSL
15 30 (0.53%) HTTP
15 30 (0.53%) Unified Communications
16 29 (0.51%) Skype
17 25 (0.44%) IPsec
17 25 (0.44%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 580 (10.20%) Power BI
2 269 (4.73%) SQL Server
3 174 (3.06%) Data Warehouse
4 153 (2.69%) Data Lake
5 119 (2.09%) Azure SQL Database
6 113 (1.99%) Metadata
7 102 (1.79%) PostgreSQL
8 70 (1.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 66 (1.16%) Relational Database
10 48 (0.84%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 47 (0.83%) Power Query
12 46 (0.81%) NoSQL
13 45 (0.79%) MySQL
14 44 (0.77%) Tableau
15 40 (0.70%) Delta Lake
15 40 (0.70%) Star Schema
16 38 (0.67%) Oracle Database
17 31 (0.55%) Spark SQL
18 29 (0.51%) SQL Server Analysis Services
19 24 (0.42%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 274 (4.82%) JIRA
2 164 (2.88%) Git
3 64 (1.13%) Jenkins
4 61 (1.07%) GitLab
5 33 (0.58%) Visual Studio
6 24 (0.42%) Artifactory
7 20 (0.35%) Eclipse
8 19 (0.33%) MSI
9 15 (0.26%) ERwin
9 15 (0.26%) MLflow
9 15 (0.26%) Selenium
10 14 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
11 13 (0.23%) JMeter
11 13 (0.23%) Postman
12 12 (0.21%) Maven
13 11 (0.19%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.18%) Team Foundation Server
15 9 (0.16%) Browser DevTools
15 9 (0.16%) Gatling
16 8 (0.14%) Android Studio
General
1 1,851 (32.56%) Social Skills
2 1,126 (19.81%) Finance
3 614 (10.80%) Analytical Skills
4 506 (8.90%) Public Sector
5 295 (5.19%) Banking
6 249 (4.38%) Legal
7 241 (4.24%) Organisational Skills
8 140 (2.46%) Documentation Skills
9 98 (1.72%) Law
9 98 (1.72%) Manufacturing
10 92 (1.62%) Retail
11 85 (1.50%) Presentation Skills
12 81 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 78 (1.37%) Marketing
14 76 (1.34%) Telecoms
15 71 (1.25%) Local Government
16 69 (1.21%) Military
17 56 (0.99%) Investment Banking
18 55 (0.97%) Influencing Skills
19 47 (0.83%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 704 (12.38%) Architect
2 612 (10.77%) Analyst
3 506 (8.90%) Developer
4 468 (8.23%) Senior
5 368 (6.47%) IT Support
6 358 (6.30%) Lead
7 321 (5.65%) Consultant
8 266 (4.68%) Support Engineer
9 231 (4.06%) Data Engineer
10 206 (3.62%) Azure Engineer
11 203 (3.57%) Solutions Architect
12 196 (3.45%) Project Manager
13 182 (3.20%) IT Engineer
14 181 (3.18%) Business Analyst
15 172 (3.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 165 (2.90%) Administrator
17 138 (2.43%) IT Support Engineer
18 123 (2.16%) Security Engineer
19 111 (1.95%) DevOps Engineer
20 108 (1.90%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 246 (4.33%) .NET
2 177 (3.11%) REST
3 135 (2.37%) Microsoft Graph
4 107 (1.88%) OAuth
5 106 (1.86%) PySpark
6 99 (1.74%) SAML
7 91 (1.60%) JSON
8 84 (1.48%) React
9 81 (1.42%) OpenID
10 79 (1.39%) LDAP
11 73 (1.28%) Web Services
12 63 (1.11%) Middleware
13 55 (0.97%) Node.js
13 55 (0.97%) XML
14 53 (0.93%) SailPoint
15 52 (0.91%) ARM Templates
15 52 (0.91%) HTML
16 50 (0.88%) OAuth2
17 49 (0.86%) AngularJS
17 49 (0.86%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 304 (5.35%) Onboarding
2 238 (4.19%) Cloud Native
3 170 (2.99%) Product Ownership
4 130 (2.29%) Management Information System
5 103 (1.81%) Data Centre
6 102 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
7 100 (1.76%) Hybrid Cloud
8 99 (1.74%) Legacy Systems
9 91 (1.60%) Security Posture
10 85 (1.50%) AI Agents
11 81 (1.42%) PKI
11 81 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
12 78 (1.37%) Replication
13 72 (1.27%) Low-Code
14 71 (1.25%) Data Structures
15 69 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
16 63 (1.11%) Virtual Team
17 48 (0.84%) Operational Technology
17 48 (0.84%) Public Cloud
18 46 (0.81%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1,235 (21.72%) Windows
2 331 (5.82%) Windows 10
3 292 (5.14%) Windows Server
4 260 (4.57%) Linux
5 114 (2.01%) Mac OS
6 111 (1.95%) Apple iOS
7 109 (1.92%) Android
8 45 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 44 (0.77%) Windows 7
10 40 (0.70%) Unix
10 40 (0.70%) Windows Server 2016
11 31 (0.55%) VMS
11 31 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
12 21 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 16 (0.28%) Ubuntu
14 15 (0.26%) Windows Server 2003
15 11 (0.19%) CentOS
16 6 (0.11%) AIX
17 4 (0.070%) Solaris
17 4 (0.070%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 964 (16.96%) Problem-Solving
2 920 (16.18%) DevOps
3 857 (15.07%) Agile
4 808 (14.21%) Migration
5 763 (13.42%) CI/CD
6 616 (10.84%) Business Intelligence
7 610 (10.73%) Analytics
8 586 (10.31%) Stakeholder Management
9 576 (10.13%) AI
10 518 (9.11%) Continuous Improvement
11 498 (8.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 476 (8.37%) ITIL
13 439 (7.72%) Customer Service
14 427 (7.51%) Data Modelling
15 402 (7.07%) Roadmaps
16 377 (6.63%) Cybersecurity
17 353 (6.21%) Decision-Making
18 339 (5.96%) Infrastructure as Code
19 326 (5.73%) Validation
20 325 (5.72%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 720 (12.66%) SQL
2 650 (11.43%) PowerShell
3 594 (10.45%) Python
4 260 (4.57%) C#
5 200 (3.52%) JavaScript
6 185 (3.25%) Java
7 135 (2.37%) Bicep
8 95 (1.67%) T-SQL
9 86 (1.51%) Kusto Query Language
10 75 (1.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 72 (1.27%) Bash
12 66 (1.16%) TypeScript
13 35 (0.62%) VBA
14 30 (0.53%) VB
15 28 (0.49%) C++
16 27 (0.47%) PL/SQL
17 18 (0.32%) Scala
18 16 (0.28%) VBScript
19 13 (0.23%) Shell Script
20 12 (0.21%) R
Qualifications
1 1,072 (18.86%) Security Cleared
2 839 (14.76%) SC Cleared
3 547 (9.62%) Degree
4 265 (4.66%) Microsoft Certification
5 183 (3.22%) Azure Certification
6 176 (3.10%) DV Cleared
7 121 (2.13%) Computer Science Degree
8 115 (2.02%) CISSP
9 93 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
10 84 (1.48%) Cisco Certification
11 64 (1.13%) CISM
12 57 (1.00%) PMP
13 54 (0.95%) PMI Certification
14 51 (0.90%) Master's Degree
15 43 (0.76%) AWS Certification
16 42 (0.74%) MCSE
17 41 (0.72%) DBS Check
18 36 (0.63%) CCNP
19 32 (0.56%) MCSA
20 31 (0.55%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 290 (5.10%) Data Quality
2 232 (4.08%) GDPR
3 184 (3.24%) QA
4 165 (2.90%) SLA
5 147 (2.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 125 (2.20%) NIST
7 101 (1.78%) PMO
8 76 (1.34%) Cyber Essentials
9 75 (1.32%) Accessibility
10 53 (0.93%) NCSC
11 38 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 36 (0.63%) GRC
13 31 (0.55%) PCI DSS
14 28 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 22 (0.39%) NIST 800
16 19 (0.33%) MiFID
17 18 (0.32%) SOC 2
18 16 (0.28%) WCAG
19 13 (0.23%) FINRA
19 13 (0.23%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,079 (18.98%) Active Directory
2 215 (3.78%) Docker
3 196 (3.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 102 (1.79%) Hyper-V
5 79 (1.39%) Virtual Desktop
6 72 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
7 59 (1.04%) VMware ESXi
8 54 (0.95%) vSphere
9 30 (0.53%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.40%) VMware NSX
11 19 (0.33%) Microsoft App-V
12 18 (0.32%) Firmware
13 7 (0.12%) NFS
14 6 (0.11%) IAG
14 6 (0.11%) RACF
15 5 (0.088%) Oracle RAC
15 5 (0.088%) VMware Workstation
16 4 (0.070%) Snort
16 4 (0.070%) XenDesktop
17 3 (0.053%) Squid
Systems Management
1 454 (7.99%) Microsoft Intune
2 350 (6.16%) Terraform
3 252 (4.43%) Kubernetes
4 203 (3.57%) SCCM
5 127 (2.23%) Ansible
6 124 (2.18%) Single Sign-On
7 79 (1.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 51 (0.90%) vCenter Server
9 47 (0.83%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (0.63%) Grafana
11 32 (0.56%) Prometheus
12 24 (0.42%) FortiGate
13 20 (0.35%) SCOM
14 17 (0.30%) Puppet
15 15 (0.26%) AirWatch
15 15 (0.26%) QRadar
16 12 (0.21%) HAProxy
16 12 (0.21%) ServiceCenter
16 12 (0.21%) WSUS
17 10 (0.18%) CASB
Vendors
1 304 (5.35%) ServiceNow
2 268 (4.71%) VMware
3 224 (3.94%) Databricks
4 222 (3.91%) SAP
5 220 (3.87%) Oracle
6 192 (3.38%) Cisco
7 162 (2.85%) Google
8 108 (1.90%) Citrix
9 107 (1.88%) Salesforce
10 97 (1.71%) Splunk
11 80 (1.41%) OpenAI
12 74 (1.30%) Apple
13 66 (1.16%) Foundry
14 61 (1.07%) CrowdStrike
15 54 (0.95%) CyberArk
16 53 (0.93%) Okta
17 50 (0.88%) HP
18 47 (0.83%) Adobe
19 44 (0.77%) Palo Alto
20 43 (0.76%) Dell