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 25 February 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
25 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 8 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,332 4,110 5,694
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.91% 13.49% 12.91%
As % of the Vendors category 28.90% 28.99% 29.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,610 2,659 3,848
10th Percentile £205 £206 £190
25th Percentile £363 £348 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £498
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -4.52% -0.50%
75th Percentile £580 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.86% -2.78% -2.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 376 174 386
10th Percentile £13.54 £15.44 £11.87
25th Percentile £16.25 £17.74 £14.00
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.90 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.69% +36.57% -15.52%
75th Percentile £27.50 £33.75 £36.54
90th Percentile £63.75 £62.73 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.10 £22.50 £16.82
% change year-on-year -15.12% +33.75% -15.89%

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 18,450 14,178 19,138
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.67% 46.54% 43.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,844 8,594 11,979
10th Percentile £304 £280 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £518
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% +0.87% -1.80%
75th Percentile £603 £625 £630
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.10% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 914 420 944
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £12.99
25th Percentile £18.09 £21.25 £15.48
Median hourly rate £24.00 £30.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +15.38% -21.21%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £55.52
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.57 £27.24 £25.75
% change year-on-year -17.15% +5.78% -16.94%

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 25 February 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 25 February 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 25 February 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 4,672 £490 +3.16% 2,909
UK excluding London -1 2,874 £450 +2.86% 2,712
London -5 1,961 £505 +1.00% 717
Work from Home -1 1,358 £500 - 1,050
North of England -1 745 £435 +1.16% 654
South East -1 659 £475 -1.86% 868
Midlands -6 493 £450 +5.88% 409
North West -1 424 £415 -7.78% 348
South West +1 357 £518 +9.52% 298
East of England +1 352 £413 -8.33% 286
West Midlands -8 337 £475 +10.59% 210
Yorkshire +1 288 £450 +10.77% 208
Scotland -1 191 £460 +22.67% 147
East Midlands -1 154 £418 +4.38% 196
Wales +4 95 £309 -27.35% 79
North East -17 39 £450 +28.57% 107
Northern Ireland +1 27 £400 +23.08% 22
Channel Islands +3 1 - - 2

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
1 599 (11.23%) SharePoint
2 417 (7.82%) Microsoft Exchange
3 115 (2.16%) Confluence
4 47 (0.88%) Skype for Business
5 27 (0.51%) CMS
6 22 (0.41%) Apache
7 19 (0.36%) Apache Spark
8 16 (0.30%) HCL Notes
9 15 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
10 13 (0.24%) IIS
10 13 (0.24%) SAS
11 9 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2013
11 9 (0.17%) Mendix
12 8 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2010
12 8 (0.15%) Mattermost
13 7 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
14 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
15 5 (0.094%) JBoss
15 5 (0.094%) WebSphere
15 5 (0.094%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 633 (11.87%) Microsoft Office
2 517 (9.70%) Microsoft Excel
3 226 (4.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 129 (2.42%) Microsoft Project
5 105 (1.97%) MS Visio
6 76 (1.43%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.23%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.21%) Trello
9 10 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 7 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
11 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
11 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
12 5 (0.094%) PTC Creo
12 5 (0.094%) Sketch
13 4 (0.075%) Adobe XD
14 3 (0.056%) InDesign
14 3 (0.056%) Photoshop
14 3 (0.056%) SOLIDWORKS
15 2 (0.038%) Adobe After Effects
15 2 (0.038%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 191 (3.58%) Dynamics CRM
2 51 (0.96%) SAP S/4HANA
3 33 (0.62%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.32%) Dynamics AX
5 16 (0.30%) Maximo
6 15 (0.28%) Dynamics NAV
7 14 (0.26%) Aladdin
8 12 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.19%) Loan IQ
9 10 (0.19%) NetSuite
9 10 (0.19%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 9 (0.17%) Teamcenter
11 7 (0.13%) Advent Geneva
11 7 (0.13%) Shopify
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.11%) Sage X3
12 6 (0.11%) SystmOne
13 5 (0.094%) Primavera
13 5 (0.094%) Salesforce CRM
13 5 (0.094%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 2,127 (39.89%) Azure
2 1,339 (25.11%) Microsoft 365
3 858 (16.09%) Power Platform
4 679 (12.73%) Entra ID
5 457 (8.57%) AWS
6 407 (7.63%) Dynamics 365
7 394 (7.39%) Azure DevOps
8 343 (6.43%) Power Automate
9 304 (5.70%) PowerApps
10 264 (4.95%) Microsoft Purview
11 226 (4.24%) GitHub
12 216 (4.05%) OneDrive
13 190 (3.56%) Serverless
14 185 (3.47%) Azure Data Factory
15 184 (3.45%) SaaS
16 183 (3.43%) Microsoft Copilot
17 174 (3.26%) GCP
18 145 (2.72%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 143 (2.68%) Azure Logic Apps
20 139 (2.61%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 312 (5.85%) DNS
2 287 (5.38%) Firewall
3 197 (3.69%) VPN
4 192 (3.60%) DHCP
5 141 (2.64%) Wi-Fi
6 131 (2.46%) TCP/IP
7 122 (2.29%) WAN
8 108 (2.03%) LAN
9 103 (1.93%) Network Security
10 74 (1.39%) Skype
11 64 (1.20%) Kerberos
12 62 (1.16%) VLAN
13 48 (0.90%) Unified Communications
14 45 (0.84%) Wireless
15 35 (0.66%) SD-WAN
16 31 (0.58%) HTTP
17 30 (0.56%) Internet
17 30 (0.56%) SSL
18 28 (0.53%) SAN
19 26 (0.49%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 522 (9.79%) Power BI
2 250 (4.69%) SQL Server
3 158 (2.96%) Data Warehouse
4 142 (2.66%) Data Lake
5 102 (1.91%) Metadata
6 101 (1.89%) PostgreSQL
7 98 (1.84%) Azure SQL Database
8 76 (1.43%) Relational Database
9 64 (1.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 59 (1.11%) Oracle Database
11 53 (0.99%) MySQL
11 53 (0.99%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 41 (0.77%) NoSQL
13 39 (0.73%) Power Query
13 39 (0.73%) Tableau
14 30 (0.56%) Delta Lake
15 25 (0.47%) Star Schema
16 24 (0.45%) Oracle Reports
16 24 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
17 21 (0.39%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 252 (4.73%) JIRA
2 166 (3.11%) Git
3 75 (1.41%) GitLab
4 73 (1.37%) Jenkins
5 29 (0.54%) Eclipse
6 24 (0.45%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.41%) MSI
8 21 (0.39%) Postman
9 19 (0.36%) Artifactory
10 17 (0.32%) Android Studio
11 16 (0.30%) Browser DevTools
12 15 (0.28%) JMeter
12 15 (0.28%) Selenium
13 14 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
13 14 (0.26%) Xcode
14 13 (0.24%) Cucumber
15 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
15 11 (0.21%) JUnit
15 11 (0.21%) MLflow
16 10 (0.19%) ERwin
General
1 2,060 (38.63%) Social Skills
2 1,039 (19.49%) Finance
3 673 (12.62%) Analytical Skills
4 520 (9.75%) Public Sector
5 256 (4.80%) Organisational Skills
6 243 (4.56%) Banking
7 227 (4.26%) Legal
8 170 (3.19%) Documentation Skills
9 128 (2.40%) Manufacturing
10 114 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
11 106 (1.99%) Marketing
12 93 (1.74%) Telecoms
13 72 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 71 (1.33%) Retail
15 58 (1.09%) Influencing Skills
16 53 (0.99%) Military
17 50 (0.94%) Law
18 44 (0.83%) Investment Banking
19 40 (0.75%) Pharmaceutical
20 38 (0.71%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 659 (12.36%) Analyst
2 606 (11.37%) Architect
3 504 (9.45%) Developer
4 413 (7.75%) Senior
5 353 (6.62%) IT Support
6 298 (5.59%) Support Engineer
7 295 (5.53%) Consultant
8 265 (4.97%) Lead
9 185 (3.47%) Solutions Architect
10 179 (3.36%) IT Engineer
11 174 (3.26%) Data Engineer
11 174 (3.26%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 172 (3.23%) Azure Engineer
13 171 (3.21%) Business Analyst
14 167 (3.13%) Administrator
15 164 (3.08%) Project Manager
16 139 (2.61%) IT Support Engineer
17 135 (2.53%) Support Analyst
18 115 (2.16%) Security Engineer
19 100 (1.88%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 245 (4.59%) .NET
2 169 (3.17%) REST
3 133 (2.49%) OAuth
4 113 (2.12%) SAML
5 112 (2.10%) Microsoft Graph
6 104 (1.95%) React
7 93 (1.74%) OpenID
8 76 (1.43%) LDAP
9 75 (1.41%) PySpark
10 74 (1.39%) RESTful
11 70 (1.31%) AngularJS
11 70 (1.31%) JSON
12 69 (1.29%) HTML
13 66 (1.24%) CSS
14 62 (1.16%) ARM Templates
15 56 (1.05%) Middleware
15 56 (1.05%) Node.js
16 53 (0.99%) OAuth2
16 53 (0.99%) Web Services
17 43 (0.81%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 302 (5.66%) Onboarding
2 207 (3.88%) Cloud Native
3 160 (3.00%) Product Ownership
4 136 (2.55%) Management Information System
5 110 (2.06%) Enterprise Software
6 94 (1.76%) PKI
7 87 (1.63%) Security Posture
8 84 (1.58%) Data Centre
8 84 (1.58%) Hybrid Cloud
9 80 (1.50%) Self-Motivation
10 76 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
11 75 (1.41%) Low-Code
12 74 (1.39%) Replication
13 68 (1.28%) Driving Licence
14 60 (1.13%) AI Agents
14 60 (1.13%) Mobile App
15 57 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
15 57 (1.07%) Data Structures
16 55 (1.03%) Data Protection Act
17 54 (1.01%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 1,246 (23.37%) Windows
2 361 (6.77%) Windows 10
3 310 (5.81%) Linux
4 274 (5.14%) Windows Server
5 113 (2.12%) Mac OS
6 104 (1.95%) Android
7 95 (1.78%) Apple iOS
8 66 (1.24%) Unix
9 46 (0.86%) Windows 7
10 41 (0.77%) Windows Server 2016
11 38 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 22 (0.41%) VMS
12 22 (0.41%) Windows Server 2019
13 20 (0.38%) Windows Server 2003
13 20 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.15%) CentOS
14 8 (0.15%) Ubuntu
15 7 (0.13%) AIX
16 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
17 5 (0.094%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,036 (19.43%) Problem-Solving
2 894 (16.77%) Agile
3 790 (14.82%) DevOps
4 699 (13.11%) Migration
5 668 (12.53%) CI/CD
6 618 (11.59%) Business Intelligence
7 579 (10.86%) Analytics
8 541 (10.15%) Stakeholder Management
9 456 (8.55%) Customer Service
10 454 (8.51%) AI
11 452 (8.48%) Continuous Improvement
12 443 (8.31%) ITIL
13 438 (8.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 367 (6.88%) Cybersecurity
15 342 (6.41%) Data Modelling
16 316 (5.93%) Project Management
17 312 (5.85%) Roadmaps
18 302 (5.66%) Change Management
19 295 (5.53%) Infrastructure as Code
20 294 (5.51%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 680 (12.75%) SQL
2 675 (12.66%) PowerShell
3 624 (11.70%) Python
4 267 (5.01%) C#
5 230 (4.31%) JavaScript
6 148 (2.78%) Java
7 118 (2.21%) Bicep
8 107 (2.01%) Bash
9 103 (1.93%) Kusto Query Language
10 85 (1.59%) TypeScript
11 69 (1.29%) T-SQL
12 60 (1.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 33 (0.62%) PL/SQL
14 31 (0.58%) Perl
15 29 (0.54%) C++
16 26 (0.49%) VB
17 24 (0.45%) Shell Script
17 24 (0.45%) VBA
18 19 (0.36%) Go
19 16 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 1,057 (19.82%) Security Cleared
2 793 (14.87%) SC Cleared
3 548 (10.28%) Degree
4 334 (6.26%) Microsoft Certification
5 220 (4.13%) DV Cleared
6 191 (3.58%) Azure Certification
7 125 (2.34%) Computer Science Degree
8 114 (2.14%) CISSP
9 93 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
10 65 (1.22%) CISM
11 60 (1.13%) Master's Degree
12 57 (1.07%) Cisco Certification
13 56 (1.05%) PMI Certification
14 47 (0.88%) MCSE
14 47 (0.88%) PMP
15 44 (0.83%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 42 (0.79%) ITIL Certification
17 41 (0.77%) AWS Certification
18 40 (0.75%) A+ Certification
19 32 (0.60%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 243 (4.56%) GDPR
2 203 (3.81%) Data Quality
3 157 (2.94%) QA
4 156 (2.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 148 (2.78%) SLA
6 121 (2.27%) PMO
7 119 (2.23%) NIST
8 81 (1.52%) Accessibility
9 57 (1.07%) Cyber Essentials
10 37 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 33 (0.62%) NCSC
12 26 (0.49%) PCI DSS
13 23 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 22 (0.41%) WCAG
15 21 (0.39%) GRC
16 19 (0.36%) EU AI Act
17 17 (0.32%) MiFID
18 16 (0.30%) HIPAA
18 16 (0.30%) SOC 2
19 14 (0.26%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,106 (20.74%) Active Directory
2 211 (3.96%) Docker
3 181 (3.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 83 (1.56%) Hyper-V
5 70 (1.31%) Virtual Machines
6 49 (0.92%) Virtual Desktop
7 39 (0.73%) vSphere
8 34 (0.64%) VMware ESXi
9 21 (0.39%) VMware NSX
10 19 (0.36%) BitLocker
11 11 (0.21%) Firmware
12 9 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
13 7 (0.13%) Snort
14 6 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
14 6 (0.11%) RACF
14 6 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
15 5 (0.094%) Tivoli Directory Server
16 4 (0.075%) NFS
16 4 (0.075%) Squid
Systems Management
1 425 (7.97%) Microsoft Intune
2 331 (6.21%) Terraform
3 264 (4.95%) SCCM
4 246 (4.61%) Kubernetes
5 165 (3.09%) Single Sign-On
6 106 (1.99%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 104 (1.95%) Ansible
8 50 (0.94%) Jamf Pro
9 40 (0.75%) Grafana
10 37 (0.69%) vCenter Server
11 36 (0.68%) SCOM
12 35 (0.66%) Prometheus
13 24 (0.45%) FortiGate
14 20 (0.38%) WSUS
15 16 (0.30%) Puppet
16 14 (0.26%) AirWatch
16 14 (0.26%) Nessus
16 14 (0.26%) Progress Chef
16 14 (0.26%) WMI
17 13 (0.24%) HP SiteScope
Vendors
1 272 (5.10%) ServiceNow
2 265 (4.97%) VMware
3 200 (3.75%) SAP
4 196 (3.68%) Oracle
5 193 (3.62%) Databricks
6 189 (3.54%) Cisco
7 152 (2.85%) Google
8 131 (2.46%) Citrix
9 129 (2.42%) Splunk
10 95 (1.78%) Salesforce
11 84 (1.58%) OpenAI
12 76 (1.43%) Apple
13 65 (1.22%) CrowdStrike
14 61 (1.14%) Foundry
15 58 (1.09%) Palo Alto
16 52 (0.98%) HP
17 46 (0.86%) Remedy
18 45 (0.84%) Okta
19 42 (0.79%) CyberArk
20 39 (0.73%) Veeam