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 14 April 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
14 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 11 7
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,522 3,896 5,581
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.08% 13.31% 12.82%
As % of the Vendors category 28.23% 28.14% 30.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,721 2,616 3,694
10th Percentile £206 £210 £189
25th Percentile £371 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £579 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £669 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £449 £465
% change year-on-year +0.33% -3.55% +1.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 379 215 440
10th Percentile £13.48 £14.20 £11.06
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.73 £12.84
Median hourly rate £20.09 £22.00 £15.16
Median % change year-on-year -8.68% +45.17% -33.24%
75th Percentile £27.86 £30.63 £23.73
90th Percentile £65.00 £61.05 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.91 £19.99 £15.00
% change year-on-year -0.38% +33.23% -25.00%

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 19,564 13,843 18,542
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 42.79% 47.28% 42.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,535 8,740 11,568
10th Percentile £313 £294 £262
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.50% -1.89%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £627
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.56% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 978 529 1,060
10th Percentile £15.15 £15.00 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.51 £14.36
Median hourly rate £28.24 £27.99 £22.29
Median % change year-on-year +0.88% +25.59% -47.56%
75th Percentile £60.00 £60.00 £56.25
90th Percentile £78.75 £78.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.38 £24.66 £21.46
% change year-on-year +2.92% +14.91% -44.97%

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 14 April 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 14 April 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 14 April 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 4,845 £492 +3.58% 3,091
UK excluding London 0 2,879 £450 +0.33% 2,698
London -2 2,117 £510 +2.00% 887
Work from Home -2 1,362 £500 - 1,194
North of England -1 788 £447 +5.18% 643
South East -3 642 £478 -4.50% 803
Midlands -6 495 £447 +5.18% 395
North West -2 438 £420 -6.67% 355
West Midlands -7 345 £463 +8.82% 219
East of England 0 341 £400 -3.03% 318
South West -2 329 £480 +1.05% 308
Yorkshire +7 323 £452 +13.00% 201
Scotland +2 194 £450 +10.02% 172
East Midlands -1 145 £380 -10.59% 175
Wales +3 96 £308 +16.71% 97
North East -19 33 £450 +28.57% 98
Northern Ireland +3 21 £450 +38.46% 34
Channel Islands -2 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
1 609 (11.03%) SharePoint
2 412 (7.46%) Microsoft Exchange
3 108 (1.96%) Confluence
4 29 (0.53%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.38%) CMS
7 20 (0.36%) Apache
8 18 (0.33%) Skype for Business
9 17 (0.31%) HCL Notes
10 16 (0.29%) SAS
11 10 (0.18%) Mendix
12 9 (0.16%) IIS
13 7 (0.13%) ArcGIS
14 5 (0.091%) Camunda
14 5 (0.091%) Oracle Workflow
15 4 (0.072%) Drupal
15 4 (0.072%) Exchange Server 2010
15 4 (0.072%) Exchange Server 2013
15 4 (0.072%) Jupyter
16 3 (0.054%) nginx
Applications
1 587 (10.63%) Microsoft Office
2 523 (9.47%) Microsoft Excel
3 233 (4.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 128 (2.32%) Microsoft Project
5 98 (1.77%) MS Visio
6 76 (1.38%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.25%) Chatbot
8 10 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 10 (0.18%) Trello
9 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
9 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
10 5 (0.091%) PTC Creo
11 4 (0.072%) Adobe Captivate
11 4 (0.072%) InDesign
12 3 (0.054%) AutoCAD
12 3 (0.054%) Photoshop
12 3 (0.054%) SOLIDWORKS
13 2 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
13 2 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 196 (3.55%) Dynamics CRM
2 52 (0.94%) SAP S/4HANA
3 21 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
4 16 (0.29%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.25%) Aladdin
5 14 (0.25%) Maximo
6 13 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
8 11 (0.20%) Teamcenter
9 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 8 (0.14%) Sage X3
10 8 (0.14%) Shopify
11 7 (0.13%) SystmOne
12 6 (0.11%) Advent Geneva
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
12 6 (0.11%) SAP MM
13 5 (0.091%) Dynamics AX
13 5 (0.091%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 2,270 (41.11%) Azure
2 1,433 (25.95%) Microsoft 365
3 928 (16.81%) Power Platform
4 708 (12.82%) Entra ID
5 453 (8.20%) AWS
6 452 (8.19%) Dynamics 365
7 444 (8.04%) Azure DevOps
8 342 (6.19%) Power Automate
9 307 (5.56%) PowerApps
10 278 (5.03%) Microsoft Purview
11 263 (4.76%) GitHub
12 216 (3.91%) Microsoft Copilot
13 206 (3.73%) OneDrive
14 197 (3.57%) Azure Data Factory
15 184 (3.33%) SaaS
16 175 (3.17%) Serverless
17 163 (2.95%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 163 (2.95%) GCP
18 146 (2.64%) PaaS
19 144 (2.61%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 305 (5.52%) Firewall
2 298 (5.40%) DNS
3 211 (3.82%) VPN
4 171 (3.10%) DHCP
5 147 (2.66%) Wi-Fi
6 134 (2.43%) WAN
7 122 (2.21%) Network Security
8 117 (2.12%) LAN
9 111 (2.01%) TCP/IP
10 59 (1.07%) VLAN
11 54 (0.98%) Kerberos
12 44 (0.80%) SD-WAN
13 39 (0.71%) Skype
14 37 (0.67%) Wireless
15 35 (0.63%) SAN
15 35 (0.63%) SSL
15 35 (0.63%) Unified Communications
16 29 (0.53%) HTTP
17 24 (0.43%) MPLS
18 23 (0.42%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 582 (10.54%) Power BI
2 277 (5.02%) SQL Server
3 181 (3.28%) Data Warehouse
4 153 (2.77%) Data Lake
5 120 (2.17%) Azure SQL Database
6 110 (1.99%) Metadata
7 102 (1.85%) PostgreSQL
8 72 (1.30%) Relational Database
9 70 (1.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 53 (0.96%) Oracle Database
11 52 (0.94%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 49 (0.89%) Tableau
13 48 (0.87%) NoSQL
14 46 (0.83%) MySQL
15 42 (0.76%) Power Query
16 40 (0.72%) Delta Lake
17 37 (0.67%) Star Schema
18 27 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
18 27 (0.49%) Spark SQL
19 25 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 249 (4.51%) JIRA
2 173 (3.13%) Git
3 67 (1.21%) GitLab
4 64 (1.16%) Jenkins
5 24 (0.43%) Artifactory
5 24 (0.43%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.38%) Eclipse
7 18 (0.33%) MSI
7 18 (0.33%) Postman
8 17 (0.31%) Selenium
9 16 (0.29%) MLflow
10 15 (0.27%) JMeter
11 13 (0.24%) Cucumber
11 13 (0.24%) JUnit
12 12 (0.22%) Visual Studio Code
13 11 (0.20%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.18%) Maven
14 10 (0.18%) SpecFlow
15 9 (0.16%) ERwin
15 9 (0.16%) InstallShield
General
1 1,957 (35.44%) Social Skills
2 1,104 (19.99%) Finance
3 639 (11.57%) Analytical Skills
4 532 (9.63%) Public Sector
5 289 (5.23%) Banking
6 253 (4.58%) Organisational Skills
7 252 (4.56%) Legal
8 155 (2.81%) Documentation Skills
9 117 (2.12%) Manufacturing
10 107 (1.94%) Presentation Skills
11 97 (1.76%) Marketing
12 94 (1.70%) Law
13 89 (1.61%) Telecoms
14 85 (1.54%) Retail
15 81 (1.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 64 (1.16%) Military
17 62 (1.12%) Local Government
18 61 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
19 54 (0.98%) Investment Banking
20 41 (0.74%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 681 (12.33%) Architect
2 611 (11.06%) Analyst
3 524 (9.49%) Developer
4 439 (7.95%) Senior
5 376 (6.81%) IT Support
6 319 (5.78%) Lead
7 280 (5.07%) Consultant
8 269 (4.87%) Support Engineer
9 208 (3.77%) Data Engineer
10 204 (3.69%) Azure Engineer
11 196 (3.55%) IT Engineer
11 196 (3.55%) Solutions Architect
12 180 (3.26%) Project Manager
13 177 (3.21%) Administrator
14 174 (3.15%) Business Analyst
15 163 (2.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 149 (2.70%) IT Support Engineer
17 110 (1.99%) DevOps Engineer
18 109 (1.97%) Security Engineer
19 103 (1.87%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 255 (4.62%) .NET
2 177 (3.21%) REST
3 132 (2.39%) Microsoft Graph
4 117 (2.12%) OAuth
5 100 (1.81%) SAML
6 95 (1.72%) PySpark
7 89 (1.61%) React
8 80 (1.45%) OpenID
9 71 (1.29%) JSON
10 66 (1.20%) LDAP
11 64 (1.16%) Middleware
12 63 (1.14%) Web Services
13 59 (1.07%) HTML
14 58 (1.05%) ARM Templates
15 57 (1.03%) OAuth2
16 56 (1.01%) AngularJS
17 54 (0.98%) RESTful
18 51 (0.92%) Kafka
18 51 (0.92%) Node.js
19 50 (0.91%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 279 (5.05%) Onboarding
2 221 (4.00%) Cloud Native
3 189 (3.42%) Product Ownership
4 127 (2.30%) Management Information System
5 108 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
6 99 (1.79%) Data Centre
7 88 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
8 87 (1.58%) Self-Motivation
9 85 (1.54%) PKI
10 81 (1.47%) Security Posture
11 80 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
12 75 (1.36%) AI Agents
13 73 (1.32%) Replication
14 68 (1.23%) Data Structures
15 67 (1.21%) Low-Code
16 63 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
17 58 (1.05%) Driving Licence
18 55 (1.00%) NHS
18 55 (1.00%) Virtual Team
19 45 (0.81%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,227 (22.22%) Windows
2 337 (6.10%) Windows 10
3 283 (5.12%) Windows Server
4 275 (4.98%) Linux
5 98 (1.77%) Android
6 93 (1.68%) Apple iOS
6 93 (1.68%) Mac OS
7 44 (0.80%) Windows 7
8 43 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 39 (0.71%) Unix
9 39 (0.71%) Windows Server 2016
10 27 (0.49%) VMS
11 23 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
12 19 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
13 18 (0.33%) Windows Server 2003
14 11 (0.20%) CentOS
15 9 (0.16%) Ubuntu
16 7 (0.13%) AIX
17 4 (0.072%) CatOS
17 4 (0.072%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 976 (17.67%) Problem-Solving
2 877 (15.88%) Agile
3 858 (15.54%) DevOps
4 774 (14.02%) Migration
5 740 (13.40%) CI/CD
6 660 (11.95%) Business Intelligence
7 620 (11.23%) Analytics
8 530 (9.60%) Stakeholder Management
9 529 (9.58%) AI
10 502 (9.09%) Continuous Improvement
11 464 (8.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 461 (8.35%) Customer Service
13 423 (7.66%) ITIL
14 397 (7.19%) Data Modelling
15 366 (6.63%) Cybersecurity
16 339 (6.14%) Roadmaps
17 327 (5.92%) Infrastructure as Code
18 311 (5.63%) Project Management
19 300 (5.43%) Decision-Making
20 296 (5.36%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 734 (13.29%) SQL
2 656 (11.88%) PowerShell
3 621 (11.25%) Python
4 289 (5.23%) C#
5 218 (3.95%) JavaScript
6 172 (3.11%) Java
7 126 (2.28%) Bicep
8 100 (1.81%) Kusto Query Language
9 96 (1.74%) Bash
10 82 (1.48%) TypeScript
11 80 (1.45%) T-SQL
12 69 (1.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 37 (0.67%) PL/SQL
14 30 (0.54%) VBA
15 28 (0.51%) C++
16 23 (0.42%) VB
17 20 (0.36%) Perl
18 18 (0.33%) Shell Script
19 17 (0.31%) R
20 15 (0.27%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,072 (19.41%) Security Cleared
2 816 (14.78%) SC Cleared
3 559 (10.12%) Degree
4 289 (5.23%) Microsoft Certification
5 214 (3.88%) DV Cleared
6 189 (3.42%) Azure Certification
7 128 (2.32%) Computer Science Degree
8 99 (1.79%) CISSP
9 96 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
10 71 (1.29%) PMI Certification
11 69 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
12 62 (1.12%) PMP
13 57 (1.03%) Master's Degree
14 52 (0.94%) CISM
15 41 (0.74%) AWS Certification
16 38 (0.69%) MCSE
17 33 (0.60%) ITIL Certification
18 32 (0.58%) CCNP
18 32 (0.58%) DBS Check
19 31 (0.56%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 257 (4.65%) Data Quality
2 232 (4.20%) GDPR
3 172 (3.11%) QA
4 152 (2.75%) SLA
5 134 (2.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 113 (2.05%) PMO
7 106 (1.92%) NIST
8 69 (1.25%) Accessibility
9 57 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials
10 46 (0.83%) NCSC
11 39 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 29 (0.53%) GRC
13 28 (0.51%) PCI DSS
14 19 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 19 (0.34%) MiFID
15 15 (0.27%) NIST 800
16 13 (0.24%) FINRA
16 13 (0.24%) WCAG
17 11 (0.20%) GxP
18 10 (0.18%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,094 (19.81%) Active Directory
2 225 (4.07%) Docker
3 178 (3.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 90 (1.63%) Hyper-V
5 65 (1.18%) Virtual Machines
6 57 (1.03%) Virtual Desktop
7 43 (0.78%) VMware ESXi
8 33 (0.60%) vSphere
9 26 (0.47%) BitLocker
10 19 (0.34%) VMware NSX
11 17 (0.31%) Firmware
12 12 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
14 5 (0.091%) IAG
14 5 (0.091%) Snort
15 4 (0.072%) KVM
15 4 (0.072%) NFS
15 4 (0.072%) VMware Workstation
16 3 (0.054%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 435 (7.88%) Microsoft Intune
2 357 (6.47%) Terraform
3 263 (4.76%) Kubernetes
4 205 (3.71%) SCCM
5 136 (2.46%) Single Sign-On
6 119 (2.16%) Ansible
7 97 (1.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 44 (0.80%) Jamf Pro
9 42 (0.76%) Grafana
10 34 (0.62%) vCenter Server
11 32 (0.58%) Prometheus
12 24 (0.43%) FortiGate
13 22 (0.40%) SCOM
14 21 (0.38%) Puppet
15 16 (0.29%) WSUS
16 15 (0.27%) AirWatch
17 14 (0.25%) CASB
18 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
19 10 (0.18%) Nessus
19 10 (0.18%) WMI
Vendors
1 258 (4.67%) ServiceNow
1 258 (4.67%) VMware
2 217 (3.93%) Databricks
3 207 (3.75%) SAP
4 206 (3.73%) Oracle
5 176 (3.19%) Cisco
6 160 (2.90%) Google
7 129 (2.34%) Citrix
8 95 (1.72%) OpenAI
9 94 (1.70%) Splunk
10 92 (1.67%) Salesforce
11 78 (1.41%) Foundry
12 65 (1.18%) Apple
13 56 (1.01%) CrowdStrike
14 48 (0.87%) Red Hat
15 47 (0.85%) HP
16 46 (0.83%) Palo Alto
17 44 (0.80%) Adobe
18 40 (0.72%) Informatica
18 40 (0.72%) Okta