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 30 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
30 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 11 7
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,600 3,892 5,648
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.87% 13.32% 12.96%
As % of the Vendors category 28.26% 28.06% 30.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,775 2,595 3,710
10th Percentile £210 £210 £189
25th Percentile £375 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £580 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £430 £460
% change year-on-year +4.77% -6.63% -0.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 361 238 457
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.35 £15.62 £13.00
Median hourly rate £20.09 £20.00 £15.42
Median % change year-on-year +0.45% +29.70% -34.38%
75th Percentile £28.22 £29.21 £25.00
90th Percentile £63.75 £60.66 £53.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.91 £18.76 £15.00
% change year-on-year +6.14% +25.05% -23.08%

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 19,815 13,870 18,498
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 42.00% 47.46% 42.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,654 8,704 11,485
10th Percentile £313 £289 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £518
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -0.48% -1.43%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £627
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 992 558 1,082
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.99 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.13 £14.40
Median hourly rate £30.50 £27.13 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.44% +20.56% -49.44%
75th Percentile £60.00 £57.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.00 £24.19 £21.50
% change year-on-year +11.64% +12.49% -46.25%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 4,917 £492 +3.58% 2,555
UK excluding London 0 2,914 £450 +4.77% 2,316
London -2 2,164 £513 +2.50% 704
Work from Home -1 1,394 £500 - 1,003
North of England -1 793 £450 +7.53% 536
South East -3 648 £480 -2.14% 707
Midlands -2 509 £450 +12.50% 368
North West -2 431 £420 -2.61% 274
West Midlands -3 352 £450 +12.50% 214
Yorkshire 0 335 £460 +15.00% 181
East of England 0 332 £400 -9.86% 284
South West -1 332 £450 -3.23% 243
Scotland +4 203 £451 +7.26% 115
East Midlands 0 151 £400 -5.88% 154
Wales +3 94 £310 +3.33% 77
North East -21 32 £450 +28.57% 90
Northern Ireland +2 23 £450 +38.46% 60
Channel Islands -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
1 601 (10.73%) SharePoint
2 395 (7.05%) Microsoft Exchange
3 105 (1.88%) Confluence
4 36 (0.64%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.43%) Apache
6 22 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
7 20 (0.36%) CMS
8 19 (0.34%) HCL Notes
9 16 (0.29%) SAS
10 13 (0.23%) IIS
10 13 (0.23%) Skype for Business
11 12 (0.21%) Mendix
12 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.11%) Camunda
13 5 (0.089%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.071%) Appian
14 4 (0.071%) Drupal
14 4 (0.071%) Exchange Server 2013
14 4 (0.071%) MS Project Server
14 4 (0.071%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 586 (10.46%) Microsoft Office
2 522 (9.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 232 (4.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 123 (2.20%) Microsoft Project
5 90 (1.61%) MS Visio
6 73 (1.30%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.30%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.16%) Trello
10 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.089%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.071%) InDesign
13 3 (0.054%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.054%) AutoCAD
13 3 (0.054%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.054%) SOLIDWORKS
14 2 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
14 2 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 202 (3.61%) Dynamics CRM
2 57 (1.02%) SAP S/4HANA
3 20 (0.36%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.25%) NetSuite
6 13 (0.23%) Aladdin
6 13 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 12 (0.21%) Maximo
8 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
8 11 (0.20%) Teamcenter
9 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
9 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 9 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
12 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
12 7 (0.13%) Shopify
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
13 6 (0.11%) Primavera
14 5 (0.089%) assyst
14 5 (0.089%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 2,347 (41.91%) Azure
2 1,442 (25.75%) Microsoft 365
3 948 (16.93%) Power Platform
4 712 (12.71%) Entra ID
5 466 (8.32%) Dynamics 365
6 460 (8.21%) AWS
7 441 (7.88%) Azure DevOps
8 332 (5.93%) Power Automate
9 299 (5.34%) PowerApps
10 293 (5.23%) Microsoft Purview
11 258 (4.61%) GitHub
12 229 (4.09%) Microsoft Copilot
13 207 (3.70%) OneDrive
14 201 (3.59%) Azure Data Factory
15 187 (3.34%) SaaS
16 175 (3.13%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 170 (3.04%) Serverless
18 168 (3.00%) GCP
19 147 (2.63%) PaaS
20 139 (2.48%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 294 (5.25%) Firewall
2 290 (5.18%) DNS
3 211 (3.77%) VPN
4 170 (3.04%) DHCP
5 143 (2.55%) Wi-Fi
6 139 (2.48%) WAN
7 119 (2.13%) LAN
7 119 (2.13%) Network Security
8 103 (1.84%) TCP/IP
9 55 (0.98%) Kerberos
9 55 (0.98%) VLAN
10 44 (0.79%) SD-WAN
11 36 (0.64%) SAN
12 35 (0.63%) SSL
12 35 (0.63%) Wireless
13 34 (0.61%) Skype
14 30 (0.54%) HTTP
15 27 (0.48%) Unified Communications
16 24 (0.43%) IPsec
16 24 (0.43%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 586 (10.46%) Power BI
2 272 (4.86%) SQL Server
3 177 (3.16%) Data Warehouse
4 157 (2.80%) Data Lake
5 123 (2.20%) Azure SQL Database
6 114 (2.04%) Metadata
7 107 (1.91%) PostgreSQL
8 71 (1.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 70 (1.25%) Relational Database
10 51 (0.91%) Oracle Database
11 47 (0.84%) NoSQL
11 47 (0.84%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 47 (0.84%) Tableau
12 45 (0.80%) Power Query
13 44 (0.79%) MySQL
14 41 (0.73%) Delta Lake
15 40 (0.71%) Star Schema
16 29 (0.52%) Spark SQL
17 28 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
18 25 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 251 (4.48%) JIRA
2 169 (3.02%) Git
3 63 (1.13%) GitLab
3 63 (1.13%) Jenkins
4 26 (0.46%) Artifactory
5 25 (0.45%) Visual Studio
6 24 (0.43%) MSI
7 20 (0.36%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.30%) Selenium
9 16 (0.29%) JMeter
9 16 (0.29%) MLflow
9 16 (0.29%) Postman
10 14 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
11 12 (0.21%) Bitbucket
11 12 (0.21%) JUnit
11 12 (0.21%) Maven
12 11 (0.20%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.20%) ERwin
13 10 (0.18%) Gatling
13 10 (0.18%) InstallShield
General
1 1,915 (34.20%) Social Skills
2 1,108 (19.79%) Finance
3 646 (11.54%) Analytical Skills
4 535 (9.55%) Public Sector
5 291 (5.20%) Banking
6 250 (4.46%) Organisational Skills
7 248 (4.43%) Legal
8 152 (2.71%) Documentation Skills
9 113 (2.02%) Manufacturing
10 101 (1.80%) Presentation Skills
11 94 (1.68%) Marketing
12 92 (1.64%) Law
13 87 (1.55%) Telecoms
14 82 (1.46%) Retail
15 76 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 72 (1.29%) Military
17 64 (1.14%) Local Government
18 55 (0.98%) Influencing Skills
19 52 (0.93%) Investment Banking
20 42 (0.75%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 695 (12.41%) Architect
2 601 (10.73%) Analyst
3 529 (9.45%) Developer
4 466 (8.32%) Senior
5 368 (6.57%) IT Support
6 331 (5.91%) Lead
7 284 (5.07%) Consultant
8 255 (4.55%) Support Engineer
9 220 (3.93%) Data Engineer
10 210 (3.75%) Azure Engineer
11 191 (3.41%) Solutions Architect
12 185 (3.30%) Project Manager
13 184 (3.29%) IT Engineer
14 178 (3.18%) Administrator
15 176 (3.14%) Business Analyst
16 171 (3.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 137 (2.45%) IT Support Engineer
18 115 (2.05%) Security Engineer
19 112 (2.00%) DevOps Engineer
20 101 (1.80%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 255 (4.55%) .NET
2 172 (3.07%) REST
3 130 (2.32%) Microsoft Graph
4 113 (2.02%) OAuth
5 103 (1.84%) PySpark
6 100 (1.79%) SAML
7 85 (1.52%) JSON
8 83 (1.48%) React
9 80 (1.43%) OpenID
10 76 (1.36%) LDAP
11 68 (1.21%) Web Services
12 64 (1.14%) Middleware
13 55 (0.98%) HTML
13 55 (0.98%) OAuth2
14 54 (0.96%) AngularJS
15 52 (0.93%) ARM Templates
16 50 (0.89%) Node.js
17 49 (0.88%) Kafka
17 49 (0.88%) RESTful
18 48 (0.86%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 288 (5.14%) Onboarding
2 225 (4.02%) Cloud Native
3 187 (3.34%) Product Ownership
4 129 (2.30%) Management Information System
5 104 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
6 97 (1.73%) Data Centre
7 90 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
8 89 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
8 89 (1.59%) Security Posture
8 89 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
9 85 (1.52%) AI Agents
10 82 (1.46%) PKI
11 74 (1.32%) Replication
12 73 (1.30%) Low-Code
13 71 (1.27%) Data Structures
14 67 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
15 57 (1.02%) Virtual Team
16 53 (0.95%) Driving Licence
17 51 (0.91%) NHS
18 45 (0.80%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,213 (21.66%) Windows
2 322 (5.75%) Windows 10
3 278 (4.96%) Windows Server
4 269 (4.80%) Linux
5 102 (1.82%) Android
6 95 (1.70%) Apple iOS
7 93 (1.66%) Mac OS
8 46 (0.82%) Windows Server 2016
9 43 (0.77%) Windows 7
10 40 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 40 (0.71%) Unix
11 28 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
12 27 (0.48%) Windows Server 2012
13 26 (0.46%) VMS
14 16 (0.29%) Windows Server 2003
15 11 (0.20%) CentOS
16 10 (0.18%) Ubuntu
17 7 (0.13%) AIX
18 5 (0.089%) Solaris
19 4 (0.071%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 981 (17.52%) Problem-Solving
2 882 (15.75%) Agile
3 881 (15.73%) DevOps
4 791 (14.13%) Migration
5 751 (13.41%) CI/CD
6 653 (11.66%) Business Intelligence
7 616 (11.00%) Analytics
8 547 (9.77%) AI
9 538 (9.61%) Stakeholder Management
10 507 (9.05%) Continuous Improvement
11 462 (8.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 447 (7.98%) Customer Service
13 442 (7.89%) ITIL
14 413 (7.38%) Data Modelling
15 365 (6.52%) Roadmaps
16 363 (6.48%) Cybersecurity
17 339 (6.05%) Infrastructure as Code
18 324 (5.79%) Decision-Making
19 312 (5.57%) Project Delivery
20 308 (5.50%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 730 (13.04%) SQL
2 643 (11.48%) PowerShell
3 617 (11.02%) Python
4 275 (4.91%) C#
5 205 (3.66%) JavaScript
6 179 (3.20%) Java
7 127 (2.27%) Bicep
8 94 (1.68%) Kusto Query Language
9 85 (1.52%) Bash
10 82 (1.46%) T-SQL
11 81 (1.45%) TypeScript
12 70 (1.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 34 (0.61%) PL/SQL
14 30 (0.54%) VBA
15 28 (0.50%) C++
16 23 (0.41%) VB
17 20 (0.36%) R
18 19 (0.34%) Scala
19 17 (0.30%) Shell Script
20 14 (0.25%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,075 (19.20%) Security Cleared
2 836 (14.93%) SC Cleared
3 562 (10.04%) Degree
4 276 (4.93%) Microsoft Certification
5 197 (3.52%) DV Cleared
6 183 (3.27%) Azure Certification
7 131 (2.34%) Computer Science Degree
8 97 (1.73%) CISSP
9 94 (1.68%) BPSS Clearance
10 68 (1.21%) PMI Certification
11 65 (1.16%) Cisco Certification
12 62 (1.11%) PMP
13 58 (1.04%) Master's Degree
14 53 (0.95%) CISM
15 43 (0.77%) MCSE
16 39 (0.70%) AWS Certification
17 32 (0.57%) ITIL Certification
18 31 (0.55%) DBS Check
19 30 (0.54%) MCSA
20 28 (0.50%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 268 (4.79%) Data Quality
2 238 (4.25%) GDPR
3 185 (3.30%) QA
4 161 (2.88%) SLA
5 134 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 108 (1.93%) NIST
7 107 (1.91%) PMO
8 74 (1.32%) Accessibility
9 61 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
10 46 (0.82%) NCSC
11 39 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 32 (0.57%) GRC
13 28 (0.50%) PCI DSS
14 20 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 20 (0.36%) MiFID
15 17 (0.30%) NIST 800
16 15 (0.27%) WCAG
17 13 (0.23%) FINRA
18 12 (0.21%) HIPAA
19 11 (0.20%) GxP
System Software
1 1,084 (19.36%) Active Directory
2 240 (4.29%) Docker
3 191 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 98 (1.75%) Hyper-V
5 76 (1.36%) Virtual Machines
6 67 (1.20%) Virtual Desktop
7 52 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
8 38 (0.68%) vSphere
9 26 (0.46%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.41%) VMware NSX
11 17 (0.30%) Firmware
11 17 (0.30%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.13%) RACF
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
14 5 (0.089%) IAG
14 5 (0.089%) NFS
14 5 (0.089%) Snort
15 4 (0.071%) KVM
15 4 (0.071%) Squid
15 4 (0.071%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 430 (7.68%) Microsoft Intune
2 365 (6.52%) Terraform
3 267 (4.77%) Kubernetes
4 205 (3.66%) SCCM
5 131 (2.34%) Ansible
6 123 (2.20%) Single Sign-On
7 76 (1.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 42 (0.75%) Grafana
8 42 (0.75%) vCenter Server
9 39 (0.70%) Jamf Pro
10 32 (0.57%) Prometheus
11 23 (0.41%) SCOM
12 21 (0.38%) FortiGate
12 21 (0.38%) Puppet
13 19 (0.34%) WSUS
14 16 (0.29%) AirWatch
15 13 (0.23%) QRadar
16 12 (0.21%) CASB
16 12 (0.21%) ServiceCenter
17 11 (0.20%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 260 (4.64%) ServiceNow
1 260 (4.64%) VMware
2 214 (3.82%) Databricks
3 213 (3.80%) SAP
4 206 (3.68%) Oracle
5 172 (3.07%) Cisco
6 158 (2.82%) Google
7 123 (2.20%) Citrix
8 100 (1.79%) Salesforce
9 91 (1.63%) Splunk
10 90 (1.61%) OpenAI
11 75 (1.34%) Foundry
12 66 (1.18%) Apple
13 52 (0.93%) CrowdStrike
14 47 (0.84%) HP
15 45 (0.80%) Adobe
15 45 (0.80%) Palo Alto
16 43 (0.77%) Okta
17 41 (0.73%) CyberArk
18 40 (0.71%) Red Hat