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 13 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
13 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +1 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,370 3,946 5,751
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.54% 13.39% 12.91%
As % of the Vendors category 28.50% 28.47% 29.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,599 2,620 3,854
10th Percentile £205 £206 £190
25th Percentile £363 £347 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £582 £584 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.86% -2.78% -3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 379 179 440
10th Percentile £13.36 £14.99 £11.06
25th Percentile £16.25 £18.17 £13.25
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.80 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -16.34% +48.19% -24.46%
75th Percentile £25.43 £33.75 £26.50
90th Percentile £63.75 £63.35 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.10 £22.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -15.11% +40.10% -19.70%

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 18,840 13,859 19,210
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.99% 47.04% 43.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,042 8,621 11,982
10th Percentile £306 £284 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £518 £515
Median % change year-on-year -3.38% +0.49% -2.83%
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 959 447 1,031
10th Percentile £15.30 £15.62 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.05 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.00 £29.00 £24.65
Median % change year-on-year -13.79% +17.65% -31.53%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £53.25
90th Percentile £75.65 £82.68 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £27.50 £23.22
% change year-on-year -16.36% +18.46% -30.70%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 4,704 £492 +3.58% 3,148
UK excluding London 0 2,847 £450 +2.86% 2,827
London -3 2,006 £510 +2.00% 884
Work from Home -1 1,339 £500 +0.96% 1,200
North of England -2 740 £430 +1.24% 668
South East -1 649 £480 -3.42% 883
Midlands -5 500 £450 +8.63% 419
North West -2 418 £415 -7.89% 358
East of England 0 353 £400 -5.88% 295
West Midlands -9 348 £475 +11.76% 218
South West -1 344 £525 +10.53% 316
Yorkshire +5 293 £450 +12.50% 224
Scotland 0 185 £455 +21.33% 172
East Midlands -2 148 £400 - 199
Wales +1 95 £309 -11.79% 104
North East -18 35 £450 +28.57% 98
Northern Ireland -3 22 £463 +42.31% 28
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
1 602 (11.21%) SharePoint
2 422 (7.86%) Microsoft Exchange
3 112 (2.09%) Confluence
4 31 (0.58%) Skype for Business
5 23 (0.43%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.43%) CMS
6 20 (0.37%) Apache
7 17 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
7 17 (0.32%) HCL Notes
8 13 (0.24%) SAS
9 12 (0.22%) IIS
10 10 (0.19%) Mendix
11 7 (0.13%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.11%) SharePoint Server
13 5 (0.093%) Oracle Application Server
14 4 (0.074%) Exchange Server 2010
14 4 (0.074%) Exchange Server 2013
15 3 (0.056%) Camunda
15 3 (0.056%) MS Project Server
15 3 (0.056%) Smallworld
Applications
1 608 (11.32%) Microsoft Office
2 514 (9.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 219 (4.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 126 (2.35%) Microsoft Project
5 103 (1.92%) MS Visio
6 78 (1.45%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.22%) 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
1 195 (3.63%) Dynamics CRM
2 50 (0.93%) SAP S/4HANA
3 20 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.34%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.26%) Aladdin
5 14 (0.26%) Dynamics AX
5 14 (0.26%) Maximo
6 12 (0.22%) Loan IQ
6 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.19%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 9 (0.17%) NetSuite
8 9 (0.17%) Teamcenter
9 8 (0.15%) Sage X3
9 8 (0.15%) Shopify
10 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
11 6 (0.11%) Advent Geneva
11 6 (0.11%) Primavera
11 6 (0.11%) SystmOne
12 5 (0.093%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.093%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 2,177 (40.54%) Azure
2 1,378 (25.66%) Microsoft 365
3 882 (16.42%) Power Platform
4 702 (13.07%) Entra ID
5 449 (8.36%) AWS
6 429 (7.99%) Azure DevOps
7 419 (7.80%) Dynamics 365
8 343 (6.39%) Power Automate
9 312 (5.81%) PowerApps
10 279 (5.20%) Microsoft Purview
11 252 (4.69%) GitHub
12 208 (3.87%) OneDrive
13 197 (3.67%) Microsoft Copilot
14 193 (3.59%) Serverless
15 187 (3.48%) Azure Data Factory
16 184 (3.43%) SaaS
17 168 (3.13%) GCP
18 153 (2.85%) PaaS
19 150 (2.79%) Azure Synapse Analytics
20 145 (2.70%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 300 (5.59%) Firewall
2 299 (5.57%) DNS
3 202 (3.76%) VPN
4 182 (3.39%) DHCP
5 149 (2.77%) Wi-Fi
6 137 (2.55%) WAN
7 122 (2.27%) TCP/IP
8 121 (2.25%) LAN
9 114 (2.12%) Network Security
10 57 (1.06%) Kerberos
11 56 (1.04%) Skype
12 53 (0.99%) VLAN
13 44 (0.82%) Wireless
14 38 (0.71%) SD-WAN
15 37 (0.69%) Unified Communications
16 33 (0.61%) HTTP
17 32 (0.60%) Internet
18 30 (0.56%) MPLS
18 30 (0.56%) SSL
19 29 (0.54%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 543 (10.11%) Power BI
2 251 (4.67%) SQL Server
3 169 (3.15%) Data Warehouse
4 143 (2.66%) Data Lake
5 110 (2.05%) Azure SQL Database
6 101 (1.88%) Metadata
7 99 (1.84%) PostgreSQL
8 72 (1.34%) Relational Database
9 68 (1.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 55 (1.02%) Oracle Database
11 50 (0.93%) MySQL
11 50 (0.93%) NoSQL
12 49 (0.91%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 42 (0.78%) Power Query
13 42 (0.78%) Tableau
14 32 (0.60%) Delta Lake
14 32 (0.60%) Star Schema
15 27 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
16 23 (0.43%) Spark SQL
17 22 (0.41%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 243 (4.53%) JIRA
2 169 (3.15%) Git
3 71 (1.32%) GitLab
4 70 (1.30%) Jenkins
5 26 (0.48%) Eclipse
6 23 (0.43%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.41%) MSI
8 21 (0.39%) Postman
9 20 (0.37%) Artifactory
10 18 (0.34%) JMeter
10 18 (0.34%) Selenium
11 14 (0.26%) Android Studio
12 13 (0.24%) Cucumber
12 13 (0.24%) JUnit
13 12 (0.22%) Browser DevTools
13 12 (0.22%) MLflow
14 11 (0.20%) Bitbucket
14 11 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
14 11 (0.20%) Xcode
15 9 (0.17%) ERwin
General
1 2,009 (37.41%) Social Skills
2 1,038 (19.33%) Finance
3 665 (12.38%) Analytical Skills
4 539 (10.04%) Public Sector
5 257 (4.79%) Banking
6 253 (4.71%) Organisational Skills
7 243 (4.53%) Legal
8 163 (3.04%) Documentation Skills
9 122 (2.27%) Manufacturing
10 114 (2.12%) Presentation Skills
11 97 (1.81%) Marketing
12 89 (1.66%) Telecoms
13 75 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 72 (1.34%) Retail
15 58 (1.08%) Influencing Skills
16 57 (1.06%) Law
17 55 (1.02%) Military
18 49 (0.91%) Local Government
19 46 (0.86%) Investment Banking
20 41 (0.76%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 629 (11.71%) Architect
2 621 (11.56%) Analyst
3 517 (9.63%) Developer
4 429 (7.99%) Senior
5 361 (6.72%) IT Support
6 292 (5.44%) Consultant
7 287 (5.34%) Support Engineer
8 284 (5.29%) Lead
9 191 (3.56%) IT Engineer
10 189 (3.52%) Azure Engineer
11 187 (3.48%) Solutions Architect
12 186 (3.46%) Data Engineer
13 169 (3.15%) Business Analyst
14 167 (3.11%) Administrator
14 167 (3.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 164 (3.05%) Project Manager
16 145 (2.70%) IT Support Engineer
17 121 (2.25%) Security Engineer
18 107 (1.99%) Support Analyst
19 104 (1.94%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 262 (4.88%) .NET
2 185 (3.45%) REST
3 127 (2.36%) Microsoft Graph
4 125 (2.33%) OAuth
5 107 (1.99%) SAML
6 93 (1.73%) React
7 87 (1.62%) OpenID
8 83 (1.55%) PySpark
9 76 (1.42%) RESTful
10 71 (1.32%) JSON
11 68 (1.27%) AngularJS
12 67 (1.25%) LDAP
13 66 (1.23%) HTML
14 63 (1.17%) ARM Templates
15 62 (1.15%) Middleware
15 62 (1.15%) Web Services
16 60 (1.12%) CSS
17 54 (1.01%) OAuth2
18 52 (0.97%) Node.js
19 47 (0.88%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 293 (5.46%) Onboarding
2 221 (4.12%) Cloud Native
3 162 (3.02%) Product Ownership
4 135 (2.51%) Management Information System
5 112 (2.09%) Enterprise Software
6 98 (1.82%) Data Centre
7 93 (1.73%) Security Posture
8 86 (1.60%) Hybrid Cloud
8 86 (1.60%) PKI
9 85 (1.58%) Self-Motivation
10 78 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
11 73 (1.36%) Replication
12 72 (1.34%) Low-Code
13 65 (1.21%) AI Agents
14 63 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
15 62 (1.15%) Driving Licence
16 61 (1.14%) Data Structures
17 58 (1.08%) Virtual Team
18 54 (1.01%) NHS
19 52 (0.97%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1,235 (23.00%) Windows
2 353 (6.57%) Windows 10
3 287 (5.34%) Linux
4 280 (5.21%) Windows Server
5 100 (1.86%) Mac OS
6 99 (1.84%) Android
7 92 (1.71%) Apple iOS
8 55 (1.02%) Unix
9 44 (0.82%) Windows 7
10 43 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
11 39 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 24 (0.45%) VMS
13 22 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.39%) Windows Server 2003
15 20 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
16 9 (0.17%) CentOS
17 8 (0.15%) AIX
17 8 (0.15%) Ubuntu
18 5 (0.093%) Windows 8
18 5 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 997 (18.57%) Problem-Solving
2 873 (16.26%) Agile
3 825 (15.36%) DevOps
4 725 (13.50%) Migration
5 696 (12.96%) CI/CD
6 634 (11.81%) Business Intelligence
7 615 (11.45%) Analytics
8 533 (9.93%) Stakeholder Management
9 486 (9.05%) AI
10 471 (8.77%) Continuous Improvement
11 445 (8.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 438 (8.16%) Customer Service
13 420 (7.82%) ITIL
14 386 (7.19%) Cybersecurity
15 354 (6.59%) Data Modelling
16 315 (5.87%) Roadmaps
17 304 (5.66%) Project Management
18 301 (5.61%) Infrastructure as Code
19 299 (5.57%) Change Management
19 299 (5.57%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 706 (13.15%) SQL
2 679 (12.64%) PowerShell
3 628 (11.69%) Python
4 280 (5.21%) C#
5 225 (4.19%) JavaScript
6 153 (2.85%) Java
7 123 (2.29%) Bicep
8 111 (2.07%) Kusto Query Language
9 105 (1.96%) Bash
10 82 (1.53%) TypeScript
11 73 (1.36%) T-SQL
12 68 (1.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 33 (0.61%) PL/SQL
14 29 (0.54%) C++
15 26 (0.48%) Perl
15 26 (0.48%) VBA
16 23 (0.43%) VB
17 19 (0.35%) Shell Script
18 17 (0.32%) VBScript
19 16 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 1,080 (20.11%) Security Cleared
2 819 (15.25%) SC Cleared
3 550 (10.24%) Degree
4 314 (5.85%) Microsoft Certification
5 219 (4.08%) DV Cleared
6 186 (3.46%) Azure Certification
7 124 (2.31%) Computer Science Degree
8 109 (2.03%) CISSP
9 99 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
10 62 (1.15%) Cisco Certification
11 61 (1.14%) PMI Certification
12 60 (1.12%) Master's Degree
13 59 (1.10%) CISM
14 52 (0.97%) PMP
15 46 (0.86%) AWS Certification
16 43 (0.80%) MCSE
16 43 (0.80%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 35 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
18 33 (0.61%) CCNP
19 32 (0.60%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 245 (4.56%) GDPR
2 223 (4.15%) Data Quality
3 165 (3.07%) QA
4 158 (2.94%) SLA
5 148 (2.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 117 (2.18%) PMO
7 112 (2.09%) NIST
8 80 (1.49%) Accessibility
9 56 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
10 38 (0.71%) NCSC
10 38 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 29 (0.54%) PCI DSS
12 24 (0.45%) GRC
13 22 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 22 (0.41%) WCAG
14 19 (0.35%) EU AI Act
15 18 (0.34%) MiFID
16 13 (0.24%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.24%) NIST 800
16 13 (0.24%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,080 (20.11%) Active Directory
2 213 (3.97%) Docker
3 171 (3.18%) VMware Infrastructure
4 80 (1.49%) Hyper-V
5 68 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
6 47 (0.88%) Virtual Desktop
7 35 (0.65%) vSphere
8 33 (0.61%) VMware ESXi
9 21 (0.39%) BitLocker
10 19 (0.35%) VMware NSX
11 16 (0.30%) Firmware
12 13 (0.24%) Microsoft App-V
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
13 6 (0.11%) Snort
14 5 (0.093%) Oracle RAC
15 4 (0.074%) KVM
15 4 (0.074%) VMware Workstation
16 3 (0.056%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 3 (0.056%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.056%) Squid
Systems Management
1 425 (7.91%) Microsoft Intune
2 338 (6.29%) Terraform
3 252 (4.69%) Kubernetes
4 237 (4.41%) SCCM
5 145 (2.70%) Single Sign-On
6 110 (2.05%) Ansible
7 102 (1.90%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 42 (0.78%) Jamf Pro
9 40 (0.74%) Grafana
10 35 (0.65%) Prometheus
10 35 (0.65%) vCenter Server
11 25 (0.47%) FortiGate
12 22 (0.41%) SCOM
13 17 (0.32%) Puppet
13 17 (0.32%) WSUS
14 14 (0.26%) AirWatch
15 13 (0.24%) WMI
16 12 (0.22%) CASB
16 12 (0.22%) Nessus
16 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
Vendors
1 264 (4.92%) ServiceNow
2 254 (4.73%) VMware
3 202 (3.76%) Databricks
4 198 (3.69%) SAP
5 186 (3.46%) Oracle
6 180 (3.35%) Cisco
7 151 (2.81%) Google
8 133 (2.48%) Citrix
9 106 (1.97%) Splunk
10 89 (1.66%) OpenAI
11 83 (1.55%) Salesforce
12 74 (1.38%) Foundry
13 67 (1.25%) Apple
14 60 (1.12%) CrowdStrike
15 56 (1.04%) Palo Alto
16 54 (1.01%) HP
17 45 (0.84%) Okta
18 40 (0.74%) Adobe
19 39 (0.73%) Red Hat
20 36 (0.67%) CyberArk