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 15 January 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
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 4,935 4,309 5,498
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.30% 13.53% 13.02%
As % of the Vendors category 28.81% 29.55% 29.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,344 2,713 3,768
10th Percentile £204 £205 £198
25th Percentile £350 £348 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £586 £618
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £430 £450
% change year-on-year +4.65% -4.44% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 364 190 244
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.46 £12.74
25th Percentile £16.43 £15.62 £14.36
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.59 £21.18
Median % change year-on-year -15.60% +11.40% +3.44%
75th Percentile £27.75 £33.75 £46.18
90th Percentile £64.85 £55.26 £55.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.10 £21.46 £20.00
% change year-on-year -11.01% +7.30% -

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 17,131 14,582 18,678
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 46.18% 45.80% 44.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,032 8,643 11,805
10th Percentile £300 £284 £255
25th Percentile £410 £409 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.42%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 802 426 679
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.88 £19.72 £17.74
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.13 £43.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.17% -37.64% +50.00%
75th Percentile £47.69 £60.09 £63.29
90th Percentile £74.26 £78.75 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.13 £24.83 £44.50
% change year-on-year -14.92% -44.20% +76.24%

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 15 January 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 15 January 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 15 January 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 4,347 £475 - 3,232
UK excluding London -1 2,647 £450 +4.65% 3,085
London -2 1,850 £510 +2.00% 690
Work from Home 0 1,257 £500 +2.30% 1,279
North of England +2 700 £420 -2.89% 694
South East +1 603 £475 +5.56% 970
Midlands -4 453 £447 +5.18% 448
North West +2 400 £400 -11.11% 312
South West 0 358 £508 +7.98% 313
West Midlands -6 303 £485 +11.17% 223
East of England 0 271 £425 -2.86% 403
Yorkshire +1 268 £450 +11.39% 276
Scotland -3 185 £455 +21.20% 148
East Midlands -1 150 £375 - 219
Wales +3 79 £308 -31.67% 139
North East -15 37 £430 +8.18% 114
Northern Ireland +2 35 £350 +40.00% 46
Channel Islands +1 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
1 569 (11.53%) SharePoint
2 382 (7.74%) Microsoft Exchange
3 105 (2.13%) Confluence
4 60 (1.22%) Skype for Business
5 37 (0.75%) CMS
6 24 (0.49%) IIS
7 22 (0.45%) Apache
7 22 (0.45%) HCL Notes
8 21 (0.43%) SAS
9 18 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
9 18 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2013
10 16 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2010
11 14 (0.28%) Apache Spark
12 13 (0.26%) Mattermost
12 13 (0.26%) SharePoint Server
13 11 (0.22%) WebSphere
13 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
14 10 (0.20%) iPlanet
14 10 (0.20%) JBoss
15 9 (0.18%) Mendix
Applications
1 613 (12.42%) Microsoft Office
2 521 (10.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 236 (4.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 122 (2.47%) Microsoft Project
5 107 (2.17%) MS Visio
6 63 (1.28%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.22%) Trello
8 10 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.12%) Sketch
11 5 (0.10%) Acrobat
11 5 (0.10%) Adobe Captivate
12 4 (0.081%) Adobe After Effects
12 4 (0.081%) Adobe Illustrator
12 4 (0.081%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.081%) InDesign
12 4 (0.081%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.061%) Adobe Premiere
13 3 (0.061%) Windchill
14 2 (0.041%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 182 (3.69%) Dynamics CRM
2 41 (0.83%) Remedy ITSM
3 40 (0.81%) SAP S/4HANA
4 17 (0.34%) Dynamics AX
5 15 (0.30%) Maximo
6 14 (0.28%) Dynamics NAV
7 12 (0.24%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
10 9 (0.18%) Teamcenter
10 9 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
11 7 (0.14%) Aladdin
11 7 (0.14%) Shopify
12 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
13 5 (0.10%) SAP ERP
14 4 (0.081%) assyst
14 4 (0.081%) Loan IQ
14 4 (0.081%) SystmOne
14 4 (0.081%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,892 (38.34%) Azure
2 1,185 (24.01%) Microsoft 365
3 784 (15.89%) Power Platform
4 569 (11.53%) Entra ID
5 433 (8.77%) AWS
6 382 (7.74%) Dynamics 365
7 357 (7.23%) Azure DevOps
8 321 (6.50%) Power Automate
9 297 (6.02%) PowerApps
10 218 (4.42%) Microsoft Purview
11 211 (4.28%) GitHub
12 183 (3.71%) Serverless
13 174 (3.53%) OneDrive
14 167 (3.38%) GCP
15 166 (3.36%) Azure Data Factory
16 155 (3.14%) SaaS
17 142 (2.88%) Azure Sentinel
18 137 (2.78%) Microsoft Copilot
19 136 (2.76%) Azure Logic Apps
20 123 (2.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 283 (5.73%) Firewall
2 261 (5.29%) DNS
3 178 (3.61%) VPN
4 164 (3.32%) DHCP
5 125 (2.53%) TCP/IP
6 103 (2.09%) WAN
6 103 (2.09%) Wi-Fi
7 93 (1.88%) Network Security
8 87 (1.76%) LAN
9 81 (1.64%) Skype
10 54 (1.09%) Wireless
11 48 (0.97%) VLAN
12 44 (0.89%) Kerberos
13 42 (0.85%) Unified Communications
14 36 (0.73%) SD-WAN
15 34 (0.69%) HTTP
16 29 (0.59%) Internet
17 28 (0.57%) SAN
18 24 (0.49%) VoIP
18 24 (0.49%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 477 (9.67%) Power BI
2 232 (4.70%) SQL Server
3 134 (2.72%) Data Warehouse
4 128 (2.59%) Data Lake
5 88 (1.78%) Azure SQL Database
6 85 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
7 84 (1.70%) Metadata
8 82 (1.66%) Relational Database
9 75 (1.52%) Oracle Database
10 45 (0.91%) MySQL
11 43 (0.87%) Tableau
12 40 (0.81%) NoSQL
13 39 (0.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 38 (0.77%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 36 (0.73%) Power Query
16 26 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
17 22 (0.45%) Delta Lake
18 19 (0.39%) Spark SQL
18 19 (0.39%) Star Schema
19 18 (0.36%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 227 (4.60%) JIRA
2 155 (3.14%) Git
3 88 (1.78%) Jenkins
4 77 (1.56%) GitLab
5 34 (0.69%) Eclipse
6 26 (0.53%) MSI
7 23 (0.47%) Postman
7 23 (0.47%) Visual Studio
8 21 (0.43%) Android Studio
8 21 (0.43%) Browser DevTools
8 21 (0.43%) Xcode
9 20 (0.41%) Selenium
10 15 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
11 14 (0.28%) Artifactory
12 13 (0.26%) Bitbucket
12 13 (0.26%) JMeter
13 12 (0.24%) Cucumber
13 12 (0.24%) InstallShield
14 10 (0.20%) Bitbucket Server
14 10 (0.20%) CA Release Automation
General
1 1,994 (40.41%) Social Skills
2 1,011 (20.49%) Finance
3 636 (12.89%) Analytical Skills
4 505 (10.23%) Public Sector
5 253 (5.13%) Banking
6 231 (4.68%) Organisational Skills
7 188 (3.81%) Legal
8 154 (3.12%) Documentation Skills
9 127 (2.57%) Manufacturing
10 113 (2.29%) Marketing
11 99 (2.01%) Presentation Skills
12 96 (1.95%) Telecoms
13 79 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 76 (1.54%) Retail
15 54 (1.09%) Influencing Skills
16 49 (0.99%) Local Government
17 47 (0.95%) Military
18 44 (0.89%) Investment Banking
19 41 (0.83%) Law
20 38 (0.77%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 649 (13.15%) Analyst
2 522 (10.58%) Architect
3 461 (9.34%) Developer
4 354 (7.17%) Senior
5 299 (6.06%) Support Engineer
6 296 (6.00%) IT Support
7 266 (5.39%) Consultant
8 244 (4.94%) Lead
9 163 (3.30%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 161 (3.26%) Solutions Architect
11 155 (3.14%) Business Analyst
12 154 (3.12%) Support Analyst
13 152 (3.08%) Administrator
14 144 (2.92%) IT Engineer
15 142 (2.88%) Azure Engineer
16 138 (2.80%) Project Manager
17 136 (2.76%) Data Engineer
18 124 (2.51%) Security Engineer
19 103 (2.09%) Desktop Support
19 103 (2.09%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 246 (4.98%) .NET
2 159 (3.22%) REST
3 118 (2.39%) OAuth
4 110 (2.23%) React
5 97 (1.97%) SAML
6 85 (1.72%) RESTful
7 83 (1.68%) Microsoft Graph
8 82 (1.66%) OpenID
9 79 (1.60%) AngularJS
10 69 (1.40%) HTML
11 66 (1.34%) CSS
11 66 (1.34%) JSON
12 64 (1.30%) PySpark
13 61 (1.24%) LDAP
14 56 (1.13%) ARM Templates
15 52 (1.05%) Node.js
16 48 (0.97%) Web Services
17 46 (0.93%) OAuth2
18 45 (0.91%) Middleware
19 43 (0.87%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 273 (5.53%) Onboarding
2 188 (3.81%) Cloud Native
3 138 (2.80%) Product Ownership
4 133 (2.70%) Management Information System
5 115 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
6 93 (1.88%) PKI
7 90 (1.82%) Security Posture
8 87 (1.76%) Data Centre
9 83 (1.68%) Self-Motivation
10 77 (1.56%) Driving Licence
11 71 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
11 71 (1.44%) Mobile App
12 68 (1.38%) Low-Code
13 64 (1.30%) Hybrid Cloud
14 57 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
15 55 (1.11%) Replication
16 52 (1.05%) Virtual Team
17 49 (0.99%) NHS
18 45 (0.91%) Data Protection Act
19 40 (0.81%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 1,183 (23.97%) Windows
2 343 (6.95%) Windows 10
3 297 (6.02%) Linux
4 261 (5.29%) Windows Server
5 107 (2.17%) Mac OS
6 100 (2.03%) Android
7 88 (1.78%) Apple iOS
8 79 (1.60%) Unix
9 43 (0.87%) Windows 7
10 37 (0.75%) Windows Server 2016
11 30 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 26 (0.53%) Windows Server 2019
13 24 (0.49%) Windows Server 2003
14 20 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
15 16 (0.32%) VMS
16 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
17 7 (0.14%) AIX
17 7 (0.14%) Mac OS X
18 6 (0.12%) CentOS
18 6 (0.12%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,014 (20.55%) Problem-Solving
2 869 (17.61%) Agile
3 730 (14.79%) DevOps
4 614 (12.44%) Migration
5 591 (11.98%) CI/CD
6 566 (11.47%) Business Intelligence
7 505 (10.23%) Analytics
8 498 (10.09%) Stakeholder Management
9 466 (9.44%) ITIL
10 424 (8.59%) Continuous Improvement
11 416 (8.43%) Customer Service
12 403 (8.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 358 (7.25%) AI
14 353 (7.15%) Cybersecurity
15 315 (6.38%) Project Management
16 293 (5.94%) Change Management
17 278 (5.63%) Data Modelling
18 265 (5.37%) Roadmaps
19 255 (5.17%) Infrastructure as Code
20 252 (5.11%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 643 (13.03%) SQL
2 594 (12.04%) PowerShell
3 564 (11.43%) Python
4 258 (5.23%) C#
5 215 (4.36%) JavaScript
6 144 (2.92%) Java
7 113 (2.29%) Kusto Query Language
8 101 (2.05%) Bash
9 98 (1.99%) Bicep
10 77 (1.56%) TypeScript
11 55 (1.11%) T-SQL
12 45 (0.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 37 (0.75%) Perl
14 30 (0.61%) Shell Script
15 27 (0.55%) PL/SQL
16 25 (0.51%) C++
17 21 (0.43%) R
17 21 (0.43%) VB
17 21 (0.43%) VBScript
18 20 (0.41%) Go
Qualifications
1 982 (19.90%) Security Cleared
2 731 (14.81%) SC Cleared
3 511 (10.35%) Degree
4 335 (6.79%) Microsoft Certification
5 211 (4.28%) DV Cleared
6 175 (3.55%) Azure Certification
7 123 (2.49%) CISSP
8 118 (2.39%) Computer Science Degree
9 74 (1.50%) BPSS Clearance
10 66 (1.34%) CISM
11 62 (1.26%) Cisco Certification
12 55 (1.11%) Master's Degree
13 54 (1.09%) PMI Certification
14 53 (1.07%) A+ Certification
15 51 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
16 49 (0.99%) MCSE
17 44 (0.89%) MCP
18 43 (0.87%) PMP
19 42 (0.85%) AWS Certification
20 33 (0.67%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 223 (4.52%) GDPR
2 166 (3.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 156 (3.16%) Data Quality
4 149 (3.02%) QA
5 135 (2.74%) SLA
6 130 (2.63%) NIST
7 101 (2.05%) PMO
8 84 (1.70%) Accessibility
9 49 (0.99%) Cyber Essentials
10 32 (0.65%) NCSC
11 28 (0.57%) PCI DSS
12 26 (0.53%) WCAG
13 24 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 22 (0.45%) EU AI Act
15 20 (0.41%) HIPAA
16 18 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 16 (0.32%) GRC
18 11 (0.22%) MiFID
18 11 (0.22%) SOC 2
19 10 (0.20%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,011 (20.49%) Active Directory
2 194 (3.93%) Docker
3 168 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 70 (1.42%) Hyper-V
5 57 (1.16%) Virtual Machines
6 36 (0.73%) vSphere
7 35 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
8 34 (0.69%) VMware ESXi
9 16 (0.32%) BitLocker
9 16 (0.32%) VMware NSX
10 13 (0.26%) Firmware
11 12 (0.24%) Microsoft App-V
12 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
13 7 (0.14%) ISA Server
13 7 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
14 6 (0.12%) Brightmail
14 6 (0.12%) NFS
15 5 (0.10%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 5 (0.10%) Snort
15 5 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 369 (7.48%) Microsoft Intune
2 270 (5.47%) Terraform
3 268 (5.43%) SCCM
4 228 (4.62%) Kubernetes
5 133 (2.70%) Single Sign-On
6 103 (2.09%) Ansible
7 78 (1.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 48 (0.97%) SCOM
9 39 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
10 37 (0.75%) vCenter Server
11 32 (0.65%) Grafana
12 26 (0.53%) Prometheus
13 23 (0.47%) FortiGate
14 21 (0.43%) HP SiteScope
15 20 (0.41%) WSUS
16 17 (0.34%) QRadar
17 15 (0.30%) Progress Chef
17 15 (0.30%) Puppet
17 15 (0.30%) WMI
18 14 (0.28%) Kibana
Vendors
1 260 (5.27%) ServiceNow
2 233 (4.72%) VMware
3 215 (4.36%) Oracle
4 188 (3.81%) Cisco
5 174 (3.53%) SAP
6 160 (3.24%) Splunk
7 151 (3.06%) Databricks
8 141 (2.86%) Google
9 111 (2.25%) Citrix
10 83 (1.68%) Apple
11 79 (1.60%) Salesforce
12 73 (1.48%) OpenAI
13 67 (1.36%) CrowdStrike
14 64 (1.30%) Palo Alto
15 52 (1.05%) IBM
16 50 (1.01%) Remedy
17 45 (0.91%) Foundry
18 44 (0.89%) HP
19 43 (0.87%) Veeam
20 38 (0.77%) CyberArk