Microsoft Contracts

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 2025, 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 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 11 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -4 0 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 3,892 5,648 8,119
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 13.31% 12.96% 13.60%
As % of the Vendors category 28.06% 30.52% 31.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,595 3,710 5,868
10th Percentile £210 £189 £200
25th Percentile £350 £325 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
75th Percentile £585 £600 £625
90th Percentile £675 £700 £703
UK excluding London median daily rate £430 £460 £463
% change year-on-year -6.63% -0.54% +8.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 238 457 229
10th Percentile £14.20 £11.07 £13.29
25th Percentile £15.62 £13.00 £16.50
Median hourly rate £20.00 £15.42 £23.50
Median % change year-on-year +29.70% -34.38% +26.68%
75th Percentile £29.21 £25.00 £54.00
90th Percentile £60.66 £53.30 £66.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.76 £15.00 £19.50
% change year-on-year +25.05% -23.08% +18.18%

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 13,870 18,503 25,530
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.44% 42.44% 42.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,703 11,477 17,115
10th Percentile £288 £263 £273
25th Percentile £406 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £518 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.48% -1.43% -
75th Percentile £619 £627 £650
90th Percentile £713 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - +7.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 569 1,097 689
10th Percentile £14.84 £12.08 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.13 £14.48 £19.06
Median hourly rate £27.13 £22.15 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year +22.46% -49.37% +108.33%
75th Percentile £57.50 £57.33 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.00 £75.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.18 £21.46 £38.50
% change year-on-year +12.67% -44.26% +107.55%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Microsoft as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Microsoft.

Daily rate trend for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Microsoft.

Hourly rate trend for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Top 18 Contract 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 2025. 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 3,386 £475 -2.56% 4,771
UK excluding London -2 1,945 £430 -6.63% 3,267
London -3 1,565 £500 - 1,755
Work from Home -4 1,142 £500 - 2,576
North of England -2 513 £419 -1.53% 915
South East -1 453 £491 +5.48% 854
North West 0 351 £431 -4.17% 523
Midlands 0 284 £400 -5.88% 546
South West -1 254 £465 -7.00% 354
West Midlands +4 218 £400 -5.88% 341
Scotland -10 201 £420 +5.00% 183
East of England +3 194 £444 +4.11% 323
Yorkshire -3 113 £400 +5.96% 293
East Midlands 0 65 £425 +8.70% 201
North East 0 50 £350 +64.71% 110
Wales -4 45 £300 -41.75% 115
Northern Ireland -6 24 £325 -40.91% 58
Channel Islands - 2 £298 -

Microsoft
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 510 (13.10%) SharePoint
2 317 (8.14%) Microsoft Exchange
3 105 (2.70%) Confluence
4 34 (0.87%) Skype for Business
5 30 (0.77%) IIS
6 20 (0.51%) Apache Spark
6 20 (0.51%) CMS
7 14 (0.36%) Tomcat
8 13 (0.33%) Apache
9 10 (0.26%) Exchange Server 2013
10 9 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2010
10 9 (0.23%) SAS
11 8 (0.21%) SharePoint Server
12 7 (0.18%) Drupal
13 6 (0.15%) BizTalk Server
13 6 (0.15%) Mattermost
13 6 (0.15%) WebSphere
14 5 (0.13%) Anypoint
14 5 (0.13%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
14 5 (0.13%) JBoss
Applications
1 602 (15.47%) Microsoft Office
2 448 (11.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 243 (6.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 92 (2.36%) MS Visio
5 86 (2.21%) Microsoft Project
6 26 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
7 18 (0.46%) Chatbot
8 9 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.15%) InfoPath
10 5 (0.13%) Acrobat
10 5 (0.13%) AutoCAD
10 5 (0.13%) Trello
11 3 (0.077%) Camtasia
12 2 (0.051%) 1Password
12 2 (0.051%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.051%) CANalyzer
12 2 (0.051%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.026%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.026%) CATIA
13 1 (0.026%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 140 (3.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 31 (0.80%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.28%) Kondor
4 10 (0.26%) Dynamics AX
5 9 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
6 8 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.15%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
7 6 (0.15%) Unit4 Business World
8 5 (0.13%) SAP ERP
8 5 (0.13%) SAP GRC
8 5 (0.13%) Shopify
8 5 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.10%) CA PPM
9 4 (0.10%) Oracle Financials
9 4 (0.10%) Raiser’s Edge
9 4 (0.10%) SAP PS
10 3 (0.077%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.077%) Primavera
10 3 (0.077%) SAP Retail
Cloud Services
1 1,391 (35.74%) Azure
2 981 (25.21%) Microsoft 365
3 504 (12.95%) Power Platform
4 445 (11.43%) Entra ID
5 331 (8.50%) AWS
6 265 (6.81%) Dynamics 365
7 204 (5.24%) PowerApps
8 201 (5.16%) Azure DevOps
9 200 (5.14%) Power Automate
10 148 (3.80%) OneDrive
11 135 (3.47%) SaaS
12 124 (3.19%) GCP
13 119 (3.06%) IaaS
14 113 (2.90%) PaaS
15 101 (2.60%) Serverless
16 100 (2.57%) Microsoft Purview
17 84 (2.16%) Azure Data Factory
18 81 (2.08%) Azure Sentinel
19 64 (1.64%) Azure Logic Apps
20 56 (1.44%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 270 (6.94%) Firewall
2 231 (5.94%) DNS
3 215 (5.52%) VPN
4 150 (3.85%) DHCP
5 110 (2.83%) Wi-Fi
6 107 (2.75%) WAN
7 104 (2.67%) Network Security
8 98 (2.52%) LAN
9 90 (2.31%) TCP/IP
10 53 (1.36%) SAN
11 47 (1.21%) Skype
12 46 (1.18%) Remote Desktop
13 45 (1.16%) VLAN
14 37 (0.95%) MPLS
15 34 (0.87%) Wireless
16 33 (0.85%) Internet
17 32 (0.82%) SMTP
18 30 (0.77%) SSL
19 28 (0.72%) WebEx
20 27 (0.69%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 296 (7.61%) Power BI
2 266 (6.83%) SQL Server
3 89 (2.29%) Data Warehouse
4 67 (1.72%) Data Lake
5 61 (1.57%) Relational Database
6 57 (1.46%) Big Data
7 55 (1.41%) Azure SQL Database
7 55 (1.41%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 54 (1.39%) NoSQL
9 50 (1.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 47 (1.21%) PostgreSQL
10 47 (1.21%) Tableau
11 45 (1.16%) Metadata
12 26 (0.67%) Power Query
13 25 (0.64%) MongoDB
14 24 (0.62%) Oracle Database
15 23 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
15 23 (0.59%) RDBMS
16 22 (0.57%) MySQL
17 21 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 200 (5.14%) JIRA
2 99 (2.54%) Git
3 53 (1.36%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.05%) Visual Studio
5 33 (0.85%) GitLab
6 21 (0.54%) MSI
7 17 (0.44%) Postman
8 15 (0.39%) Selenium
9 14 (0.36%) ERwin
9 14 (0.36%) Visual Studio Code
10 12 (0.31%) Bitbucket
10 12 (0.31%) Maven
11 11 (0.28%) Subversion
12 10 (0.26%) PowerDesigner
12 10 (0.26%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
13 9 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
14 8 (0.21%) Eclipse
14 8 (0.21%) Hudson
14 8 (0.21%) SonarQube
14 8 (0.21%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,482 (38.08%) Social Skills
2 777 (19.96%) Finance
3 508 (13.05%) Analytical Skills
4 424 (10.89%) Public Sector
5 222 (5.70%) Banking
6 135 (3.47%) Organisational Skills
7 130 (3.34%) Telecoms
8 124 (3.19%) Legal
9 107 (2.75%) Marketing
10 103 (2.65%) Presentation Skills
11 93 (2.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 92 (2.36%) Manufacturing
13 82 (2.11%) Documentation Skills
14 79 (2.03%) Retail
15 55 (1.41%) Local Government
16 38 (0.98%) Influencing Skills
16 38 (0.98%) Law
17 37 (0.95%) Military
18 35 (0.90%) Pharmaceutical
19 33 (0.85%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 532 (13.67%) Analyst
2 452 (11.61%) Architect
3 364 (9.35%) Developer
4 302 (7.76%) Support Engineer
5 254 (6.53%) Senior
6 216 (5.55%) Consultant
7 202 (5.19%) Lead
8 156 (4.01%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 156 (4.01%) IT Support
9 142 (3.65%) Solutions Architect
10 135 (3.47%) Desktop Support
11 124 (3.19%) IT Engineer
11 124 (3.19%) Project Manager
12 122 (3.13%) Desktop Engineer
13 113 (2.90%) Service Analyst
14 111 (2.85%) Business Analyst
15 95 (2.44%) Azure Engineer
16 93 (2.39%) Service Desk Analyst
16 93 (2.39%) Support Analyst
17 92 (2.36%) Desktop Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 199 (5.11%) .NET
2 114 (2.93%) HTML
3 101 (2.60%) CSS
4 76 (1.95%) REST
5 67 (1.72%) React
6 61 (1.57%) Web Services
7 58 (1.49%) .NET Framework
8 46 (1.18%) SOAP
9 44 (1.13%) JSON
10 42 (1.08%) OAuth
11 39 (1.00%) Middleware
12 38 (0.98%) RESTful
12 38 (0.98%) SailPoint
12 38 (0.98%) XML
13 37 (0.95%) ASP.NET
14 36 (0.92%) AngularJS
14 36 (0.92%) SAML
15 35 (0.90%) .NET Core
16 27 (0.69%) ASP.NET Web API
17 26 (0.67%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 135 (3.47%) Management Information System
2 104 (2.67%) Onboarding
3 95 (2.44%) Self-Motivation
4 92 (2.36%) Product Ownership
5 89 (2.29%) PKI
6 85 (2.18%) Cloud Native
7 82 (2.11%) Data Centre
8 72 (1.85%) Security Posture
9 69 (1.77%) Driving Licence
10 56 (1.44%) Video Conferencing
11 50 (1.28%) Public Cloud
12 49 (1.26%) Hybrid Cloud
13 42 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
14 40 (1.03%) Enterprise Software
15 36 (0.92%) iPhone
15 36 (0.92%) Low-Code
16 35 (0.90%) Smartphone
17 34 (0.87%) Legacy Systems
18 33 (0.85%) Clustering
19 31 (0.80%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 1,007 (25.87%) Windows
2 296 (7.61%) Windows 10
3 275 (7.07%) Windows Server
4 248 (6.37%) Linux
5 78 (2.00%) Unix
6 71 (1.82%) Mac OS
7 69 (1.77%) Apple iOS
8 58 (1.49%) Android
9 57 (1.46%) Windows Server 2016
10 44 (1.13%) Windows 7
11 43 (1.10%) Windows Server 2019
12 42 (1.08%) Windows Server 2012
13 26 (0.67%) Windows Server 2003
14 22 (0.57%) VMS
15 20 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
15 20 (0.51%) Ubuntu
16 13 (0.33%) AIX
17 12 (0.31%) Windows Server 2008
18 11 (0.28%) CentOS
19 10 (0.26%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 936 (24.05%) Problem-Solving
2 660 (16.96%) Agile
3 470 (12.08%) Migration
4 426 (10.95%) ITIL
5 417 (10.71%) DevOps
6 379 (9.74%) Customer Service
7 337 (8.66%) Project Management
8 304 (7.81%) Business Intelligence
8 304 (7.81%) Stakeholder Management
9 266 (6.83%) Cybersecurity
10 216 (5.55%) Analytics
11 213 (5.47%) CI/CD
12 211 (5.42%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 198 (5.09%) Collaborative Working
14 196 (5.04%) Roadmaps
15 191 (4.91%) Change Management
16 188 (4.83%) Continuous Improvement
17 186 (4.78%) Project Delivery
17 186 (4.78%) Service Delivery
18 184 (4.73%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 507 (13.03%) SQL
2 504 (12.95%) PowerShell
3 282 (7.25%) Python
4 212 (5.45%) JavaScript
5 211 (5.42%) C#
6 150 (3.85%) Java
7 63 (1.62%) TypeScript
8 44 (1.13%) Bicep
9 38 (0.98%) T-SQL
10 35 (0.90%) Bash
11 32 (0.82%) PL/SQL
11 32 (0.82%) VBA
12 28 (0.72%) Kusto Query Language
13 24 (0.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 22 (0.57%) C++
15 17 (0.44%) VB
16 16 (0.41%) Delphi
16 16 (0.41%) R
17 13 (0.33%) Shell Script
18 12 (0.31%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 677 (17.39%) Security Cleared
2 530 (13.62%) SC Cleared
3 447 (11.49%) Degree
4 304 (7.81%) Microsoft Certification
5 145 (3.73%) Azure Certification
6 120 (3.08%) DV Cleared
7 99 (2.54%) Computer Science Degree
8 78 (2.00%) AWS Certification
9 75 (1.93%) Cisco Certification
10 74 (1.90%) A+ Certification
11 71 (1.82%) CISSP
12 44 (1.13%) CISM
13 41 (1.05%) MCSE
13 41 (1.05%) PMI Certification
14 39 (1.00%) MCSA
15 37 (0.95%) CCNA
16 35 (0.90%) BPSS Clearance
17 34 (0.87%) PMP
18 33 (0.85%) Dell Certification
19 32 (0.82%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (3.70%) SLA
2 120 (3.08%) QA
3 112 (2.88%) GDPR
4 90 (2.31%) Data Quality
5 76 (1.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 69 (1.77%) PMO
7 55 (1.41%) Accessibility
8 54 (1.39%) NIST
9 36 (0.92%) HIPAA
10 34 (0.87%) PCI DSS
11 24 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
11 24 (0.62%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 23 (0.59%) GRC
13 22 (0.57%) SOC 2
14 12 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 11 (0.28%) Disclosure Scotland
15 11 (0.28%) NCSC
16 10 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 10 (0.26%) GxP
17 8 (0.21%) WCAG
System Software
1 930 (23.90%) Active Directory
2 194 (4.98%) VMware Infrastructure
3 75 (1.93%) Docker
4 71 (1.82%) Hyper-V
5 68 (1.75%) Virtual Machines
6 64 (1.64%) vSphere
7 58 (1.49%) VMware ESXi
8 38 (0.98%) BitLocker
9 29 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
10 27 (0.69%) Microsoft App-V
11 15 (0.39%) Virtual Servers
12 14 (0.36%) VMware NSX
13 13 (0.33%) Terminal Services
14 11 (0.28%) XenApp
14 11 (0.28%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.26%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 6 (0.15%) DFS Replication
16 6 (0.15%) VMware Workstation
17 5 (0.13%) OpenAM
18 4 (0.10%) IAG
Systems Management
1 367 (9.43%) Microsoft Intune
2 229 (5.88%) SCCM
3 159 (4.09%) Terraform
4 121 (3.11%) Kubernetes
5 77 (1.98%) Ansible
6 54 (1.39%) Single Sign-On
7 49 (1.26%) WSUS
8 47 (1.21%) vCenter Server
9 33 (0.85%) Jamf Pro
10 30 (0.77%) Puppet
11 26 (0.67%) Grafana
12 25 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 22 (0.57%) SCOM
14 20 (0.51%) Microsoft Clustering
15 18 (0.46%) CASB
16 17 (0.44%) Kibana
17 15 (0.39%) Progress Chef
17 15 (0.39%) vMotion
18 14 (0.36%) Nagios
19 13 (0.33%) AppManager
Vendors
1 280 (7.19%) VMware
2 268 (6.89%) ServiceNow
3 203 (5.22%) Oracle
4 170 (4.37%) SAP
5 164 (4.21%) Cisco
6 159 (4.09%) Google
7 126 (3.24%) Citrix
8 93 (2.39%) Salesforce
9 85 (2.18%) Databricks
10 84 (2.16%) HP
11 83 (2.13%) Apple
12 80 (2.06%) Dell
13 52 (1.34%) Splunk
14 49 (1.26%) Palo Alto
15 35 (0.90%) Adobe
16 33 (0.85%) Red Hat
16 33 (0.85%) Zscaler
17 32 (0.82%) Veeam
18 30 (0.77%) Atlassian
19 29 (0.75%) CyberArk