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 4 June 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
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,672 3,883 5,553
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.59% 13.47% 12.96%
As % of the Vendors category 28.43% 28.26% 30.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,759 2,518 3,622
10th Percentile £210 £213 £190
25th Percentile £375 £339 £338
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £496 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +4.46% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £587 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 369 274 471
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.62 £13.00
Median hourly rate £20.35 £18.94 £15.17
Median % change year-on-year +7.47% +24.82% -33.76%
75th Percentile £30.00 £30.25 £25.00
90th Percentile £65.00 £58.79 £56.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.09 £18.85 £15.00
% change year-on-year +6.58% +25.67% -21.05%

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 19,948 13,741 18,095
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.76% 47.66% 42.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,535 8,490 11,282
10th Percentile £313 £280 £263
25th Percentile £413 £405 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £514
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% -1.22% -2.14%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £626
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £489 £500
% change year-on-year +1.23% -2.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,030 604 1,114
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.05
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.34 £14.48
Median hourly rate £32.50 £26.45 £22.56
Median % change year-on-year +22.87% +17.24% -46.92%
75th Percentile £58.75 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £22.50 £21.50
% change year-on-year +33.33% +4.65% -45.64%

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 4 June 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 4 June 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 4 June 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 4,971 £500 +5.26% 3,720
UK excluding London -1 2,952 £450 +5.88% 3,129
London 0 2,217 £513 -2.38% 1,113
Work from Home -1 1,426 £500 - 1,613
North of England -3 765 £450 +5.88% 735
South East -1 681 £475 +4.97% 929
Midlands -5 501 £450 +12.50% 492
North West -3 396 £436 +2.47% 405
South West -2 357 £450 +5.88% 365
Yorkshire -2 349 £475 +11.76% 232
West Midlands -7 349 £450 +12.50% 280
East of England 0 311 £375 -25.00% 348
Scotland +3 240 £450 +2.39% 158
East Midlands 0 145 £407 +1.56% 213
Wales +1 98 £358 +19.17% 96
North East -35 22 £450 +32.35% 101
Northern Ireland 0 21 £450 +38.46% 80
Channel Islands -2 2 £550 +84.87%

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
1 604 (10.65%) SharePoint
2 380 (6.70%) Microsoft Exchange
3 106 (1.87%) Confluence
4 41 (0.72%) Apache Spark
5 29 (0.51%) Apache
6 26 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
7 20 (0.35%) CMS
7 20 (0.35%) HCL Notes
8 15 (0.26%) Skype for Business
9 14 (0.25%) IIS
9 14 (0.25%) SAS
10 10 (0.18%) Mendix
11 6 (0.11%) Camunda
11 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
11 6 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
12 5 (0.088%) Appian
12 5 (0.088%) nginx
12 5 (0.088%) OpenEdge
13 4 (0.071%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.071%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 534 (9.41%) Microsoft Office
2 491 (8.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 215 (3.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 111 (1.96%) Microsoft Project
5 86 (1.52%) MS Visio
6 49 (0.86%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.30%) Chatbot
8 12 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 5 (0.088%) Acrobat
9 5 (0.088%) Adobe Illustrator
9 5 (0.088%) PTC Creo
9 5 (0.088%) Trello
10 3 (0.053%) Adobe Captivate
10 3 (0.053%) InDesign
10 3 (0.053%) SOLIDWORKS
11 2 (0.035%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.035%) InfoPath
11 2 (0.035%) MicroStation
11 2 (0.035%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 199 (3.51%) Dynamics CRM
2 66 (1.16%) SAP S/4HANA
3 25 (0.44%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.30%) NetSuite
5 15 (0.26%) Aladdin
5 15 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
6 14 (0.25%) Dynamics NAV
7 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
9 11 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
10 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
10 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 9 (0.16%) Maximo
12 8 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
12 8 (0.14%) Loan IQ
13 6 (0.11%) Dynamics GP
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
13 6 (0.11%) Primavera
13 6 (0.11%) SAP MM
14 5 (0.088%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 2,415 (42.58%) Azure
2 1,454 (25.63%) Microsoft 365
3 956 (16.85%) Power Platform
4 760 (13.40%) Entra ID
5 465 (8.20%) AWS
6 450 (7.93%) Azure DevOps
7 449 (7.92%) Dynamics 365
8 318 (5.61%) Power Automate
9 308 (5.43%) Microsoft Purview
10 282 (4.97%) PowerApps
11 259 (4.57%) Microsoft Copilot
12 248 (4.37%) GitHub
13 221 (3.90%) OneDrive
14 206 (3.63%) SaaS
15 180 (3.17%) Azure Data Factory
16 172 (3.03%) GCP
17 168 (2.96%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 148 (2.61%) Serverless
19 143 (2.52%) PaaS
20 136 (2.40%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 290 (5.11%) DNS
2 261 (4.60%) Firewall
3 213 (3.76%) VPN
4 183 (3.23%) DHCP
5 138 (2.43%) Wi-Fi
6 136 (2.40%) WAN
7 120 (2.12%) LAN
8 116 (2.05%) Network Security
9 113 (1.99%) TCP/IP
10 53 (0.93%) VLAN
11 52 (0.92%) Kerberos
12 46 (0.81%) SD-WAN
13 38 (0.67%) SAN
14 35 (0.62%) Wireless
15 30 (0.53%) Skype
15 30 (0.53%) SSL
15 30 (0.53%) Unified Communications
16 28 (0.49%) HTTP
17 26 (0.46%) VoIP
18 25 (0.44%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 581 (10.24%) Power BI
2 271 (4.78%) SQL Server
3 171 (3.01%) Data Warehouse
4 147 (2.59%) Data Lake
5 119 (2.10%) Azure SQL Database
6 112 (1.97%) Metadata
7 103 (1.82%) PostgreSQL
8 70 (1.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 66 (1.16%) Relational Database
10 47 (0.83%) NoSQL
11 46 (0.81%) Power Query
12 45 (0.79%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 44 (0.78%) MySQL
14 43 (0.76%) Tableau
15 40 (0.71%) Delta Lake
15 40 (0.71%) Star Schema
16 36 (0.63%) Oracle Database
17 30 (0.53%) Spark SQL
18 28 (0.49%) SQL Server Analysis Services
19 23 (0.41%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 273 (4.81%) JIRA
2 162 (2.86%) Git
3 63 (1.11%) Jenkins
4 58 (1.02%) GitLab
5 33 (0.58%) Visual Studio
6 25 (0.44%) Artifactory
7 19 (0.33%) Eclipse
7 19 (0.33%) MSI
8 15 (0.26%) ERwin
8 15 (0.26%) MLflow
9 14 (0.25%) Selenium
9 14 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
10 13 (0.23%) JMeter
11 12 (0.21%) Maven
11 12 (0.21%) Postman
12 10 (0.18%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.18%) Team Foundation Server
13 9 (0.16%) Gatling
14 8 (0.14%) Browser DevTools
14 8 (0.14%) InstallShield
General
1 1,862 (32.83%) Social Skills
2 1,121 (19.76%) Finance
3 619 (10.91%) Analytical Skills
4 503 (8.87%) Public Sector
5 293 (5.17%) Banking
6 250 (4.41%) Legal
7 238 (4.20%) Organisational Skills
8 141 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
9 99 (1.75%) Law
10 96 (1.69%) Manufacturing
11 95 (1.67%) Retail
12 85 (1.50%) Presentation Skills
13 80 (1.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 77 (1.36%) Marketing
15 75 (1.32%) Telecoms
16 70 (1.23%) Local Government
16 70 (1.23%) Military
17 57 (1.00%) Investment Banking
18 56 (0.99%) Influencing Skills
19 45 (0.79%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 704 (12.41%) Architect
2 607 (10.70%) Analyst
3 499 (8.80%) Developer
4 469 (8.27%) Senior
5 374 (6.59%) IT Support
6 362 (6.38%) Lead
7 325 (5.73%) Consultant
8 272 (4.80%) Support Engineer
9 230 (4.06%) Data Engineer
10 204 (3.60%) Azure Engineer
11 202 (3.56%) Solutions Architect
12 193 (3.40%) Project Manager
13 188 (3.31%) IT Engineer
14 181 (3.19%) Business Analyst
15 173 (3.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 168 (2.96%) Administrator
17 144 (2.54%) IT Support Engineer
18 124 (2.19%) Security Engineer
19 110 (1.94%) DevOps Engineer
20 107 (1.89%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 246 (4.34%) .NET
2 181 (3.19%) REST
3 135 (2.38%) Microsoft Graph
4 106 (1.87%) OAuth
4 106 (1.87%) PySpark
5 95 (1.67%) SAML
6 90 (1.59%) JSON
7 80 (1.41%) OpenID
7 80 (1.41%) React
8 75 (1.32%) LDAP
8 75 (1.32%) Web Services
9 63 (1.11%) Middleware
10 55 (0.97%) Node.js
11 53 (0.93%) SailPoint
11 53 (0.93%) XML
12 52 (0.92%) ARM Templates
12 52 (0.92%) HTML
13 49 (0.86%) CSS
13 49 (0.86%) OAuth2
14 48 (0.85%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 303 (5.34%) Onboarding
2 237 (4.18%) Cloud Native
3 167 (2.94%) Product Ownership
4 127 (2.24%) Management Information System
5 106 (1.87%) Data Centre
6 101 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
7 100 (1.76%) Hybrid Cloud
7 100 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
8 91 (1.60%) Security Posture
9 84 (1.48%) AI Agents
10 80 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
11 79 (1.39%) PKI
12 75 (1.32%) Replication
13 70 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
14 68 (1.20%) Data Structures
15 67 (1.18%) Low-Code
16 62 (1.09%) Virtual Team
17 49 (0.86%) Public Cloud
18 47 (0.83%) Operational Technology
19 46 (0.81%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1,245 (21.95%) Windows
2 331 (5.84%) Windows 10
3 299 (5.27%) Windows Server
4 255 (4.50%) Linux
5 118 (2.08%) Mac OS
6 113 (1.99%) Apple iOS
7 109 (1.92%) Android
8 45 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 44 (0.78%) Windows 7
10 40 (0.71%) Windows Server 2016
11 39 (0.69%) Unix
12 31 (0.55%) VMS
12 31 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
13 21 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
14 15 (0.26%) Windows Server 2003
15 14 (0.25%) Ubuntu
16 11 (0.19%) CentOS
17 6 (0.11%) AIX
18 5 (0.088%) Solaris
18 5 (0.088%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 958 (16.89%) Problem-Solving
2 911 (16.06%) DevOps
3 833 (14.69%) Agile
4 804 (14.17%) Migration
5 751 (13.24%) CI/CD
6 611 (10.77%) Business Intelligence
7 602 (10.61%) Analytics
8 598 (10.54%) Stakeholder Management
9 578 (10.19%) AI
10 522 (9.20%) Continuous Improvement
11 498 (8.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 483 (8.52%) ITIL
13 435 (7.67%) Customer Service
14 422 (7.44%) Data Modelling
15 399 (7.03%) Roadmaps
16 376 (6.63%) Cybersecurity
17 345 (6.08%) Decision-Making
18 334 (5.89%) Infrastructure as Code
19 327 (5.77%) Project Delivery
20 325 (5.73%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 721 (12.71%) SQL
2 653 (11.51%) PowerShell
3 575 (10.14%) Python
4 259 (4.57%) C#
5 196 (3.46%) JavaScript
6 183 (3.23%) Java
7 133 (2.34%) Bicep
8 95 (1.67%) T-SQL
9 84 (1.48%) Kusto Query Language
10 73 (1.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 68 (1.20%) Bash
12 65 (1.15%) TypeScript
13 34 (0.60%) VBA
14 30 (0.53%) VB
15 27 (0.48%) C++
15 27 (0.48%) PL/SQL
16 18 (0.32%) Scala
17 16 (0.28%) VBScript
18 13 (0.23%) Shell Script
19 10 (0.18%) X++
Qualifications
1 1,079 (19.02%) Security Cleared
2 843 (14.86%) SC Cleared
3 543 (9.57%) Degree
4 264 (4.65%) Microsoft Certification
5 184 (3.24%) Azure Certification
6 175 (3.09%) DV Cleared
7 122 (2.15%) Computer Science Degree
8 111 (1.96%) CISSP
9 94 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
10 82 (1.45%) Cisco Certification
11 61 (1.08%) CISM
12 56 (0.99%) PMP
13 53 (0.93%) PMI Certification
14 51 (0.90%) Master's Degree
15 44 (0.78%) MCSE
16 43 (0.76%) AWS Certification
17 39 (0.69%) DBS Check
18 36 (0.63%) CCNP
19 34 (0.60%) MCSA
20 33 (0.58%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 290 (5.11%) Data Quality
2 229 (4.04%) GDPR
3 182 (3.21%) QA
4 170 (3.00%) SLA
5 149 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 124 (2.19%) NIST
7 103 (1.82%) PMO
8 76 (1.34%) Cyber Essentials
9 75 (1.32%) Accessibility
10 52 (0.92%) NCSC
11 37 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 35 (0.62%) GRC
13 29 (0.51%) PCI DSS
14 28 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 22 (0.39%) NIST 800
16 19 (0.33%) MiFID
17 18 (0.32%) SOC 2
18 16 (0.28%) WCAG
19 13 (0.23%) FINRA
20 12 (0.21%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,081 (19.06%) Active Directory
2 212 (3.74%) Docker
3 195 (3.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 104 (1.83%) Hyper-V
5 79 (1.39%) Virtual Desktop
6 74 (1.30%) Virtual Machines
7 60 (1.06%) VMware ESXi
8 55 (0.97%) vSphere
9 31 (0.55%) BitLocker
10 19 (0.33%) Microsoft App-V
10 19 (0.33%) VMware NSX
11 18 (0.32%) Firmware
12 7 (0.12%) NFS
13 6 (0.11%) IAG
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
14 5 (0.088%) Oracle RAC
14 5 (0.088%) VMware Workstation
15 4 (0.071%) Snort
15 4 (0.071%) XenDesktop
16 3 (0.053%) Squid
Systems Management
1 462 (8.15%) Microsoft Intune
2 342 (6.03%) Terraform
3 241 (4.25%) Kubernetes
4 202 (3.56%) SCCM
5 123 (2.17%) Ansible
6 120 (2.12%) Single Sign-On
7 78 (1.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 51 (0.90%) vCenter Server
9 48 (0.85%) Jamf Pro
10 33 (0.58%) Grafana
11 30 (0.53%) Prometheus
12 24 (0.42%) FortiGate
13 23 (0.41%) SCOM
14 16 (0.28%) Puppet
15 15 (0.26%) AirWatch
15 15 (0.26%) QRadar
16 12 (0.21%) HAProxy
16 12 (0.21%) ServiceCenter
16 12 (0.21%) WSUS
17 10 (0.18%) vMotion
Vendors
1 311 (5.48%) ServiceNow
2 264 (4.65%) VMware
3 221 (3.90%) Databricks
4 218 (3.84%) Oracle
5 217 (3.83%) SAP
6 190 (3.35%) Cisco
7 159 (2.80%) Google
8 109 (1.92%) Citrix
9 108 (1.90%) Salesforce
10 94 (1.66%) Splunk
11 78 (1.38%) OpenAI
12 76 (1.34%) Apple
13 70 (1.23%) Foundry
14 62 (1.09%) CrowdStrike
15 55 (0.97%) Okta
16 54 (0.95%) CyberArk
17 50 (0.88%) HP
18 46 (0.81%) Adobe
19 43 (0.76%) Dell
20 41 (0.72%) Palo Alto