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 18 September 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
18 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 7 7 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 0 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 4,717 5,037 6,630
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 14.32% 13.08% 13.47%
As % of the Vendors category 30.28% 29.62% 30.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,056 3,142 4,610
10th Percentile £206 £200 £200
25th Percentile £339 £350 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £625
90th Percentile £674 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £437 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -2.89% - +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 380 284 248
10th Percentile £13.83 £14.16 £13.29
25th Percentile £16.50 £15.42 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.32 £17.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +31.26% -24.44% +20.97%
75th Percentile £31.40 £45.00 £46.75
90th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £66.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.80 £16.23 £20.00
% change year-on-year +28.13% -18.85% +14.29%

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 15,579 17,006 21,896
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.28% 44.16% 44.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,565 10,199 14,188
10th Percentile £275 £281 £263
25th Percentile £400 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -0.94%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £731 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.40% - +3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 796 678 648
10th Percentile £14.72 £14.26 £15.21
25th Percentile £17.45 £15.62 £18.63
Median hourly rate £25.15 £30.00 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year -16.17% -31.66% +83.61%
75th Percentile £43.75 £63.75 £64.50
90th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £75.08
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.28 £30.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -29.07% -29.41% +112.50%

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
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 18 September 2025.

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 18 September 2025.

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 18 September 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 0 4,112 £475 -5.00% 5,022
UK excluding London +1 2,584 £437 -2.89% 4,538
London -2 1,739 £500 -2.44% 1,334
Work from Home -5 1,194 £500 - 2,155
North of England +6 699 £433 -8.95% 1,029
South East +2 567 £450 -2.70% 1,387
Midlands -1 442 £410 -0.24% 777
North West +6 398 £437 -2.89% 583
South West +1 312 £425 -15.00% 446
West Midlands -2 294 £430 +1.18% 414
Yorkshire +5 267 £435 -10.17% 315
East of England -1 242 £525 +61.54% 499
Scotland -4 233 £450 +32.35% 269
East Midlands +2 143 £371 -5.24% 343
Wales -2 63 £304 +34.08% 141
Northern Ireland +2 54 £350 -24.32% 52
North East +2 34 £340 -28.42% 145
Channel Islands - 3 £725 -

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
1 463 (9.82%) SharePoint
2 322 (6.83%) Microsoft Exchange
3 104 (2.20%) Confluence
4 58 (1.23%) Skype for Business
5 37 (0.78%) Apache
6 36 (0.76%) CMS
7 31 (0.66%) IIS
8 26 (0.55%) Exchange Server 2013
9 22 (0.47%) Mattermost
10 21 (0.45%) Apache Spark
11 20 (0.42%) Exchange Server 2010
11 20 (0.42%) WebSphere
12 18 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
12 18 (0.38%) JBoss
13 17 (0.36%) SharePoint Server
14 13 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2003
14 13 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2007
14 13 (0.28%) HCL Notes
14 13 (0.28%) Office Communications Server
14 13 (0.28%) SAS
Applications
1 618 (13.10%) Microsoft Office
2 567 (12.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 265 (5.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 120 (2.54%) Microsoft Project
5 102 (2.16%) MS Visio
6 23 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.23%) Chatbot
8 9 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 8 (0.17%) Adobe Captivate
9 8 (0.17%) Trello
10 6 (0.13%) Maya
10 6 (0.13%) Sketch
11 5 (0.11%) AutoCAD
12 4 (0.085%) Adobe Illustrator
12 4 (0.085%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.064%) Adobe Premiere
13 3 (0.064%) Siemens NX
14 2 (0.042%) InDesign
14 2 (0.042%) Oracle Smart View
14 2 (0.042%) Revit
Business Applications
1 157 (3.33%) Dynamics CRM
2 43 (0.91%) SAP S/4HANA
3 33 (0.70%) Remedy ITSM
4 13 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
5 11 (0.23%) Aladdin
6 10 (0.21%) Maximo
6 10 (0.21%) Teamcenter
7 9 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
7 9 (0.19%) Workday HCM
8 8 (0.17%) Payment Gateway
8 8 (0.17%) SAP PS
9 7 (0.15%) assyst
9 7 (0.15%) NetSuite
9 7 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.13%) Endur
10 6 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
10 6 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
10 6 (0.13%) Primavera
10 6 (0.13%) SAP PM
11 5 (0.11%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 1,535 (32.54%) Azure
2 1,010 (21.41%) Microsoft 365
3 627 (13.29%) Power Platform
4 478 (10.13%) Entra ID
5 429 (9.09%) AWS
6 309 (6.55%) Dynamics 365
7 272 (5.77%) Azure DevOps
8 246 (5.22%) Power Automate
9 237 (5.02%) PowerApps
10 185 (3.92%) GCP
11 150 (3.18%) SaaS
12 126 (2.67%) OneDrive
13 125 (2.65%) Microsoft Purview
14 120 (2.54%) Azure Sentinel
15 111 (2.35%) GitHub
16 109 (2.31%) Serverless
17 104 (2.20%) PaaS
18 101 (2.14%) Azure Data Factory
19 98 (2.08%) IaaS
20 89 (1.89%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 308 (6.53%) Firewall
2 244 (5.17%) DNS
3 183 (3.88%) VPN
4 155 (3.29%) DHCP
5 132 (2.80%) TCP/IP
6 86 (1.82%) Network Security
7 79 (1.67%) WAN
8 76 (1.61%) SAN
9 73 (1.55%) LAN
10 63 (1.34%) Wi-Fi
11 55 (1.17%) Wireless
12 52 (1.10%) Skype
13 45 (0.95%) WebEx
14 42 (0.89%) Ethernet
14 42 (0.89%) VoIP
15 39 (0.83%) Cisco IOS
15 39 (0.83%) VLAN
16 38 (0.81%) Unified Communications
17 31 (0.66%) SD-WAN
18 30 (0.64%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 379 (8.03%) Power BI
2 256 (5.43%) SQL Server
3 105 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
4 73 (1.55%) Data Lake
5 70 (1.48%) Azure SQL Database
6 69 (1.46%) PostgreSQL
6 69 (1.46%) Relational Database
7 64 (1.36%) Tableau
8 63 (1.34%) Metadata
9 59 (1.25%) Oracle Database
10 48 (1.02%) NoSQL
11 40 (0.85%) Big Data
12 37 (0.78%) MySQL
13 35 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 30 (0.64%) Elasticsearch
15 28 (0.59%) Amazon RDS
15 28 (0.59%) Power Query
16 27 (0.57%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 25 (0.53%) Delta Lake
17 25 (0.53%) GIS
Development Applications
1 261 (5.53%) JIRA
2 149 (3.16%) Git
3 94 (1.99%) Jenkins
4 50 (1.06%) GitLab
5 38 (0.81%) Visual Studio
6 35 (0.74%) Postman
7 34 (0.72%) Eclipse
8 30 (0.64%) MSI
9 23 (0.49%) Selenium
9 23 (0.49%) Sonatype Nexus
10 15 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
10 15 (0.32%) SonarQube
11 14 (0.30%) Xcode
12 13 (0.28%) JUnit
13 12 (0.25%) Gradle
13 12 (0.25%) Maven
14 11 (0.23%) Android Studio
14 11 (0.23%) Bitbucket
14 11 (0.23%) CA Release Automation
14 11 (0.23%) SoapUI
General
1 1,850 (39.22%) Social Skills
2 1,090 (23.11%) Finance
3 616 (13.06%) Analytical Skills
4 444 (9.41%) Public Sector
5 243 (5.15%) Banking
6 172 (3.65%) Organisational Skills
7 168 (3.56%) Legal
8 139 (2.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 130 (2.76%) Documentation Skills
10 127 (2.69%) Manufacturing
11 126 (2.67%) Presentation Skills
12 110 (2.33%) Telecoms
13 96 (2.04%) Marketing
13 96 (2.04%) Retail
14 74 (1.57%) Local Government
15 66 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
16 47 (1.00%) Front Office
17 42 (0.89%) Military
18 41 (0.87%) Law
19 39 (0.83%) Games
Job Titles
1 804 (17.04%) Analyst
2 459 (9.73%) Architect
3 433 (9.18%) Developer
4 302 (6.40%) Support Engineer
5 263 (5.58%) Consultant
5 263 (5.58%) Senior
6 228 (4.83%) IT Support
7 215 (4.56%) Lead
8 201 (4.26%) Support Analyst
9 161 (3.41%) Business Analyst
10 153 (3.24%) Project Manager
11 142 (3.01%) Solutions Architect
12 139 (2.95%) Desktop Support
13 125 (2.65%) Administrator
14 115 (2.44%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 110 (2.33%) IT Engineer
16 109 (2.31%) Data Analyst
17 106 (2.25%) Azure Engineer
18 97 (2.06%) Desktop Engineer
19 93 (1.97%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 218 (4.62%) .NET
2 118 (2.50%) REST
3 110 (2.33%) HTML
4 100 (2.12%) React
5 92 (1.95%) CSS
6 82 (1.74%) OAuth
7 75 (1.59%) Web Services
8 66 (1.40%) RESTful
9 64 (1.36%) AngularJS
10 61 (1.29%) SOAP
11 60 (1.27%) .NET Framework
12 57 (1.21%) XML
13 53 (1.12%) SAML
14 52 (1.10%) JSON
14 52 (1.10%) LDAP
15 50 (1.06%) OpenID
16 46 (0.98%) Node.js
16 46 (0.98%) SailPoint
16 46 (0.98%) Spring
17 41 (0.87%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 172 (3.65%) Onboarding
2 149 (3.16%) Management Information System
3 135 (2.86%) Cloud Native
4 110 (2.33%) Product Ownership
5 104 (2.20%) Self-Motivation
6 100 (2.12%) Data Centre
7 87 (1.84%) PKI
8 86 (1.82%) Security Posture
9 82 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
10 77 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
11 70 (1.48%) Driving Licence
12 58 (1.23%) Virtual Team
13 48 (1.02%) Low-Code
14 46 (0.98%) Analytical Mindset
14 46 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
14 46 (0.98%) Mobile App
15 45 (0.95%) Public Cloud
16 44 (0.93%) Cyber Threat
16 44 (0.93%) Smartphone
17 43 (0.91%) iPhone
Operating Systems
1 1,184 (25.10%) Windows
2 296 (6.28%) Windows 10
3 275 (5.83%) Linux
4 269 (5.70%) Windows Server
5 152 (3.22%) Mac OS
6 104 (2.20%) Android
7 77 (1.63%) Apple iOS
8 69 (1.46%) Unix
9 59 (1.25%) Windows Server 2019
10 54 (1.14%) Windows Server 2016
11 50 (1.06%) Windows 7
12 28 (0.59%) Windows Server 2003
12 28 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
13 21 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 13 (0.28%) Ubuntu
15 12 (0.25%) CentOS
15 12 (0.25%) VMS
15 12 (0.25%) Windows Server 2008
16 9 (0.19%) Windows 8
17 8 (0.17%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,054 (22.34%) Problem-Solving
2 867 (18.38%) Agile
3 637 (13.50%) DevOps
4 543 (11.51%) ITIL
5 539 (11.43%) Migration
6 447 (9.48%) Stakeholder Management
7 428 (9.07%) Business Intelligence
8 419 (8.88%) Customer Service
9 417 (8.84%) CI/CD
10 374 (7.93%) Project Management
11 340 (7.21%) Cybersecurity
12 338 (7.17%) Analytics
13 311 (6.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 308 (6.53%) Continuous Improvement
15 283 (6.00%) Change Management
16 245 (5.19%) Artificial Intelligence
16 245 (5.19%) ITSM
17 242 (5.13%) Roadmaps
18 233 (4.94%) CRM
19 227 (4.81%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 635 (13.46%) SQL
2 522 (11.07%) PowerShell
3 435 (9.22%) Python
4 254 (5.38%) C#
5 200 (4.24%) JavaScript
6 189 (4.01%) Java
7 87 (1.84%) Bicep
8 80 (1.70%) Bash
9 71 (1.51%) Kusto Query Language
10 63 (1.34%) TypeScript
11 44 (0.93%) T-SQL
12 42 (0.89%) C++
13 37 (0.78%) VB
14 34 (0.72%) VBA
15 32 (0.68%) Shell Script
16 30 (0.64%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 25 (0.53%) Perl
18 20 (0.42%) R
19 17 (0.36%) Go
20 16 (0.34%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 752 (15.94%) Security Cleared
2 551 (11.68%) SC Cleared
3 509 (10.79%) Degree
4 342 (7.25%) Microsoft Certification
5 172 (3.65%) Azure Certification
6 136 (2.88%) DV Cleared
7 108 (2.29%) Computer Science Degree
8 104 (2.20%) CISSP
9 101 (2.14%) Cisco Certification
10 61 (1.29%) A+ Certification
11 60 (1.27%) BPSS Clearance
12 54 (1.14%) ITIL Certification
13 53 (1.12%) PMI Certification
14 49 (1.04%) CISM
14 49 (1.04%) MCSE
15 47 (1.00%) PMP
16 46 (0.98%) AWS Certification
17 45 (0.95%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 43 (0.91%) CCNA
19 42 (0.89%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 219 (4.64%) GDPR
2 165 (3.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 153 (3.24%) QA
4 131 (2.78%) NIST
5 116 (2.46%) Data Quality
6 104 (2.20%) SLA
7 100 (2.12%) PMO
8 84 (1.78%) Accessibility
9 58 (1.23%) HIPAA
10 44 (0.93%) PCI DSS
11 39 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 20 (0.42%) NCSC
14 19 (0.40%) SOC 2
15 16 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 16 (0.34%) GRC
16 13 (0.28%) MiFID
16 13 (0.28%) WCAG
17 11 (0.23%) Disclosure Scotland
18 10 (0.21%) EMIR
System Software
1 1,007 (21.35%) Active Directory
2 190 (4.03%) VMware Infrastructure
3 135 (2.86%) Docker
4 71 (1.51%) Hyper-V
5 59 (1.25%) VMware ESXi
6 51 (1.08%) vSphere
7 48 (1.02%) Virtual Machines
8 40 (0.85%) Virtual Desktop
9 35 (0.74%) BitLocker
10 30 (0.64%) Virtual Servers
11 26 (0.55%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 21 (0.45%) Microsoft App-V
13 18 (0.38%) NFS
14 16 (0.34%) Firmware
14 16 (0.34%) Terminal Services
15 14 (0.30%) VMware NSX
16 13 (0.28%) Brightmail
16 13 (0.28%) ISA Server
17 12 (0.25%) XenApp
18 8 (0.17%) Tivoli Directory Server
Systems Management
1 351 (7.44%) Microsoft Intune
2 304 (6.44%) SCCM
3 198 (4.20%) Terraform
4 191 (4.05%) Kubernetes
5 114 (2.42%) Ansible
6 74 (1.57%) Single Sign-On
7 68 (1.44%) Jamf Pro
8 47 (1.00%) SCOM
9 45 (0.95%) vCenter Server
10 34 (0.72%) WSUS
11 32 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 30 (0.64%) Microsoft Clustering
13 26 (0.55%) Puppet
14 21 (0.45%) Grafana
14 21 (0.45%) HP SiteScope
15 19 (0.40%) QRadar
16 18 (0.38%) Kibana
17 16 (0.34%) Prometheus
18 15 (0.32%) Progress Chef
19 14 (0.30%) vMotion
Vendors
1 341 (7.23%) ServiceNow
2 251 (5.32%) Oracle
2 251 (5.32%) VMware
3 231 (4.90%) Cisco
4 211 (4.47%) Splunk
5 208 (4.41%) SAP
6 170 (3.60%) Google
7 141 (2.99%) Citrix
8 132 (2.80%) Salesforce
9 124 (2.63%) Apple
10 99 (2.10%) Databricks
11 67 (1.42%) IBM
12 54 (1.14%) HP
13 51 (1.08%) Remedy
14 50 (1.06%) CyberArk
15 49 (1.04%) Adobe
16 48 (1.02%) OpenAI
17 46 (0.98%) NetApp
18 44 (0.93%) CrowdStrike
19 40 (0.85%) Meraki