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 29 April 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
29 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 11 7
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,589 3,887 5,605
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.87% 13.32% 12.94%
As % of the Vendors category 28.22% 28.07% 30.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,767 2,597 3,683
10th Percentile £209 £210 £189
25th Percentile £375 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £579 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £435 £463
% change year-on-year +3.45% -5.95% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 363 238 454
10th Percentile £13.43 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.30 £15.62 £12.99
Median hourly rate £20.09 £20.38 £15.30
Median % change year-on-year -1.40% +33.21% -34.07%
75th Percentile £28.49 £30.11 £24.94
90th Percentile £63.75 £60.90 £52.78
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.91 £18.81 £15.00
% change year-on-year +5.86% +25.38% -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 19,803 13,848 18,355
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 42.06% 47.47% 42.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,660 8,700 11,393
10th Percentile £313 £290 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £518
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -0.48% -1.43%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £628
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 995 560 1,077
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.99 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.54 £18.13 £14.36
Median hourly rate £30.50 £27.13 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.44% +20.56% -48.86%
75th Percentile £60.00 £57.52 £57.33
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.13 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.00 £24.19 £21.46
% change year-on-year +11.64% +12.70% -46.08%

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 29 April 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 29 April 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 29 April 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 4,906 £492 +3.58% 2,521
UK excluding London 0 2,907 £450 +3.45% 2,283
London -2 2,160 £513 +2.50% 701
Work from Home -1 1,393 £500 - 1,041
North of England 0 791 £450 +5.88% 543
South East -3 645 £482 -1.98% 705
Midlands -3 509 £450 +12.50% 350
North West -2 431 £419 -5.16% 285
West Midlands -4 352 £463 +15.63% 209
Yorkshire +2 334 £454 +13.50% 176
South West -1 332 £450 -3.23% 231
East of England 0 331 £400 -11.11% 281
Scotland +4 202 £453 +7.80% 110
East Midlands 0 151 £400 -5.88% 141
Wales +3 95 £310 +3.33% 78
North East -19 31 £450 +28.57% 91
Northern Ireland +1 22 £450 +38.46% 59
Channel Islands -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 (10.77%) SharePoint
2 396 (7.09%) Microsoft Exchange
3 105 (1.88%) Confluence
4 34 (0.61%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.43%) Apache
6 22 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
7 20 (0.36%) CMS
8 19 (0.34%) HCL Notes
9 16 (0.29%) SAS
10 14 (0.25%) Skype for Business
11 13 (0.23%) IIS
12 12 (0.21%) Mendix
13 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
14 5 (0.089%) Camunda
14 5 (0.089%) Oracle Workflow
15 4 (0.072%) Appian
15 4 (0.072%) Drupal
15 4 (0.072%) Exchange Server 2010
15 4 (0.072%) Jupyter
15 4 (0.072%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 588 (10.52%) Microsoft Office
2 524 (9.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 235 (4.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 125 (2.24%) Microsoft Project
5 89 (1.59%) MS Visio
6 73 (1.31%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.30%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.16%) Trello
10 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.089%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.072%) InDesign
13 3 (0.054%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.054%) AutoCAD
13 3 (0.054%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.054%) SOLIDWORKS
14 2 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
14 2 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 203 (3.63%) Dynamics CRM
2 57 (1.02%) SAP S/4HANA
3 19 (0.34%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.25%) NetSuite
6 13 (0.23%) Aladdin
6 13 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 12 (0.21%) Maximo
8 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
8 11 (0.20%) Teamcenter
9 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
9 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 9 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
12 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
12 7 (0.13%) Shopify
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
13 6 (0.11%) Primavera
14 5 (0.089%) assyst
14 5 (0.089%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 2,338 (41.83%) Azure
2 1,439 (25.75%) Microsoft 365
3 945 (16.91%) Power Platform
4 712 (12.74%) Entra ID
5 469 (8.39%) Dynamics 365
6 459 (8.21%) AWS
7 444 (7.94%) Azure DevOps
8 333 (5.96%) Power Automate
9 300 (5.37%) PowerApps
10 293 (5.24%) Microsoft Purview
11 260 (4.65%) GitHub
12 228 (4.08%) Microsoft Copilot
13 204 (3.65%) OneDrive
14 201 (3.60%) Azure Data Factory
15 186 (3.33%) SaaS
16 174 (3.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 171 (3.06%) Serverless
18 167 (2.99%) GCP
19 146 (2.61%) PaaS
20 141 (2.52%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 296 (5.30%) Firewall
2 288 (5.15%) DNS
3 211 (3.78%) VPN
4 167 (2.99%) DHCP
5 143 (2.56%) Wi-Fi
6 138 (2.47%) WAN
7 121 (2.16%) Network Security
8 118 (2.11%) LAN
9 104 (1.86%) TCP/IP
10 55 (0.98%) Kerberos
10 55 (0.98%) VLAN
11 44 (0.79%) SD-WAN
12 36 (0.64%) Skype
12 36 (0.64%) Wireless
13 35 (0.63%) SAN
13 35 (0.63%) SSL
14 30 (0.54%) HTTP
15 28 (0.50%) Unified Communications
16 24 (0.43%) IPsec
16 24 (0.43%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 584 (10.45%) Power BI
2 269 (4.81%) SQL Server
3 178 (3.18%) Data Warehouse
4 154 (2.76%) Data Lake
5 124 (2.22%) Azure SQL Database
6 113 (2.02%) Metadata
7 106 (1.90%) PostgreSQL
8 72 (1.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 70 (1.25%) Relational Database
10 51 (0.91%) Oracle Database
11 48 (0.86%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 47 (0.84%) NoSQL
12 47 (0.84%) Tableau
13 45 (0.81%) Power Query
14 44 (0.79%) MySQL
15 41 (0.73%) Delta Lake
15 41 (0.73%) Star Schema
16 28 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
17 27 (0.48%) Spark SQL
18 25 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 252 (4.51%) JIRA
2 169 (3.02%) Git
3 63 (1.13%) GitLab
3 63 (1.13%) Jenkins
4 26 (0.47%) Artifactory
5 25 (0.45%) Visual Studio
6 24 (0.43%) MSI
7 20 (0.36%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.30%) Selenium
9 16 (0.29%) JMeter
9 16 (0.29%) MLflow
9 16 (0.29%) Postman
10 14 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
11 12 (0.21%) Bitbucket
11 12 (0.21%) JUnit
11 12 (0.21%) Maven
12 11 (0.20%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.20%) ERwin
13 10 (0.18%) Gatling
13 10 (0.18%) InstallShield
General
1 1,909 (34.16%) Social Skills
2 1,105 (19.77%) Finance
3 641 (11.47%) Analytical Skills
4 535 (9.57%) Public Sector
5 293 (5.24%) Banking
6 253 (4.53%) Organisational Skills
7 248 (4.44%) Legal
8 150 (2.68%) Documentation Skills
9 114 (2.04%) Manufacturing
10 100 (1.79%) Presentation Skills
11 96 (1.72%) Marketing
12 92 (1.65%) Law
13 88 (1.57%) Telecoms
14 82 (1.47%) Retail
15 76 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 72 (1.29%) Military
17 64 (1.15%) Local Government
18 55 (0.98%) Influencing Skills
19 53 (0.95%) Investment Banking
20 40 (0.72%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 693 (12.40%) Architect
2 598 (10.70%) Analyst
3 531 (9.50%) Developer
4 460 (8.23%) Senior
5 370 (6.62%) IT Support
6 331 (5.92%) Lead
7 284 (5.08%) Consultant
8 255 (4.56%) Support Engineer
9 217 (3.88%) Data Engineer
10 211 (3.78%) Azure Engineer
11 190 (3.40%) Solutions Architect
12 184 (3.29%) IT Engineer
13 183 (3.27%) Project Manager
14 179 (3.20%) Administrator
15 174 (3.11%) Business Analyst
16 168 (3.01%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 136 (2.43%) IT Support Engineer
18 115 (2.06%) Security Engineer
19 112 (2.00%) DevOps Engineer
20 101 (1.81%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 258 (4.62%) .NET
2 172 (3.08%) REST
3 132 (2.36%) Microsoft Graph
4 113 (2.02%) OAuth
5 101 (1.81%) PySpark
6 100 (1.79%) SAML
7 85 (1.52%) JSON
8 83 (1.49%) React
9 80 (1.43%) OpenID
10 76 (1.36%) LDAP
11 68 (1.22%) Web Services
12 64 (1.15%) Middleware
13 55 (0.98%) HTML
14 54 (0.97%) OAuth2
15 53 (0.95%) AngularJS
16 52 (0.93%) ARM Templates
17 50 (0.89%) Node.js
17 50 (0.89%) RESTful
18 49 (0.88%) Kafka
19 48 (0.86%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 283 (5.06%) Onboarding
2 223 (3.99%) Cloud Native
3 187 (3.35%) Product Ownership
4 128 (2.29%) Management Information System
5 105 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
6 96 (1.72%) Data Centre
7 89 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
8 88 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
8 88 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
9 87 (1.56%) Security Posture
10 84 (1.50%) AI Agents
11 81 (1.45%) PKI
12 74 (1.32%) Replication
13 73 (1.31%) Low-Code
14 71 (1.27%) Data Structures
15 65 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
16 56 (1.00%) Virtual Team
17 53 (0.95%) Driving Licence
18 51 (0.91%) NHS
19 44 (0.79%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,213 (21.70%) Windows
2 325 (5.81%) Windows 10
3 278 (4.97%) Windows Server
4 269 (4.81%) Linux
5 105 (1.88%) Android
6 95 (1.70%) Apple iOS
7 93 (1.66%) Mac OS
8 43 (0.77%) Windows Server 2016
9 42 (0.75%) Windows 7
10 40 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 39 (0.70%) Unix
12 27 (0.48%) Windows Server 2012
13 26 (0.47%) VMS
14 25 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
15 16 (0.29%) Windows Server 2003
16 11 (0.20%) CentOS
17 10 (0.18%) Ubuntu
18 7 (0.13%) AIX
19 5 (0.089%) Solaris
20 4 (0.072%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 975 (17.44%) Problem-Solving
2 882 (15.78%) DevOps
3 880 (15.75%) Agile
4 789 (14.12%) Migration
5 750 (13.42%) CI/CD
6 654 (11.70%) Business Intelligence
7 617 (11.04%) Analytics
8 545 (9.75%) AI
9 527 (9.43%) Stakeholder Management
10 506 (9.05%) Continuous Improvement
11 460 (8.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 451 (8.07%) Customer Service
13 442 (7.91%) ITIL
14 410 (7.34%) Data Modelling
15 363 (6.49%) Cybersecurity
16 361 (6.46%) Roadmaps
17 337 (6.03%) Infrastructure as Code
18 322 (5.76%) Decision-Making
19 309 (5.53%) Project Delivery
19 309 (5.53%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 729 (13.04%) SQL
2 640 (11.45%) PowerShell
3 615 (11.00%) Python
4 276 (4.94%) C#
5 207 (3.70%) JavaScript
6 178 (3.18%) Java
7 128 (2.29%) Bicep
8 96 (1.72%) Kusto Query Language
9 85 (1.52%) Bash
10 83 (1.49%) TypeScript
11 82 (1.47%) T-SQL
12 70 (1.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 34 (0.61%) PL/SQL
14 30 (0.54%) VBA
15 28 (0.50%) C++
16 23 (0.41%) VB
17 20 (0.36%) R
18 19 (0.34%) Scala
19 17 (0.30%) Shell Script
20 14 (0.25%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,077 (19.27%) Security Cleared
2 836 (14.96%) SC Cleared
3 567 (10.14%) Degree
4 279 (4.99%) Microsoft Certification
5 198 (3.54%) DV Cleared
6 185 (3.31%) Azure Certification
7 132 (2.36%) Computer Science Degree
8 95 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
9 94 (1.68%) CISSP
10 68 (1.22%) PMI Certification
11 64 (1.15%) Cisco Certification
12 62 (1.11%) PMP
13 57 (1.02%) Master's Degree
14 51 (0.91%) CISM
15 44 (0.79%) MCSE
16 39 (0.70%) AWS Certification
17 33 (0.59%) ITIL Certification
18 31 (0.55%) DBS Check
19 30 (0.54%) MCSA
20 29 (0.52%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 266 (4.76%) Data Quality
2 237 (4.24%) GDPR
3 185 (3.31%) QA
4 159 (2.84%) SLA
5 133 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 108 (1.93%) NIST
6 108 (1.93%) PMO
7 73 (1.31%) Accessibility
8 59 (1.06%) Cyber Essentials
9 45 (0.81%) NCSC
10 39 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 32 (0.57%) GRC
12 28 (0.50%) PCI DSS
13 19 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 19 (0.34%) MiFID
14 17 (0.30%) NIST 800
15 15 (0.27%) WCAG
16 13 (0.23%) FINRA
17 12 (0.21%) HIPAA
18 11 (0.20%) GxP
System Software
1 1,083 (19.38%) Active Directory
2 240 (4.29%) Docker
3 188 (3.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 96 (1.72%) Hyper-V
5 76 (1.36%) Virtual Machines
6 65 (1.16%) Virtual Desktop
7 52 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
8 38 (0.68%) vSphere
9 26 (0.47%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.41%) VMware NSX
11 17 (0.30%) Firmware
12 14 (0.25%) Microsoft App-V
13 7 (0.13%) RACF
14 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
15 5 (0.089%) IAG
15 5 (0.089%) NFS
15 5 (0.089%) Snort
16 4 (0.072%) KVM
16 4 (0.072%) XenApp
16 4 (0.072%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 430 (7.69%) Microsoft Intune
2 363 (6.49%) Terraform
3 266 (4.76%) Kubernetes
4 204 (3.65%) SCCM
5 131 (2.34%) Ansible
6 122 (2.18%) Single Sign-On
7 77 (1.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 42 (0.75%) Grafana
8 42 (0.75%) vCenter Server
9 38 (0.68%) Jamf Pro
10 32 (0.57%) Prometheus
11 23 (0.41%) SCOM
12 21 (0.38%) FortiGate
12 21 (0.38%) Puppet
13 19 (0.34%) WSUS
14 16 (0.29%) AirWatch
15 12 (0.21%) CASB
15 12 (0.21%) ServiceCenter
16 11 (0.20%) HAProxy
16 11 (0.20%) QRadar
Vendors
1 257 (4.60%) ServiceNow
1 257 (4.60%) VMware
2 214 (3.83%) SAP
3 213 (3.81%) Databricks
4 206 (3.69%) Oracle
5 174 (3.11%) Cisco
6 159 (2.84%) Google
7 121 (2.16%) Citrix
8 100 (1.79%) Salesforce
9 91 (1.63%) OpenAI
10 90 (1.61%) Splunk
11 75 (1.34%) Foundry
12 66 (1.18%) Apple
13 49 (0.88%) CrowdStrike
14 47 (0.84%) HP
15 45 (0.81%) Adobe
15 45 (0.81%) Palo Alto
16 41 (0.73%) Okta
17 40 (0.72%) CyberArk
17 40 (0.72%) Red Hat