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 November 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
29 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 +4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,072 4,865 6,120
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 14.07% 13.35% 13.33%
As % of the Vendors category 29.63% 29.60% 29.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,377 3,041 4,241
10th Percentile £205 £204 £198
25th Percentile £350 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £481 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.14% -3.90% -
75th Percentile £575 £594 £619
90th Percentile £668 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £445 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -1.11% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 405 233 253
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.02 £14.03
25th Percentile £17.50 £15.62 £16.67
Median hourly rate £21.50 £23.80 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.66% +3.48% +16.96%
75th Percentile £31.00 £38.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.79 £21.46 £22.00
% change year-on-year -3.12% -2.45% +18.92%

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 17,118 16,435 20,817
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.49% 45.09% 45.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,841 9,661 13,305
10th Percentile £288 £295 £256
25th Percentile £406 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.87%
75th Percentile £612 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £723 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 857 523 675
10th Percentile £15.32 £15.52 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.22 £19.62 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% -32.58% +73.08%
75th Percentile £43.75 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £73.95 £75.00 £76.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.04 £27.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -19.85% -38.20% +96.97%

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 November 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 29 November 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 29 November 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 4,443 £475 -1.04% 3,578
UK excluding London -2 2,816 £445 -1.11% 3,369
London -1 1,835 £500 - 996
Work from Home -1 1,315 £500 - 1,203
North of England +1 751 £425 -5.56% 682
South East +1 642 £463 -2.63% 1,218
Midlands -3 471 £437 +0.66% 553
North West +1 451 £425 -5.56% 380
South West +2 366 £500 +5.26% 330
West Midlands -4 305 £485 +7.78% 338
East of England -1 276 £425 +6.25% 337
Yorkshire +1 265 £435 +5.45% 220
Scotland -2 214 £450 +7.91% 164
East Midlands +2 163 £375 - 211
Wales +2 91 £298 - 126
Northern Ireland +6 48 £350 +55.56% 31
North East -9 37 £438 +25.00% 87
Channel Islands -2 2 £725 -

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
1 557 (10.98%) SharePoint
2 399 (7.87%) Microsoft Exchange
3 105 (2.07%) Confluence
4 63 (1.24%) Skype for Business
5 36 (0.71%) CMS
6 32 (0.63%) Apache
7 28 (0.55%) IIS
8 22 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
9 20 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2010
9 20 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2013
10 18 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
11 17 (0.34%) SAS
12 15 (0.30%) JBoss
12 15 (0.30%) WebSphere
13 14 (0.28%) HCL Notes
14 13 (0.26%) Apache Spark
14 13 (0.26%) Mattermost
15 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
16 10 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2007
16 10 (0.20%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 648 (12.78%) Microsoft Office
2 594 (11.71%) Microsoft Excel
3 260 (5.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 134 (2.64%) Microsoft Project
5 102 (2.01%) MS Visio
6 49 (0.97%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.26%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 11 (0.22%) Trello
9 10 (0.20%) Adobe Captivate
10 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.16%) Sketch
12 4 (0.079%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.079%) Maya
13 3 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
13 3 (0.059%) Siemens NX
13 3 (0.059%) Windchill
14 2 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.039%) Adobe Illustrator
14 2 (0.039%) InDesign
14 2 (0.039%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 175 (3.45%) Dynamics CRM
2 38 (0.75%) Remedy ITSM
2 38 (0.75%) SAP S/4HANA
3 19 (0.37%) Dynamics AX
4 11 (0.22%) Maximo
4 11 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
4 11 (0.22%) Workday HCM
5 10 (0.20%) Aladdin
5 10 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
6 9 (0.18%) NetSuite
6 9 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
6 9 (0.18%) Teamcenter
7 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
7 7 (0.14%) Primavera
7 7 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
8 6 (0.12%) Shopify
9 5 (0.099%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.099%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.079%) BPCS
10 4 (0.079%) Loan IQ
Cloud Services
1 1,824 (35.96%) Azure
2 1,166 (22.99%) Microsoft 365
3 769 (15.16%) Power Platform
4 573 (11.30%) Entra ID
5 460 (9.07%) AWS
6 376 (7.41%) Dynamics 365
7 341 (6.72%) Azure DevOps
8 305 (6.01%) Power Automate
9 292 (5.76%) PowerApps
10 186 (3.67%) GitHub
11 180 (3.55%) Microsoft Purview
12 166 (3.27%) SaaS
13 164 (3.23%) GCP
14 157 (3.10%) Serverless
15 154 (3.04%) OneDrive
16 148 (2.92%) Azure Sentinel
17 122 (2.41%) Azure Data Factory
18 118 (2.33%) Microsoft Copilot
19 115 (2.27%) Azure Logic Apps
20 114 (2.25%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 329 (6.49%) Firewall
2 264 (5.21%) DNS
3 167 (3.29%) DHCP
4 165 (3.25%) VPN
5 156 (3.08%) TCP/IP
6 96 (1.89%) Network Security
7 94 (1.85%) Wi-Fi
8 89 (1.75%) WAN
9 80 (1.58%) LAN
10 74 (1.46%) Skype
11 58 (1.14%) Wireless
12 43 (0.85%) VLAN
13 42 (0.83%) Cisco IOS
14 40 (0.79%) Unified Communications
15 37 (0.73%) SAN
16 36 (0.71%) Internet
16 36 (0.71%) VoIP
17 34 (0.67%) HTTP
18 30 (0.59%) Ethernet
19 29 (0.57%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 468 (9.23%) Power BI
2 239 (4.71%) SQL Server
3 121 (2.39%) Data Warehouse
4 88 (1.74%) PostgreSQL
5 85 (1.68%) Data Lake
6 84 (1.66%) Relational Database
7 80 (1.58%) Metadata
8 74 (1.46%) Azure SQL Database
9 70 (1.38%) Oracle Database
10 51 (1.01%) Tableau
11 49 (0.97%) MySQL
12 39 (0.77%) NoSQL
13 37 (0.73%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 35 (0.69%) Power Query
15 31 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
16 28 (0.55%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 26 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
18 20 (0.39%) Big Data
19 18 (0.35%) Delta Lake
20 17 (0.34%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 263 (5.19%) JIRA
2 167 (3.29%) Git
3 102 (2.01%) Jenkins
4 73 (1.44%) GitLab
5 44 (0.87%) Eclipse
6 31 (0.61%) MSI
6 31 (0.61%) Postman
6 31 (0.61%) Visual Studio
7 23 (0.45%) Selenium
7 23 (0.45%) Sonatype Nexus
8 21 (0.41%) Browser DevTools
8 21 (0.41%) Xcode
9 19 (0.37%) Android Studio
10 15 (0.30%) Cucumber
10 15 (0.30%) JUnit
11 13 (0.26%) InstallShield
12 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket Server
12 11 (0.22%) CA Release Automation
12 11 (0.22%) SonarQube
13 10 (0.20%) JMeter
General
1 2,044 (40.30%) Social Skills
2 1,106 (21.81%) Finance
3 691 (13.62%) Analytical Skills
4 529 (10.43%) Public Sector
5 264 (5.21%) Banking
6 218 (4.30%) Organisational Skills
7 178 (3.51%) Legal
8 156 (3.08%) Documentation Skills
9 145 (2.86%) Manufacturing
10 126 (2.48%) Presentation Skills
11 116 (2.29%) Marketing
12 106 (2.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 96 (1.89%) Telecoms
14 85 (1.68%) Retail
15 69 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
16 66 (1.30%) Local Government
17 48 (0.95%) Military
18 42 (0.83%) Electronics
19 41 (0.81%) Law
20 40 (0.79%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 779 (15.36%) Analyst
2 494 (9.74%) Architect
3 488 (9.62%) Developer
4 348 (6.86%) Senior
5 324 (6.39%) Support Engineer
6 286 (5.64%) Consultant
7 272 (5.36%) IT Support
8 247 (4.87%) Lead
9 173 (3.41%) Support Analyst
10 158 (3.12%) Administrator
10 158 (3.12%) Business Analyst
11 155 (3.06%) Project Manager
12 154 (3.04%) Solutions Architect
13 144 (2.84%) IT Engineer
14 140 (2.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 132 (2.60%) Azure Engineer
16 126 (2.48%) Security Engineer
17 108 (2.13%) Desktop Support
18 105 (2.07%) IT Support Engineer
19 99 (1.95%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 258 (5.09%) .NET
2 166 (3.27%) REST
3 123 (2.43%) OAuth
4 116 (2.29%) React
5 101 (1.99%) RESTful
6 90 (1.77%) AngularJS
7 89 (1.75%) HTML
8 88 (1.74%) SAML
9 82 (1.62%) OpenID
10 80 (1.58%) CSS
11 69 (1.36%) JSON
12 65 (1.28%) Web Services
13 60 (1.18%) Microsoft Graph
13 60 (1.18%) SOAP
14 57 (1.12%) Node.js
15 56 (1.10%) XML
16 55 (1.08%) .NET Framework
17 49 (0.97%) LDAP
18 46 (0.91%) OAuth2
19 44 (0.87%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 247 (4.87%) Onboarding
2 183 (3.61%) Cloud Native
3 137 (2.70%) Product Ownership
4 135 (2.66%) Management Information System
5 104 (2.05%) Data Centre
6 103 (2.03%) Enterprise Software
7 99 (1.95%) PKI
7 99 (1.95%) Security Posture
8 89 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
9 78 (1.54%) Driving Licence
10 75 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
10 75 (1.48%) Mobile App
11 65 (1.28%) Virtual Team
12 61 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
13 60 (1.18%) Low-Code
14 59 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
15 53 (1.04%) Replication
16 48 (0.95%) Data Protection Act
17 47 (0.93%) NHS
18 43 (0.85%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 1,249 (24.63%) Windows
2 340 (6.70%) Windows 10
3 311 (6.13%) Linux
4 269 (5.30%) Windows Server
5 140 (2.76%) Mac OS
6 123 (2.43%) Android
7 84 (1.66%) Unix
8 81 (1.60%) Apple iOS
9 47 (0.93%) Windows 7
10 35 (0.69%) Windows Server 2019
11 33 (0.65%) Windows Server 2016
12 26 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 22 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
15 16 (0.32%) VMS
16 11 (0.22%) Mac OS X
17 10 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
18 9 (0.18%) CentOS
18 9 (0.18%) Ubuntu
19 6 (0.12%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,064 (20.98%) Problem-Solving
2 935 (18.43%) Agile
3 702 (13.84%) DevOps
4 605 (11.93%) Migration
5 553 (10.90%) CI/CD
6 552 (10.88%) Business Intelligence
7 515 (10.15%) Stakeholder Management
8 507 (10.00%) ITIL
9 456 (8.99%) Analytics
10 428 (8.44%) Continuous Improvement
11 427 (8.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 402 (7.93%) Cybersecurity
13 394 (7.77%) Customer Service
14 356 (7.02%) Project Management
15 341 (6.72%) AI
16 319 (6.29%) Change Management
17 257 (5.07%) CRM
17 257 (5.07%) Project Delivery
18 255 (5.03%) ITSM
19 252 (4.97%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 640 (12.62%) SQL
2 586 (11.55%) PowerShell
3 545 (10.75%) Python
4 268 (5.28%) C#
5 224 (4.42%) JavaScript
6 174 (3.43%) Java
7 112 (2.21%) Bash
8 99 (1.95%) Kusto Query Language
9 91 (1.79%) Bicep
10 77 (1.52%) TypeScript
11 50 (0.99%) T-SQL
12 42 (0.83%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 40 (0.79%) C++
13 40 (0.79%) Perl
14 29 (0.57%) Shell Script
15 26 (0.51%) VB
16 23 (0.45%) VBA
17 22 (0.43%) Go
17 22 (0.43%) PL/SQL
18 19 (0.37%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 940 (18.53%) Security Cleared
2 706 (13.92%) SC Cleared
3 542 (10.69%) Degree
4 366 (7.22%) Microsoft Certification
5 187 (3.69%) DV Cleared
6 181 (3.57%) Azure Certification
7 131 (2.58%) CISSP
8 120 (2.37%) Computer Science Degree
9 85 (1.68%) Cisco Certification
10 78 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
11 64 (1.26%) CISM
12 60 (1.18%) ITIL Certification
13 54 (1.06%) MCSE
14 53 (1.04%) A+ Certification
15 52 (1.03%) PMI Certification
16 50 (0.99%) Master's Degree
17 46 (0.91%) AWS Certification
18 44 (0.87%) CCNA
19 40 (0.79%) CCNP
19 40 (0.79%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 254 (5.01%) GDPR
2 190 (3.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 169 (3.33%) QA
4 161 (3.17%) NIST
5 134 (2.64%) Data Quality
6 113 (2.23%) PMO
7 110 (2.17%) SLA
8 92 (1.81%) Accessibility
9 53 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
10 37 (0.73%) PCI DSS
11 36 (0.71%) HIPAA
12 32 (0.63%) NCSC
13 25 (0.49%) WCAG
14 22 (0.43%) EU AI Act
15 21 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 19 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 16 (0.32%) GRC
18 11 (0.22%) SOC 2
19 9 (0.18%) COBIT
19 9 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 1,046 (20.62%) Active Directory
2 182 (3.59%) Docker
3 171 (3.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 60 (1.18%) Hyper-V
5 58 (1.14%) Virtual Machines
6 46 (0.91%) vSphere
7 37 (0.73%) Virtual Desktop
7 37 (0.73%) VMware ESXi
8 20 (0.39%) BitLocker
9 17 (0.34%) Firmware
10 15 (0.30%) VMware NSX
11 14 (0.28%) NFS
12 11 (0.22%) ISA Server
12 11 (0.22%) XenApp
13 10 (0.20%) Brightmail
14 9 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
15 8 (0.16%) Terminal Services
15 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
16 6 (0.12%) Snort
16 6 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 386 (7.61%) Microsoft Intune
2 314 (6.19%) SCCM
3 254 (5.01%) Terraform
4 215 (4.24%) Kubernetes
5 118 (2.33%) Single Sign-On
6 104 (2.05%) Ansible
7 67 (1.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (0.97%) SCOM
9 48 (0.95%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (0.71%) vCenter Server
11 31 (0.61%) Grafana
12 25 (0.49%) Prometheus
13 22 (0.43%) QRadar
14 21 (0.41%) HP SiteScope
15 19 (0.37%) Microsoft Clustering
15 19 (0.37%) WSUS
16 17 (0.34%) WMI
17 16 (0.32%) Progress Chef
18 14 (0.28%) Puppet
19 13 (0.26%) AirWatch
Vendors
1 299 (5.90%) ServiceNow
2 240 (4.73%) VMware
3 229 (4.51%) Oracle
4 219 (4.32%) Cisco
5 202 (3.98%) Splunk
6 194 (3.82%) SAP
7 153 (3.02%) Google
8 117 (2.31%) Databricks
9 114 (2.25%) Citrix
10 92 (1.81%) Apple
11 91 (1.79%) Salesforce
12 66 (1.30%) CrowdStrike
13 64 (1.26%) OpenAI
14 59 (1.16%) IBM
15 53 (1.04%) Palo Alto
15 53 (1.04%) Remedy
16 51 (1.01%) CyberArk
17 46 (0.91%) HP
18 44 (0.87%) Adobe
19 43 (0.85%) Veeam