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 9 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
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,729 3,980 5,596
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.53% 13.60% 12.92%
As % of the Vendors category 28.36% 28.55% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,797 2,571 3,639
10th Percentile £213 £210 £190
25th Percentile £375 £337 £344
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.21% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £583 £600
90th Percentile £675 £669 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 369 285 478
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.35 £15.84 £13.20
Median hourly rate £20.35 £20.00 £15.58
Median % change year-on-year +1.75% +28.41% -33.72%
75th Percentile £32.75 £30.63 £25.00
90th Percentile £65.00 £61.00 £56.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.09 £18.87 £15.00
% change year-on-year +6.47% +25.80% -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 20,204 13,941 18,318
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.67% 47.62% 42.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,713 8,584 11,394
10th Percentile £313 £280 £267
25th Percentile £413 £404 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £501 £514
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% -2.63% -2.10%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £481 £500
% change year-on-year +3.95% -3.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,037 620 1,132
10th Percentile £15.29 £14.84 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.34 £14.48
Median hourly rate £32.50 £26.45 £23.22
Median % change year-on-year +22.87% +13.93% -45.70%
75th Percentile £60.00 £55.06 £58.49
90th Percentile £78.63 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.27 £22.94 £21.75
% change year-on-year +31.97% +5.46% -45.04%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 5,018 £500 +5.26% 3,054
UK excluding London -1 2,975 £450 +5.88% 2,699
London 0 2,258 £513 -2.38% 831
Work from Home 0 1,437 £500 - 1,511
North of England -4 772 £450 +5.88% 635
South East -1 697 £475 +3.54% 832
Midlands -6 501 £450 +12.50% 421
North West -3 401 £441 +3.65% 358
South West -2 354 £450 +4.35% 316
Yorkshire -2 352 £475 +15.15% 192
West Midlands -8 349 £450 +12.50% 235
East of England 0 304 £375 -25.00% 314
Scotland +4 245 £451 +2.50% 120
East Midlands -1 145 £407 +7.04% 186
Wales +2 98 £370 +23.33% 75
Northern Ireland 0 25 £400 +23.08% 56
North East -34 21 £450 +32.35% 88
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
1 613 (10.70%) SharePoint
2 384 (6.70%) Microsoft Exchange
3 108 (1.89%) Confluence
4 41 (0.72%) Apache Spark
5 29 (0.51%) Apache
6 26 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
7 20 (0.35%) HCL Notes
8 19 (0.33%) CMS
9 15 (0.26%) Skype for Business
10 14 (0.24%) IIS
10 14 (0.24%) SAS
11 10 (0.17%) Mendix
12 6 (0.10%) Camunda
12 6 (0.10%) Jupyter
12 6 (0.10%) Oracle Workflow
13 5 (0.087%) Appian
13 5 (0.087%) nginx
13 5 (0.087%) OpenEdge
14 4 (0.070%) Exchange Server 2013
14 4 (0.070%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 537 (9.37%) Microsoft Office
2 509 (8.88%) Microsoft Excel
3 220 (3.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 116 (2.02%) Microsoft Project
5 87 (1.52%) MS Visio
6 47 (0.82%) Spreadsheet
7 18 (0.31%) Chatbot
8 12 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 5 (0.087%) Acrobat
9 5 (0.087%) Adobe Illustrator
9 5 (0.087%) PTC Creo
9 5 (0.087%) Trello
10 3 (0.052%) Adobe Captivate
10 3 (0.052%) InDesign
10 3 (0.052%) 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
1 202 (3.53%) Dynamics CRM
2 68 (1.19%) SAP S/4HANA
3 24 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
4 19 (0.33%) NetSuite
5 15 (0.26%) Aladdin
5 15 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
6 14 (0.24%) Dynamics NAV
7 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
9 11 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
10 10 (0.17%) Sage X3
10 10 (0.17%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 9 (0.16%) Maximo
12 8 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
12 8 (0.14%) Loan IQ
13 7 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
14 6 (0.10%) Dynamics GP
14 6 (0.10%) Primavera
14 6 (0.10%) SAP MM
15 5 (0.087%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 2,438 (42.56%) Azure
2 1,472 (25.69%) Microsoft 365
3 975 (17.02%) Power Platform
4 784 (13.68%) Entra ID
5 476 (8.31%) AWS
6 454 (7.92%) Azure DevOps
7 451 (7.87%) Dynamics 365
8 326 (5.69%) Power Automate
9 311 (5.43%) Microsoft Purview
10 288 (5.03%) PowerApps
11 267 (4.66%) Microsoft Copilot
12 247 (4.31%) GitHub
13 227 (3.96%) OneDrive
14 211 (3.68%) SaaS
15 182 (3.18%) Azure Data Factory
16 180 (3.14%) GCP
17 170 (2.97%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 150 (2.62%) Serverless
19 145 (2.53%) PaaS
20 137 (2.39%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 297 (5.18%) DNS
2 266 (4.64%) Firewall
3 220 (3.84%) VPN
4 188 (3.28%) DHCP
5 138 (2.41%) WAN
6 137 (2.39%) Wi-Fi
7 123 (2.15%) TCP/IP
8 122 (2.13%) LAN
9 117 (2.04%) Network Security
10 57 (0.99%) VLAN
11 54 (0.94%) Kerberos
12 47 (0.82%) SD-WAN
13 38 (0.66%) SAN
14 35 (0.61%) Wireless
15 33 (0.58%) SSL
16 29 (0.51%) HTTP
16 29 (0.51%) Unified Communications
17 28 (0.49%) Skype
17 28 (0.49%) VoIP
18 25 (0.44%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 602 (10.51%) Power BI
2 276 (4.82%) SQL Server
3 169 (2.95%) Data Warehouse
4 147 (2.57%) Data Lake
5 119 (2.08%) Azure SQL Database
6 116 (2.02%) Metadata
7 104 (1.82%) PostgreSQL
8 73 (1.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 66 (1.15%) Relational Database
10 50 (0.87%) Power Query
11 47 (0.82%) NoSQL
12 46 (0.80%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 44 (0.77%) MySQL
14 43 (0.75%) Tableau
15 40 (0.70%) Delta Lake
15 40 (0.70%) Star Schema
16 36 (0.63%) Oracle Database
17 30 (0.52%) Spark SQL
18 28 (0.49%) SQL Server Analysis Services
19 27 (0.47%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 275 (4.80%) JIRA
2 167 (2.91%) Git
3 62 (1.08%) Jenkins
4 58 (1.01%) GitLab
5 36 (0.63%) Visual Studio
6 25 (0.44%) Artifactory
7 19 (0.33%) Eclipse
7 19 (0.33%) MSI
8 16 (0.28%) ERwin
9 15 (0.26%) MLflow
10 14 (0.24%) Selenium
10 14 (0.24%) Visual Studio Code
11 13 (0.23%) JMeter
12 12 (0.21%) Maven
12 12 (0.21%) Postman
13 10 (0.17%) Bitbucket
13 10 (0.17%) Team Foundation Server
14 9 (0.16%) Gatling
15 8 (0.14%) Browser DevTools
15 8 (0.14%) InstallShield
General
1 1,881 (32.83%) Social Skills
2 1,143 (19.95%) Finance
3 623 (10.87%) Analytical Skills
4 506 (8.83%) Public Sector
5 302 (5.27%) Banking
6 248 (4.33%) Legal
7 235 (4.10%) Organisational Skills
8 148 (2.58%) Documentation Skills
9 102 (1.78%) Manufacturing
10 100 (1.75%) Retail
11 99 (1.73%) Law
12 84 (1.47%) Presentation Skills
13 82 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 77 (1.34%) Marketing
14 77 (1.34%) Telecoms
15 71 (1.24%) Military
16 70 (1.22%) Local Government
17 64 (1.12%) Investment Banking
18 56 (0.98%) Influencing Skills
19 46 (0.80%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 711 (12.41%) Architect
2 615 (10.73%) Analyst
3 508 (8.87%) Developer
4 478 (8.34%) Senior
5 368 (6.42%) IT Support
6 366 (6.39%) Lead
7 326 (5.69%) Consultant
8 272 (4.75%) Support Engineer
9 232 (4.05%) Data Engineer
10 208 (3.63%) Solutions Architect
11 203 (3.54%) Azure Engineer
12 196 (3.42%) Project Manager
13 188 (3.28%) IT Engineer
14 183 (3.19%) Business Analyst
15 180 (3.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 171 (2.98%) Administrator
17 145 (2.53%) IT Support Engineer
18 122 (2.13%) Security Engineer
19 109 (1.90%) DevOps Engineer
20 104 (1.82%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 248 (4.33%) .NET
2 184 (3.21%) REST
3 139 (2.43%) Microsoft Graph
4 115 (2.01%) OAuth
5 107 (1.87%) PySpark
6 104 (1.82%) SAML
7 96 (1.68%) JSON
8 87 (1.52%) OpenID
9 81 (1.41%) React
10 80 (1.40%) LDAP
11 76 (1.33%) Web Services
12 61 (1.06%) Middleware
13 56 (0.98%) Node.js
13 56 (0.98%) SailPoint
13 56 (0.98%) XML
14 54 (0.94%) OAuth2
15 53 (0.93%) HTML
16 51 (0.89%) ARM Templates
16 51 (0.89%) CSS
17 48 (0.84%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 313 (5.46%) Onboarding
2 240 (4.19%) Cloud Native
3 168 (2.93%) Product Ownership
4 128 (2.23%) Management Information System
5 106 (1.85%) Data Centre
6 102 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
7 100 (1.75%) Hybrid Cloud
8 98 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
9 92 (1.61%) Security Posture
10 85 (1.48%) AI Agents
10 85 (1.48%) PKI
11 82 (1.43%) Self-Motivation
12 77 (1.34%) Replication
13 72 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
14 70 (1.22%) Data Structures
15 67 (1.17%) Low-Code
16 66 (1.15%) Virtual Team
17 49 (0.86%) Public Cloud
18 47 (0.82%) Clustering
18 47 (0.82%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 1,247 (21.77%) Windows
2 325 (5.67%) Windows 10
3 305 (5.32%) Windows Server
4 254 (4.43%) Linux
5 119 (2.08%) Mac OS
6 111 (1.94%) Apple iOS
7 109 (1.90%) Android
8 44 (0.77%) Windows 7
9 42 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 40 (0.70%) Unix
10 40 (0.70%) Windows Server 2016
11 32 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
12 31 (0.54%) VMS
13 21 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
14 16 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
15 14 (0.24%) Ubuntu
16 11 (0.19%) CentOS
17 6 (0.10%) AIX
18 5 (0.087%) SUSE
18 5 (0.087%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 972 (16.97%) Problem-Solving
2 920 (16.06%) DevOps
3 839 (14.64%) Agile
4 817 (14.26%) Migration
5 754 (13.16%) CI/CD
6 630 (11.00%) Business Intelligence
7 616 (10.75%) Analytics
8 614 (10.72%) Stakeholder Management
9 591 (10.32%) AI
10 524 (9.15%) Continuous Improvement
11 511 (8.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 488 (8.52%) ITIL
13 433 (7.56%) Customer Service
14 427 (7.45%) Data Modelling
15 402 (7.02%) Roadmaps
16 380 (6.63%) Cybersecurity
17 352 (6.14%) Decision-Making
18 338 (5.90%) Project Delivery
19 335 (5.85%) Infrastructure as Code
20 333 (5.81%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 726 (12.67%) SQL
2 662 (11.56%) PowerShell
3 580 (10.12%) Python
4 266 (4.64%) C#
5 201 (3.51%) JavaScript
6 184 (3.21%) Java
7 132 (2.30%) Bicep
8 99 (1.73%) T-SQL
9 81 (1.41%) Kusto Query Language
10 77 (1.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 68 (1.19%) Bash
12 66 (1.15%) TypeScript
13 35 (0.61%) VBA
14 29 (0.51%) VB
15 27 (0.47%) C++
16 25 (0.44%) PL/SQL
17 18 (0.31%) Scala
18 16 (0.28%) VBScript
19 15 (0.26%) Shell Script
20 11 (0.19%) X++
Qualifications
1 1,090 (19.03%) Security Cleared
2 852 (14.87%) SC Cleared
3 546 (9.53%) Degree
4 273 (4.77%) Microsoft Certification
5 187 (3.26%) Azure Certification
6 178 (3.11%) DV Cleared
7 119 (2.08%) Computer Science Degree
8 109 (1.90%) CISSP
9 93 (1.62%) BPSS Clearance
10 85 (1.48%) Cisco Certification
11 59 (1.03%) CISM
12 55 (0.96%) PMP
13 52 (0.91%) Master's Degree
13 52 (0.91%) PMI Certification
14 45 (0.79%) MCSE
15 43 (0.75%) AWS Certification
16 40 (0.70%) DBS Check
17 37 (0.65%) CCNP
18 35 (0.61%) MCSA
19 33 (0.58%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 296 (5.17%) Data Quality
2 231 (4.03%) GDPR
3 184 (3.21%) QA
4 170 (2.97%) SLA
5 152 (2.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 127 (2.22%) NIST
7 105 (1.83%) PMO
8 77 (1.34%) Cyber Essentials
9 75 (1.31%) Accessibility
10 53 (0.93%) NCSC
11 37 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 35 (0.61%) GRC
13 29 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 28 (0.49%) PCI DSS
15 22 (0.38%) NIST 800
16 19 (0.33%) MiFID
17 18 (0.31%) SOC 2
18 16 (0.28%) WCAG
19 13 (0.23%) FINRA
20 12 (0.21%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,103 (19.25%) Active Directory
2 209 (3.65%) Docker
3 200 (3.49%) VMware Infrastructure
4 108 (1.89%) Hyper-V
5 81 (1.41%) Virtual Desktop
6 77 (1.34%) Virtual Machines
7 65 (1.13%) VMware ESXi
8 59 (1.03%) vSphere
9 33 (0.58%) BitLocker
10 21 (0.37%) Microsoft App-V
11 19 (0.33%) VMware NSX
12 18 (0.31%) Firmware
13 8 (0.14%) NFS
14 6 (0.10%) IAG
14 6 (0.10%) RACF
15 5 (0.087%) VMware Workstation
16 4 (0.070%) Oracle RAC
16 4 (0.070%) Snort
16 4 (0.070%) XenDesktop
17 3 (0.052%) Squid
Systems Management
1 467 (8.15%) Microsoft Intune
2 340 (5.93%) Terraform
3 239 (4.17%) Kubernetes
4 208 (3.63%) SCCM
5 126 (2.20%) Ansible
5 126 (2.20%) Single Sign-On
6 81 (1.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 54 (0.94%) vCenter Server
8 50 (0.87%) Jamf Pro
9 33 (0.58%) Grafana
10 30 (0.52%) Prometheus
11 24 (0.42%) FortiGate
11 24 (0.42%) SCOM
12 18 (0.31%) Puppet
13 15 (0.26%) AirWatch
13 15 (0.26%) QRadar
13 15 (0.26%) WSUS
14 13 (0.23%) vMotion
15 12 (0.21%) HAProxy
15 12 (0.21%) ServiceCenter
Vendors
1 318 (5.55%) ServiceNow
2 270 (4.71%) VMware
3 225 (3.93%) Oracle
3 225 (3.93%) SAP
4 221 (3.86%) Databricks
5 193 (3.37%) Cisco
6 170 (2.97%) Google
7 115 (2.01%) Salesforce
8 114 (1.99%) Citrix
9 93 (1.62%) Splunk
10 77 (1.34%) OpenAI
11 76 (1.33%) Apple
12 71 (1.24%) Foundry
13 60 (1.05%) CrowdStrike
14 57 (0.99%) Okta
15 53 (0.93%) CyberArk
16 51 (0.89%) HP
17 44 (0.77%) Adobe
18 43 (0.75%) Dell
19 41 (0.72%) Red Hat