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 1 January 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
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,038 4,530 5,650
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.58% 13.66% 13.15%
As % of the Vendors category 29.00% 29.81% 29.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,388 2,869 3,881
10th Percentile £204 £204 £193
25th Percentile £350 £348 £320
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £618
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £448 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.29% -2.78% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 382 205 237
10th Percentile £14.13 £15.55 £13.29
25th Percentile £16.50 £15.62 £15.75
Median hourly rate £20.00 £23.59 £22.28
Median % change year-on-year -15.22% +5.90% +11.38%
75th Percentile £27.83 £33.75 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £61.20 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.71 £21.46 £21.00
% change year-on-year -8.18% +2.19% +11.05%

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 17,375 15,197 19,164
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 46.83% 45.82% 44.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,120 9,035 12,152
10th Percentile £300 £284 £252
25th Percentile £409 £410 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.33%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £704 £716 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 823 448 662
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.58 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.97 £18.51 £19.25
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.24 £45.94
Median % change year-on-year -12.53% -40.71% +76.69%
75th Percentile £44.94 £60.19 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.55 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.50 £25.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year -14.00% -45.86% +102.88%

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 1 January 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 1 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Top 17 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 1 January 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 4,435 £475 - 3,597
UK excluding London -1 2,699 £448 +2.29% 2,836
London -1 1,895 £500 - 1,174
Work from Home 0 1,287 £500 +3.10% 1,508
North of England +1 707 £415 -2.35% 739
South East +1 615 £475 +3.26% 830
Midlands -4 470 £447 +5.18% 461
North West +1 414 £400 -11.11% 383
South West 0 361 £500 +5.26% 296
West Midlands -5 314 £478 +6.35% 277
East of England -1 270 £425 -2.86% 295
Yorkshire 0 260 £435 +5.45% 271
Scotland -2 193 £450 +10.02% 149
East Midlands +2 154 £375 - 180
Wales +1 82 £295 +3.51% 90
Northern Ireland +4 42 £361 +25.65% 26
North East -12 38 £450 +21.62% 94

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
1 576 (11.43%) SharePoint
2 380 (7.54%) Microsoft Exchange
3 104 (2.06%) Confluence
4 59 (1.17%) Skype for Business
5 38 (0.75%) CMS
6 25 (0.50%) IIS
7 23 (0.46%) HCL Notes
8 22 (0.44%) Apache
9 21 (0.42%) SAS
10 19 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
10 19 (0.38%) Exchange Server 2013
11 17 (0.34%) Exchange Server 2010
12 16 (0.32%) Apache Spark
13 14 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
14 13 (0.26%) Mattermost
15 12 (0.24%) WebSphere
16 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
17 10 (0.20%) iPlanet
17 10 (0.20%) JBoss
18 7 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2003
Applications
1 622 (12.35%) Microsoft Office
2 550 (10.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 248 (4.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 128 (2.54%) Microsoft Project
5 103 (2.04%) MS Visio
6 58 (1.15%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 11 (0.22%) Trello
9 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.12%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (0.12%) Sketch
11 5 (0.099%) Acrobat
12 4 (0.079%) Adobe After Effects
12 4 (0.079%) Adobe Illustrator
12 4 (0.079%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.079%) InDesign
12 4 (0.079%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.060%) Adobe Premiere
13 3 (0.060%) Windchill
14 2 (0.040%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 187 (3.71%) Dynamics CRM
2 41 (0.81%) Remedy ITSM
3 35 (0.69%) SAP S/4HANA
4 17 (0.34%) Dynamics AX
5 15 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
6 14 (0.28%) Maximo
7 13 (0.26%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
10 9 (0.18%) Aladdin
11 8 (0.16%) Teamcenter
12 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
12 7 (0.14%) Shopify
13 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
13 6 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
13 6 (0.12%) Workday HCM
14 5 (0.099%) assyst
14 5 (0.099%) SAP ERP
15 4 (0.079%) Loan IQ
15 4 (0.079%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,909 (37.89%) Azure
2 1,193 (23.68%) Microsoft 365
3 801 (15.90%) Power Platform
4 571 (11.33%) Entra ID
5 445 (8.83%) AWS
6 392 (7.78%) Dynamics 365
7 351 (6.97%) Azure DevOps
8 336 (6.67%) Power Automate
9 304 (6.03%) PowerApps
10 202 (4.01%) GitHub
11 201 (3.99%) Microsoft Purview
12 181 (3.59%) Serverless
13 173 (3.43%) GCP
14 162 (3.22%) OneDrive
15 161 (3.20%) SaaS
16 153 (3.04%) Azure Data Factory
17 144 (2.86%) Azure Sentinel
18 132 (2.62%) Azure Logic Apps
19 131 (2.60%) Microsoft Copilot
20 120 (2.38%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 291 (5.78%) Firewall
2 268 (5.32%) DNS
3 176 (3.49%) VPN
4 167 (3.31%) DHCP
5 140 (2.78%) TCP/IP
6 102 (2.02%) Wi-Fi
7 95 (1.89%) Network Security
8 88 (1.75%) WAN
9 82 (1.63%) LAN
10 80 (1.59%) Skype
11 55 (1.09%) Wireless
12 44 (0.87%) VLAN
13 41 (0.81%) Unified Communications
14 39 (0.77%) Kerberos
15 38 (0.75%) HTTP
16 33 (0.66%) Internet
17 29 (0.58%) SAN
17 29 (0.58%) VoIP
18 28 (0.56%) SD-WAN
19 27 (0.54%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 490 (9.73%) Power BI
2 240 (4.76%) SQL Server
3 137 (2.72%) Data Warehouse
4 124 (2.46%) Data Lake
5 93 (1.85%) PostgreSQL
6 88 (1.75%) Relational Database
7 85 (1.69%) Metadata
8 82 (1.63%) Azure SQL Database
9 77 (1.53%) Oracle Database
10 47 (0.93%) MySQL
11 45 (0.89%) Tableau
12 41 (0.81%) NoSQL
13 39 (0.77%) Power Query
14 38 (0.75%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 37 (0.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 26 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
17 23 (0.46%) Delta Lake
18 21 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
19 18 (0.36%) Big Data
19 18 (0.36%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 255 (5.06%) JIRA
2 161 (3.20%) Git
3 89 (1.77%) Jenkins
4 76 (1.51%) GitLab
5 39 (0.77%) Eclipse
6 31 (0.62%) Postman
7 26 (0.52%) MSI
8 25 (0.50%) Visual Studio
9 23 (0.46%) Browser DevTools
9 23 (0.46%) Xcode
10 22 (0.44%) Android Studio
11 20 (0.40%) Selenium
12 16 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
13 13 (0.26%) Cucumber
14 12 (0.24%) Artifactory
14 12 (0.24%) Bitbucket
14 12 (0.24%) InstallShield
14 12 (0.24%) JMeter
15 10 (0.20%) Bitbucket Server
15 10 (0.20%) SonarQube
General
1 2,059 (40.87%) Social Skills
2 1,042 (20.68%) Finance
3 666 (13.22%) Analytical Skills
4 526 (10.44%) Public Sector
5 260 (5.16%) Banking
6 234 (4.64%) Organisational Skills
7 185 (3.67%) Legal
8 153 (3.04%) Documentation Skills
9 133 (2.64%) Manufacturing
10 115 (2.28%) Marketing
11 108 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
12 91 (1.81%) Telecoms
13 86 (1.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 79 (1.57%) Retail
15 61 (1.21%) Influencing Skills
16 58 (1.15%) Local Government
17 46 (0.91%) Military
18 44 (0.87%) Investment Banking
19 41 (0.81%) Law
20 38 (0.75%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 695 (13.80%) Analyst
2 513 (10.18%) Architect
3 482 (9.57%) Developer
4 358 (7.11%) Senior
5 311 (6.17%) Support Engineer
6 285 (5.66%) IT Support
7 273 (5.42%) Consultant
8 240 (4.76%) Lead
9 167 (3.31%) Administrator
10 161 (3.20%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 161 (3.20%) Solutions Architect
11 159 (3.16%) Business Analyst
12 154 (3.06%) Support Analyst
13 151 (3.00%) Project Manager
14 147 (2.92%) IT Engineer
15 141 (2.80%) Azure Engineer
16 125 (2.48%) Data Engineer
17 122 (2.42%) Security Engineer
18 108 (2.14%) Desktop Support
19 104 (2.06%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (4.94%) .NET
2 157 (3.12%) REST
3 116 (2.30%) OAuth
4 114 (2.26%) React
5 93 (1.85%) RESTful
6 88 (1.75%) AngularJS
6 88 (1.75%) SAML
7 79 (1.57%) OpenID
8 75 (1.49%) Microsoft Graph
9 71 (1.41%) HTML
10 69 (1.37%) JSON
11 68 (1.35%) CSS
12 58 (1.15%) PySpark
13 54 (1.07%) Web Services
14 53 (1.05%) LDAP
14 53 (1.05%) Node.js
15 52 (1.03%) SOAP
16 51 (1.01%) XML
17 50 (0.99%) ARM Templates
18 49 (0.97%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 270 (5.36%) Onboarding
2 193 (3.83%) Cloud Native
3 140 (2.78%) Product Ownership
4 136 (2.70%) Management Information System
5 113 (2.24%) Enterprise Software
6 96 (1.91%) Security Posture
7 93 (1.85%) PKI
8 89 (1.77%) Data Centre
8 89 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
9 77 (1.53%) Driving Licence
10 74 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
10 74 (1.47%) Mobile App
11 71 (1.41%) Low-Code
12 61 (1.21%) Hybrid Cloud
13 60 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
14 55 (1.09%) Virtual Team
15 52 (1.03%) Replication
16 49 (0.97%) NHS
17 48 (0.95%) Data Protection Act
18 41 (0.81%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 1,206 (23.94%) Windows
2 341 (6.77%) Windows 10
3 304 (6.03%) Linux
4 271 (5.38%) Windows Server
5 114 (2.26%) Mac OS
6 107 (2.12%) Android
7 90 (1.79%) Apple iOS
8 79 (1.57%) Unix
9 39 (0.77%) Windows 7
10 36 (0.71%) Windows Server 2016
11 30 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
12 28 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 22 (0.44%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
15 15 (0.30%) VMS
16 9 (0.18%) Mac OS X
16 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
17 6 (0.12%) AIX
17 6 (0.12%) Ubuntu
18 5 (0.099%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,053 (20.90%) Problem-Solving
2 927 (18.40%) Agile
3 725 (14.39%) DevOps
4 630 (12.50%) Migration
5 585 (11.61%) CI/CD
6 580 (11.51%) Business Intelligence
7 511 (10.14%) Stakeholder Management
8 494 (9.81%) Analytics
9 471 (9.35%) ITIL
10 431 (8.55%) Continuous Improvement
11 414 (8.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 413 (8.20%) Customer Service
13 368 (7.30%) Cybersecurity
14 363 (7.21%) AI
15 331 (6.57%) Project Management
16 312 (6.19%) Change Management
17 285 (5.66%) Data Modelling
18 272 (5.40%) Roadmaps
19 259 (5.14%) CRM
20 258 (5.12%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 649 (12.88%) SQL
2 596 (11.83%) PowerShell
3 566 (11.23%) Python
4 267 (5.30%) C#
5 219 (4.35%) JavaScript
6 157 (3.12%) Java
7 109 (2.16%) Kusto Query Language
8 103 (2.04%) Bash
9 96 (1.91%) Bicep
10 76 (1.51%) TypeScript
11 53 (1.05%) T-SQL
12 47 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 39 (0.77%) Perl
14 27 (0.54%) C++
14 27 (0.54%) Shell Script
15 25 (0.50%) PL/SQL
16 23 (0.46%) Go
17 22 (0.44%) R
17 22 (0.44%) VBA
18 21 (0.42%) VB
Qualifications
1 981 (19.47%) Security Cleared
2 733 (14.55%) SC Cleared
3 528 (10.48%) Degree
4 346 (6.87%) Microsoft Certification
5 200 (3.97%) DV Cleared
6 179 (3.55%) Azure Certification
7 139 (2.76%) CISSP
8 120 (2.38%) Computer Science Degree
9 79 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
10 73 (1.45%) CISM
11 66 (1.31%) Cisco Certification
12 57 (1.13%) PMI Certification
13 56 (1.11%) Master's Degree
14 53 (1.05%) A+ Certification
14 53 (1.05%) MCSE
15 51 (1.01%) ITIL Certification
16 47 (0.93%) PMP
17 46 (0.91%) MCP
18 44 (0.87%) AWS Certification
19 35 (0.69%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 239 (4.74%) GDPR
2 183 (3.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 157 (3.12%) QA
4 156 (3.10%) Data Quality
5 144 (2.86%) NIST
6 125 (2.48%) SLA
7 102 (2.02%) PMO
8 89 (1.77%) Accessibility
9 51 (1.01%) Cyber Essentials
10 33 (0.66%) NCSC
10 33 (0.66%) PCI DSS
11 26 (0.52%) WCAG
12 22 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 22 (0.44%) EU AI Act
12 22 (0.44%) HIPAA
13 19 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 15 (0.30%) GRC
15 11 (0.22%) SOC 2
16 9 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
16 9 (0.18%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,020 (20.25%) Active Directory
2 190 (3.77%) Docker
3 169 (3.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 66 (1.31%) Hyper-V
5 57 (1.13%) Virtual Machines
6 40 (0.79%) vSphere
7 36 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
8 35 (0.69%) VMware ESXi
9 16 (0.32%) BitLocker
10 15 (0.30%) Firmware
10 15 (0.30%) VMware NSX
11 11 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
12 9 (0.18%) XenApp
13 8 (0.16%) ISA Server
13 8 (0.16%) NFS
13 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
14 7 (0.14%) Brightmail
14 7 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
14 7 (0.14%) Terminal Services
15 5 (0.099%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 372 (7.38%) Microsoft Intune
2 290 (5.76%) SCCM
3 267 (5.30%) Terraform
4 232 (4.61%) Kubernetes
5 122 (2.42%) Single Sign-On
6 102 (2.02%) Ansible
7 77 (1.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (0.97%) SCOM
9 40 (0.79%) vCenter Server
10 38 (0.75%) Jamf Pro
11 33 (0.66%) Grafana
12 26 (0.52%) Prometheus
13 21 (0.42%) HP SiteScope
14 20 (0.40%) WSUS
15 17 (0.34%) QRadar
16 15 (0.30%) FortiGate
16 15 (0.30%) Microsoft Clustering
16 15 (0.30%) Progress Chef
17 14 (0.28%) AirWatch
17 14 (0.28%) Kibana
Vendors
1 272 (5.40%) ServiceNow
2 231 (4.59%) VMware
3 227 (4.51%) Oracle
4 188 (3.73%) Cisco
5 180 (3.57%) SAP
6 177 (3.51%) Splunk
7 154 (3.06%) Google
8 142 (2.82%) Databricks
9 123 (2.44%) Citrix
10 87 (1.73%) Apple
11 77 (1.53%) Salesforce
12 71 (1.41%) OpenAI
13 67 (1.33%) CrowdStrike
14 58 (1.15%) Palo Alto
15 52 (1.03%) IBM
16 50 (0.99%) Remedy
17 48 (0.95%) CyberArk
18 47 (0.93%) HP
19 45 (0.89%) Adobe
20 43 (0.85%) Foundry