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 27 September 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
27 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 7,310 4,749 4,998
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.38% 14.37% 13.06%
As % of the Vendors category 32.13% 30.26% 29.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,615 3,092 3,072
10th Percentile £210 £205 £200
25th Percentile £368 £338 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £669 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.86% -2.78% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 595 383 276
10th Percentile £13.34 £13.75 £14.16
25th Percentile £14.59 £16.50 £15.62
Median hourly rate £18.50 £22.32 £18.13
Median % change year-on-year -17.10% +23.08% -21.17%
75th Percentile £30.45 £31.40 £45.30
90th Percentile £65.22 £64.35 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.86 £21.00 £16.23
% change year-on-year -14.98% +29.39% -24.51%

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 22,750 15,694 17,049
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.63% 47.49% 44.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,855 9,662 10,073
10th Percentile £310 £275 £286
25th Percentile £413 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £617 £613 £625
90th Percentile £705 £700 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,314 808 649
10th Percentile £13.98 £14.75 £14.50
25th Percentile £16.38 £17.74 £15.73
Median hourly rate £25.75 £25.15 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.39% -22.62% -25.90%
75th Percentile £57.50 £42.68 £64.25
90th Percentile £78.53 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.28 £21.35 £30.00
% change year-on-year +18.42% -28.85% -29.41%

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 27 September 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 27 September 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 27 September 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 6,339 £488 +2.63% 8,269
UK excluding London 0 3,943 £450 +2.86% 6,129
London 0 2,717 £520 +4.00% 3,033
Work from Home +3 1,836 £500 - 3,322
South East 0 1,049 £475 +5.56% 1,625
North of England -5 967 £467 +6.86% 1,488
Midlands 0 681 £430 +4.88% 1,003
North West -1 565 £472 +7.88% 759
West Midlands -2 463 £428 -2.84% 564
South West -1 459 £473 +6.48% 610
Scotland +5 378 £450 +0.56% 438
Yorkshire -6 354 £473 +5.59% 523
East of England 0 296 £325 -38.10% 628
East Midlands +1 212 £431 +18.97% 439
Wales +2 111 £394 +29.63% 186
North East -24 53 £425 +25.07% 221
Northern Ireland 0 37 £342 -2.29% 245
Channel Islands -3 4 £525 -27.59% 2

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
1 886 (12.12%) SharePoint
2 405 (5.54%) Microsoft Exchange
3 149 (2.04%) Confluence
4 38 (0.52%) Apache
5 37 (0.51%) Apache Spark
6 27 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
6 27 (0.37%) CMS
7 26 (0.36%) IIS
8 23 (0.31%) Skype for Business
9 18 (0.25%) SharePoint Server
10 17 (0.23%) HCL Notes
11 14 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
12 11 (0.15%) nginx
13 7 (0.096%) SAS
14 6 (0.082%) Exchange Server 2010
14 6 (0.082%) Mendix
14 6 (0.082%) OpenStack
14 6 (0.082%) SharePoint 2013
15 5 (0.068%) Apache Superset
15 5 (0.068%) Camunda
Applications
1 802 (10.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 772 (10.56%) Microsoft Office
3 322 (4.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 193 (2.64%) Microsoft Project
5 109 (1.49%) MS Visio
6 52 (0.71%) Spreadsheet
7 27 (0.37%) Chatbot
8 17 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 15 (0.21%) AutoCAD
10 11 (0.15%) Navisworks
10 11 (0.15%) ProjectWise
11 10 (0.14%) Revit
12 5 (0.068%) Adobe Illustrator
12 5 (0.068%) Photoshop
13 4 (0.055%) Trello
14 3 (0.041%) 1Password
14 3 (0.041%) Adobe Premiere
14 3 (0.041%) Final Cut Pro
15 2 (0.027%) Acrobat
15 2 (0.027%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 264 (3.61%) Dynamics CRM
2 89 (1.22%) SAP S/4HANA
3 37 (0.51%) Remedy ITSM
4 28 (0.38%) Dynamics NAV
5 23 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
6 21 (0.29%) NetSuite
7 15 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
8 14 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
9 13 (0.18%) Primavera
10 11 (0.15%) Dynamics AX
10 11 (0.15%) Integrated Workplace Management System
10 11 (0.15%) Magento
11 10 (0.14%) Aladdin
12 8 (0.11%) iTrent
12 8 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
13 7 (0.096%) SAP CRM
13 7 (0.096%) SAP PSCD
14 6 (0.082%) Maximo
14 6 (0.082%) Oracle ERP
14 6 (0.082%) Oracle General Ledger
Cloud Services
1 2,984 (40.82%) Azure
2 1,872 (25.61%) Microsoft 365
3 1,281 (17.52%) Power Platform
4 1,156 (15.81%) Entra ID
5 665 (9.10%) AWS
6 610 (8.34%) Azure DevOps
7 602 (8.24%) Dynamics 365
8 455 (6.22%) Microsoft Copilot
9 440 (6.02%) Power Automate
10 390 (5.34%) PowerApps
11 309 (4.23%) Microsoft Purview
12 291 (3.98%) GitHub
13 274 (3.75%) GCP
14 268 (3.67%) OneDrive
15 243 (3.32%) SaaS
16 203 (2.78%) Serverless
17 178 (2.44%) Azure Monitor
18 172 (2.35%) Azure Data Factory
19 163 (2.23%) Azure Logic Apps
20 160 (2.19%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 407 (5.57%) DNS
2 341 (4.66%) Firewall
3 302 (4.13%) VPN
4 276 (3.78%) DHCP
5 205 (2.80%) TCP/IP
6 167 (2.28%) Network Security
7 159 (2.18%) WAN
8 145 (1.98%) LAN
9 137 (1.87%) Wi-Fi
10 73 (1.00%) VLAN
11 71 (0.97%) Wireless
12 52 (0.71%) SAN
13 42 (0.57%) SSL
14 40 (0.55%) Skype
15 37 (0.51%) MPLS
15 37 (0.51%) Unified Communications
16 32 (0.44%) BGP
16 32 (0.44%) Kerberos
17 30 (0.41%) Internet
18 29 (0.40%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 769 (10.52%) Power BI
2 403 (5.51%) SQL Server
3 167 (2.28%) Data Warehouse
4 162 (2.22%) Metadata
5 145 (1.98%) Data Lake
6 126 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
7 108 (1.48%) Azure SQL Database
8 89 (1.22%) Power Query
9 80 (1.09%) Relational Database
10 73 (1.00%) MySQL
11 67 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 50 (0.68%) NoSQL
13 45 (0.62%) Oracle Database
14 42 (0.57%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 40 (0.55%) Star Schema
16 37 (0.51%) Delta Lake
17 33 (0.45%) Tableau
18 30 (0.41%) Amazon RDS
18 30 (0.41%) MongoDB
19 28 (0.38%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 333 (4.56%) JIRA
2 244 (3.34%) Git
3 89 (1.22%) Jenkins
4 72 (0.98%) GitLab
5 57 (0.78%) Visual Studio
6 49 (0.67%) MSI
7 37 (0.51%) Selenium
8 25 (0.34%) Postman
9 23 (0.31%) Claude Code
10 19 (0.26%) Cypress.io
11 17 (0.23%) Team Foundation Server
11 17 (0.23%) WebDriver
12 16 (0.22%) Cucumber
13 15 (0.21%) Eclipse
14 12 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
14 12 (0.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
15 11 (0.15%) Subversion
16 10 (0.14%) ERwin
16 10 (0.14%) MLflow
17 9 (0.12%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 2,738 (37.46%) Social Skills
2 1,427 (19.52%) Finance
3 958 (13.11%) Analytical Skills
4 648 (8.86%) Public Sector
5 448 (6.13%) Organisational Skills
6 313 (4.28%) Banking
7 231 (3.16%) Legal
8 210 (2.87%) Documentation Skills
9 207 (2.83%) Manufacturing
10 186 (2.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 161 (2.20%) Retail
12 122 (1.67%) Telecoms
13 112 (1.53%) Marketing
14 103 (1.41%) Influencing Skills
15 94 (1.29%) Military
16 92 (1.26%) Aerospace
17 91 (1.24%) Local Government
18 84 (1.15%) Law
19 72 (0.98%) Presentation Skills
20 56 (0.77%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 829 (11.34%) Architect
2 714 (9.77%) Analyst
3 646 (8.84%) Developer
4 622 (8.51%) Senior
5 477 (6.53%) Lead
6 466 (6.37%) Consultant
7 449 (6.14%) IT Support
8 440 (6.02%) Support Engineer
9 333 (4.56%) Administrator
10 295 (4.04%) IT Engineer
11 283 (3.87%) Solutions Architect
12 259 (3.54%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 255 (3.49%) Azure Engineer
14 245 (3.35%) Data Engineer
15 244 (3.34%) IT Support Engineer
16 224 (3.06%) Project Manager
17 191 (2.61%) Business Analyst
18 186 (2.54%) Cloud Engineer
19 140 (1.92%) DevOps Engineer
20 138 (1.89%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 544 (7.44%) Terraform
2 339 (4.64%) .NET
3 289 (3.95%) REST
4 145 (1.98%) JSON
5 141 (1.93%) OAuth
6 116 (1.59%) XML
7 111 (1.52%) SAML
8 106 (1.45%) OpenID
9 104 (1.42%) PySpark
10 103 (1.41%) Microsoft Graph
11 96 (1.31%) ARM Templates
12 93 (1.27%) React
13 91 (1.24%) Web Services
14 87 (1.19%) .NET Framework
15 84 (1.15%) LDAP
16 80 (1.09%) RESTful
17 79 (1.08%) HTML
17 79 (1.08%) OAuth2
18 75 (1.03%) SailPoint
19 69 (0.94%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 593 (8.11%) Onboarding
2 324 (4.43%) Cloud Native
3 300 (4.10%) Management Information System
4 224 (3.06%) Enterprise Software
5 199 (2.72%) Product Ownership
6 164 (2.24%) Hybrid Cloud
7 163 (2.23%) AI Agents
8 157 (2.15%) Data Centre
8 157 (2.15%) PKI
9 140 (1.92%) Security Posture
10 139 (1.90%) Legacy Systems
11 100 (1.37%) Self-Motivation
12 98 (1.34%) Driving Licence
13 97 (1.33%) CMDB
14 96 (1.31%) Data Structures
15 90 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
16 83 (1.14%) Low-Code
17 79 (1.08%) Virtual Team
18 77 (1.05%) NHS
18 77 (1.05%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 1,562 (21.37%) Windows
2 477 (6.53%) Windows Server
3 391 (5.35%) Windows 10
4 346 (4.73%) Linux
5 158 (2.16%) Mac OS
6 133 (1.82%) Android
7 127 (1.74%) Apple iOS
8 65 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 48 (0.66%) Unix
10 42 (0.57%) Windows 7
11 39 (0.53%) Ubuntu
12 38 (0.52%) Windows Server 2019
13 34 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
14 31 (0.42%) VMS
15 22 (0.30%) CentOS
16 21 (0.29%) Solaris
16 21 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
17 12 (0.16%) SUSE
18 9 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
19 7 (0.096%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,388 (18.99%) Problem-Solving
1 1,388 (18.99%) Stakeholder Management
2 1,103 (15.09%) DevOps
3 1,089 (14.90%) Agile
4 994 (13.60%) Migration
5 957 (13.09%) CI/CD
6 915 (12.52%) Continuous Improvement
7 867 (11.86%) AI
8 829 (11.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 778 (10.64%) Business Intelligence
10 742 (10.15%) Analytics
11 726 (9.93%) ITIL
12 690 (9.44%) Customer Service
13 580 (7.93%) Infrastructure as Code
14 577 (7.89%) Cybersecurity
15 550 (7.52%) Roadmaps
16 513 (7.02%) Project Delivery
17 508 (6.95%) Data Modelling
18 502 (6.87%) Decision-Making
19 487 (6.66%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 866 (11.85%) SQL
2 822 (11.24%) PowerShell
3 745 (10.19%) Python
4 354 (4.84%) C#
5 282 (3.86%) JavaScript
6 213 (2.91%) Bicep
7 177 (2.42%) Bash
8 164 (2.24%) Java
9 114 (1.56%) TypeScript
10 113 (1.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 107 (1.46%) T-SQL
12 75 (1.03%) Kusto Query Language
13 32 (0.44%) VBA
14 30 (0.41%) VB
15 26 (0.36%) C++
16 25 (0.34%) VBScript
17 23 (0.31%) X++
18 21 (0.29%) PL/SQL
19 19 (0.26%) R
20 16 (0.22%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 1,581 (21.63%) Security Cleared
2 1,168 (15.98%) SC Cleared
3 624 (8.54%) Degree
4 373 (5.10%) Microsoft Certification
5 322 (4.40%) DV Cleared
6 276 (3.78%) Azure Certification
7 187 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
8 142 (1.94%) CISSP
9 126 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
10 106 (1.45%) Computer Science Degree
11 96 (1.31%) PMP
12 91 (1.24%) PMI Certification
13 77 (1.05%) AWS Certification
14 75 (1.03%) CISM
15 63 (0.86%) DBS Check
16 59 (0.81%) A+ Certification
16 59 (0.81%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 54 (0.74%) CCNP
18 46 (0.63%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 45 (0.62%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 447 (6.11%) Data Quality
2 247 (3.38%) QA
3 239 (3.27%) GDPR
4 217 (2.97%) SLA
5 206 (2.82%) PMO
6 204 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 178 (2.44%) NIST
8 125 (1.71%) Accessibility
9 87 (1.19%) Cyber Essentials
10 85 (1.16%) NCSC
11 63 (0.86%) GRC
12 47 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 46 (0.63%) WCAG
14 39 (0.53%) PCI DSS
15 27 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 24 (0.33%) Disclosure Scotland
17 21 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
18 19 (0.26%) SOC 2
19 16 (0.22%) ISO 19650
19 16 (0.22%) P3O
System Software
1 1,363 (18.65%) Active Directory
2 280 (3.83%) VMware Infrastructure
3 254 (3.47%) Docker
4 146 (2.00%) Hyper-V
5 130 (1.78%) Virtual Desktop
6 112 (1.53%) Virtual Machines
7 76 (1.04%) vSphere
8 65 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
9 35 (0.48%) BitLocker
10 21 (0.29%) Microsoft App-V
11 18 (0.25%) Firmware
12 16 (0.22%) VMware NSX
13 14 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
14 10 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 9 (0.12%) IAG
16 8 (0.11%) NFS
17 7 (0.096%) Oracle RAC
17 7 (0.096%) zsh
18 6 (0.082%) XenApp
19 5 (0.068%) Citrix Hypervisor
Systems Management
1 589 (8.06%) Microsoft Intune
2 338 (4.62%) Kubernetes
3 294 (4.02%) SCCM
4 168 (2.30%) Ansible
5 146 (2.00%) Single Sign-On
6 60 (0.82%) Jamf Pro
7 58 (0.79%) Grafana
8 56 (0.77%) SCOM
9 50 (0.68%) vCenter Server
10 36 (0.49%) Prometheus
11 35 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 28 (0.38%) QRadar
13 26 (0.36%) Progress Chef
14 25 (0.34%) WSUS
15 21 (0.29%) Puppet
16 20 (0.27%) Failover Clustering
16 20 (0.27%) FortiGate
17 17 (0.23%) Argo
17 17 (0.23%) WMI
18 14 (0.19%) Avamar
Vendors
1 553 (7.56%) ServiceNow
2 358 (4.90%) VMware
3 336 (4.60%) Oracle
4 296 (4.05%) SAP
5 278 (3.80%) Google
6 255 (3.49%) Databricks
7 243 (3.32%) Cisco
8 128 (1.75%) Salesforce
9 127 (1.74%) Splunk
10 113 (1.55%) Apple
11 107 (1.46%) CyberArk
12 92 (1.26%) Okta
13 91 (1.24%) OpenAI
14 90 (1.23%) Citrix
15 87 (1.19%) BeyondTrust
16 79 (1.08%) Foundry
17 74 (1.01%) CrowdStrike
18 68 (0.93%) Red Hat
19 60 (0.82%) IBM
20 59 (0.81%) Zscaler