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 5 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
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,694 3,911 5,566
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.59% 13.52% 12.97%
As % of the Vendors category 28.46% 28.36% 30.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,774 2,529 3,634
10th Percentile £212 £213 £190
25th Percentile £375 £338 £340
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £497 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +4.53% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £587 £584 £600
90th Percentile £675 £673 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 366 276 473
10th Percentile £13.64 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.35 £15.62 £13.00
Median hourly rate £20.35 £19.00 £15.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.11% +22.58% -32.31%
75th Percentile £31.69 £30.46 £25.00
90th Percentile £65.00 £60.94 £56.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.09 £18.85 £15.00
% change year-on-year +6.58% +25.67% -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 20,004 13,790 18,130
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.73% 47.66% 42.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,584 8,509 11,310
10th Percentile £313 £280 £263
25th Percentile £413 £405 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £515
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% -1.94% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £626
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +2.06% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,027 604 1,116
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.07
25th Percentile £18.59 £17.34 £14.48
Median hourly rate £32.50 £26.45 £22.56
Median % change year-on-year +22.87% +17.24% -46.92%
75th Percentile £59.38 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.90 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £22.50 £21.50
% change year-on-year +33.33% +4.65% -45.67%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 4,989 £500 +5.26% 3,787
UK excluding London -1 2,956 £450 +5.88% 3,182
London -1 2,234 £513 -2.38% 1,110
Work from Home -2 1,431 £500 - 1,603
North of England -3 765 £450 +5.88% 754
South East -1 685 £475 +4.40% 940
Midlands -5 503 £450 +12.50% 489
North West -3 396 £446 +4.94% 417
South West -2 356 £450 +5.88% 372
West Midlands -7 351 £450 +12.50% 276
Yorkshire -2 349 £475 +7.04% 240
East of England 0 307 £375 -25.00% 361
Scotland +3 242 £450 +2.45% 165
East Midlands 0 145 £407 +4.83% 214
Wales +1 98 £370 +23.33% 98
Northern Ireland -1 22 £450 +38.46% 78
North East -36 22 £450 +32.35% 100
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
1 603 (10.59%) SharePoint
2 381 (6.69%) Microsoft Exchange
3 105 (1.84%) Confluence
4 41 (0.72%) Apache Spark
5 29 (0.51%) Apache
6 26 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
7 20 (0.35%) CMS
7 20 (0.35%) HCL Notes
8 15 (0.26%) IIS
8 15 (0.26%) Skype for Business
9 14 (0.25%) SAS
10 10 (0.18%) Mendix
11 6 (0.11%) Camunda
11 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
11 6 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
12 5 (0.088%) Appian
12 5 (0.088%) nginx
12 5 (0.088%) OpenEdge
13 4 (0.070%) Exchange Server 2013
13 4 (0.070%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 531 (9.33%) Microsoft Office
2 495 (8.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 217 (3.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 113 (1.98%) Microsoft Project
5 87 (1.53%) MS Visio
6 47 (0.83%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.30%) Chatbot
8 12 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 5 (0.088%) Acrobat
9 5 (0.088%) Adobe Illustrator
9 5 (0.088%) PTC Creo
9 5 (0.088%) Trello
10 3 (0.053%) Adobe Captivate
10 3 (0.053%) InDesign
10 3 (0.053%) 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 (3.55%) Dynamics CRM
2 67 (1.18%) SAP S/4HANA
3 25 (0.44%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.30%) NetSuite
5 15 (0.26%) Aladdin
5 15 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
6 14 (0.25%) Dynamics NAV
7 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
9 11 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
10 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
10 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 9 (0.16%) Maximo
12 8 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
12 8 (0.14%) Loan IQ
13 6 (0.11%) Dynamics GP
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
13 6 (0.11%) Primavera
13 6 (0.11%) SAP MM
14 5 (0.088%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 2,420 (42.50%) Azure
2 1,458 (25.61%) Microsoft 365
3 960 (16.86%) Power Platform
4 766 (13.45%) Entra ID
5 468 (8.22%) AWS
6 451 (7.92%) Azure DevOps
7 449 (7.89%) Dynamics 365
8 320 (5.62%) Power Automate
9 311 (5.46%) Microsoft Purview
10 282 (4.95%) PowerApps
11 262 (4.60%) Microsoft Copilot
12 247 (4.34%) GitHub
13 221 (3.88%) OneDrive
14 207 (3.64%) SaaS
15 180 (3.16%) Azure Data Factory
16 175 (3.07%) GCP
17 169 (2.97%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 148 (2.60%) Serverless
19 147 (2.58%) PaaS
20 137 (2.41%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 294 (5.16%) DNS
2 265 (4.65%) Firewall
3 218 (3.83%) VPN
4 186 (3.27%) DHCP
5 137 (2.41%) WAN
6 136 (2.39%) Wi-Fi
7 121 (2.13%) LAN
8 119 (2.09%) TCP/IP
9 117 (2.05%) Network Security
10 54 (0.95%) VLAN
11 51 (0.90%) Kerberos
12 47 (0.83%) SD-WAN
13 37 (0.65%) SAN
14 36 (0.63%) Wireless
15 31 (0.54%) SSL
16 30 (0.53%) Unified Communications
17 29 (0.51%) HTTP
17 29 (0.51%) Skype
18 27 (0.47%) VoIP
19 25 (0.44%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 586 (10.29%) Power BI
2 273 (4.79%) SQL Server
3 169 (2.97%) Data Warehouse
4 147 (2.58%) Data Lake
5 119 (2.09%) Azure SQL Database
6 116 (2.04%) Metadata
7 104 (1.83%) PostgreSQL
8 71 (1.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 66 (1.16%) Relational Database
10 47 (0.83%) NoSQL
10 47 (0.83%) Power Query
11 45 (0.79%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 44 (0.77%) MySQL
13 43 (0.76%) Tableau
14 40 (0.70%) Delta Lake
14 40 (0.70%) Star Schema
15 35 (0.61%) Oracle Database
16 30 (0.53%) Spark SQL
17 28 (0.49%) SQL Server Analysis Services
18 26 (0.46%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 273 (4.79%) JIRA
2 163 (2.86%) Git
3 63 (1.11%) Jenkins
4 58 (1.02%) GitLab
5 33 (0.58%) 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 (0.25%) Selenium
10 14 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
11 13 (0.23%) JMeter
12 12 (0.21%) Maven
12 12 (0.21%) Postman
13 10 (0.18%) Bitbucket
13 10 (0.18%) Team Foundation Server
14 9 (0.16%) Gatling
15 8 (0.14%) Browser DevTools
15 8 (0.14%) InstallShield
General
1 1,864 (32.74%) Social Skills
2 1,129 (19.83%) Finance
3 620 (10.89%) Analytical Skills
4 502 (8.82%) Public Sector
5 297 (5.22%) Banking
6 249 (4.37%) Legal
7 235 (4.13%) Organisational Skills
8 144 (2.53%) Documentation Skills
9 99 (1.74%) Law
9 99 (1.74%) Manufacturing
10 98 (1.72%) Retail
11 84 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
12 79 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 77 (1.35%) Marketing
13 77 (1.35%) Telecoms
14 71 (1.25%) Military
15 70 (1.23%) Local Government
16 60 (1.05%) Investment Banking
17 56 (0.98%) Influencing Skills
18 46 (0.81%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 706 (12.40%) Architect
2 612 (10.75%) Analyst
3 503 (8.83%) Developer
4 471 (8.27%) Senior
5 370 (6.50%) IT Support
6 362 (6.36%) Lead
7 329 (5.78%) Consultant
8 273 (4.79%) Support Engineer
9 231 (4.06%) Data Engineer
10 203 (3.57%) Azure Engineer
10 203 (3.57%) Solutions Architect
11 195 (3.42%) Project Manager
12 187 (3.28%) IT Engineer
13 182 (3.20%) Business Analyst
14 177 (3.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 169 (2.97%) Administrator
16 144 (2.53%) IT Support Engineer
17 123 (2.16%) Security Engineer
18 110 (1.93%) DevOps Engineer
19 106 (1.86%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (4.37%) .NET
2 183 (3.21%) REST
3 137 (2.41%) Microsoft Graph
4 108 (1.90%) OAuth
5 106 (1.86%) PySpark
6 96 (1.69%) SAML
7 92 (1.62%) JSON
8 82 (1.44%) React
9 81 (1.42%) OpenID
10 76 (1.33%) LDAP
10 76 (1.33%) Web Services
11 61 (1.07%) Middleware
12 56 (0.98%) Node.js
13 54 (0.95%) SailPoint
14 53 (0.93%) XML
15 52 (0.91%) ARM Templates
15 52 (0.91%) HTML
16 51 (0.90%) OAuth2
17 50 (0.88%) CSS
18 48 (0.84%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 306 (5.37%) Onboarding
2 237 (4.16%) Cloud Native
3 166 (2.92%) Product Ownership
4 129 (2.27%) Management Information System
5 107 (1.88%) Data Centre
6 102 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
7 101 (1.77%) Enterprise Software
8 99 (1.74%) Hybrid Cloud
9 93 (1.63%) Security Posture
10 84 (1.48%) AI Agents
11 82 (1.44%) PKI
11 82 (1.44%) Self-Motivation
12 75 (1.32%) Replication
13 70 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
14 68 (1.19%) Data Structures
15 67 (1.18%) Low-Code
16 63 (1.11%) Virtual Team
17 48 (0.84%) Public Cloud
18 47 (0.83%) Clustering
18 47 (0.83%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 1,248 (21.92%) Windows
2 329 (5.78%) Windows 10
3 302 (5.30%) Windows Server
4 260 (4.57%) Linux
5 118 (2.07%) Mac OS
6 113 (1.98%) Apple iOS
7 109 (1.91%) Android
8 44 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 44 (0.77%) Windows 7
9 40 (0.70%) Unix
9 40 (0.70%) Windows Server 2016
10 32 (0.56%) VMS
11 31 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
12 21 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 16 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
14 14 (0.25%) Ubuntu
15 11 (0.19%) CentOS
16 6 (0.11%) AIX
17 5 (0.088%) Solaris
17 5 (0.088%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 960 (16.86%) Problem-Solving
2 914 (16.05%) DevOps
3 834 (14.65%) Agile
4 806 (14.16%) Migration
5 752 (13.21%) CI/CD
6 615 (10.80%) Business Intelligence
7 604 (10.61%) Stakeholder Management
8 603 (10.59%) Analytics
9 582 (10.22%) AI
10 523 (9.19%) Continuous Improvement
11 500 (8.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 487 (8.55%) ITIL
13 434 (7.62%) Customer Service
14 424 (7.45%) Data Modelling
15 400 (7.02%) Roadmaps
16 380 (6.67%) Cybersecurity
17 346 (6.08%) Decision-Making
18 335 (5.88%) Infrastructure as Code
19 330 (5.80%) Project Delivery
20 327 (5.74%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 720 (12.64%) SQL
2 664 (11.66%) PowerShell
3 580 (10.19%) Python
4 262 (4.60%) C#
5 199 (3.49%) JavaScript
6 185 (3.25%) Java
7 132 (2.32%) Bicep
8 96 (1.69%) T-SQL
9 84 (1.48%) Kusto Query Language
10 74 (1.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 69 (1.21%) Bash
12 67 (1.18%) TypeScript
13 34 (0.60%) VBA
14 30 (0.53%) VB
15 27 (0.47%) C++
16 26 (0.46%) PL/SQL
17 18 (0.32%) Scala
18 16 (0.28%) VBScript
19 15 (0.26%) Shell Script
20 10 (0.18%) R
Qualifications
1 1,082 (19.00%) Security Cleared
2 845 (14.84%) SC Cleared
3 542 (9.52%) Degree
4 268 (4.71%) Microsoft Certification
5 186 (3.27%) Azure Certification
6 176 (3.09%) DV Cleared
7 120 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
8 111 (1.95%) CISSP
9 94 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
10 84 (1.48%) Cisco Certification
11 61 (1.07%) CISM
12 56 (0.98%) PMP
13 53 (0.93%) PMI Certification
14 50 (0.88%) Master's Degree
15 45 (0.79%) MCSE
16 43 (0.76%) AWS Certification
17 39 (0.68%) DBS Check
18 37 (0.65%) CCNP
19 35 (0.61%) MCSA
20 33 (0.58%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 291 (5.11%) Data Quality
2 231 (4.06%) GDPR
3 182 (3.20%) QA
4 167 (2.93%) SLA
5 152 (2.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 127 (2.23%) NIST
7 103 (1.81%) PMO
8 76 (1.33%) Cyber Essentials
9 75 (1.32%) Accessibility
10 52 (0.91%) NCSC
11 37 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 35 (0.61%) GRC
13 29 (0.51%) PCI DSS
14 28 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 22 (0.39%) NIST 800
16 19 (0.33%) MiFID
17 18 (0.32%) SOC 2
18 16 (0.28%) WCAG
19 13 (0.23%) FINRA
20 12 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 1,089 (19.13%) Active Directory
2 213 (3.74%) Docker
3 198 (3.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 106 (1.86%) Hyper-V
5 79 (1.39%) Virtual Desktop
6 76 (1.33%) Virtual Machines
7 63 (1.11%) VMware ESXi
8 56 (0.98%) vSphere
9 33 (0.58%) BitLocker
10 21 (0.37%) Microsoft App-V
11 19 (0.33%) VMware NSX
12 18 (0.32%) Firmware
13 7 (0.12%) NFS
14 6 (0.11%) IAG
14 6 (0.11%) RACF
15 5 (0.088%) VMware Workstation
16 4 (0.070%) Oracle RAC
16 4 (0.070%) Snort
16 4 (0.070%) XenDesktop
17 3 (0.053%) Squid
Systems Management
1 463 (8.13%) Microsoft Intune
2 340 (5.97%) Terraform
3 242 (4.25%) Kubernetes
4 208 (3.65%) SCCM
5 125 (2.20%) Ansible
6 121 (2.13%) Single Sign-On
7 78 (1.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 54 (0.95%) vCenter Server
9 48 (0.84%) Jamf Pro
10 33 (0.58%) Grafana
11 30 (0.53%) Prometheus
12 24 (0.42%) FortiGate
12 24 (0.42%) SCOM
13 18 (0.32%) Puppet
14 15 (0.26%) AirWatch
14 15 (0.26%) QRadar
14 15 (0.26%) WSUS
15 13 (0.23%) vMotion
16 12 (0.21%) HAProxy
16 12 (0.21%) ServiceCenter
Vendors
1 314 (5.51%) ServiceNow
2 267 (4.69%) VMware
3 222 (3.90%) Databricks
4 219 (3.85%) SAP
5 218 (3.83%) Oracle
6 192 (3.37%) Cisco
7 164 (2.88%) Google
8 115 (2.02%) Citrix
9 112 (1.97%) Salesforce
10 94 (1.65%) Splunk
11 78 (1.37%) OpenAI
12 75 (1.32%) Apple
13 70 (1.23%) Foundry
14 61 (1.07%) CrowdStrike
15 55 (0.97%) Okta
16 54 (0.95%) CyberArk
17 51 (0.90%) HP
18 46 (0.81%) Adobe
19 43 (0.76%) Dell
20 41 (0.72%) Palo Alto