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 25 March 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
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 9 7
Rank change year-on-year +1 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,458 3,913 5,702
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.43% 13.46% 12.88%
As % of the Vendors category 28.54% 28.49% 30.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,661 2,634 3,804
10th Percentile £209 £210 £189
25th Percentile £375 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £584 £582 £600
90th Percentile £675 £668 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.86% -2.78% -1.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 384 189 433
10th Percentile £13.29 £14.96 £11.06
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.36 £13.00
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.59 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.60% +47.44% -25.16%
75th Percentile £26.08 £33.75 £25.25
90th Percentile £63.75 £60.65 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.14 £22.00 £15.54
% change year-on-year -13.01% +41.62% -18.24%

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 19,125 13,735 18,930
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.57% 47.23% 42.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,245 8,659 11,809
10th Percentile £313 £290 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% - -2.75%
75th Percentile £600 £618 £625
90th Percentile £700 £710 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 974 468 1,034
10th Percentile £15.27 £15.44 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.97 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.38 £29.00 £23.56
Median % change year-on-year -12.48% +23.12% -38.82%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £55.00
90th Percentile £77.43 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £27.43 £21.50
% change year-on-year -13.13% +27.56% -38.57%

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 25 March 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 25 March 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 25 March 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 4,782 £496 +4.46% 3,204
UK excluding London +1 2,867 £450 +2.86% 2,888
London -1 2,061 £513 +2.50% 848
Work from Home -1 1,365 £500 +0.60% 1,232
North of England 0 776 £436 +2.47% 694
South East -2 648 £480 -4.00% 871
Midlands -5 495 £450 +5.88% 447
North West -2 440 £415 -7.78% 367
East of England 0 351 £406 +1.56% 301
West Midlands -7 347 £475 +11.76% 243
South West 0 326 £508 +6.84% 342
Yorkshire +7 310 £450 +16.13% 236
Scotland +2 187 £459 +17.63% 168
East Midlands -3 143 £394 -3.96% 203
Wales +2 99 £310 -4.62% 98
North East -16 32 £450 +28.57% 101
Northern Ireland -1 20 £450 +38.46% 35
Channel Islands +3 1 - - 1

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
1 614 (11.25%) SharePoint
2 415 (7.60%) Microsoft Exchange
3 115 (2.11%) Confluence
4 25 (0.46%) Skype for Business
5 24 (0.44%) CMS
6 22 (0.40%) Apache Spark
7 21 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
8 19 (0.35%) Apache
9 17 (0.31%) HCL Notes
10 14 (0.26%) SAS
11 11 (0.20%) IIS
12 10 (0.18%) Mendix
13 7 (0.13%) ArcGIS
14 5 (0.092%) Oracle Application Server
14 5 (0.092%) SharePoint Server
15 4 (0.073%) Camunda
15 4 (0.073%) Exchange Server 2010
15 4 (0.073%) Exchange Server 2013
15 4 (0.073%) Jupyter
16 3 (0.055%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 601 (11.01%) Microsoft Office
2 513 (9.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 230 (4.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 134 (2.46%) Microsoft Project
5 106 (1.94%) MS Visio
6 80 (1.47%) Spreadsheet
7 16 (0.29%) Chatbot
8 10 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 10 (0.18%) Trello
9 7 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.092%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.073%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.073%) InDesign
13 3 (0.055%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.055%) Sketch
13 3 (0.055%) SOLIDWORKS
13 3 (0.055%) Windchill
14 2 (0.037%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 190 (3.48%) Dynamics CRM
2 52 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
3 19 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.33%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.26%) Aladdin
5 14 (0.26%) Maximo
6 13 (0.24%) Dynamics AX
7 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
9 10 (0.18%) Teamcenter
9 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 9 (0.16%) NetSuite
11 8 (0.15%) Sage X3
11 8 (0.15%) Shopify
12 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
12 7 (0.13%) SystmOne
13 6 (0.11%) Advent Geneva
13 6 (0.11%) Primavera
14 5 (0.092%) SAP MM
14 5 (0.092%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 2,234 (40.93%) Azure
2 1,409 (25.82%) Microsoft 365
3 902 (16.53%) Power Platform
4 697 (12.77%) Entra ID
5 453 (8.30%) AWS
6 446 (8.17%) Dynamics 365
7 445 (8.15%) Azure DevOps
8 349 (6.39%) Power Automate
9 313 (5.73%) PowerApps
10 281 (5.15%) Microsoft Purview
11 262 (4.80%) GitHub
12 209 (3.83%) OneDrive
13 203 (3.72%) Microsoft Copilot
14 190 (3.48%) Azure Data Factory
15 185 (3.39%) SaaS
16 184 (3.37%) Serverless
17 168 (3.08%) GCP
18 162 (2.97%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 153 (2.80%) PaaS
20 150 (2.75%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 308 (5.64%) Firewall
2 292 (5.35%) DNS
3 208 (3.81%) VPN
4 173 (3.17%) DHCP
5 155 (2.84%) Wi-Fi
6 138 (2.53%) WAN
7 123 (2.25%) LAN
8 122 (2.24%) Network Security
9 114 (2.09%) TCP/IP
10 56 (1.03%) Kerberos
10 56 (1.03%) VLAN
11 48 (0.88%) Skype
12 41 (0.75%) Wireless
13 40 (0.73%) SD-WAN
14 32 (0.59%) Unified Communications
15 30 (0.55%) SAN
15 30 (0.55%) SSL
16 29 (0.53%) MPLS
17 28 (0.51%) Internet
18 27 (0.49%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 558 (10.22%) Power BI
2 263 (4.82%) SQL Server
3 178 (3.26%) Data Warehouse
4 150 (2.75%) Data Lake
5 122 (2.24%) Azure SQL Database
6 103 (1.89%) Metadata
6 103 (1.89%) PostgreSQL
7 71 (1.30%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 69 (1.26%) Relational Database
9 57 (1.04%) Oracle Database
10 51 (0.93%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 48 (0.88%) NoSQL
12 47 (0.86%) MySQL
13 42 (0.77%) Tableau
14 40 (0.73%) Power Query
15 37 (0.68%) Star Schema
16 35 (0.64%) Delta Lake
17 25 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
18 24 (0.44%) SQL Server Analysis Services
19 23 (0.42%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 255 (4.67%) JIRA
2 174 (3.19%) Git
3 74 (1.36%) Jenkins
4 71 (1.30%) GitLab
5 24 (0.44%) Eclipse
6 23 (0.42%) Artifactory
7 22 (0.40%) Visual Studio
8 18 (0.33%) MSI
8 18 (0.33%) Postman
9 16 (0.29%) MLflow
9 16 (0.29%) Selenium
10 15 (0.27%) JMeter
11 13 (0.24%) Cucumber
11 13 (0.24%) JUnit
12 12 (0.22%) Android Studio
13 11 (0.20%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.18%) ERwin
14 10 (0.18%) Maven
14 10 (0.18%) SpecFlow
14 10 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 1,991 (36.48%) Social Skills
2 1,088 (19.93%) Finance
3 658 (12.06%) Analytical Skills
4 544 (9.97%) Public Sector
5 281 (5.15%) Banking
6 263 (4.82%) Organisational Skills
7 250 (4.58%) Legal
8 164 (3.00%) Documentation Skills
9 124 (2.27%) Manufacturing
10 113 (2.07%) Presentation Skills
11 99 (1.81%) Marketing
12 88 (1.61%) Telecoms
13 76 (1.39%) Retail
14 75 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 75 (1.37%) Law
15 60 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
16 57 (1.04%) Local Government
17 56 (1.03%) Military
18 50 (0.92%) Investment Banking
19 40 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 660 (12.09%) Architect
2 623 (11.41%) Analyst
3 516 (9.45%) Developer
4 441 (8.08%) Senior
5 361 (6.61%) IT Support
6 309 (5.66%) Lead
7 292 (5.35%) Consultant
8 278 (5.09%) Support Engineer
9 198 (3.63%) Data Engineer
10 195 (3.57%) IT Engineer
11 193 (3.54%) Solutions Architect
12 187 (3.43%) Azure Engineer
13 174 (3.19%) Administrator
14 173 (3.17%) Project Manager
15 171 (3.13%) Business Analyst
16 164 (3.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 147 (2.69%) IT Support Engineer
18 119 (2.18%) Security Engineer
19 105 (1.92%) Support Analyst
20 101 (1.85%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 250 (4.58%) .NET
2 185 (3.39%) REST
3 129 (2.36%) Microsoft Graph
4 120 (2.20%) OAuth
5 99 (1.81%) SAML
6 92 (1.69%) React
7 83 (1.52%) PySpark
8 79 (1.45%) OpenID
9 71 (1.30%) JSON
10 68 (1.25%) RESTful
11 64 (1.17%) AngularJS
11 64 (1.17%) HTML
12 63 (1.15%) Middleware
13 62 (1.14%) LDAP
14 60 (1.10%) ARM Templates
14 60 (1.10%) Web Services
15 57 (1.04%) CSS
16 56 (1.03%) OAuth2
17 51 (0.93%) Node.js
18 47 (0.86%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 282 (5.17%) Onboarding
2 215 (3.94%) Cloud Native
3 180 (3.30%) Product Ownership
4 135 (2.47%) Management Information System
5 112 (2.05%) Enterprise Software
6 96 (1.76%) Data Centre
7 92 (1.69%) Hybrid Cloud
8 90 (1.65%) Security Posture
9 88 (1.61%) PKI
10 85 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
11 75 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
12 70 (1.28%) Low-Code
12 70 (1.28%) Replication
13 69 (1.26%) AI Agents
14 65 (1.19%) Data Structures
15 63 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
16 60 (1.10%) Virtual Team
17 59 (1.08%) Driving Licence
18 54 (0.99%) NHS
19 51 (0.93%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1,232 (22.57%) Windows
2 343 (6.28%) Windows 10
3 286 (5.24%) Linux
4 283 (5.19%) Windows Server
5 100 (1.83%) Android
6 97 (1.78%) Mac OS
7 91 (1.67%) Apple iOS
8 50 (0.92%) Unix
9 44 (0.81%) Windows Server 2016
10 42 (0.77%) Windows 7
11 41 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 26 (0.48%) VMS
13 23 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
14 22 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
15 21 (0.38%) Windows Server 2003
16 9 (0.16%) CentOS
17 8 (0.15%) AIX
17 8 (0.15%) Ubuntu
18 5 (0.092%) Windows 8
19 4 (0.073%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 975 (17.86%) Problem-Solving
2 884 (16.20%) Agile
3 840 (15.39%) DevOps
4 745 (13.65%) Migration
5 708 (12.97%) CI/CD
6 643 (11.78%) Business Intelligence
7 616 (11.29%) Analytics
8 539 (9.88%) Stakeholder Management
9 512 (9.38%) AI
10 496 (9.09%) Continuous Improvement
11 453 (8.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 448 (8.21%) Customer Service
13 417 (7.64%) ITIL
14 388 (7.11%) Cybersecurity
15 376 (6.89%) Data Modelling
16 332 (6.08%) Roadmaps
17 309 (5.66%) Infrastructure as Code
18 305 (5.59%) Project Management
19 303 (5.55%) Change Management
20 302 (5.53%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 711 (13.03%) SQL
2 669 (12.26%) PowerShell
3 633 (11.60%) Python
4 277 (5.08%) C#
5 217 (3.98%) JavaScript
6 164 (3.00%) Java
7 118 (2.16%) Bicep
8 112 (2.05%) Kusto Query Language
9 101 (1.85%) Bash
10 81 (1.48%) TypeScript
11 75 (1.37%) T-SQL
12 68 (1.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 35 (0.64%) PL/SQL
14 27 (0.49%) C++
15 26 (0.48%) VBA
16 23 (0.42%) Perl
17 22 (0.40%) VB
18 19 (0.35%) R
19 18 (0.33%) Shell Script
20 16 (0.29%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,077 (19.73%) Security Cleared
2 818 (14.99%) SC Cleared
3 556 (10.19%) Degree
4 302 (5.53%) Microsoft Certification
5 213 (3.90%) DV Cleared
6 184 (3.37%) Azure Certification
7 130 (2.38%) Computer Science Degree
8 105 (1.92%) CISSP
9 99 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
10 66 (1.21%) Cisco Certification
11 64 (1.17%) PMI Certification
12 61 (1.12%) CISM
12 61 (1.12%) Master's Degree
13 56 (1.03%) PMP
14 42 (0.77%) MCSE
15 40 (0.73%) AWS Certification
16 37 (0.68%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 35 (0.64%) ITIL Certification
18 34 (0.62%) DBS Check
19 31 (0.57%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 235 (4.31%) GDPR
2 232 (4.25%) Data Quality
3 167 (3.06%) QA
4 156 (2.86%) SLA
5 142 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 120 (2.20%) PMO
7 112 (2.05%) NIST
8 78 (1.43%) Accessibility
9 64 (1.17%) Cyber Essentials
10 44 (0.81%) NCSC
11 39 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 31 (0.57%) PCI DSS
13 26 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 24 (0.44%) GRC
15 22 (0.40%) WCAG
16 18 (0.33%) MiFID
17 14 (0.26%) NIST 800
18 13 (0.24%) FINRA
18 13 (0.24%) SOC 2
19 12 (0.22%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,073 (19.66%) Active Directory
2 216 (3.96%) Docker
3 174 (3.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 88 (1.61%) Hyper-V
5 62 (1.14%) Virtual Machines
6 53 (0.97%) Virtual Desktop
7 35 (0.64%) VMware ESXi
8 33 (0.60%) vSphere
9 22 (0.40%) BitLocker
10 20 (0.37%) VMware NSX
11 16 (0.29%) Firmware
12 11 (0.20%) Microsoft App-V
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
13 6 (0.11%) Snort
14 5 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
15 4 (0.073%) KVM
15 4 (0.073%) VMware Workstation
16 3 (0.055%) DFS Replication
16 3 (0.055%) IAG
16 3 (0.055%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 425 (7.79%) Microsoft Intune
2 342 (6.27%) Terraform
3 257 (4.71%) Kubernetes
4 226 (4.14%) SCCM
5 141 (2.58%) Single Sign-On
6 117 (2.14%) Ansible
7 100 (1.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 44 (0.81%) Jamf Pro
9 42 (0.77%) Grafana
10 34 (0.62%) Prometheus
11 32 (0.59%) vCenter Server
12 25 (0.46%) FortiGate
13 21 (0.38%) SCOM
14 18 (0.33%) Puppet
15 17 (0.31%) WSUS
16 16 (0.29%) CASB
17 14 (0.26%) AirWatch
18 13 (0.24%) WMI
19 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
20 11 (0.20%) Nessus
Vendors
1 257 (4.71%) ServiceNow
2 256 (4.69%) VMware
3 204 (3.74%) Databricks
4 202 (3.70%) Oracle
5 200 (3.66%) SAP
6 179 (3.28%) Cisco
7 161 (2.95%) Google
8 138 (2.53%) Citrix
9 102 (1.87%) Splunk
10 93 (1.70%) OpenAI
11 88 (1.61%) Salesforce
12 74 (1.36%) Foundry
13 68 (1.25%) Apple
14 60 (1.10%) CrowdStrike
15 56 (1.03%) Palo Alto
16 53 (0.97%) HP
17 45 (0.82%) Red Hat
18 43 (0.79%) Okta
19 42 (0.77%) Adobe
20 36 (0.66%) Informatica