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 2 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
2 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,656 3,927 5,582
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.60% 13.57% 12.96%
As % of the Vendors category 28.41% 28.42% 30.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,756 2,552 3,638
10th Percentile £213 £213 £190
25th Percentile £375 £347 £338
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +4.21% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £586 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 366 272 474
10th Percentile £13.64 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.62 £13.05
Median hourly rate £20.09 £18.87 £15.34
Median % change year-on-year +6.47% +23.05% -33.03%
75th Percentile £30.00 £30.06 £25.00
90th Percentile £65.00 £57.21 £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 19,908 13,817 18,195
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.82% 47.75% 42.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,510 8,565 11,346
10th Percentile £313 £281 £263
25th Percentile £413 £405 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £514
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -0.78% -2.10%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £494 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +0.92% -2.10% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,031 597 1,121
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £14.48
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.50 £22.56
Median % change year-on-year +27.45% +13.03% -47.53%
75th Percentile £58.75 £55.49 £57.50
90th Percentile £76.75 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.29 £22.50 £21.50
% change year-on-year +30.16% +4.65% -45.98%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 4,954 £500 +5.04% 3,584
UK excluding London -1 2,949 £450 +5.88% 3,038
London -2 2,203 £515 -1.27% 1,074
Work from Home 0 1,422 £500 - 1,520
North of England -3 766 £450 +5.88% 697
South East -1 677 £475 +2.15% 917
Midlands -5 508 £450 +12.50% 476
North West -3 396 £436 +2.47% 388
West Midlands -5 357 £450 +12.50% 282
South West -2 352 £450 +4.35% 353
Yorkshire -2 351 £475 +8.57% 219
East of England 0 311 £375 -25.00% 333
Scotland +4 239 £450 +4.71% 158
East Midlands -1 144 £400 -2.44% 194
Wales +1 97 £358 +25.44% 97
Northern Ireland -1 21 £450 +38.46% 76
North East -34 21 £450 +32.35% 94
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
1 598 (10.57%) SharePoint
2 373 (6.59%) Microsoft Exchange
3 107 (1.89%) Confluence
4 40 (0.71%) Apache Spark
5 29 (0.51%) Apache
6 26 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
7 20 (0.35%) HCL Notes
8 19 (0.34%) CMS
9 15 (0.27%) Skype for Business
10 13 (0.23%) IIS
10 13 (0.23%) SAS
11 10 (0.18%) Mendix
12 6 (0.11%) Camunda
12 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
13 5 (0.088%) Appian
13 5 (0.088%) OpenEdge
14 4 (0.071%) ArcGIS
14 4 (0.071%) Exchange Server 2013
14 4 (0.071%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 540 (9.55%) Microsoft Office
2 490 (8.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 214 (3.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 112 (1.98%) Microsoft Project
5 89 (1.57%) MS Visio
6 50 (0.88%) 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
1 199 (3.52%) Dynamics CRM
2 67 (1.18%) SAP S/4HANA
3 23 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.32%) NetSuite
5 15 (0.27%) Aladdin
6 14 (0.25%) Dynamics NAV
6 14 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
7 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
8 11 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
8 11 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
9 10 (0.18%) Maximo
9 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
9 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 8 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
10 8 (0.14%) Loan IQ
11 6 (0.11%) Dynamics GP
11 6 (0.11%) NEC Housing
11 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
11 6 (0.11%) Primavera
11 6 (0.11%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,401 (42.45%) Azure
2 1,438 (25.42%) Microsoft 365
3 949 (16.78%) Power Platform
4 752 (13.30%) Entra ID
5 463 (8.19%) AWS
6 453 (8.01%) Dynamics 365
7 451 (7.97%) Azure DevOps
8 317 (5.60%) Power Automate
9 306 (5.41%) Microsoft Purview
10 280 (4.95%) PowerApps
11 251 (4.44%) Microsoft Copilot
12 250 (4.42%) GitHub
13 218 (3.85%) OneDrive
14 206 (3.64%) SaaS
15 182 (3.22%) Azure Data Factory
16 176 (3.11%) GCP
17 170 (3.01%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 152 (2.69%) Serverless
19 142 (2.51%) PaaS
20 138 (2.44%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 291 (5.14%) DNS
2 261 (4.61%) Firewall
3 211 (3.73%) VPN
4 180 (3.18%) DHCP
5 139 (2.46%) WAN
6 138 (2.44%) Wi-Fi
7 124 (2.19%) LAN
8 116 (2.05%) Network Security
9 112 (1.98%) TCP/IP
10 53 (0.94%) Kerberos
10 53 (0.94%) VLAN
11 46 (0.81%) SD-WAN
12 38 (0.67%) SAN
13 37 (0.65%) Wireless
14 35 (0.62%) SSL
15 30 (0.53%) HTTP
15 30 (0.53%) Unified Communications
16 29 (0.51%) Skype
17 25 (0.44%) IPsec
17 25 (0.44%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 577 (10.20%) Power BI
2 267 (4.72%) SQL Server
3 173 (3.06%) Data Warehouse
4 152 (2.69%) Data Lake
5 119 (2.10%) Azure SQL Database
6 112 (1.98%) Metadata
7 101 (1.79%) PostgreSQL
8 69 (1.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 65 (1.15%) Relational Database
10 47 (0.83%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 46 (0.81%) NoSQL
11 46 (0.81%) Power Query
12 44 (0.78%) MySQL
13 43 (0.76%) Tableau
14 40 (0.71%) Delta Lake
14 40 (0.71%) Star Schema
15 35 (0.62%) Oracle Database
16 31 (0.55%) Spark SQL
17 28 (0.50%) SQL Server Analysis Services
18 24 (0.42%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 274 (4.84%) JIRA
2 162 (2.86%) Git
3 64 (1.13%) Jenkins
4 61 (1.08%) GitLab
5 33 (0.58%) Visual Studio
6 24 (0.42%) Artifactory
7 19 (0.34%) Eclipse
7 19 (0.34%) MSI
8 15 (0.27%) ERwin
8 15 (0.27%) MLflow
8 15 (0.27%) Selenium
9 14 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
10 13 (0.23%) JMeter
10 13 (0.23%) Postman
11 12 (0.21%) Maven
12 11 (0.19%) 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 1,840 (32.53%) Social Skills
2 1,118 (19.77%) Finance
3 611 (10.80%) Analytical Skills
4 501 (8.86%) Public Sector
5 295 (5.22%) Banking
6 245 (4.33%) Legal
7 239 (4.23%) Organisational Skills
8 139 (2.46%) Documentation Skills
9 98 (1.73%) Law
10 97 (1.71%) Manufacturing
11 93 (1.64%) Retail
12 85 (1.50%) Presentation Skills
13 81 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 77 (1.36%) Marketing
15 75 (1.33%) Telecoms
16 70 (1.24%) Local Government
17 69 (1.22%) Military
18 56 (0.99%) Investment Banking
19 55 (0.97%) Influencing Skills
20 45 (0.80%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 703 (12.43%) Architect
2 607 (10.73%) Analyst
3 501 (8.86%) Developer
4 468 (8.27%) Senior
5 367 (6.49%) IT Support
6 356 (6.29%) Lead
7 320 (5.66%) Consultant
8 262 (4.63%) Support Engineer
9 232 (4.10%) Data Engineer
10 206 (3.64%) Azure Engineer
11 203 (3.59%) Solutions Architect
12 195 (3.45%) Project Manager
13 181 (3.20%) Business Analyst
13 181 (3.20%) IT Engineer
14 172 (3.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 165 (2.92%) Administrator
16 137 (2.42%) IT Support Engineer
17 123 (2.17%) Security Engineer
18 111 (1.96%) DevOps Engineer
19 107 (1.89%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 244 (4.31%) .NET
2 177 (3.13%) REST
3 135 (2.39%) Microsoft Graph
4 107 (1.89%) OAuth
5 106 (1.87%) PySpark
6 99 (1.75%) SAML
7 91 (1.61%) JSON
8 81 (1.43%) OpenID
8 81 (1.43%) React
9 79 (1.40%) LDAP
10 73 (1.29%) Web Services
11 63 (1.11%) Middleware
12 55 (0.97%) Node.js
12 55 (0.97%) XML
13 53 (0.94%) SailPoint
14 52 (0.92%) ARM Templates
14 52 (0.92%) HTML
15 50 (0.88%) OAuth2
16 48 (0.85%) AngularJS
16 48 (0.85%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 300 (5.30%) Onboarding
2 236 (4.17%) Cloud Native
3 169 (2.99%) Product Ownership
4 128 (2.26%) Management Information System
5 103 (1.82%) Data Centre
6 102 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
7 100 (1.77%) Hybrid Cloud
8 99 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
9 90 (1.59%) Security Posture
10 84 (1.49%) AI Agents
11 81 (1.43%) PKI
12 80 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
13 78 (1.38%) Replication
14 70 (1.24%) Data Structures
15 68 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
16 67 (1.18%) Low-Code
17 62 (1.10%) Virtual Team
18 48 (0.85%) Operational Technology
18 48 (0.85%) Public Cloud
19 45 (0.80%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 1,227 (21.69%) Windows
2 327 (5.78%) Windows 10
3 292 (5.16%) Windows Server
4 257 (4.54%) Linux
5 114 (2.02%) Mac OS
6 110 (1.94%) Apple iOS
7 107 (1.89%) Android
8 45 (0.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 44 (0.78%) Windows 7
10 40 (0.71%) Windows Server 2016
11 39 (0.69%) Unix
12 31 (0.55%) VMS
12 31 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
13 21 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
14 16 (0.28%) Ubuntu
15 15 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
16 11 (0.19%) CentOS
17 6 (0.11%) AIX
18 4 (0.071%) Solaris
18 4 (0.071%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 956 (16.90%) Problem-Solving
2 915 (16.18%) DevOps
3 847 (14.98%) Agile
4 807 (14.27%) Migration
5 757 (13.38%) CI/CD
6 612 (10.82%) Business Intelligence
7 607 (10.73%) Analytics
8 583 (10.31%) Stakeholder Management
9 574 (10.15%) AI
10 516 (9.12%) Continuous Improvement
11 498 (8.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 477 (8.43%) ITIL
13 434 (7.67%) Customer Service
14 425 (7.51%) Data Modelling
15 400 (7.07%) Roadmaps
16 375 (6.63%) Cybersecurity
17 352 (6.22%) Decision-Making
18 336 (5.94%) Infrastructure as Code
19 326 (5.76%) Validation
20 325 (5.75%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 715 (12.64%) SQL
2 650 (11.49%) PowerShell
3 587 (10.38%) Python
4 257 (4.54%) C#
5 196 (3.47%) JavaScript
6 184 (3.25%) Java
7 134 (2.37%) Bicep
8 96 (1.70%) T-SQL
9 86 (1.52%) Kusto Query Language
10 74 (1.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 71 (1.26%) Bash
12 66 (1.17%) TypeScript
13 34 (0.60%) VBA
14 30 (0.53%) VB
15 28 (0.50%) C++
16 27 (0.48%) PL/SQL
17 18 (0.32%) Scala
18 16 (0.28%) VBScript
19 13 (0.23%) Shell Script
20 10 (0.18%) X++
Qualifications
1 1,066 (18.85%) Security Cleared
2 835 (14.76%) SC Cleared
3 543 (9.60%) Degree
4 261 (4.61%) Microsoft Certification
5 181 (3.20%) Azure Certification
6 173 (3.06%) DV Cleared
7 120 (2.12%) Computer Science Degree
8 114 (2.02%) CISSP
9 93 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
10 83 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
11 64 (1.13%) CISM
12 56 (0.99%) PMP
13 54 (0.95%) PMI Certification
14 51 (0.90%) Master's Degree
15 42 (0.74%) AWS Certification
15 42 (0.74%) MCSE
16 40 (0.71%) DBS Check
17 36 (0.64%) CCNP
18 32 (0.57%) MCSA
19 31 (0.55%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 289 (5.11%) Data Quality
2 231 (4.08%) GDPR
3 184 (3.25%) QA
4 166 (2.93%) SLA
5 146 (2.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 124 (2.19%) NIST
7 101 (1.79%) PMO
8 75 (1.33%) Accessibility
8 75 (1.33%) Cyber Essentials
9 53 (0.94%) NCSC
10 38 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 36 (0.64%) GRC
12 30 (0.53%) PCI DSS
13 28 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 22 (0.39%) NIST 800
15 19 (0.34%) MiFID
16 18 (0.32%) SOC 2
17 16 (0.28%) WCAG
18 13 (0.23%) FINRA
19 12 (0.21%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,071 (18.94%) Active Directory
2 214 (3.78%) Docker
3 195 (3.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 102 (1.80%) Hyper-V
5 79 (1.40%) Virtual Desktop
6 72 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
7 57 (1.01%) VMware ESXi
8 53 (0.94%) vSphere
9 30 (0.53%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.41%) VMware NSX
11 19 (0.34%) Microsoft App-V
12 18 (0.32%) Firmware
13 7 (0.12%) NFS
14 6 (0.11%) IAG
14 6 (0.11%) RACF
15 5 (0.088%) Oracle RAC
15 5 (0.088%) VMware Workstation
16 4 (0.071%) Snort
16 4 (0.071%) XenDesktop
17 3 (0.053%) DFS Replication
Systems Management
1 450 (7.96%) Microsoft Intune
2 348 (6.15%) Terraform
3 251 (4.44%) Kubernetes
4 202 (3.57%) SCCM
5 126 (2.23%) Ansible
6 124 (2.19%) Single Sign-On
7 79 (1.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (0.87%) vCenter Server
9 47 (0.83%) Jamf Pro
10 35 (0.62%) Grafana
11 32 (0.57%) Prometheus
12 24 (0.42%) FortiGate
13 20 (0.35%) SCOM
14 16 (0.28%) Puppet
15 15 (0.27%) AirWatch
15 15 (0.27%) QRadar
16 12 (0.21%) HAProxy
16 12 (0.21%) ServiceCenter
16 12 (0.21%) WSUS
17 10 (0.18%) CASB
Vendors
1 302 (5.34%) ServiceNow
2 265 (4.69%) VMware
3 222 (3.93%) Databricks
4 218 (3.85%) SAP
5 215 (3.80%) Oracle
6 191 (3.38%) Cisco
7 162 (2.86%) Google
8 108 (1.91%) Citrix
9 107 (1.89%) Salesforce
10 95 (1.68%) Splunk
11 80 (1.41%) OpenAI
12 73 (1.29%) Apple
13 65 (1.15%) Foundry
14 61 (1.08%) CrowdStrike
15 54 (0.95%) CyberArk
16 53 (0.94%) Okta
17 50 (0.88%) HP
18 46 (0.81%) Adobe
19 44 (0.78%) Palo Alto
20 43 (0.76%) Dell