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 8 May 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
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 11 7
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,562 3,881 5,605
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.72% 13.34% 13.00%
As % of the Vendors category 28.16% 28.10% 30.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,742 2,562 3,674
10th Percentile £213 £210 £189
25th Percentile £375 £348 £326
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +3.68% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £582 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £451
% change year-on-year +5.88% -5.66% -2.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 352 242 460
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.35 £15.16 £13.00
Median hourly rate £20.09 £18.87 £15.07
Median % change year-on-year +6.47% +25.22% -31.75%
75th Percentile £29.50 £29.00 £25.00
90th Percentile £65.00 £59.13 £55.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.91 £18.51 £15.00
% change year-on-year +7.56% +23.40% -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 19,748 13,810 18,286
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.61% 47.45% 42.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,551 8,637 11,343
10th Percentile £313 £285 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% - -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £630
90th Percentile £703 £714 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £498 £500
% change year-on-year -1.51% -0.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 988 563 1,092
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.56 £14.41
Median hourly rate £32.11 £26.04 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +23.32% +15.73% -48.50%
75th Percentile £60.00 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £78.61 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £24.09 £21.50
% change year-on-year +16.23% +12.05% -45.64%

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 8 May 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 8 May 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 8 May 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 4,879 £495 +4.21% 2,979
UK excluding London 0 2,885 £450 +5.88% 2,617
London -2 2,149 £515 +2.95% 884
Work from Home -1 1,407 £500 - 1,219
North of England -1 770 £450 +9.42% 619
South East -1 660 £475 -1.14% 852
Midlands -6 505 £450 +12.50% 386
North West -1 414 £420 -1.18% 318
West Midlands -4 352 £450 +12.50% 224
Yorkshire +3 332 £460 +15.00% 214
South West -2 327 £450 -3.74% 259
East of England 0 326 £400 -11.11% 288
Scotland +2 204 £450 +8.43% 148
East Midlands -1 147 £400 -2.44% 162
Wales +2 90 £335 +17.54% 95
North East -23 29 £450 +30.43% 92
Northern Ireland +1 22 £450 +38.46% 34
Channel Islands -3 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
1 596 (10.72%) SharePoint
2 378 (6.80%) Microsoft Exchange
3 106 (1.91%) Confluence
4 35 (0.63%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.41%) Apache
6 22 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
7 19 (0.34%) CMS
7 19 (0.34%) HCL Notes
8 14 (0.25%) SAS
9 12 (0.22%) IIS
9 12 (0.22%) Mendix
9 12 (0.22%) Skype for Business
10 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
10 6 (0.11%) Camunda
10 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
11 5 (0.090%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.072%) Drupal
12 4 (0.072%) Exchange Server 2013
12 4 (0.072%) MS Project Server
12 4 (0.072%) OpenEdge
Applications
1 557 (10.01%) Microsoft Office
2 497 (8.94%) Microsoft Excel
3 226 (4.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 124 (2.23%) Microsoft Project
5 94 (1.69%) MS Visio
6 70 (1.26%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.31%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 8 (0.14%) Trello
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.090%) Acrobat
11 5 (0.090%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.072%) InDesign
13 3 (0.054%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.054%) AutoCAD
13 3 (0.054%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.054%) SOLIDWORKS
14 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
14 2 (0.036%) MicroStation
14 2 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 199 (3.58%) Dynamics CRM
2 63 (1.13%) SAP S/4HANA
3 23 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
4 20 (0.36%) Dynamics NAV
5 15 (0.27%) NetSuite
6 14 (0.25%) Aladdin
7 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
8 11 (0.20%) Teamcenter
9 10 (0.18%) Maximo
9 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
9 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 9 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
10 9 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
11 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
11 7 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
12 6 (0.11%) Shopify
13 5 (0.090%) Primavera
13 5 (0.090%) SAP Business One
13 5 (0.090%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,340 (42.07%) Azure
2 1,427 (25.66%) Microsoft 365
3 941 (16.92%) Power Platform
4 712 (12.80%) Entra ID
5 461 (8.29%) Dynamics 365
6 450 (8.09%) AWS
7 434 (7.80%) Azure DevOps
8 323 (5.81%) Power Automate
9 287 (5.16%) Microsoft Purview
10 286 (5.14%) PowerApps
11 263 (4.73%) GitHub
12 234 (4.21%) Microsoft Copilot
13 210 (3.78%) OneDrive
14 199 (3.58%) Azure Data Factory
15 190 (3.42%) SaaS
16 179 (3.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 168 (3.02%) GCP
18 162 (2.91%) Serverless
19 147 (2.64%) PaaS
20 138 (2.48%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 285 (5.12%) DNS
2 280 (5.03%) Firewall
3 198 (3.56%) VPN
4 168 (3.02%) DHCP
5 133 (2.39%) WAN
5 133 (2.39%) Wi-Fi
6 114 (2.05%) LAN
7 110 (1.98%) Network Security
8 103 (1.85%) TCP/IP
9 57 (1.02%) Kerberos
10 52 (0.93%) VLAN
11 44 (0.79%) SD-WAN
12 36 (0.65%) SAN
12 36 (0.65%) SSL
13 35 (0.63%) Wireless
14 30 (0.54%) HTTP
15 28 (0.50%) Skype
16 26 (0.47%) MPLS
16 26 (0.47%) Unified Communications
17 24 (0.43%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 573 (10.30%) Power BI
2 266 (4.78%) SQL Server
3 177 (3.18%) Data Warehouse
4 158 (2.84%) Data Lake
5 125 (2.25%) Azure SQL Database
6 113 (2.03%) Metadata
7 100 (1.80%) PostgreSQL
8 70 (1.26%) Relational Database
9 67 (1.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 47 (0.85%) Power Query
11 45 (0.81%) NoSQL
11 45 (0.81%) Oracle Database
12 44 (0.79%) Tableau
13 43 (0.77%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 41 (0.74%) MySQL
15 40 (0.72%) Delta Lake
15 40 (0.72%) Star Schema
16 29 (0.52%) Spark SQL
17 27 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
18 25 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 254 (4.57%) JIRA
2 171 (3.07%) Git
3 66 (1.19%) Jenkins
4 64 (1.15%) GitLab
5 26 (0.47%) Artifactory
6 24 (0.43%) Visual Studio
7 21 (0.38%) Eclipse
8 20 (0.36%) MSI
9 17 (0.31%) Selenium
10 16 (0.29%) JMeter
10 16 (0.29%) Postman
11 15 (0.27%) MLflow
12 14 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
13 13 (0.23%) ERwin
14 12 (0.22%) Bitbucket
14 12 (0.22%) Maven
15 10 (0.18%) Cucumber
15 10 (0.18%) InstallShield
15 10 (0.18%) JUnit
16 9 (0.16%) Android Studio
General
1 1,865 (33.53%) Social Skills
2 1,107 (19.90%) Finance
3 637 (11.45%) Analytical Skills
4 521 (9.37%) Public Sector
5 286 (5.14%) Banking
6 253 (4.55%) Organisational Skills
7 247 (4.44%) Legal
8 140 (2.52%) Documentation Skills
9 106 (1.91%) Manufacturing
10 99 (1.78%) Presentation Skills
11 96 (1.73%) Law
12 87 (1.56%) Telecoms
13 82 (1.47%) Marketing
14 80 (1.44%) Retail
15 78 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 73 (1.31%) Military
17 64 (1.15%) Local Government
18 53 (0.95%) Influencing Skills
19 52 (0.93%) Investment Banking
20 43 (0.77%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 691 (12.42%) Architect
2 593 (10.66%) Analyst
3 517 (9.30%) Developer
4 468 (8.41%) Senior
5 357 (6.42%) IT Support
6 332 (5.97%) Lead
7 292 (5.25%) Consultant
8 254 (4.57%) Support Engineer
9 225 (4.05%) Data Engineer
10 207 (3.72%) Azure Engineer
11 191 (3.43%) Project Manager
12 188 (3.38%) Solutions Architect
13 177 (3.18%) Business Analyst
14 176 (3.16%) IT Engineer
15 167 (3.00%) Administrator
15 167 (3.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 130 (2.34%) IT Support Engineer
17 112 (2.01%) Security Engineer
18 108 (1.94%) DevOps Engineer
19 104 (1.87%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 244 (4.39%) .NET
2 163 (2.93%) REST
3 126 (2.27%) Microsoft Graph
4 109 (1.96%) OAuth
5 102 (1.83%) PySpark
6 97 (1.74%) SAML
7 86 (1.55%) JSON
8 80 (1.44%) React
9 79 (1.42%) OpenID
10 74 (1.33%) LDAP
11 68 (1.22%) Web Services
12 64 (1.15%) Middleware
13 55 (0.99%) AngularJS
13 55 (0.99%) HTML
14 53 (0.95%) ARM Templates
14 53 (0.95%) OAuth2
15 51 (0.92%) Kafka
16 50 (0.90%) Node.js
17 48 (0.86%) CSS
18 47 (0.85%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 296 (5.32%) Onboarding
2 226 (4.06%) Cloud Native
3 182 (3.27%) Product Ownership
4 124 (2.23%) Management Information System
5 105 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
6 99 (1.78%) Data Centre
7 91 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
8 85 (1.53%) Hybrid Cloud
9 84 (1.51%) PKI
10 83 (1.49%) AI Agents
11 81 (1.46%) Self-Motivation
12 79 (1.42%) Security Posture
13 76 (1.37%) Replication
14 73 (1.31%) Low-Code
15 70 (1.26%) Data Structures
16 68 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
17 59 (1.06%) Virtual Team
18 49 (0.88%) Driving Licence
19 46 (0.83%) Operational Technology
20 44 (0.79%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,196 (21.50%) Windows
2 316 (5.68%) Windows 10
3 273 (4.91%) Windows Server
4 264 (4.75%) Linux
5 103 (1.85%) Android
6 102 (1.83%) Apple iOS
7 95 (1.71%) Mac OS
8 43 (0.77%) Unix
8 43 (0.77%) Windows 7
8 43 (0.77%) Windows Server 2016
9 39 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 30 (0.54%) VMS
11 28 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
12 24 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
13 15 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
14 10 (0.18%) CentOS
14 10 (0.18%) Ubuntu
15 6 (0.11%) AIX
16 5 (0.090%) Solaris
17 4 (0.072%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 955 (17.17%) Problem-Solving
2 880 (15.82%) DevOps
3 874 (15.71%) Agile
4 786 (14.13%) Migration
5 762 (13.70%) CI/CD
6 633 (11.38%) Business Intelligence
7 606 (10.90%) Analytics
8 548 (9.85%) AI
9 543 (9.76%) Stakeholder Management
10 496 (8.92%) Continuous Improvement
11 463 (8.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 443 (7.96%) ITIL
13 430 (7.73%) Customer Service
14 412 (7.41%) Data Modelling
15 368 (6.62%) Roadmaps
16 349 (6.27%) Cybersecurity
17 342 (6.15%) Infrastructure as Code
18 340 (6.11%) Decision-Making
19 322 (5.79%) Project Delivery
20 309 (5.56%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 718 (12.91%) SQL
2 634 (11.40%) PowerShell
3 604 (10.86%) Python
4 261 (4.69%) C#
5 199 (3.58%) JavaScript
6 177 (3.18%) Java
7 126 (2.27%) Bicep
8 87 (1.56%) Bash
9 86 (1.55%) Kusto Query Language
9 86 (1.55%) T-SQL
10 75 (1.35%) TypeScript
11 71 (1.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 33 (0.59%) PL/SQL
13 29 (0.52%) VBA
14 28 (0.50%) C++
15 22 (0.40%) VB
16 20 (0.36%) Scala
17 18 (0.32%) R
18 16 (0.29%) Shell Script
19 13 (0.23%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,075 (19.33%) Security Cleared
2 839 (15.08%) SC Cleared
3 546 (9.82%) Degree
4 268 (4.82%) Microsoft Certification
5 188 (3.38%) DV Cleared
6 182 (3.27%) Azure Certification
7 130 (2.34%) Computer Science Degree
8 96 (1.73%) CISSP
9 92 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
10 72 (1.29%) Cisco Certification
11 63 (1.13%) PMI Certification
12 59 (1.06%) PMP
13 56 (1.01%) Master's Degree
14 52 (0.93%) CISM
15 40 (0.72%) AWS Certification
16 39 (0.70%) MCSE
17 31 (0.56%) DBS Check
18 30 (0.54%) ITIL Certification
18 30 (0.54%) MCSA
19 29 (0.52%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 273 (4.91%) Data Quality
2 222 (3.99%) GDPR
3 189 (3.40%) QA
4 156 (2.80%) SLA
5 139 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 111 (2.00%) NIST
7 107 (1.92%) PMO
8 73 (1.31%) Accessibility
9 69 (1.24%) Cyber Essentials
10 46 (0.83%) NCSC
11 38 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 33 (0.59%) GRC
13 26 (0.47%) PCI DSS
14 22 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 20 (0.36%) MiFID
16 17 (0.31%) NIST 800
17 13 (0.23%) FINRA
17 13 (0.23%) WCAG
18 12 (0.22%) HIPAA
19 11 (0.20%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,066 (19.17%) Active Directory
2 233 (4.19%) Docker
3 194 (3.49%) VMware Infrastructure
4 98 (1.76%) Hyper-V
5 76 (1.37%) Virtual Machines
6 72 (1.29%) Virtual Desktop
7 52 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
8 39 (0.70%) vSphere
9 24 (0.43%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.41%) VMware NSX
11 19 (0.34%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.29%) Firmware
13 7 (0.13%) RACF
14 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
15 5 (0.090%) IAG
15 5 (0.090%) NFS
15 5 (0.090%) Snort
15 5 (0.090%) VMware Workstation
16 4 (0.072%) KVM
16 4 (0.072%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 418 (7.52%) Microsoft Intune
2 362 (6.51%) Terraform
3 260 (4.67%) Kubernetes
4 197 (3.54%) SCCM
5 133 (2.39%) Ansible
6 119 (2.14%) Single Sign-On
7 75 (1.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 44 (0.79%) vCenter Server
9 38 (0.68%) Grafana
9 38 (0.68%) Jamf Pro
10 32 (0.58%) Prometheus
11 24 (0.43%) SCOM
12 21 (0.38%) FortiGate
13 19 (0.34%) Puppet
14 17 (0.31%) WSUS
15 16 (0.29%) AirWatch
16 13 (0.23%) QRadar
17 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
18 11 (0.20%) CASB
18 11 (0.20%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 263 (4.73%) VMware
2 257 (4.62%) ServiceNow
3 216 (3.88%) Databricks
4 214 (3.85%) SAP
5 208 (3.74%) Oracle
6 170 (3.06%) Cisco
7 152 (2.73%) Google
8 120 (2.16%) Citrix
9 96 (1.73%) Salesforce
10 87 (1.56%) OpenAI
10 87 (1.56%) Splunk
11 72 (1.29%) Foundry
12 67 (1.20%) Apple
13 53 (0.95%) CrowdStrike
14 48 (0.86%) HP
15 46 (0.83%) Adobe
16 45 (0.81%) Okta
16 45 (0.81%) Palo Alto
17 43 (0.77%) Informatica
18 42 (0.76%) CyberArk