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 26 December 2025, 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
26 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,048 4,591 5,776
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.58% 13.60% 13.20%
As % of the Vendors category 28.93% 29.70% 29.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,386 2,920 3,965
10th Percentile £204 £205 £198
25th Percentile £350 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £615
90th Percentile £675 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £447 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.17% -2.78% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 392 207 246
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.50 £13.29
25th Percentile £16.50 £15.62 £16.25
Median hourly rate £20.00 £23.59 £22.39
Median % change year-on-year -15.22% +5.37% +11.94%
75th Percentile £27.71 £35.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £63.43 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.91 £21.46 £21.00
% change year-on-year -7.22% +2.19% +7.69%

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 17,447 15,460 19,616
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 46.92% 45.81% 44.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,119 9,218 12,436
10th Percentile £300 £285 £251
25th Percentile £408 £409 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.33%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £720 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 849 451 671
10th Percentile £15.17 £15.50 £14.25
25th Percentile £18.00 £18.75 £19.04
Median hourly rate £23.83 £28.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.91% -37.78% +74.55%
75th Percentile £44.75 £61.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.25 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.72 £25.86 £45.21
% change year-on-year -16.03% -42.79% +100.93%

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 26 December 2025.

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 26 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Top 17 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 26 December 2025. 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 4,441 £475 - 5,033
UK excluding London -1 2,718 £447 +2.17% 4,658
London -1 1,886 £500 - 945
Work from Home 0 1,297 £500 +2.67% 2,119
North of England +1 711 £415 -2.35% 1,089
South East 0 620 £475 +4.63% 1,312
Midlands -4 475 £446 +4.91% 824
North West +2 421 £400 -11.11% 560
South West 0 359 £500 +5.26% 505
West Midlands -4 316 £475 +5.67% 453
East of England 0 272 £425 -2.86% 620
Yorkshire 0 257 £435 +5.45% 430
Scotland -5 196 £450 +10.02% 200
East Midlands +3 156 £375 - 339
Wales +1 83 £295 -9.23% 137
Northern Ireland +5 43 £361 +44.50% 51
North East -12 38 £410 +10.81% 110

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
1 566 (11.21%) SharePoint
2 374 (7.41%) Microsoft Exchange
3 104 (2.06%) Confluence
4 59 (1.17%) Skype for Business
5 39 (0.77%) CMS
6 26 (0.52%) IIS
7 23 (0.46%) Apache
7 23 (0.46%) HCL Notes
8 20 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
8 20 (0.40%) SAS
9 19 (0.38%) Exchange Server 2013
10 17 (0.34%) Exchange Server 2010
11 15 (0.30%) Apache Spark
12 14 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
13 13 (0.26%) Mattermost
13 13 (0.26%) WebSphere
14 11 (0.22%) JBoss
14 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
15 10 (0.20%) iPlanet
16 7 (0.14%) Mendix
Applications
1 620 (12.28%) Microsoft Office
2 554 (10.97%) Microsoft Excel
3 244 (4.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 130 (2.58%) Microsoft Project
5 104 (2.06%) MS Visio
6 58 (1.15%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.24%) Trello
8 11 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.12%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (0.12%) Sketch
11 4 (0.079%) Adobe After Effects
11 4 (0.079%) Adobe Illustrator
11 4 (0.079%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.079%) InDesign
11 4 (0.079%) Photoshop
12 3 (0.059%) Acrobat
12 3 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
12 3 (0.059%) Windchill
13 2 (0.040%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 186 (3.68%) Dynamics CRM
2 40 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
3 36 (0.71%) SAP S/4HANA
4 18 (0.36%) Dynamics AX
5 15 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
5 15 (0.30%) Maximo
6 13 (0.26%) NetSuite
7 11 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
7 11 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
8 10 (0.20%) Aladdin
9 8 (0.16%) Shopify
9 8 (0.16%) Teamcenter
10 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
10 7 (0.14%) Workday HCM
11 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
12 5 (0.099%) assyst
12 5 (0.099%) SAP ERP
13 4 (0.079%) Loan IQ
13 4 (0.079%) Primavera
13 4 (0.079%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 1,908 (37.80%) Azure
2 1,182 (23.42%) Microsoft 365
3 789 (15.63%) Power Platform
4 572 (11.33%) Entra ID
5 459 (9.09%) AWS
6 400 (7.92%) Dynamics 365
7 355 (7.03%) Azure DevOps
8 334 (6.62%) Power Automate
9 304 (6.02%) PowerApps
10 196 (3.88%) GitHub
11 194 (3.84%) Microsoft Purview
12 180 (3.57%) Serverless
13 177 (3.51%) GCP
14 164 (3.25%) SaaS
15 156 (3.09%) OneDrive
16 151 (2.99%) Azure Sentinel
17 141 (2.79%) Azure Data Factory
18 131 (2.60%) Azure Logic Apps
19 124 (2.46%) Microsoft Copilot
20 122 (2.42%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 297 (5.88%) Firewall
2 269 (5.33%) DNS
3 176 (3.49%) VPN
4 169 (3.35%) DHCP
5 140 (2.77%) TCP/IP
6 100 (1.98%) Wi-Fi
7 95 (1.88%) Network Security
8 84 (1.66%) WAN
9 80 (1.58%) LAN
10 79 (1.56%) Skype
11 55 (1.09%) Wireless
12 46 (0.91%) VLAN
13 41 (0.81%) Unified Communications
14 39 (0.77%) HTTP
15 37 (0.73%) Kerberos
16 33 (0.65%) Internet
17 30 (0.59%) VoIP
18 29 (0.57%) SAN
19 28 (0.55%) MPLS
20 26 (0.52%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 481 (9.53%) Power BI
2 239 (4.73%) SQL Server
3 130 (2.58%) Data Warehouse
4 109 (2.16%) Data Lake
5 95 (1.88%) PostgreSQL
6 88 (1.74%) Relational Database
7 82 (1.62%) Metadata
8 77 (1.53%) Oracle Database
9 76 (1.51%) Azure SQL Database
10 49 (0.97%) MySQL
11 46 (0.91%) Tableau
12 40 (0.79%) NoSQL
13 39 (0.77%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 37 (0.73%) Power Query
15 33 (0.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 28 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
17 24 (0.48%) Delta Lake
18 23 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
19 18 (0.36%) Big Data
20 16 (0.32%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 253 (5.01%) JIRA
2 161 (3.19%) Git
3 93 (1.84%) Jenkins
4 77 (1.53%) GitLab
5 41 (0.81%) Eclipse
6 31 (0.61%) Postman
7 26 (0.52%) MSI
7 26 (0.52%) Visual Studio
8 24 (0.48%) Browser DevTools
8 24 (0.48%) Xcode
9 23 (0.46%) Android Studio
10 20 (0.40%) Selenium
11 17 (0.34%) Sonatype Nexus
12 13 (0.26%) Cucumber
13 12 (0.24%) Bitbucket
13 12 (0.24%) InstallShield
14 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket Server
14 11 (0.22%) CA Release Automation
14 11 (0.22%) SonarQube
15 10 (0.20%) Artifactory
General
1 2,064 (40.89%) Social Skills
2 1,043 (20.66%) Finance
3 672 (13.31%) Analytical Skills
4 523 (10.36%) Public Sector
5 255 (5.05%) Banking
6 234 (4.64%) Organisational Skills
7 183 (3.63%) Legal
8 154 (3.05%) Documentation Skills
9 136 (2.69%) Manufacturing
10 118 (2.34%) Marketing
11 108 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
12 92 (1.82%) Telecoms
13 89 (1.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 84 (1.66%) Retail
15 59 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
15 59 (1.17%) Local Government
16 44 (0.87%) Military
17 42 (0.83%) Investment Banking
18 39 (0.77%) Law
19 38 (0.75%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 710 (14.06%) Analyst
2 509 (10.08%) Architect
3 485 (9.61%) Developer
4 354 (7.01%) Senior
5 314 (6.22%) Support Engineer
6 288 (5.71%) IT Support
7 278 (5.51%) Consultant
8 234 (4.64%) Lead
9 170 (3.37%) Administrator
10 159 (3.15%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 158 (3.13%) Support Analyst
12 157 (3.11%) Business Analyst
12 157 (3.11%) Solutions Architect
13 156 (3.09%) Project Manager
14 148 (2.93%) IT Engineer
15 142 (2.81%) Azure Engineer
16 123 (2.44%) Security Engineer
17 116 (2.30%) Data Engineer
18 109 (2.16%) Desktop Support
19 105 (2.08%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 254 (5.03%) .NET
2 162 (3.21%) REST
3 121 (2.40%) OAuth
4 117 (2.32%) React
5 95 (1.88%) RESTful
6 90 (1.78%) SAML
7 89 (1.76%) AngularJS
8 80 (1.58%) OpenID
9 69 (1.37%) HTML
9 69 (1.37%) JSON
10 68 (1.35%) Microsoft Graph
11 67 (1.33%) CSS
12 56 (1.11%) SOAP
12 56 (1.11%) Web Services
12 56 (1.11%) XML
13 53 (1.05%) ARM Templates
13 53 (1.05%) LDAP
13 53 (1.05%) Node.js
13 53 (1.05%) PySpark
14 49 (0.97%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 265 (5.25%) Onboarding
2 195 (3.86%) Cloud Native
3 138 (2.73%) Management Information System
4 134 (2.65%) Product Ownership
5 112 (2.22%) Enterprise Software
6 97 (1.92%) Security Posture
7 95 (1.88%) PKI
8 92 (1.82%) Data Centre
9 87 (1.72%) Self-Motivation
10 76 (1.51%) Driving Licence
11 75 (1.49%) Legacy Systems
12 74 (1.47%) Mobile App
13 71 (1.41%) Low-Code
14 64 (1.27%) Hybrid Cloud
15 60 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
16 57 (1.13%) Virtual Team
17 54 (1.07%) Replication
18 50 (0.99%) NHS
19 47 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
20 43 (0.85%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 1,208 (23.93%) Windows
2 339 (6.72%) Windows 10
3 311 (6.16%) Linux
4 273 (5.41%) Windows Server
5 120 (2.38%) Mac OS
6 107 (2.12%) Android
7 87 (1.72%) Apple iOS
8 82 (1.62%) Unix
9 40 (0.79%) Windows 7
10 35 (0.69%) Windows Server 2016
11 31 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
12 29 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 21 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
13 21 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
14 14 (0.28%) VMS
15 9 (0.18%) Mac OS X
15 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
16 7 (0.14%) Ubuntu
17 6 (0.12%) AIX
18 5 (0.099%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,053 (20.86%) Problem-Solving
2 925 (18.32%) Agile
3 725 (14.36%) DevOps
4 629 (12.46%) Migration
5 583 (11.55%) CI/CD
6 570 (11.29%) Business Intelligence
7 512 (10.14%) Stakeholder Management
8 490 (9.71%) Analytics
9 480 (9.51%) ITIL
10 432 (8.56%) Continuous Improvement
11 420 (8.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 411 (8.14%) Customer Service
13 374 (7.41%) Cybersecurity
14 358 (7.09%) AI
15 335 (6.64%) Project Management
16 317 (6.28%) Change Management
17 273 (5.41%) Data Modelling
18 269 (5.33%) Roadmaps
19 259 (5.13%) CRM
20 258 (5.11%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 650 (12.88%) SQL
2 599 (11.87%) PowerShell
3 569 (11.27%) Python
4 270 (5.35%) C#
5 220 (4.36%) JavaScript
6 162 (3.21%) Java
7 111 (2.20%) Bash
8 106 (2.10%) Kusto Query Language
9 102 (2.02%) Bicep
10 77 (1.53%) TypeScript
11 53 (1.05%) T-SQL
12 45 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 42 (0.83%) Perl
14 28 (0.55%) C++
15 27 (0.53%) Shell Script
16 24 (0.48%) Go
16 24 (0.48%) PL/SQL
17 23 (0.46%) VBA
18 22 (0.44%) R
19 20 (0.40%) VB
Qualifications
1 970 (19.22%) Security Cleared
2 724 (14.34%) SC Cleared
3 526 (10.42%) Degree
4 354 (7.01%) Microsoft Certification
5 198 (3.92%) DV Cleared
6 187 (3.70%) Azure Certification
7 142 (2.81%) CISSP
8 125 (2.48%) Computer Science Degree
9 83 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
10 74 (1.47%) CISM
11 69 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
12 58 (1.15%) Master's Degree
13 57 (1.13%) PMI Certification
14 52 (1.03%) A+ Certification
15 51 (1.01%) ITIL Certification
15 51 (1.01%) MCSE
16 47 (0.93%) AWS Certification
17 46 (0.91%) PMP
18 44 (0.87%) MCP
19 36 (0.71%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 251 (4.97%) GDPR
2 189 (3.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 157 (3.11%) QA
4 150 (2.97%) NIST
5 149 (2.95%) Data Quality
6 124 (2.46%) SLA
7 100 (1.98%) PMO
8 86 (1.70%) Accessibility
9 50 (0.99%) Cyber Essentials
10 38 (0.75%) PCI DSS
11 32 (0.63%) NCSC
12 27 (0.53%) HIPAA
13 25 (0.50%) WCAG
14 22 (0.44%) EU AI Act
15 21 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 19 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 16 (0.32%) GRC
18 10 (0.20%) SOC 2
19 9 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
19 9 (0.18%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,023 (20.27%) Active Directory
2 195 (3.86%) Docker
3 176 (3.49%) VMware Infrastructure
4 67 (1.33%) Hyper-V
5 59 (1.17%) Virtual Machines
6 44 (0.87%) vSphere
7 36 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
7 36 (0.71%) VMware ESXi
8 19 (0.38%) VMware NSX
9 17 (0.34%) BitLocker
10 15 (0.30%) Firmware
11 11 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
12 10 (0.20%) XenApp
13 9 (0.18%) NFS
14 8 (0.16%) ISA Server
14 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
15 7 (0.14%) Brightmail
15 7 (0.14%) Terminal Services
16 6 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
17 5 (0.099%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 368 (7.29%) Microsoft Intune
2 296 (5.86%) SCCM
3 270 (5.35%) Terraform
4 236 (4.68%) Kubernetes
5 122 (2.42%) Single Sign-On
6 103 (2.04%) Ansible
7 76 (1.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (0.97%) SCOM
9 42 (0.83%) vCenter Server
10 38 (0.75%) Jamf Pro
11 34 (0.67%) Grafana
12 27 (0.53%) Prometheus
13 21 (0.42%) HP SiteScope
14 20 (0.40%) WSUS
15 19 (0.38%) QRadar
16 16 (0.32%) Progress Chef
17 15 (0.30%) Kibana
17 15 (0.30%) Microsoft Clustering
18 13 (0.26%) AirWatch
18 13 (0.26%) WMI
Vendors
1 269 (5.33%) ServiceNow
2 240 (4.75%) VMware
3 231 (4.58%) Oracle
4 188 (3.72%) SAP
5 184 (3.65%) Cisco
6 183 (3.63%) Splunk
7 157 (3.11%) Google
8 136 (2.69%) Databricks
9 124 (2.46%) Citrix
10 86 (1.70%) Apple
11 77 (1.53%) Salesforce
12 72 (1.43%) OpenAI
13 63 (1.25%) CrowdStrike
14 55 (1.09%) IBM
14 55 (1.09%) Palo Alto
15 49 (0.97%) HP
15 49 (0.97%) Remedy
16 46 (0.91%) CyberArk
17 43 (0.85%) Adobe
17 43 (0.85%) Foundry