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 24 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
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 9 7
Rank change year-on-year +1 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,910 4,127 5,621
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.61% 13.74% 12.93%
As % of the Vendors category 28.48% 28.92% 30.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,919 2,656 3,653
10th Percentile £213 £213 £193
25th Percentile £375 £338 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.89% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £576 £600
90th Percentile £675 £674 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £460
% change year-on-year +5.88% -7.51% +2.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 369 305 494
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.20 £11.13
25th Percentile £16.50 £15.84 £13.34
Median hourly rate £21.25 £20.80 £16.05
Median % change year-on-year +2.19% +29.54% -32.92%
75th Percentile £35.53 £31.00 £26.01
90th Percentile £65.00 £63.34 £59.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.74 £18.87 £15.75
% change year-on-year +9.91% +19.81% -21.25%

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 20,755 14,270 18,487
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.77% 47.51% 42.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,018 8,772 11,482
10th Percentile £313 £281 £270
25th Percentile £413 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £518
Median % change year-on-year - -3.51% -1.30%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £737
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £479 £500
% change year-on-year +4.38% -4.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,068 665 1,161
10th Percentile £15.54 £14.84 £12.25
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.30 £14.54
Median hourly rate £33.99 £25.30 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +34.35% +4.63% -42.15%
75th Percentile £60.75 £53.75 £59.57
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.45 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.75 £22.94 £22.58
% change year-on-year +38.42% +1.58% -39.79%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 0 5,163 £498 +4.74% 3,066
UK excluding London -1 3,121 £450 +5.88% 2,739
London -2 2,276 £510 -0.49% 901
Work from Home -1 1,501 £500 - 1,225
North of England -4 796 £450 +5.88% 624
South East -2 737 £475 +3.54% 861
Midlands -4 527 £450 +16.88% 436
North West -3 418 £447 +5.18% 332
South West -1 390 £480 +12.94% 313
West Midlands -8 373 £450 +13.07% 220
Yorkshire -2 357 £475 +10.14% 210
East of England 0 298 £375 -23.37% 311
Scotland +2 267 £475 +10.21% 131
East Midlands +1 147 £425 +15.80% 217
Wales +2 100 £370 +29.82% 80
Northern Ireland +1 29 £350 +7.69% 75
North East -41 25 £450 +32.35% 96
Channel Islands 0 2 £550 -24.14%

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
1 642 (10.86%) SharePoint
2 387 (6.55%) Microsoft Exchange
3 124 (2.10%) Confluence
4 37 (0.63%) Apache Spark
5 30 (0.51%) Apache
6 28 (0.47%) Apache Airflow
7 17 (0.29%) IIS
8 16 (0.27%) CMS
8 16 (0.27%) HCL Notes
9 14 (0.24%) Skype for Business
10 13 (0.22%) SAS
11 7 (0.12%) Mendix
11 7 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
12 6 (0.10%) Camunda
12 6 (0.10%) Jupyter
13 5 (0.085%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.085%) SharePoint 2013
14 4 (0.068%) ArcGIS
14 4 (0.068%) nginx
14 4 (0.068%) Tomcat
Applications
1 556 (9.41%) Microsoft Office
2 536 (9.07%) Microsoft Excel
3 235 (3.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 125 (2.12%) Microsoft Project
5 97 (1.64%) MS Visio
6 39 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.29%) Chatbot
8 13 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
10 5 (0.085%) Acrobat
10 5 (0.085%) PTC Creo
11 4 (0.068%) Trello
12 3 (0.051%) Adobe Captivate
12 3 (0.051%) Photoshop
12 3 (0.051%) SOLIDWORKS
13 2 (0.034%) AutoCAD
13 2 (0.034%) Final Cut Pro
13 2 (0.034%) InDesign
13 2 (0.034%) InfoPath
13 2 (0.034%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 205 (3.47%) Dynamics CRM
2 76 (1.29%) SAP S/4HANA
3 21 (0.36%) Remedy ITSM
4 19 (0.32%) NetSuite
5 18 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
6 15 (0.25%) Aladdin
6 15 (0.25%) Dynamics NAV
7 13 (0.22%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 11 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
10 10 (0.17%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 9 (0.15%) Primavera
11 9 (0.15%) Sage X3
11 9 (0.15%) SAP MM
12 8 (0.14%) Loan IQ
13 7 (0.12%) Dynamics AX
13 7 (0.12%) Maximo
14 6 (0.10%) Dynamics GP
14 6 (0.10%) NEC Housing
14 6 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 2,481 (41.98%) Azure
2 1,486 (25.14%) Microsoft 365
3 1,016 (17.19%) Power Platform
4 811 (13.72%) Entra ID
5 516 (8.73%) AWS
6 472 (7.99%) Azure DevOps
7 456 (7.72%) Dynamics 365
8 342 (5.79%) Power Automate
9 326 (5.52%) Microsoft Purview
10 306 (5.18%) PowerApps
11 296 (5.01%) Microsoft Copilot
12 247 (4.18%) GitHub
13 239 (4.04%) OneDrive
14 221 (3.74%) SaaS
15 189 (3.20%) GCP
16 173 (2.93%) Azure Data Factory
17 167 (2.83%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 157 (2.66%) Serverless
19 141 (2.39%) Azure Logic Apps
20 140 (2.37%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 312 (5.28%) DNS
2 278 (4.70%) Firewall
3 220 (3.72%) VPN
4 192 (3.25%) DHCP
5 157 (2.66%) WAN
6 144 (2.44%) TCP/IP
7 139 (2.35%) Wi-Fi
8 131 (2.22%) LAN
9 129 (2.18%) Network Security
10 57 (0.96%) VLAN
11 48 (0.81%) Kerberos
11 48 (0.81%) SD-WAN
12 40 (0.68%) SAN
13 37 (0.63%) Wireless
14 35 (0.59%) Unified Communications
15 34 (0.58%) SSL
16 32 (0.54%) VoIP
17 29 (0.49%) Internet
18 27 (0.46%) HTTP
19 26 (0.44%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 644 (10.90%) Power BI
2 298 (5.04%) SQL Server
3 179 (3.03%) Data Warehouse
4 149 (2.52%) Data Lake
5 125 (2.12%) Azure SQL Database
5 125 (2.12%) PostgreSQL
6 124 (2.10%) Metadata
7 73 (1.24%) Relational Database
8 69 (1.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 56 (0.95%) Power Query
10 52 (0.88%) MySQL
11 48 (0.81%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 45 (0.76%) NoSQL
13 42 (0.71%) Star Schema
13 42 (0.71%) Tableau
14 38 (0.64%) Delta Lake
15 37 (0.63%) Oracle Database
16 30 (0.51%) SQL Server Analysis Services
17 27 (0.46%) Spark SQL
18 25 (0.42%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 300 (5.08%) JIRA
2 173 (2.93%) Git
3 66 (1.12%) Jenkins
4 61 (1.03%) GitLab
5 37 (0.63%) Visual Studio
6 26 (0.44%) MSI
7 20 (0.34%) Selenium
8 19 (0.32%) Artifactory
9 17 (0.29%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.29%) ERwin
10 16 (0.27%) MLflow
11 14 (0.24%) Maven
11 14 (0.24%) Postman
12 13 (0.22%) Bitbucket
12 13 (0.22%) JMeter
12 13 (0.22%) Visual Studio Code
13 12 (0.20%) JUnit
13 12 (0.20%) Team Foundation Server
14 10 (0.17%) WebDriver
15 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,938 (32.79%) Social Skills
2 1,191 (20.15%) Finance
3 649 (10.98%) Analytical Skills
4 537 (9.09%) Public Sector
5 307 (5.19%) Banking
6 250 (4.23%) Organisational Skills
7 240 (4.06%) Legal
8 158 (2.67%) Documentation Skills
9 115 (1.95%) Manufacturing
10 105 (1.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 102 (1.73%) Retail
12 95 (1.61%) Law
13 84 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
13 84 (1.42%) Telecoms
14 79 (1.34%) Military
15 78 (1.32%) Marketing
16 68 (1.15%) Local Government
17 64 (1.08%) Investment Banking
18 62 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
19 47 (0.80%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 739 (12.50%) Architect
2 628 (10.63%) Analyst
3 539 (9.12%) Developer
4 482 (8.16%) Senior
5 393 (6.65%) Lead
6 364 (6.16%) IT Support
7 347 (5.87%) Consultant
8 281 (4.75%) Support Engineer
9 235 (3.98%) Data Engineer
10 223 (3.77%) Solutions Architect
11 204 (3.45%) Project Manager
12 203 (3.43%) Azure Engineer
13 202 (3.42%) IT Engineer
14 180 (3.05%) Business Analyst
14 180 (3.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 171 (2.89%) Administrator
16 155 (2.62%) IT Support Engineer
17 122 (2.06%) Security Engineer
18 116 (1.96%) Cloud Engineer
19 101 (1.71%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 257 (4.35%) .NET
2 196 (3.32%) REST
3 142 (2.40%) Microsoft Graph
4 115 (1.95%) OAuth
5 109 (1.84%) PySpark
6 107 (1.81%) JSON
7 100 (1.69%) SAML
8 87 (1.47%) OpenID
9 79 (1.34%) LDAP
10 76 (1.29%) React
10 76 (1.29%) Web Services
11 63 (1.07%) XML
12 58 (0.98%) Middleware
12 58 (0.98%) OAuth2
13 57 (0.96%) RESTful
14 56 (0.95%) HTML
15 55 (0.93%) Node.js
15 55 (0.93%) SailPoint
16 53 (0.90%) .NET Framework
16 53 (0.90%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 331 (5.60%) Onboarding
2 263 (4.45%) Cloud Native
3 174 (2.94%) Product Ownership
4 142 (2.40%) Management Information System
5 117 (1.98%) Data Centre
6 116 (1.96%) Legacy Systems
7 109 (1.84%) Enterprise Software
8 107 (1.81%) Hybrid Cloud
9 96 (1.62%) Security Posture
10 93 (1.57%) PKI
11 92 (1.56%) AI Agents
12 89 (1.51%) Self-Motivation
13 87 (1.47%) Data Structures
14 77 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
15 74 (1.25%) Replication
15 74 (1.25%) Virtual Team
16 69 (1.17%) Low-Code
17 56 (0.95%) Distributed Systems
18 52 (0.88%) Public Cloud
19 50 (0.85%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 1,253 (21.20%) Windows
2 316 (5.35%) Windows 10
3 304 (5.14%) Windows Server
4 259 (4.38%) Linux
5 121 (2.05%) Mac OS
6 111 (1.88%) Android
7 109 (1.84%) Apple iOS
8 41 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 41 (0.69%) Windows 7
9 38 (0.64%) Unix
10 34 (0.58%) Windows Server 2016
11 31 (0.52%) VMS
12 28 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
13 20 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
14 15 (0.25%) Ubuntu
15 13 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
16 11 (0.19%) CentOS
17 10 (0.17%) SUSE
18 9 (0.15%) Solaris
19 6 (0.10%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,014 (17.16%) Problem-Solving
2 948 (16.04%) DevOps
3 877 (14.84%) Agile
4 841 (14.23%) Migration
5 781 (13.21%) CI/CD
6 689 (11.66%) Stakeholder Management
7 661 (11.18%) Business Intelligence
8 638 (10.80%) Analytics
9 636 (10.76%) AI
10 575 (9.73%) Continuous Improvement
11 563 (9.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 508 (8.60%) ITIL
13 443 (7.50%) Data Modelling
14 435 (7.36%) Customer Service
15 427 (7.23%) Roadmaps
16 396 (6.70%) Cybersecurity
17 388 (6.57%) Decision-Making
18 370 (6.26%) Infrastructure as Code
19 353 (5.97%) Validation
20 347 (5.87%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 763 (12.91%) SQL
2 658 (11.13%) PowerShell
3 617 (10.44%) Python
4 273 (4.62%) C#
5 213 (3.60%) JavaScript
6 182 (3.08%) Java
7 147 (2.49%) Bicep
8 101 (1.71%) T-SQL
9 83 (1.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 78 (1.32%) Kusto Query Language
11 75 (1.27%) TypeScript
12 74 (1.25%) Bash
13 36 (0.61%) VBA
14 30 (0.51%) C++
15 28 (0.47%) PL/SQL
15 28 (0.47%) VB
16 18 (0.30%) VBScript
17 17 (0.29%) Scala
18 14 (0.24%) Shell Script
19 13 (0.22%) X++
Qualifications
1 1,132 (19.15%) Security Cleared
2 879 (14.87%) SC Cleared
3 567 (9.59%) Degree
4 287 (4.86%) Microsoft Certification
5 197 (3.33%) DV Cleared
6 196 (3.32%) Azure Certification
7 119 (2.01%) Computer Science Degree
8 113 (1.91%) CISSP
9 108 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
10 91 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
11 62 (1.05%) CISM
12 59 (1.00%) PMP
13 54 (0.91%) PMI Certification
14 53 (0.90%) AWS Certification
15 51 (0.86%) Master's Degree
16 44 (0.74%) MCSE
17 40 (0.68%) CCNP
18 39 (0.66%) DBS Check
19 37 (0.63%) ITIL Certification
20 34 (0.58%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 316 (5.35%) Data Quality
2 234 (3.96%) GDPR
3 188 (3.18%) QA
4 162 (2.74%) SLA
5 158 (2.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 133 (2.25%) NIST
7 112 (1.90%) PMO
8 81 (1.37%) Accessibility
8 81 (1.37%) Cyber Essentials
9 62 (1.05%) NCSC
10 39 (0.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 36 (0.61%) GRC
12 31 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 31 (0.52%) PCI DSS
13 23 (0.39%) WCAG
14 21 (0.36%) NIST 800
15 17 (0.29%) MiFID
15 17 (0.29%) SOC 2
16 15 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
17 13 (0.22%) FINRA
System Software
1 1,110 (18.78%) Active Directory
2 219 (3.71%) Docker
3 192 (3.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 105 (1.78%) Hyper-V
5 92 (1.56%) Virtual Desktop
6 79 (1.34%) Virtual Machines
7 61 (1.03%) VMware ESXi
8 54 (0.91%) vSphere
9 33 (0.56%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.39%) VMware NSX
11 21 (0.36%) Microsoft App-V
12 19 (0.32%) Firmware
13 7 (0.12%) IAG
13 7 (0.12%) NFS
14 5 (0.085%) RACF
14 5 (0.085%) VMware Workstation
15 4 (0.068%) Oracle RAC
15 4 (0.068%) Snort
15 4 (0.068%) Terminal Services
15 4 (0.068%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 475 (8.04%) Microsoft Intune
2 374 (6.33%) Terraform
3 253 (4.28%) Kubernetes
4 204 (3.45%) SCCM
5 129 (2.18%) Ansible
6 128 (2.17%) Single Sign-On
7 76 (1.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 54 (0.91%) Jamf Pro
9 48 (0.81%) vCenter Server
10 35 (0.59%) Grafana
11 31 (0.52%) FortiGate
12 29 (0.49%) Prometheus
13 24 (0.41%) SCOM
14 19 (0.32%) Puppet
15 18 (0.30%) WSUS
16 15 (0.25%) AirWatch
16 15 (0.25%) QRadar
17 12 (0.20%) vMotion
18 11 (0.19%) HAProxy
18 11 (0.19%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 348 (5.89%) ServiceNow
2 264 (4.47%) VMware
3 248 (4.20%) Oracle
4 246 (4.16%) SAP
5 214 (3.62%) Databricks
6 201 (3.40%) Cisco
7 175 (2.96%) Google
8 119 (2.01%) Salesforce
9 100 (1.69%) Citrix
10 91 (1.54%) Splunk
11 80 (1.35%) Apple
11 80 (1.35%) OpenAI
12 72 (1.22%) Foundry
13 69 (1.17%) Okta
14 66 (1.12%) CrowdStrike
15 57 (0.96%) CyberArk
16 50 (0.85%) HP
17 49 (0.83%) Red Hat
18 45 (0.76%) Palo Alto
19 44 (0.74%) Zscaler