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 12 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
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,528 3,902 5,586
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.64% 13.36% 12.99%
As % of the Vendors category 28.14% 28.14% 30.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,710 2,580 3,681
10th Percentile £212 £209 £189
25th Percentile £375 £348 £338
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +4.21% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £584 £582 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £459
% change year-on-year +5.88% -7.51% -0.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 357 240 460
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.15 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.35 £15.12 £13.00
Median hourly rate £20.09 £18.85 £15.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.58% +25.67% -33.07%
75th Percentile £30.00 £28.99 £24.81
90th Percentile £65.00 £60.69 £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 19,648 13,868 18,259
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.36% 47.50% 42.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,454 8,686 11,340
10th Percentile £313 £281 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.49% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £630
90th Percentile £700 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -0.51% -1.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 998 563 1,095
10th Percentile £15.29 £14.84 £12.01
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.44 £14.48
Median hourly rate £32.23 £26.04 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +23.75% +15.73% -47.98%
75th Percentile £60.00 £57.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.81 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £23.00 £21.50
% change year-on-year +21.74% +6.98% -45.67%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 4,851 £498 +4.74% 3,023
UK excluding London 0 2,873 £450 +5.88% 2,622
London -2 2,135 £515 +2.95% 902
Work from Home -1 1,391 £500 - 1,212
North of England -1 765 £450 +8.70% 601
South East -2 662 £475 -1.04% 876
Midlands -6 495 £450 +12.50% 389
North West -2 409 £420 -1.18% 316
West Midlands -7 346 £450 +12.50% 216
Yorkshire -2 333 £465 +16.25% 204
East of England 0 328 £375 -16.67% 297
South West -2 328 £450 -3.74% 253
Scotland +3 204 £449 +8.07% 147
East Midlands -2 143 £400 -2.44% 172
Wales +2 91 £335 +11.67% 88
North East -25 28 £450 +30.43% 86
Northern Ireland +1 19 £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
1 595 (10.76%) SharePoint
2 376 (6.80%) Microsoft Exchange
3 105 (1.90%) Confluence
4 35 (0.63%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.42%) Apache
6 22 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
7 20 (0.36%) HCL Notes
8 18 (0.33%) CMS
9 14 (0.25%) SAS
10 12 (0.22%) IIS
10 12 (0.22%) Mendix
10 12 (0.22%) Skype for Business
11 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.11%) Camunda
11 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
12 5 (0.090%) OpenEdge
12 5 (0.090%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.072%) Drupal
13 4 (0.072%) Exchange Server 2010
13 4 (0.072%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 556 (10.06%) Microsoft Office
2 493 (8.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 223 (4.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 122 (2.21%) Microsoft Project
5 93 (1.68%) MS Visio
6 63 (1.14%) 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
1 193 (3.49%) Dynamics CRM
2 64 (1.16%) SAP S/4HANA
3 23 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
4 20 (0.36%) Dynamics NAV
5 15 (0.27%) Aladdin
5 15 (0.27%) NetSuite
6 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
6 12 (0.22%) Teamcenter
7 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
8 10 (0.18%) Maximo
8 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
8 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 9 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
9 9 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
10 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
10 7 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
11 6 (0.11%) Shopify
12 5 (0.090%) Primavera
12 5 (0.090%) SAP MM
12 5 (0.090%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 2,326 (42.08%) Azure
2 1,426 (25.80%) Microsoft 365
3 936 (16.93%) Power Platform
4 712 (12.88%) Entra ID
5 454 (8.21%) Dynamics 365
6 446 (8.07%) AWS
7 429 (7.76%) Azure DevOps
8 322 (5.82%) Power Automate
9 287 (5.19%) PowerApps
10 286 (5.17%) Microsoft Purview
11 260 (4.70%) GitHub
12 235 (4.25%) Microsoft Copilot
13 210 (3.80%) OneDrive
14 194 (3.51%) Azure Data Factory
15 190 (3.44%) SaaS
16 177 (3.20%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 165 (2.98%) GCP
18 160 (2.89%) Serverless
19 145 (2.62%) PaaS
20 135 (2.44%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 281 (5.08%) DNS
2 276 (4.99%) Firewall
3 201 (3.64%) VPN
4 166 (3.00%) DHCP
5 133 (2.41%) Wi-Fi
6 132 (2.39%) WAN
7 112 (2.03%) LAN
8 108 (1.95%) Network Security
9 106 (1.92%) TCP/IP
10 57 (1.03%) Kerberos
11 51 (0.92%) VLAN
12 44 (0.80%) SD-WAN
13 37 (0.67%) SAN
14 35 (0.63%) SSL
15 34 (0.62%) Wireless
16 28 (0.51%) HTTP
16 28 (0.51%) Skype
17 26 (0.47%) MPLS
17 26 (0.47%) Unified Communications
18 24 (0.43%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 574 (10.38%) Power BI
2 263 (4.76%) SQL Server
3 174 (3.15%) Data Warehouse
4 155 (2.80%) Data Lake
5 121 (2.19%) Azure SQL Database
6 110 (1.99%) Metadata
7 97 (1.75%) PostgreSQL
8 71 (1.28%) Relational Database
9 66 (1.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 48 (0.87%) Power Query
11 44 (0.80%) NoSQL
11 44 (0.80%) Tableau
12 42 (0.76%) Oracle Database
12 42 (0.76%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 41 (0.74%) MySQL
13 41 (0.74%) Star Schema
14 40 (0.72%) Delta Lake
15 29 (0.52%) Spark SQL
16 27 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
17 25 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 251 (4.54%) JIRA
2 166 (3.00%) Git
3 66 (1.19%) Jenkins
4 62 (1.12%) GitLab
5 27 (0.49%) Visual Studio
6 26 (0.47%) Artifactory
7 24 (0.43%) Eclipse
8 21 (0.38%) MSI
9 16 (0.29%) Postman
9 16 (0.29%) Selenium
10 15 (0.27%) JMeter
10 15 (0.27%) MLflow
11 14 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
12 13 (0.24%) ERwin
13 12 (0.22%) Bitbucket
13 12 (0.22%) Maven
14 10 (0.18%) InstallShield
15 9 (0.16%) Cucumber
15 9 (0.16%) Gatling
15 9 (0.16%) JUnit
General
1 1,838 (33.25%) Social Skills
2 1,094 (19.79%) Finance
3 632 (11.43%) Analytical Skills
4 513 (9.28%) Public Sector
5 282 (5.10%) Banking
6 249 (4.50%) Organisational Skills
7 245 (4.43%) Legal
8 137 (2.48%) Documentation Skills
9 106 (1.92%) Manufacturing
10 98 (1.77%) Presentation Skills
11 94 (1.70%) Law
12 86 (1.56%) Telecoms
13 82 (1.48%) Marketing
14 81 (1.47%) Retail
15 79 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 75 (1.36%) Military
17 65 (1.18%) Local Government
18 54 (0.98%) Influencing Skills
19 52 (0.94%) Investment Banking
20 42 (0.76%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 685 (12.39%) Architect
2 593 (10.73%) Analyst
3 508 (9.19%) Developer
4 465 (8.41%) Senior
5 365 (6.60%) IT Support
6 328 (5.93%) Lead
7 293 (5.30%) Consultant
8 260 (4.70%) Support Engineer
9 224 (4.05%) Data Engineer
10 206 (3.73%) Azure Engineer
11 187 (3.38%) Solutions Architect
12 186 (3.36%) Project Manager
13 183 (3.31%) IT Engineer
14 176 (3.18%) Business Analyst
15 168 (3.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 164 (2.97%) Administrator
17 136 (2.46%) IT Support Engineer
18 113 (2.04%) Security Engineer
19 106 (1.92%) DevOps Engineer
20 103 (1.86%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 236 (4.27%) .NET
2 159 (2.88%) REST
3 126 (2.28%) Microsoft Graph
4 107 (1.94%) OAuth
5 101 (1.83%) PySpark
6 96 (1.74%) SAML
7 85 (1.54%) JSON
8 79 (1.43%) React
9 78 (1.41%) OpenID
10 74 (1.34%) LDAP
11 71 (1.28%) Web Services
12 63 (1.14%) Middleware
13 55 (0.99%) HTML
14 53 (0.96%) ARM Templates
15 51 (0.92%) Node.js
16 50 (0.90%) AngularJS
17 49 (0.89%) CSS
17 49 (0.89%) OAuth2
18 48 (0.87%) SailPoint
19 47 (0.85%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 296 (5.35%) Onboarding
2 221 (4.00%) Cloud Native
3 176 (3.18%) Product Ownership
4 124 (2.24%) Management Information System
5 105 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
6 98 (1.77%) Data Centre
7 91 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
8 86 (1.56%) Hybrid Cloud
9 81 (1.47%) PKI
9 81 (1.47%) Security Posture
10 80 (1.45%) AI Agents
10 80 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
11 75 (1.36%) Replication
12 70 (1.27%) Data Structures
13 69 (1.25%) Low-Code
14 67 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
15 60 (1.09%) Virtual Team
16 48 (0.87%) Driving Licence
17 45 (0.81%) Operational Technology
18 44 (0.80%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 1,195 (21.62%) Windows
2 319 (5.77%) Windows 10
3 271 (4.90%) Windows Server
4 260 (4.70%) Linux
5 104 (1.88%) Android
6 103 (1.86%) Apple iOS
7 97 (1.75%) Mac OS
8 42 (0.76%) Unix
8 42 (0.76%) Windows Server 2016
9 41 (0.74%) Windows 7
10 39 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 30 (0.54%) VMS
12 28 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
13 22 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
14 14 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
15 11 (0.20%) Ubuntu
16 9 (0.16%) CentOS
17 5 (0.090%) AIX
17 5 (0.090%) Solaris
18 4 (0.072%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 944 (17.08%) Problem-Solving
2 873 (15.79%) DevOps
3 855 (15.47%) Agile
4 779 (14.09%) Migration
5 751 (13.59%) CI/CD
6 632 (11.43%) Business Intelligence
7 600 (10.85%) Analytics
8 540 (9.77%) AI
9 536 (9.70%) Stakeholder Management
10 489 (8.85%) Continuous Improvement
11 456 (8.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 447 (8.09%) ITIL
13 433 (7.83%) Customer Service
14 408 (7.38%) Data Modelling
15 367 (6.64%) Roadmaps
16 348 (6.30%) Cybersecurity
17 342 (6.19%) Decision-Making
18 334 (6.04%) Infrastructure as Code
19 317 (5.73%) Project Delivery
20 306 (5.54%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 710 (12.84%) SQL
2 633 (11.45%) PowerShell
3 589 (10.65%) Python
4 255 (4.61%) C#
5 199 (3.60%) JavaScript
6 173 (3.13%) Java
7 124 (2.24%) Bicep
8 90 (1.63%) T-SQL
9 85 (1.54%) Bash
9 85 (1.54%) Kusto Query Language
10 72 (1.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 71 (1.28%) TypeScript
12 32 (0.58%) PL/SQL
13 31 (0.56%) C++
14 29 (0.52%) VBA
15 22 (0.40%) VB
16 19 (0.34%) Scala
17 18 (0.33%) R
18 16 (0.29%) Shell Script
19 13 (0.24%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,055 (19.08%) Security Cleared
2 823 (14.89%) SC Cleared
3 541 (9.79%) Degree
4 265 (4.79%) Microsoft Certification
5 181 (3.27%) Azure Certification
5 181 (3.27%) DV Cleared
6 124 (2.24%) Computer Science Degree
7 98 (1.77%) CISSP
8 90 (1.63%) BPSS Clearance
9 74 (1.34%) Cisco Certification
10 60 (1.09%) PMI Certification
11 59 (1.07%) PMP
12 55 (0.99%) Master's Degree
13 54 (0.98%) CISM
14 42 (0.76%) AWS Certification
15 37 (0.67%) MCSE
16 32 (0.58%) DBS Check
17 30 (0.54%) CCNP
17 30 (0.54%) ITIL Certification
18 29 (0.52%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 270 (4.88%) Data Quality
2 220 (3.98%) GDPR
3 185 (3.35%) QA
4 154 (2.79%) SLA
5 139 (2.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 112 (2.03%) NIST
7 105 (1.90%) PMO
8 71 (1.28%) Accessibility
9 70 (1.27%) Cyber Essentials
10 47 (0.85%) NCSC
11 38 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 34 (0.62%) GRC
13 26 (0.47%) PCI DSS
14 22 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 20 (0.36%) MiFID
16 18 (0.33%) NIST 800
17 13 (0.24%) FINRA
18 12 (0.22%) HIPAA
18 12 (0.22%) WCAG
19 11 (0.20%) GxP
System Software
1 1,063 (19.23%) Active Directory
2 224 (4.05%) Docker
3 191 (3.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 97 (1.75%) Hyper-V
5 76 (1.37%) Virtual Machines
6 74 (1.34%) Virtual Desktop
7 53 (0.96%) VMware ESXi
8 41 (0.74%) vSphere
9 24 (0.43%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.42%) VMware NSX
11 20 (0.36%) 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%) XenApp
16 4 (0.072%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 422 (7.63%) Microsoft Intune
2 352 (6.37%) Terraform
3 253 (4.58%) Kubernetes
4 201 (3.64%) SCCM
5 130 (2.35%) Ansible
6 117 (2.12%) Single Sign-On
7 76 (1.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 44 (0.80%) vCenter Server
9 40 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (0.65%) Grafana
11 32 (0.58%) Prometheus
12 23 (0.42%) SCOM
13 21 (0.38%) FortiGate
14 18 (0.33%) Puppet
15 16 (0.29%) AirWatch
15 16 (0.29%) WSUS
16 14 (0.25%) QRadar
17 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
18 11 (0.20%) CASB
18 11 (0.20%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 260 (4.70%) VMware
2 258 (4.67%) ServiceNow
3 214 (3.87%) SAP
4 213 (3.85%) Databricks
5 205 (3.71%) Oracle
6 169 (3.06%) Cisco
7 152 (2.75%) Google
8 118 (2.13%) Citrix
9 96 (1.74%) Salesforce
10 90 (1.63%) Splunk
11 85 (1.54%) OpenAI
12 69 (1.25%) Apple
13 68 (1.23%) Foundry
14 55 (0.99%) CrowdStrike
15 48 (0.87%) HP
16 47 (0.85%) Palo Alto
17 45 (0.81%) Adobe
17 45 (0.81%) Okta
18 42 (0.76%) CyberArk
19 41 (0.74%) Informatica