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 6 February 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
6 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,188 4,222 5,868
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.25% 13.55% 13.11%
As % of the Vendors category 29.26% 29.34% 29.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,513 2,671 4,004
10th Percentile £204 £205 £195
25th Percentile £355 £348 £320
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £432 £450
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -0.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 374 181 368
10th Percentile £13.61 £15.44 £11.79
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.62 £13.79
Median hourly rate £19.71 £23.59 £17.86
Median % change year-on-year -16.47% +32.08% -12.28%
75th Percentile £26.84 £33.75 £37.64
90th Percentile £63.07 £60.75 £53.07
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £21.73 £17.72
% change year-on-year -12.56% +22.63% -11.40%

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 17,731 14,389 19,590
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 45.28% 46.18% 43.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,409 8,554 12,376
10th Percentile £300 £275 £255
25th Percentile £411 £408 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -2.33%
75th Percentile £608 £625 £631
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 849 421 919
10th Percentile £14.99 £15.62 £12.96
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.30 £15.50
Median hourly rate £23.83 £28.60 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.70% -4.67% +5.26%
75th Percentile £55.00 £62.50 £59.71
90th Percentile £73.75 £80.10 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £26.13 £26.66
% change year-on-year -15.79% -2.01% +3.29%

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 6 February 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 6 February 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 6 February 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 4,550 £475 - 3,052
UK excluding London 0 2,786 £450 +4.17% 2,751
London -3 1,921 £506 +1.25% 813
Work from Home 0 1,327 £500 +3.73% 1,235
North of England +2 726 £425 - 662
South East -1 637 £475 - 867
Midlands -5 470 £450 +5.88% 435
North West -1 409 £400 -11.11% 341
South West +1 362 £508 +9.14% 271
East of England 0 324 £413 -7.04% 290
West Midlands -7 319 £475 +9.20% 258
Yorkshire +2 283 £450 +9.69% 238
Scotland -2 191 £450 +20.00% 157
East Midlands -1 150 £400 -1.23% 176
Wales +2 89 £308 -31.67% 97
North East -11 40 £450 +25.00% 89
Northern Ireland +2 28 £463 +42.31% 26
Channel Islands +1 1 - - 2

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
1 592 (11.41%) SharePoint
2 403 (7.77%) Microsoft Exchange
3 112 (2.16%) Confluence
4 58 (1.12%) Skype for Business
5 38 (0.73%) CMS
6 23 (0.44%) Apache
7 20 (0.39%) IIS
8 19 (0.37%) Apache Spark
9 17 (0.33%) HCL Notes
10 16 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
11 15 (0.29%) SAS
12 14 (0.27%) Exchange Server 2013
13 13 (0.25%) Mattermost
14 10 (0.19%) Exchange Server 2010
15 9 (0.17%) Mendix
15 9 (0.17%) SharePoint Server
16 7 (0.13%) iPlanet
16 7 (0.13%) JBoss
16 7 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
16 7 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 633 (12.20%) Microsoft Office
2 522 (10.06%) Microsoft Excel
3 234 (4.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 128 (2.47%) Microsoft Project
5 112 (2.16%) MS Visio
6 72 (1.39%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 11 (0.21%) Trello
8 9 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.12%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.12%) Sketch
10 5 (0.096%) Acrobat
10 5 (0.096%) Adobe Captivate
10 5 (0.096%) PTC Creo
11 4 (0.077%) Adobe After Effects
11 4 (0.077%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.077%) InDesign
11 4 (0.077%) Photoshop
12 3 (0.058%) Adobe Premiere
12 3 (0.058%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 194 (3.74%) Dynamics CRM
2 47 (0.91%) SAP S/4HANA
3 40 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.33%) Dynamics AX
5 16 (0.31%) Maximo
6 15 (0.29%) Dynamics NAV
7 11 (0.21%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.19%) Aladdin
8 10 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
8 10 (0.19%) Teamcenter
9 9 (0.17%) Loan IQ
9 9 (0.17%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 7 (0.13%) Advent Geneva
10 7 (0.13%) Shopify
11 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
11 6 (0.12%) SystmOne
12 5 (0.096%) Primavera
12 5 (0.096%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.096%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 2,040 (39.32%) Azure
2 1,266 (24.40%) Microsoft 365
3 832 (16.04%) Power Platform
4 638 (12.30%) Entra ID
5 447 (8.62%) AWS
6 399 (7.69%) Dynamics 365
7 384 (7.40%) Azure DevOps
8 339 (6.53%) Power Automate
9 307 (5.92%) PowerApps
10 241 (4.65%) Microsoft Purview
11 227 (4.38%) GitHub
12 199 (3.84%) OneDrive
13 195 (3.76%) Serverless
14 178 (3.43%) GCP
15 176 (3.39%) Azure Data Factory
16 170 (3.28%) SaaS
17 164 (3.16%) Microsoft Copilot
18 146 (2.81%) Azure Logic Apps
19 135 (2.60%) Azure Sentinel
20 132 (2.54%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 300 (5.78%) DNS
2 280 (5.40%) Firewall
3 191 (3.68%) DHCP
4 187 (3.60%) VPN
5 125 (2.41%) TCP/IP
5 125 (2.41%) Wi-Fi
6 117 (2.26%) WAN
7 102 (1.97%) Network Security
8 101 (1.95%) LAN
9 85 (1.64%) Skype
10 67 (1.29%) Kerberos
11 52 (1.00%) VLAN
12 47 (0.91%) Wireless
13 46 (0.89%) Unified Communications
14 34 (0.66%) SD-WAN
15 32 (0.62%) HTTP
16 31 (0.60%) Internet
17 28 (0.54%) SSL
18 25 (0.48%) SAN
18 25 (0.48%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 508 (9.79%) Power BI
2 235 (4.53%) SQL Server
3 142 (2.74%) Data Warehouse
4 132 (2.54%) Data Lake
5 93 (1.79%) Metadata
6 91 (1.75%) Azure SQL Database
6 91 (1.75%) PostgreSQL
7 80 (1.54%) Relational Database
8 64 (1.23%) Oracle Database
9 48 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 47 (0.91%) MySQL
10 47 (0.91%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 45 (0.87%) Tableau
12 37 (0.71%) NoSQL
12 37 (0.71%) Power Query
13 27 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
14 24 (0.46%) Delta Lake
14 24 (0.46%) Star Schema
15 18 (0.35%) Big Data
15 18 (0.35%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 231 (4.45%) JIRA
2 149 (2.87%) Git
3 77 (1.48%) Jenkins
4 71 (1.37%) GitLab
5 26 (0.50%) Eclipse
6 25 (0.48%) MSI
7 19 (0.37%) Postman
7 19 (0.37%) Visual Studio
8 18 (0.35%) Android Studio
8 18 (0.35%) Artifactory
8 18 (0.35%) Browser DevTools
9 17 (0.33%) JMeter
10 16 (0.31%) Selenium
10 16 (0.31%) Xcode
11 14 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
12 13 (0.25%) Cucumber
13 12 (0.23%) InstallShield
14 10 (0.19%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.19%) MLflow
14 10 (0.19%) SonarQube
General
1 2,056 (39.63%) Social Skills
2 1,034 (19.93%) Finance
3 667 (12.86%) Analytical Skills
4 523 (10.08%) Public Sector
5 253 (4.88%) Organisational Skills
6 250 (4.82%) Banking
7 206 (3.97%) Legal
8 163 (3.14%) Documentation Skills
9 130 (2.51%) Manufacturing
10 111 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
11 109 (2.10%) Marketing
12 97 (1.87%) Telecoms
13 76 (1.46%) Retail
14 68 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 54 (1.04%) Influencing Skills
16 47 (0.91%) Investment Banking
16 47 (0.91%) Military
17 44 (0.85%) Law
18 39 (0.75%) Local Government
19 36 (0.69%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 678 (13.07%) Analyst
2 572 (11.03%) Architect
3 496 (9.56%) Developer
4 382 (7.36%) Senior
5 322 (6.21%) IT Support
6 292 (5.63%) Support Engineer
7 278 (5.36%) Consultant
8 266 (5.13%) Lead
9 179 (3.45%) Solutions Architect
10 172 (3.32%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 168 (3.24%) Business Analyst
12 164 (3.16%) Azure Engineer
13 156 (3.01%) IT Engineer
14 155 (2.99%) Administrator
15 152 (2.93%) Data Engineer
16 147 (2.83%) Project Manager
16 147 (2.83%) Support Analyst
17 119 (2.29%) IT Support Engineer
18 111 (2.14%) Security Engineer
19 99 (1.91%) Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 252 (4.86%) .NET
2 170 (3.28%) REST
3 134 (2.58%) OAuth
4 113 (2.18%) SAML
5 111 (2.14%) React
6 102 (1.97%) Microsoft Graph
7 90 (1.73%) OpenID
8 80 (1.54%) LDAP
8 80 (1.54%) RESTful
9 76 (1.46%) AngularJS
10 70 (1.35%) JSON
11 67 (1.29%) CSS
11 67 (1.29%) HTML
12 64 (1.23%) PySpark
13 61 (1.18%) ARM Templates
14 57 (1.10%) Node.js
15 52 (1.00%) OAuth2
16 50 (0.96%) Web Services
17 49 (0.94%) Middleware
18 42 (0.81%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 297 (5.72%) Onboarding
2 197 (3.80%) Cloud Native
3 155 (2.99%) Product Ownership
4 137 (2.64%) Management Information System
5 114 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
6 96 (1.85%) PKI
7 90 (1.73%) Data Centre
8 87 (1.68%) Self-Motivation
9 86 (1.66%) Security Posture
10 76 (1.46%) Replication
11 74 (1.43%) Driving Licence
11 74 (1.43%) Hybrid Cloud
12 70 (1.35%) Low-Code
13 69 (1.33%) Legacy Systems
14 67 (1.29%) Mobile App
15 56 (1.08%) NHS
15 56 (1.08%) Virtual Team
16 55 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
17 52 (1.00%) AI Agents
18 51 (0.98%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 1,226 (23.63%) Windows
2 355 (6.84%) Windows 10
3 305 (5.88%) Linux
4 283 (5.45%) Windows Server
5 115 (2.22%) Mac OS
6 97 (1.87%) Android
7 89 (1.72%) Apple iOS
8 69 (1.33%) Unix
9 46 (0.89%) Windows 7
10 41 (0.79%) Windows Server 2016
11 31 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 26 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
13 21 (0.40%) Windows Server 2003
13 21 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
14 19 (0.37%) VMS
15 8 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
16 7 (0.13%) AIX
17 6 (0.12%) CentOS
17 6 (0.12%) Ubuntu
18 5 (0.096%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,039 (20.03%) Problem-Solving
2 891 (17.17%) Agile
3 766 (14.76%) DevOps
4 668 (12.88%) Migration
5 630 (12.14%) CI/CD
6 594 (11.45%) Business Intelligence
7 558 (10.76%) Analytics
8 539 (10.39%) Stakeholder Management
9 464 (8.94%) ITIL
10 450 (8.67%) Customer Service
11 445 (8.58%) Continuous Improvement
12 431 (8.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 416 (8.02%) AI
14 357 (6.88%) Cybersecurity
15 322 (6.21%) Project Management
16 311 (5.99%) Data Modelling
17 291 (5.61%) Change Management
17 291 (5.61%) Roadmaps
18 277 (5.34%) Infrastructure as Code
18 277 (5.34%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 665 (12.82%) SQL
2 661 (12.74%) PowerShell
3 609 (11.74%) Python
4 269 (5.19%) C#
5 223 (4.30%) JavaScript
6 141 (2.72%) Java
7 109 (2.10%) Bicep
8 105 (2.02%) Kusto Query Language
9 101 (1.95%) Bash
10 84 (1.62%) TypeScript
11 59 (1.14%) T-SQL
12 52 (1.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 34 (0.66%) Perl
14 31 (0.60%) PL/SQL
15 28 (0.54%) Shell Script
16 27 (0.52%) C++
17 26 (0.50%) VB
18 23 (0.44%) VBScript
19 21 (0.40%) VBA
20 18 (0.35%) R
Qualifications
1 1,025 (19.76%) Security Cleared
2 766 (14.76%) SC Cleared
3 532 (10.25%) Degree
4 330 (6.36%) Microsoft Certification
5 215 (4.14%) DV Cleared
6 189 (3.64%) Azure Certification
7 123 (2.37%) Computer Science Degree
8 116 (2.24%) CISSP
9 81 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
10 67 (1.29%) CISM
11 60 (1.16%) Master's Degree
12 59 (1.14%) PMI Certification
13 55 (1.06%) Cisco Certification
14 51 (0.98%) ITIL Certification
15 50 (0.96%) PMP
16 49 (0.94%) A+ Certification
17 47 (0.91%) MCSE
18 42 (0.81%) Microsoft Certified Professional
19 38 (0.73%) AWS Certification
20 32 (0.62%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 236 (4.55%) GDPR
2 185 (3.57%) Data Quality
3 162 (3.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 153 (2.95%) QA
5 145 (2.79%) SLA
6 122 (2.35%) NIST
7 114 (2.20%) PMO
8 81 (1.56%) Accessibility
9 51 (0.98%) Cyber Essentials
10 35 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 32 (0.62%) NCSC
12 30 (0.58%) PCI DSS
13 22 (0.42%) EU AI Act
13 22 (0.42%) WCAG
14 21 (0.40%) GRC
15 20 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 17 (0.33%) HIPAA
17 15 (0.29%) MiFID
17 15 (0.29%) SOC 2
18 12 (0.23%) FINRA
System Software
1 1,078 (20.78%) Active Directory
2 200 (3.86%) Docker
3 175 (3.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 74 (1.43%) Hyper-V
5 67 (1.29%) Virtual Machines
6 46 (0.89%) Virtual Desktop
7 40 (0.77%) vSphere
8 35 (0.67%) VMware ESXi
9 18 (0.35%) BitLocker
10 17 (0.33%) VMware NSX
11 12 (0.23%) Microsoft App-V
12 9 (0.17%) Firmware
13 6 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 6 (0.12%) RACF
13 6 (0.12%) Tivoli Directory Server
13 6 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
14 5 (0.096%) Oracle RAC
14 5 (0.096%) Snort
14 5 (0.096%) Squid
15 4 (0.077%) NFS
Systems Management
1 398 (7.67%) Microsoft Intune
2 296 (5.71%) Terraform
3 283 (5.45%) SCCM
4 230 (4.43%) Kubernetes
5 164 (3.16%) Single Sign-On
6 107 (2.06%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 102 (1.97%) Ansible
8 49 (0.94%) SCOM
9 45 (0.87%) Jamf Pro
10 40 (0.77%) vCenter Server
11 37 (0.71%) Grafana
12 33 (0.64%) Prometheus
13 24 (0.46%) FortiGate
14 21 (0.40%) HP SiteScope
14 21 (0.40%) WSUS
15 15 (0.29%) WMI
16 14 (0.27%) Kibana
16 14 (0.27%) Progress Chef
16 14 (0.27%) QRadar
17 13 (0.25%) AirWatch
Vendors
1 269 (5.19%) ServiceNow
2 248 (4.78%) VMware
3 200 (3.86%) Oracle
4 188 (3.62%) SAP
5 185 (3.57%) Cisco
6 171 (3.30%) Databricks
7 155 (2.99%) Splunk
8 151 (2.91%) Google
9 109 (2.10%) Citrix
10 95 (1.83%) Salesforce
11 86 (1.66%) OpenAI
12 81 (1.56%) Apple
13 65 (1.25%) CrowdStrike
14 58 (1.12%) Palo Alto
15 54 (1.04%) Foundry
16 49 (0.94%) Remedy
17 47 (0.91%) HP
18 42 (0.81%) IBM
19 41 (0.79%) CyberArk
20 40 (0.77%) Veeam