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 21 January 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
21 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 4,993 4,221 5,688
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.25% 13.41% 13.10%
As % of the Vendors category 28.85% 29.25% 29.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,387 2,655 3,868
10th Percentile £204 £205 £198
25th Percentile £350 £345 £324
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £585 £619
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £430 £450
% change year-on-year +4.65% -4.44% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 366 189 316
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.50 £11.98
25th Percentile £16.35 £15.62 £14.06
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.80 £19.04
Median % change year-on-year -16.34% +25.03% -7.15%
75th Percentile £27.50 £33.75 £46.18
90th Percentile £63.58 £57.62 £55.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £22.00 £18.50
% change year-on-year -13.64% +18.92% -7.50%

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 17,309 14,431 19,108
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 45.94% 45.84% 44.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,181 8,535 12,047
10th Percentile £300 £285 £253
25th Percentile £410 £409 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.10% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 811 425 806
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £13.16
25th Percentile £17.93 £20.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.36% -21.43% +12.63%
75th Percentile £48.75 £61.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £80.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.50 £25.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -14.00% -28.57% +34.62%

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 21 January 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 21 January 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 21 January 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 4,400 £475 - 3,514
UK excluding London 0 2,667 £450 +4.65% 3,400
London -4 1,874 £510 +2.00% 700
Work from Home 0 1,293 £500 +2.56% 1,302
North of England +2 706 £425 -2.30% 751
South East +1 600 £475 +3.83% 1,054
Midlands -4 462 £450 +5.88% 507
North West +2 407 £400 -11.11% 338
South West +1 362 £504 +7.18% 360
West Midlands -7 307 £488 +12.17% 228
East of England 0 283 £425 -2.86% 449
Yorkshire +2 268 £450 +11.39% 304
Scotland -2 184 £470 +25.33% 166
East Midlands -1 155 £375 -6.25% 272
Wales +3 78 £300 -33.33% 154
North East -16 36 £450 +13.21% 121
Northern Ireland +2 31 £350 +21.74% 48
Channel Islands +1 1 - - 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
1 568 (11.38%) SharePoint
2 384 (7.69%) Microsoft Exchange
3 105 (2.10%) Confluence
4 61 (1.22%) Skype for Business
5 37 (0.74%) CMS
6 24 (0.48%) IIS
7 23 (0.46%) Apache
8 21 (0.42%) SAS
9 18 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
9 18 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2013
9 18 (0.36%) HCL Notes
10 15 (0.30%) Exchange Server 2010
11 14 (0.28%) Apache Spark
12 13 (0.26%) Mattermost
13 12 (0.24%) SharePoint Server
14 11 (0.22%) WebSphere
14 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
15 10 (0.20%) iPlanet
15 10 (0.20%) JBoss
16 9 (0.18%) Mendix
Applications
1 616 (12.34%) Microsoft Office
2 513 (10.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 229 (4.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 122 (2.44%) Microsoft Project
5 109 (2.18%) MS Visio
6 65 (1.30%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.22%) Trello
8 10 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.12%) Sketch
11 5 (0.10%) Acrobat
11 5 (0.10%) Adobe Captivate
12 4 (0.080%) Adobe After Effects
12 4 (0.080%) Adobe Illustrator
12 4 (0.080%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.080%) InDesign
12 4 (0.080%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.060%) Adobe Premiere
13 3 (0.060%) PTC Creo
13 3 (0.060%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 185 (3.71%) Dynamics CRM
2 44 (0.88%) SAP S/4HANA
3 40 (0.80%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.34%) Dynamics AX
5 16 (0.32%) Maximo
6 14 (0.28%) Dynamics NAV
7 12 (0.24%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 10 (0.20%) Teamcenter
10 9 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
11 7 (0.14%) Aladdin
11 7 (0.14%) Shopify
12 6 (0.12%) Loan IQ
12 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
13 5 (0.10%) SAP ERP
14 4 (0.080%) assyst
14 4 (0.080%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
14 4 (0.080%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,944 (38.93%) Azure
2 1,206 (24.15%) Microsoft 365
3 799 (16.00%) Power Platform
4 590 (11.82%) Entra ID
5 433 (8.67%) AWS
6 387 (7.75%) Dynamics 365
7 372 (7.45%) Azure DevOps
8 332 (6.65%) Power Automate
9 295 (5.91%) PowerApps
10 226 (4.53%) Microsoft Purview
11 216 (4.33%) GitHub
12 188 (3.77%) Serverless
13 175 (3.50%) OneDrive
14 169 (3.38%) GCP
15 165 (3.30%) Azure Data Factory
16 155 (3.10%) SaaS
17 143 (2.86%) Microsoft Copilot
18 140 (2.80%) Azure Logic Apps
19 139 (2.78%) Azure Sentinel
20 125 (2.50%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 275 (5.51%) Firewall
2 274 (5.49%) DNS
3 179 (3.59%) VPN
4 172 (3.44%) DHCP
5 124 (2.48%) TCP/IP
6 110 (2.20%) Wi-Fi
7 108 (2.16%) WAN
8 93 (1.86%) Network Security
9 90 (1.80%) LAN
10 83 (1.66%) Skype
11 53 (1.06%) Kerberos
12 51 (1.02%) VLAN
12 51 (1.02%) Wireless
13 43 (0.86%) Unified Communications
14 35 (0.70%) SD-WAN
15 34 (0.68%) HTTP
16 30 (0.60%) Internet
17 27 (0.54%) SAN
18 24 (0.48%) WebEx
19 23 (0.46%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 485 (9.71%) Power BI
2 228 (4.57%) SQL Server
3 135 (2.70%) Data Warehouse
4 127 (2.54%) Data Lake
5 87 (1.74%) Azure SQL Database
6 86 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
7 85 (1.70%) Relational Database
8 83 (1.66%) Metadata
9 72 (1.44%) Oracle Database
10 47 (0.94%) MySQL
11 44 (0.88%) Tableau
12 40 (0.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 38 (0.76%) NoSQL
14 37 (0.74%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 36 (0.72%) Power Query
16 27 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
17 23 (0.46%) Star Schema
18 22 (0.44%) Delta Lake
19 18 (0.36%) Big Data
19 18 (0.36%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 225 (4.51%) JIRA
2 159 (3.18%) Git
3 84 (1.68%) Jenkins
4 76 (1.52%) GitLab
5 34 (0.68%) Eclipse
6 26 (0.52%) MSI
7 23 (0.46%) Visual Studio
8 21 (0.42%) Android Studio
8 21 (0.42%) Browser DevTools
8 21 (0.42%) Postman
8 21 (0.42%) Xcode
9 19 (0.38%) Selenium
10 16 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
11 15 (0.30%) Artifactory
12 14 (0.28%) JMeter
13 13 (0.26%) JUnit
14 12 (0.24%) Bitbucket
14 12 (0.24%) Cucumber
14 12 (0.24%) InstallShield
15 10 (0.20%) CA Release Automation
General
1 1,989 (39.84%) Social Skills
2 1,018 (20.39%) Finance
3 634 (12.70%) Analytical Skills
4 502 (10.05%) Public Sector
5 248 (4.97%) Banking
6 233 (4.67%) Organisational Skills
7 199 (3.99%) Legal
8 155 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
9 132 (2.64%) Manufacturing
10 110 (2.20%) Marketing
11 104 (2.08%) Presentation Skills
12 92 (1.84%) Telecoms
13 77 (1.54%) Retail
14 72 (1.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 56 (1.12%) Influencing Skills
16 48 (0.96%) Military
17 47 (0.94%) Local Government
18 45 (0.90%) Investment Banking
19 41 (0.82%) Law
20 35 (0.70%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 648 (12.98%) Analyst
2 528 (10.57%) Architect
3 478 (9.57%) Developer
4 349 (6.99%) Senior
5 299 (5.99%) IT Support
6 298 (5.97%) Support Engineer
7 270 (5.41%) Consultant
8 249 (4.99%) Lead
9 169 (3.38%) Solutions Architect
10 163 (3.26%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 157 (3.14%) Business Analyst
12 151 (3.02%) Administrator
13 149 (2.98%) Support Analyst
14 147 (2.94%) Project Manager
15 146 (2.92%) Azure Engineer
16 144 (2.88%) IT Engineer
17 139 (2.78%) Data Engineer
18 119 (2.38%) Security Engineer
19 106 (2.12%) IT Support Engineer
20 101 (2.02%) Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (4.99%) .NET
2 164 (3.28%) REST
3 128 (2.56%) OAuth
4 114 (2.28%) React
5 107 (2.14%) SAML
6 86 (1.72%) RESTful
7 84 (1.68%) Microsoft Graph
8 83 (1.66%) OpenID
9 80 (1.60%) AngularJS
10 69 (1.38%) HTML
11 68 (1.36%) LDAP
12 66 (1.32%) JSON
13 65 (1.30%) CSS
13 65 (1.30%) PySpark
14 56 (1.12%) ARM Templates
15 55 (1.10%) Node.js
16 49 (0.98%) Web Services
17 47 (0.94%) Middleware
18 46 (0.92%) OAuth2
19 43 (0.86%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 280 (5.61%) Onboarding
2 194 (3.89%) Cloud Native
3 139 (2.78%) Product Ownership
4 131 (2.62%) Management Information System
5 116 (2.32%) Enterprise Software
6 93 (1.86%) PKI
7 89 (1.78%) Security Posture
8 88 (1.76%) Data Centre
9 83 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
10 76 (1.52%) Driving Licence
11 71 (1.42%) Mobile App
12 70 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
13 67 (1.34%) Low-Code
13 67 (1.34%) Replication
14 65 (1.30%) Hybrid Cloud
15 55 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
16 53 (1.06%) Virtual Team
17 50 (1.00%) NHS
18 46 (0.92%) Data Protection Act
19 45 (0.90%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 1,201 (24.05%) Windows
2 349 (6.99%) Windows 10
3 301 (6.03%) Linux
4 274 (5.49%) Windows Server
5 105 (2.10%) Mac OS
6 99 (1.98%) Android
7 88 (1.76%) Apple iOS
8 77 (1.54%) Unix
9 44 (0.88%) Windows 7
10 38 (0.76%) Windows Server 2016
11 31 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 27 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
13 23 (0.46%) Windows Server 2003
14 22 (0.44%) Windows Server 2012
15 17 (0.34%) VMS
16 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
17 7 (0.14%) AIX
17 7 (0.14%) Mac OS X
18 6 (0.12%) CentOS
18 6 (0.12%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,009 (20.21%) Problem-Solving
2 873 (17.48%) Agile
3 752 (15.06%) DevOps
4 625 (12.52%) Migration
5 611 (12.24%) CI/CD
6 570 (11.42%) Business Intelligence
7 514 (10.29%) Analytics
8 507 (10.15%) Stakeholder Management
9 460 (9.21%) ITIL
10 434 (8.69%) Continuous Improvement
11 425 (8.51%) Customer Service
12 414 (8.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 373 (7.47%) AI
14 353 (7.07%) Cybersecurity
15 316 (6.33%) Project Management
16 288 (5.77%) Change Management
17 285 (5.71%) Data Modelling
18 267 (5.35%) Roadmaps
19 261 (5.23%) Project Delivery
20 256 (5.13%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 645 (12.92%) SQL
2 619 (12.40%) PowerShell
3 574 (11.50%) Python
4 260 (5.21%) C#
5 220 (4.41%) JavaScript
6 145 (2.90%) Java
7 106 (2.12%) Kusto Query Language
8 101 (2.02%) Bash
9 98 (1.96%) Bicep
10 81 (1.62%) TypeScript
11 53 (1.06%) T-SQL
12 45 (0.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 37 (0.74%) Perl
14 29 (0.58%) Shell Script
15 28 (0.56%) PL/SQL
16 25 (0.50%) C++
17 24 (0.48%) VB
18 23 (0.46%) VBScript
19 21 (0.42%) R
20 20 (0.40%) Go
Qualifications
1 1,005 (20.13%) Security Cleared
2 754 (15.10%) SC Cleared
3 516 (10.33%) Degree
4 331 (6.63%) Microsoft Certification
5 212 (4.25%) DV Cleared
6 175 (3.50%) Azure Certification
7 124 (2.48%) Computer Science Degree
8 121 (2.42%) CISSP
9 79 (1.58%) BPSS Clearance
10 68 (1.36%) CISM
11 59 (1.18%) Cisco Certification
12 56 (1.12%) Master's Degree
13 54 (1.08%) PMI Certification
14 51 (1.02%) ITIL Certification
15 50 (1.00%) A+ Certification
15 50 (1.00%) MCSE
16 44 (0.88%) PMP
17 42 (0.84%) MCP
18 38 (0.76%) AWS Certification
19 33 (0.66%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 229 (4.59%) GDPR
2 167 (3.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 161 (3.22%) Data Quality
4 149 (2.98%) QA
5 136 (2.72%) SLA
6 131 (2.62%) NIST
7 103 (2.06%) PMO
8 81 (1.62%) Accessibility
9 49 (0.98%) Cyber Essentials
10 34 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 33 (0.66%) NCSC
12 30 (0.60%) PCI DSS
13 24 (0.48%) WCAG
14 22 (0.44%) EU AI Act
15 21 (0.42%) HIPAA
16 17 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 17 (0.34%) GRC
17 12 (0.24%) MiFID
17 12 (0.24%) SOC 2
18 11 (0.22%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,027 (20.57%) Active Directory
2 198 (3.97%) Docker
3 167 (3.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 68 (1.36%) Hyper-V
5 62 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
6 39 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
7 38 (0.76%) vSphere
8 36 (0.72%) VMware ESXi
9 19 (0.38%) BitLocker
10 17 (0.34%) VMware NSX
11 14 (0.28%) Firmware
12 12 (0.24%) Microsoft App-V
13 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
14 7 (0.14%) NFS
14 7 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
15 6 (0.12%) ISA Server
15 6 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 6 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
16 5 (0.10%) Brightmail
16 5 (0.10%) Snort
Systems Management
1 378 (7.57%) Microsoft Intune
2 274 (5.49%) SCCM
3 273 (5.47%) Terraform
4 229 (4.59%) Kubernetes
5 144 (2.88%) Single Sign-On
6 104 (2.08%) Ansible
7 88 (1.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 48 (0.96%) SCOM
9 39 (0.78%) Jamf Pro
10 38 (0.76%) vCenter Server
11 33 (0.66%) Grafana
12 27 (0.54%) Prometheus
13 22 (0.44%) FortiGate
14 21 (0.42%) HP SiteScope
14 21 (0.42%) WSUS
15 17 (0.34%) QRadar
16 16 (0.32%) Progress Chef
17 15 (0.30%) Puppet
17 15 (0.30%) WMI
18 14 (0.28%) Kibana
Vendors
1 258 (5.17%) ServiceNow
2 230 (4.61%) VMware
3 216 (4.33%) Oracle
4 185 (3.71%) Cisco
5 178 (3.56%) SAP
6 165 (3.30%) Splunk
7 154 (3.08%) Databricks
8 143 (2.86%) Google
9 106 (2.12%) Citrix
10 82 (1.64%) Apple
11 80 (1.60%) Salesforce
12 79 (1.58%) OpenAI
13 64 (1.28%) CrowdStrike
14 60 (1.20%) Palo Alto
15 50 (1.00%) IBM
16 48 (0.96%) Remedy
17 47 (0.94%) Foundry
18 46 (0.92%) HP
19 43 (0.86%) Veeam
20 38 (0.76%) CyberArk