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 4 September 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
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 6,934 4,601 4,988
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.93% 14.24% 13.10%
As % of the Vendors category 30.92% 30.15% 29.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,483 2,949 3,172
10th Percentile £213 £208 £200
25th Percentile £375 £340 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +2.74% -2.67% -2.50%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £670 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £437 £450
% change year-on-year +2.97% -2.89% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 486 373 293
10th Percentile £13.45 £14.00 £12.80
25th Percentile £15.24 £16.36 £15.00
Median hourly rate £19.41 £22.50 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year -13.73% +38.63% -27.87%
75th Percentile £33.75 £31.40 £43.75
90th Percentile £70.11 £64.75 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £20.90 £16.23
% change year-on-year -9.08% +28.76% -18.85%

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 22,422 15,261 16,767
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.80% 47.23% 44.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,829 9,339 10,233
10th Percentile £313 £275 £288
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £613 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £726
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,171 780 716
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.54 £14.06
25th Percentile £17.15 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £29.07 £25.15 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.59% -16.17% -29.41%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.84 £63.75
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.75 £21.30 £29.00
% change year-on-year +30.28% -26.55% -27.50%

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 4 September 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 4 September 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 4 September 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 -2 5,999 £489 +2.95% 7,103
UK excluding London 0 3,677 £450 +2.97% 5,228
London -1 2,635 £515 +3.00% 2,975
Work from Home +4 1,806 £500 - 3,050
South East 0 962 £475 +5.56% 1,360
North of England -6 923 £450 +4.05% 1,209
Midlands -1 636 £440 +10.00% 852
North West -2 552 £450 +3.51% 638
South West +1 446 £470 +17.50% 633
West Midlands -3 427 £445 +5.95% 501
Scotland +6 358 £450 - 373
Yorkshire -7 337 £462 +5.60% 382
East of England -1 246 £350 -33.33% 529
East Midlands +3 200 £425 +18.38% 350
Wales -1 104 £413 +37.50% 142
North East -30 38 £400 +17.65% 209
Northern Ireland -2 35 £350 - 216
Channel Islands -1 4 £525 -27.59% 3

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
1 821 (11.84%) SharePoint
2 396 (5.71%) Microsoft Exchange
3 146 (2.11%) Confluence
4 38 (0.55%) Apache
4 38 (0.55%) Apache Spark
5 31 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
6 26 (0.37%) CMS
7 23 (0.33%) IIS
8 22 (0.32%) Skype for Business
9 17 (0.25%) HCL Notes
10 15 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
11 11 (0.16%) SharePoint Server
12 10 (0.14%) nginx
12 10 (0.14%) SAS
13 7 (0.10%) Apache Superset
14 6 (0.087%) Camunda
14 6 (0.087%) Mendix
14 6 (0.087%) SharePoint 2013
14 6 (0.087%) ThingWorx
15 5 (0.072%) OpenStack
Applications
1 704 (10.15%) Microsoft Excel
2 694 (10.01%) Microsoft Office
3 305 (4.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 192 (2.77%) Microsoft Project
5 111 (1.60%) MS Visio
6 43 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
7 25 (0.36%) Chatbot
8 14 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 11 (0.16%) AutoCAD
10 9 (0.13%) ProjectWise
11 8 (0.12%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.12%) Revit
12 5 (0.072%) Trello
13 4 (0.058%) Adobe Illustrator
13 4 (0.058%) Photoshop
14 3 (0.043%) Adobe Premiere
14 3 (0.043%) Final Cut Pro
14 3 (0.043%) MicroStation
15 2 (0.029%) Acrobat
15 2 (0.029%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 247 (3.56%) Dynamics CRM
2 74 (1.07%) SAP S/4HANA
3 31 (0.45%) Remedy ITSM
4 26 (0.37%) Dynamics NAV
5 23 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
6 20 (0.29%) NetSuite
7 14 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 13 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.17%) Dynamics AX
9 12 (0.17%) Primavera
10 11 (0.16%) Magento
11 9 (0.13%) Aladdin
11 9 (0.13%) Integrated Workplace Management System
12 8 (0.12%) iTrent
12 8 (0.12%) Payment Gateway
12 8 (0.12%) SAP MM
13 7 (0.10%) SAP CRM
13 7 (0.10%) SAP PSCD
14 6 (0.087%) Oracle ERP
14 6 (0.087%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 2,902 (41.85%) Azure
2 1,775 (25.60%) Microsoft 365
3 1,228 (17.71%) Power Platform
4 1,075 (15.50%) Entra ID
5 651 (9.39%) AWS
6 614 (8.85%) Azure DevOps
7 599 (8.64%) Dynamics 365
8 413 (5.96%) Power Automate
9 398 (5.74%) Microsoft Copilot
10 369 (5.32%) PowerApps
11 306 (4.41%) Microsoft Purview
12 299 (4.31%) GitHub
13 265 (3.82%) OneDrive
14 247 (3.56%) GCP
14 247 (3.56%) SaaS
15 190 (2.74%) Serverless
16 189 (2.73%) Azure Data Factory
17 170 (2.45%) Azure Monitor
18 161 (2.32%) Azure Logic Apps
19 159 (2.29%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 387 (5.58%) DNS
2 339 (4.89%) Firewall
3 282 (4.07%) VPN
4 258 (3.72%) DHCP
5 190 (2.74%) TCP/IP
6 166 (2.39%) WAN
7 158 (2.28%) Network Security
8 147 (2.12%) LAN
9 143 (2.06%) Wi-Fi
10 73 (1.05%) VLAN
11 60 (0.87%) Wireless
12 47 (0.68%) SAN
13 39 (0.56%) SSL
14 38 (0.55%) Skype
15 37 (0.53%) MPLS
16 33 (0.48%) Unified Communications
17 30 (0.43%) Internet
17 30 (0.43%) SD-WAN
18 29 (0.42%) BGP
18 29 (0.42%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 777 (11.21%) Power BI
2 408 (5.88%) SQL Server
3 177 (2.55%) Data Warehouse
4 151 (2.18%) Metadata
5 146 (2.11%) Data Lake
6 130 (1.87%) PostgreSQL
7 125 (1.80%) Azure SQL Database
8 78 (1.12%) Power Query
9 76 (1.10%) Relational Database
10 67 (0.97%) MySQL
10 67 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 54 (0.78%) NoSQL
12 48 (0.69%) Oracle Database
13 45 (0.65%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 41 (0.59%) Star Schema
15 40 (0.58%) Delta Lake
16 37 (0.53%) Tableau
17 29 (0.42%) MongoDB
18 28 (0.40%) Amazon RDS
19 22 (0.32%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 332 (4.79%) JIRA
2 226 (3.26%) Git
3 94 (1.36%) Jenkins
4 72 (1.04%) GitLab
5 50 (0.72%) Visual Studio
6 44 (0.63%) MSI
7 37 (0.53%) Selenium
8 18 (0.26%) Claude Code
8 18 (0.26%) Postman
9 16 (0.23%) MLflow
9 16 (0.23%) WebDriver
10 15 (0.22%) Cypress.io
10 15 (0.22%) Team Foundation Server
11 12 (0.17%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.16%) Bitbucket
12 11 (0.16%) ERwin
12 11 (0.16%) Maven
12 11 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
12 11 (0.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
13 10 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 2,502 (36.08%) Social Skills
2 1,411 (20.35%) Finance
3 895 (12.91%) Analytical Skills
4 630 (9.09%) Public Sector
5 386 (5.57%) Organisational Skills
6 330 (4.76%) Banking
7 223 (3.22%) Legal
8 197 (2.84%) Documentation Skills
9 168 (2.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 161 (2.32%) Manufacturing
11 148 (2.13%) Retail
12 123 (1.77%) Telecoms
13 108 (1.56%) Marketing
14 104 (1.50%) Law
15 92 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
16 91 (1.31%) Local Government
17 83 (1.20%) Military
18 75 (1.08%) Aerospace
19 62 (0.89%) Investment Banking
19 62 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 822 (11.85%) Architect
2 714 (10.30%) Analyst
3 609 (8.78%) Senior
4 607 (8.75%) Developer
5 485 (6.99%) Lead
6 448 (6.46%) Consultant
7 436 (6.29%) IT Support
8 423 (6.10%) Support Engineer
9 289 (4.17%) IT Engineer
10 268 (3.87%) Solutions Architect
11 251 (3.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 246 (3.55%) Data Engineer
13 245 (3.53%) Administrator
14 244 (3.52%) Azure Engineer
15 237 (3.42%) IT Support Engineer
16 230 (3.32%) Project Manager
17 181 (2.61%) Business Analyst
18 173 (2.49%) Cloud Engineer
19 132 (1.90%) DevOps Engineer
20 124 (1.79%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 515 (7.43%) Terraform
2 342 (4.93%) .NET
3 264 (3.81%) REST
4 131 (1.89%) JSON
5 130 (1.87%) OAuth
6 113 (1.63%) PySpark
7 108 (1.56%) XML
8 105 (1.51%) SAML
9 102 (1.47%) Microsoft Graph
10 99 (1.43%) OpenID
11 88 (1.27%) React
12 86 (1.24%) .NET Framework
13 85 (1.23%) ARM Templates
14 79 (1.14%) LDAP
15 78 (1.12%) Web Services
16 73 (1.05%) OAuth2
16 73 (1.05%) RESTful
17 72 (1.04%) HTML
18 69 (1.00%) SailPoint
19 66 (0.95%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 542 (7.82%) Onboarding
2 313 (4.51%) Cloud Native
3 249 (3.59%) Management Information System
4 204 (2.94%) Enterprise Software
5 198 (2.86%) Product Ownership
6 154 (2.22%) Hybrid Cloud
7 147 (2.12%) PKI
8 142 (2.05%) AI Agents
8 142 (2.05%) Data Centre
9 131 (1.89%) Legacy Systems
10 124 (1.79%) Security Posture
11 94 (1.36%) Data Structures
12 92 (1.33%) Data Protection Act
13 87 (1.25%) Self-Motivation
14 81 (1.17%) CMDB
15 79 (1.14%) Low-Code
16 76 (1.10%) Virtual Team
17 75 (1.08%) Driving Licence
18 70 (1.01%) Replication
19 67 (0.97%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 1,487 (21.45%) Windows
2 451 (6.50%) Windows Server
3 364 (5.25%) Windows 10
4 328 (4.73%) Linux
5 142 (2.05%) Mac OS
6 123 (1.77%) Android
7 114 (1.64%) Apple iOS
8 64 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 44 (0.63%) Unix
10 41 (0.59%) Windows 7
11 40 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
12 36 (0.52%) Ubuntu
12 36 (0.52%) Windows Server 2016
13 32 (0.46%) VMS
14 22 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
15 20 (0.29%) CentOS
16 15 (0.22%) Solaris
17 12 (0.17%) SUSE
18 9 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
19 7 (0.10%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,275 (18.39%) Problem-Solving
2 1,230 (17.74%) Stakeholder Management
3 1,093 (15.76%) DevOps
4 1,070 (15.43%) Agile
5 984 (14.19%) Migration
6 917 (13.22%) CI/CD
7 860 (12.40%) Continuous Improvement
8 808 (11.65%) AI
9 799 (11.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 779 (11.23%) Business Intelligence
11 716 (10.33%) Analytics
12 690 (9.95%) ITIL
13 632 (9.11%) Customer Service
14 544 (7.85%) Infrastructure as Code
15 539 (7.77%) Cybersecurity
16 513 (7.40%) Data Modelling
16 513 (7.40%) Roadmaps
17 483 (6.97%) Project Delivery
18 459 (6.62%) Decision-Making
19 454 (6.55%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 864 (12.46%) SQL
2 766 (11.05%) PowerShell
3 717 (10.34%) Python
4 335 (4.83%) C#
5 249 (3.59%) JavaScript
6 202 (2.91%) Bicep
7 177 (2.55%) Java
8 166 (2.39%) Bash
9 111 (1.60%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 111 (1.60%) T-SQL
10 100 (1.44%) TypeScript
11 68 (0.98%) Kusto Query Language
12 31 (0.45%) VBA
13 29 (0.42%) VB
14 27 (0.39%) VBScript
15 22 (0.32%) X++
16 20 (0.29%) C++
16 20 (0.29%) PL/SQL
17 19 (0.27%) R
18 16 (0.23%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,490 (21.49%) Security Cleared
2 1,114 (16.07%) SC Cleared
3 633 (9.13%) Degree
4 364 (5.25%) Microsoft Certification
5 283 (4.08%) DV Cleared
6 256 (3.69%) Azure Certification
7 172 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
8 134 (1.93%) CISSP
9 128 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
10 122 (1.76%) Computer Science Degree
11 96 (1.38%) PMP
12 89 (1.28%) PMI Certification
13 74 (1.07%) CISM
14 72 (1.04%) AWS Certification
15 59 (0.85%) DBS Check
16 58 (0.84%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 57 (0.82%) A+ Certification
18 56 (0.81%) CCNP
19 48 (0.69%) CCNA
20 46 (0.66%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 414 (5.97%) Data Quality
2 244 (3.52%) QA
3 229 (3.30%) GDPR
4 205 (2.96%) SLA
5 199 (2.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 191 (2.75%) PMO
7 172 (2.48%) NIST
8 115 (1.66%) Accessibility
9 88 (1.27%) Cyber Essentials
10 85 (1.23%) NCSC
11 55 (0.79%) GRC
12 45 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 41 (0.59%) WCAG
14 36 (0.52%) PCI DSS
15 30 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 22 (0.32%) Disclosure Scotland
17 21 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
18 15 (0.22%) GMP
18 15 (0.22%) P3O
18 15 (0.22%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,320 (19.04%) Active Directory
2 259 (3.74%) VMware Infrastructure
3 254 (3.66%) Docker
4 146 (2.11%) Hyper-V
5 123 (1.77%) Virtual Desktop
6 98 (1.41%) Virtual Machines
7 63 (0.91%) vSphere
8 58 (0.84%) VMware ESXi
9 35 (0.50%) BitLocker
10 21 (0.30%) Microsoft App-V
11 18 (0.26%) VMware NSX
12 16 (0.23%) Firmware
13 8 (0.12%) IAG
13 8 (0.12%) NFS
13 8 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
14 7 (0.10%) Oracle RAC
14 7 (0.10%) zsh
15 5 (0.072%) Terminal Services
15 5 (0.072%) XenApp
16 4 (0.058%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 556 (8.02%) Microsoft Intune
2 333 (4.80%) Kubernetes
3 283 (4.08%) SCCM
4 168 (2.42%) Ansible
5 131 (1.89%) Single Sign-On
6 60 (0.87%) Grafana
7 58 (0.84%) Jamf Pro
8 53 (0.76%) SCOM
9 47 (0.68%) vCenter Server
10 40 (0.58%) Prometheus
11 37 (0.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 28 (0.40%) WSUS
13 24 (0.35%) QRadar
14 22 (0.32%) FortiGate
14 22 (0.32%) Progress Chef
15 20 (0.29%) Puppet
16 18 (0.26%) Failover Clustering
17 15 (0.22%) Argo
18 14 (0.20%) WMI
19 13 (0.19%) Avamar
Vendors
1 529 (7.63%) ServiceNow
2 337 (4.86%) VMware
3 334 (4.82%) Oracle
4 273 (3.94%) SAP
5 245 (3.53%) Google
6 243 (3.50%) Databricks
7 233 (3.36%) Cisco
8 129 (1.86%) Salesforce
9 120 (1.73%) Splunk
10 111 (1.60%) Apple
11 94 (1.36%) CyberArk
12 89 (1.28%) Citrix
13 83 (1.20%) Okta
14 78 (1.12%) OpenAI
15 77 (1.11%) BeyondTrust
16 74 (1.07%) Foundry
17 73 (1.05%) CrowdStrike
18 68 (0.98%) Red Hat
19 54 (0.78%) Adobe
20 53 (0.76%) Zscaler