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 1 April 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
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 11 7
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,499 3,875 5,684
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.31% 13.34% 12.84%
As % of the Vendors category 28.38% 28.32% 30.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,706 2,620 3,794
10th Percentile £206 £210 £189
25th Percentile £370 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £491 £475 £498
Median % change year-on-year +3.26% -4.52% -0.50%
75th Percentile £581 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £663 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £440 £450
% change year-on-year +2.39% -2.33% -1.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 380 195 427
10th Percentile £13.38 £14.84 £11.04
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.00 £12.93
Median hourly rate £19.96 £23.00 £15.86
Median % change year-on-year -13.24% +45.06% -28.19%
75th Percentile £27.31 £30.78 £25.00
90th Percentile £63.88 £61.05 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.71 £21.46 £15.00
% change year-on-year -8.18% +43.07% -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 19,377 13,685 18,908
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.37% 47.12% 42.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,439 8,647 11,818
10th Percentile £313 £293 £255
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £514
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.29% -2.10%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £625
90th Percentile £700 £710 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 966 482 1,045
10th Percentile £15.28 £15.46 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.07 £14.48
Median hourly rate £26.50 £28.75 £23.22
Median % change year-on-year -7.83% +23.84% -41.96%
75th Percentile £58.88 £62.50 £56.25
90th Percentile £78.25 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £27.13 £21.50
% change year-on-year -7.83% +26.16% -38.62%

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 1 April 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 1 April 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 1 April 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 4,824 £492 +3.36% 3,243
UK excluding London +1 2,881 £450 +2.39% 2,912
London -1 2,090 £505 +1.00% 867
Work from Home -2 1,373 £500 - 1,234
North of England 0 785 £441 +3.65% 701
South East -2 646 £483 -3.50% 876
Midlands -4 493 £450 +7.02% 451
North West -1 439 £414 -8.00% 370
East of England +1 354 £400 - 304
West Midlands -7 348 £475 +11.76% 243
South West -2 325 £500 +5.26% 336
Yorkshire +9 320 £450 +16.13% 237
Scotland 0 194 £450 +12.50% 170
East Midlands -2 140 £379 -9.34% 207
Wales +2 96 £310 -17.33% 102
North East -17 32 £450 +28.57% 104
Northern Ireland +3 20 £450 +38.46% 39
Channel Islands -2 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
1 615 (11.18%) SharePoint
2 406 (7.38%) Microsoft Exchange
3 113 (2.05%) Confluence
4 25 (0.45%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.42%) CMS
6 22 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
6 22 (0.40%) Skype for Business
7 21 (0.38%) Apache
8 17 (0.31%) HCL Notes
9 15 (0.27%) SAS
10 11 (0.20%) IIS
11 10 (0.18%) Mendix
12 7 (0.13%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.091%) Camunda
14 4 (0.073%) Exchange Server 2010
14 4 (0.073%) Exchange Server 2013
14 4 (0.073%) Jupyter
14 4 (0.073%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.073%) SharePoint Server
15 3 (0.055%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 586 (10.66%) Microsoft Office
2 521 (9.47%) Microsoft Excel
3 228 (4.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 128 (2.33%) Microsoft Project
5 104 (1.89%) MS Visio
6 81 (1.47%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.31%) Chatbot
8 10 (0.18%) Trello
9 8 (0.15%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.091%) Adobe Captivate
11 5 (0.091%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.073%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.073%) InDesign
13 3 (0.055%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.055%) Sketch
13 3 (0.055%) SOLIDWORKS
14 2 (0.036%) AutoCAD
14 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 192 (3.49%) Dynamics CRM
2 53 (0.96%) SAP S/4HANA
3 20 (0.36%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.25%) Aladdin
5 14 (0.25%) Maximo
6 12 (0.22%) NetSuite
6 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
7 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
8 10 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
8 10 (0.18%) Teamcenter
8 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 8 (0.15%) Sage X3
9 8 (0.15%) Shopify
10 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
10 7 (0.13%) SystmOne
11 6 (0.11%) Advent Geneva
11 6 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
11 6 (0.11%) Primavera
11 6 (0.11%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,259 (41.08%) Azure
2 1,407 (25.59%) Microsoft 365
3 914 (16.62%) Power Platform
4 697 (12.68%) Entra ID
5 463 (8.42%) AWS
6 451 (8.20%) Dynamics 365
7 441 (8.02%) Azure DevOps
8 347 (6.31%) Power Automate
9 312 (5.67%) PowerApps
10 279 (5.07%) Microsoft Purview
11 265 (4.82%) GitHub
12 210 (3.82%) Microsoft Copilot
13 209 (3.80%) OneDrive
14 198 (3.60%) Azure Data Factory
15 183 (3.33%) SaaS
16 179 (3.26%) Serverless
17 167 (3.04%) GCP
18 164 (2.98%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 154 (2.80%) PaaS
20 148 (2.69%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 304 (5.53%) Firewall
2 296 (5.38%) DNS
3 209 (3.80%) VPN
4 172 (3.13%) DHCP
5 146 (2.66%) Wi-Fi
6 137 (2.49%) WAN
7 120 (2.18%) LAN
7 120 (2.18%) Network Security
8 114 (2.07%) TCP/IP
9 56 (1.02%) Kerberos
10 55 (1.00%) VLAN
11 45 (0.82%) Skype
12 43 (0.78%) SD-WAN
13 38 (0.69%) Wireless
14 34 (0.62%) Unified Communications
15 33 (0.60%) SAN
15 33 (0.60%) SSL
16 29 (0.53%) MPLS
17 28 (0.51%) HTTP
18 24 (0.44%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 565 (10.27%) Power BI
2 274 (4.98%) SQL Server
3 180 (3.27%) Data Warehouse
4 153 (2.78%) Data Lake
5 123 (2.24%) Azure SQL Database
6 111 (2.02%) Metadata
7 102 (1.85%) PostgreSQL
8 70 (1.27%) Relational Database
8 70 (1.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 57 (1.04%) Oracle Database
10 51 (0.93%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 49 (0.89%) NoSQL
12 47 (0.85%) MySQL
13 44 (0.80%) Tableau
14 43 (0.78%) Power Query
15 37 (0.67%) Delta Lake
16 36 (0.65%) Star Schema
17 25 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
18 24 (0.44%) Snowflake Schema
18 24 (0.44%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 257 (4.67%) JIRA
2 178 (3.24%) Git
3 73 (1.33%) Jenkins
4 72 (1.31%) GitLab
5 24 (0.44%) Visual Studio
6 23 (0.42%) Artifactory
6 23 (0.42%) Eclipse
7 18 (0.33%) MSI
7 18 (0.33%) Postman
8 17 (0.31%) Selenium
9 16 (0.29%) MLflow
10 15 (0.27%) JMeter
11 13 (0.24%) Cucumber
11 13 (0.24%) JUnit
12 12 (0.22%) Visual Studio Code
13 11 (0.20%) Android Studio
13 11 (0.20%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.18%) Maven
14 10 (0.18%) SpecFlow
15 9 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,973 (35.88%) Social Skills
2 1,096 (19.93%) Finance
3 649 (11.80%) Analytical Skills
4 541 (9.84%) Public Sector
5 290 (5.27%) Banking
6 257 (4.67%) Organisational Skills
7 250 (4.55%) Legal
8 157 (2.86%) Documentation Skills
9 120 (2.18%) Manufacturing
10 112 (2.04%) Presentation Skills
11 100 (1.82%) Marketing
12 92 (1.67%) Telecoms
13 88 (1.60%) Law
14 79 (1.44%) Retail
15 74 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 59 (1.07%) Influencing Skills
16 59 (1.07%) Local Government
17 57 (1.04%) Military
18 50 (0.91%) Investment Banking
19 40 (0.73%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 675 (12.27%) Architect
2 629 (11.44%) Analyst
3 523 (9.51%) Developer
4 439 (7.98%) Senior
5 377 (6.86%) IT Support
6 322 (5.86%) Lead
7 292 (5.31%) Consultant
8 279 (5.07%) Support Engineer
9 202 (3.67%) Data Engineer
10 201 (3.66%) IT Engineer
11 199 (3.62%) Solutions Architect
12 190 (3.46%) Azure Engineer
13 174 (3.16%) Administrator
14 173 (3.15%) Business Analyst
15 166 (3.02%) Project Manager
16 162 (2.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 154 (2.80%) IT Support Engineer
18 115 (2.09%) Security Engineer
19 105 (1.91%) Support Analyst
20 103 (1.87%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 254 (4.62%) .NET
2 185 (3.36%) REST
3 128 (2.33%) Microsoft Graph
4 122 (2.22%) OAuth
5 101 (1.84%) SAML
6 95 (1.73%) React
7 89 (1.62%) PySpark
8 82 (1.49%) OpenID
9 72 (1.31%) JSON
10 66 (1.20%) LDAP
11 65 (1.18%) HTML
11 65 (1.18%) Middleware
11 65 (1.18%) RESTful
12 63 (1.15%) AngularJS
13 62 (1.13%) Web Services
14 61 (1.11%) ARM Templates
15 59 (1.07%) CSS
16 58 (1.05%) OAuth2
17 50 (0.91%) Node.js
17 50 (0.91%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 280 (5.09%) Onboarding
2 220 (4.00%) Cloud Native
3 186 (3.38%) Product Ownership
4 131 (2.38%) Management Information System
5 114 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
6 93 (1.69%) Data Centre
7 89 (1.62%) Hybrid Cloud
7 89 (1.62%) PKI
8 87 (1.58%) Security Posture
9 85 (1.55%) Self-Motivation
10 73 (1.33%) AI Agents
10 73 (1.33%) Legacy Systems
11 71 (1.29%) Replication
12 68 (1.24%) Low-Code
13 66 (1.20%) Data Structures
14 61 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
15 59 (1.07%) Driving Licence
15 59 (1.07%) Virtual Team
16 56 (1.02%) NHS
17 46 (0.84%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1,231 (22.39%) Windows
2 344 (6.26%) Windows 10
3 282 (5.13%) Windows Server
4 281 (5.11%) Linux
5 100 (1.82%) Android
6 97 (1.76%) Mac OS
7 93 (1.69%) Apple iOS
8 45 (0.82%) Unix
9 44 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
10 42 (0.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 42 (0.76%) Windows 7
11 26 (0.47%) VMS
12 23 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
12 23 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
13 21 (0.38%) Windows Server 2003
14 10 (0.18%) CentOS
15 9 (0.16%) Ubuntu
16 8 (0.15%) AIX
17 4 (0.073%) CatOS
17 4 (0.073%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 973 (17.69%) Problem-Solving
2 880 (16.00%) Agile
3 849 (15.44%) DevOps
4 758 (13.78%) Migration
5 725 (13.18%) CI/CD
6 649 (11.80%) Business Intelligence
7 625 (11.37%) Analytics
8 537 (9.77%) Stakeholder Management
9 520 (9.46%) AI
10 506 (9.20%) Continuous Improvement
11 459 (8.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 456 (8.29%) Customer Service
13 420 (7.64%) ITIL
14 390 (7.09%) Data Modelling
15 383 (6.96%) Cybersecurity
16 334 (6.07%) Roadmaps
17 320 (5.82%) Infrastructure as Code
18 301 (5.47%) Change Management
18 301 (5.47%) Project Management
19 293 (5.33%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 727 (13.22%) SQL
2 665 (12.09%) PowerShell
3 631 (11.47%) Python
4 284 (5.16%) C#
5 226 (4.11%) JavaScript
6 172 (3.13%) Java
7 122 (2.22%) Bicep
8 111 (2.02%) Kusto Query Language
9 97 (1.76%) Bash
10 84 (1.53%) TypeScript
11 77 (1.40%) T-SQL
12 70 (1.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 37 (0.67%) PL/SQL
14 30 (0.55%) VBA
15 28 (0.51%) C++
16 22 (0.40%) Perl
16 22 (0.40%) VB
17 18 (0.33%) Shell Script
18 17 (0.31%) R
19 15 (0.27%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,078 (19.60%) Security Cleared
2 819 (14.89%) SC Cleared
3 549 (9.98%) Degree
4 295 (5.36%) Microsoft Certification
5 216 (3.93%) DV Cleared
6 180 (3.27%) Azure Certification
7 130 (2.36%) Computer Science Degree
8 103 (1.87%) CISSP
9 98 (1.78%) BPSS Clearance
10 65 (1.18%) PMI Certification
11 64 (1.16%) Cisco Certification
12 60 (1.09%) Master's Degree
13 58 (1.05%) PMP
14 57 (1.04%) CISM
15 41 (0.75%) AWS Certification
15 41 (0.75%) MCSE
16 36 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
17 34 (0.62%) DBS Check
18 32 (0.58%) Microsoft Certified Professional
19 30 (0.55%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 242 (4.40%) Data Quality
2 235 (4.27%) GDPR
3 169 (3.07%) QA
4 157 (2.86%) SLA
5 137 (2.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 118 (2.15%) PMO
7 107 (1.95%) NIST
8 73 (1.33%) Accessibility
9 62 (1.13%) Cyber Essentials
10 47 (0.85%) NCSC
11 38 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 30 (0.55%) PCI DSS
13 27 (0.49%) GRC
14 24 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 21 (0.38%) WCAG
16 18 (0.33%) MiFID
17 15 (0.27%) NIST 800
18 13 (0.24%) FINRA
18 13 (0.24%) HIPAA
19 12 (0.22%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,083 (19.69%) Active Directory
2 223 (4.06%) Docker
3 174 (3.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 88 (1.60%) Hyper-V
5 62 (1.13%) Virtual Machines
6 55 (1.00%) Virtual Desktop
7 37 (0.67%) VMware ESXi
8 30 (0.55%) vSphere
9 23 (0.42%) BitLocker
10 20 (0.36%) VMware NSX
11 17 (0.31%) Firmware
12 12 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
13 6 (0.11%) Snort
14 5 (0.091%) IAG
15 4 (0.073%) KVM
15 4 (0.073%) NFS
15 4 (0.073%) VMware Workstation
16 3 (0.055%) Squid
Systems Management
1 427 (7.77%) Microsoft Intune
2 351 (6.38%) Terraform
3 266 (4.84%) Kubernetes
4 211 (3.84%) SCCM
5 141 (2.56%) Single Sign-On
6 118 (2.15%) Ansible
7 98 (1.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 43 (0.78%) Jamf Pro
9 40 (0.73%) Grafana
10 33 (0.60%) vCenter Server
11 31 (0.56%) Prometheus
12 24 (0.44%) FortiGate
13 21 (0.38%) SCOM
14 19 (0.35%) Puppet
15 16 (0.29%) WSUS
16 15 (0.27%) CASB
17 14 (0.25%) AirWatch
18 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
18 12 (0.22%) WMI
19 11 (0.20%) Nessus
Vendors
1 263 (4.78%) ServiceNow
2 254 (4.62%) VMware
3 213 (3.87%) Databricks
4 204 (3.71%) Oracle
5 202 (3.67%) SAP
6 180 (3.27%) Cisco
7 166 (3.02%) Google
8 137 (2.49%) Citrix
9 104 (1.89%) Splunk
10 96 (1.75%) OpenAI
11 90 (1.64%) Salesforce
12 80 (1.45%) Foundry
13 64 (1.16%) Apple
14 59 (1.07%) CrowdStrike
15 52 (0.95%) Palo Alto
16 48 (0.87%) HP
17 47 (0.85%) Red Hat
18 41 (0.75%) Okta
19 40 (0.73%) Adobe
20 37 (0.67%) Informatica