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 2 July 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
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 6,047 4,227 5,635
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.75% 13.65% 12.98%
As % of the Vendors category 28.67% 28.79% 30.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,973 2,710 3,670
10th Percentile £213 £213 £195
25th Percentile £375 £348 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £581 £600
90th Percentile £675 £669 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £430 £450
% change year-on-year +4.65% -4.44% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 374 317 491
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.20 £11.13
25th Percentile £16.50 £15.84 £13.69
Median hourly rate £21.00 £22.32 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -5.89% +38.95% -32.17%
75th Percentile £35.22 £31.00 £26.32
90th Percentile £65.00 £63.31 £59.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.70 £19.42 £15.98
% change year-on-year +6.59% +21.50% -15.89%

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 21,090 14,680 18,591
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.98% 47.41% 42.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,140 9,003 11,556
10th Percentile £313 £281 £270
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year - -2.91% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £733
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £481 £500
% change year-on-year +3.95% -3.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,092 694 1,154
10th Percentile £15.75 £14.84 £12.28
25th Percentile £19.03 £17.30 £14.84
Median hourly rate £33.99 £25.15 £24.50
Median % change year-on-year +35.15% +2.65% -39.64%
75th Percentile £62.81 £53.69 £59.95
90th Percentile £80.09 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £22.63 £24.00
% change year-on-year +43.61% -5.71% -25.70%

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 2 July 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 2 July 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 2 July 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 0 5,271 £496 +4.40% 3,798
UK excluding London -1 3,210 £450 +4.65% 3,179
London -1 2,316 £505 -1.94% 1,215
Work from Home 0 1,543 £500 - 1,704
North of England -4 824 £465 +9.41% 751
South East -2 755 £475 +1.20% 969
Midlands -3 549 £450 +16.88% 515
North West -3 441 £450 +4.53% 398
South West 0 393 £475 +11.76% 335
West Midlands -4 385 £450 +16.13% 277
Yorkshire -3 362 £482 +7.11% 261
East of England 0 296 £350 -30.00% 329
Scotland +3 279 £450 +1.24% 169
East Midlands +1 156 £424 +13.07% 239
Wales +1 110 £370 +23.33% 108
Northern Ireland +2 32 £350 +0.36% 90
North East -36 25 £450 +32.35% 108
Channel Islands 0 2 £550 -24.14%

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
1 652 (10.78%) SharePoint
2 386 (6.38%) Microsoft Exchange
3 129 (2.13%) Confluence
4 35 (0.58%) Apache Spark
5 31 (0.51%) Apache
6 28 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
7 18 (0.30%) CMS
7 18 (0.30%) IIS
8 15 (0.25%) HCL Notes
9 14 (0.23%) Skype for Business
10 11 (0.18%) SAS
11 7 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
12 6 (0.099%) Camunda
12 6 (0.099%) Jupyter
12 6 (0.099%) Mendix
13 5 (0.083%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.083%) SharePoint 2013
14 4 (0.066%) Exchange Server 2010
14 4 (0.066%) nginx
14 4 (0.066%) Tomcat
Applications
1 563 (9.31%) Microsoft Office
2 552 (9.13%) Microsoft Excel
3 234 (3.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 126 (2.08%) Microsoft Project
5 105 (1.74%) MS Visio
6 41 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
7 23 (0.38%) Chatbot
8 12 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.099%) Adobe Illustrator
10 5 (0.083%) PTC Creo
11 3 (0.050%) Adobe Captivate
11 3 (0.050%) Photoshop
11 3 (0.050%) SOLIDWORKS
11 3 (0.050%) Trello
12 2 (0.033%) Adobe Premiere
12 2 (0.033%) AutoCAD
12 2 (0.033%) InDesign
12 2 (0.033%) InfoPath
12 2 (0.033%) MicroStation
12 2 (0.033%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 206 (3.41%) Dynamics CRM
2 76 (1.26%) SAP S/4HANA
3 20 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
4 19 (0.31%) NetSuite
5 18 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
6 15 (0.25%) Aladdin
6 15 (0.25%) Dynamics NAV
7 13 (0.21%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 9 (0.15%) Primavera
9 9 (0.15%) Sage X3
9 9 (0.15%) SAP MM
10 8 (0.13%) Loan IQ
11 7 (0.12%) Dynamics AX
12 6 (0.099%) Dynamics GP
12 6 (0.099%) Magento
12 6 (0.099%) NEC Housing
12 6 (0.099%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.099%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 2,535 (41.92%) Azure
2 1,501 (24.82%) Microsoft 365
3 1,034 (17.10%) Power Platform
4 850 (14.06%) Entra ID
5 538 (8.90%) AWS
6 481 (7.95%) Azure DevOps
7 465 (7.69%) Dynamics 365
8 343 (5.67%) Power Automate
9 317 (5.24%) Microsoft Purview
10 315 (5.21%) PowerApps
11 305 (5.04%) Microsoft Copilot
12 247 (4.08%) GitHub
13 231 (3.82%) OneDrive
14 221 (3.65%) SaaS
15 196 (3.24%) GCP
16 158 (2.61%) Azure Data Factory
17 154 (2.55%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 153 (2.53%) Serverless
19 144 (2.38%) PaaS
20 143 (2.36%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 328 (5.42%) DNS
2 285 (4.71%) Firewall
3 228 (3.77%) VPN
4 198 (3.27%) DHCP
5 157 (2.60%) WAN
6 149 (2.46%) TCP/IP
7 140 (2.32%) Wi-Fi
8 135 (2.23%) LAN
9 129 (2.13%) Network Security
10 57 (0.94%) VLAN
11 49 (0.81%) Kerberos
12 45 (0.74%) SAN
12 45 (0.74%) SD-WAN
13 40 (0.66%) SSL
14 38 (0.63%) Wireless
15 34 (0.56%) Unified Communications
16 32 (0.53%) MPLS
16 32 (0.53%) VoIP
17 31 (0.51%) Internet
18 26 (0.43%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 660 (10.91%) Power BI
2 317 (5.24%) SQL Server
3 173 (2.86%) Data Warehouse
4 133 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
5 126 (2.08%) Data Lake
6 124 (2.05%) Metadata
7 118 (1.95%) Azure SQL Database
8 71 (1.17%) Relational Database
9 69 (1.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 61 (1.01%) MySQL
11 57 (0.94%) Power Query
12 51 (0.84%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 44 (0.73%) NoSQL
13 44 (0.73%) Star Schema
14 40 (0.66%) Tableau
15 38 (0.63%) Oracle Database
16 36 (0.60%) Delta Lake
17 32 (0.53%) SQL Server Analysis Services
18 26 (0.43%) Big Data
19 24 (0.40%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 306 (5.06%) JIRA
2 181 (2.99%) Git
3 79 (1.31%) Jenkins
4 58 (0.96%) GitLab
5 39 (0.64%) Visual Studio
6 28 (0.46%) MSI
7 20 (0.33%) Selenium
8 18 (0.30%) Artifactory
9 17 (0.28%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.28%) ERwin
10 16 (0.26%) MLflow
11 15 (0.25%) JUnit
12 14 (0.23%) Maven
12 14 (0.23%) Postman
13 13 (0.21%) Bitbucket
13 13 (0.21%) Visual Studio Code
14 12 (0.20%) Team Foundation Server
15 11 (0.18%) JMeter
15 11 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
16 10 (0.17%) WebDriver
General
1 1,984 (32.81%) Social Skills
2 1,214 (20.08%) Finance
3 676 (11.18%) Analytical Skills
4 550 (9.10%) Public Sector
5 306 (5.06%) Banking
6 258 (4.27%) Organisational Skills
7 236 (3.90%) Legal
8 164 (2.71%) Documentation Skills
9 117 (1.93%) Manufacturing
10 110 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 104 (1.72%) Retail
12 95 (1.57%) Law
13 93 (1.54%) Telecoms
14 83 (1.37%) Marketing
15 82 (1.36%) Presentation Skills
16 80 (1.32%) Military
17 68 (1.12%) Local Government
18 65 (1.07%) Investment Banking
19 63 (1.04%) Influencing Skills
20 46 (0.76%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 747 (12.35%) Architect
2 636 (10.52%) Analyst
3 563 (9.31%) Developer
4 495 (8.19%) Senior
5 403 (6.66%) Lead
6 374 (6.18%) IT Support
7 364 (6.02%) Consultant
8 298 (4.93%) Support Engineer
9 234 (3.87%) Solutions Architect
10 227 (3.75%) Data Engineer
11 214 (3.54%) IT Engineer
12 209 (3.46%) Project Manager
13 206 (3.41%) Azure Engineer
14 186 (3.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 179 (2.96%) Administrator
16 174 (2.88%) Business Analyst
17 166 (2.75%) IT Support Engineer
18 126 (2.08%) Cloud Engineer
19 120 (1.98%) Security Engineer
20 104 (1.72%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 271 (4.48%) .NET
2 209 (3.46%) REST
3 138 (2.28%) Microsoft Graph
4 118 (1.95%) OAuth
5 108 (1.79%) JSON
6 104 (1.72%) PySpark
7 101 (1.67%) SAML
8 88 (1.46%) OpenID
9 83 (1.37%) LDAP
10 81 (1.34%) React
10 81 (1.34%) Web Services
11 67 (1.11%) XML
12 62 (1.03%) SailPoint
13 61 (1.01%) Node.js
14 60 (0.99%) RESTful
15 59 (0.98%) OAuth2
16 57 (0.94%) .NET Framework
17 56 (0.93%) HTML
17 56 (0.93%) Middleware
18 55 (0.91%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 344 (5.69%) Onboarding
2 280 (4.63%) Cloud Native
3 169 (2.79%) Product Ownership
4 151 (2.50%) Management Information System
5 123 (2.03%) Data Centre
6 122 (2.02%) Legacy Systems
7 115 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
8 109 (1.80%) Hybrid Cloud
9 105 (1.74%) Security Posture
10 104 (1.72%) PKI
11 102 (1.69%) AI Agents
12 89 (1.47%) Self-Motivation
13 88 (1.46%) Data Structures
14 78 (1.29%) Replication
14 78 (1.29%) Virtual Team
15 77 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
16 71 (1.17%) Low-Code
17 60 (0.99%) Distributed Systems
18 50 (0.83%) Clustering
18 50 (0.83%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 1,284 (21.23%) Windows
2 324 (5.36%) Windows Server
3 315 (5.21%) Windows 10
4 265 (4.38%) Linux
5 130 (2.15%) Mac OS
6 111 (1.84%) Android
7 106 (1.75%) Apple iOS
8 43 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 41 (0.68%) Unix
9 41 (0.68%) Windows 7
10 37 (0.61%) Windows Server 2016
11 31 (0.51%) VMS
11 31 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
12 23 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
13 16 (0.26%) Ubuntu
14 13 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
15 11 (0.18%) CentOS
15 11 (0.18%) SUSE
16 9 (0.15%) Solaris
17 6 (0.099%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,031 (17.05%) Problem-Solving
2 965 (15.96%) DevOps
3 892 (14.75%) Agile
4 856 (14.16%) Migration
5 787 (13.01%) CI/CD
6 726 (12.01%) Stakeholder Management
7 674 (11.15%) Business Intelligence
8 657 (10.86%) AI
9 633 (10.47%) Analytics
10 602 (9.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 592 (9.79%) Continuous Improvement
12 531 (8.78%) ITIL
13 450 (7.44%) Customer Service
14 442 (7.31%) Data Modelling
15 431 (7.13%) Roadmaps
16 410 (6.78%) Cybersecurity
17 393 (6.50%) Infrastructure as Code
18 392 (6.48%) Decision-Making
19 364 (6.02%) Validation
20 359 (5.94%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 777 (12.85%) SQL
2 664 (10.98%) PowerShell
3 632 (10.45%) Python
4 280 (4.63%) C#
5 212 (3.51%) JavaScript
6 185 (3.06%) Java
7 154 (2.55%) Bicep
8 110 (1.82%) T-SQL
9 85 (1.41%) TypeScript
10 84 (1.39%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 82 (1.36%) Bash
12 75 (1.24%) Kusto Query Language
13 36 (0.60%) VBA
14 32 (0.53%) C++
15 27 (0.45%) PL/SQL
15 27 (0.45%) VB
16 18 (0.30%) VBScript
17 17 (0.28%) Scala
18 16 (0.26%) Shell Script
19 13 (0.21%) X++
Qualifications
1 1,169 (19.33%) Security Cleared
2 901 (14.90%) SC Cleared
3 586 (9.69%) Degree
4 292 (4.83%) Microsoft Certification
5 205 (3.39%) DV Cleared
6 200 (3.31%) Azure Certification
7 120 (1.98%) Computer Science Degree
8 116 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
9 113 (1.87%) CISSP
10 104 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
11 61 (1.01%) CISM
11 61 (1.01%) PMP
12 56 (0.93%) PMI Certification
13 54 (0.89%) AWS Certification
14 53 (0.88%) Master's Degree
15 48 (0.79%) CCNP
16 44 (0.73%) MCSE
17 43 (0.71%) DBS Check
18 42 (0.69%) CCNA
19 38 (0.63%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 314 (5.19%) Data Quality
2 230 (3.80%) GDPR
3 193 (3.19%) QA
4 172 (2.84%) SLA
5 159 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 132 (2.18%) NIST
7 117 (1.93%) PMO
8 82 (1.36%) Accessibility
8 82 (1.36%) Cyber Essentials
9 66 (1.09%) NCSC
10 37 (0.61%) GRC
11 36 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 32 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 32 (0.53%) PCI DSS
13 24 (0.40%) WCAG
14 18 (0.30%) NIST 800
15 17 (0.28%) SOC 2
16 15 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
17 13 (0.21%) MiFID
18 12 (0.20%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,158 (19.15%) Active Directory
2 229 (3.79%) Docker
3 207 (3.42%) VMware Infrastructure
4 110 (1.82%) Hyper-V
5 94 (1.55%) Virtual Desktop
6 87 (1.44%) Virtual Machines
7 61 (1.01%) VMware ESXi
8 58 (0.96%) vSphere
9 33 (0.55%) BitLocker
10 25 (0.41%) VMware NSX
11 21 (0.35%) Microsoft App-V
12 20 (0.33%) Firmware
13 9 (0.15%) NFS
14 7 (0.12%) IAG
15 5 (0.083%) RACF
15 5 (0.083%) Terminal Services
15 5 (0.083%) VMware Workstation
16 4 (0.066%) Snort
16 4 (0.066%) XenDesktop
17 3 (0.050%) Squid
Systems Management
1 482 (7.97%) Microsoft Intune
2 392 (6.48%) Terraform
3 269 (4.45%) Kubernetes
4 207 (3.42%) SCCM
5 134 (2.22%) Ansible
6 130 (2.15%) Single Sign-On
7 72 (1.19%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 60 (0.99%) Jamf Pro
9 50 (0.83%) vCenter Server
10 38 (0.63%) Grafana
11 32 (0.53%) Prometheus
12 30 (0.50%) SCOM
13 27 (0.45%) FortiGate
14 20 (0.33%) Puppet
15 19 (0.31%) WSUS
16 16 (0.26%) QRadar
17 13 (0.21%) AirWatch
18 12 (0.20%) vMotion
19 11 (0.18%) HAProxy
19 11 (0.18%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 370 (6.12%) ServiceNow
2 280 (4.63%) VMware
3 263 (4.35%) Oracle
4 251 (4.15%) SAP
5 208 (3.44%) Databricks
6 206 (3.41%) Cisco
7 181 (2.99%) Google
8 121 (2.00%) Salesforce
9 104 (1.72%) Citrix
10 94 (1.55%) Splunk
11 86 (1.42%) Apple
12 76 (1.26%) Foundry
13 74 (1.22%) Okta
13 74 (1.22%) OpenAI
14 67 (1.11%) CyberArk
15 63 (1.04%) CrowdStrike
16 50 (0.83%) HP
17 49 (0.81%) Red Hat
18 45 (0.74%) Zscaler
19 43 (0.71%) Palo Alto