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 24 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
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 7,300 4,731 4,963
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.30% 14.35% 13.02%
As % of the Vendors category 31.87% 30.20% 29.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,628 3,068 3,072
10th Percentile £213 £205 £200
25th Percentile £370 £338 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £498
Median % change year-on-year +2.69% -4.62% -0.45%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £451 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.97% -2.78% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 588 383 273
10th Percentile £13.33 £13.75 £14.16
25th Percentile £14.57 £16.50 £15.62
Median hourly rate £18.50 £22.32 £18.11
Median % change year-on-year -17.10% +23.22% -20.45%
75th Percentile £33.75 £31.20 £46.18
90th Percentile £66.66 £64.90 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.97 £21.00 £16.23
% change year-on-year -14.43% +29.39% -23.98%

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 22,905 15,664 16,910
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.72% 47.52% 44.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,978 9,611 10,062
10th Percentile £310 £275 £288
25th Percentile £413 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £615 £613 £625
90th Percentile £704 £700 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,303 808 647
10th Percentile £13.97 £14.75 £14.50
25th Percentile £16.50 £17.69 £15.62
Median hourly rate £25.75 £25.15 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.39% -20.16% -28.18%
75th Percentile £60.00 £43.20 £64.25
90th Percentile £78.71 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £21.25 £30.00
% change year-on-year +21.18% -29.17% -29.41%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -1 6,321 £490 +3.43% 8,919
UK excluding London +1 3,940 £451 +2.97% 6,340
London 0 2,714 £517 +3.40% 3,464
Work from Home +1 1,840 £500 - 3,629
South East -1 1,030 £475 +5.56% 1,680
North of England -5 970 £469 +7.45% 1,540
Midlands 0 687 £425 +3.66% 1,040
North West -1 567 £472 +7.82% 792
West Midlands -2 469 £425 -3.41% 590
South West -1 456 £473 +11.18% 659
Scotland +6 385 £450 - 473
Yorkshire -6 357 £474 +6.76% 552
East of England 0 298 £350 -33.33% 650
East Midlands +1 212 £425 +16.52% 451
Wales +1 112 £394 +29.63% 188
North East -24 51 £426 +25.15% 213
Northern Ireland -1 37 £342 -2.29% 204
Channel Islands -4 4 £525 -27.59% 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
1 884 (12.11%) SharePoint
2 408 (5.59%) Microsoft Exchange
3 147 (2.01%) Confluence
4 39 (0.53%) Apache
4 39 (0.53%) Apache Spark
5 27 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
5 27 (0.37%) CMS
6 26 (0.36%) IIS
7 23 (0.32%) Skype for Business
8 18 (0.25%) SharePoint Server
9 17 (0.23%) HCL Notes
10 14 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
11 11 (0.15%) nginx
12 7 (0.096%) SAS
13 6 (0.082%) Apache Superset
13 6 (0.082%) Mendix
13 6 (0.082%) OpenStack
13 6 (0.082%) SharePoint 2013
13 6 (0.082%) ThingWorx
14 5 (0.068%) Camunda
Applications
1 788 (10.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 762 (10.44%) Microsoft Office
3 322 (4.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 190 (2.60%) Microsoft Project
5 112 (1.53%) MS Visio
6 51 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
7 28 (0.38%) Chatbot
8 16 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 15 (0.21%) AutoCAD
10 11 (0.15%) Navisworks
10 11 (0.15%) ProjectWise
11 10 (0.14%) Revit
12 5 (0.068%) Adobe Illustrator
12 5 (0.068%) Photoshop
13 4 (0.055%) Trello
14 3 (0.041%) Adobe Premiere
14 3 (0.041%) Final Cut Pro
15 2 (0.027%) Acrobat
15 2 (0.027%) MicroStation
15 2 (0.027%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 266 (3.64%) Dynamics CRM
2 87 (1.19%) SAP S/4HANA
3 35 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
4 28 (0.38%) Dynamics NAV
5 23 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
6 21 (0.29%) NetSuite
7 15 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
8 14 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
9 13 (0.18%) Primavera
10 11 (0.15%) Dynamics AX
10 11 (0.15%) Integrated Workplace Management System
10 11 (0.15%) Magento
11 10 (0.14%) Aladdin
12 8 (0.11%) iTrent
12 8 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
13 7 (0.096%) SAP CRM
13 7 (0.096%) SAP MM
13 7 (0.096%) SAP PSCD
14 6 (0.082%) Maximo
14 6 (0.082%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 2,994 (41.01%) Azure
2 1,872 (25.64%) Microsoft 365
3 1,290 (17.67%) Power Platform
4 1,151 (15.77%) Entra ID
5 664 (9.10%) AWS
6 616 (8.44%) Azure DevOps
7 604 (8.27%) Dynamics 365
8 449 (6.15%) Microsoft Copilot
9 435 (5.96%) Power Automate
10 391 (5.36%) PowerApps
11 318 (4.36%) Microsoft Purview
12 295 (4.04%) GitHub
13 274 (3.75%) GCP
14 272 (3.73%) OneDrive
15 245 (3.36%) SaaS
16 205 (2.81%) Serverless
17 182 (2.49%) Azure Data Factory
18 180 (2.47%) Azure Monitor
19 162 (2.22%) Azure Logic Apps
20 160 (2.19%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 407 (5.58%) DNS
2 340 (4.66%) Firewall
3 299 (4.10%) VPN
4 273 (3.74%) DHCP
5 206 (2.82%) TCP/IP
6 167 (2.29%) Network Security
7 161 (2.21%) WAN
8 145 (1.99%) LAN
9 138 (1.89%) Wi-Fi
10 73 (1.00%) VLAN
11 72 (0.99%) Wireless
12 51 (0.70%) SAN
13 43 (0.59%) SSL
14 40 (0.55%) Skype
15 38 (0.52%) MPLS
16 36 (0.49%) Unified Communications
17 32 (0.44%) BGP
18 31 (0.42%) Kerberos
19 30 (0.41%) Internet
20 28 (0.38%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 780 (10.68%) Power BI
2 401 (5.49%) SQL Server
3 172 (2.36%) Data Warehouse
4 165 (2.26%) Metadata
5 147 (2.01%) Data Lake
6 125 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
7 110 (1.51%) Azure SQL Database
8 89 (1.22%) Power Query
9 79 (1.08%) Relational Database
10 71 (0.97%) MySQL
11 64 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 50 (0.68%) NoSQL
13 45 (0.62%) Oracle Database
14 42 (0.58%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 41 (0.56%) Star Schema
16 37 (0.51%) Delta Lake
17 34 (0.47%) Tableau
18 31 (0.42%) MongoDB
19 30 (0.41%) Amazon RDS
20 25 (0.34%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 335 (4.59%) JIRA
2 243 (3.33%) Git
3 89 (1.22%) Jenkins
4 72 (0.99%) GitLab
5 59 (0.81%) Visual Studio
6 47 (0.64%) MSI
7 37 (0.51%) Selenium
8 25 (0.34%) Postman
9 23 (0.32%) Claude Code
10 18 (0.25%) Cypress.io
11 17 (0.23%) WebDriver
12 16 (0.22%) Cucumber
13 15 (0.21%) Eclipse
13 15 (0.21%) Team Foundation Server
14 12 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
14 12 (0.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
15 11 (0.15%) MLflow
15 11 (0.15%) Visual Studio Code
16 10 (0.14%) Bitbucket
16 10 (0.14%) ERwin
General
1 2,737 (37.49%) Social Skills
2 1,426 (19.53%) Finance
3 945 (12.95%) Analytical Skills
4 649 (8.89%) Public Sector
5 446 (6.11%) Organisational Skills
6 317 (4.34%) Banking
7 228 (3.12%) Legal
8 211 (2.89%) Documentation Skills
9 201 (2.75%) Manufacturing
10 187 (2.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 160 (2.19%) Retail
12 125 (1.71%) Telecoms
13 111 (1.52%) Marketing
14 101 (1.38%) Influencing Skills
15 94 (1.29%) Military
16 93 (1.27%) Aerospace
17 88 (1.21%) Law
18 87 (1.19%) Local Government
19 71 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
20 56 (0.77%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 839 (11.49%) Architect
2 727 (9.96%) Analyst
3 644 (8.82%) Developer
4 626 (8.58%) Senior
5 487 (6.67%) Lead
6 463 (6.34%) Consultant
7 454 (6.22%) IT Support
8 432 (5.92%) Support Engineer
9 317 (4.34%) Administrator
10 292 (4.00%) IT Engineer
11 285 (3.90%) Solutions Architect
12 254 (3.48%) Azure Engineer
12 254 (3.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 247 (3.38%) Data Engineer
14 242 (3.32%) IT Support Engineer
15 222 (3.04%) Project Manager
16 191 (2.62%) Business Analyst
17 184 (2.52%) Cloud Engineer
18 142 (1.95%) DevOps Engineer
19 137 (1.88%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 549 (7.52%) Terraform
2 341 (4.67%) .NET
3 286 (3.92%) REST
4 142 (1.95%) JSON
4 142 (1.95%) OAuth
5 112 (1.53%) SAML
6 111 (1.52%) XML
7 109 (1.49%) PySpark
8 107 (1.47%) OpenID
9 104 (1.42%) Microsoft Graph
10 95 (1.30%) ARM Templates
11 92 (1.26%) React
12 89 (1.22%) Web Services
13 85 (1.16%) .NET Framework
14 82 (1.12%) LDAP
15 78 (1.07%) OAuth2
16 76 (1.04%) HTML
16 76 (1.04%) RESTful
17 74 (1.01%) SailPoint
18 68 (0.93%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 587 (8.04%) Onboarding
2 322 (4.41%) Cloud Native
3 296 (4.05%) Management Information System
4 219 (3.00%) Enterprise Software
5 202 (2.77%) Product Ownership
6 162 (2.22%) Hybrid Cloud
7 161 (2.21%) AI Agents
8 158 (2.16%) PKI
9 153 (2.10%) Data Centre
10 138 (1.89%) Security Posture
11 137 (1.88%) Legacy Systems
12 98 (1.34%) CMDB
12 98 (1.34%) Data Structures
13 97 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
14 95 (1.30%) Driving Licence
15 91 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
16 84 (1.15%) Low-Code
17 77 (1.05%) NHS
17 77 (1.05%) Virtual Team
18 76 (1.04%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 1,554 (21.29%) Windows
2 471 (6.45%) Windows Server
3 388 (5.32%) Windows 10
4 343 (4.70%) Linux
5 159 (2.18%) Mac OS
6 136 (1.86%) Android
7 129 (1.77%) Apple iOS
8 64 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 50 (0.68%) Unix
10 42 (0.58%) Windows 7
11 40 (0.55%) Ubuntu
12 38 (0.52%) Windows Server 2019
13 34 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
14 32 (0.44%) VMS
15 23 (0.32%) CentOS
16 21 (0.29%) Solaris
17 20 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
18 12 (0.16%) SUSE
19 9 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
20 7 (0.096%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,375 (18.84%) Problem-Solving
2 1,374 (18.82%) Stakeholder Management
3 1,110 (15.21%) DevOps
4 1,088 (14.90%) Agile
5 995 (13.63%) Migration
6 961 (13.16%) CI/CD
7 909 (12.45%) Continuous Improvement
8 859 (11.77%) AI
9 832 (11.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 787 (10.78%) Business Intelligence
11 746 (10.22%) Analytics
12 723 (9.90%) ITIL
13 691 (9.47%) Customer Service
14 583 (7.99%) Infrastructure as Code
15 576 (7.89%) Cybersecurity
16 550 (7.53%) Roadmaps
17 519 (7.11%) Data Modelling
18 505 (6.92%) Project Delivery
19 498 (6.82%) Decision-Making
20 487 (6.67%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 867 (11.88%) SQL
2 819 (11.22%) PowerShell
3 747 (10.23%) Python
4 354 (4.85%) C#
5 278 (3.81%) JavaScript
6 213 (2.92%) Bicep
7 173 (2.37%) Bash
8 167 (2.29%) Java
9 114 (1.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 113 (1.55%) TypeScript
11 106 (1.45%) T-SQL
12 75 (1.03%) Kusto Query Language
13 31 (0.42%) VBA
14 29 (0.40%) VB
15 28 (0.38%) C++
16 25 (0.34%) VBScript
17 24 (0.33%) X++
18 22 (0.30%) PL/SQL
19 20 (0.27%) R
20 16 (0.22%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 1,571 (21.52%) Security Cleared
2 1,164 (15.95%) SC Cleared
3 631 (8.64%) Degree
4 375 (5.14%) Microsoft Certification
5 314 (4.30%) DV Cleared
6 278 (3.81%) Azure Certification
7 187 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
8 142 (1.95%) CISSP
9 128 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
10 109 (1.49%) Computer Science Degree
11 96 (1.32%) PMP
12 91 (1.25%) PMI Certification
13 77 (1.05%) AWS Certification
14 74 (1.01%) CISM
15 63 (0.86%) DBS Check
16 60 (0.82%) A+ Certification
17 59 (0.81%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 55 (0.75%) CCNP
19 46 (0.63%) (ISC)2 CCSP
20 44 (0.60%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 447 (6.12%) Data Quality
2 241 (3.30%) QA
3 237 (3.25%) GDPR
4 214 (2.93%) SLA
5 207 (2.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 206 (2.82%) PMO
7 181 (2.48%) NIST
8 123 (1.68%) Accessibility
9 88 (1.21%) Cyber Essentials
10 86 (1.18%) NCSC
11 63 (0.86%) GRC
12 48 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 46 (0.63%) WCAG
14 37 (0.51%) PCI DSS
15 28 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 25 (0.34%) Disclosure Scotland
17 21 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
18 19 (0.26%) SOC 2
19 17 (0.23%) NIST 800
20 16 (0.22%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 1,365 (18.70%) Active Directory
2 275 (3.77%) VMware Infrastructure
3 250 (3.42%) Docker
4 143 (1.96%) Hyper-V
5 131 (1.79%) Virtual Desktop
6 109 (1.49%) Virtual Machines
7 75 (1.03%) vSphere
8 65 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
9 32 (0.44%) BitLocker
10 20 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
11 17 (0.23%) Firmware
12 16 (0.22%) VMware NSX
13 11 (0.15%) Virtual Servers
14 9 (0.12%) IAG
15 8 (0.11%) NFS
16 7 (0.096%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 7 (0.096%) Oracle RAC
16 7 (0.096%) zsh
17 6 (0.082%) XenApp
18 5 (0.068%) Citrix Hypervisor
Systems Management
1 587 (8.04%) Microsoft Intune
2 338 (4.63%) Kubernetes
3 298 (4.08%) SCCM
4 168 (2.30%) Ansible
5 145 (1.99%) Single Sign-On
6 60 (0.82%) Jamf Pro
7 59 (0.81%) Grafana
8 57 (0.78%) SCOM
9 50 (0.68%) vCenter Server
10 37 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 37 (0.51%) Prometheus
11 27 (0.37%) QRadar
12 25 (0.34%) Progress Chef
12 25 (0.34%) WSUS
13 20 (0.27%) FortiGate
13 20 (0.27%) Puppet
14 19 (0.26%) Failover Clustering
15 17 (0.23%) Argo
16 16 (0.22%) WMI
17 14 (0.19%) Avamar
Vendors
1 550 (7.53%) ServiceNow
2 355 (4.86%) VMware
3 335 (4.59%) Oracle
4 292 (4.00%) SAP
5 270 (3.70%) Google
6 257 (3.52%) Databricks
7 243 (3.33%) Cisco
8 129 (1.77%) Splunk
9 126 (1.73%) Salesforce
10 115 (1.58%) Apple
11 107 (1.47%) CyberArk
12 93 (1.27%) Citrix
13 92 (1.26%) OpenAI
14 89 (1.22%) Okta
15 88 (1.21%) BeyondTrust
16 83 (1.14%) Foundry
17 75 (1.03%) CrowdStrike
18 66 (0.90%) Red Hat
19 60 (0.82%) IBM
20 57 (0.78%) Zscaler