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 22 March 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
22 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 9 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,495 3,957 5,693
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.51% 13.40% 12.86%
As % of the Vendors category 28.66% 28.44% 30.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,695 2,648 3,800
10th Percentile £209 £209 £189
25th Percentile £371 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £583 £582 £600
90th Percentile £675 £668 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.86% -2.78% -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 385 186 432
10th Percentile £13.43 £14.99 £11.06
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.97 £13.14
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.59 £16.05
Median % change year-on-year -15.60% +46.96% -26.20%
75th Percentile £25.77 £33.75 £25.91
90th Percentile £63.75 £59.18 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.38 £22.00 £15.76
% change year-on-year -11.93% +39.59% -17.05%

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 19,176 13,912 18,949
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.67% 47.11% 42.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,284 8,717 11,823
10th Percentile £310 £290 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% - -2.84%
75th Percentile £600 £618 £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 979 464 1,031
10th Percentile £15.33 £15.62 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.15 £29.00 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.28% +20.83% -36.00%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.69 £53.75
90th Percentile £76.69 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £27.50 £22.50
% change year-on-year -13.36% +22.22% -35.71%

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 22 March 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 22 March 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 22 March 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 4,819 £495 +4.11% 3,201
UK excluding London +1 2,898 £450 +2.86% 2,866
London -1 2,066 £513 +2.50% 859
Work from Home -1 1,373 £500 +0.91% 1,245
North of England -1 773 £437 +2.76% 676
South East -1 660 £480 -4.00% 887
Midlands -5 496 £450 +7.02% 436
North West -2 438 £416 -7.56% 345
East of England +1 357 £400 - 295
West Midlands -9 347 £475 +11.76% 231
South West -2 344 £515 +8.42% 327
Yorkshire +3 308 £450 +16.13% 240
Scotland +1 184 £450 +17.71% 170
East Midlands -2 144 £400 -2.44% 203
Wales +2 99 £310 -4.62% 104
North East -19 33 £463 +32.14% 101
Northern Ireland 0 20 £450 +38.46% 33
Channel Islands +3 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
1 621 (11.30%) SharePoint
2 427 (7.77%) Microsoft Exchange
3 115 (2.09%) Confluence
4 30 (0.55%) Skype for Business
5 24 (0.44%) CMS
6 23 (0.42%) Apache Spark
7 21 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
8 19 (0.35%) Apache
9 17 (0.31%) HCL Notes
10 14 (0.25%) SAS
11 11 (0.20%) IIS
12 10 (0.18%) Mendix
13 7 (0.13%) ArcGIS
14 6 (0.11%) SharePoint Server
15 5 (0.091%) Oracle Application Server
16 4 (0.073%) Camunda
16 4 (0.073%) Exchange Server 2010
16 4 (0.073%) Exchange Server 2013
16 4 (0.073%) Jupyter
17 3 (0.055%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 607 (11.05%) Microsoft Office
2 512 (9.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 225 (4.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 131 (2.38%) Microsoft Project
5 105 (1.91%) MS Visio
6 78 (1.42%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.27%) Chatbot
8 10 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 10 (0.18%) Trello
9 7 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
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%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.036%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 194 (3.53%) Dynamics CRM
2 52 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
3 18 (0.33%) Dynamics NAV
3 18 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
4 14 (0.25%) Aladdin
4 14 (0.25%) Maximo
5 13 (0.24%) Dynamics AX
6 12 (0.22%) Loan IQ
6 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 9 (0.16%) NetSuite
9 8 (0.15%) Sage X3
9 8 (0.15%) Shopify
9 8 (0.15%) Teamcenter
10 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
10 7 (0.13%) SystmOne
11 6 (0.11%) Advent Geneva
11 6 (0.11%) Primavera
12 5 (0.091%) SAP MM
12 5 (0.091%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 2,247 (40.89%) Azure
2 1,427 (25.97%) Microsoft 365
3 912 (16.60%) Power Platform
4 707 (12.87%) Entra ID
5 460 (8.37%) AWS
6 448 (8.15%) Azure DevOps
7 445 (8.10%) Dynamics 365
8 353 (6.42%) Power Automate
9 318 (5.79%) PowerApps
10 288 (5.24%) Microsoft Purview
11 263 (4.79%) GitHub
12 214 (3.89%) OneDrive
13 204 (3.71%) Microsoft Copilot
14 190 (3.46%) Azure Data Factory
15 188 (3.42%) SaaS
15 188 (3.42%) Serverless
16 168 (3.06%) GCP
17 159 (2.89%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 154 (2.80%) PaaS
19 150 (2.73%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 310 (5.64%) Firewall
2 298 (5.42%) DNS
3 207 (3.77%) VPN
4 179 (3.26%) DHCP
5 154 (2.80%) Wi-Fi
6 140 (2.55%) WAN
7 123 (2.24%) LAN
8 121 (2.20%) Network Security
8 121 (2.20%) TCP/IP
9 57 (1.04%) Kerberos
10 55 (1.00%) Skype
10 55 (1.00%) VLAN
11 43 (0.78%) Wireless
12 41 (0.75%) SD-WAN
13 35 (0.64%) Unified Communications
14 30 (0.55%) HTTP
14 30 (0.55%) Internet
14 30 (0.55%) SSL
15 29 (0.53%) MPLS
15 29 (0.53%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 564 (10.26%) Power BI
2 265 (4.82%) SQL Server
3 175 (3.18%) Data Warehouse
4 146 (2.66%) Data Lake
5 118 (2.15%) Azure SQL Database
6 104 (1.89%) PostgreSQL
7 102 (1.86%) Metadata
8 71 (1.29%) Relational Database
9 70 (1.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 57 (1.04%) Oracle Database
11 51 (0.93%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 48 (0.87%) MySQL
12 48 (0.87%) NoSQL
13 43 (0.78%) Tableau
14 42 (0.76%) Power Query
15 37 (0.67%) Star Schema
16 35 (0.64%) Delta Lake
17 25 (0.45%) Oracle Reports
18 24 (0.44%) SQL Server Analysis Services
19 23 (0.42%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 253 (4.60%) JIRA
2 173 (3.15%) Git
3 77 (1.40%) Jenkins
4 71 (1.29%) GitLab
5 25 (0.45%) Eclipse
6 23 (0.42%) Artifactory
7 22 (0.40%) Visual Studio
8 20 (0.36%) MSI
9 19 (0.35%) Postman
10 16 (0.29%) JMeter
10 16 (0.29%) MLflow
10 16 (0.29%) Selenium
11 13 (0.24%) Android Studio
11 13 (0.24%) Cucumber
11 13 (0.24%) JUnit
12 12 (0.22%) Bitbucket
13 10 (0.18%) Browser DevTools
13 10 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
13 10 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
13 10 (0.18%) Xcode
General
1 2,010 (36.58%) Social Skills
2 1,076 (19.58%) Finance
3 676 (12.30%) Analytical Skills
4 546 (9.94%) Public Sector
5 276 (5.02%) Banking
6 256 (4.66%) Organisational Skills
7 252 (4.59%) Legal
8 163 (2.97%) Documentation Skills
9 121 (2.20%) Manufacturing
10 116 (2.11%) Presentation Skills
11 99 (1.80%) Marketing
12 87 (1.58%) Telecoms
13 75 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 74 (1.35%) Retail
15 70 (1.27%) Law
16 58 (1.06%) Influencing Skills
17 55 (1.00%) Local Government
17 55 (1.00%) Military
18 49 (0.89%) Investment Banking
19 40 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 654 (11.90%) Architect
2 628 (11.43%) Analyst
3 518 (9.43%) Developer
4 443 (8.06%) Senior
5 361 (6.57%) IT Support
6 308 (5.61%) Lead
7 298 (5.42%) Consultant
8 289 (5.26%) Support Engineer
9 198 (3.60%) Data Engineer
10 195 (3.55%) IT Engineer
11 192 (3.49%) Azure Engineer
11 192 (3.49%) Solutions Architect
12 174 (3.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 173 (3.15%) Business Analyst
13 173 (3.15%) Project Manager
14 172 (3.13%) Administrator
15 146 (2.66%) IT Support Engineer
16 127 (2.31%) Security Engineer
17 106 (1.93%) Support Analyst
18 104 (1.89%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (4.53%) .NET
2 188 (3.42%) REST
3 133 (2.42%) Microsoft Graph
4 123 (2.24%) OAuth
5 105 (1.91%) SAML
6 93 (1.69%) React
7 85 (1.55%) OpenID
7 85 (1.55%) PySpark
8 70 (1.27%) JSON
8 70 (1.27%) RESTful
9 64 (1.16%) AngularJS
9 64 (1.16%) HTML
9 64 (1.16%) LDAP
10 63 (1.15%) Middleware
11 60 (1.09%) ARM Templates
12 59 (1.07%) Web Services
13 58 (1.06%) CSS
14 56 (1.02%) OAuth2
15 52 (0.95%) Node.js
16 47 (0.86%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 286 (5.20%) Onboarding
2 217 (3.95%) Cloud Native
3 177 (3.22%) Product Ownership
4 137 (2.49%) Management Information System
5 113 (2.06%) Enterprise Software
6 95 (1.73%) Data Centre
6 95 (1.73%) Security Posture
7 92 (1.67%) Hybrid Cloud
8 91 (1.66%) PKI
9 84 (1.53%) Self-Motivation
10 77 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
11 69 (1.26%) AI Agents
11 69 (1.26%) Low-Code
11 69 (1.26%) Replication
12 64 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
12 64 (1.16%) Data Structures
13 61 (1.11%) Driving Licence
14 59 (1.07%) Virtual Team
15 54 (0.98%) NHS
16 53 (0.96%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1,247 (22.69%) Windows
2 350 (6.37%) Windows 10
3 290 (5.28%) Linux
4 287 (5.22%) Windows Server
5 99 (1.80%) Android
6 97 (1.77%) Mac OS
7 90 (1.64%) Apple iOS
8 51 (0.93%) Unix
9 44 (0.80%) Windows 7
9 44 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
10 40 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 25 (0.45%) VMS
12 23 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
13 22 (0.40%) Windows Server 2003
14 21 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
15 9 (0.16%) CentOS
16 8 (0.15%) AIX
16 8 (0.15%) Ubuntu
17 5 (0.091%) Windows 8
17 5 (0.091%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 998 (18.16%) Problem-Solving
2 889 (16.18%) Agile
3 850 (15.47%) DevOps
4 748 (13.61%) Migration
5 711 (12.94%) CI/CD
6 652 (11.87%) Business Intelligence
7 626 (11.39%) Analytics
8 542 (9.86%) Stakeholder Management
9 508 (9.24%) AI
10 495 (9.01%) Continuous Improvement
11 455 (8.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 445 (8.10%) Customer Service
13 424 (7.72%) ITIL
14 392 (7.13%) Cybersecurity
15 374 (6.81%) Data Modelling
16 330 (6.01%) Roadmaps
17 311 (5.66%) Infrastructure as Code
18 306 (5.57%) Change Management
19 304 (5.53%) Project Management
20 302 (5.50%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 713 (12.98%) SQL
2 689 (12.54%) PowerShell
3 640 (11.65%) Python
4 273 (4.97%) C#
5 219 (3.99%) JavaScript
6 164 (2.98%) Java
7 121 (2.20%) Bicep
8 113 (2.06%) Kusto Query Language
9 102 (1.86%) Bash
10 80 (1.46%) TypeScript
11 75 (1.36%) T-SQL
12 69 (1.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 35 (0.64%) PL/SQL
14 27 (0.49%) C++
15 26 (0.47%) VBA
16 25 (0.45%) Perl
17 23 (0.42%) VB
18 19 (0.35%) Shell Script
19 18 (0.33%) R
20 16 (0.29%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,101 (20.04%) Security Cleared
2 835 (15.20%) SC Cleared
3 559 (10.17%) Degree
4 312 (5.68%) Microsoft Certification
5 219 (3.99%) DV Cleared
6 187 (3.40%) Azure Certification
7 131 (2.38%) Computer Science Degree
8 109 (1.98%) CISSP
9 98 (1.78%) BPSS Clearance
10 67 (1.22%) Cisco Certification
11 63 (1.15%) CISM
12 62 (1.13%) Master's Degree
12 62 (1.13%) PMI Certification
13 55 (1.00%) PMP
14 44 (0.80%) MCSE
15 43 (0.78%) AWS Certification
16 38 (0.69%) ITIL Certification
17 37 (0.67%) Microsoft Certified Professional
18 33 (0.60%) DBS Check
19 31 (0.56%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 241 (4.39%) GDPR
2 233 (4.24%) Data Quality
3 167 (3.04%) QA
4 156 (2.84%) SLA
5 145 (2.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 117 (2.13%) PMO
7 115 (2.09%) NIST
8 79 (1.44%) Accessibility
9 61 (1.11%) Cyber Essentials
10 44 (0.80%) NCSC
11 39 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 30 (0.55%) PCI DSS
13 24 (0.44%) GRC
14 23 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 22 (0.40%) WCAG
16 18 (0.33%) MiFID
17 14 (0.25%) SOC 2
18 13 (0.24%) EU AI Act
18 13 (0.24%) FINRA
18 13 (0.24%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,091 (19.85%) Active Directory
2 218 (3.97%) Docker
3 177 (3.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 89 (1.62%) Hyper-V
5 66 (1.20%) Virtual Machines
6 53 (0.96%) Virtual Desktop
7 35 (0.64%) VMware ESXi
8 34 (0.62%) vSphere
9 22 (0.40%) BitLocker
10 21 (0.38%) VMware NSX
11 17 (0.31%) Firmware
12 12 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
13 6 (0.11%) Snort
14 5 (0.091%) Oracle RAC
15 4 (0.073%) KVM
15 4 (0.073%) VMware Workstation
16 3 (0.055%) IAG
16 3 (0.055%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.055%) Squid
Systems Management
1 433 (7.88%) Microsoft Intune
2 350 (6.37%) Terraform
3 258 (4.70%) Kubernetes
4 234 (4.26%) SCCM
5 144 (2.62%) Single Sign-On
6 118 (2.15%) Ansible
7 102 (1.86%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 44 (0.80%) Jamf Pro
9 43 (0.78%) Grafana
10 36 (0.66%) Prometheus
11 35 (0.64%) vCenter Server
12 24 (0.44%) FortiGate
13 21 (0.38%) SCOM
14 18 (0.33%) Puppet
14 18 (0.33%) WSUS
15 17 (0.31%) CASB
16 14 (0.25%) AirWatch
17 13 (0.24%) WMI
18 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
19 11 (0.20%) Nessus
Vendors
1 262 (4.77%) ServiceNow
2 260 (4.73%) VMware
3 204 (3.71%) Databricks
4 200 (3.64%) Oracle
5 196 (3.57%) SAP
6 182 (3.31%) Cisco
7 159 (2.89%) Google
8 137 (2.49%) Citrix
9 103 (1.87%) Splunk
10 92 (1.67%) OpenAI
11 88 (1.60%) Salesforce
12 72 (1.31%) Foundry
13 67 (1.22%) Apple
14 59 (1.07%) CrowdStrike
15 58 (1.06%) Palo Alto
16 53 (0.96%) HP
17 44 (0.80%) Red Hat
18 43 (0.78%) Adobe
19 41 (0.75%) Okta
20 35 (0.64%) Informatica