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 7 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
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 9 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,411 4,110 5,800
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.67% 13.41% 12.92%
As % of the Vendors category 28.68% 28.67% 29.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,646 2,696 3,891
10th Percentile £205 £206 £190
25th Percentile £363 £348 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £489 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.89% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £583 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £440 £450
% change year-on-year +2.27% -2.22% -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 380 182 430
10th Percentile £13.49 £15.01 £11.34
25th Percentile £16.25 £18.15 £13.31
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.80 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -16.34% +48.19% -23.87%
75th Percentile £25.47 £33.75 £26.50
90th Percentile £63.75 £63.08 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.10 £22.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -15.11% +40.10% -19.70%

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 18,869 14,335 19,416
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.18% 46.77% 43.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,083 8,807 12,126
10th Percentile £306 £285 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £513
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +1.46% -3.12%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 939 454 1,014
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.62 £12.50
25th Percentile £18.47 £21.24 £14.71
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +20.00% -28.57%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £54.39
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.68 £27.50 £24.00
% change year-on-year -17.53% +14.58% -26.15%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 0 4,750 £492 +3.47% 3,208
UK excluding London 0 2,895 £450 +2.27% 2,936
London -2 2,007 £513 +2.50% 841
Work from Home -1 1,364 £500 - 1,191
North of England -1 755 £433 -3.89% 698
South East -1 652 £475 -5.00% 914
Midlands -6 505 £450 +5.88% 463
North West 0 429 £415 -7.78% 370
South West -1 362 £520 +9.47% 311
East of England +1 359 £400 -8.57% 296
West Midlands -8 350 £475 +9.42% 229
Yorkshire +2 296 £450 +9.09% 222
Scotland 0 184 £455 +21.33% 186
East Midlands 0 153 £418 +4.38% 228
Wales +3 97 £310 -22.50% 114
North East -16 36 £450 +28.57% 121
Northern Ireland +1 24 £450 +38.46% 22
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
1 613 (11.33%) SharePoint
2 432 (7.98%) Microsoft Exchange
3 114 (2.11%) Confluence
4 38 (0.70%) Skype for Business
5 24 (0.44%) CMS
6 22 (0.41%) Apache Spark
7 21 (0.39%) Apache
8 17 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.31%) HCL Notes
9 13 (0.24%) IIS
10 12 (0.22%) SAS
11 10 (0.18%) Mendix
12 7 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
13 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
13 6 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
13 6 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
14 5 (0.092%) Oracle Application Server
15 4 (0.074%) Mattermost
16 3 (0.055%) iPlanet
16 3 (0.055%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 623 (11.51%) Microsoft Office
2 514 (9.50%) Microsoft Excel
3 226 (4.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 125 (2.31%) Microsoft Project
5 105 (1.94%) MS Visio
6 77 (1.42%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 9 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 9 (0.17%) Trello
9 7 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.092%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.074%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.074%) InDesign
13 3 (0.055%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.055%) Sketch
13 3 (0.055%) SOLIDWORKS
14 2 (0.037%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.037%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 196 (3.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 53 (0.98%) SAP S/4HANA
3 26 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.33%) Dynamics NAV
5 15 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
6 14 (0.26%) Aladdin
6 14 (0.26%) Maximo
7 12 (0.22%) Loan IQ
7 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 9 (0.17%) Teamcenter
10 8 (0.15%) Sage X3
11 7 (0.13%) Advent Geneva
11 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
11 7 (0.13%) Shopify
12 6 (0.11%) Primavera
12 6 (0.11%) SystmOne
13 5 (0.092%) Salesforce CRM
13 5 (0.092%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 2,190 (40.47%) Azure
2 1,391 (25.71%) Microsoft 365
3 877 (16.21%) Power Platform
4 705 (13.03%) Entra ID
5 458 (8.46%) AWS
6 421 (7.78%) Azure DevOps
7 414 (7.65%) Dynamics 365
8 346 (6.39%) Power Automate
9 312 (5.77%) PowerApps
10 282 (5.21%) Microsoft Purview
11 243 (4.49%) GitHub
12 212 (3.92%) OneDrive
13 193 (3.57%) Azure Data Factory
13 193 (3.57%) Microsoft Copilot
14 191 (3.53%) Serverless
15 186 (3.44%) SaaS
16 174 (3.22%) GCP
17 154 (2.85%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 152 (2.81%) PaaS
19 143 (2.64%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 302 (5.58%) DNS
2 298 (5.51%) Firewall
3 201 (3.71%) VPN
4 184 (3.40%) DHCP
5 143 (2.64%) Wi-Fi
6 129 (2.38%) WAN
7 126 (2.33%) TCP/IP
8 112 (2.07%) LAN
8 112 (2.07%) Network Security
9 64 (1.18%) Skype
10 61 (1.13%) Kerberos
11 57 (1.05%) VLAN
12 43 (0.79%) Unified Communications
13 42 (0.78%) Wireless
14 37 (0.68%) SD-WAN
15 32 (0.59%) HTTP
16 31 (0.57%) Internet
17 30 (0.55%) MPLS
17 30 (0.55%) SSL
18 29 (0.54%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 536 (9.91%) Power BI
2 252 (4.66%) SQL Server
3 173 (3.20%) Data Warehouse
4 146 (2.70%) Data Lake
5 107 (1.98%) Azure SQL Database
6 105 (1.94%) Metadata
6 105 (1.94%) PostgreSQL
7 75 (1.39%) Relational Database
8 69 (1.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 54 (1.00%) Oracle Database
10 51 (0.94%) MySQL
10 51 (0.94%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 46 (0.85%) NoSQL
12 41 (0.76%) Power Query
13 40 (0.74%) Tableau
14 31 (0.57%) Delta Lake
14 31 (0.57%) Star Schema
15 27 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
16 23 (0.43%) Spark SQL
16 23 (0.43%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 242 (4.47%) JIRA
2 169 (3.12%) Git
3 77 (1.42%) GitLab
4 71 (1.31%) Jenkins
5 27 (0.50%) Eclipse
6 23 (0.43%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.41%) MSI
8 21 (0.39%) Postman
9 20 (0.37%) Artifactory
10 17 (0.31%) JMeter
11 16 (0.30%) Selenium
12 15 (0.28%) Android Studio
13 14 (0.26%) Cucumber
14 13 (0.24%) Browser DevTools
14 13 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
15 12 (0.22%) Bitbucket
15 12 (0.22%) JUnit
15 12 (0.22%) Xcode
16 11 (0.20%) MLflow
17 9 (0.17%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 2,048 (37.85%) Social Skills
2 1,046 (19.33%) Finance
3 665 (12.29%) Analytical Skills
4 540 (9.98%) Public Sector
5 261 (4.82%) Banking
6 256 (4.73%) Organisational Skills
7 234 (4.32%) Legal
8 167 (3.09%) Documentation Skills
9 124 (2.29%) Manufacturing
10 117 (2.16%) Presentation Skills
11 99 (1.83%) Marketing
12 90 (1.66%) Telecoms
13 74 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 74 (1.37%) Retail
14 63 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
15 54 (1.00%) Military
16 53 (0.98%) Law
17 45 (0.83%) Investment Banking
18 44 (0.81%) Local Government
19 42 (0.78%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 640 (11.83%) Analyst
2 621 (11.48%) Architect
3 527 (9.74%) Developer
4 423 (7.82%) Senior
5 363 (6.71%) IT Support
6 292 (5.40%) Support Engineer
7 288 (5.32%) Consultant
8 279 (5.16%) Lead
9 185 (3.42%) Data Engineer
9 185 (3.42%) IT Engineer
10 184 (3.40%) Azure Engineer
10 184 (3.40%) Solutions Architect
11 169 (3.12%) Business Analyst
12 167 (3.09%) Administrator
13 166 (3.07%) Project Manager
14 165 (3.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 140 (2.59%) IT Support Engineer
16 123 (2.27%) Security Engineer
17 120 (2.22%) Support Analyst
18 101 (1.87%) Microsoft Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 261 (4.82%) .NET
2 177 (3.27%) REST
3 129 (2.38%) OAuth
4 126 (2.33%) Microsoft Graph
5 111 (2.05%) SAML
6 101 (1.87%) React
7 92 (1.70%) OpenID
8 82 (1.52%) PySpark
9 77 (1.42%) RESTful
10 73 (1.35%) LDAP
11 71 (1.31%) AngularJS
11 71 (1.31%) HTML
11 71 (1.31%) JSON
12 63 (1.16%) ARM Templates
12 63 (1.16%) CSS
13 62 (1.15%) Web Services
14 60 (1.11%) Middleware
15 56 (1.03%) Node.js
15 56 (1.03%) OAuth2
16 46 (0.85%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 293 (5.41%) Onboarding
2 208 (3.84%) Cloud Native
3 164 (3.03%) Product Ownership
4 137 (2.53%) Management Information System
5 113 (2.09%) Enterprise Software
6 96 (1.77%) Data Centre
7 94 (1.74%) Security Posture
8 88 (1.63%) PKI
9 87 (1.61%) Self-Motivation
10 86 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
11 78 (1.44%) Low-Code
12 75 (1.39%) Legacy Systems
13 74 (1.37%) Replication
14 65 (1.20%) Driving Licence
15 64 (1.18%) AI Agents
16 59 (1.09%) Data Protection Act
17 58 (1.07%) Data Structures
18 57 (1.05%) Virtual Team
19 56 (1.03%) NHS
20 55 (1.02%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,254 (23.18%) Windows
2 365 (6.75%) Windows 10
3 296 (5.47%) Linux
4 282 (5.21%) Windows Server
5 106 (1.96%) Mac OS
6 102 (1.89%) Android
7 97 (1.79%) Apple iOS
8 58 (1.07%) Unix
9 45 (0.83%) Windows 7
10 43 (0.79%) Windows Server 2016
11 38 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 24 (0.44%) VMS
13 21 (0.39%) Windows Server 2003
13 21 (0.39%) Windows Server 2012
13 21 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
14 9 (0.17%) CentOS
15 8 (0.15%) AIX
15 8 (0.15%) Ubuntu
16 5 (0.092%) Windows 8
16 5 (0.092%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,028 (19.00%) Problem-Solving
2 880 (16.26%) Agile
3 822 (15.19%) DevOps
4 727 (13.44%) Migration
5 687 (12.70%) CI/CD
6 633 (11.70%) Business Intelligence
7 612 (11.31%) Analytics
8 545 (10.07%) Stakeholder Management
9 473 (8.74%) AI
10 472 (8.72%) Continuous Improvement
11 456 (8.43%) Customer Service
12 443 (8.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 439 (8.11%) ITIL
14 383 (7.08%) Cybersecurity
15 350 (6.47%) Data Modelling
16 319 (5.90%) Roadmaps
17 306 (5.66%) Project Management
18 303 (5.60%) Change Management
19 298 (5.51%) Infrastructure as Code
20 297 (5.49%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 699 (12.92%) SQL
2 690 (12.75%) PowerShell
3 632 (11.68%) Python
4 281 (5.19%) C#
5 228 (4.21%) JavaScript
6 150 (2.77%) Java
7 121 (2.24%) Bicep
8 113 (2.09%) Kusto Query Language
9 110 (2.03%) Bash
10 88 (1.63%) TypeScript
11 74 (1.37%) T-SQL
12 68 (1.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 35 (0.65%) PL/SQL
14 29 (0.54%) C++
15 28 (0.52%) Perl
16 25 (0.46%) VB
16 25 (0.46%) VBA
17 21 (0.39%) Shell Script
18 16 (0.30%) Go
18 16 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 1,093 (20.20%) Security Cleared
2 823 (15.21%) SC Cleared
3 553 (10.22%) Degree
4 327 (6.04%) Microsoft Certification
5 224 (4.14%) DV Cleared
6 192 (3.55%) Azure Certification
7 121 (2.24%) Computer Science Degree
8 113 (2.09%) CISSP
9 96 (1.77%) BPSS Clearance
10 62 (1.15%) CISM
11 60 (1.11%) Cisco Certification
12 58 (1.07%) Master's Degree
13 55 (1.02%) PMI Certification
14 48 (0.89%) PMP
15 47 (0.87%) AWS Certification
16 45 (0.83%) MCSE
17 44 (0.81%) Microsoft Certified Professional
18 40 (0.74%) ITIL Certification
19 35 (0.65%) A+ Certification
20 32 (0.59%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 245 (4.53%) GDPR
2 214 (3.95%) Data Quality
3 158 (2.92%) QA
4 157 (2.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 156 (2.88%) SLA
6 119 (2.20%) NIST
7 118 (2.18%) PMO
8 79 (1.46%) Accessibility
9 56 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials
10 40 (0.74%) NCSC
11 38 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 28 (0.52%) PCI DSS
13 23 (0.43%) GRC
14 22 (0.41%) WCAG
15 21 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 19 (0.35%) EU AI Act
17 17 (0.31%) MiFID
18 15 (0.28%) SOC 2
19 14 (0.26%) HIPAA
20 13 (0.24%) FINRA
System Software
1 1,105 (20.42%) Active Directory
2 215 (3.97%) Docker
3 176 (3.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 78 (1.44%) Hyper-V
5 69 (1.28%) Virtual Machines
6 48 (0.89%) Virtual Desktop
7 38 (0.70%) vSphere
8 35 (0.65%) VMware ESXi
9 21 (0.39%) VMware NSX
10 20 (0.37%) BitLocker
11 14 (0.26%) Firmware
12 10 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
13 7 (0.13%) Snort
14 6 (0.11%) RACF
15 5 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
16 4 (0.074%) KVM
16 4 (0.074%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 4 (0.074%) Squid
16 4 (0.074%) Virtual Servers
16 4 (0.074%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 436 (8.06%) Microsoft Intune
2 329 (6.08%) Terraform
3 258 (4.77%) SCCM
4 256 (4.73%) Kubernetes
5 152 (2.81%) Single Sign-On
6 109 (2.01%) Ansible
7 104 (1.92%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 43 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
9 40 (0.74%) Grafana
10 36 (0.67%) vCenter Server
11 34 (0.63%) Prometheus
12 29 (0.54%) SCOM
13 24 (0.44%) FortiGate
14 18 (0.33%) WSUS
15 17 (0.31%) Puppet
16 14 (0.26%) AirWatch
16 14 (0.26%) Nessus
17 13 (0.24%) WMI
18 12 (0.22%) Progress Chef
18 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
Vendors
1 274 (5.06%) ServiceNow
2 263 (4.86%) VMware
3 198 (3.66%) Databricks
4 197 (3.64%) SAP
5 190 (3.51%) Oracle
6 185 (3.42%) Cisco
7 153 (2.83%) Google
8 138 (2.55%) Citrix
9 118 (2.18%) Splunk
10 91 (1.68%) OpenAI
11 83 (1.53%) Salesforce
12 70 (1.29%) Foundry
13 69 (1.28%) Apple
14 62 (1.15%) CrowdStrike
15 57 (1.05%) Palo Alto
16 54 (1.00%) HP
17 45 (0.83%) Okta
18 39 (0.72%) CyberArk
18 39 (0.72%) Remedy
19 38 (0.70%) Adobe