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 11 January 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
11 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 4,860 4,312 5,602
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.36% 13.57% 13.04%
As % of the Vendors category 28.85% 29.65% 29.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,272 2,711 3,850
10th Percentile £205 £205 £195
25th Percentile £350 £348 £319
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £577 £588 £613
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.86% -2.78% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 364 192 250
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.49 £12.84
25th Percentile £16.48 £15.62 £14.51
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.59 £21.18
Median % change year-on-year -15.60% +11.40% +3.44%
75th Percentile £27.83 £33.75 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £57.62 £55.14
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.23 £21.46 £20.00
% change year-on-year -10.39% +7.30% +0.60%

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 16,847 14,544 19,004
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 46.30% 45.76% 44.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,815 8,618 12,039
10th Percentile £300 £285 £253
25th Percentile £411 £409 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.42%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £715 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 799 427 687
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.96 £19.79 £17.88
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.35 £43.84
Median % change year-on-year -12.89% -37.61% +60.13%
75th Percentile £47.50 £61.25 £63.29
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.04 £76.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.50 £25.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -14.00% -43.82% +80.27%

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 11 January 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 11 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Top 17 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 11 January 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 4,277 £475 - 3,559
UK excluding London -1 2,611 £450 +2.86% 3,408
London -1 1,816 £513 +2.50% 674
Work from Home 0 1,242 £500 +2.04% 1,425
North of England +2 689 £418 -5.92% 762
South East +2 601 £475 +5.44% 1,031
Midlands -4 449 £450 +5.88% 500
North West +1 404 £400 -11.11% 342
South West 0 352 £510 +8.40% 375
West Midlands -6 300 £490 +8.89% 246
East of England -1 258 £425 -2.86% 463
Yorkshire 0 253 £437 +5.82% 312
Scotland -3 187 £452 +15.90% 148
East Midlands 0 149 £375 -3.23% 247
Wales +3 79 £295 -32.57% 157
North East -14 37 £430 +1.18% 116
Northern Ireland +3 36 £350 +40.00% 56

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
1 563 (11.58%) SharePoint
2 373 (7.67%) Microsoft Exchange
3 105 (2.16%) Confluence
4 58 (1.19%) Skype for Business
5 37 (0.76%) CMS
6 24 (0.49%) IIS
7 21 (0.43%) Apache
7 21 (0.43%) HCL Notes
7 21 (0.43%) SAS
8 18 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
8 18 (0.37%) Exchange Server 2013
9 16 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2010
10 14 (0.29%) Apache Spark
11 13 (0.27%) Mattermost
11 13 (0.27%) SharePoint Server
12 11 (0.23%) WebSphere
12 11 (0.23%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.21%) iPlanet
13 10 (0.21%) JBoss
14 9 (0.19%) Mendix
Applications
1 606 (12.47%) Microsoft Office
2 519 (10.68%) Microsoft Excel
3 240 (4.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 125 (2.57%) Microsoft Project
5 102 (2.10%) MS Visio
6 60 (1.23%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 11 (0.23%) Trello
8 9 (0.19%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.12%) Sketch
10 5 (0.10%) Acrobat
10 5 (0.10%) Adobe Captivate
11 4 (0.082%) Adobe After Effects
11 4 (0.082%) Adobe Illustrator
11 4 (0.082%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.082%) InDesign
11 4 (0.082%) Photoshop
12 3 (0.062%) Adobe Premiere
12 3 (0.062%) Windchill
13 2 (0.041%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 181 (3.72%) Dynamics CRM
2 41 (0.84%) Remedy ITSM
3 36 (0.74%) SAP S/4HANA
4 17 (0.35%) Dynamics AX
5 15 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
5 15 (0.31%) Maximo
6 12 (0.25%) NetSuite
7 11 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
9 9 (0.19%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 8 (0.16%) Teamcenter
11 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
11 7 (0.14%) Shopify
12 6 (0.12%) Aladdin
12 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
13 5 (0.10%) assyst
13 5 (0.10%) SAP ERP
14 4 (0.082%) Loan IQ
14 4 (0.082%) SystmOne
14 4 (0.082%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,847 (38.00%) Azure
2 1,161 (23.89%) Microsoft 365
3 779 (16.03%) Power Platform
4 558 (11.48%) Entra ID
5 429 (8.83%) AWS
6 381 (7.84%) Dynamics 365
7 347 (7.14%) Azure DevOps
8 324 (6.67%) Power Automate
9 298 (6.13%) PowerApps
10 204 (4.20%) GitHub
10 204 (4.20%) Microsoft Purview
11 177 (3.64%) Serverless
12 165 (3.40%) GCP
12 165 (3.40%) OneDrive
13 156 (3.21%) Azure Data Factory
14 155 (3.19%) SaaS
15 139 (2.86%) Azure Sentinel
16 132 (2.72%) Azure Logic Apps
17 128 (2.63%) Microsoft Copilot
18 119 (2.45%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 278 (5.72%) Firewall
2 254 (5.23%) DNS
3 169 (3.48%) VPN
4 161 (3.31%) DHCP
5 126 (2.59%) TCP/IP
6 102 (2.10%) Wi-Fi
7 92 (1.89%) Network Security
8 91 (1.87%) WAN
9 81 (1.67%) LAN
10 79 (1.63%) Skype
11 52 (1.07%) Wireless
12 45 (0.93%) VLAN
13 42 (0.86%) Kerberos
13 42 (0.86%) Unified Communications
14 31 (0.64%) HTTP
15 29 (0.60%) Internet
15 29 (0.60%) SD-WAN
16 28 (0.58%) SAN
17 25 (0.51%) VoIP
18 24 (0.49%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 471 (9.69%) Power BI
2 226 (4.65%) SQL Server
3 129 (2.65%) Data Warehouse
4 125 (2.57%) Data Lake
5 84 (1.73%) Metadata
5 84 (1.73%) PostgreSQL
6 83 (1.71%) Azure SQL Database
7 82 (1.69%) Relational Database
8 74 (1.52%) Oracle Database
9 45 (0.93%) MySQL
10 42 (0.86%) Tableau
11 38 (0.78%) NoSQL
11 38 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 36 (0.74%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 35 (0.72%) Power Query
14 25 (0.51%) Oracle Reports
15 23 (0.47%) Delta Lake
16 19 (0.39%) Spark SQL
17 18 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
17 18 (0.37%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 232 (4.77%) JIRA
2 148 (3.05%) Git
3 87 (1.79%) Jenkins
4 73 (1.50%) GitLab
5 36 (0.74%) Eclipse
6 25 (0.51%) MSI
7 24 (0.49%) Postman
7 24 (0.49%) Visual Studio
8 22 (0.45%) Android Studio
8 22 (0.45%) Browser DevTools
8 22 (0.45%) Xcode
9 19 (0.39%) Selenium
10 15 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (0.27%) Artifactory
11 13 (0.27%) Bitbucket
11 13 (0.27%) JMeter
12 12 (0.25%) Cucumber
12 12 (0.25%) InstallShield
13 10 (0.21%) Bitbucket Server
13 10 (0.21%) CA Release Automation
General
1 1,976 (40.66%) Social Skills
2 991 (20.39%) Finance
3 634 (13.05%) Analytical Skills
4 502 (10.33%) Public Sector
5 247 (5.08%) Banking
6 225 (4.63%) Organisational Skills
7 171 (3.52%) Legal
8 150 (3.09%) Documentation Skills
9 131 (2.70%) Manufacturing
10 114 (2.35%) Marketing
11 101 (2.08%) Presentation Skills
12 92 (1.89%) Telecoms
13 79 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 75 (1.54%) Retail
15 58 (1.19%) Influencing Skills
16 49 (1.01%) Local Government
17 44 (0.91%) Military
18 42 (0.86%) Investment Banking
19 39 (0.80%) Law
20 38 (0.78%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 652 (13.42%) Analyst
2 503 (10.35%) Architect
3 459 (9.44%) Developer
4 346 (7.12%) Senior
5 296 (6.09%) Support Engineer
6 287 (5.91%) IT Support
7 265 (5.45%) Consultant
8 239 (4.92%) Lead
9 160 (3.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 156 (3.21%) Solutions Architect
11 155 (3.19%) Administrator
12 153 (3.15%) Business Analyst
13 151 (3.11%) Support Analyst
14 143 (2.94%) IT Engineer
15 140 (2.88%) Project Manager
16 139 (2.86%) Azure Engineer
17 128 (2.63%) Data Engineer
18 120 (2.47%) Security Engineer
19 103 (2.12%) Desktop Support
20 102 (2.10%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 244 (5.02%) .NET
2 159 (3.27%) REST
3 113 (2.33%) OAuth
4 108 (2.22%) React
5 89 (1.83%) SAML
6 84 (1.73%) RESTful
7 79 (1.63%) AngularJS
7 79 (1.63%) OpenID
8 77 (1.58%) Microsoft Graph
9 69 (1.42%) HTML
10 67 (1.38%) CSS
11 66 (1.36%) JSON
12 61 (1.26%) PySpark
13 55 (1.13%) ARM Templates
13 55 (1.13%) LDAP
14 52 (1.07%) Node.js
15 49 (1.01%) Web Services
16 46 (0.95%) Middleware
17 44 (0.91%) SOAP
18 43 (0.88%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 266 (5.47%) Onboarding
2 190 (3.91%) Cloud Native
3 136 (2.80%) Product Ownership
4 130 (2.67%) Management Information System
5 115 (2.37%) Enterprise Software
6 95 (1.95%) PKI
7 88 (1.81%) Security Posture
8 85 (1.75%) Data Centre
9 84 (1.73%) Self-Motivation
10 75 (1.54%) Driving Licence
11 73 (1.50%) Mobile App
12 68 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
13 66 (1.36%) Low-Code
14 62 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
15 61 (1.26%) Analytical Mindset
16 53 (1.09%) Virtual Team
17 52 (1.07%) Replication
18 46 (0.95%) Data Protection Act
18 46 (0.95%) NHS
19 39 (0.80%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 1,152 (23.70%) Windows
2 329 (6.77%) Windows 10
3 290 (5.97%) Linux
4 254 (5.23%) Windows Server
5 104 (2.14%) Mac OS
6 100 (2.06%) Android
7 87 (1.79%) Apple iOS
8 77 (1.58%) Unix
9 38 (0.78%) Windows 7
10 34 (0.70%) Windows Server 2016
11 28 (0.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 26 (0.53%) Windows Server 2019
13 21 (0.43%) Windows Server 2003
14 20 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
15 16 (0.33%) VMS
16 9 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
17 7 (0.14%) Mac OS X
18 6 (0.12%) AIX
18 6 (0.12%) Ubuntu
18 6 (0.12%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,005 (20.68%) Problem-Solving
2 872 (17.94%) Agile
3 714 (14.69%) DevOps
4 609 (12.53%) Migration
5 570 (11.73%) CI/CD
6 558 (11.48%) Business Intelligence
7 497 (10.23%) Stakeholder Management
8 488 (10.04%) Analytics
9 453 (9.32%) ITIL
10 415 (8.54%) Continuous Improvement
11 409 (8.42%) Customer Service
12 401 (8.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 350 (7.20%) AI
14 342 (7.04%) Cybersecurity
15 317 (6.52%) Project Management
16 293 (6.03%) Change Management
17 274 (5.64%) Data Modelling
18 261 (5.37%) Roadmaps
19 252 (5.19%) Project Delivery
20 249 (5.12%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 620 (12.76%) SQL
2 577 (11.87%) PowerShell
3 547 (11.26%) Python
4 259 (5.33%) C#
5 214 (4.40%) JavaScript
6 148 (3.05%) Java
7 107 (2.20%) Kusto Query Language
8 98 (2.02%) Bash
9 94 (1.93%) Bicep
10 75 (1.54%) TypeScript
11 53 (1.09%) T-SQL
12 43 (0.88%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 38 (0.78%) Perl
14 27 (0.56%) Shell Script
15 26 (0.53%) C++
16 25 (0.51%) PL/SQL
17 20 (0.41%) Go
17 20 (0.41%) R
18 19 (0.39%) VB
18 19 (0.39%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 968 (19.92%) Security Cleared
2 727 (14.96%) SC Cleared
3 512 (10.53%) Degree
4 332 (6.83%) Microsoft Certification
5 203 (4.18%) DV Cleared
6 174 (3.58%) Azure Certification
7 124 (2.55%) CISSP
8 115 (2.37%) Computer Science Degree
9 73 (1.50%) BPSS Clearance
10 68 (1.40%) CISM
11 62 (1.28%) Cisco Certification
12 56 (1.15%) Master's Degree
13 54 (1.11%) PMI Certification
14 52 (1.07%) A+ Certification
15 51 (1.05%) ITIL Certification
16 48 (0.99%) MCSE
17 44 (0.91%) PMP
18 42 (0.86%) AWS Certification
18 42 (0.86%) MCP
19 32 (0.66%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 212 (4.36%) GDPR
2 162 (3.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 152 (3.13%) Data Quality
4 145 (2.98%) QA
5 130 (2.67%) NIST
6 124 (2.55%) SLA
7 100 (2.06%) PMO
8 86 (1.77%) Accessibility
9 44 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials
10 32 (0.66%) NCSC
11 27 (0.56%) PCI DSS
12 26 (0.53%) WCAG
13 22 (0.45%) EU AI Act
14 21 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 19 (0.39%) HIPAA
16 17 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 15 (0.31%) GRC
18 11 (0.23%) SOC 2
19 10 (0.21%) NIST 800
20 9 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 981 (20.19%) Active Directory
2 187 (3.85%) Docker
3 164 (3.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 66 (1.36%) Hyper-V
5 55 (1.13%) Virtual Machines
6 38 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
7 36 (0.74%) vSphere
8 34 (0.70%) VMware ESXi
9 15 (0.31%) BitLocker
10 14 (0.29%) Firmware
11 13 (0.27%) VMware NSX
12 12 (0.25%) Microsoft App-V
13 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
14 7 (0.14%) ISA Server
14 7 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
15 6 (0.12%) Brightmail
15 6 (0.12%) NFS
15 6 (0.12%) XenApp
16 5 (0.10%) Snort
16 5 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 361 (7.43%) Microsoft Intune
2 269 (5.53%) SCCM
3 260 (5.35%) Terraform
4 225 (4.63%) Kubernetes
5 123 (2.53%) Single Sign-On
6 102 (2.10%) Ansible
7 76 (1.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (1.01%) SCOM
9 38 (0.78%) Jamf Pro
9 38 (0.78%) vCenter Server
10 31 (0.64%) Grafana
11 25 (0.51%) Prometheus
12 21 (0.43%) HP SiteScope
13 20 (0.41%) WSUS
14 18 (0.37%) FortiGate
15 17 (0.35%) QRadar
16 15 (0.31%) Progress Chef
17 14 (0.29%) Kibana
17 14 (0.29%) Microsoft Clustering
17 14 (0.29%) Puppet
Vendors
1 261 (5.37%) ServiceNow
2 225 (4.63%) VMware
3 214 (4.40%) Oracle
4 179 (3.68%) Cisco
5 176 (3.62%) SAP
6 161 (3.31%) Splunk
7 144 (2.96%) Databricks
8 141 (2.90%) Google
9 111 (2.28%) Citrix
10 83 (1.71%) Apple
11 79 (1.63%) Salesforce
12 70 (1.44%) OpenAI
13 62 (1.28%) CrowdStrike
14 56 (1.15%) Palo Alto
15 51 (1.05%) IBM
16 49 (1.01%) Remedy
17 45 (0.93%) HP
18 43 (0.88%) Foundry
18 43 (0.88%) Veeam
19 41 (0.84%) CyberArk