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 25 June 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
25 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 9 7
Rank change year-on-year +1 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,935 4,141 5,646
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.66% 13.75% 12.96%
As % of the Vendors category 28.52% 28.95% 30.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,928 2,668 3,670
10th Percentile £213 £213 £191
25th Percentile £375 £340 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.68% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £576 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +5.88% -5.61% +0.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 369 303 497
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.20 £11.13
25th Percentile £16.50 £15.84 £13.42
Median hourly rate £21.25 £22.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -3.41% +36.99% -32.89%
75th Percentile £35.53 £31.00 £25.30
90th Percentile £65.00 £63.37 £59.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.74 £18.87 £15.83
% change year-on-year +9.91% +19.24% -20.88%

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 20,809 14,306 18,571
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.89% 47.50% 42.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,041 8,801 11,540
10th Percentile £313 £280 £270
25th Percentile £413 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £735
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,070 662 1,168
10th Percentile £15.55 £14.84 £12.25
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.30 £14.56
Median hourly rate £33.99 £25.40 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +33.82% +5.05% -42.15%
75th Percentile £60.75 £53.75 £59.66
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.00 £23.00 £22.58
% change year-on-year +39.13% +1.86% -39.79%

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 25 June 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 25 June 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 25 June 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 5,177 £495 +4.21% 2,819
UK excluding London -1 3,143 £450 +5.88% 2,583
London -2 2,274 £505 -1.46% 766
Work from Home 0 1,512 £500 - 1,152
North of England -4 797 £454 +6.82% 606
South East -2 747 £475 +2.37% 828
Midlands -3 529 £450 +16.50% 414
North West -3 418 £448 +5.41% 326
South West -1 391 £480 +12.94% 303
West Midlands -7 375 £450 +13.07% 208
Yorkshire -3 358 £475 +7.04% 205
East of England 0 299 £375 -25.00% 302
Scotland +2 269 £465 +6.84% 116
East Midlands +1 147 £425 +14.56% 207
Wales +1 105 £370 +29.82% 76
Northern Ireland +1 29 £350 +7.69% 29
North East -41 25 £450 +32.35% 90
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
1 642 (10.82%) SharePoint
2 389 (6.55%) Microsoft Exchange
3 123 (2.07%) Confluence
4 36 (0.61%) Apache Spark
5 30 (0.51%) Apache
6 28 (0.47%) Apache Airflow
7 18 (0.30%) CMS
8 17 (0.29%) IIS
9 16 (0.27%) HCL Notes
10 14 (0.24%) Skype for Business
11 12 (0.20%) SAS
12 7 (0.12%) Mendix
12 7 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
13 6 (0.10%) Camunda
13 6 (0.10%) Jupyter
14 5 (0.084%) OpenEdge
14 5 (0.084%) SharePoint 2013
15 4 (0.067%) ArcGIS
15 4 (0.067%) nginx
15 4 (0.067%) Tomcat
Applications
1 558 (9.40%) Microsoft Office
2 538 (9.06%) Microsoft Excel
3 235 (3.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 124 (2.09%) Microsoft Project
5 99 (1.67%) MS Visio
6 40 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
7 19 (0.32%) Chatbot
8 13 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
10 5 (0.084%) PTC Creo
11 4 (0.067%) Trello
12 3 (0.051%) Acrobat
12 3 (0.051%) Adobe Captivate
12 3 (0.051%) Photoshop
12 3 (0.051%) SOLIDWORKS
13 2 (0.034%) AutoCAD
13 2 (0.034%) Final Cut Pro
13 2 (0.034%) InDesign
13 2 (0.034%) InfoPath
13 2 (0.034%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 203 (3.42%) Dynamics CRM
2 76 (1.28%) SAP S/4HANA
3 21 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
4 19 (0.32%) NetSuite
5 18 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
6 15 (0.25%) Aladdin
6 15 (0.25%) Dynamics NAV
7 13 (0.22%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 11 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
10 10 (0.17%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 9 (0.15%) Primavera
11 9 (0.15%) Sage X3
11 9 (0.15%) SAP MM
12 8 (0.13%) Loan IQ
13 7 (0.12%) Dynamics AX
13 7 (0.12%) Maximo
14 6 (0.10%) Dynamics GP
14 6 (0.10%) NEC Housing
14 6 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 2,490 (41.95%) Azure
2 1,490 (25.11%) Microsoft 365
3 1,015 (17.10%) Power Platform
4 818 (13.78%) Entra ID
5 520 (8.76%) AWS
6 470 (7.92%) Azure DevOps
7 457 (7.70%) Dynamics 365
8 342 (5.76%) Power Automate
9 322 (5.43%) Microsoft Purview
10 308 (5.19%) PowerApps
11 299 (5.04%) Microsoft Copilot
12 246 (4.14%) GitHub
13 235 (3.96%) OneDrive
14 220 (3.71%) SaaS
15 193 (3.25%) GCP
16 171 (2.88%) Azure Data Factory
17 163 (2.75%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 154 (2.59%) Serverless
19 141 (2.38%) PaaS
20 140 (2.36%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 316 (5.32%) DNS
2 280 (4.72%) Firewall
3 222 (3.74%) VPN
4 193 (3.25%) DHCP
5 157 (2.65%) WAN
6 143 (2.41%) TCP/IP
7 138 (2.33%) Wi-Fi
8 132 (2.22%) LAN
9 129 (2.17%) Network Security
10 58 (0.98%) VLAN
11 48 (0.81%) SD-WAN
12 47 (0.79%) Kerberos
13 43 (0.72%) SAN
14 36 (0.61%) Wireless
15 35 (0.59%) Unified Communications
16 34 (0.57%) SSL
17 33 (0.56%) VoIP
18 29 (0.49%) Internet
18 29 (0.49%) MPLS
19 26 (0.44%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 644 (10.85%) Power BI
2 299 (5.04%) SQL Server
3 176 (2.97%) Data Warehouse
4 143 (2.41%) Data Lake
5 127 (2.14%) PostgreSQL
6 126 (2.12%) Metadata
7 123 (2.07%) Azure SQL Database
8 73 (1.23%) Relational Database
9 69 (1.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 56 (0.94%) Power Query
11 52 (0.88%) MySQL
12 48 (0.81%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 45 (0.76%) NoSQL
14 42 (0.71%) Star Schema
15 41 (0.69%) Tableau
16 38 (0.64%) Delta Lake
17 37 (0.62%) Oracle Database
18 31 (0.52%) SQL Server Analysis Services
19 26 (0.44%) Big Data
20 25 (0.42%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 301 (5.07%) JIRA
2 173 (2.91%) Git
3 69 (1.16%) Jenkins
4 59 (0.99%) GitLab
5 37 (0.62%) Visual Studio
6 26 (0.44%) MSI
7 20 (0.34%) Selenium
8 19 (0.32%) Artifactory
9 17 (0.29%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.29%) ERwin
10 16 (0.27%) MLflow
11 14 (0.24%) Maven
11 14 (0.24%) Postman
12 13 (0.22%) Bitbucket
12 13 (0.22%) JMeter
12 13 (0.22%) Visual Studio Code
13 12 (0.20%) JUnit
13 12 (0.20%) Team Foundation Server
14 10 (0.17%) WebDriver
15 9 (0.15%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,943 (32.74%) Social Skills
2 1,193 (20.10%) Finance
3 650 (10.95%) Analytical Skills
4 537 (9.05%) Public Sector
5 308 (5.19%) Banking
6 254 (4.28%) Organisational Skills
7 238 (4.01%) Legal
8 160 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
9 116 (1.95%) Manufacturing
10 107 (1.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 103 (1.74%) Retail
12 96 (1.62%) Law
13 87 (1.47%) Telecoms
14 84 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
15 79 (1.33%) Marketing
15 79 (1.33%) Military
16 69 (1.16%) Local Government
17 66 (1.11%) Investment Banking
18 63 (1.06%) Influencing Skills
19 47 (0.79%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 739 (12.45%) Architect
2 635 (10.70%) Analyst
3 538 (9.06%) Developer
4 489 (8.24%) Senior
5 396 (6.67%) Lead
6 367 (6.18%) IT Support
7 351 (5.91%) Consultant
8 282 (4.75%) Support Engineer
9 235 (3.96%) Data Engineer
10 224 (3.77%) Solutions Architect
11 205 (3.45%) Project Manager
12 203 (3.42%) IT Engineer
13 202 (3.40%) Azure Engineer
14 185 (3.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 180 (3.03%) Business Analyst
16 171 (2.88%) Administrator
17 156 (2.63%) IT Support Engineer
18 122 (2.06%) Security Engineer
19 116 (1.95%) Cloud Engineer
20 103 (1.74%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 256 (4.31%) .NET
2 197 (3.32%) REST
3 139 (2.34%) Microsoft Graph
4 117 (1.97%) OAuth
5 109 (1.84%) PySpark
6 106 (1.79%) JSON
7 102 (1.72%) SAML
8 89 (1.50%) OpenID
9 81 (1.36%) LDAP
10 78 (1.31%) React
11 76 (1.28%) Web Services
12 64 (1.08%) XML
13 58 (0.98%) Middleware
13 58 (0.98%) OAuth2
14 57 (0.96%) Node.js
14 57 (0.96%) RESTful
15 56 (0.94%) SailPoint
16 55 (0.93%) HTML
17 53 (0.89%) .NET Framework
17 53 (0.89%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 330 (5.56%) Onboarding
2 267 (4.50%) Cloud Native
3 173 (2.91%) Product Ownership
4 143 (2.41%) Management Information System
5 119 (2.01%) Data Centre
5 119 (2.01%) Legacy Systems
6 109 (1.84%) Enterprise Software
7 108 (1.82%) Hybrid Cloud
8 100 (1.68%) Security Posture
9 98 (1.65%) PKI
10 93 (1.57%) AI Agents
11 88 (1.48%) Self-Motivation
12 86 (1.45%) Data Structures
13 77 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
14 74 (1.25%) Replication
14 74 (1.25%) Virtual Team
15 69 (1.16%) Low-Code
16 57 (0.96%) Distributed Systems
17 51 (0.86%) Public Cloud
18 49 (0.83%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1,253 (21.11%) Windows
2 314 (5.29%) Windows 10
3 309 (5.21%) Windows Server
4 260 (4.38%) Linux
5 121 (2.04%) Mac OS
6 111 (1.87%) Android
7 109 (1.84%) Apple iOS
8 41 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 41 (0.69%) Windows 7
9 37 (0.62%) Unix
10 35 (0.59%) Windows Server 2016
11 31 (0.52%) VMS
12 29 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
13 21 (0.35%) Windows Server 2012
14 15 (0.25%) Ubuntu
15 13 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
16 11 (0.19%) CentOS
16 11 (0.19%) SUSE
17 9 (0.15%) Solaris
18 6 (0.10%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,016 (17.12%) Problem-Solving
2 950 (16.01%) DevOps
3 882 (14.86%) Agile
4 845 (14.24%) Migration
5 779 (13.13%) CI/CD
6 696 (11.73%) Stakeholder Management
7 662 (11.15%) Business Intelligence
8 647 (10.90%) AI
9 640 (10.78%) Analytics
10 575 (9.69%) Continuous Improvement
11 568 (9.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 509 (8.58%) ITIL
13 444 (7.48%) Data Modelling
14 438 (7.38%) Customer Service
15 429 (7.23%) Roadmaps
16 402 (6.77%) Cybersecurity
17 389 (6.55%) Decision-Making
18 374 (6.30%) Infrastructure as Code
19 356 (6.00%) Validation
20 351 (5.91%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 764 (12.87%) SQL
2 657 (11.07%) PowerShell
3 620 (10.45%) Python
4 272 (4.58%) C#
5 212 (3.57%) JavaScript
6 182 (3.07%) Java
7 147 (2.48%) Bicep
8 102 (1.72%) T-SQL
9 84 (1.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 77 (1.30%) Kusto Query Language
10 77 (1.30%) TypeScript
11 76 (1.28%) Bash
12 36 (0.61%) VBA
13 30 (0.51%) C++
14 28 (0.47%) VB
15 27 (0.45%) PL/SQL
16 18 (0.30%) VBScript
17 17 (0.29%) Scala
18 15 (0.25%) Shell Script
19 13 (0.22%) X++
Qualifications
1 1,139 (19.19%) Security Cleared
2 884 (14.89%) SC Cleared
3 572 (9.64%) Degree
4 289 (4.87%) Microsoft Certification
5 199 (3.35%) DV Cleared
6 195 (3.29%) Azure Certification
7 118 (1.99%) Computer Science Degree
8 115 (1.94%) CISSP
9 107 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
10 94 (1.58%) Cisco Certification
11 63 (1.06%) CISM
12 59 (0.99%) PMP
13 54 (0.91%) Master's Degree
13 54 (0.91%) PMI Certification
14 53 (0.89%) AWS Certification
15 46 (0.78%) MCSE
16 41 (0.69%) CCNP
16 41 (0.69%) DBS Check
17 37 (0.62%) ITIL Certification
18 36 (0.61%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 314 (5.29%) Data Quality
2 232 (3.91%) GDPR
3 190 (3.20%) QA
4 165 (2.78%) SLA
5 159 (2.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 135 (2.27%) NIST
7 113 (1.90%) PMO
8 82 (1.38%) Accessibility
8 82 (1.38%) Cyber Essentials
9 64 (1.08%) NCSC
10 39 (0.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 36 (0.61%) GRC
12 31 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 31 (0.52%) PCI DSS
13 23 (0.39%) WCAG
14 21 (0.35%) NIST 800
15 17 (0.29%) SOC 2
16 15 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
16 15 (0.25%) MiFID
17 12 (0.20%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,118 (18.84%) Active Directory
2 218 (3.67%) Docker
3 195 (3.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 107 (1.80%) Hyper-V
5 92 (1.55%) Virtual Desktop
6 79 (1.33%) Virtual Machines
7 61 (1.03%) VMware ESXi
8 54 (0.91%) vSphere
9 33 (0.56%) BitLocker
10 24 (0.40%) VMware NSX
11 21 (0.35%) Microsoft App-V
12 19 (0.32%) Firmware
13 7 (0.12%) IAG
13 7 (0.12%) NFS
14 5 (0.084%) RACF
14 5 (0.084%) VMware Workstation
15 4 (0.067%) Snort
15 4 (0.067%) Terminal Services
15 4 (0.067%) XenDesktop
16 3 (0.051%) Squid
Systems Management
1 475 (8.00%) Microsoft Intune
2 377 (6.35%) Terraform
3 254 (4.28%) Kubernetes
4 205 (3.45%) SCCM
5 130 (2.19%) Single Sign-On
6 129 (2.17%) Ansible
7 78 (1.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 55 (0.93%) Jamf Pro
9 48 (0.81%) vCenter Server
10 35 (0.59%) Grafana
11 30 (0.51%) FortiGate
12 29 (0.49%) Prometheus
13 24 (0.40%) SCOM
14 19 (0.32%) Puppet
14 19 (0.32%) WSUS
15 16 (0.27%) QRadar
16 15 (0.25%) AirWatch
17 12 (0.20%) vMotion
18 11 (0.19%) HAProxy
18 11 (0.19%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 346 (5.83%) ServiceNow
2 268 (4.52%) VMware
3 250 (4.21%) Oracle
4 249 (4.20%) SAP
5 217 (3.66%) Databricks
6 201 (3.39%) Cisco
7 178 (3.00%) Google
8 120 (2.02%) Salesforce
9 100 (1.68%) Citrix
10 92 (1.55%) Splunk
11 80 (1.35%) Apple
12 78 (1.31%) OpenAI
13 73 (1.23%) Foundry
14 69 (1.16%) Okta
15 66 (1.11%) CrowdStrike
16 59 (0.99%) CyberArk
17 51 (0.86%) Red Hat
18 50 (0.84%) HP
19 45 (0.76%) Palo Alto
20 44 (0.74%) Zscaler