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 30 December 2025, 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
30 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,025 4,555 5,679
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.58% 13.68% 13.13%
As % of the Vendors category 28.94% 29.84% 29.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,375 2,892 3,905
10th Percentile £204 £205 £193
25th Percentile £350 £348 £319
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £619
90th Percentile £675 £676 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £447 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.17% -2.78% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 384 204 234
10th Percentile £14.16 - £13.29
25th Percentile £16.50 £15.62 £16.25
Median hourly rate £20.00 £23.59 £22.69
Median % change year-on-year -15.22% +3.99% +13.43%
75th Percentile £27.71 £34.06 £46.61
90th Percentile £65.00 £61.28 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.23 £21.46 £21.35
% change year-on-year -10.39% +0.52% +13.44%

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 17,362 15,267 19,273
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 46.93% 45.86% 44.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,094 9,098 12,225
10th Percentile £296 £285 £252
25th Percentile £408 £409 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.33%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £716 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 829 447 658
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £14.26
25th Percentile £17.98 £18.51 £19.38
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.50 £46.03
Median % change year-on-year -13.36% -40.25% +77.03%
75th Percentile £44.94 £61.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £76.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.48 £25.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year -14.08% -45.86% +103.57%

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 30 December 2025.

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 30 December 2025.

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 30 December 2025. 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 4,428 £475 - 7,906
UK excluding London -1 2,706 £447 +2.17% 7,423
London -1 1,877 £500 - 1,270
Work from Home 0 1,284 £500 +3.09% 3,933
North of England +1 710 £418 -1.76% 1,699
South East +1 619 £475 +5.44% 1,966
Midlands -4 470 £447 +5.18% 1,335
North West +2 417 £400 -11.11% 849
South West -1 360 £500 +5.26% 827
West Midlands -4 313 £478 +7.73% 702
East of England 0 273 £425 -2.86% 1,029
Yorkshire 0 260 £435 +5.45% 706
Scotland -3 191 £450 +5.88% 357
East Midlands +3 155 £375 - 558
Wales +1 82 £295 +3.51% 237
Northern Ireland +4 42 £361 +44.50% 90
North East -12 38 £410 +10.81% 153

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
1 569 (11.32%) SharePoint
2 379 (7.54%) Microsoft Exchange
3 105 (2.09%) Confluence
4 59 (1.17%) Skype for Business
5 39 (0.78%) CMS
6 25 (0.50%) IIS
7 23 (0.46%) HCL Notes
8 22 (0.44%) Apache
9 20 (0.40%) SAS
10 19 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
10 19 (0.38%) Exchange Server 2013
11 17 (0.34%) Exchange Server 2010
12 15 (0.30%) Apache Spark
13 14 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
14 13 (0.26%) Mattermost
15 12 (0.24%) WebSphere
16 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
17 10 (0.20%) iPlanet
17 10 (0.20%) JBoss
18 7 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2007
Applications
1 616 (12.26%) Microsoft Office
2 549 (10.93%) Microsoft Excel
3 246 (4.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 130 (2.59%) Microsoft Project
5 104 (2.07%) MS Visio
6 58 (1.15%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 11 (0.22%) Trello
8 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.12%) Adobe Captivate
9 6 (0.12%) Sketch
10 4 (0.080%) Adobe After Effects
10 4 (0.080%) Adobe Illustrator
10 4 (0.080%) Adobe XD
10 4 (0.080%) InDesign
10 4 (0.080%) Photoshop
11 3 (0.060%) Acrobat
11 3 (0.060%) Adobe Premiere
11 3 (0.060%) Windchill
12 2 (0.040%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 186 (3.70%) Dynamics CRM
2 40 (0.80%) Remedy ITSM
3 36 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
4 17 (0.34%) Dynamics AX
5 15 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
6 14 (0.28%) Maximo
7 13 (0.26%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 11 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
9 9 (0.18%) Aladdin
10 8 (0.16%) Teamcenter
11 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
11 7 (0.14%) Shopify
12 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
12 6 (0.12%) Workday HCM
13 5 (0.100%) assyst
13 5 (0.100%) SAP ERP
14 4 (0.080%) Loan IQ
14 4 (0.080%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,899 (37.79%) Azure
2 1,182 (23.52%) Microsoft 365
3 790 (15.72%) Power Platform
4 570 (11.34%) Entra ID
5 451 (8.98%) AWS
6 395 (7.86%) Dynamics 365
7 354 (7.04%) Azure DevOps
8 336 (6.69%) Power Automate
9 306 (6.09%) PowerApps
10 198 (3.94%) GitHub
11 196 (3.90%) Microsoft Purview
12 178 (3.54%) GCP
12 178 (3.54%) Serverless
13 163 (3.24%) SaaS
14 157 (3.12%) OneDrive
15 147 (2.93%) Azure Sentinel
16 144 (2.87%) Azure Data Factory
17 129 (2.57%) Azure Logic Apps
18 128 (2.55%) Microsoft Copilot
19 121 (2.41%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 291 (5.79%) Firewall
2 268 (5.33%) DNS
3 177 (3.52%) VPN
4 167 (3.32%) DHCP
5 137 (2.73%) TCP/IP
6 100 (1.99%) Wi-Fi
7 95 (1.89%) Network Security
8 83 (1.65%) WAN
9 80 (1.59%) LAN
10 79 (1.57%) Skype
11 55 (1.09%) Wireless
12 44 (0.88%) VLAN
13 41 (0.82%) Unified Communications
14 37 (0.74%) HTTP
14 37 (0.74%) Kerberos
15 33 (0.66%) Internet
16 30 (0.60%) SAN
17 29 (0.58%) VoIP
18 28 (0.56%) MPLS
19 26 (0.52%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 482 (9.59%) Power BI
2 235 (4.68%) SQL Server
3 129 (2.57%) Data Warehouse
4 112 (2.23%) Data Lake
5 93 (1.85%) PostgreSQL
6 87 (1.73%) Relational Database
7 81 (1.61%) Metadata
8 77 (1.53%) Azure SQL Database
8 77 (1.53%) Oracle Database
9 48 (0.96%) MySQL
10 44 (0.88%) Tableau
11 41 (0.82%) NoSQL
12 39 (0.78%) Power Query
13 38 (0.76%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 33 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 26 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
16 24 (0.48%) Delta Lake
17 21 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
18 18 (0.36%) Big Data
19 17 (0.34%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 254 (5.05%) JIRA
2 159 (3.16%) Git
3 91 (1.81%) Jenkins
4 77 (1.53%) GitLab
5 40 (0.80%) Eclipse
6 31 (0.62%) Postman
7 26 (0.52%) MSI
8 25 (0.50%) Visual Studio
9 24 (0.48%) Browser DevTools
9 24 (0.48%) Xcode
10 23 (0.46%) Android Studio
11 20 (0.40%) Selenium
12 16 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
13 13 (0.26%) Cucumber
14 12 (0.24%) Bitbucket
14 12 (0.24%) InstallShield
14 12 (0.24%) JMeter
15 11 (0.22%) Artifactory
16 10 (0.20%) CA Release Automation
16 10 (0.20%) SonarQube
General
1 2,055 (40.90%) Social Skills
2 1,033 (20.56%) Finance
3 666 (13.25%) Analytical Skills
4 527 (10.49%) Public Sector
5 256 (5.09%) Banking
6 234 (4.66%) Organisational Skills
7 184 (3.66%) Legal
8 155 (3.08%) Documentation Skills
9 136 (2.71%) Manufacturing
10 117 (2.33%) Marketing
11 107 (2.13%) Presentation Skills
12 92 (1.83%) Telecoms
13 87 (1.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 81 (1.61%) Retail
15 61 (1.21%) Influencing Skills
16 59 (1.17%) Local Government
17 43 (0.86%) Military
18 42 (0.84%) Investment Banking
19 40 (0.80%) Law
20 38 (0.76%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 698 (13.89%) Analyst
2 512 (10.19%) Architect
3 483 (9.61%) Developer
4 354 (7.04%) Senior
5 315 (6.27%) Support Engineer
6 287 (5.71%) IT Support
7 274 (5.45%) Consultant
8 239 (4.76%) Lead
9 167 (3.32%) Administrator
10 159 (3.16%) Business Analyst
11 157 (3.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 157 (3.12%) Solutions Architect
12 154 (3.06%) Support Analyst
13 151 (3.00%) Project Manager
14 149 (2.97%) IT Engineer
15 143 (2.85%) Azure Engineer
16 123 (2.45%) Security Engineer
17 115 (2.29%) Data Engineer
18 108 (2.15%) Desktop Support
19 105 (2.09%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 248 (4.94%) .NET
2 160 (3.18%) REST
3 119 (2.37%) OAuth
4 114 (2.27%) React
5 94 (1.87%) RESTful
6 89 (1.77%) SAML
7 88 (1.75%) AngularJS
8 79 (1.57%) OpenID
9 69 (1.37%) HTML
9 69 (1.37%) Microsoft Graph
10 68 (1.35%) JSON
11 67 (1.33%) CSS
12 55 (1.09%) PySpark
12 55 (1.09%) SOAP
13 54 (1.07%) Web Services
13 54 (1.07%) XML
14 53 (1.05%) LDAP
14 53 (1.05%) Node.js
15 51 (1.01%) ARM Templates
16 48 (0.96%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 266 (5.29%) Onboarding
2 193 (3.84%) Cloud Native
3 138 (2.75%) Management Information System
3 138 (2.75%) Product Ownership
4 111 (2.21%) Enterprise Software
5 97 (1.93%) Security Posture
6 92 (1.83%) PKI
7 90 (1.79%) Data Centre
8 88 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
9 76 (1.51%) Driving Licence
10 74 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
10 74 (1.47%) Mobile App
11 71 (1.41%) Low-Code
12 63 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
13 60 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
14 55 (1.09%) Virtual Team
15 52 (1.03%) Replication
16 50 (1.00%) NHS
17 48 (0.96%) Data Protection Act
18 43 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 1,206 (24.00%) Windows
2 342 (6.81%) Windows 10
3 307 (6.11%) Linux
4 271 (5.39%) Windows Server
5 117 (2.33%) Mac OS
6 107 (2.13%) Android
7 89 (1.77%) Apple iOS
8 82 (1.63%) Unix
9 38 (0.76%) Windows 7
10 36 (0.72%) Windows Server 2016
11 31 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
12 27 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 22 (0.44%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
15 16 (0.32%) VMS
16 9 (0.18%) Mac OS X
16 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
17 6 (0.12%) AIX
17 6 (0.12%) Ubuntu
18 5 (0.100%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,048 (20.86%) Problem-Solving
2 922 (18.35%) Agile
3 726 (14.45%) DevOps
4 629 (12.52%) Migration
5 581 (11.56%) CI/CD
6 571 (11.36%) Business Intelligence
7 508 (10.11%) Stakeholder Management
8 487 (9.69%) Analytics
9 475 (9.45%) ITIL
10 438 (8.72%) Continuous Improvement
11 418 (8.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 411 (8.18%) Customer Service
13 368 (7.32%) Cybersecurity
14 357 (7.10%) AI
15 332 (6.61%) Project Management
16 308 (6.13%) Change Management
17 279 (5.55%) Data Modelling
18 273 (5.43%) Roadmaps
19 260 (5.17%) Infrastructure as Code
20 259 (5.15%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 647 (12.88%) SQL
2 593 (11.80%) PowerShell
3 561 (11.16%) Python
4 266 (5.29%) C#
5 217 (4.32%) JavaScript
6 157 (3.12%) Java
7 108 (2.15%) Bash
8 106 (2.11%) Kusto Query Language
9 99 (1.97%) Bicep
10 75 (1.49%) TypeScript
11 53 (1.05%) T-SQL
12 47 (0.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 41 (0.82%) Perl
14 27 (0.54%) C++
14 27 (0.54%) Shell Script
15 24 (0.48%) Go
15 24 (0.48%) PL/SQL
16 22 (0.44%) R
16 22 (0.44%) VBA
17 20 (0.40%) VB
Qualifications
1 973 (19.36%) Security Cleared
2 728 (14.49%) SC Cleared
3 529 (10.53%) Degree
4 352 (7.00%) Microsoft Certification
5 200 (3.98%) DV Cleared
6 183 (3.64%) Azure Certification
7 139 (2.77%) CISSP
8 122 (2.43%) Computer Science Degree
9 82 (1.63%) BPSS Clearance
10 73 (1.45%) CISM
11 66 (1.31%) Cisco Certification
12 59 (1.17%) Master's Degree
13 57 (1.13%) PMI Certification
14 54 (1.07%) MCSE
15 52 (1.03%) A+ Certification
16 51 (1.01%) ITIL Certification
17 46 (0.92%) AWS Certification
17 46 (0.92%) PMP
18 44 (0.88%) MCP
19 36 (0.72%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 243 (4.84%) GDPR
2 190 (3.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 156 (3.10%) QA
4 151 (3.00%) NIST
5 148 (2.95%) Data Quality
6 125 (2.49%) SLA
7 102 (2.03%) PMO
8 86 (1.71%) Accessibility
9 50 (1.00%) Cyber Essentials
10 35 (0.70%) PCI DSS
11 32 (0.64%) NCSC
12 25 (0.50%) WCAG
13 23 (0.46%) HIPAA
14 22 (0.44%) EU AI Act
15 21 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 20 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 16 (0.32%) GRC
18 11 (0.22%) SOC 2
19 9 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
19 9 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 1,021 (20.32%) Active Directory
2 193 (3.84%) Docker
3 174 (3.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 66 (1.31%) Hyper-V
5 57 (1.13%) Virtual Machines
6 42 (0.84%) vSphere
7 36 (0.72%) VMware ESXi
8 34 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
9 16 (0.32%) BitLocker
9 16 (0.32%) VMware NSX
10 15 (0.30%) Firmware
11 11 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
12 9 (0.18%) NFS
12 9 (0.18%) XenApp
13 8 (0.16%) ISA Server
13 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
14 7 (0.14%) Brightmail
14 7 (0.14%) Terminal Services
15 6 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
16 5 (0.100%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 372 (7.40%) Microsoft Intune
2 296 (5.89%) SCCM
3 272 (5.41%) Terraform
4 235 (4.68%) Kubernetes
5 121 (2.41%) Single Sign-On
6 103 (2.05%) Ansible
7 77 (1.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (0.98%) SCOM
9 40 (0.80%) vCenter Server
10 38 (0.76%) Jamf Pro
11 34 (0.68%) Grafana
12 27 (0.54%) Prometheus
13 21 (0.42%) HP SiteScope
14 20 (0.40%) WSUS
15 19 (0.38%) QRadar
16 15 (0.30%) Microsoft Clustering
16 15 (0.30%) Progress Chef
17 14 (0.28%) Kibana
18 13 (0.26%) Puppet
18 13 (0.26%) WMI
Vendors
1 269 (5.35%) ServiceNow
2 236 (4.70%) VMware
3 229 (4.56%) Oracle
4 184 (3.66%) SAP
5 182 (3.62%) Cisco
6 181 (3.60%) Splunk
7 158 (3.14%) Google
8 138 (2.75%) Databricks
9 122 (2.43%) Citrix
10 86 (1.71%) Apple
11 76 (1.51%) Salesforce
12 72 (1.43%) OpenAI
13 64 (1.27%) CrowdStrike
14 55 (1.09%) Palo Alto
15 53 (1.05%) IBM
16 48 (0.96%) HP
16 48 (0.96%) Remedy
17 46 (0.92%) CyberArk
18 42 (0.84%) Adobe
18 42 (0.84%) Foundry