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 20 May 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
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,544 3,892 5,534
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.51% 13.34% 13.00%
As % of the Vendors category 28.08% 28.00% 30.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,722 2,556 3,638
10th Percentile £213 £209 £189
25th Percentile £375 £348 £333
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +4.11% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £586 £586 £600
90th Percentile £676 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £452
% change year-on-year +5.88% -5.87% -0.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 350 246 463
10th Percentile £13.65 £13.97 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.10 £13.00
Median hourly rate £20.09 £18.81 £15.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.82% +25.38% -32.69%
75th Percentile £28.85 £29.00 £24.59
90th Percentile £61.61 £58.45 £55.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.91 £18.51 £15.00
% change year-on-year +7.56% +23.40% -21.05%

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 19,744 13,902 17,995
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.01% 47.66% 42.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,505 8,679 11,230
10th Percentile £313 £281 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.49% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £616 £628
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £492 £500
% change year-on-year - -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 992 569 1,096
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £14.46
Median hourly rate £32.23 £25.50 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.37% +15.91% -48.24%
75th Percentile £58.75 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £74.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £22.50 £21.42
% change year-on-year +24.44% +5.07% -44.38%

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 20 May 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 20 May 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 20 May 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 4,858 £500 +5.04% 2,972
UK excluding London -1 2,877 £450 +5.88% 2,606
London -3 2,154 £515 +0.49% 853
Work from Home -1 1,379 £500 - 1,221
North of England -3 763 £450 +7.53% 636
South East -2 664 £475 +1.50% 833
Midlands -4 493 £450 +12.50% 390
North West -2 395 £427 +0.35% 336
Yorkshire -3 349 £475 +16.92% 222
West Midlands -5 339 £450 +12.50% 231
South West -2 333 £450 -1.80% 272
East of England 0 317 £375 -25.00% 272
Scotland +3 218 £450 +5.88% 145
East Midlands -1 147 £407 -0.79% 158
Wales +3 90 £335 +11.67% 88
North East -31 24 £450 +32.35% 84
Northern Ireland -5 20 £450 +38.46% 31
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
1 593 (10.70%) SharePoint
2 368 (6.64%) Microsoft Exchange
3 103 (1.86%) Confluence
4 35 (0.63%) Apache Spark
5 25 (0.45%) Apache
6 23 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
7 22 (0.40%) HCL Notes
8 18 (0.32%) CMS
9 14 (0.25%) IIS
9 14 (0.25%) SAS
10 13 (0.23%) Skype for Business
11 12 (0.22%) Mendix
12 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.11%) Camunda
12 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 5 (0.090%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.090%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.072%) Appian
14 4 (0.072%) Drupal
14 4 (0.072%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 546 (9.85%) Microsoft Office
2 473 (8.53%) Microsoft Excel
3 212 (3.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 119 (2.15%) Microsoft Project
5 90 (1.62%) MS Visio
6 55 (0.99%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.31%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.11%) Trello
10 5 (0.090%) Acrobat
10 5 (0.090%) PTC Creo
11 4 (0.072%) InDesign
11 4 (0.072%) SOLIDWORKS
12 3 (0.054%) Adobe Captivate
12 3 (0.054%) AutoCAD
12 3 (0.054%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
13 2 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 201 (3.63%) Dynamics CRM
2 63 (1.14%) SAP S/4HANA
3 22 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
5 17 (0.31%) NetSuite
6 15 (0.27%) Aladdin
7 13 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
8 11 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 10 (0.18%) Loan IQ
9 10 (0.18%) Maximo
9 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
9 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 9 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
10 9 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
11 8 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.11%) Primavera
12 6 (0.11%) Shopify
13 5 (0.090%) Dynamics GP
13 5 (0.090%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 2,343 (42.26%) Azure
2 1,405 (25.34%) Microsoft 365
3 948 (17.10%) Power Platform
4 714 (12.88%) Entra ID
5 466 (8.41%) Dynamics 365
6 446 (8.04%) AWS
7 434 (7.83%) Azure DevOps
8 326 (5.88%) Power Automate
9 299 (5.39%) Microsoft Purview
10 294 (5.30%) PowerApps
11 248 (4.47%) GitHub
12 238 (4.29%) Microsoft Copilot
13 213 (3.84%) OneDrive
14 192 (3.46%) SaaS
15 191 (3.45%) Azure Data Factory
16 177 (3.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 170 (3.07%) GCP
18 159 (2.87%) Serverless
19 141 (2.54%) PaaS
20 132 (2.38%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 279 (5.03%) DNS
2 253 (4.56%) Firewall
3 202 (3.64%) VPN
4 169 (3.05%) DHCP
5 134 (2.42%) Wi-Fi
6 132 (2.38%) WAN
7 114 (2.06%) LAN
8 106 (1.91%) Network Security
9 101 (1.82%) TCP/IP
10 57 (1.03%) Kerberos
11 53 (0.96%) VLAN
12 45 (0.81%) SD-WAN
13 36 (0.65%) SAN
14 34 (0.61%) SSL
15 33 (0.60%) Wireless
16 29 (0.52%) HTTP
17 28 (0.51%) Skype
17 28 (0.51%) Unified Communications
18 24 (0.43%) IPsec
19 23 (0.41%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 572 (10.32%) Power BI
2 266 (4.80%) SQL Server
3 174 (3.14%) Data Warehouse
4 151 (2.72%) Data Lake
5 120 (2.16%) Azure SQL Database
6 112 (2.02%) Metadata
7 96 (1.73%) PostgreSQL
8 67 (1.21%) Relational Database
8 67 (1.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 47 (0.85%) Power Query
10 46 (0.83%) NoSQL
11 44 (0.79%) Tableau
12 41 (0.74%) Oracle Database
12 41 (0.74%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 41 (0.74%) Star Schema
13 40 (0.72%) Delta Lake
13 40 (0.72%) MySQL
14 30 (0.54%) Spark SQL
15 26 (0.47%) Snowflake Schema
15 26 (0.47%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 251 (4.53%) JIRA
2 168 (3.03%) Git
3 64 (1.15%) Jenkins
4 61 (1.10%) GitLab
5 27 (0.49%) Visual Studio
6 25 (0.45%) Artifactory
7 20 (0.36%) MSI
8 19 (0.34%) Eclipse
9 15 (0.27%) MLflow
9 15 (0.27%) Selenium
10 14 (0.25%) JMeter
10 14 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
11 13 (0.23%) ERwin
12 12 (0.22%) Bitbucket
12 12 (0.22%) Maven
12 12 (0.22%) Postman
13 9 (0.16%) Android Studio
13 9 (0.16%) Browser DevTools
13 9 (0.16%) Gatling
13 9 (0.16%) InstallShield
General
1 1,798 (32.43%) Social Skills
2 1,104 (19.91%) Finance
3 625 (11.27%) Analytical Skills
4 497 (8.96%) Public Sector
5 291 (5.25%) Banking
6 246 (4.44%) Legal
7 238 (4.29%) Organisational Skills
8 138 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
9 100 (1.80%) Manufacturing
10 94 (1.70%) Law
11 88 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
12 86 (1.55%) Retail
13 80 (1.44%) Marketing
13 80 (1.44%) Telecoms
14 74 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 67 (1.21%) Military
16 66 (1.19%) Local Government
17 54 (0.97%) Investment Banking
18 53 (0.96%) Influencing Skills
19 47 (0.85%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 697 (12.57%) Architect
2 597 (10.77%) Analyst
3 508 (9.16%) Developer
4 459 (8.28%) Senior
5 364 (6.57%) IT Support
6 340 (6.13%) Lead
7 309 (5.57%) Consultant
8 257 (4.64%) Support Engineer
9 226 (4.08%) Data Engineer
10 205 (3.70%) Azure Engineer
11 192 (3.46%) Solutions Architect
12 186 (3.35%) Project Manager
13 178 (3.21%) Business Analyst
13 178 (3.21%) IT Engineer
14 166 (2.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 159 (2.87%) Administrator
16 135 (2.44%) IT Support Engineer
17 118 (2.13%) Security Engineer
18 105 (1.89%) DevOps Engineer
19 103 (1.86%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 242 (4.37%) .NET
2 169 (3.05%) REST
3 134 (2.42%) Microsoft Graph
4 106 (1.91%) OAuth
5 104 (1.88%) PySpark
6 97 (1.75%) SAML
7 87 (1.57%) JSON
8 83 (1.50%) React
9 79 (1.42%) OpenID
10 76 (1.37%) LDAP
11 68 (1.23%) Web Services
12 67 (1.21%) Middleware
13 54 (0.97%) HTML
14 52 (0.94%) Node.js
15 49 (0.88%) AngularJS
15 49 (0.88%) SailPoint
16 48 (0.87%) CSS
17 47 (0.85%) ARM Templates
17 47 (0.85%) OAuth2
18 46 (0.83%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 296 (5.34%) Onboarding
2 217 (3.91%) Cloud Native
3 172 (3.10%) Product Ownership
4 123 (2.22%) Management Information System
5 103 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
6 102 (1.84%) Data Centre
7 90 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
8 85 (1.53%) Hybrid Cloud
9 84 (1.52%) Security Posture
10 83 (1.50%) AI Agents
11 78 (1.41%) Replication
12 75 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
13 72 (1.30%) Data Structures
13 72 (1.30%) Low-Code
14 70 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
15 68 (1.23%) PKI
16 61 (1.10%) Virtual Team
17 44 (0.79%) Driving Licence
17 44 (0.79%) NHS
17 44 (0.79%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 1,196 (21.57%) Windows
2 321 (5.79%) Windows 10
3 277 (5.00%) Windows Server
4 253 (4.56%) Linux
5 110 (1.98%) Apple iOS
6 106 (1.91%) Mac OS
7 104 (1.88%) Android
8 43 (0.78%) Windows 7
9 42 (0.76%) Unix
10 40 (0.72%) Windows Server 2016
11 38 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 32 (0.58%) VMS
13 29 (0.52%) Windows Server 2019
14 22 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
15 15 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
16 12 (0.22%) Ubuntu
17 10 (0.18%) CentOS
18 5 (0.090%) AIX
19 4 (0.072%) Solaris
19 4 (0.072%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 940 (16.96%) Problem-Solving
2 885 (15.96%) DevOps
3 835 (15.06%) Agile
4 785 (14.16%) Migration
5 748 (13.49%) CI/CD
6 623 (11.24%) Business Intelligence
7 604 (10.89%) Analytics
8 553 (9.97%) AI
9 546 (9.85%) Stakeholder Management
10 481 (8.68%) Continuous Improvement
11 459 (8.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 447 (8.06%) ITIL
13 432 (7.79%) Customer Service
14 419 (7.56%) Data Modelling
15 375 (6.76%) Roadmaps
16 351 (6.33%) Decision-Making
17 336 (6.06%) Cybersecurity
18 326 (5.88%) Infrastructure as Code
19 311 (5.61%) Project Delivery
20 309 (5.57%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 713 (12.86%) SQL
2 622 (11.22%) PowerShell
3 587 (10.59%) Python
4 260 (4.69%) C#
5 198 (3.57%) JavaScript
6 177 (3.19%) Java
7 126 (2.27%) Bicep
8 96 (1.73%) T-SQL
9 83 (1.50%) Kusto Query Language
10 76 (1.37%) Bash
11 73 (1.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 68 (1.23%) TypeScript
13 31 (0.56%) PL/SQL
14 28 (0.51%) VBA
15 27 (0.49%) C++
16 22 (0.40%) VB
17 19 (0.34%) Scala
18 18 (0.32%) R
19 16 (0.29%) Shell Script
20 13 (0.23%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,047 (18.89%) Security Cleared
2 823 (14.84%) SC Cleared
3 539 (9.72%) Degree
4 259 (4.67%) Microsoft Certification
5 179 (3.23%) Azure Certification
6 174 (3.14%) DV Cleared
7 120 (2.16%) Computer Science Degree
8 98 (1.77%) CISSP
9 94 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
10 76 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
11 56 (1.01%) PMP
12 53 (0.96%) CISM
12 53 (0.96%) Master's Degree
12 53 (0.96%) PMI Certification
13 39 (0.70%) AWS Certification
14 38 (0.69%) MCSE
15 34 (0.61%) DBS Check
16 33 (0.60%) CCNP
17 30 (0.54%) MCSA
18 28 (0.51%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 275 (4.96%) Data Quality
2 216 (3.90%) GDPR
3 182 (3.28%) QA
4 147 (2.65%) SLA
5 135 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 119 (2.15%) NIST
7 96 (1.73%) PMO
8 71 (1.28%) Accessibility
9 68 (1.23%) Cyber Essentials
10 48 (0.87%) NCSC
11 37 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 33 (0.60%) GRC
13 26 (0.47%) PCI DSS
14 22 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 21 (0.38%) NIST 800
16 20 (0.36%) MiFID
17 15 (0.27%) SOC 2
18 13 (0.23%) FINRA
18 13 (0.23%) WCAG
19 12 (0.22%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,051 (18.96%) Active Directory
2 215 (3.88%) Docker
3 192 (3.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 97 (1.75%) Hyper-V
5 80 (1.44%) Virtual Desktop
6 75 (1.35%) Virtual Machines
7 56 (1.01%) VMware ESXi
8 50 (0.90%) vSphere
9 25 (0.45%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.41%) VMware NSX
11 19 (0.34%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.29%) Firmware
13 6 (0.11%) NFS
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
14 5 (0.090%) Snort
14 5 (0.090%) VMware Workstation
15 4 (0.072%) IAG
15 4 (0.072%) Squid
15 4 (0.072%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 428 (7.72%) Microsoft Intune
2 341 (6.15%) Terraform
3 245 (4.42%) Kubernetes
4 199 (3.59%) SCCM
5 123 (2.22%) Ansible
6 114 (2.06%) Single Sign-On
7 78 (1.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 46 (0.83%) vCenter Server
9 42 (0.76%) Jamf Pro
10 35 (0.63%) Grafana
11 31 (0.56%) Prometheus
12 21 (0.38%) FortiGate
13 18 (0.32%) SCOM
14 17 (0.31%) Puppet
15 15 (0.27%) AirWatch
16 14 (0.25%) QRadar
17 13 (0.23%) WSUS
18 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
19 11 (0.20%) CASB
19 11 (0.20%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 269 (4.85%) ServiceNow
2 263 (4.74%) VMware
3 220 (3.97%) Databricks
4 217 (3.91%) SAP
5 214 (3.86%) Oracle
6 179 (3.23%) Cisco
7 155 (2.80%) Google
8 110 (1.98%) Citrix
9 100 (1.80%) Salesforce
10 94 (1.70%) Splunk
11 82 (1.48%) OpenAI
12 71 (1.28%) Apple
13 70 (1.26%) Foundry
14 55 (0.99%) CrowdStrike
15 50 (0.90%) HP
16 46 (0.83%) Adobe
17 45 (0.81%) Palo Alto
18 44 (0.79%) CyberArk
18 44 (0.79%) Okta
19 40 (0.72%) Workday