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 24 April 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
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 11 7
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,575 3,927 5,600
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.00% 13.29% 12.83%
As % of the Vendors category 28.37% 28.01% 30.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,754 2,631 3,691
10th Percentile £208 £210 £189
25th Percentile £375 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £498
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -4.52% -0.50%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £436 £463
% change year-on-year +3.15% -5.68% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 362 231 452
10th Percentile £13.51 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.35 £15.62 £12.96
Median hourly rate £20.33 £21.46 £15.30
Median % change year-on-year -5.29% +40.31% -32.02%
75th Percentile £28.97 £30.51 £24.81
90th Percentile £64.88 £61.25 £52.69
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.91 £18.85 £15.00
% change year-on-year +5.62% +25.67% -25.00%

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 19,649 14,019 18,536
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 42.29% 47.46% 42.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,551 8,811 11,523
10th Percentile £313 £294 £260
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% - -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £627
90th Percentile £703 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £497 £500
% change year-on-year -1.01% -0.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 986 554 1,079
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.99 £12.02
25th Percentile £18.61 £18.25 £14.38
Median hourly rate £30.32 £27.13 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +11.78% +20.56% -48.86%
75th Percentile £60.00 £57.57 £57.41
90th Percentile £79.13 £75.88 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.83 £24.19 £21.46
% change year-on-year +10.91% +12.72% -46.35%

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 24 April 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 24 April 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 24 April 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 4,891 £493 +3.68% 2,588
UK excluding London 0 2,900 £450 +3.15% 2,357
London -2 2,149 £513 +2.50% 702
Work from Home -2 1,390 £500 - 1,065
North of England 0 796 £449 +5.65% 553
South East -2 648 £484 -1.38% 709
Midlands -2 496 £450 +12.50% 360
North West -2 432 £416 -7.25% 290
West Midlands -3 343 £463 +15.63% 209
Yorkshire +3 338 £450 +12.50% 178
South West -1 332 £450 -2.70% 259
East of England 0 330 £400 -11.11% 297
Scotland +6 202 £463 +11.45% 116
East Midlands 0 147 £400 -5.88% 151
Wales +3 94 £310 -4.62% 76
North East -19 31 £450 +28.57% 93
Northern Ireland +2 22 £450 +38.46% 65
Channel Islands -1 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
1 598 (10.73%) SharePoint
2 396 (7.10%) Microsoft Exchange
3 104 (1.87%) Confluence
4 34 (0.61%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.43%) Apache
6 23 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
6 23 (0.41%) CMS
7 19 (0.34%) HCL Notes
8 16 (0.29%) SAS
9 15 (0.27%) Skype for Business
10 12 (0.22%) IIS
10 12 (0.22%) Mendix
11 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.090%) Camunda
12 5 (0.090%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.072%) Appian
13 4 (0.072%) Drupal
13 4 (0.072%) Exchange Server 2010
13 4 (0.072%) Exchange Server 2013
13 4 (0.072%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 589 (10.57%) Microsoft Office
2 521 (9.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 234 (4.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 125 (2.24%) Microsoft Project
5 89 (1.60%) MS Visio
6 73 (1.31%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.25%) Chatbot
8 12 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.16%) Trello
10 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.090%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.072%) InDesign
13 3 (0.054%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.054%) AutoCAD
13 3 (0.054%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.054%) SOLIDWORKS
14 2 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
14 2 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 208 (3.73%) Dynamics CRM
2 57 (1.02%) SAP S/4HANA
3 18 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
5 15 (0.27%) NetSuite
6 13 (0.23%) Aladdin
6 13 (0.23%) Maximo
6 13 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
7 11 (0.20%) Teamcenter
8 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
8 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 9 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
10 8 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
11 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
11 7 (0.13%) Shopify
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
12 6 (0.11%) Primavera
13 5 (0.090%) SAP Business One
13 5 (0.090%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 2,333 (41.85%) Azure
2 1,429 (25.63%) Microsoft 365
3 946 (16.97%) Power Platform
4 711 (12.75%) Entra ID
5 472 (8.47%) Dynamics 365
6 460 (8.25%) AWS
7 448 (8.04%) Azure DevOps
8 342 (6.13%) Power Automate
9 309 (5.54%) PowerApps
10 288 (5.17%) Microsoft Purview
11 265 (4.75%) GitHub
12 230 (4.13%) Microsoft Copilot
13 202 (3.62%) Azure Data Factory
14 199 (3.57%) OneDrive
15 186 (3.34%) SaaS
16 175 (3.14%) Serverless
17 173 (3.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 165 (2.96%) GCP
19 146 (2.62%) GitHub Actions
20 145 (2.60%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 296 (5.31%) Firewall
2 289 (5.18%) DNS
3 213 (3.82%) VPN
4 168 (3.01%) DHCP
5 145 (2.60%) Wi-Fi
6 138 (2.48%) WAN
7 122 (2.19%) Network Security
8 117 (2.10%) LAN
9 107 (1.92%) TCP/IP
10 55 (0.99%) Kerberos
10 55 (0.99%) VLAN
11 44 (0.79%) SD-WAN
12 37 (0.66%) SSL
13 36 (0.65%) Skype
13 36 (0.65%) Wireless
14 35 (0.63%) SAN
15 31 (0.56%) HTTP
16 28 (0.50%) Unified Communications
17 24 (0.43%) IPsec
17 24 (0.43%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 589 (10.57%) Power BI
2 275 (4.93%) SQL Server
3 180 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
4 156 (2.80%) Data Lake
5 124 (2.22%) Azure SQL Database
6 110 (1.97%) Metadata
7 105 (1.88%) PostgreSQL
8 72 (1.29%) Relational Database
8 72 (1.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 52 (0.93%) Oracle Database
10 49 (0.88%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 48 (0.86%) NoSQL
11 48 (0.86%) Tableau
12 45 (0.81%) MySQL
13 44 (0.79%) Power Query
14 41 (0.74%) Delta Lake
15 40 (0.72%) Star Schema
16 29 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
17 27 (0.48%) Spark SQL
18 25 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 255 (4.57%) JIRA
2 172 (3.09%) Git
3 67 (1.20%) GitLab
4 66 (1.18%) Jenkins
5 26 (0.47%) Artifactory
5 26 (0.47%) Visual Studio
6 22 (0.39%) MSI
7 21 (0.38%) Eclipse
8 19 (0.34%) Selenium
9 18 (0.32%) Postman
10 16 (0.29%) JMeter
11 15 (0.27%) MLflow
12 13 (0.23%) Cucumber
12 13 (0.23%) Visual Studio Code
13 12 (0.22%) Bitbucket
13 12 (0.22%) JUnit
13 12 (0.22%) Maven
14 11 (0.20%) ERwin
15 10 (0.18%) Gatling
15 10 (0.18%) InstallShield
General
1 1,918 (34.40%) Social Skills
2 1,109 (19.89%) Finance
3 643 (11.53%) Analytical Skills
4 536 (9.61%) Public Sector
5 296 (5.31%) Banking
6 252 (4.52%) Organisational Skills
7 247 (4.43%) Legal
8 155 (2.78%) Documentation Skills
9 115 (2.06%) Manufacturing
10 103 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
11 94 (1.69%) Marketing
12 92 (1.65%) Law
13 89 (1.60%) Telecoms
14 79 (1.42%) Retail
15 75 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 71 (1.27%) Military
17 63 (1.13%) Local Government
18 56 (1.00%) Influencing Skills
19 54 (0.97%) Investment Banking
20 40 (0.72%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 694 (12.45%) Architect
2 593 (10.64%) Analyst
3 540 (9.69%) Developer
4 461 (8.27%) Senior
5 367 (6.58%) IT Support
6 330 (5.92%) Lead
7 281 (5.04%) Consultant
8 253 (4.54%) Support Engineer
9 213 (3.82%) Data Engineer
10 211 (3.78%) Azure Engineer
11 195 (3.50%) Solutions Architect
12 184 (3.30%) IT Engineer
13 180 (3.23%) Project Manager
14 175 (3.14%) Administrator
14 175 (3.14%) Business Analyst
15 167 (3.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 136 (2.44%) IT Support Engineer
17 117 (2.10%) DevOps Engineer
18 111 (1.99%) Security Engineer
19 99 (1.78%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 264 (4.74%) .NET
2 176 (3.16%) REST
3 133 (2.39%) Microsoft Graph
4 118 (2.12%) OAuth
5 103 (1.85%) SAML
6 99 (1.78%) PySpark
7 89 (1.60%) React
8 87 (1.56%) JSON
9 82 (1.47%) OpenID
10 76 (1.36%) LDAP
11 68 (1.22%) Web Services
12 64 (1.15%) Middleware
13 58 (1.04%) HTML
14 57 (1.02%) AngularJS
14 57 (1.02%) OAuth2
15 54 (0.97%) ARM Templates
16 53 (0.95%) RESTful
17 50 (0.90%) .NET Framework
17 50 (0.90%) Kafka
17 50 (0.90%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 282 (5.06%) Onboarding
2 224 (4.02%) Cloud Native
3 186 (3.34%) Product Ownership
4 129 (2.31%) Management Information System
5 106 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
6 96 (1.72%) Data Centre
7 90 (1.61%) Hybrid Cloud
8 89 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
8 89 (1.60%) Self-Motivation
9 86 (1.54%) Security Posture
10 84 (1.51%) AI Agents
11 79 (1.42%) PKI
12 76 (1.36%) Low-Code
13 74 (1.33%) Replication
14 73 (1.31%) Data Structures
15 62 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
16 55 (0.99%) Virtual Team
17 54 (0.97%) Driving Licence
18 52 (0.93%) NHS
19 46 (0.83%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,209 (21.69%) Windows
2 323 (5.79%) Windows 10
3 281 (5.04%) Windows Server
4 271 (4.86%) Linux
5 104 (1.87%) Android
6 95 (1.70%) Apple iOS
7 93 (1.67%) Mac OS
8 43 (0.77%) Windows Server 2016
9 42 (0.75%) Windows 7
10 40 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 40 (0.72%) Unix
11 27 (0.48%) VMS
12 26 (0.47%) Windows Server 2012
13 24 (0.43%) Windows Server 2019
14 17 (0.30%) Windows Server 2003
15 11 (0.20%) CentOS
16 9 (0.16%) Ubuntu
17 7 (0.13%) AIX
18 5 (0.090%) Solaris
19 4 (0.072%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 978 (17.54%) Problem-Solving
2 890 (15.96%) Agile
3 887 (15.91%) DevOps
4 782 (14.03%) Migration
5 757 (13.58%) CI/CD
6 662 (11.87%) Business Intelligence
7 625 (11.21%) Analytics
8 550 (9.87%) AI
9 533 (9.56%) Stakeholder Management
10 507 (9.09%) Continuous Improvement
11 464 (8.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 453 (8.13%) Customer Service
13 433 (7.77%) ITIL
14 408 (7.32%) Data Modelling
15 366 (6.57%) Cybersecurity
16 365 (6.55%) Roadmaps
17 338 (6.06%) Infrastructure as Code
18 323 (5.79%) Decision-Making
19 309 (5.54%) Project Management
20 305 (5.47%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 732 (13.13%) SQL
2 646 (11.59%) PowerShell
3 628 (11.26%) Python
4 287 (5.15%) C#
5 214 (3.84%) JavaScript
6 182 (3.26%) Java
7 128 (2.30%) Bicep
8 98 (1.76%) Kusto Query Language
9 88 (1.58%) Bash
10 82 (1.47%) T-SQL
10 82 (1.47%) TypeScript
11 70 (1.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 35 (0.63%) PL/SQL
13 30 (0.54%) VBA
14 28 (0.50%) C++
15 23 (0.41%) VB
16 20 (0.36%) R
17 19 (0.34%) Scala
18 18 (0.32%) Shell Script
19 14 (0.25%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,073 (19.25%) Security Cleared
2 830 (14.89%) SC Cleared
3 570 (10.22%) Degree
4 284 (5.09%) Microsoft Certification
5 199 (3.57%) DV Cleared
6 187 (3.35%) Azure Certification
7 133 (2.39%) Computer Science Degree
8 96 (1.72%) BPSS Clearance
8 96 (1.72%) CISSP
9 70 (1.26%) PMI Certification
10 63 (1.13%) Cisco Certification
11 62 (1.11%) PMP
12 57 (1.02%) Master's Degree
13 52 (0.93%) CISM
14 44 (0.79%) MCSE
15 40 (0.72%) AWS Certification
16 34 (0.61%) ITIL Certification
17 31 (0.56%) DBS Check
18 30 (0.54%) MCSA
19 28 (0.50%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 264 (4.74%) Data Quality
2 237 (4.25%) GDPR
3 183 (3.28%) QA
4 154 (2.76%) SLA
5 135 (2.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 109 (1.96%) PMO
7 108 (1.94%) NIST
8 71 (1.27%) Accessibility
9 57 (1.02%) Cyber Essentials
10 45 (0.81%) NCSC
11 39 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 31 (0.56%) GRC
13 27 (0.48%) PCI DSS
14 19 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 19 (0.34%) MiFID
15 17 (0.30%) NIST 800
16 15 (0.27%) WCAG
17 13 (0.23%) FINRA
18 12 (0.22%) HIPAA
19 11 (0.20%) GxP
System Software
1 1,085 (19.46%) Active Directory
2 241 (4.32%) Docker
3 187 (3.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 95 (1.70%) Hyper-V
5 75 (1.35%) Virtual Machines
6 64 (1.15%) Virtual Desktop
7 50 (0.90%) VMware ESXi
8 37 (0.66%) vSphere
9 26 (0.47%) BitLocker
10 22 (0.39%) VMware NSX
11 17 (0.30%) Firmware
12 13 (0.23%) Microsoft App-V
13 7 (0.13%) RACF
14 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
15 5 (0.090%) IAG
15 5 (0.090%) Snort
16 4 (0.072%) KVM
16 4 (0.072%) NFS
16 4 (0.072%) Squid
16 4 (0.072%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 428 (7.68%) Microsoft Intune
2 369 (6.62%) Terraform
3 269 (4.83%) Kubernetes
4 203 (3.64%) SCCM
5 131 (2.35%) Ansible
6 123 (2.21%) Single Sign-On
7 79 (1.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 42 (0.75%) Grafana
8 42 (0.75%) vCenter Server
9 39 (0.70%) Jamf Pro
10 32 (0.57%) Prometheus
11 23 (0.41%) SCOM
12 21 (0.38%) FortiGate
12 21 (0.38%) Puppet
13 18 (0.32%) WSUS
14 16 (0.29%) AirWatch
15 12 (0.22%) CASB
15 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
16 11 (0.20%) HAProxy
16 11 (0.20%) QRadar
Vendors
1 256 (4.59%) VMware
2 251 (4.50%) ServiceNow
3 216 (3.87%) Databricks
4 215 (3.86%) SAP
5 204 (3.66%) Oracle
6 174 (3.12%) Cisco
7 161 (2.89%) Google
8 124 (2.22%) Citrix
9 94 (1.69%) Salesforce
10 93 (1.67%) OpenAI
11 91 (1.63%) Splunk
12 76 (1.36%) Foundry
13 67 (1.20%) Apple
14 49 (0.88%) CrowdStrike
15 47 (0.84%) Adobe
15 47 (0.84%) HP
16 45 (0.81%) Palo Alto
17 40 (0.72%) Informatica
17 40 (0.72%) Okta
17 40 (0.72%) Red Hat