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 14 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
14 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 4,699 5,911
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.79% 13.59% 13.27%
As % of the Vendors category 29.10% 29.80% 29.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,357 2,978 4,081
10th Percentile £205 £202 £198
25th Percentile £350 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £618
90th Percentile £675 £682 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £448 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -0.56% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 403 218 247
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.22 £13.83
25th Percentile £16.73 £15.62 £16.25
Median hourly rate £20.35 £23.80 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.50% +5.78% +13.35%
75th Percentile £29.00 £36.56 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.96 £21.46 £22.00
% change year-on-year -7.01% -2.45% +18.28%

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 17,267 15,769 20,128
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.39% 45.60% 45.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,977 9,400 12,797
10th Percentile £293 £283 £255
25th Percentile £408 £413 £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 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £499 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.20% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 871 477 663
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.50 £14.59
25th Percentile £18.09 £19.00 £19.50
Median hourly rate £23.83 £29.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.84% -34.83% +73.08%
75th Percentile £44.84 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £27.13 £44.50
% change year-on-year -18.89% -39.04% +97.78%

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 14 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 14 December 2025.

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 14 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 4,406 £475 - 3,860
UK excluding London -2 2,737 £448 -0.56% 3,672
London -1 1,846 £500 - 849
Work from Home 0 1,290 £500 +0.91% 1,610
North of England +2 713 £425 -3.95% 863
South East +1 624 £475 +1.06% 1,119
Midlands -3 476 £437 +0.64% 614
North West +1 426 £415 -7.78% 472
South West +1 353 £500 +5.26% 368
West Midlands -4 312 £478 +6.11% 356
East of England -1 278 £425 - 447
Yorkshire 0 255 £446 +8.18% 296
Scotland -5 198 £450 +10.02% 178
East Midlands +3 161 £375 -3.23% 246
Wales +2 88 £295 +18.82% 124
Northern Ireland +6 46 £361 +52.11% 37
North East -11 37 £410 +10.81% 106
Channel Islands 0 2 £725 +143.70% 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
1 563 (11.20%) SharePoint
2 371 (7.38%) Microsoft Exchange
3 99 (1.97%) Confluence
4 62 (1.23%) Skype for Business
5 39 (0.78%) CMS
6 30 (0.60%) IIS
7 29 (0.58%) Apache
8 21 (0.42%) HCL Notes
9 20 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
10 19 (0.38%) Exchange Server 2010
11 18 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2013
11 18 (0.36%) SAS
12 16 (0.32%) Apache Spark
12 16 (0.32%) SharePoint Server
13 15 (0.30%) WebSphere
14 13 (0.26%) JBoss
14 13 (0.26%) Mattermost
15 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
16 10 (0.20%) iPlanet
17 9 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2003
Applications
1 632 (12.58%) Microsoft Office
2 572 (11.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 254 (5.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 129 (2.57%) Microsoft Project
5 100 (1.99%) MS Visio
6 55 (1.09%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 10 (0.20%) Trello
9 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.16%) Adobe Captivate
11 7 (0.14%) Sketch
12 3 (0.060%) Adobe After Effects
12 3 (0.060%) Adobe Illustrator
12 3 (0.060%) Adobe Premiere
12 3 (0.060%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.060%) InDesign
12 3 (0.060%) Photoshop
12 3 (0.060%) Windchill
13 2 (0.040%) AutoCAD
13 2 (0.040%) Maya
Business Applications
1 172 (3.42%) Dynamics CRM
2 40 (0.80%) Remedy ITSM
3 39 (0.78%) SAP S/4HANA
4 18 (0.36%) Dynamics AX
5 13 (0.26%) Maximo
6 11 (0.22%) Dynamics NAV
6 11 (0.22%) NetSuite
6 11 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
6 11 (0.22%) Workday HCM
7 10 (0.20%) Aladdin
7 10 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 8 (0.16%) Shopify
8 8 (0.16%) Teamcenter
9 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
9 7 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
10 6 (0.12%) Primavera
11 5 (0.100%) assyst
11 5 (0.100%) SAP ERP
12 4 (0.080%) Loan IQ
Cloud Services
1 1,849 (36.80%) Azure
2 1,151 (22.91%) Microsoft 365
3 765 (15.22%) Power Platform
4 570 (11.34%) Entra ID
5 469 (9.33%) AWS
6 374 (7.44%) Dynamics 365
7 342 (6.81%) Azure DevOps
8 318 (6.33%) Power Automate
9 300 (5.97%) PowerApps
10 190 (3.78%) GitHub
11 182 (3.62%) Microsoft Purview
12 176 (3.50%) GCP
13 172 (3.42%) Serverless
14 165 (3.28%) SaaS
15 155 (3.08%) Azure Sentinel
16 150 (2.99%) OneDrive
17 127 (2.53%) Azure Logic Apps
18 125 (2.49%) Azure Data Factory
19 122 (2.43%) Microsoft Copilot
20 118 (2.35%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 314 (6.25%) Firewall
2 265 (5.27%) DNS
3 172 (3.42%) VPN
4 164 (3.26%) DHCP
5 143 (2.85%) TCP/IP
6 97 (1.93%) Wi-Fi
7 96 (1.91%) Network Security
8 85 (1.69%) WAN
9 77 (1.53%) Skype
10 75 (1.49%) LAN
11 61 (1.21%) Wireless
12 42 (0.84%) VLAN
13 41 (0.82%) Unified Communications
14 37 (0.74%) HTTP
15 34 (0.68%) Kerberos
16 33 (0.66%) Internet
17 32 (0.64%) SAN
18 29 (0.58%) VoIP
19 27 (0.54%) Ethernet
19 27 (0.54%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 464 (9.23%) Power BI
2 232 (4.62%) SQL Server
3 122 (2.43%) Data Warehouse
4 93 (1.85%) PostgreSQL
5 88 (1.75%) Data Lake
5 88 (1.75%) Relational Database
6 81 (1.61%) Metadata
7 76 (1.51%) Azure SQL Database
8 75 (1.49%) Oracle Database
9 49 (0.98%) MySQL
10 47 (0.94%) Tableau
11 40 (0.80%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 39 (0.78%) Power Query
13 38 (0.76%) NoSQL
14 30 (0.60%) Oracle Reports
15 25 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
15 25 (0.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 19 (0.38%) Big Data
17 18 (0.36%) Delta Lake
18 16 (0.32%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 255 (5.07%) JIRA
2 160 (3.18%) Git
3 98 (1.95%) Jenkins
4 77 (1.53%) GitLab
5 42 (0.84%) Eclipse
6 32 (0.64%) Postman
7 27 (0.54%) MSI
7 27 (0.54%) Visual Studio
8 23 (0.46%) Browser DevTools
8 23 (0.46%) Xcode
9 21 (0.42%) Android Studio
9 21 (0.42%) Selenium
10 19 (0.38%) Sonatype Nexus
11 15 (0.30%) Cucumber
12 12 (0.24%) InstallShield
12 12 (0.24%) SonarQube
13 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket Server
13 11 (0.22%) CA Release Automation
13 11 (0.22%) JUnit
General
1 2,053 (40.86%) Social Skills
2 1,049 (20.88%) Finance
3 675 (13.43%) Analytical Skills
4 515 (10.25%) Public Sector
5 258 (5.13%) Banking
6 229 (4.56%) Organisational Skills
7 173 (3.44%) Legal
8 149 (2.97%) Documentation Skills
9 139 (2.77%) Manufacturing
10 115 (2.29%) Marketing
11 112 (2.23%) Presentation Skills
12 97 (1.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 96 (1.91%) Telecoms
14 83 (1.65%) Retail
15 61 (1.21%) Local Government
16 60 (1.19%) Influencing Skills
17 44 (0.88%) Military
18 40 (0.80%) Investment Banking
19 39 (0.78%) Electronics
20 38 (0.76%) Law
Job Titles
1 731 (14.55%) Analyst
2 500 (9.95%) Architect
3 479 (9.53%) Developer
4 346 (6.89%) Senior
5 317 (6.31%) Support Engineer
6 280 (5.57%) IT Support
7 274 (5.45%) Consultant
8 241 (4.80%) Lead
9 164 (3.26%) Administrator
10 162 (3.22%) Support Analyst
11 159 (3.16%) Project Manager
12 157 (3.12%) Solutions Architect
13 146 (2.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 144 (2.87%) IT Engineer
15 143 (2.85%) Business Analyst
16 132 (2.63%) Azure Engineer
17 120 (2.39%) Security Engineer
18 107 (2.13%) Desktop Support
19 103 (2.05%) IT Support Engineer
20 100 (1.99%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (4.96%) .NET
2 157 (3.12%) REST
3 128 (2.55%) OAuth
4 116 (2.31%) React
5 100 (1.99%) RESTful
6 97 (1.93%) SAML
7 87 (1.73%) AngularJS
7 87 (1.73%) OpenID
8 73 (1.45%) HTML
9 71 (1.41%) CSS
10 67 (1.33%) JSON
11 60 (1.19%) Web Services
12 59 (1.17%) SOAP
13 57 (1.13%) Microsoft Graph
13 57 (1.13%) XML
14 56 (1.11%) LDAP
15 55 (1.09%) Node.js
16 48 (0.96%) .NET Framework
17 47 (0.94%) OAuth2
18 46 (0.92%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 255 (5.07%) Onboarding
2 195 (3.88%) Cloud Native
3 136 (2.71%) Management Information System
4 131 (2.61%) Product Ownership
5 107 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
6 100 (1.99%) Data Centre
6 100 (1.99%) Security Posture
7 97 (1.93%) PKI
8 86 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
9 78 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
10 75 (1.49%) Driving Licence
11 72 (1.43%) Mobile App
12 68 (1.35%) Low-Code
13 65 (1.29%) Analytical Mindset
14 64 (1.27%) Virtual Team
15 60 (1.19%) Hybrid Cloud
16 54 (1.07%) Replication
17 47 (0.94%) NHS
18 44 (0.88%) Data Protection Act
19 42 (0.84%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 1,215 (24.18%) Windows
2 333 (6.63%) Windows 10
3 314 (6.25%) Linux
4 266 (5.29%) Windows Server
5 126 (2.51%) Mac OS
6 107 (2.13%) Android
7 83 (1.65%) Apple iOS
8 79 (1.57%) Unix
9 41 (0.82%) Windows 7
10 31 (0.62%) Windows Server 2016
10 31 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
11 30 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 21 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
12 21 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
13 17 (0.34%) VMS
14 9 (0.18%) Mac OS X
14 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
15 8 (0.16%) Ubuntu
16 7 (0.14%) CentOS
17 6 (0.12%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,061 (21.11%) Problem-Solving
2 925 (18.41%) Agile
3 698 (13.89%) DevOps
4 626 (12.46%) Migration
5 569 (11.32%) CI/CD
6 552 (10.99%) Business Intelligence
7 499 (9.93%) Stakeholder Management
8 480 (9.55%) ITIL
9 476 (9.47%) Analytics
10 432 (8.60%) Continuous Improvement
11 430 (8.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 405 (8.06%) Customer Service
13 374 (7.44%) Cybersecurity
14 357 (7.10%) AI
15 346 (6.89%) Project Management
16 307 (6.11%) Change Management
17 258 (5.13%) Roadmaps
18 256 (5.09%) Data Modelling
19 252 (5.01%) Infrastructure as Code
20 251 (5.00%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 645 (12.84%) SQL
2 580 (11.54%) PowerShell
3 570 (11.34%) Python
4 254 (5.05%) C#
5 216 (4.30%) JavaScript
6 168 (3.34%) Java
7 116 (2.31%) Bash
8 107 (2.13%) Kusto Query Language
9 98 (1.95%) Bicep
10 76 (1.51%) TypeScript
11 49 (0.98%) T-SQL
12 44 (0.88%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 41 (0.82%) Perl
14 32 (0.64%) C++
15 28 (0.56%) Shell Script
16 24 (0.48%) R
16 24 (0.48%) VBA
17 23 (0.46%) Go
17 23 (0.46%) PL/SQL
18 22 (0.44%) VB
Qualifications
1 941 (18.73%) Security Cleared
2 700 (13.93%) SC Cleared
3 538 (10.71%) Degree
4 351 (6.99%) Microsoft Certification
5 196 (3.90%) DV Cleared
6 185 (3.68%) Azure Certification
7 139 (2.77%) CISSP
8 130 (2.59%) Computer Science Degree
9 86 (1.71%) BPSS Clearance
10 80 (1.59%) Cisco Certification
11 71 (1.41%) CISM
12 56 (1.11%) Master's Degree
13 54 (1.07%) PMI Certification
14 52 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
15 50 (1.00%) A+ Certification
16 48 (0.96%) AWS Certification
16 48 (0.96%) MCSE
17 43 (0.86%) PMP
18 42 (0.84%) MCP
19 39 (0.78%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 255 (5.07%) GDPR
2 190 (3.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 162 (3.22%) QA
4 154 (3.06%) NIST
5 141 (2.81%) Data Quality
6 116 (2.31%) SLA
7 107 (2.13%) PMO
8 85 (1.69%) Accessibility
9 52 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials
10 41 (0.82%) PCI DSS
11 34 (0.68%) NCSC
12 32 (0.64%) HIPAA
13 24 (0.48%) WCAG
14 22 (0.44%) EU AI Act
15 20 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 20 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 16 (0.32%) GRC
17 10 (0.20%) SOC 2
18 9 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
18 9 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 1,028 (20.46%) Active Directory
2 192 (3.82%) Docker
3 173 (3.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 63 (1.25%) Hyper-V
5 55 (1.09%) Virtual Machines
6 40 (0.80%) vSphere
7 36 (0.72%) VMware ESXi
8 33 (0.66%) Virtual Desktop
9 19 (0.38%) BitLocker
9 19 (0.38%) VMware NSX
10 16 (0.32%) Firmware
11 12 (0.24%) NFS
12 11 (0.22%) XenApp
13 10 (0.20%) ISA Server
13 10 (0.20%) Microsoft App-V
14 9 (0.18%) Brightmail
15 8 (0.16%) Terminal Services
15 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
16 6 (0.12%) Snort
17 5 (0.100%) Squid
Systems Management
1 368 (7.32%) Microsoft Intune
2 299 (5.95%) SCCM
3 263 (5.23%) Terraform
4 236 (4.70%) Kubernetes
5 123 (2.45%) Single Sign-On
6 105 (2.09%) Ansible
7 69 (1.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (0.98%) SCOM
9 41 (0.82%) Jamf Pro
10 38 (0.76%) vCenter Server
11 34 (0.68%) Grafana
12 27 (0.54%) Prometheus
13 21 (0.42%) HP SiteScope
13 21 (0.42%) QRadar
14 20 (0.40%) WSUS
15 18 (0.36%) Microsoft Clustering
16 17 (0.34%) Progress Chef
17 16 (0.32%) WMI
18 15 (0.30%) Kibana
19 14 (0.28%) Puppet
Vendors
1 271 (5.39%) ServiceNow
2 243 (4.84%) VMware
3 232 (4.62%) Oracle
4 201 (4.00%) Cisco
5 196 (3.90%) Splunk
6 193 (3.84%) SAP
7 154 (3.06%) Google
8 127 (2.53%) Databricks
9 119 (2.37%) Citrix
10 88 (1.75%) Apple
11 85 (1.69%) Salesforce
12 68 (1.35%) OpenAI
13 65 (1.29%) CrowdStrike
14 59 (1.17%) IBM
15 54 (1.07%) Palo Alto
16 52 (1.03%) Remedy
17 51 (1.01%) CyberArk
18 47 (0.94%) HP
19 43 (0.86%) Adobe
20 41 (0.82%) Foundry