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 February 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 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 8 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,281 4,081 5,736
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.89% 13.51% 12.91%
As % of the Vendors category 28.87% 29.05% 29.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,577 2,634 3,874
10th Percentile £205 £205 £190
25th Percentile £363 £348 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £580 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £435 £450
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -2.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 370 174 387
10th Percentile £13.49 £15.44 £11.89
25th Percentile £16.24 £17.74 £14.00
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.90 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.69% +36.57% -16.67%
75th Percentile £25.47 £33.75 £37.96
90th Percentile £61.66 £62.73 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £22.50 £17.29
% change year-on-year -15.56% +30.17% -13.58%

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 18,290 14,047 19,302
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.64% 46.49% 43.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,744 8,511 12,087
10th Percentile £304 £281 £259
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £520
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% +0.48% -1.89%
75th Percentile £604 £625 £630
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £498 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 905 415 949
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.05 £21.25 £15.50
Median hourly rate £24.00 £30.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +15.38% -23.62%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £56.49
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £27.13 £26.00
% change year-on-year -17.05% +4.33% -18.52%

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 February 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 February 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 February 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 4,625 £490 +3.16% 2,913
UK excluding London -1 2,846 £450 +3.45% 2,714
London -4 1,942 £505 +1.00% 722
Work from Home -1 1,347 £500 +0.60% 1,033
North of England -2 737 £433 +1.88% 647
South East -1 656 £475 -1.86% 864
Midlands -6 489 £450 +5.88% 411
North West -1 421 £415 -7.78% 354
South West +1 350 £520 +10.05% 296
East of England +1 347 £413 -8.33% 290
West Midlands -8 334 £475 +10.59% 220
Yorkshire +1 283 £450 +10.77% 201
Scotland -2 190 £465 +24.00% 158
East Midlands 0 153 £418 +5.56% 188
Wales +4 95 £309 -29.43% 75
North East -16 39 £450 +28.57% 102
Northern Ireland +3 27 £400 +23.08% 22
Channel Islands +3 1 - - 2

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 (11.23%) SharePoint
2 411 (7.78%) Microsoft Exchange
3 111 (2.10%) Confluence
4 47 (0.89%) Skype for Business
5 28 (0.53%) CMS
6 22 (0.42%) Apache
7 19 (0.36%) Apache Spark
8 16 (0.30%) HCL Notes
9 15 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
10 13 (0.25%) IIS
10 13 (0.25%) SAS
11 9 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2013
11 9 (0.17%) Mendix
12 8 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2010
12 8 (0.15%) Mattermost
13 7 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
14 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
15 5 (0.095%) JBoss
15 5 (0.095%) Oracle Application Server
15 5 (0.095%) WebSphere
Applications
1 629 (11.91%) Microsoft Office
2 516 (9.77%) Microsoft Excel
3 225 (4.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 128 (2.42%) Microsoft Project
5 104 (1.97%) MS Visio
6 76 (1.44%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.23%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.21%) Trello
9 10 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 7 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
11 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
11 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
12 5 (0.095%) PTC Creo
12 5 (0.095%) Sketch
13 4 (0.076%) Adobe XD
14 3 (0.057%) InDesign
14 3 (0.057%) Photoshop
14 3 (0.057%) SOLIDWORKS
15 2 (0.038%) Adobe After Effects
15 2 (0.038%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 190 (3.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 50 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
3 33 (0.62%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.32%) Dynamics AX
5 16 (0.30%) Maximo
6 15 (0.28%) Dynamics NAV
7 13 (0.25%) Aladdin
8 12 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.19%) Loan IQ
9 10 (0.19%) NetSuite
9 10 (0.19%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 9 (0.17%) Teamcenter
11 7 (0.13%) Advent Geneva
11 7 (0.13%) Shopify
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.11%) Sage X3
12 6 (0.11%) SystmOne
13 5 (0.095%) Primavera
13 5 (0.095%) Salesforce CRM
13 5 (0.095%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 2,114 (40.03%) Azure
2 1,322 (25.03%) Microsoft 365
3 849 (16.08%) Power Platform
4 674 (12.76%) Entra ID
5 455 (8.62%) AWS
6 403 (7.63%) Dynamics 365
7 391 (7.40%) Azure DevOps
8 339 (6.42%) Power Automate
9 300 (5.68%) PowerApps
10 259 (4.90%) Microsoft Purview
11 226 (4.28%) GitHub
12 214 (4.05%) OneDrive
13 190 (3.60%) Serverless
14 183 (3.47%) Azure Data Factory
14 183 (3.47%) SaaS
15 181 (3.43%) Microsoft Copilot
16 172 (3.26%) GCP
17 143 (2.71%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 142 (2.69%) Azure Logic Apps
19 139 (2.63%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 311 (5.89%) DNS
2 285 (5.40%) Firewall
3 196 (3.71%) VPN
4 192 (3.64%) DHCP
5 141 (2.67%) Wi-Fi
6 124 (2.35%) TCP/IP
7 122 (2.31%) WAN
8 108 (2.05%) LAN
9 103 (1.95%) Network Security
10 74 (1.40%) Skype
11 64 (1.21%) Kerberos
12 62 (1.17%) VLAN
13 46 (0.87%) Unified Communications
14 45 (0.85%) Wireless
15 35 (0.66%) SD-WAN
16 31 (0.59%) HTTP
17 30 (0.57%) Internet
17 30 (0.57%) SSL
18 28 (0.53%) SAN
19 25 (0.47%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 518 (9.81%) Power BI
2 248 (4.70%) SQL Server
3 155 (2.94%) Data Warehouse
4 141 (2.67%) Data Lake
5 101 (1.91%) Metadata
6 99 (1.87%) PostgreSQL
7 98 (1.86%) Azure SQL Database
8 76 (1.44%) Relational Database
9 63 (1.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 58 (1.10%) Oracle Database
11 52 (0.98%) MySQL
11 52 (0.98%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 41 (0.78%) NoSQL
13 39 (0.74%) Power Query
13 39 (0.74%) Tableau
14 30 (0.57%) Delta Lake
15 24 (0.45%) Star Schema
16 23 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
16 23 (0.44%) SQL Server Analysis Services
17 21 (0.40%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 248 (4.70%) JIRA
2 165 (3.12%) Git
3 75 (1.42%) GitLab
4 73 (1.38%) Jenkins
5 22 (0.42%) Eclipse
5 22 (0.42%) MSI
6 21 (0.40%) Postman
7 19 (0.36%) Artifactory
8 17 (0.32%) Android Studio
8 17 (0.32%) Visual Studio
9 16 (0.30%) Browser DevTools
10 15 (0.28%) JMeter
10 15 (0.28%) Selenium
11 14 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
11 14 (0.27%) Xcode
12 13 (0.25%) Cucumber
13 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.21%) JUnit
13 11 (0.21%) MLflow
14 10 (0.19%) ERwin
General
1 2,041 (38.65%) Social Skills
2 1,028 (19.47%) Finance
3 666 (12.61%) Analytical Skills
4 517 (9.79%) Public Sector
5 256 (4.85%) Organisational Skills
6 239 (4.53%) Banking
7 224 (4.24%) Legal
8 169 (3.20%) Documentation Skills
9 128 (2.42%) Manufacturing
10 109 (2.06%) Presentation Skills
11 104 (1.97%) Marketing
12 93 (1.76%) Telecoms
13 71 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 71 (1.34%) Retail
14 56 (1.06%) Influencing Skills
15 47 (0.89%) Law
15 47 (0.89%) Military
16 44 (0.83%) Investment Banking
17 38 (0.72%) Local Government
17 38 (0.72%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 654 (12.38%) Analyst
2 603 (11.42%) Architect
3 501 (9.49%) Developer
4 408 (7.73%) Senior
5 351 (6.65%) IT Support
6 295 (5.59%) Support Engineer
7 293 (5.55%) Consultant
8 261 (4.94%) Lead
9 185 (3.50%) Solutions Architect
10 177 (3.35%) IT Engineer
11 173 (3.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 172 (3.26%) Data Engineer
13 171 (3.24%) Azure Engineer
14 169 (3.20%) Business Analyst
15 167 (3.16%) Administrator
16 160 (3.03%) Project Manager
17 137 (2.59%) IT Support Engineer
18 135 (2.56%) Support Analyst
19 114 (2.16%) Security Engineer
20 100 (1.89%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 245 (4.64%) .NET
2 170 (3.22%) REST
3 133 (2.52%) OAuth
4 113 (2.14%) SAML
5 110 (2.08%) Microsoft Graph
6 104 (1.97%) React
7 93 (1.76%) OpenID
8 76 (1.44%) LDAP
9 74 (1.40%) PySpark
9 74 (1.40%) RESTful
10 71 (1.34%) AngularJS
11 70 (1.33%) JSON
12 69 (1.31%) HTML
13 66 (1.25%) CSS
14 62 (1.17%) ARM Templates
15 55 (1.04%) Middleware
16 53 (1.00%) OAuth2
17 50 (0.95%) Node.js
18 47 (0.89%) Web Services
19 43 (0.81%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 297 (5.62%) Onboarding
2 206 (3.90%) Cloud Native
3 159 (3.01%) Product Ownership
4 134 (2.54%) Management Information System
5 110 (2.08%) Enterprise Software
6 94 (1.78%) PKI
7 86 (1.63%) Security Posture
8 83 (1.57%) Data Centre
8 83 (1.57%) Hybrid Cloud
9 80 (1.51%) Self-Motivation
10 75 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
10 75 (1.42%) Low-Code
11 74 (1.40%) Replication
12 68 (1.29%) Driving Licence
13 60 (1.14%) AI Agents
13 60 (1.14%) Mobile App
14 57 (1.08%) Data Structures
15 54 (1.02%) Analytical Mindset
15 54 (1.02%) Data Protection Act
15 54 (1.02%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1,232 (23.33%) Windows
2 360 (6.82%) Windows 10
3 299 (5.66%) Linux
4 273 (5.17%) Windows Server
5 112 (2.12%) Mac OS
6 103 (1.95%) Android
7 93 (1.76%) Apple iOS
8 66 (1.25%) Unix
9 46 (0.87%) Windows 7
10 41 (0.78%) Windows Server 2016
11 35 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 22 (0.42%) VMS
12 22 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
13 20 (0.38%) Windows Server 2003
13 20 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
14 7 (0.13%) AIX
14 7 (0.13%) CentOS
14 7 (0.13%) Ubuntu
15 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
16 5 (0.095%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,027 (19.45%) Problem-Solving
2 876 (16.59%) Agile
3 783 (14.83%) DevOps
4 692 (13.10%) Migration
5 652 (12.35%) CI/CD
6 613 (11.61%) Business Intelligence
7 575 (10.89%) Analytics
8 536 (10.15%) Stakeholder Management
9 454 (8.60%) Customer Service
10 451 (8.54%) Continuous Improvement
11 449 (8.50%) AI
12 440 (8.33%) ITIL
13 437 (8.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 367 (6.95%) Cybersecurity
15 338 (6.40%) Data Modelling
16 314 (5.95%) Project Management
17 308 (5.83%) Roadmaps
18 300 (5.68%) Change Management
19 292 (5.53%) Infrastructure as Code
20 290 (5.49%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 675 (12.78%) SQL
2 669 (12.67%) PowerShell
3 621 (11.76%) Python
4 259 (4.90%) C#
5 223 (4.22%) JavaScript
6 147 (2.78%) Java
7 118 (2.23%) Bicep
8 106 (2.01%) Bash
9 103 (1.95%) Kusto Query Language
10 84 (1.59%) TypeScript
11 68 (1.29%) T-SQL
12 60 (1.14%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 32 (0.61%) PL/SQL
14 31 (0.59%) Perl
15 26 (0.49%) VB
16 24 (0.45%) VBA
17 23 (0.44%) Shell Script
18 22 (0.42%) C++
19 19 (0.36%) Go
20 16 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 1,045 (19.79%) Security Cleared
2 783 (14.83%) SC Cleared
3 542 (10.26%) Degree
4 331 (6.27%) Microsoft Certification
5 218 (4.13%) DV Cleared
6 190 (3.60%) Azure Certification
7 122 (2.31%) Computer Science Degree
8 114 (2.16%) CISSP
9 91 (1.72%) BPSS Clearance
10 65 (1.23%) CISM
11 60 (1.14%) Master's Degree
12 56 (1.06%) Cisco Certification
13 55 (1.04%) PMI Certification
14 47 (0.89%) MCSE
14 47 (0.89%) PMP
15 44 (0.83%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 42 (0.80%) ITIL Certification
17 40 (0.76%) A+ Certification
18 39 (0.74%) AWS Certification
19 32 (0.61%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 242 (4.58%) GDPR
2 201 (3.81%) Data Quality
3 156 (2.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 155 (2.94%) QA
5 143 (2.71%) SLA
6 119 (2.25%) NIST
6 119 (2.25%) PMO
7 81 (1.53%) Accessibility
8 57 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials
9 37 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 33 (0.62%) NCSC
11 26 (0.49%) PCI DSS
12 23 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 22 (0.42%) WCAG
14 21 (0.40%) GRC
15 19 (0.36%) EU AI Act
16 17 (0.32%) MiFID
17 16 (0.30%) HIPAA
17 16 (0.30%) SOC 2
18 14 (0.27%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,097 (20.77%) Active Directory
2 209 (3.96%) Docker
3 180 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 83 (1.57%) Hyper-V
5 69 (1.31%) Virtual Machines
6 49 (0.93%) Virtual Desktop
7 39 (0.74%) vSphere
8 33 (0.62%) VMware ESXi
9 20 (0.38%) VMware NSX
10 19 (0.36%) BitLocker
11 9 (0.17%) Firmware
11 9 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.13%) Snort
13 6 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
13 6 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
14 5 (0.095%) Oracle RAC
14 5 (0.095%) Tivoli Directory Server
15 4 (0.076%) KVM
15 4 (0.076%) Squid
Systems Management
1 418 (7.92%) Microsoft Intune
2 329 (6.23%) Terraform
3 264 (5.00%) SCCM
4 244 (4.62%) Kubernetes
5 165 (3.12%) Single Sign-On
6 105 (1.99%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 104 (1.97%) Ansible
8 49 (0.93%) Jamf Pro
9 40 (0.76%) Grafana
10 36 (0.68%) SCOM
10 36 (0.68%) vCenter Server
11 35 (0.66%) Prometheus
12 24 (0.45%) FortiGate
13 20 (0.38%) WSUS
14 16 (0.30%) Puppet
15 14 (0.27%) AirWatch
15 14 (0.27%) Nessus
15 14 (0.27%) WMI
16 13 (0.25%) HP SiteScope
16 13 (0.25%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 270 (5.11%) ServiceNow
2 262 (4.96%) VMware
3 198 (3.75%) SAP
4 193 (3.65%) Oracle
5 190 (3.60%) Databricks
6 189 (3.58%) Cisco
7 150 (2.84%) Google
8 129 (2.44%) Splunk
9 128 (2.42%) Citrix
10 92 (1.74%) Salesforce
11 83 (1.57%) OpenAI
12 75 (1.42%) Apple
13 65 (1.23%) CrowdStrike
14 61 (1.16%) Foundry
15 58 (1.10%) Palo Alto
16 52 (0.98%) HP
17 46 (0.87%) Remedy
18 45 (0.85%) Okta
19 42 (0.80%) CyberArk
20 39 (0.74%) Veeam