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 15 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
15 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 8 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,213 4,202 5,808
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.05% 13.60% 12.95%
As % of the Vendors category 29.11% 29.35% 29.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,524 2,666 3,944
10th Percentile £204 £205 £192
25th Percentile £356 £344 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £433 £450
% change year-on-year +3.93% -3.78% -2.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 378 174 370
10th Percentile £13.55 £15.44 £11.79
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.07 £13.87
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.70 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -15.97% +33.72% -13.56%
75th Percentile £25.47 £33.75 £35.91
90th Percentile £60.47 £61.28 £52.78
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £22.00 £17.61
% change year-on-year -13.64% +24.96% -11.98%

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 17,905 14,317 19,550
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.81% 46.32% 43.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,485 8,556 12,267
10th Percentile £300 £275 £258
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.89% -0.90% -0.94%
75th Percentile £606 £625 £630
90th Percentile £700 £711 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 886 410 927
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £12.94
25th Percentile £17.96 £21.01 £15.50
Median hourly rate £23.91 £29.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.54% +5.45% -15.38%
75th Percentile £56.69 £63.75 £58.59
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.17 £27.13 £26.00
% change year-on-year -18.27% +4.33% -7.80%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 4,556 £478 +0.63% 2,751
UK excluding London 0 2,817 £450 +3.93% 2,551
London -3 1,913 £500 - 653
Work from Home +1 1,329 £500 +2.30% 1,005
North of England -1 740 £428 +0.71% 573
South East -1 644 £475 - 842
Midlands -5 467 £450 +5.88% 392
North West -1 420 £405 -10.00% 311
South West 0 355 £500 +7.82% 260
East of England +1 337 £413 -8.33% 288
West Midlands -7 319 £475 +9.45% 219
Yorkshire +1 283 £450 +9.09% 195
Scotland -2 197 £454 +21.07% 150
East Midlands -1 147 £409 +2.31% 174
Wales +3 95 £310 -29.14% 75
North East -11 43 £450 +28.57% 75
Northern Ireland +1 27 £450 +38.46% 24
Channel Islands +2 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
1 594 (11.39%) SharePoint
2 405 (7.77%) Microsoft Exchange
3 111 (2.13%) Confluence
4 56 (1.07%) Skype for Business
5 30 (0.58%) CMS
6 23 (0.44%) Apache
7 20 (0.38%) IIS
8 18 (0.35%) Apache Spark
9 16 (0.31%) HCL Notes
10 15 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
11 13 (0.25%) Mattermost
11 13 (0.25%) SAS
12 12 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2013
13 9 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2010
13 9 (0.17%) Mendix
14 8 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
15 7 (0.13%) iPlanet
15 7 (0.13%) JBoss
15 7 (0.13%) WebSphere
15 7 (0.13%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 636 (12.20%) Microsoft Office
2 520 (9.98%) Microsoft Excel
3 233 (4.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 132 (2.53%) Microsoft Project
5 110 (2.11%) MS Visio
6 75 (1.44%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 11 (0.21%) Trello
8 9 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
10 6 (0.12%) Adobe Captivate
11 5 (0.096%) Acrobat
11 5 (0.096%) PTC Creo
11 5 (0.096%) Sketch
12 4 (0.077%) Adobe After Effects
12 4 (0.077%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.077%) InDesign
12 4 (0.077%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.058%) SOLIDWORKS
13 3 (0.058%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 189 (3.63%) Dynamics CRM
2 46 (0.88%) SAP S/4HANA
3 41 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.33%) Dynamics AX
5 16 (0.31%) Maximo
6 15 (0.29%) Dynamics NAV
7 13 (0.25%) Aladdin
8 11 (0.21%) NetSuite
9 10 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.19%) Teamcenter
10 9 (0.17%) Loan IQ
10 9 (0.17%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 7 (0.13%) Advent Geneva
11 7 (0.13%) Shopify
12 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
12 6 (0.12%) SystmOne
13 5 (0.096%) Payment Gateway
13 5 (0.096%) Primavera
13 5 (0.096%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 2,069 (39.69%) Azure
2 1,285 (24.65%) Microsoft 365
3 826 (15.85%) Power Platform
4 654 (12.55%) Entra ID
5 448 (8.59%) AWS
6 397 (7.62%) Dynamics 365
7 386 (7.40%) Azure DevOps
8 326 (6.25%) Power Automate
9 291 (5.58%) PowerApps
10 245 (4.70%) Microsoft Purview
11 227 (4.35%) GitHub
12 211 (4.05%) OneDrive
13 188 (3.61%) Serverless
14 178 (3.41%) Azure Data Factory
15 176 (3.38%) GCP
15 176 (3.38%) SaaS
16 162 (3.11%) Microsoft Copilot
17 141 (2.70%) Azure Logic Apps
18 138 (2.65%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 130 (2.49%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 308 (5.91%) DNS
2 277 (5.31%) Firewall
3 198 (3.80%) VPN
4 191 (3.66%) DHCP
5 133 (2.55%) Wi-Fi
6 129 (2.47%) TCP/IP
7 118 (2.26%) WAN
8 105 (2.01%) LAN
9 100 (1.92%) Network Security
10 81 (1.55%) Skype
11 67 (1.29%) Kerberos
12 56 (1.07%) VLAN
13 49 (0.94%) Wireless
14 46 (0.88%) Unified Communications
15 34 (0.65%) SD-WAN
16 33 (0.63%) HTTP
17 29 (0.56%) Internet
17 29 (0.56%) SSL
18 26 (0.50%) WebEx
19 25 (0.48%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 513 (9.84%) Power BI
2 239 (4.58%) SQL Server
3 149 (2.86%) Data Warehouse
4 133 (2.55%) Data Lake
5 98 (1.88%) Metadata
6 93 (1.78%) PostgreSQL
7 91 (1.75%) Azure SQL Database
8 78 (1.50%) Relational Database
9 62 (1.19%) Oracle Database
10 55 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 52 (1.00%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 48 (0.92%) MySQL
13 42 (0.81%) Tableau
14 38 (0.73%) NoSQL
15 36 (0.69%) Power Query
16 28 (0.54%) Delta Lake
17 25 (0.48%) Oracle Reports
17 25 (0.48%) Star Schema
18 22 (0.42%) Spark SQL
19 21 (0.40%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 242 (4.64%) JIRA
2 161 (3.09%) Git
3 74 (1.42%) GitLab
4 73 (1.40%) Jenkins
5 25 (0.48%) Eclipse
5 25 (0.48%) MSI
6 20 (0.38%) Postman
7 18 (0.35%) Android Studio
7 18 (0.35%) Artifactory
7 18 (0.35%) Browser DevTools
7 18 (0.35%) Visual Studio
8 16 (0.31%) Selenium
8 16 (0.31%) Xcode
9 15 (0.29%) JMeter
9 15 (0.29%) Sonatype Nexus
10 13 (0.25%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.21%) JUnit
11 11 (0.21%) MLflow
12 10 (0.19%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.19%) ERwin
General
1 2,044 (39.21%) Social Skills
2 1,035 (19.85%) Finance
3 667 (12.79%) Analytical Skills
4 509 (9.76%) Public Sector
5 260 (4.99%) Organisational Skills
6 245 (4.70%) Banking
7 215 (4.12%) Legal
8 166 (3.18%) Documentation Skills
9 133 (2.55%) Manufacturing
10 112 (2.15%) Marketing
11 110 (2.11%) Presentation Skills
12 97 (1.86%) Telecoms
13 73 (1.40%) Retail
14 66 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 51 (0.98%) Influencing Skills
16 49 (0.94%) Military
17 48 (0.92%) Investment Banking
18 40 (0.77%) Law
19 38 (0.73%) Local Government
20 36 (0.69%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 674 (12.93%) Analyst
2 578 (11.09%) Architect
3 497 (9.53%) Developer
4 391 (7.50%) Senior
5 341 (6.54%) IT Support
6 298 (5.72%) Support Engineer
7 281 (5.39%) Consultant
8 264 (5.06%) Lead
9 179 (3.43%) Solutions Architect
10 171 (3.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 168 (3.22%) Business Analyst
12 167 (3.20%) Azure Engineer
12 167 (3.20%) IT Engineer
13 163 (3.13%) Data Engineer
14 159 (3.05%) Administrator
15 151 (2.90%) Project Manager
16 148 (2.84%) Support Analyst
17 130 (2.49%) IT Support Engineer
18 110 (2.11%) Security Engineer
19 98 (1.88%) Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (4.78%) .NET
2 171 (3.28%) REST
3 135 (2.59%) OAuth
4 113 (2.17%) SAML
5 107 (2.05%) Microsoft Graph
6 106 (2.03%) React
7 93 (1.78%) OpenID
8 79 (1.52%) LDAP
9 78 (1.50%) RESTful
10 74 (1.42%) AngularJS
11 73 (1.40%) PySpark
12 69 (1.32%) JSON
13 68 (1.30%) CSS
13 68 (1.30%) HTML
14 61 (1.17%) ARM Templates
15 53 (1.02%) OAuth2
16 51 (0.98%) Middleware
17 50 (0.96%) Node.js
18 49 (0.94%) Web Services
19 42 (0.81%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 299 (5.74%) Onboarding
2 190 (3.64%) Cloud Native
3 155 (2.97%) Product Ownership
4 133 (2.55%) Management Information System
5 110 (2.11%) Enterprise Software
6 95 (1.82%) PKI
7 92 (1.76%) Self-Motivation
8 86 (1.65%) Data Centre
9 84 (1.61%) Security Posture
10 76 (1.46%) Hybrid Cloud
11 74 (1.42%) Low-Code
12 73 (1.40%) Replication
13 69 (1.32%) Legacy Systems
14 68 (1.30%) Driving Licence
15 65 (1.25%) Mobile App
16 57 (1.09%) NHS
17 55 (1.06%) Data Structures
18 53 (1.02%) Data Protection Act
19 52 (1.00%) AI Agents
19 52 (1.00%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,239 (23.77%) Windows
2 368 (7.06%) Windows 10
3 306 (5.87%) Linux
4 281 (5.39%) Windows Server
5 118 (2.26%) Mac OS
6 95 (1.82%) Android
7 90 (1.73%) Apple iOS
8 71 (1.36%) Unix
9 47 (0.90%) Windows 7
10 42 (0.81%) Windows Server 2016
11 33 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 23 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
13 22 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.40%) VMS
14 21 (0.40%) Windows Server 2003
15 7 (0.13%) AIX
15 7 (0.13%) Ubuntu
16 5 (0.096%) CentOS
16 5 (0.096%) Windows 8
16 5 (0.096%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,040 (19.95%) Problem-Solving
2 882 (16.92%) Agile
3 768 (14.73%) DevOps
4 690 (13.24%) Migration
5 639 (12.26%) CI/CD
6 602 (11.55%) Business Intelligence
7 568 (10.90%) Analytics
8 529 (10.15%) Stakeholder Management
9 458 (8.79%) ITIL
10 455 (8.73%) Customer Service
11 444 (8.52%) Continuous Improvement
12 429 (8.23%) AI
13 421 (8.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 365 (7.00%) Cybersecurity
15 325 (6.23%) Data Modelling
16 316 (6.06%) Project Management
17 294 (5.64%) Roadmaps
18 292 (5.60%) Change Management
19 282 (5.41%) Infrastructure as Code
20 280 (5.37%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 670 (12.85%) SQL
2 659 (12.64%) PowerShell
3 615 (11.80%) Python
4 265 (5.08%) C#
5 225 (4.32%) JavaScript
6 145 (2.78%) Java
7 113 (2.17%) Bicep
8 105 (2.01%) Kusto Query Language
9 101 (1.94%) Bash
10 85 (1.63%) TypeScript
11 64 (1.23%) T-SQL
12 55 (1.06%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 34 (0.65%) Perl
14 30 (0.58%) PL/SQL
15 28 (0.54%) Shell Script
16 27 (0.52%) VB
17 25 (0.48%) C++
18 23 (0.44%) VBA
19 18 (0.35%) Go
19 18 (0.35%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,017 (19.51%) Security Cleared
2 756 (14.50%) SC Cleared
3 538 (10.32%) Degree
4 331 (6.35%) Microsoft Certification
5 212 (4.07%) DV Cleared
6 187 (3.59%) Azure Certification
7 125 (2.40%) Computer Science Degree
8 114 (2.19%) CISSP
9 88 (1.69%) BPSS Clearance
10 65 (1.25%) CISM
11 62 (1.19%) Master's Degree
12 58 (1.11%) Cisco Certification
13 56 (1.07%) PMI Certification
14 49 (0.94%) ITIL Certification
14 49 (0.94%) MCSE
15 48 (0.92%) PMP
16 44 (0.84%) A+ Certification
16 44 (0.84%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 40 (0.77%) AWS Certification
18 33 (0.63%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 235 (4.51%) GDPR
2 192 (3.68%) Data Quality
3 158 (3.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 154 (2.95%) QA
5 145 (2.78%) SLA
6 119 (2.28%) NIST
7 116 (2.23%) PMO
8 80 (1.53%) Accessibility
9 55 (1.06%) Cyber Essentials
10 36 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 30 (0.58%) NCSC
12 29 (0.56%) PCI DSS
13 23 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 21 (0.40%) EU AI Act
14 21 (0.40%) GRC
15 20 (0.38%) WCAG
16 15 (0.29%) HIPAA
16 15 (0.29%) MiFID
16 15 (0.29%) SOC 2
17 12 (0.23%) FINRA
System Software
1 1,107 (21.24%) Active Directory
2 198 (3.80%) Docker
3 178 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 80 (1.53%) Hyper-V
5 69 (1.32%) Virtual Machines
6 46 (0.88%) Virtual Desktop
7 41 (0.79%) vSphere
8 33 (0.63%) VMware ESXi
9 19 (0.36%) BitLocker
10 17 (0.33%) VMware NSX
11 12 (0.23%) Microsoft App-V
12 9 (0.17%) Firmware
13 6 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 6 (0.12%) RACF
13 6 (0.12%) Tivoli Directory Server
13 6 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
14 5 (0.096%) Oracle RAC
14 5 (0.096%) Snort
15 4 (0.077%) NFS
15 4 (0.077%) Squid
Systems Management
1 407 (7.81%) Microsoft Intune
2 313 (6.00%) Terraform
3 277 (5.31%) SCCM
4 231 (4.43%) Kubernetes
5 166 (3.18%) Single Sign-On
6 105 (2.01%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 100 (1.92%) Ansible
8 48 (0.92%) Jamf Pro
8 48 (0.92%) SCOM
9 39 (0.75%) Grafana
10 38 (0.73%) vCenter Server
11 34 (0.65%) Prometheus
12 24 (0.46%) FortiGate
13 21 (0.40%) HP SiteScope
14 20 (0.38%) WSUS
15 15 (0.29%) Puppet
15 15 (0.29%) WMI
16 14 (0.27%) Nessus
17 13 (0.25%) AirWatch
17 13 (0.25%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 272 (5.22%) ServiceNow
2 253 (4.85%) VMware
3 194 (3.72%) Oracle
4 192 (3.68%) SAP
5 187 (3.59%) Cisco
6 182 (3.49%) Databricks
7 152 (2.92%) Google
8 148 (2.84%) Splunk
9 117 (2.24%) Citrix
10 93 (1.78%) Salesforce
11 83 (1.59%) OpenAI
12 82 (1.57%) Apple
13 65 (1.25%) CrowdStrike
14 58 (1.11%) Foundry
15 57 (1.09%) Palo Alto
16 51 (0.98%) Remedy
17 49 (0.94%) HP
18 43 (0.82%) CyberArk
19 41 (0.79%) IBM
19 41 (0.79%) Okta