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 March 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
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 9 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,407 3,962 5,756
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.53% 13.43% 12.93%
As % of the Vendors category 28.47% 28.52% 29.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,623 2,626 3,860
10th Percentile £206 £206 £190
25th Percentile £363 £348 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £491 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +3.37% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £581 £582 £600
90th Percentile £675 £674 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.86% -2.78% -3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 380 182 436
10th Percentile £13.49 £14.99 £11.06
25th Percentile £16.25 £18.15 £13.25
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.80 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -16.34% +48.19% -24.46%
75th Percentile £25.47 £33.75 £26.50
90th Percentile £63.75 £63.08 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.18 £22.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -14.78% +40.10% -19.70%

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 18,995 13,894 19,201
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.01% 47.08% 43.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,130 8,646 11,977
10th Percentile £308 £285 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £518 £515
Median % change year-on-year -3.38% +0.49% -2.83%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 971 454 1,024
10th Percentile £15.31 £15.62 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.02 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.15 £29.00 £24.65
Median % change year-on-year -13.28% +17.65% -30.13%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £53.13
90th Percentile £76.75 £84.39 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.50 £27.50 £23.11
% change year-on-year -14.55% +19.01% -29.98%

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 March 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 14 March 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 14 March 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 4,739 £492 +3.58% 3,071
UK excluding London 0 2,864 £450 +2.86% 2,768
London -2 2,023 £510 +2.00% 855
Work from Home -1 1,342 £500 +0.91% 1,152
North of England -1 753 £435 - 659
South East -1 649 £480 -4.00% 863
Midlands -5 504 £450 +8.63% 409
North West -2 429 £418 -7.11% 352
East of England 0 353 £400 -3.03% 292
West Midlands -9 351 £475 +11.76% 211
South West -1 343 £525 +10.53% 309
Yorkshire +3 295 £450 +12.50% 222
Scotland 0 185 £453 +20.67% 163
East Midlands -1 149 £400 - 196
Wales 0 96 £309 -11.79% 102
North East -17 35 £450 +28.57% 97
Northern Ireland -3 22 £463 +42.31% 27
Channel Islands +4 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
1 605 (11.19%) SharePoint
2 427 (7.90%) Microsoft Exchange
3 113 (2.09%) Confluence
4 31 (0.57%) Skype for Business
5 23 (0.43%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.43%) CMS
6 20 (0.37%) Apache
7 18 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.31%) HCL Notes
9 13 (0.24%) SAS
10 12 (0.22%) IIS
11 10 (0.18%) Mendix
12 7 (0.13%) ArcGIS
13 6 (0.11%) SharePoint Server
14 5 (0.092%) Oracle Application Server
15 4 (0.074%) Exchange Server 2010
15 4 (0.074%) Exchange Server 2013
16 3 (0.055%) Drupal
16 3 (0.055%) MS Project Server
16 3 (0.055%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 611 (11.30%) Microsoft Office
2 517 (9.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 220 (4.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 126 (2.33%) Microsoft Project
5 103 (1.90%) MS Visio
6 78 (1.44%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.24%) Chatbot
8 10 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.17%) Trello
10 7 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
11 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
11 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
12 5 (0.092%) PTC Creo
13 4 (0.074%) Adobe XD
13 4 (0.074%) InDesign
14 3 (0.055%) Photoshop
14 3 (0.055%) Sketch
14 3 (0.055%) SOLIDWORKS
15 2 (0.037%) AutoCAD
15 2 (0.037%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 194 (3.59%) Dynamics CRM
2 51 (0.94%) SAP S/4HANA
3 20 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.33%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.26%) Aladdin
5 14 (0.26%) Dynamics AX
5 14 (0.26%) Maximo
6 12 (0.22%) Loan IQ
6 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 9 (0.17%) NetSuite
8 9 (0.17%) Teamcenter
9 8 (0.15%) Sage X3
9 8 (0.15%) Shopify
10 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
11 6 (0.11%) Advent Geneva
11 6 (0.11%) Primavera
11 6 (0.11%) SystmOne
12 5 (0.092%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.092%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 2,199 (40.67%) Azure
2 1,385 (25.61%) Microsoft 365
3 887 (16.40%) Power Platform
4 711 (13.15%) Entra ID
5 454 (8.40%) AWS
6 433 (8.01%) Azure DevOps
7 425 (7.86%) Dynamics 365
8 343 (6.34%) Power Automate
9 313 (5.79%) PowerApps
10 280 (5.18%) Microsoft Purview
11 255 (4.72%) GitHub
12 212 (3.92%) OneDrive
13 200 (3.70%) Microsoft Copilot
14 193 (3.57%) Serverless
15 187 (3.46%) Azure Data Factory
16 185 (3.42%) SaaS
17 169 (3.13%) GCP
18 155 (2.87%) PaaS
19 151 (2.79%) Azure Synapse Analytics
20 148 (2.74%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 308 (5.70%) Firewall
2 302 (5.59%) DNS
3 204 (3.77%) VPN
4 184 (3.40%) DHCP
5 149 (2.76%) Wi-Fi
6 138 (2.55%) WAN
7 122 (2.26%) TCP/IP
8 121 (2.24%) LAN
9 117 (2.16%) Network Security
10 58 (1.07%) Kerberos
11 56 (1.04%) Skype
12 54 (1.00%) VLAN
13 45 (0.83%) Wireless
14 39 (0.72%) SD-WAN
15 37 (0.68%) Unified Communications
16 33 (0.61%) HTTP
17 32 (0.59%) Internet
18 30 (0.55%) MPLS
18 30 (0.55%) SSL
19 29 (0.54%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 547 (10.12%) Power BI
2 252 (4.66%) SQL Server
3 169 (3.13%) Data Warehouse
4 143 (2.64%) Data Lake
5 113 (2.09%) Azure SQL Database
6 101 (1.87%) Metadata
6 101 (1.87%) PostgreSQL
7 72 (1.33%) Relational Database
8 68 (1.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 55 (1.02%) Oracle Database
10 51 (0.94%) MySQL
11 50 (0.92%) NoSQL
12 49 (0.91%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 42 (0.78%) Power Query
13 42 (0.78%) Tableau
14 33 (0.61%) Delta Lake
15 32 (0.59%) Star Schema
16 27 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
17 23 (0.43%) Spark SQL
18 22 (0.41%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 245 (4.53%) JIRA
2 171 (3.16%) Git
3 71 (1.31%) GitLab
4 70 (1.29%) Jenkins
5 26 (0.48%) Eclipse
6 23 (0.43%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.41%) MSI
8 21 (0.39%) Postman
9 20 (0.37%) Artifactory
10 18 (0.33%) JMeter
10 18 (0.33%) Selenium
11 14 (0.26%) Android Studio
12 13 (0.24%) Cucumber
12 13 (0.24%) JUnit
12 13 (0.24%) MLflow
13 12 (0.22%) Browser DevTools
14 11 (0.20%) Bitbucket
14 11 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
14 11 (0.20%) Xcode
15 9 (0.17%) ERwin
General
1 2,010 (37.17%) Social Skills
2 1,048 (19.38%) Finance
3 668 (12.35%) Analytical Skills
4 543 (10.04%) Public Sector
5 268 (4.96%) Banking
6 253 (4.68%) Organisational Skills
7 244 (4.51%) Legal
8 164 (3.03%) Documentation Skills
9 123 (2.27%) Manufacturing
10 115 (2.13%) Presentation Skills
11 97 (1.79%) Marketing
12 89 (1.65%) Telecoms
13 77 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 73 (1.35%) Retail
15 59 (1.09%) Law
16 58 (1.07%) Influencing Skills
17 55 (1.02%) Military
18 50 (0.92%) Local Government
19 46 (0.85%) Investment Banking
20 41 (0.76%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 638 (11.80%) Architect
2 621 (11.49%) Analyst
3 518 (9.58%) Developer
4 431 (7.97%) Senior
5 361 (6.68%) IT Support
6 292 (5.40%) Consultant
7 291 (5.38%) Lead
8 287 (5.31%) Support Engineer
9 192 (3.55%) IT Engineer
10 191 (3.53%) Azure Engineer
11 188 (3.48%) Data Engineer
12 187 (3.46%) Solutions Architect
13 170 (3.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 169 (3.13%) Business Analyst
15 168 (3.11%) Administrator
16 165 (3.05%) Project Manager
17 146 (2.70%) IT Support Engineer
18 121 (2.24%) Security Engineer
19 107 (1.98%) Support Analyst
20 104 (1.92%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 263 (4.86%) .NET
2 186 (3.44%) REST
3 129 (2.39%) Microsoft Graph
4 127 (2.35%) OAuth
5 109 (2.02%) SAML
6 93 (1.72%) React
7 88 (1.63%) OpenID
8 84 (1.55%) PySpark
9 76 (1.41%) RESTful
10 71 (1.31%) JSON
11 68 (1.26%) AngularJS
11 68 (1.26%) LDAP
12 66 (1.22%) HTML
13 63 (1.17%) ARM Templates
14 62 (1.15%) Middleware
14 62 (1.15%) Web Services
15 60 (1.11%) CSS
16 55 (1.02%) OAuth2
17 52 (0.96%) Node.js
18 47 (0.87%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 294 (5.44%) Onboarding
2 224 (4.14%) Cloud Native
3 163 (3.01%) Product Ownership
4 134 (2.48%) Management Information System
5 111 (2.05%) Enterprise Software
6 99 (1.83%) Data Centre
7 93 (1.72%) Security Posture
8 87 (1.61%) PKI
9 86 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
9 86 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
10 78 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
11 73 (1.35%) Replication
12 72 (1.33%) Low-Code
13 67 (1.24%) AI Agents
14 63 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
14 63 (1.17%) Driving Licence
15 62 (1.15%) Data Structures
16 57 (1.05%) Virtual Team
17 54 (1.00%) NHS
18 52 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,238 (22.90%) Windows
2 353 (6.53%) Windows 10
3 288 (5.33%) Linux
4 284 (5.25%) Windows Server
5 100 (1.85%) Mac OS
6 99 (1.83%) Android
7 92 (1.70%) Apple iOS
8 55 (1.02%) Unix
9 44 (0.81%) Windows 7
10 43 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
11 39 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 24 (0.44%) VMS
13 22 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
13 22 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
14 20 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
15 9 (0.17%) CentOS
16 8 (0.15%) AIX
16 8 (0.15%) Ubuntu
17 5 (0.092%) Windows 8
17 5 (0.092%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 999 (18.48%) Problem-Solving
2 878 (16.24%) Agile
3 831 (15.37%) DevOps
4 734 (13.57%) Migration
5 701 (12.96%) CI/CD
6 639 (11.82%) Business Intelligence
7 616 (11.39%) Analytics
8 534 (9.88%) Stakeholder Management
9 489 (9.04%) AI
10 473 (8.75%) Continuous Improvement
11 447 (8.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 439 (8.12%) Customer Service
13 422 (7.80%) ITIL
14 387 (7.16%) Cybersecurity
15 356 (6.58%) Data Modelling
16 319 (5.90%) Roadmaps
17 305 (5.64%) Project Management
18 303 (5.60%) Infrastructure as Code
19 301 (5.57%) Change Management
20 300 (5.55%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 712 (13.17%) SQL
2 683 (12.63%) PowerShell
3 633 (11.71%) Python
4 280 (5.18%) C#
5 225 (4.16%) JavaScript
6 155 (2.87%) Java
7 125 (2.31%) Bicep
8 111 (2.05%) Kusto Query Language
9 106 (1.96%) Bash
10 82 (1.52%) TypeScript
11 73 (1.35%) T-SQL
12 68 (1.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 33 (0.61%) PL/SQL
14 29 (0.54%) C++
15 26 (0.48%) Perl
15 26 (0.48%) VBA
16 23 (0.43%) VB
17 19 (0.35%) Shell Script
18 17 (0.31%) R
18 17 (0.31%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,083 (20.03%) Security Cleared
2 819 (15.15%) SC Cleared
3 549 (10.15%) Degree
4 315 (5.83%) Microsoft Certification
5 220 (4.07%) DV Cleared
6 187 (3.46%) Azure Certification
7 124 (2.29%) Computer Science Degree
8 109 (2.02%) CISSP
9 99 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
10 62 (1.15%) Cisco Certification
11 61 (1.13%) Master's Degree
11 61 (1.13%) PMI Certification
12 59 (1.09%) CISM
13 52 (0.96%) PMP
14 46 (0.85%) AWS Certification
15 43 (0.80%) MCSE
15 43 (0.80%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 36 (0.67%) ITIL Certification
17 33 (0.61%) CCNP
18 32 (0.59%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 245 (4.53%) GDPR
2 224 (4.14%) Data Quality
3 165 (3.05%) QA
4 158 (2.92%) SLA
5 148 (2.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 118 (2.18%) PMO
7 115 (2.13%) NIST
8 80 (1.48%) Accessibility
9 56 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
10 40 (0.74%) NCSC
11 38 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 29 (0.54%) PCI DSS
13 24 (0.44%) GRC
14 22 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 22 (0.41%) WCAG
15 19 (0.35%) EU AI Act
16 18 (0.33%) MiFID
17 13 (0.24%) FINRA
17 13 (0.24%) NIST 800
17 13 (0.24%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,091 (20.18%) Active Directory
2 216 (3.99%) Docker
3 173 (3.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 83 (1.54%) Hyper-V
5 70 (1.29%) Virtual Machines
6 48 (0.89%) Virtual Desktop
7 35 (0.65%) VMware ESXi
7 35 (0.65%) vSphere
8 22 (0.41%) BitLocker
9 19 (0.35%) VMware NSX
10 17 (0.31%) Firmware
11 14 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
12 6 (0.11%) RACF
12 6 (0.11%) Snort
13 5 (0.092%) Oracle RAC
14 4 (0.074%) KVM
14 4 (0.074%) VMware Workstation
15 3 (0.055%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 3 (0.055%) Squid
15 3 (0.055%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 428 (7.92%) Microsoft Intune
2 342 (6.33%) Terraform
3 254 (4.70%) Kubernetes
4 237 (4.38%) SCCM
5 146 (2.70%) Single Sign-On
6 112 (2.07%) Ansible
7 103 (1.90%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 42 (0.78%) Jamf Pro
9 41 (0.76%) Grafana
10 36 (0.67%) Prometheus
10 36 (0.67%) vCenter Server
11 25 (0.46%) FortiGate
12 22 (0.41%) SCOM
13 18 (0.33%) Puppet
14 17 (0.31%) WSUS
15 14 (0.26%) AirWatch
16 13 (0.24%) WMI
17 12 (0.22%) CASB
17 12 (0.22%) Nessus
17 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
Vendors
1 266 (4.92%) ServiceNow
2 256 (4.73%) VMware
3 203 (3.75%) Databricks
4 199 (3.68%) SAP
5 188 (3.48%) Oracle
6 180 (3.33%) Cisco
7 152 (2.81%) Google
8 134 (2.48%) Citrix
9 106 (1.96%) Splunk
10 91 (1.68%) OpenAI
11 83 (1.54%) Salesforce
12 75 (1.39%) Foundry
13 67 (1.24%) Apple
14 60 (1.11%) CrowdStrike
15 56 (1.04%) Palo Alto
16 54 (1.00%) HP
17 45 (0.83%) Okta
18 40 (0.74%) Adobe
18 40 (0.74%) Red Hat
19 36 (0.67%) CyberArk