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 25 November 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
25 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 +4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,103 4,830 6,152
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 14.25% 13.30% 13.35%
As % of the Vendors category 30.00% 29.57% 29.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,386 3,003 4,262
10th Percentile £205 £205 £198
25th Percentile £350 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £482 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.45% -3.60% -
75th Percentile £575 £594 £620
90th Percentile £669 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £445 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -1.11% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 413 237 252
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.06 £13.61
25th Percentile £17.60 £15.62 £16.60
Median hourly rate £22.00 £23.80 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.56% +3.48% +17.95%
75th Percentile £31.00 £38.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.79 £21.78 £22.00
% change year-on-year -4.51% -1.02% +18.92%

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 17,012 16,336 20,907
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.52% 44.98% 45.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,735 9,609 13,380
10th Percentile £288 £297 £256
25th Percentile £405 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.41%
75th Percentile £610 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £720 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 870 523 672
10th Percentile £15.34 £15.49 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.50 £19.48 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £30.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.18% -32.58% +73.08%
75th Percentile £42.50 £63.75 £63.91
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £76.73
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.32 £27.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -18.85% -38.20% +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 25 November 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 25 November 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 25 November 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 4,466 £475 -1.45% 3,716
UK excluding London -2 2,846 £445 -1.11% 3,456
London -1 1,841 £500 - 1,005
Work from Home -1 1,337 £500 - 1,377
North of England +2 760 £430 -4.44% 700
South East +2 634 £472 -0.59% 1,239
Midlands -3 480 £425 -1.08% 568
North West +1 447 £425 -5.56% 391
South West +1 372 £494 +0.51% 332
West Midlands -3 308 £475 +5.67% 358
Yorkshire +4 278 £435 +5.45% 231
East of England -1 278 £425 +6.25% 341
Scotland -4 221 £450 +10.02% 184
East Midlands +2 169 £375 -4.21% 206
Wales +1 92 £300 +11.11% 122
Northern Ireland +6 52 £350 +55.56% 43
North East -8 37 £438 +25.00% 83
Channel Islands -2 2 £725 -

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
1 554 (10.86%) SharePoint
2 405 (7.94%) Microsoft Exchange
3 107 (2.10%) Confluence
4 64 (1.25%) Skype for Business
5 37 (0.73%) CMS
6 32 (0.63%) Apache
7 27 (0.53%) IIS
8 22 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
9 21 (0.41%) Exchange Server 2013
10 20 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2010
11 18 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
12 17 (0.33%) SAS
13 16 (0.31%) JBoss
14 15 (0.29%) WebSphere
15 14 (0.27%) HCL Notes
16 13 (0.25%) Apache Spark
16 13 (0.25%) Mattermost
17 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
18 10 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2007
18 10 (0.20%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 643 (12.60%) Microsoft Office
2 604 (11.84%) Microsoft Excel
3 260 (5.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 131 (2.57%) Microsoft Project
5 105 (2.06%) MS Visio
6 50 (0.98%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 10 (0.20%) Adobe Captivate
8 10 (0.20%) Trello
9 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.16%) Sketch
11 4 (0.078%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.078%) Maya
12 3 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
12 3 (0.059%) Siemens NX
12 3 (0.059%) Windchill
13 2 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.039%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.039%) InDesign
13 2 (0.039%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 180 (3.53%) Dynamics CRM
2 38 (0.74%) Remedy ITSM
2 38 (0.74%) SAP S/4HANA
3 19 (0.37%) Dynamics AX
4 11 (0.22%) Aladdin
4 11 (0.22%) Maximo
4 11 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
4 11 (0.22%) Workday HCM
5 9 (0.18%) Dynamics NAV
5 9 (0.18%) NetSuite
5 9 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
5 9 (0.18%) Teamcenter
6 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
6 7 (0.14%) Primavera
6 7 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
7 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.098%) assyst
8 5 (0.098%) SAP ERP
9 4 (0.078%) Loan IQ
9 4 (0.078%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 1,810 (35.47%) Azure
2 1,171 (22.95%) Microsoft 365
3 770 (15.09%) Power Platform
4 564 (11.05%) Entra ID
5 458 (8.98%) AWS
6 378 (7.41%) Dynamics 365
7 341 (6.68%) Azure DevOps
8 304 (5.96%) Power Automate
9 292 (5.72%) PowerApps
10 184 (3.61%) GitHub
11 181 (3.55%) Microsoft Purview
12 170 (3.33%) SaaS
13 166 (3.25%) GCP
14 152 (2.98%) OneDrive
14 152 (2.98%) Serverless
15 145 (2.84%) Azure Sentinel
16 123 (2.41%) Azure Data Factory
17 114 (2.23%) Azure Logic Apps
17 114 (2.23%) Microsoft Copilot
17 114 (2.23%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 346 (6.78%) Firewall
2 266 (5.21%) DNS
3 170 (3.33%) DHCP
4 166 (3.25%) VPN
5 161 (3.16%) TCP/IP
6 101 (1.98%) Wi-Fi
7 97 (1.90%) Network Security
8 91 (1.78%) WAN
9 84 (1.65%) LAN
10 74 (1.45%) Skype
11 60 (1.18%) Wireless
12 47 (0.92%) Cisco IOS
13 43 (0.84%) VLAN
14 40 (0.78%) SAN
14 40 (0.78%) Unified Communications
15 37 (0.73%) Internet
15 37 (0.73%) VoIP
16 33 (0.65%) HTTP
17 31 (0.61%) WebEx
18 30 (0.59%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 468 (9.17%) Power BI
2 242 (4.74%) SQL Server
3 129 (2.53%) Data Warehouse
4 89 (1.74%) Data Lake
5 88 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
6 82 (1.61%) Relational Database
7 79 (1.55%) Metadata
8 74 (1.45%) Azure SQL Database
9 69 (1.35%) Oracle Database
10 54 (1.06%) Tableau
11 50 (0.98%) MySQL
12 39 (0.76%) NoSQL
13 38 (0.74%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 35 (0.69%) Power Query
15 31 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
16 29 (0.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 25 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
18 20 (0.39%) Big Data
19 16 (0.31%) Delta Lake
19 16 (0.31%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 265 (5.19%) JIRA
2 170 (3.33%) Git
3 108 (2.12%) Jenkins
4 69 (1.35%) GitLab
5 44 (0.86%) Eclipse
6 37 (0.73%) Postman
7 32 (0.63%) Visual Studio
8 31 (0.61%) MSI
9 24 (0.47%) Selenium
9 24 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
10 22 (0.43%) Browser DevTools
11 21 (0.41%) Xcode
12 18 (0.35%) Android Studio
13 16 (0.31%) JUnit
14 15 (0.29%) Cucumber
15 13 (0.25%) InstallShield
16 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket Server
16 11 (0.22%) CA Release Automation
16 11 (0.22%) SonarQube
17 10 (0.20%) Gradle
General
1 2,045 (40.07%) Social Skills
2 1,125 (22.05%) Finance
3 699 (13.70%) Analytical Skills
4 522 (10.23%) Public Sector
5 269 (5.27%) Banking
6 219 (4.29%) Organisational Skills
7 177 (3.47%) Legal
8 158 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
9 147 (2.88%) Manufacturing
10 126 (2.47%) Presentation Skills
11 113 (2.21%) Marketing
12 109 (2.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 96 (1.88%) Telecoms
14 89 (1.74%) Retail
15 70 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
16 68 (1.33%) Local Government
17 49 (0.96%) Military
18 43 (0.84%) Front Office
18 43 (0.84%) Investment Banking
19 42 (0.82%) Law
Job Titles
1 809 (15.85%) Analyst
2 499 (9.78%) Architect
3 486 (9.52%) Developer
4 340 (6.66%) Senior
5 328 (6.43%) Support Engineer
6 291 (5.70%) Consultant
7 266 (5.21%) IT Support
8 257 (5.04%) Lead
9 177 (3.47%) Support Analyst
10 163 (3.19%) Business Analyst
11 161 (3.16%) Project Manager
12 156 (3.06%) Solutions Architect
13 155 (3.04%) Administrator
14 144 (2.82%) IT Engineer
15 141 (2.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 130 (2.55%) Azure Engineer
17 124 (2.43%) Security Engineer
18 109 (2.14%) Data Analyst
18 109 (2.14%) Desktop Support
19 104 (2.04%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 254 (4.98%) .NET
2 168 (3.29%) REST
3 125 (2.45%) OAuth
4 113 (2.21%) React
5 100 (1.96%) RESTful
6 93 (1.82%) HTML
7 90 (1.76%) AngularJS
7 90 (1.76%) SAML
8 84 (1.65%) CSS
8 84 (1.65%) OpenID
9 67 (1.31%) JSON
9 67 (1.31%) Web Services
10 62 (1.21%) SOAP
11 57 (1.12%) XML
12 56 (1.10%) Microsoft Graph
12 56 (1.10%) Node.js
13 55 (1.08%) .NET Framework
14 49 (0.96%) LDAP
15 46 (0.90%) Spring
16 45 (0.88%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 240 (4.70%) Onboarding
2 181 (3.55%) Cloud Native
3 143 (2.80%) Product Ownership
4 141 (2.76%) Management Information System
5 104 (2.04%) Data Centre
6 103 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
7 100 (1.96%) PKI
7 100 (1.96%) Security Posture
8 90 (1.76%) Self-Motivation
9 79 (1.55%) Driving Licence
10 74 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
11 72 (1.41%) Mobile App
12 66 (1.29%) Virtual Team
13 61 (1.20%) Low-Code
14 60 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
15 59 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
16 53 (1.04%) Replication
17 46 (0.90%) Data Protection Act
17 46 (0.90%) NHS
18 44 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 1,264 (24.77%) Windows
2 344 (6.74%) Windows 10
3 307 (6.02%) Linux
4 273 (5.35%) Windows Server
5 141 (2.76%) Mac OS
6 122 (2.39%) Android
7 84 (1.65%) Unix
8 81 (1.59%) Apple iOS
9 49 (0.96%) Windows 7
10 35 (0.69%) Windows Server 2019
11 33 (0.65%) Windows Server 2016
12 26 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 24 (0.47%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
15 16 (0.31%) VMS
16 11 (0.22%) Mac OS X
17 10 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
18 9 (0.18%) CentOS
18 9 (0.18%) Ubuntu
19 6 (0.12%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,070 (20.97%) Problem-Solving
2 939 (18.40%) Agile
3 706 (13.83%) DevOps
4 607 (11.89%) Migration
5 549 (10.76%) Business Intelligence
6 545 (10.68%) CI/CD
7 510 (9.99%) Stakeholder Management
8 507 (9.94%) ITIL
9 456 (8.94%) Analytics
10 426 (8.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 420 (8.23%) Continuous Improvement
12 411 (8.05%) Cybersecurity
13 390 (7.64%) Customer Service
14 366 (7.17%) Project Management
15 328 (6.43%) AI
16 320 (6.27%) Change Management
17 265 (5.19%) CRM
18 261 (5.11%) Project Delivery
19 256 (5.02%) Data Modelling
20 255 (5.00%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 656 (12.86%) SQL
2 593 (11.62%) PowerShell
3 543 (10.64%) Python
4 271 (5.31%) C#
5 226 (4.43%) JavaScript
6 173 (3.39%) Java
7 111 (2.18%) Bash
8 97 (1.90%) Kusto Query Language
9 91 (1.78%) Bicep
10 72 (1.41%) TypeScript
11 53 (1.04%) T-SQL
12 40 (0.78%) C++
12 40 (0.78%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 40 (0.78%) Perl
13 29 (0.57%) Shell Script
14 27 (0.53%) VB
14 27 (0.53%) VBA
15 22 (0.43%) Go
16 21 (0.41%) PL/SQL
17 19 (0.37%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 926 (18.15%) Security Cleared
2 695 (13.62%) SC Cleared
3 548 (10.74%) Degree
4 373 (7.31%) Microsoft Certification
5 187 (3.66%) Azure Certification
6 185 (3.63%) DV Cleared
7 133 (2.61%) CISSP
8 120 (2.35%) Computer Science Degree
9 90 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
10 78 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
11 66 (1.29%) CISM
12 59 (1.16%) ITIL Certification
13 55 (1.08%) MCSE
14 53 (1.04%) PMI Certification
15 52 (1.02%) A+ Certification
16 49 (0.96%) CCNA
17 46 (0.90%) AWS Certification
17 46 (0.90%) Master's Degree
18 43 (0.84%) CCNP
19 40 (0.78%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 254 (4.98%) GDPR
2 186 (3.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 162 (3.17%) QA
4 160 (3.14%) NIST
5 136 (2.67%) Data Quality
6 111 (2.18%) PMO
7 110 (2.16%) SLA
8 90 (1.76%) Accessibility
9 52 (1.02%) Cyber Essentials
10 39 (0.76%) HIPAA
11 37 (0.73%) PCI DSS
12 30 (0.59%) NCSC
13 24 (0.47%) WCAG
14 22 (0.43%) EU AI Act
15 21 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 21 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 17 (0.33%) GRC
17 11 (0.22%) Disclosure Scotland
17 11 (0.22%) SOC 2
18 8 (0.16%) PSD2
System Software
1 1,044 (20.46%) Active Directory
2 180 (3.53%) VMware Infrastructure
3 177 (3.47%) Docker
4 62 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 58 (1.14%) Virtual Machines
6 46 (0.90%) vSphere
7 38 (0.74%) VMware ESXi
8 34 (0.67%) Virtual Desktop
9 22 (0.43%) BitLocker
10 20 (0.39%) Firmware
11 15 (0.29%) VMware NSX
12 14 (0.27%) NFS
13 11 (0.22%) ISA Server
13 11 (0.22%) XenApp
14 10 (0.20%) Brightmail
15 9 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
16 8 (0.16%) Terminal Services
16 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
17 6 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 6 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 393 (7.70%) Microsoft Intune
2 323 (6.33%) SCCM
3 253 (4.96%) Terraform
4 213 (4.17%) Kubernetes
5 117 (2.29%) Single Sign-On
6 109 (2.14%) Ansible
7 67 (1.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (0.96%) SCOM
9 47 (0.92%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (0.71%) vCenter Server
11 31 (0.61%) Grafana
12 26 (0.51%) Prometheus
13 25 (0.49%) Microsoft Clustering
14 22 (0.43%) QRadar
15 21 (0.41%) HP SiteScope
16 19 (0.37%) Puppet
16 19 (0.37%) WSUS
17 16 (0.31%) Progress Chef
17 16 (0.31%) WMI
18 13 (0.25%) Kibana
Vendors
1 307 (6.02%) ServiceNow
2 249 (4.88%) VMware
3 235 (4.61%) Oracle
4 229 (4.49%) Cisco
5 205 (4.02%) Splunk
6 194 (3.80%) SAP
7 153 (3.00%) Google
8 116 (2.27%) Citrix
9 115 (2.25%) Databricks
10 96 (1.88%) Apple
10 96 (1.88%) Salesforce
11 64 (1.25%) CrowdStrike
11 64 (1.25%) OpenAI
12 61 (1.20%) IBM
13 55 (1.08%) Remedy
14 52 (1.02%) CyberArk
15 51 (1.00%) Palo Alto
16 49 (0.96%) HP
17 44 (0.86%) Adobe
17 44 (0.86%) Meraki