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 27 July 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
27 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 6,331 4,571 5,199
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.99% 13.87% 12.94%
As % of the Vendors category 29.03% 29.26% 29.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,165 2,932 3,411
10th Percentile £213 £213 £200
25th Percentile £375 £350 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £586 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £690
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £431 £450
% change year-on-year +4.41% -4.22% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 371 369 386
10th Percentile £13.97 £13.95 £11.71
25th Percentile £16.70 £16.00 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.35 £22.50 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year -5.11% +38.63% -27.91%
75th Percentile £37.50 £30.63 £29.69
90th Percentile £73.75 £63.40 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.13 £20.26 £16.23
% change year-on-year +4.30% +24.80% -14.58%

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 21,812 15,620 17,456
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.31% 47.40% 43.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,564 9,561 10,963
10th Percentile £313 £280 £280
25th Percentile £413 £401 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +0.10% -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £732
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,085 778 915
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.68 £13.27
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.13 £15.62
Median hourly rate £35.22 £25.15 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.04% -6.85% -34.94%
75th Percentile £65.00 £50.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.38 £22.32 £25.00
% change year-on-year +54.04% -10.74% -24.74%

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 27 July 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 27 July 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 27 July 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 5,506 £493 +3.68% 3,363
UK excluding London -1 3,369 £450 +4.41% 2,839
London -2 2,418 £510 +1.39% 1,043
Work from Home +3 1,643 £500 - 1,299
South East -1 847 £475 - 914
North of England -5 836 £465 +6.90% 701
Midlands -2 585 £447 +19.20% 455
North West -1 479 £450 +2.86% 352
West Midlands -3 416 £450 +20.00% 252
South West -1 415 £475 +10.47% 293
Yorkshire -5 333 £475 +7.04% 244
Scotland +7 316 £450 - 121
East of England 0 263 £375 -25.00% 326
East Midlands +2 162 £413 +13.09% 202
Wales 0 109 £391 +41.78% 89
Northern Ireland -3 31 £350 -6.04% 29
North East -39 30 £450 +32.35% 119
Channel Islands 0 1 £550 -24.14% 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
1 727 (11.48%) SharePoint
2 394 (6.22%) Microsoft Exchange
3 143 (2.26%) Confluence
4 41 (0.65%) Apache Spark
5 35 (0.55%) Apache
6 27 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
7 21 (0.33%) IIS
8 17 (0.27%) CMS
9 15 (0.24%) HCL Notes
10 13 (0.21%) Skype for Business
11 10 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
11 10 (0.16%) SAS
12 9 (0.14%) SharePoint Server
13 8 (0.13%) nginx
14 6 (0.095%) Jupyter
14 6 (0.095%) SharePoint 2013
15 5 (0.079%) Camunda
15 5 (0.079%) OpenEdge
15 5 (0.079%) OpenStack
16 4 (0.063%) Liferay
Applications
1 586 (9.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 563 (8.89%) Microsoft Office
3 252 (3.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 160 (2.53%) Microsoft Project
5 106 (1.67%) MS Visio
6 41 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
7 24 (0.38%) Chatbot
8 13 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.095%) Adobe Illustrator
10 4 (0.063%) AutoCAD
10 4 (0.063%) Photoshop
11 3 (0.047%) Adobe Captivate
11 3 (0.047%) Adobe Premiere
11 3 (0.047%) Final Cut Pro
11 3 (0.047%) SOLIDWORKS
11 3 (0.047%) Trello
12 2 (0.032%) InfoPath
12 2 (0.032%) Navisworks
12 2 (0.032%) PTC Creo
12 2 (0.032%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 232 (3.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 74 (1.17%) SAP S/4HANA
3 28 (0.44%) Remedy ITSM
4 21 (0.33%) NetSuite
4 21 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
5 17 (0.27%) Dynamics NAV
6 16 (0.25%) Aladdin
7 15 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
8 14 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.19%) Primavera
10 9 (0.14%) Sage X3
11 8 (0.13%) Magento
11 8 (0.13%) Teamcenter
12 7 (0.11%) Dynamics AX
12 7 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
12 7 (0.11%) SAP MM
12 7 (0.11%) SAP PSCD
13 6 (0.095%) Dynamics GP
13 6 (0.095%) iTrent
13 6 (0.095%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 2,644 (41.76%) Azure
2 1,576 (24.89%) Microsoft 365
3 1,090 (17.22%) Power Platform
4 919 (14.52%) Entra ID
5 564 (8.91%) AWS
6 526 (8.31%) Dynamics 365
7 521 (8.23%) Azure DevOps
8 376 (5.94%) Power Automate
9 345 (5.45%) PowerApps
10 334 (5.28%) Microsoft Copilot
11 295 (4.66%) Microsoft Purview
12 257 (4.06%) GitHub
13 239 (3.78%) OneDrive
14 230 (3.63%) SaaS
15 204 (3.22%) GCP
16 164 (2.59%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 163 (2.57%) Azure Data Factory
18 151 (2.39%) PaaS
19 150 (2.37%) Serverless
20 145 (2.29%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 335 (5.29%) DNS
2 313 (4.94%) Firewall
3 246 (3.89%) VPN
4 205 (3.24%) DHCP
5 175 (2.76%) TCP/IP
6 147 (2.32%) WAN
6 147 (2.32%) Wi-Fi
7 140 (2.21%) LAN
8 139 (2.20%) Network Security
9 64 (1.01%) VLAN
10 46 (0.73%) Wireless
11 44 (0.69%) SAN
12 41 (0.65%) MPLS
12 41 (0.65%) SSL
13 37 (0.58%) Unified Communications
14 30 (0.47%) Internet
14 30 (0.47%) SD-WAN
14 30 (0.47%) VoIP
15 27 (0.43%) BGP
16 26 (0.41%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 688 (10.87%) Power BI
2 367 (5.80%) SQL Server
3 187 (2.95%) Data Warehouse
4 131 (2.07%) Data Lake
5 130 (2.05%) PostgreSQL
6 125 (1.97%) Metadata
7 123 (1.94%) Azure SQL Database
8 74 (1.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 72 (1.14%) Relational Database
10 62 (0.98%) MySQL
11 60 (0.95%) Power Query
12 52 (0.82%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 50 (0.79%) NoSQL
14 45 (0.71%) Oracle Database
15 39 (0.62%) Star Schema
16 37 (0.58%) Tableau
17 34 (0.54%) Delta Lake
17 34 (0.54%) SQL Server Analysis Services
18 25 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
18 25 (0.39%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 322 (5.09%) JIRA
2 191 (3.02%) Git
3 86 (1.36%) Jenkins
4 58 (0.92%) GitLab
5 51 (0.81%) Visual Studio
6 32 (0.51%) MSI
7 28 (0.44%) Selenium
8 17 (0.27%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.27%) Postman
9 16 (0.25%) Team Foundation Server
10 15 (0.24%) WebDriver
11 14 (0.22%) ERwin
11 14 (0.22%) MLflow
12 13 (0.21%) Artifactory
12 13 (0.21%) Cypress.io
13 12 (0.19%) Bitbucket
14 11 (0.17%) JUnit
14 11 (0.17%) Maven
14 11 (0.17%) Sonatype Nexus
14 11 (0.17%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 2,117 (33.44%) Social Skills
2 1,286 (20.31%) Finance
3 769 (12.15%) Analytical Skills
4 611 (9.65%) Public Sector
5 311 (4.91%) Banking
6 277 (4.38%) Organisational Skills
7 217 (3.43%) Legal
8 171 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
9 138 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 122 (1.93%) Manufacturing
11 119 (1.88%) Retail
12 110 (1.74%) Telecoms
13 101 (1.60%) Law
14 97 (1.53%) Marketing
15 85 (1.34%) Military
16 82 (1.30%) Local Government
17 73 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
18 71 (1.12%) Influencing Skills
19 60 (0.95%) Investment Banking
20 47 (0.74%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 740 (11.69%) Architect
2 670 (10.58%) Analyst
3 606 (9.57%) Developer
4 550 (8.69%) Senior
5 446 (7.04%) Lead
6 398 (6.29%) IT Support
7 385 (6.08%) Consultant
8 341 (5.39%) Support Engineer
9 244 (3.85%) IT Engineer
10 243 (3.84%) Data Engineer
11 232 (3.66%) Solutions Architect
12 221 (3.49%) Azure Engineer
13 216 (3.41%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 210 (3.32%) Project Manager
15 196 (3.10%) IT Support Engineer
16 181 (2.86%) Business Analyst
17 180 (2.84%) Administrator
18 151 (2.39%) Cloud Engineer
19 127 (2.01%) Security Engineer
20 110 (1.74%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 301 (4.75%) .NET
2 238 (3.76%) REST
3 130 (2.05%) Microsoft Graph
4 123 (1.94%) JSON
5 109 (1.72%) OAuth
6 105 (1.66%) PySpark
7 90 (1.42%) OpenID
7 90 (1.42%) XML
8 89 (1.41%) SAML
9 87 (1.37%) .NET Framework
9 87 (1.37%) Web Services
10 80 (1.26%) React
11 71 (1.12%) RESTful
12 66 (1.04%) HTML
12 66 (1.04%) LDAP
12 66 (1.04%) SOAP
13 64 (1.01%) ARM Templates
14 63 (1.00%) Middleware
15 61 (0.96%) CSS
16 60 (0.95%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 410 (6.48%) Onboarding
2 299 (4.72%) Cloud Native
3 186 (2.94%) Product Ownership
4 177 (2.80%) Management Information System
5 147 (2.32%) Enterprise Software
6 133 (2.10%) Legacy Systems
7 124 (1.96%) Data Centre
8 123 (1.94%) Hybrid Cloud
9 121 (1.91%) AI Agents
10 120 (1.90%) PKI
11 113 (1.78%) Security Posture
12 98 (1.55%) Data Structures
13 90 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
14 80 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
15 79 (1.25%) Virtual Team
16 72 (1.14%) Low-Code
17 66 (1.04%) Distributed Systems
17 66 (1.04%) Driving Licence
18 60 (0.95%) Replication
19 55 (0.87%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 1,336 (21.10%) Windows
2 348 (5.50%) Windows Server
3 321 (5.07%) Windows 10
4 303 (4.79%) Linux
5 134 (2.12%) Mac OS
6 118 (1.86%) Android
7 110 (1.74%) Apple iOS
8 58 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 44 (0.69%) Unix
10 36 (0.57%) Windows Server 2016
11 33 (0.52%) Windows Server 2019
12 31 (0.49%) Windows 7
13 30 (0.47%) VMS
14 26 (0.41%) Ubuntu
15 18 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
16 13 (0.21%) CentOS
17 12 (0.19%) SUSE
18 10 (0.16%) Solaris
19 8 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
20 7 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,106 (17.47%) Problem-Solving
2 1,001 (15.81%) DevOps
3 972 (15.35%) Agile
4 890 (14.06%) Migration
5 864 (13.65%) Stakeholder Management
6 822 (12.98%) CI/CD
7 723 (11.42%) AI
8 703 (11.10%) Business Intelligence
9 694 (10.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 687 (10.85%) Continuous Improvement
11 672 (10.61%) Analytics
12 585 (9.24%) ITIL
13 504 (7.96%) Customer Service
14 468 (7.39%) Data Modelling
15 462 (7.30%) Roadmaps
16 446 (7.04%) Cybersecurity
17 444 (7.01%) Infrastructure as Code
18 413 (6.52%) Decision-Making
19 405 (6.40%) Validation
20 400 (6.32%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 810 (12.79%) SQL
2 674 (10.65%) PowerShell
3 650 (10.27%) Python
4 317 (5.01%) C#
5 235 (3.71%) JavaScript
6 198 (3.13%) Java
7 179 (2.83%) Bicep
8 121 (1.91%) Bash
9 114 (1.80%) T-SQL
10 92 (1.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 85 (1.34%) TypeScript
12 72 (1.14%) Kusto Query Language
13 42 (0.66%) VBA
14 30 (0.47%) C++
15 28 (0.44%) PL/SQL
15 28 (0.44%) VB
16 19 (0.30%) X++
17 16 (0.25%) R
17 16 (0.25%) Scala
17 16 (0.25%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,298 (20.50%) Security Cleared
2 982 (15.51%) SC Cleared
3 619 (9.78%) Degree
4 322 (5.09%) Microsoft Certification
5 250 (3.95%) DV Cleared
6 228 (3.60%) Azure Certification
7 147 (2.32%) BPSS Clearance
8 121 (1.91%) CISSP
9 119 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
10 117 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
11 88 (1.39%) PMP
12 81 (1.28%) PMI Certification
13 67 (1.06%) CISM
14 66 (1.04%) AWS Certification
15 51 (0.81%) CCNP
16 50 (0.79%) Master's Degree
17 47 (0.74%) DBS Check
18 44 (0.69%) CCNA
19 39 (0.62%) A+ Certification
19 39 (0.62%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 335 (5.29%) Data Quality
2 218 (3.44%) GDPR
2 218 (3.44%) QA
3 181 (2.86%) SLA
4 170 (2.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 153 (2.42%) PMO
6 144 (2.27%) NIST
7 103 (1.63%) Accessibility
8 79 (1.25%) Cyber Essentials
9 76 (1.20%) NCSC
10 42 (0.66%) GRC
11 33 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 33 (0.52%) WCAG
12 29 (0.46%) PCI DSS
13 26 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 20 (0.32%) Disclosure Scotland
15 15 (0.24%) NIST 800
16 14 (0.22%) SOC 2
17 13 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
17 13 (0.21%) GMP
System Software
1 1,205 (19.03%) Active Directory
2 233 (3.68%) Docker
3 212 (3.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 112 (1.77%) Hyper-V
5 95 (1.50%) Virtual Desktop
6 88 (1.39%) Virtual Machines
7 56 (0.88%) VMware ESXi
7 56 (0.88%) vSphere
8 28 (0.44%) BitLocker
9 23 (0.36%) VMware NSX
10 20 (0.32%) Firmware
10 20 (0.32%) Microsoft App-V
11 8 (0.13%) NFS
11 8 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
12 7 (0.11%) IAG
13 5 (0.079%) Terminal Services
13 5 (0.079%) VMware Workstation
14 4 (0.063%) RACF
14 4 (0.063%) Snort
14 4 (0.063%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 506 (7.99%) Microsoft Intune
2 443 (7.00%) Terraform
3 291 (4.60%) Kubernetes
4 226 (3.57%) SCCM
5 148 (2.34%) Ansible
6 113 (1.78%) Single Sign-On
7 63 (1.00%) Jamf Pro
8 51 (0.81%) vCenter Server
9 47 (0.74%) Grafana
10 38 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 35 (0.55%) SCOM
12 34 (0.54%) Prometheus
13 23 (0.36%) Puppet
14 20 (0.32%) QRadar
15 18 (0.28%) FortiGate
15 18 (0.28%) WSUS
16 16 (0.25%) Progress Chef
17 13 (0.21%) Argo
18 12 (0.19%) Avamar
18 12 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 437 (6.90%) ServiceNow
2 300 (4.74%) Oracle
3 299 (4.72%) VMware
4 253 (4.00%) SAP
5 219 (3.46%) Databricks
6 205 (3.24%) Cisco
7 199 (3.14%) Google
8 117 (1.85%) Salesforce
9 107 (1.69%) Citrix
10 96 (1.52%) Splunk
11 94 (1.48%) Apple
12 80 (1.26%) Foundry
13 79 (1.25%) OpenAI
14 75 (1.18%) CyberArk
15 67 (1.06%) CrowdStrike
15 67 (1.06%) Okta
16 60 (0.95%) Red Hat
17 54 (0.85%) BeyondTrust
18 53 (0.84%) Zscaler
19 48 (0.76%) Adobe