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 22 May 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
22 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,560 3,839 5,533
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.51% 13.32% 13.03%
As % of the Vendors category 28.10% 27.93% 30.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,722 2,517 3,644
10th Percentile £213 £210 £189
25th Percentile £375 £340 £333
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £582 £586 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 355 242 464
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.30 £15.30 £13.00
Median hourly rate £20.09 £18.85 £15.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.58% +25.67% -33.20%
75th Percentile £29.50 £29.05 £25.00
90th Percentile £63.75 £59.13 £55.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.09 £18.51 £15.00
% change year-on-year +8.54% +23.40% -21.05%

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 19,789 13,745 17,954
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.95% 47.70% 42.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,517 8,566 11,223
10th Percentile £313 £281 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% - -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £492 £500
% change year-on-year +0.10% -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 997 560 1,093
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.42 £14.48
Median hourly rate £32.23 £26.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +23.09% +19.00% -48.24%
75th Percentile £58.75 £56.00 £57.33
90th Percentile £75.84 £73.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.07 £22.50 £21.42
% change year-on-year +29.20% +5.07% -44.38%

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 22 May 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 22 May 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 22 May 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 4,873 £495 +3.66% 3,135
UK excluding London 0 2,894 £450 +5.88% 2,674
London -3 2,152 £515 +0.49% 947
Work from Home -1 1,384 £500 - 1,311
North of England -3 759 £450 +9.09% 658
South East -2 677 £475 +3.26% 825
Midlands -4 497 £450 +12.50% 402
North West -2 392 £429 +0.94% 353
Yorkshire -1 349 £474 +14.91% 222
West Midlands -5 342 £450 +12.50% 230
South West -2 336 £450 -2.70% 278
East of England 0 313 £375 -25.00% 271
Scotland +5 222 £450 +6.51% 142
East Midlands 0 148 £413 +0.61% 171
Wales +1 92 £325 +14.04% 86
North East -34 23 £450 +32.35% 89
Northern Ireland -4 19 £450 +38.46% 65
Channel Islands -3 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
1 594 (10.68%) SharePoint
2 370 (6.65%) Microsoft Exchange
3 104 (1.87%) Confluence
4 36 (0.65%) Apache Spark
5 26 (0.47%) Apache
6 23 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
7 22 (0.40%) HCL Notes
8 19 (0.34%) CMS
9 14 (0.25%) IIS
9 14 (0.25%) SAS
10 13 (0.23%) Skype for Business
11 12 (0.22%) Mendix
12 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.11%) Camunda
12 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 5 (0.090%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.090%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.072%) Drupal
14 4 (0.072%) Exchange Server 2013
14 4 (0.072%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 547 (9.84%) Microsoft Office
2 475 (8.54%) Microsoft Excel
3 211 (3.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 118 (2.12%) Microsoft Project
5 91 (1.64%) MS Visio
6 52 (0.94%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.31%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.11%) Trello
10 5 (0.090%) Acrobat
10 5 (0.090%) PTC Creo
11 4 (0.072%) InDesign
11 4 (0.072%) SOLIDWORKS
12 3 (0.054%) Adobe Captivate
12 3 (0.054%) AutoCAD
12 3 (0.054%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
13 2 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 197 (3.54%) Dynamics CRM
2 65 (1.17%) SAP S/4HANA
3 22 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
4 16 (0.29%) Dynamics NAV
4 16 (0.29%) NetSuite
5 15 (0.27%) Aladdin
6 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
7 12 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
8 11 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.18%) Maximo
9 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
9 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 9 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
11 8 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
11 8 (0.14%) Loan IQ
12 6 (0.11%) Dynamics GP
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.11%) Primavera
12 6 (0.11%) Shopify
13 5 (0.090%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,353 (42.32%) Azure
2 1,413 (25.41%) Microsoft 365
3 950 (17.09%) Power Platform
4 728 (13.09%) Entra ID
5 463 (8.33%) Dynamics 365
6 446 (8.02%) AWS
7 434 (7.81%) Azure DevOps
8 326 (5.86%) Power Automate
9 298 (5.36%) Microsoft Purview
10 296 (5.32%) PowerApps
11 247 (4.44%) GitHub
12 240 (4.32%) Microsoft Copilot
13 215 (3.87%) OneDrive
14 194 (3.49%) SaaS
15 189 (3.40%) Azure Data Factory
16 175 (3.15%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 166 (2.99%) GCP
18 157 (2.82%) Serverless
19 142 (2.55%) PaaS
20 132 (2.37%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 280 (5.04%) DNS
2 261 (4.69%) Firewall
3 205 (3.69%) VPN
4 170 (3.06%) DHCP
5 134 (2.41%) WAN
6 133 (2.39%) Wi-Fi
7 115 (2.07%) LAN
8 111 (2.00%) Network Security
9 101 (1.82%) TCP/IP
10 57 (1.03%) Kerberos
11 53 (0.95%) VLAN
12 45 (0.81%) SD-WAN
13 37 (0.67%) SAN
14 35 (0.63%) Wireless
15 34 (0.61%) SSL
16 29 (0.52%) HTTP
16 29 (0.52%) Skype
16 29 (0.52%) Unified Communications
17 24 (0.43%) IPsec
17 24 (0.43%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 571 (10.27%) Power BI
2 266 (4.78%) SQL Server
3 174 (3.13%) Data Warehouse
4 150 (2.70%) Data Lake
5 119 (2.14%) Azure SQL Database
6 113 (2.03%) Metadata
7 96 (1.73%) PostgreSQL
8 67 (1.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 65 (1.17%) Relational Database
10 48 (0.86%) Power Query
11 45 (0.81%) Tableau
12 44 (0.79%) NoSQL
13 43 (0.77%) MySQL
13 43 (0.77%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 41 (0.74%) Star Schema
15 40 (0.72%) Delta Lake
16 37 (0.67%) Oracle Database
17 30 (0.54%) Spark SQL
18 26 (0.47%) SQL Server Analysis Services
19 25 (0.45%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 254 (4.57%) JIRA
2 167 (3.00%) Git
3 63 (1.13%) Jenkins
4 59 (1.06%) GitLab
5 33 (0.59%) Visual Studio
6 24 (0.43%) Artifactory
7 20 (0.36%) MSI
8 19 (0.34%) Eclipse
9 15 (0.27%) MLflow
9 15 (0.27%) Selenium
10 14 (0.25%) ERwin
10 14 (0.25%) JMeter
10 14 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
11 12 (0.22%) Bitbucket
11 12 (0.22%) Maven
11 12 (0.22%) Postman
12 10 (0.18%) Team Foundation Server
13 9 (0.16%) Android Studio
13 9 (0.16%) Browser DevTools
13 9 (0.16%) Gatling
General
1 1,799 (32.36%) Social Skills
2 1,100 (19.78%) Finance
3 622 (11.19%) Analytical Skills
4 495 (8.90%) Public Sector
5 291 (5.23%) Banking
6 246 (4.42%) Legal
7 237 (4.26%) Organisational Skills
8 135 (2.43%) Documentation Skills
9 98 (1.76%) Manufacturing
10 94 (1.69%) Law
11 89 (1.60%) Retail
12 87 (1.56%) Presentation Skills
13 83 (1.49%) Telecoms
14 80 (1.44%) Marketing
15 71 (1.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 68 (1.22%) Local Government
17 67 (1.21%) Military
18 56 (1.01%) Investment Banking
19 53 (0.95%) Influencing Skills
20 47 (0.85%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 688 (12.37%) Architect
2 599 (10.77%) Analyst
3 512 (9.21%) Developer
4 466 (8.38%) Senior
5 362 (6.51%) IT Support
6 346 (6.22%) Lead
7 307 (5.52%) Consultant
8 257 (4.62%) Support Engineer
9 225 (4.05%) Data Engineer
10 204 (3.67%) Azure Engineer
11 192 (3.45%) Project Manager
12 189 (3.40%) Solutions Architect
13 178 (3.20%) IT Engineer
14 177 (3.18%) Business Analyst
15 169 (3.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 159 (2.86%) Administrator
17 134 (2.41%) IT Support Engineer
18 120 (2.16%) Security Engineer
19 104 (1.87%) DevOps Engineer
20 102 (1.83%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 243 (4.37%) .NET
2 168 (3.02%) REST
3 133 (2.39%) Microsoft Graph
4 108 (1.94%) OAuth
5 103 (1.85%) PySpark
6 98 (1.76%) SAML
7 87 (1.56%) JSON
8 81 (1.46%) React
9 80 (1.44%) OpenID
10 78 (1.40%) LDAP
11 68 (1.22%) Web Services
12 64 (1.15%) Middleware
13 55 (0.99%) HTML
14 53 (0.95%) Node.js
14 53 (0.95%) XML
15 50 (0.90%) OAuth2
16 49 (0.88%) CSS
16 49 (0.88%) SailPoint
17 48 (0.86%) AngularJS
17 48 (0.86%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 297 (5.34%) Onboarding
2 218 (3.92%) Cloud Native
3 171 (3.08%) Product Ownership
4 125 (2.25%) Management Information System
5 104 (1.87%) Data Centre
6 99 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
7 90 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
8 87 (1.56%) Hybrid Cloud
8 87 (1.56%) Security Posture
9 84 (1.51%) AI Agents
10 77 (1.38%) Replication
11 76 (1.37%) Self-Motivation
12 73 (1.31%) Low-Code
12 73 (1.31%) PKI
13 70 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
13 70 (1.26%) Data Structures
14 61 (1.10%) Virtual Team
15 46 (0.83%) Driving Licence
16 45 (0.81%) NHS
16 45 (0.81%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 1,199 (21.56%) Windows
2 324 (5.83%) Windows 10
3 278 (5.00%) Windows Server
4 251 (4.51%) Linux
5 108 (1.94%) Apple iOS
6 106 (1.91%) Android
7 105 (1.89%) Mac OS
8 43 (0.77%) Windows 7
9 39 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 39 (0.70%) Unix
9 39 (0.70%) Windows Server 2016
10 31 (0.56%) VMS
11 29 (0.52%) Windows Server 2019
12 22 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
13 15 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
14 12 (0.22%) Ubuntu
15 11 (0.20%) CentOS
16 5 (0.090%) AIX
17 4 (0.072%) Solaris
17 4 (0.072%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 934 (16.80%) Problem-Solving
2 883 (15.88%) DevOps
3 838 (15.07%) Agile
4 787 (14.15%) Migration
5 744 (13.38%) CI/CD
6 621 (11.17%) Business Intelligence
7 600 (10.79%) Analytics
8 559 (10.05%) AI
9 551 (9.91%) Stakeholder Management
10 486 (8.74%) Continuous Improvement
11 465 (8.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 456 (8.20%) ITIL
13 430 (7.73%) Customer Service
14 420 (7.55%) Data Modelling
15 382 (6.87%) Roadmaps
16 355 (6.38%) Cybersecurity
17 350 (6.29%) Decision-Making
18 327 (5.88%) Infrastructure as Code
19 315 (5.67%) Project Delivery
20 310 (5.58%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 709 (12.75%) SQL
2 627 (11.28%) PowerShell
3 589 (10.59%) Python
4 259 (4.66%) C#
5 198 (3.56%) JavaScript
6 179 (3.22%) Java
7 127 (2.28%) Bicep
8 92 (1.65%) T-SQL
9 84 (1.51%) Kusto Query Language
10 74 (1.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 73 (1.31%) Bash
12 68 (1.22%) TypeScript
13 33 (0.59%) VBA
14 28 (0.50%) PL/SQL
15 27 (0.49%) C++
15 27 (0.49%) VB
16 19 (0.34%) Scala
17 18 (0.32%) R
18 14 (0.25%) Shell Script
18 14 (0.25%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,054 (18.96%) Security Cleared
2 826 (14.86%) SC Cleared
3 540 (9.71%) Degree
4 258 (4.64%) Microsoft Certification
5 179 (3.22%) Azure Certification
6 175 (3.15%) DV Cleared
7 121 (2.18%) Computer Science Degree
8 103 (1.85%) CISSP
9 98 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
10 79 (1.42%) Cisco Certification
11 57 (1.03%) CISM
12 55 (0.99%) PMP
13 53 (0.95%) Master's Degree
14 52 (0.94%) PMI Certification
15 41 (0.74%) MCSE
16 38 (0.68%) AWS Certification
17 35 (0.63%) CCNP
18 33 (0.59%) DBS Check
19 31 (0.56%) MCSA
20 29 (0.52%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 276 (4.96%) Data Quality
2 223 (4.01%) GDPR
3 183 (3.29%) QA
4 148 (2.66%) SLA
5 137 (2.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 119 (2.14%) NIST
7 100 (1.80%) PMO
8 71 (1.28%) Accessibility
8 71 (1.28%) Cyber Essentials
9 51 (0.92%) NCSC
10 37 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 34 (0.61%) GRC
12 28 (0.50%) PCI DSS
13 24 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 22 (0.40%) NIST 800
15 20 (0.36%) MiFID
16 16 (0.29%) SOC 2
17 13 (0.23%) FINRA
18 12 (0.22%) HIPAA
18 12 (0.22%) WCAG
System Software
1 1,057 (19.01%) Active Directory
2 210 (3.78%) Docker
3 192 (3.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 98 (1.76%) Hyper-V
5 79 (1.42%) Virtual Desktop
6 71 (1.28%) Virtual Machines
7 56 (1.01%) VMware ESXi
8 51 (0.92%) vSphere
9 25 (0.45%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.41%) VMware NSX
11 19 (0.34%) Microsoft App-V
12 17 (0.31%) Firmware
13 6 (0.11%) NFS
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
14 5 (0.090%) IAG
14 5 (0.090%) Snort
14 5 (0.090%) VMware Workstation
15 4 (0.072%) Squid
15 4 (0.072%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 439 (7.90%) Microsoft Intune
2 342 (6.15%) Terraform
3 241 (4.33%) Kubernetes
4 201 (3.62%) SCCM
5 120 (2.16%) Ansible
6 119 (2.14%) Single Sign-On
7 80 (1.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (0.88%) vCenter Server
9 44 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (0.65%) Grafana
11 31 (0.56%) Prometheus
12 23 (0.41%) FortiGate
13 20 (0.36%) SCOM
14 18 (0.32%) Puppet
15 15 (0.27%) AirWatch
16 14 (0.25%) QRadar
17 13 (0.23%) WSUS
18 12 (0.22%) HAProxy
18 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
19 11 (0.20%) CASB
Vendors
1 278 (5.00%) ServiceNow
2 264 (4.75%) VMware
3 218 (3.92%) Databricks
3 218 (3.92%) SAP
4 208 (3.74%) Oracle
5 187 (3.36%) Cisco
6 153 (2.75%) Google
7 109 (1.96%) Citrix
8 99 (1.78%) Salesforce
9 94 (1.69%) Splunk
10 82 (1.47%) OpenAI
11 71 (1.28%) Apple
12 69 (1.24%) Foundry
13 56 (1.01%) CrowdStrike
14 51 (0.92%) HP
15 47 (0.85%) CyberArk
15 47 (0.85%) Okta
16 46 (0.83%) Palo Alto
17 45 (0.81%) Adobe
18 40 (0.72%) Dell