Microsoft Contracts

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 2 July 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
2 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 4,227 5,635 7,595
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 13.63% 12.98% 13.61%
As % of the Vendors category 28.70% 30.32% 31.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,710 3,670 5,461
10th Percentile £213 £195 £200
25th Percentile £348 £350 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £581 £600 £625
90th Percentile £669 £700 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £430 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -4.44% - +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 317 491 234
10th Percentile £14.20 £11.13 £13.29
25th Percentile £15.84 £13.69 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.32 £16.06 £23.68
Median % change year-on-year +38.95% -32.17% +35.30%
75th Percentile £31.00 £26.32 £52.50
90th Percentile £63.31 £59.95 £66.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.42 £15.98 £19.00
% change year-on-year +21.50% -15.89% +15.15%

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 14,728 18,586 24,383
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.48% 42.82% 43.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,008 11,542 16,145
10th Percentile £280 £270 £270
25th Percentile £400 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £713 £734 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 705 1,165 648
10th Percentile £14.75 £12.32 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.30 £14.84 £18.74
Median hourly rate £25.15 £24.18 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.01% -39.55% +81.82%
75th Percentile £53.50 £59.95 £63.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.63 £22.56 £29.30
% change year-on-year +0.31% -23.00% +49.00%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Microsoft as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Microsoft.

Daily rate trend for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft over the 6 months to 2 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Microsoft.

Hourly rate trend for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft over the 6 months to 2 July 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Top 18 Contract 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 2 July 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 0 3,651 £475 -5.00% 18,322
UK excluding London -1 2,279 £430 -4.44% 12,202
London -4 1,565 £515 +3.00% 7,457
Work from Home -5 1,134 £500 - 8,393
North of England -1 603 £425 -5.56% 2,970
South East +1 518 £469 -1.19% 3,240
North West -2 367 £431 -4.33% 1,691
Midlands -1 347 £385 -4.35% 1,949
South West -2 260 £425 -15.00% 1,338
East of England +1 244 £500 +15.34% 1,335
Scotland -4 239 £445 +31.78% 808
West Midlands 0 233 £388 -6.63% 1,201
Yorkshire +1 196 £450 +5.88% 1,006
East Midlands 0 111 £375 -6.25% 740
Wales -2 51 £300 -41.46% 396
North East -2 40 £340 +13.33% 286
Northern Ireland -4 36 £349 -36.59% 287
Channel Islands - 3 £725 -

Microsoft
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 445 (10.53%) SharePoint
2 315 (7.45%) Microsoft Exchange
3 92 (2.18%) Confluence
4 37 (0.88%) Skype for Business
5 27 (0.64%) IIS
6 26 (0.62%) Apache
6 26 (0.62%) CMS
7 21 (0.50%) IBM Domino
8 20 (0.47%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.28%) Tomcat
10 11 (0.26%) Exchange Server 2013
10 11 (0.26%) JBoss
11 10 (0.24%) Exchange Server 2010
11 10 (0.24%) Mattermost
11 10 (0.24%) SAS
11 10 (0.24%) SharePoint Server
12 8 (0.19%) Headless CMS
12 8 (0.19%) WebSphere
13 7 (0.17%) Apache Airflow
13 7 (0.17%) Drupal
Applications
1 597 (14.12%) Microsoft Office
2 484 (11.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 240 (5.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 103 (2.44%) Microsoft Project
5 92 (2.18%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
7 19 (0.45%) Chatbot
8 10 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.17%) Trello
10 6 (0.14%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (0.14%) AutoCAD
10 6 (0.14%) Maya
11 4 (0.095%) Acrobat
12 3 (0.071%) Sketch
13 2 (0.047%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.047%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.047%) InfoPath
13 2 (0.047%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.047%) Revit
13 2 (0.047%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 145 (3.43%) Dynamics CRM
2 44 (1.04%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.26%) Dynamics AX
4 10 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
5 8 (0.19%) Kondor
5 8 (0.19%) Workday HCM
6 7 (0.17%) Maximo
6 7 (0.17%) SAP PS
6 7 (0.17%) Shopify
7 6 (0.14%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.14%) Endur
7 6 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.14%) Primavera
7 6 (0.14%) SAP PM
7 6 (0.14%) Unit4 Business World
8 5 (0.12%) assyst
8 5 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
8 5 (0.12%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 5 (0.12%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 1,413 (33.43%) Azure
2 985 (23.30%) Microsoft 365
3 523 (12.37%) Power Platform
4 442 (10.46%) Entra ID
5 357 (8.45%) AWS
6 285 (6.74%) Dynamics 365
7 249 (5.89%) Azure DevOps
8 199 (4.71%) PowerApps
9 182 (4.31%) Power Automate
10 152 (3.60%) SaaS
11 149 (3.52%) GCP
12 117 (2.77%) IaaS
13 114 (2.70%) OneDrive
14 110 (2.60%) Microsoft Purview
15 109 (2.58%) PaaS
16 105 (2.48%) Azure Sentinel
17 99 (2.34%) Serverless
18 82 (1.94%) Azure Data Factory
19 68 (1.61%) GitHub
20 65 (1.54%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 331 (7.83%) Firewall
2 233 (5.51%) DNS
3 206 (4.87%) VPN
4 140 (3.31%) DHCP
5 108 (2.56%) TCP/IP
5 108 (2.56%) WAN
6 97 (2.29%) Network Security
7 92 (2.18%) LAN
8 85 (2.01%) SAN
9 82 (1.94%) Wi-Fi
10 43 (1.02%) WebEx
11 41 (0.97%) Wireless
12 40 (0.95%) Skype
13 37 (0.88%) Ethernet
13 37 (0.88%) Internet
14 36 (0.85%) Cisco IOS
14 36 (0.85%) Remote Desktop
14 36 (0.85%) VLAN
15 33 (0.78%) Unified Communications
16 28 (0.66%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 311 (7.36%) Power BI
2 254 (6.01%) SQL Server
3 93 (2.20%) Data Warehouse
4 70 (1.66%) Azure SQL Database
5 60 (1.42%) Tableau
6 59 (1.40%) Data Lake
7 53 (1.25%) Relational Database
8 52 (1.23%) Big Data
9 51 (1.21%) Metadata
10 49 (1.16%) NoSQL
11 42 (0.99%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 41 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 40 (0.95%) PostgreSQL
14 31 (0.73%) Oracle Database
15 28 (0.66%) MySQL
16 27 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
17 26 (0.62%) GIS
18 24 (0.57%) Power Query
19 23 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
20 22 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 206 (4.87%) JIRA
2 127 (3.00%) Git
3 84 (1.99%) Jenkins
4 46 (1.09%) GitLab
5 39 (0.92%) Visual Studio
6 31 (0.73%) MSI
7 24 (0.57%) Postman
8 23 (0.54%) Selenium
9 18 (0.43%) Sonatype Nexus
10 17 (0.40%) Eclipse
10 17 (0.40%) Maven
11 14 (0.33%) JUnit
11 14 (0.33%) SonarQube
12 12 (0.28%) Visual Studio Code
13 11 (0.26%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.26%) ERwin
14 10 (0.24%) Subversion
14 10 (0.24%) TeamCity
15 8 (0.19%) Hudson
15 8 (0.19%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,609 (38.06%) Social Skills
2 946 (22.38%) Finance
3 553 (13.08%) Analytical Skills
4 379 (8.97%) Public Sector
5 209 (4.94%) Banking
6 157 (3.71%) Organisational Skills
7 139 (3.29%) Legal
8 132 (3.12%) Telecoms
9 130 (3.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 126 (2.98%) Presentation Skills
11 106 (2.51%) Manufacturing
12 105 (2.48%) Documentation Skills
13 94 (2.22%) Marketing
14 89 (2.11%) Retail
15 62 (1.47%) Local Government
16 44 (1.04%) Influencing Skills
17 40 (0.95%) Law
18 37 (0.88%) Military
19 35 (0.83%) Games
20 34 (0.80%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 663 (15.68%) Analyst
2 472 (11.17%) Architect
3 373 (8.82%) Developer
4 293 (6.93%) Support Engineer
5 249 (5.89%) Consultant
5 249 (5.89%) Senior
6 207 (4.90%) Lead
7 194 (4.59%) IT Support
8 151 (3.57%) Project Manager
9 149 (3.52%) Solutions Architect
10 138 (3.26%) Desktop Support
10 138 (3.26%) Support Analyst
11 132 (3.12%) Business Analyst
12 126 (2.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 126 (2.98%) IT Engineer
13 107 (2.53%) Desktop Engineer
14 100 (2.37%) Azure Engineer
15 98 (2.32%) Service Analyst
16 95 (2.25%) Data Analyst
17 94 (2.22%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 214 (5.06%) .NET
2 126 (2.98%) HTML
3 105 (2.48%) CSS
4 94 (2.22%) REST
5 75 (1.77%) Web Services
6 74 (1.75%) React
7 69 (1.63%) .NET Framework
8 54 (1.28%) SOAP
9 52 (1.23%) XML
10 51 (1.21%) JSON
10 51 (1.21%) OAuth
11 48 (1.14%) AngularJS
12 46 (1.09%) .NET Core
13 43 (1.02%) SailPoint
14 40 (0.95%) RESTful
15 39 (0.92%) SAML
16 37 (0.88%) Spring
17 36 (0.85%) ARM Templates
17 36 (0.85%) ASP.NET
17 36 (0.85%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 131 (3.10%) Management Information System
2 108 (2.56%) Self-Motivation
3 107 (2.53%) Product Ownership
4 106 (2.51%) Onboarding
5 90 (2.13%) Cloud Native
6 88 (2.08%) Data Centre
7 87 (2.06%) PKI
8 79 (1.87%) Security Posture
9 73 (1.73%) Driving Licence
10 49 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
11 47 (1.11%) Hybrid Cloud
12 46 (1.09%) Virtual Team
13 44 (1.04%) Enterprise Software
14 43 (1.02%) iPhone
14 43 (1.02%) Smartphone
15 42 (0.99%) Public Cloud
16 41 (0.97%) Video Conferencing
17 39 (0.92%) Data Protection Act
18 34 (0.80%) Analytical Mindset
18 34 (0.80%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 1,085 (25.67%) Windows
2 303 (7.17%) Windows 10
3 278 (6.58%) Windows Server
4 253 (5.99%) Linux
5 110 (2.60%) Mac OS
6 84 (1.99%) Android
7 67 (1.59%) Apple iOS
8 66 (1.56%) Windows Server 2016
8 66 (1.56%) Windows Server 2019
9 61 (1.44%) Unix
10 59 (1.40%) Windows 7
11 39 (0.92%) Windows Server 2012
12 31 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 26 (0.62%) Windows Server 2003
14 23 (0.54%) Ubuntu
14 23 (0.54%) VMS
15 13 (0.31%) CentOS
16 10 (0.24%) Windows Server 2008
17 8 (0.19%) Windows XP
18 7 (0.17%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 987 (23.35%) Problem-Solving
2 715 (16.92%) Agile
3 515 (12.18%) DevOps
4 481 (11.38%) ITIL
5 476 (11.26%) Migration
6 415 (9.82%) Customer Service
7 364 (8.61%) Stakeholder Management
8 362 (8.56%) Project Management
9 337 (7.97%) Business Intelligence
10 303 (7.17%) Cybersecurity
11 281 (6.65%) CI/CD
12 259 (6.13%) Analytics
13 252 (5.96%) Continuous Improvement
14 226 (5.35%) Change Management
15 222 (5.25%) ITSM
16 218 (5.16%) Project Delivery
17 212 (5.02%) Roadmaps
18 206 (4.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 199 (4.71%) CRM
20 195 (4.61%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 565 (13.37%) SQL
2 521 (12.33%) PowerShell
3 350 (8.28%) Python
4 236 (5.58%) C#
5 211 (4.99%) JavaScript
6 182 (4.31%) Java
7 71 (1.68%) Bicep
8 62 (1.47%) Bash
9 59 (1.40%) TypeScript
10 39 (0.92%) Kusto Query Language
11 35 (0.83%) C++
11 35 (0.83%) VBA
12 31 (0.73%) T-SQL
12 31 (0.73%) VB
13 25 (0.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 24 (0.57%) PL/SQL
15 19 (0.45%) Shell Script
16 18 (0.43%) R
17 15 (0.35%) PHP
18 14 (0.33%) Perl
Qualifications
1 677 (16.02%) Security Cleared
2 522 (12.35%) SC Cleared
3 461 (10.91%) Degree
4 320 (7.57%) Microsoft Certification
5 151 (3.57%) Azure Certification
6 121 (2.86%) DV Cleared
7 101 (2.39%) Cisco Certification
8 98 (2.32%) Computer Science Degree
9 62 (1.47%) A+ Certification
9 62 (1.47%) CISSP
10 51 (1.21%) AWS Certification
11 48 (1.14%) PMI Certification
12 47 (1.11%) CCNA
13 46 (1.09%) BPSS Clearance
14 43 (1.02%) PMP
15 42 (0.99%) MCSE
16 41 (0.97%) CCNP
17 40 (0.95%) ITIL Certification
18 39 (0.92%) CISM
19 35 (0.83%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 149 (3.52%) GDPR
2 132 (3.12%) QA
3 130 (3.08%) SLA
4 102 (2.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 84 (1.99%) Data Quality
6 83 (1.96%) NIST
6 83 (1.96%) PMO
7 69 (1.63%) Accessibility
8 57 (1.35%) HIPAA
9 39 (0.92%) PCI DSS
10 29 (0.69%) GRC
10 29 (0.69%) SOC 2
11 25 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 19 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
13 16 (0.38%) NCSC
14 14 (0.33%) MiFID
15 13 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 13 (0.31%) Disclosure Scotland
16 9 (0.21%) GxP
16 9 (0.21%) WCAG
System Software
1 953 (22.55%) Active Directory
2 195 (4.61%) VMware Infrastructure
3 82 (1.94%) Docker
4 68 (1.61%) Hyper-V
5 66 (1.56%) vSphere
6 64 (1.51%) Virtual Machines
7 61 (1.44%) VMware ESXi
8 43 (1.02%) BitLocker
9 42 (0.99%) Virtual Desktop
10 33 (0.78%) Virtual Servers
11 29 (0.69%) Microsoft App-V
12 28 (0.66%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 13 (0.31%) NFS
13 13 (0.31%) Terminal Services
13 13 (0.31%) VMware NSX
13 13 (0.31%) XenApp
14 11 (0.26%) XenDesktop
15 9 (0.21%) DFS Replication
15 9 (0.21%) Firmware
16 6 (0.14%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 372 (8.80%) Microsoft Intune
2 273 (6.46%) SCCM
3 202 (4.78%) Terraform
4 132 (3.12%) Kubernetes
5 114 (2.70%) Ansible
6 58 (1.37%) Jamf Pro
6 58 (1.37%) WSUS
7 55 (1.30%) Single Sign-On
8 35 (0.83%) vCenter Server
9 33 (0.78%) Puppet
10 26 (0.62%) Microsoft Clustering
11 23 (0.54%) SCOM
12 20 (0.47%) Grafana
13 17 (0.40%) CASB
14 16 (0.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 12 (0.28%) Kibana
15 12 (0.28%) Nagios
15 12 (0.28%) Progress Chef
15 12 (0.28%) Prometheus
15 12 (0.28%) vMotion
Vendors
1 331 (7.83%) ServiceNow
2 273 (6.46%) VMware
3 221 (5.23%) Cisco
4 208 (4.92%) Oracle
5 189 (4.47%) SAP
6 161 (3.81%) Google
7 138 (3.26%) Citrix
8 117 (2.77%) Salesforce
9 116 (2.74%) Splunk
10 102 (2.41%) Apple
11 97 (2.29%) Databricks
12 81 (1.92%) HP
13 71 (1.68%) Dell
14 46 (1.09%) IBM
14 46 (1.09%) Veeam
15 44 (1.04%) Meraki
16 43 (1.02%) Adobe
17 42 (0.99%) CyberArk
17 42 (0.99%) Red Hat
17 42 (0.99%) Zscaler