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 12 August 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
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 6,627 4,574 5,040
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.42% 13.87% 12.94%
As % of the Vendors category 29.85% 29.37% 29.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,328 2,931 3,278
10th Percentile £214 £213 £200
25th Percentile £375 £350 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +2.79% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £586 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £437 £450
% change year-on-year +2.97% -2.89% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 427 373 356
10th Percentile £13.65 £13.75 £11.79
25th Percentile £16.00 £16.00 £14.48
Median hourly rate £21.00 £22.32 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year -5.89% +37.49% -27.87%
75th Percentile £37.38 £30.63 £43.82
90th Percentile £70.53 £63.37 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.09 £20.26 £16.23
% change year-on-year -0.81% +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 22,198 15,572 17,016
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.59% 47.24% 43.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,745 9,526 10,606
10th Percentile £313 £280 £288
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +1.40% -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £606 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,146 796 841
10th Percentile £14.85 £14.48 £13.69
25th Percentile £18.27 £17.24 £15.62
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £29.77
Median % change year-on-year +29.22% -15.52% -27.06%
75th Percentile £65.00 £47.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £83.43 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.96 £21.30 £28.00
% change year-on-year +50.06% -23.93% -18.84%

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 12 August 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 12 August 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 12 August 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 5,789 £490 +3.16% 6,652
UK excluding London -1 3,530 £450 +2.97% 4,885
London -2 2,532 £513 +2.50% 2,731
Work from Home +3 1,740 £500 - 2,852
South East -1 908 £475 +1.20% 1,342
North of England -4 894 £450 +3.45% 1,192
Midlands -2 616 £448 +15.48% 768
North West +1 522 £450 +2.80% 640
South West 0 438 £470 +10.59% 547
West Midlands -5 422 £450 +12.50% 457
Yorkshire -5 344 £475 +9.32% 378
Scotland +7 321 £450 - 339
East of England -1 252 £388 -22.50% 469
East Midlands +2 184 £425 +20.74% 311
Wales +1 102 £413 +39.83% 161
North East -39 32 £450 +35.34% 191
Northern Ireland -3 31 £369 +2.08% 158
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
1 772 (11.65%) SharePoint
2 403 (6.08%) Microsoft Exchange
3 145 (2.19%) Confluence
4 40 (0.60%) Apache Spark
5 39 (0.59%) Apache
6 31 (0.47%) Apache Airflow
7 22 (0.33%) IIS
8 21 (0.32%) Skype for Business
9 19 (0.29%) CMS
10 18 (0.27%) HCL Notes
11 13 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
12 12 (0.18%) SharePoint Server
13 10 (0.15%) SAS
14 9 (0.14%) nginx
15 6 (0.091%) Apache Superset
15 6 (0.091%) Exchange Server 2010
15 6 (0.091%) Jupyter
15 6 (0.091%) Mendix
15 6 (0.091%) SharePoint 2013
15 6 (0.091%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 643 (9.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 626 (9.45%) Microsoft Office
3 269 (4.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 173 (2.61%) Microsoft Project
5 108 (1.63%) MS Visio
6 45 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
7 25 (0.38%) Chatbot
8 12 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.14%) AutoCAD
10 7 (0.11%) ProjectWise
11 6 (0.091%) Navisworks
11 6 (0.091%) Revit
12 4 (0.060%) Adobe Illustrator
12 4 (0.060%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.045%) Adobe Premiere
13 3 (0.045%) Final Cut Pro
13 3 (0.045%) MicroStation
13 3 (0.045%) Trello
14 2 (0.030%) Adobe Captivate
14 2 (0.030%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 238 (3.59%) Dynamics CRM
2 74 (1.12%) SAP S/4HANA
3 29 (0.44%) Remedy ITSM
4 22 (0.33%) Dynamics NAV
5 21 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
6 20 (0.30%) NetSuite
7 14 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
8 13 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.18%) Primavera
10 10 (0.15%) Aladdin
10 10 (0.15%) Magento
11 9 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
12 8 (0.12%) Sage X3
13 7 (0.11%) Integrated Workplace Management System
13 7 (0.11%) iTrent
13 7 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
13 7 (0.11%) SAP CRM
13 7 (0.11%) SAP PSCD
14 6 (0.091%) Dynamics GP
14 6 (0.091%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,783 (41.99%) Azure
2 1,684 (25.41%) Microsoft 365
3 1,159 (17.49%) Power Platform
4 1,008 (15.21%) Entra ID
5 585 (8.83%) AWS
6 565 (8.53%) Azure DevOps
7 560 (8.45%) Dynamics 365
8 397 (5.99%) Power Automate
9 363 (5.48%) Microsoft Copilot
10 358 (5.40%) PowerApps
11 302 (4.56%) Microsoft Purview
12 290 (4.38%) GitHub
13 251 (3.79%) OneDrive
14 233 (3.52%) SaaS
15 219 (3.30%) GCP
16 179 (2.70%) Azure Data Factory
17 163 (2.46%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 155 (2.34%) Azure Monitor
18 155 (2.34%) Serverless
19 152 (2.29%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 369 (5.57%) DNS
2 337 (5.09%) Firewall
3 276 (4.16%) VPN
4 231 (3.49%) DHCP
5 185 (2.79%) TCP/IP
6 162 (2.44%) WAN
7 153 (2.31%) Network Security
8 146 (2.20%) LAN
8 146 (2.20%) Wi-Fi
9 76 (1.15%) VLAN
10 51 (0.77%) Wireless
11 48 (0.72%) SAN
12 43 (0.65%) MPLS
13 35 (0.53%) SSL
13 35 (0.53%) Unified Communications
14 33 (0.50%) Skype
15 31 (0.47%) SD-WAN
16 30 (0.45%) Internet
17 28 (0.42%) BGP
17 28 (0.42%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 721 (10.88%) Power BI
2 377 (5.69%) SQL Server
3 191 (2.88%) Data Warehouse
4 135 (2.04%) Data Lake
4 135 (2.04%) PostgreSQL
5 133 (2.01%) Metadata
6 129 (1.95%) Azure SQL Database
7 73 (1.10%) Relational Database
8 72 (1.09%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 69 (1.04%) Power Query
10 66 (1.00%) MySQL
11 56 (0.85%) NoSQL
12 45 (0.68%) Oracle Database
12 45 (0.68%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 42 (0.63%) Star Schema
14 36 (0.54%) Delta Lake
15 34 (0.51%) Tableau
16 27 (0.41%) SQL Server Analysis Services
17 26 (0.39%) MongoDB
18 24 (0.36%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 318 (4.80%) JIRA
2 199 (3.00%) Git
3 94 (1.42%) Jenkins
4 72 (1.09%) GitLab
5 59 (0.89%) Visual Studio
6 38 (0.57%) MSI
7 33 (0.50%) Selenium
8 19 (0.29%) Postman
9 17 (0.26%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.26%) WebDriver
10 16 (0.24%) Team Foundation Server
11 14 (0.21%) Claude Code
11 14 (0.21%) MLflow
12 13 (0.20%) Cucumber
12 13 (0.20%) Cypress.io
13 12 (0.18%) Artifactory
13 12 (0.18%) Bitbucket
13 12 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
14 11 (0.17%) ERwin
14 11 (0.17%) Maven
General
1 2,284 (34.47%) Social Skills
2 1,334 (20.13%) Finance
3 841 (12.69%) Analytical Skills
4 630 (9.51%) Public Sector
5 325 (4.90%) Banking
5 325 (4.90%) Organisational Skills
6 229 (3.46%) Legal
7 180 (2.72%) Documentation Skills
8 151 (2.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 142 (2.14%) Manufacturing
10 134 (2.02%) Retail
11 114 (1.72%) Telecoms
12 106 (1.60%) Law
13 103 (1.55%) Marketing
14 93 (1.40%) Local Government
15 82 (1.24%) Military
16 80 (1.21%) Influencing Skills
17 68 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
18 64 (0.97%) Investment Banking
19 58 (0.88%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 755 (11.39%) Architect
2 681 (10.28%) Analyst
3 608 (9.17%) Developer
4 581 (8.77%) Senior
5 467 (7.05%) Lead
6 411 (6.20%) Consultant
6 411 (6.20%) IT Support
7 377 (5.69%) Support Engineer
8 261 (3.94%) IT Engineer
9 254 (3.83%) Solutions Architect
10 248 (3.74%) Data Engineer
11 237 (3.58%) Azure Engineer
12 236 (3.56%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 219 (3.30%) Project Manager
14 216 (3.26%) Administrator
15 208 (3.14%) IT Support Engineer
16 182 (2.75%) Business Analyst
17 168 (2.54%) Cloud Engineer
18 130 (1.96%) Security Engineer
19 116 (1.75%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 315 (4.75%) .NET
2 254 (3.83%) REST
3 128 (1.93%) JSON
4 114 (1.72%) OAuth
5 108 (1.63%) Microsoft Graph
6 105 (1.58%) PySpark
7 98 (1.48%) XML
8 93 (1.40%) SAML
9 91 (1.37%) OpenID
10 89 (1.34%) .NET Framework
11 84 (1.27%) Web Services
12 78 (1.18%) React
13 73 (1.10%) ARM Templates
14 70 (1.06%) RESTful
15 68 (1.03%) LDAP
16 67 (1.01%) HTML
16 67 (1.01%) OAuth2
17 65 (0.98%) SOAP
18 63 (0.95%) SailPoint
19 60 (0.91%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 458 (6.91%) Onboarding
2 311 (4.69%) Cloud Native
3 208 (3.14%) Management Information System
4 185 (2.79%) Product Ownership
5 171 (2.58%) Enterprise Software
6 143 (2.16%) Hybrid Cloud
7 139 (2.10%) Legacy Systems
8 130 (1.96%) PKI
9 126 (1.90%) AI Agents
9 126 (1.90%) Security Posture
10 123 (1.86%) Data Centre
11 93 (1.40%) Data Structures
12 89 (1.34%) Self-Motivation
13 85 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
14 78 (1.18%) Virtual Team
15 76 (1.15%) Low-Code
16 72 (1.09%) Driving Licence
17 67 (1.01%) Distributed Systems
18 64 (0.97%) CMDB
19 62 (0.94%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,407 (21.23%) Windows
2 405 (6.11%) Windows Server
3 340 (5.13%) Windows 10
4 315 (4.75%) Linux
5 131 (1.98%) Mac OS
6 122 (1.84%) Android
7 114 (1.72%) Apple iOS
8 59 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 44 (0.66%) Unix
10 41 (0.62%) Windows 7
11 38 (0.57%) Windows Server 2019
12 34 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
13 31 (0.47%) VMS
14 27 (0.41%) Ubuntu
15 22 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
16 14 (0.21%) CentOS
17 12 (0.18%) Solaris
17 12 (0.18%) SUSE
18 10 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
19 6 (0.091%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,189 (17.94%) Problem-Solving
2 1,058 (15.96%) DevOps
3 1,015 (15.32%) Agile
4 986 (14.88%) Stakeholder Management
5 949 (14.32%) Migration
6 865 (13.05%) CI/CD
7 771 (11.63%) Continuous Improvement
8 755 (11.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 753 (11.36%) AI
10 731 (11.03%) Business Intelligence
11 689 (10.40%) Analytics
12 639 (9.64%) ITIL
13 561 (8.47%) Customer Service
14 498 (7.51%) Infrastructure as Code
15 488 (7.36%) Data Modelling
16 485 (7.32%) Cybersecurity
17 477 (7.20%) Roadmaps
18 441 (6.65%) Project Delivery
19 426 (6.43%) Decision-Making
20 424 (6.40%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 835 (12.60%) SQL
2 723 (10.91%) PowerShell
3 684 (10.32%) Python
4 325 (4.90%) C#
5 243 (3.67%) JavaScript
6 187 (2.82%) Bicep
7 185 (2.79%) Java
8 143 (2.16%) Bash
9 112 (1.69%) T-SQL
10 108 (1.63%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 84 (1.27%) TypeScript
12 67 (1.01%) Kusto Query Language
13 39 (0.59%) VBA
14 31 (0.47%) C++
14 31 (0.47%) VB
15 26 (0.39%) VBScript
16 25 (0.38%) PL/SQL
17 21 (0.32%) X++
18 17 (0.26%) Scala
19 16 (0.24%) R
Qualifications
1 1,389 (20.96%) Security Cleared
2 1,052 (15.87%) SC Cleared
3 633 (9.55%) Degree
4 349 (5.27%) Microsoft Certification
5 262 (3.95%) DV Cleared
6 241 (3.64%) Azure Certification
7 160 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
8 127 (1.92%) CISSP
9 126 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
10 118 (1.78%) Computer Science Degree
11 91 (1.37%) PMP
12 84 (1.27%) PMI Certification
13 68 (1.03%) AWS Certification
13 68 (1.03%) CISM
14 57 (0.86%) CCNP
15 50 (0.75%) Master's Degree
16 49 (0.74%) A+ Certification
16 49 (0.74%) DBS Check
17 48 (0.72%) CCNA
18 42 (0.63%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 366 (5.52%) Data Quality
2 225 (3.40%) GDPR
2 225 (3.40%) QA
3 197 (2.97%) SLA
4 185 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 166 (2.50%) PMO
6 161 (2.43%) NIST
7 108 (1.63%) Accessibility
8 82 (1.24%) NCSC
9 78 (1.18%) Cyber Essentials
10 47 (0.71%) GRC
11 38 (0.57%) WCAG
12 34 (0.51%) PCI DSS
13 33 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 32 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 19 (0.29%) Disclosure Scotland
16 15 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
16 15 (0.23%) NIST 800
16 15 (0.23%) P3O
17 14 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,274 (19.22%) Active Directory
2 244 (3.68%) Docker
3 240 (3.62%) VMware Infrastructure
4 130 (1.96%) Hyper-V
5 107 (1.61%) Virtual Desktop
6 96 (1.45%) Virtual Machines
7 61 (0.92%) vSphere
8 58 (0.88%) VMware ESXi
9 36 (0.54%) BitLocker
10 24 (0.36%) VMware NSX
11 20 (0.30%) Microsoft App-V
12 18 (0.27%) Firmware
13 8 (0.12%) NFS
13 8 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
14 7 (0.11%) IAG
14 7 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
14 7 (0.11%) zsh
15 5 (0.075%) Terminal Services
15 5 (0.075%) VMware Workstation
16 3 (0.045%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 540 (8.15%) Microsoft Intune
2 491 (7.41%) Terraform
3 320 (4.83%) Kubernetes
4 249 (3.76%) SCCM
5 165 (2.49%) Ansible
6 117 (1.77%) Single Sign-On
7 59 (0.89%) Jamf Pro
8 54 (0.81%) Grafana
9 52 (0.78%) vCenter Server
10 40 (0.60%) SCOM
11 36 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 36 (0.54%) Prometheus
12 25 (0.38%) WSUS
13 22 (0.33%) Puppet
14 21 (0.32%) FortiGate
14 21 (0.32%) QRadar
15 20 (0.30%) Progress Chef
16 16 (0.24%) Argo
17 15 (0.23%) Failover Clustering
18 13 (0.20%) Avamar
Vendors
1 484 (7.30%) ServiceNow
2 331 (4.99%) VMware
3 311 (4.69%) Oracle
4 259 (3.91%) SAP
5 224 (3.38%) Databricks
6 223 (3.37%) Google
7 215 (3.24%) Cisco
8 120 (1.81%) Salesforce
9 106 (1.60%) Citrix
10 104 (1.57%) Splunk
11 98 (1.48%) Apple
12 86 (1.30%) CyberArk
13 78 (1.18%) Foundry
13 78 (1.18%) Okta
14 74 (1.12%) OpenAI
15 69 (1.04%) CrowdStrike
16 64 (0.97%) Red Hat
17 63 (0.95%) BeyondTrust
18 57 (0.86%) Zscaler
19 52 (0.78%) Meraki