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 31 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
31 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,719 3,946 5,569
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.64% 13.56% 12.98%
As % of the Vendors category 28.44% 28.39% 30.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,805 2,567 3,636
10th Percentile £210 £212 £190
25th Percentile £375 £343 £338
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +3.89% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £585 £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 372 270 475
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.33 £15.62 £13.09
Median hourly rate £20.35 £18.87 £15.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.84% +21.74% -31.20%
75th Percentile £30.28 £29.84 £25.00
90th Percentile £65.00 £57.76 £55.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.09 £18.85 £15.00
% change year-on-year +6.58% +25.67% -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 20,109 13,901 18,154
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.93% 47.75% 42.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,663 8,623 11,336
10th Percentile £313 £281 £263
25th Percentile £413 £405 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £515
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -0.97% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £618 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £494 £489 £500
% change year-on-year +1.02% -2.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,040 593 1,120
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.11
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £14.48
Median hourly rate £32.50 £26.04 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +24.81% +15.73% -47.67%
75th Percentile £58.75 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £76.52 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.50 £22.50 £21.50
% change year-on-year +31.11% +4.65% -45.64%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 5,011 £496 +3.97% 2,415
UK excluding London -1 2,981 £450 +5.88% 2,264
London -3 2,227 £515 -1.27% 630
Work from Home 0 1,436 £500 - 946
North of England -3 773 £450 +7.14% 531
South East -1 687 £475 +2.15% 732
Midlands -3 514 £447 +11.75% 356
North West -3 399 £433 +1.82% 291
West Midlands -5 360 £450 +12.50% 200
Yorkshire -2 355 £474 +11.53% 167
South West -2 352 £450 +1.41% 241
East of England 0 318 £375 -25.00% 266
Scotland +5 241 £450 +4.65% 99
East Midlands -1 147 £400 -2.44% 157
Wales +1 97 £358 +25.44% 77
North East -29 24 £450 +35.34% 77
Northern Ireland -1 21 £450 +38.46% 21
Channel Islands -2 2 £550 +84.87%

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
1 615 (10.75%) SharePoint
2 378 (6.61%) Microsoft Exchange
3 108 (1.89%) Confluence
4 40 (0.70%) Apache Spark
5 29 (0.51%) Apache
6 26 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
7 24 (0.42%) HCL Notes
8 20 (0.35%) CMS
9 15 (0.26%) Skype for Business
10 14 (0.24%) SAS
11 13 (0.23%) IIS
12 12 (0.21%) Mendix
13 6 (0.10%) Camunda
13 6 (0.10%) Jupyter
13 6 (0.10%) Oracle Workflow
14 5 (0.087%) Appian
14 5 (0.087%) ArcGIS
14 5 (0.087%) OpenEdge
15 4 (0.070%) Exchange Server 2013
15 4 (0.070%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 551 (9.63%) Microsoft Office
2 493 (8.62%) Microsoft Excel
3 217 (3.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 116 (2.03%) Microsoft Project
5 92 (1.61%) MS Visio
6 50 (0.87%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.30%) Chatbot
8 12 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.10%) Adobe Illustrator
10 5 (0.087%) Acrobat
10 5 (0.087%) PTC Creo
10 5 (0.087%) Trello
11 4 (0.070%) InDesign
11 4 (0.070%) SOLIDWORKS
12 3 (0.052%) Adobe Captivate
12 3 (0.052%) AutoCAD
12 3 (0.052%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.035%) InfoPath
13 2 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 202 (3.53%) Dynamics CRM
2 73 (1.28%) SAP S/4HANA
3 24 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.31%) NetSuite
5 15 (0.26%) Aladdin
6 14 (0.24%) Dynamics NAV
6 14 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
8 11 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
8 11 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
9 10 (0.17%) Maximo
9 10 (0.17%) Sage X3
9 10 (0.17%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 8 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
10 8 (0.14%) Loan IQ
11 6 (0.10%) Dynamics GP
11 6 (0.10%) NEC Housing
11 6 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
11 6 (0.10%) Primavera
11 6 (0.10%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,424 (42.39%) Azure
2 1,460 (25.53%) Microsoft 365
3 965 (16.87%) Power Platform
4 753 (13.17%) Entra ID
5 469 (8.20%) AWS
6 459 (8.03%) Dynamics 365
7 453 (7.92%) Azure DevOps
8 330 (5.77%) Power Automate
9 308 (5.39%) Microsoft Purview
10 294 (5.14%) PowerApps
11 256 (4.48%) Microsoft Copilot
12 250 (4.37%) GitHub
13 220 (3.85%) OneDrive
14 207 (3.62%) SaaS
15 186 (3.25%) Azure Data Factory
16 177 (3.09%) GCP
17 174 (3.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 156 (2.73%) Serverless
19 144 (2.52%) PaaS
20 141 (2.47%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 296 (5.18%) DNS
2 266 (4.65%) Firewall
3 214 (3.74%) VPN
4 185 (3.23%) DHCP
5 140 (2.45%) WAN
6 139 (2.43%) Wi-Fi
7 125 (2.19%) LAN
8 116 (2.03%) Network Security
9 112 (1.96%) TCP/IP
10 54 (0.94%) VLAN
11 53 (0.93%) Kerberos
12 46 (0.80%) SD-WAN
13 38 (0.66%) SAN
14 37 (0.65%) Wireless
15 35 (0.61%) SSL
16 30 (0.52%) HTTP
16 30 (0.52%) Unified Communications
17 29 (0.51%) Skype
18 25 (0.44%) IPsec
18 25 (0.44%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 588 (10.28%) Power BI
2 273 (4.77%) SQL Server
3 177 (3.09%) Data Warehouse
4 154 (2.69%) Data Lake
5 120 (2.10%) Azure SQL Database
6 115 (2.01%) Metadata
7 102 (1.78%) PostgreSQL
8 70 (1.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 66 (1.15%) Relational Database
10 49 (0.86%) Power Query
11 48 (0.84%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 46 (0.80%) NoSQL
12 46 (0.80%) Tableau
13 45 (0.79%) MySQL
14 40 (0.70%) Delta Lake
14 40 (0.70%) Star Schema
15 38 (0.66%) Oracle Database
16 31 (0.54%) Spark SQL
17 29 (0.51%) SQL Server Analysis Services
18 25 (0.44%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 275 (4.81%) JIRA
2 166 (2.90%) Git
3 64 (1.12%) Jenkins
4 61 (1.07%) GitLab
5 33 (0.58%) Visual Studio
6 24 (0.42%) Artifactory
7 20 (0.35%) Eclipse
8 19 (0.33%) MSI
9 15 (0.26%) ERwin
9 15 (0.26%) MLflow
9 15 (0.26%) Selenium
10 14 (0.24%) Visual Studio Code
11 13 (0.23%) JMeter
11 13 (0.23%) Postman
12 12 (0.21%) Maven
13 11 (0.19%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.17%) Team Foundation Server
15 9 (0.16%) Browser DevTools
15 9 (0.16%) Gatling
16 8 (0.14%) Android Studio
General
1 1,864 (32.59%) Social Skills
2 1,135 (19.85%) Finance
3 622 (10.88%) Analytical Skills
4 507 (8.87%) Public Sector
5 297 (5.19%) Banking
6 250 (4.37%) Legal
7 242 (4.23%) Organisational Skills
8 140 (2.45%) Documentation Skills
9 99 (1.73%) Manufacturing
10 97 (1.70%) Law
11 94 (1.64%) Retail
12 85 (1.49%) Presentation Skills
13 81 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 79 (1.38%) Marketing
15 76 (1.33%) Telecoms
16 71 (1.24%) Local Government
17 70 (1.22%) Military
18 57 (1.00%) Investment Banking
19 56 (0.98%) Influencing Skills
20 47 (0.82%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 706 (12.34%) Architect
2 616 (10.77%) Analyst
3 513 (8.97%) Developer
4 472 (8.25%) Senior
5 367 (6.42%) IT Support
6 362 (6.33%) Lead
7 321 (5.61%) Consultant
8 266 (4.65%) Support Engineer
9 235 (4.11%) Data Engineer
10 207 (3.62%) Azure Engineer
11 203 (3.55%) Solutions Architect
12 200 (3.50%) Project Manager
13 183 (3.20%) Business Analyst
13 183 (3.20%) IT Engineer
14 175 (3.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 165 (2.89%) Administrator
16 138 (2.41%) IT Support Engineer
17 122 (2.13%) Security Engineer
18 111 (1.94%) DevOps Engineer
19 107 (1.87%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 246 (4.30%) .NET
2 179 (3.13%) REST
3 135 (2.36%) Microsoft Graph
4 108 (1.89%) OAuth
5 107 (1.87%) PySpark
6 100 (1.75%) SAML
7 91 (1.59%) JSON
8 84 (1.47%) React
9 82 (1.43%) OpenID
10 79 (1.38%) LDAP
11 73 (1.28%) Web Services
12 63 (1.10%) Middleware
13 55 (0.96%) Node.js
13 55 (0.96%) XML
14 53 (0.93%) SailPoint
15 52 (0.91%) ARM Templates
15 52 (0.91%) HTML
16 50 (0.87%) OAuth2
17 49 (0.86%) AngularJS
17 49 (0.86%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 304 (5.32%) Onboarding
2 238 (4.16%) Cloud Native
3 173 (3.03%) Product Ownership
4 131 (2.29%) Management Information System
5 104 (1.82%) Data Centre
6 103 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
7 100 (1.75%) Hybrid Cloud
7 100 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
8 90 (1.57%) Security Posture
9 85 (1.49%) AI Agents
10 82 (1.43%) PKI
11 81 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
12 78 (1.36%) Replication
13 73 (1.28%) Data Structures
14 72 (1.26%) Low-Code
15 69 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
16 63 (1.10%) Virtual Team
17 48 (0.84%) Operational Technology
17 48 (0.84%) Public Cloud
18 46 (0.80%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 1,237 (21.63%) Windows
2 332 (5.81%) Windows 10
3 294 (5.14%) Windows Server
4 260 (4.55%) Linux
5 114 (1.99%) Mac OS
6 111 (1.94%) Apple iOS
7 108 (1.89%) Android
8 45 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 44 (0.77%) Windows 7
10 40 (0.70%) Unix
10 40 (0.70%) Windows Server 2016
11 31 (0.54%) VMS
12 30 (0.52%) Windows Server 2019
13 21 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
14 16 (0.28%) Ubuntu
15 15 (0.26%) Windows Server 2003
16 11 (0.19%) CentOS
17 6 (0.10%) AIX
18 4 (0.070%) Solaris
18 4 (0.070%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 975 (17.05%) Problem-Solving
2 922 (16.12%) DevOps
3 864 (15.11%) Agile
4 812 (14.20%) Migration
5 766 (13.39%) CI/CD
6 625 (10.93%) Business Intelligence
7 619 (10.82%) Analytics
8 588 (10.28%) Stakeholder Management
9 578 (10.11%) AI
10 522 (9.13%) Continuous Improvement
11 503 (8.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 479 (8.38%) ITIL
13 440 (7.69%) Customer Service
14 431 (7.54%) Data Modelling
15 404 (7.06%) Roadmaps
16 378 (6.61%) Cybersecurity
17 357 (6.24%) Decision-Making
18 341 (5.96%) Infrastructure as Code
19 328 (5.74%) Project Delivery
20 326 (5.70%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 729 (12.75%) SQL
2 653 (11.42%) PowerShell
3 601 (10.51%) Python
4 262 (4.58%) C#
5 201 (3.51%) JavaScript
6 185 (3.23%) Java
7 137 (2.40%) Bicep
8 96 (1.68%) T-SQL
9 86 (1.50%) Kusto Query Language
10 77 (1.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 72 (1.26%) Bash
12 66 (1.15%) TypeScript
13 36 (0.63%) VBA
14 30 (0.52%) VB
15 28 (0.49%) C++
16 27 (0.47%) PL/SQL
17 18 (0.31%) Scala
18 16 (0.28%) VBScript
19 15 (0.26%) R
20 13 (0.23%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 1,075 (18.80%) Security Cleared
2 841 (14.71%) SC Cleared
3 552 (9.65%) Degree
4 266 (4.65%) Microsoft Certification
5 185 (3.23%) Azure Certification
6 177 (3.09%) DV Cleared
7 123 (2.15%) Computer Science Degree
8 117 (2.05%) CISSP
9 97 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
10 84 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
11 66 (1.15%) CISM
12 58 (1.01%) PMP
13 55 (0.96%) PMI Certification
14 52 (0.91%) Master's Degree
15 43 (0.75%) AWS Certification
16 42 (0.73%) MCSE
17 41 (0.72%) DBS Check
18 36 (0.63%) CCNP
19 32 (0.56%) MCSA
20 31 (0.54%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 292 (5.11%) Data Quality
2 233 (4.07%) GDPR
3 185 (3.23%) QA
4 165 (2.89%) SLA
5 149 (2.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 127 (2.22%) NIST
7 102 (1.78%) PMO
8 76 (1.33%) Accessibility
8 76 (1.33%) Cyber Essentials
9 54 (0.94%) NCSC
10 38 (0.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 36 (0.63%) GRC
12 32 (0.56%) PCI DSS
13 28 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 22 (0.38%) NIST 800
15 19 (0.33%) MiFID
16 18 (0.31%) SOC 2
17 16 (0.28%) WCAG
18 13 (0.23%) FINRA
18 13 (0.23%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,080 (18.88%) Active Directory
2 215 (3.76%) Docker
3 199 (3.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 104 (1.82%) Hyper-V
5 79 (1.38%) Virtual Desktop
6 72 (1.26%) Virtual Machines
7 59 (1.03%) VMware ESXi
8 54 (0.94%) vSphere
9 30 (0.52%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.40%) VMware NSX
11 19 (0.33%) Microsoft App-V
12 18 (0.31%) Firmware
13 7 (0.12%) NFS
14 6 (0.10%) IAG
14 6 (0.10%) RACF
15 5 (0.087%) Oracle RAC
15 5 (0.087%) VMware Workstation
16 4 (0.070%) Snort
16 4 (0.070%) XenDesktop
17 3 (0.052%) Squid
Systems Management
1 453 (7.92%) Microsoft Intune
2 353 (6.17%) Terraform
3 252 (4.41%) Kubernetes
4 202 (3.53%) SCCM
5 127 (2.22%) Ansible
6 124 (2.17%) Single Sign-On
7 80 (1.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 51 (0.89%) vCenter Server
9 47 (0.82%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (0.63%) Grafana
11 32 (0.56%) Prometheus
12 24 (0.42%) FortiGate
13 22 (0.38%) SCOM
14 17 (0.30%) Puppet
15 15 (0.26%) AirWatch
15 15 (0.26%) QRadar
16 13 (0.23%) WSUS
17 12 (0.21%) HAProxy
17 12 (0.21%) ServiceCenter
18 10 (0.17%) CASB
Vendors
1 305 (5.33%) ServiceNow
2 271 (4.74%) VMware
3 225 (3.93%) Databricks
4 224 (3.92%) SAP
5 220 (3.85%) Oracle
6 193 (3.37%) Cisco
7 162 (2.83%) Google
8 108 (1.89%) Citrix
9 107 (1.87%) Salesforce
10 98 (1.71%) Splunk
11 81 (1.42%) OpenAI
12 74 (1.29%) Apple
13 66 (1.15%) Foundry
14 61 (1.07%) CrowdStrike
15 55 (0.96%) CyberArk
16 53 (0.93%) Okta
17 50 (0.87%) HP
18 47 (0.82%) Adobe
19 44 (0.77%) Palo Alto
20 43 (0.75%) Dell