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 9 April 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
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 11 7
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,584 3,900 5,652
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.20% 13.35% 12.84%
As % of the Vendors category 28.33% 28.22% 30.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,765 2,632 3,753
10th Percentile £206 £210 £189
25th Percentile £371 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £580 £587 £600
90th Percentile £675 £667 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £463
% change year-on-year - -2.70% +0.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 382 205 432
10th Percentile £13.51 £14.59 £11.06
25th Percentile £16.35 £15.84 £12.86
Median hourly rate £20.09 £22.27 £15.46
Median % change year-on-year -9.79% +44.05% -31.15%
75th Percentile £28.17 £30.63 £23.97
90th Percentile £65.00 £61.40 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.91 £20.75 £15.00
% change year-on-year -4.05% +38.33% -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 19,708 13,821 18,770
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.05% 47.29% 42.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,620 8,740 11,724
10th Percentile £313 £293 £258
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% - -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £626
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 984 510 1,060
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.25 £12.11
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.90 £14.41
Median hourly rate £27.72 £28.68 £22.54
Median % change year-on-year -3.35% +27.22% -46.08%
75th Percentile £59.25 £60.72 £57.37
90th Percentile £78.60 £80.15 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.38 £25.82 £21.50
% change year-on-year -1.69% +20.08% -43.42%

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 9 April 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 9 April 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 9 April 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 4,900 £492 +3.58% 3,243
UK excluding London 0 2,915 £450 - 2,912
London -2 2,136 £513 +2.50% 867
Work from Home -1 1,388 £500 - 1,234
North of England +1 797 £447 +5.18% 701
South East -3 648 £480 -4.00% 876
Midlands -5 501 £444 +4.35% 451
North West -2 442 £416 -7.67% 370
East of England 0 350 £400 -3.03% 304
West Midlands -6 348 £463 +8.82% 243
South West -2 329 £490 +3.16% 336
Yorkshire +6 328 £454 +13.50% 237
Scotland +2 196 £425 +5.07% 170
East Midlands 0 148 £377 -11.35% 207
Wales +2 98 £310 +8.77% 102
North East -18 33 £450 +28.57% 104
Northern Ireland +4 23 £450 +38.46% 39
Channel Islands -3 1 - - 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
1 616 (11.03%) SharePoint
2 416 (7.45%) Microsoft Exchange
3 109 (1.95%) Confluence
4 29 (0.52%) Apache Spark
5 22 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.38%) Apache
6 21 (0.38%) CMS
7 20 (0.36%) Skype for Business
8 17 (0.30%) HCL Notes
9 16 (0.29%) SAS
10 10 (0.18%) IIS
10 10 (0.18%) Mendix
11 7 (0.13%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.090%) Camunda
12 5 (0.090%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.072%) Drupal
13 4 (0.072%) Exchange Server 2010
13 4 (0.072%) Exchange Server 2013
13 4 (0.072%) Jupyter
14 3 (0.054%) Oracle Application Server
Applications
1 595 (10.66%) Microsoft Office
2 528 (9.46%) Microsoft Excel
3 232 (4.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 129 (2.31%) Microsoft Project
5 101 (1.81%) MS Visio
6 78 (1.40%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.27%) Chatbot
8 10 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 10 (0.18%) Trello
9 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
9 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
10 5 (0.090%) PTC Creo
11 4 (0.072%) Adobe Captivate
11 4 (0.072%) InDesign
12 3 (0.054%) AutoCAD
12 3 (0.054%) Photoshop
12 3 (0.054%) SOLIDWORKS
13 2 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
13 2 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 199 (3.56%) Dynamics CRM
2 54 (0.97%) SAP S/4HANA
3 22 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
4 16 (0.29%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.25%) Aladdin
5 14 (0.25%) Maximo
6 13 (0.23%) NetSuite
6 13 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
7 11 (0.20%) Teamcenter
8 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 8 (0.14%) Sage X3
9 8 (0.14%) Shopify
10 7 (0.13%) SystmOne
11 6 (0.11%) Advent Geneva
11 6 (0.11%) Dynamics AX
11 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
11 6 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
11 6 (0.11%) SAP MM
12 5 (0.090%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 2,296 (41.12%) Azure
2 1,437 (25.73%) Microsoft 365
3 930 (16.65%) Power Platform
4 719 (12.88%) Entra ID
5 466 (8.35%) AWS
6 461 (8.26%) Dynamics 365
7 455 (8.15%) Azure DevOps
8 348 (6.23%) Power Automate
9 314 (5.62%) PowerApps
10 279 (5.00%) Microsoft Purview
11 269 (4.82%) GitHub
12 217 (3.89%) Microsoft Copilot
13 209 (3.74%) OneDrive
14 196 (3.51%) Azure Data Factory
15 189 (3.38%) SaaS
16 180 (3.22%) Serverless
17 167 (2.99%) GCP
18 163 (2.92%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 151 (2.70%) PaaS
20 148 (2.65%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 309 (5.53%) Firewall
2 302 (5.41%) DNS
3 212 (3.80%) VPN
4 175 (3.13%) DHCP
5 147 (2.63%) Wi-Fi
6 137 (2.45%) WAN
7 124 (2.22%) Network Security
8 120 (2.15%) LAN
9 114 (2.04%) TCP/IP
10 59 (1.06%) VLAN
11 54 (0.97%) Kerberos
12 44 (0.79%) SD-WAN
13 41 (0.73%) Skype
14 39 (0.70%) Wireless
15 35 (0.63%) SAN
15 35 (0.63%) SSL
16 34 (0.61%) Unified Communications
17 29 (0.52%) HTTP
18 27 (0.48%) MPLS
19 23 (0.41%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 579 (10.37%) Power BI
2 284 (5.09%) SQL Server
3 180 (3.22%) Data Warehouse
4 156 (2.79%) Data Lake
5 121 (2.17%) Azure SQL Database
6 110 (1.97%) Metadata
7 104 (1.86%) PostgreSQL
8 71 (1.27%) Relational Database
8 71 (1.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 55 (0.98%) Oracle Database
10 53 (0.95%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 49 (0.88%) NoSQL
12 47 (0.84%) MySQL
12 47 (0.84%) Tableau
13 41 (0.73%) Power Query
14 40 (0.72%) Delta Lake
15 37 (0.66%) Star Schema
16 27 (0.48%) Spark SQL
17 26 (0.47%) Snowflake Schema
18 25 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 252 (4.51%) JIRA
2 176 (3.15%) Git
3 70 (1.25%) GitLab
4 67 (1.20%) Jenkins
5 25 (0.45%) Artifactory
6 24 (0.43%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.39%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.32%) MSI
8 18 (0.32%) Postman
9 17 (0.30%) Selenium
10 16 (0.29%) MLflow
11 15 (0.27%) JMeter
12 13 (0.23%) Cucumber
12 13 (0.23%) JUnit
12 13 (0.23%) Visual Studio Code
13 11 (0.20%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.20%) Maven
14 10 (0.18%) Android Studio
14 10 (0.18%) SpecFlow
15 9 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,983 (35.51%) Social Skills
2 1,116 (19.99%) Finance
3 655 (11.73%) Analytical Skills
4 537 (9.62%) Public Sector
5 295 (5.28%) Banking
6 252 (4.51%) Legal
6 252 (4.51%) Organisational Skills
7 156 (2.79%) Documentation Skills
8 118 (2.11%) Manufacturing
9 110 (1.97%) Presentation Skills
10 99 (1.77%) Marketing
11 93 (1.67%) Law
12 92 (1.65%) Telecoms
13 84 (1.50%) Retail
14 81 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 62 (1.11%) Local Government
16 61 (1.09%) Influencing Skills
16 61 (1.09%) Military
17 54 (0.97%) Investment Banking
18 42 (0.75%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 686 (12.29%) Architect
2 627 (11.23%) Analyst
3 529 (9.47%) Developer
4 444 (7.95%) Senior
5 372 (6.66%) IT Support
6 325 (5.82%) Lead
7 292 (5.23%) Consultant
8 276 (4.94%) Support Engineer
9 209 (3.74%) Data Engineer
10 203 (3.64%) Azure Engineer
11 201 (3.60%) Solutions Architect
12 198 (3.55%) IT Engineer
13 177 (3.17%) Administrator
14 176 (3.15%) Business Analyst
14 176 (3.15%) Project Manager
15 168 (3.01%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 150 (2.69%) IT Support Engineer
17 114 (2.04%) Security Engineer
18 111 (1.99%) DevOps Engineer
19 103 (1.84%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 261 (4.67%) .NET
2 182 (3.26%) REST
3 133 (2.38%) Microsoft Graph
4 119 (2.13%) OAuth
5 102 (1.83%) SAML
6 93 (1.67%) PySpark
6 93 (1.67%) React
7 82 (1.47%) OpenID
8 71 (1.27%) JSON
9 66 (1.18%) LDAP
10 64 (1.15%) Middleware
11 63 (1.13%) Web Services
12 61 (1.09%) HTML
13 60 (1.07%) ARM Templates
14 59 (1.06%) RESTful
15 58 (1.04%) OAuth2
16 57 (1.02%) AngularJS
17 53 (0.95%) CSS
17 53 (0.95%) Node.js
18 51 (0.91%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 281 (5.03%) Onboarding
2 226 (4.05%) Cloud Native
3 192 (3.44%) Product Ownership
4 128 (2.29%) Management Information System
5 111 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
6 99 (1.77%) Data Centre
7 91 (1.63%) Hybrid Cloud
8 87 (1.56%) PKI
8 87 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
9 83 (1.49%) Security Posture
10 79 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
11 75 (1.34%) AI Agents
12 74 (1.33%) Replication
13 68 (1.22%) Low-Code
14 67 (1.20%) Data Structures
15 64 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
16 59 (1.06%) NHS
17 58 (1.04%) Driving Licence
18 57 (1.02%) Virtual Team
19 46 (0.82%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,240 (22.21%) Windows
2 343 (6.14%) Windows 10
3 284 (5.09%) Windows Server
4 280 (5.01%) Linux
5 103 (1.84%) Android
6 98 (1.76%) Apple iOS
7 95 (1.70%) Mac OS
8 46 (0.82%) Windows 7
9 43 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 41 (0.73%) Windows Server 2016
11 40 (0.72%) Unix
12 29 (0.52%) VMS
13 24 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.38%) Windows Server 2003
15 20 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
16 11 (0.20%) CentOS
17 9 (0.16%) AIX
17 9 (0.16%) Ubuntu
18 4 (0.072%) Solaris
18 4 (0.072%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 990 (17.73%) Problem-Solving
2 893 (15.99%) Agile
3 873 (15.63%) DevOps
4 785 (14.06%) Migration
5 752 (13.47%) CI/CD
6 660 (11.82%) Business Intelligence
7 625 (11.19%) Analytics
8 537 (9.62%) AI
9 535 (9.58%) Stakeholder Management
10 510 (9.13%) Continuous Improvement
11 468 (8.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 464 (8.31%) Customer Service
13 428 (7.66%) ITIL
14 397 (7.11%) Data Modelling
15 375 (6.72%) Cybersecurity
16 342 (6.12%) Roadmaps
17 332 (5.95%) Infrastructure as Code
18 306 (5.48%) Project Management
19 299 (5.35%) Change Management
19 299 (5.35%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 739 (13.23%) SQL
2 669 (11.98%) PowerShell
3 628 (11.25%) Python
4 291 (5.21%) C#
5 223 (3.99%) JavaScript
6 174 (3.12%) Java
7 128 (2.29%) Bicep
8 104 (1.86%) Kusto Query Language
9 98 (1.76%) Bash
10 85 (1.52%) TypeScript
11 81 (1.45%) T-SQL
12 70 (1.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 37 (0.66%) PL/SQL
14 30 (0.54%) VBA
15 28 (0.50%) C++
16 23 (0.41%) VB
17 21 (0.38%) Perl
18 18 (0.32%) Shell Script
19 17 (0.30%) R
20 15 (0.27%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,090 (19.52%) Security Cleared
2 829 (14.85%) SC Cleared
3 562 (10.06%) Degree
4 297 (5.32%) Microsoft Certification
5 219 (3.92%) DV Cleared
6 191 (3.42%) Azure Certification
7 129 (2.31%) Computer Science Degree
8 99 (1.77%) CISSP
9 98 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
10 71 (1.27%) PMI Certification
11 68 (1.22%) Cisco Certification
12 61 (1.09%) PMP
13 57 (1.02%) Master's Degree
14 53 (0.95%) CISM
15 42 (0.75%) AWS Certification
16 39 (0.70%) MCSE
17 33 (0.59%) ITIL Certification
18 32 (0.57%) CCNP
18 32 (0.57%) DBS Check
19 31 (0.56%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 255 (4.57%) Data Quality
2 237 (4.24%) GDPR
3 174 (3.12%) QA
4 152 (2.72%) SLA
5 136 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 113 (2.02%) PMO
7 110 (1.97%) NIST
8 71 (1.27%) Accessibility
9 59 (1.06%) Cyber Essentials
10 46 (0.82%) NCSC
11 39 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 30 (0.54%) PCI DSS
13 29 (0.52%) GRC
14 21 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 19 (0.34%) MiFID
16 16 (0.29%) WCAG
17 15 (0.27%) NIST 800
18 13 (0.23%) FINRA
19 12 (0.21%) HIPAA
20 11 (0.20%) GxP
System Software
1 1,102 (19.73%) Active Directory
2 228 (4.08%) Docker
3 179 (3.21%) VMware Infrastructure
4 90 (1.61%) Hyper-V
5 67 (1.20%) Virtual Machines
6 57 (1.02%) Virtual Desktop
7 43 (0.77%) VMware ESXi
8 33 (0.59%) vSphere
9 26 (0.47%) BitLocker
10 19 (0.34%) VMware NSX
11 17 (0.30%) Firmware
12 12 (0.21%) Microsoft App-V
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
14 5 (0.090%) IAG
14 5 (0.090%) Snort
15 4 (0.072%) KVM
15 4 (0.072%) NFS
15 4 (0.072%) VMware Workstation
16 3 (0.054%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 441 (7.90%) Microsoft Intune
2 361 (6.46%) Terraform
3 270 (4.84%) Kubernetes
4 210 (3.76%) SCCM
5 137 (2.45%) Single Sign-On
6 119 (2.13%) Ansible
7 97 (1.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 44 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
9 42 (0.75%) Grafana
10 34 (0.61%) vCenter Server
11 32 (0.57%) Prometheus
12 24 (0.43%) FortiGate
13 23 (0.41%) SCOM
14 21 (0.38%) Puppet
15 16 (0.29%) WSUS
16 15 (0.27%) AirWatch
16 15 (0.27%) CASB
17 12 (0.21%) ServiceCenter
18 11 (0.20%) WMI
19 10 (0.18%) Nessus
Vendors
1 266 (4.76%) ServiceNow
2 260 (4.66%) VMware
3 217 (3.89%) Databricks
4 211 (3.78%) Oracle
5 209 (3.74%) SAP
6 182 (3.26%) Cisco
7 163 (2.92%) Google
8 132 (2.36%) Citrix
9 104 (1.86%) Splunk
10 95 (1.70%) OpenAI
11 94 (1.68%) Salesforce
12 79 (1.41%) Foundry
13 67 (1.20%) Apple
14 57 (1.02%) CrowdStrike
15 49 (0.88%) Palo Alto
15 49 (0.88%) Red Hat
16 48 (0.86%) HP
17 44 (0.79%) Adobe
18 40 (0.72%) Informatica
19 39 (0.70%) Okta