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 23 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
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,599 3,829 5,536
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.52% 13.38% 13.05%
As % of the Vendors category 28.12% 28.06% 30.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,743 2,512 3,645
10th Percentile £213 £208 £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 £583 £588 £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 360 242 467
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.30 £13.00
Median hourly rate £20.09 £18.81 £15.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.82% +25.38% -33.33%
75th Percentile £29.50 £28.99 £25.00
90th Percentile £63.75 £53.75 £55.05
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 19,908 13,646 17,946
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.98% 47.70% 42.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,584 8,512 11,217
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 £620 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £492 £500
% change year-on-year - -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,014 555 1,097
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £14.41
Median hourly rate £32.36 £25.50 £22.15
Median % change year-on-year +26.91% +15.12% -47.88%
75th Percentile £58.75 £56.00 £57.33
90th Percentile £75.40 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.50 £22.50 £21.46
% change year-on-year +31.11% +4.85% -45.74%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 4,911 £495 +3.29% 3,061
UK excluding London 0 2,914 £450 +5.88% 2,637
London -3 2,171 £515 +0.49% 915
Work from Home -1 1,399 £500 - 1,343
North of England -3 762 £450 +8.89% 640
South East -2 680 £475 +1.35% 818
Midlands -3 505 £449 +12.13% 405
North West -2 393 £430 +1.18% 349
Yorkshire -2 349 £474 +14.91% 212
West Midlands -5 348 £450 +12.50% 231
South West -2 340 £450 -1.80% 274
East of England 0 314 £375 -25.00% 263
Scotland +3 223 £450 +7.14% 142
East Midlands 0 150 £407 -0.79% 173
Wales 0 92 £325 +14.04% 81
North East -32 25 £450 +32.35% 85
Northern Ireland -4 19 £450 +38.46% 69
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
1 601 (10.73%) SharePoint
2 372 (6.64%) Microsoft Exchange
3 104 (1.86%) Confluence
4 37 (0.66%) Apache Spark
5 27 (0.48%) Apache
6 25 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
7 22 (0.39%) 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 (0.21%) Mendix
12 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.11%) Camunda
12 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 5 (0.089%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.089%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.071%) Drupal
14 4 (0.071%) MS Project Server
14 4 (0.071%) nginx
Applications
1 548 (9.79%) Microsoft Office
2 479 (8.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 211 (3.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 118 (2.11%) Microsoft Project
5 91 (1.63%) MS Visio
6 52 (0.93%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.30%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.11%) Trello
10 5 (0.089%) Acrobat
10 5 (0.089%) PTC Creo
11 4 (0.071%) InDesign
11 4 (0.071%) 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
1 198 (3.54%) Dynamics CRM
2 66 (1.18%) SAP S/4HANA
3 22 (0.39%) 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 (0.21%) 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 (0.089%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 2,375 (42.42%) Azure
2 1,423 (25.42%) Microsoft 365
3 957 (17.09%) Power Platform
4 737 (13.16%) Entra ID
5 464 (8.29%) Dynamics 365
6 451 (8.06%) AWS
7 438 (7.82%) Azure DevOps
8 328 (5.86%) Power Automate
9 300 (5.36%) Microsoft Purview
10 297 (5.30%) PowerApps
11 248 (4.43%) GitHub
12 244 (4.36%) Microsoft Copilot
13 219 (3.91%) OneDrive
14 196 (3.50%) SaaS
15 190 (3.39%) Azure Data Factory
16 176 (3.14%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 168 (3.00%) GCP
18 159 (2.84%) Serverless
19 142 (2.54%) PaaS
20 134 (2.39%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 281 (5.02%) DNS
2 262 (4.68%) Firewall
3 207 (3.70%) VPN
4 171 (3.05%) DHCP
5 135 (2.41%) Wi-Fi
6 134 (2.39%) WAN
7 116 (2.07%) LAN
8 111 (1.98%) Network Security
9 104 (1.86%) TCP/IP
10 57 (1.02%) Kerberos
11 53 (0.95%) VLAN
12 45 (0.80%) SD-WAN
13 37 (0.66%) SAN
14 35 (0.63%) Wireless
15 34 (0.61%) SSL
16 29 (0.52%) HTTP
16 29 (0.52%) Unified Communications
17 28 (0.50%) Skype
18 24 (0.43%) MPLS
18 24 (0.43%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 576 (10.29%) Power BI
2 269 (4.80%) SQL Server
3 176 (3.14%) Data Warehouse
4 152 (2.71%) Data Lake
5 120 (2.14%) Azure SQL Database
6 113 (2.02%) Metadata
7 96 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
8 68 (1.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 65 (1.16%) Relational Database
10 49 (0.88%) Power Query
11 45 (0.80%) NoSQL
11 45 (0.80%) Tableau
12 43 (0.77%) MySQL
12 43 (0.77%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 41 (0.73%) Star Schema
14 40 (0.71%) Delta Lake
15 37 (0.66%) Oracle Database
16 30 (0.54%) Spark SQL
17 26 (0.46%) SQL Server Analysis Services
18 25 (0.45%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 256 (4.57%) JIRA
2 168 (3.00%) Git
3 64 (1.14%) Jenkins
4 61 (1.09%) GitLab
5 34 (0.61%) Visual Studio
6 24 (0.43%) Artifactory
7 21 (0.38%) 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 (0.21%) Bitbucket
11 12 (0.21%) Maven
11 12 (0.21%) Postman
12 11 (0.20%) Team Foundation Server
13 9 (0.16%) Android Studio
13 9 (0.16%) Browser DevTools
13 9 (0.16%) Gatling
General
1 1,816 (32.43%) Social Skills
2 1,106 (19.75%) Finance
3 625 (11.16%) Analytical Skills
4 498 (8.89%) Public Sector
5 292 (5.22%) Banking
6 246 (4.39%) Legal
7 242 (4.32%) Organisational Skills
8 137 (2.45%) Documentation Skills
9 98 (1.75%) Manufacturing
10 94 (1.68%) Law
11 90 (1.61%) Retail
12 87 (1.55%) Presentation Skills
13 82 (1.46%) Telecoms
14 79 (1.41%) Marketing
15 74 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 69 (1.23%) Local Government
17 68 (1.21%) Military
18 56 (1.00%) Investment Banking
19 53 (0.95%) Influencing Skills
20 47 (0.84%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 690 (12.32%) Architect
2 602 (10.75%) Analyst
3 515 (9.20%) Developer
4 468 (8.36%) Senior
5 363 (6.48%) IT Support
6 347 (6.20%) Lead
7 309 (5.52%) Consultant
8 259 (4.63%) Support Engineer
9 229 (4.09%) Data Engineer
10 204 (3.64%) Azure Engineer
11 193 (3.45%) Project Manager
12 191 (3.41%) Solutions Architect
13 179 (3.20%) IT Engineer
14 178 (3.18%) Business Analyst
15 169 (3.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 162 (2.89%) Administrator
17 135 (2.41%) IT Support Engineer
18 121 (2.16%) Security Engineer
19 104 (1.86%) DevOps Engineer
20 102 (1.82%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 245 (4.38%) .NET
2 170 (3.04%) REST
3 134 (2.39%) Microsoft Graph
4 108 (1.93%) OAuth
5 105 (1.88%) PySpark
6 98 (1.75%) SAML
7 88 (1.57%) JSON
8 81 (1.45%) React
9 80 (1.43%) LDAP
9 80 (1.43%) OpenID
10 68 (1.21%) Web Services
11 64 (1.14%) Middleware
12 55 (0.98%) HTML
13 54 (0.96%) XML
14 53 (0.95%) Node.js
15 51 (0.91%) SailPoint
16 50 (0.89%) OAuth2
17 49 (0.88%) CSS
18 48 (0.86%) AngularJS
18 48 (0.86%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 303 (5.41%) Onboarding
2 221 (3.95%) Cloud Native
3 172 (3.07%) Product Ownership
4 125 (2.23%) Management Information System
5 105 (1.88%) Data Centre
6 101 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
7 91 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
8 89 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
9 88 (1.57%) Security Posture
10 85 (1.52%) AI Agents
11 77 (1.38%) Replication
12 76 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
13 73 (1.30%) Low-Code
14 72 (1.29%) PKI
15 70 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
15 70 (1.25%) Data Structures
16 61 (1.09%) Virtual Team
17 46 (0.82%) NHS
18 45 (0.80%) Driving Licence
18 45 (0.80%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 1,203 (21.49%) Windows
2 326 (5.82%) Windows 10
3 279 (4.98%) Windows Server
4 253 (4.52%) Linux
5 110 (1.96%) Apple iOS
6 108 (1.93%) Mac OS
7 107 (1.91%) Android
8 42 (0.75%) Windows 7
9 40 (0.71%) Windows Server 2016
10 39 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 39 (0.70%) Unix
11 31 (0.55%) VMS
12 30 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
13 22 (0.39%) Windows Server 2012
14 15 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
15 12 (0.21%) Ubuntu
16 11 (0.20%) CentOS
17 5 (0.089%) AIX
18 4 (0.071%) Solaris
18 4 (0.071%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 944 (16.86%) Problem-Solving
2 887 (15.84%) DevOps
3 842 (15.04%) Agile
4 792 (14.15%) Migration
5 747 (13.34%) CI/CD
6 625 (11.16%) Business Intelligence
7 609 (10.88%) Analytics
8 569 (10.16%) AI
9 558 (9.97%) Stakeholder Management
10 490 (8.75%) Continuous Improvement
11 470 (8.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 459 (8.20%) ITIL
13 433 (7.73%) Customer Service
14 423 (7.55%) Data Modelling
15 385 (6.88%) Roadmaps
16 358 (6.39%) Cybersecurity
17 353 (6.30%) Decision-Making
18 328 (5.86%) Infrastructure as Code
19 318 (5.68%) Project Delivery
20 315 (5.63%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 715 (12.77%) SQL
2 636 (11.36%) PowerShell
3 593 (10.59%) Python
4 259 (4.63%) C#
5 198 (3.54%) JavaScript
6 182 (3.25%) Java
7 128 (2.29%) Bicep
8 93 (1.66%) T-SQL
9 85 (1.52%) Kusto Query Language
10 75 (1.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 73 (1.30%) Bash
12 68 (1.21%) TypeScript
13 35 (0.63%) VBA
14 28 (0.50%) PL/SQL
14 28 (0.50%) VB
15 27 (0.48%) C++
16 19 (0.34%) Scala
17 18 (0.32%) R
18 14 (0.25%) Shell Script
18 14 (0.25%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,058 (18.90%) Security Cleared
2 830 (14.82%) SC Cleared
3 546 (9.75%) Degree
4 260 (4.64%) Microsoft Certification
5 179 (3.20%) Azure Certification
6 176 (3.14%) DV Cleared
7 123 (2.20%) Computer Science Degree
8 105 (1.88%) CISSP
9 99 (1.77%) BPSS Clearance
10 80 (1.43%) Cisco Certification
11 58 (1.04%) CISM
12 55 (0.98%) PMP
13 54 (0.96%) Master's Degree
14 52 (0.93%) PMI Certification
15 41 (0.73%) MCSE
16 38 (0.68%) AWS Certification
17 35 (0.63%) CCNP
18 34 (0.61%) DBS Check
19 31 (0.55%) MCSA
20 29 (0.52%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 280 (5.00%) Data Quality
2 226 (4.04%) GDPR
3 185 (3.30%) QA
4 151 (2.70%) SLA
5 140 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 119 (2.13%) NIST
7 101 (1.80%) PMO
8 72 (1.29%) Accessibility
8 72 (1.29%) Cyber Essentials
9 53 (0.95%) NCSC
10 37 (0.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 34 (0.61%) GRC
12 29 (0.52%) PCI DSS
13 25 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 22 (0.39%) NIST 800
15 20 (0.36%) MiFID
16 16 (0.29%) SOC 2
17 13 (0.23%) FINRA
17 13 (0.23%) WCAG
18 12 (0.21%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,065 (19.02%) Active Directory
2 211 (3.77%) Docker
3 192 (3.43%) VMware Infrastructure
4 99 (1.77%) Hyper-V
5 79 (1.41%) Virtual Desktop
6 71 (1.27%) Virtual Machines
7 56 (1.00%) VMware ESXi
8 51 (0.91%) vSphere
9 26 (0.46%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.41%) VMware NSX
11 19 (0.34%) Microsoft App-V
12 17 (0.30%) Firmware
13 6 (0.11%) NFS
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
14 5 (0.089%) IAG
14 5 (0.089%) Snort
14 5 (0.089%) VMware Workstation
15 4 (0.071%) Squid
15 4 (0.071%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 445 (7.95%) Microsoft Intune
2 342 (6.11%) Terraform
3 242 (4.32%) Kubernetes
4 202 (3.61%) SCCM
5 121 (2.16%) Single Sign-On
6 120 (2.14%) Ansible
7 80 (1.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (0.88%) vCenter Server
9 45 (0.80%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (0.64%) Grafana
11 31 (0.55%) 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 (0.21%) HAProxy
18 12 (0.21%) ServiceCenter
19 11 (0.20%) CASB
Vendors
1 282 (5.04%) ServiceNow
2 263 (4.70%) VMware
3 219 (3.91%) Databricks
4 217 (3.88%) SAP
5 209 (3.73%) Oracle
6 187 (3.34%) Cisco
7 154 (2.75%) Google
8 109 (1.95%) Citrix
9 99 (1.77%) Salesforce
10 94 (1.68%) Splunk
11 82 (1.46%) OpenAI
12 72 (1.29%) Apple
13 69 (1.23%) Foundry
14 56 (1.00%) CrowdStrike
15 51 (0.91%) HP
16 50 (0.89%) CyberArk
17 48 (0.86%) Okta
18 47 (0.84%) Palo Alto
19 45 (0.80%) Adobe
20 40 (0.71%) Dell