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 4 December 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
4 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,110 4,823 5,949
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 14.00% 13.40% 13.30%
As % of the Vendors category 29.57% 29.56% 29.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,416 3,034 4,120
10th Percentile £205 £205 £197
25th Percentile £350 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £594 £620
90th Percentile £668 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £445 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -1.11% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 401 229 250
10th Percentile £14.43 £15.08 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.38 £15.62 £16.47
Median hourly rate £21.00 £23.66 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.24% +2.87% +15.52%
75th Percentile £31.00 £37.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.35 £21.46 £22.00
% change year-on-year -5.17% -2.45% +17.33%

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 17,280 16,314 20,249
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.35% 45.34% 45.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,974 9,654 12,908
10th Percentile £290 £296 £255
25th Percentile £406 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.87%
75th Percentile £610 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £720 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 854 512 668
10th Percentile £15.27 £15.51 £15.30
25th Percentile £18.22 £19.28 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.00 £29.39 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.92% -33.97% +73.08%
75th Percentile £43.75 £62.50 £64.55
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £76.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £27.13 £44.50
% change year-on-year -18.89% -39.04% +97.78%

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 4 December 2025.

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 4 December 2025.

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 4 December 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 4,479 £475 -1.04% 4,245
UK excluding London -2 2,839 £445 -1.11% 4,041
London -1 1,839 £500 - 939
Work from Home -1 1,315 £500 - 1,690
North of England +2 755 £425 -5.56% 943
South East +2 648 £465 -2.11% 1,259
Midlands -3 487 £427 -1.64% 637
North West +1 449 £424 -5.83% 519
South West +3 365 £500 +5.26% 393
West Midlands -4 317 £475 +5.56% 378
East of England -1 279 £425 - 484
Yorkshire +3 272 £435 +5.45% 328
Scotland -3 210 £450 +10.02% 207
East Midlands +3 167 £375 - 245
Wales +2 91 £300 +0.84% 137
Northern Ireland +6 46 £361 +60.56% 59
North East -10 39 £410 +17.14% 109
Channel Islands -2 2 £725 -

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
1 570 (11.15%) SharePoint
2 398 (7.79%) Microsoft Exchange
3 107 (2.09%) Confluence
4 63 (1.23%) Skype for Business
5 37 (0.72%) CMS
6 31 (0.61%) Apache
7 28 (0.55%) IIS
8 20 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2010
8 20 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2013
9 19 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
10 18 (0.35%) HCL Notes
10 18 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
11 17 (0.33%) SAS
12 15 (0.29%) JBoss
12 15 (0.29%) WebSphere
13 13 (0.25%) Apache Spark
13 13 (0.25%) Mattermost
14 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
15 10 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2007
15 10 (0.20%) iPlanet
Applications
1 653 (12.78%) Microsoft Office
2 595 (11.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 261 (5.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 138 (2.70%) Microsoft Project
5 103 (2.02%) MS Visio
6 50 (0.98%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 11 (0.22%) Trello
9 9 (0.18%) Adobe Captivate
10 8 (0.16%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.16%) Sketch
11 4 (0.078%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.059%) Adobe After Effects
12 3 (0.059%) Adobe Illustrator
12 3 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
12 3 (0.059%) InDesign
12 3 (0.059%) Maya
12 3 (0.059%) Photoshop
12 3 (0.059%) Siemens NX
12 3 (0.059%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 171 (3.35%) Dynamics CRM
2 44 (0.86%) SAP S/4HANA
3 38 (0.74%) Remedy ITSM
4 19 (0.37%) Dynamics AX
5 12 (0.23%) Maximo
6 11 (0.22%) Dynamics NAV
6 11 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
6 11 (0.22%) Workday HCM
7 9 (0.18%) Aladdin
7 9 (0.18%) NetSuite
7 9 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
7 9 (0.18%) Teamcenter
8 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
8 7 (0.14%) Primavera
8 7 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
9 6 (0.12%) Shopify
10 5 (0.098%) Oracle ERP
10 5 (0.098%) SAP ERP
11 4 (0.078%) assyst
11 4 (0.078%) Loan IQ
Cloud Services
1 1,834 (35.89%) Azure
2 1,176 (23.01%) Microsoft 365
3 780 (15.26%) Power Platform
4 572 (11.19%) Entra ID
5 462 (9.04%) AWS
6 379 (7.42%) Dynamics 365
7 339 (6.63%) Azure DevOps
8 319 (6.24%) Power Automate
9 306 (5.99%) PowerApps
10 187 (3.66%) GitHub
11 185 (3.62%) Microsoft Purview
12 165 (3.23%) GCP
12 165 (3.23%) SaaS
13 163 (3.19%) Serverless
14 152 (2.97%) OneDrive
15 151 (2.95%) Azure Sentinel
16 124 (2.43%) Azure Data Factory
17 120 (2.35%) Microsoft Copilot
18 118 (2.31%) Azure Logic Apps
19 116 (2.27%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 334 (6.54%) Firewall
2 270 (5.28%) DNS
3 170 (3.33%) DHCP
4 168 (3.29%) VPN
5 156 (3.05%) TCP/IP
6 96 (1.88%) Network Security
7 93 (1.82%) Wi-Fi
8 87 (1.70%) WAN
9 79 (1.55%) LAN
10 74 (1.45%) Skype
11 58 (1.14%) Wireless
12 43 (0.84%) VLAN
13 41 (0.80%) Cisco IOS
14 40 (0.78%) Unified Communications
15 37 (0.72%) SAN
16 36 (0.70%) HTTP
17 35 (0.68%) VoIP
18 34 (0.67%) Internet
19 30 (0.59%) Ethernet
20 28 (0.55%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 478 (9.35%) Power BI
2 243 (4.76%) SQL Server
3 124 (2.43%) Data Warehouse
4 88 (1.72%) Data Lake
5 87 (1.70%) PostgreSQL
6 86 (1.68%) Relational Database
7 83 (1.62%) Metadata
8 73 (1.43%) Azure SQL Database
9 72 (1.41%) Oracle Database
10 52 (1.02%) Tableau
11 48 (0.94%) MySQL
12 40 (0.78%) Power Query
12 40 (0.78%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 38 (0.74%) NoSQL
14 31 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
15 27 (0.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 25 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
17 18 (0.35%) Big Data
17 18 (0.35%) Delta Lake
18 17 (0.33%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 267 (5.23%) JIRA
2 168 (3.29%) Git
3 102 (2.00%) Jenkins
4 74 (1.45%) GitLab
5 45 (0.88%) Eclipse
6 31 (0.61%) Postman
6 31 (0.61%) Visual Studio
7 29 (0.57%) MSI
8 23 (0.45%) Selenium
9 22 (0.43%) Browser DevTools
9 22 (0.43%) Sonatype Nexus
9 22 (0.43%) Xcode
10 20 (0.39%) Android Studio
11 15 (0.29%) Cucumber
11 15 (0.29%) JUnit
12 12 (0.23%) InstallShield
13 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket Server
13 11 (0.22%) CA Release Automation
14 10 (0.20%) SoapUI
14 10 (0.20%) SonarQube
General
1 2,053 (40.18%) Social Skills
2 1,112 (21.76%) Finance
3 690 (13.50%) Analytical Skills
4 529 (10.35%) Public Sector
5 268 (5.24%) Banking
6 222 (4.34%) Organisational Skills
7 178 (3.48%) Legal
8 157 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
9 146 (2.86%) Manufacturing
10 123 (2.41%) Presentation Skills
11 116 (2.27%) Marketing
12 105 (2.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 96 (1.88%) Telecoms
14 85 (1.66%) Retail
15 65 (1.27%) Influencing Skills
16 64 (1.25%) Local Government
17 48 (0.94%) Military
18 41 (0.80%) Electronics
19 40 (0.78%) Investment Banking
19 40 (0.78%) Law
Job Titles
1 773 (15.13%) Analyst
2 493 (9.65%) Developer
3 492 (9.63%) Architect
4 350 (6.85%) Senior
5 325 (6.36%) Support Engineer
6 285 (5.58%) Consultant
7 273 (5.34%) IT Support
8 246 (4.81%) Lead
9 165 (3.23%) Support Analyst
10 161 (3.15%) Administrator
10 161 (3.15%) Project Manager
11 157 (3.07%) Business Analyst
12 155 (3.03%) Solutions Architect
13 146 (2.86%) IT Engineer
14 144 (2.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 135 (2.64%) Azure Engineer
16 125 (2.45%) Security Engineer
17 106 (2.07%) IT Support Engineer
18 105 (2.05%) Desktop Support
19 102 (2.00%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 256 (5.01%) .NET
2 165 (3.23%) REST
3 125 (2.45%) OAuth
4 118 (2.31%) React
5 100 (1.96%) RESTful
6 92 (1.80%) AngularJS
6 92 (1.80%) SAML
7 84 (1.64%) OpenID
8 82 (1.60%) HTML
9 78 (1.53%) CSS
10 65 (1.27%) JSON
11 64 (1.25%) Web Services
12 61 (1.19%) Microsoft Graph
13 60 (1.17%) SOAP
14 58 (1.14%) Node.js
15 54 (1.06%) .NET Framework
15 54 (1.06%) XML
16 51 (1.00%) LDAP
17 47 (0.92%) OAuth2
18 43 (0.84%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 249 (4.87%) Onboarding
2 187 (3.66%) Cloud Native
3 141 (2.76%) Product Ownership
4 137 (2.68%) Management Information System
5 104 (2.04%) Data Centre
6 103 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
7 102 (2.00%) PKI
8 99 (1.94%) Security Posture
9 89 (1.74%) Self-Motivation
10 77 (1.51%) Driving Licence
11 75 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
11 75 (1.47%) Mobile App
12 66 (1.29%) Low-Code
13 63 (1.23%) Virtual Team
14 62 (1.21%) Analytical Mindset
15 58 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
16 54 (1.06%) Replication
17 49 (0.96%) Data Protection Act
18 48 (0.94%) NHS
19 44 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 1,246 (24.38%) Windows
2 338 (6.61%) Windows 10
3 314 (6.14%) Linux
4 271 (5.30%) Windows Server
5 140 (2.74%) Mac OS
6 124 (2.43%) Android
7 84 (1.64%) Unix
8 83 (1.62%) Apple iOS
9 45 (0.88%) Windows 7
10 34 (0.67%) Windows Server 2016
11 33 (0.65%) Windows Server 2019
12 24 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 22 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
15 16 (0.31%) VMS
16 11 (0.22%) Ubuntu
17 10 (0.20%) Mac OS X
17 10 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
18 8 (0.16%) CentOS
19 6 (0.12%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,075 (21.04%) Problem-Solving
2 947 (18.53%) Agile
3 702 (13.74%) DevOps
4 616 (12.05%) Migration
5 564 (11.04%) CI/CD
6 563 (11.02%) Business Intelligence
7 513 (10.04%) Stakeholder Management
8 501 (9.80%) ITIL
9 470 (9.20%) Analytics
10 431 (8.43%) Continuous Improvement
10 431 (8.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 407 (7.96%) Cybersecurity
12 400 (7.83%) Customer Service
13 361 (7.06%) Project Management
14 341 (6.67%) AI
15 322 (6.30%) Change Management
16 257 (5.03%) Roadmaps
17 254 (4.97%) CRM
18 253 (4.95%) Project Delivery
19 251 (4.91%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 640 (12.52%) SQL
2 581 (11.37%) PowerShell
3 559 (10.94%) Python
4 267 (5.23%) C#
5 227 (4.44%) JavaScript
6 171 (3.35%) Java
7 116 (2.27%) Bash
8 100 (1.96%) Kusto Query Language
9 96 (1.88%) Bicep
10 77 (1.51%) TypeScript
11 48 (0.94%) T-SQL
12 44 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 41 (0.80%) Perl
14 37 (0.72%) C++
15 29 (0.57%) Shell Script
16 25 (0.49%) VB
16 25 (0.49%) VBA
17 24 (0.47%) R
18 22 (0.43%) Go
18 22 (0.43%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 944 (18.47%) Security Cleared
2 710 (13.89%) SC Cleared
3 545 (10.67%) Degree
4 366 (7.16%) Microsoft Certification
5 192 (3.76%) DV Cleared
6 180 (3.52%) Azure Certification
7 137 (2.68%) CISSP
8 122 (2.39%) Computer Science Degree
9 85 (1.66%) Cisco Certification
10 84 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
11 70 (1.37%) CISM
12 57 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
13 54 (1.06%) A+ Certification
13 54 (1.06%) PMI Certification
14 52 (1.02%) Master's Degree
15 51 (1.00%) MCSE
16 47 (0.92%) AWS Certification
17 43 (0.84%) CCNA
17 43 (0.84%) MCP
18 42 (0.82%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 255 (4.99%) GDPR
2 189 (3.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 168 (3.29%) QA
4 162 (3.17%) NIST
5 137 (2.68%) Data Quality
6 113 (2.21%) PMO
7 110 (2.15%) SLA
8 90 (1.76%) Accessibility
9 54 (1.06%) Cyber Essentials
10 40 (0.78%) PCI DSS
11 35 (0.68%) HIPAA
12 33 (0.65%) NCSC
13 24 (0.47%) WCAG
14 22 (0.43%) EU AI Act
15 21 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 20 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 16 (0.31%) GRC
18 11 (0.22%) SOC 2
19 9 (0.18%) COBIT
19 9 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 1,053 (20.61%) Active Directory
2 186 (3.64%) Docker
3 174 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 62 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 57 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
6 46 (0.90%) vSphere
7 38 (0.74%) VMware ESXi
8 34 (0.67%) Virtual Desktop
9 20 (0.39%) BitLocker
10 18 (0.35%) VMware NSX
11 17 (0.33%) Firmware
12 13 (0.25%) NFS
13 11 (0.22%) ISA Server
13 11 (0.22%) XenApp
14 10 (0.20%) Brightmail
15 9 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
16 8 (0.16%) Terminal Services
16 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
17 6 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 6 (0.12%) Snort
Systems Management
1 387 (7.57%) Microsoft Intune
2 315 (6.16%) SCCM
3 263 (5.15%) Terraform
4 223 (4.36%) Kubernetes
5 120 (2.35%) Single Sign-On
6 108 (2.11%) Ansible
7 69 (1.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 51 (1.00%) SCOM
9 48 (0.94%) Jamf Pro
10 38 (0.74%) vCenter Server
11 34 (0.67%) Grafana
12 26 (0.51%) Prometheus
13 22 (0.43%) QRadar
14 21 (0.41%) HP SiteScope
15 20 (0.39%) Microsoft Clustering
15 20 (0.39%) WSUS
16 16 (0.31%) Progress Chef
16 16 (0.31%) WMI
17 15 (0.29%) Puppet
18 13 (0.25%) Kibana
Vendors
1 297 (5.81%) ServiceNow
2 245 (4.79%) VMware
3 230 (4.50%) Oracle
4 218 (4.27%) Cisco
5 203 (3.97%) Splunk
6 198 (3.87%) SAP
7 152 (2.97%) Google
8 119 (2.33%) Databricks
9 110 (2.15%) Citrix
10 93 (1.82%) Apple
11 90 (1.76%) Salesforce
12 67 (1.31%) OpenAI
13 64 (1.25%) CrowdStrike
14 59 (1.15%) IBM
15 55 (1.08%) Palo Alto
16 53 (1.04%) Remedy
17 50 (0.98%) CyberArk
18 46 (0.90%) HP
19 44 (0.86%) Adobe
20 42 (0.82%) Veeam