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 27 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
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,652 3,837 5,526
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.60% 13.43% 12.95%
As % of the Vendors category 28.25% 28.13% 30.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,777 2,510 3,636
10th Percentile £211 £210 £189
25th Percentile £375 £348 £334
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £586 £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 368 252 468
10th Percentile £13.64 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.33 £15.44 £13.00
Median hourly rate £20.09 £18.85 £15.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.58% +25.67% -33.38%
75th Percentile £29.50 £29.07 £24.81
90th Percentile £63.75 £57.21 £55.00
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 20,005 13,641 18,014
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.05% 47.74% 42.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,636 8,503 11,247
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 £621 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +0.51% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,034 563 1,105
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.01
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £14.48
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.00 £22.30
Median % change year-on-year +30.00% +12.11% -47.53%
75th Percentile £58.75 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £76.62 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.29 £22.00 £21.46
% change year-on-year +33.11% +2.52% -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 27 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 27 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 27 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 4,949 £500 +4.41% 3,171
UK excluding London -1 2,958 £450 +5.88% 2,677
London -3 2,184 £515 -0.72% 964
Work from Home -1 1,411 £500 - 1,310
North of England -3 763 £450 +8.70% 644
South East -2 691 £475 +3.26% 817
Midlands -2 512 £447 +11.75% 428
North West -2 395 £433 +1.76% 348
West Midlands -5 358 £450 +12.50% 243
Yorkshire -2 349 £475 +15.03% 210
South West -2 346 £450 -2.70% 300
East of England 0 317 £375 -25.00% 278
Scotland +5 237 £450 +5.88% 136
East Midlands -1 147 £400 -2.44% 184
Wales +1 95 £335 +24.07% 88
North East -30 24 £450 +38.46% 90
Northern Ireland -3 20 £450 +38.46% 40
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
1 605 (10.70%) SharePoint
2 373 (6.60%) Microsoft Exchange
3 103 (1.82%) Confluence
4 38 (0.67%) Apache Spark
5 28 (0.50%) Apache
6 25 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
7 24 (0.42%) HCL Notes
8 19 (0.34%) CMS
9 15 (0.27%) Skype for Business
10 14 (0.25%) IIS
10 14 (0.25%) SAS
11 12 (0.21%) Mendix
12 6 (0.11%) Camunda
12 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 5 (0.088%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.088%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.088%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.071%) Appian
14 4 (0.071%) Drupal
14 4 (0.071%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 556 (9.84%) Microsoft Office
2 484 (8.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 212 (3.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 118 (2.09%) Microsoft Project
5 92 (1.63%) MS Visio
6 51 (0.90%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.30%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.11%) Trello
10 5 (0.088%) Acrobat
10 5 (0.088%) PTC Creo
11 4 (0.071%) InDesign
11 4 (0.071%) SOLIDWORKS
12 3 (0.053%) Adobe Captivate
12 3 (0.053%) AutoCAD
12 3 (0.053%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.035%) InfoPath
13 2 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 199 (3.52%) Dynamics CRM
2 70 (1.24%) SAP S/4HANA
3 23 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.30%) NetSuite
5 15 (0.27%) Aladdin
5 15 (0.27%) Dynamics NAV
6 13 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
6 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
7 11 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.18%) Maximo
8 10 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
8 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
8 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 8 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
9 8 (0.14%) Loan IQ
10 6 (0.11%) Dynamics GP
10 6 (0.11%) NEC Housing
10 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
10 6 (0.11%) Primavera
10 6 (0.11%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,399 (42.45%) Azure
2 1,435 (25.39%) Microsoft 365
3 960 (16.99%) Power Platform
4 742 (13.13%) Entra ID
5 456 (8.07%) AWS
6 453 (8.01%) Dynamics 365
7 447 (7.91%) Azure DevOps
8 329 (5.82%) Power Automate
9 302 (5.34%) Microsoft Purview
10 296 (5.24%) PowerApps
11 248 (4.39%) Microsoft Copilot
12 247 (4.37%) GitHub
13 215 (3.80%) OneDrive
14 201 (3.56%) SaaS
15 188 (3.33%) Azure Data Factory
16 175 (3.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 172 (3.04%) GCP
18 154 (2.72%) Serverless
19 143 (2.53%) PaaS
20 138 (2.44%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 284 (5.02%) DNS
2 260 (4.60%) Firewall
3 212 (3.75%) VPN
4 176 (3.11%) DHCP
5 135 (2.39%) WAN
6 134 (2.37%) Wi-Fi
7 119 (2.11%) LAN
8 110 (1.95%) Network Security
9 107 (1.89%) TCP/IP
10 54 (0.96%) Kerberos
10 54 (0.96%) VLAN
11 45 (0.80%) SD-WAN
12 38 (0.67%) SAN
13 36 (0.64%) Wireless
14 34 (0.60%) SSL
15 30 (0.53%) Skype
16 29 (0.51%) HTTP
17 28 (0.50%) Unified Communications
18 25 (0.44%) IPsec
19 24 (0.42%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 582 (10.30%) Power BI
2 269 (4.76%) SQL Server
3 171 (3.03%) Data Warehouse
4 153 (2.71%) Data Lake
5 121 (2.14%) Azure SQL Database
6 113 (2.00%) Metadata
7 97 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
8 66 (1.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 65 (1.15%) Relational Database
10 50 (0.88%) Power Query
11 46 (0.81%) NoSQL
11 46 (0.81%) Tableau
12 45 (0.80%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 43 (0.76%) MySQL
14 41 (0.73%) Delta Lake
15 40 (0.71%) Star Schema
16 37 (0.65%) Oracle Database
17 30 (0.53%) Spark SQL
18 26 (0.46%) SQL Server Analysis Services
19 25 (0.44%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 259 (4.58%) JIRA
2 168 (2.97%) Git
3 62 (1.10%) Jenkins
4 58 (1.03%) GitLab
5 32 (0.57%) Visual Studio
6 24 (0.42%) Artifactory
7 20 (0.35%) MSI
8 19 (0.34%) Eclipse
9 15 (0.27%) ERwin
9 15 (0.27%) MLflow
10 14 (0.25%) Selenium
10 14 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
11 13 (0.23%) JMeter
12 12 (0.21%) Maven
12 12 (0.21%) Postman
13 11 (0.19%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.18%) Team Foundation Server
15 9 (0.16%) Browser DevTools
15 9 (0.16%) Gatling
16 8 (0.14%) Android Studio
General
1 1,834 (32.45%) Social Skills
2 1,120 (19.82%) Finance
3 618 (10.93%) Analytical Skills
4 502 (8.88%) Public Sector
5 292 (5.17%) Banking
6 247 (4.37%) Legal
7 241 (4.26%) Organisational Skills
8 138 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
9 99 (1.75%) Manufacturing
10 95 (1.68%) Law
11 93 (1.65%) Retail
12 84 (1.49%) Presentation Skills
13 78 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 77 (1.36%) Marketing
14 77 (1.36%) Telecoms
15 69 (1.22%) Local Government
15 69 (1.22%) Military
16 57 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
16 57 (1.01%) Investment Banking
17 48 (0.85%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 703 (12.44%) Architect
2 610 (10.79%) Analyst
3 505 (8.93%) Developer
4 469 (8.30%) Senior
5 368 (6.51%) IT Support
6 355 (6.28%) Lead
7 314 (5.56%) Consultant
8 266 (4.71%) Support Engineer
9 232 (4.10%) Data Engineer
10 209 (3.70%) Azure Engineer
11 200 (3.54%) Solutions Architect
12 195 (3.45%) Project Manager
13 183 (3.24%) IT Engineer
14 181 (3.20%) Business Analyst
15 172 (3.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 161 (2.85%) Administrator
17 138 (2.44%) IT Support Engineer
18 118 (2.09%) Security Engineer
19 111 (1.96%) DevOps Engineer
20 105 (1.86%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 244 (4.32%) .NET
2 172 (3.04%) REST
3 135 (2.39%) Microsoft Graph
4 107 (1.89%) OAuth
5 106 (1.88%) PySpark
6 99 (1.75%) SAML
7 86 (1.52%) JSON
8 82 (1.45%) React
9 81 (1.43%) OpenID
10 79 (1.40%) LDAP
11 69 (1.22%) Web Services
12 62 (1.10%) Middleware
13 55 (0.97%) XML
14 54 (0.96%) Node.js
15 52 (0.92%) HTML
15 52 (0.92%) SailPoint
16 50 (0.88%) ARM Templates
16 50 (0.88%) OAuth2
17 49 (0.87%) CSS
18 48 (0.85%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 302 (5.34%) Onboarding
2 230 (4.07%) Cloud Native
3 168 (2.97%) Product Ownership
4 128 (2.26%) Management Information System
5 103 (1.82%) Data Centre
5 103 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
6 97 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
7 94 (1.66%) Hybrid Cloud
8 87 (1.54%) Security Posture
9 85 (1.50%) AI Agents
10 79 (1.40%) Self-Motivation
11 78 (1.38%) PKI
12 77 (1.36%) Replication
13 71 (1.26%) Data Structures
13 71 (1.26%) Low-Code
14 67 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
15 63 (1.11%) Virtual Team
16 48 (0.85%) Public Cloud
17 46 (0.81%) Driving Licence
17 46 (0.81%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1,219 (21.57%) Windows
2 331 (5.86%) Windows 10
3 284 (5.02%) Windows Server
4 252 (4.46%) Linux
5 113 (2.00%) Mac OS
6 110 (1.95%) Apple iOS
7 107 (1.89%) Android
8 44 (0.78%) Windows 7
9 40 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 40 (0.71%) Windows Server 2016
10 39 (0.69%) Unix
11 31 (0.55%) VMS
12 30 (0.53%) Windows Server 2019
13 21 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
14 15 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
15 12 (0.21%) Ubuntu
16 11 (0.19%) CentOS
17 5 (0.088%) AIX
18 4 (0.071%) Solaris
18 4 (0.071%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 961 (17.00%) Problem-Solving
2 904 (15.99%) DevOps
3 844 (14.93%) Agile
4 798 (14.12%) Migration
5 758 (13.41%) CI/CD
6 624 (11.04%) Business Intelligence
7 615 (10.88%) Analytics
8 572 (10.12%) AI
9 568 (10.05%) Stakeholder Management
10 507 (8.97%) Continuous Improvement
11 479 (8.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 474 (8.39%) ITIL
13 439 (7.77%) Customer Service
14 428 (7.57%) Data Modelling
15 392 (6.94%) Roadmaps
16 371 (6.56%) Cybersecurity
17 350 (6.19%) Decision-Making
18 333 (5.89%) Infrastructure as Code
19 323 (5.71%) Project Delivery
20 319 (5.64%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 725 (12.83%) SQL
2 647 (11.45%) PowerShell
3 597 (10.56%) Python
4 255 (4.51%) C#
5 194 (3.43%) JavaScript
6 184 (3.26%) Java
7 130 (2.30%) Bicep
8 92 (1.63%) T-SQL
9 87 (1.54%) Kusto Query Language
10 78 (1.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 72 (1.27%) Bash
12 65 (1.15%) TypeScript
13 35 (0.62%) VBA
14 30 (0.53%) VB
15 27 (0.48%) C++
16 26 (0.46%) PL/SQL
17 19 (0.34%) Scala
18 18 (0.32%) R
19 16 (0.28%) VBScript
20 14 (0.25%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 1,071 (18.95%) Security Cleared
2 840 (14.86%) SC Cleared
3 550 (9.73%) Degree
4 264 (4.67%) Microsoft Certification
5 182 (3.22%) Azure Certification
6 179 (3.17%) DV Cleared
7 122 (2.16%) Computer Science Degree
8 111 (1.96%) CISSP
9 98 (1.73%) BPSS Clearance
10 81 (1.43%) Cisco Certification
11 62 (1.10%) CISM
12 56 (0.99%) PMP
13 53 (0.94%) PMI Certification
14 52 (0.92%) Master's Degree
15 42 (0.74%) MCSE
16 41 (0.73%) DBS Check
17 39 (0.69%) AWS Certification
18 35 (0.62%) CCNP
19 32 (0.57%) MCSA
20 30 (0.53%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 286 (5.06%) Data Quality
2 229 (4.05%) GDPR
3 183 (3.24%) QA
4 165 (2.92%) SLA
5 143 (2.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 121 (2.14%) NIST
7 100 (1.77%) PMO
8 74 (1.31%) Cyber Essentials
9 73 (1.29%) Accessibility
10 54 (0.96%) NCSC
11 37 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 34 (0.60%) GRC
13 31 (0.55%) PCI DSS
14 27 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 22 (0.39%) NIST 800
16 19 (0.34%) MiFID
17 16 (0.28%) SOC 2
18 15 (0.27%) WCAG
19 13 (0.23%) FINRA
20 11 (0.19%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,079 (19.09%) Active Directory
2 210 (3.72%) Docker
3 195 (3.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 101 (1.79%) Hyper-V
5 81 (1.43%) Virtual Desktop
6 71 (1.26%) Virtual Machines
7 57 (1.01%) VMware ESXi
8 52 (0.92%) vSphere
9 29 (0.51%) 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%) RACF
14 5 (0.088%) IAG
14 5 (0.088%) Oracle RAC
14 5 (0.088%) VMware Workstation
15 4 (0.071%) Snort
15 4 (0.071%) XenDesktop
16 3 (0.053%) Squid
Systems Management
1 446 (7.89%) Microsoft Intune
2 348 (6.16%) Terraform
3 248 (4.39%) Kubernetes
4 204 (3.61%) SCCM
5 122 (2.16%) Single Sign-On
6 121 (2.14%) Ansible
7 79 (1.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 50 (0.88%) vCenter Server
9 45 (0.80%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (0.64%) Grafana
11 32 (0.57%) Prometheus
12 23 (0.41%) FortiGate
13 21 (0.37%) SCOM
14 17 (0.30%) 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 10 (0.18%) CASB
Vendors
1 295 (5.22%) ServiceNow
2 266 (4.71%) VMware
3 222 (3.93%) Databricks
3 222 (3.93%) SAP
4 214 (3.79%) Oracle
5 190 (3.36%) Cisco
6 154 (2.72%) Google
7 109 (1.93%) Citrix
8 107 (1.89%) Salesforce
9 94 (1.66%) Splunk
10 80 (1.42%) OpenAI
11 72 (1.27%) Apple
12 66 (1.17%) Foundry
13 56 (0.99%) CrowdStrike
14 52 (0.92%) CyberArk
15 49 (0.87%) HP
16 48 (0.85%) Okta
17 46 (0.81%) Adobe
18 44 (0.78%) Palo Alto
19 42 (0.74%) Dell