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 7 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
7 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,054 4,802 6,048
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.93% 13.45% 13.30%
As % of the Vendors category 29.41% 29.63% 29.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,378 3,032 4,180
10th Percentile £204 £203 £195
25th Percentile £350 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £477 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.31% -4.70% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £619
90th Percentile £673 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £445 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -1.11% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 404 227 253
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.06 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.25 £15.62 £16.40
Median hourly rate £21.00 £23.66 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.24% +2.87% +15.00%
75th Percentile £30.00 £37.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.26 £21.46 £22.00
% change year-on-year -5.62% -2.45% +17.49%

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 17,187 16,208 20,570
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.37% 45.39% 45.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,917 9,626 13,106
10th Percentile £290 £290 £255
25th Percentile £406 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.33%
75th Percentile £612 £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 864 500 679
10th Percentile £15.23 £15.46 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.09 £18.69 £19.88
Median hourly rate £24.00 £29.39 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.33% -33.97% +73.08%
75th Percentile £43.35 £62.51 £64.70
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £76.90
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 7 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 7 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 7 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 4,426 £475 -0.42% 4,044
UK excluding London -1 2,802 £445 -1.11% 3,804
London -1 1,824 £500 - 939
Work from Home 0 1,298 £500 - 1,441
North of England +2 739 £425 -5.56% 909
South East +2 638 £475 - 1,211
Midlands -3 479 £432 -0.60% 586
North West +1 440 £418 -7.22% 498
South West +2 361 £500 +5.26% 385
West Midlands -4 315 £475 +5.56% 355
East of England -1 278 £425 -2.86% 432
Yorkshire +2 266 £435 +5.45% 313
Scotland -2 209 £450 +11.25% 172
East Midlands +3 161 £375 -3.23% 221
Wales +2 91 £298 +19.83% 133
Northern Ireland +6 46 £361 +52.11% 52
North East -6 38 £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
1 566 (11.20%) SharePoint
2 389 (7.70%) Microsoft Exchange
3 102 (2.02%) Confluence
4 63 (1.25%) Skype for Business
5 36 (0.71%) CMS
6 30 (0.59%) Apache
7 29 (0.57%) IIS
8 20 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2010
8 20 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2013
9 19 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
10 18 (0.36%) HCL Notes
10 18 (0.36%) SAS
10 18 (0.36%) SharePoint Server
11 15 (0.30%) WebSphere
12 14 (0.28%) JBoss
13 13 (0.26%) Apache Spark
13 13 (0.26%) Mattermost
14 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
15 10 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2007
15 10 (0.20%) iPlanet
Applications
1 646 (12.78%) Microsoft Office
2 583 (11.54%) Microsoft Excel
3 257 (5.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 134 (2.65%) Microsoft Project
5 104 (2.06%) MS Visio
6 53 (1.05%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.26%) 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 (0.079%) 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
1 168 (3.32%) Dynamics CRM
2 41 (0.81%) SAP S/4HANA
3 39 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.36%) Dynamics AX
5 12 (0.24%) Maximo
6 11 (0.22%) Dynamics NAV
6 11 (0.22%) NetSuite
6 11 (0.22%) Workday HCM
7 10 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 9 (0.18%) Aladdin
8 9 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 9 (0.18%) Teamcenter
9 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
9 7 (0.14%) Primavera
9 7 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
9 7 (0.14%) Shopify
10 5 (0.099%) Oracle ERP
10 5 (0.099%) SAP ERP
11 4 (0.079%) Loan IQ
11 4 (0.079%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,813 (35.87%) Azure
2 1,162 (22.99%) Microsoft 365
3 767 (15.18%) Power Platform
4 567 (11.22%) Entra ID
5 459 (9.08%) AWS
6 375 (7.42%) Dynamics 365
7 336 (6.65%) Azure DevOps
8 315 (6.23%) Power Automate
9 300 (5.94%) PowerApps
10 187 (3.70%) GitHub
11 180 (3.56%) Microsoft Purview
12 164 (3.24%) GCP
12 164 (3.24%) Serverless
13 163 (3.23%) SaaS
14 150 (2.97%) OneDrive
15 149 (2.95%) Azure Sentinel
16 122 (2.41%) Azure Data Factory
17 120 (2.37%) Microsoft Copilot
18 118 (2.33%) Azure Logic Apps
19 113 (2.24%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 327 (6.47%) Firewall
2 264 (5.22%) DNS
3 170 (3.36%) VPN
4 166 (3.28%) DHCP
5 152 (3.01%) TCP/IP
6 94 (1.86%) Network Security
7 93 (1.84%) Wi-Fi
8 88 (1.74%) WAN
9 80 (1.58%) LAN
10 76 (1.50%) Skype
11 59 (1.17%) Wireless
12 42 (0.83%) VLAN
13 40 (0.79%) Unified Communications
14 37 (0.73%) Cisco IOS
15 36 (0.71%) HTTP
15 36 (0.71%) SAN
16 35 (0.69%) VoIP
17 34 (0.67%) Internet
18 29 (0.57%) Ethernet
18 29 (0.57%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 471 (9.32%) Power BI
2 238 (4.71%) SQL Server
3 123 (2.43%) Data Warehouse
4 90 (1.78%) PostgreSQL
5 85 (1.68%) Data Lake
5 85 (1.68%) Relational Database
6 80 (1.58%) Metadata
7 73 (1.44%) Oracle Database
8 71 (1.40%) Azure SQL Database
9 51 (1.01%) Tableau
10 48 (0.95%) MySQL
11 40 (0.79%) Power Query
11 40 (0.79%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 38 (0.75%) NoSQL
13 31 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
14 27 (0.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 25 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
16 18 (0.36%) Delta Lake
17 16 (0.32%) Big Data
17 16 (0.32%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 261 (5.16%) JIRA
2 165 (3.26%) Git
3 100 (1.98%) Jenkins
4 74 (1.46%) GitLab
5 43 (0.85%) Eclipse
6 32 (0.63%) Postman
7 29 (0.57%) Visual Studio
8 28 (0.55%) MSI
9 23 (0.46%) Selenium
10 22 (0.44%) Browser DevTools
10 22 (0.44%) Xcode
11 21 (0.42%) Sonatype Nexus
12 20 (0.40%) Android Studio
13 15 (0.30%) Cucumber
14 13 (0.26%) JUnit
15 12 (0.24%) InstallShield
16 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket
16 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket Server
16 11 (0.22%) CA Release Automation
17 10 (0.20%) SonarQube
General
1 2,046 (40.48%) Social Skills
2 1,085 (21.47%) Finance
3 684 (13.53%) Analytical Skills
4 525 (10.39%) Public Sector
5 261 (5.16%) Banking
6 223 (4.41%) Organisational Skills
7 169 (3.34%) Legal
8 156 (3.09%) Documentation Skills
9 144 (2.85%) Manufacturing
10 121 (2.39%) Presentation Skills
11 114 (2.26%) Marketing
12 103 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 94 (1.86%) Telecoms
14 84 (1.66%) Retail
15 63 (1.25%) Influencing Skills
16 61 (1.21%) Local Government
17 47 (0.93%) Military
18 41 (0.81%) Electronics
19 40 (0.79%) Investment Banking
19 40 (0.79%) Law
Job Titles
1 759 (15.02%) Analyst
2 485 (9.60%) Architect
3 484 (9.58%) Developer
4 348 (6.89%) Senior
5 322 (6.37%) Support Engineer
6 283 (5.60%) Consultant
7 275 (5.44%) IT Support
8 242 (4.79%) Lead
9 164 (3.24%) Support Analyst
10 162 (3.21%) Administrator
11 159 (3.15%) Project Manager
12 157 (3.11%) Solutions Architect
13 149 (2.95%) Business Analyst
14 147 (2.91%) IT Engineer
15 141 (2.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 132 (2.61%) Azure Engineer
17 119 (2.35%) Security Engineer
18 108 (2.14%) Desktop Support
19 106 (2.10%) IT Support Engineer
20 100 (1.98%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 248 (4.91%) .NET
2 156 (3.09%) REST
3 123 (2.43%) OAuth
4 111 (2.20%) React
5 97 (1.92%) RESTful
6 92 (1.82%) SAML
7 87 (1.72%) AngularJS
8 83 (1.64%) OpenID
9 75 (1.48%) HTML
10 72 (1.42%) CSS
11 65 (1.29%) JSON
12 62 (1.23%) Web Services
13 61 (1.21%) Microsoft Graph
14 58 (1.15%) SOAP
15 56 (1.11%) Node.js
15 56 (1.11%) XML
16 51 (1.01%) .NET Framework
16 51 (1.01%) LDAP
17 46 (0.91%) OAuth2
18 44 (0.87%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 249 (4.93%) Onboarding
2 188 (3.72%) Cloud Native
3 141 (2.79%) Product Ownership
4 137 (2.71%) Management Information System
5 102 (2.02%) Data Centre
5 102 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
6 100 (1.98%) PKI
7 97 (1.92%) Security Posture
8 88 (1.74%) Self-Motivation
9 78 (1.54%) Driving Licence
10 75 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
11 73 (1.44%) Mobile App
12 66 (1.31%) Low-Code
13 64 (1.27%) Virtual Team
14 62 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
15 59 (1.17%) Hybrid Cloud
16 55 (1.09%) Replication
17 48 (0.95%) Data Protection Act
18 47 (0.93%) NHS
19 42 (0.83%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 1,231 (24.36%) Windows
2 334 (6.61%) Windows 10
3 312 (6.17%) Linux
4 271 (5.36%) Windows Server
5 135 (2.67%) Mac OS
6 118 (2.33%) Android
7 83 (1.64%) Apple iOS
8 82 (1.62%) Unix
9 44 (0.87%) Windows 7
10 34 (0.67%) Windows Server 2016
11 33 (0.65%) Windows Server 2019
12 25 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 22 (0.44%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
15 16 (0.32%) VMS
16 11 (0.22%) Ubuntu
17 10 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
18 9 (0.18%) Mac OS X
19 8 (0.16%) CentOS
20 6 (0.12%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,063 (21.03%) Problem-Solving
2 934 (18.48%) Agile
3 688 (13.61%) DevOps
4 615 (12.17%) Migration
5 564 (11.16%) CI/CD
6 560 (11.08%) Business Intelligence
7 505 (9.99%) Stakeholder Management
8 494 (9.77%) ITIL
9 465 (9.20%) Analytics
10 427 (8.45%) Continuous Improvement
11 425 (8.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 404 (7.99%) Customer Service
13 387 (7.66%) Cybersecurity
14 351 (6.94%) Project Management
15 344 (6.81%) AI
16 319 (6.31%) Change Management
17 252 (4.99%) CRM
17 252 (4.99%) Roadmaps
18 251 (4.97%) Data Modelling
19 247 (4.89%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 637 (12.60%) SQL
2 571 (11.30%) PowerShell
3 562 (11.12%) Python
4 261 (5.16%) C#
5 219 (4.33%) JavaScript
6 168 (3.32%) Java
7 114 (2.26%) Bash
8 101 (2.00%) Kusto Query Language
9 94 (1.86%) Bicep
10 75 (1.48%) TypeScript
11 51 (1.01%) T-SQL
12 44 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 40 (0.79%) Perl
14 36 (0.71%) C++
15 28 (0.55%) Shell Script
16 24 (0.47%) PL/SQL
16 24 (0.47%) R
16 24 (0.47%) VBA
17 23 (0.46%) VB
18 22 (0.44%) Go
Qualifications
1 940 (18.60%) Security Cleared
2 705 (13.95%) SC Cleared
3 541 (10.70%) Degree
4 359 (7.10%) Microsoft Certification
5 193 (3.82%) DV Cleared
6 178 (3.52%) Azure Certification
7 135 (2.67%) CISSP
8 122 (2.41%) Computer Science Degree
9 84 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
10 83 (1.64%) Cisco Certification
11 69 (1.37%) CISM
12 57 (1.13%) ITIL Certification
13 54 (1.07%) PMI Certification
14 53 (1.05%) A+ Certification
14 53 (1.05%) Master's Degree
15 51 (1.01%) MCSE
16 50 (0.99%) AWS Certification
17 42 (0.83%) CCNA
17 42 (0.83%) MCP
17 42 (0.83%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 251 (4.97%) GDPR
2 183 (3.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 164 (3.24%) QA
4 154 (3.05%) NIST
5 137 (2.71%) Data Quality
6 112 (2.22%) SLA
7 111 (2.20%) PMO
8 85 (1.68%) Accessibility
9 52 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials
10 40 (0.79%) PCI DSS
11 33 (0.65%) HIPAA
11 33 (0.65%) NCSC
12 23 (0.46%) WCAG
13 22 (0.44%) EU AI Act
14 20 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 20 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 15 (0.30%) GRC
16 10 (0.20%) SOC 2
17 9 (0.18%) COBIT
17 9 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 1,041 (20.60%) Active Directory
2 186 (3.68%) Docker
3 172 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 61 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 57 (1.13%) Virtual Machines
6 44 (0.87%) vSphere
7 38 (0.75%) VMware ESXi
8 34 (0.67%) Virtual Desktop
9 19 (0.38%) BitLocker
9 19 (0.38%) VMware NSX
10 16 (0.32%) Firmware
11 13 (0.26%) NFS
12 11 (0.22%) ISA Server
12 11 (0.22%) XenApp
13 10 (0.20%) Brightmail
14 9 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
15 8 (0.16%) Terminal Services
15 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
16 6 (0.12%) Snort
16 6 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 378 (7.48%) Microsoft Intune
2 309 (6.11%) SCCM
3 260 (5.14%) Terraform
4 226 (4.47%) Kubernetes
5 120 (2.37%) Single Sign-On
6 107 (2.12%) Ansible
7 68 (1.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 51 (1.01%) SCOM
9 48 (0.95%) Jamf Pro
10 38 (0.75%) vCenter Server
11 34 (0.67%) Grafana
12 26 (0.51%) Prometheus
13 21 (0.42%) HP SiteScope
14 20 (0.40%) Microsoft Clustering
14 20 (0.40%) QRadar
14 20 (0.40%) WSUS
15 16 (0.32%) Progress Chef
15 16 (0.32%) WMI
16 15 (0.30%) Puppet
17 13 (0.26%) Kibana
Vendors
1 291 (5.76%) ServiceNow
2 243 (4.81%) VMware
3 231 (4.57%) Oracle
4 215 (4.25%) Cisco
5 199 (3.94%) Splunk
6 195 (3.86%) SAP
7 148 (2.93%) Google
8 118 (2.33%) Databricks
9 112 (2.22%) Citrix
10 91 (1.80%) Apple
11 88 (1.74%) Salesforce
12 66 (1.31%) OpenAI
13 65 (1.29%) CrowdStrike
14 58 (1.15%) IBM
15 55 (1.09%) Palo Alto
16 54 (1.07%) Remedy
17 47 (0.93%) CyberArk
18 45 (0.89%) HP
19 44 (0.87%) Adobe
20 42 (0.83%) Veeam