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 12 January 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
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 4,829 4,276 5,605
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.32% 13.57% 13.05%
As % of the Vendors category 28.81% 29.65% 29.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,256 2,685 3,849
10th Percentile £204 £205 £195
25th Percentile £350 £348 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £576 £588 £613
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £435 £450
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 362 189 247
10th Percentile £14.09 £15.43 £12.84
25th Percentile £16.48 £15.62 £14.50
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.59 £21.35
Median % change year-on-year -15.60% +10.49% +4.30%
75th Percentile £27.83 £33.75 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £55.52 £55.56
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.20 £21.46 £20.39
% change year-on-year -10.52% +5.27% +2.54%

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 16,759 14,424 19,000
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 46.24% 45.77% 44.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,764 8,535 12,034
10th Percentile £300 £285 £253
25th Percentile £411 £409 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.33%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £496 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.88% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 793 422 684
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.96 £19.60 £17.75
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.13 £43.79
Median % change year-on-year -12.17% -38.06% +60.71%
75th Percentile £47.50 £60.00 £63.29
90th Percentile £74.26 £79.75 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.50 £24.83 £44.50
% change year-on-year -13.41% -44.20% +80.27%

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 12 January 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 12 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Top 17 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 12 January 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 4,249 £475 - 3,134
UK excluding London -1 2,598 £450 +3.45% 2,966
London -1 1,803 £510 +2.00% 659
Work from Home 0 1,233 £500 +1.83% 1,336
North of England +2 684 £415 -5.14% 669
South East +1 600 £475 +5.56% 914
Midlands -4 447 £450 +5.88% 431
North West 0 400 £400 -11.11% 301
South West 0 351 £508 +7.98% 317
West Midlands -5 299 £490 +10.42% 213
East of England -1 257 £425 -4.23% 391
Yorkshire +1 252 £438 +6.76% 272
Scotland -3 187 £452 +15.90% 141
East Midlands -2 148 £375 -3.23% 212
Wales +3 77 £301 -31.14% 130
North East -14 37 £430 +1.18% 105
Northern Ireland +2 35 £350 +40.00% 43

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
1 559 (11.58%) SharePoint
2 371 (7.68%) Microsoft Exchange
3 105 (2.17%) Confluence
4 58 (1.20%) Skype for Business
5 37 (0.77%) CMS
6 24 (0.50%) IIS
7 21 (0.43%) Apache
7 21 (0.43%) HCL Notes
7 21 (0.43%) SAS
8 18 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
8 18 (0.37%) Exchange Server 2013
9 16 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2010
10 14 (0.29%) Apache Spark
11 13 (0.27%) Mattermost
11 13 (0.27%) SharePoint Server
12 11 (0.23%) WebSphere
12 11 (0.23%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.21%) iPlanet
13 10 (0.21%) JBoss
14 9 (0.19%) Mendix
Applications
1 599 (12.40%) Microsoft Office
2 516 (10.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 239 (4.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 124 (2.57%) Microsoft Project
5 101 (2.09%) MS Visio
6 60 (1.24%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.23%) Trello
8 10 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.19%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.12%) Sketch
11 5 (0.10%) Acrobat
11 5 (0.10%) Adobe Captivate
12 4 (0.083%) Adobe After Effects
12 4 (0.083%) Adobe Illustrator
12 4 (0.083%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.083%) InDesign
12 4 (0.083%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.062%) Adobe Premiere
13 3 (0.062%) Windchill
14 2 (0.041%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 181 (3.75%) Dynamics CRM
2 41 (0.85%) Remedy ITSM
3 36 (0.75%) SAP S/4HANA
4 17 (0.35%) Dynamics AX
5 15 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
5 15 (0.31%) Maximo
6 12 (0.25%) NetSuite
7 11 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
9 9 (0.19%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
10 7 (0.14%) Shopify
10 7 (0.14%) Teamcenter
11 6 (0.12%) Aladdin
11 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
12 5 (0.10%) assyst
12 5 (0.10%) SAP ERP
13 4 (0.083%) Loan IQ
13 4 (0.083%) SystmOne
13 4 (0.083%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,845 (38.21%) Azure
2 1,152 (23.86%) Microsoft 365
3 777 (16.09%) Power Platform
4 552 (11.43%) Entra ID
5 428 (8.86%) AWS
6 380 (7.87%) Dynamics 365
7 347 (7.19%) Azure DevOps
8 323 (6.69%) Power Automate
9 297 (6.15%) PowerApps
10 204 (4.22%) GitHub
11 203 (4.20%) Microsoft Purview
12 177 (3.67%) Serverless
13 164 (3.40%) GCP
14 163 (3.38%) OneDrive
15 156 (3.23%) Azure Data Factory
16 155 (3.21%) SaaS
17 141 (2.92%) Azure Sentinel
18 132 (2.73%) Azure Logic Apps
19 129 (2.67%) Microsoft Copilot
20 119 (2.46%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 278 (5.76%) Firewall
2 253 (5.24%) DNS
3 169 (3.50%) VPN
4 160 (3.31%) DHCP
5 126 (2.61%) TCP/IP
6 102 (2.11%) Wi-Fi
7 93 (1.93%) Network Security
8 92 (1.91%) WAN
9 81 (1.68%) LAN
10 79 (1.64%) Skype
11 52 (1.08%) Wireless
12 46 (0.95%) VLAN
13 42 (0.87%) Kerberos
13 42 (0.87%) Unified Communications
14 31 (0.64%) HTTP
15 30 (0.62%) SD-WAN
16 29 (0.60%) Internet
17 28 (0.58%) SAN
18 24 (0.50%) MPLS
18 24 (0.50%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 470 (9.73%) Power BI
2 225 (4.66%) SQL Server
3 129 (2.67%) Data Warehouse
4 125 (2.59%) Data Lake
5 84 (1.74%) PostgreSQL
6 83 (1.72%) Azure SQL Database
6 83 (1.72%) Metadata
7 82 (1.70%) Relational Database
8 74 (1.53%) Oracle Database
9 45 (0.93%) MySQL
10 42 (0.87%) Tableau
11 38 (0.79%) NoSQL
11 38 (0.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 36 (0.75%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 35 (0.72%) Power Query
14 25 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
15 23 (0.48%) Delta Lake
16 19 (0.39%) Spark SQL
17 18 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
17 18 (0.37%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 227 (4.70%) JIRA
2 148 (3.06%) Git
3 87 (1.80%) Jenkins
4 73 (1.51%) GitLab
5 36 (0.75%) Eclipse
6 25 (0.52%) MSI
7 24 (0.50%) Visual Studio
8 23 (0.48%) Postman
9 22 (0.46%) Android Studio
9 22 (0.46%) Browser DevTools
9 22 (0.46%) Xcode
10 19 (0.39%) Selenium
11 15 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
12 13 (0.27%) Artifactory
12 13 (0.27%) Bitbucket
12 13 (0.27%) JMeter
13 12 (0.25%) Cucumber
13 12 (0.25%) InstallShield
14 10 (0.21%) Bitbucket Server
14 10 (0.21%) CA Release Automation
General
1 1,964 (40.67%) Social Skills
2 985 (20.40%) Finance
3 629 (13.03%) Analytical Skills
4 499 (10.33%) Public Sector
5 245 (5.07%) Banking
6 224 (4.64%) Organisational Skills
7 171 (3.54%) Legal
8 145 (3.00%) Documentation Skills
9 130 (2.69%) Manufacturing
10 114 (2.36%) Marketing
11 101 (2.09%) Presentation Skills
12 92 (1.91%) Telecoms
13 78 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 74 (1.53%) Retail
15 57 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
16 50 (1.04%) Local Government
17 44 (0.91%) Military
18 41 (0.85%) Investment Banking
19 39 (0.81%) Law
20 38 (0.79%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 645 (13.36%) Analyst
2 501 (10.37%) Architect
3 458 (9.48%) Developer
4 346 (7.17%) Senior
5 295 (6.11%) Support Engineer
6 287 (5.94%) IT Support
7 260 (5.38%) Consultant
8 238 (4.93%) Lead
9 160 (3.31%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 156 (3.23%) Solutions Architect
11 153 (3.17%) Administrator
12 152 (3.15%) Business Analyst
13 151 (3.13%) Support Analyst
14 143 (2.96%) IT Engineer
15 139 (2.88%) Azure Engineer
15 139 (2.88%) Project Manager
16 128 (2.65%) Data Engineer
17 120 (2.48%) Security Engineer
18 102 (2.11%) Desktop Support
18 102 (2.11%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 244 (5.05%) .NET
2 159 (3.29%) REST
3 113 (2.34%) OAuth
4 108 (2.24%) React
5 89 (1.84%) SAML
6 83 (1.72%) RESTful
7 79 (1.64%) AngularJS
7 79 (1.64%) OpenID
8 76 (1.57%) Microsoft Graph
9 69 (1.43%) HTML
10 67 (1.39%) CSS
11 65 (1.35%) JSON
12 61 (1.26%) PySpark
13 55 (1.14%) ARM Templates
13 55 (1.14%) LDAP
14 52 (1.08%) Node.js
15 48 (0.99%) Web Services
16 46 (0.95%) Middleware
17 44 (0.91%) SOAP
18 43 (0.89%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 265 (5.49%) Onboarding
2 187 (3.87%) Cloud Native
3 136 (2.82%) Product Ownership
4 129 (2.67%) Management Information System
5 114 (2.36%) Enterprise Software
6 95 (1.97%) PKI
7 89 (1.84%) Security Posture
8 84 (1.74%) Data Centre
9 83 (1.72%) Self-Motivation
10 74 (1.53%) Driving Licence
11 72 (1.49%) Mobile App
12 68 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
13 66 (1.37%) Low-Code
14 62 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
15 60 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
16 53 (1.10%) Virtual Team
17 52 (1.08%) Replication
18 46 (0.95%) NHS
19 45 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
20 39 (0.81%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 1,146 (23.73%) Windows
2 329 (6.81%) Windows 10
3 290 (6.01%) Linux
4 253 (5.24%) Windows Server
5 104 (2.15%) Mac OS
6 100 (2.07%) Android
7 87 (1.80%) Apple iOS
8 77 (1.59%) Unix
9 38 (0.79%) Windows 7
10 34 (0.70%) Windows Server 2016
11 28 (0.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 26 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
13 21 (0.43%) Windows Server 2003
14 20 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
15 16 (0.33%) VMS
16 9 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
17 7 (0.14%) Mac OS X
18 6 (0.12%) AIX
18 6 (0.12%) Ubuntu
18 6 (0.12%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,000 (20.71%) Problem-Solving
2 868 (17.97%) Agile
3 713 (14.76%) DevOps
4 605 (12.53%) Migration
5 569 (11.78%) CI/CD
6 557 (11.53%) Business Intelligence
7 493 (10.21%) Stakeholder Management
8 488 (10.11%) Analytics
9 452 (9.36%) ITIL
10 414 (8.57%) Continuous Improvement
11 407 (8.43%) Customer Service
12 399 (8.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 348 (7.21%) AI
14 341 (7.06%) Cybersecurity
15 315 (6.52%) Project Management
16 291 (6.03%) Change Management
17 274 (5.67%) Data Modelling
18 260 (5.38%) Roadmaps
19 250 (5.18%) Project Delivery
20 248 (5.14%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 619 (12.82%) SQL
2 575 (11.91%) PowerShell
3 546 (11.31%) Python
4 259 (5.36%) C#
5 214 (4.43%) JavaScript
6 148 (3.06%) Java
7 107 (2.22%) Kusto Query Language
8 98 (2.03%) Bash
9 94 (1.95%) Bicep
10 75 (1.55%) TypeScript
11 52 (1.08%) T-SQL
12 43 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 38 (0.79%) Perl
14 27 (0.56%) Shell Script
15 26 (0.54%) C++
16 25 (0.52%) PL/SQL
17 20 (0.41%) Go
17 20 (0.41%) R
18 19 (0.39%) VB
18 19 (0.39%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 959 (19.86%) Security Cleared
2 718 (14.87%) SC Cleared
3 509 (10.54%) Degree
4 330 (6.83%) Microsoft Certification
5 201 (4.16%) DV Cleared
6 173 (3.58%) Azure Certification
7 123 (2.55%) CISSP
8 115 (2.38%) Computer Science Degree
9 73 (1.51%) BPSS Clearance
10 67 (1.39%) CISM
11 62 (1.28%) Cisco Certification
12 56 (1.16%) Master's Degree
13 54 (1.12%) PMI Certification
14 52 (1.08%) A+ Certification
15 51 (1.06%) ITIL Certification
16 48 (0.99%) MCSE
17 44 (0.91%) PMP
18 42 (0.87%) AWS Certification
18 42 (0.87%) MCP
19 32 (0.66%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 210 (4.35%) GDPR
2 161 (3.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 151 (3.13%) Data Quality
4 146 (3.02%) QA
5 129 (2.67%) NIST
6 124 (2.57%) SLA
7 100 (2.07%) PMO
8 85 (1.76%) Accessibility
9 44 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials
10 32 (0.66%) NCSC
11 26 (0.54%) PCI DSS
11 26 (0.54%) WCAG
12 22 (0.46%) EU AI Act
13 21 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 19 (0.39%) HIPAA
15 17 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 15 (0.31%) GRC
17 11 (0.23%) SOC 2
18 10 (0.21%) NIST 800
19 9 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 978 (20.25%) Active Directory
2 187 (3.87%) Docker
3 164 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 66 (1.37%) Hyper-V
5 55 (1.14%) Virtual Machines
6 36 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
6 36 (0.75%) vSphere
7 34 (0.70%) VMware ESXi
8 15 (0.31%) BitLocker
9 14 (0.29%) Firmware
10 13 (0.27%) VMware NSX
11 12 (0.25%) Microsoft App-V
12 8 (0.17%) Tivoli Directory Server
13 7 (0.14%) ISA Server
13 7 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
14 6 (0.12%) Brightmail
14 6 (0.12%) NFS
15 5 (0.10%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 5 (0.10%) Terminal Services
15 5 (0.10%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 357 (7.39%) Microsoft Intune
2 266 (5.51%) SCCM
3 260 (5.38%) Terraform
4 225 (4.66%) Kubernetes
5 123 (2.55%) Single Sign-On
6 102 (2.11%) Ansible
7 74 (1.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (1.01%) SCOM
9 38 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
10 37 (0.77%) vCenter Server
11 31 (0.64%) Grafana
12 25 (0.52%) Prometheus
13 21 (0.43%) HP SiteScope
14 20 (0.41%) WSUS
15 18 (0.37%) FortiGate
16 17 (0.35%) QRadar
17 15 (0.31%) Progress Chef
18 14 (0.29%) Kibana
18 14 (0.29%) Microsoft Clustering
18 14 (0.29%) Puppet
Vendors
1 258 (5.34%) ServiceNow
2 224 (4.64%) VMware
3 214 (4.43%) Oracle
4 180 (3.73%) Cisco
5 174 (3.60%) SAP
6 161 (3.33%) Splunk
7 144 (2.98%) Databricks
8 136 (2.82%) Google
9 110 (2.28%) Citrix
10 83 (1.72%) Apple
11 79 (1.64%) Salesforce
12 70 (1.45%) OpenAI
13 62 (1.28%) CrowdStrike
14 55 (1.14%) Palo Alto
15 51 (1.06%) IBM
16 49 (1.01%) Remedy
17 45 (0.93%) HP
18 43 (0.89%) Foundry
18 43 (0.89%) Veeam
19 37 (0.77%) Qualys