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 26 February 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
26 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 8 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,337 4,147 5,674
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.88% 13.51% 12.94%
As % of the Vendors category 28.84% 29.00% 29.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,610 2,684 3,837
10th Percentile £205 £206 £190
25th Percentile £363 £348 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £498
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -4.62% -0.40%
75th Percentile £580 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.86% -2.78% -2.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 375 174 388
10th Percentile £13.53 £15.44 £11.90
25th Percentile £16.25 £17.74 £14.00
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.90 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.69% +36.57% -16.39%
75th Percentile £27.50 £33.75 £35.93
90th Percentile £63.75 £62.73 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.10 £22.50 £16.61
% change year-on-year -15.13% +35.50% -16.98%

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 18,503 14,299 19,027
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.65% 46.60% 43.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,865 8,677 11,923
10th Percentile £305 £281 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £517
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +0.58% -1.99%
75th Percentile £604 £625 £630
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 918 420 944
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £12.99
25th Percentile £18.09 £21.25 £15.48
Median hourly rate £24.28 £30.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.08% +15.38% -21.21%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £55.21
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.63 £27.24 £25.28
% change year-on-year -16.92% +7.76% -18.47%

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 26 February 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 26 February 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 26 February 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 4,677 £490 +3.16% 2,934
UK excluding London -1 2,870 £450 +2.86% 2,737
London -3 1,964 £510 +2.00% 722
Work from Home -1 1,355 £500 +0.91% 1,026
North of England -2 744 £433 +0.58% 664
South East -1 657 £475 -1.86% 873
Midlands -6 490 £450 +5.88% 412
North West -1 424 £415 -7.78% 358
South West +1 360 £520 +9.47% 304
East of England +1 354 £406 -9.72% 286
West Midlands -10 334 £475 +9.45% 210
Yorkshire 0 287 £450 +9.09% 212
Scotland -1 190 £460 +22.67% 151
East Midlands -1 154 £418 +4.38% 199
Wales +3 94 £309 -27.35% 78
North East -15 39 £450 +28.57% 104
Northern Ireland -1 26 £450 +38.46% 22
Channel Islands +3 1 - - 2

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
1 600 (11.24%) SharePoint
2 419 (7.85%) Microsoft Exchange
3 116 (2.17%) Confluence
4 45 (0.84%) Skype for Business
5 27 (0.51%) CMS
6 22 (0.41%) Apache
7 21 (0.39%) Apache Spark
8 16 (0.30%) HCL Notes
9 15 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
10 13 (0.24%) IIS
11 12 (0.22%) SAS
12 9 (0.17%) Mendix
13 8 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2013
14 7 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2010
14 7 (0.13%) Mattermost
14 7 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
15 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
16 5 (0.094%) JBoss
16 5 (0.094%) Oracle Application Server
16 5 (0.094%) WebSphere
Applications
1 632 (11.84%) Microsoft Office
2 517 (9.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 230 (4.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 128 (2.40%) Microsoft Project
5 107 (2.00%) MS Visio
6 76 (1.42%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.21%) Trello
9 9 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 7 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
11 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
11 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
12 5 (0.094%) PTC Creo
12 5 (0.094%) Sketch
13 4 (0.075%) Adobe XD
14 3 (0.056%) InDesign
14 3 (0.056%) Photoshop
14 3 (0.056%) SOLIDWORKS
15 2 (0.037%) Adobe After Effects
15 2 (0.037%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 190 (3.56%) Dynamics CRM
2 52 (0.97%) SAP S/4HANA
3 32 (0.60%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.32%) Dynamics AX
4 17 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
5 15 (0.28%) Maximo
6 14 (0.26%) Aladdin
7 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.19%) Loan IQ
8 10 (0.19%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.19%) Teamcenter
8 10 (0.19%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 7 (0.13%) Advent Geneva
9 7 (0.13%) Shopify
10 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
10 6 (0.11%) Sage X3
10 6 (0.11%) SystmOne
11 5 (0.094%) Primavera
11 5 (0.094%) Salesforce CRM
11 5 (0.094%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 2,129 (39.89%) Azure
2 1,346 (25.22%) Microsoft 365
3 858 (16.08%) Power Platform
4 679 (12.72%) Entra ID
5 455 (8.53%) AWS
6 409 (7.66%) Dynamics 365
7 394 (7.38%) Azure DevOps
8 344 (6.45%) Power Automate
9 305 (5.71%) PowerApps
10 265 (4.97%) Microsoft Purview
11 225 (4.22%) GitHub
12 213 (3.99%) OneDrive
13 189 (3.54%) Serverless
14 186 (3.49%) Microsoft Copilot
15 185 (3.47%) Azure Data Factory
15 185 (3.47%) SaaS
16 172 (3.22%) GCP
17 145 (2.72%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 142 (2.66%) Azure Logic Apps
19 138 (2.59%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 312 (5.85%) DNS
2 289 (5.42%) Firewall
3 198 (3.71%) VPN
4 192 (3.60%) DHCP
5 140 (2.62%) Wi-Fi
6 134 (2.51%) TCP/IP
7 123 (2.30%) WAN
8 108 (2.02%) LAN
9 104 (1.95%) Network Security
10 72 (1.35%) Skype
11 64 (1.20%) Kerberos
12 62 (1.16%) VLAN
13 47 (0.88%) Unified Communications
14 45 (0.84%) Wireless
15 35 (0.66%) SD-WAN
16 31 (0.58%) HTTP
16 31 (0.58%) SSL
17 30 (0.56%) Internet
18 28 (0.52%) SAN
19 27 (0.51%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 524 (9.82%) Power BI
2 250 (4.68%) SQL Server
3 157 (2.94%) Data Warehouse
4 142 (2.66%) Data Lake
5 102 (1.91%) Metadata
5 102 (1.91%) PostgreSQL
6 98 (1.84%) Azure SQL Database
7 75 (1.41%) Relational Database
8 64 (1.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 58 (1.09%) Oracle Database
10 53 (0.99%) MySQL
10 53 (0.99%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 43 (0.81%) NoSQL
12 38 (0.71%) Power Query
12 38 (0.71%) Tableau
13 29 (0.54%) Delta Lake
14 25 (0.47%) Star Schema
15 24 (0.45%) Oracle Reports
15 24 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
16 23 (0.43%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 251 (4.70%) JIRA
2 166 (3.11%) Git
3 73 (1.37%) GitLab
4 71 (1.33%) Jenkins
5 30 (0.56%) Eclipse
6 26 (0.49%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.41%) MSI
8 21 (0.39%) Postman
9 19 (0.36%) Artifactory
10 16 (0.30%) Android Studio
11 15 (0.28%) Browser DevTools
11 15 (0.28%) JMeter
11 15 (0.28%) Selenium
12 14 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
13 13 (0.24%) Cucumber
13 13 (0.24%) Xcode
14 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
14 11 (0.21%) JUnit
14 11 (0.21%) MLflow
15 10 (0.19%) ERwin
General
1 2,061 (38.62%) Social Skills
2 1,039 (19.47%) Finance
3 673 (12.61%) Analytical Skills
4 520 (9.74%) Public Sector
5 255 (4.78%) Organisational Skills
6 246 (4.61%) Banking
7 230 (4.31%) Legal
8 170 (3.19%) Documentation Skills
9 127 (2.38%) Manufacturing
10 116 (2.17%) Presentation Skills
11 106 (1.99%) Marketing
12 93 (1.74%) Telecoms
13 72 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 72 (1.35%) Retail
14 59 (1.11%) Influencing Skills
15 55 (1.03%) Military
16 51 (0.96%) Law
17 44 (0.82%) Investment Banking
18 40 (0.75%) Pharmaceutical
19 38 (0.71%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 655 (12.27%) Analyst
2 608 (11.39%) Architect
3 503 (9.42%) Developer
4 417 (7.81%) Senior
5 352 (6.60%) IT Support
6 297 (5.56%) Consultant
7 295 (5.53%) Support Engineer
8 264 (4.95%) Lead
9 186 (3.49%) Solutions Architect
10 179 (3.35%) IT Engineer
11 177 (3.32%) Data Engineer
12 174 (3.26%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 173 (3.24%) Azure Engineer
14 172 (3.22%) Business Analyst
15 167 (3.13%) Administrator
16 166 (3.11%) Project Manager
17 138 (2.59%) IT Support Engineer
18 131 (2.45%) Support Analyst
19 116 (2.17%) Security Engineer
20 99 (1.85%) Microsoft Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 245 (4.59%) .NET
2 168 (3.15%) REST
3 134 (2.51%) OAuth
4 114 (2.14%) SAML
5 112 (2.10%) Microsoft Graph
6 103 (1.93%) React
7 94 (1.76%) OpenID
8 77 (1.44%) PySpark
9 76 (1.42%) LDAP
10 74 (1.39%) RESTful
11 71 (1.33%) JSON
12 69 (1.29%) AngularJS
12 69 (1.29%) HTML
13 65 (1.22%) CSS
14 62 (1.16%) ARM Templates
15 58 (1.09%) Node.js
16 56 (1.05%) Middleware
17 55 (1.03%) Web Services
18 54 (1.01%) OAuth2
19 43 (0.81%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 300 (5.62%) Onboarding
2 208 (3.90%) Cloud Native
3 161 (3.02%) Product Ownership
4 136 (2.55%) Management Information System
5 110 (2.06%) Enterprise Software
6 94 (1.76%) PKI
7 89 (1.67%) Security Posture
8 87 (1.63%) Data Centre
9 85 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
10 79 (1.48%) Self-Motivation
11 75 (1.41%) Low-Code
11 75 (1.41%) Replication
12 74 (1.39%) Legacy Systems
13 67 (1.26%) Driving Licence
14 59 (1.11%) AI Agents
15 58 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
15 58 (1.09%) Mobile App
16 57 (1.07%) Data Protection Act
16 57 (1.07%) Data Structures
17 55 (1.03%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1,246 (23.35%) Windows
2 364 (6.82%) Windows 10
3 308 (5.77%) Linux
4 274 (5.13%) Windows Server
5 110 (2.06%) Mac OS
6 103 (1.93%) Android
7 95 (1.78%) Apple iOS
8 63 (1.18%) Unix
9 46 (0.86%) Windows 7
10 41 (0.77%) Windows Server 2016
11 38 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 22 (0.41%) VMS
12 22 (0.41%) Windows Server 2019
13 20 (0.37%) Windows Server 2003
13 20 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.15%) CentOS
14 8 (0.15%) Ubuntu
15 7 (0.13%) AIX
16 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
17 5 (0.094%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,040 (19.49%) Problem-Solving
2 892 (16.71%) Agile
3 786 (14.73%) DevOps
4 699 (13.10%) Migration
5 667 (12.50%) CI/CD
6 620 (11.62%) Business Intelligence
7 581 (10.89%) Analytics
8 543 (10.17%) Stakeholder Management
9 457 (8.56%) AI
10 455 (8.53%) Customer Service
11 453 (8.49%) Continuous Improvement
12 442 (8.28%) ITIL
13 440 (8.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 371 (6.95%) Cybersecurity
15 344 (6.45%) Data Modelling
16 316 (5.92%) Project Management
17 312 (5.85%) Roadmaps
18 305 (5.71%) Change Management
19 296 (5.55%) Project Delivery
20 294 (5.51%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 678 (12.70%) SQL
2 676 (12.67%) PowerShell
3 626 (11.73%) Python
4 271 (5.08%) C#
5 231 (4.33%) JavaScript
6 146 (2.74%) Java
7 116 (2.17%) Bicep
8 108 (2.02%) Bash
9 103 (1.93%) Kusto Query Language
10 85 (1.59%) TypeScript
11 70 (1.31%) T-SQL
12 60 (1.12%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 33 (0.62%) PL/SQL
14 31 (0.58%) C++
15 30 (0.56%) Perl
16 26 (0.49%) VB
17 24 (0.45%) VBA
18 23 (0.43%) Shell Script
19 18 (0.34%) Go
20 16 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 1,065 (19.96%) Security Cleared
2 798 (14.95%) SC Cleared
3 550 (10.31%) Degree
4 335 (6.28%) Microsoft Certification
5 220 (4.12%) DV Cleared
6 192 (3.60%) Azure Certification
7 124 (2.32%) Computer Science Degree
8 113 (2.12%) CISSP
9 93 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
10 64 (1.20%) CISM
11 59 (1.11%) Master's Degree
12 58 (1.09%) Cisco Certification
13 57 (1.07%) PMI Certification
14 48 (0.90%) PMP
15 47 (0.88%) MCSE
16 44 (0.82%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 41 (0.77%) AWS Certification
17 41 (0.77%) ITIL Certification
18 40 (0.75%) A+ Certification
19 33 (0.62%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 243 (4.55%) GDPR
2 205 (3.84%) Data Quality
3 156 (2.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 155 (2.90%) QA
5 149 (2.79%) SLA
6 121 (2.27%) PMO
7 120 (2.25%) NIST
8 80 (1.50%) Accessibility
9 56 (1.05%) Cyber Essentials
10 37 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 34 (0.64%) NCSC
12 27 (0.51%) PCI DSS
13 22 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 22 (0.41%) WCAG
14 21 (0.39%) GRC
15 19 (0.36%) EU AI Act
16 17 (0.32%) MiFID
16 17 (0.32%) SOC 2
17 16 (0.30%) HIPAA
18 14 (0.26%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,102 (20.65%) Active Directory
2 209 (3.92%) Docker
3 181 (3.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 83 (1.56%) Hyper-V
5 70 (1.31%) Virtual Machines
6 49 (0.92%) Virtual Desktop
7 39 (0.73%) vSphere
8 34 (0.64%) VMware ESXi
9 21 (0.39%) VMware NSX
10 19 (0.36%) BitLocker
11 11 (0.21%) Firmware
12 9 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
13 7 (0.13%) Snort
14 6 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
14 6 (0.11%) RACF
14 6 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
15 5 (0.094%) Tivoli Directory Server
16 4 (0.075%) KVM
16 4 (0.075%) NFS
Systems Management
1 427 (8.00%) Microsoft Intune
2 327 (6.13%) Terraform
3 264 (4.95%) SCCM
4 245 (4.59%) Kubernetes
5 165 (3.09%) Single Sign-On
6 106 (1.99%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 106 (1.99%) Ansible
7 48 (0.90%) Jamf Pro
8 39 (0.73%) Grafana
9 37 (0.69%) vCenter Server
10 34 (0.64%) Prometheus
10 34 (0.64%) SCOM
11 24 (0.45%) FortiGate
12 20 (0.37%) WSUS
13 16 (0.30%) Puppet
14 14 (0.26%) AirWatch
14 14 (0.26%) Nessus
14 14 (0.26%) Progress Chef
14 14 (0.26%) WMI
15 11 (0.21%) CASB
Vendors
1 271 (5.08%) ServiceNow
2 266 (4.98%) VMware
3 200 (3.75%) SAP
4 193 (3.62%) Databricks
4 193 (3.62%) Oracle
5 192 (3.60%) Cisco
6 151 (2.83%) Google
7 132 (2.47%) Citrix
8 126 (2.36%) Splunk
9 92 (1.72%) Salesforce
10 85 (1.59%) OpenAI
11 73 (1.37%) Apple
12 64 (1.20%) CrowdStrike
12 64 (1.20%) Foundry
13 60 (1.12%) Palo Alto
14 53 (0.99%) HP
15 45 (0.84%) Okta
15 45 (0.84%) Remedy
16 42 (0.79%) CyberArk
17 39 (0.73%) IBM