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 11 April 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
11 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 11 7
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,556 3,891 5,631
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.14% 13.32% 12.81%
As % of the Vendors category 28.27% 28.15% 30.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,743 2,620 3,732
10th Percentile £206 £210 £189
25th Percentile £371 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £579 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £447 £465
% change year-on-year +0.67% -3.86% +2.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 382 209 435
10th Percentile £13.42 £14.20 £11.06
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.84 £12.85
Median hourly rate £20.09 £22.27 £15.42
Median % change year-on-year -9.79% +44.42% -31.47%
75th Percentile £27.72 £30.63 £23.79
90th Percentile £64.88 £61.30 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.91 £20.00 £15.00
% change year-on-year -0.45% +33.33% -25.00%

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 19,653 13,823 18,712
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 42.94% 47.30% 42.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,587 8,734 11,686
10th Percentile £313 £293 £259
25th Percentile £413 £406 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.49% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £626
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 981 517 1,057
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.10 £12.08
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.51 £14.36
Median hourly rate £28.00 £27.99 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.04% +24.40% -47.06%
75th Percentile £60.00 £60.00 £56.49
90th Percentile £78.25 £80.04 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.38 £25.00 £21.50
% change year-on-year +1.52% +16.28% -44.16%

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 11 April 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 11 April 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 11 April 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 4,874 £492 +3.58% 3,243
UK excluding London 0 2,897 £450 +0.67% 2,912
London -2 2,128 £510 +2.00% 867
Work from Home -2 1,374 £500 - 1,234
North of England +1 792 £447 +5.18% 701
South East -3 648 £480 -4.00% 876
Midlands -5 499 £447 +5.18% 451
North West -1 439 £416 -7.56% 370
West Midlands -7 347 £463 +8.82% 243
East of England 0 343 £400 -3.03% 304
South West -2 327 £485 +2.11% 336
Yorkshire +9 325 £454 +13.50% 237
Scotland +3 195 £438 +8.16% 170
East Midlands 0 147 £379 -10.94% 207
Wales +2 98 £310 +14.81% 102
North East -16 34 £450 +28.57% 104
Northern Ireland +3 22 £450 +38.46% 39
Channel Islands -2 1 - - 1

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
1 614 (11.05%) SharePoint
2 413 (7.43%) Microsoft Exchange
3 109 (1.96%) Confluence
4 29 (0.52%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.38%) Apache
6 21 (0.38%) CMS
7 18 (0.32%) Skype for Business
8 17 (0.31%) HCL Notes
9 16 (0.29%) SAS
10 10 (0.18%) IIS
10 10 (0.18%) Mendix
11 7 (0.13%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.090%) Camunda
12 5 (0.090%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.072%) Drupal
13 4 (0.072%) Exchange Server 2010
13 4 (0.072%) Exchange Server 2013
13 4 (0.072%) Jupyter
14 3 (0.054%) Smallworld
Applications
1 591 (10.64%) Microsoft Office
2 523 (9.41%) Microsoft Excel
3 231 (4.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 130 (2.34%) Microsoft Project
5 99 (1.78%) MS Visio
6 77 (1.39%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.27%) Chatbot
8 10 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 10 (0.18%) Trello
9 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
9 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
10 5 (0.090%) PTC Creo
11 4 (0.072%) Adobe Captivate
11 4 (0.072%) InDesign
12 3 (0.054%) AutoCAD
12 3 (0.054%) Photoshop
12 3 (0.054%) SOLIDWORKS
13 2 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
13 2 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 199 (3.58%) Dynamics CRM
2 52 (0.94%) SAP S/4HANA
3 21 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
4 16 (0.29%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.25%) Aladdin
5 14 (0.25%) Maximo
6 13 (0.23%) NetSuite
7 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
8 11 (0.20%) Teamcenter
9 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 8 (0.14%) Sage X3
10 8 (0.14%) Shopify
11 7 (0.13%) SystmOne
12 6 (0.11%) Advent Geneva
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
12 6 (0.11%) SAP MM
13 5 (0.090%) Primavera
13 5 (0.090%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 2,290 (41.22%) Azure
2 1,437 (25.86%) Microsoft 365
3 937 (16.86%) Power Platform
4 717 (12.90%) Entra ID
5 458 (8.24%) AWS
6 455 (8.19%) Dynamics 365
7 450 (8.10%) Azure DevOps
8 347 (6.25%) Power Automate
9 315 (5.67%) PowerApps
10 280 (5.04%) Microsoft Purview
11 266 (4.79%) GitHub
12 218 (3.92%) Microsoft Copilot
13 208 (3.74%) OneDrive
14 198 (3.56%) Azure Data Factory
15 186 (3.35%) SaaS
16 179 (3.22%) Serverless
17 165 (2.97%) GCP
18 164 (2.95%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 148 (2.66%) PaaS
20 147 (2.65%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 306 (5.51%) Firewall
2 299 (5.38%) DNS
3 211 (3.80%) VPN
4 172 (3.10%) DHCP
5 146 (2.63%) Wi-Fi
6 136 (2.45%) WAN
7 123 (2.21%) Network Security
8 118 (2.12%) LAN
9 111 (2.00%) TCP/IP
10 59 (1.06%) VLAN
11 54 (0.97%) Kerberos
12 44 (0.79%) SD-WAN
13 39 (0.70%) Skype
14 38 (0.68%) Wireless
15 35 (0.63%) SAN
15 35 (0.63%) SSL
15 35 (0.63%) Unified Communications
16 29 (0.52%) HTTP
17 26 (0.47%) MPLS
18 23 (0.41%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 586 (10.55%) Power BI
2 280 (5.04%) SQL Server
3 182 (3.28%) Data Warehouse
4 154 (2.77%) Data Lake
5 121 (2.18%) Azure SQL Database
6 111 (2.00%) Metadata
7 102 (1.84%) PostgreSQL
8 73 (1.31%) Relational Database
9 71 (1.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 53 (0.95%) Oracle Database
10 53 (0.95%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 49 (0.88%) NoSQL
11 49 (0.88%) Tableau
12 47 (0.85%) MySQL
13 41 (0.74%) Power Query
14 40 (0.72%) Delta Lake
15 37 (0.67%) Star Schema
16 27 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
16 27 (0.49%) Spark SQL
17 25 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 251 (4.52%) JIRA
2 177 (3.19%) Git
3 69 (1.24%) GitLab
4 66 (1.19%) Jenkins
5 25 (0.45%) Artifactory
6 24 (0.43%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.40%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.32%) MSI
8 18 (0.32%) Postman
9 17 (0.31%) Selenium
10 16 (0.29%) MLflow
11 15 (0.27%) JMeter
12 13 (0.23%) Cucumber
12 13 (0.23%) JUnit
12 13 (0.23%) Visual Studio Code
13 11 (0.20%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.20%) Maven
14 10 (0.18%) Android Studio
14 10 (0.18%) SpecFlow
15 9 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,971 (35.48%) Social Skills
2 1,114 (20.05%) Finance
3 644 (11.59%) Analytical Skills
4 537 (9.67%) Public Sector
5 295 (5.31%) Banking
6 255 (4.59%) Organisational Skills
7 252 (4.54%) Legal
8 156 (2.81%) Documentation Skills
9 119 (2.14%) Manufacturing
10 108 (1.94%) Presentation Skills
11 100 (1.80%) Marketing
12 94 (1.69%) Law
13 89 (1.60%) Telecoms
14 86 (1.55%) Retail
15 82 (1.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 63 (1.13%) Military
17 62 (1.12%) Local Government
18 61 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
19 54 (0.97%) Investment Banking
20 41 (0.74%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 683 (12.29%) Architect
2 612 (11.02%) Analyst
3 532 (9.58%) Developer
4 444 (7.99%) Senior
5 373 (6.71%) IT Support
6 322 (5.80%) Lead
7 285 (5.13%) Consultant
8 270 (4.86%) Support Engineer
9 211 (3.80%) Data Engineer
10 204 (3.67%) Azure Engineer
11 197 (3.55%) IT Engineer
11 197 (3.55%) Solutions Architect
12 180 (3.24%) Project Manager
13 176 (3.17%) Administrator
14 174 (3.13%) Business Analyst
15 165 (2.97%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 149 (2.68%) IT Support Engineer
17 112 (2.02%) Security Engineer
18 110 (1.98%) DevOps Engineer
19 101 (1.82%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 261 (4.70%) .NET
2 182 (3.28%) REST
3 133 (2.39%) Microsoft Graph
4 119 (2.14%) OAuth
5 101 (1.82%) SAML
6 95 (1.71%) PySpark
7 93 (1.67%) React
8 81 (1.46%) OpenID
9 71 (1.28%) JSON
10 66 (1.19%) LDAP
11 64 (1.15%) Middleware
12 63 (1.13%) Web Services
13 61 (1.10%) HTML
14 58 (1.04%) ARM Templates
14 58 (1.04%) OAuth2
15 57 (1.03%) AngularJS
15 57 (1.03%) RESTful
16 53 (0.95%) CSS
16 53 (0.95%) Node.js
17 51 (0.92%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 279 (5.02%) Onboarding
2 222 (4.00%) Cloud Native
3 191 (3.44%) Product Ownership
4 127 (2.29%) Management Information System
5 110 (1.98%) Enterprise Software
6 100 (1.80%) Data Centre
7 90 (1.62%) Hybrid Cloud
8 87 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
9 85 (1.53%) PKI
10 81 (1.46%) Security Posture
11 79 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
12 75 (1.35%) AI Agents
13 73 (1.31%) Replication
14 68 (1.22%) Data Structures
15 67 (1.21%) Low-Code
16 64 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
17 58 (1.04%) NHS
18 57 (1.03%) Driving Licence
19 56 (1.01%) Virtual Team
20 46 (0.83%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,227 (22.08%) Windows
2 336 (6.05%) Windows 10
3 283 (5.09%) Windows Server
4 278 (5.00%) Linux
5 101 (1.82%) Android
6 96 (1.73%) Apple iOS
7 94 (1.69%) Mac OS
8 43 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 43 (0.77%) Windows 7
9 40 (0.72%) Unix
10 39 (0.70%) Windows Server 2016
11 27 (0.49%) VMS
12 23 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
13 19 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
14 18 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
15 11 (0.20%) CentOS
16 9 (0.16%) Ubuntu
17 7 (0.13%) AIX
18 4 (0.072%) Solaris
18 4 (0.072%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 984 (17.71%) Problem-Solving
2 883 (15.89%) Agile
3 866 (15.59%) DevOps
4 781 (14.06%) Migration
5 748 (13.46%) CI/CD
6 667 (12.01%) Business Intelligence
7 626 (11.27%) Analytics
8 536 (9.65%) AI
9 534 (9.61%) Stakeholder Management
10 506 (9.11%) Continuous Improvement
11 467 (8.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 464 (8.35%) Customer Service
13 425 (7.65%) ITIL
14 398 (7.16%) Data Modelling
15 371 (6.68%) Cybersecurity
16 340 (6.12%) Roadmaps
17 328 (5.90%) Infrastructure as Code
18 311 (5.60%) Project Management
19 301 (5.42%) Decision-Making
20 296 (5.33%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 740 (13.32%) SQL
2 664 (11.95%) PowerShell
3 629 (11.32%) Python
4 293 (5.27%) C#
5 224 (4.03%) JavaScript
6 175 (3.15%) Java
7 126 (2.27%) Bicep
8 102 (1.84%) Kusto Query Language
9 97 (1.75%) Bash
10 85 (1.53%) TypeScript
11 81 (1.46%) T-SQL
12 69 (1.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 37 (0.67%) PL/SQL
14 30 (0.54%) VBA
15 28 (0.50%) C++
16 23 (0.41%) VB
17 21 (0.38%) Perl
18 18 (0.32%) Shell Script
19 17 (0.31%) R
20 15 (0.27%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,078 (19.40%) Security Cleared
2 820 (14.76%) SC Cleared
3 560 (10.08%) Degree
4 290 (5.22%) Microsoft Certification
5 216 (3.89%) DV Cleared
6 190 (3.42%) Azure Certification
7 128 (2.30%) Computer Science Degree
8 99 (1.78%) CISSP
9 97 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
10 71 (1.28%) PMI Certification
11 69 (1.24%) Cisco Certification
12 62 (1.12%) PMP
13 57 (1.03%) Master's Degree
14 52 (0.94%) CISM
15 41 (0.74%) AWS Certification
16 38 (0.68%) MCSE
17 33 (0.59%) ITIL Certification
18 32 (0.58%) CCNP
18 32 (0.58%) DBS Check
19 30 (0.54%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 258 (4.64%) Data Quality
2 235 (4.23%) GDPR
3 172 (3.10%) QA
4 152 (2.74%) SLA
5 137 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 113 (2.03%) PMO
7 108 (1.94%) NIST
8 71 (1.28%) Accessibility
9 58 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
10 47 (0.85%) NCSC
11 39 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 29 (0.52%) GRC
12 29 (0.52%) PCI DSS
13 20 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 19 (0.34%) MiFID
15 15 (0.27%) NIST 800
15 15 (0.27%) WCAG
16 13 (0.23%) FINRA
17 12 (0.22%) HIPAA
18 11 (0.20%) GxP
System Software
1 1,097 (19.74%) Active Directory
2 226 (4.07%) Docker
3 178 (3.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 90 (1.62%) Hyper-V
5 66 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
6 57 (1.03%) Virtual Desktop
7 43 (0.77%) VMware ESXi
8 33 (0.59%) vSphere
9 26 (0.47%) BitLocker
10 19 (0.34%) VMware NSX
11 17 (0.31%) Firmware
12 12 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
14 5 (0.090%) IAG
14 5 (0.090%) Snort
15 4 (0.072%) KVM
15 4 (0.072%) NFS
15 4 (0.072%) VMware Workstation
16 3 (0.054%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 439 (7.90%) Microsoft Intune
2 358 (6.44%) Terraform
3 266 (4.79%) Kubernetes
4 208 (3.74%) SCCM
5 138 (2.48%) Single Sign-On
6 120 (2.16%) Ansible
7 97 (1.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 44 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
9 42 (0.76%) Grafana
10 34 (0.61%) vCenter Server
11 32 (0.58%) Prometheus
12 24 (0.43%) FortiGate
13 23 (0.41%) SCOM
14 21 (0.38%) Puppet
15 16 (0.29%) WSUS
16 15 (0.27%) AirWatch
16 15 (0.27%) CASB
17 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
18 10 (0.18%) Nessus
18 10 (0.18%) QRadar
Vendors
1 261 (4.70%) ServiceNow
2 258 (4.64%) VMware
3 217 (3.91%) Databricks
4 208 (3.74%) SAP
5 207 (3.73%) Oracle
6 178 (3.20%) Cisco
7 161 (2.90%) Google
8 129 (2.32%) Citrix
9 97 (1.75%) Splunk
10 95 (1.71%) OpenAI
11 93 (1.67%) Salesforce
12 78 (1.40%) Foundry
13 66 (1.19%) Apple
14 56 (1.01%) CrowdStrike
15 49 (0.88%) Red Hat
16 47 (0.85%) HP
17 46 (0.83%) Palo Alto
18 44 (0.79%) Adobe
19 40 (0.72%) Informatica
19 40 (0.72%) Okta