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 9 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
9 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,146 4,201 5,888
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.20% 13.60% 13.06%
As % of the Vendors category 29.28% 29.39% 29.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,488 2,648 4,012
10th Percentile £204 £205 £195
25th Percentile £354 £338 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £586 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £430 £450
% change year-on-year +4.65% -4.44% -1.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 371 177 373
10th Percentile £13.57 £15.36 £11.79
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.62 £13.82
Median hourly rate £19.50 £23.80 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -18.07% +34.31% -13.43%
75th Percentile £25.55 £34.00 £35.63
90th Percentile £61.57 £62.20 £52.22
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £22.00 £17.72
% change year-on-year -13.64% +24.19% -11.43%

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 17,573 14,295 19,700
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 45.07% 46.28% 43.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,320 8,489 12,398
10th Percentile £300 £275 £255
25th Percentile £412 £406 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -2.01%
75th Percentile £606 £625 £631
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.58% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 849 415 933
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £12.99
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.00 £15.50
Median hourly rate £23.83 £29.00 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.84% +1.75% -8.51%
75th Percentile £55.00 £63.50 £58.70
90th Percentile £73.75 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £27.13 £26.00
% change year-on-year -18.89% +4.33% -4.59%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 4,515 £475 - 2,888
UK excluding London 0 2,776 £450 +4.65% 2,662
London -2 1,902 £501 +0.10% 747
Work from Home +1 1,308 £500 +3.73% 1,159
North of England +2 725 £425 - 634
South East -1 638 £475 - 858
Midlands -5 466 £450 +5.88% 406
North West -1 406 £400 -11.11% 322
South West 0 354 £500 +8.11% 257
East of England 0 326 £413 -8.33% 287
West Midlands -7 316 £478 +9.96% 237
Yorkshire 0 285 £450 +9.69% 234
Scotland -2 193 £450 +20.00% 153
East Midlands -1 149 £400 -1.23% 169
Wales +2 90 £308 -29.71% 92
North East -14 40 £450 +28.57% 84
Northern Ireland 0 26 £450 +38.46% 28
Channel Islands +2 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
1 590 (11.47%) SharePoint
2 398 (7.73%) Microsoft Exchange
3 112 (2.18%) Confluence
4 56 (1.09%) Skype for Business
5 37 (0.72%) CMS
6 23 (0.45%) Apache
7 20 (0.39%) IIS
8 19 (0.37%) Apache Spark
9 16 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
9 16 (0.31%) HCL Notes
10 14 (0.27%) SAS
11 13 (0.25%) Exchange Server 2013
11 13 (0.25%) Mattermost
12 9 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2010
12 9 (0.17%) Mendix
13 8 (0.16%) SharePoint Server
14 7 (0.14%) iPlanet
14 7 (0.14%) JBoss
14 7 (0.14%) WebSphere
14 7 (0.14%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 628 (12.20%) Microsoft Office
2 513 (9.97%) Microsoft Excel
3 231 (4.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 130 (2.53%) Microsoft Project
5 108 (2.10%) MS Visio
6 72 (1.40%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 11 (0.21%) Trello
8 9 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
10 6 (0.12%) Sketch
11 5 (0.097%) Acrobat
11 5 (0.097%) Adobe Captivate
11 5 (0.097%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.078%) Adobe After Effects
12 4 (0.078%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.078%) InDesign
12 4 (0.078%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.058%) SOLIDWORKS
13 3 (0.058%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 189 (3.67%) Dynamics CRM
2 45 (0.87%) SAP S/4HANA
3 41 (0.80%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.33%) Dynamics AX
5 16 (0.31%) Maximo
6 15 (0.29%) Dynamics NAV
7 11 (0.21%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.19%) Aladdin
8 10 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
9 9 (0.17%) Loan IQ
9 9 (0.17%) Teamcenter
9 9 (0.17%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
10 7 (0.14%) Shopify
11 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
11 6 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.12%) SystmOne
12 5 (0.097%) Primavera
12 5 (0.097%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 2,035 (39.55%) Azure
2 1,262 (24.52%) Microsoft 365
3 816 (15.86%) Power Platform
4 641 (12.46%) Entra ID
5 452 (8.78%) AWS
6 391 (7.60%) Dynamics 365
7 382 (7.42%) Azure DevOps
8 327 (6.35%) Power Automate
9 295 (5.73%) PowerApps
10 241 (4.68%) Microsoft Purview
11 225 (4.37%) GitHub
12 202 (3.93%) OneDrive
13 194 (3.77%) Serverless
14 179 (3.48%) GCP
15 176 (3.42%) Azure Data Factory
16 171 (3.32%) SaaS
17 164 (3.19%) Microsoft Copilot
18 145 (2.82%) Azure Logic Apps
19 135 (2.62%) Azure Sentinel
20 132 (2.57%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 302 (5.87%) DNS
2 279 (5.42%) Firewall
3 193 (3.75%) DHCP
4 190 (3.69%) VPN
5 129 (2.51%) Wi-Fi
6 125 (2.43%) TCP/IP
7 117 (2.27%) WAN
8 102 (1.98%) LAN
9 98 (1.90%) Network Security
10 83 (1.61%) Skype
11 67 (1.30%) Kerberos
12 53 (1.03%) VLAN
13 47 (0.91%) Wireless
14 46 (0.89%) Unified Communications
15 34 (0.66%) SD-WAN
16 31 (0.60%) HTTP
16 31 (0.60%) Internet
17 29 (0.56%) SSL
18 25 (0.49%) SAN
18 25 (0.49%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 504 (9.79%) Power BI
2 232 (4.51%) SQL Server
3 141 (2.74%) Data Warehouse
4 132 (2.57%) Data Lake
5 93 (1.81%) Metadata
6 91 (1.77%) Azure SQL Database
6 91 (1.77%) PostgreSQL
7 81 (1.57%) Relational Database
8 64 (1.24%) Oracle Database
9 49 (0.95%) MySQL
10 48 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 47 (0.91%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 44 (0.86%) Tableau
13 37 (0.72%) NoSQL
14 36 (0.70%) Power Query
15 25 (0.49%) Oracle Reports
16 24 (0.47%) Delta Lake
16 24 (0.47%) Star Schema
17 18 (0.35%) Big Data
17 18 (0.35%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 234 (4.55%) JIRA
2 149 (2.90%) Git
3 75 (1.46%) Jenkins
4 71 (1.38%) GitLab
5 25 (0.49%) Eclipse
5 25 (0.49%) MSI
6 19 (0.37%) Postman
7 18 (0.35%) Android Studio
7 18 (0.35%) Artifactory
7 18 (0.35%) Browser DevTools
7 18 (0.35%) Visual Studio
8 16 (0.31%) Selenium
8 16 (0.31%) Xcode
9 15 (0.29%) JMeter
10 14 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (0.25%) Cucumber
12 10 (0.19%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.17%) ERwin
13 9 (0.17%) JUnit
13 9 (0.17%) MLflow
General
1 2,034 (39.53%) Social Skills
2 1,024 (19.90%) Finance
3 657 (12.77%) Analytical Skills
4 509 (9.89%) Public Sector
5 254 (4.94%) Organisational Skills
6 248 (4.82%) Banking
7 207 (4.02%) Legal
8 159 (3.09%) Documentation Skills
9 127 (2.47%) Manufacturing
10 108 (2.10%) Marketing
10 108 (2.10%) Presentation Skills
11 97 (1.88%) Telecoms
12 74 (1.44%) Retail
13 67 (1.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 54 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
15 46 (0.89%) Investment Banking
16 45 (0.87%) Military
17 43 (0.84%) Law
18 38 (0.74%) Local Government
19 37 (0.72%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 670 (13.02%) Analyst
2 572 (11.12%) Architect
3 489 (9.50%) Developer
4 383 (7.44%) Senior
5 325 (6.32%) IT Support
6 294 (5.71%) Support Engineer
7 271 (5.27%) Consultant
8 266 (5.17%) Lead
9 179 (3.48%) Solutions Architect
10 173 (3.36%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 167 (3.25%) Azure Engineer
12 164 (3.19%) Business Analyst
13 160 (3.11%) IT Engineer
14 154 (2.99%) Administrator
15 151 (2.93%) Data Engineer
16 148 (2.88%) Project Manager
17 147 (2.86%) Support Analyst
18 122 (2.37%) IT Support Engineer
19 110 (2.14%) Security Engineer
20 100 (1.94%) Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 245 (4.76%) .NET
2 168 (3.26%) REST
3 133 (2.58%) OAuth
4 113 (2.20%) SAML
5 110 (2.14%) React
6 103 (2.00%) Microsoft Graph
7 90 (1.75%) OpenID
8 80 (1.55%) LDAP
9 79 (1.54%) RESTful
10 73 (1.42%) AngularJS
11 69 (1.34%) JSON
12 68 (1.32%) CSS
13 67 (1.30%) HTML
14 64 (1.24%) PySpark
15 61 (1.19%) ARM Templates
16 55 (1.07%) Node.js
17 51 (0.99%) OAuth2
18 49 (0.95%) Web Services
19 48 (0.93%) Middleware
20 42 (0.82%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 296 (5.75%) Onboarding
2 193 (3.75%) Cloud Native
3 152 (2.95%) Product Ownership
4 134 (2.60%) Management Information System
5 113 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
6 95 (1.85%) PKI
7 89 (1.73%) Data Centre
8 88 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
9 84 (1.63%) Security Posture
10 76 (1.48%) Hybrid Cloud
11 75 (1.46%) Replication
12 74 (1.44%) Driving Licence
13 70 (1.36%) Low-Code
14 67 (1.30%) Mobile App
15 66 (1.28%) Legacy Systems
16 56 (1.09%) NHS
17 54 (1.05%) Analytical Mindset
18 53 (1.03%) AI Agents
19 51 (0.99%) Data Protection Act
20 50 (0.97%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 1,219 (23.69%) Windows
2 357 (6.94%) Windows 10
3 300 (5.83%) Linux
4 281 (5.46%) Windows Server
5 115 (2.23%) Mac OS
6 97 (1.88%) Android
7 89 (1.73%) Apple iOS
8 69 (1.34%) Unix
9 47 (0.91%) Windows 7
10 42 (0.82%) Windows Server 2016
11 31 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 24 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
13 22 (0.43%) Windows Server 2003
14 21 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
15 19 (0.37%) VMS
16 7 (0.14%) AIX
17 6 (0.12%) CentOS
17 6 (0.12%) Ubuntu
17 6 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
18 5 (0.097%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,022 (19.86%) Problem-Solving
2 874 (16.98%) Agile
3 759 (14.75%) DevOps
4 665 (12.92%) Migration
5 626 (12.16%) CI/CD
6 589 (11.45%) Business Intelligence
7 553 (10.75%) Analytics
8 534 (10.38%) Stakeholder Management
9 457 (8.88%) ITIL
10 451 (8.76%) Customer Service
11 441 (8.57%) Continuous Improvement
12 423 (8.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 417 (8.10%) AI
14 356 (6.92%) Cybersecurity
15 320 (6.22%) Project Management
16 309 (6.00%) Data Modelling
17 289 (5.62%) Change Management
18 286 (5.56%) Roadmaps
19 278 (5.40%) Infrastructure as Code
20 276 (5.36%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 660 (12.83%) PowerShell
2 659 (12.81%) SQL
3 602 (11.70%) Python
4 260 (5.05%) C#
5 220 (4.28%) JavaScript
6 141 (2.74%) Java
7 112 (2.18%) Bicep
8 105 (2.04%) Kusto Query Language
9 104 (2.02%) Bash
10 82 (1.59%) TypeScript
11 58 (1.13%) T-SQL
12 52 (1.01%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 34 (0.66%) Perl
14 30 (0.58%) PL/SQL
15 28 (0.54%) Shell Script
16 26 (0.51%) VB
17 25 (0.49%) C++
18 19 (0.37%) VBA
19 18 (0.35%) R
19 18 (0.35%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,007 (19.57%) Security Cleared
2 750 (14.57%) SC Cleared
3 531 (10.32%) Degree
4 328 (6.37%) Microsoft Certification
5 212 (4.12%) DV Cleared
6 186 (3.61%) Azure Certification
7 125 (2.43%) Computer Science Degree
8 115 (2.23%) CISSP
9 79 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
10 67 (1.30%) CISM
11 60 (1.17%) Master's Degree
12 58 (1.13%) PMI Certification
13 55 (1.07%) Cisco Certification
14 50 (0.97%) ITIL Certification
15 49 (0.95%) PMP
16 48 (0.93%) MCSE
17 45 (0.87%) A+ Certification
18 43 (0.84%) Microsoft Certified Professional
19 39 (0.76%) AWS Certification
20 31 (0.60%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 235 (4.57%) GDPR
2 181 (3.52%) Data Quality
3 159 (3.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 149 (2.90%) QA
5 145 (2.82%) SLA
6 119 (2.31%) NIST
7 115 (2.23%) PMO
8 80 (1.55%) Accessibility
9 54 (1.05%) Cyber Essentials
10 35 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 30 (0.58%) NCSC
11 30 (0.58%) PCI DSS
12 22 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 22 (0.43%) EU AI Act
13 21 (0.41%) GRC
14 20 (0.39%) WCAG
15 15 (0.29%) HIPAA
15 15 (0.29%) MiFID
15 15 (0.29%) SOC 2
16 12 (0.23%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,085 (21.08%) Active Directory
2 198 (3.85%) Docker
3 174 (3.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 76 (1.48%) Hyper-V
5 68 (1.32%) Virtual Machines
6 45 (0.87%) Virtual Desktop
7 40 (0.78%) vSphere
8 34 (0.66%) VMware ESXi
9 19 (0.37%) BitLocker
10 17 (0.33%) VMware NSX
11 13 (0.25%) Microsoft App-V
12 9 (0.17%) Firmware
13 6 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 6 (0.12%) RACF
13 6 (0.12%) Tivoli Directory Server
13 6 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
14 5 (0.097%) Oracle RAC
14 5 (0.097%) Snort
14 5 (0.097%) Squid
15 4 (0.078%) NFS
Systems Management
1 395 (7.68%) Microsoft Intune
2 301 (5.85%) Terraform
3 278 (5.40%) SCCM
4 229 (4.45%) Kubernetes
5 164 (3.19%) Single Sign-On
6 105 (2.04%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 102 (1.98%) Ansible
8 48 (0.93%) SCOM
9 46 (0.89%) Jamf Pro
10 39 (0.76%) vCenter Server
11 37 (0.72%) Grafana
12 33 (0.64%) Prometheus
13 24 (0.47%) FortiGate
14 21 (0.41%) HP SiteScope
15 20 (0.39%) WSUS
16 15 (0.29%) WMI
17 14 (0.27%) Puppet
18 13 (0.25%) AirWatch
19 12 (0.23%) Progress Chef
19 12 (0.23%) QRadar
Vendors
1 270 (5.25%) ServiceNow
2 248 (4.82%) VMware
3 195 (3.79%) Oracle
4 187 (3.63%) Cisco
4 187 (3.63%) SAP
5 171 (3.32%) Databricks
6 152 (2.95%) Splunk
7 150 (2.91%) Google
8 112 (2.18%) Citrix
9 94 (1.83%) Salesforce
10 84 (1.63%) OpenAI
11 82 (1.59%) Apple
12 63 (1.22%) CrowdStrike
13 57 (1.11%) Palo Alto
14 54 (1.05%) Foundry
15 50 (0.97%) Remedy
16 47 (0.91%) HP
17 42 (0.82%) IBM
18 41 (0.80%) CyberArk
19 40 (0.78%) Veeam