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 August 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 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 6,602 4,552 5,041
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.36% 13.82% 12.95%
As % of the Vendors category 29.78% 29.26% 29.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,302 2,917 3,278
10th Percentile £213 £213 £200
25th Percentile £375 £350 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +3.05% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £586 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.86% -2.78% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 427 373 357
10th Percentile £13.64 £13.75 £11.79
25th Percentile £16.00 £16.00 £14.48
Median hourly rate £21.00 £22.32 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year -5.89% +37.49% -27.96%
75th Percentile £37.38 £30.63 £43.75
90th Percentile £70.53 £63.37 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.09 £20.26 £16.23
% change year-on-year -0.81% +24.80% -14.58%

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 22,171 15,556 17,017
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.51% 47.24% 43.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,699 9,514 10,605
10th Percentile £313 £280 £288
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +1.40% -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £606 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £479 £500
% change year-on-year +4.38% -4.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,153 794 841
10th Percentile £14.85 £14.46 £13.69
25th Percentile £18.33 £17.13 £15.62
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £29.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.22% -13.28% -30.12%
75th Percentile £65.00 £48.44 £61.60
90th Percentile £83.54 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.00 £21.39 £28.00
% change year-on-year +49.60% -23.61% -19.42%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 5,766 £490 +3.16% 5,144
UK excluding London -1 3,524 £450 +2.86% 4,059
London -2 2,520 £513 +2.50% 1,782
Work from Home +3 1,728 £500 - 2,076
South East -1 909 £475 - 1,206
North of England -4 883 £454 +3.89% 990
Midlands -2 616 £448 +15.86% 659
North West +1 509 £450 +2.86% 542
South West 0 436 £470 +9.30% 465
West Midlands -4 423 £450 +12.50% 382
Yorkshire -5 346 £475 +8.88% 330
Scotland +7 320 £450 - 208
East of England -1 255 £375 -25.00% 404
East Midlands +2 184 £425 +20.74% 277
Wales +1 103 £413 +39.83% 138
Northern Ireland -3 32 £369 +2.08% 70
North East -39 32 £450 +35.34% 138
Channel Islands 0 1 £550 -24.14% 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
1 770 (11.66%) SharePoint
2 403 (6.10%) Microsoft Exchange
3 145 (2.20%) Confluence
4 40 (0.61%) Apache Spark
5 39 (0.59%) Apache
6 31 (0.47%) Apache Airflow
7 22 (0.33%) IIS
8 20 (0.30%) Skype for Business
9 19 (0.29%) CMS
10 18 (0.27%) HCL Notes
11 13 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
12 11 (0.17%) SharePoint Server
13 10 (0.15%) SAS
14 9 (0.14%) nginx
15 6 (0.091%) Apache Superset
15 6 (0.091%) Exchange Server 2010
15 6 (0.091%) Jupyter
15 6 (0.091%) SharePoint 2013
15 6 (0.091%) ThingWorx
16 5 (0.076%) Camunda
Applications
1 636 (9.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 620 (9.39%) Microsoft Office
3 266 (4.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 172 (2.61%) Microsoft Project
5 107 (1.62%) MS Visio
6 45 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
7 25 (0.38%) Chatbot
8 12 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.14%) AutoCAD
10 7 (0.11%) ProjectWise
11 6 (0.091%) Navisworks
11 6 (0.091%) Revit
12 4 (0.061%) Adobe Illustrator
12 4 (0.061%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.045%) Adobe Premiere
13 3 (0.045%) Final Cut Pro
13 3 (0.045%) MicroStation
13 3 (0.045%) Trello
14 2 (0.030%) Adobe Captivate
14 2 (0.030%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 240 (3.64%) Dynamics CRM
2 74 (1.12%) SAP S/4HANA
3 29 (0.44%) Remedy ITSM
4 20 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
4 20 (0.30%) NetSuite
4 20 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
5 14 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
6 13 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
7 12 (0.18%) Primavera
8 10 (0.15%) Aladdin
8 10 (0.15%) Magento
9 9 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
10 8 (0.12%) Sage X3
11 7 (0.11%) Integrated Workplace Management System
11 7 (0.11%) iTrent
11 7 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
11 7 (0.11%) SAP CRM
11 7 (0.11%) SAP PSCD
12 6 (0.091%) Dynamics GP
12 6 (0.091%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,777 (42.06%) Azure
2 1,677 (25.40%) Microsoft 365
3 1,161 (17.59%) Power Platform
4 999 (15.13%) Entra ID
5 583 (8.83%) AWS
6 564 (8.54%) Azure DevOps
7 560 (8.48%) Dynamics 365
8 404 (6.12%) Power Automate
9 364 (5.51%) Microsoft Copilot
10 362 (5.48%) PowerApps
11 303 (4.59%) Microsoft Purview
12 288 (4.36%) GitHub
13 252 (3.82%) OneDrive
14 231 (3.50%) SaaS
15 220 (3.33%) GCP
16 181 (2.74%) Azure Data Factory
17 165 (2.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 156 (2.36%) Serverless
19 153 (2.32%) Azure Monitor
20 150 (2.27%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 368 (5.57%) DNS
2 338 (5.12%) Firewall
3 274 (4.15%) VPN
4 228 (3.45%) DHCP
5 187 (2.83%) TCP/IP
6 159 (2.41%) WAN
7 153 (2.32%) Network Security
8 145 (2.20%) LAN
8 145 (2.20%) Wi-Fi
9 77 (1.17%) VLAN
10 51 (0.77%) Wireless
11 48 (0.73%) SAN
12 42 (0.64%) MPLS
13 35 (0.53%) SSL
14 34 (0.51%) Unified Communications
15 32 (0.48%) Skype
16 31 (0.47%) SD-WAN
17 29 (0.44%) Internet
18 28 (0.42%) BGP
19 27 (0.41%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 724 (10.97%) Power BI
2 375 (5.68%) SQL Server
3 195 (2.95%) Data Warehouse
4 136 (2.06%) Data Lake
5 135 (2.04%) Metadata
6 132 (2.00%) PostgreSQL
7 131 (1.98%) Azure SQL Database
8 74 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 71 (1.08%) Relational Database
10 69 (1.05%) Power Query
11 63 (0.95%) MySQL
12 55 (0.83%) NoSQL
13 46 (0.70%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 45 (0.68%) Oracle Database
15 42 (0.64%) Star Schema
16 37 (0.56%) Delta Lake
17 34 (0.51%) Tableau
18 28 (0.42%) SQL Server Analysis Services
19 25 (0.38%) MongoDB
20 24 (0.36%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 317 (4.80%) JIRA
2 200 (3.03%) Git
3 92 (1.39%) Jenkins
4 73 (1.11%) GitLab
5 58 (0.88%) Visual Studio
6 38 (0.58%) MSI
7 32 (0.48%) Selenium
8 18 (0.27%) Postman
9 17 (0.26%) Eclipse
10 16 (0.24%) Team Foundation Server
10 16 (0.24%) WebDriver
11 14 (0.21%) MLflow
12 13 (0.20%) Claude Code
12 13 (0.20%) Cypress.io
13 12 (0.18%) Artifactory
13 12 (0.18%) Bitbucket
13 12 (0.18%) Cucumber
13 12 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
14 11 (0.17%) ERwin
14 11 (0.17%) Maven
General
1 2,266 (34.32%) Social Skills
2 1,322 (20.02%) Finance
3 835 (12.65%) Analytical Skills
4 629 (9.53%) Public Sector
5 324 (4.91%) Organisational Skills
6 321 (4.86%) Banking
7 228 (3.45%) Legal
8 178 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
9 150 (2.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 139 (2.11%) Manufacturing
11 133 (2.01%) Retail
12 114 (1.73%) Telecoms
13 104 (1.58%) Law
14 103 (1.56%) Marketing
15 91 (1.38%) Local Government
16 83 (1.26%) Military
17 79 (1.20%) Influencing Skills
18 68 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
19 63 (0.95%) Investment Banking
20 58 (0.88%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 753 (11.41%) Architect
2 673 (10.19%) Analyst
3 606 (9.18%) Developer
4 578 (8.75%) Senior
5 468 (7.09%) Lead
6 412 (6.24%) IT Support
7 406 (6.15%) Consultant
8 375 (5.68%) Support Engineer
9 261 (3.95%) IT Engineer
10 253 (3.83%) Solutions Architect
11 252 (3.82%) Data Engineer
12 238 (3.60%) Azure Engineer
13 236 (3.57%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 217 (3.29%) Administrator
15 216 (3.27%) Project Manager
16 209 (3.17%) IT Support Engineer
17 179 (2.71%) Business Analyst
18 169 (2.56%) Cloud Engineer
19 130 (1.97%) Security Engineer
20 114 (1.73%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 314 (4.76%) .NET
2 254 (3.85%) REST
3 129 (1.95%) JSON
4 113 (1.71%) OAuth
5 110 (1.67%) Microsoft Graph
6 106 (1.61%) PySpark
7 98 (1.48%) XML
8 93 (1.41%) SAML
9 91 (1.38%) OpenID
10 89 (1.35%) .NET Framework
11 83 (1.26%) Web Services
12 77 (1.17%) React
13 72 (1.09%) ARM Templates
14 71 (1.08%) RESTful
15 68 (1.03%) HTML
15 68 (1.03%) LDAP
16 67 (1.01%) OAuth2
17 64 (0.97%) SOAP
18 63 (0.95%) SailPoint
19 60 (0.91%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 455 (6.89%) Onboarding
2 309 (4.68%) Cloud Native
3 206 (3.12%) Management Information System
4 183 (2.77%) Product Ownership
5 168 (2.54%) Enterprise Software
6 142 (2.15%) Hybrid Cloud
7 138 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
8 127 (1.92%) PKI
8 127 (1.92%) Security Posture
9 126 (1.91%) AI Agents
10 122 (1.85%) Data Centre
11 92 (1.39%) Data Structures
12 90 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
13 86 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
14 77 (1.17%) Virtual Team
15 74 (1.12%) Low-Code
16 70 (1.06%) Driving Licence
17 66 (1.00%) Distributed Systems
18 63 (0.95%) CMDB
19 62 (0.94%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,402 (21.24%) Windows
2 401 (6.07%) Windows Server
3 339 (5.13%) Windows 10
4 314 (4.76%) Linux
5 132 (2.00%) Mac OS
6 121 (1.83%) Android
7 112 (1.70%) Apple iOS
8 59 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 44 (0.67%) Unix
10 40 (0.61%) Windows 7
11 38 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
12 34 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
13 31 (0.47%) VMS
14 27 (0.41%) Ubuntu
15 22 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
16 14 (0.21%) CentOS
17 12 (0.18%) SUSE
18 10 (0.15%) Solaris
18 10 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
19 6 (0.091%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,182 (17.90%) Problem-Solving
2 1,057 (16.01%) DevOps
3 1,004 (15.21%) Agile
4 970 (14.69%) Stakeholder Management
5 935 (14.16%) Migration
6 863 (13.07%) CI/CD
7 764 (11.57%) Continuous Improvement
8 757 (11.47%) AI
9 749 (11.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 734 (11.12%) Business Intelligence
11 690 (10.45%) Analytics
12 631 (9.56%) ITIL
13 556 (8.42%) Customer Service
14 498 (7.54%) Infrastructure as Code
15 488 (7.39%) Data Modelling
16 483 (7.32%) Cybersecurity
17 473 (7.16%) Roadmaps
18 435 (6.59%) Project Delivery
19 428 (6.48%) Decision-Making
20 422 (6.39%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 838 (12.69%) SQL
2 716 (10.85%) PowerShell
3 687 (10.41%) Python
4 325 (4.92%) C#
5 244 (3.70%) JavaScript
6 187 (2.83%) Bicep
7 184 (2.79%) Java
8 142 (2.15%) Bash
9 114 (1.73%) T-SQL
10 108 (1.64%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 84 (1.27%) TypeScript
12 68 (1.03%) Kusto Query Language
13 39 (0.59%) VBA
14 31 (0.47%) C++
15 30 (0.45%) VB
16 25 (0.38%) PL/SQL
16 25 (0.38%) VBScript
17 21 (0.32%) X++
18 17 (0.26%) Scala
19 16 (0.24%) R
Qualifications
1 1,383 (20.95%) Security Cleared
2 1,046 (15.84%) SC Cleared
3 630 (9.54%) Degree
4 345 (5.23%) Microsoft Certification
5 261 (3.95%) DV Cleared
6 238 (3.60%) Azure Certification
7 161 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
8 127 (1.92%) CISSP
9 126 (1.91%) Cisco Certification
10 118 (1.79%) Computer Science Degree
11 90 (1.36%) PMP
12 83 (1.26%) PMI Certification
13 68 (1.03%) AWS Certification
13 68 (1.03%) CISM
14 57 (0.86%) CCNP
15 50 (0.76%) Master's Degree
16 49 (0.74%) DBS Check
17 48 (0.73%) A+ Certification
17 48 (0.73%) CCNA
18 42 (0.64%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 366 (5.54%) Data Quality
2 228 (3.45%) GDPR
3 222 (3.36%) QA
4 193 (2.92%) SLA
5 186 (2.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 165 (2.50%) PMO
7 162 (2.45%) NIST
8 107 (1.62%) Accessibility
9 82 (1.24%) NCSC
10 78 (1.18%) Cyber Essentials
11 46 (0.70%) GRC
12 38 (0.58%) WCAG
13 34 (0.51%) PCI DSS
14 33 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 32 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 19 (0.29%) Disclosure Scotland
17 15 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
17 15 (0.23%) NIST 800
18 14 (0.21%) P3O
18 14 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,270 (19.24%) Active Directory
2 243 (3.68%) Docker
3 237 (3.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 130 (1.97%) Hyper-V
5 107 (1.62%) Virtual Desktop
6 96 (1.45%) Virtual Machines
7 60 (0.91%) vSphere
8 58 (0.88%) VMware ESXi
9 34 (0.51%) BitLocker
10 24 (0.36%) VMware NSX
11 20 (0.30%) Microsoft App-V
12 19 (0.29%) Firmware
13 8 (0.12%) NFS
13 8 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
14 7 (0.11%) IAG
14 7 (0.11%) zsh
15 6 (0.091%) Virtual Servers
16 5 (0.076%) Terminal Services
16 5 (0.076%) VMware Workstation
17 3 (0.045%) Snort
Systems Management
1 536 (8.12%) Microsoft Intune
2 490 (7.42%) Terraform
3 320 (4.85%) Kubernetes
4 244 (3.70%) SCCM
5 165 (2.50%) Ansible
6 115 (1.74%) Single Sign-On
7 60 (0.91%) Jamf Pro
8 52 (0.79%) Grafana
8 52 (0.79%) vCenter Server
9 40 (0.61%) SCOM
10 36 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 35 (0.53%) Prometheus
12 24 (0.36%) WSUS
13 22 (0.33%) Puppet
13 22 (0.33%) QRadar
14 21 (0.32%) FortiGate
15 20 (0.30%) Progress Chef
16 16 (0.24%) Argo
17 15 (0.23%) Failover Clustering
18 13 (0.20%) Avamar
Vendors
1 480 (7.27%) ServiceNow
2 326 (4.94%) VMware
3 305 (4.62%) Oracle
4 257 (3.89%) SAP
5 224 (3.39%) Databricks
5 224 (3.39%) Google
6 212 (3.21%) Cisco
7 116 (1.76%) Salesforce
8 106 (1.61%) Citrix
9 103 (1.56%) Splunk
10 98 (1.48%) Apple
11 84 (1.27%) CyberArk
12 78 (1.18%) Foundry
13 76 (1.15%) Okta
14 74 (1.12%) OpenAI
15 70 (1.06%) CrowdStrike
16 62 (0.94%) BeyondTrust
16 62 (0.94%) Red Hat
17 57 (0.86%) Zscaler
18 51 (0.77%) Meraki