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 1 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
1 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,131 4,280 5,903
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.31% 13.63% 13.15%
As % of the Vendors category 29.22% 29.46% 29.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,476 2,694 4,018
10th Percentile £204 £206 £198
25th Percentile £350 £349 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £432 £450
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 368 184 357
10th Percentile £13.57 £15.44 £11.79
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.62 £14.00
Median hourly rate £19.23 £23.59 £18.13
Median % change year-on-year -18.48% +30.12% -11.43%
75th Percentile £25.47 £33.75 £38.75
90th Percentile £63.34 £57.62 £54.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.87 £22.00 £17.72
% change year-on-year -14.23% +24.15% -11.40%

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 17,562 14,530 19,696
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 45.57% 46.26% 43.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,297 8,594 12,423
10th Percentile £300 £282 £253
25th Percentile £410 £409 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -2.33%
75th Percentile £609 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 832 423 898
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.09 £16.00
Median hourly rate £23.75 £28.41 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.40% -5.30% -0.83%
75th Percentile £51.31 £61.13 £59.94
90th Percentile £73.63 £80.08 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £25.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year -14.16% -16.67% +16.23%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 4,505 £475 - 3,076
UK excluding London 0 2,767 £450 +4.17% 2,751
London -3 1,890 £510 +2.00% 857
Work from Home 0 1,318 £500 +1.52% 1,201
North of England +2 722 £425 - 645
South East -1 625 £475 +1.06% 878
Midlands -4 476 £450 +5.88% 447
North West 0 415 £400 -11.11% 316
South West 0 363 £500 +6.38% 266
West Midlands -6 322 £486 +11.78% 259
East of England 0 314 £413 -9.14% 297
Yorkshire +1 273 £450 +9.69% 254
Scotland -2 195 £454 +21.07% 156
East Midlands -1 153 £400 -1.23% 188
Wales +2 85 £308 -29.71% 98
North East -15 39 £450 +28.57% 84
Northern Ireland 0 27 £463 +42.31% 23
Channel Islands +1 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
1 586 (11.42%) SharePoint
2 395 (7.70%) Microsoft Exchange
3 110 (2.14%) Confluence
4 58 (1.13%) Skype for Business
5 39 (0.76%) CMS
6 23 (0.45%) Apache
6 23 (0.45%) IIS
7 22 (0.43%) SAS
8 20 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
9 18 (0.35%) Apache Spark
10 17 (0.33%) HCL Notes
11 14 (0.27%) Exchange Server 2013
12 13 (0.25%) Mattermost
13 10 (0.19%) Exchange Server 2010
13 10 (0.19%) iPlanet
13 10 (0.19%) JBoss
13 10 (0.19%) WebSphere
13 10 (0.19%) WebSphere Application Server
14 9 (0.18%) Mendix
14 9 (0.18%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 625 (12.18%) Microsoft Office
2 514 (10.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 229 (4.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 126 (2.46%) Microsoft Project
5 109 (2.12%) MS Visio
6 71 (1.38%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 11 (0.21%) Trello
8 9 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.12%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.12%) Sketch
10 5 (0.097%) Acrobat
11 4 (0.078%) Adobe After Effects
11 4 (0.078%) Adobe Captivate
11 4 (0.078%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.078%) InDesign
11 4 (0.078%) Photoshop
11 4 (0.078%) PTC Creo
12 3 (0.058%) Adobe Premiere
12 3 (0.058%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 193 (3.76%) Dynamics CRM
2 41 (0.80%) SAP S/4HANA
3 40 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.33%) Dynamics AX
5 16 (0.31%) Maximo
6 15 (0.29%) Dynamics NAV
7 11 (0.21%) NetSuite
7 11 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
9 9 (0.18%) Aladdin
9 9 (0.18%) Loan IQ
9 9 (0.18%) Teamcenter
9 9 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
10 7 (0.14%) Shopify
11 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
12 5 (0.097%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.097%) SAP ERP
12 5 (0.097%) SystmOne
13 4 (0.078%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 2,003 (39.04%) Azure
2 1,260 (24.56%) Microsoft 365
3 822 (16.02%) Power Platform
4 632 (12.32%) Entra ID
5 443 (8.63%) AWS
6 395 (7.70%) Dynamics 365
7 377 (7.35%) Azure DevOps
8 340 (6.63%) Power Automate
9 305 (5.94%) PowerApps
10 239 (4.66%) Microsoft Purview
11 223 (4.35%) GitHub
12 193 (3.76%) OneDrive
13 186 (3.63%) Serverless
14 173 (3.37%) Azure Data Factory
15 172 (3.35%) GCP
16 161 (3.14%) SaaS
17 159 (3.10%) Microsoft Copilot
18 144 (2.81%) Azure Logic Apps
19 134 (2.61%) Azure Sentinel
20 128 (2.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 297 (5.79%) DNS
2 280 (5.46%) Firewall
3 191 (3.72%) DHCP
4 186 (3.63%) VPN
5 124 (2.42%) Wi-Fi
6 123 (2.40%) TCP/IP
7 114 (2.22%) WAN
8 99 (1.93%) Network Security
9 98 (1.91%) LAN
10 85 (1.66%) Skype
11 67 (1.31%) Kerberos
12 51 (0.99%) VLAN
13 48 (0.94%) Wireless
14 44 (0.86%) Unified Communications
15 37 (0.72%) SD-WAN
16 36 (0.70%) HTTP
17 31 (0.60%) Internet
18 25 (0.49%) SSL
18 25 (0.49%) VoIP
19 24 (0.47%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 497 (9.69%) Power BI
2 237 (4.62%) SQL Server
3 137 (2.67%) Data Warehouse
4 128 (2.49%) Data Lake
5 94 (1.83%) Metadata
6 91 (1.77%) PostgreSQL
7 90 (1.75%) Azure SQL Database
8 82 (1.60%) Relational Database
9 68 (1.33%) Oracle Database
10 47 (0.92%) MySQL
11 45 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 44 (0.86%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 43 (0.84%) Tableau
14 37 (0.72%) Power Query
15 36 (0.70%) NoSQL
16 28 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
17 26 (0.51%) Star Schema
18 24 (0.47%) Delta Lake
19 18 (0.35%) Amazon RDS
19 18 (0.35%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 231 (4.50%) JIRA
2 155 (3.02%) Git
3 82 (1.60%) Jenkins
4 75 (1.46%) GitLab
5 27 (0.53%) Eclipse
6 25 (0.49%) MSI
7 21 (0.41%) Postman
8 19 (0.37%) Android Studio
8 19 (0.37%) Browser DevTools
8 19 (0.37%) Visual Studio
9 18 (0.35%) Selenium
10 17 (0.33%) Artifactory
10 17 (0.33%) Xcode
11 16 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
12 15 (0.29%) JMeter
13 13 (0.25%) Cucumber
14 12 (0.23%) InstallShield
15 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
16 10 (0.19%) CA Release Automation
16 10 (0.19%) SonarQube
General
1 2,037 (39.70%) Social Skills
2 1,011 (19.70%) Finance
3 652 (12.71%) Analytical Skills
4 513 (10.00%) Public Sector
5 250 (4.87%) Organisational Skills
6 246 (4.79%) Banking
7 205 (4.00%) Legal
8 161 (3.14%) Documentation Skills
9 131 (2.55%) Manufacturing
10 110 (2.14%) Marketing
10 110 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
11 96 (1.87%) Telecoms
12 75 (1.46%) Retail
13 70 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 54 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
15 47 (0.92%) Military
16 46 (0.90%) Law
17 45 (0.88%) Investment Banking
18 39 (0.76%) Local Government
19 36 (0.70%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 664 (12.94%) Analyst
2 554 (10.80%) Architect
3 489 (9.53%) Developer
4 363 (7.07%) Senior
5 320 (6.24%) IT Support
6 296 (5.77%) Support Engineer
7 279 (5.44%) Consultant
8 254 (4.95%) Lead
9 176 (3.43%) Solutions Architect
10 173 (3.37%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 163 (3.18%) Azure Engineer
11 163 (3.18%) Business Analyst
12 155 (3.02%) Administrator
13 153 (2.98%) IT Engineer
14 147 (2.86%) Data Engineer
15 146 (2.85%) Project Manager
16 144 (2.81%) Support Analyst
17 117 (2.28%) IT Support Engineer
18 113 (2.20%) Security Engineer
19 102 (1.99%) Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 251 (4.89%) .NET
2 165 (3.22%) REST
3 132 (2.57%) OAuth
4 112 (2.18%) React
4 112 (2.18%) SAML
5 93 (1.81%) Microsoft Graph
6 88 (1.72%) OpenID
7 83 (1.62%) LDAP
8 79 (1.54%) AngularJS
8 79 (1.54%) RESTful
9 68 (1.33%) HTML
10 67 (1.31%) CSS
11 65 (1.27%) JSON
12 64 (1.25%) PySpark
13 60 (1.17%) ARM Templates
14 56 (1.09%) Node.js
15 48 (0.94%) OAuth2
16 47 (0.92%) Middleware
17 46 (0.90%) Web Services
18 42 (0.82%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 293 (5.71%) Onboarding
2 192 (3.74%) Cloud Native
3 150 (2.92%) Product Ownership
4 133 (2.59%) Management Information System
5 114 (2.22%) Enterprise Software
6 95 (1.85%) PKI
7 91 (1.77%) Data Centre
8 87 (1.70%) Self-Motivation
9 86 (1.68%) Security Posture
10 76 (1.48%) Replication
11 74 (1.44%) Driving Licence
12 72 (1.40%) Hybrid Cloud
13 71 (1.38%) Legacy Systems
14 70 (1.36%) Low-Code
15 69 (1.34%) Mobile App
16 55 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
17 54 (1.05%) NHS
17 54 (1.05%) Virtual Team
18 50 (0.97%) AI Agents
19 48 (0.94%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 1,225 (23.87%) Windows
2 356 (6.94%) Windows 10
3 306 (5.96%) Linux
4 283 (5.52%) Windows Server
5 111 (2.16%) Mac OS
6 96 (1.87%) Android
7 88 (1.72%) Apple iOS
8 71 (1.38%) Unix
9 46 (0.90%) Windows 7
10 40 (0.78%) Windows Server 2016
11 32 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 26 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
13 22 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
15 17 (0.33%) VMS
16 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
17 7 (0.14%) AIX
18 6 (0.12%) CentOS
18 6 (0.12%) Ubuntu
19 5 (0.097%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,030 (20.07%) Problem-Solving
2 875 (17.05%) Agile
3 758 (14.77%) DevOps
4 658 (12.82%) Migration
5 624 (12.16%) CI/CD
6 583 (11.36%) Business Intelligence
7 542 (10.56%) Analytics
8 520 (10.13%) Stakeholder Management
9 459 (8.95%) ITIL
10 452 (8.81%) Customer Service
11 435 (8.48%) Continuous Improvement
12 423 (8.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 398 (7.76%) AI
14 347 (6.76%) Cybersecurity
15 320 (6.24%) Project Management
16 304 (5.92%) Data Modelling
17 285 (5.55%) Change Management
18 283 (5.52%) Roadmaps
19 275 (5.36%) Project Delivery
20 272 (5.30%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 667 (13.00%) SQL
2 652 (12.71%) PowerShell
3 592 (11.54%) Python
4 266 (5.18%) C#
5 221 (4.31%) JavaScript
6 135 (2.63%) Java
7 106 (2.07%) Bicep
8 102 (1.99%) Bash
9 99 (1.93%) Kusto Query Language
10 81 (1.58%) TypeScript
11 55 (1.07%) T-SQL
12 50 (0.97%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 35 (0.68%) Perl
14 29 (0.57%) PL/SQL
14 29 (0.57%) Shell Script
15 27 (0.53%) C++
16 26 (0.51%) VB
17 23 (0.45%) VBScript
18 19 (0.37%) VBA
19 18 (0.35%) R
Qualifications
1 1,026 (20.00%) Security Cleared
2 768 (14.97%) SC Cleared
3 530 (10.33%) Degree
4 333 (6.49%) Microsoft Certification
5 214 (4.17%) DV Cleared
6 186 (3.63%) Azure Certification
7 125 (2.44%) Computer Science Degree
8 115 (2.24%) CISSP
9 79 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
10 66 (1.29%) CISM
11 59 (1.15%) Master's Degree
12 58 (1.13%) Cisco Certification
13 55 (1.07%) PMI Certification
14 52 (1.01%) ITIL Certification
15 49 (0.95%) A+ Certification
16 47 (0.92%) MCSE
17 46 (0.90%) PMP
18 41 (0.80%) Microsoft Certified Professional
19 40 (0.78%) AWS Certification
20 34 (0.66%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 229 (4.46%) GDPR
2 179 (3.49%) Data Quality
3 162 (3.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 150 (2.92%) QA
5 143 (2.79%) SLA
6 125 (2.44%) NIST
7 112 (2.18%) PMO
8 79 (1.54%) Accessibility
9 49 (0.95%) Cyber Essentials
10 35 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 33 (0.64%) NCSC
12 31 (0.60%) PCI DSS
13 22 (0.43%) EU AI Act
13 22 (0.43%) WCAG
14 21 (0.41%) GRC
15 19 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 18 (0.35%) HIPAA
17 14 (0.27%) MiFID
17 14 (0.27%) SOC 2
18 12 (0.23%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,075 (20.95%) Active Directory
2 203 (3.96%) Docker
3 171 (3.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 73 (1.42%) Hyper-V
5 67 (1.31%) Virtual Machines
6 42 (0.82%) Virtual Desktop
7 40 (0.78%) vSphere
8 35 (0.68%) VMware ESXi
9 17 (0.33%) BitLocker
9 17 (0.33%) VMware NSX
10 12 (0.23%) Microsoft App-V
11 9 (0.18%) Firmware
12 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
13 6 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual 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%) HDFS
15 4 (0.078%) NFS
Systems Management
1 387 (7.54%) Microsoft Intune
2 291 (5.67%) Terraform
3 275 (5.36%) SCCM
4 228 (4.44%) Kubernetes
5 159 (3.10%) Single Sign-On
6 106 (2.07%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 102 (1.99%) Ansible
8 48 (0.94%) SCOM
9 44 (0.86%) Jamf Pro
10 39 (0.76%) vCenter Server
11 36 (0.70%) Grafana
12 31 (0.60%) Prometheus
13 23 (0.45%) FortiGate
14 21 (0.41%) HP SiteScope
14 21 (0.41%) WSUS
15 16 (0.31%) Progress Chef
16 15 (0.29%) QRadar
16 15 (0.29%) WMI
17 14 (0.27%) Kibana
18 13 (0.25%) Puppet
Vendors
1 268 (5.22%) ServiceNow
2 239 (4.66%) VMware
3 213 (4.15%) Oracle
4 187 (3.64%) Cisco
5 173 (3.37%) SAP
6 164 (3.20%) Databricks
7 159 (3.10%) Splunk
8 146 (2.85%) Google
9 107 (2.09%) Citrix
10 89 (1.73%) Salesforce
11 83 (1.62%) OpenAI
12 80 (1.56%) Apple
13 65 (1.27%) CrowdStrike
14 59 (1.15%) Palo Alto
15 53 (1.03%) Foundry
16 50 (0.97%) Remedy
17 47 (0.92%) IBM
18 44 (0.86%) HP
19 40 (0.78%) CyberArk
19 40 (0.78%) Veeam