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 23 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
23 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 8 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,228 4,145 5,763
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.86% 13.58% 12.95%
As % of the Vendors category 28.84% 29.18% 29.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,532 2,652 3,899
10th Percentile £204 £205 £190
25th Percentile £362 £348 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.58% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.86% -2.78% -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 369 174 385
10th Percentile £13.48 £15.44 £11.85
25th Percentile £16.24 £17.74 £14.00
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.90 £17.60
Median % change year-on-year -16.69% +35.80% -16.19%
75th Percentile £25.47 £33.75 £38.43
90th Percentile £61.76 £62.73 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £22.50 £17.50
% change year-on-year -15.56% +28.57% -12.50%

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 18,129 14,207 19,362
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.59% 46.55% 43.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,623 8,576 12,120
10th Percentile £304 £280 £258
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £521
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% +0.24% -1.65%
75th Percentile £606 £625 £630
90th Percentile £700 £711 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £498 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 901 416 947
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.00 £21.25 £15.50
Median hourly rate £24.00 £29.54 £26.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.74% +11.45% -23.37%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £56.49
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £27.13 £26.00
% change year-on-year -17.05% +4.33% -16.13%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 4,575 £488 +2.63% 2,907
UK excluding London -1 2,818 £450 +2.86% 2,730
London -4 1,918 £500 - 715
Work from Home 0 1,335 £500 +0.91% 1,059
North of England -1 731 £433 +0.64% 639
South East -1 649 £475 -1.45% 870
Midlands -6 480 £450 +5.88% 414
North West -1 415 £414 -8.00% 347
South West 0 347 £518 +8.95% 302
East of England +1 345 £413 -8.33% 288
West Midlands -7 328 £475 +11.76% 216
Yorkshire 0 283 £450 +9.09% 197
Scotland -1 189 £465 +24.00% 163
East Midlands 0 150 £409 +2.31% 195
Wales +4 94 £310 -31.11% 81
North East -16 39 £450 +28.57% 106
Northern Ireland +3 27 £400 +23.08% 23
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
1 586 (11.21%) SharePoint
2 407 (7.79%) Microsoft Exchange
3 109 (2.08%) Confluence
4 46 (0.88%) Skype for Business
5 28 (0.54%) CMS
6 21 (0.40%) Apache
7 19 (0.36%) Apache Spark
8 15 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
8 15 (0.29%) HCL Notes
9 13 (0.25%) IIS
9 13 (0.25%) SAS
10 9 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2013
10 9 (0.17%) Mendix
11 8 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2010
11 8 (0.15%) Mattermost
12 7 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
13 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
14 5 (0.096%) JBoss
14 5 (0.096%) Oracle Application Server
14 5 (0.096%) WebSphere
Applications
1 626 (11.97%) Microsoft Office
2 510 (9.76%) Microsoft Excel
3 226 (4.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 126 (2.41%) Microsoft Project
5 104 (1.99%) MS Visio
6 76 (1.45%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.23%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.21%) Trello
9 10 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 7 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
11 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
12 5 (0.096%) Acrobat
12 5 (0.096%) PTC Creo
12 5 (0.096%) Sketch
13 4 (0.077%) Adobe XD
14 3 (0.057%) Adobe After Effects
14 3 (0.057%) InDesign
14 3 (0.057%) Photoshop
14 3 (0.057%) SOLIDWORKS
15 2 (0.038%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 189 (3.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 50 (0.96%) SAP S/4HANA
3 33 (0.63%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.33%) Dynamics AX
5 16 (0.31%) Maximo
6 15 (0.29%) Dynamics NAV
7 13 (0.25%) Aladdin
8 12 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.19%) Loan IQ
9 10 (0.19%) NetSuite
10 9 (0.17%) Teamcenter
10 9 (0.17%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 7 (0.13%) Advent Geneva
11 7 (0.13%) Shopify
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.11%) SystmOne
13 5 (0.096%) Primavera
13 5 (0.096%) Sage X3
13 5 (0.096%) Salesforce CRM
13 5 (0.096%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 2,094 (40.05%) Azure
2 1,309 (25.04%) Microsoft 365
3 834 (15.95%) Power Platform
4 670 (12.82%) Entra ID
5 451 (8.63%) AWS
6 402 (7.69%) Dynamics 365
7 389 (7.44%) Azure DevOps
8 337 (6.45%) Power Automate
9 298 (5.70%) PowerApps
10 252 (4.82%) Microsoft Purview
11 224 (4.28%) GitHub
12 212 (4.06%) OneDrive
13 186 (3.56%) Serverless
14 181 (3.46%) SaaS
15 180 (3.44%) Azure Data Factory
16 176 (3.37%) Microsoft Copilot
17 172 (3.29%) GCP
18 142 (2.72%) Azure Logic Apps
19 138 (2.64%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 138 (2.64%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 308 (5.89%) DNS
2 280 (5.36%) Firewall
3 194 (3.71%) VPN
4 191 (3.65%) DHCP
5 140 (2.68%) Wi-Fi
6 124 (2.37%) TCP/IP
7 121 (2.31%) WAN
8 108 (2.07%) LAN
9 103 (1.97%) Network Security
10 73 (1.40%) Skype
11 65 (1.24%) Kerberos
12 61 (1.17%) VLAN
13 45 (0.86%) Unified Communications
14 44 (0.84%) Wireless
15 35 (0.67%) SD-WAN
16 31 (0.59%) HTTP
17 30 (0.57%) Internet
17 30 (0.57%) SSL
18 26 (0.50%) SAN
19 25 (0.48%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 509 (9.74%) Power BI
2 241 (4.61%) SQL Server
3 151 (2.89%) Data Warehouse
4 138 (2.64%) Data Lake
5 101 (1.93%) Metadata
6 95 (1.82%) Azure SQL Database
6 95 (1.82%) PostgreSQL
7 75 (1.43%) Relational Database
8 60 (1.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 58 (1.11%) Oracle Database
10 52 (0.99%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 50 (0.96%) MySQL
12 41 (0.78%) NoSQL
13 38 (0.73%) Tableau
14 36 (0.69%) Power Query
15 30 (0.57%) Delta Lake
16 24 (0.46%) Star Schema
17 23 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
17 23 (0.44%) SQL Server Analysis Services
18 21 (0.40%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 244 (4.67%) JIRA
2 162 (3.10%) Git
3 74 (1.42%) GitLab
4 73 (1.40%) Jenkins
5 22 (0.42%) Eclipse
5 22 (0.42%) MSI
6 21 (0.40%) Postman
7 18 (0.34%) Artifactory
8 17 (0.33%) Android Studio
9 16 (0.31%) Browser DevTools
9 16 (0.31%) Visual Studio
10 15 (0.29%) JMeter
11 14 (0.27%) Selenium
11 14 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
11 14 (0.27%) Xcode
12 13 (0.25%) Cucumber
13 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.21%) JUnit
13 11 (0.21%) MLflow
14 10 (0.19%) ERwin
General
1 2,023 (38.70%) Social Skills
2 1,020 (19.51%) Finance
3 659 (12.61%) Analytical Skills
4 510 (9.76%) Public Sector
5 253 (4.84%) Organisational Skills
6 238 (4.55%) Banking
7 221 (4.23%) Legal
8 167 (3.19%) Documentation Skills
9 128 (2.45%) Manufacturing
10 108 (2.07%) Presentation Skills
11 105 (2.01%) Marketing
12 93 (1.78%) Telecoms
13 70 (1.34%) Retail
14 69 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 54 (1.03%) Influencing Skills
16 47 (0.90%) Military
17 46 (0.88%) Law
18 44 (0.84%) Investment Banking
19 38 (0.73%) Local Government
19 38 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 652 (12.47%) Analyst
2 599 (11.46%) Architect
3 494 (9.45%) Developer
4 405 (7.75%) Senior
5 351 (6.71%) IT Support
6 293 (5.60%) Support Engineer
7 292 (5.59%) Consultant
8 259 (4.95%) Lead
9 185 (3.54%) Solutions Architect
10 176 (3.37%) IT Engineer
11 172 (3.29%) Data Engineer
11 172 (3.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 169 (3.23%) Azure Engineer
13 167 (3.19%) Business Analyst
14 166 (3.18%) Administrator
15 158 (3.02%) Project Manager
16 137 (2.62%) IT Support Engineer
17 136 (2.60%) Support Analyst
18 113 (2.16%) Security Engineer
19 99 (1.89%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 244 (4.67%) .NET
2 167 (3.19%) REST
3 133 (2.54%) OAuth
4 113 (2.16%) SAML
5 110 (2.10%) Microsoft Graph
6 104 (1.99%) React
7 93 (1.78%) OpenID
8 76 (1.45%) LDAP
9 74 (1.42%) PySpark
9 74 (1.42%) RESTful
10 71 (1.36%) AngularJS
11 69 (1.32%) JSON
12 68 (1.30%) HTML
13 66 (1.26%) CSS
14 62 (1.19%) ARM Templates
15 55 (1.05%) Middleware
16 53 (1.01%) OAuth2
17 48 (0.92%) Node.js
18 47 (0.90%) Web Services
19 43 (0.82%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 296 (5.66%) Onboarding
2 200 (3.83%) Cloud Native
3 156 (2.98%) Product Ownership
4 132 (2.52%) Management Information System
5 109 (2.08%) Enterprise Software
6 93 (1.78%) PKI
7 83 (1.59%) Data Centre
7 83 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
7 83 (1.59%) Security Posture
8 81 (1.55%) Self-Motivation
9 75 (1.43%) Low-Code
10 73 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
10 73 (1.40%) Replication
11 68 (1.30%) Driving Licence
12 60 (1.15%) Mobile App
13 57 (1.09%) AI Agents
13 57 (1.09%) Data Structures
14 54 (1.03%) Analytical Mindset
14 54 (1.03%) Data Protection Act
14 54 (1.03%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1,224 (23.41%) Windows
2 359 (6.87%) Windows 10
3 296 (5.66%) Linux
4 270 (5.16%) Windows Server
5 112 (2.14%) Mac OS
6 102 (1.95%) Android
7 92 (1.76%) Apple iOS
8 65 (1.24%) Unix
9 46 (0.88%) Windows 7
10 40 (0.77%) Windows Server 2016
11 33 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 21 (0.40%) VMS
12 21 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
13 20 (0.38%) Windows Server 2003
13 20 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
14 7 (0.13%) AIX
14 7 (0.13%) Ubuntu
15 6 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
16 5 (0.096%) CentOS
16 5 (0.096%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,021 (19.53%) Problem-Solving
2 867 (16.58%) Agile
3 774 (14.80%) DevOps
4 686 (13.12%) Migration
5 645 (12.34%) CI/CD
6 604 (11.55%) Business Intelligence
7 572 (10.94%) Analytics
8 532 (10.18%) Stakeholder Management
9 453 (8.66%) Customer Service
10 449 (8.59%) Continuous Improvement
11 441 (8.44%) AI
12 438 (8.38%) ITIL
13 431 (8.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 365 (6.98%) Cybersecurity
15 334 (6.39%) Data Modelling
16 313 (5.99%) Project Management
17 300 (5.74%) Roadmaps
18 296 (5.66%) Change Management
19 287 (5.49%) Infrastructure as Code
20 285 (5.45%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 666 (12.74%) SQL
2 663 (12.68%) PowerShell
3 614 (11.74%) Python
4 257 (4.92%) C#
5 222 (4.25%) JavaScript
6 145 (2.77%) Java
7 115 (2.20%) Bicep
8 104 (1.99%) Bash
9 103 (1.97%) Kusto Query Language
10 82 (1.57%) TypeScript
11 68 (1.30%) T-SQL
12 58 (1.11%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 32 (0.61%) PL/SQL
14 31 (0.59%) Perl
15 26 (0.50%) VB
16 23 (0.44%) Shell Script
16 23 (0.44%) VBA
17 22 (0.42%) C++
18 18 (0.34%) Go
19 16 (0.31%) R
Qualifications
1 1,030 (19.70%) Security Cleared
2 769 (14.71%) SC Cleared
3 533 (10.20%) Degree
4 326 (6.24%) Microsoft Certification
5 214 (4.09%) DV Cleared
6 190 (3.63%) Azure Certification
7 121 (2.31%) Computer Science Degree
8 114 (2.18%) CISSP
9 89 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
10 65 (1.24%) CISM
11 60 (1.15%) Master's Degree
12 56 (1.07%) Cisco Certification
13 55 (1.05%) PMI Certification
14 47 (0.90%) PMP
15 46 (0.88%) MCSE
16 44 (0.84%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 41 (0.78%) A+ Certification
17 41 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
18 39 (0.75%) AWS Certification
19 32 (0.61%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 240 (4.59%) GDPR
2 198 (3.79%) Data Quality
3 156 (2.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 153 (2.93%) QA
5 142 (2.72%) SLA
6 119 (2.28%) NIST
7 115 (2.20%) PMO
8 81 (1.55%) Accessibility
9 57 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
10 37 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 33 (0.63%) NCSC
12 26 (0.50%) PCI DSS
13 23 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 22 (0.42%) WCAG
15 21 (0.40%) GRC
16 19 (0.36%) EU AI Act
17 17 (0.33%) MiFID
18 16 (0.31%) SOC 2
19 15 (0.29%) HIPAA
20 14 (0.27%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,087 (20.79%) Active Directory
2 205 (3.92%) Docker
3 178 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 81 (1.55%) Hyper-V
5 69 (1.32%) Virtual Machines
6 49 (0.94%) Virtual Desktop
7 38 (0.73%) vSphere
8 33 (0.63%) VMware ESXi
9 19 (0.36%) BitLocker
10 18 (0.34%) VMware NSX
11 9 (0.17%) Firmware
11 9 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.13%) Snort
13 6 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
13 6 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
14 5 (0.096%) Oracle RAC
14 5 (0.096%) Tivoli Directory Server
15 4 (0.077%) KVM
15 4 (0.077%) NFS
Systems Management
1 413 (7.90%) Microsoft Intune
2 321 (6.14%) Terraform
3 262 (5.01%) SCCM
4 240 (4.59%) Kubernetes
5 166 (3.18%) Single Sign-On
6 104 (1.99%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 102 (1.95%) Ansible
8 49 (0.94%) Jamf Pro
9 38 (0.73%) Grafana
10 36 (0.69%) SCOM
10 36 (0.69%) vCenter Server
11 33 (0.63%) Prometheus
12 24 (0.46%) FortiGate
13 20 (0.38%) WSUS
14 15 (0.29%) Puppet
15 14 (0.27%) AirWatch
15 14 (0.27%) Nessus
15 14 (0.27%) WMI
16 13 (0.25%) HP SiteScope
16 13 (0.25%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 268 (5.13%) ServiceNow
2 257 (4.92%) VMware
3 195 (3.73%) SAP
4 192 (3.67%) Oracle
5 190 (3.63%) Databricks
6 188 (3.60%) Cisco
7 150 (2.87%) Google
8 129 (2.47%) Splunk
9 127 (2.43%) Citrix
10 92 (1.76%) Salesforce
11 83 (1.59%) OpenAI
12 75 (1.43%) Apple
13 65 (1.24%) CrowdStrike
14 58 (1.11%) Foundry
14 58 (1.11%) Palo Alto
15 51 (0.98%) HP
16 46 (0.88%) Remedy
17 45 (0.86%) Okta
18 42 (0.80%) CyberArk
19 39 (0.75%) Veeam