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 5 May 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
5 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 11 7
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,610 3,902 5,619
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.80% 13.32% 13.02%
As % of the Vendors category 28.26% 28.06% 30.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,776 2,595 3,689
10th Percentile £213 £210 £189
25th Percentile £375 £349 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £581 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £431 £450
% change year-on-year +4.41% -4.22% -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 358 247 465
10th Percentile £13.59 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.35 £15.44 £13.00
Median hourly rate £20.09 £19.83 £15.42
Median % change year-on-year +1.31% +28.60% -31.33%
75th Percentile £28.75 £29.07 £25.00
90th Percentile £65.00 £59.83 £54.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.91 £18.51 £15.00
% change year-on-year +7.56% +23.40% -21.05%

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 19,851 13,906 18,291
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.76% 47.47% 42.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,639 8,716 11,360
10th Percentile £313 £288 £263
25th Percentile £413 £407 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% - -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £627
90th Percentile £704 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 992 571 1,096
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.01
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.95 £14.48
Median hourly rate £31.21 £26.45 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +18.01% +17.56% -48.70%
75th Percentile £60.00 £56.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £78.73 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £24.18 £21.50
% change year-on-year +13.73% +12.47% -45.71%

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 5 May 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 5 May 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 5 May 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 4,924 £494 +3.89% 3,002
UK excluding London 0 2,911 £450 +4.41% 2,540
London -2 2,175 £515 +2.85% 904
Work from Home -1 1,402 £500 - 1,251
North of England 0 784 £449 +5.65% 607
South East -1 665 £476 -2.86% 783
Midlands -5 506 £450 +12.50% 408
North West -2 425 £415 -5.14% 316
West Midlands -5 349 £450 +12.50% 251
Yorkshire -1 335 £460 +15.00% 203
East of England 0 329 £400 -9.86% 303
South West -2 327 £450 -4.26% 261
Scotland +4 205 £450 +10.02% 135
East Midlands -1 151 £400 -4.19% 157
Wales +2 91 £310 +3.33% 84
North East -26 29 £450 +28.57% 97
Northern Ireland 0 23 £450 +38.46% 25
Channel Islands -2 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
1 598 (10.66%) SharePoint
2 384 (6.84%) Microsoft Exchange
3 104 (1.85%) Confluence
4 37 (0.66%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.43%) Apache
6 22 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
7 20 (0.36%) HCL Notes
8 19 (0.34%) CMS
9 15 (0.27%) SAS
10 13 (0.23%) IIS
11 12 (0.21%) Mendix
11 12 (0.21%) Skype for Business
12 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.11%) Camunda
13 5 (0.089%) Jupyter
13 5 (0.089%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.071%) Appian
14 4 (0.071%) Exchange Server 2010
14 4 (0.071%) Exchange Server 2013
14 4 (0.071%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 570 (10.16%) Microsoft Office
2 516 (9.20%) Microsoft Excel
3 233 (4.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 126 (2.25%) Microsoft Project
5 94 (1.68%) MS Visio
6 71 (1.27%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.30%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 8 (0.14%) Trello
10 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.089%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.071%) InDesign
13 3 (0.053%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.053%) AutoCAD
13 3 (0.053%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.053%) SOLIDWORKS
14 2 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
14 2 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 201 (3.58%) Dynamics CRM
2 61 (1.09%) SAP S/4HANA
3 22 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
4 19 (0.34%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.25%) Aladdin
5 14 (0.25%) NetSuite
6 12 (0.21%) Maximo
6 12 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
7 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
7 11 (0.20%) Teamcenter
8 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
8 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 9 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
10 8 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
11 7 (0.12%) Shopify
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
13 5 (0.089%) Primavera
13 5 (0.089%) SAP Business One
13 5 (0.089%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,357 (42.01%) Azure
2 1,447 (25.79%) Microsoft 365
3 953 (16.99%) Power Platform
4 713 (12.71%) Entra ID
5 465 (8.29%) Dynamics 365
6 457 (8.15%) AWS
7 433 (7.72%) Azure DevOps
8 331 (5.90%) Power Automate
9 295 (5.26%) PowerApps
10 293 (5.22%) Microsoft Purview
11 256 (4.56%) GitHub
12 237 (4.22%) Microsoft Copilot
13 204 (3.64%) OneDrive
14 198 (3.53%) Azure Data Factory
15 194 (3.46%) SaaS
16 177 (3.16%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 168 (2.99%) GCP
17 168 (2.99%) Serverless
18 150 (2.67%) PaaS
19 135 (2.41%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 291 (5.19%) Firewall
2 284 (5.06%) DNS
3 204 (3.64%) VPN
4 166 (2.96%) DHCP
5 135 (2.41%) WAN
5 135 (2.41%) Wi-Fi
6 117 (2.09%) Network Security
7 113 (2.01%) LAN
8 104 (1.85%) TCP/IP
9 57 (1.02%) Kerberos
10 51 (0.91%) VLAN
11 44 (0.78%) SD-WAN
12 36 (0.64%) Wireless
13 35 (0.62%) SAN
13 35 (0.62%) SSL
14 29 (0.52%) HTTP
14 29 (0.52%) Skype
15 26 (0.46%) MPLS
16 25 (0.45%) Unified Communications
17 24 (0.43%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 581 (10.36%) Power BI
2 268 (4.78%) SQL Server
3 177 (3.16%) Data Warehouse
4 159 (2.83%) Data Lake
5 124 (2.21%) Azure SQL Database
6 116 (2.07%) Metadata
7 103 (1.84%) PostgreSQL
8 71 (1.27%) Relational Database
9 68 (1.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 48 (0.86%) Oracle Database
11 47 (0.84%) NoSQL
12 46 (0.82%) Power Query
13 45 (0.80%) Tableau
14 44 (0.78%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 41 (0.73%) Delta Lake
15 41 (0.73%) MySQL
16 39 (0.70%) Star Schema
17 29 (0.52%) Spark SQL
18 27 (0.48%) Snowflake Schema
19 25 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 253 (4.51%) JIRA
2 168 (2.99%) Git
3 66 (1.18%) Jenkins
4 62 (1.11%) GitLab
5 26 (0.46%) Artifactory
6 24 (0.43%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.39%) MSI
8 21 (0.37%) Eclipse
9 17 (0.30%) Selenium
10 16 (0.29%) JMeter
10 16 (0.29%) Postman
11 15 (0.27%) MLflow
12 14 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
13 12 (0.21%) Bitbucket
13 12 (0.21%) ERwin
13 12 (0.21%) Maven
14 11 (0.20%) Cucumber
15 10 (0.18%) Gatling
15 10 (0.18%) InstallShield
15 10 (0.18%) JUnit
General
1 1,898 (33.83%) Social Skills
2 1,108 (19.75%) Finance
3 645 (11.50%) Analytical Skills
4 530 (9.45%) Public Sector
5 292 (5.20%) Banking
6 253 (4.51%) Organisational Skills
7 252 (4.49%) Legal
8 146 (2.60%) Documentation Skills
9 105 (1.87%) Manufacturing
10 100 (1.78%) Presentation Skills
11 94 (1.68%) Law
12 91 (1.62%) Marketing
13 86 (1.53%) Telecoms
14 82 (1.46%) Retail
15 78 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 74 (1.32%) Military
17 66 (1.18%) Local Government
18 55 (0.98%) Influencing Skills
19 54 (0.96%) Investment Banking
20 43 (0.77%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 697 (12.42%) Architect
2 603 (10.75%) Analyst
3 524 (9.34%) Developer
4 475 (8.47%) Senior
5 358 (6.38%) IT Support
6 332 (5.92%) Lead
7 288 (5.13%) Consultant
8 252 (4.49%) Support Engineer
9 222 (3.96%) Data Engineer
10 208 (3.71%) Azure Engineer
11 191 (3.40%) Project Manager
12 189 (3.37%) Solutions Architect
13 181 (3.23%) Business Analyst
14 178 (3.17%) IT Engineer
15 171 (3.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 170 (3.03%) Administrator
17 131 (2.34%) IT Support Engineer
18 115 (2.05%) Security Engineer
19 111 (1.98%) DevOps Engineer
20 101 (1.80%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 250 (4.46%) .NET
2 168 (2.99%) REST
3 129 (2.30%) Microsoft Graph
4 114 (2.03%) OAuth
5 101 (1.80%) PySpark
6 100 (1.78%) SAML
7 86 (1.53%) JSON
8 82 (1.46%) OpenID
9 80 (1.43%) React
10 75 (1.34%) LDAP
11 67 (1.19%) Web Services
12 64 (1.14%) Middleware
13 55 (0.98%) AngularJS
13 55 (0.98%) HTML
14 53 (0.94%) OAuth2
15 51 (0.91%) ARM Templates
15 51 (0.91%) Kafka
16 50 (0.89%) Node.js
17 49 (0.87%) CSS
18 47 (0.84%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 290 (5.17%) Onboarding
2 225 (4.01%) Cloud Native
3 187 (3.33%) Product Ownership
4 130 (2.32%) Management Information System
5 105 (1.87%) Enterprise Software
6 96 (1.71%) Data Centre
7 91 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
8 89 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
9 87 (1.55%) Self-Motivation
10 86 (1.53%) AI Agents
11 84 (1.50%) PKI
12 83 (1.48%) Security Posture
13 75 (1.34%) Replication
14 74 (1.32%) Low-Code
15 70 (1.25%) Data Structures
16 67 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
17 58 (1.03%) Virtual Team
18 53 (0.94%) Driving Licence
19 48 (0.86%) Operational Technology
20 47 (0.84%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1,207 (21.52%) Windows
2 317 (5.65%) Windows 10
3 276 (4.92%) Windows Server
4 269 (4.80%) Linux
5 102 (1.82%) Android
6 98 (1.75%) Apple iOS
7 92 (1.64%) Mac OS
8 43 (0.77%) Unix
8 43 (0.77%) Windows Server 2016
9 42 (0.75%) Windows 7
10 39 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 28 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
12 26 (0.46%) VMS
13 25 (0.45%) Windows Server 2012
14 15 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
15 10 (0.18%) CentOS
16 9 (0.16%) Ubuntu
17 6 (0.11%) AIX
18 5 (0.089%) Solaris
19 4 (0.071%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 966 (17.22%) Problem-Solving
2 881 (15.70%) DevOps
3 880 (15.69%) Agile
4 792 (14.12%) Migration
5 753 (13.42%) CI/CD
6 643 (11.46%) Business Intelligence
7 621 (11.07%) Analytics
8 556 (9.91%) AI
9 544 (9.70%) Stakeholder Management
10 501 (8.93%) Continuous Improvement
11 467 (8.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 445 (7.93%) ITIL
13 441 (7.86%) Customer Service
14 412 (7.34%) Data Modelling
15 368 (6.56%) Roadmaps
16 362 (6.45%) Cybersecurity
17 337 (6.01%) Infrastructure as Code
18 331 (5.90%) Decision-Making
19 315 (5.61%) Project Delivery
20 313 (5.58%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 724 (12.91%) SQL
2 638 (11.37%) PowerShell
3 613 (10.93%) Python
4 270 (4.81%) C#
5 200 (3.57%) JavaScript
6 178 (3.17%) Java
7 125 (2.23%) Bicep
8 89 (1.59%) Kusto Query Language
9 86 (1.53%) Bash
10 83 (1.48%) T-SQL
11 77 (1.37%) TypeScript
12 70 (1.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 34 (0.61%) PL/SQL
14 29 (0.52%) VBA
15 28 (0.50%) C++
16 22 (0.39%) VB
17 20 (0.36%) Scala
18 19 (0.34%) R
19 16 (0.29%) Shell Script
20 14 (0.25%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,084 (19.32%) Security Cleared
2 843 (15.03%) SC Cleared
3 558 (9.95%) Degree
4 278 (4.96%) Microsoft Certification
5 191 (3.40%) DV Cleared
6 180 (3.21%) Azure Certification
7 132 (2.35%) Computer Science Degree
8 100 (1.78%) CISSP
9 92 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
10 70 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
11 67 (1.19%) PMI Certification
12 62 (1.11%) PMP
13 57 (1.02%) Master's Degree
14 56 (1.00%) CISM
15 43 (0.77%) MCSE
16 36 (0.64%) AWS Certification
17 31 (0.55%) DBS Check
18 30 (0.53%) ITIL Certification
18 30 (0.53%) MCSA
19 29 (0.52%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 270 (4.81%) Data Quality
2 231 (4.12%) GDPR
3 184 (3.28%) QA
4 159 (2.83%) SLA
5 139 (2.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 110 (1.96%) NIST
7 104 (1.85%) PMO
8 75 (1.34%) Accessibility
9 70 (1.25%) Cyber Essentials
10 45 (0.80%) NCSC
11 38 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 31 (0.55%) GRC
13 28 (0.50%) PCI DSS
14 21 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 20 (0.36%) MiFID
16 17 (0.30%) NIST 800
17 14 (0.25%) WCAG
18 13 (0.23%) FINRA
19 12 (0.21%) HIPAA
20 11 (0.20%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,076 (19.18%) Active Directory
2 236 (4.21%) Docker
3 191 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 97 (1.73%) Hyper-V
5 76 (1.35%) Virtual Machines
6 67 (1.19%) Virtual Desktop
7 52 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
8 38 (0.68%) vSphere
9 26 (0.46%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.41%) VMware NSX
11 17 (0.30%) Firmware
11 17 (0.30%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.12%) RACF
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
14 5 (0.089%) IAG
14 5 (0.089%) NFS
14 5 (0.089%) Snort
15 4 (0.071%) KVM
15 4 (0.071%) XenApp
15 4 (0.071%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 430 (7.66%) Microsoft Intune
2 363 (6.47%) Terraform
3 264 (4.71%) Kubernetes
4 205 (3.65%) SCCM
5 133 (2.37%) Ansible
6 122 (2.17%) Single Sign-On
7 76 (1.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 43 (0.77%) vCenter Server
9 39 (0.70%) Grafana
9 39 (0.70%) Jamf Pro
10 32 (0.57%) Prometheus
11 23 (0.41%) SCOM
12 21 (0.37%) FortiGate
12 21 (0.37%) Puppet
13 17 (0.30%) WSUS
14 16 (0.29%) AirWatch
15 14 (0.25%) QRadar
16 12 (0.21%) CASB
16 12 (0.21%) ServiceCenter
17 11 (0.20%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 263 (4.69%) ServiceNow
2 259 (4.62%) VMware
3 215 (3.83%) Databricks
4 214 (3.81%) SAP
5 204 (3.64%) Oracle
6 172 (3.07%) Cisco
7 153 (2.73%) Google
8 122 (2.17%) Citrix
9 102 (1.82%) Salesforce
10 92 (1.64%) OpenAI
11 88 (1.57%) Splunk
12 77 (1.37%) Foundry
13 67 (1.19%) Apple
14 52 (0.93%) CrowdStrike
15 47 (0.84%) Adobe
15 47 (0.84%) HP
16 45 (0.80%) Palo Alto
17 43 (0.77%) Informatica
17 43 (0.77%) Okta
18 39 (0.70%) Red Hat