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 4 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
4 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 6,418 4,542 5,071
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.14% 13.80% 12.94%
As % of the Vendors category 29.34% 29.27% 29.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,197 2,911 3,310
10th Percentile £213 £213 £200
25th Percentile £375 £350 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £586 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £435 £450
% change year-on-year +3.51% -3.39% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 389 371 362
10th Percentile £13.69 £13.75 £11.72
25th Percentile £16.50 £16.00 £14.48
Median hourly rate £21.35 £22.32 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year -4.32% +37.49% -31.96%
75th Percentile £38.25 £30.63 £36.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £63.40 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.13 £20.26 £16.23
% change year-on-year +4.30% +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 21,875 15,518 17,130
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.39% 47.16% 43.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,551 9,508 10,703
10th Percentile £313 £280 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £605 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £479 £500
% change year-on-year +4.38% -4.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,112 786 855
10th Percentile £15.81 £14.48 £13.57
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.13 £15.62
Median hourly rate £35.00 £25.15 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +39.17% -10.18% -33.85%
75th Percentile £65.58 £50.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £22.32 £27.25
% change year-on-year +52.32% -18.11% -23.24%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 5,610 £490 +3.16% 5,056
UK excluding London -1 3,411 £450 +3.51% 4,068
London -2 2,472 £513 +2.50% 1,675
Work from Home +3 1,671 £500 - 2,129
South East -1 878 £475 +0.53% 1,218
North of England -4 850 £455 +4.48% 971
Midlands -1 589 £448 +19.33% 669
North West 0 488 £450 +2.97% 516
South West 0 427 £470 +9.30% 443
West Midlands -4 413 £450 +12.50% 351
Yorkshire -5 337 £475 +8.57% 329
Scotland +8 314 £450 - 210
East of England -1 254 £375 -25.00% 413
East Midlands +2 167 £418 +18.61% 317
Wales 0 98 £413 +49.48% 122
Northern Ireland -3 31 £350 -3.11% 108
North East -41 29 £450 +38.46% 142
Channel Islands 0 1 £550 -24.14% 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
1 748 (11.65%) SharePoint
2 391 (6.09%) Microsoft Exchange
3 140 (2.18%) Confluence
4 37 (0.58%) Apache Spark
5 35 (0.55%) Apache
6 29 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
7 21 (0.33%) IIS
8 18 (0.28%) CMS
8 18 (0.28%) HCL Notes
9 13 (0.20%) Skype for Business
10 11 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
10 11 (0.17%) SharePoint Server
11 10 (0.16%) SAS
12 8 (0.12%) nginx
13 6 (0.093%) Exchange Server 2010
13 6 (0.093%) Jupyter
13 6 (0.093%) SharePoint 2013
14 5 (0.078%) Apache Superset
14 5 (0.078%) Camunda
14 5 (0.078%) OpenStack
Applications
1 601 (9.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 580 (9.04%) Microsoft Office
3 254 (3.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 163 (2.54%) Microsoft Project
5 107 (1.67%) MS Visio
6 39 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
7 24 (0.37%) Chatbot
8 12 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.093%) AutoCAD
10 5 (0.078%) Adobe Illustrator
11 4 (0.062%) Navisworks
11 4 (0.062%) Photoshop
11 4 (0.062%) ProjectWise
11 4 (0.062%) Revit
12 3 (0.047%) Adobe Premiere
12 3 (0.047%) Final Cut Pro
12 3 (0.047%) Trello
13 2 (0.031%) InDesign
13 2 (0.031%) MicroStation
13 2 (0.031%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 231 (3.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 72 (1.12%) SAP S/4HANA
3 30 (0.47%) Remedy ITSM
4 21 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
5 20 (0.31%) NetSuite
6 18 (0.28%) Dynamics NAV
7 14 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
7 14 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
8 13 (0.20%) Aladdin
9 11 (0.17%) Primavera
10 9 (0.14%) Magento
10 9 (0.14%) Sage X3
11 8 (0.12%) Dynamics AX
12 7 (0.11%) iTrent
12 7 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
12 7 (0.11%) SAP PSCD
12 7 (0.11%) Teamcenter
13 6 (0.093%) Dynamics GP
13 6 (0.093%) SAP CRM
13 6 (0.093%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,710 (42.22%) Azure
2 1,626 (25.33%) Microsoft 365
3 1,126 (17.54%) Power Platform
4 953 (14.85%) Entra ID
5 570 (8.88%) AWS
6 541 (8.43%) Dynamics 365
7 539 (8.40%) Azure DevOps
8 395 (6.15%) Power Automate
9 356 (5.55%) PowerApps
10 349 (5.44%) Microsoft Copilot
11 290 (4.52%) Microsoft Purview
12 267 (4.16%) GitHub
13 243 (3.79%) OneDrive
14 225 (3.51%) SaaS
15 210 (3.27%) GCP
16 169 (2.63%) Azure Data Factory
17 166 (2.59%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 149 (2.32%) Serverless
19 142 (2.21%) PaaS
20 141 (2.20%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 352 (5.48%) DNS
2 326 (5.08%) Firewall
3 259 (4.04%) VPN
4 214 (3.33%) DHCP
5 181 (2.82%) TCP/IP
6 148 (2.31%) WAN
7 141 (2.20%) Network Security
8 138 (2.15%) LAN
8 138 (2.15%) Wi-Fi
9 70 (1.09%) VLAN
10 51 (0.79%) Wireless
11 45 (0.70%) SAN
12 41 (0.64%) MPLS
13 36 (0.56%) SSL
14 35 (0.55%) Unified Communications
15 29 (0.45%) Internet
15 29 (0.45%) SD-WAN
15 29 (0.45%) VoIP
16 27 (0.42%) BGP
17 26 (0.41%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 712 (11.09%) Power BI
2 375 (5.84%) SQL Server
3 192 (2.99%) Data Warehouse
4 131 (2.04%) Data Lake
5 130 (2.03%) PostgreSQL
6 127 (1.98%) Azure SQL Database
7 126 (1.96%) Metadata
8 77 (1.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 72 (1.12%) Relational Database
10 66 (1.03%) Power Query
11 63 (0.98%) MySQL
12 50 (0.78%) NoSQL
13 49 (0.76%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 44 (0.69%) Oracle Database
15 41 (0.64%) Star Schema
16 35 (0.55%) Tableau
17 34 (0.53%) Delta Lake
18 31 (0.48%) SQL Server Analysis Services
19 24 (0.37%) Big Data
19 24 (0.37%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 315 (4.91%) JIRA
2 196 (3.05%) Git
3 88 (1.37%) Jenkins
4 63 (0.98%) GitLab
5 54 (0.84%) Visual Studio
6 36 (0.56%) MSI
7 28 (0.44%) Selenium
8 17 (0.26%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.26%) Postman
9 16 (0.25%) Team Foundation Server
9 16 (0.25%) WebDriver
10 13 (0.20%) MLflow
11 12 (0.19%) Artifactory
11 12 (0.19%) Bitbucket
11 12 (0.19%) Cypress.io
11 12 (0.19%) ERwin
11 12 (0.19%) JUnit
11 12 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
12 11 (0.17%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.17%) Maven
General
1 2,175 (33.89%) Social Skills
2 1,299 (20.24%) Finance
3 803 (12.51%) Analytical Skills
4 608 (9.47%) Public Sector
5 318 (4.95%) Banking
6 288 (4.49%) Organisational Skills
7 218 (3.40%) Legal
8 170 (2.65%) Documentation Skills
9 149 (2.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 129 (2.01%) Manufacturing
11 126 (1.96%) Retail
12 111 (1.73%) Telecoms
13 102 (1.59%) Law
14 101 (1.57%) Marketing
15 84 (1.31%) Military
16 83 (1.29%) Local Government
17 73 (1.14%) Influencing Skills
18 68 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
19 61 (0.95%) Investment Banking
20 55 (0.86%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 737 (11.48%) Architect
2 664 (10.35%) Analyst
3 617 (9.61%) Developer
4 569 (8.87%) Senior
5 457 (7.12%) Lead
6 403 (6.28%) IT Support
7 395 (6.15%) Consultant
8 361 (5.62%) Support Engineer
9 253 (3.94%) IT Engineer
10 249 (3.88%) Data Engineer
11 244 (3.80%) Solutions Architect
12 229 (3.57%) Azure Engineer
13 226 (3.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 211 (3.29%) Project Manager
15 202 (3.15%) IT Support Engineer
16 189 (2.94%) Administrator
17 182 (2.84%) Business Analyst
18 157 (2.45%) Cloud Engineer
19 125 (1.95%) Security Engineer
20 109 (1.70%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 303 (4.72%) .NET
2 241 (3.76%) REST
3 123 (1.92%) JSON
4 116 (1.81%) Microsoft Graph
5 111 (1.73%) OAuth
6 107 (1.67%) PySpark
7 95 (1.48%) XML
8 92 (1.43%) SAML
9 91 (1.42%) OpenID
10 88 (1.37%) .NET Framework
11 82 (1.28%) Web Services
12 78 (1.22%) React
13 74 (1.15%) RESTful
14 70 (1.09%) HTML
15 65 (1.01%) ARM Templates
16 63 (0.98%) LDAP
16 63 (0.98%) SOAP
17 62 (0.97%) CSS
17 62 (0.97%) OAuth2
18 60 (0.93%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 433 (6.75%) Onboarding
2 301 (4.69%) Cloud Native
3 186 (2.90%) Management Information System
4 179 (2.79%) Product Ownership
5 159 (2.48%) Enterprise Software
6 139 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
7 136 (2.12%) Hybrid Cloud
8 124 (1.93%) PKI
9 123 (1.92%) AI Agents
10 122 (1.90%) Data Centre
11 120 (1.87%) Security Posture
12 93 (1.45%) Data Structures
13 88 (1.37%) Self-Motivation
14 81 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
15 78 (1.22%) Virtual Team
16 72 (1.12%) Low-Code
17 67 (1.04%) Driving Licence
18 66 (1.03%) Distributed Systems
19 60 (0.93%) Replication
20 59 (0.92%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,357 (21.14%) Windows
2 372 (5.80%) Windows Server
3 332 (5.17%) Windows 10
4 303 (4.72%) Linux
5 130 (2.03%) Mac OS
6 121 (1.89%) Android
7 111 (1.73%) Apple iOS
8 57 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 43 (0.67%) Unix
10 36 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
11 33 (0.51%) Windows 7
11 33 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
12 29 (0.45%) VMS
13 28 (0.44%) Ubuntu
14 21 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
15 14 (0.22%) CentOS
16 12 (0.19%) SUSE
17 10 (0.16%) Solaris
18 9 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
19 7 (0.11%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,144 (17.82%) Problem-Solving
2 1,019 (15.88%) DevOps
3 980 (15.27%) Agile
4 919 (14.32%) Stakeholder Management
5 908 (14.15%) Migration
6 835 (13.01%) CI/CD
7 740 (11.53%) AI
8 726 (11.31%) Continuous Improvement
9 724 (11.28%) Business Intelligence
10 720 (11.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 675 (10.52%) Analytics
12 608 (9.47%) ITIL
13 526 (8.20%) Customer Service
14 480 (7.48%) Data Modelling
15 466 (7.26%) Cybersecurity
16 463 (7.21%) Roadmaps
17 457 (7.12%) Infrastructure as Code
18 420 (6.54%) Decision-Making
19 415 (6.47%) Project Delivery
20 409 (6.37%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 815 (12.70%) SQL
2 685 (10.67%) PowerShell
3 656 (10.22%) Python
4 318 (4.95%) C#
5 242 (3.77%) JavaScript
6 187 (2.91%) Java
7 184 (2.87%) Bicep
8 133 (2.07%) Bash
9 117 (1.82%) T-SQL
10 101 (1.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 87 (1.36%) TypeScript
12 65 (1.01%) Kusto Query Language
13 38 (0.59%) VBA
14 30 (0.47%) C++
15 26 (0.41%) PL/SQL
16 25 (0.39%) VB
17 20 (0.31%) X++
18 17 (0.26%) VBScript
19 16 (0.25%) R
19 16 (0.25%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,331 (20.74%) Security Cleared
2 1,003 (15.63%) SC Cleared
3 629 (9.80%) Degree
4 340 (5.30%) Microsoft Certification
5 257 (4.00%) DV Cleared
6 229 (3.57%) Azure Certification
7 151 (2.35%) BPSS Clearance
8 123 (1.92%) Cisco Certification
8 123 (1.92%) CISSP
9 122 (1.90%) Computer Science Degree
10 87 (1.36%) PMP
11 80 (1.25%) PMI Certification
12 69 (1.08%) AWS Certification
12 69 (1.08%) CISM
13 54 (0.84%) CCNP
14 51 (0.79%) Master's Degree
15 48 (0.75%) DBS Check
16 47 (0.73%) CCNA
17 46 (0.72%) A+ Certification
18 41 (0.64%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 350 (5.45%) Data Quality
2 223 (3.47%) QA
3 215 (3.35%) GDPR
4 191 (2.98%) SLA
5 179 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 156 (2.43%) PMO
7 154 (2.40%) NIST
8 105 (1.64%) Accessibility
9 83 (1.29%) Cyber Essentials
10 79 (1.23%) NCSC
11 43 (0.67%) GRC
12 38 (0.59%) WCAG
13 36 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 31 (0.48%) PCI DSS
15 27 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 19 (0.30%) Disclosure Scotland
17 15 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
17 15 (0.23%) NIST 800
18 14 (0.22%) P3O
18 14 (0.22%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,236 (19.26%) Active Directory
2 237 (3.69%) Docker
3 219 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 118 (1.84%) Hyper-V
5 96 (1.50%) Virtual Desktop
6 93 (1.45%) Virtual Machines
7 59 (0.92%) vSphere
8 57 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
9 27 (0.42%) BitLocker
10 24 (0.37%) VMware NSX
11 20 (0.31%) Microsoft App-V
12 19 (0.30%) Firmware
13 8 (0.12%) NFS
13 8 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
14 7 (0.11%) IAG
15 6 (0.093%) zsh
16 5 (0.078%) Terminal Services
16 5 (0.078%) VMware Workstation
17 4 (0.062%) Virtual Servers
18 3 (0.047%) Snort
Systems Management
1 520 (8.10%) Microsoft Intune
2 457 (7.12%) Terraform
3 300 (4.67%) Kubernetes
4 225 (3.51%) SCCM
5 157 (2.45%) Ansible
6 111 (1.73%) Single Sign-On
7 58 (0.90%) Jamf Pro
8 52 (0.81%) Grafana
9 51 (0.79%) vCenter Server
10 36 (0.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 36 (0.56%) SCOM
11 35 (0.55%) Prometheus
12 23 (0.36%) Puppet
13 22 (0.34%) QRadar
14 20 (0.31%) WSUS
15 19 (0.30%) FortiGate
16 17 (0.26%) Progress Chef
17 15 (0.23%) Argo
18 13 (0.20%) Avamar
19 12 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 462 (7.20%) ServiceNow
2 305 (4.75%) VMware
3 299 (4.66%) Oracle
4 248 (3.86%) SAP
5 221 (3.44%) Databricks
6 210 (3.27%) Cisco
7 208 (3.24%) Google
8 114 (1.78%) Salesforce
9 106 (1.65%) Citrix
10 100 (1.56%) Splunk
11 91 (1.42%) Apple
12 79 (1.23%) Foundry
13 78 (1.22%) CyberArk
14 75 (1.17%) OpenAI
15 70 (1.09%) Okta
16 69 (1.08%) CrowdStrike
17 61 (0.95%) Red Hat
18 58 (0.90%) BeyondTrust
19 55 (0.86%) Zscaler
20 49 (0.76%) Meraki