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 13 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
13 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,476 3,870 5,536
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.60% 13.35% 12.95%
As % of the Vendors category 28.10% 28.10% 30.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,682 2,551 3,640
10th Percentile £211 £209 £189
25th Percentile £375 £340 £335
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +3.79% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £585 £584 £600
90th Percentile £676 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £451
% change year-on-year +5.88% -5.66% -2.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 349 237 459
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.02 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.35 £15.09 £13.00
Median hourly rate £20.09 £18.77 £15.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.06% +25.10% -33.20%
75th Percentile £30.00 £29.00 £24.88
90th Percentile £64.00 £59.83 £55.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.00 £18.51 £15.00
% change year-on-year +8.08% +23.37% -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 19,485 13,772 18,132
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.28% 47.52% 42.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,350 8,611 11,252
10th Percentile £313 £281 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.49% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £618 £630
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -0.61% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 986 554 1,092
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.44 £14.46
Median hourly rate £32.36 £25.50 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +26.91% +13.33% -47.06%
75th Percentile £59.56 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £78.65 £74.63 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.09 £23.00 £21.50
% change year-on-year +22.13% +6.98% -45.64%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 4,799 £496 +4.46% 2,956
UK excluding London 0 2,839 £450 +5.88% 2,554
London -2 2,121 £515 +3.00% 886
Work from Home -1 1,367 £500 - 1,204
North of England -2 751 £450 +8.70% 597
South East -2 657 £475 -1.04% 850
Midlands -5 492 £450 +12.50% 390
North West -2 402 £425 - 316
West Midlands -6 344 £450 +12.50% 221
South West -2 327 £450 -2.96% 236
Yorkshire -2 327 £465 +16.25% 204
East of England 0 315 £375 -21.05% 289
Scotland +5 207 £450 +9.22% 125
East Midlands -2 142 £401 -2.32% 169
Wales +2 90 £335 +3.08% 94
North East -26 27 £450 +30.43% 82
Northern Ireland -1 20 £450 +38.46% 31
Channel Islands -3 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 (10.70%) SharePoint
2 375 (6.85%) Microsoft Exchange
3 104 (1.90%) Confluence
4 35 (0.64%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.44%) Apache
6 23 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
7 20 (0.37%) HCL Notes
8 18 (0.33%) CMS
9 14 (0.26%) SAS
10 12 (0.22%) IIS
10 12 (0.22%) Mendix
10 12 (0.22%) Skype for Business
11 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.11%) Camunda
11 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
12 5 (0.091%) OpenEdge
12 5 (0.091%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.073%) Drupal
13 4 (0.073%) MS Project Server
13 4 (0.073%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 552 (10.08%) Microsoft Office
2 483 (8.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 222 (4.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 120 (2.19%) Microsoft Project
5 93 (1.70%) MS Visio
6 56 (1.02%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.31%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.11%) Trello
10 5 (0.091%) Acrobat
10 5 (0.091%) PTC Creo
11 4 (0.073%) InDesign
11 4 (0.073%) SOLIDWORKS
12 3 (0.055%) Adobe Captivate
12 3 (0.055%) AutoCAD
12 3 (0.055%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.037%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.037%) InfoPath
13 2 (0.037%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 193 (3.52%) Dynamics CRM
2 64 (1.17%) SAP S/4HANA
3 22 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
4 20 (0.37%) Dynamics NAV
5 16 (0.29%) NetSuite
6 15 (0.27%) Aladdin
7 13 (0.24%) Teamcenter
8 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
9 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
10 10 (0.18%) Maximo
10 10 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
10 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
10 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
11 9 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
12 8 (0.15%) Oracle Receivables
13 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
14 6 (0.11%) Shopify
15 5 (0.091%) Primavera
15 5 (0.091%) SAP Business One
15 5 (0.091%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 2,302 (42.04%) Azure
2 1,406 (25.68%) Microsoft 365
3 931 (17.00%) Power Platform
4 707 (12.91%) Entra ID
5 453 (8.27%) Dynamics 365
6 441 (8.05%) AWS
7 421 (7.69%) Azure DevOps
8 318 (5.81%) Power Automate
9 287 (5.24%) Microsoft Purview
10 286 (5.22%) PowerApps
11 254 (4.64%) GitHub
12 236 (4.31%) Microsoft Copilot
13 208 (3.80%) OneDrive
14 191 (3.49%) Azure Data Factory
15 189 (3.45%) SaaS
16 176 (3.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 167 (3.05%) GCP
18 156 (2.85%) Serverless
19 142 (2.59%) PaaS
20 130 (2.37%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 282 (5.15%) DNS
2 268 (4.89%) Firewall
3 203 (3.71%) VPN
4 168 (3.07%) DHCP
5 134 (2.45%) Wi-Fi
6 131 (2.39%) WAN
7 112 (2.05%) LAN
8 107 (1.95%) Network Security
9 99 (1.81%) TCP/IP
10 57 (1.04%) Kerberos
11 52 (0.95%) VLAN
12 45 (0.82%) SD-WAN
13 35 (0.64%) SAN
13 35 (0.64%) SSL
14 33 (0.60%) Wireless
15 29 (0.53%) Skype
16 27 (0.49%) HTTP
17 26 (0.47%) Unified Communications
18 25 (0.46%) MPLS
19 24 (0.44%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 565 (10.32%) Power BI
2 260 (4.75%) SQL Server
3 173 (3.16%) Data Warehouse
4 153 (2.79%) Data Lake
5 119 (2.17%) Azure SQL Database
6 111 (2.03%) Metadata
7 95 (1.73%) PostgreSQL
8 69 (1.26%) Relational Database
9 67 (1.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 48 (0.88%) Power Query
11 44 (0.80%) NoSQL
11 44 (0.80%) Tableau
12 42 (0.77%) Oracle Database
13 41 (0.75%) Star Schema
14 40 (0.73%) Delta Lake
14 40 (0.73%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 39 (0.71%) MySQL
16 29 (0.53%) Spark SQL
17 27 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
18 26 (0.47%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 249 (4.55%) JIRA
2 164 (2.99%) Git
3 64 (1.17%) Jenkins
4 62 (1.13%) GitLab
5 26 (0.47%) Artifactory
6 24 (0.44%) Visual Studio
7 21 (0.38%) MSI
8 20 (0.37%) Eclipse
9 16 (0.29%) Postman
10 15 (0.27%) MLflow
10 15 (0.27%) Selenium
11 14 (0.26%) JMeter
11 14 (0.26%) Visual Studio Code
12 13 (0.24%) ERwin
13 12 (0.22%) Maven
14 11 (0.20%) Bitbucket
15 10 (0.18%) InstallShield
16 9 (0.16%) Android Studio
16 9 (0.16%) Browser DevTools
16 9 (0.16%) Gatling
General
1 1,801 (32.89%) Social Skills
2 1,082 (19.76%) Finance
3 631 (11.52%) Analytical Skills
4 499 (9.11%) Public Sector
5 280 (5.11%) Banking
6 245 (4.47%) Legal
7 244 (4.46%) Organisational Skills
8 137 (2.50%) Documentation Skills
9 106 (1.94%) Manufacturing
10 93 (1.70%) Law
10 93 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
11 85 (1.55%) Telecoms
12 83 (1.52%) Retail
13 78 (1.42%) Marketing
14 75 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 71 (1.30%) Military
16 63 (1.15%) Local Government
17 53 (0.97%) Influencing Skills
18 52 (0.95%) Investment Banking
19 42 (0.77%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 685 (12.51%) Architect
2 593 (10.83%) Analyst
3 498 (9.09%) Developer
4 460 (8.40%) Senior
5 362 (6.61%) IT Support
6 329 (6.01%) Lead
7 296 (5.41%) Consultant
8 255 (4.66%) Support Engineer
9 223 (4.07%) Data Engineer
10 200 (3.65%) Azure Engineer
11 189 (3.45%) Solutions Architect
12 185 (3.38%) Project Manager
13 178 (3.25%) IT Engineer
14 176 (3.21%) Business Analyst
15 167 (3.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 160 (2.92%) Administrator
17 134 (2.45%) IT Support Engineer
18 111 (2.03%) Security Engineer
19 104 (1.90%) DevOps Engineer
20 102 (1.86%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 235 (4.29%) .NET
2 159 (2.90%) REST
3 124 (2.26%) Microsoft Graph
4 105 (1.92%) OAuth
5 100 (1.83%) PySpark
6 94 (1.72%) SAML
7 84 (1.53%) JSON
8 80 (1.46%) React
9 76 (1.39%) OpenID
10 75 (1.37%) LDAP
11 68 (1.24%) Web Services
12 63 (1.15%) Middleware
13 56 (1.02%) HTML
14 49 (0.89%) AngularJS
14 49 (0.89%) ARM Templates
14 49 (0.89%) CSS
15 48 (0.88%) Node.js
15 48 (0.88%) SailPoint
16 47 (0.86%) OAuth2
17 45 (0.82%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 291 (5.31%) Onboarding
2 218 (3.98%) Cloud Native
3 174 (3.18%) Product Ownership
4 122 (2.23%) Management Information System
5 104 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
6 98 (1.79%) Data Centre
7 91 (1.66%) Legacy Systems
8 84 (1.53%) Hybrid Cloud
9 80 (1.46%) AI Agents
9 80 (1.46%) PKI
9 80 (1.46%) Security Posture
10 78 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
11 75 (1.37%) Replication
12 70 (1.28%) Data Structures
13 69 (1.26%) Low-Code
14 67 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
15 59 (1.08%) Virtual Team
16 46 (0.84%) Driving Licence
17 45 (0.82%) Operational Technology
18 43 (0.79%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 1,183 (21.60%) Windows
2 321 (5.86%) Windows 10
3 269 (4.91%) Windows Server
4 255 (4.66%) Linux
5 104 (1.90%) Android
6 103 (1.88%) Apple iOS
7 101 (1.84%) Mac OS
8 43 (0.79%) Unix
9 42 (0.77%) Windows Server 2016
10 41 (0.75%) Windows 7
11 40 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 30 (0.55%) VMS
13 28 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
14 22 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
15 14 (0.26%) Windows Server 2003
16 11 (0.20%) Ubuntu
17 10 (0.18%) CentOS
18 5 (0.091%) AIX
18 5 (0.091%) Solaris
19 4 (0.073%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 943 (17.22%) Problem-Solving
2 862 (15.74%) DevOps
3 841 (15.36%) Agile
4 775 (14.15%) Migration
5 738 (13.48%) CI/CD
6 621 (11.34%) Business Intelligence
7 594 (10.85%) Analytics
8 536 (9.79%) Stakeholder Management
9 535 (9.77%) AI
10 485 (8.86%) Continuous Improvement
11 453 (8.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 447 (8.16%) ITIL
13 431 (7.87%) Customer Service
14 404 (7.38%) Data Modelling
15 367 (6.70%) Roadmaps
16 345 (6.30%) Decision-Making
17 341 (6.23%) Cybersecurity
18 325 (5.93%) Infrastructure as Code
19 310 (5.66%) Project Delivery
20 303 (5.53%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 702 (12.82%) SQL
2 623 (11.38%) PowerShell
3 579 (10.57%) Python
4 250 (4.57%) C#
5 193 (3.52%) JavaScript
6 170 (3.10%) Java
7 121 (2.21%) Bicep
8 92 (1.68%) T-SQL
9 86 (1.57%) Kusto Query Language
10 83 (1.52%) Bash
11 71 (1.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 66 (1.21%) TypeScript
13 33 (0.60%) PL/SQL
14 29 (0.53%) VBA
15 27 (0.49%) C++
16 22 (0.40%) VB
17 19 (0.35%) Scala
18 18 (0.33%) R
19 17 (0.31%) Shell Script
20 13 (0.24%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,041 (19.01%) Security Cleared
2 815 (14.88%) SC Cleared
3 538 (9.82%) Degree
4 258 (4.71%) Microsoft Certification
5 178 (3.25%) Azure Certification
5 178 (3.25%) DV Cleared
6 122 (2.23%) Computer Science Degree
7 99 (1.81%) CISSP
8 91 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
9 72 (1.31%) Cisco Certification
10 60 (1.10%) PMP
11 59 (1.08%) PMI Certification
12 55 (1.00%) Master's Degree
13 54 (0.99%) CISM
14 42 (0.77%) AWS Certification
15 37 (0.68%) MCSE
16 30 (0.55%) DBS Check
16 30 (0.55%) ITIL Certification
17 29 (0.53%) CCNP
17 29 (0.53%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 269 (4.91%) Data Quality
2 218 (3.98%) GDPR
3 188 (3.43%) QA
4 147 (2.68%) SLA
5 138 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 114 (2.08%) NIST
7 104 (1.90%) PMO
8 71 (1.30%) Accessibility
9 69 (1.26%) Cyber Essentials
10 47 (0.86%) NCSC
11 38 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 34 (0.62%) GRC
13 25 (0.46%) PCI DSS
14 21 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 20 (0.37%) MiFID
16 19 (0.35%) NIST 800
17 13 (0.24%) FINRA
18 12 (0.22%) HIPAA
18 12 (0.22%) SOC 2
18 12 (0.22%) WCAG
System Software
1 1,056 (19.28%) Active Directory
2 220 (4.02%) Docker
3 189 (3.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 97 (1.77%) Hyper-V
5 76 (1.39%) Virtual Machines
6 75 (1.37%) Virtual Desktop
7 53 (0.97%) VMware ESXi
8 42 (0.77%) vSphere
9 24 (0.44%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.42%) VMware NSX
11 20 (0.37%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.29%) Firmware
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
14 5 (0.091%) IAG
14 5 (0.091%) NFS
14 5 (0.091%) Snort
14 5 (0.091%) VMware Workstation
15 4 (0.073%) Squid
15 4 (0.073%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 416 (7.60%) Microsoft Intune
2 343 (6.26%) Terraform
3 247 (4.51%) Kubernetes
4 198 (3.62%) SCCM
5 128 (2.34%) Ansible
6 116 (2.12%) Single Sign-On
7 76 (1.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 44 (0.80%) vCenter Server
9 39 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
10 35 (0.64%) Grafana
11 31 (0.57%) Prometheus
12 21 (0.38%) FortiGate
13 19 (0.35%) SCOM
14 18 (0.33%) Puppet
15 16 (0.29%) AirWatch
16 14 (0.26%) QRadar
16 14 (0.26%) WSUS
17 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
18 11 (0.20%) CASB
18 11 (0.20%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 259 (4.73%) VMware
2 256 (4.67%) ServiceNow
3 214 (3.91%) Databricks
3 214 (3.91%) SAP
4 205 (3.74%) Oracle
5 169 (3.09%) Cisco
6 153 (2.79%) Google
7 115 (2.10%) Citrix
8 96 (1.75%) Salesforce
9 88 (1.61%) Splunk
10 84 (1.53%) OpenAI
11 71 (1.30%) Apple
12 68 (1.24%) Foundry
13 53 (0.97%) CrowdStrike
14 49 (0.89%) HP
15 46 (0.84%) Palo Alto
16 45 (0.82%) Adobe
16 45 (0.82%) Okta
17 42 (0.77%) CyberArk
18 40 (0.73%) Informatica