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 10 October 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
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 7,501 4,771 4,917
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.74% 14.40% 12.96%
As % of the Vendors category 32.95% 30.22% 29.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,700 3,105 3,026
10th Percentile £213 £205 £200
25th Percentile £375 £337 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £482
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -1.45% -3.60%
75th Percentile £590 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £669 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £455 £440 £440
% change year-on-year +3.53% -0.11% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 648 380 259
10th Percentile £13.25 £13.75 £14.63
25th Percentile £14.45 £16.50 £15.62
Median hourly rate £18.00 £22.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £29.07 £31.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.65 £63.44 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.64 £20.79 £17.00
% change year-on-year -15.15% +22.29% -22.73%

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 22,765 15,787 16,878
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.70% 47.66% 44.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,737 9,715 9,930
10th Percentile £310 £275 £288
25th Percentile £413 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £620 £613 £625
90th Percentile £711 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £488 £500
% change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,403 805 601
10th Percentile £13.84 £14.84 £14.84
25th Percentile £16.11 £17.79 £16.00
Median hourly rate £24.19 £25.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -3.24% -23.08% -25.50%
75th Percentile £57.00 £38.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £77.40 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.18 £21.27 £30.00
% change year-on-year +9.01% -29.12% -29.41%

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 10 October 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 10 October 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 10 October 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 6,508 £493 +3.68% 8,687
UK excluding London 0 4,021 £455 +3.53% 5,795
London +2 2,807 £521 +4.25% 3,516
Work from Home +4 1,887 £500 - 3,557
South East +1 1,086 £475 +5.56% 1,433
North of England -5 991 £465 +6.90% 1,445
Midlands -1 693 £425 +2.41% 947
North West -1 576 £473 +8.00% 736
West Midlands -1 476 £425 -3.41% 547
South West -1 443 £500 +11.11% 587
Scotland +5 376 £450 - 458
Yorkshire -3 364 £460 +5.14% 504
East of England 0 320 £350 -30.69% 561
East Midlands +1 213 £440 +17.33% 401
Wales +1 113 £413 +35.80% 196
North East -20 56 £425 +23.26% 217
Northern Ireland -1 35 £312 -10.86% 250
Channel Islands -3 4 £525 -27.59% 6

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
1 905 (12.07%) SharePoint
2 403 (5.37%) Microsoft Exchange
3 161 (2.15%) Confluence
4 39 (0.52%) Apache
5 34 (0.45%) Apache Spark
6 29 (0.39%) IIS
7 26 (0.35%) CMS
8 23 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
8 23 (0.31%) Skype for Business
9 18 (0.24%) SharePoint Server
10 17 (0.23%) HCL Notes
11 12 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
12 10 (0.13%) nginx
13 6 (0.080%) Exchange Server 2010
13 6 (0.080%) Mendix
13 6 (0.080%) OpenStack
13 6 (0.080%) SharePoint 2013
14 5 (0.067%) Exchange Server 2013
15 4 (0.053%) Camunda
15 4 (0.053%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 848 (11.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 791 (10.55%) Microsoft Office
3 335 (4.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 202 (2.69%) Microsoft Project
5 117 (1.56%) MS Visio
6 63 (0.84%) Spreadsheet
7 24 (0.32%) Chatbot
8 15 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 14 (0.19%) AutoCAD
10 11 (0.15%) Navisworks
10 11 (0.15%) ProjectWise
11 10 (0.13%) Revit
12 7 (0.093%) Adobe Illustrator
12 7 (0.093%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.040%) 1Password
13 3 (0.040%) Adobe Premiere
13 3 (0.040%) Final Cut Pro
13 3 (0.040%) Productboard
13 3 (0.040%) SOLIDWORKS
13 3 (0.040%) Trello
Business Applications
1 273 (3.64%) Dynamics CRM
2 92 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
3 37 (0.49%) Remedy ITSM
4 29 (0.39%) Dynamics NAV
5 21 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
6 17 (0.23%) Integrated Workplace Management System
6 17 (0.23%) NetSuite
7 14 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
8 13 (0.17%) Primavera
9 12 (0.16%) Aladdin
9 12 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
10 11 (0.15%) Magento
11 10 (0.13%) Dynamics AX
12 9 (0.12%) Payment Gateway
12 9 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
13 8 (0.11%) SAP PP
14 7 (0.093%) iTrent
14 7 (0.093%) Oracle ERP
14 7 (0.093%) SAP CRM
14 7 (0.093%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 3,078 (41.03%) Azure
2 1,901 (25.34%) Microsoft 365
3 1,302 (17.36%) Power Platform
4 1,217 (16.22%) Entra ID
5 684 (9.12%) AWS
6 649 (8.65%) Azure DevOps
7 612 (8.16%) Dynamics 365
8 471 (6.28%) Microsoft Copilot
9 447 (5.96%) Power Automate
10 403 (5.37%) PowerApps
11 327 (4.36%) Microsoft Purview
12 323 (4.31%) GitHub
13 302 (4.03%) GCP
14 276 (3.68%) OneDrive
15 245 (3.27%) SaaS
16 208 (2.77%) Serverless
17 198 (2.64%) Azure Monitor
18 179 (2.39%) Azure Data Factory
19 171 (2.28%) Azure Sentinel
19 171 (2.28%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 420 (5.60%) DNS
2 349 (4.65%) Firewall
3 311 (4.15%) VPN
4 275 (3.67%) DHCP
5 211 (2.81%) TCP/IP
6 172 (2.29%) Network Security
7 159 (2.12%) WAN
8 147 (1.96%) LAN
9 134 (1.79%) Wi-Fi
10 74 (0.99%) VLAN
11 72 (0.96%) Wireless
12 49 (0.65%) SAN
13 43 (0.57%) SSL
14 40 (0.53%) Kerberos
14 40 (0.53%) Skype
15 39 (0.52%) Internet
16 38 (0.51%) MPLS
17 37 (0.49%) BGP
18 33 (0.44%) Unified Communications
18 33 (0.44%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 774 (10.32%) Power BI
2 417 (5.56%) SQL Server
3 172 (2.29%) Data Warehouse
4 169 (2.25%) Metadata
5 148 (1.97%) Data Lake
6 134 (1.79%) PostgreSQL
7 124 (1.65%) Azure SQL Database
8 92 (1.23%) Power Query
9 83 (1.11%) Relational Database
10 74 (0.99%) MySQL
11 73 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 56 (0.75%) NoSQL
13 53 (0.71%) Oracle Database
14 42 (0.56%) Star Schema
15 41 (0.55%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 39 (0.52%) Amazon RDS
17 36 (0.48%) Delta Lake
17 36 (0.48%) MongoDB
18 32 (0.43%) BigQuery
19 30 (0.40%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 350 (4.67%) JIRA
2 259 (3.45%) Git
3 92 (1.23%) Jenkins
4 70 (0.93%) GitLab
5 60 (0.80%) Visual Studio
6 51 (0.68%) MSI
7 38 (0.51%) Selenium
8 29 (0.39%) Postman
9 28 (0.37%) Claude Code
10 21 (0.28%) Cypress.io
11 19 (0.25%) Team Foundation Server
12 18 (0.24%) Cucumber
13 17 (0.23%) WebDriver
14 15 (0.20%) Eclipse
15 13 (0.17%) Sonatype Nexus
15 13 (0.17%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
16 12 (0.16%) Subversion
17 10 (0.13%) ERwin
17 10 (0.13%) MLflow
18 9 (0.12%) Snyk
General
1 2,820 (37.59%) Social Skills
2 1,489 (19.85%) Finance
3 982 (13.09%) Analytical Skills
4 686 (9.15%) Public Sector
5 486 (6.48%) Organisational Skills
6 328 (4.37%) Banking
7 247 (3.29%) Legal
8 235 (3.13%) Manufacturing
9 220 (2.93%) Documentation Skills
10 184 (2.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 162 (2.16%) Retail
12 127 (1.69%) Telecoms
13 120 (1.60%) Marketing
14 105 (1.40%) Aerospace
15 102 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
16 94 (1.25%) Military
17 93 (1.24%) Local Government
18 79 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
19 76 (1.01%) Law
20 56 (0.75%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 838 (11.17%) Architect
2 723 (9.64%) Analyst
3 657 (8.76%) Senior
4 656 (8.75%) Developer
5 503 (6.71%) Lead
6 492 (6.56%) Consultant
7 445 (5.93%) IT Support
8 433 (5.77%) Support Engineer
9 371 (4.95%) Administrator
10 295 (3.93%) IT Engineer
11 292 (3.89%) Solutions Architect
12 265 (3.53%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 261 (3.48%) Azure Engineer
14 246 (3.28%) Data Engineer
15 244 (3.25%) IT Support Engineer
16 220 (2.93%) Project Manager
17 197 (2.63%) Business Analyst
18 192 (2.56%) Cloud Engineer
19 148 (1.97%) Security Engineer
20 136 (1.81%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 570 (7.60%) Terraform
2 348 (4.64%) .NET
3 319 (4.25%) REST
4 159 (2.12%) OAuth
5 148 (1.97%) JSON
6 122 (1.63%) OpenID
6 122 (1.63%) SAML
7 118 (1.57%) XML
8 108 (1.44%) ARM Templates
9 106 (1.41%) PySpark
10 104 (1.39%) Microsoft Graph
11 99 (1.32%) React
12 93 (1.24%) Web Services
13 92 (1.23%) LDAP
14 89 (1.19%) OAuth2
15 87 (1.16%) .NET Framework
16 85 (1.13%) RESTful
17 81 (1.08%) SailPoint
18 80 (1.07%) HTML
19 70 (0.93%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 622 (8.29%) Onboarding
2 330 (4.40%) Management Information System
3 326 (4.35%) Cloud Native
4 257 (3.43%) Enterprise Software
5 212 (2.83%) Product Ownership
6 179 (2.39%) AI Agents
7 173 (2.31%) Hybrid Cloud
8 168 (2.24%) PKI
9 160 (2.13%) Data Centre
10 150 (2.00%) Security Posture
11 141 (1.88%) Legacy Systems
12 105 (1.40%) Data Structures
13 99 (1.32%) CMDB
14 98 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
14 98 (1.31%) Driving Licence
14 98 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
15 87 (1.16%) Low-Code
16 83 (1.11%) Replication
17 80 (1.07%) Virtual Team
18 79 (1.05%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1,579 (21.05%) Windows
2 493 (6.57%) Windows Server
3 394 (5.25%) Windows 10
4 361 (4.81%) Linux
5 158 (2.11%) Mac OS
6 133 (1.77%) Android
7 130 (1.73%) Apple iOS
8 63 (0.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 49 (0.65%) Unix
10 42 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
11 39 (0.52%) Ubuntu
12 37 (0.49%) Windows 7
13 35 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
14 33 (0.44%) VMS
15 22 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
16 21 (0.28%) CentOS
17 20 (0.27%) Solaris
18 11 (0.15%) SUSE
19 7 (0.093%) AIX
19 7 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,485 (19.80%) Stakeholder Management
2 1,417 (18.89%) Problem-Solving
3 1,154 (15.38%) DevOps
4 1,118 (14.90%) Agile
5 1,010 (13.46%) Migration
6 988 (13.17%) CI/CD
7 966 (12.88%) Continuous Improvement
8 909 (12.12%) AI
9 849 (11.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 795 (10.60%) Business Intelligence
11 762 (10.16%) Analytics
12 745 (9.93%) ITIL
13 705 (9.40%) Customer Service
14 636 (8.48%) Cybersecurity
15 613 (8.17%) Infrastructure as Code
16 592 (7.89%) Roadmaps
17 526 (7.01%) Project Delivery
18 524 (6.99%) Data Modelling
19 512 (6.83%) Decision-Making
20 500 (6.67%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 899 (11.99%) SQL
2 879 (11.72%) PowerShell
3 781 (10.41%) Python
4 371 (4.95%) C#
5 292 (3.89%) JavaScript
6 232 (3.09%) Bicep
7 194 (2.59%) Bash
8 162 (2.16%) Java
9 130 (1.73%) TypeScript
10 116 (1.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 107 (1.43%) T-SQL
12 82 (1.09%) Kusto Query Language
13 32 (0.43%) VB
14 30 (0.40%) VBA
15 27 (0.36%) C++
16 25 (0.33%) VBScript
17 22 (0.29%) X++
18 21 (0.28%) PL/SQL
19 19 (0.25%) R
20 16 (0.21%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 1,629 (21.72%) Security Cleared
2 1,200 (16.00%) SC Cleared
3 615 (8.20%) Degree
4 373 (4.97%) Microsoft Certification
5 327 (4.36%) DV Cleared
6 278 (3.71%) Azure Certification
7 206 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
8 143 (1.91%) CISSP
9 125 (1.67%) Cisco Certification
10 112 (1.49%) Computer Science Degree
11 99 (1.32%) PMP
12 95 (1.27%) PMI Certification
13 82 (1.09%) AWS Certification
14 79 (1.05%) CISM
15 68 (0.91%) DBS Check
16 58 (0.77%) A+ Certification
17 57 (0.76%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 53 (0.71%) CCNP
19 45 (0.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 45 (0.60%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 470 (6.27%) Data Quality
2 254 (3.39%) QA
3 241 (3.21%) GDPR
4 224 (2.99%) SLA
5 217 (2.89%) PMO
6 214 (2.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 185 (2.47%) NIST
8 131 (1.75%) Accessibility
9 90 (1.20%) Cyber Essentials
10 88 (1.17%) NCSC
11 65 (0.87%) GRC
12 48 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 46 (0.61%) WCAG
14 43 (0.57%) PCI DSS
15 27 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 24 (0.32%) Disclosure Scotland
17 23 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
18 22 (0.29%) SOC 2
19 17 (0.23%) ISO 19650
19 17 (0.23%) P3O
System Software
1 1,387 (18.49%) Active Directory
2 282 (3.76%) VMware Infrastructure
3 248 (3.31%) Docker
4 150 (2.00%) Hyper-V
5 138 (1.84%) Virtual Desktop
6 120 (1.60%) Virtual Machines
7 80 (1.07%) vSphere
8 59 (0.79%) VMware ESXi
9 35 (0.47%) BitLocker
10 22 (0.29%) Microsoft App-V
11 19 (0.25%) Firmware
12 17 (0.23%) VMware NSX
13 15 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
14 11 (0.15%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 7 (0.093%) IAG
15 7 (0.093%) zsh
16 6 (0.080%) ISA Server
16 6 (0.080%) NFS
16 6 (0.080%) Oracle RAC
16 6 (0.080%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 601 (8.01%) Microsoft Intune
2 343 (4.57%) Kubernetes
3 309 (4.12%) SCCM
4 177 (2.36%) Ansible
5 155 (2.07%) Single Sign-On
6 67 (0.89%) Grafana
7 59 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
8 54 (0.72%) SCOM
9 46 (0.61%) vCenter Server
10 35 (0.47%) Prometheus
11 31 (0.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 31 (0.41%) QRadar
12 27 (0.36%) Progress Chef
12 27 (0.36%) WSUS
13 22 (0.29%) Failover Clustering
14 21 (0.28%) Argo
15 20 (0.27%) FortiGate
15 20 (0.27%) Puppet
16 17 (0.23%) WMI
17 14 (0.19%) Avamar
Vendors
1 549 (7.32%) ServiceNow
2 362 (4.83%) VMware
3 355 (4.73%) Oracle
4 314 (4.19%) SAP
5 299 (3.99%) Google
6 265 (3.53%) Databricks
7 244 (3.25%) Cisco
8 139 (1.85%) Salesforce
9 132 (1.76%) Splunk
10 115 (1.53%) Apple
11 111 (1.48%) CyberArk
12 102 (1.36%) Citrix
12 102 (1.36%) OpenAI
13 100 (1.33%) Okta
14 96 (1.28%) BeyondTrust
15 88 (1.17%) Foundry
16 81 (1.08%) CrowdStrike
17 67 (0.89%) Red Hat
18 65 (0.87%) IBM
19 59 (0.79%) Zscaler