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 18 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
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 8 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,263 4,166 5,733
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.98% 13.58% 12.92%
As % of the Vendors category 29.00% 29.26% 29.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,558 2,646 3,883
10th Percentile £204 £206 £192
25th Percentile £358 £340 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £477 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.32% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £435 £450
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 376 170 373
10th Percentile £13.54 £15.48 £11.82
25th Percentile £16.24 £17.00 £14.00
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.80 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -16.34% +34.31% -13.50%
75th Percentile £25.47 £33.75 £37.50
90th Percentile £60.00 £63.30 £52.78
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £22.05 £17.50
% change year-on-year -13.81% +25.97% -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 18,146 14,238 19,284
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.74% 46.42% 43.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,638 8,517 12,062
10th Percentile £300 £275 £258
25th Percentile £413 £406 £402
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.94% -0.86% -0.94%
75th Percentile £606 £625 £630
90th Percentile £700 £710 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 893 403 932
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £12.99
25th Percentile £17.96 £21.25 £15.50
Median hourly rate £24.00 £30.00 £27.33
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +9.76% -17.17%
75th Percentile £57.25 £63.75 £58.54
90th Percentile £74.26 £82.15 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.41 £27.13 £26.00
% change year-on-year -17.39% +4.33% -10.81%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 4,597 £480 +1.05% 3,081
UK excluding London 0 2,843 £450 +3.45% 2,907
London -4 1,933 £500 - 740
Work from Home 0 1,337 £500 +2.04% 1,228
North of England -1 741 £428 +0.71% 671
South East -1 645 £475 -0.52% 924
Midlands -5 477 £450 +5.88% 429
North West -1 423 £405 -10.00% 359
South West -1 360 £500 +6.38% 312
East of England +1 341 £406 -8.45% 350
West Midlands -6 329 £478 +9.99% 227
Yorkshire +2 282 £450 +9.09% 216
Scotland -2 199 £454 +21.07% 164
East Midlands -2 146 £418 +3.09% 200
Wales +2 97 £310 -31.11% 89
North East -12 42 £450 +28.57% 106
Northern Ireland +1 28 £450 +38.46% 30
Channel Islands +2 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
1 600 (11.40%) SharePoint
2 409 (7.77%) Microsoft Exchange
3 112 (2.13%) Confluence
4 52 (0.99%) Skype for Business
5 28 (0.53%) CMS
6 23 (0.44%) Apache
7 20 (0.38%) IIS
8 18 (0.34%) Apache Spark
9 16 (0.30%) HCL Notes
10 15 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
11 13 (0.25%) SAS
12 11 (0.21%) Exchange Server 2013
12 11 (0.21%) Mattermost
13 9 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2010
13 9 (0.17%) Mendix
14 8 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
15 7 (0.13%) iPlanet
15 7 (0.13%) JBoss
15 7 (0.13%) WebSphere
15 7 (0.13%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 634 (12.05%) Microsoft Office
2 523 (9.94%) Microsoft Excel
3 231 (4.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 132 (2.51%) Microsoft Project
5 110 (2.09%) MS Visio
6 75 (1.43%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 11 (0.21%) Trello
8 10 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.11%) Adobe Captivate
9 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
10 5 (0.095%) Acrobat
10 5 (0.095%) PTC Creo
10 5 (0.095%) Sketch
11 4 (0.076%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.057%) Adobe After Effects
12 3 (0.057%) InDesign
12 3 (0.057%) Photoshop
12 3 (0.057%) SOLIDWORKS
12 3 (0.057%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 192 (3.65%) Dynamics CRM
2 47 (0.89%) SAP S/4HANA
3 40 (0.76%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.34%) Dynamics AX
5 16 (0.30%) Maximo
6 15 (0.29%) Dynamics NAV
7 13 (0.25%) Aladdin
8 12 (0.23%) NetSuite
9 11 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
10 10 (0.19%) Teamcenter
11 9 (0.17%) Loan IQ
11 9 (0.17%) Veritas eDiscovery
12 7 (0.13%) Advent Geneva
12 7 (0.13%) Shopify
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
13 6 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
13 6 (0.11%) SystmOne
14 5 (0.095%) Primavera
14 5 (0.095%) SAP ERP
15 4 (0.076%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,093 (39.77%) Azure
2 1,303 (24.76%) Microsoft 365
3 836 (15.88%) Power Platform
4 657 (12.48%) Entra ID
5 455 (8.65%) AWS
6 402 (7.64%) Dynamics 365
7 388 (7.37%) Azure DevOps
8 330 (6.27%) Power Automate
9 293 (5.57%) PowerApps
10 250 (4.75%) Microsoft Purview
11 230 (4.37%) GitHub
12 216 (4.10%) OneDrive
13 185 (3.52%) Serverless
14 181 (3.44%) Azure Data Factory
15 179 (3.40%) SaaS
16 176 (3.34%) GCP
17 167 (3.17%) Microsoft Copilot
18 140 (2.66%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 139 (2.64%) Azure Logic Apps
20 133 (2.53%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 307 (5.83%) DNS
2 282 (5.36%) Firewall
3 202 (3.84%) VPN
4 192 (3.65%) DHCP
5 135 (2.57%) Wi-Fi
6 128 (2.43%) TCP/IP
7 119 (2.26%) WAN
8 107 (2.03%) LAN
9 103 (1.96%) Network Security
10 78 (1.48%) Skype
11 67 (1.27%) Kerberos
12 58 (1.10%) VLAN
13 48 (0.91%) Wireless
14 46 (0.87%) Unified Communications
15 34 (0.65%) SD-WAN
16 33 (0.63%) HTTP
17 29 (0.55%) Internet
17 29 (0.55%) SSL
18 26 (0.49%) SAN
18 26 (0.49%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 518 (9.84%) Power BI
2 243 (4.62%) SQL Server
3 154 (2.93%) Data Warehouse
4 136 (2.58%) Data Lake
5 100 (1.90%) Metadata
6 94 (1.79%) PostgreSQL
7 91 (1.73%) Azure SQL Database
8 78 (1.48%) Relational Database
9 63 (1.20%) Oracle Database
10 58 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 54 (1.03%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 48 (0.91%) MySQL
13 43 (0.82%) Tableau
14 39 (0.74%) NoSQL
15 37 (0.70%) Power Query
16 30 (0.57%) Delta Lake
17 25 (0.48%) Oracle Reports
17 25 (0.48%) Star Schema
18 23 (0.44%) SQL Server Analysis Services
19 22 (0.42%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 245 (4.66%) JIRA
2 162 (3.08%) Git
3 75 (1.43%) Jenkins
4 74 (1.41%) GitLab
5 25 (0.48%) MSI
6 24 (0.46%) Eclipse
7 20 (0.38%) Postman
8 18 (0.34%) Android Studio
8 18 (0.34%) Artifactory
8 18 (0.34%) Browser DevTools
9 17 (0.32%) Visual Studio
10 16 (0.30%) Selenium
10 16 (0.30%) Xcode
11 15 (0.29%) JMeter
11 15 (0.29%) Sonatype Nexus
12 13 (0.25%) Cucumber
13 11 (0.21%) JUnit
13 11 (0.21%) MLflow
14 10 (0.19%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.19%) ERwin
General
1 2,057 (39.08%) Social Skills
2 1,040 (19.76%) Finance
3 671 (12.75%) Analytical Skills
4 516 (9.80%) Public Sector
5 257 (4.88%) Organisational Skills
6 251 (4.77%) Banking
7 221 (4.20%) Legal
8 169 (3.21%) Documentation Skills
9 133 (2.53%) Manufacturing
10 109 (2.07%) Presentation Skills
11 108 (2.05%) Marketing
12 96 (1.82%) Telecoms
13 71 (1.35%) Retail
14 65 (1.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 54 (1.03%) Influencing Skills
16 50 (0.95%) Investment Banking
17 48 (0.91%) Military
18 45 (0.86%) Law
19 39 (0.74%) Local Government
20 38 (0.72%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 678 (12.88%) Analyst
2 590 (11.21%) Architect
3 502 (9.54%) Developer
4 401 (7.62%) Senior
5 343 (6.52%) IT Support
6 301 (5.72%) Support Engineer
7 289 (5.49%) Consultant
8 265 (5.04%) Lead
9 183 (3.48%) Solutions Architect
10 172 (3.27%) IT Engineer
11 171 (3.25%) Business Analyst
11 171 (3.25%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 169 (3.21%) Azure Engineer
13 168 (3.19%) Data Engineer
14 161 (3.06%) Administrator
15 157 (2.98%) Project Manager
16 144 (2.74%) Support Analyst
17 133 (2.53%) IT Support Engineer
18 112 (2.13%) Security Engineer
19 101 (1.92%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (4.73%) .NET
2 170 (3.23%) REST
3 135 (2.57%) OAuth
4 113 (2.15%) SAML
5 107 (2.03%) Microsoft Graph
6 106 (2.01%) React
7 93 (1.77%) OpenID
8 79 (1.50%) LDAP
9 76 (1.44%) RESTful
10 75 (1.43%) AngularJS
10 75 (1.43%) PySpark
11 70 (1.33%) JSON
12 67 (1.27%) CSS
12 67 (1.27%) HTML
13 62 (1.18%) ARM Templates
14 53 (1.01%) Middleware
14 53 (1.01%) OAuth2
15 49 (0.93%) Node.js
15 49 (0.93%) Web Services
16 42 (0.80%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 304 (5.78%) Onboarding
2 193 (3.67%) Cloud Native
3 155 (2.95%) Product Ownership
4 135 (2.57%) Management Information System
5 109 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
6 95 (1.81%) PKI
7 90 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
8 87 (1.65%) Data Centre
9 84 (1.60%) Security Posture
10 78 (1.48%) Hybrid Cloud
11 75 (1.43%) Low-Code
12 74 (1.41%) Replication
13 69 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
14 67 (1.27%) Driving Licence
15 65 (1.24%) Mobile App
16 58 (1.10%) AI Agents
17 57 (1.08%) NHS
18 55 (1.05%) Data Structures
19 54 (1.03%) Data Protection Act
20 52 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,247 (23.69%) Windows
2 369 (7.01%) Windows 10
3 306 (5.81%) Linux
4 282 (5.36%) Windows Server
5 119 (2.26%) Mac OS
6 96 (1.82%) Android
7 92 (1.75%) Apple iOS
8 72 (1.37%) Unix
9 47 (0.89%) Windows 7
10 41 (0.78%) Windows Server 2016
11 33 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 22 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
12 22 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
13 21 (0.40%) VMS
13 21 (0.40%) Windows Server 2003
14 7 (0.13%) AIX
14 7 (0.13%) Ubuntu
15 5 (0.095%) CentOS
15 5 (0.095%) Windows 8
15 5 (0.095%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,042 (19.80%) Problem-Solving
2 885 (16.82%) Agile
3 777 (14.76%) DevOps
4 696 (13.22%) Migration
5 642 (12.20%) CI/CD
6 608 (11.55%) Business Intelligence
7 574 (10.91%) Analytics
8 536 (10.18%) Stakeholder Management
9 459 (8.72%) ITIL
10 457 (8.68%) Customer Service
11 453 (8.61%) Continuous Improvement
12 441 (8.38%) AI
13 427 (8.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 372 (7.07%) Cybersecurity
15 328 (6.23%) Data Modelling
16 315 (5.99%) Project Management
17 298 (5.66%) Change Management
18 295 (5.61%) Roadmaps
19 285 (5.42%) Infrastructure as Code
19 285 (5.42%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 672 (12.77%) SQL
2 663 (12.60%) PowerShell
3 624 (11.86%) Python
4 265 (5.04%) C#
5 225 (4.28%) JavaScript
6 146 (2.77%) Java
7 114 (2.17%) Bicep
8 106 (2.01%) Kusto Query Language
9 102 (1.94%) Bash
10 86 (1.63%) TypeScript
11 67 (1.27%) T-SQL
12 58 (1.10%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 34 (0.65%) Perl
14 30 (0.57%) PL/SQL
15 28 (0.53%) Shell Script
16 27 (0.51%) VB
17 24 (0.46%) C++
17 24 (0.46%) VBA
18 18 (0.34%) Go
18 18 (0.34%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,027 (19.51%) Security Cleared
2 764 (14.52%) SC Cleared
3 542 (10.30%) Degree
4 333 (6.33%) Microsoft Certification
5 212 (4.03%) DV Cleared
6 191 (3.63%) Azure Certification
7 127 (2.41%) Computer Science Degree
8 116 (2.20%) CISSP
9 88 (1.67%) BPSS Clearance
10 66 (1.25%) CISM
11 62 (1.18%) Master's Degree
12 58 (1.10%) Cisco Certification
13 56 (1.06%) PMI Certification
14 49 (0.93%) MCSE
14 49 (0.93%) PMP
15 46 (0.87%) ITIL Certification
16 45 (0.86%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 43 (0.82%) A+ Certification
18 40 (0.76%) AWS Certification
19 33 (0.63%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 238 (4.52%) GDPR
2 198 (3.76%) Data Quality
3 159 (3.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 155 (2.95%) QA
5 146 (2.77%) SLA
6 120 (2.28%) NIST
7 116 (2.20%) PMO
8 81 (1.54%) Accessibility
9 56 (1.06%) Cyber Essentials
10 37 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 30 (0.57%) NCSC
12 29 (0.55%) PCI DSS
13 24 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 21 (0.40%) EU AI Act
14 21 (0.40%) GRC
14 21 (0.40%) WCAG
15 17 (0.32%) MiFID
16 15 (0.29%) HIPAA
16 15 (0.29%) SOC 2
17 13 (0.25%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,104 (20.98%) Active Directory
2 202 (3.84%) Docker
3 179 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 81 (1.54%) Hyper-V
5 69 (1.31%) Virtual Machines
6 48 (0.91%) Virtual Desktop
7 42 (0.80%) vSphere
8 34 (0.65%) VMware ESXi
9 19 (0.36%) BitLocker
10 16 (0.30%) VMware NSX
11 12 (0.23%) Microsoft App-V
12 9 (0.17%) Firmware
13 7 (0.13%) Snort
14 6 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 6 (0.11%) RACF
14 6 (0.11%) Tivoli Directory Server
14 6 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
15 5 (0.095%) Oracle RAC
16 4 (0.076%) KVM
16 4 (0.076%) Squid
Systems Management
1 411 (7.81%) Microsoft Intune
2 317 (6.02%) Terraform
3 276 (5.24%) SCCM
4 237 (4.50%) Kubernetes
5 167 (3.17%) Single Sign-On
6 105 (2.00%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 101 (1.92%) Ansible
8 50 (0.95%) Jamf Pro
9 44 (0.84%) SCOM
10 39 (0.74%) Grafana
11 38 (0.72%) vCenter Server
12 34 (0.65%) Prometheus
13 24 (0.46%) FortiGate
14 21 (0.40%) WSUS
15 18 (0.34%) HP SiteScope
16 15 (0.29%) Puppet
16 15 (0.29%) WMI
17 14 (0.27%) AirWatch
17 14 (0.27%) Nessus
18 13 (0.25%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 274 (5.21%) ServiceNow
2 255 (4.85%) VMware
3 196 (3.72%) Oracle
4 194 (3.69%) SAP
5 187 (3.55%) Cisco
6 186 (3.53%) Databricks
7 152 (2.89%) Google
8 148 (2.81%) Splunk
9 124 (2.36%) Citrix
10 91 (1.73%) Salesforce
11 86 (1.63%) OpenAI
12 82 (1.56%) Apple
13 67 (1.27%) CrowdStrike
14 59 (1.12%) Foundry
15 58 (1.10%) Palo Alto
16 52 (0.99%) Remedy
17 49 (0.93%) HP
18 46 (0.87%) Okta
19 44 (0.84%) CyberArk
20 41 (0.78%) IBM