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 6 March 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
6 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 9 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,428 4,092 5,734
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.72% 13.42% 12.92%
As % of the Vendors category 28.75% 28.75% 29.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,651 2,680 3,863
10th Percentile £205 £206 £190
25th Percentile £363 £348 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £583 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £439 £450
% change year-on-year +2.62% -2.56% -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 385 178 412
10th Percentile £13.53 £15.15 £11.52
25th Percentile £16.25 £17.74 £13.69
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.80 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -16.34% +48.19% -23.56%
75th Percentile £25.77 £33.75 £32.44
90th Percentile £63.75 £62.03 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.18 £22.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -14.78% +40.10% -19.70%

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 18,881 14,233 19,169
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.26% 46.69% 43.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,090 8,726 11,976
10th Percentile £306 £284 £255
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £514
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +1.17% -3.02%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £626
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £496 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.88% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 946 449 984
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.62 £12.71
25th Percentile £18.45 £21.25 £15.00
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.00 £25.22
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +18.98% -27.96%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £55.03
90th Percentile £74.84 £81.10 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.68 £27.35 £24.65
% change year-on-year -17.07% +10.95% -24.15%

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 6 March 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 6 March 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 6 March 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 0 4,765 £490 +3.16% 3,252
UK excluding London 0 2,910 £450 +2.62% 2,976
London -2 2,010 £513 +2.50% 837
Work from Home -1 1,368 £500 - 1,224
North of England 0 759 £433 -3.57% 703
South East 0 654 £475 -3.85% 936
Midlands -6 505 £450 +5.88% 483
North West -1 431 £415 -7.78% 371
South West 0 364 £523 +10.58% 305
East of England +1 362 £400 -8.57% 305
West Midlands -7 350 £475 +9.39% 241
Yorkshire +1 297 £450 +9.09% 226
Scotland -1 188 £455 +21.33% 179
East Midlands 0 153 £418 +4.38% 234
Wales +3 97 £310 -22.50% 116
North East -18 37 £450 +28.57% 121
Northern Ireland +1 24 £450 +38.46% 20
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
1 620 (11.42%) SharePoint
2 435 (8.01%) Microsoft Exchange
3 115 (2.12%) Confluence
4 42 (0.77%) Skype for Business
5 24 (0.44%) CMS
6 20 (0.37%) Apache
6 20 (0.37%) Apache Spark
7 17 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
7 17 (0.31%) HCL Notes
8 14 (0.26%) IIS
9 12 (0.22%) SAS
10 10 (0.18%) Mendix
11 7 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2010
11 7 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2013
11 7 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
12 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.11%) Mattermost
13 5 (0.092%) Oracle Application Server
14 4 (0.074%) iPlanet
14 4 (0.074%) WebSphere
Applications
1 631 (11.62%) Microsoft Office
2 522 (9.62%) Microsoft Excel
3 229 (4.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 128 (2.36%) Microsoft Project
5 106 (1.95%) MS Visio
6 76 (1.40%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.20%) Trello
9 9 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 7 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
11 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
11 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
12 5 (0.092%) PTC Creo
13 4 (0.074%) Adobe XD
13 4 (0.074%) InDesign
14 3 (0.055%) Photoshop
14 3 (0.055%) Sketch
14 3 (0.055%) SOLIDWORKS
15 2 (0.037%) Adobe After Effects
15 2 (0.037%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 192 (3.54%) Dynamics CRM
2 52 (0.96%) SAP S/4HANA
3 29 (0.53%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
5 15 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
6 14 (0.26%) Aladdin
6 14 (0.26%) Maximo
7 12 (0.22%) Loan IQ
7 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.18%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 9 (0.17%) Teamcenter
10 8 (0.15%) Sage X3
11 7 (0.13%) Advent Geneva
11 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
11 7 (0.13%) Shopify
12 6 (0.11%) Primavera
12 6 (0.11%) SystmOne
13 5 (0.092%) Salesforce CRM
13 5 (0.092%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 2,184 (40.24%) Azure
2 1,392 (25.64%) Microsoft 365
3 871 (16.05%) Power Platform
4 703 (12.95%) Entra ID
5 457 (8.42%) AWS
6 420 (7.74%) Azure DevOps
7 408 (7.52%) Dynamics 365
8 344 (6.34%) Power Automate
9 308 (5.67%) PowerApps
10 281 (5.18%) Microsoft Purview
11 243 (4.48%) GitHub
12 216 (3.98%) OneDrive
13 194 (3.57%) Azure Data Factory
14 192 (3.54%) Microsoft Copilot
14 192 (3.54%) Serverless
15 188 (3.46%) SaaS
16 174 (3.21%) GCP
17 154 (2.84%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 152 (2.80%) PaaS
19 145 (2.67%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 305 (5.62%) DNS
2 297 (5.47%) Firewall
3 200 (3.68%) VPN
4 186 (3.43%) DHCP
5 142 (2.62%) Wi-Fi
6 129 (2.38%) TCP/IP
7 126 (2.32%) WAN
8 111 (2.04%) Network Security
9 108 (1.99%) LAN
10 68 (1.25%) Skype
11 62 (1.14%) Kerberos
12 57 (1.05%) VLAN
13 46 (0.85%) Unified Communications
14 44 (0.81%) Wireless
15 35 (0.64%) SD-WAN
16 32 (0.59%) HTTP
17 31 (0.57%) Internet
18 30 (0.55%) SSL
19 29 (0.53%) MPLS
19 29 (0.53%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 535 (9.86%) Power BI
2 253 (4.66%) SQL Server
3 171 (3.15%) Data Warehouse
4 145 (2.67%) Data Lake
5 107 (1.97%) Azure SQL Database
6 106 (1.95%) PostgreSQL
7 103 (1.90%) Metadata
8 76 (1.40%) Relational Database
9 67 (1.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 57 (1.05%) Oracle Database
11 52 (0.96%) MySQL
11 52 (0.96%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 46 (0.85%) NoSQL
13 41 (0.76%) Power Query
14 39 (0.72%) Tableau
15 31 (0.57%) Delta Lake
16 30 (0.55%) Star Schema
17 27 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
18 23 (0.42%) Spark SQL
18 23 (0.42%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 246 (4.53%) JIRA
2 168 (3.10%) Git
3 77 (1.42%) GitLab
4 73 (1.34%) Jenkins
5 30 (0.55%) Eclipse
6 25 (0.46%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.41%) MSI
8 21 (0.39%) Postman
9 20 (0.37%) Artifactory
10 17 (0.31%) JMeter
11 16 (0.29%) Android Studio
11 16 (0.29%) Selenium
12 14 (0.26%) Browser DevTools
12 14 (0.26%) Cucumber
12 14 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
13 13 (0.24%) Xcode
14 12 (0.22%) Bitbucket
14 12 (0.22%) JUnit
15 10 (0.18%) MLflow
16 9 (0.17%) SpecFlow
General
1 2,072 (38.17%) Social Skills
2 1,052 (19.38%) Finance
3 677 (12.47%) Analytical Skills
4 537 (9.89%) Public Sector
5 265 (4.88%) Banking
6 257 (4.73%) Organisational Skills
7 236 (4.35%) Legal
8 166 (3.06%) Documentation Skills
9 126 (2.32%) Manufacturing
10 121 (2.23%) Presentation Skills
11 101 (1.86%) Marketing
12 91 (1.68%) Telecoms
13 75 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 74 (1.36%) Retail
15 63 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
16 55 (1.01%) Military
17 52 (0.96%) Law
18 48 (0.88%) Investment Banking
19 44 (0.81%) Local Government
20 42 (0.77%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 653 (12.03%) Analyst
2 622 (11.46%) Architect
3 523 (9.64%) Developer
4 423 (7.79%) Senior
5 364 (6.71%) IT Support
6 296 (5.45%) Support Engineer
7 287 (5.29%) Consultant
8 280 (5.16%) Lead
9 188 (3.46%) Solutions Architect
10 187 (3.45%) IT Engineer
11 185 (3.41%) Data Engineer
12 184 (3.39%) Azure Engineer
13 171 (3.15%) Business Analyst
14 168 (3.10%) Project Manager
15 167 (3.08%) Administrator
15 167 (3.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 141 (2.60%) IT Support Engineer
17 126 (2.32%) Support Analyst
18 121 (2.23%) Security Engineer
19 103 (1.90%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 263 (4.85%) .NET
2 176 (3.24%) REST
3 129 (2.38%) OAuth
4 123 (2.27%) Microsoft Graph
5 112 (2.06%) SAML
6 103 (1.90%) React
7 93 (1.71%) OpenID
8 81 (1.49%) PySpark
9 76 (1.40%) RESTful
10 74 (1.36%) LDAP
11 73 (1.34%) AngularJS
12 72 (1.33%) HTML
13 71 (1.31%) JSON
14 65 (1.20%) CSS
15 64 (1.18%) Web Services
16 63 (1.16%) ARM Templates
17 58 (1.07%) Middleware
18 57 (1.05%) Node.js
19 55 (1.01%) OAuth2
20 46 (0.85%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 294 (5.42%) Onboarding
2 209 (3.85%) Cloud Native
3 164 (3.02%) Product Ownership
4 138 (2.54%) Management Information System
5 113 (2.08%) Enterprise Software
6 96 (1.77%) Data Centre
7 94 (1.73%) Security Posture
8 89 (1.64%) PKI
9 88 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
10 87 (1.60%) Hybrid Cloud
11 76 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
11 76 (1.40%) Low-Code
12 75 (1.38%) Replication
13 65 (1.20%) AI Agents
13 65 (1.20%) Driving Licence
14 61 (1.12%) Data Protection Act
15 58 (1.07%) Data Structures
16 57 (1.05%) Virtual Team
17 56 (1.03%) Analytical Mindset
17 56 (1.03%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1,264 (23.29%) Windows
2 370 (6.82%) Windows 10
3 303 (5.58%) Linux
4 281 (5.18%) Windows Server
5 106 (1.95%) Mac OS
6 103 (1.90%) Android
7 97 (1.79%) Apple iOS
8 60 (1.11%) Unix
9 45 (0.83%) Windows 7
10 43 (0.79%) Windows Server 2016
11 38 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 24 (0.44%) VMS
13 21 (0.39%) Windows Server 2003
13 21 (0.39%) Windows Server 2012
13 21 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
14 9 (0.17%) CentOS
15 8 (0.15%) AIX
15 8 (0.15%) Ubuntu
16 5 (0.092%) Windows 8
16 5 (0.092%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,043 (19.22%) Problem-Solving
2 887 (16.34%) Agile
3 824 (15.18%) DevOps
4 730 (13.45%) Migration
5 687 (12.66%) CI/CD
6 633 (11.66%) Business Intelligence
7 608 (11.20%) Analytics
8 551 (10.15%) Stakeholder Management
9 469 (8.64%) Continuous Improvement
10 467 (8.60%) AI
11 458 (8.44%) Customer Service
12 447 (8.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 444 (8.18%) ITIL
14 384 (7.07%) Cybersecurity
15 347 (6.39%) Data Modelling
16 318 (5.86%) Roadmaps
17 312 (5.75%) Project Management
18 307 (5.66%) Change Management
19 299 (5.51%) Project Delivery
20 297 (5.47%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 705 (12.99%) SQL
2 694 (12.79%) PowerShell
3 634 (11.68%) Python
4 285 (5.25%) C#
5 235 (4.33%) JavaScript
6 151 (2.78%) Java
7 121 (2.23%) Bicep
8 113 (2.08%) Kusto Query Language
9 112 (2.06%) Bash
10 87 (1.60%) TypeScript
11 74 (1.36%) T-SQL
12 67 (1.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 36 (0.66%) PL/SQL
14 32 (0.59%) C++
15 29 (0.53%) Perl
16 26 (0.48%) VB
16 26 (0.48%) VBA
17 22 (0.41%) Shell Script
18 16 (0.29%) Go
18 16 (0.29%) R
Qualifications
1 1,090 (20.08%) Security Cleared
2 821 (15.13%) SC Cleared
3 558 (10.28%) Degree
4 330 (6.08%) Microsoft Certification
5 222 (4.09%) DV Cleared
6 194 (3.57%) Azure Certification
7 121 (2.23%) Computer Science Degree
8 112 (2.06%) CISSP
9 96 (1.77%) BPSS Clearance
10 62 (1.14%) CISM
11 61 (1.12%) Cisco Certification
12 59 (1.09%) Master's Degree
13 55 (1.01%) PMI Certification
14 48 (0.88%) PMP
15 47 (0.87%) AWS Certification
16 46 (0.85%) MCSE
17 44 (0.81%) Microsoft Certified Professional
18 43 (0.79%) ITIL Certification
19 35 (0.64%) A+ Certification
20 33 (0.61%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 244 (4.50%) GDPR
2 213 (3.92%) Data Quality
3 160 (2.95%) QA
4 157 (2.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 155 (2.86%) SLA
6 119 (2.19%) NIST
6 119 (2.19%) PMO
7 79 (1.46%) Accessibility
8 56 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials
9 40 (0.74%) NCSC
10 36 (0.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 27 (0.50%) PCI DSS
12 23 (0.42%) GRC
13 22 (0.41%) WCAG
14 21 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 19 (0.35%) EU AI Act
16 17 (0.31%) MiFID
17 15 (0.28%) HIPAA
17 15 (0.28%) SOC 2
18 13 (0.24%) FINRA
System Software
1 1,112 (20.49%) Active Directory
2 215 (3.96%) Docker
3 178 (3.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 78 (1.44%) Hyper-V
5 71 (1.31%) Virtual Machines
6 49 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
7 38 (0.70%) vSphere
8 35 (0.64%) VMware ESXi
9 21 (0.39%) VMware NSX
10 20 (0.37%) BitLocker
11 14 (0.26%) Firmware
12 10 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
13 7 (0.13%) Snort
14 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
14 6 (0.11%) RACF
15 5 (0.092%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 5 (0.092%) Virtual Servers
16 4 (0.074%) KVM
16 4 (0.074%) Squid
16 4 (0.074%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 439 (8.09%) Microsoft Intune
2 330 (6.08%) Terraform
3 261 (4.81%) SCCM
4 254 (4.68%) Kubernetes
5 153 (2.82%) Single Sign-On
6 108 (1.99%) Ansible
7 104 (1.92%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 44 (0.81%) Jamf Pro
9 41 (0.76%) Grafana
10 37 (0.68%) vCenter Server
11 35 (0.64%) Prometheus
12 32 (0.59%) SCOM
13 24 (0.44%) FortiGate
14 19 (0.35%) WSUS
15 17 (0.31%) Puppet
16 14 (0.26%) AirWatch
16 14 (0.26%) Nessus
17 13 (0.24%) Progress Chef
17 13 (0.24%) WMI
18 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
Vendors
1 275 (5.07%) ServiceNow
2 265 (4.88%) VMware
3 197 (3.63%) SAP
4 195 (3.59%) Oracle
5 194 (3.57%) Databricks
6 189 (3.48%) Cisco
7 154 (2.84%) Google
8 138 (2.54%) Citrix
9 125 (2.30%) Splunk
10 89 (1.64%) OpenAI
11 84 (1.55%) Salesforce
12 70 (1.29%) Apple
12 70 (1.29%) Foundry
13 62 (1.14%) CrowdStrike
14 57 (1.05%) Palo Alto
15 54 (0.99%) HP
16 45 (0.83%) Okta
17 42 (0.77%) Remedy
18 39 (0.72%) CyberArk
19 38 (0.70%) Adobe