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 June 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 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,766 4,041 5,618
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.53% 13.69% 12.86%
As % of the Vendors category 28.33% 28.80% 30.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,815 2,611 3,652
10th Percentile £213 £213 £195
25th Percentile £375 £344 £349
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.68% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £577 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £463
% change year-on-year +5.88% -8.11% +2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 373 287 478
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.50 £15.62 £13.20
Median hourly rate £20.73 £20.00 £15.81
Median % change year-on-year +3.65% +26.52% -35.48%
75th Percentile £33.75 £30.63 £25.00
90th Percentile £65.00 £62.05 £56.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.35 £18.87 £15.00
% change year-on-year +7.84% +25.80% -25.00%

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 20,354 14,032 18,415
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.68% 47.55% 42.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,795 8,637 11,446
10th Percentile £313 £280 £270
25th Percentile £413 £403 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £503 £515
Median % change year-on-year -0.60% -2.33% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £626
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £481 £500
% change year-on-year +3.92% -3.78% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,046 631 1,141
10th Percentile £15.28 £14.84 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.75 £17.33 £14.50
Median hourly rate £32.50 £26.32 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year +23.48% +10.59% -44.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £55.37 £58.70
90th Percentile £78.75 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.49 £23.67 £22.50
% change year-on-year +28.84% +5.18% -43.11%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 5,044 £496 +4.46% 2,911
UK excluding London -1 3,029 £450 +5.88% 2,564
London -3 2,239 £510 -2.53% 805
Work from Home -1 1,460 £500 - 1,251
North of England -4 785 £450 +5.88% 605
South East -1 711 £475 +2.37% 805
Midlands -5 505 £450 +12.50% 428
North West -3 412 £445 +4.71% 346
South West -1 371 £470 +10.59% 304
West Midlands -9 356 £450 +12.50% 233
Yorkshire -3 352 £475 +15.15% 180
East of England 0 301 £375 -21.67% 280
Scotland +3 255 £450 +4.41% 107
East Midlands -1 142 £423 +9.87% 196
Wales +1 98 £370 +23.33% 63
Northern Ireland +1 26 £350 +7.69% 59
North East -41 23 £450 +32.35% 84
Channel Islands -1 2 £550 +84.87%

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
1 622 (10.79%) SharePoint
2 388 (6.73%) Microsoft Exchange
3 112 (1.94%) Confluence
4 37 (0.64%) Apache Spark
5 29 (0.50%) Apache
6 26 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
7 17 (0.29%) CMS
7 17 (0.29%) HCL Notes
8 16 (0.28%) IIS
9 15 (0.26%) Skype for Business
10 14 (0.24%) SAS
11 8 (0.14%) Mendix
12 6 (0.10%) Camunda
12 6 (0.10%) Jupyter
12 6 (0.10%) Oracle Workflow
13 5 (0.087%) nginx
13 5 (0.087%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.087%) SharePoint 2013
14 4 (0.069%) Appian
14 4 (0.069%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 537 (9.31%) Microsoft Office
2 509 (8.83%) Microsoft Excel
3 222 (3.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 119 (2.06%) Microsoft Project
5 88 (1.53%) MS Visio
6 46 (0.80%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.29%) Chatbot
8 13 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 5 (0.087%) Acrobat
9 5 (0.087%) Adobe Illustrator
9 5 (0.087%) PTC Creo
9 5 (0.087%) Trello
10 3 (0.052%) Adobe Captivate
10 3 (0.052%) InDesign
10 3 (0.052%) SOLIDWORKS
11 2 (0.035%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.035%) InfoPath
11 2 (0.035%) MicroStation
11 2 (0.035%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 201 (3.49%) Dynamics CRM
2 68 (1.18%) SAP S/4HANA
3 24 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
4 21 (0.36%) NetSuite
5 16 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
6 15 (0.26%) Aladdin
7 14 (0.24%) Dynamics NAV
8 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
9 12 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
10 11 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
11 10 (0.17%) Sage X3
11 10 (0.17%) Veritas eDiscovery
12 8 (0.14%) Loan IQ
12 8 (0.14%) Maximo
12 8 (0.14%) Primavera
12 8 (0.14%) SAP MM
13 7 (0.12%) Dynamics AX
14 6 (0.10%) Dynamics GP
14 6 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
15 5 (0.087%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 2,450 (42.49%) Azure
2 1,475 (25.58%) Microsoft 365
3 985 (17.08%) Power Platform
4 789 (13.68%) Entra ID
5 483 (8.38%) AWS
6 455 (7.89%) Dynamics 365
7 452 (7.84%) Azure DevOps
8 331 (5.74%) Power Automate
9 317 (5.50%) Microsoft Purview
10 291 (5.05%) PowerApps
11 275 (4.77%) Microsoft Copilot
12 247 (4.28%) GitHub
13 231 (4.01%) OneDrive
14 208 (3.61%) SaaS
15 182 (3.16%) Azure Data Factory
16 178 (3.09%) GCP
17 168 (2.91%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 151 (2.62%) Serverless
19 144 (2.50%) PaaS
20 133 (2.31%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 303 (5.25%) DNS
2 268 (4.65%) Firewall
3 218 (3.78%) VPN
4 189 (3.28%) DHCP
5 149 (2.58%) WAN
6 136 (2.36%) Wi-Fi
7 126 (2.19%) TCP/IP
8 125 (2.17%) LAN
9 117 (2.03%) Network Security
10 54 (0.94%) VLAN
11 49 (0.85%) Kerberos
12 46 (0.80%) SD-WAN
13 37 (0.64%) SAN
14 36 (0.62%) Wireless
15 34 (0.59%) SSL
16 31 (0.54%) Unified Communications
17 30 (0.52%) VoIP
18 28 (0.49%) HTTP
18 28 (0.49%) Skype
19 24 (0.42%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 616 (10.68%) Power BI
2 283 (4.91%) SQL Server
3 175 (3.04%) Data Warehouse
4 156 (2.71%) Data Lake
5 121 (2.10%) Azure SQL Database
5 121 (2.10%) Metadata
6 112 (1.94%) PostgreSQL
7 73 (1.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 68 (1.18%) Relational Database
9 55 (0.95%) Power Query
10 46 (0.80%) MySQL
10 46 (0.80%) NoSQL
10 46 (0.80%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 43 (0.75%) Tableau
12 42 (0.73%) Star Schema
13 41 (0.71%) Delta Lake
14 34 (0.59%) Oracle Database
15 29 (0.50%) Spark SQL
16 28 (0.49%) SQL Server Analysis Services
17 25 (0.43%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 282 (4.89%) JIRA
2 170 (2.95%) Git
3 62 (1.08%) Jenkins
4 57 (0.99%) GitLab
5 36 (0.62%) Visual Studio
6 23 (0.40%) Artifactory
7 22 (0.38%) MSI
8 18 (0.31%) Eclipse
9 16 (0.28%) ERwin
9 16 (0.28%) Selenium
10 15 (0.26%) MLflow
11 14 (0.24%) Maven
12 13 (0.23%) JMeter
12 13 (0.23%) Visual Studio Code
13 12 (0.21%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.17%) JUnit
14 10 (0.17%) Postman
14 10 (0.17%) Team Foundation Server
15 9 (0.16%) Gatling
16 8 (0.14%) InstallShield
General
1 1,878 (32.57%) Social Skills
2 1,157 (20.07%) Finance
3 630 (10.93%) Analytical Skills
4 511 (8.86%) Public Sector
5 301 (5.22%) Banking
6 244 (4.23%) Legal
7 234 (4.06%) Organisational Skills
8 149 (2.58%) Documentation Skills
9 105 (1.82%) Manufacturing
10 101 (1.75%) Retail
11 98 (1.70%) Law
12 94 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 83 (1.44%) Presentation Skills
14 78 (1.35%) Marketing
14 78 (1.35%) Telecoms
15 69 (1.20%) Military
16 67 (1.16%) Local Government
17 65 (1.13%) Investment Banking
18 58 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
19 45 (0.78%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 714 (12.38%) Architect
2 619 (10.74%) Analyst
3 516 (8.95%) Developer
4 474 (8.22%) Senior
5 373 (6.47%) IT Support
6 370 (6.42%) Lead
7 331 (5.74%) Consultant
8 276 (4.79%) Support Engineer
9 236 (4.09%) Data Engineer
10 216 (3.75%) Solutions Architect
11 203 (3.52%) Azure Engineer
12 198 (3.43%) Project Manager
13 197 (3.42%) IT Engineer
14 185 (3.21%) Business Analyst
15 177 (3.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 171 (2.97%) Administrator
17 152 (2.64%) IT Support Engineer
18 122 (2.12%) Security Engineer
19 112 (1.94%) Cloud Engineer
20 106 (1.84%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 247 (4.28%) .NET
2 188 (3.26%) REST
3 141 (2.45%) Microsoft Graph
4 110 (1.91%) OAuth
5 107 (1.86%) PySpark
6 100 (1.73%) SAML
7 97 (1.68%) JSON
8 84 (1.46%) OpenID
9 77 (1.34%) Web Services
10 76 (1.32%) LDAP
10 76 (1.32%) React
11 61 (1.06%) Middleware
12 58 (1.01%) XML
13 56 (0.97%) SailPoint
14 55 (0.95%) HTML
14 55 (0.95%) Node.js
14 55 (0.95%) OAuth2
15 53 (0.92%) CSS
16 51 (0.88%) ARM Templates
17 49 (0.85%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 322 (5.58%) Onboarding
2 247 (4.28%) Cloud Native
3 170 (2.95%) Product Ownership
4 131 (2.27%) Management Information System
5 112 (1.94%) Data Centre
6 105 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
7 101 (1.75%) Hybrid Cloud
8 100 (1.73%) Enterprise Software
9 90 (1.56%) Security Posture
10 89 (1.54%) AI Agents
11 84 (1.46%) PKI
12 82 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
13 78 (1.35%) Replication
14 75 (1.30%) Data Structures
15 71 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
16 69 (1.20%) Low-Code
17 65 (1.13%) Virtual Team
18 50 (0.87%) Public Cloud
19 49 (0.85%) Distributed Systems
19 49 (0.85%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 1,247 (21.63%) Windows
2 321 (5.57%) Windows 10
3 304 (5.27%) Windows Server
4 254 (4.41%) Linux
5 120 (2.08%) Mac OS
6 113 (1.96%) Apple iOS
7 112 (1.94%) Android
8 43 (0.75%) Windows 7
9 40 (0.69%) Unix
10 39 (0.68%) Windows Server 2016
11 38 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 31 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
13 30 (0.52%) VMS
14 21 (0.36%) Windows Server 2012
15 15 (0.26%) Ubuntu
15 15 (0.26%) Windows Server 2003
16 12 (0.21%) CentOS
17 7 (0.12%) SUSE
18 6 (0.10%) AIX
19 5 (0.087%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 979 (16.98%) Problem-Solving
2 924 (16.02%) DevOps
3 841 (14.59%) Agile
4 836 (14.50%) Migration
5 757 (13.13%) CI/CD
6 644 (11.17%) Business Intelligence
7 639 (11.08%) Stakeholder Management
8 619 (10.74%) Analytics
9 603 (10.46%) AI
10 527 (9.14%) Continuous Improvement
11 525 (9.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 491 (8.52%) ITIL
13 431 (7.47%) Data Modelling
14 429 (7.44%) Customer Service
15 401 (6.95%) Roadmaps
16 380 (6.59%) Cybersecurity
17 363 (6.30%) Decision-Making
18 353 (6.12%) Infrastructure as Code
19 342 (5.93%) Validation
20 338 (5.86%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 734 (12.73%) SQL
2 651 (11.29%) PowerShell
3 591 (10.25%) Python
4 269 (4.67%) C#
5 202 (3.50%) JavaScript
6 178 (3.09%) Java
7 139 (2.41%) Bicep
8 103 (1.79%) T-SQL
9 82 (1.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 78 (1.35%) Kusto Query Language
11 69 (1.20%) TypeScript
12 66 (1.14%) Bash
13 35 (0.61%) VBA
14 29 (0.50%) VB
15 28 (0.49%) C++
16 26 (0.45%) PL/SQL
17 18 (0.31%) Scala
18 16 (0.28%) VBScript
19 14 (0.24%) Shell Script
20 13 (0.23%) X++
Qualifications
1 1,094 (18.97%) Security Cleared
2 859 (14.90%) SC Cleared
3 549 (9.52%) Degree
4 278 (4.82%) Microsoft Certification
5 191 (3.31%) Azure Certification
6 175 (3.04%) DV Cleared
7 115 (1.99%) Computer Science Degree
8 108 (1.87%) CISSP
9 100 (1.73%) BPSS Clearance
10 86 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
11 60 (1.04%) CISM
12 58 (1.01%) PMP
13 54 (0.94%) PMI Certification
14 51 (0.88%) AWS Certification
15 49 (0.85%) Master's Degree
16 45 (0.78%) MCSE
17 40 (0.69%) DBS Check
18 39 (0.68%) CCNP
19 36 (0.62%) ITIL Certification
20 35 (0.61%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 303 (5.25%) Data Quality
2 225 (3.90%) GDPR
3 184 (3.19%) QA
4 166 (2.88%) SLA
5 150 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 127 (2.20%) NIST
7 109 (1.89%) PMO
8 77 (1.34%) Accessibility
9 76 (1.32%) Cyber Essentials
10 55 (0.95%) NCSC
11 36 (0.62%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 34 (0.59%) GRC
13 31 (0.54%) PCI DSS
14 29 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 21 (0.36%) NIST 800
16 19 (0.33%) SOC 2
16 19 (0.33%) WCAG
17 18 (0.31%) MiFID
18 13 (0.23%) Disclosure Scotland
18 13 (0.23%) FINRA
System Software
1 1,097 (19.03%) Active Directory
2 211 (3.66%) Docker
3 193 (3.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 107 (1.86%) Hyper-V
5 89 (1.54%) Virtual Desktop
6 83 (1.44%) Virtual Machines
7 65 (1.13%) VMware ESXi
8 59 (1.02%) vSphere
9 32 (0.55%) BitLocker
10 20 (0.35%) Microsoft App-V
11 19 (0.33%) VMware NSX
12 18 (0.31%) Firmware
13 7 (0.12%) NFS
14 6 (0.10%) IAG
14 6 (0.10%) RACF
15 5 (0.087%) VMware Workstation
16 4 (0.069%) Oracle RAC
16 4 (0.069%) Snort
16 4 (0.069%) XenDesktop
17 3 (0.052%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 469 (8.13%) Microsoft Intune
2 356 (6.17%) Terraform
3 240 (4.16%) Kubernetes
4 203 (3.52%) SCCM
5 128 (2.22%) Ansible
6 126 (2.19%) Single Sign-On
7 78 (1.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 53 (0.92%) vCenter Server
9 52 (0.90%) Jamf Pro
10 34 (0.59%) Grafana
11 31 (0.54%) FortiGate
12 29 (0.50%) Prometheus
13 24 (0.42%) SCOM
14 19 (0.33%) Puppet
15 15 (0.26%) AirWatch
15 15 (0.26%) WSUS
16 14 (0.24%) QRadar
17 12 (0.21%) HAProxy
17 12 (0.21%) vMotion
18 10 (0.17%) ServiceCenter
Vendors
1 336 (5.83%) ServiceNow
2 262 (4.54%) VMware
3 233 (4.04%) SAP
4 228 (3.95%) Oracle
5 217 (3.76%) Databricks
6 194 (3.36%) Cisco
7 169 (2.93%) Google
8 116 (2.01%) Salesforce
9 107 (1.86%) Citrix
10 90 (1.56%) Splunk
11 78 (1.35%) OpenAI
12 74 (1.28%) Apple
13 72 (1.25%) Foundry
14 61 (1.06%) CrowdStrike
15 59 (1.02%) Okta
16 54 (0.94%) CyberArk
17 47 (0.82%) HP
18 45 (0.78%) Adobe
19 44 (0.76%) Red Hat
20 41 (0.71%) Dell