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 28 January 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
28 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,106 4,249 5,787
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.30% 13.57% 13.11%
As % of the Vendors category 29.07% 29.49% 29.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,457 2,666 3,938
10th Percentile £204 £206 £195
25th Percentile £350 £348 £319
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £613
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £434 £450
% change year-on-year +3.63% -3.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 365 184 342
10th Percentile £13.72 £15.49 £11.95
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.62 £14.00
Median hourly rate £19.23 £23.59 £18.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.48% +27.51% -9.69%
75th Percentile £25.62 £33.75 £43.24
90th Percentile £63.40 £57.62 £55.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £22.00 £18.07
% change year-on-year -13.64% +21.78% -9.68%

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 17,567 14,410 19,376
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 45.76% 46.03% 43.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,326 8,510 12,226
10th Percentile £300 £282 £250
25th Percentile £410 £409 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £524 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.56% -0.21% -2.42%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 824 422 862
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £13.05
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.50 £32.06
Median % change year-on-year -13.36% -14.22% +6.86%
75th Percentile £50.00 £61.31 £60.00
90th Percentile £73.38 £80.00 £70.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.30 £25.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year -14.80% -16.67% +20.00%

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 28 January 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 28 January 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 28 January 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 4,487 £475 - 3,373
UK excluding London 0 2,743 £450 +3.63% 3,206
London -3 1,889 £508 +1.50% 766
Work from Home 0 1,309 £500 +2.04% 1,460
North of England +2 719 £425 -2.30% 681
South East 0 623 £475 +2.15% 1,044
Midlands -4 475 £450 +5.82% 480
North West 0 418 £400 -11.11% 306
South West 0 361 £500 +6.38% 323
West Midlands -7 317 £486 +9.58% 252
East of England 0 304 £413 -8.33% 414
Yorkshire 0 269 £450 +11.39% 278
Scotland -2 193 £454 +21.07% 158
East Midlands +1 157 £375 -6.25% 227
Wales +2 79 £308 -29.71% 141
North East -15 37 £430 +8.18% 107
Northern Ireland -2 28 £400 +23.08% 43
Channel Islands +1 1 - - 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
1 584 (11.44%) SharePoint
2 392 (7.68%) Microsoft Exchange
3 110 (2.15%) Confluence
4 60 (1.18%) Skype for Business
5 39 (0.76%) CMS
6 24 (0.47%) IIS
7 23 (0.45%) Apache
8 22 (0.43%) SAS
9 21 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
10 17 (0.33%) HCL Notes
11 16 (0.31%) Apache Spark
11 16 (0.31%) Exchange Server 2013
12 13 (0.25%) Exchange Server 2010
12 13 (0.25%) Mattermost
13 11 (0.22%) SharePoint Server
13 11 (0.22%) WebSphere
13 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
14 10 (0.20%) iPlanet
14 10 (0.20%) JBoss
15 9 (0.18%) Mendix
Applications
1 624 (12.22%) Microsoft Office
2 507 (9.93%) Microsoft Excel
3 226 (4.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 125 (2.45%) Microsoft Project
5 108 (2.12%) MS Visio
6 68 (1.33%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.22%) Trello
8 10 (0.20%) Chatbot
9 8 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 6 (0.12%) Sketch
11 5 (0.098%) Acrobat
11 5 (0.098%) Adobe Illustrator
12 4 (0.078%) Adobe After Effects
12 4 (0.078%) Adobe Captivate
12 4 (0.078%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.078%) InDesign
12 4 (0.078%) Photoshop
12 4 (0.078%) PTC Creo
13 3 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
13 3 (0.059%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 190 (3.72%) Dynamics CRM
2 45 (0.88%) SAP S/4HANA
3 39 (0.76%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.33%) Dynamics AX
5 16 (0.31%) Maximo
6 15 (0.29%) Dynamics NAV
7 11 (0.22%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 10 (0.20%) Teamcenter
9 9 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 8 (0.16%) Loan IQ
11 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
11 7 (0.14%) Aladdin
11 7 (0.14%) Shopify
12 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
13 5 (0.098%) SAP ERP
14 4 (0.078%) Salesforce CRM
14 4 (0.078%) SystmOne
14 4 (0.078%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,998 (39.13%) Azure
2 1,249 (24.46%) Microsoft 365
3 818 (16.02%) Power Platform
4 630 (12.34%) Entra ID
5 448 (8.77%) AWS
6 396 (7.76%) Dynamics 365
7 376 (7.36%) Azure DevOps
8 338 (6.62%) Power Automate
9 300 (5.88%) PowerApps
10 236 (4.62%) Microsoft Purview
11 225 (4.41%) GitHub
12 188 (3.68%) OneDrive
13 183 (3.58%) Serverless
14 179 (3.51%) GCP
15 171 (3.35%) Azure Data Factory
16 160 (3.13%) SaaS
17 158 (3.09%) Microsoft Copilot
18 141 (2.76%) Azure Logic Apps
19 135 (2.64%) Azure Sentinel
20 127 (2.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 293 (5.74%) DNS
2 280 (5.48%) Firewall
3 190 (3.72%) DHCP
4 184 (3.60%) VPN
5 126 (2.47%) TCP/IP
6 113 (2.21%) Wi-Fi
7 111 (2.17%) WAN
8 97 (1.90%) Network Security
9 92 (1.80%) LAN
10 84 (1.65%) Skype
11 66 (1.29%) Kerberos
12 51 (1.00%) VLAN
13 48 (0.94%) Wireless
14 42 (0.82%) Unified Communications
15 37 (0.72%) HTTP
15 37 (0.72%) SD-WAN
16 31 (0.61%) Internet
17 26 (0.51%) SAN
17 26 (0.51%) SSL
18 24 (0.47%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 494 (9.67%) Power BI
2 231 (4.52%) SQL Server
3 135 (2.64%) Data Warehouse
4 128 (2.51%) Data Lake
5 92 (1.80%) PostgreSQL
6 88 (1.72%) Azure SQL Database
7 86 (1.68%) Metadata
8 81 (1.59%) Relational Database
9 70 (1.37%) Oracle Database
10 47 (0.92%) MySQL
11 43 (0.84%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 43 (0.84%) Tableau
12 41 (0.80%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 37 (0.72%) NoSQL
14 36 (0.71%) Power Query
15 27 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
16 25 (0.49%) Star Schema
17 23 (0.45%) Delta Lake
18 18 (0.35%) Spark SQL
19 17 (0.33%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 226 (4.43%) JIRA
2 152 (2.98%) Git
3 84 (1.65%) Jenkins
4 75 (1.47%) GitLab
5 29 (0.57%) Eclipse
6 25 (0.49%) MSI
7 22 (0.43%) Postman
8 21 (0.41%) Visual Studio
9 19 (0.37%) Android Studio
9 19 (0.37%) Browser DevTools
9 19 (0.37%) Selenium
9 19 (0.37%) Xcode
10 17 (0.33%) Artifactory
10 17 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
11 15 (0.29%) JMeter
12 12 (0.24%) Bitbucket
12 12 (0.24%) Cucumber
12 12 (0.24%) InstallShield
13 10 (0.20%) CA Release Automation
13 10 (0.20%) SonarQube
General
1 2,020 (39.56%) Social Skills
2 1,015 (19.88%) Finance
3 645 (12.63%) Analytical Skills
4 503 (9.85%) Public Sector
5 244 (4.78%) Banking
6 240 (4.70%) Organisational Skills
7 207 (4.05%) Legal
8 160 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
9 134 (2.62%) Manufacturing
10 111 (2.17%) Marketing
11 108 (2.12%) Presentation Skills
12 94 (1.84%) Telecoms
13 76 (1.49%) Retail
14 75 (1.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 52 (1.02%) Influencing Skills
16 46 (0.90%) Military
17 45 (0.88%) Investment Banking
18 43 (0.84%) Law
19 41 (0.80%) Local Government
20 36 (0.71%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 663 (12.98%) Analyst
2 547 (10.71%) Architect
3 485 (9.50%) Developer
4 361 (7.07%) Senior
5 314 (6.15%) IT Support
6 299 (5.86%) Support Engineer
7 279 (5.46%) Consultant
8 252 (4.94%) Lead
9 179 (3.51%) Solutions Architect
10 172 (3.37%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 160 (3.13%) Business Analyst
12 157 (3.07%) Azure Engineer
13 154 (3.02%) Administrator
14 152 (2.98%) IT Engineer
15 148 (2.90%) Project Manager
15 148 (2.90%) Support Analyst
16 145 (2.84%) Data Engineer
17 119 (2.33%) Security Engineer
18 113 (2.21%) IT Support Engineer
19 103 (2.02%) Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 247 (4.84%) .NET
2 162 (3.17%) REST
3 134 (2.62%) OAuth
4 112 (2.19%) SAML
5 111 (2.17%) React
6 88 (1.72%) Microsoft Graph
6 88 (1.72%) OpenID
7 82 (1.61%) LDAP
8 79 (1.55%) RESTful
9 78 (1.53%) AngularJS
10 68 (1.33%) HTML
11 65 (1.27%) CSS
12 64 (1.25%) PySpark
13 62 (1.21%) JSON
14 61 (1.19%) ARM Templates
15 55 (1.08%) Node.js
16 48 (0.94%) OAuth2
16 48 (0.94%) Web Services
17 47 (0.92%) Middleware
18 42 (0.82%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 285 (5.58%) Onboarding
2 195 (3.82%) Cloud Native
3 148 (2.90%) Product Ownership
4 132 (2.59%) Management Information System
5 114 (2.23%) Enterprise Software
6 96 (1.88%) PKI
7 88 (1.72%) Data Centre
8 86 (1.68%) Security Posture
9 85 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
10 78 (1.53%) Replication
11 76 (1.49%) Driving Licence
12 73 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
13 70 (1.37%) Hybrid Cloud
13 70 (1.37%) Low-Code
14 69 (1.35%) Mobile App
15 56 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
16 53 (1.04%) Virtual Team
17 50 (0.98%) NHS
18 49 (0.96%) AI Agents
18 49 (0.96%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 1,218 (23.85%) Windows
2 354 (6.93%) Windows 10
3 300 (5.88%) Linux
4 278 (5.44%) Windows Server
5 107 (2.10%) Mac OS
6 94 (1.84%) Android
7 86 (1.68%) Apple iOS
8 73 (1.43%) Unix
9 47 (0.92%) Windows 7
10 38 (0.74%) Windows Server 2016
11 32 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 26 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
13 22 (0.43%) Windows Server 2003
13 22 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
14 17 (0.33%) VMS
15 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
16 7 (0.14%) AIX
16 7 (0.14%) Windows 8
17 6 (0.12%) CentOS
17 6 (0.12%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,020 (19.98%) Problem-Solving
2 875 (17.14%) Agile
3 758 (14.85%) DevOps
4 653 (12.79%) Migration
5 621 (12.16%) CI/CD
6 582 (11.40%) Business Intelligence
7 529 (10.36%) Analytics
8 515 (10.09%) Stakeholder Management
9 460 (9.01%) ITIL
10 440 (8.62%) Customer Service
11 436 (8.54%) Continuous Improvement
12 423 (8.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 392 (7.68%) AI
14 354 (6.93%) Cybersecurity
15 324 (6.35%) Project Management
16 297 (5.82%) Data Modelling
17 292 (5.72%) Change Management
18 280 (5.48%) Roadmaps
19 275 (5.39%) Project Delivery
20 268 (5.25%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 653 (12.79%) SQL
2 637 (12.48%) PowerShell
3 587 (11.50%) Python
4 263 (5.15%) C#
5 221 (4.33%) JavaScript
6 138 (2.70%) Java
7 104 (2.04%) Kusto Query Language
8 102 (2.00%) Bash
9 101 (1.98%) Bicep
10 81 (1.59%) TypeScript
11 53 (1.04%) T-SQL
12 47 (0.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 35 (0.69%) Perl
14 28 (0.55%) C++
14 28 (0.55%) PL/SQL
15 27 (0.53%) Shell Script
16 24 (0.47%) VB
17 23 (0.45%) VBScript
18 19 (0.37%) R
18 19 (0.37%) VBA
Qualifications
1 1,016 (19.90%) Security Cleared
2 760 (14.88%) SC Cleared
3 533 (10.44%) Degree
4 337 (6.60%) Microsoft Certification
5 211 (4.13%) DV Cleared
6 181 (3.54%) Azure Certification
7 127 (2.49%) Computer Science Degree
8 118 (2.31%) CISSP
9 77 (1.51%) BPSS Clearance
10 66 (1.29%) CISM
11 61 (1.19%) Cisco Certification
12 58 (1.14%) Master's Degree
13 53 (1.04%) ITIL Certification
13 53 (1.04%) PMI Certification
14 51 (1.00%) A+ Certification
15 47 (0.92%) MCSE
16 44 (0.86%) PMP
17 41 (0.80%) MCP
18 39 (0.76%) AWS Certification
19 34 (0.67%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 229 (4.48%) GDPR
2 170 (3.33%) Data Quality
3 167 (3.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 147 (2.88%) QA
5 140 (2.74%) SLA
6 130 (2.55%) NIST
7 107 (2.10%) PMO
8 79 (1.55%) Accessibility
9 49 (0.96%) Cyber Essentials
10 35 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 33 (0.65%) NCSC
12 31 (0.61%) PCI DSS
13 22 (0.43%) EU AI Act
13 22 (0.43%) WCAG
14 21 (0.41%) GRC
15 20 (0.39%) HIPAA
16 19 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 14 (0.27%) MiFID
17 14 (0.27%) SOC 2
18 12 (0.24%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,073 (21.01%) Active Directory
2 200 (3.92%) Docker
3 169 (3.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 68 (1.33%) Hyper-V
5 66 (1.29%) Virtual Machines
6 41 (0.80%) Virtual Desktop
7 38 (0.74%) vSphere
8 35 (0.69%) VMware ESXi
9 18 (0.35%) BitLocker
10 17 (0.33%) VMware NSX
11 12 (0.24%) Firmware
11 12 (0.24%) Microsoft App-V
12 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
13 6 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 6 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
14 5 (0.098%) ISA Server
14 5 (0.098%) NFS
14 5 (0.098%) Oracle RAC
14 5 (0.098%) Squid
15 4 (0.078%) Snort
Systems Management
1 383 (7.50%) Microsoft Intune
2 283 (5.54%) Terraform
3 278 (5.44%) SCCM
4 229 (4.48%) Kubernetes
5 158 (3.09%) Single Sign-On
6 104 (2.04%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 103 (2.02%) Ansible
8 49 (0.96%) SCOM
9 41 (0.80%) Jamf Pro
10 39 (0.76%) vCenter Server
11 36 (0.71%) Grafana
12 31 (0.61%) Prometheus
13 23 (0.45%) FortiGate
14 21 (0.41%) HP SiteScope
14 21 (0.41%) WSUS
15 16 (0.31%) Progress Chef
15 16 (0.31%) QRadar
16 15 (0.29%) Puppet
16 15 (0.29%) WMI
17 14 (0.27%) Kibana
Vendors
1 260 (5.09%) ServiceNow
2 234 (4.58%) VMware
3 213 (4.17%) Oracle
4 187 (3.66%) Cisco
5 178 (3.49%) SAP
6 158 (3.09%) Splunk
7 154 (3.02%) Databricks
8 152 (2.98%) Google
9 105 (2.06%) Citrix
10 88 (1.72%) Salesforce
11 80 (1.57%) Apple
11 80 (1.57%) OpenAI
12 66 (1.29%) CrowdStrike
13 60 (1.18%) Palo Alto
14 50 (0.98%) IBM
15 49 (0.96%) Foundry
16 47 (0.92%) Remedy
17 45 (0.88%) HP
18 40 (0.78%) CyberArk
18 40 (0.78%) Veeam