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 November 2025, 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 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 +4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,082 4,874 6,089
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 14.08% 13.31% 13.34%
As % of the Vendors category 29.65% 29.57% 29.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,375 3,046 4,214
10th Percentile £205 £203 £198
25th Percentile £349 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £594 £619
90th Percentile £669 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £445 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -1.11% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 410 235 253
10th Percentile £14.49 £15.04 £14.03
25th Percentile £17.50 £15.62 £16.75
Median hourly rate £21.50 £23.80 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.66% +3.48% +16.96%
75th Percentile £31.00 £37.64 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.79 £21.46 £22.00
% change year-on-year -3.12% -2.45% +18.92%

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 17,140 16,485 20,689
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.48% 45.03% 45.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,833 9,701 13,240
10th Percentile £288 £295 £256
25th Percentile £405 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.59%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £723 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 867 524 675
10th Percentile £15.32 £15.49 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.22 £19.54 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.08 £30.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.42% -32.58% +73.08%
75th Percentile £42.63 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £76.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.08 £27.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -19.73% -38.20% +96.97%

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025. 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 4,454 £475 -0.63% 3,742
UK excluding London -2 2,826 £445 -1.11% 3,462
London -2 1,836 £500 - 1,049
Work from Home -1 1,318 £500 - 1,366
North of England +1 757 £425 -5.56% 688
South East +1 635 £464 -2.37% 1,272
Midlands -3 477 £433 -0.35% 565
North West +2 451 £425 -5.56% 386
South West +2 367 £500 +5.26% 333
West Midlands -4 308 £489 +8.56% 355
East of England -1 279 £425 +6.25% 345
Yorkshire +2 270 £435 +5.45% 225
Scotland -2 215 £450 +5.88% 174
East Midlands +2 166 £375 -2.15% 204
Wales +2 91 £298 +10.19% 124
Northern Ireland +6 48 £350 +55.56% 34
North East -8 38 £438 +25.00% 83
Channel Islands -2 2 £725 -

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
1 557 (10.96%) SharePoint
2 399 (7.85%) Microsoft Exchange
3 107 (2.11%) Confluence
4 63 (1.24%) Skype for Business
5 36 (0.71%) CMS
6 32 (0.63%) Apache
7 28 (0.55%) IIS
8 22 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
9 20 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2010
9 20 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2013
10 18 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
11 17 (0.33%) SAS
12 16 (0.31%) JBoss
13 15 (0.30%) WebSphere
14 14 (0.28%) HCL Notes
15 13 (0.26%) Apache Spark
15 13 (0.26%) Mattermost
16 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
17 10 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2007
17 10 (0.20%) iPlanet
Applications
1 643 (12.65%) Microsoft Office
2 600 (11.81%) Microsoft Excel
3 259 (5.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 134 (2.64%) Microsoft Project
5 104 (2.05%) MS Visio
6 50 (0.98%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.26%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 10 (0.20%) Adobe Captivate
8 10 (0.20%) Trello
9 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.16%) Sketch
11 4 (0.079%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.079%) Maya
12 3 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
12 3 (0.059%) Siemens NX
12 3 (0.059%) Windchill
13 2 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.039%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.039%) InDesign
13 2 (0.039%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 176 (3.46%) Dynamics CRM
2 38 (0.75%) Remedy ITSM
2 38 (0.75%) SAP S/4HANA
3 19 (0.37%) Dynamics AX
4 11 (0.22%) Aladdin
4 11 (0.22%) Maximo
4 11 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
4 11 (0.22%) Workday HCM
5 10 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
6 9 (0.18%) NetSuite
6 9 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
6 9 (0.18%) Teamcenter
7 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
7 7 (0.14%) Primavera
7 7 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
8 6 (0.12%) Shopify
9 5 (0.098%) assyst
9 5 (0.098%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.098%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.079%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,816 (35.73%) Azure
2 1,164 (22.90%) Microsoft 365
3 767 (15.09%) Power Platform
4 568 (11.18%) Entra ID
5 461 (9.07%) AWS
6 375 (7.38%) Dynamics 365
7 341 (6.71%) Azure DevOps
8 304 (5.98%) Power Automate
9 291 (5.73%) PowerApps
10 185 (3.64%) GitHub
11 178 (3.50%) Microsoft Purview
12 168 (3.31%) SaaS
13 167 (3.29%) GCP
14 155 (3.05%) Serverless
15 154 (3.03%) OneDrive
16 148 (2.91%) Azure Sentinel
17 122 (2.40%) Azure Data Factory
18 118 (2.32%) Microsoft Copilot
19 115 (2.26%) Azure Logic Apps
20 114 (2.24%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 332 (6.53%) Firewall
2 266 (5.23%) DNS
3 168 (3.31%) DHCP
4 164 (3.23%) VPN
5 156 (3.07%) TCP/IP
6 96 (1.89%) Network Security
7 94 (1.85%) Wi-Fi
8 90 (1.77%) WAN
9 81 (1.59%) LAN
10 74 (1.46%) Skype
11 59 (1.16%) Wireless
12 44 (0.87%) Cisco IOS
13 43 (0.85%) VLAN
14 40 (0.79%) Unified Communications
15 38 (0.75%) SAN
16 36 (0.71%) Internet
16 36 (0.71%) VoIP
17 34 (0.67%) HTTP
18 30 (0.59%) Ethernet
19 29 (0.57%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 467 (9.19%) Power BI
2 238 (4.68%) SQL Server
3 123 (2.42%) Data Warehouse
4 87 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
5 86 (1.69%) Data Lake
6 83 (1.63%) Relational Database
7 81 (1.59%) Metadata
8 71 (1.40%) Azure SQL Database
9 70 (1.38%) Oracle Database
10 53 (1.04%) Tableau
11 49 (0.96%) MySQL
12 38 (0.75%) NoSQL
12 38 (0.75%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 35 (0.69%) Power Query
14 31 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
15 29 (0.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 26 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
17 20 (0.39%) Big Data
18 17 (0.33%) Delta Lake
19 16 (0.31%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 265 (5.21%) JIRA
2 168 (3.31%) Git
3 105 (2.07%) Jenkins
4 73 (1.44%) GitLab
5 44 (0.87%) Eclipse
6 32 (0.63%) Postman
6 32 (0.63%) Visual Studio
7 31 (0.61%) MSI
8 24 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
9 23 (0.45%) Selenium
10 21 (0.41%) Browser DevTools
10 21 (0.41%) Xcode
11 19 (0.37%) Android Studio
12 16 (0.31%) JUnit
13 15 (0.30%) Cucumber
14 13 (0.26%) InstallShield
15 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket Server
15 11 (0.22%) CA Release Automation
15 11 (0.22%) SonarQube
16 10 (0.20%) Gradle
General
1 2,050 (40.34%) Social Skills
2 1,110 (21.84%) Finance
3 697 (13.72%) Analytical Skills
4 526 (10.35%) Public Sector
5 266 (5.23%) Banking
6 218 (4.29%) Organisational Skills
7 177 (3.48%) Legal
8 154 (3.03%) Documentation Skills
9 146 (2.87%) Manufacturing
10 127 (2.50%) Presentation Skills
11 116 (2.28%) Marketing
12 106 (2.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 96 (1.89%) Telecoms
14 86 (1.69%) Retail
15 68 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
16 66 (1.30%) Local Government
17 48 (0.94%) Military
18 42 (0.83%) Electronics
18 42 (0.83%) Front Office
18 42 (0.83%) Law
Job Titles
1 788 (15.51%) Analyst
2 491 (9.66%) Architect
3 490 (9.64%) Developer
4 345 (6.79%) Senior
5 325 (6.40%) Support Engineer
6 288 (5.67%) Consultant
7 273 (5.37%) IT Support
8 250 (4.92%) Lead
9 173 (3.40%) Support Analyst
10 160 (3.15%) Business Analyst
11 156 (3.07%) Administrator
11 156 (3.07%) Project Manager
12 153 (3.01%) Solutions Architect
13 145 (2.85%) IT Engineer
14 140 (2.75%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 132 (2.60%) Azure Engineer
16 126 (2.48%) Security Engineer
17 108 (2.13%) Desktop Support
18 105 (2.07%) Data Analyst
18 105 (2.07%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 254 (5.00%) .NET
2 167 (3.29%) REST
3 125 (2.46%) OAuth
4 115 (2.26%) React
5 100 (1.97%) RESTful
6 91 (1.79%) AngularJS
7 90 (1.77%) SAML
8 89 (1.75%) HTML
9 84 (1.65%) OpenID
10 79 (1.55%) CSS
11 69 (1.36%) JSON
12 65 (1.28%) Web Services
13 61 (1.20%) SOAP
14 59 (1.16%) Microsoft Graph
15 57 (1.12%) .NET Framework
15 57 (1.12%) Node.js
16 56 (1.10%) XML
17 51 (1.00%) LDAP
18 46 (0.91%) OAuth2
18 46 (0.91%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 246 (4.84%) Onboarding
2 181 (3.56%) Cloud Native
3 136 (2.68%) Management Information System
3 136 (2.68%) Product Ownership
4 105 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
5 104 (2.05%) Data Centre
6 99 (1.95%) PKI
6 99 (1.95%) Security Posture
7 89 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
8 78 (1.53%) Driving Licence
9 75 (1.48%) Mobile App
10 74 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
11 65 (1.28%) Virtual Team
12 61 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
13 60 (1.18%) Hybrid Cloud
13 60 (1.18%) Low-Code
14 53 (1.04%) Replication
15 48 (0.94%) Data Protection Act
16 47 (0.92%) NHS
17 43 (0.85%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 1,251 (24.62%) Windows
2 340 (6.69%) Windows 10
3 311 (6.12%) Linux
4 269 (5.29%) Windows Server
5 139 (2.74%) Mac OS
6 122 (2.40%) Android
7 84 (1.65%) Unix
8 80 (1.57%) Apple iOS
9 48 (0.94%) Windows 7
10 35 (0.69%) Windows Server 2019
11 33 (0.65%) Windows Server 2016
12 26 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 22 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
15 16 (0.31%) VMS
16 11 (0.22%) Mac OS X
17 10 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
18 9 (0.18%) CentOS
18 9 (0.18%) Ubuntu
19 6 (0.12%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,069 (21.04%) Problem-Solving
2 939 (18.48%) Agile
3 703 (13.83%) DevOps
4 608 (11.96%) Migration
5 552 (10.86%) Business Intelligence
5 552 (10.86%) CI/CD
6 514 (10.11%) Stakeholder Management
7 504 (9.92%) ITIL
8 459 (9.03%) Analytics
9 429 (8.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 425 (8.36%) Continuous Improvement
11 404 (7.95%) Cybersecurity
12 394 (7.75%) Customer Service
13 358 (7.04%) Project Management
14 340 (6.69%) AI
15 320 (6.30%) Change Management
16 259 (5.10%) CRM
17 256 (5.04%) Project Delivery
18 254 (5.00%) ITSM
18 254 (5.00%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 641 (12.61%) SQL
2 588 (11.57%) PowerShell
3 544 (10.70%) Python
4 269 (5.29%) C#
5 224 (4.41%) JavaScript
6 176 (3.46%) Java
7 112 (2.20%) Bash
8 99 (1.95%) Kusto Query Language
9 91 (1.79%) Bicep
10 76 (1.50%) TypeScript
11 52 (1.02%) T-SQL
12 40 (0.79%) C++
12 40 (0.79%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 40 (0.79%) Perl
13 29 (0.57%) Shell Script
14 26 (0.51%) VB
14 26 (0.51%) VBA
15 22 (0.43%) Go
15 22 (0.43%) PL/SQL
16 19 (0.37%) PHP
Qualifications
1 937 (18.44%) Security Cleared
2 704 (13.85%) SC Cleared
3 545 (10.72%) Degree
4 368 (7.24%) Microsoft Certification
5 187 (3.68%) DV Cleared
6 182 (3.58%) Azure Certification
7 131 (2.58%) CISSP
8 121 (2.38%) Computer Science Degree
9 87 (1.71%) Cisco Certification
10 77 (1.52%) BPSS Clearance
11 64 (1.26%) CISM
12 60 (1.18%) ITIL Certification
13 55 (1.08%) MCSE
14 53 (1.04%) A+ Certification
15 52 (1.02%) PMI Certification
16 50 (0.98%) Master's Degree
17 46 (0.91%) AWS Certification
17 46 (0.91%) CCNA
18 41 (0.81%) CCNP
19 40 (0.79%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 256 (5.04%) GDPR
2 189 (3.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 168 (3.31%) QA
4 161 (3.17%) NIST
5 137 (2.70%) Data Quality
6 113 (2.22%) PMO
7 111 (2.18%) SLA
8 91 (1.79%) Accessibility
9 52 (1.02%) Cyber Essentials
10 38 (0.75%) HIPAA
11 37 (0.73%) PCI DSS
12 32 (0.63%) NCSC
13 24 (0.47%) WCAG
14 22 (0.43%) EU AI Act
15 21 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 19 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 16 (0.31%) GRC
18 11 (0.22%) SOC 2
19 9 (0.18%) COBIT
19 9 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 1,037 (20.41%) Active Directory
2 184 (3.62%) Docker
3 173 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 60 (1.18%) Hyper-V
5 58 (1.14%) Virtual Machines
6 46 (0.91%) vSphere
7 37 (0.73%) VMware ESXi
8 33 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
9 20 (0.39%) BitLocker
10 18 (0.35%) Firmware
11 15 (0.30%) VMware NSX
12 14 (0.28%) NFS
13 11 (0.22%) ISA Server
13 11 (0.22%) XenApp
14 10 (0.20%) Brightmail
15 9 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
16 8 (0.16%) Terminal Services
16 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
17 6 (0.12%) Snort
17 6 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 386 (7.60%) Microsoft Intune
2 312 (6.14%) SCCM
3 255 (5.02%) Terraform
4 218 (4.29%) Kubernetes
5 116 (2.28%) Single Sign-On
6 105 (2.07%) Ansible
7 67 (1.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (0.96%) SCOM
9 48 (0.94%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (0.71%) vCenter Server
11 31 (0.61%) Grafana
12 25 (0.49%) Prometheus
13 22 (0.43%) QRadar
14 21 (0.41%) HP SiteScope
15 20 (0.39%) Microsoft Clustering
16 19 (0.37%) WSUS
17 17 (0.33%) WMI
18 16 (0.31%) Progress Chef
19 15 (0.30%) Puppet
20 13 (0.26%) Kibana
Vendors
1 303 (5.96%) ServiceNow
2 242 (4.76%) VMware
3 232 (4.57%) Oracle
4 223 (4.39%) Cisco
5 202 (3.97%) Splunk
6 194 (3.82%) SAP
7 154 (3.03%) Google
8 116 (2.28%) Databricks
9 114 (2.24%) Citrix
10 92 (1.81%) Apple
10 92 (1.81%) Salesforce
11 66 (1.30%) CrowdStrike
12 64 (1.26%) OpenAI
13 61 (1.20%) IBM
14 54 (1.06%) Remedy
15 53 (1.04%) Palo Alto
16 51 (1.00%) CyberArk
17 47 (0.92%) HP
18 44 (0.87%) Adobe
19 43 (0.85%) Veeam