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 11 September 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
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 7,166 4,710 5,070
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.12% 14.27% 13.15%
As % of the Vendors category 31.33% 30.25% 29.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,590 3,035 3,193
10th Percentile £213 £208 £200
25th Percentile £375 £341 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -2.66% -2.40%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £680 £671 £689
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £437 £450
% change year-on-year +2.97% -2.89% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 548 379 285
10th Percentile £13.34 £14.16 £14.16
25th Percentile £14.80 £16.50 £15.17
Median hourly rate £19.00 £22.32 £17.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.86% +31.26% -22.73%
75th Percentile £32.63 £31.40 £45.00
90th Percentile £68.80 £64.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.25 £20.80 £16.23
% change year-on-year -12.24% +28.13% -16.77%

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 22,870 15,568 17,033
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.89% 47.15% 44.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,024 9,532 10,291
10th Percentile £313 £278 £288
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £613 £613 £626
90th Percentile £700 £700 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,256 788 698
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.69 £14.22
25th Percentile £16.72 £17.42 £15.62
Median hourly rate £27.00 £25.15 £30.80
Median % change year-on-year +7.36% -18.33% -27.54%
75th Percentile £61.52 £43.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.00 £21.28 £30.00
% change year-on-year +22.18% -29.07% -25.00%

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 11 September 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 11 September 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 11 September 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 6,201 £490 +3.16% 4,925
UK excluding London -1 3,839 £450 +2.97% 3,996
London 0 2,690 £515 +3.00% 1,714
Work from Home +4 1,827 £500 - 1,824
South East 0 998 £475 +5.56% 1,160
North of England -5 964 £460 +6.11% 927
Midlands 0 658 £430 +7.50% 668
North West -2 572 £450 +2.97% 468
South West -1 461 £470 +10.59% 473
West Midlands -3 443 £443 +4.12% 370
Scotland +6 378 £450 - 237
Yorkshire -7 350 £475 +8.57% 327
East of England -1 266 £348 -33.81% 420
East Midlands +3 208 £425 +18.38% 297
Wales +2 109 £413 +37.50% 119
North East -31 46 £425 +25.00% 152
Northern Ireland -1 37 £350 - 72
Channel Islands -2 4 £525 -27.59% 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
1 863 (12.04%) SharePoint
2 409 (5.71%) Microsoft Exchange
3 150 (2.09%) Confluence
4 37 (0.52%) Apache
4 37 (0.52%) Apache Spark
5 30 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
6 27 (0.38%) CMS
7 23 (0.32%) IIS
7 23 (0.32%) Skype for Business
8 17 (0.24%) HCL Notes
8 17 (0.24%) SharePoint Server
9 15 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
10 10 (0.14%) nginx
10 10 (0.14%) SAS
11 7 (0.098%) Apache Superset
12 6 (0.084%) Mendix
12 6 (0.084%) SharePoint 2013
12 6 (0.084%) ThingWorx
13 5 (0.070%) Exchange Server 2010
13 5 (0.070%) OpenStack
Applications
1 753 (10.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 741 (10.34%) Microsoft Office
3 313 (4.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 196 (2.74%) Microsoft Project
5 113 (1.58%) MS Visio
6 49 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
7 30 (0.42%) Chatbot
8 16 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 13 (0.18%) AutoCAD
10 10 (0.14%) ProjectWise
11 9 (0.13%) Navisworks
11 9 (0.13%) Revit
12 5 (0.070%) Trello
13 4 (0.056%) Adobe Illustrator
13 4 (0.056%) Photoshop
14 3 (0.042%) Adobe Premiere
14 3 (0.042%) Final Cut Pro
15 2 (0.028%) Acrobat
15 2 (0.028%) MicroStation
15 2 (0.028%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 256 (3.57%) Dynamics CRM
2 82 (1.14%) SAP S/4HANA
3 31 (0.43%) Remedy ITSM
4 26 (0.36%) Dynamics NAV
5 22 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
6 20 (0.28%) NetSuite
7 14 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 13 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.17%) Dynamics AX
9 12 (0.17%) Primavera
10 11 (0.15%) Magento
11 10 (0.14%) Integrated Workplace Management System
12 8 (0.11%) Aladdin
12 8 (0.11%) iTrent
12 8 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
13 7 (0.098%) SAP CRM
13 7 (0.098%) SAP MM
13 7 (0.098%) SAP PSCD
14 6 (0.084%) Maximo
14 6 (0.084%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 2,970 (41.45%) Azure
2 1,827 (25.50%) Microsoft 365
3 1,279 (17.85%) Power Platform
4 1,094 (15.27%) Entra ID
5 663 (9.25%) AWS
6 618 (8.62%) Azure DevOps
7 612 (8.54%) Dynamics 365
8 434 (6.06%) Power Automate
9 421 (5.87%) Microsoft Copilot
10 387 (5.40%) PowerApps
11 308 (4.30%) Microsoft Purview
12 303 (4.23%) GitHub
13 277 (3.87%) OneDrive
14 256 (3.57%) GCP
15 243 (3.39%) SaaS
16 194 (2.71%) Serverless
17 189 (2.64%) Azure Data Factory
18 173 (2.41%) Azure Monitor
19 161 (2.25%) Azure Logic Apps
20 159 (2.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 393 (5.48%) DNS
2 344 (4.80%) Firewall
3 288 (4.02%) VPN
4 261 (3.64%) DHCP
5 193 (2.69%) TCP/IP
6 163 (2.27%) Network Security
6 163 (2.27%) WAN
7 143 (2.00%) LAN
8 140 (1.95%) Wi-Fi
9 75 (1.05%) VLAN
10 65 (0.91%) Wireless
11 48 (0.67%) SAN
12 40 (0.56%) SSL
13 39 (0.54%) Skype
14 37 (0.52%) MPLS
15 32 (0.45%) Unified Communications
16 31 (0.43%) Internet
16 31 (0.43%) Kerberos
17 30 (0.42%) BGP
17 30 (0.42%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 797 (11.12%) Power BI
2 414 (5.78%) SQL Server
3 179 (2.50%) Data Warehouse
4 154 (2.15%) Metadata
5 149 (2.08%) Data Lake
6 132 (1.84%) PostgreSQL
7 123 (1.72%) Azure SQL Database
8 84 (1.17%) Power Query
9 76 (1.06%) Relational Database
10 70 (0.98%) MySQL
11 68 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 49 (0.68%) NoSQL
13 48 (0.67%) Oracle Database
14 45 (0.63%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 43 (0.60%) Star Schema
16 39 (0.54%) Tableau
17 37 (0.52%) Delta Lake
18 30 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
19 29 (0.40%) MongoDB
20 21 (0.29%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 342 (4.77%) JIRA
2 236 (3.29%) Git
3 94 (1.31%) Jenkins
4 71 (0.99%) GitLab
5 51 (0.71%) Visual Studio
6 44 (0.61%) MSI
7 36 (0.50%) Selenium
8 20 (0.28%) Claude Code
9 19 (0.27%) Postman
10 16 (0.22%) Cypress.io
10 16 (0.22%) WebDriver
11 15 (0.21%) MLflow
11 15 (0.21%) Team Foundation Server
12 12 (0.17%) Cucumber
13 11 (0.15%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.15%) ERwin
13 11 (0.15%) Maven
13 11 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
13 11 (0.15%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
13 11 (0.15%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 2,619 (36.55%) Social Skills
2 1,434 (20.01%) Finance
3 930 (12.98%) Analytical Skills
4 637 (8.89%) Public Sector
5 417 (5.82%) Organisational Skills
6 333 (4.65%) Banking
7 229 (3.20%) Legal
8 201 (2.80%) Documentation Skills
9 181 (2.53%) Manufacturing
10 175 (2.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 152 (2.12%) Retail
12 123 (1.72%) Telecoms
13 110 (1.54%) Marketing
14 103 (1.44%) Law
15 98 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
16 91 (1.27%) Local Government
17 84 (1.17%) Aerospace
18 83 (1.16%) Military
19 64 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
20 62 (0.87%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 840 (11.72%) Architect
2 720 (10.05%) Analyst
3 630 (8.79%) Developer
4 628 (8.76%) Senior
5 492 (6.87%) Lead
6 459 (6.41%) Consultant
7 447 (6.24%) IT Support
8 432 (6.03%) Support Engineer
9 296 (4.13%) IT Engineer
10 292 (4.07%) Administrator
11 272 (3.80%) Solutions Architect
12 257 (3.59%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 248 (3.46%) Azure Engineer
13 248 (3.46%) Data Engineer
14 242 (3.38%) IT Support Engineer
15 236 (3.29%) Project Manager
16 184 (2.57%) Business Analyst
17 178 (2.48%) Cloud Engineer
18 138 (1.93%) DevOps Engineer
19 130 (1.81%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 529 (7.38%) Terraform
2 348 (4.86%) .NET
3 270 (3.77%) REST
4 134 (1.87%) JSON
5 130 (1.81%) OAuth
6 112 (1.56%) PySpark
7 108 (1.51%) XML
8 104 (1.45%) SAML
9 102 (1.42%) Microsoft Graph
10 100 (1.40%) OpenID
11 91 (1.27%) ARM Templates
12 90 (1.26%) React
13 86 (1.20%) .NET Framework
14 79 (1.10%) Web Services
15 78 (1.09%) LDAP
16 74 (1.03%) OAuth2
17 73 (1.02%) HTML
17 73 (1.02%) RESTful
18 70 (0.98%) SailPoint
19 67 (0.93%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 556 (7.76%) Onboarding
2 309 (4.31%) Cloud Native
3 266 (3.71%) Management Information System
4 211 (2.94%) Product Ownership
5 210 (2.93%) Enterprise Software
6 157 (2.19%) Hybrid Cloud
7 152 (2.12%) PKI
8 150 (2.09%) AI Agents
9 147 (2.05%) Data Centre
10 130 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
10 130 (1.81%) Security Posture
11 98 (1.37%) Data Structures
12 93 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
12 93 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
13 84 (1.17%) CMDB
14 82 (1.14%) Driving Licence
15 79 (1.10%) Low-Code
16 76 (1.06%) Virtual Team
17 71 (0.99%) Replication
18 69 (0.96%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1,527 (21.31%) Windows
2 460 (6.42%) Windows Server
3 373 (5.21%) Windows 10
4 338 (4.72%) Linux
5 146 (2.04%) Mac OS
6 130 (1.81%) Android
7 121 (1.69%) Apple iOS
8 65 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 48 (0.67%) Unix
10 42 (0.59%) Windows 7
11 40 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
12 38 (0.53%) Ubuntu
13 36 (0.50%) Windows Server 2016
14 32 (0.45%) VMS
15 22 (0.31%) CentOS
16 21 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
17 19 (0.27%) Solaris
18 12 (0.17%) SUSE
19 9 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
20 7 (0.098%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,341 (18.71%) Problem-Solving
2 1,298 (18.11%) Stakeholder Management
3 1,111 (15.50%) DevOps
4 1,096 (15.29%) Agile
5 997 (13.91%) Migration
6 935 (13.05%) CI/CD
7 902 (12.59%) Continuous Improvement
8 838 (11.69%) AI
9 816 (11.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 800 (11.16%) Business Intelligence
11 738 (10.30%) Analytics
12 700 (9.77%) ITIL
13 670 (9.35%) Customer Service
14 561 (7.83%) Infrastructure as Code
15 555 (7.74%) Cybersecurity
16 535 (7.47%) Roadmaps
17 519 (7.24%) Data Modelling
18 494 (6.89%) Project Delivery
19 480 (6.70%) Decision-Making
20 462 (6.45%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 873 (12.18%) SQL
2 789 (11.01%) PowerShell
3 732 (10.21%) Python
4 341 (4.76%) C#
5 259 (3.61%) JavaScript
6 209 (2.92%) Bicep
7 173 (2.41%) Java
8 171 (2.39%) Bash
9 113 (1.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 110 (1.54%) T-SQL
11 105 (1.47%) TypeScript
12 70 (0.98%) Kusto Query Language
13 31 (0.43%) VBA
14 29 (0.40%) VB
15 25 (0.35%) VBScript
16 23 (0.32%) X++
17 22 (0.31%) PL/SQL
18 20 (0.28%) C++
18 20 (0.28%) R
19 16 (0.22%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,542 (21.52%) Security Cleared
2 1,153 (16.09%) SC Cleared
3 646 (9.01%) Degree
4 370 (5.16%) Microsoft Certification
5 297 (4.14%) DV Cleared
6 264 (3.68%) Azure Certification
7 182 (2.54%) BPSS Clearance
8 139 (1.94%) CISSP
9 129 (1.80%) Cisco Certification
10 120 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
11 100 (1.40%) PMP
12 93 (1.30%) PMI Certification
13 76 (1.06%) CISM
14 74 (1.03%) AWS Certification
15 59 (0.82%) DBS Check
16 58 (0.81%) A+ Certification
16 58 (0.81%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 55 (0.77%) CCNP
18 46 (0.64%) CCNA
19 45 (0.63%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 436 (6.08%) Data Quality
2 250 (3.49%) QA
3 234 (3.27%) GDPR
4 202 (2.82%) SLA
5 199 (2.78%) PMO
6 198 (2.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 177 (2.47%) NIST
8 120 (1.67%) Accessibility
9 90 (1.26%) NCSC
10 88 (1.23%) Cyber Essentials
11 55 (0.77%) GRC
12 45 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 43 (0.60%) WCAG
14 37 (0.52%) PCI DSS
15 30 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 22 (0.31%) Disclosure Scotland
17 21 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
18 19 (0.27%) SOC 2
19 16 (0.22%) P3O
20 15 (0.21%) GMP
System Software
1 1,341 (18.71%) Active Directory
2 268 (3.74%) VMware Infrastructure
3 261 (3.64%) Docker
4 148 (2.07%) Hyper-V
5 130 (1.81%) Virtual Desktop
6 103 (1.44%) Virtual Machines
7 67 (0.93%) vSphere
8 64 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
9 35 (0.49%) BitLocker
10 20 (0.28%) Microsoft App-V
11 17 (0.24%) VMware NSX
12 15 (0.21%) Firmware
13 9 (0.13%) IAG
14 8 (0.11%) NFS
14 8 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
15 7 (0.098%) Oracle RAC
15 7 (0.098%) zsh
16 5 (0.070%) Citrix Hypervisor
16 5 (0.070%) Terminal Services
16 5 (0.070%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 569 (7.94%) Microsoft Intune
2 341 (4.76%) Kubernetes
3 292 (4.07%) SCCM
4 170 (2.37%) Ansible
5 134 (1.87%) Single Sign-On
6 59 (0.82%) Grafana
6 59 (0.82%) Jamf Pro
7 54 (0.75%) SCOM
8 50 (0.70%) vCenter Server
9 38 (0.53%) Prometheus
10 37 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 28 (0.39%) WSUS
12 27 (0.38%) QRadar
13 22 (0.31%) Progress Chef
14 21 (0.29%) FortiGate
15 20 (0.28%) Puppet
16 18 (0.25%) Failover Clustering
17 16 (0.22%) Argo
18 15 (0.21%) WMI
19 13 (0.18%) Avamar
Vendors
1 533 (7.44%) ServiceNow
2 347 (4.84%) VMware
3 345 (4.81%) Oracle
4 290 (4.05%) SAP
5 249 (3.47%) Google
6 245 (3.42%) Databricks
7 237 (3.31%) Cisco
8 130 (1.81%) Salesforce
9 124 (1.73%) Splunk
10 110 (1.54%) Apple
11 97 (1.35%) CyberArk
12 93 (1.30%) Citrix
13 85 (1.19%) OpenAI
14 84 (1.17%) Okta
15 81 (1.13%) BeyondTrust
16 79 (1.10%) Foundry
17 74 (1.03%) CrowdStrike
18 69 (0.96%) Red Hat
19 56 (0.78%) Adobe
20 54 (0.75%) Zscaler