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 1 May 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
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 11 7
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,608 3,895 5,645
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.87% 13.31% 12.96%
As % of the Vendors category 28.31% 28.04% 30.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,773 2,593 3,709
10th Percentile £210 £210 £189
25th Percentile £375 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £580 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £432 £463
% change year-on-year +4.17% -6.59% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 363 242 457
10th Percentile £13.63 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.35 £15.48 £13.00
Median hourly rate £20.09 £20.00 £15.42
Median % change year-on-year +0.45% +29.70% -34.38%
75th Percentile £28.82 £29.07 £25.00
90th Percentile £64.75 £59.13 £53.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.91 £18.51 £15.00
% change year-on-year +7.56% +23.40% -23.08%

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 19,812 13,893 18,468
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.93% 47.48% 42.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,650 8,712 11,457
10th Percentile £313 £289 £263
25th Percentile £413 £408 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -0.04% -1.87%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £627
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 990 562 1,086
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.86 £12.01
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.11 £14.43
Median hourly rate £31.09 £26.45 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +17.53% +17.56% -49.44%
75th Percentile £60.00 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £24.18 £21.50
% change year-on-year +13.73% +12.47% -46.25%

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 1 May 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 1 May 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 1 May 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 4,927 £493 +3.68% 2,935
UK excluding London 0 2,914 £450 +4.17% 2,574
London -2 2,171 £513 +2.50% 820
Work from Home -2 1,405 £500 - 1,135
North of England 0 791 £450 +7.49% 597
South East -1 657 £478 -2.85% 775
Midlands -4 510 £450 +12.50% 423
North West -2 429 £420 -4.00% 297
West Midlands -3 351 £450 +12.50% 246
Yorkshire 0 336 £458 +14.38% 211
East of England 0 329 £400 -8.57% 312
South West -2 329 £450 -4.26% 273
Scotland +3 202 £450 +6.57% 144
East Midlands 0 153 £400 -5.88% 177
Wales +3 93 £310 +3.33% 90
North East -22 31 £450 +28.57% 97
Northern Ireland +2 23 £450 +38.46% 33
Channel Islands -2 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
1 600 (10.70%) SharePoint
2 389 (6.94%) Microsoft Exchange
3 104 (1.85%) Confluence
4 37 (0.66%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.43%) Apache
6 22 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
7 20 (0.36%) CMS
8 19 (0.34%) HCL Notes
9 16 (0.29%) SAS
10 13 (0.23%) IIS
11 12 (0.21%) Mendix
11 12 (0.21%) Skype for Business
12 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.11%) Camunda
13 5 (0.089%) Jupyter
13 5 (0.089%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.071%) Appian
14 4 (0.071%) Exchange Server 2010
14 4 (0.071%) Exchange Server 2013
14 4 (0.071%) MS Project Server
Applications
1 582 (10.38%) Microsoft Office
2 520 (9.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 233 (4.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 124 (2.21%) Microsoft Project
5 91 (1.62%) MS Visio
6 72 (1.28%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.30%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 8 (0.14%) Trello
10 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.089%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.071%) InDesign
13 3 (0.053%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.053%) AutoCAD
13 3 (0.053%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.053%) SOLIDWORKS
14 2 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
14 2 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 199 (3.55%) Dynamics CRM
2 59 (1.05%) SAP S/4HANA
3 20 (0.36%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.25%) Aladdin
5 14 (0.25%) NetSuite
6 12 (0.21%) Maximo
6 12 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
7 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
7 11 (0.20%) Teamcenter
8 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
8 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 9 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
10 8 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
11 7 (0.12%) Shopify
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
12 6 (0.11%) Primavera
13 5 (0.089%) assyst
13 5 (0.089%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,351 (41.92%) Azure
2 1,448 (25.82%) Microsoft 365
3 946 (16.87%) Power Platform
4 719 (12.82%) Entra ID
5 462 (8.24%) AWS
5 462 (8.24%) Dynamics 365
6 440 (7.85%) Azure DevOps
7 332 (5.92%) Power Automate
8 298 (5.31%) PowerApps
9 290 (5.17%) Microsoft Purview
10 261 (4.65%) GitHub
11 232 (4.14%) Microsoft Copilot
12 206 (3.67%) OneDrive
13 199 (3.55%) Azure Data Factory
14 191 (3.41%) SaaS
15 176 (3.14%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 171 (3.05%) Serverless
17 169 (3.01%) GCP
18 149 (2.66%) PaaS
19 138 (2.46%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 297 (5.30%) Firewall
2 292 (5.21%) DNS
3 210 (3.74%) VPN
4 170 (3.03%) DHCP
5 143 (2.55%) Wi-Fi
6 138 (2.46%) WAN
7 121 (2.16%) Network Security
8 118 (2.10%) LAN
9 103 (1.84%) TCP/IP
10 58 (1.03%) Kerberos
11 56 (1.00%) VLAN
12 44 (0.78%) SD-WAN
13 35 (0.62%) SAN
13 35 (0.62%) SSL
13 35 (0.62%) Wireless
14 31 (0.55%) Skype
15 29 (0.52%) HTTP
16 26 (0.46%) Unified Communications
17 24 (0.43%) IPsec
17 24 (0.43%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 579 (10.32%) Power BI
2 273 (4.87%) SQL Server
3 177 (3.16%) Data Warehouse
4 158 (2.82%) Data Lake
5 124 (2.21%) Azure SQL Database
6 115 (2.05%) Metadata
7 107 (1.91%) PostgreSQL
8 71 (1.27%) Relational Database
9 69 (1.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 50 (0.89%) Oracle Database
11 47 (0.84%) NoSQL
11 47 (0.84%) Tableau
12 46 (0.82%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 45 (0.80%) MySQL
13 45 (0.80%) Power Query
14 41 (0.73%) Delta Lake
15 39 (0.70%) Star Schema
16 29 (0.52%) Spark SQL
17 27 (0.48%) Snowflake Schema
18 25 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 251 (4.48%) JIRA
2 170 (3.03%) Git
3 65 (1.16%) Jenkins
4 64 (1.14%) GitLab
5 26 (0.46%) Artifactory
6 24 (0.43%) MSI
6 24 (0.43%) Visual Studio
7 21 (0.37%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.30%) Selenium
9 16 (0.29%) JMeter
9 16 (0.29%) Postman
10 15 (0.27%) MLflow
11 14 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
12 12 (0.21%) Bitbucket
12 12 (0.21%) ERwin
12 12 (0.21%) Maven
13 11 (0.20%) Cucumber
13 11 (0.20%) JUnit
14 10 (0.18%) Gatling
14 10 (0.18%) InstallShield
General
1 1,913 (34.11%) Social Skills
2 1,107 (19.74%) Finance
3 642 (11.45%) Analytical Skills
4 535 (9.54%) Public Sector
5 289 (5.15%) Banking
6 252 (4.49%) Legal
7 250 (4.46%) Organisational Skills
8 149 (2.66%) Documentation Skills
9 110 (1.96%) Manufacturing
10 101 (1.80%) Presentation Skills
11 94 (1.68%) Law
12 92 (1.64%) Marketing
13 88 (1.57%) Telecoms
14 81 (1.44%) Retail
15 78 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 73 (1.30%) Military
17 63 (1.12%) Local Government
18 56 (1.00%) Influencing Skills
19 52 (0.93%) Investment Banking
20 42 (0.75%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 699 (12.46%) Architect
2 604 (10.77%) Analyst
3 527 (9.40%) Developer
4 465 (8.29%) Senior
5 368 (6.56%) IT Support
6 331 (5.90%) Lead
7 285 (5.08%) Consultant
8 258 (4.60%) Support Engineer
9 221 (3.94%) Data Engineer
10 209 (3.73%) Azure Engineer
11 191 (3.41%) Solutions Architect
12 188 (3.35%) Project Manager
13 185 (3.30%) IT Engineer
14 179 (3.19%) Business Analyst
15 177 (3.16%) Administrator
16 170 (3.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 139 (2.48%) IT Support Engineer
18 113 (2.01%) DevOps Engineer
18 113 (2.01%) Security Engineer
19 104 (1.85%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 252 (4.49%) .NET
2 170 (3.03%) REST
3 129 (2.30%) Microsoft Graph
4 114 (2.03%) OAuth
5 101 (1.80%) PySpark
5 101 (1.80%) SAML
6 86 (1.53%) JSON
7 85 (1.52%) React
8 82 (1.46%) OpenID
9 75 (1.34%) LDAP
10 67 (1.19%) Web Services
11 64 (1.14%) Middleware
12 56 (1.00%) AngularJS
13 54 (0.96%) HTML
13 54 (0.96%) OAuth2
14 52 (0.93%) ARM Templates
15 51 (0.91%) Node.js
16 50 (0.89%) Kafka
17 49 (0.87%) CSS
18 47 (0.84%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 293 (5.22%) Onboarding
2 227 (4.05%) Cloud Native
3 189 (3.37%) Product Ownership
4 128 (2.28%) Management Information System
5 107 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
6 97 (1.73%) Data Centre
7 90 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
8 89 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
8 89 (1.59%) Security Posture
9 88 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
10 85 (1.52%) AI Agents
11 81 (1.44%) PKI
12 74 (1.32%) Replication
13 73 (1.30%) Low-Code
14 70 (1.25%) Data Structures
15 67 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
16 59 (1.05%) Virtual Team
17 53 (0.95%) Driving Licence
18 52 (0.93%) NHS
19 47 (0.84%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 1,215 (21.67%) Windows
2 320 (5.71%) Windows 10
3 275 (4.90%) Windows Server
4 273 (4.87%) Linux
5 103 (1.84%) Android
6 98 (1.75%) Apple iOS
7 92 (1.64%) Mac OS
8 46 (0.82%) Windows Server 2016
9 43 (0.77%) Unix
9 43 (0.77%) Windows 7
10 40 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 28 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
12 26 (0.46%) VMS
13 25 (0.45%) Windows Server 2012
14 16 (0.29%) Windows Server 2003
15 10 (0.18%) CentOS
15 10 (0.18%) Ubuntu
16 7 (0.12%) AIX
17 5 (0.089%) Solaris
18 4 (0.071%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 977 (17.42%) Problem-Solving
2 884 (15.76%) DevOps
3 880 (15.69%) Agile
4 786 (14.02%) Migration
5 757 (13.50%) CI/CD
6 644 (11.48%) Business Intelligence
7 616 (10.98%) Analytics
8 547 (9.75%) AI
9 540 (9.63%) Stakeholder Management
10 503 (8.97%) Continuous Improvement
11 464 (8.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 445 (7.94%) Customer Service
13 444 (7.92%) ITIL
14 410 (7.31%) Data Modelling
15 367 (6.54%) Roadmaps
16 364 (6.49%) Cybersecurity
17 344 (6.13%) Infrastructure as Code
18 325 (5.80%) Decision-Making
19 312 (5.56%) Project Delivery
20 308 (5.49%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 728 (12.98%) SQL
2 639 (11.39%) PowerShell
3 617 (11.00%) Python
4 273 (4.87%) C#
5 205 (3.66%) JavaScript
6 181 (3.23%) Java
7 128 (2.28%) Bicep
8 92 (1.64%) Kusto Query Language
9 86 (1.53%) Bash
10 82 (1.46%) T-SQL
11 81 (1.44%) TypeScript
12 68 (1.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 34 (0.61%) PL/SQL
14 30 (0.53%) VBA
15 28 (0.50%) C++
16 23 (0.41%) VB
17 20 (0.36%) Scala
18 19 (0.34%) R
19 17 (0.30%) Shell Script
20 14 (0.25%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,082 (19.29%) Security Cleared
2 842 (15.01%) SC Cleared
3 563 (10.04%) Degree
4 276 (4.92%) Microsoft Certification
5 198 (3.53%) DV Cleared
6 182 (3.25%) Azure Certification
7 131 (2.34%) Computer Science Degree
8 98 (1.75%) CISSP
9 93 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
10 67 (1.19%) PMI Certification
11 66 (1.18%) Cisco Certification
12 62 (1.11%) PMP
13 56 (1.00%) Master's Degree
14 54 (0.96%) CISM
15 43 (0.77%) MCSE
16 37 (0.66%) AWS Certification
17 32 (0.57%) ITIL Certification
18 31 (0.55%) DBS Check
19 30 (0.53%) MCSA
20 28 (0.50%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 269 (4.80%) Data Quality
2 235 (4.19%) GDPR
3 184 (3.28%) QA
4 160 (2.85%) SLA
5 137 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 111 (1.98%) NIST
7 104 (1.85%) PMO
8 75 (1.34%) Accessibility
9 65 (1.16%) Cyber Essentials
10 48 (0.86%) NCSC
11 39 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 31 (0.55%) GRC
13 28 (0.50%) PCI DSS
14 20 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 20 (0.36%) MiFID
15 17 (0.30%) NIST 800
16 15 (0.27%) WCAG
17 13 (0.23%) FINRA
18 12 (0.21%) HIPAA
19 11 (0.20%) GxP
System Software
1 1,088 (19.40%) Active Directory
2 239 (4.26%) Docker
3 191 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 98 (1.75%) Hyper-V
5 76 (1.36%) Virtual Machines
6 67 (1.19%) Virtual Desktop
7 52 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
8 38 (0.68%) vSphere
9 26 (0.46%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.41%) VMware NSX
11 17 (0.30%) Firmware
11 17 (0.30%) Microsoft App-V
12 7 (0.12%) RACF
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
14 5 (0.089%) IAG
14 5 (0.089%) NFS
14 5 (0.089%) Snort
15 4 (0.071%) KVM
15 4 (0.071%) XenApp
15 4 (0.071%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 430 (7.67%) Microsoft Intune
2 369 (6.58%) Terraform
3 266 (4.74%) Kubernetes
4 203 (3.62%) SCCM
5 132 (2.35%) Ansible
6 124 (2.21%) Single Sign-On
7 76 (1.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 42 (0.75%) Grafana
8 42 (0.75%) vCenter Server
9 39 (0.70%) Jamf Pro
10 32 (0.57%) Prometheus
11 22 (0.39%) SCOM
12 21 (0.37%) FortiGate
12 21 (0.37%) Puppet
13 17 (0.30%) WSUS
14 16 (0.29%) AirWatch
15 14 (0.25%) QRadar
16 12 (0.21%) CASB
16 12 (0.21%) ServiceCenter
17 11 (0.20%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 264 (4.71%) ServiceNow
2 260 (4.64%) VMware
3 215 (3.83%) Databricks
4 214 (3.82%) SAP
5 206 (3.67%) Oracle
6 171 (3.05%) Cisco
7 157 (2.80%) Google
8 124 (2.21%) Citrix
9 100 (1.78%) Salesforce
10 93 (1.66%) OpenAI
10 93 (1.66%) Splunk
11 76 (1.36%) Foundry
12 66 (1.18%) Apple
13 51 (0.91%) CrowdStrike
14 47 (0.84%) HP
15 46 (0.82%) Adobe
16 45 (0.80%) Palo Alto
17 43 (0.77%) Okta
18 41 (0.73%) CyberArk
18 41 (0.73%) Informatica