Microsoft Contracts

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 10 May 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
10 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 10 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -3 0 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 3,919 5,592 7,934
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 13.33% 12.99% 13.68%
As % of the Vendors category 28.05% 30.60% 31.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,593 3,677 5,724
10th Percentile £208 £189 £200
25th Percentile £345 £338 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
75th Percentile £582 £600 £623
90th Percentile £675 £700 £705
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £451 £463
% change year-on-year -5.66% -2.59% +8.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 237 460 233
10th Percentile £14.02 £11.07 £13.29
25th Percentile £15.09 £13.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £18.85 £15.00 £22.16
Median % change year-on-year +25.67% -32.31% +19.46%
75th Percentile £28.99 £24.81 £53.35
90th Percentile £59.83 £55.00 £66.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 £15.00 £19.00
% change year-on-year +23.33% -21.05% +15.15%

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 13,971 18,276 24,813
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.52% 42.44% 42.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,753 11,338 16,597
10th Percentile £281 £263 £271
25th Percentile £406 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -1.90% -
75th Percentile £620 £630 £647
90th Percentile £716 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £494 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.20% - +7.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 576 1,110 684
10th Percentile £14.63 £12.11 £15.21
25th Percentile £17.44 £14.48 £18.74
Median hourly rate £25.50 £22.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.91% -48.24% +97.67%
75th Percentile £57.31 £57.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £21.46 £37.50
% change year-on-year +7.18% -42.77% +100.53%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Microsoft as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Microsoft.

Daily rate trend for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft over the 6 months to 10 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Microsoft.

Hourly rate trend for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft over the 6 months to 10 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Top 18 Contract 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 10 May 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 3,404 £475 -2.56% 6,833
UK excluding London -2 1,984 £425 -5.66% 5,178
London -3 1,555 £500 - 2,545
Work from Home -4 1,122 £500 - 3,584
North of England -3 501 £413 -5.54% 1,243
South East 0 465 £480 +3.23% 1,675
North West -1 336 £425 -5.56% 689
Midlands 0 305 £400 - 777
South West 0 255 £465 -7.00% 550
West Midlands +3 229 £400 - 459
East of England +2 203 £450 +2.39% 577
Scotland -9 198 £415 +18.57% 289
Yorkshire -4 117 £400 +5.26% 413
East Midlands 0 74 £410 +2.50% 275
North East -1 47 £340 -18.07% 165
Wales -3 47 £300 -41.75% 155
Northern Ireland -4 28 £325 -40.91% 93
Channel Islands - 3 £298 -

Microsoft
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 472 (12.04%) SharePoint
2 307 (7.83%) Microsoft Exchange
3 106 (2.70%) Confluence
4 34 (0.87%) Skype for Business
5 28 (0.71%) IIS
6 23 (0.59%) CMS
7 22 (0.56%) Apache Spark
8 14 (0.36%) Apache
9 12 (0.31%) Tomcat
10 11 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
11 9 (0.23%) SAS
12 8 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2010
12 8 (0.20%) SharePoint Server
13 7 (0.18%) BizTalk Server
13 7 (0.18%) Drupal
13 7 (0.18%) Headless CMS
13 7 (0.18%) Mattermost
14 5 (0.13%) Anypoint
14 5 (0.13%) JBoss
15 4 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2003
Applications
1 601 (15.34%) Microsoft Office
2 437 (11.15%) Microsoft Excel
3 240 (6.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 91 (2.32%) MS Visio
5 88 (2.25%) Microsoft Project
6 25 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.43%) Chatbot
8 9 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.15%) AutoCAD
9 6 (0.15%) InfoPath
10 5 (0.13%) Acrobat
10 5 (0.13%) Trello
11 3 (0.077%) Camtasia
12 2 (0.051%) 1Password
12 2 (0.051%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.051%) CANalyzer
12 2 (0.051%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.026%) CATIA
13 1 (0.026%) Notion
13 1 (0.026%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 137 (3.50%) Dynamics CRM
2 33 (0.84%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
3 11 (0.28%) Kondor
4 9 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
5 7 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
6 6 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.15%) SAP ERP
6 6 (0.15%) SAP PM
6 6 (0.15%) Shopify
6 6 (0.15%) Unit4 Business World
7 5 (0.13%) NetSuite
7 5 (0.13%) SAP GRC
8 4 (0.10%) CA PPM
8 4 (0.10%) Oracle Financials
8 4 (0.10%) Raiser’s Edge
8 4 (0.10%) SAP PS
8 4 (0.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 3 (0.077%) Finacle
9 3 (0.077%) iTrent
Cloud Services
1 1,401 (35.75%) Azure
2 951 (24.27%) Microsoft 365
3 484 (12.35%) Power Platform
4 441 (11.25%) Entra ID
5 333 (8.50%) AWS
6 258 (6.58%) Dynamics 365
7 221 (5.64%) Azure DevOps
8 187 (4.77%) Power Automate
9 179 (4.57%) PowerApps
10 142 (3.62%) OneDrive
11 138 (3.52%) SaaS
12 133 (3.39%) GCP
13 125 (3.19%) IaaS
14 113 (2.88%) PaaS
15 103 (2.63%) Microsoft Purview
16 101 (2.58%) Serverless
17 88 (2.25%) Azure Data Factory
18 81 (2.07%) Azure Sentinel
19 62 (1.58%) Azure Logic Apps
20 53 (1.35%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 273 (6.97%) Firewall
2 232 (5.92%) DNS
3 218 (5.56%) VPN
4 144 (3.67%) DHCP
5 111 (2.83%) WAN
6 102 (2.60%) Network Security
7 100 (2.55%) Wi-Fi
8 96 (2.45%) LAN
9 93 (2.37%) TCP/IP
10 62 (1.58%) SAN
11 48 (1.22%) Remote Desktop
11 48 (1.22%) Skype
12 42 (1.07%) VLAN
13 38 (0.97%) MPLS
14 36 (0.92%) Wireless
15 34 (0.87%) Internet
16 32 (0.82%) Unified Communications
17 31 (0.79%) WebEx
18 30 (0.77%) Ethernet
18 30 (0.77%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 295 (7.53%) Power BI
2 258 (6.58%) SQL Server
3 91 (2.32%) Data Warehouse
4 63 (1.61%) Data Lake
5 60 (1.53%) Azure SQL Database
6 58 (1.48%) Relational Database
7 56 (1.43%) Big Data
8 54 (1.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 53 (1.35%) NoSQL
10 50 (1.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 47 (1.20%) Tableau
12 45 (1.15%) Metadata
13 42 (1.07%) PostgreSQL
14 30 (0.77%) Oracle Database
15 25 (0.64%) Power Query
16 24 (0.61%) MongoDB
17 23 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
17 23 (0.59%) Oracle Reports
18 22 (0.56%) MS Access
18 22 (0.56%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 210 (5.36%) JIRA
2 101 (2.58%) Git
3 60 (1.53%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.10%) Visual Studio
5 38 (0.97%) GitLab
6 29 (0.74%) MSI
7 18 (0.46%) Selenium
8 17 (0.43%) Postman
9 14 (0.36%) Visual Studio Code
10 13 (0.33%) Bitbucket
10 13 (0.33%) ERwin
10 13 (0.33%) Maven
11 11 (0.28%) Subversion
12 10 (0.26%) SonarQube
12 10 (0.26%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
13 9 (0.23%) PowerDesigner
13 9 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
14 8 (0.20%) Eclipse
14 8 (0.20%) Hudson
14 8 (0.20%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,515 (38.66%) Social Skills
2 783 (19.98%) Finance
3 496 (12.66%) Analytical Skills
4 407 (10.39%) Public Sector
5 221 (5.64%) Banking
6 148 (3.78%) Organisational Skills
7 133 (3.39%) Telecoms
8 129 (3.29%) Legal
9 107 (2.73%) Presentation Skills
10 103 (2.63%) Marketing
11 101 (2.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 95 (2.42%) Manufacturing
13 90 (2.30%) Documentation Skills
14 82 (2.09%) Retail
15 52 (1.33%) Local Government
16 38 (0.97%) Law
17 35 (0.89%) Influencing Skills
17 35 (0.89%) Military
18 34 (0.87%) Financial Institution
19 29 (0.74%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 538 (13.73%) Analyst
2 464 (11.84%) Architect
3 356 (9.08%) Developer
4 295 (7.53%) Support Engineer
5 250 (6.38%) Senior
6 222 (5.66%) Consultant
7 201 (5.13%) Lead
8 167 (4.26%) IT Support
9 145 (3.70%) Solutions Architect
10 144 (3.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 132 (3.37%) Desktop Support
12 131 (3.34%) Project Manager
13 128 (3.27%) IT Engineer
14 121 (3.09%) Desktop Engineer
15 118 (3.01%) Business Analyst
16 113 (2.88%) Service Analyst
17 94 (2.40%) Azure Engineer
18 93 (2.37%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 93 (2.37%) Service Desk Analyst
19 91 (2.32%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 208 (5.31%) .NET
2 106 (2.70%) HTML
3 92 (2.35%) CSS
4 77 (1.96%) REST
5 60 (1.53%) .NET Framework
5 60 (1.53%) React
6 59 (1.51%) Web Services
7 44 (1.12%) JSON
7 44 (1.12%) OAuth
7 44 (1.12%) SOAP
8 40 (1.02%) XML
9 39 (1.00%) ASP.NET
9 39 (1.00%) RESTful
10 38 (0.97%) .NET Core
10 38 (0.97%) AngularJS
11 37 (0.94%) SailPoint
12 35 (0.89%) Middleware
13 33 (0.84%) SAML
14 28 (0.71%) ARM Templates
15 27 (0.69%) ASP.NET Web API
Miscellaneous
1 132 (3.37%) Management Information System
2 105 (2.68%) Onboarding
3 101 (2.58%) Self-Motivation
4 89 (2.27%) Cloud Native
5 87 (2.22%) Data Centre
6 83 (2.12%) Product Ownership
7 81 (2.07%) PKI
8 73 (1.86%) Security Posture
9 69 (1.76%) Driving Licence
10 55 (1.40%) Video Conferencing
11 52 (1.33%) Public Cloud
12 50 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
13 43 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
14 42 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
15 39 (1.00%) Smartphone
16 38 (0.97%) iPhone
17 35 (0.89%) Clustering
17 35 (0.89%) Legacy Systems
17 35 (0.89%) Virtual Team
18 34 (0.87%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 1,019 (26.00%) Windows
2 301 (7.68%) Windows 10
3 280 (7.14%) Windows Server
4 238 (6.07%) Linux
5 78 (1.99%) Mac OS
6 73 (1.86%) Apple iOS
7 64 (1.63%) Unix
8 61 (1.56%) Android
9 60 (1.53%) Windows Server 2016
10 48 (1.22%) Windows Server 2019
11 46 (1.17%) Windows 7
12 43 (1.10%) Windows Server 2012
13 25 (0.64%) Windows Server 2003
14 22 (0.56%) VMS
15 20 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
15 20 (0.51%) Ubuntu
16 10 (0.26%) CentOS
16 10 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
16 10 (0.26%) Windows XP
17 6 (0.15%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 948 (24.19%) Problem-Solving
2 657 (16.76%) Agile
3 481 (12.27%) Migration
4 442 (11.28%) DevOps
5 436 (11.13%) ITIL
6 386 (9.85%) Customer Service
7 337 (8.60%) Project Management
8 315 (8.04%) Stakeholder Management
9 305 (7.78%) Business Intelligence
10 265 (6.76%) Cybersecurity
11 232 (5.92%) CI/CD
12 227 (5.79%) Analytics
13 200 (5.10%) Collaborative Working
14 194 (4.95%) Change Management
14 194 (4.95%) Project Delivery
14 194 (4.95%) Roadmaps
15 193 (4.92%) Continuous Improvement
16 192 (4.90%) Infrastructure Engineering
17 189 (4.82%) Service Delivery
18 186 (4.75%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 513 (13.09%) SQL
2 489 (12.48%) PowerShell
3 290 (7.40%) Python
4 223 (5.69%) C#
5 200 (5.10%) JavaScript
6 158 (4.03%) Java
7 56 (1.43%) Bicep
8 54 (1.38%) TypeScript
9 40 (1.02%) Bash
10 38 (0.97%) T-SQL
11 36 (0.92%) Kusto Query Language
12 32 (0.82%) PL/SQL
13 31 (0.79%) VBA
14 24 (0.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 24 (0.61%) VB
15 22 (0.56%) C++
16 16 (0.41%) Delphi
17 15 (0.38%) R
18 14 (0.36%) Shell Script
18 14 (0.36%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 679 (17.33%) Security Cleared
2 537 (13.70%) SC Cleared
3 434 (11.07%) Degree
4 303 (7.73%) Microsoft Certification
5 153 (3.90%) Azure Certification
6 120 (3.06%) DV Cleared
7 94 (2.40%) Computer Science Degree
8 82 (2.09%) Cisco Certification
9 80 (2.04%) AWS Certification
10 71 (1.81%) A+ Certification
11 66 (1.68%) CISSP
12 43 (1.10%) MCSE
13 42 (1.07%) PMI Certification
14 41 (1.05%) CISM
15 39 (1.00%) MCSA
16 38 (0.97%) PMP
17 37 (0.94%) CCNA
18 34 (0.87%) CCNP
19 33 (0.84%) BPSS Clearance
20 32 (0.82%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (3.62%) SLA
2 127 (3.24%) QA
3 121 (3.09%) GDPR
4 92 (2.35%) Data Quality
5 80 (2.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 67 (1.71%) PMO
7 53 (1.35%) Accessibility
8 51 (1.30%) NIST
9 41 (1.05%) HIPAA
10 38 (0.97%) PCI DSS
11 23 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 23 (0.59%) SOC 2
12 22 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
12 22 (0.56%) GRC
13 13 (0.33%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 11 (0.28%) NCSC
15 10 (0.26%) Disclosure Scotland
15 10 (0.26%) GxP
16 8 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 8 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 927 (23.65%) Active Directory
2 190 (4.85%) VMware Infrastructure
3 72 (1.84%) Docker
4 68 (1.74%) Hyper-V
4 68 (1.74%) Virtual Machines
5 63 (1.61%) vSphere
6 55 (1.40%) VMware ESXi
7 39 (1.00%) BitLocker
7 39 (1.00%) Virtual Desktop
8 27 (0.69%) Microsoft App-V
9 20 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
10 15 (0.38%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 14 (0.36%) VMware NSX
12 13 (0.33%) Terminal Services
13 12 (0.31%) XenApp
14 11 (0.28%) XenDesktop
15 6 (0.15%) DFS Replication
15 6 (0.15%) VMware Workstation
16 5 (0.13%) Firmware
16 5 (0.13%) OpenAM
Systems Management
1 364 (9.29%) Microsoft Intune
2 234 (5.97%) SCCM
3 172 (4.39%) Terraform
4 124 (3.16%) Kubernetes
5 75 (1.91%) Ansible
6 52 (1.33%) Single Sign-On
7 49 (1.25%) WSUS
8 44 (1.12%) vCenter Server
9 42 (1.07%) Jamf Pro
10 26 (0.66%) Grafana
11 24 (0.61%) Puppet
11 24 (0.61%) SCOM
12 23 (0.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 19 (0.48%) Microsoft Clustering
14 16 (0.41%) CASB
14 16 (0.41%) Kibana
15 15 (0.38%) Nagios
16 14 (0.36%) vMotion
17 12 (0.31%) Prometheus
18 11 (0.28%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 287 (7.32%) ServiceNow
2 276 (7.04%) VMware
3 206 (5.26%) Oracle
4 176 (4.49%) Cisco
5 173 (4.41%) SAP
6 161 (4.11%) Google
7 131 (3.34%) Citrix
8 101 (2.58%) Salesforce
9 94 (2.40%) Databricks
10 87 (2.22%) HP
11 86 (2.19%) Apple
12 79 (2.02%) Dell
13 58 (1.48%) Splunk
14 47 (1.20%) Palo Alto
15 37 (0.94%) Adobe
15 37 (0.94%) Veeam
16 33 (0.84%) Zscaler
17 32 (0.82%) Red Hat
18 31 (0.79%) Atlassian
18 31 (0.79%) Juniper