Microsoft Excel Contract Job Trends

Microsoft Excel
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Microsoft Excel skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 70 66
Rank change year-on-year -12 -4 +10
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Excel 1,342 968 1,345
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.11% 3.28% 3.02%
As % of the Applications category 45.66% 41.46% 36.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 755 573 709
10th Percentile £251 £200 £166
25th Percentile £338 £281 £288
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £391 £438
Median % change year-on-year +15.09% -10.63% +2.94%
75th Percentile £545 £525 £550
90th Percentile £619 £638 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £412 £350 £388
% change year-on-year +17.57% -9.68% +0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 167 93 273
10th Percentile £13.52 £14.70 £11.38
25th Percentile £15.30 £15.44 £13.31
Median hourly rate £18.50 £21.46 £15.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.79% +38.45% -26.51%
75th Percentile £25.00 £29.07 £26.15
90th Percentile £46.10 £44.57 £44.01
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.18 £20.94 £14.80
% change year-on-year -13.18% +41.49% -27.70%

All Software Application Skills
UK

Microsoft Excel falls under the Software Applications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring software application skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for software application skills 2,939 2,335 3,647
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 6.81% 7.91% 8.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,713 1,422 1,922
10th Percentile £206 £181 £158
25th Percentile £325 £250 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% - -8.57%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £538
90th Percentile £650 £638 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £359 £350
% change year-on-year +18.38% +2.57% -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 349 215 629
10th Percentile £13.09 £14.84 £11.50
25th Percentile £15.67 £16.75 £14.00
Median hourly rate £19.91 £26.50 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -24.87% +35.90% -48.00%
75th Percentile £28.75 £46.30 £43.75
90th Percentile £60.31 £76.25 £57.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.07 £27.13 £17.80
% change year-on-year -29.70% +52.39% -52.53%

Microsoft Excel
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Microsoft Excel relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Microsoft Excel job vacancy trend in the UK

Microsoft Excel
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Microsoft Excel.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft Excel over the 6 months to 14 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft Excel in the UK

Microsoft Excel
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Microsoft Excel.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft Excel over the 6 months to 14 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft Excel in the UK

Microsoft Excel
Top 17 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 Excel within the UK over the 6 months to 14 March 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 -3 1,220 £450 +12.50% 843
UK excluding London 0 781 £412 +17.57% 742
London -12 492 £480 +6.67% 236
Work from Home +2 363 £463 +15.63% 306
South East +32 232 £492 +51.38% 228
North of England -26 170 £400 +12.04% 176
Midlands -33 120 £431 +23.21% 140
East of England -9 116 £375 -6.13% 71
Yorkshire -24 85 £367 +14.53% 62
West Midlands -47 80 £388 - 77
North West -26 79 £420 +17.65% 92
South West +5 71 £344 -15.83% 66
Scotland -23 45 £338 -3.57% 45
East Midlands -5 41 £455 +57.44% 63
Wales +4 18 £513 +132.95% 22
Northern Ireland -2 15 £410 -3.53% 7
North East -16 6 £450 -10.00% 26

Microsoft Excel
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
1 178 (13.26%) SharePoint
2 104 (7.75%) Confluence
3 11 (0.82%) IIS
4 9 (0.67%) CMS
5 7 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
6 6 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.30%) SAS
8 2 (0.15%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.15%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.15%) Drupal
9 1 (0.075%) Apache
9 1 (0.075%) Moodle
9 1 (0.075%) Smallworld
9 1 (0.075%) Umbraco
9 1 (0.075%) WordPress
Applications
1 397 (29.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 314 (23.40%) Microsoft Office
3 126 (9.39%) Microsoft Project
4 103 (7.68%) MS Visio
5 61 (4.55%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.60%) Trello
7 4 (0.30%) Photoshop
8 3 (0.22%) Adobe Captivate
8 3 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 3 (0.22%) Adobe Illustrator
8 3 (0.22%) InDesign
8 3 (0.22%) Notion
9 2 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
10 1 (0.075%) Acrobat
10 1 (0.075%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.075%) Autodesk Inventor
10 1 (0.075%) CATIA
10 1 (0.075%) MicroStation
10 1 (0.075%) SOLIDWORKS
10 1 (0.075%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 24 (1.79%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (1.12%) Loan IQ
3 14 (1.04%) Primavera
4 13 (0.97%) NetSuite
5 8 (0.60%) Aladdin
5 8 (0.60%) Shopify
6 7 (0.52%) Maximo
6 7 (0.52%) Salesforce CRM
7 6 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.45%) Sage X3
8 5 (0.37%) IntelliMatch
9 4 (0.30%) Dynamics AX
9 4 (0.30%) Oracle EBS R12
9 4 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
10 3 (0.22%) Cloudability
10 3 (0.22%) Dynamics CRM
10 3 (0.22%) Fidessa
10 3 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
10 3 (0.22%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.22%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 342 (25.48%) Power Platform
2 124 (9.24%) Azure
3 110 (8.20%) Microsoft 365
4 56 (4.17%) AWS
5 41 (3.06%) Power Automate
6 34 (2.53%) Azure DevOps
7 30 (2.24%) GitHub
7 30 (2.24%) SaaS
8 23 (1.71%) PowerApps
9 17 (1.27%) Snowflake
10 16 (1.19%) GCP
11 15 (1.12%) Dynamics 365
11 15 (1.12%) OneDrive
12 14 (1.04%) OCI
12 14 (1.04%) Serverless
13 13 (0.97%) Entra ID
14 12 (0.89%) GitHub Actions
14 12 (0.89%) SuccessFactors
15 10 (0.75%) Google Workspace
15 10 (0.75%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.71%) Firewall
2 21 (1.56%) Wireless
3 18 (1.34%) Internet
4 16 (1.19%) WAN
5 14 (1.04%) LAN
5 14 (1.04%) PABX
6 8 (0.60%) VPN
7 7 (0.52%) HTTP
8 6 (0.45%) MPLS
8 6 (0.45%) Wi-Fi
9 5 (0.37%) BGP
9 5 (0.37%) Structured Cabling
10 4 (0.30%) SAN
10 4 (0.30%) SNMP
10 4 (0.30%) TACACS
10 4 (0.30%) TCP/IP
11 3 (0.22%) Intranet
11 3 (0.22%) Softphone
11 3 (0.22%) WLAN
12 2 (0.15%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 327 (24.37%) Power BI
2 99 (7.38%) Tableau
3 51 (3.80%) SQL Server
4 47 (3.50%) Power Query
5 29 (2.16%) Metadata
6 24 (1.79%) Relational Database
7 23 (1.71%) Data Warehouse
8 18 (1.34%) Oracle Database
9 14 (1.04%) Oracle Reports
10 11 (0.82%) PowerPivot
11 10 (0.75%) MS Access
12 9 (0.67%) MySQL
13 8 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.52%) Amazon RDS
14 7 (0.52%) Looker
15 6 (0.45%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
15 6 (0.45%) PostgreSQL
15 6 (0.45%) ZAP BI
16 5 (0.37%) GIS
16 5 (0.37%) QlikView
Development Applications
1 196 (14.61%) JIRA
2 20 (1.49%) Jenkins
3 17 (1.27%) Git
3 17 (1.27%) Sonatype Nexus
4 14 (1.04%) Metasploit
5 13 (0.97%) Burp Suite
6 7 (0.52%) Toad
7 5 (0.37%) MLflow
8 4 (0.30%) SpecFlow
9 3 (0.22%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.15%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.15%) JMeter
10 2 (0.15%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 1 (0.075%) GCC
11 1 (0.075%) GitLab
11 1 (0.075%) Hudson
11 1 (0.075%) Maven
11 1 (0.075%) MSI
11 1 (0.075%) Postman
11 1 (0.075%) SonarQube
General
1 662 (49.33%) Social Skills
2 530 (39.49%) Finance
3 377 (28.09%) Analytical Skills
4 179 (13.34%) Organisational Skills
5 168 (12.52%) Banking
6 115 (8.57%) Public Sector
7 72 (5.37%) Legal
8 59 (4.40%) Presentation Skills
9 44 (3.28%) Marketing
10 41 (3.06%) Documentation Skills
11 38 (2.83%) Influencing Skills
12 36 (2.68%) Manufacturing
13 25 (1.86%) Investment Banking
13 25 (1.86%) Retail
14 24 (1.79%) Telecoms
15 22 (1.64%) Publishing
16 20 (1.49%) Billing
17 19 (1.42%) Aerospace
17 19 (1.42%) Financial Institution
18 18 (1.34%) Law
Job Titles
1 456 (33.98%) Analyst
2 127 (9.46%) Business Analyst
3 121 (9.02%) Data Analyst
4 106 (7.90%) Administrator
5 84 (6.26%) Senior
6 79 (5.89%) Developer
7 72 (5.37%) Lead
8 68 (5.07%) Consultant
9 56 (4.17%) PMO Analyst
10 54 (4.02%) Project Manager
11 48 (3.58%) Coordinator
12 39 (2.91%) Senior Analyst
13 36 (2.68%) Technical Analyst
14 34 (2.53%) Project Officer
15 31 (2.31%) Support Officer
16 29 (2.16%) Implementation Consultant
16 29 (2.16%) Report Analyst
16 29 (2.16%) Technical Business Analyst
17 26 (1.94%) Architect
17 26 (1.94%) Project Coordinator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (2.46%) XML
2 25 (1.86%) Oracle Fusion
3 17 (1.27%) .NET
4 14 (1.04%) JSON
5 13 (0.97%) .NET Framework
6 12 (0.89%) WPF
7 11 (0.82%) Pandas
7 11 (0.82%) WinForms
8 10 (0.75%) Node.js
9 9 (0.67%) REST
10 8 (0.60%) ADO
10 8 (0.60%) NumPy
11 6 (0.45%) AngularJS
11 6 (0.45%) CSS
11 6 (0.45%) Express.js
11 6 (0.45%) scikit-learn
11 6 (0.45%) Seaborn
11 6 (0.45%) SignalR
11 6 (0.45%) WebSockets
12 5 (0.37%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 72 (5.37%) Onboarding
2 70 (5.22%) Self-Motivation
3 52 (3.87%) Management Information System
4 48 (3.58%) Analytical Mindset
5 47 (3.50%) Product Ownership
6 33 (2.46%) Legacy Systems
7 24 (1.79%) Data Centre
7 24 (1.79%) Data Structures
7 24 (1.79%) Equities
8 20 (1.49%) Derivative
9 17 (1.27%) Algorithms
10 16 (1.19%) Security Posture
11 15 (1.12%) Data Protection Act
11 15 (1.12%) Smartphone
12 13 (0.97%) Insider Threat
12 13 (0.97%) NHS
12 13 (0.97%) Virtual Team
13 12 (0.89%) CMDB
13 12 (0.89%) Distributed Systems
14 11 (0.82%) Equity Derivative
Operating Systems
1 77 (5.74%) Windows
2 19 (1.42%) Linux
2 19 (1.42%) Windows 10
3 10 (0.75%) Unix
4 6 (0.45%) Windows Server
5 5 (0.37%) Mac OS
6 4 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (0.30%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.075%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.075%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 336 (25.04%) Business Intelligence
2 326 (24.29%) Problem-Solving
3 238 (17.73%) Stakeholder Management
4 216 (16.10%) Decision-Making
5 211 (15.72%) Agile
6 209 (15.57%) Project Management
7 198 (14.75%) Data Analysis
8 173 (12.89%) Continuous Improvement
9 163 (12.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 155 (11.55%) Migration
11 153 (11.40%) Project Delivery
12 151 (11.25%) Analytics
13 122 (9.09%) Visualisation
14 120 (8.94%) Time Management
15 117 (8.72%) Process Improvement
16 94 (7.00%) Data Modelling
17 92 (6.86%) DevOps
18 90 (6.71%) Validation
19 84 (6.26%) Actionable Insight
20 78 (5.81%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 297 (22.13%) SQL
2 130 (9.69%) Python
3 73 (5.44%) VBA
4 43 (3.20%) T-SQL
5 31 (2.31%) C#
6 27 (2.01%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 23 (1.71%) VB
8 22 (1.64%) PL/SQL
9 16 (1.19%) C++
9 16 (1.19%) PowerShell
10 14 (1.04%) R
11 12 (0.89%) Java
12 11 (0.82%) TypeScript
13 10 (0.75%) Perl
14 7 (0.52%) JavaScript
15 5 (0.37%) Shell Script
16 4 (0.30%) Google Apps Script
16 4 (0.30%) PHP
17 2 (0.15%) Korn
17 2 (0.15%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 237 (17.66%) Degree
2 204 (15.20%) Security Cleared
3 146 (10.88%) SC Cleared
4 43 (3.20%) DV Cleared
5 36 (2.68%) BPSS Clearance
6 33 (2.46%) PMI Certification
7 29 (2.16%) PMP
8 25 (1.86%) Master's Degree
9 22 (1.64%) CBAP
10 19 (1.42%) ACCA
10 19 (1.42%) CIMA
11 18 (1.34%) CTC Cleared
12 14 (1.04%) IIBA
13 13 (0.97%) CHECK Team Member
14 12 (0.89%) Numerate Degree
14 12 (0.89%) Postgraduate
15 11 (0.82%) CREST Certified
15 11 (0.82%) Cyber Scheme
15 11 (0.82%) Microsoft Certification
16 10 (0.75%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 199 (14.83%) PMO
2 134 (9.99%) Data Quality
3 62 (4.62%) QA
4 56 (4.17%) SLA
5 53 (3.95%) GDPR
6 23 (1.71%) Accessibility
7 21 (1.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 16 (1.19%) GRC
9 13 (0.97%) PCI DSS
10 11 (0.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 10 (0.75%) P3O
12 7 (0.52%) NIST
13 6 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
13 6 (0.45%) MiFID
14 3 (0.22%) COBIT
14 3 (0.22%) Disclosure Scotland
14 3 (0.22%) GAAP
14 3 (0.22%) GMP
14 3 (0.22%) ISO 22301
14 3 (0.22%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 26 (1.94%) Active Directory
2 6 (0.45%) Docker
3 2 (0.15%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.075%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.075%) ISA Server
4 1 (0.075%) Microsoft App-V
4 1 (0.075%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 24 (1.79%) Ansible
2 16 (1.19%) Microsoft Intune
3 13 (0.97%) Nmap
4 9 (0.67%) SCCM
5 5 (0.37%) HP ALM
5 5 (0.37%) Kubernetes
5 5 (0.37%) RSA Archer
5 5 (0.37%) TeamSite
6 4 (0.30%) SCOM
7 3 (0.22%) HP Quality Center
8 2 (0.15%) EMC NetWorker
8 2 (0.15%) Nessus
8 2 (0.15%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 1 (0.075%) Autotask
9 1 (0.075%) Control-M
9 1 (0.075%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.075%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.075%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.075%) Terraform
9 1 (0.075%) WSUS
Vendors
1 517 (38.52%) Microsoft
2 114 (8.49%) SAP
3 84 (6.26%) Oracle
4 71 (5.29%) ServiceNow
5 36 (2.68%) Salesforce
6 27 (2.01%) Google
7 22 (1.64%) Cisco
8 18 (1.34%) Workday
9 17 (1.27%) Databricks
10 16 (1.19%) Citrix
10 16 (1.19%) Sonatype
11 15 (1.12%) Remedy
12 12 (0.89%) Adobe
12 12 (0.89%) Alteryx
12 12 (0.89%) Atlassian
13 10 (0.75%) Sage
13 10 (0.75%) Splunk
14 8 (0.60%) Informatica
14 8 (0.60%) Murex
14 8 (0.60%) Twitter