Microsoft Office Contract Job Trends

Microsoft Office
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Microsoft Office skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 24 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 118 88 58
Rank change year-on-year -30 -30 +25
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Office 927 816 1,493
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.12% 2.80% 3.37%
As % of the Applications category 31.81% 34.87% 41.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 511 523 829
10th Percentile £163 £155 £141
25th Percentile £207 £206 £185
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £350 £325 £263
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% +23.81% -30.00%
75th Percentile £530 £519 £488
90th Percentile £690 £600 £619
UK excluding London median daily rate £341 £263 £225
% change year-on-year +29.71% +16.67% -30.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 146 75 322
10th Percentile £12.41 £13.99 £11.00
25th Percentile £13.72 £15.62 £12.64
Median hourly rate £17.50 £20.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% +24.53% -28.69%
75th Percentile £25.73 £24.66 £25.66
90th Percentile £62.66 £33.90 £48.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.71 £19.38 £15.63
% change year-on-year -13.81% +24.05% -21.88%

All Software Application Skills
UK

Microsoft Office 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 2,914 2,340 3,566
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 6.65% 8.03% 8.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,704 1,436 1,851
10th Percentile £208 £185 £158
25th Percentile £325 £255 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% - -6.10%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £538
90th Percentile £650 £638 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £374 £350
% change year-on-year +13.64% +6.86% -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 343 232 629
10th Percentile £12.98 £14.84 £11.50
25th Percentile £15.71 £16.17 £14.00
Median hourly rate £19.91 £26.50 £18.93
Median % change year-on-year -24.87% +39.99% -46.68%
75th Percentile £29.56 £46.30 £42.64
90th Percentile £60.00 £76.13 £57.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.04 £27.13 £17.72
% change year-on-year -29.82% +53.08% -47.88%

Microsoft Office
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Microsoft Office job vacancy trend in the UK

Microsoft Office
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

Microsoft Office
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft Office over the 6 months to 24 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft Office in the UK

Microsoft Office
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

Microsoft Office
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft Office over the 6 months to 24 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft Office in the UK

Microsoft Office
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 Office within the UK over the 6 months to 24 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 -39 834 £386 +18.62% 584
UK excluding London -21 664 £341 +29.71% 524
London -56 222 £413 -2.65% 141
Work from Home -62 190 £375 -6.25% 211
South East -2 173 £425 +25.93% 162
North of England -42 157 £290 +18.37% 134
South West -20 104 £700 +133.33% 59
North West -18 96 £300 +20.00% 74
Midlands -44 89 £305 -14.33% 88
East of England -1 81 £190 -36.67% 49
West Midlands -50 58 £313 -26.35% 56
Yorkshire -53 52 £290 +20.83% 47
East Midlands -20 31 £180 -10.00% 32
Wales +7 28 £246 -50.75% 19
Scotland -31 23 £290 +45.00% 27
Northern Ireland -2 12 £350 +118.75% 3
North East -17 9 £175 -10.26% 18

Microsoft Office
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
1 119 (12.84%) SharePoint
2 92 (9.92%) Confluence
3 68 (7.34%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.97%) Skype for Business
5 7 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (0.43%) CMS
7 3 (0.32%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 1 (0.11%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.11%) SAS
Applications
1 323 (34.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 190 (20.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 89 (9.60%) Microsoft Project
4 72 (7.77%) MS Visio
5 11 (1.19%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (0.65%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 6 (0.65%) Trello
7 4 (0.43%) Adobe Captivate
8 3 (0.32%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.11%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.11%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.11%) SOLIDWORKS
9 1 (0.11%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 18 (1.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (1.83%) Remedy ITSM
3 12 (1.29%) Primavera
4 6 (0.65%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 5 (0.54%) Shopify
6 4 (0.43%) Oracle Financials
6 4 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.32%) Aladdin
7 3 (0.32%) Fidessa
7 3 (0.32%) Maximo
7 3 (0.32%) SAP MM
7 3 (0.32%) SimCorp Dimension
8 2 (0.22%) IntelliMatch
8 2 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
8 2 (0.22%) Teamcenter
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 1 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
9 1 (0.11%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 195 (21.04%) Microsoft 365
2 90 (9.71%) Azure
3 45 (4.85%) Power Platform
4 35 (3.78%) Google Workspace
5 31 (3.34%) AWS
6 13 (1.40%) Azure DevOps
6 13 (1.40%) Entra ID
7 11 (1.19%) SaaS
8 10 (1.08%) GCP
8 10 (1.08%) OneDrive
9 8 (0.86%) GitHub
10 7 (0.76%) Amazon SageMaker
10 7 (0.76%) Dagster
10 7 (0.76%) GitHub Actions
10 7 (0.76%) Google Analytics
10 7 (0.76%) Google Tag Manager
10 7 (0.76%) Lucidchart
11 6 (0.65%) Figma
12 5 (0.54%) Dynamics 365
12 5 (0.54%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 48 (5.18%) Wireless
2 41 (4.42%) VPN
3 39 (4.21%) Wi-Fi
4 38 (4.10%) TCP/IP
5 36 (3.88%) Firewall
6 33 (3.56%) LAN
7 31 (3.34%) Skype
8 28 (3.02%) WAN
9 26 (2.80%) DNS
10 20 (2.16%) DHCP
11 19 (2.05%) Network Security
12 15 (1.62%) Ethernet
13 11 (1.19%) MPLS
14 10 (1.08%) Cisco IOS
14 10 (1.08%) VLAN
15 8 (0.86%) Internet
16 6 (0.65%) BGP
17 5 (0.54%) NetScaler
17 5 (0.54%) Structured Cabling
17 5 (0.54%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (4.53%) Power BI
2 14 (1.51%) SQL Server
3 6 (0.65%) Oracle Database
3 6 (0.65%) Relational Database
4 5 (0.54%) BigQuery
4 5 (0.54%) Electronic Patient Records
4 5 (0.54%) Looker
4 5 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
4 5 (0.54%) Tableau
5 4 (0.43%) Azure SQL Database
5 4 (0.43%) EDMS
5 4 (0.43%) RDBMS
5 4 (0.43%) SQLPlus
6 3 (0.32%) MySQL
6 3 (0.32%) Power Query
7 2 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (0.22%) DB2
7 2 (0.22%) GIS
7 2 (0.22%) Metadata
7 2 (0.22%) Spotfire
Development Applications
1 108 (11.65%) JIRA
2 13 (1.40%) Burp Suite
2 13 (1.40%) Metasploit
3 8 (0.86%) Git
3 8 (0.86%) MLflow
3 8 (0.86%) Toad
4 5 (0.54%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.43%) Subversion
6 3 (0.32%) Android Studio
6 3 (0.32%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.32%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 2 (0.22%) JMeter
7 2 (0.22%) PVCS
7 2 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.22%) Tricentis qTest
8 1 (0.11%) Ant
8 1 (0.11%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.11%) ClearCase
8 1 (0.11%) JUnit
8 1 (0.11%) TestDirector
General
1 558 (60.19%) Social Skills
2 261 (28.16%) Finance
3 198 (21.36%) Analytical Skills
4 127 (13.70%) Organisational Skills
5 113 (12.19%) Public Sector
6 73 (7.87%) Banking
7 55 (5.93%) Manufacturing
8 53 (5.72%) Marketing
9 51 (5.50%) Legal
9 51 (5.50%) Telecoms
10 41 (4.42%) Military
11 40 (4.31%) Presentation Skills
12 36 (3.88%) Electronics
13 27 (2.91%) Documentation Skills
13 27 (2.91%) Influencing Skills
14 26 (2.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 26 (2.80%) Pharmaceutical
15 15 (1.62%) Investment Banking
16 13 (1.40%) Retail
17 11 (1.19%) Law
Job Titles
1 173 (18.66%) Analyst
2 86 (9.28%) IT Support
3 58 (6.26%) Business Analyst
4 51 (5.50%) 2nd Line Support
5 50 (5.39%) Administrator
5 50 (5.39%) Architect
6 45 (4.85%) Desktop Support
7 43 (4.64%) Support Engineer
8 39 (4.21%) Support Officer
9 37 (3.99%) Senior
10 35 (3.78%) Lead
11 32 (3.45%) Support Analyst
12 31 (3.34%) Project Manager
13 30 (3.24%) Service Architect
14 26 (2.80%) Project Officer
15 24 (2.59%) Coordinator
15 24 (2.59%) IT Engineer
15 24 (2.59%) Project Support Officer
15 24 (2.59%) Service Analyst
16 23 (2.48%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (0.86%) Web Services
2 7 (0.76%) NumPy
2 7 (0.76%) Pandas
2 7 (0.76%) scikit-learn
2 7 (0.76%) Seaborn
2 7 (0.76%) SOAP
3 6 (0.65%) REST
4 5 (0.54%) XML
5 4 (0.43%) .NET
5 4 (0.43%) FHIR
5 4 (0.43%) NETCONF
5 4 (0.43%) OpenConfig
5 4 (0.43%) RESTCONF
5 4 (0.43%) YANG
6 3 (0.32%) Microsoft Graph
6 3 (0.32%) Oracle Fusion
7 2 (0.22%) ADO
7 2 (0.22%) HTML
7 2 (0.22%) JDO
7 2 (0.22%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 51 (5.50%) Management Information System
1 51 (5.50%) Self-Motivation
2 50 (5.39%) Onboarding
3 43 (4.64%) Data Centre
4 41 (4.42%) Product Ownership
5 26 (2.80%) Driving Licence
6 17 (1.83%) Data Protection Act
6 17 (1.83%) NHS
7 16 (1.73%) Enterprise Software
7 16 (1.73%) Industry 4.0
7 16 (1.73%) Robotics
8 15 (1.62%) Mobile App
9 14 (1.51%) PMI
9 14 (1.51%) Security Posture
10 13 (1.40%) Insider Threat
11 12 (1.29%) Analytical Mindset
12 10 (1.08%) Virtual Team
13 9 (0.97%) Social Media
14 8 (0.86%) e-Learning
14 8 (0.86%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 227 (24.49%) Windows
2 95 (10.25%) Windows 10
3 72 (7.77%) Android
4 47 (5.07%) Linux
4 47 (5.07%) Mac OS
5 24 (2.59%) Apple iOS
6 19 (2.05%) Windows Server
7 14 (1.51%) Windows 7
8 12 (1.29%) Unix
9 10 (1.08%) Windows Server 2016
10 8 (0.86%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.65%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 4 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.32%) AIX
13 3 (0.32%) CentOS
14 2 (0.22%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 223 (24.06%) Problem-Solving
2 161 (17.37%) Agile
3 150 (16.18%) Project Management
4 143 (15.43%) Customer Service
5 118 (12.73%) Stakeholder Management
6 109 (11.76%) Continuous Improvement
7 107 (11.54%) ITIL
8 102 (11.00%) Project Delivery
9 83 (8.95%) PRINCE2
9 83 (8.95%) Service Management
10 76 (8.20%) Change Management
11 75 (8.09%) Business Intelligence
12 71 (7.66%) Decision-Making
13 68 (7.34%) Analytical Thinking
14 67 (7.23%) Time Management
15 57 (6.15%) Waterfall
16 56 (6.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 55 (5.93%) AI
17 55 (5.93%) Critical Thinking
18 54 (5.83%) Acceptance Criteria
Programming Languages
1 63 (6.80%) SQL
2 36 (3.88%) PowerShell
3 29 (3.13%) Python
4 17 (1.83%) VB
5 10 (1.08%) PHP
6 9 (0.97%) VBScript
7 8 (0.86%) PL/SQL
8 7 (0.76%) JavaScript
9 5 (0.54%) Java
9 5 (0.54%) Perl
9 5 (0.54%) VBA
10 4 (0.43%) R
11 3 (0.32%) C
11 3 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
11 3 (0.32%) Shell Script
11 3 (0.32%) T-SQL
12 2 (0.22%) C++
13 1 (0.11%) Bash
13 1 (0.11%) Korn
Qualifications
1 311 (33.55%) Degree
2 252 (27.18%) Security Cleared
3 199 (21.47%) SC Cleared
4 58 (6.26%) DV Cleared
5 30 (3.24%) PMI Certification
5 30 (3.24%) TOGAF Certification
6 28 (3.02%) PMP
7 18 (1.94%) Microsoft Certification
8 17 (1.83%) APMP
8 17 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
9 16 (1.73%) Computer Science Degree
9 16 (1.73%) CTC Cleared
10 14 (1.51%) ITIL Certification
11 13 (1.40%) CHECK Team Member
12 12 (1.29%) CBAP
12 12 (1.29%) Master's Degree
12 12 (1.29%) MCSE
12 12 (1.29%) Postgraduate
13 11 (1.19%) CREST Certified
13 11 (1.19%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 98 (10.57%) PMO
2 41 (4.42%) QA
3 32 (3.45%) SLA
4 26 (2.80%) GDPR
5 25 (2.70%) Data Quality
6 19 (2.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 16 (1.73%) PCI DSS
8 15 (1.62%) Accessibility
9 8 (0.86%) P3O
10 6 (0.65%) ISO 9001
11 5 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
11 5 (0.54%) MiFID
12 4 (0.43%) NIST
13 3 (0.32%) Disclosure Scotland
13 3 (0.32%) ECSS
13 3 (0.32%) HL7
13 3 (0.32%) ISO 20022
14 2 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 2 (0.22%) SOC 2
14 2 (0.22%) WCAG
System Software
1 102 (11.00%) Active Directory
2 11 (1.19%) Docker
3 10 (1.08%) BitLocker
3 10 (1.08%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (0.54%) Hyper-V
5 5 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
5 5 (0.54%) XenApp
5 5 (0.54%) XenDesktop
6 1 (0.11%) Citrix Presentation Server
6 1 (0.11%) Firmware
6 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.11%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.11%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 40 (4.31%) SCCM
2 30 (3.24%) OPNET
3 24 (2.59%) Microsoft Intune
4 13 (1.40%) Nmap
5 9 (0.97%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 8 (0.86%) Ansible
7 7 (0.76%) HP Quality Center
8 5 (0.54%) Kubernetes
8 5 (0.54%) SCOM
8 5 (0.54%) SCVMM
8 5 (0.54%) TeamSite
9 4 (0.43%) HP ALM
9 4 (0.43%) vCenter Server
9 4 (0.43%) WSUS
10 3 (0.32%) PaperCut
10 3 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.32%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 3 (0.32%) Terraform
11 1 (0.11%) Jamf Pro
11 1 (0.11%) Puppet
Vendors
1 601 (64.83%) Microsoft
2 82 (8.85%) SAP
3 69 (7.44%) ServiceNow
4 63 (6.80%) Cisco
5 60 (6.47%) Remedy
6 54 (5.83%) HP
7 51 (5.50%) Apple
8 45 (4.85%) Atlassian
9 38 (4.10%) Google
10 34 (3.67%) Dell
11 26 (2.80%) Oracle
12 24 (2.59%) Citrix
13 15 (1.62%) MobileIron
13 15 (1.62%) Siemens
14 14 (1.51%) VMware
15 13 (1.40%) Adobe
16 9 (0.97%) Planview
16 9 (0.97%) Salesforce
17 6 (0.65%) Ariba
17 6 (0.65%) Thales