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 6 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 145 91 63
Rank change year-on-year -54 -28 +17
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Office 841 818 1,379
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.77% 2.79% 3.20%
As % of the Applications category 29.20% 33.61% 40.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 457 482 755
10th Percentile £163 £155 £136
25th Percentile £256 £211 £188
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £375 £325 £256
Median % change year-on-year +15.38% +27.13% -31.83%
75th Percentile £535 £513 £488
90th Percentile £691 £606 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £250 £220
% change year-on-year +50.00% +13.64% -32.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 130 89 307
10th Percentile £12.29 £13.78 £11.00
25th Percentile £13.79 £14.66 £12.53
Median hourly rate £18.50 £17.00 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.82% +6.25% -29.72%
75th Percentile £28.49 £23.01 £23.17
90th Percentile £69.73 £26.74 £41.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.39 £16.51 £15.00
% change year-on-year +5.28% +10.08% -26.74%

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 2,880 2,434 3,403
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 6.05% 8.30% 7.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,693 1,447 1,704
10th Percentile £250 £188 £162
25th Percentile £349 £263 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £413 £400
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% +3.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £565 £540 £538
90th Percentile £650 £650 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £435 £375 £350
% change year-on-year +16.00% +7.14% -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 318 257 635
10th Percentile £13.34 £14.20 £11.57
25th Percentile £16.28 £15.62 £14.00
Median hourly rate £20.35 £23.00 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -11.52% +29.80% -45.89%
75th Percentile £33.69 £43.75 £39.44
90th Percentile £68.23 £71.50 £57.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.91 £22.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -11.51% +40.10% -48.42%

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 6 May 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 6 May 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 6 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 -56 753 £401 +23.38% 607
UK excluding London -39 576 £375 +50.00% 549
London -68 223 £413 +1.54% 145
Work from Home -53 182 £363 -9.38% 214
South East -13 148 £438 +16.67% 145
North of England -62 128 £335 +42.55% 146
South West -19 98 £688 +176.38% 62
North West -21 81 £330 +32.00% 78
Midlands -53 75 £325 +3.17% 108
East of England -9 71 £338 +37.76% 51
West Midlands -46 48 £324 -21.58% 62
Yorkshire -77 41 £340 +44.68% 47
East Midlands -20 27 £375 +87.50% 46
Scotland -35 24 £284 +13.60% 31
Wales -5 19 £189 -45.09% 17
Northern Ireland +4 15 £350 +118.75% 7
North East -23 6 £263 +34.62% 25

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
1 122 (14.51%) SharePoint
2 77 (9.16%) Confluence
3 54 (6.42%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.95%) Skype for Business
5 7 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.83%) CMS
6 2 (0.24%) HCL Notes
7 1 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.12%) Drupal
7 1 (0.12%) SAS
7 1 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 325 (38.64%) Microsoft Excel
2 205 (24.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 79 (9.39%) Microsoft Project
4 66 (7.85%) MS Visio
5 12 (1.43%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.59%) Trello
7 3 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 3 (0.36%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.24%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.12%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
9 1 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 22 (2.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.19%) Remedy ITSM
3 9 (1.07%) Primavera
4 6 (0.71%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 4 (0.48%) Finacle
5 4 (0.48%) Oracle Financials
5 4 (0.48%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.48%) SAP Business One
5 4 (0.48%) Shopify
6 3 (0.36%) Aladdin
6 3 (0.36%) Fidessa
6 3 (0.36%) Maximo
6 3 (0.36%) SAP MM
6 3 (0.36%) SimCorp Dimension
6 3 (0.36%) Teamcenter
7 2 (0.24%) assyst
7 2 (0.24%) Magento
7 2 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.12%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 1 (0.12%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 163 (19.38%) Microsoft 365
2 91 (10.82%) Azure
3 55 (6.54%) Power Platform
4 33 (3.92%) AWS
5 22 (2.62%) Google Workspace
6 19 (2.26%) Entra ID
7 16 (1.90%) SaaS
8 12 (1.43%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (1.19%) GCP
10 7 (0.83%) Amazon SageMaker
10 7 (0.83%) Dagster
10 7 (0.83%) GitHub
10 7 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
10 7 (0.83%) Google Analytics
11 6 (0.71%) Dynamics 365
11 6 (0.71%) Google Docs
11 6 (0.71%) Google Tag Manager
11 6 (0.71%) OneDrive
12 5 (0.59%) Google Sheets
12 5 (0.59%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 37 (4.40%) VPN
2 32 (3.80%) Firewall
3 31 (3.69%) TCP/IP
4 25 (2.97%) Skype
4 25 (2.97%) Wireless
5 21 (2.50%) DNS
6 18 (2.14%) LAN
6 18 (2.14%) Network Security
6 18 (2.14%) Wi-Fi
7 16 (1.90%) Ethernet
8 15 (1.78%) WAN
9 13 (1.55%) DHCP
10 8 (0.95%) Internet
11 7 (0.83%) Cisco IOS
11 7 (0.83%) MPLS
12 6 (0.71%) BGP
12 6 (0.71%) VoIP
13 5 (0.59%) NetScaler
13 5 (0.59%) TACACS
13 5 (0.59%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (6.30%) Power BI
2 15 (1.78%) SQL Server
3 10 (1.19%) Relational Database
4 9 (1.07%) Oracle Database
5 8 (0.95%) RDBMS
6 6 (0.71%) Tableau
7 5 (0.59%) Oracle Reports
8 4 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
8 4 (0.48%) BigQuery
8 4 (0.48%) Looker
8 4 (0.48%) SQLPlus
9 3 (0.36%) Data Mining
9 3 (0.36%) Metadata
9 3 (0.36%) MySQL
9 3 (0.36%) Power Query
10 2 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.24%) Electronic Patient Records
10 2 (0.24%) PowerPivot
11 1 (0.12%) EDRMS
11 1 (0.12%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 101 (12.01%) JIRA
2 13 (1.55%) Burp Suite
2 13 (1.55%) Metasploit
3 10 (1.19%) Git
4 8 (0.95%) Toad
5 7 (0.83%) MLflow
6 6 (0.71%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.71%) Subversion
7 3 (0.36%) Android Studio
7 3 (0.36%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.36%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 2 (0.24%) JMeter
8 2 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (0.24%) Tricentis qTest
9 1 (0.12%) Ant
9 1 (0.12%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.12%) JUnit
9 1 (0.12%) LabVIEW
9 1 (0.12%) PVCS
9 1 (0.12%) TestDirector
General
1 502 (59.69%) Social Skills
2 226 (26.87%) Finance
3 202 (24.02%) Analytical Skills
4 125 (14.86%) Organisational Skills
5 80 (9.51%) Public Sector
6 70 (8.32%) Banking
7 47 (5.59%) Legal
8 45 (5.35%) Military
9 42 (4.99%) Presentation Skills
10 29 (3.45%) Marketing
10 29 (3.45%) Pharmaceutical
11 27 (3.21%) Manufacturing
11 27 (3.21%) Telecoms
12 25 (2.97%) Documentation Skills
13 21 (2.50%) Influencing Skills
14 20 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 17 (2.02%) Investment Banking
15 17 (2.02%) Law
16 16 (1.90%) Retail
17 13 (1.55%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 156 (18.55%) Analyst
2 55 (6.54%) Business Analyst
3 47 (5.59%) IT Support
4 45 (5.35%) Administrator
4 45 (5.35%) Architect
5 41 (4.88%) Senior
5 41 (4.88%) Support Officer
6 37 (4.40%) Support Engineer
7 33 (3.92%) Project Officer
8 32 (3.80%) Project Support Officer
9 31 (3.69%) Project Manager
10 30 (3.57%) Service Architect
11 28 (3.33%) Support Analyst
12 27 (3.21%) Coordinator
13 26 (3.09%) Technical Engineer
14 25 (2.97%) IT Analyst
15 23 (2.73%) Lead
15 23 (2.73%) Service Analyst
16 20 (2.38%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
16 20 (2.38%) PMO Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (0.95%) Web Services
2 7 (0.83%) NumPy
2 7 (0.83%) Pandas
2 7 (0.83%) REST
2 7 (0.83%) scikit-learn
2 7 (0.83%) Seaborn
2 7 (0.83%) SOAP
3 5 (0.59%) JDO
4 4 (0.48%) .NET
4 4 (0.48%) HTML
4 4 (0.48%) NETCONF
4 4 (0.48%) OpenConfig
4 4 (0.48%) RESTCONF
4 4 (0.48%) YANG
5 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Graph
5 3 (0.36%) VML
5 3 (0.36%) XML
6 2 (0.24%) LDAP
6 2 (0.24%) Middleware
6 2 (0.24%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 54 (6.42%) Onboarding
2 49 (5.83%) Self-Motivation
3 41 (4.88%) Product Ownership
4 37 (4.40%) Management Information System
5 19 (2.26%) Data Centre
5 19 (2.26%) Robotics
6 18 (2.14%) Data Protection Act
7 17 (2.02%) Social Media
8 16 (1.90%) Industry 4.0
9 14 (1.66%) Analytical Mindset
9 14 (1.66%) Driving Licence
10 13 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
10 13 (1.55%) Security Posture
11 11 (1.31%) Life Science
11 11 (1.31%) PMI
12 10 (1.19%) Virtual Team
13 9 (1.07%) Insider Threat
13 9 (1.07%) NHS
14 8 (0.95%) Mobile App
14 8 (0.95%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 193 (22.95%) Windows
2 85 (10.11%) Windows 10
3 37 (4.40%) Android
4 26 (3.09%) Linux
5 17 (2.02%) Mac OS
5 17 (2.02%) Windows 7
5 17 (2.02%) Windows Server
6 13 (1.55%) Apple iOS
7 10 (1.19%) Windows Server 2016
8 8 (0.95%) Windows Server 2019
9 7 (0.83%) Unix
10 3 (0.36%) AIX
10 3 (0.36%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.24%) Solaris
11 2 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.12%) CentOS
12 1 (0.12%) FreeRTOS
12 1 (0.12%) MVS
12 1 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 226 (26.87%) Problem-Solving
2 155 (18.43%) Agile
3 146 (17.36%) Project Management
4 123 (14.63%) Customer Service
5 120 (14.27%) Stakeholder Management
6 104 (12.37%) Continuous Improvement
7 100 (11.89%) ITIL
7 100 (11.89%) Project Delivery
8 85 (10.11%) Service Management
9 78 (9.27%) Decision-Making
10 69 (8.20%) Change Management
10 69 (8.20%) PRINCE2
11 66 (7.85%) Analytical Thinking
12 64 (7.61%) AI
12 64 (7.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 63 (7.49%) Time Management
14 59 (7.02%) Waterfall
15 53 (6.30%) Acceptance Criteria
16 50 (5.95%) Critical Thinking
17 48 (5.71%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 57 (6.78%) SQL
2 37 (4.40%) PowerShell
3 23 (2.73%) Python
4 16 (1.90%) VB
5 10 (1.19%) PHP
6 8 (0.95%) PL/SQL
6 8 (0.95%) VBScript
7 7 (0.83%) JavaScript
8 5 (0.59%) Java
8 5 (0.59%) Perl
8 5 (0.59%) VBA
9 4 (0.48%) C
10 3 (0.36%) C++
10 3 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
10 3 (0.36%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.24%) R
11 2 (0.24%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.12%) Bash
12 1 (0.12%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.12%) Google Apps Script
Qualifications
1 309 (36.74%) Degree
2 215 (25.56%) Security Cleared
3 170 (20.21%) SC Cleared
4 43 (5.11%) DV Cleared
5 30 (3.57%) TOGAF Certification
6 27 (3.21%) PMI Certification
6 27 (3.21%) PMP
7 22 (2.62%) Microsoft Certification
8 18 (2.14%) Computer Science Degree
9 15 (1.78%) BPSS Clearance
9 15 (1.78%) DBS Check
10 14 (1.66%) APMP
10 14 (1.66%) Cisco Certification
11 13 (1.55%) CHECK Team Member
11 13 (1.55%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
12 12 (1.43%) A+ Certification
12 12 (1.43%) CBAP
13 11 (1.31%) CTC Cleared
13 11 (1.31%) IIBA
13 11 (1.31%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (10.58%) PMO
2 44 (5.23%) QA
3 34 (4.04%) SLA
4 25 (2.97%) Data Quality
4 25 (2.97%) GDPR
5 23 (2.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 17 (2.02%) PCI DSS
7 11 (1.31%) Accessibility
8 7 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials
8 7 (0.83%) ISO 9001
9 6 (0.71%) P3O
10 5 (0.59%) MiFID
10 5 (0.59%) NIST
11 3 (0.36%) ECSS
11 3 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 3 (0.36%) WCAG
12 2 (0.24%) EMIR
12 2 (0.24%) HL7
12 2 (0.24%) ISO 20022
12 2 (0.24%) SOC 2
System Software
1 93 (11.06%) Active Directory
2 11 (1.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (1.07%) BitLocker
3 9 (1.07%) Docker
4 6 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (0.59%) Hyper-V
5 5 (0.59%) VMware ESXi
5 5 (0.59%) XenApp
5 5 (0.59%) XenDesktop
6 3 (0.36%) vSphere
7 1 (0.12%) Citrix Presentation Server
7 1 (0.12%) Firmware
7 1 (0.12%) Job Entry Subsystem
7 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.12%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 38 (4.52%) SCCM
2 30 (3.57%) OPNET
3 29 (3.45%) Microsoft Intune
4 13 (1.55%) Nmap
5 10 (1.19%) Ansible
6 7 (0.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 7 (0.83%) HP Quality Center
7 5 (0.59%) SCVMM
7 5 (0.59%) TeamSite
7 5 (0.59%) vCenter Server
8 4 (0.48%) HP ALM
8 4 (0.48%) Terraform
9 3 (0.36%) Cisco Prime
9 3 (0.36%) PaperCut
9 3 (0.36%) SCOM
9 3 (0.36%) SCSM
9 3 (0.36%) Single Sign-On
9 3 (0.36%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 2 (0.24%) Cisco CUCM
10 2 (0.24%) WSUS
Vendors
1 566 (67.30%) Microsoft
2 86 (10.23%) ServiceNow
3 58 (6.90%) SAP
4 51 (6.06%) Remedy
5 43 (5.11%) Atlassian
6 40 (4.76%) Cisco
7 33 (3.92%) Google
8 30 (3.57%) Oracle
9 22 (2.62%) Citrix
10 21 (2.50%) Apple
11 19 (2.26%) HP
12 15 (1.78%) Siemens
13 13 (1.55%) Adobe
13 13 (1.55%) VMware
14 10 (1.19%) Salesforce
15 9 (1.07%) Planview
16 8 (0.95%) Dell
17 6 (0.71%) Splunk
17 6 (0.71%) Workday
18 5 (0.59%) CyberArk