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 27 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 109 86 58
Rank change year-on-year -23 -28 +22
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Office 979 889 1,514
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.36% 2.90% 3.43%
As % of the Applications category 33.64% 37.38% 41.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 533 550 886
10th Percentile £163 £150 £148
25th Percentile £205 £200 £188
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £350 £300 £265
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% +13.21% -29.71%
75th Percentile £538 £506 £499
90th Percentile £690 £600 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £250 £230
% change year-on-year +30.00% +8.73% -34.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 149 60 282
10th Percentile £12.50 £15.26 £11.79
25th Percentile £13.63 £18.75 £13.30
Median hourly rate £17.60 £24.09 £16.36
Median % change year-on-year -26.94% +47.25% -27.29%
75th Percentile £25.15 £31.52 £28.51
90th Percentile £48.91 £42.63 £48.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.36 £24.18 £16.06
% change year-on-year -32.36% +50.56% -25.30%

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 2,910 2,378 3,631
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 7.01% 7.76% 8.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,700 1,429 1,978
10th Percentile £203 £176 £161
25th Percentile £316 £250 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% - -8.57%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £550
90th Percentile £650 £638 £664
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £356 £350
% change year-on-year +19.38% +1.71% -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 334 197 561
10th Percentile £12.95 £15.44 £12.13
25th Percentile £15.50 £17.50 £14.27
Median hourly rate £19.71 £27.35 £19.75
Median % change year-on-year -27.95% +38.48% -40.15%
75th Percentile £29.41 £44.50 £43.75
90th Percentile £63.10 £77.90 £57.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £27.35 £19.50
% change year-on-year -30.53% +40.26% -40.91%

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 27 February 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 27 February 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 27 February 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 -22 888 £375 +20.47% 396
UK excluding London -17 700 £325 +30.00% 370
London -50 243 £413 +6.31% 70
Work from Home -40 202 £400 - 155
South East +2 179 £425 +30.77% 116
North of England -37 168 £247 +6.83% 87
South West -7 122 £700 +211.11% 43
North West -13 103 £270 +8.00% 55
Midlands -31 91 £272 -28.17% 66
East of England +2 79 £200 -23.08% 43
West Midlands -39 59 £304 -28.53% 39
Yorkshire -59 55 £290 +28.89% 23
East Midlands -8 32 £185 -7.50% 26
Wales +12 28 £246 -52.76% 8
Scotland -31 21 £284 +43.07% 14
Northern Ireland +1 15 £350 +118.75% 4
North East -17 10 £175 -5.41% 10

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
1 143 (14.61%) SharePoint
2 98 (10.01%) Confluence
3 84 (8.58%) Microsoft Exchange
4 21 (2.15%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (0.41%) CMS
5 4 (0.41%) Exchange Server 2013
5 4 (0.41%) HCL Notes
6 3 (0.31%) Mattermost
7 1 (0.10%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.10%) SAS
Applications
1 316 (32.28%) Microsoft Excel
2 188 (19.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 91 (9.30%) Microsoft Project
4 83 (8.48%) MS Visio
5 12 (1.23%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.82%) Trello
7 5 (0.51%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 4 (0.41%) Adobe Captivate
9 3 (0.31%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.20%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.10%) AutoCAD
11 1 (0.10%) Photoshop
11 1 (0.10%) ProjectWise
11 1 (0.10%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 24 (2.45%) Remedy ITSM
2 17 (1.74%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (1.02%) Primavera
4 6 (0.61%) Oracle Financials
4 6 (0.61%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 4 (0.41%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.41%) Shopify
6 3 (0.31%) Aladdin
6 3 (0.31%) Fidessa
6 3 (0.31%) Maximo
6 3 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
6 3 (0.31%) SimCorp Dimension
7 2 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
7 2 (0.20%) IntelliMatch
7 2 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.20%) Oracle EBS R12
7 2 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.20%) SAP MM
7 2 (0.20%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.10%) SAP EHS
Cloud Services
1 216 (22.06%) Microsoft 365
2 97 (9.91%) Azure
3 47 (4.80%) Power Platform
4 36 (3.68%) Google Workspace
5 28 (2.86%) AWS
6 17 (1.74%) OneDrive
7 15 (1.53%) Entra ID
8 14 (1.43%) Lucidchart
9 13 (1.33%) OCI
10 11 (1.12%) GCP
11 10 (1.02%) Azure DevOps
11 10 (1.02%) SaaS
12 9 (0.92%) Google Tag Manager
13 8 (0.82%) Google Analytics
14 5 (0.51%) Dynamics 365
14 5 (0.51%) Figma
14 5 (0.51%) GitHub
14 5 (0.51%) OpenShift
15 4 (0.41%) Amazon SageMaker
15 4 (0.41%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 54 (5.52%) Wireless
2 47 (4.80%) VPN
3 46 (4.70%) TCP/IP
4 43 (4.39%) Skype
5 40 (4.09%) Wi-Fi
6 38 (3.88%) LAN
7 37 (3.78%) DNS
8 36 (3.68%) Firewall
9 33 (3.37%) WAN
10 32 (3.27%) DHCP
11 18 (1.84%) Network Security
12 15 (1.53%) Ethernet
13 10 (1.02%) Cisco IOS
13 10 (1.02%) MPLS
13 10 (1.02%) Structured Cabling
13 10 (1.02%) VLAN
14 9 (0.92%) Internet
15 5 (0.51%) BGP
15 5 (0.51%) SSH
15 5 (0.51%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (4.60%) Power BI
2 15 (1.53%) SQL Server
3 8 (0.82%) Relational Database
4 7 (0.72%) BigQuery
4 7 (0.72%) Looker
4 7 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
5 6 (0.61%) Oracle Database
6 5 (0.51%) Power Query
6 5 (0.51%) Tableau
7 4 (0.41%) Azure SQL Database
7 4 (0.41%) EDMS
7 4 (0.41%) RDBMS
7 4 (0.41%) SQLPlus
8 3 (0.31%) Electronic Patient Records
8 3 (0.31%) Metadata
8 3 (0.31%) MySQL
9 2 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.20%) DB2
9 2 (0.20%) GIS
9 2 (0.20%) Spotfire
Development Applications
1 106 (10.83%) JIRA
2 13 (1.33%) Burp Suite
2 13 (1.33%) Metasploit
3 8 (0.82%) Toad
4 5 (0.51%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.51%) MLflow
5 4 (0.41%) Git
6 3 (0.31%) Android Studio
6 3 (0.31%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.31%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 3 (0.31%) Subversion
7 2 (0.20%) Hudson
7 2 (0.20%) JMeter
7 2 (0.20%) PVCS
7 2 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.20%) Tricentis qTest
8 1 (0.10%) Ant
8 1 (0.10%) ClearCase
8 1 (0.10%) JUnit
8 1 (0.10%) TestDirector
General
1 597 (60.98%) Social Skills
2 287 (29.32%) Finance
3 215 (21.96%) Analytical Skills
4 137 (13.99%) Organisational Skills
5 117 (11.95%) Public Sector
6 72 (7.35%) Banking
7 65 (6.64%) Manufacturing
8 54 (5.52%) Legal
8 54 (5.52%) Marketing
9 53 (5.41%) Telecoms
10 40 (4.09%) Military
10 40 (4.09%) Presentation Skills
11 37 (3.78%) Electronics
12 29 (2.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 28 (2.86%) Influencing Skills
14 26 (2.66%) Documentation Skills
15 23 (2.35%) Pharmaceutical
16 15 (1.53%) Investment Banking
17 11 (1.12%) Retail
18 9 (0.92%) Law
Job Titles
1 191 (19.51%) Analyst
2 97 (9.91%) IT Support
3 59 (6.03%) 2nd Line Support
4 58 (5.92%) Business Analyst
5 57 (5.82%) Support Engineer
6 54 (5.52%) Desktop Support
7 50 (5.11%) Architect
8 46 (4.70%) Administrator
8 46 (4.70%) Support Analyst
9 41 (4.19%) Support Officer
10 39 (3.98%) Senior
11 32 (3.27%) Project Manager
12 31 (3.17%) Lead
13 30 (3.06%) Service Architect
14 28 (2.86%) IT Engineer
15 27 (2.76%) Coordinator
16 25 (2.55%) Project Officer
16 25 (2.55%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
17 24 (2.45%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
17 24 (2.45%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (0.72%) Web Services
2 6 (0.61%) REST
2 6 (0.61%) SOAP
3 5 (0.51%) XML
4 4 (0.41%) .NET
4 4 (0.41%) NumPy
4 4 (0.41%) Oracle Fusion
4 4 (0.41%) Pandas
4 4 (0.41%) scikit-learn
4 4 (0.41%) Seaborn
5 3 (0.31%) NETCONF
5 3 (0.31%) OpenConfig
5 3 (0.31%) RESTCONF
5 3 (0.31%) YANG
6 2 (0.20%) ADO
6 2 (0.20%) FHIR
6 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Graph
7 1 (0.10%) CSS
7 1 (0.10%) HTML
7 1 (0.10%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 51 (5.21%) Data Centre
1 51 (5.21%) Management Information System
2 47 (4.80%) Onboarding
3 44 (4.49%) Self-Motivation
4 40 (4.09%) Product Ownership
5 30 (3.06%) Driving Licence
6 18 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
6 18 (1.84%) NHS
7 17 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
7 17 (1.74%) Mobile App
8 16 (1.63%) Industry 4.0
8 16 (1.63%) Robotics
9 14 (1.43%) PMI
9 14 (1.43%) Security Posture
10 12 (1.23%) Insider Threat
11 11 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
11 11 (1.12%) PKI
11 11 (1.12%) Virtual Team
12 8 (0.82%) Client/Server
12 8 (0.82%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 257 (26.25%) Windows
2 109 (11.13%) Windows 10
3 80 (8.17%) Android
4 54 (5.52%) Mac OS
5 51 (5.21%) Linux
6 33 (3.37%) Apple iOS
7 27 (2.76%) Windows Server
8 15 (1.53%) Windows 7
9 14 (1.43%) Unix
10 12 (1.23%) Windows Server 2016
11 9 (0.92%) Windows Server 2019
12 8 (0.82%) Ubuntu
13 4 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 4 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.31%) AIX
14 3 (0.31%) CentOS
15 2 (0.20%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 234 (23.90%) Problem-Solving
2 161 (16.45%) Agile
3 158 (16.14%) Customer Service
4 153 (15.63%) Project Management
5 131 (13.38%) ITIL
6 119 (12.16%) Stakeholder Management
7 110 (11.24%) Continuous Improvement
8 104 (10.62%) Project Delivery
9 96 (9.81%) Service Management
10 84 (8.58%) PRINCE2
11 80 (8.17%) Business Intelligence
12 79 (8.07%) Change Management
13 70 (7.15%) Decision-Making
14 65 (6.64%) Time Management
15 63 (6.44%) Analytical Thinking
16 62 (6.33%) Service Delivery
17 60 (6.13%) Critical Thinking
17 60 (6.13%) ITSM
18 59 (6.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 57 (5.82%) Acceptance Criteria
Programming Languages
1 80 (8.17%) SQL
2 46 (4.70%) PowerShell
3 28 (2.86%) Python
4 18 (1.84%) VB
5 10 (1.02%) PL/SQL
6 9 (0.92%) PHP
6 9 (0.92%) VBScript
7 7 (0.72%) JavaScript
8 6 (0.61%) Java
9 5 (0.51%) Perl
9 5 (0.51%) R
10 4 (0.41%) VBA
11 3 (0.31%) C
11 3 (0.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
11 3 (0.31%) Shell Script
11 3 (0.31%) T-SQL
12 2 (0.20%) C#
12 2 (0.20%) C++
12 2 (0.20%) Korn
Qualifications
1 318 (32.48%) Degree
2 255 (26.05%) Security Cleared
3 206 (21.04%) SC Cleared
4 57 (5.82%) DV Cleared
5 30 (3.06%) TOGAF Certification
6 29 (2.96%) PMI Certification
7 27 (2.76%) PMP
8 26 (2.66%) ITIL Certification
9 23 (2.35%) Microsoft Certification
10 17 (1.74%) APMP
10 17 (1.74%) Computer Science Degree
11 16 (1.63%) MCSE
12 15 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
12 15 (1.53%) CTC Cleared
13 14 (1.43%) Cisco Certification
13 14 (1.43%) Master's Degree
14 13 (1.33%) CHECK Team Member
15 12 (1.23%) Postgraduate
16 11 (1.12%) CBAP
16 11 (1.12%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (9.91%) PMO
2 43 (4.39%) QA
3 32 (3.27%) SLA
4 26 (2.66%) Data Quality
4 26 (2.66%) GDPR
5 19 (1.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 15 (1.53%) Accessibility
6 15 (1.53%) PCI DSS
7 11 (1.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 7 (0.72%) P3O
9 6 (0.61%) ISO 9001
10 5 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
11 4 (0.41%) MiFID
11 4 (0.41%) NIST
12 3 (0.31%) Disclosure Scotland
12 3 (0.31%) ECSS
12 3 (0.31%) ISO 20022
13 2 (0.20%) COBIT
13 2 (0.20%) SOC 2
14 1 (0.10%) GRC
System Software
1 133 (13.59%) Active Directory
2 14 (1.43%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (1.02%) BitLocker
4 8 (0.82%) Docker
5 7 (0.72%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.61%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 6 (0.61%) Virtual Servers
7 5 (0.51%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.51%) XenApp
7 5 (0.51%) XenDesktop
8 1 (0.10%) Citrix Presentation Server
8 1 (0.10%) Firmware
8 1 (0.10%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 52 (5.31%) SCCM
2 31 (3.17%) Microsoft Intune
3 30 (3.06%) OPNET
4 13 (1.33%) Nmap
5 11 (1.12%) SCOM
6 9 (0.92%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 9 (0.92%) WSUS
7 8 (0.82%) HP Quality Center
8 7 (0.72%) Ansible
8 7 (0.72%) HP SiteScope
9 5 (0.51%) HP ALM
9 5 (0.51%) Kubernetes
9 5 (0.51%) SCVMM
9 5 (0.51%) TeamSite
10 4 (0.41%) vCenter Server
11 3 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
11 3 (0.31%) PaperCut
11 3 (0.31%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.31%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 3 (0.31%) Terraform
Vendors
1 631 (64.45%) Microsoft
2 84 (8.58%) SAP
3 79 (8.07%) ServiceNow
4 73 (7.46%) Cisco
5 68 (6.95%) Remedy
6 57 (5.82%) Apple
6 57 (5.82%) HP
7 42 (4.29%) Atlassian
8 39 (3.98%) Google
9 38 (3.88%) Dell
9 38 (3.88%) Oracle
10 23 (2.35%) Citrix
11 18 (1.84%) VMware
12 16 (1.63%) Siemens
13 15 (1.53%) MobileIron
14 14 (1.43%) Splunk
15 10 (1.02%) Adobe
15 10 (1.02%) Planview
16 9 (0.92%) Veeam
17 8 (0.82%) Salesforce