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 9 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 118 85 57
Rank change year-on-year -33 -28 +24
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Office 947 864 1,552
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.24% 2.90% 3.47%
As % of the Applications category 32.77% 36.73% 42.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 523 541 875
10th Percentile £163 £150 £148
25th Percentile £206 £200 £188
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £350 £308 £275
Median % change year-on-year +13.82% +11.82% -30.38%
75th Percentile £535 £518 £495
90th Percentile £690 £600 £648
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £250 £245
% change year-on-year +30.00% +2.04% -30.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 149 73 329
10th Percentile £12.46 £13.64 £11.00
25th Percentile £13.57 £15.84 £12.70
Median hourly rate £17.50 £22.09 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -20.78% +37.55% -29.03%
75th Percentile £25.15 £26.19 £26.50
90th Percentile £48.91 £35.00 £48.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.35 £20.38 £15.93
% change year-on-year -19.75% +27.94% -25.93%

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 2,890 2,352 3,662
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 6.84% 7.90% 8.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,683 1,436 1,940
10th Percentile £205 £176 £159
25th Percentile £317 £250 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% - -8.83%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £538
90th Percentile £650 £638 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £350 £350
% change year-on-year +21.43% - -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 340 220 631
10th Percentile £12.95 £14.84 £11.50
25th Percentile £15.58 £16.75 £14.00
Median hourly rate £19.91 £26.50 £19.38
Median % change year-on-year -24.87% +36.77% -48.33%
75th Percentile £27.56 £46.30 £43.75
90th Percentile £60.00 £76.25 £57.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £27.13 £17.80
% change year-on-year -29.95% +52.39% -50.56%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -32 857 £367 +14.89% 561
UK excluding London -20 679 £325 +30.00% 522
London -48 231 £400 +6.38% 113
Work from Home -52 186 £375 -6.25% 200
South East +1 175 £439 +30.00% 154
North of England -37 164 £247 +8.35% 118
South West -18 111 £700 +148.89% 50
North West -10 100 £300 +20.00% 72
Midlands -45 89 £300 -28.57% 105
East of England -3 81 £195 -20.41% 70
West Midlands -48 57 £308 -29.18% 60
Yorkshire -55 54 £290 +28.89% 36
East Midlands -20 32 £185 -7.50% 43
Wales +8 29 £246 -51.95% 13
Scotland -34 20 £287 +43.50% 19
Northern Ireland 0 13 £350 +118.75% 3
North East -14 10 £175 +1.45% 11

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
1 126 (13.31%) SharePoint
2 92 (9.71%) Confluence
3 73 (7.71%) Microsoft Exchange
4 13 (1.37%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.53%) CMS
6 4 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.32%) HCL Notes
8 1 (0.11%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
8 1 (0.11%) Mattermost
8 1 (0.11%) SAS
Applications
1 314 (33.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 182 (19.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 86 (9.08%) Microsoft Project
4 75 (7.92%) MS Visio
5 12 (1.27%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (0.63%) Trello
7 5 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 4 (0.42%) Adobe Captivate
9 3 (0.32%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.21%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.11%) AutoCAD
11 1 (0.11%) Photoshop
11 1 (0.11%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 19 (2.01%) Remedy ITSM
2 18 (1.90%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (1.06%) Primavera
4 6 (0.63%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 5 (0.53%) Oracle Financials
6 4 (0.42%) Salesforce CRM
6 4 (0.42%) Shopify
7 3 (0.32%) Aladdin
7 3 (0.32%) Fidessa
7 3 (0.32%) Maximo
7 3 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.32%) SimCorp Dimension
8 2 (0.21%) IntelliMatch
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.21%) SAP MM
8 2 (0.21%) Teamcenter
9 1 (0.11%) assyst
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 1 (0.11%) SAP EHS
Cloud Services
1 204 (21.54%) Microsoft 365
2 92 (9.71%) Azure
3 44 (4.65%) Power Platform
4 36 (3.80%) Google Workspace
5 27 (2.85%) AWS
6 12 (1.27%) Entra ID
7 11 (1.16%) GCP
7 11 (1.16%) OneDrive
8 10 (1.06%) SaaS
9 9 (0.95%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (0.95%) Google Tag Manager
9 9 (0.95%) Lucidchart
10 8 (0.84%) Google Analytics
10 8 (0.84%) OCI
11 5 (0.53%) Dynamics 365
11 5 (0.53%) Figma
11 5 (0.53%) GitHub
11 5 (0.53%) OpenShift
12 4 (0.42%) Amazon SageMaker
12 4 (0.42%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 54 (5.70%) Wireless
2 44 (4.65%) VPN
3 43 (4.54%) TCP/IP
4 37 (3.91%) Wi-Fi
5 36 (3.80%) Firewall
6 35 (3.70%) LAN
6 35 (3.70%) Skype
7 31 (3.27%) WAN
8 30 (3.17%) DNS
9 25 (2.64%) DHCP
10 18 (1.90%) Network Security
11 15 (1.58%) Ethernet
12 11 (1.16%) MPLS
13 10 (1.06%) Cisco IOS
13 10 (1.06%) VLAN
14 9 (0.95%) Internet
15 8 (0.84%) Structured Cabling
16 6 (0.63%) BGP
17 5 (0.53%) NetScaler
17 5 (0.53%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (4.44%) Power BI
2 14 (1.48%) SQL Server
3 7 (0.74%) BigQuery
3 7 (0.74%) Looker
3 7 (0.74%) Oracle Reports
3 7 (0.74%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.63%) Oracle Database
5 5 (0.53%) Tableau
6 4 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
6 4 (0.42%) RDBMS
6 4 (0.42%) SQLPlus
7 3 (0.32%) EDMS
7 3 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
7 3 (0.32%) Metadata
7 3 (0.32%) MySQL
7 3 (0.32%) Power Query
8 2 (0.21%) GIS
8 2 (0.21%) Hadoop
8 2 (0.21%) MongoDB
8 2 (0.21%) Spotfire
Development Applications
1 104 (10.98%) JIRA
2 13 (1.37%) Burp Suite
2 13 (1.37%) Metasploit
3 8 (0.84%) Toad
4 5 (0.53%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.53%) MLflow
5 4 (0.42%) Git
6 3 (0.32%) Android Studio
6 3 (0.32%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.32%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 3 (0.32%) Subversion
7 2 (0.21%) JMeter
7 2 (0.21%) PVCS
7 2 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.21%) Tricentis qTest
8 1 (0.11%) Ant
8 1 (0.11%) Browser DevTools
8 1 (0.11%) ClearCase
8 1 (0.11%) JUnit
8 1 (0.11%) TestDirector
General
1 573 (60.51%) Social Skills
2 274 (28.93%) Finance
3 203 (21.44%) Analytical Skills
4 134 (14.15%) Organisational Skills
5 114 (12.04%) Public Sector
6 71 (7.50%) Banking
7 58 (6.12%) Manufacturing
8 55 (5.81%) Legal
9 52 (5.49%) Marketing
10 51 (5.39%) Telecoms
11 40 (4.22%) Military
12 39 (4.12%) Presentation Skills
13 36 (3.80%) Electronics
14 29 (3.06%) Influencing Skills
15 26 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
15 26 (2.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 24 (2.53%) Pharmaceutical
17 14 (1.48%) Investment Banking
18 11 (1.16%) Retail
19 10 (1.06%) Law
Job Titles
1 177 (18.69%) Analyst
2 94 (9.93%) IT Support
3 57 (6.02%) Business Analyst
4 55 (5.81%) 2nd Line Support
5 53 (5.60%) Support Engineer
6 51 (5.39%) Desktop Support
7 50 (5.28%) Architect
8 47 (4.96%) Administrator
9 42 (4.44%) Support Officer
10 37 (3.91%) Senior
11 36 (3.80%) Support Analyst
12 34 (3.59%) Lead
13 30 (3.17%) Service Architect
14 28 (2.96%) IT Engineer
14 28 (2.96%) Project Manager
15 26 (2.75%) Project Officer
16 25 (2.64%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
17 24 (2.53%) Coordinator
17 24 (2.53%) Project Support Officer
18 23 (2.43%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (0.84%) Web Services
2 7 (0.74%) REST
2 7 (0.74%) SOAP
3 5 (0.53%) XML
4 4 (0.42%) .NET
4 4 (0.42%) NETCONF
4 4 (0.42%) NumPy
4 4 (0.42%) OpenConfig
4 4 (0.42%) Oracle Fusion
4 4 (0.42%) Pandas
4 4 (0.42%) RESTCONF
4 4 (0.42%) scikit-learn
4 4 (0.42%) Seaborn
4 4 (0.42%) YANG
5 2 (0.21%) ADO
5 2 (0.21%) FHIR
5 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Graph
6 1 (0.11%) CSS
6 1 (0.11%) Flash
6 1 (0.11%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 51 (5.39%) Data Centre
2 50 (5.28%) Management Information System
3 47 (4.96%) Onboarding
3 47 (4.96%) Self-Motivation
4 40 (4.22%) Product Ownership
5 30 (3.17%) Driving Licence
6 18 (1.90%) NHS
7 17 (1.80%) Data Protection Act
7 17 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
8 16 (1.69%) Industry 4.0
8 16 (1.69%) Robotics
9 15 (1.58%) Mobile App
10 14 (1.48%) Security Posture
11 13 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
11 13 (1.37%) Insider Threat
11 13 (1.37%) PMI
12 11 (1.16%) Virtual Team
13 9 (0.95%) Social Media
13 9 (0.95%) Video Conferencing
14 8 (0.84%) Client/Server
Operating Systems
1 246 (25.98%) Windows
2 105 (11.09%) Windows 10
3 79 (8.34%) Android
4 51 (5.39%) Mac OS
5 49 (5.17%) Linux
6 31 (3.27%) Apple iOS
7 25 (2.64%) Windows Server
8 15 (1.58%) Windows 7
9 12 (1.27%) Unix
10 10 (1.06%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.84%) Ubuntu
12 6 (0.63%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 4 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.32%) AIX
14 3 (0.32%) CentOS
15 2 (0.21%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 228 (24.08%) Problem-Solving
2 158 (16.68%) Agile
3 157 (16.58%) Customer Service
4 145 (15.31%) Project Management
5 116 (12.25%) Stakeholder Management
6 115 (12.14%) ITIL
7 107 (11.30%) Continuous Improvement
8 103 (10.88%) Project Delivery
9 86 (9.08%) Service Management
10 82 (8.66%) PRINCE2
11 78 (8.24%) Business Intelligence
11 78 (8.24%) Change Management
12 70 (7.39%) Decision-Making
13 66 (6.97%) Time Management
14 65 (6.86%) Analytical Thinking
15 59 (6.23%) Service Delivery
15 59 (6.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 58 (6.12%) Critical Thinking
17 55 (5.81%) Acceptance Criteria
18 52 (5.49%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 69 (7.29%) SQL
2 38 (4.01%) PowerShell
3 27 (2.85%) Python
4 19 (2.01%) VB
5 10 (1.06%) PHP
5 10 (1.06%) PL/SQL
6 9 (0.95%) VBScript
7 7 (0.74%) JavaScript
8 6 (0.63%) Java
9 5 (0.53%) Perl
9 5 (0.53%) VBA
10 4 (0.42%) 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 (0.21%) C#
12 2 (0.21%) C++
12 2 (0.21%) Korn
Qualifications
1 305 (32.21%) Degree
2 253 (26.72%) Security Cleared
3 203 (21.44%) SC Cleared
4 58 (6.12%) DV Cleared
5 30 (3.17%) TOGAF Certification
6 28 (2.96%) PMI Certification
7 26 (2.75%) PMP
8 19 (2.01%) Microsoft Certification
9 18 (1.90%) ITIL Certification
10 17 (1.80%) APMP
11 16 (1.69%) BPSS Clearance
11 16 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
11 16 (1.69%) CTC Cleared
12 13 (1.37%) CHECK Team Member
12 13 (1.37%) MCSE
13 12 (1.27%) Postgraduate
14 11 (1.16%) Cisco Certification
14 11 (1.16%) CREST Certified
14 11 (1.16%) Cyber Scheme
14 11 (1.16%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 98 (10.35%) PMO
2 42 (4.44%) QA
3 32 (3.38%) SLA
4 27 (2.85%) Data Quality
5 24 (2.53%) GDPR
6 19 (2.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 15 (1.58%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.58%) PCI DSS
8 7 (0.74%) P3O
9 6 (0.63%) ISO 9001
9 6 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 5 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
11 4 (0.42%) MiFID
11 4 (0.42%) NIST
12 3 (0.32%) Disclosure Scotland
12 3 (0.32%) ECSS
12 3 (0.32%) ISO 20022
13 2 (0.21%) COBIT
13 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
14 1 (0.11%) HL7
System Software
1 117 (12.35%) Active Directory
2 11 (1.16%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (1.06%) BitLocker
4 8 (0.84%) Docker
5 7 (0.74%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.53%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.53%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (0.53%) XenApp
6 5 (0.53%) XenDesktop
7 3 (0.32%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 3 (0.32%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.11%) Citrix Presentation Server
8 1 (0.11%) Firmware
8 1 (0.11%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 46 (4.86%) SCCM
2 30 (3.17%) OPNET
3 27 (2.85%) Microsoft Intune
4 13 (1.37%) Nmap
5 9 (0.95%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 8 (0.84%) Ansible
6 8 (0.84%) HP Quality Center
7 6 (0.63%) SCOM
7 6 (0.63%) WSUS
8 5 (0.53%) HP ALM
8 5 (0.53%) Kubernetes
8 5 (0.53%) SCVMM
8 5 (0.53%) TeamSite
9 4 (0.42%) vCenter Server
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 2 (0.21%) HP SiteScope
12 1 (0.11%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 613 (64.73%) Microsoft
2 79 (8.34%) SAP
3 76 (8.03%) ServiceNow
4 69 (7.29%) Cisco
5 63 (6.65%) Remedy
6 57 (6.02%) HP
7 55 (5.81%) Apple
8 45 (4.75%) Atlassian
9 40 (4.22%) Google
10 37 (3.91%) Dell
11 31 (3.27%) Oracle
12 24 (2.53%) Citrix
13 16 (1.69%) Siemens
14 15 (1.58%) MobileIron
14 15 (1.58%) VMware
15 10 (1.06%) Adobe
16 9 (0.95%) Planview
17 7 (0.74%) Salesforce
18 6 (0.63%) IBM
18 6 (0.63%) Veeam