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 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 122 89 57
Rank change year-on-year -33 -32 +24
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Office 945 837 1,531
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.19% 2.84% 3.44%
As % of the Applications category 32.15% 35.85% 41.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 521 525 860
10th Percentile £163 £150 £144
25th Percentile £206 £200 £188
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £350 £301 £265
Median % change year-on-year +16.47% +13.40% -31.61%
75th Percentile £535 £513 £488
90th Percentile £688 £600 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £340 £250 £230
% change year-on-year +36.00% +8.77% -32.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 151 69 326
10th Percentile £12.50 £13.50 £11.00
25th Percentile £13.72 £15.84 £12.64
Median hourly rate £17.94 £20.75 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -13.57% +29.20% -29.61%
75th Percentile £25.15 £25.00 £26.50
90th Percentile £61.57 £35.00 £48.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.71 £20.00 £16.00
% change year-on-year -16.48% +25.00% -22.29%

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 2,939 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 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 14 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 14 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 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 -27 853 £375 +18.30% 567
UK excluding London -15 677 £340 +36.00% 497
London -65 229 £400 +6.67% 142
Work from Home -48 188 £375 -6.25% 200
South East +3 173 £439 +35.00% 149
North of England -38 163 £290 +25.13% 116
South West -10 112 £700 +133.33% 54
North West -18 100 £300 +20.00% 65
Midlands -41 87 £300 -13.48% 89
East of England +1 82 £195 -25.00% 59
West Midlands -60 55 £313 -26.35% 59
Yorkshire -50 53 £290 +25.27% 37
East Midlands -17 32 £185 -7.50% 30
Wales +3 28 £246 -50.75% 16
Scotland -29 22 £290 +45.00% 22
Northern Ireland +2 13 £350 +118.75% 1
North East -15 10 £175 +1.45% 15

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
1 120 (12.70%) SharePoint
2 95 (10.05%) Confluence
3 72 (7.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 11 (1.16%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.53%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.53%) CMS
6 3 (0.32%) HCL Notes
7 1 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.11%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.11%) SAS
Applications
1 314 (33.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 179 (18.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 91 (9.63%) Microsoft Project
4 72 (7.62%) MS Visio
5 12 (1.27%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (0.63%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 6 (0.63%) Trello
7 4 (0.42%) Adobe Captivate
8 3 (0.32%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.21%) Oracle Smart View
10 1 (0.11%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.11%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.11%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 18 (1.90%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (1.80%) Remedy ITSM
3 11 (1.16%) Primavera
4 6 (0.63%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 5 (0.53%) Shopify
6 4 (0.42%) 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 (0.21%) IntelliMatch
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle Financials
8 2 (0.21%) Teamcenter
9 1 (0.11%) assyst
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 1 (0.11%) SAP EHS
Cloud Services
1 200 (21.16%) Microsoft 365
2 88 (9.31%) Azure
3 43 (4.55%) Power Platform
4 34 (3.60%) Google Workspace
5 29 (3.07%) AWS
6 13 (1.38%) Entra ID
7 11 (1.16%) GCP
7 11 (1.16%) OneDrive
7 11 (1.16%) SaaS
8 9 (0.95%) Azure DevOps
9 8 (0.85%) Google Tag Manager
9 8 (0.85%) Lucidchart
10 7 (0.74%) Google Analytics
10 7 (0.74%) OCI
11 6 (0.63%) Figma
11 6 (0.63%) GitHub
12 5 (0.53%) Amazon SageMaker
12 5 (0.53%) Dagster
12 5 (0.53%) Dynamics 365
12 5 (0.53%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 54 (5.71%) Wireless
2 45 (4.76%) VPN
3 42 (4.44%) TCP/IP
4 39 (4.13%) Wi-Fi
5 36 (3.81%) Firewall
5 36 (3.81%) LAN
6 33 (3.49%) Skype
7 31 (3.28%) DNS
7 31 (3.28%) WAN
8 25 (2.65%) DHCP
9 19 (2.01%) Network Security
10 15 (1.59%) Ethernet
11 11 (1.16%) MPLS
12 10 (1.06%) Cisco IOS
12 10 (1.06%) VLAN
13 9 (0.95%) Internet
14 7 (0.74%) Structured Cabling
15 6 (0.63%) BGP
16 5 (0.53%) NetScaler
16 5 (0.53%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (4.23%) Power BI
2 14 (1.48%) SQL Server
3 7 (0.74%) Oracle Reports
3 7 (0.74%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.63%) BigQuery
4 6 (0.63%) Looker
4 6 (0.63%) Oracle Database
5 5 (0.53%) Electronic Patient Records
5 5 (0.53%) Tableau
6 4 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
6 4 (0.42%) EDMS
6 4 (0.42%) RDBMS
6 4 (0.42%) SQLPlus
7 3 (0.32%) Metadata
7 3 (0.32%) MySQL
7 3 (0.32%) Power Query
8 2 (0.21%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.21%) DB2
8 2 (0.21%) MongoDB
8 2 (0.21%) Spotfire
Development Applications
1 108 (11.43%) JIRA
2 13 (1.38%) Burp Suite
2 13 (1.38%) Metasploit
3 8 (0.85%) Toad
4 6 (0.63%) MLflow
5 5 (0.53%) Git
5 5 (0.53%) Jenkins
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%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.11%) ClearCase
8 1 (0.11%) JUnit
8 1 (0.11%) TestDirector
General
1 568 (60.11%) Social Skills
2 269 (28.47%) Finance
3 202 (21.38%) Analytical Skills
4 133 (14.07%) Organisational Skills
5 115 (12.17%) Public Sector
6 74 (7.83%) Banking
7 58 (6.14%) Manufacturing
8 56 (5.93%) Legal
9 53 (5.61%) Marketing
10 52 (5.50%) Telecoms
11 40 (4.23%) Military
12 39 (4.13%) Presentation Skills
13 36 (3.81%) Electronics
14 27 (2.86%) Influencing Skills
15 26 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
15 26 (2.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 26 (2.75%) Pharmaceutical
16 15 (1.59%) Investment Banking
17 13 (1.38%) Retail
18 10 (1.06%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 173 (18.31%) Analyst
2 92 (9.74%) IT Support
3 57 (6.03%) Business Analyst
4 55 (5.82%) 2nd Line Support
5 50 (5.29%) Architect
6 49 (5.19%) Desktop Support
7 47 (4.97%) Support Engineer
8 46 (4.87%) Administrator
9 40 (4.23%) Support Officer
10 38 (4.02%) Senior
11 36 (3.81%) Lead
12 34 (3.60%) Support Analyst
13 30 (3.17%) Project Manager
13 30 (3.17%) Service Architect
14 27 (2.86%) IT Engineer
15 26 (2.75%) Project Officer
16 25 (2.65%) Coordinator
16 25 (2.65%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
17 24 (2.54%) Project Support Officer
17 24 (2.54%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (0.85%) Web Services
2 7 (0.74%) REST
2 7 (0.74%) SOAP
3 5 (0.53%) NumPy
3 5 (0.53%) Pandas
3 5 (0.53%) scikit-learn
3 5 (0.53%) Seaborn
3 5 (0.53%) XML
4 4 (0.42%) .NET
4 4 (0.42%) FHIR
4 4 (0.42%) NETCONF
4 4 (0.42%) OpenConfig
4 4 (0.42%) Oracle Fusion
4 4 (0.42%) RESTCONF
4 4 (0.42%) YANG
5 3 (0.32%) Microsoft Graph
6 2 (0.21%) ADO
7 1 (0.11%) CSS
7 1 (0.11%) HTML
7 1 (0.11%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 52 (5.50%) Management Information System
2 50 (5.29%) Onboarding
2 50 (5.29%) Self-Motivation
3 48 (5.08%) Data Centre
4 41 (4.34%) Product Ownership
5 30 (3.17%) Driving Licence
6 19 (2.01%) NHS
7 17 (1.80%) Data Protection Act
8 16 (1.69%) Industry 4.0
8 16 (1.69%) Robotics
9 15 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
9 15 (1.59%) Mobile App
10 14 (1.48%) Security Posture
11 13 (1.38%) Analytical Mindset
11 13 (1.38%) Insider Threat
11 13 (1.38%) PMI
12 11 (1.16%) Virtual Team
13 9 (0.95%) Social Media
13 9 (0.95%) Video Conferencing
14 8 (0.85%) e-Learning
Operating Systems
1 243 (25.71%) Windows
2 104 (11.01%) Windows 10
3 78 (8.25%) Android
4 52 (5.50%) Mac OS
5 48 (5.08%) Linux
6 29 (3.07%) Apple iOS
7 24 (2.54%) Windows Server
8 14 (1.48%) Windows 7
9 12 (1.27%) Unix
10 10 (1.06%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.85%) 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
1 225 (23.81%) Problem-Solving
2 157 (16.61%) Agile
3 153 (16.19%) Customer Service
4 146 (15.45%) Project Management
5 113 (11.96%) Stakeholder Management
6 111 (11.75%) ITIL
7 110 (11.64%) Continuous Improvement
8 101 (10.69%) Project Delivery
9 85 (8.99%) Service Management
10 82 (8.68%) PRINCE2
11 80 (8.47%) Change Management
12 76 (8.04%) Business Intelligence
13 69 (7.30%) Decision-Making
14 66 (6.98%) Analytical Thinking
14 66 (6.98%) Time Management
15 60 (6.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 58 (6.14%) Critical Thinking
17 56 (5.93%) Service Delivery
18 54 (5.71%) Acceptance Criteria
19 53 (5.61%) AI
Programming Languages
1 67 (7.09%) SQL
2 38 (4.02%) PowerShell
3 27 (2.86%) Python
4 18 (1.90%) 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
1 313 (33.12%) Degree
2 258 (27.30%) Security Cleared
3 205 (21.69%) SC Cleared
4 58 (6.14%) DV Cleared
5 30 (3.17%) TOGAF Certification
6 28 (2.96%) PMI Certification
7 25 (2.65%) PMP
8 20 (2.12%) Microsoft Certification
9 17 (1.80%) APMP
9 17 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
10 16 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
10 16 (1.69%) CTC Cleared
11 15 (1.59%) ITIL Certification
12 14 (1.48%) MCSE
13 13 (1.38%) CHECK Team Member
13 13 (1.38%) Master's Degree
14 12 (1.27%) CBAP
14 12 (1.27%) Postgraduate
15 11 (1.16%) Cisco Certification
15 11 (1.16%) CREST Certified
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (10.16%) PMO
2 41 (4.34%) QA
3 32 (3.39%) SLA
4 26 (2.75%) Data Quality
4 26 (2.75%) GDPR
5 19 (2.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 16 (1.69%) Accessibility
6 16 (1.69%) PCI DSS
7 8 (0.85%) P3O
8 6 (0.63%) ISO 9001
9 5 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
9 5 (0.53%) MiFID
9 5 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 4 (0.42%) NIST
11 3 (0.32%) Disclosure Scotland
11 3 (0.32%) ECSS
11 3 (0.32%) HL7
11 3 (0.32%) ISO 20022
12 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.21%) WCAG
System Software
1 111 (11.75%) Active Directory
2 12 (1.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (1.06%) BitLocker
4 9 (0.95%) 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
8 1 (0.11%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 45 (4.76%) SCCM
2 30 (3.17%) OPNET
3 26 (2.75%) Microsoft Intune
4 13 (1.38%) Nmap
5 9 (0.95%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 8 (0.85%) Ansible
6 8 (0.85%) HP Quality Center
7 6 (0.63%) WSUS
8 5 (0.53%) HP ALM
8 5 (0.53%) Kubernetes
8 5 (0.53%) SCOM
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 1 (0.11%) Jamf Pro
11 1 (0.11%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 611 (64.66%) Microsoft
2 83 (8.78%) SAP
3 75 (7.94%) ServiceNow
4 69 (7.30%) Cisco
5 60 (6.35%) Remedy
6 58 (6.14%) HP
7 54 (5.71%) Apple
8 45 (4.76%) Atlassian
9 37 (3.92%) Dell
9 37 (3.92%) Google
10 28 (2.96%) Oracle
11 24 (2.54%) Citrix
12 16 (1.69%) Siemens
12 16 (1.69%) VMware
13 15 (1.59%) MobileIron
14 13 (1.38%) Adobe
15 9 (0.95%) Salesforce
16 7 (0.74%) Veeam
17 6 (0.63%) Planview
17 6 (0.63%) Thales