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

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 123 86 57
Rank change year-on-year -37 -29 +27
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Office 934 832 1,531
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.16% 2.84% 3.44%
As % of the Applications category 31.90% 35.56% 42.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 514 525 860
10th Percentile £163 £154 £144
25th Percentile £206 £200 £188
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £350 £320 £268
Median % change year-on-year +9.38% +19.63% -30.07%
75th Percentile £525 £518 £488
90th Percentile £689 £600 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £341 £250 £227
% change year-on-year +36.20% +9.93% -30.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 150 72 322
10th Percentile £12.48 £13.57 £11.00
25th Percentile £13.72 £15.62 £12.63
Median hourly rate £17.72 £20.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -11.41% +24.53% -29.03%
75th Percentile £25.50 £24.66 £26.15
90th Percentile £61.79 £33.98 £48.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.36 £19.38 £15.85
% change year-on-year -15.59% +22.29% -21.24%

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 2,928 2,340 3,640
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 6.77% 7.98% 8.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,702 1,428 1,913
10th Percentile £206 £182 £160
25th Percentile £325 £252 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% - -6.98%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £538
90th Percentile £650 £638 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £363 £350
% change year-on-year +17.24% +3.57% -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 350 222 627
10th Percentile £13.11 £14.84 £11.50
25th Percentile £15.69 £16.26 £14.00
Median hourly rate £19.91 £26.42 £19.38
Median % change year-on-year -24.63% +36.35% -44.64%
75th Percentile £29.50 £45.00 £42.76
90th Percentile £60.16 £76.13 £57.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.04 £27.13 £17.80
% change year-on-year -29.82% +52.39% -47.65%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -30 842 £375 +15.38% 569
UK excluding London -20 667 £341 +36.20% 498
London -48 228 £400 -5.60% 143
Work from Home -57 188 £375 -6.25% 203
South East -2 175 £425 +25.93% 159
North of England -35 156 £290 +25.00% 122
South West -15 107 £700 +111.32% 51
North West -21 95 £300 +20.00% 64
Midlands -41 88 £301 -10.74% 83
East of England +2 81 £190 -36.67% 54
West Midlands -49 56 £313 -26.35% 55
Yorkshire -54 52 £290 +25.13% 43
East Midlands -25 32 £190 -5.00% 28
Wales +7 28 £246 -50.75% 15
Scotland -31 22 £290 +45.00% 22
Northern Ireland +2 13 £350 +118.75% 1
North East -12 9 £175 +1.45% 16

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
1 117 (12.53%) SharePoint
2 94 (10.06%) Confluence
3 70 (7.49%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (1.07%) Skype for Business
5 7 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.54%) 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
1 315 (33.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 183 (19.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 92 (9.85%) Microsoft Project
4 71 (7.60%) MS Visio
5 11 (1.18%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (0.64%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 6 (0.64%) 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 (1.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (1.82%) Remedy ITSM
3 12 (1.28%) Primavera
4 6 (0.64%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 5 (0.54%) Shopify
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 (0.21%) 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 (21.41%) Microsoft 365
2 88 (9.42%) Azure
3 42 (4.50%) Power Platform
4 34 (3.64%) Google Workspace
5 31 (3.32%) AWS
6 13 (1.39%) Entra ID
7 11 (1.18%) Azure DevOps
8 10 (1.07%) GCP
8 10 (1.07%) OneDrive
8 10 (1.07%) SaaS
9 8 (0.86%) GitHub
10 7 (0.75%) Amazon SageMaker
10 7 (0.75%) Dagster
10 7 (0.75%) GitHub Actions
10 7 (0.75%) Google Analytics
10 7 (0.75%) Google Tag Manager
10 7 (0.75%) Lucidchart
11 6 (0.64%) Figma
12 5 (0.54%) Dynamics 365
12 5 (0.54%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 54 (5.78%) Wireless
2 43 (4.60%) VPN
3 40 (4.28%) TCP/IP
4 39 (4.18%) Wi-Fi
5 36 (3.85%) Firewall
6 35 (3.75%) LAN
7 32 (3.43%) Skype
8 30 (3.21%) WAN
9 28 (3.00%) DNS
10 22 (2.36%) DHCP
11 19 (2.03%) Network Security
12 15 (1.61%) Ethernet
13 11 (1.18%) MPLS
14 10 (1.07%) Cisco IOS
14 10 (1.07%) VLAN
15 8 (0.86%) Internet
16 7 (0.75%) Structured Cabling
17 6 (0.64%) BGP
18 5 (0.54%) NetScaler
18 5 (0.54%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (4.18%) Power BI
2 14 (1.50%) SQL Server
3 7 (0.75%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.64%) Oracle Database
5 5 (0.54%) BigQuery
5 5 (0.54%) Electronic Patient Records
5 5 (0.54%) Looker
5 5 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
5 5 (0.54%) Tableau
6 4 (0.43%) Azure SQL Database
6 4 (0.43%) EDMS
6 4 (0.43%) RDBMS
6 4 (0.43%) SQLPlus
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%) GIS
8 2 (0.21%) Metadata
8 2 (0.21%) Spotfire
Development Applications
1 107 (11.46%) JIRA
2 13 (1.39%) Burp Suite
2 13 (1.39%) Metasploit
3 8 (0.86%) MLflow
3 8 (0.86%) Toad
4 7 (0.75%) Git
5 5 (0.54%) 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%) ClearCase
8 1 (0.11%) JUnit
8 1 (0.11%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.11%) TestDirector
General
1 561 (60.06%) Social Skills
2 267 (28.59%) Finance
3 202 (21.63%) Analytical Skills
4 129 (13.81%) Organisational Skills
5 114 (12.21%) Public Sector
6 73 (7.82%) Banking
7 57 (6.10%) Manufacturing
8 54 (5.78%) Legal
9 53 (5.67%) Marketing
10 51 (5.46%) Telecoms
11 40 (4.28%) Military
12 39 (4.18%) Presentation Skills
13 36 (3.85%) Electronics
14 27 (2.89%) Documentation Skills
14 27 (2.89%) Influencing Skills
15 26 (2.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 25 (2.68%) Pharmaceutical
17 15 (1.61%) Investment Banking
18 13 (1.39%) Retail
19 10 (1.07%) Law
Job Titles
1 173 (18.52%) Analyst
2 87 (9.31%) IT Support
3 57 (6.10%) Business Analyst
4 53 (5.67%) 2nd Line Support
5 50 (5.35%) Architect
6 47 (5.03%) Desktop Support
7 46 (4.93%) Administrator
8 45 (4.82%) Support Engineer
9 40 (4.28%) Support Officer
10 38 (4.07%) Senior
11 36 (3.85%) Lead
12 34 (3.64%) Support Analyst
13 32 (3.43%) Project Manager
14 30 (3.21%) Service Architect
15 26 (2.78%) Project Officer
16 24 (2.57%) IT Engineer
16 24 (2.57%) Project Support Officer
16 24 (2.57%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
17 23 (2.46%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
17 23 (2.46%) Coordinator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (0.86%) Web Services
2 7 (0.75%) NumPy
2 7 (0.75%) Pandas
2 7 (0.75%) scikit-learn
2 7 (0.75%) Seaborn
2 7 (0.75%) SOAP
3 6 (0.64%) 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 (0.21%) ADO
8 1 (0.11%) CSS
8 1 (0.11%) Kafka
8 1 (0.11%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 52 (5.57%) Management Information System
2 51 (5.46%) Onboarding
3 50 (5.35%) Self-Motivation
4 48 (5.14%) Data Centre
5 41 (4.39%) Product Ownership
6 29 (3.10%) Driving Licence
7 19 (2.03%) NHS
8 16 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
8 16 (1.71%) Industry 4.0
8 16 (1.71%) Robotics
9 15 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
9 15 (1.61%) Mobile App
10 14 (1.50%) Security Posture
11 13 (1.39%) Analytical Mindset
11 13 (1.39%) Insider Threat
11 13 (1.39%) PMI
12 11 (1.18%) Virtual Team
13 9 (0.96%) Social Media
14 8 (0.86%) e-Learning
14 8 (0.86%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 233 (24.95%) Windows
2 97 (10.39%) Windows 10
3 74 (7.92%) Android
4 51 (5.46%) Mac OS
5 48 (5.14%) Linux
6 24 (2.57%) Apple iOS
7 22 (2.36%) Windows Server
8 14 (1.50%) Windows 7
9 12 (1.28%) Unix
10 10 (1.07%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.86%) Ubuntu
12 6 (0.64%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 4 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.32%) AIX
14 3 (0.32%) CentOS
15 2 (0.21%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 223 (23.88%) Problem-Solving
2 158 (16.92%) Agile
3 150 (16.06%) Project Management
4 143 (15.31%) Customer Service
5 115 (12.31%) Stakeholder Management
6 111 (11.88%) Continuous Improvement
7 110 (11.78%) ITIL
8 102 (10.92%) Project Delivery
9 85 (9.10%) Service Management
10 84 (8.99%) PRINCE2
11 79 (8.46%) Change Management
12 74 (7.92%) Business Intelligence
13 70 (7.49%) Decision-Making
14 68 (7.28%) Analytical Thinking
15 66 (7.07%) Time Management
16 58 (6.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 56 (6.00%) Critical Thinking
18 55 (5.89%) Service Delivery
19 54 (5.78%) Acceptance Criteria
20 53 (5.67%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 66 (7.07%) SQL
2 37 (3.96%) PowerShell
3 28 (3.00%) Python
4 18 (1.93%) VB
5 10 (1.07%) PHP
6 9 (0.96%) PL/SQL
6 9 (0.96%) VBScript
7 6 (0.64%) Java
7 6 (0.64%) JavaScript
8 5 (0.54%) Perl
8 5 (0.54%) VBA
9 4 (0.43%) R
10 3 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 3 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
10 3 (0.32%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.32%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.21%) C
12 1 (0.11%) C#
12 1 (0.11%) C++
12 1 (0.11%) Korn
Qualifications
1 311 (33.30%) Degree
2 254 (27.19%) Security Cleared
3 202 (21.63%) SC Cleared
4 58 (6.21%) DV Cleared
5 30 (3.21%) TOGAF Certification
6 28 (3.00%) PMI Certification
7 27 (2.89%) PMP
8 19 (2.03%) Microsoft Certification
9 17 (1.82%) APMP
10 16 (1.71%) BPSS Clearance
10 16 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
10 16 (1.71%) CTC Cleared
11 14 (1.50%) ITIL Certification
12 13 (1.39%) CHECK Team Member
12 13 (1.39%) MCSE
13 12 (1.28%) CBAP
13 12 (1.28%) Master's Degree
13 12 (1.28%) Postgraduate
14 11 (1.18%) CREST Certified
14 11 (1.18%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (10.39%) PMO
2 41 (4.39%) QA
3 30 (3.21%) SLA
4 26 (2.78%) GDPR
5 25 (2.68%) Data Quality
6 19 (2.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 16 (1.71%) PCI DSS
8 15 (1.61%) Accessibility
9 8 (0.86%) P3O
10 6 (0.64%) ISO 9001
11 5 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
11 5 (0.54%) MiFID
12 4 (0.43%) NIST
12 4 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 3 (0.32%) Disclosure Scotland
13 3 (0.32%) ECSS
13 3 (0.32%) HL7
13 3 (0.32%) ISO 20022
14 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
14 2 (0.21%) WCAG
System Software
1 107 (11.46%) Active Directory
2 11 (1.18%) Docker
2 11 (1.18%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (1.07%) BitLocker
4 7 (0.75%) 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 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 2 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.11%) Citrix Presentation Server
7 1 (0.11%) Firmware
7 1 (0.11%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.11%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 43 (4.60%) SCCM
2 30 (3.21%) OPNET
3 25 (2.68%) Microsoft Intune
4 13 (1.39%) Nmap
5 9 (0.96%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 8 (0.86%) Ansible
6 8 (0.86%) HP Quality Center
7 5 (0.54%) HP ALM
7 5 (0.54%) Kubernetes
7 5 (0.54%) SCOM
7 5 (0.54%) SCVMM
7 5 (0.54%) TeamSite
7 5 (0.54%) WSUS
8 4 (0.43%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.32%) PaperCut
9 3 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
9 3 (0.32%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
9 3 (0.32%) Terraform
10 1 (0.11%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.11%) Puppet
Vendors
1 604 (64.67%) Microsoft
2 82 (8.78%) SAP
3 73 (7.82%) ServiceNow
4 67 (7.17%) Cisco
5 60 (6.42%) Remedy
6 58 (6.21%) HP
7 53 (5.67%) Apple
8 45 (4.82%) Atlassian
9 37 (3.96%) Dell
10 36 (3.85%) Google
11 25 (2.68%) Oracle
12 24 (2.57%) Citrix
13 15 (1.61%) MobileIron
13 15 (1.61%) Siemens
13 15 (1.61%) VMware
14 14 (1.50%) Adobe
15 9 (0.96%) Salesforce
16 6 (0.64%) Ariba
16 6 (0.64%) Planview
16 6 (0.64%) Thales