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 24 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 104 79 60
Rank change year-on-year -25 -19 +26
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Office 964 934 1,519
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.54% 2.95% 3.45%
As % of the Applications category 34.10% 39.71% 41.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 544 574 922
10th Percentile £163 £150 £148
25th Percentile £203 £193 £195
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £350 £300 £267
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% +12.36% -28.80%
75th Percentile £538 £503 £500
90th Percentile £695 £613 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £250 £240
% change year-on-year +30.00% +4.17% -23.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 143 60 205
10th Percentile £12.50 £15.26 £11.77
25th Percentile £13.72 £19.75 £13.29
Median hourly rate £17.60 £24.62 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.52% +40.70% -20.45%
75th Percentile £25.15 £35.00 £28.75
90th Percentile £41.12 £43.75 £48.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.35 £24.59 £17.32
% change year-on-year -33.50% +41.95% -15.88%

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 2,827 2,352 3,659
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 7.44% 7.44% 8.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,655 1,386 2,063
10th Percentile £200 £170 £163
25th Percentile £313 £250 £219
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £550
90th Percentile £666 £647 £667
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £356 £350
% change year-on-year +19.38% +1.71% -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 337 204 425
10th Percentile £12.79 £15.62 £12.05
25th Percentile £15.50 £16.08 £14.18
Median hourly rate £19.91 £26.42 £21.12
Median % change year-on-year -24.63% +25.11% -27.81%
75th Percentile £29.61 £43.75 £42.50
90th Percentile £62.44 £73.88 £53.21
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.82 £26.50 £21.01
% change year-on-year -28.98% +26.13% -34.16%

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 24 January 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 24 January 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 24 January 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 -25 879 £366 +22.00% 610
UK excluding London -12 675 £325 +30.00% 572
London -34 259 £400 +10.34% 121
Work from Home -38 205 £425 +17.24% 196
South East -3 177 £453 +43.65% 184
North of England -30 164 £240 +6.67% 138
South West +1 121 £700 +211.11% 58
North West -4 105 £263 +5.00% 61
Midlands -36 90 £253 -19.60% 103
East of England +4 63 £350 +42.86% 65
West Midlands -57 56 £275 -34.91% 61
Yorkshire -53 49 £290 +31.82% 62
East Midlands -2 35 £185 -11.90% 42
Wales 0 24 £251 -50.98% 19
Scotland -41 23 £358 +46.12% 21
Northern Ireland +1 16 £315 +96.88% 5
North East -16 10 £175 +16.67% 18

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
1 156 (16.18%) SharePoint
2 99 (10.27%) Confluence
3 90 (9.34%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (3.53%) Skype for Business
5 11 (1.14%) Exchange Server 2013
6 8 (0.83%) IIS
7 7 (0.73%) Mattermost
8 4 (0.41%) Exchange Server 2003
8 4 (0.41%) Exchange Server 2007
8 4 (0.41%) Exchange Server 2010
8 4 (0.41%) HCL Notes
8 4 (0.41%) Office Communications Server
8 4 (0.41%) SharePoint Server
9 3 (0.31%) CMS
10 1 (0.10%) Apache Airflow
10 1 (0.10%) Apache Spark
10 1 (0.10%) SAS
Applications
1 309 (32.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 186 (19.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 95 (9.85%) Microsoft Project
4 88 (9.13%) MS Visio
5 13 (1.35%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.83%) Trello
7 5 (0.52%) Adobe Captivate
7 5 (0.52%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 3 (0.31%) Adobe Illustrator
8 3 (0.31%) Photoshop
9 2 (0.21%) Adobe After Effects
9 2 (0.21%) Adobe Premiere
9 2 (0.21%) InDesign
9 2 (0.21%) Oracle Smart View
10 1 (0.10%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.10%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 29 (3.01%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (1.35%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.93%) Primavera
4 6 (0.62%) Oracle Financials
5 5 (0.52%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 4 (0.41%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.41%) Shopify
7 3 (0.31%) Maximo
7 3 (0.31%) Oracle EBS R12
8 2 (0.21%) Dynamics GP
8 2 (0.21%) IntelliMatch
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
8 2 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.21%) SAP HCM
8 2 (0.21%) SAP Payroll
8 2 (0.21%) Teamcenter
9 1 (0.10%) Aladdin
9 1 (0.10%) iTrent
Cloud Services
1 215 (22.30%) Microsoft 365
2 102 (10.58%) Azure
3 52 (5.39%) Power Platform
4 34 (3.53%) Google Workspace
5 25 (2.59%) OneDrive
6 22 (2.28%) AWS
7 14 (1.45%) Entra ID
8 13 (1.35%) Azure DevOps
8 13 (1.35%) Lucidchart
8 13 (1.35%) OCI
9 12 (1.24%) GCP
10 10 (1.04%) Google Tag Manager
11 9 (0.93%) Google Analytics
12 8 (0.83%) GitHub
13 7 (0.73%) Dynamics 365
14 5 (0.52%) Figma
14 5 (0.52%) OpenShift
14 5 (0.52%) Power Automate
14 5 (0.52%) SaaS
15 4 (0.41%) Smartsheet
Communications & Networking
1 56 (5.81%) Wireless
2 49 (5.08%) Skype
3 48 (4.98%) VPN
4 44 (4.56%) DNS
5 40 (4.15%) LAN
6 38 (3.94%) Wi-Fi
7 37 (3.84%) DHCP
8 35 (3.63%) WAN
9 34 (3.53%) Firewall
10 32 (3.32%) TCP/IP
11 18 (1.87%) Network Security
12 12 (1.24%) Structured Cabling
13 10 (1.04%) SSH
13 10 (1.04%) VLAN
14 9 (0.93%) Cisco IOS
15 8 (0.83%) MPLS
16 7 (0.73%) Internet
17 6 (0.62%) Unified Communications
18 5 (0.52%) SAN
19 4 (0.41%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (5.08%) Power BI
2 13 (1.35%) SQL Server
3 11 (1.14%) Oracle Database
4 9 (0.93%) Tableau
5 8 (0.83%) BigQuery
5 8 (0.83%) Looker
6 7 (0.73%) Power Query
6 7 (0.73%) Relational Database
7 5 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
8 4 (0.41%) Azure SQL Database
8 4 (0.41%) EDMS
8 4 (0.41%) RDBMS
8 4 (0.41%) SQLPlus
9 3 (0.31%) Electronic Patient Records
9 3 (0.31%) Metadata
9 3 (0.31%) MySQL
10 2 (0.21%) DB2
10 2 (0.21%) Hadoop
10 2 (0.21%) MongoDB
10 2 (0.21%) Spotfire
Development Applications
1 115 (11.93%) JIRA
2 12 (1.24%) Burp Suite
2 12 (1.24%) Metasploit
3 6 (0.62%) ClearCase
3 6 (0.62%) Toad
4 5 (0.52%) Bitbucket
4 5 (0.52%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.31%) Android Studio
5 3 (0.31%) PVCS
5 3 (0.31%) Subversion
6 2 (0.21%) Git
6 2 (0.21%) Hudson
6 2 (0.21%) MLflow
6 2 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.10%) Ant
7 1 (0.10%) JMeter
7 1 (0.10%) JUnit
7 1 (0.10%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.10%) TestDirector
7 1 (0.10%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 579 (60.06%) Social Skills
2 288 (29.88%) Finance
3 205 (21.27%) Analytical Skills
4 131 (13.59%) Organisational Skills
5 117 (12.14%) Public Sector
6 70 (7.26%) Banking
7 65 (6.74%) Manufacturing
8 51 (5.29%) Marketing
9 50 (5.19%) Telecoms
10 47 (4.88%) Legal
10 47 (4.88%) Military
11 38 (3.94%) Electronics
12 21 (2.18%) Documentation Skills
13 20 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
13 20 (2.07%) Presentation Skills
14 19 (1.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 14 (1.45%) Pharmaceutical
16 13 (1.35%) Investment Banking
17 11 (1.14%) Retail
18 9 (0.93%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 201 (20.85%) Analyst
2 107 (11.10%) IT Support
3 71 (7.37%) Support Engineer
4 63 (6.54%) 2nd Line Support
5 61 (6.33%) Support Analyst
6 56 (5.81%) Desktop Support
7 52 (5.39%) Business Analyst
8 48 (4.98%) Architect
9 44 (4.56%) Administrator
10 39 (4.05%) Support Officer
11 38 (3.94%) Senior
12 32 (3.32%) Lead
12 32 (3.32%) Project Manager
13 30 (3.11%) IT Engineer
13 30 (3.11%) Service Architect
14 29 (3.01%) Coordinator
15 25 (2.59%) IT Support Engineer
15 25 (2.59%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
16 24 (2.49%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
16 24 (2.49%) Desktop Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (0.73%) Web Services
2 6 (0.62%) REST
2 6 (0.62%) XML
3 5 (0.52%) .NET
3 5 (0.52%) SOAP
4 4 (0.41%) Oracle Fusion
5 3 (0.31%) ADO
6 2 (0.21%) FHIR
6 2 (0.21%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.21%) OpenConfig
6 2 (0.21%) RESTCONF
6 2 (0.21%) WF
6 2 (0.21%) YANG
7 1 (0.10%) CrewAI
7 1 (0.10%) EDI
7 1 (0.10%) IBM Integration Bus
7 1 (0.10%) LangChain
7 1 (0.10%) LangGraph
7 1 (0.10%) Middleware
7 1 (0.10%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 51 (5.29%) Data Centre
2 48 (4.98%) Management Information System
3 43 (4.46%) Onboarding
4 39 (4.05%) Product Ownership
5 33 (3.42%) Driving Licence
6 30 (3.11%) Self-Motivation
7 19 (1.97%) Enterprise Software
7 19 (1.97%) Mobile App
8 17 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
9 16 (1.66%) NHS
9 16 (1.66%) PKI
9 16 (1.66%) Virtual Team
10 13 (1.35%) Security Posture
11 12 (1.24%) Insider Threat
12 11 (1.14%) PMI
13 8 (0.83%) Analytical Mindset
13 8 (0.83%) Tandem
14 7 (0.73%) CMDB
14 7 (0.73%) Replication
14 7 (0.73%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 262 (27.18%) Windows
2 105 (10.89%) Windows 10
3 85 (8.82%) Android
4 65 (6.74%) Mac OS
5 59 (6.12%) Linux
6 37 (3.84%) Apple iOS
7 26 (2.70%) Windows Server
8 17 (1.76%) Unix
8 17 (1.76%) Windows 7
9 14 (1.45%) Windows Server 2016
10 11 (1.14%) Windows Server 2019
11 7 (0.73%) Ubuntu
12 4 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 4 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
12 4 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.31%) CentOS
14 2 (0.21%) AIX
14 2 (0.21%) Windows 8
15 1 (0.10%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 213 (22.10%) Problem-Solving
2 174 (18.05%) Agile
3 170 (17.63%) Project Management
4 153 (15.87%) ITIL
5 136 (14.11%) Customer Service
6 131 (13.59%) Stakeholder Management
7 107 (11.10%) Continuous Improvement
8 104 (10.79%) Project Delivery
9 98 (10.17%) Service Management
10 89 (9.23%) Business Intelligence
11 83 (8.61%) PRINCE2
12 80 (8.30%) Change Management
13 66 (6.85%) ITSM
14 61 (6.33%) Service Delivery
15 60 (6.22%) Information Security
16 59 (6.12%) Analytical Thinking
17 57 (5.91%) Critical Thinking
18 56 (5.81%) Waterfall
19 54 (5.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
20 52 (5.39%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 80 (8.30%) SQL
2 50 (5.19%) PowerShell
3 26 (2.70%) Python
4 14 (1.45%) VB
5 10 (1.04%) Java
6 9 (0.93%) VBScript
7 8 (0.83%) C
7 8 (0.83%) JavaScript
7 8 (0.83%) PHP
7 8 (0.83%) PL/SQL
8 7 (0.73%) R
8 7 (0.73%) Shell Script
9 5 (0.52%) Perl
10 4 (0.41%) C#
10 4 (0.41%) VBA
11 3 (0.31%) C++
11 3 (0.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 2 (0.21%) Korn
13 1 (0.10%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.10%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 296 (30.71%) Degree
2 248 (25.73%) Security Cleared
3 190 (19.71%) SC Cleared
4 65 (6.74%) DV Cleared
5 32 (3.32%) ITIL Certification
6 30 (3.11%) TOGAF Certification
7 27 (2.80%) PMI Certification
8 25 (2.59%) PMP
9 22 (2.28%) Computer Science Degree
9 22 (2.28%) Microsoft Certification
10 17 (1.76%) APMP
11 15 (1.56%) MCSE
12 14 (1.45%) Cisco Certification
12 14 (1.45%) CTC Cleared
13 13 (1.35%) Master's Degree
14 12 (1.24%) A+ Certification
14 12 (1.24%) BPSS Clearance
14 12 (1.24%) CHECK Team Member
15 11 (1.14%) Postgraduate
16 10 (1.04%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 98 (10.17%) PMO
2 43 (4.46%) QA
3 33 (3.42%) SLA
4 25 (2.59%) GDPR
5 21 (2.18%) Data Quality
6 18 (1.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 15 (1.56%) Accessibility
8 14 (1.45%) PCI DSS
9 12 (1.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 7 (0.73%) P3O
11 5 (0.52%) ISO 9001
12 4 (0.41%) Disclosure Scotland
13 3 (0.31%) ECSS
13 3 (0.31%) ISO 20022
14 2 (0.21%) COBIT
14 2 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials
14 2 (0.21%) MiFID
14 2 (0.21%) NIST
15 1 (0.10%) HL7
15 1 (0.10%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 151 (15.66%) Active Directory
2 12 (1.24%) BitLocker
3 11 (1.14%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.83%) Virtual Desktop
5 6 (0.62%) Microsoft Virtual Server
5 6 (0.62%) Virtual Servers
6 5 (0.52%) Docker
6 5 (0.52%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.52%) XenApp
7 4 (0.41%) Brightmail
7 4 (0.41%) ISA Server
7 4 (0.41%) XenDesktop
8 3 (0.31%) Firmware
8 3 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 54 (5.60%) SCCM
2 37 (3.84%) Microsoft Intune
3 30 (3.11%) OPNET
4 19 (1.97%) SCOM
5 15 (1.56%) HP SiteScope
6 12 (1.24%) Nmap
7 8 (0.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 8 (0.83%) WSUS
8 6 (0.62%) Ansible
9 5 (0.52%) Kubernetes
9 5 (0.52%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
9 5 (0.52%) Terraform
10 4 (0.41%) HP Quality Center
10 4 (0.41%) Microsoft Clustering
10 4 (0.41%) SCVMM
10 4 (0.41%) TeamSite
11 3 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
11 3 (0.31%) PaperCut
11 3 (0.31%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.21%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 617 (64.00%) Microsoft
2 80 (8.30%) SAP
3 76 (7.88%) ServiceNow
4 75 (7.78%) Cisco
5 71 (7.37%) Remedy
6 61 (6.33%) Apple
7 56 (5.81%) HP
8 44 (4.56%) Dell
9 43 (4.46%) Atlassian
10 41 (4.25%) Oracle
11 36 (3.73%) Google
12 23 (2.39%) Splunk
13 17 (1.76%) Citrix
14 16 (1.66%) VMware
15 15 (1.56%) MobileIron
16 10 (1.04%) Adobe
16 10 (1.04%) IBM
16 10 (1.04%) Planview
16 10 (1.04%) Salesforce
17 9 (0.93%) Veeam