Microsoft Contract Job Trends in the South East

Microsoft
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South East requiring knowledge or experience of Microsoft products and/or services. It includes a benchmarking guide to contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Microsoft over the 6 months leading up to 21 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

The figures below represent the IT contractor job market in general and are not representative of contractor rates within the Microsoft Corporation.

6 months to
21 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 8 3
Rank change year-on-year +1 -5 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 600 471 867
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 13.51% 14.36% 16.75%
As % of the Vendors category 27.54% 28.67% 32.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 429 327 599
10th Percentile £203 £200 £163
25th Percentile £263 £336 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £458 £460
Median % change year-on-year +3.83% -0.54% +2.22%
75th Percentile £565 £582 £575
90th Percentile £642 £653 £650
England median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 14 48
10th Percentile £12.50 £15.96 £11.84
25th Percentile £14.50 £19.98 £14.00
Median hourly rate £17.50 £25.00 £22.61
Median % change year-on-year -30.00% +10.58% +22.20%
75th Percentile £21.00 £40.88 £55.35
90th Percentile £49.46 £57.62 £61.68
England median hourly rate £19.91 £22.39 £19.12
% change year-on-year -11.06% +17.08% -8.95%

All Vendors
South East

Microsoft falls under the Vendor Products and Services category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of all vendor products and services in the South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 2,179 1,643 2,647
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 49.07% 50.11% 51.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,573 1,063 1,690
10th Percentile £255 £237 £205
25th Percentile £406 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -0.10%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £606
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 135 48 146
10th Percentile £12.60 £19.99 £13.17
25th Percentile £16.50 £24.18 £21.00
Median hourly rate £22.50 £40.25 £54.78
Median % change year-on-year -44.10% -26.52% +49.06%
75th Percentile £60.00 £64.06 £64.69
90th Percentile £84.40 £74.91 £76.53
England median hourly rate £23.83 £30.00 £35.50
% change year-on-year -20.58% -15.49% +9.23%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Microsoft relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Microsoft job vacancy trend in the South East

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Microsoft.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in the South East over the 6 months to 21 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the South East

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Microsoft.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in the South East over the 6 months to 21 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the South East

Microsoft
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft within the South East region over the 6 months to 21 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
Thames Valley +2 287 £475 -0.78% 275
Berkshire +1 189 £480 -4.00% 148
Hampshire 0 138 £535 +7.00% 140
Surrey +7 74 £244 -25.86% 114
Buckinghamshire -2 72 £470 +9.30% 79
West Sussex -7 35 £286 -34.10% 64
Kent 0 28 £450 +111.76% 103
Oxfordshire +1 26 £275 -18.52% 48
East Sussex +7 25 £575 +9.52% 53
Sussex 0 11 £463 +5.11% 10
Microsoft
England

Microsoft
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 59 (9.83%) SharePoint
2 48 (8.00%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (2.17%) Skype for Business
4 8 (1.33%) Confluence
5 7 (1.17%) Exchange Server 2010
5 7 (1.17%) Mattermost
6 6 (1.00%) Exchange Server 2013
6 6 (1.00%) SharePoint Server
7 5 (0.83%) Exchange Server 2003
7 5 (0.83%) Exchange Server 2007
7 5 (0.83%) Office Communications Server
8 2 (0.33%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.33%) CMS
8 2 (0.33%) GeoServer
8 2 (0.33%) MS Project Server
8 2 (0.33%) Smallworld
9 1 (0.17%) BizTalk Server
9 1 (0.17%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 121 (20.17%) Microsoft Office
2 66 (11.00%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (4.00%) Microsoft Project
4 21 (3.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (1.50%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.17%) SOLIDWORKS
6 1 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 10 (1.67%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.17%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.50%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.33%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.33%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.33%) SAP CO
5 2 (0.33%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.33%) SAP FI/CO
6 1 (0.17%) iTrent
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.17%) Sage 50
6 1 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.17%) SAP EWM
6 1 (0.17%) SAP WM
6 1 (0.17%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 162 (27.00%) Azure
2 141 (23.50%) Microsoft 365
3 66 (11.00%) Entra ID
4 64 (10.67%) AWS
5 57 (9.50%) Power Platform
6 31 (5.17%) Dynamics 365
7 30 (5.00%) SaaS
8 24 (4.00%) Microsoft Purview
9 23 (3.83%) OneDrive
10 21 (3.50%) Power Automate
11 20 (3.33%) Azure DevOps
12 19 (3.17%) PowerApps
13 18 (3.00%) GitHub
13 18 (3.00%) Sauce Labs
14 16 (2.67%) Google Workspace
15 15 (2.50%) GCP
15 15 (2.50%) Serverless
16 12 (2.00%) Azure Functions
17 10 (1.67%) IaaS
17 10 (1.67%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 49 (8.17%) DNS
2 40 (6.67%) DHCP
3 36 (6.00%) Firewall
4 23 (3.83%) TCP/IP
5 19 (3.17%) Wi-Fi
5 19 (3.17%) Wireless
6 17 (2.83%) VPN
7 15 (2.50%) VLAN
8 12 (2.00%) Unified Communications
9 11 (1.83%) SAN
10 9 (1.50%) 4G
10 9 (1.50%) Network Security
11 8 (1.33%) Skype
12 7 (1.17%) WebEx
13 6 (1.00%) Fibre Channel
13 6 (1.00%) VSAN
14 5 (0.83%) DDNS
14 5 (0.83%) WAN
15 4 (0.67%) SSL
15 4 (0.67%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (6.67%) SQL Server
2 38 (6.33%) Power BI
3 28 (4.67%) Relational Database
4 21 (3.50%) MySQL
5 16 (2.67%) Oracle Database
6 12 (2.00%) Azure SQL Database
7 9 (1.50%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7 9 (1.50%) Metadata
8 8 (1.33%) Data Warehouse
9 7 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
10 6 (1.00%) RDBMS
11 5 (0.83%) Data Lake
12 4 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
12 4 (0.67%) MongoDB
12 4 (0.67%) Oracle Reports
13 3 (0.50%) GIS
13 3 (0.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 3 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 2 (0.33%) Apache Cassandra
14 2 (0.33%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 21 (3.50%) Android Studio
2 19 (3.17%) Browser DevTools
3 18 (3.00%) Eclipse
3 18 (3.00%) Xcode
4 13 (2.17%) JIRA
5 9 (1.50%) Git
5 9 (1.50%) Jenkins
6 5 (0.83%) JUnit
7 4 (0.67%) Gradle
8 3 (0.50%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.50%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.50%) Maven
8 3 (0.50%) MSI
8 3 (0.50%) Subversion
9 2 (0.33%) JMeter
9 2 (0.33%) Oracle APEX
9 2 (0.33%) Oracle Forms
9 2 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.17%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.17%) Gatling
General
1 229 (38.17%) Social Skills
2 97 (16.17%) Finance
3 72 (12.00%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (9.83%) Organisational Skills
5 45 (7.50%) Public Sector
6 18 (3.00%) Manufacturing
7 13 (2.17%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (1.67%) Influencing Skills
8 10 (1.67%) Retail
9 9 (1.50%) Legal
10 7 (1.17%) Marketing
10 7 (1.17%) Presentation Skills
10 7 (1.17%) Telecoms
11 5 (0.83%) Military
12 4 (0.67%) Banking
12 4 (0.67%) Billing
12 4 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.50%) Automotive
13 3 (0.50%) Aviation
13 3 (0.50%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 95 (15.83%) Architect
2 77 (12.83%) Support Engineer
3 71 (11.83%) Analyst
4 53 (8.83%) IT Support
5 42 (7.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 41 (6.83%) Senior
7 29 (4.83%) Developer
8 24 (4.00%) IT Engineer
9 23 (3.83%) Technical Support
10 22 (3.67%) Solutions Architect
11 21 (3.50%) Infrastructure Architect
11 21 (3.50%) Infrastructure Support
11 21 (3.50%) Technical Engineer
11 21 (3.50%) Technical Support Engineer
12 20 (3.33%) Consultant
12 20 (3.33%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
12 20 (3.33%) IT Support Engineer
12 20 (3.33%) Support Officer
13 19 (3.17%) Lead
13 19 (3.17%) UX Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.67%) React
2 21 (3.50%) GraphQL
3 19 (3.17%) .NET
3 19 (3.17%) Ajax
3 19 (3.17%) AngularJS
3 19 (3.17%) CSS
4 11 (1.83%) REST
5 8 (1.33%) OAuth
6 7 (1.17%) ARM Templates
6 7 (1.17%) SAML
6 7 (1.17%) Spring
7 5 (0.83%) ADO
7 5 (0.83%) LDAP
7 5 (0.83%) Middleware
7 5 (0.83%) OpenID
8 4 (0.67%) OAuth2
8 4 (0.67%) SailPoint
9 3 (0.50%) Microsoft Graph
9 3 (0.50%) PySpark
9 3 (0.50%) Vert.x
Miscellaneous
1 33 (5.50%) PKI
2 30 (5.00%) Onboarding
3 29 (4.83%) Analytical Mindset
4 23 (3.83%) Mobile App
5 16 (2.67%) Enterprise Software
5 16 (2.67%) Management Information System
6 15 (2.50%) Driving Licence
7 14 (2.33%) Product Ownership
7 14 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
8 13 (2.17%) Fat Client
8 13 (2.17%) Thin Client
9 12 (2.00%) Operational Technology
10 11 (1.83%) Replication
11 10 (1.67%) Video Conferencing
12 9 (1.50%) Cloud Native
12 9 (1.50%) Data Centre
12 9 (1.50%) Security Operations Centre
13 7 (1.17%) Cyber Defence
14 5 (0.83%) CMDB
14 5 (0.83%) Handset
Operating Systems
1 195 (32.50%) Windows
2 79 (13.17%) Linux
3 39 (6.50%) Windows 10
4 31 (5.17%) Windows Server
5 23 (3.83%) Android
5 23 (3.83%) Unix
6 12 (2.00%) Mac OS
6 12 (2.00%) Windows 7
7 9 (1.50%) Windows Server 2019
8 7 (1.17%) Windows Server 2016
9 6 (1.00%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.83%) Windows Server 2003
11 3 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 2 (0.33%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.33%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.17%) CentOS
13 1 (0.17%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 103 (17.17%) Problem-Solving
2 80 (13.33%) Agile
3 73 (12.17%) ITIL
4 66 (11.00%) Cybersecurity
5 65 (10.83%) Customer Service
6 52 (8.67%) Business Intelligence
6 52 (8.67%) Stakeholder Management
7 51 (8.50%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 48 (8.00%) DevOps
9 44 (7.33%) Continuous Improvement
9 44 (7.33%) Project Management
10 41 (6.83%) Migration
11 38 (6.33%) CI/CD
11 38 (6.33%) Project Delivery
11 38 (6.33%) Time Management
12 34 (5.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 33 (5.50%) Validation
14 32 (5.33%) SIEM
15 31 (5.17%) Collaborative Working
15 31 (5.17%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 72 (12.00%) Python
2 67 (11.17%) PowerShell
3 66 (11.00%) SQL
4 33 (5.50%) Java
5 29 (4.83%) JavaScript
6 20 (3.33%) Perl
7 13 (2.17%) Bash
7 13 (2.17%) C#
8 4 (0.67%) Kusto Query Language
8 4 (0.67%) PL/SQL
8 4 (0.67%) X++
9 2 (0.33%) Go
9 2 (0.33%) PHP
9 2 (0.33%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 1 (0.17%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.17%) VB
Qualifications
1 199 (33.17%) Security Cleared
2 124 (20.67%) SC Cleared
3 69 (11.50%) DV Cleared
4 56 (9.33%) Degree
5 37 (6.17%) Microsoft Certification
6 20 (3.33%) Azure Certification
6 20 (3.33%) CISSP
7 11 (1.83%) ITIL Certification
7 11 (1.83%) Network+ Certification
7 11 (1.83%) Server+ Certification
8 10 (1.67%) GIAC
9 9 (1.50%) CISM
9 9 (1.50%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 8 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
10 8 (1.33%) DBS Check
10 8 (1.33%) PMI Certification
11 7 (1.17%) A+ Certification
11 7 (1.17%) Cisco Certification
11 7 (1.17%) Master's Degree
12 6 (1.00%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (4.00%) GDPR
1 24 (4.00%) PMO
2 23 (3.83%) NIST
3 18 (3.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 16 (2.67%) SLA
5 13 (2.17%) Data Quality
6 10 (1.67%) QA
7 6 (1.00%) Cyber Essentials
8 4 (0.67%) Accessibility
9 3 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.50%) NCSC
9 3 (0.50%) P3O
9 3 (0.50%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.50%) RMADS
10 2 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 19770
10 2 (0.33%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.17%) COSHH
11 1 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.17%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.17%) PSD2
System Software
1 155 (25.83%) Active Directory
2 48 (8.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (3.33%) Hyper-V
4 13 (2.17%) vSphere
5 10 (1.67%) VMware ESXi
6 8 (1.33%) Docker
7 7 (1.17%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.83%) Brightmail
8 5 (0.83%) ISA Server
9 4 (0.67%) NFS
9 4 (0.67%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.50%) DFS Replication
10 3 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
11 1 (0.17%) Sendmail
11 1 (0.17%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 42 (7.00%) SCCM
2 37 (6.17%) Microsoft Intune
3 20 (3.33%) Single Sign-On
4 14 (2.33%) Ansible
4 14 (2.33%) Terraform
4 14 (2.33%) WMI
5 11 (1.83%) Kubernetes
6 9 (1.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 8 (1.33%) Jamf Pro
7 8 (1.33%) SCOM
8 7 (1.17%) HP SiteScope
9 6 (1.00%) Microsoft Clustering
9 6 (1.00%) vCenter Server
10 3 (0.50%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.50%) Grafana
10 3 (0.50%) PaperCut
10 3 (0.50%) Puppet
10 3 (0.50%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 2 (0.33%) FTK
11 2 (0.33%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 67 (11.17%) VMware
2 50 (8.33%) ServiceNow
3 45 (7.50%) Oracle
4 39 (6.50%) Splunk
5 24 (4.00%) SAP
6 21 (3.50%) Cisco
7 16 (2.67%) Citrix
8 15 (2.50%) Databricks
9 9 (1.50%) CrowdStrike
9 9 (1.50%) Thales
10 7 (1.17%) CyberArk
10 7 (1.17%) Remedy
10 7 (1.17%) Tenable
11 6 (1.00%) Informatica
12 5 (0.83%) F5
12 5 (0.83%) Fortinet
12 5 (0.83%) Google
12 5 (0.83%) NetApp
12 5 (0.83%) Veeam
12 5 (0.83%) Virgin Media