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 8 May 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
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 7 6
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 660 450 807
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 11.26% 15.08% 14.65%
As % of the Vendors category 26.50% 28.81% 31.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 467 302 538
10th Percentile £203 £220 £189
25th Percentile £368 £350 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £481 £465
Median % change year-on-year -1.14% +3.33% -2.11%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £660 £625 £675
England median daily rate £495 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +4.21% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 31 72
10th Percentile £12.29 - £11.71
25th Percentile £13.34 £14.20 £11.95
Median hourly rate £27.50 £15.00 £20.25
Median % change year-on-year +83.33% -25.93% +0.07%
75th Percentile £53.81 £24.38 £50.94
90th Percentile £94.30 £32.05 £61.48
England median hourly rate £20.09 £18.77 £15.00
% change year-on-year +7.06% +25.10% -28.45%

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 2,491 1,562 2,591
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 42.50% 52.35% 47.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,736 1,043 1,586
10th Percentile £295 £250 £213
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% +2.50% -
75th Percentile £610 £609 £605
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £520
% change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -2.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 153 88 180
10th Percentile £14.20 £14.20 £11.98
25th Percentile £25.72 £16.95 £16.94
Median hourly rate £50.00 £24.83 £48.75
Median % change year-on-year +101.37% -49.07% +8.33%
75th Percentile £88.00 £60.47 £61.30
90th Percentile - £72.00 £65.20
England median hourly rate £31.93 £26.45 £22.50
% change year-on-year +20.72% +17.56% -43.75%

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 8 May 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 8 May 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 8 May 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 +1 338 £482 -2.18% 261
Berkshire -9 158 £500 +4.44% 107
Hampshire -7 139 £550 +10.00% 135
Buckinghamshire -2 114 £492 -10.59% 93
Surrey +13 98 £450 -10.00% 87
Oxfordshire 0 66 £400 +6.67% 65
West Sussex -4 39 £475 +23.38% 30
Kent -2 27 £400 +52.38% 51
East Sussex -4 9 £600 +11.63% 14
Home Counties +2 4 - - 1
Sussex -2 2 £525 +5.00% 4
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 68 (10.30%) Microsoft Exchange
2 67 (10.15%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.67%) Confluence
4 3 (0.45%) ArcGIS
4 3 (0.45%) MS Project Server
4 3 (0.45%) Smallworld
5 2 (0.30%) GeoServer
6 1 (0.15%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.15%) BizTalk Server
6 1 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2010
6 1 (0.15%) SharePoint 2010
6 1 (0.15%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 84 (12.73%) Microsoft Office
2 80 (12.12%) Microsoft Excel
3 33 (5.00%) Microsoft Project
4 29 (4.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (1.82%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.30%) SOLIDWORKS
6 2 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.15%) Acrobat
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.15%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.15%) InDesign
7 1 (0.15%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.15%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.15%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (1.06%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.91%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.61%) SAP Business One
4 1 (0.15%) iTrent
4 1 (0.15%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.15%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.15%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 252 (38.18%) Azure
2 187 (28.33%) Microsoft 365
3 116 (17.58%) Entra ID
4 84 (12.73%) Power Platform
5 61 (9.24%) AWS
6 38 (5.76%) Azure DevOps
7 33 (5.00%) Power Automate
8 30 (4.55%) Dynamics 365
9 26 (3.94%) OneDrive
10 23 (3.48%) Microsoft Purview
10 23 (3.48%) SaaS
11 22 (3.33%) PowerApps
12 19 (2.88%) GitHub
12 19 (2.88%) IaaS
13 18 (2.73%) Microsoft Copilot
14 16 (2.42%) Serverless
15 15 (2.27%) Azure Functions
16 14 (2.12%) Azure Logic Apps
17 13 (1.97%) Azure Monitor
17 13 (1.97%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 55 (8.33%) DNS
2 40 (6.06%) DHCP
3 33 (5.00%) Firewall
3 33 (5.00%) Wi-Fi
4 20 (3.03%) VPN
5 17 (2.58%) LAN
6 15 (2.27%) WAN
7 12 (1.82%) Kerberos
7 12 (1.82%) TCP/IP
8 9 (1.36%) MPLS
8 9 (1.36%) Network Security
8 9 (1.36%) Unified Communications
9 8 (1.21%) SD-WAN
10 7 (1.06%) BGP
11 6 (0.91%) SAN
11 6 (0.91%) SNMP
11 6 (0.91%) SSL
11 6 (0.91%) VLAN
11 6 (0.91%) Wireless
12 5 (0.76%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (9.24%) Power BI
2 30 (4.55%) SQL Server
3 16 (2.42%) Azure SQL Database
4 13 (1.97%) MySQL
5 11 (1.67%) PostgreSQL
6 10 (1.52%) Metadata
7 8 (1.21%) Relational Database
8 7 (1.06%) Data Lake
8 7 (1.06%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (0.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 5 (0.76%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
10 5 (0.76%) Oracle Database
11 4 (0.61%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 3 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (0.45%) Data Mining
12 3 (0.45%) GIS
12 3 (0.45%) Oracle Reports
12 3 (0.45%) Star Schema
13 2 (0.30%) Geospatial Data
13 2 (0.30%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 19 (2.88%) JIRA
2 11 (1.67%) Git
3 9 (1.36%) Android Studio
4 6 (0.91%) Browser DevTools
4 6 (0.91%) Eclipse
4 6 (0.91%) Xcode
5 5 (0.76%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.76%) JUnit
6 4 (0.61%) MSI
6 4 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.45%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.45%) Gradle
7 3 (0.45%) Maven
7 3 (0.45%) Robot Framework
7 3 (0.45%) Subversion
8 2 (0.30%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.30%) JMeter
9 1 (0.15%) ERwin
9 1 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio
General
1 189 (28.64%) Social Skills
2 69 (10.45%) Finance
2 69 (10.45%) Public Sector
3 65 (9.85%) Analytical Skills
4 50 (7.58%) Organisational Skills
5 17 (2.58%) Documentation Skills
5 17 (2.58%) Legal
6 16 (2.42%) Military
7 11 (1.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 9 (1.36%) Telecoms
9 8 (1.21%) Influencing Skills
9 8 (1.21%) Manufacturing
10 7 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
11 6 (0.91%) Retail
12 5 (0.76%) Aerospace
12 5 (0.76%) Marketing
13 4 (0.61%) Advertising
13 4 (0.61%) General Ledger
13 4 (0.61%) Police
14 3 (0.45%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 91 (13.79%) Architect
2 59 (8.94%) Analyst
3 56 (8.48%) Senior
4 55 (8.33%) IT Support
5 50 (7.58%) Support Engineer
6 47 (7.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 39 (5.91%) IT Engineer
8 36 (5.45%) Lead
9 32 (4.85%) IT Support Engineer
10 31 (4.70%) Consultant
10 31 (4.70%) Developer
11 24 (3.64%) Azure Engineer
11 24 (3.64%) Solutions Architect
12 19 (2.88%) Administrator
13 18 (2.73%) IT Analyst
14 17 (2.58%) Project Manager
14 17 (2.58%) Technical Architect
15 16 (2.42%) DevOps Engineer
16 15 (2.27%) Infrastructure Architect
16 15 (2.27%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.64%) .NET
2 19 (2.88%) LDAP
3 14 (2.12%) OAuth
4 13 (1.97%) OpenID
4 13 (1.97%) SAML
5 11 (1.67%) REST
5 11 (1.67%) Web Services
6 10 (1.52%) OAuth2
6 10 (1.52%) SailPoint
7 9 (1.36%) ARM Templates
7 9 (1.36%) CSS
7 9 (1.36%) React
8 8 (1.21%) Microsoft Graph
9 7 (1.06%) ADO
10 6 (0.91%) Ajax
10 6 (0.91%) AngularJS
10 6 (0.91%) GraphQL
10 6 (0.91%) XML
11 5 (0.76%) PySpark
11 5 (0.76%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 51 (7.73%) Onboarding
2 34 (5.15%) PKI
3 20 (3.03%) Product Ownership
4 19 (2.88%) Cloud Native
5 17 (2.58%) Legacy Systems
6 16 (2.42%) Data Centre
6 16 (2.42%) Hybrid Cloud
7 15 (2.27%) Operational Technology
7 15 (2.27%) Replication
8 14 (2.12%) Public Cloud
9 13 (1.97%) Analytical Mindset
9 13 (1.97%) Self-Motivation
10 11 (1.67%) Cyber Defence
11 9 (1.36%) Driving Licence
11 9 (1.36%) Mobile App
12 8 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
12 8 (1.21%) Virtual Team
13 7 (1.06%) Security Posture
14 6 (0.91%) Data Structures
14 6 (0.91%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 188 (28.48%) Windows
2 66 (10.00%) Linux
3 52 (7.88%) Windows Server
4 19 (2.88%) Windows 10
5 14 (2.12%) Android
5 14 (2.12%) Mac OS
5 14 (2.12%) Unix
6 10 (1.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (1.36%) Windows 7
8 7 (1.06%) Apple iOS
8 7 (1.06%) Windows Server 2012
8 7 (1.06%) Windows Server 2019
9 5 (0.76%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.61%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.45%) CentOS
12 1 (0.15%) Debian
12 1 (0.15%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.15%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (14.85%) Problem-Solving
2 86 (13.03%) Agile
3 79 (11.97%) DevOps
4 73 (11.06%) ITIL
5 72 (10.91%) Business Intelligence
6 71 (10.76%) Customer Service
7 69 (10.45%) Migration
8 64 (9.70%) CI/CD
9 62 (9.39%) Cybersecurity
10 58 (8.79%) Stakeholder Management
11 55 (8.33%) Project Management
12 54 (8.18%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 53 (8.03%) Analytics
14 48 (7.27%) Project Delivery
15 42 (6.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 41 (6.21%) Decision-Making
17 39 (5.91%) SIEM
18 36 (5.45%) Roadmaps
19 35 (5.30%) Time Management
20 34 (5.15%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 100 (15.15%) PowerShell
2 68 (10.30%) Python
3 54 (8.18%) SQL
4 18 (2.73%) C#
5 17 (2.58%) Bash
5 17 (2.58%) T-SQL
6 16 (2.42%) JavaScript
7 13 (1.97%) Java
8 10 (1.52%) Bicep
9 8 (1.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 7 (1.06%) Kusto Query Language
11 6 (0.91%) Perl
12 2 (0.30%) Korn
12 2 (0.30%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.30%) TypeScript
12 2 (0.30%) X++
13 1 (0.15%) Google Apps Script
13 1 (0.15%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 233 (35.30%) Security Cleared
2 162 (24.55%) SC Cleared
3 74 (11.21%) DV Cleared
4 69 (10.45%) Degree
5 24 (3.64%) Microsoft Certification
6 15 (2.27%) CISSP
7 14 (2.12%) GIAC
8 12 (1.82%) Azure Certification
8 12 (1.82%) Cisco Certification
9 11 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
10 10 (1.52%) PMI Certification
10 10 (1.52%) PMP
11 9 (1.36%) CISM
12 8 (1.21%) BPSS Clearance
12 8 (1.21%) DBS Check
13 7 (1.06%) AWS Certification
14 6 (0.91%) Master's Degree
14 6 (0.91%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 5 (0.76%) ACCA
15 5 (0.76%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (5.00%) NIST
2 24 (3.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 22 (3.33%) PMO
4 20 (3.03%) Cyber Essentials
5 18 (2.73%) NCSC
5 18 (2.73%) SLA
6 16 (2.42%) Data Quality
7 15 (2.27%) GDPR
8 11 (1.67%) QA
9 6 (0.91%) ISO 31000
9 6 (0.91%) NIST 800
10 5 (0.76%) Accessibility
11 3 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 2 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 2 (0.30%) JSP 440
12 2 (0.30%) PCI DSS
13 1 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
13 1 (0.15%) Disclosure Scotland
13 1 (0.15%) ISO 9001
13 1 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 203 (30.76%) Active Directory
2 66 (10.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 28 (4.24%) Hyper-V
4 12 (1.82%) Docker
4 12 (1.82%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (1.52%) VMware NSX
5 10 (1.52%) vSphere
6 9 (1.36%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (1.36%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.76%) Firmware
8 3 (0.45%) DFS Replication
9 2 (0.30%) UAG
10 1 (0.15%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.15%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 1 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.15%) Sendmail
10 1 (0.15%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 58 (8.79%) Microsoft Intune
2 32 (4.85%) Terraform
3 29 (4.39%) SCCM
4 18 (2.73%) Ansible
4 18 (2.73%) Single Sign-On
5 16 (2.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 13 (1.97%) Kubernetes
7 9 (1.36%) SCOM
8 8 (1.21%) WMI
9 7 (1.06%) Jamf Pro
9 7 (1.06%) vCenter Server
10 3 (0.45%) Avamar
10 3 (0.45%) Nessus
10 3 (0.45%) PaperCut
10 3 (0.45%) QRadar
10 3 (0.45%) SCSM
10 3 (0.45%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 3 (0.45%) WSUS
11 2 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
11 2 (0.30%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 80 (12.12%) VMware
2 29 (4.39%) Cisco
2 29 (4.39%) SAP
3 18 (2.73%) ServiceNow
4 16 (2.42%) Citrix
4 16 (2.42%) Databricks
4 16 (2.42%) Meraki
5 15 (2.27%) Oracle
6 12 (1.82%) Splunk
6 12 (1.82%) Thales
7 10 (1.52%) Avaya
8 9 (1.36%) Fortinet
8 9 (1.36%) Mitel
9 8 (1.21%) Dell
9 8 (1.21%) F5
9 8 (1.21%) Google
10 7 (1.06%) Red Hat
11 6 (0.91%) Juniper
11 6 (0.91%) Palo Alto
12 5 (0.76%) Zscaler