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 18 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
18 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 7 3
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 600 483 853
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 13.64% 14.47% 16.72%
As % of the Vendors category 27.65% 28.77% 32.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 431 337 590
10th Percentile £200 £200 £163
25th Percentile £263 £334 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £461
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -2.44% +2.50%
75th Percentile £567 £581 £575
90th Percentile £640 £664 £650
England median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 15 43
10th Percentile £12.50 £16.28 £11.61
25th Percentile £14.50 £19.99 £14.00
Median hourly rate £17.47 £25.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.13% +13.64% +18.92%
75th Percentile £21.00 £48.13 £55.00
90th Percentile £47.91 £57.62 £61.82
England median hourly rate £19.50 £22.27 £19.98
% change year-on-year -12.44% +11.49% -4.56%

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 2,170 1,679 2,625
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 49.32% 50.30% 51.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,567 1,092 1,676
10th Percentile £255 £238 £205
25th Percentile £406 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £509 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% +1.85% -0.40%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £608
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 136 50 144
10th Percentile £12.63 £20.00 £13.43
25th Percentile £16.50 £24.18 £20.88
Median hourly rate £22.25 £47.50 £54.78
Median % change year-on-year -53.16% -13.29% +56.51%
75th Percentile £60.00 £64.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £84.00 £74.88 £76.53
England median hourly rate £23.79 £30.00 £38.45
% change year-on-year -20.71% -21.98% +20.33%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +1 285 £475 +2.98% 299
Berkshire 0 187 £480 -4.00% 160
Hampshire -1 139 £535 +7.00% 145
Surrey +4 75 £250 -25.09% 108
Buckinghamshire -2 71 £475 +14.46% 87
West Sussex -5 33 £281 -35.37% 67
Kent 0 29 £450 +111.76% 108
Oxfordshire +2 27 £275 -18.52% 52
East Sussex +5 25 £575 +9.52% 55
Sussex -1 11 £463 +5.11% 9
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%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 122 (20.33%) Microsoft Office
2 69 (11.50%) 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
4 3 (0.50%) 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
1 158 (26.33%) Azure
2 140 (23.33%) Microsoft 365
3 64 (10.67%) AWS
3 64 (10.67%) Entra ID
4 55 (9.17%) Power Platform
5 31 (5.17%) Dynamics 365
6 30 (5.00%) SaaS
7 24 (4.00%) Microsoft Purview
8 23 (3.83%) OneDrive
9 20 (3.33%) Power Automate
10 19 (3.17%) Azure DevOps
10 19 (3.17%) PowerApps
11 18 (3.00%) Sauce Labs
12 16 (2.67%) GitHub
12 16 (2.67%) Google Workspace
13 15 (2.50%) GCP
14 14 (2.33%) Serverless
15 11 (1.83%) Azure Functions
16 10 (1.67%) IaaS
17 9 (1.50%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 50 (8.33%) DNS
2 40 (6.67%) DHCP
3 37 (6.17%) Firewall
4 24 (4.00%) TCP/IP
5 19 (3.17%) Wi-Fi
5 19 (3.17%) Wireless
6 18 (3.00%) 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%) S/MIME
15 4 (0.67%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (6.67%) SQL Server
2 36 (6.00%) 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 7 (1.17%) Data Warehouse
8 7 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
9 6 (1.00%) RDBMS
10 5 (0.83%) Data Lake
11 4 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
11 4 (0.67%) MongoDB
11 4 (0.67%) Oracle Reports
12 3 (0.50%) GIS
12 3 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 2 (0.33%) Apache Cassandra
13 2 (0.33%) NoSQL
13 2 (0.33%) Spatial Data
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 10 (1.67%) Jenkins
6 8 (1.33%) Git
7 4 (0.67%) JUnit
8 3 (0.50%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.50%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.50%) Gradle
8 3 (0.50%) MSI
8 3 (0.50%) Subversion
9 2 (0.33%) JMeter
9 2 (0.33%) Maven
9 2 (0.33%) Oracle APEX
9 2 (0.33%) Oracle Forms
9 2 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.17%) Fiddler
10 1 (0.17%) Gatling
General
1 233 (38.83%) Social Skills
2 96 (16.00%) Finance
3 73 (12.17%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (9.83%) Organisational Skills
5 44 (7.33%) Public Sector
6 18 (3.00%) Manufacturing
7 13 (2.17%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (1.67%) Influencing Skills
8 10 (1.67%) Legal
8 10 (1.67%) Retail
9 7 (1.17%) Marketing
9 7 (1.17%) Presentation Skills
9 7 (1.17%) Telecoms
10 5 (0.83%) Military
11 4 (0.67%) Banking
11 4 (0.67%) Billing
11 4 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.50%) Automotive
12 3 (0.50%) Aviation
12 3 (0.50%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 93 (15.50%) Architect
2 77 (12.83%) Support Engineer
3 73 (12.17%) Analyst
4 54 (9.00%) IT Support
5 43 (7.17%) Senior
6 42 (7.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 26 (4.33%) Developer
8 24 (4.00%) IT Engineer
9 23 (3.83%) Technical Support
10 21 (3.50%) Infrastructure Support
10 21 (3.50%) Solutions Architect
10 21 (3.50%) Support Officer
10 21 (3.50%) Technical Engineer
10 21 (3.50%) Technical Support Engineer
11 20 (3.33%) Consultant
11 20 (3.33%) Infrastructure Architect
11 20 (3.33%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
11 20 (3.33%) IT Support Engineer
11 20 (3.33%) Lead
12 19 (3.17%) UX Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.83%) React
2 21 (3.50%) GraphQL
3 19 (3.17%) Ajax
3 19 (3.17%) AngularJS
3 19 (3.17%) CSS
4 18 (3.00%) .NET
5 10 (1.67%) REST
6 8 (1.33%) OAuth
7 7 (1.17%) ARM Templates
7 7 (1.17%) SAML
8 6 (1.00%) Middleware
8 6 (1.00%) Spring
9 5 (0.83%) ADO
9 5 (0.83%) LDAP
9 5 (0.83%) OpenID
10 4 (0.67%) OAuth2
10 4 (0.67%) SailPoint
11 3 (0.50%) Microsoft Graph
11 3 (0.50%) PySpark
12 2 (0.33%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 33 (5.50%) PKI
2 30 (5.00%) Onboarding
3 29 (4.83%) Analytical Mindset
4 23 (3.83%) Mobile App
5 17 (2.83%) Management Information System
6 16 (2.67%) Enterprise Software
7 15 (2.50%) Driving Licence
8 14 (2.33%) Product Ownership
8 14 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
9 13 (2.17%) Fat Client
9 13 (2.17%) Thin Client
10 12 (2.00%) Operational Technology
11 11 (1.83%) Replication
11 11 (1.83%) Security Operations Centre
12 10 (1.67%) Video Conferencing
13 9 (1.50%) Cloud Native
13 9 (1.50%) Data Centre
14 7 (1.17%) Cyber Defence
15 6 (1.00%) Cyber Threat
16 5 (0.83%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 196 (32.67%) Windows
2 78 (13.00%) Linux
3 40 (6.67%) Windows 10
4 32 (5.33%) 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 8 (1.33%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (1.17%) 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
1 105 (17.50%) Problem-Solving
2 80 (13.33%) Agile
3 74 (12.33%) ITIL
4 67 (11.17%) Cybersecurity
5 66 (11.00%) Customer Service
6 52 (8.67%) Stakeholder Management
7 51 (8.50%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 50 (8.33%) Business Intelligence
9 45 (7.50%) Continuous Improvement
9 45 (7.50%) Project Management
10 44 (7.33%) DevOps
11 40 (6.67%) Migration
12 39 (6.50%) Project Delivery
13 38 (6.33%) Time Management
14 37 (6.17%) CI/CD
15 34 (5.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 33 (5.50%) SIEM
16 33 (5.50%) Validation
17 31 (5.17%) Collaborative Working
17 31 (5.17%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 72 (12.00%) Python
2 66 (11.00%) PowerShell
3 64 (10.67%) SQL
4 33 (5.50%) Java
5 30 (5.00%) 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
1 200 (33.33%) Security Cleared
2 126 (21.00%) SC Cleared
3 69 (11.50%) DV Cleared
4 56 (9.33%) Degree
5 37 (6.17%) Microsoft Certification
6 21 (3.50%) CISSP
7 20 (3.33%) Azure Certification
8 11 (1.83%) ITIL Certification
8 11 (1.83%) Network+ Certification
8 11 (1.83%) Server+ Certification
9 10 (1.67%) GIAC
10 9 (1.50%) CISM
10 9 (1.50%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 8 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
11 8 (1.33%) DBS Check
11 8 (1.33%) PMI Certification
12 7 (1.17%) A+ Certification
12 7 (1.17%) Cisco Certification
12 7 (1.17%) GCIH
12 7 (1.17%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (4.33%) GDPR
2 24 (4.00%) PMO
3 23 (3.83%) NIST
4 18 (3.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 18 (3.00%) SLA
5 14 (2.33%) 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 49 (8.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (3.50%) 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 2 (0.33%) Terminal Services
12 1 (0.17%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 42 (7.00%) SCCM
2 36 (6.00%) Microsoft Intune
3 20 (3.33%) Single Sign-On
4 15 (2.50%) Ansible
5 14 (2.33%) Terraform
5 14 (2.33%) WMI
6 12 (2.00%) Kubernetes
7 9 (1.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 8 (1.33%) Jamf Pro
8 8 (1.33%) SCOM
9 7 (1.17%) HP SiteScope
10 6 (1.00%) Microsoft Clustering
10 6 (1.00%) vCenter Server
11 3 (0.50%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.50%) Grafana
11 3 (0.50%) PaperCut
11 3 (0.50%) Puppet
11 3 (0.50%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 2 (0.33%) FTK
12 2 (0.33%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 68 (11.33%) VMware
2 50 (8.33%) ServiceNow
3 45 (7.50%) Oracle
4 38 (6.33%) Splunk
5 24 (4.00%) SAP
6 21 (3.50%) Cisco
7 16 (2.67%) Citrix
8 13 (2.17%) 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%) Red Hat
12 5 (0.83%) Veeam