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 14 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
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 8 4
Rank change year-on-year +1 -4 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 609 480 817
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 13.88% 14.31% 16.40%
As % of the Vendors category 27.86% 28.50% 31.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 436 335 572
10th Percentile £202 £200 £163
25th Percentile £263 £336 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £465
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -3.22% +3.33%
75th Percentile £565 £588 £575
90th Percentile £640 £668 £650
England median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 15 30
10th Percentile £12.50 £16.28 £12.27
25th Percentile £14.50 £19.99 £15.69
Median hourly rate £17.50 £25.00 £21.68
Median % change year-on-year -30.00% +15.34% +17.16%
75th Percentile £21.00 £48.13 £54.69
90th Percentile £83.60 £57.62 £60.54
England median hourly rate £19.91 £22.27 £21.00
% change year-on-year -10.60% +6.05% -

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 2,186 1,684 2,566
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 49.82% 50.19% 51.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,581 1,099 1,648
10th Percentile £250 £239 £205
25th Percentile £406 £400 £365
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £510
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +0.59% +1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £610
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 137 50 130
10th Percentile £13.35 £20.00 £15.69
25th Percentile £16.50 £24.18 £24.00
Median hourly rate £22.50 £47.50 £55.40
Median % change year-on-year -52.63% -14.26% +61.75%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.69 £67.02
90th Percentile £89.63 £74.88 £78.00
England median hourly rate £23.79 £30.00 £43.85
% change year-on-year -20.71% -31.58% +39.07%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 +2 292 £475 +1.06% 265
Berkshire +3 189 £480 -4.00% 145
Hampshire -1 141 £535 +7.00% 135
Surrey +6 76 £244 -26.97% 98
Buckinghamshire -2 72 £475 +14.46% 77
West Sussex -5 33 £250 -42.40% 54
Oxfordshire +1 31 £275 -18.52% 44
Kent 0 29 £450 +111.76% 93
East Sussex +5 24 £550 +4.76% 47
Sussex -1 11 £463 +5.11% 15
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 60 (9.85%) SharePoint
2 50 (8.21%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (2.30%) Skype for Business
4 8 (1.31%) Confluence
4 8 (1.31%) Exchange Server 2010
5 7 (1.15%) Exchange Server 2013
5 7 (1.15%) Mattermost
5 7 (1.15%) SharePoint Server
6 6 (0.99%) Exchange Server 2003
6 6 (0.99%) Exchange Server 2007
6 6 (0.99%) Office Communications Server
7 2 (0.33%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.33%) CMS
7 2 (0.33%) GeoServer
7 2 (0.33%) MS Project Server
7 2 (0.33%) Smallworld
8 1 (0.16%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 121 (19.87%) Microsoft Office
2 69 (11.33%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (3.94%) Microsoft Project
4 21 (3.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (1.48%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.16%) SOLIDWORKS
6 1 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 11 (1.81%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.15%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.49%) Dynamics AX
4 3 (0.49%) 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 (0.16%) iTrent
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.16%) Sage 50
6 1 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.16%) SAP EWM
6 1 (0.16%) SAP WM
6 1 (0.16%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 158 (25.94%) Azure
2 142 (23.32%) Microsoft 365
3 65 (10.67%) AWS
4 61 (10.02%) Entra ID
5 54 (8.87%) Power Platform
6 33 (5.42%) Dynamics 365
7 30 (4.93%) SaaS
8 24 (3.94%) Microsoft Purview
9 23 (3.78%) OneDrive
10 20 (3.28%) Power Automate
11 19 (3.12%) PowerApps
11 19 (3.12%) Sauce Labs
12 17 (2.79%) Azure DevOps
13 16 (2.63%) GCP
13 16 (2.63%) Google Workspace
14 14 (2.30%) GitHub
15 12 (1.97%) Serverless
16 10 (1.64%) Azure Functions
16 10 (1.64%) IaaS
17 9 (1.48%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 54 (8.87%) DNS
2 43 (7.06%) DHCP
3 42 (6.90%) Firewall
4 27 (4.43%) TCP/IP
5 23 (3.78%) Wireless
6 21 (3.45%) VPN
7 18 (2.96%) Wi-Fi
8 15 (2.46%) VLAN
9 12 (1.97%) SAN
9 12 (1.97%) Unified Communications
10 9 (1.48%) 4G
10 9 (1.48%) Network Security
11 8 (1.31%) Skype
12 7 (1.15%) WebEx
13 6 (0.99%) DDNS
13 6 (0.99%) Fibre Channel
13 6 (0.99%) VSAN
14 5 (0.82%) WAN
15 4 (0.66%) S/MIME
15 4 (0.66%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (6.73%) SQL Server
2 35 (5.75%) Power BI
3 29 (4.76%) Relational Database
4 22 (3.61%) MySQL
5 17 (2.79%) Oracle Database
6 11 (1.81%) Azure SQL Database
7 10 (1.64%) Metadata
8 9 (1.48%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
9 7 (1.15%) Data Warehouse
9 7 (1.15%) PostgreSQL
10 6 (0.99%) RDBMS
11 5 (0.82%) Data Lake
12 4 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
12 4 (0.66%) MongoDB
12 4 (0.66%) Oracle Reports
13 3 (0.49%) GIS
13 3 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 2 (0.33%) Apache Cassandra
14 2 (0.33%) Crystal Reports
14 2 (0.33%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 22 (3.61%) Android Studio
2 20 (3.28%) Browser DevTools
3 19 (3.12%) Eclipse
3 19 (3.12%) Xcode
4 16 (2.63%) JIRA
5 10 (1.64%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.99%) Git
7 3 (0.49%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.49%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.49%) JUnit
7 3 (0.49%) MSI
7 3 (0.49%) Subversion
8 2 (0.33%) Gradle
8 2 (0.33%) JMeter
8 2 (0.33%) Oracle APEX
8 2 (0.33%) Oracle Forms
8 2 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.16%) Fiddler
9 1 (0.16%) Gatling
9 1 (0.16%) Maven
General
1 236 (38.75%) Social Skills
2 96 (15.76%) Finance
3 77 (12.64%) Analytical Skills
4 62 (10.18%) Organisational Skills
5 43 (7.06%) Public Sector
6 19 (3.12%) Manufacturing
7 12 (1.97%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (1.64%) Retail
9 9 (1.48%) Influencing Skills
10 8 (1.31%) Legal
10 8 (1.31%) Marketing
11 7 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (1.15%) Telecoms
12 5 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (0.66%) Aerospace
13 4 (0.66%) Banking
13 4 (0.66%) Billing
13 4 (0.66%) Electronics
13 4 (0.66%) Military
14 3 (0.49%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 92 (15.11%) Architect
2 82 (13.46%) Support Engineer
3 75 (12.32%) Analyst
4 54 (8.87%) IT Support
5 43 (7.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 43 (7.06%) Senior
6 25 (4.11%) Developer
7 24 (3.94%) IT Engineer
7 24 (3.94%) Technical Support
8 22 (3.61%) Consultant
8 22 (3.61%) Technical Engineer
8 22 (3.61%) Technical Support Engineer
9 21 (3.45%) Infrastructure Support
9 21 (3.45%) Support Officer
10 20 (3.28%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
10 20 (3.28%) IT Support Engineer
10 20 (3.28%) Lead
10 20 (3.28%) Solutions Architect
10 20 (3.28%) UX Engineer
11 19 (3.12%) Infrastructure Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.94%) React
2 22 (3.61%) GraphQL
3 20 (3.28%) Ajax
3 20 (3.28%) AngularJS
3 20 (3.28%) CSS
4 17 (2.79%) .NET
5 9 (1.48%) REST
6 8 (1.31%) OAuth
7 7 (1.15%) SAML
8 6 (0.99%) ARM Templates
8 6 (0.99%) Middleware
9 5 (0.82%) LDAP
9 5 (0.82%) OpenID
9 5 (0.82%) Spring
10 4 (0.66%) ADO
10 4 (0.66%) OAuth2
10 4 (0.66%) SailPoint
11 3 (0.49%) Microsoft Graph
11 3 (0.49%) PySpark
12 2 (0.33%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 34 (5.58%) PKI
2 31 (5.09%) Onboarding
3 29 (4.76%) Analytical Mindset
4 24 (3.94%) Mobile App
5 18 (2.96%) Management Information System
6 15 (2.46%) Driving Licence
6 15 (2.46%) Enterprise Software
6 15 (2.46%) Product Ownership
6 15 (2.46%) Self-Motivation
7 13 (2.13%) Fat Client
7 13 (2.13%) Thin Client
8 12 (1.97%) Replication
9 11 (1.81%) Operational Technology
9 11 (1.81%) Security Operations Centre
10 10 (1.64%) Video Conferencing
11 9 (1.48%) Data Centre
12 8 (1.31%) Cloud Native
12 8 (1.31%) Cyber Defence
13 6 (0.99%) CMDB
13 6 (0.99%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 200 (32.84%) Windows
2 80 (13.14%) Linux
3 41 (6.73%) Windows 10
4 31 (5.09%) Windows Server
5 24 (3.94%) Android
5 24 (3.94%) Unix
6 14 (2.30%) Mac OS
7 12 (1.97%) Windows 7
8 8 (1.31%) Windows Server 2019
9 7 (1.15%) Windows Server 2016
10 6 (0.99%) Windows Server 2003
10 6 (0.99%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 2 (0.33%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.33%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.16%) CentOS
13 1 (0.16%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (18.06%) Problem-Solving
2 83 (13.63%) Agile
3 78 (12.81%) ITIL
4 68 (11.17%) Cybersecurity
5 66 (10.84%) Customer Service
6 52 (8.54%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 52 (8.54%) Stakeholder Management
7 50 (8.21%) Business Intelligence
8 45 (7.39%) Continuous Improvement
8 45 (7.39%) Project Management
9 43 (7.06%) Migration
10 40 (6.57%) DevOps
11 39 (6.40%) Project Delivery
11 39 (6.40%) Time Management
12 36 (5.91%) SIEM
13 35 (5.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 34 (5.58%) CI/CD
14 34 (5.58%) ITSM
15 32 (5.25%) Validation
16 31 (5.09%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 72 (11.82%) Python
2 68 (11.17%) PowerShell
3 65 (10.67%) SQL
4 33 (5.42%) Java
5 30 (4.93%) JavaScript
6 21 (3.45%) Perl
7 12 (1.97%) Bash
7 12 (1.97%) C#
8 4 (0.66%) Kusto Query Language
8 4 (0.66%) PL/SQL
8 4 (0.66%) X++
9 2 (0.33%) Go
9 2 (0.33%) PHP
9 2 (0.33%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.16%) Bicep
10 1 (0.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 1 (0.16%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.16%) VB
Qualifications
1 205 (33.66%) Security Cleared
2 129 (21.18%) SC Cleared
3 71 (11.66%) DV Cleared
4 60 (9.85%) Degree
5 41 (6.73%) Microsoft Certification
6 22 (3.61%) CISSP
7 20 (3.28%) Azure Certification
8 11 (1.81%) ITIL Certification
8 11 (1.81%) Network+ Certification
8 11 (1.81%) Server+ Certification
9 10 (1.64%) A+ Certification
9 10 (1.64%) CISM
9 10 (1.64%) GIAC
10 9 (1.48%) Cisco Certification
10 9 (1.48%) Computer Science Degree
10 9 (1.48%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 8 (1.31%) CEH
11 8 (1.31%) PMI Certification
12 7 (1.15%) GCIH
12 7 (1.15%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (4.76%) GDPR
2 24 (3.94%) PMO
3 23 (3.78%) NIST
4 19 (3.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 18 (2.96%) SLA
6 14 (2.30%) Data Quality
7 10 (1.64%) QA
8 6 (0.99%) Cyber Essentials
9 4 (0.66%) Accessibility
10 3 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.49%) P3O
10 3 (0.49%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.49%) RMADS
11 2 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 19770
11 2 (0.33%) NCSC
12 1 (0.16%) COSHH
12 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.16%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.16%) NIST 800
12 1 (0.16%) PSD2
System Software
1 154 (25.29%) Active Directory
2 48 (7.88%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (3.45%) Hyper-V
4 13 (2.13%) vSphere
5 10 (1.64%) VMware ESXi
6 8 (1.31%) Docker
7 7 (1.15%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.99%) Brightmail
8 6 (0.99%) ISA Server
9 4 (0.66%) NFS
10 3 (0.49%) DFS Replication
10 3 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.49%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.33%) Terminal Services
12 1 (0.16%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 41 (6.73%) SCCM
2 35 (5.75%) Microsoft Intune
3 18 (2.96%) Single Sign-On
4 14 (2.30%) Ansible
4 14 (2.30%) WMI
5 13 (2.13%) Terraform
6 12 (1.97%) Kubernetes
7 9 (1.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 8 (1.31%) Jamf Pro
8 8 (1.31%) SCOM
9 7 (1.15%) HP SiteScope
9 7 (1.15%) Microsoft Clustering
9 7 (1.15%) vCenter Server
10 3 (0.49%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.49%) PaperCut
10 3 (0.49%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 2 (0.33%) FTK
11 2 (0.33%) Grafana
11 2 (0.33%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.33%) Puppet
Vendors
1 67 (11.00%) VMware
2 56 (9.20%) ServiceNow
3 47 (7.72%) Oracle
4 39 (6.40%) Splunk
5 24 (3.94%) Cisco
5 24 (3.94%) SAP
6 16 (2.63%) Citrix
7 12 (1.97%) Databricks
8 9 (1.48%) CrowdStrike
8 9 (1.48%) Thales
9 8 (1.31%) Remedy
10 7 (1.15%) CyberArk
10 7 (1.15%) Palo Alto
10 7 (1.15%) Tenable
11 6 (0.99%) Informatica
12 5 (0.82%) CheckPoint
12 5 (0.82%) Google
12 5 (0.82%) NetApp
12 5 (0.82%) Red Hat
12 5 (0.82%) Veeam