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 23 April 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
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 7 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 645 450 822
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 11.24% 15.05% 14.71%
As % of the Vendors category 26.01% 28.83% 30.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 445 304 553
10th Percentile £204 £220 £195
25th Percentile £381 £358 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £490 £465
Median % change year-on-year -2.09% +5.43% -2.11%
75th Percentile £588 £582 £575
90th Percentile £656 £629 £675
England median daily rate £494 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +3.89% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 30 73
10th Percentile £12.29 - £11.71
25th Percentile £13.41 £14.20 £12.00
Median hourly rate £18.50 £15.25 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.31% -27.38% +3.78%
75th Percentile £37.12 £24.69 £50.00
90th Percentile £82.10 £32.05 £61.36
England median hourly rate £20.30 £20.00 £15.00
% change year-on-year +1.50% +33.33% -29.78%

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 2,480 1,561 2,673
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 43.23% 52.19% 47.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,731 1,042 1,630
10th Percentile £306 £245 £213
25th Percentile £413 £406 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year - +2.50% -
75th Percentile £613 £613 £600
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £520
% change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 162 90 182
10th Percentile £13.55 £14.20 £12.00
25th Percentile £20.50 £16.95 £17.03
Median hourly rate £47.50 £24.83 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +91.30% -47.73% +5.56%
75th Percentile £85.81 £61.16 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £74.09 £65.00
England median hourly rate £30.00 £28.08 £22.50
% change year-on-year +6.86% +24.78% -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 23 April 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 23 April 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 23 April 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 0 335 £475 -3.70% 192
Berkshire -10 168 £500 +3.36% 81
Hampshire -8 139 £550 +10.00% 114
Buckinghamshire -3 109 £475 -13.64% 73
Surrey +18 90 £438 -6.02% 77
Oxfordshire 0 58 £275 -33.33% 45
West Sussex -6 32 £475 +23.22% 37
Kent -1 27 £400 +52.38% 61
East Sussex -2 10 £600 +9.09% 19
Home Counties +1 4 - -
Sussex -1 4 £525 +5.00% 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 68 (10.54%) Microsoft Exchange
2 61 (9.46%) SharePoint
3 10 (1.55%) Confluence
4 3 (0.47%) ArcGIS
4 3 (0.47%) MS Project Server
4 3 (0.47%) Smallworld
5 2 (0.31%) GeoServer
6 1 (0.16%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.16%) BizTalk Server
6 1 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2010
6 1 (0.16%) SharePoint 2010
6 1 (0.16%) SharePoint 2013
6 1 (0.16%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 101 (15.66%) Microsoft Office
2 88 (13.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 31 (4.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 31 (4.81%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (1.86%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.31%) SOLIDWORKS
5 2 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.16%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.16%) Autodesk Inventor
6 1 (0.16%) InDesign
6 1 (0.16%) MicroStation
6 1 (0.16%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.16%) Trello
Business Applications
1 6 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.62%) SAP Business One
2 4 (0.62%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.16%) iTrent
3 1 (0.16%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.16%) Sage 50
Cloud Services
1 241 (37.36%) Azure
2 179 (27.75%) Microsoft 365
3 111 (17.21%) Entra ID
4 69 (10.70%) Power Platform
5 67 (10.39%) AWS
6 38 (5.89%) Azure DevOps
7 27 (4.19%) Dynamics 365
7 27 (4.19%) OneDrive
7 27 (4.19%) Power Automate
8 25 (3.88%) Microsoft Purview
9 23 (3.57%) SaaS
10 22 (3.41%) PowerApps
11 20 (3.10%) GitHub
12 18 (2.79%) Serverless
13 17 (2.64%) Azure Functions
14 16 (2.48%) IaaS
14 16 (2.48%) Microsoft Copilot
15 15 (2.33%) Azure Logic Apps
15 15 (2.33%) Azure Monitor
16 12 (1.86%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 56 (8.68%) DNS
2 41 (6.36%) DHCP
3 34 (5.27%) Firewall
4 33 (5.12%) Wi-Fi
5 20 (3.10%) VPN
6 16 (2.48%) LAN
7 14 (2.17%) WAN
8 13 (2.02%) Network Security
8 13 (2.02%) TCP/IP
9 12 (1.86%) Kerberos
10 10 (1.55%) Unified Communications
11 9 (1.40%) MPLS
11 9 (1.40%) Wireless
12 8 (1.24%) BGP
12 8 (1.24%) SSL
13 7 (1.09%) SD-WAN
14 6 (0.93%) SAN
14 6 (0.93%) SNMP
15 5 (0.78%) IPsec
15 5 (0.78%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (8.84%) Power BI
2 34 (5.27%) SQL Server
3 16 (2.48%) Azure SQL Database
4 13 (2.02%) MySQL
4 13 (2.02%) PostgreSQL
5 12 (1.86%) Relational Database
6 10 (1.55%) Metadata
7 8 (1.24%) Data Warehouse
8 7 (1.09%) Data Lake
8 7 (1.09%) Oracle Database
9 6 (0.93%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
9 6 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
10 4 (0.62%) RDBMS
10 4 (0.62%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 3 (0.47%) Data Mining
11 3 (0.47%) GIS
11 3 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
11 3 (0.47%) Star Schema
12 2 (0.31%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 17 (2.64%) JIRA
2 13 (2.02%) Git
3 9 (1.40%) Android Studio
4 8 (1.24%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.93%) Browser DevTools
5 6 (0.93%) Eclipse
5 6 (0.93%) Xcode
6 5 (0.78%) JUnit
7 4 (0.62%) Gradle
7 4 (0.62%) MSI
8 3 (0.47%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.47%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.47%) Maven
8 3 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.47%) Subversion
9 2 (0.31%) JMeter
9 2 (0.31%) Robot Framework
10 1 (0.16%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.16%) GitLab
10 1 (0.16%) SonarQube
General
1 197 (30.54%) Social Skills
2 72 (11.16%) Analytical Skills
2 72 (11.16%) Finance
3 63 (9.77%) Public Sector
4 58 (8.99%) Organisational Skills
5 16 (2.48%) Documentation Skills
6 14 (2.17%) Legal
6 14 (2.17%) Military
7 12 (1.86%) Manufacturing
8 11 (1.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 8 (1.24%) Telecoms
10 7 (1.09%) Influencing Skills
10 7 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
11 5 (0.78%) Marketing
11 5 (0.78%) Retail
12 4 (0.62%) Advertising
12 4 (0.62%) General Ledger
12 4 (0.62%) Police
13 3 (0.47%) Automotive
13 3 (0.47%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 93 (14.42%) Architect
2 57 (8.84%) Senior
3 54 (8.37%) IT Support
4 53 (8.22%) Analyst
5 50 (7.75%) Support Engineer
6 48 (7.44%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 37 (5.74%) IT Engineer
8 32 (4.96%) Developer
8 32 (4.96%) Lead
9 31 (4.81%) IT Support Engineer
10 26 (4.03%) Azure Engineer
11 24 (3.72%) Solutions Architect
12 22 (3.41%) Consultant
13 20 (3.10%) Administrator
14 18 (2.79%) DevOps Engineer
15 16 (2.48%) Infrastructure Architect
15 16 (2.48%) IT Analyst
16 15 (2.33%) Technical Architect
17 13 (2.02%) Azure DevOps Engineer
17 13 (2.02%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.72%) .NET
2 17 (2.64%) LDAP
3 14 (2.17%) OAuth
4 13 (2.02%) OpenID
4 13 (2.02%) REST
4 13 (2.02%) SAML
5 11 (1.71%) ARM Templates
5 11 (1.71%) OAuth2
6 9 (1.40%) CSS
6 9 (1.40%) React
7 8 (1.24%) GraphQL
8 7 (1.09%) ADO
8 7 (1.09%) Web Services
9 6 (0.93%) Ajax
9 6 (0.93%) AngularJS
9 6 (0.93%) Microsoft Graph
9 6 (0.93%) PySpark
9 6 (0.93%) SailPoint
9 6 (0.93%) Spring
9 6 (0.93%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 46 (7.13%) Onboarding
2 31 (4.81%) PKI
3 20 (3.10%) Cloud Native
3 20 (3.10%) Product Ownership
4 17 (2.64%) Legacy Systems
5 16 (2.48%) Analytical Mindset
5 16 (2.48%) Hybrid Cloud
5 16 (2.48%) Self-Motivation
6 15 (2.33%) Data Centre
6 15 (2.33%) Replication
7 14 (2.17%) Public Cloud
8 10 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
8 10 (1.55%) Operational Technology
9 9 (1.40%) Mobile App
10 8 (1.24%) Driving Licence
10 8 (1.24%) Management Information System
11 6 (0.93%) Fat Client
11 6 (0.93%) Security Posture
11 6 (0.93%) Thin Client
12 5 (0.78%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 177 (27.44%) Windows
2 62 (9.61%) Linux
3 48 (7.44%) Windows Server
4 18 (2.79%) Windows 10
5 15 (2.33%) Mac OS
6 10 (1.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (1.40%) Android
7 9 (1.40%) Windows 7
8 8 (1.24%) Unix
9 7 (1.09%) Windows Server 2012
10 6 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
11 5 (0.78%) Windows Server 2016
12 4 (0.62%) Ubuntu
13 3 (0.47%) CentOS
14 1 (0.16%) Debian
14 1 (0.16%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.16%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 103 (15.97%) Problem-Solving
2 79 (12.25%) DevOps
3 77 (11.94%) Customer Service
4 76 (11.78%) Agile
5 71 (11.01%) Migration
6 69 (10.70%) Business Intelligence
7 66 (10.23%) Cybersecurity
8 64 (9.92%) ITIL
9 62 (9.61%) CI/CD
10 55 (8.53%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 55 (8.53%) Stakeholder Management
11 53 (8.22%) Project Management
12 50 (7.75%) Analytics
13 49 (7.60%) Project Delivery
14 40 (6.20%) Time Management
15 37 (5.74%) Roadmaps
16 35 (5.43%) Infrastructure as Code
17 34 (5.27%) Decision-Making
17 34 (5.27%) SIEM
18 33 (5.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 98 (15.19%) PowerShell
2 71 (11.01%) Python
3 53 (8.22%) SQL
4 20 (3.10%) Bash
4 20 (3.10%) C#
5 18 (2.79%) JavaScript
6 15 (2.33%) Java
7 14 (2.17%) T-SQL
8 10 (1.55%) Bicep
9 8 (1.24%) Kusto Query Language
10 6 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 6 (0.93%) Perl
11 2 (0.31%) Korn
11 2 (0.31%) PHP
11 2 (0.31%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.31%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.31%) TypeScript
11 2 (0.31%) X++
12 1 (0.16%) Google Apps Script
12 1 (0.16%) VBA
Qualifications
1 221 (34.26%) Security Cleared
2 152 (23.57%) SC Cleared
3 70 (10.85%) DV Cleared
4 67 (10.39%) Degree
5 25 (3.88%) Microsoft Certification
6 14 (2.17%) CISSP
7 13 (2.02%) Azure Certification
8 11 (1.71%) PMI Certification
8 11 (1.71%) PMP
9 10 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
10 9 (1.40%) GIAC
11 8 (1.24%) Cisco Certification
11 8 (1.24%) DBS Check
12 7 (1.09%) BPSS Clearance
12 7 (1.09%) Master's Degree
13 6 (0.93%) AWS Certification
13 6 (0.93%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 5 (0.78%) A+ Certification
14 5 (0.78%) CCIE
14 5 (0.78%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (4.50%) NIST
2 23 (3.57%) PMO
3 20 (3.10%) SLA
4 18 (2.79%) Data Quality
4 18 (2.79%) GDPR
4 18 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 14 (2.17%) NCSC
6 13 (2.02%) Cyber Essentials
7 11 (1.71%) QA
8 6 (0.93%) NIST 800
9 4 (0.62%) Accessibility
10 3 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 2 (0.31%) JSP 440
11 2 (0.31%) P3O
12 1 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.16%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.16%) ISO 9001
12 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 1 (0.16%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 195 (30.23%) Active Directory
2 58 (8.99%) VMware Infrastructure
3 26 (4.03%) Hyper-V
4 14 (2.17%) Docker
5 12 (1.86%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (1.40%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (1.40%) VMware NSX
6 9 (1.40%) vSphere
7 8 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.78%) Firmware
9 3 (0.47%) DFS Replication
10 2 (0.31%) UAG
11 1 (0.16%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.16%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 1 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.16%) Sendmail
11 1 (0.16%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 58 (8.99%) Microsoft Intune
2 35 (5.43%) Terraform
3 32 (4.96%) SCCM
4 19 (2.95%) Single Sign-On
5 18 (2.79%) Ansible
6 16 (2.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 13 (2.02%) Kubernetes
8 9 (1.40%) Jamf Pro
9 8 (1.24%) WMI
10 6 (0.93%) SCOM
11 4 (0.62%) vCenter Server
12 3 (0.47%) Grafana
12 3 (0.47%) Nessus
12 3 (0.47%) PaperCut
12 3 (0.47%) Puppet
12 3 (0.47%) SCSM
12 3 (0.47%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 3 (0.47%) WSUS
13 2 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
13 2 (0.31%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 71 (11.01%) VMware
2 30 (4.65%) Cisco
3 26 (4.03%) SAP
4 21 (3.26%) ServiceNow
5 17 (2.64%) Databricks
5 17 (2.64%) Oracle
6 16 (2.48%) Meraki
7 15 (2.33%) Citrix
8 13 (2.02%) Splunk
9 11 (1.71%) Fortinet
10 9 (1.40%) Avaya
10 9 (1.40%) Thales
11 8 (1.24%) F5
11 8 (1.24%) Google
11 8 (1.24%) Mitel
11 8 (1.24%) Tenable
12 7 (1.09%) Palo Alto
12 7 (1.09%) Red Hat
13 6 (0.93%) Juniper
14 5 (0.78%) CheckPoint