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 16 September 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
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 4 6
Rank change year-on-year 0 +2 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 1,001 563 618
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 15.12% 16.17% 13.46%
As % of the Vendors category 34.60% 31.43% 27.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 605 392 403
10th Percentile £204 £185 £200
25th Percentile £360 £221 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £463
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -2.70% +2.44%
75th Percentile £588 £568 £588
90th Percentile £675 £623 £657
England median daily rate £488 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.63% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 144 44 30
10th Percentile £13.38 £13.65 £11.71
25th Percentile £15.50 £14.20 £16.69
Median hourly rate £21.68 £17.30 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +25.29% -61.56% +157.14%
75th Percentile £70.31 £32.05 £58.49
90th Percentile £99.39 £80.23 £61.20
England median hourly rate £19.34 £22.63 £16.23
% change year-on-year -14.54% +39.43% -26.23%

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 2,893 1,791 2,265
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 43.70% 51.44% 49.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,797 1,203 1,369
10th Percentile £278 £205 £251
25th Percentile £431 £363 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -3.85% +4.00%
75th Percentile £615 £597 £631
90th Percentile £700 £650 £700
England median daily rate £514 £501 £525
% change year-on-year +2.65% -4.62% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 244 106 114
10th Percentile £14.31 £14.20 £16.00
25th Percentile £16.69 £14.91 £27.00
Median hourly rate £38.25 £20.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +91.25% -65.13% +10.37%
75th Percentile £70.00 £35.89 £61.60
90th Percentile £93.81 £79.25 £70.00
England median hourly rate £30.00 £25.15 £33.25
% change year-on-year +19.28% -24.36% -22.22%

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 16 September 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 16 September 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 16 September 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 0 500 £500 +11.11% 561
Berkshire +1 276 £500 +6.53% 270
Hampshire -1 229 £500 -7.41% 286
Surrey +2 148 £455 +102.22% 209
Buckinghamshire -2 123 £560 +36.59% 187
Oxfordshire -1 101 £450 +80.00% 111
West Sussex -8 58 £380 +80.95% 70
Kent -1 36 £525 +100.00% 98
East Sussex -1 12 £220 -48.99% 69
Middlesex - 6 - - 37
Sussex -1 4 - - 15
Home Counties 0 1 - -
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
1 106 (10.59%) SharePoint
2 50 (5.00%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (1.40%) Confluence
4 5 (0.50%) IIS
5 3 (0.30%) Apache
5 3 (0.30%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.20%) Apache Superset
6 2 (0.20%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.100%) nginx
7 1 (0.100%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.100%) SharePoint 2010
7 1 (0.100%) SharePoint 2013
7 1 (0.100%) Tomcat
Applications
1 140 (13.99%) Microsoft Excel
2 132 (13.19%) Microsoft Office
3 69 (6.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 49 (4.90%) Microsoft Project
5 15 (1.50%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.20%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.100%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.100%) SOLIDWORKS
8 1 (0.100%) Trello
Business Applications
1 20 (2.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (1.50%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.50%) SAP PSCD
4 4 (0.40%) Maximo
4 4 (0.40%) NEC Housing
4 4 (0.40%) Primavera
4 4 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
4 4 (0.40%) SAP Business One
5 2 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.100%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.100%) Dynamics NAV
6 1 (0.100%) iTrent
6 1 (0.100%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.100%) Oracle Assets
6 1 (0.100%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.100%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.100%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.100%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.100%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 395 (39.46%) Azure
2 230 (22.98%) Microsoft 365
3 159 (15.88%) Entra ID
4 122 (12.19%) Power Platform
5 98 (9.79%) AWS
6 60 (5.99%) Azure DevOps
7 56 (5.59%) Dynamics 365
8 39 (3.90%) SaaS
9 37 (3.70%) Azure Monitor
10 35 (3.50%) GCP
11 31 (3.10%) Power Automate
12 30 (3.00%) Azure Logic Apps
13 28 (2.80%) IaaS
14 24 (2.40%) Azure Sentinel
15 23 (2.30%) Microsoft Purview
15 23 (2.30%) OneDrive
16 20 (2.00%) Microsoft Copilot
17 19 (1.90%) PowerApps
18 17 (1.70%) OpenShift
19 14 (1.40%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 78 (7.79%) DNS
2 59 (5.89%) Firewall
3 54 (5.39%) DHCP
4 48 (4.80%) VPN
5 46 (4.60%) TCP/IP
6 29 (2.90%) LAN
7 28 (2.80%) Wi-Fi
8 27 (2.70%) WAN
9 16 (1.60%) VLAN
10 15 (1.50%) Network Security
11 12 (1.20%) MPLS
11 12 (1.20%) SD-WAN
12 9 (0.90%) DNSSEC
13 7 (0.70%) BGP
13 7 (0.70%) Wireless
14 6 (0.60%) BIG-IP
14 6 (0.60%) Broadband
14 6 (0.60%) Internet
14 6 (0.60%) Intranet
14 6 (0.60%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 90 (8.99%) Power BI
2 32 (3.20%) SQL Server
3 12 (1.20%) Azure SQL Database
4 11 (1.10%) Data Warehouse
4 11 (1.10%) MySQL
4 11 (1.10%) PostgreSQL
5 10 (1.00%) Oracle Database
6 9 (0.90%) Relational Database
7 8 (0.80%) Metadata
8 6 (0.60%) NoSQL
9 4 (0.40%) Data Lake
9 4 (0.40%) Data Mining
9 4 (0.40%) MS Access
9 4 (0.40%) Tableau
10 3 (0.30%) GIS
10 3 (0.30%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 2 (0.20%) BusinessObjects
11 2 (0.20%) Couchbase
11 2 (0.20%) Oracle Reports
11 2 (0.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 32 (3.20%) JIRA
2 12 (1.20%) Git
3 11 (1.10%) MSI
4 8 (0.80%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.70%) GitLab
6 3 (0.30%) Android Studio
6 3 (0.30%) Browser DevTools
6 3 (0.30%) Eclipse
6 3 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.30%) Xcode
7 2 (0.20%) REST Assured
7 2 (0.20%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 1 (0.100%) ERwin
8 1 (0.100%) JUnit
8 1 (0.100%) NUnit
8 1 (0.100%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.100%) Visual Studio
General
1 366 (36.56%) Social Skills
2 154 (15.38%) Analytical Skills
3 112 (11.19%) Finance
4 91 (9.09%) Organisational Skills
5 82 (8.19%) Public Sector
6 55 (5.49%) Aerospace
7 35 (3.50%) Documentation Skills
8 28 (2.80%) Legal
9 23 (2.30%) Telecoms
10 20 (2.00%) Marketing
11 18 (1.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 18 (1.80%) Manufacturing
12 16 (1.60%) Influencing Skills
13 13 (1.30%) Military
14 11 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
14 11 (1.10%) Retail
15 10 (1.00%) Aviation
16 9 (0.90%) French Language
17 8 (0.80%) Local Government
18 7 (0.70%) Billing
Job Titles
1 129 (12.89%) Architect
2 98 (9.79%) Analyst
3 88 (8.79%) IT Support
4 86 (8.59%) Senior
5 66 (6.59%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 56 (5.59%) Lead
7 50 (5.00%) Consultant
7 50 (5.00%) Developer
8 49 (4.90%) Support Engineer
9 48 (4.80%) Cloud Engineer
10 45 (4.50%) IT Engineer
11 44 (4.40%) Administrator
12 40 (4.00%) Azure Engineer
13 33 (3.30%) Solutions Architect
14 31 (3.10%) IT Analyst
14 31 (3.10%) IT Support Engineer
15 28 (2.80%) Project Manager
16 26 (2.60%) Technical Architect
17 25 (2.50%) Microsoft Engineer
17 25 (2.50%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 76 (7.59%) Terraform
2 37 (3.70%) .NET
3 36 (3.60%) OAuth
4 34 (3.40%) SAML
5 33 (3.30%) OpenID
6 24 (2.40%) LDAP
6 24 (2.40%) REST
7 23 (2.30%) OAuth2
8 22 (2.20%) Web Services
9 19 (1.90%) SailPoint
10 18 (1.80%) ARM Templates
11 17 (1.70%) Microsoft Graph
12 13 (1.30%) JSON
13 12 (1.20%) Middleware
14 11 (1.10%) React
15 10 (1.00%) .NET Framework
16 8 (0.80%) 802.1X
16 8 (0.80%) Entity Framework
16 8 (0.80%) SOAP
16 8 (0.80%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 104 (10.39%) Onboarding
2 53 (5.29%) Hybrid Cloud
3 34 (3.40%) Management Information System
3 34 (3.40%) PKI
4 33 (3.30%) Cloud Native
4 33 (3.30%) Data Centre
5 24 (2.40%) Security Posture
6 23 (2.30%) Public Cloud
7 21 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
8 20 (2.00%) Product Ownership
9 16 (1.60%) Operational Technology
10 15 (1.50%) Driving Licence
11 14 (1.40%) Enterprise Cloud
12 13 (1.30%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 13 (1.30%) Legacy Systems
13 12 (1.20%) Data Structures
14 11 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
14 11 (1.10%) Private Cloud
15 10 (1.00%) Cyber Defence
15 10 (1.00%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 256 (25.57%) Windows
2 96 (9.59%) Windows Server
3 81 (8.09%) Linux
4 45 (4.50%) Windows 10
5 31 (3.10%) Apple iOS
6 20 (2.00%) Mac OS
7 15 (1.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (1.50%) Unix
8 13 (1.30%) Android
9 10 (1.00%) CentOS
9 10 (1.00%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.70%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.100%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 220 (21.98%) Problem-Solving
2 169 (16.88%) Stakeholder Management
3 139 (13.89%) Agile
4 133 (13.29%) Continuous Improvement
5 129 (12.89%) ITIL
6 121 (12.09%) DevOps
7 109 (10.89%) CI/CD
8 106 (10.59%) Cybersecurity
9 105 (10.49%) Analytics
10 103 (10.29%) Customer Service
11 100 (9.99%) ITSM
12 97 (9.69%) Business Intelligence
13 95 (9.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 88 (8.79%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 82 (8.19%) Migration
16 81 (8.09%) Decision-Making
17 77 (7.69%) Project Delivery
18 76 (7.59%) Technical Leadership
19 73 (7.29%) Infrastructure as Code
20 71 (7.09%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 152 (15.18%) PowerShell
2 90 (8.99%) Python
3 84 (8.39%) SQL
4 36 (3.60%) Bash
5 30 (3.00%) Bicep
6 22 (2.20%) JavaScript
7 19 (1.90%) C#
7 19 (1.90%) T-SQL
8 18 (1.80%) Java
9 17 (1.70%) Kusto Query Language
10 8 (0.80%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 8 (0.80%) TypeScript
10 8 (0.80%) X++
11 4 (0.40%) ABAP
12 3 (0.30%) Perl
13 2 (0.20%) VBA
14 1 (0.100%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 376 (37.56%) Security Cleared
2 239 (23.88%) SC Cleared
3 144 (14.39%) DV Cleared
4 141 (14.09%) Degree
5 57 (5.69%) Microsoft Certification
6 49 (4.90%) Azure Certification
7 20 (2.00%) AWS Certification
7 20 (2.00%) Cisco Certification
8 17 (1.70%) DBS Check
9 16 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
9 16 (1.60%) Computer Science Degree
9 16 (1.60%) PMI Certification
10 14 (1.40%) CISSP
10 14 (1.40%) PMP
11 13 (1.30%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 10 (1.00%) CISM
12 10 (1.00%) MCSA
13 9 (0.90%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 9 (0.90%) MCSE
13 9 (0.90%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (4.60%) Data Quality
1 46 (4.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 45 (4.50%) NIST
3 42 (4.20%) PMO
4 34 (3.40%) GDPR
4 34 (3.40%) NCSC
5 25 (2.50%) SLA
6 22 (2.20%) QA
7 20 (2.00%) Cyber Essentials
8 12 (1.20%) GRC
9 9 (0.90%) ISO 31000
10 8 (0.80%) JSP 440
11 7 (0.70%) PCI DSS
12 5 (0.50%) ISO 9001
13 4 (0.40%) ISO 19650
13 4 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 3 (0.30%) Accessibility
14 3 (0.30%) GMP
14 3 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 3 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 208 (20.78%) Active Directory
2 72 (7.19%) VMware Infrastructure
3 30 (3.00%) Hyper-V
4 23 (2.30%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (1.90%) Docker
6 17 (1.70%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (1.70%) vSphere
7 14 (1.40%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (1.00%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.50%) Firmware
10 3 (0.30%) ISA Server
10 3 (0.30%) OpenAM
11 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 2 (0.20%) UAG
11 2 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
12 1 (0.100%) Dovecot
12 1 (0.100%) Postfix
12 1 (0.100%) vCloud
12 1 (0.100%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 64 (6.39%) Microsoft Intune
2 47 (4.70%) Kubernetes
3 34 (3.40%) Ansible
3 34 (3.40%) SCCM
4 26 (2.60%) SCOM
5 25 (2.50%) vCenter Server
6 14 (1.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 14 (1.40%) Avamar
7 12 (1.20%) WMI
8 11 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
9 10 (1.00%) Jamf Pro
10 8 (0.80%) Grafana
10 8 (0.80%) QRadar
11 6 (0.60%) FortiGate
12 5 (0.50%) Progress Chef
12 5 (0.50%) Puppet
13 4 (0.40%) Clonezilla
13 4 (0.40%) Prometheus
14 3 (0.30%) CASB
14 3 (0.30%) Istio
Vendors
1 91 (9.09%) VMware
2 64 (6.39%) ServiceNow
3 57 (5.69%) SAP
4 39 (3.90%) Google
5 37 (3.70%) Cisco
6 29 (2.90%) Oracle
7 21 (2.10%) Databricks
8 20 (2.00%) Dell
9 18 (1.80%) Splunk
10 16 (1.60%) Meraki
11 14 (1.40%) SolarWinds
11 14 (1.40%) Thales
12 13 (1.30%) CrowdStrike
12 13 (1.30%) F5
13 9 (0.90%) Avaya
13 9 (0.90%) Infoblox
13 9 (0.90%) Palo Alto
13 9 (0.90%) Veeam
14 8 (0.80%) Mitel
14 8 (0.80%) Salesforce