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 7 November 2025, 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
7 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 4 6 3
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 609 597 898
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 15.74% 14.32% 16.63%
As % of the Vendors category 30.03% 28.90% 31.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 416 404 598
10th Percentile £185 £200 £166
25th Percentile £220 £334 £218
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £470 £461
Median % change year-on-year -4.26% +1.96% +2.43%
75th Percentile £550 £592 £588
90th Percentile £625 £671 £650
England median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 21 36
10th Percentile £12.50 £18.75 £13.79
25th Percentile £14.50 £34.00 £15.50
Median hourly rate £17.50 £56.75 £19.98
Median % change year-on-year -69.16% +184.08% +12.47%
75th Percentile £21.00 £59.95 £41.25
90th Percentile £33.34 £62.50 £55.70
England median hourly rate £22.32 £21.23 £22.53
% change year-on-year +5.11% -5.77% +15.54%

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 2,028 2,066 2,879
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 52.40% 49.56% 53.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,381 1,294 1,824
10th Percentile £206 £250 £205
25th Percentile £375 £403 £365
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £519 £513
Median % change year-on-year -3.62% +1.17% +2.55%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £606
90th Percentile £650 £688 £678
England median daily rate £506 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.62% - -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 145 68 125
10th Percentile £14.20 £16.25 £15.50
25th Percentile £15.56 £25.31 £21.00
Median hourly rate £20.00 £57.65 £47.90
Median % change year-on-year -65.31% +20.36% +99.56%
75th Percentile £33.05 £67.14 £66.25
90th Percentile £81.00 £70.00 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.00 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.57% -21.35% +73.08%

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 7 November 2025.

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 7 November 2025.

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 7 November 2025. 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 0 304 £450 -6.64% 768
Berkshire -1 190 £480 -7.25% 513
Hampshire +1 133 £530 -3.64% 244
Surrey +5 67 £208 -30.83% 168
Buckinghamshire -1 66 £450 +5.88% 168
Oxfordshire 0 48 £225 -35.71% 97
West Sussex 0 39 £210 -51.63% 89
Kent +1 27 £428 +65.22% 121
East Sussex +8 22 £550 +4.76% 83
Sussex 0 8 £400 +5.26% 41
Home Counties - 1 £550 -
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 65 (10.67%) Microsoft Exchange
2 46 (7.55%) SharePoint
3 18 (2.96%) Skype for Business
4 11 (1.81%) Exchange Server 2010
4 11 (1.81%) Exchange Server 2013
4 11 (1.81%) SharePoint Server
5 10 (1.64%) Exchange Server 2003
5 10 (1.64%) Exchange Server 2007
5 10 (1.64%) Office Communications Server
6 7 (1.15%) Mattermost
7 4 (0.66%) Apache
8 2 (0.33%) CMS
8 2 (0.33%) Confluence
9 1 (0.16%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.16%) BizTalk Server
9 1 (0.16%) Headless CMS
9 1 (0.16%) IIS
9 1 (0.16%) nginx
Applications
1 108 (17.73%) Microsoft Office
2 55 (9.03%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (2.79%) Microsoft Project
4 13 (2.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.82%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (1.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (1.15%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.15%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.66%) NetSuite
4 3 (0.49%) Dynamics AX
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
5 2 (0.33%) SAP Oil and Gas
6 1 (0.16%) iTrent
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.16%) Sage 50
6 1 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.16%) SAP EWM
6 1 (0.16%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.16%) SystmOne
6 1 (0.16%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 146 (23.97%) Microsoft 365
2 143 (23.48%) Azure
3 64 (10.51%) Entra ID
4 46 (7.55%) AWS
5 39 (6.40%) Power Platform
6 34 (5.58%) Dynamics 365
7 26 (4.27%) SaaS
8 18 (2.96%) Azure DevOps
8 18 (2.96%) Sauce Labs
9 16 (2.63%) OneDrive
10 15 (2.46%) GCP
11 13 (2.13%) PowerApps
12 12 (1.97%) Google Workspace
12 12 (1.97%) Microsoft Purview
13 10 (1.64%) Azure Sentinel
14 9 (1.48%) IaaS
15 7 (1.15%) GitHub
15 7 (1.15%) OpenShift
16 6 (0.99%) Amazon EKS
16 6 (0.99%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 52 (8.54%) Firewall
2 51 (8.37%) DNS
3 38 (6.24%) DHCP
4 29 (4.76%) VPN
5 26 (4.27%) TCP/IP
5 26 (4.27%) Wireless
6 17 (2.79%) Cisco IOS
6 17 (2.79%) Fibre Channel
6 17 (2.79%) SAN
7 15 (2.46%) iSCSI
8 14 (2.30%) VLAN
9 12 (1.97%) Wi-Fi
10 11 (1.81%) Unified Communications
11 10 (1.64%) DDNS
11 10 (1.64%) Network Security
12 9 (1.48%) 4G
13 8 (1.31%) Skype
13 8 (1.31%) WebEx
14 7 (1.15%) VSAN
15 6 (0.99%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (7.39%) SQL Server
2 29 (4.76%) Relational Database
3 25 (4.11%) Power BI
4 22 (3.61%) MySQL
5 20 (3.28%) Oracle Database
6 8 (1.31%) Data Warehouse
7 5 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
7 5 (0.82%) Crystal Reports
7 5 (0.82%) MongoDB
7 5 (0.82%) PostgreSQL
8 4 (0.66%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
8 4 (0.66%) Metadata
8 4 (0.66%) RDBMS
9 3 (0.49%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.49%) Oracle Reports
9 3 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 2 (0.33%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.33%) Apache Cassandra
10 2 (0.33%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.33%) GIS
Development Applications
1 20 (3.28%) Browser DevTools
2 18 (2.96%) Android Studio
2 18 (2.96%) Eclipse
2 18 (2.96%) Xcode
3 17 (2.79%) JIRA
4 14 (2.30%) MSI
5 9 (1.48%) Jenkins
6 5 (0.82%) Git
7 4 (0.66%) Robot Framework
7 4 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.49%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.33%) Fiddler
10 1 (0.16%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.16%) Gatling
10 1 (0.16%) Oracle APEX
10 1 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
10 1 (0.16%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 1 (0.16%) Toad
10 1 (0.16%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 234 (38.42%) Social Skills
2 92 (15.11%) Finance
3 76 (12.48%) Analytical Skills
4 46 (7.55%) Organisational Skills
5 29 (4.76%) Public Sector
6 18 (2.96%) Manufacturing
7 17 (2.79%) Legal
8 16 (2.63%) Games
9 10 (1.64%) Documentation Skills
9 10 (1.64%) Telecoms
10 9 (1.48%) Marketing
11 8 (1.31%) Retail
12 6 (0.99%) Automotive
12 6 (0.99%) Billing
12 6 (0.99%) Law
13 5 (0.82%) Electronics
13 5 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.82%) Local Government
14 4 (0.66%) Banking
14 4 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 97 (15.93%) Analyst
2 96 (15.76%) Support Engineer
3 59 (9.69%) Architect
4 57 (9.36%) IT Support
5 34 (5.58%) Senior
6 32 (5.25%) Consultant
7 31 (5.09%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 27 (4.43%) Technical Support
9 25 (4.11%) IT Engineer
10 24 (3.94%) Technical Engineer
10 24 (3.94%) Technical Support Engineer
11 23 (3.78%) Developer
11 23 (3.78%) Platform Engineer
12 22 (3.61%) Infrastructure Architect
13 21 (3.45%) Data Analyst
13 21 (3.45%) Infrastructure Support
13 21 (3.45%) Support Analyst
14 20 (3.28%) Applications Support
14 20 (3.28%) IT Support Engineer
15 19 (3.12%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (4.93%) React
2 21 (3.45%) GraphQL
3 20 (3.28%) CSS
4 19 (3.12%) Ajax
4 19 (3.12%) AngularJS
5 12 (1.97%) .NET
6 11 (1.81%) OAuth
7 8 (1.31%) Middleware
7 8 (1.31%) SAML
8 7 (1.15%) SailPoint
9 6 (0.99%) OpenID
10 5 (0.82%) REST
11 4 (0.66%) .NET Core
11 4 (0.66%) JSON
11 4 (0.66%) LDAP
11 4 (0.66%) Microsoft Graph
11 4 (0.66%) OAuth2
11 4 (0.66%) WebdriverIO
12 3 (0.49%) .NET Framework
12 3 (0.49%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 22 (3.61%) Onboarding
2 21 (3.45%) Analytical Mindset
3 20 (3.28%) Mobile App
3 20 (3.28%) PKI
4 19 (3.12%) Management Information System
5 15 (2.46%) Replication
6 14 (2.30%) Enterprise Software
7 13 (2.13%) Driving Licence
7 13 (2.13%) Security Operations Centre
8 11 (1.81%) Self-Motivation
9 10 (1.64%) Fat Client
9 10 (1.64%) Security Posture
9 10 (1.64%) Thin Client
10 9 (1.48%) Cyber Threat
10 9 (1.48%) Private Cloud
10 9 (1.48%) Video Conferencing
11 8 (1.31%) Operational Technology
12 7 (1.15%) Cyber Defence
12 7 (1.15%) Data Centre
13 6 (0.99%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 253 (41.54%) Windows
2 78 (12.81%) Linux
3 67 (11.00%) Windows 10
4 52 (8.54%) Windows Server
5 37 (6.08%) Android
6 32 (5.25%) Mac OS
7 24 (3.94%) Unix
8 21 (3.45%) Windows Server 2019
9 10 (1.64%) Windows 7
9 10 (1.64%) Windows Server 2003
10 9 (1.48%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (1.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 6 (0.99%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.82%) Apple iOS
14 4 (0.66%) CentOS
15 2 (0.33%) Debian
15 2 (0.33%) Ubuntu
16 1 (0.16%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (19.70%) Problem-Solving
2 93 (15.27%) ITIL
3 67 (11.00%) Customer Service
4 63 (10.34%) Agile
5 59 (9.69%) Migration
6 54 (8.87%) Cybersecurity
7 46 (7.55%) Continuous Improvement
8 44 (7.22%) DevOps
9 41 (6.73%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 41 (6.73%) Stakeholder Management
10 38 (6.24%) Change Management
11 37 (6.08%) Business Intelligence
12 34 (5.58%) ERP
12 34 (5.58%) Project Management
13 32 (5.25%) ITSM
13 32 (5.25%) User Experience
14 30 (4.93%) Project Delivery
14 30 (4.93%) Service Management
14 30 (4.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 29 (4.76%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 99 (16.26%) PowerShell
2 85 (13.96%) SQL
3 64 (10.51%) Python
4 34 (5.58%) Java
5 30 (4.93%) JavaScript
6 25 (4.11%) C#
7 20 (3.28%) Perl
8 13 (2.13%) VB
9 9 (1.48%) Bash
10 6 (0.99%) PHP
10 6 (0.99%) X++
11 5 (0.82%) Bicep
12 3 (0.49%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.49%) R
13 2 (0.33%) Apex Code
13 2 (0.33%) Go
13 2 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.33%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.16%) Delphi
14 1 (0.16%) Korn
Qualifications
1 173 (28.41%) Security Cleared
2 100 (16.42%) SC Cleared
3 63 (10.34%) DV Cleared
4 59 (9.69%) Degree
5 52 (8.54%) Microsoft Certification
6 17 (2.79%) Azure Certification
6 17 (2.79%) MCSE
7 16 (2.63%) CISSP
8 14 (2.30%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 12 (1.97%) A+ Certification
10 11 (1.81%) GCFA
10 11 (1.81%) GCIH
10 11 (1.81%) Network+ Certification
10 11 (1.81%) Server+ Certification
11 10 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
11 10 (1.64%) ITIL Certification
12 9 (1.48%) DBS Check
12 9 (1.48%) GCIA
12 9 (1.48%) VCP5
12 9 (1.48%) VCP6
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (6.24%) GDPR
2 26 (4.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 22 (3.61%) NIST
4 18 (2.96%) SLA
5 15 (2.46%) Data Quality
6 10 (1.64%) PMO
7 9 (1.48%) QA
8 4 (0.66%) Accessibility
8 4 (0.66%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.49%) ECSS
9 3 (0.49%) ISO 9001
9 3 (0.49%) P3O
9 3 (0.49%) RMADS
10 2 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 19770
10 2 (0.33%) NCSC
10 2 (0.33%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.16%) JSP 440
System Software
1 175 (28.74%) Active Directory
2 61 (10.02%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (3.94%) vSphere
4 22 (3.61%) Hyper-V
4 22 (3.61%) VMware ESXi
5 15 (2.46%) NFS
6 10 (1.64%) Brightmail
6 10 (1.64%) ISA Server
7 9 (1.48%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.82%) Terminal Services
9 4 (0.66%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.49%) DFS Replication
10 3 (0.49%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.33%) Docker
12 1 (0.16%) XenApp
12 1 (0.16%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 67 (11.00%) SCCM
2 58 (9.52%) Microsoft Intune
3 19 (3.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 18 (2.96%) Terraform
5 14 (2.30%) Ansible
5 14 (2.30%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (2.13%) Kubernetes
7 11 (1.81%) Microsoft Clustering
7 11 (1.81%) WMI
8 8 (1.31%) SCOM
9 7 (1.15%) HP SiteScope
9 7 (1.15%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.66%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
10 4 (0.66%) Jamf Pro
11 3 (0.49%) Cisco CUCM
12 2 (0.33%) EnCase
12 2 (0.33%) FTK
12 2 (0.33%) QRadar
12 2 (0.33%) SCVMM
13 1 (0.16%) EMC NetWorker
Vendors
1 80 (13.14%) VMware
2 74 (12.15%) Splunk
3 59 (9.69%) ServiceNow
4 52 (8.54%) Oracle
5 44 (7.22%) Cisco
6 26 (4.27%) SAP
7 22 (3.61%) Citrix
8 18 (2.96%) Meraki
9 17 (2.79%) Veeam
10 16 (2.63%) CrowdStrike
10 16 (2.63%) NetApp
11 14 (2.30%) CyberArk
12 11 (1.81%) Remedy
12 11 (1.81%) Salesforce
13 10 (1.64%) Red Hat
14 7 (1.15%) Palo Alto
15 6 (0.99%) ArcSight
15 6 (0.99%) Google
15 6 (0.99%) LogRhythm
15 6 (0.99%) Workday