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 10 May 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
10 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 6 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 663 465 799
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 11.24% 15.40% 14.51%
As % of the Vendors category 26.61% 29.32% 30.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 469 315 533
10th Percentile £202 £211 £195
25th Percentile £358 £325 £355
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £480 £465
Median % change year-on-year -1.04% +3.23% -2.11%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £660 £623 £675
England median daily rate £494 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +3.95% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 31 72
10th Percentile £12.29 - £11.71
25th Percentile £13.41 £14.20 £11.95
Median hourly rate £27.50 £15.00 £20.25
Median % change year-on-year +83.33% -25.93% +0.07%
75th Percentile £54.00 £24.38 £50.94
90th Percentile £93.60 £32.05 £61.48
England median hourly rate £20.20 £18.51 £15.00
% change year-on-year +9.10% +23.40% -28.57%

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 2,492 1,586 2,587
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 42.26% 52.53% 46.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,735 1,062 1,581
10th Percentile £282 £241 £213
25th Percentile £413 £402 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £508 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% +1.50% -
75th Percentile £610 £603 £606
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £520
% change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -2.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 153 88 183
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £12.00
25th Percentile £26.63 £16.95 £16.87
Median hourly rate £52.50 £24.83 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +111.44% -50.34% +11.11%
75th Percentile £88.00 £60.47 £61.30
90th Percentile - £72.00 £66.62
England median hourly rate £32.00 £27.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year +18.52% +20.00% -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 10 May 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 10 May 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 10 May 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 0 341 £479 +0.52% 257
Berkshire -9 159 £500 +4.71% 109
Hampshire -7 136 £538 +7.50% 134
Buckinghamshire -2 114 £492 -10.59% 92
Surrey +13 98 £450 -8.26% 85
Oxfordshire 0 68 £338 +35.00% 60
West Sussex -4 40 £475 +23.38% 30
Kent -2 28 £344 +30.95% 49
East Sussex -3 10 £538 - 13
Home Counties +2 4 - - 1
Sussex -2 2 £525 +5.00% 3
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 (10.26%) Microsoft Exchange
1 68 (10.26%) SharePoint
2 11 (1.66%) Confluence
3 3 (0.45%) ArcGIS
3 3 (0.45%) MS Project Server
3 3 (0.45%) Smallworld
4 2 (0.30%) GeoServer
5 1 (0.15%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.15%) BizTalk Server
5 1 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2010
5 1 (0.15%) SharePoint 2010
5 1 (0.15%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 85 (12.82%) Microsoft Office
2 79 (11.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 33 (4.98%) Microsoft Project
4 29 (4.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (1.81%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.30%) SOLIDWORKS
6 2 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.15%) Acrobat
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.15%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.15%) InDesign
7 1 (0.15%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.15%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.15%) Trello
Business Applications
1 8 (1.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.60%) SAP Business One
4 1 (0.15%) iTrent
4 1 (0.15%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.15%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.15%) SAP PSCD
4 1 (0.15%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 255 (38.46%) Azure
2 188 (28.36%) Microsoft 365
3 117 (17.65%) Entra ID
4 85 (12.82%) Power Platform
5 61 (9.20%) AWS
6 38 (5.73%) Azure DevOps
7 32 (4.83%) Power Automate
8 30 (4.52%) Dynamics 365
9 26 (3.92%) OneDrive
10 23 (3.47%) Microsoft Purview
10 23 (3.47%) SaaS
11 22 (3.32%) PowerApps
12 19 (2.87%) GitHub
12 19 (2.87%) IaaS
13 18 (2.71%) Microsoft Copilot
14 16 (2.41%) Serverless
15 15 (2.26%) Azure Functions
16 14 (2.11%) Azure Logic Apps
17 13 (1.96%) Azure Monitor
17 13 (1.96%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 54 (8.14%) DNS
2 39 (5.88%) DHCP
3 33 (4.98%) Wi-Fi
4 32 (4.83%) Firewall
5 20 (3.02%) VPN
6 17 (2.56%) LAN
7 15 (2.26%) WAN
8 12 (1.81%) Kerberos
8 12 (1.81%) TCP/IP
9 9 (1.36%) MPLS
9 9 (1.36%) Network Security
9 9 (1.36%) Unified Communications
10 8 (1.21%) SD-WAN
11 7 (1.06%) BGP
12 6 (0.90%) SAN
12 6 (0.90%) SNMP
12 6 (0.90%) VLAN
12 6 (0.90%) Wireless
13 5 (0.75%) IPsec
13 5 (0.75%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (9.35%) Power BI
2 30 (4.52%) SQL Server
3 16 (2.41%) Azure SQL Database
4 13 (1.96%) MySQL
5 11 (1.66%) PostgreSQL
6 10 (1.51%) Metadata
7 8 (1.21%) Relational Database
8 7 (1.06%) Data Lake
8 7 (1.06%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (0.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 5 (0.75%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
10 5 (0.75%) Oracle Database
11 4 (0.60%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 3 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (0.45%) Data Mining
12 3 (0.45%) GIS
12 3 (0.45%) Oracle Reports
12 3 (0.45%) Star Schema
13 2 (0.30%) Geospatial Data
13 2 (0.30%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 20 (3.02%) JIRA
2 11 (1.66%) Git
3 9 (1.36%) Android Studio
4 6 (0.90%) Browser DevTools
4 6 (0.90%) Eclipse
4 6 (0.90%) Xcode
5 5 (0.75%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.75%) JUnit
6 4 (0.60%) MSI
6 4 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.45%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.45%) Gradle
7 3 (0.45%) Maven
7 3 (0.45%) Robot Framework
7 3 (0.45%) Subversion
8 2 (0.30%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.30%) JMeter
9 1 (0.15%) ERwin
9 1 (0.15%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio
General
1 189 (28.51%) Social Skills
2 70 (10.56%) Public Sector
3 69 (10.41%) Finance
4 66 (9.95%) Analytical Skills
5 49 (7.39%) Organisational Skills
6 17 (2.56%) Documentation Skills
6 17 (2.56%) Legal
7 15 (2.26%) Military
8 11 (1.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 9 (1.36%) Telecoms
10 8 (1.21%) Influencing Skills
10 8 (1.21%) Manufacturing
11 6 (0.90%) Marketing
11 6 (0.90%) Retail
12 5 (0.75%) Aerospace
12 5 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
13 4 (0.60%) Advertising
13 4 (0.60%) General Ledger
13 4 (0.60%) Police
14 3 (0.45%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 88 (13.27%) Architect
2 61 (9.20%) Analyst
3 57 (8.60%) IT Support
3 57 (8.60%) Senior
4 53 (7.99%) Support Engineer
5 48 (7.24%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 42 (6.33%) IT Engineer
7 36 (5.43%) Lead
8 34 (5.13%) IT Support Engineer
9 32 (4.83%) Consultant
10 31 (4.68%) Developer
11 24 (3.62%) Azure Engineer
11 24 (3.62%) Solutions Architect
12 19 (2.87%) Administrator
13 18 (2.71%) IT Analyst
13 18 (2.71%) Technical Architect
14 17 (2.56%) Project Manager
15 16 (2.41%) DevOps Engineer
16 15 (2.26%) Support Analyst
17 14 (2.11%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.77%) .NET
2 19 (2.87%) LDAP
3 15 (2.26%) OAuth
4 14 (2.11%) SAML
5 13 (1.96%) OpenID
6 12 (1.81%) REST
7 11 (1.66%) Web Services
8 10 (1.51%) OAuth2
8 10 (1.51%) SailPoint
9 9 (1.36%) ARM Templates
9 9 (1.36%) CSS
9 9 (1.36%) React
10 8 (1.21%) Microsoft Graph
11 7 (1.06%) ADO
12 6 (0.90%) Ajax
12 6 (0.90%) AngularJS
12 6 (0.90%) GraphQL
12 6 (0.90%) XML
13 5 (0.75%) PySpark
13 5 (0.75%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 51 (7.69%) Onboarding
2 31 (4.68%) PKI
3 20 (3.02%) Product Ownership
4 19 (2.87%) Cloud Native
5 17 (2.56%) Legacy Systems
6 16 (2.41%) Data Centre
6 16 (2.41%) Hybrid Cloud
7 15 (2.26%) Operational Technology
7 15 (2.26%) Replication
8 14 (2.11%) Public Cloud
9 13 (1.96%) Analytical Mindset
9 13 (1.96%) Self-Motivation
10 11 (1.66%) Cyber Defence
11 10 (1.51%) Driving Licence
12 9 (1.36%) Mobile App
13 8 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
13 8 (1.21%) Virtual Team
14 7 (1.06%) Security Posture
15 6 (0.90%) Data Structures
15 6 (0.90%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 188 (28.36%) Windows
2 66 (9.95%) Linux
3 52 (7.84%) Windows Server
4 21 (3.17%) Windows 10
5 14 (2.11%) Android
5 14 (2.11%) Mac OS
5 14 (2.11%) Unix
6 10 (1.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 8 (1.21%) Apple iOS
7 8 (1.21%) Windows 7
8 7 (1.06%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.90%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.75%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.60%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.45%) CentOS
13 1 (0.15%) Debian
13 1 (0.15%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.15%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (14.63%) Problem-Solving
2 82 (12.37%) Agile
3 80 (12.07%) DevOps
4 75 (11.31%) ITIL
5 73 (11.01%) Business Intelligence
5 73 (11.01%) Customer Service
6 69 (10.41%) Migration
7 65 (9.80%) CI/CD
8 62 (9.35%) Cybersecurity
9 57 (8.60%) Stakeholder Management
10 55 (8.30%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 55 (8.30%) Project Management
11 54 (8.14%) Analytics
12 48 (7.24%) Project Delivery
13 44 (6.64%) Decision-Making
14 43 (6.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 40 (6.03%) SIEM
16 36 (5.43%) Roadmaps
17 34 (5.13%) Continuous Improvement
17 34 (5.13%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 99 (14.93%) PowerShell
2 67 (10.11%) Python
3 55 (8.30%) SQL
4 19 (2.87%) T-SQL
5 18 (2.71%) C#
6 17 (2.56%) Bash
7 16 (2.41%) JavaScript
8 14 (2.11%) Java
9 10 (1.51%) Bicep
10 8 (1.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 7 (1.06%) Kusto Query Language
12 6 (0.90%) Perl
13 2 (0.30%) Korn
13 2 (0.30%) PL/SQL
13 2 (0.30%) TypeScript
13 2 (0.30%) X++
14 1 (0.15%) Google Apps Script
14 1 (0.15%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 231 (34.84%) Security Cleared
2 162 (24.43%) SC Cleared
3 70 (10.56%) Degree
3 70 (10.56%) DV Cleared
4 23 (3.47%) Microsoft Certification
5 15 (2.26%) CISSP
6 14 (2.11%) GIAC
7 12 (1.81%) Azure Certification
7 12 (1.81%) Cisco Certification
8 11 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
9 10 (1.51%) PMI Certification
9 10 (1.51%) PMP
10 9 (1.36%) CISM
11 8 (1.21%) AWS Certification
11 8 (1.21%) BPSS Clearance
11 8 (1.21%) DBS Check
12 6 (0.90%) Master's Degree
13 5 (0.75%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 5 (0.75%) CESG Certified Professional
13 5 (0.75%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (4.98%) NIST
2 24 (3.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 22 (3.32%) PMO
4 21 (3.17%) Cyber Essentials
5 19 (2.87%) NCSC
6 18 (2.71%) SLA
7 17 (2.56%) GDPR
8 16 (2.41%) Data Quality
9 11 (1.66%) QA
10 6 (0.90%) ISO 31000
10 6 (0.90%) NIST 800
11 5 (0.75%) Accessibility
12 3 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 3 (0.45%) PCI DSS
13 2 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 2 (0.30%) JSP 440
14 1 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
14 1 (0.15%) Disclosure Scotland
14 1 (0.15%) ISO 9001
14 1 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 203 (30.62%) Active Directory
2 65 (9.80%) VMware Infrastructure
3 28 (4.22%) Hyper-V
4 12 (1.81%) Docker
4 12 (1.81%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (1.51%) VMware NSX
5 10 (1.51%) vSphere
6 9 (1.36%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (1.36%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.75%) Firmware
8 3 (0.45%) DFS Replication
9 2 (0.30%) UAG
10 1 (0.15%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.15%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 1 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.15%) Sendmail
10 1 (0.15%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 58 (8.75%) Microsoft Intune
2 32 (4.83%) Terraform
3 29 (4.37%) SCCM
4 18 (2.71%) Ansible
4 18 (2.71%) Single Sign-On
5 17 (2.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 13 (1.96%) Kubernetes
7 9 (1.36%) SCOM
8 7 (1.06%) Jamf Pro
8 7 (1.06%) vCenter Server
8 7 (1.06%) WMI
9 4 (0.60%) QRadar
10 3 (0.45%) Avamar
10 3 (0.45%) Nessus
10 3 (0.45%) PaperCut
10 3 (0.45%) SCSM
10 3 (0.45%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 3 (0.45%) WSUS
11 2 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
11 2 (0.30%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 78 (11.76%) VMware
2 30 (4.52%) SAP
3 29 (4.37%) Cisco
4 18 (2.71%) ServiceNow
5 16 (2.41%) Citrix
5 16 (2.41%) Databricks
5 16 (2.41%) Meraki
6 15 (2.26%) Oracle
7 12 (1.81%) Splunk
8 11 (1.66%) Thales
9 10 (1.51%) Avaya
10 9 (1.36%) Fortinet
10 9 (1.36%) Mitel
11 8 (1.21%) Dell
11 8 (1.21%) F5
11 8 (1.21%) Google
12 7 (1.06%) Red Hat
13 6 (0.90%) Juniper
13 6 (0.90%) Palo Alto
14 5 (0.75%) Zscaler