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 22 October 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
22 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 4 7 4
Rank change year-on-year +3 -3 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 586 597 920
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 16.12% 14.01% 16.80%
As % of the Vendors category 30.57% 28.56% 32.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 409 404 610
10th Percentile £181 £200 £166
25th Percentile £220 £335 £225
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £464 £456
Median % change year-on-year -2.99% +1.72% +1.33%
75th Percentile £550 £588 £585
90th Percentile £625 £669 £650
England median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 21 41
10th Percentile £12.50 £18.75 £13.57
25th Percentile £14.50 £34.00 £15.50
Median hourly rate £17.50 £56.75 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year -69.16% +224.26% +3.64%
75th Percentile £21.00 £59.95 £40.00
90th Percentile £47.34 £62.50 £56.40
England median hourly rate £22.32 £20.00 £23.00
% change year-on-year +11.58% -13.04% +18.71%

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 1,917 2,090 2,872
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 52.72% 49.05% 52.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,291 1,295 1,855
10th Percentile £205 £252 £205
25th Percentile £372 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +0.49% +2.50%
75th Percentile £588 £631 £612
90th Percentile £650 £700 £688
England median daily rate £510 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.86% - -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 125 74 132
10th Percentile £14.00 £16.25 £15.50
25th Percentile £15.50 £23.44 £19.55
Median hourly rate £20.00 £57.00 £50.03
Median % change year-on-year -64.91% +13.93% +120.68%
75th Percentile £33.05 £66.77 £65.50
90th Percentile £75.30 £70.00 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.00 £35.00 £44.20
% change year-on-year -28.57% -20.81% +76.80%

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 22 October 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 22 October 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 22 October 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 0 291 £450 -5.26% 448
Berkshire +1 183 £475 -8.65% 283
Hampshire +2 130 £525 -5.62% 189
Buckinghamshire +2 64 £463 +8.82% 110
Surrey +3 62 £208 -36.15% 142
Oxfordshire +1 44 £225 -40.00% 66
West Sussex 0 38 £210 -50.38% 76
Kent +1 29 £369 +84.38% 108
East Sussex +11 21 £550 +33.33% 63
Sussex +1 6 £400 +5.26% 35
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 68 (11.60%) Microsoft Exchange
2 46 (7.85%) SharePoint
3 17 (2.90%) Skype for Business
4 11 (1.88%) Exchange Server 2010
4 11 (1.88%) Exchange Server 2013
4 11 (1.88%) SharePoint Server
5 10 (1.71%) Exchange Server 2003
5 10 (1.71%) Exchange Server 2007
5 10 (1.71%) Office Communications Server
6 7 (1.19%) Mattermost
7 4 (0.68%) Apache
8 2 (0.34%) CMS
8 2 (0.34%) Confluence
9 1 (0.17%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.17%) BizTalk Server
9 1 (0.17%) Headless CMS
9 1 (0.17%) IIS
9 1 (0.17%) nginx
Applications
1 93 (15.87%) Microsoft Office
2 50 (8.53%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (2.56%) Microsoft Project
4 14 (2.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.85%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.17%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (1.54%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (1.19%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.19%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.68%) NetSuite
4 3 (0.51%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.34%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.34%) SAP CO
5 2 (0.34%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.34%) SAP FI/CO
5 2 (0.34%) SAP Oil and Gas
6 1 (0.17%) iTrent
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle SCM
6 1 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.17%) SAP EWM
6 1 (0.17%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.17%) SystmOne
6 1 (0.17%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 143 (24.40%) Microsoft 365
2 142 (24.23%) Azure
3 59 (10.07%) Entra ID
4 42 (7.17%) AWS
5 41 (7.00%) Power Platform
6 34 (5.80%) Dynamics 365
7 23 (3.92%) SaaS
8 16 (2.73%) Azure DevOps
8 16 (2.73%) OneDrive
8 16 (2.73%) Sauce Labs
9 14 (2.39%) GCP
10 13 (2.22%) PowerApps
11 11 (1.88%) Microsoft Purview
12 10 (1.71%) Google Workspace
12 10 (1.71%) Microsoft Copilot
13 9 (1.54%) Azure Sentinel
13 9 (1.54%) IaaS
14 6 (1.02%) Amazon EKS
14 6 (1.02%) OpenShift
14 6 (1.02%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 51 (8.70%) DNS
1 51 (8.70%) Firewall
2 37 (6.31%) DHCP
3 30 (5.12%) VPN
4 26 (4.44%) TCP/IP
5 23 (3.92%) Wireless
6 19 (3.24%) SAN
7 18 (3.07%) Fibre Channel
8 17 (2.90%) Cisco IOS
9 16 (2.73%) iSCSI
10 14 (2.39%) VLAN
11 12 (2.05%) Wi-Fi
12 11 (1.88%) WebEx
13 10 (1.71%) DDNS
14 9 (1.54%) Unified Communications
15 8 (1.37%) 4G
16 7 (1.19%) Skype
16 7 (1.19%) VSAN
17 6 (1.02%) Network Security
17 6 (1.02%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (7.68%) SQL Server
2 25 (4.27%) Power BI
3 24 (4.10%) Relational Database
4 20 (3.41%) MySQL
5 19 (3.24%) Oracle Database
6 6 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
6 6 (1.02%) Data Warehouse
7 5 (0.85%) Crystal Reports
7 5 (0.85%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 4 (0.68%) GIS
8 4 (0.68%) Metadata
8 4 (0.68%) MongoDB
8 4 (0.68%) PostgreSQL
9 3 (0.51%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
9 3 (0.51%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.51%) Oracle Reports
10 2 (0.34%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.34%) Apache Cassandra
10 2 (0.34%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.34%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 18 (3.07%) Browser DevTools
2 17 (2.90%) JIRA
3 16 (2.73%) Android Studio
3 16 (2.73%) Eclipse
3 16 (2.73%) Xcode
4 13 (2.22%) MSI
5 6 (1.02%) Jenkins
6 4 (0.68%) Git
6 4 (0.68%) Robot Framework
6 4 (0.68%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.51%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.34%) Fiddler
9 1 (0.17%) Oracle APEX
9 1 (0.17%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.17%) Postman
9 1 (0.17%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.17%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 1 (0.17%) Toad
9 1 (0.17%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 217 (37.03%) Social Skills
2 88 (15.02%) Finance
3 70 (11.95%) Analytical Skills
4 38 (6.48%) Organisational Skills
5 29 (4.95%) Public Sector
6 18 (3.07%) Legal
7 16 (2.73%) Games
8 13 (2.22%) Manufacturing
9 12 (2.05%) Telecoms
10 11 (1.88%) Documentation Skills
11 8 (1.37%) Retail
12 6 (1.02%) Automotive
12 6 (1.02%) Law
12 6 (1.02%) Marketing
13 5 (0.85%) Aerospace
13 5 (0.85%) Billing
13 5 (0.85%) Local Government
14 4 (0.68%) Electronics
14 4 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 4 (0.68%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 97 (16.55%) Analyst
2 91 (15.53%) Support Engineer
3 58 (9.90%) Architect
4 48 (8.19%) IT Support
5 33 (5.63%) Senior
6 32 (5.46%) Consultant
7 29 (4.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 25 (4.27%) Technical Support
9 23 (3.92%) Platform Engineer
10 22 (3.75%) Developer
10 22 (3.75%) IT Engineer
10 22 (3.75%) Support Analyst
10 22 (3.75%) Technical Engineer
10 22 (3.75%) Technical Support Engineer
11 21 (3.58%) Infrastructure Architect
12 20 (3.41%) Applications Support
12 20 (3.41%) Infrastructure Support
13 19 (3.24%) Data Analyst
13 19 (3.24%) Desktop Support
13 19 (3.24%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (4.78%) React
2 18 (3.07%) CSS
3 17 (2.90%) Ajax
3 17 (2.90%) AngularJS
3 17 (2.90%) GraphQL
4 12 (2.05%) .NET
5 8 (1.37%) Middleware
5 8 (1.37%) OAuth
6 7 (1.19%) SailPoint
7 5 (0.85%) SAML
7 5 (0.85%) SOAP
8 4 (0.68%) JSON
8 4 (0.68%) WebdriverIO
9 3 (0.51%) .NET Core
9 3 (0.51%) LDAP
9 3 (0.51%) OpenID
10 2 (0.34%) ADO
10 2 (0.34%) EDI
10 2 (0.34%) Web Services
10 2 (0.34%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 22 (3.75%) Onboarding
2 18 (3.07%) Analytical Mindset
2 18 (3.07%) Mobile App
2 18 (3.07%) PKI
3 17 (2.90%) Management Information System
3 17 (2.90%) Replication
4 12 (2.05%) Enterprise Software
4 12 (2.05%) Security Operations Centre
5 11 (1.88%) Driving Licence
5 11 (1.88%) Operational Technology
6 10 (1.71%) Fat Client
6 10 (1.71%) Security Posture
6 10 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
6 10 (1.71%) Thin Client
7 9 (1.54%) Cyber Threat
7 9 (1.54%) Private Cloud
7 9 (1.54%) Video Conferencing
8 7 (1.19%) Cyber Defence
8 7 (1.19%) Data Centre
9 6 (1.02%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 244 (41.64%) Windows
2 77 (13.14%) Linux
3 65 (11.09%) Windows 10
4 53 (9.04%) Windows Server
5 34 (5.80%) Android
6 31 (5.29%) Mac OS
7 24 (4.10%) Unix
8 22 (3.75%) Windows Server 2019
9 10 (1.71%) Windows 7
9 10 (1.71%) Windows Server 2003
10 9 (1.54%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (1.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 6 (1.02%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.68%) Apple iOS
13 4 (0.68%) CentOS
14 2 (0.34%) Debian
14 2 (0.34%) Ubuntu
15 1 (0.17%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 113 (19.28%) Problem-Solving
2 93 (15.87%) ITIL
3 64 (10.92%) Agile
4 63 (10.75%) Customer Service
5 61 (10.41%) Migration
6 45 (7.68%) Continuous Improvement
6 45 (7.68%) Cybersecurity
7 41 (7.00%) DevOps
8 39 (6.66%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 39 (6.66%) Stakeholder Management
9 35 (5.97%) Business Intelligence
10 34 (5.80%) Change Management
10 34 (5.80%) ERP
11 31 (5.29%) Project Management
12 29 (4.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 28 (4.78%) User Experience
14 27 (4.61%) ITSM
14 27 (4.61%) SIEM
15 26 (4.44%) High Availability
15 26 (4.44%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 96 (16.38%) PowerShell
2 86 (14.68%) SQL
3 57 (9.73%) Python
4 31 (5.29%) Java
5 26 (4.44%) JavaScript
6 25 (4.27%) C#
7 20 (3.41%) Perl
8 13 (2.22%) VB
9 8 (1.37%) Bash
10 6 (1.02%) Bicep
10 6 (1.02%) X++
11 5 (0.85%) PL/SQL
12 4 (0.68%) PHP
13 3 (0.51%) R
14 2 (0.34%) Apex Code
14 2 (0.34%) Go
14 2 (0.34%) Kusto Query Language
15 1 (0.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 1 (0.17%) Delphi
15 1 (0.17%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 163 (27.82%) Security Cleared
2 94 (16.04%) SC Cleared
3 59 (10.07%) DV Cleared
4 56 (9.56%) Microsoft Certification
5 46 (7.85%) Degree
6 18 (3.07%) Azure Certification
6 18 (3.07%) MCSE
7 15 (2.56%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 14 (2.39%) CISSP
9 11 (1.88%) Network+ Certification
9 11 (1.88%) Server+ Certification
10 10 (1.71%) A+ Certification
10 10 (1.71%) GCFA
10 10 (1.71%) GCIH
10 10 (1.71%) ITIL Certification
10 10 (1.71%) VCP5
10 10 (1.71%) VCP6
11 9 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
11 9 (1.54%) DBS Check
12 8 (1.37%) GCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (6.14%) GDPR
2 24 (4.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 19 (3.24%) NIST
4 16 (2.73%) SLA
5 12 (2.05%) Data Quality
6 9 (1.54%) QA
7 8 (1.37%) PMO
8 4 (0.68%) Accessibility
8 4 (0.68%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.51%) ECSS
9 3 (0.51%) ISO 9001
9 3 (0.51%) RMADS
10 2 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 19770
10 2 (0.34%) NCSC
10 2 (0.34%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.17%) JSP 440
11 1 (0.17%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 174 (29.69%) Active Directory
2 62 (10.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (4.27%) vSphere
4 23 (3.92%) VMware ESXi
5 22 (3.75%) Hyper-V
6 16 (2.73%) NFS
7 10 (1.71%) Brightmail
7 10 (1.71%) ISA Server
8 9 (1.54%) Virtual Desktop
9 5 (0.85%) Terminal Services
10 4 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.51%) DFS Replication
11 3 (0.51%) VMware NSX
12 1 (0.17%) Docker
12 1 (0.17%) XenApp
12 1 (0.17%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 68 (11.60%) SCCM
2 56 (9.56%) Microsoft Intune
3 18 (3.07%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 16 (2.73%) Terraform
5 14 (2.39%) Ansible
5 14 (2.39%) Kubernetes
6 12 (2.05%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (1.88%) Microsoft Clustering
8 10 (1.71%) WMI
9 8 (1.37%) SCOM
10 7 (1.19%) HP SiteScope
10 7 (1.19%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.68%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
12 3 (0.51%) Cisco CUCM
13 2 (0.34%) EnCase
13 2 (0.34%) FTK
13 2 (0.34%) Grafana
13 2 (0.34%) Prometheus
13 2 (0.34%) QRadar
13 2 (0.34%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 80 (13.65%) VMware
2 71 (12.12%) Splunk
3 60 (10.24%) ServiceNow
4 50 (8.53%) Oracle
5 44 (7.51%) Cisco
6 27 (4.61%) Citrix
7 23 (3.92%) SAP
8 18 (3.07%) Veeam
9 17 (2.90%) Meraki
9 17 (2.90%) NetApp
10 14 (2.39%) CrowdStrike
11 12 (2.05%) CyberArk
12 11 (1.88%) Remedy
13 10 (1.71%) Red Hat
13 10 (1.71%) Salesforce
14 7 (1.19%) Sage
15 6 (1.02%) Google
15 6 (1.02%) LogRhythm
15 6 (1.02%) Palo Alto
15 6 (1.02%) Workday