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 28 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
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 7 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 648 450 816
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 11.14% 15.03% 14.77%
As % of the Vendors category 25.95% 28.81% 31.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 449 306 545
10th Percentile £204 £220 £192
25th Percentile £375 £363 £320
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £493 £470
Median % change year-on-year -2.69% +4.95% -1.05%
75th Percentile £576 £580 £575
90th Percentile £663 £628 £675
England median daily rate £492 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +3.58% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 31 73
10th Percentile £12.29 - £11.71
25th Percentile £13.13 £14.20 £12.00
Median hourly rate £19.90 £15.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year +32.63% -28.57% +2.59%
75th Percentile £41.83 £24.38 £50.00
90th Percentile £82.63 £32.05 £61.36
England median hourly rate £20.09 £19.99 £15.00
% change year-on-year +0.53% +33.23% -31.82%

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 2,497 1,562 2,616
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 42.91% 52.17% 47.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,735 1,045 1,591
10th Percentile £306 £242 £213
25th Percentile £413 £406 £388
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 164 91 180
10th Percentile £13.44 £14.20 £11.98
25th Percentile £20.50 £16.95 £17.09
Median hourly rate £47.54 £24.66 £48.75
Median % change year-on-year +92.78% -49.42% +8.33%
75th Percentile £85.44 £59.44 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £71.25 £65.20
England median hourly rate £30.15 £27.50 £22.50
% change year-on-year +9.64% +22.22% -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 28 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 28 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 28 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 -1 335 £475 -3.85% 178
Berkshire -11 163 £500 +2.56% 75
Hampshire -7 140 £550 +10.00% 114
Buckinghamshire -3 109 £475 -13.64% 68
Surrey +14 94 £450 -6.44% 67
Oxfordshire 0 63 £275 -26.67% 39
West Sussex -7 33 £478 +23.70% 30
Kent -1 27 £400 +52.38% 55
East Sussex -4 8 £600 +9.09% 13
Home Counties +1 4 - -
Sussex -1 4 £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 (10.49%) Microsoft Exchange
2 64 (9.88%) SharePoint
3 10 (1.54%) Confluence
4 3 (0.46%) ArcGIS
4 3 (0.46%) MS Project Server
4 3 (0.46%) Smallworld
5 2 (0.31%) GeoServer
6 1 (0.15%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.15%) BizTalk Server
6 1 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2010
6 1 (0.15%) SharePoint 2010
6 1 (0.15%) SharePoint 2013
6 1 (0.15%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 99 (15.28%) Microsoft Office
2 87 (13.43%) Microsoft Excel
3 31 (4.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 31 (4.78%) Microsoft Project
4 12 (1.85%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.31%) SOLIDWORKS
5 2 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.15%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.15%) Autodesk Inventor
6 1 (0.15%) InDesign
6 1 (0.15%) MicroStation
6 1 (0.15%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.15%) 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 (0.15%) iTrent
3 1 (0.15%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.15%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.15%) Sage 50
Cloud Services
1 243 (37.50%) Azure
2 180 (27.78%) Microsoft 365
3 114 (17.59%) Entra ID
4 75 (11.57%) Power Platform
5 66 (10.19%) AWS
6 37 (5.71%) Azure DevOps
7 30 (4.63%) Power Automate
8 28 (4.32%) Dynamics 365
9 26 (4.01%) OneDrive
10 25 (3.86%) Microsoft Purview
11 23 (3.55%) SaaS
12 22 (3.40%) PowerApps
13 20 (3.09%) GitHub
14 18 (2.78%) Serverless
15 17 (2.62%) Azure Functions
15 17 (2.62%) Microsoft Copilot
16 16 (2.47%) IaaS
17 15 (2.31%) Azure Monitor
18 14 (2.16%) Azure Logic Apps
19 12 (1.85%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 56 (8.64%) DNS
2 41 (6.33%) DHCP
3 35 (5.40%) Firewall
4 32 (4.94%) Wi-Fi
5 20 (3.09%) VPN
6 16 (2.47%) LAN
7 14 (2.16%) WAN
8 13 (2.01%) Network Security
8 13 (2.01%) TCP/IP
9 12 (1.85%) Kerberos
10 10 (1.54%) Unified Communications
11 9 (1.39%) MPLS
12 8 (1.23%) BGP
12 8 (1.23%) SSL
12 8 (1.23%) Wireless
13 7 (1.08%) SD-WAN
14 6 (0.93%) SAN
14 6 (0.93%) SNMP
15 5 (0.77%) IPsec
15 5 (0.77%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (8.95%) Power BI
2 33 (5.09%) SQL Server
3 16 (2.47%) Azure SQL Database
4 13 (2.01%) PostgreSQL
5 12 (1.85%) MySQL
6 10 (1.54%) Metadata
6 10 (1.54%) Relational Database
7 8 (1.23%) Data Warehouse
8 7 (1.08%) Data Lake
8 7 (1.08%) 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 (0.46%) Data Mining
11 3 (0.46%) GIS
11 3 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
11 3 (0.46%) Star Schema
12 2 (0.31%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 17 (2.62%) JIRA
2 13 (2.01%) Git
3 8 (1.23%) Android Studio
3 8 (1.23%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.77%) Browser DevTools
4 5 (0.77%) Eclipse
4 5 (0.77%) JUnit
4 5 (0.77%) Xcode
5 4 (0.62%) Gradle
5 4 (0.62%) MSI
6 3 (0.46%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.46%) Cucumber
6 3 (0.46%) Maven
6 3 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.46%) Subversion
7 2 (0.31%) JMeter
7 2 (0.31%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.15%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.15%) GitLab
8 1 (0.15%) SonarQube
General
1 196 (30.25%) Social Skills
2 72 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
3 71 (10.96%) Finance
4 64 (9.88%) Public Sector
5 56 (8.64%) Organisational Skills
6 17 (2.62%) Documentation Skills
7 14 (2.16%) Legal
7 14 (2.16%) Military
8 12 (1.85%) Manufacturing
9 11 (1.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (1.23%) Telecoms
11 7 (1.08%) Influencing Skills
11 7 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
12 6 (0.93%) Marketing
13 5 (0.77%) Retail
14 4 (0.62%) Advertising
14 4 (0.62%) General Ledger
14 4 (0.62%) Police
15 3 (0.46%) Automotive
15 3 (0.46%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 93 (14.35%) Architect
2 57 (8.80%) Senior
3 56 (8.64%) Analyst
4 55 (8.49%) IT Support
5 49 (7.56%) Support Engineer
6 47 (7.25%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 38 (5.86%) IT Engineer
8 33 (5.09%) Developer
9 32 (4.94%) IT Support Engineer
9 32 (4.94%) Lead
10 26 (4.01%) Azure Engineer
11 25 (3.86%) Consultant
12 24 (3.70%) Solutions Architect
13 20 (3.09%) Administrator
14 18 (2.78%) DevOps Engineer
15 16 (2.47%) Infrastructure Architect
15 16 (2.47%) IT Analyst
15 16 (2.47%) Technical Architect
16 13 (2.01%) Project Manager
16 13 (2.01%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.70%) .NET
2 19 (2.93%) LDAP
3 16 (2.47%) OAuth
4 15 (2.31%) OpenID
4 15 (2.31%) SAML
5 13 (2.01%) OAuth2
5 13 (2.01%) REST
6 11 (1.70%) ARM Templates
7 9 (1.39%) Microsoft Graph
7 9 (1.39%) SailPoint
7 9 (1.39%) Web Services
8 8 (1.23%) CSS
8 8 (1.23%) React
9 7 (1.08%) ADO
9 7 (1.08%) GraphQL
10 6 (0.93%) Spring
10 6 (0.93%) XML
11 5 (0.77%) .NET Framework
11 5 (0.77%) Ajax
11 5 (0.77%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 46 (7.10%) Onboarding
2 31 (4.78%) PKI
3 20 (3.09%) Cloud Native
3 20 (3.09%) Product Ownership
4 17 (2.62%) Legacy Systems
5 16 (2.47%) Hybrid Cloud
5 16 (2.47%) Self-Motivation
6 15 (2.31%) Analytical Mindset
6 15 (2.31%) Data Centre
6 15 (2.31%) Replication
7 14 (2.16%) Public Cloud
8 11 (1.70%) Operational Technology
9 10 (1.54%) Enterprise Software
10 8 (1.23%) Driving Licence
10 8 (1.23%) Management Information System
10 8 (1.23%) Mobile App
11 6 (0.93%) Cyber Defence
11 6 (0.93%) Fat Client
11 6 (0.93%) Security Posture
11 6 (0.93%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 177 (27.31%) Windows
2 61 (9.41%) Linux
3 49 (7.56%) Windows Server
4 18 (2.78%) Windows 10
5 15 (2.31%) Mac OS
6 10 (1.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (1.39%) Android
7 9 (1.39%) Windows 7
8 7 (1.08%) Unix
8 7 (1.08%) Windows Server 2012
9 6 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
10 5 (0.77%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.62%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.46%) CentOS
13 1 (0.15%) Apple iOS
13 1 (0.15%) Debian
13 1 (0.15%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.15%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 105 (16.20%) Problem-Solving
2 78 (12.04%) DevOps
3 77 (11.88%) Agile
3 77 (11.88%) Customer Service
4 71 (10.96%) Migration
5 70 (10.80%) Business Intelligence
6 66 (10.19%) Cybersecurity
7 65 (10.03%) ITIL
8 61 (9.41%) CI/CD
9 55 (8.49%) Stakeholder Management
10 54 (8.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 53 (8.18%) Project Management
12 52 (8.02%) Analytics
13 47 (7.25%) Project Delivery
14 41 (6.33%) Time Management
15 36 (5.56%) Infrastructure as Code
15 36 (5.56%) Roadmaps
16 35 (5.40%) Decision-Making
17 34 (5.25%) SIEM
18 33 (5.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 100 (15.43%) PowerShell
2 70 (10.80%) Python
3 52 (8.02%) SQL
4 20 (3.09%) Bash
4 20 (3.09%) C#
5 17 (2.62%) JavaScript
6 14 (2.16%) Java
6 14 (2.16%) T-SQL
7 10 (1.54%) Bicep
8 7 (1.08%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 7 (1.08%) Kusto Query Language
9 5 (0.77%) Perl
10 2 (0.31%) Korn
10 2 (0.31%) PHP
10 2 (0.31%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.31%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.31%) TypeScript
10 2 (0.31%) X++
11 1 (0.15%) Google Apps Script
11 1 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 224 (34.57%) Security Cleared
2 156 (24.07%) SC Cleared
3 72 (11.11%) Degree
4 70 (10.80%) DV Cleared
5 25 (3.86%) Microsoft Certification
6 13 (2.01%) Azure Certification
6 13 (2.01%) CISSP
7 11 (1.70%) Computer Science Degree
7 11 (1.70%) PMI Certification
7 11 (1.70%) PMP
8 9 (1.39%) GIAC
9 8 (1.23%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (1.23%) Cisco Certification
9 8 (1.23%) DBS Check
10 7 (1.08%) Master's Degree
11 6 (0.93%) AWS Certification
11 6 (0.93%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 5 (0.77%) A+ Certification
12 5 (0.77%) CCIE
12 5 (0.77%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (4.78%) NIST
2 23 (3.55%) PMO
3 20 (3.09%) SLA
4 19 (2.93%) Data Quality
4 19 (2.93%) GDPR
4 19 (2.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 15 (2.31%) NCSC
6 14 (2.16%) Cyber Essentials
7 11 (1.70%) QA
8 6 (0.93%) NIST 800
9 4 (0.62%) Accessibility
10 3 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 2 (0.31%) JSP 440
11 2 (0.31%) P3O
12 1 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.15%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.15%) ISO 9001
12 1 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 1 (0.15%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 198 (30.56%) Active Directory
2 59 (9.10%) VMware Infrastructure
3 26 (4.01%) Hyper-V
4 14 (2.16%) Docker
5 12 (1.85%) Virtual Desktop
6 10 (1.54%) VMware NSX
7 9 (1.39%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (1.39%) vSphere
8 8 (1.23%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (0.77%) Firmware
10 3 (0.46%) DFS Replication
11 2 (0.31%) UAG
12 1 (0.15%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.15%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 1 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.15%) Sendmail
12 1 (0.15%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 58 (8.95%) Microsoft Intune
2 34 (5.25%) Terraform
3 31 (4.78%) SCCM
4 20 (3.09%) Single Sign-On
5 18 (2.78%) Ansible
6 16 (2.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 13 (2.01%) Kubernetes
8 9 (1.39%) Jamf Pro
9 8 (1.23%) WMI
10 6 (0.93%) SCOM
11 4 (0.62%) vCenter Server
12 3 (0.46%) Grafana
12 3 (0.46%) Nessus
12 3 (0.46%) PaperCut
12 3 (0.46%) Puppet
12 3 (0.46%) SCSM
12 3 (0.46%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 3 (0.46%) WSUS
13 2 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
13 2 (0.31%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 72 (11.11%) VMware
2 30 (4.63%) Cisco
3 27 (4.17%) SAP
4 19 (2.93%) ServiceNow
5 16 (2.47%) Meraki
5 16 (2.47%) Oracle
6 15 (2.31%) Citrix
6 15 (2.31%) Databricks
7 12 (1.85%) Splunk
8 11 (1.70%) Fortinet
9 9 (1.39%) Avaya
9 9 (1.39%) Thales
10 8 (1.23%) F5
10 8 (1.23%) Google
10 8 (1.23%) Mitel
10 8 (1.23%) Tenable
11 7 (1.08%) Palo Alto
11 7 (1.08%) Red Hat
12 6 (0.93%) Juniper
13 5 (0.77%) CheckPoint