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 January 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 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 8 4
Rank change year-on-year +1 -4 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 602 484 823
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 13.68% 14.37% 16.47%
As % of the Vendors category 27.63% 28.61% 31.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 432 338 571
10th Percentile £200 £200 £163
25th Percentile £263 £334 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £465
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -3.22% +3.33%
75th Percentile £566 £583 £575
90th Percentile £640 £662 £650
England median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 15 35
10th Percentile £12.50 £16.28 £12.26
25th Percentile £14.38 £19.99 £14.75
Median hourly rate £17.22 £25.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -31.13% +13.64% +18.92%
75th Percentile £20.84 £48.13 £55.00
90th Percentile £47.91 £57.62 £61.95
England median hourly rate £19.50 £22.27 £21.00
% change year-on-year -12.44% +6.05% -

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 2,179 1,692 2,573
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 49.53% 50.22% 51.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,575 1,103 1,645
10th Percentile £250 £237 £205
25th Percentile £405 £400 £364
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £509 £501
Median % change year-on-year -1.67% +1.50% +0.20%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £610
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 135 50 135
10th Percentile £12.60 £20.00 £14.60
25th Percentile £16.43 £24.18 £23.81
Median hourly rate £22.00 £47.50 £55.80
Median % change year-on-year -53.68% -14.87% +59.43%
75th Percentile £60.00 £64.69 £66.64
90th Percentile £84.40 £74.88 £77.80
England median hourly rate £23.50 £30.00 £43.84
% change year-on-year -21.67% -31.56% +34.88%

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 January 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 January 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 January 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 +2 286 £475 +2.15% 276
Berkshire +2 187 £480 -4.00% 151
Hampshire -1 141 £535 +7.00% 139
Surrey +5 74 £244 -25.00% 99
Buckinghamshire -2 72 £475 +14.46% 80
West Sussex -5 33 £263 -39.53% 61
Kent 0 30 £450 +111.76% 102
Oxfordshire +1 27 £275 -18.52% 46
East Sussex +5 24 £550 +4.76% 49
Sussex -1 11 £463 +5.11% 10
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 60 (9.97%) SharePoint
2 49 (8.14%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (2.33%) Skype for Business
4 8 (1.33%) Confluence
4 8 (1.33%) Exchange Server 2010
5 7 (1.16%) Exchange Server 2013
5 7 (1.16%) Mattermost
5 7 (1.16%) SharePoint Server
6 6 (1.00%) Exchange Server 2003
6 6 (1.00%) Exchange Server 2007
6 6 (1.00%) Office Communications Server
7 2 (0.33%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.33%) CMS
7 2 (0.33%) GeoServer
7 2 (0.33%) MS Project Server
7 2 (0.33%) Smallworld
8 1 (0.17%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 123 (20.43%) Microsoft Office
2 70 (11.63%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (3.99%) Microsoft Project
4 21 (3.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (1.50%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.17%) SOLIDWORKS
6 1 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 11 (1.83%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.16%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.50%) Dynamics AX
4 3 (0.50%) NetSuite
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
6 1 (0.17%) iTrent
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.17%) Sage 50
6 1 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.17%) SAP EWM
6 1 (0.17%) SAP WM
6 1 (0.17%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 157 (26.08%) Azure
2 140 (23.26%) Microsoft 365
3 65 (10.80%) AWS
4 63 (10.47%) Entra ID
5 55 (9.14%) Power Platform
6 33 (5.48%) Dynamics 365
7 29 (4.82%) SaaS
8 24 (3.99%) Microsoft Purview
9 23 (3.82%) OneDrive
10 20 (3.32%) Power Automate
11 19 (3.16%) PowerApps
12 18 (2.99%) Sauce Labs
13 17 (2.82%) Azure DevOps
14 16 (2.66%) GCP
14 16 (2.66%) Google Workspace
15 14 (2.33%) GitHub
16 13 (2.16%) Serverless
17 10 (1.66%) Azure Functions
17 10 (1.66%) IaaS
18 9 (1.50%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 50 (8.31%) DNS
2 40 (6.64%) DHCP
3 37 (6.15%) Firewall
4 24 (3.99%) TCP/IP
5 19 (3.16%) VPN
5 19 (3.16%) Wi-Fi
5 19 (3.16%) Wireless
6 15 (2.49%) VLAN
7 12 (1.99%) SAN
7 12 (1.99%) Unified Communications
8 9 (1.50%) 4G
8 9 (1.50%) Network Security
9 8 (1.33%) Skype
10 7 (1.16%) WebEx
11 6 (1.00%) DDNS
11 6 (1.00%) Fibre Channel
11 6 (1.00%) VSAN
12 5 (0.83%) WAN
13 4 (0.66%) S/MIME
13 4 (0.66%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (6.64%) SQL Server
2 36 (5.98%) Power BI
3 28 (4.65%) Relational Database
4 21 (3.49%) MySQL
5 16 (2.66%) Oracle Database
6 11 (1.83%) Azure SQL Database
7 10 (1.66%) Metadata
8 9 (1.50%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
9 7 (1.16%) Data Warehouse
9 7 (1.16%) PostgreSQL
10 6 (1.00%) RDBMS
11 5 (0.83%) Data Lake
12 4 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
12 4 (0.66%) MongoDB
12 4 (0.66%) Oracle Reports
13 3 (0.50%) GIS
13 3 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 2 (0.33%) Apache Cassandra
14 2 (0.33%) Crystal Reports
14 2 (0.33%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 21 (3.49%) Android Studio
2 19 (3.16%) Browser DevTools
3 18 (2.99%) Eclipse
3 18 (2.99%) Xcode
4 13 (2.16%) JIRA
5 10 (1.66%) Jenkins
6 7 (1.16%) Git
7 3 (0.50%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.50%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.50%) JUnit
7 3 (0.50%) MSI
7 3 (0.50%) Subversion
8 2 (0.33%) Gradle
8 2 (0.33%) JMeter
8 2 (0.33%) Oracle APEX
8 2 (0.33%) Oracle Forms
8 2 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.17%) Fiddler
9 1 (0.17%) Gatling
9 1 (0.17%) Maven
General
1 232 (38.54%) Social Skills
2 95 (15.78%) Finance
3 74 (12.29%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (9.80%) Organisational Skills
5 44 (7.31%) Public Sector
6 18 (2.99%) Manufacturing
7 13 (2.16%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (1.66%) Retail
9 9 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (1.50%) Legal
10 8 (1.33%) Marketing
11 7 (1.16%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (1.16%) Telecoms
12 5 (0.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (0.83%) Military
13 4 (0.66%) Banking
13 4 (0.66%) Billing
13 4 (0.66%) Electronics
14 3 (0.50%) Automotive
14 3 (0.50%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 92 (15.28%) Architect
2 78 (12.96%) Support Engineer
3 75 (12.46%) Analyst
4 54 (8.97%) IT Support
5 43 (7.14%) Senior
6 42 (6.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 25 (4.15%) Developer
8 24 (3.99%) IT Engineer
9 23 (3.82%) Technical Support
10 21 (3.49%) Consultant
10 21 (3.49%) Infrastructure Support
10 21 (3.49%) Support Officer
10 21 (3.49%) Technical Engineer
10 21 (3.49%) Technical Support Engineer
11 20 (3.32%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
11 20 (3.32%) IT Support Engineer
11 20 (3.32%) Solutions Architect
12 19 (3.16%) Infrastructure Architect
12 19 (3.16%) Lead
12 19 (3.16%) UX Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.82%) React
2 21 (3.49%) GraphQL
3 19 (3.16%) Ajax
3 19 (3.16%) AngularJS
3 19 (3.16%) CSS
4 17 (2.82%) .NET
5 9 (1.50%) REST
6 8 (1.33%) OAuth
7 7 (1.16%) SAML
8 6 (1.00%) ARM Templates
8 6 (1.00%) Middleware
9 5 (0.83%) LDAP
9 5 (0.83%) OpenID
9 5 (0.83%) Spring
10 4 (0.66%) ADO
10 4 (0.66%) OAuth2
10 4 (0.66%) SailPoint
11 3 (0.50%) Microsoft Graph
11 3 (0.50%) PySpark
12 2 (0.33%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 33 (5.48%) PKI
2 30 (4.98%) Onboarding
3 29 (4.82%) Analytical Mindset
4 23 (3.82%) Mobile App
5 18 (2.99%) Management Information System
6 16 (2.66%) Enterprise Software
7 15 (2.49%) Driving Licence
7 15 (2.49%) Product Ownership
8 14 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
9 13 (2.16%) Fat Client
9 13 (2.16%) Thin Client
10 12 (1.99%) Replication
11 11 (1.83%) Operational Technology
11 11 (1.83%) Security Operations Centre
12 10 (1.66%) Video Conferencing
13 9 (1.50%) Data Centre
14 8 (1.33%) Cloud Native
15 7 (1.16%) Cyber Defence
16 6 (1.00%) Cyber Threat
17 5 (0.83%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 194 (32.23%) Windows
2 78 (12.96%) Linux
3 40 (6.64%) Windows 10
4 31 (5.15%) Windows Server
5 23 (3.82%) Android
5 23 (3.82%) Unix
6 12 (1.99%) Windows 7
7 11 (1.83%) Mac OS
8 8 (1.33%) Windows Server 2019
9 7 (1.16%) Windows Server 2016
10 6 (1.00%) Windows Server 2003
10 6 (1.00%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 2 (0.33%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.33%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.17%) CentOS
13 1 (0.17%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (17.28%) Problem-Solving
2 81 (13.46%) Agile
3 75 (12.46%) ITIL
4 67 (11.13%) Cybersecurity
5 66 (10.96%) Customer Service
6 51 (8.47%) Business Intelligence
6 51 (8.47%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 51 (8.47%) Stakeholder Management
7 45 (7.48%) Continuous Improvement
7 45 (7.48%) Project Management
8 42 (6.98%) Migration
9 41 (6.81%) DevOps
10 38 (6.31%) Project Delivery
10 38 (6.31%) Time Management
11 35 (5.81%) CI/CD
12 34 (5.65%) SIEM
12 34 (5.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 32 (5.32%) Validation
14 31 (5.15%) Collaborative Working
14 31 (5.15%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 71 (11.79%) Python
2 66 (10.96%) PowerShell
3 64 (10.63%) SQL
4 32 (5.32%) Java
5 29 (4.82%) JavaScript
6 20 (3.32%) Perl
7 13 (2.16%) Bash
8 12 (1.99%) C#
9 4 (0.66%) Kusto Query Language
9 4 (0.66%) PL/SQL
9 4 (0.66%) X++
10 2 (0.33%) Go
10 2 (0.33%) PHP
10 2 (0.33%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.17%) Bicep
11 1 (0.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 1 (0.17%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.17%) VB
Qualifications
1 202 (33.55%) Security Cleared
2 127 (21.10%) SC Cleared
3 70 (11.63%) DV Cleared
4 56 (9.30%) Degree
5 37 (6.15%) Microsoft Certification
6 21 (3.49%) CISSP
7 20 (3.32%) Azure Certification
8 11 (1.83%) ITIL Certification
8 11 (1.83%) Network+ Certification
8 11 (1.83%) Server+ Certification
9 10 (1.66%) GIAC
10 9 (1.50%) CISM
10 9 (1.50%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 8 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
11 8 (1.33%) DBS Check
11 8 (1.33%) PMI Certification
12 7 (1.16%) A+ Certification
12 7 (1.16%) Cisco Certification
12 7 (1.16%) GCIH
12 7 (1.16%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (4.32%) GDPR
2 24 (3.99%) PMO
3 22 (3.65%) NIST
4 18 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 18 (2.99%) SLA
5 14 (2.33%) Data Quality
6 10 (1.66%) QA
7 6 (1.00%) Cyber Essentials
8 4 (0.66%) Accessibility
9 3 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.50%) P3O
9 3 (0.50%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.50%) RMADS
10 2 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 19770
10 2 (0.33%) NCSC
11 1 (0.17%) COSHH
11 1 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.17%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.17%) GRC
11 1 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 155 (25.75%) Active Directory
2 47 (7.81%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (3.49%) Hyper-V
4 13 (2.16%) vSphere
5 9 (1.50%) Docker
5 9 (1.50%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (1.16%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (1.00%) Brightmail
7 6 (1.00%) ISA Server
8 4 (0.66%) NFS
9 3 (0.50%) DFS Replication
9 3 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.50%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.33%) Terminal Services
11 1 (0.17%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 40 (6.64%) SCCM
2 35 (5.81%) Microsoft Intune
3 19 (3.16%) Single Sign-On
4 15 (2.49%) Ansible
5 14 (2.33%) Terraform
5 14 (2.33%) WMI
6 13 (2.16%) Kubernetes
7 9 (1.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 8 (1.33%) Jamf Pro
8 8 (1.33%) SCOM
9 7 (1.16%) HP SiteScope
9 7 (1.16%) Microsoft Clustering
10 6 (1.00%) vCenter Server
11 3 (0.50%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.50%) Grafana
11 3 (0.50%) PaperCut
11 3 (0.50%) Puppet
11 3 (0.50%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 2 (0.33%) FTK
12 2 (0.33%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 66 (10.96%) VMware
2 51 (8.47%) ServiceNow
3 45 (7.48%) Oracle
4 37 (6.15%) Splunk
5 24 (3.99%) SAP
6 21 (3.49%) Cisco
7 15 (2.49%) Citrix
8 12 (1.99%) Databricks
9 9 (1.50%) CrowdStrike
9 9 (1.50%) Thales
10 8 (1.33%) Remedy
11 7 (1.16%) CyberArk
11 7 (1.16%) Tenable
12 6 (1.00%) Informatica
13 5 (0.83%) Fortinet
13 5 (0.83%) Google
13 5 (0.83%) NetApp
13 5 (0.83%) Red Hat
13 5 (0.83%) Veeam
13 5 (0.83%) Virgin Media