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 17 February 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
17 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 6 3
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 644 480 892
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 13.64% 15.39% 16.22%
As % of the Vendors category 28.46% 30.67% 32.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 459 325 628
10th Percentile £204 £206 £178
25th Percentile £273 £363 £214
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £478 £460
Median % change year-on-year -0.52% +3.81% -3.16%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £575
90th Percentile £650 £650 £675
England median daily rate £479 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +0.84% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 14 59
10th Percentile £12.41 £15.08 £11.89
25th Percentile £12.81 £18.28 £14.00
Median hourly rate £17.50 £22.50 £23.22
Median % change year-on-year -22.22% -3.08% +16.08%
75th Percentile £21.00 £29.43 £55.70
90th Percentile £43.23 £57.62 £61.60
England median hourly rate £19.50 £23.80 £17.72
% change year-on-year -18.07% +34.31% -13.56%

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 2,263 1,565 2,729
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 47.93% 50.19% 49.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,609 1,000 1,714
10th Percentile £257 £250 £205
25th Percentile £411 £411 £368
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -2.44%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £688
England median daily rate £501 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.67% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 151 51 157
10th Percentile £12.50 £18.50 £13.05
25th Percentile £16.00 £24.18 £18.95
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% -36.84% +5.56%
75th Percentile £64.38 £63.13 £63.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £76.53
England median hourly rate £23.83 £30.89 £26.78
% change year-on-year -22.87% +15.35% -20.06%

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 17 February 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 17 February 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 17 February 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 +1 316 £475 -5.00% 267
Berkshire 0 210 £485 -3.00% 120
Hampshire -2 141 £550 +10.00% 140
Surrey +8 86 £425 +41.67% 74
Buckinghamshire -3 70 £475 +10.47% 84
Oxfordshire +1 36 £275 +10.00% 66
West Sussex -4 36 £357 -17.88% 52
Kent 0 30 £413 -27.22% 62
East Sussex +6 21 £600 +14.29% 35
Sussex +2 11 £463 -7.50% 9
Home Counties - 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 (10.56%) SharePoint
2 49 (7.61%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (1.40%) Confluence
3 9 (1.40%) Skype for Business
4 7 (1.09%) Mattermost
5 3 (0.47%) MS Project Server
6 2 (0.31%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.31%) Exchange Server 2010
6 2 (0.31%) GeoServer
6 2 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
6 2 (0.31%) Smallworld
7 1 (0.16%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.16%) BizTalk Server
7 1 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2003
7 1 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2007
7 1 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2013
7 1 (0.16%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 119 (18.48%) Microsoft Office
2 76 (11.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 28 (4.35%) Microsoft Project
4 23 (3.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (1.40%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.31%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 11 (1.71%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.09%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.47%) Dynamics AX
4 1 (0.16%) iTrent
4 1 (0.16%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.16%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.16%) Sage 50
4 1 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.16%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 198 (30.75%) Azure
2 154 (23.91%) Microsoft 365
3 88 (13.66%) Entra ID
4 69 (10.71%) Power Platform
5 65 (10.09%) AWS
6 34 (5.28%) Dynamics 365
6 34 (5.28%) OneDrive
7 30 (4.66%) SaaS
8 28 (4.35%) Microsoft Purview
9 26 (4.04%) Power Automate
10 25 (3.88%) Azure DevOps
11 24 (3.73%) PowerApps
12 19 (2.95%) GitHub
13 16 (2.48%) Google Workspace
14 15 (2.33%) GCP
14 15 (2.33%) Sauce Labs
14 15 (2.33%) Serverless
15 14 (2.17%) Azure Functions
16 13 (2.02%) Microsoft Copilot
17 12 (1.86%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 58 (9.01%) DNS
2 46 (7.14%) DHCP
3 36 (5.59%) Firewall
4 27 (4.19%) Wi-Fi
5 22 (3.42%) TCP/IP
6 20 (3.11%) VPN
7 18 (2.80%) Wireless
8 15 (2.33%) VLAN
9 14 (2.17%) Unified Communications
10 13 (2.02%) Kerberos
11 9 (1.40%) 4G
11 9 (1.40%) Network Security
12 8 (1.24%) Skype
12 8 (1.24%) WebEx
13 7 (1.09%) SAN
14 6 (0.93%) LAN
14 6 (0.93%) VSAN
15 5 (0.78%) BGP
15 5 (0.78%) VoIP
15 5 (0.78%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (7.92%) Power BI
2 36 (5.59%) SQL Server
3 25 (3.88%) Relational Database
4 18 (2.80%) MySQL
5 15 (2.33%) Azure SQL Database
6 12 (1.86%) Oracle Database
7 10 (1.55%) Data Warehouse
8 9 (1.40%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
8 9 (1.40%) Metadata
9 7 (1.09%) Data Lake
9 7 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
10 6 (0.93%) RDBMS
10 6 (0.93%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 5 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 4 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
12 4 (0.62%) MongoDB
12 4 (0.62%) Oracle Reports
13 3 (0.47%) GIS
13 3 (0.47%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 3 (0.47%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 18 (2.80%) Android Studio
2 16 (2.48%) Browser DevTools
3 15 (2.33%) Eclipse
3 15 (2.33%) Xcode
4 14 (2.17%) JIRA
5 13 (2.02%) Git
6 9 (1.40%) Jenkins
7 5 (0.78%) JUnit
8 4 (0.62%) Gradle
9 3 (0.47%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.47%) Cucumber
9 3 (0.47%) Maven
9 3 (0.47%) MSI
9 3 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (0.47%) Subversion
10 2 (0.31%) JMeter
10 2 (0.31%) Oracle APEX
10 2 (0.31%) Oracle Forms
11 1 (0.16%) Fiddler
11 1 (0.16%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 233 (36.18%) Social Skills
2 98 (15.22%) Finance
3 76 (11.80%) Analytical Skills
4 63 (9.78%) Organisational Skills
5 54 (8.39%) Public Sector
6 16 (2.48%) Manufacturing
7 14 (2.17%) Documentation Skills
8 11 (1.71%) Legal
8 11 (1.71%) Retail
9 10 (1.55%) Military
10 9 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
11 7 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (1.09%) Marketing
11 7 (1.09%) Telecoms
12 6 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (0.78%) Billing
14 4 (0.62%) Automotive
14 4 (0.62%) Banking
15 3 (0.47%) Electronics
15 3 (0.47%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 98 (15.22%) Architect
2 77 (11.96%) Support Engineer
3 73 (11.34%) Analyst
4 60 (9.32%) IT Support
5 44 (6.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 44 (6.83%) Senior
6 34 (5.28%) IT Engineer
7 30 (4.66%) Developer
8 29 (4.50%) IT Support Engineer
9 23 (3.57%) Solutions Architect
10 22 (3.42%) Consultant
10 22 (3.42%) Lead
11 21 (3.26%) Infrastructure Support
12 20 (3.11%) Infrastructure Architect
12 20 (3.11%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
12 20 (3.11%) Technical Support
13 19 (2.95%) Administrator
13 19 (2.95%) Support Officer
14 18 (2.80%) Support Analyst
14 18 (2.80%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.26%) .NET
2 19 (2.95%) CSS
2 19 (2.95%) React
3 18 (2.80%) GraphQL
4 16 (2.48%) Ajax
4 16 (2.48%) AngularJS
5 14 (2.17%) LDAP
6 11 (1.71%) REST
7 10 (1.55%) ARM Templates
8 7 (1.09%) OAuth
9 6 (0.93%) ADO
9 6 (0.93%) OpenID
9 6 (0.93%) SAML
9 6 (0.93%) Spring
10 5 (0.78%) PySpark
11 4 (0.62%) Microsoft Graph
11 4 (0.62%) OAuth2
11 4 (0.62%) SailPoint
11 4 (0.62%) Software Packaging
12 3 (0.47%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 34 (5.28%) Onboarding
2 32 (4.97%) PKI
3 29 (4.50%) Analytical Mindset
4 20 (3.11%) Mobile App
5 19 (2.95%) Product Ownership
6 18 (2.80%) Replication
7 17 (2.64%) Enterprise Software
8 15 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
9 14 (2.17%) Driving Licence
10 13 (2.02%) Fat Client
10 13 (2.02%) Management Information System
10 13 (2.02%) Thin Client
11 12 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
11 12 (1.86%) Operational Technology
12 11 (1.71%) Cloud Native
12 11 (1.71%) Video Conferencing
13 8 (1.24%) Data Centre
13 8 (1.24%) Security Operations Centre
14 7 (1.09%) Cyber Defence
15 5 (0.78%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 195 (30.28%) Windows
2 85 (13.20%) Linux
3 35 (5.43%) Windows 10
4 32 (4.97%) Windows Server
5 20 (3.11%) Android
5 20 (3.11%) Unix
6 14 (2.17%) Mac OS
7 11 (1.71%) Windows 7
8 6 (0.93%) Windows Server 2012
8 6 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
9 5 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.78%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.62%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.31%) Apple iOS
12 1 (0.16%) CentOS
12 1 (0.16%) Debian
12 1 (0.16%) VMS
12 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 102 (15.84%) Problem-Solving
2 83 (12.89%) Agile
3 76 (11.80%) Customer Service
4 72 (11.18%) Cybersecurity
5 71 (11.02%) ITIL
6 61 (9.47%) Business Intelligence
7 57 (8.85%) DevOps
7 57 (8.85%) Migration
8 55 (8.54%) Stakeholder Management
9 53 (8.23%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 53 (8.23%) Project Management
10 48 (7.45%) Project Delivery
11 45 (6.99%) Continuous Improvement
12 43 (6.68%) CI/CD
12 43 (6.68%) Time Management
13 37 (5.75%) Analytics
14 35 (5.43%) Roadmaps
14 35 (5.43%) User Experience
15 34 (5.28%) SIEM
15 34 (5.28%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 90 (13.98%) PowerShell
2 74 (11.49%) Python
3 65 (10.09%) SQL
4 26 (4.04%) Java
4 26 (4.04%) JavaScript
5 17 (2.64%) Perl
6 15 (2.33%) Bash
6 15 (2.33%) C#
7 5 (0.78%) Bicep
8 4 (0.62%) Kusto Query Language
8 4 (0.62%) PL/SQL
8 4 (0.62%) X++
9 3 (0.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 3 (0.47%) T-SQL
10 2 (0.31%) PHP
10 2 (0.31%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.16%) VB
Qualifications
1 220 (34.16%) Security Cleared
2 142 (22.05%) SC Cleared
3 65 (10.09%) DV Cleared
4 60 (9.32%) Degree
5 41 (6.37%) Microsoft Certification
6 23 (3.57%) Azure Certification
7 20 (3.11%) CISSP
8 11 (1.71%) Network+ Certification
8 11 (1.71%) PMI Certification
8 11 (1.71%) Server+ Certification
9 10 (1.55%) GIAC
9 10 (1.55%) ITIL Certification
10 9 (1.40%) CISM
10 9 (1.40%) Computer Science Degree
10 9 (1.40%) DBS Check
11 8 (1.24%) Cisco Certification
11 8 (1.24%) PMP
11 8 (1.24%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 7 (1.09%) AWS Certification
12 7 (1.09%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (4.19%) PMO
2 24 (3.73%) GDPR
3 23 (3.57%) NIST
4 18 (2.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 18 (2.80%) SLA
5 15 (2.33%) Data Quality
5 15 (2.33%) QA
6 9 (1.40%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (0.78%) NCSC
8 4 (0.62%) Accessibility
9 3 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.47%) NIST 800
9 3 (0.47%) P3O
9 3 (0.47%) RMADS
10 2 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 19770
10 2 (0.31%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.16%) COSHH
11 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.16%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 178 (27.64%) Active Directory
2 55 (8.54%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (3.88%) Hyper-V
4 13 (2.02%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (1.71%) vSphere
6 9 (1.40%) Docker
7 8 (1.24%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.62%) VMware NSX
9 3 (0.47%) DFS Replication
9 3 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.31%) NFS
11 1 (0.16%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.16%) Brightmail
11 1 (0.16%) ISA Server
11 1 (0.16%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 55 (8.54%) Microsoft Intune
2 44 (6.83%) SCCM
3 21 (3.26%) Single Sign-On
3 21 (3.26%) Terraform
4 18 (2.80%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 14 (2.17%) Ansible
5 14 (2.17%) WMI
6 9 (1.40%) Jamf Pro
6 9 (1.40%) Kubernetes
7 8 (1.24%) SCOM
8 7 (1.09%) HP SiteScope
9 6 (0.93%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.62%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.47%) Grafana
11 3 (0.47%) Nessus
11 3 (0.47%) PaperCut
11 3 (0.47%) Puppet
11 3 (0.47%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 2 (0.31%) FTK
12 2 (0.31%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 72 (11.18%) VMware
2 51 (7.92%) ServiceNow
3 35 (5.43%) Oracle
4 34 (5.28%) Splunk
5 25 (3.88%) Cisco
5 25 (3.88%) SAP
6 17 (2.64%) Citrix
6 17 (2.64%) Databricks
7 10 (1.55%) Tenable
8 9 (1.40%) CrowdStrike
8 9 (1.40%) Thales
9 7 (1.09%) CyberArk
9 7 (1.09%) Fortinet
9 7 (1.09%) Remedy
10 6 (0.93%) Red Hat
11 5 (0.78%) F5
11 5 (0.78%) Google
11 5 (0.78%) Informatica
11 5 (0.78%) Palo Alto
11 5 (0.78%) Salesforce