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 18 March 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
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 7 5
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 644 447 868
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 12.18% 15.15% 15.42%
As % of the Vendors category 26.46% 29.23% 31.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 443 306 592
10th Percentile £204 £211 £180
25th Percentile £311 £364 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +8.11% -2.63%
75th Percentile £575 £590 £575
90th Percentile £650 £650 £675
England median daily rate £493 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +3.74% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 20 67
10th Percentile £12.46 £13.08 £11.71
25th Percentile £13.13 £14.20 £12.81
Median hourly rate £17.50 £17.33 £22.58
Median % change year-on-year +0.97% -23.24% +12.90%
75th Percentile £27.50 £24.06 £55.06
90th Percentile £67.00 £26.69 £61.60
England median hourly rate £19.91 £23.80 £16.06
% change year-on-year -16.34% +48.19% -24.17%

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 2,434 1,529 2,759
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 46.04% 51.81% 49.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,706 1,020 1,691
10th Percentile £285 £250 £208
25th Percentile £413 £409 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% +5.00% -1.48%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £688
England median daily rate £501 £525 £515
% change year-on-year -4.67% +1.94% -4.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 172 82 162
10th Percentile £13.13 £15.25 £12.66
25th Percentile £17.25 £19.93 £17.24
Median hourly rate £33.13 £26.92 £38.75
Median % change year-on-year +23.06% -30.54% -13.89%
75th Percentile £83.19 £62.50 £61.90
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.97 £69.88
England median hourly rate £25.00 £30.40 £25.00
% change year-on-year -17.76% +21.60% -28.57%

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 18 March 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 18 March 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 18 March 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 +1 342 £475 -5.00% 263
Berkshire 0 212 £500 - 115
Hampshire -5 139 £550 +10.00% 142
Buckinghamshire -5 87 £459 -8.25% 94
Surrey +17 68 £450 +50.00% 78
Oxfordshire -1 43 £275 -12.00% 62
West Sussex -6 31 £400 -5.88% 43
Kent 0 29 £438 -19.61% 49
East Sussex +4 19 £600 +9.09% 30
Sussex +2 10 £463 -7.50% 13
Home Counties +1 4 - -
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 57 (8.85%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (1.55%) Confluence
4 3 (0.47%) ArcGIS
4 3 (0.47%) MS Project Server
4 3 (0.47%) Smallworld
5 2 (0.31%) GeoServer
6 1 (0.16%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.16%) BizTalk Server
6 1 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2010
6 1 (0.16%) SharePoint Server
6 1 (0.16%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 107 (16.61%) Microsoft Office
2 83 (12.89%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (4.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 26 (4.04%) Microsoft Project
5 10 (1.55%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.31%) SOLIDWORKS
6 2 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.16%) Acrobat
7 1 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.16%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.16%) InDesign
7 1 (0.16%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.16%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 8 (1.24%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
2 1 (0.16%) iTrent
2 1 (0.16%) NEC Housing
2 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.16%) Sage 50
2 1 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.16%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 200 (31.06%) Azure
2 175 (27.17%) Microsoft 365
3 104 (16.15%) Entra ID
4 65 (10.09%) Power Platform
5 56 (8.70%) AWS
6 38 (5.90%) OneDrive
7 29 (4.50%) Azure DevOps
8 28 (4.35%) Power Automate
9 27 (4.19%) Dynamics 365
10 26 (4.04%) PowerApps
11 25 (3.88%) Microsoft Purview
12 24 (3.73%) SaaS
13 20 (3.11%) GitHub
14 17 (2.64%) Serverless
15 16 (2.48%) Azure Functions
16 15 (2.33%) Microsoft Copilot
17 13 (2.02%) Google Workspace
17 13 (2.02%) IaaS
18 12 (1.86%) Copilot Studio
18 12 (1.86%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 56 (8.70%) DNS
2 40 (6.21%) DHCP
3 37 (5.75%) Firewall
4 34 (5.28%) Wi-Fi
5 21 (3.26%) VPN
6 16 (2.48%) TCP/IP
7 14 (2.17%) Unified Communications
7 14 (2.17%) Wireless
8 12 (1.86%) Kerberos
9 11 (1.71%) LAN
9 11 (1.71%) Network Security
10 9 (1.40%) 4G
11 8 (1.24%) BGP
11 8 (1.24%) WAN
12 7 (1.09%) MPLS
12 7 (1.09%) SAN
12 7 (1.09%) VLAN
12 7 (1.09%) WebEx
13 6 (0.93%) SNMP
13 6 (0.93%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (7.92%) Power BI
2 38 (5.90%) SQL Server
3 18 (2.80%) Relational Database
4 16 (2.48%) Azure SQL Database
5 15 (2.33%) MySQL
6 11 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
7 10 (1.55%) Metadata
8 9 (1.40%) Data Warehouse
8 9 (1.40%) Oracle Database
9 7 (1.09%) Data Lake
10 6 (0.93%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
10 6 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 6 (0.93%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 5 (0.78%) RDBMS
12 4 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
12 4 (0.62%) GIS
12 4 (0.62%) Oracle Reports
13 3 (0.47%) MongoDB
13 3 (0.47%) Star Schema
14 2 (0.31%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 14 (2.17%) Git
2 13 (2.02%) Android Studio
2 13 (2.02%) JIRA
3 10 (1.55%) Browser DevTools
3 10 (1.55%) Eclipse
3 10 (1.55%) Xcode
4 9 (1.40%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.78%) JUnit
6 4 (0.62%) Gradle
7 3 (0.47%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.47%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.47%) Maven
7 3 (0.47%) MSI
7 3 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.47%) Subversion
8 2 (0.31%) JMeter
8 2 (0.31%) Oracle APEX
8 2 (0.31%) Oracle Forms
8 2 (0.31%) Robot Framework
9 1 (0.16%) SonarQube
General
1 231 (35.87%) Social Skills
2 72 (11.18%) Analytical Skills
3 71 (11.02%) Finance
4 65 (10.09%) Organisational Skills
5 57 (8.85%) Public Sector
6 14 (2.17%) Manufacturing
7 13 (2.02%) Military
8 12 (1.86%) Documentation Skills
8 12 (1.86%) Legal
9 11 (1.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 9 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
10 9 (1.40%) Retail
11 7 (1.09%) Telecoms
12 6 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
13 4 (0.62%) Advertising
13 4 (0.62%) Marketing
13 4 (0.62%) Pharmaceutical
14 3 (0.47%) Banking
14 3 (0.47%) Billing
15 2 (0.31%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 99 (15.37%) Architect
2 66 (10.25%) Analyst
3 62 (9.63%) IT Support
4 61 (9.47%) Support Engineer
5 43 (6.68%) Senior
6 42 (6.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 38 (5.90%) IT Engineer
8 31 (4.81%) IT Support Engineer
9 28 (4.35%) Developer
10 25 (3.88%) Lead
11 24 (3.73%) Consultant
12 23 (3.57%) Solutions Architect
13 21 (3.26%) Administrator
14 19 (2.95%) Infrastructure Architect
15 17 (2.64%) Support Officer
16 16 (2.48%) Support Analyst
17 15 (2.33%) Azure Engineer
17 15 (2.33%) IT Analyst
18 13 (2.02%) Product Owner
19 12 (1.86%) Platform Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.26%) .NET
2 13 (2.02%) CSS
2 13 (2.02%) LDAP
2 13 (2.02%) React
3 12 (1.86%) GraphQL
3 12 (1.86%) REST
4 11 (1.71%) ARM Templates
5 10 (1.55%) Ajax
5 10 (1.55%) AngularJS
5 10 (1.55%) OAuth
6 8 (1.24%) OpenID
6 8 (1.24%) SAML
7 7 (1.09%) ADO
8 6 (0.93%) Microsoft Graph
8 6 (0.93%) OAuth2
8 6 (0.93%) Spring
8 6 (0.93%) XML
9 5 (0.78%) PySpark
9 5 (0.78%) SailPoint
10 4 (0.62%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 36 (5.59%) PKI
2 35 (5.43%) Onboarding
3 21 (3.26%) Analytical Mindset
4 20 (3.11%) Product Ownership
5 18 (2.80%) Replication
6 16 (2.48%) Enterprise Software
6 16 (2.48%) Legacy Systems
6 16 (2.48%) Self-Motivation
7 15 (2.33%) Cloud Native
8 14 (2.17%) Driving Licence
8 14 (2.17%) Mobile App
9 11 (1.71%) Operational Technology
9 11 (1.71%) Video Conferencing
10 10 (1.55%) Data Centre
10 10 (1.55%) Fat Client
10 10 (1.55%) Management Information System
10 10 (1.55%) Thin Client
11 9 (1.40%) Hybrid Cloud
12 7 (1.09%) Security Operations Centre
13 5 (0.78%) Handset
Operating Systems
1 193 (29.97%) Windows
2 65 (10.09%) Linux
3 44 (6.83%) Windows Server
4 35 (5.43%) Windows 10
5 17 (2.64%) Mac OS
6 15 (2.33%) Android
7 11 (1.71%) Unix
8 9 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 9 (1.40%) Windows 7
9 7 (1.09%) Windows Server 2012
10 6 (0.93%) Windows Server 2016
10 6 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.62%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.47%) CentOS
13 1 (0.16%) Apple iOS
13 1 (0.16%) Debian
13 1 (0.16%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.16%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (15.06%) Problem-Solving
2 80 (12.42%) Customer Service
3 69 (10.71%) Agile
4 68 (10.56%) Cybersecurity
5 63 (9.78%) DevOps
5 63 (9.78%) Migration
6 60 (9.32%) ITIL
7 59 (9.16%) Business Intelligence
8 54 (8.39%) Project Management
8 54 (8.39%) Stakeholder Management
9 53 (8.23%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 49 (7.61%) Project Delivery
11 45 (6.99%) CI/CD
12 44 (6.83%) Time Management
13 40 (6.21%) Continuous Improvement
14 39 (6.06%) Analytics
14 39 (6.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 34 (5.28%) Roadmaps
16 32 (4.97%) SIEM
16 32 (4.97%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 93 (14.44%) PowerShell
2 74 (11.49%) Python
3 51 (7.92%) SQL
4 21 (3.26%) JavaScript
5 20 (3.11%) Java
6 19 (2.95%) Bash
7 18 (2.80%) C#
8 11 (1.71%) Perl
9 10 (1.55%) T-SQL
10 6 (0.93%) Bicep
11 4 (0.62%) Kusto Query Language
11 4 (0.62%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 3 (0.47%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.31%) Korn
13 2 (0.31%) PHP
13 2 (0.31%) X++
14 1 (0.16%) Google Apps Script
14 1 (0.16%) VB
14 1 (0.16%) VBA
Qualifications
1 222 (34.47%) Security Cleared
2 147 (22.83%) SC Cleared
3 68 (10.56%) DV Cleared
4 63 (9.78%) Degree
5 27 (4.19%) Microsoft Certification
6 17 (2.64%) CISSP
7 16 (2.48%) Azure Certification
8 12 (1.86%) DBS Check
9 11 (1.71%) PMI Certification
9 11 (1.71%) PMP
10 10 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
11 9 (1.40%) GIAC
12 8 (1.24%) A+ Certification
13 7 (1.09%) AWS Certification
13 7 (1.09%) Cisco Certification
13 7 (1.09%) CISM
13 7 (1.09%) Master's Degree
14 6 (0.93%) BPSS Clearance
14 6 (0.93%) CEH
14 6 (0.93%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (3.88%) PMO
2 24 (3.73%) NIST
3 22 (3.42%) GDPR
4 21 (3.26%) SLA
5 15 (2.33%) Data Quality
6 13 (2.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 11 (1.71%) Cyber Essentials
8 9 (1.40%) QA
9 8 (1.24%) NCSC
10 5 (0.78%) NIST 800
11 4 (0.62%) Accessibility
12 3 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.47%) P3O
13 2 (0.31%) PCI DSS
14 1 (0.16%) COSHH
14 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 1 (0.16%) ISO 9001
14 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 1 (0.16%) JSP 440
14 1 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 195 (30.28%) Active Directory
2 54 (8.39%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (3.57%) Hyper-V
4 11 (1.71%) Docker
4 11 (1.71%) Virtual Desktop
5 9 (1.40%) vSphere
6 7 (1.09%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.93%) VMware NSX
8 5 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.47%) DFS Replication
10 2 (0.31%) Firmware
11 1 (0.16%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.16%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 1 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.16%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 59 (9.16%) Microsoft Intune
2 46 (7.14%) SCCM
3 26 (4.04%) Terraform
4 23 (3.57%) Single Sign-On
5 19 (2.95%) Ansible
6 17 (2.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 12 (1.86%) WMI
8 11 (1.71%) Kubernetes
9 10 (1.55%) Jamf Pro
10 4 (0.62%) Cisco CUCM
10 4 (0.62%) vCenter Server
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%) Oracle RMAN
12 2 (0.31%) Progress Chef
12 2 (0.31%) SCOM
12 2 (0.31%) WSUS
Vendors
1 69 (10.71%) VMware
2 38 (5.90%) ServiceNow
3 24 (3.73%) Cisco
4 23 (3.57%) Oracle
5 18 (2.80%) SAP
5 18 (2.80%) Splunk
6 16 (2.48%) Citrix
6 16 (2.48%) Databricks
7 10 (1.55%) Fortinet
7 10 (1.55%) Tenable
8 9 (1.40%) Meraki
8 9 (1.40%) Thales
9 8 (1.24%) F5
9 8 (1.24%) Red Hat
10 7 (1.09%) Palo Alto
11 6 (0.93%) Avaya
11 6 (0.93%) CrowdStrike
11 6 (0.93%) CyberArk
11 6 (0.93%) Juniper
11 6 (0.93%) Mitel