The first table below looks at the demand for Microsoft Certification in IT contracts advertised for the Cheshire region. Included is a guide to the average contractor rates offered in IT contracts that have cited Microsoft Certification over the 3 months to 19 June 2013 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years. The second table is for comparison and provides aggregates for all Qualifications for the Cheshire region.

Note that daily contractor rates and hourly contractor rates are treated separately. When calculating average contractor rates, daily rates are not derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Location
3 months to
19 Jun 2013
Same period 2012 Same period 2011
Microsoft Certification
Rank 51 58 39
Rank change year-on-year
+7 -19
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 16 9 34
As % of all contract IT jobs located in Cheshire 2.207% 1.104% 3.648%
As % of the Qualifications category 9.040% 6.618% 26.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 2 4 16
Average daily rate £420 £288 £260
Average daily rate % change year-on-year
+45.91% +10.57%
90% offered a daily rate of more than £399 £285 £225
10% offered a daily rate of more than £440 £297 £268
UK excluding London average daily rate £300 £288 £260
% change year-on-year
+4.34% +10.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 1
Average hourly rate £12.50 £11.00 £28.00
Average hourly rate % change year-on-year
+13.63% -60.71%
UK excluding London average hourly rate £15.00 £16.00 £16.50
% change year-on-year
-6.25% -3.03%
All Qualifications
Cheshire
Contract IT job ads with a match in the
Qualifications category
177 136 130
As % of all contract IT jobs located in Cheshire 24.41% 16.69% 13.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 51 55 60
Average daily rate £350 £350 £280
Average daily rate % change year-on-year
- +25.00%
90% offered a daily rate of more than £205 £281 £225
10% offered a daily rate of more than £508 £457 £350
UK excluding London average daily rate £350 £350 £350
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 3 1
Average hourly rate £37.50 £20.00 £28.00
Average hourly rate % change year-on-year
+87.50% -28.57%
UK excluding London average hourly rate £22.00 £21.50 £24.00
% change year-on-year
+2.32% -10.41%
Microsoft Certification
North West

Microsoft Certification
Jobs Demand Trend

This chart provides a 3-month moving total of IT contractor jobs citing Microsoft Certification across the Cheshire region as a proportion of the total demand within the Qualifications category.

Cheshire Microsoft Certification Jobs Demand Trend

Microsoft Certification
Daily Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in IT contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification across the Cheshire region.

Cheshire Microsoft Certification Daily Rate Trend

Microsoft Certification
Hourly Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for hourly rates quoted in IT contractor jobs citing Microsoft Certification across the Cheshire region.

Cheshire Microsoft Certification Hourly Rate Trend

Microsoft Certification
Hourly Rate Histogram

This chart provides a histogram of hourly rates quoted in contract IT jobs citing Microsoft Certification across the Cheshire region over the 3 months to 19 June 2013.

Cheshire Microsoft Certification Hourly Rate Histogram

Microsoft Certification
Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the average contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft Certification within the Cheshire region over the 3 months to 19 June 2013. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 3 month period last year.

Location
(Click each for more statistics)
Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Average
Daily Rate
Last 3 Months
Average Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Find
Job
Vacancies
Warrington +3 3 - - 2
Knutsford - 1 - - 1
Macclesfield - - - - 1
Northwich - - - -
Runcorn - - - -
Chester - - - - 1
Crewe - - - -
Ellesmere Port - - - - 3
Microsoft Certification
North West

Microsoft Certification
Top 30 Related IT Skills

For the 6 months to 19 June 2013, IT contractor jobs across the Cheshire region citing Microsoft Certification also mentioned the following IT skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the number of jobs and their proportion against the total number of contract IT job ads sampled that cited Microsoft Certification.

1 23 (76.67%) Microsoft
2 17 (56.67%) Active Directory
3 16 (53.33%) ITIL
3 16 (53.33%) Windows
4 14 (46.67%) MCSE
5 12 (40.00%) MCP
5 12 (40.00%) HP
5 12 (40.00%) Security Cleared
6 11 (36.67%) SC Cleared
6 11 (36.67%) MCITP
6 11 (36.67%) MS Office
7 10 (33.33%) IBM Notes
7 10 (33.33%) Lotus
7 10 (33.33%) Incident Management
7 10 (33.33%) MCTS
8 9 (30.00%) Windows 7
8 9 (30.00%) OpenView
8 9 (30.00%) MS Excel
8 9 (30.00%) Windows XP
9 8 (26.67%) MS Visio
9 8 (26.67%) .NET
9 8 (26.67%) SQL Server
9 8 (26.67%) IIS
10 7 (23.33%) Windows Server 2003
10 7 (23.33%) ISO 9000
10 7 (23.33%) MS Project
10 7 (23.33%) Visual Studio
10 7 (23.33%) ASP.NET
10 7 (23.33%) CSS
10 7 (23.33%) C#

Microsoft Certification
Top Related IT Skills by Category

For the 6 months to 19 June 2013, IT contractor jobs across the Cheshire region citing Microsoft Certification also mentioned the following IT skills grouped by category. The figures indicate the number of jobs and their proportion against the total number of contract IT job ads sampled that cited Microsoft Certification. Up to 20 skills are shown per category.

Application Development
1 8 (26.67%) .NET
2 7 (23.33%) ASP.NET
2 7 (23.33%) CSS
2 7 (23.33%) HTML
2 7 (23.33%) .NET Framework
2 7 (23.33%) Microsoft Enterprise Library
2 7 (23.33%) WCF
2 7 (23.33%) ADO.NET Entity Framework
3 1 (3.333%) XML
Application Platforms
1 10 (33.33%) IBM Notes
2 8 (26.67%) IIS
3 7 (23.33%) MS Exchange
4 6 (20.00%) Exchange Server 2010
5 4 (13.33%) LiveLink
5 4 (13.33%) Exchange Server 2007
6 3 (10.00%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
7 2 (6.667%) Apache
7 2 (6.667%) Tomcat
7 2 (6.667%) Exchange Server 2003
8 1 (3.333%) Exchange Server 5.5
8 1 (3.333%) SharePoint
Applications
1 11 (36.67%) MS Office
2 9 (30.00%) MS Excel
3 8 (26.67%) MS Visio
4 7 (23.33%) MS Project
4 7 (23.33%) MS PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 7 (23.33%) Dynamics CRM
Communications & Networking
1 5 (16.67%) TCP/IP
2 4 (13.33%) DNS
3 3 (10.00%) SMTP
4 2 (6.667%) LAN
4 2 (6.667%) WAN
4 2 (6.667%) Firewall
4 2 (6.667%) Network Security
5 1 (3.333%) NAS
5 1 (3.333%) Wireless
5 1 (3.333%) VPN
5 1 (3.333%) DHCP
5 1 (3.333%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (26.67%) SQL Server
2 6 (20.00%) SQL Server 2008
3 1 (3.333%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 7 (23.33%) Visual Studio
1 7 (23.33%) Visual Studio Team System
2 1 (3.333%) MSI
General
1 3 (10.00%) Telecoms
2 2 (6.667%) Manufacturing
2 2 (6.667%) Banking
3 1 (3.333%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 15 (50.00%) Analyst
2 9 (30.00%) Support Analyst
3 8 (26.67%) Developer
4 7 (23.33%) Infrastructure Analyst
4 7 (23.33%) CRM Developer
5 6 (20.00%) Infrastructure Support Analyst
5 6 (20.00%) Microsoft Developer
5 6 (20.00%) Dynamics CRM Developer
6 5 (16.67%) Service Desk Analyst
6 5 (16.67%) Service Analyst
7 2 (6.667%) Network Analyst
7 2 (6.667%) Exchange Engineer
7 2 (6.667%) Messaging Engineer
8 1 (3.333%) Messaging Consultant
8 1 (3.333%) 2nd Line Support Analyst
8 1 (3.333%) Network Infrastructure Analyst
8 1 (3.333%) VMware Engineer
8 1 (3.333%) SQL Database Developer
8 1 (3.333%) Database Developer
8 1 (3.333%) SQL Developer
Miscellaneous
1 5 (16.67%) Blackberry
2 3 (10.00%) Clustering
2 3 (10.00%) Management Information System
3 2 (6.667%) Computer Science
4 1 (3.333%) Handset
4 1 (3.333%) iPad
Operating Systems
1 16 (53.33%) Windows
2 9 (30.00%) Windows 7
2 9 (30.00%) Windows XP
3 7 (23.33%) Windows Server 2003
4 6 (20.00%) Windows Server 2008
5 2 (6.667%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (3.333%) Windows Vista
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (53.33%) ITIL
2 10 (33.33%) Incident Management
3 7 (23.33%) CRM
3 7 (23.33%) MVC
4 5 (16.67%) Problem Management
4 5 (16.67%) Migration
5 4 (13.33%) Service Management
6 3 (10.00%) Service Desk Management
6 3 (10.00%) Capacity Management
7 1 (3.333%) Load Balancing
7 1 (3.333%) Software Architecture
7 1 (3.333%) Disaster Recovery
7 1 (3.333%) Software Distribution
Programming Languages
1 7 (23.33%) C#
1 7 (23.33%) JavaScript
2 3 (10.00%) PowerShell
3 2 (6.667%) SQL
3 2 (6.667%) VB
4 1 (3.333%) VB.NET
4 1 (3.333%) T-SQL
4 1 (3.333%) Perl
Qualifications
1 14 (46.67%) MCSE
2 12 (40.00%) MCP
2 12 (40.00%) Security Cleared
3 11 (36.67%) SC Cleared
3 11 (36.67%) MCITP
4 10 (33.33%) MCTS
5 7 (23.33%) MCAD
5 7 (23.33%) MCSD
5 7 (23.33%) MCPD
5 7 (23.33%) MCDST
6 3 (10.00%) MCSA
7 2 (6.667%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (6.667%) CCNP
7 2 (6.667%) CCNA
7 2 (6.667%) Degree
8 1 (3.333%) CTC Cleared
8 1 (3.333%) Citrix Certification
8 1 (3.333%) CCIE
8 1 (3.333%) CNE
8 1 (3.333%) Novell Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (23.33%) ISO 9000
1 7 (23.33%) BS25999
1 7 (23.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (6.667%) SLA
System Software
1 17 (56.67%) Active Directory
2 1 (3.333%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (3.333%) Postfix
2 1 (3.333%) XenApp
2 1 (3.333%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 9 (30.00%) OpenView
2 7 (23.33%) ServiceCenter
3 3 (10.00%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 1 (3.333%) SCCM
4 1 (3.333%) Norton AntiVirus
4 1 (3.333%) Symantec Enterprise Vault
Vendors
1 23 (76.67%) Microsoft
2 12 (40.00%) HP
3 10 (33.33%) Lotus
4 5 (16.67%) Citrix
5 2 (6.667%) VMware
6 1 (3.333%) IronPort
6 1 (3.333%) Dell
6 1 (3.333%) Cisco
6 1 (3.333%) Symantec