The first table below looks at the demand for the Microsoft Specialist role in IT contracts advertised across the UK. Included is a guide to the average contractor rates offered in IT contracts that have cited Microsoft Specialist in their job title 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 Job Titles currently tracked.

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 Specialist
Rank 525 559 589
Rank change year-on-year
+34 +30
Contract jobs requiring a Microsoft Specialist 16 11 12
As % of all contract IT jobs located in the UK 0.033% 0.019% 0.019%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.036% 0.020% 0.021%
Number of daily rates quoted 10 3 5
Average daily rate £463 £363 £350
Average daily rate % change year-on-year
+27.58% +3.57%
90% offered a daily rate of more than £416 £333 £253
10% offered a daily rate of more than £478 £393 £450
UK excluding London average daily rate £378 £381 £350
% change year-on-year
-0.98% +8.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 1
Average hourly rate - £42.50 £38.00
Average hourly rate % change year-on-year
- +11.84%
UK excluding London average hourly rate - £42.50 -
All Job Titles
UK
Contract IT job ads with a match in the
Job Titles category
44347 53663 57608
As % of all contract IT jobs located in the UK 92.17% 92.47% 92.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 25564 29628 31510
Average daily rate £400 £400 £420
Average daily rate % change year-on-year
- -4.76%
90% offered a daily rate of more than £238 £240 £250
10% offered a daily rate of more than £575 £575 £600
UK excluding London average daily rate £350 £350 £350
Number of hourly rates quoted 2099 2560 2964
Average hourly rate £18.50 £18.50 £20.00
Average hourly rate % change year-on-year
- -7.50%
90% offered a hourly rate of more than £11.00 £11.19 £11.00
10% offered a hourly rate of more than £41.50 £40.00 £42.50
UK excluding London average hourly rate £17.50 £18.00 £19.94
% change year-on-year
-2.77% -9.72%

Microsoft Specialist
Jobs Demand Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving total of IT contractor jobs citing Microsoft Specialist within the UK as a proportion of the total demand within the Job Titles category.

Microsoft Specialist Jobs Demand Trend

Microsoft Specialist
Daily Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in IT contract jobs citing Microsoft Specialist within the UK.

Microsoft Specialist Daily Rate Trend

Microsoft Specialist
Daily Rate Histogram

This chart provides a histogram of daily rates quoted in contract IT jobs citing Microsoft Specialist within the UK over the 3 months to 19 June 2013.

Microsoft Specialist Daily Rate Histogram

Microsoft Specialist
Hourly Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for hourly rates quoted in IT contractor jobs citing Microsoft Specialist within the UK.

Microsoft Specialist Hourly Rate Trend

Microsoft Specialist
Top 21 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the average contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft Specialist within the UK 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
England +20 16 £463 +34.54% 1
London +29 8 £475 +46.15%
South East +27 3 £378 -
West Yorkshire - 3 - -
Yorkshire - 3 - -
City of London - 1 £450 -
Midlands - 1 - -
Surrey - 1 - -
West Midlands - 1 - -
Birmingham - 1 - -
Cardiff - - - -
Coventry - - - -
Edinburgh - - - -
Solihull - - - -
Stevenage - - - -
Essex - - - -
Hertfordshire - - - -
South Wales - - - -
Wales - - - -
Scotland - - - -
East of England - - - -

Microsoft Specialist
Top 30 Related IT Skills

For the 6 months to 19 June 2013, IT contractor jobs within the UK that cited Microsoft Specialist in their job title 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 with Microsoft Specialist in their job title.

1 27 (100.00%) Microsoft
2 16 (59.26%) Windows
3 13 (48.15%) Windows Server 2008
4 11 (40.74%) Windows Server 2003
5 10 (37.04%) Microsoft Certification
6 9 (33.33%) Migration
7 8 (29.63%) Active Directory
7 8 (29.63%) MS Excel
7 8 (29.63%) MS Exchange
7 8 (29.63%) SQL Server
7 8 (29.63%) Windows Server 2012
8 7 (25.93%) MCSE
9 6 (22.22%) ITIL
9 6 (22.22%) SCCM
9 6 (22.22%) Security Cleared
10 5 (18.52%) SCOM
10 5 (18.52%) Finance
10 5 (18.52%) Exchange Server 2003
10 5 (18.52%) PowerShell
10 5 (18.52%) VBScript
10 5 (18.52%) VB
10 5 (18.52%) IIS
10 5 (18.52%) Windows XP
11 4 (14.81%) Project Management
11 4 (14.81%) MCITP
11 4 (14.81%) PKI
11 4 (14.81%) Cisco
11 4 (14.81%) SAN
11 4 (14.81%) Exchange Server 2010
11 4 (14.81%) WSUS

Microsoft Specialist
Top Related IT Skills by Category

For the 6 months to 19 June 2013, IT contractor jobs within the UK that cited Microsoft Specialist in their job title 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 with Microsoft Specialist in their job title. Up to 20 skills are shown per category.

Application Development
1 1 (3.704%) COM
Application Platforms
1 8 (29.63%) MS Exchange
2 5 (18.52%) Exchange Server 2003
2 5 (18.52%) IIS
3 4 (14.81%) Exchange Server 2010
4 2 (7.407%) SharePoint
4 2 (7.407%) Exchange Server 2007
4 2 (7.407%) Lync
5 1 (3.704%) Exchange Server 2013
5 1 (3.704%) Office Communications Server
5 1 (3.704%) SharePoint 2010
Applications
1 8 (29.63%) MS Excel
2 1 (3.704%) Office 365
2 1 (3.704%) Spreadsheet
2 1 (3.704%) MS Office
2 1 (3.704%) MS Visio
2 1 (3.704%) MS PowerPoint
Communications & Networking
1 4 (14.81%) SAN
2 3 (11.11%) NAS
2 3 (11.11%) WAN
2 3 (11.11%) DHCP
2 3 (11.11%) LAN
3 2 (7.407%) Internet
4 1 (3.704%) Reverse Proxy
4 1 (3.704%) Intranet
4 1 (3.704%) SNMP
4 1 (3.704%) VPN
4 1 (3.704%) DNS
4 1 (3.704%) PBX
4 1 (3.704%) IP Telephony
4 1 (3.704%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (29.63%) SQL Server
2 3 (11.11%) SQL Server 2008
3 2 (7.407%) SQL Server 2012
Development Applications
1 1 (3.704%) MSI
General
1 5 (18.52%) Finance
2 1 (3.704%) Publishing
Miscellaneous
1 4 (14.81%) PKI
2 1 (3.704%) Wiki
2 1 (3.704%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 16 (59.26%) Windows
2 13 (48.15%) Windows Server 2008
3 11 (40.74%) Windows Server 2003
4 8 (29.63%) Windows Server 2012
5 5 (18.52%) Windows XP
6 3 (11.11%) Windows 7
7 1 (3.704%) Windows 8
7 1 (3.704%) Windows Vista
7 1 (3.704%) Windows 2000
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (33.33%) Migration
2 6 (22.22%) ITIL
3 4 (14.81%) Project Management
4 2 (7.407%) Software Distribution
4 2 (7.407%) High Availability
5 1 (3.704%) ITIL V3
5 1 (3.704%) User Experience Design
5 1 (3.704%) Business Intelligence
5 1 (3.704%) Asset Management
5 1 (3.704%) Enterprise Architecture
5 1 (3.704%) Service Delivery
5 1 (3.704%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 5 (18.52%) PowerShell
1 5 (18.52%) VBScript
1 5 (18.52%) VB
2 2 (7.407%) SQL
Qualifications
1 10 (37.04%) Microsoft Certification
2 7 (25.93%) MCSE
3 6 (22.22%) Security Cleared
4 4 (14.81%) MCITP
5 2 (7.407%) SC Cleared
6 1 (3.704%) BC Cleared
6 1 (3.704%) DV Cleared
6 1 (3.704%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (3.704%) SLA
System Software
1 8 (29.63%) Active Directory
2 2 (7.407%) UAG
3 1 (3.704%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (3.704%) Forefront TMG
3 1 (3.704%) Hyper-V
3 1 (3.704%) XenApp
3 1 (3.704%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 6 (22.22%) SCCM
2 5 (18.52%) SCOM
3 4 (14.81%) WSUS
4 2 (7.407%) Symantec Enterprise Vault
5 1 (3.704%) Opalis
5 1 (3.704%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 1 (3.704%) WMI
Vendors
1 27 (100.00%) Microsoft
2 4 (14.81%) Cisco
3 3 (11.11%) F5
3 3 (11.11%) VMware
4 2 (7.407%) Symantec
4 2 (7.407%) ServiceNow
5 1 (3.704%) IronPort
5 1 (3.704%) NetApp
5 1 (3.704%) HP
5 1 (3.704%) Citrix