Microsoft Certification Contract Job Trends in England

Microsoft Certification
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England with a requirement for Microsoft Certification qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 7 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 288 236 254
Rank change year-on-year -52 +18 +90
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 374 296 307
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.82% 1.07% 0.92%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.58% 3.43% 3.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 256 172 183
10th Percentile £156 £200 £229
25th Percentile £306 £322 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £559 £625 £588
90th Percentile £650 £650 £650
UK median daily rate £450 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -6.25% -4.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 31 53
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £13.69
25th Percentile £24.57 £15.65 £14.16
Median hourly rate £55.00 £17.44 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +215.37% +6.99% -6.86%
75th Percentile £77.50 £33.75 £21.37
90th Percentile £178.75 £83.00 -
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £18.00 £15.76
% change year-on-year +205.56% +14.21% -9.94%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
England

Microsoft Certification falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in England.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 14,495 8,639 10,197
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.76% 31.31% 30.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,767 5,446 6,482
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,116 646 767
10th Percentile £17.97 £18.13 £15.01
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.25 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +115.71% -45.54% -16.04%
75th Percentile £75.00 £56.93 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.02 £78.30
UK median hourly rate £51.75 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +105.77% -41.51% -22.77%

Microsoft Certification
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Microsoft Certification relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Microsoft Certification job vacancy trend in England

Microsoft Certification
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Microsoft Certification.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Microsoft Certification

Microsoft Certification
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft Certification in England over the 6 months to 7 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft Certification in England

Microsoft Certification
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Microsoft Certification.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Microsoft Certification

Microsoft Certification
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft Certification in England over the 6 months to 7 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft Certification in England

Microsoft Certification
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft Certification within the England region over the 6 months to 7 August 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
London -42 134 £520 +4.00% 109
North of England -63 70 £491 +15.51% 70
South East -51 65 £275 -54.17% 68
North West -36 54 £485 +14.12% 37
Midlands -36 39 £425 -13.62% 34
West Midlands -42 35 £425 +58.88% 20
South West -29 31 £425 -19.62% 31
East of England -31 28 £160 -57.33% 24
Yorkshire -33 13 £650 +57.58% 24
East Midlands -13 4 £431 -13.05% 14
North East -42 3 £363 +81.25% 10
Microsoft Certification
UK

Microsoft Certification
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 43 (11.50%) SharePoint
2 30 (8.02%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.53%) Confluence
3 2 (0.53%) Exchange Server 2010
3 2 (0.53%) HCL Notes
3 2 (0.53%) Mendix
4 1 (0.27%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.27%) Liferay
Applications
1 14 (3.74%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.87%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.27%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.27%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 12 (3.21%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (1.60%) Remedy ITSM
3 5 (1.34%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.53%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.27%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.27%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 204 (54.55%) Azure
2 107 (28.61%) Microsoft 365
3 94 (25.13%) Entra ID
4 75 (20.05%) Power Platform
5 51 (13.64%) Azure DevOps
5 51 (13.64%) Power Automate
6 41 (10.96%) Dynamics 365
7 39 (10.43%) PowerApps
8 33 (8.82%) Microsoft Purview
9 29 (7.75%) AWS
10 25 (6.68%) GitHub
10 25 (6.68%) OneDrive
11 21 (5.61%) Microsoft Copilot
12 19 (5.08%) Azure Logic Apps
13 18 (4.81%) Serverless
14 17 (4.55%) Azure Monitor
15 16 (4.28%) Azure Functions
15 16 (4.28%) SaaS
16 13 (3.48%) PaaS
17 12 (3.21%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 43 (11.50%) DNS
2 36 (9.63%) SAN
3 32 (8.56%) Firewall
4 29 (7.75%) VPN
5 28 (7.49%) TCP/IP
6 22 (5.88%) DHCP
7 13 (3.48%) LAN
8 10 (2.67%) SSL
9 8 (2.14%) WAN
9 8 (2.14%) Wi-Fi
9 8 (2.14%) Wireless
10 6 (1.60%) Network Security
10 6 (1.60%) NGFW
11 5 (1.34%) Kerberos
11 5 (1.34%) VLAN
12 4 (1.07%) Internet
13 3 (0.80%) DMZ
13 3 (0.80%) Intrusion Detection
13 3 (0.80%) NAS
13 3 (0.80%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (11.23%) SQL Server
2 41 (10.96%) Power BI
3 24 (6.42%) MySQL
4 19 (5.08%) PostgreSQL
5 8 (2.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 7 (1.87%) Data Warehouse
6 7 (1.87%) Power Query
7 6 (1.60%) Metadata
8 4 (1.07%) Data Lake
8 4 (1.07%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 4 (1.07%) Star Schema
9 3 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.80%) Big Data
10 2 (0.53%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (0.53%) BusinessObjects
10 2 (0.53%) Data Mart
10 2 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
10 2 (0.53%) QlikView
10 2 (0.53%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.53%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (2.14%) Git
1 8 (2.14%) Selenium
1 8 (2.14%) WebDriver
2 6 (1.60%) Cucumber
2 6 (1.60%) Cypress.io
2 6 (1.60%) JIRA
2 6 (1.60%) Postman
3 4 (1.07%) Visual Studio Code
4 2 (0.53%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.27%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.27%) GitLab
5 1 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 161 (43.05%) Social Skills
2 92 (24.60%) Analytical Skills
3 63 (16.84%) Public Sector
4 51 (13.64%) Finance
5 22 (5.88%) Telecoms
6 21 (5.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 14 (3.74%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (2.67%) Legal
9 9 (2.41%) Aerospace
10 6 (1.60%) Banking
10 6 (1.60%) Military
10 6 (1.60%) Organisational Skills
11 4 (1.07%) Influencing Skills
11 4 (1.07%) Local Government
12 3 (0.80%) Front Office
12 3 (0.80%) Investment Banking
12 3 (0.80%) Law
12 3 (0.80%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.53%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 48 (12.83%) Analyst
2 45 (12.03%) IT Engineer
3 39 (10.43%) Architect
3 39 (10.43%) Senior
4 36 (9.63%) IT Support
5 30 (8.02%) Field Engineer
5 30 (8.02%) Field Service Engineer
6 29 (7.75%) DBA
7 26 (6.95%) Developer
7 26 (6.95%) Lead
7 26 (6.95%) Support Engineer
8 25 (6.68%) Administrator
9 23 (6.15%) IT Support Engineer
10 20 (5.35%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 18 (4.81%) Dynamics 365 Developer
11 18 (4.81%) Support Analyst
12 17 (4.55%) IT Analyst
13 15 (4.01%) SQL DBA
14 14 (3.74%) Cloud Engineer
14 14 (3.74%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (4.28%) .NET
1 16 (4.28%) OAuth
2 15 (4.01%) LDAP
2 15 (4.01%) OpenID
3 13 (3.48%) ONVIF
3 13 (3.48%) SAML
4 12 (3.21%) OAuth2
5 11 (2.94%) JSON
6 9 (2.41%) REST
6 9 (2.41%) SailPoint
6 9 (2.41%) Web Services
7 8 (2.14%) Microsoft Graph
8 7 (1.87%) ARM Templates
8 7 (1.87%) Middleware
9 6 (1.60%) Gherkin
10 4 (1.07%) HTML5 Canvas
11 3 (0.80%) Azure Blueprints
11 3 (0.80%) PySpark
12 2 (0.53%) Kafka
12 2 (0.53%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 36 (9.63%) Analytical Mindset
1 36 (9.63%) Data Centre
2 30 (8.02%) Management Information System
3 29 (7.75%) Onboarding
4 19 (5.08%) Replication
4 19 (5.08%) Security Posture
5 17 (4.55%) Cloud Native
6 15 (4.01%) Clustering
7 14 (3.74%) Enterprise Software
8 13 (3.48%) Video\Live Streaming
9 12 (3.21%) Hybrid Cloud
9 12 (3.21%) Product Ownership
10 11 (2.94%) Legacy Systems
11 8 (2.14%) Data Structures
11 8 (2.14%) PKI
12 7 (1.87%) AI Agents
12 7 (1.87%) Enterprise Cloud
13 6 (1.60%) BYOD
13 6 (1.60%) Low-Code
13 6 (1.60%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 112 (29.95%) Windows
2 50 (13.37%) Windows Server
3 32 (8.56%) Windows 10
4 26 (6.95%) Linux
5 18 (4.81%) Android
6 12 (3.21%) Mac OS
7 11 (2.94%) Apple iOS
8 8 (2.14%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (1.60%) Unix
9 6 (1.60%) VMS
10 5 (1.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 4 (1.07%) Solaris
11 4 (1.07%) Windows 7
11 4 (1.07%) Windows Server 2003
11 4 (1.07%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.53%) Alpine Linux
13 2 (0.53%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.53%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.27%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 144 (38.50%) Problem-Solving
2 81 (21.66%) DevOps
3 80 (21.39%) ITIL
4 76 (20.32%) Customer Service
5 69 (18.45%) Agile
6 55 (14.71%) Stakeholder Management
7 52 (13.90%) CI/CD
8 47 (12.57%) Migration
9 46 (12.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 43 (11.50%) Infrastructure as Code
11 41 (10.96%) Analytics
11 41 (10.96%) Business Intelligence
11 41 (10.96%) Computer Science
11 41 (10.96%) Project Delivery
12 40 (10.70%) AI
13 38 (10.16%) Technical Leadership
14 37 (9.89%) Continuous Improvement
15 36 (9.63%) ITSM
16 35 (9.36%) Data Governance
17 31 (8.29%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 98 (26.20%) PowerShell
2 43 (11.50%) Python
3 42 (11.23%) SQL
4 34 (9.09%) C#
5 30 (8.02%) JavaScript
6 23 (6.15%) Bicep
7 16 (4.28%) Bash
8 8 (2.14%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 8 (2.14%) T-SQL
9 5 (1.34%) X++
10 3 (0.80%) Java
10 3 (0.80%) TypeScript
11 2 (0.53%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.53%) Perl
11 2 (0.53%) R
12 1 (0.27%) VB
Qualifications
1 139 (37.17%) Security Cleared
2 116 (31.02%) SC Cleared
3 113 (30.21%) Degree
4 82 (21.93%) MCSE
5 67 (17.91%) Azure Certification
6 66 (17.65%) A+ Certification
7 64 (17.11%) Cisco Certification
8 56 (14.97%) CCNA
9 44 (11.76%) MCSA
9 44 (11.76%) Network+ Certification
10 29 (7.75%) DV Cleared
11 23 (6.15%) Computer Science Degree
12 22 (5.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 14 (3.74%) AWS Certification
13 14 (3.74%) CISSP
14 13 (3.48%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 12 (3.21%) Oracle Certification
16 11 (2.94%) OCP
17 10 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
18 9 (2.41%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (6.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 23 (6.15%) NIST
3 19 (5.08%) Data Quality
4 18 (4.81%) Accessibility
5 16 (4.28%) GDPR
6 15 (4.01%) SLA
7 14 (3.74%) QA
8 8 (2.14%) WCAG
9 6 (1.60%) NCSC
10 5 (1.34%) Cyber Essentials
11 3 (0.80%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.53%) GRC
12 2 (0.53%) HIPAA
12 2 (0.53%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.53%) Solvency II
13 1 (0.27%) GxP
13 1 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 1 (0.27%) ITGC
System Software
1 121 (32.35%) Active Directory
2 35 (9.36%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (4.81%) Virtual Desktop
4 17 (4.55%) Virtual Machines
4 17 (4.55%) VMware ESXi
5 13 (3.48%) Docker
5 13 (3.48%) vSphere
6 8 (2.14%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.80%) Firmware
7 3 (0.80%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.53%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.53%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.53%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.27%) NDS
9 1 (0.27%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 1 (0.27%) NFS
Systems Management
1 51 (13.64%) Microsoft Intune
2 46 (12.30%) Terraform
3 27 (7.22%) Ansible
4 20 (5.35%) SCCM
5 18 (4.81%) vCenter Server
6 16 (4.28%) Kubernetes
7 14 (3.74%) SCOM
8 8 (2.14%) Single Sign-On
9 6 (1.60%) CASB
10 5 (1.34%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 5 (1.34%) Nessus
10 5 (1.34%) Podman
11 3 (0.80%) Dell DRAC
11 3 (0.80%) Grafana
11 3 (0.80%) QRadar
11 3 (0.80%) WSUS
12 2 (0.53%) Packer
12 2 (0.53%) vMotion
13 1 (0.27%) FreeIPA
13 1 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 311 (83.16%) Microsoft
2 42 (11.23%) VMware
3 34 (9.09%) Dell
4 30 (8.02%) ServiceNow
5 25 (6.68%) Cisco
5 25 (6.68%) Oracle
6 14 (3.74%) Remedy
7 11 (2.94%) Apple
8 10 (2.67%) Citrix
8 10 (2.67%) Splunk
9 9 (2.41%) SolarWinds
10 8 (2.14%) Google
11 7 (1.87%) Tenable
12 6 (1.60%) CyberArk
12 6 (1.60%) Foundry
12 6 (1.60%) OpenAI
13 5 (1.34%) Dynatrace
13 5 (1.34%) NetApp
13 5 (1.34%) Palo Alto
13 5 (1.34%) Red Hat