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 18 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 298 235 266
Rank change year-on-year -63 +31 +85
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 357 301 330
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.79% 1.11% 0.91%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.51% 3.58% 2.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 249 177 200
10th Percentile £156 £205 £183
25th Percentile £306 £313 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £495
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +1.01% -5.71%
75th Percentile £560 £625 £564
90th Percentile £661 £665 £671
UK median daily rate £450 £478 £495
% change year-on-year -5.76% -3.54% -5.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 33 56
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.75 £15.44 £14.16
Median hourly rate £55.00 £17.44 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +215.37% +6.99% -6.86%
75th Percentile £128.13 £33.75 £21.37
90th Percentile £178.75 £80.90 -
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £17.44 £16.30
% change year-on-year +215.37% +6.99% -6.86%

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 14,226 8,407 11,056
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.61% 30.88% 30.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,595 5,311 6,932
10th Percentile £350 £285 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.28% -2.32%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £717 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.10% -0.10% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,061 603 934
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.26
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £21.25
Median hourly rate £54.00 £26.50 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +103.77% -38.37% -22.17%
75th Percentile £74.26 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.96 £76.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £51.22 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +103.66% -40.82% -24.71%

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 18 July 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 18 July 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 18 July 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 -46 118 £523 +4.50% 62
North of England -64 74 £484 +13.88% 61
South East -38 63 £288 -52.08% 66
North West -45 58 £483 +10.78% 31
Midlands -44 33 £425 +8.70% 24
East of England -25 31 £173 -54.00% 19
South West -33 31 £425 -18.27% 19
West Midlands -51 27 £425 +52.47% 12
Yorkshire -35 13 £650 +57.58% 19
East Midlands -10 6 £431 -13.05% 12
North East -33 3 £363 +81.25% 13
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 41 (11.48%) SharePoint
2 25 (7.00%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.28%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.28%) Confluence
3 1 (0.28%) Liferay
Applications
1 14 (3.92%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.68%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.28%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.28%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 9 (2.52%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.40%) Oracle Payables
2 5 (1.40%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
3 1 (0.28%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.28%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 189 (52.94%) Azure
2 100 (28.01%) Microsoft 365
3 82 (22.97%) Entra ID
4 64 (17.93%) Power Platform
5 44 (12.32%) Power Automate
6 40 (11.20%) Azure DevOps
7 35 (9.80%) PowerApps
8 33 (9.24%) Dynamics 365
9 30 (8.40%) Microsoft Purview
10 29 (8.12%) AWS
11 24 (6.72%) OneDrive
12 21 (5.88%) GitHub
13 18 (5.04%) Microsoft Copilot
14 17 (4.76%) Azure Logic Apps
15 13 (3.64%) Azure Monitor
16 12 (3.36%) SaaS
16 12 (3.36%) Serverless
17 11 (3.08%) Azure Functions
17 11 (3.08%) IaaS
17 11 (3.08%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 37 (10.36%) DNS
1 37 (10.36%) SAN
2 29 (8.12%) Firewall
3 28 (7.84%) VPN
4 25 (7.00%) TCP/IP
5 16 (4.48%) DHCP
5 16 (4.48%) LAN
6 10 (2.80%) Wi-Fi
7 8 (2.24%) SSL
7 8 (2.24%) WAN
8 7 (1.96%) Wireless
9 6 (1.68%) Network Security
10 5 (1.40%) NGFW
10 5 (1.40%) VLAN
11 4 (1.12%) Internet
11 4 (1.12%) Kerberos
12 3 (0.84%) DMZ
12 3 (0.84%) Intrusion Detection
12 3 (0.84%) NAS
12 3 (0.84%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (10.08%) SQL Server
2 34 (9.52%) Power BI
3 20 (5.60%) MySQL
4 17 (4.76%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (1.68%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (1.68%) Power Query
6 5 (1.40%) Metadata
6 5 (1.40%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 4 (1.12%) Data Lake
7 4 (1.12%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 4 (1.12%) Star Schema
8 3 (0.84%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.84%) Big Data
9 2 (0.56%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.56%) BusinessObjects
9 2 (0.56%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.56%) Qlik Sense
9 2 (0.56%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.56%) Semantic Layer
9 2 (0.56%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (2.24%) Git
2 6 (1.68%) Selenium
2 6 (1.68%) WebDriver
3 4 (1.12%) Cucumber
3 4 (1.12%) Cypress.io
3 4 (1.12%) JIRA
3 4 (1.12%) Postman
4 3 (0.84%) Visual Studio Code
5 2 (0.56%) GitLab
6 1 (0.28%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.28%) MLflow
6 1 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 137 (38.38%) Social Skills
2 86 (24.09%) Analytical Skills
3 56 (15.69%) Public Sector
4 47 (13.17%) Finance
5 21 (5.88%) Telecoms
6 18 (5.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 13 (3.64%) Documentation Skills
8 12 (3.36%) Legal
9 5 (1.40%) Aerospace
9 5 (1.40%) Banking
9 5 (1.40%) Organisational Skills
10 4 (1.12%) Military
11 3 (0.84%) Front Office
11 3 (0.84%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (0.84%) Investment Banking
11 3 (0.84%) Local Government
11 3 (0.84%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.56%) Law
12 2 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.28%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 46 (12.89%) IT Engineer
2 44 (12.32%) Analyst
3 40 (11.20%) Architect
4 36 (10.08%) IT Support
4 36 (10.08%) Senior
5 33 (9.24%) Field Engineer
5 33 (9.24%) Field Service Engineer
6 26 (7.28%) Administrator
6 26 (7.28%) Support Engineer
7 25 (7.00%) DBA
8 23 (6.44%) IT Support Engineer
9 21 (5.88%) Developer
9 21 (5.88%) Lead
10 18 (5.04%) Support Analyst
11 17 (4.76%) IT Analyst
12 16 (4.48%) Technical Support
13 15 (4.20%) Wintel Engineer
14 14 (3.92%) Dynamics 365 Developer
14 14 (3.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 13 (3.64%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (3.92%) LDAP
1 14 (3.92%) OAuth
2 13 (3.64%) ONVIF
3 12 (3.36%) .NET
3 12 (3.36%) OpenID
3 12 (3.36%) SAML
4 10 (2.80%) OAuth2
5 9 (2.52%) JSON
6 8 (2.24%) SailPoint
6 8 (2.24%) Web Services
7 7 (1.96%) Microsoft Graph
8 5 (1.40%) REST
9 4 (1.12%) ARM Templates
9 4 (1.12%) Gherkin
10 3 (0.84%) Middleware
10 3 (0.84%) PySpark
10 3 (0.84%) YAML
11 2 (0.56%) OpenGL
11 2 (0.56%) Oracle Fusion
11 2 (0.56%) Qt
Miscellaneous
1 39 (10.92%) Data Centre
2 36 (10.08%) Analytical Mindset
3 29 (8.12%) Onboarding
4 21 (5.88%) Management Information System
5 20 (5.60%) Replication
6 17 (4.76%) Cloud Native
6 17 (4.76%) Clustering
6 17 (4.76%) Security Posture
7 13 (3.64%) Video\Live Streaming
8 12 (3.36%) Enterprise Software
9 11 (3.08%) Legacy Systems
10 10 (2.80%) Hybrid Cloud
11 9 (2.52%) Product Ownership
12 8 (2.24%) PKI
13 7 (1.96%) AI Agents
14 6 (1.68%) Data Structures
14 6 (1.68%) Enterprise Cloud
14 6 (1.68%) Mobile App
15 5 (1.40%) Cloud Security Posture
15 5 (1.40%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 109 (30.53%) Windows
2 48 (13.45%) Windows Server
3 30 (8.40%) Windows 10
4 21 (5.88%) Linux
5 14 (3.92%) Android
6 10 (2.80%) Apple iOS
6 10 (2.80%) Mac OS
7 7 (1.96%) Windows Server 2003
8 6 (1.68%) Unix
8 6 (1.68%) VMS
8 6 (1.68%) Windows 7
9 5 (1.40%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (1.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (1.12%) Solaris
10 4 (1.12%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (1.12%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.56%) AIX
11 2 (0.56%) Alpine Linux
11 2 (0.56%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 132 (36.97%) Problem-Solving
2 73 (20.45%) Customer Service
3 72 (20.17%) DevOps
4 67 (18.77%) ITIL
5 57 (15.97%) Agile
6 46 (12.89%) CI/CD
7 41 (11.48%) Stakeholder Management
8 40 (11.20%) Infrastructure as Code
9 38 (10.64%) Computer Science
9 38 (10.64%) Migration
9 38 (10.64%) Project Delivery
10 37 (10.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 34 (9.52%) Analytics
11 34 (9.52%) Business Intelligence
12 33 (9.24%) AI
12 33 (9.24%) Break/Fix
12 33 (9.24%) Data Governance
13 30 (8.40%) ITSM
14 29 (8.12%) Continuous Improvement
14 29 (8.12%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 93 (26.05%) PowerShell
2 37 (10.36%) SQL
3 35 (9.80%) Python
4 25 (7.00%) C#
5 21 (5.88%) JavaScript
6 18 (5.04%) Bicep
7 14 (3.92%) Bash
8 7 (1.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 6 (1.68%) T-SQL
10 3 (0.84%) X++
11 2 (0.56%) Java
11 2 (0.56%) Perl
11 2 (0.56%) R
12 1 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
12 1 (0.28%) VB
Qualifications
1 124 (34.73%) Security Cleared
2 103 (28.85%) SC Cleared
3 99 (27.73%) Degree
4 87 (24.37%) MCSE
5 66 (18.49%) A+ Certification
6 63 (17.65%) Cisco Certification
7 60 (16.81%) Azure Certification
8 53 (14.85%) CCNA
9 45 (12.61%) MCSA
9 45 (12.61%) Network+ Certification
10 26 (7.28%) DV Cleared
11 23 (6.44%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 21 (5.88%) Computer Science Degree
13 13 (3.64%) AWS Certification
14 12 (3.36%) CISSP
14 12 (3.36%) VCAP
15 11 (3.08%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 10 (2.80%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 10 (2.80%) Oracle Certification
17 9 (2.52%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (6.72%) NIST
2 22 (6.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 16 (4.48%) Data Quality
4 14 (3.92%) Accessibility
4 14 (3.92%) SLA
5 12 (3.36%) GDPR
5 12 (3.36%) QA
6 7 (1.96%) NCSC
7 6 (1.68%) WCAG
8 3 (0.84%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.84%) HIPAA
8 3 (0.84%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.56%) GRC
9 2 (0.56%) SOC 2
9 2 (0.56%) Solvency II
10 1 (0.28%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (0.28%) GxP
10 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 1 (0.28%) ITGC
10 1 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 116 (32.49%) Active Directory
2 33 (9.24%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (5.60%) VMware ESXi
4 19 (5.32%) Virtual Machines
5 17 (4.76%) Virtual Desktop
6 16 (4.48%) vSphere
7 11 (3.08%) Docker
8 5 (1.40%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.84%) Firmware
9 3 (0.84%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.56%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.56%) Microsoft App-V
10 2 (0.56%) VMware Workstation
11 1 (0.28%) NFS
11 1 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 42 (11.76%) Microsoft Intune
2 40 (11.20%) Terraform
3 30 (8.40%) Ansible
4 20 (5.60%) vCenter Server
5 18 (5.04%) SCCM
6 13 (3.64%) Kubernetes
7 11 (3.08%) SCOM
8 7 (1.96%) Single Sign-On
9 6 (1.68%) CASB
10 5 (1.40%) Nessus
11 4 (1.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (1.12%) Podman
12 3 (0.84%) Grafana
12 3 (0.84%) QRadar
12 3 (0.84%) WSUS
13 2 (0.56%) Dell DRAC
13 2 (0.56%) Packer
13 2 (0.56%) vMotion
14 1 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
14 1 (0.28%) VxRail
Vendors
1 289 (80.95%) Microsoft
2 42 (11.76%) VMware
3 35 (9.80%) Dell
4 25 (7.00%) Cisco
4 25 (7.00%) Oracle
5 23 (6.44%) ServiceNow
6 12 (3.36%) Apple
6 12 (3.36%) Remedy
7 11 (3.08%) Citrix
8 10 (2.80%) Splunk
9 8 (2.24%) SolarWinds
10 7 (1.96%) CyberArk
10 7 (1.96%) Tenable
11 6 (1.68%) Google
12 5 (1.40%) Databricks
12 5 (1.40%) Dynatrace
12 5 (1.40%) NetApp
12 5 (1.40%) OpenAI
13 4 (1.12%) Foundry
13 4 (1.12%) Palo Alto