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 30 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 299 225 266
Rank change year-on-year -74 +41 +84
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 322 283 312
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.80% 1.16% 0.84%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.45% 3.71% 2.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 213 157 206
10th Percentile £161 £200 £183
25th Percentile £350 £300 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% - -2.20%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £575
90th Percentile £698 £725 £681
UK median daily rate £478 £500 £478
% change year-on-year -4.50% +4.71% -5.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 34 61
10th Percentile £17.88 - £13.69
25th Percentile £24.79 £14.99 £14.16
Median hourly rate £63.14 £17.44 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +262.01% +6.99% +5.16%
75th Percentile £178.75 £21.46 £21.37
90th Percentile - £36.38 £21.46
UK median hourly rate £63.14 £18.22 £16.30
% change year-on-year +246.51% +11.78% +5.16%

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 13,158 7,624 11,671
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.63% 31.34% 31.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,831 4,841 7,165
10th Percentile £340 £295 £300
25th Percentile £425 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £629 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -1.05% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 991 442 987
10th Percentile £17.09 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.55 £18.13
Median hourly rate £47.50 £46.30 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.59% +15.75% -23.51%
75th Percentile £71.50 £67.88 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.36 £81.94 £75.95
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £40.72 £40.00
% change year-on-year +16.66% +1.79% -25.93%

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 30 April 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 30 April 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 30 April 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 -22 115 £525 +5.00% 64
North of England -72 66 £483 -0.92% 50
North West -45 50 £483 -3.40% 23
South West -15 42 £510 -7.27% 26
South East -55 41 £275 -51.33% 67
Midlands -55 35 £425 +89.73% 27
West Midlands -52 27 £425 +89.73% 18
East of England -50 22 £181 -63.75% 37
Yorkshire -47 13 £484 +21.00% 20
East Midlands -21 8 £220 - 9
North East -17 3 - - 8
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 (12.73%) Microsoft Exchange
2 32 (9.94%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.93%) Exchange Server 2013
4 2 (0.62%) Confluence
5 1 (0.31%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 21 (6.52%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (2.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.62%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 8 (2.48%) Veritas eDiscovery
2 6 (1.86%) Maximo
3 5 (1.55%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.62%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.31%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 140 (43.48%) Azure
2 98 (30.43%) Microsoft 365
3 61 (18.94%) Entra ID
4 48 (14.91%) Power Platform
5 33 (10.25%) Microsoft Purview
6 27 (8.39%) Azure DevOps
7 26 (8.07%) Power Automate
7 26 (8.07%) PowerApps
8 23 (7.14%) Azure Data Factory
9 22 (6.83%) AWS
10 21 (6.52%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 18 (5.59%) Dynamics 365
12 16 (4.97%) GitHub
13 15 (4.66%) Microsoft Copilot
13 15 (4.66%) OneDrive
14 13 (4.04%) Azure Monitor
15 12 (3.73%) Azure AKS
15 12 (3.73%) Azure Logic Apps
16 10 (3.11%) Azure Sentinel
16 10 (3.11%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 37 (11.49%) SAN
2 27 (8.39%) Firewall
3 26 (8.07%) DNS
3 26 (8.07%) VPN
4 12 (3.73%) TCP/IP
5 9 (2.80%) LAN
6 8 (2.48%) DHCP
7 7 (2.17%) Wi-Fi
8 6 (1.86%) Network Security
8 6 (1.86%) SSL
9 5 (1.55%) VLAN
10 4 (1.24%) DMZ
10 4 (1.24%) Kerberos
10 4 (1.24%) NAS
11 3 (0.93%) DKIM
11 3 (0.93%) DMARC
11 3 (0.93%) NetScaler
11 3 (0.93%) SMTP
11 3 (0.93%) VoIP
12 2 (0.62%) RS-232
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (9.32%) SQL Server
2 27 (8.39%) Power BI
3 15 (4.66%) Data Lake
4 12 (3.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 10 (3.11%) PostgreSQL
6 9 (2.80%) Azure SQL Database
6 9 (2.80%) Metadata
6 9 (2.80%) MySQL
7 8 (2.48%) Data Warehouse
8 6 (1.86%) Spark SQL
9 5 (1.55%) Delta Lake
9 5 (1.55%) Power Query
10 4 (1.24%) Metadata Repository
11 3 (0.93%) Big Data
11 3 (0.93%) Oracle Database
11 3 (0.93%) Star Schema
12 2 (0.62%) Relational Database
12 2 (0.62%) Tableau
13 1 (0.31%) MongoDB
13 1 (0.31%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 14 (4.35%) Git
2 4 (1.24%) GitLab
3 3 (0.93%) Bitbucket
3 3 (0.93%) JIRA
3 3 (0.93%) Visual Studio Code
4 2 (0.62%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.62%) JDeveloper
4 2 (0.62%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.62%) Selenium
4 2 (0.62%) WebDriver
5 1 (0.31%) AdminStudio
5 1 (0.31%) InstallShield
5 1 (0.31%) MLflow
5 1 (0.31%) MSI
5 1 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.31%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 114 (35.40%) Social Skills
2 68 (21.12%) Analytical Skills
3 39 (12.11%) Finance
4 31 (9.63%) Public Sector
5 16 (4.97%) Telecoms
6 14 (4.35%) Legal
7 12 (3.73%) Documentation Skills
8 11 (3.42%) Banking
9 4 (1.24%) Aerospace
9 4 (1.24%) Front Office
9 4 (1.24%) International Banking
9 4 (1.24%) Investment Banking
9 4 (1.24%) Military
10 3 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.93%) Marketing
10 3 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (0.93%) Retail
11 2 (0.62%) Aeronautics
11 2 (0.62%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (0.62%) Law
Job Titles
1 45 (13.98%) Architect
2 39 (12.11%) IT Engineer
3 33 (10.25%) Field Engineer
3 33 (10.25%) Field Service Engineer
4 31 (9.63%) Analyst
5 29 (9.01%) IT Support
5 29 (9.01%) Senior
6 20 (6.21%) Administrator
6 20 (6.21%) Support Engineer
7 18 (5.59%) Wintel Engineer
8 17 (5.28%) IT Support Engineer
8 17 (5.28%) Support Analyst
9 16 (4.97%) IT Analyst
9 16 (4.97%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
9 16 (4.97%) Solutions Architect
10 14 (4.35%) DBA
10 14 (4.35%) Technical Support
11 13 (4.04%) Azure Engineer
11 13 (4.04%) Cloud Engineer
11 13 (4.04%) Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (5.28%) OAuth
2 15 (4.66%) SAML
3 14 (4.35%) OpenID
4 13 (4.04%) LDAP
5 11 (3.42%) .NET
5 11 (3.42%) OAuth2
6 9 (2.80%) ARM Templates
7 7 (2.17%) Microsoft Graph
8 6 (1.86%) REST
9 5 (1.55%) ONVIF
10 4 (1.24%) Web Services
11 3 (0.93%) React
11 3 (0.93%) SailPoint
11 3 (0.93%) YAML
12 2 (0.62%) CSS
12 2 (0.62%) Jest
12 2 (0.62%) JSON
12 2 (0.62%) PySpark
12 2 (0.62%) RESTful
12 2 (0.62%) Tailwind CSS
Miscellaneous
1 36 (11.18%) Analytical Mindset
2 34 (10.56%) Data Centre
3 21 (6.52%) Onboarding
4 19 (5.90%) Replication
5 18 (5.59%) Enterprise Software
6 16 (4.97%) Clustering
7 11 (3.42%) BYOD
7 11 (3.42%) Hybrid Cloud
8 8 (2.48%) PKI
8 8 (2.48%) Security Posture
9 7 (2.17%) Management Information System
10 6 (1.86%) Cloud Native
10 6 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
11 5 (1.55%) Cloud Security Posture
11 5 (1.55%) Mobile App
11 5 (1.55%) Operational Technology
11 5 (1.55%) Video\Live Streaming
12 4 (1.24%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (1.24%) Public Cloud
13 3 (0.93%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 106 (32.92%) Windows
2 53 (16.46%) Windows Server
3 30 (9.32%) Windows 10
4 19 (5.90%) Linux
5 8 (2.48%) Android
5 8 (2.48%) Windows Server 2003
5 8 (2.48%) Windows Server 2012
6 7 (2.17%) Windows 7
6 7 (2.17%) Windows Server 2016
7 6 (1.86%) Apple iOS
7 6 (1.86%) Unix
8 5 (1.55%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.93%) VMS
9 3 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.62%) AIX
10 2 (0.62%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 106 (32.92%) Problem-Solving
2 62 (19.25%) ITIL
3 56 (17.39%) Customer Service
4 52 (16.15%) Migration
5 48 (14.91%) DevOps
6 44 (13.66%) Analytics
7 40 (12.42%) Agile
7 40 (12.42%) CI/CD
8 36 (11.18%) Disaster Recovery
9 33 (10.25%) Break/Fix
9 33 (10.25%) High Availability
10 32 (9.94%) Computer Science
11 29 (9.01%) Identity Access Management
11 29 (9.01%) RBAC
11 29 (9.01%) Roadmaps
12 28 (8.70%) Infrastructure as Code
13 27 (8.39%) Business Intelligence
13 27 (8.39%) Project Delivery
14 26 (8.07%) Data Governance
14 26 (8.07%) Data Loss Prevention
Programming Languages
1 96 (29.81%) PowerShell
2 39 (12.11%) SQL
3 32 (9.94%) Python
4 16 (4.97%) Bicep
5 10 (3.11%) C#
6 7 (2.17%) Bash
6 7 (2.17%) T-SQL
7 5 (1.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 5 (1.55%) JavaScript
8 4 (1.24%) R
8 4 (1.24%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.31%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.31%) VB
9 1 (0.31%) VBScript
9 1 (0.31%) X++
Qualifications
1 95 (29.50%) MCSE
2 93 (28.88%) Security Cleared
3 88 (27.33%) Degree
4 75 (23.29%) SC Cleared
5 56 (17.39%) Azure Certification
6 54 (16.77%) Cisco Certification
7 47 (14.60%) A+ Certification
8 45 (13.98%) CCNA
9 44 (13.66%) Network+ Certification
10 41 (12.73%) MCSA
11 28 (8.70%) Computer Science Degree
12 26 (8.07%) DV Cleared
13 23 (7.14%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 22 (6.83%) CISSP
15 14 (4.35%) VCAP
16 13 (4.04%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 10 (3.11%) CompTIA Security+
18 9 (2.80%) CCNP
18 9 (2.80%) CISM
19 7 (2.17%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (6.21%) NIST
2 19 (5.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 13 (4.04%) GDPR
4 8 (2.48%) Cyber Essentials
4 8 (2.48%) Data Quality
4 8 (2.48%) SLA
5 7 (2.17%) NIST 800
6 6 (1.86%) NCSC
7 4 (1.24%) Accessibility
7 4 (1.24%) QA
8 3 (0.93%) WCAG
9 1 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.31%) GxP
9 1 (0.31%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.31%) SOC 2
System Software
1 114 (35.40%) Active Directory
2 32 (9.94%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (6.21%) VMware ESXi
4 16 (4.97%) vSphere
5 15 (4.66%) Virtual Machines
6 12 (3.73%) Docker
6 12 (3.73%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (2.80%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.93%) Firmware
9 2 (0.62%) VMware NSX
10 1 (0.31%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 39 (12.11%) Microsoft Intune
2 34 (10.56%) Terraform
3 29 (9.01%) Ansible
4 19 (5.90%) Kubernetes
5 18 (5.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 18 (5.59%) SCCM
5 18 (5.59%) vCenter Server
6 9 (2.80%) Single Sign-On
7 6 (1.86%) CASB
7 6 (1.86%) WSUS
8 5 (1.55%) Nessus
9 3 (0.93%) Podman
9 3 (0.93%) SCOM
10 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
10 2 (0.62%) PowerCLI
10 2 (0.62%) QRadar
11 1 (0.31%) Dell DRAC
11 1 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
11 1 (0.31%) Kubeflow
11 1 (0.31%) PaperCut
Vendors
1 260 (80.75%) Microsoft
2 40 (12.42%) VMware
3 35 (10.87%) Dell
4 25 (7.76%) Cisco
5 18 (5.59%) Oracle
6 12 (3.73%) Citrix
7 11 (3.42%) Apple
7 11 (3.42%) Databricks
7 11 (3.42%) ServiceNow
8 8 (2.48%) Red Hat
8 8 (2.48%) Tenable
9 6 (1.86%) CyberArk
9 6 (1.86%) IBM
9 6 (1.86%) Remedy
9 6 (1.86%) Veeam
10 5 (1.55%) Atlassian
11 4 (1.24%) Foundry
11 4 (1.24%) Reuters
11 4 (1.24%) SolarWinds
11 4 (1.24%) Splunk
238 Microsoft Certification jobs in England