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 28 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 298 243 258
Rank change year-on-year -55 +15 +92
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 376 290 307
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.82% 1.05% 0.93%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.59% 3.34% 3.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 257 168 190
10th Percentile £155 £200 £244
25th Percentile £306 £309 £384
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £484 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.93% -3.30% -4.76%
75th Percentile £550 £612 £580
90th Percentile £650 £650 £639
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 31 40
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £11.75
25th Percentile £32.05 £15.65 £14.16
Median hourly rate £55.00 £17.44 £16.03
Median % change year-on-year +215.37% +8.80% -8.40%
75th Percentile £74.00 £33.75 £21.37
90th Percentile £178.75 £83.00 £21.38
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £19.03 £15.17
% change year-on-year +188.98% +25.46% -14.54%

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 14,504 8,680 10,054
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.69% 31.51% 30.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,747 5,462 6,346
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £438 £413 £426
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,125 677 675
10th Percentile £18.26 £18.13 £14.29
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -48.21% -11.71%
75th Percentile £75.00 £53.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £48.72 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +93.72% -44.11% -18.18%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 -52 137 £509 +1.70% 179
North of England -54 65 £483 +13.65% 71
South East -42 64 £288 -52.08% 88
North West -40 50 £483 +13.65% 35
Midlands -21 47 £425 +11.92% 47
West Midlands -27 42 £425 +72.94% 31
South West -27 31 £425 -18.27% 35
East of England -31 25 £160 -57.33% 33
Yorkshire -38 12 £650 +62.50% 28
East Midlands -17 5 £431 -13.05% 16
North East -39 3 £363 +81.25% 9
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 38 (10.11%) SharePoint
2 28 (7.45%) 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 (3.72%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (2.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.27%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.27%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 16 (4.26%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (1.60%) Oracle Payables
2 6 (1.60%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.53%) Dynamics AX
3 2 (0.53%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.27%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 219 (58.24%) Azure
2 106 (28.19%) Microsoft 365
3 93 (24.73%) Entra ID
4 90 (23.94%) Power Platform
5 63 (16.76%) Azure DevOps
6 60 (15.96%) Power Automate
7 52 (13.83%) Dynamics 365
8 44 (11.70%) PowerApps
9 34 (9.04%) AWS
10 27 (7.18%) Microsoft Purview
11 26 (6.91%) GitHub
12 25 (6.65%) Serverless
13 23 (6.12%) OneDrive
14 22 (5.85%) Azure Functions
14 22 (5.85%) Azure Logic Apps
15 20 (5.32%) Microsoft Copilot
16 18 (4.79%) Azure Monitor
17 16 (4.26%) SaaS
18 15 (3.99%) Azure Data Factory
19 13 (3.46%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 45 (11.97%) DNS
2 31 (8.24%) SAN
3 30 (7.98%) DHCP
4 29 (7.71%) Firewall
4 29 (7.71%) VPN
5 26 (6.91%) TCP/IP
6 10 (2.66%) LAN
7 8 (2.13%) WAN
8 7 (1.86%) Wireless
9 6 (1.60%) Kerberos
9 6 (1.60%) Network Security
9 6 (1.60%) NGFW
9 6 (1.60%) SSL
10 5 (1.33%) Wi-Fi
11 4 (1.06%) VLAN
12 3 (0.80%) DMZ
12 3 (0.80%) Internet
12 3 (0.80%) NetScaler
12 3 (0.80%) Remote Desktop
13 2 (0.53%) PCoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (12.50%) Power BI
2 43 (11.44%) SQL Server
3 25 (6.65%) MySQL
4 21 (5.59%) PostgreSQL
5 8 (2.13%) Data Warehouse
5 8 (2.13%) Metadata
5 8 (2.13%) Power Query
5 8 (2.13%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 5 (1.33%) Data Lake
7 4 (1.06%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 4 (1.06%) Star Schema
8 3 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.80%) Big Data
8 3 (0.80%) Delta Lake
9 2 (0.53%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.53%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.53%) Qlik Sense
9 2 (0.53%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.53%) Semantic Layer
9 2 (0.53%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 11 (2.93%) Git
2 7 (1.86%) Selenium
2 7 (1.86%) WebDriver
3 6 (1.60%) Cucumber
3 6 (1.60%) Cypress.io
3 6 (1.60%) JIRA
3 6 (1.60%) Postman
3 6 (1.60%) Visual Studio Code
4 3 (0.80%) Visual Studio
5 2 (0.53%) GitLab
6 1 (0.27%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.27%) Jenkins
General
1 175 (46.54%) Social Skills
2 91 (24.20%) Analytical Skills
3 68 (18.09%) Public Sector
4 51 (13.56%) Finance
5 27 (7.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 23 (6.12%) Telecoms
7 15 (3.99%) Documentation Skills
8 12 (3.19%) Aerospace
9 10 (2.66%) Legal
10 7 (1.86%) Banking
11 6 (1.60%) Military
11 6 (1.60%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
13 4 (1.06%) Law
13 4 (1.06%) Local Government
13 4 (1.06%) Marketing
14 3 (0.80%) Front Office
14 3 (0.80%) Investment Banking
14 3 (0.80%) Pharmaceutical
14 3 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 51 (13.56%) Analyst
2 45 (11.97%) Architect
3 41 (10.90%) Senior
4 38 (10.11%) IT Engineer
5 36 (9.57%) Developer
6 31 (8.24%) IT Support
7 30 (7.98%) Lead
8 29 (7.71%) DBA
9 26 (6.91%) Dynamics 365 Developer
9 26 (6.91%) Field Engineer
9 26 (6.91%) Field Service Engineer
10 25 (6.65%) Administrator
11 22 (5.85%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 22 (5.85%) Support Analyst
12 19 (5.05%) IT Analyst
13 18 (4.79%) Support Engineer
14 17 (4.52%) Cloud Engineer
15 15 (3.99%) IT Support Analyst
15 15 (3.99%) IT Support Engineer
16 14 (3.72%) SQL DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (13.03%) Terraform
2 19 (5.05%) .NET
3 17 (4.52%) JSON
3 17 (4.52%) OAuth
4 14 (3.72%) OpenID
5 13 (3.46%) ONVIF
5 13 (3.46%) SAML
6 12 (3.19%) OAuth2
7 11 (2.93%) LDAP
8 10 (2.66%) ARM Templates
8 10 (2.66%) REST
9 9 (2.39%) Middleware
9 9 (2.39%) SailPoint
9 9 (2.39%) Web Services
10 8 (2.13%) Microsoft Graph
11 6 (1.60%) Gherkin
12 5 (1.33%) HTML5 Canvas
12 5 (1.33%) XML
13 4 (1.06%) Azure Blueprints
13 4 (1.06%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 36 (9.57%) Management Information System
2 31 (8.24%) Analytical Mindset
2 31 (8.24%) Data Centre
2 31 (8.24%) Onboarding
3 21 (5.59%) Cloud Native
4 19 (5.05%) Replication
5 17 (4.52%) Clustering
6 15 (3.99%) Product Ownership
6 15 (3.99%) Security Posture
7 13 (3.46%) Video\Live Streaming
8 12 (3.19%) Hybrid Cloud
9 11 (2.93%) Enterprise Software
9 11 (2.93%) Legacy Systems
10 10 (2.66%) PKI
11 9 (2.39%) Data Structures
12 8 (2.13%) AI Agents
12 8 (2.13%) Enterprise Cloud
13 7 (1.86%) Driving Licence
13 7 (1.86%) Mobile App
14 6 (1.60%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 109 (28.99%) Windows
2 52 (13.83%) Windows Server
3 32 (8.51%) Windows 10
4 22 (5.85%) Android
5 21 (5.59%) Linux
6 15 (3.99%) Apple iOS
7 12 (3.19%) Mac OS
8 8 (2.13%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (1.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (1.60%) Solaris
10 4 (1.06%) VMS
11 3 (0.80%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.53%) Alpine Linux
12 2 (0.53%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.53%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.53%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (0.53%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.53%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (38.83%) Problem-Solving
2 99 (26.33%) DevOps
3 83 (22.07%) Agile
4 79 (21.01%) ITIL
5 75 (19.95%) Customer Service
6 66 (17.55%) Stakeholder Management
7 62 (16.49%) CI/CD
8 52 (13.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 50 (13.30%) Technical Leadership
10 48 (12.77%) Analytics
11 47 (12.50%) Business Intelligence
11 47 (12.50%) Infrastructure as Code
12 45 (11.97%) AI
12 45 (11.97%) Computer Science
13 44 (11.70%) Continuous Improvement
14 42 (11.17%) ITSM
14 42 (11.17%) Migration
15 38 (10.11%) Project Delivery
16 36 (9.57%) Cybersecurity
17 34 (9.04%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 99 (26.33%) PowerShell
2 45 (11.97%) Python
3 44 (11.70%) SQL
4 42 (11.17%) C#
5 37 (9.84%) JavaScript
6 27 (7.18%) Bicep
7 19 (5.05%) Bash
8 8 (2.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 8 (2.13%) T-SQL
9 6 (1.60%) X++
10 4 (1.06%) Java
10 4 (1.06%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.80%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.53%) Perl
12 2 (0.53%) R
13 1 (0.27%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.27%) ActionScript 2.0
13 1 (0.27%) VB
Qualifications
1 149 (39.63%) Security Cleared
2 125 (33.24%) SC Cleared
3 115 (30.59%) Degree
4 79 (21.01%) Azure Certification
5 71 (18.88%) MCSE
6 66 (17.55%) A+ Certification
7 60 (15.96%) Cisco Certification
8 50 (13.30%) CCNA
9 44 (11.70%) Network+ Certification
10 38 (10.11%) MCSA
11 29 (7.71%) DV Cleared
12 26 (6.91%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (6.12%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 16 (4.26%) AWS Certification
15 14 (3.72%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 13 (3.46%) BPSS Clearance
17 11 (2.93%) CISSP
18 10 (2.66%) Oracle Certification
19 9 (2.39%) OCP
19 9 (2.39%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (6.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 25 (6.65%) NIST
3 24 (6.38%) Accessibility
4 19 (5.05%) Data Quality
5 17 (4.52%) GDPR
6 15 (3.99%) SLA
7 13 (3.46%) QA
8 11 (2.93%) WCAG
9 8 (2.13%) NCSC
10 7 (1.86%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.53%) GRC
11 2 (0.53%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.53%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.53%) SOC 2
11 2 (0.53%) Solvency II
12 1 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 1 (0.27%) ITGC
System Software
1 118 (31.38%) Active Directory
2 35 (9.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (4.52%) Virtual Machines
3 17 (4.52%) VMware ESXi
4 16 (4.26%) Docker
4 16 (4.26%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (3.46%) vSphere
6 8 (2.13%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.80%) BitLocker
7 3 (0.80%) Firmware
7 3 (0.80%) VMware NSX
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 54 (14.36%) Microsoft Intune
2 27 (7.18%) Ansible
3 20 (5.32%) SCCM
4 18 (4.79%) Kubernetes
4 18 (4.79%) vCenter Server
5 13 (3.46%) SCOM
6 9 (2.39%) Single Sign-On
7 5 (1.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 5 (1.33%) Podman
8 3 (0.80%) Dell DRAC
8 3 (0.80%) Grafana
8 3 (0.80%) QRadar
8 3 (0.80%) WSUS
9 2 (0.53%) Istio
9 2 (0.53%) Packer
9 2 (0.53%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.53%) vMotion
10 1 (0.27%) FreeIPA
10 1 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.27%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 322 (85.64%) Microsoft
2 41 (10.90%) VMware
3 32 (8.51%) ServiceNow
4 30 (7.98%) Dell
5 25 (6.65%) Oracle
6 23 (6.12%) Cisco
7 11 (2.93%) Apple
8 10 (2.66%) Google
9 9 (2.39%) OpenAI
9 9 (2.39%) Remedy
10 8 (2.13%) Citrix
10 8 (2.13%) SolarWinds
10 8 (2.13%) Splunk
11 7 (1.86%) Red Hat
12 6 (1.60%) Databricks
12 6 (1.60%) Foundry
13 5 (1.33%) Dynatrace
13 5 (1.33%) NetApp
13 5 (1.33%) Okta
14 4 (1.06%) Veeam