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 17 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 294 230 269
Rank change year-on-year -64 +39 +89
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 334 278 319
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.78% 1.12% 0.85%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.46% 3.59% 2.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 224 160 203
10th Percentile £160 £200 £183
25th Percentile £347 £268 £316
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £488
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +2.56% -6.25%
75th Percentile £583 £616 £556
90th Percentile £675 £700 £669
UK median daily rate £472 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +2.05% -2.63% -8.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 32 56
10th Percentile £19.03 - £13.69
25th Percentile £38.25 £14.99 £14.16
Median hourly rate £63.14 £16.87 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +274.24% +3.50% +5.16%
75th Percentile £178.75 £33.75 £21.37
90th Percentile - £37.50 -
UK median hourly rate £63.14 £17.44 £16.30
% change year-on-year +262.01% +6.99% +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 13,577 7,736 11,448
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.63% 31.27% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,129 4,859 7,056
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year - -1.75% -2.84%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £645
90th Percentile £719 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,030 496 1,012
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.68 £20.24 £20.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.31 £41.27
Median % change year-on-year +73.24% -26.56% -24.97%
75th Percentile £73.46 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.36 £81.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +66.67% -25.00% -27.65%

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 17 June 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 17 June 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 17 June 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 -29 128 £525 +5.00% 94
North of England -57 71 £483 +10.40% 79
North West -39 52 £478 +3.69% 42
South East -42 44 £275 -45.00% 100
South West -19 36 £438 -15.87% 40
East of England -32 28 £173 -23.33% 47
Midlands -59 23 £425 +58.88% 39
West Midlands -58 18 £425 +72.94% 18
Yorkshire -46 15 £650 +57.58% 25
East Midlands -18 5 £500 - 21
North East -31 4 £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 34 (10.18%) Microsoft Exchange
2 30 (8.98%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.90%) Exchange Server 2013
4 1 (0.30%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.30%) Confluence
Applications
1 20 (5.99%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 8 (2.40%) Veritas eDiscovery
2 5 (1.50%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.50%) Maximo
2 5 (1.50%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (0.90%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.30%) Dynamics AX
Cloud Services
1 164 (49.10%) Azure
2 95 (28.44%) Microsoft 365
3 68 (20.36%) Entra ID
4 58 (17.37%) Power Platform
5 38 (11.38%) Azure DevOps
6 35 (10.48%) Microsoft Purview
7 33 (9.88%) Power Automate
8 29 (8.68%) PowerApps
9 24 (7.19%) GitHub
10 23 (6.89%) AWS
11 22 (6.59%) Dynamics 365
12 20 (5.99%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 19 (5.69%) Azure Data Factory
14 17 (5.09%) OneDrive
15 15 (4.49%) Azure Logic Apps
15 15 (4.49%) Microsoft Copilot
16 13 (3.89%) Azure Monitor
17 12 (3.59%) Azure Sentinel
18 10 (2.99%) Azure AKS
19 9 (2.69%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 38 (11.38%) SAN
2 30 (8.98%) Firewall
3 27 (8.08%) DNS
4 23 (6.89%) VPN
5 15 (4.49%) TCP/IP
6 12 (3.59%) LAN
7 10 (2.99%) DHCP
8 8 (2.40%) Network Security
8 8 (2.40%) Wi-Fi
9 5 (1.50%) NetScaler
9 5 (1.50%) WAN
10 4 (1.20%) DMZ
10 4 (1.20%) Internet
10 4 (1.20%) Kerberos
10 4 (1.20%) NGFW
10 4 (1.20%) SSL
11 3 (0.90%) Intrusion Detection
11 3 (0.90%) NAS
11 3 (0.90%) SMTP
12 2 (0.60%) iSCSI
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (10.18%) Power BI
2 33 (9.88%) SQL Server
3 13 (3.89%) Data Lake
4 12 (3.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 11 (3.29%) PostgreSQL
6 10 (2.99%) Data Warehouse
6 10 (2.99%) MySQL
7 9 (2.69%) Azure SQL Database
8 8 (2.40%) Metadata
9 6 (1.80%) Delta Lake
9 6 (1.80%) Spark SQL
10 5 (1.50%) Power Query
11 4 (1.20%) Metadata Repository
11 4 (1.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 4 (1.20%) Star Schema
12 3 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (0.90%) Big Data
13 2 (0.60%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 2 (0.60%) Relational Database
13 2 (0.60%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (2.40%) Git
2 3 (0.90%) Selenium
2 3 (0.90%) Visual Studio Code
2 3 (0.90%) WebDriver
3 2 (0.60%) GitLab
4 1 (0.30%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.30%) Cucumber
4 1 (0.30%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.30%) JIRA
4 1 (0.30%) MLflow
4 1 (0.30%) Postman
4 1 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.30%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 111 (33.23%) Social Skills
2 74 (22.16%) Analytical Skills
3 46 (13.77%) Finance
4 43 (12.87%) Public Sector
5 19 (5.69%) Telecoms
6 14 (4.19%) Legal
7 9 (2.69%) Banking
7 9 (2.69%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (2.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 5 (1.50%) Organisational Skills
9 4 (1.20%) Aerospace
9 4 (1.20%) Front Office
9 4 (1.20%) Influencing Skills
9 4 (1.20%) Investment Banking
9 4 (1.20%) Military
10 3 (0.90%) International Banking
10 3 (0.90%) Pharmaceutical
11 2 (0.60%) Law
11 2 (0.60%) Local Government
11 2 (0.60%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 45 (13.47%) Architect
2 40 (11.98%) IT Engineer
3 34 (10.18%) Analyst
3 34 (10.18%) Field Engineer
3 34 (10.18%) Field Service Engineer
3 34 (10.18%) Senior
4 29 (8.68%) IT Support
5 21 (6.29%) Administrator
5 21 (6.29%) Support Engineer
6 18 (5.39%) IT Support Engineer
7 17 (5.09%) Wintel Engineer
8 16 (4.79%) IT Analyst
8 16 (4.79%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
8 16 (4.79%) Solutions Architect
8 16 (4.79%) Support Analyst
9 15 (4.49%) DBA
9 15 (4.49%) Developer
9 15 (4.49%) Technical Support
10 14 (4.19%) Azure Engineer
10 14 (4.19%) Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (4.19%) OAuth
2 12 (3.59%) LDAP
2 12 (3.59%) OpenID
2 12 (3.59%) SAML
3 11 (3.29%) .NET
4 10 (2.99%) OAuth2
4 10 (2.99%) ONVIF
5 9 (2.69%) ARM Templates
6 7 (2.10%) Microsoft Graph
7 6 (1.80%) SailPoint
7 6 (1.80%) Web Services
8 5 (1.50%) JSON
9 3 (0.90%) Middleware
9 3 (0.90%) PySpark
9 3 (0.90%) REST
10 2 (0.60%) Azure Blueprints
10 2 (0.60%) OpenGL
10 2 (0.60%) XML
10 2 (0.60%) XSLT
10 2 (0.60%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 40 (11.98%) Data Centre
2 37 (11.08%) Analytical Mindset
3 27 (8.08%) Onboarding
4 16 (4.79%) Clustering
4 16 (4.79%) Replication
5 15 (4.49%) Enterprise Software
6 13 (3.89%) Security Posture
7 11 (3.29%) BYOD
7 11 (3.29%) Hybrid Cloud
7 11 (3.29%) Management Information System
8 10 (2.99%) Cloud Native
8 10 (2.99%) Video\Live Streaming
9 9 (2.69%) Legacy Systems
10 6 (1.80%) Data Structures
10 6 (1.80%) Low-Code
10 6 (1.80%) Mobile App
11 5 (1.50%) AI Agents
11 5 (1.50%) Cloud Security Posture
11 5 (1.50%) PKI
11 5 (1.50%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 108 (32.34%) Windows
2 49 (14.67%) Windows Server
3 32 (9.58%) Windows 10
4 21 (6.29%) Linux
5 12 (3.59%) Android
6 10 (2.99%) Apple iOS
7 9 (2.69%) Windows Server 2003
8 8 (2.40%) Mac OS
8 8 (2.40%) Windows 7
9 6 (1.80%) Unix
10 5 (1.50%) VMS
10 5 (1.50%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (1.20%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 3 (0.90%) Solaris
12 3 (0.90%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.60%) AIX
13 2 (0.60%) Alpine Linux
13 2 (0.60%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 125 (37.43%) Problem-Solving
2 68 (20.36%) DevOps
3 60 (17.96%) Customer Service
4 58 (17.37%) ITIL
5 47 (14.07%) CI/CD
6 45 (13.47%) Analytics
7 44 (13.17%) Migration
8 40 (11.98%) Agile
9 36 (10.78%) Infrastructure as Code
10 34 (10.18%) Break/Fix
10 34 (10.18%) Business Intelligence
10 34 (10.18%) High Availability
11 33 (9.88%) Data Governance
12 32 (9.58%) Project Delivery
13 31 (9.28%) Computer Science
13 31 (9.28%) RBAC
13 31 (9.28%) Roadmaps
14 30 (8.98%) Disaster Recovery
14 30 (8.98%) Stakeholder Management
15 28 (8.38%) AI
Programming Languages
1 98 (29.34%) PowerShell
2 42 (12.57%) SQL
3 32 (9.58%) Python
4 22 (6.59%) Bicep
5 17 (5.09%) C#
6 14 (4.19%) JavaScript
7 13 (3.89%) Bash
8 7 (2.10%) T-SQL
9 6 (1.80%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 3 (0.90%) X++
11 2 (0.60%) Perl
11 2 (0.60%) R
12 1 (0.30%) Java
12 1 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
12 1 (0.30%) VB
Qualifications
1 105 (31.44%) Security Cleared
2 96 (28.74%) MCSE
3 87 (26.05%) SC Cleared
4 83 (24.85%) Degree
5 61 (18.26%) Azure Certification
6 60 (17.96%) Cisco Certification
7 58 (17.37%) A+ Certification
8 51 (15.27%) CCNA
9 48 (14.37%) MCSA
10 45 (13.47%) Network+ Certification
11 25 (7.49%) DV Cleared
12 24 (7.19%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 23 (6.89%) Computer Science Degree
14 17 (5.09%) CISSP
15 14 (4.19%) VCAP
16 11 (3.29%) AWS Certification
17 9 (2.69%) CISM
17 9 (2.69%) CompTIA Security+
17 9 (2.69%) Microsoft Certified Professional
18 8 (2.40%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (7.78%) NIST
2 25 (7.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 14 (4.19%) Data Quality
4 12 (3.59%) GDPR
4 12 (3.59%) SLA
5 8 (2.40%) NIST 800
6 7 (2.10%) Accessibility
7 6 (1.80%) NCSC
8 5 (1.50%) Cyber Essentials
8 5 (1.50%) QA
9 3 (0.90%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.90%) SOC 2
9 3 (0.90%) WCAG
10 2 (0.60%) Solvency II
11 1 (0.30%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 1 (0.30%) GRC
11 1 (0.30%) GxP
11 1 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 1 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 109 (32.63%) Active Directory
2 31 (9.28%) VMware Infrastructure
3 22 (6.59%) VMware ESXi
4 21 (6.29%) Virtual Desktop
5 18 (5.39%) vSphere
6 17 (5.09%) Virtual Machines
7 11 (3.29%) Docker
8 5 (1.50%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.90%) Firmware
10 2 (0.60%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.60%) Microsoft App-V
10 2 (0.60%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.60%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 42 (12.57%) Microsoft Intune
2 41 (12.28%) Terraform
3 31 (9.28%) Ansible
4 21 (6.29%) vCenter Server
5 19 (5.69%) SCCM
6 15 (4.49%) Kubernetes
7 13 (3.89%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 7 (2.10%) SCOM
9 6 (1.80%) CASB
9 6 (1.80%) Single Sign-On
10 5 (1.50%) Nessus
11 3 (0.90%) Podman
11 3 (0.90%) QRadar
11 3 (0.90%) WSUS
12 2 (0.60%) Grafana
12 2 (0.60%) Packer
12 2 (0.60%) vMotion
13 1 (0.30%) Backup Exec
13 1 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
13 1 (0.30%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 265 (79.34%) Microsoft
2 41 (12.28%) VMware
3 35 (10.48%) Dell
4 26 (7.78%) Cisco
5 18 (5.39%) Oracle
6 17 (5.09%) ServiceNow
7 14 (4.19%) Citrix
8 12 (3.59%) Apple
9 9 (2.69%) Remedy
9 9 (2.69%) Splunk
10 8 (2.40%) Databricks
11 7 (2.10%) CyberArk
11 7 (2.10%) SolarWinds
11 7 (2.10%) Tenable
12 6 (1.80%) Palo Alto
13 5 (1.50%) Foundry
13 5 (1.50%) IBM
13 5 (1.50%) NetApp
13 5 (1.50%) Red Hat
14 4 (1.20%) HP
362 Microsoft Certification jobs in England