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

6 months to
26 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 311 235 268
Rank change year-on-year -76 +33 +85
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 330 274 319
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.76% 1.09% 0.85%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.41% 3.50% 2.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 229 159 201
10th Percentile £156 £200 £183
25th Percentile £306 £276 £319
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.16% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £619 £575
90th Percentile £675 £678 £675
UK median daily rate £461 £450 £489
% change year-on-year +2.50% -7.93% -6.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 30 55
10th Percentile £15.00 - £13.69
25th Percentile £30.50 £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 13,710 7,833 11,375
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.59% 31.07% 30.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,256 4,929 7,011
10th Percentile £350 £280 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.32% -2.28%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £645
90th Percentile £716 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,033 508 1,007
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £23.78 £19.87 £20.75
Median hourly rate £53.00 £29.07 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +82.32% -31.60% -22.73%
75th Percentile £74.00 £63.94 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.40 £77.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.49 £28.34 £40.94
% change year-on-year +78.14% -30.78% -25.90%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -41 119 £525 +5.00% 58
North of England -55 69 £483 +13.65% 63
North West -40 53 £480 +12.82% 36
South East -41 50 £275 -54.17% 71
South West -27 33 £438 -12.06% 22
East of England -31 30 £173 -23.33% 28
Midlands -60 25 £425 +58.88% 22
West Midlands -57 20 £425 +72.94% 11
Yorkshire -40 12 £650 +57.58% 20
East Midlands -7 5 £500 - 11
North East -30 4 £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 31 (9.39%) SharePoint
2 29 (8.79%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.30%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.30%) Confluence
Applications
1 18 (5.45%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (1.82%) Dynamics CRM
1 6 (1.82%) Veritas eDiscovery
2 5 (1.52%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (0.91%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.61%) Maximo
5 1 (0.30%) Dynamics AX
Cloud Services
1 162 (49.09%) Azure
2 91 (27.58%) Microsoft 365
3 68 (20.61%) Entra ID
4 55 (16.67%) Power Platform
5 35 (10.61%) Azure DevOps
5 35 (10.61%) Power Automate
6 30 (9.09%) PowerApps
7 28 (8.48%) Microsoft Purview
8 25 (7.58%) AWS
9 24 (7.27%) Dynamics 365
10 22 (6.67%) GitHub
11 17 (5.15%) OneDrive
12 16 (4.85%) Azure Logic Apps
13 15 (4.55%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 15 (4.55%) Microsoft Copilot
14 14 (4.24%) Azure Data Factory
15 10 (3.03%) Azure Monitor
15 10 (3.03%) Serverless
16 9 (2.73%) Azure Functions
17 8 (2.42%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 38 (11.52%) SAN
2 29 (8.79%) DNS
2 29 (8.79%) Firewall
3 22 (6.67%) VPN
4 17 (5.15%) TCP/IP
5 13 (3.94%) LAN
6 10 (3.03%) DHCP
7 8 (2.42%) Wi-Fi
8 6 (1.82%) Network Security
8 6 (1.82%) WAN
9 5 (1.52%) NGFW
10 4 (1.21%) DMZ
10 4 (1.21%) Internet
10 4 (1.21%) Kerberos
10 4 (1.21%) NetScaler
10 4 (1.21%) SSL
11 3 (0.91%) Intrusion Detection
11 3 (0.91%) NAS
11 3 (0.91%) VLAN
11 3 (0.91%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (9.39%) SQL Server
2 30 (9.09%) Power BI
3 13 (3.94%) PostgreSQL
4 12 (3.64%) MySQL
5 8 (2.42%) Data Lake
5 8 (2.42%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (1.82%) Azure SQL Database
6 6 (1.82%) Metadata
6 6 (1.82%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 5 (1.52%) Power Query
8 4 (1.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 4 (1.21%) Star Schema
9 3 (0.91%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.91%) Big Data
9 3 (0.91%) Delta Lake
9 3 (0.91%) Spark SQL
10 2 (0.61%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.61%) Metadata Repository
10 2 (0.61%) Qlik Sense
10 2 (0.61%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 7 (2.12%) Git
2 4 (1.21%) Selenium
2 4 (1.21%) WebDriver
3 3 (0.91%) Visual Studio Code
4 2 (0.61%) Cucumber
4 2 (0.61%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.61%) GitLab
4 2 (0.61%) JIRA
4 2 (0.61%) Postman
5 1 (0.30%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.30%) MLflow
5 1 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.30%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 116 (35.15%) Social Skills
2 80 (24.24%) Analytical Skills
3 46 (13.94%) Finance
3 46 (13.94%) Public Sector
4 22 (6.67%) Telecoms
5 12 (3.64%) Legal
6 11 (3.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 9 (2.73%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (2.42%) Banking
9 5 (1.52%) Organisational Skills
10 4 (1.21%) Front Office
10 4 (1.21%) Investment Banking
11 3 (0.91%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.91%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (0.91%) Military
11 3 (0.91%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.61%) International Banking
12 2 (0.61%) Law
12 2 (0.61%) Local Government
12 2 (0.61%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 41 (12.42%) IT Engineer
2 40 (12.12%) Architect
3 38 (11.52%) Analyst
4 34 (10.30%) Field Engineer
4 34 (10.30%) Field Service Engineer
4 34 (10.30%) Senior
5 31 (9.39%) IT Support
6 22 (6.67%) Administrator
7 21 (6.36%) Support Engineer
8 18 (5.45%) IT Analyst
8 18 (5.45%) IT Support Engineer
8 18 (5.45%) Support Analyst
9 17 (5.15%) DBA
9 17 (5.15%) Technical Support
10 16 (4.85%) Developer
10 16 (4.85%) Lead
11 15 (4.55%) Solutions Architect
11 15 (4.55%) Wintel Engineer
12 14 (4.24%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
13 13 (3.94%) Field Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (4.24%) OAuth
2 12 (3.64%) LDAP
2 12 (3.64%) ONVIF
2 12 (3.64%) OpenID
2 12 (3.64%) SAML
3 11 (3.33%) .NET
4 10 (3.03%) OAuth2
5 6 (1.82%) ARM Templates
5 6 (1.82%) JSON
5 6 (1.82%) SailPoint
5 6 (1.82%) Web Services
6 5 (1.52%) Microsoft Graph
7 4 (1.21%) REST
8 3 (0.91%) Middleware
8 3 (0.91%) PySpark
9 2 (0.61%) Azure Blueprints
9 2 (0.61%) Gherkin
9 2 (0.61%) Oracle Fusion
9 2 (0.61%) Qt
9 2 (0.61%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 40 (12.12%) Data Centre
2 37 (11.21%) Analytical Mindset
3 28 (8.48%) Onboarding
4 14 (4.24%) Clustering
4 14 (4.24%) Management Information System
4 14 (4.24%) Replication
4 14 (4.24%) Security Posture
5 12 (3.64%) Enterprise Software
5 12 (3.64%) Video\Live Streaming
6 11 (3.33%) Cloud Native
7 9 (2.73%) BYOD
7 9 (2.73%) Hybrid Cloud
7 9 (2.73%) Legacy Systems
8 7 (2.12%) PKI
9 6 (1.82%) Data Structures
9 6 (1.82%) Low-Code
9 6 (1.82%) Mobile App
9 6 (1.82%) Product Ownership
10 5 (1.52%) AI Agents
10 5 (1.52%) Cloud Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 105 (31.82%) Windows
2 46 (13.94%) Windows Server
3 31 (9.39%) Windows 10
4 20 (6.06%) Linux
5 12 (3.64%) Android
6 10 (3.03%) Apple iOS
7 9 (2.73%) Windows Server 2003
8 8 (2.42%) Mac OS
8 8 (2.42%) Windows 7
9 6 (1.82%) Unix
10 5 (1.52%) VMS
10 5 (1.52%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (1.21%) Solaris
11 4 (1.21%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 3 (0.91%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.61%) AIX
13 2 (0.61%) Alpine Linux
13 2 (0.61%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 130 (39.39%) Problem-Solving
2 65 (19.70%) DevOps
3 63 (19.09%) Customer Service
4 57 (17.27%) ITIL
5 46 (13.94%) Agile
6 44 (13.33%) CI/CD
7 39 (11.82%) Migration
8 38 (11.52%) Analytics
9 36 (10.91%) Infrastructure as Code
10 34 (10.30%) Break/Fix
10 34 (10.30%) Computer Science
11 32 (9.70%) Project Delivery
12 31 (9.39%) Data Governance
13 30 (9.09%) Business Intelligence
14 29 (8.79%) AI
14 29 (8.79%) High Availability
14 29 (8.79%) Roadmaps
14 29 (8.79%) Stakeholder Management
15 27 (8.18%) RBAC
16 26 (7.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 90 (27.27%) PowerShell
2 38 (11.52%) SQL
3 31 (9.39%) Python
4 19 (5.76%) Bicep
4 19 (5.76%) C#
5 16 (4.85%) JavaScript
6 13 (3.94%) Bash
7 6 (1.82%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 4 (1.21%) T-SQL
9 3 (0.91%) X++
10 2 (0.61%) Perl
10 2 (0.61%) R
11 1 (0.30%) Java
11 1 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.30%) VB
Qualifications
1 105 (31.82%) Security Cleared
2 92 (27.88%) MCSE
3 87 (26.36%) Degree
4 85 (25.76%) SC Cleared
5 61 (18.48%) A+ Certification
5 61 (18.48%) Cisco Certification
6 56 (16.97%) Azure Certification
7 52 (15.76%) CCNA
8 48 (14.55%) MCSA
9 45 (13.64%) Network+ Certification
10 25 (7.58%) DV Cleared
11 23 (6.97%) Computer Science Degree
11 23 (6.97%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 13 (3.94%) CISSP
13 12 (3.64%) AWS Certification
13 12 (3.64%) VCAP
14 10 (3.03%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 9 (2.73%) CCNP
15 9 (2.73%) CompTIA Security+
16 8 (2.42%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (6.97%) NIST
2 21 (6.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 14 (4.24%) Data Quality
4 12 (3.64%) SLA
5 9 (2.73%) Accessibility
5 9 (2.73%) GDPR
6 7 (2.12%) NCSC
6 7 (2.12%) QA
7 5 (1.52%) NIST 800
8 4 (1.21%) Cyber Essentials
8 4 (1.21%) WCAG
9 3 (0.91%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.61%) SOC 2
10 2 (0.61%) 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 (33.03%) Active Directory
2 30 (9.09%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (6.06%) VMware ESXi
4 19 (5.76%) Virtual Desktop
5 16 (4.85%) vSphere
6 15 (4.55%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (3.64%) Docker
8 5 (1.52%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.91%) Firmware
9 3 (0.91%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.61%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.61%) Microsoft App-V
10 2 (0.61%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 40 (12.12%) Microsoft Intune
2 39 (11.82%) Terraform
3 29 (8.79%) Ansible
4 19 (5.76%) SCCM
4 19 (5.76%) vCenter Server
5 13 (3.94%) Kubernetes
6 11 (3.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 7 (2.12%) SCOM
7 7 (2.12%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (1.82%) CASB
9 5 (1.52%) Nessus
10 3 (0.91%) Grafana
10 3 (0.91%) Podman
10 3 (0.91%) QRadar
10 3 (0.91%) WSUS
11 2 (0.61%) Packer
11 2 (0.61%) vMotion
12 1 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
12 1 (0.30%) Jamf Pro
12 1 (0.30%) PaperCut
Vendors
1 261 (79.09%) Microsoft
2 39 (11.82%) VMware
3 35 (10.61%) Dell
4 24 (7.27%) Cisco
5 20 (6.06%) Oracle
6 17 (5.15%) ServiceNow
7 13 (3.94%) Citrix
8 12 (3.64%) Apple
9 10 (3.03%) Splunk
10 9 (2.73%) Remedy
11 8 (2.42%) SolarWinds
12 7 (2.12%) CyberArk
12 7 (2.12%) Tenable
13 5 (1.52%) Databricks
13 5 (1.52%) Dynatrace
13 5 (1.52%) Foundry
13 5 (1.52%) NetApp
13 5 (1.52%) Palo Alto
14 4 (1.21%) Google
14 4 (1.21%) HP
231 Microsoft Certification jobs in England