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

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 311 242 264
Rank change year-on-year -69 +22 +76
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 363 296 311
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.80% 1.08% 0.91%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.53% 3.45% 2.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 248 172 188
10th Percentile £155 £200 £200
25th Percentile £306 £313 £348
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £562 £625 £588
90th Percentile £652 £650 £650
UK median daily rate £450 £492 £500
% change year-on-year -8.54% -1.60% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 32 52
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £13.69
25th Percentile £25.84 £15.97 £14.16
Median hourly rate £55.00 £17.72 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +210.38% +8.71% -6.86%
75th Percentile £77.50 £34.69 £21.37
90th Percentile £178.75 £81.95 -
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £18.00 £16.03
% change year-on-year +205.56% +12.29% -8.40%

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 14,369 8,581 10,391
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.70% 31.18% 30.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,673 5,413 6,618
10th Percentile £350 £290 £325
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,103 643 803
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £75.00 £58.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.63 £78.60
UK median hourly rate £52.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +106.76% -41.51% -23.21%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 -42 130 £518 +3.50% 78
North of England -59 68 £491 +15.51% 63
South East -50 62 £275 -54.17% 65
North West -47 53 £485 +14.12% 30
Midlands -35 37 £425 -13.62% 30
West Midlands -44 33 £425 +58.88% 17
South West -36 31 £425 -19.62% 23
East of England -28 28 £160 -57.33% 26
Yorkshire -45 13 £650 +57.58% 22
East Midlands -12 4 £431 -13.05% 13
North East -44 2 £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 42 (11.57%) SharePoint
2 28 (7.71%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.28%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.28%) Confluence
3 1 (0.28%) Liferay
3 1 (0.28%) Mendix
Applications
1 13 (3.58%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.93%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.28%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.28%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 11 (3.03%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (1.65%) Remedy ITSM
3 5 (1.38%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.28%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 196 (53.99%) Azure
2 104 (28.65%) Microsoft 365
3 90 (24.79%) Entra ID
4 70 (19.28%) Power Platform
5 48 (13.22%) Azure DevOps
6 47 (12.95%) Power Automate
7 40 (11.02%) Dynamics 365
8 37 (10.19%) PowerApps
9 31 (8.54%) Microsoft Purview
10 30 (8.26%) AWS
11 25 (6.89%) GitHub
11 25 (6.89%) OneDrive
12 21 (5.79%) Microsoft Copilot
13 18 (4.96%) Azure Logic Apps
14 16 (4.41%) Serverless
15 15 (4.13%) Azure Monitor
15 15 (4.13%) SaaS
16 14 (3.86%) Azure Functions
17 13 (3.58%) PaaS
18 11 (3.03%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 42 (11.57%) DNS
2 34 (9.37%) SAN
3 29 (7.99%) Firewall
4 27 (7.44%) TCP/IP
4 27 (7.44%) VPN
5 21 (5.79%) DHCP
6 13 (3.58%) LAN
7 9 (2.48%) SSL
8 8 (2.20%) WAN
8 8 (2.20%) Wi-Fi
8 8 (2.20%) Wireless
9 6 (1.65%) Network Security
10 5 (1.38%) NGFW
10 5 (1.38%) VLAN
11 4 (1.10%) Internet
11 4 (1.10%) Kerberos
12 3 (0.83%) DMZ
12 3 (0.83%) Intrusion Detection
12 3 (0.83%) NAS
12 3 (0.83%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (10.74%) SQL Server
2 36 (9.92%) Power BI
3 23 (6.34%) MySQL
4 19 (5.23%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (1.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 6 (1.65%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (1.65%) Power Query
7 5 (1.38%) Metadata
8 4 (1.10%) Data Lake
8 4 (1.10%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 4 (1.10%) Star Schema
9 3 (0.83%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.83%) Big Data
10 2 (0.55%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.55%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.55%) Qlik Sense
10 2 (0.55%) QlikView
10 2 (0.55%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.55%) Semantic Layer
10 2 (0.55%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 9 (2.48%) Git
2 7 (1.93%) Selenium
2 7 (1.93%) WebDriver
3 5 (1.38%) Cucumber
3 5 (1.38%) Cypress.io
3 5 (1.38%) JIRA
3 5 (1.38%) Postman
4 4 (1.10%) Visual Studio Code
5 2 (0.55%) GitLab
5 2 (0.55%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.28%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 153 (42.15%) Social Skills
2 88 (24.24%) Analytical Skills
3 59 (16.25%) Public Sector
4 51 (14.05%) Finance
5 22 (6.06%) Telecoms
6 19 (5.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 13 (3.58%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (2.75%) Legal
9 7 (1.93%) Aerospace
10 6 (1.65%) Banking
10 6 (1.65%) Military
10 6 (1.65%) Organisational Skills
11 4 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (0.83%) Front Office
12 3 (0.83%) Investment Banking
12 3 (0.83%) Law
12 3 (0.83%) Local Government
12 3 (0.83%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.55%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 46 (12.67%) Analyst
2 43 (11.85%) IT Engineer
3 40 (11.02%) Architect
4 37 (10.19%) Senior
5 35 (9.64%) IT Support
6 30 (8.26%) Field Engineer
6 30 (8.26%) Field Service Engineer
7 28 (7.71%) DBA
8 26 (7.16%) Lead
9 25 (6.89%) Administrator
9 25 (6.89%) Support Engineer
10 24 (6.61%) Developer
11 22 (6.06%) IT Support Engineer
12 18 (4.96%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 18 (4.96%) Support Analyst
13 17 (4.68%) Dynamics 365 Developer
13 17 (4.68%) IT Analyst
14 14 (3.86%) SQL DBA
14 14 (3.86%) Technical Support
15 13 (3.58%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (4.13%) LDAP
1 15 (4.13%) OAuth
2 14 (3.86%) .NET
2 14 (3.86%) OpenID
3 13 (3.58%) ONVIF
3 13 (3.58%) SAML
4 11 (3.03%) OAuth2
5 10 (2.75%) JSON
6 9 (2.48%) SailPoint
6 9 (2.48%) Web Services
7 8 (2.20%) Microsoft Graph
7 8 (2.20%) REST
8 6 (1.65%) Middleware
9 5 (1.38%) ARM Templates
9 5 (1.38%) Gherkin
10 3 (0.83%) Azure Blueprints
10 3 (0.83%) HTML5 Canvas
10 3 (0.83%) PySpark
10 3 (0.83%) YAML
11 2 (0.55%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 36 (9.92%) Data Centre
2 34 (9.37%) Analytical Mindset
3 29 (7.99%) Onboarding
4 27 (7.44%) Management Information System
5 19 (5.23%) Security Posture
6 18 (4.96%) Replication
7 16 (4.41%) Cloud Native
8 14 (3.86%) Clustering
9 13 (3.58%) Enterprise Software
9 13 (3.58%) Video\Live Streaming
10 12 (3.31%) Hybrid Cloud
11 11 (3.03%) Legacy Systems
11 11 (3.03%) Product Ownership
12 8 (2.20%) PKI
13 7 (1.93%) AI Agents
13 7 (1.93%) Data Structures
14 6 (1.65%) Enterprise Cloud
14 6 (1.65%) Mobile App
15 5 (1.38%) Cloud Security Posture
15 5 (1.38%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 107 (29.48%) Windows
2 46 (12.67%) Windows Server
3 31 (8.54%) Windows 10
4 24 (6.61%) Linux
5 17 (4.68%) Android
6 12 (3.31%) Mac OS
7 11 (3.03%) Apple iOS
8 7 (1.93%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (1.65%) Unix
9 6 (1.65%) VMS
10 5 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 4 (1.10%) Solaris
11 4 (1.10%) Windows 7
11 4 (1.10%) Windows Server 2003
11 4 (1.10%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.83%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.55%) Alpine Linux
13 2 (0.55%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.55%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.28%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 138 (38.02%) Problem-Solving
2 78 (21.49%) DevOps
3 75 (20.66%) ITIL
4 74 (20.39%) Customer Service
5 64 (17.63%) Agile
6 51 (14.05%) CI/CD
7 50 (13.77%) Stakeholder Management
8 44 (12.12%) Migration
8 44 (12.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 42 (11.57%) Infrastructure as Code
10 40 (11.02%) Computer Science
10 40 (11.02%) Project Delivery
11 38 (10.47%) AI
11 38 (10.47%) Analytics
12 36 (9.92%) Business Intelligence
13 35 (9.64%) ITSM
14 34 (9.37%) Continuous Improvement
14 34 (9.37%) Data Governance
15 32 (8.82%) Technical Leadership
16 30 (8.26%) Break/Fix
Programming Languages
1 96 (26.45%) PowerShell
2 40 (11.02%) Python
3 39 (10.74%) SQL
4 31 (8.54%) C#
5 26 (7.16%) JavaScript
6 21 (5.79%) Bicep
7 16 (4.41%) Bash
8 7 (1.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 7 (1.93%) T-SQL
9 5 (1.38%) X++
10 3 (0.83%) Java
11 2 (0.55%) Perl
11 2 (0.55%) R
11 2 (0.55%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
12 1 (0.28%) VB
Qualifications
1 132 (36.36%) Security Cleared
2 110 (30.30%) SC Cleared
3 108 (29.75%) Degree
4 79 (21.76%) MCSE
5 66 (18.18%) A+ Certification
6 63 (17.36%) Azure Certification
6 63 (17.36%) Cisco Certification
7 55 (15.15%) CCNA
8 44 (12.12%) Network+ Certification
9 41 (11.29%) MCSA
10 28 (7.71%) DV Cleared
11 22 (6.06%) Computer Science Degree
12 21 (5.79%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 14 (3.86%) AWS Certification
14 13 (3.58%) CISSP
15 12 (3.31%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 12 (3.31%) Oracle Certification
16 11 (3.03%) OCP
17 9 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
17 9 (2.48%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (6.61%) NIST
2 23 (6.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 18 (4.96%) Data Quality
4 16 (4.41%) Accessibility
5 15 (4.13%) SLA
6 14 (3.86%) GDPR
7 13 (3.58%) QA
8 7 (1.93%) WCAG
9 5 (1.38%) NCSC
10 4 (1.10%) Cyber Essentials
11 3 (0.83%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.55%) GRC
12 2 (0.55%) HIPAA
12 2 (0.55%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.55%) Solvency II
13 1 (0.28%) GxP
13 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 1 (0.28%) ITGC
System Software
1 117 (32.23%) Active Directory
2 32 (8.82%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (4.68%) Virtual Desktop
3 17 (4.68%) VMware ESXi
4 16 (4.41%) Virtual Machines
5 13 (3.58%) Docker
5 13 (3.58%) vSphere
6 7 (1.93%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.83%) Firmware
7 3 (0.83%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.55%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.55%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.55%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.28%) NDS
9 1 (0.28%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 1 (0.28%) NFS
Systems Management
1 49 (13.50%) Microsoft Intune
2 44 (12.12%) Terraform
3 27 (7.44%) Ansible
4 20 (5.51%) SCCM
5 17 (4.68%) vCenter Server
6 15 (4.13%) Kubernetes
7 13 (3.58%) SCOM
8 8 (2.20%) Single Sign-On
9 6 (1.65%) CASB
10 5 (1.38%) Nessus
10 5 (1.38%) Podman
11 3 (0.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.83%) Grafana
11 3 (0.83%) QRadar
11 3 (0.83%) WSUS
12 2 (0.55%) Dell DRAC
12 2 (0.55%) Packer
12 2 (0.55%) vMotion
13 1 (0.28%) PaperCut
13 1 (0.28%) SELinux
Vendors
1 300 (82.64%) Microsoft
2 40 (11.02%) VMware
3 32 (8.82%) Dell
4 27 (7.44%) ServiceNow
5 25 (6.89%) Oracle
6 24 (6.61%) Cisco
7 13 (3.58%) Remedy
8 11 (3.03%) Apple
9 10 (2.75%) Citrix
9 10 (2.75%) Splunk
10 9 (2.48%) SolarWinds
11 8 (2.20%) Google
12 7 (1.93%) Tenable
13 6 (1.65%) CyberArk
13 6 (1.65%) Foundry
13 6 (1.65%) OpenAI
14 5 (1.38%) Databricks
14 5 (1.38%) Dynatrace
14 5 (1.38%) NetApp
14 5 (1.38%) Okta