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

6 months to
23 Jul 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 309 235 260
Rank change year-on-year -74 +25 +81
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 354 302 327
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.79% 1.10% 0.93%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.50% 3.57% 3.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 246 177 198
10th Percentile £154 £202 £195
25th Percentile £306 £313 £343
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £568 £625 £588
90th Percentile £666 £650 £665
UK median daily rate £450 £478 £500
% change year-on-year -5.76% -4.50% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 34 56
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £13.69
25th Percentile £33.88 £15.44 £14.16
Median hourly rate £61.32 £17.44 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +251.59% +6.99% -1.21%
75th Percentile £102.81 £33.75 £21.37
90th Percentile £178.75 £79.85 -
UK median hourly rate £61.32 £17.72 £16.30
% change year-on-year +246.04% +8.71% -1.21%

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 14,175 8,454 10,787
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.59% 30.92% 30.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,559 5,333 6,811
10th Percentile £350 £283 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.32% -2.28%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £719 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.10% -0.10% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,059 617 872
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £21.25
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.30 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +113.44% -41.16% -23.76%
75th Percentile £75.00 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.75 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £52.25 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +107.75% -41.51% -25.00%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -49 121 £520 +4.00% 78
North of England -60 69 £485 +14.12% 67
South East -50 65 £288 -52.08% 69
North West -39 55 £485 +11.24% 29
Midlands -46 32 £425 +46.55% 32
South West -32 31 £425 -18.27% 18
East of England -33 29 £160 -57.33% 24
West Midlands -51 28 £425 +58.88% 20
Yorkshire -43 12 £650 +57.58% 25
East Midlands -12 4 £431 -13.05% 12
North East -39 2 £363 +81.25% 15
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 (11.58%) SharePoint
2 24 (6.78%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.28%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.28%) Confluence
3 1 (0.28%) Liferay
Applications
1 13 (3.67%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.28%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.28%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 9 (2.54%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (1.69%) Remedy ITSM
3 5 (1.41%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.28%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 192 (54.24%) Azure
2 100 (28.25%) Microsoft 365
3 85 (24.01%) Entra ID
4 65 (18.36%) Power Platform
5 44 (12.43%) Power Automate
6 42 (11.86%) Azure DevOps
7 35 (9.89%) PowerApps
8 34 (9.60%) Dynamics 365
9 30 (8.47%) Microsoft Purview
10 29 (8.19%) AWS
11 25 (7.06%) OneDrive
12 23 (6.50%) GitHub
13 20 (5.65%) Microsoft Copilot
14 16 (4.52%) Azure Logic Apps
15 15 (4.24%) Azure Monitor
16 13 (3.67%) SaaS
16 13 (3.67%) Serverless
17 11 (3.11%) Azure Functions
17 11 (3.11%) IaaS
17 11 (3.11%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 38 (10.73%) DNS
2 36 (10.17%) SAN
3 29 (8.19%) Firewall
4 28 (7.91%) VPN
5 25 (7.06%) TCP/IP
6 18 (5.08%) DHCP
7 15 (4.24%) LAN
8 10 (2.82%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (2.54%) SSL
10 8 (2.26%) WAN
10 8 (2.26%) Wireless
11 6 (1.69%) Network Security
12 5 (1.41%) NGFW
12 5 (1.41%) VLAN
13 4 (1.13%) Internet
13 4 (1.13%) Kerberos
14 3 (0.85%) DMZ
14 3 (0.85%) Intrusion Detection
14 3 (0.85%) NAS
14 3 (0.85%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (10.17%) SQL Server
2 33 (9.32%) Power BI
3 21 (5.93%) MySQL
4 17 (4.80%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (1.69%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (1.69%) Power Query
5 6 (1.69%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 5 (1.41%) Metadata
7 4 (1.13%) Data Lake
7 4 (1.13%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 4 (1.13%) Star Schema
8 3 (0.85%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.85%) Big Data
9 2 (0.56%) BusinessObjects
9 2 (0.56%) Data Mart
9 2 (0.56%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.56%) QlikView
9 2 (0.56%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.56%) Semantic Layer
9 2 (0.56%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (2.26%) Git
2 6 (1.69%) Selenium
2 6 (1.69%) WebDriver
3 5 (1.41%) JIRA
4 4 (1.13%) Cucumber
4 4 (1.13%) Cypress.io
4 4 (1.13%) Postman
5 3 (0.85%) Visual Studio Code
6 2 (0.56%) GitLab
7 1 (0.28%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.28%) MLflow
7 1 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.28%) Visual Studio
General
1 139 (39.27%) Social Skills
2 84 (23.73%) Analytical Skills
3 56 (15.82%) Public Sector
4 49 (13.84%) Finance
5 21 (5.93%) Telecoms
6 17 (4.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (3.39%) Documentation Skills
8 11 (3.11%) Legal
9 6 (1.69%) Aerospace
9 6 (1.69%) Organisational Skills
10 5 (1.41%) Banking
11 4 (1.13%) Influencing Skills
11 4 (1.13%) Military
12 3 (0.85%) Front Office
12 3 (0.85%) Investment Banking
12 3 (0.85%) Local Government
12 3 (0.85%) Pharmaceutical
13 2 (0.56%) Law
13 2 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
14 1 (0.28%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 47 (13.28%) IT Engineer
2 41 (11.58%) Analyst
2 41 (11.58%) Architect
3 36 (10.17%) IT Support
3 36 (10.17%) Senior
4 32 (9.04%) Field Engineer
4 32 (9.04%) Field Service Engineer
5 27 (7.63%) Support Engineer
6 26 (7.34%) DBA
7 25 (7.06%) Administrator
8 24 (6.78%) IT Support Engineer
9 22 (6.21%) Lead
10 21 (5.93%) Developer
11 17 (4.80%) Support Analyst
12 16 (4.52%) IT Analyst
13 15 (4.24%) Dynamics 365 Developer
13 15 (4.24%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 15 (4.24%) Technical Support
14 14 (3.95%) Technical Architect
15 13 (3.67%) Field Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (3.95%) LDAP
1 14 (3.95%) OAuth
2 13 (3.67%) ONVIF
2 13 (3.67%) OpenID
3 12 (3.39%) .NET
3 12 (3.39%) SAML
4 10 (2.82%) OAuth2
5 9 (2.54%) JSON
6 8 (2.26%) SailPoint
6 8 (2.26%) Web Services
7 7 (1.98%) Microsoft Graph
8 6 (1.69%) ARM Templates
8 6 (1.69%) REST
9 4 (1.13%) Gherkin
10 3 (0.85%) Azure Blueprints
10 3 (0.85%) Middleware
10 3 (0.85%) PySpark
10 3 (0.85%) YAML
11 2 (0.56%) OpenGL
11 2 (0.56%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 38 (10.73%) Data Centre
2 36 (10.17%) Analytical Mindset
3 28 (7.91%) Onboarding
4 22 (6.21%) Management Information System
5 18 (5.08%) Cloud Native
5 18 (5.08%) Security Posture
6 17 (4.80%) Replication
7 14 (3.95%) Clustering
7 14 (3.95%) Enterprise Software
8 13 (3.67%) Video\Live Streaming
9 11 (3.11%) Hybrid Cloud
9 11 (3.11%) Legacy Systems
10 10 (2.82%) Product Ownership
11 8 (2.26%) AI Agents
11 8 (2.26%) PKI
12 6 (1.69%) Data Structures
12 6 (1.69%) Enterprise Cloud
12 6 (1.69%) Mobile App
13 5 (1.41%) Cloud Security Posture
14 4 (1.13%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 105 (29.66%) Windows
2 44 (12.43%) Windows Server
3 28 (7.91%) Windows 10
4 22 (6.21%) Linux
5 15 (4.24%) Android
6 11 (3.11%) Mac OS
7 10 (2.82%) Apple iOS
8 6 (1.69%) Unix
8 6 (1.69%) VMS
9 5 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (1.41%) Windows Server 2003
9 5 (1.41%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (1.13%) Solaris
10 4 (1.13%) Windows 7
11 3 (0.85%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.85%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.56%) Alpine Linux
12 2 (0.56%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.28%) AIX
13 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 131 (37.01%) Problem-Solving
2 75 (21.19%) DevOps
3 72 (20.34%) Customer Service
4 70 (19.77%) ITIL
5 60 (16.95%) Agile
6 49 (13.84%) CI/CD
7 44 (12.43%) Infrastructure as Code
8 41 (11.58%) Stakeholder Management
9 39 (11.02%) Migration
10 38 (10.73%) Computer Science
10 38 (10.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 37 (10.45%) Analytics
12 36 (10.17%) Project Delivery
13 34 (9.60%) AI
13 34 (9.60%) Data Governance
14 33 (9.32%) Business Intelligence
15 32 (9.04%) Break/Fix
15 32 (9.04%) Continuous Improvement
15 32 (9.04%) ITSM
16 29 (8.19%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 93 (26.27%) PowerShell
2 38 (10.73%) Python
3 37 (10.45%) SQL
4 26 (7.34%) C#
5 21 (5.93%) Bicep
5 21 (5.93%) JavaScript
6 16 (4.52%) Bash
7 7 (1.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 7 (1.98%) T-SQL
8 4 (1.13%) X++
9 3 (0.85%) Java
10 2 (0.56%) Perl
10 2 (0.56%) R
11 1 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.28%) VB
Qualifications
1 124 (35.03%) Security Cleared
2 103 (29.10%) SC Cleared
3 100 (28.25%) Degree
4 82 (23.16%) MCSE
5 66 (18.64%) A+ Certification
6 65 (18.36%) Cisco Certification
7 62 (17.51%) Azure Certification
8 55 (15.54%) CCNA
9 45 (12.71%) Network+ Certification
10 41 (11.58%) MCSA
11 27 (7.63%) DV Cleared
12 20 (5.65%) Computer Science Degree
12 20 (5.65%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 14 (3.95%) AWS Certification
14 13 (3.67%) CISSP
15 11 (3.11%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 10 (2.82%) Oracle Certification
17 9 (2.54%) CCNP
17 9 (2.54%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 9 (2.54%) OCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (6.78%) NIST
2 22 (6.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 17 (4.80%) Data Quality
4 15 (4.24%) SLA
5 14 (3.95%) Accessibility
6 12 (3.39%) QA
7 11 (3.11%) GDPR
8 7 (1.98%) NCSC
9 6 (1.69%) WCAG
10 4 (1.13%) Cyber Essentials
11 3 (0.85%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.56%) GRC
12 2 (0.56%) HIPAA
12 2 (0.56%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.56%) Solvency II
13 1 (0.28%) GxP
13 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 1 (0.28%) ITGC
System Software
1 115 (32.49%) Active Directory
2 30 (8.47%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (4.80%) Virtual Desktop
4 16 (4.52%) Virtual Machines
4 16 (4.52%) VMware ESXi
5 13 (3.67%) Docker
6 12 (3.39%) vSphere
7 5 (1.41%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.85%) Firmware
8 3 (0.85%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.56%) BitLocker
9 2 (0.56%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.56%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.28%) NFS
10 1 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 45 (12.71%) Microsoft Intune
2 44 (12.43%) Terraform
3 26 (7.34%) Ansible
4 18 (5.08%) SCCM
5 16 (4.52%) vCenter Server
6 15 (4.24%) Kubernetes
7 12 (3.39%) SCOM
8 8 (2.26%) Single Sign-On
9 6 (1.69%) CASB
10 5 (1.41%) Nessus
10 5 (1.41%) Podman
11 4 (1.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 3 (0.85%) Grafana
12 3 (0.85%) QRadar
12 3 (0.85%) WSUS
13 2 (0.56%) Dell DRAC
13 2 (0.56%) Packer
13 2 (0.56%) vMotion
14 1 (0.28%) Kubeflow
14 1 (0.28%) VxRail
Vendors
1 287 (81.07%) Microsoft
2 40 (11.30%) VMware
3 34 (9.60%) Dell
4 25 (7.06%) ServiceNow
5 23 (6.50%) Cisco
6 22 (6.21%) Oracle
7 13 (3.67%) Remedy
8 11 (3.11%) Apple
9 10 (2.82%) Citrix
9 10 (2.82%) Splunk
10 9 (2.54%) SolarWinds
11 7 (1.98%) Google
11 7 (1.98%) Tenable
12 6 (1.69%) CyberArk
12 6 (1.69%) OpenAI
13 5 (1.41%) Databricks
13 5 (1.41%) Dynatrace
13 5 (1.41%) Foundry
13 5 (1.41%) NetApp
13 5 (1.41%) Okta
256 Microsoft Certification jobs in England