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

6 months to
23 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 283 221 285
Rank change year-on-year -62 +64 +79
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 324 276 286
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.87% 1.12% 0.76%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.56% 3.59% 2.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 226 162 198
10th Percentile £219 £210 £195
25th Percentile £387 £302 £290
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £511 £500 £456
Median % change year-on-year +2.25% +9.59% -6.41%
75th Percentile £614 £630 £575
90th Percentile £711 £725 £700
UK median daily rate £508 £475 £450
% change year-on-year +6.84% +5.56% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 24 44
10th Percentile - £14.99 £13.69
25th Percentile £6.00 £15.33 £14.40
Median hourly rate £16.00 £21.46 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year -25.44% +31.66% +5.16%
75th Percentile £24.56 £28.56 £21.37
90th Percentile £25.47 £36.75 £21.46
UK median hourly rate £16.00 £21.46 £16.30
% change year-on-year -25.44% +31.66% +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 12,668 7,678 11,811
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.89% 31.10% 31.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,418 4,883 7,323
10th Percentile £331 £290 £300
25th Percentile £422 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £537
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.32% -2.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 981 423 916
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.51 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.91 £25.26 £17.80
Median hourly rate £30.00 £50.00 £37.83
Median % change year-on-year -40.00% +32.18% -24.35%
75th Percentile £68.00 £68.00 £63.41
90th Percentile £85.00 £82.22 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £31.18 £42.50 £37.50
% change year-on-year -26.65% +13.33% -27.88%

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 March 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 March 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 March 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 -2 125 £525 +13.51% 65
South West -1 51 £560 -0.44% 30
North of England -70 48 £469 -7.21% 42
Midlands -51 39 £400 +37.93% 35
North West -39 37 £465 -7.08% 24
South East -75 35 £480 -4.00% 66
West Midlands -50 31 £425 +92.53% 23
East of England -33 21 £173 -65.50% 28
East Midlands -31 8 £215 -46.25% 12
Yorkshire -56 8 £484 -19.33% 13
North East -12 3 - - 6
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 43 (13.27%) Microsoft Exchange
2 33 (10.19%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.23%) Confluence
4 3 (0.93%) Exchange Server 2013
5 2 (0.62%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 17 (5.25%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (3.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (2.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.23%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.93%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 8 (2.47%) Dynamics CRM
1 8 (2.47%) Veritas eDiscovery
2 7 (2.16%) Maximo
3 2 (0.62%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 149 (45.99%) Azure
2 102 (31.48%) Microsoft 365
3 63 (19.44%) Entra ID
4 54 (16.67%) Power Platform
5 33 (10.19%) Azure DevOps
6 30 (9.26%) Microsoft Purview
7 28 (8.64%) AWS
8 25 (7.72%) Power Automate
8 25 (7.72%) PowerApps
9 20 (6.17%) Azure Data Factory
9 20 (6.17%) Azure Monitor
9 20 (6.17%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 20 (6.17%) Dynamics 365
10 17 (5.25%) Microsoft Copilot
11 16 (4.94%) OneDrive
12 15 (4.63%) Azure AKS
12 15 (4.63%) GitHub
13 14 (4.32%) Azure Sentinel
14 13 (4.01%) Azure Key Vault
15 12 (3.70%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 43 (13.27%) DNS
2 40 (12.35%) Firewall
3 33 (10.19%) VPN
4 20 (6.17%) SAN
5 16 (4.94%) DHCP
5 16 (4.94%) TCP/IP
6 12 (3.70%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (3.40%) LAN
8 9 (2.78%) Network Security
9 8 (2.47%) VLAN
10 6 (1.85%) SSL
11 5 (1.54%) Skype
12 4 (1.23%) DKIM
12 4 (1.23%) DMARC
13 3 (0.93%) Kerberos
13 3 (0.93%) NetScaler
13 3 (0.93%) RS-232
13 3 (0.93%) SMTP
13 3 (0.93%) Unified Communications
13 3 (0.93%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (9.26%) SQL Server
2 24 (7.41%) Power BI
3 16 (4.94%) Data Lake
4 12 (3.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 9 (2.78%) MySQL
5 9 (2.78%) PostgreSQL
6 8 (2.47%) Azure SQL Database
6 8 (2.47%) Data Warehouse
7 7 (2.16%) Metadata
8 5 (1.54%) Delta Lake
8 5 (1.54%) Power Query
8 5 (1.54%) Spark SQL
9 4 (1.23%) Metadata Repository
10 3 (0.93%) Oracle Database
10 3 (0.93%) Star Schema
10 3 (0.93%) Tableau
11 2 (0.62%) Big Data
11 2 (0.62%) Relational Database
12 1 (0.31%) Oracle Database 12c
12 1 (0.31%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 14 (4.32%) Git
2 6 (1.85%) JIRA
3 5 (1.54%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.23%) Bitbucket
4 4 (1.23%) GitLab
5 2 (0.62%) CircleCI
5 2 (0.62%) Cypress.io
5 2 (0.62%) JDeveloper
5 2 (0.62%) Selenium
5 2 (0.62%) WebDriver
6 1 (0.31%) AdminStudio
6 1 (0.31%) InstallShield
6 1 (0.31%) MLflow
6 1 (0.31%) MSI
6 1 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.31%) Team Foundation Server
6 1 (0.31%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 125 (38.58%) Social Skills
2 53 (16.36%) Analytical Skills
3 37 (11.42%) Public Sector
4 32 (9.88%) Finance
5 15 (4.63%) Documentation Skills
6 13 (4.01%) Legal
7 12 (3.70%) Banking
8 6 (1.85%) Marketing
8 6 (1.85%) Military
9 5 (1.54%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.23%) International Banking
11 3 (0.93%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.93%) Front Office
11 3 (0.93%) Investment Banking
11 3 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
11 3 (0.93%) Polish Language
11 3 (0.93%) Retail
12 2 (0.62%) Aeronautics
12 2 (0.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.62%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 51 (15.74%) Architect
2 35 (10.80%) Analyst
3 29 (8.95%) Senior
4 24 (7.41%) IT Engineer
5 21 (6.48%) Administrator
5 21 (6.48%) Solutions Architect
6 19 (5.86%) Field Engineer
6 19 (5.86%) IT Support
6 19 (5.86%) Support Engineer
7 18 (5.56%) Field Service Engineer
8 16 (4.94%) Azure Engineer
8 16 (4.94%) Wintel Engineer
9 15 (4.63%) Lead
9 15 (4.63%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
9 15 (4.63%) Support Analyst
10 14 (4.32%) DBA
11 13 (4.01%) Cloud Engineer
11 13 (4.01%) Consultant
11 13 (4.01%) Technical Analyst
11 13 (4.01%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (8.33%) OAuth
2 24 (7.41%) SAML
3 23 (7.10%) OpenID
4 17 (5.25%) OAuth2
5 12 (3.70%) ARM Templates
6 11 (3.40%) .NET
6 11 (3.40%) Microsoft Graph
7 10 (3.09%) LDAP
7 10 (3.09%) REST
8 4 (1.23%) JSON
9 3 (0.93%) YAML
10 2 (0.62%) A2A Protocol
10 2 (0.62%) ASP.NET Web API
10 2 (0.62%) CSS
10 2 (0.62%) Jest
10 2 (0.62%) Model Context Protocol
10 2 (0.62%) Next.js
10 2 (0.62%) React
10 2 (0.62%) RESTful
10 2 (0.62%) Tailwind CSS
Miscellaneous
1 20 (6.17%) Analytical Mindset
2 19 (5.86%) Data Centre
2 19 (5.86%) Enterprise Software
2 19 (5.86%) Replication
3 16 (4.94%) Hybrid Cloud
4 15 (4.63%) Onboarding
5 14 (4.32%) PKI
6 12 (3.70%) BYOD
7 11 (3.40%) Security Posture
8 10 (3.09%) Clustering
9 9 (2.78%) Private Cloud
10 8 (2.47%) Cloud Native
10 8 (2.47%) Management Information System
11 5 (1.54%) Cloud Security Posture
11 5 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
11 5 (1.54%) Low-Code
11 5 (1.54%) NHS
11 5 (1.54%) Operational Technology
11 5 (1.54%) Security Operations Centre
12 3 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 122 (37.65%) Windows
2 61 (18.83%) Windows Server
3 29 (8.95%) Windows 10
4 21 (6.48%) Linux
5 14 (4.32%) Windows Server 2012
6 12 (3.70%) Windows Server 2003
7 8 (2.47%) Mac OS
8 7 (2.16%) Windows 7
8 7 (2.16%) Windows Server 2016
9 6 (1.85%) Unix
10 5 (1.54%) Android
11 4 (1.23%) VMS
12 3 (0.93%) CentOS
13 2 (0.62%) AIX
13 2 (0.62%) Apple iOS
13 2 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 89 (27.47%) Problem-Solving
2 66 (20.37%) ITIL
3 53 (16.36%) Migration
4 48 (14.81%) DevOps
5 45 (13.89%) CI/CD
5 45 (13.89%) Customer Service
6 44 (13.58%) RBAC
7 40 (12.35%) Analytics
7 40 (12.35%) Identity Access Management
8 35 (10.80%) Disaster Recovery
9 33 (10.19%) Agile
10 32 (9.88%) Cloud Security
11 31 (9.57%) Identity Management
12 30 (9.26%) Roadmaps
13 29 (8.95%) Continuous Improvement
14 28 (8.64%) Computer Science
15 27 (8.33%) Data Loss Prevention
15 27 (8.33%) High Availability
16 26 (8.02%) AI
16 26 (8.02%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 102 (31.48%) PowerShell
2 40 (12.35%) SQL
3 29 (8.95%) Python
4 17 (5.25%) Bicep
5 9 (2.78%) C#
6 6 (1.85%) Bash
6 6 (1.85%) T-SQL
7 5 (1.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 4 (1.23%) JavaScript
8 4 (1.23%) R
8 4 (1.23%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.31%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.31%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 107 (33.02%) Security Cleared
2 88 (27.16%) Degree
3 78 (24.07%) SC Cleared
4 77 (23.77%) MCSE
5 66 (20.37%) Azure Certification
6 34 (10.49%) MCSA
7 32 (9.88%) Cisco Certification
8 31 (9.57%) DV Cleared
9 27 (8.33%) A+ Certification
9 27 (8.33%) CISSP
10 26 (8.02%) Network+ Certification
11 25 (7.72%) Computer Science Degree
12 24 (7.41%) CCNA
13 22 (6.79%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 14 (4.32%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 12 (3.70%) CISM
15 12 (3.70%) CompTIA Security+
16 10 (3.09%) AWS Certification
16 10 (3.09%) CCNP
17 8 (2.47%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (5.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 17 (5.25%) NIST
3 15 (4.63%) GDPR
4 8 (2.47%) NIST 800
5 7 (2.16%) NCSC
6 6 (1.85%) SLA
7 5 (1.54%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (1.54%) Data Quality
8 4 (1.23%) Accessibility
8 4 (1.23%) QA
9 2 (0.62%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 2 (0.62%) SOC 2
9 2 (0.62%) WCAG
10 1 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (0.31%) GxP
10 1 (0.31%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.31%) PMO
10 1 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 141 (43.52%) Active Directory
2 28 (8.64%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (3.70%) Docker
4 11 (3.40%) vSphere
5 10 (3.09%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (2.78%) Hyper-V
6 9 (2.78%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (2.78%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.93%) Firmware
8 1 (0.31%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 1 (0.31%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 41 (12.65%) Microsoft Intune
2 35 (10.80%) Terraform
3 30 (9.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 24 (7.41%) SCCM
5 21 (6.48%) Kubernetes
6 19 (5.86%) Single Sign-On
7 18 (5.56%) Ansible
8 9 (2.78%) vCenter Server
9 7 (2.16%) WSUS
10 6 (1.85%) CASB
11 5 (1.54%) Nessus
12 4 (1.23%) SCOM
13 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
13 2 (0.62%) PowerCLI
14 1 (0.31%) Cisco CUCM
14 1 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
14 1 (0.31%) Kubeflow
14 1 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
14 1 (0.31%) PaperCut
14 1 (0.31%) QRadar
Vendors
1 284 (87.65%) Microsoft
2 39 (12.04%) VMware
3 21 (6.48%) Dell
4 20 (6.17%) Cisco
5 19 (5.86%) Oracle
6 16 (4.94%) ServiceNow
7 13 (4.01%) Citrix
8 10 (3.09%) Databricks
8 10 (3.09%) Red Hat
9 9 (2.78%) Tenable
10 8 (2.47%) IBM
10 8 (2.47%) Veeam
11 6 (1.85%) Apple
11 6 (1.85%) CyberArk
11 6 (1.85%) SolarWinds
12 5 (1.54%) Remedy
12 5 (1.54%) Splunk
13 4 (1.23%) CheckPoint
13 4 (1.23%) Foundry
13 4 (1.23%) Palo Alto