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

6 months to
24 Jul 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 310 238 257
Rank change year-on-year -72 +19 +92
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 355 300 322
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.79% 1.10% 0.92%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.50% 3.54% 3.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 244 177 194
10th Percentile £154 £202 £183
25th Percentile £306 £313 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £625 £588
90th Percentile £670 £650 £659
UK median daily rate £450 £478 £500
% change year-on-year -5.76% -4.50% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 34 56
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £13.69
25th Percentile £38.25 £15.44 £14.16
Median hourly rate £57.25 £17.44 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +228.27% +6.99% -1.21%
75th Percentile £77.50 £33.75 £21.37
90th Percentile £178.75 £79.85 -
UK median hourly rate £57.25 £17.72 £16.03
% change year-on-year +223.08% +10.54% -2.85%

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 14,220 8,466 10,727
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.63% 30.94% 30.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,578 5,343 6,791
10th Percentile £350 £285 £313
25th Percentile £430 £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 £719 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £521 £525
% change year-on-year +0.86% -0.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,069 622 866
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.38
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.28
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -41.51% -23.82%
75th Percentile £75.00 £59.98 £66.62
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -59 124 £520 +4.00% 75
North of England -57 67 £491 +15.51% 63
South East -46 65 £300 -50.00% 66
North West -40 53 £485 +11.24% 28
Midlands -43 32 £425 +46.55% 34
South West -36 31 £425 -18.27% 19
East of England -27 29 £160 -57.33% 24
West Midlands -52 28 £425 +58.88% 22
Yorkshire -39 12 £650 +57.58% 23
East Midlands -11 4 £431 -13.05% 12
North East -36 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 40 (11.27%) SharePoint
2 24 (6.76%) 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 (3.66%) 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
1 191 (53.80%) Azure
2 98 (27.61%) Microsoft 365
3 85 (23.94%) Entra ID
4 68 (19.15%) Power Platform
5 45 (12.68%) Power Automate
6 44 (12.39%) Azure DevOps
7 38 (10.70%) Dynamics 365
8 36 (10.14%) PowerApps
9 30 (8.45%) AWS
9 30 (8.45%) Microsoft Purview
10 24 (6.76%) GitHub
10 24 (6.76%) OneDrive
11 20 (5.63%) Microsoft Copilot
12 18 (5.07%) Azure Logic Apps
13 15 (4.23%) Azure Monitor
14 14 (3.94%) Serverless
15 13 (3.66%) SaaS
16 12 (3.38%) Azure Functions
16 12 (3.38%) PaaS
17 11 (3.10%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 38 (10.70%) DNS
2 35 (9.86%) SAN
3 29 (8.17%) Firewall
4 27 (7.61%) VPN
5 25 (7.04%) TCP/IP
6 18 (5.07%) DHCP
7 14 (3.94%) LAN
8 9 (2.54%) SSL
8 9 (2.54%) Wi-Fi
9 8 (2.25%) WAN
9 8 (2.25%) Wireless
10 6 (1.69%) Network Security
11 5 (1.41%) NGFW
11 5 (1.41%) VLAN
12 4 (1.13%) Internet
12 4 (1.13%) Kerberos
13 3 (0.85%) DMZ
13 3 (0.85%) Intrusion Detection
13 3 (0.85%) NAS
13 3 (0.85%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (10.14%) Power BI
1 36 (10.14%) SQL Server
2 21 (5.92%) MySQL
3 17 (4.79%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (1.69%) Data Warehouse
4 6 (1.69%) Power Query
4 6 (1.69%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 5 (1.41%) Metadata
6 4 (1.13%) Data Lake
6 4 (1.13%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 4 (1.13%) Star Schema
7 3 (0.85%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (0.85%) Big Data
8 2 (0.56%) BusinessObjects
8 2 (0.56%) Data Mart
8 2 (0.56%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.56%) QlikView
8 2 (0.56%) Relational Database
8 2 (0.56%) Semantic Layer
8 2 (0.56%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (2.25%) 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
1 141 (39.72%) Social Skills
2 83 (23.38%) Analytical Skills
3 57 (16.06%) Public Sector
4 52 (14.65%) Finance
5 21 (5.92%) Telecoms
6 17 (4.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (3.38%) Documentation Skills
8 9 (2.54%) Legal
9 7 (1.97%) Aerospace
10 6 (1.69%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (1.41%) Banking
12 4 (1.13%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (1.13%) Military
13 3 (0.85%) Front Office
13 3 (0.85%) Investment Banking
13 3 (0.85%) Law
13 3 (0.85%) Local Government
13 3 (0.85%) Pharmaceutical
14 2 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
15 1 (0.28%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 45 (12.68%) IT Engineer
2 44 (12.39%) Analyst
3 42 (11.83%) Architect
4 36 (10.14%) Senior
5 35 (9.86%) IT Support
6 31 (8.73%) Field Engineer
6 31 (8.73%) Field Service Engineer
7 26 (7.32%) DBA
7 26 (7.32%) Support Engineer
8 23 (6.48%) Administrator
8 23 (6.48%) IT Support Engineer
9 22 (6.20%) Developer
9 22 (6.20%) Lead
10 17 (4.79%) Support Analyst
11 16 (4.51%) IT Analyst
12 15 (4.23%) Dynamics 365 Developer
12 15 (4.23%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 15 (4.23%) Technical Architect
12 15 (4.23%) Technical Support
13 13 (3.66%) Field Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (3.94%) .NET
1 14 (3.94%) LDAP
1 14 (3.94%) OAuth
2 13 (3.66%) ONVIF
2 13 (3.66%) OpenID
3 12 (3.38%) SAML
4 10 (2.82%) OAuth2
5 9 (2.54%) JSON
6 8 (2.25%) SailPoint
6 8 (2.25%) Web Services
7 7 (1.97%) Microsoft Graph
7 7 (1.97%) REST
8 6 (1.69%) ARM Templates
9 5 (1.41%) Middleware
10 4 (1.13%) Gherkin
11 3 (0.85%) Azure Blueprints
11 3 (0.85%) PySpark
11 3 (0.85%) YAML
12 2 (0.56%) Node.js
12 2 (0.56%) Qt
Miscellaneous
1 37 (10.42%) Data Centre
2 35 (9.86%) Analytical Mindset
3 27 (7.61%) Onboarding
4 24 (6.76%) Management Information System
5 18 (5.07%) Cloud Native
5 18 (5.07%) Security Posture
6 17 (4.79%) Replication
7 14 (3.94%) Clustering
7 14 (3.94%) Enterprise Software
8 13 (3.66%) Video\Live Streaming
9 11 (3.10%) Hybrid Cloud
9 11 (3.10%) Legacy Systems
10 10 (2.82%) Product Ownership
11 8 (2.25%) AI Agents
11 8 (2.25%) PKI
12 7 (1.97%) Data Structures
13 6 (1.69%) Enterprise Cloud
13 6 (1.69%) Mobile App
14 5 (1.41%) Cloud Security Posture
14 5 (1.41%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 104 (29.30%) Windows
2 44 (12.39%) Windows Server
3 28 (7.89%) Windows 10
4 22 (6.20%) Linux
5 15 (4.23%) Android
6 11 (3.10%) 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
1 130 (36.62%) Problem-Solving
2 77 (21.69%) DevOps
3 70 (19.72%) Customer Service
3 70 (19.72%) ITIL
4 62 (17.46%) Agile
5 51 (14.37%) CI/CD
6 45 (12.68%) Stakeholder Management
7 44 (12.39%) Infrastructure as Code
8 42 (11.83%) Migration
9 41 (11.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 39 (10.99%) Project Delivery
11 38 (10.70%) Computer Science
12 37 (10.42%) AI
12 37 (10.42%) Analytics
13 36 (10.14%) Business Intelligence
14 35 (9.86%) Data Governance
15 32 (9.01%) Continuous Improvement
15 32 (9.01%) ITSM
16 31 (8.73%) Break/Fix
17 29 (8.17%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 92 (25.92%) PowerShell
2 39 (10.99%) Python
3 38 (10.70%) SQL
4 28 (7.89%) C#
5 23 (6.48%) JavaScript
6 21 (5.92%) Bicep
7 16 (4.51%) Bash
8 7 (1.97%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 7 (1.97%) T-SQL
9 5 (1.41%) X++
10 3 (0.85%) Java
11 2 (0.56%) Perl
11 2 (0.56%) R
12 1 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
12 1 (0.28%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.28%) VB
Qualifications
1 128 (36.06%) Security Cleared
2 107 (30.14%) SC Cleared
3 103 (29.01%) Degree
4 81 (22.82%) MCSE
5 65 (18.31%) A+ Certification
6 64 (18.03%) Cisco Certification
7 62 (17.46%) Azure Certification
8 54 (15.21%) CCNA
9 44 (12.39%) Network+ Certification
10 41 (11.55%) MCSA
11 29 (8.17%) DV Cleared
12 20 (5.63%) Computer Science Degree
12 20 (5.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 14 (3.94%) AWS Certification
14 13 (3.66%) CISSP
15 11 (3.10%) 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 (6.76%) NIST
2 22 (6.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 17 (4.79%) Data Quality
4 15 (4.23%) SLA
5 14 (3.94%) Accessibility
6 12 (3.38%) GDPR
6 12 (3.38%) QA
7 7 (1.97%) NCSC
8 6 (1.69%) WCAG
9 4 (1.13%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.85%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.56%) GRC
11 2 (0.56%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.56%) SOC 2
11 2 (0.56%) Solvency II
12 1 (0.28%) GxP
12 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 1 (0.28%) ITGC
System Software
1 114 (32.11%) Active Directory
2 30 (8.45%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (4.79%) Virtual Desktop
4 16 (4.51%) Virtual Machines
4 16 (4.51%) VMware ESXi
5 13 (3.66%) Docker
6 12 (3.38%) 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 44 (12.39%) Microsoft Intune
1 44 (12.39%) Terraform
2 26 (7.32%) Ansible
3 18 (5.07%) SCCM
4 16 (4.51%) vCenter Server
5 15 (4.23%) Kubernetes
6 12 (3.38%) SCOM
7 8 (2.25%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (1.69%) CASB
9 5 (1.41%) Nessus
9 5 (1.41%) Podman
10 4 (1.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.85%) Grafana
11 3 (0.85%) QRadar
11 3 (0.85%) WSUS
12 2 (0.56%) Dell DRAC
12 2 (0.56%) Packer
12 2 (0.56%) vMotion
13 1 (0.28%) Kubeflow
13 1 (0.28%) VxRail
Vendors
1 289 (81.41%) Microsoft
2 40 (11.27%) VMware
3 33 (9.30%) Dell
4 26 (7.32%) ServiceNow
5 23 (6.48%) Cisco
6 22 (6.20%) Oracle
7 13 (3.66%) Remedy
8 11 (3.10%) Apple
9 10 (2.82%) Citrix
9 10 (2.82%) Splunk
10 9 (2.54%) SolarWinds
11 8 (2.25%) Google
12 7 (1.97%) Tenable
13 6 (1.69%) CyberArk
13 6 (1.69%) OpenAI
14 5 (1.41%) Databricks
14 5 (1.41%) Dynatrace
14 5 (1.41%) Foundry
14 5 (1.41%) NetApp
14 5 (1.41%) Okta
251 Microsoft Certification jobs in England