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

6 months to
6 May 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 298 233 265
Rank change year-on-year -65 +32 +97
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 322 274 322
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.79% 1.12% 0.87%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.45% 3.59% 2.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 213 153 211
10th Percentile £161 £200 £183
25th Percentile £350 £290 £309
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% - -0.50%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £575
90th Percentile £688 £723 £670
UK median daily rate £478 £488 £475
% change year-on-year -2.05% +2.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 33 62
10th Percentile £21.55 - £13.69
25th Percentile £31.86 £14.99 £14.16
Median hourly rate £63.14 £17.44 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +262.01% +6.99% +5.16%
75th Percentile £178.75 £21.46 £21.37
90th Percentile - £36.75 £21.46
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 13,142 7,638 11,520
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.34% 31.31% 31.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,822 4,857 7,101
10th Percentile £340 £290 £308
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £623 £627 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 975 440 984
10th Percentile £17.10 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £18.10
Median hourly rate £47.50 £44.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.95% +10.00% -23.81%
75th Percentile £72.25 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.46 £81.42 £76.47
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +18.75% - -25.93%

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 6 May 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 6 May 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 6 May 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 -19 116 £525 +5.00% 79
North of England -56 63 £476 -6.65% 62
North West -48 47 £476 -6.65% 28
South East -48 42 £275 -47.62% 84
South West -21 41 £510 -7.27% 28
Midlands -55 35 £375 +52.59% 34
West Midlands -48 27 £425 +72.94% 20
East of England -47 21 £181 -9.38% 44
Yorkshire -47 13 £484 +21.00% 26
East Midlands -22 8 £220 - 14
North East -19 3 - - 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 39 (12.11%) Microsoft Exchange
2 29 (9.01%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.93%) Exchange Server 2013
4 2 (0.62%) Confluence
5 1 (0.31%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 20 (6.21%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (2.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.62%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 8 (2.48%) Veritas eDiscovery
2 6 (1.86%) Maximo
3 5 (1.55%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.62%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.31%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 142 (44.10%) Azure
2 93 (28.88%) Microsoft 365
3 61 (18.94%) Entra ID
4 48 (14.91%) Power Platform
5 33 (10.25%) Microsoft Purview
6 28 (8.70%) Azure DevOps
7 26 (8.07%) PowerApps
8 25 (7.76%) Power Automate
9 23 (7.14%) Azure Data Factory
10 22 (6.83%) AWS
11 21 (6.52%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 18 (5.59%) Dynamics 365
12 18 (5.59%) GitHub
13 16 (4.97%) OneDrive
14 15 (4.66%) Azure Monitor
15 13 (4.04%) Microsoft Copilot
16 12 (3.73%) Azure AKS
17 11 (3.42%) Azure Logic Apps
17 11 (3.42%) Azure Sentinel
18 8 (2.48%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 41 (12.73%) SAN
2 29 (9.01%) DNS
3 28 (8.70%) Firewall
4 26 (8.07%) VPN
5 12 (3.73%) TCP/IP
6 10 (3.11%) DHCP
7 9 (2.80%) LAN
8 7 (2.17%) Wi-Fi
9 6 (1.86%) Network Security
9 6 (1.86%) SSL
10 5 (1.55%) Kerberos
10 5 (1.55%) VLAN
11 4 (1.24%) DMZ
11 4 (1.24%) NAS
12 3 (0.93%) DKIM
12 3 (0.93%) DMARC
12 3 (0.93%) SMTP
12 3 (0.93%) VoIP
13 2 (0.62%) NetScaler
13 2 (0.62%) PSTN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (8.39%) Power BI
1 27 (8.39%) SQL Server
2 14 (4.35%) Data Lake
3 12 (3.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 9 (2.80%) Azure SQL Database
4 9 (2.80%) Data Warehouse
4 9 (2.80%) Metadata
5 7 (2.17%) PostgreSQL
6 6 (1.86%) MySQL
6 6 (1.86%) Spark SQL
7 5 (1.55%) Delta Lake
7 5 (1.55%) Power Query
8 4 (1.24%) Metadata Repository
9 3 (0.93%) Big Data
9 3 (0.93%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.93%) Star Schema
10 2 (0.62%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.62%) Tableau
11 1 (0.31%) Oracle Database 12c
11 1 (0.31%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 15 (4.66%) Git
2 4 (1.24%) GitLab
3 3 (0.93%) Bitbucket
3 3 (0.93%) JIRA
3 3 (0.93%) Visual Studio Code
4 2 (0.62%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.62%) JDeveloper
4 2 (0.62%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.62%) Selenium
4 2 (0.62%) WebDriver
5 1 (0.31%) AdminStudio
5 1 (0.31%) InstallShield
5 1 (0.31%) MLflow
5 1 (0.31%) MSI
5 1 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.31%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 106 (32.92%) Social Skills
2 70 (21.74%) Analytical Skills
3 38 (11.80%) Finance
4 32 (9.94%) Public Sector
5 16 (4.97%) Telecoms
6 14 (4.35%) Legal
7 12 (3.73%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (3.11%) Banking
9 4 (1.24%) Aerospace
9 4 (1.24%) Front Office
9 4 (1.24%) Investment Banking
9 4 (1.24%) Marketing
9 4 (1.24%) Military
10 3 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.93%) International Banking
10 3 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.62%) Aeronautics
11 2 (0.62%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (0.62%) Retail
11 2 (0.62%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 46 (14.29%) Architect
2 43 (13.35%) IT Engineer
3 37 (11.49%) Field Engineer
3 37 (11.49%) Field Service Engineer
4 30 (9.32%) Analyst
4 30 (9.32%) Senior
5 29 (9.01%) IT Support
6 21 (6.52%) Support Engineer
7 18 (5.59%) IT Support Engineer
7 18 (5.59%) Wintel Engineer
8 16 (4.97%) Administrator
8 16 (4.97%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
8 16 (4.97%) Solutions Architect
8 16 (4.97%) Support Analyst
9 15 (4.66%) IT Analyst
10 14 (4.35%) Technical Support
11 13 (4.04%) Cloud Engineer
11 13 (4.04%) Developer
11 13 (4.04%) Field Support Engineer
12 12 (3.73%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (4.97%) OAuth
2 14 (4.35%) OpenID
2 14 (4.35%) SAML
3 13 (4.04%) LDAP
4 12 (3.73%) OAuth2
5 11 (3.42%) .NET
6 10 (3.11%) ARM Templates
7 6 (1.86%) Microsoft Graph
8 5 (1.55%) ONVIF
8 5 (1.55%) REST
9 4 (1.24%) Web Services
10 3 (0.93%) React
10 3 (0.93%) SailPoint
10 3 (0.93%) YAML
11 2 (0.62%) Jest
11 2 (0.62%) Next.js
11 2 (0.62%) OpenGL
11 2 (0.62%) PySpark
11 2 (0.62%) Qt
11 2 (0.62%) Tailwind CSS
Miscellaneous
1 40 (12.42%) Analytical Mindset
1 40 (12.42%) Data Centre
2 22 (6.83%) Onboarding
3 19 (5.90%) Replication
4 18 (5.59%) Enterprise Software
5 16 (4.97%) Clustering
6 11 (3.42%) Hybrid Cloud
7 10 (3.11%) BYOD
8 7 (2.17%) PKI
8 7 (2.17%) Security Posture
9 6 (1.86%) Cloud Native
9 6 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
10 5 (1.55%) Cloud Security Posture
10 5 (1.55%) Management Information System
10 5 (1.55%) Mobile App
10 5 (1.55%) Operational Technology
10 5 (1.55%) Video\Live Streaming
11 4 (1.24%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (1.24%) Low-Code
11 4 (1.24%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 104 (32.30%) Windows
2 51 (15.84%) Windows Server
3 28 (8.70%) Windows 10
4 20 (6.21%) Linux
5 8 (2.48%) Android
6 7 (2.17%) Windows 7
6 7 (2.17%) Windows Server 2003
6 7 (2.17%) Windows Server 2016
7 6 (1.86%) Apple iOS
7 6 (1.86%) Unix
7 6 (1.86%) Windows Server 2012
8 5 (1.55%) Mac OS
9 4 (1.24%) VMS
10 3 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.62%) AIX
12 1 (0.31%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 109 (33.85%) Problem-Solving
2 59 (18.32%) Customer Service
2 59 (18.32%) ITIL
3 51 (15.84%) Migration
4 50 (15.53%) DevOps
5 46 (14.29%) Analytics
6 44 (13.66%) CI/CD
7 39 (12.11%) Agile
8 37 (11.49%) Break/Fix
9 34 (10.56%) Disaster Recovery
10 33 (10.25%) High Availability
11 32 (9.94%) Infrastructure as Code
12 31 (9.63%) RBAC
13 30 (9.32%) Computer Science
13 30 (9.32%) Identity Access Management
14 29 (9.01%) Roadmaps
15 28 (8.70%) Project Delivery
16 27 (8.39%) Business Intelligence
16 27 (8.39%) Data Governance
17 26 (8.07%) Data Loss Prevention
Programming Languages
1 96 (29.81%) PowerShell
2 38 (11.80%) SQL
3 33 (10.25%) Python
4 18 (5.59%) Bicep
5 10 (3.11%) C#
6 9 (2.80%) Bash
7 7 (2.17%) T-SQL
8 5 (1.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 5 (1.55%) JavaScript
9 4 (1.24%) R
9 4 (1.24%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.31%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.31%) VB
10 1 (0.31%) VBScript
10 1 (0.31%) X++
Qualifications
1 97 (30.12%) MCSE
2 90 (27.95%) Security Cleared
3 83 (25.78%) Degree
4 74 (22.98%) SC Cleared
5 58 (18.01%) Cisco Certification
6 57 (17.70%) Azure Certification
7 51 (15.84%) A+ Certification
8 49 (15.22%) CCNA
9 48 (14.91%) Network+ Certification
10 41 (12.73%) MCSA
11 27 (8.39%) Computer Science Degree
12 25 (7.76%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 23 (7.14%) DV Cleared
14 21 (6.52%) CISSP
15 14 (4.35%) VCAP
16 11 (3.42%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 10 (3.11%) CompTIA Security+
18 9 (2.80%) CCNP
18 9 (2.80%) CISM
19 7 (2.17%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (6.21%) NIST
2 18 (5.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 12 (3.73%) GDPR
4 8 (2.48%) Cyber Essentials
4 8 (2.48%) Data Quality
4 8 (2.48%) SLA
5 7 (2.17%) NIST 800
6 6 (1.86%) NCSC
7 4 (1.24%) Accessibility
7 4 (1.24%) QA
8 3 (0.93%) WCAG
9 1 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.31%) GxP
9 1 (0.31%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.31%) SOC 2
System Software
1 112 (34.78%) Active Directory
2 34 (10.56%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (6.21%) VMware ESXi
4 16 (4.97%) vSphere
5 15 (4.66%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (4.35%) Docker
6 14 (4.35%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (2.80%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.93%) Firmware
9 2 (0.62%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.62%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.62%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.31%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 40 (12.42%) Microsoft Intune
2 37 (11.49%) Terraform
3 31 (9.63%) Ansible
4 20 (6.21%) SCCM
5 19 (5.90%) Kubernetes
6 18 (5.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 18 (5.59%) vCenter Server
7 8 (2.48%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (1.86%) CASB
9 5 (1.55%) Nessus
9 5 (1.55%) WSUS
10 3 (0.93%) Podman
10 3 (0.93%) SCOM
11 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
11 2 (0.62%) Packer
11 2 (0.62%) PowerCLI
11 2 (0.62%) QRadar
12 1 (0.31%) Cisco CUCM
12 1 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
12 1 (0.31%) PaperCut
Vendors
1 258 (80.12%) Microsoft
2 42 (13.04%) VMware
3 39 (12.11%) Dell
4 25 (7.76%) Cisco
5 15 (4.66%) Oracle
6 12 (3.73%) ServiceNow
7 11 (3.42%) Apple
7 11 (3.42%) Citrix
7 11 (3.42%) Databricks
8 8 (2.48%) Tenable
9 7 (2.17%) Red Hat
10 6 (1.86%) CyberArk
10 6 (1.86%) IBM
10 6 (1.86%) Remedy
10 6 (1.86%) Veeam
11 5 (1.55%) Atlassian
12 4 (1.24%) Bloomberg
12 4 (1.24%) ION Trading
12 4 (1.24%) Reuters
12 4 (1.24%) SolarWinds
293 Microsoft Certification jobs in England