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 28 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 237 253 320
Rank change year-on-year +16 +67 +46
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 338 290 273
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.10% 0.93% 0.71%
As % of the Qualifications category 3.28% 3.12% 2.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 243 166 191
10th Percentile £219 £210 £208
25th Percentile £311 £326 £306
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £478 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.71% -4.50% +11.11%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £600
90th Percentile £684 £719 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% +8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 19 16
10th Percentile £6.00 £11.75 £15.79
25th Percentile £16.00 £16.73 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £21.46 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +17.19% -2.45% +41.94%
75th Percentile £33.75 £35.00 £35.16
90th Percentile £89.63 £112.00 £39.77
UK median hourly rate £19.23 £21.46 £25.00
% change year-on-year -10.39% -14.16% +61.29%

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 10,318 9,302 11,620
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.56% 29.88% 30.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,708 5,644 7,380
10th Percentile £306 £313 £306
25th Percentile £415 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £528 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.47% -4.09% -
75th Percentile £627 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £736
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 889 449 709
10th Percentile £17.69 £20.09 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.00 £26.42 £26.99
Median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £53.50
Median % change year-on-year -49.70% -6.54% +18.89%
75th Percentile £52.50 £68.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.57 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £42.88 £53.67
% change year-on-year -41.35% -20.10% +19.26%

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 28 November 2025.

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 28 November 2025.

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 28 November 2025. 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 +10 113 £500 +11.11% 204
South West +27 61 £550 +10.00% 60
South East -8 57 £486 -1.82% 176
Midlands -5 42 £305 -28.26% 102
West Midlands -23 31 £315 -37.00% 64
North of England -43 31 £450 -5.26% 126
East of England -3 29 £438 +48.94% 78
North West -23 25 £450 +2.86% 70
East Midlands -6 11 £215 -46.25% 38
Yorkshire -37 6 £425 -10.53% 42
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 (12.13%) SharePoint
2 39 (11.54%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (1.78%) Skype for Business
4 4 (1.18%) Confluence
Applications
1 18 (5.33%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (4.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (2.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.18%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.89%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 9 (2.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.89%) Maximo
3 1 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.30%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 156 (46.15%) Azure
2 115 (34.02%) Microsoft 365
3 64 (18.93%) Entra ID
4 47 (13.91%) Power Platform
5 46 (13.61%) AWS
6 29 (8.58%) Azure DevOps
7 28 (8.28%) Dynamics 365
8 27 (7.99%) Power Automate
9 24 (7.10%) Microsoft Purview
9 24 (7.10%) PowerApps
10 17 (5.03%) Azure Sentinel
11 16 (4.73%) Azure Monitor
12 15 (4.44%) GitHub
13 14 (4.14%) Azure Logic Apps
14 12 (3.55%) OneDrive
15 11 (3.25%) Azure AKS
15 11 (3.25%) Azure Data Factory
15 11 (3.25%) GitHub Actions
15 11 (3.25%) SaaS
16 9 (2.66%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 57 (16.86%) DNS
2 42 (12.43%) Firewall
3 35 (10.36%) DHCP
4 34 (10.06%) TCP/IP
5 25 (7.40%) VPN
6 13 (3.85%) Fibre Channel
6 13 (3.85%) iSCSI
7 12 (3.55%) VLAN
8 10 (2.96%) LAN
8 10 (2.96%) SSL
9 9 (2.66%) Skype
10 8 (2.37%) Wi-Fi
11 6 (1.78%) Unified Communications
12 5 (1.48%) Network Security
12 5 (1.48%) Wireless
13 4 (1.18%) Kerberos
13 4 (1.18%) S/MIME
13 4 (1.18%) SAN
13 4 (1.18%) WAN
14 3 (0.89%) Softphone
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (5.92%) Power BI
2 19 (5.62%) SQL Server
3 10 (2.96%) Azure SQL Database
4 7 (2.07%) Data Lake
4 7 (2.07%) Oracle Database
5 5 (1.48%) Data Warehouse
5 5 (1.48%) MySQL
5 5 (1.48%) NoSQL
5 5 (1.48%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (1.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 4 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (0.89%) MongoDB
7 3 (0.89%) Relational Database
8 2 (0.59%) Apache Cassandra
8 2 (0.59%) DynamoDB
8 2 (0.59%) RDBMS
8 2 (0.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 1 (0.30%) Big Data
9 1 (0.30%) Redis
9 1 (0.30%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 16 (4.73%) JIRA
2 12 (3.55%) Git
3 7 (2.07%) MSI
4 6 (1.78%) GitLab
5 5 (1.48%) Jenkins
6 3 (0.89%) AdminStudio
6 3 (0.89%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.89%) InstallShield
7 2 (0.59%) CircleCI
7 2 (0.59%) ERwin
8 1 (0.30%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 142 (42.01%) Social Skills
2 63 (18.64%) Analytical Skills
3 52 (15.38%) Finance
4 42 (12.43%) Public Sector
5 20 (5.92%) Banking
5 20 (5.92%) Documentation Skills
6 7 (2.07%) Legal
6 7 (2.07%) Marketing
7 5 (1.48%) Military
7 5 (1.48%) Organisational Skills
8 4 (1.18%) Aerospace
8 4 (1.18%) Retail
9 3 (0.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (0.89%) Polish Language
10 2 (0.59%) Advertising
10 2 (0.59%) Aeronautics
10 2 (0.59%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (0.59%) Local Government
10 2 (0.59%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.59%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 58 (17.16%) Architect
2 46 (13.61%) Analyst
3 29 (8.58%) Support Engineer
4 28 (8.28%) Senior
5 24 (7.10%) Support Analyst
6 22 (6.51%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 19 (5.62%) Consultant
7 19 (5.62%) Security Engineer
8 17 (5.03%) Lead
8 17 (5.03%) Solutions Architect
9 16 (4.73%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
10 15 (4.44%) Administrator
10 15 (4.44%) Developer
11 14 (4.14%) Azure Engineer
11 14 (4.14%) Infrastructure Architect
11 14 (4.14%) Technical Support
12 13 (3.85%) IT Support
12 13 (3.85%) Wintel Engineer
13 12 (3.55%) IT Analyst
13 12 (3.55%) VMware Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (8.28%) OAuth
2 23 (6.80%) OpenID
2 23 (6.80%) SAML
3 14 (4.14%) .NET
3 14 (4.14%) OAuth2
4 11 (3.25%) ARM Templates
4 11 (3.25%) Microsoft Graph
5 9 (2.66%) JSON
5 9 (2.66%) LDAP
5 9 (2.66%) REST
6 5 (1.48%) RESTful
7 3 (0.89%) ASP.NET Web API
7 3 (0.89%) HTML
7 3 (0.89%) PySpark
7 3 (0.89%) YAML
8 2 (0.59%) Azure Blueprints
8 2 (0.59%) Elastic Stack
8 2 (0.59%) HTML5 Canvas
8 2 (0.59%) SailPoint
8 2 (0.59%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 23 (6.80%) PKI
2 17 (5.03%) Analytical Mindset
3 14 (4.14%) Onboarding
4 13 (3.85%) Cloud Native
4 13 (3.85%) Enterprise Software
4 13 (3.85%) Hybrid Cloud
4 13 (3.85%) Replication
4 13 (3.85%) Security Posture
5 11 (3.25%) NHS
6 10 (2.96%) Driving Licence
7 9 (2.66%) Management Information System
8 7 (2.07%) iPad
8 7 (2.07%) iPhone
9 6 (1.78%) Private Cloud
9 6 (1.78%) Video Conferencing
10 5 (1.48%) BYOD
10 5 (1.48%) Low-Code
10 5 (1.48%) Self-Motivation
10 5 (1.48%) Team-Oriented Environment
11 4 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 179 (52.96%) Windows
2 68 (20.12%) Windows Server
3 41 (12.13%) Windows 10
4 28 (8.28%) Linux
5 25 (7.40%) Mac OS
6 14 (4.14%) Windows Server 2019
7 11 (3.25%) Windows Server 2012
8 5 (1.48%) Android
8 5 (1.48%) Windows Server 2003
9 4 (1.18%) Apple iOS
9 4 (1.18%) Unix
10 3 (0.89%) CentOS
10 3 (0.89%) VMS
11 1 (0.30%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.30%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 102 (30.18%) ITIL
2 96 (28.40%) Problem-Solving
3 50 (14.79%) DevOps
4 44 (13.02%) Customer Service
5 42 (12.43%) Service Management
6 40 (11.83%) Agile
6 40 (11.83%) CI/CD
7 39 (11.54%) Migration
8 38 (11.24%) Continuous Improvement
8 38 (11.24%) Identity Access Management
9 35 (10.36%) Computer Science
10 34 (10.06%) Cloud Security
11 32 (9.47%) Identity Management
11 32 (9.47%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 28 (8.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 27 (7.99%) RBAC
14 26 (7.69%) Data Loss Prevention
15 25 (7.40%) Analytics
15 25 (7.40%) Disaster Recovery
15 25 (7.40%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 89 (26.33%) PowerShell
2 47 (13.91%) SQL
3 17 (5.03%) Python
4 15 (4.44%) JavaScript
5 13 (3.85%) C#
6 12 (3.55%) Bicep
7 10 (2.96%) Bash
8 7 (2.07%) T-SQL
9 6 (1.78%) TypeScript
9 6 (1.78%) VBScript
10 2 (0.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 1 (0.30%) Java
11 1 (0.30%) Korn
11 1 (0.30%) VBA
Qualifications
1 120 (35.50%) Security Cleared
2 87 (25.74%) Degree
3 79 (23.37%) Azure Certification
3 79 (23.37%) SC Cleared
4 66 (19.53%) MCSE
5 35 (10.36%) DV Cleared
6 31 (9.17%) A+ Certification
7 27 (7.99%) MCP
8 26 (7.69%) MCSA
9 20 (5.92%) CISSP
10 19 (5.62%) Computer Science Degree
11 18 (5.33%) AWS Certification
11 18 (5.33%) Cisco Certification
12 17 (5.03%) Network+ Certification
13 15 (4.44%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 13 (3.85%) CCNA
14 13 (3.85%) Master's Degree
15 11 (3.25%) CompTIA Security+
15 11 (3.25%) HND
15 11 (3.25%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (9.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 27 (7.99%) GDPR
3 21 (6.21%) NIST
4 9 (2.66%) SLA
5 6 (1.78%) HIPAA
6 5 (1.48%) NCSC
7 4 (1.18%) Accessibility
8 3 (0.89%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.89%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 3 (0.89%) NIST 800
8 3 (0.89%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.89%) SOC 2
9 2 (0.59%) ISO 22301
10 1 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
10 1 (0.30%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 1 (0.30%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.30%) PMO
10 1 (0.30%) QA
System Software
1 153 (45.27%) Active Directory
2 47 (13.91%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (6.21%) vSphere
4 17 (5.03%) Docker
5 16 (4.73%) Hyper-V
5 16 (4.73%) VMware ESXi
6 13 (3.85%) NFS
7 5 (1.48%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 5 (1.48%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (1.48%) Virtual Servers
8 4 (1.18%) Microsoft App-V
9 3 (0.89%) Firmware
9 3 (0.89%) VMware NSX
10 1 (0.30%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.30%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 44 (13.02%) SCCM
2 34 (10.06%) Microsoft Intune
3 26 (7.69%) Terraform
4 24 (7.10%) Kubernetes
5 21 (6.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 19 (5.62%) Single Sign-On
7 10 (2.96%) Ansible
8 9 (2.66%) WSUS
9 8 (2.37%) SCOM
10 4 (1.18%) CASB
10 4 (1.18%) Nessus
10 4 (1.18%) QRadar
11 3 (0.89%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.59%) PowerCLI
13 1 (0.30%) Argo
13 1 (0.30%) CSIRT
13 1 (0.30%) FortiGate
13 1 (0.30%) Jamf Pro
13 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
13 1 (0.30%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 322 (95.27%) Microsoft
2 58 (17.16%) VMware
3 25 (7.40%) Splunk
4 24 (7.10%) Veeam
5 21 (6.21%) ServiceNow
6 19 (5.62%) Oracle
7 17 (5.03%) Cisco
8 16 (4.73%) Citrix
9 13 (3.85%) NetApp
10 9 (2.66%) Dell
10 9 (2.66%) SolarWinds
11 7 (2.07%) CheckPoint
11 7 (2.07%) Red Hat
11 7 (2.07%) Tenable
12 6 (1.78%) Darktrace
12 6 (1.78%) Zscaler
13 5 (1.48%) CyberArk
13 5 (1.48%) Databricks
13 5 (1.48%) iManage
13 5 (1.48%) Mitel