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

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 295 232 272
Rank change year-on-year -63 +40 +78
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 323 275 305
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.81% 1.12% 0.82%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.48% 3.56% 2.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 213 156 203
10th Percentile £166 £200 £183
25th Percentile £381 £300 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% - -0.50%
75th Percentile £594 £638 £575
90th Percentile £698 £725 £685
UK median daily rate £485 £500 £469
% change year-on-year -3.00% +6.67% -6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 30 58
10th Percentile £11.90 £14.99 £13.69
25th Percentile £24.11 £15.10 £14.16
Median hourly rate £52.50 £17.44 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +201.03% +6.99% +5.16%
75th Percentile £178.75 £21.46 £21.37
90th Percentile - £37.50 £21.46
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £19.99 £16.30
% change year-on-year +162.70% +22.61% +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 13,046 7,717 11,701
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.86% 31.40% 31.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,750 4,910 7,220
10th Percentile £341 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £416 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -1.43% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 995 437 964
10th Percentile £17.02 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £24.18 £17.88
Median hourly rate £47.00 £47.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.05% +18.75% -23.81%
75th Percentile £70.29 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.32 £82.16 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £41.38 £40.00
% change year-on-year +9.87% +3.44% -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 23 April 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 April 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 April 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 -19 117 £525 +5.00% 59
North of England -59 64 £483 -3.40% 47
North West -41 48 £483 -4.36% 23
South West -14 43 £530 -3.64% 31
South East -57 39 £480 -11.93% 66
Midlands -47 36 £425 +89.73% 28
West Midlands -53 28 £425 +89.73% 19
East of England -36 20 £173 -54.90% 43
Yorkshire -42 13 £484 +21.00% 18
East Midlands -26 8 £220 - 9
North East -19 3 - - 7
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 (13.31%) Microsoft Exchange
2 32 (9.91%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.93%) Exchange Server 2013
4 2 (0.62%) Confluence
5 1 (0.31%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.31%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 20 (6.19%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (2.48%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.93%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 8 (2.48%) Veritas eDiscovery
2 6 (1.86%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (1.86%) Maximo
3 2 (0.62%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.31%) Dynamics AX
4 1 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 146 (45.20%) Azure
2 98 (30.34%) Microsoft 365
3 65 (20.12%) Entra ID
4 50 (15.48%) Power Platform
5 31 (9.60%) Microsoft Purview
6 29 (8.98%) Azure DevOps
7 26 (8.05%) Power Automate
7 26 (8.05%) PowerApps
8 25 (7.74%) AWS
9 23 (7.12%) Azure Data Factory
10 21 (6.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 18 (5.57%) Dynamics 365
12 17 (5.26%) GitHub
13 16 (4.95%) Microsoft Copilot
14 15 (4.64%) OneDrive
15 14 (4.33%) Azure Monitor
16 12 (3.72%) Azure AKS
16 12 (3.72%) Azure Logic Apps
17 11 (3.41%) Azure Sentinel
17 11 (3.41%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 33 (10.22%) SAN
2 29 (8.98%) Firewall
3 28 (8.67%) DNS
4 27 (8.36%) VPN
5 12 (3.72%) TCP/IP
6 9 (2.79%) LAN
7 8 (2.48%) DHCP
7 8 (2.48%) Network Security
8 7 (2.17%) Wi-Fi
9 6 (1.86%) SSL
10 5 (1.55%) VLAN
11 4 (1.24%) DMZ
11 4 (1.24%) Kerberos
11 4 (1.24%) NAS
12 3 (0.93%) DKIM
12 3 (0.93%) DMARC
12 3 (0.93%) NetScaler
12 3 (0.93%) Skype
12 3 (0.93%) SMTP
12 3 (0.93%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (9.29%) SQL Server
2 28 (8.67%) Power BI
3 16 (4.95%) Data Lake
4 12 (3.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 10 (3.10%) PostgreSQL
6 9 (2.79%) Azure SQL Database
6 9 (2.79%) MySQL
7 8 (2.48%) Data Warehouse
7 8 (2.48%) Metadata
8 6 (1.86%) Spark SQL
9 5 (1.55%) Delta Lake
9 5 (1.55%) Power Query
10 4 (1.24%) Metadata Repository
11 3 (0.93%) Big Data
11 3 (0.93%) Oracle Database
11 3 (0.93%) Star Schema
11 3 (0.93%) Tableau
12 2 (0.62%) Relational Database
13 1 (0.31%) MongoDB
13 1 (0.31%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 14 (4.33%) 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
1 115 (35.60%) Social Skills
2 62 (19.20%) Analytical Skills
3 39 (12.07%) Finance
4 32 (9.91%) Public Sector
5 14 (4.33%) Documentation Skills
5 14 (4.33%) Legal
6 12 (3.72%) Banking
6 12 (3.72%) Telecoms
7 5 (1.55%) Military
8 4 (1.24%) Aerospace
8 4 (1.24%) Front Office
8 4 (1.24%) International Banking
8 4 (1.24%) Investment Banking
8 4 (1.24%) Marketing
9 3 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (0.93%) Retail
10 2 (0.62%) Aeronautics
10 2 (0.62%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (0.62%) Law
Job Titles
1 49 (15.17%) Architect
2 35 (10.84%) IT Engineer
3 31 (9.60%) Analyst
4 29 (8.98%) Field Engineer
4 29 (8.98%) Field Service Engineer
4 29 (8.98%) Senior
5 28 (8.67%) IT Support
6 20 (6.19%) Administrator
7 19 (5.88%) Support Engineer
8 18 (5.57%) Solutions Architect
8 18 (5.57%) Wintel Engineer
9 17 (5.26%) Support Analyst
10 16 (4.95%) IT Analyst
10 16 (4.95%) IT Support Engineer
11 15 (4.64%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
12 14 (4.33%) Cloud Engineer
12 14 (4.33%) DBA
13 13 (4.02%) Azure Engineer
13 13 (4.02%) Lead
14 12 (3.72%) Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (6.19%) OAuth
2 17 (5.26%) SAML
3 16 (4.95%) OpenID
4 13 (4.02%) LDAP
4 13 (4.02%) OAuth2
5 11 (3.41%) .NET
6 9 (2.79%) ARM Templates
7 8 (2.48%) Microsoft Graph
8 7 (2.17%) REST
9 4 (1.24%) SailPoint
9 4 (1.24%) Web Services
10 3 (0.93%) JSON
10 3 (0.93%) React
10 3 (0.93%) YAML
11 2 (0.62%) CSS
11 2 (0.62%) Jest
11 2 (0.62%) Next.js
11 2 (0.62%) ONVIF
11 2 (0.62%) RESTful
11 2 (0.62%) Tailwind CSS
Miscellaneous
1 31 (9.60%) Analytical Mindset
2 30 (9.29%) Data Centre
3 21 (6.50%) Replication
4 20 (6.19%) Onboarding
5 18 (5.57%) Enterprise Software
6 16 (4.95%) Clustering
7 13 (4.02%) Hybrid Cloud
8 11 (3.41%) BYOD
9 8 (2.48%) Management Information System
9 8 (2.48%) PKI
10 7 (2.17%) Cloud Native
10 7 (2.17%) Security Posture
11 6 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
12 5 (1.55%) Cloud Security Posture
12 5 (1.55%) Mobile App
12 5 (1.55%) Operational Technology
12 5 (1.55%) Security Operations Centre
13 4 (1.24%) Data Protection Act
13 4 (1.24%) Private Cloud
13 4 (1.24%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 110 (34.06%) Windows
2 56 (17.34%) Windows Server
3 29 (8.98%) Windows 10
4 18 (5.57%) Linux
5 9 (2.79%) Windows Server 2003
5 9 (2.79%) Windows Server 2012
6 8 (2.48%) Android
7 7 (2.17%) Windows 7
7 7 (2.17%) Windows Server 2016
8 6 (1.86%) Apple iOS
8 6 (1.86%) Unix
9 5 (1.55%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.93%) VMS
10 3 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.62%) AIX
11 2 (0.62%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (30.96%) Problem-Solving
2 62 (19.20%) ITIL
3 52 (16.10%) Customer Service
3 52 (16.10%) Migration
4 51 (15.79%) DevOps
5 43 (13.31%) CI/CD
6 42 (13.00%) Analytics
7 39 (12.07%) Agile
8 37 (11.46%) Disaster Recovery
9 33 (10.22%) Computer Science
9 33 (10.22%) High Availability
10 32 (9.91%) RBAC
11 31 (9.60%) Identity Access Management
12 30 (9.29%) Roadmaps
13 29 (8.98%) Break/Fix
13 29 (8.98%) Business Intelligence
14 28 (8.67%) Infrastructure as Code
15 27 (8.36%) Data Governance
15 27 (8.36%) Project Delivery
16 26 (8.05%) Identity Management
Programming Languages
1 99 (30.65%) PowerShell
2 40 (12.38%) SQL
3 32 (9.91%) Python
4 16 (4.95%) Bicep
5 10 (3.10%) C#
6 7 (2.17%) T-SQL
7 6 (1.86%) Bash
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 99 (30.65%) Security Cleared
2 92 (28.48%) MCSE
3 89 (27.55%) Degree
4 79 (24.46%) SC Cleared
5 60 (18.58%) Azure Certification
6 48 (14.86%) Cisco Certification
7 39 (12.07%) A+ Certification
7 39 (12.07%) Network+ Certification
8 38 (11.76%) CCNA
8 38 (11.76%) MCSA
9 29 (8.98%) Computer Science Degree
10 28 (8.67%) DV Cleared
11 24 (7.43%) CISSP
12 22 (6.81%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 15 (4.64%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 14 (4.33%) VCAP
15 12 (3.72%) CompTIA Security+
16 11 (3.41%) CCNP
17 10 (3.10%) CISM
18 9 (2.79%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (6.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 20 (6.19%) NIST
2 15 (4.64%) GDPR
3 8 (2.48%) SLA
4 7 (2.17%) Cyber Essentials
4 7 (2.17%) Data Quality
4 7 (2.17%) NCSC
4 7 (2.17%) NIST 800
5 4 (1.24%) Accessibility
5 4 (1.24%) QA
6 3 (0.93%) WCAG
7 1 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.31%) GxP
7 1 (0.31%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.31%) SOC 2
System Software
1 121 (37.46%) Active Directory
2 32 (9.91%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (6.19%) VMware ESXi
4 16 (4.95%) vSphere
5 15 (4.64%) Virtual Machines
6 12 (3.72%) Virtual Desktop
7 11 (3.41%) Docker
8 8 (2.48%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.93%) Firmware
10 2 (0.62%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.31%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 41 (12.69%) Microsoft Intune
2 35 (10.84%) Terraform
3 28 (8.67%) Ansible
4 21 (6.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 19 (5.88%) Kubernetes
5 19 (5.88%) SCCM
6 18 (5.57%) vCenter Server
7 11 (3.41%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (1.86%) CASB
8 6 (1.86%) WSUS
9 5 (1.55%) Nessus
10 3 (0.93%) SCOM
11 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
11 2 (0.62%) Podman
11 2 (0.62%) PowerCLI
12 1 (0.31%) Dell DRAC
12 1 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
12 1 (0.31%) Kubeflow
12 1 (0.31%) PaperCut
12 1 (0.31%) QRadar
Vendors
1 268 (82.97%) Microsoft
2 40 (12.38%) VMware
3 31 (9.60%) Dell
4 26 (8.05%) Cisco
5 18 (5.57%) Oracle
6 12 (3.72%) Citrix
7 11 (3.41%) Apple
7 11 (3.41%) Databricks
7 11 (3.41%) ServiceNow
8 9 (2.79%) Tenable
9 8 (2.48%) Red Hat
10 7 (2.17%) IBM
11 6 (1.86%) CyberArk
11 6 (1.86%) Remedy
11 6 (1.86%) Veeam
12 4 (1.24%) Atlassian
12 4 (1.24%) CheckPoint
12 4 (1.24%) Foundry
12 4 (1.24%) SolarWinds
12 4 (1.24%) Splunk