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

6 months to
10 Mar 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 272 226 286
Rank change year-on-year -46 +60 +89
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 332 273 284
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.92% 1.10% 0.75%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.69% 3.58% 2.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 232 164 201
10th Percentile £219 £203 £205
25th Percentile £374 £300 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £511 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.25% - +4.17%
75th Percentile £612 £618 £588
90th Percentile £700 £725 £700
UK median daily rate £510 £450 £441
% change year-on-year +13.33% +1.98% -8.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 24 40
10th Percentile - £14.99 £13.69
25th Percentile £6.00 £17.74 £14.48
Median hourly rate £16.00 £21.46 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year -25.44% +31.66% +5.16%
75th Percentile £24.25 £35.00 £21.37
90th Percentile £25.47 £64.22 £30.56
UK median hourly rate £16.00 £21.46 £16.90
% change year-on-year -25.44% +26.98% +9.03%

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 12,335 7,629 11,895
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.08% 30.82% 31.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,189 4,814 7,335
10th Percentile £327 £285 £296
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.43% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 960 408 944
10th Percentile £16.24 £19.99 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.72 £25.26 £18.35
Median hourly rate £27.50 £53.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -48.11% +32.50% -20.00%
75th Percentile £66.69 £68.26 £63.75
90th Percentile £83.75 £83.20 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £28.50 £44.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -35.23% +10.00% -20.00%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 +4 128 £525 +26.51% 92
South West -3 51 £560 -0.44% 37
North of England -64 45 £464 -9.02% 87
Midlands -50 43 £310 -22.50% 61
South East -56 38 £480 -4.00% 99
North West -46 34 £460 -8.91% 44
West Midlands -49 34 £375 +47.78% 30
East of England -36 21 £173 -8.00% 50
East Midlands -26 9 £215 -46.25% 30
Yorkshire -49 8 £484 -19.33% 33
North East -11 3 - - 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 44 (13.25%) Microsoft Exchange
2 33 (9.94%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.20%) Confluence
4 3 (0.90%) Exchange Server 2013
4 3 (0.90%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 18 (5.42%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (3.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (2.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.20%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 8 (2.41%) Dynamics CRM
1 8 (2.41%) Veritas eDiscovery
2 7 (2.11%) Maximo
3 1 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 151 (45.48%) Azure
2 106 (31.93%) Microsoft 365
3 62 (18.67%) Entra ID
4 54 (16.27%) Power Platform
5 38 (11.45%) Azure DevOps
6 33 (9.94%) AWS
7 31 (9.34%) Microsoft Purview
8 25 (7.53%) Power Automate
8 25 (7.53%) PowerApps
9 22 (6.63%) Azure Data Factory
10 20 (6.02%) Azure Monitor
11 19 (5.72%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 18 (5.42%) Dynamics 365
12 18 (5.42%) GitHub
13 15 (4.52%) Azure AKS
13 15 (4.52%) Microsoft Copilot
13 15 (4.52%) OneDrive
14 14 (4.22%) Azure Sentinel
15 13 (3.92%) Azure Key Vault
16 11 (3.31%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 51 (15.36%) DNS
2 38 (11.45%) Firewall
3 35 (10.54%) VPN
4 23 (6.93%) DHCP
5 19 (5.72%) TCP/IP
6 18 (5.42%) SAN
7 12 (3.61%) Wi-Fi
8 11 (3.31%) LAN
9 9 (2.71%) Network Security
9 9 (2.71%) VLAN
10 8 (2.41%) SSL
11 6 (1.81%) Skype
12 5 (1.51%) Kerberos
13 4 (1.20%) DKIM
13 4 (1.20%) DMARC
13 4 (1.20%) Unified Communications
14 3 (0.90%) NetScaler
14 3 (0.90%) RS-232
14 3 (0.90%) SMTP
14 3 (0.90%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (8.73%) SQL Server
2 24 (7.23%) Power BI
3 16 (4.82%) Data Lake
4 12 (3.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 10 (3.01%) Azure SQL Database
6 9 (2.71%) Data Warehouse
6 9 (2.71%) MySQL
6 9 (2.71%) PostgreSQL
7 7 (2.11%) Metadata
8 5 (1.51%) Delta Lake
8 5 (1.51%) Spark SQL
9 4 (1.20%) Metadata Repository
9 4 (1.20%) Power Query
10 3 (0.90%) Oracle Database
10 3 (0.90%) Relational Database
11 2 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
11 2 (0.60%) Apache Cassandra
11 2 (0.60%) MongoDB
11 2 (0.60%) NoSQL
11 2 (0.60%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 15 (4.52%) Git
2 6 (1.81%) JIRA
3 5 (1.51%) GitLab
3 5 (1.51%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.20%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.60%) CircleCI
5 2 (0.60%) Cypress.io
5 2 (0.60%) JDeveloper
5 2 (0.60%) MSI
6 1 (0.30%) AdminStudio
6 1 (0.30%) InstallShield
6 1 (0.30%) MLflow
6 1 (0.30%) Selenium
6 1 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.30%) Team Foundation Server
6 1 (0.30%) WebDriver
General
1 132 (39.76%) Social Skills
2 59 (17.77%) Analytical Skills
3 37 (11.14%) Public Sector
4 33 (9.94%) Finance
5 17 (5.12%) Documentation Skills
6 12 (3.61%) Legal
7 10 (3.01%) Banking
8 6 (1.81%) Marketing
8 6 (1.81%) Military
9 5 (1.51%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.20%) International Banking
11 3 (0.90%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
11 3 (0.90%) Polish Language
11 3 (0.90%) Retail
12 2 (0.60%) Aeronautics
12 2 (0.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.60%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.60%) Law
13 1 (0.30%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 55 (16.57%) Architect
2 35 (10.54%) Analyst
3 30 (9.04%) Senior
4 23 (6.93%) Support Engineer
5 22 (6.63%) IT Engineer
5 22 (6.63%) IT Support
6 21 (6.33%) Administrator
6 21 (6.33%) Solutions Architect
7 18 (5.42%) Field Engineer
7 18 (5.42%) Support Analyst
7 18 (5.42%) Wintel Engineer
8 17 (5.12%) Lead
9 16 (4.82%) Azure Engineer
9 16 (4.82%) Field Service Engineer
10 14 (4.22%) IT Analyst
10 14 (4.22%) Security Engineer
11 13 (3.92%) Azure Architect
11 13 (3.92%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
11 13 (3.92%) Technical Analyst
11 13 (3.92%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (9.04%) OAuth
2 27 (8.13%) SAML
3 26 (7.83%) OpenID
4 17 (5.12%) OAuth2
5 15 (4.52%) ARM Templates
6 13 (3.92%) .NET
7 11 (3.31%) LDAP
8 10 (3.01%) REST
9 9 (2.71%) Microsoft Graph
10 5 (1.51%) JSON
10 5 (1.51%) RESTful
11 4 (1.20%) PySpark
12 3 (0.90%) YAML
13 2 (0.60%) ASP.NET Web API
13 2 (0.60%) CSS
13 2 (0.60%) Jest
13 2 (0.60%) Next.js
13 2 (0.60%) React
13 2 (0.60%) SailPoint
13 2 (0.60%) Tailwind CSS
Miscellaneous
1 22 (6.63%) Replication
2 19 (5.72%) Analytical Mindset
2 19 (5.72%) Enterprise Software
3 17 (5.12%) Data Centre
4 16 (4.82%) Hybrid Cloud
4 16 (4.82%) PKI
5 14 (4.22%) BYOD
5 14 (4.22%) Security Posture
6 12 (3.61%) Clustering
6 12 (3.61%) Onboarding
7 11 (3.31%) Cloud Native
8 10 (3.01%) Management Information System
9 9 (2.71%) Private Cloud
10 7 (2.11%) Low-Code
11 5 (1.51%) Cloud Security Posture
11 5 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
11 5 (1.51%) Operational Technology
11 5 (1.51%) Security Operations Centre
11 5 (1.51%) Self-Motivation
11 5 (1.51%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 131 (39.46%) Windows
2 64 (19.28%) Windows Server
3 36 (10.84%) Windows 10
4 22 (6.63%) Linux
5 13 (3.92%) Windows Server 2012
6 12 (3.61%) Windows Server 2003
7 7 (2.11%) Windows 7
7 7 (2.11%) Windows Server 2016
8 6 (1.81%) Mac OS
8 6 (1.81%) Unix
9 4 (1.20%) VMS
10 3 (0.90%) Android
10 3 (0.90%) CentOS
11 2 (0.60%) AIX
11 2 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.30%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (28.61%) Problem-Solving
2 71 (21.39%) ITIL
3 55 (16.57%) Migration
4 54 (16.27%) DevOps
5 49 (14.76%) CI/CD
6 47 (14.16%) Customer Service
7 44 (13.25%) RBAC
8 42 (12.65%) Analytics
8 42 (12.65%) Identity Access Management
9 38 (11.45%) Disaster Recovery
10 36 (10.84%) Agile
11 34 (10.24%) Cloud Security
12 32 (9.64%) Identity Management
13 31 (9.34%) Computer Science
13 31 (9.34%) Data Governance
14 30 (9.04%) Roadmaps
15 29 (8.73%) High Availability
16 28 (8.43%) Continuous Improvement
16 28 (8.43%) Data Loss Prevention
16 28 (8.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 106 (31.93%) PowerShell
2 44 (13.25%) SQL
3 30 (9.04%) Python
4 20 (6.02%) Bicep
5 8 (2.41%) Bash
5 8 (2.41%) C#
6 7 (2.11%) JavaScript
6 7 (2.11%) TypeScript
7 6 (1.81%) T-SQL
8 4 (1.20%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 3 (0.90%) R
10 2 (0.60%) VBScript
11 1 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.30%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 107 (32.23%) Security Cleared
2 86 (25.90%) Degree
3 78 (23.49%) SC Cleared
4 77 (23.19%) MCSE
5 69 (20.78%) Azure Certification
6 33 (9.94%) MCSA
7 31 (9.34%) Cisco Certification
7 31 (9.34%) DV Cleared
8 29 (8.73%) CISSP
9 26 (7.83%) A+ Certification
9 26 (7.83%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 25 (7.53%) Network+ Certification
11 23 (6.93%) CCNA
12 21 (6.33%) Computer Science Degree
13 14 (4.22%) AWS Certification
13 14 (4.22%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 12 (3.61%) CISM
14 12 (3.61%) CompTIA Security+
15 11 (3.31%) CCNP
16 10 (3.01%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (7.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 18 (5.42%) GDPR
3 17 (5.12%) NIST
4 8 (2.41%) NIST 800
5 7 (2.11%) NCSC
6 6 (1.81%) SLA
7 5 (1.51%) Accessibility
7 5 (1.51%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (1.51%) Data Quality
8 3 (0.90%) QA
9 2 (0.60%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 2 (0.60%) SOC 2
9 2 (0.60%) WCAG
10 1 (0.30%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (0.30%) GxP
10 1 (0.30%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.30%) PMO
10 1 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 150 (45.18%) Active Directory
2 30 (9.04%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (4.82%) Docker
4 12 (3.61%) vSphere
5 10 (3.01%) Hyper-V
6 9 (2.71%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (2.71%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (2.11%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.90%) Firmware
9 2 (0.60%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 2 (0.60%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.30%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 39 (11.75%) Microsoft Intune
2 36 (10.84%) Terraform
3 31 (9.34%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 30 (9.04%) SCCM
5 25 (7.53%) Kubernetes
6 19 (5.72%) Ansible
6 19 (5.72%) Single Sign-On
7 9 (2.71%) vCenter Server
8 6 (1.81%) CASB
8 6 (1.81%) WSUS
9 5 (1.51%) Nessus
9 5 (1.51%) SCOM
10 2 (0.60%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
10 2 (0.60%) PowerCLI
11 1 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
11 1 (0.30%) Kubeflow
11 1 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
11 1 (0.30%) PaperCut
11 1 (0.30%) QRadar
11 1 (0.30%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 294 (88.55%) Microsoft
2 42 (12.65%) VMware
3 21 (6.33%) Cisco
4 20 (6.02%) Dell
5 19 (5.72%) Oracle
6 16 (4.82%) ServiceNow
7 13 (3.92%) Databricks
8 10 (3.01%) Citrix
8 10 (3.01%) Red Hat
9 9 (2.71%) Tenable
9 9 (2.71%) Veeam
10 8 (2.41%) IBM
11 7 (2.11%) CyberArk
11 7 (2.11%) SolarWinds
12 6 (1.81%) Splunk
13 5 (1.51%) iManage
13 5 (1.51%) Mitel
13 5 (1.51%) Remedy
14 4 (1.20%) Apple
14 4 (1.20%) Palo Alto
386 Microsoft Certification jobs in England