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

6 months to
11 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 302 221 274
Rank change year-on-year -81 +53 +88
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 307 274 320
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.75% 1.12% 0.87%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.35% 3.56% 2.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 201 155 210
10th Percentile £161 £200 £198
25th Percentile £350 £251 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -0.50%
75th Percentile £583 £630 £570
90th Percentile £675 £710 £675
UK median daily rate £472 £475 £488
% change year-on-year -0.61% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 31 59
10th Percentile £21.35 - £13.69
25th Percentile £41.50 £14.99 £14.16
Median hourly rate £63.14 £16.30 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +287.33% - +5.16%
75th Percentile £178.75 £20.73 £21.37
90th Percentile - £37.50 -
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 13,066 7,689 11,429
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.12% 31.40% 31.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,766 4,885 7,039
10th Percentile £340 £289 £313
25th Percentile £425 £414 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £522 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.67% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £622 £626 £650
90th Percentile £725 £717 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 960 446 981
10th Percentile £17.10 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £18.00
Median hourly rate £47.54 £40.55 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +17.25% +1.36% -23.81%
75th Percentile £72.50 £67.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.50 £81.35 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £37.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +26.77% -6.25% -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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -22 113 £525 +5.00% 77
North of England -65 64 £476 +3.28% 71
North West -49 48 £476 +0.23% 36
South East -57 39 £238 -54.76% 64
South West -23 37 £475 -12.64% 24
Midlands -55 31 £425 +89.73% 33
West Midlands -55 25 £425 +89.73% 16
East of England -43 21 £181 -9.38% 40
Yorkshire -42 13 £484 +21.00% 24
East Midlands -28 6 £275 - 17
North East -17 3 - - 12
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 35 (11.40%) Microsoft Exchange
2 28 (9.12%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.98%) Exchange Server 2013
4 1 (0.33%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 19 (6.19%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.33%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (2.61%) Veritas eDiscovery
2 5 (1.63%) Maximo
3 4 (1.30%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.65%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.33%) Dynamics AX
Cloud Services
1 139 (45.28%) Azure
2 85 (27.69%) Microsoft 365
3 62 (20.20%) Entra ID
4 49 (15.96%) Power Platform
5 30 (9.77%) Microsoft Purview
6 29 (9.45%) Azure DevOps
7 27 (8.79%) PowerApps
8 26 (8.47%) Power Automate
9 22 (7.17%) Azure Data Factory
10 21 (6.84%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 20 (6.51%) AWS
12 19 (6.19%) GitHub
13 17 (5.54%) Dynamics 365
14 16 (5.21%) OneDrive
15 15 (4.89%) Azure Monitor
16 12 (3.91%) Azure AKS
16 12 (3.91%) Azure Logic Apps
17 11 (3.58%) Azure Sentinel
17 11 (3.58%) Microsoft Copilot
18 9 (2.93%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 41 (13.36%) SAN
2 27 (8.79%) Firewall
3 26 (8.47%) DNS
4 24 (7.82%) VPN
5 12 (3.91%) TCP/IP
6 9 (2.93%) LAN
7 8 (2.61%) DHCP
8 7 (2.28%) Wi-Fi
9 6 (1.95%) Network Security
10 5 (1.63%) Kerberos
10 5 (1.63%) SSL
10 5 (1.63%) VLAN
11 4 (1.30%) DMZ
11 4 (1.30%) NAS
11 4 (1.30%) NGFW
12 3 (0.98%) SMTP
12 3 (0.98%) VoIP
13 2 (0.65%) Internet
13 2 (0.65%) PSTN
13 2 (0.65%) X.400
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (8.79%) SQL Server
2 26 (8.47%) Power BI
3 14 (4.56%) Data Lake
4 12 (3.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 9 (2.93%) Azure SQL Database
5 9 (2.93%) Data Warehouse
5 9 (2.93%) Metadata
6 7 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
7 6 (1.95%) MySQL
7 6 (1.95%) Spark SQL
8 5 (1.63%) Delta Lake
8 5 (1.63%) Power Query
9 4 (1.30%) Metadata Repository
10 3 (0.98%) Big Data
10 3 (0.98%) Star Schema
11 2 (0.65%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.65%) Relational Database
11 2 (0.65%) Tableau
12 1 (0.33%) MongoDB
12 1 (0.33%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 12 (3.91%) Git
2 4 (1.30%) GitLab
3 3 (0.98%) Visual Studio Code
4 2 (0.65%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.65%) JDeveloper
4 2 (0.65%) Selenium
4 2 (0.65%) WebDriver
5 1 (0.33%) AdminStudio
5 1 (0.33%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.33%) InstallShield
5 1 (0.33%) JIRA
5 1 (0.33%) MLflow
5 1 (0.33%) MSI
5 1 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.33%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 97 (31.60%) Social Skills
2 67 (21.82%) Analytical Skills
3 37 (12.05%) Finance
4 32 (10.42%) Public Sector
5 16 (5.21%) Telecoms
6 14 (4.56%) Legal
7 9 (2.93%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (2.61%) Banking
9 4 (1.30%) Aerospace
9 4 (1.30%) Front Office
9 4 (1.30%) Investment Banking
9 4 (1.30%) Marketing
10 3 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.98%) International Banking
10 3 (0.98%) Military
10 3 (0.98%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (0.98%) Pharmaceutical
11 2 (0.65%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (0.65%) Law
11 2 (0.65%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 44 (14.33%) Architect
2 42 (13.68%) IT Engineer
3 37 (12.05%) Field Engineer
3 37 (12.05%) Field Service Engineer
4 30 (9.77%) Senior
5 29 (9.45%) Analyst
5 29 (9.45%) IT Support
6 20 (6.51%) Support Engineer
7 18 (5.86%) IT Support Engineer
8 17 (5.54%) Wintel Engineer
9 16 (5.21%) Administrator
9 16 (5.21%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
9 16 (5.21%) Support Analyst
10 15 (4.89%) IT Analyst
11 14 (4.56%) Developer
11 14 (4.56%) Solutions Architect
12 13 (4.23%) Field Support Engineer
13 12 (3.91%) Cloud Engineer
14 11 (3.58%) DBA
14 11 (3.58%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (4.89%) OAuth
2 13 (4.23%) OpenID
2 13 (4.23%) SAML
3 12 (3.91%) .NET
4 11 (3.58%) LDAP
5 10 (3.26%) ARM Templates
5 10 (3.26%) OAuth2
6 6 (1.95%) Microsoft Graph
7 5 (1.63%) ONVIF
8 4 (1.30%) REST
8 4 (1.30%) SailPoint
8 4 (1.30%) Web Services
8 4 (1.30%) YAML
9 3 (0.98%) React
10 2 (0.65%) CSS
10 2 (0.65%) Jest
10 2 (0.65%) OpenGL
10 2 (0.65%) PySpark
10 2 (0.65%) Qt
10 2 (0.65%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 40 (13.03%) Analytical Mindset
1 40 (13.03%) Data Centre
2 24 (7.82%) Onboarding
3 18 (5.86%) Replication
4 17 (5.54%) Enterprise Software
5 16 (5.21%) Clustering
6 10 (3.26%) Hybrid Cloud
7 9 (2.93%) BYOD
8 8 (2.61%) Cloud Native
8 8 (2.61%) Security Posture
9 7 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
10 6 (1.95%) Management Information System
11 5 (1.63%) Cloud Security Posture
11 5 (1.63%) Low-Code
11 5 (1.63%) Mobile App
11 5 (1.63%) Video\Live Streaming
12 4 (1.30%) Operational Technology
12 4 (1.30%) PKI
12 4 (1.30%) Product Ownership
12 4 (1.30%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 96 (31.27%) Windows
2 44 (14.33%) Windows Server
3 29 (9.45%) Windows 10
4 16 (5.21%) Linux
5 10 (3.26%) Android
6 7 (2.28%) Apple iOS
6 7 (2.28%) Windows 7
6 7 (2.28%) Windows Server 2003
6 7 (2.28%) Windows Server 2016
7 6 (1.95%) Mac OS
7 6 (1.95%) Unix
8 5 (1.63%) VMS
9 3 (0.98%) Windows Server 2012
9 3 (0.98%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.65%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 108 (35.18%) Problem-Solving
2 59 (19.22%) Customer Service
3 54 (17.59%) ITIL
4 52 (16.94%) DevOps
5 51 (16.61%) Migration
6 47 (15.31%) Analytics
7 44 (14.33%) CI/CD
8 37 (12.05%) Break/Fix
9 34 (11.07%) Agile
10 33 (10.75%) Disaster Recovery
10 33 (10.75%) High Availability
11 32 (10.42%) Infrastructure as Code
12 28 (9.12%) Data Governance
12 28 (9.12%) Identity Access Management
12 28 (9.12%) Project Delivery
13 27 (8.79%) Computer Science
13 27 (8.79%) RBAC
14 26 (8.47%) Business Intelligence
14 26 (8.47%) Roadmaps
15 24 (7.82%) Data Loss Prevention
Programming Languages
1 89 (28.99%) PowerShell
2 36 (11.73%) SQL
3 29 (9.45%) Python
4 18 (5.86%) Bicep
5 10 (3.26%) Bash
5 10 (3.26%) C#
6 7 (2.28%) T-SQL
7 6 (1.95%) JavaScript
8 5 (1.63%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 4 (1.30%) R
9 4 (1.30%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.33%) Java
10 1 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.33%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.33%) VB
10 1 (0.33%) VBScript
10 1 (0.33%) X++
Qualifications
1 89 (28.99%) MCSE
2 88 (28.66%) Security Cleared
3 77 (25.08%) Degree
4 74 (24.10%) SC Cleared
5 59 (19.22%) Cisco Certification
6 55 (17.92%) Azure Certification
7 51 (16.61%) A+ Certification
8 49 (15.96%) CCNA
9 48 (15.64%) Network+ Certification
10 38 (12.38%) MCSA
11 24 (7.82%) Computer Science Degree
12 21 (6.84%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 20 (6.51%) DV Cleared
14 17 (5.54%) CISSP
15 14 (4.56%) VCAP
16 10 (3.26%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 9 (2.93%) CCNP
18 8 (2.61%) CompTIA Security+
19 7 (2.28%) AWS Certification
19 7 (2.28%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (6.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 19 (6.19%) NIST
2 10 (3.26%) GDPR
3 8 (2.61%) Data Quality
3 8 (2.61%) NIST 800
3 8 (2.61%) SLA
4 6 (1.95%) Cyber Essentials
4 6 (1.95%) NCSC
5 4 (1.30%) Accessibility
5 4 (1.30%) QA
6 3 (0.98%) WCAG
7 1 (0.33%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.33%) GRC
7 1 (0.33%) GxP
7 1 (0.33%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.33%) SOC 2
System Software
1 105 (34.20%) Active Directory
2 30 (9.77%) VMware Infrastructure
3 19 (6.19%) VMware ESXi
4 17 (5.54%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (4.89%) Virtual Machines
5 15 (4.89%) vSphere
6 13 (4.23%) Docker
7 9 (2.93%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.65%) Firmware
8 2 (0.65%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.65%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.65%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.33%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 37 (12.05%) Microsoft Intune
2 34 (11.07%) Terraform
3 29 (9.45%) Ansible
4 17 (5.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 17 (5.54%) Kubernetes
4 17 (5.54%) SCCM
4 17 (5.54%) vCenter Server
5 6 (1.95%) CASB
5 6 (1.95%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (1.63%) Nessus
7 4 (1.30%) WSUS
8 3 (0.98%) Podman
8 3 (0.98%) QRadar
9 2 (0.65%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
9 2 (0.65%) Packer
9 2 (0.65%) SCOM
10 1 (0.33%) Cisco CUCM
10 1 (0.33%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.33%) Oracle RMAN
10 1 (0.33%) PaperCut
Vendors
1 245 (79.80%) Microsoft
2 38 (12.38%) Dell
2 38 (12.38%) VMware
3 26 (8.47%) Cisco
4 13 (4.23%) Apple
5 12 (3.91%) Oracle
5 12 (3.91%) ServiceNow
6 11 (3.58%) Citrix
6 11 (3.58%) Databricks
7 7 (2.28%) CyberArk
8 6 (1.95%) Palo Alto
8 6 (1.95%) Remedy
8 6 (1.95%) Tenable
9 5 (1.63%) IBM
9 5 (1.63%) Red Hat
10 4 (1.30%) Bloomberg
10 4 (1.30%) HP
10 4 (1.30%) ION Trading
10 4 (1.30%) NetApp
10 4 (1.30%) Reuters