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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 298 245 254
Rank change year-on-year -53 +9 +86
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 379 298 305
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.83% 1.09% 0.92%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.61% 3.46% 3.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 259 176 187
10th Percentile £156 £200 £233
25th Percentile £306 £274 £379
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -3.15%
75th Percentile £555 £600 £585
90th Percentile £650 £650 £643
UK median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 31 35
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £11.75
25th Percentile £23.48 £15.65 £14.16
Median hourly rate £55.00 £17.44 £15.76
Median % change year-on-year +215.37% +10.66% -9.94%
75th Percentile £72.25 £33.75 £21.37
90th Percentile £178.75 £83.00 -
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £19.03 £15.09
% change year-on-year +188.98% +26.17% -15.01%

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 14,499 8,608 10,014
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.79% 31.43% 30.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,763 5,423 6,299
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £711 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,128 676 648
10th Percentile £18.26 £18.17 £15.24
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £23.37
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -49.70% -8.36%
75th Percentile £74.00 £52.81 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £74.38 £79.42
UK median hourly rate £48.77 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +93.90% -47.05% -13.64%

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 2 September 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 2 September 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 2 September 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 -39 132 £509 +1.70% 182
North of England -57 72 £485 +17.58% 72
South East -54 66 £288 -46.61% 86
North West -35 57 £485 +14.12% 37
Midlands -28 47 £425 +11.92% 42
West Midlands -20 42 £425 +72.94% 25
South West -45 29 £438 -7.89% 36
East of England -35 25 £160 -57.33% 34
Yorkshire -33 12 £650 +62.50% 27
East Midlands -15 5 £431 -13.05% 17
North East -45 3 £363 +81.25% 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 37 (9.76%) SharePoint
2 29 (7.65%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.79%) Confluence
4 2 (0.53%) Exchange Server 2010
4 2 (0.53%) HCL Notes
4 2 (0.53%) Mendix
5 1 (0.26%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.26%) Liferay
Applications
1 14 (3.69%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (2.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.26%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.26%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 16 (4.22%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.85%) Oracle Payables
3 6 (1.58%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.53%) Dynamics AX
4 2 (0.53%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.26%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 221 (58.31%) Azure
2 106 (27.97%) Microsoft 365
3 95 (25.07%) Entra ID
4 94 (24.80%) Power Platform
5 66 (17.41%) Azure DevOps
6 60 (15.83%) Power Automate
7 51 (13.46%) Dynamics 365
8 45 (11.87%) PowerApps
9 34 (8.97%) AWS
10 27 (7.12%) Microsoft Purview
11 26 (6.86%) Serverless
12 24 (6.33%) GitHub
13 23 (6.07%) Azure Monitor
13 23 (6.07%) OneDrive
14 22 (5.80%) Azure Functions
14 22 (5.80%) Azure Logic Apps
15 21 (5.54%) Microsoft Copilot
16 17 (4.49%) SaaS
17 14 (3.69%) Azure Data Factory
18 13 (3.43%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 47 (12.40%) DNS
2 32 (8.44%) DHCP
3 30 (7.92%) Firewall
3 30 (7.92%) SAN
4 29 (7.65%) VPN
5 26 (6.86%) TCP/IP
6 10 (2.64%) LAN
6 10 (2.64%) SSL
7 8 (2.11%) WAN
8 7 (1.85%) Network Security
8 7 (1.85%) Wireless
9 6 (1.58%) Kerberos
9 6 (1.58%) NGFW
10 5 (1.32%) Wi-Fi
11 4 (1.06%) VLAN
12 3 (0.79%) DMZ
12 3 (0.79%) Internet
12 3 (0.79%) NetScaler
12 3 (0.79%) Remote Desktop
13 2 (0.53%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (13.46%) Power BI
2 45 (11.87%) SQL Server
3 31 (8.18%) MySQL
4 23 (6.07%) PostgreSQL
5 12 (3.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 7 (1.85%) Data Warehouse
6 7 (1.85%) Metadata
7 6 (1.58%) Power Query
8 5 (1.32%) Data Lake
9 4 (1.06%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 3 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.79%) Delta Lake
11 2 (0.53%) Azure SQL Database
11 2 (0.53%) Data Mart
11 2 (0.53%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.53%) Qlik Sense
11 2 (0.53%) QlikView
11 2 (0.53%) Semantic Layer
11 2 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
11 2 (0.53%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 10 (2.64%) Git
2 7 (1.85%) JIRA
2 7 (1.85%) Selenium
2 7 (1.85%) WebDriver
3 6 (1.58%) Cucumber
3 6 (1.58%) Cypress.io
3 6 (1.58%) Postman
3 6 (1.58%) Visual Studio Code
4 3 (0.79%) Visual Studio
5 2 (0.53%) GitLab
6 1 (0.26%) Jenkins
General
1 178 (46.97%) Social Skills
2 90 (23.75%) Analytical Skills
3 67 (17.68%) Public Sector
4 48 (12.66%) Finance
5 27 (7.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 23 (6.07%) Telecoms
7 15 (3.96%) Documentation Skills
8 12 (3.17%) Aerospace
9 9 (2.37%) Legal
10 7 (1.85%) Banking
11 6 (1.58%) Military
12 5 (1.32%) Law
13 4 (1.06%) Influencing Skills
13 4 (1.06%) Local Government
13 4 (1.06%) Marketing
13 4 (1.06%) Organisational Skills
13 4 (1.06%) Pharmaceutical
14 3 (0.79%) Front Office
14 3 (0.79%) Investment Banking
14 3 (0.79%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 51 (13.46%) Analyst
2 44 (11.61%) Architect
3 39 (10.29%) Senior
4 37 (9.76%) IT Engineer
5 35 (9.23%) Developer
6 32 (8.44%) DBA
7 31 (8.18%) IT Support
8 30 (7.92%) Lead
9 27 (7.12%) Administrator
10 26 (6.86%) Dynamics 365 Developer
11 25 (6.60%) Field Engineer
11 25 (6.60%) Field Service Engineer
12 22 (5.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 22 (5.80%) Support Analyst
13 19 (5.01%) IT Analyst
14 18 (4.75%) Cloud Engineer
15 17 (4.49%) Support Engineer
16 16 (4.22%) SQL DBA
17 15 (3.96%) IT Support Analyst
18 14 (3.69%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (13.19%) Terraform
2 19 (5.01%) .NET
3 18 (4.75%) OAuth
4 17 (4.49%) JSON
5 15 (3.96%) OpenID
6 14 (3.69%) SAML
7 13 (3.43%) OAuth2
7 13 (3.43%) ONVIF
8 11 (2.90%) ARM Templates
8 11 (2.90%) LDAP
9 9 (2.37%) Microsoft Graph
9 9 (2.37%) Middleware
9 9 (2.37%) REST
9 9 (2.37%) SailPoint
9 9 (2.37%) Web Services
10 6 (1.58%) Gherkin
11 5 (1.32%) Azure Blueprints
11 5 (1.32%) HTML5 Canvas
11 5 (1.32%) XML
12 4 (1.06%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 37 (9.76%) Management Information System
2 32 (8.44%) Onboarding
3 30 (7.92%) Analytical Mindset
3 30 (7.92%) Data Centre
4 23 (6.07%) Replication
5 22 (5.80%) Cloud Native
6 20 (5.28%) Clustering
7 17 (4.49%) Security Posture
8 16 (4.22%) Product Ownership
9 13 (3.43%) Video\Live Streaming
10 12 (3.17%) Enterprise Software
10 12 (3.17%) Hybrid Cloud
10 12 (3.17%) PKI
11 10 (2.64%) Data Structures
11 10 (2.64%) Legacy Systems
12 8 (2.11%) AI Agents
12 8 (2.11%) Enterprise Cloud
13 7 (1.85%) Driving Licence
13 7 (1.85%) Mobile App
14 6 (1.58%) BYOD
Operating Systems
1 113 (29.82%) Windows
2 55 (14.51%) Windows Server
3 31 (8.18%) Windows 10
4 22 (5.80%) Android
5 21 (5.54%) Linux
6 16 (4.22%) Apple iOS
7 12 (3.17%) Mac OS
8 8 (2.11%) Solaris
8 8 (2.11%) Windows Server 2019
9 7 (1.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (1.06%) VMS
11 3 (0.79%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.53%) Alpine Linux
12 2 (0.53%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.53%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.53%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (0.53%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.53%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 144 (37.99%) Problem-Solving
2 101 (26.65%) DevOps
3 85 (22.43%) Agile
4 83 (21.90%) ITIL
5 74 (19.53%) Customer Service
6 68 (17.94%) Stakeholder Management
7 62 (16.36%) CI/CD
8 51 (13.46%) Business Intelligence
9 50 (13.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 50 (13.19%) Technical Leadership
10 48 (12.66%) Infrastructure as Code
11 47 (12.40%) Analytics
11 47 (12.40%) Continuous Improvement
12 44 (11.61%) AI
12 44 (11.61%) Computer Science
12 44 (11.61%) ITSM
13 40 (10.55%) Migration
14 37 (9.76%) Identity Access Management
15 36 (9.50%) Project Delivery
15 36 (9.50%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 107 (28.23%) PowerShell
2 46 (12.14%) SQL
3 43 (11.35%) Python
4 42 (11.08%) C#
5 37 (9.76%) JavaScript
6 28 (7.39%) Bicep
7 19 (5.01%) Bash
8 12 (3.17%) T-SQL
9 6 (1.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 6 (1.58%) X++
10 5 (1.32%) Java
11 4 (1.06%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.79%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.53%) Perl
14 1 (0.26%) ActionScript
14 1 (0.26%) ActionScript 2.0
14 1 (0.26%) R
14 1 (0.26%) VB
Qualifications
1 150 (39.58%) Security Cleared
2 127 (33.51%) SC Cleared
3 118 (31.13%) Degree
4 84 (22.16%) Azure Certification
5 71 (18.73%) MCSE
6 65 (17.15%) A+ Certification
7 59 (15.57%) Cisco Certification
8 49 (12.93%) CCNA
9 43 (11.35%) Network+ Certification
10 38 (10.03%) MCSA
11 29 (7.65%) DV Cleared
12 25 (6.60%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (6.07%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 19 (5.01%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 17 (4.49%) AWS Certification
16 16 (4.22%) BPSS Clearance
17 12 (3.17%) CISSP
18 10 (2.64%) Oracle Certification
19 9 (2.37%) OCP
19 9 (2.37%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (6.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 25 (6.60%) NIST
3 23 (6.07%) Accessibility
4 20 (5.28%) Data Quality
5 16 (4.22%) GDPR
6 15 (3.96%) SLA
7 13 (3.43%) QA
8 11 (2.90%) WCAG
9 8 (2.11%) NCSC
10 7 (1.85%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.53%) GMP
11 2 (0.53%) GRC
11 2 (0.53%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.53%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.53%) SOC 2
11 2 (0.53%) Solvency II
12 1 (0.26%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 1 (0.26%) ITGC
System Software
1 117 (30.87%) Active Directory
2 36 (9.50%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (5.28%) Virtual Machines
4 17 (4.49%) VMware ESXi
5 16 (4.22%) Docker
5 16 (4.22%) Virtual Desktop
6 13 (3.43%) vSphere
7 8 (2.11%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.79%) BitLocker
8 3 (0.79%) Firmware
8 3 (0.79%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.53%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.53%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.26%) NDS
10 1 (0.26%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 1 (0.26%) NFS
Systems Management
1 55 (14.51%) Microsoft Intune
2 27 (7.12%) Ansible
3 20 (5.28%) SCCM
4 18 (4.75%) SCOM
4 18 (4.75%) vCenter Server
5 17 (4.49%) Kubernetes
6 10 (2.64%) Single Sign-On
7 5 (1.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 5 (1.32%) Podman
8 4 (1.06%) WSUS
9 3 (0.79%) Dell DRAC
9 3 (0.79%) Grafana
9 3 (0.79%) Progress Chef
9 3 (0.79%) QRadar
10 2 (0.53%) Istio
10 2 (0.53%) Packer
10 2 (0.53%) vMotion
11 1 (0.26%) FreeIPA
11 1 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
11 1 (0.26%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 327 (86.28%) Microsoft
2 42 (11.08%) VMware
3 37 (9.76%) ServiceNow
4 29 (7.65%) Dell
5 27 (7.12%) Oracle
6 24 (6.33%) Cisco
7 11 (2.90%) Apple
7 11 (2.90%) Google
8 9 (2.37%) OpenAI
8 9 (2.37%) Remedy
9 8 (2.11%) Citrix
9 8 (2.11%) Red Hat
9 8 (2.11%) SolarWinds
9 8 (2.11%) Splunk
10 6 (1.58%) Foundry
11 5 (1.32%) Atlassian
11 5 (1.32%) Databricks
11 5 (1.32%) NetApp
11 5 (1.32%) Okta
11 5 (1.32%) Salesforce