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

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 313 247 262
Rank change year-on-year -66 +15 +81
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 372 300 304
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.81% 1.08% 0.91%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.57% 3.43% 3.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 175 188
10th Percentile £153 £200 £240
25th Percentile £306 £313 £386
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £449 £496 £500
Median % change year-on-year -9.38% -0.90% -4.76%
75th Percentile £550 £620 £585
90th Percentile £650 £658 £641
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 31 40
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £11.75
25th Percentile £28.94 £15.65 £14.16
Median hourly rate £55.00 £17.44 £16.03
Median % change year-on-year +215.37% +8.80% -8.40%
75th Percentile £75.75 £33.75 £21.37
90th Percentile £178.75 £83.00 £21.38
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £18.84 £15.17
% change year-on-year +192.01% +24.16% -14.54%

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 14,448 8,752 10,107
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.63% 31.55% 30.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,716 5,505 6,397
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £437 £413 £426
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,127 683 690
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.22 £14.95
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.46
Median hourly rate £53.00 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +110.74% -48.21% -11.71%
75th Percentile £75.00 £55.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £78.12
UK median hourly rate £49.25 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +95.83% -41.51% -21.82%

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 24 August 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 24 August 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 24 August 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 -43 136 £510 +2.00% 89
North of England -57 66 £483 +13.65% 61
South East -53 63 £275 -54.17% 76
North West -42 51 £482 +7.83% 34
Midlands -22 43 £425 +11.92% 35
West Midlands -24 38 £425 +72.94% 21
South West -39 32 £425 -14.57% 25
East of England -36 25 £160 -46.67% 29
Yorkshire -31 12 £650 +62.50% 19
East Midlands -10 5 £431 -13.05% 14
North East -39 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 (9.95%) SharePoint
2 27 (7.26%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.54%) Confluence
3 2 (0.54%) Exchange Server 2010
3 2 (0.54%) HCL Notes
3 2 (0.54%) Mendix
4 1 (0.27%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.27%) Liferay
Applications
1 14 (3.76%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (2.42%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.27%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.27%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 14 (3.76%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (1.61%) Oracle Payables
2 6 (1.61%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.54%) Dynamics AX
3 2 (0.54%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 210 (56.45%) Azure
2 106 (28.49%) Microsoft 365
3 92 (24.73%) Entra ID
4 86 (23.12%) Power Platform
5 59 (15.86%) Azure DevOps
6 56 (15.05%) Power Automate
7 49 (13.17%) Dynamics 365
8 44 (11.83%) PowerApps
9 30 (8.06%) AWS
9 30 (8.06%) Microsoft Purview
10 25 (6.72%) GitHub
11 22 (5.91%) OneDrive
11 22 (5.91%) Serverless
12 20 (5.38%) Azure Logic Apps
12 20 (5.38%) Microsoft Copilot
13 19 (5.11%) Azure Functions
14 18 (4.84%) Azure Monitor
15 16 (4.30%) SaaS
16 14 (3.76%) Azure Data Factory
17 12 (3.23%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 42 (11.29%) DNS
2 33 (8.87%) SAN
3 27 (7.26%) DHCP
3 27 (7.26%) Firewall
4 26 (6.99%) VPN
5 24 (6.45%) TCP/IP
6 10 (2.69%) LAN
7 8 (2.15%) WAN
8 7 (1.88%) Wireless
9 6 (1.61%) Kerberos
9 6 (1.61%) Network Security
9 6 (1.61%) NGFW
9 6 (1.61%) SSL
10 5 (1.34%) Wi-Fi
11 4 (1.08%) VLAN
12 3 (0.81%) DMZ
12 3 (0.81%) Internet
12 3 (0.81%) NetScaler
12 3 (0.81%) Remote Desktop
13 2 (0.54%) PCoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (12.10%) Power BI
2 39 (10.48%) SQL Server
3 23 (6.18%) MySQL
4 19 (5.11%) PostgreSQL
5 8 (2.15%) Data Warehouse
5 8 (2.15%) Power Query
5 8 (2.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 7 (1.88%) Metadata
7 5 (1.34%) Data Lake
8 4 (1.08%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 4 (1.08%) Star Schema
9 3 (0.81%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.81%) Big Data
9 3 (0.81%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (0.54%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.54%) Qlik Sense
10 2 (0.54%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.54%) Semantic Layer
10 2 (0.54%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 9 (2.42%) Git
2 8 (2.15%) Selenium
2 8 (2.15%) WebDriver
3 6 (1.61%) Cucumber
3 6 (1.61%) Cypress.io
3 6 (1.61%) JIRA
3 6 (1.61%) Postman
3 6 (1.61%) Visual Studio Code
4 3 (0.81%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.27%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.27%) GitLab
General
1 168 (45.16%) Social Skills
2 93 (25.00%) Analytical Skills
3 65 (17.47%) Public Sector
4 49 (13.17%) Finance
5 25 (6.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 23 (6.18%) Telecoms
7 15 (4.03%) Documentation Skills
8 11 (2.96%) Aerospace
9 10 (2.69%) Legal
10 6 (1.61%) Banking
10 6 (1.61%) Military
10 6 (1.61%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (1.08%) Law
12 4 (1.08%) Local Government
12 4 (1.08%) Marketing
13 3 (0.81%) Front Office
13 3 (0.81%) Investment Banking
13 3 (0.81%) Pharmaceutical
13 3 (0.81%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 50 (13.44%) Analyst
2 42 (11.29%) Architect
3 40 (10.75%) IT Engineer
4 39 (10.48%) Senior
5 33 (8.87%) Developer
5 33 (8.87%) IT Support
6 28 (7.53%) Field Engineer
6 28 (7.53%) Field Service Engineer
6 28 (7.53%) Lead
7 27 (7.26%) DBA
8 23 (6.18%) Dynamics 365 Developer
9 22 (5.91%) Administrator
10 21 (5.65%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 21 (5.65%) Support Analyst
11 20 (5.38%) Support Engineer
12 19 (5.11%) IT Analyst
13 17 (4.57%) IT Support Engineer
14 15 (4.03%) Cloud Engineer
14 15 (4.03%) IT Support Analyst
14 15 (4.03%) SQL DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (12.10%) Terraform
2 19 (5.11%) .NET
3 17 (4.57%) OAuth
4 15 (4.03%) JSON
5 14 (3.76%) OpenID
6 13 (3.49%) ONVIF
6 13 (3.49%) SAML
7 12 (3.23%) OAuth2
8 11 (2.96%) LDAP
9 10 (2.69%) REST
10 9 (2.42%) ARM Templates
10 9 (2.42%) Middleware
10 9 (2.42%) SailPoint
10 9 (2.42%) Web Services
11 7 (1.88%) Microsoft Graph
12 6 (1.61%) Gherkin
13 5 (1.34%) HTML5 Canvas
14 4 (1.08%) Azure Blueprints
15 3 (0.81%) PySpark
15 3 (0.81%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 33 (8.87%) Analytical Mindset
1 33 (8.87%) Data Centre
2 31 (8.33%) Management Information System
3 29 (7.80%) Onboarding
4 19 (5.11%) Cloud Native
4 19 (5.11%) Replication
5 17 (4.57%) Clustering
6 15 (4.03%) Product Ownership
7 14 (3.76%) Security Posture
8 13 (3.49%) Video\Live Streaming
9 12 (3.23%) Enterprise Software
10 11 (2.96%) Hybrid Cloud
10 11 (2.96%) Legacy Systems
11 10 (2.69%) PKI
12 9 (2.42%) Data Structures
13 8 (2.15%) AI Agents
13 8 (2.15%) Enterprise Cloud
14 7 (1.88%) Driving Licence
14 7 (1.88%) Mobile App
15 6 (1.61%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 107 (28.76%) Windows
2 51 (13.71%) Windows Server
3 32 (8.60%) Windows 10
4 21 (5.65%) Android
5 20 (5.38%) Linux
6 14 (3.76%) Apple iOS
7 12 (3.23%) Mac OS
8 8 (2.15%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (1.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (1.61%) Solaris
10 4 (1.08%) VMS
11 3 (0.81%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.54%) Alpine Linux
12 2 (0.54%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.54%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.54%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (0.54%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 144 (38.71%) Problem-Solving
2 90 (24.19%) DevOps
3 78 (20.97%) ITIL
4 77 (20.70%) Agile
5 75 (20.16%) Customer Service
6 60 (16.13%) CI/CD
6 60 (16.13%) Stakeholder Management
7 52 (13.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 45 (12.10%) Analytics
8 45 (12.10%) Business Intelligence
8 45 (12.10%) Technical Leadership
9 44 (11.83%) Infrastructure as Code
10 43 (11.56%) AI
10 43 (11.56%) Computer Science
11 42 (11.29%) Migration
12 41 (11.02%) ITSM
13 40 (10.75%) Continuous Improvement
14 39 (10.48%) Project Delivery
15 33 (8.87%) Data Governance
16 32 (8.60%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 96 (25.81%) PowerShell
2 45 (12.10%) SQL
3 43 (11.56%) Python
4 40 (10.75%) C#
5 35 (9.41%) JavaScript
6 25 (6.72%) Bicep
7 17 (4.57%) Bash
8 8 (2.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 8 (2.15%) T-SQL
9 6 (1.61%) X++
10 4 (1.08%) Java
10 4 (1.08%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.81%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.54%) Perl
12 2 (0.54%) R
13 1 (0.27%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.27%) ActionScript 2.0
13 1 (0.27%) VB
Qualifications
1 143 (38.44%) Security Cleared
2 119 (31.99%) SC Cleared
3 115 (30.91%) Degree
4 73 (19.62%) Azure Certification
4 73 (19.62%) MCSE
5 67 (18.01%) A+ Certification
6 60 (16.13%) Cisco Certification
7 52 (13.98%) CCNA
8 45 (12.10%) Network+ Certification
9 38 (10.22%) MCSA
10 29 (7.80%) DV Cleared
11 24 (6.45%) Computer Science Degree
12 22 (5.91%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 15 (4.03%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 14 (3.76%) AWS Certification
15 12 (3.23%) BPSS Clearance
16 9 (2.42%) CISSP
16 9 (2.42%) PMI Certification
17 8 (2.15%) Oracle Certification
17 8 (2.15%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (6.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 24 (6.45%) NIST
3 21 (5.65%) Accessibility
4 19 (5.11%) Data Quality
5 16 (4.30%) SLA
6 15 (4.03%) GDPR
7 14 (3.76%) QA
8 8 (2.15%) WCAG
9 7 (1.88%) Cyber Essentials
10 6 (1.61%) NCSC
11 2 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.54%) GRC
11 2 (0.54%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.54%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.54%) SOC 2
11 2 (0.54%) Solvency II
12 1 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 1 (0.27%) ITGC
System Software
1 117 (31.45%) Active Directory
2 34 (9.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (4.57%) Virtual Machines
3 17 (4.57%) VMware ESXi
4 16 (4.30%) Virtual Desktop
5 14 (3.76%) Docker
6 13 (3.49%) vSphere
7 7 (1.88%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.81%) BitLocker
8 3 (0.81%) Firmware
8 3 (0.81%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.54%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.54%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.27%) NDS
10 1 (0.27%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 1 (0.27%) NFS
Systems Management
1 53 (14.25%) Microsoft Intune
2 26 (6.99%) Ansible
3 21 (5.65%) SCCM
4 18 (4.84%) vCenter Server
5 15 (4.03%) Kubernetes
6 13 (3.49%) SCOM
7 9 (2.42%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (1.34%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 5 (1.34%) Podman
9 3 (0.81%) Dell DRAC
9 3 (0.81%) Grafana
9 3 (0.81%) QRadar
9 3 (0.81%) WSUS
10 2 (0.54%) Packer
10 2 (0.54%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.54%) vMotion
11 1 (0.27%) Istio
11 1 (0.27%) PingFederate
11 1 (0.27%) SELinux
11 1 (0.27%) VxRail
Vendors
1 316 (84.95%) Microsoft
2 40 (10.75%) VMware
3 32 (8.60%) Dell
4 31 (8.33%) ServiceNow
5 23 (6.18%) Cisco
6 22 (5.91%) Oracle
7 11 (2.96%) Apple
8 9 (2.42%) Google
8 9 (2.42%) OpenAI
8 9 (2.42%) Remedy
9 8 (2.15%) Citrix
9 8 (2.15%) SolarWinds
10 6 (1.61%) Databricks
10 6 (1.61%) Foundry
10 6 (1.61%) Red Hat
10 6 (1.61%) Splunk
11 5 (1.34%) Dynatrace
11 5 (1.34%) NetApp
11 5 (1.34%) Okta
12 4 (1.08%) Veeam