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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 310 248 254
Rank change year-on-year -62 +6 +83
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 372 299 303
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.80% 1.06% 0.94%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.49% 3.33% 3.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 263 201 176
10th Percentile £171 £190 £213
25th Percentile £344 £251 £368
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £450 £478
Median % change year-on-year +4.89% -5.76% -4.50%
75th Percentile £569 £575 £560
90th Percentile £650 £650 £638
UK median daily rate £474 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +5.22% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 25 20
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £11.75
25th Percentile £16.38 £16.30 £14.16
Median hourly rate £38.25 £18.84 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +103.08% +15.55% -8.17%
75th Percentile £67.84 £33.75 £35.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £86.98 £112.00
UK median hourly rate £38.25 £19.23 £16.30
% change year-on-year +98.91% +17.98% -9.44%

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 14,922 8,976 9,645
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.29% 31.95% 29.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,941 5,696 5,843
10th Percentile £353 £290 £313
25th Percentile £448 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £732
UK median daily rate £533 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,292 746 518
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £19.20
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.29
Median hourly rate £49.50 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +96.82% -52.10% -2.36%
75th Percentile £73.81 £43.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £72.50 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -47.05% -11.52%

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 9 October 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 9 October 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 9 October 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 -62 127 £509 +2.31% 195
North of England -25 74 £498 +17.27% 68
South East -57 63 £325 -29.73% 59
North West -18 60 £491 +15.51% 37
Midlands -19 54 £425 +80.85% 22
West Midlands -18 49 £425 +115.19% 17
East of England -38 24 £160 -46.67% 26
South West -51 19 £515 -1.44% 36
Yorkshire -30 11 £650 +79.43% 24
East Midlands -21 5 £431 -12.35% 5
North East - 3 £363 - 8
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 (11.56%) SharePoint
2 26 (6.99%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.81%) Confluence
4 2 (0.54%) Exchange Server 2010
4 2 (0.54%) HCL Notes
4 2 (0.54%) Mendix
5 1 (0.27%) Liferay
5 1 (0.27%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 13 (3.49%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (2.15%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.54%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.27%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 25 (6.72%) 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
4 1 (0.27%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 230 (61.83%) Azure
2 104 (27.96%) Microsoft 365
3 103 (27.69%) Power Platform
4 99 (26.61%) Entra ID
5 73 (19.62%) Azure DevOps
6 69 (18.55%) Power Automate
7 62 (16.67%) Dynamics 365
8 47 (12.63%) PowerApps
9 34 (9.14%) AWS
9 34 (9.14%) Serverless
10 30 (8.06%) Azure Functions
11 26 (6.99%) OneDrive
12 25 (6.72%) Azure Monitor
13 24 (6.45%) Microsoft Copilot
14 22 (5.91%) GitHub
15 21 (5.65%) Azure Logic Apps
16 20 (5.38%) Microsoft Purview
17 18 (4.84%) SaaS
18 16 (4.30%) Azure Sentinel
19 13 (3.49%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 47 (12.63%) DNS
2 34 (9.14%) DHCP
3 32 (8.60%) VPN
4 30 (8.06%) Firewall
5 29 (7.80%) TCP/IP
6 16 (4.30%) SAN
7 13 (3.49%) LAN
8 10 (2.69%) SSL
9 9 (2.42%) Kerberos
9 9 (2.42%) WAN
10 8 (2.15%) Network Security
10 8 (2.15%) NGFW
11 7 (1.88%) Internet
11 7 (1.88%) Wireless
12 5 (1.34%) VLAN
12 5 (1.34%) Wi-Fi
13 3 (0.81%) NetScaler
13 3 (0.81%) Remote Desktop
13 3 (0.81%) VoIP
14 2 (0.54%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (15.59%) SQL Server
2 51 (13.71%) Power BI
3 36 (9.68%) MySQL
4 27 (7.26%) PostgreSQL
5 13 (3.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 7 (1.88%) Data Warehouse
7 6 (1.61%) Data Lake
7 6 (1.61%) Metadata
7 6 (1.61%) Power Query
8 5 (1.34%) Delta Lake
9 4 (1.08%) Azure SQL Database
9 4 (1.08%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 3 (0.81%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.81%) Semantic Layer
11 2 (0.54%) Data Mart
11 2 (0.54%) Data Vault
11 2 (0.54%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.54%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.54%) Qlik Sense
11 2 (0.54%) QlikView
Development Applications
1 15 (4.03%) Git
2 8 (2.15%) Cucumber
2 8 (2.15%) Cypress.io
2 8 (2.15%) Postman
2 8 (2.15%) Selenium
2 8 (2.15%) WebDriver
3 7 (1.88%) JIRA
4 3 (0.81%) Visual Studio
4 3 (0.81%) Visual Studio Code
5 2 (0.54%) GitLab
6 1 (0.27%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.27%) MSI
General
1 187 (50.27%) Social Skills
2 81 (21.77%) Public Sector
3 77 (20.70%) Analytical Skills
4 47 (12.63%) Finance
5 35 (9.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 21 (5.65%) Telecoms
7 19 (5.11%) Documentation Skills
8 11 (2.96%) Aerospace
9 9 (2.42%) Organisational Skills
10 6 (1.61%) Military
11 5 (1.34%) Law
11 5 (1.34%) Local Government
11 5 (1.34%) Marketing
11 5 (1.34%) Pharmaceutical
11 5 (1.34%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (1.08%) Banking
12 4 (1.08%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (1.08%) Legal
13 2 (0.54%) Aviation
14 1 (0.27%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 51 (13.71%) Analyst
2 45 (12.10%) Architect
3 41 (11.02%) Developer
3 41 (11.02%) Senior
4 36 (9.68%) DBA
5 35 (9.41%) Lead
6 32 (8.60%) Dynamics 365 Developer
7 30 (8.06%) Administrator
8 26 (6.99%) IT Engineer
9 25 (6.72%) IT Support
10 21 (5.65%) Cloud Engineer
11 20 (5.38%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 18 (4.84%) Support Analyst
13 17 (4.57%) SQL DBA
13 17 (4.57%) Support Engineer
14 16 (4.30%) IT Analyst
15 14 (3.76%) SC Cleared DBA
16 13 (3.49%) Field Engineer
16 13 (3.49%) Field Service Engineer
16 13 (3.49%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (13.17%) Terraform
2 24 (6.45%) JSON
3 20 (5.38%) OAuth
4 18 (4.84%) .NET
4 18 (4.84%) OpenID
5 15 (4.03%) OAuth2
5 15 (4.03%) SAML
6 14 (3.76%) ARM Templates
7 13 (3.49%) ONVIF
8 11 (2.96%) LDAP
8 11 (2.96%) XML
9 10 (2.69%) REST
9 10 (2.69%) XSLT
10 9 (2.42%) SailPoint
11 8 (2.15%) Gherkin
11 8 (2.15%) Microsoft Graph
11 8 (2.15%) Middleware
11 8 (2.15%) Web Services
12 5 (1.34%) Azure Blueprints
12 5 (1.34%) HTML5 Canvas
Miscellaneous
1 48 (12.90%) Management Information System
2 27 (7.26%) Onboarding
3 23 (6.18%) Replication
4 22 (5.91%) Cloud Native
5 21 (5.65%) Clustering
6 20 (5.38%) Security Posture
7 18 (4.84%) Data Centre
8 15 (4.03%) Analytical Mindset
8 15 (4.03%) Enterprise Software
8 15 (4.03%) Product Ownership
9 13 (3.49%) Video\Live Streaming
10 12 (3.23%) Hybrid Cloud
10 12 (3.23%) PKI
11 11 (2.96%) Driving Licence
12 10 (2.69%) Enterprise Cloud
13 9 (2.42%) AI Agents
13 9 (2.42%) Data Structures
13 9 (2.42%) Legacy Systems
13 9 (2.42%) Taxonomies
14 7 (1.88%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 107 (28.76%) Windows
2 48 (12.90%) Windows Server
3 27 (7.26%) Windows 10
4 21 (5.65%) Android
5 20 (5.38%) Linux
6 17 (4.57%) Apple iOS
7 15 (4.03%) Solaris
8 9 (2.42%) Mac OS
9 8 (2.15%) Windows Server 2019
10 7 (1.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 4 (1.08%) Unix
11 4 (1.08%) VMS
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 2012
12 2 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 126 (33.87%) Problem-Solving
2 104 (27.96%) DevOps
3 91 (24.46%) Agile
4 80 (21.51%) ITIL
5 79 (21.24%) Stakeholder Management
6 62 (16.67%) Customer Service
7 59 (15.86%) CI/CD
8 56 (15.05%) Technical Leadership
9 55 (14.78%) Continuous Improvement
10 54 (14.52%) AI
11 53 (14.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 51 (13.71%) Analytics
12 51 (13.71%) Business Intelligence
12 51 (13.71%) ITSM
13 44 (11.83%) Infrastructure as Code
13 44 (11.83%) Roadmaps
14 42 (11.29%) Cybersecurity
14 42 (11.29%) Identity Access Management
15 41 (11.02%) Service Management
16 40 (10.75%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 104 (27.96%) PowerShell
2 50 (13.44%) SQL
3 48 (12.90%) C#
4 45 (12.10%) Python
5 44 (11.83%) JavaScript
6 31 (8.33%) Bicep
7 15 (4.03%) Bash
8 11 (2.96%) T-SQL
9 6 (1.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 5 (1.34%) Java
10 5 (1.34%) X++
11 4 (1.08%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.81%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.54%) Perl
14 1 (0.27%) ActionScript
14 1 (0.27%) ActionScript 2.0
14 1 (0.27%) VB
Qualifications
1 148 (39.78%) Security Cleared
2 125 (33.60%) SC Cleared
3 115 (30.91%) Degree
4 90 (24.19%) Azure Certification
5 56 (15.05%) MCSE
6 54 (14.52%) A+ Certification
7 45 (12.10%) Cisco Certification
8 36 (9.68%) CCNA
8 36 (9.68%) MCSA
9 28 (7.53%) Network+ Certification
10 23 (6.18%) DV Cleared
11 19 (5.11%) AWS Certification
11 19 (5.11%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 17 (4.57%) BPSS Clearance
12 17 (4.57%) Computer Science Degree
12 17 (4.57%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 15 (4.03%) CISSP
14 12 (3.23%) Oracle Certification
15 11 (2.96%) OCP
16 9 (2.42%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (8.60%) Accessibility
2 25 (6.72%) GDPR
2 25 (6.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 23 (6.18%) NIST
4 20 (5.38%) Data Quality
5 19 (5.11%) WCAG
6 17 (4.57%) SLA
7 14 (3.76%) QA
8 7 (1.88%) Cyber Essentials
9 6 (1.61%) NCSC
10 4 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.54%) GMP
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
1 114 (30.65%) Active Directory
2 33 (8.87%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (6.18%) Virtual Machines
4 15 (4.03%) Docker
5 13 (3.49%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (3.49%) VMware ESXi
5 13 (3.49%) vSphere
6 7 (1.88%) Hyper-V
7 4 (1.08%) Firmware
8 3 (0.81%) BitLocker
8 3 (0.81%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.54%) NDS
9 2 (0.54%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 2 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.54%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.27%) NFS
10 1 (0.27%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 56 (15.05%) Microsoft Intune
2 23 (6.18%) Ansible
3 19 (5.11%) SCCM
4 17 (4.57%) SCOM
5 16 (4.30%) Kubernetes
5 16 (4.30%) vCenter Server
6 14 (3.76%) Single Sign-On
7 5 (1.34%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 3 (0.81%) Dell DRAC
8 3 (0.81%) Grafana
8 3 (0.81%) Podman
8 3 (0.81%) Progress Chef
8 3 (0.81%) QRadar
9 2 (0.54%) Istio
9 2 (0.54%) Packer
9 2 (0.54%) vMotion
9 2 (0.54%) WSUS
10 1 (0.27%) CASB
10 1 (0.27%) FreeIPA
10 1 (0.27%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 337 (90.59%) Microsoft
2 38 (10.22%) ServiceNow
3 36 (9.68%) VMware
4 32 (8.60%) Oracle
5 21 (5.65%) Cisco
6 17 (4.57%) Dell
7 12 (3.23%) Google
8 10 (2.69%) OpenAI
9 9 (2.42%) Remedy
9 9 (2.42%) Splunk
10 8 (2.15%) Red Hat
10 8 (2.15%) SolarWinds
11 7 (1.88%) Databricks
11 7 (1.88%) Foundry
12 5 (1.34%) Apple
12 5 (1.34%) Dynatrace
12 5 (1.34%) Okta
12 5 (1.34%) Palo Alto
12 5 (1.34%) Salesforce
13 4 (1.08%) Citrix