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

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 300 239 260
Rank change year-on-year -61 +21 +62
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 390 302 297
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.84% 1.10% 0.91%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.64% 3.50% 3.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 271 186 176
10th Percentile £160 £190 £231
25th Percentile £331 £250 £383
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.22% -10.00% -3.15%
75th Percentile £564 £600 £588
90th Percentile £650 £650 £644
UK median daily rate £461 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +2.50% -10.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 29 33
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £11.75
25th Percentile £16.38 £16.30 £14.16
Median hourly rate £53.75 £18.00 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +198.61% +10.43% -6.86%
75th Percentile £70.25 £33.75 £21.37
90th Percentile £178.75 £84.33 -
UK median hourly rate £48.85 £19.23 £15.47
% change year-on-year +154.03% +24.35% -12.87%

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 14,761 8,617 9,723
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.93% 31.49% 29.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,904 5,456 6,018
10th Percentile £350 £303 £325
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £636 £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 1,173 674 583
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.15 £17.08
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £26.71
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -53.43% -1.42%
75th Percentile £74.00 £47.12 £69.72
90th Percentile £88.75 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -49.70% -8.73%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -56 128 £504 +0.85% 225
North of England -41 79 £498 +17.27% 104
South East -52 66 £300 -41.69% 96
North West -22 63 £491 +15.51% 41
Midlands -19 52 £425 +58.88% 52
West Midlands -25 47 £425 +69.15% 32
South West -56 28 £450 -13.46% 54
East of England -37 26 £160 -46.67% 35
Yorkshire -26 13 £650 +79.43% 54
East Midlands -12 5 £431 -12.35% 20
North East -38 3 £363 +81.25% 10
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 46 (11.79%) SharePoint
2 30 (7.69%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.77%) Confluence
4 2 (0.51%) Exchange Server 2010
4 2 (0.51%) HCL Notes
4 2 (0.51%) Mendix
5 1 (0.26%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.26%) Liferay
5 1 (0.26%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 13 (3.33%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (2.05%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.51%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.26%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 23 (5.90%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (1.54%) Oracle Payables
2 6 (1.54%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.51%) Dynamics AX
3 2 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.26%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 236 (60.51%) Azure
2 111 (28.46%) Microsoft 365
3 104 (26.67%) Power Platform
4 98 (25.13%) Entra ID
5 72 (18.46%) Azure DevOps
6 70 (17.95%) Power Automate
7 59 (15.13%) Dynamics 365
8 48 (12.31%) PowerApps
9 35 (8.97%) AWS
10 34 (8.72%) Serverless
11 30 (7.69%) Azure Functions
12 25 (6.41%) GitHub
12 25 (6.41%) Microsoft Purview
13 24 (6.15%) Azure Monitor
14 23 (5.90%) Azure Logic Apps
14 23 (5.90%) Microsoft Copilot
14 23 (5.90%) OneDrive
15 17 (4.36%) SaaS
16 14 (3.59%) Azure Data Factory
16 14 (3.59%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 48 (12.31%) DNS
2 33 (8.46%) DHCP
3 31 (7.95%) Firewall
4 29 (7.44%) VPN
5 27 (6.92%) SAN
6 26 (6.67%) TCP/IP
7 10 (2.56%) LAN
7 10 (2.56%) SSL
8 8 (2.05%) Kerberos
8 8 (2.05%) WAN
9 7 (1.79%) Network Security
9 7 (1.79%) NGFW
9 7 (1.79%) Wireless
10 5 (1.28%) Wi-Fi
11 4 (1.03%) VLAN
12 3 (0.77%) DMZ
12 3 (0.77%) Internet
12 3 (0.77%) NetScaler
12 3 (0.77%) Remote Desktop
13 2 (0.51%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (14.10%) SQL Server
2 52 (13.33%) Power BI
3 34 (8.72%) MySQL
4 26 (6.67%) PostgreSQL
5 12 (3.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 8 (2.05%) Data Warehouse
7 7 (1.79%) Metadata
7 7 (1.79%) Power Query
8 6 (1.54%) Data Lake
9 4 (1.03%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 3 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.77%) Delta Lake
10 3 (0.77%) Semantic Layer
10 3 (0.77%) Star Schema
11 2 (0.51%) Azure SQL Database
11 2 (0.51%) Data Mart
11 2 (0.51%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.51%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.51%) Qlik Sense
11 2 (0.51%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 16 (4.10%) Git
2 7 (1.79%) Cucumber
2 7 (1.79%) Cypress.io
2 7 (1.79%) JIRA
2 7 (1.79%) Postman
2 7 (1.79%) Selenium
2 7 (1.79%) WebDriver
3 6 (1.54%) Visual Studio Code
4 3 (0.77%) Visual Studio
5 2 (0.51%) GitLab
6 1 (0.26%) Jenkins
General
1 187 (47.95%) Social Skills
2 91 (23.33%) Analytical Skills
3 76 (19.49%) Public Sector
4 49 (12.56%) Finance
5 34 (8.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 23 (5.90%) Telecoms
7 17 (4.36%) Documentation Skills
8 12 (3.08%) Aerospace
9 9 (2.31%) Legal
10 6 (1.54%) Banking
10 6 (1.54%) Military
10 6 (1.54%) Pharmaceutical
11 5 (1.28%) Marketing
12 4 (1.03%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (1.03%) Law
12 4 (1.03%) Local Government
12 4 (1.03%) Organisational Skills
12 4 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (0.77%) Front Office
13 3 (0.77%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 52 (13.33%) Analyst
2 44 (11.28%) Architect
3 43 (11.03%) Developer
3 43 (11.03%) Senior
4 35 (8.97%) IT Engineer
5 34 (8.72%) DBA
5 34 (8.72%) Lead
6 32 (8.21%) Dynamics 365 Developer
6 32 (8.21%) IT Support
7 30 (7.69%) Administrator
8 22 (5.64%) Field Engineer
8 22 (5.64%) Field Service Engineer
8 22 (5.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 21 (5.38%) Support Analyst
10 20 (5.13%) Cloud Engineer
11 19 (4.87%) IT Analyst
12 17 (4.36%) SQL DBA
12 17 (4.36%) Support Engineer
13 14 (3.59%) IT Support Analyst
13 14 (3.59%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (13.33%) Terraform
2 24 (6.15%) JSON
3 19 (4.87%) OAuth
4 18 (4.62%) .NET
5 16 (4.10%) OpenID
6 14 (3.59%) OAuth2
6 14 (3.59%) SAML
7 13 (3.33%) ARM Templates
7 13 (3.33%) ONVIF
8 11 (2.82%) LDAP
8 11 (2.82%) XML
9 10 (2.56%) Microsoft Graph
9 10 (2.56%) REST
9 10 (2.56%) XSLT
10 9 (2.31%) Middleware
10 9 (2.31%) SailPoint
10 9 (2.31%) Web Services
11 7 (1.79%) Gherkin
12 5 (1.28%) Azure Blueprints
12 5 (1.28%) HTML5 Canvas
Miscellaneous
1 45 (11.54%) Management Information System
2 32 (8.21%) Onboarding
3 27 (6.92%) Analytical Mindset
3 27 (6.92%) Data Centre
4 23 (5.90%) Replication
5 22 (5.64%) Cloud Native
6 20 (5.13%) Clustering
7 19 (4.87%) Security Posture
8 16 (4.10%) Product Ownership
9 13 (3.33%) Enterprise Software
9 13 (3.33%) Video\Live Streaming
10 12 (3.08%) Hybrid Cloud
10 12 (3.08%) PKI
11 10 (2.56%) Data Structures
11 10 (2.56%) Legacy Systems
12 9 (2.31%) AI Agents
12 9 (2.31%) Enterprise Cloud
12 9 (2.31%) Taxonomies
13 7 (1.79%) Driving Licence
13 7 (1.79%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 113 (28.97%) Windows
2 53 (13.59%) Windows Server
3 30 (7.69%) Windows 10
4 22 (5.64%) Android
5 21 (5.38%) Linux
6 18 (4.62%) Apple iOS
7 13 (3.33%) Solaris
8 11 (2.82%) Mac OS
9 8 (2.05%) Windows Server 2019
10 7 (1.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 4 (1.03%) VMS
12 3 (0.77%) Unix
12 3 (0.77%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.51%) Alpine Linux
13 2 (0.51%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.51%) Windows 7
13 2 (0.51%) Windows Server 2003
13 2 (0.51%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 148 (37.95%) Problem-Solving
2 108 (27.69%) DevOps
3 93 (23.85%) Agile
4 85 (21.79%) ITIL
5 75 (19.23%) Stakeholder Management
6 70 (17.95%) Customer Service
7 64 (16.41%) CI/CD
8 55 (14.10%) Technical Leadership
9 54 (13.85%) AI
9 54 (13.85%) Continuous Improvement
10 53 (13.59%) Analytics
11 52 (13.33%) Business Intelligence
11 52 (13.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 50 (12.82%) Infrastructure as Code
13 45 (11.54%) ITSM
14 44 (11.28%) Computer Science
15 42 (10.77%) Roadmaps
16 41 (10.51%) Identity Access Management
16 41 (10.51%) Service Management
17 40 (10.26%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 109 (27.95%) PowerShell
2 51 (13.08%) SQL
3 48 (12.31%) C#
4 46 (11.79%) Python
5 44 (11.28%) JavaScript
6 29 (7.44%) Bicep
7 17 (4.36%) Bash
8 12 (3.08%) T-SQL
9 7 (1.79%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 6 (1.54%) X++
11 5 (1.28%) Java
12 4 (1.03%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.77%) Kusto Query Language
14 2 (0.51%) Perl
15 1 (0.26%) ActionScript
15 1 (0.26%) ActionScript 2.0
15 1 (0.26%) R
15 1 (0.26%) VB
Qualifications
1 157 (40.26%) Security Cleared
2 133 (34.10%) SC Cleared
3 124 (31.79%) Degree
4 91 (23.33%) Azure Certification
5 68 (17.44%) MCSE
6 62 (15.90%) A+ Certification
7 57 (14.62%) Cisco Certification
8 46 (11.79%) CCNA
9 40 (10.26%) Network+ Certification
10 38 (9.74%) MCSA
11 29 (7.44%) DV Cleared
12 25 (6.41%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (5.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 19 (4.87%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 18 (4.62%) AWS Certification
16 17 (4.36%) BPSS Clearance
17 14 (3.59%) CISSP
18 12 (3.08%) Oracle Certification
19 11 (2.82%) OCP
20 9 (2.31%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (7.95%) Accessibility
2 26 (6.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 25 (6.41%) NIST
4 23 (5.90%) GDPR
5 21 (5.38%) Data Quality
6 18 (4.62%) WCAG
7 14 (3.59%) SLA
8 13 (3.33%) QA
9 8 (2.05%) NCSC
10 7 (1.79%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.51%) GMP
11 2 (0.51%) GRC
11 2 (0.51%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.51%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.51%) SOC 2
11 2 (0.51%) Solvency II
12 1 (0.26%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 1 (0.26%) ITGC
System Software
1 116 (29.74%) Active Directory
2 36 (9.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (5.38%) Virtual Machines
4 17 (4.36%) Docker
4 17 (4.36%) Virtual Desktop
4 17 (4.36%) VMware ESXi
5 13 (3.33%) vSphere
6 8 (2.05%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.77%) BitLocker
7 3 (0.77%) Firmware
7 3 (0.77%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.51%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.51%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.26%) NDS
9 1 (0.26%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 1 (0.26%) NFS
Systems Management
1 57 (14.62%) Microsoft Intune
2 27 (6.92%) Ansible
3 19 (4.87%) SCCM
4 18 (4.62%) Kubernetes
4 18 (4.62%) SCOM
4 18 (4.62%) vCenter Server
5 12 (3.08%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (1.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 5 (1.28%) Podman
7 4 (1.03%) WSUS
8 3 (0.77%) Dell DRAC
8 3 (0.77%) Grafana
8 3 (0.77%) Progress Chef
8 3 (0.77%) QRadar
9 2 (0.51%) Istio
9 2 (0.51%) Packer
9 2 (0.51%) vMotion
10 1 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.26%) PingFederate
10 1 (0.26%) VxRail
Vendors
1 342 (87.69%) Microsoft
2 42 (10.77%) VMware
3 37 (9.49%) ServiceNow
4 30 (7.69%) Oracle
5 26 (6.67%) Dell
6 23 (5.90%) Cisco
7 11 (2.82%) Google
8 10 (2.56%) Apple
8 10 (2.56%) OpenAI
9 9 (2.31%) Remedy
9 9 (2.31%) Splunk
10 8 (2.05%) Citrix
10 8 (2.05%) Red Hat
10 8 (2.05%) SolarWinds
11 7 (1.79%) Foundry
12 5 (1.28%) Atlassian
12 5 (1.28%) Databricks
12 5 (1.28%) NetApp
12 5 (1.28%) Okta
12 5 (1.28%) Salesforce