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

6 months to
7 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 304 231 261
Rank change year-on-year -73 +30 +98
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 320 274 325
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.79% 1.12% 0.88%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.43% 3.59% 2.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 212 153 212
10th Percentile £161 £200 £184
25th Percentile £350 £285 £311
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.50% - -0.50%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £575
90th Percentile £688 £716 £669
UK median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 33 62
10th Percentile £21.55 - £13.69
25th Percentile £31.86 £14.99 £14.16
Median hourly rate £63.14 £17.44 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +262.01% +6.99% +5.16%
75th Percentile £178.75 £21.46 £21.37
90th Percentile - £36.75 £21.46
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 13,159 7,627 11,574
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.32% 31.29% 31.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,834 4,846 7,145
10th Percentile £340 £290 £308
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £623 £627 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 975 440 987
10th Percentile £17.07 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £18.13
Median hourly rate £47.50 £42.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% +6.88% -23.81%
75th Percentile £72.50 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.46 £81.35 £77.19
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +18.75% - -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 7 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 7 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 7 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 -35 115 £525 +5.00% 80
North of England -53 63 £476 -3.33% 62
North West -43 47 £476 -6.65% 29
South West -16 42 £504 -8.41% 28
South East -41 42 £275 -47.62% 76
Midlands -60 34 £400 +62.77% 34
West Midlands -52 27 £425 +72.94% 18
East of England -47 21 £181 -9.38% 40
Yorkshire -41 13 £484 +21.00% 24
East Midlands -25 7 £243 - 16
North East -16 3 - - 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 38 (11.88%) Microsoft Exchange
2 29 (9.06%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.94%) Exchange Server 2013
4 2 (0.63%) Confluence
5 1 (0.31%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 20 (6.25%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (2.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.63%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 8 (2.50%) Veritas eDiscovery
2 5 (1.56%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.56%) Maximo
3 2 (0.63%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.31%) Dynamics AX
4 1 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 143 (44.69%) Azure
2 91 (28.44%) Microsoft 365
3 62 (19.38%) Entra ID
4 48 (15.00%) Power Platform
5 33 (10.31%) Microsoft Purview
6 29 (9.06%) Azure DevOps
7 26 (8.13%) PowerApps
8 25 (7.81%) Power Automate
9 23 (7.19%) Azure Data Factory
10 22 (6.88%) AWS
11 21 (6.56%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 19 (5.94%) GitHub
13 18 (5.63%) Dynamics 365
14 16 (5.00%) OneDrive
15 15 (4.69%) Azure Monitor
16 13 (4.06%) Microsoft Copilot
17 12 (3.75%) Azure AKS
18 11 (3.44%) Azure Logic Apps
19 10 (3.13%) Azure Sentinel
20 9 (2.81%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 41 (12.81%) SAN
2 28 (8.75%) DNS
2 28 (8.75%) Firewall
3 25 (7.81%) VPN
4 12 (3.75%) TCP/IP
5 9 (2.81%) DHCP
5 9 (2.81%) LAN
6 7 (2.19%) Wi-Fi
7 6 (1.88%) Network Security
7 6 (1.88%) SSL
8 5 (1.56%) Kerberos
8 5 (1.56%) VLAN
9 4 (1.25%) DMZ
9 4 (1.25%) NAS
10 3 (0.94%) DKIM
10 3 (0.94%) DMARC
10 3 (0.94%) SMTP
10 3 (0.94%) VoIP
11 2 (0.63%) NGFW
11 2 (0.63%) RS-232
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (8.44%) Power BI
1 27 (8.44%) SQL Server
2 14 (4.38%) Data Lake
3 12 (3.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 9 (2.81%) Azure SQL Database
4 9 (2.81%) Data Warehouse
4 9 (2.81%) Metadata
5 7 (2.19%) PostgreSQL
6 6 (1.88%) MySQL
6 6 (1.88%) Spark SQL
7 5 (1.56%) Delta Lake
7 5 (1.56%) Power Query
8 4 (1.25%) Metadata Repository
9 3 (0.94%) Big Data
9 3 (0.94%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.94%) Star Schema
10 2 (0.63%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.63%) Tableau
11 1 (0.31%) MongoDB
11 1 (0.31%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 16 (5.00%) Git
2 5 (1.56%) GitLab
3 3 (0.94%) Bitbucket
3 3 (0.94%) JIRA
3 3 (0.94%) Visual Studio Code
4 2 (0.63%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.63%) JDeveloper
4 2 (0.63%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.63%) Selenium
4 2 (0.63%) WebDriver
5 1 (0.31%) AdminStudio
5 1 (0.31%) InstallShield
5 1 (0.31%) MLflow
5 1 (0.31%) MSI
5 1 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.31%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 104 (32.50%) Social Skills
2 69 (21.56%) Analytical Skills
3 38 (11.88%) Finance
4 32 (10.00%) Public Sector
5 16 (5.00%) Telecoms
6 14 (4.38%) Legal
7 11 (3.44%) Documentation Skills
8 9 (2.81%) Banking
9 4 (1.25%) Aerospace
9 4 (1.25%) Front Office
9 4 (1.25%) Investment Banking
9 4 (1.25%) Marketing
9 4 (1.25%) Military
10 3 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.94%) International Banking
10 3 (0.94%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.63%) Aeronautics
11 2 (0.63%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (0.63%) Law
11 2 (0.63%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 47 (14.69%) Architect
2 43 (13.44%) IT Engineer
3 37 (11.56%) Field Engineer
3 37 (11.56%) Field Service Engineer
4 30 (9.38%) Analyst
4 30 (9.38%) Senior
5 29 (9.06%) IT Support
6 21 (6.56%) Support Engineer
7 18 (5.63%) IT Support Engineer
7 18 (5.63%) Wintel Engineer
8 16 (5.00%) Administrator
8 16 (5.00%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
8 16 (5.00%) Solutions Architect
8 16 (5.00%) Support Analyst
9 15 (4.69%) IT Analyst
10 13 (4.06%) Cloud Engineer
10 13 (4.06%) Developer
10 13 (4.06%) Field Support Engineer
10 13 (4.06%) Technical Support
11 11 (3.44%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (5.00%) OAuth
2 14 (4.38%) OpenID
2 14 (4.38%) SAML
3 12 (3.75%) .NET
3 12 (3.75%) OAuth2
4 11 (3.44%) LDAP
5 10 (3.13%) ARM Templates
6 6 (1.88%) Microsoft Graph
7 5 (1.56%) ONVIF
7 5 (1.56%) REST
8 4 (1.25%) Web Services
8 4 (1.25%) YAML
9 3 (0.94%) React
9 3 (0.94%) SailPoint
10 2 (0.63%) CSS
10 2 (0.63%) Jest
10 2 (0.63%) OpenGL
10 2 (0.63%) PySpark
10 2 (0.63%) Qt
10 2 (0.63%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 40 (12.50%) Analytical Mindset
1 40 (12.50%) Data Centre
2 22 (6.88%) Onboarding
3 18 (5.63%) Replication
4 17 (5.31%) Enterprise Software
5 16 (5.00%) Clustering
6 10 (3.13%) BYOD
6 10 (3.13%) Hybrid Cloud
7 7 (2.19%) Cloud Native
7 7 (2.19%) Legacy Systems
7 7 (2.19%) Security Posture
8 6 (1.88%) PKI
9 5 (1.56%) Cloud Security Posture
9 5 (1.56%) Management Information System
9 5 (1.56%) Mobile App
9 5 (1.56%) Operational Technology
9 5 (1.56%) Video\Live Streaming
10 4 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.25%) Low-Code
10 4 (1.25%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 103 (32.19%) Windows
2 50 (15.63%) Windows Server
3 29 (9.06%) Windows 10
4 20 (6.25%) Linux
5 9 (2.81%) Android
6 7 (2.19%) Windows 7
6 7 (2.19%) Windows Server 2003
6 7 (2.19%) Windows Server 2016
7 6 (1.88%) Apple iOS
7 6 (1.88%) Unix
8 5 (1.56%) Mac OS
8 5 (1.56%) VMS
8 5 (1.56%) Windows Server 2012
9 3 (0.94%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.63%) AIX
11 1 (0.31%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 109 (34.06%) Problem-Solving
2 59 (18.44%) Customer Service
3 57 (17.81%) ITIL
4 52 (16.25%) Migration
5 51 (15.94%) DevOps
6 46 (14.38%) Analytics
7 45 (14.06%) CI/CD
8 39 (12.19%) Agile
9 37 (11.56%) Break/Fix
10 33 (10.31%) Disaster Recovery
10 33 (10.31%) High Availability
10 33 (10.31%) Infrastructure as Code
11 30 (9.38%) Computer Science
12 28 (8.75%) Identity Access Management
12 28 (8.75%) Project Delivery
12 28 (8.75%) RBAC
13 27 (8.44%) Business Intelligence
13 27 (8.44%) Data Governance
13 27 (8.44%) Roadmaps
14 26 (8.13%) Data Loss Prevention
Programming Languages
1 94 (29.38%) PowerShell
2 38 (11.88%) SQL
3 31 (9.69%) Python
4 18 (5.63%) Bicep
5 10 (3.13%) Bash
5 10 (3.13%) C#
6 7 (2.19%) T-SQL
7 5 (1.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 5 (1.56%) JavaScript
8 4 (1.25%) R
8 4 (1.25%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.31%) Java
9 1 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.31%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.31%) VB
9 1 (0.31%) VBScript
9 1 (0.31%) X++
Qualifications
1 97 (30.31%) MCSE
2 92 (28.75%) Security Cleared
3 83 (25.94%) Degree
4 76 (23.75%) SC Cleared
5 58 (18.13%) Cisco Certification
6 57 (17.81%) Azure Certification
7 51 (15.94%) A+ Certification
8 49 (15.31%) CCNA
9 48 (15.00%) Network+ Certification
10 41 (12.81%) MCSA
11 27 (8.44%) Computer Science Degree
12 24 (7.50%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 22 (6.88%) DV Cleared
14 18 (5.63%) CISSP
15 14 (4.38%) VCAP
16 11 (3.44%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 9 (2.81%) CCNP
18 8 (2.50%) CompTIA Security+
19 7 (2.19%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
19 7 (2.19%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (5.94%) NIST
2 17 (5.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 12 (3.75%) GDPR
4 8 (2.50%) Cyber Essentials
4 8 (2.50%) Data Quality
4 8 (2.50%) SLA
5 6 (1.88%) NCSC
5 6 (1.88%) NIST 800
6 4 (1.25%) Accessibility
6 4 (1.25%) QA
7 3 (0.94%) WCAG
8 1 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 1 (0.31%) GxP
8 1 (0.31%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.31%) SOC 2
System Software
1 111 (34.69%) Active Directory
2 33 (10.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 19 (5.94%) VMware ESXi
4 16 (5.00%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (4.69%) Virtual Machines
5 15 (4.69%) vSphere
6 14 (4.38%) Docker
7 9 (2.81%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.63%) Firmware
8 2 (0.63%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.63%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.63%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.31%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 39 (12.19%) Microsoft Intune
2 37 (11.56%) Terraform
3 32 (10.00%) Ansible
4 19 (5.94%) SCCM
5 18 (5.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 18 (5.63%) Kubernetes
6 17 (5.31%) vCenter Server
7 8 (2.50%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (1.88%) CASB
9 5 (1.56%) Nessus
9 5 (1.56%) WSUS
10 3 (0.94%) Podman
11 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
11 2 (0.63%) Packer
11 2 (0.63%) PowerCLI
11 2 (0.63%) QRadar
11 2 (0.63%) SCOM
12 1 (0.31%) Cisco CUCM
12 1 (0.31%) Jamf Pro
12 1 (0.31%) PaperCut
Vendors
1 256 (80.00%) Microsoft
2 41 (12.81%) VMware
3 38 (11.88%) Dell
4 25 (7.81%) Cisco
5 15 (4.69%) Oracle
6 12 (3.75%) Apple
6 12 (3.75%) ServiceNow
7 11 (3.44%) Citrix
7 11 (3.44%) Databricks
8 8 (2.50%) Tenable
9 6 (1.88%) CyberArk
9 6 (1.88%) Red Hat
9 6 (1.88%) Remedy
10 5 (1.56%) Atlassian
10 5 (1.56%) IBM
10 5 (1.56%) Veeam
11 4 (1.25%) Bloomberg
11 4 (1.25%) HP
11 4 (1.25%) NetApp
11 4 (1.25%) Reuters