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 10 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Jul 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 297 251 266
Rank change year-on-year -46 +15 +82
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 352 287 331
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.79% 1.06% 0.89%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.48% 3.44% 2.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 248 172 206
10th Percentile £155 £200 £183
25th Percentile £306 £300 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £498
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +0.50% -5.24%
75th Percentile £570 £625 £556
90th Percentile £675 £661 £675
UK median daily rate £450 £470 £495
% change year-on-year -4.26% -5.05% -5.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 29 55
10th Percentile £15.00 - £13.69
25th Percentile £20.75 £14.99 £14.16
Median hourly rate £52.50 £17.44 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +201.03% +6.99% +5.16%
75th Percentile £178.75 £33.75 £21.37
90th Percentile - £37.50 -
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £17.44 £16.30
% change year-on-year +201.03% +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 14,173 8,341 11,350
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.62% 30.86% 30.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,556 5,267 7,064
10th Percentile £350 £285 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £716 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.05% -0.05% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,059 580 997
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.25 £19.87 £20.75
Median hourly rate £53.90 £27.85 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +93.54% -34.47% -22.73%
75th Percentile £74.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.62 £76.34 £75.65
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £27.38 £40.94
% change year-on-year +82.65% -33.13% -25.56%

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 10 July 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 10 July 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 10 July 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 -52 117 £525 +5.00% 67
North of England -60 76 £483 +13.65% 66
North West -30 59 £482 +13.41% 32
South East -44 56 £275 -54.17% 69
East of England -32 33 £173 -23.33% 26
Midlands -45 33 £425 +52.47% 33
South West -24 32 £450 -13.46% 20
West Midlands -58 27 £425 +72.94% 18
Yorkshire -40 13 £650 +57.58% 22
East Midlands -12 6 £431 -13.05% 15
North East -36 4 £363 +81.25% 14
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 39 (11.08%) SharePoint
2 26 (7.39%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.28%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.28%) Confluence
Applications
1 15 (4.26%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.70%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.28%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (2.27%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.42%) Oracle Payables
2 5 (1.42%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
3 1 (0.28%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 184 (52.27%) Azure
2 97 (27.56%) Microsoft 365
3 79 (22.44%) Entra ID
4 61 (17.33%) Power Platform
5 41 (11.65%) Power Automate
6 40 (11.36%) Azure DevOps
7 35 (9.94%) PowerApps
8 30 (8.52%) Microsoft Purview
9 29 (8.24%) AWS
10 28 (7.95%) Dynamics 365
11 23 (6.53%) OneDrive
12 22 (6.25%) GitHub
13 18 (5.11%) Azure Logic Apps
14 17 (4.83%) Microsoft Copilot
15 14 (3.98%) Azure Monitor
16 11 (3.13%) Azure Data Factory
16 11 (3.13%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 11 (3.13%) Serverless
17 10 (2.84%) Azure Functions
17 10 (2.84%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 38 (10.80%) DNS
1 38 (10.80%) SAN
2 30 (8.52%) Firewall
3 27 (7.67%) VPN
4 22 (6.25%) TCP/IP
5 15 (4.26%) DHCP
5 15 (4.26%) LAN
6 9 (2.56%) Wi-Fi
7 8 (2.27%) SSL
8 7 (1.99%) WAN
9 6 (1.70%) Network Security
9 6 (1.70%) Wireless
10 5 (1.42%) NGFW
11 4 (1.14%) Internet
11 4 (1.14%) Kerberos
11 4 (1.14%) VLAN
12 3 (0.85%) DMZ
12 3 (0.85%) Intrusion Detection
12 3 (0.85%) NAS
12 3 (0.85%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (10.23%) SQL Server
2 34 (9.66%) Power BI
3 20 (5.68%) MySQL
4 17 (4.83%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (1.70%) Power Query
7 5 (1.42%) Metadata
7 5 (1.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 4 (1.14%) Data Lake
8 4 (1.14%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 4 (1.14%) Star Schema
9 3 (0.85%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
9 3 (0.85%) Big Data
10 2 (0.57%) BusinessObjects
10 2 (0.57%) Data Mart
10 2 (0.57%) QlikView
10 2 (0.57%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.57%) Semantic Layer
10 2 (0.57%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (2.27%) Git
2 5 (1.42%) Selenium
2 5 (1.42%) WebDriver
3 4 (1.14%) JIRA
4 3 (0.85%) Cucumber
4 3 (0.85%) Cypress.io
4 3 (0.85%) Postman
4 3 (0.85%) Visual Studio Code
5 2 (0.57%) GitLab
6 1 (0.28%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.28%) MLflow
6 1 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 131 (37.22%) Social Skills
2 86 (24.43%) Analytical Skills
3 49 (13.92%) Public Sector
4 46 (13.07%) Finance
5 22 (6.25%) Telecoms
6 15 (4.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (3.41%) Legal
8 11 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
9 5 (1.42%) Banking
9 5 (1.42%) Organisational Skills
10 4 (1.14%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.85%) Front Office
11 3 (0.85%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (0.85%) Investment Banking
11 3 (0.85%) Military
11 3 (0.85%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.57%) Law
12 2 (0.57%) Local Government
13 1 (0.28%) Mandarin Language
13 1 (0.28%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 45 (12.78%) IT Engineer
2 42 (11.93%) Architect
3 41 (11.65%) Analyst
4 36 (10.23%) Senior
5 35 (9.94%) IT Support
6 34 (9.66%) Field Engineer
6 34 (9.66%) Field Service Engineer
7 27 (7.67%) Administrator
8 25 (7.10%) DBA
8 25 (7.10%) Support Engineer
9 22 (6.25%) IT Support Engineer
10 19 (5.40%) Developer
10 19 (5.40%) Lead
10 19 (5.40%) Support Analyst
11 18 (5.11%) Technical Support
12 17 (4.83%) IT Analyst
13 16 (4.55%) Solutions Architect
14 15 (4.26%) Wintel Engineer
15 13 (3.69%) Field Support Engineer
15 13 (3.69%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (3.98%) OAuth
2 13 (3.69%) ONVIF
3 12 (3.41%) .NET
3 12 (3.41%) LDAP
3 12 (3.41%) OpenID
3 12 (3.41%) SAML
4 10 (2.84%) OAuth2
5 8 (2.27%) JSON
6 7 (1.99%) Microsoft Graph
7 6 (1.70%) SailPoint
7 6 (1.70%) Web Services
8 5 (1.42%) REST
9 4 (1.14%) ARM Templates
10 3 (0.85%) Gherkin
10 3 (0.85%) Middleware
10 3 (0.85%) PySpark
10 3 (0.85%) YAML
11 2 (0.57%) OpenGL
11 2 (0.57%) XML
11 2 (0.57%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 40 (11.36%) Data Centre
2 37 (10.51%) Analytical Mindset
3 28 (7.95%) Onboarding
4 20 (5.68%) Replication
5 17 (4.83%) Clustering
5 17 (4.83%) Management Information System
5 17 (4.83%) Security Posture
6 16 (4.55%) Cloud Native
7 13 (3.69%) Video\Live Streaming
8 11 (3.13%) Enterprise Software
8 11 (3.13%) Legacy Systems
9 8 (2.27%) Hybrid Cloud
9 8 (2.27%) PKI
9 8 (2.27%) Product Ownership
10 6 (1.70%) AI Agents
10 6 (1.70%) Data Structures
10 6 (1.70%) Enterprise Cloud
10 6 (1.70%) Low-Code
10 6 (1.70%) Mobile App
11 5 (1.42%) Cloud Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 110 (31.25%) Windows
2 49 (13.92%) Windows Server
3 32 (9.09%) Windows 10
4 20 (5.68%) Linux
5 14 (3.98%) Android
6 10 (2.84%) Apple iOS
7 9 (2.56%) Mac OS
7 9 (2.56%) Windows Server 2003
8 8 (2.27%) Windows 7
9 6 (1.70%) Unix
9 6 (1.70%) VMS
9 6 (1.70%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (1.14%) Solaris
10 4 (1.14%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (1.14%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 2 (0.57%) AIX
12 2 (0.57%) Alpine Linux
12 2 (0.57%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 135 (38.35%) Problem-Solving
2 73 (20.74%) DevOps
3 72 (20.45%) Customer Service
4 66 (18.75%) ITIL
5 52 (14.77%) Agile
6 47 (13.35%) CI/CD
7 40 (11.36%) Infrastructure as Code
8 36 (10.23%) Computer Science
8 36 (10.23%) Migration
8 36 (10.23%) Stakeholder Management
9 35 (9.94%) Project Delivery
10 34 (9.66%) Analytics
10 34 (9.66%) Break/Fix
10 34 (9.66%) Business Intelligence
11 31 (8.81%) AI
11 31 (8.81%) Data Governance
11 31 (8.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 27 (7.67%) Technical Leadership
13 26 (7.39%) Data Loss Prevention
13 26 (7.39%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 92 (26.14%) PowerShell
2 39 (11.08%) SQL
3 33 (9.38%) Python
4 23 (6.53%) C#
5 19 (5.40%) Bicep
5 19 (5.40%) JavaScript
6 14 (3.98%) Bash
7 7 (1.99%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 6 (1.70%) T-SQL
9 3 (0.85%) X++
10 2 (0.57%) Java
10 2 (0.57%) Perl
10 2 (0.57%) R
11 1 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.28%) VB
Qualifications
1 118 (33.52%) Security Cleared
2 97 (27.56%) SC Cleared
3 95 (26.99%) Degree
4 90 (25.57%) MCSE
5 67 (19.03%) A+ Certification
6 63 (17.90%) Cisco Certification
7 59 (16.76%) Azure Certification
8 54 (15.34%) CCNA
9 47 (13.35%) Network+ Certification
10 44 (12.50%) MCSA
11 25 (7.10%) DV Cleared
12 23 (6.53%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 22 (6.25%) Computer Science Degree
14 13 (3.69%) AWS Certification
14 13 (3.69%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 12 (3.41%) VCAP
16 11 (3.13%) CISSP
17 10 (2.84%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 10 (2.84%) Oracle Certification
18 9 (2.56%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.97%) NIST
2 20 (5.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 13 (3.69%) Data Quality
3 13 (3.69%) SLA
4 12 (3.41%) Accessibility
5 10 (2.84%) GDPR
5 10 (2.84%) QA
6 7 (1.99%) NCSC
7 5 (1.42%) WCAG
8 4 (1.14%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.85%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.85%) NIST 800
10 2 (0.57%) SOC 2
10 2 (0.57%) Solvency II
11 1 (0.28%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 1 (0.28%) GRC
11 1 (0.28%) GxP
11 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 1 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 115 (32.67%) Active Directory
2 32 (9.09%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (5.68%) VMware ESXi
4 19 (5.40%) Virtual Machines
5 17 (4.83%) Virtual Desktop
6 16 (4.55%) vSphere
7 13 (3.69%) Docker
8 5 (1.42%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.85%) Firmware
9 3 (0.85%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.57%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.57%) Microsoft App-V
10 2 (0.57%) VMware Workstation
11 1 (0.28%) NFS
11 1 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 41 (11.65%) Microsoft Intune
1 41 (11.65%) Terraform
2 29 (8.24%) Ansible
3 19 (5.40%) vCenter Server
4 18 (5.11%) SCCM
5 13 (3.69%) Kubernetes
6 11 (3.13%) SCOM
7 7 (1.99%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (1.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 6 (1.70%) CASB
9 5 (1.42%) Nessus
10 3 (0.85%) Grafana
10 3 (0.85%) Podman
10 3 (0.85%) QRadar
10 3 (0.85%) WSUS
11 2 (0.57%) Packer
11 2 (0.57%) vMotion
12 1 (0.28%) Backup Exec
12 1 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
12 1 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 283 (80.40%) Microsoft
2 41 (11.65%) VMware
3 35 (9.94%) Dell
4 25 (7.10%) Cisco
4 25 (7.10%) Oracle
5 23 (6.53%) ServiceNow
6 12 (3.41%) Apple
7 11 (3.13%) Citrix
7 11 (3.13%) Remedy
8 10 (2.84%) Splunk
9 8 (2.27%) SolarWinds
10 7 (1.99%) CyberArk
10 7 (1.99%) Tenable
11 5 (1.42%) Dynatrace
11 5 (1.42%) Foundry
11 5 (1.42%) Google
11 5 (1.42%) NetApp
12 4 (1.14%) Databricks
12 4 (1.14%) HP
12 4 (1.14%) Palo Alto
252 Microsoft Certification jobs in England