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 21 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 282 228 289
Rank change year-on-year -54 +61 +90
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 328 271 276
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.88% 1.11% 0.73%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.58% 3.56% 2.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 227 160 194
10th Percentile £219 £210 £205
25th Percentile £391 £300 £293
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £456
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% +9.59% -4.95%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £575
90th Percentile £711 £725 £700
UK median daily rate £509 £475 £450
% change year-on-year +7.11% +5.56% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 23 41
10th Percentile - £14.99 £13.69
25th Percentile £6.00 £15.44 £14.48
Median hourly rate £16.00 £21.46 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year -25.44% +31.66% +5.16%
75th Percentile £24.25 £28.71 £21.37
90th Percentile £25.47 £37.00 £30.00
UK median hourly rate £16.00 £21.46 £16.30
% change year-on-year -25.44% +31.66% +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 12,713 7,617 11,798
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.96% 31.10% 31.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,453 4,837 7,318
10th Percentile £331 £290 £300
25th Percentile £423 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 985 420 909
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.62 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.75 £25.26 £18.13
Median hourly rate £29.61 £50.00 £38.75
Median % change year-on-year -40.78% +29.03% -22.50%
75th Percentile £67.84 £68.00 £63.29
90th Percentile £84.60 £82.25 £77.10
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £42.50 £38.16
% change year-on-year -29.41% +11.39% -26.63%

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 21 March 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 21 March 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 21 March 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 -12 127 £525 +13.51% 64
South West -4 51 £560 -0.44% 26
North of England -71 48 £469 -7.21% 44
Midlands -49 40 £400 +37.93% 36
North West -40 37 £465 -7.08% 25
South East -66 35 £480 -4.00% 68
West Midlands -54 31 £425 +92.53% 24
East of England -27 21 £173 -65.50% 31
East Midlands -28 9 £215 -46.25% 12
Yorkshire -48 8 £484 -19.33% 14
North East -13 3 - - 6
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 (13.11%) Microsoft Exchange
2 33 (10.06%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.22%) Confluence
4 3 (0.91%) Exchange Server 2013
5 2 (0.61%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 17 (5.18%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (3.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (2.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.22%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.91%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 8 (2.44%) Dynamics CRM
1 8 (2.44%) Veritas eDiscovery
2 7 (2.13%) Maximo
3 2 (0.61%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 150 (45.73%) Azure
2 104 (31.71%) Microsoft 365
3 65 (19.82%) Entra ID
4 54 (16.46%) Power Platform
5 33 (10.06%) Azure DevOps
6 32 (9.76%) Microsoft Purview
7 29 (8.84%) AWS
8 25 (7.62%) Power Automate
8 25 (7.62%) PowerApps
9 20 (6.10%) Azure Data Factory
9 20 (6.10%) Azure Monitor
9 20 (6.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 20 (6.10%) Dynamics 365
10 17 (5.18%) Microsoft Copilot
11 16 (4.88%) OneDrive
12 15 (4.57%) Azure AKS
12 15 (4.57%) GitHub
13 14 (4.27%) Azure Sentinel
14 13 (3.96%) Azure Key Vault
15 12 (3.66%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 43 (13.11%) DNS
2 40 (12.20%) Firewall
3 33 (10.06%) VPN
4 20 (6.10%) SAN
5 16 (4.88%) DHCP
5 16 (4.88%) TCP/IP
6 12 (3.66%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (3.35%) LAN
8 9 (2.74%) Network Security
9 8 (2.44%) VLAN
10 6 (1.83%) SSL
11 5 (1.52%) Skype
12 4 (1.22%) DKIM
12 4 (1.22%) DMARC
13 3 (0.91%) Kerberos
13 3 (0.91%) NetScaler
13 3 (0.91%) RS-232
13 3 (0.91%) SMTP
13 3 (0.91%) Unified Communications
13 3 (0.91%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (9.15%) SQL Server
2 24 (7.32%) Power BI
3 16 (4.88%) Data Lake
4 12 (3.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 9 (2.74%) MySQL
5 9 (2.74%) PostgreSQL
6 8 (2.44%) Azure SQL Database
6 8 (2.44%) Data Warehouse
7 7 (2.13%) Metadata
8 5 (1.52%) Delta Lake
8 5 (1.52%) Power Query
8 5 (1.52%) Spark SQL
9 4 (1.22%) Metadata Repository
10 3 (0.91%) Oracle Database
10 3 (0.91%) Star Schema
10 3 (0.91%) Tableau
11 2 (0.61%) Big Data
11 2 (0.61%) Relational Database
12 1 (0.30%) Oracle Database 12c
12 1 (0.30%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 14 (4.27%) Git
2 6 (1.83%) JIRA
3 5 (1.52%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.22%) Bitbucket
4 4 (1.22%) GitLab
5 2 (0.61%) CircleCI
5 2 (0.61%) Cypress.io
5 2 (0.61%) JDeveloper
5 2 (0.61%) Selenium
5 2 (0.61%) WebDriver
6 1 (0.30%) AdminStudio
6 1 (0.30%) InstallShield
6 1 (0.30%) MLflow
6 1 (0.30%) MSI
6 1 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.30%) Team Foundation Server
6 1 (0.30%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 128 (39.02%) Social Skills
2 55 (16.77%) Analytical Skills
3 37 (11.28%) Public Sector
4 32 (9.76%) Finance
5 15 (4.57%) Documentation Skills
5 15 (4.57%) Legal
6 12 (3.66%) Banking
7 6 (1.83%) Marketing
7 6 (1.83%) Military
8 5 (1.52%) Telecoms
9 4 (1.22%) International Banking
10 3 (0.91%) Aerospace
10 3 (0.91%) Front Office
10 3 (0.91%) Investment Banking
10 3 (0.91%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (0.91%) Polish Language
10 3 (0.91%) Retail
11 2 (0.61%) Aeronautics
11 2 (0.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.61%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 51 (15.55%) Architect
2 35 (10.67%) Analyst
3 29 (8.84%) Senior
4 24 (7.32%) IT Engineer
5 21 (6.40%) Administrator
5 21 (6.40%) Solutions Architect
6 20 (6.10%) Support Engineer
7 19 (5.79%) Field Engineer
7 19 (5.79%) IT Support
8 18 (5.49%) Field Service Engineer
9 16 (4.88%) Azure Engineer
9 16 (4.88%) Wintel Engineer
10 15 (4.57%) Lead
10 15 (4.57%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
10 15 (4.57%) Support Analyst
11 14 (4.27%) DBA
11 14 (4.27%) Security Engineer
12 13 (3.96%) Consultant
12 13 (3.96%) Technical Analyst
12 13 (3.96%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (8.84%) OAuth
2 26 (7.93%) SAML
3 25 (7.62%) OpenID
4 17 (5.18%) OAuth2
5 12 (3.66%) ARM Templates
6 11 (3.35%) .NET
6 11 (3.35%) Microsoft Graph
7 10 (3.05%) LDAP
7 10 (3.05%) REST
8 4 (1.22%) JSON
9 3 (0.91%) YAML
10 2 (0.61%) A2A Protocol
10 2 (0.61%) ASP.NET Web API
10 2 (0.61%) CSS
10 2 (0.61%) Jest
10 2 (0.61%) Model Context Protocol
10 2 (0.61%) Next.js
10 2 (0.61%) React
10 2 (0.61%) RESTful
10 2 (0.61%) Tailwind CSS
Miscellaneous
1 20 (6.10%) Analytical Mindset
1 20 (6.10%) Enterprise Software
2 19 (5.79%) Data Centre
2 19 (5.79%) Replication
3 16 (4.88%) Hybrid Cloud
4 15 (4.57%) Onboarding
5 14 (4.27%) BYOD
5 14 (4.27%) PKI
6 13 (3.96%) Security Posture
7 10 (3.05%) Clustering
7 10 (3.05%) Management Information System
8 9 (2.74%) Private Cloud
9 8 (2.44%) Cloud Native
10 5 (1.52%) Cloud Security Posture
10 5 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
10 5 (1.52%) Low-Code
10 5 (1.52%) NHS
10 5 (1.52%) Operational Technology
10 5 (1.52%) Security Operations Centre
11 3 (0.91%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 124 (37.80%) Windows
2 62 (18.90%) Windows Server
3 29 (8.84%) Windows 10
4 21 (6.40%) Linux
5 14 (4.27%) Windows Server 2012
6 12 (3.66%) Windows Server 2003
7 8 (2.44%) Mac OS
8 7 (2.13%) Windows 7
8 7 (2.13%) Windows Server 2016
9 6 (1.83%) Unix
10 5 (1.52%) Android
11 4 (1.22%) VMS
12 3 (0.91%) CentOS
13 2 (0.61%) AIX
13 2 (0.61%) Apple iOS
13 2 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 91 (27.74%) Problem-Solving
2 67 (20.43%) ITIL
3 53 (16.16%) Migration
4 48 (14.63%) DevOps
5 45 (13.72%) CI/CD
5 45 (13.72%) Customer Service
6 44 (13.41%) RBAC
7 42 (12.80%) Identity Access Management
8 40 (12.20%) Analytics
9 35 (10.67%) Disaster Recovery
10 34 (10.37%) Agile
11 33 (10.06%) Cloud Security
11 33 (10.06%) Identity Management
12 30 (9.15%) Computer Science
12 30 (9.15%) Continuous Improvement
12 30 (9.15%) Roadmaps
13 28 (8.54%) AI
13 28 (8.54%) Data Loss Prevention
14 27 (8.23%) Data Governance
14 27 (8.23%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 105 (32.01%) PowerShell
2 40 (12.20%) SQL
3 29 (8.84%) Python
4 17 (5.18%) Bicep
5 9 (2.74%) C#
6 6 (1.83%) Bash
6 6 (1.83%) T-SQL
7 5 (1.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 4 (1.22%) JavaScript
8 4 (1.22%) R
8 4 (1.22%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.30%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.30%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 108 (32.93%) Security Cleared
2 90 (27.44%) Degree
3 79 (24.09%) SC Cleared
4 78 (23.78%) MCSE
5 66 (20.12%) Azure Certification
6 34 (10.37%) MCSA
7 32 (9.76%) Cisco Certification
8 31 (9.45%) DV Cleared
9 29 (8.84%) CISSP
10 27 (8.23%) A+ Certification
11 26 (7.93%) Network+ Certification
12 25 (7.62%) Computer Science Degree
13 24 (7.32%) CCNA
14 22 (6.71%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 14 (4.27%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 12 (3.66%) CISM
16 12 (3.66%) CompTIA Security+
17 11 (3.35%) AWS Certification
18 10 (3.05%) CCNP
19 8 (2.44%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (5.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 17 (5.18%) NIST
3 15 (4.57%) GDPR
4 8 (2.44%) NIST 800
5 7 (2.13%) NCSC
6 6 (1.83%) SLA
7 5 (1.52%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (1.52%) Data Quality
8 4 (1.22%) Accessibility
8 4 (1.22%) QA
9 2 (0.61%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 2 (0.61%) SOC 2
9 2 (0.61%) WCAG
10 1 (0.30%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (0.30%) GxP
10 1 (0.30%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.30%) PMO
10 1 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 143 (43.60%) Active Directory
2 28 (8.54%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (3.66%) Docker
4 11 (3.35%) vSphere
5 10 (3.05%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (2.74%) Hyper-V
6 9 (2.74%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (2.74%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.91%) Firmware
8 1 (0.30%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 1 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 41 (12.50%) Microsoft Intune
2 35 (10.67%) Terraform
3 30 (9.15%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 24 (7.32%) SCCM
5 21 (6.40%) Kubernetes
6 19 (5.79%) Single Sign-On
7 18 (5.49%) Ansible
8 9 (2.74%) vCenter Server
9 7 (2.13%) WSUS
10 6 (1.83%) CASB
11 5 (1.52%) Nessus
12 4 (1.22%) SCOM
13 2 (0.61%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
13 2 (0.61%) PowerCLI
14 1 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
14 1 (0.30%) Jamf Pro
14 1 (0.30%) Kubeflow
14 1 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
14 1 (0.30%) PaperCut
14 1 (0.30%) QRadar
Vendors
1 288 (87.80%) Microsoft
2 39 (11.89%) VMware
3 21 (6.40%) Dell
4 20 (6.10%) Cisco
5 19 (5.79%) Oracle
6 16 (4.88%) ServiceNow
7 13 (3.96%) Citrix
8 10 (3.05%) Databricks
8 10 (3.05%) Red Hat
9 9 (2.74%) Tenable
10 8 (2.44%) IBM
10 8 (2.44%) Veeam
11 6 (1.83%) Apple
11 6 (1.83%) CyberArk
11 6 (1.83%) SolarWinds
12 5 (1.52%) Remedy
12 5 (1.52%) Splunk
13 4 (1.22%) CheckPoint
13 4 (1.22%) Foundry
13 4 (1.22%) Palo Alto