MCSA Contract Job Trends in the North West

Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA) formerly Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the North West with a requirement for MCSA qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 20 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 138 122 134
Rank change year-on-year -16 +12 +43
Contract jobs citing MCSA 8 1 4
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 0.32% 0.046% 0.15%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.89% 0.15% 0.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 8 1 3
10th Percentile £424 - £226
25th Percentile £459 £505 £228
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £510 £238
Median % change year-on-year -5.35% +114.74% -24.00%
75th Percentile £613 £515 £259
90th Percentile £624 - £269
England median daily rate £600 £425 £494
% change year-on-year +41.18% -13.92% +23.44%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
North West

MCSA 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 the North West.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 894 681 829
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 35.62% 31.62% 31.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 582 347 547
10th Percentile £226 £212 £255
25th Percentile £394 £356 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £545
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -12.84% +6.34%
75th Percentile £614 £584 £645
90th Percentile £688 £673 £720
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 94 57 69
10th Percentile £17.61 £19.43 £16.25
25th Percentile £22.16 £24.00 £30.00
Median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +39.88% -29.62% +78.92%
75th Percentile £65.19 £55.25 -
90th Percentile £73.75 £77.09 £55.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £52.50
% change year-on-year -45.54% -12.04% +16.67%

MCSA
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing MCSA relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

MCSA job vacancy trend in the North West

MCSA
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing MCSA.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing MCSA

MCSA
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing MCSA in the North West over the 6 months to 20 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for MCSA in the North West

MCSA
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing MCSA.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing MCSA

MCSA
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing MCSA within the North West region over the 6 months to 20 December 2025. 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
Cumbria - 4 £465 - 2
Cheshire -11 2 £617 +20.93%
Manchester - 2 £481 - 1
MCSA
England

MCSA
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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:

Communications & Networking
1 3 (37.50%) DNS
1 3 (37.50%) Firewall
1 3 (37.50%) SSL
1 3 (37.50%) TCP/IP
2 1 (12.50%) Network Security
General
1 3 (37.50%) Finance
Job Titles
1 4 (50.00%) Wintel Engineer
2 1 (12.50%) Security Engineer
2 1 (12.50%) Senior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (37.50%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 4 (50.00%) Clustering
1 4 (50.00%) Replication
2 3 (37.50%) Cloud Security Posture
2 3 (37.50%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 7 (87.50%) Windows
2 4 (50.00%) Windows Server
3 3 (37.50%) Linux
3 3 (37.50%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (50.00%) Capacity Planning
1 4 (50.00%) Disaster Recovery
1 4 (50.00%) High Availability
1 4 (50.00%) ITIL
1 4 (50.00%) Network Virtualisation
2 3 (37.50%) Cloud Security
2 3 (37.50%) Identity Management
2 3 (37.50%) Log Correlation
2 3 (37.50%) Penetration Testing
2 3 (37.50%) Ticket Management
2 3 (37.50%) Validation
2 3 (37.50%) Vulnerability Assessment
2 3 (37.50%) Vulnerability Management
2 3 (37.50%) Vulnerability Remediation
2 3 (37.50%) Vulnerability Scanning
3 2 (25.00%) Project Delivery
4 1 (12.50%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 4 (50.00%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 8 (100.00%) MCSE
1 8 (100.00%) Microsoft Certification
2 4 (50.00%) SC Cleared
2 4 (50.00%) Security Cleared
2 4 (50.00%) VCAP
2 4 (50.00%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
3 3 (37.50%) CISSP
3 3 (37.50%) CompTIA Security+
System Software
1 4 (50.00%) Virtual Machines
1 4 (50.00%) VMware ESXi
1 4 (50.00%) VMware Infrastructure
1 4 (50.00%) vSphere
2 3 (37.50%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 4 (50.00%) Ansible
1 4 (50.00%) vCenter Server
2 3 (37.50%) CASB
2 3 (37.50%) Nessus
Vendors
1 6 (75.00%) Microsoft
2 4 (50.00%) Cisco
2 4 (50.00%) VMware
3 3 (37.50%) CyberArk
3 3 (37.50%) Remedy
3 3 (37.50%) Splunk
3 3 (37.50%) Tenable