Microsoft Certification Contract Job Trends in the South East

Microsoft Certification
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South East with a requirement for Microsoft Certification qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 23 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 118 111 165
Rank change year-on-year -7 +54 +24
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 57 64 44
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.40% 1.53% 0.83%
As % of the Qualifications category 3.36% 3.89% 1.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 46 49 30
10th Percentile £219 £200 £118
25th Percentile £268 £330 £227
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £486 £495 £375
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% +32.00% -21.88%
75th Percentile £633 £560 £500
90th Percentile £650 £725 £700
England median daily rate £500 £478 £500
% change year-on-year +4.71% -4.50% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 2
10th Percentile £76.59 - £20.27
25th Percentile £84.97 - £26.29
Median hourly rate £89.63 £12.00 £36.95
Median % change year-on-year +646.92% -67.52% -
75th Percentile - - £46.99
90th Percentile - - £52.64
England median hourly rate £25.31 £21.46 £22.00
% change year-on-year +17.94% -2.45% +41.94%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
South East

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 the South East.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 1,698 1,647 2,271
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 41.73% 39.50% 42.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,102 1,064 1,348
10th Percentile £255 £278 £213
25th Percentile £413 £413 £401
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +2.33% +2.38%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £638
90th Percentile £653 £700 £689
England median daily rate £525 £531 £550
% change year-on-year -1.04% -3.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 96 149
10th Percentile £18.87 £22.33 £24.90
25th Percentile £18.94 £31.25 £49.73
Median hourly rate £25.15 £58.17 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -56.77% -3.05% +33.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £70.08 £71.25
90th Percentile £89.72 £88.75 £78.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £53.50
% change year-on-year -49.70% -6.54% +18.89%

Microsoft Certification
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Microsoft Certification relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Microsoft Certification job vacancy trend in the South East

Microsoft Certification
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Microsoft Certification.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Microsoft Certification

Microsoft Certification
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft Certification in the South East over the 6 months to 23 November 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft Certification in the South East

Microsoft Certification
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Microsoft Certification.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Microsoft Certification

Microsoft Certification
Contract Job Locations in the South East

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 South East region over the 6 months to 23 November 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
Thames Valley -11 29 £385 -22.61% 52
Hampshire +4 24 £600 +20.00% 19
Berkshire +25 23 £358 -18.75% 23
Oxfordshire -8 5 £325 +103.13% 18
Surrey -2 4 £284 -29.06% 8
Buckinghamshire -27 1 £475 -5.47% 13
Microsoft Certification
England

Microsoft Certification
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 4 (7.02%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.75%) SharePoint
2 1 (1.75%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (1.75%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.75%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 29 (50.88%) Azure
2 21 (36.84%) AWS
3 10 (17.54%) Microsoft 365
4 6 (10.53%) Entra ID
5 4 (7.02%) Power Platform
6 3 (5.26%) Microsoft Purview
7 2 (3.51%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 2 (3.51%) Dynamics 365
7 2 (3.51%) GCP
7 2 (3.51%) IaaS
7 2 (3.51%) PaaS
7 2 (3.51%) SaaS
8 1 (1.75%) Azure AKS
8 1 (1.75%) Azure DevOps
8 1 (1.75%) Azure Key Vault
8 1 (1.75%) Azure Monitor
8 1 (1.75%) Azure Sentinel
8 1 (1.75%) GitHub
8 1 (1.75%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (1.75%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 20 (35.09%) DNS
2 17 (29.82%) DHCP
3 15 (26.32%) TCP/IP
4 13 (22.81%) Fibre Channel
4 13 (22.81%) iSCSI
5 11 (19.30%) VLAN
6 9 (15.79%) Firewall
7 5 (8.77%) VPN
8 4 (7.02%) Wireless
9 3 (5.26%) VSAN
9 3 (5.26%) Wi-Fi
10 2 (3.51%) SSL
11 1 (1.75%) Kerberos
11 1 (1.75%) Network Security
11 1 (1.75%) SAN
11 1 (1.75%) Skype
11 1 (1.75%) Structured Cabling
11 1 (1.75%) Unified Communications
11 1 (1.75%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (5.26%) Relational Database
2 2 (3.51%) Amazon RDS
2 2 (3.51%) Apache Cassandra
2 2 (3.51%) Azure SQL Database
2 2 (3.51%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (3.51%) MongoDB
2 2 (3.51%) MySQL
2 2 (3.51%) NoSQL
2 2 (3.51%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (3.51%) RDBMS
2 2 (3.51%) SQL Server
3 1 (1.75%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 4 (7.02%) JIRA
General
1 20 (35.09%) Social Skills
2 17 (29.82%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (8.77%) Finance
4 4 (7.02%) Organisational Skills
5 3 (5.26%) Aerospace
5 3 (5.26%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (5.26%) Public Sector
6 1 (1.75%) Back Office
6 1 (1.75%) Banking
6 1 (1.75%) Military
6 1 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
6 1 (1.75%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 24 (42.11%) Architect
2 15 (26.32%) Support Engineer
3 13 (22.81%) Infrastructure Architect
4 12 (21.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 12 (21.05%) VMware Architect
5 11 (19.30%) Infrastructure Support
5 11 (19.30%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
6 5 (8.77%) Solutions Architect
7 4 (7.02%) Analyst
8 3 (5.26%) Consultant
8 3 (5.26%) Cybersecurity Architect
8 3 (5.26%) Security Architect
9 2 (3.51%) 1st Line Support
9 2 (3.51%) Azure Architect
9 2 (3.51%) Cloud Architect
9 2 (3.51%) Delivery Manager
9 2 (3.51%) IT Engineer
9 2 (3.51%) IT Support
9 2 (3.51%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 2 (3.51%) Security Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (3.51%) OAuth
1 2 (3.51%) OpenID
1 2 (3.51%) SAML
2 1 (1.75%) Azure Blueprints
2 1 (1.75%) LDAP
2 1 (1.75%) OAuth2
2 1 (1.75%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 12 (21.05%) Analytical Mindset
2 4 (7.02%) Replication
3 3 (5.26%) PKI
4 2 (3.51%) Clustering
4 2 (3.51%) Data Centre
4 2 (3.51%) Hybrid Cloud
4 2 (3.51%) Operational Technology
4 2 (3.51%) Security Operations Centre
4 2 (3.51%) Video Conferencing
5 1 (1.75%) Cloud Native
5 1 (1.75%) Cyber Defence
5 1 (1.75%) Fat Client
5 1 (1.75%) iPad
5 1 (1.75%) iPhone
5 1 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (1.75%) Private Cloud
5 1 (1.75%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 38 (66.67%) Windows
2 14 (24.56%) Windows Server
3 13 (22.81%) Windows Server 2019
4 12 (21.05%) Linux
5 8 (14.04%) Mac OS
6 7 (12.28%) Windows 10
7 1 (1.75%) Apple iOS
7 1 (1.75%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (43.86%) Problem-Solving
2 21 (36.84%) ITIL
3 15 (26.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 15 (26.32%) Service Management
4 13 (22.81%) Disaster Recovery
5 11 (19.30%) Preventative Maintenance
5 11 (19.30%) Virtual Infrastructure
6 8 (14.04%) Mentoring
7 7 (12.28%) Application Packaging
7 7 (12.28%) Computer Science
7 7 (12.28%) Customer Requirements
7 7 (12.28%) Customer Service
7 7 (12.28%) ITSM
8 6 (10.53%) Continuous Improvement
8 6 (10.53%) Cybersecurity
8 6 (10.53%) Edge Virtualization
8 6 (10.53%) Performance Analysis
8 6 (10.53%) Stakeholder Management
9 5 (8.77%) User Experience
10 4 (7.02%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 16 (28.07%) SQL
2 6 (10.53%) PowerShell
3 4 (7.02%) Bash
4 2 (3.51%) Python
5 1 (1.75%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 34 (59.65%) Security Cleared
2 19 (33.33%) SC Cleared
3 18 (31.58%) Azure Certification
3 18 (31.58%) MCSE
4 14 (24.56%) DV Cleared
5 12 (21.05%) Degree
5 12 (21.05%) Network+ Certification
6 11 (19.30%) Server+ Certification
7 9 (15.79%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 7 (12.28%) A+ Certification
8 7 (12.28%) VCP5
8 7 (12.28%) VCP6
9 6 (10.53%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (7.02%) CCNA
10 4 (7.02%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (5.26%) CISSP
11 3 (5.26%) Citrix Certification
11 3 (5.26%) Master's Degree
11 3 (5.26%) TOGAF Certification
12 2 (3.51%) OCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (21.05%) GDPR
2 9 (15.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (7.02%) NIST
4 2 (3.51%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (1.75%) Government Security Classifications
5 1 (1.75%) JSP 440
5 1 (1.75%) NCSC
5 1 (1.75%) PMO
System Software
1 28 (49.12%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (28.07%) Active Directory
3 15 (26.32%) VMware ESXi
4 14 (24.56%) vSphere
5 13 (22.81%) NFS
6 12 (21.05%) Hyper-V
7 3 (5.26%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 7 (12.28%) SCCM
2 4 (7.02%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (5.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 2 (3.51%) vCenter Server
5 1 (1.75%) CSIRT
5 1 (1.75%) Kubernetes
5 1 (1.75%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (1.75%) Terraform
Vendors
1 55 (96.49%) Microsoft
2 30 (52.63%) VMware
3 15 (26.32%) Splunk
4 13 (22.81%) NetApp
4 13 (22.81%) Veeam
5 6 (10.53%) CheckPoint
5 6 (10.53%) ServiceNow
6 5 (8.77%) Cisco
7 4 (7.02%) Palo Alto
8 3 (5.26%) Citrix
9 2 (3.51%) Fortinet
9 2 (3.51%) Oracle
9 2 (3.51%) Tenable
9 2 (3.51%) Thales
10 1 (1.75%) CyberArk
10 1 (1.75%) Dell
10 1 (1.75%) Polycom