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

6 months to
11 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 168 123 156
Rank change year-on-year -45 +33 +23
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 58 41 42
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.89% 1.22% 0.75%
As % of the Qualifications category 1.97% 3.03% 1.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 41 32 34
10th Percentile £126 £200 £286
25th Percentile £156 £459 £303
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £275 £600 £463
Median % change year-on-year -54.17% +29.73% -15.91%
75th Percentile £588 £650 £550
90th Percentile £640 - £556
England median daily rate £450 £500 £491
% change year-on-year -10.00% +1.78% -6.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - £71.00 -
Median hourly rate £38.25 £77.00 -
Median % change year-on-year -50.32% - -
75th Percentile £53.75 £83.00 -
90th Percentile £68.00 - -
England median hourly rate £52.50 £17.44 £16.30
% change year-on-year +201.03% +6.99% +5.16%

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 2,939 1,351 2,528
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 45.15% 40.12% 45.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,002 867 1,472
10th Percentile £325 £263 £350
25th Percentile £450 £410 £449
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.38% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £646
90th Percentile £725 £663 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £535
% change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 304 102 227
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.87 £17.80
25th Percentile £31.25 £24.66 £30.21
Median hourly rate £62.25 £46.30 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +34.45% -19.27% -4.42%
75th Percentile £85.00 £70.00 £70.82
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.00 £87.46
England median hourly rate £53.90 £28.00 £43.00
% change year-on-year +92.50% -34.88% -21.82%

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 11 July 2026.

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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft Certification in the South East over the 6 months to 11 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft Certification in the South East

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 11 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
Thames Valley -25 33 £500 - 25
Hampshire -29 21 £129 -80.23% 7
Oxfordshire -18 15 £238 -52.50% 4
Buckinghamshire -23 11 £610 +28.42% 7
Berkshire -35 7 £406 -35.00% 14
Surrey -22 2 £350 -22.22% 10
West Sussex -22 1 £105 -48.02% 2
Home Counties - 1 - -
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 9 (15.52%) SharePoint
2 3 (5.17%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 2 (3.45%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.72%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (5.17%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 35 (60.34%) Azure
2 19 (32.76%) Entra ID
3 17 (29.31%) Microsoft 365
4 9 (15.52%) OneDrive
5 7 (12.07%) AWS
6 6 (10.34%) Power Platform
7 4 (6.90%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (5.17%) Azure Functions
8 3 (5.17%) Azure Logic Apps
8 3 (5.17%) Dynamics 365
8 3 (5.17%) IaaS
8 3 (5.17%) Power Automate
8 3 (5.17%) PowerApps
8 3 (5.17%) SaaS
8 3 (5.17%) Serverless
9 1 (1.72%) Azure Machine Learning
9 1 (1.72%) GCP
9 1 (1.72%) Google Workspace
9 1 (1.72%) PaaS
9 1 (1.72%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 11 (18.97%) SAN
2 10 (17.24%) VPN
3 9 (15.52%) DNS
4 7 (12.07%) LAN
4 7 (12.07%) Wi-Fi
5 3 (5.17%) DHCP
5 3 (5.17%) Firewall
5 3 (5.17%) NetScaler
6 2 (3.45%) BGP
6 2 (3.45%) Cisco Nexus
6 2 (3.45%) IPsec
6 2 (3.45%) MPLS
6 2 (3.45%) OSPF
6 2 (3.45%) SD-WAN
6 2 (3.45%) TCP/IP
6 2 (3.45%) VLAN
6 2 (3.45%) WAN
7 1 (1.72%) Ethernet VPN
7 1 (1.72%) NGFW
7 1 (1.72%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (8.62%) Power BI
2 1 (1.72%) Oracle Database
2 1 (1.72%) Oracle Database 12c
2 1 (1.72%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 1 (1.72%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 1 (1.72%) Git
1 1 (1.72%) MLflow
1 1 (1.72%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 22 (37.93%) Social Skills
2 21 (36.21%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (20.69%) Public Sector
4 6 (10.34%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (5.17%) Aerospace
6 2 (3.45%) Finance
6 2 (3.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (3.45%) Military
6 2 (3.45%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (1.72%) Manufacturing
7 1 (1.72%) Pharmaceutical
7 1 (1.72%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 19 (32.76%) IT Engineer
2 14 (24.14%) IT Support
3 11 (18.97%) Field Engineer
3 11 (18.97%) Field Service Engineer
4 10 (17.24%) IT Support Engineer
4 10 (17.24%) Support Engineer
5 9 (15.52%) Analyst
6 7 (12.07%) Architect
7 6 (10.34%) Technical Architect
8 5 (8.62%) IAM Specialist
8 5 (8.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 5 (8.62%) Senior
9 4 (6.90%) Administrator
9 4 (6.90%) IT Analyst
9 4 (6.90%) IT Support Analyst
9 4 (6.90%) Support Analyst
10 3 (5.17%) Field Support Engineer
10 3 (5.17%) Microsoft Developer
10 3 (5.17%) Operations Analyst
10 3 (5.17%) Wintel Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (8.62%) LDAP
1 5 (8.62%) OAuth
1 5 (8.62%) OAuth2
1 5 (8.62%) OpenID
1 5 (8.62%) SailPoint
1 5 (8.62%) SAML
1 5 (8.62%) Web Services
2 4 (6.90%) .NET
3 3 (5.17%) Middleware
4 1 (1.72%) 802.1X
4 1 (1.72%) ARM Templates
4 1 (1.72%) Microsoft Graph
4 1 (1.72%) REST
4 1 (1.72%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 12 (20.69%) Data Centre
2 11 (18.97%) Analytical Mindset
3 4 (6.90%) Cloud Native
3 4 (6.90%) Management Information System
3 4 (6.90%) PKI
3 4 (6.90%) Public Cloud
4 3 (5.17%) Data Structures
5 2 (3.45%) Driving Licence
5 2 (3.45%) Hybrid Cloud
5 2 (3.45%) Onboarding
5 2 (3.45%) Private Cloud
5 2 (3.45%) Replication
6 1 (1.72%) Cyber Kill Chain
6 1 (1.72%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 1 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (1.72%) Greenfield Project
6 1 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.72%) Linux Command Line
6 1 (1.72%) Operational Technology
6 1 (1.72%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 15 (25.86%) Windows
2 5 (8.62%) Windows Server
3 3 (5.17%) Windows Server 2019
4 2 (3.45%) Linux
4 2 (3.45%) Windows 10
5 1 (1.72%) Mac OS
5 1 (1.72%) Unix
5 1 (1.72%) VMS
5 1 (1.72%) Windows 7
5 1 (1.72%) Windows Server 2008
5 1 (1.72%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (41.38%) Customer Service
2 19 (32.76%) Problem-Solving
3 12 (20.69%) Agile
3 12 (20.69%) Analytics
3 12 (20.69%) ITSM
4 11 (18.97%) Break/Fix
5 10 (17.24%) Computer Science
5 10 (17.24%) DevOps
5 10 (17.24%) ITIL
6 9 (15.52%) RBAC
7 8 (13.79%) CI/CD
7 8 (13.79%) Stakeholder Management
8 7 (12.07%) Infrastructure as Code
9 6 (10.34%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 6 (10.34%) Runbook
9 6 (10.34%) TOGAF
10 5 (8.62%) Business Intelligence
10 5 (8.62%) Change Control
10 5 (8.62%) Enterprise Architecture
10 5 (8.62%) Information Security
Programming Languages
1 20 (34.48%) PowerShell
2 7 (12.07%) Python
3 6 (10.34%) SQL
4 3 (5.17%) C#
4 3 (5.17%) JavaScript
4 3 (5.17%) X++
5 1 (1.72%) Bash
Qualifications
1 24 (41.38%) MCSE
2 22 (37.93%) Security Cleared
3 18 (31.03%) Cisco Certification
3 18 (31.03%) Degree
4 16 (27.59%) SC Cleared
5 12 (20.69%) CCNA
6 11 (18.97%) A+ Certification
6 11 (18.97%) DV Cleared
6 11 (18.97%) Network+ Certification
7 9 (15.52%) MCSA
8 7 (12.07%) Azure Certification
8 7 (12.07%) CCNP
9 4 (6.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 3 (5.17%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (5.17%) CCA
10 3 (5.17%) Citrix Certification
11 2 (3.45%) AWS Certification
11 2 (3.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (1.72%) Computer Science Degree
12 1 (1.72%) OCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (18.97%) NIST
2 7 (12.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (12.07%) NCSC
3 4 (6.90%) Data Quality
4 3 (5.17%) SLA
5 2 (3.45%) QA
6 1 (1.72%) NIST 800
System Software
1 27 (46.55%) Active Directory
2 9 (15.52%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (8.62%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (5.17%) VMware NSX
4 3 (5.17%) vSphere
5 2 (3.45%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (1.72%) Docker
6 1 (1.72%) Hyper-V
6 1 (1.72%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 11 (18.97%) Microsoft Intune
2 5 (8.62%) vCenter Server
3 4 (6.90%) SCCM
3 4 (6.90%) SCOM
4 3 (5.17%) QRadar
4 3 (5.17%) Terraform
5 2 (3.45%) Dell DRAC
5 2 (3.45%) Kubernetes
5 2 (3.45%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (3.45%) vMotion
6 1 (1.72%) Ansible
6 1 (1.72%) CASB
6 1 (1.72%) Cisco CUCM
6 1 (1.72%) Kubeflow
6 1 (1.72%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 42 (72.41%) Microsoft
2 14 (24.14%) VMware
3 13 (22.41%) Dell
4 7 (12.07%) ServiceNow
5 5 (8.62%) Remedy
5 5 (8.62%) SolarWinds
6 3 (5.17%) Cisco
6 3 (5.17%) Citrix
6 3 (5.17%) LogRhythm
7 2 (3.45%) Juniper
7 2 (3.45%) Palo Alto
8 1 (1.72%) Apple
8 1 (1.72%) Aruba
8 1 (1.72%) CheckPoint
8 1 (1.72%) Google
8 1 (1.72%) HP
8 1 (1.72%) Meraki
8 1 (1.72%) Oracle
8 1 (1.72%) Veeam
8 1 (1.72%) Wonderware