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 2 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 143 104 154
Rank change year-on-year -39 +50 +14
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 41 55 56
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.90% 1.73% 1.02%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.04% 4.60% 2.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 35 42 42
10th Percentile £219 £218 £215
25th Percentile £222 £373 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £500 £411
Median % change year-on-year -10.60% +21.73% -19.46%
75th Percentile £594 £625 £550
90th Percentile £650 £725 £643
England median daily rate £496 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.46% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 3
10th Percentile - £12.80 -
25th Percentile - £13.99 £16.25
Median hourly rate - £15.99 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year - -8.66% -
75th Percentile - £17.98 £37.58
90th Percentile - £19.17 £48.87
England median hourly rate £16.00 £21.46 £17.50
% change year-on-year -25.44% +22.63% +12.90%

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 2,009 1,196 2,412
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 44.10% 37.59% 43.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,350 746 1,394
10th Percentile £275 £256 £213
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £536
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.01% -0.33%
75th Percentile £600 £631 £639
90th Percentile £723 £688 £700
England median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 189 68 169
10th Percentile £15.24 £19.12 £19.25
25th Percentile £19.10 £31.25 £42.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £57.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -55.88% -5.00% +33.33%
75th Percentile £55.00 £64.73 £70.50
90th Percentile £90.09 £77.54 £83.17
England median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £46.18
% change year-on-year -45.54% - +2.62%

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 2 February 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
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 2 February 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 -19 27 £358 -34.10% 28
Berkshire +2 22 £270 -48.57% 11
Hampshire -16 10 £600 +20.00% 12
Surrey -8 3 £284 -29.06% 1
Oxfordshire - 3 £238 - 5
Buckinghamshire -34 2 £608 +8.48% 12
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 3 (7.32%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (4.88%) SharePoint
3 1 (2.44%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (2.44%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (2.44%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (2.44%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 31 (75.61%) Azure
2 21 (51.22%) AWS
3 7 (17.07%) Microsoft 365
4 4 (9.76%) Entra ID
5 3 (7.32%) IaaS
5 3 (7.32%) Microsoft Purview
5 3 (7.32%) PaaS
5 3 (7.32%) Power Platform
5 3 (7.32%) SaaS
6 2 (4.88%) Azure Data Factory
6 2 (4.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 2 (4.88%) Dynamics 365
6 2 (4.88%) OneDrive
7 1 (2.44%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (2.44%) Azure Functions
7 1 (2.44%) Azure Key Vault
7 1 (2.44%) Azure Logic Apps
7 1 (2.44%) Azure Machine Learning
7 1 (2.44%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (2.44%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 16 (39.02%) DNS
2 13 (31.71%) DHCP
3 11 (26.83%) TCP/IP
3 11 (26.83%) VLAN
4 5 (12.20%) Wi-Fi
5 4 (9.76%) Firewall
6 2 (4.88%) Fibre Channel
6 2 (4.88%) iSCSI
6 2 (4.88%) LAN
6 2 (4.88%) Network Security
6 2 (4.88%) SSL
6 2 (4.88%) VPN
6 2 (4.88%) VSAN
7 1 (2.44%) Kerberos
7 1 (2.44%) Skype
7 1 (2.44%) Structured Cabling
7 1 (2.44%) Unified Communications
7 1 (2.44%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (7.32%) Data Warehouse
1 3 (7.32%) SQL Server
2 2 (4.88%) Amazon RDS
2 2 (4.88%) Apache Cassandra
2 2 (4.88%) Azure SQL Database
2 2 (4.88%) Data Lake
2 2 (4.88%) Metadata
2 2 (4.88%) MongoDB
2 2 (4.88%) MySQL
2 2 (4.88%) NoSQL
2 2 (4.88%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (4.88%) RDBMS
2 2 (4.88%) Relational Database
3 1 (2.44%) Semantic Layer
3 1 (2.44%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 1 (2.44%) MLflow
General
1 13 (31.71%) Analytical Skills
1 13 (31.71%) Social Skills
2 5 (12.20%) Finance
3 3 (7.32%) Public Sector
4 2 (4.88%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (2.44%) Back Office
5 1 (2.44%) Banking
5 1 (2.44%) Military
5 1 (2.44%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 14 (34.15%) Support Engineer
2 13 (31.71%) Architect
3 11 (26.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 11 (26.83%) Infrastructure Support
3 11 (26.83%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
4 4 (9.76%) Cybersecurity Architect
4 4 (9.76%) Security Architect
4 4 (9.76%) Solutions Architect
5 3 (7.32%) Analyst
5 3 (7.32%) IT Support
5 3 (7.32%) Security Solutions Architect
6 2 (4.88%) 1st Line Service Desk Analyst
6 2 (4.88%) 1st Line Support Analyst
6 2 (4.88%) IT Engineer
6 2 (4.88%) IT Support Engineer
6 2 (4.88%) Service Analyst
6 2 (4.88%) Service Desk Analyst
6 2 (4.88%) Service Desk Support
6 2 (4.88%) Service Desk Support Analyst
6 2 (4.88%) Technical Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (4.88%) OAuth
1 2 (4.88%) OpenID
1 2 (4.88%) SAML
2 1 (2.44%) .NET
2 1 (2.44%) ARM Templates
2 1 (2.44%) LDAP
2 1 (2.44%) OAuth2
2 1 (2.44%) PySpark
2 1 (2.44%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 11 (26.83%) Analytical Mindset
2 4 (9.76%) Replication
3 3 (7.32%) PKI
3 3 (7.32%) Security Operations Centre
4 2 (4.88%) Cloud Native
4 2 (4.88%) Clustering
4 2 (4.88%) Operational Technology
4 2 (4.88%) Private Cloud
4 2 (4.88%) Public Cloud
4 2 (4.88%) Video Conferencing
5 1 (2.44%) Data Fabric
5 1 (2.44%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (2.44%) Fat Client
5 1 (2.44%) IoT
5 1 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (2.44%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 21 (51.22%) Windows
2 12 (29.27%) Linux
3 4 (9.76%) Windows Server
4 3 (7.32%) Windows 10
5 2 (4.88%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (2.44%) Apple iOS
6 1 (2.44%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (43.90%) Problem-Solving
2 14 (34.15%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 14 (34.15%) ITIL
3 13 (31.71%) Disaster Recovery
4 11 (26.83%) Preventative Maintenance
4 11 (26.83%) Service Management
4 11 (26.83%) Virtual Infrastructure
5 7 (17.07%) Cybersecurity
5 7 (17.07%) TOGAF
6 6 (14.63%) Customer Service
7 5 (12.20%) Continuous Improvement
7 5 (12.20%) Data Governance
7 5 (12.20%) Data Modelling
8 4 (9.76%) Analytics
8 4 (9.76%) DevOps
9 3 (7.32%) Identity Access Management
9 3 (7.32%) Mentoring
9 3 (7.32%) Root Cause Analysis
9 3 (7.32%) Security Monitoring
9 3 (7.32%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 7 (17.07%) SQL
2 6 (14.63%) PowerShell
3 4 (9.76%) Python
4 2 (4.88%) Bash
5 1 (2.44%) PL/SQL
5 1 (2.44%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 20 (48.78%) Azure Certification
1 20 (48.78%) Security Cleared
2 15 (36.59%) SC Cleared
3 11 (26.83%) Network+ Certification
3 11 (26.83%) Server+ Certification
4 7 (17.07%) MCSE
5 6 (14.63%) Degree
6 5 (12.20%) DV Cleared
7 4 (9.76%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (9.76%) CISSP
7 4 (9.76%) TOGAF Certification
8 3 (7.32%) CCNP
9 2 (4.88%) AWS Certification
9 2 (4.88%) CCNA
9 2 (4.88%) OCP
9 2 (4.88%) Oracle Certification
10 1 (2.44%) A+ Certification
10 1 (2.44%) MCSA
10 1 (2.44%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (14.63%) NIST
2 5 (12.20%) GDPR
3 4 (9.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (4.88%) Cyber Essentials
4 2 (4.88%) NCSC
5 1 (2.44%) PMO
System Software
1 14 (34.15%) Active Directory
2 13 (31.71%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (26.83%) Hyper-V
4 2 (4.88%) NFS
4 2 (4.88%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (4.88%) VMware NSX
4 2 (4.88%) vSphere
5 1 (2.44%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (9.76%) Microsoft Intune
1 4 (9.76%) SCCM
2 2 (4.88%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 1 (2.44%) CSIRT
3 1 (2.44%) Kubeflow
3 1 (2.44%) Kubernetes
3 1 (2.44%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (2.44%) Terraform
Vendors
1 38 (92.68%) Microsoft
2 17 (41.46%) VMware
3 3 (7.32%) Splunk
3 3 (7.32%) Tenable
4 2 (4.88%) CheckPoint
4 2 (4.88%) Databricks
4 2 (4.88%) Fortinet
4 2 (4.88%) NetApp
4 2 (4.88%) Oracle
4 2 (4.88%) ServiceNow
4 2 (4.88%) Thales
4 2 (4.88%) Veeam
5 1 (2.44%) Ab Initio
5 1 (2.44%) Cisco
5 1 (2.44%) CyberArk
5 1 (2.44%) Informatica
5 1 (2.44%) Polycom