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 15 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 105 146 176
Rank change year-on-year +41 +30 +9
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 55 39 35
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 1.60% 0.85% 0.62%
As % of the Qualifications category 4.11% 1.97% 1.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 42 30 21
10th Percentile £191 £286 £256
25th Percentile £219 £353 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £650 £550 £550
90th Percentile - £563 £688
England median daily rate £450 £500 £516
% change year-on-year -10.00% -3.15% +21.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 0
10th Percentile £76.59 - -
25th Percentile £84.97 - -
Median hourly rate £89.63 - -
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £18.00 £16.30 £17.50
% change year-on-year +10.43% -6.86% +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 1,338 1,981 2,174
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 38.92% 43.17% 38.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 864 1,245 1,341
10th Percentile £222 £336 £270
25th Percentile £413 £425 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.36% +4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £650 £717 £700
England median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 117 158 135
10th Percentile - £22.36 £25.13
25th Percentile £18.87 £46.64 £50.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £57.70 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -56.41% -3.84% +33.33%
75th Percentile £68.50 £72.22 £73.73
90th Percentile £81.00 £87.46 £77.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £54.00 £54.78
% change year-on-year -53.43% -1.42% +21.73%

Microsoft Certification
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Job postings citing Microsoft Certification as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Job vacancy trend for Microsoft Certification 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 15 September 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 15 September 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 +21 24 £259 -48.04% 47
Hampshire +26 23 £650 +20.93% 31
Berkshire +28 17 £244 -44.55% 26
Oxfordshire -7 6 £325 +103.13% 7
Surrey +6 5 £425 +13.33% 12
West Sussex 0 2 £202 -56.32% 12
Kent -1 1 £200 -38.46% 16
Buckinghamshire -2 1 £475 -5.94% 16
Microsoft Certification
England

Microsoft Certification
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 3 (5.45%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (3.64%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (5.45%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (5.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (1.82%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 21 (38.18%) Azure
2 16 (29.09%) Microsoft 365
3 14 (25.45%) AWS
4 5 (9.09%) Power Platform
5 4 (7.27%) Azure AKS
5 4 (7.27%) Azure DevOps
5 4 (7.27%) Azure Monitor
5 4 (7.27%) Entra ID
6 3 (5.45%) Azure Storage
6 3 (5.45%) Azure Table
6 3 (5.45%) Power Automate
7 2 (3.64%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 2 (3.64%) GCP
8 1 (1.82%) Azure Key Vault
8 1 (1.82%) Azure Sentinel
8 1 (1.82%) GitHub
8 1 (1.82%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (1.82%) Microsoft Copilot
8 1 (1.82%) Microsoft Purview
8 1 (1.82%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 17 (30.91%) Fibre Channel
1 17 (30.91%) iSCSI
2 13 (23.64%) TCP/IP
3 12 (21.82%) DHCP
3 12 (21.82%) DNS
4 8 (14.55%) Firewall
4 8 (14.55%) VLAN
5 5 (9.09%) VPN
5 5 (9.09%) Wireless
6 4 (7.27%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (5.45%) VSAN
8 2 (3.64%) SAN
9 1 (1.82%) Internet
9 1 (1.82%) Intrusion Detection
9 1 (1.82%) IP Telephony
9 1 (1.82%) LAN
9 1 (1.82%) MPLS
9 1 (1.82%) NAS
9 1 (1.82%) SD-WAN
9 1 (1.82%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (7.27%) Power BI
2 3 (5.45%) Azure SQL Database
3 1 (1.82%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 4 (7.27%) JIRA
General
1 16 (29.09%) Social Skills
2 15 (27.27%) Analytical Skills
3 4 (7.27%) Organisational Skills
3 4 (7.27%) Public Sector
4 3 (5.45%) Aerospace
4 3 (5.45%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (3.64%) Finance
5 2 (3.64%) Legal
5 2 (3.64%) Telecoms
6 1 (1.82%) Back Office
6 1 (1.82%) Banking
6 1 (1.82%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 23 (41.82%) Architect
2 17 (30.91%) Infrastructure Architect
3 16 (29.09%) VMware Architect
4 12 (21.82%) Support Engineer
5 9 (16.36%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 8 (14.55%) Infrastructure Support
6 8 (14.55%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
7 6 (10.91%) Analyst
8 5 (9.09%) IT Analyst
8 5 (9.09%) IT Support
9 3 (5.45%) Azure DevOps Engineer
9 3 (5.45%) Azure Engineer
9 3 (5.45%) DevOps Engineer
9 3 (5.45%) Service Analyst
9 3 (5.45%) Service Desk Analyst
9 3 (5.45%) Site Engineer
9 3 (5.45%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 3 (5.45%) Solutions Architect
10 2 (3.64%) Support Analyst
10 2 (3.64%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (5.45%) .NET
1 3 (5.45%) .NET Core
1 3 (5.45%) ADO
1 3 (5.45%) ARM Templates
2 1 (1.82%) Azure Blueprints
Miscellaneous
1 9 (16.36%) Analytical Mindset
2 2 (3.64%) Data Centre
2 2 (3.64%) Hybrid Cloud
3 1 (1.82%) Cloud Native
3 1 (1.82%) Cyber Defence
3 1 (1.82%) Cyber Threat
3 1 (1.82%) Data Structures
3 1 (1.82%) Fat Client
3 1 (1.82%) iPad
3 1 (1.82%) iPhone
3 1 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
3 1 (1.82%) Management Information System
3 1 (1.82%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 40 (72.73%) Windows
2 17 (30.91%) Windows Server
2 17 (30.91%) Windows Server 2019
3 9 (16.36%) Linux
3 9 (16.36%) Mac OS
4 5 (9.09%) Windows 10
5 1 (1.82%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (43.64%) Problem-Solving
2 21 (38.18%) ITIL
3 12 (21.82%) Service Management
4 10 (18.18%) Edge Virtualization
4 10 (18.18%) Performance Analysis
5 9 (16.36%) Incident Management
5 9 (16.36%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 8 (14.55%) Computer Science
6 8 (14.55%) Customer Service
6 8 (14.55%) Disaster Recovery
6 8 (14.55%) Preventative Maintenance
6 8 (14.55%) Virtual Infrastructure
7 7 (12.73%) Customer Requirements
7 7 (12.73%) ITSM
7 7 (12.73%) Mentoring
8 5 (9.09%) Application Packaging
8 5 (9.09%) Service Delivery
9 4 (7.27%) Business Intelligence
9 4 (7.27%) Stakeholder Management
9 4 (7.27%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 21 (38.18%) SQL
2 5 (9.09%) Bash
2 5 (9.09%) PowerShell
3 4 (7.27%) Bicep
4 3 (5.45%) C#
4 3 (5.45%) Python
Qualifications
1 30 (54.55%) Security Cleared
2 21 (38.18%) MCSE
3 16 (29.09%) DV Cleared
4 13 (23.64%) A+ Certification
4 13 (23.64%) Azure Certification
4 13 (23.64%) SC Cleared
5 12 (21.82%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 11 (20.00%) Degree
6 11 (20.00%) VCP5
6 11 (20.00%) VCP6
7 9 (16.36%) Network+ Certification
8 8 (14.55%) Server+ Certification
9 6 (10.91%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (9.09%) Computer Science Degree
10 5 (9.09%) MCSA
11 4 (7.27%) CCNA
12 3 (5.45%) Citrix Certification
12 3 (5.45%) Master's Degree
13 1 (1.82%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (12.73%) GDPR
1 7 (12.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.82%) Government Security Classifications
2 1 (1.82%) JSP 440
2 1 (1.82%) NCSC
2 1 (1.82%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 28 (50.91%) VMware Infrastructure
2 19 (34.55%) VMware ESXi
2 19 (34.55%) vSphere
3 17 (30.91%) NFS
4 11 (20.00%) Active Directory
5 10 (18.18%) Hyper-V
6 3 (5.45%) VMware NSX
7 1 (1.82%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 6 (10.91%) SCCM
2 4 (7.27%) Kubernetes
2 4 (7.27%) Terraform
3 3 (5.45%) Grafana
3 3 (5.45%) Prometheus
4 2 (3.64%) CSIRT
4 2 (3.64%) Malwarebytes
4 2 (3.64%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (3.64%) vCenter Server
5 1 (1.82%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 54 (98.18%) Microsoft
2 30 (54.55%) VMware
3 20 (36.36%) Splunk
4 17 (30.91%) NetApp
4 17 (30.91%) Veeam
5 7 (12.73%) Citrix
5 7 (12.73%) ServiceNow
6 5 (9.09%) Cisco
7 4 (7.27%) CheckPoint
7 4 (7.27%) Palo Alto
8 3 (5.45%) Dell
9 2 (3.64%) Ivanti
10 1 (1.82%) F5