Microsoft Certification Contracts in the UK excluding London

Microsoft Certification
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London with a requirement for Microsoft Certification qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 3 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 144 177 227
Rank change year-on-year +33 +50 +7
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 220 241 261
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 1.72% 1.16% 1.09%
As % of the Qualifications category 4.84% 3.15% 3.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 122 147 197
10th Percentile £177 £158 £121
25th Percentile £211 £300 £285
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £456 £450 £480
Median % change year-on-year +1.39% -6.25% +28.00%
75th Percentile £597 £556 £575
90th Percentile £725 £638 £660
UK median daily rate £494 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.95% -5.00% +17.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 65 21
10th Percentile £14.99 £13.69 -
25th Percentile £15.10 £14.16 £15.25
Median hourly rate £17.44 £16.30 £15.50
Median % change year-on-year +6.99% +5.16% -
75th Percentile £23.00 £21.37 £18.75
90th Percentile £34.88 - £20.00
UK median hourly rate £17.44 £16.30 £15.50
% change year-on-year +6.99% +5.16% -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 4,548 7,661 7,957
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 35.60% 37.01% 33.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,780 4,410 5,340
10th Percentile £210 £269 £280
25th Percentile £390 £425 £421
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £531 £530
Median % change year-on-year -5.79% +0.19% +6.00%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £631
90th Percentile £688 £725 £713
UK median daily rate £525 £535 £550
% change year-on-year -1.87% -2.73% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 412 936 667
10th Percentile £18.13 £13.60 £14.25
25th Percentile £21.46 £16.50 £19.96
Median hourly rate £40.72 £40.94 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.55% -18.12% +54.46%
75th Percentile £67.50 £63.75 £65.75
90th Percentile £80.09 £77.50 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £40.00 £54.00
% change year-on-year - -25.93% +28.57%

Microsoft Certification
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Microsoft Certification as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Microsoft Certification in the UK excluding London

Microsoft Certification
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Microsoft Certification in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Microsoft Certification in the UK excluding London

Microsoft Certification
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft Certification in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 3 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft Certification in the UK excluding London

Microsoft Certification
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Microsoft Certification in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Microsoft Certification in the UK excluding London

Microsoft Certification
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft Certification in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 3 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft Certification in the UK excluding London

Microsoft Certification
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 3 May 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
North of England +33 62 £500 +25.00% 92
North West +37 56 £505 +30.32% 46
South East +36 40 £525 +23.53% 123
East of England +18 35 £200 +48.15% 42
South West +8 27 £550 +0.92% 45
Scotland +3 23 £338 +3.85% 22
Midlands +14 21 £224 -63.58% 65
West Midlands +22 20 £224 -63.65% 32
Wales - 10 £236 - 7
Yorkshire +5 3 £400 -8.57% 37
North East -6 3 £200 -57.89% 10
Northern Ireland -6 2 £200 - 8
East Midlands +1 1 - - 30
Microsoft Certification
UK

Microsoft Certification
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 31 (14.09%) Microsoft Exchange
2 24 (10.91%) SharePoint
3 6 (2.73%) Confluence
4 4 (1.82%) SharePoint Server
5 3 (1.36%) Skype for Business
6 2 (0.91%) IBM Notes
6 2 (0.91%) OpenEdge
Applications
1 30 (13.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 26 (11.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 22 (10.00%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (2.73%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (1.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.45%) Dynamics AX
2 1 (0.45%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 92 (41.82%) Microsoft 365
2 85 (38.64%) Azure
3 27 (12.27%) AWS
3 27 (12.27%) Entra ID
4 19 (8.64%) GCP
4 19 (8.64%) Power Platform
5 15 (6.82%) IaaS
5 15 (6.82%) OneDrive
6 8 (3.64%) Azure DevOps
6 8 (3.64%) PaaS
7 7 (3.18%) Microsoft Purview
7 7 (3.18%) PowerApps
8 6 (2.73%) Power Automate
9 4 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
9 4 (1.82%) SaaS
10 3 (1.36%) Azure Sentinel
10 3 (1.36%) Azure Service Bus
10 3 (1.36%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 3 (1.36%) Microsoft Copilot
11 2 (0.91%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 30 (13.64%) Wi-Fi
2 24 (10.91%) Firewall
2 24 (10.91%) VPN
3 14 (6.36%) Network Security
4 13 (5.91%) SAN
5 12 (5.45%) DNS
5 12 (5.45%) Intrusion Detection
6 11 (5.00%) LAN
7 10 (4.55%) Remote Desktop
8 9 (4.09%) TCP/IP
9 8 (3.64%) DHCP
9 8 (3.64%) Skype
10 7 (3.18%) WAN
11 6 (2.73%) iSCSI
11 6 (2.73%) VLAN
11 6 (2.73%) VSAN
12 5 (2.27%) MPLS
13 4 (1.82%) BGP
13 4 (1.82%) Fibre Channel
13 4 (1.82%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (10.00%) SQL Server
2 7 (3.18%) Metadata
2 7 (3.18%) Power BI
3 4 (1.82%) Azure SQL Database
3 4 (1.82%) Metadata Repository
3 4 (1.82%) MySQL
3 4 (1.82%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (1.36%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.91%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.91%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.45%) Big Data
6 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Analysis Services
6 1 (0.45%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.45%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.45%) Power Query
6 1 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 1 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 11 (5.00%) JIRA
2 3 (1.36%) Git
3 1 (0.45%) Atlassian Bamboo
3 1 (0.45%) Bitbucket
3 1 (0.45%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.45%) MLflow
3 1 (0.45%) Visual Studio
General
1 109 (49.55%) Social Skills
2 43 (19.55%) Analytical Skills
3 34 (15.45%) Public Sector
4 27 (12.27%) Legal
5 18 (8.18%) Telecoms
6 15 (6.82%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (4.55%) Finance
8 7 (3.18%) Retail
9 5 (2.27%) Manufacturing
9 5 (2.27%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (1.82%) Banking
10 4 (1.82%) French Language
10 4 (1.82%) Military
11 2 (0.91%) Publishing
12 1 (0.45%) Aviation
12 1 (0.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 1 (0.45%) Investment Banking
12 1 (0.45%) Local Government
12 1 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.45%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 56 (25.45%) Analyst
2 44 (20.00%) Architect
3 29 (13.18%) Service Analyst
3 29 (13.18%) Service Desk Analyst
4 21 (9.55%) Support Engineer
5 18 (8.18%) Desktop Support
5 18 (8.18%) Technical Analyst
5 18 (8.18%) Technical Services Analyst
6 14 (6.36%) IT Support
6 14 (6.36%) Solutions Architect
7 13 (5.91%) Deployment Engineer
7 13 (5.91%) Desktop Engineer
7 13 (5.91%) Senior
7 13 (5.91%) Support Analyst
7 13 (5.91%) Technical Architect
8 11 (5.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 9 (4.09%) Desktop Support Engineer
10 8 (3.64%) 2nd Line Engineer
10 8 (3.64%) 2nd Line Support
10 8 (3.64%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (2.27%) .NET
2 3 (1.36%) ADO
2 3 (1.36%) ARM Templates
2 3 (1.36%) ASP.NET Web API
2 3 (1.36%) HTML5 Canvas
2 3 (1.36%) Microsoft Graph
3 2 (0.91%) .NET Core
3 2 (0.91%) Flash
3 2 (0.91%) REST
3 2 (0.91%) SPFx
4 1 (0.45%) Entity Framework
4 1 (0.45%) JMS
4 1 (0.45%) LDAP
4 1 (0.45%) Middleware
4 1 (0.45%) OAuth
4 1 (0.45%) OpenID
4 1 (0.45%) SailPoint
4 1 (0.45%) SAML
4 1 (0.45%) SOAP
4 1 (0.45%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 19 (8.64%) PKI
2 15 (6.82%) Management Information System
3 9 (4.09%) Hybrid Cloud
4 8 (3.64%) Device Driver
4 8 (3.64%) Public Cloud
5 6 (2.73%) Data Centre
5 6 (2.73%) NHS
5 6 (2.73%) Security Operations Centre
6 5 (2.27%) Cyber Threat
6 5 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (1.36%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 3 (1.36%) Video Conferencing
8 2 (0.91%) Blackberry
8 2 (0.91%) Clustering
8 2 (0.91%) Cyber Defence
8 2 (0.91%) Driving Licence
8 2 (0.91%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (0.91%) Mobile App
8 2 (0.91%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.45%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 108 (49.09%) Windows
2 48 (21.82%) Windows Server
3 28 (12.73%) Windows 10
4 22 (10.00%) Windows Server 2012
5 16 (7.27%) Windows Server 2019
6 13 (5.91%) Windows Server 2016
7 11 (5.00%) Linux
8 8 (3.64%) Mac OS
8 8 (3.64%) Windows Server 2003
9 5 (2.27%) Windows 8
9 5 (2.27%) Windows Server 2008
9 5 (2.27%) Windows XP
10 4 (1.82%) Unix
11 3 (1.36%) VMS
12 2 (0.91%) Android
12 2 (0.91%) Apple iOS
13 1 (0.45%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (45.00%) Problem-Solving
2 90 (40.91%) ITIL
3 60 (27.27%) Customer Service
4 40 (18.18%) Incident Management
5 30 (13.64%) Computer Science
5 30 (13.64%) Cybersecurity
6 28 (12.73%) Service Delivery
7 26 (11.82%) Agile
8 23 (10.45%) Mathematics
9 21 (9.55%) Analytics
10 20 (9.09%) DevOps
11 19 (8.64%) Collaborative Working
12 18 (8.18%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 17 (7.73%) Enterprise Architecture
13 17 (7.73%) High Availability
14 16 (7.27%) Business Continuity
14 16 (7.27%) Project Delivery
15 15 (6.82%) CI/CD
15 15 (6.82%) Service Management
15 15 (6.82%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 43 (19.55%) PowerShell
2 22 (10.00%) SQL
3 12 (5.45%) Python
4 6 (2.73%) Kusto Query Language
5 5 (2.27%) C#
6 4 (1.82%) Bash
6 4 (1.82%) JavaScript
7 3 (1.36%) Bicep
7 3 (1.36%) Java
7 3 (1.36%) VBScript
8 2 (0.91%) Groovy
8 2 (0.91%) VB
9 1 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.45%) Perl
9 1 (0.45%) Ruby
9 1 (0.45%) X++
Qualifications
1 66 (30.00%) Security Cleared
2 60 (27.27%) Degree
3 56 (25.45%) A+ Certification
3 56 (25.45%) SC Cleared
4 49 (22.27%) MCSE
5 42 (19.09%) MCSA
6 40 (18.18%) Azure Certification
7 22 (10.00%) Computer Science Degree
8 20 (9.09%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 18 (8.18%) AWS Certification
10 16 (7.27%) MCP
11 14 (6.36%) Master's Degree
12 11 (5.00%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 10 (4.55%) Cisco Certification
14 8 (3.64%) CCNP
15 7 (3.18%) DV Cleared
16 5 (2.27%) CISSP
17 4 (1.82%) CCNA
17 4 (1.82%) VCP5
17 4 (1.82%) VCP6
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (5.00%) NCSC
1 11 (5.00%) NIST
1 11 (5.00%) QA
2 6 (2.73%) Cyber Essentials
2 6 (2.73%) SLA
3 3 (1.36%) Data Quality
3 3 (1.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.91%) Disclosure Scotland
4 2 (0.91%) GDPR
5 1 (0.45%) JSP 440
5 1 (0.45%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 79 (35.91%) Active Directory
2 38 (17.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (7.27%) vSphere
4 11 (5.00%) VMware ESXi
5 8 (3.64%) VMware NSX
6 6 (2.73%) Hyper-V
7 5 (2.27%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (1.82%) Docker
8 4 (1.82%) NFS
9 3 (1.36%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.91%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.91%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.45%) Firmware
11 1 (0.45%) VMware Workstation
11 1 (0.45%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 33 (15.00%) SCCM
2 21 (9.55%) Microsoft Intune
3 10 (4.55%) vCenter Server
4 8 (3.64%) WSUS
5 7 (3.18%) Kubernetes
6 4 (1.82%) Terraform
7 3 (1.36%) Backup Exec
7 3 (1.36%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.91%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.91%) Grafana
8 2 (0.91%) Malwarebytes
8 2 (0.91%) OPNET
8 2 (0.91%) PowerCLI
8 2 (0.91%) SCOM
9 1 (0.45%) Ansible
9 1 (0.45%) CSIRT
9 1 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.45%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 203 (92.27%) Microsoft
2 50 (22.73%) VMware
3 41 (18.64%) ServiceNow
4 33 (15.00%) Citrix
5 21 (9.55%) Google
6 17 (7.73%) Cisco
7 10 (4.55%) Veeam
8 6 (2.73%) Databricks
8 6 (2.73%) Palo Alto
9 5 (2.27%) Canon
9 5 (2.27%) Dell
9 5 (2.27%) Splunk
9 5 (2.27%) Symantec
10 4 (1.82%) Atlassian
10 4 (1.82%) Cloudera
10 4 (1.82%) NetApp
10 4 (1.82%) Tanium
11 3 (1.36%) Oracle
12 2 (0.91%) Apple
12 2 (0.91%) Lotus