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 20 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 155 172 221
Rank change year-on-year +17 +49 +13
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 215 241 237
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 1.66% 1.19% 1.02%
As % of the Qualifications category 4.62% 3.27% 3.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 119 148 180
10th Percentile £166 £162 £119
25th Percentile £201 £313 £255
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £450 £490
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% -8.16% +30.67%
75th Percentile £575 £556 £575
90th Percentile £700 £638 £650
UK median daily rate £475 £478 £520
% change year-on-year -0.52% -8.17% +22.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 66 17
10th Percentile - £13.60 -
25th Percentile £14.99 £14.16 £15.25
Median hourly rate £17.44 £16.30 £15.50
Median % change year-on-year +6.99% +5.16% -
75th Percentile £23.13 £20.84 £18.75
90th Percentile £35.63 £21.37 £21.84
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 4,652 7,379 7,573
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 35.95% 36.39% 32.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,824 4,314 5,056
10th Percentile £207 £269 £288
25th Percentile £378 £425 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £533 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.19% +1.52% +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £631
90th Percentile £675 £725 £706
UK median daily rate £525 £533 £550
% change year-on-year -1.50% -3.09% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 415 921 601
10th Percentile £17.54 £13.50 £13.91
25th Percentile £21.00 £16.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £36.65 £40.33 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.13% -19.35% +42.86%
75th Percentile £67.25 £63.75 £65.75
90th Percentile £80.00 £77.50 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £40.00 £54.99
% change year-on-year -6.25% -27.26% +24.34%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 +38 62 £461 +15.25% 121
North West +40 55 £493 +23.13% 51
South East +39 35 £513 +10.81% 137
East of England +6 33 £200 +48.15% 69
South West +19 27 £544 +1.16% 62
Midlands +17 23 £268 -41.91% 73
Scotland -6 23 £338 +3.85% 44
West Midlands +19 22 £268 -53.28% 46
Wales - 10 £236 - 4
Yorkshire +17 4 £400 +23.08% 52
North East -7 3 £200 -57.89% 19
Northern Ireland -4 2 £200 - 13
East Midlands -3 1 - - 26
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 32 (14.88%) Microsoft Exchange
2 25 (11.63%) SharePoint
3 6 (2.79%) Confluence
4 4 (1.86%) SharePoint Server
5 3 (1.40%) Skype for Business
6 2 (0.93%) OpenEdge
7 1 (0.47%) IBM Notes
Applications
1 29 (13.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 26 (12.09%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (9.30%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (2.79%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (1.40%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.47%) Dynamics AX
2 1 (0.47%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 94 (43.72%) Microsoft 365
2 86 (40.00%) Azure
3 26 (12.09%) Entra ID
4 24 (11.16%) AWS
5 20 (9.30%) Power Platform
6 19 (8.84%) GCP
7 15 (6.98%) OneDrive
8 13 (6.05%) IaaS
9 10 (4.65%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (3.26%) Microsoft Purview
10 7 (3.26%) Power Automate
10 7 (3.26%) PowerApps
11 5 (2.33%) PaaS
12 4 (1.86%) Dynamics 365
13 3 (1.40%) Azure AKS
13 3 (1.40%) Azure Monitor
13 3 (1.40%) Azure Service Bus
13 3 (1.40%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 3 (1.40%) Azure Table
13 3 (1.40%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 29 (13.49%) Wi-Fi
2 25 (11.63%) Firewall
3 24 (11.16%) VPN
4 14 (6.51%) Network Security
4 14 (6.51%) SAN
5 12 (5.58%) DNS
5 12 (5.58%) Intrusion Detection
6 11 (5.12%) LAN
7 10 (4.65%) Remote Desktop
8 9 (4.19%) TCP/IP
9 8 (3.72%) DHCP
9 8 (3.72%) Skype
10 7 (3.26%) iSCSI
10 7 (3.26%) WAN
11 6 (2.79%) VLAN
12 5 (2.33%) Fibre Channel
12 5 (2.33%) MPLS
12 5 (2.33%) VSAN
13 4 (1.86%) BGP
13 4 (1.86%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (9.30%) SQL Server
2 8 (3.72%) Power BI
3 7 (3.26%) Metadata
4 5 (2.33%) Azure SQL Database
5 4 (1.86%) Metadata Repository
5 4 (1.86%) MySQL
5 4 (1.86%) PostgreSQL
6 3 (1.40%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (0.93%) Data Lake
7 2 (0.93%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.47%) Big Data
8 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Analysis Services
8 1 (0.47%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.47%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.47%) Power Query
8 1 (0.47%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 1 (0.47%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 11 (5.12%) JIRA
2 3 (1.40%) Git
3 1 (0.47%) Atlassian Bamboo
3 1 (0.47%) Bitbucket
3 1 (0.47%) GitLab
3 1 (0.47%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.47%) Visual Studio
General
1 110 (51.16%) Social Skills
2 42 (19.53%) Analytical Skills
3 34 (15.81%) Public Sector
4 28 (13.02%) Legal
5 18 (8.37%) Telecoms
6 17 (7.91%) Documentation Skills
7 11 (5.12%) Finance
8 7 (3.26%) Retail
9 5 (2.33%) Banking
9 5 (2.33%) Manufacturing
9 5 (2.33%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (1.86%) French Language
10 4 (1.86%) Military
11 2 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.93%) Publishing
12 1 (0.47%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.47%) Investment Banking
12 1 (0.47%) Local Government
12 1 (0.47%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.47%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 54 (25.12%) Analyst
2 40 (18.60%) Architect
3 28 (13.02%) Service Analyst
3 28 (13.02%) Service Desk Analyst
4 21 (9.77%) Support Engineer
5 18 (8.37%) Technical Analyst
5 18 (8.37%) Technical Services Analyst
6 17 (7.91%) Deployment Engineer
7 15 (6.98%) Desktop Support
7 15 (6.98%) IT Support
8 14 (6.51%) Solutions Architect
9 13 (6.05%) Desktop Engineer
10 12 (5.58%) Senior
10 12 (5.58%) Technical Architect
11 11 (5.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 11 (5.12%) Support Analyst
12 10 (4.65%) IT Engineer
13 9 (4.19%) Desktop Support Engineer
14 8 (3.72%) IT Analyst
14 8 (3.72%) Operations Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (2.79%) .NET
2 4 (1.86%) ADO
2 4 (1.86%) ARM Templates
3 3 (1.40%) .NET Core
3 3 (1.40%) ASP.NET Web API
3 3 (1.40%) HTML5 Canvas
3 3 (1.40%) Microsoft Graph
4 2 (0.93%) Flash
4 2 (0.93%) REST
4 2 (0.93%) SPFx
5 1 (0.47%) Entity Framework
5 1 (0.47%) JMS
5 1 (0.47%) LDAP
5 1 (0.47%) Middleware
5 1 (0.47%) SailPoint
5 1 (0.47%) SAML
5 1 (0.47%) SOAP
5 1 (0.47%) Software Packaging
5 1 (0.47%) Spring
5 1 (0.47%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 17 (7.91%) PKI
2 14 (6.51%) Management Information System
3 8 (3.72%) Device Driver
3 8 (3.72%) Hybrid Cloud
4 7 (3.26%) Security Operations Centre
5 6 (2.79%) Data Centre
5 6 (2.79%) NHS
6 5 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (1.86%) Cyber Threat
7 4 (1.86%) Public Cloud
8 3 (1.40%) Driving Licence
8 3 (1.40%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 3 (1.40%) Video Conferencing
9 2 (0.93%) Cloud Native
9 2 (0.93%) Clustering
9 2 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (0.93%) Mobile App
9 2 (0.93%) Onboarding
10 1 (0.47%) Distributed Systems
10 1 (0.47%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 109 (50.70%) Windows
2 52 (24.19%) Windows Server
3 26 (12.09%) Windows 10
4 22 (10.23%) Windows Server 2012
5 17 (7.91%) Windows Server 2019
6 13 (6.05%) Windows Server 2016
7 10 (4.65%) Linux
8 8 (3.72%) Mac OS
8 8 (3.72%) Windows Server 2003
9 5 (2.33%) Windows 8
9 5 (2.33%) Windows Server 2008
9 5 (2.33%) Windows XP
10 4 (1.86%) Unix
11 3 (1.40%) VMS
12 2 (0.93%) Android
12 2 (0.93%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (44.65%) Problem-Solving
2 81 (37.67%) ITIL
3 56 (26.05%) Customer Service
4 40 (18.60%) Incident Management
5 30 (13.95%) Computer Science
6 29 (13.49%) Cybersecurity
7 27 (12.56%) Service Delivery
8 23 (10.70%) Agile
9 22 (10.23%) Mathematics
10 20 (9.30%) Analytics
11 19 (8.84%) Collaborative Working
12 18 (8.37%) High Availability
13 17 (7.91%) DevOps
13 17 (7.91%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 17 (7.91%) Project Delivery
14 16 (7.44%) Deployment Automation
15 15 (6.98%) Business Continuity
16 14 (6.51%) Service Management
17 13 (6.05%) Enterprise Architecture
17 13 (6.05%) Task Automation
Programming Languages
1 44 (20.47%) PowerShell
2 23 (10.70%) SQL
3 12 (5.58%) Python
4 6 (2.79%) C#
4 6 (2.79%) Kusto Query Language
5 5 (2.33%) Bicep
6 4 (1.86%) Bash
6 4 (1.86%) JavaScript
7 3 (1.40%) VBScript
8 2 (0.93%) Groovy
8 2 (0.93%) Java
8 2 (0.93%) VB
9 1 (0.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.47%) X++
Qualifications
1 61 (28.37%) Security Cleared
2 56 (26.05%) Degree
3 54 (25.12%) A+ Certification
4 50 (23.26%) SC Cleared
5 45 (20.93%) MCSE
6 43 (20.00%) Azure Certification
7 41 (19.07%) MCSA
8 22 (10.23%) Computer Science Degree
9 20 (9.30%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 19 (8.84%) AWS Certification
11 15 (6.98%) MCP
12 14 (6.51%) Master's Degree
13 12 (5.58%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 6 (2.79%) Cisco Certification
14 6 (2.79%) DV Cleared
15 5 (2.33%) VCP5
15 5 (2.33%) VCP6
16 4 (1.86%) CCNA
16 4 (1.86%) CCNP
16 4 (1.86%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (5.12%) QA
2 6 (2.79%) NCSC
2 6 (2.79%) NIST
2 6 (2.79%) SLA
3 5 (2.33%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (1.40%) Data Quality
4 3 (1.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.93%) Disclosure Scotland
5 2 (0.93%) GDPR
6 1 (0.47%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.47%) JSP 440
6 1 (0.47%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 78 (36.28%) Active Directory
2 39 (18.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (7.91%) vSphere
4 12 (5.58%) VMware ESXi
5 7 (3.26%) Hyper-V
5 7 (3.26%) VMware NSX
6 5 (2.33%) NFS
6 5 (2.33%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (1.86%) Docker
8 3 (1.40%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.93%) BitLocker
9 2 (0.93%) Firmware
9 2 (0.93%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.47%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.47%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 32 (14.88%) SCCM
2 21 (9.77%) Microsoft Intune
3 10 (4.65%) vCenter Server
4 8 (3.72%) Kubernetes
4 8 (3.72%) WSUS
5 6 (2.79%) Terraform
6 3 (1.40%) Backup Exec
6 3 (1.40%) Grafana
6 3 (1.40%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.93%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (0.93%) Ansible
7 2 (0.93%) Malwarebytes
7 2 (0.93%) OPNET
7 2 (0.93%) PowerCLI
7 2 (0.93%) SCOM
8 1 (0.47%) CSIRT
8 1 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.47%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 204 (94.88%) Microsoft
2 47 (21.86%) VMware
3 37 (17.21%) ServiceNow
4 32 (14.88%) Citrix
5 21 (9.77%) Google
6 16 (7.44%) Cisco
7 12 (5.58%) Veeam
8 6 (2.79%) Databricks
8 6 (2.79%) Splunk
9 5 (2.33%) Canon
9 5 (2.33%) NetApp
9 5 (2.33%) Palo Alto
9 5 (2.33%) Symantec
10 4 (1.86%) Atlassian
10 4 (1.86%) Cloudera
10 4 (1.86%) Dell
11 3 (1.40%) Oracle
12 2 (0.93%) Apple
12 2 (0.93%) Ivanti
12 2 (0.93%) McAfee