MCP Contracts

Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for MCP qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 20 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 527 544 572
Rank change year-on-year +17 +28 +105
Contract jobs citing MCP 27 45 112
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.082% 0.11% 0.20%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.27% 0.36% 0.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 11 23 47
10th Percentile £133 £175 £200
25th Percentile £205 £183 £223
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £250 £340 £263
Median % change year-on-year -26.47% +29.52% -37.50%
75th Percentile £369 £440 £487
90th Percentile £425 £501 £564
UK excluding London median daily rate £250 £400 £250
% change year-on-year -37.50% +60.00% +25.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 11 58
10th Percentile - £14.16 £13.29
25th Percentile - £14.67 £13.41
Median hourly rate £17.44 £17.50 £13.66
Median % change year-on-year -0.34% +28.11% -
75th Percentile - £21.46 £20.56
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.44 £17.50 £13.66
% change year-on-year -0.34% +28.11% -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

MCP 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.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 10,142 12,508 14,874
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 30.87% 29.96% 26.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,269 7,869 9,774
10th Percentile £278 £311 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +2.80%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £650
90th Percentile £704 £738 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 736 1,010 721
10th Percentile £17.87 £14.16 £15.50
25th Percentile £19.25 £20.76 £24.75
Median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £57.33
Median % change year-on-year -40.82% -25.87% +28.83%
75th Percentile £56.00 £65.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £80.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year -41.51% -21.82% +37.50%

MCP
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing MCP as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for MCP in the UK

MCP
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing MCP.

Daily rate trend for MCP in the UK

MCP
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing MCP over the 6 months to 20 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for MCP in the UK

MCP
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing MCP.

Hourly rate trend for MCP in the UK

MCP
Top 13 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing MCP within the UK over the 6 months to 20 July 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
England +35 25 £250 -37.50% 54
UK excluding London +25 19 £250 -37.50% 38
North of England -1 7 £363 -22.25% 9
London +37 6 £225 +16.88% 19
North West +8 6 £363 -22.25% 4
Work from Home +24 4 £363 +11.54% 32
South West +36 3 £200 -54.29% 5
South East +35 3 £250 -23.08% 8
East of England -4 3 - - 7
West Midlands +5 2 - - 2
Midlands -3 2 - - 7
Scotland -7 1 £130 -61.76% 1
North East - 1 - - 1

MCP
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 2 (7.41%) IBM Notes
1 2 (7.41%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (3.70%) Apache
2 1 (3.70%) Apache Spark
2 1 (3.70%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (14.81%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (3.70%) Chatbot
2 1 (3.70%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 8 (29.63%) Microsoft 365
2 4 (14.81%) AWS
2 4 (14.81%) Azure
3 1 (3.70%) Amazon Bedrock
3 1 (3.70%) Amazon EC2
3 1 (3.70%) Azure AI
3 1 (3.70%) Cloud Computing
3 1 (3.70%) Entra ID
3 1 (3.70%) Google Workspace
3 1 (3.70%) SaaS
3 1 (3.70%) Slack
3 1 (3.70%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 7 (25.93%) TCP/IP
2 4 (14.81%) LAN
3 3 (11.11%) DNS
3 3 (11.11%) VPN
4 2 (7.41%) Firewall
4 2 (7.41%) Unified Communications
4 2 (7.41%) WebEx
4 2 (7.41%) Wi-Fi
4 2 (7.41%) Wireless
5 1 (3.70%) H.323
5 1 (3.70%) Internet
5 1 (3.70%) Intrusion Detection
5 1 (3.70%) IP Telephony
5 1 (3.70%) MPLS
5 1 (3.70%) NAS
5 1 (3.70%) NetScaler
5 1 (3.70%) SAN
5 1 (3.70%) SD-WAN
5 1 (3.70%) Skype
5 1 (3.70%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (11.11%) Oracle Database
1 3 (11.11%) SQL Server
2 2 (7.41%) InterSystems Cache
3 1 (3.70%) Pinecone
3 1 (3.70%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 1 (3.70%) JIRA
1 1 (3.70%) MSI
General
1 14 (51.85%) Social Skills
2 6 (22.22%) Analytical Skills
3 2 (7.41%) Finance
4 1 (3.70%) Back Office
4 1 (3.70%) Front Office
4 1 (3.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 1 (3.70%) Legal
4 1 (3.70%) Manufacturing
4 1 (3.70%) Public Sector
4 1 (3.70%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 10 (37.04%) Analyst
2 9 (33.33%) Support Analyst
3 7 (25.93%) IT Support
4 5 (18.52%) IT Analyst
4 5 (18.52%) IT Support Analyst
4 5 (18.52%) Technical Analyst
5 4 (14.81%) Technical Support
5 4 (14.81%) Technical Support Analyst
6 3 (11.11%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
6 3 (11.11%) Support Engineer
7 2 (7.41%) Desktop Support
7 2 (7.41%) Developer
7 2 (7.41%) Senior
8 1 (3.70%) Consultant
8 1 (3.70%) Desktop Engineer
8 1 (3.70%) Head of IT
8 1 (3.70%) Junior
8 1 (3.70%) Junior Analyst
8 1 (3.70%) Project Analyst
8 1 (3.70%) Support Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (11.11%) LangChain
2 2 (7.41%) ODBC
3 1 (3.70%) CrewAI
3 1 (3.70%) FastAPI
3 1 (3.70%) pydantic
3 1 (3.70%) PySpark
3 1 (3.70%) PyTorch
3 1 (3.70%) Ray
3 1 (3.70%) React
3 1 (3.70%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 4 (14.81%) AI Agents
2 3 (11.11%) NHS
2 3 (11.11%) Video Conferencing
3 2 (7.41%) Autonomous Agent
3 2 (7.41%) Blackberry
3 2 (7.41%) Data Protection Act
3 2 (7.41%) Onboarding
3 2 (7.41%) PACS
4 1 (3.70%) BYOD
4 1 (3.70%) Distributed Computing
4 1 (3.70%) Distributed Systems
4 1 (3.70%) Driving Licence
4 1 (3.70%) Life Science
4 1 (3.70%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 16 (59.26%) Windows
2 4 (14.81%) Mac OS
2 4 (14.81%) Windows 10
2 4 (14.81%) Windows Server
3 2 (7.41%) Android
4 1 (3.70%) Apple iOS
4 1 (3.70%) Unix
4 1 (3.70%) Windows 7
4 1 (3.70%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (55.56%) Problem-Solving
2 11 (40.74%) ITIL
3 6 (22.22%) Collaborative Working
4 4 (14.81%) Artificial Intelligence
4 4 (14.81%) LLM
5 3 (11.11%) Capacity Planning
5 3 (11.11%) Data Protection
5 3 (11.11%) ITSM
5 3 (11.11%) Machine Learning
5 3 (11.11%) Mobile Device Management
5 3 (11.11%) Security Patching
6 2 (7.41%) Computer Science
6 2 (7.41%) Customer Service
6 2 (7.41%) Cybersecurity
6 2 (7.41%) Decision-Making
6 2 (7.41%) Multi-Agent System
6 2 (7.41%) Open Source
6 2 (7.41%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
6 2 (7.41%) Use Case
7 1 (3.70%) Biotechnology
Programming Languages
1 5 (18.52%) SQL
2 3 (11.11%) PowerShell
2 3 (11.11%) Python
3 2 (7.41%) VB
3 2 (7.41%) VB6
4 1 (3.70%) Bash
4 1 (3.70%) Scala
4 1 (3.70%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 19 (70.37%) Microsoft Certification
2 11 (40.74%) A+ Certification
2 11 (40.74%) Degree
3 7 (25.93%) MCSE
4 5 (18.52%) MCSA
5 3 (11.11%) HNC
5 3 (11.11%) HND
6 2 (7.41%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (7.41%) Dell Certification
7 1 (3.70%) CCNA
7 1 (3.70%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (3.70%) CISSP
7 1 (3.70%) DBS Check
7 1 (3.70%) ITIL Certification
7 1 (3.70%) MCITP
7 1 (3.70%) MCTS
7 1 (3.70%) Microsoft Certified Master
7 1 (3.70%) PMI Certification
7 1 (3.70%) PMP
7 1 (3.70%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (7.41%) HL7
2 1 (3.70%) GDPR
2 1 (3.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (3.70%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 5 (18.52%) Active Directory
2 2 (7.41%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (7.41%) vSphere
2 2 (7.41%) XenApp
3 1 (3.70%) Docker
3 1 (3.70%) Hyper-V
3 1 (3.70%) Virtual Desktop
3 1 (3.70%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 4 (14.81%) SCCM
2 3 (11.11%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (3.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 1 (3.70%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 21 (77.78%) Microsoft
2 5 (18.52%) Cisco
2 5 (18.52%) Citrix
3 4 (14.81%) Google
4 3 (11.11%) Oracle
4 3 (11.11%) ServiceNow
4 3 (11.11%) VMware
5 2 (7.41%) Dell
5 2 (7.41%) InterSystems
5 2 (7.41%) Lotus
6 1 (3.70%) Apple
6 1 (3.70%) Bloomberg
6 1 (3.70%) F5
6 1 (3.70%) Okta