MCSA Contract Job Trends

Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA) formerly Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for MCSA qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 30 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 605 492 500
Rank change year-on-year -113 +8 +104
Contract jobs citing MCSA 47 40 85
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.092% 0.13% 0.20%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.29% 0.42% 0.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 42 15 36
10th Percentile £153 £151 £105
25th Percentile £190 £200 £306
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £453 £250 £469
Median % change year-on-year +81.20% -46.67% -9.86%
75th Percentile £568 £531 £556
90th Percentile £628 £650 £634
UK excluding London median daily rate £448 £400 £538
% change year-on-year +12.00% -25.58% +3.61%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 15 41
10th Percentile - - £14.16
25th Percentile - £14.99 £14.48
Median hourly rate - £15.14 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year - -7.12% +5.16%
75th Percentile - £15.87 £21.37
90th Percentile - £16.30 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £15.14 £16.30
% change year-on-year - -7.12% +5.16%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

MCSA 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 16,028 9,450 12,874
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.23% 30.88% 29.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,706 5,857 7,950
10th Percentile £350 £275 £312
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.77% -0.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £701 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £507 £500 £528
% change year-on-year +1.40% -5.30% +0.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,161 635 1,116
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.78 £20.19 £20.00
Median hourly rate £50.00 £28.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +77.62% -31.24% -26.00%
75th Percentile £72.54 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.00 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £27.13 £43.00
% change year-on-year +84.33% -36.92% -19.87%

MCSA
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing MCSA relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

MCSA job vacancy trend in the UK

MCSA
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing MCSA.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing MCSA

MCSA
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing MCSA over the 6 months to 30 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for MCSA in the UK

MCSA
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing MCSA.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing MCSA

MCSA
Top 10 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing MCSA within the UK over the 6 months to 30 June 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
England -106 47 £453 +74.23% 7
UK excluding London -90 40 £448 +12.00% 7
North West -31 17 £484 +10.63% 3
North of England -61 17 £484 +10.63% 3
East of England -34 13 £155 -
South East -63 8 £583 +264.06%
London -84 7 £500 +110.53% 1
Work from Home -45 6 £400 - 2
Midlands -59 2 £352 - 2
East Midlands - 2 £352 - 1

MCSA
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 (6.38%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 4 (8.51%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (6.38%) Remedy ITSM
1 3 (6.38%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 12 (25.53%) Microsoft 365
2 9 (19.15%) Azure
3 4 (8.51%) Google Workspace
4 3 (6.38%) Entra ID
5 1 (2.13%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 12 (25.53%) DNS
2 11 (23.40%) TCP/IP
3 9 (19.15%) Firewall
4 4 (8.51%) DHCP
4 4 (8.51%) DMZ
4 4 (8.51%) SSL
4 4 (8.51%) VPN
5 3 (6.38%) NetScaler
6 2 (4.26%) LAN
6 2 (4.26%) Network Security
6 2 (4.26%) WAN
7 1 (2.13%) Ethernet
General
1 13 (27.66%) Social Skills
1 13 (27.66%) Telecoms
2 9 (19.15%) Finance
3 4 (8.51%) Banking
3 4 (8.51%) Front Office
3 4 (8.51%) Investment Banking
4 3 (6.38%) Analytical Skills
5 2 (4.26%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 13 (27.66%) Technical Support
2 12 (25.53%) Support Specialist
2 12 (25.53%) Technical Specialist
2 12 (25.53%) Technical Support Specialist
2 12 (25.53%) Wintel Engineer
3 5 (10.64%) Analyst
3 5 (10.64%) IT Analyst
4 4 (8.51%) Help Desk Analyst
4 4 (8.51%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 3 (6.38%) Administrator
5 3 (6.38%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
5 3 (6.38%) Vulnerability Management Engineer
5 3 (6.38%) Wintel Administrator
6 2 (4.26%) Cloud Engineer
6 2 (4.26%) Senior
6 2 (4.26%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 2 (4.26%) Server Engineer
7 1 (2.13%) Security Engineer
7 1 (2.13%) Service Desk Support
7 1 (2.13%) Service Desk Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (27.66%) ONVIF
2 5 (10.64%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 13 (27.66%) Video\Live Streaming
2 12 (25.53%) Clustering
2 12 (25.53%) Replication
3 5 (10.64%) Cloud Security Posture
3 5 (10.64%) Onboarding
3 5 (10.64%) Security Posture
4 4 (8.51%) PKI
5 3 (6.38%) BYOD
5 3 (6.38%) Client/Server
6 1 (2.13%) Driving Licence
6 1 (2.13%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 26 (55.32%) Windows
2 16 (34.04%) Windows Server
3 5 (10.64%) Linux
3 5 (10.64%) Unix
4 1 (2.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (42.55%) Problem-Solving
2 16 (34.04%) High Availability
3 15 (31.91%) Agile
3 15 (31.91%) Disaster Recovery
4 14 (29.79%) Project Delivery
5 13 (27.66%) Capacity Planning
5 13 (27.66%) CRM
5 13 (27.66%) Time Management
6 12 (25.53%) ITIL
6 12 (25.53%) Network Virtualisation
7 9 (19.15%) Identity Management
8 6 (12.77%) Vulnerability Remediation
9 5 (10.64%) Cloud Security
9 5 (10.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 5 (10.64%) Log Correlation
9 5 (10.64%) Penetration Testing
9 5 (10.64%) Security Hardening
9 5 (10.64%) Vulnerability Assessment
9 5 (10.64%) Vulnerability Management
9 5 (10.64%) Vulnerability Scanning
Programming Languages
1 25 (53.19%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 47 (100.00%) Microsoft Certification
2 29 (61.70%) MCSE
3 22 (46.81%) Degree
4 21 (44.68%) Security Cleared
5 17 (36.17%) SC Cleared
6 15 (31.91%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 13 (27.66%) A+ Certification
7 13 (27.66%) CCNA
7 13 (27.66%) Cisco Certification
8 12 (25.53%) VCAP
9 5 (10.64%) CISSP
9 5 (10.64%) CompTIA Security+
10 4 (8.51%) Computer Science Degree
10 4 (8.51%) DV Cleared
10 4 (8.51%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 3 (6.38%) Azure Certification
11 3 (6.38%) CCA
11 3 (6.38%) Citrix Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (4.26%) SLA
System Software
1 18 (38.30%) Active Directory
1 18 (38.30%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (31.91%) VMware ESXi
2 15 (31.91%) vSphere
3 14 (29.79%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (2.13%) Firmware
4 1 (2.13%) NFS
4 1 (2.13%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 16 (34.04%) vCenter Server
2 12 (25.53%) Ansible
3 7 (14.89%) SCCM
4 6 (12.77%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (10.64%) CASB
5 5 (10.64%) Nessus
6 3 (6.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (6.38%) SCOM
6 3 (6.38%) WSUS
7 2 (4.26%) vMotion
8 1 (2.13%) Dell DRAC
8 1 (2.13%) VxRail
Vendors
1 30 (63.83%) Microsoft
2 18 (38.30%) VMware
3 12 (25.53%) Cisco
4 9 (19.15%) Remedy
5 7 (14.89%) Citrix
6 5 (10.64%) CyberArk
6 5 (10.64%) Tenable
7 4 (8.51%) Bloomberg
7 4 (8.51%) ION Trading
7 4 (8.51%) Reuters
7 4 (8.51%) ServiceNow
7 4 (8.51%) SolarWinds
7 4 (8.51%) Splunk
8 1 (2.13%) Dell