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 27 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 585 477 489
Rank change year-on-year -108 +12 +140
Contract jobs citing MCSA 43 45 91
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.088% 0.16% 0.21%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.28% 0.51% 0.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 37 14 43
10th Percentile £178 £148 £124
25th Percentile £424 £211 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £544 £400
Median % change year-on-year -13.71% +35.94% -21.76%
75th Percentile £583 £638 £556
90th Percentile £630 £716 £624
UK excluding London median daily rate £469 £550 £513
% change year-on-year -14.69% +7.32% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 17 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 - £16.30 £21.37
90th Percentile - - -
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 15,427 8,877 12,756
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.65% 31.07% 29.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,228 5,604 7,949
10th Percentile £350 £275 £307
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.43% -1.37% -3.64%
75th Percentile £623 £619 £645
90th Percentile £719 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £528
% change year-on-year - -5.30% +0.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,128 500 1,075
10th Percentile £16.35 £17.86 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.28 £17.94
Median hourly rate £47.54 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.28% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £78.36 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.94
% change year-on-year +46.15% -20.62% -21.47%

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 27 May 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 8 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 27 May 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 -123 43 £469 -13.71% 13
UK excluding London -122 31 £469 -14.69% 11
North West -21 21 £483 +20.75% 3
North of England -52 21 £483 +20.75% 3
London -59 12 £475 +115.91% 3
East of England -46 7 £160 - 1
Work from Home -43 5 £500 -13.98% 3
South East -60 3 £600 +275.00% 5

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 8 (18.60%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 7 (16.28%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 8 (18.60%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 12 (27.91%) Microsoft 365
2 4 (9.30%) Google Workspace
3 2 (4.65%) Azure
4 1 (2.33%) Entra ID
4 1 (2.33%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 9 (20.93%) Firewall
1 9 (20.93%) TCP/IP
2 6 (13.95%) DNS
3 4 (9.30%) DMZ
3 4 (9.30%) SSL
3 4 (9.30%) VPN
4 1 (2.33%) Network Security
4 1 (2.33%) Unified Communications
General
1 15 (34.88%) Social Skills
2 10 (23.26%) Finance
3 7 (16.28%) Telecoms
4 5 (11.63%) Banking
5 4 (9.30%) Front Office
5 4 (9.30%) Investment Banking
6 2 (4.65%) Spanish Language
7 1 (2.33%) International Banking
Job Titles
1 16 (37.21%) Wintel Engineer
2 8 (18.60%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
3 7 (16.28%) Technical Support
4 6 (13.95%) Support Specialist
4 6 (13.95%) Technical Specialist
4 6 (13.95%) Technical Support Specialist
5 5 (11.63%) Analyst
5 5 (11.63%) IT Analyst
6 4 (9.30%) Help Desk Analyst
7 3 (6.98%) Vulnerability Management Engineer
8 2 (4.65%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 1 (2.33%) Financial Analyst
9 1 (2.33%) IT Support Analyst
9 1 (2.33%) IT Support Technician
9 1 (2.33%) Security Engineer
9 1 (2.33%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 1 (2.33%) Service Analyst
9 1 (2.33%) Service Desk Analyst
9 1 (2.33%) Support Engineer
9 1 (2.33%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (16.28%) ONVIF
2 5 (11.63%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 16 (37.21%) Clustering
1 16 (37.21%) Replication
2 8 (18.60%) BYOD
3 7 (16.28%) Video\Live Streaming
4 5 (11.63%) Cloud Security Posture
4 5 (11.63%) Onboarding
4 5 (11.63%) Security Posture
5 3 (6.98%) Client/Server
6 2 (4.65%) PKI
7 1 (2.33%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (2.33%) Driving Licence
7 1 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 27 (62.79%) Windows
2 17 (39.53%) Windows Server
3 5 (11.63%) Linux
3 5 (11.63%) Unix
4 1 (2.33%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (55.81%) Disaster Recovery
1 24 (55.81%) High Availability
2 16 (37.21%) Capacity Planning
2 16 (37.21%) Network Virtualisation
3 14 (32.56%) Project Delivery
4 12 (27.91%) Problem-Solving
5 10 (23.26%) ITIL
6 9 (20.93%) Agile
7 8 (18.60%) E-Discovery
7 8 (18.60%) Migration
7 8 (18.60%) Roadmaps
8 7 (16.28%) CRM
8 7 (16.28%) Identity Management
8 7 (16.28%) Root Cause Analysis
8 7 (16.28%) Time Management
9 6 (13.95%) Contingency Planning
9 6 (13.95%) PLM
9 6 (13.95%) Technology Roadmap
10 5 (11.63%) Ticket Management
10 5 (11.63%) Vulnerability Scanning
Programming Languages
1 29 (67.44%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 43 (100.00%) Microsoft Certification
2 31 (72.09%) MCSE
3 20 (46.51%) Degree
4 18 (41.86%) Security Cleared
5 17 (39.53%) SC Cleared
6 16 (37.21%) VCAP
6 16 (37.21%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 7 (16.28%) A+ Certification
7 7 (16.28%) CCNA
7 7 (16.28%) Cisco Certification
8 5 (11.63%) CISSP
8 5 (11.63%) CompTIA Security+
9 4 (9.30%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (9.30%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 2 (4.65%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (4.65%) SLA
System Software
1 17 (39.53%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (37.21%) Active Directory
2 16 (37.21%) Virtual Machines
2 16 (37.21%) VMware ESXi
2 16 (37.21%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 17 (39.53%) vCenter Server
2 16 (37.21%) Ansible
3 8 (18.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 8 (18.60%) Microsoft Intune
4 5 (11.63%) CASB
4 5 (11.63%) Nessus
5 4 (9.30%) SCCM
6 3 (6.98%) WSUS
7 1 (2.33%) Dell DRAC
Vendors
1 32 (74.42%) Microsoft
2 17 (39.53%) VMware
3 16 (37.21%) Cisco
4 6 (13.95%) Remedy
5 5 (11.63%) CyberArk
5 5 (11.63%) Tenable
6 4 (9.30%) Bloomberg
6 4 (9.30%) Citrix
6 4 (9.30%) ION Trading
6 4 (9.30%) Reuters
6 4 (9.30%) Splunk
7 1 (2.33%) Dell
7 1 (2.33%) ServiceNow