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 20 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 628 508 501
Rank change year-on-year -120 -7 +106
Contract jobs citing MCSA 39 44 64
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.073% 0.13% 0.17%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.23% 0.43% 0.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 33 22 29
10th Percentile £153 £181 £210
25th Percentile £160 £186 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £382 £308 £485
Median % change year-on-year +24.23% -36.60% -3.00%
75th Percentile £485 £603 £556
90th Percentile £587 £636 £601
UK excluding London median daily rate £300 £280 £538
% change year-on-year +7.33% -48.00% +10.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 12 30
10th Percentile - - £14.16
25th Percentile - £14.99 £14.24
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 16,752 10,297 11,620
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.31% 31.36% 29.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,227 6,345 7,361
10th Percentile £350 £288 £313
25th Percentile £433 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £528
Median % change year-on-year +0.48% -1.04% -4.00%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £716 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,249 827 815
10th Percentile £17.70 £17.97 £14.65
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £72.54 £53.81 £65.50
90th Percentile £87.32 £73.75 £76.69
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.77 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +93.90% -47.05% -6.40%

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 20 August 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 20 August 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 -126 39 £382 -4.50% 13
UK excluding London -116 33 £300 +7.33% 10
East of England -20 13 £155 - 2
South East -52 10 £583 +264.06% 6
North West -33 8 £483 -19.97% 1
North of England -53 8 £483 -19.97% 1
London -74 6 £400 +48.15% 4
Work from Home -62 4 £300 -7.69% 2
Midlands -54 2 £352 - 1
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 (7.69%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (5.13%) Exchange Server 2010
2 2 (5.13%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 3 (7.69%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (7.69%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (2.56%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 11 (28.21%) Azure
1 11 (28.21%) Microsoft 365
2 3 (7.69%) Entra ID
2 3 (7.69%) Google Workspace
2 3 (7.69%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 7 (17.95%) DNS
2 5 (12.82%) TCP/IP
3 4 (10.26%) DHCP
4 3 (7.69%) DMZ
4 3 (7.69%) Firewall
4 3 (7.69%) NetScaler
4 3 (7.69%) VPN
5 2 (5.13%) LAN
5 2 (5.13%) SAN
5 2 (5.13%) WAN
6 1 (2.56%) Ethernet
6 1 (2.56%) Network Security
General
1 13 (33.33%) Social Skills
1 13 (33.33%) Telecoms
2 4 (10.26%) Finance
3 3 (7.69%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (7.69%) Banking
3 3 (7.69%) Front Office
3 3 (7.69%) Investment Banking
4 1 (2.56%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 13 (33.33%) Technical Support
2 12 (30.77%) Support Specialist
2 12 (30.77%) Technical Specialist
2 12 (30.77%) Technical Support Specialist
3 8 (20.51%) Wintel Engineer
4 6 (15.38%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 4 (10.26%) Analyst
5 4 (10.26%) IT Analyst
6 3 (7.69%) Administrator
6 3 (7.69%) Help Desk Analyst
6 3 (7.69%) Wintel Administrator
7 2 (5.13%) Cloud Engineer
7 2 (5.13%) IT Engineer
7 2 (5.13%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
7 2 (5.13%) Messaging Engineer
7 2 (5.13%) Senior
7 2 (5.13%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
7 2 (5.13%) Server Engineer
8 1 (2.56%) IT Support
8 1 (2.56%) IT Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (33.33%) ONVIF
Miscellaneous
1 13 (33.33%) Video\Live Streaming
2 8 (20.51%) Clustering
2 8 (20.51%) Replication
3 4 (10.26%) PKI
4 3 (7.69%) BYOD
4 3 (7.69%) Driving Licence
4 3 (7.69%) Onboarding
5 2 (5.13%) Blackberry
5 2 (5.13%) Client/Server
5 2 (5.13%) iPad
5 2 (5.13%) iPhone
6 1 (2.56%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 18 (46.15%) Windows
2 14 (35.90%) Windows Server
3 3 (7.69%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (51.28%) Problem-Solving
2 16 (41.03%) Agile
3 13 (33.33%) CRM
3 13 (33.33%) Project Delivery
3 13 (33.33%) Time Management
4 10 (25.64%) High Availability
5 9 (23.08%) Capacity Planning
5 9 (23.08%) Disaster Recovery
6 8 (20.51%) ITIL
6 8 (20.51%) Network Virtualisation
7 7 (17.95%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 5 (12.82%) Security Hardening
8 5 (12.82%) Service Management
9 4 (10.26%) Identity Access Management
9 4 (10.26%) Identity Management
10 3 (7.69%) Customer Service
10 3 (7.69%) Deployment Automation
10 3 (7.69%) Internal Audit
10 3 (7.69%) Software Deployment
10 3 (7.69%) Technology Roadmap
Programming Languages
1 18 (46.15%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 39 (100.00%) Microsoft Certification
2 20 (51.28%) MCSE
2 20 (51.28%) Security Cleared
3 19 (48.72%) Degree
4 15 (38.46%) SC Cleared
5 13 (33.33%) A+ Certification
5 13 (33.33%) CCNA
5 13 (33.33%) Cisco Certification
6 11 (28.21%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 8 (20.51%) VCAP
8 6 (15.38%) DV Cleared
9 3 (7.69%) Azure Certification
9 3 (7.69%) CCA
9 3 (7.69%) Citrix Certification
9 3 (7.69%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (7.69%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (5.13%) SLA
System Software
1 16 (41.03%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (38.46%) Active Directory
3 11 (28.21%) VMware ESXi
3 11 (28.21%) vSphere
4 10 (25.64%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (2.56%) Firmware
5 1 (2.56%) NFS
5 1 (2.56%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 14 (35.90%) vCenter Server
2 8 (20.51%) Ansible
3 6 (15.38%) SCCM
4 4 (10.26%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (7.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 3 (7.69%) Dell DRAC
5 3 (7.69%) SCOM
5 3 (7.69%) WSUS
6 2 (5.13%) vMotion
7 1 (2.56%) VxRail
Vendors
1 26 (66.67%) Microsoft
2 16 (41.03%) VMware
3 8 (20.51%) Cisco
4 6 (15.38%) Citrix
4 6 (15.38%) Remedy
5 4 (10.26%) SolarWinds
6 3 (7.69%) Bloomberg
6 3 (7.69%) Dell
6 3 (7.69%) ION Trading
6 3 (7.69%) Reuters
6 3 (7.69%) ServiceNow
7 2 (5.13%) Lotus