Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 16 February 2020

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for MCSA qualifications. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months to 16 February 2020 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA) formerly Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator
UK
6 months to
16 Feb 2020		 Same period 2019 Same period 2018
Rank 555 601 601
Rank change year-on-year +46 0 +58
Contract jobs citing MCSA 169 286 303
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 0.25% 0.29% 0.30%
As % of the Qualifications category 1.16% 1.50% 1.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 99 176 183
UK median daily rate £375 £325 £313
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +15.38% +4.00% -5.30%
10th Percentile £178 £138 £141
90th Percentile £538 £581 £494
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £332 £350
% change year-on-year -1.96% -5.29% +6.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 32 13
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £18.25 £25.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +83.56% -27.00% +51.52%
10th Percentile £16.98 £15.20 £11.04
90th Percentile £47.00 £49.75 £39.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £16.20 £25.00
% change year-on-year +106.79% -35.20% +51.52%

MCSA is in the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for academic qualifications or professional certifications.

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK
Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 14,554 19,103 19,188
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 21.39% 19.41% 18.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,956 11,411 11,771
UK median daily rate £463 £450 £438
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +2.78% +2.86% +2.94%
10th Percentile £259 £258 £225
90th Percentile £638 £638 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £400
% change year-on-year +5.88% +6.25% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 670 914 862
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £30.00 £25.76
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +16.67% +16.46% -6.33%
10th Percentile £14.49 £12.55 £12.25
90th Percentile £57.00 £51.60 £50.23
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £27.53 £27.00
% change year-on-year +19.87% +1.96% -1.82%

MCSA
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing MCSA as a percentage of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for MCSA in the UK

MCSA
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in contract jobs citing MCSA.

Contractor daily rate trend for MCSA in the UK

MCSA
Contractor Daily Rate Histogram

The daily rate distribution of IT jobs citing MCSA over the 6 months to 16 February 2020.

Contractor daily rate histogram for MCSA in the UK

MCSA
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for contractor hourly rates quoted in IT jobs citing MCSA.

Contractor hourly rate trend for MCSA in the UK

MCSA
Contractor Hourly Rate Histogram

The hourly rate distribution of IT jobs citing MCSA over the 6 months to 16 February 2020.

Contractor hourly rate histogram for MCSA in the UK

MCSA
Top 14 Contract 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 16 February 2020. 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
Job
Vacancies
England +35 141 £380 +10.14% 182
UK excluding London +8 106 £325 -1.96% 145
London +116 60 £425 +6.25% 41
South East +61 34 £349 +16.25% 41
Scotland +42 26 £325 +135.51% 2
Midlands +54 19 £288 +40.24% 29
West Midlands +53 12 £303 +51.25% 18
South West -7 12 £483 +1.58% 22
North of England +9 11 £275 +37.50% 32
East Midlands +33 7 £288 +36.90% 10
Yorkshire +35 6 £225 +14.65% 10
East of England +18 4 £350 -15.15% 17
North West +16 3 £300 +71.43% 16
North East +16 2 £275 -8.33% 6

For the 6 months to 16 February 2020, IT contractor jobs citing MCSA also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads with a requirement for MCSA.

1 169 (100.00%) Microsoft Certification
2 129 (76.33%) Windows
3 123 (72.78%) Microsoft
4 112 (66.27%) MCSE
5 98 (57.99%) Active Directory
6 82 (48.52%) Azure
7 80 (47.34%) Windows Server
8 77 (45.56%) Office 365
9 62 (36.69%) VMware
10 60 (35.50%) Windows Server 2012
11 52 (30.77%) SCCM
11 52 (30.77%) Windows Server 2008
12 51 (30.18%) ITIL
13 50 (29.59%) Security Cleared
14 49 (28.99%) PowerShell
15 48 (28.40%) DNS
16 46 (27.22%) Windows 10
17 45 (26.63%) SQL
17 45 (26.63%) Microsoft Office
18 42 (24.85%) Hyper-V
19 39 (23.08%) AWS
19 39 (23.08%) SharePoint
20 37 (21.89%) DHCP
21 36 (21.30%) SC Cleared
22 35 (20.71%) VMware ESXi
22 35 (20.71%) MCITP
23 34 (20.12%) Citrix
24 33 (19.53%) MS Exchange
25 32 (18.93%) Migration
25 32 (18.93%) VMware Infrastructure

MCSA
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same job type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 39 (23.08%) SharePoint
2 33 (19.53%) MS Exchange
3 11 (6.51%) Confluence
4 9 (5.33%) Exchange Server 2010
5 8 (4.73%) IIS
6 6 (3.55%) Exchange Server 2013
7 4 (2.37%) SharePoint 2010
8 3 (1.78%) Apache
8 3 (1.78%) Tomcat
9 2 (1.18%) Exchange Server 2007
9 2 (1.18%) Skype for Business
10 1 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
10 1 (0.59%) Office Communications Server
10 1 (0.59%) WebLogic
Applications
1 45 (26.63%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (3.55%) MS Visio
3 4 (2.37%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (1.18%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.59%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.59%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 82 (48.52%) Azure
2 77 (45.56%) Office 365
3 39 (23.08%) AWS
4 28 (16.57%) GitHub
5 13 (7.69%) AWS CloudFormation
5 13 (7.69%) IaaS
6 12 (7.10%) OpenShift
7 10 (5.92%) PaaS
8 9 (5.33%) Azure Active Directory
9 7 (4.14%) GCP
10 6 (3.55%) OneDrive
10 6 (3.55%) Power Platform
11 5 (2.96%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 5 (2.96%) Microsoft Flow
11 5 (2.96%) PowerApps
12 4 (2.37%) SaaS
13 2 (1.18%) Amazon S3
14 1 (0.59%) G Suite
14 1 (0.59%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 48 (28.40%) DNS
2 37 (21.89%) DHCP
3 24 (14.20%) SAN
4 17 (10.06%) LAN
5 16 (9.47%) Firewall
6 15 (8.88%) WAN
7 7 (4.14%) Skype
8 6 (3.55%) VPN
9 5 (2.96%) Cisco ASA
9 5 (2.96%) Intrusion Detection
9 5 (2.96%) NaaS
10 4 (2.37%) TCP/IP
11 3 (1.78%) NAS
11 3 (1.78%) NetScaler
11 3 (1.78%) Network Security
11 3 (1.78%) Remote Desktop
12 2 (1.18%) IPv4
12 2 (1.18%) SMTP
12 2 (1.18%) VoIP
12 2 (1.18%) VPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (13.61%) SQL Server
2 12 (7.10%) Amazon RDS
3 5 (2.96%) Azure SQL Database
4 2 (1.18%) SQL Server 2012
5 1 (0.59%) Apache Cassandra
5 1 (0.59%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.59%) MySQL
5 1 (0.59%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.59%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.59%) Power BI
5 1 (0.59%) RDBMS
5 1 (0.59%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.59%) SQL Server 2016
5 1 (0.59%) SQL Server 2017
5 1 (0.59%) SQL Server 7
Development Applications
1 25 (14.79%) JIRA
2 15 (8.88%) StarTeam
3 6 (3.55%) GitLab
4 4 (2.37%) Jenkins
4 4 (2.37%) Octopus Deploy
4 4 (2.37%) TeamCity
4 4 (2.37%) Visual Studio Team System
5 2 (1.18%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 2 (1.18%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.59%) CF BOSH
6 1 (0.59%) Eclipse
6 1 (0.59%) Oracle APEX
6 1 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.59%) Visual Studio
General
1 18 (10.65%) Finance
2 10 (5.92%) Legal
3 8 (4.73%) Public Sector
4 7 (4.14%) Retail
4 7 (4.14%) Telecoms
5 6 (3.55%) Banking
6 5 (2.96%) Law
7 3 (1.78%) Manufacturing
8 2 (1.18%) Back Office
8 2 (1.18%) Pharmaceutical
8 2 (1.18%) Police
9 1 (0.59%) Games
Job Titles
1 20 (11.83%) Analyst
2 19 (11.24%) DevOps Engineer
2 19 (11.24%) Support Engineer
2 19 (11.24%) Windows Engineer
3 17 (10.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 12 (7.10%) Server Engineer
4 12 (7.10%) Test Engineer
5 11 (6.51%) Administrator
5 11 (6.51%) Service Analyst
5 11 (6.51%) Service Desk Analyst
6 10 (5.92%) Consultant
6 10 (5.92%) Desktop Engineer
7 9 (5.33%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 9 (5.33%) AWS Engineer
7 9 (5.33%) Desktop Support
7 9 (5.33%) IT Engineer
7 9 (5.33%) Support Analyst
7 9 (5.33%) Technical Support
7 9 (5.33%) Windows Server Engineer
8 8 (4.73%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (3.55%) LDAP
2 2 (1.18%) Node.js
3 1 (0.59%) .NET
3 1 (0.59%) Elastic Stack
3 1 (0.59%) Kafka
3 1 (0.59%) Middleware
3 1 (0.59%) REST
3 1 (0.59%) Web Services
3 1 (0.59%) XMPP
3 1 (0.59%) X-Windows
Miscellaneous
1 23 (13.61%) Replication
2 17 (10.06%) Clustering
3 14 (8.28%) Self-Motivation
4 11 (6.51%) Management Information System
5 10 (5.92%) Data Centre
6 5 (2.96%) PKI
7 4 (2.37%) Analytical Skills
7 4 (2.37%) Public Cloud
8 3 (1.78%) Enterprise Storage
9 2 (1.18%) Driving Licence
9 2 (1.18%) EMC VMAX
9 2 (1.18%) Hybrid Cloud
9 2 (1.18%) Linux Command Line
9 2 (1.18%) NHS
9 2 (1.18%) N-Tier
9 2 (1.18%) VxBlock/Vblock
10 1 (0.59%) Fat Client
10 1 (0.59%) HP StoreVirtual
10 1 (0.59%) Smartphone
10 1 (0.59%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 129 (76.33%) Windows
2 80 (47.34%) Windows Server
3 60 (35.50%) Windows Server 2012
4 52 (30.77%) Windows Server 2008
5 46 (27.22%) Windows 10
6 31 (18.34%) Windows Server 2003
7 24 (14.20%) Linux
7 24 (14.20%) Windows 7
8 21 (12.43%) Windows XP
9 15 (8.88%) AIX
10 5 (2.96%) Windows 8
11 4 (2.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 3 (1.78%) CentOS
13 1 (0.59%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.59%) Unix
13 1 (0.59%) VMS
13 1 (0.59%) Windows Vista
Processes & Methodologies
1 51 (30.18%) ITIL
2 32 (18.93%) Migration
3 30 (17.75%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 29 (17.16%) Agile Software Development
5 27 (15.98%) DevOps
6 26 (15.38%) Server Virtualisation
7 25 (14.79%) Change Management
8 23 (13.61%) Problem-Solving
9 16 (9.47%) Disaster Recovery
10 15 (8.88%) High Availability
10 15 (8.88%) Scrum
10 15 (8.88%) Smoke Testing
10 15 (8.88%) Test Scripting
11 14 (8.28%) Root Cause Analysis
12 13 (7.69%) Infrastructure as Code
13 10 (5.92%) Computer Science
13 10 (5.92%) Configuration Management
13 10 (5.92%) Software Testing
14 9 (5.33%) Incident Management
14 9 (5.33%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 49 (28.99%) PowerShell
2 45 (26.63%) SQL
3 24 (14.20%) Python
4 12 (7.10%) Go
5 8 (4.73%) Bash Shell
6 7 (4.14%) Perl
7 5 (2.96%) Java
8 2 (1.18%) C
8 2 (1.18%) C#
8 2 (1.18%) Ruby
9 1 (0.59%) C++
9 1 (0.59%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.59%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.59%) T-SQL
9 1 (0.59%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 169 (100.00%) Microsoft Certification
2 112 (66.27%) MCSE
3 50 (29.59%) Security Cleared
4 36 (21.30%) SC Cleared
5 35 (20.71%) MCITP
6 29 (17.16%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 25 (14.79%) MCP
8 24 (14.20%) CCNA
8 24 (14.20%) Cisco Certification
9 19 (11.24%) MCTS
10 17 (10.06%) ISTQB
11 15 (8.88%) CCA
11 15 (8.88%) Citrix Certification
12 12 (7.10%) Degree
12 12 (7.10%) DV Cleared
13 9 (5.33%) RHCSA
14 8 (4.73%) A+ Certification
15 5 (2.96%) RHCE
16 4 (2.37%) MOS
16 4 (2.37%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (10.65%) SLA
2 5 (2.96%) PCI DSS
3 4 (2.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (1.78%) ISO 9001
5 2 (1.18%) Government Security Classifications
5 2 (1.18%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 1 (0.59%) GDPR
6 1 (0.59%) GxP
6 1 (0.59%) NCSC
6 1 (0.59%) QA
6 1 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.59%) SSAE 16
System Software
1 98 (57.99%) Active Directory
2 42 (24.85%) Hyper-V
3 35 (20.71%) VMware ESXi
4 32 (18.93%) VMware Infrastructure
5 17 (10.06%) Docker
6 13 (7.69%) XenApp
7 12 (7.10%) XenDesktop
8 11 (6.51%) vSphere
9 4 (2.37%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (1.18%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 2 (1.18%) Forefront TMG
10 2 (1.18%) ISA Server
10 2 (1.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 2 (1.18%) UAG
10 2 (1.18%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.59%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.59%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.59%) RHEV
11 1 (0.59%) Terminal Services
11 1 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 52 (30.77%) SCCM
2 25 (14.79%) Terraform
3 24 (14.20%) Ansible
4 18 (10.65%) Kubernetes
5 16 (9.47%) McAfee ePO
5 16 (9.47%) Puppet
6 15 (8.88%) Netcool
6 15 (8.88%) Opscode Chef
7 12 (7.10%) SCOM
7 12 (7.10%) WSUS
8 7 (4.14%) Microsoft Intune
8 7 (4.14%) vCenter Server
9 5 (2.96%) Backup Exec
10 4 (2.37%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
10 4 (2.37%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (1.78%) NetBackup
11 3 (1.78%) PowerCLI
12 2 (1.18%) EMC NetWorker
12 2 (1.18%) Failover Clustering
12 2 (1.18%) Nessus
Vendors
1 123 (72.78%) Microsoft
2 62 (36.69%) VMware
3 34 (20.12%) Citrix
4 28 (16.57%) Cisco
5 17 (10.06%) McAfee
6 16 (9.47%) Veritas
7 12 (7.10%) HP
8 11 (6.51%) Red Hat
8 11 (6.51%) Splunk
9 8 (4.73%) Meraki
10 7 (4.14%) Remedy
11 5 (2.96%) Adobe
11 5 (2.96%) F5
11 5 (2.96%) Salesforce.com
11 5 (2.96%) ServiceNow
11 5 (2.96%) Sony
11 5 (2.96%) Symantec
12 4 (2.37%) Dell
12 4 (2.37%) Ivanti
12 4 (2.37%) Nimble Storage