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

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 611 503 497
Rank change year-on-year -108 -6 +98
Contract jobs citing MCSA 45 40 87
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.088% 0.13% 0.20%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.28% 0.43% 0.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 40 15 38
10th Percentile £153 £151 £105
25th Percentile £190 £200 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £458 £250 £450
Median % change year-on-year +83.20% -44.44% -13.46%
75th Percentile £583 £531 £556
90th Percentile £630 £650 £633
UK excluding London median daily rate £456 £400 £538
% change year-on-year +14.00% -25.58% +2.38%
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 15,929 9,377 12,937
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.25% 30.92% 29.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,644 5,812 7,975
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
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 £703 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £507 £500 £526
% change year-on-year +1.40% -4.85% -0.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,162 619 1,118
10th Percentile £17.63 £17.76 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.21 £20.24 £20.00
Median hourly rate £50.74 £28.55 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +77.73% -30.26% -26.23%
75th Percentile £72.54 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.10 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £27.39 £43.00
% change year-on-year +82.57% -36.31% -21.19%

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 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 27 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 -130 45 £458 +76.15% 7
UK excluding London -107 38 £456 +14.00% 7
North West -34 17 £484 +10.63% 3
North of England -54 17 £484 +10.63% 3
East of England -36 12 £155 -
South East -57 8 £583 +264.06%
London -70 7 £500 +110.53% 1
Work from Home -56 6 £400 - 2
Midlands -61 1 £500 - 2
East Midlands - 1 £500 - 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 (6.67%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 4 (8.89%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (6.67%) Remedy ITSM
1 3 (6.67%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 11 (24.44%) Microsoft 365
2 8 (17.78%) Azure
3 4 (8.89%) Google Workspace
4 3 (6.67%) Entra ID
5 1 (2.22%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 11 (24.44%) DNS
2 10 (22.22%) TCP/IP
3 9 (20.00%) Firewall
4 4 (8.89%) DMZ
4 4 (8.89%) SSL
4 4 (8.89%) VPN
5 3 (6.67%) DHCP
5 3 (6.67%) NetScaler
6 2 (4.44%) Network Security
7 1 (2.22%) LAN
7 1 (2.22%) WAN
General
1 13 (28.89%) Social Skills
2 12 (26.67%) Telecoms
3 9 (20.00%) Finance
4 4 (8.89%) Banking
4 4 (8.89%) Front Office
4 4 (8.89%) Investment Banking
5 3 (6.67%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (4.44%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 12 (26.67%) Technical Support
1 12 (26.67%) Wintel Engineer
2 11 (24.44%) Support Specialist
2 11 (24.44%) Technical Specialist
2 11 (24.44%) Technical Support Specialist
3 5 (11.11%) Analyst
3 5 (11.11%) IT Analyst
4 4 (8.89%) Help Desk Analyst
4 4 (8.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 3 (6.67%) Administrator
5 3 (6.67%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
5 3 (6.67%) Vulnerability Management Engineer
5 3 (6.67%) Wintel Administrator
6 2 (4.44%) Senior
6 2 (4.44%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
7 1 (2.22%) CRM Specialist
7 1 (2.22%) Financial Analyst
7 1 (2.22%) Security Engineer
7 1 (2.22%) Service Desk Support
7 1 (2.22%) Service Desk Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (26.67%) ONVIF
2 5 (11.11%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 12 (26.67%) Clustering
1 12 (26.67%) Replication
1 12 (26.67%) Video\Live Streaming
2 5 (11.11%) Cloud Security Posture
2 5 (11.11%) Onboarding
2 5 (11.11%) Security Posture
3 4 (8.89%) PKI
4 3 (6.67%) BYOD
4 3 (6.67%) Client/Server
5 1 (2.22%) Driving Licence
5 1 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 26 (57.78%) Windows
2 16 (35.56%) Windows Server
3 5 (11.11%) Linux
3 5 (11.11%) Unix
4 1 (2.22%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (42.22%) Problem-Solving
2 16 (35.56%) High Availability
3 15 (33.33%) Disaster Recovery
4 14 (31.11%) Agile
4 14 (31.11%) Project Delivery
5 13 (28.89%) Capacity Planning
6 12 (26.67%) CRM
6 12 (26.67%) Network Virtualisation
6 12 (26.67%) Time Management
7 11 (24.44%) ITIL
8 9 (20.00%) Identity Management
9 6 (13.33%) Vulnerability Remediation
10 5 (11.11%) Cloud Security
10 5 (11.11%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 5 (11.11%) Log Correlation
10 5 (11.11%) Penetration Testing
10 5 (11.11%) Security Hardening
10 5 (11.11%) Vulnerability Assessment
10 5 (11.11%) Vulnerability Management
10 5 (11.11%) Vulnerability Scanning
Programming Languages
1 25 (55.56%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 45 (100.00%) Microsoft Certification
2 28 (62.22%) MCSE
3 20 (44.44%) Degree
3 20 (44.44%) Security Cleared
4 17 (37.78%) SC Cleared
5 15 (33.33%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 12 (26.67%) A+ Certification
6 12 (26.67%) CCNA
6 12 (26.67%) Cisco Certification
6 12 (26.67%) VCAP
7 5 (11.11%) CISSP
7 5 (11.11%) CompTIA Security+
8 4 (8.89%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (8.89%) DV Cleared
8 4 (8.89%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 3 (6.67%) Azure Certification
9 3 (6.67%) CCA
9 3 (6.67%) Citrix Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (4.44%) SLA
System Software
1 17 (37.78%) Active Directory
1 17 (37.78%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (33.33%) VMware ESXi
2 15 (33.33%) vSphere
3 14 (31.11%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (2.22%) Firmware
4 1 (2.22%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 16 (35.56%) vCenter Server
2 12 (26.67%) Ansible
3 7 (15.56%) SCCM
4 6 (13.33%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (11.11%) CASB
5 5 (11.11%) Nessus
6 3 (6.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (6.67%) SCOM
6 3 (6.67%) WSUS
7 2 (4.44%) vMotion
8 1 (2.22%) Dell DRAC
Vendors
1 29 (64.44%) Microsoft
2 17 (37.78%) VMware
3 12 (26.67%) Cisco
4 9 (20.00%) Remedy
5 7 (15.56%) Citrix
6 5 (11.11%) CyberArk
6 5 (11.11%) Tenable
7 4 (8.89%) Bloomberg
7 4 (8.89%) ION Trading
7 4 (8.89%) Reuters
7 4 (8.89%) ServiceNow
7 4 (8.89%) SolarWinds
7 4 (8.89%) Splunk
8 1 (2.22%) Dell