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 21 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 554 505 561
Rank change year-on-year -49 +56 +96
Contract jobs citing MCSA 32 30 42
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.087% 0.088% 0.096%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.26% 0.30% 0.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 23 18 24
10th Percentile £182 £268 £231
25th Percentile £303 £328 £302
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £420 £488
Median % change year-on-year +11.71% -13.85% +21.88%
75th Percentile £638 £622 £552
90th Percentile £654 £716 £594
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £498 £325
% change year-on-year -2.97% +53.08% -23.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 9 2
10th Percentile - £20.17 -
25th Percentile - - £15.33
Median hourly rate £16.00 £21.46 £15.65
Median % change year-on-year -25.44% +37.12% +0.97%
75th Percentile - - £15.98
90th Percentile - £112.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.00 £21.46 £15.65
% change year-on-year -25.44% +37.12% +0.97%

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 12,372 10,116 13,071
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.68% 29.79% 29.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,047 6,199 8,254
10th Percentile £313 £301 £300
25th Percentile £416 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £508 £538
% change year-on-year -1.48% -5.58% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,010 481 726
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £17.38
25th Percentile £19.38 £24.00 £27.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -23.81% +16.67%
75th Percentile £52.11 £66.00 £67.55
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.88 £52.21
% change year-on-year -41.35% -17.86% +16.79%

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 21 December 2025.

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 21 December 2025. 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 -33 26 £600 +41.18% 22
UK excluding London -28 25 £483 -2.97% 20
South West -9 9 £630 -3.08%
North West -22 8 £483 -5.35% 5
North of England -31 8 £483 -5.35% 7
Scotland +8 4 £188 -45.26% 1
London -7 4 £438 +38.89% 5
East of England -30 3 - - 5
Work from Home -14 2 - - 6
South East -18 1 £650 +67.74% 6

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 4 (12.50%) Confluence
2 3 (9.38%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (3.13%) Exchange Server 2010
3 1 (3.13%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 3 (9.38%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (9.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (3.13%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 6 (18.75%) Microsoft 365
2 4 (12.50%) Azure
3 2 (6.25%) Entra ID
4 1 (3.13%) AWS
Communications & Networking
1 10 (31.25%) DNS
2 8 (25.00%) Firewall
3 7 (21.88%) TCP/IP
4 5 (15.63%) DHCP
4 5 (15.63%) SSL
5 3 (9.38%) Wi-Fi
6 2 (6.25%) Structured Cabling
6 2 (6.25%) VPN
7 1 (3.13%) LAN
7 1 (3.13%) NAS
7 1 (3.13%) Network Security
7 1 (3.13%) SAN
7 1 (3.13%) VLAN
7 1 (3.13%) WAN
7 1 (3.13%) Wireless
Development Applications
1 6 (18.75%) JIRA
1 6 (18.75%) MSI
2 3 (9.38%) Bitbucket
2 3 (9.38%) Git
2 3 (9.38%) Jenkins
3 2 (6.25%) AdminStudio
3 2 (6.25%) InstallShield
General
1 9 (28.13%) Social Skills
2 8 (25.00%) Public Sector
3 7 (21.88%) Finance
4 3 (9.38%) Polish Language
5 2 (6.25%) Analytical Skills
5 2 (6.25%) Banking
5 2 (6.25%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (6.25%) Military
6 1 (3.13%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 7 (21.88%) Deployment Engineer
2 4 (12.50%) Wintel Engineer
3 3 (9.38%) Analyst
3 3 (9.38%) Applications Engineer
3 3 (9.38%) IT Analyst
3 3 (9.38%) Service Analyst
3 3 (9.38%) Service Desk Analyst
3 3 (9.38%) Technical Analyst
3 3 (9.38%) Technical Services Analyst
4 2 (6.25%) Lead
4 2 (6.25%) SC Cleared Deployment Engineer
4 2 (6.25%) Support Engineer
4 2 (6.25%) Team Leader
4 2 (6.25%) Test Engineer
5 1 (3.13%) 2nd Line Engineer
5 1 (3.13%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
5 1 (3.13%) Automation Engineer
5 1 (3.13%) Senior
5 1 (3.13%) Windows Engineer
5 1 (3.13%) Windows Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (15.63%) LDAP
2 1 (3.13%) Elastic Stack
2 1 (3.13%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 5 (15.63%) Cloud Security Posture
1 5 (15.63%) Security Posture
2 4 (12.50%) Clustering
2 4 (12.50%) Device Driver
2 4 (12.50%) Replication
3 3 (9.38%) Legacy Applications
4 2 (6.25%) Onboarding
4 2 (6.25%) PKI
5 1 (3.13%) ASIC
5 1 (3.13%) Blackberry
5 1 (3.13%) CCTV
5 1 (3.13%) Fibre Optics
5 1 (3.13%) FPGA
5 1 (3.13%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 26 (81.25%) Windows
2 11 (34.38%) Windows Server
3 8 (25.00%) Linux
4 5 (15.63%) Unix
5 4 (12.50%) Windows 10
6 3 (9.38%) Mac OS
7 2 (6.25%) Android
7 2 (6.25%) Apple iOS
7 2 (6.25%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (3.13%) VMS
8 1 (3.13%) Windows Server 2003
8 1 (3.13%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (53.13%) ITIL
2 10 (31.25%) Agile
2 10 (31.25%) Application Packaging
3 7 (21.88%) Vulnerability Remediation
4 6 (18.75%) DevOps
4 6 (18.75%) Disaster Recovery
4 6 (18.75%) Problem-Solving
5 5 (15.63%) Cloud Security
5 5 (15.63%) Identity Management
5 5 (15.63%) Log Correlation
5 5 (15.63%) Penetration Testing
5 5 (15.63%) Ticket Management
5 5 (15.63%) Vulnerability Management
5 5 (15.63%) Vulnerability Scanning
6 4 (12.50%) Batch Scripting
6 4 (12.50%) Capacity Planning
6 4 (12.50%) Critical Thinking
6 4 (12.50%) High Availability
6 4 (12.50%) Network Virtualisation
6 4 (12.50%) System Testing
Programming Languages
1 15 (46.88%) PowerShell
2 4 (12.50%) VBScript
3 3 (9.38%) Python
4 2 (6.25%) SQL
Qualifications
1 32 (100.00%) Microsoft Certification
2 19 (59.38%) MCSE
3 14 (43.75%) SC Cleared
3 14 (43.75%) Security Cleared
4 9 (28.13%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 5 (15.63%) CISSP
5 5 (15.63%) CompTIA Security+
6 4 (12.50%) MCP
6 4 (12.50%) VCAP
7 3 (9.38%) A+ Certification
7 3 (9.38%) CCNA
7 3 (9.38%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (9.38%) OCA
7 3 (9.38%) Oracle Certification
8 2 (6.25%) MCITP
8 2 (6.25%) MCTS
8 2 (6.25%) Microsoft Certified Master
9 1 (3.13%) Degree
9 1 (3.13%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 1 (3.13%) Network+ Certification
System Software
1 19 (59.38%) Active Directory
2 10 (31.25%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (15.63%) vSphere
4 4 (12.50%) Microsoft App-V
4 4 (12.50%) Virtual Machines
4 4 (12.50%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (6.25%) Hyper-V
6 1 (3.13%) Firmware
6 1 (3.13%) Terminal Services
6 1 (3.13%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 9 (28.13%) SCCM
2 7 (21.88%) Ansible
3 5 (15.63%) CASB
3 5 (15.63%) Nessus
4 4 (12.50%) vCenter Server
5 3 (9.38%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (9.38%) Terraform
6 2 (6.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (6.25%) PowerCLI
6 2 (6.25%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 26 (81.25%) Microsoft
2 11 (34.38%) VMware
3 6 (18.75%) Cisco
4 5 (15.63%) CyberArk
4 5 (15.63%) Remedy
4 5 (15.63%) Splunk
4 5 (15.63%) Tenable
5 4 (12.50%) Citrix
5 4 (12.50%) Veeam
6 3 (9.38%) Atlassian
6 3 (9.38%) Oracle
6 3 (9.38%) ServiceNow
6 3 (9.38%) SolarWinds
7 1 (3.13%) Symantec