Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 17 July 2019

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 17 July 2019 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
17 Jul 2019		 Same period 2018 Same period 2017
Rank 552 622 675
Rank change year-on-year +70 +53 -107
Contract jobs citing MCSA 292 277 183
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 0.31% 0.27% 0.19%
As % of the Qualifications category 1.66% 1.42% 0.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 185 173 101
UK median daily rate £345 £300 £325
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +15.00% -7.69% +4.00%
10th Percentile £163 £161 £145
90th Percentile £525 £510 £475
UK excluding London median daily rate £350 £300 £325
% change year-on-year +16.67% -7.69% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 19 25
UK median hourly rate £45.00 £19.00 £16.50
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +136.84% +15.15% -53.52%
10th Percentile £14.65 £14.89 £13.24
90th Percentile £173.00 £47.00 £29.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £23.50 £16.50
% change year-on-year +91.49% +42.42% -55.10%

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 17,564 19,475 18,819
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 18.92% 18.79% 19.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,626 11,609 11,589
UK median daily rate £475 £450 £425
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +5.56% +5.88% +5.46%
10th Percentile £263 £246 £250
90th Percentile £650 £625 £593
UK excluding London median daily rate £443 £413 £400
% change year-on-year +7.45% +3.13% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 837 928 963
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £24.68 £30.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +41.82% -17.73% +5.26%
10th Percentile £13.00 £12.63 £12.09
90th Percentile £57.00 £50.25 £52.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £25.17 £31.50
% change year-on-year +39.07% -20.10% +8.62%

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 17 July 2019.

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 17 July 2019.

Contractor hourly rate histogram for MCSA in the UK

MCSA
Top 15 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 17 July 2019. 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 +60 269 £345 +15.00% 223
UK excluding London +33 203 £350 +16.67% 175
London +50 84 £338 +20.54% 62
South West +3 60 £425 +25.93% 13
South East +11 48 £375 +16.01% 64
Midlands +36 39 £325 +12.07% 25
North of England +32 26 £250 -18.03% 43
West Midlands +35 23 £258 -11.21% 15
Scotland +33 18 £350 +25.00% 5
North West +29 18 £250 -23.66% 28
East Midlands +29 16 £325 +8.33% 10
East of England -11 10 £300 -4.76% 16
Yorkshire +20 5 £275 -8.33% 9
North East +23 3 £180 - 6
Wales +2 2 £214 -28.75% 8

For the 6 months to 17 July 2019, 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.

1 292 (100.00%) Microsoft Certification
2 203 (69.52%) Windows
3 199 (68.15%) Microsoft
4 180 (61.64%) MCSE
5 137 (46.92%) Active Directory
6 136 (46.58%) Windows Server
7 131 (44.86%) VMware
8 108 (36.99%) ITIL
9 95 (32.53%) Cisco
10 89 (30.48%) CCNA
10 89 (30.48%) Cisco Certification
10 89 (30.48%) Office 365
11 88 (30.14%) VMware Infrastructure
12 86 (29.45%) PowerShell
13 71 (24.32%) Security Cleared
13 71 (24.32%) SCCM
14 69 (23.63%) Windows 10
15 66 (22.60%) Microsoft Azure
15 66 (22.60%) Windows Server 2012
16 63 (21.58%) Problem-Solving
17 58 (19.86%) Hyper-V
17 58 (19.86%) SC Cleared
17 58 (19.86%) MCP
18 57 (19.52%) SQL Server
18 57 (19.52%) DNS
19 53 (18.15%) Infrastructure Engineering
20 52 (17.81%) SQL
21 51 (17.47%) Data Centre
22 50 (17.12%) Firewall
23 49 (16.78%) Linux

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 44 (15.07%) MS Exchange
2 33 (11.30%) SharePoint
3 27 (9.25%) Skype for Business
4 22 (7.53%) Confluence
5 19 (6.51%) Exchange Server 2010
6 12 (4.11%) Exchange Server 2013
7 8 (2.74%) IIS
8 4 (1.37%) BizTalk Server
9 3 (1.03%) Exchange Server 2007
10 1 (0.34%) Apache
10 1 (0.34%) Exchange Server 2003
10 1 (0.34%) Tomcat
Applications
1 36 (12.33%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (3.77%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.68%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (2.05%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.34%) PeopleSoft Financials
2 1 (0.34%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.34%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 89 (30.48%) Office 365
2 66 (22.60%) Microsoft Azure
3 20 (6.85%) Azure Active Directory
4 16 (5.48%) Amazon AWS
5 14 (4.79%) Power Platform
6 12 (4.11%) PaaS
7 6 (2.05%) IaaS
7 6 (2.05%) Microsoft Flow
7 6 (2.05%) OneDrive
7 6 (2.05%) PowerApps
7 6 (2.05%) SaaS
8 5 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
9 4 (1.37%) Google Analytics
10 2 (0.68%) Amazon EC2
10 2 (0.68%) Cloud Computing
11 1 (0.34%) Amazon EKS
11 1 (0.34%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 1 (0.34%) Dropbox
11 1 (0.34%) Slack
11 1 (0.34%) Yammer
Communications & Networking
1 57 (19.52%) DNS
2 50 (17.12%) Firewall
3 48 (16.44%) DHCP
4 25 (8.56%) LAN
4 25 (8.56%) Skype
4 25 (8.56%) TCP/IP
5 24 (8.22%) WAN
6 18 (6.16%) SAN
7 11 (3.77%) Internet
7 11 (3.77%) Network Security
7 11 (3.77%) Remote Desktop
7 11 (3.77%) VPN
8 10 (3.42%) Wireless
9 8 (2.74%) Unified Communications
10 7 (2.40%) Cisco ASA
10 7 (2.40%) HTTP
10 7 (2.40%) Intrusion Detection
11 6 (2.05%) SMTP
11 6 (2.05%) VLAN
12 4 (1.37%) IP Telephony
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (19.52%) SQL Server
2 12 (4.11%) SQL Server 2016
2 12 (4.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 10 (3.42%) Data Warehouse
4 9 (3.08%) Azure SQL Database
5 8 (2.74%) Big Data
5 8 (2.74%) Power BI
6 7 (2.40%) OLAP
6 7 (2.40%) SQL Server 2008
7 6 (2.05%) SAP BW
7 6 (2.05%) SAP Data Services
7 6 (2.05%) SQL Server 2012
7 6 (2.05%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 5 (1.71%) MySQL
9 3 (1.03%) MariaDB
9 3 (1.03%) PostgreSQL
9 3 (1.03%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.68%) BusinessObjects
10 2 (0.68%) SSDT
Development Applications
1 25 (8.56%) JIRA
2 12 (4.11%) Atlassian Bamboo
3 7 (2.40%) Bitbucket
3 7 (2.40%) Git (software)
4 5 (1.71%) Hudson
5 4 (1.37%) Sonatype Nexus
5 4 (1.37%) TeamCity
5 4 (1.37%) Visual Studio Team System
6 3 (1.03%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.68%) Ant
7 2 (0.68%) GitLab
7 2 (0.68%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.68%) MSI
7 2 (0.68%) Octopus Deploy
8 1 (0.34%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 28 (9.59%) Finance
2 10 (3.42%) Banking
3 8 (2.74%) Law
4 7 (2.40%) Automotive
4 7 (2.40%) Legal
4 7 (2.40%) Telecoms
5 4 (1.37%) Retail
6 3 (1.03%) Back Office
6 3 (1.03%) French Language
6 3 (1.03%) Front Office
6 3 (1.03%) Games
6 3 (1.03%) German Language
6 3 (1.03%) Manufacturing
7 2 (0.68%) Hindi Language
7 2 (0.68%) Italian Language
7 2 (0.68%) Japanese Language
7 2 (0.68%) Korean Language
7 2 (0.68%) Mandarin Language
7 2 (0.68%) Russian Language
7 2 (0.68%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 42 (14.38%) Analyst
2 41 (14.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 33 (11.30%) Support Engineer
4 22 (7.53%) 3rd Line Engineer
5 21 (7.19%) Support Analyst
6 19 (6.51%) 3rd Line Support
7 18 (6.16%) 2nd Line Engineer
7 18 (6.16%) Consultant
7 18 (6.16%) IT Support
8 17 (5.82%) Applications Support
9 16 (5.48%) Desktop Support
9 16 (5.48%) Windows Engineer
9 16 (5.48%) Wintel Engineer
10 13 (4.45%) 2nd Line Support
10 13 (4.45%) Automation Engineer
10 13 (4.45%) Desktop Engineer
10 13 (4.45%) Infrastructure Analyst
11 12 (4.11%) IT Engineer
12 11 (3.77%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
13 10 (3.42%) Desktop Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (3.08%) REST
2 8 (2.74%) HTML
2 8 (2.74%) XML
3 6 (2.05%) .NET
4 3 (1.03%) JSON
5 1 (0.34%) Node.js
5 1 (0.34%) OAuth
5 1 (0.34%) Software Packaging
5 1 (0.34%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 51 (17.47%) Data Centre
2 44 (15.07%) Analytical Skills
3 16 (5.48%) Management Information System
4 14 (4.79%) PKI
5 13 (4.45%) Video Conferencing
6 9 (3.08%) Replication
7 8 (2.74%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (1.71%) Client/Server
9 4 (1.37%) Hybrid Cloud
9 4 (1.37%) Mobile App
9 4 (1.37%) NHS
10 3 (1.03%) Clustering
10 3 (1.03%) CMDB
10 3 (1.03%) User Experience
11 2 (0.68%) Driving Licence
11 2 (0.68%) Enterprise Software
11 2 (0.68%) iPad
11 2 (0.68%) Public Cloud
11 2 (0.68%) Smartphone
11 2 (0.68%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 203 (69.52%) Windows
2 136 (46.58%) Windows Server
3 69 (23.63%) Windows 10
4 66 (22.60%) Windows Server 2012
5 49 (16.78%) Linux
6 41 (14.04%) Windows 7
7 37 (12.67%) Windows Server 2008
8 28 (9.59%) Windows Server 2003
9 16 (5.48%) Windows 8
10 11 (3.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 8 (2.74%) Windows XP
12 7 (2.40%) Android
13 5 (1.71%) CentOS
13 5 (1.71%) VMS
14 4 (1.37%) Apple iOS
14 4 (1.37%) SUSE
15 3 (1.03%) Mac OS X
15 3 (1.03%) Unix
16 2 (0.68%) Mac OS
16 2 (0.68%) Windows Vista
Processes & Methodologies
1 108 (36.99%) ITIL
2 63 (21.58%) Problem-Solving
3 53 (18.15%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 41 (14.04%) Agile Software Development
5 40 (13.70%) Service Management
6 31 (10.62%) ITIL V3
7 27 (9.25%) ITSM
8 24 (8.22%) Migration
9 23 (7.88%) Business Intelligence
10 22 (7.53%) DevOps
11 20 (6.85%) Computer Science
12 19 (6.51%) Software Engineering
13 18 (6.16%) Deployment Automation
13 18 (6.16%) Infrastructure Automation
13 18 (6.16%) Reverse Engineering
14 17 (5.82%) Service Delivery
15 14 (4.79%) Information Security
16 13 (4.45%) Change Management
16 13 (4.45%) Disaster Recovery
17 12 (4.11%) Problem Management
Programming Languages
1 86 (29.45%) PowerShell
2 52 (17.81%) SQL
3 12 (4.11%) Python
4 11 (3.77%) VBScript
5 8 (2.74%) Java
6 7 (2.40%) Perl
7 6 (2.05%) T-SQL
8 4 (1.37%) VB
9 3 (1.03%) C
10 2 (0.68%) C#
11 1 (0.34%) Bash Shell
11 1 (0.34%) R
Qualifications
1 292 (100.00%) Microsoft Certification
2 180 (61.64%) MCSE
3 89 (30.48%) CCNA
3 89 (30.48%) Cisco Certification
4 71 (24.32%) Security Cleared
5 58 (19.86%) MCP
5 58 (19.86%) SC Cleared
6 47 (16.10%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 36 (12.33%) Degree
8 25 (8.56%) MCITP
9 19 (6.51%) DV Cleared
10 15 (5.14%) A+ Certification
11 10 (3.42%) MCDST
11 10 (3.42%) VCP6
12 9 (3.08%) ITIL Certification
12 9 (3.08%) OCA
12 9 (3.08%) Oracle Certification
12 9 (3.08%) SSCP
13 8 (2.74%) CCNP
13 8 (2.74%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (11.64%) SLA
2 4 (1.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
3 2 (0.68%) PCI DSS
3 2 (0.68%) QA
4 1 (0.34%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.34%) GDPR
4 1 (0.34%) IFRS
4 1 (0.34%) ISO 9001
4 1 (0.34%) PMO
4 1 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 137 (46.92%) Active Directory
2 88 (30.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 58 (19.86%) Hyper-V
4 26 (8.90%) vSphere
5 25 (8.56%) VMware ESXi
6 20 (6.85%) XenApp
7 19 (6.51%) Virtual Machines
8 16 (5.48%) XenDesktop
9 14 (4.79%) Virtual Desktop
10 12 (4.11%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (1.37%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 4 (1.37%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 4 (1.37%) vCloud
12 3 (1.03%) Terminal Services
13 2 (0.68%) Docker
13 2 (0.68%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.34%) BitLocker
14 1 (0.34%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 71 (24.32%) SCCM
2 38 (13.01%) SCOM
3 26 (8.90%) vCenter Server
4 18 (6.16%) PowerCLI
5 17 (5.82%) SCVMM
6 16 (5.48%) Microsoft Intune
7 11 (3.77%) WSUS
8 7 (2.40%) WMI
9 6 (2.05%) McAfee ePO
9 6 (2.05%) Perfmon
10 5 (1.71%) NetBackup
10 5 (1.71%) Single Sign-On
11 4 (1.37%) Failover Clustering
11 4 (1.37%) Kubernetes
11 4 (1.37%) PaperCut
11 4 (1.37%) SolarWinds Orion
12 3 (1.03%) AirWatch
12 3 (1.03%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
12 3 (1.03%) Norton AntiVirus
12 3 (1.03%) Terraform
Vendors
1 199 (68.15%) Microsoft
2 131 (44.86%) VMware
3 95 (32.53%) Cisco
4 48 (16.44%) Citrix
5 20 (6.85%) Red Hat
6 16 (5.48%) NetApp
7 13 (4.45%) Oracle
8 12 (4.11%) Atlassian
9 11 (3.77%) HP
9 11 (3.77%) Polycom
9 11 (3.77%) SolarWinds
10 9 (3.08%) Apple
10 9 (3.08%) Dell
11 7 (2.40%) CommVault
11 7 (2.40%) McAfee
11 7 (2.40%) Salesforce.com
11 7 (2.40%) Veeam
12 6 (2.05%) Intel
12 6 (2.05%) Juniper
12 6 (2.05%) SAP