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

6 months to
20 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 523 522 591
Rank change year-on-year -1 +69 +88
Contract jobs citing MCSA 38 35 45
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.11% 0.094% 0.094%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.36% 0.32% 0.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 23 23 26
10th Percentile £181 £203 £247
25th Percentile £183 £303 £316
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £275 £415 £500
Median % change year-on-year -33.73% -17.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £620 £504 £550
90th Percentile £644 £636 £648
UK excluding London median daily rate £345 £425 £488
% change year-on-year -18.82% -12.82% +14.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 7 2
10th Percentile £14.99 £14.16 -
25th Percentile £15.50 £15.23 £15.33
Median hourly rate £16.00 £21.37 £15.65
Median % change year-on-year -25.13% +36.55% +0.97%
75th Percentile £16.15 £66.73 £15.98
90th Percentile £16.30 £112.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.00 £16.30 £15.65
% change year-on-year -1.84% +4.15% +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 10,656 10,856 13,639
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.11% 29.29% 28.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,671 6,579 8,784
10th Percentile £288 £313 £313
25th Percentile £413 £420 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £637 £650
90th Percentile £710 £725 £736
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £515 £538
% change year-on-year -2.91% -4.19% +2.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 905 540 751
10th Percentile £17.08 £18.13 £16.54
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.42 £25.44
Median hourly rate £25.15 £47.50 £53.50
Median % change year-on-year -47.05% -11.21% +18.89%
75th Percentile £39.50 £67.77 £68.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £79.78
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £51.89
% change year-on-year -49.70% -3.64% +15.31%

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 October 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 12 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 October 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 +1 31 £438 +4.17% 25
UK excluding London -1 28 £345 -18.82% 23
South West +15 8 £628 +5.68% 4
London +10 7 £270 -28.24% 6
East of England -5 7 - - 1
Scotland +8 5 £188 -45.26%
North West -11 4 £608 +19.17% 5
North of England -21 4 £608 +19.17% 5
Work from Home +20 3 £250 -44.44% 20
South East +8 3 £130 -69.41% 5
Midlands - 1 - - 6
West Midlands - 1 - - 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 (7.89%) Confluence
1 3 (7.89%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (2.63%) Exchange Server 2010
2 1 (2.63%) Exchange Server 2013
2 1 (2.63%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 9 (23.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (21.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (7.89%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (2.63%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 17 (44.74%) Microsoft 365
2 6 (15.79%) Azure
3 2 (5.26%) Entra ID
4 1 (2.63%) AWS
4 1 (2.63%) Google Workspace
4 1 (2.63%) Power Platform
4 1 (2.63%) SaaS
4 1 (2.63%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 12 (31.58%) DNS
1 12 (31.58%) Wi-Fi
2 11 (28.95%) TCP/IP
3 9 (23.68%) Firewall
4 6 (15.79%) DHCP
5 5 (13.16%) SSL
6 3 (7.89%) LAN
6 3 (7.89%) VPN
6 3 (7.89%) WAN
7 2 (5.26%) IP Telephony
7 2 (5.26%) Structured Cabling
7 2 (5.26%) Wireless
8 1 (2.63%) Internet
8 1 (2.63%) Intranet
8 1 (2.63%) NAS
8 1 (2.63%) Network Security
8 1 (2.63%) SAN
8 1 (2.63%) Skype
8 1 (2.63%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.63%) Azure SQL Database
1 1 (2.63%) Power BI
1 1 (2.63%) SQL Server
1 1 (2.63%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 6 (15.79%) MSI
2 5 (13.16%) JIRA
3 2 (5.26%) AdminStudio
3 2 (5.26%) InstallShield
4 1 (2.63%) Bitbucket
4 1 (2.63%) Git
4 1 (2.63%) Jenkins
General
1 9 (23.68%) Social Skills
2 8 (21.05%) Finance
3 7 (18.42%) Public Sector
4 4 (10.53%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (7.89%) Banking
5 3 (7.89%) Polish Language
6 2 (5.26%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (5.26%) Military
6 2 (5.26%) Retail
7 1 (2.63%) Advertising
7 1 (2.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (2.63%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 11 (28.95%) Analyst
2 10 (26.32%) Service Analyst
2 10 (26.32%) Service Desk Analyst
3 8 (21.05%) Deployment Engineer
4 6 (15.79%) IT Analyst
4 6 (15.79%) Technical Analyst
5 5 (13.16%) Technical Services Analyst
6 4 (10.53%) Support Engineer
7 3 (7.89%) Applications Engineer
8 2 (5.26%) Call Centre Analyst
8 2 (5.26%) SC Cleared Deployment Engineer
8 2 (5.26%) Technical Engineer
8 2 (5.26%) Test Engineer
9 1 (2.63%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
9 1 (2.63%) Integration Engineer
9 1 (2.63%) IT Support Specialist
9 1 (2.63%) Network Support
9 1 (2.63%) Security Engineer
9 1 (2.63%) Test and Integration Engineer
9 1 (2.63%) Windows Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (13.16%) LDAP
2 1 (2.63%) Elastic Stack
2 1 (2.63%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 5 (13.16%) Cloud Security Posture
1 5 (13.16%) Device Driver
1 5 (13.16%) Security Posture
2 3 (7.89%) Legacy Applications
2 3 (7.89%) Onboarding
2 3 (7.89%) Video Conferencing
3 2 (5.26%) PKI
4 1 (2.63%) ASIC
4 1 (2.63%) Blackberry
4 1 (2.63%) CCTV
4 1 (2.63%) Fibre Optics
4 1 (2.63%) FPGA
4 1 (2.63%) Hybrid Cloud
4 1 (2.63%) Life Science
4 1 (2.63%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 25 (65.79%) Windows
2 7 (18.42%) Windows 10
3 6 (15.79%) Linux
4 5 (13.16%) Mac OS
4 5 (13.16%) Unix
4 5 (13.16%) Windows Server
5 2 (5.26%) Android
5 2 (5.26%) Apple iOS
5 2 (5.26%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (2.63%) Mac OS X
6 1 (2.63%) VMS
6 1 (2.63%) Windows 7
6 1 (2.63%) Windows Server 2003
6 1 (2.63%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (71.05%) ITIL
2 15 (39.47%) Problem-Solving
3 11 (28.95%) Application Packaging
3 11 (28.95%) Customer Service
4 10 (26.32%) Incident Management
5 9 (23.68%) Service Delivery
6 8 (21.05%) Agile
6 8 (21.05%) Mathematics
7 7 (18.42%) Vulnerability Remediation
8 6 (15.79%) DevOps
9 5 (13.16%) Cloud Security
9 5 (13.16%) Identity Management
9 5 (13.16%) Log Correlation
9 5 (13.16%) Penetration Testing
9 5 (13.16%) Ticket Management
9 5 (13.16%) Vulnerability Management
9 5 (13.16%) Vulnerability Scanning
10 4 (10.53%) Batch Scripting
10 4 (10.53%) Validation
10 4 (10.53%) Vulnerability Assessment
Programming Languages
1 11 (28.95%) PowerShell
2 4 (10.53%) VBScript
3 3 (7.89%) SQL
4 1 (2.63%) Bash
4 1 (2.63%) Korn
4 1 (2.63%) Python
4 1 (2.63%) T-SQL
4 1 (2.63%) VBA
Qualifications
1 38 (100.00%) Microsoft Certification
2 15 (39.47%) MCSE
3 11 (28.95%) A+ Certification
4 10 (26.32%) SC Cleared
4 10 (26.32%) Security Cleared
5 6 (15.79%) MCP
6 5 (13.16%) CISSP
6 5 (13.16%) CompTIA Security+
7 4 (10.53%) CCNA
7 4 (10.53%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (7.89%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 2 (5.26%) Degree
9 2 (5.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 2 (5.26%) MCITP
9 2 (5.26%) MCTS
9 2 (5.26%) Microsoft Certified Master
9 2 (5.26%) MOS
9 2 (5.26%) Network+ Certification
10 1 (2.63%) OCA
10 1 (2.63%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (2.63%) SLA
System Software
1 26 (68.42%) Active Directory
2 4 (10.53%) Microsoft App-V
2 4 (10.53%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (5.26%) Hyper-V
3 2 (5.26%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (2.63%) Firmware
4 1 (2.63%) Terminal Services
4 1 (2.63%) vSphere
4 1 (2.63%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 12 (31.58%) SCCM
2 5 (13.16%) CASB
2 5 (13.16%) Nessus
3 3 (7.89%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (5.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 2 (5.26%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (2.63%) Ansible
5 1 (2.63%) Terraform
Vendors
1 31 (81.58%) Microsoft
2 13 (34.21%) Citrix
3 11 (28.95%) ServiceNow
4 5 (13.16%) CyberArk
4 5 (13.16%) Remedy
4 5 (13.16%) Splunk
4 5 (13.16%) Tenable
4 5 (13.16%) VMware
5 3 (7.89%) Cisco
6 2 (5.26%) Apple
6 2 (5.26%) Avaya
6 2 (5.26%) Polycom
6 2 (5.26%) Veeam
6 2 (5.26%) Wyse
7 1 (2.63%) Atlassian
7 1 (2.63%) Google
7 1 (2.63%) Oracle
7 1 (2.63%) SolarWinds
7 1 (2.63%) Symantec