Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 6 April 2020

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Microsoft Certification qualifications. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months to 6 April 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 Certification
UK
6 months to
6 Apr 2020		 Same period 2019 Same period 2018
Rank 254 271 272
Rank change year-on-year +17 +1 -14
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 630 963 1,002
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.02% 0.99% 0.98%
As % of the Qualifications category 4.63% 5.11% 5.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 368 606 627
Median daily rate £400 £400 £350
Median daily rate % change year-on-year - +14.29% +6.06%
10th Percentile £149 £163 £160
90th Percentile £538 £600 £538
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £400 £350
% change year-on-year - +14.29% +7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 88 65
Median hourly rate £19.75 £18.50 £15.86
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +6.76% +16.65% -9.11%
10th Percentile £14.38 £12.94 £11.08
90th Percentile £43.14 £34.51 £31.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.00 £17.00 £15.86
% change year-on-year +5.88% +7.22% -16.55%

Microsoft Certification 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 13,609 18,848 19,593
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.03% 19.44% 19.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,228 11,379 11,870
Median daily rate £475 £454 £450
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +4.63% +0.89% +5.88%
10th Percentile £255 £263 £235
90th Percentile £638 £638 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £405
% change year-on-year +5.88% +4.94% +1.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 664 863 868
Median hourly rate £35.00 £32.50 £23.75
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +7.69% +36.84% -15.18%
10th Percentile £15.56 £12.50 £12.50
90th Percentile £57.00 £52.52 £50.08
Median hourly rate £34.00 £28.98 £25.00
% change year-on-year +17.34% +15.90% -13.79%

Microsoft Certification
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Microsoft Certification as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Microsoft Certification in the UK

Microsoft Certification
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Microsoft Certification.

Daily rate trend for Microsoft Certification in the UK

Microsoft Certification
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft Certification over the 6 months to 6 April 2020.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft Certification in the UK

Microsoft Certification
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Microsoft Certification.

Hourly rate trend for Microsoft Certification in the UK

Microsoft Certification
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft Certification over the 6 months to 6 April 2020.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft Certification in the UK

Microsoft Certification
Top 17 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft Certification within the UK over the 6 months to 6 April 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 +20 563 £400 - 350
UK excluding London +19 436 £400 - 294
London +62 181 £383 -10.00% 82
South East +24 150 £400 -5.88% 68
North of England +41 73 £400 +11.11% 77
Midlands +34 62 £410 +2.50% 63
South West -18 54 £425 +6.25% 32
Scotland +37 46 £350 - 10
East of England +27 43 £475 +18.75% 30
West Midlands +46 38 £433 -17.62% 43
North West +21 34 £400 +11.11% 38
East Midlands +11 24 £313 -11.97% 19
Yorkshire +37 22 £425 +16.44% 27
North East +33 17 £388 +29.17% 12
Work from Home 0 12 £425 -13.92% 59
Wales +14 5 £300 -36.84% 14
Northern Ireland +11 5 £335 +123.33% 3

For the 6 months to 6 April 2020, IT contractor jobs citing Microsoft Certification 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 Microsoft Certification.

1 486 (77.14%) Microsoft
2 386 (61.27%) Windows
3 332 (52.70%) Active Directory
4 321 (50.95%) MCSE
5 214 (33.97%) Office 365
6 205 (32.54%) Windows Server
7 185 (29.37%) Azure
8 184 (29.21%) VMware
9 164 (26.03%) ITIL
10 150 (23.81%) MCSA
11 142 (22.54%) Windows 10
12 141 (22.38%) Windows Server 2012
13 138 (21.90%) Security Cleared
14 131 (20.79%) PowerShell
15 119 (18.89%) DNS
16 114 (18.10%) Microsoft Office
17 111 (17.62%) SCCM
18 109 (17.30%) SC Cleared
19 107 (16.98%) VMware Infrastructure
20 102 (16.19%) SQL Server
21 98 (15.56%) Migration
22 90 (14.29%) Windows Server 2008
23 87 (13.81%) DHCP
24 83 (13.17%) MCP
25 82 (13.02%) Windows 7
26 80 (12.70%) SQL
27 79 (12.54%) Citrix
28 77 (12.22%) Cisco Certification
28 77 (12.22%) Windows Server 2016
29 75 (11.90%) Agile Software Development

Microsoft Certification
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 67 (10.63%) MS Exchange
2 63 (10.00%) SharePoint
3 34 (5.40%) Skype for Business
4 32 (5.08%) IIS
5 23 (3.65%) Exchange Server 2010
6 16 (2.54%) Exchange Server 2013
7 11 (1.75%) BizTalk Server
8 10 (1.59%) IBM Notes
9 7 (1.11%) SharePoint 2010
10 6 (0.95%) ArcGIS
10 6 (0.95%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.63%) Apache Spark
11 4 (0.63%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
11 4 (0.63%) CMS
11 4 (0.63%) Confluence
11 4 (0.63%) IBM Domino
12 3 (0.48%) EPiServer
12 3 (0.48%) Exchange Server 2007
12 3 (0.48%) Sitecore CMS
12 3 (0.48%) Umbraco
Applications
1 114 (18.10%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (2.06%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.43%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.95%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.63%) Acrobat
6 3 (0.48%) InfoPath
6 3 (0.48%) Photoshop
6 3 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.32%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.32%) InVision
7 2 (0.32%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.16%) Adobe Captivate
8 1 (0.16%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.16%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 24 (3.81%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (1.43%) assyst
3 8 (1.27%) Dynamics AX
4 2 (0.32%) BusinessWorks
4 2 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.32%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.16%) Actimize
5 1 (0.16%) CA PPM
5 1 (0.16%) ION MarketView
5 1 (0.16%) Line 500
5 1 (0.16%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 214 (33.97%) Office 365
2 185 (29.37%) Azure
3 52 (8.25%) AWS
4 48 (7.62%) Power Platform
5 45 (7.14%) Azure Active Directory
6 37 (5.87%) PaaS
7 34 (5.40%) Dynamics 365
8 31 (4.92%) IaaS
9 26 (4.13%) SaaS
10 17 (2.70%) Mimecast
11 14 (2.22%) GitHub
11 14 (2.22%) PowerApps
12 13 (2.06%) OpenShift
13 11 (1.75%) AWS CloudFormation
14 9 (1.43%) OneDrive
15 8 (1.27%) Serverless
16 7 (1.11%) GCP
17 6 (0.95%) Azure Functions
18 4 (0.63%) Microsoft Flow
19 3 (0.48%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 119 (18.89%) DNS
2 87 (13.81%) DHCP
3 61 (9.68%) Firewall
4 60 (9.52%) SAN
5 42 (6.67%) LAN
6 36 (5.71%) Skype
7 35 (5.56%) TCP/IP
8 33 (5.24%) WAN
9 23 (3.65%) VPN
10 22 (3.49%) Wireless
11 21 (3.33%) VoIP
12 14 (2.22%) Kerberos
12 14 (2.22%) PBX
13 13 (2.06%) Remote Desktop
14 11 (1.75%) Network Security
15 10 (1.59%) Internet
15 10 (1.59%) SMTP
15 10 (1.59%) VLAN
16 9 (1.43%) iSCSI
17 8 (1.27%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 102 (16.19%) SQL Server
2 40 (6.35%) Power BI
3 16 (2.54%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 15 (2.38%) SQL Server 2008
4 15 (2.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 13 (2.06%) Data Warehouse
6 10 (1.59%) Amazon RDS
6 10 (1.59%) Big Data
7 9 (1.43%) SQL Server 2016
8 7 (1.11%) Azure SQL Database
8 7 (1.11%) SQL Server 2012
9 6 (0.95%) Oracle Database
9 6 (0.95%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 5 (0.79%) Cosmos DB
10 5 (0.79%) DTS
10 5 (0.79%) Relational Database
10 5 (0.79%) SQL Server 2005
11 4 (0.63%) Essbase
11 4 (0.63%) OLAP
11 4 (0.63%) SQL Server 2000
Development Applications
1 30 (4.76%) Visual Studio
2 23 (3.65%) Git (software)
3 16 (2.54%) Team Foundation Server
4 13 (2.06%) JIRA
5 9 (1.43%) Sonatype Nexus
5 9 (1.43%) Visual Studio Team System
6 8 (1.27%) Jenkins
6 8 (1.27%) MSI
7 6 (0.95%) Eclipse
8 5 (0.79%) Android Studio
8 5 (0.79%) Bitbucket
8 5 (0.79%) GitLab
9 3 (0.48%) InstallShield
9 3 (0.48%) StarTeam
9 3 (0.48%) Visual Studio Tools for Office
10 2 (0.32%) ClearCase
10 2 (0.32%) ClearQuest
10 2 (0.32%) git-flow
10 2 (0.32%) Hudson
10 2 (0.32%) TeamCity
General
1 60 (9.52%) Finance
2 45 (7.14%) Public Sector
3 20 (3.17%) Manufacturing
4 19 (3.02%) Retail
5 13 (2.06%) Telecoms
6 11 (1.75%) Military
7 9 (1.43%) Marketing
8 6 (0.95%) Legal
9 5 (0.79%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (0.63%) Back Office
10 4 (0.63%) Banking
10 4 (0.63%) Law
10 4 (0.63%) Publishing
11 3 (0.48%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.48%) Financial Institution
11 3 (0.48%) French Language
11 3 (0.48%) Housing Association
11 3 (0.48%) Local Government
12 2 (0.32%) German Language
12 2 (0.32%) Police
Job Titles
1 75 (11.90%) Support Engineer
2 62 (9.84%) Developer
3 48 (7.62%) 2nd Line Support
4 46 (7.30%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 45 (7.14%) Consultant
6 44 (6.98%) Analyst
7 36 (5.71%) Architect
7 36 (5.71%) Windows Engineer
8 33 (5.24%) Desktop Engineer
9 31 (4.92%) Wintel Engineer
10 30 (4.76%) Desktop Support
11 29 (4.60%) IT Support
12 27 (4.29%) 3rd Line Engineer
13 26 (4.13%) 3rd Line Support
13 26 (4.13%) Active Directory Engineer
14 25 (3.97%) IT Engineer
15 22 (3.49%) Administrator
15 22 (3.49%) Azure Engineer
16 21 (3.33%) DevOps Engineer
17 20 (3.17%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (11.27%) .NET
2 25 (3.97%) HTML
3 24 (3.81%) ASP.NET
4 15 (2.38%) CSS
5 14 (2.22%) Web Services
6 13 (2.06%) .NET Framework
7 12 (1.90%) React
8 11 (1.75%) Node.js
8 11 (1.75%) XML
9 10 (1.59%) LDAP
10 8 (1.27%) AngularJS
10 8 (1.27%) jQuery
11 7 (1.11%) JSON
11 7 (1.11%) KnockoutJS
12 6 (0.95%) Middleware
12 6 (0.95%) RESTful
13 5 (0.79%) ADO
13 5 (0.79%) HTML5
13 5 (0.79%) WCF
14 4 (0.63%) LINQ
Miscellaneous
1 63 (10.00%) Analytical Skills
2 44 (6.98%) Data Centre
3 38 (6.03%) Self-Motivation
4 36 (5.71%) Replication
5 27 (4.29%) PKI
6 25 (3.97%) Management Information System
7 16 (2.54%) Clustering
8 14 (2.22%) Fat Client
8 14 (2.22%) Thin Client
9 13 (2.06%) Hedge funds
10 10 (1.59%) Driving Licence
10 10 (1.59%) Public Cloud
10 10 (1.59%) User Experience
11 9 (1.43%) NHS
11 9 (1.43%) Virtual Team
12 7 (1.11%) Hybrid Cloud
12 7 (1.11%) Linux Command Line
13 6 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
14 5 (0.79%) CMDB
14 5 (0.79%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 386 (61.27%) Windows
2 205 (32.54%) Windows Server
3 142 (22.54%) Windows 10
4 141 (22.38%) Windows Server 2012
5 90 (14.29%) Windows Server 2008
6 82 (13.02%) Windows 7
7 77 (12.22%) Windows Server 2016
8 49 (7.78%) Linux
9 27 (4.29%) Windows Server 2019
10 22 (3.49%) Windows Server 2003
11 21 (3.33%) Apple iOS
12 17 (2.70%) Windows 8
13 15 (2.38%) Android
14 14 (2.22%) Mac OS
15 12 (1.90%) Windows XP
16 8 (1.27%) VMS
17 7 (1.11%) Mac OS X
17 7 (1.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
18 6 (0.95%) CentOS
19 5 (0.79%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 164 (26.03%) ITIL
2 98 (15.56%) Migration
3 75 (11.90%) Agile Software Development
4 74 (11.75%) Problem-Solving
5 64 (10.16%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 55 (8.73%) DevOps
7 46 (7.30%) Service Management
8 39 (6.19%) Business Intelligence
9 37 (5.87%) ITSM
10 32 (5.08%) Change Management
10 32 (5.08%) Configuration Management
11 29 (4.60%) Disaster Recovery
11 29 (4.60%) High Availability
12 27 (4.29%) CRM
12 27 (4.29%) ITIL V3
12 27 (4.29%) Project Delivery
12 27 (4.29%) Service Delivery
13 25 (3.97%) Incident Management
13 25 (3.97%) Project Management
14 24 (3.81%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 131 (20.79%) PowerShell
2 80 (12.70%) SQL
3 48 (7.62%) C#
4 32 (5.08%) JavaScript
5 31 (4.92%) Java
5 31 (4.92%) Python
6 20 (3.17%) T-SQL
7 18 (2.86%) Bash Shell
8 17 (2.70%) C
8 17 (2.70%) VB
9 14 (2.22%) VBScript
10 12 (1.90%) C++
11 10 (1.59%) Go
12 8 (1.27%) VB.NET
13 5 (0.79%) PL/SQL
14 4 (0.63%) Ruby
15 2 (0.32%) Groovy
15 2 (0.32%) Kotlin
15 2 (0.32%) Scala
16 1 (0.16%) Data Analysis Expressions (DAX)
Qualifications
1 321 (50.95%) MCSE
2 150 (23.81%) MCSA
3 138 (21.90%) Security Cleared
4 109 (17.30%) SC Cleared
5 83 (13.17%) MCP
6 77 (12.22%) Cisco Certification
7 71 (11.27%) Degree
8 62 (9.84%) CCNA
8 62 (9.84%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 57 (9.05%) MCITP
10 32 (5.08%) A+ Certification
11 31 (4.92%) DV Cleared
12 28 (4.44%) MCTS
13 21 (3.33%) ITIL Certification
14 20 (3.17%) CCNP
14 20 (3.17%) Citrix Certification
15 19 (3.02%) MCDST
16 17 (2.70%) CCA
16 17 (2.70%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 16 (2.54%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (10.16%) SLA
2 9 (1.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 8 (1.27%) PCI DSS
4 7 (1.11%) GDPR
5 6 (0.95%) QA
6 5 (0.79%) Government Security Classifications
7 4 (0.63%) NCSC
8 3 (0.48%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 3 (0.48%) ISO 9001
9 2 (0.32%) Data Quality
10 1 (0.16%) GxP
10 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 1 (0.16%) NIST
10 1 (0.16%) PMO
10 1 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.16%) SSAE 16
System Software
1 332 (52.70%) Active Directory
2 107 (16.98%) VMware Infrastructure
3 60 (9.52%) Hyper-V
4 39 (6.19%) VMware ESXi
5 26 (4.13%) vSphere
5 26 (4.13%) XenApp
6 22 (3.49%) Docker
7 20 (3.17%) Microsoft App-V
8 19 (3.02%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (1.90%) XenDesktop
10 10 (1.59%) vCloud
11 9 (1.43%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 8 (1.27%) Virtual Servers
13 6 (0.95%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 6 (0.95%) NFS
13 6 (0.95%) Virtual Desktop
14 5 (0.79%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 5 (0.79%) UAG
14 5 (0.79%) VMware NSX
15 3 (0.48%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 111 (17.62%) SCCM
2 32 (5.08%) Ansible
3 27 (4.29%) Terraform
4 25 (3.97%) WSUS
5 22 (3.49%) Kubernetes
6 19 (3.02%) Puppet
7 18 (2.86%) SCOM
7 18 (2.86%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (2.38%) Microsoft Intune
8 15 (2.38%) Opscode Chef
9 13 (2.06%) vCenter Server
10 10 (1.59%) Forefront Identity Manager
11 8 (1.27%) AirWatch
11 8 (1.27%) McAfee ePO
11 8 (1.27%) Norton AntiVirus
12 7 (1.11%) Microsoft Clustering
13 6 (0.95%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
13 6 (0.95%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
15 4 (0.63%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 486 (77.14%) Microsoft
2 184 (29.21%) VMware
3 79 (12.54%) Citrix
4 73 (11.59%) Cisco
5 50 (7.94%) HP
6 26 (4.13%) Oracle
7 23 (3.65%) Dell
8 20 (3.17%) Ivanti
9 18 (2.86%) NetApp
9 18 (2.86%) Symantec
10 17 (2.70%) McAfee
11 15 (2.38%) EMC
12 13 (2.06%) Google
12 13 (2.06%) Sophos
13 12 (1.90%) Remedy
13 12 (1.90%) Sonus
14 11 (1.75%) IBM
15 10 (1.59%) Apple
16 9 (1.43%) CheckPoint
16 9 (1.43%) Lumension
376 Microsoft Certification job vacancies Nationwide