Microsoft Certification Contract Job Trends

Microsoft Certification
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Microsoft Certification qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 12 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 251 265 347
Rank change year-on-year +14 +82 +65
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 359 345 333
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.09% 0.89% 0.66%
As % of the Qualifications category 3.46% 3.04% 2.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 225 207 233
10th Percentile £189 £208 £169
25th Percentile £238 £366 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% - +17.65%
75th Percentile £600 £586 £588
90th Percentile £650 £654 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £488 £488
% change year-on-year -17.95% - +26.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 36 13
10th Percentile £14.99 £11.75 £15.25
25th Percentile £16.30 £14.04 £16.25
Median hourly rate £19.23 £15.47 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +24.35% -14.08% +16.13%
75th Percentile £33.75 £21.37 £27.50
90th Percentile £78.80 - £35.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.23 £15.47 £17.50
% change year-on-year +24.35% -11.63% +12.90%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

Microsoft Certification 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 10,369 11,331 13,996
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.41% 29.37% 27.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,452 7,004 9,071
10th Percentile £300 £313 £325
25th Percentile £413 £425 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £623 £638 £650
90th Percentile £700 £735 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - +2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 827 672 705
10th Percentile £17.97 £17.00 £16.27
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.18 £26.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -49.70% -9.09% +22.22%
75th Percentile £47.50 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £71.33 £76.17 £79.19
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £54.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year -53.43% +2.86% +16.67%

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
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Microsoft Certification.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Microsoft Certification

Microsoft Certification
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft Certification over the 6 months to 12 September 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft Certification in the UK

Microsoft Certification
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Microsoft Certification.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Microsoft Certification

Microsoft Certification
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft Certification over the 6 months to 12 September 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft Certification in the UK

Microsoft Certification
Top 18 Contract Job 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 12 September 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 +26 309 £450 -10.00% 772
UK excluding London +32 231 £400 -17.95% 734
London -15 98 £500 +1.01% 205
Work from Home +26 97 £475 -1.04% 223
South East +33 57 £537 +9.59% 187
North of England +10 51 £425 -15.00% 162
North West +12 41 £425 -21.66% 89
East of England +7 36 £375 +66.67% 92
South West +20 35 £520 +4.00% 72
Midlands -11 28 £251 -49.75% 146
West Midlands -2 22 £235 -58.95% 79
Scotland -4 21 £200 -52.94% 42
Yorkshire -8 7 £362 -23.74% 58
East Midlands -13 6 £492 +23.00% 64
North East -2 3 £200 -57.89% 20
Wales - 3 £180 - 32
Channel Islands - 2 £725 -
Northern Ireland - 2 £200 - 8

Microsoft Certification
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 41 (11.42%) SharePoint
2 34 (9.47%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (1.11%) Skype for Business
4 2 (0.56%) Confluence
4 2 (0.56%) IBM Notes
4 2 (0.56%) OpenEdge
5 1 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2010
5 1 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 20 (5.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (4.46%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (4.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (2.51%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.28%) Trello
Business Applications
1 11 (3.06%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.56%) Alphatax
3 1 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
3 1 (0.28%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.28%) Maximo
3 1 (0.28%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 160 (44.57%) Azure
2 120 (33.43%) Microsoft 365
3 58 (16.16%) Entra ID
4 47 (13.09%) Power Platform
5 36 (10.03%) AWS
6 30 (8.36%) Azure DevOps
6 30 (8.36%) Dynamics 365
7 27 (7.52%) Power Automate
8 24 (6.69%) PowerApps
9 22 (6.13%) Microsoft Purview
10 17 (4.74%) Azure Data Factory
11 15 (4.18%) Azure Sentinel
12 14 (3.90%) Azure AKS
13 12 (3.34%) GitHub
13 12 (3.34%) IaaS
13 12 (3.34%) OneDrive
14 11 (3.06%) Azure Logic Apps
14 11 (3.06%) Azure Monitor
14 11 (3.06%) Azure Service Bus
15 10 (2.79%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 42 (11.70%) Firewall
2 36 (10.03%) DNS
2 36 (10.03%) VPN
3 34 (9.47%) TCP/IP
4 28 (7.80%) DHCP
5 18 (5.01%) Fibre Channel
5 18 (5.01%) iSCSI
5 18 (5.01%) LAN
5 18 (5.01%) Wi-Fi
6 10 (2.79%) Network Security
6 10 (2.79%) SSL
7 9 (2.51%) SAN
7 9 (2.51%) VLAN
8 6 (1.67%) NAS
8 6 (1.67%) Skype
8 6 (1.67%) WAN
8 6 (1.67%) Wireless
9 5 (1.39%) Unified Communications
10 4 (1.11%) Intrusion Detection
10 4 (1.11%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (8.08%) Power BI
2 26 (7.24%) SQL Server
3 18 (5.01%) Azure SQL Database
4 8 (2.23%) Relational Database
5 7 (1.95%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (1.67%) Data Lake
6 6 (1.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 5 (1.39%) Oracle Database
8 3 (0.84%) MySQL
8 3 (0.84%) NoSQL
8 3 (0.84%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 2 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.56%) DynamoDB
9 2 (0.56%) Metadata
9 2 (0.56%) MongoDB
9 2 (0.56%) Power Query
10 1 (0.28%) Big Data
10 1 (0.28%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.28%) PostgreSQL
10 1 (0.28%) Redis
Development Applications
1 14 (3.90%) JIRA
2 7 (1.95%) Git
3 5 (1.39%) MSI
4 4 (1.11%) GitLab
5 3 (0.84%) ERwin
6 2 (0.56%) AdminStudio
6 2 (0.56%) InstallShield
6 2 (0.56%) Visual Studio Code
7 1 (0.28%) Subversion
7 1 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 149 (41.50%) Social Skills
2 69 (19.22%) Analytical Skills
3 58 (16.16%) Finance
4 36 (10.03%) Public Sector
5 31 (8.64%) Documentation Skills
6 28 (7.80%) Banking
7 18 (5.01%) Legal
8 12 (3.34%) Manufacturing
9 9 (2.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (2.23%) Retail
11 7 (1.95%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (1.39%) Marketing
12 5 (1.39%) Telecoms
13 4 (1.11%) Local Government
13 4 (1.11%) Organisational Skills
14 3 (0.84%) Aerospace
14 3 (0.84%) French Language
14 3 (0.84%) Investment Banking
14 3 (0.84%) Military
15 2 (0.56%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 67 (18.66%) Analyst
2 56 (15.60%) Architect
3 33 (9.19%) Support Engineer
4 28 (7.80%) Support Analyst
5 26 (7.24%) Deployment Engineer
5 26 (7.24%) Senior
6 25 (6.96%) IT Support
7 22 (6.13%) Azure Engineer
8 21 (5.85%) Desktop Support
8 21 (5.85%) Infrastructure Architect
9 20 (5.57%) Consultant
9 20 (5.57%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
9 20 (5.57%) Service Analyst
9 20 (5.57%) Service Desk Analyst
10 19 (5.29%) Developer
10 19 (5.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 17 (4.74%) VMware Architect
12 15 (4.18%) 2nd Line Support
12 15 (4.18%) Security Engineer
12 15 (4.18%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (5.57%) .NET
2 13 (3.62%) ARM Templates
3 10 (2.79%) .NET Core
3 10 (2.79%) ASP.NET Web API
4 9 (2.51%) Microsoft Graph
4 9 (2.51%) REST
5 8 (2.23%) ADO
6 6 (1.67%) .NET Framework
6 6 (1.67%) ASP.NET
6 6 (1.67%) HTML5 Canvas
6 6 (1.67%) Web Services
7 5 (1.39%) ASP.NET MVC
7 5 (1.39%) Autofac
7 5 (1.39%) Dapper ORM
7 5 (1.39%) Entity Framework
7 5 (1.39%) JSON
7 5 (1.39%) LDAP
7 5 (1.39%) StructureMap
7 5 (1.39%) WCF
8 4 (1.11%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 16 (4.46%) Management Information System
1 16 (4.46%) PKI
2 15 (4.18%) Analytical Mindset
3 11 (3.06%) Onboarding
4 9 (2.51%) Hybrid Cloud
5 8 (2.23%) Enterprise Software
5 8 (2.23%) NHS
5 8 (2.23%) Security Posture
6 7 (1.95%) Cloud Native
6 7 (1.95%) Data Centre
6 7 (1.95%) Driving Licence
6 7 (1.95%) iPad
6 7 (1.95%) iPhone
7 6 (1.67%) Cloud Security Posture
7 6 (1.67%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 5 (1.39%) Device Driver
8 5 (1.39%) N-Tier
8 5 (1.39%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 5 (1.39%) Video Conferencing
9 3 (0.84%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 190 (52.92%) Windows
2 60 (16.71%) Windows Server
3 43 (11.98%) Windows 10
4 28 (7.80%) Linux
5 22 (6.13%) Mac OS
6 21 (5.85%) Windows Server 2019
7 9 (2.51%) Windows Server 2003
8 8 (2.23%) Windows Server 2012
9 7 (1.95%) Unix
10 6 (1.67%) VMS
10 6 (1.67%) Windows XP
11 5 (1.39%) Windows 8
11 5 (1.39%) Windows Server 2008
11 5 (1.39%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.84%) Apple iOS
13 2 (0.56%) Android
14 1 (0.28%) Mac OS X
14 1 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 1 (0.28%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 124 (34.54%) ITIL
2 116 (32.31%) Problem-Solving
3 55 (15.32%) Customer Service
4 52 (14.48%) DevOps
5 45 (12.53%) Agile
6 42 (11.70%) Migration
7 36 (10.03%) Computer Science
8 32 (8.91%) Service Management
9 31 (8.64%) Cloud Security
10 30 (8.36%) Business Intelligence
10 30 (8.36%) CI/CD
10 30 (8.36%) Service Delivery
11 28 (7.80%) Identity Access Management
11 28 (7.80%) Incident Management
11 28 (7.80%) ITSM
12 27 (7.52%) Continuous Improvement
13 26 (7.24%) Stakeholder Management
14 25 (6.96%) Data Loss Prevention
14 25 (6.96%) Mentoring
15 22 (6.13%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 63 (17.55%) PowerShell
2 58 (16.16%) SQL
3 22 (6.13%) C#
4 15 (4.18%) Bash
5 14 (3.90%) Bicep
5 14 (3.90%) JavaScript
5 14 (3.90%) T-SQL
6 11 (3.06%) Python
7 4 (1.11%) VBScript
8 3 (0.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 3 (0.84%) Java
8 3 (0.84%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.28%) Korn
9 1 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.28%) VBA
9 1 (0.28%) X++
Qualifications
1 93 (25.91%) Security Cleared
2 84 (23.40%) Degree
3 82 (22.84%) Azure Certification
4 62 (17.27%) SC Cleared
5 59 (16.43%) MCSE
6 52 (14.48%) A+ Certification
7 42 (11.70%) MCSA
8 24 (6.69%) MCP
9 21 (5.85%) Cisco Certification
10 20 (5.57%) DV Cleared
11 19 (5.29%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 18 (5.01%) CISSP
13 16 (4.46%) AWS Certification
13 16 (4.46%) Computer Science Degree
14 14 (3.90%) CCNA
15 13 (3.62%) Network+ Certification
16 12 (3.34%) Master's Degree
16 12 (3.34%) VCP5
16 12 (3.34%) VCP6
17 11 (3.06%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (6.69%) GDPR
1 24 (6.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 15 (4.18%) NIST
3 10 (2.79%) HIPAA
3 10 (2.79%) SLA
4 6 (1.67%) Accessibility
5 4 (1.11%) Cyber Essentials
5 4 (1.11%) NCSC
5 4 (1.11%) PCI DSS
5 4 (1.11%) SOC 2
6 3 (0.84%) QA
7 2 (0.56%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 2 (0.56%) ISO 22301
8 1 (0.28%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.28%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 1 (0.28%) JSP 440
8 1 (0.28%) NIST 800
System Software
1 128 (35.65%) Active Directory
2 43 (11.98%) VMware Infrastructure
3 27 (7.52%) vSphere
4 20 (5.57%) VMware ESXi
5 18 (5.01%) NFS
6 15 (4.18%) Hyper-V
7 14 (3.90%) Docker
8 4 (1.11%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (1.11%) Virtual Servers
8 4 (1.11%) VMware NSX
9 3 (0.84%) Microsoft App-V
9 3 (0.84%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 2 (0.56%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.56%) Firmware
10 2 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.56%) XenApp
11 1 (0.28%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 59 (16.43%) SCCM
2 27 (7.52%) Kubernetes
3 23 (6.41%) Microsoft Intune
4 21 (5.85%) Terraform
5 7 (1.95%) CASB
6 6 (1.67%) Prometheus
7 5 (1.39%) Grafana
7 5 (1.39%) Nessus
7 5 (1.39%) vCenter Server
8 4 (1.11%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 4 (1.11%) Ansible
8 4 (1.11%) SCOM
8 4 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (1.11%) WSUS
9 3 (0.84%) Backup Exec
9 3 (0.84%) QRadar
10 2 (0.56%) CSIRT
10 2 (0.56%) Malwarebytes
11 1 (0.28%) Host Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.28%) Istio
Vendors
1 342 (95.26%) Microsoft
2 53 (14.76%) VMware
3 39 (10.86%) ServiceNow
4 30 (8.36%) Splunk
5 28 (7.80%) Citrix
6 27 (7.52%) Veeam
7 22 (6.13%) Cisco
8 18 (5.01%) NetApp
9 10 (2.79%) Oracle
10 9 (2.51%) Dell
10 9 (2.51%) Zscaler
11 8 (2.23%) Google
12 7 (1.95%) Darktrace
13 6 (1.67%) Tenable
14 5 (1.39%) Canon
14 5 (1.39%) CheckPoint
14 5 (1.39%) CyberArk
14 5 (1.39%) Remedy
15 4 (1.11%) Palo Alto
15 4 (1.11%) Symantec