Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 22 August 2017

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 22 August 2017 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
22 Aug 2017		 Same period 2016 Same period 2015
Rank 258 194 175
Rank change year-on-year -64 -19 -7
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 951 1453 1605
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 0.99% 1.34% 1.41%
As % of the Qualifications category 5.15% 6.36% 7.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 570 908 979
UK median daily rate £330 £330 £325
Median daily rate % change year-on-year - +1.54% -
10th Percentile £123 £185 £150
90th Percentile £525 £475 £475
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £325 £335
% change year-on-year - -2.99% +8.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 111 159
UK median hourly rate £18.13 £21.33 £17.50
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year -15.00% +21.89% +9.38%
10th Percentile £11.25 £10.79 £11.25
90th Percentile £51.00 £41.00 £36.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.68 £22.25 £17.50
% change year-on-year -16.04% +27.14% +12.07%

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 academic qualifications and professional certifications cited in contract job vacancies.

Academic & Professional Certification
UK
Contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 18452 22862 22061
As % of all contract IT job vacancies advertised in the UK 19.25% 21.11% 19.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 11165 14257 12950
UK median daily rate £425 £406 £400
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +4.79% +1.39% +5.26%
10th Percentile £250 £241 £230
90th Percentile £598 £588 £563
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £375 £375
% change year-on-year +6.67% - +7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 932 810 1089
UK median hourly rate £29.75 £27.50 £22.50
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +8.18% +22.22% +12.50%
10th Percentile £12.09 £12.25 £11.70
90th Percentile £50.60 £48.75 £50.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.00 £27.80 £24.12
% change year-on-year +11.51% +15.26% +20.60%

Microsoft Certification
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Microsoft Certification in the UK

Microsoft Certification
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification.

Contractor daily rate trend for Microsoft Certification in the UK

Microsoft Certification
Contractor Daily Rate Histogram

The daily rate distribution of IT jobs citing Microsoft Certification over the 6 months to 22 August 2017.

Contractor daily rate histogram for Microsoft Certification in the UK

Microsoft Certification
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for contractor hourly rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft Certification.

Contractor hourly rate trend for Microsoft Certification in the UK

Microsoft Certification
Contractor Hourly Rate Histogram

The hourly rate distribution of IT jobs citing Microsoft Certification over the 6 months to 22 August 2017.

Contractor hourly rate histogram for Microsoft Certification in the UK

Microsoft Certification
Top 16 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 22 August 2017. 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 -38 863 £350 +2.94% 214
UK excluding London -71 580 £325 - 157
London -3 334 £363 -6.45% 70
South East -72 173 £325 -8.45% 45
North of England -51 118 £400 +29.03% 45
Midlands +15 105 £300 -17.24% 24
East of England -2 102 £363 +30.63% 12
East Midlands +25 65 £288 +4.55% 8
North West +18 55 £413 +50.00% 30
West Midlands -8 38 £350 -12.50% 16
Scotland -87 36 £338 +3.85% 6
Yorkshire +14 33 £400 +38.53% 13
South West -29 30 £313 -8.76% 19
North East -33 30 £350 +12.45% 2
Wales +6 16 £173 -50.71% 4
Northern Ireland -53 2 £250 +138.10% 2

For the 6 months to 22 August 2017, IT contractor jobs citing Microsoft Certification also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the number co-occurrences and its proportion to all contract ads with a requirement for Microsoft Certification.

1 692 (72.77%) Microsoft
2 608 (63.93%) Windows
3 486 (51.10%) Active Directory
4 483 (50.79%) MCSE
5 363 (38.17%) ITIL
6 268 (28.18%) Windows Server
7 258 (27.13%) VMware
8 252 (26.50%) Office 365
9 204 (21.45%) MS Exchange
10 202 (21.24%) MCSA
11 197 (20.72%) Windows Server 2012
12 196 (20.61%) Citrix
13 193 (20.29%) SQL Server
14 182 (19.14%) Microsoft Office
15 180 (18.93%) Cisco
16 176 (18.51%) MCP
17 174 (18.30%) PowerShell
17 174 (18.30%) Microsoft Azure
18 171 (17.98%) Windows 7
19 166 (17.46%) Windows Server 2008
20 158 (16.61%) VMware Infrastructure
21 154 (16.19%) HP
22 148 (15.56%) SQL
23 146 (15.35%) DNS
24 141 (14.83%) Windows 10
25 139 (14.62%) MCITP
26 137 (14.41%) Degree
27 132 (13.88%) SCCM
28 131 (13.77%) Migration
29 130 (13.67%) DHCP

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
1 204 (21.45%) MS Exchange
2 117 (12.30%) SharePoint
3 83 (8.73%) Exchange Server 2010
4 62 (6.52%) Skype for Business
5 48 (5.05%) IIS
6 43 (4.52%) Exchange Server 2013
7 42 (4.42%) SharePoint 2013
8 29 (3.05%) SharePoint Server
9 27 (2.84%) SharePoint 2010
10 19 (2.00%) BizTalk Server
11 18 (1.89%) IBM Notes
12 17 (1.79%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
12 17 (1.79%) Exchange Server 2007
13 14 (1.47%) Apache
14 13 (1.37%) Exchange Server 2003
15 11 (1.16%) OpenStack
16 10 (1.05%) ArcGIS
17 8 (0.84%) NServiceBus
18 7 (0.74%) Office Communications Server
19 6 (0.63%) EPiServer
Applications
1 182 (19.14%) Microsoft Office
2 28 (2.94%) MS Visio
3 26 (2.73%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (0.53%) AutoCAD
4 5 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.11%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 18 (1.89%) Dynamics AX
2 14 (1.47%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.63%) Remedy ITSM
4 5 (0.53%) Dynamics NAV
5 2 (0.21%) Dynamics GP
5 2 (0.21%) Eikon
5 2 (0.21%) WebTrends
6 1 (0.11%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 252 (26.50%) Office 365
2 174 (18.30%) Microsoft Azure
3 62 (6.52%) Amazon AWS
4 33 (3.47%) Azure Active Directory
5 28 (2.94%) IaaS
6 16 (1.68%) PaaS
7 15 (1.58%) SaaS
8 10 (1.05%) OneDrive
8 10 (1.05%) Yammer
9 9 (0.95%) Mimecast
10 6 (0.63%) Cloud Computing
11 5 (0.53%) GitHub
12 4 (0.42%) G Suite
13 3 (0.32%) Amazon EC2
13 3 (0.32%) Dynamics 365
13 3 (0.32%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 2 (0.21%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 2 (0.21%) AWS CloudFormation
14 2 (0.21%) Azure Machine Learning
15 1 (0.11%) AWS CloudTrail
Communications & Networking
1 146 (15.35%) DNS
2 130 (13.67%) DHCP
3 103 (10.83%) Firewall
4 91 (9.57%) TCP/IP
5 87 (9.15%) SAN
6 71 (7.47%) LAN
7 64 (6.73%) WAN
8 62 (6.52%) VPN
9 51 (5.36%) Skype
10 39 (4.10%) Wireless
11 31 (3.26%) NAS
12 24 (2.52%) Internet
13 21 (2.21%) VLAN
13 21 (2.21%) VoIP
14 20 (2.10%) Network Security
15 18 (1.89%) Unified Communications
16 16 (1.68%) NetScaler
16 16 (1.68%) Remote Desktop
17 15 (1.58%) SSL
18 13 (1.37%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 193 (20.29%) SQL Server
2 58 (6.10%) SQL Server 2012
3 46 (4.84%) SQL Server 2008
4 39 (4.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 36 (3.79%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 26 (2.73%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 23 (2.42%) SQL Server 2005
7 23 (2.42%) SQL Server 2016
8 14 (1.47%) SQL Server 2014
9 13 (1.37%) Data Warehouse
10 12 (1.26%) QlikView
10 12 (1.26%) Relational Database
11 11 (1.16%) Hadoop
11 11 (1.16%) Power BI
12 9 (0.95%) Big Data
12 9 (0.95%) OLAP
12 9 (0.95%) OLTP
13 8 (0.84%) Oracle Database
13 8 (0.84%) RDBMS
14 7 (0.74%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 40 (4.21%) Visual Studio
2 24 (2.52%) Team Foundation Server
3 16 (1.68%) Git (software)
4 15 (1.58%) Octopus Deploy
5 13 (1.37%) MorphX
6 9 (0.95%) JIRA
7 6 (0.63%) Moq
8 5 (0.53%) gulp
9 4 (0.42%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.42%) HP UFT
9 4 (0.42%) Wise Package Studio
9 4 (0.42%) WiX
10 3 (0.32%) Artifactory
10 3 (0.32%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 3 (0.32%) Gerrit
10 3 (0.32%) Jenkins
10 3 (0.32%) Maven
10 3 (0.32%) Metasploit
10 3 (0.32%) MSI
10 3 (0.32%) StarTeam
General
1 128 (13.46%) Finance
2 39 (4.10%) Banking
3 20 (2.10%) Manufacturing
4 19 (2.00%) Law
4 19 (2.00%) Telecoms
5 18 (1.89%) Financial Institution
6 14 (1.47%) Investment Banking
6 14 (1.47%) Military
7 13 (1.37%) Automotive
8 12 (1.26%) Retail
9 10 (1.05%) Avionics
9 10 (1.05%) Legal
9 10 (1.05%) Local Government
10 6 (0.63%) Advertising
10 6 (0.63%) Aerospace
10 6 (0.63%) Billing
10 6 (0.63%) General Ledger
11 5 (0.53%) Marketing
12 4 (0.42%) Front Office
12 4 (0.42%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 128 (13.46%) Analyst
2 96 (10.09%) Architect
3 93 (9.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 88 (9.25%) Support Engineer
5 83 (8.73%) Desktop Support
6 73 (7.68%) Developer
7 53 (5.57%) 2nd Line Support
8 52 (5.47%) Consultant
9 50 (5.26%) Administrator
10 47 (4.94%) Support Analyst
11 44 (4.63%) Desktop Engineer
12 41 (4.31%) 3rd Line Engineer
13 38 (4.00%) 3rd Line Support
14 35 (3.68%) Technical Support
15 33 (3.47%) IT Support
15 33 (3.47%) Server Engineer
15 33 (3.47%) Windows Engineer
16 31 (3.26%) Service Desk Analyst
17 29 (3.05%) IT Engineer
17 29 (3.05%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 99 (10.41%) .NET
2 37 (3.89%) XML
3 33 (3.47%) CSS
4 30 (3.15%) jQuery
5 29 (3.05%) ASP.NET
6 26 (2.73%) Web Services
7 23 (2.42%) HTML
8 17 (1.79%) XSLT
9 16 (1.68%) AngularJS
10 14 (1.47%) WPF
11 13 (1.37%) .NET Framework
11 13 (1.37%) WCF
12 11 (1.16%) COM
13 10 (1.05%) ASP.NET MVC
13 10 (1.05%) DCOM
14 9 (0.95%) ASP.NET Web API
14 9 (0.95%) Middleware
15 8 (0.84%) HTML5
16 7 (0.74%) 802.1X
16 7 (0.74%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 96 (10.09%) Analytical Skills
1 96 (10.09%) Data Centre
2 55 (5.78%) Blackberry
3 52 (5.47%) Management Information System
4 51 (5.36%) Computer Science
5 44 (4.63%) Clustering
6 37 (3.89%) Video Conferencing
7 29 (3.05%) PKI
8 25 (2.63%) Replication
9 23 (2.42%) PDA
10 18 (1.89%) iPad
10 18 (1.89%) NHS
10 18 (1.89%) Private Cloud
11 17 (1.79%) BYOD
11 17 (1.79%) iPhone
12 15 (1.58%) User Experience
13 13 (1.37%) Client/Server
14 12 (1.26%) Driving Licence
15 11 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
16 8 (0.84%) Fat Client
Operating Systems
1 608 (63.93%) Windows
2 268 (28.18%) Windows Server
3 197 (20.72%) Windows Server 2012
4 171 (17.98%) Windows 7
5 166 (17.46%) Windows Server 2008
6 141 (14.83%) Windows 10
7 88 (9.25%) Windows Server 2003
8 77 (8.10%) Linux
9 45 (4.73%) Windows 8
10 34 (3.58%) Apple iOS
10 34 (3.58%) Unix
11 32 (3.36%) Android
12 28 (2.94%) Windows XP
13 26 (2.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 16 (1.68%) Windows Vista
15 13 (1.37%) Mac OS X
16 11 (1.16%) Solaris
17 10 (1.05%) CentOS
18 9 (0.95%) Windows Phone
19 7 (0.74%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 363 (38.17%) ITIL
2 131 (13.77%) Migration
3 81 (8.52%) Change Management
4 73 (7.68%) Service Management
5 65 (6.83%) Project Management
6 63 (6.62%) ITIL V3
7 58 (6.10%) Disaster Recovery
8 56 (5.89%) High Availability
8 56 (5.89%) Incident Management
9 53 (5.57%) Agile Software Development
10 52 (5.47%) Business Intelligence
10 52 (5.47%) Service Delivery
11 50 (5.26%) PRINCE2
12 40 (4.21%) Workflow
13 38 (4.00%) Problem Management
14 37 (3.89%) DevOps
15 36 (3.79%) Asset Management
16 33 (3.47%) TOGAF
17 32 (3.36%) ITSM
18 30 (3.15%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 174 (18.30%) PowerShell
2 148 (15.56%) SQL
3 73 (7.68%) C#
4 38 (4.00%) JavaScript
5 35 (3.68%) VB
6 27 (2.84%) VBScript
7 19 (2.00%) T-SQL
8 17 (1.79%) C
8 17 (1.79%) Java
9 15 (1.58%) X++
10 12 (1.26%) Python
11 7 (0.74%) Perl
12 6 (0.63%) Data Analysis Expressions (DAX)
13 5 (0.53%) Bash Shell
13 5 (0.53%) Shell Script
14 4 (0.42%) REXX
14 4 (0.42%) Ruby
14 4 (0.42%) Tcl
15 3 (0.32%) VB.NET
15 3 (0.32%) VBA
Qualifications
1 483 (50.79%) MCSE
2 202 (21.24%) MCSA
3 176 (18.51%) MCP
4 139 (14.62%) MCITP
5 137 (14.41%) Degree
6 127 (13.35%) Cisco Certification
7 97 (10.20%) CCNA
7 97 (10.20%) Security Cleared
8 88 (9.25%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 77 (8.10%) SC Cleared
10 72 (7.57%) MCDST
11 67 (7.05%) MCTS
12 46 (4.84%) Computer Science Degree
13 39 (4.10%) ITIL Certification
14 38 (4.00%) A+ Certification
15 25 (2.63%) CCNP
15 25 (2.63%) Citrix Certification
16 23 (2.42%) DV Cleared
16 23 (2.42%) Network+ Certification
17 17 (1.79%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 83 (8.73%) SLA
2 29 (3.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 14 (1.47%) PCI DSS
4 12 (1.26%) Disclosure Scotland
5 10 (1.05%) MIL-STD-1553
6 8 (0.84%) QA
7 7 (0.74%) PMO
8 3 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 2 (0.21%) COBIT
10 1 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.11%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 486 (51.10%) Active Directory
2 158 (16.61%) VMware Infrastructure
3 124 (13.04%) Hyper-V
4 50 (5.26%) XenApp
5 39 (4.10%) vSphere
6 36 (3.79%) VMware ESXi
7 30 (3.15%) Virtual Servers
8 27 (2.84%) XenDesktop
9 25 (2.63%) Virtual Machines
10 24 (2.52%) Microsoft App-V
11 22 (2.31%) Virtual Desktop
12 12 (1.26%) VMware Workstation
13 8 (0.84%) BitLocker
13 8 (0.84%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 8 (0.84%) XenServer
14 7 (0.74%) Terminal Services
15 6 (0.63%) Terminal Server
16 3 (0.32%) DFS Replication
16 3 (0.32%) Firmware
16 3 (0.32%) KVM
Systems Management
1 132 (13.88%) SCCM
2 81 (8.52%) SCOM
3 21 (2.21%) Microsoft Clustering
4 19 (2.00%) WSUS
5 13 (1.37%) AirWatch
6 12 (1.26%) NetBackup
7 11 (1.16%) HP Data Protector
8 10 (1.05%) Norton AntiVirus
8 10 (1.05%) Tivoli
8 10 (1.05%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 9 (0.95%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 8 (0.84%) Backup Exec
10 8 (0.84%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
10 8 (0.84%) OpenView Configuration Management
10 8 (0.84%) vCenter Server
11 7 (0.74%) McAfee ePO
11 7 (0.74%) PowerCLI
12 6 (0.63%) DameWare
12 6 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
13 5 (0.53%) CA Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 692 (72.77%) Microsoft
2 258 (27.13%) VMware
3 196 (20.61%) Citrix
4 180 (18.93%) Cisco
5 154 (16.19%) HP
6 47 (4.94%) Apple
6 47 (4.94%) NetApp
7 44 (4.63%) Dell
7 44 (4.63%) Oracle
8 29 (3.05%) Red Hat
9 26 (2.73%) Sophos
10 25 (2.63%) ServiceNow
11 22 (2.31%) McAfee
11 22 (2.31%) Symantec
12 21 (2.21%) AppSense
12 21 (2.21%) CheckPoint
13 18 (1.89%) Lotus
13 18 (1.89%) Remedy
14 17 (1.79%) Juniper
14 17 (1.79%) SolarWinds