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 20 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 302 243 278
Rank change year-on-year -59 +35 +90
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 354 319 363
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.77% 1.08% 0.83%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.34% 3.52% 2.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 234 184 243
10th Percentile £166 £200 £180
25th Percentile £365 £261 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £598 £618 £575
90th Percentile £700 £716 £685
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -4.50% +11.11% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 37 62
10th Percentile £10.43 £14.99 £13.69
25th Percentile £23.43 £15.44 £14.16
Median hourly rate £31.86 £20.00 £16.30
Median % change year-on-year +59.30% +22.70% +5.16%
75th Percentile £151.02 £23.53 £21.37
90th Percentile £178.75 £36.00 £21.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.14 £19.99 £16.30
% change year-on-year +215.91% +22.61% +5.16%

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 15,158 9,055 13,449
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.77% 30.76% 30.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,101 5,761 8,302
10th Percentile £345 £295 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -2.23% -2.36%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £709 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £530
% change year-on-year -1.96% -3.77% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,094 505 1,054
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.43 £13.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.50 £17.80
Median hourly rate £45.46 £42.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.96% +6.25% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.25 £80.84 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £46.30 £40.00
% change year-on-year -1.81% +15.75% -19.55%

Microsoft Certification
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Microsoft Certification relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Microsoft Certification job vacancy trend 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 20 April 2026.

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 20 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft Certification in the UK

Microsoft Certification
Top 17 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 20 April 2026. 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 -72 324 £500 - 243
UK excluding London -83 219 £478 -4.50% 210
London -15 120 £525 +5.00% 71
Work from Home -46 82 £500 -4.76% 53
North of England -67 56 £470 -6.00% 49
South West -2 51 £545 -3.11% 28
North West -58 40 £470 -6.93% 27
South East -58 38 £480 -15.04% 65
Midlands -54 37 £425 +89.73% 24
West Midlands -56 29 £425 +89.73% 15
East of England -44 18 £173 -54.90% 35
Yorkshire -47 13 £484 +21.00% 16
Wales -6 12 £358 +51.48% 6
East Midlands -23 8 £220 - 9
Scotland -14 7 £475 +40.81% 9
North East -17 3 - - 7
Northern Ireland +2 1 £175 -12.50% 2

Microsoft Certification
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 44 (12.43%) Microsoft Exchange
2 34 (9.60%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.85%) Exchange Server 2013
4 2 (0.56%) Confluence
5 1 (0.28%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.28%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 21 (5.93%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (2.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (1.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.13%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 8 (2.26%) Veritas eDiscovery
2 7 (1.98%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (1.69%) Maximo
4 2 (0.56%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 153 (43.22%) Azure
2 106 (29.94%) Microsoft 365
3 64 (18.08%) Entra ID
4 58 (16.38%) Power Platform
5 35 (9.89%) Azure DevOps
6 33 (9.32%) Microsoft Purview
7 30 (8.47%) Power Automate
8 29 (8.19%) PowerApps
9 27 (7.63%) Azure Data Factory
10 24 (6.78%) AWS
11 23 (6.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 21 (5.93%) Dynamics 365
13 18 (5.08%) GitHub
14 16 (4.52%) Microsoft Copilot
15 15 (4.24%) OneDrive
16 13 (3.67%) Azure AKS
16 13 (3.67%) Azure Monitor
17 12 (3.39%) Azure Key Vault
17 12 (3.39%) Azure Logic Apps
18 11 (3.11%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 45 (12.71%) SAN
2 40 (11.30%) DNS
3 36 (10.17%) Firewall
4 28 (7.91%) VPN
5 13 (3.67%) TCP/IP
6 11 (3.11%) DHCP
7 10 (2.82%) LAN
8 8 (2.26%) Network Security
9 7 (1.98%) Wi-Fi
10 6 (1.69%) SSL
10 6 (1.69%) VLAN
11 4 (1.13%) DMZ
11 4 (1.13%) Kerberos
11 4 (1.13%) NAS
12 3 (0.85%) DKIM
12 3 (0.85%) DMARC
12 3 (0.85%) NetScaler
12 3 (0.85%) Skype
12 3 (0.85%) SMTP
12 3 (0.85%) Softphone
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (9.60%) Power BI
2 31 (8.76%) SQL Server
3 16 (4.52%) Data Lake
4 12 (3.39%) Azure SQL Database
4 12 (3.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 11 (3.11%) PostgreSQL
6 9 (2.54%) Metadata
6 9 (2.54%) MySQL
7 8 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
7 8 (2.26%) Power Query
8 6 (1.69%) Delta Lake
8 6 (1.69%) Spark SQL
9 4 (1.13%) Metadata Repository
9 4 (1.13%) Star Schema
10 3 (0.85%) Big Data
10 3 (0.85%) Oracle Database
10 3 (0.85%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.85%) Tableau
11 1 (0.28%) MongoDB
11 1 (0.28%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 17 (4.80%) Git
2 4 (1.13%) GitLab
2 4 (1.13%) JIRA
3 3 (0.85%) Bitbucket
3 3 (0.85%) Visual Studio Code
4 2 (0.56%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.56%) JDeveloper
4 2 (0.56%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.56%) Selenium
4 2 (0.56%) WebDriver
5 1 (0.28%) AdminStudio
5 1 (0.28%) InstallShield
5 1 (0.28%) MLflow
5 1 (0.28%) MSI
5 1 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 120 (33.90%) Social Skills
2 78 (22.03%) Analytical Skills
3 39 (11.02%) Finance
4 35 (9.89%) Public Sector
5 18 (5.08%) Documentation Skills
6 14 (3.95%) Legal
7 12 (3.39%) Banking
8 10 (2.82%) Telecoms
9 6 (1.69%) Marketing
10 5 (1.41%) Aerospace
11 4 (1.13%) Front Office
11 4 (1.13%) International Banking
11 4 (1.13%) Investment Banking
11 4 (1.13%) Military
12 3 (0.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (0.85%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.85%) Retail
13 2 (0.56%) Aeronautics
13 2 (0.56%) Law
Job Titles
1 52 (14.69%) Architect
2 47 (13.28%) IT Engineer
3 41 (11.58%) Field Engineer
3 41 (11.58%) Field Service Engineer
4 33 (9.32%) Analyst
5 32 (9.04%) Senior
6 30 (8.47%) IT Support
7 23 (6.50%) Support Engineer
8 22 (6.21%) Administrator
9 21 (5.93%) Solutions Architect
10 19 (5.37%) IT Support Engineer
11 16 (4.52%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
11 16 (4.52%) Support Analyst
12 15 (4.24%) Cloud Engineer
12 15 (4.24%) Developer
12 15 (4.24%) IT Analyst
13 14 (3.95%) DBA
13 14 (3.95%) Field Support Engineer
13 14 (3.95%) Lead
14 13 (3.67%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (7.34%) OAuth
2 24 (6.78%) SAML
3 22 (6.21%) OpenID
4 18 (5.08%) OAuth2
5 14 (3.95%) .NET
6 12 (3.39%) ARM Templates
6 12 (3.39%) REST
7 10 (2.82%) LDAP
8 8 (2.26%) Microsoft Graph
9 5 (1.41%) JSON
9 5 (1.41%) YAML
10 4 (1.13%) React
11 2 (0.56%) A2A Protocol
11 2 (0.56%) Jest
11 2 (0.56%) Kafka
11 2 (0.56%) Model Context Protocol
11 2 (0.56%) Next.js
11 2 (0.56%) PySpark
11 2 (0.56%) RESTful
11 2 (0.56%) Tailwind CSS
Miscellaneous
1 43 (12.15%) Analytical Mindset
2 42 (11.86%) Data Centre
3 19 (5.37%) Onboarding
3 19 (5.37%) Replication
4 17 (4.80%) Enterprise Software
5 13 (3.67%) Hybrid Cloud
6 11 (3.11%) BYOD
7 10 (2.82%) Clustering
7 10 (2.82%) PKI
7 10 (2.82%) Security Posture
8 9 (2.54%) Private Cloud
9 7 (1.98%) Cloud Native
9 7 (1.98%) Legacy Systems
9 7 (1.98%) Management Information System
10 6 (1.69%) Low-Code
11 5 (1.41%) Cloud Security Posture
11 5 (1.41%) Mobile App
11 5 (1.41%) Operational Technology
11 5 (1.41%) Security Operations Centre
12 4 (1.13%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 119 (33.62%) Windows
2 62 (17.51%) Windows Server
3 29 (8.19%) Windows 10
4 18 (5.08%) Linux
5 9 (2.54%) Android
5 9 (2.54%) Windows Server 2003
5 9 (2.54%) Windows Server 2012
6 8 (2.26%) Windows 7
6 8 (2.26%) Windows Server 2016
7 6 (1.69%) Apple iOS
7 6 (1.69%) Mac OS
7 6 (1.69%) Unix
8 4 (1.13%) Windows Server 2019
9 3 (0.85%) VMS
10 2 (0.56%) AIX
10 2 (0.56%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 118 (33.33%) Problem-Solving
2 66 (18.64%) Customer Service
3 63 (17.80%) ITIL
4 56 (15.82%) DevOps
5 53 (14.97%) Migration
6 51 (14.41%) CI/CD
7 42 (11.86%) Break/Fix
8 41 (11.58%) Agile
8 41 (11.58%) Analytics
9 38 (10.73%) RBAC
10 35 (9.89%) Business Intelligence
10 35 (9.89%) Identity Access Management
11 32 (9.04%) Disaster Recovery
11 32 (9.04%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 31 (8.76%) Infrastructure as Code
13 30 (8.47%) Computer Science
13 30 (8.47%) Data Governance
14 29 (8.19%) Roadmaps
15 27 (7.63%) Cloud Security
15 27 (7.63%) Data Loss Prevention
Programming Languages
1 103 (29.10%) PowerShell
2 45 (12.71%) SQL
3 34 (9.60%) Python
4 15 (4.24%) Bicep
5 13 (3.67%) C#
6 8 (2.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 7 (1.98%) Bash
7 7 (1.98%) JavaScript
7 7 (1.98%) T-SQL
8 6 (1.69%) R
8 6 (1.69%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.28%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.28%) VB
9 1 (0.28%) VBScript
9 1 (0.28%) X++
Qualifications
1 103 (29.10%) Security Cleared
2 102 (28.81%) MCSE
3 88 (24.86%) Degree
4 75 (21.19%) SC Cleared
5 64 (18.08%) Azure Certification
6 58 (16.38%) Cisco Certification
7 50 (14.12%) A+ Certification
7 50 (14.12%) Network+ Certification
8 48 (13.56%) CCNA
9 36 (10.17%) DV Cleared
10 30 (8.47%) MCSA
11 28 (7.91%) Computer Science Degree
12 24 (6.78%) CISSP
13 18 (5.08%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 16 (4.52%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 13 (3.67%) CompTIA Security+
16 11 (3.11%) CCNP
17 10 (2.82%) CISM
18 8 (2.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 8 (2.26%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (5.08%) NIST
2 17 (4.80%) GDPR
2 17 (4.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (2.54%) Cyber Essentials
3 9 (2.54%) SLA
4 8 (2.26%) NCSC
5 7 (1.98%) Data Quality
5 7 (1.98%) NIST 800
6 6 (1.69%) QA
7 4 (1.13%) Accessibility
8 3 (0.85%) WCAG
9 1 (0.28%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.28%) GxP
9 1 (0.28%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.28%) SOC 2
System Software
1 132 (37.29%) Active Directory
2 31 (8.76%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (4.24%) VMware ESXi
4 13 (3.67%) Docker
5 12 (3.39%) Virtual Desktop
6 10 (2.82%) Hyper-V
6 10 (2.82%) vSphere
7 9 (2.54%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.85%) Firmware
9 2 (0.56%) VMware NSX
10 1 (0.28%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.28%) Citrix Presentation Server
Systems Management
1 43 (12.15%) Microsoft Intune
2 35 (9.89%) Terraform
3 30 (8.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 22 (6.21%) Ansible
5 21 (5.93%) Kubernetes
6 20 (5.65%) SCCM
6 20 (5.65%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (3.39%) vCenter Server
8 7 (1.98%) WSUS
9 6 (1.69%) CASB
10 5 (1.41%) Nessus
11 3 (0.85%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
11 3 (0.85%) SCOM
12 2 (0.56%) Podman
12 2 (0.56%) PowerCLI
13 1 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
13 1 (0.28%) Dell DRAC
13 1 (0.28%) Kubeflow
13 1 (0.28%) PaperCut
13 1 (0.28%) QRadar
Vendors
1 288 (81.36%) Microsoft
2 43 (12.15%) Dell
3 42 (11.86%) VMware
4 21 (5.93%) Cisco
5 18 (5.08%) Oracle
6 14 (3.95%) Databricks
7 13 (3.67%) Citrix
8 12 (3.39%) Apple
8 12 (3.39%) ServiceNow
9 9 (2.54%) Tenable
10 8 (2.26%) Red Hat
11 7 (1.98%) IBM
11 7 (1.98%) Veeam
12 6 (1.69%) CyberArk
12 6 (1.69%) Remedy
13 4 (1.13%) CheckPoint
13 4 (1.13%) Foundry
13 4 (1.13%) Palo Alto
13 4 (1.13%) SolarWinds
13 4 (1.13%) Splunk