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

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 17 May 2022 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
17 May 2022		 Same period 2021 Same period 2020
Rank 380 305 247
Rank change year-on-year -75 -58 +53
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Certification 577 454 530
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.66% 0.80% 1.06%
As % of the Qualifications category 3.34% 3.88% 4.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 377 317 317
10th Percentile £149 £185 £163
25th Percentile £213 £313 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £415
Median % change year-on-year - +2.41% +7.10%
75th Percentile £538 £520 £500
90th Percentile £621 £575 £575
UK excluding London median daily rate £383 £425 £425
% change year-on-year -10.00% - +11.84%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 22 37
10th Percentile - £13.38 £14.45
25th Percentile £15.25 £15.00 £15.85
Median hourly rate £15.50 £21.11 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -26.56% +8.23% +14.71%
75th Percentile £20.51 £31.88 £25.00
90th Percentile £28.75 £65.90 £41.37
UK excluding London median hourly rate £15.50 £19.00 £17.86
% change year-on-year -18.42% +6.41% +5.03%

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 17,296 11,705 11,461
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.77% 20.53% 22.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,512 7,668 7,358
10th Percentile £350 £305 £263
25th Percentile £427 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £488 £475
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% +2.63% +1.06%
75th Percentile £625 £575 £575
90th Percentile £700 £656 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +11.11% - +2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 748 555 461
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.50 £14.75
25th Percentile £19.86 £20.00 £18.00
Median hourly rate £44.50 £38.00 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +17.11% +26.67% -
75th Percentile £58.75 £51.25 £49.19
90th Percentile £67.50 £62.30 £57.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.20 £36.00 £25.50
% change year-on-year -2.22% +41.18% -10.62%

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 17 May 2022.

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 17 May 2022.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft Certification in the UK

Microsoft Certification
Top 18 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 17 May 2022. 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 -47 471 £425 - 291
UK excluding London -33 329 £383 -10.00% 264
Work from Home -101 178 £475 +11.76% 92
London -69 165 £500 +18.34% 57
South East -37 89 £440 -1.12% 45
North of England -10 70 £230 -41.03% 83
Midlands -14 49 £294 -36.49% 49
East of England -28 48 £375 -21.05% 29
Yorkshire -7 38 £200 -20.00% 25
South West -17 27 £438 +34.62% 28
West Midlands -33 26 £338 -35.71% 27
Scotland -48 24 £150 -64.71% 22
East Midlands +5 23 £238 -24.30% 22
Wales -12 20 £453 +24.97% 8
North East +7 16 £525 +15.38% 21
North West -46 16 £133 -66.88% 37
Northern Ireland -7 1 £155 - 2
Channel Islands - 1 - -

For the 6 months to 17 May 2022, 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.

1 473 (81.98%) Microsoft
2 296 (51.30%) Windows
3 248 (42.98%) MCSE
4 242 (41.94%) Active Directory
5 231 (40.03%) Azure
6 207 (35.88%) Microsoft 365
7 198 (34.32%) ITIL
8 162 (28.08%) MCSA
9 155 (26.86%) Social Skills
10 140 (24.26%) Windows Server
11 135 (23.40%) VMware
12 132 (22.88%) Windows 10
13 127 (22.01%) PowerShell
14 121 (20.97%) SCCM
15 114 (19.76%) Degree
16 108 (18.72%) Security Cleared
17 98 (16.98%) Cisco Certification
18 93 (16.12%) VMware Infrastructure
19 90 (15.60%) DNS
19 90 (15.60%) Migration
20 87 (15.08%) Cisco
21 86 (14.90%) SC Cleared
22 85 (14.73%) MCP
23 83 (14.38%) Public Sector
24 80 (13.86%) Microsoft Office
25 77 (13.34%) CCNA
26 75 (13.00%) Agile
27 73 (12.65%) Firewall
28 71 (12.31%) Citrix
28 71 (12.31%) Infrastructure Engineering

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 57 (9.88%) MS Exchange
2 30 (5.20%) SharePoint
3 21 (3.64%) IIS
4 19 (3.29%) Exchange Server 2010
5 11 (1.91%) Exchange Server 2013
6 10 (1.73%) Exchange Server 2007
6 10 (1.73%) Skype for Business
7 7 (1.21%) Confluence
7 7 (1.21%) Exchange Server 2003
7 7 (1.21%) IBM Domino
8 3 (0.52%) CMS
8 3 (0.52%) IBM Notes
9 2 (0.35%) Apache
9 2 (0.35%) BizTalk Server
9 2 (0.35%) Elasticsearch
10 1 (0.17%) Apache Airflow
10 1 (0.17%) Apache Spark
10 1 (0.17%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.17%) SharePoint 2010
10 1 (0.17%) WebLogic
Applications
1 80 (13.86%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (4.33%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (1.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (1.39%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.69%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.35%) Windchill
7 1 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.17%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.17%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 10 (1.73%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.69%) Dynamics NAV
2 4 (0.69%) Sentinel
3 3 (0.52%) assyst
3 3 (0.52%) Dynamics AX
4 2 (0.35%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.35%) Oracle Applications
4 2 (0.35%) Oracle Financials
5 1 (0.17%) ION MarketView
5 1 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.17%) Primavera
5 1 (0.17%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.17%) SAP EHS
Cloud Services
1 231 (40.03%) Azure
2 207 (35.88%) Microsoft 365
3 60 (10.40%) Azure Active Directory
4 54 (9.36%) AWS
5 33 (5.72%) PaaS
6 26 (4.51%) IaaS
7 25 (4.33%) Power Platform
8 18 (3.12%) OneDrive
9 13 (2.25%) Cloud Computing
10 12 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
10 12 (2.08%) GitHub
11 11 (1.91%) SaaS
12 9 (1.56%) PowerApps
13 8 (1.39%) Azure Service Bus
13 8 (1.39%) GCP
13 8 (1.39%) IBM Cloud
13 8 (1.39%) Serverless
14 7 (1.21%) Azure Data Factory
15 6 (1.04%) Azure Functions
15 6 (1.04%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 90 (15.60%) DNS
2 73 (12.65%) Firewall
3 51 (8.84%) DHCP
4 43 (7.45%) TCP/IP
5 42 (7.28%) Wi-Fi
6 36 (6.24%) VPN
7 26 (4.51%) SAN
8 25 (4.33%) Remote Desktop
9 23 (3.99%) WAN
10 22 (3.81%) Network Security
11 21 (3.64%) LAN
12 17 (2.95%) Skype
13 16 (2.77%) Kerberos
14 15 (2.60%) VoIP
15 13 (2.25%) Wireless
16 12 (2.08%) X.500
17 11 (1.91%) SSL
18 10 (1.73%) VSAN
19 9 (1.56%) IPv4
19 9 (1.56%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (10.75%) SQL Server
2 19 (3.29%) Power BI
3 13 (2.25%) Big Data
4 10 (1.73%) Data Mining
5 8 (1.39%) MongoDB
5 8 (1.39%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 7 (1.21%) DTS
6 7 (1.21%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 7 (1.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 6 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
7 6 (1.04%) Data Warehouse
7 6 (1.04%) Microsoft Analysis Services
7 6 (1.04%) PostgreSQL
7 6 (1.04%) Power Query
8 4 (0.69%) Data Lake
8 4 (0.69%) MySQL
9 3 (0.52%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.35%) Oracle Exadata
10 2 (0.35%) Redis
10 2 (0.35%) VoltDB
Development Applications
1 14 (2.43%) JIRA
2 8 (1.39%) Jenkins
3 7 (1.21%) Atlassian Bamboo
4 6 (1.04%) Git (software)
5 4 (0.69%) Team Foundation Server
6 3 (0.52%) NUnit
6 3 (0.52%) ReSharper
6 3 (0.52%) StyleCop
7 2 (0.35%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.35%) Spinnaker
7 2 (0.35%) Subversion
7 2 (0.35%) Vagrant
8 1 (0.17%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.17%) AutoIt
8 1 (0.17%) GitLab
8 1 (0.17%) Gradle
8 1 (0.17%) Hudson
8 1 (0.17%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.17%) SpecFlow
8 1 (0.17%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 155 (26.86%) Social Skills
2 83 (14.38%) Public Sector
3 58 (10.05%) Finance
4 52 (9.01%) Analytical Skills
5 27 (4.68%) Retail
6 24 (4.16%) Documentation Skills
7 21 (3.64%) Telecoms
8 20 (3.47%) Banking
9 18 (3.12%) Manufacturing
10 14 (2.43%) Electronics
11 12 (2.08%) Marketing
12 9 (1.56%) Presentation Skills
13 8 (1.39%) Law
13 8 (1.39%) Legal
13 8 (1.39%) Organisational Skills
14 6 (1.04%) French Language
15 5 (0.87%) Police
16 4 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
16 4 (0.69%) Italian Language
16 4 (0.69%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 88 (15.25%) Analyst
2 73 (12.65%) Architect
3 56 (9.71%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 43 (7.45%) Support Engineer
5 41 (7.11%) Consultant
6 39 (6.76%) Service Analyst
7 37 (6.41%) Service Desk Analyst
8 36 (6.24%) 2nd Line Support
9 32 (5.55%) Azure Engineer
10 29 (5.03%) Wintel Engineer
11 27 (4.68%) 3rd Line Engineer
12 24 (4.16%) Administrator
12 24 (4.16%) Azure Architect
12 24 (4.16%) Security Engineer
13 23 (3.99%) Cloud Engineer
13 23 (3.99%) Desktop Engineer
13 23 (3.99%) IT Engineer
14 22 (3.81%) Desktop Support
15 19 (3.29%) Developer
16 18 (3.12%) 1st/2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (3.29%) .NET
2 18 (3.12%) LDAP
3 10 (1.73%) CSS
4 9 (1.56%) jQuery
4 9 (1.56%) Web Services
5 8 (1.39%) .NET Framework
5 8 (1.39%) REST
6 6 (1.04%) ASP.NET
6 6 (1.04%) ASP.NET MVC
6 6 (1.04%) HTML
6 6 (1.04%) OAuth
6 6 (1.04%) XML
7 5 (0.87%) .NET Core
7 5 (0.87%) ASP.NET Web API
7 5 (0.87%) JSON
7 5 (0.87%) OpenID
7 5 (0.87%) SAML
7 5 (0.87%) SOAP
8 4 (0.69%) AngularJS
8 4 (0.69%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 47 (8.15%) Data Centre
2 45 (7.80%) Replication
3 35 (6.07%) Management Information System
4 30 (5.20%) PKI
5 25 (4.33%) Public Cloud
6 19 (3.29%) NHS
7 17 (2.95%) Driving Licence
7 17 (2.95%) Self-Motivation
8 14 (2.43%) Clustering
9 13 (2.25%) CESG
10 12 (2.08%) User Experience
11 9 (1.56%) Blackberry
11 9 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
11 9 (1.56%) iPhone
12 8 (1.39%) Cyber Kill Chain
12 8 (1.39%) Fat Client
12 8 (1.39%) Thin Client
13 6 (1.04%) Enterprise Cloud
13 6 (1.04%) iPad
14 5 (0.87%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 296 (51.30%) Windows
2 140 (24.26%) Windows Server
3 132 (22.88%) Windows 10
4 55 (9.53%) Linux
5 49 (8.49%) Windows Server 2012
6 48 (8.32%) Windows 7
7 43 (7.45%) Windows Server 2016
8 36 (6.24%) Windows Server 2008
9 21 (3.64%) Windows Server 2019
10 17 (2.95%) Windows 8
11 15 (2.60%) Windows Server 2003
12 14 (2.43%) Unix
13 11 (1.91%) Mac OS
14 8 (1.39%) Android
14 8 (1.39%) Apple iOS
15 6 (1.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
15 6 (1.04%) VMS
16 5 (0.87%) CentOS
16 5 (0.87%) Ubuntu
16 5 (0.87%) Windows 2000 Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 198 (34.32%) ITIL
2 90 (15.60%) Migration
3 75 (13.00%) Agile
4 71 (12.31%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 69 (11.96%) Problem-Solving
6 58 (10.05%) DevOps
7 51 (8.84%) Incident Management
8 45 (7.80%) Disaster Recovery
9 37 (6.41%) Analytics
9 37 (6.41%) Information Security
10 36 (6.24%) CI/CD
11 35 (6.07%) Change Management
12 34 (5.89%) Business Intelligence
12 34 (5.89%) High Availability
12 34 (5.89%) PRINCE2
12 34 (5.89%) Service Management
13 32 (5.55%) Computer Science
14 31 (5.37%) ITIL V3
15 30 (5.20%) Infrastructure as Code
16 29 (5.03%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 127 (22.01%) PowerShell
2 70 (12.13%) SQL
3 23 (3.99%) Python
4 20 (3.47%) C#
5 11 (1.91%) JavaScript
6 8 (1.39%) Bash
7 7 (1.21%) Bicep
7 7 (1.21%) Java
7 7 (1.21%) T-SQL
7 7 (1.21%) VBScript
8 6 (1.04%) C
9 3 (0.52%) VB
10 2 (0.35%) Perl
11 1 (0.17%) C++
11 1 (0.17%) PHP
11 1 (0.17%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.17%) R
11 1 (0.17%) VB.NET
11 1 (0.17%) VBA
11 1 (0.17%) X++
Qualifications
1 248 (42.98%) MCSE
2 162 (28.08%) MCSA
3 114 (19.76%) Degree
4 108 (18.72%) Security Cleared
5 98 (16.98%) Cisco Certification
6 86 (14.90%) SC Cleared
7 85 (14.73%) MCP
8 77 (13.34%) CCNA
9 51 (8.84%) A+ Certification
10 45 (7.80%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 42 (7.28%) MCITP
12 33 (5.72%) CISSP
13 30 (5.20%) MCTS
14 26 (4.51%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 24 (4.16%) ITIL Certification
16 23 (3.99%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 19 (3.29%) Computer Science Degree
18 16 (2.77%) CCA
18 16 (2.77%) Citrix Certification
19 15 (2.60%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (9.88%) SLA
2 28 (4.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (1.91%) GDPR
4 10 (1.73%) QA
5 9 (1.56%) PCI DSS
6 6 (1.04%) ISO 9001
6 6 (1.04%) JSP 440
7 5 (0.87%) COBIT
8 3 (0.52%) NCSC
9 2 (0.35%) Accessibility
9 2 (0.35%) GPG13
9 2 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 2 (0.35%) NIST
9 2 (0.35%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.35%) PMO
10 1 (0.17%) Data Quality
10 1 (0.17%) DICOM
10 1 (0.17%) HL7
10 1 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 242 (41.94%) Active Directory
2 93 (16.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 43 (7.45%) Hyper-V
4 39 (6.76%) vSphere
5 26 (4.51%) XenApp
6 24 (4.16%) VMware ESXi
7 19 (3.29%) Microsoft App-V
7 19 (3.29%) Virtual Machines
7 19 (3.29%) Virtual Servers
8 15 (2.60%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
9 14 (2.43%) BitLocker
9 14 (2.43%) XenDesktop
10 10 (1.73%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 9 (1.56%) Virtual Desktop
12 8 (1.39%) VMware Workstation
13 6 (1.04%) Terminal Services
14 5 (0.87%) Docker
14 5 (0.87%) VMware NSX
15 4 (0.69%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.69%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 121 (20.97%) SCCM
2 33 (5.72%) Terraform
3 31 (5.37%) Microsoft Intune
4 29 (5.03%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 24 (4.16%) WSUS
6 22 (3.81%) SCOM
7 18 (3.12%) NetBackup
8 14 (2.43%) McAfee ePO
9 12 (2.08%) Microsoft Clustering
9 12 (2.08%) PowerCLI
9 12 (2.08%) vRealize
10 10 (1.73%) Ansible
11 9 (1.56%) Failover Clustering
11 9 (1.56%) Norton AntiVirus
12 8 (1.39%) Backup Exec
12 8 (1.39%) vCenter Server
13 7 (1.21%) Kubernetes
14 6 (1.04%) ZABBIX
15 5 (0.87%) Single Sign-On
15 5 (0.87%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 473 (81.98%) Microsoft
2 135 (23.40%) VMware
3 87 (15.08%) Cisco
4 71 (12.31%) Citrix
5 52 (9.01%) ServiceNow
6 43 (7.45%) HP
7 27 (4.68%) Dell
8 24 (4.16%) Veeam
9 20 (3.47%) Apple
10 19 (3.29%) McAfee
11 16 (2.77%) Palo Alto
12 15 (2.60%) IBM
12 15 (2.60%) Oracle
12 15 (2.60%) SolarWinds
13 14 (2.43%) CheckPoint
13 14 (2.43%) Ivanti
14 13 (2.25%) Google
15 12 (2.08%) CyberArk
15 12 (2.08%) Red Hat
16 11 (1.91%) F5