MCSE Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) formerly Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London with a requirement for MCSE qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 12 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 535 452 463
Rank change year-on-year -83 +11 +14
Permanent jobs citing MCSE 90 104 306
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.13% 0.31% 0.42%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.67% 0.81% 1.65%
Number of salaries quoted 31 72 165
10th Percentile - £27,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £25,375 £32,500 £31,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £39,000 £35,000 £40,000
Median % change year-on-year +11.43% -12.50% -2.44%
75th Percentile £48,750 £47,500 £50,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £55,000 £58,750
UK median annual salary £47,500 £35,000 £40,000
% change year-on-year +35.71% -12.50% -11.11%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK excluding London

MCSE falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in the UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 13,496 12,832 18,499
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 18.91% 38.01% 25.23%
Number of salaries quoted 6,778 5,313 11,661
10th Percentile £29,750 £27,750 £27,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,055 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.88% +0.11% -4.76%
75th Percentile £73,750 £66,295 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £78,750 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £53,555
% change year-on-year +9.09% +2.70% -10.74%

MCSE
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing MCSE relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

MCSE job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

MCSE
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing MCSE.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing MCSE

MCSE
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing MCSE in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 12 July 2026.

Salary histogram for MCSE in the UK excluding London

MCSE
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing MCSE within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 12 July 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
South West -48 18 £26,150 -6.61% 4
North West -4 14 - - 10
North of England -18 14 - - 10
South East -48 14 £45,000 - 1
Midlands -53 14 £47,500 +35.71% 2
West Midlands -28 13 £47,500 +35.71% 1
East of England -7 10 £34,000 -35.24% 2
Scotland +17 9 £26,150 +2.55% 1
Channel Islands - 5 £75,000 -
Northern Ireland - 5 - -
East Midlands -40 1 £39,194 +11.98% 1
Wales -53 1 - - 5
MCSE
UK

MCSE
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 7 (7.78%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (4.44%) SharePoint
Applications
1 55 (61.11%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.11%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 61 (67.78%) Microsoft 365
2 52 (57.78%) AWS
3 15 (16.67%) Azure
4 6 (6.67%) IaaS
5 5 (5.56%) Nutanix
6 3 (3.33%) Entra ID
7 2 (2.22%) GCP
7 2 (2.22%) Mimecast
8 1 (1.11%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (17.78%) SAN
2 10 (11.11%) DNS
3 8 (8.89%) DHCP
4 6 (6.67%) LAN
4 6 (6.67%) WAN
5 5 (5.56%) Firewall
6 4 (4.44%) VoIP
7 3 (3.33%) 4G
7 3 (3.33%) IMAP
7 3 (3.33%) POP3
7 3 (3.33%) SMTP
7 3 (3.33%) TCP/IP
7 3 (3.33%) VPN
7 3 (3.33%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (3.33%) Wireless
8 2 (2.22%) Remote Desktop
9 1 (1.11%) NX-OS
9 1 (1.11%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (4.44%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 3 (3.33%) JIRA
2 1 (1.11%) GitLab
General
1 61 (67.78%) Social Skills
2 36 (40.00%) Swedish Language
3 15 (16.67%) Analytical Skills
4 14 (15.56%) French Language
5 11 (12.22%) Legal
5 11 (12.22%) Public Sector
6 3 (3.33%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (2.22%) Finance
7 2 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (1.11%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (1.11%) Law
8 1 (1.11%) Retail
Job Titles
1 54 (60.00%) Analyst
2 52 (57.78%) Service Analyst
2 52 (57.78%) Service Desk Analyst
3 18 (20.00%) Field Engineer
4 16 (17.78%) IT Engineer
5 15 (16.67%) Field Service Engineer
6 13 (14.44%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 11 (12.22%) Senior
8 9 (10.00%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 5 (5.56%) Cloud Engineer
9 5 (5.56%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
9 5 (5.56%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
9 5 (5.56%) Lead
9 5 (5.56%) Senior Cloud Engineer
9 5 (5.56%) Service Desk Team Leader
9 5 (5.56%) Team Leader
10 4 (4.44%) IT Analyst
11 2 (2.22%) IT Operations Analyst
11 2 (2.22%) Operations Analyst
11 2 (2.22%) Senior Service Desk Analyst
Miscellaneous
1 16 (17.78%) Data Centre
2 15 (16.67%) Analytical Mindset
3 11 (12.22%) Smartphone
4 7 (7.78%) Hybrid Cloud
5 5 (5.56%) Replication
6 3 (3.33%) Management Information System
6 3 (3.33%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (2.22%) Onboarding
7 2 (2.22%) Operational Technology
8 1 (1.11%) Fat Client
8 1 (1.11%) PKI
8 1 (1.11%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 13 (14.44%) Windows
2 8 (8.89%) Windows Server
3 2 (2.22%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (83.33%) Customer Service
2 59 (65.56%) ITIL
3 52 (57.78%) ITSM
4 50 (55.56%) Performance Metrics
5 18 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
6 13 (14.44%) Coaching
6 13 (14.44%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 12 (13.33%) Continuous Improvement
8 9 (10.00%) Disaster Recovery
9 6 (6.67%) Presales
9 6 (6.67%) Problem Management
10 5 (5.56%) Cloud Security
10 5 (5.56%) Performance Monitoring
10 5 (5.56%) Service Management
10 5 (5.56%) Systems Engineering
11 4 (4.44%) Break/Fix
11 4 (4.44%) Root Cause Analysis
12 3 (3.33%) Operational Stability
12 3 (3.33%) Stakeholder Management
12 3 (3.33%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 2 (2.22%) PowerShell
1 2 (2.22%) SQL
2 1 (1.11%) Python
Qualifications
1 90 (100.00%) Microsoft Certification
2 61 (67.78%) Degree
3 50 (55.56%) AWS Certification
4 30 (33.33%) Cisco Certification
5 22 (24.44%) CCNA
6 16 (17.78%) Network+ Certification
7 15 (16.67%) A+ Certification
8 11 (12.22%) BPSS Clearance
9 9 (10.00%) CCNP
10 7 (7.78%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 5 (5.56%) DBS Check
12 3 (3.33%) Azure Certification
13 2 (2.22%) MCSA
13 2 (2.22%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 2 (2.22%) MOS
14 1 (1.11%) Computer Science Degree
14 1 (1.11%) SC Cleared
14 1 (1.11%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 50 (55.56%) QA
2 2 (2.22%) SLA
3 1 (1.11%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (1.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 1 (1.11%) GDPR
3 1 (1.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 11 (12.22%) Active Directory
2 9 (10.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (5.56%) KVM
4 3 (3.33%) vSphere
5 2 (2.22%) Hyper-V
5 2 (2.22%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 4 (4.44%) Microsoft Intune
1 4 (4.44%) SCCM
2 1 (1.11%) FortiGate
2 1 (1.11%) Terraform
Vendors
1 64 (71.11%) Microsoft
2 52 (57.78%) ServiceNow
3 17 (18.89%) Dell
4 13 (14.44%) VMware
5 9 (10.00%) Veeam
6 5 (5.56%) Zerto
7 4 (4.44%) Citrix
8 3 (3.33%) Cisco
9 2 (2.22%) Adobe
9 2 (2.22%) Draytek
9 2 (2.22%) Fortinet
9 2 (2.22%) Juniper
9 2 (2.22%) SonicWALL
9 2 (2.22%) WatchGuard
10 1 (1.11%) NetApp
10 1 (1.11%) Salesforce