MCP Job Trends

Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies with a requirement for MCP qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 15 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 498 455 611
Rank change year-on-year -43 +156 +249
Permanent jobs citing MCP 152 270 102
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.25% 0.50% 0.18%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.79% 1.38% 0.63%
Number of salaries quoted 130 63 87
10th Percentile £27,250 - £26,866
25th Percentile £29,000 £25,750 £30,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £32,500 £35,000 £37,500
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% -6.67% +10.29%
75th Percentile £48,500 £42,000 £50,000
90th Percentile £70,000 £57,500 £57,600
UK excluding London median annual salary £32,500 £30,000 £37,500
% change year-on-year +8.33% -20.00% +15.38%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

MCP 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.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 19,231 19,593 16,154
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 31.90% 36.56% 29.13%
Number of salaries quoted 7,799 7,678 10,906
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £36,250 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £59,908 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.19% +4.19% -
75th Percentile £75,900 £77,500 £75,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £92,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £51,128
% change year-on-year -9.09% +7.57% +2.26%

MCP
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing MCP relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

MCP job vacancy trend in the UK

MCP
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing MCP.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing MCP

MCP
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing MCP over the 6 months to 15 January 2026.

Salary histogram for MCP in the UK

MCP
Top 15 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing MCP within the UK over the 6 months to 15 January 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
England -44 147 £32,500 -10.34% 67
UK excluding London -98 96 £32,500 +8.33% 54
London +91 52 £60,000 +42.86% 23
Work from Home +90 50 £32,500 +1.56% 42
Midlands -89 33 £32,500 -13.33% 3
East Midlands -18 29 £32,500 - 2
South West +1 20 £34,000 -6.21% 3
South East +17 19 £29,000 +5.45% 24
North of England +15 16 £32,000 -20.00% 12
North West +23 10 £31,000 -22.50% 4
East of England +24 7 £32,500 -40.91% 9
Yorkshire -11 4 £40,000 - 7
West Midlands -87 4 £28,500 -24.00%
North East - 2 £39,500 - 2
Scotland +5 1 - - 1

MCP
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 24 (15.79%) Microsoft Exchange
2 21 (13.82%) SharePoint
3 4 (2.63%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (2.63%) IIS
Applications
1 33 (21.71%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (3.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (3.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (2.63%) Dynamics NAV
2 3 (1.97%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (1.97%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (1.97%) Visualfiles
3 2 (1.32%) Fidessa
4 1 (0.66%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 72 (47.37%) Azure
2 69 (45.39%) Microsoft 365
3 38 (25.00%) AWS
4 32 (21.05%) Entra ID
5 11 (7.24%) Google Workspace
6 10 (6.58%) GCP
7 7 (4.61%) Google Docs
7 7 (4.61%) Serverless
8 5 (3.29%) Amazon EKS
8 5 (3.29%) AWS Fargate
8 5 (3.29%) Mimecast
8 5 (3.29%) OneDrive
8 5 (3.29%) Power Platform
9 4 (2.63%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 4 (2.63%) Amazon S3
9 4 (2.63%) Amazon SageMaker
9 4 (2.63%) AWS Lambda
9 4 (2.63%) AWS Step Functions
9 4 (2.63%) GitHub
9 4 (2.63%) Google Sheets
Communications & Networking
1 29 (19.08%) DNS
2 25 (16.45%) Firewall
3 23 (15.13%) DHCP
4 19 (12.50%) TCP/IP
5 16 (10.53%) Wi-Fi
6 14 (9.21%) LAN
7 13 (8.55%) WAN
8 12 (7.89%) VPN
9 8 (5.26%) VoIP
10 7 (4.61%) IP Telephony
10 7 (4.61%) Remote Desktop
11 5 (3.29%) VLAN
12 4 (2.63%) RFID
12 4 (2.63%) Wireless
12 4 (2.63%) WLAN
13 3 (1.97%) Cisco IOS
13 3 (1.97%) Cisco ISE
13 3 (1.97%) Intranet
14 2 (1.32%) Cisco ASA
14 2 (1.32%) FIX Connectivity
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (7.24%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.32%) NoSQL
2 2 (1.32%) Semantic Layer
3 1 (0.66%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.66%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 7 (4.61%) Burp Suite
1 7 (4.61%) JIRA
1 7 (4.61%) Metasploit
2 4 (2.63%) LabVIEW
2 4 (2.63%) MLflow
3 3 (1.97%) Git
4 2 (1.32%) Balsamiq
5 1 (0.66%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.66%) Vite
5 1 (0.66%) webpack
General
1 88 (57.89%) Social Skills
2 14 (9.21%) Finance
2 14 (9.21%) Manufacturing
3 12 (7.89%) Organisational Skills
4 7 (4.61%) Retail
4 7 (4.61%) Telecoms
5 5 (3.29%) Advertising
5 5 (3.29%) Legal
5 5 (3.29%) Pharmaceutical
6 4 (2.63%) Dutch Language
6 4 (2.63%) French Language
6 4 (2.63%) Law
6 4 (2.63%) Spanish Language
7 3 (1.97%) Analytical Skills
7 3 (1.97%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (1.97%) Local Government
7 3 (1.97%) Public Sector
8 2 (1.32%) Banking
8 2 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (0.66%) Military
Job Titles
1 63 (41.45%) IT Support
2 31 (20.39%) Support Engineer
3 29 (19.08%) Analyst
4 27 (17.76%) Support Analyst
5 23 (15.13%) 2nd Line Support
6 21 (13.82%) IT Engineer
6 21 (13.82%) IT Support Engineer
7 15 (9.87%) Support Technician
8 13 (8.55%) IT Analyst
8 13 (8.55%) Senior
9 12 (7.89%) Lead
10 11 (7.24%) IT Support Analyst
11 10 (6.58%) 1st/2nd Line Support
12 8 (5.26%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 8 (5.26%) Technical Support
13 7 (4.61%) Security Specialist
13 7 (4.61%) Threat Intelligence Specialist
14 6 (3.95%) IT Technician
14 6 (3.95%) Senior Analyst
14 6 (3.95%) Senior IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (5.26%) LangChain
2 6 (3.95%) LangGraph
3 5 (3.29%) React
4 4 (2.63%) AWS CDK
4 4 (2.63%) PyTorch
4 4 (2.63%) REST
4 4 (2.63%) RESTful
4 4 (2.63%) TensorFlow
5 2 (1.32%) .NET
5 2 (1.32%) CSS
5 2 (1.32%) Django
5 2 (1.32%) FIX Protocol
5 2 (1.32%) GraphQL
5 2 (1.32%) HTML
5 2 (1.32%) mypy
5 2 (1.32%) Node.js
5 2 (1.32%) OAuth
5 2 (1.32%) pydantic
5 2 (1.32%) pytest
5 2 (1.32%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 37 (24.34%) Driving Licence
2 12 (7.89%) Management Information System
3 9 (5.92%) Onboarding
4 7 (4.61%) CCTV
4 7 (4.61%) Enterprise Software
4 7 (4.61%) Insider Threat
4 7 (4.61%) Security Posture
5 6 (3.95%) AI Agents
6 4 (2.63%) e-Learning
6 4 (2.63%) Low-Code
7 3 (1.97%) EPoS
7 3 (1.97%) PKI
7 3 (1.97%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (1.97%) Smartphone
8 2 (1.32%) Client/Server
8 2 (1.32%) Cloud Native
8 2 (1.32%) Eurex
8 2 (1.32%) Public Cloud
9 1 (0.66%) Algorithms
9 1 (0.66%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 102 (67.11%) Windows
2 28 (18.42%) Windows Server
3 26 (17.11%) Mac OS
4 25 (16.45%) Windows 10
5 16 (10.53%) Linux
6 12 (7.89%) Android
7 5 (3.29%) Apple iOS
7 5 (3.29%) Windows Server 2012
8 4 (2.63%) Windows Server 2016
8 4 (2.63%) Windows Server 2019
9 3 (1.97%) Mac OS X
10 2 (1.32%) Solaris
10 2 (1.32%) Ubuntu
10 2 (1.32%) Unix
11 1 (0.66%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (30.26%) Problem-Solving
2 40 (26.32%) ITIL
3 38 (25.00%) Customer Service
4 26 (17.11%) Computer Science
4 26 (17.11%) Continuous Improvement
5 21 (13.82%) Cybersecurity
6 19 (12.50%) AI
6 19 (12.50%) Service Delivery
7 18 (11.84%) Mentoring
8 16 (10.53%) LLM
9 15 (9.87%) Decision-Making
9 15 (9.87%) Project Delivery
10 12 (7.89%) Disaster Recovery
10 12 (7.89%) Machine Learning
11 11 (7.24%) Case Management
11 11 (7.24%) ITSM
11 11 (7.24%) Service Management
12 10 (6.58%) Collaborative Working
12 10 (6.58%) Mobile Device Management
12 10 (6.58%) Penetration Testing
Programming Languages
1 17 (11.18%) SQL
2 14 (9.21%) Python
3 12 (7.89%) PowerShell
4 5 (3.29%) TypeScript
5 4 (2.63%) C#
5 4 (2.63%) JavaScript
6 2 (1.32%) VB.NET
7 1 (0.66%) Perl
Qualifications
1 97 (63.82%) Microsoft Certification
2 52 (34.21%) Degree
3 36 (23.68%) MCSE
4 35 (23.03%) A+ Certification
4 35 (23.03%) MCSA
5 28 (18.42%) CCNA
5 28 (18.42%) Cisco Certification
6 15 (9.87%) Computer Science Degree
7 12 (7.89%) Network+ Certification
8 11 (7.24%) CompTIA Security+
9 10 (6.58%) Security Cleared
10 9 (5.92%) CCA
10 9 (5.92%) Citrix Certification
11 8 (5.26%) AWS Certification
11 8 (5.26%) HNC
12 7 (4.61%) CCNP
12 7 (4.61%) CISSP
12 7 (4.61%) CREST Certified
12 7 (4.61%) GPEN
12 7 (4.61%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (9.87%) Cyber Essentials
2 14 (9.21%) SLA
3 7 (4.61%) Actionable Recommendations
3 7 (4.61%) GDPR
4 3 (1.97%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 3 (1.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (1.32%) QA
6 1 (0.66%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.66%) EU AI Act
6 1 (0.66%) NIST
6 1 (0.66%) WCAG
System Software
1 56 (36.84%) Active Directory
2 17 (11.18%) Hyper-V
3 16 (10.53%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (3.29%) Docker
5 3 (1.97%) Virtual Servers
5 3 (1.97%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (1.32%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 30 (19.74%) Microsoft Intune
2 7 (4.61%) Nmap
2 7 (4.61%) SCCM
2 7 (4.61%) Terraform
3 6 (3.95%) Kubernetes
4 5 (3.29%) Grafana
4 5 (3.29%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.97%) Nessus
5 3 (1.97%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 115 (75.66%) Microsoft
2 39 (25.66%) VMware
3 21 (13.82%) Cisco
4 19 (12.50%) Google
5 15 (9.87%) Citrix
6 8 (5.26%) Mitel
7 7 (4.61%) Apple
7 7 (4.61%) Draytek
7 7 (4.61%) OpenAI
7 7 (4.61%) WatchGuard
8 5 (3.29%) Bloomberg
8 5 (3.29%) Databricks
8 5 (3.29%) Reuters
8 5 (3.29%) Sophos
9 4 (2.63%) Aruba
9 4 (2.63%) HP
9 4 (2.63%) Veeam
10 3 (1.97%) iManage
10 3 (1.97%) LogicMonitor
10 3 (1.97%) Zscaler