Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA) formerly Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies with a requirement for MCSA qualifications. Included is a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months to 29 November 2023 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
29 Nov 2023
Same period 2022 Same period 2021
Rank 583 826 711
Rank change year-on-year +243 -115 -242
Permanent jobs citing MCSA 150 265 412
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.28% 0.21% 0.32%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.85% 0.71% 1.29%
Number of salaries quoted 125 233 310
10th Percentile £30,200 £24,600 £27,750
25th Percentile £38,125 £30,500 £30,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £43,500 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year +26.44% +2.35% +6.25%
75th Percentile £67,500 £57,500 £55,175
90th Percentile £96,500 £65,500 £62,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £44,500 £40,000 £41,500
% change year-on-year +11.25% -3.61% +3.75%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

MCSA is in the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies with a requirement for academic qualifications or professional certifications.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 17,632 37,186 31,972
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 32.59% 29.55% 24.77%
Number of salaries quoted 10,990 17,220 17,757
10th Percentile £31,250 £31,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £42,000 £41,250 £40,838
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £57,074 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +0.75% +3.77% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £76,250 £72,500
90th Percentile £92,500 £93,750 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £49,500
% change year-on-year +5.00% +1.01% +1.02%

MCSA
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing MCSA as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for MCSA in the UK

MCSA
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing MCSA.

Salary trend for MCSA in the UK

MCSA
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing MCSA over the 6 months to 29 November 2023.

Salary histogram for MCSA in the UK

MCSA
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing MCSA within the UK over the 6 months to 29 November 2023. 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 +191 129 £55,000 +26.44% 76
UK excluding London +127 75 £44,500 +11.25% 57
London +261 64 £65,000 +25.00% 26
Work from Home +197 51 £53,000 +11.58% 24
Midlands +121 20 £35,536 -21.03% 10
South West +63 16 £47,500 +8.57% 7
West Midlands +119 14 £30,000 +36.36% 5
South East +96 14 £54,250 +75.00% 17
North of England +91 10 £40,750 -0.97% 16
Wales +20 8 £35,250 +4.44% 1
Yorkshire +77 6 £40,750 +25.38% 8
East Midlands +40 6 £52,500 -12.50% 5
Scotland +59 4 - - 1
North West +83 3 £39,000 -22.00% 6
East of England +99 2 £46,000 -23.33% 5
Northern Ireland - 1 £60,000 - 2
North East - 1 £50,000 - 2

MCSA
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 30 (20.00%) MS Exchange
2 15 (10.00%) SharePoint
3 12 (8.00%) IIS
4 9 (6.00%) Apache
4 9 (6.00%) WebSphere
5 2 (1.33%) Skype for Business
6 1 (0.67%) Drupal
6 1 (0.67%) nginx
Applications
1 10 (6.67%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (5.33%) AutoCAD
2 8 (5.33%) PTC Creo
2 8 (5.33%) SOLIDWORKS
3 1 (0.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.67%) Fidessa
1 1 (0.67%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 89 (59.33%) Azure
2 76 (50.67%) Microsoft 365
3 30 (20.00%) Entra ID
4 23 (15.33%) AWS
4 23 (15.33%) IaaS
4 23 (15.33%) PaaS
5 11 (7.33%) Azure DevOps
6 10 (6.67%) OneDrive
7 9 (6.00%) GCP
8 7 (4.67%) SaaS
9 6 (4.00%) Amazon EKS
9 6 (4.00%) Power Platform
10 4 (2.67%) Amazon ECS
11 3 (2.00%) Azure Data Factory
11 3 (2.00%) GitHub
11 3 (2.00%) GitHub Actions
11 3 (2.00%) Serverless
12 2 (1.33%) AWS Data Pipeline
12 2 (1.33%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 2 (1.33%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 46 (30.67%) Firewall
2 36 (24.00%) DNS
3 32 (21.33%) DHCP
4 25 (16.67%) VPN
5 23 (15.33%) SAN
6 22 (14.67%) LAN
7 21 (14.00%) WAN
8 19 (12.67%) TCP/IP
9 18 (12.00%) VLAN
10 7 (4.67%) Network Security
10 7 (4.67%) Wi-Fi
11 6 (4.00%) Internet
12 5 (3.33%) Wireless
13 4 (2.67%) Remote Desktop
13 4 (2.67%) SSL
13 4 (2.67%) Structured Cabling
13 4 (2.67%) WLAN
14 3 (2.00%) Cisco ASA
15 2 (1.33%) Skype
15 2 (1.33%) Spanning Tree
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (23.33%) SQL Server
2 9 (6.00%) SAP HANA
3 8 (5.33%) MySQL
4 7 (4.67%) Amazon RDS
5 6 (4.00%) Power BI
5 6 (4.00%) SQL Server Analysis Services
5 6 (4.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 6 (4.00%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 5 (3.33%) Data Warehouse
6 5 (3.33%) Relational Database
6 5 (3.33%) Tableau
7 4 (2.67%) Oracle Database
7 4 (2.67%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (2.67%) RDBMS
8 3 (2.00%) InfluxDB
9 2 (1.33%) Data Lake
9 2 (1.33%) OLTP
10 1 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
10 1 (0.67%) Microsoft Analysis Services
10 1 (0.67%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 12 (8.00%) Git
2 9 (6.00%) Chocolatey
2 9 (6.00%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.33%) JIRA
General
1 53 (35.33%) Social Skills
2 28 (18.67%) Finance
3 16 (10.67%) Public Sector
4 13 (8.67%) Billing
5 10 (6.67%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (6.67%) Law
6 9 (6.00%) Banking
7 7 (4.67%) Telecoms
8 6 (4.00%) Legal
9 5 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
9 5 (3.33%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (3.33%) Investment Banking
10 4 (2.67%) Retail
11 3 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (1.33%) Games
12 2 (1.33%) Military
13 1 (0.67%) Manufacturing
13 1 (0.67%) Marketing
13 1 (0.67%) Pharmaceutical
13 1 (0.67%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 27 (18.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 21 (14.00%) Senior
3 20 (13.33%) Architect
4 16 (10.67%) Azure Engineer
4 16 (10.67%) IT Engineer
5 15 (10.00%) Infrastructure Architect
6 14 (9.33%) Automation Engineer
6 14 (9.33%) Cloud Engineer
7 13 (8.67%) Support Engineer
8 12 (8.00%) Analyst
9 11 (7.33%) Consultant
10 9 (6.00%) Systems Engineer
11 8 (5.33%) IT Support
12 7 (4.67%) Desktop Engineer
12 7 (4.67%) Developer
12 7 (4.67%) Server Engineer
12 7 (4.67%) Technical Engineer
12 7 (4.67%) Windows Engineer
13 6 (4.00%) Desktop Support
13 6 (4.00%) Service Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (6.00%) Elastic Stack
1 9 (6.00%) XML
1 9 (6.00%) YAML
2 6 (4.00%) .NET
3 3 (2.00%) Kafka
3 3 (2.00%) Middleware
4 2 (1.33%) AngularJS
4 2 (1.33%) ASP.NET
4 2 (1.33%) ASP.NET MVC
5 1 (0.67%) .NET Framework
5 1 (0.67%) FIX Protocol
5 1 (0.67%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 34 (22.67%) Data Centre
2 26 (17.33%) Public Cloud
3 21 (14.00%) Replication
4 13 (8.67%) Enterprise Software
5 9 (6.00%) Self-Motivation
6 8 (5.33%) Operational Technology
7 6 (4.00%) Management Information System
8 5 (3.33%) Product Ownership
9 4 (2.67%) Clustering
9 4 (2.67%) Driving Licence
9 4 (2.67%) Mobile Computing
10 3 (2.00%) Data Structures
10 3 (2.00%) SCADA
10 3 (2.00%) Video Conferencing
11 2 (1.33%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 2 (1.33%) Virtual Team
12 1 (0.67%) Cloud Native
12 1 (0.67%) Eurex
12 1 (0.67%) IoT
12 1 (0.67%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 95 (63.33%) Windows
2 70 (46.67%) Windows Server
3 26 (17.33%) Windows Server 2012
4 23 (15.33%) Linux
5 20 (13.33%) Windows 10
6 14 (9.33%) Ubuntu
7 13 (8.67%) SUSE
8 11 (7.33%) Windows Server 2016
8 11 (7.33%) Windows Server 2019
9 5 (3.33%) Android
9 5 (3.33%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (2.67%) Unix
10 4 (2.67%) VMS
11 3 (2.00%) Apple iOS
11 3 (2.00%) Windows 7
11 3 (2.00%) Windows 8
12 2 (1.33%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.67%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (28.67%) ITIL
2 37 (24.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 33 (22.00%) Problem-Solving
4 25 (16.67%) Infrastructure as Code
5 23 (15.33%) Disaster Recovery
6 22 (14.67%) Asset Management
6 22 (14.67%) DevOps
6 22 (14.67%) Mentoring
7 20 (13.33%) Computer Science
7 20 (13.33%) Migration
8 19 (12.67%) Customer Service
9 17 (11.33%) CI/CD
9 17 (11.33%) Server Building
9 17 (11.33%) Virtual Infrastructure
10 16 (10.67%) ERP
10 16 (10.67%) Network Monitoring
10 16 (10.67%) Project Delivery
11 15 (10.00%) Continuous Improvement
12 14 (9.33%) High Availability
12 14 (9.33%) Presales
Programming Languages
1 61 (40.67%) PowerShell
2 48 (32.00%) SQL
3 12 (8.00%) Bash
4 8 (5.33%) MATLAB
5 6 (4.00%) Bicep
6 4 (2.67%) Python
7 3 (2.00%) C#
7 3 (2.00%) JavaScript
7 3 (2.00%) T-SQL
8 2 (1.33%) VBScript
9 1 (0.67%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 150 (100.00%) Microsoft Certification
2 80 (53.33%) MCSE
3 51 (34.00%) Degree
4 32 (21.33%) Cisco Certification
5 28 (18.67%) CCNA
6 25 (16.67%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 23 (15.33%) MCP
8 21 (14.00%) Azure Certification
9 16 (10.67%) A+ Certification
9 16 (10.67%) Security Cleared
10 14 (9.33%) Computer Science Degree
11 12 (8.00%) CompTIA Security+
12 11 (7.33%) AWS Certification
12 11 (7.33%) CCNP
13 9 (6.00%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 7 (4.67%) Network+ Certification
14 7 (4.67%) SC Cleared
15 6 (4.00%) MCDST
15 6 (4.00%) MCITP
16 5 (3.33%) VTSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (4.00%) GDPR
2 3 (2.00%) SLA
3 2 (1.33%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.67%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.67%) GxP
4 1 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.67%) NIST
4 1 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 99 (66.00%) Active Directory
2 50 (33.33%) VMware Infrastructure
3 22 (14.67%) vSphere
4 14 (9.33%) Hyper-V
5 13 (8.67%) vCloud
6 8 (5.33%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (5.33%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (3.33%) VMware NSX
8 2 (1.33%) Docker
9 1 (0.67%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.67%) Terminal Services
9 1 (0.67%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 31 (20.67%) SCCM
2 30 (20.00%) Terraform
3 20 (13.33%) SCOM
4 17 (11.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 17 (11.33%) Ansible
4 17 (11.33%) Microsoft Intune
5 10 (6.67%) Single Sign-On
6 6 (4.00%) Kubernetes
7 3 (2.00%) Grafana
7 3 (2.00%) Oracle RMAN
7 3 (2.00%) Prometheus
7 3 (2.00%) WSUS
8 2 (1.33%) Demisto
8 2 (1.33%) Failover Clustering
8 2 (1.33%) FortiGate
8 2 (1.33%) Jamf Pro
8 2 (1.33%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.67%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.67%) DatAdvantage
Vendors
1 112 (74.67%) Microsoft
2 64 (42.67%) VMware
3 27 (18.00%) HP
4 26 (17.33%) Cisco
5 20 (13.33%) Oracle
6 17 (11.33%) Veeam
7 13 (8.67%) Fujitsu
8 9 (6.00%) IBM
8 9 (6.00%) Red Hat
8 9 (6.00%) SAP
8 9 (6.00%) TOWER Software
9 8 (5.33%) Dell
9 8 (5.33%) MathWorks
9 8 (5.33%) PTC
10 7 (4.67%) Citrix
11 4 (2.67%) Aruba
11 4 (2.67%) Bloomberg
11 4 (2.67%) NetApp
11 4 (2.67%) Nimble Storage
11 4 (2.67%) SolarWinds