Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) formerly Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies with a requirement for MCSE qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 477 593 676
Rank change year-on-year +116 +83 +51
Permanent jobs citing MCSE 210 310 326
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.40% 0.32% 0.31%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.82% 1.13% 0.96%
Number of salaries quoted 86 236 289
10th Percentile £27,250 £30,250 £23,750
25th Percentile £32,500 £34,313 £31,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £45,000 £41,500
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +8.43% -8.86%
75th Percentile £48,438 £58,750 £53,750
90th Percentile £55,000 £70,000 £67,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £35,000 £40,000 £40,000
% change year-on-year -12.50% - -5.88%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

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.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 25,484 27,371 34,026
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 48.86% 27.83% 32.72%
Number of salaries quoted 11,203 17,308 15,226
10th Percentile £32,500 £28,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £44,000 £38,500 £41,776
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £54,000 £58,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.85% -6.90% +5.45%
75th Percentile £68,568 £71,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £87,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,000 £50,000 £50,500
% change year-on-year +4.00% -0.99% +1.00%

MCSE
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for MCSE in the UK

MCSE
Salary Trend

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

Salary trend for MCSE in the UK

MCSE
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing MCSE over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Salary histogram for MCSE in the UK

MCSE
Top 16 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing MCSE within the UK over the 6 months to 30 April 2025. 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 +108 198 £37,500 -15.21% 48
UK excluding London +158 190 £35,000 -12.50% 41
Midlands +139 126 £35,000 -22.22% 10
West Midlands +112 99 £35,000 -30.00% 6
Work from Home +149 34 £38,094 -14.40% 32
South East +54 28 £42,500 +21.43% 17
East Midlands +64 27 £35,000 -20.86% 4
London +58 17 £52,500 -19.23% 9
North of England +56 15 £36,250 -19.44% 6
South West +103 10 £37,750 +4.86% 4
Wales +47 8 £38,094 -
Yorkshire +53 6 - - 1
North West +28 6 £35,000 -23.91% 5
North East +46 3 £37,500 -11.24%
East of England +33 3 £52,500 +31.25% 5
Scotland +114 1 £25,500 -59.20% 2

MCSE
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 11 (5.24%) Microsoft Exchange
2 10 (4.76%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.48%) SharePoint 2010
3 1 (0.48%) SharePoint 2013
3 1 (0.48%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 17 (8.10%) Microsoft Office
2 16 (7.62%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 4 (1.90%) SAP Business One
2 3 (1.43%) Sage 50
3 1 (0.48%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 55 (26.19%) Azure
2 38 (18.10%) Microsoft 365
3 26 (12.38%) AWS
4 16 (7.62%) Google Workspace
4 16 (7.62%) SaaS
5 15 (7.14%) PaaS
6 10 (4.76%) Entra ID
6 10 (4.76%) IaaS
7 3 (1.43%) OneDrive
7 3 (1.43%) Power Platform
8 2 (0.95%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (0.95%) GCP
9 1 (0.48%) Mimecast
9 1 (0.48%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 111 (52.86%) WLAN
2 100 (47.62%) Network Security
3 95 (45.24%) Internet
4 41 (19.52%) DNS
5 31 (14.76%) DHCP
6 29 (13.81%) Firewall
7 27 (12.86%) TCP/IP
8 17 (8.10%) LAN
8 17 (8.10%) VLAN
8 17 (8.10%) WAN
9 16 (7.62%) BGP
9 16 (7.62%) OSPF
10 7 (3.33%) Wireshark
11 4 (1.90%) SAN
12 3 (1.43%) VoIP
13 2 (0.95%) VPN
13 2 (0.95%) VSAN
14 1 (0.48%) NAS
14 1 (0.48%) NetScaler
14 1 (0.48%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (4.29%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.43%) Power BI
3 1 (0.48%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 2 (0.95%) JIRA
General
1 62 (29.52%) Social Skills
2 19 (9.05%) Automotive
2 19 (9.05%) Finance
3 16 (7.62%) Retail
4 10 (4.76%) Banking
5 9 (4.29%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (4.29%) Public Sector
6 8 (3.81%) Welsh Language
7 6 (2.86%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 5 (2.38%) Manufacturing
9 3 (1.43%) Legal
9 3 (1.43%) Telecoms
10 2 (0.95%) Pharmaceutical
10 2 (0.95%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.48%) Advertising
11 1 (0.48%) Back Office
11 1 (0.48%) Law
11 1 (0.48%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.48%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 116 (55.24%) IT Engineer
2 106 (50.48%) IT Support
2 106 (50.48%) Support Engineer
3 97 (46.19%) IT Support Engineer
4 18 (8.57%) Systems Engineer
5 13 (6.19%) Analyst
6 12 (5.71%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 9 (4.29%) Infrastructure Support
7 9 (4.29%) Lead
7 9 (4.29%) Support Analyst
7 9 (4.29%) Wintel Engineer
8 8 (3.81%) Server Engineer
8 8 (3.81%) Technical Support
9 7 (3.33%) NOC Engineer
9 7 (3.33%) Support Team Leader
9 7 (3.33%) Team Leader
10 6 (2.86%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
10 6 (2.86%) Support Specialist
11 5 (2.38%) Help Desk Support
11 5 (2.38%) Technical Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (2.38%) .NET
2 4 (1.90%) ASP.NET
2 4 (1.90%) WPF
3 1 (0.48%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 104 (49.52%) Driving Licence
2 35 (16.67%) Management Information System
3 18 (8.57%) Smartphone
4 10 (4.76%) Data Centre
5 8 (3.81%) IoT
5 8 (3.81%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (1.90%) Operational Technology
7 3 (1.43%) Hybrid Cloud
8 2 (0.95%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.48%) Cloud Native
9 1 (0.48%) Hedge funds
9 1 (0.48%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.48%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 176 (83.81%) Windows
2 136 (64.76%) Linux
3 62 (29.52%) Windows Server
4 28 (13.33%) Windows Server 2016
5 27 (12.86%) Windows Server 2019
6 24 (11.43%) Windows 10
7 23 (10.95%) Ubuntu
8 16 (7.62%) Mac OS X
9 9 (4.29%) Mac OS
9 9 (4.29%) Windows Server 2012
10 7 (3.33%) CentOS
11 4 (1.90%) Windows 7
11 4 (1.90%) Windows 8
12 2 (0.95%) Android
12 2 (0.95%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 131 (62.38%) Problem-Solving
2 129 (61.43%) ITIL
3 119 (56.67%) Computer Science
4 101 (48.10%) Asset Management
4 101 (48.10%) Mentoring
5 95 (45.24%) IT Asset Management
5 95 (45.24%) Network Management
6 25 (11.90%) Collaborative Working
7 20 (9.52%) Proactive Monitoring
8 18 (8.57%) Incident Management
9 16 (7.62%) Business Case
9 16 (7.62%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 16 (7.62%) Performance Tuning
9 16 (7.62%) Systems Engineering
10 14 (6.67%) Process Improvement
11 13 (6.19%) Root Cause Analysis
12 12 (5.71%) Information Security
13 11 (5.24%) Coaching
14 10 (4.76%) Cost Optimisation
14 10 (4.76%) Patch Management
Programming Languages
1 38 (18.10%) PowerShell
2 35 (16.67%) SQL
3 5 (2.38%) C#
3 5 (2.38%) VB
4 2 (0.95%) Python
4 2 (0.95%) T-SQL
5 1 (0.48%) Bash
5 1 (0.48%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 210 (100.00%) Microsoft Certification
2 134 (63.81%) Degree
3 129 (61.43%) MCP
4 124 (59.05%) Cisco Certification
5 123 (58.57%) CCNA
6 118 (56.19%) Computer Science Degree
7 111 (52.86%) CCNP
8 95 (45.24%) LPIC
9 53 (25.24%) MCSA
10 24 (11.43%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 20 (9.52%) Azure Certification
12 16 (7.62%) HNC
12 16 (7.62%) HND
13 12 (5.71%) Network+ Certification
14 9 (4.29%) DBS Check
15 8 (3.81%) Security Cleared
16 7 (3.33%) A+ Certification
17 5 (2.38%) DV Cleared
17 5 (2.38%) MCITP
18 3 (1.43%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (10.48%) SLA
2 5 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (1.43%) ISO 9001
4 2 (0.95%) GDPR
4 2 (0.95%) NCSC
5 1 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.48%) NIST
5 1 (0.48%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 64 (30.48%) Active Directory
2 32 (15.24%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (11.43%) Hyper-V
4 12 (5.71%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (1.90%) vSphere
6 2 (0.95%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.95%) XenApp
7 1 (0.48%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.48%) Microsoft App-V
7 1 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.48%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 19 (9.05%) SCCM
2 17 (8.10%) Microsoft Intune
3 9 (4.29%) NetBackup
3 9 (4.29%) SCOM
4 7 (3.33%) PaperCut
5 4 (1.90%) WMI
6 2 (0.95%) vRealize
7 1 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 1 (0.48%) Ansible
7 1 (0.48%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
7 1 (0.48%) PowerCLI
7 1 (0.48%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.48%) Puppet
7 1 (0.48%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.48%) VxRail
Vendors
1 185 (88.10%) Microsoft
2 133 (63.33%) Cisco
3 33 (15.71%) VMware
4 22 (10.48%) Dell
5 19 (9.05%) Fortinet
6 17 (8.10%) Google
7 16 (7.62%) Apple
7 16 (7.62%) Ubiquiti
8 14 (6.67%) ServiceNow
9 11 (5.24%) Veeam
10 10 (4.76%) SolarWinds
11 8 (3.81%) Palo Alto
12 7 (3.33%) Red Hat
13 6 (2.86%) SAP
14 4 (1.90%) Citrix
14 4 (1.90%) Remedy
15 3 (1.43%) Kaseya
15 3 (1.43%) Meraki
15 3 (1.43%) Sage
15 3 (1.43%) WatchGuard