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 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 565 621 662
Rank change year-on-year +56 +41 +73
Permanent jobs citing MCSE 146 304 313
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.26% 0.29% 0.32%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.54% 1.09% 0.96%
Number of salaries quoted 88 230 272
10th Percentile £27,000 £30,000 £23,750
25th Percentile £32,500 £32,563 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £43,500 £42,000
Median % change year-on-year -13.79% +3.57% -6.67%
75th Percentile £49,063 £57,500 £57,500
90th Percentile £57,875 £67,500 £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 27,102 27,804 32,509
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 48.91% 26.92% 33.46%
Number of salaries quoted 10,972 17,251 14,583
10th Percentile £31,750 £28,500 £32,000
25th Percentile £43,546 £38,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £53,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.80% -10.83% +9.09%
75th Percentile £68,750 £71,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £82,500 £87,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% +5.00%

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 May 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 May 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 +22 135 £35,000 -17.65% 114
UK excluding London +88 126 £35,000 -12.50% 115
Midlands +111 64 £35,000 -20.86% 22
West Midlands +79 48 £35,000 -17.65% 11
Work from Home +97 38 £38,094 -4.77% 19
South East +29 28 £45,000 +28.57% 38
London +70 18 £55,000 - 10
East Midlands +50 16 £35,000 -20.86% 10
North of England +27 15 £36,250 -9.38% 25
South West +90 9 £28,000 -24.32% 10
Wales - 8 £38,094 - 2
Yorkshire +48 7 £55,000 +37.50% 8
North West +2 6 £35,000 -22.22% 15
North East +41 2 £48,750 +30.00% 2
East of England +21 2 £52,500 +31.25% 17
Scotland +105 1 £25,500 -59.20% 3

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 15 (10.27%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (6.16%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.68%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 12 (8.22%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (7.53%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 4 (2.74%) SAP Business One
2 3 (2.05%) Sage 50
3 1 (0.68%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 62 (42.47%) Azure
2 41 (28.08%) Microsoft 365
3 30 (20.55%) AWS
4 17 (11.64%) PaaS
4 17 (11.64%) SaaS
5 11 (7.53%) Google Workspace
6 10 (6.85%) Entra ID
7 9 (6.16%) IaaS
8 4 (2.74%) Power Platform
9 3 (2.05%) OneDrive
10 2 (1.37%) GCP
11 1 (0.68%) Amazon EKS
11 1 (0.68%) Azure AKS
11 1 (0.68%) Azure Data Factory
11 1 (0.68%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 1 (0.68%) Cloud Computing
11 1 (0.68%) Mimecast
11 1 (0.68%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 40 (27.40%) DNS
1 40 (27.40%) WLAN
2 32 (21.92%) Network Security
3 29 (19.86%) DHCP
4 28 (19.18%) Internet
5 24 (16.44%) Firewall
6 22 (15.07%) TCP/IP
7 21 (14.38%) LAN
7 21 (14.38%) WAN
8 12 (8.22%) VLAN
9 11 (7.53%) BGP
9 11 (7.53%) OSPF
10 6 (4.11%) Wireshark
11 4 (2.74%) SAN
12 3 (2.05%) VoIP
13 2 (1.37%) InfiniBand
14 1 (0.68%) NAS
14 1 (0.68%) NetScaler
14 1 (0.68%) Unified Communications
14 1 (0.68%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (6.85%) SQL Server
2 4 (2.74%) Power BI
3 1 (0.68%) Amazon QuickSight
3 1 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
3 1 (0.68%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.68%) Microsoft Analysis Services
3 1 (0.68%) Power Query
3 1 (0.68%) Snowflake Schema
3 1 (0.68%) SQL Server Analysis Services
3 1 (0.68%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 1 (0.68%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 2 (1.37%) JIRA
General
1 62 (42.47%) Social Skills
2 19 (13.01%) Finance
3 15 (10.27%) Automotive
4 13 (8.90%) Public Sector
5 11 (7.53%) Retail
6 9 (6.16%) Banking
7 8 (5.48%) Welsh Language
8 6 (4.11%) Documentation Skills
9 5 (3.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (2.74%) Analytical Skills
10 4 (2.74%) Manufacturing
11 3 (2.05%) Legal
12 1 (0.68%) Advertising
12 1 (0.68%) Back Office
12 1 (0.68%) Law
12 1 (0.68%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.68%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (0.68%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.68%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 45 (30.82%) IT Support
2 44 (30.14%) IT Engineer
3 43 (29.45%) Support Engineer
4 31 (21.23%) IT Support Engineer
5 16 (10.96%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 14 (9.59%) Analyst
7 13 (8.90%) Infrastructure Support
7 13 (8.90%) Systems Engineer
8 11 (7.53%) Lead
8 11 (7.53%) Support Analyst
9 10 (6.85%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
10 9 (6.16%) Support Team Leader
10 9 (6.16%) Team Leader
10 9 (6.16%) Wintel Engineer
11 8 (5.48%) Server Engineer
11 8 (5.48%) Technical Support
12 6 (4.11%) NOC Engineer
12 6 (4.11%) Software Analyst
12 6 (4.11%) Software Support Analyst
12 6 (4.11%) Support Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (4.79%) .NET
2 6 (4.11%) ASP.NET
2 6 (4.11%) WPF
3 1 (0.68%) REST
3 1 (0.68%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 43 (29.45%) Driving Licence
2 29 (19.86%) Management Information System
3 13 (8.90%) Smartphone
4 9 (6.16%) Data Centre
5 8 (5.48%) IoT
5 8 (5.48%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (2.74%) Operational Technology
7 2 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (1.37%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.68%) Cloud Native
8 1 (0.68%) Hedge funds
8 1 (0.68%) Onboarding
8 1 (0.68%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 111 (76.03%) Windows
2 72 (49.32%) Linux
3 63 (43.15%) Windows Server
4 23 (15.75%) Windows Server 2016
4 23 (15.75%) Windows Server 2019
5 19 (13.01%) Windows 10
6 17 (11.64%) Ubuntu
7 11 (7.53%) Mac OS X
8 9 (6.16%) Mac OS
8 9 (6.16%) Windows Server 2012
9 6 (4.11%) CentOS
10 3 (2.05%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 2 (1.37%) Android
11 2 (1.37%) Apple iOS
12 1 (0.68%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.68%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 63 (43.15%) ITIL
2 62 (42.47%) Problem-Solving
3 49 (33.56%) Computer Science
4 41 (28.08%) Mentoring
5 34 (23.29%) Asset Management
6 28 (19.18%) IT Asset Management
6 28 (19.18%) Network Management
7 24 (16.44%) Collaborative Working
8 20 (13.70%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 18 (12.33%) Incident Management
9 18 (12.33%) Proactive Monitoring
10 14 (9.59%) Coaching
10 14 (9.59%) Process Improvement
11 13 (8.90%) Performance Tuning
11 13 (8.90%) Root Cause Analysis
12 11 (7.53%) Business Case
12 11 (7.53%) Information Security
12 11 (7.53%) Systems Engineering
13 10 (6.85%) Cost Optimisation
13 10 (6.85%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 35 (23.97%) SQL
2 33 (22.60%) PowerShell
3 7 (4.79%) C#
4 4 (2.74%) Python
5 3 (2.05%) Bash
5 3 (2.05%) T-SQL
6 2 (1.37%) Perl
6 2 (1.37%) VB
7 1 (0.68%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 1 (0.68%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 146 (100.00%) Microsoft Certification
2 67 (45.89%) MCP
3 65 (44.52%) Degree
4 60 (41.10%) MCSA
5 59 (40.41%) Cisco Certification
6 58 (39.73%) CCNA
7 48 (32.88%) Computer Science Degree
8 46 (31.51%) CCNP
9 30 (20.55%) LPIC
10 25 (17.12%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 20 (13.70%) Azure Certification
12 11 (7.53%) A+ Certification
12 11 (7.53%) HNC
12 11 (7.53%) HND
12 11 (7.53%) Network+ Certification
13 9 (6.16%) DBS Check
14 5 (3.42%) Security Cleared
15 4 (2.74%) MCITP
16 3 (2.05%) DV Cleared
16 3 (2.05%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (14.38%) SLA
2 6 (4.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (2.05%) ISO 9001
4 2 (1.37%) NCSC
4 2 (1.37%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.68%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.68%) GDPR
5 1 (0.68%) NIST
System Software
1 59 (40.41%) Active Directory
2 29 (19.86%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (15.75%) Hyper-V
4 13 (8.90%) Virtual Desktop
5 7 (4.79%) vSphere
6 2 (1.37%) GPFS
6 2 (1.37%) Lustre
6 2 (1.37%) NFS
6 2 (1.37%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.68%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.68%) Docker
7 1 (0.68%) Microsoft App-V
7 1 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.68%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.68%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 15 (10.27%) Microsoft Intune
2 14 (9.59%) SCCM
3 9 (6.16%) NetBackup
3 9 (6.16%) SCOM
4 7 (4.79%) PaperCut
5 2 (1.37%) vCenter Server
5 2 (1.37%) vRealize
6 1 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 1 (0.68%) Ansible
6 1 (0.68%) Kubernetes
6 1 (0.68%) PowerCLI
6 1 (0.68%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.68%) Puppet
6 1 (0.68%) Terraform
6 1 (0.68%) VxRail
6 1 (0.68%) WMI
Vendors
1 117 (80.14%) Microsoft
2 59 (40.41%) Cisco
3 34 (23.29%) VMware
4 16 (10.96%) Dell
5 14 (9.59%) Fortinet
6 11 (7.53%) Apple
6 11 (7.53%) Google
6 11 (7.53%) ServiceNow
6 11 (7.53%) Ubiquiti
7 10 (6.85%) SolarWinds
7 10 (6.85%) Veeam
8 6 (4.11%) Palo Alto
8 6 (4.11%) Red Hat
8 6 (4.11%) SAP
9 3 (2.05%) arcserve
9 3 (2.05%) Citrix
9 3 (2.05%) Meraki
9 3 (2.05%) Sage
9 3 (2.05%) SonicWALL
9 3 (2.05%) WatchGuard