Windows Server Contract Job Trends in England

Microsoft Windows Server
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Windows Server skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 21 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
21 Mar 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 181 117 80
Rank change year-on-year -64 -37 +11
Contract jobs citing Windows Server 559 576 936
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.49% 2.35% 2.48%
As % of the Operating Systems category 13.38% 16.57% 17.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 427 401 645
10th Percentile £250 £304 £188
25th Percentile £401 £400 £283
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £450
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +16.67% -10.00%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £575
90th Percentile £712 £688 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £450
% change year-on-year -1.96% +13.33% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 5 27
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.45 £15.66
25th Percentile £20.41 £18.13 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.50 £45.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -50.00% -14.29% +79.18%
75th Percentile £29.06 £53.00 £66.13
90th Percentile £52.58 £65.45 £73.36
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £43.75 £52.50
% change year-on-year -48.57% -16.67% +79.18%

All Operating Systems
England

Windows Server falls under the Operating Systems category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring operating system skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 4,178 3,477 5,237
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 11.16% 14.20% 13.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,768 2,356 3,543
10th Percentile £181 £200 £178
25th Percentile £281 £313 £268
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -13.46%
75th Percentile £566 £600 £588
90th Percentile £663 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £456
% change year-on-year -5.26% +4.17% -11.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 302 130 377
10th Percentile £14.10 £16.25 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.25 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.68 £29.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.79% +31.82% -16.98%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.94 £57.50
90th Percentile £69.87 £71.03 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £22.81 £28.00 £22.00
% change year-on-year -18.54% +27.27% -16.98%

Windows Server
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Windows Server relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Windows Server job vacancy trend in England

Windows Server
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Windows Server.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Windows Server

Windows Server
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Windows Server in England over the 6 months to 21 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Windows Server in England

Windows Server
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Windows Server.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Windows Server

Windows Server
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Windows Server in England over the 6 months to 21 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows Server in England

Windows Server
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Windows Server within the England region over the 6 months to 21 March 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
Contract
IT Job Ads		 Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months		 Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year		 Live
Jobs
London -73 178 £500 -1.19% 71
South East -26 120 £505 -8.18% 124
North of England -89 80 £381 -19.74% 85
South West -34 68 £570 -0.87% 40
North West -35 60 £370 -18.68% 52
Midlands -43 57 £425 +14.86% 44
East of England +3 52 £450 - 42
West Midlands -47 39 £444 +47.92% 27
Yorkshire -70 17 £394 -25.00% 27
East Midlands -31 16 £415 +0.58% 17
North East -19 6 £550 +2.33% 9
Windows Server
UK

Windows Server
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 76 (13.60%) Microsoft Exchange
2 28 (5.01%) SharePoint
3 27 (4.83%) IIS
4 6 (1.07%) Apache
4 6 (1.07%) Confluence
5 4 (0.72%) nginx
5 4 (0.72%) Tomcat
6 3 (0.54%) SAS
6 3 (0.54%) Skype for Business
7 2 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2010
7 2 (0.36%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.36%) WordPress
8 1 (0.18%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.18%) SharePoint 2010
8 1 (0.18%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.18%) WebSphere
Applications
1 20 (3.58%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (0.89%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.18%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 4 (0.72%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.54%) Veritas eDiscovery
3 1 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.18%) Oracle FAH
3 1 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 1 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.18%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 202 (36.14%) Azure
2 111 (19.86%) Microsoft 365
3 101 (18.07%) Entra ID
4 48 (8.59%) AWS
5 20 (3.58%) IaaS
6 15 (2.68%) PaaS
7 14 (2.50%) Azure Monitor
8 13 (2.33%) SaaS
9 11 (1.97%) Nutanix
10 9 (1.61%) Azure DevOps
10 9 (1.61%) Power Platform
11 6 (1.07%) GCP
12 5 (0.89%) Azure Sentinel
12 5 (0.89%) GitHub
12 5 (0.89%) Mimecast
12 5 (0.89%) OCI
13 3 (0.54%) Amazon EKS
13 3 (0.54%) GitHub Actions
13 3 (0.54%) Microsoft Copilot
13 3 (0.54%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 181 (32.38%) DNS
2 125 (22.36%) DHCP
3 124 (22.18%) Firewall
4 51 (9.12%) VPN
5 50 (8.94%) TCP/IP
6 48 (8.59%) WAN
7 43 (7.69%) LAN
8 26 (4.65%) Network Security
9 20 (3.58%) VLAN
10 15 (2.68%) Kerberos
11 14 (2.50%) FTP
11 14 (2.50%) VoIP
11 14 (2.50%) Wi-Fi
11 14 (2.50%) Wireless
12 12 (2.15%) SMTP
12 12 (2.15%) SSL
13 11 (1.97%) Cisco IOS
14 10 (1.79%) BGP
15 9 (1.61%) NetScaler
15 9 (1.61%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 82 (14.67%) SQL Server
2 14 (2.50%) Oracle Database
3 8 (1.43%) Elasticsearch
3 8 (1.43%) Power BI
4 6 (1.07%) DB2
5 4 (0.72%) NoSQL
5 4 (0.72%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (0.72%) Relational Database
6 3 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (0.36%) Big Data
7 2 (0.36%) GIS
7 2 (0.36%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 1 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.18%) Data Mining
8 1 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.18%) Oracle BI EE
8 1 (0.18%) Oracle Database 11g
8 1 (0.18%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.18%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 1 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 13 (2.33%) JIRA
2 11 (1.97%) GitLab
2 11 (1.97%) Visual Studio
3 10 (1.79%) Jenkins
4 9 (1.61%) Git
5 6 (1.07%) Robot Framework
6 5 (0.89%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.72%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.54%) Octopus Deploy
9 2 (0.36%) Fiddler
10 1 (0.18%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.18%) eggPlant
10 1 (0.18%) GoCD
10 1 (0.18%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.18%) TeamCity
General
1 134 (23.97%) Social Skills
2 58 (10.38%) Finance
2 58 (10.38%) Public Sector
3 57 (10.20%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (6.08%) Documentation Skills
5 25 (4.47%) Legal
6 21 (3.76%) Banking
7 12 (2.15%) Military
8 11 (1.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 7 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
10 6 (1.07%) Local Government
11 5 (0.89%) Front Office
11 5 (0.89%) Spanish Language
11 5 (0.89%) Telecoms
12 4 (0.72%) Aerospace
13 3 (0.54%) Financial Institution
13 3 (0.54%) Law
13 3 (0.54%) Retail
14 2 (0.36%) Back Office
14 2 (0.36%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 89 (15.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 59 (10.55%) Analyst
3 39 (6.98%) Support Engineer
4 36 (6.44%) Senior
5 35 (6.26%) Architect
5 35 (6.26%) Platform Engineer
6 32 (5.72%) IT Support
7 28 (5.01%) Wintel Engineer
8 27 (4.83%) 3rd Line Engineer
8 27 (4.83%) Developer
9 26 (4.65%) Support Analyst
9 26 (4.65%) Windows Engineer
10 23 (4.11%) 3rd Line Support
11 21 (3.76%) 2nd Line Support
11 21 (3.76%) Lead
11 21 (3.76%) Server Engineer
11 21 (3.76%) Technical Analyst
12 20 (3.58%) Network Engineer
13 18 (3.22%) C# Developer
14 17 (3.04%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (5.90%) OAuth
2 32 (5.72%) .NET
3 30 (5.37%) SAML
4 25 (4.47%) .NET Framework
5 21 (3.76%) LDAP
6 18 (3.22%) REST
7 17 (3.04%) OAuth2
7 17 (3.04%) OpenID
8 8 (1.43%) XMPP
9 7 (1.25%) Middleware
9 7 (1.25%) React
10 5 (0.89%) AngularJS
11 4 (0.72%) Keycloak
12 3 (0.54%) ASP.NET Web API
12 3 (0.54%) Elastic Stack
12 3 (0.54%) Vue
12 3 (0.54%) WCF
12 3 (0.54%) Web Services
12 3 (0.54%) WinForms
13 2 (0.36%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 45 (8.05%) PKI
2 41 (7.33%) Data Centre
3 39 (6.98%) Replication
4 25 (4.47%) Clustering
5 23 (4.11%) Onboarding
6 21 (3.76%) Product Ownership
7 20 (3.58%) Legacy Systems
8 18 (3.22%) Hybrid Cloud
9 17 (3.04%) NHS
10 15 (2.68%) Enterprise Software
10 15 (2.68%) Private Cloud
11 12 (2.15%) Management Information System
12 11 (1.97%) Self-Motivation
13 10 (1.79%) Driving Licence
14 9 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
14 9 (1.61%) Enterprise Storage
15 8 (1.43%) Legacy Code
16 7 (1.25%) iPhone
16 7 (1.25%) Linux Command Line
17 6 (1.07%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 557 (99.64%) Windows
2 139 (24.87%) Linux
3 39 (6.98%) Windows Server 2019
4 37 (6.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 36 (6.44%) Windows 10
6 35 (6.26%) Windows Server 2016
7 33 (5.90%) Windows Server 2012
8 19 (3.40%) Unix
9 13 (2.33%) Windows Server 2003
10 11 (1.97%) Ubuntu
11 10 (1.79%) AIX
12 9 (1.61%) Android
12 9 (1.61%) Windows Server 2008
13 8 (1.43%) CentOS
14 7 (1.25%) VMS
15 6 (1.07%) Solaris
16 2 (0.36%) Apple iOS
16 2 (0.36%) Mac OS
16 2 (0.36%) Windows 7
16 2 (0.36%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 132 (23.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 86 (15.38%) Disaster Recovery
3 79 (14.13%) Problem-Solving
4 78 (13.95%) High Availability
5 77 (13.77%) ITIL
6 67 (11.99%) Agile
7 62 (11.09%) Migration
8 55 (9.84%) Service Management
9 52 (9.30%) Change Management
10 48 (8.59%) Continuous Improvement
10 48 (8.59%) ITSM
11 47 (8.41%) Identity Access Management
12 44 (7.87%) Project Delivery
13 42 (7.51%) Cybersecurity
14 40 (7.16%) DevOps
15 39 (6.98%) RBAC
16 35 (6.26%) Change Control
17 34 (6.08%) Platform Engineering
18 31 (5.55%) CI/CD
19 29 (5.19%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 229 (40.97%) PowerShell
2 75 (13.42%) SQL
3 52 (9.30%) Python
4 35 (6.26%) Bash
5 31 (5.55%) C#
6 24 (4.29%) PL/SQL
7 21 (3.76%) T-SQL
8 12 (2.15%) JavaScript
9 11 (1.97%) Perl
10 10 (1.79%) Java
11 5 (0.89%) Bicep
12 2 (0.36%) Delphi
12 2 (0.36%) JCL
12 2 (0.36%) PHP
12 2 (0.36%) REXX
12 2 (0.36%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.18%) TypeScript
13 1 (0.18%) VBA
Qualifications
1 228 (40.79%) Security Cleared
2 150 (26.83%) SC Cleared
3 75 (13.42%) DV Cleared
4 65 (11.63%) Degree
5 62 (11.09%) Microsoft Certification
6 22 (3.94%) MCSE
7 18 (3.22%) Azure Certification
7 18 (3.22%) Cisco Certification
8 17 (3.04%) CCNP
9 15 (2.68%) CCNA
9 15 (2.68%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 14 (2.50%) MCSA
11 10 (1.79%) CCDP
12 9 (1.61%) AWS Certification
12 9 (1.61%) VCAP
13 8 (1.43%) CISSP
14 7 (1.25%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 6 (1.07%) BPSS Clearance
16 5 (0.89%) CompTIA Security+
16 5 (0.89%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (5.19%) QA
2 24 (4.29%) GDPR
3 22 (3.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 15 (2.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 13 (2.33%) NIST
6 10 (1.79%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (0.89%) SLA
8 4 (0.72%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 2 (0.36%) NCSC
10 1 (0.18%) Basel III
10 1 (0.18%) DICOM
10 1 (0.18%) GAAP
10 1 (0.18%) HL7
10 1 (0.18%) IFRS
10 1 (0.18%) IFRS 17
10 1 (0.18%) IFRS 9
10 1 (0.18%) JSP 440
System Software
1 349 (62.43%) Active Directory
2 161 (28.80%) VMware Infrastructure
3 67 (11.99%) Hyper-V
4 46 (8.23%) vSphere
5 36 (6.44%) VMware ESXi
6 32 (5.72%) Docker
7 31 (5.55%) Virtual Machines
8 25 (4.47%) VMware NSX
9 10 (1.79%) Virtual Desktop
10 7 (1.25%) BitLocker
10 7 (1.25%) KVM
10 7 (1.25%) Microsoft App-V
10 7 (1.25%) Terminal Services
11 4 (0.72%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.54%) Firmware
12 3 (0.54%) XenApp
13 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 2 (0.36%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.36%) Sendmail
13 2 (0.36%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 81 (14.49%) Microsoft Intune
2 67 (11.99%) SCCM
3 62 (11.09%) Ansible
4 53 (9.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 48 (8.59%) Single Sign-On
6 46 (8.23%) vCenter Server
7 44 (7.87%) Terraform
8 28 (5.01%) Kubernetes
9 21 (3.76%) SCOM
10 13 (2.33%) WSUS
11 10 (1.79%) Puppet
12 7 (1.25%) vMotion
13 6 (1.07%) FortiGate
13 6 (1.07%) IBM BigFix
13 6 (1.07%) SCOrch
13 6 (1.07%) VxRail
14 5 (0.89%) CASB
15 4 (0.72%) Backup Exec
15 4 (0.72%) Nessus
15 4 (0.72%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 258 (46.15%) Microsoft
2 209 (37.39%) VMware
3 68 (12.16%) Citrix
4 59 (10.55%) Cisco
5 44 (7.87%) Oracle
6 32 (5.72%) Red Hat
7 29 (5.19%) ServiceNow
8 25 (4.47%) Dell
9 24 (4.29%) SolarWinds
9 24 (4.29%) Veeam
10 15 (2.68%) Okta
11 13 (2.33%) HP
11 13 (2.33%) Palo Alto
12 11 (1.97%) IBM
13 10 (1.79%) BeyondTrust
13 10 (1.79%) CyberArk
13 10 (1.79%) Juniper
13 10 (1.79%) NetApp
14 8 (1.43%) F5
14 8 (1.43%) Tenable
376 Windows Server jobs in England