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 6 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
6 Apr 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 187 116 83
Rank change year-on-year -71 -33 +6
Contract jobs citing Windows Server 564 567 945
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.46% 2.33% 2.53%
As % of the Operating Systems category 13.61% 16.55% 18.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 431 397 660
10th Percentile £250 £302 £194
25th Percentile £404 £406 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £450
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +16.67% -10.00%
75th Percentile £588 £608 £588
90th Percentile £711 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £523 £450
% change year-on-year -4.31% +16.11% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 4 25
10th Percentile £16.85 £16.17 £15.86
25th Percentile £20.79 £17.43 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.50 £35.88 £38.50
Median % change year-on-year -37.28% -6.82% +31.40%
75th Percentile £41.94 £58.19 £61.60
90th Percentile £74.21 £67.53 £68.63
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £35.88 £38.50
% change year-on-year -37.28% -6.82% +31.40%

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 4,143 3,427 5,188
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.72% 14.06% 13.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,753 2,358 3,520
10th Percentile £181 £200 £180
25th Percentile £300 £313 £275
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 £463
% change year-on-year -5.26% +2.70% -9.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 296 142 377
10th Percentile £14.50 £16.28 £12.82
25th Percentile £18.78 £18.13 £15.25
Median hourly rate £25.11 £28.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.31% +33.33% -28.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £53.75
90th Percentile £74.47 £68.75 £68.68
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £24.66 £22.00
% change year-on-year +1.99% +12.09% -32.31%

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 6 April 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 6 April 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 6 April 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 -77 173 £500 -4.76% 76
South East -41 117 £510 -7.27% 111
North of England -90 84 £416 -16.75% 91
South West -32 66 £563 -2.17% 43
Midlands -38 63 £415 +34.96% 48
North West -42 63 £404 -9.27% 59
East of England +2 58 £450 - 39
West Midlands -34 45 £438 +45.83% 27
Yorkshire -68 18 £413 -25.00% 26
East Midlands -27 16 £415 -17.00% 21
North East -13 6 £550 -8.33% 8
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 74 (13.12%) Microsoft Exchange
2 28 (4.96%) IIS
3 26 (4.61%) SharePoint
4 6 (1.06%) Apache
5 5 (0.89%) nginx
5 5 (0.89%) Tomcat
6 4 (0.71%) Confluence
7 3 (0.53%) SAS
7 3 (0.53%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2010
8 2 (0.35%) Skype for Business
8 2 (0.35%) WordPress
9 1 (0.18%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 1 (0.18%) SharePoint 2010
9 1 (0.18%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.18%) WebSphere
Applications
1 20 (3.55%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (0.89%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.18%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 7 (1.24%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.53%) 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%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 204 (36.17%) Azure
2 107 (18.97%) Microsoft 365
3 98 (17.38%) Entra ID
4 52 (9.22%) AWS
5 21 (3.72%) IaaS
6 15 (2.66%) Azure Monitor
6 15 (2.66%) PaaS
7 12 (2.13%) Nutanix
8 11 (1.95%) Power Platform
8 11 (1.95%) SaaS
9 10 (1.77%) Azure DevOps
10 6 (1.06%) GCP
10 6 (1.06%) GitHub
11 5 (0.89%) Azure Sentinel
11 5 (0.89%) Mimecast
11 5 (0.89%) OCI
12 4 (0.71%) Microsoft Copilot
13 3 (0.53%) Amazon EKS
13 3 (0.53%) GitHub Actions
13 3 (0.53%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 189 (33.51%) DNS
2 128 (22.70%) DHCP
3 125 (22.16%) Firewall
4 54 (9.57%) VPN
5 52 (9.22%) TCP/IP
6 45 (7.98%) WAN
7 42 (7.45%) LAN
8 26 (4.61%) Network Security
9 21 (3.72%) VLAN
10 16 (2.84%) Kerberos
11 14 (2.48%) FTP
11 14 (2.48%) SMTP
12 13 (2.30%) SSL
12 13 (2.30%) VoIP
12 13 (2.30%) Wi-Fi
13 12 (2.13%) SAN
13 12 (2.13%) Wireless
14 9 (1.60%) BGP
15 8 (1.42%) NetScaler
15 8 (1.42%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 86 (15.25%) SQL Server
2 14 (2.48%) Oracle Database
3 10 (1.77%) Elasticsearch
3 10 (1.77%) Power BI
4 6 (1.06%) DB2
5 5 (0.89%) NoSQL
5 5 (0.89%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (0.71%) Relational Database
7 3 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (0.53%) Data Mining
7 3 (0.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 2 (0.35%) Big Data
8 2 (0.35%) GIS
8 2 (0.35%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 2 (0.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 1 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
9 1 (0.18%) Electronic Patient Records
9 1 (0.18%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.18%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 11 (1.95%) JIRA
1 11 (1.95%) Visual Studio
2 9 (1.60%) GitLab
2 9 (1.60%) Jenkins
3 8 (1.42%) Git
4 6 (1.06%) Robot Framework
5 5 (0.89%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.53%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.53%) Octopus Deploy
7 1 (0.18%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.18%) eggPlant
7 1 (0.18%) GoCD
7 1 (0.18%) REST Assured
7 1 (0.18%) TeamCity
General
1 137 (24.29%) Social Skills
2 60 (10.64%) Finance
3 59 (10.46%) Public Sector
4 55 (9.75%) Analytical Skills
5 30 (5.32%) Documentation Skills
6 25 (4.43%) Legal
7 21 (3.72%) Banking
8 11 (1.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 11 (1.95%) Military
9 7 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
10 6 (1.06%) Local Government
10 6 (1.06%) Telecoms
11 5 (0.89%) Front Office
12 4 (0.71%) Law
12 4 (0.71%) Retail
13 3 (0.53%) Aerospace
13 3 (0.53%) Financial Institution
13 3 (0.53%) Spanish Language
14 2 (0.35%) Back Office
14 2 (0.35%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 104 (18.44%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 55 (9.75%) Analyst
3 37 (6.56%) Architect
3 37 (6.56%) Senior
4 33 (5.85%) IT Support
4 33 (5.85%) Platform Engineer
4 33 (5.85%) Support Engineer
5 26 (4.61%) Developer
5 26 (4.61%) Wintel Engineer
6 25 (4.43%) 3rd Line Engineer
6 25 (4.43%) Windows Engineer
7 23 (4.08%) Support Analyst
8 22 (3.90%) Lead
9 21 (3.72%) Server Engineer
10 19 (3.37%) 3rd Line Support
10 19 (3.37%) Technical Analyst
11 18 (3.19%) C# Developer
11 18 (3.19%) IT Engineer
12 17 (3.01%) 2nd Line Support
13 14 (2.48%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (5.85%) .NET
2 31 (5.50%) OAuth
3 30 (5.32%) SAML
4 26 (4.61%) .NET Framework
5 22 (3.90%) LDAP
6 19 (3.37%) REST
7 17 (3.01%) OAuth2
7 17 (3.01%) OpenID
8 8 (1.42%) XMPP
9 7 (1.24%) Middleware
9 7 (1.24%) React
10 5 (0.89%) AngularJS
11 4 (0.71%) Keycloak
12 3 (0.53%) ASP.NET Web API
12 3 (0.53%) Vue
12 3 (0.53%) WCF
12 3 (0.53%) Web Services
12 3 (0.53%) WinForms
13 2 (0.35%) JSON
13 2 (0.35%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 45 (7.98%) PKI
2 44 (7.80%) Replication
3 39 (6.91%) Data Centre
4 28 (4.96%) Clustering
5 24 (4.26%) Onboarding
6 22 (3.90%) Hybrid Cloud
7 21 (3.72%) Legacy Systems
7 21 (3.72%) Product Ownership
8 15 (2.66%) Enterprise Software
8 15 (2.66%) NHS
8 15 (2.66%) Private Cloud
8 15 (2.66%) Self-Motivation
9 12 (2.13%) Enterprise Storage
10 11 (1.95%) Management Information System
11 10 (1.77%) Analytical Mindset
12 9 (1.60%) Driving Licence
13 8 (1.42%) Legacy Code
14 7 (1.24%) iPhone
14 7 (1.24%) Linux Command Line
15 6 (1.06%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 562 (99.65%) Windows
2 146 (25.89%) Linux
3 40 (7.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 40 (7.09%) Windows 10
3 40 (7.09%) Windows Server 2019
4 36 (6.38%) Windows Server 2016
5 33 (5.85%) Windows Server 2012
6 19 (3.37%) Unix
7 13 (2.30%) Ubuntu
8 11 (1.95%) Windows Server 2003
9 10 (1.77%) AIX
10 9 (1.60%) Android
10 9 (1.60%) VMS
11 8 (1.42%) CentOS
12 7 (1.24%) Solaris
12 7 (1.24%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.35%) Apple iOS
13 2 (0.35%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.35%) Windows 7
13 2 (0.35%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (25.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 91 (16.13%) Disaster Recovery
3 87 (15.43%) ITIL
3 87 (15.43%) Problem-Solving
4 83 (14.72%) High Availability
5 67 (11.88%) Agile
6 60 (10.64%) Migration
7 57 (10.11%) Change Management
8 56 (9.93%) Service Management
9 48 (8.51%) ITSM
10 47 (8.33%) Identity Access Management
11 46 (8.16%) Continuous Improvement
12 44 (7.80%) Project Delivery
13 41 (7.27%) Cybersecurity
13 41 (7.27%) RBAC
14 39 (6.91%) DevOps
15 33 (5.85%) Change Control
15 33 (5.85%) Platform Engineering
16 30 (5.32%) Infrastructure as Code
17 29 (5.14%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 231 (40.96%) PowerShell
2 78 (13.83%) SQL
3 51 (9.04%) Python
4 37 (6.56%) Bash
5 32 (5.67%) C#
6 26 (4.61%) PL/SQL
7 22 (3.90%) T-SQL
8 14 (2.48%) JavaScript
9 11 (1.95%) Java
9 11 (1.95%) Perl
10 5 (0.89%) Bicep
11 2 (0.35%) Delphi
11 2 (0.35%) JCL
11 2 (0.35%) PHP
11 2 (0.35%) REXX
11 2 (0.35%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.18%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.18%) VBA
Qualifications
1 231 (40.96%) Security Cleared
2 152 (26.95%) SC Cleared
3 80 (14.18%) DV Cleared
4 66 (11.70%) Degree
5 60 (10.64%) Microsoft Certification
6 21 (3.72%) MCSE
7 17 (3.01%) Azure Certification
7 17 (3.01%) Cisco Certification
7 17 (3.01%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 15 (2.66%) CCNA
9 13 (2.30%) CCNP
10 12 (2.13%) MCSA
11 11 (1.95%) VCAP
12 9 (1.60%) CCDP
13 8 (1.42%) AWS Certification
14 7 (1.24%) CISSP
15 6 (1.06%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 6 (1.06%) BPSS Clearance
16 5 (0.89%) CompTIA Security+
16 5 (0.89%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (5.14%) QA
2 27 (4.79%) GDPR
2 27 (4.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 15 (2.66%) NIST
3 15 (2.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 11 (1.95%) Cyber Essentials
5 7 (1.24%) SLA
6 3 (0.53%) NIST 800
7 2 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 1 (0.18%) Basel III
8 1 (0.18%) DICOM
8 1 (0.18%) GAAP
8 1 (0.18%) HL7
8 1 (0.18%) IFRS
8 1 (0.18%) IFRS 17
8 1 (0.18%) IFRS 9
8 1 (0.18%) JSP 440
8 1 (0.18%) NCSC
System Software
1 344 (60.99%) Active Directory
2 172 (30.50%) VMware Infrastructure
3 73 (12.94%) Hyper-V
4 52 (9.22%) vSphere
5 40 (7.09%) VMware ESXi
6 33 (5.85%) Docker
7 30 (5.32%) Virtual Machines
8 24 (4.26%) VMware NSX
9 10 (1.77%) Virtual Desktop
10 8 (1.42%) BitLocker
10 8 (1.42%) KVM
10 8 (1.42%) Microsoft App-V
11 5 (0.89%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.53%) Firmware
12 3 (0.53%) NFS
12 3 (0.53%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.53%) XenApp
13 2 (0.35%) Job Entry Subsystem
13 2 (0.35%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 79 (14.01%) Microsoft Intune
2 68 (12.06%) SCCM
3 65 (11.52%) Ansible
4 52 (9.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 48 (8.51%) Single Sign-On
6 46 (8.16%) vCenter Server
7 42 (7.45%) Terraform
8 28 (4.96%) Kubernetes
9 23 (4.08%) SCOM
10 16 (2.84%) WSUS
11 11 (1.95%) Puppet
12 10 (1.77%) vMotion
13 6 (1.06%) IBM BigFix
14 5 (0.89%) FortiGate
14 5 (0.89%) Nessus
14 5 (0.89%) VxRail
15 4 (0.71%) Backup Exec
15 4 (0.71%) Oracle RMAN
15 4 (0.71%) PowerCLI
15 4 (0.71%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 255 (45.21%) Microsoft
2 219 (38.83%) VMware
3 68 (12.06%) Citrix
4 58 (10.28%) Cisco
5 46 (8.16%) Oracle
6 32 (5.67%) Red Hat
6 32 (5.67%) ServiceNow
7 23 (4.08%) Dell
7 23 (4.08%) Veeam
8 19 (3.37%) SolarWinds
9 15 (2.66%) Okta
10 14 (2.48%) NetApp
11 13 (2.30%) HP
11 13 (2.30%) Palo Alto
12 12 (2.13%) IBM
13 10 (1.77%) BeyondTrust
13 10 (1.77%) CyberArk
14 9 (1.60%) BMC
14 9 (1.60%) Tenable
15 8 (1.42%) McAfee
381 Windows Server jobs in England