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 27 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 187 123 89
Rank change year-on-year -64 -34 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows Server 586 525 886
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.41% 2.21% 2.42%
As % of the Operating Systems category 14.44% 15.73% 17.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 406 373 663
10th Percentile £250 £350 £205
25th Percentile £400 £425 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £550 £475
Median % change year-on-year -13.18% +15.79% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £595
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £475 £525 £450
% change year-on-year -9.52% +16.67% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 4 17
10th Percentile £19.25 £14.15 £14.60
25th Percentile £20.91 £14.91 £16.00
Median hourly rate £26.22 £17.04 £38.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.87% -55.74% +7.69%
75th Percentile £59.62 £32.97 £61.60
90th Percentile £74.00 £57.44 £65.46
UK median hourly rate £25.00 £17.63 £38.50
% change year-on-year +41.84% -54.22% +20.31%

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 4,059 3,338 5,038
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.74% 14.04% 13.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,642 2,280 3,444
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £455 £467 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.52% -1.74% -6.86%
75th Percentile £575 £594 £588
90th Percentile £655 £695 £700
UK median daily rate £459 £467 £470
% change year-on-year -1.61% -0.74% -6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 287 152 371
10th Percentile £15.97 £15.12 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.31 £15.50
Median hourly rate £37.50 £20.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +87.50% -11.11% -44.57%
75th Percentile £65.50 £55.63 £61.80
90th Percentile £74.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £35.22 £21.95 £22.50
% change year-on-year +60.46% -2.44% -47.06%

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 27 May 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 27 May 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 27 May 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 -68 170 £491 -6.52% 64
South East -23 140 £525 -1.69% 91
North of England -84 88 £435 -9.38% 63
Midlands -34 66 £438 -2.78% 45
North West -41 64 £423 -0.59% 37
East of England -10 63 £450 -18.18% 32
South West -40 57 £511 -12.98% 45
West Midlands -43 40 £428 +6.88% 24
East Midlands -15 24 £450 -10.00% 21
Yorkshire -63 22 £500 -6.98% 22
North East -28 2 £330 -34.00% 4
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 70 (11.95%) Microsoft Exchange
2 33 (5.63%) IIS
3 26 (4.44%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.54%) nginx
4 9 (1.54%) Tomcat
5 7 (1.19%) Apache
6 4 (0.68%) SAS
7 3 (0.51%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.34%) CloudStack
8 2 (0.34%) Skype for Business
9 1 (0.17%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.17%) Confluence
9 1 (0.17%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 1 (0.17%) WebSphere
Applications
1 11 (1.88%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 11 (1.88%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.51%) Veritas eDiscovery
3 1 (0.17%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle FAH
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 215 (36.69%) Azure
2 104 (17.75%) Microsoft 365
3 92 (15.70%) Entra ID
4 59 (10.07%) AWS
5 26 (4.44%) IaaS
6 20 (3.41%) Azure Monitor
7 17 (2.90%) Power Platform
8 15 (2.56%) PaaS
9 11 (1.88%) GitHub
10 10 (1.71%) Azure DevOps
10 10 (1.71%) Nutanix
11 9 (1.54%) SaaS
12 8 (1.37%) Amazon EC2
12 8 (1.37%) GCP
13 6 (1.02%) Cohesity
14 5 (0.85%) GitHub Actions
14 5 (0.85%) Microsoft Copilot
15 4 (0.68%) Azure AKS
15 4 (0.68%) Azure Sentinel
15 4 (0.68%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 196 (33.45%) DNS
2 135 (23.04%) DHCP
3 100 (17.06%) Firewall
4 52 (8.87%) VPN
5 46 (7.85%) WAN
6 42 (7.17%) TCP/IP
7 39 (6.66%) LAN
8 26 (4.44%) Network Security
9 21 (3.58%) SAN
10 16 (2.73%) VLAN
11 15 (2.56%) Kerberos
12 14 (2.39%) SMTP
13 13 (2.22%) FTP
13 13 (2.22%) SSL
14 11 (1.88%) VoIP
14 11 (1.88%) Wi-Fi
15 9 (1.54%) NAS
15 9 (1.54%) SSH
16 8 (1.37%) Skype
16 8 (1.37%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (19.97%) SQL Server
2 17 (2.90%) Power BI
3 12 (2.05%) Oracle Database
4 11 (1.88%) Elasticsearch
5 8 (1.37%) NoSQL
6 7 (1.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 6 (1.02%) DB2
7 6 (1.02%) PostgreSQL
8 5 (0.85%) Relational Database
9 4 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
9 4 (0.68%) Oracle BI EE
10 3 (0.51%) Data Mining
10 3 (0.51%) GIS
10 3 (0.51%) MySQL
11 2 (0.34%) Big Data
11 2 (0.34%) MongoDB
11 2 (0.34%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 2 (0.34%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 1 (0.17%) Oracle Database 11g
12 1 (0.17%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 12 (2.05%) JIRA
2 10 (1.71%) Visual Studio
3 7 (1.19%) Jenkins
3 7 (1.19%) Robot Framework
4 6 (1.02%) Sonatype Nexus
5 5 (0.85%) Git
6 3 (0.51%) GitLab
6 3 (0.51%) MSI
7 2 (0.34%) AdminStudio
7 2 (0.34%) InstallShield
8 1 (0.17%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.17%) eggPlant
8 1 (0.17%) GoCD
8 1 (0.17%) Octopus Deploy
8 1 (0.17%) Postman
8 1 (0.17%) TeamCity
General
1 115 (19.62%) Social Skills
2 64 (10.92%) Finance
3 58 (9.90%) Public Sector
4 46 (7.85%) Analytical Skills
5 23 (3.92%) Banking
6 22 (3.75%) Documentation Skills
7 17 (2.90%) Legal
8 14 (2.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 12 (2.05%) Military
10 9 (1.54%) Law
10 9 (1.54%) Organisational Skills
11 7 (1.19%) Local Government
12 5 (0.85%) Marketing
12 5 (0.85%) Retail
13 4 (0.68%) Manufacturing
13 4 (0.68%) Police
14 3 (0.51%) Front Office
14 3 (0.51%) Telecoms
15 2 (0.34%) Financial Institution
15 2 (0.34%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 138 (23.55%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 40 (6.83%) Senior
3 39 (6.66%) Analyst
3 39 (6.66%) Support Engineer
4 32 (5.46%) 3rd Line Engineer
5 31 (5.29%) IT Support
5 31 (5.29%) Wintel Engineer
6 30 (5.12%) Cloud Engineer
7 27 (4.61%) Lead
8 25 (4.27%) Architect
9 22 (3.75%) Windows Engineer
10 21 (3.58%) Developer
10 21 (3.58%) IT Engineer
11 20 (3.41%) Administrator
12 19 (3.24%) Server Engineer
13 17 (2.90%) 3rd Line Support
13 17 (2.90%) C# Developer
14 16 (2.73%) Azure Engineer
14 16 (2.73%) Systems Administrator
15 15 (2.56%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (5.29%) .NET
2 27 (4.61%) .NET Framework
3 19 (3.24%) LDAP
3 19 (3.24%) OAuth
3 19 (3.24%) REST
4 18 (3.07%) SAML
5 5 (0.85%) Elastic Stack
5 5 (0.85%) JSON
5 5 (0.85%) OAuth2
5 5 (0.85%) OpenID
5 5 (0.85%) React
6 4 (0.68%) ADO
6 4 (0.68%) AngularJS
6 4 (0.68%) EJB
6 4 (0.68%) Keycloak
6 4 (0.68%) Middleware
6 4 (0.68%) RabbitMQ
6 4 (0.68%) Software Packaging
6 4 (0.68%) Vue
7 3 (0.51%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 54 (9.22%) PKI
2 44 (7.51%) Clustering
3 40 (6.83%) Replication
4 33 (5.63%) Onboarding
5 30 (5.12%) Data Centre
6 28 (4.78%) Hybrid Cloud
7 19 (3.24%) Legacy Systems
8 15 (2.56%) Enterprise Storage
8 15 (2.56%) Management Information System
8 15 (2.56%) Self-Motivation
9 14 (2.39%) Enterprise Software
10 11 (1.88%) Linux Command Line
11 10 (1.71%) Virtual Team
12 9 (1.54%) Product Ownership
13 8 (1.37%) Driving Licence
13 8 (1.37%) NHS
13 8 (1.37%) Private Cloud
13 8 (1.37%) Public Cloud
14 7 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
15 6 (1.02%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 586 (100.00%) Windows
2 153 (26.11%) Linux
3 59 (10.07%) Windows Server 2019
4 48 (8.19%) Windows Server 2016
5 38 (6.48%) Windows 10
6 33 (5.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (5.12%) Windows Server 2012
8 24 (4.10%) Unix
9 18 (3.07%) Ubuntu
10 11 (1.88%) Windows Server 2003
11 9 (1.54%) AIX
11 9 (1.54%) VMS
11 9 (1.54%) Windows Server 2008
12 8 (1.37%) CentOS
13 7 (1.19%) Solaris
14 4 (0.68%) Mac OS
15 3 (0.51%) Android
15 3 (0.51%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.51%) zOS
16 2 (0.34%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 168 (28.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 105 (17.92%) Disaster Recovery
3 96 (16.38%) High Availability
4 91 (15.53%) Problem-Solving
5 89 (15.19%) ITIL
6 65 (11.09%) Migration
7 61 (10.41%) Change Management
8 56 (9.56%) Agile
9 52 (8.87%) ITSM
10 47 (8.02%) Project Delivery
11 42 (7.17%) DevOps
12 38 (6.48%) Infrastructure as Code
13 37 (6.31%) Root Cause Analysis
13 37 (6.31%) Service Management
14 35 (5.97%) Runbook
15 34 (5.80%) Technical Leadership
16 33 (5.63%) Business Intelligence
17 32 (5.46%) CI/CD
18 31 (5.29%) Capacity Planning
18 31 (5.29%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 223 (38.05%) PowerShell
2 85 (14.51%) SQL
3 56 (9.56%) Python
4 31 (5.29%) Bash
5 30 (5.12%) C#
6 26 (4.44%) PL/SQL
7 21 (3.58%) T-SQL
8 19 (3.24%) JavaScript
9 13 (2.22%) Java
10 6 (1.02%) Bicep
11 3 (0.51%) JCL
11 3 (0.51%) REXX
11 3 (0.51%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.17%) Groovy
12 1 (0.17%) Ladder Logic
12 1 (0.17%) Perl
12 1 (0.17%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.17%) VB
Qualifications
1 232 (39.59%) Security Cleared
2 143 (24.40%) SC Cleared
3 94 (16.04%) DV Cleared
4 65 (11.09%) Degree
5 42 (7.17%) Microsoft Certification
6 25 (4.27%) MCSE
6 25 (4.27%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 18 (3.07%) VCAP
8 17 (2.90%) MCSA
9 14 (2.39%) Cisco Certification
10 11 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
11 10 (1.71%) Azure Certification
12 9 (1.54%) CCNA
13 7 (1.19%) CCNP
13 7 (1.19%) CISSP
14 5 (0.85%) CISM
15 4 (0.68%) CompTIA Security+
15 4 (0.68%) ITIL Certification
15 4 (0.68%) MCITP
15 4 (0.68%) MCTS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (5.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 26 (4.44%) QA
3 24 (4.10%) GDPR
4 19 (3.24%) NIST
5 15 (2.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 13 (2.22%) SLA
7 11 (1.88%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.51%) NCSC
8 3 (0.51%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 2 (0.34%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.17%) DICOM
10 1 (0.17%) Disclosure Scotland
10 1 (0.17%) GAAP
10 1 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
10 1 (0.17%) HL7
10 1 (0.17%) IFRS
10 1 (0.17%) IFRS 17
10 1 (0.17%) IFRS 9
10 1 (0.17%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 340 (58.02%) Active Directory
2 207 (35.32%) VMware Infrastructure
3 96 (16.38%) Hyper-V
4 69 (11.77%) vSphere
5 63 (10.75%) VMware ESXi
6 48 (8.19%) Virtual Machines
7 34 (5.80%) Docker
8 31 (5.29%) VMware NSX
9 11 (1.88%) KVM
10 10 (1.71%) Microsoft App-V
10 10 (1.71%) Virtual Desktop
11 9 (1.54%) BitLocker
12 8 (1.37%) vCloud
13 6 (1.02%) Virtual Servers
13 6 (1.02%) VMware Workstation
13 6 (1.02%) XenApp
14 5 (0.85%) XenDesktop
15 3 (0.51%) Firmware
15 3 (0.51%) Oracle RAC
15 3 (0.51%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 75 (12.80%) Ansible
2 65 (11.09%) Microsoft Intune
3 64 (10.92%) vCenter Server
4 59 (10.07%) SCCM
5 47 (8.02%) Terraform
6 36 (6.14%) Kubernetes
7 34 (5.80%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 33 (5.63%) SCOM
9 28 (4.78%) Single Sign-On
10 25 (4.27%) WSUS
11 11 (1.88%) Puppet
11 11 (1.88%) vMotion
12 10 (1.71%) Nessus
13 7 (1.19%) Avamar
14 6 (1.02%) IBM BigFix
15 5 (0.85%) Backup Exec
15 5 (0.85%) Grafana
15 5 (0.85%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.85%) Prometheus
15 5 (0.85%) VxRail
Vendors
1 253 (43.17%) VMware
2 251 (42.83%) Microsoft
3 65 (11.09%) Cisco
4 62 (10.58%) Citrix
5 49 (8.36%) Oracle
6 36 (6.14%) ServiceNow
7 25 (4.27%) Dell
8 23 (3.92%) Red Hat
9 17 (2.90%) Okta
9 17 (2.90%) Veeam
10 15 (2.56%) BeyondTrust
10 15 (2.56%) IBM
11 14 (2.39%) BMC
11 14 (2.39%) NetApp
12 13 (2.22%) CyberArk
12 13 (2.22%) Tenable
13 12 (2.05%) Palo Alto
13 12 (2.05%) SolarWinds
14 11 (1.88%) HP
14 11 (1.88%) Remedy