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 9 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
9 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 185 131 92
Rank change year-on-year -54 -39 -10
Contract jobs citing Windows Server 617 525 883
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.45% 2.15% 2.37%
As % of the Operating Systems category 15.02% 15.35% 17.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 424 375 656
10th Percentile £263 £331 £213
25th Percentile £409 £425 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £538 £482
Median % change year-on-year -10.22% +11.62% -3.60%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £594
90th Percentile £660 £688 £679
UK median daily rate £480 £525 £465
% change year-on-year -8.57% +12.90% -7.00%
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% +28.33%
75th Percentile £65.96 £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% +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 4,108 3,421 5,118
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.69% 14.04% 13.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,667 2,321 3,448
10th Percentile £188 £200 £188
25th Percentile £313 £313 £303
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £456 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% -2.11% -5.09%
75th Percentile £570 £588 £588
90th Percentile £650 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £460 £465 £470
% change year-on-year -1.08% -1.06% -6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 288 168 373
10th Percentile £15.88 £15.11 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.31 £16.95 £15.50
Median hourly rate £34.68 £19.27 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +79.94% -14.36% -47.06%
75th Percentile £65.00 £49.56 £63.75
90th Percentile £72.60 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £22.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year +47.73% -2.22% -48.57%

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 9 June 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 9 June 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 9 June 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 -50 187 £495 -5.71% 53
South East -25 149 £525 -2.42% 96
North of England -84 86 £456 -5.98% 66
Midlands -19 72 £450 - 38
East of England -13 63 £450 -18.18% 24
South West -39 59 £515 -10.43% 52
North West -44 57 £448 +3.88% 42
West Midlands -36 45 £438 +9.38% 22
Yorkshire -65 27 £563 +4.65% 18
East Midlands -11 25 £450 -10.00% 16
North East -29 2 £330 -34.00% 7
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 73 (11.83%) Microsoft Exchange
2 30 (4.86%) IIS
3 28 (4.54%) SharePoint
4 10 (1.62%) nginx
4 10 (1.62%) Tomcat
5 7 (1.13%) Apache
6 3 (0.49%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.32%) CloudStack
7 2 (0.32%) SAS
7 2 (0.32%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.16%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.16%) Confluence
8 1 (0.16%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.16%) WebSphere
Applications
1 10 (1.62%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.32%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 14 (2.27%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.49%) Veritas eDiscovery
3 1 (0.16%) Oracle FAH
3 1 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 238 (38.57%) Azure
2 109 (17.67%) Microsoft 365
3 103 (16.69%) Entra ID
4 72 (11.67%) AWS
5 28 (4.54%) IaaS
6 20 (3.24%) Azure Monitor
7 17 (2.76%) Power Platform
8 16 (2.59%) GCP
8 16 (2.59%) PaaS
9 13 (2.11%) Nutanix
10 12 (1.94%) GitHub
11 8 (1.30%) Azure DevOps
11 8 (1.30%) SaaS
12 7 (1.13%) Amazon EC2
12 7 (1.13%) Azure Sentinel
12 7 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
13 6 (0.97%) Cohesity
14 5 (0.81%) Azure Stack
14 5 (0.81%) Microsoft Copilot
14 5 (0.81%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 206 (33.39%) DNS
2 144 (23.34%) DHCP
3 101 (16.37%) Firewall
4 54 (8.75%) VPN
5 45 (7.29%) WAN
6 41 (6.65%) TCP/IP
7 37 (6.00%) LAN
8 25 (4.05%) Network Security
9 23 (3.73%) SAN
10 17 (2.76%) VLAN
11 16 (2.59%) SMTP
12 15 (2.43%) Kerberos
13 14 (2.27%) FTP
13 14 (2.27%) SSL
14 12 (1.94%) VoIP
15 11 (1.78%) Wi-Fi
16 10 (1.62%) NAS
16 10 (1.62%) NetScaler
16 10 (1.62%) SSH
17 8 (1.30%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 121 (19.61%) SQL Server
2 17 (2.76%) Power BI
3 14 (2.27%) Elasticsearch
4 11 (1.78%) Oracle Database
5 10 (1.62%) PostgreSQL
6 9 (1.46%) NoSQL
7 8 (1.30%) Amazon RDS
8 7 (1.13%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 6 (0.97%) Db2
10 5 (0.81%) Relational Database
11 4 (0.65%) Big Data
11 4 (0.65%) GIS
11 4 (0.65%) Oracle BI EE
12 3 (0.49%) Data Mining
12 3 (0.49%) MySQL
12 3 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 2 (0.32%) MongoDB
13 2 (0.32%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 1 (0.16%) Oracle Database 11g
14 1 (0.16%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 11 (1.78%) JIRA
2 9 (1.46%) Visual Studio
3 6 (0.97%) Jenkins
3 6 (0.97%) Robot Framework
4 5 (0.81%) Git
4 5 (0.81%) Sonatype Nexus
5 4 (0.65%) GitLab
6 3 (0.49%) MSI
7 2 (0.32%) AdminStudio
7 2 (0.32%) InstallShield
8 1 (0.16%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.16%) eggPlant
8 1 (0.16%) GoCD
8 1 (0.16%) Octopus Deploy
8 1 (0.16%) Postman
General
1 121 (19.61%) Social Skills
2 63 (10.21%) Finance
3 61 (9.89%) Public Sector
4 49 (7.94%) Analytical Skills
5 25 (4.05%) Banking
6 24 (3.89%) Documentation Skills
7 17 (2.76%) Legal
8 15 (2.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 12 (1.94%) Military
10 11 (1.78%) Law
11 8 (1.30%) Local Government
11 8 (1.30%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (0.81%) Marketing
12 5 (0.81%) Retail
13 4 (0.65%) Manufacturing
13 4 (0.65%) Police
14 3 (0.49%) Front Office
14 3 (0.49%) Telecoms
15 2 (0.32%) Aerospace
15 2 (0.32%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 152 (24.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 45 (7.29%) Support Engineer
3 44 (7.13%) Senior
4 38 (6.16%) Analyst
5 36 (5.83%) Cloud Engineer
6 34 (5.51%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 31 (5.02%) Architect
8 30 (4.86%) Lead
8 30 (4.86%) Wintel Engineer
9 29 (4.70%) IT Support
10 25 (4.05%) Administrator
11 22 (3.57%) IT Engineer
12 21 (3.40%) Windows Engineer
13 20 (3.24%) Infrastructure Support
14 19 (3.08%) Developer
15 18 (2.92%) 3rd Line Support
16 17 (2.76%) Azure Engineer
16 17 (2.76%) Server Engineer
16 17 (2.76%) Systems Administrator
17 16 (2.59%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (4.70%) .NET
2 25 (4.05%) .NET Framework
3 19 (3.08%) LDAP
4 18 (2.92%) OAuth
4 18 (2.92%) REST
5 17 (2.76%) SAML
6 6 (0.97%) Elastic Stack
6 6 (0.97%) RabbitMQ
7 5 (0.81%) Keycloak
7 5 (0.81%) React
7 5 (0.81%) Software Packaging
8 4 (0.65%) ADO
8 4 (0.65%) AngularJS
8 4 (0.65%) Azure Blueprints
8 4 (0.65%) EJB
8 4 (0.65%) JSON
8 4 (0.65%) Middleware
8 4 (0.65%) OAuth2
8 4 (0.65%) OpenID
8 4 (0.65%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 60 (9.72%) PKI
2 43 (6.97%) Clustering
3 39 (6.32%) Replication
4 35 (5.67%) Onboarding
5 32 (5.19%) Data Centre
6 30 (4.86%) Hybrid Cloud
7 20 (3.24%) Legacy Systems
7 20 (3.24%) Management Information System
8 14 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
9 13 (2.11%) Enterprise Storage
9 13 (2.11%) Linux Command Line
10 12 (1.94%) Enterprise Software
11 10 (1.62%) Virtual Team
12 9 (1.46%) Cloud Native
12 9 (1.46%) Product Ownership
13 8 (1.30%) Driving Licence
13 8 (1.30%) NHS
13 8 (1.30%) Private Cloud
13 8 (1.30%) Public Cloud
13 8 (1.30%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 617 (100.00%) Windows
2 167 (27.07%) Linux
3 59 (9.56%) Windows Server 2019
4 45 (7.29%) Windows Server 2016
5 41 (6.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 40 (6.48%) Windows 10
7 32 (5.19%) Windows Server 2012
8 30 (4.86%) Unix
9 21 (3.40%) Ubuntu
10 11 (1.78%) Windows Server 2003
11 9 (1.46%) AIX
11 9 (1.46%) VMS
11 9 (1.46%) Windows Server 2008
12 8 (1.30%) CentOS
12 8 (1.30%) Solaris
13 4 (0.65%) Alpine Linux
13 4 (0.65%) Mac OS
14 3 (0.49%) Android
14 3 (0.49%) Windows 7
15 2 (0.32%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 181 (29.34%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 103 (16.69%) Disaster Recovery
3 101 (16.37%) High Availability
4 99 (16.05%) Problem-Solving
5 85 (13.78%) ITIL
6 68 (11.02%) Migration
7 60 (9.72%) Change Management
8 59 (9.56%) ITSM
9 51 (8.27%) Agile
10 50 (8.10%) DevOps
10 50 (8.10%) Project Delivery
11 45 (7.29%) Infrastructure as Code
12 43 (6.97%) Root Cause Analysis
13 40 (6.48%) Technical Leadership
14 39 (6.32%) Runbook
15 38 (6.16%) Service Management
16 37 (6.00%) Cybersecurity
17 36 (5.83%) Vulnerability Remediation
18 35 (5.67%) Identity Access Management
19 34 (5.51%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 234 (37.93%) PowerShell
2 86 (13.94%) SQL
3 64 (10.37%) Python
4 32 (5.19%) Bash
5 29 (4.70%) C#
6 24 (3.89%) PL/SQL
7 19 (3.08%) JavaScript
8 18 (2.92%) T-SQL
9 14 (2.27%) Java
10 8 (1.30%) Bicep
11 3 (0.49%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.32%) JCL
12 2 (0.32%) REXX
13 1 (0.16%) Groovy
13 1 (0.16%) Ladder Logic
13 1 (0.16%) Perl
13 1 (0.16%) TypeScript
13 1 (0.16%) VB
Qualifications
1 250 (40.52%) Security Cleared
2 148 (23.99%) SC Cleared
3 102 (16.53%) DV Cleared
4 68 (11.02%) Degree
5 48 (7.78%) Microsoft Certification
6 28 (4.54%) MCSE
6 28 (4.54%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 20 (3.24%) MCSA
8 18 (2.92%) VCAP
9 14 (2.27%) Cisco Certification
10 11 (1.78%) BPSS Clearance
10 11 (1.78%) CISSP
11 10 (1.62%) Azure Certification
12 9 (1.46%) CCNA
12 9 (1.46%) CISM
13 7 (1.13%) CCNP
14 5 (0.81%) AWS Certification
14 5 (0.81%) ITIL Certification
15 4 (0.65%) CompTIA Security+
15 4 (0.65%) MCTS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (6.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 27 (4.38%) QA
3 25 (4.05%) NIST
4 24 (3.89%) GDPR
5 15 (2.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 14 (2.27%) SLA
7 12 (1.94%) Cyber Essentials
8 4 (0.65%) SOC 2
9 3 (0.49%) NCSC
9 3 (0.49%) NIST 800
10 2 (0.32%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.32%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 1 (0.16%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.16%) Basel III
11 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.16%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.16%) GAAP
11 1 (0.16%) IFRS
11 1 (0.16%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 356 (57.70%) Active Directory
2 220 (35.66%) VMware Infrastructure
3 101 (16.37%) Hyper-V
4 76 (12.32%) VMware ESXi
4 76 (12.32%) vSphere
5 53 (8.59%) Virtual Machines
6 38 (6.16%) Docker
7 34 (5.51%) VMware NSX
8 12 (1.94%) Microsoft App-V
8 12 (1.94%) Virtual Desktop
9 11 (1.78%) BitLocker
9 11 (1.78%) KVM
10 10 (1.62%) vCloud
11 6 (0.97%) Virtual Servers
11 6 (0.97%) VMware Workstation
11 6 (0.97%) XenApp
12 5 (0.81%) Terminal Services
12 5 (0.81%) XenDesktop
13 4 (0.65%) Oracle RAC
14 3 (0.49%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 83 (13.45%) Ansible
2 72 (11.67%) vCenter Server
3 69 (11.18%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (9.72%) SCCM
5 50 (8.10%) Terraform
6 42 (6.81%) Kubernetes
7 37 (6.00%) SCOM
8 33 (5.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 28 (4.54%) Single Sign-On
10 24 (3.89%) WSUS
11 15 (2.43%) vMotion
12 12 (1.94%) Puppet
13 10 (1.62%) Nessus
14 8 (1.30%) Avamar
15 6 (0.97%) Grafana
15 6 (0.97%) IBM BigFix
15 6 (0.97%) Oracle RMAN
15 6 (0.97%) Prometheus
15 6 (0.97%) VxRail
16 4 (0.65%) vRealize
Vendors
1 272 (44.08%) Microsoft
2 268 (43.44%) VMware
3 66 (10.70%) Cisco
4 64 (10.37%) Citrix
5 54 (8.75%) Oracle
6 43 (6.97%) ServiceNow
7 27 (4.38%) Dell
8 24 (3.89%) Red Hat
9 20 (3.24%) Okta
10 18 (2.92%) BeyondTrust
10 18 (2.92%) Tenable
11 16 (2.59%) IBM
11 16 (2.59%) Veeam
12 15 (2.43%) Qualys
13 14 (2.27%) CyberArk
13 14 (2.27%) NetApp
13 14 (2.27%) Remedy
14 13 (2.11%) BMC
14 13 (2.11%) HP
14 13 (2.11%) Thales
306 Windows Server jobs in England