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 10 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
10 Oct 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 159 175 112
Rank change year-on-year +16 -63 -37
Contract jobs citing Windows Server 814 438 676
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.76% 1.56% 2.09%
As % of the Operating Systems category 18.00% 11.12% 14.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 528 327 462
10th Percentile £261 £250 £250
25th Percentile £375 £400 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £484 £500 £470
Median % change year-on-year -3.30% +6.38% -1.05%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £575
90th Percentile £675 £650 £638
UK median daily rate £488 £500 £470
% change year-on-year -2.50% +6.38% -1.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 14 7
10th Percentile £16.25 £12.97 £41.23
25th Percentile £26.00 £14.11 £47.50
Median hourly rate £63.48 £16.00 £69.38
Median % change year-on-year +296.75% -76.94% +41.39%
75th Percentile £72.25 £28.25 £106.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £39.19 £112.00
UK median hourly rate £63.14 £16.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year +294.59% -68.00% +1.91%

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 4,521 3,938 4,593
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.77% 14.04% 14.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,880 2,579 2,842
10th Percentile £193 £185 £200
25th Percentile £313 £275 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.22% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £584
90th Percentile £675 £670 £688
UK median daily rate £470 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +4.44% -5.26% -4.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 349 280 216
10th Percentile £16.20 £15.47 £16.25
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.87 £23.12
Median hourly rate £32.29 £24.25 £60.72
Median % change year-on-year +33.15% -60.06% +30.04%
75th Percentile £67.25 £56.58 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £67.00 -
UK median hourly rate £25.77 £25.15 £55.00
% change year-on-year +2.47% -54.27% +25.47%

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 10 October 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 10 October 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 10 October 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 +6 259 £475 -5.00% 239
South East -6 195 £515 -1.90% 130
North of England +8 140 £450 +9.09% 110
East of England -8 80 £500 -9.09% 57
North West -9 76 £425 - 61
Midlands -3 73 £425 -19.05% 75
South West -28 56 £575 +9.52% 58
West Midlands -27 45 £425 -19.05% 41
Yorkshire 0 44 £525 +40.00% 34
East Midlands +8 28 £438 -12.50% 34
North East -24 21 £350 -30.00% 16
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 87 (10.69%) Microsoft Exchange
2 58 (7.13%) SharePoint
3 25 (3.07%) IIS
4 7 (0.86%) Confluence
4 7 (0.86%) nginx
5 6 (0.74%) Apache
5 6 (0.74%) Tomcat
6 4 (0.49%) Exchange Server 2013
6 4 (0.49%) FactoryTalk
7 3 (0.37%) CloudStack
8 2 (0.25%) Skype for Business
9 1 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
9 1 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2010
9 1 (0.12%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.12%) SharePoint 2010
9 1 (0.12%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.12%) WebLogic
Applications
1 13 (1.60%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 12 (1.47%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.25%) OpenText MBPM
2 2 (0.25%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 351 (43.12%) Azure
2 178 (21.87%) Entra ID
3 175 (21.50%) Microsoft 365
4 100 (12.29%) AWS
5 51 (6.27%) Azure Monitor
6 35 (4.30%) Azure DevOps
6 35 (4.30%) GCP
7 25 (3.07%) IaaS
8 23 (2.83%) Azure Sentinel
9 22 (2.70%) Power Platform
10 20 (2.46%) GitHub
10 20 (2.46%) OpenShift
11 12 (1.47%) OneDrive
12 11 (1.35%) PaaS
13 9 (1.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 9 (1.11%) Nutanix
13 9 (1.11%) SaaS
14 8 (0.98%) Datadog
14 8 (0.98%) GitHub Actions
15 7 (0.86%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 254 (31.20%) DNS
2 167 (20.52%) DHCP
3 145 (17.81%) Firewall
4 81 (9.95%) TCP/IP
5 73 (8.97%) VPN
6 55 (6.76%) SAN
7 47 (5.77%) LAN
7 47 (5.77%) WAN
8 45 (5.53%) Network Security
9 44 (5.41%) VLAN
10 30 (3.69%) SSL
11 22 (2.70%) NetScaler
12 21 (2.58%) Wireless
13 19 (2.33%) Wi-Fi
14 17 (2.09%) NAS
15 16 (1.97%) SSH
16 12 (1.47%) BGP
16 12 (1.47%) HTTP
16 12 (1.47%) VoIP
17 10 (1.23%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 147 (18.06%) SQL Server
2 22 (2.70%) Power BI
3 16 (1.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 13 (1.60%) MySQL
5 12 (1.47%) Amazon RDS
6 11 (1.35%) Oracle Database
6 11 (1.35%) PostgreSQL
7 6 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
7 6 (0.74%) NoSQL
7 6 (0.74%) Relational Database
8 5 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
9 3 (0.37%) Big Data
9 3 (0.37%) GIS
9 3 (0.37%) Metadata
9 3 (0.37%) Oracle BI EE
9 3 (0.37%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 2 (0.25%) MongoDB
10 2 (0.25%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 1 (0.12%) SAP Data Services
11 1 (0.12%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 17 (2.09%) Git
1 17 (2.09%) Jenkins
2 16 (1.97%) JIRA
3 10 (1.23%) GitLab
4 6 (0.74%) Visual Studio
5 5 (0.61%) Artifactory
5 5 (0.61%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 4 (0.49%) Octopus Deploy
7 3 (0.37%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.37%) MSI
8 2 (0.25%) AdminStudio
8 2 (0.25%) InstallShield
8 2 (0.25%) MSBuild
8 2 (0.25%) Robot Framework
8 2 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (0.25%) TeamCity
9 1 (0.12%) NUnit
9 1 (0.12%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.12%) Subversion
9 1 (0.12%) Vagrant
General
1 203 (24.94%) Social Skills
2 102 (12.53%) Analytical Skills
3 89 (10.93%) Finance
4 45 (5.53%) Banking
5 44 (5.41%) Documentation Skills
6 34 (4.18%) Public Sector
7 21 (2.58%) Law
8 16 (1.97%) Legal
9 14 (1.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 13 (1.60%) Aerospace
10 13 (1.60%) Telecoms
11 12 (1.47%) Military
12 11 (1.35%) Manufacturing
13 8 (0.98%) Pharmaceutical
14 7 (0.86%) Organisational Skills
15 6 (0.74%) Financial Institution
15 6 (0.74%) Games
16 5 (0.61%) Local Government
16 5 (0.61%) Police
17 4 (0.49%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 199 (24.45%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 101 (12.41%) Senior
3 80 (9.83%) Support Engineer
4 58 (7.13%) Cloud Engineer
5 49 (6.02%) 3rd Line Engineer
6 47 (5.77%) Lead
7 46 (5.65%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
8 44 (5.41%) Windows Engineer
9 43 (5.28%) IT Engineer
10 41 (5.04%) Architect
11 34 (4.18%) IT Support
12 32 (3.93%) Administrator
13 29 (3.56%) Azure Engineer
14 28 (3.44%) Server Engineer
15 27 (3.32%) Storage Engineer
15 27 (3.32%) Wintel Engineer
16 26 (3.19%) IT Support Engineer
16 26 (3.19%) Platform Engineer
16 26 (3.19%) Systems Engineer
16 26 (3.19%) VMware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (11.79%) Terraform
2 35 (4.30%) .NET
3 25 (3.07%) REST
4 22 (2.70%) ARM Templates
5 16 (1.97%) LDAP
6 15 (1.84%) .NET Framework
7 10 (1.23%) JSON
8 8 (0.98%) Elastic Stack
8 8 (0.98%) OAuth
9 7 (0.86%) RabbitMQ
9 7 (0.86%) YAML
10 6 (0.74%) Middleware
10 6 (0.74%) SailPoint
11 5 (0.61%) ASP.NET
11 5 (0.61%) SAML
12 4 (0.49%) OAuth2
12 4 (0.49%) OpenID
12 4 (0.49%) React
12 4 (0.49%) Software Packaging
12 4 (0.49%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 76 (9.34%) PKI
2 71 (8.72%) Data Centre
3 66 (8.11%) Hybrid Cloud
4 56 (6.88%) Onboarding
5 54 (6.63%) Clustering
6 46 (5.65%) Management Information System
7 44 (5.41%) Replication
8 26 (3.19%) Security Posture
9 17 (2.09%) Driving Licence
9 17 (2.09%) Enterprise Storage
10 15 (1.84%) Self-Motivation
10 15 (1.84%) Smartcard
11 14 (1.72%) Cloud Native
11 14 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
12 12 (1.47%) ARM Cortex
12 12 (1.47%) Public Cloud
13 11 (1.35%) Linux Command Line
13 11 (1.35%) Virtual Team
14 10 (1.23%) Operational Technology
15 8 (0.98%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 814 (100.00%) Windows
2 230 (28.26%) Linux
3 71 (8.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 56 (6.88%) Windows 10
5 53 (6.51%) Windows Server 2019
6 31 (3.81%) Windows Server 2012
7 29 (3.56%) CentOS
7 29 (3.56%) Ubuntu
7 29 (3.56%) Windows Server 2016
8 27 (3.32%) Unix
9 14 (1.72%) Rocky
10 13 (1.60%) Mac OS
11 10 (1.23%) Windows Server 2008
12 8 (0.98%) VMS
12 8 (0.98%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.61%) Solaris
13 5 (0.61%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.49%) Alpine Linux
14 4 (0.49%) OpenVMS
15 3 (0.37%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 254 (31.20%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 197 (24.20%) Problem-Solving
3 176 (21.62%) ITIL
4 144 (17.69%) Disaster Recovery
5 118 (14.50%) Migration
5 118 (14.50%) Root Cause Analysis
6 103 (12.65%) Continuous Improvement
7 102 (12.53%) Infrastructure as Code
8 98 (12.04%) Change Management
9 91 (11.18%) DevOps
10 86 (10.57%) Service Management
11 81 (9.95%) ITSM
12 80 (9.83%) Stakeholder Management
13 78 (9.58%) Vulnerability Remediation
14 77 (9.46%) Technical Leadership
15 76 (9.34%) High Availability
16 70 (8.60%) Project Delivery
17 68 (8.35%) Cybersecurity
18 67 (8.23%) Validation
19 64 (7.86%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 323 (39.68%) PowerShell
2 113 (13.88%) SQL
3 79 (9.71%) Python
4 74 (9.09%) Bash
5 40 (4.91%) T-SQL
6 34 (4.18%) Bicep
7 31 (3.81%) C#
8 16 (1.97%) PL/SQL
9 13 (1.60%) Java
10 9 (1.11%) JavaScript
11 5 (0.61%) Go
12 4 (0.49%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.37%) Korn
14 2 (0.25%) CodeQL
14 2 (0.25%) Groovy
14 2 (0.25%) TypeScript
15 1 (0.12%) F#
15 1 (0.12%) Kusto Query Language
15 1 (0.12%) Ladder Logic
15 1 (0.12%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 351 (43.12%) Security Cleared
2 182 (22.36%) DV Cleared
3 178 (21.87%) SC Cleared
4 79 (9.71%) Degree
5 48 (5.90%) Microsoft Certification
6 41 (5.04%) Azure Certification
7 24 (2.95%) Cisco Certification
8 22 (2.70%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 20 (2.46%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 17 (2.09%) MCSE
11 15 (1.84%) CISSP
12 14 (1.72%) BPSS Clearance
12 14 (1.72%) MCSA
13 13 (1.60%) AWS Certification
13 13 (1.60%) CCNP
13 13 (1.60%) CISM
14 12 (1.47%) CCNA
15 9 (1.11%) Computer Science Degree
15 9 (1.11%) ITIL Certification
16 8 (0.98%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (5.65%) SLA
2 28 (3.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 23 (2.83%) NIST
4 21 (2.58%) QA
5 14 (1.72%) Cyber Essentials
6 8 (0.98%) NCSC
6 8 (0.98%) PCI DSS
7 7 (0.86%) GRC
8 6 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 6 (0.74%) GxP
8 6 (0.74%) ISO 9001
9 5 (0.61%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 5 (0.61%) GDPR
9 5 (0.61%) ISO 31000
9 5 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27005
9 5 (0.61%) SOC 2
10 2 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.25%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.25%) JSP 440
11 1 (0.12%) NIST 800
System Software
1 483 (59.34%) Active Directory
2 298 (36.61%) VMware Infrastructure
3 151 (18.55%) Hyper-V
4 114 (14.00%) VMware ESXi
5 105 (12.90%) vSphere
6 54 (6.63%) Virtual Machines
7 41 (5.04%) Docker
8 38 (4.67%) Virtual Desktop
9 32 (3.93%) VMware NSX
10 24 (2.95%) vCloud
11 18 (2.21%) Virtual Servers
12 15 (1.84%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 12 (1.47%) XenApp
14 10 (1.23%) Firmware
14 10 (1.23%) XenDesktop
15 8 (0.98%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 6 (0.74%) Microsoft App-V
16 6 (0.74%) VMware Server
17 5 (0.61%) ISA Server
17 5 (0.61%) KVM
Systems Management
1 101 (12.41%) Microsoft Intune
2 97 (11.92%) Ansible
3 95 (11.67%) SCCM
4 91 (11.18%) vCenter Server
5 73 (8.97%) SCOM
6 50 (6.14%) Kubernetes
7 29 (3.56%) WSUS
8 19 (2.33%) Grafana
9 18 (2.21%) NetBackup
10 17 (2.09%) Prometheus
11 15 (1.84%) Failover Clustering
12 14 (1.72%) Avamar
12 14 (1.72%) Nagios
13 10 (1.23%) Nessus
13 10 (1.23%) vMotion
14 8 (0.98%) SysTrack
15 7 (0.86%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 7 (0.86%) FortiGate
15 7 (0.86%) Jamf Pro
15 7 (0.86%) Puppet
Vendors
1 442 (54.30%) Microsoft
2 380 (46.68%) VMware
3 91 (11.18%) Cisco
4 71 (8.72%) Citrix
5 62 (7.62%) Oracle
6 53 (6.51%) ServiceNow
7 34 (4.18%) Red Hat
8 33 (4.05%) CyberArk
9 31 (3.81%) Dell
10 30 (3.69%) Splunk
10 30 (3.69%) Veeam
11 29 (3.56%) BeyondTrust
12 27 (3.32%) CrowdStrike
13 23 (2.83%) Google
13 23 (2.83%) NetApp
14 21 (2.58%) Qualys
14 21 (2.58%) Tenable
15 20 (2.46%) SolarWinds
16 19 (2.33%) Fortinet
16 19 (2.33%) Zscaler
698 Windows Server jobs in England