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 17 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 186 120 84
Rank change year-on-year -66 -36 +7
Contract jobs citing Windows Server 554 578 935
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.50% 2.35% 2.47%
As % of the Operating Systems category 13.37% 16.47% 17.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 419 406 645
10th Percentile £240 £313 £190
25th Percentile £404 £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 £713 £681 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £450
% change year-on-year -0.99% +12.22% -9.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 7 28
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.01 £15.85
25th Percentile £19.79 £31.56 £19.44
Median hourly rate £22.50 £53.00 £53.53
Median % change year-on-year -57.55% -0.99% +82.70%
75th Percentile £29.06 £92.88 £65.56
90th Percentile £48.32 £112.00 £72.83
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £49.00 £53.53
% change year-on-year -54.08% -8.46% +82.70%

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 4,145 3,509 5,275
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 11.25% 14.28% 13.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,736 2,367 3,578
10th Percentile £180 £200 £178
25th Percentile £275 £313 £270
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -13.46%
75th Percentile £565 £600 £588
90th Percentile £663 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £447 £475 £452
% change year-on-year -5.89% +5.20% -12.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 311 129 374
10th Percentile £14.00 £16.45 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.38 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.79 £29.00 £22.21
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% +30.56% -17.73%
75th Percentile £60.00 £66.00 £59.00
90th Percentile £68.75 £71.05 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £22.81 £28.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year -18.54% +24.44% -15.09%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -65 180 £500 - 70
South East -21 118 £503 -8.64% 118
North of England -83 81 £375 -21.05% 83
South West -36 68 £570 -0.87% 33
North West -35 62 £364 -20.00% 52
East of England -2 53 £438 -2.78% 40
Midlands -41 50 £450 +30.43% 46
West Midlands -51 34 £500 +138.10% 24
Yorkshire -68 16 £375 -28.57% 24
East Midlands -31 15 £415 +3.75% 22
North East -15 6 £550 +2.33% 10
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 80 (14.44%) Microsoft Exchange
2 30 (5.42%) SharePoint
3 25 (4.51%) IIS
4 6 (1.08%) Apache
4 6 (1.08%) 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 21 (3.79%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (0.90%) 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
1 196 (35.38%) Azure
2 112 (20.22%) Microsoft 365
3 98 (17.69%) Entra ID
4 45 (8.12%) AWS
5 20 (3.61%) IaaS
6 15 (2.71%) PaaS
7 13 (2.35%) SaaS
8 12 (2.17%) Azure Monitor
9 11 (1.99%) Nutanix
10 9 (1.62%) Azure DevOps
10 9 (1.62%) Power Platform
11 6 (1.08%) GCP
12 5 (0.90%) Azure Sentinel
12 5 (0.90%) Mimecast
12 5 (0.90%) OCI
13 4 (0.72%) GitHub
14 3 (0.54%) GitHub Actions
14 3 (0.54%) Google Workspace
14 3 (0.54%) Microsoft Copilot
14 3 (0.54%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 179 (32.31%) DNS
2 125 (22.56%) Firewall
3 123 (22.20%) DHCP
4 53 (9.57%) TCP/IP
5 51 (9.21%) WAN
6 50 (9.03%) VPN
7 45 (8.12%) LAN
8 26 (4.69%) Network Security
9 20 (3.61%) VLAN
10 15 (2.71%) Kerberos
10 15 (2.71%) Wi-Fi
10 15 (2.71%) Wireless
11 14 (2.53%) FTP
11 14 (2.53%) VoIP
12 12 (2.17%) SMTP
13 11 (1.99%) Cisco IOS
14 10 (1.81%) BGP
14 10 (1.81%) SSL
15 9 (1.62%) SAN
16 8 (1.44%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 80 (14.44%) SQL Server
2 14 (2.53%) Oracle Database
3 8 (1.44%) Elasticsearch
3 8 (1.44%) Power BI
4 6 (1.08%) 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%) 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%) SAP HANA
8 1 (0.18%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 1 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 13 (2.35%) JIRA
2 12 (2.17%) GitLab
3 11 (1.99%) Visual Studio
4 10 (1.81%) Git
4 10 (1.81%) Jenkins
5 6 (1.08%) Robot Framework
5 6 (1.08%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (0.72%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.54%) Octopus Deploy
8 2 (0.36%) Fiddler
9 1 (0.18%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.18%) eggPlant
9 1 (0.18%) GoCD
9 1 (0.18%) Maven
9 1 (0.18%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.18%) TeamCity
General
1 136 (24.55%) Social Skills
2 58 (10.47%) Analytical Skills
2 58 (10.47%) Finance
3 55 (9.93%) Public Sector
4 35 (6.32%) Documentation Skills
5 26 (4.69%) Legal
6 20 (3.61%) Banking
7 12 (2.17%) Military
8 11 (1.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 7 (1.26%) Organisational Skills
10 6 (1.08%) Spanish Language
11 5 (0.90%) Front Office
11 5 (0.90%) Local Government
11 5 (0.90%) 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 93 (16.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 62 (11.19%) Analyst
3 37 (6.68%) Senior
3 37 (6.68%) Support Engineer
4 35 (6.32%) Architect
5 34 (6.14%) Platform Engineer
6 32 (5.78%) IT Support
7 28 (5.05%) Support Analyst
7 28 (5.05%) Wintel Engineer
8 27 (4.87%) Developer
9 25 (4.51%) 3rd Line Engineer
10 24 (4.33%) Technical Analyst
11 23 (4.15%) Windows Engineer
12 22 (3.97%) 2nd Line Support
12 22 (3.97%) Network Engineer
13 21 (3.79%) 3rd Line Support
13 21 (3.79%) Lead
14 19 (3.43%) Server Engineer
14 19 (3.43%) Technical Support
15 18 (3.25%) C# Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (5.96%) OAuth
2 30 (5.42%) .NET
2 30 (5.42%) SAML
3 23 (4.15%) .NET Framework
4 21 (3.79%) LDAP
5 18 (3.25%) REST
6 17 (3.07%) OAuth2
6 17 (3.07%) OpenID
7 8 (1.44%) XMPP
8 7 (1.26%) Middleware
8 7 (1.26%) React
9 5 (0.90%) AngularJS
10 4 (0.72%) Keycloak
11 3 (0.54%) ASP.NET Web API
11 3 (0.54%) Elastic Stack
11 3 (0.54%) Vue
11 3 (0.54%) WCF
11 3 (0.54%) Web Services
11 3 (0.54%) WinForms
12 2 (0.36%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 45 (8.12%) PKI
2 42 (7.58%) Data Centre
3 39 (7.04%) Replication
4 25 (4.51%) Clustering
5 22 (3.97%) Onboarding
5 22 (3.97%) Product Ownership
6 19 (3.43%) Legacy Systems
7 18 (3.25%) NHS
8 17 (3.07%) Hybrid Cloud
9 15 (2.71%) Enterprise Software
9 15 (2.71%) Private Cloud
10 14 (2.53%) Driving Licence
11 13 (2.35%) Management Information System
12 11 (1.99%) Self-Motivation
13 9 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
13 9 (1.62%) Enterprise Storage
14 7 (1.26%) CMDB
14 7 (1.26%) iPhone
14 7 (1.26%) Linux Command Line
15 6 (1.08%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 552 (99.64%) Windows
2 139 (25.09%) Linux
3 39 (7.04%) Windows Server 2019
4 38 (6.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 35 (6.32%) Windows 10
5 35 (6.32%) Windows Server 2016
6 32 (5.78%) Windows Server 2012
7 18 (3.25%) Unix
8 13 (2.35%) Windows Server 2003
9 11 (1.99%) Ubuntu
10 10 (1.81%) AIX
11 9 (1.62%) Android
11 9 (1.62%) Windows Server 2008
12 8 (1.44%) CentOS
13 7 (1.26%) VMS
14 6 (1.08%) Solaris
15 3 (0.54%) Apple iOS
16 2 (0.36%) Mac OS
16 2 (0.36%) Windows 7
16 2 (0.36%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 135 (24.37%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 84 (15.16%) Disaster Recovery
3 82 (14.80%) Problem-Solving
4 78 (14.08%) High Availability
5 77 (13.90%) ITIL
6 68 (12.27%) Agile
7 61 (11.01%) Migration
8 53 (9.57%) Service Management
9 51 (9.21%) Change Management
10 47 (8.48%) Continuous Improvement
10 47 (8.48%) ITSM
11 45 (8.12%) Identity Access Management
12 44 (7.94%) Cybersecurity
12 44 (7.94%) Project Delivery
13 40 (7.22%) DevOps
14 39 (7.04%) RBAC
15 35 (6.32%) Change Control
16 34 (6.14%) Platform Engineering
17 31 (5.60%) CI/CD
18 29 (5.23%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 222 (40.07%) PowerShell
2 73 (13.18%) SQL
3 54 (9.75%) Python
4 36 (6.50%) Bash
5 31 (5.60%) C#
6 22 (3.97%) PL/SQL
7 21 (3.79%) T-SQL
8 12 (2.17%) JavaScript
9 11 (1.99%) Perl
10 10 (1.81%) Java
11 5 (0.90%) 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
1 222 (40.07%) Security Cleared
2 145 (26.17%) SC Cleared
3 75 (13.54%) DV Cleared
4 65 (11.73%) Degree
5 62 (11.19%) Microsoft Certification
6 22 (3.97%) MCSE
7 18 (3.25%) Azure Certification
7 18 (3.25%) Cisco Certification
8 17 (3.07%) CCNP
9 15 (2.71%) CCNA
9 15 (2.71%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 14 (2.53%) MCSA
11 10 (1.81%) CCDP
12 9 (1.62%) AWS Certification
12 9 (1.62%) CISSP
12 9 (1.62%) VCAP
13 7 (1.26%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 6 (1.08%) BPSS Clearance
14 6 (1.08%) CompTIA Security+
14 6 (1.08%) ECDL
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (4.87%) QA
2 24 (4.33%) GDPR
3 21 (3.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 15 (2.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 12 (2.17%) NIST
6 10 (1.81%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (0.90%) 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
1 346 (62.45%) Active Directory
2 161 (29.06%) VMware Infrastructure
3 67 (12.09%) Hyper-V
4 46 (8.30%) vSphere
5 36 (6.50%) VMware ESXi
6 32 (5.78%) Docker
7 30 (5.42%) Virtual Machines
8 24 (4.33%) VMware NSX
9 10 (1.81%) Virtual Desktop
10 7 (1.26%) BitLocker
10 7 (1.26%) KVM
10 7 (1.26%) Microsoft App-V
10 7 (1.26%) Terminal Services
11 4 (0.72%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.54%) Firmware
13 2 (0.36%) NFS
13 2 (0.36%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.36%) Sendmail
13 2 (0.36%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.36%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 80 (14.44%) Microsoft Intune
2 66 (11.91%) SCCM
3 61 (11.01%) Ansible
4 53 (9.57%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 48 (8.66%) Single Sign-On
6 45 (8.12%) vCenter Server
7 42 (7.58%) Terraform
8 28 (5.05%) Kubernetes
9 22 (3.97%) SCOM
10 13 (2.35%) WSUS
11 10 (1.81%) Puppet
12 7 (1.26%) SCOrch
12 7 (1.26%) vMotion
13 6 (1.08%) CASB
13 6 (1.08%) FortiGate
13 6 (1.08%) IBM BigFix
13 6 (1.08%) VxRail
14 4 (0.72%) Nessus
14 4 (0.72%) Progress Chef
15 3 (0.54%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 256 (46.21%) Microsoft
2 210 (37.91%) VMware
3 67 (12.09%) Citrix
4 58 (10.47%) Cisco
5 42 (7.58%) Oracle
6 32 (5.78%) Red Hat
7 28 (5.05%) ServiceNow
8 26 (4.69%) Dell
9 24 (4.33%) SolarWinds
9 24 (4.33%) Veeam
10 15 (2.71%) Okta
11 13 (2.35%) Palo Alto
12 11 (1.99%) IBM
13 10 (1.81%) BeyondTrust
13 10 (1.81%) CyberArk
13 10 (1.81%) HP
13 10 (1.81%) Juniper
13 10 (1.81%) NetApp
14 8 (1.44%) F5
14 8 (1.44%) Tenable