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

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 170 174 106
Rank change year-on-year +4 -68 -31
Contract jobs citing Windows Server 748 454 757
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.64% 1.65% 2.28%
As % of the Operating Systems category 16.87% 12.09% 16.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 493 318 555
10th Percentile £262 £303 £250
25th Percentile £375 £406 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% +5.00% +1.01%
75th Percentile £568 £588 £590
90th Percentile £668 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £485 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -7.62% +5.00% +2.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 6 9
10th Percentile £16.25 £12.97 £31.62
25th Percentile £23.00 £13.14 £36.75
Median hourly rate £52.50 £22.03 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +138.37% -59.95% +37.50%
75th Percentile £70.50 £32.08 £69.69
90th Percentile £74.00 £55.14 £77.00
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £17.63 £55.00
% change year-on-year +119.69% -67.95% +37.50%

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 4,433 3,755 4,701
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.70% 13.61% 14.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,843 2,472 3,073
10th Percentile £190 £190 £200
25th Percentile £310 £307 £330
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £585 £588
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £469 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +4.22% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 304 242 280
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.51 £12.34
25th Percentile £19.16 £18.41 £17.00
Median hourly rate £32.50 £24.00 £34.50
Median % change year-on-year +35.42% -30.43% -13.75%
75th Percentile £67.25 £58.75 £67.63
90th Percentile £74.00 £67.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £25.77 £25.15 £27.50
% change year-on-year +2.47% -8.55% -33.59%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 -3 228 £475 -5.00% 139
South East -8 192 £515 -3.74% 97
North of England -21 121 £450 +3.21% 71
Midlands -13 75 £430 -18.10% 54
North West -22 66 £448 +6.67% 38
East of England -9 64 £450 -18.18% 46
South West -30 63 £500 -7.41% 39
Yorkshire -32 45 £510 +18.67% 21
West Midlands -33 44 £425 -19.05% 33
East Midlands +8 29 £450 - 21
North East -34 10 £213 -57.50% 14
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 (11.63%) Microsoft Exchange
2 49 (6.55%) SharePoint
3 28 (3.74%) IIS
4 8 (1.07%) nginx
5 7 (0.94%) Tomcat
6 5 (0.67%) Apache
6 5 (0.67%) Confluence
7 4 (0.53%) FactoryTalk
8 3 (0.40%) CloudStack
8 3 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2013
9 2 (0.27%) SAS
9 2 (0.27%) Skype for Business
9 2 (0.27%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.13%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.13%) OpenStack
10 1 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 18 (2.41%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (0.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 15 (2.01%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.27%) OpenText MBPM
2 2 (0.27%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 320 (42.78%) Azure
2 156 (20.86%) Microsoft 365
3 151 (20.19%) Entra ID
4 96 (12.83%) AWS
5 47 (6.28%) Azure Monitor
6 31 (4.14%) Azure DevOps
7 26 (3.48%) GCP
8 25 (3.34%) IaaS
9 22 (2.94%) Power Platform
10 20 (2.67%) GitHub
11 19 (2.54%) Azure Sentinel
12 15 (2.01%) OpenShift
13 13 (1.74%) OneDrive
14 11 (1.47%) PaaS
15 10 (1.34%) Amazon EC2
15 10 (1.34%) Nutanix
16 8 (1.07%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 8 (1.07%) Datadog
16 8 (1.07%) SaaS
17 7 (0.94%) Azure Stack
Communications & Networking
1 247 (33.02%) DNS
2 159 (21.26%) DHCP
3 133 (17.78%) Firewall
4 70 (9.36%) VPN
5 65 (8.69%) TCP/IP
6 52 (6.95%) SAN
7 44 (5.88%) WAN
8 43 (5.75%) VLAN
9 39 (5.21%) LAN
10 30 (4.01%) Network Security
11 21 (2.81%) NAS
11 21 (2.81%) SSL
12 18 (2.41%) Wi-Fi
13 14 (1.87%) NetScaler
13 14 (1.87%) VoIP
14 13 (1.74%) SSH
15 12 (1.60%) SMTP
15 12 (1.60%) Wireless
16 9 (1.20%) VSAN
17 7 (0.94%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 146 (19.52%) SQL Server
2 22 (2.94%) Power BI
3 13 (1.74%) Amazon RDS
4 12 (1.60%) Oracle Database
4 12 (1.60%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 11 (1.47%) PostgreSQL
6 10 (1.34%) Elasticsearch
7 9 (1.20%) MySQL
8 7 (0.94%) NoSQL
9 5 (0.67%) Big Data
10 3 (0.40%) Data Mining
10 3 (0.40%) GIS
10 3 (0.40%) MongoDB
10 3 (0.40%) Oracle BI EE
10 3 (0.40%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.40%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 2 (0.27%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 1 (0.13%) Amazon Aurora
12 1 (0.13%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 15 (2.01%) Git
1 15 (2.01%) Jenkins
2 12 (1.60%) JIRA
3 9 (1.20%) GitLab
4 5 (0.67%) Visual Studio
5 3 (0.40%) Artifactory
5 3 (0.40%) MSI
5 3 (0.40%) Octopus Deploy
5 3 (0.40%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 2 (0.27%) AdminStudio
6 2 (0.27%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.27%) InstallShield
6 2 (0.27%) Robot Framework
6 2 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.13%) eggPlant
7 1 (0.13%) Postman
7 1 (0.13%) Subversion
7 1 (0.13%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.13%) Vagrant
7 1 (0.13%) VSS/SourceSafe
General
1 192 (25.67%) Social Skills
2 95 (12.70%) Analytical Skills
3 80 (10.70%) Finance
4 44 (5.88%) Public Sector
5 43 (5.75%) Documentation Skills
6 41 (5.48%) Banking
7 15 (2.01%) Law
8 14 (1.87%) Military
9 13 (1.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 12 (1.60%) Legal
11 11 (1.47%) Telecoms
12 10 (1.34%) Pharmaceutical
13 9 (1.20%) Manufacturing
14 8 (1.07%) Organisational Skills
15 6 (0.80%) Aerospace
15 6 (0.80%) Games
15 6 (0.80%) Local Government
16 5 (0.67%) Retail
17 4 (0.53%) Financial Institution
17 4 (0.53%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 195 (26.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 84 (11.23%) Senior
3 69 (9.22%) Support Engineer
4 54 (7.22%) Cloud Engineer
5 51 (6.82%) 3rd Line Engineer
6 47 (6.28%) Lead
7 38 (5.08%) IT Engineer
8 35 (4.68%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 33 (4.41%) Architect
10 31 (4.14%) Azure Engineer
11 30 (4.01%) Administrator
11 30 (4.01%) Windows Engineer
12 29 (3.88%) IT Support
12 29 (3.88%) Server Engineer
13 26 (3.48%) Infrastructure Support
14 25 (3.34%) Storage Engineer
15 23 (3.07%) Systems Engineer
16 22 (2.94%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
16 22 (2.94%) Wintel Engineer
17 21 (2.81%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (11.36%) Terraform
2 32 (4.28%) .NET
3 23 (3.07%) .NET Framework
4 21 (2.81%) REST
5 17 (2.27%) ARM Templates
6 11 (1.47%) JSON
7 10 (1.34%) LDAP
8 9 (1.20%) Elastic Stack
9 8 (1.07%) OAuth
10 7 (0.94%) RabbitMQ
10 7 (0.94%) YAML
11 6 (0.80%) Software Packaging
12 5 (0.67%) SailPoint
12 5 (0.67%) SAML
13 4 (0.53%) ADO
13 4 (0.53%) ASP.NET
13 4 (0.53%) Azure Blueprints
13 4 (0.53%) Middleware
13 4 (0.53%) OAuth2
13 4 (0.53%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 74 (9.89%) PKI
2 62 (8.29%) Hybrid Cloud
3 54 (7.22%) Clustering
3 54 (7.22%) Onboarding
4 45 (6.02%) Data Centre
5 39 (5.21%) Management Information System
5 39 (5.21%) Replication
6 20 (2.67%) Enterprise Storage
7 16 (2.14%) Driving Licence
8 14 (1.87%) Self-Motivation
8 14 (1.87%) Virtual Team
9 11 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
9 11 (1.47%) Security Posture
10 10 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
11 9 (1.20%) Cloud Native
12 8 (1.07%) ARM Cortex
12 8 (1.07%) Linux Command Line
12 8 (1.07%) Smartcard
13 7 (0.94%) Operational Technology
13 7 (0.94%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 748 (100.00%) Windows
2 214 (28.61%) Linux
3 58 (7.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 55 (7.35%) Windows 10
4 55 (7.35%) Windows Server 2019
5 38 (5.08%) Windows Server 2016
6 35 (4.68%) Ubuntu
7 28 (3.74%) Windows Server 2012
8 26 (3.48%) CentOS
8 26 (3.48%) Unix
9 13 (1.74%) Mac OS
9 13 (1.74%) VMS
10 11 (1.47%) Rocky
11 10 (1.34%) Windows Server 2008
12 7 (0.94%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.80%) Windows Server 2003
14 5 (0.67%) Solaris
15 4 (0.53%) Alpine Linux
15 4 (0.53%) Android
16 3 (0.40%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 245 (32.75%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 184 (24.60%) Problem-Solving
3 144 (19.25%) ITIL
4 115 (15.37%) Disaster Recovery
5 94 (12.57%) Migration
6 87 (11.63%) High Availability
7 86 (11.50%) Change Management
8 85 (11.36%) Root Cause Analysis
9 83 (11.10%) Infrastructure as Code
10 82 (10.96%) ITSM
11 78 (10.43%) DevOps
12 75 (10.03%) Service Management
13 70 (9.36%) Continuous Improvement
14 69 (9.22%) Technical Leadership
15 66 (8.82%) Project Delivery
16 61 (8.16%) Vulnerability Remediation
17 57 (7.62%) Runbook
18 56 (7.49%) CI/CD
19 55 (7.35%) Agile
20 54 (7.22%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 299 (39.97%) PowerShell
2 100 (13.37%) SQL
3 78 (10.43%) Python
4 62 (8.29%) Bash
5 27 (3.61%) Bicep
6 26 (3.48%) T-SQL
7 22 (2.94%) C#
8 21 (2.81%) PL/SQL
9 12 (1.60%) JavaScript
10 11 (1.47%) Java
11 4 (0.53%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.40%) Korn
13 2 (0.27%) Go
13 2 (0.27%) Groovy
13 2 (0.27%) JCL
13 2 (0.27%) REXX
14 1 (0.13%) CodeQL
14 1 (0.13%) Kusto Query Language
14 1 (0.13%) Ladder Logic
14 1 (0.13%) VB
Qualifications
1 323 (43.18%) Security Cleared
2 177 (23.66%) SC Cleared
3 158 (21.12%) DV Cleared
4 68 (9.09%) Degree
5 51 (6.82%) Microsoft Certification
6 32 (4.28%) Azure Certification
7 26 (3.48%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 19 (2.54%) MCSE
9 17 (2.27%) Cisco Certification
10 14 (1.87%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 14 (1.87%) MCSA
11 11 (1.47%) AWS Certification
11 11 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
12 10 (1.34%) CCNA
12 10 (1.34%) CISSP
12 10 (1.34%) VCAP
13 9 (1.20%) ITIL Certification
14 7 (0.94%) CCNP
14 7 (0.94%) CISM
15 6 (0.80%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (4.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 32 (4.28%) SLA
3 26 (3.48%) QA
4 22 (2.94%) NIST
5 14 (1.87%) Cyber Essentials
6 8 (1.07%) GDPR
7 7 (0.94%) NCSC
8 5 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 5 (0.67%) GxP
8 5 (0.67%) SOC 2
9 4 (0.53%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 3 (0.40%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.27%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.27%) JSP 440
12 1 (0.13%) Accessibility
12 1 (0.13%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.13%) ISO 9001
12 1 (0.13%) NIST 800
System Software
1 430 (57.49%) Active Directory
2 272 (36.36%) VMware Infrastructure
3 139 (18.58%) Hyper-V
4 104 (13.90%) VMware ESXi
5 88 (11.76%) vSphere
6 51 (6.82%) Virtual Machines
7 42 (5.61%) Docker
8 41 (5.48%) VMware NSX
9 33 (4.41%) Virtual Desktop
10 22 (2.94%) vCloud
11 14 (1.87%) Virtual Servers
12 10 (1.34%) Firmware
12 10 (1.34%) Microsoft App-V
12 10 (1.34%) XenApp
13 9 (1.20%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 9 (1.20%) XenDesktop
14 8 (1.07%) BitLocker
15 6 (0.80%) KVM
16 5 (0.67%) Terminal Services
16 5 (0.67%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 101 (13.50%) Ansible
2 92 (12.30%) vCenter Server
3 87 (11.63%) Microsoft Intune
4 76 (10.16%) SCCM
5 64 (8.56%) SCOM
6 48 (6.42%) Kubernetes
7 35 (4.68%) WSUS
8 16 (2.14%) Grafana
9 15 (2.01%) NetBackup
9 15 (2.01%) Prometheus
9 15 (2.01%) vMotion
10 13 (1.74%) Avamar
11 12 (1.60%) Failover Clustering
12 10 (1.34%) Nessus
12 10 (1.34%) Puppet
13 8 (1.07%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 7 (0.94%) Jamf Pro
14 7 (0.94%) Microsoft Clustering
14 7 (0.94%) WMI
15 6 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 385 (51.47%) Microsoft
2 350 (46.79%) VMware
3 80 (10.70%) Cisco
4 74 (9.89%) Citrix
5 57 (7.62%) Oracle
6 50 (6.68%) ServiceNow
7 31 (4.14%) CyberArk
8 29 (3.88%) Red Hat
9 27 (3.61%) BeyondTrust
9 27 (3.61%) Dell
9 27 (3.61%) NetApp
9 27 (3.61%) Veeam
10 24 (3.21%) Splunk
11 19 (2.54%) HP
12 18 (2.41%) Fortinet
12 18 (2.41%) Tenable
13 17 (2.27%) Google
13 17 (2.27%) Remedy
13 17 (2.27%) Zscaler
14 16 (2.14%) CrowdStrike