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

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 181 118 87
Rank change year-on-year -63 -31 +1
Contract jobs citing Windows Server 579 546 922
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.46% 2.23% 2.49%
As % of the Operating Systems category 14.31% 15.93% 18.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 428 381 666
10th Percentile £254 £306 £200
25th Percentile £408 £406 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £535 £450
Median % change year-on-year -6.54% +18.89% -10.00%
75th Percentile £585 £606 £594
90th Percentile £703 £688 £689
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £450
% change year-on-year -4.76% +16.67% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 4 23
10th Percentile £20.63 £16.17 £15.81
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.43 £16.25
Median hourly rate £28.68 £35.88 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -20.06% +10.38% +10.92%
75th Percentile £69.38 £58.19 £60.55
90th Percentile £74.13 £67.53 £64.32
UK median hourly rate £28.68 £18.25 £32.50
% change year-on-year +57.15% -43.85% +10.92%

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 4,045 3,428 5,073
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.23% 13.98% 13.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,683 2,348 3,468
10th Percentile £185 £200 £180
25th Percentile £306 £313 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £455
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +4.40% -12.08%
75th Percentile £573 £600 £588
90th Percentile £663 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £463
% change year-on-year -5.26% +2.70% -9.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 280 146 370
10th Percentile £15.45 £16.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.46 £18.11 £14.72
Median hourly rate £34.57 £24.83 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +39.21% +12.86% -35.29%
75th Percentile £67.84 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £74.71 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £31.00 £24.66 £22.00
% change year-on-year +25.71% +12.09% -37.19%

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 21 April 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 21 April 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 21 April 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 -73 175 £500 -4.76% 69
South East -34 121 £514 -6.55% 96
North of England -69 88 £423 -15.50% 61
Midlands -25 72 £450 +33.33% 46
North West -46 64 £420 -4.82% 28
East of England +5 61 £450 - 31
South West -42 60 £550 -4.35% 40
West Midlands -36 47 £450 +50.00% 20
East Midlands -20 23 £450 -10.00% 25
Yorkshire -76 21 £419 -23.86% 23
North East -12 6 £550 -8.33% 12
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 79 (13.64%) Microsoft Exchange
2 28 (4.84%) IIS
3 23 (3.97%) SharePoint
4 6 (1.04%) Apache
4 6 (1.04%) nginx
4 6 (1.04%) Tomcat
5 5 (0.86%) SAS
6 3 (0.52%) Confluence
6 3 (0.52%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2010
7 2 (0.35%) Skype for Business
7 2 (0.35%) WordPress
8 1 (0.17%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.17%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.17%) WebSphere
Applications
1 18 (3.11%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.04%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 7 (1.21%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.52%) 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
3 1 (0.17%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 209 (36.10%) Azure
2 105 (18.13%) Microsoft 365
3 103 (17.79%) Entra ID
4 56 (9.67%) AWS
5 21 (3.63%) IaaS
6 16 (2.76%) Azure Monitor
7 15 (2.59%) PaaS
8 12 (2.07%) Nutanix
9 11 (1.90%) Azure DevOps
10 10 (1.73%) Power Platform
10 10 (1.73%) SaaS
11 7 (1.21%) Amazon EC2
11 7 (1.21%) GCP
11 7 (1.21%) GitHub
12 6 (1.04%) Azure Sentinel
13 5 (0.86%) Mimecast
13 5 (0.86%) OCI
14 4 (0.69%) Cohesity
14 4 (0.69%) Google Workspace
14 4 (0.69%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 195 (33.68%) DNS
2 138 (23.83%) DHCP
3 123 (21.24%) Firewall
4 55 (9.50%) VPN
5 50 (8.64%) TCP/IP
6 47 (8.12%) WAN
7 41 (7.08%) LAN
8 30 (5.18%) Network Security
9 25 (4.32%) VLAN
10 17 (2.94%) FTP
11 15 (2.59%) Kerberos
11 15 (2.59%) SAN
11 15 (2.59%) Wi-Fi
12 14 (2.42%) SMTP
12 14 (2.42%) VoIP
13 13 (2.25%) SSL
14 9 (1.55%) BGP
14 9 (1.55%) IPv4
14 9 (1.55%) NetScaler
14 9 (1.55%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 94 (16.23%) SQL Server
2 14 (2.42%) Oracle Database
3 11 (1.90%) Elasticsearch
4 10 (1.73%) Power BI
5 6 (1.04%) DB2
5 6 (1.04%) NoSQL
6 5 (0.86%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (0.69%) Relational Database
7 4 (0.69%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 3 (0.52%) Data Mining
9 2 (0.35%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.35%) Big Data
9 2 (0.35%) GIS
9 2 (0.35%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 2 (0.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 1 (0.17%) Electronic Patient Records
10 1 (0.17%) MongoDB
10 1 (0.17%) Oracle BI EE
10 1 (0.17%) Oracle Database 11g
10 1 (0.17%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 11 (1.90%) Visual Studio
2 10 (1.73%) JIRA
3 9 (1.55%) GitLab
4 8 (1.38%) Git
4 8 (1.38%) Jenkins
5 6 (1.04%) Robot Framework
6 5 (0.86%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.52%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.35%) AdminStudio
8 2 (0.35%) InstallShield
8 2 (0.35%) MSI
8 2 (0.35%) Octopus Deploy
9 1 (0.17%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.17%) eggPlant
9 1 (0.17%) GoCD
9 1 (0.17%) Postman
9 1 (0.17%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.17%) TeamCity
General
1 136 (23.49%) Social Skills
2 67 (11.57%) Finance
3 61 (10.54%) Public Sector
4 53 (9.15%) Analytical Skills
5 31 (5.35%) Documentation Skills
6 24 (4.15%) Legal
7 23 (3.97%) Banking
8 13 (2.25%) Military
9 9 (1.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (1.21%) Organisational Skills
11 6 (1.04%) Law
11 6 (1.04%) Local Government
12 5 (0.86%) Retail
12 5 (0.86%) Telecoms
13 4 (0.69%) Front Office
14 3 (0.52%) Aerospace
14 3 (0.52%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.52%) Police
15 2 (0.35%) Aeronautics
15 2 (0.35%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 116 (20.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 50 (8.64%) Analyst
3 38 (6.56%) Senior
4 35 (6.04%) IT Support
5 33 (5.70%) Architect
6 32 (5.53%) Platform Engineer
6 32 (5.53%) Support Engineer
7 27 (4.66%) Windows Engineer
8 24 (4.15%) 3rd Line Engineer
8 24 (4.15%) Developer
8 24 (4.15%) Lead
9 23 (3.97%) Wintel Engineer
10 22 (3.80%) IT Engineer
11 21 (3.63%) Server Engineer
12 20 (3.45%) Support Analyst
13 19 (3.28%) C# Developer
14 17 (2.94%) 3rd Line Support
15 16 (2.76%) Technical Analyst
16 15 (2.59%) 2nd Line Support
16 15 (2.59%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (5.53%) .NET
2 27 (4.66%) .NET Framework
3 25 (4.32%) OAuth
4 24 (4.15%) SAML
5 22 (3.80%) REST
6 18 (3.11%) LDAP
7 11 (1.90%) OAuth2
7 11 (1.90%) OpenID
8 8 (1.38%) XMPP
9 5 (0.86%) JSON
9 5 (0.86%) Middleware
9 5 (0.86%) React
10 4 (0.69%) ADO
10 4 (0.69%) AngularJS
10 4 (0.69%) ISPF
10 4 (0.69%) Keycloak
11 3 (0.52%) EJB
11 3 (0.52%) Software Packaging
11 3 (0.52%) Vue
11 3 (0.52%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 44 (7.60%) PKI
2 41 (7.08%) Replication
3 37 (6.39%) Data Centre
4 33 (5.70%) Onboarding
5 31 (5.35%) Clustering
6 24 (4.15%) Hybrid Cloud
7 21 (3.63%) Product Ownership
8 20 (3.45%) Legacy Systems
9 18 (3.11%) Self-Motivation
10 15 (2.59%) Enterprise Software
11 13 (2.25%) Enterprise Storage
12 12 (2.07%) Private Cloud
13 11 (1.90%) Analytical Mindset
13 11 (1.90%) Management Information System
14 9 (1.55%) NHS
15 8 (1.38%) Driving Licence
15 8 (1.38%) Legacy Code
16 7 (1.21%) iPhone
17 6 (1.04%) Security Posture
17 6 (1.04%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 577 (99.65%) Windows
2 160 (27.63%) Linux
3 46 (7.94%) Windows Server 2016
4 45 (7.77%) Windows Server 2019
5 40 (6.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 40 (6.91%) Windows 10
6 35 (6.04%) Windows Server 2012
7 23 (3.97%) Unix
8 14 (2.42%) Ubuntu
9 12 (2.07%) VMS
10 10 (1.73%) AIX
10 10 (1.73%) Windows Server 2003
11 8 (1.38%) Android
12 7 (1.21%) Solaris
12 7 (1.21%) Windows Server 2008
13 6 (1.04%) CentOS
14 4 (0.69%) zOS
15 3 (0.52%) Mac OS
16 2 (0.35%) Apple iOS
16 2 (0.35%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 155 (26.77%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 95 (16.41%) ITIL
3 92 (15.89%) Disaster Recovery
4 88 (15.20%) Problem-Solving
5 85 (14.68%) High Availability
6 65 (11.23%) Migration
7 64 (11.05%) Agile
8 55 (9.50%) Change Management
9 51 (8.81%) Service Management
10 50 (8.64%) ITSM
11 42 (7.25%) Continuous Improvement
12 41 (7.08%) Cybersecurity
12 41 (7.08%) Identity Access Management
13 40 (6.91%) Project Delivery
14 39 (6.74%) DevOps
15 36 (6.22%) Change Control
16 34 (5.87%) Platform Engineering
16 34 (5.87%) RBAC
17 32 (5.53%) Runbook
18 31 (5.35%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 224 (38.69%) PowerShell
2 75 (12.95%) SQL
3 57 (9.84%) Python
4 36 (6.22%) Bash
5 31 (5.35%) C#
6 27 (4.66%) PL/SQL
7 22 (3.80%) T-SQL
8 13 (2.25%) JavaScript
9 11 (1.90%) Java
9 11 (1.90%) Perl
10 4 (0.69%) Bicep
10 4 (0.69%) JCL
10 4 (0.69%) REXX
11 3 (0.52%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.35%) Delphi
12 2 (0.35%) PHP
13 1 (0.17%) Ladder Logic
13 1 (0.17%) TypeScript
13 1 (0.17%) VB
13 1 (0.17%) VBA
Qualifications
1 234 (40.41%) Security Cleared
2 157 (27.12%) SC Cleared
3 81 (13.99%) DV Cleared
4 71 (12.26%) Degree
5 52 (8.98%) Microsoft Certification
6 21 (3.63%) MCSE
7 20 (3.45%) Cisco Certification
8 18 (3.11%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 17 (2.94%) CCNA
10 14 (2.42%) Azure Certification
10 14 (2.42%) CCNP
11 12 (2.07%) MCSA
12 10 (1.73%) VCAP
13 9 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
13 9 (1.55%) CCDP
14 7 (1.21%) AWS Certification
14 7 (1.21%) CISSP
15 5 (0.86%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 5 (0.86%) CompTIA Security+
15 5 (0.86%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (5.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 29 (5.01%) QA
3 27 (4.66%) GDPR
4 20 (3.45%) NIST
5 15 (2.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 11 (1.90%) Cyber Essentials
7 9 (1.55%) SLA
8 4 (0.69%) NIST 800
9 3 (0.52%) NCSC
10 2 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 1 (0.17%) Basel III
11 1 (0.17%) DICOM
11 1 (0.17%) GAAP
11 1 (0.17%) HL7
11 1 (0.17%) IFRS
11 1 (0.17%) IFRS 17
11 1 (0.17%) IFRS 9
11 1 (0.17%) JSP 440
System Software
1 348 (60.10%) Active Directory
2 191 (32.99%) VMware Infrastructure
3 86 (14.85%) Hyper-V
4 54 (9.33%) vSphere
5 43 (7.43%) VMware ESXi
6 34 (5.87%) Docker
7 31 (5.35%) Virtual Machines
8 25 (4.32%) VMware NSX
9 11 (1.90%) KVM
9 11 (1.90%) Virtual Desktop
10 10 (1.73%) Microsoft App-V
11 8 (1.38%) BitLocker
12 7 (1.21%) XenApp
13 5 (0.86%) Terminal Services
13 5 (0.86%) XenDesktop
14 4 (0.69%) Job Entry Subsystem
15 3 (0.52%) Firmware
15 3 (0.52%) NFS
15 3 (0.52%) Oracle RAC
15 3 (0.52%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 78 (13.47%) Microsoft Intune
2 74 (12.78%) SCCM
3 69 (11.92%) Ansible
4 47 (8.12%) vCenter Server
5 45 (7.77%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 43 (7.43%) Terraform
7 39 (6.74%) Single Sign-On
8 29 (5.01%) Kubernetes
9 23 (3.97%) SCOM
10 22 (3.80%) WSUS
11 10 (1.73%) Puppet
11 10 (1.73%) vMotion
12 7 (1.21%) Nessus
13 6 (1.04%) IBM BigFix
14 5 (0.86%) Control-M
14 5 (0.86%) FortiGate
14 5 (0.86%) VxRail
15 4 (0.69%) Backup Exec
15 4 (0.69%) Failover Clustering
15 4 (0.69%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 255 (44.04%) Microsoft
2 234 (40.41%) VMware
3 76 (13.13%) Citrix
4 61 (10.54%) Cisco
5 50 (8.64%) Oracle
6 34 (5.87%) ServiceNow
7 33 (5.70%) Red Hat
8 23 (3.97%) Veeam
9 21 (3.63%) Dell
10 18 (3.11%) SolarWinds
11 16 (2.76%) CyberArk
12 15 (2.59%) BeyondTrust
12 15 (2.59%) Okta
13 14 (2.42%) NetApp
13 14 (2.42%) Palo Alto
14 13 (2.25%) HP
14 13 (2.25%) IBM
15 11 (1.90%) BMC
16 10 (1.73%) Tenable
17 8 (1.38%) F5