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

 6 months to
31 Jul 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 192 160 98
Rank change year-on-year -32 -62 -21
Contract jobs citing Windows Server 679 480 795
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.50% 1.74% 2.34%
As % of the Operating Systems category 15.58% 12.92% 16.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 445 338 584
10th Percentile £263 £325 £250
25th Percentile £380 £425 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £532 £500
Median % change year-on-year -9.17% +6.35% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £668 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £488 £525 £488
% change year-on-year -7.14% +7.69% -0.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 5 12
10th Percentile £16.25 £14.32 £17.96
25th Percentile £20.43 £15.33 £36.46
Median hourly rate £34.10 £30.00 £59.80
Median % change year-on-year +13.67% -49.83% +49.50%
75th Percentile £67.84 £32.77 £70.08
90th Percentile £74.00 £59.61 £77.33
UK median hourly rate £27.16 £17.75 £59.80
% change year-on-year +53.01% -70.32% +49.50%

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 4,359 3,714 4,809
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.62% 13.50% 14.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,797 2,480 3,201
10th Percentile £190 £200 £200
25th Percentile £313 £313 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £460 £475
Median % change year-on-year +1.96% -3.16% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £663 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £470 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +1.62% -2.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 299 230 321
10th Percentile £16.07 £15.50 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.25 £18.13 £16.50
Median hourly rate £32.50 £23.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +41.30% -16.36% -35.29%
75th Percentile £65.00 £58.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £74.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £24.00 £27.00
% change year-on-year +8.33% -11.11% -36.47%

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 31 July 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 31 July 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 31 July 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 -16 212 £475 -5.00% 74
South East -20 181 £515 -6.36% 125
North of England -56 97 £485 +1.04% 77
Midlands -22 66 £450 -10.00% 53
East of England -4 60 £450 -18.18% 36
South West -38 59 £490 -10.91% 33
North West -50 50 £450 -4.26% 48
Yorkshire -40 43 £510 -0.49% 17
West Midlands -50 39 £450 -14.29% 33
East Midlands +5 25 £450 -5.26% 20
North East -42 4 £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 83 (12.22%) Microsoft Exchange
2 41 (6.04%) SharePoint
3 27 (3.98%) IIS
4 10 (1.47%) nginx
4 10 (1.47%) Tomcat
5 5 (0.74%) Apache
6 4 (0.59%) FactoryTalk
7 3 (0.44%) CloudStack
7 3 (0.44%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.29%) Exchange Server 2013
8 2 (0.29%) SAS
8 2 (0.29%) Skype for Business
9 1 (0.15%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.15%) Confluence
9 1 (0.15%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 17 (2.50%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (0.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 17 (2.50%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.29%) OpenText MBPM
2 2 (0.29%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 279 (41.09%) Azure
2 132 (19.44%) Entra ID
3 129 (19.00%) Microsoft 365
4 84 (12.37%) AWS
5 36 (5.30%) Azure Monitor
6 24 (3.53%) Azure DevOps
6 24 (3.53%) Power Platform
7 23 (3.39%) IaaS
8 22 (3.24%) GCP
9 20 (2.95%) GitHub
10 15 (2.21%) Azure Sentinel
11 12 (1.77%) PaaS
12 10 (1.47%) OneDrive
13 9 (1.33%) Amazon EC2
13 9 (1.33%) OpenShift
14 8 (1.18%) GitHub Actions
15 7 (1.03%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 7 (1.03%) Datadog
15 7 (1.03%) SaaS
16 6 (0.88%) Cohesity
Communications & Networking
1 221 (32.55%) DNS
2 133 (19.59%) DHCP
3 119 (17.53%) Firewall
4 61 (8.98%) VPN
5 56 (8.25%) TCP/IP
6 44 (6.48%) WAN
7 43 (6.33%) SAN
8 42 (6.19%) LAN
9 37 (5.45%) VLAN
10 23 (3.39%) Network Security
11 22 (3.24%) SSL
12 17 (2.50%) Wi-Fi
13 16 (2.36%) NAS
14 15 (2.21%) SSH
14 15 (2.21%) VoIP
15 11 (1.62%) SMTP
16 10 (1.47%) Wireless
17 8 (1.18%) Skype
17 8 (1.18%) VSAN
18 7 (1.03%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 150 (22.09%) SQL Server
2 24 (3.53%) Power BI
3 15 (2.21%) Oracle Database
4 13 (1.91%) Amazon RDS
5 12 (1.77%) Elasticsearch
5 12 (1.77%) PostgreSQL
5 12 (1.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 8 (1.18%) MySQL
6 8 (1.18%) NoSQL
7 5 (0.74%) Big Data
8 4 (0.59%) GIS
8 4 (0.59%) Oracle BI EE
9 3 (0.44%) Data Mining
9 3 (0.44%) Db2
9 3 (0.44%) MongoDB
9 3 (0.44%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.44%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 2 (0.29%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 1 (0.15%) Oracle Database 11g
11 1 (0.15%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 12 (1.77%) Git
1 12 (1.77%) Jenkins
2 8 (1.18%) GitLab
2 8 (1.18%) JIRA
3 4 (0.59%) Visual Studio
4 3 (0.44%) MSI
4 3 (0.44%) Octopus Deploy
4 3 (0.44%) Robot Framework
5 2 (0.29%) AdminStudio
5 2 (0.29%) Artifactory
5 2 (0.29%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.29%) InstallShield
5 2 (0.29%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.29%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 1 (0.15%) eggPlant
6 1 (0.15%) MSBuild
6 1 (0.15%) Postman
6 1 (0.15%) Subversion
6 1 (0.15%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.15%) VSS/SourceSafe
General
1 168 (24.74%) Social Skills
2 78 (11.49%) Analytical Skills
3 70 (10.31%) Finance
4 59 (8.69%) Public Sector
5 35 (5.15%) Banking
5 35 (5.15%) Documentation Skills
6 18 (2.65%) Military
7 15 (2.21%) Law
8 14 (2.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 11 (1.62%) Organisational Skills
10 10 (1.47%) Legal
10 10 (1.47%) Telecoms
11 7 (1.03%) Manufacturing
12 6 (0.88%) Pharmaceutical
13 5 (0.74%) Games
13 5 (0.74%) Local Government
13 5 (0.74%) Retail
14 4 (0.59%) Financial Institution
14 4 (0.59%) Marketing
14 4 (0.59%) Police
Job Titles
1 176 (25.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 72 (10.60%) Senior
3 53 (7.81%) Support Engineer
4 50 (7.36%) Cloud Engineer
5 43 (6.33%) 3rd Line Engineer
5 43 (6.33%) Lead
6 33 (4.86%) Architect
7 31 (4.57%) IT Engineer
8 30 (4.42%) Administrator
9 28 (4.12%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
10 26 (3.83%) Azure Engineer
11 25 (3.68%) IT Support
12 24 (3.53%) Infrastructure Support
12 24 (3.53%) Server Engineer
13 23 (3.39%) Storage Engineer
14 22 (3.24%) Windows Engineer
15 20 (2.95%) Analyst
15 20 (2.95%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
15 20 (2.95%) Systems Administrator
16 19 (2.80%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (4.57%) .NET
2 24 (3.53%) .NET Framework
3 23 (3.39%) REST
4 12 (1.77%) ARM Templates
5 9 (1.33%) Elastic Stack
5 9 (1.33%) JSON
6 7 (1.03%) RabbitMQ
7 6 (0.88%) OAuth
7 6 (0.88%) Software Packaging
7 6 (0.88%) YAML
8 5 (0.74%) LDAP
8 5 (0.74%) SailPoint
9 4 (0.59%) ADO
9 4 (0.59%) ASP.NET
9 4 (0.59%) Azure Blueprints
9 4 (0.59%) EJB
9 4 (0.59%) Spring
10 3 (0.44%) 802.1X
10 3 (0.44%) OAuth2
10 3 (0.44%) OpenLayers
Miscellaneous
1 71 (10.46%) PKI
2 52 (7.66%) Onboarding
3 48 (7.07%) Hybrid Cloud
4 46 (6.77%) Clustering
5 41 (6.04%) Data Centre
6 36 (5.30%) Management Information System
7 31 (4.57%) Replication
8 18 (2.65%) Legacy Systems
9 14 (2.06%) Self-Motivation
9 14 (2.06%) Virtual Team
10 13 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
10 13 (1.91%) Enterprise Storage
11 12 (1.77%) Driving Licence
11 12 (1.77%) Security Posture
12 10 (1.47%) Cloud Native
12 10 (1.47%) Linux Command Line
13 9 (1.33%) Smartcard
14 8 (1.18%) Operational Technology
15 7 (1.03%) Fat Client
15 7 (1.03%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 679 (100.00%) Windows
2 194 (28.57%) Linux
3 57 (8.39%) Windows Server 2019
4 54 (7.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 47 (6.92%) Windows 10
6 35 (5.15%) Unix
6 35 (5.15%) Windows Server 2016
7 28 (4.12%) Ubuntu
8 27 (3.98%) Windows Server 2012
9 19 (2.80%) CentOS
10 11 (1.62%) VMS
10 11 (1.62%) Windows Server 2008
11 10 (1.47%) Mac OS
11 10 (1.47%) Rocky
12 8 (1.18%) Solaris
13 7 (1.03%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.88%) Windows 7
15 5 (0.74%) AIX
16 4 (0.59%) Alpine Linux
17 3 (0.44%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 222 (32.70%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 144 (21.21%) Problem-Solving
3 110 (16.20%) ITIL
4 91 (13.40%) Disaster Recovery
5 83 (12.22%) High Availability
6 82 (12.08%) Migration
7 73 (10.75%) Change Management
8 72 (10.60%) ITSM
9 67 (9.87%) DevOps
10 66 (9.72%) Infrastructure as Code
11 63 (9.28%) Continuous Improvement
12 60 (8.84%) Service Management
13 56 (8.25%) Root Cause Analysis
14 55 (8.10%) Agile
14 55 (8.10%) Vulnerability Remediation
15 54 (7.95%) Project Delivery
16 52 (7.66%) CI/CD
17 51 (7.51%) Runbook
18 49 (7.22%) Technical Leadership
19 47 (6.92%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 259 (38.14%) PowerShell
2 105 (15.46%) SQL
3 68 (10.01%) Python
4 51 (7.51%) Bash
5 26 (3.83%) C#
5 26 (3.83%) T-SQL
6 25 (3.68%) PL/SQL
7 21 (3.09%) Bicep
8 17 (2.50%) JavaScript
9 12 (1.77%) Java
10 3 (0.44%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.29%) JCL
11 2 (0.29%) Korn
11 2 (0.29%) REXX
12 1 (0.15%) CodeQL
12 1 (0.15%) Groovy
12 1 (0.15%) Ladder Logic
12 1 (0.15%) Perl
12 1 (0.15%) VB
Qualifications
1 285 (41.97%) Security Cleared
2 147 (21.65%) SC Cleared
3 140 (20.62%) DV Cleared
4 72 (10.60%) Degree
5 46 (6.77%) Microsoft Certification
6 24 (3.53%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 21 (3.09%) Azure Certification
8 19 (2.80%) MCSE
9 16 (2.36%) Cisco Certification
10 13 (1.91%) MCSA
11 12 (1.77%) BPSS Clearance
12 10 (1.47%) CCNA
12 10 (1.47%) VCAP
13 8 (1.18%) CCNP
13 8 (1.18%) CISSP
14 7 (1.03%) AWS Certification
14 7 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
15 6 (0.88%) CISM
15 6 (0.88%) DBS Check
15 6 (0.88%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (5.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 30 (4.42%) SLA
3 28 (4.12%) NIST
4 26 (3.83%) QA
5 12 (1.77%) Cyber Essentials
6 8 (1.18%) GDPR
7 5 (0.74%) GxP
7 5 (0.74%) SOC 2
8 4 (0.59%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 3 (0.44%) NCSC
10 2 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.29%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.29%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.29%) NIST 800
10 2 (0.29%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.15%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.15%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.15%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 389 (57.29%) Active Directory
2 228 (33.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 108 (15.91%) Hyper-V
4 91 (13.40%) VMware ESXi
5 72 (10.60%) vSphere
6 48 (7.07%) Virtual Machines
7 40 (5.89%) VMware NSX
8 39 (5.74%) Docker
9 28 (4.12%) Virtual Desktop
10 16 (2.36%) vCloud
11 10 (1.47%) Microsoft App-V
12 9 (1.33%) BitLocker
13 8 (1.18%) KVM
13 8 (1.18%) Virtual Servers
14 6 (0.88%) VMware Workstation
14 6 (0.88%) XenApp
15 5 (0.74%) Firmware
15 5 (0.74%) Terminal Services
15 5 (0.74%) XenDesktop
16 4 (0.59%) UAG
Systems Management
1 97 (14.29%) Ansible
2 84 (12.37%) vCenter Server
3 78 (11.49%) Microsoft Intune
4 73 (10.75%) Terraform
5 63 (9.28%) SCCM
6 52 (7.66%) SCOM
7 44 (6.48%) Kubernetes
8 29 (4.27%) WSUS
9 14 (2.06%) vMotion
10 13 (1.91%) Avamar
11 12 (1.77%) Nessus
11 12 (1.77%) NetBackup
12 11 (1.62%) Grafana
12 11 (1.62%) Puppet
13 9 (1.33%) Prometheus
14 7 (1.03%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 7 (1.03%) Failover Clustering
14 7 (1.03%) Jamf Pro
14 7 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
14 7 (1.03%) WMI
Vendors
1 321 (47.28%) Microsoft
2 292 (43.00%) VMware
3 69 (10.16%) Cisco
4 63 (9.28%) Citrix
5 62 (9.13%) Oracle
6 48 (7.07%) ServiceNow
7 31 (4.57%) CyberArk
7 31 (4.57%) Red Hat
8 30 (4.42%) BeyondTrust
9 26 (3.83%) Dell
10 24 (3.53%) Veeam
11 23 (3.39%) NetApp
12 21 (3.09%) Tenable
13 19 (2.80%) HP
14 18 (2.65%) Remedy
14 18 (2.65%) Splunk
15 16 (2.36%) BMC
15 16 (2.36%) Juniper
15 16 (2.36%) Zscaler
16 15 (2.21%) CrowdStrike
366 Windows Server jobs in England