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

 6 months to
29 Jul 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 179 160 96
Rank change year-on-year -19 -64 -17
Contract jobs citing Windows Server 674 483 799
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.50% 1.76% 2.35%
As % of the Operating Systems category 15.53% 13.02% 16.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 443 341 586
10th Percentile £263 £325 £250
25th Percentile £380 £425 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £534 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.03% +6.70% -
75th Percentile £569 £588 £588
90th Percentile £668 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £488 £525 £485
% change year-on-year -7.14% +8.36% -1.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 5 12
10th Percentile £16.25 £14.32 £17.96
25th Percentile £20.54 £15.33 £36.46
Median hourly rate £29.48 £30.00 £59.80
Median % change year-on-year -1.73% -49.83% +72.58%
75th Percentile £67.84 £32.77 £70.08
90th Percentile £74.00 £59.61 £77.33
UK median hourly rate £26.44 £17.75 £59.80
% change year-on-year +48.96% -70.32% +72.58%

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 4,339 3,709 4,829
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.68% 13.49% 14.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,789 2,476 3,212
10th Percentile £190 £200 £200
25th Percentile £313 £313 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £467 £460 £478
Median % change year-on-year +1.41% -3.66% -4.50%
75th Percentile £575 £586 £588
90th Percentile £661 £676 £688
UK median daily rate £470 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +1.62% -2.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 296 226 327
10th Percentile £16.05 £15.50 £12.65
25th Percentile £19.25 £18.11 £16.65
Median hourly rate £32.50 £23.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +41.30% -16.36% -35.29%
75th Percentile £65.00 £58.73 £67.50
90th Percentile £74.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £23.50 £27.00
% change year-on-year +10.64% -12.96% -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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -14 205 £475 -5.00% 77
South East -16 182 £520 -5.45% 122
North of England -57 96 £485 +1.04% 76
Midlands -27 68 £450 -10.00% 54
East of England -5 61 £450 -18.18% 37
South West -35 58 £485 -11.82% 29
North West -44 51 £450 -4.26% 43
Yorkshire -35 40 £510 -0.49% 21
West Midlands -47 40 £440 -16.19% 33
East Midlands +6 26 £450 -5.26% 21
North East -44 5 £225 -55.00% 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 82 (12.17%) Microsoft Exchange
2 40 (5.93%) SharePoint
3 27 (4.01%) IIS
4 10 (1.48%) nginx
4 10 (1.48%) Tomcat
5 5 (0.74%) Apache
6 4 (0.59%) FactoryTalk
7 3 (0.45%) CloudStack
7 3 (0.45%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.30%) Exchange Server 2013
8 2 (0.30%) SAS
8 2 (0.30%) 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 16 (2.37%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.45%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 17 (2.52%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.30%) OpenText MBPM
2 2 (0.30%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 274 (40.65%) Azure
2 129 (19.14%) Entra ID
3 126 (18.69%) Microsoft 365
4 83 (12.31%) AWS
5 36 (5.34%) Azure Monitor
6 24 (3.56%) Power Platform
7 23 (3.41%) IaaS
8 21 (3.12%) Azure DevOps
9 20 (2.97%) GCP
10 19 (2.82%) GitHub
11 15 (2.23%) Azure Sentinel
12 12 (1.78%) PaaS
13 10 (1.48%) OneDrive
14 9 (1.34%) Amazon EC2
15 8 (1.19%) GitHub Actions
16 7 (1.04%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 7 (1.04%) Datadog
16 7 (1.04%) Nutanix
16 7 (1.04%) OpenShift
16 7 (1.04%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 216 (32.05%) DNS
2 131 (19.44%) DHCP
3 112 (16.62%) Firewall
4 60 (8.90%) VPN
5 56 (8.31%) TCP/IP
6 43 (6.38%) SAN
6 43 (6.38%) WAN
7 40 (5.93%) LAN
8 36 (5.34%) VLAN
9 23 (3.41%) Network Security
10 22 (3.26%) SSL
11 18 (2.67%) Wi-Fi
12 16 (2.37%) NAS
13 15 (2.23%) SSH
14 14 (2.08%) VoIP
15 11 (1.63%) SMTP
16 10 (1.48%) Wireless
17 8 (1.19%) Skype
17 8 (1.19%) VSAN
18 7 (1.04%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 150 (22.26%) SQL Server
2 24 (3.56%) Power BI
3 15 (2.23%) Oracle Database
4 13 (1.93%) Amazon RDS
5 12 (1.78%) Elasticsearch
5 12 (1.78%) PostgreSQL
5 12 (1.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 8 (1.19%) MySQL
6 8 (1.19%) NoSQL
7 5 (0.74%) Big Data
8 4 (0.59%) Db2
8 4 (0.59%) GIS
8 4 (0.59%) Oracle BI EE
9 3 (0.45%) Data Mining
9 3 (0.45%) MongoDB
9 3 (0.45%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 2 (0.30%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 1 (0.15%) Oracle Database 11g
11 1 (0.15%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 12 (1.78%) Git
2 10 (1.48%) Jenkins
3 8 (1.19%) JIRA
4 6 (0.89%) GitLab
5 4 (0.59%) Visual Studio
6 3 (0.45%) MSI
6 3 (0.45%) Octopus Deploy
6 3 (0.45%) Robot Framework
7 2 (0.30%) AdminStudio
7 2 (0.30%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.30%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.30%) InstallShield
7 2 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.15%) eggPlant
8 1 (0.15%) MSBuild
8 1 (0.15%) Postman
8 1 (0.15%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 1 (0.15%) Subversion
8 1 (0.15%) TeamCity
8 1 (0.15%) VSS/SourceSafe
General
1 165 (24.48%) Social Skills
2 76 (11.28%) Analytical Skills
3 71 (10.53%) Finance
4 60 (8.90%) Public Sector
5 34 (5.04%) Banking
5 34 (5.04%) Documentation Skills
6 19 (2.82%) Military
7 15 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 13 (1.93%) Law
9 10 (1.48%) Legal
9 10 (1.48%) Organisational Skills
9 10 (1.48%) Telecoms
10 7 (1.04%) Manufacturing
11 6 (0.89%) Pharmaceutical
12 5 (0.74%) Games
12 5 (0.74%) Local Government
12 5 (0.74%) Retail
13 4 (0.59%) Financial Institution
13 4 (0.59%) Marketing
13 4 (0.59%) Police
Job Titles
1 175 (25.96%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 71 (10.53%) Senior
3 54 (8.01%) Support Engineer
4 50 (7.42%) Cloud Engineer
5 42 (6.23%) 3rd Line Engineer
6 41 (6.08%) Lead
7 32 (4.75%) Architect
7 32 (4.75%) IT Engineer
8 30 (4.45%) Administrator
9 28 (4.15%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
10 25 (3.71%) Azure Engineer
10 25 (3.71%) IT Support
11 24 (3.56%) Infrastructure Support
12 23 (3.41%) Server Engineer
12 23 (3.41%) Storage Engineer
13 22 (3.26%) Windows Engineer
14 21 (3.12%) Analyst
15 20 (2.97%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
15 20 (2.97%) Systems Administrator
16 19 (2.82%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (4.60%) .NET
2 24 (3.56%) .NET Framework
3 23 (3.41%) REST
4 12 (1.78%) ARM Templates
5 9 (1.34%) Elastic Stack
5 9 (1.34%) JSON
6 7 (1.04%) RabbitMQ
7 6 (0.89%) Software Packaging
7 6 (0.89%) YAML
8 5 (0.74%) LDAP
8 5 (0.74%) OAuth
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 (0.45%) Jakarta EE
10 3 (0.45%) Middleware
10 3 (0.45%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 71 (10.53%) PKI
2 51 (7.57%) Onboarding
3 45 (6.68%) Clustering
3 45 (6.68%) Hybrid Cloud
4 39 (5.79%) Data Centre
5 36 (5.34%) Management Information System
6 31 (4.60%) Replication
7 19 (2.82%) Legacy Systems
8 14 (2.08%) Self-Motivation
8 14 (2.08%) Virtual Team
9 13 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
10 12 (1.78%) Enterprise Storage
10 12 (1.78%) Security Posture
11 11 (1.63%) Driving Licence
11 11 (1.63%) Linux Command Line
12 10 (1.48%) Cloud Native
13 9 (1.34%) Smartcard
14 8 (1.19%) Operational Technology
15 7 (1.04%) Product Ownership
15 7 (1.04%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 674 (100.00%) Windows
2 193 (28.64%) Linux
3 56 (8.31%) Windows Server 2019
4 54 (8.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 45 (6.68%) Windows 10
6 35 (5.19%) Unix
6 35 (5.19%) Windows Server 2016
7 28 (4.15%) Ubuntu
8 27 (4.01%) Windows Server 2012
9 19 (2.82%) CentOS
10 11 (1.63%) VMS
11 10 (1.48%) Rocky
11 10 (1.48%) Windows Server 2008
12 9 (1.34%) Mac OS
13 8 (1.19%) Solaris
14 7 (1.04%) Windows Server 2003
15 6 (0.89%) AIX
16 5 (0.74%) Windows 7
17 4 (0.59%) Alpine Linux
18 2 (0.30%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 217 (32.20%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 140 (20.77%) Problem-Solving
3 108 (16.02%) ITIL
4 88 (13.06%) Disaster Recovery
5 84 (12.46%) High Availability
6 79 (11.72%) Migration
7 72 (10.68%) Change Management
8 70 (10.39%) ITSM
9 66 (9.79%) DevOps
9 66 (9.79%) Infrastructure as Code
10 63 (9.35%) Continuous Improvement
11 58 (8.61%) Service Management
12 56 (8.31%) Root Cause Analysis
13 55 (8.16%) Agile
14 52 (7.72%) Project Delivery
14 52 (7.72%) Vulnerability Remediation
15 51 (7.57%) Runbook
16 50 (7.42%) CI/CD
17 46 (6.82%) Cybersecurity
18 44 (6.53%) Patch Management
Programming Languages
1 256 (37.98%) PowerShell
2 105 (15.58%) SQL
3 66 (9.79%) Python
4 50 (7.42%) Bash
5 26 (3.86%) C#
6 25 (3.71%) PL/SQL
6 25 (3.71%) T-SQL
7 21 (3.12%) Bicep
8 17 (2.52%) JavaScript
9 12 (1.78%) Java
10 3 (0.45%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.30%) JCL
11 2 (0.30%) Korn
11 2 (0.30%) 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
1 281 (41.69%) Security Cleared
2 144 (21.36%) SC Cleared
3 139 (20.62%) DV Cleared
4 72 (10.68%) Degree
5 44 (6.53%) Microsoft Certification
6 24 (3.56%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 20 (2.97%) Azure Certification
8 19 (2.82%) MCSE
9 16 (2.37%) Cisco Certification
10 13 (1.93%) MCSA
11 12 (1.78%) BPSS Clearance
12 10 (1.48%) CCNA
12 10 (1.48%) VCAP
13 8 (1.19%) CCNP
13 8 (1.19%) CISSP
14 7 (1.04%) AWS Certification
14 7 (1.04%) ITIL Certification
15 6 (0.89%) CISM
15 6 (0.89%) DBS Check
15 6 (0.89%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (5.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 30 (4.45%) SLA
3 28 (4.15%) NIST
4 26 (3.86%) QA
5 12 (1.78%) Cyber Essentials
6 8 (1.19%) GDPR
7 5 (0.74%) GxP
7 5 (0.74%) SOC 2
8 4 (0.59%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 3 (0.45%) NCSC
10 2 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.30%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.30%) NIST 800
10 2 (0.30%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.15%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.15%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.15%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 385 (57.12%) Active Directory
2 228 (33.83%) VMware Infrastructure
3 107 (15.88%) Hyper-V
4 89 (13.20%) VMware ESXi
5 72 (10.68%) vSphere
6 49 (7.27%) Virtual Machines
7 40 (5.93%) VMware NSX
8 38 (5.64%) Docker
9 29 (4.30%) Virtual Desktop
10 16 (2.37%) vCloud
11 10 (1.48%) Microsoft App-V
12 9 (1.34%) BitLocker
12 9 (1.34%) KVM
13 8 (1.19%) Virtual Servers
14 6 (0.89%) VMware Workstation
14 6 (0.89%) XenApp
15 5 (0.74%) Terminal Services
15 5 (0.74%) XenDesktop
16 4 (0.59%) Firmware
16 4 (0.59%) UAG
Systems Management
1 94 (13.95%) Ansible
2 83 (12.31%) vCenter Server
3 78 (11.57%) Microsoft Intune
4 71 (10.53%) Terraform
5 63 (9.35%) SCCM
6 51 (7.57%) SCOM
7 43 (6.38%) Kubernetes
8 29 (4.30%) WSUS
9 13 (1.93%) Avamar
9 13 (1.93%) vMotion
10 12 (1.78%) Nessus
10 12 (1.78%) NetBackup
11 11 (1.63%) Grafana
11 11 (1.63%) Puppet
12 9 (1.34%) Prometheus
13 7 (1.04%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (1.04%) Failover Clustering
13 7 (1.04%) Jamf Pro
13 7 (1.04%) WMI
14 6 (0.89%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 314 (46.59%) Microsoft
2 291 (43.18%) VMware
3 66 (9.79%) Cisco
4 63 (9.35%) Citrix
5 61 (9.05%) Oracle
6 46 (6.82%) ServiceNow
7 31 (4.60%) CyberArk
7 31 (4.60%) Red Hat
8 30 (4.45%) BeyondTrust
9 25 (3.71%) Dell
9 25 (3.71%) Veeam
10 23 (3.41%) NetApp
11 21 (3.12%) Tenable
12 18 (2.67%) HP
12 18 (2.67%) Remedy
13 17 (2.52%) Splunk
14 16 (2.37%) BMC
15 15 (2.23%) CrowdStrike
15 15 (2.23%) Juniper
15 15 (2.23%) Zscaler
363 Windows Server jobs in England