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

6 months to
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 177 166 93
Rank change year-on-year -11 -73 -15
Contract jobs citing Windows Server 699 471 797
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.54% 1.70% 2.38%
As % of the Operating Systems category 15.87% 12.67% 16.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 459 331 588
10th Percentile £261 £313 £250
25th Percentile £380 £421 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £535 £500
Median % change year-on-year -9.72% +7.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £669 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £488 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -7.14% +5.00% +1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 5 10
10th Percentile £16.25 £14.32 £33.60
25th Percentile £20.54 £15.33 £40.69
Median hourly rate £38.72 £30.00 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year +29.07% -51.30% +54.00%
75th Percentile £67.84 £32.77 £70.86
90th Percentile £74.00 £59.61 £80.20
UK median hourly rate £29.48 £17.75 £61.60
% change year-on-year +66.08% -71.19% +54.00%

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 4,404 3,716 4,740
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.67% 13.45% 14.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,818 2,469 3,160
10th Percentile £190 £200 £200
25th Percentile £313 £308 £330
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £450 £488
Median % change year-on-year +4.22% -7.69% -2.50%
75th Percentile £575 £586 £588
90th Percentile £668 £682 £695
UK median daily rate £470 £460 £475
% change year-on-year +2.17% -3.16% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 305 229 295
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £12.45
25th Percentile £19.25 £18.13 £17.00
Median hourly rate £32.50 £23.00 £31.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.30% -25.81% -25.38%
75th Percentile £67.25 £58.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £74.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £24.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +8.33% -12.73% -35.29%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 -4 216 £475 -6.63% 85
South East -8 191 £520 -5.45% 118
North of England -47 99 £484 +4.09% 77
Midlands -19 68 £444 -8.97% 56
East of England -3 62 £450 -18.18% 37
South West -41 59 £490 -10.91% 40
North West -43 52 £461 +5.98% 49
Yorkshire -36 42 £510 -0.49% 16
West Midlands -41 41 £430 -18.10% 33
East Midlands +10 25 £450 - 23
North East -38 5 £200 -60.00% 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 85 (12.16%) Microsoft Exchange
2 40 (5.72%) SharePoint
3 27 (3.86%) IIS
4 10 (1.43%) nginx
4 10 (1.43%) Tomcat
5 5 (0.72%) Apache
6 4 (0.57%) FactoryTalk
7 3 (0.43%) CloudStack
7 3 (0.43%) Confluence
7 3 (0.43%) Exchange Server 2013
7 3 (0.43%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.29%) SAS
8 2 (0.29%) Skype for Business
9 1 (0.14%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.14%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.14%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 18 (2.58%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (0.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 18 (2.58%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.29%) OpenText MBPM
2 2 (0.29%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 288 (41.20%) Azure
2 138 (19.74%) Entra ID
3 134 (19.17%) Microsoft 365
4 87 (12.45%) AWS
5 39 (5.58%) Azure Monitor
6 26 (3.72%) Power Platform
7 25 (3.58%) Azure DevOps
8 24 (3.43%) IaaS
9 23 (3.29%) GCP
10 20 (2.86%) GitHub
11 16 (2.29%) Azure Sentinel
12 12 (1.72%) OpenShift
12 12 (1.72%) PaaS
13 10 (1.43%) OneDrive
14 9 (1.29%) Amazon EC2
15 8 (1.14%) GitHub Actions
16 7 (1.00%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 7 (1.00%) Datadog
16 7 (1.00%) Nutanix
16 7 (1.00%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 227 (32.47%) DNS
2 139 (19.89%) DHCP
3 122 (17.45%) Firewall
4 64 (9.16%) VPN
5 57 (8.15%) TCP/IP
6 44 (6.29%) SAN
7 41 (5.87%) WAN
8 39 (5.58%) LAN
9 38 (5.44%) VLAN
10 24 (3.43%) Network Security
11 23 (3.29%) SSL
12 18 (2.58%) Wi-Fi
13 17 (2.43%) NAS
14 15 (2.15%) SSH
14 15 (2.15%) VoIP
15 11 (1.57%) SMTP
16 10 (1.43%) Wireless
17 8 (1.14%) Skype
17 8 (1.14%) VSAN
18 7 (1.00%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 152 (21.75%) SQL Server
2 26 (3.72%) Power BI
3 15 (2.15%) Oracle Database
4 14 (2.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 13 (1.86%) Amazon RDS
6 12 (1.72%) Elasticsearch
6 12 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
7 9 (1.29%) MySQL
8 8 (1.14%) NoSQL
9 5 (0.72%) Big Data
10 4 (0.57%) GIS
10 4 (0.57%) Oracle BI EE
10 4 (0.57%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 3 (0.43%) Data Mining
11 3 (0.43%) Db2
11 3 (0.43%) MongoDB
11 3 (0.43%) Relational Database
11 3 (0.43%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 1 (0.14%) Oracle Database 12c
12 1 (0.14%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 12 (1.72%) Git
1 12 (1.72%) Jenkins
2 10 (1.43%) JIRA
3 8 (1.14%) GitLab
4 4 (0.57%) Visual Studio
5 3 (0.43%) MSI
5 3 (0.43%) Octopus Deploy
5 3 (0.43%) Robot Framework
6 2 (0.29%) AdminStudio
6 2 (0.29%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.29%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.29%) InstallShield
6 2 (0.29%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.29%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.14%) eggPlant
7 1 (0.14%) MSBuild
7 1 (0.14%) Postman
7 1 (0.14%) Subversion
7 1 (0.14%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.14%) VSS/SourceSafe
General
1 175 (25.04%) Social Skills
2 80 (11.44%) Analytical Skills
3 72 (10.30%) Finance
4 57 (8.15%) Public Sector
5 36 (5.15%) Documentation Skills
6 35 (5.01%) Banking
7 18 (2.58%) Military
8 15 (2.15%) Law
9 14 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 11 (1.57%) Organisational Skills
11 10 (1.43%) Legal
11 10 (1.43%) Telecoms
12 8 (1.14%) Manufacturing
13 7 (1.00%) Pharmaceutical
14 6 (0.86%) Games
15 5 (0.72%) Retail
16 4 (0.57%) Financial Institution
16 4 (0.57%) Local Government
16 4 (0.57%) Marketing
16 4 (0.57%) Police
Job Titles
1 180 (25.75%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 73 (10.44%) Senior
3 59 (8.44%) Support Engineer
4 50 (7.15%) Cloud Engineer
5 47 (6.72%) 3rd Line Engineer
5 47 (6.72%) Lead
6 35 (5.01%) IT Engineer
7 34 (4.86%) Architect
8 29 (4.15%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 28 (4.01%) Administrator
10 27 (3.86%) Azure Engineer
10 27 (3.86%) IT Support
11 26 (3.72%) Server Engineer
12 24 (3.43%) Infrastructure Support
12 24 (3.43%) Storage Engineer
13 23 (3.29%) Windows Engineer
14 21 (3.00%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
15 20 (2.86%) Platform Engineer
16 19 (2.72%) Analyst
16 19 (2.72%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (4.43%) .NET
2 24 (3.43%) .NET Framework
3 23 (3.29%) REST
4 14 (2.00%) ARM Templates
5 9 (1.29%) Elastic Stack
5 9 (1.29%) JSON
6 7 (1.00%) RabbitMQ
7 6 (0.86%) OAuth
7 6 (0.86%) Software Packaging
7 6 (0.86%) YAML
8 5 (0.72%) LDAP
8 5 (0.72%) SailPoint
9 4 (0.57%) ADO
9 4 (0.57%) ASP.NET
9 4 (0.57%) Azure Blueprints
9 4 (0.57%) EJB
9 4 (0.57%) Spring
10 3 (0.43%) Jakarta EE
10 3 (0.43%) SAML
10 3 (0.43%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 71 (10.16%) PKI
2 54 (7.73%) Onboarding
3 52 (7.44%) Hybrid Cloud
4 49 (7.01%) Clustering
5 42 (6.01%) Data Centre
6 36 (5.15%) Management Information System
7 32 (4.58%) Replication
8 18 (2.58%) Legacy Systems
9 14 (2.00%) Self-Motivation
9 14 (2.00%) Virtual Team
10 13 (1.86%) Driving Licence
10 13 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
10 13 (1.86%) Enterprise Storage
11 12 (1.72%) Security Posture
12 11 (1.57%) Cloud Native
13 10 (1.43%) Linux Command Line
14 9 (1.29%) Smartcard
15 8 (1.14%) Operational Technology
16 7 (1.00%) Product Ownership
16 7 (1.00%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 699 (100.00%) Windows
2 203 (29.04%) Linux
3 58 (8.30%) Windows Server 2019
4 55 (7.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 50 (7.15%) Windows 10
6 35 (5.01%) Unix
6 35 (5.01%) Windows Server 2016
7 29 (4.15%) Ubuntu
8 28 (4.01%) Windows Server 2012
9 20 (2.86%) CentOS
10 12 (1.72%) VMS
10 12 (1.72%) Windows Server 2008
11 11 (1.57%) Mac OS
12 10 (1.43%) Rocky
13 8 (1.14%) Solaris
13 8 (1.14%) Windows 7
14 7 (1.00%) Windows Server 2003
15 5 (0.72%) AIX
16 4 (0.57%) Alpine Linux
17 3 (0.43%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 227 (32.47%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 153 (21.89%) Problem-Solving
3 118 (16.88%) ITIL
4 95 (13.59%) Disaster Recovery
5 86 (12.30%) High Availability
6 85 (12.16%) Migration
7 78 (11.16%) Change Management
8 77 (11.02%) ITSM
9 71 (10.16%) Infrastructure as Code
10 70 (10.01%) DevOps
11 66 (9.44%) Service Management
12 65 (9.30%) Continuous Improvement
13 61 (8.73%) Root Cause Analysis
14 59 (8.44%) Agile
14 59 (8.44%) Vulnerability Remediation
15 55 (7.87%) Project Delivery
16 54 (7.73%) Technical Leadership
17 52 (7.44%) CI/CD
17 52 (7.44%) Runbook
18 49 (7.01%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 274 (39.20%) PowerShell
2 107 (15.31%) SQL
3 72 (10.30%) Python
4 56 (8.01%) Bash
5 27 (3.86%) T-SQL
6 26 (3.72%) C#
7 25 (3.58%) PL/SQL
8 23 (3.29%) Bicep
9 17 (2.43%) JavaScript
10 12 (1.72%) Java
11 3 (0.43%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.29%) JCL
12 2 (0.29%) Korn
12 2 (0.29%) REXX
13 1 (0.14%) CodeQL
13 1 (0.14%) Groovy
13 1 (0.14%) Ladder Logic
13 1 (0.14%) Perl
13 1 (0.14%) VB
Qualifications
1 298 (42.63%) Security Cleared
2 155 (22.17%) SC Cleared
3 147 (21.03%) DV Cleared
4 73 (10.44%) Degree
5 50 (7.15%) Microsoft Certification
6 25 (3.58%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 24 (3.43%) Azure Certification
8 20 (2.86%) MCSE
9 17 (2.43%) Cisco Certification
10 14 (2.00%) MCSA
11 13 (1.86%) BPSS Clearance
12 11 (1.57%) CCNA
13 10 (1.43%) VCAP
14 9 (1.29%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 8 (1.14%) CCNP
16 7 (1.00%) AWS Certification
16 7 (1.00%) CISSP
16 7 (1.00%) ITIL Certification
17 6 (0.86%) Computer Science Degree
17 6 (0.86%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (5.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 31 (4.43%) SLA
3 27 (3.86%) NIST
3 27 (3.86%) QA
4 13 (1.86%) Cyber Essentials
5 8 (1.14%) GDPR
6 5 (0.72%) GxP
6 5 (0.72%) SOC 2
7 4 (0.57%) 21 CFR Part 11
7 4 (0.57%) NCSC
8 2 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.29%) Government Security Classifications
8 2 (0.29%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.29%) NIST 800
8 2 (0.29%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.14%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.14%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 400 (57.22%) Active Directory
2 238 (34.05%) VMware Infrastructure
3 115 (16.45%) Hyper-V
4 96 (13.73%) VMware ESXi
5 76 (10.87%) vSphere
6 49 (7.01%) Virtual Machines
7 41 (5.87%) VMware NSX
8 40 (5.72%) Docker
9 28 (4.01%) Virtual Desktop
10 18 (2.58%) vCloud
11 10 (1.43%) Microsoft App-V
11 10 (1.43%) Virtual Servers
12 9 (1.29%) BitLocker
13 8 (1.14%) KVM
14 6 (0.86%) Firmware
14 6 (0.86%) VMware Workstation
14 6 (0.86%) XenApp
15 5 (0.72%) Terminal Services
15 5 (0.72%) XenDesktop
16 4 (0.57%) UAG
Systems Management
1 99 (14.16%) Ansible
2 88 (12.59%) vCenter Server
3 79 (11.30%) Microsoft Intune
4 77 (11.02%) Terraform
5 64 (9.16%) SCCM
6 56 (8.01%) SCOM
7 46 (6.58%) Kubernetes
8 30 (4.29%) WSUS
9 14 (2.00%) vMotion
10 13 (1.86%) Avamar
10 13 (1.86%) NetBackup
11 12 (1.72%) Grafana
11 12 (1.72%) Nessus
12 11 (1.57%) Puppet
13 10 (1.43%) Prometheus
14 7 (1.00%) Failover Clustering
14 7 (1.00%) Jamf Pro
14 7 (1.00%) Single Sign-On
14 7 (1.00%) WMI
15 6 (0.86%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 334 (47.78%) Microsoft
2 307 (43.92%) VMware
3 70 (10.01%) Cisco
4 66 (9.44%) Citrix
5 64 (9.16%) Oracle
6 50 (7.15%) ServiceNow
7 32 (4.58%) CyberArk
8 31 (4.43%) BeyondTrust
8 31 (4.43%) Red Hat
9 27 (3.86%) Dell
10 25 (3.58%) Veeam
11 23 (3.29%) NetApp
12 22 (3.15%) Tenable
13 20 (2.86%) Remedy
13 20 (2.86%) Splunk
14 19 (2.72%) HP
15 17 (2.43%) BMC
16 16 (2.29%) Juniper
16 16 (2.29%) Zscaler
17 15 (2.15%) CrowdStrike