Windows Contract Job Trends in England

Microsoft Windows
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Windows skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
12 Aug 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,734 2,240 2,876
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.00% 8.09% 8.63%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.91% 60.67% 60.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,759 1,513 1,952
10th Percentile £170 £171 £178
25th Percentile £225 £225 £256
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £409 £450
Median % change year-on-year +3.91% -9.11% +4.05%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £672 £660
UK median daily rate £430 £415 £448
% change year-on-year +3.61% -7.26% +1.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 240 184 202
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.19 £11.07
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.33 £15.22
Median hourly rate £25.76 £18.87 £21.05
Median % change year-on-year +36.51% -10.33% -8.50%
75th Percentile £60.08 £28.00 £58.24
90th Percentile £74.00 £65.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.51 £19.36 £21.90
% change year-on-year +31.74% -11.60% -2.67%

All Operating Systems
England

Windows 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 4,416 3,692 4,737
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.69% 13.34% 14.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,845 2,446 3,143
10th Percentile £193 £191 £200
25th Percentile £313 £308 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £489
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -7.98% -2.20%
75th Percentile £575 £586 £588
90th Percentile £669 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £475 £460 £475
% change year-on-year +3.26% -3.16% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 304 231 293
10th Percentile £16.03 £15.50 £12.43
25th Percentile £19.31 £18.13 £17.00
Median hourly rate £34.68 £23.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +50.76% -34.29% -12.50%
75th Percentile £67.25 £58.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £74.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £25.92 £24.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +8.00% -12.73% -31.25%

Windows
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Windows relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Windows job vacancy trend in England

Windows
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Windows.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Windows

Windows
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Windows in England over the 6 months to 12 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Windows in England

Windows
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Windows.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Windows

Windows
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Windows in England over the 6 months to 12 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows in England

Windows
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 within the England region over the 6 months to 12 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 -13 904 £425 - 842
South East -8 580 £475 -3.06% 383
North of England -6 493 £344 +5.85% 260
North West -1 283 £352 -1.65% 156
South West -11 283 £488 +35.42% 171
Midlands -19 263 £393 -1.88% 134
East of England -2 194 £345 +38.00% 154
Yorkshire -16 185 £337 +22.36% 76
West Midlands -28 169 £430 +1.18% 89
East Midlands +11 90 £270 +36.71% 45
North East -37 29 £250 -4.76% 36
Windows
UK

Windows
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
1 235 (8.60%) Microsoft Exchange
2 223 (8.16%) SharePoint
3 58 (2.12%) Confluence
4 57 (2.08%) IIS
5 19 (0.69%) Skype for Business
6 18 (0.66%) nginx
7 16 (0.59%) Apache
8 14 (0.51%) Tomcat
9 9 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
10 8 (0.29%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.22%) Documentum
12 5 (0.18%) Appian
12 5 (0.18%) Camunda
13 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.15%) Apache Solr
13 4 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
14 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
14 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
14 3 (0.11%) NetWeaver
15 2 (0.073%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 166 (6.07%) Microsoft Office
2 60 (2.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.15%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.11%) Houdini
7 3 (0.11%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.11%) NUKE
8 2 (0.073%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.037%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.037%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.037%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 56 (2.05%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.37%) Finacle
3 7 (0.26%) OpenText MBPM
3 7 (0.26%) Oracle BPM
3 7 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
4 5 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.18%) Teamcenter
5 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.073%) assyst
7 1 (0.037%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.037%) Oracle BRM
7 1 (0.037%) SAP BRIM
7 1 (0.037%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.037%) SAP EWM
7 1 (0.037%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.037%) SAP FI-CA
7 1 (0.037%) SAP FS
7 1 (0.037%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 873 (31.93%) Azure
2 857 (31.35%) Microsoft 365
3 435 (15.91%) Entra ID
4 300 (10.97%) AWS
5 126 (4.61%) OneDrive
6 97 (3.55%) Azure DevOps
7 88 (3.22%) GCP
8 71 (2.60%) SaaS
9 70 (2.56%) Azure Monitor
10 64 (2.34%) IaaS
11 63 (2.30%) Power Platform
12 62 (2.27%) GitHub
13 48 (1.76%) PaaS
14 40 (1.46%) Azure Sentinel
15 27 (0.99%) AWS CloudFormation
16 26 (0.95%) OpenShift
17 25 (0.91%) Google Workspace
18 24 (0.88%) Azure AKS
19 23 (0.84%) GitHub Actions
20 21 (0.77%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 444 (16.24%) DNS
2 329 (12.03%) Firewall
3 313 (11.45%) DHCP
4 222 (8.12%) VPN
5 205 (7.50%) TCP/IP
6 146 (5.34%) LAN
7 142 (5.19%) WAN
8 127 (4.65%) Wi-Fi
9 87 (3.18%) SAN
10 72 (2.63%) VLAN
11 69 (2.52%) Network Security
12 47 (1.72%) SSL
13 46 (1.68%) BGP
14 41 (1.50%) NAS
15 39 (1.43%) Internet
16 38 (1.39%) VSAN
17 35 (1.28%) OSPF
17 35 (1.28%) Wireless
18 34 (1.24%) Skype
19 28 (1.02%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 261 (9.55%) SQL Server
2 53 (1.94%) Oracle Database
3 50 (1.83%) Power BI
4 24 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 23 (0.84%) MySQL
5 23 (0.84%) Relational Database
6 22 (0.80%) PostgreSQL
7 19 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
8 14 (0.51%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 14 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 13 (0.48%) Db2
10 12 (0.44%) Elasticsearch
11 11 (0.40%) Geospatial Data
11 11 (0.40%) RDBMS
12 8 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
12 8 (0.29%) MongoDB
13 7 (0.26%) NoSQL
14 5 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
14 5 (0.18%) Big Data
14 5 (0.18%) GIS
Development Applications
1 156 (5.71%) JIRA
2 62 (2.27%) Git
3 47 (1.72%) MSI
4 42 (1.54%) Jenkins
5 37 (1.35%) GitLab
6 32 (1.17%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.62%) Eclipse
8 15 (0.55%) Bitbucket
9 10 (0.37%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 7 (0.26%) Artifactory
10 7 (0.26%) Browser DevTools
10 7 (0.26%) Chocolatey
10 7 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
11 6 (0.22%) Selenium
12 5 (0.18%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.18%) InstallShield
13 4 (0.15%) Android Studio
13 4 (0.15%) Maven
13 4 (0.15%) Robot Framework
13 4 (0.15%) Xcode
General
1 1,002 (36.65%) Social Skills
2 331 (12.11%) Finance
3 330 (12.07%) Analytical Skills
4 155 (5.67%) Banking
4 155 (5.67%) Public Sector
5 94 (3.44%) Documentation Skills
6 75 (2.74%) Legal
6 75 (2.74%) Organisational Skills
7 55 (2.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 55 (2.01%) Retail
8 52 (1.90%) Manufacturing
9 41 (1.50%) Front Office
9 41 (1.50%) Military
10 37 (1.35%) Law
10 37 (1.35%) Telecoms
11 34 (1.24%) Investment Banking
12 28 (1.02%) Spanish Language
13 25 (0.91%) Financial Institution
14 23 (0.84%) French Language
15 19 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 423 (15.47%) Support Engineer
2 372 (13.61%) IT Support
3 284 (10.39%) IT Engineer
4 278 (10.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 245 (8.96%) Analyst
6 238 (8.71%) IT Support Engineer
7 217 (7.94%) Senior
8 124 (4.54%) 2nd Line Support
9 117 (4.28%) Desktop Support
10 110 (4.02%) Architect
11 105 (3.84%) Desktop Engineer
12 103 (3.77%) Cloud Engineer
13 100 (3.66%) Lead
14 92 (3.37%) Developer
14 92 (3.37%) Support Analyst
15 82 (3.00%) Windows Engineer
16 78 (2.85%) 1st Line Support
16 78 (2.85%) IT Analyst
17 77 (2.82%) Consultant
18 71 (2.60%) 2nd Line Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (3.99%) .NET
2 99 (3.62%) REST
3 63 (2.30%) .NET Framework
4 30 (1.10%) 802.1X
4 30 (1.10%) WPF
5 29 (1.06%) Middleware
6 28 (1.02%) JSON
6 28 (1.02%) LDAP
7 27 (0.99%) WinForms
8 24 (0.88%) CSS
9 22 (0.80%) Web Services
10 21 (0.77%) HTML
11 20 (0.73%) ARM Templates
12 19 (0.69%) Elastic Stack
12 19 (0.69%) Microsoft Graph
13 18 (0.66%) Software Packaging
14 17 (0.62%) .NET Core
14 17 (0.62%) XML
15 16 (0.59%) Kafka
15 16 (0.59%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 305 (11.16%) Onboarding
2 153 (5.60%) Data Centre
3 151 (5.52%) PKI
4 94 (3.44%) Clustering
5 77 (2.82%) Management Information System
6 76 (2.78%) Hybrid Cloud
7 71 (2.60%) Enterprise Software
8 70 (2.56%) Cloud Native
9 60 (2.19%) Self-Motivation
10 57 (2.08%) Video Conferencing
11 53 (1.94%) Driving Licence
12 52 (1.90%) Replication
13 49 (1.79%) Security Posture
14 46 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
15 39 (1.43%) Virtual Team
16 38 (1.39%) Analytical Mindset
17 35 (1.28%) CMDB
18 31 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
19 30 (1.10%) Enterprise Storage
20 29 (1.06%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 714 (26.12%) Windows Server
2 659 (24.10%) Linux
3 479 (17.52%) Windows 10
4 175 (6.40%) Mac OS
5 123 (4.50%) Apple iOS
6 118 (4.32%) Android
7 117 (4.28%) Unix
8 110 (4.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 69 (2.52%) Windows Server 2019
10 47 (1.72%) Windows 7
11 40 (1.46%) Ubuntu
12 39 (1.43%) Windows Server 2016
13 37 (1.35%) Windows Server 2012
14 30 (1.10%) AIX
15 24 (0.88%) CentOS
16 21 (0.77%) Windows Server 2008
17 20 (0.73%) Solaris
17 20 (0.73%) VMS
18 12 (0.44%) Windows Server 2003
19 10 (0.37%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 676 (24.73%) Problem-Solving
2 500 (18.29%) ITIL
3 423 (15.47%) Customer Service
4 359 (13.13%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 340 (12.44%) ITSM
6 322 (11.78%) Migration
7 282 (10.31%) Continuous Improvement
8 273 (9.99%) DevOps
9 252 (9.22%) Agile
10 245 (8.96%) CI/CD
10 245 (8.96%) Service Management
11 217 (7.94%) Infrastructure as Code
12 204 (7.46%) Change Management
13 187 (6.84%) Stakeholder Management
14 181 (6.62%) High Availability
15 163 (5.96%) Disaster Recovery
16 158 (5.78%) Cybersecurity
17 156 (5.71%) Service Delivery
18 152 (5.56%) Incident Management
19 149 (5.45%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 678 (24.80%) PowerShell
2 296 (10.83%) Python
3 276 (10.10%) SQL
4 164 (6.00%) Bash
5 141 (5.16%) C#
6 69 (2.52%) JavaScript
7 67 (2.45%) Java
8 51 (1.87%) T-SQL
9 49 (1.79%) PL/SQL
10 47 (1.72%) C++
11 44 (1.61%) Bicep
12 29 (1.06%) VB
13 26 (0.95%) VBScript
14 24 (0.88%) Search Processing Language
15 17 (0.62%) Perl
15 17 (0.62%) TypeScript
16 16 (0.59%) Shell Script
17 15 (0.55%) C
18 12 (0.44%) VBA
19 11 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 865 (31.64%) Security Cleared
2 524 (19.17%) SC Cleared
3 317 (11.59%) DV Cleared
4 280 (10.24%) Degree
5 111 (4.06%) Microsoft Certification
6 80 (2.93%) Cisco Certification
7 75 (2.74%) Azure Certification
8 72 (2.63%) Computer Science Degree
9 63 (2.30%) CISSP
10 49 (1.79%) AWS Certification
11 46 (1.68%) A+ Certification
12 45 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
13 36 (1.32%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 32 (1.17%) MCSE
14 32 (1.17%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 28 (1.02%) CCNA
15 28 (1.02%) CCNP
16 24 (0.88%) ITIL Certification
17 23 (0.84%) CISM
17 23 (0.84%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (4.94%) SLA
2 108 (3.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 80 (2.93%) NIST
4 77 (2.82%) QA
5 27 (0.99%) Cyber Essentials
5 27 (0.99%) NCSC
6 26 (0.95%) GDPR
7 22 (0.80%) PCI DSS
8 16 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 13 (0.48%) Accessibility
10 12 (0.44%) Data Quality
11 11 (0.40%) HIPAA
11 11 (0.40%) WCAG
12 10 (0.37%) GRC
13 9 (0.33%) PMO
14 8 (0.29%) GxP
14 8 (0.29%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.29%) SOC 2
15 6 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 6 (0.22%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 1,112 (40.67%) Active Directory
2 391 (14.30%) VMware Infrastructure
3 163 (5.96%) Hyper-V
4 131 (4.79%) VMware ESXi
5 113 (4.13%) vSphere
6 102 (3.73%) Docker
7 94 (3.44%) Virtual Machines
8 80 (2.93%) VMware NSX
9 76 (2.78%) Virtual Desktop
10 40 (1.46%) BitLocker
11 31 (1.13%) Firmware
12 21 (0.77%) Microsoft App-V
13 18 (0.66%) vCloud
14 13 (0.48%) Virtual Servers
15 12 (0.44%) KVM
16 8 (0.29%) VMware Workstation
17 7 (0.26%) NFS
18 6 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
18 6 (0.22%) XenApp
18 6 (0.22%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 405 (14.81%) Microsoft Intune
2 271 (9.91%) SCCM
3 242 (8.85%) Terraform
4 211 (7.72%) Ansible
5 150 (5.49%) Kubernetes
6 113 (4.13%) vCenter Server
7 74 (2.71%) SCOM
8 47 (1.72%) Jamf Pro
9 45 (1.65%) WSUS
10 39 (1.43%) FortiGate
11 36 (1.32%) Progress Chef
12 32 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
13 29 (1.06%) Puppet
14 24 (0.88%) Packer
15 23 (0.84%) Nagios
16 22 (0.80%) VxRail
16 22 (0.80%) WMI
17 21 (0.77%) Grafana
17 21 (0.77%) Prometheus
18 20 (0.73%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,253 (45.83%) Microsoft
2 531 (19.42%) VMware
3 319 (11.67%) ServiceNow
4 183 (6.69%) Cisco
5 171 (6.25%) Citrix
6 158 (5.78%) Oracle
7 117 (4.28%) Splunk
8 87 (3.18%) Apple
9 85 (3.11%) CyberArk
10 81 (2.96%) SolarWinds
11 68 (2.49%) Google
12 67 (2.45%) Remedy
13 65 (2.38%) Red Hat
14 63 (2.30%) HP
15 57 (2.08%) BeyondTrust
16 53 (1.94%) Juniper
17 52 (1.90%) Dell
18 45 (1.65%) BMC
19 43 (1.57%) F5
20 42 (1.54%) IBM
1,865 Windows jobs in England