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 9 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 21 19
Rank change year-on-year -8 -2 -6
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,836 2,356 2,714
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.14% 8.39% 8.38%
As % of the Operating Systems category 62.87% 59.86% 58.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,803 1,593 1,725
10th Percentile £181 £163 £185
25th Percentile £225 £206 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £422 £400 £425
Median % change year-on-year +5.38% -5.88% -
75th Percentile £568 £538 £575
90th Percentile £668 £638 £643
UK median daily rate £425 £400 £425
% change year-on-year +6.25% -5.88% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 299 229 131
10th Percentile £16.25 £14.20 £15.22
25th Percentile £19.11 £17.38 £18.08
Median hourly rate £25.77 £21.30 £24.50
Median % change year-on-year +20.99% -13.06% -2.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £34.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.74 £65.00 £67.50
UK median hourly rate £25.75 £22.00 £24.18
% change year-on-year +17.05% -9.02% +7.47%

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 4,511 3,936 4,611
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.76% 14.01% 14.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,877 2,580 2,855
10th Percentile £193 £185 £201
25th Percentile £313 £275 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.22% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £584
90th Percentile £675 £669 £688
UK median daily rate £470 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +4.44% -5.26% -4.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 350 280 215
10th Percentile £16.23 £15.47 £16.25
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.86 £23.11
Median hourly rate £32.29 £24.25 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.15% -59.58% +28.51%
75th Percentile £67.25 £56.58 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £67.00 -
UK median hourly rate £25.77 £25.15 £55.00
% change year-on-year +2.47% -54.27% +25.71%

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 9 October 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 9 October 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 9 October 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 -1 959 £420 -1.29% 1,093
South East -7 557 £482 +31.99% 395
North of England -8 491 £344 +14.21% 329
North West +3 292 £350 +7.69% 178
Midlands -14 289 £401 +0.25% 264
South West -18 266 £550 +57.14% 219
East of England 0 246 £222 -36.71% 202
West Midlands -22 201 £425 +6.25% 150
Yorkshire -13 159 £275 +25.00% 115
East Midlands -3 87 £275 +22.22% 114
North East -26 42 £273 +22.06% 42
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
1 239 (8.43%) SharePoint
2 219 (7.72%) Microsoft Exchange
3 60 (2.12%) IIS
4 56 (1.97%) Confluence
5 26 (0.92%) nginx
6 20 (0.71%) Apache
7 19 (0.67%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.46%) Tomcat
9 7 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.21%) Documentum
11 5 (0.18%) Apache Solr
11 5 (0.18%) Appian
11 5 (0.18%) Camunda
11 5 (0.18%) WebLogic
12 4 (0.14%) CICS
12 4 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
12 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
13 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
13 3 (0.11%) IBM Transformation Extender
13 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
Applications
1 191 (6.73%) Microsoft Office
2 60 (2.12%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
4 12 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.18%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.11%) Houdini
6 3 (0.11%) NUKE
7 2 (0.071%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.035%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.035%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.035%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.035%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 1 (0.035%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 47 (1.66%) Remedy ITSM
2 9 (0.32%) Finacle
3 7 (0.25%) OpenText MBPM
3 7 (0.25%) Oracle BPM
4 5 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
5 4 (0.14%) Teamcenter
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.11%) ResourceLink
7 2 (0.071%) assyst
7 2 (0.071%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.035%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.035%) Monis
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle BRM
8 1 (0.035%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.035%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.035%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.035%) SAP FS
8 1 (0.035%) SAP MDG
8 1 (0.035%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 932 (32.86%) Microsoft 365
2 881 (31.06%) Azure
3 497 (17.52%) Entra ID
4 308 (10.86%) AWS
5 138 (4.87%) OneDrive
6 101 (3.56%) GCP
7 100 (3.53%) Azure DevOps
8 77 (2.72%) Azure Monitor
9 62 (2.19%) GitHub
9 62 (2.19%) SaaS
10 57 (2.01%) Power Platform
11 51 (1.80%) IaaS
12 43 (1.52%) Azure Sentinel
13 37 (1.30%) PaaS
14 29 (1.02%) AWS CloudFormation
15 27 (0.95%) Google Workspace
16 26 (0.92%) OpenShift
17 25 (0.88%) GitHub Actions
18 22 (0.78%) Amazon EC2
19 21 (0.74%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 452 (15.94%) DNS
2 319 (11.25%) DHCP
3 318 (11.21%) Firewall
4 249 (8.78%) VPN
5 236 (8.32%) TCP/IP
6 115 (4.06%) Wi-Fi
7 107 (3.77%) LAN
8 106 (3.74%) WAN
9 99 (3.49%) Network Security
10 81 (2.86%) SAN
11 79 (2.79%) VLAN
12 51 (1.80%) Wireless
13 47 (1.66%) SSL
14 37 (1.30%) BGP
14 37 (1.30%) Internet
15 34 (1.20%) NAS
15 34 (1.20%) Skype
16 31 (1.09%) VoIP
17 29 (1.02%) SSH
18 26 (0.92%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 247 (8.71%) SQL Server
2 54 (1.90%) Oracle Database
3 49 (1.73%) Power BI
4 31 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
5 29 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
5 29 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 23 (0.81%) MySQL
7 22 (0.78%) Relational Database
8 15 (0.53%) Db2
9 14 (0.49%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 14 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 11 (0.39%) Geospatial Data
11 9 (0.32%) Data Warehouse
11 9 (0.32%) RDBMS
12 8 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
13 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (0.25%) Elasticsearch
13 7 (0.25%) MongoDB
13 7 (0.25%) NoSQL
14 5 (0.18%) ObjectStore
Development Applications
1 144 (5.08%) JIRA
2 75 (2.64%) Git
3 59 (2.08%) Jenkins
4 51 (1.80%) GitLab
5 48 (1.69%) MSI
6 33 (1.16%) Visual Studio
7 16 (0.56%) Artifactory
8 15 (0.53%) Bitbucket
8 15 (0.53%) Eclipse
9 11 (0.39%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 9 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
11 7 (0.25%) Rational DOORS
12 6 (0.21%) Robot Framework
12 6 (0.21%) Selenium
12 6 (0.21%) SonarQube
12 6 (0.21%) Zephyr
13 5 (0.18%) Octopus Deploy
13 5 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
13 5 (0.18%) Toad
14 4 (0.14%) JMeter
General
1 1,053 (37.13%) Social Skills
2 354 (12.48%) Finance
3 334 (11.78%) Analytical Skills
4 145 (5.11%) Banking
5 127 (4.48%) Public Sector
6 101 (3.56%) Documentation Skills
7 74 (2.61%) Legal
8 71 (2.50%) Organisational Skills
9 68 (2.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 60 (2.12%) Manufacturing
11 49 (1.73%) Telecoms
12 46 (1.62%) Retail
13 40 (1.41%) Front Office
13 40 (1.41%) Law
14 36 (1.27%) Military
15 32 (1.13%) Investment Banking
16 25 (0.88%) Financial Institution
17 24 (0.85%) Spanish Language
18 23 (0.81%) Aerospace
19 22 (0.78%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 477 (16.82%) Support Engineer
2 390 (13.75%) IT Support
3 304 (10.72%) IT Engineer
4 286 (10.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 256 (9.03%) IT Support Engineer
6 238 (8.39%) Analyst
7 232 (8.18%) Senior
8 131 (4.62%) Desktop Support
9 124 (4.37%) 2nd Line Support
9 124 (4.37%) Desktop Engineer
10 111 (3.91%) Cloud Engineer
11 108 (3.81%) Lead
12 107 (3.77%) Architect
13 98 (3.46%) Windows Engineer
14 86 (3.03%) Support Analyst
15 83 (2.93%) Developer
16 81 (2.86%) Consultant
17 78 (2.75%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 74 (2.61%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
19 72 (2.54%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 262 (9.24%) Terraform
2 121 (4.27%) .NET
3 108 (3.81%) REST
4 58 (2.05%) .NET Framework
5 45 (1.59%) LDAP
6 40 (1.41%) JSON
7 39 (1.38%) Middleware
7 39 (1.38%) WPF
8 28 (0.99%) ARM Templates
9 23 (0.81%) Software Packaging
9 23 (0.81%) WinForms
10 22 (0.78%) Web Services
11 21 (0.74%) .NET Core
12 19 (0.67%) Kafka
12 19 (0.67%) XML
13 18 (0.63%) HTML
13 18 (0.63%) YAML
14 17 (0.60%) CSS
14 17 (0.60%) Elastic Stack
14 17 (0.60%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 363 (12.80%) Onboarding
2 168 (5.92%) Data Centre
3 142 (5.01%) PKI
4 102 (3.60%) Management Information System
5 86 (3.03%) Hybrid Cloud
6 79 (2.79%) Enterprise Software
7 75 (2.64%) Cloud Native
7 75 (2.64%) Video Conferencing
8 69 (2.43%) Clustering
8 69 (2.43%) Driving Licence
9 60 (2.12%) Security Posture
10 56 (1.97%) Replication
11 50 (1.76%) Self-Motivation
12 39 (1.38%) CMDB
13 38 (1.34%) Virtual Team
14 36 (1.27%) Legacy Systems
15 35 (1.23%) Operational Technology
16 31 (1.09%) Enterprise Storage
16 31 (1.09%) Public Cloud
17 30 (1.06%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 814 (28.70%) Windows Server
2 688 (24.26%) Linux
3 517 (18.23%) Windows 10
4 175 (6.17%) Mac OS
5 129 (4.55%) Apple iOS
6 128 (4.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 123 (4.34%) Android
8 100 (3.53%) Unix
9 71 (2.50%) Windows Server 2019
10 47 (1.66%) Ubuntu
11 41 (1.45%) Windows 7
12 40 (1.41%) Windows Server 2012
13 38 (1.34%) CentOS
14 32 (1.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 19 (0.67%) Solaris
16 16 (0.56%) AIX
17 15 (0.53%) Rocky
17 15 (0.53%) Windows Server 2008
18 14 (0.49%) VMS
19 11 (0.39%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 674 (23.77%) Problem-Solving
2 547 (19.29%) ITIL
3 480 (16.93%) Customer Service
4 388 (13.68%) ITSM
5 371 (13.08%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 352 (12.41%) Migration
7 345 (12.17%) Continuous Improvement
8 305 (10.75%) Service Management
9 293 (10.33%) DevOps
10 278 (9.80%) CI/CD
11 276 (9.73%) Infrastructure as Code
12 250 (8.82%) Stakeholder Management
13 238 (8.39%) Agile
14 217 (7.65%) Root Cause Analysis
15 216 (7.62%) Change Management
16 212 (7.48%) Disaster Recovery
17 202 (7.12%) Cybersecurity
18 176 (6.21%) Technical Leadership
19 175 (6.17%) Validation
20 162 (5.71%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 724 (25.53%) PowerShell
2 316 (11.14%) Python
3 269 (9.49%) SQL
4 191 (6.73%) Bash
5 142 (5.01%) C#
6 68 (2.40%) Java
7 66 (2.33%) T-SQL
8 62 (2.19%) JavaScript
9 56 (1.97%) Bicep
10 44 (1.55%) PL/SQL
11 37 (1.30%) C++
12 29 (1.02%) VB
13 25 (0.88%) VBScript
14 18 (0.63%) Groovy
15 17 (0.60%) Shell Script
16 16 (0.56%) Perl
17 15 (0.53%) TypeScript
18 12 (0.42%) Go
18 12 (0.42%) VBA
19 9 (0.32%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 902 (31.81%) Security Cleared
2 519 (18.30%) SC Cleared
3 381 (13.43%) DV Cleared
4 275 (9.70%) Degree
5 107 (3.77%) Microsoft Certification
6 85 (3.00%) Azure Certification
7 66 (2.33%) Cisco Certification
8 64 (2.26%) Computer Science Degree
9 62 (2.19%) CISSP
10 56 (1.97%) BPSS Clearance
11 53 (1.87%) AWS Certification
12 47 (1.66%) A+ Certification
13 42 (1.48%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 35 (1.23%) DBS Check
15 34 (1.20%) CCNP
15 34 (1.20%) CISM
16 33 (1.16%) ITIL Certification
17 29 (1.02%) CCNA
18 26 (0.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
19 23 (0.81%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 153 (5.39%) SLA
2 100 (3.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 78 (2.75%) NIST
4 72 (2.54%) QA
5 36 (1.27%) Cyber Essentials
6 28 (0.99%) NCSC
7 26 (0.92%) PCI DSS
8 19 (0.67%) GDPR
9 17 (0.60%) GRC
10 16 (0.56%) Accessibility
10 16 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 12 (0.42%) WCAG
12 11 (0.39%) Data Quality
12 11 (0.39%) ISO 31000
13 10 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 9 (0.32%) GxP
15 8 (0.28%) HIPAA
15 8 (0.28%) PMO
16 6 (0.21%) ISO 9001
16 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,211 (42.70%) Active Directory
2 438 (15.44%) VMware Infrastructure
3 194 (6.84%) Hyper-V
4 140 (4.94%) VMware ESXi
5 129 (4.55%) vSphere
6 121 (4.27%) Docker
7 96 (3.39%) Virtual Machines
8 94 (3.31%) Virtual Desktop
9 68 (2.40%) VMware NSX
10 36 (1.27%) BitLocker
11 29 (1.02%) Firmware
12 24 (0.85%) vCloud
13 20 (0.71%) Virtual Servers
14 16 (0.56%) Microsoft App-V
15 15 (0.53%) Citrix Hypervisor
16 12 (0.42%) NFS
16 12 (0.42%) XenApp
17 10 (0.35%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 10 (0.35%) XenDesktop
18 9 (0.32%) KVM
Systems Management
1 435 (15.34%) Microsoft Intune
2 334 (11.78%) SCCM
3 219 (7.72%) Ansible
4 153 (5.39%) Kubernetes
5 112 (3.95%) vCenter Server
6 96 (3.39%) SCOM
7 43 (1.52%) Jamf Pro
8 39 (1.38%) Grafana
9 37 (1.30%) WSUS
10 34 (1.20%) Prometheus
11 30 (1.06%) Progress Chef
12 28 (0.99%) WMI
13 27 (0.95%) Puppet
14 25 (0.88%) NetBackup
14 25 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
15 24 (0.85%) VxRail
16 21 (0.74%) Nagios
17 19 (0.67%) FortiGate
17 19 (0.67%) Packer
18 17 (0.60%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 1,415 (49.89%) Microsoft
2 571 (20.13%) VMware
3 336 (11.85%) ServiceNow
4 202 (7.12%) Cisco
5 162 (5.71%) Oracle
6 155 (5.47%) Citrix
7 96 (3.39%) Apple
8 91 (3.21%) Splunk
9 90 (3.17%) CyberArk
10 85 (3.00%) Google
11 70 (2.47%) Red Hat
12 67 (2.36%) SolarWinds
13 58 (2.05%) BeyondTrust
14 54 (1.90%) Dell
15 51 (1.80%) Remedy
16 46 (1.62%) Palo Alto
17 42 (1.48%) HP
18 39 (1.38%) CrowdStrike
18 39 (1.38%) NetApp
19 38 (1.34%) Fortinet