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 19 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 21 18
Rank change year-on-year -7 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,871 2,329 2,793
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.17% 8.37% 8.48%
As % of the Operating Systems category 62.43% 60.78% 59.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,830 1,588 1,827
10th Percentile £172 £163 £181
25th Percentile £225 £213 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £418 £400 £425
Median % change year-on-year +4.44% -5.88% -
75th Percentile £556 £550 £575
90th Percentile £663 £650 £650
UK median daily rate £425 £400 £425
% change year-on-year +6.25% -5.88% -2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 291 206 147
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £14.26
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.11 £16.75
Median hourly rate £25.77 £22.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +17.14% -9.02% -3.28%
75th Percentile £66.74 £42.11 £65.00
90th Percentile £76.50 £65.00 -
UK median hourly rate £25.75 £23.00 £24.18
% change year-on-year +11.96% -4.88% +2.89%

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 4,599 3,832 4,724
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.88% 13.78% 14.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,930 2,527 3,010
10th Percentile £190 £189 £200
25th Percentile £313 £289 £330
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.11% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £675 £675 £680
UK median daily rate £470 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +4.44% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 352 253 231
10th Percentile £16.03 £15.50 £15.49
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.87 £20.40
Median hourly rate £38.61 £25.15 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.52% -56.26% +20.22%
75th Percentile £68.00 £62.25 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.45 £67.00 -
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +9.34% -49.70% +5.26%

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 19 September 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 19 September 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 19 September 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 -7 966 £420 -1.18% 958
South East -7 561 £492 +21.36% 459
North of England -5 513 £325 +6.56% 319
North West +4 309 £344 +4.24% 179
Midlands -16 294 £400 +9.59% 277
South West -18 270 £519 +44.10% 203
East of England +1 245 £240 -31.43% 209
West Midlands -23 196 £402 +0.50% 180
Yorkshire -17 167 £245 +19.08% 100
East Midlands +3 96 £275 +22.22% 97
North East -32 42 £283 +2.73% 46
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
1 240 (8.36%) SharePoint
2 230 (8.01%) Microsoft Exchange
3 58 (2.02%) IIS
4 53 (1.85%) Confluence
5 19 (0.66%) nginx
5 19 (0.66%) Skype for Business
6 17 (0.59%) Apache
7 10 (0.35%) Tomcat
8 7 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.21%) Documentum
10 5 (0.17%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.17%) Appian
10 5 (0.17%) Camunda
10 5 (0.17%) WebLogic
11 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.10%) CloudStack
12 3 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2013
12 3 (0.10%) OpenStack
13 2 (0.070%) CMS
13 2 (0.070%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 192 (6.69%) Microsoft Office
2 63 (2.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.17%) Acrobat
6 4 (0.14%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.10%) Houdini
7 3 (0.10%) NUKE
8 2 (0.070%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.070%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.035%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.035%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.035%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 55 (1.92%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.35%) Finacle
3 7 (0.24%) OpenText MBPM
3 7 (0.24%) Oracle BPM
4 5 (0.17%) Dynamics CRM
5 4 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
5 4 (0.14%) Teamcenter
6 3 (0.10%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.10%) ResourceLink
7 2 (0.070%) assyst
8 1 (0.035%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.035%) Monis
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle BRM
8 1 (0.035%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.035%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.035%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.035%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.035%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.035%) SAP FS
8 1 (0.035%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 932 (32.46%) Microsoft 365
2 900 (31.35%) Azure
3 478 (16.65%) Entra ID
4 314 (10.94%) AWS
5 138 (4.81%) OneDrive
6 106 (3.69%) Azure DevOps
7 100 (3.48%) GCP
8 75 (2.61%) SaaS
9 70 (2.44%) Azure Monitor
10 64 (2.23%) GitHub
11 61 (2.12%) Power Platform
12 58 (2.02%) IaaS
13 45 (1.57%) PaaS
14 38 (1.32%) Azure Sentinel
15 27 (0.94%) AWS CloudFormation
15 27 (0.94%) Google Workspace
15 27 (0.94%) OpenShift
16 24 (0.84%) GitHub Actions
17 22 (0.77%) Amazon EC2
17 22 (0.77%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 453 (15.78%) DNS
2 326 (11.35%) DHCP
3 318 (11.08%) Firewall
4 240 (8.36%) VPN
5 228 (7.94%) TCP/IP
6 118 (4.11%) WAN
7 117 (4.08%) Wi-Fi
8 113 (3.94%) LAN
9 93 (3.24%) Network Security
10 87 (3.03%) SAN
11 86 (3.00%) VLAN
12 48 (1.67%) SSL
12 48 (1.67%) Wireless
13 39 (1.36%) Internet
13 39 (1.36%) NAS
14 35 (1.22%) Skype
15 33 (1.15%) BGP
16 32 (1.11%) VSAN
17 29 (1.01%) VoIP
18 26 (0.91%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 254 (8.85%) SQL Server
2 55 (1.92%) Oracle Database
3 51 (1.78%) Power BI
4 29 (1.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 27 (0.94%) PostgreSQL
6 23 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
6 23 (0.80%) Relational Database
7 21 (0.73%) MySQL
8 15 (0.52%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 15 (0.52%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 11 (0.38%) Geospatial Data
10 10 (0.35%) Db2
10 10 (0.35%) RDBMS
11 9 (0.31%) Elasticsearch
12 8 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
12 8 (0.28%) NoSQL
12 8 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
13 7 (0.24%) MongoDB
14 5 (0.17%) ObjectStore
15 4 (0.14%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 148 (5.15%) JIRA
2 70 (2.44%) Git
3 48 (1.67%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.64%) MSI
5 45 (1.57%) GitLab
6 32 (1.11%) Visual Studio
7 16 (0.56%) Bitbucket
8 15 (0.52%) Eclipse
9 13 (0.45%) Artifactory
10 11 (0.38%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 9 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
12 6 (0.21%) Browser DevTools
12 6 (0.21%) Rational DOORS
12 6 (0.21%) Selenium
13 5 (0.17%) Chocolatey
13 5 (0.17%) Robot Framework
13 5 (0.17%) SonarQube
13 5 (0.17%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
14 4 (0.14%) Octopus Deploy
14 4 (0.14%) Zephyr
General
1 1,061 (36.96%) Social Skills
2 349 (12.16%) Analytical Skills
3 348 (12.12%) Finance
4 151 (5.26%) Banking
5 128 (4.46%) Public Sector
6 108 (3.76%) Documentation Skills
7 75 (2.61%) Legal
8 70 (2.44%) Organisational Skills
9 66 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 55 (1.92%) Manufacturing
11 49 (1.71%) Telecoms
12 48 (1.67%) Retail
13 43 (1.50%) Front Office
14 42 (1.46%) Law
15 39 (1.36%) Military
16 37 (1.29%) Investment Banking
17 28 (0.98%) Spanish Language
18 25 (0.87%) French Language
19 24 (0.84%) Pharmaceutical
20 22 (0.77%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 471 (16.41%) Support Engineer
2 398 (13.86%) IT Support
3 309 (10.76%) IT Engineer
4 301 (10.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 257 (8.95%) IT Support Engineer
6 253 (8.81%) Analyst
7 231 (8.05%) Senior
8 125 (4.35%) Desktop Support
9 122 (4.25%) 2nd Line Support
10 117 (4.08%) Desktop Engineer
11 110 (3.83%) Cloud Engineer
12 108 (3.76%) Lead
13 106 (3.69%) Architect
14 99 (3.45%) Windows Engineer
15 93 (3.24%) Support Analyst
16 86 (3.00%) Developer
17 78 (2.72%) 1st Line Support
18 76 (2.65%) Consultant
19 74 (2.58%) IT Analyst
20 73 (2.54%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 247 (8.60%) Terraform
2 117 (4.08%) .NET
3 103 (3.59%) REST
4 57 (1.99%) .NET Framework
5 39 (1.36%) LDAP
6 37 (1.29%) WPF
7 36 (1.25%) JSON
7 36 (1.25%) Middleware
8 27 (0.94%) WinForms
9 24 (0.84%) ARM Templates
10 23 (0.80%) Software Packaging
11 21 (0.73%) .NET Core
12 20 (0.70%) HTML
12 20 (0.70%) Microsoft Graph
13 19 (0.66%) CSS
13 19 (0.66%) Web Services
14 18 (0.63%) Elastic Stack
15 17 (0.59%) RESTful
15 17 (0.59%) XML
16 16 (0.56%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 355 (12.37%) Onboarding
2 160 (5.57%) Data Centre
3 143 (4.98%) PKI
4 100 (3.48%) Management Information System
5 86 (3.00%) Hybrid Cloud
6 77 (2.68%) Clustering
7 75 (2.61%) Enterprise Software
8 70 (2.44%) Cloud Native
8 70 (2.44%) Video Conferencing
9 65 (2.26%) Driving Licence
10 59 (2.06%) Replication
11 56 (1.95%) Security Posture
11 56 (1.95%) Self-Motivation
12 41 (1.43%) Virtual Team
13 36 (1.25%) Legacy Systems
14 34 (1.18%) CMDB
14 34 (1.18%) Enterprise Storage
15 33 (1.15%) Linux Command Line
16 32 (1.11%) Operational Technology
16 32 (1.11%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 807 (28.11%) Windows Server
2 692 (24.10%) Linux
3 518 (18.04%) Windows 10
4 187 (6.51%) Mac OS
5 132 (4.60%) Apple iOS
6 130 (4.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 124 (4.32%) Android
8 106 (3.69%) Unix
9 67 (2.33%) Windows Server 2019
10 51 (1.78%) Ubuntu
11 46 (1.60%) Windows 7
12 38 (1.32%) CentOS
12 38 (1.32%) Windows Server 2012
13 34 (1.18%) Windows Server 2016
14 19 (0.66%) AIX
14 19 (0.66%) VMS
15 18 (0.63%) Solaris
16 17 (0.59%) Windows Server 2008
17 15 (0.52%) Rocky
18 12 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 697 (24.28%) Problem-Solving
2 549 (19.12%) ITIL
3 480 (16.72%) Customer Service
4 388 (13.51%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 382 (13.31%) ITSM
6 349 (12.16%) Migration
7 332 (11.56%) Continuous Improvement
8 286 (9.96%) Service Management
9 281 (9.79%) DevOps
10 258 (8.99%) CI/CD
11 250 (8.71%) Infrastructure as Code
12 240 (8.36%) Agile
13 225 (7.84%) Stakeholder Management
14 208 (7.24%) Root Cause Analysis
15 207 (7.21%) Change Management
16 192 (6.69%) Disaster Recovery
17 180 (6.27%) Cybersecurity
18 164 (5.71%) Technical Leadership
19 162 (5.64%) Incident Management
19 162 (5.64%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 720 (25.08%) PowerShell
2 315 (10.97%) Python
3 276 (9.61%) SQL
4 180 (6.27%) Bash
5 142 (4.95%) C#
6 63 (2.19%) Java
6 63 (2.19%) T-SQL
7 61 (2.12%) JavaScript
8 50 (1.74%) Bicep
9 49 (1.71%) PL/SQL
10 35 (1.22%) C++
11 30 (1.04%) VB
12 25 (0.87%) VBScript
13 17 (0.59%) Perl
13 17 (0.59%) TypeScript
14 15 (0.52%) Shell Script
15 14 (0.49%) Search Processing Language
16 13 (0.45%) VBA
17 11 (0.38%) Go
17 11 (0.38%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 913 (31.80%) Security Cleared
2 531 (18.50%) SC Cleared
3 377 (13.13%) DV Cleared
4 288 (10.03%) Degree
5 114 (3.97%) Microsoft Certification
6 93 (3.24%) Azure Certification
7 71 (2.47%) Computer Science Degree
8 68 (2.37%) Cisco Certification
9 64 (2.23%) CISSP
10 54 (1.88%) AWS Certification
11 51 (1.78%) BPSS Clearance
12 49 (1.71%) A+ Certification
13 46 (1.60%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 33 (1.15%) CISM
14 33 (1.15%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 32 (1.11%) DBS Check
16 30 (1.04%) CCNA
16 30 (1.04%) CCNP
16 30 (1.04%) ITIL Certification
17 26 (0.91%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 154 (5.36%) SLA
2 113 (3.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 86 (3.00%) NIST
4 76 (2.65%) QA
5 39 (1.36%) Cyber Essentials
6 27 (0.94%) NCSC
7 22 (0.77%) GDPR
7 22 (0.77%) PCI DSS
8 15 (0.52%) Accessibility
8 15 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 15 (0.52%) GRC
8 15 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 12 (0.42%) Data Quality
9 12 (0.42%) WCAG
10 10 (0.35%) HIPAA
10 10 (0.35%) ISO 31000
11 9 (0.31%) GxP
12 8 (0.28%) PMO
13 6 (0.21%) NIST 800
13 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,206 (42.01%) Active Directory
2 445 (15.50%) VMware Infrastructure
3 196 (6.83%) Hyper-V
4 151 (5.26%) VMware ESXi
5 134 (4.67%) vSphere
6 112 (3.90%) Docker
7 103 (3.59%) Virtual Machines
8 84 (2.93%) Virtual Desktop
9 78 (2.72%) VMware NSX
10 36 (1.25%) BitLocker
11 28 (0.98%) Firmware
12 24 (0.84%) vCloud
13 16 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
14 15 (0.52%) Microsoft App-V
15 14 (0.49%) NFS
16 12 (0.42%) Citrix Hypervisor
16 12 (0.42%) XenApp
17 10 (0.35%) XenDesktop
18 9 (0.31%) KVM
19 6 (0.21%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 423 (14.73%) Microsoft Intune
2 321 (11.18%) SCCM
3 217 (7.56%) Ansible
4 150 (5.22%) Kubernetes
5 124 (4.32%) vCenter Server
6 99 (3.45%) SCOM
7 46 (1.60%) Jamf Pro
8 43 (1.50%) WSUS
9 33 (1.15%) Grafana
10 31 (1.08%) Prometheus
11 28 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
12 27 (0.94%) Progress Chef
13 26 (0.91%) VxRail
13 26 (0.91%) WMI
14 25 (0.87%) Puppet
15 23 (0.80%) Nagios
15 23 (0.80%) NetBackup
16 22 (0.77%) Packer
17 20 (0.70%) Microsoft Clustering
18 19 (0.66%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 1,390 (48.42%) Microsoft
2 586 (20.41%) VMware
3 337 (11.74%) ServiceNow
4 202 (7.04%) Cisco
5 162 (5.64%) Oracle
6 159 (5.54%) Citrix
7 96 (3.34%) Splunk
8 94 (3.27%) Apple
9 90 (3.13%) CyberArk
10 79 (2.75%) Google
11 72 (2.51%) Red Hat
12 70 (2.44%) SolarWinds
13 64 (2.23%) BeyondTrust
14 59 (2.06%) Remedy
15 56 (1.95%) Dell
16 46 (1.60%) HP
17 41 (1.43%) NetApp
18 40 (1.39%) BMC
19 39 (1.36%) Palo Alto
20 36 (1.25%) Fortinet