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

6 months to
19 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 23 15
Rank change year-on-year +1 -8 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,483 2,181 3,477
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.84% 8.18% 9.48%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.43% 58.38% 63.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,738 1,433 2,362
10th Percentile £161 £183 £158
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £560 £575
90th Percentile £638 £651 £675
UK median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 75 216
10th Percentile £12.93 £15.09 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.72 £17.22 £16.25
Median hourly rate £21.80 £23.80 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.40% +13.33% -2.33%
75th Percentile £43.75 £57.62 £46.86
90th Percentile £67.17 £74.26 £62.71
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.02% +15.14% +5.00%

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 4,109 3,736 5,480
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.97% 14.02% 14.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,756 2,350 3,771
10th Percentile £175 £200 £178
25th Percentile £263 £313 £264
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £569 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 301 128 313
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.42 £14.03
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.82 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.00 £54.00 £29.50
Median % change year-on-year -53.70% +83.05% +18.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £67.63 £63.75
90th Percentile £68.00 £73.83 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £36.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year -30.14% +20.00% +20.00%

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 January 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 January 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 January 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 -15 734 £450 +12.50% 214
South East 0 501 £401 +0.31% 383
North of England -3 430 £250 -28.57% 228
South West +4 312 £425 +0.24% 152
Midlands -4 304 £338 +3.85% 145
North West -4 246 £268 -23.36% 108
West Midlands -12 200 £449 +38.00% 67
East of England +6 198 £275 -12.00% 157
Yorkshire -15 157 £290 -18.37% 97
East Midlands +1 104 £210 -36.12% 77
North East -8 30 £184 -43.46% 29
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
1 207 (8.34%) Microsoft Exchange
2 166 (6.69%) SharePoint
3 68 (2.74%) Confluence
4 47 (1.89%) Apache
5 44 (1.77%) IIS
6 28 (1.13%) WebLogic
7 20 (0.81%) Skype for Business
8 16 (0.64%) WebSphere
9 12 (0.48%) JBoss
9 12 (0.48%) nginx
10 11 (0.44%) WebSphere Application Server
11 10 (0.40%) iPlanet
11 10 (0.40%) SharePoint Server
11 10 (0.40%) TPMS
12 8 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2010
12 8 (0.32%) Tuxedo
13 6 (0.24%) Exchange Server 2013
13 6 (0.24%) SAS
14 5 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2003
14 5 (0.20%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 230 (9.26%) Microsoft Office
2 71 (2.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (0.52%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.36%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.12%) PTC Creo
8 2 (0.081%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.081%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.081%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.081%) Windchill
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.040%) InDesign
9 1 (0.040%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.040%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 23 (0.93%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.28%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (0.24%) assyst
4 5 (0.20%) Teamcenter
5 4 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.081%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.081%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.081%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.081%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.081%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.081%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.040%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.040%) Eikon
8 1 (0.040%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.040%) ION MarketView
8 1 (0.040%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.040%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.040%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.040%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 688 (27.71%) Microsoft 365
2 600 (24.16%) Azure
3 229 (9.22%) Entra ID
4 218 (8.78%) AWS
5 79 (3.18%) OneDrive
6 68 (2.74%) SaaS
7 64 (2.58%) GCP
8 48 (1.93%) Google Workspace
9 46 (1.85%) GitHub
10 44 (1.77%) Azure DevOps
11 41 (1.65%) IaaS
12 31 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
13 30 (1.21%) Power Platform
14 28 (1.13%) PaaS
15 22 (0.89%) Amazon S3
16 21 (0.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 21 (0.85%) Azure Sentinel
16 21 (0.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 19 (0.77%) Amazon EC2
17 19 (0.77%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 319 (12.85%) DNS
2 252 (10.15%) Firewall
3 204 (8.22%) DHCP
4 172 (6.93%) TCP/IP
5 162 (6.52%) VPN
6 99 (3.99%) WAN
7 92 (3.71%) Wi-Fi
8 88 (3.54%) LAN
9 80 (3.22%) Network Security
10 66 (2.66%) Wireless
11 65 (2.62%) VLAN
12 51 (2.05%) SSH
13 33 (1.33%) HTTP
14 32 (1.29%) SAN
15 31 (1.25%) Skype
16 30 (1.21%) FTP
16 30 (1.21%) Kerberos
17 27 (1.09%) SMTP
18 25 (1.01%) SD-WAN
19 24 (0.97%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 109 (4.39%) SQL Server
2 57 (2.30%) Oracle Database
3 55 (2.22%) Relational Database
4 45 (1.81%) MySQL
5 27 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
6 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
8 12 (0.48%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
9 11 (0.44%) NoSQL
9 11 (0.44%) Power BI
10 8 (0.32%) MongoDB
11 7 (0.28%) GIS
12 6 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
12 6 (0.24%) SAP HANA
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 3 (0.12%) BusinessObjects
14 3 (0.12%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 130 (5.24%) JIRA
2 73 (2.94%) Jenkins
3 71 (2.86%) Git
4 48 (1.93%) GitLab
5 32 (1.29%) Eclipse
6 31 (1.25%) MSI
7 26 (1.05%) Visual Studio
8 20 (0.81%) Android Studio
9 19 (0.77%) Browser DevTools
10 18 (0.72%) Burp Suite
10 18 (0.72%) Metasploit
10 18 (0.72%) Xcode
11 17 (0.68%) Artifactory
12 16 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
13 14 (0.56%) Vagrant
14 13 (0.52%) Bitbucket
15 11 (0.44%) Bitbucket Server
15 11 (0.44%) CA Release Automation
15 11 (0.44%) InstallShield
16 8 (0.32%) AdminStudio
General
1 933 (37.58%) Social Skills
2 272 (10.95%) Finance
3 208 (8.38%) Public Sector
4 193 (7.77%) Analytical Skills
5 114 (4.59%) Banking
6 103 (4.15%) Documentation Skills
7 78 (3.14%) Legal
8 64 (2.58%) Organisational Skills
9 52 (2.09%) Military
10 46 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
11 44 (1.77%) Manufacturing
12 39 (1.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 33 (1.33%) Retail
14 32 (1.29%) Telecoms
15 24 (0.97%) Front Office
16 23 (0.93%) Aerospace
17 22 (0.89%) Law
18 17 (0.68%) Financial Institution
19 16 (0.64%) Marketing
20 15 (0.60%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 374 (15.06%) Support Engineer
2 312 (12.57%) IT Support
3 311 (12.53%) Analyst
4 173 (6.97%) IT Engineer
5 151 (6.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 141 (5.68%) Support Analyst
7 140 (5.64%) Architect
8 133 (5.36%) IT Support Engineer
9 131 (5.28%) Desktop Support
9 131 (5.28%) Senior
10 125 (5.03%) Windows Engineer
11 117 (4.71%) Desktop Engineer
12 116 (4.67%) Technical Support
13 111 (4.47%) 2nd Line Support
14 107 (4.31%) Deployment Engineer
15 93 (3.75%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 91 (3.66%) Developer
17 83 (3.34%) Platform Engineer
18 78 (3.14%) IT Analyst
19 77 (3.10%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (2.82%) .NET
2 50 (2.01%) LDAP
2 50 (2.01%) REST
3 49 (1.97%) OAuth
4 47 (1.89%) SAML
5 40 (1.61%) .NET Framework
6 36 (1.45%) Middleware
7 34 (1.37%) React
8 32 (1.29%) AngularJS
8 32 (1.29%) OpenID
8 32 (1.29%) WPF
9 24 (0.97%) CSS
9 24 (0.97%) Web Services
10 23 (0.93%) Node.js
11 20 (0.81%) SOAP
12 19 (0.77%) Ajax
12 19 (0.77%) Apache NiFi
12 19 (0.77%) GraphQL
12 19 (0.77%) RESTful
13 18 (0.72%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 130 (5.24%) Onboarding
2 87 (3.50%) PKI
3 83 (3.34%) Driving Licence
4 77 (3.10%) Data Centre
5 67 (2.70%) Enterprise Software
6 64 (2.58%) Replication
7 55 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
8 54 (2.17%) Management Information System
8 54 (2.17%) Smartphone
9 36 (1.45%) Hybrid Cloud
10 35 (1.41%) Security Posture
11 29 (1.17%) Analytical Mindset
12 28 (1.13%) Video Conferencing
13 27 (1.09%) Clustering
13 27 (1.09%) Data Protection Act
13 27 (1.09%) NHS
14 24 (0.97%) Virtual Team
15 23 (0.93%) Product Ownership
16 22 (0.89%) CMDB
17 21 (0.85%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 617 (24.85%) Linux
2 575 (23.16%) Windows 10
3 504 (20.30%) Windows Server
4 159 (6.40%) Unix
5 130 (5.24%) Android
6 124 (4.99%) Mac OS
7 99 (3.99%) Apple iOS
8 58 (2.34%) Windows Server 2016
9 54 (2.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 47 (1.89%) Windows Server 2019
11 46 (1.85%) Windows 7
12 33 (1.33%) Windows Server 2012
13 30 (1.21%) Windows Server 2003
14 25 (1.01%) AIX
15 23 (0.93%) VMS
16 19 (0.77%) Ubuntu
17 14 (0.56%) Amazon Linux
18 13 (0.52%) Solaris
19 12 (0.48%) Windows Server 2008
20 10 (0.40%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 442 (17.80%) Problem-Solving
2 408 (16.43%) Customer Service
3 365 (14.70%) ITIL
4 255 (10.27%) Agile
5 228 (9.18%) Migration
6 218 (8.78%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 214 (8.62%) DevOps
8 210 (8.46%) Service Management
9 193 (7.77%) CI/CD
9 193 (7.77%) ITSM
10 185 (7.45%) Continuous Improvement
11 174 (7.01%) Cybersecurity
12 156 (6.28%) Change Management
13 123 (4.95%) User Experience
14 115 (4.63%) Disaster Recovery
15 103 (4.15%) Infrastructure as Code
16 102 (4.11%) Incident Response
17 101 (4.07%) Computer Science
17 101 (4.07%) Stakeholder Management
18 99 (3.99%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 488 (19.65%) PowerShell
2 301 (12.12%) Python
3 236 (9.50%) SQL
4 124 (4.99%) Java
5 110 (4.43%) C#
6 100 (4.03%) Bash
7 76 (3.06%) JavaScript
8 65 (2.62%) Perl
9 59 (2.38%) C++
10 43 (1.73%) PL/SQL
11 31 (1.25%) T-SQL
12 29 (1.17%) Kusto Query Language
12 29 (1.17%) VBScript
13 26 (1.05%) Shell Script
13 26 (1.05%) VB
14 25 (1.01%) Groovy
15 22 (0.89%) VBA
16 13 (0.52%) PHP
17 11 (0.44%) Bicep
17 11 (0.44%) Go
Qualifications
1 805 (32.42%) Security Cleared
2 532 (21.43%) SC Cleared
3 248 (9.99%) Degree
4 235 (9.46%) DV Cleared
5 141 (5.68%) Microsoft Certification
6 78 (3.14%) Computer Science Degree
7 57 (2.30%) Azure Certification
8 44 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
9 41 (1.65%) MCSE
10 40 (1.61%) A+ Certification
11 37 (1.49%) ITIL Certification
12 34 (1.37%) AWS Certification
13 28 (1.13%) CCNP
14 27 (1.09%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 26 (1.05%) CCNA
16 25 (1.01%) CISSP
17 22 (0.89%) BPSS Clearance
18 21 (0.85%) DBS Check
19 20 (0.81%) MCP
20 17 (0.68%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (3.54%) SLA
2 82 (3.30%) GDPR
3 66 (2.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 63 (2.54%) QA
5 45 (1.81%) NIST
6 31 (1.25%) PCI DSS
7 17 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 11 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
8 11 (0.44%) NCSC
8 11 (0.44%) PMO
9 10 (0.40%) GLBA
10 9 (0.36%) MiFID
11 6 (0.24%) FINRA
12 5 (0.20%) HIPAA
12 5 (0.20%) NIST 800
13 4 (0.16%) Accessibility
13 4 (0.16%) COBIT
13 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
14 3 (0.12%) SEPA
15 2 (0.081%) GxP
System Software
1 911 (36.69%) Active Directory
2 226 (9.10%) VMware Infrastructure
3 102 (4.11%) Docker
4 87 (3.50%) Hyper-V
5 55 (2.22%) Virtual Desktop
6 45 (1.81%) Virtual Machines
6 45 (1.81%) vSphere
7 38 (1.53%) VMware ESXi
8 30 (1.21%) VMware NSX
9 24 (0.97%) BitLocker
10 17 (0.68%) DFS Replication
11 16 (0.64%) Microsoft App-V
12 15 (0.60%) Firmware
13 14 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
14 9 (0.36%) Dovecot
14 9 (0.36%) NFS
14 9 (0.36%) Postfix
14 9 (0.36%) Squid
15 8 (0.32%) Terminal Services
15 8 (0.32%) Tivoli Directory Server
Systems Management
1 347 (13.98%) SCCM
2 275 (11.08%) Microsoft Intune
3 163 (6.56%) Terraform
4 129 (5.20%) Ansible
5 86 (3.46%) Kubernetes
6 60 (2.42%) vCenter Server
7 59 (2.38%) Single Sign-On
8 53 (2.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 38 (1.53%) Jamf Pro
10 34 (1.37%) Grafana
11 29 (1.17%) SCOM
12 26 (1.05%) WSUS
13 23 (0.93%) Prometheus
14 20 (0.81%) Nessus
15 18 (0.72%) Nmap
16 17 (0.68%) WMI
17 16 (0.64%) Progress Chef
18 15 (0.60%) Microsoft Clustering
18 15 (0.60%) Proxmox
19 14 (0.56%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,054 (42.45%) Microsoft
2 320 (12.89%) VMware
3 242 (9.75%) ServiceNow
4 195 (7.85%) Oracle
5 155 (6.24%) Cisco
6 149 (6.00%) Citrix
7 106 (4.27%) Splunk
8 62 (2.50%) Apple
9 61 (2.46%) Dell
10 51 (2.05%) HP
11 50 (2.01%) SolarWinds
12 48 (1.93%) Red Hat
12 48 (1.93%) Veeam
13 46 (1.85%) Google
14 45 (1.81%) IBM
15 38 (1.53%) CyberArk
16 35 (1.41%) Remedy
16 35 (1.41%) SAP
17 32 (1.29%) AppDynamics
18 31 (1.25%) Palo Alto