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

6 months to
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 21 16
Rank change year-on-year -6 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,673 2,291 3,121
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.96% 8.35% 8.73%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.62% 61.17% 61.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,713 1,553 2,103
10th Percentile £170 £180 £175
25th Percentile £225 £231 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £424 £415 £438
Median % change year-on-year +2.17% -5.14% -2.78%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £663
UK median daily rate £425 £425 £425
% change year-on-year - - -5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 233 179 262
10th Percentile £16.11 £15.12 £11.80
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.10 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.46% -5.65% -20.00%
75th Percentile £55.00 £26.63 £40.00
90th Percentile £71.71 £65.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.26 £18.87 £20.00
% change year-on-year +33.86% -5.65% -17.73%

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 4,338 3,745 5,049
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.66% 13.65% 14.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,792 2,497 3,334
10th Percentile £190 £200 £195
25th Percentile £313 £313 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £463 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -2.63% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £465 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +0.54% -2.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 294 222 368
10th Percentile £16.03 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £18.01 £16.25
Median hourly rate £32.50 £23.00 £25.13
Median % change year-on-year +41.30% -8.46% -40.88%
75th Percentile £65.00 £56.88 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.70 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £23.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year +13.04% -8.00% -41.18%

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 20 July 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 20 July 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 20 July 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 -19 864 £415 -7.78% 200
South East -8 565 £475 -3.06% 278
North of England -9 475 £355 +1.31% 182
Midlands -16 277 £335 +11.67% 99
South West -11 268 £488 +8.33% 96
North West -7 250 £350 -1.13% 100
East of England -2 205 £335 +34.00% 95
Yorkshire -12 203 £365 -8.75% 51
West Midlands -27 172 £450 +38.46% 52
East Midlands +10 100 £270 +35.00% 47
North East -34 26 £273 -0.91% 37
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
1 221 (8.27%) Microsoft Exchange
2 208 (7.78%) SharePoint
3 59 (2.21%) Confluence
4 55 (2.06%) IIS
5 16 (0.60%) nginx
6 14 (0.52%) Apache
6 14 (0.52%) Tomcat
7 10 (0.37%) Skype for Business
8 9 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.22%) Appian
9 6 (0.22%) Documentum
9 6 (0.22%) WebLogic
10 5 (0.19%) Camunda
11 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
12 3 (0.11%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.11%) NetWeaver
12 3 (0.11%) Tuxedo
13 2 (0.075%) SAS
13 2 (0.075%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 158 (5.91%) Microsoft Office
2 66 (2.47%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.15%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.11%) Acrobat
8 2 (0.075%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.075%) Houdini
8 2 (0.075%) NUKE
8 2 (0.075%) PTC Creo
9 1 (0.037%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.037%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 48 (1.80%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.37%) Finacle
3 9 (0.34%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.26%) Teamcenter
5 6 (0.22%) OpenText MBPM
5 6 (0.22%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.075%) assyst
8 1 (0.037%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.037%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.037%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.037%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.037%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 821 (30.71%) Azure
2 798 (29.85%) Microsoft 365
3 386 (14.44%) Entra ID
4 290 (10.85%) AWS
5 115 (4.30%) OneDrive
6 85 (3.18%) Azure DevOps
7 84 (3.14%) GCP
8 72 (2.69%) SaaS
9 62 (2.32%) IaaS
10 60 (2.24%) Azure Monitor
11 56 (2.10%) GitHub
12 53 (1.98%) PaaS
12 53 (1.98%) Power Platform
13 39 (1.46%) Azure Sentinel
14 26 (0.97%) AWS CloudFormation
14 26 (0.97%) Google Workspace
15 25 (0.94%) OpenShift
16 24 (0.90%) Azure AKS
17 23 (0.86%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 22 (0.82%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 394 (14.74%) DNS
2 294 (11.00%) Firewall
3 270 (10.10%) DHCP
4 190 (7.11%) VPN
5 183 (6.85%) TCP/IP
6 154 (5.76%) LAN
7 141 (5.27%) WAN
8 124 (4.64%) Wi-Fi
9 84 (3.14%) SAN
10 59 (2.21%) Network Security
11 57 (2.13%) VLAN
12 45 (1.68%) BGP
13 43 (1.61%) SSL
14 38 (1.42%) Internet
14 38 (1.42%) NAS
15 36 (1.35%) OSPF
16 34 (1.27%) Wireless
17 29 (1.08%) VoIP
18 28 (1.05%) Skype
19 27 (1.01%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 242 (9.05%) SQL Server
2 52 (1.95%) Oracle Database
3 38 (1.42%) Power BI
4 28 (1.05%) PostgreSQL
5 27 (1.01%) Relational Database
6 23 (0.86%) MySQL
7 20 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
7 20 (0.75%) Db2
8 16 (0.60%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 13 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
10 12 (0.45%) NoSQL
10 12 (0.45%) RDBMS
11 11 (0.41%) MongoDB
12 9 (0.34%) Geospatial Data
12 9 (0.34%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 8 (0.30%) Data Warehouse
13 8 (0.30%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 7 (0.26%) GIS
15 5 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
15 5 (0.19%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 169 (6.32%) JIRA
2 52 (1.95%) Git
3 47 (1.76%) MSI
4 43 (1.61%) Jenkins
5 35 (1.31%) GitLab
5 35 (1.31%) Visual Studio
6 17 (0.64%) Eclipse
7 11 (0.41%) Bitbucket
8 8 (0.30%) Chocolatey
9 7 (0.26%) Browser DevTools
10 6 (0.22%) Android Studio
10 6 (0.22%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.22%) InstallShield
10 6 (0.22%) Xcode
11 5 (0.19%) AdminStudio
11 5 (0.19%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 5 (0.19%) Selenium
11 5 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.15%) Appium
12 4 (0.15%) Burp Suite
General
1 968 (36.21%) Social Skills
2 304 (11.37%) Finance
3 298 (11.15%) Analytical Skills
4 171 (6.40%) Public Sector
5 156 (5.84%) Banking
6 97 (3.63%) Documentation Skills
7 83 (3.11%) Organisational Skills
8 78 (2.92%) Legal
9 57 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 50 (1.87%) Retail
11 44 (1.65%) Military
12 41 (1.53%) Manufacturing
13 36 (1.35%) Front Office
13 36 (1.35%) Investment Banking
14 33 (1.23%) Telecoms
15 31 (1.16%) Law
16 26 (0.97%) Spanish Language
17 22 (0.82%) Financial Institution
17 22 (0.82%) French Language
18 21 (0.79%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 385 (14.40%) Support Engineer
2 360 (13.47%) IT Support
3 260 (9.73%) Analyst
4 258 (9.65%) IT Engineer
5 251 (9.39%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 217 (8.12%) IT Support Engineer
7 197 (7.37%) Senior
8 118 (4.41%) 2nd Line Support
9 114 (4.26%) Architect
10 108 (4.04%) Desktop Support
11 99 (3.70%) Desktop Engineer
11 99 (3.70%) Developer
12 98 (3.67%) Support Analyst
13 91 (3.40%) Cloud Engineer
14 90 (3.37%) Lead
15 85 (3.18%) IT Analyst
16 76 (2.84%) Consultant
17 73 (2.73%) Windows Engineer
18 71 (2.66%) Service Analyst
19 69 (2.58%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (3.82%) .NET
2 91 (3.40%) REST
3 62 (2.32%) .NET Framework
4 31 (1.16%) 802.1X
4 31 (1.16%) LDAP
5 29 (1.08%) Microsoft Graph
6 28 (1.05%) Middleware
6 28 (1.05%) WPF
7 27 (1.01%) WinForms
8 25 (0.94%) Web Services
9 22 (0.82%) CSS
10 21 (0.79%) Software Packaging
11 20 (0.75%) Elastic Stack
12 19 (0.71%) JSON
12 19 (0.71%) SAML
13 18 (0.67%) Kafka
14 17 (0.64%) RESTful
15 16 (0.60%) HTML
15 16 (0.60%) Node.js
16 15 (0.56%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 282 (10.55%) Onboarding
2 140 (5.24%) PKI
3 139 (5.20%) Data Centre
4 82 (3.07%) Clustering
5 70 (2.62%) Enterprise Software
5 70 (2.62%) Management Information System
6 65 (2.43%) Cloud Native
6 65 (2.43%) Self-Motivation
7 54 (2.02%) Replication
8 52 (1.95%) Hybrid Cloud
9 51 (1.91%) Video Conferencing
10 50 (1.87%) Security Posture
11 48 (1.80%) Driving Licence
12 47 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
13 40 (1.50%) Virtual Team
14 33 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
15 32 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
15 32 (1.20%) Linux Command Line
16 28 (1.05%) CMDB
16 28 (1.05%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 650 (24.32%) Windows Server
2 640 (23.94%) Linux
3 465 (17.40%) Windows 10
4 180 (6.73%) Mac OS
5 127 (4.75%) Apple iOS
6 123 (4.60%) Unix
7 122 (4.56%) Android
8 103 (3.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 66 (2.47%) Windows Server 2019
10 43 (1.61%) Windows Server 2016
11 38 (1.42%) Ubuntu
12 35 (1.31%) Windows Server 2012
13 34 (1.27%) Windows 7
14 32 (1.20%) AIX
15 19 (0.71%) CentOS
15 19 (0.71%) Solaris
16 18 (0.67%) VMS
17 14 (0.52%) Windows Server 2008
18 11 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
19 9 (0.34%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 610 (22.82%) Problem-Solving
2 457 (17.10%) ITIL
3 404 (15.11%) Customer Service
4 326 (12.20%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 300 (11.22%) Migration
6 290 (10.85%) ITSM
7 254 (9.50%) DevOps
8 246 (9.20%) Agile
9 245 (9.17%) Continuous Improvement
10 234 (8.75%) CI/CD
11 205 (7.67%) Service Management
12 182 (6.81%) Infrastructure as Code
13 181 (6.77%) Change Management
14 176 (6.58%) High Availability
15 165 (6.17%) Stakeholder Management
16 144 (5.39%) Cybersecurity
17 143 (5.35%) SIEM
18 141 (5.27%) Disaster Recovery
18 141 (5.27%) Service Delivery
19 139 (5.20%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 600 (22.45%) PowerShell
2 280 (10.48%) Python
3 271 (10.14%) SQL
4 139 (5.20%) Bash
5 132 (4.94%) C#
6 66 (2.47%) JavaScript
7 63 (2.36%) Java
8 51 (1.91%) PL/SQL
9 50 (1.87%) T-SQL
10 45 (1.68%) C++
11 33 (1.23%) Bicep
12 24 (0.90%) Search Processing Language
13 21 (0.79%) VB
14 18 (0.67%) Kusto Query Language
14 18 (0.67%) Shell Script
15 17 (0.64%) TypeScript
15 17 (0.64%) VBScript
16 16 (0.60%) Perl
17 14 (0.52%) C
17 14 (0.52%) VBA
Qualifications
1 810 (30.30%) Security Cleared
2 486 (18.18%) SC Cleared
3 292 (10.92%) Degree
4 290 (10.85%) DV Cleared
5 108 (4.04%) Microsoft Certification
6 79 (2.96%) Cisco Certification
7 69 (2.58%) Computer Science Degree
8 61 (2.28%) Azure Certification
9 60 (2.24%) CISSP
10 47 (1.76%) AWS Certification
11 44 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
12 37 (1.38%) MCSE
13 35 (1.31%) A+ Certification
14 30 (1.12%) CCNA
14 30 (1.12%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 26 (0.97%) CCNP
15 26 (0.97%) MCSA
16 24 (0.90%) ITIL Certification
16 24 (0.90%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 23 (0.86%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 116 (4.34%) SLA
2 112 (4.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 82 (3.07%) NIST
4 71 (2.66%) QA
5 35 (1.31%) GDPR
6 26 (0.97%) Cyber Essentials
6 26 (0.97%) PCI DSS
7 22 (0.82%) NCSC
8 19 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 12 (0.45%) Data Quality
10 11 (0.41%) Accessibility
10 11 (0.41%) HIPAA
11 9 (0.34%) GRC
11 9 (0.34%) NIST 800
11 9 (0.34%) PMO
11 9 (0.34%) WCAG
12 8 (0.30%) GxP
12 8 (0.30%) SOC 2
13 6 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 6 (0.22%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 1,047 (39.17%) Active Directory
2 358 (13.39%) VMware Infrastructure
3 138 (5.16%) Hyper-V
4 124 (4.64%) VMware ESXi
5 105 (3.93%) vSphere
6 101 (3.78%) Virtual Machines
7 93 (3.48%) Docker
8 71 (2.66%) Virtual Desktop
9 64 (2.39%) VMware NSX
10 35 (1.31%) Firmware
11 32 (1.20%) BitLocker
12 26 (0.97%) Microsoft App-V
13 17 (0.64%) KVM
14 15 (0.56%) vCloud
15 8 (0.30%) VMware Workstation
15 8 (0.30%) XenDesktop
16 7 (0.26%) NFS
16 7 (0.26%) Virtual Servers
16 7 (0.26%) XenApp
17 6 (0.22%) UAG
Systems Management
1 394 (14.74%) Microsoft Intune
2 243 (9.09%) SCCM
3 211 (7.89%) Terraform
4 184 (6.88%) Ansible
5 139 (5.20%) Kubernetes
6 110 (4.12%) vCenter Server
7 59 (2.21%) SCOM
8 49 (1.83%) Jamf Pro
9 38 (1.42%) FortiGate
10 37 (1.38%) WSUS
11 33 (1.23%) Single Sign-On
12 32 (1.20%) Progress Chef
13 27 (1.01%) Grafana
13 27 (1.01%) Puppet
14 25 (0.94%) Prometheus
15 23 (0.86%) Nagios
16 22 (0.82%) Packer
17 21 (0.79%) Nessus
18 20 (0.75%) ZABBIX
19 19 (0.71%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,164 (43.55%) Microsoft
2 471 (17.62%) VMware
3 271 (10.14%) ServiceNow
4 183 (6.85%) Citrix
5 177 (6.62%) Cisco
6 151 (5.65%) Oracle
7 118 (4.41%) Splunk
8 80 (2.99%) Apple
9 78 (2.92%) SolarWinds
10 74 (2.77%) CyberArk
11 66 (2.47%) Red Hat
12 64 (2.39%) Google
12 64 (2.39%) HP
13 59 (2.21%) Remedy
14 55 (2.06%) BeyondTrust
15 54 (2.02%) Dell
16 51 (1.91%) Juniper
17 47 (1.76%) IBM
18 43 (1.61%) F5
19 38 (1.42%) BMC