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

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 16
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,524 2,073 3,372
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.74% 8.52% 8.94%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.01% 60.00% 64.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,701 1,487 2,293
10th Percentile £161 £181 £155
25th Percentile £206 £236 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £408 £413 £388
Median % change year-on-year -1.21% +6.45% -13.89%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £640 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £408 £425 £400
% change year-on-year -4.12% +6.25% -11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 219 82 275
10th Percentile £13.63 £15.22 £12.15
25th Percentile £16.62 £16.95 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.50 £20.00 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +7.50% +12.87% -19.45%
75th Percentile £46.40 £29.00 £23.94
90th Percentile £67.84 £65.00 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £21.46 £22.09 £17.72
% change year-on-year -2.85% +24.66% -19.45%

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 4,137 3,455 5,233
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 11.05% 14.21% 13.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,748 2,365 3,548
10th Percentile £181 £200 £177
25th Percentile £287 £313 £274
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -13.46%
75th Percentile £565 £600 £588
90th Percentile £663 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £457
% change year-on-year -5.26% +3.94% -11.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 290 130 379
10th Percentile £14.00 £16.25 £13.28
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.20 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.80 £29.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.39% +31.82% -23.88%
75th Percentile £61.25 £65.94 £57.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £71.03 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £22.81 £28.00 £22.00
% change year-on-year -18.54% +27.27% -24.14%

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 24 March 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 24 March 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 24 March 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 -20 765 £425 - 223
South East -3 530 £453 -4.74% 280
North of England -8 479 £290 -17.14% 199
Midlands -16 267 £325 +2.77% 121
North West -8 260 £260 -27.02% 128
South West -5 258 £450 -16.08% 126
East of England +4 207 £275 +21.95% 96
Yorkshire -14 193 £355 -11.25% 58
West Midlands -25 158 £447 +37.54% 71
East Midlands -2 105 £200 -20.00% 49
North East -13 29 £180 -40.00% 17
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
1 212 (8.40%) Microsoft Exchange
2 163 (6.46%) SharePoint
3 56 (2.22%) Confluence
4 44 (1.74%) IIS
5 22 (0.87%) Apache
6 20 (0.79%) WebLogic
7 12 (0.48%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.44%) Tuxedo
9 10 (0.40%) TPMS
10 6 (0.24%) Tomcat
11 5 (0.20%) nginx
12 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.16%) WebSphere
13 3 (0.12%) SAS
13 3 (0.12%) SharePoint Server
14 2 (0.079%) Exchange Server 2010
14 2 (0.079%) Sitecore CMS
14 2 (0.079%) WordPress
Applications
1 199 (7.88%) Microsoft Office
2 68 (2.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.48%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.20%) PTC Creo
7 3 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.040%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.040%) InDesign
8 1 (0.040%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 30 (1.19%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.28%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.20%) assyst
5 4 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.079%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.079%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.079%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.079%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.079%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.079%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.040%) Aladdin
8 1 (0.040%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.040%) Eikon
8 1 (0.040%) Fidessa
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
1 730 (28.92%) Microsoft 365
2 650 (25.75%) Azure
3 280 (11.09%) Entra ID
4 182 (7.21%) AWS
5 82 (3.25%) OneDrive
6 64 (2.54%) GCP
7 61 (2.42%) SaaS
8 59 (2.34%) Azure DevOps
9 53 (2.10%) Google Workspace
10 45 (1.78%) IaaS
11 43 (1.70%) GitHub
12 40 (1.58%) Power Platform
13 38 (1.51%) PaaS
14 31 (1.23%) Azure Monitor
15 24 (0.95%) Azure Sentinel
16 23 (0.91%) AWS CloudFormation
17 21 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
18 19 (0.75%) OpenShift
19 17 (0.67%) Nutanix
20 16 (0.63%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 324 (12.84%) DNS
2 293 (11.61%) Firewall
3 216 (8.56%) DHCP
4 167 (6.62%) VPN
5 153 (6.06%) TCP/IP
6 145 (5.74%) LAN
7 142 (5.63%) WAN
8 137 (5.43%) Wi-Fi
9 72 (2.85%) Network Security
10 58 (2.30%) VLAN
11 56 (2.22%) Wireless
12 43 (1.70%) SAN
13 39 (1.55%) BGP
14 31 (1.23%) SSH
15 29 (1.15%) Cisco ISE
15 29 (1.15%) Junos
15 29 (1.15%) OSPF
15 29 (1.15%) Skype
15 29 (1.15%) SSL
15 29 (1.15%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 152 (6.02%) SQL Server
2 43 (1.70%) Oracle Database
3 38 (1.51%) Relational Database
4 34 (1.35%) MySQL
5 21 (0.83%) PostgreSQL
6 17 (0.67%) Power BI
7 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
7 13 (0.52%) DB2
8 12 (0.48%) MongoDB
9 11 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
10 9 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
11 8 (0.32%) NoSQL
12 6 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
12 6 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
12 6 (0.24%) GIS
12 6 (0.24%) SAP HANA
12 6 (0.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 6 (0.24%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 5 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
14 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 163 (6.46%) JIRA
2 54 (2.14%) Jenkins
3 53 (2.10%) GitLab
4 46 (1.82%) Git
5 38 (1.51%) MSI
6 33 (1.31%) Visual Studio
7 24 (0.95%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.67%) Burp Suite
8 17 (0.67%) Metasploit
9 15 (0.59%) Artifactory
10 14 (0.55%) Android Studio
11 12 (0.48%) Xcode
12 10 (0.40%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.40%) Browser DevTools
12 10 (0.40%) Chocolatey
13 8 (0.32%) InstallShield
13 8 (0.32%) JUnit
14 7 (0.28%) Robot Framework
14 7 (0.28%) Selenium
15 6 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 909 (36.01%) Social Skills
2 239 (9.47%) Finance
3 209 (8.28%) Public Sector
4 204 (8.08%) Analytical Skills
5 136 (5.39%) Banking
6 105 (4.16%) Documentation Skills
7 99 (3.92%) Legal
8 82 (3.25%) Organisational Skills
9 58 (2.30%) Military
10 41 (1.62%) Manufacturing
10 41 (1.62%) Presentation Skills
11 37 (1.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 34 (1.35%) Retail
13 27 (1.07%) Law
14 26 (1.03%) Telecoms
15 24 (0.95%) Investment Banking
16 21 (0.83%) Front Office
17 20 (0.79%) Local Government
18 18 (0.71%) Aerospace
19 15 (0.59%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 352 (13.95%) IT Support
2 350 (13.87%) Support Engineer
3 333 (13.19%) Analyst
4 212 (8.40%) IT Engineer
5 178 (7.05%) IT Support Engineer
6 161 (6.38%) Architect
7 159 (6.30%) Senior
8 152 (6.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 141 (5.59%) Support Analyst
10 111 (4.40%) Desktop Support
11 106 (4.20%) Technical Support
12 102 (4.04%) Developer
13 101 (4.00%) 2nd Line Support
14 99 (3.92%) Desktop Engineer
15 90 (3.57%) IT Analyst
16 87 (3.45%) Windows Engineer
17 80 (3.17%) Lead
18 72 (2.85%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 72 (2.85%) IT Support Analyst
19 69 (2.73%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (3.17%) .NET
2 63 (2.50%) REST
3 49 (1.94%) .NET Framework
4 43 (1.70%) OAuth
5 41 (1.62%) SAML
6 38 (1.51%) LDAP
7 33 (1.31%) Middleware
8 29 (1.15%) Web Services
9 27 (1.07%) WPF
10 25 (0.99%) Kafka
11 24 (0.95%) Microsoft Graph
11 24 (0.95%) WinForms
12 23 (0.91%) 802.1X
12 23 (0.91%) CSS
12 23 (0.91%) React
13 22 (0.87%) AngularJS
14 21 (0.83%) OpenID
15 20 (0.79%) Apache NiFi
15 20 (0.79%) Node.js
15 20 (0.79%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 177 (7.01%) Onboarding
2 102 (4.04%) Data Centre
3 101 (4.00%) PKI
4 75 (2.97%) Enterprise Software
5 67 (2.65%) Driving Licence
6 63 (2.50%) Self-Motivation
7 55 (2.18%) Clustering
8 51 (2.02%) Replication
9 46 (1.82%) Smartphone
10 45 (1.78%) Management Information System
11 42 (1.66%) Hybrid Cloud
12 41 (1.62%) Security Posture
13 40 (1.58%) Product Ownership
14 35 (1.39%) Legacy Systems
15 34 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
16 31 (1.23%) NHS
17 30 (1.19%) CMDB
18 27 (1.07%) Virtual Team
19 25 (0.99%) Cloud Native
20 24 (0.95%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 592 (23.45%) Linux
2 553 (21.91%) Windows Server
3 534 (21.16%) Windows 10
4 140 (5.55%) Android
5 130 (5.15%) Mac OS
6 129 (5.11%) Unix
7 110 (4.36%) Apple iOS
8 65 (2.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 61 (2.42%) Windows Server 2016
10 47 (1.86%) Windows 7
11 44 (1.74%) Windows Server 2019
12 37 (1.47%) Windows Server 2012
13 36 (1.43%) AIX
14 29 (1.15%) Windows Server 2003
15 15 (0.59%) Ubuntu
16 13 (0.52%) VMS
17 12 (0.48%) Solaris
18 11 (0.44%) Windows Server 2008
19 10 (0.40%) Mac OS X
20 8 (0.32%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 498 (19.73%) Problem-Solving
2 442 (17.51%) Customer Service
3 357 (14.14%) ITIL
4 279 (11.05%) Agile
5 252 (9.98%) Migration
6 237 (9.39%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 223 (8.84%) DevOps
8 208 (8.24%) ITSM
9 201 (7.96%) CI/CD
10 181 (7.17%) Service Management
11 180 (7.13%) Continuous Improvement
12 174 (6.89%) Cybersecurity
13 163 (6.46%) Change Management
14 152 (6.02%) Disaster Recovery
15 128 (5.07%) Stakeholder Management
16 126 (4.99%) High Availability
17 115 (4.56%) User Experience
18 112 (4.44%) Infrastructure as Code
19 108 (4.28%) Service Delivery
20 102 (4.04%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 528 (20.92%) PowerShell
2 259 (10.26%) Python
3 227 (8.99%) SQL
4 122 (4.83%) C#
5 102 (4.04%) Bash
6 84 (3.33%) Java
7 74 (2.93%) JavaScript
8 54 (2.14%) C++
9 49 (1.94%) PL/SQL
10 46 (1.82%) Perl
11 39 (1.55%) T-SQL
12 31 (1.23%) Kusto Query Language
13 23 (0.91%) VB
14 20 (0.79%) VBScript
15 18 (0.71%) Shell Script
16 14 (0.55%) VBA
17 13 (0.52%) Bicep
17 13 (0.52%) Search Processing Language
18 12 (0.48%) TypeScript
19 11 (0.44%) Go
Qualifications
1 814 (32.25%) Security Cleared
2 537 (21.28%) SC Cleared
3 256 (10.14%) Degree
4 235 (9.31%) DV Cleared
5 119 (4.71%) Microsoft Certification
6 75 (2.97%) Computer Science Degree
7 61 (2.42%) Cisco Certification
8 42 (1.66%) Azure Certification
9 41 (1.62%) MCSE
10 33 (1.31%) CISSP
11 30 (1.19%) ITIL Certification
12 29 (1.15%) BPSS Clearance
12 29 (1.15%) CCNA
13 28 (1.11%) AWS Certification
14 25 (0.99%) CCNP
15 23 (0.91%) MCSA
16 22 (0.87%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 20 (0.79%) CompTIA Security+
18 19 (0.75%) Microsoft Certified Professional
18 19 (0.75%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (3.45%) GDPR
2 83 (3.29%) QA
3 81 (3.21%) SLA
4 78 (3.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 54 (2.14%) NIST
6 41 (1.62%) PCI DSS
7 21 (0.83%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 15 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
9 13 (0.52%) MiFID
9 13 (0.52%) PMO
10 12 (0.48%) NCSC
11 10 (0.40%) FINRA
11 10 (0.40%) GLBA
12 9 (0.36%) Data Quality
12 9 (0.36%) NIST 800
13 4 (0.16%) GMP
13 4 (0.16%) GxP
13 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
14 3 (0.12%) COBIT
14 3 (0.12%) HL7
System Software
1 941 (37.28%) Active Directory
2 257 (10.18%) VMware Infrastructure
3 106 (4.20%) Hyper-V
4 92 (3.65%) Docker
5 63 (2.50%) vSphere
6 56 (2.22%) Virtual Machines
7 51 (2.02%) Virtual Desktop
7 51 (2.02%) VMware ESXi
8 32 (1.27%) VMware NSX
9 27 (1.07%) BitLocker
10 26 (1.03%) Firmware
11 23 (0.91%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.63%) KVM
13 9 (0.36%) XenDesktop
14 8 (0.32%) XenApp
15 6 (0.24%) Terminal Services
16 5 (0.20%) etcd
16 5 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
17 4 (0.16%) NFS
17 4 (0.16%) Snort
Systems Management
1 343 (13.59%) Microsoft Intune
2 292 (11.57%) SCCM
3 161 (6.38%) Terraform
4 148 (5.86%) Ansible
5 119 (4.71%) Kubernetes
6 63 (2.50%) Single Sign-On
7 59 (2.34%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 57 (2.26%) vCenter Server
9 38 (1.51%) Jamf Pro
10 33 (1.31%) FortiGate
11 27 (1.07%) WSUS
12 26 (1.03%) Grafana
13 23 (0.91%) SCOM
14 22 (0.87%) Prometheus
15 17 (0.67%) Progress Chef
15 17 (0.67%) WMI
16 16 (0.63%) Nmap
16 16 (0.63%) Puppet
17 15 (0.59%) Nagios
17 15 (0.59%) Nessus
Vendors
1 1,090 (43.19%) Microsoft
2 355 (14.06%) VMware
3 227 (8.99%) ServiceNow
4 198 (7.84%) Citrix
5 151 (5.98%) Oracle
6 150 (5.94%) Cisco
7 115 (4.56%) Splunk
8 70 (2.77%) HP
9 63 (2.50%) SolarWinds
10 59 (2.34%) Red Hat
11 57 (2.26%) Google
12 56 (2.22%) Dell
13 48 (1.90%) IBM
14 47 (1.86%) Apple
15 46 (1.82%) Remedy
16 43 (1.70%) Juniper
17 39 (1.55%) Veeam
18 34 (1.35%) CyberArk
18 34 (1.35%) F5
19 30 (1.19%) Palo Alto