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

6 months to
5 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 21 16
Rank change year-on-year -6 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,655 2,262 3,209
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.02% 8.53% 8.61%
As % of the Operating Systems category 62.08% 61.33% 61.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,729 1,543 2,165
10th Percentile £164 £181 £173
25th Percentile £221 £244 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £415 £425
Median % change year-on-year +2.37% -2.32% -5.56%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £672
UK median daily rate £425 £425 £425
% change year-on-year - - -5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 221 164 276
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.10 £11.90
25th Percentile £19.00 £16.95 £14.27
Median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.46% -5.65% -17.73%
75th Percentile £57.50 £25.15 £40.00
90th Percentile £70.23 £63.75 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £20.00
% change year-on-year +36.46% -5.65% -15.93%

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 4,277 3,688 5,205
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.70% 13.91% 13.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,785 2,468 3,431
10th Percentile £189 £200 £193
25th Percentile £313 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £463 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.59% -2.58% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £656 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £465 £465 £475
% change year-on-year +0.11% -2.21% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 283 200 396
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.31 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.41 £16.18
Median hourly rate £31.00 £20.38 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +52.15% -18.50% -41.18%
75th Percentile £65.00 £45.19 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.32 £66.55 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £26.22 £22.78 £25.00
% change year-on-year +15.10% -8.88% -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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -17 871 £425 -2.86% 272
South East -8 537 £475 -3.06% 289
North of England -7 475 £364 +4.00% 193
Midlands -17 276 £339 +12.92% 136
South West -11 260 £488 +8.33% 153
North West -5 251 £363 - 108
East of England -1 219 £300 +18.90% 101
Yorkshire -15 203 £365 -8.75% 60
West Midlands -26 175 £450 +50.00% 64
East Midlands +8 96 £263 +31.25% 72
North East -38 25 £275 -4.35% 31
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
1 222 (8.36%) Microsoft Exchange
2 185 (6.97%) SharePoint
3 55 (2.07%) Confluence
4 54 (2.03%) IIS
5 14 (0.53%) Apache
5 14 (0.53%) nginx
5 14 (0.53%) Skype for Business
5 14 (0.53%) Tomcat
6 9 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
6 9 (0.34%) WebLogic
7 7 (0.26%) Appian
8 6 (0.23%) Documentum
9 5 (0.19%) Camunda
10 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
11 3 (0.11%) NetWeaver
11 3 (0.11%) TPMS
11 3 (0.11%) Tuxedo
12 2 (0.075%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.075%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 161 (6.06%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.41%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.23%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.19%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.038%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.038%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.038%) Houdini
8 1 (0.038%) InDesign
8 1 (0.038%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 40 (1.51%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.41%) Teamcenter
4 10 (0.38%) Finacle
5 6 (0.23%) OpenText MBPM
5 6 (0.23%) Oracle BPM
6 2 (0.075%) assyst
7 1 (0.038%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.038%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.038%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 810 (30.51%) Azure
2 768 (28.93%) Microsoft 365
3 365 (13.75%) Entra ID
4 277 (10.43%) AWS
5 104 (3.92%) OneDrive
6 82 (3.09%) Azure DevOps
6 82 (3.09%) GCP
7 73 (2.75%) SaaS
8 60 (2.26%) IaaS
9 59 (2.22%) GitHub
10 52 (1.96%) Power Platform
11 51 (1.92%) Azure Monitor
12 50 (1.88%) PaaS
13 34 (1.28%) Azure Sentinel
14 29 (1.09%) Google Workspace
15 27 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
16 26 (0.98%) AWS CloudFormation
17 25 (0.94%) OpenShift
18 22 (0.83%) Azure AKS
19 21 (0.79%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 374 (14.09%) DNS
2 273 (10.28%) Firewall
3 260 (9.79%) DHCP
4 182 (6.85%) VPN
5 157 (5.91%) LAN
6 153 (5.76%) TCP/IP
7 152 (5.73%) WAN
8 125 (4.71%) Wi-Fi
9 78 (2.94%) SAN
10 59 (2.22%) Network Security
11 54 (2.03%) VLAN
12 45 (1.69%) BGP
13 40 (1.51%) SSL
14 38 (1.43%) Internet
15 37 (1.39%) OSPF
16 35 (1.32%) NAS
17 32 (1.21%) Skype
18 30 (1.13%) SNMP
18 30 (1.13%) VoIP
19 29 (1.09%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 229 (8.63%) SQL Server
2 54 (2.03%) Oracle Database
3 36 (1.36%) Power BI
4 29 (1.09%) Relational Database
5 26 (0.98%) MySQL
5 26 (0.98%) PostgreSQL
6 18 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
6 18 (0.68%) Db2
7 14 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
7 14 (0.53%) NoSQL
8 13 (0.49%) RDBMS
8 13 (0.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 11 (0.41%) MongoDB
10 8 (0.30%) Geospatial Data
11 7 (0.26%) GIS
11 7 (0.26%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 6 (0.23%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 5 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
13 5 (0.19%) Data Warehouse
13 5 (0.19%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 170 (6.40%) JIRA
2 47 (1.77%) Git
3 45 (1.69%) MSI
4 42 (1.58%) Jenkins
5 38 (1.43%) GitLab
6 36 (1.36%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.64%) Eclipse
8 9 (0.34%) Chocolatey
9 8 (0.30%) Bitbucket
10 7 (0.26%) Browser DevTools
10 7 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
11 6 (0.23%) Android Studio
11 6 (0.23%) InstallShield
11 6 (0.23%) Xcode
12 5 (0.19%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.19%) Artifactory
12 5 (0.19%) Selenium
13 4 (0.15%) Appium
13 4 (0.15%) Burp Suite
13 4 (0.15%) Robot Framework
General
1 941 (35.44%) Social Skills
2 296 (11.15%) Finance
3 288 (10.85%) Analytical Skills
4 175 (6.59%) Public Sector
5 150 (5.65%) Banking
6 99 (3.73%) Documentation Skills
7 82 (3.09%) Legal
7 82 (3.09%) Organisational Skills
8 52 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 52 (1.96%) Retail
9 42 (1.58%) Military
10 37 (1.39%) Front Office
11 36 (1.36%) Manufacturing
12 35 (1.32%) Investment Banking
13 31 (1.17%) Telecoms
14 29 (1.09%) Law
15 25 (0.94%) Presentation Skills
15 25 (0.94%) Spanish Language
16 21 (0.79%) French Language
17 19 (0.72%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 374 (14.09%) Support Engineer
2 361 (13.60%) IT Support
3 268 (10.09%) Analyst
4 250 (9.42%) IT Engineer
5 236 (8.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 210 (7.91%) IT Support Engineer
7 176 (6.63%) Senior
8 129 (4.86%) Architect
9 113 (4.26%) 2nd Line Support
10 105 (3.95%) Desktop Support
11 101 (3.80%) Desktop Engineer
11 101 (3.80%) Developer
12 98 (3.69%) Support Analyst
13 95 (3.58%) Lead
14 87 (3.28%) IT Analyst
15 81 (3.05%) Cloud Engineer
16 78 (2.94%) Technical Support
17 73 (2.75%) Consultant
18 70 (2.64%) Service Analyst
19 69 (2.60%) Windows Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (3.69%) .NET
2 85 (3.20%) REST
3 61 (2.30%) .NET Framework
4 38 (1.43%) LDAP
5 31 (1.17%) 802.1X
5 31 (1.17%) SAML
6 29 (1.09%) Microsoft Graph
6 29 (1.09%) WPF
7 27 (1.02%) Middleware
8 26 (0.98%) WinForms
9 25 (0.94%) Web Services
10 24 (0.90%) OAuth
11 23 (0.87%) Elastic Stack
12 22 (0.83%) CSS
13 21 (0.79%) Software Packaging
14 16 (0.60%) JSON
14 16 (0.60%) Kafka
14 16 (0.60%) Node.js
15 15 (0.56%) HTML
15 15 (0.56%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 266 (10.02%) Onboarding
2 132 (4.97%) Data Centre
3 125 (4.71%) PKI
4 77 (2.90%) Clustering
5 75 (2.82%) Enterprise Software
6 67 (2.52%) Management Information System
6 67 (2.52%) Self-Motivation
7 58 (2.18%) Replication
8 57 (2.15%) Cloud Native
9 47 (1.77%) Driving Licence
9 47 (1.77%) Hybrid Cloud
10 46 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
10 46 (1.73%) Security Posture
11 45 (1.69%) Virtual Team
12 42 (1.58%) Video Conferencing
13 33 (1.24%) Data Protection Act
14 31 (1.17%) Analytical Mindset
15 29 (1.09%) Linux Command Line
16 28 (1.05%) CMDB
17 27 (1.02%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 640 (24.11%) Windows Server
2 629 (23.69%) Linux
3 463 (17.44%) Windows 10
4 178 (6.70%) Mac OS
5 128 (4.82%) Apple iOS
6 127 (4.78%) Unix
7 122 (4.60%) Android
8 96 (3.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 65 (2.45%) Windows Server 2019
10 46 (1.73%) Windows Server 2016
11 45 (1.69%) Windows 7
12 37 (1.39%) Windows Server 2012
13 34 (1.28%) Ubuntu
14 31 (1.17%) AIX
15 18 (0.68%) Solaris
15 18 (0.68%) VMS
16 16 (0.60%) CentOS
16 16 (0.60%) Windows Server 2003
17 13 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
18 9 (0.34%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 596 (22.45%) Problem-Solving
2 435 (16.38%) ITIL
3 395 (14.88%) Customer Service
4 309 (11.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 288 (10.85%) Migration
6 276 (10.40%) ITSM
7 255 (9.60%) DevOps
8 242 (9.11%) Agile
9 237 (8.93%) Continuous Improvement
10 225 (8.47%) CI/CD
11 197 (7.42%) Service Management
12 184 (6.93%) High Availability
13 175 (6.59%) Change Management
14 165 (6.21%) Infrastructure as Code
15 154 (5.80%) Stakeholder Management
16 146 (5.50%) Disaster Recovery
17 136 (5.12%) Service Delivery
18 133 (5.01%) SIEM
19 132 (4.97%) Cybersecurity
19 132 (4.97%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 564 (21.24%) PowerShell
2 268 (10.09%) SQL
3 266 (10.02%) Python
4 133 (5.01%) C#
5 107 (4.03%) Bash
6 68 (2.56%) Java
7 65 (2.45%) JavaScript
8 50 (1.88%) PL/SQL
9 49 (1.85%) T-SQL
10 48 (1.81%) C++
11 25 (0.94%) VB
12 23 (0.87%) Bicep
12 23 (0.87%) Search Processing Language
13 20 (0.75%) Kusto Query Language
13 20 (0.75%) VBScript
14 17 (0.64%) Perl
14 17 (0.64%) Shell Script
15 16 (0.60%) TypeScript
16 14 (0.53%) C
17 13 (0.49%) VBA
Qualifications
1 798 (30.06%) Security Cleared
2 499 (18.79%) SC Cleared
3 296 (11.15%) Degree
4 266 (10.02%) DV Cleared
5 109 (4.11%) Microsoft Certification
6 81 (3.05%) Cisco Certification
7 72 (2.71%) Computer Science Degree
8 59 (2.22%) CISSP
9 57 (2.15%) Azure Certification
10 43 (1.62%) AWS Certification
11 42 (1.58%) BPSS Clearance
12 40 (1.51%) MCSE
13 31 (1.17%) CCNA
14 29 (1.09%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 28 (1.05%) CCNP
16 27 (1.02%) A+ Certification
16 27 (1.02%) ITIL Certification
17 25 (0.94%) MCSA
18 23 (0.87%) CISM
19 20 (0.75%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (4.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 107 (4.03%) SLA
3 85 (3.20%) NIST
4 73 (2.75%) QA
5 53 (2.00%) GDPR
6 31 (1.17%) PCI DSS
6 31 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 26 (0.98%) Cyber Essentials
8 19 (0.72%) NCSC
9 12 (0.45%) Data Quality
10 11 (0.41%) HIPAA
11 10 (0.38%) Accessibility
11 10 (0.38%) NIST 800
12 9 (0.34%) GRC
13 8 (0.30%) SOC 2
13 8 (0.30%) WCAG
14 6 (0.23%) ISO 31000
15 5 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 5 (0.19%) FINRA
15 5 (0.19%) PMO
System Software
1 1,022 (38.49%) Active Directory
2 337 (12.69%) VMware Infrastructure
3 133 (5.01%) Hyper-V
4 114 (4.29%) VMware ESXi
5 99 (3.73%) Virtual Machines
6 98 (3.69%) vSphere
7 86 (3.24%) Docker
8 65 (2.45%) Virtual Desktop
9 56 (2.11%) VMware NSX
10 37 (1.39%) BitLocker
10 37 (1.39%) Firmware
11 28 (1.05%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.60%) KVM
13 14 (0.53%) vCloud
14 9 (0.34%) XenDesktop
15 8 (0.30%) VMware Workstation
15 8 (0.30%) XenApp
16 7 (0.26%) NFS
17 6 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
17 6 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 385 (14.50%) Microsoft Intune
2 238 (8.96%) SCCM
3 190 (7.16%) Terraform
4 171 (6.44%) Ansible
5 131 (4.93%) Kubernetes
6 97 (3.65%) vCenter Server
7 51 (1.92%) SCOM
8 50 (1.88%) Single Sign-On
9 47 (1.77%) Jamf Pro
10 41 (1.54%) FortiGate
11 38 (1.43%) WSUS
12 34 (1.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 30 (1.13%) Progress Chef
14 29 (1.09%) Prometheus
15 28 (1.05%) Puppet
16 26 (0.98%) Grafana
17 23 (0.87%) Nagios
18 21 (0.79%) Nessus
19 20 (0.75%) Packer
19 20 (0.75%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,154 (43.47%) Microsoft
2 441 (16.61%) VMware
3 255 (9.60%) ServiceNow
4 188 (7.08%) Citrix
5 176 (6.63%) Cisco
6 151 (5.69%) Oracle
7 120 (4.52%) Splunk
8 73 (2.75%) Apple
8 73 (2.75%) SolarWinds
9 69 (2.60%) HP
10 63 (2.37%) Google
10 63 (2.37%) Red Hat
11 62 (2.34%) CyberArk
12 58 (2.18%) Dell
13 51 (1.92%) BeyondTrust
13 51 (1.92%) Remedy
14 50 (1.88%) Juniper
15 47 (1.77%) IBM
16 45 (1.69%) F5
17 37 (1.39%) Tenable