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

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 16
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,522 2,073 3,368
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.72% 8.54% 8.93%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.01% 60.16% 64.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,699 1,490 2,290
10th Percentile £161 £181 £155
25th Percentile £206 £232 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £410 £414 £388
Median % change year-on-year -0.91% +6.77% -13.89%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £640 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £411 £425 £400
% change year-on-year -3.24% +6.25% -11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 219 83 275
10th Percentile £13.48 £15.22 £12.15
25th Percentile £16.50 £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 £48.75 £29.00 £23.94
90th Percentile £67.84 £65.00 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £21.46 £22.05 £17.72
% change year-on-year -2.65% +24.41% -18.17%

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 4,134 3,446 5,228
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 11.02% 14.19% 13.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,741 2,361 3,545
10th Percentile £181 £200 £178
25th Percentile £290 £313 £275
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 £459
% change year-on-year -5.26% +3.49% -10.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 292 132 378
10th Percentile £14.00 £16.28 £13.28
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.18 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.81 £29.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.34% +31.82% -23.88%
75th Percentile £63.50 £65.81 £57.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £70.78 £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 25 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 25 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 25 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 -19 769 £430 +1.18% 228
South East -4 523 £464 -1.33% 277
North of England -8 478 £300 -14.29% 201
Midlands -16 270 £323 +1.98% 129
North West -5 262 £263 -27.59% 131
South West -4 256 £450 -15.09% 129
East of England +4 208 £275 +21.95% 97
Yorkshire -14 192 £358 -10.63% 57
West Midlands -24 160 £442 +36.08% 76
East Midlands -3 106 £200 -13.51% 53
North East -12 27 £188 -37.50% 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
1 213 (8.45%) 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
11 5 (0.20%) WebSphere
12 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.12%) SAS
14 2 (0.079%) IBM HTTP Server
14 2 (0.079%) NetWeaver
14 2 (0.079%) Oracle HTTP Server
14 2 (0.079%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 198 (7.85%) Microsoft Office
2 68 (2.70%) 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
1 734 (29.10%) Microsoft 365
2 658 (26.09%) Azure
3 284 (11.26%) Entra ID
4 187 (7.41%) AWS
5 80 (3.17%) OneDrive
6 64 (2.54%) GCP
7 62 (2.46%) SaaS
8 60 (2.38%) Azure DevOps
9 52 (2.06%) Google Workspace
10 46 (1.82%) IaaS
11 43 (1.70%) GitHub
12 40 (1.59%) Power Platform
13 38 (1.51%) PaaS
14 32 (1.27%) 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
1 326 (12.93%) DNS
2 297 (11.78%) Firewall
3 218 (8.64%) DHCP
4 170 (6.74%) VPN
5 156 (6.19%) TCP/IP
6 146 (5.79%) LAN
7 142 (5.63%) WAN
8 137 (5.43%) Wi-Fi
9 74 (2.93%) Network Security
10 61 (2.42%) VLAN
11 56 (2.22%) Wireless
12 47 (1.86%) SAN
13 39 (1.55%) BGP
14 31 (1.23%) SSH
15 30 (1.19%) SSL
16 29 (1.15%) Cisco ISE
16 29 (1.15%) Junos
16 29 (1.15%) OSPF
16 29 (1.15%) Skype
16 29 (1.15%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 154 (6.11%) SQL Server
2 43 (1.70%) Oracle Database
3 38 (1.51%) Relational Database
4 35 (1.39%) MySQL
5 22 (0.87%) PostgreSQL
6 17 (0.67%) Power BI
7 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
7 13 (0.52%) DB2
7 13 (0.52%) MongoDB
8 11 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
9 9 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
10 8 (0.32%) NoSQL
11 6 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
11 6 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
11 6 (0.24%) GIS
11 6 (0.24%) SAP HANA
11 6 (0.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 6 (0.24%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 5 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 165 (6.54%) JIRA
2 54 (2.14%) GitLab
2 54 (2.14%) Jenkins
3 45 (1.78%) Git
4 38 (1.51%) MSI
5 33 (1.31%) Visual Studio
6 24 (0.95%) Eclipse
7 17 (0.67%) Burp Suite
7 17 (0.67%) Metasploit
8 15 (0.59%) Artifactory
9 14 (0.56%) Android Studio
10 12 (0.48%) Xcode
11 11 (0.44%) Chocolatey
12 10 (0.40%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.40%) Browser DevTools
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
1 907 (35.96%) Social Skills
2 238 (9.44%) Finance
3 207 (8.21%) Public Sector
4 205 (8.13%) Analytical Skills
5 139 (5.51%) Banking
6 106 (4.20%) Documentation Skills
7 99 (3.93%) Legal
8 83 (3.29%) Organisational Skills
9 58 (2.30%) Military
10 41 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
11 40 (1.59%) Manufacturing
12 35 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 34 (1.35%) Retail
14 27 (1.07%) Law
15 26 (1.03%) Telecoms
16 24 (0.95%) Investment Banking
17 21 (0.83%) Front Office
18 20 (0.79%) Local Government
19 18 (0.71%) Aerospace
20 15 (0.59%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 353 (14.00%) IT Support
2 348 (13.80%) Support Engineer
3 333 (13.20%) Analyst
4 212 (8.41%) IT Engineer
5 179 (7.10%) IT Support Engineer
6 164 (6.50%) Architect
7 160 (6.34%) Senior
8 152 (6.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 141 (5.59%) Support Analyst
10 111 (4.40%) Desktop Support
11 105 (4.16%) Technical Support
12 102 (4.04%) Developer
13 101 (4.00%) 2nd Line Support
14 99 (3.93%) Desktop Engineer
15 90 (3.57%) IT Analyst
16 85 (3.37%) Windows Engineer
17 79 (3.13%) Lead
18 72 (2.85%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 72 (2.85%) IT Support Analyst
19 69 (2.74%) 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 (1.63%) SAML
6 39 (1.55%) LDAP
7 34 (1.35%) Middleware
8 29 (1.15%) Web Services
9 27 (1.07%) WPF
10 26 (1.03%) 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
1 179 (7.10%) Onboarding
2 103 (4.08%) Data Centre
3 101 (4.00%) PKI
4 76 (3.01%) Enterprise Software
5 67 (2.66%) Driving Licence
6 64 (2.54%) Self-Motivation
7 57 (2.26%) Clustering
8 54 (2.14%) Replication
9 47 (1.86%) Smartphone
10 45 (1.78%) Management Information System
11 44 (1.74%) Hybrid Cloud
12 41 (1.63%) Security Posture
13 40 (1.59%) 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
1 598 (23.71%) Linux
2 554 (21.97%) Windows Server
3 532 (21.09%) Windows 10
4 139 (5.51%) Android
5 132 (5.23%) Unix
6 130 (5.15%) Mac OS
7 109 (4.32%) Apple iOS
8 70 (2.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 60 (2.38%) Windows Server 2016
10 46 (1.82%) Windows 7
11 44 (1.74%) Windows Server 2019
12 37 (1.47%) Windows Server 2012
13 36 (1.43%) AIX
14 28 (1.11%) Windows Server 2003
15 18 (0.71%) Ubuntu
16 16 (0.63%) VMS
17 12 (0.48%) Solaris
18 10 (0.40%) Mac OS X
18 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2008
19 8 (0.32%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 500 (19.83%) Problem-Solving
2 439 (17.41%) Customer Service
3 360 (14.27%) ITIL
4 280 (11.10%) Agile
5 253 (10.03%) Migration
6 236 (9.36%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 225 (8.92%) DevOps
8 209 (8.29%) ITSM
9 202 (8.01%) CI/CD
10 181 (7.18%) Continuous Improvement
11 180 (7.14%) Service Management
12 175 (6.94%) Cybersecurity
13 166 (6.58%) Change Management
14 155 (6.15%) Disaster Recovery
15 129 (5.11%) Stakeholder Management
16 128 (5.08%) High Availability
17 117 (4.64%) User Experience
18 111 (4.40%) Infrastructure as Code
19 108 (4.28%) Service Delivery
20 106 (4.20%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 533 (21.13%) PowerShell
2 261 (10.35%) Python
3 227 (9.00%) SQL
4 121 (4.80%) C#
5 105 (4.16%) Bash
6 84 (3.33%) Java
7 74 (2.93%) JavaScript
8 53 (2.10%) C++
9 49 (1.94%) PL/SQL
10 47 (1.86%) 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 (0.56%) VBA
17 13 (0.52%) Bicep
17 13 (0.52%) Search Processing Language
18 12 (0.48%) TypeScript
19 11 (0.44%) Go
Qualifications
1 809 (32.08%) Security Cleared
2 531 (21.05%) SC Cleared
3 256 (10.15%) Degree
4 236 (9.36%) DV Cleared
5 119 (4.72%) Microsoft Certification
6 75 (2.97%) Computer Science Degree
7 61 (2.42%) Cisco Certification
8 43 (1.70%) Azure Certification
9 41 (1.63%) 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 21 (0.83%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 20 (0.79%) CompTIA Security+
19 19 (0.75%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (3.45%) GDPR
2 83 (3.29%) QA
2 83 (3.29%) SLA
3 80 (3.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 57 (2.26%) NIST
5 41 (1.63%) PCI DSS
6 23 (0.91%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 15 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
8 13 (0.52%) MiFID
8 13 (0.52%) PMO
9 12 (0.48%) NCSC
10 11 (0.44%) NIST 800
11 10 (0.40%) FINRA
11 10 (0.40%) GLBA
12 9 (0.36%) Data Quality
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
1 940 (37.27%) Active Directory
2 259 (10.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 107 (4.24%) Hyper-V
4 91 (3.61%) Docker
5 67 (2.66%) vSphere
6 56 (2.22%) Virtual Machines
7 54 (2.14%) VMware ESXi
8 51 (2.02%) Virtual Desktop
9 34 (1.35%) VMware NSX
10 28 (1.11%) Firmware
11 27 (1.07%) BitLocker
12 23 (0.91%) Microsoft App-V
13 16 (0.63%) KVM
14 9 (0.36%) XenDesktop
15 8 (0.32%) XenApp
16 6 (0.24%) Terminal Services
17 5 (0.20%) etcd
17 5 (0.20%) NFS
17 5 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
18 4 (0.16%) Snort
Systems Management
1 344 (13.64%) Microsoft Intune
2 289 (11.46%) SCCM
3 161 (6.38%) Terraform
4 152 (6.03%) Ansible
5 119 (4.72%) Kubernetes
6 65 (2.58%) Single Sign-On
7 59 (2.34%) vCenter Server
8 58 (2.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 37 (1.47%) Jamf Pro
10 33 (1.31%) FortiGate
11 27 (1.07%) WSUS
12 25 (0.99%) 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 (43.22%) Microsoft
2 359 (14.23%) VMware
3 226 (8.96%) ServiceNow
4 198 (7.85%) Citrix
5 153 (6.07%) Oracle
6 148 (5.87%) Cisco
7 115 (4.56%) Splunk
8 70 (2.78%) HP
9 62 (2.46%) SolarWinds
10 60 (2.38%) Red Hat
11 57 (2.26%) Dell
12 56 (2.22%) Google
13 49 (1.94%) IBM
14 47 (1.86%) Apple
15 46 (1.82%) Remedy
16 43 (1.70%) Juniper
17 38 (1.51%) Veeam
18 36 (1.43%) CyberArk
19 34 (1.35%) F5
20 31 (1.23%) Palo Alto