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 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 21 19 13
Rank change year-on-year -2 -6 +2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,549 2,559 3,988
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.39% 8.30% 10.15%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.39% 58.25% 64.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,719 1,614 2,671
10th Percentile £163 £185 £163
25th Percentile £204 £248 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £400 £415
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% -3.55% -2.35%
75th Percentile £538 £565 £575
90th Percentile £638 £639 £675
UK median daily rate £400 £420 £420
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 274 106 236
10th Percentile £14.09 £15.22 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.69 £17.59 £17.72
Median hourly rate £21.46 £24.35 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.87% +8.22% +4.65%
75th Percentile £38.94 £65.00 £55.47
90th Percentile £65.00 £74.00 £68.63
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.50
% change year-on-year -9.02% +7.47% +9.76%

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 4,221 4,393 6,139
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 13.89% 14.25% 15.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,770 2,705 4,207
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £263 £325 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -5.88%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £613
90th Percentile £675 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £480
% change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 341 181 327
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.25 £15.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £23.80 £18.93
Median hourly rate £23.50 £58.49 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -59.82% +46.23% +60.00%
75th Percentile £54.75 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £71.00 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £50.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -52.00% +33.33% +50.00%

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025. 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 -12 800 £450 +12.50% 626
South East +2 513 £350 -17.65% 526
North of England -4 399 £280 -30.00% 300
South West +5 331 £425 - 229
Midlands -7 308 £400 +5.26% 203
North West -3 220 £328 -27.22% 180
West Midlands -5 218 £427 +12.37% 120
East of England -1 212 £225 -43.75% 145
Yorkshire -10 150 £240 -31.43% 95
East Midlands -4 89 £210 -44.00% 82
North East +2 32 £190 -38.71% 25
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
1 240 (9.42%) Microsoft Exchange
2 170 (6.67%) SharePoint
3 80 (3.14%) Confluence
4 53 (2.08%) Apache
5 42 (1.65%) IIS
6 25 (0.98%) WebSphere
7 22 (0.86%) Skype for Business
8 20 (0.78%) JBoss
9 17 (0.67%) WebLogic
10 15 (0.59%) SharePoint Server
11 12 (0.47%) Exchange Server 2010
11 12 (0.47%) nginx
12 11 (0.43%) Exchange Server 2013
12 11 (0.43%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2003
13 10 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2007
13 10 (0.39%) iPlanet
13 10 (0.39%) Office Communications Server
14 6 (0.24%) Tomcat
15 5 (0.20%) Documentum
Applications
1 231 (9.06%) Microsoft Office
2 81 (3.18%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.39%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 8 (0.31%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.078%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.078%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.078%) Windchill
9 1 (0.039%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.039%) InDesign
9 1 (0.039%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.039%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 16 (0.63%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.27%) Maximo
3 5 (0.20%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.16%) assyst
5 3 (0.12%) ION MarketView
5 3 (0.12%) Oracle 11i
6 2 (0.078%) Eikon
6 2 (0.078%) Fidessa
6 2 (0.078%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.078%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.078%) SystmOne
6 2 (0.078%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.039%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.039%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.039%) Eze OMS
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle BPM
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.039%) RMDS
7 1 (0.039%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 692 (27.15%) Microsoft 365
2 560 (21.97%) Azure
3 225 (8.83%) Entra ID
4 217 (8.51%) AWS
5 83 (3.26%) OneDrive
6 75 (2.94%) SaaS
7 60 (2.35%) GCP
8 50 (1.96%) IaaS
9 49 (1.92%) Google Workspace
10 44 (1.73%) Azure DevOps
11 42 (1.65%) GitHub
12 37 (1.45%) PaaS
12 37 (1.45%) Power Platform
13 35 (1.37%) Amazon S3
14 33 (1.29%) Amazon EC2
15 32 (1.26%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 30 (1.18%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 30 (1.18%) Azure Sentinel
17 28 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
18 27 (1.06%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 325 (12.75%) DNS
2 287 (11.26%) Firewall
3 207 (8.12%) DHCP
4 195 (7.65%) TCP/IP
5 153 (6.00%) VPN
6 90 (3.53%) LAN
6 90 (3.53%) WAN
7 89 (3.49%) Wi-Fi
8 76 (2.98%) Network Security
9 68 (2.67%) VLAN
10 61 (2.39%) SAN
11 57 (2.24%) Wireless
12 55 (2.16%) SSH
13 48 (1.88%) Cisco IOS
14 41 (1.61%) HTTP
15 32 (1.26%) SMTP
16 30 (1.18%) FTP
17 29 (1.14%) Internet
18 28 (1.10%) SSL
19 24 (0.94%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (4.47%) SQL Server
2 69 (2.71%) Oracle Database
3 62 (2.43%) Relational Database
4 43 (1.69%) MySQL
5 34 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
6 21 (0.82%) PostgreSQL
7 16 (0.63%) Power BI
8 13 (0.51%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
9 11 (0.43%) DB2
10 10 (0.39%) BigQuery
10 10 (0.39%) NoSQL
11 8 (0.31%) GIS
11 8 (0.31%) RDBMS
11 8 (0.31%) SAP HANA
12 6 (0.24%) Big Data
12 6 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
12 6 (0.24%) MongoDB
13 5 (0.20%) HPCC
13 5 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 141 (5.53%) JIRA
2 104 (4.08%) Git
3 93 (3.65%) Jenkins
4 42 (1.65%) Eclipse
5 41 (1.61%) GitLab
6 28 (1.10%) MSI
7 27 (1.06%) Visual Studio
8 25 (0.98%) Vagrant
9 20 (0.78%) Android Studio
9 20 (0.78%) Sonatype Nexus
10 19 (0.75%) Browser DevTools
11 18 (0.71%) Bitbucket
11 18 (0.71%) Xcode
12 15 (0.59%) Bitbucket Server
12 15 (0.59%) CA Release Automation
13 13 (0.51%) Artifactory
13 13 (0.51%) Postman
14 12 (0.47%) AdminStudio
14 12 (0.47%) InstallShield
14 12 (0.47%) SonarQube
General
1 953 (37.39%) Social Skills
2 343 (13.46%) Finance
3 243 (9.53%) Public Sector
4 227 (8.91%) Analytical Skills
5 125 (4.90%) Banking
6 105 (4.12%) Documentation Skills
7 65 (2.55%) Legal
8 58 (2.28%) Manufacturing
9 57 (2.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 51 (2.00%) Military
11 49 (1.92%) Organisational Skills
12 48 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
13 43 (1.69%) Telecoms
14 38 (1.49%) Retail
15 31 (1.22%) Games
16 29 (1.14%) Marketing
17 25 (0.98%) Front Office
18 24 (0.94%) Aerospace
19 20 (0.78%) Electronics
19 20 (0.78%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 420 (16.48%) Support Engineer
2 310 (12.16%) Analyst
3 287 (11.26%) IT Support
4 182 (7.14%) IT Engineer
5 158 (6.20%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 151 (5.92%) Windows Engineer
7 144 (5.65%) Desktop Engineer
8 139 (5.45%) Desktop Support
9 137 (5.37%) Support Analyst
10 131 (5.14%) Senior
11 128 (5.02%) Architect
12 125 (4.90%) IT Support Engineer
13 122 (4.79%) Deployment Engineer
14 118 (4.63%) 2nd Line Support
15 106 (4.16%) Technical Support
16 105 (4.12%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 103 (4.04%) Platform Engineer
18 97 (3.81%) Developer
19 84 (3.30%) Administrator
20 76 (2.98%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (2.63%) .NET
2 45 (1.77%) Middleware
3 42 (1.65%) LDAP
4 41 (1.61%) Web Services
5 40 (1.57%) WPF
6 39 (1.53%) .NET Framework
7 38 (1.49%) Node.js
8 37 (1.45%) REST
9 36 (1.41%) OAuth
10 34 (1.33%) SAML
11 33 (1.29%) AngularJS
12 32 (1.26%) XML
13 28 (1.10%) OpenID
13 28 (1.10%) React
14 25 (0.98%) SOAP
15 22 (0.86%) CSS
16 20 (0.78%) Ajax
17 19 (0.75%) GraphQL
17 19 (0.75%) RESTful
18 15 (0.59%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 100 (3.92%) Onboarding
2 93 (3.65%) Data Centre
3 86 (3.37%) PKI
4 67 (2.63%) Driving Licence
5 66 (2.59%) Replication
6 63 (2.47%) Self-Motivation
7 55 (2.16%) Enterprise Software
8 53 (2.08%) Management Information System
9 38 (1.49%) iPhone
10 34 (1.33%) Video Conferencing
11 33 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
11 33 (1.29%) iPad
11 33 (1.29%) NHS
12 31 (1.22%) Security Posture
13 30 (1.18%) Smartphone
14 27 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
14 27 (1.06%) Hybrid Cloud
15 23 (0.90%) Mobile App
15 23 (0.90%) Private Cloud
16 22 (0.86%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 613 (24.05%) Linux
2 559 (21.93%) Windows 10
3 489 (19.18%) Windows Server
4 162 (6.36%) Unix
5 145 (5.69%) Android
6 141 (5.53%) Mac OS
7 102 (4.00%) Apple iOS
8 73 (2.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 67 (2.63%) Windows 7
10 56 (2.20%) Windows Server 2016
11 54 (2.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 40 (1.57%) Windows Server 2012
13 37 (1.45%) Ubuntu
13 37 (1.45%) Windows Server 2003
14 36 (1.41%) VMS
15 26 (1.02%) AIX
16 24 (0.94%) CentOS
17 23 (0.90%) Amazon Linux
18 14 (0.55%) Solaris
18 14 (0.55%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 460 (18.05%) Problem-Solving
2 385 (15.10%) ITIL
3 345 (13.53%) Customer Service
4 260 (10.20%) Migration
5 245 (9.61%) Agile
6 219 (8.59%) DevOps
7 214 (8.40%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 208 (8.16%) Service Management
9 197 (7.73%) ITSM
10 174 (6.83%) CI/CD
11 173 (6.79%) Cybersecurity
12 149 (5.85%) Change Management
13 148 (5.81%) Continuous Improvement
14 120 (4.71%) User Experience
15 111 (4.35%) Stakeholder Management
16 106 (4.16%) Incident Response
17 101 (3.96%) Cloud Security
18 93 (3.65%) Service Delivery
19 91 (3.57%) Identity Access Management
19 91 (3.57%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 487 (19.11%) PowerShell
2 329 (12.91%) Python
3 244 (9.57%) SQL
4 129 (5.06%) C#
5 120 (4.71%) Java
6 112 (4.39%) Bash
7 88 (3.45%) JavaScript
8 75 (2.94%) C++
8 75 (2.94%) Perl
9 39 (1.53%) PL/SQL
9 39 (1.53%) VB
10 33 (1.29%) Groovy
11 31 (1.22%) Shell Script
12 30 (1.18%) VBA
13 29 (1.14%) Kusto Query Language
14 27 (1.06%) VBScript
15 21 (0.82%) T-SQL
16 20 (0.78%) C
16 20 (0.78%) PHP
17 13 (0.51%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 747 (29.31%) Security Cleared
2 516 (20.24%) SC Cleared
3 223 (8.75%) Degree
4 193 (7.57%) DV Cleared
5 178 (6.98%) Microsoft Certification
6 65 (2.55%) Computer Science Degree
7 56 (2.20%) Azure Certification
8 49 (1.92%) Cisco Certification
8 49 (1.92%) MCSE
9 48 (1.88%) A+ Certification
10 35 (1.37%) DBS Check
11 34 (1.33%) AWS Certification
11 34 (1.33%) CISSP
12 32 (1.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 31 (1.22%) ITIL Certification
14 30 (1.18%) CCNA
14 30 (1.18%) CCNP
15 23 (0.90%) MCP
16 22 (0.86%) BPSS Clearance
17 20 (0.78%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (3.45%) SLA
2 69 (2.71%) QA
3 59 (2.31%) GDPR
4 56 (2.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 53 (2.08%) NIST
6 16 (0.63%) HIPAA
7 13 (0.51%) PCI DSS
8 11 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
8 11 (0.43%) NCSC
9 9 (0.35%) Accessibility
9 9 (0.35%) PMO
10 4 (0.16%) GLBA
10 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
11 3 (0.12%) ECSS
11 3 (0.12%) GxP
11 3 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.078%) COBIT
12 2 (0.078%) Data Quality
12 2 (0.078%) ISO 9001
12 2 (0.078%) MiFID
System Software
1 941 (36.92%) Active Directory
2 241 (9.45%) VMware Infrastructure
3 112 (4.39%) Docker
4 78 (3.06%) Hyper-V
5 65 (2.55%) Virtual Desktop
6 55 (2.16%) vSphere
7 54 (2.12%) Virtual Machines
8 49 (1.92%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.22%) VMware NSX
10 25 (0.98%) DFS Replication
10 25 (0.98%) Microsoft App-V
11 20 (0.78%) BitLocker
11 20 (0.78%) NFS
12 17 (0.67%) Firmware
13 15 (0.59%) Virtual Servers
14 14 (0.55%) Terminal Services
15 10 (0.39%) Dovecot
15 10 (0.39%) ISA Server
15 10 (0.39%) Postfix
15 10 (0.39%) Squid
Systems Management
1 389 (15.26%) SCCM
2 290 (11.38%) Microsoft Intune
3 147 (5.77%) Terraform
4 118 (4.63%) Ansible
5 69 (2.71%) Kubernetes
6 54 (2.12%) vCenter Server
7 44 (1.73%) Grafana
8 42 (1.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 40 (1.57%) Jamf Pro
9 40 (1.57%) Single Sign-On
10 32 (1.26%) WSUS
11 30 (1.18%) Prometheus
12 29 (1.14%) SCOM
13 26 (1.02%) Nessus
14 24 (0.94%) Microsoft Clustering
15 23 (0.90%) Puppet
16 22 (0.86%) Progress Chef
17 16 (0.63%) Proxmox
18 13 (0.51%) NetBackup
18 13 (0.51%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,138 (44.64%) Microsoft
2 343 (13.46%) VMware
3 236 (9.26%) ServiceNow
4 200 (7.85%) Oracle
5 170 (6.67%) Cisco
6 163 (6.39%) Citrix
7 136 (5.34%) Splunk
8 70 (2.75%) Apple
9 68 (2.67%) Red Hat
10 64 (2.51%) IBM
11 58 (2.28%) HP
12 55 (2.16%) Veeam
13 53 (2.08%) Dell
14 51 (2.00%) Google
15 46 (1.80%) SolarWinds
16 42 (1.65%) AppDynamics
16 42 (1.65%) SAP
17 41 (1.61%) CyberArk
18 38 (1.49%) NetApp
19 36 (1.41%) Remedy