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

6 months to
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 21 16
Rank change year-on-year -7 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,704 2,278 3,003
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.98% 8.26% 8.69%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.69% 60.71% 61.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,731 1,547 2,035
10th Percentile £171 £178 £175
25th Percentile £225 £225 £251
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £422 £413 £440
Median % change year-on-year +2.18% -6.25% -1.68%
75th Percentile £553 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £656
UK median daily rate £425 £415 £426
% change year-on-year +2.37% -2.54% -5.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 236 182 239
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.15 £11.07
25th Percentile £18.38 £17.27 £14.45
Median hourly rate £25.76 £18.87 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.51% -0.68% -22.83%
75th Percentile £55.13 £27.31 £38.37
90th Percentile £73.00 £65.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.13 £18.87 £20.00
% change year-on-year +33.17% -5.65% -16.67%

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 4,383 3,752 4,907
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.69% 13.60% 14.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,823 2,506 3,257
10th Percentile £190 £200 £200
25th Percentile £313 £313 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £460 £475
Median % change year-on-year +1.09% -3.16% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £656 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £469 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +1.41% -2.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 296 225 342
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.24 £18.10 £16.25
Median hourly rate £32.50 £23.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.30% -8.00% -41.18%
75th Percentile £65.00 £57.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £73.50 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £23.00 £24.18
% change year-on-year +13.04% -4.88% -43.11%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -17 880 £418 -3.13% 251
South East -8 578 £475 -3.46% 285
North of England -10 482 £344 -0.29% 194
Midlands -20 274 £384 +18.00% 108
South West -13 267 £488 +21.88% 115
North West -9 255 £344 -3.91% 97
East of England -2 206 £335 +34.00% 105
Yorkshire -10 203 £358 +5.93% 67
West Midlands -27 174 £450 +12.50% 62
East Midlands +9 95 £270 +35.00% 46
North East -41 28 £270 -1.82% 36
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
1 227 (8.39%) Microsoft Exchange
2 217 (8.03%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.26%) Confluence
4 56 (2.07%) IIS
5 17 (0.63%) nginx
6 15 (0.55%) Apache
7 14 (0.52%) Tomcat
8 11 (0.41%) Skype for Business
9 9 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 9 (0.33%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.22%) Appian
10 6 (0.22%) Documentum
11 5 (0.18%) Camunda
12 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
13 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
13 3 (0.11%) NetWeaver
13 3 (0.11%) Tuxedo
14 2 (0.074%) Oracle HTTP Server
14 2 (0.074%) SAS
Applications
1 163 (6.03%) Microsoft Office
2 65 (2.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
4 7 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
5 4 (0.15%) Acrobat
5 4 (0.15%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.11%) Houdini
6 3 (0.11%) NUKE
7 2 (0.074%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.074%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.037%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.037%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.037%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 53 (1.96%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.37%) Finacle
3 9 (0.33%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.26%) Teamcenter
5 6 (0.22%) OpenText MBPM
5 6 (0.22%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.074%) assyst
8 1 (0.037%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.037%) Oracle BRM
8 1 (0.037%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.037%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.037%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.037%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.037%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.037%) SAP FS
8 1 (0.037%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 836 (30.92%) Azure
2 826 (30.55%) Microsoft 365
3 402 (14.87%) Entra ID
4 297 (10.98%) AWS
5 119 (4.40%) OneDrive
6 90 (3.33%) GCP
7 89 (3.29%) Azure DevOps
8 76 (2.81%) SaaS
9 64 (2.37%) Azure Monitor
10 62 (2.29%) IaaS
11 59 (2.18%) GitHub
12 56 (2.07%) Power Platform
13 53 (1.96%) PaaS
14 41 (1.52%) Azure Sentinel
15 28 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
16 25 (0.92%) Azure AKS
17 24 (0.89%) Google Workspace
17 24 (0.89%) OpenShift
18 23 (0.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 22 (0.81%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 406 (15.01%) DNS
2 309 (11.43%) Firewall
3 280 (10.36%) DHCP
4 203 (7.51%) VPN
5 190 (7.03%) TCP/IP
6 154 (5.70%) LAN
7 141 (5.21%) WAN
8 130 (4.81%) Wi-Fi
9 86 (3.18%) SAN
10 64 (2.37%) Network Security
11 61 (2.26%) VLAN
12 47 (1.74%) BGP
12 47 (1.74%) SSL
13 40 (1.48%) NAS
14 38 (1.41%) Internet
15 37 (1.37%) OSPF
16 35 (1.29%) Wireless
17 29 (1.07%) Skype
17 29 (1.07%) VoIP
17 29 (1.07%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 257 (9.50%) SQL Server
2 53 (1.96%) Oracle Database
3 43 (1.59%) Power BI
4 26 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
5 23 (0.85%) MySQL
5 23 (0.85%) Relational Database
6 20 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
6 20 (0.74%) Db2
7 19 (0.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 13 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
9 12 (0.44%) RDBMS
10 11 (0.41%) NoSQL
10 11 (0.41%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 10 (0.37%) Geospatial Data
11 10 (0.37%) MongoDB
11 10 (0.37%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 8 (0.30%) Data Warehouse
13 6 (0.22%) GIS
14 5 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
14 5 (0.18%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 173 (6.40%) JIRA
2 58 (2.14%) Git
3 46 (1.70%) MSI
4 44 (1.63%) Jenkins
5 37 (1.37%) GitLab
6 33 (1.22%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.63%) Eclipse
8 12 (0.44%) Bitbucket
9 8 (0.30%) Chocolatey
10 7 (0.26%) Artifactory
10 7 (0.26%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 7 (0.26%) Browser DevTools
10 7 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
11 6 (0.22%) Android Studio
11 6 (0.22%) InstallShield
11 6 (0.22%) Xcode
12 5 (0.18%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.18%) Selenium
13 4 (0.15%) Burp Suite
13 4 (0.15%) Maven
General
1 988 (36.54%) Social Skills
2 318 (11.76%) Finance
3 312 (11.54%) Analytical Skills
4 168 (6.21%) Public Sector
5 155 (5.73%) Banking
6 98 (3.62%) Documentation Skills
7 81 (3.00%) Organisational Skills
8 79 (2.92%) Legal
9 56 (2.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 54 (2.00%) Retail
11 46 (1.70%) Military
12 45 (1.66%) Manufacturing
13 37 (1.37%) Front Office
14 36 (1.33%) Telecoms
15 34 (1.26%) Investment Banking
16 33 (1.22%) Law
17 27 (1.00%) Spanish Language
18 25 (0.92%) Financial Institution
19 22 (0.81%) French Language
20 20 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 399 (14.76%) Support Engineer
2 370 (13.68%) IT Support
3 272 (10.06%) IT Engineer
4 258 (9.54%) Analyst
4 258 (9.54%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 229 (8.47%) IT Support Engineer
6 207 (7.66%) Senior
7 123 (4.55%) 2nd Line Support
8 111 (4.11%) Architect
9 108 (3.99%) Desktop Support
10 99 (3.66%) Developer
11 97 (3.59%) Desktop Engineer
12 96 (3.55%) Cloud Engineer
12 96 (3.55%) Support Analyst
13 91 (3.37%) Lead
14 84 (3.11%) IT Analyst
15 76 (2.81%) Consultant
16 73 (2.70%) 1st Line Support
16 73 (2.70%) Windows Engineer
17 70 (2.59%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (3.74%) .NET
2 95 (3.51%) REST
3 61 (2.26%) .NET Framework
4 31 (1.15%) 802.1X
5 28 (1.04%) Microsoft Graph
5 28 (1.04%) WPF
6 27 (1.00%) LDAP
6 27 (1.00%) Middleware
6 27 (1.00%) WinForms
7 25 (0.92%) Web Services
8 23 (0.85%) CSS
9 22 (0.81%) JSON
10 20 (0.74%) Software Packaging
11 19 (0.70%) Elastic Stack
11 19 (0.70%) Kafka
12 18 (0.67%) HTML
12 18 (0.67%) RESTful
13 16 (0.59%) Node.js
14 15 (0.55%) ARM Templates
14 15 (0.55%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 296 (10.95%) Onboarding
2 146 (5.40%) PKI
3 143 (5.29%) Data Centre
4 83 (3.07%) Clustering
5 74 (2.74%) Management Information System
6 71 (2.63%) Enterprise Software
7 69 (2.55%) Cloud Native
8 62 (2.29%) Self-Motivation
9 55 (2.03%) Driving Licence
9 55 (2.03%) Hybrid Cloud
10 53 (1.96%) Video Conferencing
11 51 (1.89%) Security Posture
12 50 (1.85%) Replication
13 48 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
14 40 (1.48%) Virtual Team
15 35 (1.29%) Analytical Mindset
15 35 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
16 32 (1.18%) Linux Command Line
17 28 (1.04%) CMDB
17 28 (1.04%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 662 (24.48%) Windows Server
2 656 (24.26%) Linux
3 467 (17.27%) Windows 10
4 184 (6.80%) Mac OS
5 128 (4.73%) Apple iOS
6 125 (4.62%) Android
6 125 (4.62%) Unix
7 109 (4.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 64 (2.37%) Windows Server 2019
9 40 (1.48%) Ubuntu
9 40 (1.48%) Windows Server 2016
10 33 (1.22%) Windows Server 2012
11 32 (1.18%) AIX
12 30 (1.11%) Windows 7
13 22 (0.81%) CentOS
14 19 (0.70%) Solaris
15 17 (0.63%) VMS
16 15 (0.55%) Windows Server 2008
17 10 (0.37%) Windows Server 2003
18 9 (0.33%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 629 (23.26%) Problem-Solving
2 465 (17.20%) ITIL
3 416 (15.38%) Customer Service
4 336 (12.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 315 (11.65%) Migration
6 303 (11.21%) ITSM
7 257 (9.50%) Continuous Improvement
8 256 (9.47%) DevOps
9 248 (9.17%) Agile
10 240 (8.88%) CI/CD
11 216 (7.99%) Service Management
12 196 (7.25%) Infrastructure as Code
13 184 (6.80%) Change Management
14 176 (6.51%) Stakeholder Management
15 173 (6.40%) High Availability
16 151 (5.58%) Cybersecurity
17 146 (5.40%) SIEM
18 144 (5.33%) Disaster Recovery
19 140 (5.18%) Runbook
19 140 (5.18%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 617 (22.82%) PowerShell
2 291 (10.76%) Python
3 277 (10.24%) SQL
4 151 (5.58%) Bash
5 134 (4.96%) C#
6 68 (2.51%) Java
6 68 (2.51%) JavaScript
7 51 (1.89%) PL/SQL
7 51 (1.89%) T-SQL
8 46 (1.70%) C++
9 39 (1.44%) Bicep
10 24 (0.89%) Search Processing Language
11 22 (0.81%) VB
12 18 (0.67%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.63%) VBScript
14 16 (0.59%) Kusto Query Language
14 16 (0.59%) Perl
14 16 (0.59%) TypeScript
15 15 (0.55%) C
16 14 (0.52%) VBA
Qualifications
1 821 (30.36%) Security Cleared
2 495 (18.31%) SC Cleared
3 296 (10.95%) DV Cleared
4 295 (10.91%) Degree
5 104 (3.85%) Microsoft Certification
6 82 (3.03%) Cisco Certification
7 69 (2.55%) Computer Science Degree
8 65 (2.40%) Azure Certification
9 63 (2.33%) CISSP
10 49 (1.81%) AWS Certification
11 46 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
12 36 (1.33%) A+ Certification
13 33 (1.22%) MCSE
14 30 (1.11%) CCNA
15 28 (1.04%) CCNP
16 27 (1.00%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 25 (0.92%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 24 (0.89%) CISM
18 24 (0.89%) ITIL Certification
19 22 (0.81%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 121 (4.47%) SLA
2 115 (4.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 84 (3.11%) NIST
4 71 (2.63%) QA
5 31 (1.15%) GDPR
6 27 (1.00%) Cyber Essentials
7 26 (0.96%) PCI DSS
8 22 (0.81%) NCSC
9 16 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 13 (0.48%) Data Quality
11 11 (0.41%) Accessibility
11 11 (0.41%) HIPAA
12 10 (0.37%) GRC
12 10 (0.37%) PMO
13 9 (0.33%) WCAG
14 8 (0.30%) GxP
14 8 (0.30%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.30%) SOC 2
15 6 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 6 (0.22%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 1,068 (39.50%) Active Directory
2 360 (13.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 143 (5.29%) Hyper-V
4 123 (4.55%) VMware ESXi
5 101 (3.74%) vSphere
6 95 (3.51%) Docker
6 95 (3.51%) Virtual Machines
7 71 (2.63%) Virtual Desktop
8 68 (2.51%) VMware NSX
9 35 (1.29%) Firmware
10 32 (1.18%) BitLocker
11 24 (0.89%) Microsoft App-V
12 17 (0.63%) KVM
13 16 (0.59%) vCloud
14 8 (0.30%) VMware Workstation
14 8 (0.30%) XenDesktop
15 7 (0.26%) NFS
15 7 (0.26%) XenApp
16 6 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
16 6 (0.22%) UAG
Systems Management
1 398 (14.72%) Microsoft Intune
2 249 (9.21%) SCCM
3 228 (8.43%) Terraform
4 194 (7.17%) Ansible
5 146 (5.40%) Kubernetes
6 108 (3.99%) vCenter Server
7 62 (2.29%) SCOM
8 49 (1.81%) Jamf Pro
9 38 (1.41%) FortiGate
10 37 (1.37%) WSUS
11 36 (1.33%) Progress Chef
12 30 (1.11%) Puppet
12 30 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
13 26 (0.96%) Grafana
14 25 (0.92%) Prometheus
15 23 (0.85%) Nagios
15 23 (0.85%) Packer
16 20 (0.74%) Nessus
16 20 (0.74%) ZABBIX
17 19 (0.70%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,186 (43.86%) Microsoft
2 485 (17.94%) VMware
3 287 (10.61%) ServiceNow
4 180 (6.66%) Citrix
5 177 (6.55%) Cisco
6 155 (5.73%) Oracle
7 118 (4.36%) Splunk
8 81 (3.00%) Apple
9 80 (2.96%) SolarWinds
10 77 (2.85%) CyberArk
11 69 (2.55%) Red Hat
12 67 (2.48%) Google
13 65 (2.40%) HP
14 64 (2.37%) Remedy
15 58 (2.14%) BeyondTrust
16 54 (2.00%) Dell
17 52 (1.92%) Juniper
18 47 (1.74%) IBM
19 43 (1.59%) F5
20 41 (1.52%) BMC