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

6 months to
14 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 21 19 14
Rank change year-on-year -2 -5 +1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,530 2,591 3,978
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.37% 8.30% 10.07%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.14% 58.40% 64.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,703 1,636 2,662
10th Percentile £163 £188 £163
25th Percentile £204 £250 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £420 £415
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% +1.20% -2.35%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £576
90th Percentile £638 £646 £675
UK median daily rate £390 £425 £420
% change year-on-year -8.24% +1.19% -1.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 271 109 238
10th Percentile £13.65 £15.22 £14.17
25th Percentile £17.69 £17.44 £17.72
Median hourly rate £21.46 £24.20 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.32% +7.56% +2.27%
75th Percentile £33.26 £65.00 £55.46
90th Percentile £65.00 £74.00 £68.63
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.39
% change year-on-year -9.02% +8.01% +9.21%

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 4,207 4,437 6,157
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 13.91% 14.21% 15.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,757 2,733 4,219
10th Percentile £185 £203 £185
25th Percentile £263 £325 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -2.56% -2.60%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £615
90th Percentile £671 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £480
% change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -4.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 336 185 328
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.25 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.87 £23.10 £18.93
Median hourly rate £23.00 £57.50 £39.08
Median % change year-on-year -60.00% +47.14% +56.31%
75th Percentile £45.00 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £70.00 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £52.50 £35.92
% change year-on-year -54.29% +46.16% +43.68%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -10 798 £425 +6.25% 631
South East +3 508 £335 -21.18% 497
North of England -4 395 £290 -27.50% 313
South West +5 329 £425 -5.56% 223
Midlands -7 297 £388 +1.57% 209
East of England 0 216 £225 -47.06% 158
North West -3 215 £330 -26.67% 189
West Midlands -7 209 £425 +8.28% 122
Yorkshire -9 152 £250 -33.33% 99
East Midlands -2 87 £210 -44.00% 87
North East -1 31 £200 -35.48% 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
1 237 (9.37%) Microsoft Exchange
2 165 (6.52%) SharePoint
3 79 (3.12%) Confluence
4 51 (2.02%) Apache
5 40 (1.58%) IIS
6 25 (0.99%) WebSphere
7 23 (0.91%) Skype for Business
8 20 (0.79%) JBoss
9 17 (0.67%) WebLogic
10 15 (0.59%) SharePoint Server
11 12 (0.47%) nginx
12 11 (0.43%) Exchange Server 2010
12 11 (0.43%) Exchange Server 2013
12 11 (0.43%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2003
13 10 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2007
13 10 (0.40%) iPlanet
13 10 (0.40%) Office Communications Server
14 6 (0.24%) Tomcat
15 5 (0.20%) Documentum
Applications
1 228 (9.01%) Microsoft Office
2 82 (3.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.40%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 8 (0.32%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.079%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.079%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.079%) Windchill
9 1 (0.040%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.040%) InDesign
9 1 (0.040%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.040%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 15 (0.59%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.28%) Maximo
3 5 (0.20%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.12%) assyst
4 3 (0.12%) ION MarketView
4 3 (0.12%) Oracle 11i
5 2 (0.079%) Eikon
5 2 (0.079%) Fidessa
5 2 (0.079%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.079%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.079%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.079%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.079%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.079%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.079%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.040%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.040%) Eze OMS
6 1 (0.040%) OpenText MBPM
6 1 (0.040%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.040%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 691 (27.31%) Microsoft 365
2 557 (22.02%) Azure
3 223 (8.81%) Entra ID
4 215 (8.50%) AWS
5 85 (3.36%) OneDrive
6 75 (2.96%) SaaS
7 56 (2.21%) GCP
8 51 (2.02%) IaaS
9 50 (1.98%) Google Workspace
10 42 (1.66%) Azure DevOps
11 39 (1.54%) GitHub
11 39 (1.54%) PaaS
12 37 (1.46%) Power Platform
13 35 (1.38%) Amazon S3
14 33 (1.30%) Amazon EC2
15 32 (1.26%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 30 (1.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 30 (1.19%) Azure Sentinel
17 28 (1.11%) Azure Monitor
18 27 (1.07%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 314 (12.41%) DNS
2 278 (10.99%) Firewall
3 192 (7.59%) DHCP
4 191 (7.55%) TCP/IP
5 154 (6.09%) VPN
6 91 (3.60%) LAN
6 91 (3.60%) WAN
7 88 (3.48%) Wi-Fi
8 76 (3.00%) Network Security
9 67 (2.65%) SAN
9 67 (2.65%) VLAN
10 55 (2.17%) SSH
10 55 (2.17%) Wireless
11 48 (1.90%) Cisco IOS
12 41 (1.62%) HTTP
13 31 (1.23%) SMTP
14 29 (1.15%) Internet
15 28 (1.11%) SSL
16 27 (1.07%) FTP
17 25 (0.99%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 115 (4.55%) SQL Server
2 70 (2.77%) Oracle Database
3 62 (2.45%) Relational Database
4 43 (1.70%) MySQL
5 34 (1.34%) Amazon RDS
6 21 (0.83%) 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 (0.40%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.36%) BigQuery
12 8 (0.32%) GIS
12 8 (0.32%) RDBMS
12 8 (0.32%) SAP HANA
13 7 (0.28%) MongoDB
14 6 (0.24%) Big Data
14 6 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
14 6 (0.24%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 5 (0.20%) HPCC
Development Applications
1 139 (5.49%) JIRA
2 105 (4.15%) Git
3 91 (3.60%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.62%) Eclipse
4 41 (1.62%) GitLab
5 26 (1.03%) MSI
5 26 (1.03%) Visual Studio
6 25 (0.99%) Vagrant
7 20 (0.79%) Android Studio
7 20 (0.79%) Sonatype Nexus
8 19 (0.75%) Browser DevTools
9 18 (0.71%) Xcode
10 17 (0.67%) Bitbucket
11 15 (0.59%) Bitbucket Server
11 15 (0.59%) CA Release Automation
12 13 (0.51%) Artifactory
12 13 (0.51%) Postman
13 11 (0.43%) AdminStudio
14 10 (0.40%) InstallShield
14 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
General
1 943 (37.27%) Social Skills
2 347 (13.72%) Finance
3 234 (9.25%) Public Sector
4 225 (8.89%) Analytical Skills
5 125 (4.94%) Banking
6 102 (4.03%) Documentation Skills
7 63 (2.49%) Legal
8 59 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 59 (2.33%) Manufacturing
9 51 (2.02%) Organisational Skills
10 47 (1.86%) Presentation Skills
11 46 (1.82%) Military
12 41 (1.62%) Telecoms
13 38 (1.50%) Retail
14 31 (1.23%) Games
15 28 (1.11%) Marketing
16 26 (1.03%) Front Office
17 22 (0.87%) Aerospace
18 20 (0.79%) Electronics
18 20 (0.79%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 425 (16.80%) Support Engineer
2 304 (12.02%) Analyst
3 288 (11.38%) IT Support
4 186 (7.35%) IT Engineer
5 156 (6.17%) Windows Engineer
6 151 (5.97%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 146 (5.77%) Desktop Engineer
8 141 (5.57%) Desktop Support
9 135 (5.34%) Support Analyst
10 129 (5.10%) IT Support Engineer
11 125 (4.94%) Architect
12 124 (4.90%) Senior
13 120 (4.74%) Deployment Engineer
14 116 (4.58%) 2nd Line Support
15 106 (4.19%) Desktop Support Engineer
15 106 (4.19%) Technical Support
16 99 (3.91%) Platform Engineer
17 95 (3.75%) Developer
18 86 (3.40%) Administrator
19 77 (3.04%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (2.65%) .NET
2 46 (1.82%) Middleware
3 42 (1.66%) LDAP
4 41 (1.62%) Web Services
4 41 (1.62%) WPF
5 39 (1.54%) .NET Framework
6 36 (1.42%) Node.js
6 36 (1.42%) REST
7 34 (1.34%) OAuth
8 33 (1.30%) AngularJS
8 33 (1.30%) XML
9 32 (1.26%) SAML
10 28 (1.11%) React
11 26 (1.03%) OpenID
12 25 (0.99%) SOAP
13 22 (0.87%) CSS
14 20 (0.79%) Ajax
15 19 (0.75%) GraphQL
15 19 (0.75%) RESTful
16 15 (0.59%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 101 (3.99%) Onboarding
2 91 (3.60%) Data Centre
3 78 (3.08%) PKI
4 66 (2.61%) Driving Licence
5 64 (2.53%) Replication
6 60 (2.37%) Self-Motivation
7 54 (2.13%) Management Information System
8 50 (1.98%) Enterprise Software
9 40 (1.58%) iPhone
10 36 (1.42%) iPad
11 34 (1.34%) NHS
12 33 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
13 32 (1.26%) Video Conferencing
14 31 (1.23%) Security Posture
15 27 (1.07%) Smartphone
16 26 (1.03%) Hybrid Cloud
17 25 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
18 24 (0.95%) Mobile App
19 23 (0.91%) CMDB
19 23 (0.91%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 600 (23.72%) Linux
2 557 (22.02%) Windows 10
3 477 (18.85%) Windows Server
4 164 (6.48%) Unix
5 138 (5.45%) Android
5 138 (5.45%) Mac OS
6 104 (4.11%) Apple iOS
7 70 (2.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 67 (2.65%) Windows 7
9 62 (2.45%) Windows Server 2016
10 60 (2.37%) Windows Server 2019
11 40 (1.58%) Windows Server 2012
12 38 (1.50%) Windows Server 2003
13 36 (1.42%) Ubuntu
14 35 (1.38%) VMS
15 26 (1.03%) AIX
16 24 (0.95%) CentOS
17 23 (0.91%) Amazon Linux
18 14 (0.55%) Windows Server 2008
19 13 (0.51%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 450 (17.79%) Problem-Solving
2 374 (14.78%) ITIL
3 341 (13.48%) Customer Service
4 261 (10.32%) Migration
5 239 (9.45%) Agile
6 215 (8.50%) DevOps
7 207 (8.18%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 204 (8.06%) Service Management
9 193 (7.63%) ITSM
10 169 (6.68%) Cybersecurity
11 165 (6.52%) CI/CD
12 148 (5.85%) Change Management
13 147 (5.81%) Continuous Improvement
14 120 (4.74%) User Experience
15 111 (4.39%) Stakeholder Management
16 105 (4.15%) Incident Response
17 102 (4.03%) Cloud Security
18 94 (3.72%) Service Delivery
19 93 (3.68%) Identity Access Management
20 89 (3.52%) Patch Management
Programming Languages
1 476 (18.81%) PowerShell
2 315 (12.45%) Python
3 241 (9.53%) SQL
4 125 (4.94%) C#
5 118 (4.66%) Java
6 108 (4.27%) Bash
7 85 (3.36%) JavaScript
8 74 (2.92%) Perl
9 71 (2.81%) C++
10 40 (1.58%) PL/SQL
11 39 (1.54%) VB
12 33 (1.30%) Groovy
13 31 (1.23%) Shell Script
13 31 (1.23%) VBA
14 29 (1.15%) Kusto Query Language
15 25 (0.99%) VBScript
16 20 (0.79%) C
16 20 (0.79%) PHP
16 20 (0.79%) T-SQL
17 14 (0.55%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 731 (28.89%) Security Cleared
2 499 (19.72%) SC Cleared
3 219 (8.66%) Degree
4 193 (7.63%) DV Cleared
5 175 (6.92%) Microsoft Certification
6 64 (2.53%) Computer Science Degree
7 57 (2.25%) Azure Certification
8 49 (1.94%) Cisco Certification
8 49 (1.94%) MCSE
9 48 (1.90%) A+ Certification
10 35 (1.38%) DBS Check
11 34 (1.34%) CISSP
12 33 (1.30%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 31 (1.23%) AWS Certification
14 30 (1.19%) CCNA
14 30 (1.19%) CCNP
15 28 (1.11%) ITIL Certification
16 22 (0.87%) MCP
17 21 (0.83%) BPSS Clearance
18 20 (0.79%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (3.56%) SLA
2 65 (2.57%) QA
3 59 (2.33%) GDPR
4 55 (2.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 52 (2.06%) 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 (0.36%) Accessibility
9 9 (0.36%) 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 (0.079%) COBIT
12 2 (0.079%) GAAP
12 2 (0.079%) ISO 9001
12 2 (0.079%) MiFID
System Software
1 926 (36.60%) Active Directory
2 235 (9.29%) VMware Infrastructure
3 106 (4.19%) Docker
4 71 (2.81%) Hyper-V
5 66 (2.61%) Virtual Desktop
6 56 (2.21%) vSphere
7 54 (2.13%) Virtual Machines
8 48 (1.90%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.23%) VMware NSX
10 25 (0.99%) DFS Replication
11 24 (0.95%) Microsoft App-V
12 22 (0.87%) BitLocker
13 20 (0.79%) Virtual Servers
14 19 (0.75%) NFS
15 17 (0.67%) Firmware
16 13 (0.51%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 12 (0.47%) Terminal Services
18 10 (0.40%) ISA Server
18 10 (0.40%) Postfix
18 10 (0.40%) Squid
Systems Management
1 389 (15.38%) SCCM
2 293 (11.58%) Microsoft Intune
3 143 (5.65%) Terraform
4 115 (4.55%) Ansible
5 65 (2.57%) Kubernetes
6 52 (2.06%) vCenter Server
7 43 (1.70%) Grafana
8 41 (1.62%) Jamf Pro
9 40 (1.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 39 (1.54%) WSUS
11 38 (1.50%) Single Sign-On
12 31 (1.23%) Prometheus
13 25 (0.99%) Nessus
13 25 (0.99%) SCOM
14 24 (0.95%) Microsoft Clustering
15 23 (0.91%) Puppet
16 22 (0.87%) Progress Chef
17 16 (0.63%) Proxmox
18 13 (0.51%) NetBackup
18 13 (0.51%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 1,134 (44.82%) Microsoft
2 336 (13.28%) VMware
3 240 (9.49%) ServiceNow
4 201 (7.94%) Oracle
5 167 (6.60%) Cisco
6 162 (6.40%) Citrix
7 139 (5.49%) Splunk
8 68 (2.69%) Apple
8 68 (2.69%) Red Hat
9 62 (2.45%) IBM
10 56 (2.21%) HP
11 53 (2.09%) Dell
12 52 (2.06%) Google
13 50 (1.98%) Veeam
14 45 (1.78%) NetApp
15 44 (1.74%) SolarWinds
16 42 (1.66%) AppDynamics
16 42 (1.66%) SAP
17 40 (1.58%) CyberArk
18 36 (1.42%) Remedy