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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 20 18 13
Rank change year-on-year -2 -5 +2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,327 2,769 4,317
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 8.38% 8.47% 10.22%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.82% 59.09% 64.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,586 1,818 2,944
10th Percentile £165 £180 £165
25th Percentile £213 £250 £219
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £425 £430
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% -1.16% +2.99%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £593
90th Percentile £650 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £400 £425 £438
% change year-on-year -5.88% -2.86% +2.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 202 150 244
10th Percentile £15.16 £13.87 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.10 £16.32 £17.72
Median hourly rate £21.38 £23.80 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.17% -4.80% +16.28%
75th Percentile £41.62 £64.88 £59.36
90th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £71.68
UK median hourly rate £23.00 £24.18 £23.50
% change year-on-year -4.88% +2.89% +14.63%

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 3,826 4,686 6,698
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 13.78% 14.33% 15.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,525 2,996 4,594
10th Percentile £190 £200 £186
25th Percentile £300 £330 £315
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £631
90th Percentile £675 £688 £719
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 246 235 334
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.22 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.59 £20.15 £18.85
Median hourly rate £25.15 £57.25 £46.69
Median % change year-on-year -56.07% +22.62% +95.27%
75th Percentile £59.75 £70.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 - £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £49.25 £46.69
% change year-on-year -48.93% +5.48% +95.27%

Windows
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing Windows as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for Windows 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 17 September 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 17 September 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 17 September 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 -7 780 £425 +6.25% 337
South East +2 463 £410 -4.87% 478
North of England -8 329 £325 -27.78% 343
South West +2 292 £375 -21.05% 181
Midlands -6 266 £351 -7.57% 252
West Midlands -4 204 £400 +8.84% 113
East of England -1 194 £350 -27.16% 182
North West -8 173 £335 -27.57% 170
Yorkshire -4 132 £240 -43.53% 123
East Midlands -14 61 £225 -41.25% 132
North East +6 25 £275 -38.89% 58
Windows
UK

Windows
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 211 (9.07%) Microsoft Exchange
2 158 (6.79%) SharePoint
3 73 (3.14%) Confluence
4 48 (2.06%) Apache
5 45 (1.93%) IIS
6 25 (1.07%) WebSphere
7 23 (0.99%) Skype for Business
8 22 (0.95%) JBoss
9 15 (0.64%) SharePoint Server
10 14 (0.60%) Exchange Server 2010
10 14 (0.60%) Exchange Server 2013
10 14 (0.60%) nginx
10 14 (0.60%) WebLogic
11 13 (0.56%) Exchange Server 2003
11 13 (0.56%) Exchange Server 2007
11 13 (0.56%) Office Communications Server
12 12 (0.52%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.43%) iPlanet
14 8 (0.34%) CMS
15 7 (0.30%) Tomcat
Applications
1 196 (8.42%) Microsoft Office
2 79 (3.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (0.56%) MS Visio
5 10 (0.43%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.17%) InfoPath
8 3 (0.13%) Photoshop
9 2 (0.086%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 2 (0.086%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.086%) Windchill
10 1 (0.043%) Adobe After Effects
10 1 (0.043%) Adobe Premiere
10 1 (0.043%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 11 (0.47%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.30%) Maximo
3 3 (0.13%) ION MarketView
3 3 (0.13%) Oracle 11i
3 3 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.086%) Alphatax
4 2 (0.086%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.086%) NEC Housing
4 2 (0.086%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.086%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (0.086%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.086%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.043%) assyst
5 1 (0.043%) Eikon
5 1 (0.043%) Eze OMS
5 1 (0.043%) Fidessa
5 1 (0.043%) IBM Planning Analytics
5 1 (0.043%) OpenText MBPM
5 1 (0.043%) Sage X3
5 1 (0.043%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 602 (25.87%) Microsoft 365
2 548 (23.55%) Azure
3 232 (9.97%) Entra ID
4 223 (9.58%) AWS
5 66 (2.84%) OneDrive
5 66 (2.84%) SaaS
6 65 (2.79%) IaaS
7 63 (2.71%) GCP
8 47 (2.02%) PaaS
9 45 (1.93%) Google Workspace
10 42 (1.80%) Azure DevOps
11 37 (1.59%) Amazon S3
11 37 (1.59%) OpenShift
12 34 (1.46%) Amazon EC2
13 33 (1.42%) GitHub
13 33 (1.42%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 32 (1.38%) Power Platform
15 30 (1.29%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 29 (1.25%) Azure Sentinel
17 26 (1.12%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 329 (14.14%) DNS
2 256 (11.00%) Firewall
3 204 (8.77%) DHCP
4 161 (6.92%) TCP/IP
4 161 (6.92%) VPN
5 94 (4.04%) SAN
6 90 (3.87%) LAN
7 82 (3.52%) WAN
8 61 (2.62%) Network Security
9 55 (2.36%) VLAN
10 49 (2.11%) Wi-Fi
11 48 (2.06%) Wireless
12 41 (1.76%) HTTP
12 41 (1.76%) SSH
13 40 (1.72%) SMTP
14 37 (1.59%) Cisco IOS
15 30 (1.29%) FTP
16 26 (1.12%) SSL
16 26 (1.12%) VoIP
17 25 (1.07%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (5.07%) SQL Server
2 65 (2.79%) Oracle Database
3 50 (2.15%) Relational Database
4 47 (2.02%) Amazon RDS
5 35 (1.50%) MySQL
6 25 (1.07%) PostgreSQL
7 18 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
8 16 (0.69%) Big Data
9 13 (0.56%) Power BI
10 12 (0.52%) NoSQL
11 11 (0.47%) Amazon Aurora
11 11 (0.47%) DB2
11 11 (0.47%) RDBMS
12 9 (0.39%) GIS
13 8 (0.34%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.34%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 7 (0.30%) MongoDB
15 6 (0.26%) Data Lake
16 5 (0.21%) HPCC
17 4 (0.17%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 132 (5.67%) JIRA
2 103 (4.43%) Git
3 83 (3.57%) Jenkins
4 35 (1.50%) GitLab
5 31 (1.33%) Eclipse
6 29 (1.25%) MSI
7 25 (1.07%) Bitbucket
7 25 (1.07%) Vagrant
8 24 (1.03%) Visual Studio
9 23 (0.99%) Sonatype Nexus
10 18 (0.77%) TeamCity
11 16 (0.69%) Bitbucket Server
11 16 (0.69%) CA Release Automation
12 14 (0.60%) SonarQube
13 13 (0.56%) AdminStudio
13 13 (0.56%) Postman
13 13 (0.56%) Selenium
14 12 (0.52%) Browser DevTools
15 11 (0.47%) Android Studio
15 11 (0.47%) Xcode
General
1 843 (36.23%) Social Skills
2 381 (16.37%) Finance
3 216 (9.28%) Analytical Skills
4 215 (9.24%) Public Sector
5 142 (6.10%) Banking
6 84 (3.61%) Documentation Skills
7 70 (3.01%) Organisational Skills
8 69 (2.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 67 (2.88%) Legal
10 54 (2.32%) Manufacturing
11 45 (1.93%) Military
11 45 (1.93%) Presentation Skills
12 43 (1.85%) Telecoms
13 36 (1.55%) Retail
14 34 (1.46%) Front Office
15 31 (1.33%) Games
15 31 (1.33%) Marketing
16 23 (0.99%) Electronics
17 22 (0.95%) Investment Banking
17 22 (0.95%) Law
Job Titles
1 356 (15.30%) Support Engineer
2 250 (10.74%) Analyst
3 203 (8.72%) IT Support
4 163 (7.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 154 (6.62%) Windows Engineer
6 150 (6.45%) Desktop Engineer
7 144 (6.19%) Architect
8 138 (5.93%) Desktop Support
9 135 (5.80%) IT Engineer
10 116 (4.98%) Deployment Engineer
11 108 (4.64%) Senior
12 104 (4.47%) Support Analyst
13 102 (4.38%) Desktop Support Engineer
14 91 (3.91%) 2nd Line Support
15 79 (3.39%) Developer
15 79 (3.39%) IT Support Engineer
16 78 (3.35%) Platform Engineer
17 72 (3.09%) 2nd Line Engineer
18 71 (3.05%) Technical Support
19 70 (3.01%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (3.31%) .NET
2 54 (2.32%) Middleware
3 40 (1.72%) Node.js
4 38 (1.63%) .NET Framework
4 38 (1.63%) WPF
5 36 (1.55%) Web Services
6 32 (1.38%) LDAP
7 28 (1.20%) React
7 28 (1.20%) XML
8 25 (1.07%) SOAP
9 24 (1.03%) AngularJS
10 22 (0.95%) CSS
10 22 (0.95%) Kafka
11 21 (0.90%) REST
12 16 (0.69%) ASP.NET
12 16 (0.69%) HTML
12 16 (0.69%) Software Packaging
13 14 (0.60%) SAML
14 13 (0.56%) Ajax
14 13 (0.56%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 88 (3.78%) Data Centre
2 80 (3.44%) PKI
3 79 (3.39%) Onboarding
4 66 (2.84%) Replication
5 51 (2.19%) Self-Motivation
6 49 (2.11%) Driving Licence
7 48 (2.06%) Management Information System
8 41 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
8 41 (1.76%) iPhone
9 40 (1.72%) iPad
10 27 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
11 26 (1.12%) Hybrid Cloud
11 26 (1.12%) Video Conferencing
12 25 (1.07%) Security Posture
13 24 (1.03%) Clustering
14 23 (0.99%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 20 (0.86%) Legacy Applications
15 20 (0.86%) Security Operations Centre
16 19 (0.82%) Cyber Threat
17 18 (0.77%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 543 (23.33%) Linux
2 471 (20.24%) Windows 10
3 440 (18.91%) Windows Server
4 140 (6.02%) Mac OS
5 132 (5.67%) Unix
6 103 (4.43%) Android
7 96 (4.13%) Apple iOS
8 84 (3.61%) Windows Server 2019
9 79 (3.39%) Windows Server 2016
10 68 (2.92%) Windows 7
11 61 (2.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 42 (1.80%) Windows Server 2012
13 40 (1.72%) Windows Server 2003
14 38 (1.63%) Ubuntu
15 31 (1.33%) VMS
16 24 (1.03%) CentOS
17 23 (0.99%) Amazon Linux
18 17 (0.73%) AIX
18 17 (0.73%) Solaris
19 14 (0.60%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 434 (18.65%) Problem-Solving
2 362 (15.56%) ITIL
3 251 (10.79%) Migration
4 247 (10.61%) Customer Service
5 233 (10.01%) Agile
6 209 (8.98%) DevOps
7 198 (8.51%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 160 (6.88%) Service Management
9 144 (6.19%) Cybersecurity
10 140 (6.02%) CI/CD
11 137 (5.89%) ITSM
12 125 (5.37%) Change Management
13 114 (4.90%) Stakeholder Management
14 99 (4.25%) Incident Response
15 96 (4.13%) Patch Management
16 93 (4.00%) SIEM
17 87 (3.74%) Cloud Security
18 85 (3.65%) Disaster Recovery
18 85 (3.65%) High Availability
19 83 (3.57%) Configuration Management
Programming Languages
1 438 (18.82%) PowerShell
2 264 (11.35%) Python
3 247 (10.61%) SQL
4 130 (5.59%) C#
5 118 (5.07%) Java
6 79 (3.39%) JavaScript
7 78 (3.35%) Bash
8 65 (2.79%) C++
9 54 (2.32%) Perl
10 49 (2.11%) VB
11 46 (1.98%) PL/SQL
12 40 (1.72%) Shell Script
12 40 (1.72%) VBA
13 33 (1.42%) Groovy
14 24 (1.03%) Kusto Query Language
14 24 (1.03%) VBScript
15 21 (0.90%) C
15 21 (0.90%) VB.NET
16 20 (0.86%) PHP
17 13 (0.56%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 616 (26.47%) Security Cleared
2 408 (17.53%) SC Cleared
3 186 (7.99%) Degree
3 186 (7.99%) DV Cleared
4 168 (7.22%) Microsoft Certification
5 51 (2.19%) Azure Certification
6 50 (2.15%) A+ Certification
7 48 (2.06%) Computer Science Degree
8 41 (1.76%) CISSP
9 40 (1.72%) MCSE
10 39 (1.68%) Cisco Certification
11 37 (1.59%) DBS Check
12 31 (1.33%) AWS Certification
13 27 (1.16%) ITIL Certification
14 26 (1.12%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 24 (1.03%) CCNA
16 22 (0.95%) CompTIA Security+
17 19 (0.82%) MCP
18 18 (0.77%) BPSS Clearance
19 17 (0.73%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 81 (3.48%) SLA
2 73 (3.14%) QA
3 52 (2.23%) GDPR
4 47 (2.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 38 (1.63%) NIST
6 15 (0.64%) HIPAA
7 12 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
7 12 (0.52%) NCSC
8 11 (0.47%) PCI DSS
9 10 (0.43%) Accessibility
10 8 (0.34%) PMO
11 5 (0.21%) Data Quality
11 5 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 4 (0.17%) SOC 2
13 3 (0.13%) ECSS
13 3 (0.13%) GxP
13 3 (0.13%) SEPA
14 2 (0.086%) COBIT
14 2 (0.086%) GAAP
14 2 (0.086%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 834 (35.84%) Active Directory
2 240 (10.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 93 (4.00%) Docker
4 86 (3.70%) Hyper-V
5 68 (2.92%) VMware ESXi
6 67 (2.88%) vSphere
7 59 (2.54%) Virtual Desktop
8 51 (2.19%) Virtual Machines
9 34 (1.46%) Microsoft App-V
10 31 (1.33%) Virtual Servers
11 27 (1.16%) DFS Replication
12 26 (1.12%) VMware NSX
13 25 (1.07%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 21 (0.90%) NFS
15 20 (0.86%) BitLocker
15 20 (0.86%) Terminal Services
16 13 (0.56%) Brightmail
16 13 (0.56%) Firmware
16 13 (0.56%) ISA Server
17 10 (0.43%) Dovecot
Systems Management
1 355 (15.26%) SCCM
2 261 (11.22%) Microsoft Intune
3 121 (5.20%) Ansible
4 118 (5.07%) Terraform
5 73 (3.14%) Kubernetes
6 57 (2.45%) vCenter Server
7 51 (2.19%) WSUS
8 40 (1.72%) Grafana
9 37 (1.59%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (1.55%) Puppet
11 30 (1.29%) Nessus
11 30 (1.29%) Prometheus
12 29 (1.25%) Microsoft Clustering
13 25 (1.07%) Progress Chef
14 20 (0.86%) SCOM
14 20 (0.86%) Single Sign-On
15 17 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 14 (0.60%) Tivoli
16 14 (0.60%) vMotion
17 13 (0.56%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 1,059 (45.51%) Microsoft
2 335 (14.40%) VMware
3 184 (7.91%) ServiceNow
4 179 (7.69%) Oracle
5 167 (7.18%) Citrix
6 158 (6.79%) Cisco
7 141 (6.06%) Splunk
8 79 (3.39%) Apple
9 72 (3.09%) Google
10 68 (2.92%) HP
11 61 (2.62%) Dell
12 59 (2.54%) NetApp
13 58 (2.49%) IBM
14 48 (2.06%) Red Hat
15 47 (2.02%) Veeam
16 42 (1.80%) AppDynamics
17 37 (1.59%) SolarWinds
18 33 (1.42%) CyberArk
19 32 (1.38%) SAP
20 30 (1.29%) Remedy