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

6 months to
27 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 16
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,518 2,088 3,379
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.69% 8.62% 8.97%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.98% 60.24% 64.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,693 1,507 2,304
10th Percentile £160 £181 £155
25th Percentile £206 £241 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £413 £420 £388
Median % change year-on-year -1.79% +8.39% -13.89%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £642 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £413 £425 £400
% change year-on-year -2.94% +6.25% -11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 220 87 275
10th Percentile £13.64 £15.22 £12.15
25th Percentile £16.50 £16.95 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.65 £18.82 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +15.04% +6.21% -19.45%
75th Percentile £48.75 £28.21 £24.00
90th Percentile £67.84 £65.00 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £21.50 £22.00 £17.72
% change year-on-year -2.27% +24.15% -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 4,129 3,466 5,232
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.96% 14.31% 13.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,734 2,383 3,554
10th Percentile £181 £200 £178
25th Percentile £300 £313 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -13.46%
75th Percentile £568 £600 £588
90th Percentile £663 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £457
% change year-on-year -5.26% +3.94% -11.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 295 136 377
10th Percentile £14.00 £16.38 £13.09
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.13 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.81 £28.21 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.13% +28.20% -23.88%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.81 £57.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £71.13 £69.25
UK median hourly rate £23.50 £25.00 £22.00
% change year-on-year -6.00% +13.64% -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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -19 773 £434 -1.42% 231
South East -4 519 £475 - 277
North of England -8 477 £290 -17.14% 201
Midlands -16 273 £325 +2.77% 130
North West -2 261 £260 -25.71% 130
South West -5 251 £450 -15.09% 129
East of England +7 210 £280 +24.44% 97
Yorkshire -14 192 £358 -10.63% 58
West Midlands -25 164 £442 +36.08% 76
East Midlands -2 105 £200 -20.00% 54
North East -9 27 £188 -27.88% 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
1 211 (8.38%) Microsoft Exchange
2 162 (6.43%) SharePoint
3 52 (2.07%) Confluence
4 44 (1.75%) 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%) CMS
14 2 (0.079%) NetWeaver
14 2 (0.079%) Oracle HTTP Server
14 2 (0.079%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 193 (7.66%) Microsoft Office
2 66 (2.62%) 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%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 728 (28.91%) Microsoft 365
2 671 (26.65%) Azure
3 287 (11.40%) Entra ID
4 193 (7.66%) AWS
5 78 (3.10%) OneDrive
6 64 (2.54%) GCP
7 63 (2.50%) SaaS
8 61 (2.42%) Azure DevOps
9 52 (2.07%) Google Workspace
10 47 (1.87%) IaaS
11 43 (1.71%) GitHub
12 39 (1.55%) PaaS
12 39 (1.55%) Power Platform
13 34 (1.35%) Azure Monitor
14 24 (0.95%) Azure Sentinel
15 23 (0.91%) AWS CloudFormation
16 21 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
17 19 (0.75%) OpenShift
18 17 (0.68%) Nutanix
19 16 (0.64%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 324 (12.87%) DNS
2 303 (12.03%) Firewall
3 216 (8.58%) DHCP
4 170 (6.75%) VPN
5 156 (6.20%) TCP/IP
6 148 (5.88%) LAN
7 143 (5.68%) WAN
8 135 (5.36%) Wi-Fi
9 76 (3.02%) Network Security
10 63 (2.50%) VLAN
11 56 (2.22%) Wireless
12 48 (1.91%) SAN
13 39 (1.55%) BGP
14 30 (1.19%) SSL
15 29 (1.15%) Cisco ISE
15 29 (1.15%) Junos
15 29 (1.15%) OSPF
15 29 (1.15%) Skype
15 29 (1.15%) VoIP
16 28 (1.11%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 153 (6.08%) SQL Server
2 42 (1.67%) Oracle Database
3 38 (1.51%) Relational Database
4 35 (1.39%) MySQL
5 22 (0.87%) PostgreSQL
6 16 (0.64%) Power BI
7 14 (0.56%) DB2
8 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
8 13 (0.52%) MongoDB
9 11 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
10 9 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
11 8 (0.32%) NoSQL
12 6 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
12 6 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
12 6 (0.24%) GIS
12 6 (0.24%) SAP HANA
12 6 (0.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 6 (0.24%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 5 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
14 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 160 (6.35%) JIRA
2 54 (2.14%) GitLab
3 53 (2.10%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.71%) Git
5 39 (1.55%) MSI
6 34 (1.35%) Visual Studio
7 24 (0.95%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.68%) Burp Suite
8 17 (0.68%) Metasploit
9 15 (0.60%) Artifactory
10 14 (0.56%) Android Studio
11 12 (0.48%) Xcode
12 11 (0.44%) Chocolatey
13 10 (0.40%) Bitbucket
13 10 (0.40%) Browser DevTools
14 8 (0.32%) InstallShield
14 8 (0.32%) JUnit
14 8 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
15 7 (0.28%) Robot Framework
15 7 (0.28%) Selenium
General
1 903 (35.86%) Social Skills
2 237 (9.41%) Finance
3 207 (8.22%) Analytical Skills
3 207 (8.22%) Public Sector
4 138 (5.48%) Banking
5 103 (4.09%) Documentation Skills
6 99 (3.93%) Legal
7 82 (3.26%) Organisational Skills
8 56 (2.22%) Military
9 41 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
10 40 (1.59%) Manufacturing
11 36 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 36 (1.43%) Retail
12 27 (1.07%) Law
12 27 (1.07%) Telecoms
13 24 (0.95%) Investment Banking
14 21 (0.83%) Front Office
15 20 (0.79%) Local Government
16 15 (0.60%) Aerospace
16 15 (0.60%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 355 (14.10%) IT Support
2 345 (13.70%) Support Engineer
3 329 (13.07%) Analyst
4 211 (8.38%) IT Engineer
5 179 (7.11%) IT Support Engineer
6 165 (6.55%) Architect
7 156 (6.20%) Senior
8 152 (6.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 141 (5.60%) Support Analyst
10 106 (4.21%) Desktop Support
10 106 (4.21%) Technical Support
11 103 (4.09%) Developer
12 101 (4.01%) 2nd Line Support
13 97 (3.85%) Desktop Engineer
14 92 (3.65%) IT Analyst
15 84 (3.34%) Windows Engineer
16 80 (3.18%) Lead
17 74 (2.94%) IT Support Analyst
18 70 (2.78%) 1st Line Support
19 69 (2.74%) Desktop Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (3.22%) .NET
2 65 (2.58%) REST
3 49 (1.95%) .NET Framework
4 43 (1.71%) OAuth
5 41 (1.63%) SAML
6 39 (1.55%) LDAP
7 36 (1.43%) Middleware
8 29 (1.15%) Web Services
9 28 (1.11%) WPF
10 26 (1.03%) Kafka
10 26 (1.03%) WinForms
11 24 (0.95%) Microsoft Graph
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
1 180 (7.15%) Onboarding
2 103 (4.09%) Data Centre
3 99 (3.93%) PKI
4 76 (3.02%) Enterprise Software
5 66 (2.62%) Driving Licence
6 62 (2.46%) Self-Motivation
7 58 (2.30%) Clustering
7 58 (2.30%) Replication
8 46 (1.83%) Hybrid Cloud
9 45 (1.79%) Management Information System
10 44 (1.75%) Smartphone
11 42 (1.67%) Security Posture
12 40 (1.59%) Product Ownership
13 35 (1.39%) Legacy Systems
14 34 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
15 31 (1.23%) CMDB
16 30 (1.19%) NHS
17 26 (1.03%) Cloud Native
18 25 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
18 25 (0.99%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 600 (23.83%) Linux
2 553 (21.96%) Windows Server
3 521 (20.69%) Windows 10
4 140 (5.56%) Android
5 131 (5.20%) Mac OS
6 130 (5.16%) Unix
7 108 (4.29%) Apple iOS
8 73 (2.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 60 (2.38%) Windows Server 2016
10 46 (1.83%) Windows 7
11 44 (1.75%) Windows Server 2019
12 36 (1.43%) AIX
12 36 (1.43%) Windows Server 2012
13 27 (1.07%) Windows Server 2003
14 19 (0.75%) Ubuntu
15 18 (0.71%) VMS
16 12 (0.48%) Solaris
17 10 (0.40%) Mac OS X
18 9 (0.36%) CentOS
18 9 (0.36%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 507 (20.14%) Problem-Solving
2 442 (17.55%) Customer Service
3 357 (14.18%) ITIL
4 278 (11.04%) Agile
5 261 (10.37%) Migration
6 234 (9.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 228 (9.05%) DevOps
8 208 (8.26%) ITSM
9 203 (8.06%) CI/CD
10 183 (7.27%) Continuous Improvement
11 179 (7.11%) Service Management
12 175 (6.95%) Cybersecurity
13 164 (6.51%) Change Management
14 152 (6.04%) Disaster Recovery
15 130 (5.16%) High Availability
16 129 (5.12%) Stakeholder Management
17 118 (4.69%) User Experience
18 112 (4.45%) Infrastructure as Code
19 108 (4.29%) Identity Access Management
20 107 (4.25%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 536 (21.29%) PowerShell
2 257 (10.21%) Python
3 226 (8.98%) SQL
4 120 (4.77%) C#
5 106 (4.21%) Bash
6 82 (3.26%) Java
7 74 (2.94%) JavaScript
8 52 (2.07%) C++
9 50 (1.99%) PL/SQL
10 47 (1.87%) 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 17 (0.68%) Shell Script
16 14 (0.56%) VBA
17 13 (0.52%) Bicep
18 12 (0.48%) Search Processing Language
18 12 (0.48%) TypeScript
19 11 (0.44%) Go
Qualifications
1 802 (31.85%) Security Cleared
2 523 (20.77%) SC Cleared
3 254 (10.09%) Degree
4 237 (9.41%) DV Cleared
5 119 (4.73%) Microsoft Certification
6 72 (2.86%) Computer Science Degree
7 63 (2.50%) Cisco Certification
8 44 (1.75%) Azure Certification
9 42 (1.67%) MCSE
10 33 (1.31%) CISSP
11 30 (1.19%) CCNA
11 30 (1.19%) ITIL Certification
12 28 (1.11%) AWS Certification
12 28 (1.11%) BPSS Clearance
13 25 (0.99%) CCNP
14 22 (0.87%) MCSA
15 21 (0.83%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 20 (0.79%) CompTIA Security+
17 19 (0.75%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 19 (0.75%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (3.49%) GDPR
2 84 (3.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 83 (3.30%) QA
4 82 (3.26%) SLA
5 60 (2.38%) NIST
6 41 (1.63%) PCI DSS
7 24 (0.95%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 16 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
9 13 (0.52%) PMO
10 12 (0.48%) MiFID
10 12 (0.48%) NCSC
10 12 (0.48%) 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
1 938 (37.25%) Active Directory
2 262 (10.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 108 (4.29%) Hyper-V
4 92 (3.65%) Docker
5 68 (2.70%) vSphere
6 58 (2.30%) Virtual Machines
7 56 (2.22%) VMware ESXi
8 50 (1.99%) Virtual Desktop
9 34 (1.35%) VMware NSX
10 30 (1.19%) Firmware
11 27 (1.07%) BitLocker
12 23 (0.91%) Microsoft App-V
13 16 (0.64%) KVM
14 9 (0.36%) XenDesktop
15 8 (0.32%) XenApp
16 6 (0.24%) NFS
17 5 (0.20%) etcd
17 5 (0.20%) Terminal Services
17 5 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
18 4 (0.16%) Snort
Systems Management
1 347 (13.78%) Microsoft Intune
2 284 (11.28%) SCCM
3 162 (6.43%) Terraform
4 154 (6.12%) Ansible
5 120 (4.77%) Kubernetes
6 66 (2.62%) Single Sign-On
7 61 (2.42%) vCenter Server
8 58 (2.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 38 (1.51%) 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 18 (0.71%) Progress Chef
16 17 (0.68%) WMI
17 16 (0.64%) Nmap
17 16 (0.64%) Puppet
18 15 (0.60%) Nagios
18 15 (0.60%) Nessus
Vendors
1 1,088 (43.21%) Microsoft
2 362 (14.38%) VMware
3 226 (8.98%) ServiceNow
4 196 (7.78%) Citrix
5 154 (6.12%) Cisco
6 152 (6.04%) Oracle
7 113 (4.49%) Splunk
8 71 (2.82%) HP
9 62 (2.46%) SolarWinds
10 60 (2.38%) Red Hat
11 58 (2.30%) Dell
12 56 (2.22%) Google
13 48 (1.91%) Apple
13 48 (1.91%) IBM
14 46 (1.83%) Remedy
15 43 (1.71%) Juniper
16 40 (1.59%) Veeam
17 37 (1.47%) CyberArk
18 34 (1.35%) F5
19 31 (1.23%) Palo Alto