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 12 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 21 18
Rank change year-on-year -7 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,830 2,325 2,790
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.11% 8.36% 8.46%
As % of the Operating Systems category 62.31% 60.86% 59.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,819 1,581 1,846
10th Percentile £173 £168 £180
25th Percentile £225 £219 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £416 £408 £425
Median % change year-on-year +2.09% -4.12% -2.30%
75th Percentile £556 £560 £575
90th Percentile £650 £650 £658
UK median daily rate £425 £408 £425
% change year-on-year +4.29% -4.12% -3.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 273 203 155
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £13.65
25th Percentile £17.60 £18.12 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.77 £22.00 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year +17.14% -7.56% +1.28%
75th Percentile £65.00 £41.08 £62.25
90th Percentile £76.20 £65.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.75 £23.00 £24.17
% change year-on-year +11.96% -4.82% +7.40%

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 4,542 3,820 4,710
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.80% 13.73% 14.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,908 2,518 3,037
10th Percentile £190 £190 £200
25th Percentile £310 £303 £333
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £582 £588
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £469 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +4.22% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 337 247 240
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £15.12
25th Percentile £19.25 £18.66 £19.80
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -53.43% +17.70%
75th Percentile £67.84 £59.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.60 £67.00 -
UK median hourly rate £26.33 £25.15 £48.78
% change year-on-year +4.69% -48.44% +8.41%

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 12 September 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 12 September 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 12 September 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 -11 954 £418 -1.71% 595
South East -9 555 £500 +11.06% 403
North of England -5 510 £325 - 239
North West +3 309 £340 -3.00% 128
Midlands -17 285 £399 +9.18% 196
South West -15 280 £488 +30.00% 163
East of England 0 225 £245 -30.00% 193
West Midlands -24 189 £402 +0.50% 133
Yorkshire -14 165 £273 +4.81% 77
East Midlands +5 94 £275 +29.41% 63
North East -29 40 £273 -0.91% 40
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
1 241 (8.52%) SharePoint
2 235 (8.30%) Microsoft Exchange
3 61 (2.16%) IIS
4 53 (1.87%) Confluence
5 19 (0.67%) Skype for Business
6 18 (0.64%) nginx
7 17 (0.60%) Apache
8 11 (0.39%) Tomcat
9 7 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.21%) Documentum
11 5 (0.18%) Apache Solr
11 5 (0.18%) Appian
11 5 (0.18%) Camunda
11 5 (0.18%) WebLogic
12 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
13 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
13 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
13 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
14 2 (0.071%) SAS
14 2 (0.071%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 190 (6.71%) Microsoft Office
2 63 (2.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
6 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.14%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.11%) Houdini
7 3 (0.11%) NUKE
8 2 (0.071%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.035%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.035%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.035%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 56 (1.98%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.35%) Finacle
3 7 (0.25%) OpenText MBPM
3 7 (0.25%) Oracle BPM
4 5 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 4 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
5 4 (0.14%) Teamcenter
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.11%) ResourceLink
7 2 (0.071%) assyst
8 1 (0.035%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.035%) Monis
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle BRM
8 1 (0.035%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.035%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.035%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.035%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.035%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.035%) SAP FS
8 1 (0.035%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 926 (32.72%) Microsoft 365
2 882 (31.17%) Azure
3 470 (16.61%) Entra ID
4 308 (10.88%) AWS
5 139 (4.91%) OneDrive
6 102 (3.60%) Azure DevOps
7 95 (3.36%) GCP
8 72 (2.54%) Azure Monitor
9 71 (2.51%) SaaS
10 63 (2.23%) Power Platform
11 62 (2.19%) IaaS
12 61 (2.16%) GitHub
13 47 (1.66%) PaaS
14 40 (1.41%) Azure Sentinel
15 27 (0.95%) AWS CloudFormation
15 27 (0.95%) Google Workspace
16 26 (0.92%) OpenShift
17 23 (0.81%) GitHub Actions
18 21 (0.74%) Amazon EC2
19 20 (0.71%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 445 (15.72%) DNS
2 320 (11.31%) DHCP
3 312 (11.02%) Firewall
4 234 (8.27%) VPN
5 216 (7.63%) TCP/IP
6 117 (4.13%) WAN
6 117 (4.13%) Wi-Fi
7 109 (3.85%) LAN
8 84 (2.97%) Network Security
8 84 (2.97%) SAN
9 83 (2.93%) VLAN
10 46 (1.63%) Wireless
11 44 (1.55%) SSL
12 40 (1.41%) NAS
13 38 (1.34%) Internet
14 35 (1.24%) Skype
14 35 (1.24%) VSAN
15 29 (1.02%) VoIP
16 24 (0.85%) BGP
16 24 (0.85%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 255 (9.01%) SQL Server
2 54 (1.91%) Oracle Database
3 53 (1.87%) Power BI
4 29 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 27 (0.95%) PostgreSQL
6 24 (0.85%) Relational Database
7 22 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
7 22 (0.78%) MySQL
8 15 (0.53%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 15 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 11 (0.39%) Geospatial Data
9 11 (0.39%) RDBMS
10 10 (0.35%) Db2
10 10 (0.35%) Elasticsearch
11 8 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
11 8 (0.28%) MongoDB
11 8 (0.28%) NoSQL
11 8 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
12 5 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
12 5 (0.18%) ObjectStore
Development Applications
1 150 (5.30%) JIRA
2 63 (2.23%) Git
3 45 (1.59%) MSI
4 44 (1.55%) Jenkins
5 40 (1.41%) GitLab
6 25 (0.88%) Visual Studio
7 14 (0.49%) Bitbucket
7 14 (0.49%) Eclipse
8 12 (0.42%) Artifactory
9 9 (0.32%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 7 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
11 6 (0.21%) Browser DevTools
12 5 (0.18%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.18%) Chocolatey
12 5 (0.18%) InstallShield
12 5 (0.18%) Robot Framework
12 5 (0.18%) Selenium
12 5 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
13 4 (0.14%) Octopus Deploy
13 4 (0.14%) SonarQube
General
1 1,043 (36.86%) Social Skills
2 347 (12.26%) Finance
3 344 (12.16%) Analytical Skills
4 149 (5.27%) Banking
5 130 (4.59%) Public Sector
6 107 (3.78%) Documentation Skills
7 79 (2.79%) Legal
8 71 (2.51%) Organisational Skills
9 63 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 56 (1.98%) Manufacturing
11 49 (1.73%) Retail
12 45 (1.59%) Telecoms
13 42 (1.48%) Front Office
14 39 (1.38%) Law
15 37 (1.31%) Military
16 35 (1.24%) Investment Banking
17 28 (0.99%) Spanish Language
18 25 (0.88%) French Language
19 24 (0.85%) Pharmaceutical
20 22 (0.78%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 468 (16.54%) Support Engineer
2 396 (13.99%) IT Support
3 310 (10.95%) IT Engineer
4 299 (10.57%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 258 (9.12%) IT Support Engineer
6 248 (8.76%) Analyst
7 232 (8.20%) Senior
8 126 (4.45%) Desktop Support
9 119 (4.20%) 2nd Line Support
10 115 (4.06%) Desktop Engineer
11 109 (3.85%) Cloud Engineer
12 108 (3.82%) Lead
13 104 (3.67%) Architect
14 95 (3.36%) Support Analyst
14 95 (3.36%) Windows Engineer
15 82 (2.90%) Developer
16 80 (2.83%) 1st Line Support
17 78 (2.76%) Consultant
18 75 (2.65%) IT Analyst
19 73 (2.58%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 248 (8.76%) Terraform
2 110 (3.89%) .NET
3 102 (3.60%) REST
4 57 (2.01%) .NET Framework
5 37 (1.31%) LDAP
6 34 (1.20%) JSON
7 32 (1.13%) Middleware
8 30 (1.06%) WPF
9 24 (0.85%) ARM Templates
10 22 (0.78%) Software Packaging
10 22 (0.78%) WinForms
11 20 (0.71%) HTML
11 20 (0.71%) Microsoft Graph
12 19 (0.67%) .NET Core
12 19 (0.67%) CSS
13 18 (0.64%) Elastic Stack
14 17 (0.60%) XML
15 16 (0.57%) Kafka
15 16 (0.57%) Web Services
16 15 (0.53%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 346 (12.23%) Onboarding
2 153 (5.41%) Data Centre
3 142 (5.02%) PKI
4 97 (3.43%) Management Information System
5 83 (2.93%) Hybrid Cloud
6 78 (2.76%) Clustering
7 72 (2.54%) Enterprise Software
8 71 (2.51%) Cloud Native
9 66 (2.33%) Video Conferencing
10 61 (2.16%) Replication
11 59 (2.08%) Driving Licence
12 53 (1.87%) Self-Motivation
13 51 (1.80%) Security Posture
14 40 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
14 40 (1.41%) Virtual Team
15 36 (1.27%) Enterprise Storage
16 34 (1.20%) CMDB
17 33 (1.17%) Analytical Mindset
17 33 (1.17%) Linux Command Line
18 30 (1.06%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 788 (27.84%) Windows Server
2 680 (24.03%) Linux
3 509 (17.99%) Windows 10
4 187 (6.61%) Mac OS
5 133 (4.70%) Apple iOS
6 126 (4.45%) Android
7 120 (4.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 106 (3.75%) Unix
9 67 (2.37%) Windows Server 2019
10 51 (1.80%) Ubuntu
11 46 (1.63%) Windows 7
12 38 (1.34%) Windows Server 2012
13 37 (1.31%) CentOS
14 35 (1.24%) Windows Server 2016
15 20 (0.71%) AIX
16 19 (0.67%) VMS
17 17 (0.60%) Windows Server 2008
18 16 (0.57%) Solaris
19 15 (0.53%) Rocky
20 13 (0.46%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 683 (24.13%) Problem-Solving
2 539 (19.05%) ITIL
3 476 (16.82%) Customer Service
4 382 (13.50%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 377 (13.32%) ITSM
6 340 (12.01%) Migration
7 320 (11.31%) Continuous Improvement
8 280 (9.89%) Service Management
9 275 (9.72%) DevOps
10 244 (8.62%) Infrastructure as Code
11 242 (8.55%) Agile
11 242 (8.55%) CI/CD
12 213 (7.53%) Stakeholder Management
13 200 (7.07%) Change Management
14 199 (7.03%) Root Cause Analysis
15 184 (6.50%) Disaster Recovery
16 174 (6.15%) Cybersecurity
17 162 (5.72%) Technical Leadership
18 157 (5.55%) Incident Management
18 157 (5.55%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 718 (25.37%) PowerShell
2 307 (10.85%) Python
3 280 (9.89%) SQL
4 173 (6.11%) Bash
5 133 (4.70%) C#
6 60 (2.12%) Java
6 60 (2.12%) T-SQL
7 59 (2.08%) JavaScript
8 50 (1.77%) Bicep
8 50 (1.77%) PL/SQL
9 30 (1.06%) C++
10 29 (1.02%) VB
11 25 (0.88%) VBScript
12 17 (0.60%) Search Processing Language
12 17 (0.60%) TypeScript
13 16 (0.57%) Perl
14 14 (0.49%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.42%) VBA
16 8 (0.28%) Go
16 8 (0.28%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 912 (32.23%) Security Cleared
2 539 (19.05%) SC Cleared
3 368 (13.00%) DV Cleared
4 287 (10.14%) Degree
5 113 (3.99%) Microsoft Certification
6 91 (3.22%) Azure Certification
7 71 (2.51%) Computer Science Degree
8 65 (2.30%) Cisco Certification
9 62 (2.19%) CISSP
10 53 (1.87%) AWS Certification
11 52 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
12 49 (1.73%) A+ Certification
13 45 (1.59%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 32 (1.13%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 30 (1.06%) CISM
16 29 (1.02%) DBS Check
17 28 (0.99%) CCNP
17 28 (0.99%) ITIL Certification
18 27 (0.95%) CCNA
19 26 (0.92%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 150 (5.30%) SLA
2 110 (3.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 83 (2.93%) NIST
4 76 (2.69%) QA
5 34 (1.20%) Cyber Essentials
6 27 (0.95%) NCSC
7 23 (0.81%) PCI DSS
8 21 (0.74%) GDPR
9 15 (0.53%) Accessibility
10 14 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 13 (0.46%) GRC
12 12 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 12 (0.42%) Data Quality
12 12 (0.42%) WCAG
13 10 (0.35%) HIPAA
14 9 (0.32%) GxP
14 9 (0.32%) ISO 31000
15 8 (0.28%) PMO
16 6 (0.21%) NIST 800
16 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,186 (41.91%) Active Directory
2 436 (15.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 194 (6.86%) Hyper-V
4 151 (5.34%) VMware ESXi
5 125 (4.42%) vSphere
6 107 (3.78%) Docker
7 103 (3.64%) Virtual Machines
8 83 (2.93%) Virtual Desktop
9 79 (2.79%) VMware NSX
10 39 (1.38%) BitLocker
11 28 (0.99%) Firmware
12 24 (0.85%) vCloud
13 15 (0.53%) Microsoft App-V
13 15 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
14 14 (0.49%) NFS
15 12 (0.42%) Citrix Hypervisor
16 11 (0.39%) XenApp
17 10 (0.35%) XenDesktop
18 9 (0.32%) KVM
19 6 (0.21%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 420 (14.84%) Microsoft Intune
2 320 (11.31%) SCCM
3 215 (7.60%) Ansible
4 144 (5.09%) Kubernetes
5 122 (4.31%) vCenter Server
6 95 (3.36%) SCOM
7 46 (1.63%) Jamf Pro
8 44 (1.55%) WSUS
9 30 (1.06%) Grafana
10 28 (0.99%) Progress Chef
10 28 (0.99%) Prometheus
10 28 (0.99%) Single Sign-On
11 26 (0.92%) WMI
12 25 (0.88%) Puppet
12 25 (0.88%) VxRail
13 22 (0.78%) Packer
14 21 (0.74%) Nagios
14 21 (0.74%) NetBackup
15 20 (0.71%) Microsoft Clustering
16 19 (0.67%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 1,366 (48.27%) Microsoft
2 574 (20.28%) VMware
3 337 (11.91%) ServiceNow
4 189 (6.68%) Cisco
5 162 (5.72%) Oracle
6 156 (5.51%) Citrix
7 97 (3.43%) Apple
8 95 (3.36%) Splunk
9 89 (3.14%) CyberArk
10 78 (2.76%) Google
11 69 (2.44%) Red Hat
12 66 (2.33%) SolarWinds
13 64 (2.26%) BeyondTrust
14 60 (2.12%) Remedy
15 54 (1.91%) Dell
16 51 (1.80%) HP
17 43 (1.52%) BMC
17 43 (1.52%) NetApp
18 36 (1.27%) Fortinet
18 36 (1.27%) Meraki