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

6 months to
14 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 15
Rank change year-on-year -5 -7 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,509 2,066 3,307
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.42% 8.47% 8.92%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.33% 60.75% 64.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,698 1,478 2,272
10th Percentile £160 £181 £158
25th Percentile £210 £243 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £424 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.12% +6.00% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £413 £425 £400
% change year-on-year -2.94% +6.25% -10.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 210 99 275
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £11.88
25th Percentile £17.13 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £22.50 £18.82 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +19.55% +6.21% -18.17%
75th Percentile £63.75 £28.00 £23.75
90th Percentile £74.03 £65.00 £58.70
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £20.94 £17.72
% change year-on-year +7.45% +18.17% -19.45%

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 4,091 3,401 5,131
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.47% 13.95% 13.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,713 2,338 3,492
10th Percentile £181 £200 £180
25th Percentile £302 £313 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -12.62%
75th Percentile £570 £600 £588
90th Percentile £663 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £465
% change year-on-year -5.26% +2.15% -9.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 291 145 375
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.35 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.54 £18.13 £14.72
Median hourly rate £27.50 £25.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% +19.05% -27.96%
75th Percentile £67.25 £65.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £74.68 £68.45 £68.45
UK median hourly rate £27.25 £24.66 £21.50
% change year-on-year +10.50% +14.70% -28.33%

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 April 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 14 April 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 14 April 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 -22 773 £425 -3.41% 204
South East -7 503 £473 -3.67% 265
North of England -11 472 £313 -3.69% 217
Midlands -12 289 £325 +8.33% 113
North West -4 264 £260 -25.71% 130
South West -10 239 £485 -9.77% 118
East of England +9 215 £300 +33.33% 94
Yorkshire -17 186 £365 +8.15% 68
West Midlands -25 169 £449 +43.52% 57
East Midlands +2 116 £210 -16.00% 56
North East -11 28 £206 +3.13% 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
1 217 (8.65%) Microsoft Exchange
2 150 (5.98%) SharePoint
3 48 (1.91%) Confluence
4 46 (1.83%) IIS
5 21 (0.84%) WebLogic
6 17 (0.68%) Apache
7 12 (0.48%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.44%) Tuxedo
9 8 (0.32%) TPMS
10 7 (0.28%) nginx
10 7 (0.28%) Tomcat
11 5 (0.20%) SAS
12 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.16%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.080%) Apache Pulsar
13 2 (0.080%) Appian
13 2 (0.080%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.080%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 187 (7.45%) Microsoft Office
2 67 (2.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.44%) 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 37 (1.47%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.32%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.20%) assyst
5 3 (0.12%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.080%) Finacle
6 2 (0.080%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.080%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.080%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.080%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.080%) SystmOne
7 1 (0.040%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.040%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.040%) Eikon
7 1 (0.040%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.040%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 716 (28.54%) Microsoft 365
2 673 (26.82%) Azure
3 291 (11.60%) Entra ID
4 201 (8.01%) AWS
5 72 (2.87%) GCP
6 69 (2.75%) OneDrive
6 69 (2.75%) SaaS
7 63 (2.51%) Azure DevOps
8 53 (2.11%) IaaS
9 46 (1.83%) Google Workspace
9 46 (1.83%) PaaS
10 43 (1.71%) GitHub
11 37 (1.47%) Power Platform
12 34 (1.36%) Azure Monitor
13 26 (1.04%) Azure Sentinel
14 20 (0.80%) GitHub Actions
15 19 (0.76%) OpenShift
16 18 (0.72%) AWS CloudFormation
17 17 (0.68%) Microsoft Purview
17 17 (0.68%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 339 (13.51%) DNS
2 303 (12.08%) Firewall
3 232 (9.25%) DHCP
4 176 (7.01%) VPN
5 154 (6.14%) TCP/IP
6 149 (5.94%) LAN
7 143 (5.70%) WAN
8 128 (5.10%) Wi-Fi
9 75 (2.99%) Network Security
10 66 (2.63%) VLAN
11 51 (2.03%) SAN
12 50 (1.99%) Wireless
13 39 (1.55%) BGP
14 33 (1.32%) SSL
15 30 (1.20%) OSPF
15 30 (1.20%) VoIP
16 29 (1.16%) Skype
17 28 (1.12%) Internet
18 27 (1.08%) BIG-IP
18 27 (1.08%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 166 (6.62%) SQL Server
2 43 (1.71%) Oracle Database
3 34 (1.36%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.20%) MySQL
5 23 (0.92%) PostgreSQL
6 19 (0.76%) Power BI
7 14 (0.56%) DB2
8 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
9 12 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
9 12 (0.48%) MongoDB
10 10 (0.40%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.36%) Oracle Reports
12 7 (0.28%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 6 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
13 6 (0.24%) GIS
13 6 (0.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 5 (0.20%) Amazon RDS
14 5 (0.20%) RDBMS
15 4 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
15 4 (0.16%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 159 (6.34%) JIRA
2 51 (2.03%) GitLab
3 47 (1.87%) Jenkins
4 42 (1.67%) Git
4 42 (1.67%) MSI
5 34 (1.36%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.84%) Eclipse
7 18 (0.72%) Burp Suite
8 17 (0.68%) Metasploit
9 11 (0.44%) Android Studio
9 11 (0.44%) Artifactory
9 11 (0.44%) Chocolatey
10 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
10 9 (0.36%) Browser DevTools
10 9 (0.36%) Xcode
11 8 (0.32%) InstallShield
11 8 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
12 7 (0.28%) JUnit
12 7 (0.28%) Robot Framework
12 7 (0.28%) Selenium
General
1 874 (34.83%) Social Skills
2 238 (9.49%) Finance
3 216 (8.61%) Analytical Skills
4 203 (8.09%) Public Sector
5 144 (5.74%) Banking
6 103 (4.11%) Documentation Skills
6 103 (4.11%) Legal
7 80 (3.19%) Organisational Skills
8 59 (2.35%) Military
9 40 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
10 36 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 36 (1.43%) Manufacturing
11 34 (1.36%) Retail
12 30 (1.20%) Law
12 30 (1.20%) Telecoms
13 28 (1.12%) Investment Banking
14 26 (1.04%) Front Office
15 20 (0.80%) Local Government
16 15 (0.60%) Aerospace
17 14 (0.56%) Police
Job Titles
1 347 (13.83%) IT Support
2 326 (12.99%) Support Engineer
3 314 (12.51%) Analyst
4 212 (8.45%) IT Engineer
5 176 (7.01%) IT Support Engineer
6 174 (6.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 163 (6.50%) Senior
8 160 (6.38%) Architect
9 126 (5.02%) Support Analyst
10 105 (4.18%) Developer
11 104 (4.15%) Desktop Support
12 97 (3.87%) Technical Support
13 93 (3.71%) Desktop Engineer
14 91 (3.63%) IT Analyst
15 87 (3.47%) 2nd Line Support
16 84 (3.35%) Windows Engineer
17 78 (3.11%) Lead
18 72 (2.87%) IT Support Analyst
19 66 (2.63%) 1st Line Support
19 66 (2.63%) Desktop Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (3.43%) .NET
2 65 (2.59%) REST
3 52 (2.07%) .NET Framework
4 48 (1.91%) SAML
5 41 (1.63%) LDAP
5 41 (1.63%) OAuth
6 34 (1.36%) Middleware
7 31 (1.24%) WPF
8 29 (1.16%) WinForms
9 26 (1.04%) Web Services
10 25 (1.00%) Kafka
10 25 (1.00%) Microsoft Graph
10 25 (1.00%) OpenID
11 24 (0.96%) 802.1X
12 21 (0.84%) CSS
12 21 (0.84%) Node.js
12 21 (0.84%) React
13 19 (0.76%) AngularJS
13 19 (0.76%) OAuth2
14 17 (0.68%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 190 (7.57%) Onboarding
2 105 (4.18%) Data Centre
3 95 (3.79%) PKI
4 77 (3.07%) Enterprise Software
5 64 (2.55%) Driving Licence
6 63 (2.51%) Self-Motivation
7 62 (2.47%) Clustering
8 58 (2.31%) Replication
9 42 (1.67%) Hybrid Cloud
10 41 (1.63%) Management Information System
11 40 (1.59%) Product Ownership
11 40 (1.59%) Smartphone
12 38 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
12 38 (1.51%) Security Posture
13 30 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
14 29 (1.16%) CMDB
15 28 (1.12%) Cloud Native
16 27 (1.08%) Analytical Mindset
16 27 (1.08%) NHS
17 26 (1.04%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 613 (24.43%) Linux
2 573 (22.84%) Windows Server
3 514 (20.49%) Windows 10
4 145 (5.78%) Mac OS
5 138 (5.50%) Android
6 119 (4.74%) Apple iOS
7 116 (4.62%) Unix
8 74 (2.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 58 (2.31%) Windows Server 2016
10 48 (1.91%) Windows 7
11 43 (1.71%) Windows Server 2019
12 37 (1.47%) AIX
13 36 (1.43%) Windows Server 2012
14 24 (0.96%) Windows Server 2003
15 19 (0.76%) VMS
16 18 (0.72%) Ubuntu
17 13 (0.52%) Solaris
18 10 (0.40%) CentOS
18 10 (0.40%) Mac OS X
18 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 523 (20.84%) Problem-Solving
2 431 (17.18%) Customer Service
3 363 (14.47%) ITIL
4 267 (10.64%) Migration
5 266 (10.60%) Agile
6 250 (9.96%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 223 (8.89%) DevOps
8 213 (8.49%) ITSM
9 199 (7.93%) CI/CD
10 174 (6.94%) Continuous Improvement
10 174 (6.94%) Service Management
11 165 (6.58%) Cybersecurity
12 163 (6.50%) Change Management
13 154 (6.14%) Disaster Recovery
14 134 (5.34%) High Availability
15 122 (4.86%) Stakeholder Management
16 109 (4.34%) SIEM
17 107 (4.26%) Identity Access Management
17 107 (4.26%) Infrastructure as Code
18 106 (4.22%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 546 (21.76%) PowerShell
2 246 (9.80%) Python
3 242 (9.65%) SQL
4 127 (5.06%) C#
5 108 (4.30%) Bash
6 75 (2.99%) Java
7 72 (2.87%) JavaScript
8 54 (2.15%) PL/SQL
9 48 (1.91%) C++
10 43 (1.71%) T-SQL
11 41 (1.63%) Perl
12 29 (1.16%) Kusto Query Language
13 25 (1.00%) VB
14 19 (0.76%) VBScript
15 17 (0.68%) Shell Script
16 16 (0.64%) VBA
17 15 (0.60%) Search Processing Language
18 13 (0.52%) TypeScript
19 11 (0.44%) Bicep
19 11 (0.44%) Go
Qualifications
1 794 (31.65%) Security Cleared
2 527 (21.00%) SC Cleared
3 254 (10.12%) Degree
4 233 (9.29%) DV Cleared
5 114 (4.54%) Microsoft Certification
6 70 (2.79%) Computer Science Degree
7 61 (2.43%) Cisco Certification
8 45 (1.79%) Azure Certification
9 39 (1.55%) MCSE
10 34 (1.36%) CISSP
11 31 (1.24%) CCNA
12 30 (1.20%) BPSS Clearance
13 29 (1.16%) AWS Certification
13 29 (1.16%) ITIL Certification
14 23 (0.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 21 (0.84%) A+ Certification
15 21 (0.84%) CCNP
16 20 (0.80%) CompTIA Security+
16 20 (0.80%) MCSA
17 17 (0.68%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (3.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 85 (3.39%) GDPR
3 83 (3.31%) QA
4 74 (2.95%) SLA
5 64 (2.55%) NIST
6 41 (1.63%) PCI DSS
7 27 (1.08%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 18 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
9 12 (0.48%) MiFID
10 11 (0.44%) NCSC
10 11 (0.44%) NIST 800
10 11 (0.44%) PMO
11 10 (0.40%) FINRA
12 9 (0.36%) Data Quality
13 8 (0.32%) GLBA
14 6 (0.24%) DICOM
14 6 (0.24%) HIPAA
14 6 (0.24%) HL7
15 4 (0.16%) GMP
15 4 (0.16%) GxP
System Software
1 954 (38.02%) Active Directory
2 276 (11.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 118 (4.70%) Hyper-V
4 87 (3.47%) Docker
5 72 (2.87%) vSphere
6 64 (2.55%) VMware ESXi
7 54 (2.15%) Virtual Machines
8 45 (1.79%) Virtual Desktop
9 35 (1.39%) VMware NSX
10 33 (1.32%) BitLocker
10 33 (1.32%) Firmware
11 24 (0.96%) Microsoft App-V
12 18 (0.72%) KVM
13 10 (0.40%) XenDesktop
14 9 (0.36%) XenApp
15 5 (0.20%) etcd
15 5 (0.20%) NFS
15 5 (0.20%) Terminal Services
16 4 (0.16%) Job Entry Subsystem
16 4 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 347 (13.83%) Microsoft Intune
2 275 (10.96%) SCCM
3 149 (5.94%) Ansible
4 147 (5.86%) Terraform
5 115 (4.58%) Kubernetes
6 66 (2.63%) Single Sign-On
7 60 (2.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 60 (2.39%) vCenter Server
8 39 (1.55%) Jamf Pro
9 32 (1.28%) FortiGate
10 30 (1.20%) WSUS
11 25 (1.00%) SCOM
12 24 (0.96%) Grafana
13 21 (0.84%) Prometheus
14 18 (0.72%) Nagios
14 18 (0.72%) Nessus
14 18 (0.72%) Progress Chef
15 16 (0.64%) Nmap
15 16 (0.64%) Puppet
16 14 (0.56%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,080 (43.05%) Microsoft
2 375 (14.95%) VMware
3 216 (8.61%) ServiceNow
4 201 (8.01%) Citrix
5 154 (6.14%) Oracle
6 149 (5.94%) Cisco
7 115 (4.58%) Splunk
8 69 (2.75%) HP
9 60 (2.39%) SolarWinds
10 59 (2.35%) Red Hat
11 57 (2.27%) Dell
12 53 (2.11%) Google
13 51 (2.03%) Remedy
14 47 (1.87%) CyberArk
15 45 (1.79%) IBM
16 44 (1.75%) Apple
17 39 (1.55%) Juniper
18 37 (1.47%) Veeam
19 34 (1.36%) F5
20 30 (1.20%) BeyondTrust