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

6 months to
6 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 22 15
Rank change year-on-year -4 -7 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,599 2,175 3,398
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.14% 8.51% 9.00%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.92% 59.93% 63.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,749 1,498 2,312
10th Percentile £161 £181 £155
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £403 £400 £380
Median % change year-on-year +0.63% +5.26% -14.03%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £640 £675 £655
UK median daily rate £400 £415 £398
% change year-on-year -3.61% +4.40% -9.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 250 71 257
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.63 £16.85 £14.72
Median hourly rate £22.00 £21.59 £18.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% +16.70% -17.78%
75th Percentile £42.55 £39.50 £36.84
90th Percentile £65.20 £73.75 £62.50
UK median hourly rate £21.90 £22.50 £18.93
% change year-on-year -2.67% +18.86% -14.11%

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 4,266 3,629 5,350
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 11.72% 14.20% 14.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,824 2,380 3,634
10th Percentile £180 £200 £178
25th Percentile £263 £313 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -12.62%
75th Percentile £568 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £447 £475 £459
% change year-on-year -6.00% +3.49% -10.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 321 119 368
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.51 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.81 £41.00 £22.51
Median % change year-on-year -44.37% +82.14% -18.15%
75th Percentile £60.00 £67.38 £61.60
90th Percentile £68.00 £71.75 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £23.50 £29.00 £23.25
% change year-on-year -18.97% +24.73% -12.82%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 -17 788 £425 +1.19% 247
South East -2 522 £413 -4.07% 339
North of England -8 486 £268 -23.36% 213
South West -1 284 £450 -5.26% 107
Midlands -13 276 £267 -17.85% 107
North West -7 259 £263 -27.59% 124
East of England +7 225 £258 +7.85% 107
Yorkshire -16 195 £325 -8.52% 72
West Midlands -22 167 £400 +23.08% 51
East Midlands +2 108 £210 -16.00% 55
North East -9 35 £188 -37.50% 22
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
1 227 (8.73%) Microsoft Exchange
2 173 (6.66%) SharePoint
3 56 (2.15%) Confluence
4 37 (1.42%) IIS
5 25 (0.96%) Apache
6 20 (0.77%) WebLogic
7 16 (0.62%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.42%) Tuxedo
9 10 (0.38%) TPMS
10 7 (0.27%) WebSphere
11 6 (0.23%) nginx
12 5 (0.19%) Tomcat
13 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.15%) iPlanet
13 4 (0.15%) JBoss
13 4 (0.15%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
13 4 (0.15%) WebSphere Application Server
14 3 (0.12%) SAS
Applications
1 225 (8.66%) Microsoft Office
2 72 (2.77%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.46%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.19%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.19%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.077%) InDesign
7 2 (0.077%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.038%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.038%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.038%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.038%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.038%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.038%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 28 (1.08%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (0.50%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.27%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.19%) assyst
5 4 (0.15%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.077%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.077%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.077%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.077%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.077%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.077%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.038%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.038%) Eikon
8 1 (0.038%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.038%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.038%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.038%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.038%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.038%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 761 (29.28%) Microsoft 365
2 642 (24.70%) Azure
3 279 (10.73%) Entra ID
4 191 (7.35%) AWS
5 92 (3.54%) OneDrive
6 70 (2.69%) GCP
7 69 (2.65%) SaaS
8 51 (1.96%) Google Workspace
9 50 (1.92%) Azure DevOps
10 44 (1.69%) IaaS
11 43 (1.65%) GitHub
12 38 (1.46%) Power Platform
13 36 (1.39%) PaaS
14 22 (0.85%) AWS CloudFormation
14 22 (0.85%) Azure Monitor
15 21 (0.81%) Azure Sentinel
16 20 (0.77%) GitHub Actions
17 18 (0.69%) OpenShift
18 17 (0.65%) Nutanix
19 16 (0.62%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 338 (13.01%) DNS
2 287 (11.04%) Firewall
3 223 (8.58%) DHCP
4 172 (6.62%) TCP/IP
5 166 (6.39%) VPN
6 129 (4.96%) WAN
7 128 (4.92%) LAN
8 126 (4.85%) Wi-Fi
9 68 (2.62%) Network Security
10 66 (2.54%) VLAN
11 63 (2.42%) Wireless
12 39 (1.50%) SAN
13 33 (1.27%) BGP
13 33 (1.27%) Skype
14 32 (1.23%) SSH
15 28 (1.08%) Cisco ISE
15 28 (1.08%) VoIP
16 27 (1.04%) Junos
17 26 (1.00%) SSL
18 25 (0.96%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 147 (5.66%) SQL Server
2 52 (2.00%) Oracle Database
3 45 (1.73%) Relational Database
4 38 (1.46%) MySQL
5 24 (0.92%) PostgreSQL
6 14 (0.54%) Power BI
7 13 (0.50%) BigQuery
7 13 (0.50%) DB2
8 11 (0.42%) MongoDB
8 11 (0.42%) Oracle Reports
9 9 (0.35%) NoSQL
10 8 (0.31%) Elasticsearch
10 8 (0.31%) GIS
11 7 (0.27%) SAP HANA
12 6 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
13 5 (0.19%) Amazon RDS
13 5 (0.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 5 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 4 (0.15%) Azure SQL Database
14 4 (0.15%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 151 (5.81%) JIRA
2 57 (2.19%) Jenkins
3 53 (2.04%) GitLab
4 50 (1.92%) Git
5 42 (1.62%) MSI
6 35 (1.35%) Visual Studio
7 30 (1.15%) Eclipse
8 20 (0.77%) Burp Suite
8 20 (0.77%) Metasploit
9 18 (0.69%) Android Studio
10 16 (0.62%) Xcode
11 15 (0.58%) Artifactory
12 13 (0.50%) Browser DevTools
13 11 (0.42%) Sonatype Nexus
14 10 (0.38%) Chocolatey
15 9 (0.35%) Bitbucket
16 7 (0.27%) JUnit
16 7 (0.27%) Robot Framework
17 6 (0.23%) InstallShield
17 6 (0.23%) Toad
General
1 966 (37.17%) Social Skills
2 256 (9.85%) Finance
3 221 (8.50%) Analytical Skills
4 220 (8.46%) Public Sector
5 136 (5.23%) Banking
6 110 (4.23%) Documentation Skills
7 98 (3.77%) Legal
8 82 (3.16%) Organisational Skills
9 61 (2.35%) Military
10 49 (1.89%) Presentation Skills
11 41 (1.58%) Manufacturing
12 37 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 36 (1.39%) Retail
14 27 (1.04%) Telecoms
15 24 (0.92%) Law
16 22 (0.85%) Investment Banking
17 21 (0.81%) Aerospace
18 19 (0.73%) Front Office
19 18 (0.69%) Local Government
20 14 (0.54%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 375 (14.43%) Support Engineer
2 353 (13.58%) IT Support
3 340 (13.08%) Analyst
4 203 (7.81%) IT Engineer
5 168 (6.46%) IT Support Engineer
6 158 (6.08%) Architect
7 153 (5.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 149 (5.73%) Senior
9 146 (5.62%) Support Analyst
10 129 (4.96%) Desktop Support
11 121 (4.66%) 2nd Line Support
12 118 (4.54%) Technical Support
13 116 (4.46%) Desktop Engineer
14 108 (4.16%) Developer
15 101 (3.89%) Windows Engineer
16 88 (3.39%) Lead
17 87 (3.35%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 87 (3.35%) IT Analyst
18 81 (3.12%) Deployment Engineer
19 74 (2.85%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (3.08%) .NET
2 57 (2.19%) REST
3 49 (1.89%) OAuth
4 45 (1.73%) .NET Framework
4 45 (1.73%) SAML
5 43 (1.65%) LDAP
6 32 (1.23%) Web Services
7 31 (1.19%) Middleware
7 31 (1.19%) WPF
8 29 (1.12%) React
9 27 (1.04%) AngularJS
10 26 (1.00%) CSS
10 26 (1.00%) OpenID
11 24 (0.92%) Microsoft Graph
11 24 (0.92%) WinForms
12 22 (0.85%) Node.js
13 21 (0.81%) OAuth2
14 19 (0.73%) Apache NiFi
14 19 (0.73%) Kafka
15 18 (0.69%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 167 (6.43%) Onboarding
2 103 (3.96%) Data Centre
3 99 (3.81%) PKI
4 81 (3.12%) Driving Licence
5 79 (3.04%) Enterprise Software
6 68 (2.62%) Self-Motivation
7 55 (2.12%) Smartphone
8 49 (1.89%) Management Information System
9 48 (1.85%) Clustering
9 48 (1.85%) Replication
10 43 (1.65%) Security Posture
11 40 (1.54%) Hybrid Cloud
12 37 (1.42%) Product Ownership
13 36 (1.39%) NHS
14 30 (1.15%) Legacy Systems
15 28 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
16 27 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
17 26 (1.00%) CMDB
17 26 (1.00%) Video Conferencing
17 26 (1.00%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 608 (23.39%) Linux
2 589 (22.66%) Windows 10
3 546 (21.01%) Windows Server
4 145 (5.58%) Android
5 138 (5.31%) Unix
6 137 (5.27%) Mac OS
7 119 (4.58%) Apple iOS
8 63 (2.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 63 (2.42%) Windows Server 2016
9 48 (1.85%) Windows 7
10 45 (1.73%) Windows Server 2019
11 36 (1.39%) Windows Server 2012
12 30 (1.15%) AIX
13 29 (1.12%) Windows Server 2003
14 13 (0.50%) Ubuntu
15 12 (0.46%) Solaris
15 12 (0.46%) VMS
15 12 (0.46%) Windows Server 2008
16 10 (0.38%) Mac OS X
17 8 (0.31%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 513 (19.74%) Problem-Solving
2 474 (18.24%) Customer Service
3 366 (14.08%) ITIL
4 275 (10.58%) Agile
5 264 (10.16%) Migration
6 234 (9.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 215 (8.27%) DevOps
8 212 (8.16%) ITSM
9 206 (7.93%) CI/CD
10 198 (7.62%) Service Management
11 186 (7.16%) Continuous Improvement
12 180 (6.93%) Cybersecurity
13 156 (6.00%) Change Management
14 145 (5.58%) Disaster Recovery
15 134 (5.16%) Stakeholder Management
16 131 (5.04%) User Experience
17 120 (4.62%) Service Delivery
18 117 (4.50%) High Availability
19 105 (4.04%) Computer Science
20 104 (4.00%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 502 (19.32%) PowerShell
2 269 (10.35%) Python
3 229 (8.81%) SQL
4 128 (4.92%) C#
5 112 (4.31%) Bash
6 96 (3.69%) Java
7 78 (3.00%) JavaScript
8 60 (2.31%) C++
9 51 (1.96%) PL/SQL
10 50 (1.92%) Perl
11 41 (1.58%) T-SQL
12 32 (1.23%) Kusto Query Language
13 25 (0.96%) VB
14 24 (0.92%) Shell Script
15 21 (0.81%) VBScript
16 18 (0.69%) VBA
17 13 (0.50%) C
18 12 (0.46%) Bicep
18 12 (0.46%) TypeScript
19 11 (0.42%) Go
Qualifications
1 821 (31.59%) Security Cleared
2 534 (20.55%) SC Cleared
3 265 (10.20%) Degree
4 233 (8.96%) DV Cleared
5 142 (5.46%) Microsoft Certification
6 77 (2.96%) Computer Science Degree
7 59 (2.27%) Cisco Certification
8 48 (1.85%) Azure Certification
9 47 (1.81%) MCSE
10 36 (1.39%) ITIL Certification
11 32 (1.23%) CCNA
11 32 (1.23%) CISSP
12 31 (1.19%) AWS Certification
13 28 (1.08%) BPSS Clearance
14 26 (1.00%) CCNP
15 24 (0.92%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 23 (0.88%) A+ Certification
17 22 (0.85%) MCSA
18 20 (0.77%) CompTIA Security+
19 19 (0.73%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (3.73%) GDPR
2 89 (3.42%) SLA
3 78 (3.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 77 (2.96%) QA
5 50 (1.92%) NIST
6 38 (1.46%) PCI DSS
7 21 (0.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 15 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
9 13 (0.50%) MiFID
9 13 (0.50%) PMO
10 12 (0.46%) NCSC
11 10 (0.38%) FINRA
11 10 (0.38%) GLBA
12 9 (0.35%) NIST 800
13 5 (0.19%) GxP
14 4 (0.15%) COBIT
14 4 (0.15%) HIPAA
14 4 (0.15%) SOC 2
15 3 (0.12%) Accessibility
15 3 (0.12%) SEPA
System Software
1 978 (37.63%) Active Directory
2 259 (9.97%) VMware Infrastructure
3 102 (3.92%) Hyper-V
4 101 (3.89%) Docker
5 61 (2.35%) vSphere
6 60 (2.31%) Virtual Machines
7 59 (2.27%) Virtual Desktop
8 49 (1.89%) VMware ESXi
9 30 (1.15%) VMware NSX
10 25 (0.96%) BitLocker
11 23 (0.88%) Firmware
11 23 (0.88%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.62%) KVM
13 9 (0.35%) Virtual Servers
14 7 (0.27%) XenDesktop
15 6 (0.23%) NFS
15 6 (0.23%) Terminal Services
15 6 (0.23%) XenApp
16 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 4 (0.15%) Snort
Systems Management
1 356 (13.70%) Microsoft Intune
2 335 (12.89%) SCCM
3 157 (6.04%) Terraform
4 136 (5.23%) Ansible
5 118 (4.54%) Kubernetes
6 65 (2.50%) Single Sign-On
7 62 (2.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 60 (2.31%) vCenter Server
9 38 (1.46%) Jamf Pro
10 28 (1.08%) Grafana
11 27 (1.04%) FortiGate
12 25 (0.96%) SCOM
13 24 (0.92%) WSUS
14 20 (0.77%) Nessus
15 19 (0.73%) Nmap
16 18 (0.69%) Prometheus
17 17 (0.65%) Progress Chef
17 17 (0.65%) WMI
18 14 (0.54%) Puppet
19 12 (0.46%) CASB
Vendors
1 1,134 (43.63%) Microsoft
2 363 (13.97%) VMware
3 237 (9.12%) ServiceNow
4 193 (7.43%) Citrix
5 165 (6.35%) Oracle
6 150 (5.77%) Cisco
7 115 (4.42%) Splunk
8 60 (2.31%) HP
9 59 (2.27%) Dell
9 59 (2.27%) Red Hat
9 59 (2.27%) SolarWinds
10 55 (2.12%) Google
11 47 (1.81%) Apple
12 45 (1.73%) IBM
12 45 (1.73%) Remedy
13 43 (1.65%) Veeam
14 41 (1.58%) Juniper
15 34 (1.31%) CyberArk
16 32 (1.23%) SAP
17 31 (1.19%) F5