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

 6 months to
7 May 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,464 2,056 3,232
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.05% 8.43% 8.72%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.10% 60.08% 63.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,651 1,461 2,242
10th Percentile £162 £179 £160
25th Percentile £213 £243 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £416 £400
Median % change year-on-year -0.24% +4.00% -11.11%
75th Percentile £544 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £688 £675
UK median daily rate £415 £425 £400
% change year-on-year -2.35% +6.25% -11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 189 109 269
10th Percentile £14.80 £14.84 £11.80
25th Percentile £18.00 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £26.44 £18.77 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.90% +4.25% -18.94%
75th Percentile £65.00 £25.00 £25.00
90th Percentile £75.30 £63.35 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £18.82 £18.00
% change year-on-year +33.63% +4.56% -20.00%

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 4,033 3,422 5,066
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.90% 14.04% 13.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,661 2,319 3,462
10th Percentile £185 £200 £183
25th Percentile £310 £313 £296
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £465
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.15% -9.27%
75th Percentile £570 £600 £588
90th Percentile £663 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £470
% change year-on-year -5.26% +1.06% -6.84%
Number of hourly rates quoted 266 156 370
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.24 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.50 £17.44 £15.31
Median hourly rate £47.50 £24.09 £22.08
Median % change year-on-year +97.18% +9.13% -41.13%
75th Percentile £67.84 £64.06 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £24.09 £22.08
% change year-on-year +97.18% +9.13% -42.66%

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 7 May 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 7 May 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 7 May 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 -24 763 £445 -1.11% 260
South East -4 512 £467 -6.60% 340
North of England -13 453 £329 +1.15% 222
Midlands -15 275 £316 +16.59% 114
North West -4 260 £263 -22.22% 123
South West -12 229 £450 -14.29% 137
East of England +2 209 £350 +54.87% 115
Yorkshire -19 179 £365 +13.18% 81
West Midlands -24 158 £442 +59.37% 64
East Midlands +8 112 £225 +9.09% 50
North East -24 18 £225 -13.46% 23
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 (8.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 143 (5.80%) SharePoint
3 52 (2.11%) IIS
4 49 (1.99%) Confluence
5 17 (0.69%) WebLogic
6 16 (0.65%) Apache
7 11 (0.45%) Skype for Business
7 11 (0.45%) Tuxedo
8 8 (0.32%) nginx
8 8 (0.32%) Tomcat
8 8 (0.32%) TPMS
9 5 (0.20%) SAS
10 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.16%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.081%) Apache Pulsar
11 2 (0.081%) Appian
11 2 (0.081%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.081%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 167 (6.78%) Microsoft Office
2 61 (2.48%) Microsoft Excel
3 23 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.45%) MS Visio
5 8 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.20%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.16%) Acrobat
7 4 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.041%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 43 (1.75%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.32%) Teamcenter
4 6 (0.24%) assyst
5 4 (0.16%) Finacle
6 3 (0.12%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.081%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.081%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.081%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.041%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.041%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.041%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.041%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.041%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 703 (28.53%) Microsoft 365
2 702 (28.49%) Azure
3 294 (11.93%) Entra ID
4 214 (8.69%) AWS
5 69 (2.80%) SaaS
6 68 (2.76%) GCP
7 67 (2.72%) Azure DevOps
8 63 (2.56%) OneDrive
9 59 (2.39%) IaaS
10 53 (2.15%) GitHub
11 50 (2.03%) PaaS
12 40 (1.62%) Power Platform
13 38 (1.54%) Google Workspace
14 36 (1.46%) Azure Monitor
15 27 (1.10%) Azure Sentinel
16 26 (1.06%) GitHub Actions
17 22 (0.89%) OpenShift
18 18 (0.73%) AWS CloudFormation
18 18 (0.73%) Azure AKS
19 16 (0.65%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 335 (13.60%) DNS
2 274 (11.12%) Firewall
3 232 (9.42%) DHCP
4 163 (6.62%) VPN
5 144 (5.84%) LAN
6 140 (5.68%) WAN
7 138 (5.60%) TCP/IP
8 109 (4.42%) Wi-Fi
9 66 (2.68%) Network Security
10 55 (2.23%) SAN
10 55 (2.23%) VLAN
11 47 (1.91%) Wireless
12 37 (1.50%) BGP
13 34 (1.38%) OSPF
14 32 (1.30%) Skype
15 31 (1.26%) SSL
16 29 (1.18%) BIG-IP
16 29 (1.18%) SNMP
16 29 (1.18%) VoIP
17 28 (1.14%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 180 (7.31%) SQL Server
2 44 (1.79%) Oracle Database
3 33 (1.34%) Relational Database
4 27 (1.10%) MySQL
5 23 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
5 23 (0.93%) Power BI
6 14 (0.57%) DB2
7 13 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
7 13 (0.53%) MongoDB
8 11 (0.45%) NoSQL
9 10 (0.41%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 7 (0.28%) BigQuery
10 7 (0.28%) RDBMS
11 6 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
12 5 (0.20%) Amazon RDS
12 5 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
12 5 (0.20%) GIS
12 5 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 4 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 162 (6.57%) JIRA
2 48 (1.95%) GitLab
3 44 (1.79%) MSI
4 43 (1.75%) Jenkins
5 39 (1.58%) Git
6 34 (1.38%) Visual Studio
7 21 (0.85%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.73%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.69%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.45%) Artifactory
10 11 (0.45%) Chocolatey
11 10 (0.41%) Android Studio
11 10 (0.41%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.41%) Sonatype Nexus
12 9 (0.37%) Browser DevTools
12 9 (0.37%) InstallShield
12 9 (0.37%) Xcode
13 7 (0.28%) JUnit
13 7 (0.28%) Robot Framework
13 7 (0.28%) Selenium
General
1 851 (34.54%) Social Skills
2 248 (10.06%) Finance
3 219 (8.89%) Analytical Skills
4 184 (7.47%) Public Sector
5 140 (5.68%) Banking
6 101 (4.10%) Documentation Skills
7 93 (3.77%) Legal
8 72 (2.92%) Organisational Skills
9 61 (2.48%) Military
10 40 (1.62%) Retail
11 37 (1.50%) Law
12 36 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
13 34 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 30 (1.22%) Investment Banking
14 30 (1.22%) Manufacturing
14 30 (1.22%) Telecoms
15 28 (1.14%) Front Office
16 20 (0.81%) Local Government
16 20 (0.81%) Police
17 15 (0.61%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 313 (12.70%) IT Support
2 300 (12.18%) Support Engineer
3 275 (11.16%) Analyst
4 196 (7.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 190 (7.71%) IT Engineer
6 161 (6.53%) Senior
7 155 (6.29%) IT Support Engineer
8 150 (6.09%) Architect
9 110 (4.46%) Support Analyst
10 105 (4.26%) Desktop Support
11 100 (4.06%) Desktop Engineer
12 95 (3.86%) Developer
13 89 (3.61%) Technical Support
14 86 (3.49%) IT Analyst
15 85 (3.45%) 2nd Line Support
16 81 (3.29%) Lead
17 78 (3.17%) Windows Engineer
18 67 (2.72%) 1st Line Support
19 64 (2.60%) Desktop Support Engineer
19 64 (2.60%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (3.45%) .NET
2 73 (2.96%) REST
3 51 (2.07%) .NET Framework
4 34 (1.38%) LDAP
4 34 (1.38%) SAML
5 31 (1.26%) Middleware
6 29 (1.18%) WinForms
6 29 (1.18%) WPF
7 28 (1.14%) Kafka
8 27 (1.10%) 802.1X
8 27 (1.10%) OAuth
9 26 (1.06%) Microsoft Graph
10 25 (1.01%) Web Services
11 20 (0.81%) Node.js
12 19 (0.77%) CSS
12 19 (0.77%) React
13 17 (0.69%) AngularJS
13 17 (0.69%) Software Packaging
14 15 (0.61%) Elastic Stack
15 14 (0.57%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 198 (8.04%) Onboarding
2 106 (4.30%) Data Centre
3 102 (4.14%) PKI
4 81 (3.29%) Enterprise Software
5 76 (3.08%) Clustering
6 58 (2.35%) Driving Licence
7 56 (2.27%) Replication
7 56 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
8 45 (1.83%) Hybrid Cloud
9 41 (1.66%) Management Information System
10 40 (1.62%) Smartphone
11 39 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
12 37 (1.50%) Security Posture
13 35 (1.42%) Virtual Team
14 32 (1.30%) Analytical Mindset
15 31 (1.26%) Cloud Native
16 29 (1.18%) Product Ownership
17 27 (1.10%) CMDB
18 26 (1.06%) Data Protection Act
19 25 (1.01%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 605 (24.55%) Linux
2 581 (23.58%) Windows Server
3 464 (18.83%) Windows 10
4 152 (6.17%) Mac OS
5 128 (5.19%) Android
6 121 (4.91%) Unix
7 116 (4.71%) Apple iOS
8 70 (2.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 64 (2.60%) Windows Server 2016
10 57 (2.31%) Windows Server 2019
11 47 (1.91%) Windows 7
12 35 (1.42%) Windows Server 2012
13 34 (1.38%) AIX
14 22 (0.89%) Ubuntu
15 17 (0.69%) Windows Server 2003
16 16 (0.65%) VMS
17 13 (0.53%) Solaris
18 10 (0.41%) CentOS
18 10 (0.41%) Windows Server 2008
19 9 (0.37%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 517 (20.98%) Problem-Solving
2 394 (15.99%) Customer Service
3 359 (14.57%) ITIL
4 268 (10.88%) Migration
5 264 (10.71%) Agile
6 263 (10.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 224 (9.09%) DevOps
8 220 (8.93%) CI/CD
9 206 (8.36%) ITSM
10 166 (6.74%) Continuous Improvement
11 162 (6.57%) Disaster Recovery
12 160 (6.49%) Change Management
13 154 (6.25%) Service Management
14 145 (5.88%) High Availability
15 144 (5.84%) Cybersecurity
16 122 (4.95%) Stakeholder Management
17 120 (4.87%) SIEM
18 119 (4.83%) Infrastructure as Code
19 108 (4.38%) Computer Science
20 96 (3.90%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 530 (21.51%) PowerShell
2 246 (9.98%) SQL
3 239 (9.70%) Python
4 130 (5.28%) C#
5 87 (3.53%) Bash
6 70 (2.84%) Java
6 70 (2.84%) JavaScript
7 52 (2.11%) PL/SQL
8 48 (1.95%) C++
9 43 (1.75%) T-SQL
10 27 (1.10%) Kusto Query Language
11 25 (1.01%) Perl
12 23 (0.93%) VB
13 22 (0.89%) Search Processing Language
14 19 (0.77%) Shell Script
15 17 (0.69%) VBScript
16 14 (0.57%) VBA
17 12 (0.49%) Go
17 12 (0.49%) TypeScript
18 11 (0.45%) C
Qualifications
1 788 (31.98%) Security Cleared
2 511 (20.74%) SC Cleared
3 253 (10.27%) Degree
4 247 (10.02%) DV Cleared
5 103 (4.18%) Microsoft Certification
6 75 (3.04%) Computer Science Degree
7 66 (2.68%) Cisco Certification
8 45 (1.83%) Azure Certification
9 42 (1.70%) MCSE
10 40 (1.62%) CISSP
11 33 (1.34%) BPSS Clearance
12 31 (1.26%) AWS Certification
12 31 (1.26%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 28 (1.14%) MCSA
14 26 (1.06%) ITIL Certification
15 25 (1.01%) CCNA
16 19 (0.77%) CompTIA Security+
17 18 (0.73%) A+ Certification
18 17 (0.69%) CISM
19 16 (0.65%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 105 (4.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 84 (3.41%) GDPR
3 81 (3.29%) QA
4 77 (3.13%) SLA
5 70 (2.84%) NIST
6 42 (1.70%) PCI DSS
7 29 (1.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 26 (1.06%) Cyber Essentials
9 14 (0.57%) NCSC
10 13 (0.53%) PMO
11 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.45%) MiFID
13 10 (0.41%) Data Quality
13 10 (0.41%) FINRA
14 8 (0.32%) GLBA
15 6 (0.24%) DICOM
15 6 (0.24%) HIPAA
15 6 (0.24%) HL7
15 6 (0.24%) ISO 31000
16 5 (0.20%) GRC
System Software
1 928 (37.66%) Active Directory
2 299 (12.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 135 (5.48%) Hyper-V
4 81 (3.29%) Docker
5 78 (3.17%) vSphere
6 76 (3.08%) VMware ESXi
7 73 (2.96%) Virtual Machines
8 47 (1.91%) Virtual Desktop
9 36 (1.46%) VMware NSX
10 33 (1.34%) Firmware
11 31 (1.26%) BitLocker
12 27 (1.10%) Microsoft App-V
13 21 (0.85%) KVM
14 12 (0.49%) XenApp
14 12 (0.49%) XenDesktop
15 5 (0.20%) etcd
15 5 (0.20%) Terminal Services
15 5 (0.20%) VMware Workstation
16 4 (0.16%) Job Entry Subsystem
16 4 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 331 (13.43%) Microsoft Intune
2 263 (10.67%) SCCM
3 164 (6.66%) Ansible
4 155 (6.29%) Terraform
5 119 (4.83%) Kubernetes
6 69 (2.80%) vCenter Server
7 48 (1.95%) Single Sign-On
8 41 (1.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 39 (1.58%) WSUS
10 34 (1.38%) FortiGate
11 30 (1.22%) Jamf Pro
12 29 (1.18%) SCOM
13 26 (1.06%) Grafana
14 25 (1.01%) Nagios
15 22 (0.89%) Nessus
15 22 (0.89%) Prometheus
16 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
16 18 (0.73%) ZABBIX
17 17 (0.69%) Tivoli
18 16 (0.65%) Netcool
Vendors
1 1,055 (42.82%) Microsoft
2 393 (15.95%) VMware
3 202 (8.20%) ServiceNow
4 194 (7.87%) Citrix
5 152 (6.17%) Cisco
6 148 (6.01%) Oracle
7 124 (5.03%) Splunk
8 73 (2.96%) HP
9 66 (2.68%) SolarWinds
10 56 (2.27%) Remedy
11 55 (2.23%) Dell
12 48 (1.95%) Red Hat
13 47 (1.91%) IBM
14 46 (1.87%) Apple
14 46 (1.87%) CyberArk
14 46 (1.87%) Google
15 37 (1.50%) F5
15 37 (1.50%) Juniper
16 33 (1.34%) BeyondTrust
16 33 (1.34%) Veeam
1,107 Windows jobs in England