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

6 months to
6 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 23 14
Rank change year-on-year +1 -9 +1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,560 2,195 3,522
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.66% 8.36% 9.27%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.97% 58.82% 63.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,778 1,459 2,391
10th Percentile £162 £182 £155
25th Percentile £204 £223 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £400 £390
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% +2.56% -8.24%
75th Percentile £538 £571 £575
90th Percentile £638 £660 £665
UK median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 241 73 258
10th Percentile £12.97 £15.04 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.72 £17.00 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.00 £22.09 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.41% +10.45% -9.26%
75th Percentile £42.75 £53.00 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £72.75 £62.50
UK median hourly rate £21.90 £23.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year -4.78% +15.00% -9.09%

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 4,199 3,732 5,522
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.57% 14.21% 14.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,827 2,366 3,772
10th Percentile £177 £200 £178
25th Percentile £263 £313 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.70% -11.06%
75th Percentile £565 £600 £594
90th Percentile £675 £699 £700
UK median daily rate £444 £475 £465
% change year-on-year -6.58% +2.15% -10.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 308 122 374
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.28 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.00 £17.05
Median hourly rate £22.54 £47.00 £25.06
Median % change year-on-year -52.05% +87.57% -3.63%
75th Percentile £53.40 £67.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £68.00 £71.23 £70.46
UK median hourly rate £23.54 £31.79 £25.25
% change year-on-year -25.96% +25.90% -1.79%

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 February 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 February 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 February 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 -13 759 £450 +7.14% 233
South East -1 502 £403 -5.29% 349
North of England -5 459 £263 -25.00% 231
South West +2 316 £425 +6.25% 121
Midlands -6 297 £275 -15.38% 139
North West -4 252 £240 -31.43% 115
East of England +6 219 £235 -12.96% 120
West Midlands -12 181 £360 +10.77% 86
Yorkshire -14 176 £325 -7.21% 97
East Midlands +3 115 £225 -26.83% 53
North East -4 34 £188 -43.61% 24
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
1 215 (8.40%) Microsoft Exchange
2 177 (6.91%) SharePoint
3 65 (2.54%) Confluence
4 41 (1.60%) IIS
5 32 (1.25%) Apache
6 19 (0.74%) WebLogic
7 18 (0.70%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.43%) TPMS
9 10 (0.39%) WebSphere
10 9 (0.35%) nginx
11 8 (0.31%) JBoss
11 8 (0.31%) Tuxedo
12 7 (0.27%) iPlanet
12 7 (0.27%) SharePoint Server
12 7 (0.27%) WebSphere Application Server
13 5 (0.20%) SAS
14 4 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2010
14 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.12%) Documentum
15 3 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 231 (9.02%) Microsoft Office
2 74 (2.89%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.39%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.27%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.20%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.078%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.078%) Windchill
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.039%) InDesign
9 1 (0.039%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.039%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 25 (0.98%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.31%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.20%) assyst
5 4 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.078%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.078%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.078%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.078%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.078%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.078%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.039%) Aladdin
8 1 (0.039%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.039%) Eikon
8 1 (0.039%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.039%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.039%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.039%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.039%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 726 (28.36%) Microsoft 365
2 628 (24.53%) Azure
3 254 (9.92%) Entra ID
4 204 (7.97%) AWS
5 91 (3.55%) OneDrive
6 69 (2.70%) SaaS
7 62 (2.42%) GCP
8 51 (1.99%) Google Workspace
9 48 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
10 43 (1.68%) IaaS
11 38 (1.48%) GitHub
12 34 (1.33%) Power Platform
13 31 (1.21%) PaaS
14 26 (1.02%) Azure Monitor
15 23 (0.90%) OpenShift
16 20 (0.78%) Azure Sentinel
17 19 (0.74%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 19 (0.74%) AWS CloudFormation
17 19 (0.74%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 18 (0.70%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 332 (12.97%) DNS
2 255 (9.96%) Firewall
3 218 (8.52%) DHCP
4 171 (6.68%) TCP/IP
5 161 (6.29%) VPN
6 114 (4.45%) WAN
7 109 (4.26%) Wi-Fi
8 107 (4.18%) LAN
9 79 (3.09%) Network Security
10 66 (2.58%) VLAN
11 63 (2.46%) Wireless
12 40 (1.56%) SSH
13 34 (1.33%) Skype
14 31 (1.21%) HTTP
14 31 (1.21%) SAN
15 30 (1.17%) FTP
16 29 (1.13%) Kerberos
17 26 (1.02%) Internet
18 25 (0.98%) VoIP
19 24 (0.94%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (4.45%) SQL Server
2 54 (2.11%) Relational Database
3 53 (2.07%) Oracle Database
4 42 (1.64%) MySQL
5 25 (0.98%) PostgreSQL
6 13 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
6 13 (0.51%) BigQuery
7 11 (0.43%) Power BI
8 10 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
9 9 (0.35%) Amazon Aurora
10 8 (0.31%) GIS
10 8 (0.31%) MongoDB
10 8 (0.31%) NoSQL
11 7 (0.27%) DB2
12 6 (0.23%) Elasticsearch
13 5 (0.20%) SAP HANA
14 4 (0.16%) Data Warehouse
14 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
14 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 3 (0.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 143 (5.59%) JIRA
2 69 (2.70%) Jenkins
3 59 (2.30%) Git
4 51 (1.99%) GitLab
5 37 (1.45%) MSI
6 26 (1.02%) Eclipse
6 26 (1.02%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.74%) Burp Suite
7 19 (0.74%) Metasploit
8 18 (0.70%) Android Studio
9 16 (0.63%) Browser DevTools
9 16 (0.63%) Xcode
10 15 (0.59%) Artifactory
11 12 (0.47%) InstallShield
11 12 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
12 10 (0.39%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.39%) Vagrant
13 8 (0.31%) AdminStudio
13 8 (0.31%) Selenium
14 7 (0.27%) CA Release Automation
General
1 951 (37.15%) Social Skills
2 267 (10.43%) Finance
3 222 (8.67%) Public Sector
4 209 (8.16%) Analytical Skills
5 122 (4.77%) Banking
6 108 (4.22%) Documentation Skills
7 84 (3.28%) Legal
8 74 (2.89%) Organisational Skills
9 50 (1.95%) Military
10 49 (1.91%) Manufacturing
11 41 (1.60%) Presentation Skills
12 40 (1.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 33 (1.29%) Retail
14 27 (1.05%) Telecoms
15 22 (0.86%) Aerospace
15 22 (0.86%) Front Office
16 21 (0.82%) Law
17 19 (0.74%) Investment Banking
18 16 (0.63%) Local Government
18 16 (0.63%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 374 (14.61%) Support Engineer
2 329 (12.85%) IT Support
3 325 (12.70%) Analyst
4 177 (6.91%) IT Engineer
5 162 (6.33%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 145 (5.66%) Architect
7 144 (5.63%) Support Analyst
8 141 (5.51%) IT Support Engineer
9 136 (5.31%) Senior
10 134 (5.23%) Desktop Support
11 124 (4.84%) Technical Support
12 118 (4.61%) 2nd Line Support
12 118 (4.61%) Desktop Engineer
13 117 (4.57%) Windows Engineer
14 99 (3.87%) Deployment Engineer
14 99 (3.87%) Developer
15 92 (3.59%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 85 (3.32%) Lead
17 80 (3.13%) IT Analyst
18 71 (2.77%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (2.93%) .NET
2 53 (2.07%) REST
3 51 (1.99%) OAuth
4 47 (1.84%) SAML
5 44 (1.72%) .NET Framework
5 44 (1.72%) LDAP
6 33 (1.29%) Middleware
6 33 (1.29%) WPF
7 32 (1.25%) React
8 29 (1.13%) OpenID
9 28 (1.09%) AngularJS
10 23 (0.90%) CSS
10 23 (0.90%) Web Services
11 22 (0.86%) Kafka
11 22 (0.86%) RESTful
12 21 (0.82%) Microsoft Graph
12 21 (0.82%) Node.js
12 21 (0.82%) OAuth2
12 21 (0.82%) SOAP
13 19 (0.74%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 152 (5.94%) Onboarding
2 91 (3.55%) PKI
3 88 (3.44%) Driving Licence
4 79 (3.09%) Data Centre
5 72 (2.81%) Enterprise Software
6 60 (2.34%) Self-Motivation
7 59 (2.30%) Replication
8 56 (2.19%) Smartphone
9 51 (1.99%) Management Information System
10 38 (1.48%) Hybrid Cloud
11 37 (1.45%) Security Posture
12 33 (1.29%) NHS
13 28 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
13 28 (1.09%) Clustering
13 28 (1.09%) Product Ownership
14 26 (1.02%) Video Conferencing
15 25 (0.98%) Data Protection Act
16 24 (0.94%) CMDB
16 24 (0.94%) Virtual Team
17 22 (0.86%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 614 (23.98%) Linux
2 589 (23.01%) Windows 10
3 529 (20.66%) Windows Server
4 142 (5.55%) Unix
5 138 (5.39%) Mac OS
6 132 (5.16%) Android
7 108 (4.22%) Apple iOS
8 59 (2.30%) Windows Server 2016
9 51 (1.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 49 (1.91%) Windows 7
10 49 (1.91%) Windows Server 2019
11 37 (1.45%) Windows Server 2012
12 28 (1.09%) Windows Server 2003
13 23 (0.90%) AIX
14 20 (0.78%) VMS
15 17 (0.66%) Ubuntu
16 11 (0.43%) Windows Server 2008
17 10 (0.39%) Amazon Linux
17 10 (0.39%) Mac OS X
18 7 (0.27%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 471 (18.40%) Problem-Solving
2 446 (17.42%) Customer Service
3 370 (14.45%) ITIL
4 265 (10.35%) Agile
5 238 (9.30%) Migration
6 236 (9.22%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 215 (8.40%) Service Management
8 212 (8.28%) DevOps
9 203 (7.93%) ITSM
10 196 (7.66%) CI/CD
11 180 (7.03%) Continuous Improvement
12 171 (6.68%) Cybersecurity
13 147 (5.74%) Change Management
14 128 (5.00%) Disaster Recovery
15 123 (4.80%) User Experience
16 110 (4.30%) Service Delivery
16 110 (4.30%) Stakeholder Management
17 106 (4.14%) Infrastructure as Code
18 100 (3.91%) Computer Science
19 96 (3.75%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 499 (19.49%) PowerShell
2 292 (11.41%) Python
3 222 (8.67%) SQL
4 114 (4.45%) Java
5 109 (4.26%) C#
6 104 (4.06%) Bash
7 73 (2.85%) JavaScript
8 60 (2.34%) Perl
9 51 (1.99%) C++
10 46 (1.80%) PL/SQL
11 35 (1.37%) T-SQL
12 29 (1.13%) Kusto Query Language
12 29 (1.13%) VBScript
13 28 (1.09%) VB
14 26 (1.02%) Shell Script
15 23 (0.90%) VBA
16 17 (0.66%) Groovy
17 14 (0.55%) Go
18 13 (0.51%) Bicep
19 10 (0.39%) PHP
Qualifications
1 818 (31.95%) Security Cleared
2 533 (20.82%) SC Cleared
3 263 (10.27%) Degree
4 240 (9.38%) DV Cleared
5 144 (5.63%) Microsoft Certification
6 78 (3.05%) Computer Science Degree
7 59 (2.30%) Azure Certification
8 43 (1.68%) MCSE
9 40 (1.56%) Cisco Certification
10 37 (1.45%) A+ Certification
11 35 (1.37%) ITIL Certification
12 31 (1.21%) AWS Certification
13 27 (1.05%) CCNA
13 27 (1.05%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 25 (0.98%) BPSS Clearance
14 25 (0.98%) CISSP
15 23 (0.90%) CCNP
16 21 (0.82%) MCSA
16 21 (0.82%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 18 (0.70%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (3.52%) GDPR
2 89 (3.48%) SLA
3 67 (2.62%) QA
4 61 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 45 (1.76%) NIST
6 33 (1.29%) PCI DSS
7 21 (0.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 12 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
8 12 (0.47%) MiFID
8 12 (0.47%) NCSC
9 11 (0.43%) GLBA
9 11 (0.43%) PMO
10 9 (0.35%) FINRA
11 7 (0.27%) NIST 800
12 5 (0.20%) COBIT
13 4 (0.16%) Accessibility
13 4 (0.16%) GxP
13 4 (0.16%) HIPAA
14 3 (0.12%) Data Quality
14 3 (0.12%) SEPA
System Software
1 940 (36.72%) Active Directory
2 247 (9.65%) VMware Infrastructure
3 105 (4.10%) Docker
4 94 (3.67%) Hyper-V
5 62 (2.42%) Virtual Desktop
6 57 (2.23%) Virtual Machines
7 55 (2.15%) vSphere
8 43 (1.68%) VMware ESXi
9 33 (1.29%) VMware NSX
10 24 (0.94%) BitLocker
11 22 (0.86%) Microsoft App-V
12 14 (0.55%) Firmware
13 13 (0.51%) DFS Replication
13 13 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
14 11 (0.43%) KVM
15 7 (0.27%) Dovecot
15 7 (0.27%) Postfix
15 7 (0.27%) Squid
15 7 (0.27%) Terminal Services
16 6 (0.23%) NFS
Systems Management
1 356 (13.91%) SCCM
2 307 (11.99%) Microsoft Intune
3 160 (6.25%) Terraform
4 126 (4.92%) Ansible
5 100 (3.91%) Kubernetes
6 67 (2.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 67 (2.62%) vCenter Server
7 66 (2.58%) Single Sign-On
8 43 (1.68%) Jamf Pro
9 40 (1.56%) Grafana
10 29 (1.13%) SCOM
11 27 (1.05%) Prometheus
12 26 (1.02%) WSUS
13 19 (0.74%) Nessus
14 18 (0.70%) Nmap
15 17 (0.66%) WMI
16 14 (0.55%) Progress Chef
17 13 (0.51%) Proxmox
18 12 (0.47%) Packer
19 11 (0.43%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 1,098 (42.89%) Microsoft
2 338 (13.20%) VMware
3 244 (9.53%) ServiceNow
4 175 (6.84%) Oracle
5 160 (6.25%) Citrix
6 143 (5.59%) Cisco
7 97 (3.79%) Splunk
8 61 (2.38%) Dell
9 58 (2.27%) Apple
10 53 (2.07%) HP
11 52 (2.03%) Red Hat
12 50 (1.95%) Google
13 49 (1.91%) SolarWinds
14 46 (1.80%) Veeam
15 39 (1.52%) IBM
16 36 (1.41%) Remedy
16 36 (1.41%) SAP
17 35 (1.37%) CyberArk
18 30 (1.17%) Palo Alto
19 28 (1.09%) Juniper