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

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 20 17
Rank change year-on-year -6 -3 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,582 2,190 3,186
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.96% 8.77% 8.50%
As % of the Operating Systems category 62.02% 61.78% 61.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,685 1,521 2,158
10th Percentile £163 £181 £167
25th Percentile £222 £250 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £430
Median % change year-on-year - -1.16% -4.44%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £425 £425 £425
% change year-on-year - - -5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 215 151 275
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.20 £11.88
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.95 £14.21
Median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £18.30
Median % change year-on-year +36.46% +3.11% -26.80%
75th Percentile £57.50 £25.08 £38.37
90th Percentile £70.44 £63.75 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £18.65
% change year-on-year +36.46% +1.18% -24.25%

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 4,163 3,545 5,160
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.61% 14.19% 13.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,717 2,393 3,418
10th Percentile £190 £200 £190
25th Percentile £313 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £458 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.61% -2.11% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £651 £689 £700
UK median daily rate £463 £465 £475
% change year-on-year -0.54% -2.11% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 278 183 398
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.12 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.29 £16.00
Median hourly rate £32.50 £19.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +71.05% -21.42% -46.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £45.83 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.65 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £28.00 £22.00 £24.18
% change year-on-year +27.27% -9.02% -47.43%

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 23 June 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 23 June 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 23 June 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 -21 831 £425 -2.86% 204
South East -8 520 £475 -5.00% 264
North of England -7 465 £365 +1.96% 171
Midlands -14 276 £335 +21.82% 117
South West -12 256 £488 - 132
North West -6 244 £350 -5.79% 98
East of England 0 217 £336 -7.24% 89
Yorkshire -14 203 £365 -8.75% 53
West Midlands -23 172 £450 +50.00% 54
East Midlands +8 99 £225 +12.50% 63
North East -38 22 £326 +8.75% 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 (8.40%) Microsoft Exchange
2 172 (6.66%) SharePoint
3 56 (2.17%) Confluence
4 55 (2.13%) IIS
5 15 (0.58%) Apache
6 14 (0.54%) Skype for Business
6 14 (0.54%) Tomcat
7 13 (0.50%) nginx
8 10 (0.39%) Oracle Workflow
9 9 (0.35%) WebLogic
10 7 (0.27%) Appian
11 5 (0.19%) Camunda
12 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.15%) Documentum
12 4 (0.15%) TPMS
12 4 (0.15%) WebSphere
13 3 (0.12%) NetWeaver
13 3 (0.12%) Tuxedo
14 2 (0.077%) ArcGIS
14 2 (0.077%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 166 (6.43%) Microsoft Office
2 66 (2.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 22 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.31%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.19%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.15%) Acrobat
7 4 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.039%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 41 (1.59%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.43%) Teamcenter
3 9 (0.35%) Finacle
4 5 (0.19%) OpenText MBPM
4 5 (0.19%) Oracle BPM
5 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.077%) assyst
6 2 (0.077%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.077%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.077%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.039%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.039%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 781 (30.25%) Azure
2 737 (28.54%) Microsoft 365
3 343 (13.28%) Entra ID
4 268 (10.38%) AWS
5 101 (3.91%) OneDrive
6 79 (3.06%) GCP
7 73 (2.83%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (2.79%) SaaS
9 60 (2.32%) GitHub
10 59 (2.29%) IaaS
11 49 (1.90%) PaaS
12 48 (1.86%) Power Platform
13 42 (1.63%) Azure Monitor
14 34 (1.32%) Azure Sentinel
15 28 (1.08%) Google Workspace
16 26 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
17 25 (0.97%) OpenShift
18 23 (0.89%) AWS CloudFormation
19 20 (0.77%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 346 (13.40%) DNS
2 268 (10.38%) Firewall
3 249 (9.64%) DHCP
4 175 (6.78%) VPN
5 157 (6.08%) LAN
6 156 (6.04%) WAN
7 153 (5.93%) TCP/IP
8 122 (4.73%) Wi-Fi
9 69 (2.67%) SAN
10 56 (2.17%) Network Security
11 52 (2.01%) VLAN
12 42 (1.63%) BGP
13 35 (1.36%) Internet
14 34 (1.32%) OSPF
14 34 (1.32%) SSL
15 32 (1.24%) Skype
16 31 (1.20%) SNMP
16 31 (1.20%) Wireless
17 30 (1.16%) NAS
18 29 (1.12%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 220 (8.52%) SQL Server
2 49 (1.90%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.24%) Power BI
4 29 (1.12%) Relational Database
5 26 (1.01%) PostgreSQL
6 23 (0.89%) MySQL
7 16 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
8 15 (0.58%) Db2
9 14 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
10 13 (0.50%) NoSQL
11 12 (0.46%) RDBMS
12 11 (0.43%) MongoDB
13 10 (0.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 7 (0.27%) GIS
15 6 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
15 6 (0.23%) Geospatial Data
15 6 (0.23%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 5 (0.19%) Big Data
16 5 (0.19%) BigQuery
16 5 (0.19%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 170 (6.58%) JIRA
2 42 (1.63%) Git
3 41 (1.59%) Jenkins
3 41 (1.59%) MSI
4 38 (1.47%) GitLab
4 38 (1.47%) Visual Studio
5 17 (0.66%) Eclipse
6 10 (0.39%) Burp Suite
7 9 (0.35%) Chocolatey
7 9 (0.35%) Metasploit
8 7 (0.27%) Bitbucket
8 7 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
9 6 (0.23%) Android Studio
9 6 (0.23%) Browser DevTools
9 6 (0.23%) InstallShield
9 6 (0.23%) Xcode
10 5 (0.19%) AdminStudio
10 5 (0.19%) Artifactory
10 5 (0.19%) Selenium
11 4 (0.15%) Maven
General
1 898 (34.78%) Social Skills
2 287 (11.12%) Finance
3 272 (10.53%) Analytical Skills
4 165 (6.39%) Public Sector
5 151 (5.85%) Banking
6 101 (3.91%) Documentation Skills
7 86 (3.33%) Legal
8 76 (2.94%) Organisational Skills
9 52 (2.01%) Retail
10 50 (1.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 47 (1.82%) Military
12 37 (1.43%) Manufacturing
13 36 (1.39%) Investment Banking
14 34 (1.32%) Front Office
15 30 (1.16%) Law
16 29 (1.12%) Presentation Skills
17 28 (1.08%) Telecoms
18 25 (0.97%) Spanish Language
19 22 (0.85%) French Language
20 18 (0.70%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 345 (13.36%) Support Engineer
2 342 (13.25%) IT Support
3 270 (10.46%) Analyst
4 228 (8.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 228 (8.83%) IT Engineer
5 190 (7.36%) IT Support Engineer
6 171 (6.62%) Senior
7 131 (5.07%) Architect
8 106 (4.11%) Support Analyst
9 105 (4.07%) Desktop Support
10 104 (4.03%) 2nd Line Support
11 101 (3.91%) Desktop Engineer
12 95 (3.68%) Developer
13 87 (3.37%) IT Analyst
14 86 (3.33%) Lead
15 82 (3.18%) Technical Support
16 72 (2.79%) Cloud Engineer
17 69 (2.67%) Consultant
18 66 (2.56%) Windows Engineer
19 60 (2.32%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (3.68%) .NET
2 80 (3.10%) REST
3 58 (2.25%) .NET Framework
4 38 (1.47%) LDAP
5 33 (1.28%) Microsoft Graph
6 30 (1.16%) 802.1X
7 29 (1.12%) SAML
8 27 (1.05%) Middleware
8 27 (1.05%) Web Services
9 26 (1.01%) WPF
10 25 (0.97%) WinForms
11 24 (0.93%) OAuth
12 20 (0.77%) CSS
12 20 (0.77%) Elastic Stack
12 20 (0.77%) Software Packaging
13 16 (0.62%) JSON
13 16 (0.62%) Kafka
13 16 (0.62%) Node.js
14 14 (0.54%) SailPoint
15 13 (0.50%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 255 (9.88%) Onboarding
2 130 (5.03%) Data Centre
3 117 (4.53%) PKI
4 75 (2.90%) Enterprise Software
5 71 (2.75%) Clustering
6 66 (2.56%) Self-Motivation
7 62 (2.40%) Management Information System
8 54 (2.09%) Cloud Native
9 50 (1.94%) Replication
9 50 (1.94%) Security Posture
10 48 (1.86%) Hybrid Cloud
11 45 (1.74%) Virtual Team
12 44 (1.70%) Driving Licence
12 44 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
13 34 (1.32%) Data Protection Act
14 32 (1.24%) CMDB
15 31 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
16 30 (1.16%) Product Ownership
17 29 (1.12%) Video Conferencing
18 27 (1.05%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 625 (24.21%) Linux
2 611 (23.66%) Windows Server
3 456 (17.66%) Windows 10
4 164 (6.35%) Mac OS
5 129 (5.00%) Apple iOS
6 123 (4.76%) Android
7 122 (4.73%) Unix
8 88 (3.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 62 (2.40%) Windows Server 2019
10 50 (1.94%) Windows Server 2016
11 45 (1.74%) Windows 7
12 36 (1.39%) Windows Server 2012
13 30 (1.16%) AIX
14 29 (1.12%) Ubuntu
15 18 (0.70%) Solaris
16 17 (0.66%) VMS
17 16 (0.62%) Windows Server 2003
18 13 (0.50%) CentOS
18 13 (0.50%) Windows Server 2008
19 9 (0.35%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 575 (22.27%) Problem-Solving
2 401 (15.53%) ITIL
3 386 (14.95%) Customer Service
4 295 (11.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 281 (10.88%) Migration
6 261 (10.11%) ITSM
7 241 (9.33%) DevOps
8 237 (9.18%) Agile
9 228 (8.83%) CI/CD
10 216 (8.37%) Continuous Improvement
11 185 (7.16%) Service Management
12 179 (6.93%) Change Management
13 177 (6.86%) High Availability
14 153 (5.93%) Infrastructure as Code
15 147 (5.69%) Disaster Recovery
16 143 (5.54%) Stakeholder Management
17 132 (5.11%) Cybersecurity
18 130 (5.03%) SIEM
19 128 (4.96%) Runbook
20 125 (4.84%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 554 (21.46%) PowerShell
2 262 (10.15%) SQL
3 254 (9.84%) Python
4 128 (4.96%) C#
5 103 (3.99%) Bash
6 65 (2.52%) JavaScript
7 62 (2.40%) Java
8 49 (1.90%) PL/SQL
9 47 (1.82%) C++
10 43 (1.67%) T-SQL
11 24 (0.93%) Kusto Query Language
11 24 (0.93%) VB
12 22 (0.85%) Search Processing Language
13 20 (0.77%) Bicep
14 19 (0.74%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.74%) VBScript
15 17 (0.66%) Perl
16 14 (0.54%) TypeScript
17 13 (0.50%) C
18 12 (0.46%) VBA
Qualifications
1 767 (29.71%) Security Cleared
2 486 (18.82%) SC Cleared
3 301 (11.66%) Degree
4 246 (9.53%) DV Cleared
5 106 (4.11%) Microsoft Certification
6 76 (2.94%) Cisco Certification
7 74 (2.87%) Computer Science Degree
8 60 (2.32%) CISSP
9 53 (2.05%) Azure Certification
10 42 (1.63%) AWS Certification
10 42 (1.63%) MCSE
11 37 (1.43%) BPSS Clearance
12 29 (1.12%) CCNA
13 28 (1.08%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 27 (1.05%) MCSA
15 25 (0.97%) CISM
15 25 (0.97%) ITIL Certification
16 24 (0.93%) CCNP
17 21 (0.81%) A+ Certification
17 21 (0.81%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 119 (4.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 98 (3.80%) SLA
3 85 (3.29%) NIST
4 72 (2.79%) QA
5 64 (2.48%) GDPR
6 36 (1.39%) PCI DSS
7 32 (1.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 25 (0.97%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.62%) NCSC
10 11 (0.43%) Data Quality
10 11 (0.43%) HIPAA
11 10 (0.39%) FINRA
11 10 (0.39%) MiFID
11 10 (0.39%) NIST 800
12 9 (0.35%) GRC
13 8 (0.31%) PMO
13 8 (0.31%) SOC 2
14 7 (0.27%) Accessibility
15 6 (0.23%) ISO 31000
15 6 (0.23%) WCAG
System Software
1 971 (37.61%) Active Directory
2 320 (12.39%) VMware Infrastructure
3 134 (5.19%) Hyper-V
4 103 (3.99%) VMware ESXi
5 91 (3.52%) vSphere
6 88 (3.41%) Virtual Machines
7 84 (3.25%) Docker
8 60 (2.32%) Virtual Desktop
9 50 (1.94%) VMware NSX
10 37 (1.43%) BitLocker
10 37 (1.43%) Firmware
11 27 (1.05%) Microsoft App-V
12 19 (0.74%) KVM
13 12 (0.46%) vCloud
14 11 (0.43%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.39%) XenApp
16 8 (0.31%) VMware Workstation
17 6 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
17 6 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
18 5 (0.19%) etcd
Systems Management
1 363 (14.06%) Microsoft Intune
2 229 (8.87%) SCCM
3 176 (6.82%) Terraform
4 166 (6.43%) Ansible
5 121 (4.69%) Kubernetes
6 84 (3.25%) vCenter Server
7 49 (1.90%) Single Sign-On
8 42 (1.63%) FortiGate
9 40 (1.55%) Jamf Pro
9 40 (1.55%) SCOM
10 36 (1.39%) WSUS
11 35 (1.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 30 (1.16%) Progress Chef
13 25 (0.97%) Prometheus
13 25 (0.97%) Puppet
14 23 (0.89%) Grafana
15 22 (0.85%) Nagios
16 20 (0.77%) Nessus
17 19 (0.74%) Packer
17 19 (0.74%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,110 (42.99%) Microsoft
2 416 (16.11%) VMware
3 231 (8.95%) ServiceNow
4 182 (7.05%) Citrix
5 178 (6.89%) Cisco
6 153 (5.93%) Oracle
7 119 (4.61%) Splunk
8 72 (2.79%) SolarWinds
9 69 (2.67%) HP
10 62 (2.40%) Apple
11 61 (2.36%) Red Hat
12 59 (2.29%) Google
13 55 (2.13%) CyberArk
14 54 (2.09%) Dell
15 53 (2.05%) Remedy
16 46 (1.78%) IBM
16 46 (1.78%) Juniper
17 45 (1.74%) F5
18 44 (1.70%) BeyondTrust
19 35 (1.36%) Palo Alto