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

 6 months to
1 May 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,472 2,057 3,247
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.12% 8.45% 8.73%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.11% 60.27% 64.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,660 1,460 2,250
10th Percentile £162 £180 £160
25th Percentile £213 £237 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £420 £400
Median % change year-on-year -1.19% +5.00% -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 195 105 267
10th Percentile £14.40 £14.52 £11.80
25th Percentile £17.96 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £18.77 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +34.03% +5.90% -21.24%
75th Percentile £65.00 £25.15 £25.14
90th Percentile £74.87 £63.55 £63.00
UK median hourly rate £23.75 £18.82 £18.00
% change year-on-year +26.20% +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 4,045 3,413 5,072
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.02% 14.02% 13.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,684 2,319 3,461
10th Percentile £185 £200 £181
25th Percentile £310 £313 £289
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.70% -9.76%
75th Percentile £571 £600 £588
90th Percentile £663 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £469
% change year-on-year -5.26% +1.28% -7.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 275 151 369
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.26 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.50 £17.44 £15.17
Median hourly rate £47.50 £24.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +96.44% +9.91% -42.11%
75th Percentile £67.84 £64.38 £60.00
90th Percentile £74.87 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £24.18 £22.00
% change year-on-year +75.77% +9.91% -44.02%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -22 774 £440 -2.22% 201
South East -5 500 £467 -6.60% 281
North of England -14 462 £325 - 187
Midlands -16 277 £325 +19.82% 95
North West -4 258 £261 -22.59% 100
South West -13 227 £450 -16.28% 126
East of England +3 209 £350 +55.56% 105
Yorkshire -23 187 £365 +12.31% 66
West Midlands -25 160 £450 +62.16% 48
East Midlands +7 112 £220 +6.67% 47
North East -23 21 £188 -14.77% 27
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 (8.54%) Microsoft Exchange
2 142 (5.74%) SharePoint
3 53 (2.14%) IIS
4 49 (1.98%) Confluence
5 17 (0.69%) WebLogic
6 16 (0.65%) Apache
7 11 (0.44%) Skype for Business
7 11 (0.44%) 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%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.16%) WebSphere
11 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.081%) Apache Pulsar
12 2 (0.081%) Appian
12 2 (0.081%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.081%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 172 (6.96%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.59%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.97%) 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 4 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.040%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 40 (1.62%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.40%) 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 (0.040%) Aladdin
8 1 (0.040%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.040%) Eikon
8 1 (0.040%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.040%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.040%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.040%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.040%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 712 (28.80%) Microsoft 365
2 693 (28.03%) Azure
3 287 (11.61%) Entra ID
4 209 (8.45%) AWS
5 71 (2.87%) SaaS
6 69 (2.79%) GCP
7 66 (2.67%) Azure DevOps
8 60 (2.43%) OneDrive
9 57 (2.31%) IaaS
10 51 (2.06%) GitHub
11 49 (1.98%) PaaS
12 42 (1.70%) Google Workspace
13 38 (1.54%) Power Platform
14 37 (1.50%) Azure Monitor
15 25 (1.01%) Azure Sentinel
16 24 (0.97%) GitHub Actions
17 21 (0.85%) OpenShift
18 18 (0.73%) AWS CloudFormation
18 18 (0.73%) Azure AKS
19 17 (0.69%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 337 (13.63%) DNS
2 282 (11.41%) Firewall
3 237 (9.59%) DHCP
4 172 (6.96%) VPN
5 151 (6.11%) LAN
6 147 (5.95%) WAN
7 139 (5.62%) TCP/IP
8 120 (4.85%) Wi-Fi
9 71 (2.87%) Network Security
10 60 (2.43%) VLAN
11 55 (2.22%) SAN
12 46 (1.86%) Wireless
13 37 (1.50%) BGP
14 34 (1.38%) OSPF
15 31 (1.25%) Skype
15 31 (1.25%) SSL
16 29 (1.17%) BIG-IP
16 29 (1.17%) Internet
16 29 (1.17%) SNMP
16 29 (1.17%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 181 (7.32%) SQL Server
2 46 (1.86%) Oracle Database
3 34 (1.38%) Relational Database
4 27 (1.09%) MySQL
5 23 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
6 20 (0.81%) Power BI
7 14 (0.57%) DB2
8 13 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
8 13 (0.53%) MongoDB
9 11 (0.44%) NoSQL
10 10 (0.40%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 7 (0.28%) BigQuery
11 7 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
11 7 (0.28%) RDBMS
12 5 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
12 5 (0.20%) GIS
12 5 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 4 (0.16%) Amazon RDS
13 4 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 161 (6.51%) JIRA
2 49 (1.98%) GitLab
3 45 (1.82%) MSI
4 43 (1.74%) 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 (0.44%) Android Studio
10 11 (0.44%) Artifactory
10 11 (0.44%) Chocolatey
11 10 (0.40%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.36%) Browser DevTools
12 9 (0.36%) InstallShield
12 9 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
12 9 (0.36%) Xcode
13 7 (0.28%) JUnit
13 7 (0.28%) Selenium
14 6 (0.24%) AdminStudio
General
1 868 (35.11%) Social Skills
2 248 (10.03%) Finance
3 211 (8.54%) Analytical Skills
4 189 (7.65%) Public Sector
5 144 (5.83%) Banking
6 102 (4.13%) Documentation Skills
7 95 (3.84%) Legal
8 70 (2.83%) Organisational Skills
9 61 (2.47%) Military
10 38 (1.54%) Retail
11 36 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
12 35 (1.42%) Law
13 34 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 31 (1.25%) Manufacturing
14 31 (1.25%) Telecoms
15 29 (1.17%) Front Office
16 28 (1.13%) Investment Banking
17 20 (0.81%) Local Government
18 19 (0.77%) Police
19 15 (0.61%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 329 (13.31%) IT Support
2 312 (12.62%) Support Engineer
3 282 (11.41%) Analyst
4 202 (8.17%) IT Engineer
5 193 (7.81%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 168 (6.80%) IT Support Engineer
7 164 (6.63%) Senior
8 153 (6.19%) Architect
9 118 (4.77%) Support Analyst
10 108 (4.37%) Desktop Support
11 100 (4.05%) Developer
12 94 (3.80%) Desktop Engineer
13 91 (3.68%) IT Analyst
14 90 (3.64%) Technical Support
15 86 (3.48%) 2nd Line Support
16 81 (3.28%) Windows Engineer
17 79 (3.20%) Lead
18 69 (2.79%) IT Support Analyst
19 67 (2.71%) 1st Line Support
20 65 (2.63%) Desktop Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.56%) .NET
2 72 (2.91%) REST
3 54 (2.18%) .NET Framework
4 34 (1.38%) LDAP
4 34 (1.38%) SAML
5 32 (1.29%) Middleware
6 29 (1.17%) WinForms
6 29 (1.17%) WPF
7 28 (1.13%) Kafka
8 27 (1.09%) 802.1X
8 27 (1.09%) OAuth
9 26 (1.05%) 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%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 201 (8.13%) Onboarding
2 104 (4.21%) Data Centre
3 97 (3.92%) PKI
4 81 (3.28%) Enterprise Software
5 75 (3.03%) Clustering
6 62 (2.51%) Self-Motivation
7 59 (2.39%) Driving Licence
8 58 (2.35%) Replication
9 44 (1.78%) Hybrid Cloud
10 40 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
10 40 (1.62%) Management Information System
11 39 (1.58%) Smartphone
12 37 (1.50%) Security Posture
13 33 (1.33%) Virtual Team
14 31 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
15 29 (1.17%) Cloud Native
15 29 (1.17%) Product Ownership
16 28 (1.13%) CMDB
17 25 (1.01%) Data Protection Act
18 24 (0.97%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 606 (24.51%) Linux
2 575 (23.26%) Windows Server
3 473 (19.13%) Windows 10
4 148 (5.99%) Mac OS
5 131 (5.30%) Android
6 120 (4.85%) Unix
7 115 (4.65%) Apple iOS
8 68 (2.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 66 (2.67%) Windows Server 2016
10 56 (2.27%) Windows Server 2019
11 47 (1.90%) Windows 7
12 36 (1.46%) Windows Server 2012
13 34 (1.38%) AIX
14 22 (0.89%) Ubuntu
15 19 (0.77%) Windows Server 2003
16 17 (0.69%) VMS
17 12 (0.49%) Solaris
18 10 (0.40%) CentOS
18 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2008
19 9 (0.36%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 513 (20.75%) Problem-Solving
2 403 (16.30%) Customer Service
3 362 (14.64%) ITIL
4 270 (10.92%) Migration
5 262 (10.60%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 259 (10.48%) Agile
7 225 (9.10%) DevOps
8 213 (8.62%) CI/CD
9 200 (8.09%) ITSM
10 166 (6.72%) Disaster Recovery
11 163 (6.59%) Continuous Improvement
12 159 (6.43%) Change Management
13 154 (6.23%) Service Management
14 149 (6.03%) Cybersecurity
15 143 (5.78%) High Availability
16 122 (4.94%) Stakeholder Management
17 118 (4.77%) Infrastructure as Code
18 115 (4.65%) SIEM
19 105 (4.25%) Computer Science
20 98 (3.96%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 526 (21.28%) PowerShell
2 245 (9.91%) SQL
3 233 (9.43%) Python
4 132 (5.34%) C#
5 85 (3.44%) Bash
6 71 (2.87%) Java
7 70 (2.83%) JavaScript
8 55 (2.22%) PL/SQL
9 48 (1.94%) C++
10 46 (1.86%) T-SQL
11 27 (1.09%) Kusto Query Language
12 25 (1.01%) Perl
12 25 (1.01%) VB
13 21 (0.85%) Search Processing Language
14 19 (0.77%) Shell Script
15 17 (0.69%) VBScript
16 15 (0.61%) VBA
17 12 (0.49%) Go
17 12 (0.49%) TypeScript
18 11 (0.44%) C
Qualifications
1 780 (31.55%) Security Cleared
2 513 (20.75%) SC Cleared
3 252 (10.19%) Degree
4 241 (9.75%) DV Cleared
5 104 (4.21%) Microsoft Certification
6 73 (2.95%) Computer Science Degree
7 61 (2.47%) Cisco Certification
8 44 (1.78%) MCSE
9 43 (1.74%) Azure Certification
10 35 (1.42%) CISSP
11 32 (1.29%) BPSS Clearance
12 30 (1.21%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 28 (1.13%) AWS Certification
13 28 (1.13%) ITIL Certification
13 28 (1.13%) MCSA
14 25 (1.01%) CCNA
15 19 (0.77%) A+ Certification
15 19 (0.77%) CompTIA Security+
16 16 (0.65%) CHECK Team Member
16 16 (0.65%) CREST Certified
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 100 (4.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 84 (3.40%) GDPR
3 82 (3.32%) QA
4 77 (3.11%) SLA
5 66 (2.67%) NIST
6 42 (1.70%) PCI DSS
7 29 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 22 (0.89%) Cyber Essentials
9 15 (0.61%) NCSC
10 13 (0.53%) PMO
11 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.44%) MiFID
13 10 (0.40%) Data Quality
13 10 (0.40%) FINRA
14 8 (0.32%) GLBA
15 6 (0.24%) DICOM
15 6 (0.24%) HIPAA
15 6 (0.24%) HL7
16 5 (0.20%) GRC
17 4 (0.16%) GxP
System Software
1 928 (37.54%) Active Directory
2 288 (11.65%) VMware Infrastructure
3 131 (5.30%) Hyper-V
4 80 (3.24%) vSphere
5 79 (3.20%) Docker
6 73 (2.95%) VMware ESXi
7 72 (2.91%) Virtual Machines
8 47 (1.90%) Virtual Desktop
9 35 (1.42%) Firmware
10 33 (1.33%) VMware NSX
11 31 (1.25%) BitLocker
12 25 (1.01%) 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
16 4 (0.16%) Job Entry Subsystem
16 4 (0.16%) NFS
16 4 (0.16%) UAG
Systems Management
1 335 (13.55%) Microsoft Intune
2 265 (10.72%) SCCM
3 160 (6.47%) Ansible
4 154 (6.23%) Terraform
5 119 (4.81%) Kubernetes
6 65 (2.63%) vCenter Server
7 50 (2.02%) Single Sign-On
8 41 (1.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 38 (1.54%) WSUS
10 34 (1.38%) FortiGate
11 33 (1.33%) Jamf Pro
12 26 (1.05%) Grafana
13 24 (0.97%) Nagios
14 23 (0.93%) SCOM
15 22 (0.89%) Prometheus
16 21 (0.85%) Nessus
17 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
17 18 (0.73%) ZABBIX
18 17 (0.69%) Tivoli
19 16 (0.65%) Netcool
Vendors
1 1,063 (43.00%) Microsoft
2 380 (15.37%) VMware
3 202 (8.17%) ServiceNow
4 199 (8.05%) Citrix
5 153 (6.19%) Cisco
6 151 (6.11%) Oracle
7 121 (4.89%) Splunk
8 72 (2.91%) HP
9 65 (2.63%) SolarWinds
10 56 (2.27%) Dell
11 53 (2.14%) Remedy
12 50 (2.02%) Google
13 48 (1.94%) IBM
14 47 (1.90%) Red Hat
15 44 (1.78%) Apple
15 44 (1.78%) CyberArk
16 37 (1.50%) F5
16 37 (1.50%) Juniper
17 36 (1.46%) Veeam
18 31 (1.25%) BMC
913 Windows jobs in England