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

 6 months to
5 Oct 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 21 19
Rank change year-on-year -8 -2 -6
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,827 2,325 2,705
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.13% 8.32% 8.34%
As % of the Operating Systems category 62.60% 60.20% 58.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,800 1,575 1,720
10th Percentile £180 £163 £185
25th Percentile £225 £208 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £400 £425
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -5.88% -0.29%
75th Percentile £560 £546 £575
90th Percentile £669 £638 £638
UK median daily rate £425 £400 £425
% change year-on-year +6.25% -5.88% -1.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 297 221 133
10th Percentile £16.25 £15.12 £15.22
25th Percentile £19.22 £17.79 £17.44
Median hourly rate £25.77 £22.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +17.14% -9.02% -3.28%
75th Percentile £65.00 £38.94 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.81 £65.00 £67.50
UK median hourly rate £25.75 £22.79 £24.18
% change year-on-year +13.00% -5.76% +7.47%

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 4,516 3,862 4,614
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.79% 13.83% 14.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,881 2,529 2,859
10th Percentile £193 £185 £200
25th Percentile £313 £276 £326
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.44% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £584
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £470 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +4.44% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 348 275 217
10th Percentile £16.25 £15.50 £16.25
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.87 £22.25
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.22% -58.08% +28.51%
75th Percentile £67.47 £59.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £67.00 -
UK median hourly rate £25.77 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +2.47% -52.10% +20.00%

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 5 October 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 5 October 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 5 October 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 -5 951 £420 -1.24% 1,011
South East -7 556 £478 +29.05% 498
North of England -6 496 £340 +11.31% 373
North West +2 294 £350 +6.06% 200
Midlands -14 290 £402 +0.50% 314
South West -16 264 £540 +44.00% 237
East of England 0 245 £224 -36.00% 250
West Midlands -20 198 £419 +4.69% 173
Yorkshire -13 163 £279 +26.59% 129
East Midlands +1 91 £275 +22.22% 140
North East -19 44 £275 +10.00% 53
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
1 238 (8.42%) SharePoint
2 222 (7.85%) Microsoft Exchange
3 59 (2.09%) IIS
4 56 (1.98%) Confluence
5 20 (0.71%) Apache
6 19 (0.67%) nginx
6 19 (0.67%) Skype for Business
7 13 (0.46%) Tomcat
8 7 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.21%) Documentum
10 5 (0.18%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.18%) Appian
10 5 (0.18%) Camunda
10 5 (0.18%) WebLogic
11 4 (0.14%) CICS
11 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
12 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
12 3 (0.11%) IBM Transformation Extender
12 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
Applications
1 190 (6.72%) Microsoft Office
2 60 (2.12%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
4 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
4 5 (0.18%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.11%) Houdini
5 3 (0.11%) NUKE
6 2 (0.071%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.035%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.035%) CINEMA 4D
7 1 (0.035%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.035%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 48 (1.70%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.35%) Finacle
3 7 (0.25%) OpenText MBPM
3 7 (0.25%) Oracle BPM
4 5 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 4 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
5 4 (0.14%) Teamcenter
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.11%) ResourceLink
7 2 (0.071%) assyst
7 2 (0.071%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.035%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.035%) Monis
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle BRM
8 1 (0.035%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.035%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.035%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.035%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.035%) SAP FS
8 1 (0.035%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 929 (32.86%) Microsoft 365
2 879 (31.09%) Azure
3 488 (17.26%) Entra ID
4 313 (11.07%) AWS
5 135 (4.78%) OneDrive
6 108 (3.82%) GCP
7 101 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
8 70 (2.48%) Azure Monitor
9 69 (2.44%) SaaS
10 62 (2.19%) GitHub
11 57 (2.02%) IaaS
11 57 (2.02%) Power Platform
12 42 (1.49%) PaaS
13 39 (1.38%) Azure Sentinel
14 28 (0.99%) AWS CloudFormation
15 27 (0.96%) Google Workspace
16 26 (0.92%) OpenShift
17 24 (0.85%) GitHub Actions
18 21 (0.74%) Datadog
19 20 (0.71%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 448 (15.85%) DNS
2 318 (11.25%) DHCP
3 306 (10.82%) Firewall
4 234 (8.28%) VPN
5 229 (8.10%) TCP/IP
6 116 (4.10%) Wi-Fi
7 105 (3.71%) LAN
7 105 (3.71%) WAN
8 93 (3.29%) Network Security
9 83 (2.94%) SAN
10 77 (2.72%) VLAN
11 50 (1.77%) Wireless
12 49 (1.73%) SSL
13 37 (1.31%) BGP
13 37 (1.31%) Internet
14 36 (1.27%) NAS
15 34 (1.20%) Skype
16 32 (1.13%) VoIP
17 27 (0.96%) SSH
18 26 (0.92%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 252 (8.91%) SQL Server
2 55 (1.95%) Oracle Database
3 49 (1.73%) Power BI
4 29 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 28 (0.99%) PostgreSQL
6 24 (0.85%) Amazon RDS
7 23 (0.81%) MySQL
7 23 (0.81%) Relational Database
8 15 (0.53%) Db2
9 14 (0.50%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 14 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 11 (0.39%) Geospatial Data
11 10 (0.35%) RDBMS
12 9 (0.32%) Data Warehouse
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
14 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.25%) Elasticsearch
14 7 (0.25%) MongoDB
14 7 (0.25%) NoSQL
15 5 (0.18%) ObjectStore
Development Applications
1 144 (5.09%) JIRA
2 72 (2.55%) Git
3 51 (1.80%) Jenkins
4 48 (1.70%) MSI
5 45 (1.59%) GitLab
6 32 (1.13%) Visual Studio
7 15 (0.53%) Eclipse
8 14 (0.50%) Artifactory
8 14 (0.50%) Bitbucket
9 11 (0.39%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 9 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
11 7 (0.25%) Rational DOORS
12 6 (0.21%) Robot Framework
12 6 (0.21%) Selenium
12 6 (0.21%) SonarQube
12 6 (0.21%) Zephyr
13 5 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
13 5 (0.18%) Toad
14 4 (0.14%) JMeter
14 4 (0.14%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 1,043 (36.89%) Social Skills
2 353 (12.49%) Finance
3 332 (11.74%) Analytical Skills
4 144 (5.09%) Banking
5 129 (4.56%) Public Sector
6 105 (3.71%) Documentation Skills
7 72 (2.55%) Legal
8 68 (2.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 67 (2.37%) Organisational Skills
10 56 (1.98%) Manufacturing
11 49 (1.73%) Telecoms
12 46 (1.63%) Retail
13 41 (1.45%) Front Office
14 39 (1.38%) Law
15 38 (1.34%) Military
16 33 (1.17%) Investment Banking
17 25 (0.88%) Financial Institution
18 24 (0.85%) Spanish Language
19 22 (0.78%) Aerospace
19 22 (0.78%) French Language
Job Titles
1 474 (16.77%) Support Engineer
2 389 (13.76%) IT Support
3 302 (10.68%) IT Engineer
4 289 (10.22%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 255 (9.02%) IT Support Engineer
6 242 (8.56%) Analyst
7 227 (8.03%) Senior
8 130 (4.60%) Desktop Support
9 121 (4.28%) Desktop Engineer
10 120 (4.24%) 2nd Line Support
11 112 (3.96%) Cloud Engineer
12 109 (3.86%) Lead
13 104 (3.68%) Architect
14 99 (3.50%) Windows Engineer
15 86 (3.04%) Support Analyst
16 84 (2.97%) Developer
17 77 (2.72%) Consultant
18 76 (2.69%) Desktop Support Engineer
19 72 (2.55%) 1st Line Support
19 72 (2.55%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 250 (8.84%) Terraform
2 116 (4.10%) .NET
3 103 (3.64%) REST
4 54 (1.91%) .NET Framework
5 42 (1.49%) LDAP
6 39 (1.38%) JSON
6 39 (1.38%) Middleware
7 36 (1.27%) WPF
8 23 (0.81%) ARM Templates
8 23 (0.81%) WinForms
9 22 (0.78%) Web Services
10 21 (0.74%) .NET Core
10 21 (0.74%) Software Packaging
11 19 (0.67%) Kafka
11 19 (0.67%) XML
12 18 (0.64%) Elastic Stack
12 18 (0.64%) HTML
12 18 (0.64%) Microsoft Graph
12 18 (0.64%) YAML
13 17 (0.60%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 364 (12.88%) Onboarding
2 166 (5.87%) Data Centre
3 140 (4.95%) PKI
4 101 (3.57%) Management Information System
5 81 (2.87%) Hybrid Cloud
6 79 (2.79%) Enterprise Software
7 74 (2.62%) Cloud Native
7 74 (2.62%) Video Conferencing
8 69 (2.44%) Clustering
9 68 (2.41%) Driving Licence
10 58 (2.05%) Security Posture
11 55 (1.95%) Replication
12 50 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
13 39 (1.38%) Virtual Team
14 37 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
15 35 (1.24%) CMDB
16 32 (1.13%) Enterprise Storage
16 32 (1.13%) Operational Technology
17 31 (1.10%) Public Cloud
18 30 (1.06%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 812 (28.72%) Windows Server
2 681 (24.09%) Linux
3 509 (18.00%) Windows 10
4 184 (6.51%) Mac OS
5 136 (4.81%) Apple iOS
6 130 (4.60%) Android
6 130 (4.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 103 (3.64%) Unix
8 67 (2.37%) Windows Server 2019
9 47 (1.66%) Ubuntu
10 45 (1.59%) Windows 7
11 39 (1.38%) CentOS
12 38 (1.34%) Windows Server 2012
13 33 (1.17%) Windows Server 2016
14 18 (0.64%) Solaris
15 16 (0.57%) AIX
16 15 (0.53%) Rocky
16 15 (0.53%) Windows Server 2008
17 14 (0.50%) VMS
18 11 (0.39%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 682 (24.12%) Problem-Solving
2 542 (19.17%) ITIL
3 474 (16.77%) Customer Service
4 389 (13.76%) ITSM
5 375 (13.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 351 (12.42%) Migration
7 338 (11.96%) Continuous Improvement
8 292 (10.33%) Service Management
9 281 (9.94%) DevOps
10 268 (9.48%) CI/CD
11 265 (9.37%) Infrastructure as Code
12 239 (8.45%) Stakeholder Management
13 236 (8.35%) Agile
14 216 (7.64%) Root Cause Analysis
15 214 (7.57%) Change Management
16 203 (7.18%) Disaster Recovery
17 191 (6.76%) Cybersecurity
18 171 (6.05%) Validation
19 168 (5.94%) Technical Leadership
20 160 (5.66%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 710 (25.11%) PowerShell
2 318 (11.25%) Python
3 270 (9.55%) SQL
4 184 (6.51%) Bash
5 140 (4.95%) C#
6 67 (2.37%) Java
7 64 (2.26%) T-SQL
8 59 (2.09%) JavaScript
9 50 (1.77%) Bicep
10 44 (1.56%) PL/SQL
11 37 (1.31%) C++
12 28 (0.99%) VB
13 25 (0.88%) VBScript
14 16 (0.57%) Perl
14 16 (0.57%) Shell Script
15 15 (0.53%) TypeScript
16 12 (0.42%) Go
17 11 (0.39%) Groovy
17 11 (0.39%) VBA
18 9 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 894 (31.62%) Security Cleared
2 517 (18.29%) SC Cleared
3 376 (13.30%) DV Cleared
4 281 (9.94%) Degree
5 109 (3.86%) Microsoft Certification
6 85 (3.01%) Azure Certification
7 68 (2.41%) Cisco Certification
8 66 (2.33%) Computer Science Degree
9 62 (2.19%) CISSP
10 53 (1.87%) BPSS Clearance
11 52 (1.84%) AWS Certification
12 48 (1.70%) A+ Certification
13 43 (1.52%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 34 (1.20%) CCNP
14 34 (1.20%) DBS Check
15 33 (1.17%) CISM
15 33 (1.17%) ITIL Certification
16 31 (1.10%) CCNA
17 28 (0.99%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 24 (0.85%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 153 (5.41%) SLA
2 106 (3.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 83 (2.94%) NIST
4 72 (2.55%) QA
5 38 (1.34%) Cyber Essentials
6 29 (1.03%) NCSC
7 26 (0.92%) PCI DSS
8 19 (0.67%) GDPR
9 17 (0.60%) GRC
10 16 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 15 (0.53%) Accessibility
12 12 (0.42%) WCAG
13 11 (0.39%) Data Quality
13 11 (0.39%) ISO 31000
13 11 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 9 (0.32%) GxP
14 9 (0.32%) HIPAA
15 8 (0.28%) PMO
16 6 (0.21%) ISO 9001
16 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,205 (42.62%) Active Directory
2 441 (15.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 198 (7.00%) Hyper-V
4 143 (5.06%) VMware ESXi
5 128 (4.53%) vSphere
6 113 (4.00%) Docker
7 97 (3.43%) Virtual Machines
8 89 (3.15%) Virtual Desktop
9 71 (2.51%) VMware NSX
10 36 (1.27%) BitLocker
11 28 (0.99%) Firmware
12 24 (0.85%) vCloud
13 20 (0.71%) Virtual Servers
14 16 (0.57%) Microsoft App-V
15 14 (0.50%) Citrix Hypervisor
16 12 (0.42%) NFS
16 12 (0.42%) XenApp
17 10 (0.35%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 10 (0.35%) XenDesktop
18 9 (0.32%) KVM
Systems Management
1 420 (14.86%) Microsoft Intune
2 318 (11.25%) SCCM
3 216 (7.64%) Ansible
4 152 (5.38%) Kubernetes
5 113 (4.00%) vCenter Server
6 96 (3.40%) SCOM
7 43 (1.52%) Jamf Pro
8 38 (1.34%) WSUS
9 37 (1.31%) Grafana
10 34 (1.20%) Prometheus
11 29 (1.03%) Progress Chef
12 28 (0.99%) WMI
13 26 (0.92%) Puppet
14 24 (0.85%) NetBackup
14 24 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
14 24 (0.85%) VxRail
15 22 (0.78%) Nagios
16 20 (0.71%) Packer
17 17 (0.60%) FortiGate
17 17 (0.60%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 1,393 (49.27%) Microsoft
2 576 (20.37%) VMware
3 330 (11.67%) ServiceNow
4 201 (7.11%) Cisco
5 163 (5.77%) Oracle
6 154 (5.45%) Citrix
7 96 (3.40%) Apple
8 93 (3.29%) CyberArk
9 92 (3.25%) Splunk
10 84 (2.97%) Google
11 71 (2.51%) Red Hat
12 68 (2.41%) SolarWinds
13 63 (2.23%) BeyondTrust
14 54 (1.91%) Dell
15 52 (1.84%) Remedy
16 44 (1.56%) Palo Alto
17 42 (1.49%) HP
18 39 (1.38%) NetApp
19 35 (1.24%) Fortinet
19 35 (1.24%) Zscaler
2,742 Windows jobs in England