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

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 20 17
Rank change year-on-year -7 -3 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,757 2,296 2,833
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.04% 8.33% 8.53%
As % of the Operating Systems category 62.22% 61.24% 60.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,775 1,556 1,894
10th Percentile £171 £170 £179
25th Percentile £225 £220 £256
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £408 £436
Median % change year-on-year +1.84% -6.59% +0.29%
75th Percentile £556 £573 £575
90th Percentile £650 £661 £650
UK median daily rate £425 £409 £425
% change year-on-year +3.91% -3.76% -3.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 236 195 195
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.28 £11.00
25th Percentile £17.44 £17.44 £15.22
Median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £21.59
Median % change year-on-year +36.46% -12.60% -4.04%
75th Percentile £55.13 £30.00 £59.38
90th Percentile £74.50 £65.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £21.28 £22.00
% change year-on-year +12.78% -3.27% -2.22%

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 4,431 3,749 4,705
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.70% 13.61% 14.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,847 2,475 3,080
10th Percentile £190 £190 £200
25th Percentile £310 £305 £330
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £585 £588
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £469 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +4.22% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 304 242 281
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.51 £12.38
25th Percentile £19.16 £18.19 £17.00
Median hourly rate £32.50 £24.00 £36.17
Median % change year-on-year +35.42% -33.64% -10.32%
75th Percentile £67.25 £58.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £74.00 £67.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £25.77 £25.08 £30.00
% change year-on-year +2.77% -16.42% -29.41%

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 26 August 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 26 August 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 26 August 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 -14 933 £425 - 229
South East -8 567 £475 -3.06% 217
North of England -7 505 £325 - 164
North West +3 298 £335 -4.29% 81
South West -15 280 £475 +35.71% 106
Midlands -18 263 £385 -3.75% 116
East of England -5 193 £335 - 114
Yorkshire -14 179 £282 -13.23% 65
West Midlands -28 166 £425 -1.16% 78
East Midlands +5 93 £270 +35.00% 38
North East -32 32 £260 -0.95% 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
1 232 (8.41%) SharePoint
2 229 (8.31%) Microsoft Exchange
3 56 (2.03%) IIS
4 54 (1.96%) Confluence
5 18 (0.65%) nginx
5 18 (0.65%) Skype for Business
6 15 (0.54%) Apache
7 11 (0.40%) Tomcat
8 8 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.25%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.22%) Documentum
11 5 (0.18%) Apache Solr
11 5 (0.18%) Appian
11 5 (0.18%) Camunda
12 4 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
13 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
13 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
13 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
14 2 (0.073%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 2 (0.073%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 176 (6.38%) Microsoft Office
2 63 (2.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.11%) Houdini
6 3 (0.11%) NUKE
7 2 (0.073%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.073%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.036%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.036%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.036%) InDesign
8 1 (0.036%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 56 (2.03%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.36%) Finacle
3 7 (0.25%) OpenText MBPM
3 7 (0.25%) Oracle BPM
4 5 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 4 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
5 4 (0.15%) Teamcenter
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.073%) assyst
8 1 (0.036%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle BRM
8 1 (0.036%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.036%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.036%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.036%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.036%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.036%) SAP FS
8 1 (0.036%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 899 (32.61%) Microsoft 365
2 883 (32.03%) Azure
3 449 (16.29%) Entra ID
4 306 (11.10%) AWS
5 132 (4.79%) OneDrive
6 101 (3.66%) Azure DevOps
7 88 (3.19%) GCP
8 74 (2.68%) Azure Monitor
9 69 (2.50%) SaaS
10 61 (2.21%) GitHub
10 61 (2.21%) Power Platform
11 59 (2.14%) IaaS
12 45 (1.63%) PaaS
13 42 (1.52%) Azure Sentinel
14 28 (1.02%) OpenShift
15 26 (0.94%) Google Workspace
16 25 (0.91%) AWS CloudFormation
17 24 (0.87%) Azure AKS
18 23 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
19 21 (0.76%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 441 (16.00%) DNS
2 324 (11.75%) Firewall
3 319 (11.57%) DHCP
4 234 (8.49%) VPN
5 207 (7.51%) TCP/IP
6 133 (4.82%) WAN
7 128 (4.64%) LAN
8 124 (4.50%) Wi-Fi
9 88 (3.19%) SAN
10 83 (3.01%) VLAN
11 78 (2.83%) Network Security
12 43 (1.56%) NAS
13 41 (1.49%) SSL
14 40 (1.45%) Internet
14 40 (1.45%) Wireless
15 38 (1.38%) VSAN
16 34 (1.23%) Skype
17 31 (1.12%) BGP
18 27 (0.98%) VoIP
19 24 (0.87%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 255 (9.25%) SQL Server
2 50 (1.81%) Oracle Database
3 49 (1.78%) Power BI
4 24 (0.87%) PostgreSQL
4 24 (0.87%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 23 (0.83%) Relational Database
6 21 (0.76%) MySQL
7 20 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
8 15 (0.54%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 15 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 11 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
9 11 (0.40%) Geospatial Data
9 11 (0.40%) RDBMS
10 10 (0.36%) Db2
11 8 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
11 8 (0.29%) MongoDB
12 7 (0.25%) NoSQL
13 5 (0.18%) Big Data
13 5 (0.18%) ObjectStore
13 5 (0.18%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 153 (5.55%) JIRA
2 66 (2.39%) Git
3 48 (1.74%) MSI
4 43 (1.56%) Jenkins
5 37 (1.34%) GitLab
6 22 (0.80%) Visual Studio
7 15 (0.54%) Bitbucket
8 9 (0.33%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 9 (0.33%) Selenium
9 8 (0.29%) Eclipse
10 7 (0.25%) Artifactory
10 7 (0.25%) Browser DevTools
10 7 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
11 6 (0.22%) Chocolatey
12 5 (0.18%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.18%) InstallShield
13 4 (0.15%) Claude Code
13 4 (0.15%) Octopus Deploy
13 4 (0.15%) Robot Framework
14 3 (0.11%) Appium
General
1 1,014 (36.78%) Social Skills
2 345 (12.51%) Finance
3 335 (12.15%) Analytical Skills
4 154 (5.59%) Banking
5 138 (5.01%) Public Sector
6 100 (3.63%) Documentation Skills
7 75 (2.72%) Legal
8 73 (2.65%) Organisational Skills
9 62 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 53 (1.92%) Retail
11 52 (1.89%) Manufacturing
12 43 (1.56%) Telecoms
13 41 (1.49%) Front Office
14 35 (1.27%) Investment Banking
15 34 (1.23%) Law
16 30 (1.09%) Military
17 28 (1.02%) Spanish Language
18 25 (0.91%) French Language
19 24 (0.87%) Financial Institution
20 20 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 448 (16.25%) Support Engineer
2 378 (13.71%) IT Support
3 299 (10.85%) IT Engineer
4 286 (10.37%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 248 (9.00%) IT Support Engineer
6 235 (8.52%) Analyst
7 220 (7.98%) Senior
8 124 (4.50%) 2nd Line Support
9 122 (4.43%) Desktop Support
10 109 (3.95%) Desktop Engineer
11 105 (3.81%) Lead
12 103 (3.74%) Cloud Engineer
13 99 (3.59%) Architect
14 93 (3.37%) Support Analyst
15 88 (3.19%) Windows Engineer
16 87 (3.16%) Developer
17 80 (2.90%) Consultant
18 77 (2.79%) 1st Line Support
19 75 (2.72%) IT Analyst
20 73 (2.65%) 2nd Line Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 243 (8.81%) Terraform
2 112 (4.06%) .NET
3 97 (3.52%) REST
4 63 (2.29%) .NET Framework
5 30 (1.09%) Middleware
6 29 (1.05%) WPF
7 28 (1.02%) JSON
7 28 (1.02%) LDAP
8 25 (0.91%) WinForms
9 22 (0.80%) ARM Templates
10 21 (0.76%) CSS
10 21 (0.76%) Software Packaging
11 20 (0.73%) HTML
12 19 (0.69%) Elastic Stack
12 19 (0.69%) Microsoft Graph
13 18 (0.65%) .NET Core
13 18 (0.65%) Kafka
13 18 (0.65%) SAML
14 17 (0.62%) RESTful
15 16 (0.58%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 336 (12.19%) Onboarding
2 150 (5.44%) Data Centre
3 143 (5.19%) PKI
4 88 (3.19%) Management Information System
5 83 (3.01%) Clustering
6 78 (2.83%) Hybrid Cloud
7 68 (2.47%) Cloud Native
7 68 (2.47%) Enterprise Software
8 65 (2.36%) Video Conferencing
9 64 (2.32%) Self-Motivation
10 56 (2.03%) Driving Licence
11 55 (1.99%) Replication
12 45 (1.63%) Security Posture
13 42 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
14 40 (1.45%) Virtual Team
15 38 (1.38%) Enterprise Storage
16 36 (1.31%) Analytical Mindset
17 35 (1.27%) CMDB
18 32 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
19 30 (1.09%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 744 (26.99%) Windows Server
2 660 (23.94%) Linux
3 500 (18.14%) Windows 10
4 181 (6.57%) Mac OS
5 122 (4.43%) Apple iOS
6 119 (4.32%) Android
7 109 (3.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 101 (3.66%) Unix
9 66 (2.39%) Windows Server 2019
10 49 (1.78%) Ubuntu
11 46 (1.67%) Windows 7
12 40 (1.45%) Windows Server 2016
13 37 (1.34%) Windows Server 2012
14 31 (1.12%) CentOS
15 24 (0.87%) AIX
16 21 (0.76%) VMS
17 17 (0.62%) Windows Server 2008
18 15 (0.54%) Solaris
19 11 (0.40%) Debian
19 11 (0.40%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 671 (24.34%) Problem-Solving
2 518 (18.79%) ITIL
3 445 (16.14%) Customer Service
4 366 (13.28%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 365 (13.24%) ITSM
6 328 (11.90%) Migration
7 294 (10.66%) Continuous Improvement
8 268 (9.72%) DevOps
9 260 (9.43%) Service Management
10 230 (8.34%) Agile
11 228 (8.27%) CI/CD
12 227 (8.23%) Infrastructure as Code
13 203 (7.36%) Change Management
14 187 (6.78%) Stakeholder Management
15 175 (6.35%) Disaster Recovery
16 169 (6.13%) High Availability
17 165 (5.98%) Cybersecurity
18 164 (5.95%) Root Cause Analysis
19 157 (5.69%) Service Delivery
20 154 (5.59%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 695 (25.21%) PowerShell
2 303 (10.99%) Python
3 271 (9.83%) SQL
4 165 (5.98%) Bash
5 127 (4.61%) C#
6 62 (2.25%) Java
7 55 (1.99%) JavaScript
8 49 (1.78%) T-SQL
9 47 (1.70%) Bicep
10 44 (1.60%) PL/SQL
11 32 (1.16%) C++
12 28 (1.02%) VB
13 26 (0.94%) VBScript
14 24 (0.87%) Search Processing Language
15 17 (0.62%) Perl
16 16 (0.58%) TypeScript
17 15 (0.54%) Shell Script
18 11 (0.40%) C
18 11 (0.40%) VBA
19 10 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 865 (31.37%) Security Cleared
2 519 (18.82%) SC Cleared
3 329 (11.93%) DV Cleared
4 279 (10.12%) Degree
5 108 (3.92%) Microsoft Certification
6 82 (2.97%) Azure Certification
7 74 (2.68%) Cisco Certification
8 72 (2.61%) Computer Science Degree
9 61 (2.21%) CISSP
10 52 (1.89%) AWS Certification
11 48 (1.74%) A+ Certification
12 44 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
13 39 (1.41%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 31 (1.12%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 30 (1.09%) CCNA
16 29 (1.05%) CCNP
17 27 (0.98%) CISM
18 26 (0.94%) DBS Check
18 26 (0.94%) MCSE
19 25 (0.91%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (5.26%) SLA
2 112 (4.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 80 (2.90%) QA
4 79 (2.87%) NIST
5 30 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
6 26 (0.94%) NCSC
7 23 (0.83%) GDPR
8 22 (0.80%) PCI DSS
9 15 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 14 (0.51%) Accessibility
11 13 (0.47%) Data Quality
12 11 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 11 (0.40%) GRC
12 11 (0.40%) HIPAA
12 11 (0.40%) WCAG
13 9 (0.33%) PMO
14 7 (0.25%) GxP
15 6 (0.22%) ISO 31000
15 6 (0.22%) NIST 800
15 6 (0.22%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,146 (41.57%) Active Directory
2 414 (15.02%) VMware Infrastructure
3 175 (6.35%) Hyper-V
4 138 (5.01%) VMware ESXi
5 123 (4.46%) vSphere
6 101 (3.66%) Docker
7 90 (3.26%) Virtual Machines
8 82 (2.97%) Virtual Desktop
8 82 (2.97%) VMware NSX
9 40 (1.45%) BitLocker
10 33 (1.20%) Firmware
11 22 (0.80%) vCloud
12 18 (0.65%) Microsoft App-V
13 14 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
14 10 (0.36%) KVM
14 10 (0.36%) XenApp
14 10 (0.36%) XenDesktop
15 9 (0.33%) Citrix Hypervisor
16 7 (0.25%) NFS
16 7 (0.25%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 412 (14.94%) Microsoft Intune
2 294 (10.66%) SCCM
3 213 (7.73%) Ansible
4 145 (5.26%) Kubernetes
5 118 (4.28%) vCenter Server
6 79 (2.87%) SCOM
7 46 (1.67%) WSUS
8 44 (1.60%) Jamf Pro
9 32 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
10 31 (1.12%) Progress Chef
11 27 (0.98%) FortiGate
12 26 (0.94%) Prometheus
12 26 (0.94%) Puppet
12 26 (0.94%) WMI
13 25 (0.91%) Grafana
14 24 (0.87%) Nagios
14 24 (0.87%) Packer
15 22 (0.80%) VxRail
16 21 (0.76%) NetBackup
17 20 (0.73%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,303 (47.26%) Microsoft
2 548 (19.88%) VMware
3 327 (11.86%) ServiceNow
4 181 (6.57%) Cisco
5 160 (5.80%) Citrix
6 154 (5.59%) Oracle
7 102 (3.70%) Splunk
8 94 (3.41%) Apple
9 87 (3.16%) CyberArk
10 72 (2.61%) Google
11 68 (2.47%) SolarWinds
12 63 (2.29%) HP
13 61 (2.21%) BeyondTrust
13 61 (2.21%) Red Hat
14 60 (2.18%) Remedy
15 49 (1.78%) Dell
16 46 (1.67%) BMC
17 42 (1.52%) NetApp
18 39 (1.41%) Meraki
19 37 (1.34%) Juniper