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

 6 months to
14 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 23 14
Rank change year-on-year +1 -9 +1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,478 2,188 3,460
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.83% 8.17% 9.60%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.31% 58.53% 63.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,729 1,443 2,356
10th Percentile £163 £183 £158
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £556 £575
90th Percentile £638 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 231 74 206
10th Percentile £12.97 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.14 £17.11 £16.62
Median hourly rate £22.00 £22.50 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.22% +7.14% -
75th Percentile £43.75 £56.65 £46.88
90th Percentile £67.84 £74.31 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £23.99 £21.00
% change year-on-year -8.30% +14.24% +5.00%

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 4,109 3,738 5,458
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.98% 13.96% 15.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,743 2,363 3,775
10th Percentile £175 £200 £180
25th Percentile £263 £313 £270
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -6.86%
75th Percentile £565 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 303 127 293
10th Percentile £14.20 £15.40 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.30 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.00 £52.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -52.38% +75.00% +20.00%
75th Percentile £61.25 £67.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £73.85 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £33.25 £31.00
% change year-on-year -24.36% +7.26% +24.00%

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 14 January 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 14 January 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 14 January 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 -17 722 £450 +12.50% 218
South East 0 503 £400 - 343
North of England -4 433 £255 -27.14% 204
South West +4 311 £425 +6.25% 129
Midlands -3 311 £350 +7.69% 121
North West -2 246 £280 -20.14% 97
West Midlands -8 206 £475 +46.15% 63
East of England +5 194 £228 -27.20% 137
Yorkshire -16 160 £290 -17.14% 83
East Midlands +2 105 £210 -31.71% 56
North East -5 30 £184 -43.02% 30
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
1 208 (8.39%) Microsoft Exchange
2 172 (6.94%) SharePoint
3 72 (2.91%) Confluence
4 47 (1.90%) Apache
5 45 (1.82%) IIS
6 28 (1.13%) WebLogic
7 20 (0.81%) Skype for Business
8 16 (0.65%) WebSphere
9 13 (0.52%) JBoss
10 12 (0.48%) nginx
11 11 (0.44%) SharePoint Server
11 11 (0.44%) WebSphere Application Server
12 10 (0.40%) iPlanet
12 10 (0.40%) TPMS
13 9 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2010
14 8 (0.32%) Tuxedo
15 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
16 6 (0.24%) Office Communications Server
16 6 (0.24%) SAS
16 6 (0.24%) Tomcat
Applications
1 236 (9.52%) Microsoft Office
2 76 (3.07%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (0.52%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.36%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.081%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.081%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.081%) Windchill
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.040%) InDesign
9 1 (0.040%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.040%) OmniGraffle
9 1 (0.040%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 23 (0.93%) Remedy ITSM
2 6 (0.24%) assyst
3 5 (0.20%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
5 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.081%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.081%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.081%) SystmOne
7 1 (0.040%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.040%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.040%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.040%) ION MarketView
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.040%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 685 (27.64%) Microsoft 365
2 583 (23.53%) Azure
3 219 (8.84%) Entra ID
4 215 (8.68%) AWS
5 81 (3.27%) OneDrive
6 66 (2.66%) SaaS
7 65 (2.62%) GCP
8 45 (1.82%) Google Workspace
9 44 (1.78%) GitHub
10 43 (1.74%) Azure DevOps
10 43 (1.74%) IaaS
11 33 (1.33%) Azure Monitor
11 33 (1.33%) Power Platform
12 28 (1.13%) PaaS
13 23 (0.93%) Amazon S3
14 22 (0.89%) Azure Sentinel
14 22 (0.89%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 21 (0.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 20 (0.81%) Amazon EC2
17 19 (0.77%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 312 (12.59%) DNS
2 263 (10.61%) Firewall
3 196 (7.91%) DHCP
4 178 (7.18%) TCP/IP
5 162 (6.54%) VPN
6 99 (4.00%) WAN
7 90 (3.63%) Wi-Fi
8 88 (3.55%) LAN
9 80 (3.23%) Network Security
10 69 (2.78%) Wireless
11 63 (2.54%) VLAN
12 53 (2.14%) SSH
13 34 (1.37%) HTTP
14 33 (1.33%) SAN
15 30 (1.21%) FTP
15 30 (1.21%) Skype
16 27 (1.09%) SD-WAN
16 27 (1.09%) SMTP
17 26 (1.05%) Internet
18 24 (0.97%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (4.52%) SQL Server
2 60 (2.42%) Oracle Database
3 57 (2.30%) Relational Database
4 46 (1.86%) MySQL
5 28 (1.13%) PostgreSQL
6 18 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
7 13 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
8 12 (0.48%) Power BI
9 11 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
9 11 (0.44%) NoSQL
10 8 (0.32%) MongoDB
11 7 (0.28%) Elasticsearch
11 7 (0.28%) GIS
12 6 (0.24%) SAP HANA
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
13 4 (0.16%) RDBMS
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 3 (0.12%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 136 (5.49%) JIRA
2 76 (3.07%) Jenkins
3 75 (3.03%) Git
4 46 (1.86%) GitLab
5 34 (1.37%) Eclipse
6 31 (1.25%) MSI
7 26 (1.05%) Visual Studio
8 21 (0.85%) Android Studio
9 20 (0.81%) Browser DevTools
10 19 (0.77%) Xcode
11 18 (0.73%) Artifactory
11 18 (0.73%) Burp Suite
11 18 (0.73%) Metasploit
12 16 (0.65%) Sonatype Nexus
13 15 (0.61%) Bitbucket
13 15 (0.61%) Vagrant
14 12 (0.48%) Bitbucket Server
14 12 (0.48%) CA Release Automation
15 11 (0.44%) InstallShield
16 8 (0.32%) AdminStudio
General
1 931 (37.57%) Social Skills
2 289 (11.66%) Finance
3 213 (8.60%) Public Sector
4 194 (7.83%) Analytical Skills
5 116 (4.68%) Banking
6 103 (4.16%) Documentation Skills
7 77 (3.11%) Legal
8 63 (2.54%) Organisational Skills
9 53 (2.14%) Military
10 46 (1.86%) Manufacturing
10 46 (1.86%) Presentation Skills
11 40 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 35 (1.41%) Telecoms
13 32 (1.29%) Retail
14 26 (1.05%) Aerospace
15 24 (0.97%) Front Office
16 23 (0.93%) Law
17 19 (0.77%) Marketing
18 17 (0.69%) Financial Institution
19 16 (0.65%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 383 (15.46%) Support Engineer
2 308 (12.43%) Analyst
3 307 (12.39%) IT Support
4 172 (6.94%) IT Engineer
5 149 (6.01%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 140 (5.65%) Architect
6 140 (5.65%) Support Analyst
7 134 (5.41%) Desktop Support
8 130 (5.25%) IT Support Engineer
8 130 (5.25%) Senior
9 128 (5.17%) Windows Engineer
10 123 (4.96%) Desktop Engineer
11 116 (4.68%) Technical Support
12 111 (4.48%) 2nd Line Support
13 110 (4.44%) Deployment Engineer
14 97 (3.91%) Desktop Support Engineer
15 94 (3.79%) Developer
16 85 (3.43%) Platform Engineer
17 79 (3.19%) IT Analyst
18 69 (2.78%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (2.91%) .NET
2 50 (2.02%) REST
3 43 (1.74%) LDAP
4 42 (1.69%) .NET Framework
5 41 (1.65%) OAuth
6 39 (1.57%) SAML
7 37 (1.49%) Middleware
8 35 (1.41%) React
9 33 (1.33%) AngularJS
9 33 (1.33%) WPF
10 32 (1.29%) OpenID
11 25 (1.01%) CSS
11 25 (1.01%) Web Services
12 24 (0.97%) Node.js
13 20 (0.81%) Ajax
13 20 (0.81%) GraphQL
13 20 (0.81%) SOAP
14 19 (0.77%) Kafka
14 19 (0.77%) RESTful
15 18 (0.73%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 123 (4.96%) Onboarding
2 87 (3.51%) PKI
3 82 (3.31%) Data Centre
4 81 (3.27%) Driving Licence
5 67 (2.70%) Enterprise Software
6 58 (2.34%) Replication
7 56 (2.26%) Self-Motivation
8 53 (2.14%) Smartphone
9 52 (2.10%) Management Information System
10 36 (1.45%) Security Posture
11 35 (1.41%) Hybrid Cloud
12 29 (1.17%) Analytical Mindset
12 29 (1.17%) Clustering
13 28 (1.13%) NHS
13 28 (1.13%) Video Conferencing
14 27 (1.09%) Data Protection Act
15 22 (0.89%) CMDB
15 22 (0.89%) Mobile App
15 22 (0.89%) Product Ownership
16 21 (0.85%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 612 (24.70%) Linux
2 569 (22.96%) Windows 10
3 497 (20.06%) Windows Server
4 164 (6.62%) Unix
5 130 (5.25%) Android
6 125 (5.04%) Mac OS
7 98 (3.95%) Apple iOS
8 59 (2.38%) Windows Server 2016
9 54 (2.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 48 (1.94%) Windows 7
11 44 (1.78%) Windows Server 2019
12 34 (1.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 32 (1.29%) Windows Server 2003
14 26 (1.05%) AIX
15 24 (0.97%) VMS
16 19 (0.77%) Ubuntu
17 15 (0.61%) Amazon Linux
18 13 (0.52%) Solaris
19 12 (0.48%) Windows Server 2008
20 9 (0.36%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 439 (17.72%) Problem-Solving
2 399 (16.10%) Customer Service
3 368 (14.85%) ITIL
4 256 (10.33%) Agile
5 229 (9.24%) Migration
6 217 (8.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 214 (8.64%) DevOps
8 210 (8.47%) Service Management
9 197 (7.95%) ITSM
10 191 (7.71%) CI/CD
11 177 (7.14%) Continuous Improvement
12 170 (6.86%) Cybersecurity
13 160 (6.46%) Change Management
14 126 (5.08%) User Experience
15 105 (4.24%) Disaster Recovery
16 103 (4.16%) Incident Response
16 103 (4.16%) Stakeholder Management
17 100 (4.04%) Computer Science
17 100 (4.04%) Infrastructure as Code
18 99 (4.00%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 481 (19.41%) PowerShell
2 302 (12.19%) Python
3 242 (9.77%) SQL
4 125 (5.04%) Java
5 114 (4.60%) C#
6 100 (4.04%) Bash
7 79 (3.19%) JavaScript
8 69 (2.78%) Perl
9 60 (2.42%) C++
10 45 (1.82%) PL/SQL
11 32 (1.29%) Kusto Query Language
11 32 (1.29%) T-SQL
12 28 (1.13%) VBScript
13 27 (1.09%) VB
14 26 (1.05%) Groovy
14 26 (1.05%) Shell Script
15 24 (0.97%) VBA
16 13 (0.52%) PHP
17 12 (0.48%) Bicep
18 11 (0.44%) Go
Qualifications
1 801 (32.32%) Security Cleared
2 532 (21.47%) SC Cleared
3 248 (10.01%) Degree
4 227 (9.16%) DV Cleared
5 145 (5.85%) Microsoft Certification
6 74 (2.99%) Computer Science Degree
7 57 (2.30%) Azure Certification
8 45 (1.82%) Cisco Certification
9 43 (1.74%) A+ Certification
9 43 (1.74%) MCSE
10 37 (1.49%) ITIL Certification
11 33 (1.33%) AWS Certification
12 28 (1.13%) CCNP
13 27 (1.09%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 26 (1.05%) CISSP
15 25 (1.01%) CCNA
16 24 (0.97%) BPSS Clearance
17 21 (0.85%) DBS Check
17 21 (0.85%) MCP
18 20 (0.81%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (3.51%) SLA
2 78 (3.15%) GDPR
3 67 (2.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 66 (2.66%) QA
5 46 (1.86%) NIST
6 31 (1.25%) PCI DSS
7 11 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
7 11 (0.44%) PMO
8 10 (0.40%) GLBA
8 10 (0.40%) NCSC
9 9 (0.36%) MiFID
9 9 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 6 (0.24%) FINRA
11 5 (0.20%) HIPAA
12 4 (0.16%) Accessibility
12 4 (0.16%) COBIT
12 4 (0.16%) NIST 800
12 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
13 3 (0.12%) SEPA
14 2 (0.081%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 903 (36.44%) Active Directory
2 224 (9.04%) VMware Infrastructure
3 101 (4.08%) Docker
4 85 (3.43%) Hyper-V
5 56 (2.26%) Virtual Desktop
6 45 (1.82%) Virtual Machines
7 43 (1.74%) vSphere
8 39 (1.57%) VMware ESXi
9 29 (1.17%) VMware NSX
10 23 (0.93%) BitLocker
11 18 (0.73%) DFS Replication
12 16 (0.65%) Firmware
12 16 (0.65%) Microsoft App-V
13 14 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
14 13 (0.52%) Terminal Services
15 9 (0.36%) Dovecot
15 9 (0.36%) Postfix
15 9 (0.36%) Squid
16 8 (0.32%) NFS
16 8 (0.32%) Tivoli Directory Server
Systems Management
1 344 (13.88%) SCCM
2 265 (10.69%) Microsoft Intune
3 161 (6.50%) Terraform
4 125 (5.04%) Ansible
5 83 (3.35%) Kubernetes
6 61 (2.46%) vCenter Server
7 47 (1.90%) Single Sign-On
8 45 (1.82%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 39 (1.57%) Jamf Pro
10 35 (1.41%) Grafana
11 28 (1.13%) SCOM
12 25 (1.01%) WSUS
13 22 (0.89%) Prometheus
14 21 (0.85%) Nessus
15 19 (0.77%) Microsoft Clustering
16 18 (0.73%) Nmap
17 17 (0.69%) WMI
18 16 (0.65%) Progress Chef
19 15 (0.61%) Proxmox
19 15 (0.61%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,045 (42.17%) Microsoft
2 318 (12.83%) VMware
3 245 (9.89%) ServiceNow
4 200 (8.07%) Oracle
5 158 (6.38%) Cisco
6 156 (6.30%) Citrix
7 106 (4.28%) Splunk
8 62 (2.50%) Apple
9 58 (2.34%) Dell
10 51 (2.06%) HP
10 51 (2.06%) Red Hat
11 50 (2.02%) SolarWinds
12 49 (1.98%) Veeam
13 46 (1.86%) IBM
14 44 (1.78%) Google
15 39 (1.57%) CyberArk
16 36 (1.45%) Remedy
16 36 (1.45%) SAP
17 33 (1.33%) AppDynamics
17 33 (1.33%) Palo Alto
1,043 Windows jobs in England