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 21 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 22 16
Rank change year-on-year -3 -6 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,560 2,192 3,446
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.33% 8.48% 9.08%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.49% 59.57% 63.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,742 1,481 2,344
10th Percentile £161 £182 £155
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £395
Median % change year-on-year - +1.27% -10.23%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £649 £675 £662
UK median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 242 72 247
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.02 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.63 £16.56 £15.50
Median hourly rate £21.90 £21.59 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.44% +7.95% -11.62%
75th Percentile £41.94 £36.75 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £73.25 £62.50
UK median hourly rate £21.80 £22.88 £20.00
% change year-on-year -4.70% +14.38% -10.27%

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 4,232 3,680 5,427
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.11% 14.23% 14.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,820 2,382 3,688
10th Percentile £178 £200 £178
25th Percentile £263 £313 £265
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £471 £454
Median % change year-on-year -4.51% +3.80% -12.69%
75th Percentile £574 £600 £590
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £447 £474 £465
% change year-on-year -5.65% +1.88% -9.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 310 120 364
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.26 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.43 £17.16
Median hourly rate £22.50 £38.00 £25.22
Median % change year-on-year -40.79% +50.70% -8.31%
75th Percentile £52.51 £67.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £68.00 £71.50 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £23.00 £29.00 £25.25
% change year-on-year -20.69% +14.85% -4.68%

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 21 February 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 21 February 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 21 February 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 -17 771 £450 +11.11% 240
South East -2 512 £403 -5.29% 357
North of England -8 469 £263 -25.00% 218
Midlands -7 289 £275 -15.38% 125
South West 0 287 £450 -4.26% 103
North West -8 257 £263 -25.00% 123
East of England +6 222 £228 -9.00% 108
Yorkshire -16 179 £315 -3.08% 83
West Midlands -18 176 £400 +23.08% 78
East Midlands +4 112 £210 -16.00% 46
North East -12 36 £188 -41.41% 19
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
1 219 (8.55%) Microsoft Exchange
2 173 (6.76%) SharePoint
3 59 (2.30%) Confluence
4 37 (1.45%) IIS
5 31 (1.21%) Apache
6 21 (0.82%) WebLogic
7 16 (0.63%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.43%) TPMS
9 10 (0.39%) nginx
10 9 (0.35%) Tuxedo
10 9 (0.35%) WebSphere
11 7 (0.27%) JBoss
12 6 (0.23%) iPlanet
12 6 (0.23%) WebSphere Application Server
13 5 (0.20%) SharePoint Server
13 5 (0.20%) Tomcat
14 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.12%) SAS
16 2 (0.078%) CMS
Applications
1 232 (9.06%) Microsoft Office
2 74 (2.89%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (0.55%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.20%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.16%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 4 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.078%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.039%) InDesign
8 1 (0.039%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.039%) OmniGraffle
8 1 (0.039%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 27 (1.05%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.31%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.20%) assyst
5 4 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.078%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.078%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.078%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.078%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.078%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.078%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.039%) Aladdin
8 1 (0.039%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.039%) Eikon
8 1 (0.039%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.039%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.039%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.039%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.039%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 745 (29.10%) Microsoft 365
2 633 (24.73%) Azure
3 265 (10.35%) Entra ID
4 200 (7.81%) AWS
5 96 (3.75%) OneDrive
6 68 (2.66%) SaaS
7 66 (2.58%) GCP
8 52 (2.03%) Google Workspace
9 45 (1.76%) Azure DevOps
10 42 (1.64%) IaaS
11 36 (1.41%) GitHub
12 35 (1.37%) Power Platform
13 32 (1.25%) PaaS
14 21 (0.82%) Azure Monitor
15 20 (0.78%) Azure Sentinel
16 19 (0.74%) AWS CloudFormation
17 18 (0.70%) OpenShift
18 17 (0.66%) Sauce Labs
19 15 (0.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 15 (0.59%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 346 (13.52%) DNS
2 275 (10.74%) Firewall
3 226 (8.83%) DHCP
4 172 (6.72%) TCP/IP
5 164 (6.41%) VPN
6 126 (4.92%) WAN
7 125 (4.88%) LAN
8 119 (4.65%) Wi-Fi
9 78 (3.05%) Network Security
10 71 (2.77%) VLAN
11 65 (2.54%) Wireless
12 39 (1.52%) SSH
13 33 (1.29%) Skype
14 31 (1.21%) SAN
15 30 (1.17%) FTP
16 29 (1.13%) Cisco ISE
16 29 (1.13%) HTTP
17 28 (1.09%) BGP
17 28 (1.09%) Kerberos
17 28 (1.09%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 126 (4.92%) SQL Server
2 52 (2.03%) Oracle Database
3 46 (1.80%) Relational Database
4 39 (1.52%) MySQL
5 27 (1.05%) PostgreSQL
6 13 (0.51%) BigQuery
6 13 (0.51%) DB2
7 11 (0.43%) MongoDB
7 11 (0.43%) Power BI
8 10 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
8 10 (0.39%) NoSQL
8 10 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
9 9 (0.35%) GIS
10 7 (0.27%) Elasticsearch
11 6 (0.23%) Amazon Aurora
11 6 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
12 5 (0.20%) SAP HANA
12 5 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 141 (5.51%) JIRA
2 58 (2.27%) Jenkins
3 56 (2.19%) Git
4 50 (1.95%) GitLab
5 38 (1.48%) MSI
6 24 (0.94%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.86%) Eclipse
8 20 (0.78%) Burp Suite
8 20 (0.78%) Metasploit
9 19 (0.74%) Android Studio
10 17 (0.66%) Xcode
11 15 (0.59%) Artifactory
12 14 (0.55%) Browser DevTools
13 12 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
14 8 (0.31%) Chocolatey
15 6 (0.23%) Bitbucket
15 6 (0.23%) Bitbucket Server
15 6 (0.23%) CA Release Automation
15 6 (0.23%) Toad
15 6 (0.23%) Vagrant
General
1 946 (36.95%) Social Skills
2 250 (9.77%) Finance
3 214 (8.36%) Analytical Skills
4 213 (8.32%) Public Sector
5 123 (4.80%) Banking
6 113 (4.41%) Documentation Skills
7 94 (3.67%) Legal
8 82 (3.20%) Organisational Skills
9 54 (2.11%) Military
10 45 (1.76%) Manufacturing
11 43 (1.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 43 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
12 31 (1.21%) Retail
13 29 (1.13%) Telecoms
14 23 (0.90%) Aerospace
15 21 (0.82%) Law
16 20 (0.78%) Front Office
16 20 (0.78%) Investment Banking
17 16 (0.63%) Local Government
18 15 (0.59%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 375 (14.65%) Support Engineer
2 345 (13.48%) IT Support
3 337 (13.16%) Analyst
4 198 (7.73%) IT Engineer
5 159 (6.21%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 159 (6.21%) IT Support Engineer
6 149 (5.82%) Architect
7 148 (5.78%) Senior
8 145 (5.66%) Support Analyst
9 129 (5.04%) Desktop Support
10 124 (4.84%) Technical Support
11 120 (4.69%) 2nd Line Support
12 113 (4.41%) Desktop Engineer
13 105 (4.10%) Windows Engineer
14 103 (4.02%) Developer
15 87 (3.40%) IT Analyst
16 86 (3.36%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 85 (3.32%) Deployment Engineer
17 85 (3.32%) Lead
18 74 (2.89%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (2.77%) .NET
2 52 (2.03%) REST
3 51 (1.99%) OAuth
4 46 (1.80%) SAML
5 45 (1.76%) LDAP
6 42 (1.64%) .NET Framework
7 34 (1.33%) Middleware
8 31 (1.21%) React
8 31 (1.21%) WPF
9 28 (1.09%) OpenID
10 27 (1.05%) AngularJS
11 26 (1.02%) CSS
12 24 (0.94%) Microsoft Graph
13 23 (0.90%) Web Services
14 21 (0.82%) OAuth2
15 20 (0.78%) Kafka
15 20 (0.78%) WinForms
16 19 (0.74%) Apache NiFi
17 17 (0.66%) SOAP
18 16 (0.63%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 164 (6.41%) Onboarding
2 97 (3.79%) PKI
3 91 (3.55%) Data Centre
4 85 (3.32%) Driving Licence
5 74 (2.89%) Enterprise Software
6 58 (2.27%) Smartphone
7 57 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
8 52 (2.03%) Management Information System
9 50 (1.95%) Replication
10 42 (1.64%) Security Posture
11 41 (1.60%) Clustering
12 38 (1.48%) Hybrid Cloud
12 38 (1.48%) NHS
13 34 (1.33%) Product Ownership
14 29 (1.13%) Analytical Mindset
15 27 (1.05%) Data Protection Act
15 27 (1.05%) Video Conferencing
16 26 (1.02%) Legacy Systems
16 26 (1.02%) Virtual Team
17 25 (0.98%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 609 (23.79%) Linux
2 589 (23.01%) Windows 10
3 533 (20.82%) Windows Server
4 149 (5.82%) Unix
5 140 (5.47%) Mac OS
6 139 (5.43%) Android
7 112 (4.38%) Apple iOS
8 61 (2.38%) Windows Server 2016
9 57 (2.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 50 (1.95%) Windows 7
11 49 (1.91%) Windows Server 2019
12 36 (1.41%) Windows Server 2012
13 28 (1.09%) AIX
13 28 (1.09%) Windows Server 2003
14 17 (0.66%) VMS
15 15 (0.59%) Ubuntu
16 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2008
17 12 (0.47%) Solaris
18 10 (0.39%) Mac OS X
19 6 (0.23%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 492 (19.22%) Problem-Solving
2 464 (18.13%) Customer Service
3 359 (14.02%) ITIL
4 257 (10.04%) Agile
5 245 (9.57%) Migration
6 239 (9.34%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 216 (8.44%) Service Management
8 212 (8.28%) ITSM
9 207 (8.09%) DevOps
10 187 (7.30%) CI/CD
11 183 (7.15%) Continuous Improvement
12 177 (6.91%) Cybersecurity
13 151 (5.90%) Change Management
14 133 (5.20%) Disaster Recovery
15 126 (4.92%) Stakeholder Management
16 122 (4.77%) User Experience
17 114 (4.45%) Service Delivery
18 106 (4.14%) Computer Science
19 105 (4.10%) High Availability
20 101 (3.95%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 475 (18.55%) PowerShell
2 262 (10.23%) Python
3 211 (8.24%) SQL
4 107 (4.18%) Bash
5 106 (4.14%) C#
6 105 (4.10%) Java
7 70 (2.73%) JavaScript
8 55 (2.15%) Perl
9 49 (1.91%) C++
10 48 (1.88%) PL/SQL
11 36 (1.41%) T-SQL
12 30 (1.17%) Kusto Query Language
13 26 (1.02%) VB
14 23 (0.90%) Shell Script
15 21 (0.82%) VBA
15 21 (0.82%) VBScript
16 13 (0.51%) C
17 12 (0.47%) Groovy
18 11 (0.43%) Bicep
18 11 (0.43%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 797 (31.13%) Security Cleared
2 507 (19.80%) SC Cleared
3 270 (10.55%) Degree
4 232 (9.06%) DV Cleared
5 146 (5.70%) Microsoft Certification
6 76 (2.97%) Computer Science Degree
7 56 (2.19%) Azure Certification
8 52 (2.03%) Cisco Certification
9 48 (1.88%) MCSE
10 35 (1.37%) ITIL Certification
11 31 (1.21%) AWS Certification
11 31 (1.21%) CISSP
12 30 (1.17%) A+ Certification
12 30 (1.17%) CCNA
13 26 (1.02%) CCNP
14 25 (0.98%) BPSS Clearance
15 24 (0.94%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 22 (0.86%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 22 (0.86%) MCSA
17 18 (0.70%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (3.63%) GDPR
2 83 (3.24%) SLA
3 72 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 69 (2.70%) QA
5 51 (1.99%) NIST
6 37 (1.45%) PCI DSS
7 21 (0.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 15 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
9 13 (0.51%) MiFID
10 12 (0.47%) PMO
11 11 (0.43%) GLBA
11 11 (0.43%) NCSC
12 10 (0.39%) FINRA
13 8 (0.31%) NIST 800
14 5 (0.20%) GxP
15 4 (0.16%) COBIT
15 4 (0.16%) HIPAA
15 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
16 3 (0.12%) Accessibility
16 3 (0.12%) Data Quality
System Software
1 954 (37.27%) Active Directory
2 251 (9.80%) VMware Infrastructure
3 107 (4.18%) Hyper-V
4 100 (3.91%) Docker
5 61 (2.38%) Virtual Desktop
5 61 (2.38%) Virtual Machines
6 55 (2.15%) vSphere
7 46 (1.80%) VMware ESXi
8 29 (1.13%) VMware NSX
9 24 (0.94%) BitLocker
10 21 (0.82%) Microsoft App-V
11 17 (0.66%) Firmware
12 15 (0.59%) KVM
13 13 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
14 9 (0.35%) DFS Replication
15 7 (0.27%) Terminal Services
16 6 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 6 (0.23%) NFS
16 6 (0.23%) XenApp
16 6 (0.23%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 335 (13.09%) SCCM
2 328 (12.81%) Microsoft Intune
3 153 (5.98%) Terraform
4 124 (4.84%) Ansible
5 107 (4.18%) Kubernetes
6 65 (2.54%) Single Sign-On
7 64 (2.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 62 (2.42%) vCenter Server
9 44 (1.72%) Jamf Pro
10 32 (1.25%) Grafana
11 26 (1.02%) SCOM
12 23 (0.90%) FortiGate
12 23 (0.90%) Nessus
12 23 (0.90%) Prometheus
12 23 (0.90%) WSUS
13 19 (0.74%) Nmap
14 16 (0.63%) WMI
15 13 (0.51%) Progress Chef
16 12 (0.47%) CASB
17 9 (0.35%) Packer
Vendors
1 1,100 (42.97%) Microsoft
2 347 (13.55%) VMware
3 235 (9.18%) ServiceNow
4 179 (6.99%) Citrix
5 164 (6.41%) Oracle
6 156 (6.09%) Cisco
7 116 (4.53%) Splunk
8 61 (2.38%) Dell
9 60 (2.34%) SolarWinds
10 58 (2.27%) Red Hat
11 54 (2.11%) HP
12 53 (2.07%) Apple
13 52 (2.03%) Google
14 46 (1.80%) IBM
14 46 (1.80%) Veeam
15 44 (1.72%) Remedy
16 40 (1.56%) Juniper
17 34 (1.33%) CyberArk
18 32 (1.25%) SAP
19 30 (1.17%) Palo Alto