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

 6 months to
11 May 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,451 2,085 3,170
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.03% 8.52% 8.62%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.35% 60.33% 63.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,633 1,484 2,206
10th Percentile £162 £178 £161
25th Percentile £213 £235 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £420 £400
Median % change year-on-year -1.19% +5.00% -11.11%
75th Percentile £540 £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 190 110 261
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £11.80
25th Percentile £18.13 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £26.47 £18.76 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +41.12% +5.85% -20.20%
75th Percentile £65.00 £24.92 £24.15
90th Percentile £75.15 £55.83 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £18.82 £18.00
% change year-on-year +33.63% +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 3,995 3,456 5,016
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.82% 14.11% 13.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,633 2,347 3,433
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £310 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £470
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +1.06% -8.29%
75th Percentile £569 £600 £588
90th Percentile £660 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £468
% change year-on-year -5.26% +1.60% -7.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 155 363
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.22 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.49 £17.44 £14.95
Median hourly rate £47.50 £22.50 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +111.11% +2.27% -41.33%
75th Percentile £67.84 £63.50 £60.80
90th Percentile £74.90 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £23.00 £22.00
% change year-on-year +106.52% +4.55% -42.86%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -25 756 £438 -2.78% 230
South East -5 513 £463 -7.50% 314
North of England -11 449 £335 +4.69% 186
Midlands -15 269 £320 +28.00% 102
North West -4 256 £282 -13.23% 109
South West -14 226 £450 -10.00% 118
East of England +2 215 £350 +44.33% 104
Yorkshire -21 179 £365 +17.74% 62
West Midlands -24 156 £438 +59.09% 54
East Midlands +8 108 £225 +12.50% 48
North East -25 18 £225 -13.46% 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
1 208 (8.49%) Microsoft Exchange
2 147 (6.00%) SharePoint
3 51 (2.08%) IIS
4 50 (2.04%) Confluence
5 17 (0.69%) WebLogic
6 16 (0.65%) Apache
7 11 (0.45%) Skype for Business
7 11 (0.45%) Tuxedo
8 9 (0.37%) nginx
8 9 (0.37%) Tomcat
9 7 (0.29%) TPMS
10 5 (0.20%) SAS
11 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.16%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.082%) Apache Pulsar
12 2 (0.082%) Appian
12 2 (0.082%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.082%) WordPress
Applications
1 164 (6.69%) Microsoft Office
2 61 (2.49%) Microsoft Excel
3 23 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.45%) MS Visio
5 8 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.20%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.16%) Acrobat
7 4 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.041%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 42 (1.71%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.37%) 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 (0.082%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.082%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.082%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.041%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.041%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.041%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.041%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.041%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 705 (28.76%) Microsoft 365
2 703 (28.68%) Azure
3 292 (11.91%) Entra ID
4 212 (8.65%) AWS
5 69 (2.82%) GCP
6 67 (2.73%) Azure DevOps
6 67 (2.73%) SaaS
7 66 (2.69%) OneDrive
8 57 (2.33%) IaaS
9 52 (2.12%) GitHub
10 49 (2.00%) PaaS
11 39 (1.59%) Power Platform
12 37 (1.51%) Google Workspace
13 35 (1.43%) Azure Monitor
14 26 (1.06%) Azure Sentinel
14 26 (1.06%) GitHub Actions
15 22 (0.90%) OpenShift
16 18 (0.73%) AWS CloudFormation
16 18 (0.73%) Azure AKS
17 16 (0.65%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 330 (13.46%) DNS
2 266 (10.85%) Firewall
3 230 (9.38%) DHCP
4 162 (6.61%) VPN
5 145 (5.92%) LAN
6 141 (5.75%) WAN
7 140 (5.71%) TCP/IP
8 110 (4.49%) Wi-Fi
9 62 (2.53%) Network Security
10 56 (2.28%) VLAN
11 55 (2.24%) SAN
12 43 (1.75%) Wireless
13 37 (1.51%) BGP
14 34 (1.39%) OSPF
15 32 (1.31%) Skype
16 30 (1.22%) SSL
16 30 (1.22%) VoIP
17 29 (1.18%) BIG-IP
18 28 (1.14%) SNMP
19 27 (1.10%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 180 (7.34%) SQL Server
2 42 (1.71%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.31%) Relational Database
4 26 (1.06%) MySQL
5 24 (0.98%) PostgreSQL
6 23 (0.94%) Power BI
7 14 (0.57%) DB2
8 13 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
8 13 (0.53%) MongoDB
9 11 (0.45%) NoSQL
10 10 (0.41%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 7 (0.29%) BigQuery
11 7 (0.29%) RDBMS
12 6 (0.24%) GIS
13 5 (0.20%) Amazon RDS
13 5 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
13 5 (0.20%) Oracle Reports
13 5 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 4 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
14 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 164 (6.69%) JIRA
2 46 (1.88%) GitLab
3 43 (1.75%) MSI
4 40 (1.63%) Jenkins
5 36 (1.47%) Visual Studio
6 32 (1.31%) Git
7 23 (0.94%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.73%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.69%) Metasploit
10 10 (0.41%) Android Studio
10 10 (0.41%) Artifactory
10 10 (0.41%) Chocolatey
10 10 (0.41%) Sonatype Nexus
11 9 (0.37%) Browser DevTools
11 9 (0.37%) InstallShield
11 9 (0.37%) Xcode
12 8 (0.33%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.29%) JUnit
13 7 (0.29%) Robot Framework
13 7 (0.29%) Selenium
General
1 839 (34.23%) Social Skills
2 244 (9.96%) Finance
3 216 (8.81%) Analytical Skills
4 182 (7.43%) Public Sector
5 136 (5.55%) Banking
6 98 (4.00%) Documentation Skills
7 95 (3.88%) Legal
8 72 (2.94%) Organisational Skills
9 62 (2.53%) Military
10 40 (1.63%) Retail
11 38 (1.55%) Law
12 35 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 34 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
14 30 (1.22%) Investment Banking
14 30 (1.22%) Manufacturing
14 30 (1.22%) Telecoms
15 28 (1.14%) Front Office
16 20 (0.82%) Local Government
16 20 (0.82%) Police
17 15 (0.61%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 316 (12.89%) IT Support
2 303 (12.36%) Support Engineer
3 281 (11.46%) Analyst
4 198 (8.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 194 (7.92%) IT Engineer
6 159 (6.49%) IT Support Engineer
7 158 (6.45%) Senior
8 141 (5.75%) Architect
9 112 (4.57%) Support Analyst
10 105 (4.28%) Desktop Support
11 97 (3.96%) Desktop Engineer
12 91 (3.71%) Developer
13 90 (3.67%) 2nd Line Support
14 88 (3.59%) IT Analyst
15 87 (3.55%) Technical Support
16 80 (3.26%) Lead
17 75 (3.06%) Windows Engineer
18 66 (2.69%) 1st Line Support
18 66 (2.69%) IT Support Analyst
19 63 (2.57%) Desktop Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (3.35%) .NET
2 73 (2.98%) REST
3 48 (1.96%) .NET Framework
4 35 (1.43%) LDAP
5 33 (1.35%) SAML
6 31 (1.26%) Middleware
7 28 (1.14%) Kafka
8 27 (1.10%) 802.1X
8 27 (1.10%) Web Services
8 27 (1.10%) WinForms
8 27 (1.10%) WPF
9 26 (1.06%) Microsoft Graph
9 26 (1.06%) OAuth
10 22 (0.90%) Node.js
11 19 (0.78%) CSS
11 19 (0.78%) React
12 17 (0.69%) AngularJS
12 17 (0.69%) Software Packaging
13 15 (0.61%) Elastic Stack
13 15 (0.61%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 203 (8.28%) Onboarding
2 103 (4.20%) Data Centre
2 103 (4.20%) PKI
3 80 (3.26%) Enterprise Software
4 77 (3.14%) Clustering
5 56 (2.28%) Self-Motivation
6 55 (2.24%) Replication
7 53 (2.16%) Driving Licence
8 45 (1.84%) Hybrid Cloud
9 43 (1.75%) Management Information System
10 41 (1.67%) Smartphone
11 40 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
12 36 (1.47%) Security Posture
12 36 (1.47%) Virtual Team
13 33 (1.35%) Cloud Native
14 31 (1.26%) Analytical Mindset
15 30 (1.22%) Product Ownership
16 27 (1.10%) CMDB
17 26 (1.06%) Data Protection Act
18 25 (1.02%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 601 (24.52%) Linux
2 576 (23.50%) Windows Server
3 459 (18.73%) Windows 10
4 151 (6.16%) Mac OS
5 127 (5.18%) Android
6 122 (4.98%) Unix
7 119 (4.86%) Apple iOS
8 71 (2.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 63 (2.57%) Windows Server 2016
10 58 (2.37%) Windows Server 2019
11 45 (1.84%) Windows 7
12 33 (1.35%) AIX
13 32 (1.31%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.86%) Ubuntu
15 16 (0.65%) VMS
15 16 (0.65%) Windows Server 2003
16 14 (0.57%) Solaris
17 11 (0.45%) Windows Server 2008
18 9 (0.37%) CentOS
18 9 (0.37%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 509 (20.77%) Problem-Solving
2 390 (15.91%) Customer Service
3 362 (14.77%) ITIL
4 269 (10.98%) Migration
5 264 (10.77%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 258 (10.53%) Agile
7 221 (9.02%) DevOps
8 216 (8.81%) CI/CD
9 210 (8.57%) ITSM
10 163 (6.65%) Continuous Improvement
11 161 (6.57%) Disaster Recovery
12 157 (6.41%) Change Management
13 152 (6.20%) Service Management
14 145 (5.92%) High Availability
15 141 (5.75%) Cybersecurity
16 122 (4.98%) SIEM
16 122 (4.98%) Stakeholder Management
17 115 (4.69%) Infrastructure as Code
18 107 (4.37%) Computer Science
19 99 (4.04%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 519 (21.18%) PowerShell
2 244 (9.96%) SQL
3 238 (9.71%) Python
4 128 (5.22%) C#
5 84 (3.43%) Bash
6 72 (2.94%) JavaScript
7 70 (2.86%) Java
8 52 (2.12%) PL/SQL
9 49 (2.00%) C++
10 42 (1.71%) T-SQL
11 26 (1.06%) Kusto Query Language
12 24 (0.98%) Perl
13 23 (0.94%) VB
14 22 (0.90%) Search Processing Language
15 20 (0.82%) Shell Script
16 17 (0.69%) VBScript
17 14 (0.57%) VBA
18 12 (0.49%) Go
18 12 (0.49%) TypeScript
19 11 (0.45%) C
Qualifications
1 775 (31.62%) Security Cleared
2 501 (20.44%) SC Cleared
3 251 (10.24%) Degree
4 243 (9.91%) DV Cleared
5 96 (3.92%) Microsoft Certification
6 75 (3.06%) Computer Science Degree
7 66 (2.69%) Cisco Certification
8 44 (1.80%) Azure Certification
9 40 (1.63%) CISSP
10 37 (1.51%) MCSE
11 34 (1.39%) BPSS Clearance
12 30 (1.22%) AWS Certification
13 28 (1.14%) ITIL Certification
13 28 (1.14%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 25 (1.02%) CCNA
14 25 (1.02%) MCSA
15 19 (0.78%) CompTIA Security+
16 18 (0.73%) A+ Certification
17 17 (0.69%) CISM
18 16 (0.65%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 104 (4.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 81 (3.30%) GDPR
3 80 (3.26%) QA
4 77 (3.14%) SLA
5 70 (2.86%) NIST
6 41 (1.67%) PCI DSS
7 29 (1.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 25 (1.02%) Cyber Essentials
9 14 (0.57%) NCSC
10 13 (0.53%) PMO
11 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.45%) MiFID
13 10 (0.41%) Data Quality
13 10 (0.41%) FINRA
14 7 (0.29%) GLBA
15 6 (0.24%) DICOM
15 6 (0.24%) HIPAA
15 6 (0.24%) HL7
15 6 (0.24%) ISO 31000
16 5 (0.20%) GRC
System Software
1 922 (37.62%) Active Directory
2 297 (12.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 135 (5.51%) Hyper-V
4 82 (3.35%) Docker
5 80 (3.26%) vSphere
6 79 (3.22%) VMware ESXi
7 74 (3.02%) Virtual Machines
8 46 (1.88%) Virtual Desktop
9 38 (1.55%) VMware NSX
10 33 (1.35%) Firmware
11 28 (1.14%) BitLocker
12 27 (1.10%) Microsoft App-V
13 21 (0.86%) KVM
14 12 (0.49%) XenApp
14 12 (0.49%) XenDesktop
15 6 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
16 5 (0.20%) etcd
16 5 (0.20%) Terminal Services
16 5 (0.20%) VMware Workstation
17 4 (0.16%) NFS
Systems Management
1 326 (13.30%) Microsoft Intune
2 254 (10.36%) SCCM
3 159 (6.49%) Ansible
4 145 (5.92%) Terraform
5 120 (4.90%) Kubernetes
6 69 (2.82%) vCenter Server
7 46 (1.88%) Single Sign-On
8 40 (1.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 38 (1.55%) WSUS
10 34 (1.39%) FortiGate
11 30 (1.22%) Jamf Pro
12 28 (1.14%) SCOM
13 25 (1.02%) Grafana
13 25 (1.02%) Nagios
14 21 (0.86%) Nessus
14 21 (0.86%) Prometheus
15 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
15 18 (0.73%) ZABBIX
16 17 (0.69%) Tivoli
17 16 (0.65%) Netcool
Vendors
1 1,045 (42.64%) Microsoft
2 390 (15.91%) VMware
3 203 (8.28%) ServiceNow
4 192 (7.83%) Citrix
5 149 (6.08%) Cisco
6 144 (5.88%) Oracle
7 124 (5.06%) Splunk
8 72 (2.94%) HP
9 64 (2.61%) SolarWinds
10 55 (2.24%) Remedy
11 53 (2.16%) Dell
12 49 (2.00%) IBM
13 48 (1.96%) Red Hat
14 46 (1.88%) Apple
15 45 (1.84%) CyberArk
15 45 (1.84%) Google
16 37 (1.51%) F5
16 37 (1.51%) Juniper
17 33 (1.35%) BeyondTrust
18 32 (1.31%) BMC
973 Windows jobs in England