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

6 months to
11 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 22 15
Rank change year-on-year 0 -7 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,591 2,178 3,478
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.65% 8.40% 9.19%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.91% 59.02% 63.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,791 1,453 2,364
10th Percentile £162 £181 £156
25th Percentile £204 £223 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £395
Median % change year-on-year -0.13% +1.27% -9.20%
75th Percentile £538 £573 £575
90th Percentile £640 £656 £663
UK median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 246 72 248
10th Percentile £13.25 £15.02 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.67 £16.94 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.00 £21.84 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.73% +9.20% -9.26%
75th Percentile £41.94 £47.00 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £73.25 £62.50
UK median hourly rate £21.90 £23.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year -4.78% +15.00% -9.09%

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 4,254 3,690 5,451
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.56% 14.24% 14.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,856 2,349 3,719
10th Percentile £178 £200 £180
25th Percentile £263 £313 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £475 £457
Median % change year-on-year -5.89% +3.94% -12.12%
75th Percentile £565 £600 £594
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £440 £475 £465
% change year-on-year -7.37% +2.15% -9.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 312 120 363
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.26 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £19.63 £17.11
Median hourly rate £22.54 £42.75 £25.12
Median % change year-on-year -47.28% +70.22% -5.15%
75th Percentile £52.38 £67.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £68.00 £71.50 £71.65
UK median hourly rate £23.50 £29.89 £25.25
% change year-on-year -21.38% +18.38% -2.88%

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 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 11 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 11 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 -14 774 £450 +12.50% 221
South East -1 511 £403 -5.29% 367
North of England -6 462 £263 -25.00% 214
South West +2 313 £425 - 122
Midlands -6 300 £275 -15.38% 131
North West -4 253 £225 -35.71% 111
East of England +7 223 £231 -20.26% 116
West Midlands -14 183 £375 +15.38% 85
Yorkshire -15 177 £325 -7.21% 87
East Midlands +5 116 £225 -26.83% 45
North East -5 35 £188 -42.31% 22
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
1 221 (8.53%) Microsoft Exchange
2 179 (6.91%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.39%) Confluence
4 41 (1.58%) IIS
5 31 (1.20%) Apache
6 19 (0.73%) WebLogic
7 17 (0.66%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.42%) TPMS
9 10 (0.39%) WebSphere
10 9 (0.35%) Tuxedo
11 8 (0.31%) JBoss
11 8 (0.31%) nginx
12 7 (0.27%) iPlanet
12 7 (0.27%) WebSphere Application Server
13 6 (0.23%) SharePoint Server
14 5 (0.19%) SAS
15 4 (0.15%) OpenStack
16 3 (0.12%) Documentum
16 3 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2010
17 2 (0.077%) CMS
Applications
1 232 (8.95%) Microsoft Office
2 76 (2.93%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.42%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.23%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.19%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.19%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.077%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.077%) Windchill
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.039%) InDesign
9 1 (0.039%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.039%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 27 (1.04%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.31%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.19%) assyst
5 4 (0.15%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.077%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.077%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.077%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.077%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.077%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.077%) SystmOne
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%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.039%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 743 (28.68%) Microsoft 365
2 641 (24.74%) Azure
3 267 (10.30%) Entra ID
4 207 (7.99%) AWS
5 95 (3.67%) OneDrive
6 67 (2.59%) GCP
6 67 (2.59%) SaaS
7 52 (2.01%) Google Workspace
8 48 (1.85%) Azure DevOps
9 42 (1.62%) GitHub
9 42 (1.62%) IaaS
10 36 (1.39%) Power Platform
11 30 (1.16%) PaaS
12 25 (0.96%) Azure Monitor
13 21 (0.81%) Azure Sentinel
14 20 (0.77%) OpenShift
15 19 (0.73%) AWS CloudFormation
16 17 (0.66%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 17 (0.66%) Sauce Labs
16 17 (0.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 334 (12.89%) DNS
2 255 (9.84%) Firewall
3 220 (8.49%) DHCP
4 170 (6.56%) TCP/IP
5 167 (6.45%) VPN
6 115 (4.44%) WAN
7 112 (4.32%) Wi-Fi
8 110 (4.25%) LAN
9 79 (3.05%) Network Security
10 68 (2.62%) VLAN
11 66 (2.55%) Wireless
12 41 (1.58%) SSH
13 33 (1.27%) Skype
14 30 (1.16%) SAN
15 29 (1.12%) Kerberos
16 28 (1.08%) FTP
16 28 (1.08%) HTTP
17 27 (1.04%) VoIP
18 26 (1.00%) Internet
19 23 (0.89%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 123 (4.75%) SQL Server
2 52 (2.01%) Oracle Database
2 52 (2.01%) Relational Database
3 43 (1.66%) MySQL
4 27 (1.04%) PostgreSQL
5 13 (0.50%) BigQuery
6 12 (0.46%) Power BI
7 11 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
7 11 (0.42%) MongoDB
7 11 (0.42%) NoSQL
8 10 (0.39%) DB2
8 10 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
9 8 (0.31%) Amazon Aurora
9 8 (0.31%) GIS
10 5 (0.19%) Elasticsearch
10 5 (0.19%) SAP HANA
10 5 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 4 (0.15%) Data Warehouse
11 4 (0.15%) Oracle Database 10g
11 4 (0.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 145 (5.60%) JIRA
2 66 (2.55%) Jenkins
3 59 (2.28%) Git
4 52 (2.01%) GitLab
5 39 (1.51%) MSI
6 25 (0.96%) Eclipse
6 25 (0.96%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.73%) Android Studio
7 19 (0.73%) Burp Suite
7 19 (0.73%) Metasploit
8 17 (0.66%) Xcode
9 16 (0.62%) Browser DevTools
10 15 (0.58%) Artifactory
11 13 (0.50%) Sonatype Nexus
12 10 (0.39%) InstallShield
13 9 (0.35%) Bitbucket
14 8 (0.31%) Selenium
14 8 (0.31%) Vagrant
15 7 (0.27%) CA Release Automation
15 7 (0.27%) Chocolatey
General
1 961 (37.09%) Social Skills
2 269 (10.38%) Finance
3 225 (8.68%) Public Sector
4 213 (8.22%) Analytical Skills
5 122 (4.71%) Banking
6 111 (4.28%) Documentation Skills
7 89 (3.43%) Legal
8 77 (2.97%) Organisational Skills
9 51 (1.97%) Military
10 48 (1.85%) Manufacturing
11 42 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 39 (1.51%) Presentation Skills
13 31 (1.20%) Retail
14 29 (1.12%) Telecoms
15 22 (0.85%) Aerospace
15 22 (0.85%) Front Office
16 21 (0.81%) Law
17 19 (0.73%) Investment Banking
18 17 (0.66%) Financial Institution
19 16 (0.62%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 380 (14.67%) Support Engineer
2 336 (12.97%) IT Support
3 332 (12.81%) Analyst
4 186 (7.18%) IT Engineer
5 162 (6.25%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 149 (5.75%) IT Support Engineer
7 148 (5.71%) Architect
8 147 (5.67%) Support Analyst
9 142 (5.48%) Senior
10 135 (5.21%) Desktop Support
11 126 (4.86%) Technical Support
12 122 (4.71%) 2nd Line Support
13 120 (4.63%) Desktop Engineer
14 116 (4.48%) Windows Engineer
15 103 (3.98%) Developer
16 98 (3.78%) Deployment Engineer
17 92 (3.55%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 85 (3.28%) Lead
19 81 (3.13%) IT Analyst
20 70 (2.70%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (2.89%) .NET
2 54 (2.08%) REST
3 52 (2.01%) OAuth
4 47 (1.81%) SAML
5 43 (1.66%) .NET Framework
5 43 (1.66%) LDAP
6 35 (1.35%) React
7 34 (1.31%) Middleware
8 32 (1.24%) WPF
9 29 (1.12%) OpenID
10 28 (1.08%) AngularJS
11 25 (0.96%) CSS
12 23 (0.89%) Microsoft Graph
12 23 (0.89%) RESTful
12 23 (0.89%) Web Services
13 22 (0.85%) Kafka
14 21 (0.81%) OAuth2
14 21 (0.81%) SOAP
15 19 (0.73%) WinForms
16 18 (0.69%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 165 (6.37%) Onboarding
2 90 (3.47%) PKI
3 89 (3.43%) Driving Licence
4 80 (3.09%) Data Centre
5 73 (2.82%) Enterprise Software
6 63 (2.43%) Self-Motivation
7 58 (2.24%) Smartphone
8 55 (2.12%) Replication
9 53 (2.05%) Management Information System
10 40 (1.54%) Hybrid Cloud
11 37 (1.43%) Security Posture
12 35 (1.35%) NHS
13 32 (1.24%) Product Ownership
14 29 (1.12%) Clustering
15 28 (1.08%) Analytical Mindset
16 27 (1.04%) Video Conferencing
17 26 (1.00%) Data Protection Act
17 26 (1.00%) Virtual Team
18 25 (0.96%) CMDB
19 24 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 622 (24.01%) Linux
2 601 (23.20%) Windows 10
3 540 (20.84%) Windows Server
4 148 (5.71%) Unix
5 146 (5.63%) Mac OS
6 138 (5.33%) Android
7 113 (4.36%) Apple iOS
8 61 (2.35%) Windows Server 2016
9 53 (2.05%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 50 (1.93%) Windows 7
11 49 (1.89%) Windows Server 2019
12 38 (1.47%) Windows Server 2012
13 29 (1.12%) Windows Server 2003
14 23 (0.89%) AIX
15 19 (0.73%) VMS
16 17 (0.66%) Ubuntu
17 11 (0.42%) Mac OS X
18 9 (0.35%) Windows Server 2008
19 8 (0.31%) Amazon Linux
20 7 (0.27%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 481 (18.56%) Problem-Solving
2 454 (17.52%) Customer Service
3 364 (14.05%) ITIL
4 270 (10.42%) Agile
5 248 (9.57%) Migration
6 237 (9.15%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 213 (8.22%) Service Management
8 212 (8.18%) DevOps
9 209 (8.07%) ITSM
10 196 (7.56%) CI/CD
11 180 (6.95%) Continuous Improvement
12 176 (6.79%) Cybersecurity
13 143 (5.52%) Change Management
14 129 (4.98%) Disaster Recovery
15 124 (4.79%) User Experience
16 113 (4.36%) Stakeholder Management
17 111 (4.28%) Service Delivery
18 109 (4.21%) Infrastructure as Code
19 108 (4.17%) Computer Science
20 99 (3.82%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 503 (19.41%) PowerShell
2 295 (11.39%) Python
3 221 (8.53%) SQL
4 112 (4.32%) Java
5 109 (4.21%) C#
6 108 (4.17%) Bash
7 76 (2.93%) JavaScript
8 60 (2.32%) Perl
9 51 (1.97%) C++
10 45 (1.74%) PL/SQL
11 36 (1.39%) T-SQL
12 29 (1.12%) Kusto Query Language
13 27 (1.04%) VB
13 27 (1.04%) VBScript
14 26 (1.00%) Shell Script
15 23 (0.89%) VBA
16 15 (0.58%) Groovy
17 14 (0.54%) Bicep
17 14 (0.54%) Go
18 10 (0.39%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 823 (31.76%) Security Cleared
2 536 (20.69%) SC Cleared
3 272 (10.50%) Degree
4 240 (9.26%) DV Cleared
5 145 (5.60%) Microsoft Certification
6 79 (3.05%) Computer Science Degree
7 58 (2.24%) Azure Certification
8 44 (1.70%) Cisco Certification
8 44 (1.70%) MCSE
9 36 (1.39%) ITIL Certification
10 33 (1.27%) A+ Certification
11 32 (1.24%) AWS Certification
12 31 (1.20%) CCNA
13 28 (1.08%) BPSS Clearance
14 26 (1.00%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 25 (0.96%) CCNP
15 25 (0.96%) CISSP
16 24 (0.93%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 21 (0.81%) MCSA
18 18 (0.69%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (3.51%) GDPR
2 86 (3.32%) SLA
3 68 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 68 (2.62%) QA
4 50 (1.93%) NIST
5 34 (1.31%) PCI DSS
6 21 (0.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 13 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
8 12 (0.46%) MiFID
9 11 (0.42%) GLBA
9 11 (0.42%) NCSC
9 11 (0.42%) PMO
10 9 (0.35%) FINRA
11 7 (0.27%) NIST 800
12 4 (0.15%) Accessibility
12 4 (0.15%) COBIT
12 4 (0.15%) GxP
12 4 (0.15%) HIPAA
13 3 (0.12%) Data Quality
13 3 (0.12%) SEPA
System Software
1 968 (37.36%) Active Directory
2 251 (9.69%) VMware Infrastructure
3 101 (3.90%) Docker
4 100 (3.86%) Hyper-V
5 62 (2.39%) Virtual Desktop
6 59 (2.28%) Virtual Machines
7 55 (2.12%) vSphere
8 42 (1.62%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.20%) VMware NSX
10 25 (0.96%) BitLocker
11 23 (0.89%) Microsoft App-V
12 15 (0.58%) Firmware
13 13 (0.50%) Virtual Servers
14 12 (0.46%) KVM
15 11 (0.42%) DFS Replication
16 7 (0.27%) Terminal Services
16 7 (0.27%) XenApp
17 6 (0.23%) NFS
17 6 (0.23%) Postfix
17 6 (0.23%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 355 (13.70%) SCCM
2 318 (12.27%) Microsoft Intune
3 160 (6.18%) Terraform
4 126 (4.86%) Ansible
5 102 (3.94%) Kubernetes
6 66 (2.55%) Single Sign-On
7 65 (2.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 64 (2.47%) vCenter Server
9 43 (1.66%) Jamf Pro
10 35 (1.35%) Grafana
11 28 (1.08%) SCOM
12 25 (0.96%) Prometheus
12 25 (0.96%) WSUS
13 19 (0.73%) Nessus
14 18 (0.69%) Nmap
15 17 (0.66%) WMI
16 13 (0.50%) Packer
17 12 (0.46%) Progress Chef
17 12 (0.46%) Proxmox
18 11 (0.42%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,112 (42.92%) Microsoft
2 344 (13.28%) VMware
3 245 (9.46%) ServiceNow
4 172 (6.64%) Oracle
5 164 (6.33%) Citrix
6 143 (5.52%) Cisco
7 97 (3.74%) Splunk
8 61 (2.35%) Dell
9 58 (2.24%) Apple
10 53 (2.05%) HP
10 53 (2.05%) Red Hat
11 51 (1.97%) Google
12 48 (1.85%) SolarWinds
13 46 (1.78%) Veeam
14 40 (1.54%) IBM
15 39 (1.51%) CyberArk
16 38 (1.47%) Remedy
17 36 (1.39%) SAP
18 30 (1.16%) Palo Alto
19 27 (1.04%) Juniper