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

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 20 17
Rank change year-on-year -7 -3 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,465 2,054 3,102
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.94% 8.62% 8.54%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.29% 61.44% 62.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,620 1,459 2,167
10th Percentile £162 £179 £163
25th Percentile £213 £228 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £416 £400
Median % change year-on-year -0.24% +4.00% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £424 £425 £400
% change year-on-year -0.29% +6.25% -11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 206 116 259
10th Percentile £15.69 £14.20 £11.65
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.77 £18.82 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +36.93% +6.21% -21.47%
75th Percentile £60.00 £24.75 £25.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £47.96 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.75 £18.82 £18.00
% change year-on-year +36.82% +4.56% -20.23%

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 4,022 3,343 4,995
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.68% 14.03% 13.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,622 2,279 3,418
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £465 £470
Median % change year-on-year -3.23% -1.06% -8.29%
75th Percentile £573 £594 £588
90th Percentile £658 £696 £700
UK median daily rate £458 £465 £468
% change year-on-year -1.61% -0.64% -6.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 279 151 364
10th Percentile £15.90 £15.12 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.38 £15.23
Median hourly rate £41.71 £21.28 £22.23
Median % change year-on-year +96.01% -4.25% -43.88%
75th Percentile £65.50 £58.72 £62.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £22.00 £22.40
% change year-on-year +70.45% -1.79% -44.00%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -26 748 £425 -5.56% 251
South East -6 529 £475 - 276
North of England -12 457 £350 +5.66% 210
Midlands -18 265 £300 +15.94% 118
North West -1 254 £325 -7.14% 123
South West -13 230 £453 -6.55% 128
East of England -2 214 £350 -8.50% 91
Yorkshire -20 188 £375 +9.01% 67
West Midlands -25 154 £438 +59.09% 64
East Midlands +8 106 £225 +5.88% 54
North East -31 19 £290 -3.33% 23
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
1 212 (8.60%) Microsoft Exchange
2 155 (6.29%) SharePoint
3 55 (2.23%) IIS
4 50 (2.03%) Confluence
5 17 (0.69%) Apache
5 17 (0.69%) WebLogic
6 12 (0.49%) Skype for Business
7 11 (0.45%) Tuxedo
8 10 (0.41%) nginx
8 10 (0.41%) Tomcat
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.24%) TPMS
11 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.16%) Appian
11 4 (0.16%) SAS
11 4 (0.16%) WebSphere
12 3 (0.12%) NetWeaver
13 2 (0.081%) IBM HTTP Server
13 2 (0.081%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 2 (0.081%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 160 (6.49%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.60%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.37%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.28%) 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 40 (1.62%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.45%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.16%) Finacle
5 3 (0.12%) assyst
5 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.081%) OpenText MBPM
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle BPM
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.041%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.041%) Oracle 11i
7 1 (0.041%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.041%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.041%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.041%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 717 (29.09%) Azure
2 710 (28.80%) Microsoft 365
3 307 (12.45%) Entra ID
4 220 (8.92%) AWS
5 76 (3.08%) OneDrive
6 69 (2.80%) SaaS
7 67 (2.72%) Azure DevOps
8 66 (2.68%) GCP
9 64 (2.60%) IaaS
10 54 (2.19%) GitHub
11 51 (2.07%) PaaS
12 42 (1.70%) Power Platform
13 38 (1.54%) Azure Monitor
14 33 (1.34%) Google Workspace
15 28 (1.14%) Azure Sentinel
16 25 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
17 23 (0.93%) OpenShift
18 18 (0.73%) Azure AKS
19 16 (0.65%) AWS CloudFormation
19 16 (0.65%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 328 (13.31%) DNS
2 261 (10.59%) Firewall
3 228 (9.25%) DHCP
4 164 (6.65%) VPN
5 149 (6.04%) LAN
6 144 (5.84%) WAN
7 134 (5.44%) TCP/IP
8 111 (4.50%) Wi-Fi
9 64 (2.60%) Network Security
10 60 (2.43%) SAN
11 54 (2.19%) VLAN
12 42 (1.70%) Wireless
13 37 (1.50%) BGP
14 34 (1.38%) OSPF
14 34 (1.38%) Skype
15 32 (1.30%) SNMP
16 31 (1.26%) VoIP
17 30 (1.22%) BIG-IP
18 29 (1.18%) SSL
19 28 (1.14%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 190 (7.71%) SQL Server
2 42 (1.70%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.30%) Relational Database
4 28 (1.14%) MySQL
5 25 (1.01%) Power BI
6 23 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
7 15 (0.61%) DB2
8 14 (0.57%) MongoDB
9 13 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
10 11 (0.45%) NoSQL
11 10 (0.41%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 7 (0.28%) RDBMS
13 6 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
13 6 (0.24%) BigQuery
13 6 (0.24%) GIS
13 6 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
14 5 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
14 5 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 4 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
15 4 (0.16%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 163 (6.61%) JIRA
2 43 (1.74%) MSI
3 40 (1.62%) GitLab
3 40 (1.62%) Jenkins
4 35 (1.42%) Visual Studio
5 29 (1.18%) Git
6 19 (0.77%) Eclipse
7 18 (0.73%) Burp Suite
8 17 (0.69%) Metasploit
9 10 (0.41%) Sonatype Nexus
10 9 (0.37%) Android Studio
10 9 (0.37%) Browser DevTools
10 9 (0.37%) Chocolatey
10 9 (0.37%) Xcode
11 8 (0.32%) Artifactory
12 7 (0.28%) Bitbucket
12 7 (0.28%) InstallShield
12 7 (0.28%) Robot Framework
12 7 (0.28%) Selenium
13 5 (0.20%) AdminStudio
General
1 829 (33.63%) Social Skills
2 242 (9.82%) Finance
3 220 (8.92%) Analytical Skills
4 170 (6.90%) Public Sector
5 137 (5.56%) Banking
6 91 (3.69%) Documentation Skills
7 90 (3.65%) Legal
8 76 (3.08%) Organisational Skills
9 53 (2.15%) Military
10 46 (1.87%) Retail
11 36 (1.46%) Law
11 36 (1.46%) Manufacturing
12 35 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 30 (1.22%) Investment Banking
13 30 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
14 26 (1.05%) Front Office
14 26 (1.05%) Telecoms
15 21 (0.85%) Local Government
16 18 (0.73%) Police
17 16 (0.65%) French Language
Job Titles
1 322 (13.06%) IT Support
2 306 (12.41%) Support Engineer
3 278 (11.28%) Analyst
4 210 (8.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 197 (7.99%) IT Engineer
6 161 (6.53%) IT Support Engineer
6 161 (6.53%) Senior
7 129 (5.23%) Architect
8 112 (4.54%) Support Analyst
9 105 (4.26%) Desktop Support
10 94 (3.81%) Desktop Engineer
11 92 (3.73%) 2nd Line Support
12 89 (3.61%) Technical Support
13 88 (3.57%) IT Analyst
14 87 (3.53%) Lead
15 85 (3.45%) Developer
16 66 (2.68%) 1st Line Support
17 65 (2.64%) IT Support Analyst
18 63 (2.56%) Windows Engineer
19 61 (2.47%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (3.20%) .NET
2 71 (2.88%) REST
3 49 (1.99%) .NET Framework
4 36 (1.46%) LDAP
5 31 (1.26%) SAML
6 30 (1.22%) Microsoft Graph
7 28 (1.14%) Middleware
8 27 (1.10%) 802.1X
9 26 (1.05%) WinForms
10 24 (0.97%) OAuth
11 22 (0.89%) Kafka
11 22 (0.89%) Web Services
12 21 (0.85%) WPF
13 19 (0.77%) CSS
13 19 (0.77%) React
14 17 (0.69%) AngularJS
14 17 (0.69%) Node.js
14 17 (0.69%) Software Packaging
15 16 (0.65%) Elastic Stack
16 15 (0.61%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 217 (8.80%) Onboarding
2 111 (4.50%) Data Centre
3 102 (4.14%) PKI
4 79 (3.20%) Clustering
5 72 (2.92%) Enterprise Software
6 56 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
7 54 (2.19%) Replication
8 49 (1.99%) Driving Licence
8 49 (1.99%) Management Information System
9 47 (1.91%) Hybrid Cloud
10 42 (1.70%) Smartphone
11 40 (1.62%) Virtual Team
12 38 (1.54%) Security Posture
13 36 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
14 33 (1.34%) Cloud Native
15 29 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
16 28 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
16 28 (1.14%) Product Ownership
17 27 (1.10%) Enterprise Storage
18 25 (1.01%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 599 (24.30%) Linux
2 579 (23.49%) Windows Server
3 459 (18.62%) Windows 10
4 161 (6.53%) Mac OS
5 126 (5.11%) Unix
6 125 (5.07%) Apple iOS
7 123 (4.99%) Android
8 71 (2.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 63 (2.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 61 (2.47%) Windows Server 2016
11 46 (1.87%) Windows 7
12 34 (1.38%) Windows Server 2012
13 30 (1.22%) AIX
14 23 (0.93%) Ubuntu
15 18 (0.73%) Windows Server 2003
16 15 (0.61%) VMS
17 14 (0.57%) Solaris
18 12 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
19 10 (0.41%) CentOS
20 8 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 512 (20.77%) Problem-Solving
2 390 (15.82%) Customer Service
3 363 (14.73%) ITIL
4 276 (11.20%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 257 (10.43%) Migration
6 241 (9.78%) Agile
7 225 (9.13%) ITSM
8 221 (8.97%) DevOps
9 203 (8.24%) CI/CD
10 174 (7.06%) Continuous Improvement
11 167 (6.77%) Disaster Recovery
12 165 (6.69%) Change Management
13 153 (6.21%) High Availability
14 149 (6.04%) Service Management
15 134 (5.44%) Cybersecurity
16 124 (5.03%) Stakeholder Management
17 119 (4.83%) SIEM
18 116 (4.71%) Infrastructure as Code
19 113 (4.58%) Computer Science
20 103 (4.18%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 531 (21.54%) PowerShell
2 251 (10.18%) SQL
3 235 (9.53%) Python
4 118 (4.79%) C#
5 85 (3.45%) Bash
6 67 (2.72%) JavaScript
7 65 (2.64%) Java
8 52 (2.11%) PL/SQL
9 44 (1.78%) C++
9 44 (1.78%) T-SQL
10 26 (1.05%) Kusto Query Language
11 23 (0.93%) VB
12 22 (0.89%) Search Processing Language
13 21 (0.85%) Perl
14 20 (0.81%) Shell Script
15 16 (0.65%) VBScript
16 14 (0.57%) VBA
17 12 (0.49%) Bicep
18 11 (0.45%) C
18 11 (0.45%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 759 (30.79%) Security Cleared
2 481 (19.51%) SC Cleared
3 270 (10.95%) Degree
4 251 (10.18%) DV Cleared
5 95 (3.85%) Microsoft Certification
6 77 (3.12%) Computer Science Degree
7 73 (2.96%) Cisco Certification
8 45 (1.83%) Azure Certification
9 44 (1.78%) CISSP
10 41 (1.66%) MCSE
11 34 (1.38%) BPSS Clearance
12 29 (1.18%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 27 (1.10%) AWS Certification
13 27 (1.10%) MCSA
14 26 (1.05%) CCNA
14 26 (1.05%) ITIL Certification
15 23 (0.93%) CCNP
16 21 (0.85%) CompTIA Security+
17 19 (0.77%) A+ Certification
17 19 (0.77%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 108 (4.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 88 (3.57%) SLA
3 80 (3.25%) GDPR
4 76 (3.08%) QA
5 71 (2.88%) NIST
6 41 (1.66%) PCI DSS
7 30 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 25 (1.01%) Cyber Essentials
9 13 (0.53%) NCSC
9 13 (0.53%) PMO
10 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
11 11 (0.45%) Data Quality
11 11 (0.45%) MiFID
12 10 (0.41%) FINRA
13 7 (0.28%) HIPAA
14 6 (0.24%) DICOM
14 6 (0.24%) GLBA
14 6 (0.24%) GRC
14 6 (0.24%) HL7
14 6 (0.24%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 924 (37.48%) Active Directory
2 306 (12.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 135 (5.48%) Hyper-V
4 88 (3.57%) vSphere
5 87 (3.53%) VMware ESXi
6 82 (3.33%) Virtual Machines
7 75 (3.04%) Docker
8 48 (1.95%) Virtual Desktop
9 44 (1.78%) VMware NSX
10 34 (1.38%) Firmware
11 29 (1.18%) BitLocker
12 26 (1.05%) Microsoft App-V
13 20 (0.81%) KVM
14 11 (0.45%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.41%) XenApp
16 8 (0.32%) vCloud
16 8 (0.32%) VMware Workstation
17 5 (0.20%) etcd
17 5 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
18 4 (0.16%) Snort
Systems Management
1 337 (13.67%) Microsoft Intune
2 233 (9.45%) SCCM
3 159 (6.45%) Ansible
4 144 (5.84%) Terraform
5 115 (4.67%) Kubernetes
6 78 (3.16%) vCenter Server
7 45 (1.83%) Single Sign-On
8 38 (1.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 36 (1.46%) FortiGate
9 36 (1.46%) Jamf Pro
10 35 (1.42%) SCOM
10 35 (1.42%) WSUS
11 27 (1.10%) Grafana
12 25 (1.01%) Nagios
13 24 (0.97%) Prometheus
14 21 (0.85%) Nessus
15 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
15 18 (0.73%) Puppet
15 18 (0.73%) Tivoli
15 18 (0.73%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,051 (42.64%) Microsoft
2 403 (16.35%) VMware
3 217 (8.80%) ServiceNow
4 181 (7.34%) Citrix
5 164 (6.65%) Cisco
6 145 (5.88%) Oracle
7 125 (5.07%) Splunk
8 71 (2.88%) HP
9 67 (2.72%) SolarWinds
10 55 (2.23%) Dell
11 53 (2.15%) Remedy
12 51 (2.07%) Apple
13 50 (2.03%) Red Hat
14 45 (1.83%) CyberArk
15 44 (1.78%) Google
15 44 (1.78%) IBM
16 43 (1.74%) F5
17 42 (1.70%) Juniper
18 37 (1.50%) BeyondTrust
19 32 (1.30%) Palo Alto