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

6 months to
7 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 23 15
Rank change year-on-year +1 -8 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,553 2,202 3,552
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.67% 8.41% 9.27%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.97% 59.02% 63.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,770 1,462 2,415
10th Percentile £163 £181 £158
25th Percentile £204 £223 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £400 £395
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% +1.27% -7.28%
75th Percentile £538 £566 £575
90th Percentile £638 £656 £665
UK median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -8.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 241 73 257
10th Percentile £12.97 £15.04 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.72 £17.00 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.00 £22.09 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.41% +10.45% -9.09%
75th Percentile £42.75 £53.00 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £72.75 £62.50
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £23.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year -4.35% +15.00% -8.05%

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 4,187 3,731 5,561
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.57% 14.24% 14.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,815 2,360 3,803
10th Percentile £178 £200 £179
25th Percentile £263 £313 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.89% +2.70% -11.06%
75th Percentile £565 £600 £594
90th Percentile £675 £699 £700
UK median daily rate £440 £475 £465
% change year-on-year -7.37% +2.15% -9.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 308 121 373
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.26 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.00 £17.00
Median hourly rate £22.69 £45.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -49.57% +80.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £53.40 £67.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £68.00 £71.25 £70.52
UK median hourly rate £23.79 £31.08 £25.25
% change year-on-year -23.46% +23.09% -1.79%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 -14 759 £450 +12.50% 230
South East -1 498 £400 -5.88% 356
North of England -6 459 £263 -25.00% 229
South West +2 312 £425 +3.22% 119
Midlands -6 296 £275 -15.38% 142
North West -4 254 £235 -32.86% 115
East of England +6 220 £255 -5.56% 113
West Midlands -14 181 £360 +10.77% 88
Yorkshire -14 174 £325 -7.21% 95
East Midlands +5 114 £225 -26.83% 54
North East -5 34 £188 -42.31% 24
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 (8.30%) Microsoft Exchange
2 176 (6.89%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.43%) Confluence
4 41 (1.61%) IIS
5 32 (1.25%) Apache
6 20 (0.78%) WebLogic
7 17 (0.67%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.43%) 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 (0.24%) SharePoint Server
14 5 (0.20%) SAS
15 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
16 3 (0.12%) Documentum
16 3 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2010
17 2 (0.078%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 229 (8.97%) Microsoft Office
2 72 (2.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.39%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.24%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.20%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.078%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.078%) 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 25 (0.98%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.39%) 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
1 721 (28.24%) Microsoft 365
2 629 (24.64%) Azure
3 256 (10.03%) Entra ID
4 203 (7.95%) AWS
5 92 (3.60%) OneDrive
6 70 (2.74%) SaaS
7 63 (2.47%) GCP
8 52 (2.04%) Google Workspace
9 48 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
10 44 (1.72%) IaaS
11 39 (1.53%) GitHub
12 34 (1.33%) Power Platform
13 32 (1.25%) PaaS
14 26 (1.02%) Azure Monitor
15 23 (0.90%) OpenShift
16 20 (0.78%) Azure Sentinel
17 19 (0.74%) AWS CloudFormation
18 17 (0.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 17 (0.67%) Sauce Labs
18 17 (0.67%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 330 (12.93%) DNS
2 253 (9.91%) Firewall
3 218 (8.54%) DHCP
4 170 (6.66%) TCP/IP
5 161 (6.31%) VPN
6 114 (4.47%) WAN
7 111 (4.35%) Wi-Fi
8 108 (4.23%) LAN
9 79 (3.09%) Network Security
10 68 (2.66%) VLAN
11 63 (2.47%) Wireless
12 39 (1.53%) SSH
13 32 (1.25%) Skype
14 31 (1.21%) SAN
15 29 (1.14%) HTTP
15 29 (1.14%) Kerberos
16 28 (1.10%) FTP
17 26 (1.02%) Internet
17 26 (1.02%) VoIP
18 24 (0.94%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (4.58%) SQL Server
2 54 (2.12%) Relational Database
3 52 (2.04%) Oracle Database
4 42 (1.65%) MySQL
5 25 (0.98%) PostgreSQL
6 13 (0.51%) BigQuery
7 11 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
7 11 (0.43%) Power BI
8 10 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
9 9 (0.35%) MongoDB
9 9 (0.35%) NoSQL
10 8 (0.31%) Amazon Aurora
10 8 (0.31%) DB2
10 8 (0.31%) GIS
11 6 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
12 5 (0.20%) SAP HANA
12 5 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 4 (0.16%) Data Warehouse
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 142 (5.56%) JIRA
2 67 (2.62%) Jenkins
3 57 (2.23%) Git
4 51 (2.00%) GitLab
5 38 (1.49%) MSI
6 25 (0.98%) Eclipse
6 25 (0.98%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.74%) Android Studio
7 19 (0.74%) Burp Suite
7 19 (0.74%) Metasploit
8 17 (0.67%) Xcode
9 16 (0.63%) Browser DevTools
10 15 (0.59%) Artifactory
11 12 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
12 11 (0.43%) InstallShield
13 9 (0.35%) Bitbucket
14 8 (0.31%) Selenium
14 8 (0.31%) Vagrant
15 7 (0.27%) AdminStudio
15 7 (0.27%) Bitbucket Server
General
1 947 (37.09%) Social Skills
2 266 (10.42%) Finance
3 220 (8.62%) Public Sector
4 208 (8.15%) Analytical Skills
5 122 (4.78%) Banking
6 108 (4.23%) Documentation Skills
7 84 (3.29%) Legal
8 73 (2.86%) Organisational Skills
9 51 (2.00%) Military
10 48 (1.88%) Manufacturing
11 40 (1.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 39 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
13 32 (1.25%) Retail
14 27 (1.06%) Telecoms
15 22 (0.86%) Aerospace
15 22 (0.86%) Front Office
16 21 (0.82%) Law
17 19 (0.74%) Investment Banking
18 16 (0.63%) Local Government
18 16 (0.63%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 373 (14.61%) Support Engineer
2 326 (12.77%) Analyst
3 323 (12.65%) IT Support
4 178 (6.97%) IT Engineer
5 162 (6.35%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 144 (5.64%) Support Analyst
7 143 (5.60%) Architect
8 141 (5.52%) IT Support Engineer
9 136 (5.33%) Senior
10 135 (5.29%) Desktop Support
11 124 (4.86%) Technical Support
12 120 (4.70%) 2nd Line Support
13 119 (4.66%) Desktop Engineer
14 117 (4.58%) Windows Engineer
15 99 (3.88%) Deployment Engineer
16 98 (3.84%) Developer
17 92 (3.60%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 85 (3.33%) Lead
19 78 (3.06%) IT Analyst
20 70 (2.74%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.90%) .NET
2 53 (2.08%) REST
3 51 (2.00%) OAuth
4 47 (1.84%) SAML
5 43 (1.68%) .NET Framework
5 43 (1.68%) LDAP
6 33 (1.29%) Middleware
6 33 (1.29%) React
7 32 (1.25%) WPF
8 29 (1.14%) AngularJS
8 29 (1.14%) OpenID
9 23 (0.90%) CSS
10 22 (0.86%) Kafka
10 22 (0.86%) RESTful
10 22 (0.86%) Web Services
11 21 (0.82%) Microsoft Graph
11 21 (0.82%) OAuth2
11 21 (0.82%) SOAP
12 20 (0.78%) Node.js
13 19 (0.74%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 154 (6.03%) Onboarding
2 89 (3.49%) PKI
3 88 (3.45%) Driving Licence
4 78 (3.06%) Data Centre
5 72 (2.82%) Enterprise Software
6 60 (2.35%) Self-Motivation
7 58 (2.27%) Smartphone
8 56 (2.19%) Replication
9 50 (1.96%) Management Information System
10 39 (1.53%) Hybrid Cloud
11 38 (1.49%) Security Posture
12 34 (1.33%) NHS
13 29 (1.14%) Product Ownership
14 28 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
14 28 (1.10%) Clustering
15 27 (1.06%) Video Conferencing
16 25 (0.98%) CMDB
16 25 (0.98%) Data Protection Act
17 24 (0.94%) Virtual Team
18 21 (0.82%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 612 (23.97%) Linux
2 587 (22.99%) Windows 10
3 532 (20.84%) Windows Server
4 144 (5.64%) Unix
5 139 (5.44%) Mac OS
6 135 (5.29%) Android
7 111 (4.35%) Apple iOS
8 59 (2.31%) Windows Server 2016
9 52 (2.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 49 (1.92%) Windows 7
11 48 (1.88%) Windows Server 2019
12 37 (1.45%) Windows Server 2012
13 27 (1.06%) Windows Server 2003
14 23 (0.90%) AIX
15 18 (0.71%) VMS
16 16 (0.63%) Ubuntu
17 10 (0.39%) Mac OS X
18 9 (0.35%) Windows Server 2008
19 8 (0.31%) Amazon Linux
20 7 (0.27%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 474 (18.57%) Problem-Solving
2 445 (17.43%) Customer Service
3 362 (14.18%) ITIL
4 265 (10.38%) Agile
5 240 (9.40%) Migration
6 236 (9.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 214 (8.38%) Service Management
8 210 (8.23%) DevOps
9 204 (7.99%) ITSM
10 195 (7.64%) CI/CD
11 180 (7.05%) Continuous Improvement
12 170 (6.66%) Cybersecurity
13 145 (5.68%) Change Management
14 129 (5.05%) Disaster Recovery
15 123 (4.82%) User Experience
16 110 (4.31%) Service Delivery
16 110 (4.31%) Stakeholder Management
17 107 (4.19%) Infrastructure as Code
18 100 (3.92%) Computer Science
19 96 (3.76%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 495 (19.39%) PowerShell
2 291 (11.40%) Python
3 222 (8.70%) SQL
4 114 (4.47%) Java
5 107 (4.19%) C#
6 105 (4.11%) Bash
7 73 (2.86%) JavaScript
8 60 (2.35%) Perl
9 50 (1.96%) C++
10 45 (1.76%) PL/SQL
11 36 (1.41%) T-SQL
12 29 (1.14%) Kusto Query Language
13 28 (1.10%) VBScript
14 27 (1.06%) VB
15 26 (1.02%) Shell Script
16 22 (0.86%) VBA
17 15 (0.59%) Groovy
18 14 (0.55%) Go
19 13 (0.51%) Bicep
20 10 (0.39%) PHP
Qualifications
1 816 (31.96%) Security Cleared
2 530 (20.76%) SC Cleared
3 261 (10.22%) Degree
4 240 (9.40%) DV Cleared
5 144 (5.64%) Microsoft Certification
6 77 (3.02%) Computer Science Degree
7 58 (2.27%) Azure Certification
8 43 (1.68%) MCSE
9 42 (1.65%) Cisco Certification
10 36 (1.41%) ITIL Certification
11 34 (1.33%) A+ Certification
12 31 (1.21%) AWS Certification
13 29 (1.14%) CCNA
14 27 (1.06%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 26 (1.02%) BPSS Clearance
16 25 (0.98%) CISSP
17 24 (0.94%) CCNP
18 21 (0.82%) MCSA
18 21 (0.82%) Microsoft Certified Professional
19 18 (0.71%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (3.56%) GDPR
2 87 (3.41%) SLA
3 67 (2.62%) QA
4 61 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 45 (1.76%) NIST
6 33 (1.29%) PCI DSS
7 21 (0.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 12 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
8 12 (0.47%) MiFID
9 11 (0.43%) GLBA
9 11 (0.43%) PMO
10 10 (0.39%) NCSC
11 9 (0.35%) FINRA
12 7 (0.27%) NIST 800
13 4 (0.16%) Accessibility
13 4 (0.16%) COBIT
13 4 (0.16%) GxP
13 4 (0.16%) HIPAA
14 3 (0.12%) Data Quality
14 3 (0.12%) SEPA
System Software
1 942 (36.90%) Active Directory
2 246 (9.64%) VMware Infrastructure
3 104 (4.07%) Docker
4 94 (3.68%) Hyper-V
5 62 (2.43%) Virtual Desktop
6 57 (2.23%) Virtual Machines
7 55 (2.15%) vSphere
8 41 (1.61%) VMware ESXi
9 33 (1.29%) VMware NSX
10 24 (0.94%) BitLocker
11 22 (0.86%) Microsoft App-V
12 13 (0.51%) Firmware
12 13 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
13 11 (0.43%) DFS Replication
13 11 (0.43%) KVM
14 7 (0.27%) Terminal Services
15 6 (0.24%) Dovecot
15 6 (0.24%) NFS
15 6 (0.24%) Postfix
15 6 (0.24%) Tivoli Directory Server
Systems Management
1 356 (13.94%) SCCM
2 308 (12.06%) Microsoft Intune
3 158 (6.19%) Terraform
4 125 (4.90%) Ansible
5 102 (4.00%) Kubernetes
6 66 (2.59%) Single Sign-On
7 65 (2.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 65 (2.55%) vCenter Server
8 44 (1.72%) Jamf Pro
9 38 (1.49%) Grafana
10 29 (1.14%) SCOM
11 26 (1.02%) WSUS
12 25 (0.98%) Prometheus
13 18 (0.71%) Nessus
13 18 (0.71%) Nmap
14 17 (0.67%) WMI
15 14 (0.55%) Progress Chef
16 12 (0.47%) Packer
16 12 (0.47%) Proxmox
17 10 (0.39%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 1,093 (42.81%) Microsoft
2 338 (13.24%) VMware
3 242 (9.48%) ServiceNow
4 173 (6.78%) Oracle
5 161 (6.31%) Citrix
6 143 (5.60%) Cisco
7 97 (3.80%) Splunk
8 60 (2.35%) Dell
9 58 (2.27%) Apple
10 53 (2.08%) Red Hat
11 52 (2.04%) HP
12 51 (2.00%) Google
13 49 (1.92%) SolarWinds
14 46 (1.80%) Veeam
15 40 (1.57%) IBM
16 36 (1.41%) Remedy
16 36 (1.41%) SAP
17 35 (1.37%) CyberArk
18 30 (1.18%) Palo Alto
19 28 (1.10%) Juniper