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 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
23 Nov 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 21 19 13
Rank change year-on-year -2 -6 +2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,541 2,577 3,997
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.36% 8.20% 10.14%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.44% 58.17% 65.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,713 1,619 2,678
10th Percentile £163 £188 £163
25th Percentile £204 £250 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £415 £415
Median % change year-on-year -6.02% - -2.35%
75th Percentile £538 £573 £575
90th Percentile £638 £648 £675
UK median daily rate £400 £425 £420
% change year-on-year -5.88% +1.19% -1.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 275 107 240
10th Percentile £15.16 £15.22 £14.24
25th Percentile £17.69 £17.00 £17.72
Median hourly rate £21.46 £24.18 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.25% +7.47% +3.45%
75th Percentile £39.47 £65.00 £55.46
90th Percentile £65.00 £74.00 £68.63
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.50
% change year-on-year -9.02% +7.47% +9.76%

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 4,204 4,430 6,138
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 13.83% 14.10% 15.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,753 2,718 4,212
10th Percentile £185 £203 £185
25th Percentile £263 £325 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -5.88%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £613
90th Percentile £674 £699 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £480
% change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 344 180 325
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.96 £15.35
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.14 £18.93
Median hourly rate £23.25 £57.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -59.57% +64.29% +40.00%
75th Percentile £56.58 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.25 £70.10 £75.92
UK median hourly rate £24.50 £49.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year -50.00% +50.77% +30.00%

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025. 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 -11 799 £438 +8.02% 270
South East +3 501 £351 -17.50% 464
North of England -5 403 £275 -31.25% 200
South West +4 331 £425 -2.86% 162
Midlands -5 308 £400 +5.96% 170
North West -4 222 £325 -27.78% 97
West Midlands -6 216 £430 +13.03% 98
East of England 0 210 £225 -41.56% 127
Yorkshire -9 152 £255 -28.17% 88
East Midlands 0 92 £210 -44.00% 67
North East +5 32 £190 -40.63% 15
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
1 236 (9.29%) Microsoft Exchange
2 172 (6.77%) SharePoint
3 79 (3.11%) Confluence
4 50 (1.97%) Apache
5 40 (1.57%) IIS
6 22 (0.87%) Skype for Business
6 22 (0.87%) WebSphere
7 20 (0.79%) JBoss
8 17 (0.67%) WebLogic
9 15 (0.59%) SharePoint Server
10 12 (0.47%) Exchange Server 2010
10 12 (0.47%) nginx
11 11 (0.43%) Exchange Server 2013
11 11 (0.43%) WebSphere Application Server
12 10 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2003
12 10 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2007
12 10 (0.39%) iPlanet
12 10 (0.39%) Office Communications Server
13 6 (0.24%) Tomcat
14 5 (0.20%) TPMS
Applications
1 232 (9.13%) Microsoft Office
2 81 (3.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.39%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 8 (0.31%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.079%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.079%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.079%) Windchill
9 1 (0.039%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
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 18 (0.71%) Remedy ITSM
2 5 (0.20%) assyst
2 5 (0.20%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.16%) Maximo
4 3 (0.12%) ION MarketView
4 3 (0.12%) Oracle 11i
5 2 (0.079%) Eikon
5 2 (0.079%) Fidessa
5 2 (0.079%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.079%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.079%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.079%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.039%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.039%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.039%) Eze OMS
6 1 (0.039%) OpenText MBPM
6 1 (0.039%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.039%) RMDS
6 1 (0.039%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.039%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 683 (26.88%) Microsoft 365
2 560 (22.04%) Azure
3 225 (8.85%) Entra ID
4 221 (8.70%) AWS
5 83 (3.27%) OneDrive
6 73 (2.87%) SaaS
7 60 (2.36%) GCP
8 49 (1.93%) IaaS
9 46 (1.81%) Google Workspace
10 45 (1.77%) Azure DevOps
11 42 (1.65%) GitHub
12 38 (1.50%) Power Platform
13 36 (1.42%) PaaS
14 35 (1.38%) Amazon S3
15 33 (1.30%) Amazon EC2
16 32 (1.26%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 30 (1.18%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 29 (1.14%) Azure Sentinel
19 28 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
20 27 (1.06%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 318 (12.51%) DNS
2 287 (11.29%) Firewall
3 201 (7.91%) DHCP
4 193 (7.60%) TCP/IP
5 150 (5.90%) VPN
6 88 (3.46%) LAN
6 88 (3.46%) Wi-Fi
7 87 (3.42%) WAN
8 76 (2.99%) Network Security
9 65 (2.56%) VLAN
10 60 (2.36%) SAN
11 56 (2.20%) SSH
11 56 (2.20%) Wireless
12 48 (1.89%) Cisco IOS
13 41 (1.61%) HTTP
14 32 (1.26%) SMTP
15 31 (1.22%) FTP
16 29 (1.14%) Internet
17 27 (1.06%) SSL
18 24 (0.94%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 115 (4.53%) SQL Server
2 71 (2.79%) Oracle Database
3 62 (2.44%) Relational Database
4 43 (1.69%) MySQL
5 31 (1.22%) Amazon RDS
6 24 (0.94%) PostgreSQL
7 17 (0.67%) Power BI
8 13 (0.51%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
10 10 (0.39%) BigQuery
10 10 (0.39%) NoSQL
11 8 (0.31%) DB2
11 8 (0.31%) GIS
11 8 (0.31%) RDBMS
11 8 (0.31%) SAP HANA
12 6 (0.24%) Big Data
12 6 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
12 6 (0.24%) MongoDB
13 5 (0.20%) HPCC
14 4 (0.16%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 141 (5.55%) JIRA
2 105 (4.13%) Git
3 94 (3.70%) Jenkins
4 44 (1.73%) GitLab
5 42 (1.65%) Eclipse
6 28 (1.10%) Visual Studio
7 26 (1.02%) MSI
8 25 (0.98%) Vagrant
9 20 (0.79%) Android Studio
10 19 (0.75%) Browser DevTools
10 19 (0.75%) Sonatype Nexus
11 18 (0.71%) Bitbucket
11 18 (0.71%) Xcode
12 15 (0.59%) Bitbucket Server
12 15 (0.59%) CA Release Automation
13 14 (0.55%) Artifactory
14 13 (0.51%) Postman
15 12 (0.47%) AdminStudio
15 12 (0.47%) InstallShield
15 12 (0.47%) SonarQube
General
1 949 (37.35%) Social Skills
2 340 (13.38%) Finance
3 242 (9.52%) Public Sector
4 226 (8.89%) Analytical Skills
5 126 (4.96%) Banking
6 108 (4.25%) Documentation Skills
7 65 (2.56%) Legal
8 57 (2.24%) Manufacturing
9 52 (2.05%) Military
10 51 (2.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 51 (2.01%) Organisational Skills
11 48 (1.89%) Presentation Skills
12 44 (1.73%) Telecoms
13 39 (1.53%) Retail
14 31 (1.22%) Games
15 29 (1.14%) Marketing
16 26 (1.02%) Front Office
17 24 (0.94%) Aerospace
18 20 (0.79%) Electronics
19 19 (0.75%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 422 (16.61%) Support Engineer
2 309 (12.16%) Analyst
3 291 (11.45%) IT Support
4 182 (7.16%) IT Engineer
5 151 (5.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 150 (5.90%) Windows Engineer
7 146 (5.75%) Desktop Engineer
8 141 (5.55%) Desktop Support
9 136 (5.35%) Support Analyst
10 129 (5.08%) Senior
11 128 (5.04%) IT Support Engineer
12 126 (4.96%) Architect
13 121 (4.76%) Deployment Engineer
14 116 (4.57%) 2nd Line Support
15 107 (4.21%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 106 (4.17%) Platform Engineer
17 103 (4.05%) Technical Support
18 100 (3.94%) Developer
19 85 (3.35%) Administrator
20 76 (2.99%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.91%) .NET
2 45 (1.77%) Middleware
3 42 (1.65%) LDAP
3 42 (1.65%) WPF
4 41 (1.61%) .NET Framework
5 40 (1.57%) REST
6 39 (1.53%) Web Services
7 36 (1.42%) Node.js
7 36 (1.42%) OAuth
8 34 (1.34%) AngularJS
8 34 (1.34%) SAML
9 29 (1.14%) React
10 28 (1.10%) OpenID
10 28 (1.10%) XML
11 23 (0.91%) SOAP
12 22 (0.87%) CSS
13 20 (0.79%) Ajax
14 19 (0.75%) GraphQL
14 19 (0.75%) RESTful
15 16 (0.63%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 99 (3.90%) Onboarding
2 94 (3.70%) Data Centre
3 86 (3.38%) PKI
4 69 (2.72%) Driving Licence
5 68 (2.68%) Replication
6 62 (2.44%) Self-Motivation
7 55 (2.16%) Enterprise Software
8 53 (2.09%) Management Information System
9 37 (1.46%) iPhone
10 33 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
10 33 (1.30%) NHS
10 33 (1.30%) Video Conferencing
11 32 (1.26%) iPad
12 31 (1.22%) Security Posture
13 29 (1.14%) Smartphone
14 28 (1.10%) Hybrid Cloud
15 27 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
16 23 (0.91%) Mobile App
16 23 (0.91%) Private Cloud
17 22 (0.87%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 621 (24.44%) Linux
2 553 (21.76%) Windows 10
3 491 (19.32%) Windows Server
4 161 (6.34%) Unix
5 148 (5.82%) Android
6 143 (5.63%) Mac OS
7 101 (3.97%) Apple iOS
8 73 (2.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 67 (2.64%) Windows 7
10 56 (2.20%) Windows Server 2016
11 51 (2.01%) Windows Server 2019
12 40 (1.57%) Windows Server 2012
13 36 (1.42%) Ubuntu
13 36 (1.42%) VMS
14 35 (1.38%) Windows Server 2003
15 26 (1.02%) AIX
16 23 (0.91%) CentOS
17 22 (0.87%) Amazon Linux
18 14 (0.55%) Solaris
19 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 458 (18.02%) Problem-Solving
2 384 (15.11%) ITIL
3 344 (13.54%) Customer Service
4 256 (10.07%) Migration
5 250 (9.84%) Agile
6 215 (8.46%) DevOps
7 211 (8.30%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 204 (8.03%) Service Management
9 195 (7.67%) ITSM
10 177 (6.97%) CI/CD
10 177 (6.97%) Cybersecurity
11 150 (5.90%) Continuous Improvement
12 149 (5.86%) Change Management
13 120 (4.72%) User Experience
14 107 (4.21%) Incident Response
15 106 (4.17%) Stakeholder Management
16 103 (4.05%) Cloud Security
17 94 (3.70%) Service Delivery
18 91 (3.58%) Computer Science
18 91 (3.58%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 483 (19.01%) PowerShell
2 325 (12.79%) Python
3 244 (9.60%) SQL
4 135 (5.31%) C#
5 120 (4.72%) Java
6 112 (4.41%) Bash
7 86 (3.38%) JavaScript
8 75 (2.95%) Perl
9 74 (2.91%) C++
10 40 (1.57%) PL/SQL
11 38 (1.50%) VB
12 33 (1.30%) Groovy
13 31 (1.22%) Shell Script
14 30 (1.18%) Kusto Query Language
14 30 (1.18%) VBA
15 27 (1.06%) VBScript
16 24 (0.94%) T-SQL
17 22 (0.87%) PHP
18 20 (0.79%) C
19 13 (0.51%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 745 (29.32%) Security Cleared
2 515 (20.27%) SC Cleared
3 225 (8.85%) Degree
4 194 (7.63%) DV Cleared
5 179 (7.04%) Microsoft Certification
6 65 (2.56%) Computer Science Degree
7 58 (2.28%) Azure Certification
8 48 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
8 48 (1.89%) MCSE
9 47 (1.85%) A+ Certification
10 36 (1.42%) AWS Certification
11 34 (1.34%) CISSP
12 32 (1.26%) DBS Check
12 32 (1.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 31 (1.22%) ITIL Certification
14 30 (1.18%) CCNP
15 29 (1.14%) CCNA
16 22 (0.87%) BPSS Clearance
16 22 (0.87%) MCP
17 20 (0.79%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 86 (3.38%) SLA
2 69 (2.72%) QA
3 60 (2.36%) GDPR
4 55 (2.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 53 (2.09%) NIST
6 15 (0.59%) HIPAA
7 14 (0.55%) PCI DSS
8 11 (0.43%) NCSC
9 10 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
10 9 (0.35%) Accessibility
10 9 (0.35%) PMO
11 5 (0.20%) GLBA
12 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
13 3 (0.12%) ECSS
13 3 (0.12%) GxP
13 3 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 2 (0.079%) COBIT
14 2 (0.079%) Data Quality
14 2 (0.079%) ISO 9001
14 2 (0.079%) MiFID
System Software
1 929 (36.56%) Active Directory
2 236 (9.29%) VMware Infrastructure
3 116 (4.57%) Docker
4 75 (2.95%) Hyper-V
5 65 (2.56%) Virtual Desktop
6 52 (2.05%) Virtual Machines
7 51 (2.01%) vSphere
8 46 (1.81%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.22%) VMware NSX
10 25 (0.98%) DFS Replication
11 21 (0.83%) Microsoft App-V
12 20 (0.79%) BitLocker
13 19 (0.75%) NFS
14 18 (0.71%) Firmware
15 14 (0.55%) Terminal Services
15 14 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
16 10 (0.39%) Brightmail
16 10 (0.39%) Dovecot
16 10 (0.39%) ISA Server
16 10 (0.39%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 383 (15.07%) SCCM
2 286 (11.26%) Microsoft Intune
3 145 (5.71%) Terraform
4 119 (4.68%) Ansible
5 72 (2.83%) Kubernetes
6 53 (2.09%) vCenter Server
7 44 (1.73%) Grafana
8 43 (1.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 41 (1.61%) Jamf Pro
9 41 (1.61%) Single Sign-On
10 30 (1.18%) Prometheus
11 29 (1.14%) WSUS
12 28 (1.10%) SCOM
13 25 (0.98%) Nessus
14 24 (0.94%) Microsoft Clustering
15 23 (0.91%) Puppet
16 22 (0.87%) Progress Chef
17 16 (0.63%) Proxmox
18 13 (0.51%) NetBackup
18 13 (0.51%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,134 (44.63%) Microsoft
2 336 (13.22%) VMware
3 236 (9.29%) ServiceNow
4 202 (7.95%) Oracle
5 170 (6.69%) Cisco
6 161 (6.34%) Citrix
7 136 (5.35%) Splunk
8 71 (2.79%) Apple
8 71 (2.79%) Red Hat
9 60 (2.36%) IBM
10 59 (2.32%) HP
11 53 (2.09%) Dell
12 52 (2.05%) Veeam
13 48 (1.89%) Google
14 43 (1.69%) SolarWinds
15 42 (1.65%) AppDynamics
15 42 (1.65%) SAP
16 41 (1.61%) CyberArk
17 36 (1.42%) NetApp
17 36 (1.42%) Remedy
1,251 Windows jobs in England