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

6 months to
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 20 16
Rank change year-on-year -7 -4 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,535 2,083 3,116
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.04% 8.65% 8.47%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.72% 61.63% 61.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,659 1,464 2,161
10th Percentile £163 £181 £163
25th Percentile £219 £245 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £424 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -0.24% +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £425 £425 £400
% change year-on-year - +6.25% -11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 217 134 259
10th Percentile £15.97 £14.20 £11.65
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.75 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.82% +4.56% -23.40%
75th Percentile £60.00 £25.11 £25.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £59.70 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.51 £18.87 £18.13
% change year-on-year +35.16% +4.08% -22.85%

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 4,107 3,380 5,053
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.79% 14.04% 13.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,669 2,293 3,426
10th Percentile £188 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £455 £467 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.47% -1.79% -6.86%
75th Percentile £570 £588 £588
90th Percentile £650 £689 £700
UK median daily rate £460 £467 £470
% change year-on-year -1.45% -0.74% -6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 290 165 369
10th Percentile £15.74 £15.10 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.27 £17.25 £15.50
Median hourly rate £34.68 £20.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +73.38% -11.11% -47.06%
75th Percentile £65.00 £55.00 £62.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £22.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year +47.73% -2.22% -47.06%

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 5 June 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 5 June 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 5 June 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 -22 793 £430 -4.44% 257
South East -7 525 £475 -2.36% 315
North of England -8 474 £365 +4.29% 191
Midlands -16 272 £325 +12.07% 110
North West +2 259 £350 - 110
South West -14 229 £475 -1.04% 152
East of England +1 222 £348 -13.93% 90
Yorkshire -17 197 £365 -8.75% 62
West Midlands -25 160 £450 +50.00% 65
East Midlands +5 107 £225 -2.70% 45
North East -32 22 £326 +8.75% 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
1 219 (8.64%) Microsoft Exchange
2 165 (6.51%) SharePoint
3 56 (2.21%) IIS
4 52 (2.05%) Confluence
5 19 (0.75%) Apache
6 14 (0.55%) nginx
6 14 (0.55%) Skype for Business
6 14 (0.55%) Tomcat
7 10 (0.39%) WebLogic
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.20%) Appian
9 5 (0.20%) TPMS
10 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) Tuxedo
10 4 (0.16%) WebSphere
11 3 (0.12%) Camunda
11 3 (0.12%) NetWeaver
12 2 (0.079%) Apache Pulsar
12 2 (0.079%) CloudStack
12 2 (0.079%) OpenStack
Applications
1 157 (6.19%) Microsoft Office
2 62 (2.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 22 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.32%) 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 (0.039%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 46 (1.81%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (0.47%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.43%) Teamcenter
4 6 (0.24%) Finacle
5 3 (0.12%) assyst
5 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
5 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
5 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.079%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.079%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.079%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.039%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.039%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 757 (29.86%) Azure
2 739 (29.15%) Microsoft 365
3 328 (12.94%) Entra ID
4 245 (9.66%) AWS
5 86 (3.39%) OneDrive
6 84 (3.31%) GCP
7 68 (2.68%) Azure DevOps
7 68 (2.68%) SaaS
8 64 (2.52%) IaaS
9 59 (2.33%) GitHub
10 54 (2.13%) PaaS
11 46 (1.81%) Power Platform
12 36 (1.42%) Azure Monitor
13 34 (1.34%) Google Workspace
14 32 (1.26%) Azure Sentinel
15 27 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
16 25 (0.99%) OpenShift
17 18 (0.71%) AWS CloudFormation
18 17 (0.67%) Azure AKS
18 17 (0.67%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 349 (13.77%) DNS
2 267 (10.53%) Firewall
3 246 (9.70%) DHCP
4 175 (6.90%) VPN
5 149 (5.88%) LAN
6 147 (5.80%) TCP/IP
7 143 (5.64%) WAN
8 113 (4.46%) Wi-Fi
9 65 (2.56%) SAN
10 63 (2.49%) Network Security
11 53 (2.09%) VLAN
12 37 (1.46%) BGP
13 36 (1.42%) Wireless
14 35 (1.38%) Skype
15 33 (1.30%) OSPF
16 32 (1.26%) VoIP
17 31 (1.22%) SNMP
17 31 (1.22%) SSL
18 30 (1.18%) BIG-IP
18 30 (1.18%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 207 (8.17%) SQL Server
2 44 (1.74%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.26%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.18%) Power BI
5 27 (1.07%) MySQL
6 26 (1.03%) PostgreSQL
7 16 (0.63%) Elasticsearch
8 13 (0.51%) Db2
8 13 (0.51%) MongoDB
8 13 (0.51%) NoSQL
9 10 (0.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 9 (0.36%) Amazon RDS
10 9 (0.36%) RDBMS
11 7 (0.28%) GIS
12 6 (0.24%) BigQuery
12 6 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
12 6 (0.24%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 5 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
13 5 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
14 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 170 (6.71%) JIRA
2 43 (1.70%) Jenkins
3 39 (1.54%) GitLab
4 35 (1.38%) Visual Studio
5 34 (1.34%) Git
5 34 (1.34%) MSI
6 19 (0.75%) Eclipse
7 11 (0.43%) Burp Suite
8 10 (0.39%) Metasploit
9 9 (0.36%) Chocolatey
9 9 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
10 8 (0.32%) Android Studio
10 8 (0.32%) Artifactory
10 8 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
10 8 (0.32%) Xcode
11 7 (0.28%) Bitbucket
11 7 (0.28%) Selenium
12 6 (0.24%) InstallShield
12 6 (0.24%) Robot Framework
13 5 (0.20%) AdminStudio
General
1 871 (34.36%) Social Skills
2 273 (10.77%) Finance
3 241 (9.51%) Analytical Skills
4 165 (6.51%) Public Sector
5 152 (6.00%) Banking
6 93 (3.67%) Documentation Skills
7 87 (3.43%) Legal
8 75 (2.96%) Organisational Skills
9 51 (2.01%) Military
10 48 (1.89%) Retail
11 41 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 37 (1.46%) Law
12 37 (1.46%) Manufacturing
13 36 (1.42%) Investment Banking
14 32 (1.26%) Front Office
15 30 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
16 26 (1.03%) Telecoms
17 21 (0.83%) Local Government
18 19 (0.75%) Spanish Language
19 18 (0.71%) French Language
Job Titles
1 335 (13.21%) IT Support
2 332 (13.10%) Support Engineer
3 277 (10.93%) Analyst
4 222 (8.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 211 (8.32%) IT Engineer
6 176 (6.94%) IT Support Engineer
7 170 (6.71%) Senior
8 131 (5.17%) Architect
9 113 (4.46%) Desktop Support
9 113 (4.46%) Support Analyst
10 104 (4.10%) Desktop Engineer
11 96 (3.79%) 2nd Line Support
12 93 (3.67%) IT Analyst
13 90 (3.55%) Lead
14 85 (3.35%) Technical Support
15 82 (3.23%) Developer
16 66 (2.60%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 66 (2.60%) Windows Engineer
17 65 (2.56%) IT Support Analyst
18 63 (2.49%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 84 (3.31%) .NET
2 75 (2.96%) REST
3 48 (1.89%) .NET Framework
4 37 (1.46%) LDAP
5 32 (1.26%) Microsoft Graph
6 29 (1.14%) SAML
7 28 (1.10%) 802.1X
8 26 (1.03%) Middleware
8 26 (1.03%) WinForms
9 25 (0.99%) Web Services
10 22 (0.87%) OAuth
11 21 (0.83%) WPF
12 19 (0.75%) Kafka
12 19 (0.75%) Software Packaging
13 17 (0.67%) AngularJS
13 17 (0.67%) CSS
13 17 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
14 16 (0.63%) Node.js
14 16 (0.63%) React
15 14 (0.55%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 239 (9.43%) Onboarding
2 121 (4.77%) Data Centre
3 117 (4.62%) PKI
4 82 (3.23%) Clustering
5 74 (2.92%) Enterprise Software
6 58 (2.29%) Self-Motivation
7 56 (2.21%) Management Information System
8 55 (2.17%) Replication
9 48 (1.89%) Hybrid Cloud
10 46 (1.81%) Security Posture
11 45 (1.78%) Driving Licence
12 44 (1.74%) Virtual Team
13 43 (1.70%) Cloud Native
14 40 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
15 36 (1.42%) Smartphone
16 33 (1.30%) CMDB
17 32 (1.26%) Analytical Mindset
18 31 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
19 30 (1.18%) Enterprise Storage
20 29 (1.14%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 618 (24.38%) Linux
2 611 (24.10%) Windows Server
3 465 (18.34%) Windows 10
4 167 (6.59%) Mac OS
5 130 (5.13%) Apple iOS
6 122 (4.81%) Android
7 120 (4.73%) Unix
8 90 (3.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 65 (2.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 58 (2.29%) Windows Server 2016
11 48 (1.89%) Windows 7
12 37 (1.46%) Windows Server 2012
13 29 (1.14%) AIX
14 26 (1.03%) Ubuntu
15 19 (0.75%) Windows Server 2003
16 18 (0.71%) Solaris
16 18 (0.71%) VMS
17 14 (0.55%) Windows Server 2008
18 12 (0.47%) CentOS
19 8 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 542 (21.38%) Problem-Solving
2 386 (15.23%) Customer Service
2 386 (15.23%) ITIL
3 288 (11.36%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 270 (10.65%) Migration
5 249 (9.82%) Agile
5 249 (9.82%) ITSM
6 237 (9.35%) DevOps
7 216 (8.52%) CI/CD
8 187 (7.38%) Continuous Improvement
9 177 (6.98%) Change Management
10 170 (6.71%) Service Management
11 167 (6.59%) High Availability
12 162 (6.39%) Disaster Recovery
13 143 (5.64%) Stakeholder Management
14 133 (5.25%) SIEM
15 132 (5.21%) Cybersecurity
16 128 (5.05%) Infrastructure as Code
17 116 (4.58%) Computer Science
18 113 (4.46%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 566 (22.33%) PowerShell
2 249 (9.82%) SQL
3 247 (9.74%) Python
4 121 (4.77%) C#
5 101 (3.98%) Bash
6 71 (2.80%) Java
7 67 (2.64%) JavaScript
8 47 (1.85%) PL/SQL
9 45 (1.78%) C++
10 42 (1.66%) T-SQL
11 26 (1.03%) Kusto Query Language
12 25 (0.99%) VB
13 22 (0.87%) Search Processing Language
14 21 (0.83%) Shell Script
15 18 (0.71%) VBScript
16 17 (0.67%) Perl
17 16 (0.63%) Bicep
18 13 (0.51%) C
18 13 (0.51%) VBA
19 8 (0.32%) Go
Qualifications
1 756 (29.82%) Security Cleared
2 475 (18.74%) SC Cleared
3 287 (11.32%) Degree
4 248 (9.78%) DV Cleared
5 103 (4.06%) Microsoft Certification
6 77 (3.04%) Computer Science Degree
7 75 (2.96%) Cisco Certification
8 59 (2.33%) CISSP
9 55 (2.17%) Azure Certification
10 44 (1.74%) MCSE
11 36 (1.42%) AWS Certification
12 35 (1.38%) BPSS Clearance
13 32 (1.26%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 30 (1.18%) MCSA
15 27 (1.07%) CCNA
15 27 (1.07%) ITIL Certification
16 25 (0.99%) CISM
17 24 (0.95%) CCNP
18 22 (0.87%) CompTIA Security+
19 20 (0.79%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (4.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 96 (3.79%) SLA
3 81 (3.20%) NIST
4 72 (2.84%) GDPR
4 72 (2.84%) QA
5 34 (1.34%) PCI DSS
6 31 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 24 (0.95%) Cyber Essentials
8 12 (0.47%) NCSC
8 12 (0.47%) NIST 800
9 11 (0.43%) Data Quality
9 11 (0.43%) MiFID
10 10 (0.39%) FINRA
10 10 (0.39%) HIPAA
11 9 (0.36%) PMO
12 7 (0.28%) GRC
12 7 (0.28%) SOC 2
13 6 (0.24%) ISO 31000
14 5 (0.20%) DICOM
14 5 (0.20%) GLBA
System Software
1 963 (37.99%) Active Directory
2 327 (12.90%) VMware Infrastructure
3 142 (5.60%) Hyper-V
4 99 (3.91%) VMware ESXi
5 93 (3.67%) vSphere
6 87 (3.43%) Virtual Machines
7 86 (3.39%) Docker
8 52 (2.05%) Virtual Desktop
9 50 (1.97%) VMware NSX
10 37 (1.46%) BitLocker
11 36 (1.42%) Firmware
12 28 (1.10%) Microsoft App-V
13 20 (0.79%) KVM
14 11 (0.43%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.39%) vCloud
15 10 (0.39%) XenApp
16 8 (0.32%) VMware Workstation
17 6 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
17 6 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
18 5 (0.20%) etcd
Systems Management
1 355 (14.00%) Microsoft Intune
2 227 (8.95%) SCCM
3 174 (6.86%) Ansible
4 159 (6.27%) Terraform
5 123 (4.85%) Kubernetes
6 85 (3.35%) vCenter Server
7 44 (1.74%) Single Sign-On
8 41 (1.62%) SCOM
9 38 (1.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 38 (1.50%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (1.42%) FortiGate
11 35 (1.38%) WSUS
12 27 (1.07%) Grafana
12 27 (1.07%) Nagios
13 25 (0.99%) Progress Chef
13 25 (0.99%) Prometheus
14 20 (0.79%) Puppet
15 19 (0.75%) Nessus
16 18 (0.71%) Tivoli
16 18 (0.71%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,099 (43.35%) Microsoft
2 422 (16.65%) VMware
3 234 (9.23%) ServiceNow
4 187 (7.38%) Citrix
5 175 (6.90%) Cisco
6 149 (5.88%) Oracle
7 131 (5.17%) Splunk
8 71 (2.80%) HP
8 71 (2.80%) SolarWinds
9 63 (2.49%) Red Hat
10 60 (2.37%) Google
11 58 (2.29%) Dell
11 58 (2.29%) Remedy
12 52 (2.05%) Apple
13 48 (1.89%) CyberArk
14 45 (1.78%) F5
14 45 (1.78%) IBM
15 44 (1.74%) Juniper
16 38 (1.50%) BeyondTrust
17 35 (1.38%) Palo Alto