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

6 months to
7 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 21 19 14
Rank change year-on-year -2 -5 +1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,510 2,591 4,000
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.44% 8.29% 10.07%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.38% 58.49% 64.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,690 1,638 2,682
10th Percentile £163 £188 £163
25th Percentile £204 £250 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £420 £418
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% +0.60% -1.76%
75th Percentile £539 £575 £586
90th Percentile £638 £638 £675
UK median daily rate £390 £425 £425
% change year-on-year -8.24% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 266 109 240
10th Percentile £13.00 £15.22 £14.18
25th Percentile £17.34 £17.44 £17.72
Median hourly rate £21.46 £24.18 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.25% +7.47% +3.31%
75th Percentile £29.69 £65.00 £55.46
90th Percentile £65.00 £70.50 £68.63
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.00
% change year-on-year -9.02% +9.91% +7.32%

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 4,157 4,430 6,196
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 13.98% 14.17% 15.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,721 2,733 4,255
10th Percentile £185 £203 £185
25th Percentile £263 £325 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -2.56% -4.40%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £623
90th Percentile £673 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £488
% change year-on-year -5.26% -2.56% -4.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 327 183 328
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.25 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.13 £18.50
Median hourly rate £23.00 £57.50 £38.75
Median % change year-on-year -60.00% +48.39% +55.00%
75th Percentile £43.75 £69.84 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £70.00 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £52.50 £33.50
% change year-on-year -54.29% +56.72% +34.00%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 -14 776 £438 +9.38% 949
South East +4 510 £333 -22.22% 1,156
North of England -3 387 £290 -27.50% 493
South West +5 332 £400 -11.11% 298
Midlands -7 298 £365 -3.95% 294
East of England 0 216 £252 -40.63% 216
West Midlands -6 212 £400 +5.26% 149
North West -4 211 £335 -25.56% 339
Yorkshire -11 146 £230 -38.67% 108
East Midlands -3 85 £210 -44.00% 138
North East +5 33 £200 -37.50% 46
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
1 237 (9.44%) Microsoft Exchange
2 165 (6.57%) SharePoint
3 78 (3.11%) Confluence
4 51 (2.03%) Apache
5 40 (1.59%) IIS
6 25 (1.00%) WebSphere
7 23 (0.92%) Skype for Business
8 20 (0.80%) JBoss
9 17 (0.68%) WebLogic
10 15 (0.60%) SharePoint Server
11 12 (0.48%) nginx
12 11 (0.44%) Exchange Server 2010
12 11 (0.44%) Exchange Server 2013
12 11 (0.44%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2003
13 10 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2007
13 10 (0.40%) iPlanet
13 10 (0.40%) Office Communications Server
14 7 (0.28%) Tomcat
15 5 (0.20%) Documentum
Applications
1 224 (8.92%) Microsoft Office
2 85 (3.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.40%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 6 (0.24%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.080%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.080%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.080%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.080%) Windchill
8 1 (0.040%) Acrobat
8 1 (0.040%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.040%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.040%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.040%) InDesign
8 1 (0.040%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.040%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 14 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.28%) Maximo
3 5 (0.20%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.12%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.080%) Eikon
5 2 (0.080%) Fidessa
5 2 (0.080%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.080%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.080%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.080%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.080%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.080%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.080%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.040%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.040%) Eze OMS
6 1 (0.040%) OpenText MBPM
6 1 (0.040%) Oracle 11i
6 1 (0.040%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.040%) RMDS
6 1 (0.040%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 693 (27.61%) Microsoft 365
2 551 (21.95%) Azure
3 223 (8.88%) Entra ID
4 212 (8.45%) AWS
5 82 (3.27%) OneDrive
6 72 (2.87%) SaaS
7 53 (2.11%) GCP
8 50 (1.99%) IaaS
9 46 (1.83%) Google Workspace
10 45 (1.79%) Azure DevOps
11 39 (1.55%) GitHub
11 39 (1.55%) PaaS
11 39 (1.55%) Power Platform
12 35 (1.39%) Amazon S3
13 33 (1.31%) Amazon EC2
14 32 (1.27%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 30 (1.20%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 30 (1.20%) Azure Sentinel
16 28 (1.12%) Azure Monitor
17 27 (1.08%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 320 (12.75%) DNS
2 275 (10.96%) Firewall
3 191 (7.61%) DHCP
4 185 (7.37%) TCP/IP
5 156 (6.22%) VPN
6 98 (3.90%) LAN
6 98 (3.90%) WAN
7 88 (3.51%) Wi-Fi
8 76 (3.03%) SAN
9 73 (2.91%) Network Security
10 66 (2.63%) VLAN
11 54 (2.15%) SSH
12 51 (2.03%) Wireless
13 48 (1.91%) Cisco IOS
14 38 (1.51%) HTTP
15 31 (1.24%) SMTP
16 28 (1.12%) FTP
16 28 (1.12%) Internet
17 27 (1.08%) SSL
18 24 (0.96%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (4.42%) SQL Server
2 64 (2.55%) Oracle Database
3 61 (2.43%) Relational Database
4 44 (1.75%) MySQL
5 34 (1.35%) Amazon RDS
6 23 (0.92%) PostgreSQL
7 16 (0.64%) Power BI
8 12 (0.48%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
9 11 (0.44%) DB2
9 11 (0.44%) NoSQL
10 9 (0.36%) BigQuery
11 8 (0.32%) GIS
11 8 (0.32%) RDBMS
11 8 (0.32%) SAP HANA
11 8 (0.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 7 (0.28%) MongoDB
13 6 (0.24%) Big Data
13 6 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
14 5 (0.20%) HPCC
Development Applications
1 138 (5.50%) JIRA
2 97 (3.86%) Git
3 90 (3.59%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.63%) GitLab
5 37 (1.47%) Eclipse
6 31 (1.24%) MSI
7 25 (1.00%) Vagrant
8 23 (0.92%) Visual Studio
9 20 (0.80%) Sonatype Nexus
10 19 (0.76%) Android Studio
10 19 (0.76%) Browser DevTools
11 18 (0.72%) Xcode
12 15 (0.60%) Bitbucket
12 15 (0.60%) Bitbucket Server
12 15 (0.60%) CA Release Automation
13 13 (0.52%) Postman
14 12 (0.48%) AdminStudio
14 12 (0.48%) Artifactory
15 11 (0.44%) InstallShield
15 11 (0.44%) SonarQube
General
1 926 (36.89%) Social Skills
2 338 (13.47%) Finance
3 228 (9.08%) Public Sector
4 216 (8.61%) Analytical Skills
5 115 (4.58%) Banking
6 99 (3.94%) Documentation Skills
7 65 (2.59%) Legal
8 60 (2.39%) Manufacturing
9 59 (2.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 54 (2.15%) Organisational Skills
11 42 (1.67%) Presentation Skills
12 41 (1.63%) Military
13 39 (1.55%) Telecoms
14 38 (1.51%) Retail
15 31 (1.24%) Games
16 28 (1.12%) Marketing
17 25 (1.00%) Front Office
18 22 (0.88%) Aerospace
19 20 (0.80%) Electronics
20 18 (0.72%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 426 (16.97%) Support Engineer
2 301 (11.99%) Analyst
3 283 (11.27%) IT Support
4 184 (7.33%) IT Engineer
5 152 (6.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 149 (5.94%) Windows Engineer
7 141 (5.62%) Desktop Support
8 139 (5.54%) Desktop Engineer
9 135 (5.38%) Support Analyst
10 127 (5.06%) IT Support Engineer
11 126 (5.02%) Architect
12 124 (4.94%) Deployment Engineer
13 119 (4.74%) Senior
14 114 (4.54%) 2nd Line Support
15 106 (4.22%) Technical Support
16 103 (4.10%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 99 (3.94%) Platform Engineer
18 81 (3.23%) Developer
19 80 (3.19%) Administrator
20 74 (2.95%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (2.47%) .NET
2 46 (1.83%) Middleware
3 42 (1.67%) LDAP
4 37 (1.47%) Web Services
5 35 (1.39%) WPF
6 34 (1.35%) .NET Framework
7 33 (1.31%) AngularJS
7 33 (1.31%) OAuth
8 32 (1.27%) Node.js
8 32 (1.27%) REST
9 31 (1.24%) SAML
10 30 (1.20%) XML
11 28 (1.12%) React
12 25 (1.00%) OpenID
13 22 (0.88%) CSS
13 22 (0.88%) SOAP
14 20 (0.80%) Ajax
15 19 (0.76%) GraphQL
16 15 (0.60%) RESTful
17 13 (0.52%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 95 (3.78%) Onboarding
2 89 (3.55%) Data Centre
3 74 (2.95%) PKI
4 66 (2.63%) Driving Licence
5 65 (2.59%) Replication
6 60 (2.39%) Self-Motivation
7 52 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
7 52 (2.07%) Management Information System
8 40 (1.59%) iPhone
9 36 (1.43%) iPad
10 34 (1.35%) NHS
11 33 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
12 32 (1.27%) Video Conferencing
13 31 (1.24%) Security Posture
14 27 (1.08%) Smartphone
15 25 (1.00%) Hybrid Cloud
16 24 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
16 24 (0.96%) Mobile App
17 23 (0.92%) Private Cloud
18 22 (0.88%) Fat Client
Operating Systems
1 582 (23.19%) Linux
2 566 (22.55%) Windows 10
3 480 (19.12%) Windows Server
4 162 (6.45%) Unix
5 136 (5.42%) Mac OS
6 134 (5.34%) Android
7 103 (4.10%) Apple iOS
8 71 (2.83%) Windows Server 2016
9 70 (2.79%) Windows 7
9 70 (2.79%) Windows Server 2019
10 69 (2.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 39 (1.55%) Windows Server 2012
12 37 (1.47%) Windows Server 2003
13 36 (1.43%) Ubuntu
14 35 (1.39%) VMS
15 23 (0.92%) Amazon Linux
15 23 (0.92%) CentOS
16 22 (0.88%) AIX
17 14 (0.56%) Solaris
17 14 (0.56%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 444 (17.69%) Problem-Solving
2 385 (15.34%) ITIL
3 331 (13.19%) Customer Service
4 251 (10.00%) Migration
5 227 (9.04%) Agile
6 210 (8.37%) DevOps
7 206 (8.21%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 196 (7.81%) Service Management
9 192 (7.65%) ITSM
10 165 (6.57%) Cybersecurity
11 153 (6.10%) CI/CD
12 141 (5.62%) Change Management
13 138 (5.50%) Continuous Improvement
14 117 (4.66%) User Experience
15 115 (4.58%) Stakeholder Management
16 101 (4.02%) Incident Response
17 100 (3.98%) Cloud Security
18 98 (3.90%) SIEM
19 95 (3.78%) Service Delivery
20 93 (3.71%) Patch Management
Programming Languages
1 478 (19.04%) PowerShell
2 310 (12.35%) Python
3 236 (9.40%) SQL
4 118 (4.70%) C#
5 115 (4.58%) Java
6 107 (4.26%) Bash
7 80 (3.19%) JavaScript
8 71 (2.83%) Perl
9 65 (2.59%) C++
10 44 (1.75%) VB
11 36 (1.43%) PL/SQL
12 33 (1.31%) Groovy
13 32 (1.27%) VBA
14 30 (1.20%) Shell Script
15 29 (1.16%) Kusto Query Language
16 26 (1.04%) VBScript
17 20 (0.80%) C
17 20 (0.80%) PHP
18 17 (0.68%) T-SQL
19 16 (0.64%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 715 (28.49%) Security Cleared
2 482 (19.20%) SC Cleared
3 215 (8.57%) Degree
4 194 (7.73%) DV Cleared
5 173 (6.89%) Microsoft Certification
6 63 (2.51%) Computer Science Degree
7 56 (2.23%) Azure Certification
8 49 (1.95%) A+ Certification
8 49 (1.95%) Cisco Certification
9 47 (1.87%) MCSE
10 36 (1.43%) DBS Check
10 36 (1.43%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 35 (1.39%) CISSP
12 32 (1.27%) AWS Certification
12 32 (1.27%) ITIL Certification
13 30 (1.20%) CCNA
13 30 (1.20%) CCNP
14 23 (0.92%) MCP
15 22 (0.88%) BPSS Clearance
16 21 (0.84%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 98 (3.90%) SLA
2 64 (2.55%) QA
3 60 (2.39%) GDPR
4 54 (2.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 51 (2.03%) NIST
6 17 (0.68%) HIPAA
7 13 (0.52%) PCI DSS
8 11 (0.44%) Accessibility
8 11 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
9 10 (0.40%) NCSC
10 9 (0.36%) PMO
11 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
12 3 (0.12%) ECSS
12 3 (0.12%) GLBA
12 3 (0.12%) GxP
12 3 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 2 (0.080%) COBIT
13 2 (0.080%) GAAP
13 2 (0.080%) ISO 9001
13 2 (0.080%) MiFID
System Software
1 929 (37.01%) Active Directory
2 241 (9.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 106 (4.22%) Docker
4 75 (2.99%) Hyper-V
5 67 (2.67%) Virtual Desktop
6 57 (2.27%) vSphere
7 55 (2.19%) Virtual Machines
8 51 (2.03%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.24%) VMware NSX
10 29 (1.16%) Virtual Servers
11 25 (1.00%) DFS Replication
12 24 (0.96%) Microsoft App-V
13 22 (0.88%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 20 (0.80%) NFS
15 19 (0.76%) BitLocker
16 18 (0.72%) Firmware
17 12 (0.48%) Terminal Services
18 10 (0.40%) ISA Server
18 10 (0.40%) Postfix
18 10 (0.40%) Squid
Systems Management
1 392 (15.62%) SCCM
2 284 (11.31%) Microsoft Intune
3 137 (5.46%) Terraform
4 121 (4.82%) Ansible
5 66 (2.63%) Kubernetes
6 53 (2.11%) vCenter Server
7 46 (1.83%) WSUS
8 43 (1.71%) Grafana
9 41 (1.63%) Jamf Pro
10 39 (1.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 36 (1.43%) Single Sign-On
12 31 (1.24%) Prometheus
13 25 (1.00%) Microsoft Clustering
13 25 (1.00%) Nessus
14 24 (0.96%) SCOM
15 23 (0.92%) Puppet
16 22 (0.88%) Progress Chef
17 16 (0.64%) Proxmox
18 13 (0.52%) NetBackup
18 13 (0.52%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 1,133 (45.14%) Microsoft
2 342 (13.63%) VMware
3 246 (9.80%) ServiceNow
4 194 (7.73%) Oracle
5 163 (6.49%) Cisco
6 153 (6.10%) Citrix
7 150 (5.98%) Splunk
8 68 (2.71%) Red Hat
9 65 (2.59%) Apple
10 59 (2.35%) IBM
11 56 (2.23%) HP
12 55 (2.19%) NetApp
13 52 (2.07%) Dell
14 50 (1.99%) Google
14 50 (1.99%) Veeam
15 43 (1.71%) SolarWinds
16 42 (1.67%) AppDynamics
16 42 (1.67%) SAP
17 39 (1.55%) CyberArk
18 36 (1.43%) Remedy