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 21 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 21 16
Rank change year-on-year -6 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,671 2,262 3,084
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.96% 8.30% 8.72%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.63% 60.97% 61.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,716 1,529 2,085
10th Percentile £168 £180 £173
25th Percentile £225 £230 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £423 £415 £438
Median % change year-on-year +1.87% -5.14% -2.78%
75th Percentile £552 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £663
UK median daily rate £425 £421 £425
% change year-on-year +0.95% -0.94% -5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 231 178 255
10th Percentile £16.09 £15.12 £11.80
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.03 £14.60
Median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.46% -5.65% -20.00%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.23 £40.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £65.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.51 £18.87 £20.00
% change year-on-year +35.16% -5.65% -17.73%

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 4,334 3,710 4,996
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.67% 13.61% 14.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,791 2,468 3,306
10th Percentile £190 £200 £195
25th Percentile £313 £313 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £463 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -2.63% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £468 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +1.08% -2.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 292 222 360
10th Percentile £16.02 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £18.01 £16.25
Median hourly rate £32.50 £23.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.30% -8.00% -41.18%
75th Percentile £65.00 £56.88 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.90 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £23.00 £24.50
% change year-on-year +13.04% -6.12% -42.35%

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 21 July 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 21 July 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 21 July 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 -19 865 £415 -6.74% 241
South East -9 571 £475 -3.46% 292
North of England -9 476 £350 - 206
Midlands -14 275 £382 +27.33% 108
South West -11 264 £488 +14.71% 105
North West -8 250 £350 -2.23% 112
Yorkshire -11 204 £365 -8.75% 59
East of England -3 203 £335 +34.00% 102
West Midlands -24 174 £450 +38.46% 58
East Midlands +10 96 £270 +35.00% 50
North East -40 26 £273 -0.91% 41
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
1 222 (8.31%) Microsoft Exchange
2 210 (7.86%) SharePoint
3 58 (2.17%) Confluence
4 55 (2.06%) IIS
5 16 (0.60%) nginx
6 14 (0.52%) Apache
6 14 (0.52%) Tomcat
7 10 (0.37%) Skype for Business
8 9 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.30%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.22%) Appian
10 6 (0.22%) Documentum
11 5 (0.19%) Camunda
12 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
13 3 (0.11%) FactoryTalk
13 3 (0.11%) NetWeaver
13 3 (0.11%) Tuxedo
14 2 (0.075%) Oracle HTTP Server
14 2 (0.075%) SAS
Applications
1 158 (5.92%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.15%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.11%) Acrobat
8 2 (0.075%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.075%) Houdini
8 2 (0.075%) NUKE
8 2 (0.075%) PTC Creo
9 1 (0.037%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.037%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 49 (1.83%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.37%) Finacle
3 9 (0.34%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.26%) Teamcenter
5 6 (0.22%) OpenText MBPM
5 6 (0.22%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.075%) assyst
8 1 (0.037%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.037%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.037%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.037%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.037%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 830 (31.07%) Azure
2 804 (30.10%) Microsoft 365
3 395 (14.79%) Entra ID
4 293 (10.97%) AWS
5 117 (4.38%) OneDrive
6 88 (3.29%) GCP
7 86 (3.22%) Azure DevOps
8 71 (2.66%) SaaS
9 63 (2.36%) Azure Monitor
10 62 (2.32%) IaaS
11 56 (2.10%) GitHub
12 53 (1.98%) PaaS
12 53 (1.98%) Power Platform
13 41 (1.54%) Azure Sentinel
14 28 (1.05%) AWS CloudFormation
15 25 (0.94%) Azure AKS
15 25 (0.94%) Google Workspace
16 24 (0.90%) OpenShift
17 23 (0.86%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 22 (0.82%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 399 (14.94%) DNS
2 301 (11.27%) Firewall
3 275 (10.30%) DHCP
4 193 (7.23%) VPN
5 187 (7.00%) TCP/IP
6 153 (5.73%) LAN
7 140 (5.24%) WAN
8 126 (4.72%) Wi-Fi
9 84 (3.14%) SAN
10 63 (2.36%) Network Security
11 59 (2.21%) VLAN
12 45 (1.68%) BGP
13 43 (1.61%) SSL
14 38 (1.42%) Internet
14 38 (1.42%) NAS
15 36 (1.35%) OSPF
16 35 (1.31%) Wireless
17 28 (1.05%) Skype
17 28 (1.05%) VoIP
18 27 (1.01%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 245 (9.17%) SQL Server
2 52 (1.95%) Oracle Database
3 38 (1.42%) Power BI
4 27 (1.01%) PostgreSQL
5 26 (0.97%) Relational Database
6 22 (0.82%) MySQL
7 20 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
7 20 (0.75%) Db2
8 16 (0.60%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 13 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
10 12 (0.45%) RDBMS
11 11 (0.41%) NoSQL
12 10 (0.37%) MongoDB
13 9 (0.34%) Geospatial Data
13 9 (0.34%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 8 (0.30%) Data Warehouse
14 8 (0.30%) SQL Server Analysis Services
15 7 (0.26%) GIS
16 5 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
16 5 (0.19%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 171 (6.40%) JIRA
2 52 (1.95%) Git
3 47 (1.76%) MSI
4 42 (1.57%) Jenkins
5 34 (1.27%) GitLab
6 33 (1.24%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.64%) Eclipse
8 10 (0.37%) Bitbucket
9 8 (0.30%) Chocolatey
10 7 (0.26%) Browser DevTools
11 6 (0.22%) Android Studio
11 6 (0.22%) Artifactory
11 6 (0.22%) InstallShield
11 6 (0.22%) Xcode
12 5 (0.19%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.19%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 5 (0.19%) Selenium
12 5 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
13 4 (0.15%) Appium
13 4 (0.15%) Burp Suite
General
1 967 (36.20%) Social Skills
2 308 (11.53%) Finance
3 299 (11.19%) Analytical Skills
4 169 (6.33%) Public Sector
5 155 (5.80%) Banking
6 98 (3.67%) Documentation Skills
7 83 (3.11%) Organisational Skills
8 78 (2.92%) Legal
9 57 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 50 (1.87%) Retail
11 44 (1.65%) Military
12 41 (1.54%) Manufacturing
13 35 (1.31%) Front Office
13 35 (1.31%) Investment Banking
13 35 (1.31%) Telecoms
14 32 (1.20%) Law
15 26 (0.97%) Spanish Language
16 23 (0.86%) Financial Institution
17 21 (0.79%) French Language
17 21 (0.79%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 387 (14.49%) Support Engineer
2 363 (13.59%) IT Support
3 261 (9.77%) IT Engineer
4 259 (9.70%) Analyst
5 252 (9.43%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 220 (8.24%) IT Support Engineer
7 201 (7.53%) Senior
8 121 (4.53%) 2nd Line Support
9 113 (4.23%) Architect
10 109 (4.08%) Desktop Support
11 99 (3.71%) Developer
12 98 (3.67%) Desktop Engineer
12 98 (3.67%) Support Analyst
13 95 (3.56%) Cloud Engineer
14 89 (3.33%) Lead
15 83 (3.11%) IT Analyst
16 76 (2.85%) Consultant
17 72 (2.70%) Windows Engineer
18 70 (2.62%) 1st Line Support
19 69 (2.58%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (3.74%) .NET
2 91 (3.41%) REST
3 60 (2.25%) .NET Framework
4 31 (1.16%) 802.1X
5 28 (1.05%) LDAP
5 28 (1.05%) Microsoft Graph
5 28 (1.05%) Middleware
6 27 (1.01%) WinForms
6 27 (1.01%) WPF
7 25 (0.94%) Web Services
8 22 (0.82%) CSS
9 21 (0.79%) Software Packaging
10 20 (0.75%) JSON
11 19 (0.71%) Elastic Stack
12 18 (0.67%) Kafka
13 17 (0.64%) RESTful
13 17 (0.64%) SAML
14 16 (0.60%) HTML
14 16 (0.60%) Node.js
15 15 (0.56%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 283 (10.60%) Onboarding
2 140 (5.24%) PKI
3 139 (5.20%) Data Centre
4 78 (2.92%) Clustering
5 74 (2.77%) Management Information System
6 70 (2.62%) Enterprise Software
7 66 (2.47%) Cloud Native
8 63 (2.36%) Self-Motivation
9 54 (2.02%) Hybrid Cloud
10 52 (1.95%) Security Posture
10 52 (1.95%) Video Conferencing
11 48 (1.80%) Driving Licence
11 48 (1.80%) Replication
12 47 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
13 40 (1.50%) Virtual Team
14 33 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
14 33 (1.24%) Data Protection Act
15 32 (1.20%) Linux Command Line
16 28 (1.05%) CMDB
17 27 (1.01%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 650 (24.34%) Windows Server
2 642 (24.04%) Linux
3 463 (17.33%) Windows 10
4 180 (6.74%) Mac OS
5 127 (4.75%) Apple iOS
6 124 (4.64%) Android
7 122 (4.57%) Unix
8 105 (3.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 66 (2.47%) Windows Server 2019
10 42 (1.57%) Windows Server 2016
11 40 (1.50%) Ubuntu
12 34 (1.27%) Windows Server 2012
13 32 (1.20%) AIX
13 32 (1.20%) Windows 7
14 20 (0.75%) CentOS
15 19 (0.71%) Solaris
16 18 (0.67%) VMS
17 14 (0.52%) Windows Server 2008
18 11 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
19 9 (0.34%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 612 (22.91%) Problem-Solving
2 464 (17.37%) ITIL
3 406 (15.20%) Customer Service
4 329 (12.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 302 (11.31%) Migration
6 293 (10.97%) ITSM
7 255 (9.55%) DevOps
8 249 (9.32%) Continuous Improvement
9 246 (9.21%) Agile
10 237 (8.87%) CI/CD
11 209 (7.82%) Service Management
12 188 (7.04%) Infrastructure as Code
13 183 (6.85%) Change Management
14 171 (6.40%) High Availability
15 168 (6.29%) Stakeholder Management
16 147 (5.50%) Cybersecurity
17 144 (5.39%) SIEM
18 139 (5.20%) Runbook
19 138 (5.17%) Service Delivery
20 136 (5.09%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 600 (22.46%) PowerShell
2 283 (10.60%) Python
3 270 (10.11%) SQL
4 144 (5.39%) Bash
5 130 (4.87%) C#
6 66 (2.47%) Java
7 65 (2.43%) JavaScript
8 50 (1.87%) PL/SQL
9 49 (1.83%) T-SQL
10 45 (1.68%) C++
11 38 (1.42%) Bicep
12 24 (0.90%) Search Processing Language
13 21 (0.79%) VB
14 18 (0.67%) Shell Script
15 17 (0.64%) TypeScript
15 17 (0.64%) VBScript
16 16 (0.60%) Kusto Query Language
17 15 (0.56%) Perl
18 14 (0.52%) C
18 14 (0.52%) VBA
Qualifications
1 808 (30.25%) Security Cleared
2 481 (18.01%) SC Cleared
3 295 (11.04%) Degree
4 293 (10.97%) DV Cleared
5 107 (4.01%) Microsoft Certification
6 80 (3.00%) Cisco Certification
7 72 (2.70%) Computer Science Degree
8 64 (2.40%) Azure Certification
9 62 (2.32%) CISSP
10 50 (1.87%) AWS Certification
11 44 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
12 36 (1.35%) A+ Certification
13 34 (1.27%) MCSE
14 31 (1.16%) CCNA
15 27 (1.01%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 26 (0.97%) CCNP
17 24 (0.90%) ITIL Certification
17 24 (0.90%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 23 (0.86%) CISM
18 23 (0.86%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 119 (4.46%) SLA
2 112 (4.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 82 (3.07%) NIST
4 69 (2.58%) QA
5 32 (1.20%) GDPR
6 26 (0.97%) Cyber Essentials
6 26 (0.97%) PCI DSS
7 22 (0.82%) NCSC
8 17 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 12 (0.45%) Data Quality
10 11 (0.41%) Accessibility
10 11 (0.41%) HIPAA
11 9 (0.34%) GRC
11 9 (0.34%) NIST 800
11 9 (0.34%) PMO
11 9 (0.34%) WCAG
12 8 (0.30%) SOC 2
13 7 (0.26%) GxP
14 6 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 6 (0.22%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 1,055 (39.50%) Active Directory
2 356 (13.33%) VMware Infrastructure
3 140 (5.24%) Hyper-V
4 121 (4.53%) VMware ESXi
5 102 (3.82%) vSphere
6 97 (3.63%) Virtual Machines
7 93 (3.48%) Docker
8 72 (2.70%) Virtual Desktop
9 64 (2.40%) VMware NSX
10 35 (1.31%) Firmware
11 31 (1.16%) BitLocker
12 26 (0.97%) Microsoft App-V
13 17 (0.64%) KVM
14 15 (0.56%) vCloud
15 8 (0.30%) VMware Workstation
15 8 (0.30%) XenDesktop
16 7 (0.26%) NFS
16 7 (0.26%) XenApp
17 6 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
17 6 (0.22%) UAG
Systems Management
1 399 (14.94%) Microsoft Intune
2 245 (9.17%) SCCM
3 217 (8.12%) Terraform
4 183 (6.85%) Ansible
5 139 (5.20%) Kubernetes
6 107 (4.01%) vCenter Server
7 60 (2.25%) SCOM
8 49 (1.83%) Jamf Pro
9 38 (1.42%) FortiGate
10 37 (1.39%) WSUS
11 33 (1.24%) Progress Chef
12 31 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
13 27 (1.01%) Puppet
14 25 (0.94%) Grafana
15 24 (0.90%) Prometheus
16 23 (0.86%) Nagios
17 22 (0.82%) Packer
18 21 (0.79%) Nessus
19 20 (0.75%) ZABBIX
20 19 (0.71%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,167 (43.69%) Microsoft
2 472 (17.67%) VMware
3 271 (10.15%) ServiceNow
4 182 (6.81%) Citrix
5 175 (6.55%) Cisco
6 152 (5.69%) Oracle
7 117 (4.38%) Splunk
8 81 (3.03%) Apple
9 79 (2.96%) SolarWinds
10 75 (2.81%) CyberArk
11 69 (2.58%) Red Hat
12 66 (2.47%) Google
12 66 (2.47%) HP
13 60 (2.25%) Remedy
14 56 (2.10%) BeyondTrust
15 54 (2.02%) Dell
16 51 (1.91%) Juniper
17 47 (1.76%) IBM
18 43 (1.61%) F5
19 38 (1.42%) BMC