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 12 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
12 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 23 13
Rank change year-on-year +1 -10 +2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,422 2,173 3,509
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.81% 8.13% 9.64%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.16% 58.35% 63.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,684 1,427 2,382
10th Percentile £163 £183 £155
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £556 £575
90th Percentile £638 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 73 208
10th Percentile £12.93 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.14 £17.00 £16.77
Median hourly rate £22.00 £22.50 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.22% +7.14% +2.44%
75th Percentile £43.75 £57.62 £47.26
90th Percentile £67.17 £74.35 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £23.99 £21.00
% change year-on-year -8.30% +14.24% +5.00%

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 4,026 3,724 5,526
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.98% 13.94% 15.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,677 2,347 3,821
10th Percentile £175 £200 £178
25th Percentile £263 £313 £270
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -6.86%
75th Percentile £565 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 302 125 295
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.35 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.30 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.04 £52.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -52.31% +75.00% +20.00%
75th Percentile £61.25 £68.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £73.90 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £34.00 £31.00
% change year-on-year -26.03% +9.68% +24.00%

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 12 January 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 12 January 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 12 January 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 -19 704 £450 +11.11% 213
South East 0 494 £400 - 427
North of England -3 423 £238 -31.93% 270
South West +3 308 £425 +6.25% 186
Midlands -3 304 £350 +7.69% 175
North West -5 241 £263 -25.00% 122
West Midlands -6 202 £450 +38.46% 76
East of England +6 187 £253 -22.31% 182
Yorkshire -13 155 £290 -17.26% 119
East Midlands 0 102 £210 -36.12% 98
North East 0 30 £184 -43.02% 35
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
1 202 (8.34%) Microsoft Exchange
2 170 (7.02%) SharePoint
3 72 (2.97%) Confluence
4 44 (1.82%) Apache
4 44 (1.82%) IIS
5 25 (1.03%) WebLogic
6 18 (0.74%) Skype for Business
7 16 (0.66%) WebSphere
8 13 (0.54%) JBoss
9 12 (0.50%) nginx
10 11 (0.45%) SharePoint Server
10 11 (0.45%) WebSphere Application Server
11 10 (0.41%) iPlanet
12 9 (0.37%) Exchange Server 2010
12 9 (0.37%) TPMS
13 8 (0.33%) Tuxedo
14 7 (0.29%) Exchange Server 2013
15 6 (0.25%) Office Communications Server
15 6 (0.25%) SAS
15 6 (0.25%) Tomcat
Applications
1 233 (9.62%) Microsoft Office
2 73 (3.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (1.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (0.54%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.37%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.21%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.083%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.083%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.083%) Windchill
9 1 (0.041%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.041%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.041%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.041%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.041%) InDesign
9 1 (0.041%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.041%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 23 (0.95%) Remedy ITSM
2 6 (0.25%) assyst
3 4 (0.17%) Oracle 11i
3 4 (0.17%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 2 (0.083%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.083%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.083%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.083%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.083%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.083%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.083%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.041%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.041%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.041%) Fidessa
6 1 (0.041%) ION MarketView
6 1 (0.041%) Oracle FAH
6 1 (0.041%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.041%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.041%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 668 (27.58%) Microsoft 365
2 566 (23.37%) Azure
3 214 (8.84%) Entra ID
4 210 (8.67%) AWS
5 80 (3.30%) OneDrive
6 64 (2.64%) GCP
7 63 (2.60%) SaaS
8 44 (1.82%) Google Workspace
9 43 (1.78%) Azure DevOps
9 43 (1.78%) IaaS
10 42 (1.73%) GitHub
11 33 (1.36%) Azure Monitor
12 32 (1.32%) Power Platform
13 28 (1.16%) PaaS
14 23 (0.95%) Amazon S3
15 22 (0.91%) Azure Sentinel
15 22 (0.91%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 20 (0.83%) Amazon EC2
17 19 (0.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 19 (0.78%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 306 (12.63%) DNS
2 259 (10.69%) Firewall
3 192 (7.93%) DHCP
4 177 (7.31%) TCP/IP
5 158 (6.52%) VPN
6 92 (3.80%) WAN
7 88 (3.63%) Wi-Fi
8 85 (3.51%) LAN
9 80 (3.30%) Network Security
10 69 (2.85%) Wireless
11 61 (2.52%) VLAN
12 52 (2.15%) SSH
13 34 (1.40%) HTTP
14 32 (1.32%) SAN
15 28 (1.16%) FTP
15 28 (1.16%) Skype
16 27 (1.11%) SMTP
17 25 (1.03%) Internet
18 24 (0.99%) Cisco IOS
18 24 (0.99%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 109 (4.50%) SQL Server
2 58 (2.39%) Oracle Database
3 57 (2.35%) Relational Database
4 46 (1.90%) MySQL
5 28 (1.16%) PostgreSQL
6 18 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.54%) BigQuery
8 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
9 11 (0.45%) Power BI
10 9 (0.37%) NoSQL
11 8 (0.33%) MongoDB
12 7 (0.29%) Elasticsearch
12 7 (0.29%) GIS
13 6 (0.25%) SAP HANA
14 4 (0.17%) Oracle Database 10g
14 4 (0.17%) RDBMS
14 4 (0.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 4 (0.17%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 3 (0.12%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 132 (5.45%) JIRA
2 74 (3.06%) Git
2 74 (3.06%) Jenkins
3 44 (1.82%) GitLab
4 34 (1.40%) Eclipse
5 30 (1.24%) MSI
6 25 (1.03%) Visual Studio
7 21 (0.87%) Android Studio
8 20 (0.83%) Browser DevTools
9 19 (0.78%) Xcode
10 18 (0.74%) Artifactory
10 18 (0.74%) Burp Suite
10 18 (0.74%) Metasploit
11 16 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
12 15 (0.62%) Bitbucket
12 15 (0.62%) Vagrant
13 12 (0.50%) Bitbucket Server
13 12 (0.50%) CA Release Automation
14 11 (0.45%) InstallShield
15 8 (0.33%) AdminStudio
General
1 915 (37.78%) Social Skills
2 284 (11.73%) Finance
3 206 (8.51%) Public Sector
4 192 (7.93%) Analytical Skills
5 113 (4.67%) Banking
6 100 (4.13%) Documentation Skills
7 73 (3.01%) Legal
8 60 (2.48%) Organisational Skills
9 52 (2.15%) Military
10 46 (1.90%) Manufacturing
11 44 (1.82%) Presentation Skills
12 39 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 35 (1.45%) Telecoms
14 32 (1.32%) Retail
15 27 (1.11%) Aerospace
16 24 (0.99%) Front Office
17 23 (0.95%) Law
18 19 (0.78%) Marketing
19 17 (0.70%) Financial Institution
20 16 (0.66%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 377 (15.57%) Support Engineer
2 302 (12.47%) IT Support
3 297 (12.26%) Analyst
4 170 (7.02%) IT Engineer
5 147 (6.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 135 (5.57%) Support Analyst
7 133 (5.49%) Desktop Support
8 130 (5.37%) Architect
8 130 (5.37%) Senior
9 128 (5.28%) IT Support Engineer
10 127 (5.24%) Windows Engineer
11 120 (4.95%) Desktop Engineer
12 110 (4.54%) 2nd Line Support
12 110 (4.54%) Deployment Engineer
12 110 (4.54%) Technical Support
13 95 (3.92%) Desktop Support Engineer
14 90 (3.72%) Developer
15 84 (3.47%) Platform Engineer
16 78 (3.22%) IT Analyst
17 68 (2.81%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (2.89%) .NET
2 49 (2.02%) REST
3 43 (1.78%) LDAP
4 40 (1.65%) .NET Framework
5 39 (1.61%) OAuth
6 37 (1.53%) Middleware
6 37 (1.53%) SAML
7 35 (1.45%) React
8 33 (1.36%) AngularJS
9 31 (1.28%) WPF
10 30 (1.24%) OpenID
11 25 (1.03%) CSS
11 25 (1.03%) Web Services
12 24 (0.99%) Node.js
13 20 (0.83%) Ajax
13 20 (0.83%) GraphQL
13 20 (0.83%) SOAP
14 19 (0.78%) Kafka
14 19 (0.78%) RESTful
15 18 (0.74%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 119 (4.91%) Onboarding
2 86 (3.55%) PKI
3 81 (3.34%) Data Centre
4 78 (3.22%) Driving Licence
5 65 (2.68%) Enterprise Software
6 57 (2.35%) Replication
7 54 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
8 52 (2.15%) Smartphone
9 50 (2.06%) Management Information System
10 36 (1.49%) Security Posture
11 34 (1.40%) Hybrid Cloud
12 30 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
13 29 (1.20%) Clustering
14 28 (1.16%) NHS
15 27 (1.11%) Video Conferencing
16 26 (1.07%) Data Protection Act
17 22 (0.91%) CMDB
17 22 (0.91%) Mobile App
17 22 (0.91%) Product Ownership
18 20 (0.83%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 600 (24.77%) Linux
2 553 (22.83%) Windows 10
3 484 (19.98%) Windows Server
4 159 (6.56%) Unix
5 129 (5.33%) Android
6 124 (5.12%) Mac OS
7 97 (4.00%) Apple iOS
8 56 (2.31%) Windows Server 2016
9 52 (2.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 44 (1.82%) Windows Server 2019
11 43 (1.78%) Windows 7
12 33 (1.36%) Windows Server 2012
13 29 (1.20%) Windows Server 2003
14 25 (1.03%) AIX
15 24 (0.99%) VMS
16 19 (0.78%) Ubuntu
17 15 (0.62%) Amazon Linux
18 13 (0.54%) Solaris
19 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2008
20 9 (0.37%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 431 (17.80%) Problem-Solving
2 389 (16.06%) Customer Service
3 360 (14.86%) ITIL
4 251 (10.36%) Agile
5 227 (9.37%) Migration
6 214 (8.84%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 208 (8.59%) DevOps
8 202 (8.34%) Service Management
9 189 (7.80%) ITSM
10 184 (7.60%) CI/CD
11 169 (6.98%) Continuous Improvement
11 169 (6.98%) Cybersecurity
12 158 (6.52%) Change Management
13 126 (5.20%) User Experience
14 102 (4.21%) Disaster Recovery
14 102 (4.21%) Incident Response
15 101 (4.17%) Stakeholder Management
16 99 (4.09%) SIEM
17 98 (4.05%) Infrastructure as Code
18 97 (4.00%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 472 (19.49%) PowerShell
2 299 (12.35%) Python
3 235 (9.70%) SQL
4 121 (5.00%) Java
5 111 (4.58%) C#
6 100 (4.13%) Bash
7 79 (3.26%) JavaScript
8 69 (2.85%) Perl
9 57 (2.35%) C++
10 43 (1.78%) PL/SQL
11 31 (1.28%) Kusto Query Language
12 30 (1.24%) T-SQL
13 26 (1.07%) Groovy
13 26 (1.07%) VBScript
14 25 (1.03%) Shell Script
15 24 (0.99%) VB
16 23 (0.95%) VBA
17 13 (0.54%) PHP
18 12 (0.50%) Bicep
19 11 (0.45%) Go
Qualifications
1 777 (32.08%) Security Cleared
2 517 (21.35%) SC Cleared
3 245 (10.12%) Degree
4 219 (9.04%) DV Cleared
5 144 (5.95%) Microsoft Certification
6 72 (2.97%) Computer Science Degree
7 57 (2.35%) Azure Certification
8 44 (1.82%) Cisco Certification
9 43 (1.78%) A+ Certification
10 41 (1.69%) MCSE
11 35 (1.45%) ITIL Certification
12 31 (1.28%) AWS Certification
13 27 (1.11%) CCNP
13 27 (1.11%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 26 (1.07%) CISSP
15 25 (1.03%) CCNA
16 23 (0.95%) BPSS Clearance
17 22 (0.91%) DBS Check
18 20 (0.83%) CompTIA Security+
19 19 (0.78%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 85 (3.51%) SLA
2 75 (3.10%) GDPR
3 65 (2.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 63 (2.60%) QA
5 45 (1.86%) NIST
6 29 (1.20%) PCI DSS
7 11 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
7 11 (0.45%) PMO
8 10 (0.41%) NCSC
9 9 (0.37%) GLBA
10 8 (0.33%) MiFID
10 8 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 5 (0.21%) FINRA
11 5 (0.21%) HIPAA
12 4 (0.17%) Accessibility
12 4 (0.17%) NIST 800
12 4 (0.17%) SOC 2
13 3 (0.12%) COBIT
13 3 (0.12%) SEPA
14 2 (0.083%) HL7
System Software
1 882 (36.42%) Active Directory
2 219 (9.04%) VMware Infrastructure
3 99 (4.09%) Docker
4 83 (3.43%) Hyper-V
5 58 (2.39%) Virtual Desktop
6 45 (1.86%) Virtual Machines
7 43 (1.78%) vSphere
8 39 (1.61%) VMware ESXi
9 29 (1.20%) VMware NSX
10 21 (0.87%) BitLocker
11 18 (0.74%) DFS Replication
12 16 (0.66%) Firmware
12 16 (0.66%) Microsoft App-V
13 14 (0.58%) Virtual Servers
14 13 (0.54%) Terminal Services
15 9 (0.37%) Dovecot
15 9 (0.37%) Postfix
15 9 (0.37%) Squid
16 8 (0.33%) NFS
16 8 (0.33%) Tivoli Directory Server
Systems Management
1 341 (14.08%) SCCM
2 257 (10.61%) Microsoft Intune
3 156 (6.44%) Terraform
4 121 (5.00%) Ansible
5 78 (3.22%) Kubernetes
6 61 (2.52%) vCenter Server
7 45 (1.86%) Single Sign-On
8 43 (1.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 38 (1.57%) Jamf Pro
10 35 (1.45%) Grafana
11 28 (1.16%) SCOM
12 25 (1.03%) WSUS
13 21 (0.87%) Nessus
14 20 (0.83%) Prometheus
15 19 (0.78%) Microsoft Clustering
16 18 (0.74%) Nmap
17 16 (0.66%) WMI
18 15 (0.62%) Proxmox
19 14 (0.58%) Progress Chef
20 13 (0.54%) Packer
Vendors
1 1,021 (42.16%) Microsoft
2 312 (12.88%) VMware
3 239 (9.87%) ServiceNow
4 194 (8.01%) Oracle
5 155 (6.40%) Cisco
6 150 (6.19%) Citrix
7 105 (4.34%) Splunk
8 62 (2.56%) Apple
9 56 (2.31%) Dell
10 50 (2.06%) SolarWinds
11 49 (2.02%) HP
11 49 (2.02%) Red Hat
12 48 (1.98%) Veeam
13 45 (1.86%) IBM
14 43 (1.78%) Google
15 39 (1.61%) CyberArk
16 36 (1.49%) Remedy
17 35 (1.45%) SAP
18 33 (1.36%) AppDynamics
19 31 (1.28%) Palo Alto
1,359 Windows jobs in England