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

6 months to
22 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 23 15
Rank change year-on-year +2 -8 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,533 2,214 3,442
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.82% 8.25% 9.40%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.57% 58.60% 63.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,765 1,460 2,340
10th Percentile £161 £182 £158
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £564 £575
90th Percentile £638 £651 £675
UK median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 235 75 224
10th Percentile £12.97 £15.09 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.93 £17.22 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.00 £23.80 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.56% +13.33% -3.45%
75th Percentile £43.25 £57.62 £46.85
90th Percentile £67.00 £74.26 £62.79
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.02% +15.14% +4.35%

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 4,182 3,778 5,423
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.92% 14.08% 14.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,805 2,384 3,731
10th Percentile £175 £200 £180
25th Percentile £263 £313 £268
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £568 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 306 130 323
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.46 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.59 £21.01 £17.72
Median hourly rate £23.79 £54.00 £26.50
Median % change year-on-year -55.95% +103.77% +3.07%
75th Percentile £60.00 £67.44 £63.75
90th Percentile £68.00 £73.78 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £25.00 £36.00 £28.50
% change year-on-year -30.56% +26.32% +14.00%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 -15 753 £450 +9.42% 222
South East -1 502 £400 - 379
North of England -5 439 £263 -25.00% 221
South West +4 318 £425 +0.47% 149
Midlands -4 307 £308 -5.38% 142
North West -4 252 £288 -17.86% 95
East of England +6 210 £228 -22.88% 152
West Midlands -10 196 £431 +32.69% 69
Yorkshire -20 159 £302 -14.99% 101
East Midlands +1 111 £210 -40.00% 71
North East -5 31 £180 -44.62% 31
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
1 210 (8.29%) Microsoft Exchange
2 168 (6.63%) SharePoint
3 68 (2.68%) Confluence
4 46 (1.82%) Apache
5 45 (1.78%) IIS
6 28 (1.11%) WebLogic
7 21 (0.83%) Skype for Business
8 16 (0.63%) WebSphere
9 12 (0.47%) JBoss
9 12 (0.47%) nginx
10 11 (0.43%) TPMS
10 11 (0.43%) WebSphere Application Server
11 10 (0.39%) iPlanet
11 10 (0.39%) SharePoint Server
12 8 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2010
12 8 (0.32%) Tuxedo
13 6 (0.24%) Exchange Server 2013
13 6 (0.24%) SAS
14 5 (0.20%) Office Communications Server
14 5 (0.20%) Tomcat
Applications
1 232 (9.16%) Microsoft Office
2 74 (2.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.47%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.36%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.12%) PTC Creo
8 2 (0.079%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.079%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.079%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.079%) Windchill
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe Creative Suite
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 23 (0.91%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (0.24%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.20%) assyst
5 4 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.079%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.079%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.079%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.079%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.079%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.079%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.039%) Aladdin
8 1 (0.039%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.039%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.039%) ION MarketView
8 1 (0.039%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.039%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.039%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.039%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 703 (27.75%) Microsoft 365
2 617 (24.36%) Azure
3 237 (9.36%) Entra ID
4 222 (8.76%) AWS
5 80 (3.16%) OneDrive
6 68 (2.68%) SaaS
7 64 (2.53%) GCP
8 50 (1.97%) Google Workspace
9 46 (1.82%) Azure DevOps
10 41 (1.62%) IaaS
11 40 (1.58%) GitHub
12 31 (1.22%) Azure Monitor
12 31 (1.22%) Power Platform
13 28 (1.11%) PaaS
14 22 (0.87%) Amazon S3
15 21 (0.83%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 21 (0.83%) Azure Sentinel
15 21 (0.83%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 19 (0.75%) Amazon EC2
16 19 (0.75%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 329 (12.99%) DNS
2 257 (10.15%) Firewall
3 212 (8.37%) DHCP
4 177 (6.99%) TCP/IP
5 162 (6.40%) VPN
6 104 (4.11%) WAN
7 94 (3.71%) LAN
8 93 (3.67%) Wi-Fi
9 82 (3.24%) Network Security
10 68 (2.68%) VLAN
11 65 (2.57%) Wireless
12 52 (2.05%) SSH
13 34 (1.34%) Kerberos
13 34 (1.34%) SAN
14 33 (1.30%) HTTP
15 32 (1.26%) Skype
16 30 (1.18%) FTP
17 28 (1.11%) SMTP
18 25 (0.99%) Internet
19 24 (0.95%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (4.46%) SQL Server
2 58 (2.29%) Oracle Database
3 56 (2.21%) Relational Database
4 46 (1.82%) MySQL
5 28 (1.11%) PostgreSQL
6 17 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.51%) BigQuery
8 12 (0.47%) NoSQL
8 12 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
9 11 (0.43%) Power BI
10 9 (0.36%) MongoDB
11 7 (0.28%) GIS
12 6 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
12 6 (0.24%) SAP HANA
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 3 (0.12%) BusinessObjects
14 3 (0.12%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 135 (5.33%) JIRA
2 74 (2.92%) Jenkins
3 70 (2.76%) Git
4 47 (1.86%) GitLab
5 33 (1.30%) MSI
6 31 (1.22%) Eclipse
7 28 (1.11%) Visual Studio
8 19 (0.75%) Android Studio
9 18 (0.71%) Browser DevTools
9 18 (0.71%) Burp Suite
9 18 (0.71%) Metasploit
10 17 (0.67%) Xcode
11 16 (0.63%) Artifactory
11 16 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
12 14 (0.55%) Vagrant
13 13 (0.51%) Bitbucket
14 11 (0.43%) Bitbucket Server
14 11 (0.43%) CA Release Automation
14 11 (0.43%) InstallShield
15 8 (0.32%) AdminStudio
General
1 942 (37.19%) Social Skills
2 276 (10.90%) Finance
3 210 (8.29%) Public Sector
4 200 (7.90%) Analytical Skills
5 118 (4.66%) Banking
6 104 (4.11%) Documentation Skills
7 81 (3.20%) Legal
8 65 (2.57%) Organisational Skills
9 52 (2.05%) Military
10 46 (1.82%) Presentation Skills
11 45 (1.78%) Manufacturing
12 42 (1.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 33 (1.30%) Retail
14 31 (1.22%) Telecoms
15 25 (0.99%) Front Office
16 22 (0.87%) Aerospace
16 22 (0.87%) Law
17 18 (0.71%) Investment Banking
18 17 (0.67%) Financial Institution
18 17 (0.67%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 381 (15.04%) Support Engineer
2 318 (12.55%) Analyst
2 318 (12.55%) IT Support
3 174 (6.87%) IT Engineer
4 155 (6.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 142 (5.61%) Support Analyst
6 138 (5.45%) Architect
7 136 (5.37%) IT Support Engineer
8 133 (5.25%) Senior
9 132 (5.21%) Desktop Support
10 126 (4.97%) Windows Engineer
11 122 (4.82%) Technical Support
12 120 (4.74%) Desktop Engineer
13 111 (4.38%) 2nd Line Support
14 108 (4.26%) Deployment Engineer
15 95 (3.75%) Developer
16 94 (3.71%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 83 (3.28%) Platform Engineer
18 80 (3.16%) Lead
19 79 (3.12%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.92%) .NET
2 55 (2.17%) LDAP
3 54 (2.13%) OAuth
4 52 (2.05%) SAML
5 51 (2.01%) REST
6 44 (1.74%) .NET Framework
7 36 (1.42%) Middleware
8 34 (1.34%) React
8 34 (1.34%) WPF
9 33 (1.30%) OpenID
10 31 (1.22%) AngularJS
11 24 (0.95%) CSS
11 24 (0.95%) Web Services
12 23 (0.91%) Node.js
13 20 (0.79%) SOAP
14 19 (0.75%) Apache NiFi
14 19 (0.75%) OAuth2
14 19 (0.75%) RESTful
15 18 (0.71%) GraphQL
15 18 (0.71%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 137 (5.41%) Onboarding
2 86 (3.40%) PKI
3 84 (3.32%) Driving Licence
4 81 (3.20%) Data Centre
5 72 (2.84%) Replication
6 68 (2.68%) Enterprise Software
7 58 (2.29%) Self-Motivation
8 54 (2.13%) Management Information System
8 54 (2.13%) Smartphone
9 38 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
10 36 (1.42%) Security Posture
11 31 (1.22%) Clustering
12 30 (1.18%) NHS
13 29 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
14 28 (1.11%) Video Conferencing
15 26 (1.03%) Data Protection Act
16 25 (0.99%) Virtual Team
17 24 (0.95%) Product Ownership
18 22 (0.87%) CMDB
19 20 (0.79%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 627 (24.75%) Linux
2 584 (23.06%) Windows 10
3 524 (20.69%) Windows Server
4 158 (6.24%) Unix
5 130 (5.13%) Android
6 127 (5.01%) Mac OS
7 101 (3.99%) Apple iOS
8 61 (2.41%) Windows Server 2016
9 54 (2.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 51 (2.01%) Windows 7
11 46 (1.82%) Windows Server 2019
12 35 (1.38%) Windows Server 2012
13 32 (1.26%) Windows Server 2003
14 26 (1.03%) AIX
15 23 (0.91%) VMS
16 19 (0.75%) Ubuntu
17 14 (0.55%) Amazon Linux
18 13 (0.51%) Solaris
19 12 (0.47%) Windows Server 2008
20 9 (0.36%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 453 (17.88%) Problem-Solving
2 414 (16.34%) Customer Service
3 367 (14.49%) ITIL
4 262 (10.34%) Agile
5 229 (9.04%) Migration
6 224 (8.84%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 220 (8.69%) DevOps
8 216 (8.53%) Service Management
9 196 (7.74%) CI/CD
9 196 (7.74%) ITSM
10 189 (7.46%) Continuous Improvement
11 176 (6.95%) Cybersecurity
12 157 (6.20%) Change Management
13 125 (4.93%) Disaster Recovery
14 121 (4.78%) User Experience
15 104 (4.11%) Incident Response
15 104 (4.11%) Service Delivery
16 103 (4.07%) Infrastructure as Code
16 103 (4.07%) Stakeholder Management
17 102 (4.03%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 501 (19.78%) PowerShell
2 298 (11.76%) Python
3 238 (9.40%) SQL
4 123 (4.86%) Java
5 115 (4.54%) C#
6 101 (3.99%) Bash
7 78 (3.08%) JavaScript
8 65 (2.57%) Perl
9 58 (2.29%) C++
10 45 (1.78%) PL/SQL
11 33 (1.30%) T-SQL
12 31 (1.22%) Kusto Query Language
12 31 (1.22%) VBScript
13 28 (1.11%) VB
14 26 (1.03%) Shell Script
15 25 (0.99%) Groovy
16 23 (0.91%) VBA
17 14 (0.55%) PHP
18 11 (0.43%) Bicep
18 11 (0.43%) Go
Qualifications
1 818 (32.29%) Security Cleared
2 544 (21.48%) SC Cleared
3 256 (10.11%) Degree
4 236 (9.32%) DV Cleared
5 144 (5.68%) Microsoft Certification
6 78 (3.08%) Computer Science Degree
7 60 (2.37%) Azure Certification
8 44 (1.74%) Cisco Certification
9 43 (1.70%) MCSE
10 39 (1.54%) A+ Certification
11 38 (1.50%) ITIL Certification
12 36 (1.42%) AWS Certification
13 27 (1.07%) CCNA
13 27 (1.07%) CCNP
13 27 (1.07%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 26 (1.03%) CISSP
15 25 (0.99%) BPSS Clearance
16 22 (0.87%) MCP
17 20 (0.79%) DBS Check
17 20 (0.79%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (3.51%) GDPR
2 88 (3.47%) SLA
3 67 (2.65%) QA
4 66 (2.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 46 (1.82%) NIST
6 32 (1.26%) PCI DSS
7 21 (0.83%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 11 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
8 11 (0.43%) GLBA
8 11 (0.43%) NCSC
8 11 (0.43%) PMO
9 10 (0.39%) MiFID
10 7 (0.28%) FINRA
11 5 (0.20%) HIPAA
11 5 (0.20%) NIST 800
12 4 (0.16%) Accessibility
12 4 (0.16%) COBIT
12 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
13 3 (0.12%) GxP
13 3 (0.12%) SEPA
System Software
1 929 (36.68%) Active Directory
2 231 (9.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 106 (4.18%) Docker
4 88 (3.47%) Hyper-V
5 55 (2.17%) Virtual Desktop
6 49 (1.93%) Virtual Machines
7 48 (1.89%) vSphere
8 41 (1.62%) VMware ESXi
9 33 (1.30%) VMware NSX
10 26 (1.03%) BitLocker
11 18 (0.71%) Microsoft App-V
12 17 (0.67%) DFS Replication
13 16 (0.63%) Firmware
14 15 (0.59%) Virtual Servers
15 9 (0.36%) Dovecot
15 9 (0.36%) Postfix
15 9 (0.36%) Squid
16 8 (0.32%) Terminal Services
16 8 (0.32%) Tivoli Directory Server
17 7 (0.28%) NFS
Systems Management
1 351 (13.86%) SCCM
2 281 (11.09%) Microsoft Intune
3 157 (6.20%) Terraform
4 126 (4.97%) Ansible
5 90 (3.55%) Kubernetes
6 64 (2.53%) Single Sign-On
6 64 (2.53%) vCenter Server
7 60 (2.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 39 (1.54%) Jamf Pro
9 36 (1.42%) Grafana
10 29 (1.14%) SCOM
11 26 (1.03%) WSUS
12 24 (0.95%) Prometheus
13 21 (0.83%) Nessus
14 18 (0.71%) Nmap
15 17 (0.67%) WMI
16 16 (0.63%) Progress Chef
17 15 (0.59%) Microsoft Clustering
17 15 (0.59%) Proxmox
18 14 (0.55%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,080 (42.64%) Microsoft
2 324 (12.79%) VMware
3 242 (9.55%) ServiceNow
4 201 (7.94%) Oracle
5 160 (6.32%) Cisco
6 154 (6.08%) Citrix
7 105 (4.15%) Splunk
8 61 (2.41%) Apple
8 61 (2.41%) Dell
9 54 (2.13%) HP
10 50 (1.97%) SolarWinds
11 48 (1.89%) Google
12 47 (1.86%) Red Hat
12 47 (1.86%) Veeam
13 45 (1.78%) IBM
14 39 (1.54%) CyberArk
15 36 (1.42%) SAP
16 34 (1.34%) Remedy
17 32 (1.26%) AppDynamics
18 31 (1.22%) Palo Alto