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 1 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 21 17
Rank change year-on-year -7 -4 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,764 2,297 2,820
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.05% 8.33% 8.53%
As % of the Operating Systems category 62.14% 60.86% 59.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,789 1,551 1,877
10th Percentile £171 £171 £180
25th Percentile £225 £220 £255
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £408 £425
Median % change year-on-year +1.84% -4.12% -2.30%
75th Percentile £556 £566 £575
90th Percentile £650 £660 £651
UK median daily rate £425 £411 £425
% change year-on-year +3.34% -3.24% -3.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 243 195 181
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.28 £11.44
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.79 £15.22
Median hourly rate £25.75 £19.36 £21.80
Median % change year-on-year +33.01% -11.19% -7.23%
75th Percentile £56.75 £31.51 £60.00
90th Percentile £74.94 £65.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £22.19 £22.00
% change year-on-year +8.16% +0.86% -2.22%

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 4,448 3,774 4,709
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.74% 13.69% 14.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,858 2,483 3,071
10th Percentile £190 £190 £200
25th Percentile £310 £308 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £586 £588
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £468 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +3.94% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 312 242 266
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.51 £12.50
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.51 £17.69
Median hourly rate £32.50 £24.00 £39.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.42% -38.46% -8.24%
75th Percentile £67.47 £58.94 £68.75
90th Percentile £74.97 £67.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £25.77 £25.15 £35.58
% change year-on-year +2.47% -29.32% -16.28%

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 1 September 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 1 September 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 1 September 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 -12 927 £425 - 807
South East -7 568 £475 -1.35% 401
North of England -6 503 £325 - 288
North West +4 304 £335 -4.29% 151
South West -15 279 £478 +34.51% 173
Midlands -16 272 £400 - 190
East of England -4 198 £275 -19.71% 216
West Midlands -25 173 £425 -4.49% 122
Yorkshire -18 171 £279 -14.31% 97
East Midlands +3 95 £275 +37.50% 68
North East -35 32 £260 -5.45% 53
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
1 233 (8.43%) SharePoint
2 226 (8.18%) Microsoft Exchange
3 54 (1.95%) IIS
4 53 (1.92%) Confluence
5 18 (0.65%) nginx
5 18 (0.65%) Skype for Business
6 16 (0.58%) Apache
7 11 (0.40%) Tomcat
8 7 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.22%) Documentum
10 5 (0.18%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.18%) Appian
10 5 (0.18%) Camunda
10 5 (0.18%) WebLogic
11 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
12 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
12 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
13 2 (0.072%) SharePoint 2013
13 2 (0.072%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 177 (6.40%) Microsoft Office
2 62 (2.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.11%) Houdini
6 3 (0.11%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.11%) NUKE
7 2 (0.072%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.036%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.036%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.036%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 56 (2.03%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.36%) Finacle
3 7 (0.25%) OpenText MBPM
3 7 (0.25%) Oracle BPM
4 5 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 4 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
5 4 (0.14%) Teamcenter
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.072%) assyst
8 1 (0.036%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle BRM
8 1 (0.036%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.036%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.036%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.036%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.036%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.036%) SAP FS
8 1 (0.036%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 904 (32.71%) Microsoft 365
2 883 (31.95%) Azure
3 455 (16.46%) Entra ID
4 307 (11.11%) AWS
5 136 (4.92%) OneDrive
6 105 (3.80%) Azure DevOps
7 88 (3.18%) GCP
8 76 (2.75%) Azure Monitor
9 68 (2.46%) SaaS
10 64 (2.32%) Power Platform
11 59 (2.13%) GitHub
12 57 (2.06%) IaaS
13 43 (1.56%) Azure Sentinel
14 42 (1.52%) PaaS
15 29 (1.05%) OpenShift
16 27 (0.98%) Google Workspace
17 25 (0.90%) AWS CloudFormation
18 22 (0.80%) GitHub Actions
19 21 (0.76%) Azure AKS
20 20 (0.72%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 443 (16.03%) DNS
2 321 (11.61%) Firewall
3 320 (11.58%) DHCP
4 233 (8.43%) VPN
5 209 (7.56%) TCP/IP
6 127 (4.59%) WAN
7 123 (4.45%) LAN
7 123 (4.45%) Wi-Fi
8 86 (3.11%) SAN
9 83 (3.00%) VLAN
10 80 (2.89%) Network Security
11 44 (1.59%) SSL
12 41 (1.48%) NAS
12 41 (1.48%) Wireless
13 40 (1.45%) Internet
14 38 (1.37%) VSAN
15 34 (1.23%) Skype
16 29 (1.05%) BGP
17 26 (0.94%) VoIP
18 24 (0.87%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 256 (9.26%) SQL Server
2 52 (1.88%) Power BI
3 51 (1.85%) Oracle Database
4 28 (1.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 26 (0.94%) PostgreSQL
6 23 (0.83%) Relational Database
7 22 (0.80%) MySQL
8 20 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
9 15 (0.54%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 15 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 11 (0.40%) Geospatial Data
10 11 (0.40%) RDBMS
11 10 (0.36%) Db2
11 10 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
12 8 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
12 8 (0.29%) MongoDB
13 7 (0.25%) NoSQL
14 5 (0.18%) Big Data
14 5 (0.18%) ObjectStore
14 5 (0.18%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 147 (5.32%) JIRA
2 63 (2.28%) Git
3 45 (1.63%) Jenkins
3 45 (1.63%) MSI
4 40 (1.45%) GitLab
5 20 (0.72%) Visual Studio
6 14 (0.51%) Bitbucket
7 9 (0.33%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 8 (0.29%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.29%) Eclipse
8 8 (0.29%) Selenium
9 7 (0.25%) Browser DevTools
9 7 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
10 5 (0.18%) AdminStudio
10 5 (0.18%) Chocolatey
10 5 (0.18%) InstallShield
11 4 (0.14%) Claude Code
11 4 (0.14%) Octopus Deploy
11 4 (0.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 3 (0.11%) Android Studio
General
1 1,012 (36.61%) Social Skills
2 339 (12.26%) Analytical Skills
2 339 (12.26%) Finance
3 146 (5.28%) Banking
4 135 (4.88%) Public Sector
5 101 (3.65%) Documentation Skills
6 76 (2.75%) Legal
7 72 (2.60%) Organisational Skills
8 63 (2.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 55 (1.99%) Manufacturing
10 52 (1.88%) Retail
11 44 (1.59%) Telecoms
12 41 (1.48%) Front Office
13 36 (1.30%) Law
14 33 (1.19%) Investment Banking
15 30 (1.09%) Military
16 28 (1.01%) Spanish Language
17 25 (0.90%) French Language
18 24 (0.87%) Financial Institution
19 21 (0.76%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 455 (16.46%) Support Engineer
2 384 (13.89%) IT Support
3 306 (11.07%) IT Engineer
4 287 (10.38%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 254 (9.19%) IT Support Engineer
6 234 (8.47%) Analyst
7 226 (8.18%) Senior
8 124 (4.49%) 2nd Line Support
9 121 (4.38%) Desktop Support
10 108 (3.91%) Desktop Engineer
10 108 (3.91%) Lead
11 104 (3.76%) Cloud Engineer
12 98 (3.55%) Architect
13 94 (3.40%) Support Analyst
14 87 (3.15%) Windows Engineer
15 79 (2.86%) Consultant
15 79 (2.86%) Developer
16 78 (2.82%) 1st Line Support
17 73 (2.64%) 2nd Line Engineer
17 73 (2.64%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 244 (8.83%) Terraform
2 109 (3.94%) .NET
3 99 (3.58%) REST
4 60 (2.17%) .NET Framework
5 30 (1.09%) Middleware
6 28 (1.01%) JSON
6 28 (1.01%) LDAP
6 28 (1.01%) WPF
7 23 (0.83%) ARM Templates
8 22 (0.80%) Software Packaging
8 22 (0.80%) WinForms
9 20 (0.72%) CSS
9 20 (0.72%) HTML
10 19 (0.69%) .NET Core
10 19 (0.69%) Elastic Stack
10 19 (0.69%) Kafka
10 19 (0.69%) Microsoft Graph
11 17 (0.62%) XML
12 16 (0.58%) SAML
13 15 (0.54%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 340 (12.30%) Onboarding
2 149 (5.39%) Data Centre
3 142 (5.14%) PKI
4 89 (3.22%) Management Information System
5 84 (3.04%) Clustering
6 81 (2.93%) Hybrid Cloud
7 72 (2.60%) Cloud Native
8 66 (2.39%) Enterprise Software
9 65 (2.35%) Video Conferencing
10 59 (2.13%) Replication
11 58 (2.10%) Driving Licence
12 56 (2.03%) Self-Motivation
13 43 (1.56%) Security Posture
14 40 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
14 40 (1.45%) Virtual Team
15 37 (1.34%) CMDB
16 36 (1.30%) Enterprise Storage
17 33 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
18 31 (1.12%) Data Protection Act
19 30 (1.09%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 764 (27.64%) Windows Server
2 654 (23.66%) Linux
3 496 (17.95%) Windows 10
4 184 (6.66%) Mac OS
5 122 (4.41%) Apple iOS
6 118 (4.27%) Android
7 113 (4.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 102 (3.69%) Unix
9 68 (2.46%) Windows Server 2019
10 50 (1.81%) Ubuntu
11 46 (1.66%) Windows 7
12 38 (1.37%) Windows Server 2016
13 37 (1.34%) Windows Server 2012
14 31 (1.12%) CentOS
15 23 (0.83%) AIX
16 21 (0.76%) VMS
17 17 (0.62%) Windows Server 2008
18 15 (0.54%) Solaris
19 13 (0.47%) Rocky
20 11 (0.40%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 671 (24.28%) Problem-Solving
2 524 (18.96%) ITIL
3 449 (16.24%) Customer Service
4 372 (13.46%) ITSM
5 369 (13.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 328 (11.87%) Migration
7 302 (10.93%) Continuous Improvement
8 272 (9.84%) DevOps
9 270 (9.77%) Service Management
10 233 (8.43%) Infrastructure as Code
11 228 (8.25%) CI/CD
12 226 (8.18%) Agile
13 202 (7.31%) Change Management
14 200 (7.24%) Stakeholder Management
15 179 (6.48%) Disaster Recovery
16 172 (6.22%) Root Cause Analysis
17 164 (5.93%) Cybersecurity
18 163 (5.90%) High Availability
19 160 (5.79%) Service Delivery
20 159 (5.75%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 705 (25.51%) PowerShell
2 301 (10.89%) Python
3 273 (9.88%) SQL
4 170 (6.15%) Bash
5 122 (4.41%) C#
6 58 (2.10%) Java
7 53 (1.92%) JavaScript
7 53 (1.92%) T-SQL
8 47 (1.70%) Bicep
9 42 (1.52%) PL/SQL
10 28 (1.01%) VB
11 26 (0.94%) C++
11 26 (0.94%) VBScript
12 23 (0.83%) Search Processing Language
13 17 (0.62%) Perl
14 16 (0.58%) Shell Script
14 16 (0.58%) TypeScript
15 11 (0.40%) VBA
16 10 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
17 8 (0.29%) C
Qualifications
1 873 (31.58%) Security Cleared
2 522 (18.89%) SC Cleared
3 340 (12.30%) DV Cleared
4 280 (10.13%) Degree
5 113 (4.09%) Microsoft Certification
6 87 (3.15%) Azure Certification
7 71 (2.57%) Computer Science Degree
8 70 (2.53%) Cisco Certification
9 61 (2.21%) CISSP
10 52 (1.88%) AWS Certification
11 48 (1.74%) A+ Certification
12 47 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
13 45 (1.63%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 32 (1.16%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 30 (1.09%) CCNA
15 30 (1.09%) CCNP
16 28 (1.01%) DBS Check
17 27 (0.98%) CISM
18 26 (0.94%) MCSE
19 25 (0.90%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (5.25%) SLA
2 112 (4.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 79 (2.86%) NIST
4 77 (2.79%) QA
5 32 (1.16%) Cyber Essentials
6 27 (0.98%) NCSC
7 23 (0.83%) GDPR
8 22 (0.80%) PCI DSS
9 15 (0.54%) Accessibility
9 15 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 13 (0.47%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.43%) WCAG
12 11 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 11 (0.40%) HIPAA
13 10 (0.36%) GRC
14 9 (0.33%) PMO
15 8 (0.29%) GxP
16 6 (0.22%) ISO 31000
16 6 (0.22%) NIST 800
16 6 (0.22%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,149 (41.57%) Active Directory
2 416 (15.05%) VMware Infrastructure
3 181 (6.55%) Hyper-V
4 145 (5.25%) VMware ESXi
5 126 (4.56%) vSphere
6 103 (3.73%) Docker
7 93 (3.36%) Virtual Machines
8 82 (2.97%) VMware NSX
9 80 (2.89%) Virtual Desktop
10 39 (1.41%) BitLocker
11 30 (1.09%) Firmware
12 24 (0.87%) vCloud
13 16 (0.58%) Microsoft App-V
14 14 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
15 10 (0.36%) XenApp
16 9 (0.33%) Citrix Hypervisor
16 9 (0.33%) KVM
16 9 (0.33%) XenDesktop
17 7 (0.25%) NFS
18 6 (0.22%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 409 (14.80%) Microsoft Intune
2 304 (11.00%) SCCM
3 214 (7.74%) Ansible
4 144 (5.21%) Kubernetes
5 119 (4.31%) vCenter Server
6 91 (3.29%) SCOM
7 47 (1.70%) WSUS
8 45 (1.63%) Jamf Pro
9 31 (1.12%) Prometheus
10 30 (1.09%) Progress Chef
11 29 (1.05%) Grafana
11 29 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
12 25 (0.90%) Puppet
12 25 (0.90%) WMI
13 24 (0.87%) FortiGate
13 24 (0.87%) Nagios
14 23 (0.83%) Packer
15 22 (0.80%) VxRail
16 20 (0.72%) Microsoft Clustering
17 19 (0.69%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 1,310 (47.40%) Microsoft
2 555 (20.08%) VMware
3 334 (12.08%) ServiceNow
4 186 (6.73%) Cisco
5 155 (5.61%) Oracle
6 150 (5.43%) Citrix
7 101 (3.65%) Splunk
8 97 (3.51%) Apple
9 87 (3.15%) CyberArk
10 73 (2.64%) Google
11 69 (2.50%) SolarWinds
12 65 (2.35%) Red Hat
13 62 (2.24%) BeyondTrust
14 61 (2.21%) HP
15 60 (2.17%) Remedy
16 50 (1.81%) Dell
17 46 (1.66%) BMC
18 40 (1.45%) NetApp
19 36 (1.30%) Fortinet
19 36 (1.30%) Meraki