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 15 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 19 17
Rank change year-on-year -8 -2 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,538 2,174 3,173
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.93% 8.80% 8.45%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.92% 61.92% 61.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,658 1,517 2,166
10th Percentile £163 £181 £165
25th Percentile £220 £249 £231
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.56%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £425 £425 £420
% change year-on-year - +1.19% -6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 214 145 266
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.20 £11.80
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.75 £18.82 £18.07
Median % change year-on-year +36.82% +4.18% -27.19%
75th Percentile £57.50 £25.15 £28.75
90th Percentile £70.48 £61.95 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £18.87 £18.27
% change year-on-year +33.28% +3.28% -24.85%

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 4,099 3,511 5,154
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.57% 14.22% 13.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,669 2,368 3,431
10th Percentile £188 £200 £188
25th Percentile £313 £313 £310
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £456 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% -2.11% -5.00%
75th Percentile £570 £588 £588
90th Percentile £650 £689 £700
UK median daily rate £460 £465 £475
% change year-on-year -1.08% -2.11% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 280 176 384
10th Percentile £15.91 £15.12 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.31 £15.59
Median hourly rate £32.50 £19.14 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +69.85% -16.80% -48.95%
75th Percentile £65.00 £49.56 £64.06
90th Percentile £71.55 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £27.94 £22.00 £23.80
% change year-on-year +27.00% -7.56% -48.26%

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 15 June 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 15 June 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 15 June 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 -22 806 £425 -4.49% 291
South East -8 522 £475 -3.11% 312
North of England -7 469 £365 +4.29% 194
Midlands -16 273 £325 +17.12% 124
North West -3 248 £350 -4.63% 117
South West -13 239 £488 +1.56% 152
East of England -2 213 £341 -9.00% 97
Yorkshire -15 203 £370 -8.64% 50
West Midlands -26 167 £450 +50.00% 69
East Midlands +4 101 £200 -3.03% 55
North East -39 22 £283 -1.74% 30
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
1 219 (8.63%) Microsoft Exchange
2 166 (6.54%) SharePoint
3 55 (2.17%) Confluence
4 53 (2.09%) IIS
5 15 (0.59%) Apache
6 14 (0.55%) Skype for Business
6 14 (0.55%) Tomcat
7 13 (0.51%) nginx
8 10 (0.39%) WebLogic
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.20%) Appian
10 5 (0.20%) TPMS
11 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.16%) Tuxedo
11 4 (0.16%) WebSphere
12 3 (0.12%) Camunda
12 3 (0.12%) Documentum
12 3 (0.12%) NetWeaver
13 2 (0.079%) Apache Pulsar
13 2 (0.079%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 155 (6.11%) Microsoft Office
2 61 (2.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.32%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.20%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.16%) Acrobat
7 4 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.039%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 43 (1.69%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.43%) Teamcenter
3 7 (0.28%) Finacle
4 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
4 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
4 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 2 (0.079%) assyst
5 2 (0.079%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.079%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.079%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 1 (0.039%) Oracle FAH
6 1 (0.039%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.039%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.039%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 772 (30.42%) Azure
2 732 (28.84%) Microsoft 365
3 327 (12.88%) Entra ID
4 253 (9.97%) AWS
5 92 (3.62%) OneDrive
6 80 (3.15%) GCP
7 69 (2.72%) Azure DevOps
8 67 (2.64%) SaaS
9 64 (2.52%) IaaS
10 63 (2.48%) GitHub
11 51 (2.01%) PaaS
12 47 (1.85%) Power Platform
13 42 (1.65%) Azure Monitor
14 34 (1.34%) Azure Sentinel
15 29 (1.14%) GitHub Actions
15 29 (1.14%) Google Workspace
16 24 (0.95%) OpenShift
17 19 (0.75%) AWS CloudFormation
17 19 (0.75%) Azure AKS
17 19 (0.75%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 354 (13.95%) DNS
2 266 (10.48%) Firewall
3 250 (9.85%) DHCP
4 172 (6.78%) VPN
5 151 (5.95%) TCP/IP
6 150 (5.91%) LAN
7 149 (5.87%) WAN
8 117 (4.61%) Wi-Fi
9 66 (2.60%) SAN
10 57 (2.25%) Network Security
11 50 (1.97%) VLAN
12 41 (1.62%) BGP
13 34 (1.34%) SSL
14 33 (1.30%) OSPF
14 33 (1.30%) Skype
15 32 (1.26%) Wireless
16 31 (1.22%) Internet
16 31 (1.22%) SNMP
17 30 (1.18%) BIG-IP
18 28 (1.10%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 213 (8.39%) SQL Server
2 44 (1.73%) Oracle Database
3 31 (1.22%) Power BI
4 28 (1.10%) PostgreSQL
4 28 (1.10%) Relational Database
5 25 (0.99%) MySQL
6 15 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
7 14 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
7 14 (0.55%) Db2
7 14 (0.55%) MongoDB
8 13 (0.51%) NoSQL
9 10 (0.39%) RDBMS
9 10 (0.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 7 (0.28%) GIS
11 6 (0.24%) BigQuery
11 6 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
11 6 (0.24%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 5 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
12 5 (0.20%) Big Data
12 5 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 173 (6.82%) JIRA
2 43 (1.69%) Jenkins
3 40 (1.58%) Git
4 39 (1.54%) MSI
5 35 (1.38%) GitLab
5 35 (1.38%) Visual Studio
6 18 (0.71%) Eclipse
7 10 (0.39%) Burp Suite
8 9 (0.35%) Chocolatey
8 9 (0.35%) Metasploit
9 8 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (0.28%) Android Studio
10 7 (0.28%) Bitbucket
10 7 (0.28%) Browser DevTools
10 7 (0.28%) Xcode
11 6 (0.24%) InstallShield
12 5 (0.20%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.20%) Artifactory
12 5 (0.20%) Robot Framework
12 5 (0.20%) Selenium
General
1 874 (34.44%) Social Skills
2 284 (11.19%) Finance
3 259 (10.20%) Analytical Skills
4 165 (6.50%) Public Sector
5 150 (5.91%) Banking
6 97 (3.82%) Documentation Skills
7 88 (3.47%) Legal
8 73 (2.88%) Organisational Skills
9 50 (1.97%) Retail
10 49 (1.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 48 (1.89%) Military
12 37 (1.46%) Investment Banking
12 37 (1.46%) Manufacturing
13 34 (1.34%) Front Office
13 34 (1.34%) Law
14 30 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
15 26 (1.02%) Telecoms
16 22 (0.87%) Spanish Language
17 20 (0.79%) French Language
17 20 (0.79%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 337 (13.28%) Support Engineer
2 336 (13.24%) IT Support
3 277 (10.91%) Analyst
4 226 (8.90%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 218 (8.59%) IT Engineer
6 183 (7.21%) IT Support Engineer
7 171 (6.74%) Senior
8 126 (4.96%) Architect
9 106 (4.18%) Desktop Support
10 105 (4.14%) Support Analyst
11 102 (4.02%) Desktop Engineer
12 96 (3.78%) 2nd Line Support
13 89 (3.51%) IT Analyst
13 89 (3.51%) Lead
14 86 (3.39%) Developer
15 82 (3.23%) Technical Support
16 67 (2.64%) Cloud Engineer
16 67 (2.64%) Consultant
17 64 (2.52%) Windows Engineer
18 61 (2.40%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.47%) .NET
2 73 (2.88%) REST
3 52 (2.05%) .NET Framework
4 36 (1.42%) LDAP
5 32 (1.26%) Microsoft Graph
6 29 (1.14%) SAML
7 28 (1.10%) 802.1X
8 27 (1.06%) Middleware
9 25 (0.99%) Web Services
9 25 (0.99%) WinForms
10 23 (0.91%) WPF
11 22 (0.87%) OAuth
12 20 (0.79%) Kafka
12 20 (0.79%) Software Packaging
13 19 (0.75%) CSS
13 19 (0.75%) Elastic Stack
14 16 (0.63%) Node.js
15 13 (0.51%) AngularJS
15 13 (0.51%) JSON
15 13 (0.51%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 246 (9.69%) Onboarding
2 129 (5.08%) Data Centre
3 118 (4.65%) PKI
4 75 (2.96%) Clustering
5 72 (2.84%) Enterprise Software
6 60 (2.36%) Self-Motivation
7 59 (2.32%) Management Information System
8 54 (2.13%) Replication
9 50 (1.97%) Cloud Native
10 49 (1.93%) Hybrid Cloud
11 46 (1.81%) Security Posture
12 45 (1.77%) Virtual Team
13 43 (1.69%) Driving Licence
13 43 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
14 33 (1.30%) CMDB
15 31 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
15 31 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
16 30 (1.18%) Product Ownership
17 29 (1.14%) Smartphone
18 28 (1.10%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 625 (24.63%) Linux
2 613 (24.15%) Windows Server
3 453 (17.85%) Windows 10
4 163 (6.42%) Mac OS
5 130 (5.12%) Apple iOS
6 123 (4.85%) Unix
7 120 (4.73%) Android
8 84 (3.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 65 (2.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 55 (2.17%) Windows Server 2016
11 47 (1.85%) Windows 7
12 38 (1.50%) Windows Server 2012
13 29 (1.14%) AIX
13 29 (1.14%) Ubuntu
14 18 (0.71%) Solaris
15 17 (0.67%) VMS
15 17 (0.67%) Windows Server 2003
16 13 (0.51%) CentOS
16 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2008
17 9 (0.35%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 555 (21.87%) Problem-Solving
2 389 (15.33%) ITIL
3 377 (14.85%) Customer Service
4 297 (11.70%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 278 (10.95%) Migration
6 258 (10.17%) ITSM
7 241 (9.50%) Agile
8 232 (9.14%) DevOps
9 217 (8.55%) CI/CD
10 193 (7.60%) Continuous Improvement
11 178 (7.01%) Service Management
12 175 (6.90%) Change Management
13 170 (6.70%) High Availability
14 156 (6.15%) Disaster Recovery
15 146 (5.75%) Infrastructure as Code
16 140 (5.52%) Cybersecurity
17 139 (5.48%) Stakeholder Management
18 134 (5.28%) SIEM
19 124 (4.89%) Runbook
20 120 (4.73%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 553 (21.79%) PowerShell
2 254 (10.01%) SQL
3 247 (9.73%) Python
4 122 (4.81%) C#
5 100 (3.94%) Bash
6 67 (2.64%) Java
7 65 (2.56%) JavaScript
8 47 (1.85%) PL/SQL
9 46 (1.81%) C++
10 41 (1.62%) T-SQL
11 25 (0.99%) Kusto Query Language
12 24 (0.95%) VB
13 22 (0.87%) Search Processing Language
13 22 (0.87%) Shell Script
14 18 (0.71%) Bicep
14 18 (0.71%) Perl
14 18 (0.71%) VBScript
15 13 (0.51%) C
16 12 (0.47%) VBA
17 11 (0.43%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 753 (29.67%) Security Cleared
2 480 (18.91%) SC Cleared
3 286 (11.27%) Degree
4 245 (9.65%) DV Cleared
5 107 (4.22%) Microsoft Certification
6 75 (2.96%) Cisco Certification
7 73 (2.88%) Computer Science Degree
8 61 (2.40%) CISSP
9 53 (2.09%) Azure Certification
10 46 (1.81%) MCSE
11 41 (1.62%) AWS Certification
12 37 (1.46%) BPSS Clearance
13 32 (1.26%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 30 (1.18%) MCSA
15 28 (1.10%) CCNA
16 27 (1.06%) CISM
17 25 (0.99%) ITIL Certification
18 24 (0.95%) CCNP
18 24 (0.95%) CompTIA Security+
19 19 (0.75%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 116 (4.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 99 (3.90%) SLA
3 85 (3.35%) NIST
4 68 (2.68%) QA
5 65 (2.56%) GDPR
6 37 (1.46%) PCI DSS
7 31 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 24 (0.95%) Cyber Essentials
9 14 (0.55%) NCSC
10 11 (0.43%) Data Quality
10 11 (0.43%) HIPAA
10 11 (0.43%) MiFID
11 10 (0.39%) FINRA
11 10 (0.39%) NIST 800
12 8 (0.32%) GRC
12 8 (0.32%) PMO
12 8 (0.32%) SOC 2
13 6 (0.24%) ISO 31000
14 5 (0.20%) Accessibility
14 5 (0.20%) GLBA
System Software
1 959 (37.79%) Active Directory
2 324 (12.77%) VMware Infrastructure
3 137 (5.40%) Hyper-V
4 104 (4.10%) VMware ESXi
5 96 (3.78%) vSphere
6 90 (3.55%) Virtual Machines
7 87 (3.43%) Docker
8 56 (2.21%) Virtual Desktop
9 51 (2.01%) VMware NSX
10 37 (1.46%) BitLocker
11 36 (1.42%) Firmware
12 28 (1.10%) Microsoft App-V
13 19 (0.75%) KVM
14 11 (0.43%) vCloud
14 11 (0.43%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.39%) XenApp
16 8 (0.32%) VMware Workstation
17 6 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
17 6 (0.24%) Terminal Services
17 6 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 358 (14.11%) Microsoft Intune
2 225 (8.87%) SCCM
3 171 (6.74%) Ansible
4 161 (6.34%) Terraform
5 122 (4.81%) Kubernetes
6 86 (3.39%) vCenter Server
7 47 (1.85%) Single Sign-On
8 41 (1.62%) Jamf Pro
9 40 (1.58%) FortiGate
9 40 (1.58%) SCOM
10 36 (1.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 34 (1.34%) WSUS
12 29 (1.14%) Progress Chef
13 27 (1.06%) Grafana
14 25 (0.99%) Prometheus
14 25 (0.99%) Puppet
15 22 (0.87%) Nagios
16 19 (0.75%) Nessus
16 19 (0.75%) ZABBIX
17 18 (0.71%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 1,100 (43.34%) Microsoft
2 420 (16.55%) VMware
3 235 (9.26%) ServiceNow
4 182 (7.17%) Citrix
5 173 (6.82%) Cisco
6 151 (5.95%) Oracle
7 129 (5.08%) Splunk
8 69 (2.72%) HP
8 69 (2.72%) SolarWinds
9 58 (2.29%) Red Hat
10 56 (2.21%) Google
11 55 (2.17%) Dell
11 55 (2.17%) Remedy
12 54 (2.13%) Apple
13 52 (2.05%) CyberArk
14 46 (1.81%) IBM
15 45 (1.77%) Juniper
16 44 (1.73%) F5
17 42 (1.65%) BeyondTrust
18 35 (1.38%) Palo Alto