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 7 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 22 15
Rank change year-on-year -3 -7 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,592 2,207 3,432
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.12% 8.59% 8.98%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.83% 60.37% 63.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,747 1,518 2,332
10th Percentile £161 £181 £155
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £403 £401 £385
Median % change year-on-year +0.36% +4.17% -12.99%
75th Percentile £546 £575 £575
90th Percentile £640 £675 £655
UK median daily rate £400 £420 £400
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 246 78 265
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £13.29
25th Percentile £16.62 £16.95 £14.27
Median hourly rate £21.80 £21.30 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.37% +18.31% -18.33%
75th Percentile £41.94 £51.00 £33.75
90th Percentile £66.00 £70.25 £62.50
UK median hourly rate £21.80 £22.50 £18.00
% change year-on-year -3.11% +25.00% -18.18%

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 4,261 3,656 5,405
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 11.70% 14.22% 14.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,821 2,395 3,667
10th Percentile £180 £200 £177
25th Percentile £265 £313 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -12.62%
75th Percentile £565 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £445 £475 £458
% change year-on-year -6.32% +3.71% -10.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 319 128 377
10th Percentile £14.80 £16.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.47 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.81 £42.75 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -46.64% +90.00% -15.06%
75th Percentile £60.00 £67.25 £60.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £71.08 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £23.00 £30.78 £22.50
% change year-on-year -25.28% +36.80% -15.03%

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 7 March 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 7 March 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 7 March 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 -17 784 £425 - 245
South East -2 524 £416 -2.86% 354
North of England -8 485 £268 -23.36% 217
South West -2 281 £450 -11.76% 107
Midlands -14 276 £271 -16.62% 109
North West -6 259 £263 -27.59% 127
East of England +6 225 £240 +1.05% 111
Yorkshire -14 195 £325 -16.67% 72
West Midlands -24 167 £400 +23.08% 52
East Midlands +2 108 £210 -9.19% 56
North East -8 34 £188 -37.50% 23
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
1 224 (8.64%) Microsoft Exchange
2 168 (6.48%) SharePoint
3 57 (2.20%) Confluence
4 36 (1.39%) IIS
5 24 (0.93%) Apache
6 20 (0.77%) WebLogic
7 15 (0.58%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.42%) Tuxedo
9 10 (0.39%) TPMS
10 6 (0.23%) nginx
10 6 (0.23%) WebSphere
11 5 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 5 (0.19%) Tomcat
12 4 (0.15%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
13 3 (0.12%) iPlanet
13 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 3 (0.12%) SAS
13 3 (0.12%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 222 (8.56%) Microsoft Office
2 72 (2.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.46%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.19%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.19%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.077%) InDesign
7 2 (0.077%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.039%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.039%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 27 (1.04%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (0.50%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.27%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.19%) assyst
5 4 (0.15%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.077%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.077%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.077%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.077%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.077%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.077%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.039%) Aladdin
8 1 (0.039%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.039%) Eikon
8 1 (0.039%) Fidessa
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
1 759 (29.28%) Microsoft 365
2 646 (24.92%) Azure
3 278 (10.73%) Entra ID
4 189 (7.29%) AWS
5 90 (3.47%) OneDrive
6 70 (2.70%) GCP
7 68 (2.62%) SaaS
8 52 (2.01%) Azure DevOps
9 51 (1.97%) Google Workspace
10 44 (1.70%) IaaS
11 43 (1.66%) GitHub
12 38 (1.47%) Power Platform
13 36 (1.39%) PaaS
14 22 (0.85%) AWS CloudFormation
14 22 (0.85%) Azure Monitor
15 21 (0.81%) Azure Sentinel
16 20 (0.77%) GitHub Actions
17 17 (0.66%) Nutanix
17 17 (0.66%) OpenShift
18 15 (0.58%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 336 (12.96%) DNS
2 290 (11.19%) Firewall
3 222 (8.56%) DHCP
4 169 (6.52%) TCP/IP
5 167 (6.44%) VPN
6 133 (5.13%) LAN
6 133 (5.13%) WAN
7 128 (4.94%) Wi-Fi
8 69 (2.66%) Network Security
9 66 (2.55%) VLAN
10 61 (2.35%) Wireless
11 40 (1.54%) SAN
12 35 (1.35%) BGP
13 33 (1.27%) Skype
14 32 (1.23%) SSH
15 28 (1.08%) Cisco ISE
15 28 (1.08%) VoIP
16 27 (1.04%) Internet
16 27 (1.04%) Junos
16 27 (1.04%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 147 (5.67%) SQL Server
2 51 (1.97%) Oracle Database
3 44 (1.70%) Relational Database
4 38 (1.47%) MySQL
5 24 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
6 14 (0.54%) Power BI
7 13 (0.50%) BigQuery
7 13 (0.50%) DB2
8 11 (0.42%) MongoDB
8 11 (0.42%) Oracle Reports
9 9 (0.35%) NoSQL
10 8 (0.31%) Elasticsearch
10 8 (0.31%) GIS
11 7 (0.27%) SAP HANA
12 6 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
13 5 (0.19%) Amazon RDS
13 5 (0.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 5 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 4 (0.15%) Azure SQL Database
14 4 (0.15%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 154 (5.94%) JIRA
2 56 (2.16%) Jenkins
3 53 (2.04%) GitLab
4 50 (1.93%) Git
5 42 (1.62%) MSI
6 33 (1.27%) Visual Studio
7 27 (1.04%) Eclipse
8 20 (0.77%) Burp Suite
8 20 (0.77%) Metasploit
9 17 (0.66%) Android Studio
10 15 (0.58%) Artifactory
10 15 (0.58%) Xcode
11 12 (0.46%) Browser DevTools
12 10 (0.39%) Chocolatey
12 10 (0.39%) Sonatype Nexus
13 9 (0.35%) Bitbucket
14 7 (0.27%) JUnit
14 7 (0.27%) Robot Framework
15 6 (0.23%) InstallShield
15 6 (0.23%) Toad
General
1 959 (37.00%) Social Skills
2 254 (9.80%) Finance
3 218 (8.41%) Analytical Skills
3 218 (8.41%) Public Sector
4 135 (5.21%) Banking
5 109 (4.21%) Documentation Skills
6 100 (3.86%) Legal
7 83 (3.20%) Organisational Skills
8 59 (2.28%) Military
9 47 (1.81%) Presentation Skills
10 40 (1.54%) Manufacturing
11 37 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 37 (1.43%) Retail
12 26 (1.00%) Telecoms
13 24 (0.93%) Law
14 22 (0.85%) Investment Banking
15 21 (0.81%) Aerospace
16 19 (0.73%) Front Office
17 18 (0.69%) Local Government
18 15 (0.58%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 371 (14.31%) Support Engineer
2 354 (13.66%) IT Support
3 338 (13.04%) Analyst
4 203 (7.83%) IT Engineer
5 169 (6.52%) IT Support Engineer
6 160 (6.17%) Architect
7 153 (5.90%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 148 (5.71%) Senior
9 146 (5.63%) Support Analyst
10 126 (4.86%) Desktop Support
11 121 (4.67%) 2nd Line Support
12 117 (4.51%) Technical Support
13 114 (4.40%) Desktop Engineer
14 108 (4.17%) Developer
15 99 (3.82%) Windows Engineer
16 89 (3.43%) Lead
17 87 (3.36%) IT Analyst
18 85 (3.28%) Desktop Support Engineer
19 79 (3.05%) Deployment Engineer
20 74 (2.85%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (3.09%) .NET
2 59 (2.28%) REST
3 48 (1.85%) OAuth
4 45 (1.74%) .NET Framework
5 44 (1.70%) SAML
6 42 (1.62%) LDAP
7 33 (1.27%) Middleware
8 31 (1.20%) Web Services
8 31 (1.20%) WPF
9 28 (1.08%) React
10 27 (1.04%) AngularJS
11 26 (1.00%) CSS
12 25 (0.96%) OpenID
13 24 (0.93%) Microsoft Graph
13 24 (0.93%) WinForms
14 21 (0.81%) OAuth2
15 20 (0.77%) 802.1X
15 20 (0.77%) Node.js
16 19 (0.73%) Apache NiFi
16 19 (0.73%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 166 (6.40%) Onboarding
2 105 (4.05%) Data Centre
3 100 (3.86%) PKI
4 80 (3.09%) Driving Licence
5 79 (3.05%) Enterprise Software
6 68 (2.62%) Self-Motivation
7 56 (2.16%) Smartphone
8 49 (1.89%) Clustering
8 49 (1.89%) Management Information System
9 48 (1.85%) Replication
10 44 (1.70%) Security Posture
11 40 (1.54%) Hybrid Cloud
12 37 (1.43%) Product Ownership
13 36 (1.39%) NHS
14 30 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
15 28 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
16 27 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
17 26 (1.00%) CMDB
17 26 (1.00%) Video Conferencing
17 26 (1.00%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 607 (23.42%) Linux
2 580 (22.38%) Windows 10
3 550 (21.22%) Windows Server
4 143 (5.52%) Android
5 137 (5.29%) Unix
6 135 (5.21%) Mac OS
7 118 (4.55%) Apple iOS
8 63 (2.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 62 (2.39%) Windows Server 2016
10 48 (1.85%) Windows 7
11 46 (1.77%) Windows Server 2019
12 36 (1.39%) Windows Server 2012
13 31 (1.20%) AIX
14 29 (1.12%) Windows Server 2003
15 13 (0.50%) Ubuntu
15 13 (0.50%) VMS
16 12 (0.46%) Solaris
16 12 (0.46%) Windows Server 2008
17 10 (0.39%) Mac OS X
18 8 (0.31%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 511 (19.71%) Problem-Solving
2 472 (18.21%) Customer Service
3 366 (14.12%) ITIL
4 273 (10.53%) Agile
5 263 (10.15%) Migration
6 235 (9.07%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 216 (8.33%) DevOps
8 209 (8.06%) ITSM
9 204 (7.87%) CI/CD
10 191 (7.37%) Service Management
11 186 (7.18%) Continuous Improvement
12 180 (6.94%) Cybersecurity
13 157 (6.06%) Change Management
14 144 (5.56%) Disaster Recovery
15 133 (5.13%) Stakeholder Management
16 132 (5.09%) User Experience
17 121 (4.67%) Service Delivery
18 118 (4.55%) High Availability
19 105 (4.05%) Infrastructure as Code
20 103 (3.97%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 500 (19.29%) PowerShell
2 269 (10.38%) Python
3 230 (8.87%) SQL
4 126 (4.86%) C#
5 111 (4.28%) Bash
6 95 (3.67%) Java
7 76 (2.93%) JavaScript
8 58 (2.24%) C++
9 51 (1.97%) PL/SQL
10 49 (1.89%) Perl
11 41 (1.58%) T-SQL
12 32 (1.23%) Kusto Query Language
13 25 (0.96%) VB
14 23 (0.89%) Shell Script
15 21 (0.81%) VBScript
16 17 (0.66%) VBA
17 12 (0.46%) Bicep
17 12 (0.46%) C
17 12 (0.46%) TypeScript
18 11 (0.42%) Go
Qualifications
1 820 (31.64%) Security Cleared
2 535 (20.64%) SC Cleared
3 262 (10.11%) Degree
4 231 (8.91%) DV Cleared
5 139 (5.36%) Microsoft Certification
6 76 (2.93%) Computer Science Degree
7 59 (2.28%) Cisco Certification
8 47 (1.81%) Azure Certification
9 46 (1.77%) MCSE
10 35 (1.35%) ITIL Certification
11 33 (1.27%) CISSP
12 31 (1.20%) AWS Certification
12 31 (1.20%) CCNA
13 28 (1.08%) BPSS Clearance
14 25 (0.96%) CCNP
15 24 (0.93%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 23 (0.89%) A+ Certification
17 22 (0.85%) MCSA
18 20 (0.77%) CompTIA Security+
19 19 (0.73%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (3.74%) GDPR
2 89 (3.43%) SLA
3 78 (3.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 77 (2.97%) QA
5 50 (1.93%) NIST
6 38 (1.47%) PCI DSS
7 21 (0.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 15 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
9 13 (0.50%) MiFID
9 13 (0.50%) PMO
10 12 (0.46%) NCSC
11 10 (0.39%) FINRA
11 10 (0.39%) GLBA
12 9 (0.35%) NIST 800
13 5 (0.19%) GxP
14 4 (0.15%) COBIT
14 4 (0.15%) HIPAA
14 4 (0.15%) SOC 2
15 3 (0.12%) Accessibility
15 3 (0.12%) Data Quality
System Software
1 973 (37.54%) Active Directory
2 259 (9.99%) VMware Infrastructure
3 101 (3.90%) Hyper-V
4 100 (3.86%) Docker
5 62 (2.39%) vSphere
6 60 (2.31%) Virtual Machines
7 57 (2.20%) Virtual Desktop
8 49 (1.89%) VMware ESXi
9 29 (1.12%) VMware NSX
10 25 (0.96%) BitLocker
10 25 (0.96%) Firmware
11 23 (0.89%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.62%) KVM
13 8 (0.31%) Virtual Servers
14 7 (0.27%) XenDesktop
15 6 (0.23%) NFS
15 6 (0.23%) Terminal Services
15 6 (0.23%) XenApp
16 4 (0.15%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 4 (0.15%) Snort
Systems Management
1 353 (13.62%) Microsoft Intune
2 333 (12.85%) SCCM
3 158 (6.10%) Terraform
4 137 (5.29%) Ansible
5 118 (4.55%) Kubernetes
6 64 (2.47%) Single Sign-On
7 62 (2.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 58 (2.24%) vCenter Server
9 37 (1.43%) Jamf Pro
10 28 (1.08%) FortiGate
10 28 (1.08%) Grafana
11 25 (0.96%) SCOM
12 24 (0.93%) WSUS
13 20 (0.77%) Nessus
14 19 (0.73%) Nmap
15 18 (0.69%) Prometheus
16 17 (0.66%) Progress Chef
16 17 (0.66%) WMI
17 15 (0.58%) Puppet
18 12 (0.46%) CASB
Vendors
1 1,123 (43.33%) Microsoft
2 363 (14.00%) VMware
3 235 (9.07%) ServiceNow
4 193 (7.45%) Citrix
5 163 (6.29%) Oracle
6 151 (5.83%) Cisco
7 114 (4.40%) Splunk
8 63 (2.43%) HP
9 59 (2.28%) Dell
9 59 (2.28%) Red Hat
9 59 (2.28%) SolarWinds
10 55 (2.12%) Google
11 46 (1.77%) Apple
12 45 (1.74%) IBM
13 44 (1.70%) Remedy
14 42 (1.62%) Veeam
15 41 (1.58%) Juniper
16 34 (1.31%) CyberArk
17 32 (1.23%) F5
18 31 (1.20%) SAP