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

6 months to
24 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 23 15
Rank change year-on-year +1 -8 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,541 2,205 3,506
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.82% 8.25% 9.36%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.76% 58.74% 63.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,770 1,450 2,378
10th Percentile £160 £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 £566 £575
90th Percentile £638 £651 £675
UK median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 236 75 231
10th Percentile £12.97 £15.09 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.03 £17.22 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.00 £23.80 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.56% +13.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £43.75 £57.62 £46.86
90th Percentile £67.00 £74.26 £62.50
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.02% +15.14% +3.07%

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 3,754 5,516
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.86% 14.04% 14.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,800 2,365 3,788
10th Percentile £173 £200 £180
25th Percentile £263 £313 £265
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £470
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +1.06% -8.74%
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 308 127 333
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.40 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.37 £20.65 £17.72
Median hourly rate £23.79 £53.00 £29.50
Median % change year-on-year -55.12% +79.66% +14.74%
75th Percentile £60.00 £67.25 £63.75
90th Percentile £68.00 £73.85 £72.38
UK median hourly rate £25.00 £35.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year -28.57% +16.67% +20.00%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -13 750 £450 +9.09% 229
South East 0 504 £400 -1.54% 426
North of England -5 447 £263 -25.00% 246
South West +4 317 £425 - 169
Midlands -6 306 £308 -5.38% 160
North West -5 257 £280 -20.14% 103
East of England +7 210 £228 -21.55% 172
West Midlands -11 195 £431 +32.69% 73
Yorkshire -17 162 £302 -16.11% 115
East Midlands +3 111 £215 -39.09% 85
North East -6 31 £180 -44.62% 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
1 212 (8.34%) Microsoft Exchange
2 168 (6.61%) SharePoint
3 66 (2.60%) Confluence
4 45 (1.77%) Apache
5 44 (1.73%) IIS
6 28 (1.10%) WebLogic
7 20 (0.79%) Skype for Business
8 16 (0.63%) WebSphere
9 12 (0.47%) JBoss
10 11 (0.43%) nginx
10 11 (0.43%) TPMS
10 11 (0.43%) WebSphere Application Server
11 10 (0.39%) iPlanet
12 9 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
13 8 (0.31%) Tuxedo
14 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2010
15 6 (0.24%) SAS
16 5 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2013
17 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
17 4 (0.16%) Tomcat
Applications
1 230 (9.05%) Microsoft Office
2 71 (2.79%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.47%) MS Visio
5 8 (0.31%) 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 (0.31%) 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%) 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
1 707 (27.82%) Microsoft 365
2 623 (24.52%) Azure
3 243 (9.56%) Entra ID
4 219 (8.62%) AWS
5 82 (3.23%) OneDrive
6 67 (2.64%) SaaS
7 64 (2.52%) GCP
8 50 (1.97%) Google Workspace
9 48 (1.89%) Azure DevOps
10 42 (1.65%) IaaS
11 39 (1.53%) GitHub
12 31 (1.22%) Azure Monitor
12 31 (1.22%) Power Platform
13 28 (1.10%) PaaS
14 20 (0.79%) Amazon S3
14 20 (0.79%) Azure Sentinel
15 19 (0.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 19 (0.75%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 18 (0.71%) AWS CloudFormation
16 18 (0.71%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 327 (12.87%) DNS
2 255 (10.04%) Firewall
3 214 (8.42%) DHCP
4 174 (6.85%) TCP/IP
5 161 (6.34%) VPN
6 104 (4.09%) WAN
7 94 (3.70%) LAN
8 92 (3.62%) Wi-Fi
9 81 (3.19%) Network Security
10 68 (2.68%) VLAN
11 63 (2.48%) Wireless
12 50 (1.97%) SSH
13 34 (1.34%) Kerberos
13 34 (1.34%) SAN
14 32 (1.26%) Skype
15 31 (1.22%) HTTP
16 28 (1.10%) FTP
17 26 (1.02%) SMTP
18 25 (0.98%) Internet
19 24 (0.94%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (4.41%) SQL Server
2 57 (2.24%) Oracle Database
3 56 (2.20%) Relational Database
4 46 (1.81%) MySQL
5 27 (1.06%) PostgreSQL
6 15 (0.59%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.51%) BigQuery
8 12 (0.47%) NoSQL
8 12 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.43%) Power BI
10 10 (0.39%) Amazon Aurora
11 9 (0.35%) MongoDB
12 8 (0.31%) GIS
13 6 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
13 6 (0.24%) SAP HANA
14 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
14 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 3 (0.12%) BusinessObjects
15 3 (0.12%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 135 (5.31%) JIRA
2 72 (2.83%) Jenkins
3 68 (2.68%) Git
4 46 (1.81%) GitLab
5 34 (1.34%) MSI
6 30 (1.18%) Eclipse
7 27 (1.06%) 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%) Sonatype Nexus
12 15 (0.59%) Artifactory
13 13 (0.51%) Bitbucket
14 12 (0.47%) Vagrant
15 11 (0.43%) Bitbucket Server
15 11 (0.43%) CA Release Automation
15 11 (0.43%) InstallShield
16 8 (0.31%) AdminStudio
General
1 945 (37.19%) Social Skills
2 275 (10.82%) Finance
3 212 (8.34%) Public Sector
4 201 (7.91%) Analytical Skills
5 118 (4.64%) Banking
6 106 (4.17%) Documentation Skills
7 82 (3.23%) Legal
8 68 (2.68%) Organisational Skills
9 51 (2.01%) Military
10 45 (1.77%) Manufacturing
10 45 (1.77%) Presentation Skills
11 42 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 33 (1.30%) Retail
13 30 (1.18%) Telecoms
14 25 (0.98%) Front Office
15 22 (0.87%) Aerospace
16 21 (0.83%) Law
17 18 (0.71%) Investment Banking
18 17 (0.67%) Marketing
19 16 (0.63%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 381 (14.99%) Support Engineer
2 320 (12.59%) IT Support
3 319 (12.55%) Analyst
4 174 (6.85%) IT Engineer
5 158 (6.22%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 143 (5.63%) Support Analyst
7 140 (5.51%) Architect
8 136 (5.35%) IT Support Engineer
9 134 (5.27%) Desktop Support
9 134 (5.27%) Senior
10 125 (4.92%) Windows Engineer
11 123 (4.84%) Technical Support
12 121 (4.76%) Desktop Engineer
13 113 (4.45%) 2nd Line Support
14 107 (4.21%) Deployment Engineer
15 95 (3.74%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 94 (3.70%) Developer
17 81 (3.19%) Platform Engineer
18 80 (3.15%) IT Analyst
19 79 (3.11%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.91%) .NET
2 54 (2.13%) OAuth
3 53 (2.09%) LDAP
4 52 (2.05%) SAML
5 51 (2.01%) REST
6 43 (1.69%) .NET Framework
7 37 (1.46%) Middleware
8 34 (1.34%) React
9 33 (1.30%) OpenID
9 33 (1.30%) WPF
10 31 (1.22%) AngularJS
11 24 (0.94%) CSS
12 23 (0.91%) Web Services
13 22 (0.87%) Node.js
14 20 (0.79%) SOAP
15 19 (0.75%) OAuth2
15 19 (0.75%) RESTful
16 18 (0.71%) Apache NiFi
16 18 (0.71%) GraphQL
16 18 (0.71%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 138 (5.43%) Onboarding
2 86 (3.38%) PKI
3 84 (3.31%) Driving Licence
4 80 (3.15%) Data Centre
5 70 (2.75%) Replication
6 68 (2.68%) Enterprise Software
7 59 (2.32%) Self-Motivation
8 54 (2.13%) Management Information System
8 54 (2.13%) Smartphone
9 39 (1.53%) Hybrid Cloud
10 36 (1.42%) Security Posture
11 32 (1.26%) Clustering
11 32 (1.26%) NHS
12 29 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
13 27 (1.06%) Video Conferencing
14 26 (1.02%) Data Protection Act
15 25 (0.98%) Product Ownership
15 25 (0.98%) Virtual Team
16 22 (0.87%) CMDB
17 21 (0.83%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 623 (24.52%) Linux
2 585 (23.02%) Windows 10
3 526 (20.70%) Windows Server
4 156 (6.14%) Unix
5 130 (5.12%) Android
6 127 (5.00%) Mac OS
7 101 (3.97%) Apple iOS
8 60 (2.36%) Windows Server 2016
9 54 (2.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 52 (2.05%) Windows 7
11 48 (1.89%) Windows Server 2019
12 36 (1.42%) Windows Server 2012
13 31 (1.22%) Windows Server 2003
14 26 (1.02%) AIX
15 21 (0.83%) VMS
16 18 (0.71%) Ubuntu
17 13 (0.51%) Solaris
18 12 (0.47%) Amazon Linux
18 12 (0.47%) Windows Server 2008
19 8 (0.31%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 454 (17.87%) Problem-Solving
2 424 (16.69%) Customer Service
3 366 (14.40%) ITIL
4 261 (10.27%) Agile
5 228 (8.97%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 228 (8.97%) Migration
6 221 (8.70%) DevOps
7 216 (8.50%) Service Management
8 196 (7.71%) ITSM
9 193 (7.60%) CI/CD
10 188 (7.40%) Continuous Improvement
11 176 (6.93%) Cybersecurity
12 154 (6.06%) Change Management
13 127 (5.00%) Disaster Recovery
14 120 (4.72%) User Experience
15 106 (4.17%) Service Delivery
16 103 (4.05%) Computer Science
16 103 (4.05%) Incident Response
16 103 (4.05%) Stakeholder Management
17 102 (4.01%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 501 (19.72%) PowerShell
2 295 (11.61%) Python
3 234 (9.21%) SQL
4 120 (4.72%) Java
5 114 (4.49%) C#
6 101 (3.97%) Bash
7 77 (3.03%) JavaScript
8 64 (2.52%) Perl
9 58 (2.28%) C++
10 44 (1.73%) PL/SQL
11 33 (1.30%) T-SQL
12 31 (1.22%) Kusto Query Language
12 31 (1.22%) VBScript
13 27 (1.06%) VB
14 25 (0.98%) Shell Script
15 23 (0.91%) Groovy
16 22 (0.87%) VBA
17 14 (0.55%) PHP
18 11 (0.43%) Bicep
18 11 (0.43%) Go
Qualifications
1 817 (32.15%) Security Cleared
2 543 (21.37%) SC Cleared
3 258 (10.15%) Degree
4 235 (9.25%) DV Cleared
5 147 (5.79%) Microsoft Certification
6 80 (3.15%) Computer Science Degree
7 60 (2.36%) Azure Certification
8 45 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
9 44 (1.73%) MCSE
10 39 (1.53%) A+ Certification
11 38 (1.50%) ITIL Certification
12 35 (1.38%) AWS Certification
13 28 (1.10%) CCNA
14 27 (1.06%) CCNP
14 27 (1.06%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 26 (1.02%) CISSP
16 25 (0.98%) BPSS Clearance
17 22 (0.87%) MCP
18 21 (0.83%) MCSA
19 20 (0.79%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (3.50%) GDPR
2 87 (3.42%) SLA
3 66 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 66 (2.60%) QA
4 47 (1.85%) NIST
5 32 (1.26%) PCI DSS
6 21 (0.83%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 12 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
7 12 (0.47%) NCSC
8 11 (0.43%) GLBA
8 11 (0.43%) MiFID
8 11 (0.43%) PMO
9 8 (0.31%) FINRA
10 6 (0.24%) NIST 800
11 5 (0.20%) Accessibility
11 5 (0.20%) HIPAA
12 4 (0.16%) COBIT
12 4 (0.16%) GxP
12 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
13 3 (0.12%) SEPA
System Software
1 934 (36.76%) Active Directory
2 234 (9.21%) VMware Infrastructure
3 105 (4.13%) Docker
4 88 (3.46%) Hyper-V
5 57 (2.24%) Virtual Desktop
6 52 (2.05%) Virtual Machines
7 51 (2.01%) vSphere
8 42 (1.65%) VMware ESXi
9 33 (1.30%) VMware NSX
10 26 (1.02%) BitLocker
11 19 (0.75%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.63%) Firmware
13 15 (0.59%) DFS Replication
13 15 (0.59%) Virtual Servers
14 8 (0.31%) Dovecot
14 8 (0.31%) Postfix
14 8 (0.31%) Squid
14 8 (0.31%) Tivoli Directory Server
15 7 (0.28%) NFS
15 7 (0.28%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 352 (13.85%) SCCM
2 291 (11.45%) Microsoft Intune
3 153 (6.02%) Terraform
4 125 (4.92%) Ansible
5 90 (3.54%) Kubernetes
6 65 (2.56%) vCenter Server
7 64 (2.52%) Single Sign-On
8 62 (2.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 40 (1.57%) Jamf Pro
10 34 (1.34%) Grafana
11 30 (1.18%) SCOM
12 26 (1.02%) WSUS
13 22 (0.87%) Prometheus
14 19 (0.75%) Nessus
15 18 (0.71%) Nmap
16 17 (0.67%) WMI
17 16 (0.63%) Progress Chef
18 14 (0.55%) Microsoft Clustering
18 14 (0.55%) Proxmox
19 13 (0.51%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,086 (42.74%) Microsoft
2 326 (12.83%) VMware
3 241 (9.48%) ServiceNow
4 198 (7.79%) Oracle
5 161 (6.34%) Cisco
6 155 (6.10%) Citrix
7 105 (4.13%) Splunk
8 61 (2.40%) Apple
9 60 (2.36%) Dell
10 53 (2.09%) HP
11 50 (1.97%) SolarWinds
12 48 (1.89%) Google
12 48 (1.89%) Veeam
13 46 (1.81%) Red Hat
14 44 (1.73%) IBM
15 38 (1.50%) CyberArk
16 36 (1.42%) SAP
17 34 (1.34%) Remedy
18 32 (1.26%) AppDynamics
19 31 (1.22%) Palo Alto