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 11 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 16
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,518 2,065 3,342
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.44% 8.48% 8.94%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.25% 60.82% 64.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,706 1,479 2,282
10th Percentile £160 £182 £156
25th Percentile £210 £243 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £414 £423 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.19% +5.82% -11.17%
75th Percentile £549 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £413 £425 £400
% change year-on-year -2.94% +6.25% -10.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 208 98 279
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £12.00
25th Percentile £17.02 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £22.50 £18.82 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +19.55% +6.21% -19.45%
75th Percentile £60.94 £28.00 £23.81
90th Percentile £74.00 £65.00 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £20.97 £17.72
% change year-on-year +7.30% +18.34% -19.45%

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 4,111 3,395 5,201
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.51% 13.95% 13.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,730 2,338 3,528
10th Percentile £181 £200 £180
25th Percentile £300 £313 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -12.62%
75th Percentile £570 £600 £588
90th Percentile £669 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £463
% change year-on-year -5.26% +2.70% -9.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 290 143 381
10th Percentile £15.45 £16.30 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.54 £18.13 £15.25
Median hourly rate £27.25 £25.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.00% +13.64% -24.91%
75th Percentile £67.25 £64.38 £57.50
90th Percentile £74.30 £68.60 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £26.47 £24.66 £22.00
% change year-on-year +7.34% +12.09% -26.67%

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 11 April 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 11 April 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 11 April 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 -21 777 £425 -5.13% 231
South East -7 506 £473 -3.08% 277
North of England -10 472 £313 -5.58% 201
Midlands -14 289 £325 +8.33% 130
North West -3 262 £261 -25.36% 130
South West -9 241 £475 -11.63% 129
East of England +7 215 £310 +37.78% 97
Yorkshire -15 188 £365 +8.15% 58
West Midlands -25 169 £449 +38.00% 76
East Midlands 0 116 £210 -9.19% 54
North East -9 28 £206 +3.13% 17
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
1 217 (8.62%) Microsoft Exchange
2 152 (6.04%) SharePoint
3 48 (1.91%) Confluence
4 46 (1.83%) IIS
5 21 (0.83%) WebLogic
6 18 (0.71%) Apache
7 12 (0.48%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.44%) Tuxedo
9 8 (0.32%) TPMS
10 7 (0.28%) nginx
10 7 (0.28%) Tomcat
11 5 (0.20%) SAS
12 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.16%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.079%) Apache Pulsar
13 2 (0.079%) Appian
13 2 (0.079%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.079%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 186 (7.39%) Microsoft Office
2 69 (2.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.44%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.20%) PTC Creo
7 3 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.040%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.040%) InDesign
8 1 (0.040%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 36 (1.43%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.32%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.20%) assyst
5 3 (0.12%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.079%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.079%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.079%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.079%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.079%) SystmOne
7 1 (0.040%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.040%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.040%) Eikon
7 1 (0.040%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.040%) Finacle
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.040%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 716 (28.44%) Microsoft 365
2 675 (26.81%) Azure
3 294 (11.68%) Entra ID
4 201 (7.98%) AWS
5 72 (2.86%) GCP
5 72 (2.86%) SaaS
6 71 (2.82%) OneDrive
7 63 (2.50%) Azure DevOps
8 53 (2.10%) IaaS
9 47 (1.87%) Google Workspace
10 46 (1.83%) PaaS
11 43 (1.71%) GitHub
12 37 (1.47%) Power Platform
13 34 (1.35%) Azure Monitor
14 26 (1.03%) Azure Sentinel
15 20 (0.79%) GitHub Actions
16 19 (0.75%) OpenShift
17 18 (0.71%) AWS CloudFormation
18 17 (0.68%) Microsoft Purview
18 17 (0.68%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 338 (13.42%) DNS
2 303 (12.03%) Firewall
3 231 (9.17%) DHCP
4 175 (6.95%) VPN
5 154 (6.12%) TCP/IP
6 148 (5.88%) LAN
7 143 (5.68%) WAN
8 127 (5.04%) Wi-Fi
9 74 (2.94%) Network Security
10 65 (2.58%) VLAN
11 51 (2.03%) SAN
11 51 (2.03%) Wireless
12 39 (1.55%) BGP
13 33 (1.31%) SSL
14 30 (1.19%) OSPF
14 30 (1.19%) VoIP
15 29 (1.15%) Skype
16 28 (1.11%) Internet
17 27 (1.07%) BIG-IP
17 27 (1.07%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 165 (6.55%) SQL Server
2 42 (1.67%) Oracle Database
3 35 (1.39%) Relational Database
4 32 (1.27%) MySQL
5 23 (0.91%) PostgreSQL
6 19 (0.75%) Power BI
7 14 (0.56%) DB2
8 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
9 12 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
9 12 (0.48%) MongoDB
10 10 (0.40%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.36%) Oracle Reports
12 7 (0.28%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 6 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
13 6 (0.24%) GIS
13 6 (0.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 5 (0.20%) Amazon RDS
15 4 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
15 4 (0.16%) RDBMS
15 4 (0.16%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 159 (6.31%) JIRA
2 52 (2.07%) GitLab
3 47 (1.87%) Jenkins
4 42 (1.67%) Git
4 42 (1.67%) MSI
5 34 (1.35%) Visual Studio
6 22 (0.87%) Eclipse
7 18 (0.71%) Burp Suite
8 17 (0.68%) Metasploit
9 12 (0.48%) Android Studio
9 12 (0.48%) Artifactory
10 11 (0.44%) Chocolatey
11 10 (0.40%) Browser DevTools
11 10 (0.40%) Xcode
12 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.32%) InstallShield
13 8 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
14 7 (0.28%) JUnit
14 7 (0.28%) Robot Framework
14 7 (0.28%) Selenium
General
1 872 (34.63%) Social Skills
2 237 (9.41%) Finance
3 212 (8.42%) Analytical Skills
4 203 (8.06%) Public Sector
5 144 (5.72%) Banking
6 104 (4.13%) Documentation Skills
7 103 (4.09%) Legal
8 81 (3.22%) Organisational Skills
9 59 (2.34%) Military
10 40 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
11 36 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 36 (1.43%) Manufacturing
12 34 (1.35%) Retail
13 30 (1.19%) Law
14 29 (1.15%) Telecoms
15 28 (1.11%) Investment Banking
16 25 (0.99%) Front Office
17 20 (0.79%) Local Government
18 16 (0.64%) Aerospace
19 14 (0.56%) Police
Job Titles
1 346 (13.74%) IT Support
2 330 (13.11%) Support Engineer
3 314 (12.47%) Analyst
4 211 (8.38%) IT Engineer
5 176 (6.99%) IT Support Engineer
6 174 (6.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 163 (6.47%) Senior
8 161 (6.39%) Architect
9 126 (5.00%) Support Analyst
10 107 (4.25%) Developer
11 106 (4.21%) Desktop Support
12 98 (3.89%) Technical Support
13 95 (3.77%) Desktop Engineer
14 90 (3.57%) IT Analyst
15 89 (3.53%) 2nd Line Support
16 84 (3.34%) Windows Engineer
17 78 (3.10%) Lead
18 71 (2.82%) IT Support Analyst
19 68 (2.70%) Desktop Support Engineer
20 66 (2.62%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (3.42%) .NET
2 67 (2.66%) REST
3 52 (2.07%) .NET Framework
4 48 (1.91%) SAML
5 41 (1.63%) LDAP
5 41 (1.63%) OAuth
6 35 (1.39%) Middleware
7 31 (1.23%) WPF
8 29 (1.15%) WinForms
9 26 (1.03%) Web Services
10 25 (0.99%) Kafka
10 25 (0.99%) Microsoft Graph
10 25 (0.99%) OpenID
11 24 (0.95%) 802.1X
12 22 (0.87%) CSS
12 22 (0.87%) React
13 21 (0.83%) Node.js
14 20 (0.79%) AngularJS
15 19 (0.75%) OAuth2
16 18 (0.71%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 191 (7.59%) Onboarding
2 106 (4.21%) Data Centre
3 95 (3.77%) PKI
4 78 (3.10%) Enterprise Software
5 64 (2.54%) Self-Motivation
6 63 (2.50%) Driving Licence
7 62 (2.46%) Clustering
8 58 (2.30%) Replication
9 43 (1.71%) Smartphone
10 42 (1.67%) Hybrid Cloud
10 42 (1.67%) Management Information System
11 40 (1.59%) Product Ownership
12 38 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
12 38 (1.51%) Security Posture
13 31 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
14 29 (1.15%) CMDB
15 28 (1.11%) Cloud Native
16 27 (1.07%) NHS
17 26 (1.03%) Analytical Mindset
18 25 (0.99%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 618 (24.54%) Linux
2 573 (22.76%) Windows Server
3 512 (20.33%) Windows 10
4 146 (5.80%) Mac OS
5 140 (5.56%) Android
6 120 (4.77%) Apple iOS
6 120 (4.77%) Unix
7 74 (2.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 58 (2.30%) Windows Server 2016
9 47 (1.87%) Windows 7
10 43 (1.71%) Windows Server 2019
11 37 (1.47%) AIX
12 36 (1.43%) Windows Server 2012
13 24 (0.95%) Windows Server 2003
14 19 (0.75%) VMS
15 18 (0.71%) Ubuntu
16 13 (0.52%) Solaris
17 10 (0.40%) CentOS
17 10 (0.40%) Mac OS X
17 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 521 (20.69%) Problem-Solving
2 432 (17.16%) Customer Service
3 362 (14.38%) ITIL
4 269 (10.68%) Migration
5 266 (10.56%) Agile
6 250 (9.93%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 224 (8.90%) DevOps
8 215 (8.54%) ITSM
9 200 (7.94%) CI/CD
10 175 (6.95%) Continuous Improvement
10 175 (6.95%) Service Management
11 166 (6.59%) Cybersecurity
12 163 (6.47%) Change Management
13 154 (6.12%) Disaster Recovery
14 135 (5.36%) High Availability
15 122 (4.85%) Stakeholder Management
16 109 (4.33%) Identity Access Management
16 109 (4.33%) User Experience
17 108 (4.29%) SIEM
18 107 (4.25%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 549 (21.80%) PowerShell
2 249 (9.89%) Python
3 241 (9.57%) SQL
4 127 (5.04%) C#
5 109 (4.33%) Bash
6 77 (3.06%) Java
7 74 (2.94%) JavaScript
8 54 (2.14%) PL/SQL
9 48 (1.91%) C++
10 43 (1.71%) Perl
10 43 (1.71%) T-SQL
11 29 (1.15%) Kusto Query Language
12 25 (0.99%) VB
13 19 (0.75%) VBScript
14 17 (0.68%) Shell Script
15 16 (0.64%) VBA
16 15 (0.60%) Search Processing Language
17 13 (0.52%) TypeScript
18 11 (0.44%) Bicep
18 11 (0.44%) Go
Qualifications
1 800 (31.77%) Security Cleared
2 531 (21.09%) SC Cleared
3 255 (10.13%) Degree
4 235 (9.33%) DV Cleared
5 113 (4.49%) Microsoft Certification
6 71 (2.82%) Computer Science Degree
7 61 (2.42%) Cisco Certification
8 45 (1.79%) Azure Certification
9 39 (1.55%) MCSE
10 34 (1.35%) CISSP
11 31 (1.23%) CCNA
12 30 (1.19%) BPSS Clearance
13 29 (1.15%) AWS Certification
13 29 (1.15%) ITIL Certification
14 23 (0.91%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 21 (0.83%) CCNP
16 20 (0.79%) A+ Certification
16 20 (0.79%) CompTIA Security+
16 20 (0.79%) MCSA
17 17 (0.68%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (3.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 86 (3.42%) GDPR
3 84 (3.34%) QA
4 76 (3.02%) SLA
5 64 (2.54%) NIST
6 41 (1.63%) PCI DSS
7 27 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 18 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
9 12 (0.48%) MiFID
10 11 (0.44%) NCSC
10 11 (0.44%) NIST 800
10 11 (0.44%) PMO
11 10 (0.40%) FINRA
12 9 (0.36%) Data Quality
13 8 (0.32%) GLBA
14 6 (0.24%) DICOM
14 6 (0.24%) HIPAA
14 6 (0.24%) HL7
15 4 (0.16%) GMP
15 4 (0.16%) GxP
System Software
1 955 (37.93%) Active Directory
2 276 (10.96%) VMware Infrastructure
3 118 (4.69%) Hyper-V
4 87 (3.46%) Docker
5 72 (2.86%) vSphere
6 64 (2.54%) VMware ESXi
7 55 (2.18%) Virtual Machines
8 46 (1.83%) Virtual Desktop
9 36 (1.43%) VMware NSX
10 33 (1.31%) BitLocker
10 33 (1.31%) Firmware
11 24 (0.95%) Microsoft App-V
12 18 (0.71%) KVM
13 10 (0.40%) XenDesktop
14 9 (0.36%) XenApp
15 6 (0.24%) NFS
16 5 (0.20%) etcd
16 5 (0.20%) Terminal Services
16 5 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
17 4 (0.16%) Job Entry Subsystem
Systems Management
1 348 (13.82%) Microsoft Intune
2 276 (10.96%) SCCM
3 151 (6.00%) Ansible
4 148 (5.88%) Terraform
5 116 (4.61%) Kubernetes
6 66 (2.62%) Single Sign-On
7 62 (2.46%) vCenter Server
8 60 (2.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 39 (1.55%) Jamf Pro
10 32 (1.27%) FortiGate
11 29 (1.15%) WSUS
12 25 (0.99%) SCOM
13 24 (0.95%) Grafana
14 21 (0.83%) Prometheus
15 18 (0.71%) Nagios
15 18 (0.71%) Nessus
15 18 (0.71%) Progress Chef
16 16 (0.64%) Nmap
16 16 (0.64%) Puppet
17 14 (0.56%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,080 (42.89%) Microsoft
2 375 (14.89%) VMware
3 219 (8.70%) ServiceNow
4 200 (7.94%) Citrix
5 155 (6.16%) Oracle
6 150 (5.96%) Cisco
7 116 (4.61%) Splunk
8 69 (2.74%) HP
9 61 (2.42%) SolarWinds
10 60 (2.38%) Red Hat
11 57 (2.26%) Dell
12 53 (2.10%) Google
13 50 (1.99%) CyberArk
13 50 (1.99%) Remedy
14 45 (1.79%) Apple
14 45 (1.79%) IBM
15 40 (1.59%) Juniper
16 37 (1.47%) Veeam
17 34 (1.35%) F5
18 30 (1.19%) BeyondTrust