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 23 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 21 16
Rank change year-on-year -7 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,678 2,261 3,074
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.97% 8.27% 8.74%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.58% 60.98% 61.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,719 1,531 2,079
10th Percentile £170 £179 £174
25th Percentile £225 £228 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £422 £415 £438
Median % change year-on-year +1.57% -5.14% -2.78%
75th Percentile £553 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £663
UK median daily rate £425 £421 £425
% change year-on-year +0.95% -0.94% -5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 231 179 250
10th Percentile £16.09 £15.12 £11.73
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.10 £14.54
Median hourly rate £25.77 £18.87 £19.59
Median % change year-on-year +36.57% -3.68% -21.64%
75th Percentile £55.25 £26.63 £40.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £65.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £20.00
% change year-on-year +36.46% -5.65% -16.67%

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 4,349 3,708 4,975
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.69% 13.56% 14.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,802 2,469 3,294
10th Percentile £190 £200 £195
25th Percentile £313 £313 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £463 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -2.63% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £656 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £468 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +1.08% -2.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 292 221 352
10th Percentile £16.02 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.98 £16.25
Median hourly rate £32.50 £23.00 £24.75
Median % change year-on-year +41.30% -7.07% -41.76%
75th Percentile £65.00 £57.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £73.90 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £23.00 £24.18
% change year-on-year +13.04% -4.88% -43.11%

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 23 July 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 23 July 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 23 July 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 -17 868 £416 -5.03% 242
South East -8 573 £475 -5.00% 275
North of England -9 477 £347 -0.86% 195
Midlands -16 277 £375 +25.00% 104
South West -12 265 £488 +21.88% 112
North West -8 251 £350 -2.23% 103
Yorkshire -12 203 £360 +2.86% 61
East of England -2 201 £336 +34.50% 107
West Midlands -26 175 £444 +21.58% 56
East Midlands +10 97 £266 +33.13% 48
North East -37 27 £270 -1.82% 37
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
1 225 (8.40%) Microsoft Exchange
2 214 (7.99%) SharePoint
3 59 (2.20%) Confluence
4 55 (2.05%) IIS
5 16 (0.60%) nginx
6 14 (0.52%) Apache
6 14 (0.52%) Tomcat
7 11 (0.41%) Skype for Business
8 9 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
8 9 (0.34%) WebLogic
9 6 (0.22%) Appian
9 6 (0.22%) Documentum
10 5 (0.19%) Camunda
11 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
12 3 (0.11%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.11%) NetWeaver
12 3 (0.11%) Tuxedo
13 2 (0.075%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 2 (0.075%) SAS
Applications
1 161 (6.01%) Microsoft Office
2 65 (2.43%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.15%) Acrobat
6 4 (0.15%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.075%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.075%) Houdini
7 2 (0.075%) NUKE
7 2 (0.075%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.037%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.037%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 51 (1.90%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.37%) Finacle
3 9 (0.34%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.26%) Teamcenter
5 6 (0.22%) OpenText MBPM
5 6 (0.22%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.075%) assyst
7 2 (0.075%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.037%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.037%) Oracle BRM
8 1 (0.037%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.037%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.037%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.037%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.037%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.037%) SAP FS
8 1 (0.037%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 834 (31.14%) Azure
2 811 (30.28%) Microsoft 365
3 399 (14.90%) Entra ID
4 296 (11.05%) AWS
5 119 (4.44%) OneDrive
6 89 (3.32%) Azure DevOps
6 89 (3.32%) GCP
7 75 (2.80%) SaaS
8 64 (2.39%) Azure Monitor
9 63 (2.35%) IaaS
10 58 (2.17%) GitHub
11 55 (2.05%) Power Platform
12 54 (2.02%) PaaS
13 41 (1.53%) Azure Sentinel
14 28 (1.05%) AWS CloudFormation
15 25 (0.93%) Azure AKS
16 24 (0.90%) Google Workspace
16 24 (0.90%) OpenShift
17 23 (0.86%) GitHub Actions
17 23 (0.86%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 400 (14.94%) DNS
2 305 (11.39%) Firewall
3 278 (10.38%) DHCP
4 200 (7.47%) VPN
5 188 (7.02%) TCP/IP
6 154 (5.75%) LAN
7 141 (5.27%) WAN
8 130 (4.85%) Wi-Fi
9 86 (3.21%) SAN
10 64 (2.39%) Network Security
11 59 (2.20%) VLAN
12 46 (1.72%) BGP
13 45 (1.68%) SSL
14 39 (1.46%) NAS
15 38 (1.42%) Internet
16 37 (1.38%) OSPF
17 36 (1.34%) Wireless
18 29 (1.08%) Skype
18 29 (1.08%) VoIP
19 28 (1.05%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 250 (9.34%) SQL Server
2 53 (1.98%) Oracle Database
3 41 (1.53%) Power BI
4 27 (1.01%) PostgreSQL
5 25 (0.93%) Relational Database
6 23 (0.86%) MySQL
7 20 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
7 20 (0.75%) Db2
8 17 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 13 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
10 12 (0.45%) RDBMS
11 11 (0.41%) NoSQL
12 10 (0.37%) Geospatial Data
12 10 (0.37%) MongoDB
13 9 (0.34%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 8 (0.30%) Data Warehouse
14 8 (0.30%) SQL Server Analysis Services
15 6 (0.22%) GIS
16 5 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
16 5 (0.19%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 172 (6.42%) JIRA
2 55 (2.05%) Git
3 46 (1.72%) MSI
4 44 (1.64%) Jenkins
5 36 (1.34%) GitLab
6 33 (1.23%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.63%) Eclipse
8 11 (0.41%) Bitbucket
9 9 (0.34%) Chocolatey
10 7 (0.26%) Browser DevTools
10 7 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
11 6 (0.22%) Android Studio
11 6 (0.22%) Artifactory
11 6 (0.22%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 6 (0.22%) InstallShield
11 6 (0.22%) Xcode
12 5 (0.19%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.19%) Selenium
13 4 (0.15%) JUnit
13 4 (0.15%) Maven
General
1 972 (36.30%) Social Skills
2 312 (11.65%) Finance
3 306 (11.43%) Analytical Skills
4 167 (6.24%) Public Sector
5 154 (5.75%) Banking
6 99 (3.70%) Documentation Skills
7 81 (3.02%) Organisational Skills
8 77 (2.88%) Legal
9 55 (2.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 54 (2.02%) Retail
11 45 (1.68%) Military
12 43 (1.61%) Manufacturing
13 36 (1.34%) Front Office
13 36 (1.34%) Telecoms
14 33 (1.23%) Investment Banking
14 33 (1.23%) Law
15 26 (0.97%) Spanish Language
16 24 (0.90%) Financial Institution
17 22 (0.82%) French Language
18 21 (0.78%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 385 (14.38%) Support Engineer
2 361 (13.48%) IT Support
3 259 (9.67%) IT Engineer
4 257 (9.60%) Analyst
5 254 (9.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 218 (8.14%) IT Support Engineer
7 204 (7.62%) Senior
8 120 (4.48%) 2nd Line Support
9 113 (4.22%) Architect
10 106 (3.96%) Desktop Support
11 99 (3.70%) Developer
12 95 (3.55%) Cloud Engineer
12 95 (3.55%) Desktop Engineer
12 95 (3.55%) Support Analyst
13 91 (3.40%) Lead
14 83 (3.10%) IT Analyst
15 75 (2.80%) Consultant
16 71 (2.65%) 1st Line Support
16 71 (2.65%) Windows Engineer
17 69 (2.58%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (3.77%) .NET
2 93 (3.47%) REST
3 60 (2.24%) .NET Framework
4 31 (1.16%) 802.1X
5 28 (1.05%) Microsoft Graph
5 28 (1.05%) WPF
6 27 (1.01%) LDAP
6 27 (1.01%) Middleware
6 27 (1.01%) WinForms
7 25 (0.93%) Web Services
8 24 (0.90%) CSS
9 21 (0.78%) JSON
9 21 (0.78%) Software Packaging
10 19 (0.71%) Elastic Stack
11 18 (0.67%) HTML
11 18 (0.67%) Kafka
11 18 (0.67%) RESTful
12 16 (0.60%) Node.js
13 15 (0.56%) ARM Templates
13 15 (0.56%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 286 (10.68%) Onboarding
2 142 (5.30%) PKI
3 140 (5.23%) Data Centre
4 80 (2.99%) Clustering
5 73 (2.73%) Management Information System
6 70 (2.61%) Enterprise Software
7 67 (2.50%) Cloud Native
8 63 (2.35%) Self-Motivation
9 54 (2.02%) Hybrid Cloud
10 53 (1.98%) Driving Licence
11 52 (1.94%) Video Conferencing
12 51 (1.90%) Security Posture
13 49 (1.83%) Replication
14 48 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
15 40 (1.49%) Virtual Team
16 35 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
17 34 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
18 32 (1.19%) Linux Command Line
19 28 (1.05%) CMDB
19 28 (1.05%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 652 (24.35%) Windows Server
2 649 (24.23%) Linux
3 461 (17.21%) Windows 10
4 180 (6.72%) Mac OS
5 127 (4.74%) Apple iOS
6 125 (4.67%) Unix
7 124 (4.63%) Android
8 107 (4.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 65 (2.43%) Windows Server 2019
10 40 (1.49%) Ubuntu
10 40 (1.49%) Windows Server 2016
11 33 (1.23%) Windows Server 2012
12 32 (1.19%) AIX
12 32 (1.19%) Windows 7
13 21 (0.78%) CentOS
14 19 (0.71%) Solaris
15 18 (0.67%) VMS
16 14 (0.52%) Windows Server 2008
17 10 (0.37%) Windows Server 2003
18 9 (0.34%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 619 (23.11%) Problem-Solving
2 462 (17.25%) ITIL
3 412 (15.38%) Customer Service
4 332 (12.40%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 306 (11.43%) Migration
6 296 (11.05%) ITSM
7 258 (9.63%) DevOps
8 252 (9.41%) Continuous Improvement
9 250 (9.34%) Agile
10 241 (9.00%) CI/CD
11 212 (7.92%) Service Management
12 192 (7.17%) Infrastructure as Code
13 182 (6.80%) Change Management
14 173 (6.46%) Stakeholder Management
15 170 (6.35%) High Availability
16 149 (5.56%) Cybersecurity
17 144 (5.38%) SIEM
18 139 (5.19%) Runbook
18 139 (5.19%) Service Delivery
19 138 (5.15%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 607 (22.67%) PowerShell
2 289 (10.79%) Python
3 274 (10.23%) SQL
4 148 (5.53%) Bash
5 133 (4.97%) C#
6 69 (2.58%) JavaScript
7 68 (2.54%) Java
8 51 (1.90%) T-SQL
9 50 (1.87%) PL/SQL
10 45 (1.68%) C++
11 39 (1.46%) Bicep
12 24 (0.90%) Search Processing Language
13 22 (0.82%) VB
14 18 (0.67%) Shell Script
15 17 (0.63%) Perl
15 17 (0.63%) TypeScript
15 17 (0.63%) VBScript
16 16 (0.60%) Kusto Query Language
17 15 (0.56%) C
18 14 (0.52%) VBA
Qualifications
1 812 (30.32%) Security Cleared
2 487 (18.19%) SC Cleared
3 295 (11.02%) Degree
4 294 (10.98%) DV Cleared
5 105 (3.92%) Microsoft Certification
6 83 (3.10%) Cisco Certification
7 70 (2.61%) Computer Science Degree
8 65 (2.43%) Azure Certification
9 63 (2.35%) CISSP
10 48 (1.79%) AWS Certification
11 45 (1.68%) BPSS Clearance
12 35 (1.31%) A+ Certification
13 33 (1.23%) MCSE
14 31 (1.16%) CCNA
15 28 (1.05%) CCNP
16 27 (1.01%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 25 (0.93%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 24 (0.90%) CISM
19 23 (0.86%) ITIL Certification
20 22 (0.82%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 122 (4.56%) SLA
2 114 (4.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 83 (3.10%) NIST
4 70 (2.61%) QA
5 31 (1.16%) GDPR
6 28 (1.05%) Cyber Essentials
7 26 (0.97%) PCI DSS
8 23 (0.86%) NCSC
9 16 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 13 (0.49%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.45%) Accessibility
12 11 (0.41%) HIPAA
13 10 (0.37%) GRC
13 10 (0.37%) PMO
13 10 (0.37%) WCAG
14 9 (0.34%) NIST 800
15 8 (0.30%) SOC 2
16 7 (0.26%) GxP
17 6 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 6 (0.22%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 1,054 (39.36%) Active Directory
2 358 (13.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 143 (5.34%) Hyper-V
4 121 (4.52%) VMware ESXi
5 101 (3.77%) vSphere
6 96 (3.58%) Docker
6 96 (3.58%) Virtual Machines
7 72 (2.69%) Virtual Desktop
8 66 (2.46%) VMware NSX
9 35 (1.31%) Firmware
10 32 (1.19%) BitLocker
11 24 (0.90%) Microsoft App-V
12 17 (0.63%) KVM
13 15 (0.56%) vCloud
14 8 (0.30%) VMware Workstation
14 8 (0.30%) XenDesktop
15 7 (0.26%) NFS
15 7 (0.26%) XenApp
16 6 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
16 6 (0.22%) UAG
Systems Management
1 398 (14.86%) Microsoft Intune
2 246 (9.19%) SCCM
3 221 (8.25%) Terraform
4 188 (7.02%) Ansible
5 144 (5.38%) Kubernetes
6 106 (3.96%) vCenter Server
7 60 (2.24%) SCOM
8 48 (1.79%) Jamf Pro
9 38 (1.42%) FortiGate
10 37 (1.38%) WSUS
11 34 (1.27%) Progress Chef
12 30 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
13 28 (1.05%) Puppet
14 26 (0.97%) Grafana
15 25 (0.93%) Prometheus
16 23 (0.86%) Nagios
17 22 (0.82%) Packer
18 20 (0.75%) Nessus
18 20 (0.75%) ZABBIX
19 19 (0.71%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,169 (43.65%) Microsoft
2 475 (17.74%) VMware
3 276 (10.31%) ServiceNow
4 180 (6.72%) Citrix
5 176 (6.57%) Cisco
6 155 (5.79%) Oracle
7 118 (4.41%) Splunk
8 81 (3.02%) Apple
9 80 (2.99%) SolarWinds
10 75 (2.80%) CyberArk
11 69 (2.58%) Red Hat
12 66 (2.46%) Google
12 66 (2.46%) HP
13 62 (2.32%) Remedy
14 57 (2.13%) BeyondTrust
15 54 (2.02%) Dell
16 51 (1.90%) Juniper
17 47 (1.76%) IBM
18 44 (1.64%) F5
19 39 (1.46%) BMC