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 14 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,739 2,237 2,876
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.01% 8.09% 8.63%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.80% 60.67% 60.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,764 1,512 1,953
10th Percentile £170 £171 £178
25th Percentile £225 £225 £256
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £411 £450
Median % change year-on-year +3.34% -8.61% +3.45%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £659
UK median daily rate £425 £415 £450
% change year-on-year +2.41% -7.68% +2.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 241 186 202
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.12 £11.07
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.36 £15.22
Median hourly rate £25.77 £18.87 £21.05
Median % change year-on-year +36.57% -10.33% -10.45%
75th Percentile £60.33 £28.00 £59.69
90th Percentile £74.00 £65.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.75 £20.00 £21.90
% change year-on-year +28.75% -8.68% -2.67%

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 4,432 3,687 4,751
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.72% 13.34% 14.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,848 2,439 3,155
10th Percentile £192 £191 £200
25th Percentile £313 £308 £335
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £488
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -7.69% -2.50%
75th Percentile £575 £587 £588
90th Percentile £669 £685 £688
UK median daily rate £475 £460 £475
% change year-on-year +3.26% -3.16% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 306 234 293
10th Percentile £16.05 £15.50 £12.43
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.13 £17.00
Median hourly rate £35.22 £23.00 £36.17
Median % change year-on-year +53.13% -36.40% -9.59%
75th Percentile £67.25 £58.94 £68.75
90th Percentile £74.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £24.58 £30.50
% change year-on-year +5.78% -19.41% -24.36%

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 14 August 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 14 August 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 14 August 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 -12 909 £425 - 372
South East -8 578 £475 -3.06% 316
North of England -7 497 £337 +3.54% 230
North West +3 285 £350 - 130
South West -13 285 £488 +35.42% 109
Midlands -23 261 £400 - 122
East of England -3 191 £336 +5.82% 123
Yorkshire -16 186 £335 +16.52% 73
West Midlands -29 168 £430 +0.12% 80
East Midlands +3 89 £270 +35.00% 42
North East -36 30 £250 -4.76% 33
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
1 233 (8.51%) Microsoft Exchange
2 225 (8.21%) SharePoint
3 58 (2.12%) Confluence
4 57 (2.08%) IIS
5 19 (0.69%) Skype for Business
6 16 (0.58%) Apache
6 16 (0.58%) nginx
7 12 (0.44%) Tomcat
8 9 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.26%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.22%) Documentum
11 5 (0.18%) Apache Solr
11 5 (0.18%) Appian
11 5 (0.18%) Camunda
12 4 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
13 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
13 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
13 3 (0.11%) NetWeaver
14 2 (0.073%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 169 (6.17%) Microsoft Office
2 59 (2.15%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.15%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.11%) Houdini
7 3 (0.11%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.11%) NUKE
8 2 (0.073%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.037%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.037%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.037%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 57 (2.08%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.37%) Finacle
3 7 (0.26%) OpenText MBPM
3 7 (0.26%) Oracle BPM
3 7 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
4 5 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.18%) Teamcenter
5 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.073%) assyst
7 1 (0.037%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.037%) Oracle BRM
7 1 (0.037%) SAP BRIM
7 1 (0.037%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.037%) SAP EWM
7 1 (0.037%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.037%) SAP FI-CA
7 1 (0.037%) SAP FS
7 1 (0.037%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 878 (32.06%) Azure
2 868 (31.69%) Microsoft 365
3 442 (16.14%) Entra ID
4 305 (11.14%) AWS
5 128 (4.67%) OneDrive
6 99 (3.61%) Azure DevOps
7 90 (3.29%) GCP
8 73 (2.67%) SaaS
9 70 (2.56%) Azure Monitor
10 65 (2.37%) IaaS
10 65 (2.37%) Power Platform
11 62 (2.26%) GitHub
12 49 (1.79%) PaaS
13 41 (1.50%) Azure Sentinel
14 27 (0.99%) AWS CloudFormation
15 26 (0.95%) Google Workspace
15 26 (0.95%) OpenShift
16 24 (0.88%) Azure AKS
17 23 (0.84%) GitHub Actions
18 22 (0.80%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 445 (16.25%) DNS
2 327 (11.94%) Firewall
3 316 (11.54%) DHCP
4 224 (8.18%) VPN
5 205 (7.48%) TCP/IP
6 143 (5.22%) LAN
7 139 (5.07%) WAN
8 128 (4.67%) Wi-Fi
9 88 (3.21%) SAN
10 74 (2.70%) VLAN
11 67 (2.45%) Network Security
12 44 (1.61%) SSL
13 43 (1.57%) BGP
14 42 (1.53%) NAS
15 39 (1.42%) VSAN
16 38 (1.39%) Internet
17 37 (1.35%) Wireless
18 35 (1.28%) Skype
19 32 (1.17%) OSPF
20 26 (0.95%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 265 (9.68%) SQL Server
2 52 (1.90%) Power BI
3 51 (1.86%) Oracle Database
4 25 (0.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 23 (0.84%) Relational Database
6 22 (0.80%) MySQL
6 22 (0.80%) PostgreSQL
7 19 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
8 15 (0.55%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 15 (0.55%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 13 (0.47%) Db2
10 11 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
10 11 (0.40%) Geospatial Data
10 11 (0.40%) RDBMS
11 8 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
11 8 (0.29%) MongoDB
12 7 (0.26%) NoSQL
13 5 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
13 5 (0.18%) Big Data
13 5 (0.18%) ObjectStore
Development Applications
1 156 (5.70%) JIRA
2 64 (2.34%) Git
3 48 (1.75%) MSI
4 44 (1.61%) Jenkins
5 38 (1.39%) GitLab
6 32 (1.17%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.62%) Eclipse
8 16 (0.58%) Bitbucket
9 10 (0.37%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 8 (0.29%) Artifactory
10 8 (0.29%) Chocolatey
11 7 (0.26%) Browser DevTools
11 7 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
12 6 (0.22%) Selenium
13 5 (0.18%) AdminStudio
13 5 (0.18%) InstallShield
14 4 (0.15%) Android Studio
14 4 (0.15%) Claude Code
14 4 (0.15%) Robot Framework
14 4 (0.15%) Xcode
General
1 1,008 (36.80%) Social Skills
2 335 (12.23%) Analytical Skills
3 334 (12.19%) Finance
4 157 (5.73%) Banking
5 149 (5.44%) Public Sector
6 92 (3.36%) Documentation Skills
7 77 (2.81%) Legal
8 73 (2.67%) Organisational Skills
9 59 (2.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 54 (1.97%) Retail
11 51 (1.86%) Manufacturing
12 41 (1.50%) Front Office
13 40 (1.46%) Telecoms
14 38 (1.39%) Military
15 36 (1.31%) Law
16 35 (1.28%) Investment Banking
17 28 (1.02%) Spanish Language
18 25 (0.91%) Financial Institution
19 23 (0.84%) French Language
20 19 (0.69%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 429 (15.66%) Support Engineer
2 375 (13.69%) IT Support
3 289 (10.55%) IT Engineer
4 281 (10.26%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 242 (8.84%) Analyst
5 242 (8.84%) IT Support Engineer
6 218 (7.96%) Senior
7 125 (4.56%) 2nd Line Support
8 118 (4.31%) Desktop Support
9 109 (3.98%) Architect
10 106 (3.87%) Desktop Engineer
11 104 (3.80%) Cloud Engineer
12 101 (3.69%) Lead
13 93 (3.40%) Support Analyst
14 92 (3.36%) Developer
15 83 (3.03%) Windows Engineer
16 77 (2.81%) Consultant
16 77 (2.81%) IT Analyst
17 76 (2.77%) 1st Line Support
18 72 (2.63%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (4.05%) .NET
2 99 (3.61%) REST
3 62 (2.26%) .NET Framework
4 29 (1.06%) WPF
5 28 (1.02%) 802.1X
5 28 (1.02%) JSON
5 28 (1.02%) Middleware
6 26 (0.95%) LDAP
6 26 (0.95%) WinForms
7 23 (0.84%) CSS
8 21 (0.77%) HTML
8 21 (0.77%) Web Services
9 20 (0.73%) ARM Templates
10 19 (0.69%) Elastic Stack
10 19 (0.69%) Microsoft Graph
11 18 (0.66%) .NET Core
11 18 (0.66%) Software Packaging
12 17 (0.62%) Kafka
12 17 (0.62%) RESTful
12 17 (0.62%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 314 (11.46%) Onboarding
2 153 (5.59%) Data Centre
3 151 (5.51%) PKI
4 93 (3.40%) Clustering
5 80 (2.92%) Management Information System
6 75 (2.74%) Hybrid Cloud
7 72 (2.63%) Enterprise Software
8 71 (2.59%) Cloud Native
9 61 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
10 60 (2.19%) Video Conferencing
11 52 (1.90%) Driving Licence
11 52 (1.90%) Replication
12 46 (1.68%) Security Posture
13 44 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
14 40 (1.46%) Virtual Team
15 38 (1.39%) Analytical Mindset
16 34 (1.24%) CMDB
17 31 (1.13%) Enterprise Storage
18 30 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
18 30 (1.10%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 717 (26.18%) Windows Server
2 661 (24.13%) Linux
3 480 (17.52%) Windows 10
4 177 (6.46%) Mac OS
5 122 (4.45%) Apple iOS
6 120 (4.38%) Android
7 112 (4.09%) Unix
8 109 (3.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 67 (2.45%) Windows Server 2019
10 47 (1.72%) Windows 7
11 41 (1.50%) Ubuntu
12 37 (1.35%) Windows Server 2016
13 36 (1.31%) Windows Server 2012
14 29 (1.06%) AIX
15 26 (0.95%) CentOS
16 20 (0.73%) VMS
17 19 (0.69%) Windows Server 2008
18 17 (0.62%) Solaris
19 12 (0.44%) Windows Server 2003
20 10 (0.37%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 677 (24.72%) Problem-Solving
2 502 (18.33%) ITIL
3 424 (15.48%) Customer Service
4 362 (13.22%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 352 (12.85%) ITSM
6 323 (11.79%) Migration
7 283 (10.33%) Continuous Improvement
8 272 (9.93%) DevOps
9 251 (9.16%) Service Management
10 247 (9.02%) Agile
11 245 (8.94%) CI/CD
12 220 (8.03%) Infrastructure as Code
13 202 (7.37%) Change Management
14 187 (6.83%) Stakeholder Management
15 180 (6.57%) High Availability
16 165 (6.02%) Disaster Recovery
17 159 (5.81%) Cybersecurity
18 157 (5.73%) Service Delivery
19 151 (5.51%) Incident Management
20 149 (5.44%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 690 (25.19%) PowerShell
2 303 (11.06%) Python
3 276 (10.08%) SQL
4 168 (6.13%) Bash
5 138 (5.04%) C#
6 68 (2.48%) JavaScript
7 65 (2.37%) Java
8 50 (1.83%) T-SQL
9 46 (1.68%) PL/SQL
10 45 (1.64%) Bicep
11 44 (1.61%) C++
12 28 (1.02%) VB
13 25 (0.91%) VBScript
14 24 (0.88%) Search Processing Language
15 17 (0.62%) Perl
15 17 (0.62%) Shell Script
15 17 (0.62%) TypeScript
16 12 (0.44%) C
17 11 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
17 11 (0.40%) VBA
Qualifications
1 869 (31.73%) Security Cleared
2 525 (19.17%) SC Cleared
3 322 (11.76%) DV Cleared
4 279 (10.19%) Degree
5 108 (3.94%) Microsoft Certification
6 81 (2.96%) Cisco Certification
7 80 (2.92%) Azure Certification
8 73 (2.67%) Computer Science Degree
9 61 (2.23%) CISSP
10 51 (1.86%) AWS Certification
11 47 (1.72%) A+ Certification
12 45 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
13 39 (1.42%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 32 (1.17%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 29 (1.06%) MCSE
16 27 (0.99%) CCNA
16 27 (0.99%) CCNP
17 25 (0.91%) ITIL Certification
18 24 (0.88%) CISM
19 23 (0.84%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 137 (5.00%) SLA
2 109 (3.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 81 (2.96%) NIST
4 77 (2.81%) QA
5 27 (0.99%) NCSC
6 26 (0.95%) Cyber Essentials
6 26 (0.95%) GDPR
7 22 (0.80%) PCI DSS
8 16 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 13 (0.47%) Accessibility
10 12 (0.44%) Data Quality
11 11 (0.40%) HIPAA
11 11 (0.40%) WCAG
12 10 (0.37%) GRC
13 9 (0.33%) PMO
14 8 (0.29%) NIST 800
15 7 (0.26%) GxP
15 7 (0.26%) SOC 2
16 6 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 6 (0.22%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 1,117 (40.78%) Active Directory
2 394 (14.38%) VMware Infrastructure
3 164 (5.99%) Hyper-V
4 133 (4.86%) VMware ESXi
5 116 (4.24%) vSphere
6 101 (3.69%) Docker
7 93 (3.40%) Virtual Machines
8 82 (2.99%) VMware NSX
9 77 (2.81%) Virtual Desktop
10 40 (1.46%) BitLocker
11 32 (1.17%) Firmware
12 20 (0.73%) Microsoft App-V
12 20 (0.73%) vCloud
13 13 (0.47%) Virtual Servers
14 12 (0.44%) KVM
15 8 (0.29%) VMware Workstation
16 7 (0.26%) NFS
17 6 (0.22%) XenApp
17 6 (0.22%) XenDesktop
18 5 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 407 (14.86%) Microsoft Intune
2 274 (10.00%) SCCM
3 247 (9.02%) Terraform
4 216 (7.89%) Ansible
5 152 (5.55%) Kubernetes
6 116 (4.24%) vCenter Server
7 76 (2.77%) SCOM
8 46 (1.68%) Jamf Pro
9 45 (1.64%) WSUS
10 37 (1.35%) FortiGate
11 36 (1.31%) Progress Chef
12 32 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
13 29 (1.06%) Puppet
14 24 (0.88%) Packer
15 23 (0.84%) Nagios
15 23 (0.84%) VxRail
15 23 (0.84%) WMI
16 22 (0.80%) Grafana
17 21 (0.77%) Prometheus
18 20 (0.73%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,263 (46.11%) Microsoft
2 534 (19.50%) VMware
3 322 (11.76%) ServiceNow
4 182 (6.64%) Cisco
5 170 (6.21%) Citrix
6 157 (5.73%) Oracle
7 115 (4.20%) Splunk
8 87 (3.18%) Apple
9 84 (3.07%) CyberArk
10 80 (2.92%) SolarWinds
11 70 (2.56%) Google
12 65 (2.37%) Remedy
13 64 (2.34%) HP
14 63 (2.30%) Red Hat
15 58 (2.12%) BeyondTrust
16 51 (1.86%) Dell
17 50 (1.83%) Juniper
18 46 (1.68%) BMC
19 41 (1.50%) F5
20 40 (1.46%) IBM