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 18 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 22 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -6 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,593 2,196 3,429
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.50% 8.51% 9.09%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.83% 59.42% 63.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,772 1,466 2,320
10th Percentile £162 £182 £155
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £389
Median % change year-on-year - +2.89% -11.65%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £575
90th Percentile £640 £661 £660
UK median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 246 71 248
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.82 £16.71 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.00 £21.59 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% +7.95% -11.11%
75th Percentile £41.94 £39.50 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £74.44 £62.63
UK median hourly rate £21.80 £22.94 £20.00
% change year-on-year -4.96% +14.69% -9.09%

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 4,263 3,696 5,395
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.33% 14.32% 14.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,842 2,359 3,655
10th Percentile £180 £200 £180
25th Percentile £263 £313 £264
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £470 £453
Median % change year-on-year -4.26% +3.75% -12.88%
75th Percentile £567 £600 £594
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £440 £470 £465
% change year-on-year -6.38% +1.08% -9.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 311 119 365
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.44 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £19.25 £17.25
Median hourly rate £22.50 £41.00 £25.25
Median % change year-on-year -45.12% +62.38% -4.72%
75th Percentile £48.75 £67.38 £62.50
90th Percentile £68.00 £73.89 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £23.00 £29.00 £25.52
% change year-on-year -20.69% +13.64% -1.85%

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 18 February 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 18 February 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 18 February 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 -17 766 £450 +12.50% 249
South East -2 512 £403 -5.29% 377
North of England -7 475 £263 -25.00% 228
South West +2 313 £445 -5.32% 115
Midlands -7 293 £275 -15.38% 123
North West -6 265 £240 -31.43% 130
East of England +6 226 £225 -11.76% 120
Yorkshire -15 177 £325 -7.14% 85
West Midlands -16 177 £375 +15.38% 81
East Midlands +6 115 £225 -19.28% 41
North East -5 36 £188 -41.41% 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
1 218 (8.41%) Microsoft Exchange
2 181 (6.98%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.31%) Confluence
4 42 (1.62%) IIS
5 31 (1.20%) Apache
6 20 (0.77%) WebLogic
7 17 (0.66%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.42%) TPMS
9 10 (0.39%) WebSphere
10 9 (0.35%) Tuxedo
11 8 (0.31%) JBoss
11 8 (0.31%) nginx
12 7 (0.27%) iPlanet
12 7 (0.27%) WebSphere Application Server
13 6 (0.23%) SharePoint Server
14 4 (0.15%) OpenStack
14 4 (0.15%) SAS
15 3 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2010
15 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
16 2 (0.077%) Documentum
Applications
1 235 (9.06%) Microsoft Office
2 78 (3.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (0.54%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.19%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.19%) PTC Creo
5 5 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.15%) Mozilla Thunderbird
7 2 (0.077%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.077%) Windchill
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%) InDesign
8 1 (0.039%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.039%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 28 (1.08%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.31%) 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
1 745 (28.73%) Microsoft 365
2 642 (24.76%) Azure
3 260 (10.03%) Entra ID
4 201 (7.75%) AWS
5 97 (3.74%) OneDrive
6 69 (2.66%) SaaS
7 63 (2.43%) GCP
8 52 (2.01%) Google Workspace
9 46 (1.77%) Azure DevOps
10 41 (1.58%) GitHub
10 41 (1.58%) IaaS
11 36 (1.39%) Power Platform
12 32 (1.23%) PaaS
13 22 (0.85%) Azure Monitor
14 21 (0.81%) Azure Sentinel
15 20 (0.77%) OpenShift
16 19 (0.73%) AWS CloudFormation
17 17 (0.66%) Sauce Labs
18 16 (0.62%) GitHub Actions
19 15 (0.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 345 (13.31%) DNS
2 273 (10.53%) Firewall
3 226 (8.72%) DHCP
4 173 (6.67%) TCP/IP
5 171 (6.59%) VPN
6 126 (4.86%) LAN
7 125 (4.82%) WAN
8 117 (4.51%) Wi-Fi
9 79 (3.05%) Network Security
10 71 (2.74%) VLAN
11 67 (2.58%) Wireless
12 39 (1.50%) SSH
13 33 (1.27%) SAN
13 33 (1.27%) Skype
14 29 (1.12%) Kerberos
15 28 (1.08%) Cisco ISE
15 28 (1.08%) HTTP
15 28 (1.08%) VoIP
16 27 (1.04%) FTP
17 26 (1.00%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 126 (4.86%) SQL Server
2 54 (2.08%) Oracle Database
3 49 (1.89%) Relational Database
4 41 (1.58%) MySQL
5 26 (1.00%) PostgreSQL
6 13 (0.50%) DB2
7 12 (0.46%) BigQuery
7 12 (0.46%) NoSQL
7 12 (0.46%) Power BI
8 11 (0.42%) MongoDB
9 10 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
10 9 (0.35%) Amazon RDS
11 8 (0.31%) GIS
12 6 (0.23%) Amazon Aurora
12 6 (0.23%) Elasticsearch
13 5 (0.19%) SAP HANA
13 5 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 4 (0.15%) Data Warehouse
14 4 (0.15%) Oracle Database 10g
14 4 (0.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 144 (5.55%) JIRA
2 61 (2.35%) Jenkins
3 57 (2.20%) Git
4 49 (1.89%) GitLab
5 43 (1.66%) MSI
6 24 (0.93%) Eclipse
6 24 (0.93%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.77%) Burp Suite
7 20 (0.77%) Metasploit
8 19 (0.73%) Android Studio
9 17 (0.66%) Xcode
10 16 (0.62%) Browser DevTools
11 15 (0.58%) Artifactory
12 13 (0.50%) Sonatype Nexus
13 10 (0.39%) InstallShield
14 8 (0.31%) Chocolatey
15 7 (0.27%) Bitbucket
15 7 (0.27%) Bitbucket Server
15 7 (0.27%) CA Release Automation
16 6 (0.23%) Vagrant
General
1 955 (36.83%) Social Skills
2 261 (10.07%) Finance
3 223 (8.60%) Public Sector
4 209 (8.06%) Analytical Skills
5 126 (4.86%) Banking
6 116 (4.47%) Documentation Skills
7 94 (3.63%) Legal
8 82 (3.16%) Organisational Skills
9 55 (2.12%) Military
10 48 (1.85%) Manufacturing
11 43 (1.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 40 (1.54%) Presentation Skills
13 31 (1.20%) Retail
13 31 (1.20%) Telecoms
14 22 (0.85%) Aerospace
14 22 (0.85%) Front Office
15 21 (0.81%) Investment Banking
16 20 (0.77%) Law
17 17 (0.66%) Financial Institution
18 16 (0.62%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 386 (14.89%) Support Engineer
2 345 (13.31%) IT Support
3 335 (12.92%) Analyst
4 197 (7.60%) IT Engineer
5 161 (6.21%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 158 (6.09%) IT Support Engineer
7 147 (5.67%) Architect
7 147 (5.67%) Senior
8 144 (5.55%) Support Analyst
9 135 (5.21%) Desktop Support
10 126 (4.86%) Technical Support
11 121 (4.67%) 2nd Line Support
12 119 (4.59%) Desktop Engineer
13 108 (4.17%) Windows Engineer
14 105 (4.05%) Developer
15 92 (3.55%) Deployment Engineer
15 92 (3.55%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 87 (3.36%) Lead
17 83 (3.20%) IT Analyst
18 70 (2.70%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (2.82%) .NET
2 52 (2.01%) OAuth
2 52 (2.01%) REST
3 47 (1.81%) SAML
4 46 (1.77%) LDAP
5 44 (1.70%) .NET Framework
6 35 (1.35%) React
7 34 (1.31%) Middleware
8 33 (1.27%) WPF
9 29 (1.12%) AngularJS
9 29 (1.12%) OpenID
10 26 (1.00%) CSS
11 23 (0.89%) Microsoft Graph
11 23 (0.89%) Web Services
12 21 (0.81%) Kafka
12 21 (0.81%) OAuth2
13 20 (0.77%) WinForms
14 19 (0.73%) SOAP
15 18 (0.69%) Apache NiFi
15 18 (0.69%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 169 (6.52%) Onboarding
2 100 (3.86%) PKI
3 89 (3.43%) Data Centre
4 84 (3.24%) Driving Licence
5 75 (2.89%) Enterprise Software
6 61 (2.35%) Self-Motivation
7 58 (2.24%) Smartphone
8 52 (2.01%) Replication
9 51 (1.97%) Management Information System
10 42 (1.62%) Security Posture
11 40 (1.54%) Clustering
12 39 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
13 37 (1.43%) NHS
14 33 (1.27%) Product Ownership
15 28 (1.08%) Analytical Mindset
16 27 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
16 27 (1.04%) Video Conferencing
17 25 (0.96%) Virtual Team
18 24 (0.93%) CMDB
18 24 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 615 (23.72%) Linux
2 606 (23.37%) Windows 10
3 539 (20.79%) Windows Server
4 150 (5.78%) Unix
5 144 (5.55%) Mac OS
6 139 (5.36%) Android
7 115 (4.44%) Apple iOS
8 61 (2.35%) Windows Server 2016
9 54 (2.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 51 (1.97%) Windows 7
11 48 (1.85%) Windows Server 2019
12 39 (1.50%) Windows Server 2012
13 29 (1.12%) AIX
13 29 (1.12%) Windows Server 2003
14 17 (0.66%) VMS
15 15 (0.58%) Ubuntu
16 11 (0.42%) Solaris
17 10 (0.39%) Mac OS X
17 10 (0.39%) Windows Server 2008
18 6 (0.23%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 487 (18.78%) Problem-Solving
2 461 (17.78%) Customer Service
3 370 (14.27%) ITIL
4 266 (10.26%) Agile
5 247 (9.53%) Migration
6 235 (9.06%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 214 (8.25%) Service Management
8 213 (8.21%) ITSM
9 210 (8.10%) DevOps
10 187 (7.21%) CI/CD
11 183 (7.06%) Continuous Improvement
12 178 (6.86%) Cybersecurity
13 146 (5.63%) Change Management
14 131 (5.05%) Disaster Recovery
15 122 (4.70%) User Experience
16 120 (4.63%) Stakeholder Management
17 116 (4.47%) Service Delivery
18 108 (4.17%) High Availability
19 104 (4.01%) Computer Science
20 103 (3.97%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 483 (18.63%) PowerShell
2 271 (10.45%) Python
3 212 (8.18%) SQL
4 110 (4.24%) C#
5 106 (4.09%) Bash
5 106 (4.09%) Java
6 71 (2.74%) JavaScript
7 57 (2.20%) Perl
8 52 (2.01%) C++
9 48 (1.85%) PL/SQL
10 37 (1.43%) T-SQL
11 31 (1.20%) Kusto Query Language
12 28 (1.08%) VB
12 28 (1.08%) VBScript
13 26 (1.00%) Shell Script
14 24 (0.93%) VBA
15 13 (0.50%) Groovy
16 12 (0.46%) C
17 11 (0.42%) Bicep
17 11 (0.42%) Go
Qualifications
1 823 (31.74%) Security Cleared
2 528 (20.36%) SC Cleared
3 272 (10.49%) Degree
4 239 (9.22%) DV Cleared
5 153 (5.90%) Microsoft Certification
6 75 (2.89%) Computer Science Degree
7 57 (2.20%) Azure Certification
8 53 (2.04%) Cisco Certification
9 49 (1.89%) MCSE
10 37 (1.43%) ITIL Certification
11 32 (1.23%) CCNA
12 31 (1.20%) A+ Certification
13 30 (1.16%) AWS Certification
13 30 (1.16%) CISSP
14 27 (1.04%) BPSS Clearance
15 26 (1.00%) CCNP
15 26 (1.00%) MCSA
16 25 (0.96%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 23 (0.89%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 18 (0.69%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (3.55%) GDPR
2 86 (3.32%) SLA
3 70 (2.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 69 (2.66%) QA
5 51 (1.97%) NIST
6 35 (1.35%) PCI DSS
7 21 (0.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 15 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
9 13 (0.50%) MiFID
10 12 (0.46%) PMO
11 11 (0.42%) GLBA
12 10 (0.39%) FINRA
12 10 (0.39%) NCSC
13 7 (0.27%) NIST 800
14 5 (0.19%) GxP
15 4 (0.15%) Accessibility
15 4 (0.15%) COBIT
15 4 (0.15%) HIPAA
15 4 (0.15%) SOC 2
16 3 (0.12%) Data Quality
System Software
1 970 (37.41%) Active Directory
2 249 (9.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 106 (4.09%) Hyper-V
4 99 (3.82%) Docker
5 62 (2.39%) Virtual Desktop
5 62 (2.39%) Virtual Machines
6 58 (2.24%) vSphere
7 44 (1.70%) VMware ESXi
8 30 (1.16%) VMware NSX
9 26 (1.00%) Microsoft App-V
10 25 (0.96%) BitLocker
11 16 (0.62%) Firmware
12 15 (0.58%) KVM
13 13 (0.50%) Virtual Servers
14 9 (0.35%) DFS Replication
15 7 (0.27%) Terminal Services
15 7 (0.27%) XenApp
16 6 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 6 (0.23%) NFS
16 6 (0.23%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 348 (13.42%) SCCM
2 324 (12.50%) Microsoft Intune
3 154 (5.94%) Terraform
4 124 (4.78%) Ansible
5 104 (4.01%) Kubernetes
6 66 (2.55%) Single Sign-On
7 65 (2.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 65 (2.51%) vCenter Server
8 45 (1.74%) Jamf Pro
9 33 (1.27%) Grafana
10 27 (1.04%) SCOM
11 25 (0.96%) WSUS
12 23 (0.89%) Nessus
12 23 (0.89%) Prometheus
13 22 (0.85%) FortiGate
14 19 (0.73%) Nmap
15 17 (0.66%) WMI
16 12 (0.46%) CASB
16 12 (0.46%) Progress Chef
17 10 (0.39%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,112 (42.88%) Microsoft
2 343 (13.23%) VMware
3 243 (9.37%) ServiceNow
4 174 (6.71%) Citrix
5 170 (6.56%) Oracle
6 156 (6.02%) Cisco
7 117 (4.51%) Splunk
8 62 (2.39%) Dell
9 59 (2.28%) SolarWinds
10 57 (2.20%) Apple
11 54 (2.08%) HP
12 53 (2.04%) Red Hat
13 51 (1.97%) Google
14 46 (1.77%) Remedy
14 46 (1.77%) Veeam
15 45 (1.74%) IBM
16 39 (1.50%) Juniper
17 36 (1.39%) CyberArk
18 33 (1.27%) SAP
19 30 (1.16%) Palo Alto