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

6 months to
28 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 22 15
Rank change year-on-year -3 -7 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,571 2,177 3,410
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.24% 8.48% 9.02%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.75% 59.58% 63.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,747 1,486 2,323
10th Percentile £161 £182 £155
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £403 £400 £390
Median % change year-on-year +0.63% +2.56% -11.36%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £644 £675 £662
UK median daily rate £400 £410 £400
% change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -8.99%
Number of hourly rates quoted 250 70 247
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.82 £16.95 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.00 £21.84 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.73% +12.00% -13.58%
75th Percentile £43.75 £42.25 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £73.82 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £22.94 £19.50
% change year-on-year -4.09% +17.63% -13.33%

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 4,232 3,654 5,380
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 11.91% 14.23% 14.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,827 2,383 3,666
10th Percentile £180 £200 £178
25th Percentile £266 £313 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -12.62%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £465
% change year-on-year -5.26% +2.15% -9.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 318 119 356
10th Percentile £14.70 £16.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.11 £19.26 £16.54
Median hourly rate £22.81 £44.50 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -48.74% +78.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £60.00 £67.38 £62.13
90th Percentile £68.00 £71.75 £70.95
UK median hourly rate £23.50 £30.78 £25.06
% change year-on-year -23.65% +22.84% -5.75%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 -17 764 £446 +8.12% 260
South East -2 520 £403 -5.29% 400
North of England -8 478 £263 -25.00% 207
South West -1 290 £450 -5.26% 120
Midlands -14 279 £271 -16.62% 130
North West -7 260 £263 -27.59% 109
East of England +6 226 £238 -3.06% 116
Yorkshire -17 186 £325 -3.70% 86
West Midlands -18 170 £400 +22.14% 65
East Midlands +5 108 £210 -24.66% 64
North East -6 35 £188 -41.41% 18
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
1 223 (8.67%) Microsoft Exchange
2 174 (6.77%) SharePoint
3 59 (2.29%) Confluence
4 38 (1.48%) IIS
5 28 (1.09%) Apache
6 21 (0.82%) WebLogic
7 16 (0.62%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.43%) Tuxedo
9 10 (0.39%) TPMS
10 8 (0.31%) WebSphere
11 7 (0.27%) nginx
12 6 (0.23%) JBoss
13 5 (0.19%) iPlanet
13 5 (0.19%) SharePoint Server
13 5 (0.19%) Tomcat
13 5 (0.19%) WebSphere Application Server
14 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
15 3 (0.12%) SAS
Applications
1 228 (8.87%) Microsoft Office
2 74 (2.88%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (0.51%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.19%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.19%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.078%) InDesign
7 2 (0.078%) Mozilla Thunderbird
7 2 (0.078%) Photoshop
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%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.039%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 29 (1.13%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.31%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.19%) assyst
5 4 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.078%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.078%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.078%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.078%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.078%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.078%) SystmOne
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%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.039%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 749 (29.13%) Microsoft 365
2 642 (24.97%) Azure
3 274 (10.66%) Entra ID
4 199 (7.74%) AWS
5 93 (3.62%) OneDrive
6 69 (2.68%) GCP
7 68 (2.64%) SaaS
8 51 (1.98%) Google Workspace
9 49 (1.91%) Azure DevOps
10 42 (1.63%) IaaS
11 38 (1.48%) Power Platform
12 36 (1.40%) GitHub
13 34 (1.32%) PaaS
14 22 (0.86%) AWS CloudFormation
15 20 (0.78%) Azure Monitor
15 20 (0.78%) Azure Sentinel
16 18 (0.70%) OpenShift
17 16 (0.62%) Nutanix
17 16 (0.62%) Sauce Labs
18 15 (0.58%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 348 (13.54%) DNS
2 279 (10.85%) Firewall
3 228 (8.87%) DHCP
4 178 (6.92%) TCP/IP
5 162 (6.30%) VPN
6 127 (4.94%) LAN
6 127 (4.94%) WAN
7 125 (4.86%) Wi-Fi
8 71 (2.76%) Network Security
8 71 (2.76%) VLAN
9 63 (2.45%) Wireless
10 35 (1.36%) SAN
10 35 (1.36%) SSH
11 34 (1.32%) Skype
12 32 (1.24%) BGP
13 30 (1.17%) Cisco ISE
14 28 (1.09%) Junos
15 27 (1.05%) Kerberos
15 27 (1.05%) SSL
15 27 (1.05%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 138 (5.37%) SQL Server
2 51 (1.98%) Oracle Database
3 45 (1.75%) Relational Database
4 40 (1.56%) MySQL
5 25 (0.97%) PostgreSQL
6 14 (0.54%) Power BI
7 13 (0.51%) BigQuery
7 13 (0.51%) DB2
8 11 (0.43%) MongoDB
8 11 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
9 9 (0.35%) GIS
9 9 (0.35%) NoSQL
10 7 (0.27%) Amazon RDS
10 7 (0.27%) Elasticsearch
10 7 (0.27%) SAP HANA
11 6 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
12 5 (0.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 5 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 4 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 148 (5.76%) JIRA
2 60 (2.33%) Jenkins
3 55 (2.14%) Git
4 52 (2.02%) GitLab
5 41 (1.59%) MSI
6 34 (1.32%) Visual Studio
7 30 (1.17%) Eclipse
8 20 (0.78%) Burp Suite
8 20 (0.78%) Metasploit
9 18 (0.70%) Android Studio
10 16 (0.62%) Xcode
11 15 (0.58%) Artifactory
12 13 (0.51%) Browser DevTools
13 12 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
14 10 (0.39%) Chocolatey
15 8 (0.31%) Bitbucket
16 6 (0.23%) InstallShield
16 6 (0.23%) JUnit
16 6 (0.23%) Robot Framework
16 6 (0.23%) Toad
General
1 953 (37.07%) Social Skills
2 244 (9.49%) Finance
3 222 (8.63%) Analytical Skills
4 215 (8.36%) Public Sector
5 129 (5.02%) Banking
6 109 (4.24%) Documentation Skills
7 96 (3.73%) Legal
8 82 (3.19%) Organisational Skills
9 61 (2.37%) Military
10 49 (1.91%) Presentation Skills
11 41 (1.59%) Manufacturing
12 39 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 32 (1.24%) Retail
14 27 (1.05%) Telecoms
15 23 (0.89%) Law
16 22 (0.86%) Aerospace
17 21 (0.82%) Investment Banking
18 19 (0.74%) Front Office
19 16 (0.62%) Local Government
20 14 (0.54%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 379 (14.74%) Support Engineer
2 347 (13.50%) IT Support
3 336 (13.07%) Analyst
4 201 (7.82%) IT Engineer
5 165 (6.42%) IT Support Engineer
6 160 (6.22%) Architect
7 154 (5.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 149 (5.80%) Senior
9 143 (5.56%) Support Analyst
10 126 (4.90%) Desktop Support
11 120 (4.67%) 2nd Line Support
11 120 (4.67%) Technical Support
12 114 (4.43%) Desktop Engineer
13 105 (4.08%) Developer
14 101 (3.93%) Windows Engineer
15 86 (3.35%) IT Analyst
16 85 (3.31%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 85 (3.31%) Lead
17 82 (3.19%) Deployment Engineer
18 73 (2.84%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (2.92%) .NET
2 56 (2.18%) REST
3 50 (1.94%) OAuth
4 46 (1.79%) SAML
5 45 (1.75%) LDAP
6 44 (1.71%) .NET Framework
7 33 (1.28%) Middleware
8 32 (1.24%) Web Services
9 30 (1.17%) WPF
10 29 (1.13%) React
11 27 (1.05%) AngularJS
11 27 (1.05%) OpenID
12 26 (1.01%) CSS
13 24 (0.93%) Microsoft Graph
14 22 (0.86%) Node.js
14 22 (0.86%) WinForms
15 21 (0.82%) OAuth2
16 20 (0.78%) Kafka
17 19 (0.74%) Apache NiFi
18 17 (0.66%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 167 (6.50%) Onboarding
2 103 (4.01%) PKI
3 98 (3.81%) Data Centre
4 84 (3.27%) Driving Licence
5 75 (2.92%) Enterprise Software
6 61 (2.37%) Self-Motivation
7 55 (2.14%) Smartphone
8 49 (1.91%) Replication
9 48 (1.87%) Management Information System
10 44 (1.71%) Clustering
11 43 (1.67%) Security Posture
12 40 (1.56%) Hybrid Cloud
13 36 (1.40%) NHS
13 36 (1.40%) Product Ownership
14 32 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
15 28 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
15 28 (1.09%) Video Conferencing
16 27 (1.05%) Data Protection Act
17 26 (1.01%) CMDB
17 26 (1.01%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 614 (23.88%) Linux
2 583 (22.68%) Windows 10
3 533 (20.73%) Windows Server
4 146 (5.68%) Unix
5 144 (5.60%) Android
6 134 (5.21%) Mac OS
7 118 (4.59%) Apple iOS
8 62 (2.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 61 (2.37%) Windows Server 2016
10 50 (1.94%) Windows 7
11 46 (1.79%) Windows Server 2019
12 36 (1.40%) Windows Server 2012
13 28 (1.09%) AIX
13 28 (1.09%) Windows Server 2003
14 14 (0.54%) VMS
15 13 (0.51%) Ubuntu
15 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2008
16 12 (0.47%) Solaris
17 10 (0.39%) Mac OS X
18 7 (0.27%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 507 (19.72%) Problem-Solving
2 470 (18.28%) Customer Service
3 365 (14.20%) ITIL
4 269 (10.46%) Agile
5 255 (9.92%) Migration
6 233 (9.06%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 214 (8.32%) ITSM
8 212 (8.25%) DevOps
8 212 (8.25%) Service Management
9 201 (7.82%) CI/CD
10 181 (7.04%) Continuous Improvement
11 174 (6.77%) Cybersecurity
12 152 (5.91%) Change Management
13 140 (5.45%) Disaster Recovery
14 133 (5.17%) Stakeholder Management
15 128 (4.98%) User Experience
16 117 (4.55%) Service Delivery
17 110 (4.28%) High Availability
18 107 (4.16%) Computer Science
19 102 (3.97%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 485 (18.86%) PowerShell
2 263 (10.23%) Python
3 214 (8.32%) SQL
4 120 (4.67%) C#
5 110 (4.28%) Bash
6 99 (3.85%) Java
7 79 (3.07%) JavaScript
8 59 (2.29%) C++
9 52 (2.02%) Perl
10 49 (1.91%) PL/SQL
11 39 (1.52%) T-SQL
12 29 (1.13%) Kusto Query Language
13 25 (0.97%) VB
14 24 (0.93%) Shell Script
15 21 (0.82%) VBScript
16 18 (0.70%) VBA
17 12 (0.47%) Bicep
17 12 (0.47%) C
17 12 (0.47%) TypeScript
18 11 (0.43%) Go
Qualifications
1 817 (31.78%) Security Cleared
2 526 (20.46%) SC Cleared
3 266 (10.35%) Degree
4 233 (9.06%) DV Cleared
5 147 (5.72%) Microsoft Certification
6 79 (3.07%) Computer Science Degree
7 56 (2.18%) Cisco Certification
8 55 (2.14%) Azure Certification
9 48 (1.87%) MCSE
10 35 (1.36%) ITIL Certification
11 31 (1.21%) CCNA
11 31 (1.21%) CISSP
12 30 (1.17%) AWS Certification
13 27 (1.05%) A+ Certification
13 27 (1.05%) BPSS Clearance
13 27 (1.05%) CCNP
14 24 (0.93%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 22 (0.86%) MCSA
16 19 (0.74%) CompTIA Security+
16 19 (0.74%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (3.66%) GDPR
2 86 (3.35%) SLA
3 73 (2.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 72 (2.80%) QA
5 52 (2.02%) NIST
6 36 (1.40%) PCI DSS
7 21 (0.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 15 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
9 13 (0.51%) MiFID
10 12 (0.47%) NCSC
10 12 (0.47%) PMO
11 10 (0.39%) FINRA
11 10 (0.39%) GLBA
12 9 (0.35%) NIST 800
13 5 (0.19%) GxP
14 4 (0.16%) COBIT
14 4 (0.16%) HIPAA
14 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
15 3 (0.12%) Accessibility
15 3 (0.12%) SEPA
System Software
1 964 (37.50%) Active Directory
2 257 (10.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 109 (4.24%) Hyper-V
4 102 (3.97%) Docker
5 59 (2.29%) Virtual Desktop
5 59 (2.29%) Virtual Machines
6 56 (2.18%) vSphere
7 48 (1.87%) VMware ESXi
8 31 (1.21%) VMware NSX
9 24 (0.93%) BitLocker
10 22 (0.86%) Firmware
11 21 (0.82%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.62%) KVM
13 10 (0.39%) Virtual Servers
14 7 (0.27%) XenDesktop
15 6 (0.23%) DFS Replication
15 6 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 6 (0.23%) NFS
15 6 (0.23%) Terminal Services
15 6 (0.23%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 346 (13.46%) Microsoft Intune
2 337 (13.11%) SCCM
3 155 (6.03%) Terraform
4 130 (5.06%) Ansible
5 113 (4.40%) Kubernetes
6 67 (2.61%) Single Sign-On
7 63 (2.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 60 (2.33%) vCenter Server
9 39 (1.52%) Jamf Pro
10 30 (1.17%) Grafana
11 26 (1.01%) FortiGate
12 25 (0.97%) SCOM
13 24 (0.93%) WSUS
14 21 (0.82%) Nessus
15 20 (0.78%) Prometheus
16 19 (0.74%) Nmap
17 18 (0.70%) Progress Chef
18 17 (0.66%) WMI
19 13 (0.51%) Puppet
20 12 (0.47%) CASB
Vendors
1 1,125 (43.76%) Microsoft
2 360 (14.00%) VMware
3 235 (9.14%) ServiceNow
4 189 (7.35%) Citrix
5 166 (6.46%) Oracle
6 154 (5.99%) Cisco
7 115 (4.47%) Splunk
8 63 (2.45%) Dell
9 60 (2.33%) SolarWinds
10 59 (2.29%) Red Hat
11 56 (2.18%) Google
11 56 (2.18%) HP
12 49 (1.91%) Apple
13 46 (1.79%) IBM
13 46 (1.79%) Remedy
14 44 (1.71%) Veeam
15 42 (1.63%) Juniper
16 35 (1.36%) CyberArk
17 32 (1.24%) SAP
18 31 (1.21%) Palo Alto