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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 21 17
Rank change year-on-year -6 -4 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,752 2,277 2,833
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.03% 8.25% 8.54%
As % of the Operating Systems category 62.02% 61.23% 60.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,773 1,544 1,916
10th Percentile £170 £170 £178
25th Percentile £225 £221 £256
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £408 £450
Median % change year-on-year +4.29% -9.44% +5.88%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £663 £654
UK median daily rate £425 £413 £449
% change year-on-year +3.03% -8.13% +4.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 238 187 200
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.12 £11.06
25th Percentile £17.68 £17.44 £15.04
Median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.46% -10.14% -6.67%
75th Percentile £60.25 £28.00 £58.56
90th Percentile £74.30 £65.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.75 £20.38 £21.80
% change year-on-year +26.38% -6.54% -3.11%

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 4,437 3,719 4,707
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.72% 13.48% 14.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,858 2,457 3,116
10th Percentile £190 £191 £200
25th Percentile £313 £306 £337
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £450 £488
Median % change year-on-year +4.44% -7.83% -2.35%
75th Percentile £575 £584 £588
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £471 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +4.61% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 302 235 286
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £12.40
25th Percentile £19.25 £18.13 £16.90
Median hourly rate £34.68 £24.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +44.48% -26.15% -12.96%
75th Percentile £67.25 £58.88 £67.88
90th Percentile £74.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £25.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +4.00% -9.09% -31.25%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -12 923 £425 +1.19% 324
South East -10 570 £475 -4.23% 320
North of England -5 502 £325 - 198
North West +2 292 £344 -1.71% 98
South West -15 284 £484 +38.21% 106
Midlands -18 259 £379 -5.38% 124
East of England -2 196 £335 - 129
Yorkshire -20 183 £324 +3.60% 72
West Midlands -28 164 £419 -2.39% 79
East Midlands +7 91 £270 +35.00% 45
North East -29 31 £250 -4.76% 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
1 231 (8.39%) Microsoft Exchange
2 228 (8.28%) SharePoint
3 57 (2.07%) IIS
4 56 (2.03%) Confluence
5 19 (0.69%) Skype for Business
6 18 (0.65%) nginx
7 15 (0.55%) Apache
8 13 (0.47%) Tomcat
9 9 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
10 8 (0.29%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.22%) Documentum
12 5 (0.18%) Apache Solr
12 5 (0.18%) Appian
12 5 (0.18%) Camunda
13 4 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
14 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
14 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
14 3 (0.11%) NetWeaver
14 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
Applications
1 170 (6.18%) Microsoft Office
2 61 (2.22%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.11%) Houdini
6 3 (0.11%) NUKE
7 2 (0.073%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.036%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.036%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.036%) InDesign
8 1 (0.036%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 57 (2.07%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.36%) Finacle
3 7 (0.25%) OpenText MBPM
3 7 (0.25%) Oracle BPM
4 6 (0.22%) SAP S/4HANA
5 5 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
6 4 (0.15%) Teamcenter
7 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.073%) assyst
9 1 (0.036%) Dynamics NAV
9 1 (0.036%) Oracle BRM
9 1 (0.036%) SAP BRIM
9 1 (0.036%) SAP ERP
9 1 (0.036%) SAP EWM
9 1 (0.036%) SAP FI
9 1 (0.036%) SAP FI-CA
9 1 (0.036%) SAP FS
9 1 (0.036%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 880 (31.98%) Azure
2 877 (31.87%) Microsoft 365
3 443 (16.10%) Entra ID
4 311 (11.30%) AWS
5 129 (4.69%) OneDrive
6 103 (3.74%) Azure DevOps
7 90 (3.27%) GCP
8 74 (2.69%) Azure Monitor
9 70 (2.54%) SaaS
10 64 (2.33%) Power Platform
11 63 (2.29%) GitHub
11 63 (2.29%) IaaS
12 48 (1.74%) PaaS
13 41 (1.49%) Azure Sentinel
14 28 (1.02%) AWS CloudFormation
14 28 (1.02%) OpenShift
15 26 (0.94%) Google Workspace
16 24 (0.87%) Azure AKS
17 23 (0.84%) GitHub Actions
18 22 (0.80%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 439 (15.95%) DNS
2 320 (11.63%) Firewall
3 317 (11.52%) DHCP
4 231 (8.39%) VPN
5 210 (7.63%) TCP/IP
6 131 (4.76%) WAN
7 130 (4.72%) LAN
8 126 (4.58%) Wi-Fi
9 90 (3.27%) SAN
10 81 (2.94%) VLAN
11 74 (2.69%) Network Security
12 43 (1.56%) NAS
12 43 (1.56%) SSL
13 39 (1.42%) Internet
13 39 (1.42%) VSAN
14 38 (1.38%) Wireless
15 35 (1.27%) Skype
16 31 (1.13%) BGP
17 26 (0.94%) VoIP
18 24 (0.87%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 263 (9.56%) SQL Server
2 52 (1.89%) Oracle Database
2 52 (1.89%) Power BI
3 25 (0.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 23 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
4 23 (0.84%) Relational Database
5 22 (0.80%) MySQL
6 18 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
7 15 (0.55%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 15 (0.55%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 12 (0.44%) Elasticsearch
9 11 (0.40%) Geospatial Data
9 11 (0.40%) RDBMS
10 10 (0.36%) Db2
11 8 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
11 8 (0.29%) MongoDB
12 7 (0.25%) NoSQL
13 5 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
13 5 (0.18%) ObjectStore
13 5 (0.18%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 160 (5.81%) JIRA
2 66 (2.40%) Git
3 47 (1.71%) Jenkins
4 45 (1.64%) MSI
5 39 (1.42%) GitLab
6 31 (1.13%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.62%) Bitbucket
7 17 (0.62%) Eclipse
8 10 (0.36%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 9 (0.33%) Selenium
10 7 (0.25%) Artifactory
10 7 (0.25%) Browser DevTools
10 7 (0.25%) Chocolatey
10 7 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
11 5 (0.18%) AdminStudio
11 5 (0.18%) InstallShield
11 5 (0.18%) Robot Framework
12 4 (0.15%) Claude Code
12 4 (0.15%) Octopus Deploy
13 3 (0.11%) Appium
General
1 1,008 (36.63%) Social Skills
2 346 (12.57%) Finance
3 337 (12.25%) Analytical Skills
4 157 (5.70%) Banking
5 146 (5.31%) Public Sector
6 95 (3.45%) Documentation Skills
7 73 (2.65%) Legal
7 73 (2.65%) Organisational Skills
8 59 (2.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 54 (1.96%) Retail
10 53 (1.93%) Manufacturing
11 42 (1.53%) Telecoms
12 40 (1.45%) Front Office
13 37 (1.34%) Military
14 36 (1.31%) Law
15 33 (1.20%) Investment Banking
16 28 (1.02%) Spanish Language
17 25 (0.91%) Financial Institution
17 25 (0.91%) French Language
18 19 (0.69%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 441 (16.02%) Support Engineer
2 375 (13.63%) IT Support
3 293 (10.65%) IT Engineer
4 287 (10.43%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 245 (8.90%) IT Support Engineer
6 238 (8.65%) Analyst
7 221 (8.03%) Senior
8 127 (4.61%) 2nd Line Support
9 120 (4.36%) Desktop Support
10 108 (3.92%) Architect
11 105 (3.82%) Desktop Engineer
12 104 (3.78%) Cloud Engineer
13 101 (3.67%) Lead
14 93 (3.38%) Support Analyst
15 89 (3.23%) Developer
16 85 (3.09%) Windows Engineer
17 80 (2.91%) Consultant
18 77 (2.80%) 1st Line Support
19 76 (2.76%) IT Analyst
20 73 (2.65%) 2nd Line Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (9.05%) Terraform
2 113 (4.11%) .NET
3 100 (3.63%) REST
4 64 (2.33%) .NET Framework
5 31 (1.13%) Middleware
6 29 (1.05%) WPF
7 28 (1.02%) JSON
8 27 (0.98%) LDAP
9 25 (0.91%) WinForms
10 22 (0.80%) ARM Templates
10 22 (0.80%) CSS
11 21 (0.76%) Web Services
12 20 (0.73%) HTML
12 20 (0.73%) Software Packaging
13 19 (0.69%) Elastic Stack
13 19 (0.69%) Microsoft Graph
14 18 (0.65%) .NET Core
14 18 (0.65%) Kafka
15 17 (0.62%) 802.1X
15 17 (0.62%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 327 (11.88%) Onboarding
2 150 (5.45%) Data Centre
3 144 (5.23%) PKI
4 85 (3.09%) Clustering
5 83 (3.02%) Management Information System
6 80 (2.91%) Hybrid Cloud
7 72 (2.62%) Cloud Native
8 71 (2.58%) Enterprise Software
9 64 (2.33%) Video Conferencing
10 63 (2.29%) Self-Motivation
11 55 (2.00%) Driving Licence
12 54 (1.96%) Replication
13 45 (1.64%) Security Posture
14 44 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
15 39 (1.42%) Analytical Mindset
15 39 (1.42%) Virtual Team
16 35 (1.27%) CMDB
16 35 (1.27%) Enterprise Storage
17 30 (1.09%) Data Protection Act
18 29 (1.05%) iPhone
Operating Systems
1 735 (26.71%) Windows Server
2 674 (24.49%) Linux
3 490 (17.81%) Windows 10
4 180 (6.54%) Mac OS
5 124 (4.51%) Apple iOS
6 122 (4.43%) Android
7 112 (4.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 107 (3.89%) Unix
9 69 (2.51%) Windows Server 2019
10 46 (1.67%) Windows 7
11 45 (1.64%) Ubuntu
12 41 (1.49%) Windows Server 2016
13 36 (1.31%) Windows Server 2012
14 30 (1.09%) CentOS
15 24 (0.87%) AIX
16 20 (0.73%) VMS
17 19 (0.69%) Windows Server 2008
18 17 (0.62%) Solaris
19 11 (0.40%) Windows Server 2003
20 10 (0.36%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 671 (24.38%) Problem-Solving
2 512 (18.60%) ITIL
3 437 (15.88%) Customer Service
4 369 (13.41%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 360 (13.08%) ITSM
6 327 (11.88%) Migration
7 286 (10.39%) Continuous Improvement
8 278 (10.10%) DevOps
9 256 (9.30%) Service Management
10 248 (9.01%) Agile
11 247 (8.98%) CI/CD
12 230 (8.36%) Infrastructure as Code
13 203 (7.38%) Change Management
14 188 (6.83%) Stakeholder Management
15 173 (6.29%) Disaster Recovery
16 172 (6.25%) High Availability
17 163 (5.92%) Root Cause Analysis
18 161 (5.85%) Cybersecurity
19 160 (5.81%) Service Delivery
20 153 (5.56%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 699 (25.40%) PowerShell
2 310 (11.26%) Python
3 279 (10.14%) SQL
4 169 (6.14%) Bash
5 142 (5.16%) C#
6 67 (2.43%) Java
7 66 (2.40%) JavaScript
8 50 (1.82%) T-SQL
9 47 (1.71%) Bicep
9 47 (1.71%) PL/SQL
10 43 (1.56%) C++
11 28 (1.02%) VB
12 26 (0.94%) VBScript
13 24 (0.87%) Search Processing Language
14 17 (0.62%) Perl
14 17 (0.62%) Shell Script
15 16 (0.58%) TypeScript
16 11 (0.40%) C
16 11 (0.40%) VBA
17 10 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 874 (31.76%) Security Cleared
2 533 (19.37%) SC Cleared
3 324 (11.77%) DV Cleared
4 284 (10.32%) Degree
5 108 (3.92%) Microsoft Certification
6 82 (2.98%) Azure Certification
7 76 (2.76%) Cisco Certification
8 75 (2.73%) Computer Science Degree
9 60 (2.18%) CISSP
10 52 (1.89%) AWS Certification
11 48 (1.74%) A+ Certification
12 46 (1.67%) BPSS Clearance
13 38 (1.38%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 32 (1.16%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 30 (1.09%) CCNA
16 29 (1.05%) CCNP
17 26 (0.94%) MCSE
18 25 (0.91%) CISM
18 25 (0.91%) DBS Check
18 25 (0.91%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (5.23%) SLA
2 110 (4.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 81 (2.94%) QA
4 80 (2.91%) NIST
5 27 (0.98%) NCSC
6 26 (0.94%) Cyber Essentials
6 26 (0.94%) GDPR
7 23 (0.84%) PCI DSS
8 16 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 13 (0.47%) Accessibility
9 13 (0.47%) Data Quality
10 11 (0.40%) GRC
10 11 (0.40%) HIPAA
10 11 (0.40%) WCAG
11 9 (0.33%) PMO
12 7 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 7 (0.25%) GxP
12 7 (0.25%) NIST 800
13 6 (0.22%) ISO 31000
13 6 (0.22%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,138 (41.35%) Active Directory
2 410 (14.90%) VMware Infrastructure
3 172 (6.25%) Hyper-V
4 136 (4.94%) VMware ESXi
5 121 (4.40%) vSphere
6 104 (3.78%) Docker
7 92 (3.34%) Virtual Machines
8 82 (2.98%) VMware NSX
9 78 (2.83%) Virtual Desktop
10 40 (1.45%) BitLocker
11 36 (1.31%) Firmware
12 20 (0.73%) vCloud
13 17 (0.62%) Microsoft App-V
14 14 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
15 9 (0.33%) KVM
15 9 (0.33%) XenApp
15 9 (0.33%) XenDesktop
16 8 (0.29%) VMware Workstation
17 7 (0.25%) Citrix Hypervisor
17 7 (0.25%) NFS
Systems Management
1 409 (14.86%) Microsoft Intune
2 285 (10.36%) SCCM
3 220 (7.99%) Ansible
4 150 (5.45%) Kubernetes
5 115 (4.18%) vCenter Server
6 78 (2.83%) SCOM
7 46 (1.67%) WSUS
8 44 (1.60%) Jamf Pro
9 36 (1.31%) Progress Chef
10 32 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
11 30 (1.09%) Puppet
12 26 (0.94%) FortiGate
13 25 (0.91%) WMI
14 24 (0.87%) Grafana
14 24 (0.87%) Nagios
14 24 (0.87%) Packer
14 24 (0.87%) Prometheus
15 23 (0.84%) VxRail
16 20 (0.73%) Microsoft Clustering
16 20 (0.73%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 1,292 (46.95%) Microsoft
2 547 (19.88%) VMware
3 331 (12.03%) ServiceNow
4 176 (6.40%) Cisco
5 164 (5.96%) Citrix
6 159 (5.78%) Oracle
7 102 (3.71%) Splunk
8 91 (3.31%) Apple
9 86 (3.13%) CyberArk
10 74 (2.69%) Google
11 69 (2.51%) SolarWinds
12 63 (2.29%) HP
12 63 (2.29%) Red Hat
13 61 (2.22%) Remedy
14 60 (2.18%) BeyondTrust
15 50 (1.82%) Dell
16 47 (1.71%) BMC
17 39 (1.42%) NetApp
18 38 (1.38%) IBM
18 38 (1.38%) Juniper