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 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 21 19 13
Rank change year-on-year -2 -6 +2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,520 2,538 4,017
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.37% 8.27% 10.13%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.27% 58.24% 64.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,698 1,599 2,691
10th Percentile £163 £187 £163
25th Percentile £204 £250 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £393 £406 £415
Median % change year-on-year -3.39% -2.11% -2.35%
75th Percentile £538 £566 £575
90th Percentile £638 £641 £675
UK median daily rate £400 £423 £423
% change year-on-year -5.44% +0.12% -0.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 272 106 236
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.22 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.69 £17.59 £17.72
Median hourly rate £21.46 £24.35 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.87% +8.22% +3.97%
75th Percentile £34.63 £65.00 £55.47
90th Percentile £65.00 £74.00 £68.63
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.50
% change year-on-year -9.02% +7.47% +9.76%

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 4,181 4,358 6,182
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 13.88% 14.20% 15.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,741 2,684 4,239
10th Percentile £185 £203 £185
25th Percentile £263 £325 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £487
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -2.46% -4.51%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £613
90th Percentile £675 £689 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £480
% change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 338 180 327
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.25 £15.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £23.63 £18.93
Median hourly rate £23.00 £58.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -60.34% +44.99% +60.00%
75th Percentile £48.75 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £71.03 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £52.50 £37.83
% change year-on-year -54.29% +38.79% +51.31%

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025. 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 -11 790 £450 +12.50% 622
South East +3 507 £350 -17.65% 535
North of England -4 395 £285 -28.75% 313
South West +5 328 £425 - 227
Midlands -7 303 £400 +4.44% 201
North West -5 216 £330 -26.67% 193
West Midlands -7 213 £427 +10.91% 120
East of England -1 211 £225 -43.75% 151
Yorkshire -10 150 £240 -32.39% 95
East Midlands -2 89 £210 -44.00% 80
North East +2 32 £190 -38.71% 25
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
1 237 (9.40%) Microsoft Exchange
2 169 (6.71%) SharePoint
3 78 (3.10%) Confluence
4 51 (2.02%) Apache
5 40 (1.59%) IIS
6 25 (0.99%) WebSphere
7 22 (0.87%) Skype for Business
8 20 (0.79%) JBoss
9 17 (0.67%) WebLogic
10 15 (0.60%) SharePoint Server
11 12 (0.48%) Exchange Server 2010
11 12 (0.48%) nginx
12 11 (0.44%) Exchange Server 2013
12 11 (0.44%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2003
13 10 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2007
13 10 (0.40%) iPlanet
13 10 (0.40%) Office Communications Server
14 6 (0.24%) Tomcat
15 5 (0.20%) Documentum
Applications
1 230 (9.13%) Microsoft Office
2 80 (3.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.40%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 8 (0.32%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.079%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.079%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.079%) Windchill
9 1 (0.040%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.040%) InDesign
9 1 (0.040%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.040%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 15 (0.60%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.28%) Maximo
3 5 (0.20%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.16%) assyst
5 3 (0.12%) ION MarketView
5 3 (0.12%) Oracle 11i
6 2 (0.079%) Eikon
6 2 (0.079%) Fidessa
6 2 (0.079%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.079%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.079%) SystmOne
6 2 (0.079%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.040%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.040%) Eze OMS
7 1 (0.040%) OpenText MBPM
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle BPM
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.040%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 686 (27.22%) Microsoft 365
2 548 (21.75%) Azure
3 218 (8.65%) Entra ID
4 213 (8.45%) AWS
5 83 (3.29%) OneDrive
6 75 (2.98%) SaaS
7 58 (2.30%) GCP
8 50 (1.98%) IaaS
9 48 (1.90%) Google Workspace
10 43 (1.71%) Azure DevOps
11 41 (1.63%) GitHub
12 37 (1.47%) PaaS
12 37 (1.47%) Power Platform
13 35 (1.39%) Amazon S3
14 33 (1.31%) Amazon EC2
15 32 (1.27%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 30 (1.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 30 (1.19%) Azure Sentinel
17 28 (1.11%) Azure Monitor
18 27 (1.07%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 315 (12.50%) DNS
2 279 (11.07%) Firewall
3 199 (7.90%) DHCP
4 190 (7.54%) TCP/IP
5 152 (6.03%) VPN
6 90 (3.57%) WAN
7 89 (3.53%) LAN
8 88 (3.49%) Wi-Fi
9 76 (3.02%) Network Security
10 68 (2.70%) VLAN
11 62 (2.46%) SAN
12 56 (2.22%) Wireless
13 55 (2.18%) SSH
14 48 (1.90%) Cisco IOS
15 41 (1.63%) HTTP
16 31 (1.23%) SMTP
17 29 (1.15%) Internet
18 28 (1.11%) FTP
19 27 (1.07%) SSL
20 24 (0.95%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (4.48%) SQL Server
2 69 (2.74%) Oracle Database
3 62 (2.46%) Relational Database
4 43 (1.71%) MySQL
5 34 (1.35%) Amazon RDS
6 21 (0.83%) PostgreSQL
7 16 (0.63%) Power BI
8 13 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
9 11 (0.44%) DB2
10 10 (0.40%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.36%) BigQuery
12 8 (0.32%) GIS
12 8 (0.32%) RDBMS
12 8 (0.32%) SAP HANA
13 6 (0.24%) Big Data
13 6 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
13 6 (0.24%) MongoDB
14 5 (0.20%) HPCC
14 5 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 138 (5.48%) JIRA
2 104 (4.13%) Git
3 92 (3.65%) Jenkins
4 42 (1.67%) Eclipse
5 40 (1.59%) GitLab
6 27 (1.07%) MSI
6 27 (1.07%) Visual Studio
7 25 (0.99%) Vagrant
8 20 (0.79%) Android Studio
8 20 (0.79%) Sonatype Nexus
9 19 (0.75%) Browser DevTools
10 18 (0.71%) Bitbucket
10 18 (0.71%) Xcode
11 15 (0.60%) Bitbucket Server
11 15 (0.60%) CA Release Automation
12 13 (0.52%) Artifactory
12 13 (0.52%) Postman
13 12 (0.48%) AdminStudio
13 12 (0.48%) SonarQube
14 11 (0.44%) InstallShield
General
1 941 (37.34%) Social Skills
2 343 (13.61%) Finance
3 239 (9.48%) Public Sector
4 226 (8.97%) Analytical Skills
5 125 (4.96%) Banking
6 103 (4.09%) Documentation Skills
7 63 (2.50%) Legal
8 58 (2.30%) Manufacturing
9 57 (2.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 49 (1.94%) Military
10 49 (1.94%) Organisational Skills
11 48 (1.90%) Presentation Skills
12 42 (1.67%) Telecoms
13 38 (1.51%) Retail
14 31 (1.23%) Games
15 28 (1.11%) Marketing
16 25 (0.99%) Front Office
17 23 (0.91%) Aerospace
18 20 (0.79%) Electronics
18 20 (0.79%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 419 (16.63%) Support Engineer
2 306 (12.14%) Analyst
3 285 (11.31%) IT Support
4 181 (7.18%) IT Engineer
5 152 (6.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 151 (5.99%) Windows Engineer
7 144 (5.71%) Desktop Engineer
8 139 (5.52%) Desktop Support
9 136 (5.40%) Support Analyst
10 127 (5.04%) Senior
11 126 (5.00%) Architect
12 125 (4.96%) IT Support Engineer
13 121 (4.80%) Deployment Engineer
14 116 (4.60%) 2nd Line Support
15 106 (4.21%) Technical Support
16 105 (4.17%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 101 (4.01%) Platform Engineer
18 96 (3.81%) Developer
19 84 (3.33%) Administrator
20 75 (2.98%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (2.66%) .NET
2 45 (1.79%) Middleware
3 42 (1.67%) LDAP
4 41 (1.63%) Web Services
5 40 (1.59%) WPF
6 39 (1.55%) .NET Framework
7 38 (1.51%) Node.js
8 37 (1.47%) REST
9 34 (1.35%) OAuth
10 33 (1.31%) AngularJS
11 32 (1.27%) SAML
11 32 (1.27%) XML
12 28 (1.11%) React
13 26 (1.03%) OpenID
14 25 (0.99%) SOAP
15 22 (0.87%) CSS
16 20 (0.79%) Ajax
17 19 (0.75%) GraphQL
17 19 (0.75%) RESTful
18 15 (0.60%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 100 (3.97%) Onboarding
2 92 (3.65%) Data Centre
3 80 (3.17%) PKI
4 67 (2.66%) Driving Licence
5 66 (2.62%) Replication
6 60 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
7 53 (2.10%) Management Information System
8 52 (2.06%) Enterprise Software
9 37 (1.47%) iPhone
10 33 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
10 33 (1.31%) iPad
10 33 (1.31%) NHS
10 33 (1.31%) Video Conferencing
11 31 (1.23%) Security Posture
12 29 (1.15%) Smartphone
13 27 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
14 26 (1.03%) Hybrid Cloud
15 23 (0.91%) Mobile App
15 23 (0.91%) Private Cloud
16 22 (0.87%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 603 (23.93%) Linux
2 557 (22.10%) Windows 10
3 480 (19.05%) Windows Server
4 162 (6.43%) Unix
5 141 (5.60%) Android
6 140 (5.56%) Mac OS
7 101 (4.01%) Apple iOS
8 71 (2.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 68 (2.70%) Windows 7
10 57 (2.26%) Windows Server 2016
11 55 (2.18%) Windows Server 2019
12 40 (1.59%) Windows Server 2012
13 37 (1.47%) Ubuntu
13 37 (1.47%) Windows Server 2003
14 35 (1.39%) VMS
15 26 (1.03%) AIX
16 24 (0.95%) CentOS
17 23 (0.91%) Amazon Linux
18 14 (0.56%) Windows Server 2008
19 13 (0.52%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 452 (17.94%) Problem-Solving
2 379 (15.04%) ITIL
3 342 (13.57%) Customer Service
4 256 (10.16%) Migration
5 240 (9.52%) Agile
6 217 (8.61%) DevOps
7 208 (8.25%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 206 (8.17%) Service Management
9 196 (7.78%) ITSM
10 169 (6.71%) Cybersecurity
11 168 (6.67%) CI/CD
12 149 (5.91%) Change Management
13 146 (5.79%) Continuous Improvement
14 120 (4.76%) User Experience
15 109 (4.33%) Stakeholder Management
16 105 (4.17%) Incident Response
17 101 (4.01%) Cloud Security
18 92 (3.65%) Service Delivery
19 91 (3.61%) Computer Science
20 90 (3.57%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 479 (19.01%) PowerShell
2 322 (12.78%) Python
3 242 (9.60%) SQL
4 129 (5.12%) C#
5 119 (4.72%) Java
6 107 (4.25%) Bash
7 87 (3.45%) JavaScript
8 75 (2.98%) C++
9 74 (2.94%) Perl
10 39 (1.55%) PL/SQL
11 38 (1.51%) VB
12 33 (1.31%) Groovy
13 31 (1.23%) Shell Script
14 30 (1.19%) VBA
15 29 (1.15%) Kusto Query Language
16 26 (1.03%) VBScript
17 21 (0.83%) T-SQL
18 20 (0.79%) C
18 20 (0.79%) PHP
19 13 (0.52%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 733 (29.09%) Security Cleared
2 507 (20.12%) SC Cleared
3 221 (8.77%) Degree
4 189 (7.50%) DV Cleared
5 176 (6.98%) Microsoft Certification
6 65 (2.58%) Computer Science Degree
7 56 (2.22%) Azure Certification
8 49 (1.94%) Cisco Certification
8 49 (1.94%) MCSE
9 48 (1.90%) A+ Certification
10 34 (1.35%) CISSP
10 34 (1.35%) DBS Check
11 32 (1.27%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 30 (1.19%) AWS Certification
12 30 (1.19%) CCNA
12 30 (1.19%) CCNP
12 30 (1.19%) ITIL Certification
13 22 (0.87%) BPSS Clearance
13 22 (0.87%) MCP
14 20 (0.79%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (3.45%) SLA
2 67 (2.66%) QA
3 58 (2.30%) GDPR
4 56 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 53 (2.10%) NIST
6 16 (0.63%) HIPAA
7 13 (0.52%) PCI DSS
8 11 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
8 11 (0.44%) NCSC
9 9 (0.36%) Accessibility
9 9 (0.36%) PMO
10 4 (0.16%) GLBA
10 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
11 3 (0.12%) ECSS
11 3 (0.12%) GxP
11 3 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.079%) COBIT
12 2 (0.079%) ISO 9001
12 2 (0.079%) MiFID
12 2 (0.079%) SEPA
System Software
1 925 (36.71%) Active Directory
2 236 (9.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 107 (4.25%) Docker
4 72 (2.86%) Hyper-V
5 64 (2.54%) Virtual Desktop
6 55 (2.18%) vSphere
7 54 (2.14%) Virtual Machines
8 48 (1.90%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.23%) VMware NSX
10 25 (0.99%) DFS Replication
11 24 (0.95%) Microsoft App-V
12 20 (0.79%) BitLocker
13 19 (0.75%) NFS
14 17 (0.67%) Firmware
15 15 (0.60%) Virtual Servers
16 14 (0.56%) Terminal Services
17 10 (0.40%) Brightmail
17 10 (0.40%) Dovecot
17 10 (0.40%) ISA Server
17 10 (0.40%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 386 (15.32%) SCCM
2 286 (11.35%) Microsoft Intune
3 142 (5.63%) Terraform
4 111 (4.40%) Ansible
5 64 (2.54%) Kubernetes
6 53 (2.10%) vCenter Server
7 43 (1.71%) Grafana
8 40 (1.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 40 (1.59%) Jamf Pro
9 38 (1.51%) Single Sign-On
10 33 (1.31%) WSUS
11 30 (1.19%) Prometheus
12 28 (1.11%) SCOM
13 26 (1.03%) Nessus
14 24 (0.95%) Microsoft Clustering
15 23 (0.91%) Puppet
16 22 (0.87%) Progress Chef
17 16 (0.63%) Proxmox
18 13 (0.52%) NetBackup
18 13 (0.52%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,130 (44.84%) Microsoft
2 337 (13.37%) VMware
3 235 (9.33%) ServiceNow
4 199 (7.90%) Oracle
5 168 (6.67%) Cisco
6 160 (6.35%) Citrix
7 136 (5.40%) Splunk
8 70 (2.78%) Apple
9 67 (2.66%) Red Hat
10 62 (2.46%) IBM
11 58 (2.30%) HP
12 53 (2.10%) Dell
13 52 (2.06%) Veeam
14 50 (1.98%) Google
15 44 (1.75%) SolarWinds
16 42 (1.67%) AppDynamics
16 42 (1.67%) SAP
17 41 (1.63%) CyberArk
18 39 (1.55%) NetApp
19 35 (1.39%) Remedy