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 17 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
17 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 23 14
Rank change year-on-year +1 -9 +1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,507 2,221 3,509
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.84% 8.25% 9.55%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.31% 58.77% 63.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,759 1,459 2,384
10th Percentile £161 £185 £158
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £559 £575
90th Percentile £638 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 76 216
10th Percentile £12.93 £15.11 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.72 £17.33 £16.47
Median hourly rate £21.46 £23.15 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.30% +10.24% -
75th Percentile £42.75 £57.62 £46.88
90th Percentile £67.17 £74.22 £63.96
UK median hourly rate £21.80 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.84% +15.14% +5.00%

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 4,157 3,779 5,517
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 13.01% 14.04% 15.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,791 2,382 3,808
10th Percentile £175 £200 £178
25th Percentile £263 £313 £270
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £568 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 301 129 307
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.44 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.30 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.00 £53.00 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -52.83% +76.67% +20.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £73.80 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £25.11 £35.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year -28.25% +16.67% +20.00%

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 17 January 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 17 January 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 17 January 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 -17 735 £450 +11.80% 206
South East 0 506 £400 - 384
North of England -6 437 £248 -29.07% 236
South West +4 318 £425 +6.25% 159
Midlands -2 310 £354 +9.00% 146
North West -2 251 £263 -25.00% 112
West Midlands -9 204 £463 +42.31% 64
East of England +5 198 £275 -15.38% 163
Yorkshire -17 159 £290 -19.44% 97
East Midlands 0 106 £210 -31.71% 80
North East -5 30 £184 -43.46% 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
1 208 (8.30%) Microsoft Exchange
2 167 (6.66%) SharePoint
3 68 (2.71%) Confluence
4 47 (1.87%) Apache
5 44 (1.76%) IIS
6 28 (1.12%) WebLogic
7 20 (0.80%) Skype for Business
8 16 (0.64%) WebSphere
9 12 (0.48%) JBoss
9 12 (0.48%) nginx
10 11 (0.44%) WebSphere Application Server
11 10 (0.40%) iPlanet
11 10 (0.40%) SharePoint Server
11 10 (0.40%) TPMS
12 8 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2010
12 8 (0.32%) Tuxedo
13 6 (0.24%) Exchange Server 2013
13 6 (0.24%) SAS
13 6 (0.24%) Tomcat
14 5 (0.20%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 230 (9.17%) Microsoft Office
2 71 (2.83%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (0.52%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.36%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
7 2 (0.080%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.080%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.080%) PTC Creo
7 2 (0.080%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.080%) Windchill
8 1 (0.040%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.040%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.040%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.040%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.040%) InDesign
8 1 (0.040%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.040%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 23 (0.92%) Remedy ITSM
2 6 (0.24%) assyst
2 6 (0.24%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
3 4 (0.16%) Teamcenter
4 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 2 (0.080%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.080%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.080%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.080%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.080%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.080%) SystmOne
6 1 (0.040%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.040%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.040%) Fidessa
6 1 (0.040%) ION MarketView
6 1 (0.040%) Oracle FAH
6 1 (0.040%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.040%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.040%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 695 (27.72%) Microsoft 365
2 602 (24.01%) Azure
3 227 (9.05%) Entra ID
4 219 (8.74%) AWS
5 80 (3.19%) OneDrive
6 67 (2.67%) SaaS
7 64 (2.55%) GCP
8 47 (1.87%) Google Workspace
9 46 (1.83%) GitHub
10 45 (1.79%) Azure DevOps
11 42 (1.68%) IaaS
12 33 (1.32%) Power Platform
13 31 (1.24%) Azure Monitor
14 28 (1.12%) PaaS
15 22 (0.88%) Amazon S3
16 21 (0.84%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 21 (0.84%) Azure Sentinel
16 21 (0.84%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 19 (0.76%) Amazon EC2
17 19 (0.76%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 322 (12.84%) DNS
2 255 (10.17%) Firewall
3 206 (8.22%) DHCP
4 175 (6.98%) TCP/IP
5 163 (6.50%) VPN
6 99 (3.95%) WAN
7 90 (3.59%) Wi-Fi
8 89 (3.55%) LAN
9 80 (3.19%) Network Security
10 65 (2.59%) VLAN
10 65 (2.59%) Wireless
11 51 (2.03%) SSH
12 33 (1.32%) HTTP
13 32 (1.28%) SAN
14 31 (1.24%) Skype
15 30 (1.20%) FTP
16 27 (1.08%) Kerberos
16 27 (1.08%) SMTP
17 25 (1.00%) SD-WAN
18 24 (0.96%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (4.51%) SQL Server
2 59 (2.35%) Oracle Database
3 56 (2.23%) Relational Database
4 46 (1.83%) MySQL
5 28 (1.12%) PostgreSQL
6 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
7 13 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
8 11 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
8 11 (0.44%) NoSQL
8 11 (0.44%) Power BI
9 8 (0.32%) MongoDB
10 7 (0.28%) GIS
11 6 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
11 6 (0.24%) SAP HANA
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
12 4 (0.16%) RDBMS
12 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 3 (0.12%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 130 (5.19%) JIRA
2 75 (2.99%) Jenkins
3 72 (2.87%) Git
4 49 (1.95%) GitLab
5 32 (1.28%) Eclipse
6 31 (1.24%) MSI
7 26 (1.04%) Visual Studio
8 20 (0.80%) Android Studio
9 19 (0.76%) Browser DevTools
10 18 (0.72%) Burp Suite
10 18 (0.72%) Metasploit
10 18 (0.72%) Xcode
11 17 (0.68%) Artifactory
12 16 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
13 14 (0.56%) Vagrant
14 13 (0.52%) Bitbucket
15 11 (0.44%) Bitbucket Server
15 11 (0.44%) CA Release Automation
15 11 (0.44%) InstallShield
16 8 (0.32%) AdminStudio
General
1 941 (37.53%) Social Skills
2 281 (11.21%) Finance
3 213 (8.50%) Public Sector
4 197 (7.86%) Analytical Skills
5 116 (4.63%) Banking
6 103 (4.11%) Documentation Skills
7 81 (3.23%) Legal
8 64 (2.55%) Organisational Skills
9 52 (2.07%) Military
10 46 (1.83%) Presentation Skills
11 44 (1.76%) Manufacturing
12 41 (1.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 34 (1.36%) Retail
14 33 (1.32%) Telecoms
15 25 (1.00%) Front Office
16 23 (0.92%) Aerospace
16 23 (0.92%) Law
17 17 (0.68%) Financial Institution
17 17 (0.68%) Investment Banking
17 17 (0.68%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 379 (15.12%) Support Engineer
2 315 (12.56%) Analyst
3 313 (12.49%) IT Support
4 173 (6.90%) IT Engineer
5 153 (6.10%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 144 (5.74%) Support Analyst
7 142 (5.66%) Architect
8 133 (5.31%) Desktop Support
9 132 (5.27%) IT Support Engineer
9 132 (5.27%) Senior
10 127 (5.07%) Windows Engineer
11 119 (4.75%) Desktop Engineer
11 119 (4.75%) Technical Support
12 111 (4.43%) 2nd Line Support
13 109 (4.35%) Deployment Engineer
14 95 (3.79%) Desktop Support Engineer
15 93 (3.71%) Developer
16 83 (3.31%) Platform Engineer
17 81 (3.23%) IT Analyst
18 75 (2.99%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (2.87%) .NET
2 51 (2.03%) REST
3 47 (1.87%) LDAP
4 46 (1.83%) OAuth
5 44 (1.76%) SAML
6 40 (1.60%) .NET Framework
7 37 (1.48%) Middleware
8 34 (1.36%) React
9 32 (1.28%) AngularJS
9 32 (1.28%) OpenID
9 32 (1.28%) WPF
10 24 (0.96%) CSS
10 24 (0.96%) Web Services
11 23 (0.92%) Node.js
12 20 (0.80%) SOAP
13 19 (0.76%) Ajax
13 19 (0.76%) Apache NiFi
13 19 (0.76%) GraphQL
13 19 (0.76%) Kafka
13 19 (0.76%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 131 (5.23%) Onboarding
2 87 (3.47%) PKI
3 83 (3.31%) Driving Licence
4 79 (3.15%) Data Centre
5 67 (2.67%) Enterprise Software
6 61 (2.43%) Replication
7 55 (2.19%) Self-Motivation
8 54 (2.15%) Management Information System
8 54 (2.15%) Smartphone
9 36 (1.44%) Hybrid Cloud
10 35 (1.40%) Security Posture
11 29 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
11 29 (1.16%) Clustering
12 28 (1.12%) NHS
12 28 (1.12%) Video Conferencing
13 27 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
14 24 (0.96%) Virtual Team
15 23 (0.92%) Product Ownership
16 22 (0.88%) CMDB
17 21 (0.84%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 619 (24.69%) Linux
2 575 (22.94%) Windows 10
3 512 (20.42%) Windows Server
4 160 (6.38%) Unix
5 130 (5.19%) Android
6 124 (4.95%) Mac OS
7 99 (3.95%) Apple iOS
8 60 (2.39%) Windows Server 2016
9 54 (2.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 47 (1.87%) Windows 7
10 47 (1.87%) Windows Server 2019
11 35 (1.40%) Windows Server 2012
12 31 (1.24%) Windows Server 2003
13 26 (1.04%) AIX
14 23 (0.92%) VMS
15 19 (0.76%) Ubuntu
16 14 (0.56%) Amazon Linux
17 13 (0.52%) Solaris
18 12 (0.48%) Windows Server 2008
19 9 (0.36%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 449 (17.91%) Problem-Solving
2 409 (16.31%) Customer Service
3 369 (14.72%) ITIL
4 258 (10.29%) Agile
5 227 (9.05%) Migration
6 221 (8.82%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 216 (8.62%) DevOps
8 210 (8.38%) Service Management
9 197 (7.86%) ITSM
10 194 (7.74%) CI/CD
11 185 (7.38%) Continuous Improvement
12 175 (6.98%) Cybersecurity
13 157 (6.26%) Change Management
14 125 (4.99%) User Experience
15 112 (4.47%) Disaster Recovery
16 105 (4.19%) Incident Response
17 104 (4.15%) Infrastructure as Code
18 102 (4.07%) Computer Science
18 102 (4.07%) Stakeholder Management
19 100 (3.99%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 489 (19.51%) PowerShell
2 304 (12.13%) Python
3 240 (9.57%) SQL
4 125 (4.99%) Java
5 112 (4.47%) C#
6 101 (4.03%) Bash
7 78 (3.11%) JavaScript
8 66 (2.63%) Perl
9 59 (2.35%) C++
10 43 (1.72%) PL/SQL
11 32 (1.28%) Kusto Query Language
12 31 (1.24%) T-SQL
13 29 (1.16%) VBScript
14 27 (1.08%) Shell Script
15 26 (1.04%) VB
16 25 (1.00%) Groovy
17 22 (0.88%) VBA
18 13 (0.52%) PHP
19 11 (0.44%) Bicep
19 11 (0.44%) Go
Qualifications
1 811 (32.35%) Security Cleared
2 537 (21.42%) SC Cleared
3 250 (9.97%) Degree
4 234 (9.33%) DV Cleared
5 142 (5.66%) Microsoft Certification
6 79 (3.15%) Computer Science Degree
7 57 (2.27%) Azure Certification
8 44 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
9 42 (1.68%) MCSE
10 41 (1.64%) A+ Certification
11 37 (1.48%) ITIL Certification
12 34 (1.36%) AWS Certification
13 28 (1.12%) CCNP
14 27 (1.08%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 26 (1.04%) CCNA
16 25 (1.00%) CISSP
17 23 (0.92%) BPSS Clearance
18 22 (0.88%) DBS Check
19 21 (0.84%) MCP
20 19 (0.76%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (3.51%) SLA
2 80 (3.19%) GDPR
3 66 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 63 (2.51%) QA
5 45 (1.79%) NIST
6 31 (1.24%) PCI DSS
7 14 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 11 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
8 11 (0.44%) NCSC
8 11 (0.44%) PMO
9 10 (0.40%) GLBA
10 9 (0.36%) MiFID
11 6 (0.24%) FINRA
12 5 (0.20%) HIPAA
12 5 (0.20%) NIST 800
13 4 (0.16%) Accessibility
13 4 (0.16%) COBIT
13 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
14 3 (0.12%) SEPA
15 2 (0.080%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 917 (36.58%) Active Directory
2 230 (9.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 102 (4.07%) Docker
4 89 (3.55%) Hyper-V
5 55 (2.19%) Virtual Desktop
6 46 (1.83%) vSphere
7 45 (1.79%) Virtual Machines
8 39 (1.56%) VMware ESXi
9 30 (1.20%) VMware NSX
10 24 (0.96%) BitLocker
11 17 (0.68%) DFS Replication
12 16 (0.64%) Microsoft App-V
13 15 (0.60%) Firmware
14 14 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
15 13 (0.52%) Terminal Services
16 9 (0.36%) Dovecot
16 9 (0.36%) NFS
16 9 (0.36%) Postfix
16 9 (0.36%) Squid
17 8 (0.32%) Tivoli Directory Server
Systems Management
1 347 (13.84%) SCCM
2 276 (11.01%) Microsoft Intune
3 164 (6.54%) Terraform
4 131 (5.23%) Ansible
5 86 (3.43%) Kubernetes
6 60 (2.39%) vCenter Server
7 56 (2.23%) Single Sign-On
8 50 (1.99%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 38 (1.52%) Jamf Pro
10 35 (1.40%) Grafana
11 29 (1.16%) SCOM
12 26 (1.04%) WSUS
13 23 (0.92%) Prometheus
14 20 (0.80%) Nessus
15 18 (0.72%) Microsoft Clustering
15 18 (0.72%) Nmap
16 17 (0.68%) WMI
17 16 (0.64%) Progress Chef
18 15 (0.60%) Proxmox
18 15 (0.60%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,060 (42.28%) Microsoft
2 325 (12.96%) VMware
3 243 (9.69%) ServiceNow
4 200 (7.98%) Oracle
5 156 (6.22%) Cisco
5 156 (6.22%) Citrix
6 107 (4.27%) Splunk
7 63 (2.51%) Dell
8 62 (2.47%) Apple
9 52 (2.07%) HP
10 50 (1.99%) SolarWinds
11 49 (1.95%) Veeam
12 48 (1.91%) Red Hat
13 45 (1.79%) Google
13 45 (1.79%) IBM
14 38 (1.52%) CyberArk
15 35 (1.40%) Remedy
15 35 (1.40%) SAP
16 32 (1.28%) AppDynamics
17 31 (1.24%) Palo Alto
1,184 Windows jobs in England