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

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 23 15
Rank change year-on-year +1 -8 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,515 2,198 3,515
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.79% 8.31% 9.34%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.81% 58.98% 63.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,752 1,449 2,393
10th Percentile £160 £182 £158
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £565 £575
90th Percentile £638 £653 £675
UK median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 233 74 232
10th Percentile £12.97 £15.07 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.72 £17.11 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.00 £23.15 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.97% +10.24% -4.55%
75th Percentile £43.75 £57.62 £46.86
90th Percentile £67.00 £73.93 £62.88
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.02% +15.14% -

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 4,136 3,727 5,508
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.82% 14.09% 14.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,771 2,344 3,788
10th Percentile £173 £200 £178
25th Percentile £263 £313 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £466
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +1.93% -9.51%
75th Percentile £568 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £470
% change year-on-year -5.26% +1.06% -8.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 304 125 336
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.35 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.91 £20.30 £17.72
Median hourly rate £23.54 £53.00 £29.75
Median % change year-on-year -55.59% +78.15% +15.71%
75th Percentile £60.00 £67.25 £63.75
90th Percentile £68.00 £72.75 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £25.00 £34.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year -27.54% +15.00% +17.12%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -15 738 £450 +9.09% 243
South East 0 505 £400 -3.90% 434
North of England -6 443 £263 -25.00% 239
South West +2 316 £425 - 163
Midlands -6 297 £275 -15.38% 155
North West -4 254 £280 -20.14% 99
East of England +7 209 £226 -21.98% 163
West Midlands -11 184 £400 +23.08% 71
Yorkshire -16 161 £304 -14.43% 113
East Midlands +2 113 £215 -39.61% 82
North East -7 31 £180 -44.62% 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
1 209 (8.31%) Microsoft Exchange
2 167 (6.64%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.54%) Confluence
4 44 (1.75%) IIS
5 38 (1.51%) Apache
6 21 (0.83%) WebLogic
7 20 (0.80%) Skype for Business
8 16 (0.64%) WebSphere
9 12 (0.48%) JBoss
10 11 (0.44%) nginx
10 11 (0.44%) TPMS
10 11 (0.44%) WebSphere Application Server
11 10 (0.40%) iPlanet
12 9 (0.36%) SharePoint Server
13 8 (0.32%) Tuxedo
14 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2010
15 6 (0.24%) SAS
16 5 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2013
17 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
17 4 (0.16%) Tomcat
Applications
1 231 (9.18%) Microsoft Office
2 71 (2.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 23 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.44%) MS Visio
5 8 (0.32%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.12%) PTC Creo
8 2 (0.080%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.080%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.080%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.080%) Windchill
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe Creative Suite
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 23 (0.91%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (0.24%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.20%) assyst
5 4 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.080%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.080%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.080%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.080%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.080%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.080%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.040%) Aladdin
8 1 (0.040%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.040%) Eikon
8 1 (0.040%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.040%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.040%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.040%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.040%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 703 (27.95%) Microsoft 365
2 611 (24.29%) Azure
3 241 (9.58%) Entra ID
4 213 (8.47%) AWS
5 82 (3.26%) OneDrive
6 65 (2.58%) SaaS
7 64 (2.54%) GCP
8 50 (1.99%) Google Workspace
9 47 (1.87%) Azure DevOps
10 42 (1.67%) IaaS
11 40 (1.59%) GitHub
12 31 (1.23%) Power Platform
13 28 (1.11%) PaaS
14 24 (0.95%) Azure Monitor
15 20 (0.80%) Amazon S3
15 20 (0.80%) Azure Sentinel
16 19 (0.76%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 19 (0.76%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 18 (0.72%) AWS CloudFormation
17 18 (0.72%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 324 (12.88%) DNS
2 252 (10.02%) Firewall
3 213 (8.47%) DHCP
4 172 (6.84%) TCP/IP
5 157 (6.24%) VPN
6 101 (4.02%) WAN
7 92 (3.66%) Wi-Fi
8 91 (3.62%) LAN
9 79 (3.14%) Network Security
10 67 (2.66%) VLAN
11 62 (2.47%) Wireless
12 49 (1.95%) SSH
13 33 (1.31%) Kerberos
13 33 (1.31%) SAN
14 32 (1.27%) Skype
15 31 (1.23%) HTTP
16 28 (1.11%) FTP
17 26 (1.03%) SMTP
18 25 (0.99%) Internet
19 24 (0.95%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (4.45%) SQL Server
2 57 (2.27%) Oracle Database
3 56 (2.23%) Relational Database
4 45 (1.79%) MySQL
5 28 (1.11%) PostgreSQL
6 15 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
8 12 (0.48%) NoSQL
8 12 (0.48%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.44%) Power BI
10 10 (0.40%) Amazon Aurora
11 9 (0.36%) MongoDB
12 8 (0.32%) GIS
13 6 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
13 6 (0.24%) SAP HANA
14 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
14 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 3 (0.12%) BusinessObjects
15 3 (0.12%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 134 (5.33%) JIRA
2 73 (2.90%) Jenkins
3 67 (2.66%) Git
4 46 (1.83%) GitLab
5 34 (1.35%) MSI
6 29 (1.15%) Eclipse
7 27 (1.07%) Visual Studio
8 18 (0.72%) Android Studio
8 18 (0.72%) Burp Suite
8 18 (0.72%) Metasploit
9 17 (0.68%) Browser DevTools
10 16 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
10 16 (0.64%) Xcode
11 15 (0.60%) Artifactory
12 13 (0.52%) Bitbucket
13 12 (0.48%) Vagrant
14 11 (0.44%) Bitbucket Server
14 11 (0.44%) CA Release Automation
14 11 (0.44%) InstallShield
15 8 (0.32%) AdminStudio
General
1 935 (37.18%) Social Skills
2 271 (10.78%) Finance
3 210 (8.35%) Public Sector
4 198 (7.87%) Analytical Skills
5 117 (4.65%) Banking
6 103 (4.10%) Documentation Skills
7 81 (3.22%) Legal
8 68 (2.70%) Organisational Skills
9 51 (2.03%) Military
10 45 (1.79%) Manufacturing
11 44 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
12 41 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 32 (1.27%) Retail
14 29 (1.15%) Telecoms
15 24 (0.95%) Front Office
16 21 (0.83%) Aerospace
16 21 (0.83%) Law
17 18 (0.72%) Investment Banking
18 17 (0.68%) Marketing
19 16 (0.64%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 377 (14.99%) Support Engineer
2 322 (12.80%) IT Support
3 317 (12.60%) Analyst
4 173 (6.88%) IT Engineer
5 156 (6.20%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 142 (5.65%) Support Analyst
7 138 (5.49%) Architect
8 136 (5.41%) IT Support Engineer
9 132 (5.25%) Desktop Support
10 131 (5.21%) Senior
11 122 (4.85%) Technical Support
11 122 (4.85%) Windows Engineer
12 120 (4.77%) Desktop Engineer
13 113 (4.49%) 2nd Line Support
14 107 (4.25%) Deployment Engineer
15 95 (3.78%) Developer
16 94 (3.74%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 80 (3.18%) IT Analyst
17 80 (3.18%) Lead
18 76 (3.02%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.94%) .NET
2 53 (2.11%) OAuth
3 52 (2.07%) LDAP
4 51 (2.03%) REST
4 51 (2.03%) SAML
5 43 (1.71%) .NET Framework
6 37 (1.47%) Middleware
7 34 (1.35%) React
8 33 (1.31%) OpenID
8 33 (1.31%) WPF
9 30 (1.19%) AngularJS
10 24 (0.95%) CSS
11 23 (0.91%) Web Services
12 22 (0.87%) Node.js
13 20 (0.80%) SOAP
14 19 (0.76%) OAuth2
14 19 (0.76%) RESTful
15 18 (0.72%) Apache NiFi
15 18 (0.72%) Kafka
15 18 (0.72%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 137 (5.45%) Onboarding
2 86 (3.42%) PKI
3 85 (3.38%) Driving Licence
4 77 (3.06%) Data Centre
5 69 (2.74%) Enterprise Software
5 69 (2.74%) Replication
6 58 (2.31%) Self-Motivation
7 54 (2.15%) Smartphone
8 53 (2.11%) Management Information System
9 39 (1.55%) Hybrid Cloud
10 36 (1.43%) Security Posture
11 32 (1.27%) NHS
12 31 (1.23%) Clustering
13 28 (1.11%) Analytical Mindset
14 26 (1.03%) Video Conferencing
15 25 (0.99%) Product Ownership
16 24 (0.95%) Data Protection Act
17 23 (0.91%) Virtual Team
18 22 (0.87%) CMDB
18 22 (0.87%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 612 (24.33%) Linux
2 584 (23.22%) Windows 10
3 522 (20.76%) Windows Server
4 148 (5.88%) Unix
5 126 (5.01%) Mac OS
6 125 (4.97%) Android
7 101 (4.02%) Apple iOS
8 60 (2.39%) Windows Server 2016
9 54 (2.15%) Windows 7
10 52 (2.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 48 (1.91%) Windows Server 2019
12 36 (1.43%) Windows Server 2012
13 31 (1.23%) Windows Server 2003
14 25 (0.99%) AIX
15 21 (0.83%) VMS
16 18 (0.72%) Ubuntu
17 12 (0.48%) Amazon Linux
17 12 (0.48%) Solaris
17 12 (0.48%) Windows Server 2008
18 8 (0.32%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 454 (18.05%) Problem-Solving
2 422 (16.78%) Customer Service
3 364 (14.47%) ITIL
4 261 (10.38%) Agile
5 226 (8.99%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 225 (8.95%) Migration
7 219 (8.71%) DevOps
8 208 (8.27%) Service Management
9 196 (7.79%) ITSM
10 190 (7.55%) CI/CD
11 181 (7.20%) Continuous Improvement
12 174 (6.92%) Cybersecurity
13 153 (6.08%) Change Management
14 126 (5.01%) Disaster Recovery
15 120 (4.77%) User Experience
16 107 (4.25%) Service Delivery
17 103 (4.10%) Computer Science
18 102 (4.06%) Infrastructure as Code
19 101 (4.02%) Stakeholder Management
20 99 (3.94%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 496 (19.72%) PowerShell
2 287 (11.41%) Python
3 223 (8.87%) SQL
4 120 (4.77%) Java
5 109 (4.33%) C#
6 100 (3.98%) Bash
7 77 (3.06%) JavaScript
8 63 (2.50%) Perl
9 53 (2.11%) C++
10 44 (1.75%) PL/SQL
11 33 (1.31%) T-SQL
12 31 (1.23%) Kusto Query Language
13 29 (1.15%) VBScript
14 27 (1.07%) VB
15 25 (0.99%) Shell Script
16 23 (0.91%) Groovy
17 22 (0.87%) VBA
18 11 (0.44%) Bicep
18 11 (0.44%) Go
19 10 (0.40%) PHP
Qualifications
1 810 (32.21%) Security Cleared
2 536 (21.31%) SC Cleared
3 259 (10.30%) Degree
4 235 (9.34%) DV Cleared
5 147 (5.84%) Microsoft Certification
6 80 (3.18%) Computer Science Degree
7 60 (2.39%) Azure Certification
8 44 (1.75%) MCSE
9 43 (1.71%) Cisco Certification
10 39 (1.55%) A+ Certification
11 38 (1.51%) ITIL Certification
12 35 (1.39%) AWS Certification
13 27 (1.07%) CCNA
13 27 (1.07%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 25 (0.99%) CCNP
14 25 (0.99%) CISSP
15 24 (0.95%) BPSS Clearance
16 22 (0.87%) MCP
17 21 (0.83%) MCSA
18 19 (0.76%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (3.54%) GDPR
2 88 (3.50%) SLA
3 66 (2.62%) QA
4 64 (2.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 45 (1.79%) NIST
6 30 (1.19%) PCI DSS
7 21 (0.83%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 12 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
8 12 (0.48%) NCSC
9 11 (0.44%) GLBA
9 11 (0.44%) MiFID
9 11 (0.44%) PMO
10 8 (0.32%) FINRA
11 6 (0.24%) NIST 800
12 5 (0.20%) Accessibility
12 5 (0.20%) HIPAA
13 4 (0.16%) COBIT
13 4 (0.16%) GxP
14 3 (0.12%) SEPA
14 3 (0.12%) SOC 2
System Software
1 928 (36.90%) Active Directory
2 234 (9.30%) VMware Infrastructure
3 106 (4.21%) Docker
4 88 (3.50%) Hyper-V
5 57 (2.27%) Virtual Desktop
6 52 (2.07%) Virtual Machines
7 51 (2.03%) vSphere
8 42 (1.67%) VMware ESXi
9 33 (1.31%) VMware NSX
10 26 (1.03%) BitLocker
11 19 (0.76%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.64%) Firmware
13 15 (0.60%) DFS Replication
14 14 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
15 8 (0.32%) Dovecot
15 8 (0.32%) Postfix
15 8 (0.32%) Squid
15 8 (0.32%) Tivoli Directory Server
16 7 (0.28%) NFS
16 7 (0.28%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 352 (14.00%) SCCM
2 288 (11.45%) Microsoft Intune
3 152 (6.04%) Terraform
4 124 (4.93%) Ansible
5 90 (3.58%) Kubernetes
6 65 (2.58%) Single Sign-On
6 65 (2.58%) vCenter Server
7 63 (2.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 40 (1.59%) Jamf Pro
9 34 (1.35%) Grafana
10 30 (1.19%) SCOM
11 26 (1.03%) WSUS
12 22 (0.87%) Prometheus
13 19 (0.76%) Nessus
14 18 (0.72%) Nmap
15 17 (0.68%) WMI
16 16 (0.64%) Progress Chef
17 14 (0.56%) Microsoft Clustering
17 14 (0.56%) Proxmox
18 13 (0.52%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,081 (42.98%) Microsoft
2 323 (12.84%) VMware
3 239 (9.50%) ServiceNow
4 190 (7.55%) Oracle
5 152 (6.04%) Citrix
6 151 (6.00%) Cisco
7 97 (3.86%) Splunk
8 59 (2.35%) Apple
8 59 (2.35%) Dell
9 53 (2.11%) HP
10 49 (1.95%) SolarWinds
11 48 (1.91%) Google
12 47 (1.87%) Veeam
13 46 (1.83%) Red Hat
14 44 (1.75%) IBM
15 37 (1.47%) CyberArk
16 36 (1.43%) SAP
17 33 (1.31%) Remedy
18 30 (1.19%) Palo Alto
19 28 (1.11%) Juniper