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

6 months to
23 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 23 15
Rank change year-on-year +1 -8 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,542 2,209 3,465
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.83% 8.24% 9.37%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.61% 58.45% 63.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,772 1,458 2,355
10th Percentile £160 £182 £158
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £564 £575
90th Percentile £638 £651 £675
UK median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 235 75 226
10th Percentile £12.97 £15.09 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.93 £17.22 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.00 £23.80 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.56% +13.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £43.25 £57.62 £46.86
90th Percentile £67.00 £74.26 £62.71
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.02% +15.14% +2.44%

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 4,194 3,779 5,461
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.92% 14.10% 14.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,812 2,388 3,754
10th Percentile £173 £200 £180
25th Percentile £263 £313 £265
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £473
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +0.53% -7.80%
75th Percentile £566 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 306 130 328
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.46 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.59 £21.01 £17.72
Median hourly rate £23.79 £54.00 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -55.95% +89.47% +10.85%
75th Percentile £60.00 £67.44 £63.75
90th Percentile £68.00 £73.78 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £25.00 £37.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year -33.33% +25.00% +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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -15 755 £450 +9.09% 228
South East 0 505 £400 - 434
North of England -3 444 £263 -25.00% 251
South West +4 317 £425 +0.24% 173
Midlands -5 307 £308 -5.38% 165
North West -3 255 £285 -18.57% 105
East of England +5 209 £228 -22.22% 181
West Midlands -13 195 £438 +34.62% 75
Yorkshire -16 161 £302 -14.99% 116
East Midlands 0 112 £210 -40.51% 88
North East -6 31 £180 -44.62% 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
1 211 (8.30%) Microsoft Exchange
2 169 (6.65%) SharePoint
3 68 (2.68%) Confluence
4 45 (1.77%) Apache
4 45 (1.77%) IIS
5 28 (1.10%) WebLogic
6 21 (0.83%) Skype for Business
7 16 (0.63%) WebSphere
8 12 (0.47%) JBoss
8 12 (0.47%) nginx
9 11 (0.43%) TPMS
9 11 (0.43%) WebSphere Application Server
10 10 (0.39%) iPlanet
10 10 (0.39%) SharePoint Server
11 8 (0.31%) Exchange Server 2010
11 8 (0.31%) Tuxedo
12 6 (0.24%) Exchange Server 2013
12 6 (0.24%) SAS
13 5 (0.20%) Office Communications Server
13 5 (0.20%) Tomcat
Applications
1 232 (9.13%) Microsoft Office
2 73 (2.87%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.47%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.35%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.12%) PTC Creo
8 2 (0.079%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.079%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.079%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.079%) Windchill
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.039%) InDesign
9 1 (0.039%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.039%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 23 (0.90%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.31%) 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 (0.079%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.079%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.079%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.079%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.079%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.079%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.039%) Aladdin
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%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 707 (27.81%) Microsoft 365
2 619 (24.35%) Azure
3 239 (9.40%) Entra ID
4 221 (8.69%) AWS
5 81 (3.19%) OneDrive
6 67 (2.64%) SaaS
7 64 (2.52%) GCP
8 50 (1.97%) Google Workspace
9 46 (1.81%) Azure DevOps
10 41 (1.61%) IaaS
11 40 (1.57%) GitHub
12 31 (1.22%) Azure Monitor
13 30 (1.18%) Power Platform
14 27 (1.06%) PaaS
15 22 (0.87%) Amazon S3
16 21 (0.83%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 21 (0.83%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 20 (0.79%) Azure Sentinel
18 19 (0.75%) Amazon EC2
18 19 (0.75%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 330 (12.98%) DNS
2 255 (10.03%) Firewall
3 212 (8.34%) DHCP
4 175 (6.88%) TCP/IP
5 162 (6.37%) VPN
6 104 (4.09%) WAN
7 94 (3.70%) LAN
8 93 (3.66%) Wi-Fi
9 82 (3.23%) Network Security
10 68 (2.68%) VLAN
11 64 (2.52%) Wireless
12 52 (2.05%) SSH
13 34 (1.34%) Kerberos
13 34 (1.34%) SAN
14 33 (1.30%) HTTP
15 32 (1.26%) Skype
16 30 (1.18%) FTP
17 28 (1.10%) SMTP
18 25 (0.98%) Internet
19 24 (0.94%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (4.45%) SQL Server
2 58 (2.28%) Oracle Database
3 56 (2.20%) Relational Database
4 46 (1.81%) MySQL
5 28 (1.10%) PostgreSQL
6 17 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.51%) BigQuery
8 12 (0.47%) NoSQL
8 12 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
9 11 (0.43%) Power BI
10 9 (0.35%) MongoDB
11 8 (0.31%) GIS
12 6 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
12 6 (0.24%) SAP HANA
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 3 (0.12%) BusinessObjects
14 3 (0.12%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 135 (5.31%) JIRA
2 74 (2.91%) Jenkins
3 70 (2.75%) Git
4 46 (1.81%) GitLab
5 34 (1.34%) MSI
6 30 (1.18%) Eclipse
7 27 (1.06%) Visual Studio
8 19 (0.75%) Android Studio
9 18 (0.71%) Browser DevTools
9 18 (0.71%) Burp Suite
9 18 (0.71%) Metasploit
10 17 (0.67%) Xcode
11 16 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
12 15 (0.59%) Artifactory
13 14 (0.55%) Vagrant
14 13 (0.51%) Bitbucket
15 11 (0.43%) Bitbucket Server
15 11 (0.43%) CA Release Automation
15 11 (0.43%) InstallShield
16 8 (0.31%) AdminStudio
General
1 947 (37.25%) Social Skills
2 275 (10.82%) Finance
3 213 (8.38%) Public Sector
4 199 (7.83%) Analytical Skills
5 118 (4.64%) Banking
6 104 (4.09%) Documentation Skills
7 82 (3.23%) Legal
8 67 (2.64%) Organisational Skills
9 51 (2.01%) Military
10 45 (1.77%) Manufacturing
10 45 (1.77%) Presentation Skills
11 42 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 33 (1.30%) Retail
13 32 (1.26%) Telecoms
14 25 (0.98%) Front Office
15 22 (0.87%) Aerospace
15 22 (0.87%) Law
16 18 (0.71%) Investment Banking
17 17 (0.67%) Marketing
18 16 (0.63%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 384 (15.11%) Support Engineer
2 321 (12.63%) IT Support
3 320 (12.59%) Analyst
4 175 (6.88%) IT Engineer
5 156 (6.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 143 (5.63%) Support Analyst
7 139 (5.47%) Architect
8 137 (5.39%) IT Support Engineer
9 134 (5.27%) Desktop Support
9 134 (5.27%) Senior
10 125 (4.92%) Windows Engineer
11 123 (4.84%) Technical Support
12 122 (4.80%) Desktop Engineer
13 112 (4.41%) 2nd Line Support
14 108 (4.25%) Deployment Engineer
15 96 (3.78%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 95 (3.74%) Developer
17 83 (3.27%) Platform Engineer
18 80 (3.15%) IT Analyst
18 80 (3.15%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.91%) .NET
2 54 (2.12%) LDAP
2 54 (2.12%) OAuth
3 52 (2.05%) SAML
4 50 (1.97%) REST
5 44 (1.73%) .NET Framework
6 37 (1.46%) Middleware
7 34 (1.34%) React
7 34 (1.34%) WPF
8 33 (1.30%) OpenID
9 31 (1.22%) AngularJS
10 24 (0.94%) CSS
11 23 (0.90%) Web Services
12 22 (0.87%) Node.js
13 20 (0.79%) SOAP
14 19 (0.75%) OAuth2
14 19 (0.75%) RESTful
15 18 (0.71%) Apache NiFi
15 18 (0.71%) GraphQL
15 18 (0.71%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 138 (5.43%) Onboarding
2 86 (3.38%) PKI
3 84 (3.30%) Driving Licence
4 80 (3.15%) Data Centre
5 73 (2.87%) Replication
6 68 (2.68%) Enterprise Software
7 58 (2.28%) Self-Motivation
8 54 (2.12%) Management Information System
8 54 (2.12%) Smartphone
9 39 (1.53%) Hybrid Cloud
10 36 (1.42%) Security Posture
11 32 (1.26%) Clustering
12 31 (1.22%) NHS
13 29 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
14 28 (1.10%) Video Conferencing
15 26 (1.02%) Data Protection Act
16 25 (0.98%) Product Ownership
16 25 (0.98%) Virtual Team
17 22 (0.87%) CMDB
18 20 (0.79%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 626 (24.63%) Linux
2 586 (23.05%) Windows 10
3 526 (20.69%) Windows Server
4 156 (6.14%) Unix
5 129 (5.07%) Android
6 128 (5.04%) Mac OS
7 100 (3.93%) Apple iOS
8 61 (2.40%) Windows Server 2016
9 54 (2.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 51 (2.01%) Windows 7
11 47 (1.85%) Windows Server 2019
12 36 (1.42%) Windows Server 2012
13 32 (1.26%) Windows Server 2003
14 26 (1.02%) AIX
15 22 (0.87%) VMS
16 19 (0.75%) Ubuntu
17 14 (0.55%) Amazon Linux
18 13 (0.51%) Solaris
19 12 (0.47%) Windows Server 2008
20 8 (0.31%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 456 (17.94%) Problem-Solving
2 419 (16.48%) Customer Service
3 370 (14.56%) ITIL
4 261 (10.27%) Agile
5 227 (8.93%) Migration
6 225 (8.85%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 219 (8.62%) DevOps
8 217 (8.54%) Service Management
9 197 (7.75%) ITSM
10 194 (7.63%) CI/CD
11 188 (7.40%) Continuous Improvement
12 175 (6.88%) Cybersecurity
13 155 (6.10%) Change Management
14 126 (4.96%) Disaster Recovery
15 120 (4.72%) User Experience
16 105 (4.13%) Service Delivery
17 104 (4.09%) Computer Science
17 104 (4.09%) Incident Response
18 103 (4.05%) Infrastructure as Code
18 103 (4.05%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 502 (19.75%) PowerShell
2 297 (11.68%) Python
3 236 (9.28%) SQL
4 122 (4.80%) Java
5 114 (4.48%) C#
6 101 (3.97%) Bash
7 77 (3.03%) JavaScript
8 65 (2.56%) Perl
9 58 (2.28%) C++
10 45 (1.77%) PL/SQL
11 33 (1.30%) T-SQL
12 31 (1.22%) Kusto Query Language
12 31 (1.22%) VBScript
13 28 (1.10%) VB
14 25 (0.98%) Groovy
14 25 (0.98%) Shell Script
15 23 (0.90%) VBA
16 14 (0.55%) PHP
17 11 (0.43%) Bicep
17 11 (0.43%) Go
Qualifications
1 821 (32.30%) Security Cleared
2 546 (21.48%) SC Cleared
3 258 (10.15%) Degree
4 236 (9.28%) DV Cleared
5 146 (5.74%) Microsoft Certification
6 80 (3.15%) Computer Science Degree
7 60 (2.36%) Azure Certification
8 44 (1.73%) Cisco Certification
8 44 (1.73%) MCSE
9 40 (1.57%) A+ Certification
10 38 (1.49%) ITIL Certification
11 36 (1.42%) AWS Certification
12 27 (1.06%) CCNA
12 27 (1.06%) CCNP
12 27 (1.06%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 26 (1.02%) CISSP
14 25 (0.98%) BPSS Clearance
15 22 (0.87%) MCP
16 21 (0.83%) MCSA
17 20 (0.79%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (3.54%) GDPR
2 88 (3.46%) SLA
3 66 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 65 (2.56%) QA
5 46 (1.81%) NIST
6 32 (1.26%) PCI DSS
7 21 (0.83%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 11 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
8 11 (0.43%) GLBA
8 11 (0.43%) MiFID
8 11 (0.43%) NCSC
8 11 (0.43%) PMO
9 8 (0.31%) FINRA
10 5 (0.20%) HIPAA
10 5 (0.20%) NIST 800
11 4 (0.16%) Accessibility
11 4 (0.16%) COBIT
11 4 (0.16%) GxP
11 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
12 3 (0.12%) SEPA
System Software
1 933 (36.70%) Active Directory
2 233 (9.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 106 (4.17%) Docker
4 88 (3.46%) Hyper-V
5 56 (2.20%) Virtual Desktop
6 51 (2.01%) Virtual Machines
7 50 (1.97%) vSphere
8 42 (1.65%) VMware ESXi
9 33 (1.30%) VMware NSX
10 26 (1.02%) BitLocker
11 19 (0.75%) Microsoft App-V
12 17 (0.67%) DFS Replication
13 16 (0.63%) Firmware
14 15 (0.59%) Virtual Servers
15 9 (0.35%) Dovecot
15 9 (0.35%) Postfix
15 9 (0.35%) Squid
16 8 (0.31%) Terminal Services
16 8 (0.31%) Tivoli Directory Server
17 7 (0.28%) NFS
Systems Management
1 351 (13.81%) SCCM
2 285 (11.21%) Microsoft Intune
3 156 (6.14%) Terraform
4 125 (4.92%) Ansible
5 89 (3.50%) Kubernetes
6 65 (2.56%) vCenter Server
7 64 (2.52%) Single Sign-On
8 60 (2.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 40 (1.57%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (1.42%) Grafana
11 30 (1.18%) SCOM
12 26 (1.02%) WSUS
13 24 (0.94%) Prometheus
14 20 (0.79%) Nessus
15 18 (0.71%) Nmap
16 17 (0.67%) WMI
17 16 (0.63%) Progress Chef
18 15 (0.59%) Microsoft Clustering
18 15 (0.59%) Proxmox
19 14 (0.55%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,084 (42.64%) Microsoft
2 325 (12.79%) VMware
3 242 (9.52%) ServiceNow
4 199 (7.83%) Oracle
5 162 (6.37%) Cisco
6 155 (6.10%) Citrix
7 105 (4.13%) Splunk
8 61 (2.40%) Apple
9 60 (2.36%) Dell
10 53 (2.08%) HP
11 50 (1.97%) SolarWinds
12 48 (1.89%) Google
13 47 (1.85%) Veeam
14 46 (1.81%) Red Hat
15 44 (1.73%) IBM
16 38 (1.49%) CyberArk
17 36 (1.42%) SAP
18 34 (1.34%) Remedy
19 32 (1.26%) AppDynamics
20 31 (1.22%) Palo Alto