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 28 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 21 17
Rank change year-on-year -6 -4 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,695 2,250 2,986
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.98% 8.20% 8.70%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.78% 60.61% 61.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,726 1,528 2,030
10th Percentile £171 £178 £175
25th Percentile £225 £225 £253
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £413 £440
Median % change year-on-year +2.91% -6.25% -
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £660
UK median daily rate £425 £415 £430
% change year-on-year +2.41% -3.49% -3.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 235 182 230
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.15 £11.07
25th Percentile £18.25 £17.27 £14.54
Median hourly rate £25.77 £18.87 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.57% -5.65% -18.77%
75th Percentile £55.25 £27.31 £47.56
90th Percentile £74.00 £65.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.26 £18.87 £20.29
% change year-on-year +33.86% -6.98% -15.48%

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 4,362 3,712 4,879
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.68% 13.53% 14.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,810 2,480 3,246
10th Percentile £190 £200 £200
25th Percentile £313 £313 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £460 £475
Median % change year-on-year +1.09% -3.16% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £656 £681 £688
UK median daily rate £469 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +1.41% -2.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 296 225 333
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £12.55
25th Percentile £19.25 £18.10 £16.32
Median hourly rate £32.50 £23.00 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.30% -14.81% -36.47%
75th Percentile £65.00 £57.50 £66.25
90th Percentile £74.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £23.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year +13.04% -8.00% -41.18%

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 28 July 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 28 July 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 28 July 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 -14 883 £422 -0.71% 274
South East -8 577 £475 -4.23% 283
North of England -11 478 £344 +1.18% 193
South West -10 270 £488 +21.88% 107
Midlands -21 266 £400 +23.08% 116
North West -9 253 £344 -3.91% 93
East of England -4 204 £336 +34.50% 111
Yorkshire -10 202 £360 +8.68% 67
West Midlands -27 171 £450 +12.50% 69
East Midlands +5 91 £270 +35.00% 47
North East -40 27 £270 -1.82% 39
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
1 224 (8.31%) Microsoft Exchange
2 217 (8.05%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.26%) Confluence
4 56 (2.08%) IIS
5 17 (0.63%) nginx
6 15 (0.56%) Apache
7 14 (0.52%) Tomcat
8 11 (0.41%) Skype for Business
9 9 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 9 (0.33%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.22%) Appian
10 6 (0.22%) Documentum
11 5 (0.19%) Camunda
12 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
13 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
13 3 (0.11%) NetWeaver
13 3 (0.11%) Tuxedo
14 2 (0.074%) ArcGIS
14 2 (0.074%) CMS
Applications
1 161 (5.97%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.15%) Acrobat
6 4 (0.15%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.11%) Houdini
7 3 (0.11%) NUKE
8 2 (0.074%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.037%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.037%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.037%) InDesign
9 1 (0.037%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 53 (1.97%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.37%) Finacle
3 8 (0.30%) SAP S/4HANA
4 6 (0.22%) OpenText MBPM
4 6 (0.22%) Oracle BPM
4 6 (0.22%) Teamcenter
5 3 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
5 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.074%) assyst
7 1 (0.037%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.037%) Oracle BRM
7 1 (0.037%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.037%) SAP BRIM
7 1 (0.037%) SAP EWM
7 1 (0.037%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.037%) SAP FI-CA
7 1 (0.037%) SAP FS
7 1 (0.037%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 838 (31.09%) Azure
2 830 (30.80%) Microsoft 365
3 405 (15.03%) Entra ID
4 296 (10.98%) AWS
5 122 (4.53%) OneDrive
6 90 (3.34%) GCP
7 89 (3.30%) Azure DevOps
8 76 (2.82%) SaaS
9 64 (2.37%) Azure Monitor
10 62 (2.30%) IaaS
11 59 (2.19%) GitHub
12 57 (2.12%) Power Platform
13 53 (1.97%) PaaS
14 40 (1.48%) Azure Sentinel
15 28 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
16 25 (0.93%) Azure AKS
17 24 (0.89%) Google Workspace
17 24 (0.89%) OpenShift
18 22 (0.82%) GitHub Actions
18 22 (0.82%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 405 (15.03%) DNS
2 310 (11.50%) Firewall
3 279 (10.35%) DHCP
4 200 (7.42%) VPN
5 189 (7.01%) TCP/IP
6 154 (5.71%) LAN
7 141 (5.23%) WAN
8 132 (4.90%) Wi-Fi
9 85 (3.15%) SAN
10 65 (2.41%) Network Security
11 63 (2.34%) VLAN
12 46 (1.71%) BGP
13 45 (1.67%) SSL
14 40 (1.48%) NAS
15 38 (1.41%) Internet
16 36 (1.34%) OSPF
17 35 (1.30%) Wireless
18 29 (1.08%) VoIP
18 29 (1.08%) VSAN
19 28 (1.04%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 259 (9.61%) SQL Server
2 52 (1.93%) Oracle Database
3 44 (1.63%) Power BI
4 27 (1.00%) PostgreSQL
5 25 (0.93%) Relational Database
6 23 (0.85%) MySQL
7 20 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
7 20 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 19 (0.71%) Db2
9 13 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
10 12 (0.45%) RDBMS
10 12 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 11 (0.41%) MongoDB
11 11 (0.41%) NoSQL
11 11 (0.41%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 10 (0.37%) Geospatial Data
13 9 (0.33%) Data Warehouse
14 6 (0.22%) GIS
15 5 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
15 5 (0.19%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 173 (6.42%) JIRA
2 59 (2.19%) Git
3 46 (1.71%) MSI
4 44 (1.63%) Jenkins
5 37 (1.37%) GitLab
6 32 (1.19%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.63%) Eclipse
8 13 (0.48%) Bitbucket
9 8 (0.30%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 8 (0.30%) Chocolatey
10 7 (0.26%) Artifactory
10 7 (0.26%) Browser DevTools
10 7 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
11 6 (0.22%) Android Studio
11 6 (0.22%) InstallShield
11 6 (0.22%) Xcode
12 5 (0.19%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.19%) Selenium
13 4 (0.15%) Maven
14 3 (0.11%) Subversion
General
1 979 (36.33%) Social Skills
2 322 (11.95%) Finance
3 313 (11.61%) Analytical Skills
4 169 (6.27%) Public Sector
5 156 (5.79%) Banking
6 97 (3.60%) Documentation Skills
7 78 (2.89%) Legal
7 78 (2.89%) Organisational Skills
8 55 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 53 (1.97%) Retail
10 47 (1.74%) Military
11 43 (1.60%) Manufacturing
12 37 (1.37%) Front Office
12 37 (1.37%) Telecoms
13 34 (1.26%) Investment Banking
13 34 (1.26%) Law
14 27 (1.00%) Spanish Language
15 25 (0.93%) Financial Institution
16 22 (0.82%) French Language
17 20 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 401 (14.88%) Support Engineer
2 368 (13.65%) IT Support
3 273 (10.13%) IT Engineer
4 257 (9.54%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 253 (9.39%) Analyst
6 230 (8.53%) IT Support Engineer
7 210 (7.79%) Senior
8 124 (4.60%) 2nd Line Support
9 110 (4.08%) Architect
10 108 (4.01%) Desktop Support
11 98 (3.64%) Desktop Engineer
11 98 (3.64%) Developer
12 96 (3.56%) Cloud Engineer
13 95 (3.53%) Support Analyst
14 92 (3.41%) Lead
15 83 (3.08%) IT Analyst
16 74 (2.75%) Consultant
17 73 (2.71%) 1st Line Support
18 70 (2.60%) Windows Engineer
19 69 (2.56%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (3.78%) .NET
2 95 (3.53%) REST
3 61 (2.26%) .NET Framework
4 31 (1.15%) 802.1X
5 28 (1.04%) Microsoft Graph
5 28 (1.04%) WPF
6 27 (1.00%) LDAP
6 27 (1.00%) Middleware
6 27 (1.00%) WinForms
7 25 (0.93%) Web Services
8 24 (0.89%) CSS
9 22 (0.82%) JSON
10 20 (0.74%) HTML
10 20 (0.74%) Kafka
10 20 (0.74%) Software Packaging
11 19 (0.71%) Elastic Stack
12 17 (0.63%) RESTful
13 16 (0.59%) Node.js
14 15 (0.56%) .NET Core
14 15 (0.56%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 300 (11.13%) Onboarding
2 145 (5.38%) PKI
3 144 (5.34%) Data Centre
4 84 (3.12%) Clustering
5 75 (2.78%) Management Information System
6 71 (2.63%) Enterprise Software
7 70 (2.60%) Cloud Native
8 62 (2.30%) Self-Motivation
9 55 (2.04%) Hybrid Cloud
10 54 (2.00%) Video Conferencing
11 53 (1.97%) Driving Licence
12 50 (1.86%) Replication
12 50 (1.86%) Security Posture
13 47 (1.74%) Legacy Systems
14 42 (1.56%) Virtual Team
15 35 (1.30%) Analytical Mindset
16 34 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
17 31 (1.15%) Linux Command Line
18 29 (1.08%) Enterprise Storage
19 28 (1.04%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 664 (24.64%) Windows Server
2 652 (24.19%) Linux
3 465 (17.25%) Windows 10
4 182 (6.75%) Mac OS
5 128 (4.75%) Apple iOS
6 125 (4.64%) Android
7 124 (4.60%) Unix
8 107 (3.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 63 (2.34%) Windows Server 2019
10 40 (1.48%) Ubuntu
11 39 (1.45%) Windows Server 2016
12 33 (1.22%) Windows Server 2012
13 31 (1.15%) AIX
14 30 (1.11%) Windows 7
15 22 (0.82%) CentOS
16 19 (0.71%) Solaris
17 17 (0.63%) VMS
18 16 (0.59%) Windows Server 2008
19 10 (0.37%) Windows Server 2003
20 9 (0.33%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 628 (23.30%) Problem-Solving
2 467 (17.33%) ITIL
3 410 (15.21%) Customer Service
4 335 (12.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 318 (11.80%) Migration
6 304 (11.28%) ITSM
7 258 (9.57%) Continuous Improvement
8 256 (9.50%) DevOps
9 247 (9.17%) Agile
10 240 (8.91%) CI/CD
11 217 (8.05%) Service Management
12 197 (7.31%) Infrastructure as Code
13 188 (6.98%) Change Management
14 178 (6.60%) Stakeholder Management
15 175 (6.49%) High Availability
16 150 (5.57%) Cybersecurity
17 146 (5.42%) SIEM
18 144 (5.34%) Disaster Recovery
19 142 (5.27%) Runbook
19 142 (5.27%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 622 (23.08%) PowerShell
2 292 (10.83%) Python
3 276 (10.24%) SQL
4 150 (5.57%) Bash
5 135 (5.01%) C#
6 69 (2.56%) JavaScript
7 68 (2.52%) Java
8 50 (1.86%) T-SQL
9 49 (1.82%) PL/SQL
10 46 (1.71%) C++
11 39 (1.45%) Bicep
12 24 (0.89%) Search Processing Language
13 22 (0.82%) VB
14 17 (0.63%) Shell Script
14 17 (0.63%) VBScript
15 16 (0.59%) Kusto Query Language
15 16 (0.59%) Perl
15 16 (0.59%) TypeScript
16 14 (0.52%) C
16 14 (0.52%) VBA
Qualifications
1 820 (30.43%) Security Cleared
2 497 (18.44%) SC Cleared
3 295 (10.95%) DV Cleared
4 293 (10.87%) Degree
5 104 (3.86%) Microsoft Certification
6 82 (3.04%) Cisco Certification
7 69 (2.56%) Computer Science Degree
8 65 (2.41%) Azure Certification
9 63 (2.34%) CISSP
10 49 (1.82%) AWS Certification
11 46 (1.71%) BPSS Clearance
12 37 (1.37%) A+ Certification
13 33 (1.22%) MCSE
14 30 (1.11%) CCNA
15 28 (1.04%) CCNP
16 27 (1.00%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 25 (0.93%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 24 (0.89%) CISM
18 24 (0.89%) ITIL Certification
19 22 (0.82%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 125 (4.64%) SLA
2 115 (4.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 84 (3.12%) NIST
4 72 (2.67%) QA
5 30 (1.11%) GDPR
6 27 (1.00%) Cyber Essentials
7 25 (0.93%) PCI DSS
8 22 (0.82%) NCSC
9 16 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 13 (0.48%) Data Quality
11 11 (0.41%) Accessibility
11 11 (0.41%) HIPAA
12 10 (0.37%) GRC
12 10 (0.37%) PMO
13 9 (0.33%) WCAG
14 8 (0.30%) GxP
14 8 (0.30%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.30%) SOC 2
15 6 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 6 (0.22%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 1,070 (39.70%) Active Directory
2 358 (13.28%) VMware Infrastructure
3 144 (5.34%) Hyper-V
4 123 (4.56%) VMware ESXi
5 100 (3.71%) vSphere
6 96 (3.56%) Docker
7 94 (3.49%) Virtual Machines
8 72 (2.67%) Virtual Desktop
9 69 (2.56%) VMware NSX
10 34 (1.26%) Firmware
11 33 (1.22%) BitLocker
12 24 (0.89%) Microsoft App-V
13 17 (0.63%) KVM
14 16 (0.59%) vCloud
15 8 (0.30%) VMware Workstation
15 8 (0.30%) XenDesktop
16 7 (0.26%) NFS
16 7 (0.26%) Virtual Servers
16 7 (0.26%) XenApp
17 6 (0.22%) UAG
Systems Management
1 401 (14.88%) Microsoft Intune
2 250 (9.28%) SCCM
3 229 (8.50%) Terraform
4 193 (7.16%) Ansible
5 148 (5.49%) Kubernetes
6 108 (4.01%) vCenter Server
7 63 (2.34%) SCOM
8 49 (1.82%) Jamf Pro
9 38 (1.41%) FortiGate
10 37 (1.37%) WSUS
11 35 (1.30%) Progress Chef
12 30 (1.11%) Puppet
12 30 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
13 26 (0.96%) Grafana
14 25 (0.93%) Prometheus
15 23 (0.85%) Nagios
15 23 (0.85%) Packer
16 20 (0.74%) ZABBIX
17 19 (0.71%) Nessus
17 19 (0.71%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,182 (43.86%) Microsoft
2 485 (18.00%) VMware
3 288 (10.69%) ServiceNow
4 179 (6.64%) Cisco
4 179 (6.64%) Citrix
5 153 (5.68%) Oracle
6 117 (4.34%) Splunk
7 81 (3.01%) Apple
8 79 (2.93%) SolarWinds
9 77 (2.86%) CyberArk
10 67 (2.49%) Google
10 67 (2.49%) Red Hat
11 64 (2.37%) HP
11 64 (2.37%) Remedy
12 58 (2.15%) BeyondTrust
13 52 (1.93%) Juniper
14 51 (1.89%) Dell
15 46 (1.71%) IBM
16 43 (1.60%) F5
17 42 (1.56%) BMC