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 22 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
22 May 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 20 17
Rank change year-on-year -6 -3 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,448 2,058 3,108
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.93% 8.58% 8.55%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.26% 61.20% 62.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,614 1,464 2,167
10th Percentile £162 £179 £163
25th Percentile £213 £230 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £415 £400
Median % change year-on-year - +3.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £423 £421 £400
% change year-on-year +0.39% +5.25% -11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 197 115 260
10th Percentile £15.37 £14.20 £11.73
25th Percentile £18.00 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.77 £18.82 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +36.93% +6.21% -21.24%
75th Percentile £63.75 £24.83 £25.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £49.11 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.26 £18.82 £18.00
% change year-on-year +34.22% +4.56% -20.00%

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 3,996 3,363 4,984
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.68% 14.02% 13.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,610 2,286 3,408
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £466 £470
Median % change year-on-year -3.38% -0.90% -8.29%
75th Percentile £570 £588 £588
90th Percentile £658 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £456 £465 £465
% change year-on-year -1.89% - -7.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 269 150 363
10th Percentile £15.99 £15.12 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.44 £15.21
Median hourly rate £41.94 £21.28 £22.15
Median % change year-on-year +97.09% -3.93% -42.47%
75th Percentile £67.25 £58.73 £61.60
90th Percentile £74.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £22.00 £22.15
% change year-on-year +89.59% -0.68% -44.07%

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 22 May 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 22 May 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 22 May 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 -25 745 £425 -3.41% 207
South East -6 525 £475 - 275
North of England -10 454 £353 +4.44% 188
Midlands -18 263 £306 +22.50% 109
North West -2 253 £313 -10.71% 107
South West -14 226 £450 -8.16% 118
East of England -2 213 £350 - 94
Yorkshire -20 187 £375 +9.01% 65
West Midlands -23 152 £438 +61.29% 58
East Midlands +8 106 £225 +5.88% 51
North East -33 18 £345 +15.00% 19
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
1 210 (8.58%) Microsoft Exchange
2 152 (6.21%) SharePoint
3 54 (2.21%) IIS
4 50 (2.04%) Confluence
5 17 (0.69%) Apache
5 17 (0.69%) WebLogic
6 12 (0.49%) Skype for Business
7 11 (0.45%) Tuxedo
8 10 (0.41%) nginx
8 10 (0.41%) Tomcat
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.25%) TPMS
10 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) SAS
10 4 (0.16%) WebSphere
11 3 (0.12%) Appian
11 3 (0.12%) NetWeaver
12 2 (0.082%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.082%) IBM HTTP Server
12 2 (0.082%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 159 (6.50%) Microsoft Office
2 63 (2.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (1.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.37%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.20%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.16%) Acrobat
7 4 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.041%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 40 (1.63%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.45%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.16%) Finacle
5 3 (0.12%) assyst
5 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.082%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.082%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.082%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.041%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.041%) OpenText MBPM
7 1 (0.041%) Oracle 11i
7 1 (0.041%) Oracle BPM
7 1 (0.041%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.041%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.041%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.041%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 709 (28.96%) Azure
2 703 (28.72%) Microsoft 365
3 302 (12.34%) Entra ID
4 216 (8.82%) AWS
5 74 (3.02%) OneDrive
6 69 (2.82%) SaaS
7 67 (2.74%) Azure DevOps
8 65 (2.66%) GCP
9 64 (2.61%) IaaS
10 53 (2.17%) GitHub
11 51 (2.08%) PaaS
12 42 (1.72%) Power Platform
13 38 (1.55%) Azure Monitor
14 32 (1.31%) Google Workspace
15 28 (1.14%) Azure Sentinel
16 24 (0.98%) GitHub Actions
17 23 (0.94%) OpenShift
18 18 (0.74%) Azure AKS
19 16 (0.65%) Microsoft Purview
20 15 (0.61%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 326 (13.32%) DNS
2 261 (10.66%) Firewall
3 226 (9.23%) DHCP
4 162 (6.62%) VPN
5 147 (6.00%) LAN
6 143 (5.84%) WAN
7 131 (5.35%) TCP/IP
8 109 (4.45%) Wi-Fi
9 64 (2.61%) Network Security
10 60 (2.45%) SAN
11 53 (2.17%) VLAN
12 42 (1.72%) Wireless
13 37 (1.51%) BGP
14 34 (1.39%) OSPF
14 34 (1.39%) Skype
15 32 (1.31%) SNMP
16 31 (1.27%) VoIP
17 30 (1.23%) BIG-IP
18 29 (1.18%) SSL
19 28 (1.14%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 187 (7.64%) SQL Server
2 40 (1.63%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.31%) Relational Database
4 28 (1.14%) MySQL
5 25 (1.02%) Power BI
6 22 (0.90%) PostgreSQL
7 15 (0.61%) DB2
8 14 (0.57%) MongoDB
9 13 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
10 11 (0.45%) NoSQL
11 10 (0.41%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 7 (0.29%) RDBMS
13 6 (0.25%) Amazon RDS
13 6 (0.25%) BigQuery
13 6 (0.25%) GIS
13 6 (0.25%) Oracle Reports
14 5 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
14 5 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Analysis Services
15 4 (0.16%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 163 (6.66%) JIRA
2 42 (1.72%) MSI
3 40 (1.63%) GitLab
4 39 (1.59%) Jenkins
5 34 (1.39%) Visual Studio
6 29 (1.18%) Git
7 19 (0.78%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.74%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.69%) Metasploit
10 10 (0.41%) Sonatype Nexus
11 9 (0.37%) Android Studio
11 9 (0.37%) Browser DevTools
11 9 (0.37%) Chocolatey
11 9 (0.37%) Xcode
12 8 (0.33%) Artifactory
13 7 (0.29%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.29%) InstallShield
13 7 (0.29%) Robot Framework
13 7 (0.29%) Selenium
14 5 (0.20%) AdminStudio
General
1 824 (33.66%) Social Skills
2 241 (9.84%) Finance
3 219 (8.95%) Analytical Skills
4 169 (6.90%) Public Sector
5 135 (5.51%) Banking
6 90 (3.68%) Legal
7 89 (3.64%) Documentation Skills
8 74 (3.02%) Organisational Skills
9 53 (2.17%) Military
10 46 (1.88%) Retail
11 36 (1.47%) Manufacturing
12 35 (1.43%) Law
13 33 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 30 (1.23%) Investment Banking
14 30 (1.23%) Presentation Skills
15 26 (1.06%) Front Office
15 26 (1.06%) Telecoms
16 21 (0.86%) Local Government
17 18 (0.74%) Police
18 16 (0.65%) French Language
Job Titles
1 320 (13.07%) IT Support
2 303 (12.38%) Support Engineer
3 277 (11.32%) Analyst
4 208 (8.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 193 (7.88%) IT Engineer
6 160 (6.54%) Senior
7 159 (6.50%) IT Support Engineer
8 130 (5.31%) Architect
9 112 (4.58%) Support Analyst
10 104 (4.25%) Desktop Support
11 94 (3.84%) Desktop Engineer
12 92 (3.76%) 2nd Line Support
13 89 (3.64%) Technical Support
14 88 (3.59%) IT Analyst
15 86 (3.51%) Lead
16 84 (3.43%) Developer
17 65 (2.66%) 1st Line Support
17 65 (2.66%) IT Support Analyst
17 65 (2.66%) Windows Engineer
18 61 (2.49%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (3.15%) .NET
2 71 (2.90%) REST
3 47 (1.92%) .NET Framework
4 36 (1.47%) LDAP
5 31 (1.27%) SAML
6 30 (1.23%) Microsoft Graph
7 28 (1.14%) Middleware
8 27 (1.10%) 802.1X
9 25 (1.02%) WinForms
10 24 (0.98%) OAuth
11 22 (0.90%) Kafka
11 22 (0.90%) Web Services
12 21 (0.86%) WPF
13 19 (0.78%) CSS
13 19 (0.78%) React
14 17 (0.69%) AngularJS
14 17 (0.69%) Node.js
14 17 (0.69%) Software Packaging
15 15 (0.61%) Elastic Stack
15 15 (0.61%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 211 (8.62%) Onboarding
2 110 (4.49%) Data Centre
3 103 (4.21%) PKI
4 79 (3.23%) Clustering
5 72 (2.94%) Enterprise Software
6 54 (2.21%) Self-Motivation
7 53 (2.17%) Replication
8 50 (2.04%) Driving Licence
9 48 (1.96%) Management Information System
10 47 (1.92%) Hybrid Cloud
11 41 (1.67%) Smartphone
12 40 (1.63%) Virtual Team
13 38 (1.55%) Security Posture
14 36 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
15 33 (1.35%) Cloud Native
16 29 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
17 28 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
17 28 (1.14%) Product Ownership
18 27 (1.10%) Enterprise Storage
19 25 (1.02%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 594 (24.26%) Linux
2 573 (23.41%) Windows Server
3 456 (18.63%) Windows 10
4 157 (6.41%) Mac OS
5 125 (5.11%) Unix
6 123 (5.02%) Apple iOS
7 121 (4.94%) Android
8 69 (2.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 61 (2.49%) Windows Server 2019
10 60 (2.45%) Windows Server 2016
11 47 (1.92%) Windows 7
12 34 (1.39%) Windows Server 2012
13 30 (1.23%) AIX
14 23 (0.94%) Ubuntu
15 18 (0.74%) Windows Server 2003
16 15 (0.61%) VMS
17 14 (0.57%) Solaris
18 12 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
19 10 (0.41%) CentOS
20 8 (0.33%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 510 (20.83%) Problem-Solving
2 387 (15.81%) Customer Service
3 361 (14.75%) ITIL
4 274 (11.19%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 256 (10.46%) Migration
6 240 (9.80%) Agile
7 219 (8.95%) DevOps
7 219 (8.95%) ITSM
8 200 (8.17%) CI/CD
9 172 (7.03%) Continuous Improvement
10 166 (6.78%) Disaster Recovery
11 162 (6.62%) Change Management
12 152 (6.21%) High Availability
13 149 (6.09%) Service Management
14 132 (5.39%) Cybersecurity
15 123 (5.02%) Stakeholder Management
16 117 (4.78%) SIEM
17 115 (4.70%) Infrastructure as Code
18 113 (4.62%) Computer Science
19 102 (4.17%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 524 (21.41%) PowerShell
2 248 (10.13%) SQL
3 233 (9.52%) Python
4 116 (4.74%) C#
5 84 (3.43%) Bash
6 67 (2.74%) JavaScript
7 65 (2.66%) Java
8 51 (2.08%) PL/SQL
9 44 (1.80%) C++
10 43 (1.76%) T-SQL
11 26 (1.06%) Kusto Query Language
12 23 (0.94%) VB
13 22 (0.90%) Search Processing Language
14 21 (0.86%) Perl
15 20 (0.82%) Shell Script
16 16 (0.65%) VBScript
17 14 (0.57%) VBA
18 12 (0.49%) Bicep
19 11 (0.45%) C
19 11 (0.45%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 756 (30.88%) Security Cleared
2 478 (19.53%) SC Cleared
3 266 (10.87%) Degree
4 248 (10.13%) DV Cleared
5 95 (3.88%) Microsoft Certification
6 77 (3.15%) Computer Science Degree
7 73 (2.98%) Cisco Certification
8 45 (1.84%) Azure Certification
9 44 (1.80%) CISSP
10 41 (1.67%) MCSE
11 34 (1.39%) BPSS Clearance
12 29 (1.18%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 27 (1.10%) AWS Certification
13 27 (1.10%) MCSA
14 26 (1.06%) CCNA
14 26 (1.06%) ITIL Certification
15 23 (0.94%) CCNP
16 21 (0.86%) CompTIA Security+
17 19 (0.78%) A+ Certification
17 19 (0.78%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 106 (4.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 86 (3.51%) SLA
3 80 (3.27%) GDPR
4 75 (3.06%) QA
5 70 (2.86%) NIST
6 41 (1.67%) PCI DSS
7 30 (1.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 25 (1.02%) Cyber Essentials
9 13 (0.53%) NCSC
9 13 (0.53%) PMO
10 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
11 11 (0.45%) Data Quality
11 11 (0.45%) MiFID
12 10 (0.41%) FINRA
13 7 (0.29%) HIPAA
14 6 (0.25%) DICOM
14 6 (0.25%) GLBA
14 6 (0.25%) GRC
14 6 (0.25%) HL7
14 6 (0.25%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 917 (37.46%) Active Directory
2 304 (12.42%) VMware Infrastructure
3 134 (5.47%) Hyper-V
4 88 (3.59%) vSphere
5 87 (3.55%) VMware ESXi
6 81 (3.31%) Virtual Machines
7 74 (3.02%) Docker
8 48 (1.96%) Virtual Desktop
9 44 (1.80%) VMware NSX
10 34 (1.39%) Firmware
11 28 (1.14%) BitLocker
12 26 (1.06%) Microsoft App-V
13 20 (0.82%) KVM
14 11 (0.45%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.41%) XenApp
16 8 (0.33%) vCloud
16 8 (0.33%) VMware Workstation
17 5 (0.20%) etcd
17 5 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
18 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 334 (13.64%) Microsoft Intune
2 232 (9.48%) SCCM
3 159 (6.50%) Ansible
4 143 (5.84%) Terraform
5 114 (4.66%) Kubernetes
6 78 (3.19%) vCenter Server
7 44 (1.80%) Single Sign-On
8 38 (1.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 36 (1.47%) FortiGate
10 35 (1.43%) Jamf Pro
10 35 (1.43%) SCOM
10 35 (1.43%) WSUS
11 26 (1.06%) Grafana
12 25 (1.02%) Nagios
13 23 (0.94%) Prometheus
14 21 (0.86%) Nessus
15 18 (0.74%) Puppet
15 18 (0.74%) Tivoli
15 18 (0.74%) WMI
15 18 (0.74%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,046 (42.73%) Microsoft
2 402 (16.42%) VMware
3 215 (8.78%) ServiceNow
4 180 (7.35%) Citrix
5 163 (6.66%) Cisco
6 142 (5.80%) Oracle
7 125 (5.11%) Splunk
8 71 (2.90%) HP
9 67 (2.74%) SolarWinds
10 55 (2.25%) Dell
11 53 (2.17%) Remedy
12 50 (2.04%) Apple
13 48 (1.96%) Red Hat
14 44 (1.80%) CyberArk
14 44 (1.80%) IBM
15 43 (1.76%) F5
16 42 (1.72%) Google
16 42 (1.72%) Juniper
17 36 (1.47%) BeyondTrust
18 32 (1.31%) Palo Alto
929 Windows jobs in England