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

6 months to
10 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 21 16
Rank change year-on-year -6 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,695 2,284 3,222
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.01% 8.45% 8.69%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.84% 61.38% 61.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,746 1,551 2,157
10th Percentile £163 £180 £175
25th Percentile £222 £241 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £416 £425
Median % change year-on-year +2.16% -2.12% -5.56%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £671
UK median daily rate £425 £425 £425
% change year-on-year - - -5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 231 173 283
10th Percentile £16.09 £15.12 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.75 £16.95 £14.34
Median hourly rate £25.77 £18.87 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.57% -5.65% -18.77%
75th Percentile £58.25 £25.15 £40.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £64.75 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £20.00
% change year-on-year +36.46% -5.65% -15.93%

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 4,358 3,721 5,204
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.72% 13.77% 14.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,837 2,484 3,413
10th Percentile £190 £200 £193
25th Percentile £313 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.08% -2.11% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £661 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £465 £465 £475
% change year-on-year - -2.11% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 293 215 402
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £12.76
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.62 £16.24
Median hourly rate £32.50 £22.50 £24.68
Median % change year-on-year +44.44% -8.82% -41.94%
75th Percentile £65.00 £54.88 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.80 £67.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £26.50 £23.00 £24.50
% change year-on-year +15.22% -6.12% -42.35%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -18 879 £425 -2.86% 224
South East -8 548 £475 -3.46% 302
North of England -10 478 £363 +3.57% 226
Midlands -17 280 £338 +14.41% 123
South West -12 273 £488 +6.85% 141
North West -9 254 £358 +0.10% 120
East of England 0 219 £300 +8.08% 103
Yorkshire -13 202 £365 -9.88% 74
West Midlands -26 175 £450 +50.00% 64
East Midlands +9 100 £270 +35.00% 59
North East -37 26 £273 -5.22% 40
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
1 225 (8.35%) Microsoft Exchange
2 190 (7.05%) SharePoint
3 54 (2.00%) Confluence
3 54 (2.00%) IIS
4 15 (0.56%) Apache
4 15 (0.56%) nginx
5 14 (0.52%) Skype for Business
5 14 (0.52%) Tomcat
6 9 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
6 9 (0.33%) WebLogic
7 7 (0.26%) Appian
8 6 (0.22%) Documentum
9 5 (0.19%) Camunda
10 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
11 3 (0.11%) NetWeaver
11 3 (0.11%) Tuxedo
12 2 (0.074%) Oracle HTTP Server
12 2 (0.074%) SAS
12 2 (0.074%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 161 (5.97%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.19%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.15%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.037%) Acrobat
7 1 (0.037%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.037%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.037%) Houdini
7 1 (0.037%) InDesign
7 1 (0.037%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 43 (1.60%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.41%) Teamcenter
4 10 (0.37%) Finacle
5 6 (0.22%) OpenText MBPM
5 6 (0.22%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.074%) assyst
8 1 (0.037%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.037%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.037%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.037%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 826 (30.65%) Azure
2 787 (29.20%) Microsoft 365
3 381 (14.14%) Entra ID
4 285 (10.58%) AWS
5 106 (3.93%) OneDrive
6 84 (3.12%) Azure DevOps
7 82 (3.04%) GCP
8 74 (2.75%) SaaS
9 60 (2.23%) IaaS
10 59 (2.19%) GitHub
11 53 (1.97%) Power Platform
12 52 (1.93%) Azure Monitor
12 52 (1.93%) PaaS
13 34 (1.26%) Azure Sentinel
14 28 (1.04%) Google Workspace
15 27 (1.00%) GitHub Actions
16 26 (0.96%) AWS CloudFormation
17 25 (0.93%) OpenShift
18 23 (0.85%) Azure AKS
19 22 (0.82%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 392 (14.55%) DNS
2 279 (10.35%) Firewall
3 271 (10.06%) DHCP
4 181 (6.72%) VPN
5 166 (6.16%) TCP/IP
6 159 (5.90%) LAN
7 149 (5.53%) WAN
8 125 (4.64%) Wi-Fi
9 81 (3.01%) SAN
10 58 (2.15%) VLAN
11 56 (2.08%) Network Security
12 44 (1.63%) BGP
13 40 (1.48%) SSL
14 38 (1.41%) Internet
15 36 (1.34%) OSPF
16 35 (1.30%) NAS
17 32 (1.19%) Skype
18 31 (1.15%) Wireless
19 30 (1.11%) VoIP
20 29 (1.08%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 236 (8.76%) SQL Server
2 54 (2.00%) Oracle Database
3 37 (1.37%) Power BI
4 29 (1.08%) Relational Database
5 27 (1.00%) PostgreSQL
6 25 (0.93%) MySQL
7 18 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
7 18 (0.67%) Db2
8 14 (0.52%) NoSQL
9 13 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
9 13 (0.48%) RDBMS
9 13 (0.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 11 (0.41%) MongoDB
11 8 (0.30%) Geospatial Data
12 7 (0.26%) Data Warehouse
12 7 (0.26%) GIS
12 7 (0.26%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 6 (0.22%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 5 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
14 5 (0.19%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 169 (6.27%) JIRA
2 49 (1.82%) Git
3 46 (1.71%) MSI
4 44 (1.63%) Jenkins
5 39 (1.45%) GitLab
6 35 (1.30%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.63%) Eclipse
8 9 (0.33%) Bitbucket
8 9 (0.33%) Chocolatey
9 7 (0.26%) Browser DevTools
10 6 (0.22%) Android Studio
10 6 (0.22%) InstallShield
10 6 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.22%) Xcode
11 5 (0.19%) AdminStudio
11 5 (0.19%) Artifactory
11 5 (0.19%) Selenium
12 4 (0.15%) Appium
12 4 (0.15%) Burp Suite
12 4 (0.15%) Maven
General
1 960 (35.62%) Social Skills
2 295 (10.95%) Finance
3 293 (10.87%) Analytical Skills
4 175 (6.49%) Public Sector
5 153 (5.68%) Banking
6 100 (3.71%) Documentation Skills
7 87 (3.23%) Organisational Skills
8 82 (3.04%) Legal
9 54 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 52 (1.93%) Retail
11 42 (1.56%) Military
12 39 (1.45%) Manufacturing
13 37 (1.37%) Front Office
14 35 (1.30%) Investment Banking
15 32 (1.19%) Telecoms
16 30 (1.11%) Law
17 25 (0.93%) Spanish Language
18 24 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
19 22 (0.82%) French Language
20 20 (0.74%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 384 (14.25%) Support Engineer
2 365 (13.54%) IT Support
3 271 (10.06%) Analyst
4 254 (9.42%) IT Engineer
5 246 (9.13%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 215 (7.98%) IT Support Engineer
7 184 (6.83%) Senior
8 124 (4.60%) Architect
9 115 (4.27%) 2nd Line Support
10 108 (4.01%) Desktop Support
11 103 (3.82%) Desktop Engineer
12 101 (3.75%) Developer
13 100 (3.71%) Support Analyst
14 94 (3.49%) Lead
15 87 (3.23%) IT Analyst
16 84 (3.12%) Cloud Engineer
17 79 (2.93%) Technical Support
18 76 (2.82%) Consultant
19 71 (2.63%) Service Analyst
19 71 (2.63%) Windows Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (3.64%) .NET
2 89 (3.30%) REST
3 60 (2.23%) .NET Framework
4 38 (1.41%) LDAP
5 31 (1.15%) 802.1X
6 30 (1.11%) SAML
7 29 (1.08%) Microsoft Graph
7 29 (1.08%) WPF
8 27 (1.00%) Middleware
9 26 (0.96%) WinForms
10 25 (0.93%) Web Services
11 23 (0.85%) Elastic Stack
11 23 (0.85%) OAuth
12 22 (0.82%) CSS
12 22 (0.82%) Software Packaging
13 17 (0.63%) Kafka
14 16 (0.59%) JSON
14 16 (0.59%) Node.js
14 16 (0.59%) RESTful
15 15 (0.56%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 272 (10.09%) Onboarding
2 136 (5.05%) Data Centre
3 129 (4.79%) PKI
4 78 (2.89%) Clustering
5 74 (2.75%) Enterprise Software
6 69 (2.56%) Management Information System
7 67 (2.49%) Self-Motivation
8 60 (2.23%) Replication
9 59 (2.19%) Cloud Native
10 50 (1.86%) Driving Licence
11 47 (1.74%) Hybrid Cloud
11 47 (1.74%) Security Posture
12 46 (1.71%) Legacy Systems
12 46 (1.71%) Virtual Team
13 43 (1.60%) Video Conferencing
14 33 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
15 32 (1.19%) Linux Command Line
16 31 (1.15%) Analytical Mindset
17 28 (1.04%) CMDB
18 27 (1.00%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 652 (24.19%) Windows Server
2 642 (23.82%) Linux
3 479 (17.77%) Windows 10
4 178 (6.60%) Mac OS
5 128 (4.75%) Apple iOS
6 126 (4.68%) Unix
7 124 (4.60%) Android
8 99 (3.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 64 (2.37%) Windows Server 2019
10 45 (1.67%) Windows Server 2016
11 43 (1.60%) Windows 7
12 37 (1.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 36 (1.34%) Ubuntu
14 31 (1.15%) AIX
15 18 (0.67%) CentOS
15 18 (0.67%) Solaris
15 18 (0.67%) VMS
16 15 (0.56%) Windows Server 2003
17 13 (0.48%) Windows Server 2008
18 9 (0.33%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 608 (22.56%) Problem-Solving
2 442 (16.40%) ITIL
3 403 (14.95%) Customer Service
4 320 (11.87%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 293 (10.87%) Migration
6 279 (10.35%) ITSM
7 257 (9.54%) DevOps
8 240 (8.91%) Continuous Improvement
9 237 (8.79%) Agile
10 234 (8.68%) CI/CD
11 198 (7.35%) Service Management
12 185 (6.86%) High Availability
13 174 (6.46%) Infrastructure as Code
14 172 (6.38%) Change Management
15 160 (5.94%) Stakeholder Management
16 147 (5.45%) Disaster Recovery
17 141 (5.23%) Cybersecurity
18 139 (5.16%) SIEM
19 137 (5.08%) Runbook
20 135 (5.01%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 585 (21.71%) PowerShell
2 275 (10.20%) Python
3 271 (10.06%) SQL
4 133 (4.94%) C#
5 119 (4.42%) Bash
6 67 (2.49%) Java
7 65 (2.41%) JavaScript
8 50 (1.86%) PL/SQL
9 49 (1.82%) T-SQL
10 48 (1.78%) C++
11 25 (0.93%) VB
12 24 (0.89%) Search Processing Language
13 23 (0.85%) Bicep
14 20 (0.74%) Kusto Query Language
14 20 (0.74%) VBScript
15 18 (0.67%) Shell Script
16 16 (0.59%) Perl
16 16 (0.59%) TypeScript
17 14 (0.52%) C
18 13 (0.48%) VBA
Qualifications
1 812 (30.13%) Security Cleared
2 506 (18.78%) SC Cleared
3 299 (11.09%) Degree
4 275 (10.20%) DV Cleared
5 110 (4.08%) Microsoft Certification
6 80 (2.97%) Cisco Certification
7 75 (2.78%) Computer Science Degree
8 59 (2.19%) Azure Certification
8 59 (2.19%) CISSP
9 44 (1.63%) AWS Certification
9 44 (1.63%) BPSS Clearance
10 40 (1.48%) MCSE
11 31 (1.15%) CCNA
12 30 (1.11%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 28 (1.04%) A+ Certification
14 27 (1.00%) CCNP
15 25 (0.93%) ITIL Certification
15 25 (0.93%) MCSA
16 23 (0.85%) CISM
17 21 (0.78%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (4.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 113 (4.19%) SLA
2 84 (3.12%) NIST
3 73 (2.71%) QA
4 49 (1.82%) GDPR
5 29 (1.08%) PCI DSS
5 29 (1.08%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 25 (0.93%) Cyber Essentials
7 22 (0.82%) NCSC
8 12 (0.45%) Data Quality
9 11 (0.41%) HIPAA
10 10 (0.37%) Accessibility
10 10 (0.37%) NIST 800
11 9 (0.33%) GRC
12 8 (0.30%) PMO
12 8 (0.30%) SOC 2
12 8 (0.30%) WCAG
13 6 (0.22%) GxP
13 6 (0.22%) ISO 31000
14 5 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 1,044 (38.74%) Active Directory
2 346 (12.84%) VMware Infrastructure
3 141 (5.23%) Hyper-V
4 115 (4.27%) VMware ESXi
5 102 (3.78%) vSphere
6 100 (3.71%) Virtual Machines
7 91 (3.38%) Docker
8 69 (2.56%) Virtual Desktop
9 61 (2.26%) VMware NSX
10 37 (1.37%) Firmware
11 36 (1.34%) BitLocker
12 27 (1.00%) Microsoft App-V
13 17 (0.63%) KVM
14 14 (0.52%) 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
1 394 (14.62%) Microsoft Intune
2 246 (9.13%) SCCM
3 199 (7.38%) Terraform
4 179 (6.64%) Ansible
5 139 (5.16%) Kubernetes
6 98 (3.64%) vCenter Server
7 53 (1.97%) SCOM
8 49 (1.82%) Single Sign-On
9 48 (1.78%) Jamf Pro
10 40 (1.48%) FortiGate
11 38 (1.41%) WSUS
12 33 (1.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 30 (1.11%) Progress Chef
14 29 (1.08%) Prometheus
15 27 (1.00%) Puppet
16 26 (0.96%) Grafana
17 23 (0.85%) Nagios
18 21 (0.78%) Nessus
18 21 (0.78%) Packer
19 20 (0.74%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,173 (43.53%) Microsoft
2 456 (16.92%) VMware
3 260 (9.65%) ServiceNow
4 188 (6.98%) Citrix
5 173 (6.42%) Cisco
6 155 (5.75%) Oracle
7 122 (4.53%) Splunk
8 77 (2.86%) Apple
9 74 (2.75%) SolarWinds
10 70 (2.60%) CyberArk
11 68 (2.52%) HP
12 64 (2.37%) Red Hat
13 63 (2.34%) Google
14 57 (2.12%) Dell
15 54 (2.00%) BeyondTrust
16 53 (1.97%) Remedy
17 49 (1.82%) Juniper
18 47 (1.74%) IBM
19 44 (1.63%) F5
20 38 (1.41%) Tenable