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

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 21 16
Rank change year-on-year -6 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,683 2,265 3,081
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.98% 8.30% 8.71%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.61% 60.99% 61.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,726 1,533 2,084
10th Percentile £166 £180 £173
25th Percentile £225 £225 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £420 £415 £438
Median % change year-on-year +1.20% -5.14% -2.78%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £663
UK median daily rate £425 £421 £425
% change year-on-year +0.95% -0.94% -5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 231 178 253
10th Percentile £16.09 £15.12 £11.80
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.03 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.77 £18.87 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.57% -5.65% -20.00%
75th Percentile £55.25 £25.23 £40.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £65.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £20.00
% change year-on-year +36.46% -5.65% -17.73%

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 4,355 3,714 4,993
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.71% 13.61% 14.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,808 2,473 3,305
10th Percentile £190 £200 £195
25th Percentile £313 £313 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £463 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -2.63% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £465 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +0.54% -2.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 292 220 358
10th Percentile £16.02 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.93 £16.25
Median hourly rate £32.50 £22.78 £25.13
Median % change year-on-year +42.67% -9.33% -40.88%
75th Percentile £65.00 £55.63 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.90 £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 22 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 22 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 22 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 -17 868 £415 -5.14% 242
South East -8 574 £475 -5.00% 285
North of England -9 480 £347 -0.86% 197
Midlands -15 279 £375 +25.00% 110
South West -13 264 £488 +14.71% 115
North West -6 253 £350 -2.23% 106
Yorkshire -12 204 £360 +2.86% 60
East of England -2 200 £336 +34.50% 104
West Midlands -26 176 £450 +23.29% 60
East Midlands +11 98 £263 +31.25% 50
North East -34 27 £270 -1.82% 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
1 225 (8.39%) Microsoft Exchange
2 214 (7.98%) SharePoint
3 58 (2.16%) Confluence
4 55 (2.05%) IIS
5 16 (0.60%) nginx
6 14 (0.52%) Apache
6 14 (0.52%) Tomcat
7 10 (0.37%) Skype for Business
8 9 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
8 9 (0.34%) WebLogic
9 6 (0.22%) Appian
9 6 (0.22%) Documentum
10 5 (0.19%) Camunda
11 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
12 3 (0.11%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.11%) NetWeaver
12 3 (0.11%) Tuxedo
13 2 (0.075%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 2 (0.075%) SAS
Applications
1 161 (6.00%) Microsoft Office
2 65 (2.42%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.15%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.11%) Acrobat
8 2 (0.075%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.075%) Houdini
8 2 (0.075%) NUKE
8 2 (0.075%) PTC Creo
9 1 (0.037%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.037%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 50 (1.86%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.37%) Finacle
3 9 (0.34%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.26%) Teamcenter
5 6 (0.22%) OpenText MBPM
5 6 (0.22%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.075%) assyst
8 1 (0.037%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.037%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.037%) Oracle BRM
8 1 (0.037%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.037%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.037%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.037%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.037%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.037%) SAP FS
8 1 (0.037%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 834 (31.08%) Azure
2 812 (30.26%) Microsoft 365
3 398 (14.83%) Entra ID
4 293 (10.92%) AWS
5 120 (4.47%) OneDrive
6 89 (3.32%) GCP
7 88 (3.28%) Azure DevOps
8 72 (2.68%) SaaS
9 64 (2.39%) Azure Monitor
10 63 (2.35%) IaaS
11 58 (2.16%) GitHub
12 54 (2.01%) PaaS
12 54 (2.01%) Power Platform
13 41 (1.53%) Azure Sentinel
14 28 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
15 25 (0.93%) Azure AKS
16 24 (0.89%) Google Workspace
16 24 (0.89%) OpenShift
17 23 (0.86%) GitHub Actions
17 23 (0.86%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 401 (14.95%) DNS
2 303 (11.29%) Firewall
3 277 (10.32%) DHCP
4 199 (7.42%) VPN
5 188 (7.01%) TCP/IP
6 154 (5.74%) LAN
7 141 (5.26%) WAN
8 129 (4.81%) Wi-Fi
9 86 (3.21%) SAN
10 64 (2.39%) Network Security
11 59 (2.20%) VLAN
12 46 (1.71%) BGP
13 44 (1.64%) SSL
14 38 (1.42%) Internet
14 38 (1.42%) NAS
15 37 (1.38%) OSPF
16 35 (1.30%) Wireless
17 29 (1.08%) VoIP
18 28 (1.04%) Skype
19 27 (1.01%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 249 (9.28%) SQL Server
2 53 (1.98%) Oracle Database
3 40 (1.49%) Power BI
4 27 (1.01%) PostgreSQL
5 25 (0.93%) Relational Database
6 23 (0.86%) MySQL
7 20 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
7 20 (0.75%) Db2
8 17 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 13 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
10 12 (0.45%) RDBMS
11 11 (0.41%) NoSQL
12 10 (0.37%) MongoDB
13 9 (0.34%) Geospatial Data
13 9 (0.34%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 8 (0.30%) Data Warehouse
14 8 (0.30%) SQL Server Analysis Services
15 7 (0.26%) GIS
16 5 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
16 5 (0.19%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 171 (6.37%) JIRA
2 54 (2.01%) Git
3 46 (1.71%) MSI
4 44 (1.64%) Jenkins
5 36 (1.34%) GitLab
6 33 (1.23%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.63%) Eclipse
8 11 (0.41%) Bitbucket
9 9 (0.34%) Chocolatey
10 7 (0.26%) Browser DevTools
10 7 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
11 6 (0.22%) Android Studio
11 6 (0.22%) Artifactory
11 6 (0.22%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 6 (0.22%) InstallShield
11 6 (0.22%) Xcode
12 5 (0.19%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.19%) Selenium
13 4 (0.15%) JUnit
13 4 (0.15%) Maven
General
1 978 (36.45%) Social Skills
2 311 (11.59%) Finance
3 306 (11.41%) Analytical Skills
4 167 (6.22%) Public Sector
5 154 (5.74%) Banking
6 99 (3.69%) Documentation Skills
7 83 (3.09%) Organisational Skills
8 77 (2.87%) Legal
9 55 (2.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 54 (2.01%) Retail
11 44 (1.64%) Military
12 43 (1.60%) Manufacturing
13 37 (1.38%) Telecoms
14 36 (1.34%) Front Office
15 33 (1.23%) Investment Banking
16 32 (1.19%) Law
17 26 (0.97%) Spanish Language
18 24 (0.89%) Financial Institution
19 22 (0.82%) French Language
20 21 (0.78%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 388 (14.46%) Support Engineer
2 362 (13.49%) IT Support
3 260 (9.69%) IT Engineer
4 259 (9.65%) Analyst
5 255 (9.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 219 (8.16%) IT Support Engineer
7 204 (7.60%) Senior
8 121 (4.51%) 2nd Line Support
9 114 (4.25%) Architect
10 108 (4.03%) Desktop Support
11 98 (3.65%) Developer
12 97 (3.62%) Desktop Engineer
13 96 (3.58%) Support Analyst
14 95 (3.54%) Cloud Engineer
15 91 (3.39%) Lead
16 83 (3.09%) IT Analyst
17 75 (2.80%) Consultant
18 72 (2.68%) Windows Engineer
19 71 (2.65%) 1st Line Support
20 69 (2.57%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (3.73%) .NET
2 91 (3.39%) REST
3 59 (2.20%) .NET Framework
4 31 (1.16%) 802.1X
5 28 (1.04%) Microsoft Graph
5 28 (1.04%) Middleware
6 27 (1.01%) LDAP
6 27 (1.01%) WinForms
6 27 (1.01%) WPF
7 25 (0.93%) Web Services
8 23 (0.86%) CSS
9 21 (0.78%) JSON
9 21 (0.78%) Software Packaging
10 19 (0.71%) Elastic Stack
11 18 (0.67%) Kafka
12 17 (0.63%) HTML
12 17 (0.63%) RESTful
13 16 (0.60%) Node.js
14 15 (0.56%) ARM Templates
14 15 (0.56%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 284 (10.59%) Onboarding
2 140 (5.22%) PKI
3 139 (5.18%) Data Centre
4 80 (2.98%) Clustering
5 74 (2.76%) Management Information System
6 70 (2.61%) Enterprise Software
7 66 (2.46%) Cloud Native
8 63 (2.35%) Self-Motivation
9 54 (2.01%) Hybrid Cloud
10 52 (1.94%) Driving Licence
10 52 (1.94%) Video Conferencing
11 51 (1.90%) Security Posture
12 50 (1.86%) Replication
13 47 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
14 40 (1.49%) Virtual Team
15 35 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
16 34 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
17 32 (1.19%) Linux Command Line
18 28 (1.04%) CMDB
18 28 (1.04%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 654 (24.38%) Windows Server
2 647 (24.11%) Linux
3 461 (17.18%) Windows 10
4 180 (6.71%) Mac OS
5 127 (4.73%) Apple iOS
6 124 (4.62%) Android
6 124 (4.62%) Unix
7 107 (3.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 66 (2.46%) Windows Server 2019
9 40 (1.49%) Ubuntu
9 40 (1.49%) Windows Server 2016
10 34 (1.27%) Windows Server 2012
11 32 (1.19%) AIX
12 31 (1.16%) Windows 7
13 21 (0.78%) CentOS
14 19 (0.71%) Solaris
15 18 (0.67%) VMS
16 14 (0.52%) Windows Server 2008
17 10 (0.37%) Windows Server 2003
18 9 (0.34%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 620 (23.11%) Problem-Solving
2 464 (17.29%) ITIL
3 414 (15.43%) Customer Service
4 333 (12.41%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 305 (11.37%) Migration
6 294 (10.96%) ITSM
7 257 (9.58%) DevOps
8 252 (9.39%) Continuous Improvement
9 246 (9.17%) Agile
10 237 (8.83%) CI/CD
11 210 (7.83%) Service Management
12 190 (7.08%) Infrastructure as Code
13 182 (6.78%) Change Management
14 172 (6.41%) High Availability
14 172 (6.41%) Stakeholder Management
15 147 (5.48%) Cybersecurity
16 144 (5.37%) SIEM
17 139 (5.18%) Disaster Recovery
18 138 (5.14%) Runbook
18 138 (5.14%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 605 (22.55%) PowerShell
2 286 (10.66%) Python
3 273 (10.18%) SQL
4 147 (5.48%) Bash
5 132 (4.92%) C#
6 68 (2.53%) Java
7 67 (2.50%) JavaScript
8 51 (1.90%) T-SQL
9 50 (1.86%) PL/SQL
10 46 (1.71%) C++
11 38 (1.42%) Bicep
12 24 (0.89%) Search Processing Language
13 21 (0.78%) VB
14 18 (0.67%) Shell Script
15 16 (0.60%) Kusto Query Language
15 16 (0.60%) Perl
15 16 (0.60%) TypeScript
15 16 (0.60%) VBScript
16 15 (0.56%) C
17 14 (0.52%) VBA
Qualifications
1 813 (30.30%) Security Cleared
2 487 (18.15%) SC Cleared
3 297 (11.07%) Degree
4 293 (10.92%) DV Cleared
5 107 (3.99%) Microsoft Certification
6 82 (3.06%) Cisco Certification
7 72 (2.68%) Computer Science Degree
8 65 (2.42%) Azure Certification
9 62 (2.31%) CISSP
10 48 (1.79%) AWS Certification
11 45 (1.68%) BPSS Clearance
12 36 (1.34%) A+ Certification
13 34 (1.27%) MCSE
14 31 (1.16%) CCNA
15 28 (1.04%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 27 (1.01%) CCNP
17 25 (0.93%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 23 (0.86%) CISM
18 23 (0.86%) ITIL Certification
18 23 (0.86%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 122 (4.55%) SLA
2 113 (4.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 82 (3.06%) NIST
4 70 (2.61%) QA
5 31 (1.16%) GDPR
6 27 (1.01%) Cyber Essentials
7 26 (0.97%) PCI DSS
8 22 (0.82%) NCSC
9 16 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 12 (0.45%) Data Quality
11 11 (0.41%) Accessibility
11 11 (0.41%) HIPAA
12 10 (0.37%) PMO
13 9 (0.34%) GRC
13 9 (0.34%) NIST 800
13 9 (0.34%) WCAG
14 8 (0.30%) GxP
14 8 (0.30%) SOC 2
15 6 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 6 (0.22%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 1,056 (39.36%) Active Directory
2 359 (13.38%) VMware Infrastructure
3 142 (5.29%) Hyper-V
4 122 (4.55%) VMware ESXi
5 102 (3.80%) vSphere
6 98 (3.65%) Virtual Machines
7 94 (3.50%) Docker
8 73 (2.72%) Virtual Desktop
9 65 (2.42%) VMware NSX
10 35 (1.30%) Firmware
11 31 (1.16%) BitLocker
12 25 (0.93%) Microsoft App-V
13 17 (0.63%) KVM
14 15 (0.56%) vCloud
15 8 (0.30%) VMware Workstation
15 8 (0.30%) XenDesktop
16 7 (0.26%) NFS
16 7 (0.26%) XenApp
17 6 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
17 6 (0.22%) UAG
Systems Management
1 402 (14.98%) Microsoft Intune
2 245 (9.13%) SCCM
3 218 (8.13%) Terraform
4 188 (7.01%) Ansible
5 141 (5.26%) Kubernetes
6 107 (3.99%) vCenter Server
7 61 (2.27%) SCOM
8 49 (1.83%) Jamf Pro
9 38 (1.42%) FortiGate
10 37 (1.38%) WSUS
11 34 (1.27%) Progress Chef
12 30 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
13 28 (1.04%) Puppet
14 26 (0.97%) Grafana
15 25 (0.93%) Prometheus
16 23 (0.86%) Nagios
17 22 (0.82%) Packer
18 20 (0.75%) Nessus
18 20 (0.75%) ZABBIX
19 19 (0.71%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,174 (43.76%) Microsoft
2 476 (17.74%) VMware
3 273 (10.18%) ServiceNow
4 181 (6.75%) Citrix
5 177 (6.60%) Cisco
6 154 (5.74%) Oracle
7 118 (4.40%) Splunk
8 81 (3.02%) Apple
9 80 (2.98%) SolarWinds
10 74 (2.76%) CyberArk
11 69 (2.57%) Red Hat
12 66 (2.46%) Google
12 66 (2.46%) HP
13 61 (2.27%) Remedy
14 57 (2.12%) BeyondTrust
15 54 (2.01%) Dell
16 51 (1.90%) Juniper
17 47 (1.75%) IBM
18 44 (1.64%) F5
19 39 (1.45%) Tenable