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 27 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 13
Rank change year-on-year -3 -6 +2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,543 2,546 3,887
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.27% 8.16% 10.10%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.29% 58.01% 64.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,716 1,605 2,596
10th Percentile £163 £185 £161
25th Percentile £204 £248 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £406 £413
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -1.51% -2.94%
75th Percentile £538 £565 £575
90th Percentile £638 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £395 £423 £415
% change year-on-year -6.62% +1.93% -2.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 273 99 237
10th Percentile £15.02 £15.22 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.75 £17.72
Median hourly rate £21.46 £24.50 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.41% +8.89% +2.27%
75th Percentile £40.00 £65.00 £55.46
90th Percentile £65.00 £74.00 £66.95
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.50
% change year-on-year -9.02% +7.47% +9.76%

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 4,218 4,389 5,982
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 13.72% 14.06% 15.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,762 2,687 4,102
10th Percentile £183 £203 £185
25th Percentile £263 £325 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -5.88%
75th Percentile £573 £588 £613
90th Percentile £675 £699 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £480
% change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 342 173 322
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.70 £15.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £23.10 £18.93
Median hourly rate £23.25 £60.00 £34.75
Median % change year-on-year -61.25% +72.66% +39.00%
75th Percentile £58.03 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.78 £70.00 £76.38
UK median hourly rate £25.00 £50.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year -50.00% +53.85% +30.00%

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 27 November 2025.

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 27 November 2025.

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 27 November 2025. 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 -13 793 £438 +6.38% 300
South East +3 509 £356 -16.32% 537
North of England -5 408 £269 -32.75% 258
South West +4 330 £425 - 190
Midlands -5 304 £365 -2.67% 226
North West -5 225 £325 -25.71% 138
West Midlands -6 211 £425 +21.43% 131
East of England +2 208 £225 -39.19% 161
Yorkshire -13 155 £250 -28.62% 102
East Midlands +1 93 £210 -44.00% 90
North East +1 31 £189 -41.02% 18
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
1 239 (9.40%) Microsoft Exchange
2 171 (6.72%) SharePoint
3 77 (3.03%) Confluence
4 50 (1.97%) Apache
5 39 (1.53%) IIS
6 22 (0.87%) Skype for Business
6 22 (0.87%) WebSphere
7 20 (0.79%) JBoss
8 17 (0.67%) WebLogic
9 15 (0.59%) SharePoint Server
10 13 (0.51%) Exchange Server 2010
11 12 (0.47%) nginx
12 11 (0.43%) Exchange Server 2013
12 11 (0.43%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2003
13 10 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2007
13 10 (0.39%) iPlanet
13 10 (0.39%) Office Communications Server
14 6 (0.24%) Tomcat
14 6 (0.24%) TPMS
Applications
1 236 (9.28%) Microsoft Office
2 83 (3.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.39%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 8 (0.31%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.079%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.079%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.079%) Windchill
9 1 (0.039%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
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 18 (0.71%) Remedy ITSM
2 5 (0.20%) assyst
2 5 (0.20%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.16%) Maximo
4 3 (0.12%) ION MarketView
4 3 (0.12%) Oracle 11i
5 2 (0.079%) Eikon
5 2 (0.079%) Fidessa
5 2 (0.079%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.079%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.079%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.079%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.039%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.039%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.039%) Eze OMS
6 1 (0.039%) OpenText MBPM
6 1 (0.039%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.039%) RMDS
6 1 (0.039%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.039%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 680 (26.74%) Microsoft 365
2 559 (21.98%) Azure
3 228 (8.97%) Entra ID
4 220 (8.65%) AWS
5 82 (3.22%) OneDrive
6 71 (2.79%) SaaS
7 59 (2.32%) GCP
8 51 (2.01%) IaaS
9 45 (1.77%) Azure DevOps
9 45 (1.77%) Google Workspace
10 42 (1.65%) GitHub
11 38 (1.49%) Power Platform
12 36 (1.42%) PaaS
13 33 (1.30%) Amazon S3
14 31 (1.22%) Amazon EC2
14 31 (1.22%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 28 (1.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 28 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
15 28 (1.10%) Azure Sentinel
16 26 (1.02%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 317 (12.47%) DNS
2 291 (11.44%) Firewall
3 200 (7.86%) DHCP
4 194 (7.63%) TCP/IP
5 150 (5.90%) VPN
6 89 (3.50%) Wi-Fi
7 84 (3.30%) LAN
8 83 (3.26%) WAN
9 76 (2.99%) Network Security
10 65 (2.56%) VLAN
11 60 (2.36%) SAN
11 60 (2.36%) Wireless
12 56 (2.20%) SSH
13 48 (1.89%) Cisco IOS
14 41 (1.61%) HTTP
15 31 (1.22%) FTP
15 31 (1.22%) SMTP
16 28 (1.10%) Internet
16 28 (1.10%) SSL
17 24 (0.94%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (4.60%) SQL Server
2 70 (2.75%) Oracle Database
3 62 (2.44%) Relational Database
4 43 (1.69%) MySQL
5 30 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
6 25 (0.98%) PostgreSQL
7 17 (0.67%) Power BI
8 13 (0.51%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
10 10 (0.39%) BigQuery
10 10 (0.39%) NoSQL
11 8 (0.31%) DB2
11 8 (0.31%) GIS
11 8 (0.31%) RDBMS
11 8 (0.31%) SAP HANA
12 6 (0.24%) Big Data
12 6 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
12 6 (0.24%) MongoDB
13 5 (0.20%) HPCC
14 4 (0.16%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 139 (5.47%) JIRA
2 103 (4.05%) Git
3 93 (3.66%) Jenkins
4 44 (1.73%) GitLab
5 41 (1.61%) Eclipse
6 28 (1.10%) Visual Studio
7 27 (1.06%) MSI
8 24 (0.94%) Vagrant
9 20 (0.79%) Android Studio
10 19 (0.75%) Browser DevTools
10 19 (0.75%) Sonatype Nexus
11 18 (0.71%) Bitbucket
11 18 (0.71%) Xcode
12 15 (0.59%) Bitbucket Server
12 15 (0.59%) CA Release Automation
13 14 (0.55%) Artifactory
14 13 (0.51%) InstallShield
14 13 (0.51%) Postman
15 12 (0.47%) AdminStudio
15 12 (0.47%) SonarQube
General
1 954 (37.51%) Social Skills
2 336 (13.21%) Finance
3 242 (9.52%) Public Sector
4 223 (8.77%) Analytical Skills
5 126 (4.95%) Banking
6 109 (4.29%) Documentation Skills
7 66 (2.60%) Legal
8 57 (2.24%) Manufacturing
9 54 (2.12%) Organisational Skills
10 52 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 49 (1.93%) Military
12 47 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
13 44 (1.73%) Telecoms
14 40 (1.57%) Retail
15 31 (1.22%) Games
16 29 (1.14%) Marketing
17 26 (1.02%) Aerospace
18 25 (0.98%) Front Office
19 20 (0.79%) Electronics
19 20 (0.79%) Law
Job Titles
1 420 (16.52%) Support Engineer
2 307 (12.07%) Analyst
3 293 (11.52%) IT Support
4 183 (7.20%) IT Engineer
5 153 (6.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 150 (5.90%) Windows Engineer
7 146 (5.74%) Desktop Engineer
8 138 (5.43%) Desktop Support
9 135 (5.31%) Support Analyst
10 130 (5.11%) Senior
11 129 (5.07%) IT Support Engineer
12 122 (4.80%) Deployment Engineer
13 119 (4.68%) Architect
14 115 (4.52%) 2nd Line Support
15 106 (4.17%) Desktop Support Engineer
15 106 (4.17%) Platform Engineer
16 103 (4.05%) Technical Support
17 102 (4.01%) Developer
18 86 (3.38%) Administrator
19 75 (2.95%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (2.95%) .NET
2 43 (1.69%) Middleware
3 42 (1.65%) LDAP
4 41 (1.61%) WPF
5 40 (1.57%) .NET Framework
5 40 (1.57%) REST
6 37 (1.45%) Web Services
7 36 (1.42%) OAuth
8 35 (1.38%) Node.js
9 34 (1.34%) AngularJS
9 34 (1.34%) SAML
10 29 (1.14%) React
10 29 (1.14%) XML
11 28 (1.10%) OpenID
12 24 (0.94%) SOAP
13 22 (0.87%) CSS
14 20 (0.79%) Ajax
15 19 (0.75%) GraphQL
15 19 (0.75%) RESTful
16 16 (0.63%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 99 (3.89%) Onboarding
2 95 (3.74%) Data Centre
3 85 (3.34%) PKI
4 69 (2.71%) Driving Licence
5 67 (2.63%) Replication
6 61 (2.40%) Self-Motivation
7 55 (2.16%) Enterprise Software
8 53 (2.08%) Management Information System
9 36 (1.42%) iPhone
10 34 (1.34%) NHS
10 34 (1.34%) Video Conferencing
11 33 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
11 33 (1.30%) Security Posture
12 30 (1.18%) iPad
13 29 (1.14%) Smartphone
14 28 (1.10%) Hybrid Cloud
15 27 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
16 23 (0.90%) Mobile App
16 23 (0.90%) Private Cloud
17 22 (0.87%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 623 (24.50%) Linux
2 554 (21.79%) Windows 10
3 489 (19.23%) Windows Server
4 161 (6.33%) Unix
5 148 (5.82%) Android
6 143 (5.62%) Mac OS
7 97 (3.81%) Apple iOS
8 73 (2.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 66 (2.60%) Windows 7
10 55 (2.16%) Windows Server 2016
11 51 (2.01%) Windows Server 2019
12 39 (1.53%) Windows Server 2012
13 37 (1.45%) Ubuntu
14 35 (1.38%) VMS
14 35 (1.38%) Windows Server 2003
15 27 (1.06%) AIX
16 23 (0.90%) CentOS
17 21 (0.83%) Amazon Linux
18 14 (0.55%) Solaris
19 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 453 (17.81%) Problem-Solving
2 379 (14.90%) ITIL
3 349 (13.72%) Customer Service
4 255 (10.03%) Migration
5 248 (9.75%) Agile
6 215 (8.45%) DevOps
6 215 (8.45%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 203 (7.98%) Service Management
8 193 (7.59%) ITSM
9 180 (7.08%) Cybersecurity
10 175 (6.88%) CI/CD
11 152 (5.98%) Continuous Improvement
12 149 (5.86%) Change Management
13 122 (4.80%) User Experience
14 105 (4.13%) Incident Response
14 105 (4.13%) Stakeholder Management
15 103 (4.05%) Cloud Security
16 92 (3.62%) Service Delivery
17 91 (3.58%) Computer Science
17 91 (3.58%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 483 (18.99%) PowerShell
2 322 (12.66%) Python
3 247 (9.71%) SQL
4 134 (5.27%) C#
5 119 (4.68%) Java
6 110 (4.33%) Bash
7 85 (3.34%) JavaScript
8 75 (2.95%) Perl
9 73 (2.87%) C++
10 40 (1.57%) PL/SQL
11 36 (1.42%) VB
12 32 (1.26%) Groovy
13 31 (1.22%) Shell Script
14 30 (1.18%) Kusto Query Language
15 28 (1.10%) VBA
16 27 (1.06%) VBScript
17 24 (0.94%) T-SQL
18 23 (0.90%) PHP
19 19 (0.75%) C
20 12 (0.47%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 754 (29.65%) Security Cleared
2 521 (20.49%) SC Cleared
3 227 (8.93%) Degree
4 196 (7.71%) DV Cleared
5 179 (7.04%) Microsoft Certification
6 65 (2.56%) Computer Science Degree
7 58 (2.28%) Azure Certification
8 48 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
8 48 (1.89%) MCSE
9 47 (1.85%) A+ Certification
10 35 (1.38%) AWS Certification
11 33 (1.30%) CISSP
12 31 (1.22%) DBS Check
13 30 (1.18%) CCNP
13 30 (1.18%) ITIL Certification
14 29 (1.14%) CCNA
14 29 (1.14%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 23 (0.90%) BPSS Clearance
16 22 (0.87%) MCP
17 20 (0.79%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 83 (3.26%) SLA
2 71 (2.79%) QA
3 65 (2.56%) GDPR
4 59 (2.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 54 (2.12%) NIST
6 19 (0.75%) PCI DSS
7 15 (0.59%) HIPAA
8 12 (0.47%) NCSC
9 10 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
9 10 (0.39%) PMO
10 9 (0.35%) Accessibility
11 6 (0.24%) GLBA
12 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
13 3 (0.12%) ECSS
13 3 (0.12%) GxP
13 3 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 3 (0.12%) SEPA
14 2 (0.079%) COBIT
14 2 (0.079%) ISO 9001
14 2 (0.079%) MiFID
System Software
1 928 (36.49%) Active Directory
2 235 (9.24%) VMware Infrastructure
3 116 (4.56%) Docker
4 75 (2.95%) Hyper-V
5 63 (2.48%) Virtual Desktop
6 53 (2.08%) Virtual Machines
7 51 (2.01%) vSphere
8 43 (1.69%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.22%) VMware NSX
10 24 (0.94%) DFS Replication
11 20 (0.79%) Microsoft App-V
12 19 (0.75%) BitLocker
12 19 (0.75%) NFS
13 17 (0.67%) Firmware
14 14 (0.55%) Terminal Services
14 14 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
15 10 (0.39%) Brightmail
15 10 (0.39%) Dovecot
15 10 (0.39%) ISA Server
15 10 (0.39%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 382 (15.02%) SCCM
2 284 (11.17%) Microsoft Intune
3 145 (5.70%) Terraform
4 120 (4.72%) Ansible
5 73 (2.87%) Kubernetes
6 53 (2.08%) vCenter Server
7 43 (1.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 43 (1.69%) Jamf Pro
7 43 (1.69%) Single Sign-On
8 42 (1.65%) Grafana
9 29 (1.14%) WSUS
10 28 (1.10%) Prometheus
10 28 (1.10%) SCOM
11 25 (0.98%) Nessus
12 24 (0.94%) Microsoft Clustering
13 23 (0.90%) Puppet
14 22 (0.87%) Progress Chef
15 16 (0.63%) Proxmox
16 13 (0.51%) NetBackup
16 13 (0.51%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,127 (44.32%) Microsoft
2 336 (13.21%) VMware
3 233 (9.16%) ServiceNow
4 202 (7.94%) Oracle
5 170 (6.69%) Cisco
6 160 (6.29%) Citrix
7 137 (5.39%) Splunk
8 70 (2.75%) Red Hat
9 68 (2.67%) Apple
10 61 (2.40%) IBM
11 59 (2.32%) HP
12 53 (2.08%) Dell
13 51 (2.01%) Veeam
14 46 (1.81%) Google
15 44 (1.73%) SolarWinds
16 42 (1.65%) AppDynamics
16 42 (1.65%) SAP
17 41 (1.61%) CyberArk
18 37 (1.45%) NetApp
19 35 (1.38%) Remedy