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

6 months to
5 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 22 15
Rank change year-on-year -4 -7 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,601 2,148 3,369
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.16% 8.47% 9.00%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.84% 59.80% 63.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,754 1,480 2,294
10th Percentile £161 £182 £155
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £403 £400 £380
Median % change year-on-year +0.63% +5.26% -13.64%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £644 £675 £656
UK median daily rate £400 £415 £398
% change year-on-year -3.61% +4.40% -9.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 249 71 254
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.65 £16.85 £14.72
Median hourly rate £22.00 £21.59 £18.40
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% +17.34% -18.22%
75th Percentile £42.75 £39.50 £36.07
90th Percentile £65.40 £73.75 £62.50
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £22.50 £18.93
% change year-on-year -2.22% +18.86% -15.07%

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 4,275 3,592 5,299
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 11.77% 14.16% 14.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,839 2,355 3,601
10th Percentile £180 £200 £178
25th Percentile £268 £313 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -12.62%
75th Percentile £569 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £458
% change year-on-year -5.26% +3.71% -10.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 317 119 365
10th Percentile £14.60 £16.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.51 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.81 £41.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -44.37% +82.22% -18.18%
75th Percentile £60.00 £67.38 £61.60
90th Percentile £68.00 £71.75 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £23.25 £29.00 £23.50
% change year-on-year -19.83% +23.40% -14.55%

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 5 March 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 5 March 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 5 March 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 -17 784 £445 +5.70% 321
South East -2 523 £423 -1.74% 368
North of England -5 485 £263 -25.00% 231
South West -2 287 £450 -4.76% 113
Midlands -11 279 £265 -18.54% 129
North West -7 260 £263 -27.59% 131
East of England +7 225 £240 - 119
Yorkshire -16 193 £325 -7.21% 88
West Midlands -24 169 £400 +23.08% 57
East Midlands +1 109 £210 -16.00% 70
North East -6 35 £188 -37.50% 17
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
1 228 (8.77%) Microsoft Exchange
2 175 (6.73%) SharePoint
3 58 (2.23%) Confluence
4 38 (1.46%) IIS
5 26 (1.00%) Apache
6 20 (0.77%) WebLogic
7 16 (0.62%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.42%) Tuxedo
9 10 (0.38%) TPMS
10 8 (0.31%) WebSphere
11 6 (0.23%) nginx
12 5 (0.19%) iPlanet
12 5 (0.19%) JBoss
12 5 (0.19%) SharePoint Server
12 5 (0.19%) Tomcat
12 5 (0.19%) WebSphere Application Server
13 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.15%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.12%) SAS
Applications
1 226 (8.69%) Microsoft Office
2 72 (2.77%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.46%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.19%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.19%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.077%) InDesign
7 2 (0.077%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.038%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.038%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.038%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.038%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.038%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.038%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 28 (1.08%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (0.50%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.27%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.19%) assyst
5 4 (0.15%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.077%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.077%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.077%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.077%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.077%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.077%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.038%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.038%) Eikon
8 1 (0.038%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.038%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.038%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.038%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.038%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.038%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 760 (29.22%) Microsoft 365
2 641 (24.64%) Azure
3 277 (10.65%) Entra ID
4 192 (7.38%) AWS
5 92 (3.54%) OneDrive
6 69 (2.65%) GCP
6 69 (2.65%) SaaS
7 51 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
7 51 (1.96%) Google Workspace
8 43 (1.65%) IaaS
9 42 (1.61%) GitHub
10 38 (1.46%) Power Platform
11 36 (1.38%) PaaS
12 22 (0.85%) AWS CloudFormation
12 22 (0.85%) Azure Monitor
13 19 (0.73%) Azure Sentinel
13 19 (0.73%) GitHub Actions
13 19 (0.73%) OpenShift
14 17 (0.65%) Nutanix
15 16 (0.62%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 339 (13.03%) DNS
2 285 (10.96%) Firewall
3 222 (8.54%) DHCP
4 171 (6.57%) TCP/IP
5 166 (6.38%) VPN
6 129 (4.96%) WAN
7 128 (4.92%) LAN
8 125 (4.81%) Wi-Fi
9 69 (2.65%) Network Security
10 65 (2.50%) VLAN
11 63 (2.42%) Wireless
12 37 (1.42%) SAN
13 34 (1.31%) Skype
13 34 (1.31%) SSH
14 33 (1.27%) BGP
15 29 (1.11%) Cisco ISE
16 28 (1.08%) Junos
16 28 (1.08%) VoIP
17 26 (1.00%) Kerberos
17 26 (1.00%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 147 (5.65%) SQL Server
2 53 (2.04%) Oracle Database
3 45 (1.73%) Relational Database
4 38 (1.46%) MySQL
5 24 (0.92%) PostgreSQL
6 14 (0.54%) Power BI
7 13 (0.50%) BigQuery
7 13 (0.50%) DB2
8 11 (0.42%) MongoDB
8 11 (0.42%) Oracle Reports
9 9 (0.35%) NoSQL
10 8 (0.31%) Elasticsearch
10 8 (0.31%) GIS
11 7 (0.27%) SAP HANA
12 6 (0.23%) Amazon RDS
12 6 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
13 5 (0.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 5 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 4 (0.15%) Azure SQL Database
14 4 (0.15%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 152 (5.84%) JIRA
2 59 (2.27%) Jenkins
3 53 (2.04%) Git
3 53 (2.04%) GitLab
4 42 (1.61%) MSI
5 35 (1.35%) Visual Studio
6 30 (1.15%) Eclipse
7 20 (0.77%) Burp Suite
7 20 (0.77%) Metasploit
8 18 (0.69%) Android Studio
9 16 (0.62%) Xcode
10 15 (0.58%) Artifactory
11 13 (0.50%) Browser DevTools
12 12 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
13 10 (0.38%) Chocolatey
14 9 (0.35%) Bitbucket
15 7 (0.27%) Robot Framework
16 6 (0.23%) InstallShield
16 6 (0.23%) JUnit
16 6 (0.23%) Toad
General
1 969 (37.25%) Social Skills
2 258 (9.92%) Finance
3 221 (8.50%) Public Sector
4 220 (8.46%) Analytical Skills
5 135 (5.19%) Banking
6 110 (4.23%) Documentation Skills
7 97 (3.73%) Legal
8 83 (3.19%) Organisational Skills
9 61 (2.35%) Military
10 49 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
11 40 (1.54%) Manufacturing
12 38 (1.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 36 (1.38%) Retail
14 27 (1.04%) Telecoms
15 24 (0.92%) Law
16 22 (0.85%) Investment Banking
17 21 (0.81%) Aerospace
18 20 (0.77%) Front Office
19 16 (0.62%) Local Government
20 14 (0.54%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 377 (14.49%) Support Engineer
2 353 (13.57%) IT Support
3 340 (13.07%) Analyst
4 204 (7.84%) IT Engineer
5 169 (6.50%) IT Support Engineer
6 160 (6.15%) Architect
7 154 (5.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 150 (5.77%) Senior
9 145 (5.57%) Support Analyst
10 129 (4.96%) Desktop Support
11 119 (4.58%) 2nd Line Support
12 118 (4.54%) Technical Support
13 116 (4.46%) Desktop Engineer
14 110 (4.23%) Developer
15 101 (3.88%) Windows Engineer
16 88 (3.38%) Lead
17 87 (3.34%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 87 (3.34%) IT Analyst
18 82 (3.15%) Deployment Engineer
19 74 (2.85%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (3.08%) .NET
2 56 (2.15%) REST
3 50 (1.92%) OAuth
4 46 (1.77%) .NET Framework
4 46 (1.77%) SAML
5 44 (1.69%) LDAP
6 32 (1.23%) Web Services
7 31 (1.19%) Middleware
7 31 (1.19%) WPF
8 29 (1.11%) React
9 27 (1.04%) AngularJS
9 27 (1.04%) OpenID
10 26 (1.00%) CSS
11 24 (0.92%) Microsoft Graph
12 23 (0.88%) WinForms
13 22 (0.85%) Node.js
14 21 (0.81%) OAuth2
15 19 (0.73%) Apache NiFi
15 19 (0.73%) Kafka
16 18 (0.69%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 167 (6.42%) Onboarding
2 103 (3.96%) Data Centre
2 103 (3.96%) PKI
3 79 (3.04%) Driving Licence
3 79 (3.04%) Enterprise Software
4 68 (2.61%) Self-Motivation
5 55 (2.11%) Smartphone
6 49 (1.88%) Management Information System
6 49 (1.88%) Replication
7 48 (1.85%) Clustering
8 43 (1.65%) Security Posture
9 40 (1.54%) Hybrid Cloud
10 37 (1.42%) Product Ownership
11 36 (1.38%) NHS
12 30 (1.15%) Legacy Systems
13 27 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
13 27 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
14 26 (1.00%) CMDB
14 26 (1.00%) Video Conferencing
14 26 (1.00%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 611 (23.49%) Linux
2 588 (22.61%) Windows 10
3 544 (20.92%) Windows Server
4 145 (5.57%) Android
5 140 (5.38%) Unix
6 137 (5.27%) Mac OS
7 119 (4.58%) Apple iOS
8 63 (2.42%) Windows Server 2016
9 62 (2.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 50 (1.92%) Windows 7
11 45 (1.73%) Windows Server 2019
12 36 (1.38%) Windows Server 2012
13 29 (1.11%) AIX
13 29 (1.11%) Windows Server 2003
14 13 (0.50%) Ubuntu
14 13 (0.50%) VMS
15 12 (0.46%) Solaris
15 12 (0.46%) Windows Server 2008
16 10 (0.38%) Mac OS X
17 8 (0.31%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 514 (19.76%) Problem-Solving
2 475 (18.26%) Customer Service
3 367 (14.11%) ITIL
4 277 (10.65%) Agile
5 260 (10.00%) Migration
6 234 (9.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 218 (8.38%) DevOps
8 214 (8.23%) ITSM
9 206 (7.92%) CI/CD
10 201 (7.73%) Service Management
11 185 (7.11%) Continuous Improvement
12 179 (6.88%) Cybersecurity
13 159 (6.11%) Change Management
14 145 (5.57%) Disaster Recovery
15 134 (5.15%) Stakeholder Management
16 131 (5.04%) User Experience
17 119 (4.58%) Service Delivery
18 116 (4.46%) High Availability
19 107 (4.11%) Computer Science
20 105 (4.04%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 497 (19.11%) PowerShell
2 267 (10.27%) Python
3 228 (8.77%) SQL
4 129 (4.96%) C#
5 111 (4.27%) Bash
6 99 (3.81%) Java
7 78 (3.00%) JavaScript
8 60 (2.31%) C++
9 51 (1.96%) Perl
9 51 (1.96%) PL/SQL
10 41 (1.58%) T-SQL
11 30 (1.15%) Kusto Query Language
12 25 (0.96%) Shell Script
12 25 (0.96%) VB
13 21 (0.81%) VBScript
14 18 (0.69%) VBA
15 13 (0.50%) C
16 12 (0.46%) Bicep
16 12 (0.46%) TypeScript
17 11 (0.42%) Go
Qualifications
1 826 (31.76%) Security Cleared
2 534 (20.53%) SC Cleared
3 267 (10.27%) Degree
4 237 (9.11%) DV Cleared
5 141 (5.42%) Microsoft Certification
6 78 (3.00%) Computer Science Degree
7 57 (2.19%) Cisco Certification
8 48 (1.85%) Azure Certification
9 47 (1.81%) MCSE
10 36 (1.38%) ITIL Certification
11 31 (1.19%) CCNA
11 31 (1.19%) CISSP
12 30 (1.15%) AWS Certification
13 28 (1.08%) BPSS Clearance
14 26 (1.00%) CCNP
15 24 (0.92%) A+ Certification
15 24 (0.92%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 22 (0.85%) MCSA
17 19 (0.73%) CompTIA Security+
17 19 (0.73%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (3.73%) GDPR
2 88 (3.38%) SLA
3 78 (3.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 76 (2.92%) QA
5 49 (1.88%) NIST
6 38 (1.46%) PCI DSS
7 21 (0.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 15 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
9 13 (0.50%) MiFID
9 13 (0.50%) PMO
10 12 (0.46%) NCSC
11 10 (0.38%) FINRA
11 10 (0.38%) GLBA
12 9 (0.35%) NIST 800
13 5 (0.19%) GxP
14 4 (0.15%) COBIT
14 4 (0.15%) HIPAA
14 4 (0.15%) SOC 2
15 3 (0.12%) Accessibility
15 3 (0.12%) SEPA
System Software
1 978 (37.60%) Active Directory
2 259 (9.96%) VMware Infrastructure
3 103 (3.96%) Docker
4 102 (3.92%) Hyper-V
5 60 (2.31%) Virtual Machines
5 60 (2.31%) vSphere
6 59 (2.27%) Virtual Desktop
7 49 (1.88%) VMware ESXi
8 32 (1.23%) VMware NSX
9 25 (0.96%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.88%) Firmware
10 23 (0.88%) Microsoft App-V
11 16 (0.62%) KVM
12 9 (0.35%) Virtual Servers
13 7 (0.27%) XenDesktop
14 6 (0.23%) NFS
14 6 (0.23%) Terminal Services
14 6 (0.23%) XenApp
15 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 5 (0.19%) Tivoli Directory Server
Systems Management
1 355 (13.65%) Microsoft Intune
2 334 (12.84%) SCCM
3 158 (6.07%) Terraform
4 135 (5.19%) Ansible
5 118 (4.54%) Kubernetes
6 66 (2.54%) Single Sign-On
7 63 (2.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 62 (2.38%) vCenter Server
9 38 (1.46%) Jamf Pro
10 29 (1.11%) Grafana
11 27 (1.04%) FortiGate
12 25 (0.96%) SCOM
13 24 (0.92%) WSUS
14 20 (0.77%) Nessus
15 19 (0.73%) Nmap
15 19 (0.73%) Prometheus
16 18 (0.69%) Progress Chef
16 18 (0.69%) WMI
17 14 (0.54%) Puppet
18 12 (0.46%) CASB
Vendors
1 1,134 (43.60%) Microsoft
2 363 (13.96%) VMware
3 238 (9.15%) ServiceNow
4 193 (7.42%) Citrix
5 166 (6.38%) Oracle
6 151 (5.81%) Cisco
7 115 (4.42%) Splunk
8 60 (2.31%) SolarWinds
9 59 (2.27%) Dell
9 59 (2.27%) Red Hat
10 57 (2.19%) HP
11 56 (2.15%) Google
12 47 (1.81%) Apple
13 46 (1.77%) IBM
14 45 (1.73%) Remedy
15 43 (1.65%) Veeam
16 42 (1.61%) Juniper
17 34 (1.31%) CyberArk
18 32 (1.23%) SAP
19 31 (1.19%) F5