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

6 months to
5 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 23 14
Rank change year-on-year +1 -9 +1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,566 2,192 3,502
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.68% 8.34% 9.27%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.08% 58.77% 63.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,783 1,457 2,377
10th Percentile £161 £182 £155
25th Percentile £204 £223 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £400 £390
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% +2.56% -8.24%
75th Percentile £538 £565 £575
90th Percentile £638 £658 £665
UK median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -6.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 240 72 256
10th Percentile £12.97 £15.02 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.70 £16.94 £15.50
Median hourly rate £21.90 £22.09 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.86% +10.45% -9.26%
75th Percentile £43.00 £50.75 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £73.25 £62.50
UK median hourly rate £21.80 £23.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year -5.22% +15.00% -8.05%

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 4,201 3,730 5,493
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.58% 14.19% 14.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,829 2,358 3,753
10th Percentile £175 £200 £178
25th Percentile £263 £313 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £449 £474 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.25% +2.43% -10.19%
75th Percentile £565 £600 £594
90th Percentile £675 £699 £700
UK median daily rate £444 £475 £466
% change year-on-year -6.58% +1.93% -9.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 307 122 372
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.28 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.00 £17.16
Median hourly rate £22.58 £47.00 £25.06
Median % change year-on-year -51.97% +87.57% -3.63%
75th Percentile £54.22 £67.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £68.00 £71.23 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £23.58 £31.79 £25.25
% change year-on-year -25.84% +25.90% -1.79%

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 February 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 February 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 February 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 -15 758 £450 +9.09% 243
South East -1 506 £403 -5.29% 367
North of England -5 461 £263 -25.00% 229
South West +3 319 £425 +6.25% 124
Midlands -7 297 £267 -17.85% 140
North West -5 255 £251 -28.82% 109
East of England +7 217 £251 -13.36% 121
West Midlands -11 180 £359 +10.54% 83
Yorkshire -13 175 £320 -8.57% 98
East Midlands +5 116 £225 -31.56% 57
North East -3 34 £188 -43.61% 29
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
1 216 (8.42%) Microsoft Exchange
2 177 (6.90%) SharePoint
3 65 (2.53%) Confluence
4 43 (1.68%) IIS
5 34 (1.33%) Apache
6 19 (0.74%) WebLogic
7 18 (0.70%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.47%) WebSphere
9 11 (0.43%) TPMS
10 10 (0.39%) JBoss
11 9 (0.35%) nginx
12 8 (0.31%) iPlanet
12 8 (0.31%) Tuxedo
12 8 (0.31%) WebSphere Application Server
13 7 (0.27%) SharePoint Server
14 5 (0.19%) SAS
15 4 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2010
15 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
16 3 (0.12%) Documentum
16 3 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 232 (9.04%) Microsoft Office
2 76 (2.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.39%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.27%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.19%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.19%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.078%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.078%) Windchill
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe Creative Suite
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 25 (0.97%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.31%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.19%) assyst
5 4 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.078%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.078%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.078%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.078%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.078%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.078%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.039%) Aladdin
8 1 (0.039%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.039%) Eikon
8 1 (0.039%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.039%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.039%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.039%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.039%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 726 (28.29%) Microsoft 365
2 628 (24.47%) Azure
3 257 (10.02%) Entra ID
4 206 (8.03%) AWS
5 90 (3.51%) OneDrive
6 69 (2.69%) SaaS
7 62 (2.42%) GCP
8 51 (1.99%) Google Workspace
9 48 (1.87%) Azure DevOps
10 43 (1.68%) IaaS
11 38 (1.48%) GitHub
12 34 (1.33%) Power Platform
13 31 (1.21%) PaaS
14 26 (1.01%) Azure Monitor
15 25 (0.97%) OpenShift
16 20 (0.78%) Azure Sentinel
17 19 (0.74%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 19 (0.74%) AWS CloudFormation
17 19 (0.74%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 18 (0.70%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 331 (12.90%) DNS
2 255 (9.94%) Firewall
3 219 (8.53%) DHCP
4 169 (6.59%) TCP/IP
5 161 (6.27%) VPN
6 112 (4.36%) WAN
7 109 (4.25%) Wi-Fi
8 105 (4.09%) LAN
9 79 (3.08%) Network Security
10 66 (2.57%) VLAN
11 63 (2.46%) Wireless
12 40 (1.56%) SSH
13 34 (1.33%) Skype
14 32 (1.25%) SAN
15 31 (1.21%) HTTP
16 30 (1.17%) FTP
16 30 (1.17%) Kerberos
17 26 (1.01%) Internet
18 25 (0.97%) VoIP
19 24 (0.94%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (4.44%) SQL Server
2 54 (2.10%) Oracle Database
2 54 (2.10%) Relational Database
3 42 (1.64%) MySQL
4 25 (0.97%) PostgreSQL
5 13 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
5 13 (0.51%) BigQuery
6 11 (0.43%) Power BI
7 10 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
8 9 (0.35%) Amazon Aurora
9 8 (0.31%) GIS
9 8 (0.31%) MongoDB
9 8 (0.31%) NoSQL
10 7 (0.27%) DB2
11 6 (0.23%) Elasticsearch
12 5 (0.19%) SAP HANA
13 4 (0.16%) Data Warehouse
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 3 (0.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 143 (5.57%) JIRA
2 71 (2.77%) Jenkins
3 61 (2.38%) Git
4 51 (1.99%) GitLab
5 36 (1.40%) MSI
6 26 (1.01%) Eclipse
6 26 (1.01%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.74%) Burp Suite
7 19 (0.74%) Metasploit
8 17 (0.66%) Android Studio
9 16 (0.62%) Browser DevTools
10 15 (0.58%) Artifactory
10 15 (0.58%) Xcode
11 13 (0.51%) Sonatype Nexus
12 11 (0.43%) InstallShield
13 10 (0.39%) Bitbucket
13 10 (0.39%) Vagrant
14 9 (0.35%) Bitbucket Server
14 9 (0.35%) CA Release Automation
15 8 (0.31%) AdminStudio
General
1 953 (37.14%) Social Skills
2 268 (10.44%) Finance
3 222 (8.65%) Public Sector
4 208 (8.11%) Analytical Skills
5 123 (4.79%) Banking
6 108 (4.21%) Documentation Skills
7 85 (3.31%) Legal
8 74 (2.88%) Organisational Skills
9 50 (1.95%) Military
10 48 (1.87%) Manufacturing
11 41 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 41 (1.60%) Presentation Skills
12 33 (1.29%) Retail
13 27 (1.05%) Telecoms
14 23 (0.90%) Front Office
15 22 (0.86%) Aerospace
16 21 (0.82%) Law
17 19 (0.74%) Investment Banking
18 16 (0.62%) Financial Institution
18 16 (0.62%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 374 (14.58%) Support Engineer
2 329 (12.82%) IT Support
3 326 (12.70%) Analyst
4 177 (6.90%) IT Engineer
5 162 (6.31%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 148 (5.77%) Architect
7 144 (5.61%) Support Analyst
8 141 (5.49%) IT Support Engineer
9 135 (5.26%) Desktop Support
9 135 (5.26%) Senior
10 123 (4.79%) Technical Support
11 120 (4.68%) Windows Engineer
12 119 (4.64%) Desktop Engineer
13 117 (4.56%) 2nd Line Support
14 100 (3.90%) Deployment Engineer
15 99 (3.86%) Developer
16 93 (3.62%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 84 (3.27%) Lead
18 80 (3.12%) IT Analyst
19 71 (2.77%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (2.92%) .NET
2 53 (2.07%) OAuth
2 53 (2.07%) REST
3 49 (1.91%) SAML
4 45 (1.75%) LDAP
5 44 (1.71%) .NET Framework
6 34 (1.33%) Middleware
7 33 (1.29%) WPF
8 32 (1.25%) React
9 31 (1.21%) OpenID
10 28 (1.09%) AngularJS
11 23 (0.90%) CSS
11 23 (0.90%) Web Services
12 22 (0.86%) Kafka
12 22 (0.86%) RESTful
13 21 (0.82%) Microsoft Graph
13 21 (0.82%) Node.js
13 21 (0.82%) OAuth2
13 21 (0.82%) SOAP
14 19 (0.74%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 151 (5.88%) Onboarding
2 90 (3.51%) PKI
3 87 (3.39%) Driving Licence
4 81 (3.16%) Data Centre
5 72 (2.81%) Enterprise Software
6 60 (2.34%) Replication
6 60 (2.34%) Self-Motivation
7 56 (2.18%) Smartphone
8 50 (1.95%) Management Information System
9 38 (1.48%) Hybrid Cloud
10 37 (1.44%) Security Posture
11 32 (1.25%) NHS
12 28 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
12 28 (1.09%) Clustering
12 28 (1.09%) Product Ownership
13 26 (1.01%) Video Conferencing
14 25 (0.97%) Data Protection Act
15 24 (0.94%) CMDB
15 24 (0.94%) Virtual Team
16 22 (0.86%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 617 (24.05%) Linux
2 590 (22.99%) Windows 10
3 530 (20.65%) Windows Server
4 143 (5.57%) Unix
5 136 (5.30%) Mac OS
6 130 (5.07%) Android
7 106 (4.13%) Apple iOS
8 61 (2.38%) Windows Server 2016
9 53 (2.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 51 (1.99%) Windows Server 2019
11 49 (1.91%) Windows 7
12 37 (1.44%) Windows Server 2012
13 28 (1.09%) Windows Server 2003
14 23 (0.90%) AIX
15 20 (0.78%) VMS
16 17 (0.66%) Ubuntu
17 11 (0.43%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.39%) Amazon Linux
18 10 (0.39%) Mac OS X
19 7 (0.27%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 472 (18.39%) Problem-Solving
2 447 (17.42%) Customer Service
3 370 (14.42%) ITIL
4 265 (10.33%) Agile
5 237 (9.24%) Migration
6 236 (9.20%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 215 (8.38%) DevOps
8 214 (8.34%) Service Management
9 204 (7.95%) ITSM
10 197 (7.68%) CI/CD
11 178 (6.94%) Continuous Improvement
12 172 (6.70%) Cybersecurity
13 147 (5.73%) Change Management
14 128 (4.99%) Disaster Recovery
15 123 (4.79%) User Experience
16 110 (4.29%) Service Delivery
16 110 (4.29%) Stakeholder Management
17 106 (4.13%) Infrastructure as Code
18 100 (3.90%) Computer Science
19 97 (3.78%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 500 (19.49%) PowerShell
2 291 (11.34%) Python
3 223 (8.69%) SQL
4 114 (4.44%) Java
5 109 (4.25%) C#
6 104 (4.05%) Bash
7 72 (2.81%) JavaScript
8 60 (2.34%) Perl
9 51 (1.99%) C++
10 46 (1.79%) PL/SQL
11 35 (1.36%) T-SQL
12 28 (1.09%) Kusto Query Language
12 28 (1.09%) VBScript
13 27 (1.05%) Shell Script
13 27 (1.05%) VB
14 23 (0.90%) VBA
15 19 (0.74%) Groovy
16 14 (0.55%) Go
17 13 (0.51%) Bicep
18 10 (0.39%) PHP
Qualifications
1 820 (31.96%) Security Cleared
2 535 (20.85%) SC Cleared
3 262 (10.21%) Degree
4 240 (9.35%) DV Cleared
5 144 (5.61%) Microsoft Certification
6 78 (3.04%) Computer Science Degree
7 59 (2.30%) Azure Certification
8 43 (1.68%) MCSE
9 42 (1.64%) Cisco Certification
10 37 (1.44%) A+ Certification
11 35 (1.36%) ITIL Certification
12 33 (1.29%) AWS Certification
13 27 (1.05%) CCNA
13 27 (1.05%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 25 (0.97%) BPSS Clearance
14 25 (0.97%) CCNP
15 24 (0.94%) CISSP
16 21 (0.82%) MCSA
16 21 (0.82%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 18 (0.70%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (3.51%) GDPR
2 89 (3.47%) SLA
3 67 (2.61%) QA
4 61 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 45 (1.75%) NIST
6 33 (1.29%) PCI DSS
7 21 (0.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 12 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
8 12 (0.47%) MiFID
8 12 (0.47%) NCSC
9 11 (0.43%) GLBA
9 11 (0.43%) PMO
10 9 (0.35%) FINRA
11 7 (0.27%) NIST 800
12 5 (0.19%) Accessibility
12 5 (0.19%) COBIT
13 4 (0.16%) GxP
13 4 (0.16%) HIPAA
14 3 (0.12%) Data Quality
14 3 (0.12%) SEPA
System Software
1 942 (36.71%) Active Directory
2 250 (9.74%) VMware Infrastructure
3 107 (4.17%) Docker
4 94 (3.66%) Hyper-V
5 62 (2.42%) Virtual Desktop
6 58 (2.26%) Virtual Machines
7 55 (2.14%) vSphere
8 43 (1.68%) VMware ESXi
9 33 (1.29%) VMware NSX
10 24 (0.94%) BitLocker
11 21 (0.82%) Microsoft App-V
12 14 (0.55%) Firmware
13 13 (0.51%) DFS Replication
13 13 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
14 11 (0.43%) KVM
15 7 (0.27%) Dovecot
15 7 (0.27%) Postfix
15 7 (0.27%) Squid
15 7 (0.27%) Terminal Services
15 7 (0.27%) Tivoli Directory Server
Systems Management
1 357 (13.91%) SCCM
2 307 (11.96%) Microsoft Intune
3 160 (6.24%) Terraform
4 125 (4.87%) Ansible
5 99 (3.86%) Kubernetes
6 67 (2.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 67 (2.61%) vCenter Server
7 66 (2.57%) Single Sign-On
8 43 (1.68%) Jamf Pro
9 39 (1.52%) Grafana
10 29 (1.13%) SCOM
11 26 (1.01%) Prometheus
11 26 (1.01%) WSUS
12 19 (0.74%) Nessus
13 18 (0.70%) Nmap
14 17 (0.66%) WMI
15 16 (0.62%) Progress Chef
16 13 (0.51%) Proxmox
17 12 (0.47%) Packer
18 11 (0.43%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 1,105 (43.06%) Microsoft
2 341 (13.29%) VMware
3 244 (9.51%) ServiceNow
4 177 (6.90%) Oracle
5 160 (6.24%) Citrix
6 145 (5.65%) Cisco
7 98 (3.82%) Splunk
8 61 (2.38%) Dell
9 58 (2.26%) Apple
10 53 (2.07%) HP
11 52 (2.03%) Red Hat
12 50 (1.95%) Google
13 49 (1.91%) SolarWinds
14 47 (1.83%) Veeam
15 41 (1.60%) IBM
16 36 (1.40%) Remedy
16 36 (1.40%) SAP
17 35 (1.36%) CyberArk
18 30 (1.17%) Palo Alto
19 28 (1.09%) Juniper