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

6 months to
5 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 22 12
Rank change year-on-year 0 -10 +3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,470 2,229 3,514
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.85% 8.16% 9.70%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.08% 58.69% 63.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,714 1,454 2,379
10th Percentile £163 £181 £158
25th Percentile £204 £225 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £556 £575
90th Percentile £638 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 237 81 206
10th Percentile £12.97 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.14 £17.00 £17.00
Median hourly rate £22.00 £22.00 £21.50
Median % change year-on-year - +2.33% +2.38%
75th Percentile £43.75 £53.00 £48.40
90th Percentile £67.84 £74.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £23.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% +5.00%

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 4,111 3,798 5,507
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 13.06% 13.90% 15.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,733 2,394 3,801
10th Percentile £175 £200 £180
25th Percentile £263 £313 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -6.86%
75th Percentile £565 £595 £600
90th Percentile £675 £699 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 315 134 290
10th Percentile £15.09 £15.33 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £18.88 £17.75
Median hourly rate £25.15 £47.00 £32.25
Median % change year-on-year -46.49% +45.74% +29.00%
75th Percentile £63.63 £67.44 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £73.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% - +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 5 January 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 January 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 January 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 -18 721 £450 +11.11% 227
South East +1 503 £388 -3.13% 344
North of England -6 432 £250 -28.57% 222
South West +4 316 £419 -1.00% 131
Midlands -2 306 £359 +10.54% 139
North West -3 247 £274 -21.79% 104
West Midlands -6 204 £475 +51.52% 78
East of England +6 191 £230 -26.40% 125
Yorkshire -13 158 £290 -18.37% 99
East Midlands +1 102 £210 -40.00% 57
North East -2 30 £184 -42.58% 23
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
1 207 (8.38%) Microsoft Exchange
2 173 (7.00%) SharePoint
3 71 (2.87%) Confluence
4 45 (1.82%) Apache
4 45 (1.82%) IIS
5 25 (1.01%) WebLogic
6 18 (0.73%) Skype for Business
7 17 (0.69%) WebSphere
8 13 (0.53%) JBoss
8 13 (0.53%) nginx
9 11 (0.45%) SharePoint Server
9 11 (0.45%) WebSphere Application Server
10 10 (0.40%) iPlanet
11 9 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2010
12 8 (0.32%) TPMS
12 8 (0.32%) Tuxedo
13 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
14 6 (0.24%) Exchange Server 2007
14 6 (0.24%) SAS
14 6 (0.24%) Tomcat
Applications
1 237 (9.60%) Microsoft Office
2 78 (3.16%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.45%) MS Visio
5 10 (0.40%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.081%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.081%) Windchill
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.040%) InDesign
9 1 (0.040%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.040%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 23 (0.93%) Remedy ITSM
2 6 (0.24%) assyst
3 5 (0.20%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.081%) Eikon
6 2 (0.081%) Fidessa
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.081%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.081%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.081%) SystmOne
6 2 (0.081%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.040%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.040%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.040%) ION MarketView
7 1 (0.040%) Maximo
7 1 (0.040%) RMDS
7 1 (0.040%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 683 (27.65%) Microsoft 365
2 575 (23.28%) Azure
3 220 (8.91%) Entra ID
4 214 (8.66%) AWS
5 80 (3.24%) OneDrive
6 66 (2.67%) GCP
7 65 (2.63%) SaaS
8 46 (1.86%) Azure DevOps
9 44 (1.78%) IaaS
10 43 (1.74%) Google Workspace
11 42 (1.70%) GitHub
12 35 (1.42%) Power Platform
13 34 (1.38%) Azure Monitor
14 30 (1.21%) PaaS
15 25 (1.01%) Amazon S3
16 24 (0.97%) Azure Sentinel
17 23 (0.93%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 22 (0.89%) Amazon EC2
19 20 (0.81%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 20 (0.81%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 319 (12.91%) DNS
2 264 (10.69%) Firewall
3 193 (7.81%) DHCP
4 186 (7.53%) TCP/IP
5 157 (6.36%) VPN
6 89 (3.60%) Wi-Fi
7 88 (3.56%) WAN
8 86 (3.48%) LAN
9 83 (3.36%) Network Security
10 72 (2.91%) Wireless
11 60 (2.43%) VLAN
12 52 (2.11%) SSH
13 37 (1.50%) HTTP
14 36 (1.46%) SAN
15 29 (1.17%) FTP
15 29 (1.17%) Skype
16 28 (1.13%) SMTP
17 26 (1.05%) Internet
18 25 (1.01%) Cisco IOS
19 24 (0.97%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (4.53%) SQL Server
2 60 (2.43%) Oracle Database
3 58 (2.35%) Relational Database
4 46 (1.86%) MySQL
5 29 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
6 21 (0.85%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.53%) BigQuery
7 13 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
7 13 (0.53%) Power BI
8 12 (0.49%) Amazon Aurora
9 9 (0.36%) NoSQL
10 8 (0.32%) MongoDB
11 7 (0.28%) GIS
11 7 (0.28%) SAP HANA
12 6 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
13 4 (0.16%) DB2
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
13 4 (0.16%) RDBMS
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 132 (5.34%) JIRA
2 80 (3.24%) Git
3 79 (3.20%) Jenkins
4 49 (1.98%) GitLab
5 36 (1.46%) Eclipse
6 30 (1.21%) MSI
7 25 (1.01%) Visual Studio
8 22 (0.89%) Android Studio
9 21 (0.85%) Browser DevTools
10 20 (0.81%) Xcode
11 18 (0.73%) Artifactory
11 18 (0.73%) Burp Suite
11 18 (0.73%) Metasploit
12 16 (0.65%) Vagrant
13 15 (0.61%) Bitbucket
13 15 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
14 12 (0.49%) Bitbucket Server
14 12 (0.49%) CA Release Automation
15 11 (0.45%) InstallShield
16 8 (0.32%) AdminStudio
General
1 939 (38.02%) Social Skills
2 292 (11.82%) Finance
3 215 (8.70%) Public Sector
4 197 (7.98%) Analytical Skills
5 116 (4.70%) Banking
6 103 (4.17%) Documentation Skills
7 75 (3.04%) Legal
8 61 (2.47%) Organisational Skills
9 53 (2.15%) Military
10 47 (1.90%) Manufacturing
11 45 (1.82%) Presentation Skills
12 41 (1.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 37 (1.50%) Retail
14 36 (1.46%) Telecoms
15 28 (1.13%) Aerospace
16 26 (1.05%) Front Office
17 24 (0.97%) Law
18 20 (0.81%) Marketing
19 17 (0.69%) Financial Institution
20 16 (0.65%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 391 (15.83%) Support Engineer
2 307 (12.43%) Analyst
3 302 (12.23%) IT Support
4 172 (6.96%) IT Engineer
5 150 (6.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 139 (5.63%) Desktop Support
7 138 (5.59%) Support Analyst
8 135 (5.47%) Windows Engineer
9 134 (5.43%) Senior
10 129 (5.22%) Architect
10 129 (5.22%) IT Support Engineer
11 127 (5.14%) Desktop Engineer
12 116 (4.70%) Deployment Engineer
13 115 (4.66%) Technical Support
14 113 (4.57%) 2nd Line Support
15 102 (4.13%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 90 (3.64%) Developer
17 86 (3.48%) Platform Engineer
18 79 (3.20%) IT Analyst
19 68 (2.75%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (2.83%) .NET
2 49 (1.98%) REST
3 46 (1.86%) LDAP
4 40 (1.62%) .NET Framework
4 40 (1.62%) Middleware
5 38 (1.54%) OAuth
6 36 (1.46%) React
6 36 (1.46%) SAML
7 34 (1.38%) AngularJS
8 32 (1.30%) WPF
9 30 (1.21%) OpenID
10 27 (1.09%) Web Services
11 26 (1.05%) CSS
12 25 (1.01%) Node.js
13 21 (0.85%) Ajax
13 21 (0.85%) GraphQL
13 21 (0.85%) SOAP
14 19 (0.77%) Kafka
14 19 (0.77%) RESTful
14 19 (0.77%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 121 (4.90%) Onboarding
2 85 (3.44%) Data Centre
3 83 (3.36%) PKI
4 77 (3.12%) Driving Licence
5 64 (2.59%) Enterprise Software
6 59 (2.39%) Replication
7 56 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
8 54 (2.19%) Management Information System
9 51 (2.06%) Smartphone
10 40 (1.62%) Security Posture
11 35 (1.42%) Hybrid Cloud
12 31 (1.26%) Analytical Mindset
13 30 (1.21%) NHS
14 28 (1.13%) Clustering
14 28 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
15 27 (1.09%) Video Conferencing
16 23 (0.93%) CMDB
16 23 (0.93%) Mobile App
17 22 (0.89%) Product Ownership
18 20 (0.81%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 613 (24.82%) Linux
2 565 (22.87%) Windows 10
3 495 (20.04%) Windows Server
4 163 (6.60%) Unix
5 132 (5.34%) Android
6 126 (5.10%) Mac OS
7 100 (4.05%) Apple iOS
8 57 (2.31%) Windows Server 2016
9 54 (2.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 46 (1.86%) Windows Server 2019
11 43 (1.74%) Windows 7
12 34 (1.38%) Windows Server 2012
13 29 (1.17%) Windows Server 2003
14 28 (1.13%) VMS
15 27 (1.09%) AIX
16 22 (0.89%) Ubuntu
17 16 (0.65%) Amazon Linux
18 14 (0.57%) Solaris
19 12 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
20 11 (0.45%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 438 (17.73%) Problem-Solving
2 389 (15.75%) Customer Service
3 366 (14.82%) ITIL
4 248 (10.04%) Agile
5 239 (9.68%) Migration
6 219 (8.87%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 212 (8.58%) DevOps
8 201 (8.14%) Service Management
9 189 (7.65%) CI/CD
9 189 (7.65%) ITSM
10 174 (7.04%) Cybersecurity
11 168 (6.80%) Continuous Improvement
12 157 (6.36%) Change Management
13 130 (5.26%) User Experience
14 106 (4.29%) Incident Response
15 103 (4.17%) Disaster Recovery
15 103 (4.17%) SIEM
16 101 (4.09%) Infrastructure as Code
17 99 (4.01%) Computer Science
17 99 (4.01%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 483 (19.55%) PowerShell
2 307 (12.43%) Python
3 240 (9.72%) SQL
4 122 (4.94%) Java
5 114 (4.62%) C#
6 103 (4.17%) Bash
7 81 (3.28%) JavaScript
8 69 (2.79%) Perl
9 60 (2.43%) C++
10 43 (1.74%) PL/SQL
11 33 (1.34%) Kusto Query Language
12 29 (1.17%) Shell Script
12 29 (1.17%) T-SQL
13 27 (1.09%) Groovy
14 26 (1.05%) VB
14 26 (1.05%) VBScript
15 24 (0.97%) VBA
16 13 (0.53%) PHP
17 12 (0.49%) Bicep
18 11 (0.45%) Go
Qualifications
1 781 (31.62%) Security Cleared
2 523 (21.17%) SC Cleared
3 249 (10.08%) Degree
4 217 (8.79%) DV Cleared
5 152 (6.15%) Microsoft Certification
6 74 (3.00%) Computer Science Degree
7 62 (2.51%) Azure Certification
8 47 (1.90%) MCSE
9 44 (1.78%) Cisco Certification
10 43 (1.74%) A+ Certification
11 34 (1.38%) AWS Certification
12 33 (1.34%) ITIL Certification
13 32 (1.30%) CISSP
14 27 (1.09%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 26 (1.05%) BPSS Clearance
15 26 (1.05%) CCNP
16 25 (1.01%) CCNA
17 24 (0.97%) CompTIA Security+
17 24 (0.97%) DBS Check
18 22 (0.89%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 86 (3.48%) SLA
2 77 (3.12%) GDPR
3 65 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 63 (2.55%) QA
5 47 (1.90%) NIST
6 27 (1.09%) PCI DSS
7 11 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
7 11 (0.45%) PMO
8 9 (0.36%) NCSC
9 8 (0.32%) GLBA
9 8 (0.32%) MiFID
10 7 (0.28%) HIPAA
11 6 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 5 (0.20%) Accessibility
12 5 (0.20%) FINRA
13 4 (0.16%) NIST 800
13 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
14 3 (0.12%) SEPA
15 2 (0.081%) Data Quality
15 2 (0.081%) IFRS
System Software
1 903 (36.56%) Active Directory
2 223 (9.03%) VMware Infrastructure
3 103 (4.17%) Docker
4 84 (3.40%) Hyper-V
5 60 (2.43%) Virtual Desktop
6 48 (1.94%) Virtual Machines
7 47 (1.90%) vSphere
8 41 (1.66%) VMware ESXi
9 32 (1.30%) VMware NSX
10 20 (0.81%) BitLocker
11 19 (0.77%) DFS Replication
12 16 (0.65%) Firmware
13 15 (0.61%) Microsoft App-V
14 14 (0.57%) Terminal Services
14 14 (0.57%) Virtual Servers
15 10 (0.40%) Dovecot
15 10 (0.40%) NFS
15 10 (0.40%) Postfix
15 10 (0.40%) Squid
16 8 (0.32%) Tivoli Directory Server
Systems Management
1 354 (14.33%) SCCM
2 269 (10.89%) Microsoft Intune
3 157 (6.36%) Terraform
4 124 (5.02%) Ansible
5 79 (3.20%) Kubernetes
6 63 (2.55%) vCenter Server
7 44 (1.78%) Single Sign-On
8 43 (1.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 39 (1.58%) Jamf Pro
10 37 (1.50%) Grafana
11 28 (1.13%) SCOM
12 25 (1.01%) Nessus
12 25 (1.01%) WSUS
13 22 (0.89%) Prometheus
14 19 (0.77%) Microsoft Clustering
15 18 (0.73%) Nmap
16 16 (0.65%) Proxmox
17 14 (0.57%) Progress Chef
17 14 (0.57%) WMI
18 13 (0.53%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,055 (42.71%) Microsoft
2 315 (12.75%) VMware
3 241 (9.76%) ServiceNow
4 199 (8.06%) Oracle
5 154 (6.23%) Cisco
6 153 (6.19%) Citrix
7 113 (4.57%) Splunk
8 67 (2.71%) Apple
9 55 (2.23%) Dell
10 53 (2.15%) Red Hat
11 51 (2.06%) Veeam
12 50 (2.02%) HP
12 50 (2.02%) SolarWinds
13 48 (1.94%) IBM
14 45 (1.82%) Google
15 42 (1.70%) CyberArk
16 38 (1.54%) Remedy
16 38 (1.54%) SAP
17 33 (1.34%) AppDynamics
18 31 (1.26%) Palo Alto