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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 20 17
Rank change year-on-year -7 -3 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,781 2,288 2,821
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.10% 8.35% 8.53%
As % of the Operating Systems category 62.33% 60.88% 59.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,803 1,545 1,878
10th Percentile £172 £171 £180
25th Percentile £225 £220 £255
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £416 £408 £425
Median % change year-on-year +2.09% -4.12% -2.86%
75th Percentile £556 £568 £575
90th Percentile £650 £660 £651
UK median daily rate £425 £413 £425
% change year-on-year +3.03% -2.94% -3.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 249 195 181
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.28 £11.44
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.79 £15.22
Median hourly rate £25.75 £20.00 £21.80
Median % change year-on-year +28.75% -8.26% -7.23%
75th Percentile £60.00 £35.14 £60.00
90th Percentile £74.74 £65.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £24.88 £22.50 £22.00
% change year-on-year +10.56% +2.27% -2.22%

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 4,462 3,758 4,710
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.78% 13.72% 14.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,871 2,470 3,072
10th Percentile £190 £191 £200
25th Percentile £310 £307 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £586 £588
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £469 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +4.22% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 318 242 266
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.51 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.05 £18.51 £17.69
Median hourly rate £33.32 £24.25 £39.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.38% -37.82% -8.24%
75th Percentile £67.84 £59.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £74.78 £67.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £25.77 £25.15 £35.58
% change year-on-year +2.47% -29.32% -16.28%

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 2 September 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 2 September 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 2 September 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 -13 931 £425 - 883
South East -8 570 £475 -1.35% 412
North of England -5 506 £325 - 301
North West +3 308 £340 -3.00% 154
South West -14 278 £480 +33.33% 179
Midlands -16 272 £400 - 192
East of England -2 207 £275 -19.71% 209
West Midlands -24 173 £425 -4.49% 125
Yorkshire -20 169 £279 -10.88% 101
East Midlands +4 95 £275 +37.50% 67
North East -32 33 £270 -1.82% 59
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
1 233 (8.38%) SharePoint
2 227 (8.16%) Microsoft Exchange
3 56 (2.01%) IIS
4 54 (1.94%) Confluence
5 18 (0.65%) nginx
5 18 (0.65%) Skype for Business
6 17 (0.61%) Apache
7 11 (0.40%) Tomcat
8 7 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.22%) Documentum
10 5 (0.18%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.18%) Appian
10 5 (0.18%) Camunda
10 5 (0.18%) WebLogic
11 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
12 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
12 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
13 2 (0.072%) SharePoint 2013
13 2 (0.072%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 178 (6.40%) Microsoft Office
2 63 (2.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.11%) Houdini
6 3 (0.11%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.11%) NUKE
7 2 (0.072%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.036%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.036%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.036%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 56 (2.01%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.36%) Finacle
3 7 (0.25%) OpenText MBPM
3 7 (0.25%) Oracle BPM
4 5 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 4 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
5 4 (0.14%) Teamcenter
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.072%) assyst
8 1 (0.036%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle BRM
8 1 (0.036%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.036%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.036%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.036%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.036%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.036%) SAP FS
8 1 (0.036%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 909 (32.69%) Microsoft 365
2 883 (31.75%) Azure
3 459 (16.50%) Entra ID
4 310 (11.15%) AWS
5 137 (4.93%) OneDrive
6 106 (3.81%) Azure DevOps
7 93 (3.34%) GCP
8 77 (2.77%) Azure Monitor
9 69 (2.48%) SaaS
10 65 (2.34%) Power Platform
11 57 (2.05%) GitHub
11 57 (2.05%) IaaS
12 43 (1.55%) Azure Sentinel
13 42 (1.51%) PaaS
14 29 (1.04%) OpenShift
15 27 (0.97%) Google Workspace
16 26 (0.93%) AWS CloudFormation
17 20 (0.72%) Azure AKS
17 20 (0.72%) Datadog
17 20 (0.72%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 444 (15.97%) DNS
2 321 (11.54%) DHCP
2 321 (11.54%) Firewall
3 231 (8.31%) VPN
4 210 (7.55%) TCP/IP
5 128 (4.60%) WAN
6 124 (4.46%) LAN
7 123 (4.42%) Wi-Fi
8 87 (3.13%) SAN
9 83 (2.98%) VLAN
10 82 (2.95%) Network Security
11 46 (1.65%) SSL
12 43 (1.55%) Wireless
13 41 (1.47%) Internet
13 41 (1.47%) NAS
14 38 (1.37%) VSAN
15 35 (1.26%) Skype
16 29 (1.04%) BGP
17 27 (0.97%) VoIP
18 24 (0.86%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 255 (9.17%) SQL Server
2 53 (1.91%) Oracle Database
2 53 (1.91%) Power BI
3 29 (1.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 26 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
5 23 (0.83%) MySQL
5 23 (0.83%) Relational Database
6 20 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
7 15 (0.54%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 15 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 11 (0.40%) Geospatial Data
8 11 (0.40%) RDBMS
9 10 (0.36%) Db2
9 10 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
10 8 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
10 8 (0.29%) MongoDB
11 7 (0.25%) NoSQL
12 5 (0.18%) ObjectStore
12 5 (0.18%) Oracle Reports
13 3 (0.11%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 150 (5.39%) JIRA
2 63 (2.27%) Git
3 45 (1.62%) Jenkins
3 45 (1.62%) MSI
4 40 (1.44%) GitLab
5 20 (0.72%) Visual Studio
6 14 (0.50%) Bitbucket
7 9 (0.32%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 8 (0.29%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.29%) Eclipse
8 8 (0.29%) Selenium
9 7 (0.25%) Browser DevTools
9 7 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
10 5 (0.18%) AdminStudio
10 5 (0.18%) Chocolatey
10 5 (0.18%) InstallShield
11 4 (0.14%) Claude Code
11 4 (0.14%) Octopus Deploy
11 4 (0.14%) Robot Framework
11 4 (0.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 1,017 (36.57%) Social Skills
2 342 (12.30%) Analytical Skills
3 338 (12.15%) Finance
4 147 (5.29%) Banking
5 134 (4.82%) Public Sector
6 101 (3.63%) Documentation Skills
7 77 (2.77%) Legal
8 70 (2.52%) Organisational Skills
9 63 (2.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 55 (1.98%) Manufacturing
11 49 (1.76%) Retail
12 45 (1.62%) Telecoms
13 41 (1.47%) Front Office
14 37 (1.33%) Law
15 34 (1.22%) Investment Banking
16 30 (1.08%) Military
17 28 (1.01%) Spanish Language
18 25 (0.90%) French Language
19 24 (0.86%) Financial Institution
20 21 (0.76%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 458 (16.47%) Support Engineer
2 386 (13.88%) IT Support
3 307 (11.04%) IT Engineer
4 289 (10.39%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 255 (9.17%) IT Support Engineer
6 234 (8.41%) Analyst
7 227 (8.16%) Senior
8 124 (4.46%) 2nd Line Support
9 121 (4.35%) Desktop Support
10 109 (3.92%) Lead
11 108 (3.88%) Desktop Engineer
12 104 (3.74%) Cloud Engineer
13 100 (3.60%) Architect
14 95 (3.42%) Windows Engineer
15 93 (3.34%) Support Analyst
16 81 (2.91%) Developer
17 79 (2.84%) 1st Line Support
17 79 (2.84%) Consultant
18 73 (2.62%) 2nd Line Engineer
18 73 (2.62%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 244 (8.77%) Terraform
2 111 (3.99%) .NET
3 99 (3.56%) REST
4 61 (2.19%) .NET Framework
5 30 (1.08%) Middleware
6 29 (1.04%) WPF
7 28 (1.01%) JSON
7 28 (1.01%) LDAP
8 24 (0.86%) ARM Templates
9 23 (0.83%) WinForms
10 22 (0.79%) Software Packaging
11 20 (0.72%) CSS
11 20 (0.72%) HTML
12 19 (0.68%) .NET Core
12 19 (0.68%) Elastic Stack
12 19 (0.68%) Kafka
12 19 (0.68%) Microsoft Graph
13 17 (0.61%) XML
14 16 (0.58%) SAML
15 15 (0.54%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 344 (12.37%) Onboarding
2 148 (5.32%) Data Centre
3 143 (5.14%) PKI
4 92 (3.31%) Management Information System
5 82 (2.95%) Clustering
6 81 (2.91%) Hybrid Cloud
7 73 (2.62%) Cloud Native
8 66 (2.37%) Enterprise Software
9 65 (2.34%) Video Conferencing
10 61 (2.19%) Replication
11 58 (2.09%) Driving Licence
12 55 (1.98%) Self-Motivation
13 49 (1.76%) Security Posture
14 40 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
14 40 (1.44%) Virtual Team
15 37 (1.33%) CMDB
16 36 (1.29%) Enterprise Storage
17 34 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
18 31 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
18 31 (1.11%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 776 (27.90%) Windows Server
2 662 (23.80%) Linux
3 498 (17.91%) Windows 10
4 183 (6.58%) Mac OS
5 122 (4.39%) Apple iOS
6 117 (4.21%) Android
6 117 (4.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 104 (3.74%) Unix
8 68 (2.45%) Windows Server 2019
9 50 (1.80%) Ubuntu
10 46 (1.65%) Windows 7
11 37 (1.33%) Windows Server 2012
11 37 (1.33%) Windows Server 2016
12 34 (1.22%) CentOS
13 23 (0.83%) AIX
14 21 (0.76%) VMS
15 17 (0.61%) Windows Server 2008
16 15 (0.54%) Solaris
17 14 (0.50%) Rocky
18 11 (0.40%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 671 (24.13%) Problem-Solving
2 530 (19.06%) ITIL
3 449 (16.15%) Customer Service
4 375 (13.48%) ITSM
5 371 (13.34%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 330 (11.87%) Migration
7 308 (11.08%) Continuous Improvement
8 275 (9.89%) DevOps
8 275 (9.89%) Service Management
9 236 (8.49%) Infrastructure as Code
10 232 (8.34%) CI/CD
11 231 (8.31%) Agile
12 202 (7.26%) Change Management
13 201 (7.23%) Stakeholder Management
14 181 (6.51%) Root Cause Analysis
15 177 (6.36%) Disaster Recovery
16 162 (5.83%) Cybersecurity
17 161 (5.79%) High Availability
18 160 (5.75%) Incident Management
19 158 (5.68%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 711 (25.57%) PowerShell
2 305 (10.97%) Python
3 273 (9.82%) SQL
4 172 (6.18%) Bash
5 123 (4.42%) C#
6 60 (2.16%) Java
7 57 (2.05%) T-SQL
8 54 (1.94%) JavaScript
9 48 (1.73%) Bicep
10 45 (1.62%) PL/SQL
11 29 (1.04%) VB
12 26 (0.93%) C++
12 26 (0.93%) VBScript
13 23 (0.83%) Search Processing Language
14 17 (0.61%) Perl
15 16 (0.58%) TypeScript
16 15 (0.54%) Shell Script
17 12 (0.43%) VBA
18 10 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
19 8 (0.29%) C
Qualifications
1 884 (31.79%) Security Cleared
2 525 (18.88%) SC Cleared
3 349 (12.55%) DV Cleared
4 283 (10.18%) Degree
5 113 (4.06%) Microsoft Certification
6 90 (3.24%) Azure Certification
7 71 (2.55%) Cisco Certification
7 71 (2.55%) Computer Science Degree
8 64 (2.30%) CISSP
9 54 (1.94%) AWS Certification
10 49 (1.76%) A+ Certification
11 48 (1.73%) BPSS Clearance
12 46 (1.65%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 32 (1.15%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 30 (1.08%) CCNA
14 30 (1.08%) CCNP
15 28 (1.01%) CISM
15 28 (1.01%) DBS Check
16 27 (0.97%) MCSE
17 25 (0.90%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 149 (5.36%) SLA
2 109 (3.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 80 (2.88%) NIST
4 76 (2.73%) QA
5 32 (1.15%) Cyber Essentials
6 27 (0.97%) NCSC
7 22 (0.79%) PCI DSS
8 21 (0.76%) GDPR
9 15 (0.54%) Accessibility
9 15 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 13 (0.47%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.43%) WCAG
12 11 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 11 (0.40%) HIPAA
13 10 (0.36%) GRC
14 8 (0.29%) GxP
14 8 (0.29%) PMO
15 7 (0.25%) ISO 31000
16 6 (0.22%) NIST 800
16 6 (0.22%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,158 (41.64%) Active Directory
2 422 (15.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 184 (6.62%) Hyper-V
4 146 (5.25%) VMware ESXi
5 126 (4.53%) vSphere
6 105 (3.78%) Docker
7 95 (3.42%) Virtual Machines
8 81 (2.91%) Virtual Desktop
8 81 (2.91%) VMware NSX
9 39 (1.40%) BitLocker
10 30 (1.08%) Firmware
11 24 (0.86%) vCloud
12 16 (0.58%) Microsoft App-V
13 14 (0.50%) Virtual Servers
14 11 (0.40%) XenApp
15 10 (0.36%) Citrix Hypervisor
15 10 (0.36%) XenDesktop
16 9 (0.32%) KVM
17 7 (0.25%) NFS
18 6 (0.22%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 407 (14.64%) Microsoft Intune
2 307 (11.04%) SCCM
3 214 (7.70%) Ansible
4 146 (5.25%) Kubernetes
5 120 (4.31%) vCenter Server
6 93 (3.34%) SCOM
7 47 (1.69%) WSUS
8 45 (1.62%) Jamf Pro
9 31 (1.11%) Progress Chef
9 31 (1.11%) Prometheus
10 29 (1.04%) Grafana
10 29 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
11 25 (0.90%) Puppet
11 25 (0.90%) WMI
12 24 (0.86%) FortiGate
12 24 (0.86%) Nagios
13 23 (0.83%) Packer
14 22 (0.79%) VxRail
15 20 (0.72%) Microsoft Clustering
15 20 (0.72%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 1,317 (47.36%) Microsoft
2 561 (20.17%) VMware
3 337 (12.12%) ServiceNow
4 189 (6.80%) Cisco
5 158 (5.68%) Oracle
6 153 (5.50%) Citrix
7 102 (3.67%) Splunk
8 97 (3.49%) Apple
9 87 (3.13%) CyberArk
10 76 (2.73%) Google
11 69 (2.48%) SolarWinds
12 67 (2.41%) Red Hat
13 62 (2.23%) BeyondTrust
14 61 (2.19%) HP
15 60 (2.16%) Remedy
16 50 (1.80%) Dell
17 46 (1.65%) BMC
18 41 (1.47%) NetApp
19 36 (1.29%) Fortinet
19 36 (1.29%) Meraki