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

6 months to
31 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 23 15
Rank change year-on-year +1 -8 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,577 2,226 3,522
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.79% 8.39% 9.27%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.10% 58.84% 63.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,794 1,472 2,396
10th Percentile £161 £182 £158
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £375 £400 £399
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% +0.31% -6.18%
75th Percentile £538 £573 £575
90th Percentile £638 £662 £675
UK median daily rate £400 £410 £400
% change year-on-year -2.50% +2.50% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 236 72 244
10th Percentile £12.97 £15.02 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.64 £16.94 £15.78
Median hourly rate £21.80 £22.30 £20.85
Median % change year-on-year -2.22% +6.92% -5.22%
75th Percentile £42.14 £54.15 £40.08
90th Percentile £67.00 £73.25 £62.79
UK median hourly rate £21.80 £23.00 £20.85
% change year-on-year -5.22% +10.30% -0.70%

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 3,783 5,536
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.76% 14.26% 14.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,828 2,382 3,800
10th Percentile £175 £200 £178
25th Percentile £263 £313 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £475 £466
Median % change year-on-year -6.00% +1.93% -9.51%
75th Percentile £565 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £440 £475 £472
% change year-on-year -7.37% +0.74% -8.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 304 123 352
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.31 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.15 £17.59
Median hourly rate £22.54 £50.00 £25.25
Median % change year-on-year -54.93% +98.02% -1.87%
75th Percentile £56.89 £67.25 £63.13
90th Percentile £68.00 £71.20 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £33.25 £25.25
% change year-on-year -27.82% +31.68% -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 31 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 31 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 31 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 -15 752 £450 +5.88% 222
South East 0 512 £389 -7.99% 346
North of England -4 465 £268 -23.36% 206
South West +2 317 £425 +6.25% 124
Midlands -6 308 £275 -15.38% 131
North West -5 259 £268 -23.36% 98
East of England +7 214 £228 -22.88% 126
West Midlands -12 187 £400 +23.08% 76
Yorkshire -13 175 £313 -13.06% 89
East Midlands +3 120 £223 -37.50% 55
North East -5 34 £188 -42.31% 26
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
1 214 (8.30%) Microsoft Exchange
2 172 (6.67%) SharePoint
3 66 (2.56%) Confluence
4 44 (1.71%) IIS
5 38 (1.47%) Apache
6 21 (0.81%) WebLogic
7 19 (0.74%) Skype for Business
8 16 (0.62%) WebSphere
9 12 (0.47%) JBoss
10 11 (0.43%) TPMS
10 11 (0.43%) WebSphere Application Server
11 10 (0.39%) iPlanet
11 10 (0.39%) nginx
12 8 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
12 8 (0.31%) Tuxedo
13 5 (0.19%) Exchange Server 2010
13 5 (0.19%) SAS
14 4 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2013
14 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
14 4 (0.16%) Tomcat
Applications
1 233 (9.04%) Microsoft Office
2 73 (2.83%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.43%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.27%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.19%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.16%) PTC Creo
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 9 (0.35%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.27%) 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
1 724 (28.09%) Microsoft 365
2 629 (24.41%) Azure
3 256 (9.93%) Entra ID
4 215 (8.34%) AWS
5 87 (3.38%) OneDrive
6 68 (2.64%) SaaS
7 66 (2.56%) GCP
8 50 (1.94%) Google Workspace
9 49 (1.90%) Azure DevOps
10 42 (1.63%) IaaS
11 40 (1.55%) GitHub
12 34 (1.32%) Power Platform
13 29 (1.13%) PaaS
14 28 (1.09%) Azure Monitor
15 24 (0.93%) OpenShift
16 21 (0.81%) Azure Sentinel
17 18 (0.70%) AWS CloudFormation
17 18 (0.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 17 (0.66%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 17 (0.66%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 331 (12.84%) DNS
2 255 (9.90%) Firewall
3 219 (8.50%) DHCP
4 173 (6.71%) TCP/IP
5 161 (6.25%) VPN
6 109 (4.23%) WAN
7 105 (4.07%) Wi-Fi
8 103 (4.00%) LAN
9 79 (3.07%) Network Security
10 66 (2.56%) VLAN
11 62 (2.41%) Wireless
12 46 (1.79%) SSH
13 35 (1.36%) SAN
14 34 (1.32%) Skype
15 33 (1.28%) Kerberos
16 30 (1.16%) HTTP
17 29 (1.13%) FTP
18 25 (0.97%) Internet
18 25 (0.97%) SMTP
18 25 (0.97%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 115 (4.46%) SQL Server
2 56 (2.17%) Oracle Database
2 56 (2.17%) Relational Database
3 45 (1.75%) MySQL
4 28 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
5 14 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
6 13 (0.50%) BigQuery
7 12 (0.47%) Power BI
8 11 (0.43%) NoSQL
8 11 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
9 9 (0.35%) Amazon Aurora
9 9 (0.35%) MongoDB
10 8 (0.31%) GIS
11 6 (0.23%) DB2
11 6 (0.23%) Elasticsearch
11 6 (0.23%) SAP HANA
12 5 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 4 (0.16%) Data Warehouse
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 144 (5.59%) JIRA
2 73 (2.83%) Jenkins
3 65 (2.52%) Git
4 48 (1.86%) GitLab
5 35 (1.36%) MSI
6 27 (1.05%) Eclipse
7 26 (1.01%) Visual Studio
8 19 (0.74%) Burp Suite
8 19 (0.74%) Metasploit
9 18 (0.70%) Android Studio
10 17 (0.66%) Browser DevTools
11 16 (0.62%) Xcode
12 15 (0.58%) Artifactory
12 15 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
13 12 (0.47%) Bitbucket
14 11 (0.43%) Bitbucket Server
14 11 (0.43%) CA Release Automation
14 11 (0.43%) InstallShield
15 10 (0.39%) Vagrant
16 8 (0.31%) AdminStudio
General
1 962 (37.33%) Social Skills
2 273 (10.59%) Finance
3 218 (8.46%) Public Sector
4 204 (7.92%) Analytical Skills
5 120 (4.66%) Banking
6 109 (4.23%) Documentation Skills
7 82 (3.18%) Legal
8 72 (2.79%) Organisational Skills
9 51 (1.98%) Military
10 47 (1.82%) Manufacturing
11 43 (1.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 41 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
13 33 (1.28%) Retail
14 27 (1.05%) Telecoms
15 24 (0.93%) Front Office
16 21 (0.81%) Aerospace
16 21 (0.81%) Law
17 18 (0.70%) Investment Banking
18 16 (0.62%) Financial Institution
18 16 (0.62%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 381 (14.78%) Support Engineer
2 327 (12.69%) Analyst
2 327 (12.69%) IT Support
3 179 (6.95%) IT Engineer
4 160 (6.21%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 145 (5.63%) Architect
5 145 (5.63%) Support Analyst
6 142 (5.51%) IT Support Engineer
7 136 (5.28%) Desktop Support
8 135 (5.24%) Senior
9 124 (4.81%) Technical Support
10 122 (4.73%) Windows Engineer
11 121 (4.70%) Desktop Engineer
12 116 (4.50%) 2nd Line Support
13 108 (4.19%) Deployment Engineer
14 96 (3.73%) Developer
15 95 (3.69%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 83 (3.22%) Lead
17 80 (3.10%) IT Analyst
18 72 (2.79%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.87%) .NET
2 54 (2.10%) OAuth
3 53 (2.06%) REST
4 51 (1.98%) LDAP
4 51 (1.98%) SAML
5 43 (1.67%) .NET Framework
6 37 (1.44%) Middleware
7 34 (1.32%) React
8 33 (1.28%) OpenID
9 32 (1.24%) WPF
10 30 (1.16%) AngularJS
11 24 (0.93%) CSS
12 22 (0.85%) Web Services
13 21 (0.81%) Node.js
13 21 (0.81%) RESTful
14 20 (0.78%) OAuth2
14 20 (0.78%) SOAP
15 19 (0.74%) Kafka
16 18 (0.70%) Apache NiFi
16 18 (0.70%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 148 (5.74%) Onboarding
2 89 (3.45%) PKI
3 88 (3.41%) Driving Licence
4 81 (3.14%) Data Centre
5 70 (2.72%) Enterprise Software
6 66 (2.56%) Replication
7 59 (2.29%) Self-Motivation
8 56 (2.17%) Smartphone
9 50 (1.94%) Management Information System
10 38 (1.47%) Hybrid Cloud
11 37 (1.44%) Security Posture
12 32 (1.24%) NHS
13 31 (1.20%) Clustering
14 28 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
14 28 (1.09%) Product Ownership
15 26 (1.01%) Video Conferencing
16 25 (0.97%) Data Protection Act
16 25 (0.97%) Virtual Team
17 24 (0.93%) CMDB
18 22 (0.85%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 629 (24.41%) Linux
2 595 (23.09%) Windows 10
3 533 (20.68%) Windows Server
4 150 (5.82%) Unix
5 133 (5.16%) Mac OS
6 131 (5.08%) Android
7 107 (4.15%) Apple iOS
8 62 (2.41%) Windows Server 2016
9 54 (2.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 53 (2.06%) Windows 7
11 50 (1.94%) Windows Server 2019
12 37 (1.44%) Windows Server 2012
13 30 (1.16%) Windows Server 2003
14 27 (1.05%) AIX
15 19 (0.74%) VMS
16 17 (0.66%) Ubuntu
17 12 (0.47%) Solaris
17 12 (0.47%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.39%) Amazon Linux
19 8 (0.31%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 468 (18.16%) Problem-Solving
2 444 (17.23%) Customer Service
3 370 (14.36%) ITIL
4 268 (10.40%) Agile
5 235 (9.12%) Migration
6 234 (9.08%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 221 (8.58%) DevOps
8 214 (8.30%) Service Management
9 203 (7.88%) ITSM
10 195 (7.57%) CI/CD
11 184 (7.14%) Continuous Improvement
12 174 (6.75%) Cybersecurity
13 149 (5.78%) Change Management
14 127 (4.93%) Disaster Recovery
15 121 (4.70%) User Experience
16 110 (4.27%) Stakeholder Management
17 109 (4.23%) Service Delivery
18 104 (4.04%) Infrastructure as Code
19 100 (3.88%) High Availability
20 99 (3.84%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 504 (19.56%) PowerShell
2 293 (11.37%) Python
3 228 (8.85%) SQL
4 119 (4.62%) Java
5 108 (4.19%) C#
6 105 (4.07%) Bash
7 75 (2.91%) JavaScript
8 62 (2.41%) Perl
9 51 (1.98%) C++
10 46 (1.79%) PL/SQL
11 35 (1.36%) T-SQL
12 29 (1.13%) Kusto Query Language
12 29 (1.13%) VBScript
13 28 (1.09%) Shell Script
14 26 (1.01%) VB
15 21 (0.81%) Groovy
15 21 (0.81%) VBA
16 12 (0.47%) Bicep
16 12 (0.47%) Go
17 10 (0.39%) PHP
Qualifications
1 823 (31.94%) Security Cleared
2 541 (20.99%) SC Cleared
3 263 (10.21%) Degree
4 238 (9.24%) DV Cleared
5 145 (5.63%) Microsoft Certification
6 77 (2.99%) Computer Science Degree
7 61 (2.37%) Azure Certification
8 44 (1.71%) MCSE
9 43 (1.67%) Cisco Certification
10 37 (1.44%) A+ Certification
11 36 (1.40%) ITIL Certification
12 34 (1.32%) AWS Certification
13 28 (1.09%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 27 (1.05%) CCNA
15 25 (0.97%) CCNP
15 25 (0.97%) CISSP
16 24 (0.93%) BPSS Clearance
17 22 (0.85%) Microsoft Certified Professional
18 21 (0.81%) MCSA
19 19 (0.74%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (3.45%) GDPR
2 88 (3.41%) SLA
3 65 (2.52%) QA
4 62 (2.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 45 (1.75%) NIST
6 32 (1.24%) PCI DSS
7 21 (0.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 12 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
8 12 (0.47%) NCSC
9 11 (0.43%) GLBA
9 11 (0.43%) MiFID
9 11 (0.43%) PMO
10 8 (0.31%) FINRA
11 6 (0.23%) 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%) SEPA
14 3 (0.12%) SOC 2
System Software
1 954 (37.02%) Active Directory
2 247 (9.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 106 (4.11%) Docker
4 96 (3.73%) Hyper-V
5 59 (2.29%) Virtual Desktop
6 58 (2.25%) Virtual Machines
7 54 (2.10%) vSphere
8 42 (1.63%) VMware ESXi
9 33 (1.28%) VMware NSX
10 27 (1.05%) BitLocker
11 20 (0.78%) Microsoft App-V
12 18 (0.70%) Firmware
13 14 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
14 13 (0.50%) DFS Replication
14 13 (0.50%) KVM
15 8 (0.31%) Tivoli Directory Server
16 7 (0.27%) Dovecot
16 7 (0.27%) Postfix
16 7 (0.27%) Squid
16 7 (0.27%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 359 (13.93%) SCCM
2 300 (11.64%) Microsoft Intune
3 155 (6.01%) Terraform
4 128 (4.97%) Ansible
5 96 (3.73%) Kubernetes
6 66 (2.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 66 (2.56%) Single Sign-On
6 66 (2.56%) vCenter Server
7 44 (1.71%) Jamf Pro
8 35 (1.36%) Grafana
9 28 (1.09%) SCOM
10 26 (1.01%) WSUS
11 23 (0.89%) Prometheus
12 19 (0.74%) Nessus
13 18 (0.70%) Nmap
14 17 (0.66%) Progress Chef
14 17 (0.66%) WMI
15 13 (0.50%) Microsoft Clustering
15 13 (0.50%) Proxmox
16 12 (0.47%) Packer
Vendors
1 1,107 (42.96%) Microsoft
2 337 (13.08%) VMware
3 244 (9.47%) ServiceNow
4 189 (7.33%) Oracle
5 156 (6.05%) Citrix
6 152 (5.90%) Cisco
7 101 (3.92%) Splunk
8 64 (2.48%) Dell
9 60 (2.33%) Apple
10 53 (2.06%) HP
11 50 (1.94%) Google
11 50 (1.94%) Red Hat
11 50 (1.94%) SolarWinds
12 48 (1.86%) Veeam
13 44 (1.71%) IBM
14 37 (1.44%) CyberArk
15 36 (1.40%) Remedy
15 36 (1.40%) SAP
16 30 (1.16%) Palo Alto
17 28 (1.09%) Juniper