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 6 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 13
Rank change year-on-year -3 -6 +2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,528 2,526 3,825
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.13% 8.26% 9.98%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.08% 58.30% 64.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,712 1,599 2,570
10th Percentile £163 £182 £160
25th Percentile £204 £243 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £375 £405 £400
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% +1.25% -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £573 £575
90th Percentile £638 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £389 £425 £410
% change year-on-year -8.53% +3.66% -3.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 263 96 233
10th Percentile £15.04 £15.22 £14.19
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.94 £17.72
Median hourly rate £21.46 £24.35 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.87% +8.22% +3.45%
75th Percentile £43.25 £65.00 £54.56
90th Percentile £66.60 £74.00 £67.15
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.00
% change year-on-year -9.02% +9.91% +7.32%

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 4,208 4,333 5,904
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 13.53% 14.17% 15.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,763 2,674 4,065
10th Percentile £180 £200 £181
25th Percentile £263 £325 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -6.34%
75th Percentile £567 £588 £613
90th Percentile £675 £699 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £478
% change year-on-year -5.26% -0.52% -6.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 335 165 317
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.54 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.25 £18.50
Median hourly rate £24.00 £60.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -60.00% +84.62% +30.00%
75th Percentile £58.88 £68.18 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.84 £70.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £25.00 £50.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year -50.00% +66.67% +20.00%

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 6 December 2025.

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 6 December 2025.

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 6 December 2025. 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 -13 777 £425 - 265
South East +2 519 £350 -16.17% 545
North of England -4 407 £238 -40.44% 355
South West +5 328 £425 - 192
Midlands -4 304 £383 +9.29% 241
North West -3 233 £305 -23.75% 186
West Midlands -5 213 £430 +32.15% 146
East of England +1 201 £225 -30.77% 203
Yorkshire -14 147 £230 -34.33% 142
East Midlands +1 91 £205 -45.33% 90
North East +5 30 £188 -41.41% 35
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
1 221 (8.74%) Microsoft Exchange
2 174 (6.88%) SharePoint
3 76 (3.01%) Confluence
4 49 (1.94%) Apache
5 42 (1.66%) IIS
6 24 (0.95%) WebLogic
7 22 (0.87%) Skype for Business
7 22 (0.87%) WebSphere
8 19 (0.75%) JBoss
9 15 (0.59%) SharePoint Server
10 13 (0.51%) Exchange Server 2010
11 12 (0.47%) nginx
12 11 (0.44%) Exchange Server 2013
12 11 (0.44%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2003
13 10 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2007
13 10 (0.40%) iPlanet
13 10 (0.40%) Office Communications Server
14 7 (0.28%) Tuxedo
15 6 (0.24%) Tomcat
Applications
1 241 (9.53%) Microsoft Office
2 84 (3.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 23 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.40%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 9 (0.36%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.079%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.079%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.079%) Windchill
9 1 (0.040%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe After Effects
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 18 (0.71%) Remedy ITSM
2 5 (0.20%) assyst
2 5 (0.20%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.16%) Maximo
3 4 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
4 3 (0.12%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.079%) Eikon
5 2 (0.079%) Fidessa
5 2 (0.079%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.079%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.079%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.079%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.040%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.040%) Eze OMS
6 1 (0.040%) OpenText MBPM
6 1 (0.040%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.040%) RMDS
6 1 (0.040%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.040%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 669 (26.46%) Microsoft 365
2 554 (21.91%) Azure
3 218 (8.62%) Entra ID
4 217 (8.58%) AWS
5 79 (3.13%) OneDrive
6 72 (2.85%) SaaS
7 59 (2.33%) GCP
8 53 (2.10%) IaaS
9 48 (1.90%) Azure DevOps
10 42 (1.66%) Google Workspace
11 39 (1.54%) GitHub
12 37 (1.46%) PaaS
12 37 (1.46%) Power Platform
13 34 (1.34%) Amazon S3
14 31 (1.23%) Amazon EC2
14 31 (1.23%) Azure Monitor
14 31 (1.23%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 28 (1.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 25 (0.99%) Azure Sentinel
17 24 (0.95%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 317 (12.54%) DNS
2 285 (11.27%) Firewall
3 200 (7.91%) DHCP
4 185 (7.32%) TCP/IP
5 150 (5.93%) VPN
6 87 (3.44%) Wi-Fi
7 84 (3.32%) LAN
8 83 (3.28%) WAN
9 77 (3.05%) Network Security
10 64 (2.53%) VLAN
10 64 (2.53%) Wireless
11 61 (2.41%) SAN
12 55 (2.18%) SSH
13 42 (1.66%) Cisco IOS
14 41 (1.62%) HTTP
15 30 (1.19%) FTP
15 30 (1.19%) SMTP
16 28 (1.11%) Internet
16 28 (1.11%) SSL
17 25 (0.99%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 116 (4.59%) SQL Server
2 73 (2.89%) Oracle Database
3 62 (2.45%) Relational Database
4 46 (1.82%) MySQL
5 29 (1.15%) Amazon RDS
6 25 (0.99%) PostgreSQL
7 15 (0.59%) Power BI
8 14 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
9 12 (0.47%) Amazon Aurora
10 10 (0.40%) BigQuery
10 10 (0.40%) NoSQL
11 8 (0.32%) DB2
11 8 (0.32%) GIS
11 8 (0.32%) SAP HANA
12 7 (0.28%) RDBMS
13 6 (0.24%) MongoDB
14 5 (0.20%) Elasticsearch
15 4 (0.16%) BusinessObjects
15 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
15 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 136 (5.38%) JIRA
2 94 (3.72%) Git
3 88 (3.48%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.70%) GitLab
5 41 (1.62%) Eclipse
6 31 (1.23%) MSI
7 28 (1.11%) Visual Studio
8 23 (0.91%) Vagrant
9 21 (0.83%) Android Studio
10 20 (0.79%) Browser DevTools
11 19 (0.75%) Xcode
12 18 (0.71%) Bitbucket
12 18 (0.71%) Sonatype Nexus
13 14 (0.55%) Artifactory
13 14 (0.55%) Bitbucket Server
13 14 (0.55%) CA Release Automation
14 11 (0.44%) Burp Suite
14 11 (0.44%) InstallShield
14 11 (0.44%) Metasploit
14 11 (0.44%) SonarQube
General
1 949 (37.54%) Social Skills
2 322 (12.74%) Finance
3 241 (9.53%) Public Sector
4 208 (8.23%) Analytical Skills
5 127 (5.02%) Banking
6 108 (4.27%) Documentation Skills
7 70 (2.77%) Legal
8 56 (2.22%) Organisational Skills
9 55 (2.18%) Manufacturing
10 52 (2.06%) Military
11 50 (1.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 46 (1.82%) Presentation Skills
13 43 (1.70%) Telecoms
14 40 (1.58%) Retail
15 29 (1.15%) Marketing
16 26 (1.03%) Aerospace
17 25 (0.99%) Games
18 24 (0.95%) Front Office
19 21 (0.83%) Financial Institution
19 21 (0.83%) Law
Job Titles
1 418 (16.53%) Support Engineer
2 312 (12.34%) Analyst
3 297 (11.75%) IT Support
4 186 (7.36%) IT Engineer
5 149 (5.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 138 (5.46%) Windows Engineer
7 135 (5.34%) Desktop Engineer
8 134 (5.30%) Support Analyst
9 133 (5.26%) Desktop Support
10 132 (5.22%) IT Support Engineer
11 126 (4.98%) Senior
12 125 (4.94%) Deployment Engineer
13 119 (4.71%) Architect
14 111 (4.39%) 2nd Line Support
15 107 (4.23%) Technical Support
16 102 (4.03%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 100 (3.96%) Developer
17 100 (3.96%) Platform Engineer
18 81 (3.20%) Administrator
19 77 (3.05%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (2.85%) .NET
2 42 (1.66%) .NET Framework
2 42 (1.66%) LDAP
3 41 (1.62%) Middleware
4 40 (1.58%) REST
5 38 (1.50%) OAuth
6 36 (1.42%) SAML
6 36 (1.42%) Web Services
7 35 (1.38%) AngularJS
7 35 (1.38%) Node.js
7 35 (1.38%) WPF
8 32 (1.27%) React
9 30 (1.19%) OpenID
10 27 (1.07%) XML
11 25 (0.99%) CSS
11 25 (0.99%) SOAP
12 21 (0.83%) Ajax
13 20 (0.79%) GraphQL
14 19 (0.75%) RESTful
15 18 (0.71%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 99 (3.92%) Onboarding
2 91 (3.60%) Data Centre
3 87 (3.44%) PKI
4 71 (2.81%) Driving Licence
5 67 (2.65%) Replication
6 61 (2.41%) Self-Motivation
7 58 (2.29%) Enterprise Software
8 57 (2.25%) Management Information System
9 35 (1.38%) Security Posture
9 35 (1.38%) Smartphone
10 34 (1.34%) iPhone
11 33 (1.31%) NHS
12 32 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
12 32 (1.27%) Video Conferencing
13 30 (1.19%) Hybrid Cloud
14 28 (1.11%) iPad
15 26 (1.03%) Analytical Mindset
16 23 (0.91%) Private Cloud
17 22 (0.87%) Mobile App
18 21 (0.83%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 627 (24.80%) Linux
2 550 (21.76%) Windows 10
3 496 (19.62%) Windows Server
4 168 (6.65%) Unix
5 142 (5.62%) Android
6 140 (5.54%) Mac OS
7 95 (3.76%) Apple iOS
8 70 (2.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 60 (2.37%) Windows 7
10 57 (2.25%) Windows Server 2016
11 50 (1.98%) Windows Server 2019
12 38 (1.50%) Windows Server 2012
13 35 (1.38%) Ubuntu
14 34 (1.34%) VMS
14 34 (1.34%) Windows Server 2003
15 28 (1.11%) AIX
16 20 (0.79%) Amazon Linux
17 18 (0.71%) CentOS
18 14 (0.55%) Solaris
19 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 444 (17.56%) Problem-Solving
2 377 (14.91%) ITIL
3 359 (14.20%) Customer Service
4 247 (9.77%) Agile
5 244 (9.65%) Migration
6 215 (8.50%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 210 (8.31%) DevOps
8 199 (7.87%) Service Management
9 193 (7.63%) ITSM
10 183 (7.24%) CI/CD
11 168 (6.65%) Cybersecurity
12 161 (6.37%) Continuous Improvement
13 147 (5.81%) Change Management
14 127 (5.02%) User Experience
15 104 (4.11%) Stakeholder Management
16 102 (4.03%) Incident Response
17 100 (3.96%) Cloud Security
18 95 (3.76%) Infrastructure as Code
19 94 (3.72%) Incident Management
19 94 (3.72%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 471 (18.63%) PowerShell
2 317 (12.54%) Python
3 253 (10.01%) SQL
4 127 (5.02%) C#
5 118 (4.67%) Java
6 106 (4.19%) Bash
7 87 (3.44%) JavaScript
8 77 (3.05%) Perl
9 71 (2.81%) C++
10 43 (1.70%) PL/SQL
11 33 (1.31%) VB
12 32 (1.27%) Shell Script
13 31 (1.23%) Groovy
14 30 (1.19%) Kusto Query Language
15 27 (1.07%) VBA
15 27 (1.07%) VBScript
16 26 (1.03%) T-SQL
17 22 (0.87%) PHP
18 16 (0.63%) C
19 12 (0.47%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 768 (30.38%) Security Cleared
2 525 (20.77%) SC Cleared
3 230 (9.10%) Degree
4 203 (8.03%) DV Cleared
5 173 (6.84%) Microsoft Certification
6 67 (2.65%) Computer Science Degree
7 59 (2.33%) Azure Certification
8 48 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
9 46 (1.82%) A+ Certification
9 46 (1.82%) MCSE
10 36 (1.42%) AWS Certification
11 31 (1.23%) ITIL Certification
12 30 (1.19%) CCNP
12 30 (1.19%) CISSP
12 30 (1.19%) DBS Check
13 29 (1.15%) CCNA
14 26 (1.03%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 23 (0.91%) BPSS Clearance
16 21 (0.83%) MCP
17 19 (0.75%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 85 (3.36%) SLA
2 69 (2.73%) QA
3 66 (2.61%) GDPR
4 57 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 49 (1.94%) NIST
6 23 (0.91%) PCI DSS
7 12 (0.47%) HIPAA
8 11 (0.44%) NCSC
8 11 (0.44%) PMO
9 10 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
10 9 (0.36%) Accessibility
11 6 (0.24%) GLBA
12 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
13 3 (0.12%) ECSS
13 3 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 3 (0.12%) SEPA
14 2 (0.079%) COBIT
14 2 (0.079%) Data Quality
14 2 (0.079%) ISO 9001
14 2 (0.079%) MiFID
System Software
1 921 (36.43%) Active Directory
2 227 (8.98%) VMware Infrastructure
3 113 (4.47%) Docker
4 72 (2.85%) Hyper-V
5 62 (2.45%) Virtual Desktop
6 50 (1.98%) Virtual Machines
7 44 (1.74%) VMware ESXi
7 44 (1.74%) vSphere
8 31 (1.23%) VMware NSX
9 23 (0.91%) DFS Replication
10 20 (0.79%) Microsoft App-V
11 19 (0.75%) BitLocker
12 18 (0.71%) NFS
13 16 (0.63%) Firmware
14 14 (0.55%) Terminal Services
14 14 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
15 10 (0.40%) Brightmail
15 10 (0.40%) Dovecot
15 10 (0.40%) ISA Server
15 10 (0.40%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 375 (14.83%) SCCM
2 271 (10.72%) Microsoft Intune
3 149 (5.89%) Terraform
4 117 (4.63%) Ansible
5 71 (2.81%) Kubernetes
6 56 (2.22%) vCenter Server
7 45 (1.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 44 (1.74%) Jamf Pro
8 44 (1.74%) Single Sign-On
9 41 (1.62%) Grafana
10 29 (1.15%) SCOM
11 28 (1.11%) WSUS
12 26 (1.03%) Prometheus
13 25 (0.99%) Nessus
14 21 (0.83%) Progress Chef
15 18 (0.71%) Microsoft Clustering
15 18 (0.71%) Puppet
16 16 (0.63%) Proxmox
17 14 (0.55%) NetBackup
17 14 (0.55%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,098 (43.43%) Microsoft
2 326 (12.90%) VMware
3 238 (9.41%) ServiceNow
4 207 (8.19%) Oracle
5 164 (6.49%) Cisco
6 159 (6.29%) Citrix
7 128 (5.06%) Splunk
8 69 (2.73%) Apple
9 68 (2.69%) Red Hat
10 61 (2.41%) IBM
11 60 (2.37%) HP
12 52 (2.06%) Dell
13 50 (1.98%) Veeam
14 43 (1.70%) Google
14 43 (1.70%) SolarWinds
15 42 (1.66%) SAP
16 41 (1.62%) AppDynamics
17 39 (1.54%) CyberArk
18 37 (1.46%) Remedy
19 36 (1.42%) NetApp