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

6 months to
1 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 23 15
Rank change year-on-year +1 -8 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,556 2,221 3,541
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.77% 8.38% 9.29%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.16% 58.76% 63.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,777 1,467 2,395
10th Percentile £161 £182 £158
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £375 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £573 £575
90th Percentile £638 £661 £675
UK median daily rate £390 £410 £400
% change year-on-year -4.82% +2.44% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 237 71 250
10th Percentile £12.97 £15.00 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.65 £16.88 £15.59
Median hourly rate £21.80 £22.09 £20.85
Median % change year-on-year -1.31% +5.93% -5.22%
75th Percentile £42.75 £51.50 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £73.75 £62.54
UK median hourly rate £21.80 £23.00 £20.85
% change year-on-year -5.22% +10.30% -1.87%

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 4,179 3,780 5,558
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.70% 14.27% 14.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,803 2,378 3,796
10th Percentile £175 £200 £178
25th Percentile £263 £313 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £475 £466
Median % change year-on-year -6.32% +1.93% -9.07%
75th Percentile £565 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £438 £475 £470
% change year-on-year -7.89% +1.06% -8.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 305 122 359
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.28 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.07 £17.48
Median hourly rate £22.58 £49.50 £25.25
Median % change year-on-year -54.39% +96.04% -1.87%
75th Percentile £55.85 £67.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £68.00 £71.23 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £32.50 £25.25
% change year-on-year -26.15% +28.71% -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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -14 750 £450 +5.88% 243
South East 0 503 £400 -5.94% 357
North of England -4 459 £263 -25.00% 225
South West +2 317 £425 +6.25% 128
Midlands -6 305 £275 -15.38% 140
North West -4 257 £263 -25.00% 108
East of England +8 213 £251 -14.10% 129
West Midlands -11 186 £388 +19.23% 83
Yorkshire -14 171 £313 -10.70% 98
East Midlands +4 118 £225 -36.26% 57
North East -7 34 £188 -43.61% 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 (8.37%) Microsoft Exchange
2 171 (6.69%) SharePoint
3 65 (2.54%) Confluence
4 44 (1.72%) IIS
5 38 (1.49%) Apache
6 21 (0.82%) WebLogic
7 18 (0.70%) Skype for Business
8 15 (0.59%) WebSphere
9 12 (0.47%) JBoss
10 11 (0.43%) TPMS
11 10 (0.39%) iPlanet
11 10 (0.39%) nginx
11 10 (0.39%) WebSphere Application Server
12 8 (0.31%) Tuxedo
13 7 (0.27%) SharePoint Server
14 5 (0.20%) 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
1 230 (9.00%) Microsoft Office
2 73 (2.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.43%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.27%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.20%) 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 (0.98%) Remedy ITSM
2 9 (0.35%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.27%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.20%) 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
1 720 (28.17%) Microsoft 365
2 624 (24.41%) Azure
3 254 (9.94%) Entra ID
4 213 (8.33%) AWS
5 87 (3.40%) OneDrive
6 67 (2.62%) SaaS
7 64 (2.50%) GCP
8 51 (2.00%) Google Workspace
9 48 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
10 42 (1.64%) IaaS
11 39 (1.53%) GitHub
12 34 (1.33%) Power Platform
13 29 (1.13%) PaaS
14 28 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
15 24 (0.94%) OpenShift
16 21 (0.82%) Azure Sentinel
17 18 (0.70%) AWS CloudFormation
17 18 (0.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 17 (0.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 17 (0.67%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 329 (12.87%) DNS
2 253 (9.90%) Firewall
3 218 (8.53%) DHCP
4 169 (6.61%) TCP/IP
5 161 (6.30%) VPN
6 108 (4.23%) WAN
7 106 (4.15%) Wi-Fi
8 101 (3.95%) LAN
9 79 (3.09%) Network Security
10 65 (2.54%) VLAN
11 63 (2.46%) Wireless
12 43 (1.68%) SSH
13 34 (1.33%) Skype
14 32 (1.25%) Kerberos
14 32 (1.25%) SAN
15 30 (1.17%) HTTP
16 29 (1.13%) FTP
17 25 (0.98%) Internet
17 25 (0.98%) SMTP
17 25 (0.98%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (4.38%) SQL Server
2 55 (2.15%) Oracle Database
2 55 (2.15%) Relational Database
3 44 (1.72%) MySQL
4 27 (1.06%) PostgreSQL
5 14 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
6 13 (0.51%) BigQuery
7 12 (0.47%) Power BI
8 10 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
9 9 (0.35%) Amazon Aurora
9 9 (0.35%) NoSQL
10 8 (0.31%) GIS
10 8 (0.31%) MongoDB
11 6 (0.23%) DB2
11 6 (0.23%) Elasticsearch
11 6 (0.23%) SAP HANA
12 5 (0.20%) 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
1 142 (5.56%) JIRA
2 71 (2.78%) Jenkins
3 63 (2.46%) Git
4 48 (1.88%) GitLab
5 35 (1.37%) MSI
6 27 (1.06%) Eclipse
7 26 (1.02%) Visual Studio
8 19 (0.74%) Burp Suite
8 19 (0.74%) Metasploit
9 18 (0.70%) Android Studio
10 17 (0.67%) Browser DevTools
11 16 (0.63%) Xcode
12 15 (0.59%) Artifactory
13 14 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
14 11 (0.43%) 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
1 951 (37.21%) Social Skills
2 270 (10.56%) Finance
3 218 (8.53%) Public Sector
4 203 (7.94%) Analytical Skills
5 120 (4.69%) Banking
6 107 (4.19%) Documentation Skills
7 83 (3.25%) Legal
8 73 (2.86%) Organisational Skills
9 50 (1.96%) Military
10 47 (1.84%) Manufacturing
11 42 (1.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 41 (1.60%) Presentation Skills
13 33 (1.29%) Retail
14 27 (1.06%) Telecoms
15 24 (0.94%) Front Office
16 21 (0.82%) Aerospace
16 21 (0.82%) Law
17 18 (0.70%) Investment Banking
18 16 (0.63%) Financial Institution
18 16 (0.63%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 376 (14.71%) Support Engineer
2 326 (12.75%) IT Support
3 325 (12.72%) Analyst
4 177 (6.92%) IT Engineer
5 160 (6.26%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 144 (5.63%) Architect
7 143 (5.59%) Support Analyst
8 141 (5.52%) IT Support Engineer
9 137 (5.36%) Desktop Support
10 132 (5.16%) Senior
11 123 (4.81%) Technical Support
12 121 (4.73%) Desktop Engineer
13 119 (4.66%) Windows Engineer
14 116 (4.54%) 2nd Line Support
15 103 (4.03%) Deployment Engineer
16 96 (3.76%) Developer
17 95 (3.72%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 83 (3.25%) Lead
19 79 (3.09%) IT Analyst
20 72 (2.82%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.90%) .NET
2 54 (2.11%) OAuth
3 52 (2.03%) REST
4 51 (2.00%) SAML
5 50 (1.96%) LDAP
6 43 (1.68%) .NET Framework
7 35 (1.37%) Middleware
8 33 (1.29%) OpenID
8 33 (1.29%) React
9 32 (1.25%) WPF
10 29 (1.13%) AngularJS
11 24 (0.94%) CSS
12 22 (0.86%) Web Services
13 21 (0.82%) Node.js
13 21 (0.82%) RESTful
14 20 (0.78%) OAuth2
14 20 (0.78%) SOAP
15 18 (0.70%) Apache NiFi
15 18 (0.70%) Kafka
15 18 (0.70%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 149 (5.83%) Onboarding
2 89 (3.48%) PKI
3 88 (3.44%) Driving Licence
4 80 (3.13%) Data Centre
5 71 (2.78%) Enterprise Software
6 62 (2.43%) Replication
7 60 (2.35%) Self-Motivation
8 56 (2.19%) Smartphone
9 50 (1.96%) Management Information System
10 38 (1.49%) Hybrid Cloud
11 37 (1.45%) Security Posture
12 31 (1.21%) NHS
13 29 (1.13%) Clustering
14 28 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
14 28 (1.10%) Product Ownership
15 26 (1.02%) Video Conferencing
16 25 (0.98%) Data Protection Act
17 24 (0.94%) CMDB
17 24 (0.94%) Virtual Team
18 22 (0.86%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 622 (24.33%) Linux
2 586 (22.93%) Windows 10
3 530 (20.74%) Windows Server
4 147 (5.75%) Unix
5 134 (5.24%) Mac OS
6 130 (5.09%) Android
7 106 (4.15%) Apple iOS
8 61 (2.39%) Windows Server 2016
9 53 (2.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 50 (1.96%) Windows 7
10 50 (1.96%) Windows Server 2019
11 37 (1.45%) Windows Server 2012
12 28 (1.10%) Windows Server 2003
13 26 (1.02%) AIX
14 19 (0.74%) VMS
15 17 (0.67%) Ubuntu
16 12 (0.47%) Windows Server 2008
17 11 (0.43%) Solaris
18 10 (0.39%) Amazon Linux
19 9 (0.35%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 465 (18.19%) Problem-Solving
2 446 (17.45%) Customer Service
3 369 (14.44%) ITIL
4 266 (10.41%) Agile
5 234 (9.15%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 234 (9.15%) Migration
6 219 (8.57%) DevOps
7 214 (8.37%) Service Management
8 203 (7.94%) ITSM
9 193 (7.55%) CI/CD
10 182 (7.12%) Continuous Improvement
11 173 (6.77%) Cybersecurity
12 149 (5.83%) Change Management
13 127 (4.97%) Disaster Recovery
14 121 (4.73%) User Experience
15 109 (4.26%) Service Delivery
15 109 (4.26%) Stakeholder Management
16 104 (4.07%) Infrastructure as Code
17 100 (3.91%) Computer Science
18 97 (3.79%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 502 (19.64%) PowerShell
2 290 (11.35%) Python
3 225 (8.80%) SQL
4 117 (4.58%) Java
5 108 (4.23%) C#
6 105 (4.11%) Bash
7 75 (2.93%) JavaScript
8 62 (2.43%) Perl
9 51 (2.00%) C++
10 46 (1.80%) PL/SQL
11 35 (1.37%) T-SQL
12 29 (1.13%) Kusto Query Language
13 28 (1.10%) Shell Script
13 28 (1.10%) VBScript
14 26 (1.02%) VB
15 21 (0.82%) Groovy
15 21 (0.82%) VBA
16 12 (0.47%) Bicep
16 12 (0.47%) Go
17 10 (0.39%) PHP
Qualifications
1 815 (31.89%) Security Cleared
2 536 (20.97%) SC Cleared
3 263 (10.29%) Degree
4 235 (9.19%) DV Cleared
5 144 (5.63%) Microsoft Certification
6 78 (3.05%) Computer Science Degree
7 60 (2.35%) Azure Certification
8 43 (1.68%) Cisco Certification
8 43 (1.68%) MCSE
9 37 (1.45%) A+ Certification
10 36 (1.41%) ITIL Certification
11 34 (1.33%) AWS Certification
12 27 (1.06%) CCNA
12 27 (1.06%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 25 (0.98%) CCNP
13 25 (0.98%) CISSP
14 24 (0.94%) BPSS Clearance
15 21 (0.82%) MCSA
15 21 (0.82%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 18 (0.70%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (3.48%) GDPR
2 86 (3.36%) SLA
3 65 (2.54%) QA
4 62 (2.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 45 (1.76%) NIST
6 32 (1.25%) PCI DSS
7 21 (0.82%) 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 (0.20%) Accessibility
12 5 (0.20%) COBIT
13 4 (0.16%) GxP
13 4 (0.16%) HIPAA
14 3 (0.12%) SEPA
14 3 (0.12%) SOC 2
System Software
1 944 (36.93%) Active Directory
2 244 (9.55%) VMware Infrastructure
3 106 (4.15%) Docker
4 95 (3.72%) Hyper-V
5 59 (2.31%) Virtual Desktop
6 58 (2.27%) Virtual Machines
7 54 (2.11%) vSphere
8 42 (1.64%) VMware ESXi
9 33 (1.29%) VMware NSX
10 25 (0.98%) BitLocker
11 20 (0.78%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.63%) Firmware
13 13 (0.51%) DFS Replication
13 13 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
14 12 (0.47%) 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
1 355 (13.89%) SCCM
2 298 (11.66%) Microsoft Intune
3 154 (6.03%) Terraform
4 125 (4.89%) Ansible
5 95 (3.72%) Kubernetes
6 66 (2.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 66 (2.58%) Single Sign-On
6 66 (2.58%) vCenter Server
7 43 (1.68%) Jamf Pro
8 35 (1.37%) Grafana
9 28 (1.10%) SCOM
10 26 (1.02%) WSUS
11 23 (0.90%) Prometheus
12 19 (0.74%) Nessus
13 18 (0.70%) Nmap
14 17 (0.67%) Progress Chef
14 17 (0.67%) WMI
15 13 (0.51%) Proxmox
16 12 (0.47%) Packer
17 11 (0.43%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 1,099 (43.00%) Microsoft
2 333 (13.03%) VMware
3 244 (9.55%) ServiceNow
4 185 (7.24%) Oracle
5 154 (6.03%) Citrix
6 148 (5.79%) Cisco
7 101 (3.95%) Splunk
8 61 (2.39%) Dell
9 58 (2.27%) Apple
10 53 (2.07%) HP
11 50 (1.96%) Google
11 50 (1.96%) Red Hat
12 49 (1.92%) SolarWinds
13 47 (1.84%) Veeam
14 43 (1.68%) IBM
15 37 (1.45%) CyberArk
16 36 (1.41%) Remedy
16 36 (1.41%) SAP
17 30 (1.17%) Palo Alto
18 28 (1.10%) Juniper