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

 6 months to
3 Dec 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 13
Rank change year-on-year -3 -6 +2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,534 2,496 3,824
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.20% 8.20% 10.01%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.35% 58.21% 64.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,713 1,578 2,571
10th Percentile £163 £182 £160
25th Percentile £204 £243 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £388 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year -3.13% - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £564 £575
90th Percentile £638 £648 £675
UK median daily rate £390 £423 £413
% change year-on-year -7.80% +2.55% -2.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 266 97 231
10th Percentile £15.11 £15.22 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.75 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.20 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +7.56% +4.65%
75th Percentile £43.75 £65.00 £55.46
90th Percentile £67.00 £74.00 £68.63
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.14
% change year-on-year -9.02% +9.23% +7.99%

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 4,199 4,288 5,890
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 13.59% 14.08% 15.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,755 2,634 4,056
10th Percentile £181 £200 £182
25th Percentile £263 £324 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -5.88%
75th Percentile £569 £588 £613
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 338 165 313
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.54 £15.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.05 £18.93
Median hourly rate £25.00 £60.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -58.33% +84.62% +30.00%
75th Percentile £59.94 £68.18 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.84 £70.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £25.11 £50.00 £32.00
% change year-on-year -49.78% +56.25% +28.00%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -10 780 £438 +2.94% 273
South East +2 519 £350 -15.66% 484
North of England -4 408 £248 -37.94% 298
South West +4 326 £425 +0.24% 138
Midlands -2 303 £400 +14.29% 187
North West -3 231 £306 -27.94% 158
West Midlands -4 213 £438 +34.62% 118
East of England +1 205 £225 -33.33% 160
Yorkshire -14 149 £230 -34.33% 118
East Midlands 0 90 £210 -44.00% 67
North East +1 31 £189 -41.02% 33
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
1 229 (9.04%) Microsoft Exchange
2 173 (6.83%) SharePoint
3 77 (3.04%) Confluence
4 49 (1.93%) Apache
5 40 (1.58%) IIS
6 22 (0.87%) Skype for Business
6 22 (0.87%) WebLogic
6 22 (0.87%) WebSphere
7 19 (0.75%) JBoss
8 15 (0.59%) SharePoint Server
9 13 (0.51%) Exchange Server 2010
10 12 (0.47%) nginx
11 11 (0.43%) Exchange Server 2013
11 11 (0.43%) WebSphere Application Server
12 10 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2003
12 10 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2007
12 10 (0.39%) iPlanet
12 10 (0.39%) Office Communications Server
13 6 (0.24%) SAS
13 6 (0.24%) TPMS
Applications
1 243 (9.59%) Microsoft Office
2 84 (3.31%) Microsoft Excel
3 22 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.39%) 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 (0.039%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
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 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 (0.039%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.039%) Eze OMS
6 1 (0.039%) OpenText MBPM
6 1 (0.039%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.039%) RMDS
6 1 (0.039%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.039%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 676 (26.68%) Microsoft 365
2 557 (21.98%) Azure
3 222 (8.76%) Entra ID
4 217 (8.56%) AWS
5 80 (3.16%) OneDrive
6 73 (2.88%) SaaS
7 59 (2.33%) GCP
8 53 (2.09%) IaaS
9 47 (1.85%) Azure DevOps
10 43 (1.70%) Google Workspace
11 40 (1.58%) GitHub
12 37 (1.46%) PaaS
13 36 (1.42%) Power Platform
14 34 (1.34%) Amazon S3
15 32 (1.26%) Amazon EC2
15 32 (1.26%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 30 (1.18%) Azure Monitor
17 28 (1.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 27 (1.07%) Azure Sentinel
19 25 (0.99%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 317 (12.51%) DNS
2 286 (11.29%) Firewall
3 200 (7.89%) DHCP
4 187 (7.38%) TCP/IP
5 149 (5.88%) VPN
6 87 (3.43%) Wi-Fi
7 85 (3.35%) LAN
7 85 (3.35%) WAN
8 77 (3.04%) Network Security
9 65 (2.57%) VLAN
10 63 (2.49%) Wireless
11 60 (2.37%) SAN
12 56 (2.21%) SSH
13 45 (1.78%) Cisco IOS
14 42 (1.66%) HTTP
15 31 (1.22%) FTP
15 31 (1.22%) SMTP
16 27 (1.07%) Internet
16 27 (1.07%) SSL
17 24 (0.95%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (4.50%) SQL Server
2 72 (2.84%) Oracle Database
3 61 (2.41%) Relational Database
4 45 (1.78%) MySQL
5 30 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
6 24 (0.95%) PostgreSQL
7 15 (0.59%) Power BI
8 14 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
10 10 (0.39%) BigQuery
10 10 (0.39%) NoSQL
11 8 (0.32%) GIS
11 8 (0.32%) SAP HANA
12 7 (0.28%) DB2
12 7 (0.28%) RDBMS
13 6 (0.24%) MongoDB
14 5 (0.20%) Elasticsearch
15 4 (0.16%) Big Data
15 4 (0.16%) Data Lake
15 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 136 (5.37%) JIRA
2 96 (3.79%) Git
3 88 (3.47%) Jenkins
4 42 (1.66%) Eclipse
4 42 (1.66%) GitLab
5 30 (1.18%) MSI
6 28 (1.10%) Visual Studio
7 24 (0.95%) Vagrant
8 21 (0.83%) Android Studio
9 20 (0.79%) Browser DevTools
10 19 (0.75%) Xcode
11 18 (0.71%) Bitbucket
11 18 (0.71%) Sonatype Nexus
12 14 (0.55%) Artifactory
12 14 (0.55%) Bitbucket Server
12 14 (0.55%) CA Release Automation
13 11 (0.43%) InstallShield
13 11 (0.43%) SonarQube
14 10 (0.39%) AdminStudio
14 10 (0.39%) Burp Suite
General
1 952 (37.57%) Social Skills
2 321 (12.67%) Finance
3 243 (9.59%) Public Sector
4 213 (8.41%) Analytical Skills
5 126 (4.97%) Banking
6 109 (4.30%) Documentation Skills
7 70 (2.76%) Legal
8 56 (2.21%) Manufacturing
8 56 (2.21%) Organisational Skills
9 52 (2.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 52 (2.05%) Military
10 47 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
11 43 (1.70%) Telecoms
12 40 (1.58%) Retail
13 29 (1.14%) Marketing
14 28 (1.10%) Games
15 26 (1.03%) Aerospace
16 24 (0.95%) Front Office
17 20 (0.79%) Electronics
17 20 (0.79%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 417 (16.46%) Support Engineer
2 313 (12.35%) Analyst
3 298 (11.76%) IT Support
4 186 (7.34%) IT Engineer
5 149 (5.88%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 139 (5.49%) Windows Engineer
7 137 (5.41%) Desktop Engineer
8 134 (5.29%) Support Analyst
9 132 (5.21%) Desktop Support
9 132 (5.21%) IT Support Engineer
10 125 (4.93%) Senior
11 123 (4.85%) Deployment Engineer
12 121 (4.78%) Architect
13 116 (4.58%) 2nd Line Support
14 106 (4.18%) Technical Support
15 103 (4.06%) Platform Engineer
16 101 (3.99%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 98 (3.87%) Developer
18 83 (3.28%) Administrator
19 76 (3.00%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (2.76%) .NET
2 42 (1.66%) LDAP
2 42 (1.66%) Middleware
3 41 (1.62%) REST
4 40 (1.58%) .NET Framework
5 37 (1.46%) Web Services
6 36 (1.42%) Node.js
6 36 (1.42%) OAuth
7 35 (1.38%) AngularJS
7 35 (1.38%) WPF
8 34 (1.34%) SAML
9 32 (1.26%) React
10 28 (1.10%) OpenID
10 28 (1.10%) 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 17 (0.67%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 101 (3.99%) Onboarding
2 91 (3.59%) Data Centre
3 85 (3.35%) PKI
4 70 (2.76%) Driving Licence
5 67 (2.64%) Replication
6 61 (2.41%) Self-Motivation
7 56 (2.21%) Enterprise Software
7 56 (2.21%) Management Information System
8 35 (1.38%) iPhone
9 34 (1.34%) Security Posture
9 34 (1.34%) Video Conferencing
10 33 (1.30%) NHS
11 32 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
11 32 (1.26%) Smartphone
12 29 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
12 29 (1.14%) iPad
13 27 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
14 23 (0.91%) Mobile App
14 23 (0.91%) Private Cloud
15 21 (0.83%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 629 (24.82%) Linux
2 555 (21.90%) Windows 10
3 492 (19.42%) Windows Server
4 166 (6.55%) Unix
5 149 (5.88%) Android
6 146 (5.76%) Mac OS
7 97 (3.83%) Apple iOS
8 71 (2.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 61 (2.41%) Windows 7
10 55 (2.17%) Windows Server 2016
11 49 (1.93%) Windows Server 2019
12 38 (1.50%) Windows Server 2012
13 35 (1.38%) VMS
14 34 (1.34%) Ubuntu
14 34 (1.34%) Windows Server 2003
15 28 (1.10%) AIX
16 21 (0.83%) Amazon Linux
17 18 (0.71%) CentOS
18 14 (0.55%) Solaris
19 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 444 (17.52%) Problem-Solving
2 381 (15.04%) ITIL
3 352 (13.89%) Customer Service
4 249 (9.83%) Agile
5 247 (9.75%) Migration
6 214 (8.45%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 209 (8.25%) DevOps
8 202 (7.97%) Service Management
9 197 (7.77%) ITSM
10 181 (7.14%) CI/CD
11 176 (6.95%) Cybersecurity
12 158 (6.24%) Continuous Improvement
13 146 (5.76%) Change Management
14 127 (5.01%) User Experience
15 105 (4.14%) Stakeholder Management
16 104 (4.10%) Incident Response
17 102 (4.03%) Cloud Security
18 94 (3.71%) Platform Engineering
19 93 (3.67%) Incident Management
19 93 (3.67%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 478 (18.86%) PowerShell
2 318 (12.55%) Python
3 247 (9.75%) SQL
4 127 (5.01%) C#
5 119 (4.70%) Java
6 109 (4.30%) Bash
7 87 (3.43%) JavaScript
8 77 (3.04%) Perl
9 73 (2.88%) C++
10 41 (1.62%) PL/SQL
11 34 (1.34%) VB
12 32 (1.26%) Groovy
12 32 (1.26%) Shell Script
13 30 (1.18%) Kusto Query Language
14 27 (1.07%) VBA
14 27 (1.07%) VBScript
15 24 (0.95%) T-SQL
16 22 (0.87%) PHP
17 17 (0.67%) C
18 12 (0.47%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 766 (30.23%) Security Cleared
2 526 (20.76%) SC Cleared
3 228 (9.00%) Degree
4 199 (7.85%) DV Cleared
5 175 (6.91%) Microsoft Certification
6 66 (2.60%) Computer Science Degree
7 60 (2.37%) Azure Certification
8 48 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
9 47 (1.85%) A+ Certification
10 46 (1.82%) MCSE
11 36 (1.42%) AWS Certification
12 31 (1.22%) ITIL Certification
13 30 (1.18%) CCNP
13 30 (1.18%) CISSP
13 30 (1.18%) DBS Check
14 29 (1.14%) CCNA
15 26 (1.03%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 23 (0.91%) BPSS Clearance
17 22 (0.87%) MCP
18 19 (0.75%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 85 (3.35%) SLA
2 68 (2.68%) QA
3 67 (2.64%) GDPR
4 58 (2.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 51 (2.01%) NIST
6 22 (0.87%) PCI DSS
7 14 (0.55%) HIPAA
8 12 (0.47%) NCSC
9 11 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
10 10 (0.39%) PMO
11 9 (0.36%) Accessibility
12 6 (0.24%) GLBA
13 4 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
14 3 (0.12%) ECSS
14 3 (0.12%) SEPA
15 2 (0.079%) COBIT
15 2 (0.079%) Data Quality
15 2 (0.079%) HL7
15 2 (0.079%) MiFID
System Software
1 923 (36.42%) Active Directory
2 227 (8.96%) VMware Infrastructure
3 113 (4.46%) Docker
4 74 (2.92%) Hyper-V
5 60 (2.37%) Virtual Desktop
6 50 (1.97%) Virtual Machines
7 44 (1.74%) VMware ESXi
8 43 (1.70%) vSphere
9 31 (1.22%) VMware NSX
10 24 (0.95%) DFS Replication
11 20 (0.79%) Microsoft App-V
12 19 (0.75%) BitLocker
13 18 (0.71%) NFS
14 16 (0.63%) Firmware
15 14 (0.55%) Terminal Services
15 14 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
16 10 (0.39%) Brightmail
16 10 (0.39%) Dovecot
16 10 (0.39%) ISA Server
16 10 (0.39%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 377 (14.88%) SCCM
2 275 (10.85%) Microsoft Intune
3 148 (5.84%) Terraform
4 117 (4.62%) Ansible
5 71 (2.80%) Kubernetes
6 56 (2.21%) vCenter Server
7 44 (1.74%) Jamf Pro
8 43 (1.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 41 (1.62%) Grafana
9 41 (1.62%) Single Sign-On
10 31 (1.22%) WSUS
11 29 (1.14%) SCOM
12 27 (1.07%) Prometheus
13 26 (1.03%) 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 1,109 (43.76%) Microsoft
2 326 (12.87%) VMware
3 243 (9.59%) ServiceNow
4 204 (8.05%) Oracle
5 167 (6.59%) Cisco
6 155 (6.12%) Citrix
7 133 (5.25%) Splunk
8 70 (2.76%) Apple
9 68 (2.68%) Red Hat
10 60 (2.37%) IBM
11 59 (2.33%) HP
12 53 (2.09%) Dell
13 49 (1.93%) Veeam
14 44 (1.74%) Google
15 42 (1.66%) SAP
15 42 (1.66%) SolarWinds
16 41 (1.62%) AppDynamics
17 39 (1.54%) CyberArk
18 37 (1.46%) Remedy
19 35 (1.38%) NetApp
1,361 Windows jobs in England