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

6 months to
2 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 21 17
Rank change year-on-year -7 -4 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,700 2,278 2,892
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.93% 8.20% 8.63%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.63% 60.59% 60.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,725 1,540 1,978
10th Percentile £170 £175 £175
25th Percentile £225 £225 £256
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £413 £449
Median % change year-on-year +3.03% -8.13% +2.05%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £673 £657
UK median daily rate £425 £415 £440
% change year-on-year +2.37% -5.65% -1.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 238 185 206
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.21 £11.07
25th Percentile £18.13 £17.33 £15.18
Median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.46% -10.14% -14.70%
75th Percentile £55.38 £28.00 £57.19
90th Percentile £74.00 £65.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £24.75 £19.27 £21.09
% change year-on-year +28.44% -8.63% -12.13%

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 4,381 3,760 4,743
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.62% 13.54% 14.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,813 2,503 3,175
10th Percentile £190 £200 £200
25th Percentile £313 £313 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £460 £485
Median % change year-on-year +1.96% -5.15% -3.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £663 £677 £688
UK median daily rate £472 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +2.00% -2.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 300 231 303
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.25 £18.13 £17.00
Median hourly rate £32.50 £23.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.30% -34.29% -17.65%
75th Percentile £65.00 £58.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £74.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £25.77 £24.00 £28.75
% change year-on-year +7.38% -16.52% -32.35%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 -14 898 £425 - 349
South East -8 579 £475 -3.06% 315
North of England -10 466 £335 -1.47% 212
South West -9 279 £488 +8.33% 128
Midlands -24 261 £400 +23.08% 137
North West -6 252 £340 -5.17% 116
East of England -3 201 £338 +42.11% 122
Yorkshire -14 192 £365 +12.31% 63
West Midlands -29 169 £450 +12.50% 81
East Midlands +7 88 £270 +35.00% 56
North East -39 26 £270 -1.82% 39
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
1 226 (8.37%) Microsoft Exchange
2 214 (7.93%) SharePoint
3 57 (2.11%) Confluence
4 56 (2.07%) IIS
5 17 (0.63%) nginx
6 15 (0.56%) Apache
7 14 (0.52%) Tomcat
8 11 (0.41%) Skype for Business
9 9 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 9 (0.33%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.22%) Appian
10 6 (0.22%) Documentum
11 5 (0.19%) Camunda
12 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
13 3 (0.11%) Apache Solr
13 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
13 3 (0.11%) NetWeaver
13 3 (0.11%) Tuxedo
14 2 (0.074%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 164 (6.07%) Microsoft Office
2 65 (2.41%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.15%) Acrobat
5 4 (0.15%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.11%) Houdini
6 3 (0.11%) NUKE
7 2 (0.074%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.037%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.037%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.037%) InDesign
8 1 (0.037%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 56 (2.07%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.37%) Finacle
3 8 (0.30%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.26%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.26%) Oracle BPM
5 6 (0.22%) Teamcenter
6 3 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.074%) assyst
8 1 (0.037%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.037%) Oracle BRM
8 1 (0.037%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.037%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.037%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.037%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.037%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.037%) SAP FS
8 1 (0.037%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 846 (31.33%) Azure
2 836 (30.96%) Microsoft 365
3 410 (15.19%) Entra ID
4 301 (11.15%) AWS
5 120 (4.44%) OneDrive
6 92 (3.41%) Azure DevOps
6 92 (3.41%) GCP
7 73 (2.70%) SaaS
8 62 (2.30%) Azure Monitor
8 62 (2.30%) GitHub
8 62 (2.30%) IaaS
9 59 (2.19%) Power Platform
10 52 (1.93%) PaaS
11 40 (1.48%) Azure Sentinel
12 27 (1.00%) AWS CloudFormation
13 23 (0.85%) Azure AKS
13 23 (0.85%) Google Workspace
14 22 (0.81%) Datadog
14 22 (0.81%) GitHub Actions
14 22 (0.81%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 419 (15.52%) DNS
2 323 (11.96%) Firewall
3 288 (10.67%) DHCP
4 204 (7.56%) VPN
5 194 (7.19%) TCP/IP
6 146 (5.41%) LAN
7 137 (5.07%) WAN
8 119 (4.41%) Wi-Fi
9 86 (3.19%) SAN
10 67 (2.48%) Network Security
10 67 (2.48%) VLAN
11 46 (1.70%) BGP
11 46 (1.70%) SSL
12 38 (1.41%) Internet
12 38 (1.41%) NAS
13 37 (1.37%) Wireless
14 36 (1.33%) OSPF
15 33 (1.22%) VSAN
16 29 (1.07%) VoIP
17 28 (1.04%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 263 (9.74%) SQL Server
2 53 (1.96%) Oracle Database
3 47 (1.74%) Power BI
4 26 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
5 24 (0.89%) MySQL
5 24 (0.89%) Relational Database
6 23 (0.85%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 19 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
8 17 (0.63%) Db2
9 13 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
9 13 (0.48%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 13 (0.48%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 12 (0.44%) RDBMS
11 11 (0.41%) MongoDB
11 11 (0.41%) NoSQL
12 10 (0.37%) Geospatial Data
13 8 (0.30%) Data Warehouse
14 6 (0.22%) GIS
15 5 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
15 5 (0.19%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 163 (6.04%) JIRA
2 60 (2.22%) Git
3 46 (1.70%) MSI
4 45 (1.67%) Jenkins
5 39 (1.44%) GitLab
6 32 (1.19%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.63%) Eclipse
8 14 (0.52%) Bitbucket
9 9 (0.33%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 9 (0.33%) Chocolatey
10 8 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
11 7 (0.26%) Artifactory
11 7 (0.26%) Browser DevTools
12 6 (0.22%) Android Studio
12 6 (0.22%) InstallShield
12 6 (0.22%) Xcode
13 5 (0.19%) AdminStudio
13 5 (0.19%) Selenium
14 4 (0.15%) Maven
14 4 (0.15%) Robot Framework
General
1 986 (36.52%) Social Skills
2 326 (12.07%) Finance
3 323 (11.96%) Analytical Skills
4 159 (5.89%) Public Sector
5 157 (5.81%) Banking
6 95 (3.52%) Documentation Skills
7 78 (2.89%) Legal
8 77 (2.85%) Organisational Skills
9 56 (2.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 53 (1.96%) Retail
11 45 (1.67%) Manufacturing
11 45 (1.67%) Military
12 40 (1.48%) Front Office
13 38 (1.41%) Telecoms
14 35 (1.30%) Law
15 34 (1.26%) Investment Banking
16 28 (1.04%) Spanish Language
17 26 (0.96%) Financial Institution
18 23 (0.85%) French Language
19 20 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 407 (15.07%) Support Engineer
2 369 (13.67%) IT Support
3 277 (10.26%) IT Engineer
4 267 (9.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 249 (9.22%) Analyst
6 232 (8.59%) IT Support Engineer
7 217 (8.04%) Senior
8 124 (4.59%) 2nd Line Support
9 112 (4.15%) Desktop Support
10 109 (4.04%) Architect
11 100 (3.70%) Cloud Engineer
12 99 (3.67%) Desktop Engineer
13 97 (3.59%) Developer
13 97 (3.59%) Lead
14 94 (3.48%) Support Analyst
15 81 (3.00%) IT Analyst
16 75 (2.78%) Consultant
17 74 (2.74%) Windows Engineer
18 73 (2.70%) 1st Line Support
19 69 (2.56%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (3.93%) .NET
2 96 (3.56%) REST
3 61 (2.26%) .NET Framework
4 31 (1.15%) 802.1X
5 28 (1.04%) WPF
6 27 (1.00%) LDAP
6 27 (1.00%) Middleware
6 27 (1.00%) WinForms
7 24 (0.89%) CSS
7 24 (0.89%) Microsoft Graph
7 24 (0.89%) Web Services
8 22 (0.81%) JSON
9 21 (0.78%) Software Packaging
10 20 (0.74%) HTML
11 19 (0.70%) Elastic Stack
12 18 (0.67%) Kafka
13 17 (0.63%) ARM Templates
14 16 (0.59%) SAML
14 16 (0.59%) XML
15 15 (0.56%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 304 (11.26%) Onboarding
2 149 (5.52%) Data Centre
2 149 (5.52%) PKI
3 88 (3.26%) Clustering
4 76 (2.81%) Management Information System
5 72 (2.67%) Enterprise Software
6 70 (2.59%) Cloud Native
7 62 (2.30%) Hybrid Cloud
8 61 (2.26%) Self-Motivation
9 55 (2.04%) Video Conferencing
10 53 (1.96%) Driving Licence
11 52 (1.93%) Replication
12 50 (1.85%) Security Posture
13 47 (1.74%) Legacy Systems
14 42 (1.56%) Virtual Team
15 37 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
16 33 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
17 30 (1.11%) Enterprise Storage
18 29 (1.07%) Linux Command Line
19 28 (1.04%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 684 (25.33%) Windows Server
2 657 (24.33%) Linux
3 469 (17.37%) Windows 10
4 177 (6.56%) Mac OS
5 125 (4.63%) Apple iOS
6 123 (4.56%) Android
7 122 (4.52%) Unix
8 109 (4.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 69 (2.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 40 (1.48%) Ubuntu
11 39 (1.44%) Windows Server 2016
12 35 (1.30%) Windows Server 2012
13 33 (1.22%) Windows 7
14 30 (1.11%) AIX
15 23 (0.85%) CentOS
16 20 (0.74%) Solaris
17 19 (0.70%) VMS
17 19 (0.70%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.37%) Rocky
19 9 (0.33%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 646 (23.93%) Problem-Solving
2 479 (17.74%) ITIL
3 412 (15.26%) Customer Service
4 348 (12.89%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 319 (11.81%) ITSM
5 319 (11.81%) Migration
6 270 (10.00%) Continuous Improvement
7 261 (9.67%) DevOps
8 246 (9.11%) Agile
9 240 (8.89%) CI/CD
10 223 (8.26%) Service Management
11 202 (7.48%) Infrastructure as Code
12 194 (7.19%) Change Management
13 176 (6.52%) High Availability
13 176 (6.52%) Stakeholder Management
14 153 (5.67%) Cybersecurity
14 153 (5.67%) Service Delivery
15 151 (5.59%) Disaster Recovery
16 150 (5.56%) SIEM
17 146 (5.41%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 632 (23.41%) PowerShell
2 293 (10.85%) Python
3 278 (10.30%) SQL
4 155 (5.74%) Bash
5 138 (5.11%) C#
6 70 (2.59%) JavaScript
7 68 (2.52%) Java
8 52 (1.93%) T-SQL
9 49 (1.81%) PL/SQL
10 48 (1.78%) C++
11 39 (1.44%) Bicep
12 24 (0.89%) Search Processing Language
13 22 (0.81%) VB
14 18 (0.67%) VBScript
15 17 (0.63%) Perl
15 17 (0.63%) Shell Script
16 16 (0.59%) TypeScript
17 15 (0.56%) C
18 14 (0.52%) VBA
19 13 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 836 (30.96%) Security Cleared
2 503 (18.63%) SC Cleared
3 306 (11.33%) DV Cleared
4 291 (10.78%) Degree
5 109 (4.04%) Microsoft Certification
6 83 (3.07%) Cisco Certification
7 72 (2.67%) Computer Science Degree
8 69 (2.56%) Azure Certification
9 62 (2.30%) CISSP
10 50 (1.85%) AWS Certification
11 49 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
12 43 (1.59%) A+ Certification
13 33 (1.22%) MCSE
14 31 (1.15%) CCNA
15 30 (1.11%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 29 (1.07%) CCNP
17 28 (1.04%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 25 (0.93%) ITIL Certification
19 23 (0.85%) CISM
19 23 (0.85%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (5.00%) SLA
2 115 (4.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 84 (3.11%) NIST
4 75 (2.78%) QA
5 30 (1.11%) GDPR
6 28 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
7 24 (0.89%) PCI DSS
8 23 (0.85%) NCSC
9 16 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 12 (0.44%) Data Quality
11 11 (0.41%) Accessibility
11 11 (0.41%) HIPAA
12 10 (0.37%) GRC
12 10 (0.37%) PMO
13 9 (0.33%) WCAG
14 8 (0.30%) GxP
14 8 (0.30%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.30%) SOC 2
15 6 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 6 (0.22%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 1,086 (40.22%) Active Directory
2 368 (13.63%) VMware Infrastructure
3 146 (5.41%) Hyper-V
4 126 (4.67%) VMware ESXi
5 104 (3.85%) vSphere
6 100 (3.70%) Docker
7 90 (3.33%) Virtual Machines
8 74 (2.74%) VMware NSX
9 73 (2.70%) Virtual Desktop
10 33 (1.22%) Firmware
11 32 (1.19%) BitLocker
12 23 (0.85%) Microsoft App-V
13 16 (0.59%) vCloud
14 12 (0.44%) KVM
15 8 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
15 8 (0.30%) VMware Workstation
16 7 (0.26%) NFS
16 7 (0.26%) XenApp
16 7 (0.26%) XenDesktop
17 6 (0.22%) UAG
Systems Management
1 400 (14.81%) Microsoft Intune
2 253 (9.37%) SCCM
3 232 (8.59%) Terraform
4 204 (7.56%) Ansible
5 150 (5.56%) Kubernetes
6 110 (4.07%) vCenter Server
7 69 (2.56%) SCOM
8 45 (1.67%) Jamf Pro
9 39 (1.44%) FortiGate
10 38 (1.41%) WSUS
11 35 (1.30%) Progress Chef
12 30 (1.11%) Puppet
12 30 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
13 24 (0.89%) Grafana
14 23 (0.85%) Nagios
14 23 (0.85%) Packer
14 23 (0.85%) Prometheus
15 20 (0.74%) ZABBIX
16 19 (0.70%) Nessus
16 19 (0.70%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,200 (44.44%) Microsoft
2 499 (18.48%) VMware
3 301 (11.15%) ServiceNow
4 181 (6.70%) Cisco
5 177 (6.56%) Citrix
6 160 (5.93%) Oracle
7 118 (4.37%) Splunk
8 81 (3.00%) SolarWinds
9 80 (2.96%) Apple
9 80 (2.96%) CyberArk
10 66 (2.44%) Google
10 66 (2.44%) HP
10 66 (2.44%) Remedy
11 65 (2.41%) Red Hat
12 59 (2.19%) BeyondTrust
13 54 (2.00%) Juniper
14 53 (1.96%) Dell
15 44 (1.63%) BMC
15 44 (1.63%) IBM
16 43 (1.59%) F5