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

6 months to
21 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 23 15
Rank change year-on-year +2 -8 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,534 2,196 3,470
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.85% 8.24% 9.41%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.45% 58.62% 63.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,770 1,447 2,353
10th Percentile £162 £182 £158
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.88%
75th Percentile £540 £563 £575
90th Percentile £638 £651 £675
UK median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 234 75 224
10th Percentile £12.97 £15.09 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.82 £17.22 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.00 £23.80 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.56% +13.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £43.50 £57.62 £46.86
90th Percentile £67.00 £74.26 £62.79
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.02% +15.14% +3.70%

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 4,192 3,746 5,465
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.98% 14.06% 14.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,816 2,362 3,753
10th Percentile £175 £200 £180
25th Percentile £263 £313 £266
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £569 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 305 128 324
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.42 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.82 £17.72
Median hourly rate £24.00 £54.00 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -55.56% +89.47% +11.68%
75th Percentile £60.00 £67.63 £63.75
90th Percentile £68.00 £73.83 £73.38
UK median hourly rate £25.00 £36.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year -30.56% +20.00% +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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -17 749 £450 +9.76% 215
South East 0 504 £400 - 370
North of England -4 439 £263 -25.00% 217
South West +4 320 £425 +0.24% 146
Midlands -4 311 £331 +1.92% 140
North West -2 251 £288 -17.86% 99
East of England +7 207 £251 -14.83% 151
West Midlands -11 201 £450 +38.46% 63
Yorkshire -17 160 £290 -18.37% 95
East Midlands 0 110 £210 -40.00% 75
North East -7 31 £180 -44.62% 29
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
1 211 (8.33%) Microsoft Exchange
2 168 (6.63%) SharePoint
3 69 (2.72%) Confluence
4 47 (1.85%) Apache
5 45 (1.78%) IIS
6 28 (1.10%) WebLogic
7 21 (0.83%) Skype for Business
8 16 (0.63%) WebSphere
9 12 (0.47%) JBoss
9 12 (0.47%) nginx
10 11 (0.43%) TPMS
10 11 (0.43%) WebSphere Application Server
11 10 (0.39%) iPlanet
11 10 (0.39%) SharePoint Server
12 8 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2010
12 8 (0.32%) Tuxedo
13 6 (0.24%) Exchange Server 2013
13 6 (0.24%) SAS
14 5 (0.20%) Office Communications Server
14 5 (0.20%) Tomcat
Applications
1 233 (9.19%) Microsoft Office
2 74 (2.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (0.51%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.36%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.12%) PTC Creo
8 2 (0.079%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.079%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.079%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.079%) 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 23 (0.91%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (0.24%) assyst
3 6 (0.24%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.079%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.079%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.079%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.079%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.079%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.079%) SystmOne
7 1 (0.039%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.039%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.039%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.039%) ION MarketView
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.039%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 699 (27.58%) Microsoft 365
2 612 (24.15%) Azure
3 235 (9.27%) Entra ID
4 220 (8.68%) AWS
5 80 (3.16%) OneDrive
6 69 (2.72%) SaaS
7 64 (2.53%) GCP
8 49 (1.93%) Google Workspace
9 46 (1.82%) Azure DevOps
9 46 (1.82%) GitHub
10 41 (1.62%) IaaS
11 31 (1.22%) Azure Monitor
12 30 (1.18%) Power Platform
13 28 (1.10%) PaaS
14 22 (0.87%) Amazon S3
15 21 (0.83%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 21 (0.83%) Azure Sentinel
15 21 (0.83%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 19 (0.75%) Amazon EC2
16 19 (0.75%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 325 (12.83%) DNS
2 256 (10.10%) Firewall
3 208 (8.21%) DHCP
4 175 (6.91%) TCP/IP
5 163 (6.43%) VPN
6 104 (4.10%) WAN
7 94 (3.71%) LAN
8 93 (3.67%) Wi-Fi
9 83 (3.28%) Network Security
10 66 (2.60%) VLAN
10 66 (2.60%) Wireless
11 52 (2.05%) SSH
12 33 (1.30%) HTTP
12 33 (1.30%) Kerberos
12 33 (1.30%) SAN
13 32 (1.26%) Skype
14 30 (1.18%) FTP
15 27 (1.07%) SMTP
16 25 (0.99%) Internet
16 25 (0.99%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (4.42%) SQL Server
2 58 (2.29%) Oracle Database
3 56 (2.21%) Relational Database
4 47 (1.85%) MySQL
5 28 (1.10%) PostgreSQL
6 17 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.51%) BigQuery
8 12 (0.47%) NoSQL
8 12 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
9 11 (0.43%) Power BI
10 9 (0.36%) MongoDB
11 7 (0.28%) GIS
12 6 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
12 6 (0.24%) SAP HANA
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 3 (0.12%) BusinessObjects
14 3 (0.12%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 134 (5.29%) JIRA
2 74 (2.92%) Jenkins
3 71 (2.80%) Git
4 49 (1.93%) GitLab
5 32 (1.26%) Eclipse
5 32 (1.26%) MSI
6 28 (1.10%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.79%) Android Studio
8 19 (0.75%) Browser DevTools
9 18 (0.71%) Burp Suite
9 18 (0.71%) Metasploit
9 18 (0.71%) Xcode
10 17 (0.67%) Artifactory
11 16 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
12 14 (0.55%) Bitbucket
12 14 (0.55%) Vagrant
13 11 (0.43%) Bitbucket Server
13 11 (0.43%) CA Release Automation
13 11 (0.43%) InstallShield
14 8 (0.32%) AdminStudio
General
1 944 (37.25%) Social Skills
2 274 (10.81%) Finance
3 211 (8.33%) Public Sector
4 199 (7.85%) Analytical Skills
5 116 (4.58%) Banking
6 104 (4.10%) Documentation Skills
7 80 (3.16%) Legal
8 64 (2.53%) Organisational Skills
9 52 (2.05%) Military
10 46 (1.82%) Presentation Skills
11 45 (1.78%) Manufacturing
12 40 (1.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 33 (1.30%) Retail
14 32 (1.26%) Telecoms
15 25 (0.99%) Front Office
16 23 (0.91%) Aerospace
17 22 (0.87%) Law
18 17 (0.67%) Financial Institution
19 16 (0.63%) Investment Banking
19 16 (0.63%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 379 (14.96%) Support Engineer
2 318 (12.55%) Analyst
3 316 (12.47%) IT Support
4 173 (6.83%) IT Engineer
5 154 (6.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 145 (5.72%) Architect
7 141 (5.56%) Support Analyst
8 134 (5.29%) IT Support Engineer
9 132 (5.21%) Senior
10 131 (5.17%) Desktop Support
11 126 (4.97%) Windows Engineer
12 120 (4.74%) Technical Support
13 119 (4.70%) Desktop Engineer
14 111 (4.38%) 2nd Line Support
15 107 (4.22%) Deployment Engineer
16 94 (3.71%) Developer
17 93 (3.67%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 83 (3.28%) Platform Engineer
19 81 (3.20%) IT Analyst
20 80 (3.16%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (2.88%) .NET
2 54 (2.13%) LDAP
3 52 (2.05%) OAuth
4 51 (2.01%) REST
5 50 (1.97%) SAML
6 43 (1.70%) .NET Framework
7 36 (1.42%) Middleware
8 34 (1.34%) React
8 34 (1.34%) WPF
9 32 (1.26%) AngularJS
9 32 (1.26%) OpenID
10 25 (0.99%) CSS
11 24 (0.95%) Web Services
12 23 (0.91%) Node.js
13 20 (0.79%) Apache NiFi
13 20 (0.79%) SOAP
14 19 (0.75%) Ajax
14 19 (0.75%) GraphQL
14 19 (0.75%) RESTful
15 18 (0.71%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 134 (5.29%) Onboarding
2 87 (3.43%) PKI
3 83 (3.28%) Driving Licence
4 80 (3.16%) Data Centre
5 71 (2.80%) Replication
6 68 (2.68%) Enterprise Software
7 57 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
8 54 (2.13%) Management Information System
8 54 (2.13%) Smartphone
9 37 (1.46%) Hybrid Cloud
10 35 (1.38%) Security Posture
11 31 (1.22%) Clustering
12 30 (1.18%) NHS
13 29 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
14 28 (1.10%) Video Conferencing
15 27 (1.07%) Data Protection Act
16 24 (0.95%) Product Ownership
16 24 (0.95%) Virtual Team
17 22 (0.87%) CMDB
18 21 (0.83%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 626 (24.70%) Linux
2 582 (22.97%) Windows 10
3 521 (20.56%) Windows Server
4 160 (6.31%) Unix
5 130 (5.13%) Android
6 125 (4.93%) Mac OS
7 100 (3.95%) Apple iOS
8 59 (2.33%) Windows Server 2016
9 54 (2.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 50 (1.97%) Windows 7
11 48 (1.89%) Windows Server 2019
12 35 (1.38%) Windows Server 2012
13 31 (1.22%) Windows Server 2003
14 26 (1.03%) AIX
15 23 (0.91%) VMS
16 19 (0.75%) Ubuntu
17 14 (0.55%) Amazon Linux
18 13 (0.51%) Solaris
19 12 (0.47%) Windows Server 2008
20 10 (0.39%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 450 (17.76%) Problem-Solving
2 412 (16.26%) Customer Service
3 366 (14.44%) ITIL
4 261 (10.30%) Agile
5 230 (9.08%) Migration
6 222 (8.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 219 (8.64%) DevOps
8 215 (8.48%) Service Management
9 196 (7.73%) CI/CD
10 195 (7.70%) ITSM
11 187 (7.38%) Continuous Improvement
12 175 (6.91%) Cybersecurity
13 158 (6.24%) Change Management
14 124 (4.89%) Disaster Recovery
15 123 (4.85%) User Experience
16 107 (4.22%) Infrastructure as Code
17 103 (4.06%) Incident Response
17 103 (4.06%) Service Delivery
18 102 (4.03%) Computer Science
18 102 (4.03%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 500 (19.73%) PowerShell
2 302 (11.92%) Python
3 241 (9.51%) SQL
4 125 (4.93%) Java
5 115 (4.54%) C#
6 101 (3.99%) Bash
7 79 (3.12%) JavaScript
8 66 (2.60%) Perl
9 59 (2.33%) C++
10 45 (1.78%) PL/SQL
11 33 (1.30%) T-SQL
12 31 (1.22%) Kusto Query Language
13 30 (1.18%) VBScript
14 28 (1.10%) VB
15 26 (1.03%) Shell Script
16 25 (0.99%) Groovy
17 23 (0.91%) VBA
18 14 (0.55%) PHP
19 11 (0.43%) Bicep
19 11 (0.43%) Go
Qualifications
1 822 (32.44%) Security Cleared
2 545 (21.51%) SC Cleared
3 255 (10.06%) Degree
4 238 (9.39%) DV Cleared
5 144 (5.68%) Microsoft Certification
6 78 (3.08%) Computer Science Degree
7 59 (2.33%) Azure Certification
8 44 (1.74%) Cisco Certification
8 44 (1.74%) MCSE
9 40 (1.58%) A+ Certification
10 37 (1.46%) ITIL Certification
11 34 (1.34%) AWS Certification
12 28 (1.10%) CCNP
13 27 (1.07%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 26 (1.03%) CCNA
15 25 (0.99%) BPSS Clearance
15 25 (0.99%) CISSP
16 21 (0.83%) DBS Check
16 21 (0.83%) MCP
17 20 (0.79%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (3.47%) GDPR
1 88 (3.47%) SLA
2 68 (2.68%) QA
3 66 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 46 (1.82%) NIST
5 32 (1.26%) PCI DSS
6 20 (0.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 11 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
7 11 (0.43%) GLBA
7 11 (0.43%) NCSC
7 11 (0.43%) PMO
8 10 (0.39%) MiFID
9 7 (0.28%) FINRA
10 5 (0.20%) HIPAA
10 5 (0.20%) NIST 800
11 4 (0.16%) Accessibility
11 4 (0.16%) COBIT
11 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
12 3 (0.12%) GxP
12 3 (0.12%) SEPA
System Software
1 928 (36.62%) Active Directory
2 236 (9.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 104 (4.10%) Docker
4 88 (3.47%) Hyper-V
5 55 (2.17%) Virtual Desktop
6 49 (1.93%) Virtual Machines
6 49 (1.93%) vSphere
7 43 (1.70%) VMware ESXi
8 33 (1.30%) VMware NSX
9 26 (1.03%) BitLocker
10 17 (0.67%) DFS Replication
10 17 (0.67%) Firmware
10 17 (0.67%) Microsoft App-V
11 15 (0.59%) Virtual Servers
12 9 (0.36%) Dovecot
12 9 (0.36%) NFS
12 9 (0.36%) Postfix
12 9 (0.36%) Squid
13 8 (0.32%) Terminal Services
13 8 (0.32%) Tivoli Directory Server
Systems Management
1 350 (13.81%) SCCM
2 278 (10.97%) Microsoft Intune
3 163 (6.43%) Terraform
4 133 (5.25%) Ansible
5 88 (3.47%) Kubernetes
6 64 (2.53%) vCenter Server
7 63 (2.49%) Single Sign-On
8 59 (2.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 39 (1.54%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (1.42%) Grafana
11 29 (1.14%) SCOM
12 26 (1.03%) WSUS
13 24 (0.95%) Prometheus
14 20 (0.79%) Nessus
15 18 (0.71%) Nmap
16 17 (0.67%) WMI
17 16 (0.63%) Progress Chef
18 15 (0.59%) Microsoft Clustering
18 15 (0.59%) Proxmox
19 14 (0.55%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,078 (42.54%) Microsoft
2 330 (13.02%) VMware
3 244 (9.63%) ServiceNow
4 200 (7.89%) Oracle
5 160 (6.31%) Cisco
6 153 (6.04%) Citrix
7 108 (4.26%) Splunk
8 62 (2.45%) Apple
9 61 (2.41%) Dell
10 53 (2.09%) HP
11 50 (1.97%) SolarWinds
12 48 (1.89%) Red Hat
12 48 (1.89%) Veeam
13 47 (1.85%) Google
14 45 (1.78%) IBM
15 38 (1.50%) CyberArk
16 36 (1.42%) SAP
17 35 (1.38%) Remedy
18 32 (1.26%) AppDynamics
19 31 (1.22%) Palo Alto