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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 20 16
Rank change year-on-year -7 -4 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,466 2,057 3,126
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.94% 8.64% 8.55%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.24% 61.55% 62.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,621 1,457 2,177
10th Percentile £163 £178 £163
25th Percentile £213 £230 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £420 £400
Median % change year-on-year -1.19% +5.00% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £421 £425 £400
% change year-on-year -1.00% +6.25% -11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 208 119 265
10th Percentile £15.88 £14.20 £11.80
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.76 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.88% +4.56% -20.23%
75th Percentile £60.00 £25.00 £25.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £54.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.51 £18.82 £18.00
% change year-on-year +35.52% +4.56% -20.23%

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 4,027 3,342 5,037
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.70% 14.04% 13.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,625 2,277 3,443
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £451 £467 £475
Median % change year-on-year -3.43% -1.79% -7.32%
75th Percentile £573 £594 £588
90th Percentile £656 £695 £700
UK median daily rate £459 £466 £470
% change year-on-year -1.45% -0.90% -6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 283 151 371
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.12 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.29 £15.50
Median hourly rate £41.71 £20.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +108.55% -11.11% -45.84%
75th Percentile £66.63 £56.25 £61.80
90th Percentile £74.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £22.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year +70.45% -2.22% -47.06%

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 26 May 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 26 May 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 26 May 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 -28 748 £425 -5.56% 238
South East -6 522 £475 - 261
North of England -11 463 £355 +9.11% 177
Midlands -18 265 £313 +15.21% 106
North West +2 260 £329 -6.07% 102
South West -14 232 £453 -6.55% 119
East of England -2 215 £350 -8.50% 86
Yorkshire -21 188 £365 -1.02% 56
West Midlands -27 154 £442 +60.82% 58
East Midlands +7 106 £225 +5.88% 48
North East -28 19 £290 -3.33% 22
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
1 212 (8.60%) Microsoft Exchange
2 160 (6.49%) SharePoint
3 57 (2.31%) IIS
4 52 (2.11%) Confluence
5 19 (0.77%) Apache
6 17 (0.69%) WebLogic
7 14 (0.57%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.49%) nginx
8 12 (0.49%) Tomcat
9 11 (0.45%) Tuxedo
10 7 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.24%) TPMS
12 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) SAS
12 4 (0.16%) WebSphere
13 3 (0.12%) NetWeaver
14 2 (0.081%) IBM HTTP Server
14 2 (0.081%) Oracle HTTP Server
14 2 (0.081%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 159 (6.45%) Microsoft Office
2 61 (2.47%) Microsoft Excel
3 21 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.36%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.20%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.16%) Acrobat
7 4 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.041%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 41 (1.66%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.45%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.16%) Finacle
5 3 (0.12%) assyst
5 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.081%) OpenText MBPM
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle BPM
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.041%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.041%) Oracle 11i
7 1 (0.041%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.041%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.041%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.041%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 721 (29.24%) Azure
2 715 (28.99%) Microsoft 365
3 307 (12.45%) Entra ID
4 219 (8.88%) AWS
5 77 (3.12%) OneDrive
6 69 (2.80%) Azure DevOps
6 69 (2.80%) SaaS
7 66 (2.68%) GCP
8 62 (2.51%) IaaS
9 54 (2.19%) GitHub
10 51 (2.07%) PaaS
11 43 (1.74%) Power Platform
12 38 (1.54%) Azure Monitor
13 31 (1.26%) Google Workspace
14 28 (1.14%) Azure Sentinel
15 25 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
16 23 (0.93%) OpenShift
17 18 (0.73%) Azure AKS
18 16 (0.65%) AWS CloudFormation
18 16 (0.65%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 329 (13.34%) DNS
2 258 (10.46%) Firewall
3 229 (9.29%) DHCP
4 165 (6.69%) VPN
5 149 (6.04%) LAN
6 143 (5.80%) WAN
7 134 (5.43%) TCP/IP
8 110 (4.46%) Wi-Fi
9 63 (2.55%) Network Security
10 62 (2.51%) SAN
11 54 (2.19%) VLAN
12 38 (1.54%) BGP
12 38 (1.54%) Wireless
13 36 (1.46%) Skype
14 34 (1.38%) OSPF
15 32 (1.30%) SNMP
16 31 (1.26%) BIG-IP
17 30 (1.22%) VoIP
18 29 (1.18%) Internet
18 29 (1.18%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 192 (7.79%) SQL Server
2 42 (1.70%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.30%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.22%) MySQL
5 26 (1.05%) Power BI
6 22 (0.89%) PostgreSQL
7 15 (0.61%) DB2
8 14 (0.57%) MongoDB
9 13 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
10 11 (0.45%) NoSQL
11 10 (0.41%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 7 (0.28%) Amazon RDS
12 7 (0.28%) RDBMS
13 6 (0.24%) BigQuery
13 6 (0.24%) GIS
13 6 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
14 5 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
14 5 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 4 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
15 4 (0.16%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 164 (6.65%) JIRA
2 42 (1.70%) MSI
3 40 (1.62%) GitLab
3 40 (1.62%) Jenkins
4 36 (1.46%) Visual Studio
5 29 (1.18%) Git
6 19 (0.77%) Eclipse
7 14 (0.57%) Burp Suite
8 13 (0.53%) Metasploit
9 10 (0.41%) Sonatype Nexus
10 9 (0.36%) Android Studio
10 9 (0.36%) Browser DevTools
10 9 (0.36%) Chocolatey
10 9 (0.36%) Xcode
11 8 (0.32%) Artifactory
12 7 (0.28%) Bitbucket
12 7 (0.28%) Robot Framework
12 7 (0.28%) Selenium
13 6 (0.24%) InstallShield
14 5 (0.20%) AdminStudio
General
1 830 (33.66%) Social Skills
2 243 (9.85%) Finance
3 222 (9.00%) Analytical Skills
4 168 (6.81%) Public Sector
5 139 (5.64%) Banking
6 90 (3.65%) Documentation Skills
6 90 (3.65%) Legal
7 74 (3.00%) Organisational Skills
8 53 (2.15%) Military
9 46 (1.87%) Retail
10 37 (1.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 36 (1.46%) Manufacturing
12 35 (1.42%) Law
13 30 (1.22%) Investment Banking
13 30 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
14 26 (1.05%) Front Office
14 26 (1.05%) Telecoms
15 21 (0.85%) Local Government
16 18 (0.73%) Police
17 16 (0.65%) French Language
Job Titles
1 321 (13.02%) IT Support
2 308 (12.49%) Support Engineer
3 278 (11.27%) Analyst
4 209 (8.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 198 (8.03%) IT Engineer
6 161 (6.53%) IT Support Engineer
6 161 (6.53%) Senior
7 129 (5.23%) Architect
8 113 (4.58%) Support Analyst
9 106 (4.30%) Desktop Support
10 97 (3.93%) Desktop Engineer
11 93 (3.77%) 2nd Line Support
12 89 (3.61%) IT Analyst
13 88 (3.57%) Technical Support
14 87 (3.53%) Lead
15 83 (3.37%) Developer
16 67 (2.72%) Windows Engineer
17 66 (2.68%) IT Support Analyst
18 65 (2.64%) 1st Line Support
19 61 (2.47%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (3.24%) .NET
2 70 (2.84%) REST
3 49 (1.99%) .NET Framework
4 36 (1.46%) LDAP
5 31 (1.26%) SAML
6 30 (1.22%) Microsoft Graph
7 28 (1.14%) Middleware
8 27 (1.09%) 802.1X
8 27 (1.09%) WinForms
9 24 (0.97%) OAuth
10 22 (0.89%) Kafka
10 22 (0.89%) Web Services
11 21 (0.85%) WPF
12 19 (0.77%) CSS
12 19 (0.77%) React
13 17 (0.69%) AngularJS
13 17 (0.69%) Node.js
13 17 (0.69%) Software Packaging
14 16 (0.65%) Elastic Stack
15 15 (0.61%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 220 (8.92%) Onboarding
2 109 (4.42%) Data Centre
3 101 (4.10%) PKI
4 79 (3.20%) Clustering
5 71 (2.88%) Enterprise Software
6 56 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
7 54 (2.19%) Replication
8 49 (1.99%) Driving Licence
8 49 (1.99%) Management Information System
9 48 (1.95%) Hybrid Cloud
10 41 (1.66%) Smartphone
10 41 (1.66%) Virtual Team
11 37 (1.50%) Security Posture
12 36 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
13 33 (1.34%) Cloud Native
14 29 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
15 28 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
15 28 (1.14%) Product Ownership
16 27 (1.09%) Enterprise Storage
17 25 (1.01%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 601 (24.37%) Linux
2 580 (23.52%) Windows Server
3 465 (18.86%) Windows 10
4 161 (6.53%) Mac OS
5 126 (5.11%) Unix
6 125 (5.07%) Apple iOS
7 122 (4.95%) Android
8 72 (2.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 65 (2.64%) Windows Server 2019
10 61 (2.47%) Windows Server 2016
11 48 (1.95%) Windows 7
12 35 (1.42%) Windows Server 2012
13 30 (1.22%) AIX
14 24 (0.97%) Ubuntu
15 18 (0.73%) Windows Server 2003
16 15 (0.61%) VMS
17 14 (0.57%) Solaris
18 12 (0.49%) CentOS
18 12 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
19 8 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 513 (20.80%) Problem-Solving
2 388 (15.73%) Customer Service
3 364 (14.76%) ITIL
4 276 (11.19%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 261 (10.58%) Migration
6 242 (9.81%) Agile
7 228 (9.25%) ITSM
8 222 (9.00%) DevOps
9 209 (8.48%) CI/CD
10 173 (7.02%) Continuous Improvement
11 167 (6.77%) Disaster Recovery
12 164 (6.65%) Change Management
13 154 (6.24%) High Availability
14 151 (6.12%) Service Management
15 130 (5.27%) Cybersecurity
16 124 (5.03%) Stakeholder Management
17 119 (4.83%) Infrastructure as Code
17 119 (4.83%) SIEM
18 113 (4.58%) Computer Science
19 104 (4.22%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 536 (21.74%) PowerShell
2 249 (10.10%) SQL
3 239 (9.69%) Python
4 117 (4.74%) C#
5 88 (3.57%) Bash
6 67 (2.72%) JavaScript
7 65 (2.64%) Java
8 52 (2.11%) PL/SQL
9 44 (1.78%) C++
9 44 (1.78%) T-SQL
10 26 (1.05%) Kusto Query Language
11 25 (1.01%) VB
12 22 (0.89%) Search Processing Language
13 21 (0.85%) Perl
14 20 (0.81%) Shell Script
15 18 (0.73%) VBScript
16 14 (0.57%) VBA
17 12 (0.49%) Bicep
17 12 (0.49%) C
18 11 (0.45%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 755 (30.62%) Security Cleared
2 477 (19.34%) SC Cleared
3 270 (10.95%) Degree
4 249 (10.10%) DV Cleared
5 95 (3.85%) Microsoft Certification
6 77 (3.12%) Computer Science Degree
7 74 (3.00%) Cisco Certification
8 47 (1.91%) CISSP
9 45 (1.82%) Azure Certification
10 41 (1.66%) MCSE
11 33 (1.34%) BPSS Clearance
12 29 (1.18%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 27 (1.09%) AWS Certification
13 27 (1.09%) MCSA
14 26 (1.05%) CCNA
14 26 (1.05%) ITIL Certification
15 24 (0.97%) CCNP
16 22 (0.89%) CompTIA Security+
17 20 (0.81%) CISM
18 19 (0.77%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 105 (4.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 91 (3.69%) SLA
3 76 (3.08%) GDPR
4 74 (3.00%) QA
5 72 (2.92%) NIST
6 38 (1.54%) PCI DSS
7 30 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 25 (1.01%) Cyber Essentials
9 12 (0.49%) NCSC
9 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
10 11 (0.45%) Data Quality
10 11 (0.45%) MiFID
10 11 (0.45%) PMO
11 10 (0.41%) FINRA
12 7 (0.28%) HIPAA
13 6 (0.24%) DICOM
13 6 (0.24%) GLBA
13 6 (0.24%) GRC
13 6 (0.24%) HL7
13 6 (0.24%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 931 (37.75%) Active Directory
2 305 (12.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 137 (5.56%) Hyper-V
4 89 (3.61%) vSphere
5 88 (3.57%) VMware ESXi
6 81 (3.28%) Virtual Machines
7 75 (3.04%) Docker
8 49 (1.99%) Virtual Desktop
9 44 (1.78%) VMware NSX
10 34 (1.38%) Firmware
11 31 (1.26%) BitLocker
12 26 (1.05%) Microsoft App-V
13 20 (0.81%) KVM
14 11 (0.45%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.41%) XenApp
16 8 (0.32%) vCloud
16 8 (0.32%) VMware Workstation
17 5 (0.20%) etcd
17 5 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
18 4 (0.16%) Snort
Systems Management
1 337 (13.67%) Microsoft Intune
2 231 (9.37%) SCCM
3 162 (6.57%) Ansible
4 147 (5.96%) Terraform
5 114 (4.62%) Kubernetes
6 78 (3.16%) vCenter Server
7 43 (1.74%) Single Sign-On
8 40 (1.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 36 (1.46%) FortiGate
10 35 (1.42%) Jamf Pro
10 35 (1.42%) SCOM
11 34 (1.38%) WSUS
12 27 (1.09%) Grafana
13 25 (1.01%) Nagios
14 24 (0.97%) Prometheus
15 20 (0.81%) Nessus
16 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
16 18 (0.73%) Puppet
16 18 (0.73%) Tivoli
16 18 (0.73%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,056 (42.82%) Microsoft
2 401 (16.26%) VMware
3 218 (8.84%) ServiceNow
4 178 (7.22%) Citrix
5 167 (6.77%) Cisco
6 145 (5.88%) Oracle
7 124 (5.03%) Splunk
8 71 (2.88%) HP
9 66 (2.68%) SolarWinds
10 55 (2.23%) Dell
11 54 (2.19%) Remedy
12 53 (2.15%) Red Hat
13 51 (2.07%) Apple
14 45 (1.82%) CyberArk
14 45 (1.82%) F5
15 44 (1.78%) IBM
15 44 (1.78%) Juniper
16 43 (1.74%) Google
17 37 (1.50%) BeyondTrust
18 33 (1.34%) BMC