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

 6 months to
10 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 23 13
Rank change year-on-year +1 -10 +2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,454 2,201 3,512
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.84% 8.14% 9.67%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.09% 58.52% 63.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,707 1,452 2,386
10th Percentile £163 £182 £156
25th Percentile £204 £225 £209
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £553 £575
90th Percentile £638 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 230 72 205
10th Percentile £12.95 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.14 £17.00 £16.92
Median hourly rate £22.00 £22.30 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.32% +6.17% +2.44%
75th Percentile £43.75 £57.62 £48.40
90th Percentile £67.84 £74.40 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £23.99 £21.00
% change year-on-year -8.30% +14.24% +5.00%

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 4,084 3,761 5,510
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 13.04% 13.90% 15.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,718 2,379 3,814
10th Percentile £175 £200 £178
25th Percentile £263 £313 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £470 £475
Median % change year-on-year -4.26% -1.05% -6.86%
75th Percentile £565 £588 £600
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 303 124 291
10th Percentile £14.20 £15.33 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.22 £17.74
Median hourly rate £25.08 £52.75 £32.00
Median % change year-on-year -52.46% +64.84% +28.00%
75th Percentile £61.25 £68.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £73.93 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £32.00
% change year-on-year -28.14% +9.38% +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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -18 715 £450 +11.11% 200
South East +1 501 £400 -0.06% 339
North of England -3 424 £238 -31.93% 206
South West +4 314 £425 +6.25% 123
Midlands -3 307 £354 +9.00% 117
North West -3 242 £263 -25.00% 104
West Midlands -6 205 £475 +46.15% 66
East of England +5 192 £230 -29.23% 124
Yorkshire -15 155 £290 -17.20% 83
East Midlands +3 102 £210 -36.12% 51
North East +2 30 £184 -42.58% 25
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
1 204 (8.31%) Microsoft Exchange
2 171 (6.97%) SharePoint
3 73 (2.97%) Confluence
4 44 (1.79%) Apache
4 44 (1.79%) IIS
5 25 (1.02%) WebLogic
6 18 (0.73%) Skype for Business
7 16 (0.65%) WebSphere
8 13 (0.53%) JBoss
8 13 (0.53%) nginx
9 11 (0.45%) SharePoint Server
9 11 (0.45%) WebSphere Application Server
10 10 (0.41%) iPlanet
11 9 (0.37%) Exchange Server 2010
11 9 (0.37%) TPMS
12 8 (0.33%) Tuxedo
13 7 (0.29%) Exchange Server 2013
14 6 (0.24%) Office Communications Server
14 6 (0.24%) SAS
14 6 (0.24%) Tomcat
Applications
1 235 (9.58%) Microsoft Office
2 74 (3.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (0.53%) MS Visio
5 10 (0.41%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.081%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.081%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.081%) Windchill
9 1 (0.041%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.041%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.041%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.041%) Adobe Premiere
9 1 (0.041%) InDesign
9 1 (0.041%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.041%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 23 (0.94%) Remedy ITSM
2 6 (0.24%) assyst
3 5 (0.20%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.081%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.081%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.081%) SystmOne
6 2 (0.081%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.041%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.041%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.041%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.041%) ION MarketView
7 1 (0.041%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.041%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.041%) RMDS
7 1 (0.041%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 676 (27.55%) Microsoft 365
2 574 (23.39%) Azure
3 215 (8.76%) AWS
3 215 (8.76%) Entra ID
4 80 (3.26%) OneDrive
5 67 (2.73%) GCP
6 64 (2.61%) SaaS
7 45 (1.83%) Azure DevOps
7 45 (1.83%) IaaS
8 44 (1.79%) Google Workspace
9 42 (1.71%) GitHub
10 33 (1.34%) Azure Monitor
11 32 (1.30%) Power Platform
12 30 (1.22%) PaaS
13 25 (1.02%) Amazon S3
14 23 (0.94%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 22 (0.90%) Amazon EC2
15 22 (0.90%) Azure Sentinel
16 20 (0.81%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 19 (0.77%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 310 (12.63%) DNS
2 262 (10.68%) Firewall
3 194 (7.91%) DHCP
4 180 (7.33%) TCP/IP
5 160 (6.52%) VPN
6 92 (3.75%) WAN
7 88 (3.59%) Wi-Fi
8 86 (3.50%) LAN
9 81 (3.30%) Network Security
10 70 (2.85%) Wireless
11 61 (2.49%) VLAN
12 53 (2.16%) SSH
13 35 (1.43%) HTTP
14 33 (1.34%) SAN
15 29 (1.18%) FTP
16 28 (1.14%) Skype
16 28 (1.14%) SMTP
17 25 (1.02%) Cisco IOS
17 25 (1.02%) Internet
18 24 (0.98%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (4.56%) SQL Server
2 59 (2.40%) Oracle Database
3 58 (2.36%) Relational Database
4 46 (1.87%) MySQL
5 29 (1.18%) PostgreSQL
6 20 (0.81%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.53%) BigQuery
7 13 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
8 12 (0.49%) Amazon Aurora
9 11 (0.45%) Power BI
10 9 (0.37%) NoSQL
11 8 (0.33%) MongoDB
12 7 (0.29%) Elasticsearch
12 7 (0.29%) GIS
12 7 (0.29%) SAP HANA
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
13 4 (0.16%) RDBMS
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 3 (0.12%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 134 (5.46%) JIRA
2 77 (3.14%) Git
3 76 (3.10%) Jenkins
4 46 (1.87%) GitLab
5 34 (1.39%) Eclipse
6 30 (1.22%) MSI
7 25 (1.02%) Visual Studio
8 21 (0.86%) Android Studio
9 20 (0.81%) Browser DevTools
10 19 (0.77%) Xcode
11 18 (0.73%) Artifactory
11 18 (0.73%) Burp Suite
11 18 (0.73%) Metasploit
12 16 (0.65%) Sonatype Nexus
12 16 (0.65%) Vagrant
13 15 (0.61%) Bitbucket
14 12 (0.49%) Bitbucket Server
14 12 (0.49%) CA Release Automation
15 11 (0.45%) InstallShield
16 8 (0.33%) AdminStudio
General
1 933 (38.02%) Social Skills
2 290 (11.82%) Finance
3 213 (8.68%) Public Sector
4 200 (8.15%) Analytical Skills
5 115 (4.69%) Banking
6 103 (4.20%) Documentation Skills
7 76 (3.10%) Legal
8 61 (2.49%) Organisational Skills
9 51 (2.08%) Military
10 47 (1.92%) Manufacturing
11 45 (1.83%) Presentation Skills
12 40 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 36 (1.47%) Telecoms
14 34 (1.39%) Retail
15 28 (1.14%) Aerospace
16 25 (1.02%) Front Office
17 24 (0.98%) Law
18 20 (0.81%) Marketing
19 17 (0.69%) Financial Institution
20 16 (0.65%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 382 (15.57%) Support Engineer
2 305 (12.43%) IT Support
3 303 (12.35%) Analyst
4 172 (7.01%) IT Engineer
5 150 (6.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 137 (5.58%) Support Analyst
7 135 (5.50%) Desktop Support
8 132 (5.38%) Architect
8 132 (5.38%) Senior
9 131 (5.34%) Windows Engineer
10 129 (5.26%) IT Support Engineer
11 122 (4.97%) Desktop Engineer
12 112 (4.56%) Deployment Engineer
12 112 (4.56%) Technical Support
13 111 (4.52%) 2nd Line Support
14 97 (3.95%) Desktop Support Engineer
15 90 (3.67%) Developer
16 86 (3.50%) Platform Engineer
17 79 (3.22%) IT Analyst
18 68 (2.77%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (2.85%) .NET
2 49 (2.00%) REST
3 44 (1.79%) LDAP
4 40 (1.63%) .NET Framework
5 39 (1.59%) OAuth
6 37 (1.51%) Middleware
6 37 (1.51%) SAML
7 35 (1.43%) React
8 33 (1.34%) AngularJS
9 31 (1.26%) WPF
10 30 (1.22%) OpenID
11 25 (1.02%) CSS
11 25 (1.02%) Web Services
12 24 (0.98%) Node.js
13 20 (0.81%) Ajax
13 20 (0.81%) GraphQL
13 20 (0.81%) SOAP
14 19 (0.77%) Kafka
14 19 (0.77%) RESTful
15 18 (0.73%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 121 (4.93%) Onboarding
2 86 (3.50%) PKI
3 83 (3.38%) Data Centre
4 78 (3.18%) Driving Licence
5 65 (2.65%) Enterprise Software
6 59 (2.40%) Replication
7 55 (2.24%) Self-Motivation
8 52 (2.12%) Management Information System
8 52 (2.12%) Smartphone
9 37 (1.51%) Security Posture
10 34 (1.39%) Hybrid Cloud
11 30 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
12 29 (1.18%) Clustering
12 29 (1.18%) NHS
13 27 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
13 27 (1.10%) Video Conferencing
14 22 (0.90%) CMDB
14 22 (0.90%) Mobile App
14 22 (0.90%) Product Ownership
15 20 (0.81%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 612 (24.94%) Linux
2 557 (22.70%) Windows 10
3 494 (20.13%) Windows Server
4 160 (6.52%) Unix
5 131 (5.34%) Android
6 126 (5.13%) Mac OS
7 98 (3.99%) Apple iOS
8 59 (2.40%) Windows Server 2016
9 53 (2.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 45 (1.83%) Windows Server 2019
11 44 (1.79%) Windows 7
12 34 (1.39%) Windows Server 2012
13 30 (1.22%) Windows Server 2003
14 27 (1.10%) AIX
15 26 (1.06%) VMS
16 21 (0.86%) Ubuntu
17 16 (0.65%) Amazon Linux
18 14 (0.57%) Solaris
19 12 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
20 10 (0.41%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 439 (17.89%) Problem-Solving
2 391 (15.93%) Customer Service
3 364 (14.83%) ITIL
4 253 (10.31%) Agile
5 230 (9.37%) Migration
6 218 (8.88%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 212 (8.64%) DevOps
8 203 (8.27%) Service Management
9 190 (7.74%) ITSM
10 188 (7.66%) CI/CD
11 171 (6.97%) Continuous Improvement
12 170 (6.93%) Cybersecurity
13 160 (6.52%) Change Management
14 128 (5.22%) User Experience
15 105 (4.28%) Incident Response
16 104 (4.24%) Disaster Recovery
17 102 (4.16%) Stakeholder Management
18 101 (4.12%) Infrastructure as Code
18 101 (4.12%) SIEM
19 99 (4.03%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 481 (19.60%) PowerShell
2 304 (12.39%) Python
3 238 (9.70%) SQL
4 121 (4.93%) Java
5 112 (4.56%) C#
6 102 (4.16%) Bash
7 79 (3.22%) JavaScript
8 69 (2.81%) Perl
9 59 (2.40%) C++
10 43 (1.75%) PL/SQL
11 31 (1.26%) Kusto Query Language
12 30 (1.22%) T-SQL
13 27 (1.10%) Groovy
13 27 (1.10%) Shell Script
14 26 (1.06%) VBScript
15 24 (0.98%) VB
16 23 (0.94%) VBA
17 13 (0.53%) PHP
18 12 (0.49%) Bicep
19 11 (0.45%) Go
Qualifications
1 788 (32.11%) Security Cleared
2 524 (21.35%) SC Cleared
3 249 (10.15%) Degree
4 222 (9.05%) DV Cleared
5 147 (5.99%) Microsoft Certification
6 73 (2.97%) Computer Science Degree
7 61 (2.49%) Azure Certification
8 45 (1.83%) Cisco Certification
9 44 (1.79%) A+ Certification
10 42 (1.71%) MCSE
11 35 (1.43%) ITIL Certification
12 34 (1.39%) AWS Certification
13 28 (1.14%) CISSP
14 27 (1.10%) CCNP
14 27 (1.10%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 25 (1.02%) BPSS Clearance
15 25 (1.02%) CCNA
16 23 (0.94%) DBS Check
17 20 (0.81%) CompTIA Security+
17 20 (0.81%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (3.55%) SLA
2 79 (3.22%) GDPR
3 67 (2.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 63 (2.57%) QA
5 47 (1.92%) NIST
6 29 (1.18%) PCI DSS
7 11 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
7 11 (0.45%) PMO
8 10 (0.41%) NCSC
9 9 (0.37%) GLBA
10 8 (0.33%) MiFID
10 8 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 7 (0.29%) HIPAA
12 5 (0.20%) FINRA
13 4 (0.16%) Accessibility
13 4 (0.16%) NIST 800
13 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
14 3 (0.12%) COBIT
14 3 (0.12%) SEPA
15 2 (0.081%) HL7
System Software
1 893 (36.39%) Active Directory
2 220 (8.96%) VMware Infrastructure
3 104 (4.24%) Docker
4 84 (3.42%) Hyper-V
5 60 (2.44%) Virtual Desktop
6 45 (1.83%) Virtual Machines
7 44 (1.79%) vSphere
8 40 (1.63%) VMware ESXi
9 29 (1.18%) VMware NSX
10 21 (0.86%) BitLocker
11 19 (0.77%) DFS Replication
12 16 (0.65%) Firmware
12 16 (0.65%) Microsoft App-V
13 14 (0.57%) Terminal Services
13 14 (0.57%) Virtual Servers
14 10 (0.41%) Dovecot
14 10 (0.41%) Postfix
14 10 (0.41%) Squid
15 8 (0.33%) NFS
15 8 (0.33%) Tivoli Directory Server
Systems Management
1 346 (14.10%) SCCM
2 264 (10.76%) Microsoft Intune
3 159 (6.48%) Terraform
4 124 (5.05%) Ansible
5 80 (3.26%) Kubernetes
6 62 (2.53%) vCenter Server
7 45 (1.83%) Single Sign-On
8 43 (1.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 38 (1.55%) Jamf Pro
10 37 (1.51%) Grafana
11 28 (1.14%) SCOM
12 25 (1.02%) WSUS
13 22 (0.90%) Nessus
13 22 (0.90%) Prometheus
14 19 (0.77%) Microsoft Clustering
15 18 (0.73%) Nmap
16 16 (0.65%) Proxmox
16 16 (0.65%) WMI
17 14 (0.57%) Progress Chef
17 14 (0.57%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,035 (42.18%) Microsoft
2 314 (12.80%) VMware
3 243 (9.90%) ServiceNow
4 198 (8.07%) Oracle
5 157 (6.40%) Cisco
6 154 (6.28%) Citrix
7 108 (4.40%) Splunk
8 64 (2.61%) Apple
9 56 (2.28%) Dell
10 52 (2.12%) Red Hat
11 50 (2.04%) HP
11 50 (2.04%) SolarWinds
12 49 (2.00%) Veeam
13 46 (1.87%) IBM
14 45 (1.83%) Google
15 39 (1.59%) CyberArk
16 38 (1.55%) SAP
17 36 (1.47%) Remedy
18 33 (1.34%) AppDynamics
19 32 (1.30%) Palo Alto
1,013 Windows jobs in England