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

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 22 15
Rank change year-on-year -4 -7 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,587 2,134 3,391
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.19% 8.48% 9.01%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.86% 59.78% 63.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,748 1,471 2,310
10th Percentile £161 £182 £155
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £403 £400 £383
Median % change year-on-year +0.63% +4.58% -13.07%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £658
UK median daily rate £401 £413 £400
% change year-on-year -2.73% +3.13% -8.99%
Number of hourly rates quoted 250 70 255
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.67 £16.80 £14.72
Median hourly rate £22.00 £21.84 £18.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.73% +18.05% -17.78%
75th Percentile £43.50 £42.25 £38.04
90th Percentile £67.00 £73.82 £62.50
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £22.69 £18.93
% change year-on-year -3.03% +19.85% -15.87%

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 4,251 3,570 5,330
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 11.82% 14.18% 14.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,827 2,338 3,622
10th Percentile £180 £200 £175
25th Percentile £268 £313 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -12.62%
75th Percentile £574 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £460
% change year-on-year -5.26% +3.26% -10.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 318 118 366
10th Percentile £14.70 £16.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.76 £18.88 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.81 £42.75 £22.51
Median % change year-on-year -46.64% +89.92% -21.29%
75th Percentile £60.00 £67.44 £61.20
90th Percentile £68.00 £72.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £23.25 £29.89 £23.63
% change year-on-year -22.21% +26.52% -17.11%

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 4 March 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 4 March 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 4 March 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 -17 776 £446 +5.94% 252
South East -1 519 £425 -1.16% 370
North of England -7 484 £268 -23.36% 204
South West -2 286 £450 -4.76% 116
Midlands -13 279 £265 -18.54% 126
North West -7 261 £263 -27.59% 117
East of England +8 225 £240 - 116
Yorkshire -15 191 £325 -7.14% 79
West Midlands -22 169 £400 +23.08% 61
East Midlands +2 109 £210 -16.00% 64
North East -6 35 £188 -39.52% 14
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
1 227 (8.77%) Microsoft Exchange
2 175 (6.76%) SharePoint
3 58 (2.24%) Confluence
4 38 (1.47%) IIS
5 26 (1.01%) Apache
6 20 (0.77%) WebLogic
7 16 (0.62%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.43%) Tuxedo
9 10 (0.39%) TPMS
10 8 (0.31%) WebSphere
11 6 (0.23%) nginx
12 5 (0.19%) iPlanet
12 5 (0.19%) JBoss
12 5 (0.19%) SharePoint Server
12 5 (0.19%) Tomcat
12 5 (0.19%) WebSphere Application Server
13 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.15%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.12%) SAS
Applications
1 227 (8.77%) Microsoft Office
2 72 (2.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.46%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.19%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.19%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.077%) InDesign
7 2 (0.077%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.039%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.039%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 28 (1.08%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (0.50%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.27%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.19%) assyst
5 4 (0.15%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.077%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.077%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.077%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.077%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.077%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.077%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.039%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.039%) Eikon
8 1 (0.039%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.039%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.039%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.039%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.039%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.039%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 758 (29.30%) Microsoft 365
2 636 (24.58%) Azure
3 274 (10.59%) Entra ID
4 193 (7.46%) AWS
5 92 (3.56%) OneDrive
6 69 (2.67%) GCP
6 69 (2.67%) SaaS
7 51 (1.97%) Google Workspace
8 50 (1.93%) Azure DevOps
9 43 (1.66%) IaaS
10 40 (1.55%) GitHub
11 38 (1.47%) Power Platform
12 36 (1.39%) PaaS
13 22 (0.85%) AWS CloudFormation
14 21 (0.81%) Azure Monitor
15 19 (0.73%) Azure Sentinel
15 19 (0.73%) OpenShift
16 17 (0.66%) GitHub Actions
16 17 (0.66%) Nutanix
17 16 (0.62%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 340 (13.14%) DNS
2 282 (10.90%) Firewall
3 223 (8.62%) DHCP
4 172 (6.65%) TCP/IP
5 164 (6.34%) VPN
6 130 (5.03%) WAN
7 129 (4.99%) LAN
8 125 (4.83%) Wi-Fi
9 69 (2.67%) Network Security
10 65 (2.51%) VLAN
11 63 (2.44%) Wireless
12 37 (1.43%) SAN
13 34 (1.31%) Skype
13 34 (1.31%) SSH
14 33 (1.28%) BGP
15 30 (1.16%) Cisco ISE
16 29 (1.12%) Junos
17 28 (1.08%) VoIP
18 26 (1.01%) Kerberos
18 26 (1.01%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (5.49%) SQL Server
2 53 (2.05%) Oracle Database
3 45 (1.74%) Relational Database
4 38 (1.47%) MySQL
5 24 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
6 14 (0.54%) Power BI
7 13 (0.50%) BigQuery
7 13 (0.50%) DB2
8 11 (0.43%) MongoDB
8 11 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
9 9 (0.35%) NoSQL
10 8 (0.31%) Elasticsearch
10 8 (0.31%) GIS
11 7 (0.27%) SAP HANA
12 6 (0.23%) Amazon RDS
12 6 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
13 5 (0.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 5 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 4 (0.15%) Azure SQL Database
14 4 (0.15%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 151 (5.84%) JIRA
2 59 (2.28%) Jenkins
3 54 (2.09%) Git
4 53 (2.05%) GitLab
5 42 (1.62%) MSI
6 35 (1.35%) Visual Studio
7 30 (1.16%) Eclipse
8 20 (0.77%) Burp Suite
8 20 (0.77%) Metasploit
9 18 (0.70%) Android Studio
10 16 (0.62%) Xcode
11 15 (0.58%) Artifactory
12 13 (0.50%) Browser DevTools
13 12 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
14 10 (0.39%) Chocolatey
15 9 (0.35%) Bitbucket
16 7 (0.27%) Robot Framework
17 6 (0.23%) InstallShield
17 6 (0.23%) JUnit
17 6 (0.23%) Toad
General
1 964 (37.26%) Social Skills
2 252 (9.74%) Finance
3 219 (8.47%) Public Sector
4 217 (8.39%) Analytical Skills
5 134 (5.18%) Banking
6 109 (4.21%) Documentation Skills
7 97 (3.75%) Legal
8 81 (3.13%) Organisational Skills
9 61 (2.36%) Military
10 49 (1.89%) Presentation Skills
11 41 (1.58%) Manufacturing
12 38 (1.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 33 (1.28%) Retail
14 27 (1.04%) Telecoms
15 24 (0.93%) Law
16 22 (0.85%) Aerospace
16 22 (0.85%) Investment Banking
17 19 (0.73%) Front Office
18 16 (0.62%) Local Government
19 14 (0.54%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 377 (14.57%) Support Engineer
2 353 (13.65%) IT Support
3 338 (13.07%) Analyst
4 203 (7.85%) IT Engineer
5 168 (6.49%) IT Support Engineer
6 160 (6.18%) Architect
7 153 (5.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 149 (5.76%) Senior
9 144 (5.57%) Support Analyst
10 128 (4.95%) Desktop Support
11 119 (4.60%) 2nd Line Support
12 118 (4.56%) Technical Support
13 115 (4.45%) Desktop Engineer
14 110 (4.25%) Developer
15 101 (3.90%) Windows Engineer
16 87 (3.36%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 87 (3.36%) IT Analyst
16 87 (3.36%) Lead
17 82 (3.17%) Deployment Engineer
18 74 (2.86%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (3.05%) .NET
2 56 (2.16%) REST
3 50 (1.93%) OAuth
4 46 (1.78%) .NET Framework
4 46 (1.78%) SAML
5 44 (1.70%) LDAP
6 32 (1.24%) Web Services
7 31 (1.20%) Middleware
7 31 (1.20%) WPF
8 29 (1.12%) React
9 27 (1.04%) AngularJS
9 27 (1.04%) OpenID
10 26 (1.01%) CSS
11 24 (0.93%) Microsoft Graph
12 23 (0.89%) WinForms
13 22 (0.85%) Node.js
14 21 (0.81%) OAuth2
15 19 (0.73%) Apache NiFi
15 19 (0.73%) Kafka
16 18 (0.70%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 167 (6.46%) Onboarding
2 103 (3.98%) PKI
3 101 (3.90%) Data Centre
4 79 (3.05%) Driving Licence
5 77 (2.98%) Enterprise Software
6 67 (2.59%) Self-Motivation
7 55 (2.13%) Smartphone
8 49 (1.89%) Management Information System
8 49 (1.89%) Replication
9 45 (1.74%) Clustering
10 43 (1.66%) Security Posture
11 40 (1.55%) Hybrid Cloud
12 37 (1.43%) Product Ownership
13 36 (1.39%) NHS
14 29 (1.12%) Legacy Systems
15 27 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
15 27 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
16 26 (1.01%) CMDB
16 26 (1.01%) Video Conferencing
16 26 (1.01%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 612 (23.66%) Linux
2 587 (22.69%) Windows 10
3 537 (20.76%) Windows Server
4 144 (5.57%) Android
5 142 (5.49%) Unix
6 135 (5.22%) Mac OS
7 118 (4.56%) Apple iOS
8 63 (2.44%) Windows Server 2016
9 62 (2.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 50 (1.93%) Windows 7
11 45 (1.74%) Windows Server 2019
12 36 (1.39%) Windows Server 2012
13 29 (1.12%) AIX
13 29 (1.12%) Windows Server 2003
14 13 (0.50%) VMS
15 12 (0.46%) Solaris
15 12 (0.46%) Ubuntu
15 12 (0.46%) Windows Server 2008
16 10 (0.39%) Mac OS X
17 8 (0.31%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 510 (19.71%) Problem-Solving
2 473 (18.28%) Customer Service
3 365 (14.11%) ITIL
4 277 (10.71%) Agile
5 257 (9.93%) Migration
6 233 (9.01%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 215 (8.31%) DevOps
7 215 (8.31%) ITSM
8 205 (7.92%) CI/CD
9 202 (7.81%) Service Management
10 182 (7.04%) Continuous Improvement
11 175 (6.76%) Cybersecurity
12 155 (5.99%) Change Management
13 139 (5.37%) Disaster Recovery
14 133 (5.14%) Stakeholder Management
15 130 (5.03%) User Experience
16 117 (4.52%) Service Delivery
17 113 (4.37%) High Availability
18 107 (4.14%) Computer Science
19 103 (3.98%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 493 (19.06%) PowerShell
2 267 (10.32%) Python
3 221 (8.54%) SQL
4 128 (4.95%) C#
5 111 (4.29%) Bash
6 99 (3.83%) Java
7 78 (3.02%) JavaScript
8 61 (2.36%) C++
9 51 (1.97%) Perl
9 51 (1.97%) PL/SQL
10 41 (1.58%) T-SQL
11 30 (1.16%) Kusto Query Language
12 25 (0.97%) VB
13 24 (0.93%) Shell Script
14 21 (0.81%) VBScript
15 18 (0.70%) VBA
16 13 (0.50%) C
17 12 (0.46%) Bicep
17 12 (0.46%) TypeScript
18 11 (0.43%) Go
Qualifications
1 821 (31.74%) Security Cleared
2 529 (20.45%) SC Cleared
3 267 (10.32%) Degree
4 238 (9.20%) DV Cleared
5 138 (5.33%) Microsoft Certification
6 78 (3.02%) Computer Science Degree
7 57 (2.20%) Cisco Certification
8 48 (1.86%) Azure Certification
9 47 (1.82%) MCSE
10 36 (1.39%) ITIL Certification
11 31 (1.20%) CCNA
11 31 (1.20%) CISSP
12 30 (1.16%) AWS Certification
13 28 (1.08%) BPSS Clearance
14 26 (1.01%) CCNP
15 24 (0.93%) A+ Certification
15 24 (0.93%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 22 (0.85%) MCSA
17 19 (0.73%) CompTIA Security+
17 19 (0.73%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (3.63%) GDPR
2 86 (3.32%) SLA
3 74 (2.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 74 (2.86%) QA
4 49 (1.89%) NIST
5 37 (1.43%) PCI DSS
6 21 (0.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 15 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
8 13 (0.50%) MiFID
9 12 (0.46%) NCSC
9 12 (0.46%) PMO
10 10 (0.39%) FINRA
10 10 (0.39%) GLBA
11 9 (0.35%) NIST 800
12 5 (0.19%) GxP
13 4 (0.15%) COBIT
13 4 (0.15%) HIPAA
13 4 (0.15%) SOC 2
14 3 (0.12%) Accessibility
14 3 (0.12%) SEPA
System Software
1 970 (37.50%) Active Directory
2 259 (10.01%) VMware Infrastructure
3 103 (3.98%) Docker
4 102 (3.94%) Hyper-V
5 60 (2.32%) Virtual Machines
6 59 (2.28%) Virtual Desktop
6 59 (2.28%) vSphere
7 49 (1.89%) VMware ESXi
8 32 (1.24%) VMware NSX
9 25 (0.97%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.89%) Firmware
10 23 (0.89%) Microsoft App-V
11 16 (0.62%) KVM
12 9 (0.35%) Virtual Servers
13 7 (0.27%) XenDesktop
14 6 (0.23%) NFS
14 6 (0.23%) Terminal Services
14 6 (0.23%) XenApp
15 5 (0.19%) DFS Replication
15 5 (0.19%) Tivoli Directory Server
Systems Management
1 350 (13.53%) Microsoft Intune
2 333 (12.87%) SCCM
3 156 (6.03%) Terraform
4 134 (5.18%) Ansible
5 117 (4.52%) Kubernetes
6 66 (2.55%) Single Sign-On
7 63 (2.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 63 (2.44%) vCenter Server
8 38 (1.47%) Jamf Pro
9 29 (1.12%) Grafana
10 27 (1.04%) FortiGate
11 25 (0.97%) SCOM
12 23 (0.89%) WSUS
13 20 (0.77%) Nessus
14 19 (0.73%) Nmap
14 19 (0.73%) Prometheus
15 18 (0.70%) Progress Chef
15 18 (0.70%) WMI
16 14 (0.54%) Puppet
17 12 (0.46%) CASB
Vendors
1 1,129 (43.64%) Microsoft
2 363 (14.03%) VMware
3 237 (9.16%) ServiceNow
4 193 (7.46%) Citrix
5 165 (6.38%) Oracle
6 152 (5.88%) Cisco
7 115 (4.45%) Splunk
8 61 (2.36%) SolarWinds
9 59 (2.28%) Dell
9 59 (2.28%) Red Hat
10 57 (2.20%) HP
11 56 (2.16%) Google
12 47 (1.82%) Apple
13 46 (1.78%) IBM
14 45 (1.74%) Remedy
15 43 (1.66%) Juniper
15 43 (1.66%) Veeam
16 34 (1.31%) CyberArk
17 32 (1.24%) SAP
18 31 (1.20%) F5