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

6 months to
2 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 16
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,515 2,078 3,359
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.57% 8.57% 8.93%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.84% 60.51% 64.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,697 1,491 2,299
10th Percentile £160 £182 £156
25th Percentile £205 £243 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £410 £425 £388
Median % change year-on-year -3.53% +9.68% -13.89%
75th Percentile £548 £575 £575
90th Percentile £639 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £410 £425 £400
% change year-on-year -3.53% +6.25% -10.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 216 91 273
10th Percentile £13.83 £15.22 £12.08
25th Percentile £16.62 £16.95 £14.16
Median hourly rate £22.00 £18.82 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +16.90% +6.21% -19.45%
75th Percentile £56.25 £28.21 £23.88
90th Percentile £71.00 £65.00 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £21.80 £21.14 £18.00
% change year-on-year +3.12% +17.44% -18.18%

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 4,134 3,434 5,221
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.81% 14.16% 13.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,745 2,356 3,557
10th Percentile £181 £200 £178
25th Percentile £300 £313 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -13.38%
75th Percentile £568 £600 £588
90th Percentile £663 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £460
% change year-on-year -5.26% +3.26% -10.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 298 139 373
10th Percentile £14.70 £16.45 £12.94
25th Percentile £18.11 £18.13 £15.50
Median hourly rate £25.00 £28.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.71% +27.27% -24.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £53.75
90th Percentile £74.08 £69.25 £68.50
UK median hourly rate £25.00 £24.66 £22.00
% change year-on-year +1.38% +12.09% -26.67%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 -20 774 £430 -4.44% 231
South East -5 512 £467 -2.61% 277
North of England -8 476 £290 -17.14% 201
Midlands -13 275 £310 +3.33% 130
North West -3 263 £260 -25.71% 130
South West -7 246 £450 -16.28% 129
East of England +5 215 £280 +24.44% 97
Yorkshire -17 189 £358 +5.93% 58
West Midlands -25 163 £442 +36.08% 76
East Midlands +1 108 £200 -5.88% 54
North East -10 27 £188 -14.77% 17
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
1 214 (8.51%) Microsoft Exchange
2 164 (6.52%) SharePoint
3 51 (2.03%) Confluence
4 45 (1.79%) IIS
5 21 (0.83%) Apache
5 21 (0.83%) WebLogic
6 12 (0.48%) Skype for Business
7 11 (0.44%) Tuxedo
8 9 (0.36%) TPMS
9 8 (0.32%) Tomcat
10 7 (0.28%) nginx
11 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.16%) WebSphere
12 3 (0.12%) SAS
13 2 (0.080%) IBM HTTP Server
13 2 (0.080%) NetWeaver
13 2 (0.080%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 2 (0.080%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 189 (7.51%) Microsoft Office
2 69 (2.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.48%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.20%) PTC Creo
7 3 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.040%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.040%) InDesign
8 1 (0.040%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 35 (1.39%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.28%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.20%) assyst
5 4 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.080%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.080%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.080%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.080%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.080%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.040%) Aladdin
8 1 (0.040%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.040%) Eikon
8 1 (0.040%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.040%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.040%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.040%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.040%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 724 (28.79%) Microsoft 365
2 658 (26.16%) Azure
3 284 (11.29%) Entra ID
4 184 (7.32%) AWS
5 78 (3.10%) OneDrive
6 64 (2.54%) SaaS
7 63 (2.50%) GCP
8 58 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
9 50 (1.99%) Google Workspace
10 47 (1.87%) IaaS
11 41 (1.63%) GitHub
12 39 (1.55%) PaaS
13 38 (1.51%) Power Platform
14 33 (1.31%) Azure Monitor
15 24 (0.95%) Azure Sentinel
16 21 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
17 20 (0.80%) AWS CloudFormation
18 19 (0.76%) OpenShift
19 18 (0.72%) Nutanix
20 16 (0.64%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 332 (13.20%) DNS
2 304 (12.09%) Firewall
3 222 (8.83%) DHCP
4 173 (6.88%) VPN
5 155 (6.16%) TCP/IP
6 148 (5.88%) LAN
7 143 (5.69%) WAN
8 129 (5.13%) Wi-Fi
9 75 (2.98%) Network Security
10 64 (2.54%) VLAN
11 51 (2.03%) Wireless
12 49 (1.95%) SAN
13 39 (1.55%) BGP
14 30 (1.19%) OSPF
14 30 (1.19%) Skype
15 29 (1.15%) SSL
15 29 (1.15%) VoIP
16 28 (1.11%) Cisco ISE
16 28 (1.11%) Junos
16 28 (1.11%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 155 (6.16%) SQL Server
2 42 (1.67%) Oracle Database
3 36 (1.43%) Relational Database
4 34 (1.35%) MySQL
5 23 (0.91%) PostgreSQL
6 18 (0.72%) Power BI
7 14 (0.56%) DB2
8 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
9 12 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
9 12 (0.48%) MongoDB
10 11 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
11 8 (0.32%) NoSQL
12 7 (0.28%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 6 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
13 6 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
13 6 (0.24%) GIS
13 6 (0.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 5 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
15 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
15 4 (0.16%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 157 (6.24%) JIRA
2 53 (2.11%) GitLab
3 49 (1.95%) Jenkins
4 42 (1.67%) Git
5 40 (1.59%) MSI
6 34 (1.35%) Visual Studio
7 23 (0.91%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.68%) Burp Suite
8 17 (0.68%) Metasploit
9 13 (0.52%) Android Studio
9 13 (0.52%) Artifactory
10 11 (0.44%) Chocolatey
10 11 (0.44%) Xcode
11 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
11 9 (0.36%) Browser DevTools
12 8 (0.32%) InstallShield
12 8 (0.32%) JUnit
12 8 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
13 7 (0.28%) Robot Framework
13 7 (0.28%) Selenium
General
1 889 (35.35%) Social Skills
2 236 (9.38%) Finance
3 204 (8.11%) Analytical Skills
4 199 (7.91%) Public Sector
5 141 (5.61%) Banking
6 103 (4.10%) Legal
7 99 (3.94%) Documentation Skills
8 83 (3.30%) Organisational Skills
9 56 (2.23%) Military
10 41 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
11 39 (1.55%) Manufacturing
12 37 (1.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 36 (1.43%) Retail
14 29 (1.15%) Law
14 29 (1.15%) Telecoms
15 26 (1.03%) Investment Banking
16 22 (0.87%) Front Office
17 20 (0.80%) Local Government
18 15 (0.60%) Aerospace
19 13 (0.52%) Police
Job Titles
1 359 (14.27%) IT Support
2 343 (13.64%) Support Engineer
3 325 (12.92%) Analyst
4 217 (8.63%) IT Engineer
5 182 (7.24%) IT Support Engineer
6 163 (6.48%) Architect
7 158 (6.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 155 (6.16%) Senior
9 138 (5.49%) Support Analyst
10 108 (4.29%) Desktop Support
11 105 (4.17%) Developer
11 105 (4.17%) Technical Support
12 99 (3.94%) 2nd Line Support
12 99 (3.94%) Desktop Engineer
13 93 (3.70%) IT Analyst
14 83 (3.30%) Windows Engineer
15 79 (3.14%) Lead
16 75 (2.98%) IT Support Analyst
17 71 (2.82%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 69 (2.74%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (3.22%) .NET
2 66 (2.62%) REST
3 49 (1.95%) .NET Framework
4 45 (1.79%) SAML
5 41 (1.63%) OAuth
6 39 (1.55%) LDAP
7 38 (1.51%) Middleware
8 29 (1.15%) WPF
9 27 (1.07%) Web Services
9 27 (1.07%) WinForms
10 26 (1.03%) Kafka
11 24 (0.95%) 802.1X
11 24 (0.95%) OpenID
12 23 (0.91%) CSS
12 23 (0.91%) React
13 22 (0.87%) Microsoft Graph
14 21 (0.83%) AngularJS
14 21 (0.83%) Node.js
15 19 (0.76%) Apache NiFi
15 19 (0.76%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 181 (7.20%) Onboarding
2 103 (4.10%) Data Centre
3 100 (3.98%) PKI
4 74 (2.94%) Enterprise Software
5 65 (2.58%) Driving Licence
6 63 (2.50%) Self-Motivation
7 62 (2.47%) Clustering
8 59 (2.35%) Replication
9 45 (1.79%) Smartphone
10 44 (1.75%) Hybrid Cloud
11 42 (1.67%) Management Information System
12 40 (1.59%) Product Ownership
13 37 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
13 37 (1.47%) Security Posture
14 32 (1.27%) CMDB
15 31 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
16 30 (1.19%) NHS
17 27 (1.07%) Cloud Native
18 25 (0.99%) Virtual Team
19 24 (0.95%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 601 (23.90%) Linux
2 559 (22.23%) Windows Server
3 526 (20.91%) Windows 10
4 138 (5.49%) Android
5 133 (5.29%) Mac OS
6 119 (4.73%) Unix
7 110 (4.37%) Apple iOS
8 73 (2.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 58 (2.31%) Windows Server 2016
10 46 (1.83%) Windows 7
11 45 (1.79%) Windows Server 2019
12 39 (1.55%) AIX
13 38 (1.51%) Windows Server 2012
14 28 (1.11%) Windows Server 2003
15 18 (0.72%) Ubuntu
15 18 (0.72%) VMS
16 14 (0.56%) Solaris
17 11 (0.44%) Windows Server 2008
18 9 (0.36%) CentOS
18 9 (0.36%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 508 (20.20%) Problem-Solving
2 445 (17.69%) Customer Service
3 367 (14.59%) ITIL
4 268 (10.66%) Agile
5 263 (10.46%) Migration
6 237 (9.42%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 224 (8.91%) DevOps
8 213 (8.47%) ITSM
9 200 (7.95%) CI/CD
10 181 (7.20%) Service Management
11 179 (7.12%) Continuous Improvement
12 167 (6.64%) Cybersecurity
13 165 (6.56%) Change Management
14 152 (6.04%) Disaster Recovery
15 133 (5.29%) High Availability
16 126 (5.01%) Stakeholder Management
17 114 (4.53%) User Experience
18 108 (4.29%) Identity Access Management
18 108 (4.29%) Infrastructure as Code
19 104 (4.14%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 532 (21.15%) PowerShell
2 246 (9.78%) Python
3 232 (9.22%) SQL
4 121 (4.81%) C#
5 106 (4.21%) Bash
6 80 (3.18%) Java
7 74 (2.94%) JavaScript
8 53 (2.11%) PL/SQL
9 49 (1.95%) C++
10 46 (1.83%) Perl
11 41 (1.63%) T-SQL
12 29 (1.15%) Kusto Query Language
13 23 (0.91%) VB
14 19 (0.76%) VBScript
15 17 (0.68%) Shell Script
16 15 (0.60%) Search Processing Language
17 14 (0.56%) VBA
18 13 (0.52%) Bicep
18 13 (0.52%) TypeScript
19 11 (0.44%) Go
Qualifications
1 801 (31.85%) Security Cleared
2 525 (20.87%) SC Cleared
3 253 (10.06%) Degree
4 240 (9.54%) DV Cleared
5 117 (4.65%) Microsoft Certification
6 74 (2.94%) Computer Science Degree
7 61 (2.43%) Cisco Certification
8 43 (1.71%) Azure Certification
9 41 (1.63%) MCSE
10 34 (1.35%) CISSP
11 31 (1.23%) ITIL Certification
12 29 (1.15%) BPSS Clearance
12 29 (1.15%) CCNA
13 28 (1.11%) AWS Certification
14 23 (0.91%) CCNP
15 21 (0.83%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 20 (0.80%) A+ Certification
16 20 (0.80%) CompTIA Security+
16 20 (0.80%) MCSA
17 19 (0.76%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (3.50%) GDPR
2 85 (3.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 83 (3.30%) QA
4 82 (3.26%) SLA
5 55 (2.19%) NIST
6 42 (1.67%) PCI DSS
7 24 (0.95%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 16 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
9 12 (0.48%) MiFID
10 11 (0.44%) NCSC
10 11 (0.44%) NIST 800
10 11 (0.44%) PMO
11 10 (0.40%) FINRA
12 9 (0.36%) Data Quality
12 9 (0.36%) GLBA
13 5 (0.20%) DICOM
13 5 (0.20%) HL7
14 4 (0.16%) GMP
14 4 (0.16%) GxP
14 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
System Software
1 941 (37.42%) Active Directory
2 268 (10.66%) VMware Infrastructure
3 112 (4.45%) Hyper-V
4 90 (3.58%) Docker
5 71 (2.82%) vSphere
6 61 (2.43%) VMware ESXi
7 55 (2.19%) Virtual Machines
8 47 (1.87%) Virtual Desktop
9 33 (1.31%) VMware NSX
10 29 (1.15%) Firmware
11 28 (1.11%) BitLocker
12 24 (0.95%) Microsoft App-V
13 16 (0.64%) KVM
14 9 (0.36%) XenDesktop
15 8 (0.32%) XenApp
16 6 (0.24%) NFS
17 5 (0.20%) etcd
17 5 (0.20%) Terminal Services
17 5 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
18 4 (0.16%) Snort
Systems Management
1 349 (13.88%) Microsoft Intune
2 275 (10.93%) SCCM
3 151 (6.00%) Terraform
4 150 (5.96%) Ansible
5 118 (4.69%) Kubernetes
6 65 (2.58%) Single Sign-On
7 61 (2.43%) vCenter Server
8 57 (2.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 37 (1.47%) Jamf Pro
10 32 (1.27%) FortiGate
11 29 (1.15%) WSUS
12 24 (0.95%) Grafana
13 23 (0.91%) SCOM
14 21 (0.83%) Prometheus
15 18 (0.72%) Nagios
15 18 (0.72%) Progress Chef
16 17 (0.68%) Nessus
16 17 (0.68%) Puppet
17 16 (0.64%) Nmap
17 16 (0.64%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,086 (43.18%) Microsoft
2 366 (14.55%) VMware
3 224 (8.91%) ServiceNow
4 198 (7.87%) Citrix
5 153 (6.08%) Cisco
6 151 (6.00%) Oracle
7 114 (4.53%) Splunk
8 71 (2.82%) HP
9 63 (2.50%) SolarWinds
10 60 (2.39%) Red Hat
11 58 (2.31%) Dell
12 55 (2.19%) Google
13 51 (2.03%) IBM
14 49 (1.95%) Remedy
15 46 (1.83%) Apple
16 42 (1.67%) Juniper
17 37 (1.47%) CyberArk
18 36 (1.43%) Veeam
19 35 (1.39%) F5
20 29 (1.15%) Palo Alto