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

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 22 15
Rank change year-on-year 0 -7 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,552 2,188 3,560
As % of all contract jobs in England 7.78% 8.34% 9.30%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.27% 58.72% 63.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,776 1,447 2,406
10th Percentile £161 £182 £156
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £378 £400 £396
Median % change year-on-year -5.63% +0.95% -6.76%
75th Percentile £538 £571 £575
90th Percentile £638 £661 £675
UK median daily rate £395 £400 £400
% change year-on-year -1.31% - -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 237 71 259
10th Percentile £12.97 £15.00 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.65 £16.88 £15.50
Median hourly rate £21.80 £22.09 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.31% +10.45% -9.26%
75th Percentile £42.75 £51.50 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £73.75 £62.50
UK median hourly rate £21.80 £23.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year -5.22% +15.00% -8.05%

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 4,165 3,726 5,581
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.69% 14.20% 14.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,799 2,341 3,806
10th Percentile £175 £200 £178
25th Percentile £263 £313 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £475 £465
Median % change year-on-year -6.32% +2.15% -9.71%
75th Percentile £565 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £438 £475 £470
% change year-on-year -7.89% +1.06% -8.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 304 122 369
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.28 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.07 £17.00
Median hourly rate £22.54 £49.50 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -54.47% +98.00% -2.91%
75th Percentile £53.40 £67.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £68.00 £71.23 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £23.79 £32.50 £25.00
% change year-on-year -26.81% +30.00% -2.76%

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 February 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 February 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 February 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 -13 749 £450 +7.14% 249
South East -1 504 £400 -5.88% 356
North of England -4 459 £263 -25.00% 223
South West +2 317 £425 +6.25% 126
Midlands -6 300 £275 -15.38% 144
North West -3 257 £263 -25.00% 110
East of England +7 215 £251 -14.10% 128
West Midlands -11 184 £375 +15.38% 89
Yorkshire -14 171 £313 -10.57% 93
East Midlands +5 115 £225 -36.80% 55
North East -5 34 £188 -43.61% 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
1 213 (8.35%) Microsoft Exchange
2 171 (6.70%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.51%) Confluence
4 44 (1.72%) IIS
5 37 (1.45%) Apache
6 20 (0.78%) WebLogic
7 18 (0.71%) Skype for Business
8 14 (0.55%) WebSphere
9 12 (0.47%) JBoss
10 11 (0.43%) TPMS
11 10 (0.39%) iPlanet
11 10 (0.39%) WebSphere Application Server
12 9 (0.35%) nginx
13 8 (0.31%) Tuxedo
14 7 (0.27%) SharePoint Server
15 5 (0.20%) SAS
16 4 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2010
16 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
17 3 (0.12%) Documentum
17 3 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 230 (9.01%) Microsoft Office
2 73 (2.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.39%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.27%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.16%) PTC Creo
8 2 (0.078%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.078%) 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 25 (0.98%) Remedy ITSM
2 9 (0.35%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.27%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.20%) assyst
5 4 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.078%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.078%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.078%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.078%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.078%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.078%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.039%) Aladdin
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%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 721 (28.25%) Microsoft 365
2 622 (24.37%) Azure
3 253 (9.91%) Entra ID
4 210 (8.23%) AWS
5 87 (3.41%) OneDrive
6 67 (2.63%) SaaS
7 63 (2.47%) GCP
8 51 (2.00%) Google Workspace
9 48 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
10 42 (1.65%) IaaS
11 38 (1.49%) GitHub
12 34 (1.33%) Power Platform
13 29 (1.14%) PaaS
14 27 (1.06%) Azure Monitor
15 24 (0.94%) OpenShift
16 21 (0.82%) Azure Sentinel
17 18 (0.71%) AWS CloudFormation
17 18 (0.71%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 17 (0.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 17 (0.67%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 329 (12.89%) DNS
2 252 (9.87%) Firewall
3 218 (8.54%) DHCP
4 169 (6.62%) TCP/IP
5 161 (6.31%) VPN
6 108 (4.23%) WAN
7 106 (4.15%) Wi-Fi
8 101 (3.96%) LAN
9 79 (3.10%) Network Security
10 65 (2.55%) VLAN
11 64 (2.51%) Wireless
12 42 (1.65%) SSH
13 34 (1.33%) Skype
14 32 (1.25%) Kerberos
15 31 (1.21%) SAN
16 30 (1.18%) HTTP
17 29 (1.14%) FTP
18 25 (0.98%) Internet
18 25 (0.98%) VoIP
19 24 (0.94%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (4.43%) SQL Server
2 56 (2.19%) Relational Database
3 55 (2.16%) Oracle Database
4 44 (1.72%) MySQL
5 25 (0.98%) PostgreSQL
6 14 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.51%) BigQuery
8 12 (0.47%) Power BI
9 10 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
10 9 (0.35%) Amazon Aurora
11 8 (0.31%) MongoDB
11 8 (0.31%) NoSQL
12 7 (0.27%) GIS
13 6 (0.24%) DB2
13 6 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
13 6 (0.24%) SAP HANA
14 5 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 4 (0.16%) Data Warehouse
15 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
15 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 141 (5.53%) JIRA
2 70 (2.74%) Jenkins
3 63 (2.47%) Git
4 48 (1.88%) GitLab
5 35 (1.37%) MSI
6 27 (1.06%) Eclipse
7 26 (1.02%) Visual Studio
8 19 (0.74%) Burp Suite
8 19 (0.74%) Metasploit
9 18 (0.71%) Android Studio
10 17 (0.67%) Browser DevTools
11 16 (0.63%) Xcode
12 15 (0.59%) Artifactory
13 14 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
14 11 (0.43%) Bitbucket
14 11 (0.43%) Bitbucket Server
14 11 (0.43%) CA Release Automation
14 11 (0.43%) InstallShield
15 10 (0.39%) Vagrant
16 8 (0.31%) AdminStudio
General
1 949 (37.19%) Social Skills
2 269 (10.54%) Finance
3 219 (8.58%) Public Sector
4 203 (7.95%) Analytical Skills
5 120 (4.70%) Banking
6 106 (4.15%) Documentation Skills
7 82 (3.21%) Legal
8 74 (2.90%) Organisational Skills
9 50 (1.96%) Military
10 48 (1.88%) Manufacturing
11 41 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 41 (1.61%) Presentation Skills
12 33 (1.29%) Retail
13 27 (1.06%) Telecoms
14 24 (0.94%) Front Office
15 21 (0.82%) Aerospace
15 21 (0.82%) Law
16 19 (0.74%) Investment Banking
17 16 (0.63%) Financial Institution
17 16 (0.63%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 375 (14.69%) Support Engineer
2 326 (12.77%) IT Support
3 324 (12.70%) Analyst
4 176 (6.90%) IT Engineer
5 159 (6.23%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 143 (5.60%) Architect
6 143 (5.60%) Support Analyst
7 140 (5.49%) IT Support Engineer
8 137 (5.37%) Desktop Support
9 132 (5.17%) Senior
10 124 (4.86%) Technical Support
11 121 (4.74%) Desktop Engineer
12 119 (4.66%) Windows Engineer
13 117 (4.58%) 2nd Line Support
14 102 (4.00%) Deployment Engineer
15 97 (3.80%) Developer
16 95 (3.72%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 83 (3.25%) Lead
18 79 (3.10%) IT Analyst
19 72 (2.82%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.90%) .NET
2 54 (2.12%) OAuth
3 52 (2.04%) REST
4 51 (2.00%) SAML
5 49 (1.92%) LDAP
6 43 (1.68%) .NET Framework
7 34 (1.33%) Middleware
8 33 (1.29%) OpenID
8 33 (1.29%) React
9 32 (1.25%) WPF
10 29 (1.14%) AngularJS
11 24 (0.94%) CSS
12 22 (0.86%) RESTful
12 22 (0.86%) Web Services
13 21 (0.82%) Node.js
14 20 (0.78%) OAuth2
14 20 (0.78%) SOAP
15 19 (0.74%) Kafka
16 18 (0.71%) Microsoft Graph
16 18 (0.71%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 149 (5.84%) Onboarding
2 89 (3.49%) PKI
3 87 (3.41%) Driving Licence
4 79 (3.10%) Data Centre
5 72 (2.82%) Enterprise Software
6 60 (2.35%) Replication
6 60 (2.35%) Self-Motivation
7 56 (2.19%) Smartphone
8 50 (1.96%) Management Information System
9 38 (1.49%) Hybrid Cloud
10 37 (1.45%) Security Posture
11 32 (1.25%) NHS
12 28 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
12 28 (1.10%) Clustering
12 28 (1.10%) Product Ownership
13 26 (1.02%) Video Conferencing
14 24 (0.94%) CMDB
14 24 (0.94%) Data Protection Act
15 23 (0.90%) Virtual Team
16 22 (0.86%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 618 (24.22%) Linux
2 589 (23.08%) Windows 10
3 529 (20.73%) Windows Server
4 146 (5.72%) Unix
5 134 (5.25%) Mac OS
6 129 (5.05%) Android
7 105 (4.11%) Apple iOS
8 61 (2.39%) Windows Server 2016
9 52 (2.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 50 (1.96%) Windows Server 2019
11 49 (1.92%) Windows 7
12 37 (1.45%) Windows Server 2012
13 28 (1.10%) Windows Server 2003
14 25 (0.98%) AIX
15 19 (0.74%) VMS
16 17 (0.67%) Ubuntu
17 11 (0.43%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.39%) Amazon Linux
18 10 (0.39%) Mac OS X
19 9 (0.35%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 466 (18.26%) Problem-Solving
2 447 (17.52%) Customer Service
3 369 (14.46%) ITIL
4 265 (10.38%) Agile
5 232 (9.09%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 232 (9.09%) Migration
6 218 (8.54%) DevOps
7 213 (8.35%) Service Management
8 203 (7.95%) ITSM
9 192 (7.52%) CI/CD
10 180 (7.05%) Continuous Improvement
11 172 (6.74%) Cybersecurity
12 149 (5.84%) Change Management
13 127 (4.98%) Disaster Recovery
14 121 (4.74%) User Experience
15 109 (4.27%) Service Delivery
16 108 (4.23%) Stakeholder Management
17 104 (4.08%) Infrastructure as Code
18 100 (3.92%) Computer Science
19 97 (3.80%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 501 (19.63%) PowerShell
2 290 (11.36%) Python
3 224 (8.78%) SQL
4 115 (4.51%) Java
5 107 (4.19%) C#
6 105 (4.11%) Bash
7 74 (2.90%) JavaScript
8 62 (2.43%) Perl
9 50 (1.96%) C++
10 45 (1.76%) PL/SQL
11 35 (1.37%) T-SQL
12 29 (1.14%) Kusto Query Language
13 28 (1.10%) VBScript
14 27 (1.06%) Shell Script
15 26 (1.02%) VB
16 21 (0.82%) Groovy
16 21 (0.82%) VBA
17 12 (0.47%) Bicep
17 12 (0.47%) Go
18 10 (0.39%) PHP
Qualifications
1 814 (31.90%) Security Cleared
2 534 (20.92%) SC Cleared
3 262 (10.27%) Degree
4 236 (9.25%) DV Cleared
5 144 (5.64%) Microsoft Certification
6 78 (3.06%) Computer Science Degree
7 59 (2.31%) Azure Certification
8 43 (1.68%) Cisco Certification
8 43 (1.68%) MCSE
9 37 (1.45%) A+ Certification
10 36 (1.41%) ITIL Certification
11 34 (1.33%) AWS Certification
12 27 (1.06%) CCNA
12 27 (1.06%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 25 (0.98%) CCNP
13 25 (0.98%) CISSP
14 24 (0.94%) BPSS Clearance
15 21 (0.82%) MCSA
15 21 (0.82%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 18 (0.71%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (3.49%) GDPR
2 87 (3.41%) SLA
3 65 (2.55%) QA
4 61 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 44 (1.72%) NIST
6 32 (1.25%) PCI DSS
7 21 (0.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 12 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
8 12 (0.47%) NCSC
9 11 (0.43%) GLBA
9 11 (0.43%) MiFID
9 11 (0.43%) PMO
10 8 (0.31%) FINRA
11 6 (0.24%) NIST 800
12 5 (0.20%) Accessibility
12 5 (0.20%) COBIT
13 4 (0.16%) GxP
13 4 (0.16%) HIPAA
14 3 (0.12%) SEPA
15 2 (0.078%) IFRS
System Software
1 941 (36.87%) Active Directory
2 243 (9.52%) VMware Infrastructure
3 106 (4.15%) Docker
4 94 (3.68%) Hyper-V
5 59 (2.31%) Virtual Desktop
6 58 (2.27%) Virtual Machines
7 54 (2.12%) vSphere
8 42 (1.65%) VMware ESXi
9 33 (1.29%) VMware NSX
10 24 (0.94%) BitLocker
11 20 (0.78%) Microsoft App-V
12 15 (0.59%) Firmware
13 13 (0.51%) DFS Replication
13 13 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
14 11 (0.43%) KVM
15 8 (0.31%) Tivoli Directory Server
16 7 (0.27%) Dovecot
16 7 (0.27%) Postfix
16 7 (0.27%) Squid
16 7 (0.27%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 353 (13.83%) SCCM
2 299 (11.72%) Microsoft Intune
3 154 (6.03%) Terraform
4 124 (4.86%) Ansible
5 95 (3.72%) Kubernetes
6 66 (2.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 66 (2.59%) Single Sign-On
6 66 (2.59%) vCenter Server
7 42 (1.65%) Jamf Pro
8 35 (1.37%) Grafana
9 28 (1.10%) SCOM
10 26 (1.02%) WSUS
11 23 (0.90%) Prometheus
12 19 (0.74%) Nessus
13 18 (0.71%) Nmap
14 17 (0.67%) Progress Chef
14 17 (0.67%) WMI
15 13 (0.51%) Proxmox
16 12 (0.47%) Packer
17 11 (0.43%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 1,097 (42.99%) Microsoft
2 331 (12.97%) VMware
3 244 (9.56%) ServiceNow
4 182 (7.13%) Oracle
5 154 (6.03%) Citrix
6 145 (5.68%) Cisco
7 100 (3.92%) Splunk
8 60 (2.35%) Dell
9 58 (2.27%) Apple
10 53 (2.08%) HP
11 50 (1.96%) Google
12 49 (1.92%) Red Hat
12 49 (1.92%) SolarWinds
13 47 (1.84%) Veeam
14 42 (1.65%) IBM
15 37 (1.45%) CyberArk
16 36 (1.41%) Remedy
16 36 (1.41%) SAP
17 30 (1.18%) Palo Alto
18 28 (1.10%) Juniper