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

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 16
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,518 2,106 3,380
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.82% 8.59% 8.92%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.94% 60.21% 64.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,688 1,494 2,294
10th Percentile £161 £182 £155
25th Percentile £204 £241 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £408 £420 £385
Median % change year-on-year -2.98% +9.09% -14.44%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £640 £675 £654
UK median daily rate £408 £425 £400
% change year-on-year -4.12% +6.25% -9.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 232 83 268
10th Percentile £13.28 £15.22 £12.18
25th Percentile £16.50 £16.95 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.48 £21.00 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +2.29% +18.51% -19.60%
75th Percentile £41.94 £31.38 £25.07
90th Percentile £67.55 £68.15 £61.60
UK median hourly rate £21.46 £22.09 £18.00
% change year-on-year -2.85% +22.72% -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 4,132 3,498 5,279
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 11.19% 14.28% 13.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,730 2,369 3,578
10th Percentile £180 £200 £178
25th Percentile £275 £313 £270
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -13.46%
75th Percentile £565 £600 £588
90th Percentile £669 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £447 £475 £456
% change year-on-year -5.89% +4.17% -11.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 307 129 375
10th Percentile £14.00 £16.25 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.20 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.58 £29.00 £22.15
Median % change year-on-year -22.16% +30.93% -16.42%
75th Percentile £60.00 £66.00 £58.50
90th Percentile £68.75 £71.05 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £22.79 £27.50 £22.40
% change year-on-year -17.15% +22.77% -15.44%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -20 764 £430 +1.18% 220
South East -3 527 £441 -5.87% 284
North of England -8 473 £290 -17.26% 208
Midlands -15 261 £325 - 122
South West -5 259 £450 -15.89% 116
North West -8 254 £261 -28.38% 128
East of England +6 215 £240 +6.19% 97
Yorkshire -13 192 £335 -16.25% 65
West Midlands -28 155 £447 +35.45% 64
East Midlands -4 103 £200 -20.00% 58
North East -10 30 £184 -38.75% 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
1 214 (8.50%) Microsoft Exchange
2 161 (6.39%) SharePoint
3 56 (2.22%) Confluence
4 43 (1.71%) IIS
5 21 (0.83%) Apache
6 20 (0.79%) WebLogic
7 13 (0.52%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.44%) Tuxedo
9 10 (0.40%) TPMS
10 6 (0.24%) Tomcat
11 5 (0.20%) nginx
12 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.16%) WebSphere
13 3 (0.12%) SAS
13 3 (0.12%) SharePoint Server
14 2 (0.079%) Exchange Server 2010
14 2 (0.079%) Sitecore CMS
14 2 (0.079%) WordPress
Applications
1 205 (8.14%) Microsoft Office
2 69 (2.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.48%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.20%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.20%) PTC Creo
7 3 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.079%) InDesign
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.040%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.040%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.040%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 28 (1.11%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (0.52%) 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 (0.079%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.079%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.079%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.079%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.079%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.079%) 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%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 732 (29.07%) Microsoft 365
2 633 (25.14%) Azure
3 273 (10.84%) Entra ID
4 180 (7.15%) AWS
5 84 (3.34%) OneDrive
6 64 (2.54%) GCP
7 63 (2.50%) SaaS
8 54 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
9 51 (2.03%) Google Workspace
10 44 (1.75%) IaaS
11 42 (1.67%) GitHub
12 39 (1.55%) Power Platform
13 37 (1.47%) PaaS
14 31 (1.23%) Azure Monitor
15 24 (0.95%) Azure Sentinel
16 23 (0.91%) AWS CloudFormation
17 21 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
18 18 (0.71%) OpenShift
19 17 (0.68%) Nutanix
20 16 (0.64%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 329 (13.07%) DNS
2 294 (11.68%) Firewall
3 218 (8.66%) DHCP
4 167 (6.63%) VPN
5 159 (6.31%) TCP/IP
6 144 (5.72%) LAN
7 143 (5.68%) WAN
8 137 (5.44%) Wi-Fi
9 72 (2.86%) Network Security
10 59 (2.34%) Wireless
11 58 (2.30%) VLAN
12 41 (1.63%) SAN
13 38 (1.51%) BGP
14 31 (1.23%) SSH
15 30 (1.19%) Skype
16 29 (1.15%) SSL
16 29 (1.15%) VoIP
17 28 (1.11%) Cisco ISE
17 28 (1.11%) Junos
17 28 (1.11%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 149 (5.92%) SQL Server
2 44 (1.75%) Oracle Database
3 40 (1.59%) Relational Database
4 35 (1.39%) MySQL
5 21 (0.83%) PostgreSQL
6 16 (0.64%) Power BI
7 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
7 13 (0.52%) DB2
8 12 (0.48%) MongoDB
9 11 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
10 9 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
10 9 (0.36%) NoSQL
11 7 (0.28%) SAP HANA
12 6 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
12 6 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
12 6 (0.24%) GIS
13 5 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
13 5 (0.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 5 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 4 (0.16%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 158 (6.27%) JIRA
2 54 (2.14%) Jenkins
3 53 (2.10%) GitLab
4 44 (1.75%) Git
5 40 (1.59%) MSI
6 33 (1.31%) Visual Studio
7 25 (0.99%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.68%) Burp Suite
8 17 (0.68%) Metasploit
9 15 (0.60%) Android Studio
10 14 (0.56%) Artifactory
11 13 (0.52%) Xcode
12 11 (0.44%) Browser DevTools
13 10 (0.40%) Chocolatey
14 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
15 8 (0.32%) InstallShield
15 8 (0.32%) JUnit
16 7 (0.28%) Robot Framework
16 7 (0.28%) Selenium
17 6 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 917 (36.42%) Social Skills
2 234 (9.29%) Finance
3 211 (8.38%) Public Sector
4 207 (8.22%) Analytical Skills
5 131 (5.20%) Banking
6 107 (4.25%) Documentation Skills
7 98 (3.89%) Legal
8 80 (3.18%) Organisational Skills
9 58 (2.30%) Military
10 43 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
11 39 (1.55%) Manufacturing
12 36 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 34 (1.35%) Retail
14 25 (0.99%) Law
14 25 (0.99%) Telecoms
15 20 (0.79%) Investment Banking
16 19 (0.75%) Aerospace
16 19 (0.75%) Local Government
17 17 (0.68%) Front Office
18 14 (0.56%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 351 (13.94%) Support Engineer
2 347 (13.78%) IT Support
3 325 (12.91%) Analyst
4 206 (8.18%) IT Engineer
5 173 (6.87%) IT Support Engineer
6 158 (6.27%) Architect
7 153 (6.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 153 (6.08%) Senior
8 144 (5.72%) Support Analyst
9 113 (4.49%) Desktop Support
10 110 (4.37%) Technical Support
11 107 (4.25%) 2nd Line Support
12 105 (4.17%) Developer
13 102 (4.05%) Desktop Engineer
14 93 (3.69%) Windows Engineer
15 83 (3.30%) IT Analyst
15 83 (3.30%) Lead
16 73 (2.90%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 71 (2.82%) IT Support Analyst
18 67 (2.66%) Deployment Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (3.22%) .NET
2 60 (2.38%) REST
3 50 (1.99%) .NET Framework
4 45 (1.79%) OAuth
5 42 (1.67%) SAML
6 39 (1.55%) LDAP
7 32 (1.27%) Middleware
8 29 (1.15%) Web Services
9 28 (1.11%) WPF
10 24 (0.95%) CSS
10 24 (0.95%) Kafka
10 24 (0.95%) Microsoft Graph
10 24 (0.95%) React
10 24 (0.95%) WinForms
11 23 (0.91%) AngularJS
12 22 (0.87%) 802.1X
12 22 (0.87%) OpenID
13 21 (0.83%) OAuth2
14 19 (0.75%) Apache NiFi
14 19 (0.75%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 172 (6.83%) Onboarding
2 103 (4.09%) Data Centre
3 100 (3.97%) PKI
4 77 (3.06%) Enterprise Software
5 75 (2.98%) Driving Licence
6 65 (2.58%) Self-Motivation
7 53 (2.10%) Clustering
8 52 (2.07%) Smartphone
9 49 (1.95%) Replication
10 47 (1.87%) Management Information System
11 40 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
12 39 (1.55%) Product Ownership
12 39 (1.55%) Security Posture
13 36 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
14 33 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
14 33 (1.31%) NHS
15 31 (1.23%) CMDB
16 26 (1.03%) Virtual Team
17 25 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
18 23 (0.91%) Cloud Native
Operating Systems
1 592 (23.51%) Linux
2 554 (22.00%) Windows Server
3 542 (21.53%) Windows 10
4 138 (5.48%) Android
5 130 (5.16%) Unix
6 127 (5.04%) Mac OS
7 109 (4.33%) Apple iOS
8 65 (2.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 61 (2.42%) Windows Server 2016
10 48 (1.91%) Windows 7
11 44 (1.75%) Windows Server 2019
12 36 (1.43%) Windows Server 2012
13 35 (1.39%) AIX
14 30 (1.19%) Windows Server 2003
15 15 (0.60%) Ubuntu
16 13 (0.52%) VMS
17 12 (0.48%) Solaris
17 12 (0.48%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.40%) Mac OS X
19 8 (0.32%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 500 (19.86%) Problem-Solving
2 445 (17.67%) Customer Service
3 357 (14.18%) ITIL
4 269 (10.68%) Agile
5 252 (10.01%) Migration
6 236 (9.37%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 216 (8.58%) DevOps
8 209 (8.30%) ITSM
9 198 (7.86%) CI/CD
10 178 (7.07%) Continuous Improvement
10 178 (7.07%) Service Management
11 177 (7.03%) Cybersecurity
12 163 (6.47%) Change Management
13 151 (6.00%) Disaster Recovery
14 129 (5.12%) High Availability
15 128 (5.08%) Stakeholder Management
16 123 (4.88%) User Experience
17 112 (4.45%) Service Delivery
18 105 (4.17%) Infrastructure as Code
19 102 (4.05%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 514 (20.41%) PowerShell
2 259 (10.29%) Python
3 224 (8.90%) SQL
4 121 (4.81%) C#
5 103 (4.09%) Bash
6 85 (3.38%) Java
7 74 (2.94%) JavaScript
8 54 (2.14%) C++
9 50 (1.99%) PL/SQL
10 47 (1.87%) Perl
11 39 (1.55%) T-SQL
12 32 (1.27%) Kusto Query Language
13 23 (0.91%) VB
14 20 (0.79%) VBScript
15 19 (0.75%) Shell Script
16 14 (0.56%) VBA
17 12 (0.48%) Bicep
18 11 (0.44%) Go
18 11 (0.44%) Search Processing Language
18 11 (0.44%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 812 (32.25%) Security Cleared
2 535 (21.25%) SC Cleared
3 256 (10.17%) Degree
4 231 (9.17%) DV Cleared
5 123 (4.88%) Microsoft Certification
6 74 (2.94%) Computer Science Degree
7 62 (2.46%) Cisco Certification
8 43 (1.71%) MCSE
9 42 (1.67%) Azure Certification
10 33 (1.31%) CISSP
10 33 (1.31%) ITIL Certification
11 31 (1.23%) CCNA
12 29 (1.15%) AWS Certification
13 28 (1.11%) BPSS Clearance
14 27 (1.07%) CCNP
15 21 (0.83%) MCSA
15 21 (0.83%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 20 (0.79%) A+ Certification
16 20 (0.79%) CompTIA Security+
16 20 (0.79%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (3.53%) GDPR
2 84 (3.34%) SLA
3 83 (3.30%) QA
4 77 (3.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 51 (2.03%) NIST
6 40 (1.59%) PCI DSS
7 21 (0.83%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 15 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
9 13 (0.52%) MiFID
9 13 (0.52%) PMO
10 12 (0.48%) NCSC
11 10 (0.40%) FINRA
11 10 (0.40%) GLBA
12 9 (0.36%) NIST 800
13 7 (0.28%) Data Quality
14 4 (0.16%) GxP
14 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
15 3 (0.12%) COBIT
15 3 (0.12%) GMP
15 3 (0.12%) HL7
System Software
1 941 (37.37%) Active Directory
2 256 (10.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 103 (4.09%) Hyper-V
4 93 (3.69%) Docker
5 61 (2.42%) vSphere
6 57 (2.26%) Virtual Machines
7 50 (1.99%) VMware ESXi
8 49 (1.95%) Virtual Desktop
9 30 (1.19%) VMware NSX
10 27 (1.07%) BitLocker
11 26 (1.03%) Firmware
12 24 (0.95%) Microsoft App-V
13 16 (0.64%) KVM
14 8 (0.32%) XenDesktop
15 7 (0.28%) Terminal Services
15 7 (0.28%) XenApp
16 6 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
17 4 (0.16%) etcd
17 4 (0.16%) NFS
17 4 (0.16%) Snort
Systems Management
1 338 (13.42%) Microsoft Intune
2 301 (11.95%) SCCM
3 158 (6.27%) Terraform
4 142 (5.64%) Ansible
5 118 (4.69%) Kubernetes
6 63 (2.50%) Single Sign-On
7 61 (2.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 56 (2.22%) vCenter Server
9 36 (1.43%) Jamf Pro
10 32 (1.27%) FortiGate
11 26 (1.03%) Grafana
12 24 (0.95%) SCOM
12 24 (0.95%) WSUS
13 21 (0.83%) Prometheus
14 17 (0.68%) Progress Chef
14 17 (0.68%) WMI
15 16 (0.64%) Nmap
15 16 (0.64%) Puppet
16 15 (0.60%) Nessus
17 14 (0.56%) Nagios
Vendors
1 1,083 (43.01%) Microsoft
2 354 (14.06%) VMware
3 225 (8.94%) ServiceNow
4 193 (7.66%) Citrix
5 152 (6.04%) Oracle
6 146 (5.80%) Cisco
7 115 (4.57%) Splunk
8 67 (2.66%) HP
9 62 (2.46%) SolarWinds
10 61 (2.42%) Red Hat
11 57 (2.26%) Google
12 56 (2.22%) Dell
13 47 (1.87%) IBM
14 44 (1.75%) Apple
14 44 (1.75%) Remedy
15 42 (1.67%) Juniper
16 40 (1.59%) Veeam
17 34 (1.35%) CyberArk
18 33 (1.31%) F5
19 30 (1.19%) Palo Alto