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

6 months to
8 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,798 2,267 2,760
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.08% 8.29% 8.47%
As % of the Operating Systems category 62.32% 60.66% 59.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,801 1,538 1,849
10th Percentile £173 £170 £180
25th Percentile £225 £220 £251
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £408 £425
Median % change year-on-year +4.29% -4.12% -2.86%
75th Percentile £556 £562 £575
90th Percentile £650 £659 £651
UK median daily rate £425 £410 £425
% change year-on-year +3.66% -3.53% -3.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 262 192 156
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £13.69
25th Percentile £17.31 £18.10 £16.30
Median hourly rate £25.75 £21.28 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year +21.01% -10.59% -4.80%
75th Percentile £65.00 £38.67 £63.94
90th Percentile £76.35 £65.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.75 £23.00 £24.18
% change year-on-year +11.96% -4.88% +2.89%

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 4,490 3,737 4,640
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.76% 13.66% 14.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,877 2,463 3,032
10th Percentile £190 £190 £200
25th Percentile £313 £305 £332
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.22% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £584 £588
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £470 £453 £475
% change year-on-year +3.75% -4.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 326 235 242
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £15.18
25th Percentile £18.63 £18.51 £20.00
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.00 £52.75
Median % change year-on-year +30.00% -52.61% +14.97%
75th Percentile £67.84 £60.63 £69.92
90th Percentile £75.75 £67.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £25.77 £25.15 £48.56
% change year-on-year +2.47% -48.21% +5.84%

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 8 September 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 8 September 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 8 September 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 -12 932 £425 - 877
South East -9 564 £486 +2.21% 429
North of England -4 510 £325 - 275
North West +4 311 £335 -4.29% 145
South West -15 281 £488 +35.42% 187
Midlands -18 278 £393 -1.88% 194
East of England -1 213 £275 -21.43% 211
West Midlands -23 178 £425 -1.05% 132
Yorkshire -14 167 £275 +2.80% 88
East Midlands +3 96 £275 +37.50% 62
North East -27 36 £270 -1.82% 54
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
1 237 (8.47%) SharePoint
2 229 (8.18%) Microsoft Exchange
3 64 (2.29%) IIS
4 53 (1.89%) Confluence
5 18 (0.64%) nginx
5 18 (0.64%) Skype for Business
6 17 (0.61%) Apache
7 11 (0.39%) Tomcat
8 7 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.21%) Documentum
10 5 (0.18%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.18%) Appian
10 5 (0.18%) Camunda
10 5 (0.18%) WebLogic
11 4 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.11%) CloudStack
12 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
12 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
13 2 (0.071%) SharePoint 2013
13 2 (0.071%) WebSphere
Applications
1 181 (6.47%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.14%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.11%) Houdini
7 3 (0.11%) NUKE
8 2 (0.071%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.036%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.036%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.036%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 56 (2.00%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.36%) Finacle
3 7 (0.25%) OpenText MBPM
3 7 (0.25%) Oracle BPM
4 5 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 4 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
5 4 (0.14%) Teamcenter
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.071%) assyst
8 1 (0.036%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle BRM
8 1 (0.036%) ResourceLink
8 1 (0.036%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.036%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.036%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.036%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.036%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.036%) SAP FS
8 1 (0.036%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 921 (32.92%) Microsoft 365
2 882 (31.52%) Azure
3 464 (16.58%) Entra ID
4 311 (11.12%) AWS
5 138 (4.93%) OneDrive
6 104 (3.72%) Azure DevOps
7 94 (3.36%) GCP
8 77 (2.75%) Azure Monitor
9 70 (2.50%) SaaS
10 65 (2.32%) Power Platform
11 59 (2.11%) IaaS
12 57 (2.04%) GitHub
13 44 (1.57%) PaaS
14 41 (1.47%) Azure Sentinel
15 29 (1.04%) OpenShift
16 27 (0.96%) Google Workspace
17 26 (0.93%) AWS CloudFormation
18 20 (0.71%) Amazon EC2
18 20 (0.71%) Datadog
19 19 (0.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 446 (15.94%) DNS
2 321 (11.47%) DHCP
3 314 (11.22%) Firewall
4 231 (8.26%) VPN
5 209 (7.47%) TCP/IP
6 123 (4.40%) WAN
7 122 (4.36%) Wi-Fi
8 117 (4.18%) LAN
9 84 (3.00%) SAN
10 82 (2.93%) Network Security
11 81 (2.89%) VLAN
12 45 (1.61%) SSL
12 45 (1.61%) Wireless
13 41 (1.47%) NAS
14 39 (1.39%) Internet
15 38 (1.36%) VSAN
16 34 (1.22%) Skype
17 28 (1.00%) VoIP
18 27 (0.96%) BGP
19 24 (0.86%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 256 (9.15%) SQL Server
2 53 (1.89%) Oracle Database
2 53 (1.89%) Power BI
3 29 (1.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 26 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
5 23 (0.82%) Relational Database
6 22 (0.79%) MySQL
7 21 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
8 15 (0.54%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 15 (0.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 11 (0.39%) Geospatial Data
9 11 (0.39%) RDBMS
10 10 (0.36%) Db2
10 10 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
11 8 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
11 8 (0.29%) MongoDB
11 8 (0.29%) NoSQL
12 6 (0.21%) Oracle Reports
13 5 (0.18%) ObjectStore
14 4 (0.14%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 149 (5.33%) JIRA
2 62 (2.22%) Git
3 46 (1.64%) Jenkins
3 46 (1.64%) MSI
4 41 (1.47%) GitLab
5 19 (0.68%) Visual Studio
6 14 (0.50%) Bitbucket
7 9 (0.32%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 8 (0.29%) Artifactory
8 8 (0.29%) Eclipse
9 7 (0.25%) Browser DevTools
9 7 (0.25%) Selenium
9 7 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
10 5 (0.18%) AdminStudio
10 5 (0.18%) Chocolatey
10 5 (0.18%) InstallShield
10 5 (0.18%) Robot Framework
10 5 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 4 (0.14%) Claude Code
11 4 (0.14%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 1,030 (36.81%) Social Skills
2 345 (12.33%) Analytical Skills
3 338 (12.08%) Finance
4 147 (5.25%) Banking
5 132 (4.72%) Public Sector
6 105 (3.75%) Documentation Skills
7 76 (2.72%) Legal
8 69 (2.47%) Organisational Skills
9 64 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 56 (2.00%) Manufacturing
11 48 (1.72%) Retail
12 46 (1.64%) Telecoms
13 41 (1.47%) Front Office
14 38 (1.36%) Law
15 34 (1.22%) Investment Banking
16 29 (1.04%) Military
17 28 (1.00%) Spanish Language
18 25 (0.89%) French Language
19 22 (0.79%) Financial Institution
19 22 (0.79%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 463 (16.55%) Support Engineer
2 389 (13.90%) IT Support
3 310 (11.08%) IT Engineer
4 293 (10.47%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 257 (9.19%) IT Support Engineer
6 237 (8.47%) Analyst
7 231 (8.26%) Senior
8 123 (4.40%) Desktop Support
9 120 (4.29%) 2nd Line Support
10 112 (4.00%) Desktop Engineer
11 108 (3.86%) Lead
12 105 (3.75%) Cloud Engineer
13 101 (3.61%) Architect
14 98 (3.50%) Windows Engineer
15 92 (3.29%) Support Analyst
16 81 (2.89%) Developer
17 79 (2.82%) 1st Line Support
18 78 (2.79%) Consultant
19 73 (2.61%) IT Analyst
20 72 (2.57%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 244 (8.72%) Terraform
2 111 (3.97%) .NET
3 99 (3.54%) REST
4 61 (2.18%) .NET Framework
5 35 (1.25%) LDAP
6 33 (1.18%) JSON
7 29 (1.04%) WPF
8 28 (1.00%) Middleware
9 24 (0.86%) ARM Templates
10 22 (0.79%) Software Packaging
10 22 (0.79%) WinForms
11 20 (0.71%) HTML
12 19 (0.68%) .NET Core
12 19 (0.68%) CSS
12 19 (0.68%) Elastic Stack
12 19 (0.68%) Kafka
12 19 (0.68%) Microsoft Graph
13 17 (0.61%) XML
14 16 (0.57%) SAML
15 15 (0.54%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 348 (12.44%) Onboarding
2 151 (5.40%) Data Centre
3 142 (5.08%) PKI
4 94 (3.36%) Management Information System
5 82 (2.93%) Hybrid Cloud
6 81 (2.89%) Clustering
7 72 (2.57%) Cloud Native
8 68 (2.43%) Enterprise Software
9 66 (2.36%) Video Conferencing
10 61 (2.18%) Replication
11 56 (2.00%) Driving Licence
12 55 (1.97%) Self-Motivation
13 51 (1.82%) Security Posture
14 40 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
14 40 (1.43%) Virtual Team
15 39 (1.39%) CMDB
16 35 (1.25%) Enterprise Storage
17 33 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
18 32 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
19 30 (1.07%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 786 (28.09%) Windows Server
2 658 (23.52%) Linux
3 499 (17.83%) Windows 10
4 184 (6.58%) Mac OS
5 125 (4.47%) Apple iOS
6 119 (4.25%) Android
7 117 (4.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 104 (3.72%) Unix
9 67 (2.39%) Windows Server 2019
10 50 (1.79%) Ubuntu
11 46 (1.64%) Windows 7
12 38 (1.36%) Windows Server 2012
13 36 (1.29%) Windows Server 2016
14 35 (1.25%) CentOS
15 21 (0.75%) AIX
16 20 (0.71%) VMS
17 17 (0.61%) Windows Server 2008
18 15 (0.54%) Solaris
19 14 (0.50%) Rocky
20 11 (0.39%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 678 (24.23%) Problem-Solving
2 535 (19.12%) ITIL
3 458 (16.37%) Customer Service
4 378 (13.51%) ITSM
5 375 (13.40%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 330 (11.79%) Migration
7 312 (11.15%) Continuous Improvement
8 276 (9.86%) Service Management
9 273 (9.76%) DevOps
10 237 (8.47%) Infrastructure as Code
11 234 (8.36%) Agile
12 230 (8.22%) CI/CD
13 208 (7.43%) Stakeholder Management
14 201 (7.18%) Change Management
15 189 (6.75%) Root Cause Analysis
16 180 (6.43%) Disaster Recovery
17 170 (6.08%) Cybersecurity
18 162 (5.79%) Incident Management
19 160 (5.72%) Technical Leadership
20 158 (5.65%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 715 (25.55%) PowerShell
2 306 (10.94%) Python
3 275 (9.83%) SQL
4 171 (6.11%) Bash
5 124 (4.43%) C#
6 59 (2.11%) Java
7 58 (2.07%) T-SQL
8 53 (1.89%) JavaScript
9 49 (1.75%) Bicep
10 47 (1.68%) PL/SQL
11 29 (1.04%) VB
12 26 (0.93%) VBScript
13 25 (0.89%) C++
14 21 (0.75%) Search Processing Language
15 17 (0.61%) Perl
16 16 (0.57%) TypeScript
17 15 (0.54%) Shell Script
18 12 (0.43%) VBA
19 8 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
20 7 (0.25%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 897 (32.06%) Security Cleared
2 528 (18.87%) SC Cleared
3 361 (12.90%) DV Cleared
4 284 (10.15%) Degree
5 113 (4.04%) Microsoft Certification
6 91 (3.25%) Azure Certification
7 71 (2.54%) Computer Science Degree
8 70 (2.50%) Cisco Certification
9 63 (2.25%) CISSP
10 53 (1.89%) AWS Certification
11 48 (1.72%) A+ Certification
11 48 (1.72%) BPSS Clearance
12 46 (1.64%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 32 (1.14%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 31 (1.11%) CCNP
15 29 (1.04%) CCNA
15 29 (1.04%) CISM
15 29 (1.04%) DBS Check
16 27 (0.96%) MCSE
17 25 (0.89%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 154 (5.50%) SLA
2 111 (3.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 80 (2.86%) NIST
4 78 (2.79%) QA
5 33 (1.18%) Cyber Essentials
6 27 (0.96%) NCSC
7 23 (0.82%) PCI DSS
8 22 (0.79%) GDPR
9 15 (0.54%) Accessibility
9 15 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 14 (0.50%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 12 (0.43%) WCAG
12 11 (0.39%) GRC
12 11 (0.39%) HIPAA
13 8 (0.29%) GxP
13 8 (0.29%) ISO 31000
13 8 (0.29%) PMO
14 6 (0.21%) NIST 800
14 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,174 (41.96%) Active Directory
2 432 (15.44%) VMware Infrastructure
3 191 (6.83%) Hyper-V
4 149 (5.33%) VMware ESXi
5 127 (4.54%) vSphere
6 105 (3.75%) Docker
7 100 (3.57%) Virtual Machines
8 83 (2.97%) Virtual Desktop
9 81 (2.89%) VMware NSX
10 39 (1.39%) BitLocker
11 28 (1.00%) Firmware
12 24 (0.86%) vCloud
13 16 (0.57%) Microsoft App-V
14 14 (0.50%) Virtual Servers
15 13 (0.46%) NFS
16 11 (0.39%) XenApp
17 10 (0.36%) Citrix Hypervisor
17 10 (0.36%) XenDesktop
18 9 (0.32%) KVM
19 6 (0.21%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 413 (14.76%) Microsoft Intune
2 310 (11.08%) SCCM
3 213 (7.61%) Ansible
4 146 (5.22%) Kubernetes
5 121 (4.32%) vCenter Server
6 95 (3.40%) SCOM
7 46 (1.64%) WSUS
8 45 (1.61%) Jamf Pro
9 31 (1.11%) Prometheus
10 29 (1.04%) Grafana
10 29 (1.04%) Progress Chef
10 29 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
11 26 (0.93%) WMI
12 24 (0.86%) Puppet
13 23 (0.82%) FortiGate
13 23 (0.82%) VxRail
14 22 (0.79%) Nagios
14 22 (0.79%) Packer
15 21 (0.75%) NetBackup
16 20 (0.71%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 1,333 (47.64%) Microsoft
2 571 (20.41%) VMware
3 339 (12.12%) ServiceNow
4 187 (6.68%) Cisco
5 160 (5.72%) Oracle
6 154 (5.50%) Citrix
7 101 (3.61%) Splunk
8 98 (3.50%) Apple
9 87 (3.11%) CyberArk
10 77 (2.75%) Google
11 68 (2.43%) SolarWinds
12 67 (2.39%) Red Hat
13 62 (2.22%) BeyondTrust
14 60 (2.14%) Remedy
15 55 (1.97%) HP
16 50 (1.79%) Dell
17 44 (1.57%) BMC
18 41 (1.47%) NetApp
19 37 (1.32%) Meraki
20 35 (1.25%) Veeam