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

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 21 16
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,527 2,069 3,141
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.02% 8.61% 8.54%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.41% 61.45% 61.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,661 1,463 2,177
10th Percentile £163 £181 £163
25th Percentile £215 £250 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £420 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -1.18% +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £425 £425 £400
% change year-on-year - +6.25% -11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 215 124 263
10th Percentile £15.82 £14.20 £11.80
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.75 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.82% +4.56% -23.40%
75th Percentile £60.00 £25.00 £25.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £50.27 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.21 £18.82 £18.00
% change year-on-year +33.93% +4.56% -23.40%

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 4,115 3,367 5,071
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.80% 14.01% 13.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,683 2,300 3,451
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £455 £468 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.67% -1.58% -6.86%
75th Percentile £570 £588 £588
90th Percentile £650 £694 £700
UK median daily rate £459 £467 £475
% change year-on-year -1.71% -1.68% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 289 157 373
10th Percentile £15.90 £15.11 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.33 £15.50
Median hourly rate £37.50 £20.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +87.50% -11.11% -48.57%
75th Percentile £65.00 £55.00 £62.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £34.13 £22.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year +55.14% -2.22% -48.99%

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 30 May 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 30 May 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 30 May 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 -23 776 £430 -4.44% 222
South East -6 528 £475 -1.86% 267
North of England -9 472 £363 +3.57% 179
Midlands -16 277 £325 +18.18% 103
North West +2 265 £340 -2.86% 107
South West -14 232 £457 -3.89% 120
East of England -1 223 £350 -8.50% 84
Yorkshire -22 190 £365 -8.75% 56
West Midlands -26 164 £450 +57.89% 57
East Midlands +8 108 £213 - 46
North East -28 21 £290 -3.33% 19
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 (8.47%) Microsoft Exchange
2 167 (6.61%) SharePoint
3 56 (2.22%) IIS
4 52 (2.06%) Confluence
5 19 (0.75%) Apache
6 17 (0.67%) WebLogic
7 14 (0.55%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.47%) nginx
8 12 (0.47%) Tomcat
9 11 (0.44%) Tuxedo
10 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.20%) Appian
11 5 (0.20%) TPMS
12 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.16%) WebSphere
13 3 (0.12%) Camunda
13 3 (0.12%) NetWeaver
14 2 (0.079%) Apache Pulsar
14 2 (0.079%) OpenStack
14 2 (0.079%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 162 (6.41%) Microsoft Office
2 63 (2.49%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.36%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.20%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.16%) Acrobat
7 4 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.040%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 44 (1.74%) Remedy ITSM
2 12 (0.47%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.44%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.20%) Finacle
5 3 (0.12%) assyst
5 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
5 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
5 3 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.079%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.079%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.079%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.040%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.040%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 745 (29.48%) Azure
2 732 (28.97%) Microsoft 365
3 322 (12.74%) Entra ID
4 239 (9.46%) AWS
5 81 (3.21%) OneDrive
6 79 (3.13%) GCP
7 69 (2.73%) SaaS
8 66 (2.61%) Azure DevOps
9 64 (2.53%) IaaS
10 57 (2.26%) GitHub
11 52 (2.06%) PaaS
12 46 (1.82%) Power Platform
13 37 (1.46%) Azure Monitor
14 33 (1.31%) Azure Sentinel
15 31 (1.23%) Google Workspace
16 27 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
17 23 (0.91%) OpenShift
18 18 (0.71%) AWS CloudFormation
19 17 (0.67%) Azure AKS
20 16 (0.63%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 347 (13.73%) DNS
2 270 (10.68%) Firewall
3 244 (9.66%) DHCP
4 170 (6.73%) VPN
5 153 (6.05%) LAN
6 146 (5.78%) WAN
7 141 (5.58%) TCP/IP
8 114 (4.51%) Wi-Fi
9 65 (2.57%) Network Security
10 63 (2.49%) SAN
11 53 (2.10%) VLAN
12 39 (1.54%) Wireless
13 38 (1.50%) BGP
14 36 (1.42%) Skype
15 34 (1.35%) OSPF
16 31 (1.23%) BIG-IP
16 31 (1.23%) SNMP
16 31 (1.23%) SSL
16 31 (1.23%) VoIP
17 30 (1.19%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 204 (8.07%) SQL Server
2 43 (1.70%) Oracle Database
3 33 (1.31%) Relational Database
4 29 (1.15%) MySQL
4 29 (1.15%) Power BI
5 24 (0.95%) PostgreSQL
6 15 (0.59%) DB2
7 14 (0.55%) MongoDB
8 13 (0.51%) Elasticsearch
8 13 (0.51%) NoSQL
9 10 (0.40%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 8 (0.32%) RDBMS
11 7 (0.28%) Amazon RDS
12 6 (0.24%) BigQuery
12 6 (0.24%) GIS
12 6 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
13 5 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
13 5 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
13 5 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 4 (0.16%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 169 (6.69%) JIRA
2 41 (1.62%) Jenkins
2 41 (1.62%) MSI
3 40 (1.58%) GitLab
4 36 (1.42%) Visual Studio
5 30 (1.19%) Git
6 20 (0.79%) Eclipse
7 14 (0.55%) Burp Suite
8 13 (0.51%) Metasploit
9 9 (0.36%) Android Studio
9 9 (0.36%) Browser DevTools
9 9 (0.36%) Chocolatey
9 9 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
9 9 (0.36%) Xcode
10 8 (0.32%) Artifactory
11 7 (0.28%) Bitbucket
11 7 (0.28%) Selenium
12 6 (0.24%) InstallShield
12 6 (0.24%) Robot Framework
13 5 (0.20%) AdminStudio
General
1 854 (33.80%) Social Skills
2 262 (10.37%) Finance
3 233 (9.22%) Analytical Skills
4 165 (6.53%) Public Sector
5 146 (5.78%) Banking
6 92 (3.64%) Documentation Skills
7 89 (3.52%) Legal
8 76 (3.01%) Organisational Skills
9 54 (2.14%) Military
10 47 (1.86%) Retail
11 41 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 37 (1.46%) Law
12 37 (1.46%) Manufacturing
13 32 (1.27%) Investment Banking
14 30 (1.19%) Presentation Skills
15 27 (1.07%) Front Office
16 26 (1.03%) Telecoms
17 21 (0.83%) Local Government
18 18 (0.71%) French Language
18 18 (0.71%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 328 (12.98%) IT Support
2 320 (12.66%) Support Engineer
3 280 (11.08%) Analyst
4 217 (8.59%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 203 (8.03%) IT Engineer
6 168 (6.65%) Senior
7 167 (6.61%) IT Support Engineer
8 132 (5.22%) Architect
9 114 (4.51%) Support Analyst
10 112 (4.43%) Desktop Support
11 101 (4.00%) Desktop Engineer
12 97 (3.84%) 2nd Line Support
13 92 (3.64%) IT Analyst
14 89 (3.52%) Lead
15 88 (3.48%) Technical Support
16 82 (3.24%) Developer
17 67 (2.65%) 1st Line Support
17 67 (2.65%) IT Support Analyst
18 66 (2.61%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 66 (2.61%) Windows Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (3.36%) .NET
2 71 (2.81%) REST
3 50 (1.98%) .NET Framework
4 37 (1.46%) LDAP
5 32 (1.27%) Microsoft Graph
6 31 (1.23%) SAML
7 28 (1.11%) 802.1X
8 26 (1.03%) WinForms
9 25 (0.99%) Middleware
10 24 (0.95%) OAuth
10 24 (0.95%) Web Services
11 21 (0.83%) WPF
12 20 (0.79%) Kafka
13 18 (0.71%) CSS
13 18 (0.71%) React
13 18 (0.71%) Software Packaging
14 17 (0.67%) AngularJS
14 17 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
14 17 (0.67%) Node.js
15 14 (0.55%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 230 (9.10%) Onboarding
2 115 (4.55%) Data Centre
3 113 (4.47%) PKI
4 80 (3.17%) Clustering
5 75 (2.97%) Enterprise Software
6 58 (2.30%) Self-Motivation
7 56 (2.22%) Replication
8 55 (2.18%) Management Information System
9 49 (1.94%) Hybrid Cloud
10 48 (1.90%) Driving Licence
11 47 (1.86%) Security Posture
12 44 (1.74%) Virtual Team
13 43 (1.70%) Cloud Native
14 39 (1.54%) Smartphone
15 38 (1.50%) Legacy Systems
16 32 (1.27%) CMDB
17 31 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
18 29 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
18 29 (1.15%) Enterprise Storage
18 29 (1.15%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 620 (24.54%) Linux
2 599 (23.70%) Windows Server
3 469 (18.56%) Windows 10
4 159 (6.29%) Mac OS
5 128 (5.07%) Unix
6 126 (4.99%) Apple iOS
7 121 (4.79%) Android
8 88 (3.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 65 (2.57%) Windows Server 2019
10 61 (2.41%) Windows Server 2016
11 48 (1.90%) Windows 7
12 36 (1.42%) Windows Server 2012
13 29 (1.15%) AIX
14 28 (1.11%) Ubuntu
15 18 (0.71%) VMS
15 18 (0.71%) Windows Server 2003
16 15 (0.59%) Solaris
17 12 (0.47%) CentOS
17 12 (0.47%) Windows Server 2008
18 8 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 526 (20.82%) Problem-Solving
2 393 (15.55%) Customer Service
3 378 (14.96%) ITIL
4 284 (11.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 269 (10.65%) Migration
6 249 (9.85%) Agile
7 237 (9.38%) ITSM
8 234 (9.26%) DevOps
9 219 (8.67%) CI/CD
10 179 (7.08%) Change Management
11 178 (7.04%) Continuous Improvement
12 168 (6.65%) Disaster Recovery
13 165 (6.53%) Service Management
14 162 (6.41%) High Availability
15 136 (5.38%) Stakeholder Management
16 133 (5.26%) SIEM
17 131 (5.18%) Cybersecurity
18 127 (5.03%) Infrastructure as Code
19 115 (4.55%) Computer Science
20 109 (4.31%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 552 (21.84%) PowerShell
2 254 (10.05%) SQL
3 246 (9.73%) Python
4 121 (4.79%) C#
5 98 (3.88%) Bash
6 69 (2.73%) Java
7 68 (2.69%) JavaScript
8 49 (1.94%) PL/SQL
9 45 (1.78%) C++
10 44 (1.74%) T-SQL
11 26 (1.03%) Kusto Query Language
12 24 (0.95%) VB
13 22 (0.87%) Search Processing Language
14 19 (0.75%) Shell Script
15 18 (0.71%) Perl
15 18 (0.71%) VBScript
16 17 (0.67%) Bicep
17 13 (0.51%) C
17 13 (0.51%) VBA
18 10 (0.40%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 765 (30.27%) Security Cleared
2 481 (19.03%) SC Cleared
3 285 (11.28%) Degree
4 254 (10.05%) DV Cleared
5 98 (3.88%) Microsoft Certification
6 78 (3.09%) Computer Science Degree
7 75 (2.97%) Cisco Certification
8 58 (2.30%) CISSP
9 52 (2.06%) Azure Certification
10 41 (1.62%) MCSE
11 36 (1.42%) AWS Certification
12 34 (1.35%) BPSS Clearance
13 29 (1.15%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 27 (1.07%) MCSA
15 26 (1.03%) CCNA
15 26 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
16 25 (0.99%) CCNP
17 24 (0.95%) CISM
18 22 (0.87%) CompTIA Security+
19 19 (0.75%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 111 (4.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 95 (3.76%) SLA
3 79 (3.13%) NIST
4 76 (3.01%) QA
5 74 (2.93%) GDPR
6 36 (1.42%) PCI DSS
7 30 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 25 (0.99%) Cyber Essentials
9 12 (0.47%) NCSC
9 12 (0.47%) NIST 800
10 11 (0.44%) Data Quality
10 11 (0.44%) MiFID
10 11 (0.44%) PMO
11 10 (0.40%) FINRA
12 9 (0.36%) HIPAA
13 7 (0.28%) SOC 2
14 6 (0.24%) DICOM
14 6 (0.24%) GRC
14 6 (0.24%) HL7
14 6 (0.24%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 956 (37.83%) Active Directory
2 319 (12.62%) VMware Infrastructure
3 139 (5.50%) Hyper-V
4 92 (3.64%) VMware ESXi
5 91 (3.60%) vSphere
6 85 (3.36%) Virtual Machines
7 83 (3.28%) Docker
8 52 (2.06%) Virtual Desktop
9 48 (1.90%) VMware NSX
10 35 (1.39%) Firmware
11 33 (1.31%) BitLocker
12 26 (1.03%) Microsoft App-V
13 20 (0.79%) KVM
14 11 (0.44%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.40%) XenApp
16 9 (0.36%) vCloud
17 8 (0.32%) VMware Workstation
18 6 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
19 5 (0.20%) etcd
19 5 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 347 (13.73%) Microsoft Intune
2 228 (9.02%) SCCM
3 168 (6.65%) Ansible
4 159 (6.29%) Terraform
5 120 (4.75%) Kubernetes
6 80 (3.17%) vCenter Server
7 47 (1.86%) Single Sign-On
8 40 (1.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 37 (1.46%) SCOM
10 36 (1.42%) FortiGate
11 35 (1.39%) Jamf Pro
12 34 (1.35%) WSUS
13 28 (1.11%) Grafana
14 25 (0.99%) Nagios
14 25 (0.99%) Progress Chef
14 25 (0.99%) Prometheus
15 20 (0.79%) Nessus
16 18 (0.71%) Puppet
16 18 (0.71%) Tivoli
16 18 (0.71%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,080 (42.74%) Microsoft
2 417 (16.50%) VMware
3 229 (9.06%) ServiceNow
4 181 (7.16%) Citrix
5 176 (6.96%) Cisco
6 145 (5.74%) Oracle
7 129 (5.10%) Splunk
8 70 (2.77%) HP
9 68 (2.69%) SolarWinds
10 62 (2.45%) Red Hat
11 59 (2.33%) Dell
12 57 (2.26%) Remedy
13 55 (2.18%) Google
14 49 (1.94%) Apple
15 46 (1.82%) CyberArk
15 46 (1.82%) F5
16 44 (1.74%) IBM
16 44 (1.74%) Juniper
17 37 (1.46%) BeyondTrust
18 34 (1.35%) Palo Alto