Windows Contracts in the North West

Microsoft Windows
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the North West requiring Windows skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Windows over the 6 months leading up to 13 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 17 19 12
Rank change year-on-year +2 -7 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 176 232 350
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North West 9.07% 8.66% 11.19%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.54% 69.88% 68.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 118 140 238
10th Percentile £143 £154 £163
25th Percentile £182 £212 £206
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £338 £350 £413
Median % change year-on-year -3.57% -15.31% +27.64%
75th Percentile £448 £684 £538
90th Percentile £538 £850 £641
England median daily rate £425 £400 £450
% change year-on-year +6.25% -11.11% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 53 42
10th Percentile - - £14.71
25th Percentile £13.00 £10.95 £18.00
Median hourly rate £14.40 £12.00 £29.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -58.62% +61.51%
75th Percentile £17.44 £17.72 £43.75
90th Percentile - £19.14 £49.52
England median hourly rate £18.65 £17.72 £22.50
% change year-on-year +5.25% -21.24% +12.50%

All Operating Systems
North West

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 the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 286 332 509
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 14.73% 12.40% 16.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 192 211 345
10th Percentile £155 £170 £173
25th Percentile £208 £278 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £392 £438 £475
Median % change year-on-year -10.40% -7.89% +5.56%
75th Percentile £510 £585 £575
90th Percentile £600 £825 £650
England median daily rate £475 £470 £513
% change year-on-year +1.06% -8.29% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 62 47
10th Percentile - - £15.53
25th Percentile £13.00 £10.95 £20.62
Median hourly rate £14.40 £16.00 £29.30
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -45.39% +46.50%
75th Percentile £17.44 £18.94 £43.75
90th Percentile - £46.08 £49.52
England median hourly rate £22.50 £22.00 £37.42
% change year-on-year +2.27% -41.21% +70.09%

Windows
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Job postings citing Windows as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Job vacancy trend for Windows in the North West

Windows
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the North West

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Windows in the North West.

Daily rate trend for Windows in the North West

Windows
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Windows in the North West over the 6 months to 13 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Windows in the North West

Windows
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Windows in the North West.

Hourly rate trend for Windows in the North West

Windows
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Windows within the North West region over the 6 months to 13 May 2025. 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
Manchester -5 69 £338 -45.12% 129
Merseyside 0 39 £175 -22.22% 12
Cheshire -11 35 £389 +73.00% 36
Lancashire +7 15 £350 +75.00% 70
Cumbria -11 15 £495 +39.83% 11
Windows
England

Windows
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North West by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 51 (28.98%) Microsoft Exchange
2 36 (20.45%) SharePoint
3 5 (2.84%) IIS
3 5 (2.84%) JBoss
4 4 (2.27%) Skype for Business
5 2 (1.14%) BizTalk Server
6 1 (0.57%) Confluence
6 1 (0.57%) SAS
6 1 (0.57%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 31 (17.61%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (2.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 5 (2.84%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.57%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 4 (2.27%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.57%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 80 (45.45%) Microsoft 365
2 57 (32.39%) Azure
3 45 (25.57%) Entra ID
4 13 (7.39%) AWS
5 10 (5.68%) IaaS
6 7 (3.98%) GCP
6 7 (3.98%) OneDrive
7 5 (2.84%) Google Workspace
7 5 (2.84%) Microsoft Purview
7 5 (2.84%) OpenShift
8 2 (1.14%) Amazon EC2
8 2 (1.14%) Amazon S3
8 2 (1.14%) AWS CloudFormation
8 2 (1.14%) Nutanix
8 2 (1.14%) SaaS
8 2 (1.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 1 (0.57%) AWS Lambda
9 1 (0.57%) Azure Data Factory
9 1 (0.57%) Azure Key Vault
9 1 (0.57%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 36 (20.45%) DHCP
2 34 (19.32%) DNS
3 27 (15.34%) Firewall
4 26 (14.77%) VPN
5 16 (9.09%) LAN
6 15 (8.52%) Network Security
7 11 (6.25%) Intrusion Detection
8 10 (5.68%) TCP/IP
9 9 (5.11%) WAN
10 8 (4.55%) Skype
11 7 (3.98%) SAN
11 7 (3.98%) Wi-Fi
12 5 (2.84%) Remote Desktop
13 4 (2.27%) VLAN
13 4 (2.27%) VoIP
13 4 (2.27%) Wireless
14 3 (1.70%) DMZ
14 3 (1.70%) Internet
14 3 (1.70%) iSCSI
14 3 (1.70%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (11.36%) SQL Server
2 5 (2.84%) Elasticsearch
2 5 (2.84%) RDBMS
2 5 (2.84%) Relational Database
3 3 (1.70%) MongoDB
4 2 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
4 2 (1.14%) GIS
4 2 (1.14%) MSDE
4 2 (1.14%) MySQL
4 2 (1.14%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (1.14%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 1 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.57%) DB2
5 1 (0.57%) DTS
5 1 (0.57%) Hadoop
5 1 (0.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 6 (3.41%) Git
1 6 (3.41%) Jenkins
1 6 (3.41%) JIRA
1 6 (3.41%) SonarQube
2 5 (2.84%) Bitbucket Server
2 5 (2.84%) CA Release Automation
2 5 (2.84%) Sonatype Nexus
2 5 (2.84%) TeamCity
3 4 (2.27%) GitLab
4 1 (0.57%) Hudson
4 1 (0.57%) MSI
4 1 (0.57%) Octopus Deploy
4 1 (0.57%) Selenium
General
1 66 (37.50%) Social Skills
2 21 (11.93%) Analytical Skills
3 16 (9.09%) Public Sector
4 13 (7.39%) Finance
5 11 (6.25%) Banking
5 11 (6.25%) Telecoms
6 10 (5.68%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (4.55%) Manufacturing
7 8 (4.55%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (3.98%) Legal
9 5 (2.84%) Military
9 5 (2.84%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (2.27%) French Language
11 3 (1.70%) Investment Banking
12 2 (1.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.57%) Publishing
13 1 (0.57%) Retail
Job Titles
1 33 (18.75%) Analyst
2 25 (14.20%) Support Engineer
3 24 (13.64%) IT Support
4 21 (11.93%) Service Analyst
5 20 (11.36%) Service Desk Analyst
6 17 (9.66%) IT Engineer
7 16 (9.09%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 15 (8.52%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
9 12 (6.82%) 2nd Line Support
9 12 (6.82%) IT Support Engineer
10 9 (5.11%) 1st Line Support
10 9 (5.11%) 2nd Line Engineer
10 9 (5.11%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
10 9 (5.11%) Windows Engineer
11 8 (4.55%) Administrator
11 8 (4.55%) IT Analyst
11 8 (4.55%) Support Analyst
12 7 (3.98%) Deployment Engineer
12 7 (3.98%) Desktop Engineer
12 7 (3.98%) Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (2.84%) Elastic Stack
1 5 (2.84%) Spring Boot
2 3 (1.70%) Software Packaging
3 2 (1.14%) .NET
3 2 (1.14%) ASP.NET
4 1 (0.57%) JSON
4 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 18 (10.23%) Management Information System
2 9 (5.11%) Data Centre
3 8 (4.55%) Enterprise Software
4 7 (3.98%) Hybrid Cloud
5 6 (3.41%) NHS
5 6 (3.41%) Onboarding
6 4 (2.27%) Clustering
7 3 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
7 3 (1.70%) IVR
7 3 (1.70%) Replication
7 3 (1.70%) Security Posture
8 2 (1.14%) Driving Licence
8 2 (1.14%) Fat Client
8 2 (1.14%) Smartphone
8 2 (1.14%) Thin Client
8 2 (1.14%) Video Conferencing
9 1 (0.57%) CMDB
9 1 (0.57%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.57%) iPad
9 1 (0.57%) LIMS
Operating Systems
1 65 (36.93%) Windows Server
2 52 (29.55%) Windows 10
3 32 (18.18%) Linux
4 22 (12.50%) Windows Server 2016
5 15 (8.52%) Windows Server 2012
5 15 (8.52%) Windows Server 2019
6 9 (5.11%) VMS
7 8 (4.55%) Android
7 8 (4.55%) Windows Server 2003
8 7 (3.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 7 (3.98%) Windows XP
9 6 (3.41%) Apple iOS
9 6 (3.41%) Windows 7
10 5 (2.84%) Mac OS
10 5 (2.84%) Unix
10 5 (2.84%) Windows 8
10 5 (2.84%) Windows Server 2008
11 2 (1.14%) CentOS
11 2 (1.14%) HPUX
11 2 (1.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 51 (28.98%) Problem-Solving
2 45 (25.57%) ITIL
3 39 (22.16%) Customer Service
4 30 (17.05%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 30 (17.05%) ITSM
5 25 (14.20%) DevOps
6 21 (11.93%) Disaster Recovery
6 21 (11.93%) High Availability
7 20 (11.36%) Migration
8 18 (10.23%) Cybersecurity
9 17 (9.66%) Business Continuity
10 15 (8.52%) Collaborative Working
10 15 (8.52%) Project Delivery
11 14 (7.95%) Change Management
11 14 (7.95%) Information Security
12 13 (7.39%) Asset Management
12 13 (7.39%) CI/CD
12 13 (7.39%) Service Management
13 12 (6.82%) Incident Management
13 12 (6.82%) Patch Management
Programming Languages
1 27 (15.34%) PowerShell
2 7 (3.98%) Python
3 5 (2.84%) Perl
3 5 (2.84%) VB
3 5 (2.84%) VBScript
4 3 (1.70%) Java
5 2 (1.14%) Bash
5 2 (1.14%) Ruby
5 2 (1.14%) SQL
5 2 (1.14%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 39 (22.16%) Microsoft Certification
2 22 (12.50%) SC Cleared
2 22 (12.50%) Security Cleared
3 13 (7.39%) Azure Certification
4 10 (5.68%) Degree
5 9 (5.11%) A+ Certification
6 6 (3.41%) DBS Check
7 5 (2.84%) MCP
7 5 (2.84%) MCSE
8 4 (2.27%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 2 (1.14%) CCNA
9 2 (1.14%) Cisco Certification
9 2 (1.14%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 1 (0.57%) BPSS Clearance
10 1 (0.57%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.57%) MCSA
10 1 (0.57%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (9.66%) SLA
2 2 (1.14%) PCI DSS
3 1 (0.57%) NCSC
System Software
1 110 (62.50%) Active Directory
2 28 (15.91%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (6.82%) VMware ESXi
3 12 (6.82%) vSphere
4 9 (5.11%) BitLocker
5 8 (4.55%) Docker
5 8 (4.55%) Hyper-V
5 8 (4.55%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (2.27%) Virtual Servers
7 3 (1.70%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 3 (1.70%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (1.14%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.57%) Firmware
9 1 (0.57%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 38 (21.59%) Microsoft Intune
2 23 (13.07%) SCCM
3 17 (9.66%) WSUS
4 13 (7.39%) vCenter Server
5 8 (4.55%) Single Sign-On
6 7 (3.98%) Progress Chef
7 6 (3.41%) Kubernetes
8 5 (2.84%) Kibana
9 4 (2.27%) Ansible
9 4 (2.27%) Dell DRAC
9 4 (2.27%) Terraform
10 3 (1.70%) Backup Exec
10 3 (1.70%) Microsoft Clustering
10 3 (1.70%) NetApp OnCommand
10 3 (1.70%) vMotion
11 2 (1.14%) Nagios
11 2 (1.14%) Prometheus
11 2 (1.14%) ZABBIX
12 1 (0.57%) Docker Swarm
12 1 (0.57%) VxRail
Vendors
1 122 (69.32%) Microsoft
2 43 (24.43%) VMware
3 26 (14.77%) ServiceNow
4 13 (7.39%) Citrix
5 10 (5.68%) Cisco
5 10 (5.68%) Dell
6 9 (5.11%) CyberArk
6 9 (5.11%) Google
7 8 (4.55%) Splunk
8 6 (3.41%) Apple
8 6 (3.41%) Zscaler
9 5 (2.84%) AppDynamics
9 5 (2.84%) Canon
9 5 (2.84%) HP
9 5 (2.84%) IBM
9 5 (2.84%) Oracle
9 5 (2.84%) Red Hat
10 4 (2.27%) Bomgar
10 4 (2.27%) Cloudera
10 4 (2.27%) iManage