Windows Contract Job Trends in the South East

Microsoft Windows
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Windows skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 23 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 10 10 6
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 524 433 737
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 11.86% 11.79% 14.84%
As % of the Operating Systems category 70.52% 67.66% 74.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 374 318 482
10th Percentile £185 £189 £150
25th Percentile £204 £238 £205
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £375 £414 £325
Median % change year-on-year -9.37% +27.31% -22.62%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £554
90th Percentile £638 £675 £620
England median daily rate £388 £400 £400
% change year-on-year -3.13% - -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 9 52
10th Percentile £12.50 £19.00 £16.35
25th Percentile £15.50 £25.00 £22.97
Median hourly rate £20.00 £32.50 £43.95
Median % change year-on-year -38.46% -26.05% +137.55%
75th Percentile £25.15 £57.62 £63.13
90th Percentile £81.00 - £76.53
England median hourly rate £22.00 £23.99 £22.00
% change year-on-year -8.30% +9.05% +10.00%

All Operating Systems
South East

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 South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 743 640 987
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 16.82% 17.42% 19.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 523 444 661
10th Percentile £190 £200 £160
25th Percentile £250 £278 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £438 £400
Median % change year-on-year +2.17% +9.38% -16.67%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £568
90th Percentile £638 £659 £638
England median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 25 74
10th Percentile £12.50 £26.20 £19.04
25th Percentile £15.62 £38.00 £27.13
Median hourly rate £20.79 £57.25 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -63.69% +4.09% +197.30%
75th Percentile £48.75 £63.75 £69.66
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.75 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.15 £55.33 £32.50
% change year-on-year -54.54% +70.23% +30.00%

Windows
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Windows relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Windows job vacancy trend in the South East

Windows
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Windows.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Windows

Windows
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Windows in the South East over the 6 months to 23 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Windows in the South East

Windows
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Windows.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Windows

Windows
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Windows in the South East over the 6 months to 23 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows in the South East

Windows
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Windows within the South East region over the 6 months to 23 December 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
Thames Valley -2 204 £313 -12.59% 134
Hampshire 0 182 £525 +1.94% 96
Berkshire +1 140 £350 -3.45% 72
Surrey +2 66 £208 -17.00% 48
Buckinghamshire 0 38 £274 -27.07% 34
Oxfordshire +1 26 £275 +34.15% 28
West Sussex -5 24 £275 +37.50% 24
Kent +8 20 £259 +26.22% 41
East Sussex +7 13 £190 -54.76% 13
Sussex -1 9 - - 2
Middlesex - 5 - - 5
Windows
England

Windows
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 34 (6.49%) Microsoft Exchange
2 18 (3.44%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.72%) Exchange Server 2010
4 8 (1.53%) Exchange Server 2013
5 7 (1.34%) Exchange Server 2003
5 7 (1.34%) Exchange Server 2007
5 7 (1.34%) Office Communications Server
5 7 (1.34%) SharePoint Server
5 7 (1.34%) Skype for Business
6 5 (0.95%) Confluence
7 4 (0.76%) IIS
8 3 (0.57%) Documentum
9 2 (0.38%) WordPress
10 1 (0.19%) Apache
10 1 (0.19%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.19%) WebLogic
Applications
1 51 (9.73%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (2.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (1.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.19%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (0.57%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.38%) SAP FI
2 2 (0.38%) SAP MDG
3 1 (0.19%) assyst
3 1 (0.19%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 108 (20.61%) Microsoft 365
2 81 (15.46%) Azure
3 33 (6.30%) Entra ID
4 32 (6.11%) AWS
5 27 (5.15%) SaaS
6 21 (4.01%) Sauce Labs
7 16 (3.05%) Google Workspace
8 13 (2.48%) OneDrive
9 7 (1.34%) Azure DevOps
10 5 (0.95%) GCP
11 4 (0.76%) AWS CloudFormation
11 4 (0.76%) IaaS
11 4 (0.76%) Nutanix
12 3 (0.57%) Tricentis Tosca
13 2 (0.38%) PaaS
13 2 (0.38%) Power Platform
14 1 (0.19%) Akamai
14 1 (0.19%) Cloud Computing
14 1 (0.19%) GitHub
14 1 (0.19%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 84 (16.03%) DNS
2 57 (10.88%) DHCP
3 51 (9.73%) Firewall
4 40 (7.63%) TCP/IP
5 31 (5.92%) Wireless
6 26 (4.96%) SAN
7 24 (4.58%) VPN
8 22 (4.20%) Cisco IOS
9 19 (3.63%) Wi-Fi
10 18 (3.44%) VLAN
11 17 (3.24%) Cisco Firepower
11 17 (3.24%) Cisco ISE
11 17 (3.24%) Junos
12 10 (1.91%) Fibre Channel
12 10 (1.91%) FTP
13 9 (1.72%) 4G
14 8 (1.53%) iSCSI
15 7 (1.34%) DDNS
15 7 (1.34%) HTTP
15 7 (1.34%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (6.87%) Relational Database
2 33 (6.30%) MySQL
3 17 (3.24%) SQL Server
4 4 (0.76%) SAP HANA
5 2 (0.38%) BusinessObjects
5 2 (0.38%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
5 2 (0.38%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.38%) RDBMS
5 2 (0.38%) SAP Data Services
5 2 (0.38%) Tableau
5 2 (0.38%) Tableau Desktop
5 2 (0.38%) Tableau Server
6 1 (0.19%) GIS
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Database
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 23 (4.39%) Android Studio
2 22 (4.20%) Browser DevTools
2 22 (4.20%) JIRA
3 21 (4.01%) Eclipse
3 21 (4.01%) Xcode
4 9 (1.72%) Jenkins
5 8 (1.53%) Burp Suite
5 8 (1.53%) Metasploit
6 7 (1.34%) Git
7 6 (1.15%) GitLab
8 3 (0.57%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.57%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.57%) REST Assured
8 3 (0.57%) Robot Framework
8 3 (0.57%) Selenium
8 3 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.57%) Toad
9 2 (0.38%) MSI
9 2 (0.38%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.38%) WiX
General
1 209 (39.89%) Social Skills
2 40 (7.63%) Analytical Skills
3 35 (6.68%) Public Sector
4 27 (5.15%) Organisational Skills
5 20 (3.82%) Finance
6 14 (2.67%) Legal
7 12 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
7 12 (2.29%) Military
8 8 (1.53%) Manufacturing
9 5 (0.95%) Law
9 5 (0.95%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (0.76%) Aerospace
10 4 (0.76%) Banking
10 4 (0.76%) Games
11 3 (0.57%) Automotive
11 3 (0.57%) Back Office
11 3 (0.57%) Retail
12 2 (0.38%) Front Office
12 2 (0.38%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.38%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 116 (22.14%) Support Engineer
2 69 (13.17%) IT Support
3 61 (11.64%) Analyst
4 47 (8.97%) Architect
4 47 (8.97%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 43 (8.21%) Technical Support
6 33 (6.30%) IT Engineer
7 32 (6.11%) Deployment Engineer
8 30 (5.73%) Windows Engineer
9 28 (5.34%) Technical Engineer
9 28 (5.34%) Technical Support Engineer
10 26 (4.96%) 3rd Line Engineer
11 25 (4.77%) Infrastructure Architect
11 25 (4.77%) Senior
12 22 (4.20%) IT Support Engineer
12 22 (4.20%) UX Engineer
13 20 (3.82%) Network Engineer
13 20 (3.82%) Support Officer
14 18 (3.44%) 3rd Line Support
14 18 (3.44%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (4.77%) AngularJS
1 25 (4.77%) React
2 22 (4.20%) Ajax
2 22 (4.20%) CSS
2 22 (4.20%) GraphQL
3 14 (2.67%) REST
4 8 (1.53%) SOAP
5 7 (1.34%) RESTful
6 5 (0.95%) Middleware
6 5 (0.95%) Vue
6 5 (0.95%) XML
7 4 (0.76%) .NET
7 4 (0.76%) SailPoint
7 4 (0.76%) Swagger
8 2 (0.38%) ADO
8 2 (0.38%) BAPI
8 2 (0.38%) JavaFX
8 2 (0.38%) MFC
8 2 (0.38%) OAuth
8 2 (0.38%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 24 (4.58%) Onboarding
2 22 (4.20%) Mobile App
2 22 (4.20%) PKI
3 17 (3.24%) Analytical Mindset
3 17 (3.24%) Management Information System
4 16 (3.05%) Replication
5 14 (2.67%) Enterprise Software
6 13 (2.48%) Security Operations Centre
7 12 (2.29%) Fat Client
7 12 (2.29%) Self-Motivation
7 12 (2.29%) Thin Client
8 10 (1.91%) Security Posture
9 8 (1.53%) Driving Licence
9 8 (1.53%) Video Conferencing
10 7 (1.34%) Cyber Threat
10 7 (1.34%) Data Centre
10 7 (1.34%) Enterprise Storage
11 6 (1.15%) Operational Technology
12 5 (0.95%) CAN bus
12 5 (0.95%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 151 (28.82%) Linux
2 112 (21.37%) Windows 10
3 98 (18.70%) Windows Server
4 46 (8.78%) Unix
5 29 (5.53%) Android
6 28 (5.34%) Mac OS
7 20 (3.82%) Windows Server 2019
8 16 (3.05%) Windows Server 2016
9 14 (2.67%) Windows Server 2012
10 13 (2.48%) Windows 7
11 12 (2.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 7 (1.34%) Windows Server 2003
13 5 (0.95%) Apple iOS
14 2 (0.38%) CentOS
14 2 (0.38%) SUSE
14 2 (0.38%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 2 (0.38%) Ubuntu
14 2 (0.38%) VMS
15 1 (0.19%) Mac OS X
15 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (17.56%) Problem-Solving
2 82 (15.65%) ITIL
3 80 (15.27%) Customer Service
4 76 (14.50%) Agile
5 59 (11.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 45 (8.59%) ITSM
7 44 (8.40%) DevOps
7 44 (8.40%) Service Management
8 39 (7.44%) Cybersecurity
9 37 (7.06%) OO
10 32 (6.11%) User Experience
11 29 (5.53%) Incident Management
12 28 (5.34%) Computer Science
13 27 (5.15%) Continuous Improvement
14 25 (4.77%) Collaborative Working
14 25 (4.77%) Disaster Recovery
14 25 (4.77%) Preventative Maintenance
15 22 (4.20%) CI/CD
15 22 (4.20%) Migration
15 22 (4.20%) Mobile Application Development
Programming Languages
1 82 (15.65%) PowerShell
2 79 (15.08%) Python
3 57 (10.88%) Java
4 46 (8.78%) SQL
5 41 (7.82%) JavaScript
6 35 (6.68%) Perl
7 20 (3.82%) Bash
8 19 (3.63%) C#
9 10 (1.91%) C++
10 7 (1.34%) Shell Script
11 5 (0.95%) Embedded C++
12 4 (0.76%) Ada
13 3 (0.57%) Go
14 2 (0.38%) Assembly Language
14 2 (0.38%) C
14 2 (0.38%) MATLAB
15 1 (0.19%) Delphi
15 1 (0.19%) PHP
15 1 (0.19%) PL/SQL
15 1 (0.19%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 239 (45.61%) Security Cleared
2 122 (23.28%) SC Cleared
3 112 (21.37%) DV Cleared
4 45 (8.59%) Degree
5 34 (6.49%) Microsoft Certification
6 20 (3.82%) Computer Science Degree
7 13 (2.48%) Azure Certification
8 12 (2.29%) A+ Certification
8 12 (2.29%) Network+ Certification
9 11 (2.10%) CISSP
9 11 (2.10%) GCFA
9 11 (2.10%) GCIH
9 11 (2.10%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 11 (2.10%) Server+ Certification
10 9 (1.72%) GCIA
10 9 (1.72%) MCSE
11 8 (1.53%) CFCE
11 8 (1.53%) CHECK Team Member
11 8 (1.53%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 6 (1.15%) CREST Certified
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (5.92%) GDPR
2 22 (4.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 12 (2.29%) QA
4 11 (2.10%) SLA
5 10 (1.91%) NIST
6 8 (1.53%) PCI DSS
7 6 (1.15%) HIPAA
8 5 (0.95%) PMO
9 3 (0.57%) ECSS
10 2 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.38%) NCSC
11 1 (0.19%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.19%) ISO 9001
11 1 (0.19%) JSP 440
11 1 (0.19%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 181 (34.54%) Active Directory
2 72 (13.74%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (4.39%) Hyper-V
4 20 (3.82%) VMware NSX
5 17 (3.24%) vSphere
6 15 (2.86%) Docker
7 13 (2.48%) VMware ESXi
8 12 (2.29%) NFS
9 10 (1.91%) Virtual Machines
10 8 (1.53%) Terminal Services
10 8 (1.53%) Virtual Desktop
11 7 (1.34%) Brightmail
11 7 (1.34%) ISA Server
12 3 (0.57%) DFS Replication
13 2 (0.38%) UAG
13 2 (0.38%) Virtual Servers
14 1 (0.19%) NDS
14 1 (0.19%) NetIQ eDirectory
14 1 (0.19%) Sendmail
14 1 (0.19%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 74 (14.12%) SCCM
2 37 (7.06%) Microsoft Intune
3 27 (5.15%) vCenter Server
4 15 (2.86%) Kubernetes
4 15 (2.86%) Terraform
5 14 (2.67%) Ansible
5 14 (2.67%) WMI
6 10 (1.91%) Jamf Pro
7 8 (1.53%) Nmap
8 7 (1.34%) Microsoft Clustering
9 6 (1.15%) NetBackup
9 6 (1.15%) SCOM
9 6 (1.15%) Single Sign-On
10 5 (0.95%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
11 4 (0.76%) Forefront Identity Manager
11 4 (0.76%) NetIQ Identity Manager
12 3 (0.57%) PaperCut
12 3 (0.57%) Rundeck
12 3 (0.57%) Salt
12 3 (0.57%) WSUS
Vendors
1 225 (42.94%) Microsoft
2 97 (18.51%) VMware
3 55 (10.50%) ServiceNow
4 50 (9.54%) Splunk
5 43 (8.21%) Oracle
6 29 (5.53%) Cisco
7 28 (5.34%) Citrix
8 17 (3.24%) Juniper
8 17 (3.24%) SolarWinds
9 15 (2.86%) NetApp
10 14 (2.67%) Red Hat
11 13 (2.48%) SAP
12 11 (2.10%) CrowdStrike
12 11 (2.10%) HP
13 9 (1.72%) Veeam
14 8 (1.53%) ArcSight
15 7 (1.34%) 3PAR
15 7 (1.34%) Dell
15 7 (1.34%) NetIQ
15 7 (1.34%) Veritas