Windows Server Contract Job Trends in the South West

Microsoft Windows Server
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South West requiring Windows Server skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 4 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 45 82
Rank change year-on-year -43 +37 -37
Contract jobs citing Windows Server 58 74 73
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 1.71% 4.30% 2.25%
As % of the Operating Systems category 15.68% 23.64% 13.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 43 63 61
10th Percentile £356 £495 £175
25th Percentile £428 £525 £231
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £588 £503
Median % change year-on-year -12.34% +16.92% -8.64%
75th Percentile £607 £625 £588
90th Percentile £725 £700 £675
England median daily rate £475 £545 £475
% change year-on-year -12.84% +14.74% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 2
10th Percentile - - £65.18
25th Percentile £19.25 - £67.31
Median hourly rate £26.00 - £72.75
75th Percentile £41.75 - £76.31
90th Percentile £58.63 - £77.33
England median hourly rate £26.00 £17.04 £38.50
% change year-on-year +52.58% -55.74% +2.67%

All Operating Systems
South West

Windows Server 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 West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 370 313 547
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 10.91% 18.21% 16.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 217 216 378
10th Percentile £205 £200 £175
25th Percentile £350 £224 £353
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £588 £608 £588
90th Percentile £638 £675 £688
England median daily rate £455 £467 £475
% change year-on-year -2.47% -1.79% -5.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 39 81
10th Percentile £16.62 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.66 £18.51 £40.00
Median hourly rate £41.71 £18.87 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +121.04% -70.97% -0.38%
75th Percentile £68.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £69.75 - -
England median hourly rate £33.32 £20.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year +66.58% -11.11% -47.06%

Windows Server
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

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

Windows Server job vacancy trend in the South West

Windows Server
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

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

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

Windows Server
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Windows Server in the South West over the 6 months to 4 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Windows Server in the South West

Windows Server
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

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

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

Windows Server
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Windows Server in the South West over the 6 months to 4 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows Server in the South West

Windows Server
Contract Job Locations in the South West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Windows Server within the South West region over the 6 months to 4 June 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
Somerset -1 19 £475 -7.32% 6
Wiltshire -27 13 £600 +4.35% 9
Bristol -24 9 £425 -22.73% 8
Devon -13 7 £700 +351.61% 5
Gloucestershire -18 4 £395 -35.77% 13
Dorset -9 3 - - 12
Windows Server
England

Windows Server
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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 13 (22.41%) IIS
2 4 (6.90%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (3.45%) Skype for Business
4 1 (1.72%) Confluence
4 1 (1.72%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 20 (34.48%) Azure
2 13 (22.41%) AWS
3 10 (17.24%) Azure Monitor
4 3 (5.17%) Entra ID
4 3 (5.17%) GCP
4 3 (5.17%) IaaS
4 3 (5.17%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (5.17%) PaaS
4 3 (5.17%) Power Platform
5 2 (3.45%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (1.72%) Cloud Computing
6 1 (1.72%) OCI
6 1 (1.72%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 19 (32.76%) DNS
2 13 (22.41%) DHCP
3 11 (18.97%) Firewall
4 6 (10.34%) Network Security
5 4 (6.90%) VPN
5 4 (6.90%) WAN
6 3 (5.17%) VoIP
7 2 (3.45%) Cisco IOS
7 2 (3.45%) H.323
7 2 (3.45%) LAN
7 2 (3.45%) RTP
7 2 (3.45%) SAN
7 2 (3.45%) Skype
7 2 (3.45%) VLAN
8 1 (1.72%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (36.21%) SQL Server
2 4 (6.90%) PostgreSQL
2 4 (6.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 3 (5.17%) Oracle BI EE
3 3 (5.17%) Power BI
4 1 (1.72%) Oracle Database
4 1 (1.72%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 1 (1.72%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 4 (6.90%) JIRA
2 1 (1.72%) Bitbucket
2 1 (1.72%) eggPlant
2 1 (1.72%) Git
2 1 (1.72%) GitLab
2 1 (1.72%) GoCD
2 1 (1.72%) Jenkins
2 1 (1.72%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (1.72%) Visual Studio
General
1 8 (13.79%) Social Skills
2 5 (8.62%) Analytical Skills
2 5 (8.62%) Public Sector
3 4 (6.90%) Finance
4 3 (5.17%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (3.45%) Law
5 2 (3.45%) Police
6 1 (1.72%) Banking
6 1 (1.72%) Electronics
6 1 (1.72%) Manufacturing
6 1 (1.72%) Marketing
6 1 (1.72%) Military
6 1 (1.72%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 14 (24.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 9 (15.52%) Administrator
3 8 (13.79%) Azure Engineer
3 8 (13.79%) Site Engineer
3 8 (13.79%) Site Reliability Engineer
3 8 (13.79%) Systems Administrator
4 6 (10.34%) Architect
5 5 (8.62%) Technical Architect
5 5 (8.62%) Windows Engineer
6 4 (6.90%) DBA
6 4 (6.90%) DevOps Engineer
6 4 (6.90%) PowerShell Engineer
6 4 (6.90%) Senior
7 3 (5.17%) Lead
7 3 (5.17%) Migration Engineer
7 3 (5.17%) Wintel Engineer
8 2 (3.45%) IT Administrator
8 2 (3.45%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
8 2 (3.45%) Senior Systems Administrator
8 2 (3.45%) SQL DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (17.24%) .NET
2 9 (15.52%) .NET Framework
3 3 (5.17%) Keycloak
4 2 (3.45%) OAuth
4 2 (3.45%) OAuth2
4 2 (3.45%) OpenID
4 2 (3.45%) SAML
4 2 (3.45%) XMPP
5 1 (1.72%) Apache NiFi
5 1 (1.72%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 7 (12.07%) Legacy Systems
2 6 (10.34%) Data Centre
2 6 (10.34%) Legacy Code
3 3 (5.17%) Enterprise Software
3 3 (5.17%) Private Cloud
4 2 (3.45%) Enterprise Storage
4 2 (3.45%) Hybrid Cloud
4 2 (3.45%) Management Information System
4 2 (3.45%) Replication
5 1 (1.72%) Enterprise Cloud
5 1 (1.72%) Legacy Applications
5 1 (1.72%) PKI
5 1 (1.72%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 58 (100.00%) Windows
2 16 (27.59%) Linux
3 5 (8.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (6.90%) Windows Server 2016
4 4 (6.90%) Windows Server 2019
5 3 (5.17%) CentOS
6 2 (3.45%) Ubuntu
7 1 (1.72%) Data ONTAP
7 1 (1.72%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (29.31%) High Availability
2 16 (27.59%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 15 (25.86%) Problem-Solving
4 13 (22.41%) Disaster Recovery
5 12 (20.69%) Root Cause Analysis
6 11 (18.97%) Migration
7 10 (17.24%) DevOps
7 10 (17.24%) Incident Response
7 10 (17.24%) Technical Leadership
8 9 (15.52%) Incident Management
8 9 (15.52%) Infrastructure as Code
8 9 (15.52%) Runbook
9 8 (13.79%) Change Management
9 8 (13.79%) Configuration Management
9 8 (13.79%) Continuous Improvement
9 8 (13.79%) ITIL
9 8 (13.79%) Site Reliability Engineering
10 7 (12.07%) Service-Level Objective
10 7 (12.07%) Storage Management
10 7 (12.07%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 26 (44.83%) PowerShell
2 7 (12.07%) SQL
3 2 (3.45%) Bash
3 2 (3.45%) Bicep
3 2 (3.45%) C#
3 2 (3.45%) Python
4 1 (1.72%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 34 (58.62%) Security Cleared
2 20 (34.48%) DV Cleared
3 19 (32.76%) SC Cleared
4 5 (8.62%) Degree
5 4 (6.90%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (5.17%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (3.45%) Azure Certification
8 1 (1.72%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (12.07%) QA
2 1 (1.72%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 31 (53.45%) Active Directory
2 22 (37.93%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (31.03%) Hyper-V
4 7 (12.07%) VMware NSX
5 4 (6.90%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (5.17%) VMware Workstation
7 1 (1.72%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 8 (13.79%) Active Directory Federation Services
2 6 (10.34%) Single Sign-On
3 5 (8.62%) Ansible
4 4 (6.90%) Terraform
5 3 (5.17%) SCCM
5 3 (5.17%) VxRail
6 2 (3.45%) Cisco CUCM
6 2 (3.45%) McAfee ePO
7 1 (1.72%) Data Guard
7 1 (1.72%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
7 1 (1.72%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (1.72%) FreeIPA
7 1 (1.72%) Kubernetes
7 1 (1.72%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (1.72%) Nessus
7 1 (1.72%) Oracle RMAN
7 1 (1.72%) Progress Chef
7 1 (1.72%) Puppet
7 1 (1.72%) SCOM
7 1 (1.72%) WSUS
Vendors
1 25 (43.10%) VMware
2 21 (36.21%) Microsoft
3 9 (15.52%) Oracle
4 4 (6.90%) Cisco
5 3 (5.17%) BeyondTrust
5 3 (5.17%) Dell
5 3 (5.17%) NetApp
5 3 (5.17%) Thales
6 2 (3.45%) Genesys
6 2 (3.45%) Google
6 2 (3.45%) McAfee
6 2 (3.45%) Qualys
6 2 (3.45%) Red Hat
6 2 (3.45%) Tenable
7 1 (1.72%) Citrix
7 1 (1.72%) SAP