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 22 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 61 41 68
Rank change year-on-year -20 +27 -21
Contract jobs citing Windows Server 74 94 84
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 2.91% 4.86% 2.81%
As % of the Operating Systems category 17.41% 23.68% 16.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 63 68 55
10th Percentile £350 £321 £175
25th Percentile £500 £409 £219
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £550 £460
Median % change year-on-year +1.82% +19.57% -3.16%
75th Percentile £703 £678 £630
90th Percentile £723 £775 £700
England median daily rate £500 £488 £450
% change year-on-year +2.51% +8.39% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
Median hourly rate £89.00 - -
England median hourly rate £21.63 £62.75 £55.28
% change year-on-year -65.53% +13.51% +66.26%

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 425 397 500
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 16.72% 20.52% 16.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 275 250 340
10th Percentile £173 £200 £168
25th Percentile £263 £221 £249
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -2.56%
75th Percentile £575 £618 £600
90th Percentile £700 £725 £688
England median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 25 51
10th Percentile £16.62 £35.92 £19.12
25th Percentile £18.58 £65.75 £30.63
Median hourly rate £39.47 £67.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -41.53% +22.73% -15.38%
75th Percentile £67.84 £68.75 £69.62
90th Percentile £98.00 £70.00 £70.00
England median hourly rate £23.79 £54.00 £26.50
% change year-on-year -55.95% +103.77% +3.07%

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 22 January 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
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 22 January 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
Wiltshire -7 38 £625 +7.53% 20
Somerset -4 13 £575 -4.01% 6
Bristol -17 9 £550 +15.79% 4
Gloucestershire -28 9 £350 -43.09% 15
Devon +5 4 £263 -20.45% 9
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 16 (21.62%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (9.46%) SharePoint
3 5 (6.76%) Confluence
3 5 (6.76%) Skype for Business
4 4 (5.41%) IIS
5 1 (1.35%) Apache
5 1 (1.35%) nginx
Applications
1 8 (10.81%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (2.70%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 2 (2.70%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 22 (29.73%) Azure
2 9 (12.16%) Microsoft 365
3 5 (6.76%) AWS
3 5 (6.76%) Azure Sentinel
3 5 (6.76%) Entra ID
4 4 (5.41%) GCP
4 4 (5.41%) IaaS
5 3 (4.05%) Azure Monitor
5 3 (4.05%) PaaS
6 1 (1.35%) AWS Direct Connect
6 1 (1.35%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 1 (1.35%) OCI
6 1 (1.35%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 33 (44.59%) DNS
2 23 (31.08%) Firewall
3 19 (25.68%) DHCP
4 9 (12.16%) Skype
4 9 (12.16%) VPN
5 5 (6.76%) Unified Communications
6 4 (5.41%) Network Security
6 4 (5.41%) VLAN
6 4 (5.41%) WAN
7 3 (4.05%) LAN
7 3 (4.05%) TCP/IP
8 2 (2.70%) Cisco IOS
8 2 (2.70%) H.323
8 2 (2.70%) RTP
8 2 (2.70%) SMTP
8 2 (2.70%) VoIP
9 1 (1.35%) DKIM
9 1 (1.35%) DMARC
9 1 (1.35%) MQTT
9 1 (1.35%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (8.11%) SQL Server
2 2 (2.70%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 5 (6.76%) JIRA
2 4 (5.41%) Bitbucket
2 4 (5.41%) Git
2 4 (5.41%) GitLab
3 3 (4.05%) Jenkins
3 3 (4.05%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (2.70%) Artifactory
4 2 (2.70%) GoCD
5 1 (1.35%) Maven
5 1 (1.35%) SonarQube
General
1 33 (44.59%) Social Skills
2 16 (21.62%) Public Sector
3 15 (20.27%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (17.57%) Documentation Skills
5 4 (5.41%) Finance
6 3 (4.05%) Electronics
6 3 (4.05%) Manufacturing
6 3 (4.05%) Marketing
6 3 (4.05%) Telecoms
7 1 (1.35%) Advertising
7 1 (1.35%) Military
Job Titles
1 17 (22.97%) Architect
2 15 (20.27%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 8 (10.81%) Wintel Engineer
4 7 (9.46%) Solutions Architect
5 5 (6.76%) Technical Architect
6 4 (5.41%) Administrator
7 3 (4.05%) IT Engineer
7 3 (4.05%) Lead
7 3 (4.05%) Senior
7 3 (4.05%) Systems Administrator
8 2 (2.70%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Support
8 2 (2.70%) Analyst
8 2 (2.70%) Applications Engineer
8 2 (2.70%) Applications Packager
8 2 (2.70%) DevOps Engineer
8 2 (2.70%) Infrastructure Support
8 2 (2.70%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
8 2 (2.70%) Platform Engineer
8 2 (2.70%) Windows Engineer
8 2 (2.70%) Windows Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (20.27%) OAuth
1 15 (20.27%) OAuth2
1 15 (20.27%) OpenID
1 15 (20.27%) SAML
2 3 (4.05%) Keycloak
3 2 (2.70%) .NET
3 2 (2.70%) Apache NiFi
3 2 (2.70%) Elastic Stack
3 2 (2.70%) React
3 2 (2.70%) REST
3 2 (2.70%) XMPP
4 1 (1.35%) AngularJS
4 1 (1.35%) ASP.NET Web API
4 1 (1.35%) Bootstrap
4 1 (1.35%) Express.js
4 1 (1.35%) Middleware
4 1 (1.35%) SOAP
4 1 (1.35%) WCF
4 1 (1.35%) Web Services
4 1 (1.35%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 11 (14.86%) PKI
2 7 (9.46%) Private Cloud
2 7 (9.46%) Replication
3 6 (8.11%) Data Centre
4 4 (5.41%) Hybrid Cloud
5 1 (1.35%) Client/Server
5 1 (1.35%) Cloud Native
5 1 (1.35%) Cyber Defence
5 1 (1.35%) Driving Licence
5 1 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (1.35%) Enterprise Storage
5 1 (1.35%) iPad
5 1 (1.35%) iPhone
5 1 (1.35%) Management Information System
5 1 (1.35%) NHS
5 1 (1.35%) Operational Technology
5 1 (1.35%) Product Ownership
5 1 (1.35%) Public Cloud
5 1 (1.35%) Security Posture
5 1 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 74 (100.00%) Windows
2 20 (27.03%) Linux
3 8 (10.81%) Windows Server 2012
4 6 (8.11%) Windows 10
5 5 (6.76%) Windows Server 2019
6 4 (5.41%) CentOS
6 4 (5.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (4.05%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (2.70%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (33.78%) Problem-Solving
2 24 (32.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 18 (24.32%) ITIL
4 15 (20.27%) RBAC
5 13 (17.57%) Identity Access Management
6 12 (16.22%) High Availability
6 12 (16.22%) Load Balancing
6 12 (16.22%) Service Management
7 11 (14.86%) Change Management
7 11 (14.86%) Critical Thinking
7 11 (14.86%) System Testing
8 10 (13.51%) Mentoring
8 10 (13.51%) Technical Leadership
9 9 (12.16%) Migration
10 8 (10.81%) Agile
10 8 (10.81%) Business Continuity
10 8 (10.81%) Identity Management
10 8 (10.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 7 (9.46%) Disaster Recovery
11 7 (9.46%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 38 (51.35%) PowerShell
2 11 (14.86%) SQL
3 5 (6.76%) Python
4 3 (4.05%) Bicep
5 2 (2.70%) C#
6 1 (1.35%) Bash
6 1 (1.35%) T-SQL
6 1 (1.35%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 54 (72.97%) Security Cleared
2 30 (40.54%) Microsoft Certification
3 28 (37.84%) DV Cleared
4 27 (36.49%) SC Cleared
5 12 (16.22%) MCSE
6 8 (10.81%) Degree
7 6 (8.11%) ITIL Certification
8 5 (6.76%) CCNA
8 5 (6.76%) CCNP
8 5 (6.76%) Cisco Certification
8 5 (6.76%) Master's Degree
9 4 (5.41%) MCSA
9 4 (5.41%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 3 (4.05%) Azure Certification
10 3 (4.05%) OCA
10 3 (4.05%) Oracle Certification
11 2 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (2.70%) SLA
2 1 (1.35%) NCSC
System Software
1 53 (71.62%) Active Directory
2 31 (41.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (21.62%) Hyper-V
4 5 (6.76%) Microsoft Virtual Server
4 5 (6.76%) Virtual Servers
5 4 (5.41%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (5.41%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (4.05%) VMware NSX
6 3 (4.05%) vSphere
7 1 (1.35%) Docker
7 1 (1.35%) Firmware
7 1 (1.35%) KVM
Systems Management
1 21 (28.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
2 20 (27.03%) Single Sign-On
3 12 (16.22%) WSUS
4 11 (14.86%) SCCM
5 7 (9.46%) Ansible
5 7 (9.46%) Terraform
6 5 (6.76%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (4.05%) Kubernetes
7 3 (4.05%) vCenter Server
7 3 (4.05%) VxRail
8 2 (2.70%) Cisco CUCM
8 2 (2.70%) FreeIPA
8 2 (2.70%) Microsoft Clustering
8 2 (2.70%) NetApp OnCommand
8 2 (2.70%) PowerCLI
8 2 (2.70%) SCOM
8 2 (2.70%) vMotion
9 1 (1.35%) Grafana
9 1 (1.35%) OPNET
9 1 (1.35%) vRealize
Vendors
1 58 (78.38%) Microsoft
2 41 (55.41%) VMware
3 9 (12.16%) Cisco
4 8 (10.81%) SolarWinds
4 8 (10.81%) Veeam
5 5 (6.76%) Atlassian
5 5 (6.76%) Oracle
5 5 (6.76%) Splunk
6 4 (5.41%) Dell
6 4 (5.41%) Red Hat
7 3 (4.05%) BeyondTrust
7 3 (4.05%) SAP
7 3 (4.05%) Thales
8 2 (2.70%) Citrix
8 2 (2.70%) CyberArk
8 2 (2.70%) Genesys
8 2 (2.70%) Google
8 2 (2.70%) NetApp
8 2 (2.70%) PTC
9 1 (1.35%) Extreme Networks