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 17 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 96 55 88
Rank change year-on-year -41 +33 -37
Contract jobs citing Windows Server 59 62 73
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 1.66% 3.31% 2.32%
As % of the Operating Systems category 14.18% 19.94% 12.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 39 49 61
10th Percentile £350 £365 £175
25th Percentile £406 £513 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £575 £538
Median % change year-on-year -14.78% +6.98% -2.27%
75th Percentile £613 £619 £588
90th Percentile £750 £640 £675
England median daily rate £475 £538 £500
% change year-on-year -11.71% +7.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 2
10th Percentile - - £65.18
25th Percentile £19.25 £72.50 £67.31
Median hourly rate £26.00 £75.00 £72.75
Median % change year-on-year -65.33% +3.09% +18.29%
75th Percentile £41.75 £77.50 £76.31
90th Percentile £58.63 - £77.33
England median hourly rate £26.00 £30.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year -13.33% -45.45% +87.71%

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 416 311 588
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 11.72% 16.59% 18.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 242 206 391
10th Percentile £213 £200 £180
25th Percentile £363 £250 £422
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £495 £538
Median % change year-on-year +1.01% -7.91% +6.17%
75th Percentile £611 £603 £600
90th Percentile £704 £675 £700
England median daily rate £463 £463 £475
% change year-on-year - -2.63% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 88 46 88
10th Percentile £16.62 £18.32 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.32 - £49.50
Median hourly rate £40.50 £18.87 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +114.63% -73.04% +6.87%
75th Percentile £68.00 £68.00 -
90th Percentile £70.45 - -
England median hourly rate £32.50 £23.00 £24.34
% change year-on-year +41.30% -5.51% -42.73%

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 17 July 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 17 July 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 17 July 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 -16 17 £450 +20.00% 5
Wiltshire -29 14 £575 - 2
Bristol -20 9 £425 -5.56% 4
Gloucestershire -11 6 £395 -35.77% 5
Dorset -9 5 - - 4
Devon -11 5 £700 +351.61% 4
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 (22.03%) IIS
2 6 (10.17%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (5.08%) SharePoint
4 2 (3.39%) Skype for Business
5 1 (1.69%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 22 (37.29%) Azure
2 13 (22.03%) AWS
3 9 (15.25%) Azure Monitor
4 6 (10.17%) Entra ID
5 3 (5.08%) Microsoft 365
5 3 (5.08%) Power Platform
6 2 (3.39%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (1.69%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (1.69%) Azure Key Vault
7 1 (1.69%) Cloud Computing
7 1 (1.69%) Datadog
7 1 (1.69%) IaaS
7 1 (1.69%) PaaS
7 1 (1.69%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 19 (32.20%) DNS
2 12 (20.34%) DHCP
3 10 (16.95%) Firewall
4 8 (13.56%) SAN
5 6 (10.17%) Network Security
6 5 (8.47%) VoIP
7 4 (6.78%) WAN
8 3 (5.08%) VLAN
9 2 (3.39%) LAN
9 2 (3.39%) NAS
9 2 (3.39%) Skype
9 2 (3.39%) SSL
9 2 (3.39%) VPN
10 1 (1.69%) BGP
10 1 (1.69%) Cisco Nexus
10 1 (1.69%) MPLS
10 1 (1.69%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (42.37%) SQL Server
2 6 (10.17%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (6.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 3 (5.08%) Oracle BI EE
4 3 (5.08%) Power BI
5 1 (1.69%) MongoDB
5 1 (1.69%) Oracle Database
5 1 (1.69%) SQL Server Analysis Services
5 1 (1.69%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 4 (6.78%) JIRA
2 1 (1.69%) Bitbucket
2 1 (1.69%) eggPlant
2 1 (1.69%) Git
2 1 (1.69%) GitLab
2 1 (1.69%) Jenkins
2 1 (1.69%) Visual Studio
General
1 9 (15.25%) Social Skills
2 6 (10.17%) Documentation Skills
2 6 (10.17%) Public Sector
3 4 (6.78%) Analytical Skills
3 4 (6.78%) Military
4 3 (5.08%) Finance
5 2 (3.39%) Law
5 2 (3.39%) Police
6 1 (1.69%) Banking
6 1 (1.69%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 15 (25.42%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 9 (15.25%) Administrator
3 8 (13.56%) Azure Engineer
3 8 (13.56%) Site Engineer
3 8 (13.56%) Site Reliability Engineer
4 7 (11.86%) Senior
5 6 (10.17%) DBA
5 6 (10.17%) Systems Administrator
6 5 (8.47%) Architect
6 5 (8.47%) DevOps Engineer
6 5 (8.47%) IT Engineer
6 5 (8.47%) Lead
6 5 (8.47%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 5 (8.47%) Technical Architect
7 4 (6.78%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
7 4 (6.78%) PowerShell Engineer
7 4 (6.78%) Windows Engineer
8 3 (5.08%) Migration Engineer
8 3 (5.08%) Wintel Engineer
9 2 (3.39%) SQL DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (16.95%) .NET
2 9 (15.25%) .NET Framework
3 1 (1.69%) Apache NiFi
3 1 (1.69%) Keycloak
3 1 (1.69%) RabbitMQ
3 1 (1.69%) Spring
3 1 (1.69%) Spring Boot
3 1 (1.69%) WinForms
3 1 (1.69%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 7 (11.86%) Legacy Systems
2 6 (10.17%) Data Centre
2 6 (10.17%) Legacy Code
3 5 (8.47%) PKI
4 4 (6.78%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (5.08%) Clustering
5 3 (5.08%) Fat Client
5 3 (5.08%) Smartcard
5 3 (5.08%) Thin Client
6 2 (3.39%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (3.39%) Management Information System
6 2 (3.39%) Private Cloud
7 1 (1.69%) Driving Licence
7 1 (1.69%) Enterprise Cloud
7 1 (1.69%) Enterprise Storage
7 1 (1.69%) Legacy Applications
7 1 (1.69%) Public Cloud
7 1 (1.69%) Replication
7 1 (1.69%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 59 (100.00%) Windows
2 18 (30.51%) Linux
3 8 (13.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (6.78%) Windows Server 2019
5 2 (3.39%) CentOS
5 2 (3.39%) Ubuntu
5 2 (3.39%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (1.69%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (1.69%) Windows 10
6 1 (1.69%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (27.12%) High Availability
1 16 (27.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 12 (20.34%) DevOps
2 12 (20.34%) Disaster Recovery
2 12 (20.34%) Problem-Solving
3 11 (18.64%) Root Cause Analysis
4 10 (16.95%) Incident Management
4 10 (16.95%) Incident Response
4 10 (16.95%) Patch Management
4 10 (16.95%) Site Reliability Engineering
5 9 (15.25%) Infrastructure as Code
5 9 (15.25%) Migration
5 9 (15.25%) Technical Leadership
6 7 (11.86%) Configuration Management
6 7 (11.86%) Continuous Improvement
6 7 (11.86%) Runbook
6 7 (11.86%) Service-Level Objective
6 7 (11.86%) Storage Management
7 6 (10.17%) ITIL
7 6 (10.17%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 24 (40.68%) PowerShell
2 9 (15.25%) SQL
3 2 (3.39%) Bash
3 2 (3.39%) C#
3 2 (3.39%) Python
4 1 (1.69%) Java
4 1 (1.69%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 34 (57.63%) Security Cleared
2 20 (33.90%) DV Cleared
3 19 (32.20%) SC Cleared
4 5 (8.47%) Degree
5 4 (6.78%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (1.69%) CISSP
6 1 (1.69%) CompTIA Security+
6 1 (1.69%) DBS Check
6 1 (1.69%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (13.56%) QA
2 2 (3.39%) Cyber Essentials
2 2 (3.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
2 2 (3.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (1.69%) Disclosure Scotland
3 1 (1.69%) SLA
System Software
1 33 (55.93%) Active Directory
2 20 (33.90%) VMware Infrastructure
3 14 (23.73%) Hyper-V
4 7 (11.86%) VMware NSX
5 4 (6.78%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (5.08%) VMware Workstation
7 2 (3.39%) Docker
7 2 (3.39%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (3.39%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 6 (10.17%) Active Directory Federation Services
1 6 (10.17%) Ansible
2 5 (8.47%) WSUS
3 4 (6.78%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (5.08%) Failover Clustering
4 3 (5.08%) Kubernetes
4 3 (5.08%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (5.08%) Terraform
5 2 (3.39%) McAfee ePO
6 1 (1.69%) Data Guard
6 1 (1.69%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
6 1 (1.69%) Grafana
6 1 (1.69%) Nessus
6 1 (1.69%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 1 (1.69%) Oracle RMAN
6 1 (1.69%) Progress Chef
6 1 (1.69%) Prometheus
6 1 (1.69%) Puppet
6 1 (1.69%) SCCM
6 1 (1.69%) VxRail
Vendors
1 22 (37.29%) VMware
2 18 (30.51%) Microsoft
3 11 (18.64%) Oracle
4 10 (16.95%) Cisco
5 6 (10.17%) Red Hat
6 5 (8.47%) McAfee
7 2 (3.39%) Qualys
7 2 (3.39%) Tenable
8 1 (1.69%) BeyondTrust
8 1 (1.69%) Dell
8 1 (1.69%) Juniper
8 1 (1.69%) NetApp
8 1 (1.69%) Thales