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 15 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 74 35 86
Rank change year-on-year -39 +51 -33
Contract jobs citing Windows Server 69 93 71
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 2.36% 5.54% 2.20%
As % of the Operating Systems category 17.00% 26.12% 15.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 59 81 56
10th Percentile £410 £330 £175
25th Percentile £490 £494 £209
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £565 £575 £381
Median % change year-on-year -1.74% +50.82% -23.75%
75th Percentile £706 £638 £556
90th Percentile £725 £725 £675
England median daily rate £500 £525 £440
% change year-on-year -4.76% +19.32% -12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 2
10th Percentile £26.23 - £65.18
25th Percentile £36.69 - £67.31
Median hourly rate £54.25 - £72.75
75th Percentile £71.69 - £76.31
90th Percentile £82.08 - £77.33
England median hourly rate £22.50 £53.00 £53.53
% change year-on-year -57.55% -0.99% +82.70%

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 406 356 465
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 13.89% 21.20% 14.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 251 257 330
10th Percentile £180 £200 £175
25th Percentile £275 £250 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £490
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% +7.14% +0.51%
75th Percentile £575 £623 £577
90th Percentile £650 £725 £700
England median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -13.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 22 59
10th Percentile £16.62 £18.51 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £63.31 £40.00
Median hourly rate £62.50 £67.50 £51.89
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% +30.10% -20.18%
75th Percentile £68.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £86.00 £68.68 -
England median hourly rate £22.68 £29.00 £22.21
% change year-on-year -21.79% +30.56% -16.18%

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 15 March 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 15 March 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 15 March 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 -11 38 £625 +8.70% 4
Somerset -5 15 £478 -23.60% 4
Bristol -17 7 £525 -4.55% 8
Devon +1 6 £420 +27.27% 3
Gloucestershire -36 2 £450 -26.83% 7
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 (18.84%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (10.14%) IIS
3 5 (7.25%) Confluence
4 4 (5.80%) Skype for Business
5 3 (4.35%) SharePoint
6 1 (1.45%) Apache
Applications
1 5 (7.25%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 21 (30.43%) Azure
2 8 (11.59%) AWS
2 8 (11.59%) Microsoft 365
3 7 (10.14%) Azure Monitor
3 7 (10.14%) Entra ID
4 5 (7.25%) Azure Sentinel
4 5 (7.25%) IaaS
5 4 (5.80%) GCP
5 4 (5.80%) PaaS
6 1 (1.45%) OCI
6 1 (1.45%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 25 (36.23%) DNS
1 25 (36.23%) Firewall
2 10 (14.49%) DHCP
3 7 (10.14%) Skype
4 5 (7.25%) VPN
5 4 (5.80%) Network Security
5 4 (5.80%) WAN
6 3 (4.35%) VLAN
7 2 (2.90%) Cisco IOS
7 2 (2.90%) H.323
7 2 (2.90%) LAN
7 2 (2.90%) RTP
7 2 (2.90%) TCP/IP
7 2 (2.90%) Unified Communications
7 2 (2.90%) VoIP
8 1 (1.45%) DKIM
8 1 (1.45%) DMARC
8 1 (1.45%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (15.94%) SQL Server
2 2 (2.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (1.45%) Oracle BI EE
3 1 (1.45%) Power BI
3 1 (1.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
3 1 (1.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 6 (8.70%) JIRA
2 5 (7.25%) Git
3 4 (5.80%) Bitbucket
3 4 (5.80%) Jenkins
4 3 (4.35%) GitLab
5 2 (2.90%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (1.45%) Artifactory
6 1 (1.45%) eggPlant
6 1 (1.45%) GoCD
6 1 (1.45%) Maven
General
1 25 (36.23%) Social Skills
2 13 (18.84%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (17.39%) Documentation Skills
4 6 (8.70%) Public Sector
5 2 (2.90%) Finance
6 1 (1.45%) Advertising
6 1 (1.45%) Banking
6 1 (1.45%) Electronics
6 1 (1.45%) Manufacturing
6 1 (1.45%) Marketing
6 1 (1.45%) Military
6 1 (1.45%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 14 (20.29%) Architect
2 13 (18.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 8 (11.59%) Wintel Engineer
4 7 (10.14%) Solutions Architect
5 6 (8.70%) Technical Architect
6 4 (5.80%) Site Engineer
6 4 (5.80%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 3 (4.35%) Administrator
7 3 (4.35%) Azure Engineer
7 3 (4.35%) DevOps Engineer
7 3 (4.35%) Lead
7 3 (4.35%) Senior
7 3 (4.35%) Systems Administrator
8 2 (2.90%) 3rd Line Support
8 2 (2.90%) Analyst
8 2 (2.90%) Applications Packager
8 2 (2.90%) Applications Support
8 2 (2.90%) Migration Engineer
8 2 (2.90%) Support Engineer
8 2 (2.90%) Windows Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (21.74%) OAuth
1 15 (21.74%) OAuth2
1 15 (21.74%) OpenID
1 15 (21.74%) SAML
2 5 (7.25%) .NET
3 4 (5.80%) .NET Framework
4 3 (4.35%) Keycloak
5 2 (2.90%) Apache NiFi
5 2 (2.90%) REST
5 2 (2.90%) XMPP
6 1 (1.45%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 7 (10.14%) Private Cloud
1 7 (10.14%) Replication
2 6 (8.70%) PKI
3 5 (7.25%) Data Centre
4 4 (5.80%) Hybrid Cloud
5 3 (4.35%) Legacy Code
5 3 (4.35%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.45%) Client/Server
6 1 (1.45%) Driving Licence
6 1 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (1.45%) Enterprise Storage
6 1 (1.45%) Legacy Applications
6 1 (1.45%) Operational Technology
6 1 (1.45%) Product Ownership
6 1 (1.45%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 69 (100.00%) Windows
2 18 (26.09%) Linux
3 5 (7.25%) Windows Server 2012
4 4 (5.80%) CentOS
4 4 (5.80%) Windows 10
4 4 (5.80%) Windows Server 2016
5 3 (4.35%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (2.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (33.33%) Problem-Solving
2 22 (31.88%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 16 (23.19%) RBAC
4 13 (18.84%) Identity Access Management
5 12 (17.39%) Change Management
5 12 (17.39%) Load Balancing
6 11 (15.94%) Technical Leadership
7 10 (14.49%) ITIL
7 10 (14.49%) Migration
8 9 (13.04%) Infrastructure as Code
8 9 (13.04%) Mentoring
8 9 (13.04%) Service Management
9 8 (11.59%) Agile
9 8 (11.59%) Critical Thinking
9 8 (11.59%) DevOps
9 8 (11.59%) Disaster Recovery
9 8 (11.59%) High Availability
9 8 (11.59%) System Testing
10 7 (10.14%) Identity Management
10 7 (10.14%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 43 (62.32%) PowerShell
2 7 (10.14%) Python
2 7 (10.14%) SQL
3 3 (4.35%) Bash
3 3 (4.35%) Bicep
4 1 (1.45%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 48 (69.57%) Security Cleared
2 28 (40.58%) DV Cleared
3 27 (39.13%) Microsoft Certification
4 23 (33.33%) SC Cleared
5 9 (13.04%) MCSE
6 5 (7.25%) Degree
7 4 (5.80%) MCSA
7 4 (5.80%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 3 (4.35%) Azure Certification
8 3 (4.35%) OCA
8 3 (4.35%) Oracle Certification
9 2 (2.90%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (2.90%) CCNA
9 2 (2.90%) CCNP
9 2 (2.90%) Cisco Certification
9 2 (2.90%) ITIL Certification
9 2 (2.90%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (4.35%) QA
System Software
1 47 (68.12%) Active Directory
2 25 (36.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (21.74%) Hyper-V
4 6 (8.70%) VMware NSX
5 2 (2.90%) Microsoft Virtual Server
5 2 (2.90%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (1.45%) KVM
6 1 (1.45%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (1.45%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 22 (31.88%) Active Directory Federation Services
2 19 (27.54%) Single Sign-On
3 10 (14.49%) Ansible
4 9 (13.04%) Terraform
5 7 (10.14%) SCCM
6 6 (8.70%) WSUS
7 4 (5.80%) Microsoft Intune
8 3 (4.35%) VxRail
9 2 (2.90%) Cisco CUCM
9 2 (2.90%) Kubernetes
9 2 (2.90%) McAfee ePO
9 2 (2.90%) PowerCLI
10 1 (1.45%) Failover Clustering
10 1 (1.45%) FreeIPA
10 1 (1.45%) Progress Chef
10 1 (1.45%) Puppet
10 1 (1.45%) SCOM
Vendors
1 46 (66.67%) Microsoft
2 32 (46.38%) VMware
3 5 (7.25%) Cisco
3 5 (7.25%) Oracle
3 5 (7.25%) SolarWinds
3 5 (7.25%) Veeam
4 4 (5.80%) Dell
4 4 (5.80%) Red Hat
5 3 (4.35%) Atlassian
5 3 (4.35%) BeyondTrust
5 3 (4.35%) Thales
6 2 (2.90%) Genesys
6 2 (2.90%) Google
6 2 (2.90%) McAfee
6 2 (2.90%) NetApp
6 2 (2.90%) Splunk
7 1 (1.45%) CheckPoint
7 1 (1.45%) Citrix
7 1 (1.45%) Juniper
7 1 (1.45%) TOWER Software