Windows Server Contracts

Microsoft Windows Server
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Windows Server skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Windows Server over the 6 months to 9 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
9 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 98 82 117
Rank change year-on-year -16 +35 -8
Contract jobs citing Windows Server 991 1,645 2,014
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.30% 2.84% 2.31%
As % of the Operating Systems category 17.30% 17.39% 15.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 717 1,190 1,466
10th Percentile £210 £206 £189
25th Percentile £313 £357 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £500 £429
Median % change year-on-year -8.00% +16.67% +3.89%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £575
90th Percentile £700 £700 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £465 £408
% change year-on-year +2.26% +13.99% +8.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 59 69
10th Percentile £14.89 £20.00 £15.60
25th Percentile £16.06 £24.62 £17.50
Median hourly rate £46.75 £30.00 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +55.83% +30.43% -8.00%
75th Percentile £61.60 £49.52 £46.50
90th Percentile £66.88 £60.11 £66.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.00 £37.50 £22.00
% change year-on-year +54.67% +70.45% -2.22%

All Operating Systems
UK

Windows Server is in the Operating Systems category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 5,729 9,462 13,097
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.31% 16.31% 15.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,874 6,626 8,882
10th Percentile £185 £190 £175
25th Percentile £300 £340 £342
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £468 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -8.24% +2.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £613
90th Percentile £700 £719 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £425
% change year-on-year -5.26% +11.76% +6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 390 418 613
10th Percentile £12.73 £13.89 £13.38
25th Percentile £15.31 £17.72 £15.93
Median hourly rate £22.00 £38.50 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -42.86% +67.39% +29.58%
75th Percentile £60.00 £64.50 £52.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £29.30 £20.00
% change year-on-year -23.21% +46.50% +21.21%

Windows Server
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Windows Server as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Windows Server in the UK

Windows Server
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Windows Server.

Daily rate trend for Windows Server in the UK

Windows Server
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Windows Server over the 6 months to 9 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Windows Server in the UK

Windows Server
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Windows Server.

Hourly rate trend for Windows Server in the UK

Windows Server
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Windows Server over the 6 months to 9 May 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows Server in the UK

Windows Server
Top 16 Contract Locations

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 UK over the 6 months to 9 May 2024. 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
England -5 893 £465 -7.00% 645
UK excluding London -9 607 £475 +2.26% 543
London -1 330 £450 -10.00% 128
Work from Home -29 253 £465 -6.06% 208
South East +11 220 £550 +7.32% 147
North of England +9 141 £450 +5.63% 114
Midlands -3 84 £350 -15.15% 106
North West -10 74 £800 +64.10% 57
South West -41 68 £500 -9.09% 72
West Midlands +3 52 £350 -26.32% 63
Yorkshire +15 50 £325 -14.75% 42
Scotland +1 49 £475 +2.48% 25
East of England -32 34 £250 -40.30% 81
East Midlands -4 29 £338 +3.85% 43
North East +14 17 £500 +85.19% 16
Wales -3 14 £225 -47.06% 10

Windows Server
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 187 (18.87%) Microsoft Exchange
2 76 (7.67%) SharePoint
3 43 (4.34%) IIS
4 27 (2.72%) Confluence
5 26 (2.62%) Exchange Server 2013
6 25 (2.52%) Exchange Server 2010
7 13 (1.31%) Apache
7 13 (1.31%) nginx
8 12 (1.21%) Skype for Business
8 12 (1.21%) Tomcat
9 11 (1.11%) Exchange Server 2003
9 11 (1.11%) Exchange Server 2007
10 9 (0.91%) JBoss
11 5 (0.50%) SAS
12 3 (0.30%) WordPress
13 1 (0.10%) IBM Domino
13 1 (0.10%) IBM Notes
13 1 (0.10%) OpenStack
13 1 (0.10%) WebSphere
Applications
1 56 (5.65%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (0.40%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 2 (0.20%) AutoCAD
4 2 (0.20%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.10%) Acrobat
5 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 9 (0.91%) Temenos T24
2 7 (0.71%) Remedy ITSM
3 6 (0.61%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.40%) Dynamics GP
5 2 (0.20%) Remedy AR System
6 1 (0.10%) Dynamics NAV
6 1 (0.10%) Eikon
6 1 (0.10%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.10%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.10%) Refinitiv Enterprise Platform
6 1 (0.10%) RMDS
6 1 (0.10%) Sage X3
6 1 (0.10%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.10%) thinkFolio
Cloud Services
1 325 (32.80%) Azure
2 296 (29.87%) Microsoft 365
3 127 (12.82%) AWS
4 102 (10.29%) Entra ID
5 46 (4.64%) IaaS
6 42 (4.24%) Azure DevOps
7 29 (2.93%) Azure Monitor
8 27 (2.72%) OneDrive
9 23 (2.32%) GCP
10 21 (2.12%) Azure Storage
11 20 (2.02%) PaaS
12 19 (1.92%) Cloud Computing
13 18 (1.82%) Amazon EC2
13 18 (1.82%) GitHub
13 18 (1.82%) OCI
14 16 (1.61%) Power Platform
15 15 (1.51%) SaaS
16 13 (1.31%) Nutanix
16 13 (1.31%) OpenShift
17 10 (1.01%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 258 (26.03%) Firewall
2 249 (25.13%) DNS
3 163 (16.45%) DHCP
4 121 (12.21%) VPN
5 98 (9.89%) SAN
6 80 (8.07%) LAN
7 75 (7.57%) WAN
8 41 (4.14%) TCP/IP
9 35 (3.53%) NAS
10 26 (2.62%) VLAN
11 23 (2.32%) Wireless
12 20 (2.02%) Skype
12 20 (2.02%) Wi-Fi
13 16 (1.61%) SMTP
14 15 (1.51%) Fibre Channel
14 15 (1.51%) MPLS
14 15 (1.51%) Remote Desktop
15 13 (1.31%) Internet
15 13 (1.31%) iSCSI
16 12 (1.21%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 135 (13.62%) SQL Server
2 20 (2.02%) MySQL
3 18 (1.82%) Amazon RDS
4 17 (1.72%) Relational Database
5 16 (1.61%) PostgreSQL
6 15 (1.51%) Elasticsearch
6 15 (1.51%) RDBMS
7 11 (1.11%) Power BI
8 7 (0.71%) Oracle Database
9 6 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
10 4 (0.40%) Azure SQL Database
10 4 (0.40%) Big Data
10 4 (0.40%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (0.40%) DB2
10 4 (0.40%) MongoDB
11 2 (0.20%) BigQuery
11 2 (0.20%) Looker
11 2 (0.20%) MariaDB
11 2 (0.20%) Tableau
12 1 (0.10%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 50 (5.05%) JIRA
2 37 (3.73%) Jenkins
3 28 (2.83%) Git
4 20 (2.02%) Robot Framework
5 16 (1.61%) Sonatype Nexus
6 14 (1.41%) Subversion
7 13 (1.31%) GitLab
8 12 (1.21%) Artifactory
8 12 (1.21%) TeamCity
9 8 (0.81%) Selenium
10 7 (0.71%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 5 (0.50%) Visual Studio
12 4 (0.40%) SonarQube
13 3 (0.30%) Bitbucket
13 3 (0.30%) Burp Suite
14 2 (0.20%) AppScan
14 2 (0.20%) JMeter
14 2 (0.20%) Octopus Deploy
14 2 (0.20%) Team Foundation Server
15 1 (0.10%) Oracle APEX
General
1 266 (26.84%) Social Skills
2 105 (10.60%) Finance
3 96 (9.69%) Analytical Skills
4 92 (9.28%) Public Sector
5 27 (2.72%) Documentation Skills
6 24 (2.42%) Banking
7 20 (2.02%) Military
8 18 (1.82%) Legal
9 17 (1.72%) Telecoms
10 13 (1.31%) Manufacturing
11 11 (1.11%) Mandarin Language
12 8 (0.81%) Marketing
12 8 (0.81%) Organisational Skills
12 8 (0.81%) Presentation Skills
13 7 (0.71%) French Language
13 7 (0.71%) Investment Banking
14 6 (0.61%) Electronics
14 6 (0.61%) Law
15 5 (0.50%) Front Office
16 4 (0.40%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 185 (18.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 91 (9.18%) Architect
3 90 (9.08%) Support Engineer
4 69 (6.96%) Windows Engineer
5 65 (6.56%) Senior
6 60 (6.05%) Administrator
6 60 (6.05%) Analyst
7 51 (5.15%) IT Support
8 49 (4.94%) Lead
8 49 (4.94%) Wintel Engineer
9 46 (4.64%) Technical Architect
10 44 (4.44%) IT Engineer
11 39 (3.94%) Server Engineer
12 38 (3.83%) Lead Architect
13 37 (3.73%) Integration Engineer
14 34 (3.43%) Technical Leader
15 33 (3.33%) Systems Administrator
16 32 (3.23%) Azure Engineer
17 31 (3.13%) 3rd Line Support
17 31 (3.13%) Support Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (4.84%) Node.js
2 34 (3.43%) .NET
3 20 (2.02%) ARM Templates
3 20 (2.02%) LDAP
3 20 (2.02%) Middleware
4 10 (1.01%) REST
5 9 (0.91%) IBM Integration Bus
5 9 (0.91%) XML
6 7 (0.71%) ASP.NET
6 7 (0.71%) CSS
6 7 (0.71%) Elastic Stack
6 7 (0.71%) Web Services
7 6 (0.61%) Itk
7 6 (0.61%) YAML
8 5 (0.50%) Flash
8 5 (0.50%) HTML
8 5 (0.50%) JSON
8 5 (0.50%) POSIX
8 5 (0.50%) XSLT
9 4 (0.40%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 105 (10.60%) PKI
2 57 (5.75%) Data Centre
3 50 (5.05%) Clustering
4 49 (4.94%) Public Cloud
5 43 (4.34%) Replication
6 30 (3.03%) Self-Motivation
7 27 (2.72%) Client/Server
8 25 (2.52%) NHS
9 19 (1.92%) Video Conferencing
10 16 (1.61%) Management Information System
10 16 (1.61%) Onboarding
11 15 (1.51%) Product Ownership
12 14 (1.41%) Driving Licence
13 10 (1.01%) Data Protection Act
13 10 (1.01%) Mobile App
14 9 (0.91%) Fat Client
14 9 (0.91%) Thin Client
15 8 (0.81%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
16 7 (0.71%) Enterprise Software
16 7 (0.71%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 988 (99.70%) Windows
2 217 (21.90%) Linux
3 195 (19.68%) Windows Server 2012
4 171 (17.26%) Windows 10
5 170 (17.15%) Windows Server 2019
6 158 (15.94%) Windows Server 2016
7 71 (7.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 56 (5.65%) Apple iOS
9 53 (5.35%) Android
10 51 (5.15%) Windows Server 2008
11 42 (4.24%) Unix
12 29 (2.93%) Windows 7
13 24 (2.42%) VMS
14 20 (2.02%) Mac OS
14 20 (2.02%) Windows NT
14 20 (2.02%) Windows Server 2003
15 18 (1.82%) CentOS
15 18 (1.82%) Ubuntu
16 15 (1.51%) Windows XP
17 9 (0.91%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 235 (23.71%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 169 (17.05%) ITIL
3 156 (15.74%) DevOps
4 144 (14.53%) Agile
5 127 (12.82%) Problem-Solving
6 110 (11.10%) Migration
7 98 (9.89%) CI/CD
7 98 (9.89%) Customer Service
8 83 (8.38%) Mobile Device Management
9 72 (7.27%) Disaster Recovery
10 68 (6.86%) Service Management
11 65 (6.56%) Change Management
12 60 (6.05%) High Availability
13 59 (5.95%) Server Management
14 57 (5.75%) Release Management
15 56 (5.65%) Infrastructure as Code
16 51 (5.15%) Security Architecture
17 47 (4.74%) Risk Management
18 44 (4.44%) Project Management
19 43 (4.34%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 297 (29.97%) PowerShell
2 140 (14.13%) SQL
3 109 (11.00%) Python
4 46 (4.64%) C#
5 40 (4.04%) Bash
6 35 (3.53%) VBScript
7 27 (2.72%) Java
8 22 (2.22%) VB
9 20 (2.02%) Bicep
10 15 (1.51%) Shell Script
11 13 (1.31%) C++
12 12 (1.21%) Perl
13 9 (0.91%) F#
14 7 (0.71%) T-SQL
15 5 (0.50%) C
15 5 (0.50%) PHP
15 5 (0.50%) Ruby
16 4 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
17 3 (0.30%) Korn
17 3 (0.30%) VBA
Qualifications
1 330 (33.30%) Security Cleared
2 179 (18.06%) DV Cleared
3 154 (15.54%) SC Cleared
4 118 (11.91%) Degree
5 94 (9.49%) Microsoft Certification
6 53 (5.35%) MCSE
7 32 (3.23%) MCSA
8 28 (2.83%) CCNA
8 28 (2.83%) Cisco Certification
9 26 (2.62%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 22 (2.22%) CCNP
11 20 (2.02%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 18 (1.82%) Azure Certification
12 18 (1.82%) Computer Science Degree
13 12 (1.21%) DBS Check
14 10 (1.01%) ITIL Certification
15 7 (0.71%) BPSS Clearance
15 7 (0.71%) MCITP
16 6 (0.61%) RHCT
17 5 (0.50%) MCTS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (3.73%) QA
2 28 (2.83%) SLA
3 12 (1.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 11 (1.11%) GDPR
5 10 (1.01%) NIST
6 8 (0.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 7 (0.71%) Disclosure Scotland
7 7 (0.71%) RMADS
8 6 (0.61%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.20%) NCSC
10 1 (0.10%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.10%) COBIT
10 1 (0.10%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.10%) Data Quality
System Software
1 593 (59.84%) Active Directory
2 279 (28.15%) VMware Infrastructure
3 108 (10.90%) Hyper-V
4 82 (8.27%) VMware ESXi
5 48 (4.84%) vSphere
6 43 (4.34%) VMware NSX
7 39 (3.94%) Virtual Machines
8 36 (3.63%) Docker
9 35 (3.53%) Virtual Desktop
10 27 (2.72%) Firmware
11 25 (2.52%) XenApp
12 17 (1.72%) Virtual Servers
13 14 (1.41%) XenDesktop
14 13 (1.31%) Terminal Services
15 9 (0.91%) BitLocker
15 9 (0.91%) KVM
15 9 (0.91%) NFS
16 8 (0.81%) Citrix Hypervisor
17 7 (0.71%) Microsoft App-V
17 7 (0.71%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 189 (19.07%) SCCM
2 100 (10.09%) WSUS
3 73 (7.37%) Microsoft Intune
4 67 (6.76%) vCenter Server
5 66 (6.66%) Ansible
6 63 (6.36%) Kubernetes
7 62 (6.26%) SCOM
8 55 (5.55%) Terraform
9 51 (5.15%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 24 (2.42%) EMC NetWorker
11 21 (2.12%) NetBackup
12 20 (2.02%) Sysprep
13 14 (1.41%) Puppet
14 13 (1.31%) Prometheus
15 12 (1.21%) Grafana
15 12 (1.21%) Nessus
16 11 (1.11%) Failover Clustering
17 10 (1.01%) Autotask
17 10 (1.01%) Progress Chef
17 10 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 472 (47.63%) Microsoft
2 407 (41.07%) VMware
3 99 (9.99%) Citrix
4 88 (8.88%) Veeam
5 79 (7.97%) Cisco
6 63 (6.36%) Oracle
7 53 (5.35%) Dell
8 46 (4.64%) HP
9 43 (4.34%) Red Hat
10 38 (3.83%) ServiceNow
11 35 (3.53%) Palo Alto
12 34 (3.43%) EMC
13 24 (2.42%) Google
13 24 (2.42%) IBM
13 24 (2.42%) Juniper
14 23 (2.32%) Apple
14 23 (2.32%) Splunk
15 20 (2.02%) Qualys
16 18 (1.82%) NetApp
16 18 (1.82%) Symantec