Windows Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Microsoft Windows
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the West Midlands requiring Windows skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 23 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
23 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 11 13
Rank change year-on-year -13 +2 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 195 162 163
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 8.20% 10.20% 9.01%
As % of the Operating Systems category 58.21% 65.32% 70.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 141 102 118
10th Percentile £150 £174 £157
25th Percentile £200 £193 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £325 £399
Median % change year-on-year +34.62% -18.50% -0.31%
75th Percentile £540 £551 £514
90th Percentile £619 £647 £641
England median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 11 12
10th Percentile - £15.22 £16.66
25th Percentile £17.14 £16.68 £17.72
Median hourly rate £19.84 £18.13 £18.11
Median % change year-on-year +9.45% +0.11% +6.94%
75th Percentile £22.99 £21.44 £23.75
90th Percentile £39.25 £22.89 -
England median hourly rate £22.00 £23.80 £21.00
% change year-on-year -7.56% +13.33% -4.55%

All Operating Systems
West Midlands

Windows 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 West Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 335 248 231
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 14.09% 15.62% 12.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 233 155 162
10th Percentile £163 £188 £170
25th Percentile £290 £213 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £435 £400
Median % change year-on-year +9.20% +8.75% -19.19%
75th Percentile £550 £582 £513
90th Percentile £619 £700 £636
England median daily rate £450 £475 £473
% change year-on-year -5.26% +0.53% -7.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 12 14
10th Percentile - £15.22 £16.90
25th Percentile £17.14 £17.40 £17.72
Median hourly rate £21.46 £18.57 £20.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.59% -9.44% +18.31%
75th Percentile £29.25 £22.89 £23.75
90th Percentile £69.99 £24.05 £42.13
England median hourly rate £23.79 £54.00 £28.50
% change year-on-year -55.95% +89.47% +10.85%

Windows
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

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

Windows job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

Windows
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

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

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

Windows
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Windows in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 23 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Windows in the West Midlands

Windows
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

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

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

Windows
Hourly Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Windows in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 23 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows in the West Midlands

Windows
Contract Job Locations in the West Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Windows within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 23 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
Birmingham -7 62 £425 +70.00% 14
Shropshire -12 39 £495 +135.71% 10
Warwickshire -11 33 £350 -39.13% 15
Worcestershire -7 25 £600 +370.59% 8
Staffordshire +5 14 £203 +1.25% 12
Coventry -26 5 £275 +37.50% 6
Wolverhampton +5 3 £188 - 1
Herefordshire - 3 £625 - 1
Solihull -3 1 - - 2
West Bromwich - 1 £170 -
Windows
England

Windows
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands 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 27 (13.85%) WebLogic
2 20 (10.26%) Confluence
3 18 (9.23%) Apache
4 9 (4.62%) nginx
5 8 (4.10%) Microsoft Exchange
5 8 (4.10%) Tuxedo
6 6 (3.08%) SharePoint
7 2 (1.03%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.51%) IIS
Applications
1 14 (7.18%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (4.62%) Mozilla Thunderbird
3 5 (2.56%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.51%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (1.03%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 62 (31.79%) Azure
2 51 (26.15%) Microsoft 365
3 46 (23.59%) AWS
4 14 (7.18%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 14 (7.18%) Amazon EC2
4 14 (7.18%) Amazon ELB
4 14 (7.18%) Amazon S3
4 14 (7.18%) AWS KMS
4 14 (7.18%) Azure Monitor
4 14 (7.18%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 9 (4.62%) Amazon ECS
5 9 (4.62%) Route 53
6 8 (4.10%) Entra ID
7 5 (2.56%) Amazon Glacier
8 4 (2.05%) Tricentis Tosca
9 3 (1.54%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (1.54%) GitHub
9 3 (1.54%) SaaS
10 2 (1.03%) Amazon EKS
10 2 (1.03%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 37 (18.97%) DNS
2 31 (15.90%) Firewall
3 22 (11.28%) VPN
4 21 (10.77%) SSH
5 19 (9.74%) DHCP
6 14 (7.18%) FTP
6 14 (7.18%) HTTP
6 14 (7.18%) SMTP
7 13 (6.67%) TCP/IP
8 9 (4.62%) IMAP
8 9 (4.62%) OpenLDAP
9 7 (3.59%) Network Security
10 5 (2.56%) Kerberos
10 5 (2.56%) Structured Cabling
11 4 (2.05%) WAN
12 3 (1.54%) Intrusion Detection
12 3 (1.54%) Wi-Fi
13 2 (1.03%) LAN
13 2 (1.03%) SAN
13 2 (1.03%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (7.18%) Amazon RDS
2 10 (5.13%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (4.62%) Amazon Aurora
4 2 (1.03%) Oracle Database
4 2 (1.03%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.51%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 31 (15.90%) JIRA
2 16 (8.21%) Git
2 16 (8.21%) Jenkins
3 14 (7.18%) Vagrant
4 11 (5.64%) MSI
5 6 (3.08%) GitLab
6 4 (2.05%) Toad
7 3 (1.54%) InstallShield
8 2 (1.03%) Bitbucket
8 2 (1.03%) Chocolatey
8 2 (1.03%) CircleCI
9 1 (0.51%) AdminStudio
9 1 (0.51%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.51%) REST Assured
General
1 93 (47.69%) Social Skills
2 27 (13.85%) Analytical Skills
3 24 (12.31%) Public Sector
4 18 (9.23%) Documentation Skills
5 15 (7.69%) Presentation Skills
6 8 (4.10%) Legal
7 7 (3.59%) Manufacturing
8 4 (2.05%) Finance
9 3 (1.54%) Telecoms
10 2 (1.03%) Aeronautics
10 2 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (1.03%) Law
11 1 (0.51%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.51%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.51%) Police
Job Titles
1 30 (15.38%) Support Engineer
2 23 (11.79%) Platform Engineer
3 17 (8.72%) Analyst
4 16 (8.21%) AWS Engineer
4 16 (8.21%) Cloud Platform Engineer
4 16 (8.21%) DevOps Engineer
5 14 (7.18%) IT Support
6 13 (6.67%) Architect
7 12 (6.15%) AWS DevOps
7 12 (6.15%) AWS DevOps Engineer
7 12 (6.15%) Desktop Engineer
8 11 (5.64%) Deployment Engineer
8 11 (5.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 10 (5.13%) Desktop Support
9 10 (5.13%) Desktop Support Engineer
9 10 (5.13%) IT Engineer
10 9 (4.62%) 2nd Line Support
10 9 (4.62%) AWS Platform Engineer
10 9 (4.62%) Windows Engineer
11 8 (4.10%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (8.21%) LDAP
2 5 (2.56%) OAuth
2 5 (2.56%) SAML
3 4 (2.05%) Middleware
3 4 (2.05%) XML
4 2 (1.03%) CSS
4 2 (1.03%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (1.03%) Kafka
4 2 (1.03%) Node.js
4 2 (1.03%) RabbitMQ
4 2 (1.03%) React
4 2 (1.03%) YAML
5 1 (0.51%) .NET
5 1 (0.51%) Apache NiFi
5 1 (0.51%) REST
5 1 (0.51%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 15 (7.69%) Replication
2 9 (4.62%) Onboarding
3 8 (4.10%) Self-Motivation
4 6 (3.08%) Data Protection Act
4 6 (3.08%) Enterprise Software
4 6 (3.08%) Team-Oriented Environment
5 4 (2.05%) Client/Server
6 3 (1.54%) Driving Licence
6 3 (1.54%) Hybrid Cloud
6 3 (1.54%) PKI
6 3 (1.54%) Product Ownership
6 3 (1.54%) Security Posture
7 2 (1.03%) Data Centre
7 2 (1.03%) Legacy Applications
7 2 (1.03%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (1.03%) NHS
7 2 (1.03%) Operational Technology
7 2 (1.03%) Security Operations Centre
7 2 (1.03%) Video Conferencing
8 1 (0.51%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 76 (38.97%) Linux
2 42 (21.54%) Windows 10
3 38 (19.49%) Windows Server
4 33 (16.92%) Unix
5 15 (7.69%) VMS
6 14 (7.18%) Amazon Linux
7 9 (4.62%) AIX
7 9 (4.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (4.62%) Solaris
7 9 (4.62%) Ubuntu
8 8 (4.10%) Apple iOS
9 7 (3.59%) Android
9 7 (3.59%) Mac OS
10 2 (1.03%) Mac OS X
10 2 (1.03%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (16.41%) Cloud Security
2 30 (15.38%) Problem-Solving
3 29 (14.87%) Change Management
4 28 (14.36%) DevOps
4 28 (14.36%) Service Management
5 27 (13.85%) Continuous Improvement
6 26 (13.33%) ITIL
7 25 (12.82%) Customer Service
8 23 (11.79%) Incident Response
8 23 (11.79%) Platform Engineering
9 22 (11.28%) CI/CD
10 21 (10.77%) Agile
11 20 (10.26%) SIEM
12 19 (9.74%) Migration
13 17 (8.72%) Observability
14 16 (8.21%) Full-Stack Development
14 16 (8.21%) Incident Management
14 16 (8.21%) Visualisation
15 15 (7.69%) Patch Management
16 14 (7.18%) Performance Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 53 (27.18%) PowerShell
2 41 (21.03%) SQL
3 38 (19.49%) Python
4 14 (7.18%) Groovy
5 10 (5.13%) Java
6 6 (3.08%) Bash
6 6 (3.08%) VBScript
7 5 (2.56%) Perl
8 2 (1.03%) Bicep
8 2 (1.03%) C++
8 2 (1.03%) Go
8 2 (1.03%) JavaScript
8 2 (1.03%) TypeScript
8 2 (1.03%) VB
Qualifications
1 76 (38.97%) Security Cleared
2 65 (33.33%) SC Cleared
3 16 (8.21%) Degree
4 15 (7.69%) AWS Certification
4 15 (7.69%) Microsoft Certification
5 14 (7.18%) Azure Certification
6 9 (4.62%) DV Cleared
7 6 (3.08%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (3.08%) MCP
8 5 (2.56%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 5 (2.56%) MCDST
9 4 (2.05%) CCNA
9 4 (2.05%) Cisco Certification
10 3 (1.54%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (1.03%) A+ Certification
11 2 (1.03%) DBS Check
11 2 (1.03%) ISEB
11 2 (1.03%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 2 (1.03%) MCSE
11 2 (1.03%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (4.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 9 (4.62%) NIST
2 8 (4.10%) SLA
3 4 (2.05%) QA
3 4 (2.05%) SOC 2
4 3 (1.54%) PCI DSS
5 2 (1.03%) GMP
5 2 (1.03%) GxP
System Software
1 73 (37.44%) Active Directory
2 21 (10.77%) Docker
3 14 (7.18%) DFS Replication
4 9 (4.62%) Dovecot
4 9 (4.62%) Postfix
4 9 (4.62%) Squid
4 9 (4.62%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (2.56%) Hyper-V
6 4 (2.05%) Terminal Services
6 4 (2.05%) vSphere
7 3 (1.54%) Firmware
8 2 (1.03%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (1.03%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.51%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 25 (12.82%) SCCM
2 21 (10.77%) Terraform
3 17 (8.72%) Microsoft Intune
4 16 (8.21%) Grafana
5 14 (7.18%) Prometheus
6 11 (5.64%) Kubernetes
7 10 (5.13%) Nessus
8 9 (4.62%) Proxmox
9 7 (3.59%) Ansible
10 3 (1.54%) SCOM
11 2 (1.03%) Argo
12 1 (0.51%) AirWatch
12 1 (0.51%) Dell DRAC
12 1 (0.51%) Jamf Pro
12 1 (0.51%) NetBackup
12 1 (0.51%) SolarWinds Orion
12 1 (0.51%) vCenter Server
12 1 (0.51%) WSUS
Vendors
1 61 (31.28%) Microsoft
2 23 (11.79%) Oracle
3 22 (11.28%) ServiceNow
4 20 (10.26%) Splunk
5 18 (9.23%) Cisco
5 18 (9.23%) CyberArk
6 17 (8.72%) Dynatrace
7 15 (7.69%) BeyondTrust
8 14 (7.18%) AppDynamics
9 13 (6.67%) VMware
10 9 (4.62%) Jaspersoft
11 6 (3.08%) Fujitsu
12 5 (2.56%) iManage
12 5 (2.56%) Mitel
13 4 (2.05%) Dell
13 4 (2.05%) SAP
14 3 (1.54%) Atlassian
14 3 (1.54%) CheckPoint
14 3 (1.54%) SolarWinds
14 3 (1.54%) Veeam
75 Windows jobs in the West Midlands