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

 6 months to
4 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 14 12
Rank change year-on-year -7 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 204 161 190
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 8.90% 10.01% 10.64%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.71% 67.36% 73.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 149 98 137
10th Percentile £160 £162 £162
25th Percentile £203 £190 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £314 £398
Median % change year-on-year +51.52% -21.13% +6.00%
75th Percentile £553 £516 £521
90th Percentile £619 £611 £638
England median daily rate £390 £400 £400
% change year-on-year -2.50% - -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 11 11
10th Percentile - £15.22 £16.54
25th Percentile £17.14 £16.68 £17.36
Median hourly rate £19.84 £18.13 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +9.45% +2.31% +7.39%
75th Percentile £22.99 £21.44 £21.50
90th Percentile £39.25 £22.89 £23.75
England median hourly rate £22.00 £22.00 £21.50
% change year-on-year - +2.33% +4.88%

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 336 239 260
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 14.67% 14.85% 14.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 233 147 183
10th Percentile £176 £178 £163
25th Percentile £291 £210 £203
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £426 £400
Median % change year-on-year +11.50% +6.50% -19.19%
75th Percentile £563 £575 £523
90th Percentile £619 £668 £635
England median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -6.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 12 12
10th Percentile - £15.22 £16.59
25th Percentile £17.14 £17.40 £17.54
Median hourly rate £21.46 £18.57 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +15.59% +4.77% +7.39%
75th Percentile £29.25 £22.89 £23.75
90th Percentile £69.99 £24.05 £27.58
England median hourly rate £25.15 £47.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year -46.49% +44.62% +30.00%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -9 58 £425 +70.00% 19
Warwickshire -2 43 £520 -10.07% 3
Shropshire -9 38 £485 +46.97% 11
Worcestershire -7 25 £588 +360.78% 11
Staffordshire +8 15 £203 -38.64% 16
Coventry -22 5 £275 +42.86% 5
Wolverhampton +7 4 £227 - 5
Herefordshire - 3 £625 -
Solihull 0 1 - -
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 24 (11.76%) WebLogic
2 23 (11.27%) Confluence
3 15 (7.35%) Apache
4 10 (4.90%) nginx
5 8 (3.92%) Microsoft Exchange
5 8 (3.92%) Tuxedo
6 6 (2.94%) SharePoint
7 2 (0.98%) FileNet
7 2 (0.98%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.49%) IIS
8 1 (0.49%) JBoss
Applications
1 15 (7.35%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (4.90%) Mozilla Thunderbird
3 5 (2.45%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.49%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.98%) SAP FI
2 1 (0.49%) SAP GRC
2 1 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 59 (28.92%) Azure
2 49 (24.02%) Microsoft 365
3 45 (22.06%) AWS
4 16 (7.84%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 16 (7.84%) Amazon EC2
4 16 (7.84%) Amazon ELB
4 16 (7.84%) Amazon S3
4 16 (7.84%) AWS KMS
4 16 (7.84%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 14 (6.86%) Azure Monitor
6 10 (4.90%) Amazon ECS
6 10 (4.90%) Route 53
7 8 (3.92%) GitHub
8 6 (2.94%) Amazon Glacier
8 6 (2.94%) Entra ID
9 5 (2.45%) PaaS
10 4 (1.96%) Tricentis Tosca
11 3 (1.47%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (1.47%) Azure DevOps
11 3 (1.47%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 39 (19.12%) DNS
2 28 (13.73%) Firewall
3 23 (11.27%) SSH
4 20 (9.80%) DHCP
5 16 (7.84%) FTP
5 16 (7.84%) HTTP
5 16 (7.84%) SMTP
6 15 (7.35%) VPN
7 14 (6.86%) TCP/IP
8 10 (4.90%) IMAP
8 10 (4.90%) OpenLDAP
9 5 (2.45%) Kerberos
9 5 (2.45%) Network Security
9 5 (2.45%) Structured Cabling
10 3 (1.47%) Intrusion Detection
10 3 (1.47%) Wi-Fi
11 2 (0.98%) LAN
11 2 (0.98%) SAN
11 2 (0.98%) WAN
11 2 (0.98%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (7.84%) Amazon RDS
2 11 (5.39%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (4.90%) Amazon Aurora
4 3 (1.47%) SQL Server
5 2 (0.98%) Oracle Database
6 1 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
6 1 (0.49%) RDBMS
6 1 (0.49%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.49%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 33 (16.18%) JIRA
2 20 (9.80%) Git
3 19 (9.31%) Jenkins
4 16 (7.84%) Vagrant
5 11 (5.39%) MSI
6 7 (3.43%) GitLab
7 5 (2.45%) Bitbucket
8 4 (1.96%) Toad
9 3 (1.47%) InstallShield
10 2 (0.98%) CircleCI
11 1 (0.49%) AdminStudio
11 1 (0.49%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.49%) Bitbucket Server
11 1 (0.49%) CA Release Automation
11 1 (0.49%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.49%) SonarQube
11 1 (0.49%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.49%) TeamCity
General
1 94 (46.08%) Social Skills
2 29 (14.22%) Public Sector
3 27 (13.24%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (8.82%) Documentation Skills
5 16 (7.84%) Presentation Skills
6 9 (4.41%) Legal
7 7 (3.43%) Manufacturing
8 6 (2.94%) Finance
9 3 (1.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (1.47%) Telecoms
10 2 (0.98%) Aeronautics
10 2 (0.98%) Law
11 1 (0.49%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.49%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.49%) Police
Job Titles
1 33 (16.18%) Support Engineer
2 25 (12.25%) Platform Engineer
3 19 (9.31%) AWS Engineer
3 19 (9.31%) DevOps Engineer
4 18 (8.82%) Analyst
4 18 (8.82%) Cloud Platform Engineer
5 15 (7.35%) Architect
6 14 (6.86%) AWS DevOps
6 14 (6.86%) AWS DevOps Engineer
7 13 (6.37%) Desktop Engineer
8 11 (5.39%) Deployment Engineer
8 11 (5.39%) Desktop Support
8 11 (5.39%) Desktop Support Engineer
8 11 (5.39%) IT Support
9 10 (4.90%) AWS Platform Engineer
9 10 (4.90%) IT Engineer
10 9 (4.41%) 2nd Line Support
10 9 (4.41%) Consultant
10 9 (4.41%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 9 (4.41%) Windows Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (8.33%) LDAP
2 5 (2.45%) OAuth
2 5 (2.45%) SAML
3 4 (1.96%) Middleware
3 4 (1.96%) XML
4 3 (1.47%) Elastic Stack
5 2 (0.98%) CSS
5 2 (0.98%) Kafka
5 2 (0.98%) Node.js
5 2 (0.98%) RabbitMQ
5 2 (0.98%) React
5 2 (0.98%) YAML
6 1 (0.49%) .NET
6 1 (0.49%) Apache NiFi
6 1 (0.49%) REST
6 1 (0.49%) SAP Basis
6 1 (0.49%) SAP Fiori
6 1 (0.49%) Software Packaging
6 1 (0.49%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 17 (8.33%) Replication
2 8 (3.92%) Onboarding
3 6 (2.94%) Data Protection Act
3 6 (2.94%) Self-Motivation
3 6 (2.94%) Team-Oriented Environment
4 4 (1.96%) Client/Server
4 4 (1.96%) Data Centre
4 4 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.47%) Driving Licence
5 3 (1.47%) PKI
5 3 (1.47%) Security Posture
6 2 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (0.98%) Legacy Applications
6 2 (0.98%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (0.98%) NHS
6 2 (0.98%) Product Ownership
6 2 (0.98%) Security Operations Centre
6 2 (0.98%) Video Conferencing
7 1 (0.49%) Mainframe
7 1 (0.49%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 75 (36.76%) Linux
2 39 (19.12%) Windows 10
2 39 (19.12%) Windows Server
3 31 (15.20%) Unix
4 18 (8.82%) VMS
5 16 (7.84%) Amazon Linux
6 10 (4.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (4.90%) Ubuntu
7 9 (4.41%) AIX
7 9 (4.41%) Solaris
8 8 (3.92%) Android
8 8 (3.92%) Apple iOS
9 7 (3.43%) Mac OS
10 3 (1.47%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.49%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (17.16%) Change Management
2 34 (16.67%) Cloud Security
3 31 (15.20%) DevOps
3 31 (15.20%) Problem-Solving
4 28 (13.73%) ITIL
5 27 (13.24%) Service Management
6 25 (12.25%) Continuous Improvement
6 25 (12.25%) Platform Engineering
7 24 (11.76%) Incident Response
8 22 (10.78%) CI/CD
8 22 (10.78%) Migration
9 21 (10.29%) Configuration Management
10 20 (9.80%) Agile
10 20 (9.80%) Customer Service
10 20 (9.80%) SIEM
11 18 (8.82%) Patch Management
12 16 (7.84%) Full-Stack Development
12 16 (7.84%) Incident Management
12 16 (7.84%) Visualisation
13 15 (7.35%) Performance Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 56 (27.45%) PowerShell
2 42 (20.59%) SQL
3 41 (20.10%) Python
4 16 (7.84%) Groovy
5 13 (6.37%) Java
6 7 (3.43%) Perl
7 6 (2.94%) Bash
7 6 (2.94%) VBScript
8 2 (0.98%) Bicep
8 2 (0.98%) C++
8 2 (0.98%) Go
8 2 (0.98%) JavaScript
8 2 (0.98%) TypeScript
8 2 (0.98%) VB
9 1 (0.49%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 85 (41.67%) Security Cleared
2 74 (36.27%) SC Cleared
3 17 (8.33%) Microsoft Certification
4 16 (7.84%) AWS Certification
4 16 (7.84%) Azure Certification
4 16 (7.84%) Degree
5 8 (3.92%) DV Cleared
6 6 (2.94%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 6 (2.94%) BPSS Clearance
6 6 (2.94%) MCP
7 5 (2.45%) MCDST
8 3 (1.47%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (1.47%) MCSE
9 2 (0.98%) A+ Certification
9 2 (0.98%) DBS Check
9 2 (0.98%) ISEB
9 2 (0.98%) ISTQB
9 2 (0.98%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 1 (0.49%) BC Cleared
10 1 (0.49%) CAPM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (4.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 9 (4.41%) NIST
2 8 (3.92%) SLA
3 4 (1.96%) SOC 2
4 3 (1.47%) PCI DSS
4 3 (1.47%) QA
5 1 (0.49%) GMP
5 1 (0.49%) GxP
System Software
1 80 (39.22%) Active Directory
2 24 (11.76%) Docker
3 16 (7.84%) DFS Replication
4 10 (4.90%) Dovecot
4 10 (4.90%) Postfix
4 10 (4.90%) Squid
4 10 (4.90%) VMware Infrastructure
5 8 (3.92%) Terminal Services
6 5 (2.45%) Firmware
6 5 (2.45%) Hyper-V
7 3 (1.47%) vSphere
8 2 (0.98%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.49%) Snort
9 1 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 28 (13.73%) Terraform
2 27 (13.24%) SCCM
3 18 (8.82%) Grafana
4 16 (7.84%) Prometheus
5 13 (6.37%) Ansible
6 12 (5.88%) Microsoft Intune
7 11 (5.39%) Nessus
8 10 (4.90%) Proxmox
9 9 (4.41%) Kubernetes
10 2 (0.98%) Argo
10 2 (0.98%) SCOM
11 1 (0.49%) Dell DRAC
11 1 (0.49%) Jamf Pro
11 1 (0.49%) Kibana
11 1 (0.49%) NetBackup
11 1 (0.49%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.49%) SolarWinds Orion
11 1 (0.49%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.49%) WSUS
Vendors
1 60 (29.41%) Microsoft
2 25 (12.25%) ServiceNow
3 22 (10.78%) Oracle
4 21 (10.29%) Splunk
5 18 (8.82%) CyberArk
6 17 (8.33%) Cisco
7 16 (7.84%) VMware
8 15 (7.35%) AppDynamics
8 15 (7.35%) BeyondTrust
9 14 (6.86%) Dynatrace
10 10 (4.90%) Jaspersoft
11 6 (2.94%) Fujitsu
12 5 (2.45%) Atlassian
12 5 (2.45%) Broadcom
12 5 (2.45%) iManage
12 5 (2.45%) Mitel
12 5 (2.45%) SAP
13 4 (1.96%) Dell
14 3 (1.47%) Adobe
14 3 (1.47%) Citrix
75 Windows jobs in the West Midlands