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

6 months to
20 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 10 13
Rank change year-on-year -14 +3 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 200 159 169
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 8.52% 10.25% 9.45%
As % of the Operating Systems category 58.31% 65.98% 71.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 148 101 122
10th Percentile £152 £174 £161
25th Percentile £200 £190 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £449 £325 £393
Median % change year-on-year +38.00% -17.20% -1.88%
75th Percentile £552 £551 £513
90th Percentile £619 £638 £638
England median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 11 11
10th Percentile - £15.22 £16.54
25th Percentile £17.14 £16.68 -
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 £23.75
90th Percentile £39.25 £22.89 -
England median hourly rate £22.00 £23.15 £21.00
% change year-on-year -4.97% +10.24% -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 343 241 238
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 14.61% 15.54% 13.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 241 152 168
10th Percentile £163 £188 £164
25th Percentile £290 £212 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £434 £400
Median % change year-on-year +9.42% +8.53% -19.19%
75th Percentile £559 £575 £514
90th Percentile £619 £692 £638
England median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 12 12
10th Percentile - £15.22 £16.66
25th Percentile £17.14 £17.40 £17.72
Median hourly rate £21.46 £18.57 £18.11
Median % change year-on-year +15.59% +2.51% +8.33%
75th Percentile £29.25 £22.89 £23.75
90th Percentile £69.99 £24.05 -
England median hourly rate £25.00 £55.00 £27.00
% change year-on-year -54.55% +103.70% +6.93%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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% 12
Shropshire -10 39 £495 +135.71% 6
Warwickshire -10 37 £500 -13.04% 12
Worcestershire -8 25 £588 +360.78% 7
Staffordshire +5 14 £203 +1.25% 12
Coventry -23 5 £275 +37.50% 7
Wolverhampton +5 3 £188 - 1
Herefordshire - 3 £625 - 1
Solihull -3 1 - - 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 27 (13.50%) WebLogic
2 20 (10.00%) Confluence
3 18 (9.00%) Apache
4 9 (4.50%) nginx
5 8 (4.00%) Microsoft Exchange
5 8 (4.00%) Tuxedo
6 6 (3.00%) SharePoint
7 2 (1.00%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.50%) FileNet
8 1 (0.50%) IIS
Applications
1 15 (7.50%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (4.50%) Mozilla Thunderbird
3 6 (3.00%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.50%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (1.00%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 63 (31.50%) Azure
2 50 (25.00%) Microsoft 365
3 46 (23.00%) AWS
4 14 (7.00%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 14 (7.00%) Amazon EC2
4 14 (7.00%) Amazon ELB
4 14 (7.00%) Amazon S3
4 14 (7.00%) AWS KMS
4 14 (7.00%) Azure Monitor
4 14 (7.00%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 9 (4.50%) Amazon ECS
5 9 (4.50%) Route 53
6 8 (4.00%) GitHub
7 7 (3.50%) Entra ID
8 5 (2.50%) Amazon Glacier
9 4 (2.00%) Tricentis Tosca
10 3 (1.50%) Azure DevOps
10 3 (1.50%) Azure Sentinel
10 3 (1.50%) Power Platform
10 3 (1.50%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 36 (18.00%) DNS
2 31 (15.50%) Firewall
3 22 (11.00%) VPN
4 21 (10.50%) SSH
5 19 (9.50%) DHCP
6 14 (7.00%) FTP
6 14 (7.00%) HTTP
6 14 (7.00%) SMTP
6 14 (7.00%) TCP/IP
7 9 (4.50%) IMAP
7 9 (4.50%) OpenLDAP
8 7 (3.50%) Network Security
9 5 (2.50%) Kerberos
9 5 (2.50%) Structured Cabling
10 4 (2.00%) WAN
11 3 (1.50%) Intrusion Detection
11 3 (1.50%) Wi-Fi
12 2 (1.00%) LAN
12 2 (1.00%) SAN
12 2 (1.00%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (7.00%) Amazon RDS
2 10 (5.00%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (4.50%) Amazon Aurora
4 2 (1.00%) Oracle Database
4 2 (1.00%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.50%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 31 (15.50%) JIRA
2 16 (8.00%) Git
2 16 (8.00%) Jenkins
3 14 (7.00%) Vagrant
4 11 (5.50%) MSI
5 6 (3.00%) GitLab
6 4 (2.00%) Toad
7 3 (1.50%) Bitbucket
7 3 (1.50%) InstallShield
8 2 (1.00%) Chocolatey
8 2 (1.00%) CircleCI
9 1 (0.50%) AdminStudio
9 1 (0.50%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.50%) REST Assured
General
1 97 (48.50%) Social Skills
2 27 (13.50%) Analytical Skills
3 25 (12.50%) Public Sector
4 18 (9.00%) Documentation Skills
5 15 (7.50%) Presentation Skills
6 8 (4.00%) Legal
7 7 (3.50%) Manufacturing
8 4 (2.00%) Finance
9 3 (1.50%) Telecoms
10 2 (1.00%) Aeronautics
10 2 (1.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (1.00%) Law
11 1 (0.50%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.50%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.50%) Police
Job Titles
1 30 (15.00%) Support Engineer
2 23 (11.50%) Platform Engineer
3 18 (9.00%) Analyst
3 18 (9.00%) Architect
4 16 (8.00%) AWS Engineer
4 16 (8.00%) Cloud Platform Engineer
4 16 (8.00%) DevOps Engineer
5 14 (7.00%) IT Support
6 12 (6.00%) AWS DevOps
6 12 (6.00%) AWS DevOps Engineer
6 12 (6.00%) Desktop Engineer
7 11 (5.50%) Deployment Engineer
7 11 (5.50%) IT Engineer
8 10 (5.00%) Desktop Support
8 10 (5.00%) Desktop Support Engineer
9 9 (4.50%) 2nd Line Support
9 9 (4.50%) AWS Platform Engineer
9 9 (4.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 9 (4.50%) Windows Engineer
10 8 (4.00%) Monitoring Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (8.00%) LDAP
2 5 (2.50%) OAuth
2 5 (2.50%) SAML
3 4 (2.00%) Middleware
3 4 (2.00%) XML
4 2 (1.00%) CSS
4 2 (1.00%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (1.00%) Kafka
4 2 (1.00%) Node.js
4 2 (1.00%) RabbitMQ
4 2 (1.00%) React
4 2 (1.00%) YAML
5 1 (0.50%) .NET
5 1 (0.50%) Apache NiFi
5 1 (0.50%) REST
5 1 (0.50%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 15 (7.50%) Replication
2 9 (4.50%) Onboarding
3 7 (3.50%) Self-Motivation
4 6 (3.00%) Data Protection Act
4 6 (3.00%) Enterprise Software
4 6 (3.00%) Team-Oriented Environment
5 4 (2.00%) Client/Server
6 3 (1.50%) Data Centre
6 3 (1.50%) Driving Licence
6 3 (1.50%) PKI
6 3 (1.50%) Security Posture
7 2 (1.00%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (1.00%) Legacy Applications
7 2 (1.00%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (1.00%) NHS
7 2 (1.00%) Product Ownership
7 2 (1.00%) Security Operations Centre
7 2 (1.00%) Video Conferencing
8 1 (0.50%) Mainframe
8 1 (0.50%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 76 (38.00%) Linux
2 41 (20.50%) Windows 10
3 37 (18.50%) Windows Server
4 33 (16.50%) Unix
5 15 (7.50%) VMS
6 14 (7.00%) Amazon Linux
7 9 (4.50%) AIX
7 9 (4.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (4.50%) Solaris
7 9 (4.50%) Ubuntu
8 7 (3.50%) Android
8 7 (3.50%) Apple iOS
9 6 (3.00%) Mac OS
10 3 (1.50%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.50%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (16.00%) Cloud Security
2 31 (15.50%) Change Management
3 29 (14.50%) Problem-Solving
4 28 (14.00%) DevOps
4 28 (14.00%) Service Management
5 27 (13.50%) Continuous Improvement
5 27 (13.50%) ITIL
6 25 (12.50%) Customer Service
7 23 (11.50%) Incident Response
7 23 (11.50%) Platform Engineering
8 21 (10.50%) CI/CD
9 20 (10.00%) SIEM
10 19 (9.50%) Agile
10 19 (9.50%) Configuration Management
11 18 (9.00%) Migration
12 17 (8.50%) Observability
13 16 (8.00%) Full-Stack Development
13 16 (8.00%) Incident Management
13 16 (8.00%) Visualisation
14 15 (7.50%) Patch Management
Programming Languages
1 53 (26.50%) PowerShell
2 42 (21.00%) SQL
3 38 (19.00%) Python
4 14 (7.00%) Groovy
5 11 (5.50%) Java
6 6 (3.00%) Bash
6 6 (3.00%) VBScript
7 5 (2.50%) Perl
8 2 (1.00%) Bicep
8 2 (1.00%) C++
8 2 (1.00%) Go
8 2 (1.00%) JavaScript
8 2 (1.00%) TypeScript
8 2 (1.00%) VB
9 1 (0.50%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 79 (39.50%) Security Cleared
2 69 (34.50%) SC Cleared
3 16 (8.00%) Microsoft Certification
4 15 (7.50%) Degree
5 14 (7.00%) AWS Certification
5 14 (7.00%) Azure Certification
6 8 (4.00%) DV Cleared
7 6 (3.00%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (3.00%) MCP
8 5 (2.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 5 (2.50%) MCDST
9 3 (1.50%) CCNA
9 3 (1.50%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (1.50%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (1.50%) MCSE
10 2 (1.00%) A+ Certification
10 2 (1.00%) DBS Check
10 2 (1.00%) ISEB
10 2 (1.00%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 2 (1.00%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (4.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 9 (4.50%) NIST
2 8 (4.00%) SLA
3 4 (2.00%) SOC 2
4 3 (1.50%) PCI DSS
4 3 (1.50%) QA
5 1 (0.50%) GMP
5 1 (0.50%) GxP
System Software
1 76 (38.00%) Active Directory
2 20 (10.00%) Docker
3 14 (7.00%) DFS Replication
4 10 (5.00%) VMware Infrastructure
5 9 (4.50%) Dovecot
5 9 (4.50%) Postfix
5 9 (4.50%) Squid
6 5 (2.50%) Hyper-V
7 4 (2.00%) Firmware
7 4 (2.00%) Terminal Services
8 3 (1.50%) vSphere
9 2 (1.00%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.50%) Snort
10 1 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 25 (12.50%) SCCM
1 25 (12.50%) Terraform
2 16 (8.00%) Grafana
2 16 (8.00%) Microsoft Intune
3 14 (7.00%) Prometheus
4 12 (6.00%) Ansible
5 10 (5.00%) Kubernetes
5 10 (5.00%) Nessus
6 9 (4.50%) Proxmox
7 2 (1.00%) Argo
7 2 (1.00%) SCOM
8 1 (0.50%) Dell DRAC
8 1 (0.50%) NetBackup
8 1 (0.50%) SolarWinds Orion
8 1 (0.50%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.50%) WSUS
Vendors
1 62 (31.00%) Microsoft
2 24 (12.00%) Oracle
3 22 (11.00%) ServiceNow
4 20 (10.00%) Splunk
5 18 (9.00%) CyberArk
6 17 (8.50%) Cisco
6 17 (8.50%) Dynatrace
7 16 (8.00%) VMware
8 15 (7.50%) BeyondTrust
9 14 (7.00%) AppDynamics
10 9 (4.50%) Jaspersoft
11 6 (3.00%) Fujitsu
12 5 (2.50%) Broadcom
12 5 (2.50%) iManage
12 5 (2.50%) Mitel
13 4 (2.00%) Atlassian
13 4 (2.00%) Dell
13 4 (2.00%) SAP
14 3 (1.50%) SolarWinds
14 3 (1.50%) Veeam