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

 6 months to
23 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 9 13
Rank change year-on-year -19 +4 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 171 167 178
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 6.43% 11.77% 9.33%
As % of the Operating Systems category 52.29% 72.61% 72.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 120 105 124
10th Percentile £150 £154 £168
25th Percentile £185 £200 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £388 £325 £375
Median % change year-on-year +19.23% -13.33% -10.71%
75th Percentile £538 £551 £505
90th Percentile £619 £653 £638
England median daily rate £400 £400 £395
% change year-on-year - +1.27% -10.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 13 15
10th Percentile - £15.22 £16.01
25th Percentile £17.14 £16.67 £17.13
Median hourly rate £18.23 £18.13 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +0.52% +2.31% +4.64%
75th Percentile £22.48 £20.00 £23.75
90th Percentile £35.00 £22.89 -
England median hourly rate £21.80 £21.59 £19.75
% change year-on-year +0.97% +9.32% -16.98%

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 327 230 246
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 12.29% 16.21% 12.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 229 141 169
10th Percentile £163 £174 £175
25th Percentile £300 £210 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £434 £400
Median % change year-on-year +2.48% +8.56% -19.19%
75th Percentile £544 £550 £500
90th Percentile £619 £648 £638
England median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -12.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 14 18
10th Percentile - £15.22 £16.27
25th Percentile £17.14 £16.67 £17.72
Median hourly rate £19.84 £18.13 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +9.45% -19.42% +32.86%
75th Percentile £26.38 £22.16 £23.75
90th Percentile £66.49 £23.79 £56.75
England median hourly rate £22.50 £41.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year -45.12% +64.00% -9.09%

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 February 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 February 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 February 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 -15 52 £425 +30.77% 22
Warwickshire -21 30 £350 -38.22% 10
Shropshire -26 28 £483 +130.07% 13
Worcestershire -7 22 £550 +279.31% 7
Coventry -22 12 £388 +93.75% 5
Staffordshire +4 11 £205 +2.50% 6
Wolverhampton +3 3 £188 - 3
Herefordshire - 2 - - 4
Solihull -12 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 18 (10.53%) WebLogic
2 11 (6.43%) Confluence
3 9 (5.26%) Tuxedo
4 8 (4.68%) Apache
4 8 (4.68%) Microsoft Exchange
5 5 (2.92%) SharePoint
6 3 (1.75%) nginx
7 2 (1.17%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.58%) IIS
Applications
1 17 (9.94%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (3.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (1.75%) Mozilla Thunderbird
4 2 (1.17%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.17%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 47 (27.49%) Azure
1 47 (27.49%) Microsoft 365
2 28 (16.37%) AWS
3 10 (5.85%) Entra ID
4 5 (2.92%) Amazon ELB
4 5 (2.92%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 4 (2.34%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 4 (2.34%) Amazon EC2
5 4 (2.34%) Amazon S3
5 4 (2.34%) AWS KMS
5 4 (2.34%) Azure Monitor
5 4 (2.34%) GitHub
5 4 (2.34%) Route 53
5 4 (2.34%) SaaS
5 4 (2.34%) Tricentis Tosca
6 3 (1.75%) Amazon ECS
6 3 (1.75%) Azure Sentinel
6 3 (1.75%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (1.17%) Amazon EKS
7 2 (1.17%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 30 (17.54%) DNS
2 26 (15.20%) VPN
3 23 (13.45%) Firewall
4 21 (12.28%) DHCP
5 13 (7.60%) TCP/IP
6 10 (5.85%) SSH
7 8 (4.68%) Network Security
8 7 (4.09%) Intrusion Detection
9 6 (3.51%) FTP
9 6 (3.51%) HTTP
9 6 (3.51%) SMTP
10 5 (2.92%) WAN
10 5 (2.92%) Wi-Fi
11 4 (2.34%) Kerberos
11 4 (2.34%) Structured Cabling
12 3 (1.75%) IMAP
12 3 (1.75%) LAN
12 3 (1.75%) NAS
12 3 (1.75%) OpenLDAP
12 3 (1.75%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.34%) Amazon RDS
1 4 (2.34%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (1.75%) Amazon Aurora
3 2 (1.17%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (1.17%) Oracle Database
3 2 (1.17%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.58%) Power BI
4 1 (0.58%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 23 (13.45%) JIRA
2 13 (7.60%) MSI
3 7 (4.09%) GitLab
4 6 (3.51%) Git
4 6 (3.51%) Jenkins
5 4 (2.34%) InstallShield
5 4 (2.34%) Toad
5 4 (2.34%) Vagrant
6 3 (1.75%) Chocolatey
7 2 (1.17%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.58%) AdminStudio
8 1 (0.58%) AppScan
8 1 (0.58%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.58%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.58%) Metasploit
8 1 (0.58%) REST Assured
General
1 72 (42.11%) Social Skills
2 19 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (7.02%) Documentation Skills
4 11 (6.43%) Public Sector
5 10 (5.85%) Legal
5 10 (5.85%) Presentation Skills
6 7 (4.09%) Manufacturing
7 5 (2.92%) Finance
7 5 (2.92%) Telecoms
8 3 (1.75%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (1.17%) Aeronautics
9 2 (1.17%) Banking
9 2 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (1.17%) Investment Banking
9 2 (1.17%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.58%) Law
Job Titles
1 31 (18.13%) Support Engineer
2 25 (14.62%) Analyst
3 16 (9.36%) IT Support
4 14 (8.19%) Architect
5 12 (7.02%) Desktop Engineer
6 11 (6.43%) IT Engineer
7 10 (5.85%) Desktop Support
7 10 (5.85%) Desktop Support Engineer
8 9 (5.26%) 2nd Line Support
9 8 (4.68%) 1st/2nd Line Support
9 8 (4.68%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 8 (4.68%) IT Support Engineer
9 8 (4.68%) Windows Engineer
10 7 (4.09%) Deployment Engineer
10 7 (4.09%) DevOps Engineer
10 7 (4.09%) Platform Engineer
11 6 (3.51%) AWS Engineer
11 6 (3.51%) IT Technician
11 6 (3.51%) Senior
11 6 (3.51%) Server Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (4.09%) LDAP
2 4 (2.34%) OAuth
2 4 (2.34%) SAML
2 4 (2.34%) XML
3 3 (1.75%) Middleware
4 2 (1.17%) CSS
4 2 (1.17%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (1.17%) Kafka
4 2 (1.17%) Node.js
4 2 (1.17%) RabbitMQ
4 2 (1.17%) React
4 2 (1.17%) YAML
5 1 (0.58%) .NET
5 1 (0.58%) Apache NiFi
5 1 (0.58%) REST
5 1 (0.58%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 10 (5.85%) Onboarding
2 8 (4.68%) Self-Motivation
3 7 (4.09%) Enterprise Software
4 6 (3.51%) Team-Oriented Environment
5 5 (2.92%) Security Operations Centre
6 4 (2.34%) Cloud Native
6 4 (2.34%) CSOC
6 4 (2.34%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (2.34%) Hybrid Cloud
6 4 (2.34%) Operational Technology
6 4 (2.34%) Replication
7 3 (1.75%) Data Centre
7 3 (1.75%) Driving Licence
7 3 (1.75%) Mainframe
7 3 (1.75%) PKI
7 3 (1.75%) Product Ownership
7 3 (1.75%) Security Posture
8 2 (1.17%) Legacy Applications
8 2 (1.17%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (1.17%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 49 (28.65%) Linux
2 42 (24.56%) Windows 10
3 39 (22.81%) Windows Server
4 18 (10.53%) Unix
5 7 (4.09%) Mac OS
6 6 (3.51%) AIX
6 6 (3.51%) Android
6 6 (3.51%) Apple iOS
6 6 (3.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (3.51%) Solaris
7 5 (2.92%) VMS
8 4 (2.34%) Amazon Linux
9 3 (1.75%) Ubuntu
10 2 (1.17%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.58%) Kali Linux
11 1 (0.58%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (16.37%) Customer Service
2 27 (15.79%) ITIL
2 27 (15.79%) Problem-Solving
3 23 (13.45%) Agile
4 22 (12.87%) Continuous Improvement
5 19 (11.11%) CI/CD
6 18 (10.53%) Change Management
7 17 (9.94%) Incident Response
7 17 (9.94%) Migration
7 17 (9.94%) Service Management
8 15 (8.77%) Cloud Security
8 15 (8.77%) DevOps
8 15 (8.77%) SIEM
9 12 (7.02%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 10 (5.85%) Infrastructure as Code
11 9 (5.26%) Customer Requirements
11 9 (5.26%) Cybersecurity
11 9 (5.26%) Privileged Access Management
11 9 (5.26%) Roadmaps
12 8 (4.68%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 29 (16.96%) PowerShell
2 27 (15.79%) SQL
3 16 (9.36%) Python
4 5 (2.92%) Bash
4 5 (2.92%) Java
5 4 (2.34%) Groovy
5 4 (2.34%) Kusto Query Language
5 4 (2.34%) VBScript
6 3 (1.75%) Bicep
6 3 (1.75%) VB
7 2 (1.17%) C++
7 2 (1.17%) Go
7 2 (1.17%) JavaScript
7 2 (1.17%) TypeScript
8 1 (0.58%) Lisp
8 1 (0.58%) Perl
Qualifications
1 55 (32.16%) Security Cleared
2 46 (26.90%) SC Cleared
3 14 (8.19%) Microsoft Certification
4 11 (6.43%) AWS Certification
4 11 (6.43%) Degree
5 8 (4.68%) Azure Certification
6 6 (3.51%) CCNA
6 6 (3.51%) Cisco Certification
6 6 (3.51%) DV Cleared
6 6 (3.51%) Microsoft Certified Professional
7 5 (2.92%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 5 (2.92%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (2.92%) MCDST
8 3 (1.75%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (1.75%) ITIL Certification
9 2 (1.17%) A+ Certification
9 2 (1.17%) CAPM
9 2 (1.17%) ISTQB
9 2 (1.17%) PMI Certification
9 2 (1.17%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (5.26%) NIST
3 7 (4.09%) SLA
4 4 (2.34%) QA
4 4 (2.34%) SOC 2
5 3 (1.75%) PCI DSS
6 2 (1.17%) GMP
6 2 (1.17%) GxP
7 1 (0.58%) COBIT
7 1 (0.58%) GDPR
System Software
1 66 (38.60%) Active Directory
2 13 (7.60%) Docker
3 8 (4.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (2.92%) Hyper-V
5 4 (2.34%) DFS Replication
5 4 (2.34%) Snort
5 4 (2.34%) vSphere
6 3 (1.75%) Dovecot
6 3 (1.75%) Microsoft App-V
6 3 (1.75%) Postfix
6 3 (1.75%) Squid
6 3 (1.75%) Terminal Services
7 1 (0.58%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 23 (13.45%) SCCM
2 19 (11.11%) Microsoft Intune
3 17 (9.94%) Kubernetes
4 14 (8.19%) Terraform
5 9 (5.26%) Ansible
6 6 (3.51%) Grafana
7 4 (2.34%) CSIRT
7 4 (2.34%) Nessus
7 4 (2.34%) Prometheus
8 3 (1.75%) Proxmox
8 3 (1.75%) SCOM
9 2 (1.17%) Argo
10 1 (0.58%) AirWatch
10 1 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.58%) Packer
10 1 (0.58%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.58%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.58%) WSUS
Vendors
1 65 (38.01%) Microsoft
2 16 (9.36%) Splunk
3 13 (7.60%) Oracle
3 13 (7.60%) ServiceNow
4 9 (5.26%) VMware
5 8 (4.68%) CyberArk
6 7 (4.09%) Cisco
6 7 (4.09%) Dynatrace
6 7 (4.09%) Fujitsu
7 5 (2.92%) BeyondTrust
7 5 (2.92%) iManage
7 5 (2.92%) Mitel
8 4 (2.34%) AppDynamics
8 4 (2.34%) Citrix
8 4 (2.34%) SAP
9 3 (1.75%) CheckPoint
9 3 (1.75%) Dell
9 3 (1.75%) Jaspersoft
9 3 (1.75%) Remedy
10 2 (1.17%) MobileIron
79 Windows jobs in the West Midlands