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

 6 months to
28 Mar 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 11 12
Rank change year-on-year -26 +1 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 164 155 201
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 5.67% 11.75% 10.19%
As % of the Operating Systems category 50.77% 78.68% 77.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 110 110 135
10th Percentile £160 £150 £170
25th Percentile £209 £193 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £442 £325 £388
Median % change year-on-year +36.08% -16.13% -11.93%
75th Percentile £550 £542 £550
90th Percentile £619 £638 £669
England median daily rate £413 £420 £388
% change year-on-year -1.79% +8.39% -13.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 11 19
10th Percentile £16.93 £15.22 £15.32
25th Percentile £17.14 £16.67 £17.13
Median hourly rate £21.46 £18.13 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.37% -4.58% +12.19%
75th Percentile £67.84 £19.01 £23.75
90th Percentile £71.50 £20.00 -
England median hourly rate £21.80 £19.00 £17.72
% change year-on-year +14.74% +7.22% -18.17%

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 323 197 258
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 11.17% 14.94% 13.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 223 135 176
10th Percentile £200 £160 £182
25th Percentile £350 £200 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £449 £425 £413
Median % change year-on-year +5.62% +3.03% -17.95%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £538
90th Percentile £616 £638 £644
England median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -13.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 12 21
10th Percentile - £15.36 £15.65
25th Percentile £17.14 £16.67 £17.72
Median hourly rate £36.98 £18.13 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +103.97% -4.58% +9.65%
75th Percentile £69.99 £19.63 £23.75
90th Percentile £76.75 £24.19 -
England median hourly rate £23.16 £28.00 £22.00
% change year-on-year -17.30% +27.27% -23.34%

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 28 March 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 28 March 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 28 March 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 -14 46 £461 +67.73% 19
Shropshire -28 27 £469 +123.10% 5
Warwickshire -24 26 £494 -10.44% 11
Worcestershire -10 21 £555 +282.76% 10
Coventry -20 16 £438 +118.75% 4
Staffordshire +1 11 £180 -62.11% 12
Herefordshire - 4 - - 5
Wolverhampton -3 2 £214 - 2
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 17 (10.37%) WebLogic
2 11 (6.71%) Tuxedo
3 9 (5.49%) Confluence
4 6 (3.66%) Apache
4 6 (3.66%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (1.83%) SharePoint
6 2 (1.22%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.61%) IIS
Applications
1 10 (6.10%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (3.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (1.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (1.22%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (1.22%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 47 (28.66%) Azure
2 36 (21.95%) Microsoft 365
3 26 (15.85%) AWS
4 12 (7.32%) Entra ID
5 5 (3.05%) GitHub
5 5 (3.05%) SaaS
6 4 (2.44%) Power Platform
6 4 (2.44%) Tricentis Tosca
7 3 (1.83%) Azure Sentinel
7 3 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (1.83%) OneDrive
8 2 (1.22%) Amazon EKS
8 2 (1.22%) Azure DevOps
8 2 (1.22%) Lucidchart
8 2 (1.22%) OpenShift
8 2 (1.22%) PaaS
9 1 (0.61%) Amazon GuardDuty
9 1 (0.61%) Amazon Macie
9 1 (0.61%) Power Automate
9 1 (0.61%) Zapier
Communications & Networking
1 23 (14.02%) VPN
2 21 (12.80%) DNS
2 21 (12.80%) Firewall
3 16 (9.76%) DHCP
4 9 (5.49%) Network Security
5 8 (4.88%) TCP/IP
6 7 (4.27%) Intrusion Detection
6 7 (4.27%) Wi-Fi
7 6 (3.66%) LAN
7 6 (3.66%) SSH
7 6 (3.66%) WAN
8 5 (3.05%) SSL
9 4 (2.44%) Kerberos
10 3 (1.83%) Internet
10 3 (1.83%) NAS
10 3 (1.83%) SAN
11 2 (1.22%) BGP
11 2 (1.22%) SD-WAN
11 2 (1.22%) Skype
11 2 (1.22%) Telnet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.22%) Data Warehouse
1 2 (1.22%) Oracle Database
2 1 (0.61%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (0.61%) Power BI
2 1 (0.61%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 21 (12.80%) JIRA
2 17 (10.37%) MSI
3 8 (4.88%) GitLab
4 4 (2.44%) InstallShield
4 4 (2.44%) Toad
5 3 (1.83%) Chocolatey
6 2 (1.22%) Artifactory
6 2 (1.22%) CircleCI
6 2 (1.22%) Git
6 2 (1.22%) Jenkins
7 1 (0.61%) AdminStudio
7 1 (0.61%) AppScan
7 1 (0.61%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.61%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.61%) REST Assured
General
1 61 (37.20%) Social Skills
2 13 (7.93%) Analytical Skills
3 10 (6.10%) Public Sector
4 9 (5.49%) Documentation Skills
4 9 (5.49%) Legal
5 6 (3.66%) Finance
5 6 (3.66%) Presentation Skills
6 5 (3.05%) Telecoms
7 4 (2.44%) Influencing Skills
7 4 (2.44%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.83%) Banking
9 2 (1.22%) Aeronautics
9 2 (1.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (1.22%) Investment Banking
9 2 (1.22%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.61%) Law
Job Titles
1 22 (13.41%) Analyst
1 22 (13.41%) Support Engineer
2 14 (8.54%) Architect
3 13 (7.93%) IT Engineer
3 13 (7.93%) IT Support
4 11 (6.71%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 10 (6.10%) IT Support Engineer
6 6 (3.66%) Desktop Engineer
6 6 (3.66%) DevSecOps Engineer
6 6 (3.66%) Network Engineer
7 5 (3.05%) 1st Line Support
7 5 (3.05%) 2nd Line Engineer
7 5 (3.05%) Consultant
7 5 (3.05%) Deployment Engineer
7 5 (3.05%) DevOps Engineer
7 5 (3.05%) IT Technician
7 5 (3.05%) Senior
7 5 (3.05%) Test Analyst
8 4 (2.44%) Lead
8 4 (2.44%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (2.44%) Kafka
1 4 (2.44%) LDAP
1 4 (2.44%) Middleware
1 4 (2.44%) OAuth
1 4 (2.44%) SAML
1 4 (2.44%) XML
2 2 (1.22%) Apache NiFi
2 2 (1.22%) CSS
2 2 (1.22%) Elastic Stack
2 2 (1.22%) Fluent Bit
2 2 (1.22%) Node.js
2 2 (1.22%) OpenTelemetry
2 2 (1.22%) RabbitMQ
2 2 (1.22%) React
2 2 (1.22%) REST
2 2 (1.22%) Software Packaging
2 2 (1.22%) YAML
3 1 (0.61%) .NET
3 1 (0.61%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 11 (6.71%) Onboarding
2 9 (5.49%) Hybrid Cloud
3 7 (4.27%) Data Protection Act
3 7 (4.27%) Enterprise Software
4 5 (3.05%) Cloud Native
4 5 (3.05%) Security Operations Centre
5 4 (2.44%) CSOC
5 4 (2.44%) Operational Technology
5 4 (2.44%) SCADA
5 4 (2.44%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (1.83%) Data Centre
6 3 (1.83%) Driving Licence
6 3 (1.83%) Mainframe
6 3 (1.83%) Product Ownership
6 3 (1.83%) Security Posture
7 2 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (1.22%) Legacy Applications
7 2 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (1.22%) NHS
7 2 (1.22%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 50 (30.49%) Linux
2 45 (27.44%) Windows Server
3 31 (18.90%) Windows 10
4 17 (10.37%) Unix
5 7 (4.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (3.66%) AIX
6 6 (3.66%) Solaris
7 3 (1.83%) Mac OS
8 2 (1.22%) Android
8 2 (1.22%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.61%) Kali Linux
9 1 (0.61%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.61%) VMS
9 1 (0.61%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.61%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (15.24%) Problem-Solving
2 24 (14.63%) Agile
3 22 (13.41%) Continuous Improvement
4 21 (12.80%) ITIL
5 19 (11.59%) CI/CD
5 19 (11.59%) Customer Service
6 17 (10.37%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 16 (9.76%) SIEM
8 15 (9.15%) Incident Response
8 15 (9.15%) Infrastructure as Code
9 13 (7.93%) DevOps
9 13 (7.93%) Migration
10 12 (7.32%) Change Management
11 11 (6.71%) Cloud Security
11 11 (6.71%) Service Management
12 10 (6.10%) Containerisation
12 10 (6.10%) RBAC
12 10 (6.10%) Roadmaps
13 9 (5.49%) ITSM
13 9 (5.49%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 29 (17.68%) PowerShell
1 29 (17.68%) SQL
2 14 (8.54%) Python
3 6 (3.66%) Bash
3 6 (3.66%) VBScript
4 4 (2.44%) Java
4 4 (2.44%) Kusto Query Language
5 3 (1.83%) Bicep
5 3 (1.83%) PL/SQL
5 3 (1.83%) VB
6 2 (1.22%) C++
6 2 (1.22%) Go
6 2 (1.22%) JavaScript
6 2 (1.22%) Search Processing Language
6 2 (1.22%) TypeScript
7 1 (0.61%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 64 (39.02%) Security Cleared
2 51 (31.10%) SC Cleared
3 11 (6.71%) Microsoft Certification
4 10 (6.10%) AWS Certification
4 10 (6.10%) Cisco Certification
4 10 (6.10%) DV Cleared
5 9 (5.49%) CCNA
5 9 (5.49%) Degree
6 5 (3.05%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 5 (3.05%) BPSS Clearance
7 4 (2.44%) Azure Certification
7 4 (2.44%) MCSE
8 3 (1.83%) ITIL Certification
9 2 (1.22%) CAPM
9 2 (1.22%) CBAP
9 2 (1.22%) ISEB
9 2 (1.22%) ISTQB
9 2 (1.22%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 2 (1.22%) PMI Certification
9 2 (1.22%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (9.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 13 (7.93%) NIST
3 4 (2.44%) QA
3 4 (2.44%) SLA
3 4 (2.44%) SOC 2
4 3 (1.83%) GDPR
4 3 (1.83%) PCI DSS
5 2 (1.22%) Data Quality
5 2 (1.22%) GMP
5 2 (1.22%) GxP
6 1 (0.61%) COBIT
6 1 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 64 (39.02%) Active Directory
2 12 (7.32%) Docker
3 11 (6.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (3.05%) Hyper-V
4 5 (3.05%) Microsoft App-V
5 4 (2.44%) Snort
5 4 (2.44%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (1.83%) Terminal Services
7 2 (1.22%) etcd
7 2 (1.22%) vSphere
8 1 (0.61%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.61%) XenApp
8 1 (0.61%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 23 (14.02%) Kubernetes
2 18 (10.98%) Microsoft Intune
3 17 (10.37%) SCCM
4 15 (9.15%) Terraform
5 12 (7.32%) Ansible
6 4 (2.44%) CSIRT
7 2 (1.22%) Argo
7 2 (1.22%) Fluentd
7 2 (1.22%) Grafana
7 2 (1.22%) Prometheus
7 2 (1.22%) SCOM
8 1 (0.61%) AirWatch
8 1 (0.61%) Backup Exec
8 1 (0.61%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.61%) Nessus
8 1 (0.61%) Packer
8 1 (0.61%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.61%) QRadar
8 1 (0.61%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.61%) WSUS
Vendors
1 62 (37.80%) Microsoft
2 16 (9.76%) Splunk
3 13 (7.93%) Oracle
3 13 (7.93%) VMware
4 10 (6.10%) ServiceNow
5 9 (5.49%) Fujitsu
6 8 (4.88%) CyberArk
7 7 (4.27%) Cisco
7 7 (4.27%) Citrix
8 5 (3.05%) BeyondTrust
9 4 (2.44%) Dynatrace
9 4 (2.44%) HP
9 4 (2.44%) SAP
10 3 (1.83%) Red Hat
10 3 (1.83%) Remedy
11 2 (1.22%) Apple
11 2 (1.22%) Ariba
11 2 (1.22%) Dell
11 2 (1.22%) McAfee
11 2 (1.22%) webMethods
76 Windows jobs in the West Midlands