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 15 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 17 10 9
Rank change year-on-year -7 -1 +4
Contract jobs citing Windows 197 200 237
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 10.41% 10.68% 11.76%
As % of the Operating Systems category 68.17% 68.26% 77.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 151 118 173
10th Percentile £150 £155 £167
25th Percentile £200 £193 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £339 £350
Median % change year-on-year +18.08% -3.21% -
75th Percentile £536 £555 £495
90th Percentile £588 £664 £638
England median daily rate £400 £423 £425
% change year-on-year -5.38% -0.53% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 8 9
10th Percentile £16.53 £14.63 £16.23
25th Percentile £17.14 £17.88 £17.75
Median hourly rate £18.23 £21.59 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.59% -13.64% +51.98%
75th Percentile £23.88 £23.86 £28.75
90th Percentile £28.00 £39.43 -
England median hourly rate £21.29 £24.35 £25.00
% change year-on-year -12.57% -2.60% +15.53%

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 289 293 307
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 15.27% 15.64% 15.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 211 181 213
10th Percentile £163 £185 £163
25th Percentile £223 £255 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £447 £375
Median % change year-on-year +6.26% +19.20% -22.68%
75th Percentile £539 £582 £500
90th Percentile £618 £688 £625
England median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -1.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 8 12
10th Percentile £16.74 £14.63 £17.08
25th Percentile £17.14 £17.88 £19.44
Median hourly rate £18.23 £21.59 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.59% -16.96% +58.05%
75th Percentile £25.00 £23.86 £28.75
90th Percentile £42.00 £39.43 £47.88
England median hourly rate £24.00 £61.43 £48.40
% change year-on-year -60.93% +26.92% +93.60%

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 15 October 2025.

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 15 October 2025.

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 15 October 2025. 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 -8 58 £300 +20.00% 13
Warwickshire -3 46 £475 -17.39% 12
Shropshire 0 31 £500 +66.67% 6
Worcestershire -3 17 £575 +289.83% 8
Staffordshire +12 14 £205 +10.81% 18
Coventry -6 12 £232 +28.61% 3
Solihull -2 6 £220 -50.89% 3
Wolverhampton +4 4 £275 - 4
Herefordshire -10 2 £413 -48.44% 4
West Bromwich - 1 £170 - 1
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 29 (14.72%) Confluence
2 13 (6.60%) Apache
2 13 (6.60%) WebLogic
3 10 (5.08%) nginx
4 8 (4.06%) Microsoft Exchange
5 7 (3.55%) SharePoint
6 2 (1.02%) FileNet
7 1 (0.51%) IIS
7 1 (0.51%) JBoss
Applications
1 19 (9.64%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (5.08%) Mozilla Thunderbird
3 4 (2.03%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.51%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.51%) SAP GRC
1 1 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 64 (32.49%) Azure
2 52 (26.40%) AWS
3 49 (24.87%) Microsoft 365
4 27 (13.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 26 (13.20%) Amazon EC2
5 26 (13.20%) Amazon S3
5 26 (13.20%) AWS KMS
5 26 (13.20%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 22 (11.17%) Amazon ELB
7 17 (8.63%) Entra ID
8 13 (6.60%) Azure Monitor
9 12 (6.09%) Amazon Glacier
10 11 (5.58%) Route 53
11 10 (5.08%) Amazon ECS
12 7 (3.55%) PaaS
13 6 (3.05%) GitHub
14 5 (2.54%) IaaS
15 4 (2.03%) AWS Lambda
15 4 (2.03%) Azure DevOps
15 4 (2.03%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 46 (23.35%) DNS
2 34 (17.26%) Firewall
3 25 (12.69%) SSH
4 22 (11.17%) DHCP
4 22 (11.17%) FTP
4 22 (11.17%) HTTP
4 22 (11.17%) SMTP
5 13 (6.60%) VPN
6 12 (6.09%) TCP/IP
7 10 (5.08%) IMAP
7 10 (5.08%) OpenLDAP
8 5 (2.54%) Structured Cabling
9 4 (2.03%) Unified Communications
9 4 (2.03%) Wireless
10 3 (1.52%) Telepresence
10 3 (1.52%) Wi-Fi
11 2 (1.02%) LAN
11 2 (1.02%) SAN
11 2 (1.02%) VoIP
11 2 (1.02%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (11.68%) Amazon RDS
2 11 (5.58%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (5.08%) Amazon Aurora
4 6 (3.05%) SQL Server
5 3 (1.52%) Relational Database
6 2 (1.02%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (1.02%) DB2
6 2 (1.02%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 1 (0.51%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.51%) Power BI
7 1 (0.51%) RDBMS
7 1 (0.51%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 31 (15.74%) JIRA
2 26 (13.20%) Git
3 23 (11.68%) Jenkins
4 22 (11.17%) Vagrant
5 5 (2.54%) Bitbucket
5 5 (2.54%) PVCS
6 4 (2.03%) GitLab
7 1 (0.51%) Bitbucket Server
7 1 (0.51%) CA Release Automation
7 1 (0.51%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.51%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.51%) TeamCity
General
1 100 (50.76%) Social Skills
2 34 (17.26%) Public Sector
3 33 (16.75%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (6.60%) Documentation Skills
4 13 (6.60%) Presentation Skills
5 10 (5.08%) Finance
6 9 (4.57%) Legal
7 8 (4.06%) Organisational Skills
8 6 (3.05%) Manufacturing
9 5 (2.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (2.03%) Automotive
11 2 (1.02%) Law
11 2 (1.02%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.51%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.51%) Police
Job Titles
1 36 (18.27%) Support Engineer
2 25 (12.69%) Platform Engineer
3 23 (11.68%) Analyst
3 23 (11.68%) DevOps Engineer
4 20 (10.15%) AWS Engineer
5 19 (9.64%) Cloud Platform Engineer
6 18 (9.14%) Desktop Engineer
7 15 (7.61%) AWS DevOps
7 15 (7.61%) AWS DevOps Engineer
8 14 (7.11%) Desktop Support
8 14 (7.11%) Desktop Support Engineer
9 12 (6.09%) Deployment Engineer
10 11 (5.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 11 (5.58%) IT Support
10 11 (5.58%) Windows Engineer
11 10 (5.08%) AWS Platform Engineer
11 10 (5.08%) IT Engineer
12 9 (4.57%) 1st Line Support
13 8 (4.06%) DevOps Platform Engineer
14 7 (3.55%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (6.60%) LDAP
2 5 (2.54%) XML
3 2 (1.02%) Elastic Stack
3 2 (1.02%) Software Packaging
3 2 (1.02%) YAML
4 1 (0.51%) .NET
4 1 (0.51%) Middleware
4 1 (0.51%) OAuth
4 1 (0.51%) SAML
4 1 (0.51%) SAP Basis
4 1 (0.51%) SAP Fiori
4 1 (0.51%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 26 (13.20%) Replication
2 6 (3.05%) Onboarding
3 5 (2.54%) Self-Motivation
3 5 (2.54%) Team-Oriented Environment
4 4 (2.03%) Data Centre
5 3 (1.52%) Client/Server
5 3 (1.52%) Driving Licence
5 3 (1.52%) PKI
5 3 (1.52%) Video Conferencing
6 2 (1.02%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (1.02%) NHS
6 2 (1.02%) Product Ownership
6 2 (1.02%) SCADA
6 2 (1.02%) Security Operations Centre
7 1 (0.51%) Cyberattack
7 1 (0.51%) Educational Technology
7 1 (0.51%) Fibre Optics
7 1 (0.51%) HP Storage
7 1 (0.51%) Legacy Applications
7 1 (0.51%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 68 (34.52%) Linux
2 32 (16.24%) Windows 10
3 28 (14.21%) Windows Server
4 23 (11.68%) Amazon Linux
4 23 (11.68%) VMS
5 22 (11.17%) Unix
6 12 (6.09%) Android
6 12 (6.09%) Ubuntu
7 9 (4.57%) Mac OS
8 7 (3.55%) Apple iOS
9 5 (2.54%) AIX
9 5 (2.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (2.54%) Solaris
10 3 (1.52%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.51%) SUSE
11 1 (0.51%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (21.32%) Problem-Solving
2 41 (20.81%) ITIL
3 36 (18.27%) Change Management
4 35 (17.77%) Cloud Security
5 30 (15.23%) DevOps
6 28 (14.21%) Platform Engineering
7 27 (13.71%) Configuration Management
8 25 (12.69%) Patch Management
9 24 (12.18%) Customer Service
9 24 (12.18%) Service Management
10 21 (10.66%) Migration
11 20 (10.15%) Analytics
12 19 (9.64%) Continuous Improvement
13 18 (9.14%) Incident Response
14 15 (7.61%) Business Intelligence
14 15 (7.61%) Visualisation
15 14 (7.11%) Agile
15 14 (7.11%) CI/CD
15 14 (7.11%) Incident Management
15 14 (7.11%) Performance Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 58 (29.44%) PowerShell
2 37 (18.78%) Python
3 33 (16.75%) SQL
4 22 (11.17%) Groovy
5 15 (7.61%) Java
6 13 (6.60%) Perl
7 5 (2.54%) VBScript
8 4 (2.03%) Bash
9 2 (1.02%) Bicep
10 1 (0.51%) Ladder Logic
10 1 (0.51%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 73 (37.06%) Security Cleared
2 65 (32.99%) SC Cleared
3 21 (10.66%) Degree
4 16 (8.12%) AWS Certification
5 15 (7.61%) Azure Certification
5 15 (7.61%) Microsoft Certification
6 9 (4.57%) DV Cleared
7 7 (3.55%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 7 (3.55%) MCP
8 5 (2.54%) MCDST
9 4 (2.03%) MCSE
10 3 (1.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 3 (1.52%) CCNA
10 3 (1.52%) Cisco Certification
10 3 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (1.02%) A+ Certification
11 2 (1.02%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
11 2 (1.02%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (1.02%) DBS Check
12 1 (0.51%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (5.58%) SLA
2 4 (2.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (2.03%) NIST
3 2 (1.02%) PMO
3 2 (1.02%) SOC 2
4 1 (0.51%) IEC 61131
4 1 (0.51%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 86 (43.65%) Active Directory
2 27 (13.71%) Docker
3 22 (11.17%) DFS Replication
4 11 (5.58%) VMware Infrastructure
5 10 (5.08%) Dovecot
5 10 (5.08%) Postfix
5 10 (5.08%) Squid
6 7 (3.55%) Firmware
7 5 (2.54%) Hyper-V
7 5 (2.54%) Terminal Services
8 3 (1.52%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (1.02%) BitLocker
9 2 (1.02%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (1.02%) vSphere
10 1 (0.51%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.51%) Snort
10 1 (0.51%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 33 (16.75%) SCCM
1 33 (16.75%) Terraform
2 23 (11.68%) Grafana
2 23 (11.68%) Prometheus
3 16 (8.12%) Microsoft Intune
4 11 (5.58%) Nessus
5 10 (5.08%) Proxmox
6 8 (4.06%) Ansible
7 6 (3.05%) Kubernetes
8 3 (1.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (1.02%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (1.02%) SCOM
10 1 (0.51%) Dell DRAC
10 1 (0.51%) Kibana
10 1 (0.51%) NetBackup
10 1 (0.51%) PowerCLI
10 1 (0.51%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.51%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.51%) SolarWinds Orion
10 1 (0.51%) SysTrack
Vendors
1 69 (35.03%) Microsoft
2 30 (15.23%) ServiceNow
3 21 (10.66%) Cisco
4 18 (9.14%) VMware
5 17 (8.63%) AppDynamics
5 17 (8.63%) Dynatrace
5 17 (8.63%) Oracle
6 16 (8.12%) Splunk
7 11 (5.58%) BeyondTrust
7 11 (5.58%) CyberArk
8 10 (5.08%) Jaspersoft
9 6 (3.05%) Apple
9 6 (3.05%) Broadcom
10 5 (2.54%) Dell
10 5 (2.54%) iManage
10 5 (2.54%) Mitel
11 4 (2.03%) Atlassian
11 4 (2.03%) HP
11 4 (2.03%) IBM
11 4 (2.03%) Veeam