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

 6 months to
4 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 13 10
Rank change year-on-year -26 -3 +1
Contract jobs citing Windows 160 153 206
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 5.02% 10.84% 10.65%
As % of the Operating Systems category 52.63% 73.91% 77.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 110 113 132
10th Percentile £163 £145 £158
25th Percentile £213 £190 £205
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £300 £390
Median % change year-on-year +50.00% -23.08% -8.24%
75th Percentile £539 £500 £584
90th Percentile £618 £628 £725
England median daily rate £424 £421 £400
% change year-on-year +0.65% +5.25% -11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 11 15
10th Percentile £45.73 £15.22 £14.66
25th Percentile £58.43 £16.67 £17.25
Median hourly rate £64.07 £18.13 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +253.38% -17.59% +33.50%
75th Percentile £70.32 £19.01 £23.75
90th Percentile £72.66 £24.66 -
England median hourly rate £25.75 £18.82 £18.00
% change year-on-year +36.82% +4.56% -23.40%

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 304 207 266
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 9.54% 14.66% 13.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 217 146 176
10th Percentile £196 £150 £181
25th Percentile £381 £200 £256
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £400 £425
Median % change year-on-year +14.75% -5.88% -5.56%
75th Percentile £537 £500 £577
90th Percentile £600 £638 £688
England median daily rate £455 £467 £475
% change year-on-year -2.47% -1.79% -5.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 11 17
10th Percentile £47.73 £15.22 £14.99
25th Percentile £58.43 £16.67 £18.50
Median hourly rate £64.07 £18.13 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +253.38% -19.42% +32.86%
75th Percentile £70.50 £19.01 £23.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £24.66 £72.50
England median hourly rate £33.32 £20.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year +66.58% -11.11% -47.06%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 -17 46 £369 +34.09% 17
Warwickshire -14 40 £525 +16.67% 13
Coventry -14 20 £388 +76.14% 3
Shropshire -40 14 £478 +127.38% 4
Worcestershire -7 11 £175 +20.69% 11
Staffordshire 0 7 £180 -28.00% 12
Herefordshire - 6 - - 5
Solihull -25 3 £105 -72.00% 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 11 (6.88%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (5.63%) WebLogic
3 8 (5.00%) Apache
3 8 (5.00%) Confluence
4 7 (4.38%) SharePoint
5 6 (3.75%) Tuxedo
6 2 (1.25%) CloudStack
6 2 (1.25%) IIS
7 1 (0.63%) SAS
Applications
1 14 (8.75%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (5.63%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (1.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (1.25%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (1.25%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 60 (37.50%) Azure
2 50 (31.25%) Microsoft 365
3 27 (16.88%) Entra ID
4 22 (13.75%) AWS
5 13 (8.13%) OneDrive
6 7 (4.38%) Azure Sentinel
6 7 (4.38%) Power Platform
7 5 (3.13%) GCP
7 5 (3.13%) GitHub
7 5 (3.13%) SaaS
8 3 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (1.88%) IaaS
8 3 (1.88%) OpenShift
9 2 (1.25%) Lucidchart
10 1 (0.63%) Amazon ELB
10 1 (0.63%) AWS CloudTrail
10 1 (0.63%) CloudFront
10 1 (0.63%) PaaS
10 1 (0.63%) Route 53
10 1 (0.63%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 30 (18.75%) DNS
2 28 (17.50%) DHCP
2 28 (17.50%) VPN
3 20 (12.50%) Firewall
4 11 (6.88%) LAN
5 9 (5.63%) TCP/IP
5 9 (5.63%) Wi-Fi
6 7 (4.38%) SNMP
6 7 (4.38%) SSL
6 7 (4.38%) WAN
7 6 (3.75%) Network Security
8 5 (3.13%) Internet
8 5 (3.13%) NAS
8 5 (3.13%) SAN
9 4 (2.50%) Intrusion Detection
10 3 (1.88%) Cisco IOS
10 3 (1.88%) SD-WAN
10 3 (1.88%) WAAS
11 2 (1.25%) NetScaler
11 2 (1.25%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.88%) Power BI
2 2 (1.25%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.63%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.63%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.63%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.63%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 15 (9.38%) JIRA
2 9 (5.63%) MSI
3 4 (2.50%) GitLab
4 3 (1.88%) Artifactory
4 3 (1.88%) Chocolatey
5 2 (1.25%) Browser DevTools
6 1 (0.63%) AppScan
6 1 (0.63%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.63%) InstallShield
6 1 (0.63%) Metasploit
General
1 66 (41.25%) Social Skills
2 21 (13.13%) Analytical Skills
3 9 (5.63%) Finance
4 7 (4.38%) Banking
5 6 (3.75%) Public Sector
6 5 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
6 5 (3.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (2.50%) Influencing Skills
7 4 (2.50%) Investment Banking
8 3 (1.88%) Legal
8 3 (1.88%) Telecoms
9 2 (1.25%) Law
9 2 (1.25%) Manufacturing
9 2 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (1.25%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.63%) Billing
Job Titles
1 24 (15.00%) Analyst
2 23 (14.38%) Support Engineer
3 17 (10.63%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 17 (10.63%) IT Support
4 13 (8.13%) IT Engineer
5 12 (7.50%) IT Support Engineer
6 10 (6.25%) Architect
7 7 (4.38%) 2nd Line Engineer
7 7 (4.38%) Desktop Engineer
7 7 (4.38%) Network Engineer
7 7 (4.38%) Senior
7 7 (4.38%) Service Analyst
7 7 (4.38%) Service Desk Analyst
8 6 (3.75%) 2nd Line Support
8 6 (3.75%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
8 6 (3.75%) DevSecOps Engineer
8 6 (3.75%) Support Technician
9 5 (3.13%) Administrator
9 5 (3.13%) Business Analyst
9 5 (3.13%) Infrastructure Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (2.50%) REST
2 3 (1.88%) Apache NiFi
2 3 (1.88%) Middleware
3 2 (1.25%) Elastic Stack
3 2 (1.25%) Fluent Bit
3 2 (1.25%) Kafka
3 2 (1.25%) OpenTelemetry
3 2 (1.25%) SAML
4 1 (0.63%) .NET
4 1 (0.63%) 802.1X
4 1 (0.63%) FIDO
4 1 (0.63%) ISPF
4 1 (0.63%) Microsoft Graph
4 1 (0.63%) Software Packaging
4 1 (0.63%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 14 (8.75%) Hybrid Cloud
1 14 (8.75%) Onboarding
2 8 (5.00%) Enterprise Software
3 7 (4.38%) Data Centre
4 6 (3.75%) Cloud Native
4 6 (3.75%) Self-Motivation
5 5 (3.13%) Data Protection Act
5 5 (3.13%) Smartphone
6 4 (2.50%) Analytical Mindset
6 4 (2.50%) CSOC
6 4 (2.50%) Mainframe
6 4 (2.50%) Operational Technology
6 4 (2.50%) SCADA
6 4 (2.50%) Security Operations Centre
7 3 (1.88%) Cyber Threat
7 3 (1.88%) Management Information System
7 3 (1.88%) PKI
7 3 (1.88%) Public Cloud
7 3 (1.88%) Virtual Team
8 2 (1.25%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 50 (31.25%) Linux
2 43 (26.88%) Windows Server
3 32 (20.00%) Windows 10
4 13 (8.13%) Unix
5 12 (7.50%) Mac OS
6 5 (3.13%) Apple iOS
6 5 (3.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (2.50%) Android
7 4 (2.50%) Ubuntu
8 3 (1.88%) Windows 7
8 3 (1.88%) Windows Server 2012
8 3 (1.88%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (1.25%) AIX
9 2 (1.25%) Solaris
9 2 (1.25%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.63%) HPUX
10 1 (0.63%) Kali Linux
10 1 (0.63%) VMS
10 1 (0.63%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (21.88%) Problem-Solving
2 24 (15.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 24 (15.00%) ITSM
3 23 (14.38%) Customer Service
4 22 (13.75%) ITIL
5 20 (12.50%) Migration
6 17 (10.63%) Infrastructure as Code
7 16 (10.00%) Agile
8 13 (8.13%) CI/CD
8 13 (8.13%) DevOps
9 12 (7.50%) Continuous Improvement
9 12 (7.50%) Incident Management
9 12 (7.50%) Problem Management
9 12 (7.50%) SIEM
9 12 (7.50%) User Experience
10 11 (6.88%) Containerisation
10 11 (6.88%) Patch Management
10 11 (6.88%) Service Management
11 10 (6.25%) Stakeholder Management
11 10 (6.25%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 23 (14.38%) PowerShell
1 23 (14.38%) SQL
2 12 (7.50%) Python
3 4 (2.50%) Bash
3 4 (2.50%) Kusto Query Language
4 3 (1.88%) PL/SQL
4 3 (1.88%) VBScript
5 2 (1.25%) Bicep
5 2 (1.25%) Search Processing Language
6 1 (0.63%) JCL
6 1 (0.63%) Lisp
6 1 (0.63%) REXX
6 1 (0.63%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.63%) VB
Qualifications
1 50 (31.25%) Security Cleared
2 38 (23.75%) SC Cleared
3 14 (8.75%) Cisco Certification
4 11 (6.88%) CCNA
4 11 (6.88%) DV Cleared
5 9 (5.63%) AWS Certification
6 8 (5.00%) Degree
7 5 (3.13%) MCSE
7 5 (3.13%) Microsoft Certification
7 5 (3.13%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 4 (2.50%) Azure Certification
8 4 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (1.88%) ITIL Certification
9 3 (1.88%) RHCA
10 2 (1.25%) CAPM
10 2 (1.25%) CCNP
10 2 (1.25%) CISSP
10 2 (1.25%) PMI Certification
10 2 (1.25%) PMP
10 2 (1.25%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (9.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 12 (7.50%) NIST
3 8 (5.00%) SLA
4 3 (1.88%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (1.88%) GDPR
4 3 (1.88%) QA
5 2 (1.25%) Data Quality
5 2 (1.25%) GMP
5 2 (1.25%) GxP
5 2 (1.25%) SOC 2
6 1 (0.63%) COBIT
6 1 (0.63%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 71 (44.38%) Active Directory
2 21 (13.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (6.25%) Hyper-V
4 9 (5.63%) Docker
4 9 (5.63%) vSphere
5 6 (3.75%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (3.13%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (2.50%) Snort
7 4 (2.50%) XenApp
7 4 (2.50%) XenDesktop
8 3 (1.88%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (1.25%) BitLocker
9 2 (1.25%) etcd
9 2 (1.25%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.63%) Job Entry Subsystem
10 1 (0.63%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.63%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 28 (17.50%) Microsoft Intune
2 26 (16.25%) SCCM
3 24 (15.00%) Kubernetes
4 14 (8.75%) Terraform
5 9 (5.63%) Ansible
6 5 (3.13%) WMI
7 4 (2.50%) CSIRT
7 4 (2.50%) Prometheus
8 3 (1.88%) AirWatch
8 3 (1.88%) Jamf Pro
8 3 (1.88%) Podman
8 3 (1.88%) QRadar
8 3 (1.88%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (1.25%) Check_MK
9 2 (1.25%) Failover Clustering
9 2 (1.25%) Fluentd
9 2 (1.25%) Grafana
9 2 (1.25%) SCOM
9 2 (1.25%) WSUS
10 1 (0.63%) Nessus
Vendors
1 79 (49.38%) Microsoft
2 24 (15.00%) ServiceNow
3 23 (14.38%) VMware
4 22 (13.75%) Splunk
5 20 (12.50%) Cisco
6 10 (6.25%) Citrix
7 8 (5.00%) Fortinet
8 7 (4.38%) Oracle
9 6 (3.75%) SolarWinds
10 5 (3.13%) F5
10 5 (3.13%) Fujitsu
10 5 (3.13%) Palo Alto
10 5 (3.13%) Remedy
11 4 (2.50%) Canon
11 4 (2.50%) HP
12 3 (1.88%) Aruba
12 3 (1.88%) BeyondTrust
12 3 (1.88%) CrowdStrike
12 3 (1.88%) Dynatrace
12 3 (1.88%) Veeam
69 Windows jobs in the West Midlands