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

6 months to
2 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 10 13
Rank change year-on-year -20 +3 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 168 164 179
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 6.18% 11.90% 9.33%
As % of the Operating Systems category 51.69% 73.21% 73.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 120 107 124
10th Percentile £150 £148 £165
25th Percentile £196 £195 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £330 £375
Median % change year-on-year +21.21% -12.00% -11.76%
75th Percentile £538 £551 £521
90th Percentile £619 £651 £638
England median daily rate £403 £400 £388
% change year-on-year +0.63% +3.23% -11.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 12 16
10th Percentile - £15.36 £16.10
25th Percentile £17.14 £16.67 £17.43
Median hourly rate £18.23 £18.13 £19.86
Median % change year-on-year +0.52% -8.71% +17.27%
75th Percentile £22.48 £19.63 £23.75
90th Percentile £35.00 £22.60 -
England median hourly rate £22.00 £21.84 £18.93
% change year-on-year +0.73% +15.37% -16.35%

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 325 224 245
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 11.96% 16.26% 12.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 231 141 169
10th Percentile £169 £163 £175
25th Percentile £303 £206 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £440 £435 £400
Median % change year-on-year +1.15% +8.75% -17.95%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £500
90th Percentile £618 £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 13 19
10th Percentile - £15.51 £16.36
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 £20.00 £23.75
90th Percentile £66.49 £23.92 £54.50
England median hourly rate £22.81 £42.75 £23.25
% change year-on-year -46.64% +83.87% -18.42%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 -19 51 £425 +30.77% 14
Warwickshire -22 29 £400 -29.30% 6
Shropshire -30 26 £478 +127.38% 14
Worcestershire -9 23 £550 +279.31% 7
Coventry -21 12 £388 +93.75% 4
Staffordshire +2 11 £205 +2.50% 12
Wolverhampton +3 3 £188 - 1
Herefordshire - 2 - - 4
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 17 (10.12%) WebLogic
2 11 (6.55%) Tuxedo
3 10 (5.95%) Confluence
4 7 (4.17%) Microsoft Exchange
5 5 (2.98%) Apache
6 4 (2.38%) SharePoint
7 2 (1.19%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.60%) IIS
8 1 (0.60%) nginx
Applications
1 16 (9.52%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (3.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (1.19%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.60%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 2 (1.19%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 44 (26.19%) Microsoft 365
2 42 (25.00%) Azure
3 24 (14.29%) AWS
4 10 (5.95%) Entra ID
5 4 (2.38%) GitHub
5 4 (2.38%) SaaS
5 4 (2.38%) Tricentis Tosca
6 3 (1.79%) Amazon ELB
6 3 (1.79%) Azure Sentinel
6 3 (1.79%) GitHub Actions
6 3 (1.79%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 2 (1.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 2 (1.19%) Amazon EC2
7 2 (1.19%) Amazon EKS
7 2 (1.19%) Amazon S3
7 2 (1.19%) AWS KMS
7 2 (1.19%) Lucidchart
7 2 (1.19%) PaaS
7 2 (1.19%) Power Platform
7 2 (1.19%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 28 (16.67%) DNS
2 26 (15.48%) VPN
3 21 (12.50%) DHCP
3 21 (12.50%) Firewall
4 13 (7.74%) TCP/IP
5 8 (4.76%) Network Security
5 8 (4.76%) SSH
6 7 (4.17%) Intrusion Detection
7 5 (2.98%) WAN
7 5 (2.98%) Wi-Fi
8 4 (2.38%) FTP
8 4 (2.38%) HTTP
8 4 (2.38%) Kerberos
8 4 (2.38%) SMTP
9 3 (1.79%) LAN
9 3 (1.79%) NAS
9 3 (1.79%) SAN
9 3 (1.79%) Structured Cabling
10 2 (1.19%) Telnet
10 2 (1.19%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.19%) Amazon RDS
1 2 (1.19%) Data Warehouse
1 2 (1.19%) Oracle Database
1 2 (1.19%) PostgreSQL
1 2 (1.19%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.60%) Amazon Aurora
2 1 (0.60%) Power BI
2 1 (0.60%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 22 (13.10%) JIRA
2 15 (8.93%) MSI
3 7 (4.17%) GitLab
4 4 (2.38%) Git
4 4 (2.38%) InstallShield
4 4 (2.38%) Jenkins
4 4 (2.38%) Toad
5 3 (1.79%) Chocolatey
6 2 (1.19%) CircleCI
6 2 (1.19%) Vagrant
7 1 (0.60%) AdminStudio
7 1 (0.60%) AppScan
7 1 (0.60%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.60%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.60%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.60%) REST Assured
General
1 67 (39.88%) Social Skills
2 18 (10.71%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (7.14%) Documentation Skills
4 10 (5.95%) Legal
4 10 (5.95%) Public Sector
5 8 (4.76%) Presentation Skills
6 7 (4.17%) Manufacturing
7 5 (2.98%) Finance
7 5 (2.98%) Telecoms
8 3 (1.79%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (1.19%) Aeronautics
9 2 (1.19%) Banking
9 2 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (1.19%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.60%) Law
Job Titles
1 31 (18.45%) Support Engineer
2 25 (14.88%) Analyst
3 16 (9.52%) IT Support
4 14 (8.33%) Architect
5 11 (6.55%) Desktop Engineer
5 11 (6.55%) IT Engineer
6 9 (5.36%) 2nd Line Support
6 9 (5.36%) Desktop Support
6 9 (5.36%) Desktop Support Engineer
7 8 (4.76%) 1st/2nd Line Support
7 8 (4.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 8 (4.76%) IT Support Engineer
7 8 (4.76%) Windows Engineer
8 7 (4.17%) Deployment Engineer
9 6 (3.57%) DevOps Engineer
9 6 (3.57%) IT Technician
9 6 (3.57%) Platform Engineer
9 6 (3.57%) Senior
9 6 (3.57%) Server Engineer
9 6 (3.57%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (2.98%) LDAP
2 4 (2.38%) Middleware
2 4 (2.38%) OAuth
2 4 (2.38%) SAML
2 4 (2.38%) XML
3 2 (1.19%) CSS
3 2 (1.19%) Elastic Stack
3 2 (1.19%) Kafka
3 2 (1.19%) Node.js
3 2 (1.19%) RabbitMQ
3 2 (1.19%) React
3 2 (1.19%) YAML
4 1 (0.60%) .NET
4 1 (0.60%) Apache NiFi
4 1 (0.60%) REST
4 1 (0.60%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 10 (5.95%) Onboarding
2 8 (4.76%) Self-Motivation
3 7 (4.17%) Enterprise Software
4 6 (3.57%) Team-Oriented Environment
5 5 (2.98%) Hybrid Cloud
5 5 (2.98%) Security Operations Centre
6 4 (2.38%) Cloud Native
6 4 (2.38%) CSOC
6 4 (2.38%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (2.38%) Operational Technology
7 3 (1.79%) Data Centre
7 3 (1.79%) Driving Licence
7 3 (1.79%) Mainframe
7 3 (1.79%) PKI
7 3 (1.79%) Product Ownership
7 3 (1.79%) Security Posture
8 2 (1.19%) CCTV
8 2 (1.19%) NHS
8 2 (1.19%) PMI
8 2 (1.19%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 45 (26.79%) Linux
2 41 (24.40%) Windows 10
3 39 (23.21%) Windows Server
4 17 (10.12%) Unix
5 7 (4.17%) Mac OS
6 6 (3.57%) AIX
6 6 (3.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (3.57%) Solaris
7 5 (2.98%) Android
7 5 (2.98%) Apple iOS
8 3 (1.79%) VMS
9 2 (1.19%) Amazon Linux
9 2 (1.19%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.60%) Kali Linux
10 1 (0.60%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.60%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (16.67%) Customer Service
2 27 (16.07%) ITIL
2 27 (16.07%) Problem-Solving
3 23 (13.69%) Agile
4 19 (11.31%) Continuous Improvement
5 18 (10.71%) CI/CD
6 17 (10.12%) Migration
7 16 (9.52%) Change Management
8 15 (8.93%) SIEM
9 14 (8.33%) Incident Response
10 13 (7.74%) Cloud Security
10 13 (7.74%) DevOps
10 13 (7.74%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 13 (7.74%) Service Management
11 11 (6.55%) Infrastructure as Code
12 9 (5.36%) Customer Requirements
12 9 (5.36%) Cybersecurity
12 9 (5.36%) Privileged Access Management
12 9 (5.36%) Roadmaps
13 8 (4.76%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 27 (16.07%) PowerShell
2 24 (14.29%) SQL
3 14 (8.33%) Python
4 5 (2.98%) Bash
4 5 (2.98%) Java
5 4 (2.38%) Kusto Query Language
5 4 (2.38%) VBScript
6 3 (1.79%) Bicep
6 3 (1.79%) VB
7 2 (1.19%) C++
7 2 (1.19%) Go
7 2 (1.19%) Groovy
7 2 (1.19%) JavaScript
7 2 (1.19%) TypeScript
8 1 (0.60%) Lisp
8 1 (0.60%) Perl
Qualifications
1 54 (32.14%) Security Cleared
2 44 (26.19%) SC Cleared
3 14 (8.33%) Microsoft Certification
4 10 (5.95%) AWS Certification
5 9 (5.36%) Degree
6 7 (4.17%) CCNA
6 7 (4.17%) Cisco Certification
6 7 (4.17%) DV Cleared
7 6 (3.57%) Azure Certification
7 6 (3.57%) Microsoft Certified Professional
8 5 (2.98%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 5 (2.98%) BPSS Clearance
8 5 (2.98%) MCDST
9 3 (1.79%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (1.79%) ITIL Certification
10 2 (1.19%) A+ Certification
10 2 (1.19%) ISEB
10 2 (1.19%) ISTQB
10 2 (1.19%) PMI Certification
10 2 (1.19%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (5.36%) NIST
3 6 (3.57%) SLA
4 4 (2.38%) QA
4 4 (2.38%) SOC 2
5 3 (1.79%) PCI DSS
6 2 (1.19%) GMP
6 2 (1.19%) GxP
7 1 (0.60%) COBIT
7 1 (0.60%) GDPR
System Software
1 65 (38.69%) Active Directory
2 12 (7.14%) Docker
3 8 (4.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (2.98%) Hyper-V
5 4 (2.38%) Snort
5 4 (2.38%) vSphere
6 3 (1.79%) Microsoft App-V
6 3 (1.79%) Terminal Services
7 2 (1.19%) DFS Replication
8 1 (0.60%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.60%) Dovecot
8 1 (0.60%) Postfix
8 1 (0.60%) Squid
8 1 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 23 (13.69%) SCCM
2 19 (11.31%) Microsoft Intune
3 18 (10.71%) Kubernetes
4 13 (7.74%) Terraform
5 9 (5.36%) Ansible
6 4 (2.38%) CSIRT
6 4 (2.38%) Grafana
7 3 (1.79%) SCOM
8 2 (1.19%) Argo
8 2 (1.19%) Nessus
8 2 (1.19%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.60%) AirWatch
9 1 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.60%) Packer
9 1 (0.60%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.60%) Proxmox
9 1 (0.60%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.60%) WSUS
Vendors
1 66 (39.29%) Microsoft
2 13 (7.74%) Splunk
3 11 (6.55%) ServiceNow
4 10 (5.95%) Oracle
5 9 (5.36%) Fujitsu
5 9 (5.36%) VMware
6 8 (4.76%) CyberArk
7 5 (2.98%) BeyondTrust
7 5 (2.98%) iManage
7 5 (2.98%) Mitel
8 4 (2.38%) Cisco
8 4 (2.38%) Citrix
8 4 (2.38%) Dynatrace
8 4 (2.38%) SAP
9 3 (1.79%) CheckPoint
9 3 (1.79%) Dell
9 3 (1.79%) Remedy
10 2 (1.19%) Apple
10 2 (1.19%) Red Hat
10 2 (1.19%) webMethods