Windows Server Job Trends

Microsoft Windows Server
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Windows Server skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 113 94 64
Rank change year-on-year -19 -30 +39
Permanent jobs citing Windows Server 1,357 1,294 3,545
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.71% 3.17% 3.96%
As % of the Operating Systems category 25.10% 21.54% 26.84%
Number of salaries quoted 1,046 1,110 3,163
10th Percentile £27,375 £27,725 £26,250
25th Percentile £30,531 £32,500 £30,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £40,000 £43,250 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year -7.51% +1.76% -5.56%
75th Percentile £55,000 £58,750 £53,750
90th Percentile £73,750 £77,275 £67,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £37,500 £40,000 £38,750
% change year-on-year -6.25% +3.23% -0.93%

All Operating Systems
UK

Windows Server falls under the Operating Systems category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring operating system skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 5,407 6,007 13,206
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 6.81% 14.70% 14.74%
Number of salaries quoted 3,986 4,331 10,758
10th Percentile £27,206 £27,500 £25,760
25th Percentile £31,250 £35,000 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £50,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% -14.29%
75th Percentile £67,250 £70,000 £62,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £90,000 £80,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £40,000 £45,000 £42,500
% change year-on-year -11.11% +5.88% -5.56%

Windows Server
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Windows Server relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Windows Server job vacancy trend in the UK

Windows Server
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Windows Server.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Windows Server

Windows Server
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Windows Server over the 6 months to 1 April 2026.

Salary histogram for Windows Server in the UK

Windows Server
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Windows Server within the UK over the 6 months to 1 April 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -21 1,255 £40,000 -8.05% 381
UK excluding London -12 1,056 £37,500 -6.25% 344
Work from Home -32 320 £42,000 -6.67% 121
North of England -5 291 £35,000 - 91
South East +9 277 £37,500 -20.21% 111
London -70 263 £52,500 -12.50% 76
South West -4 176 £32,750 -18.13% 43
North West +20 146 £35,000 -17.65% 59
Midlands -48 132 £33,000 -12.00% 48
Yorkshire -23 118 £34,000 +13.33% 26
East of England -29 111 £41,500 -2.35% 39
East Midlands -43 76 £29,500 -18.62% 21
West Midlands -53 55 £44,000 +17.33% 27
Scotland -34 30 £37,750 -5.63% 11
North East -21 27 £45,000 +26.76% 8
Wales -4 25 £40,000 -23.08% 7
Northern Ireland -22 14 - - 1

Windows Server
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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
1 394 (29.03%) Microsoft Exchange
2 242 (17.83%) SharePoint
3 32 (2.36%) IIS
4 12 (0.88%) Confluence
5 9 (0.66%) Exchange Server 2007
5 9 (0.66%) Exchange Server 2010
5 9 (0.66%) Exchange Server 2013
6 6 (0.44%) Tomcat
7 4 (0.29%) Apache Solr
8 3 (0.22%) Apache
8 3 (0.22%) WordPress
9 2 (0.15%) BizTalk Server
9 2 (0.15%) CMS
10 1 (0.074%) Drupal
10 1 (0.074%) nginx
10 1 (0.074%) Oracle Workflow
10 1 (0.074%) Site Server
Applications
1 164 (12.09%) Microsoft Office
2 16 (1.18%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.29%) Siemens NX
4 3 (0.22%) CATIA
4 3 (0.22%) SOLIDWORKS
4 3 (0.22%) Windchill
5 1 (0.074%) Acrobat
5 1 (0.074%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.074%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.074%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (0.52%) Dynamics NAV
3 4 (0.29%) Exchequer
3 4 (0.29%) Primavera
3 4 (0.29%) Teamcenter
4 3 (0.22%) Fidessa
4 3 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.074%) Magento
5 1 (0.074%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.074%) Sage 200
5 1 (0.074%) SAP Business One
5 1 (0.074%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 867 (63.89%) Microsoft 365
2 791 (58.29%) Azure
3 346 (25.50%) Entra ID
4 148 (10.91%) AWS
5 103 (7.59%) OneDrive
6 69 (5.08%) Google Workspace
7 59 (4.35%) SaaS
8 44 (3.24%) IaaS
9 43 (3.17%) Nutanix
10 31 (2.28%) PaaS
11 20 (1.47%) GCP
11 20 (1.47%) Power Platform
12 17 (1.25%) Azure Sentinel
13 15 (1.11%) Azure DevOps
14 14 (1.03%) Azure Monitor
14 14 (1.03%) Microsoft Purview
15 13 (0.96%) Mimecast
16 12 (0.88%) PowerApps
17 10 (0.74%) Azure Logic Apps
17 10 (0.74%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 571 (42.08%) DNS
2 523 (38.54%) DHCP
3 429 (31.61%) Firewall
4 245 (18.05%) VPN
5 231 (17.02%) TCP/IP
6 204 (15.03%) WAN
7 183 (13.49%) LAN
8 162 (11.94%) VLAN
9 120 (8.84%) Wi-Fi
10 86 (6.34%) VoIP
11 83 (6.12%) Wireless
12 54 (3.98%) Remote Desktop
13 53 (3.91%) SAN
14 42 (3.10%) Network Security
15 37 (2.73%) SD-WAN
16 22 (1.62%) Internet
17 18 (1.33%) NAS
18 15 (1.11%) WLAN
19 14 (1.03%) VSAN
20 13 (0.96%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (8.25%) SQL Server
2 88 (6.48%) Amazon RDS
3 16 (1.18%) MySQL
4 15 (1.11%) PostgreSQL
4 15 (1.11%) Relational Database
5 14 (1.03%) Power BI
6 8 (0.59%) MongoDB
6 8 (0.59%) Oracle Database
6 8 (0.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 7 (0.52%) Elasticsearch
8 6 (0.44%) Azure SQL Database
9 3 (0.22%) Data Mining
9 3 (0.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 2 (0.15%) Crystal Reports
10 2 (0.15%) InfluxDB
10 2 (0.15%) SAP HANA
10 2 (0.15%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 2 (0.15%) Sybase ASE
11 1 (0.074%) Redis
11 1 (0.074%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 40 (2.95%) Git
1 40 (2.95%) JIRA
2 14 (1.03%) GitLab
3 10 (0.74%) Jenkins
4 8 (0.59%) Atlassian Bamboo
4 8 (0.59%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 7 (0.52%) Visual Studio Code
6 5 (0.37%) Bitbucket
7 4 (0.29%) Subversion
8 3 (0.22%) Octopus Deploy
8 3 (0.22%) TeamCity
9 2 (0.15%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.15%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.074%) Gatling
10 1 (0.074%) JMeter
10 1 (0.074%) LoadRunner
10 1 (0.074%) Vagrant
General
1 589 (43.40%) Social Skills
2 152 (11.20%) Analytical Skills
3 116 (8.55%) Finance
4 80 (5.90%) Organisational Skills
5 50 (3.68%) Documentation Skills
6 49 (3.61%) Retail
7 45 (3.32%) Law
8 41 (3.02%) Manufacturing
9 28 (2.06%) Banking
10 27 (1.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 25 (1.84%) Telecoms
12 16 (1.18%) Games
13 15 (1.11%) Public Sector
14 13 (0.96%) Legal
15 11 (0.81%) Back Office
16 9 (0.66%) Advertising
16 9 (0.66%) Front Office
16 9 (0.66%) Marketing
17 8 (0.59%) Aerospace
18 7 (0.52%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 467 (34.41%) IT Support
2 366 (26.97%) Support Engineer
3 342 (25.20%) IT Engineer
4 297 (21.89%) IT Support Engineer
5 188 (13.85%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 173 (12.75%) Senior
7 172 (12.68%) 2nd Line Support
8 125 (9.21%) 2nd Line Engineer
8 125 (9.21%) IT Technician
9 117 (8.62%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
10 111 (8.18%) Support Technician
11 98 (7.22%) Analyst
11 98 (7.22%) Systems Engineer
12 86 (6.34%) IT Support Technician
13 75 (5.53%) 3rd Line Support
13 75 (5.53%) Support Analyst
14 58 (4.27%) 3rd Line Engineer
15 55 (4.05%) Cloud Engineer
16 50 (3.68%) Lead
16 50 (3.68%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (1.84%) .NET
2 12 (0.88%) LDAP
3 11 (0.81%) FIX Protocol
3 11 (0.81%) XMPP
4 9 (0.66%) Regular Expression
5 6 (0.44%) ARM Templates
5 6 (0.44%) Middleware
5 6 (0.44%) Node.js
5 6 (0.44%) SailPoint
6 5 (0.37%) FreeSWITCH
6 5 (0.37%) Kafka
6 5 (0.37%) REST
6 5 (0.37%) Web Services
7 4 (0.29%) .NET Framework
7 4 (0.29%) FIDO
7 4 (0.29%) HTML
7 4 (0.29%) OAuth
7 4 (0.29%) OAuth2
7 4 (0.29%) OpenID
7 4 (0.29%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 182 (13.41%) Driving Licence
2 76 (5.60%) Legacy Systems
3 74 (5.45%) Hybrid Cloud
4 68 (5.01%) Self-Motivation
5 65 (4.79%) Data Centre
6 55 (4.05%) Onboarding
7 43 (3.17%) Replication
8 42 (3.10%) Public Cloud
9 27 (1.99%) PKI
10 22 (1.62%) CCTV
11 21 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
12 16 (1.18%) Security Posture
13 14 (1.03%) Clustering
13 14 (1.03%) Management Information System
13 14 (1.03%) Video Conferencing
14 13 (0.96%) iPad
15 12 (0.88%) CMDB
16 10 (0.74%) Fat Client
16 10 (0.74%) Social Media
16 10 (0.74%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 1,357 (100.00%) Windows
2 287 (21.15%) Linux
3 200 (14.74%) Windows Server 2016
4 190 (14.00%) Windows 10
5 111 (8.18%) Windows Server 2019
6 59 (4.35%) Windows Server 2012
7 55 (4.05%) Mac OS
8 54 (3.98%) Apple iOS
9 42 (3.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 38 (2.80%) Android
11 24 (1.77%) Ubuntu
12 16 (1.18%) Windows Server 2008
13 15 (1.11%) CentOS
14 13 (0.96%) Unix
14 13 (0.96%) Windows 7
15 12 (0.88%) Windows 8
16 9 (0.66%) Mac OS X
17 6 (0.44%) VMS
18 5 (0.37%) Debian
19 3 (0.22%) CoreOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 475 (35.00%) Problem-Solving
2 376 (27.71%) Customer Service
3 318 (23.43%) ITIL
4 248 (18.28%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 184 (13.56%) Cybersecurity
6 166 (12.23%) Disaster Recovery
7 164 (12.09%) Service Delivery
8 151 (11.13%) Mentoring
9 137 (10.10%) Continuous Improvement
10 131 (9.65%) Migration
11 124 (9.14%) Vulnerability Remediation
12 103 (7.59%) ITSM
13 95 (7.00%) Customer Experience
14 89 (6.56%) Kalman Filter
15 84 (6.19%) Vulnerability Scanning
16 83 (6.12%) Email Filtering
17 82 (6.04%) Web Filtering
18 81 (5.97%) Change Management
19 80 (5.90%) DevOps
19 80 (5.90%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 289 (21.30%) PowerShell
2 127 (9.36%) SQL
3 71 (5.23%) Python
4 35 (2.58%) Bash
5 11 (0.81%) Bicep
5 11 (0.81%) VB.NET
6 10 (0.74%) C#
7 8 (0.59%) JavaScript
7 8 (0.59%) PHP
8 7 (0.52%) VBA
9 6 (0.44%) Shell Script
9 6 (0.44%) VB
10 5 (0.37%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.22%) Java
12 2 (0.15%) Go
12 2 (0.15%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.15%) Perl
13 1 (0.074%) Delphi
13 1 (0.074%) Korn
13 1 (0.074%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 220 (16.21%) Security Cleared
2 142 (10.46%) SC Cleared
3 107 (7.89%) Microsoft Certification
4 104 (7.66%) Degree
5 74 (5.45%) DV Cleared
6 65 (4.79%) DBS Check
7 51 (3.76%) Azure Certification
8 39 (2.87%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (2.36%) Network+ Certification
10 31 (2.28%) CCNA
11 22 (1.62%) MCSE
12 19 (1.40%) MCSA
12 19 (1.40%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 17 (1.25%) CCNP
14 15 (1.11%) A+ Certification
15 14 (1.03%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 11 (0.81%) Computer Science Degree
17 10 (0.74%) AWS Certification
17 10 (0.74%) HND
18 9 (0.66%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 120 (8.84%) Cyber Essentials
2 110 (8.11%) SLA
3 85 (6.26%) PCI DSS
4 51 (3.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 21 (1.55%) NIST
6 19 (1.40%) GDPR
7 11 (0.81%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 6 (0.44%) QA
9 5 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.22%) Accessibility
10 3 (0.22%) GRC
11 2 (0.15%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.15%) NCSC
12 1 (0.074%) ISO 22301
12 1 (0.074%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 967 (71.26%) Active Directory
2 389 (28.67%) Hyper-V
3 335 (24.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 79 (5.82%) vSphere
5 75 (5.53%) Terminal Server
6 39 (2.87%) Docker
7 38 (2.80%) VMware ESXi
8 27 (1.99%) Virtual Desktop
9 21 (1.55%) Virtual Machines
10 17 (1.25%) VMware NSX
11 16 (1.18%) Firmware
12 10 (0.74%) VMware Workstation
13 9 (0.66%) Terminal Services
14 8 (0.59%) Virtual Servers
15 7 (0.52%) XenApp
16 6 (0.44%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 5 (0.37%) vCloud
18 2 (0.15%) BitLocker
18 2 (0.15%) EMC RecoverPoint
19 1 (0.074%) iptables
Systems Management
1 260 (19.16%) Microsoft Intune
2 70 (5.16%) Terraform
3 58 (4.27%) Ansible
4 49 (3.61%) SCCM
5 48 (3.54%) Kubernetes
6 39 (2.87%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 39 (2.87%) vCenter Server
7 25 (1.84%) Autotask
8 22 (1.62%) Jamf Pro
8 22 (1.62%) WSUS
9 18 (1.33%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (1.11%) FortiGate
10 15 (1.11%) VxRail
11 13 (0.96%) SCOM
12 11 (0.81%) Grafana
12 11 (0.81%) Puppet
13 10 (0.74%) Nagios
14 9 (0.66%) Backup Exec
14 9 (0.66%) vRealize
15 7 (0.52%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 902 (66.47%) Microsoft
2 557 (41.05%) VMware
3 147 (10.83%) Veeam
4 115 (8.47%) Cisco
5 104 (7.66%) SolarWinds
6 100 (7.37%) Nimble Storage
6 100 (7.37%) Splunk
7 72 (5.31%) Brocade
7 72 (5.31%) Google
7 72 (5.31%) Tanium
8 63 (4.64%) Citrix
9 57 (4.20%) Dell
10 53 (3.91%) Apple
11 47 (3.46%) HP
12 38 (2.80%) Meraki
13 33 (2.43%) Red Hat
13 33 (2.43%) ServiceNow
14 28 (2.06%) Dell Compellent
15 26 (1.92%) McAfee
15 26 (1.92%) Palo Alto