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

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 123 101 89
Rank change year-on-year -22 -12 -10
Permanent jobs citing Windows Server 1,681 1,505 2,330
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.54% 3.01% 2.79%
As % of the Operating Systems category 26.30% 21.82% 22.37%
Number of salaries quoted 1,329 1,267 1,787
10th Percentile £27,750 £27,500 £26,500
25th Percentile £30,750 £31,250 £31,875
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £41,000 £40,000 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -5.88% -5.56%
75th Percentile £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
90th Percentile £68,750 £72,500 £66,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £40,000 £37,500 £41,000
% change year-on-year +6.67% -8.54% +2.50%

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 6,391 6,897 10,416
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 5.84% 13.78% 12.47%
Number of salaries quoted 4,785 4,563 7,217
10th Percentile £28,000 £26,750 £26,500
25th Percentile £32,000 £31,250 £34,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £41,500 £49,990
Median % change year-on-year +8.43% -16.98% -4.78%
75th Percentile £67,500 £63,125 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £42,500 £38,325 £45,000
% change year-on-year +10.89% -14.83% -2.62%

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 27 August 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 27 August 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 -25 1,564 £41,500 +3.75% 275
UK excluding London -13 1,404 £40,000 +6.67% 250
Work from Home -29 371 £42,500 - 97
South East +7 363 £42,500 +6.25% 81
North of England +16 355 £37,500 +11.94% 52
London -83 248 £55,000 -8.33% 41
South West -38 218 £37,500 -2.60% 33
Midlands -21 198 £37,500 +7.14% 44
North West +60 193 £37,500 +1.35% 25
East of England -9 184 £36,500 -18.89% 43
Yorkshire -25 128 £36,000 +20.00% 17
East Midlands -19 102 £32,500 -7.14% 16
West Midlands -28 96 £42,500 +21.43% 28
Wales -48 42 £45,000 -21.74% 4
Scotland +27 39 £32,500 -18.75% 7
North East -53 34 £42,500 +21.43% 12
Northern Ireland -74 5 £40,000 -27.27% 2

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
1 454 (27.01%) Microsoft Exchange
2 306 (18.20%) SharePoint
3 90 (5.35%) IIS
4 35 (2.08%) Confluence
5 23 (1.37%) Apache
6 18 (1.07%) nginx
7 10 (0.59%) WordPress
8 8 (0.48%) Skype for Business
9 6 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2013
10 4 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.24%) Exchange Server 2007
10 4 (0.24%) Exchange Server 2010
10 4 (0.24%) JBoss
10 4 (0.24%) SAS
10 4 (0.24%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.059%) CMS
11 1 (0.059%) HCL Domino
11 1 (0.059%) HCL Notes
11 1 (0.059%) NetWeaver
11 1 (0.059%) Site Server
Applications
1 135 (8.03%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (2.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 3 (0.18%) Photoshop
4 2 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.12%) SmartSuite
4 2 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
5 1 (0.059%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.059%) Revit
Business Applications
1 5 (0.30%) Infor CloudSuite
2 3 (0.18%) Exchequer
2 3 (0.18%) Infor LN
2 3 (0.18%) Infor M3
2 3 (0.18%) NetSuite
2 3 (0.18%) Primavera
2 3 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.18%) Sage X3
3 2 (0.12%) Carpe Diem
3 2 (0.12%) Elite 3E
3 2 (0.12%) Infor CloudSuite Industrial (formerly SyteLine)
3 2 (0.12%) Sage 200
3 2 (0.12%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.059%) Dynamics AX
4 1 (0.059%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.059%) Magento
4 1 (0.059%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 1,082 (64.37%) Microsoft 365
2 895 (53.24%) Azure
3 487 (28.97%) Entra ID
4 172 (10.23%) AWS
5 111 (6.60%) OneDrive
6 61 (3.63%) SaaS
7 45 (2.68%) IaaS
8 39 (2.32%) Power Platform
9 31 (1.84%) PaaS
9 31 (1.84%) Power Automate
10 27 (1.61%) Microsoft Copilot
10 27 (1.61%) Nutanix
11 22 (1.31%) GCP
11 22 (1.31%) Google Workspace
12 20 (1.19%) Mimecast
13 18 (1.07%) Azure DevOps
14 17 (1.01%) Microsoft Purview
15 15 (0.89%) Cloudflare
16 13 (0.77%) GitHub
17 12 (0.71%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 622 (37.00%) DNS
2 543 (32.30%) Firewall
3 501 (29.80%) DHCP
4 266 (15.82%) VPN
5 248 (14.75%) TCP/IP
6 203 (12.08%) VLAN
7 193 (11.48%) WAN
8 182 (10.83%) LAN
9 142 (8.45%) Wireless
10 126 (7.50%) Wi-Fi
11 113 (6.72%) VoIP
12 69 (4.10%) Network Security
12 69 (4.10%) SAN
13 35 (2.08%) NAS
14 29 (1.73%) Internet
15 27 (1.61%) SSL
16 19 (1.13%) VSAN
17 18 (1.07%) Remote Desktop
18 16 (0.95%) Structured Cabling
19 14 (0.83%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 183 (10.89%) SQL Server
2 96 (5.71%) Amazon RDS
3 25 (1.49%) MySQL
4 20 (1.19%) Power BI
5 16 (0.95%) Azure SQL Database
5 16 (0.95%) PostgreSQL
6 13 (0.77%) MongoDB
7 12 (0.71%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 10 (0.59%) Oracle Database
9 8 (0.48%) Crystal Reports
9 8 (0.48%) Relational Database
10 5 (0.30%) Data Warehouse
11 4 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
11 4 (0.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 3 (0.18%) Data Lake
12 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 2 (0.12%) BusinessObjects
13 2 (0.12%) KNIME
13 2 (0.12%) NoSQL
13 2 (0.12%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 56 (3.33%) JIRA
2 49 (2.91%) Git
3 18 (1.07%) GitLab
4 14 (0.83%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.54%) Bitbucket
5 9 (0.54%) Visual Studio Code
6 4 (0.24%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.12%) Ant
7 2 (0.12%) Apache Ivy
7 2 (0.12%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.12%) IBM UrbanCode
7 2 (0.12%) Maven
7 2 (0.12%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 2 (0.12%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.059%) Browser DevTools
8 1 (0.059%) Gatling
8 1 (0.059%) Octopus Deploy
8 1 (0.059%) Postman
8 1 (0.059%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.059%) Vagrant
General
1 743 (44.20%) Social Skills
2 223 (13.27%) Analytical Skills
3 126 (7.50%) Finance
4 70 (4.16%) Manufacturing
5 62 (3.69%) Organisational Skills
6 53 (3.15%) Retail
7 50 (2.97%) Documentation Skills
8 45 (2.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 42 (2.50%) Legal
10 39 (2.32%) Telecoms
11 38 (2.26%) Public Sector
12 28 (1.67%) Law
13 21 (1.25%) Aerospace
13 21 (1.25%) Banking
14 14 (0.83%) Influencing Skills
15 13 (0.77%) Games
16 12 (0.71%) Military
17 10 (0.59%) Advertising
18 8 (0.48%) Electronics
18 8 (0.48%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 498 (29.63%) IT Support
2 408 (24.27%) IT Engineer
3 383 (22.78%) Support Engineer
4 323 (19.21%) IT Support Engineer
5 265 (15.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 212 (12.61%) Senior
7 192 (11.42%) Analyst
8 152 (9.04%) Systems Engineer
9 142 (8.45%) IT Technician
10 130 (7.73%) Support Analyst
11 128 (7.61%) 2nd Line Support
12 121 (7.20%) Support Technician
13 104 (6.19%) IT Support Technician
14 87 (5.18%) 2nd Line Engineer
15 81 (4.82%) IT Analyst
16 76 (4.52%) Administrator
17 75 (4.46%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
17 75 (4.46%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
18 70 (4.16%) Lead
19 65 (3.87%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (6.07%) Terraform
2 40 (2.38%) .NET
3 31 (1.84%) HTML
4 29 (1.73%) Web Services
5 26 (1.55%) CSS
6 24 (1.43%) LDAP
6 24 (1.43%) XMPP
7 23 (1.37%) Regular Expression
8 22 (1.31%) XML
9 17 (1.01%) .NET Framework
9 17 (1.01%) JSON
10 12 (0.71%) Middleware
11 11 (0.65%) ARM Templates
12 7 (0.42%) JSON Schema
12 7 (0.42%) SAML
13 5 (0.30%) ASP.NET
13 5 (0.30%) Elastic Stack
14 4 (0.24%) ADO
14 4 (0.24%) boto
14 4 (0.24%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 202 (12.02%) Driving Licence
2 105 (6.25%) Hybrid Cloud
3 100 (5.95%) Data Centre
4 99 (5.89%) Onboarding
5 89 (5.29%) Legacy Systems
6 78 (4.64%) Self-Motivation
7 56 (3.33%) Management Information System
8 45 (2.68%) Replication
9 42 (2.50%) PKI
10 41 (2.44%) Clustering
11 35 (2.08%) Public Cloud
12 32 (1.90%) Security Posture
13 30 (1.78%) CCTV
14 20 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
14 20 (1.19%) Private Cloud
15 19 (1.13%) Enterprise Storage
16 16 (0.95%) Cloud Native
17 15 (0.89%) Cyber Threat
18 12 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
19 11 (0.65%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 1,681 (100.00%) Windows
2 421 (25.04%) Linux
3 202 (12.02%) Windows Server 2016
4 150 (8.92%) Windows 10
5 121 (7.20%) Windows Server 2019
6 65 (3.87%) Mac OS
7 64 (3.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 51 (3.03%) Ubuntu
9 39 (2.32%) Apple iOS
10 38 (2.26%) Windows Server 2012
11 35 (2.08%) Android
12 25 (1.49%) CentOS
13 20 (1.19%) VMS
14 14 (0.83%) Windows Server 2008
15 12 (0.71%) Unix
16 7 (0.42%) Debian
16 7 (0.42%) Rocky
17 5 (0.30%) CoreOS
18 3 (0.18%) Solaris
19 1 (0.059%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 589 (35.04%) Problem-Solving
2 402 (23.91%) Customer Service
3 398 (23.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 339 (20.17%) Continuous Improvement
5 309 (18.38%) Disaster Recovery
6 295 (17.55%) Cybersecurity
7 288 (17.13%) ITIL
8 194 (11.54%) Migration
9 189 (11.24%) Service Delivery
10 164 (9.76%) Project Delivery
11 145 (8.63%) Mentoring
12 142 (8.45%) High Availability
13 138 (8.21%) Customer Experience
14 135 (8.03%) Vulnerability Remediation
15 128 (7.61%) Business Continuity
16 125 (7.44%) Root Cause Analysis
17 109 (6.48%) ITSM
18 108 (6.42%) Kalman Filter
19 99 (5.89%) Infrastructure as Code
20 90 (5.35%) Web Filtering
Programming Languages
1 332 (19.75%) PowerShell
2 191 (11.36%) SQL
3 93 (5.53%) Python
4 48 (2.86%) Bash
5 36 (2.14%) C#
6 26 (1.55%) Bicep
7 24 (1.43%) VBA
8 18 (1.07%) Java
9 12 (0.71%) Ruby
10 10 (0.59%) T-SQL
11 9 (0.54%) JavaScript
11 9 (0.54%) PHP
12 8 (0.48%) Shell Script
13 7 (0.42%) VB.NET
13 7 (0.42%) VBScript
14 4 (0.24%) Perl
14 4 (0.24%) VB
15 3 (0.18%) Kusto Query Language
16 2 (0.12%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 2 (0.12%) Go
Qualifications
1 273 (16.24%) Security Cleared
2 177 (10.53%) Degree
2 177 (10.53%) SC Cleared
3 158 (9.40%) Microsoft Certification
4 108 (6.42%) Azure Certification
5 98 (5.83%) Cisco Certification
6 88 (5.23%) DV Cleared
7 85 (5.06%) DBS Check
8 76 (4.52%) CCNA
9 37 (2.20%) Network+ Certification
10 31 (1.84%) CCNP
11 26 (1.55%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 23 (1.37%) BPSS Clearance
13 22 (1.31%) A+ Certification
13 22 (1.31%) AWS Certification
14 21 (1.25%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 18 (1.07%) CompTIA Security+
16 17 (1.01%) Computer Science Degree
16 17 (1.01%) MCSA
17 15 (0.89%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 189 (11.24%) Cyber Essentials
2 157 (9.34%) SLA
3 87 (5.18%) PCI DSS
4 78 (4.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 47 (2.80%) GDPR
6 35 (2.08%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 22 (1.31%) NIST
8 9 (0.54%) QA
9 5 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.18%) Accessibility
10 3 (0.18%) COBIT
10 3 (0.18%) ISO 9001
10 3 (0.18%) RMADS
11 1 (0.059%) COSHH
11 1 (0.059%) Data Quality
11 1 (0.059%) DICOM
11 1 (0.059%) GRC
11 1 (0.059%) HL7
11 1 (0.059%) ITGC
11 1 (0.059%) NCSC
System Software
1 1,106 (65.79%) Active Directory
2 492 (29.27%) Hyper-V
3 463 (27.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 106 (6.31%) vSphere
5 82 (4.88%) Terminal Server
6 63 (3.75%) Virtual Machines
7 60 (3.57%) VMware ESXi
8 45 (2.68%) Docker
9 35 (2.08%) Virtual Desktop
10 27 (1.61%) VMware NSX
11 14 (0.83%) Firmware
11 14 (0.83%) Squid
11 14 (0.83%) Virtual Servers
12 9 (0.54%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 9 (0.54%) Terminal Services
13 6 (0.36%) BitLocker
13 6 (0.36%) VMware Server
14 4 (0.24%) EMC RecoverPoint
15 3 (0.18%) DFS Replication
15 3 (0.18%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 353 (21.00%) Microsoft Intune
2 92 (5.47%) Ansible
3 67 (3.99%) Kubernetes
4 49 (2.91%) SCCM
5 40 (2.38%) FortiGate
6 29 (1.73%) Single Sign-On
7 27 (1.61%) vCenter Server
8 24 (1.43%) Failover Clustering
9 21 (1.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 21 (1.25%) WSUS
10 18 (1.07%) SCOM
11 17 (1.01%) Jamf Pro
11 17 (1.01%) VxRail
11 17 (1.01%) ZABBIX
12 15 (0.89%) Microsoft Clustering
12 15 (0.89%) Packer
13 14 (0.83%) Nagios
13 14 (0.83%) Puppet
14 12 (0.71%) Grafana
15 11 (0.65%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 1,317 (78.35%) Microsoft
2 683 (40.63%) VMware
3 224 (13.33%) Veeam
4 177 (10.53%) Cisco
5 123 (7.32%) Splunk
6 113 (6.72%) SolarWinds
7 88 (5.23%) Nimble Storage
8 81 (4.82%) Brocade
9 80 (4.76%) Tanium
10 64 (3.81%) Meraki
11 62 (3.69%) Apple
11 62 (3.69%) SonicWALL
12 59 (3.51%) Red Hat
13 56 (3.33%) Citrix
14 46 (2.74%) Fortinet
15 45 (2.68%) ServiceNow
16 44 (2.62%) Sophos
17 41 (2.44%) Oracle
18 40 (2.38%) HP
19 39 (2.32%) Google