Windows Contract Job Trends

Microsoft Windows
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Windows skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -6 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,923 2,528 3,548
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.80% 8.49% 8.09%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.09% 60.64% 60.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,878 1,718 2,402
10th Percentile £163 £181 £164
25th Percentile £222 £241 £226
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.56%
75th Percentile £558 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £400 £425
% change year-on-year +3.13% -5.88% +9.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 246 177 287
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.12 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.95 £14.21
Median hourly rate £25.51 £18.87 £18.27
Median % change year-on-year +35.16% +3.28% -25.79%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £27.00
90th Percentile £69.00 £61.30 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.82 £17.70
% change year-on-year +36.82% +6.33% -21.18%

All Operating Systems
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for operating system skills 4,785 4,169 5,861
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.49% 14.01% 13.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,056 2,719 3,865
10th Percentile £190 £200 £188
25th Percentile £316 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £463 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -2.63% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £585 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 332 211 423
10th Percentile £14.60 £15.33 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.19 £17.44 £15.82
Median hourly rate £30.24 £21.28 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year +42.11% -10.59% -49.89%
75th Percentile £64.06 £39.38 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.20 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £18.87 £25.00
% change year-on-year +48.38% -24.52% -37.65%

Windows
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Windows job vacancy trend in the UK

Windows
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Windows.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Windows

Windows
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Windows over the 6 months to 18 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Windows in the UK

Windows
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Windows.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Windows

Windows
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Windows over the 6 months to 18 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows in the UK

Windows
Top 18 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Windows within the UK over the 6 months to 18 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
England -7 2,546 £425 - 860
UK excluding London -14 1,937 £413 +3.13% 841
London -21 817 £428 -2.56% 175
Work from Home -9 624 £480 +1.05% 292
South East -7 517 £475 -3.06% 267
North of England -8 462 £365 +4.29% 172
Midlands -13 276 £325 +16.07% 115
South West -10 245 £478 -2.55% 138
North West -6 244 £350 -4.63% 104
East of England -2 212 £336 -16.72% 85
Yorkshire -15 201 £365 -9.32% 48
Scotland -4 176 £425 -1.62% 25
West Midlands -22 169 £450 +50.00% 54
East Midlands +7 102 £225 +12.50% 61
Wales +4 47 £375 +36.36% 20
North East -40 21 £290 +0.87% 22
Northern Ireland -6 14 £139 -30.75% 50
Channel Islands +1 2 £500 +68.07%

Windows
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
1 232 (7.94%) Microsoft Exchange
2 188 (6.43%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.05%) IIS
4 58 (1.98%) Confluence
5 19 (0.65%) Apache
5 19 (0.65%) Tomcat
6 16 (0.55%) nginx
7 14 (0.48%) Skype for Business
8 10 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
8 10 (0.34%) WebLogic
9 9 (0.31%) NetWeaver
10 8 (0.27%) HCL Notes
11 7 (0.24%) SAS
12 6 (0.21%) Appian
12 6 (0.21%) TPMS
13 5 (0.17%) WebSphere
14 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.14%) Camunda
15 3 (0.10%) Documentum
15 3 (0.10%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 180 (6.16%) Microsoft Office
2 63 (2.16%) Microsoft Excel
3 22 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.27%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.14%) Acrobat
8 2 (0.068%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.034%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 44 (1.51%) Remedy ITSM
2 18 (0.62%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.41%) Teamcenter
4 7 (0.24%) Finacle
5 4 (0.14%) OpenText MBPM
5 4 (0.14%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.10%) assyst
6 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.068%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.068%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.068%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.034%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.034%) Dynamics GP
8 1 (0.034%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.034%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.034%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 890 (30.45%) Azure
2 816 (27.92%) Microsoft 365
3 377 (12.90%) Entra ID
4 293 (10.02%) AWS
5 112 (3.83%) OneDrive
6 90 (3.08%) GCP
7 77 (2.63%) Azure DevOps
8 74 (2.53%) SaaS
9 67 (2.29%) GitHub
10 65 (2.22%) IaaS
11 59 (2.02%) Power Platform
12 53 (1.81%) PaaS
13 44 (1.51%) Azure Monitor
14 39 (1.33%) OpenShift
15 38 (1.30%) Azure Sentinel
16 31 (1.06%) Google Workspace
17 29 (0.99%) GitHub Actions
18 22 (0.75%) Microsoft Purview
18 22 (0.75%) Nutanix
19 20 (0.68%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 399 (13.65%) DNS
2 304 (10.40%) Firewall
3 281 (9.61%) DHCP
4 216 (7.39%) VPN
5 183 (6.26%) WAN
6 175 (5.99%) LAN
6 175 (5.99%) TCP/IP
7 145 (4.96%) Wi-Fi
8 89 (3.04%) SAN
9 67 (2.29%) Network Security
10 57 (1.95%) VLAN
11 46 (1.57%) SD-WAN
12 44 (1.51%) BGP
13 43 (1.47%) SSL
14 41 (1.40%) NAS
15 38 (1.30%) Internet
16 37 (1.27%) SNMP
17 36 (1.23%) Wireless
18 35 (1.20%) OSPF
18 35 (1.20%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 241 (8.24%) SQL Server
2 56 (1.92%) Oracle Database
3 37 (1.27%) Power BI
4 28 (0.96%) Relational Database
5 27 (0.92%) PostgreSQL
6 26 (0.89%) MySQL
7 19 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
8 16 (0.55%) Data Warehouse
9 15 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
9 15 (0.51%) Db2
9 15 (0.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 13 (0.44%) NoSQL
11 11 (0.38%) MongoDB
12 10 (0.34%) GIS
12 10 (0.34%) RDBMS
13 9 (0.31%) SAP HANA
14 8 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
14 8 (0.27%) Oracle BI EE
14 8 (0.27%) Sybase ASE
15 7 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 181 (6.19%) JIRA
2 52 (1.78%) Git
2 52 (1.78%) Jenkins
3 44 (1.51%) GitLab
4 42 (1.44%) MSI
5 36 (1.23%) Visual Studio
6 17 (0.58%) Eclipse
7 10 (0.34%) Burp Suite
8 9 (0.31%) Chocolatey
8 9 (0.31%) Metasploit
8 9 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
9 7 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 6 (0.21%) Android Studio
10 6 (0.21%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.21%) Browser DevTools
10 6 (0.21%) InstallShield
10 6 (0.21%) Xcode
11 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
11 5 (0.17%) Maven
11 5 (0.17%) Selenium
General
1 997 (34.11%) Social Skills
2 314 (10.74%) Analytical Skills
3 313 (10.71%) Finance
4 201 (6.88%) Public Sector
5 149 (5.10%) Banking
6 115 (3.93%) Legal
7 104 (3.56%) Documentation Skills
8 76 (2.60%) Organisational Skills
9 58 (1.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 52 (1.78%) Retail
11 49 (1.68%) Military
12 43 (1.47%) Manufacturing
13 38 (1.30%) Investment Banking
14 33 (1.13%) Law
15 32 (1.09%) Front Office
16 30 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
17 27 (0.92%) Telecoms
18 24 (0.82%) Spanish Language
19 22 (0.75%) French Language
20 18 (0.62%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 376 (12.86%) Support Engineer
2 364 (12.45%) IT Support
3 296 (10.13%) Analyst
4 269 (9.20%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 242 (8.28%) IT Engineer
6 201 (6.88%) IT Support Engineer
7 181 (6.19%) Senior
8 151 (5.17%) Architect
9 122 (4.17%) Desktop Support
10 112 (3.83%) Desktop Engineer
11 108 (3.69%) Support Analyst
12 100 (3.42%) 2nd Line Support
13 98 (3.35%) Lead
14 96 (3.28%) Developer
15 91 (3.11%) IT Analyst
16 90 (3.08%) Windows Engineer
17 85 (2.91%) Consultant
18 82 (2.81%) Technical Support
19 77 (2.63%) Cloud Engineer
20 74 (2.53%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (3.35%) .NET
2 94 (3.22%) REST
3 55 (1.88%) .NET Framework
4 41 (1.40%) LDAP
5 35 (1.20%) SAML
6 34 (1.16%) Microsoft Graph
7 30 (1.03%) Middleware
8 29 (0.99%) 802.1X
9 27 (0.92%) Kafka
9 27 (0.92%) Software Packaging
10 26 (0.89%) WinForms
11 25 (0.86%) Web Services
12 24 (0.82%) OAuth
12 24 (0.82%) WPF
13 22 (0.75%) Elastic Stack
14 20 (0.68%) CSS
15 17 (0.58%) Node.js
16 16 (0.55%) JSON
16 16 (0.55%) RabbitMQ
17 15 (0.51%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 267 (9.13%) Onboarding
2 161 (5.51%) Data Centre
3 127 (4.34%) PKI
4 88 (3.01%) Enterprise Software
5 73 (2.50%) Clustering
6 69 (2.36%) Self-Motivation
7 65 (2.22%) Management Information System
8 60 (2.05%) Cloud Native
8 60 (2.05%) Driving Licence
9 56 (1.92%) Replication
10 55 (1.88%) Legacy Systems
11 53 (1.81%) Hybrid Cloud
11 53 (1.81%) Security Posture
12 51 (1.74%) Virtual Team
13 39 (1.33%) Data Protection Act
14 37 (1.27%) Smartphone
15 35 (1.20%) CMDB
16 33 (1.13%) Operational Technology
17 31 (1.06%) Enterprise Storage
17 31 (1.06%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 731 (25.01%) Linux
2 702 (24.02%) Windows Server
3 482 (16.49%) Windows 10
4 179 (6.12%) Mac OS
5 155 (5.30%) Unix
6 141 (4.82%) Apple iOS
7 135 (4.62%) Android
8 103 (3.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 78 (2.67%) Windows Server 2019
10 62 (2.12%) Windows Server 2016
11 53 (1.81%) Windows 7
12 39 (1.33%) Windows Server 2012
13 33 (1.13%) AIX
14 28 (0.96%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.82%) Solaris
16 21 (0.72%) VMS
17 17 (0.58%) Windows Server 2003
17 17 (0.58%) Windows Server 2008
18 12 (0.41%) CentOS
19 9 (0.31%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 635 (21.72%) Problem-Solving
2 441 (15.09%) ITIL
3 417 (14.27%) Customer Service
4 348 (11.91%) Migration
5 347 (11.87%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 299 (10.23%) ITSM
7 275 (9.41%) Agile
8 274 (9.37%) DevOps
9 252 (8.62%) CI/CD
10 211 (7.22%) Continuous Improvement
11 201 (6.88%) High Availability
11 201 (6.88%) Service Management
12 196 (6.71%) Change Management
13 174 (5.95%) Disaster Recovery
14 168 (5.75%) Cybersecurity
15 164 (5.61%) Infrastructure as Code
16 150 (5.13%) Stakeholder Management
17 148 (5.06%) Service Delivery
18 144 (4.93%) SIEM
19 139 (4.76%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 623 (21.31%) PowerShell
2 298 (10.20%) Python
3 274 (9.37%) SQL
4 127 (4.34%) C#
5 114 (3.90%) Bash
6 71 (2.43%) Java
7 67 (2.29%) JavaScript
8 54 (1.85%) PL/SQL
9 49 (1.68%) C++
10 46 (1.57%) T-SQL
11 30 (1.03%) Perl
12 24 (0.82%) Kusto Query Language
12 24 (0.82%) VB
13 23 (0.79%) Search Processing Language
13 23 (0.79%) Shell Script
14 21 (0.72%) Bicep
15 20 (0.68%) VBScript
16 13 (0.44%) C
16 13 (0.44%) TypeScript
16 13 (0.44%) VBA
Qualifications
1 836 (28.60%) Security Cleared
2 544 (18.61%) SC Cleared
3 309 (10.57%) Degree
4 256 (8.76%) DV Cleared
5 112 (3.83%) Microsoft Certification
6 97 (3.32%) Cisco Certification
7 82 (2.81%) Computer Science Degree
8 67 (2.29%) CISSP
9 56 (1.92%) Azure Certification
10 48 (1.64%) MCSE
11 46 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
12 45 (1.54%) AWS Certification
13 43 (1.47%) CCNA
14 32 (1.09%) CCNP
14 32 (1.09%) CompTIA Security+
15 30 (1.03%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 28 (0.96%) ITIL Certification
17 27 (0.92%) CISM
17 27 (0.92%) MCSA
18 23 (0.79%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 126 (4.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 115 (3.93%) SLA
3 92 (3.15%) NIST
4 83 (2.84%) QA
5 70 (2.39%) GDPR
6 38 (1.30%) PCI DSS
7 32 (1.09%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 27 (0.92%) Cyber Essentials
9 19 (0.65%) NCSC
10 13 (0.44%) Disclosure Scotland
10 13 (0.44%) PMO
11 12 (0.41%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.41%) SOC 2
12 11 (0.38%) HIPAA
13 10 (0.34%) FINRA
13 10 (0.34%) MiFID
13 10 (0.34%) NIST 800
14 9 (0.31%) GRC
15 8 (0.27%) Accessibility
16 6 (0.21%) GLBA
System Software
1 1,092 (37.36%) Active Directory
2 368 (12.59%) VMware Infrastructure
3 157 (5.37%) Hyper-V
4 110 (3.76%) VMware ESXi
5 103 (3.52%) vSphere
6 93 (3.18%) Docker
6 93 (3.18%) Virtual Machines
7 68 (2.33%) Virtual Desktop
8 54 (1.85%) VMware NSX
9 40 (1.37%) Firmware
10 39 (1.33%) BitLocker
11 28 (0.96%) Microsoft App-V
12 20 (0.68%) KVM
13 11 (0.38%) Oracle RAC
13 11 (0.38%) vCloud
13 11 (0.38%) XenDesktop
14 10 (0.34%) XenApp
15 8 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
16 6 (0.21%) Terminal Services
16 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 392 (13.41%) Microsoft Intune
2 256 (8.76%) SCCM
3 194 (6.64%) Ansible
4 185 (6.33%) Terraform
5 140 (4.79%) Kubernetes
6 83 (2.84%) vCenter Server
7 54 (1.85%) Single Sign-On
8 49 (1.68%) Jamf Pro
9 45 (1.54%) FortiGate
10 40 (1.37%) SCOM
11 38 (1.30%) WSUS
12 37 (1.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 37 (1.27%) Progress Chef
13 34 (1.16%) Grafana
14 32 (1.09%) Prometheus
15 27 (0.92%) Puppet
16 24 (0.82%) Nagios
17 21 (0.72%) ZABBIX
18 20 (0.68%) Tivoli
18 20 (0.68%) vMotion
Vendors
1 1,247 (42.66%) Microsoft
2 474 (16.22%) VMware
3 261 (8.93%) ServiceNow
4 222 (7.59%) Cisco
5 196 (6.71%) Citrix
6 184 (6.29%) Oracle
7 144 (4.93%) Splunk
8 80 (2.74%) SolarWinds
9 78 (2.67%) HP
10 69 (2.36%) Dell
11 68 (2.33%) Red Hat
12 66 (2.26%) Apple
13 61 (2.09%) F5
14 60 (2.05%) Google
15 58 (1.98%) CyberArk
16 56 (1.92%) Remedy
17 55 (1.88%) Palo Alto
18 52 (1.78%) IBM
19 51 (1.74%) BeyondTrust
20 48 (1.64%) Juniper