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

6 months to
25 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,959 2,524 3,576
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.81% 8.38% 8.21%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.06% 60.17% 60.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,896 1,709 2,404
10th Percentile £165 £181 £165
25th Percentile £220 £234 £234
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.56%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £400 £425
% change year-on-year +3.13% -5.88% +8.97%
Number of hourly rates quoted 249 177 296
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.12 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.25 £16.95 £14.27
Median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.46% -0.68% -20.83%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £33.56
90th Percentile £68.40 £63.45 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.82 £17.72
% change year-on-year +36.82% +6.21% -21.09%

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 4,846 4,195 5,893
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.52% 13.93% 13.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,091 2,737 3,877
10th Percentile £190 £200 £188
25th Percentile £313 £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 330 211 435
10th Percentile £15.40 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.39 £16.12
Median hourly rate £27.94 £22.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +27.00% -9.02% -45.18%
75th Percentile £64.69 £37.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £70.26 £66.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.66 £18.87 £27.50
% change year-on-year +41.28% -31.38% -26.67%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 2,587 £423 -0.53% 844
UK excluding London -13 1,958 £413 +3.13% 787
London -23 834 £425 -2.86% 184
Work from Home -10 634 £477 +1.60% 275
South East -8 522 £475 -5.00% 262
North of England -7 462 £365 +1.96% 170
Midlands -13 278 £336 +22.27% 117
South West -14 257 £488 +0.52% 127
North West -5 243 £350 -6.67% 97
East of England -2 216 £335 +11.48% 85
Yorkshire -12 201 £365 -8.75% 53
West Midlands -22 172 £450 +57.89% 52
Scotland -3 170 £425 -0.58% 31
East Midlands +9 101 £244 +21.88% 65
Wales +7 51 £375 +30.43% 19
North East -39 22 £326 +8.75% 25
Northern Ireland -4 14 £139 -30.75% 12
Channel Islands +2 2 £500 -

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
1 235 (7.94%) Microsoft Exchange
2 189 (6.39%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.03%) IIS
4 56 (1.89%) Confluence
5 19 (0.64%) Tomcat
6 18 (0.61%) Apache
7 16 (0.54%) nginx
8 14 (0.47%) Skype for Business
9 11 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
10 10 (0.34%) WebLogic
11 9 (0.30%) NetWeaver
12 8 (0.27%) HCL Notes
13 7 (0.24%) Appian
14 6 (0.20%) SAS
15 5 (0.17%) Camunda
15 5 (0.17%) WebSphere
16 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 4 (0.14%) Documentum
16 4 (0.14%) TPMS
17 3 (0.10%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 189 (6.39%) Microsoft Office
2 67 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 23 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
4 7 (0.24%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
5 5 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.068%) Acrobat
6 2 (0.068%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.034%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 42 (1.42%) Remedy ITSM
2 18 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.41%) Teamcenter
4 10 (0.34%) Finacle
5 5 (0.17%) OpenText MBPM
5 5 (0.17%) 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
1 886 (29.94%) Azure
2 814 (27.51%) Microsoft 365
3 380 (12.84%) Entra ID
4 304 (10.27%) AWS
5 115 (3.89%) OneDrive
6 91 (3.08%) GCP
7 78 (2.64%) Azure DevOps
8 77 (2.60%) SaaS
9 68 (2.30%) GitHub
10 62 (2.10%) IaaS
11 59 (1.99%) Power Platform
12 53 (1.79%) PaaS
13 47 (1.59%) Azure Monitor
14 39 (1.32%) OpenShift
15 38 (1.28%) Azure Sentinel
16 32 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
17 30 (1.01%) Google Workspace
18 26 (0.88%) AWS CloudFormation
19 23 (0.78%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 22 (0.74%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 396 (13.38%) DNS
2 308 (10.41%) Firewall
3 278 (9.40%) DHCP
4 215 (7.27%) VPN
5 186 (6.29%) WAN
6 181 (6.12%) LAN
7 179 (6.05%) TCP/IP
8 148 (5.00%) Wi-Fi
9 91 (3.08%) SAN
10 65 (2.20%) Network Security
11 59 (1.99%) VLAN
12 45 (1.52%) BGP
13 43 (1.45%) SD-WAN
14 41 (1.39%) Internet
14 41 (1.39%) NAS
15 40 (1.35%) SSL
16 39 (1.32%) VoIP
17 37 (1.25%) Wireless
18 35 (1.18%) OSPF
18 35 (1.18%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 250 (8.45%) SQL Server
2 60 (2.03%) Oracle Database
3 37 (1.25%) Power BI
4 30 (1.01%) Relational Database
5 28 (0.95%) PostgreSQL
6 25 (0.84%) MySQL
7 18 (0.61%) Amazon RDS
7 18 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
8 16 (0.54%) Db2
9 15 (0.51%) Data Warehouse
9 15 (0.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 13 (0.44%) NoSQL
10 13 (0.44%) RDBMS
11 10 (0.34%) GIS
11 10 (0.34%) MongoDB
12 9 (0.30%) SAP HANA
13 8 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
13 8 (0.27%) Oracle BI EE
13 8 (0.27%) Sybase ASE
14 7 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 182 (6.15%) JIRA
2 53 (1.79%) Git
3 51 (1.72%) Jenkins
4 44 (1.49%) MSI
5 41 (1.39%) GitLab
6 38 (1.28%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.57%) Eclipse
8 10 (0.34%) Burp Suite
9 9 (0.30%) Chocolatey
9 9 (0.30%) Metasploit
10 8 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
11 7 (0.24%) Bitbucket
12 6 (0.20%) Android Studio
12 6 (0.20%) Artifactory
12 6 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
12 6 (0.20%) InstallShield
12 6 (0.20%) Xcode
13 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
13 5 (0.17%) Maven
13 5 (0.17%) Selenium
General
1 1,021 (34.50%) Social Skills
2 325 (10.98%) Analytical Skills
3 316 (10.68%) Finance
4 201 (6.79%) Public Sector
5 153 (5.17%) Banking
6 117 (3.95%) Legal
7 106 (3.58%) Documentation Skills
8 80 (2.70%) Organisational Skills
9 58 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 54 (1.82%) Retail
11 47 (1.59%) Military
12 42 (1.42%) Manufacturing
13 37 (1.25%) Investment Banking
14 36 (1.22%) Front Office
15 30 (1.01%) Law
15 30 (1.01%) Telecoms
16 29 (0.98%) Presentation Skills
17 26 (0.88%) Spanish Language
18 23 (0.78%) French Language
19 18 (0.61%) Police
Job Titles
1 385 (13.01%) Support Engineer
2 374 (12.64%) IT Support
3 294 (9.94%) Analyst
4 268 (9.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 253 (8.55%) IT Engineer
6 210 (7.10%) IT Support Engineer
7 184 (6.22%) Senior
8 156 (5.27%) Architect
9 120 (4.06%) Desktop Support
10 111 (3.75%) Support Analyst
11 109 (3.68%) Desktop Engineer
12 105 (3.55%) 2nd Line Support
13 101 (3.41%) Developer
14 100 (3.38%) Lead
15 92 (3.11%) IT Analyst
16 90 (3.04%) Consultant
16 90 (3.04%) Windows Engineer
17 83 (2.81%) Cloud Engineer
18 82 (2.77%) Technical Support
19 73 (2.47%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (3.45%) .NET
2 97 (3.28%) REST
3 59 (1.99%) .NET Framework
4 43 (1.45%) LDAP
5 34 (1.15%) SAML
6 32 (1.08%) Microsoft Graph
6 32 (1.08%) Middleware
7 31 (1.05%) 802.1X
8 27 (0.91%) Software Packaging
9 26 (0.88%) Web Services
9 26 (0.88%) WinForms
9 26 (0.88%) WPF
10 25 (0.84%) Kafka
10 25 (0.84%) OAuth
11 22 (0.74%) Elastic Stack
12 20 (0.68%) CSS
13 18 (0.61%) JSON
14 17 (0.57%) Node.js
14 17 (0.57%) RESTful
15 16 (0.54%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 272 (9.19%) Onboarding
2 163 (5.51%) Data Centre
3 132 (4.46%) PKI
4 86 (2.91%) Enterprise Software
5 75 (2.53%) Clustering
6 72 (2.43%) Self-Motivation
7 68 (2.30%) Management Information System
8 61 (2.06%) Cloud Native
8 61 (2.06%) Driving Licence
9 56 (1.89%) Replication
9 56 (1.89%) Security Posture
10 54 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
11 52 (1.76%) Hybrid Cloud
11 52 (1.76%) Virtual Team
12 41 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
13 35 (1.18%) Smartphone
14 32 (1.08%) Analytical Mindset
14 32 (1.08%) CMDB
14 32 (1.08%) Operational Technology
15 31 (1.05%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 730 (24.67%) Linux
2 711 (24.03%) Windows Server
3 490 (16.56%) Windows 10
4 182 (6.15%) Mac OS
5 154 (5.20%) Unix
6 141 (4.77%) Apple iOS
7 137 (4.63%) Android
8 110 (3.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 76 (2.57%) Windows Server 2019
10 59 (1.99%) Windows Server 2016
11 51 (1.72%) Windows 7
12 39 (1.32%) Windows Server 2012
13 34 (1.15%) AIX
14 30 (1.01%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.81%) Solaris
16 22 (0.74%) VMS
17 17 (0.57%) Windows Server 2008
18 16 (0.54%) Windows Server 2003
19 13 (0.44%) CentOS
20 9 (0.30%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 653 (22.07%) Problem-Solving
2 444 (15.01%) ITIL
3 430 (14.53%) Customer Service
4 350 (11.83%) Migration
5 343 (11.59%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 296 (10.00%) ITSM
7 275 (9.29%) DevOps
8 270 (9.12%) Agile
9 250 (8.45%) CI/CD
10 231 (7.81%) Continuous Improvement
11 210 (7.10%) High Availability
12 207 (7.00%) Service Management
13 193 (6.52%) Change Management
14 174 (5.88%) Infrastructure as Code
15 172 (5.81%) Disaster Recovery
16 162 (5.47%) Cybersecurity
17 157 (5.31%) Stakeholder Management
18 152 (5.14%) Service Delivery
19 144 (4.87%) SIEM
20 141 (4.77%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 624 (21.09%) PowerShell
2 303 (10.24%) Python
3 283 (9.56%) SQL
4 131 (4.43%) C#
5 119 (4.02%) Bash
6 68 (2.30%) Java
7 65 (2.20%) JavaScript
8 54 (1.82%) PL/SQL
9 50 (1.69%) C++
10 47 (1.59%) T-SQL
11 27 (0.91%) Perl
12 24 (0.81%) VB
13 23 (0.78%) Kusto Query Language
13 23 (0.78%) Search Processing Language
13 23 (0.78%) Shell Script
14 21 (0.71%) Bicep
15 20 (0.68%) VBScript
16 14 (0.47%) TypeScript
17 13 (0.44%) C
17 13 (0.44%) VBA
Qualifications
1 854 (28.86%) Security Cleared
2 560 (18.93%) SC Cleared
3 312 (10.54%) Degree
4 257 (8.69%) DV Cleared
5 113 (3.82%) Microsoft Certification
6 97 (3.28%) Cisco Certification
7 82 (2.77%) Computer Science Degree
8 66 (2.23%) CISSP
9 55 (1.86%) Azure Certification
10 48 (1.62%) MCSE
11 47 (1.59%) AWS Certification
11 47 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
12 43 (1.45%) CCNA
13 32 (1.08%) CCNP
14 30 (1.01%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 29 (0.98%) CompTIA Security+
16 28 (0.95%) ITIL Certification
17 27 (0.91%) MCSA
18 26 (0.88%) CISM
19 23 (0.78%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 126 (4.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 114 (3.85%) SLA
3 91 (3.08%) NIST
4 88 (2.97%) QA
5 66 (2.23%) GDPR
6 37 (1.25%) PCI DSS
7 33 (1.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 26 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials
9 19 (0.64%) NCSC
10 13 (0.44%) Disclosure Scotland
10 13 (0.44%) PMO
11 12 (0.41%) Data Quality
12 11 (0.37%) HIPAA
12 11 (0.37%) SOC 2
13 10 (0.34%) GRC
13 10 (0.34%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.27%) Accessibility
14 8 (0.27%) FINRA
14 8 (0.27%) MiFID
15 6 (0.20%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 1,102 (37.24%) Active Directory
2 373 (12.61%) VMware Infrastructure
3 156 (5.27%) Hyper-V
4 115 (3.89%) VMware ESXi
5 101 (3.41%) vSphere
6 98 (3.31%) Virtual Machines
7 90 (3.04%) Docker
8 68 (2.30%) Virtual Desktop
9 55 (1.86%) VMware NSX
10 40 (1.35%) Firmware
11 38 (1.28%) BitLocker
12 28 (0.95%) Microsoft App-V
13 20 (0.68%) KVM
14 12 (0.41%) vCloud
15 10 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
15 10 (0.34%) XenDesktop
16 9 (0.30%) XenApp
17 8 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
18 6 (0.20%) etcd
18 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 394 (13.32%) Microsoft Intune
2 262 (8.85%) SCCM
3 197 (6.66%) Terraform
4 190 (6.42%) Ansible
5 140 (4.73%) Kubernetes
6 86 (2.91%) vCenter Server
7 54 (1.82%) Single Sign-On
8 52 (1.76%) Jamf Pro
9 46 (1.55%) FortiGate
10 41 (1.39%) WSUS
11 40 (1.35%) SCOM
12 37 (1.25%) Progress Chef
13 35 (1.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 30 (1.01%) Grafana
14 30 (1.01%) Prometheus
15 27 (0.91%) Puppet
16 24 (0.81%) Nagios
17 21 (0.71%) Nessus
17 21 (0.71%) ZABBIX
18 20 (0.68%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 1,253 (42.35%) Microsoft
2 478 (16.15%) VMware
3 263 (8.89%) ServiceNow
4 223 (7.54%) Cisco
5 194 (6.56%) Citrix
6 187 (6.32%) Oracle
7 137 (4.63%) Splunk
8 80 (2.70%) HP
9 78 (2.64%) SolarWinds
10 75 (2.53%) Apple
11 72 (2.43%) Red Hat
12 69 (2.33%) Dell
13 63 (2.13%) CyberArk
13 63 (2.13%) Google
14 59 (1.99%) F5
15 55 (1.86%) BeyondTrust
16 54 (1.82%) Remedy
17 53 (1.79%) IBM
18 50 (1.69%) Palo Alto
19 48 (1.62%) Juniper