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 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 16
Rank change year-on-year -3 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,814 2,816 4,165
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.69% 8.24% 9.43%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.11% 58.83% 62.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,909 1,794 2,790
10th Percentile £160 £180 £158
25th Percentile £204 £230 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £403 £400
Median % change year-on-year -3.17% +0.69% -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £575
90th Percentile £630 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £373 £375
% change year-on-year -12.75% -0.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 274 118 242
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.22 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.07 £17.22
Median hourly rate £22.10 £24.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.62% +9.91% +10.00%
75th Percentile £43.75 £54.69 £53.11
90th Percentile £67.59 £65.75 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.02% +15.14% +13.51%

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 4,761 4,787 6,663
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.01% 14.00% 15.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,091 2,995 4,544
10th Percentile £175 £200 £181
25th Percentile £263 £317 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £600
90th Percentile £660 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £409 £425 £431
% change year-on-year -3.82% -1.28% -4.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 356 180 330
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.31 £14.25
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.19 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.15 £47.50 £31.00
Median % change year-on-year -47.05% +53.23% +27.84%
75th Percentile £63.31 £65.51 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.08 £49.00 £26.09
% change year-on-year -48.83% +87.81% +18.59%

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows in the UK

Windows
Top 17 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 December 2025. 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 0 2,493 £388 -3.13% 1,552
UK excluding London -2 1,891 £325 -12.75% 1,512
London -18 745 £450 +8.76% 237
Work from Home -12 558 £425 -5.56% 522
South East +1 518 £364 -11.82% 472
North of England -4 412 £238 -31.98% 342
South West +4 317 £425 +6.25% 186
Midlands -1 306 £400 +23.08% 231
North West -4 235 £305 -13.60% 176
West Midlands -4 212 £449 +38.00% 134
East of England +3 198 £225 -25.00% 205
Yorkshire -16 148 £240 -34.69% 135
Scotland -14 106 £425 -2.86% 68
East Midlands +2 94 £223 -37.50% 92
Wales -1 46 £190 -17.84% 46
North East +3 32 £188 -41.86% 37
Northern Ireland -10 15 £203 +33.66% 14

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
1 239 (8.49%) Microsoft Exchange
2 182 (6.47%) SharePoint
3 76 (2.70%) Confluence
4 51 (1.81%) Apache
5 46 (1.63%) IIS
6 27 (0.96%) WebLogic
7 23 (0.82%) WebSphere
8 20 (0.71%) Skype for Business
9 17 (0.60%) JBoss
10 16 (0.57%) nginx
11 13 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2010
11 13 (0.46%) SharePoint Server
12 11 (0.39%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2013
13 10 (0.36%) iPlanet
13 10 (0.36%) SAS
14 9 (0.32%) Tomcat
14 9 (0.32%) Tuxedo
15 8 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2003
15 8 (0.28%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 276 (9.81%) Microsoft Office
2 89 (3.16%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.36%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 9 (0.32%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.071%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.071%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.071%) Windchill
9 1 (0.036%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.036%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.036%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.036%) Camtasia
9 1 (0.036%) InDesign
9 1 (0.036%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.036%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 21 (0.75%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.28%) assyst
3 5 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 2 (0.071%) Eikon
5 2 (0.071%) Fidessa
5 2 (0.071%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.071%) Maximo
5 2 (0.071%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.071%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.071%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.071%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.036%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.036%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.036%) Eze OMS
6 1 (0.036%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.036%) Primavera
6 1 (0.036%) RMDS
6 1 (0.036%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.036%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 731 (25.98%) Microsoft 365
2 649 (23.06%) Azure
3 275 (9.77%) AWS
4 242 (8.60%) Entra ID
5 84 (2.99%) OneDrive
6 78 (2.77%) GCP
7 75 (2.67%) SaaS
8 68 (2.42%) Azure DevOps
8 68 (2.42%) GitHub
9 54 (1.92%) IaaS
10 46 (1.63%) Google Workspace
11 39 (1.39%) PaaS
12 38 (1.35%) Power Platform
13 36 (1.28%) Azure Monitor
14 32 (1.14%) Amazon S3
15 31 (1.10%) Azure Sentinel
16 30 (1.07%) Amazon EC2
16 30 (1.07%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 26 (0.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 25 (0.89%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 358 (12.72%) DNS
2 316 (11.23%) Firewall
3 211 (7.50%) DHCP
4 200 (7.11%) TCP/IP
5 173 (6.15%) VPN
6 102 (3.62%) Wi-Fi
7 96 (3.41%) LAN
8 92 (3.27%) Network Security
9 91 (3.23%) WAN
10 70 (2.49%) Wireless
11 62 (2.20%) VLAN
12 60 (2.13%) SSH
13 52 (1.85%) HTTP
14 50 (1.78%) SAN
15 38 (1.35%) Cisco IOS
16 35 (1.24%) Skype
16 35 (1.24%) VoIP
17 33 (1.17%) SSL
18 30 (1.07%) Internet
18 30 (1.07%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 123 (4.37%) SQL Server
2 81 (2.88%) Oracle Database
3 62 (2.20%) Relational Database
4 51 (1.81%) MySQL
5 32 (1.14%) PostgreSQL
6 25 (0.89%) Amazon RDS
7 15 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
7 15 (0.53%) Power BI
8 12 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
9 11 (0.39%) GIS
10 10 (0.36%) BigQuery
10 10 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
10 10 (0.36%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.32%) MongoDB
11 9 (0.32%) RDBMS
12 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
12 7 (0.25%) DB2
12 7 (0.25%) SAP HANA
13 6 (0.21%) Apache Cassandra
13 6 (0.21%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 161 (5.72%) JIRA
2 103 (3.66%) Jenkins
3 99 (3.52%) Git
4 57 (2.03%) GitLab
5 40 (1.42%) Eclipse
6 35 (1.24%) Visual Studio
7 34 (1.21%) MSI
8 29 (1.03%) Bitbucket
9 23 (0.82%) Android Studio
10 22 (0.78%) Browser DevTools
11 21 (0.75%) Vagrant
11 21 (0.75%) Xcode
12 18 (0.64%) Artifactory
12 18 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
13 15 (0.53%) InstallShield
14 14 (0.50%) Bitbucket Server
14 14 (0.50%) CA Release Automation
15 12 (0.43%) Burp Suite
15 12 (0.43%) Metasploit
16 11 (0.39%) AdminStudio
General
1 1,080 (38.38%) Social Skills
2 335 (11.90%) Finance
3 257 (9.13%) Public Sector
4 253 (8.99%) Analytical Skills
5 124 (4.41%) Banking
6 115 (4.09%) Documentation Skills
7 87 (3.09%) Legal
8 70 (2.49%) Organisational Skills
9 63 (2.24%) Manufacturing
10 53 (1.88%) Military
11 51 (1.81%) Telecoms
12 46 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 46 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
13 42 (1.49%) Retail
14 33 (1.17%) Marketing
15 32 (1.14%) Aerospace
16 26 (0.92%) Front Office
17 24 (0.85%) Electronics
17 24 (0.85%) Law
18 20 (0.71%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 434 (15.42%) Support Engineer
2 348 (12.37%) Analyst
3 333 (11.83%) IT Support
4 196 (6.97%) IT Engineer
5 164 (5.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 157 (5.58%) Windows Engineer
7 151 (5.37%) Desktop Support
8 150 (5.33%) Support Analyst
9 146 (5.19%) IT Support Engineer
10 144 (5.12%) Architect
11 140 (4.98%) Senior
12 137 (4.87%) Desktop Engineer
13 131 (4.66%) Deployment Engineer
14 117 (4.16%) 2nd Line Support
15 114 (4.05%) Technical Support
16 105 (3.73%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 104 (3.70%) Developer
18 94 (3.34%) Platform Engineer
19 87 (3.09%) Administrator
20 84 (2.99%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (2.59%) .NET
2 58 (2.06%) LDAP
3 53 (1.88%) REST
4 47 (1.67%) Middleware
5 40 (1.42%) .NET Framework
6 39 (1.39%) OAuth
7 38 (1.35%) React
7 38 (1.35%) SAML
8 36 (1.28%) AngularJS
9 33 (1.17%) WPF
10 31 (1.10%) OpenID
10 31 (1.10%) Web Services
11 28 (1.00%) CSS
12 27 (0.96%) Node.js
12 27 (0.96%) XML
13 24 (0.85%) Kafka
14 23 (0.82%) Ajax
14 23 (0.82%) SOAP
15 22 (0.78%) GraphQL
16 19 (0.68%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 129 (4.58%) Onboarding
2 95 (3.38%) PKI
3 94 (3.34%) Data Centre
4 84 (2.99%) Driving Licence
5 68 (2.42%) Replication
6 61 (2.17%) Enterprise Software
7 60 (2.13%) Self-Motivation
8 59 (2.10%) Management Information System
9 51 (1.81%) Smartphone
10 47 (1.67%) Security Posture
11 35 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
12 33 (1.17%) Mobile App
13 32 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
13 32 (1.14%) NHS
14 31 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
14 31 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
14 31 (1.10%) Video Conferencing
15 29 (1.03%) Clustering
15 29 (1.03%) iPhone
15 29 (1.03%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 733 (26.05%) Linux
2 585 (20.79%) Windows 10
3 547 (19.44%) Windows Server
4 199 (7.07%) Unix
5 163 (5.79%) Mac OS
6 151 (5.37%) Android
7 103 (3.66%) Apple iOS
8 89 (3.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 64 (2.27%) Windows Server 2016
10 57 (2.03%) Windows Server 2019
11 51 (1.81%) Windows 7
12 44 (1.56%) Windows Server 2012
13 37 (1.31%) VMS
14 35 (1.24%) Windows Server 2003
15 29 (1.03%) Ubuntu
16 28 (1.00%) AIX
17 18 (0.64%) Amazon Linux
17 18 (0.64%) Solaris
18 17 (0.60%) CentOS
19 14 (0.50%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 499 (17.73%) Problem-Solving
2 414 (14.71%) ITIL
3 400 (14.21%) Customer Service
4 289 (10.27%) Agile
5 288 (10.23%) Migration
6 251 (8.92%) DevOps
7 239 (8.49%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 217 (7.71%) CI/CD
9 214 (7.60%) Service Management
10 208 (7.39%) Cybersecurity
11 193 (6.86%) ITSM
12 186 (6.61%) Continuous Improvement
13 159 (5.65%) Change Management
14 140 (4.98%) User Experience
15 128 (4.55%) Incident Response
16 125 (4.44%) SIEM
17 122 (4.34%) Stakeholder Management
18 119 (4.23%) Computer Science
19 116 (4.12%) Disaster Recovery
20 113 (4.02%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 541 (19.23%) PowerShell
2 371 (13.18%) Python
3 297 (10.55%) SQL
4 155 (5.51%) Java
5 136 (4.83%) C#
6 133 (4.73%) Bash
7 88 (3.13%) JavaScript
8 81 (2.88%) Perl
9 73 (2.59%) C++
10 46 (1.63%) PL/SQL
11 42 (1.49%) Shell Script
12 31 (1.10%) Kusto Query Language
13 30 (1.07%) VB
13 30 (1.07%) VBScript
14 29 (1.03%) Groovy
15 28 (1.00%) T-SQL
16 25 (0.89%) VBA
17 23 (0.82%) C
18 17 (0.60%) Bicep
18 17 (0.60%) PHP
Qualifications
1 842 (29.92%) Security Cleared
2 568 (20.18%) SC Cleared
3 291 (10.34%) Degree
4 229 (8.14%) DV Cleared
5 183 (6.50%) Microsoft Certification
6 84 (2.99%) Computer Science Degree
7 70 (2.49%) Azure Certification
8 54 (1.92%) Cisco Certification
9 52 (1.85%) A+ Certification
9 52 (1.85%) MCSE
10 44 (1.56%) ITIL Certification
11 40 (1.42%) CISSP
12 38 (1.35%) AWS Certification
13 33 (1.17%) BPSS Clearance
13 33 (1.17%) CCNA
13 33 (1.17%) CCNP
14 32 (1.14%) CompTIA Security+
15 29 (1.03%) DBS Check
16 27 (0.96%) MCSA
17 25 (0.89%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (3.09%) SLA
2 78 (2.77%) GDPR
3 69 (2.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 69 (2.45%) QA
4 51 (1.81%) NIST
5 23 (0.82%) PCI DSS
6 15 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
7 12 (0.43%) HIPAA
7 12 (0.43%) NCSC
8 9 (0.32%) PMO
9 8 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 7 (0.25%) GLBA
11 6 (0.21%) COBIT
12 5 (0.18%) Accessibility
13 4 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
13 4 (0.14%) NIST 800
13 4 (0.14%) SOC 2
14 3 (0.11%) Data Quality
14 3 (0.11%) MiFID
14 3 (0.11%) SEPA
System Software
1 1,022 (36.32%) Active Directory
2 253 (8.99%) VMware Infrastructure
3 126 (4.48%) Docker
4 94 (3.34%) Hyper-V
5 56 (1.99%) Virtual Desktop
5 56 (1.99%) Virtual Machines
6 47 (1.67%) vSphere
7 46 (1.63%) VMware ESXi
8 32 (1.14%) VMware NSX
9 23 (0.82%) BitLocker
10 21 (0.75%) Firmware
11 18 (0.64%) DFS Replication
12 16 (0.57%) Terminal Services
13 15 (0.53%) NFS
13 15 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
14 14 (0.50%) Microsoft App-V
15 13 (0.46%) XenApp
16 10 (0.36%) Dovecot
16 10 (0.36%) Postfix
16 10 (0.36%) Squid
Systems Management
1 399 (14.18%) SCCM
2 293 (10.41%) Microsoft Intune
3 194 (6.89%) Terraform
4 159 (5.65%) Ansible
5 105 (3.73%) Kubernetes
6 64 (2.27%) vCenter Server
7 61 (2.17%) Single Sign-On
8 52 (1.85%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 42 (1.49%) Jamf Pro
10 39 (1.39%) Grafana
11 31 (1.10%) WSUS
12 29 (1.03%) Nessus
12 29 (1.03%) Progress Chef
13 28 (1.00%) SCOM
14 26 (0.92%) Prometheus
15 22 (0.78%) Microsoft Clustering
16 17 (0.60%) Puppet
17 16 (0.57%) Proxmox
18 15 (0.53%) NetBackup
18 15 (0.53%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,209 (42.96%) Microsoft
2 358 (12.72%) VMware
3 255 (9.06%) ServiceNow
4 229 (8.14%) Oracle
5 177 (6.29%) Cisco
5 177 (6.29%) Citrix
6 151 (5.37%) Splunk
7 86 (3.06%) Apple
8 81 (2.88%) HP
9 72 (2.56%) Red Hat
10 63 (2.24%) Dell
11 60 (2.13%) IBM
12 54 (1.92%) Google
13 53 (1.88%) Veeam
14 50 (1.78%) SAP
15 49 (1.74%) SolarWinds
16 43 (1.53%) NetApp
17 42 (1.49%) CyberArk
18 39 (1.39%) AppDynamics
18 39 (1.39%) CrowdStrike