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

6 months to
1 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 16
Rank change year-on-year -3 -3 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,809 2,936 4,372
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.86% 8.16% 9.57%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.41% 58.12% 63.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,883 1,831 2,922
10th Percentile £163 £180 £160
25th Percentile £204 £238 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £420 £413
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% +1.82% -2.94%
75th Percentile £538 £554 £575
90th Percentile £625 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £382 £388
% change year-on-year -14.81% -1.55% +3.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 296 133 258
10th Percentile £15.27 £15.22 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.74 £18.16 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.14
Median % change year-on-year -9.02% +9.23% +7.99%
75th Percentile £38.94 £57.62 £54.55
90th Percentile £66.00 £67.50 £67.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.75 £24.18 £21.31
% change year-on-year -10.05% +13.47% +13.44%

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 4,728 5,052 6,895
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.23% 14.04% 15.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,049 3,083 4,692
10th Percentile £180 £200 £182
25th Percentile £263 £325 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.05%
75th Percentile £563 £583 £607
90th Percentile £660 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £440 £440
% change year-on-year -9.09% - -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 366 206 345
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.13 £14.66
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.50 £18.00
Median hourly rate £25.00 £50.00 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -50.00% +66.67% +20.00%
75th Percentile £55.58 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.84 £70.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £51.25 £27.25
% change year-on-year -51.22% +88.07% +21.11%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -3 2,502 £379 -5.31% 1,268
UK excluding London -1 1,871 £325 -14.81% 1,221
London -14 774 £438 +4.17% 237
Work from Home -8 566 £425 -5.56% 445
South East +2 505 £344 -17.17% 445
North of England -5 405 £250 -37.50% 267
South West +5 325 £425 +0.24% 137
Midlands -4 297 £383 +9.29% 177
North West -3 228 £315 -25.88% 140
West Midlands -5 207 £427 +31.38% 106
East of England 0 204 £225 -33.33% 150
Yorkshire -12 149 £230 -34.38% 105
Scotland -15 108 £431 - 54
East Midlands +1 90 £210 -44.00% 70
Wales -2 43 £190 -13.64% 27
North East +1 31 £189 -41.02% 32
Northern Ireland -14 15 £203 +21.26% 7

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
1 255 (9.08%) Microsoft Exchange
2 179 (6.37%) SharePoint
3 81 (2.88%) Confluence
4 53 (1.89%) Apache
5 43 (1.53%) IIS
6 25 (0.89%) WebSphere
7 22 (0.78%) Skype for Business
8 20 (0.71%) JBoss
9 18 (0.64%) WebLogic
10 15 (0.53%) Exchange Server 2010
10 15 (0.53%) SharePoint Server
11 14 (0.50%) nginx
12 13 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2013
13 11 (0.39%) WebSphere Application Server
14 10 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2003
14 10 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2007
14 10 (0.36%) iPlanet
14 10 (0.36%) Office Communications Server
15 9 (0.32%) SAS
15 9 (0.32%) Tomcat
Applications
1 279 (9.93%) Microsoft Office
2 91 (3.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.36%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 8 (0.28%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.071%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.071%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.071%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.071%) Windchill
8 1 (0.036%) Acrobat
8 1 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.036%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.036%) Camtasia
8 1 (0.036%) InDesign
8 1 (0.036%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.036%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 19 (0.68%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.25%) assyst
3 5 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.14%) Maximo
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.11%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.071%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.071%) Eikon
6 2 (0.071%) Fidessa
6 2 (0.071%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.071%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.071%) SystmOne
6 2 (0.071%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.036%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.036%) Eze OMS
7 1 (0.036%) OpenText MBPM
7 1 (0.036%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.036%) Pegasus Opera
7 1 (0.036%) Primavera
7 1 (0.036%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 725 (25.81%) Microsoft 365
2 631 (22.46%) Azure
3 267 (9.51%) AWS
4 233 (8.29%) Entra ID
5 86 (3.06%) OneDrive
6 80 (2.85%) SaaS
7 70 (2.49%) GitHub
8 68 (2.42%) Azure DevOps
9 65 (2.31%) GCP
10 57 (2.03%) IaaS
11 46 (1.64%) Google Workspace
12 40 (1.42%) PaaS
12 40 (1.42%) Power Platform
13 34 (1.21%) Amazon S3
14 33 (1.17%) Amazon EC2
14 33 (1.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 30 (1.07%) Azure Monitor
15 30 (1.07%) Azure Sentinel
16 28 (1.00%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 25 (0.89%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 338 (12.03%) DNS
2 323 (11.50%) Firewall
3 207 (7.37%) DHCP
4 200 (7.12%) TCP/IP
5 162 (5.77%) VPN
6 99 (3.52%) Wi-Fi
7 91 (3.24%) LAN
8 87 (3.10%) WAN
9 83 (2.95%) Network Security
10 64 (2.28%) VLAN
11 63 (2.24%) SSH
12 62 (2.21%) Wireless
13 61 (2.17%) SAN
14 55 (1.96%) HTTP
15 53 (1.89%) Cisco IOS
16 35 (1.25%) SSL
17 32 (1.14%) Skype
18 31 (1.10%) FTP
18 31 (1.10%) SMTP
19 30 (1.07%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 126 (4.49%) SQL Server
2 87 (3.10%) Oracle Database
3 63 (2.24%) Relational Database
4 46 (1.64%) MySQL
5 30 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
5 30 (1.07%) PostgreSQL
6 16 (0.57%) Power BI
7 13 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
8 11 (0.39%) Amazon Aurora
8 11 (0.39%) GIS
8 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
9 10 (0.36%) BigQuery
10 9 (0.32%) RDBMS
11 8 (0.28%) SAP HANA
12 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
12 7 (0.25%) Data Lake
12 7 (0.25%) DB2
12 7 (0.25%) Elasticsearch
13 6 (0.21%) Apache Cassandra
13 6 (0.21%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 163 (5.80%) JIRA
2 110 (3.92%) Git
3 105 (3.74%) Jenkins
4 49 (1.74%) GitLab
5 41 (1.46%) Eclipse
6 40 (1.42%) Visual Studio
7 31 (1.10%) Bitbucket
8 28 (1.00%) MSI
9 24 (0.85%) Vagrant
10 20 (0.71%) Android Studio
11 19 (0.68%) Browser DevTools
12 18 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
12 18 (0.64%) Xcode
13 15 (0.53%) InstallShield
14 14 (0.50%) Artifactory
14 14 (0.50%) Bitbucket Server
14 14 (0.50%) CA Release Automation
15 13 (0.46%) AdminStudio
15 13 (0.46%) IntelliJ
16 12 (0.43%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 1,063 (37.84%) Social Skills
2 362 (12.89%) Finance
3 269 (9.58%) Public Sector
4 254 (9.04%) Analytical Skills
5 138 (4.91%) Banking
6 121 (4.31%) Documentation Skills
7 80 (2.85%) Legal
8 67 (2.39%) Manufacturing
9 63 (2.24%) Organisational Skills
10 55 (1.96%) Telecoms
11 52 (1.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 50 (1.78%) Military
13 49 (1.74%) Presentation Skills
14 44 (1.57%) Retail
15 40 (1.42%) Marketing
16 29 (1.03%) Aerospace
17 28 (1.00%) Electronics
17 28 (1.00%) Games
18 24 (0.85%) Front Office
19 22 (0.78%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 439 (15.63%) Support Engineer
2 339 (12.07%) Analyst
3 318 (11.32%) IT Support
4 196 (6.98%) IT Engineer
5 158 (5.62%) Windows Engineer
6 157 (5.59%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 147 (5.23%) Support Analyst
8 146 (5.20%) Desktop Engineer
8 146 (5.20%) Desktop Support
9 139 (4.95%) IT Support Engineer
10 134 (4.77%) Architect
11 133 (4.73%) Deployment Engineer
11 133 (4.73%) Senior
12 115 (4.09%) 2nd Line Support
13 111 (3.95%) Developer
14 109 (3.88%) Technical Support
15 105 (3.74%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 103 (3.67%) Platform Engineer
17 92 (3.28%) Administrator
18 81 (2.88%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.63%) .NET
2 54 (1.92%) LDAP
3 48 (1.71%) Middleware
4 44 (1.57%) REST
5 41 (1.46%) .NET Framework
6 39 (1.39%) Web Services
7 36 (1.28%) Node.js
7 36 (1.28%) OAuth
8 35 (1.25%) AngularJS
8 35 (1.25%) WPF
9 34 (1.21%) SAML
10 32 (1.14%) React
11 31 (1.10%) XML
12 28 (1.00%) OpenID
13 26 (0.93%) SOAP
14 25 (0.89%) CSS
15 22 (0.78%) Kafka
16 20 (0.71%) Ajax
17 19 (0.68%) GraphQL
17 19 (0.68%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 110 (3.92%) Onboarding
2 96 (3.42%) Data Centre
3 92 (3.28%) PKI
4 76 (2.71%) Driving Licence
5 67 (2.39%) Replication
6 63 (2.24%) Self-Motivation
7 60 (2.14%) Enterprise Software
8 58 (2.06%) Management Information System
9 40 (1.42%) Security Posture
10 38 (1.35%) Smartphone
11 37 (1.32%) iPhone
12 36 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
13 35 (1.25%) Video Conferencing
14 33 (1.17%) Analytical Mindset
14 33 (1.17%) NHS
15 32 (1.14%) Mobile App
16 31 (1.10%) iPad
16 31 (1.10%) Public Cloud
17 30 (1.07%) Hybrid Cloud
18 29 (1.03%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 710 (25.28%) Linux
2 582 (20.72%) Windows 10
3 533 (18.97%) Windows Server
4 184 (6.55%) Unix
5 161 (5.73%) Mac OS
6 160 (5.70%) Android
7 102 (3.63%) Apple iOS
8 82 (2.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 67 (2.39%) Windows 7
10 64 (2.28%) Windows Server 2016
11 57 (2.03%) Windows Server 2019
12 45 (1.60%) Windows Server 2012
13 40 (1.42%) VMS
14 35 (1.25%) Windows Server 2003
15 33 (1.17%) Ubuntu
16 28 (1.00%) AIX
17 21 (0.75%) Amazon Linux
18 18 (0.64%) CentOS
18 18 (0.64%) Solaris
19 14 (0.50%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 496 (17.66%) Problem-Solving
2 412 (14.67%) ITIL
3 373 (13.28%) Customer Service
4 294 (10.47%) Migration
5 285 (10.15%) Agile
6 239 (8.51%) DevOps
7 231 (8.22%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 220 (7.83%) Service Management
9 209 (7.44%) Cybersecurity
9 209 (7.44%) ITSM
10 207 (7.37%) CI/CD
11 181 (6.44%) Continuous Improvement
12 153 (5.45%) Change Management
13 127 (4.52%) User Experience
14 125 (4.45%) Incident Response
15 121 (4.31%) Stakeholder Management
16 113 (4.02%) Cloud Security
17 112 (3.99%) Service Delivery
18 108 (3.84%) Incident Management
19 105 (3.74%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 521 (18.55%) PowerShell
2 363 (12.92%) Python
3 279 (9.93%) SQL
4 151 (5.38%) Java
5 144 (5.13%) C#
6 126 (4.49%) Bash
7 88 (3.13%) JavaScript
8 80 (2.85%) Perl
9 79 (2.81%) C++
10 45 (1.60%) PL/SQL
11 40 (1.42%) Shell Script
12 35 (1.25%) VB
13 32 (1.14%) Groovy
14 31 (1.10%) Kusto Query Language
14 31 (1.10%) VBScript
15 27 (0.96%) C
15 27 (0.96%) VBA
16 25 (0.89%) T-SQL
17 23 (0.82%) PHP
18 17 (0.61%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 798 (28.41%) Security Cleared
2 558 (19.86%) SC Cleared
3 270 (9.61%) Degree
4 197 (7.01%) DV Cleared
5 194 (6.91%) Microsoft Certification
6 71 (2.53%) Computer Science Degree
7 67 (2.39%) Azure Certification
8 53 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
9 52 (1.85%) A+ Certification
9 52 (1.85%) MCSE
10 40 (1.42%) ITIL Certification
11 38 (1.35%) AWS Certification
12 37 (1.32%) CISSP
13 34 (1.21%) CCNA
14 33 (1.17%) CCNP
15 31 (1.10%) DBS Check
16 28 (1.00%) BPSS Clearance
17 27 (0.96%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 26 (0.93%) MCSA
19 23 (0.82%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (3.10%) SLA
2 75 (2.67%) QA
3 71 (2.53%) GDPR
4 59 (2.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 53 (1.89%) NIST
6 21 (0.75%) PCI DSS
7 17 (0.61%) HIPAA
8 14 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
9 12 (0.43%) NCSC
10 11 (0.39%) PMO
11 9 (0.32%) Accessibility
12 8 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 7 (0.25%) GLBA
14 6 (0.21%) COBIT
15 5 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
16 4 (0.14%) SOC 2
17 3 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 3 (0.11%) Data Quality
17 3 (0.11%) ECSS
17 3 (0.11%) SEPA
System Software
1 1,005 (35.78%) Active Directory
2 241 (8.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 128 (4.56%) Docker
4 84 (2.99%) Hyper-V
5 61 (2.17%) Virtual Desktop
6 54 (1.92%) Virtual Machines
7 47 (1.67%) vSphere
8 46 (1.64%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.10%) VMware NSX
10 24 (0.85%) DFS Replication
11 23 (0.82%) BitLocker
12 22 (0.78%) Firmware
13 20 (0.71%) Microsoft App-V
14 18 (0.64%) NFS
15 16 (0.57%) Terminal Services
16 15 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
17 14 (0.50%) XenApp
18 10 (0.36%) Brightmail
18 10 (0.36%) Dovecot
18 10 (0.36%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 417 (14.85%) SCCM
2 295 (10.50%) Microsoft Intune
3 178 (6.34%) Terraform
4 147 (5.23%) Ansible
5 97 (3.45%) Kubernetes
6 58 (2.06%) vCenter Server
7 53 (1.89%) Single Sign-On
8 47 (1.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 45 (1.60%) Jamf Pro
10 42 (1.50%) Grafana
11 32 (1.14%) Progress Chef
12 31 (1.10%) WSUS
13 28 (1.00%) Prometheus
13 28 (1.00%) SCOM
14 27 (0.96%) Nessus
15 20 (0.71%) Puppet
16 18 (0.64%) Microsoft Clustering
17 16 (0.57%) Proxmox
18 14 (0.50%) NetBackup
18 14 (0.50%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,232 (43.86%) Microsoft
2 344 (12.25%) VMware
3 256 (9.11%) ServiceNow
4 231 (8.22%) Oracle
5 183 (6.51%) Cisco
6 173 (6.16%) Citrix
7 149 (5.30%) Splunk
8 86 (3.06%) Apple
9 76 (2.71%) HP
10 71 (2.53%) Red Hat
11 65 (2.31%) IBM
12 58 (2.06%) Dell
13 55 (1.96%) SAP
14 53 (1.89%) Veeam
15 50 (1.78%) Google
16 44 (1.57%) SolarWinds
17 43 (1.53%) AppDynamics
17 43 (1.53%) NetApp
18 41 (1.46%) CyberArk
19 37 (1.32%) Remedy