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 19 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,854 2,494 3,772
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.58% 8.52% 8.49%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.31% 59.37% 62.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,909 1,710 2,547
10th Percentile £162 £181 £155
25th Percentile £206 £227 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £408 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -4.12% +6.25% -9.60%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £640 £675 £668
UK excluding London median daily rate £363 £400 £375
% change year-on-year -9.38% +6.67% -6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 256 108 278
10th Percentile £13.83 £15.25 £12.25
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.95 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.46 £22.09 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -2.85% +24.66% -19.45%
75th Percentile £41.94 £29.00 £25.00
90th Percentile £67.84 £65.00 £61.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.25 £21.80 £17.60
% change year-on-year -2.50% +23.87% -8.74%

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 4,732 4,201 6,020
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.92% 14.34% 13.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,100 2,767 4,026
10th Percentile £181 £200 £180
25th Percentile £290 £320 £281
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £459
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +3.49% -10.87%
75th Percentile £569 £591 £588
90th Percentile £660 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £415 £450 £430
% change year-on-year -7.78% +4.65% -9.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 346 159 403
10th Percentile £14.50 £16.45 £13.26
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.51 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.68 £27.50 £22.15
Median % change year-on-year -17.53% +24.15% -16.42%
75th Percentile £57.25 £63.75 £59.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £24.66 £22.00
% change year-on-year -8.76% +12.09% -15.38%

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 19 March 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 19 March 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 19 March 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 -5 2,511 £408 -1.81% 966
UK excluding London -9 1,909 £363 -9.38% 879
London -19 757 £430 +1.18% 218
Work from Home -20 574 £450 -2.70% 345
South East -3 529 £450 -4.00% 282
North of England -8 472 £290 -17.14% 208
Midlands -16 261 £325 - 120
South West -5 258 £450 -16.08% 118
North West -8 254 £261 -27.93% 129
East of England +6 215 £240 +6.19% 96
Yorkshire -11 191 £355 -11.25% 65
West Midlands -25 154 £447 +35.45% 63
Scotland -6 133 £425 -1.16% 50
East Midlands -3 104 £200 -20.00% 57
Wales -2 48 £200 -33.61% 15
North East -8 30 £184 -38.75% 21
Northern Ireland -16 8 £175 +9.38% 8
Channel Islands +4 1 - - 1

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
1 246 (8.62%) Microsoft Exchange
2 165 (5.78%) SharePoint
3 57 (2.00%) Confluence
4 45 (1.58%) IIS
5 26 (0.91%) Apache
6 22 (0.77%) WebLogic
7 13 (0.46%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.42%) Tomcat
8 12 (0.42%) TPMS
8 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
9 11 (0.39%) SAS
10 10 (0.35%) nginx
11 6 (0.21%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.21%) WebSphere
12 5 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.11%) ArcGIS
14 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
14 3 (0.11%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 233 (8.16%) Microsoft Office
2 69 (2.42%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.42%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
7 3 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 29 (1.02%) Remedy ITSM
2 17 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.25%) assyst
3 7 (0.25%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.070%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.070%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.070%) SystmOne
7 1 (0.035%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.035%) Eikon
7 1 (0.035%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.035%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 805 (28.21%) Microsoft 365
2 737 (25.82%) Azure
3 295 (10.34%) Entra ID
4 217 (7.60%) AWS
5 97 (3.40%) OneDrive
6 71 (2.49%) GCP
7 69 (2.42%) SaaS
8 64 (2.24%) Azure DevOps
9 54 (1.89%) Google Workspace
10 47 (1.65%) GitHub
10 47 (1.65%) IaaS
11 41 (1.44%) Power Platform
12 40 (1.40%) PaaS
13 33 (1.16%) Azure Monitor
14 30 (1.05%) Azure Sentinel
15 25 (0.88%) OpenShift
16 24 (0.84%) AWS CloudFormation
16 24 (0.84%) GitHub Actions
17 23 (0.81%) Nutanix
18 17 (0.60%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 385 (13.49%) DNS
2 334 (11.70%) Firewall
3 248 (8.69%) DHCP
4 191 (6.69%) VPN
5 188 (6.59%) TCP/IP
6 166 (5.82%) WAN
7 163 (5.71%) LAN
8 161 (5.64%) Wi-Fi
9 78 (2.73%) Network Security
10 61 (2.14%) VLAN
11 60 (2.10%) Wireless
12 56 (1.96%) SAN
13 40 (1.40%) BGP
14 39 (1.37%) SSL
15 38 (1.33%) Skype
16 37 (1.30%) SSH
17 36 (1.26%) SD-WAN
17 36 (1.26%) VoIP
18 34 (1.19%) HTTP
19 30 (1.05%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 168 (5.89%) SQL Server
2 57 (2.00%) Oracle Database
3 39 (1.37%) Relational Database
4 37 (1.30%) MySQL
5 25 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
6 17 (0.60%) Power BI
7 16 (0.56%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (0.49%) DB2
8 14 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
9 13 (0.46%) BigQuery
10 12 (0.42%) MongoDB
10 12 (0.42%) Oracle Reports
11 11 (0.39%) SAP HANA
12 10 (0.35%) GIS
13 9 (0.32%) NoSQL
14 7 (0.25%) Sybase ASE
15 6 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
15 6 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
15 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
15 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 169 (5.92%) JIRA
2 66 (2.31%) Jenkins
3 65 (2.28%) GitLab
4 57 (2.00%) Git
5 41 (1.44%) MSI
6 34 (1.19%) Visual Studio
7 25 (0.88%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.60%) Burp Suite
8 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
9 15 (0.53%) Android Studio
10 14 (0.49%) Artifactory
11 13 (0.46%) Xcode
12 11 (0.39%) Browser DevTools
13 10 (0.35%) Bitbucket
13 10 (0.35%) Chocolatey
14 9 (0.32%) InstallShield
15 8 (0.28%) JUnit
16 7 (0.25%) Robot Framework
16 7 (0.25%) Selenium
17 6 (0.21%) Toad
General
1 1,024 (35.88%) Social Skills
2 270 (9.46%) Finance
3 260 (9.11%) Analytical Skills
4 243 (8.51%) Public Sector
5 134 (4.70%) Banking
6 130 (4.56%) Legal
7 112 (3.92%) Documentation Skills
8 84 (2.94%) Organisational Skills
9 60 (2.10%) Military
10 56 (1.96%) Manufacturing
11 43 (1.51%) Presentation Skills
12 37 (1.30%) Telecoms
13 36 (1.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 36 (1.26%) Retail
14 26 (0.91%) Law
15 21 (0.74%) Investment Banking
16 20 (0.70%) Aerospace
17 19 (0.67%) Local Government
18 17 (0.60%) Front Office
19 15 (0.53%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 380 (13.31%) IT Support
2 377 (13.21%) Support Engineer
3 363 (12.72%) Analyst
4 222 (7.78%) IT Engineer
5 185 (6.48%) Architect
6 184 (6.45%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 184 (6.45%) IT Support Engineer
7 161 (5.64%) Senior
8 153 (5.36%) Support Analyst
9 125 (4.38%) Desktop Support
10 111 (3.89%) Technical Support
10 111 (3.89%) Windows Engineer
11 109 (3.82%) Developer
12 108 (3.78%) 2nd Line Support
13 102 (3.57%) Desktop Engineer
14 95 (3.33%) Lead
15 86 (3.01%) IT Analyst
16 79 (2.77%) Consultant
17 74 (2.59%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 73 (2.56%) Deployment Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (3.05%) .NET
2 71 (2.49%) REST
3 53 (1.86%) LDAP
4 50 (1.75%) .NET Framework
5 48 (1.68%) SAML
6 47 (1.65%) OAuth
7 36 (1.26%) Middleware
8 32 (1.12%) Kafka
9 31 (1.09%) Web Services
10 27 (0.95%) Microsoft Graph
10 27 (0.95%) OpenID
10 27 (0.95%) WPF
11 25 (0.88%) WinForms
12 24 (0.84%) CSS
12 24 (0.84%) React
13 23 (0.81%) AngularJS
14 22 (0.77%) 802.1X
15 21 (0.74%) OAuth2
16 20 (0.70%) Node.js
17 19 (0.67%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 194 (6.80%) Onboarding
2 124 (4.34%) Data Centre
3 107 (3.75%) PKI
4 89 (3.12%) Driving Licence
5 85 (2.98%) Enterprise Software
6 68 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
7 54 (1.89%) Clustering
8 53 (1.86%) Management Information System
9 51 (1.79%) Smartphone
10 49 (1.72%) Replication
11 47 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
12 43 (1.51%) Hybrid Cloud
12 43 (1.51%) Security Posture
13 40 (1.40%) Product Ownership
14 37 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
15 36 (1.26%) CMDB
15 36 (1.26%) Security Operations Centre
16 35 (1.23%) Virtual Team
17 34 (1.19%) NHS
18 28 (0.98%) Cloud Native
Operating Systems
1 695 (24.35%) Linux
2 631 (22.11%) Windows Server
3 561 (19.66%) Windows 10
4 159 (5.57%) Unix
5 151 (5.29%) Mac OS
6 150 (5.26%) Android
7 114 (3.99%) Apple iOS
8 90 (3.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 73 (2.56%) Windows Server 2016
10 61 (2.14%) Windows Server 2019
11 51 (1.79%) Windows 7
12 38 (1.33%) Windows Server 2012
13 35 (1.23%) AIX
14 31 (1.09%) Windows Server 2003
15 18 (0.63%) Solaris
16 15 (0.53%) Ubuntu
16 15 (0.53%) Windows Server 2008
17 14 (0.49%) VMS
18 10 (0.35%) Mac OS X
19 8 (0.28%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 571 (20.01%) Problem-Solving
2 469 (16.43%) Customer Service
3 408 (14.30%) ITIL
4 313 (10.97%) Agile
5 300 (10.51%) Migration
6 275 (9.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 252 (8.83%) DevOps
8 229 (8.02%) CI/CD
9 227 (7.95%) ITSM
10 219 (7.67%) Cybersecurity
11 199 (6.97%) Continuous Improvement
12 197 (6.90%) Service Management
13 172 (6.03%) Change Management
14 169 (5.92%) Disaster Recovery
15 143 (5.01%) Stakeholder Management
16 142 (4.98%) High Availability
17 131 (4.59%) SIEM
18 130 (4.56%) Service Delivery
19 126 (4.41%) Computer Science
20 123 (4.31%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 592 (20.74%) PowerShell
2 320 (11.21%) Python
3 255 (8.93%) SQL
4 124 (4.34%) C#
5 121 (4.24%) Bash
6 99 (3.47%) Java
7 76 (2.66%) JavaScript
8 58 (2.03%) C++
8 58 (2.03%) PL/SQL
9 56 (1.96%) Perl
10 39 (1.37%) T-SQL
11 32 (1.12%) Kusto Query Language
12 24 (0.84%) Shell Script
13 23 (0.81%) VB
14 21 (0.74%) VBScript
15 14 (0.49%) Bicep
15 14 (0.49%) VBA
16 13 (0.46%) Go
17 12 (0.42%) Search Processing Language
18 11 (0.39%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 885 (31.01%) Security Cleared
2 590 (20.67%) SC Cleared
3 293 (10.27%) Degree
4 252 (8.83%) DV Cleared
5 129 (4.52%) Microsoft Certification
6 90 (3.15%) Computer Science Degree
7 66 (2.31%) Cisco Certification
8 46 (1.61%) MCSE
9 45 (1.58%) Azure Certification
10 43 (1.51%) ITIL Certification
11 42 (1.47%) CISSP
12 38 (1.33%) BPSS Clearance
12 38 (1.33%) CompTIA Security+
13 33 (1.16%) CCNA
14 32 (1.12%) AWS Certification
15 29 (1.02%) CCNP
16 28 (0.98%) A+ Certification
17 22 (0.77%) MCSA
18 21 (0.74%) Microsoft Certified Professional
18 21 (0.74%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (3.29%) GDPR
2 92 (3.22%) SLA
3 87 (3.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 86 (3.01%) QA
5 60 (2.10%) NIST
6 43 (1.51%) PCI DSS
7 24 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 19 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.56%) PMO
10 15 (0.53%) NCSC
11 13 (0.46%) MiFID
12 12 (0.42%) GLBA
13 10 (0.35%) FINRA
14 9 (0.32%) NIST 800
15 8 (0.28%) Data Quality
15 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
16 5 (0.18%) GMP
16 5 (0.18%) GxP
16 5 (0.18%) HIPAA
17 4 (0.14%) DICOM
System Software
1 1,049 (36.76%) Active Directory
2 293 (10.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 118 (4.13%) Hyper-V
4 108 (3.78%) Docker
5 68 (2.38%) vSphere
6 58 (2.03%) Virtual Machines
7 57 (2.00%) VMware ESXi
8 56 (1.96%) Virtual Desktop
9 34 (1.19%) VMware NSX
10 30 (1.05%) Firmware
11 28 (0.98%) BitLocker
12 24 (0.84%) Microsoft App-V
13 16 (0.56%) KVM
14 9 (0.32%) XenApp
14 9 (0.32%) XenDesktop
15 8 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
16 7 (0.25%) Terminal Services
17 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
18 5 (0.18%) etcd
19 4 (0.14%) Snort
Systems Management
1 366 (12.82%) Microsoft Intune
2 329 (11.53%) SCCM
3 177 (6.20%) Terraform
4 174 (6.10%) Ansible
5 135 (4.73%) Kubernetes
6 79 (2.77%) Single Sign-On
7 69 (2.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 58 (2.03%) vCenter Server
9 45 (1.58%) Jamf Pro
10 38 (1.33%) Grafana
11 36 (1.26%) FortiGate
12 30 (1.05%) Prometheus
12 30 (1.05%) WSUS
13 23 (0.81%) SCOM
14 21 (0.74%) Progress Chef
15 17 (0.60%) Nessus
15 17 (0.60%) Puppet
15 17 (0.60%) WMI
16 16 (0.56%) Nmap
17 15 (0.53%) Nagios
Vendors
1 1,224 (42.89%) Microsoft
2 399 (13.98%) VMware
3 242 (8.48%) ServiceNow
4 206 (7.22%) Citrix
5 186 (6.52%) Oracle
6 178 (6.24%) Cisco
7 152 (5.33%) Splunk
8 87 (3.05%) HP
9 72 (2.52%) Dell
10 68 (2.38%) Red Hat
11 64 (2.24%) SolarWinds
12 62 (2.17%) Google
13 61 (2.14%) Apple
14 54 (1.89%) IBM
15 45 (1.58%) Remedy
15 45 (1.58%) SAP
16 44 (1.54%) Juniper
17 43 (1.51%) Veeam
18 41 (1.44%) Palo Alto
19 38 (1.33%) F5