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 7 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 3,066 2,612 3,599
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.89% 8.21% 8.32%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.11% 59.98% 60.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,967 1,743 2,414
10th Percentile £163 £181 £165
25th Percentile £223 £236 £240
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.56%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £663 £662
UK excluding London median daily rate £415 £400 £430
% change year-on-year +3.75% -6.98% +9.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 262 188 297
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.12 £12.00
25th Percentile £17.61 £16.95 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.13 £18.87 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.17% -5.65% -15.42%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.84 £64.13 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £18.07
% change year-on-year +36.46% +4.46% -17.89%

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 5,017 4,355 5,922
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.64% 13.68% 13.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,208 2,818 3,879
10th Percentile £190 £200 £190
25th Percentile £313 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -2.11% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £580 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £693
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £461
% change year-on-year - -2.44% +2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 339 226 433
10th Percentile £15.30 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.53 £16.25
Median hourly rate £26.00 £22.78 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.14% -8.88% -41.18%
75th Percentile £63.75 £43.35 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £65.88 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £19.07 £35.58
% change year-on-year +35.13% -46.41% +18.61%

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 7 July 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 7 July 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 7 July 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 -6 2,678 £425 +2.37% 1,132
UK excluding London -12 2,018 £415 +3.75% 1,010
London -18 878 £425 -2.86% 302
Work from Home -9 649 £475 +0.53% 448
South East -8 543 £475 -3.06% 308
North of England -6 477 £363 +3.57% 228
Midlands -15 280 £338 +12.50% 139
South West -12 261 £488 +8.33% 149
North West -5 254 £363 - 125
East of England -1 221 £300 +18.90% 103
Yorkshire -12 202 £365 -8.75% 74
West Midlands -24 177 £450 +50.00% 64
Scotland -1 175 £419 -4.29% 49
East Midlands +8 98 £270 +35.00% 75
Wales +9 57 £390 +35.65% 29
North East -39 25 £275 -4.35% 37
Northern Ireland -2 16 £139 -28.97% 42
Channel Islands +3 3 £518 - 2

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
1 240 (7.83%) Microsoft Exchange
2 203 (6.62%) SharePoint
3 61 (1.99%) IIS
4 57 (1.86%) Confluence
5 19 (0.62%) Tomcat
6 18 (0.59%) Apache
7 17 (0.55%) nginx
8 14 (0.46%) Skype for Business
9 13 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
10 10 (0.33%) WebLogic
11 9 (0.29%) HCL Notes
11 9 (0.29%) NetWeaver
12 7 (0.23%) Appian
13 6 (0.20%) Documentum
14 5 (0.16%) Camunda
14 5 (0.16%) SAS
15 4 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 3 (0.098%) CloudStack
16 3 (0.098%) Exchange Server 2010
16 3 (0.098%) WebSphere
Applications
1 188 (6.13%) Microsoft Office
2 67 (2.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 21 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.20%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.16%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.098%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.033%) Acrobat
8 1 (0.033%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.033%) Houdini
8 1 (0.033%) InDesign
8 1 (0.033%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 43 (1.40%) Remedy ITSM
2 20 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.39%) Teamcenter
4 10 (0.33%) Finacle
5 6 (0.20%) OpenText MBPM
5 6 (0.20%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.098%) assyst
6 3 (0.098%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.033%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.033%) Dynamics GP
7 1 (0.033%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.033%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.033%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.033%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.033%) SAP EWM
7 1 (0.033%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 918 (29.94%) Azure
2 865 (28.21%) Microsoft 365
3 402 (13.11%) Entra ID
4 311 (10.14%) AWS
5 119 (3.88%) OneDrive
6 94 (3.07%) GCP
7 89 (2.90%) Azure DevOps
8 77 (2.51%) SaaS
9 67 (2.19%) GitHub
10 64 (2.09%) Power Platform
11 62 (2.02%) IaaS
12 54 (1.76%) Azure Monitor
12 54 (1.76%) PaaS
13 39 (1.27%) OpenShift
14 38 (1.24%) Azure Sentinel
15 32 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
16 30 (0.98%) Google Workspace
17 28 (0.91%) AWS CloudFormation
18 24 (0.78%) Amazon EC2
18 24 (0.78%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 432 (14.09%) DNS
2 312 (10.18%) Firewall
3 292 (9.52%) DHCP
4 231 (7.53%) VPN
5 185 (6.03%) TCP/IP
6 183 (5.97%) LAN
6 183 (5.97%) WAN
7 150 (4.89%) Wi-Fi
8 98 (3.20%) SAN
9 70 (2.28%) Network Security
10 62 (2.02%) VLAN
11 48 (1.57%) BGP
12 46 (1.50%) NAS
13 45 (1.47%) SSL
14 44 (1.44%) Internet
15 42 (1.37%) SD-WAN
16 38 (1.24%) OSPF
16 38 (1.24%) VoIP
17 36 (1.17%) Wireless
18 33 (1.08%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 262 (8.55%) SQL Server
2 62 (2.02%) Oracle Database
3 42 (1.37%) Power BI
4 34 (1.11%) Relational Database
5 30 (0.98%) PostgreSQL
6 28 (0.91%) MySQL
7 20 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
8 19 (0.62%) Db2
8 19 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 18 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
10 14 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
10 14 (0.46%) NoSQL
10 14 (0.46%) RDBMS
11 11 (0.36%) MongoDB
12 10 (0.33%) GIS
12 10 (0.33%) Oracle Reports
13 9 (0.29%) SAP HANA
14 8 (0.26%) Azure SQL Database
14 8 (0.26%) Oracle BI EE
14 8 (0.26%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 185 (6.03%) JIRA
2 60 (1.96%) Git
3 55 (1.79%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.53%) MSI
5 43 (1.40%) GitLab
6 37 (1.21%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.55%) Eclipse
8 9 (0.29%) Chocolatey
9 8 (0.26%) Bitbucket
9 8 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (0.23%) Browser DevTools
11 6 (0.20%) Android Studio
11 6 (0.20%) Artifactory
11 6 (0.20%) InstallShield
11 6 (0.20%) Xcode
12 5 (0.16%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.16%) Maven
12 5 (0.16%) Selenium
13 4 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
13 4 (0.13%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,080 (35.23%) Social Skills
2 344 (11.22%) Analytical Skills
3 325 (10.60%) Finance
4 213 (6.95%) Public Sector
5 153 (4.99%) Banking
6 114 (3.72%) Legal
7 107 (3.49%) Documentation Skills
8 87 (2.84%) Organisational Skills
9 62 (2.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 53 (1.73%) Retail
11 44 (1.44%) Military
12 42 (1.37%) Manufacturing
13 37 (1.21%) Front Office
14 35 (1.14%) Investment Banking
15 33 (1.08%) Telecoms
16 31 (1.01%) Law
17 25 (0.82%) Presentation Skills
17 25 (0.82%) Spanish Language
18 22 (0.72%) French Language
19 19 (0.62%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 416 (13.57%) Support Engineer
2 396 (12.92%) IT Support
3 298 (9.72%) Analyst
4 281 (9.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 275 (8.97%) IT Engineer
6 230 (7.50%) IT Support Engineer
7 193 (6.29%) Senior
8 151 (4.92%) Architect
9 123 (4.01%) Desktop Support
10 115 (3.75%) 2nd Line Support
11 113 (3.69%) Developer
12 111 (3.62%) Lead
13 109 (3.56%) Desktop Engineer
14 106 (3.46%) Support Analyst
15 95 (3.10%) Consultant
16 93 (3.03%) IT Analyst
17 92 (3.00%) Cloud Engineer
17 92 (3.00%) Windows Engineer
18 84 (2.74%) Service Analyst
19 81 (2.64%) Service Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (3.65%) .NET
2 107 (3.49%) REST
3 65 (2.12%) .NET Framework
4 44 (1.44%) LDAP
5 35 (1.14%) Middleware
5 35 (1.14%) SAML
6 31 (1.01%) 802.1X
7 29 (0.95%) Microsoft Graph
7 29 (0.95%) Software Packaging
7 29 (0.95%) WPF
8 28 (0.91%) Web Services
8 28 (0.91%) WinForms
9 26 (0.85%) Kafka
10 25 (0.82%) Elastic Stack
10 25 (0.82%) OAuth
11 22 (0.72%) CSS
12 20 (0.65%) RESTful
13 19 (0.62%) JSON
14 17 (0.55%) HTML
14 17 (0.55%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 291 (9.49%) Onboarding
2 159 (5.19%) Data Centre
3 142 (4.63%) PKI
4 88 (2.87%) Enterprise Software
5 80 (2.61%) Clustering
6 76 (2.48%) Management Information System
7 73 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
8 68 (2.22%) Driving Licence
9 66 (2.15%) Replication
10 65 (2.12%) Cloud Native
11 58 (1.89%) Legacy Systems
12 53 (1.73%) Security Posture
13 51 (1.66%) Hybrid Cloud
13 51 (1.66%) Virtual Team
14 42 (1.37%) Video Conferencing
15 40 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
16 35 (1.14%) Smartphone
17 34 (1.11%) Linux Command Line
18 33 (1.08%) Operational Technology
19 31 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 754 (24.59%) Windows Server
2 744 (24.27%) Linux
3 505 (16.47%) Windows 10
4 195 (6.36%) Mac OS
5 161 (5.25%) Unix
6 140 (4.57%) Apple iOS
7 139 (4.53%) Android
8 117 (3.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 81 (2.64%) Windows Server 2019
10 60 (1.96%) Windows Server 2016
11 51 (1.66%) Windows 7
12 40 (1.30%) Windows Server 2012
13 36 (1.17%) AIX
14 35 (1.14%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.78%) Solaris
16 22 (0.72%) VMS
17 17 (0.55%) CentOS
17 17 (0.55%) Windows Server 2008
18 16 (0.52%) Windows Server 2003
19 9 (0.29%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 686 (22.37%) Problem-Solving
2 486 (15.85%) ITIL
3 451 (14.71%) Customer Service
4 362 (11.81%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 359 (11.71%) Migration
6 325 (10.60%) ITSM
7 291 (9.49%) DevOps
8 272 (8.87%) Agile
9 262 (8.55%) Continuous Improvement
10 254 (8.28%) CI/CD
11 227 (7.40%) Service Management
12 217 (7.08%) High Availability
13 194 (6.33%) Change Management
14 187 (6.10%) Infrastructure as Code
15 174 (5.68%) Disaster Recovery
16 172 (5.61%) Stakeholder Management
17 170 (5.54%) Service Delivery
18 161 (5.25%) Cybersecurity
19 150 (4.89%) Validation
20 148 (4.83%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 642 (20.94%) PowerShell
2 311 (10.14%) Python
3 297 (9.69%) SQL
4 142 (4.63%) C#
5 125 (4.08%) Bash
6 76 (2.48%) Java
7 67 (2.19%) JavaScript
8 56 (1.83%) PL/SQL
8 56 (1.83%) T-SQL
9 51 (1.66%) C++
10 27 (0.88%) Perl
11 25 (0.82%) VB
12 24 (0.78%) Bicep
12 24 (0.78%) Search Processing Language
13 21 (0.68%) Shell Script
13 21 (0.68%) VBScript
14 20 (0.65%) Kusto Query Language
15 16 (0.52%) TypeScript
16 15 (0.49%) VBA
17 14 (0.46%) C
Qualifications
1 899 (29.32%) Security Cleared
2 582 (18.98%) SC Cleared
3 312 (10.18%) Degree
4 278 (9.07%) DV Cleared
5 122 (3.98%) Microsoft Certification
6 101 (3.29%) Cisco Certification
7 82 (2.67%) Computer Science Degree
8 65 (2.12%) CISSP
9 59 (1.92%) Azure Certification
10 54 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
11 48 (1.57%) AWS Certification
11 48 (1.57%) MCSE
12 45 (1.47%) CCNA
13 35 (1.14%) CCNP
14 31 (1.01%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 30 (0.98%) ITIL Certification
16 29 (0.95%) A+ Certification
17 28 (0.91%) CompTIA Security+
18 25 (0.82%) DBS Check
18 25 (0.82%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 128 (4.17%) SLA
2 121 (3.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 90 (2.94%) NIST
3 90 (2.94%) QA
4 57 (1.86%) GDPR
5 31 (1.01%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 30 (0.98%) PCI DSS
7 27 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials
8 22 (0.72%) NCSC
9 14 (0.46%) Data Quality
9 14 (0.46%) Disclosure Scotland
10 12 (0.39%) PMO
11 11 (0.36%) Accessibility
11 11 (0.36%) HIPAA
12 10 (0.33%) GRC
12 10 (0.33%) NIST 800
12 10 (0.33%) SOC 2
13 8 (0.26%) GMP
13 8 (0.26%) GxP
13 8 (0.26%) WCAG
System Software
1 1,166 (38.03%) Active Directory
2 395 (12.88%) VMware Infrastructure
3 158 (5.15%) Hyper-V
4 125 (4.08%) VMware ESXi
5 110 (3.59%) vSphere
6 105 (3.42%) Virtual Machines
7 93 (3.03%) Docker
8 75 (2.45%) Virtual Desktop
9 61 (1.99%) VMware NSX
10 40 (1.30%) Firmware
11 38 (1.24%) BitLocker
12 28 (0.91%) Microsoft App-V
13 17 (0.55%) KVM
14 14 (0.46%) vCloud
15 9 (0.29%) NFS
15 9 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
15 9 (0.29%) XenDesktop
16 8 (0.26%) VMware Workstation
16 8 (0.26%) XenApp
17 7 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 415 (13.54%) Microsoft Intune
2 275 (8.97%) SCCM
3 209 (6.82%) Terraform
4 197 (6.43%) Ansible
5 151 (4.92%) Kubernetes
6 99 (3.23%) vCenter Server
7 57 (1.86%) Jamf Pro
8 55 (1.79%) Single Sign-On
9 54 (1.76%) SCOM
10 42 (1.37%) FortiGate
11 40 (1.30%) WSUS
12 37 (1.21%) Progress Chef
13 34 (1.11%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 34 (1.11%) Grafana
13 34 (1.11%) Prometheus
14 30 (0.98%) Puppet
15 25 (0.82%) Nagios
16 22 (0.72%) ZABBIX
17 21 (0.68%) Nessus
17 21 (0.68%) Packer
Vendors
1 1,310 (42.73%) Microsoft
2 511 (16.67%) VMware
3 294 (9.59%) ServiceNow
4 219 (7.14%) Cisco
5 207 (6.75%) Citrix
6 191 (6.23%) Oracle
7 138 (4.50%) Splunk
8 85 (2.77%) Apple
9 82 (2.67%) SolarWinds
10 80 (2.61%) HP
11 73 (2.38%) Dell
12 72 (2.35%) Red Hat
13 69 (2.25%) CyberArk
14 67 (2.19%) Google
15 61 (1.99%) BeyondTrust
16 59 (1.92%) F5
17 54 (1.76%) IBM
17 54 (1.76%) Remedy
18 52 (1.70%) Juniper
19 46 (1.50%) Palo Alto