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

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,898 2,529 3,778
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.71% 8.57% 8.48%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.45% 59.69% 62.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,941 1,715 2,543
10th Percentile £162 £181 £156
25th Percentile £205 £225 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £403 £421 £400
Median % change year-on-year -4.33% +5.25% -9.09%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £640 £675 £655
UK excluding London median daily rate £350 £400 £375
% change year-on-year -12.50% +6.67% -3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 262 104 281
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.28 £12.25
25th Percentile £16.50 £18.13 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.48 £22.50 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -4.53% +26.98% -18.53%
75th Percentile £41.94 £33.81 £26.00
90th Percentile £67.55 £65.00 £61.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £22.00 £17.70
% change year-on-year -2.45% +24.33% -9.26%

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 4,794 4,237 6,039
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.11% 14.36% 13.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,144 2,762 4,028
10th Percentile £180 £200 £180
25th Percentile £280 £314 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £475 £456
Median % change year-on-year -5.89% +4.17% -11.46%
75th Percentile £565 £593 £588
90th Percentile £656 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £440 £430
% change year-on-year -6.25% +2.33% -9.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 353 154 406
10th Percentile £15.04 £16.55 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.00 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.81 £28.00 £22.40
Median % change year-on-year -18.54% +25.00% -15.41%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £59.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £24.66 £22.50
% change year-on-year -8.76% +9.60% -13.04%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 2,557 £408 -1.21% 968
UK excluding London -8 1,940 £350 -12.50% 883
London -19 770 £439 +3.24% 220
Work from Home -19 579 £450 -2.70% 329
South East -2 528 £430 -4.44% 301
North of England -7 491 £272 -22.29% 205
South West -4 267 £450 -14.29% 116
North West -9 265 £261 -27.93% 125
Midlands -14 265 £300 -7.69% 119
East of England +6 215 £235 +4.44% 90
Yorkshire -12 196 £325 -18.75% 64
West Midlands -26 157 £442 +34.02% 59
Scotland -4 134 £425 -2.86% 49
East Midlands +1 105 £200 -20.00% 58
Wales -2 47 £200 -45.21% 14
North East -11 33 £188 -37.50% 23
Northern Ireland -14 8 £175 +9.38% 6
Channel Islands +5 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
1 253 (8.73%) Microsoft Exchange
2 171 (5.90%) SharePoint
3 58 (2.00%) Confluence
4 44 (1.52%) IIS
5 27 (0.93%) Apache
6 22 (0.76%) WebLogic
7 14 (0.48%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.41%) Tomcat
8 12 (0.41%) TPMS
8 12 (0.41%) Tuxedo
9 10 (0.35%) nginx
9 10 (0.35%) SAS
10 8 (0.28%) WebSphere
11 5 (0.17%) NetWeaver
12 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.10%) ArcGIS
13 3 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2010
13 3 (0.10%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 243 (8.39%) Microsoft Office
2 77 (2.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.41%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.069%) InDesign
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.035%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 29 (1.00%) Remedy ITSM
2 16 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.24%) assyst
3 7 (0.24%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.069%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.069%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.069%) 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%) RMDS
7 1 (0.035%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 822 (28.36%) Microsoft 365
2 744 (25.67%) Azure
3 299 (10.32%) Entra ID
4 222 (7.66%) AWS
5 101 (3.49%) OneDrive
6 72 (2.48%) GCP
7 71 (2.45%) SaaS
8 65 (2.24%) Azure DevOps
9 54 (1.86%) Google Workspace
10 50 (1.73%) GitHub
11 49 (1.69%) IaaS
12 42 (1.45%) Power Platform
13 41 (1.41%) PaaS
14 30 (1.04%) Azure Monitor
15 29 (1.00%) Azure Sentinel
16 26 (0.90%) OpenShift
17 25 (0.86%) GitHub Actions
18 24 (0.83%) Nutanix
19 23 (0.79%) AWS CloudFormation
20 17 (0.59%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 392 (13.53%) DNS
2 342 (11.80%) Firewall
3 253 (8.73%) DHCP
4 198 (6.83%) TCP/IP
5 194 (6.69%) VPN
6 165 (5.69%) WAN
7 161 (5.56%) LAN
7 161 (5.56%) Wi-Fi
8 78 (2.69%) Network Security
9 63 (2.17%) VLAN
10 62 (2.14%) Wireless
11 54 (1.86%) SAN
12 40 (1.38%) BGP
12 40 (1.38%) SSL
13 39 (1.35%) HTTP
13 39 (1.35%) Skype
14 38 (1.31%) SSH
15 37 (1.28%) SD-WAN
16 36 (1.24%) VoIP
17 30 (1.04%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (5.87%) SQL Server
2 60 (2.07%) Oracle Database
3 42 (1.45%) Relational Database
4 38 (1.31%) MySQL
5 28 (0.97%) PostgreSQL
6 18 (0.62%) Power BI
7 15 (0.52%) Data Warehouse
7 15 (0.52%) DB2
8 14 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
9 13 (0.45%) BigQuery
10 12 (0.41%) Oracle Reports
11 11 (0.38%) GIS
11 11 (0.38%) MongoDB
12 10 (0.35%) SAP HANA
13 9 (0.31%) NoSQL
14 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
14 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 6 (0.21%) Sybase ASE
15 5 (0.17%) Oracle Database 10g
15 5 (0.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 170 (5.87%) JIRA
2 68 (2.35%) Jenkins
3 66 (2.28%) GitLab
4 61 (2.10%) Git
5 43 (1.48%) MSI
6 34 (1.17%) Visual Studio
7 26 (0.90%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.59%) Burp Suite
8 17 (0.59%) Metasploit
9 16 (0.55%) Android Studio
10 14 (0.48%) Artifactory
10 14 (0.48%) Xcode
11 12 (0.41%) Browser DevTools
12 10 (0.35%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.35%) Chocolatey
13 8 (0.28%) JUnit
13 8 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
14 7 (0.24%) Robot Framework
14 7 (0.24%) Selenium
15 6 (0.21%) Toad
General
1 1,041 (35.92%) Social Skills
2 280 (9.66%) Finance
3 264 (9.11%) Analytical Skills
4 242 (8.35%) Public Sector
5 138 (4.76%) Banking
6 128 (4.42%) Legal
7 116 (4.00%) Documentation Skills
8 84 (2.90%) Organisational Skills
9 60 (2.07%) Military
10 56 (1.93%) Manufacturing
11 43 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
12 37 (1.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 36 (1.24%) Retail
13 36 (1.24%) Telecoms
14 26 (0.90%) Law
15 22 (0.76%) Aerospace
16 21 (0.72%) Investment Banking
17 20 (0.69%) Local Government
18 17 (0.59%) Front Office
19 16 (0.55%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 388 (13.39%) IT Support
2 386 (13.32%) Support Engineer
3 370 (12.77%) Analyst
4 226 (7.80%) IT Engineer
5 188 (6.49%) IT Support Engineer
6 187 (6.45%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 183 (6.31%) Architect
8 161 (5.56%) Senior
9 155 (5.35%) Support Analyst
10 132 (4.55%) Desktop Support
11 119 (4.11%) Windows Engineer
12 115 (3.97%) 2nd Line Support
13 113 (3.90%) Technical Support
14 111 (3.83%) Desktop Engineer
15 110 (3.80%) Developer
16 98 (3.38%) Lead
17 87 (3.00%) IT Analyst
18 81 (2.80%) Desktop Support Engineer
19 77 (2.66%) Deployment Engineer
20 76 (2.62%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (3.00%) .NET
2 72 (2.48%) REST
3 54 (1.86%) LDAP
4 49 (1.69%) .NET Framework
4 49 (1.69%) SAML
5 48 (1.66%) OAuth
6 38 (1.31%) Middleware
7 33 (1.14%) Kafka
8 32 (1.10%) Web Services
9 29 (1.00%) WPF
10 28 (0.97%) OpenID
11 26 (0.90%) CSS
11 26 (0.90%) Microsoft Graph
12 25 (0.86%) AngularJS
12 25 (0.86%) React
12 25 (0.86%) WinForms
13 22 (0.76%) 802.1X
14 21 (0.72%) Node.js
14 21 (0.72%) OAuth2
15 19 (0.66%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 191 (6.59%) Onboarding
2 127 (4.38%) Data Centre
3 107 (3.69%) PKI
4 91 (3.14%) Driving Licence
5 86 (2.97%) Enterprise Software
6 74 (2.55%) Self-Motivation
7 59 (2.04%) Smartphone
8 54 (1.86%) Clustering
9 51 (1.76%) Management Information System
10 48 (1.66%) Replication
11 45 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
12 44 (1.52%) Security Posture
13 41 (1.41%) Hybrid Cloud
14 38 (1.31%) Product Ownership
15 37 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
16 36 (1.24%) Security Operations Centre
17 35 (1.21%) CMDB
17 35 (1.21%) Virtual Team
18 34 (1.17%) NHS
19 31 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 699 (24.12%) Linux
2 630 (21.74%) Windows Server
3 579 (19.98%) Windows 10
4 158 (5.45%) Unix
5 152 (5.24%) Android
6 151 (5.21%) Mac OS
7 118 (4.07%) Apple iOS
8 89 (3.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 71 (2.45%) Windows Server 2016
10 58 (2.00%) Windows Server 2019
11 51 (1.76%) Windows 7
12 38 (1.31%) Windows Server 2012
13 33 (1.14%) AIX
14 31 (1.07%) Windows Server 2003
15 18 (0.62%) Solaris
16 15 (0.52%) Windows Server 2008
17 14 (0.48%) Ubuntu
17 14 (0.48%) VMS
18 11 (0.38%) Mac OS X
19 8 (0.28%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 574 (19.81%) Problem-Solving
2 485 (16.74%) Customer Service
3 417 (14.39%) ITIL
4 317 (10.94%) Agile
5 300 (10.35%) Migration
6 278 (9.59%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 252 (8.70%) DevOps
8 234 (8.07%) CI/CD
9 229 (7.90%) ITSM
10 222 (7.66%) Cybersecurity
11 202 (6.97%) Service Management
12 198 (6.83%) Continuous Improvement
13 168 (5.80%) Change Management
14 166 (5.73%) Disaster Recovery
15 145 (5.00%) Stakeholder Management
16 139 (4.80%) High Availability
16 139 (4.80%) Service Delivery
17 132 (4.55%) SIEM
18 130 (4.49%) User Experience
19 129 (4.45%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 591 (20.39%) PowerShell
2 326 (11.25%) Python
3 262 (9.04%) SQL
4 128 (4.42%) C#
5 123 (4.24%) Bash
6 103 (3.55%) Java
7 77 (2.66%) JavaScript
8 58 (2.00%) C++
8 58 (2.00%) PL/SQL
9 57 (1.97%) Perl
10 40 (1.38%) T-SQL
11 32 (1.10%) Kusto Query Language
12 24 (0.83%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.83%) VB
13 23 (0.79%) VBScript
14 15 (0.52%) VBA
15 14 (0.48%) Bicep
16 13 (0.45%) Go
17 11 (0.38%) C
17 11 (0.38%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 886 (30.57%) Security Cleared
2 589 (20.32%) SC Cleared
3 301 (10.39%) Degree
4 251 (8.66%) DV Cleared
5 134 (4.62%) Microsoft Certification
6 93 (3.21%) Computer Science Degree
7 67 (2.31%) Cisco Certification
8 47 (1.62%) Azure Certification
9 46 (1.59%) MCSE
10 44 (1.52%) CISSP
11 43 (1.48%) ITIL Certification
12 39 (1.35%) CompTIA Security+
13 38 (1.31%) BPSS Clearance
14 35 (1.21%) CCNA
15 32 (1.10%) AWS Certification
16 29 (1.00%) A+ Certification
16 29 (1.00%) CCNP
17 23 (0.79%) MCSA
18 22 (0.76%) Microsoft Certified Professional
18 22 (0.76%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (3.55%) GDPR
2 98 (3.38%) SLA
3 88 (3.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 84 (2.90%) QA
5 58 (2.00%) NIST
6 42 (1.45%) PCI DSS
7 26 (0.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 18 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.55%) PMO
10 14 (0.48%) NCSC
11 13 (0.45%) MiFID
12 12 (0.41%) GLBA
13 10 (0.35%) FINRA
14 9 (0.31%) NIST 800
15 8 (0.28%) Data Quality
15 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
16 7 (0.24%) HIPAA
17 6 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
18 5 (0.17%) COBIT
18 5 (0.17%) GxP
System Software
1 1,065 (36.75%) Active Directory
2 287 (9.90%) VMware Infrastructure
3 117 (4.04%) Hyper-V
4 113 (3.90%) Docker
5 67 (2.31%) vSphere
6 60 (2.07%) Virtual Machines
7 56 (1.93%) Virtual Desktop
7 56 (1.93%) VMware ESXi
8 32 (1.10%) VMware NSX
9 30 (1.04%) Firmware
10 28 (0.97%) BitLocker
11 26 (0.90%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.55%) KVM
13 9 (0.31%) XenApp
13 9 (0.31%) XenDesktop
14 8 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
15 7 (0.24%) Terminal Services
15 7 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
16 5 (0.17%) etcd
16 5 (0.17%) NDS
Systems Management
1 372 (12.84%) Microsoft Intune
2 341 (11.77%) SCCM
3 177 (6.11%) Terraform
4 173 (5.97%) Ansible
5 139 (4.80%) Kubernetes
6 81 (2.80%) Single Sign-On
7 69 (2.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 59 (2.04%) vCenter Server
9 43 (1.48%) Jamf Pro
10 39 (1.35%) Grafana
11 37 (1.28%) FortiGate
12 30 (1.04%) Prometheus
12 30 (1.04%) WSUS
13 24 (0.83%) SCOM
14 21 (0.72%) Progress Chef
15 17 (0.59%) Nessus
15 17 (0.59%) Puppet
15 17 (0.59%) WMI
16 16 (0.55%) Nmap
17 13 (0.45%) Nagios
Vendors
1 1,238 (42.72%) Microsoft
2 397 (13.70%) VMware
3 252 (8.70%) ServiceNow
4 207 (7.14%) Citrix
5 190 (6.56%) Oracle
6 180 (6.21%) Cisco
7 152 (5.24%) Splunk
8 84 (2.90%) HP
9 74 (2.55%) Dell
10 68 (2.35%) Red Hat
11 64 (2.21%) SolarWinds
12 62 (2.14%) Google
13 60 (2.07%) Apple
14 53 (1.83%) IBM
15 45 (1.55%) Juniper
15 45 (1.55%) Remedy
16 44 (1.52%) SAP
16 44 (1.52%) Veeam
17 41 (1.41%) Palo Alto
18 39 (1.35%) F5