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 8 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 22 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -6 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,874 2,602 3,985
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.35% 8.37% 8.82%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.40% 58.68% 62.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,990 1,685 2,689
10th Percentile £161 £181 £158
25th Percentile £204 £221 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.05%
75th Percentile £538 £556 £575
90th Percentile £639 £650 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £328 £365 £370
% change year-on-year -10.27% -1.35% -4.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 258 101 271
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.67 £18.13 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.00 £23.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +15.00% -8.05%
75th Percentile £42.55 £34.29 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.84 £65.00 £62.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.65 £22.69 £18.50
% change year-on-year -4.57% +22.64% -4.05%

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 4,758 4,434 6,376
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.16% 14.26% 14.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,172 2,757 4,294
10th Percentile £176 £197 £181
25th Percentile £263 £313 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £439 £475 £465
Median % change year-on-year -7.63% +2.15% -9.71%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £595
90th Percentile £675 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £403 £425 £425
% change year-on-year -5.29% - -9.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 338 155 399
10th Percentile £14.70 £16.16 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.05 £21.00 £16.89
Median hourly rate £23.79 £31.08 £25.25
Median % change year-on-year -23.46% +23.09% -1.79%
75th Percentile £55.64 £64.75 £62.00
90th Percentile £69.99 £69.50 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.69 £28.00 £25.06
% change year-on-year -18.96% +11.74% -0.80%

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 8 February 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 8 February 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 8 February 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 +1 2,558 £390 -2.50% 1,085
UK excluding London -2 1,938 £328 -10.27% 1,018
London -14 759 £450 +12.50% 236
Work from Home -10 583 £425 -5.56% 342
South East -1 500 £400 -5.88% 360
North of England -6 460 £263 -25.00% 229
South West +2 313 £425 +3.22% 119
Midlands -5 296 £275 -15.38% 140
North West -4 254 £235 -32.86% 114
East of England +6 221 £235 -12.96% 113
West Midlands -14 181 £360 +10.77% 86
Yorkshire -15 175 £325 -7.21% 98
East Midlands +5 114 £225 -26.83% 54
Scotland -11 113 £425 - 59
Wales +2 45 £200 -15.79% 20
North East -5 34 £188 -42.31% 22
Northern Ireland -15 8 £163 -7.14% 5
Channel Islands +3 1 - - 3

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
1 242 (8.42%) Microsoft Exchange
2 181 (6.30%) SharePoint
3 65 (2.26%) Confluence
4 44 (1.53%) IIS
5 37 (1.29%) Apache
6 22 (0.77%) WebLogic
7 17 (0.59%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.45%) nginx
8 13 (0.45%) TPMS
8 13 (0.45%) WebSphere
9 11 (0.38%) SAS
10 10 (0.35%) Tuxedo
11 9 (0.31%) JBoss
12 7 (0.24%) iPlanet
12 7 (0.24%) Tomcat
12 7 (0.24%) WebSphere Application Server
13 6 (0.21%) SharePoint Server
14 4 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2010
14 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 256 (8.91%) Microsoft Office
2 76 (2.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.35%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.21%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.17%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.070%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.070%) Windchill
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.035%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 25 (0.87%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.35%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.28%) Teamcenter
4 7 (0.24%) assyst
5 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.070%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.070%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.070%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.035%) Aladdin
8 1 (0.035%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.035%) Eikon
8 1 (0.035%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.035%) Primavera
8 1 (0.035%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 794 (27.63%) Microsoft 365
2 722 (25.12%) Azure
3 274 (9.53%) Entra ID
4 248 (8.63%) AWS
5 103 (3.58%) OneDrive
6 76 (2.64%) SaaS
7 70 (2.44%) GCP
8 57 (1.98%) Azure DevOps
9 55 (1.91%) Google Workspace
10 47 (1.64%) IaaS
11 46 (1.60%) GitHub
12 35 (1.22%) Power Platform
13 34 (1.18%) PaaS
14 28 (0.97%) Azure Monitor
15 27 (0.94%) Azure Sentinel
15 27 (0.94%) OpenShift
16 24 (0.84%) Nutanix
17 20 (0.70%) AWS CloudFormation
18 18 (0.63%) Amazon S3
18 18 (0.63%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 374 (13.01%) DNS
2 297 (10.33%) Firewall
3 238 (8.28%) DHCP
4 194 (6.75%) TCP/IP
5 180 (6.26%) VPN
6 133 (4.63%) Wi-Fi
7 131 (4.56%) WAN
8 120 (4.18%) LAN
9 83 (2.89%) Network Security
10 68 (2.37%) VLAN
11 65 (2.26%) Wireless
12 48 (1.67%) SSH
13 47 (1.64%) HTTP
14 41 (1.43%) SAN
15 40 (1.39%) Skype
16 37 (1.29%) Kerberos
17 34 (1.18%) SSL
18 32 (1.11%) Cisco IOS
18 32 (1.11%) SD-WAN
18 32 (1.11%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 133 (4.63%) SQL Server
2 63 (2.19%) Oracle Database
3 54 (1.88%) Relational Database
4 42 (1.46%) MySQL
5 29 (1.01%) PostgreSQL
6 13 (0.45%) BigQuery
7 12 (0.42%) GIS
7 12 (0.42%) Power BI
8 11 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
8 11 (0.38%) Data Warehouse
8 11 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
9 10 (0.35%) DB2
9 10 (0.35%) Oracle Reports
10 9 (0.31%) MongoDB
10 9 (0.31%) NoSQL
11 8 (0.28%) Amazon Aurora
12 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
12 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 5 (0.17%) SAP HANA
14 4 (0.14%) Oracle Exadata
Development Applications
1 158 (5.50%) JIRA
2 77 (2.68%) Jenkins
3 70 (2.44%) Git
4 61 (2.12%) GitLab
5 41 (1.43%) MSI
6 27 (0.94%) Visual Studio
7 25 (0.87%) Eclipse
8 19 (0.66%) Android Studio
8 19 (0.66%) Burp Suite
8 19 (0.66%) Metasploit
9 17 (0.59%) Xcode
10 16 (0.56%) Browser DevTools
11 15 (0.52%) Artifactory
11 15 (0.52%) InstallShield
12 12 (0.42%) Sonatype Nexus
13 11 (0.38%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.35%) AdminStudio
15 8 (0.28%) Selenium
15 8 (0.28%) Vagrant
16 7 (0.24%) SoapUI
General
1 1,063 (36.99%) Social Skills
2 306 (10.65%) Finance
3 262 (9.12%) Analytical Skills
4 250 (8.70%) Public Sector
5 129 (4.49%) Banking
6 120 (4.18%) Documentation Skills
7 104 (3.62%) Legal
8 80 (2.78%) Organisational Skills
9 64 (2.23%) Manufacturing
10 53 (1.84%) Military
11 41 (1.43%) Presentation Skills
12 40 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 38 (1.32%) Telecoms
14 35 (1.22%) Retail
15 26 (0.90%) Marketing
16 25 (0.87%) Aerospace
17 23 (0.80%) Law
18 22 (0.77%) Front Office
19 21 (0.73%) Investment Banking
20 18 (0.63%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 403 (14.02%) Support Engineer
2 369 (12.84%) Analyst
3 359 (12.49%) IT Support
4 195 (6.78%) IT Engineer
5 189 (6.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 165 (5.74%) Architect
7 156 (5.43%) Support Analyst
8 154 (5.36%) IT Support Engineer
9 148 (5.15%) Desktop Support
10 146 (5.08%) Senior
11 139 (4.84%) Windows Engineer
12 126 (4.38%) Technical Support
13 124 (4.31%) Desktop Engineer
14 123 (4.28%) 2nd Line Support
15 105 (3.65%) Developer
16 104 (3.62%) Deployment Engineer
17 97 (3.38%) Lead
18 96 (3.34%) Desktop Support Engineer
19 83 (2.89%) IT Analyst
20 76 (2.64%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (2.82%) .NET
2 62 (2.16%) REST
3 58 (2.02%) LDAP
4 52 (1.81%) OAuth
5 51 (1.77%) SAML
6 44 (1.53%) .NET Framework
7 40 (1.39%) Middleware
8 33 (1.15%) OpenID
8 33 (1.15%) React
9 32 (1.11%) WPF
10 29 (1.01%) AngularJS
10 29 (1.01%) Kafka
11 24 (0.84%) CSS
11 24 (0.84%) Web Services
12 23 (0.80%) Microsoft Graph
13 22 (0.77%) RESTful
13 22 (0.77%) SOAP
14 21 (0.73%) OAuth2
15 20 (0.70%) Node.js
15 20 (0.70%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 175 (6.09%) Onboarding
2 100 (3.48%) Data Centre
3 98 (3.41%) Driving Licence
4 96 (3.34%) PKI
5 80 (2.78%) Enterprise Software
6 64 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
7 59 (2.05%) Smartphone
8 56 (1.95%) Management Information System
8 56 (1.95%) Replication
9 43 (1.50%) Security Posture
10 41 (1.43%) Hybrid Cloud
11 35 (1.22%) NHS
12 32 (1.11%) Analytical Mindset
12 32 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
12 32 (1.11%) Security Operations Centre
13 30 (1.04%) Mobile App
14 29 (1.01%) Clustering
14 29 (1.01%) Product Ownership
14 29 (1.01%) Virtual Team
15 28 (0.97%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 704 (24.50%) Linux
2 610 (21.22%) Windows 10
3 589 (20.49%) Windows Server
4 170 (5.92%) Unix
5 163 (5.67%) Mac OS
6 148 (5.15%) Android
7 117 (4.07%) Apple iOS
8 76 (2.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 69 (2.40%) Windows Server 2016
10 60 (2.09%) Windows Server 2019
11 52 (1.81%) Windows 7
12 39 (1.36%) Windows Server 2012
13 28 (0.97%) Windows Server 2003
14 23 (0.80%) AIX
15 19 (0.66%) VMS
16 16 (0.56%) Ubuntu
17 14 (0.49%) Solaris
18 12 (0.42%) Windows Server 2008
19 10 (0.35%) Mac OS X
20 8 (0.28%) Amazon Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 547 (19.03%) Problem-Solving
2 477 (16.60%) Customer Service
3 414 (14.41%) ITIL
4 312 (10.86%) Agile
5 286 (9.95%) Migration
6 270 (9.39%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 243 (8.46%) DevOps
8 235 (8.18%) Service Management
9 220 (7.65%) CI/CD
9 220 (7.65%) ITSM
10 214 (7.45%) Cybersecurity
11 198 (6.89%) Continuous Improvement
12 151 (5.25%) Change Management
13 142 (4.94%) Disaster Recovery
14 133 (4.63%) Service Delivery
15 128 (4.45%) Stakeholder Management
16 125 (4.35%) Computer Science
16 125 (4.35%) User Experience
17 122 (4.24%) SIEM
18 120 (4.18%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 571 (19.87%) PowerShell
2 350 (12.18%) Python
3 257 (8.94%) SQL
4 130 (4.52%) Java
5 121 (4.21%) Bash
6 113 (3.93%) C#
7 74 (2.57%) JavaScript
8 67 (2.33%) Perl
9 54 (1.88%) C++
9 54 (1.88%) PL/SQL
10 37 (1.29%) T-SQL
11 32 (1.11%) VBScript
12 30 (1.04%) Shell Script
13 29 (1.01%) Kusto Query Language
14 27 (0.94%) VB
15 22 (0.77%) VBA
16 18 (0.63%) Go
17 15 (0.52%) Bicep
17 15 (0.52%) Groovy
18 11 (0.38%) PHP
Qualifications
1 874 (30.41%) Security Cleared
2 570 (19.83%) SC Cleared
3 304 (10.58%) Degree
4 259 (9.01%) DV Cleared
5 153 (5.32%) Microsoft Certification
6 93 (3.24%) Computer Science Degree
7 62 (2.16%) Azure Certification
8 45 (1.57%) Cisco Certification
8 45 (1.57%) ITIL Certification
8 45 (1.57%) MCSE
9 44 (1.53%) A+ Certification
10 35 (1.22%) BPSS Clearance
11 32 (1.11%) AWS Certification
12 31 (1.08%) CISSP
13 30 (1.04%) CCNA
13 30 (1.04%) CompTIA Security+
14 27 (0.94%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 26 (0.90%) CCNP
16 23 (0.80%) MCSA
17 21 (0.73%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 99 (3.44%) GDPR
2 96 (3.34%) SLA
3 70 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 68 (2.37%) QA
5 50 (1.74%) NIST
6 35 (1.22%) PCI DSS
7 25 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 16 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
9 13 (0.45%) GLBA
9 13 (0.45%) PMO
10 12 (0.42%) MiFID
11 10 (0.35%) NCSC
12 9 (0.31%) FINRA
13 7 (0.24%) COBIT
13 7 (0.24%) HIPAA
13 7 (0.24%) NIST 800
14 5 (0.17%) Accessibility
14 5 (0.17%) Disclosure Scotland
14 5 (0.17%) SOC 2
15 4 (0.14%) GxP
System Software
1 1,040 (36.19%) Active Directory
2 272 (9.46%) VMware Infrastructure
3 120 (4.18%) Docker
4 102 (3.55%) Hyper-V
5 67 (2.33%) Virtual Desktop
6 60 (2.09%) Virtual Machines
7 58 (2.02%) vSphere
8 46 (1.60%) VMware ESXi
9 37 (1.29%) VMware NSX
10 25 (0.87%) BitLocker
11 22 (0.77%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.56%) Firmware
13 14 (0.49%) Virtual Servers
14 11 (0.38%) DFS Replication
14 11 (0.38%) KVM
15 8 (0.28%) XenApp
16 7 (0.24%) Terminal Services
17 6 (0.21%) NFS
17 6 (0.21%) Tivoli Directory Server
17 6 (0.21%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 391 (13.60%) SCCM
2 338 (11.76%) Microsoft Intune
3 178 (6.19%) Terraform
4 157 (5.46%) Ansible
5 118 (4.11%) Kubernetes
6 85 (2.96%) Single Sign-On
7 73 (2.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 67 (2.33%) vCenter Server
9 49 (1.70%) Jamf Pro
10 48 (1.67%) Grafana
11 31 (1.08%) Prometheus
11 31 (1.08%) WSUS
12 29 (1.01%) SCOM
13 20 (0.70%) Nessus
14 18 (0.63%) Nmap
14 18 (0.63%) WMI
15 17 (0.59%) Progress Chef
16 15 (0.52%) FortiGate
17 12 (0.42%) Packer
17 12 (0.42%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,225 (42.62%) Microsoft
2 374 (13.01%) VMware
3 261 (9.08%) ServiceNow
4 200 (6.96%) Oracle
5 172 (5.98%) Citrix
6 170 (5.92%) Cisco
7 132 (4.59%) Splunk
8 73 (2.54%) Apple
9 70 (2.44%) Dell
10 69 (2.40%) HP
11 58 (2.02%) Red Hat
12 56 (1.95%) Google
13 52 (1.81%) SolarWinds
14 50 (1.74%) Veeam
15 48 (1.67%) SAP
16 47 (1.64%) IBM
17 39 (1.36%) Palo Alto
18 36 (1.25%) CyberArk
18 36 (1.25%) Remedy
19 32 (1.11%) CrowdStrike