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 20 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 15
Rank change year-on-year -3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,866 3,000 4,467
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 8.01% 8.22% 9.71%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.35% 58.18% 63.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,924 1,869 2,977
10th Percentile £163 £181 £160
25th Percentile £204 £240 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £420 £420
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.18%
75th Percentile £538 £559 £575
90th Percentile £627 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £400 £388
% change year-on-year -18.75% +3.23% +6.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 304 141 257
10th Percentile £15.15 £15.22 £14.17
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.30 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.02% +7.47% +9.76%
75th Percentile £29.06 £57.62 £55.47
90th Percentile £65.00 £68.75 £68.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £24.18 £22.00
% change year-on-year -11.25% +9.91% +17.33%

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 4,829 5,156 7,023
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.49% 14.13% 15.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,118 3,160 4,769
10th Percentile £181 £200 £182
25th Percentile £270 £325 £302
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -5.88%
75th Percentile £573 £585 £610
90th Percentile £661 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £405 £450 £440
% change year-on-year -10.00% +2.27% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 372 220 350
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.25 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.87 £23.63 £18.50
Median hourly rate £24.00 £50.00 £35.92
Median % change year-on-year -52.00% +39.20% +43.68%
75th Percentile £43.75 £68.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £70.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.50 £51.25 £30.00
% change year-on-year -54.15% +70.83% +33.33%

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 20 November 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 20 November 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 20 November 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 -2 2,550 £390 -2.56% 2,023
UK excluding London 0 1,913 £325 -18.75% 1,606
London -14 797 £438 +9.38% 660
Work from Home -6 577 £425 -5.56% 769
South East +3 512 £350 -17.65% 570
North of England -4 403 £285 -28.75% 332
South West +4 331 £438 +2.94% 235
Midlands -6 310 £400 +5.26% 207
North West -4 222 £330 -22.35% 200
West Midlands -8 219 £429 +12.89% 119
East of England -1 210 £225 -43.75% 152
Yorkshire -10 152 £240 -31.43% 111
Scotland -12 118 £450 +5.88% 104
East Midlands -2 90 £210 -44.00% 85
Wales -1 44 £275 +37.50% 22
North East -1 32 £190 -38.71% 21
Northern Ireland -12 18 £175 +4.79% 20

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
1 265 (9.25%) Microsoft Exchange
2 181 (6.32%) SharePoint
3 86 (3.00%) Confluence
4 57 (1.99%) Apache
5 45 (1.57%) IIS
6 28 (0.98%) WebSphere
7 22 (0.77%) Skype for Business
8 21 (0.73%) JBoss
9 18 (0.63%) WebLogic
10 15 (0.52%) SharePoint Server
11 14 (0.49%) Exchange Server 2010
11 14 (0.49%) Exchange Server 2013
12 13 (0.45%) nginx
13 11 (0.38%) WebSphere Application Server
14 10 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2003
14 10 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2007
14 10 (0.35%) iPlanet
14 10 (0.35%) Office Communications Server
15 9 (0.31%) Tomcat
16 7 (0.24%) SAS
Applications
1 269 (9.39%) Microsoft Office
2 89 (3.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 21 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.35%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 8 (0.28%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.070%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.070%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.070%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.070%) Windchill
8 1 (0.035%) Acrobat
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.035%) Camtasia
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.035%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 23 (0.80%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.24%) assyst
2 7 (0.24%) Maximo
3 5 (0.17%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.10%) ION MarketView
4 3 (0.10%) Oracle 11i
5 2 (0.070%) Dynamics GP
5 2 (0.070%) Eikon
5 2 (0.070%) Fidessa
5 2 (0.070%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.070%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.070%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.070%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.035%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.035%) Eze OMS
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 1 (0.035%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.035%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.035%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 753 (26.27%) Microsoft 365
2 645 (22.51%) Azure
3 270 (9.42%) AWS
4 238 (8.30%) Entra ID
5 89 (3.11%) OneDrive
6 83 (2.90%) SaaS
7 74 (2.58%) GitHub
8 66 (2.30%) GCP
9 65 (2.27%) Azure DevOps
10 55 (1.92%) IaaS
11 47 (1.64%) Google Workspace
12 42 (1.47%) Power Platform
13 40 (1.40%) PaaS
14 37 (1.29%) Azure Sentinel
15 35 (1.22%) Amazon S3
16 34 (1.19%) Amazon EC2
17 33 (1.15%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 30 (1.05%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 29 (1.01%) Azure Monitor
20 27 (0.94%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 341 (11.90%) DNS
2 326 (11.37%) Firewall
3 212 (7.40%) DHCP
4 205 (7.15%) TCP/IP
5 167 (5.83%) VPN
6 102 (3.56%) Wi-Fi
7 92 (3.21%) LAN
8 88 (3.07%) WAN
9 83 (2.90%) Network Security
10 67 (2.34%) VLAN
11 63 (2.20%) SSH
12 61 (2.13%) SAN
13 58 (2.02%) Wireless
14 54 (1.88%) Cisco IOS
14 54 (1.88%) HTTP
15 37 (1.29%) SSL
16 32 (1.12%) SMTP
16 32 (1.12%) VoIP
17 30 (1.05%) FTP
17 30 (1.05%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 129 (4.50%) SQL Server
2 83 (2.90%) Oracle Database
3 65 (2.27%) Relational Database
4 45 (1.57%) MySQL
5 34 (1.19%) Amazon RDS
6 26 (0.91%) PostgreSQL
7 18 (0.63%) Power BI
8 13 (0.45%) Oracle Reports
9 12 (0.42%) DB2
10 11 (0.38%) Amazon Aurora
10 11 (0.38%) GIS
10 11 (0.38%) NoSQL
11 10 (0.35%) BigQuery
11 10 (0.35%) RDBMS
12 8 (0.28%) SAP HANA
13 7 (0.24%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
13 7 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
13 7 (0.24%) MongoDB
14 6 (0.21%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 171 (5.97%) JIRA
2 118 (4.12%) Git
3 111 (3.87%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.64%) GitLab
5 42 (1.47%) Eclipse
6 40 (1.40%) Visual Studio
7 31 (1.08%) Bitbucket
7 31 (1.08%) MSI
8 25 (0.87%) Vagrant
9 20 (0.70%) Android Studio
9 20 (0.70%) Sonatype Nexus
10 19 (0.66%) Browser DevTools
11 18 (0.63%) Xcode
12 16 (0.56%) InstallShield
13 15 (0.52%) AdminStudio
13 15 (0.52%) Bitbucket Server
13 15 (0.52%) CA Release Automation
14 14 (0.49%) Postman
15 13 (0.45%) Artifactory
15 13 (0.45%) IntelliJ
General
1 1,082 (37.75%) Social Skills
2 382 (13.33%) Finance
3 276 (9.63%) Analytical Skills
4 274 (9.56%) Public Sector
5 139 (4.85%) Banking
6 123 (4.29%) Documentation Skills
7 81 (2.83%) Legal
8 67 (2.34%) Manufacturing
9 58 (2.02%) Organisational Skills
10 55 (1.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 54 (1.88%) Telecoms
12 53 (1.85%) Military
13 50 (1.74%) Presentation Skills
14 42 (1.47%) Retail
15 38 (1.33%) Marketing
16 31 (1.08%) Games
17 26 (0.91%) Aerospace
17 26 (0.91%) Electronics
18 25 (0.87%) Front Office
19 21 (0.73%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 444 (15.49%) Support Engineer
2 351 (12.25%) Analyst
3 306 (10.68%) IT Support
4 194 (6.77%) IT Engineer
5 175 (6.11%) Windows Engineer
6 161 (5.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 154 (5.37%) Desktop Engineer
8 153 (5.34%) Support Analyst
9 152 (5.30%) Desktop Support
10 143 (4.99%) Architect
11 137 (4.78%) Deployment Engineer
12 136 (4.75%) Senior
13 133 (4.64%) IT Support Engineer
14 120 (4.19%) 2nd Line Support
15 112 (3.91%) Developer
16 109 (3.80%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 108 (3.77%) Technical Support
18 106 (3.70%) Platform Engineer
19 94 (3.28%) Administrator
20 83 (2.90%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (2.51%) .NET
2 52 (1.81%) LDAP
3 50 (1.74%) Middleware
4 43 (1.50%) Web Services
5 42 (1.47%) .NET Framework
6 41 (1.43%) REST
7 40 (1.40%) WPF
8 38 (1.33%) Node.js
9 36 (1.26%) OAuth
10 34 (1.19%) AngularJS
10 34 (1.19%) SAML
10 34 (1.19%) XML
11 29 (1.01%) React
12 28 (0.98%) OpenID
13 27 (0.94%) SOAP
14 23 (0.80%) CSS
15 20 (0.70%) Ajax
16 19 (0.66%) GraphQL
16 19 (0.66%) Kafka
16 19 (0.66%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 111 (3.87%) Onboarding
2 97 (3.38%) Data Centre
3 93 (3.24%) PKI
4 77 (2.69%) Driving Licence
5 66 (2.30%) Replication
6 64 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
7 61 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
8 56 (1.95%) Management Information System
9 38 (1.33%) Security Posture
10 37 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
10 37 (1.29%) iPhone
11 36 (1.26%) Smartphone
12 34 (1.19%) Video Conferencing
13 33 (1.15%) Analytical Mindset
13 33 (1.15%) NHS
14 32 (1.12%) iPad
15 30 (1.05%) Mobile App
16 29 (1.01%) Legacy Systems
17 28 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
18 26 (0.91%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 707 (24.67%) Linux
2 605 (21.11%) Windows 10
3 537 (18.74%) Windows Server
4 185 (6.45%) Unix
5 158 (5.51%) Android
6 156 (5.44%) Mac OS
7 105 (3.66%) Apple iOS
8 84 (2.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 69 (2.41%) Windows 7
10 64 (2.23%) Windows Server 2016
11 60 (2.09%) Windows Server 2019
12 48 (1.67%) Windows Server 2012
13 41 (1.43%) VMS
14 38 (1.33%) Windows Server 2003
15 36 (1.26%) Ubuntu
16 26 (0.91%) AIX
17 24 (0.84%) CentOS
18 23 (0.80%) Amazon Linux
19 18 (0.63%) Solaris
20 14 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 524 (18.28%) Problem-Solving
2 419 (14.62%) ITIL
3 371 (12.94%) Customer Service
4 311 (10.85%) Migration
5 293 (10.22%) Agile
6 256 (8.93%) DevOps
7 229 (7.99%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 229 (7.99%) Service Management
8 216 (7.54%) ITSM
9 212 (7.40%) Cybersecurity
10 207 (7.22%) CI/CD
11 171 (5.97%) Continuous Improvement
12 162 (5.65%) Change Management
13 129 (4.50%) Incident Response
14 124 (4.33%) Stakeholder Management
15 122 (4.26%) User Experience
16 116 (4.05%) Service Delivery
17 114 (3.98%) Cloud Security
18 107 (3.73%) Incident Management
19 106 (3.70%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 532 (18.56%) PowerShell
2 375 (13.08%) Python
3 283 (9.87%) SQL
4 153 (5.34%) Java
5 147 (5.13%) C#
6 131 (4.57%) Bash
7 91 (3.18%) JavaScript
8 80 (2.79%) C++
9 79 (2.76%) Perl
10 44 (1.54%) PL/SQL
11 40 (1.40%) VB
12 39 (1.36%) Shell Script
13 33 (1.15%) Groovy
13 33 (1.15%) Kusto Query Language
14 32 (1.12%) VBScript
15 30 (1.05%) C
15 30 (1.05%) VBA
16 23 (0.80%) T-SQL
17 20 (0.70%) PHP
18 15 (0.52%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 813 (28.37%) Security Cleared
2 573 (19.99%) SC Cleared
3 268 (9.35%) Degree
4 201 (7.01%) DV Cleared
5 200 (6.98%) Microsoft Certification
6 70 (2.44%) Computer Science Degree
7 66 (2.30%) Azure Certification
8 55 (1.92%) Cisco Certification
9 54 (1.88%) MCSE
10 50 (1.74%) A+ Certification
11 44 (1.54%) CISSP
12 38 (1.33%) AWS Certification
12 38 (1.33%) ITIL Certification
13 35 (1.22%) CCNA
13 35 (1.22%) DBS Check
14 34 (1.19%) CCNP
15 32 (1.12%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 27 (0.94%) MCSA
17 26 (0.91%) BPSS Clearance
18 25 (0.87%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (3.18%) SLA
2 81 (2.83%) QA
3 65 (2.27%) GDPR
4 57 (1.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 55 (1.92%) NIST
6 18 (0.63%) HIPAA
7 15 (0.52%) PCI DSS
8 13 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
9 11 (0.38%) NCSC
9 11 (0.38%) PMO
10 9 (0.31%) Accessibility
10 9 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (0.21%) COBIT
11 6 (0.21%) GLBA
12 5 (0.17%) Disclosure Scotland
13 4 (0.14%) SOC 2
14 3 (0.10%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 3 (0.10%) Data Quality
14 3 (0.10%) ECSS
14 3 (0.10%) GxP
System Software
1 1,022 (35.66%) Active Directory
2 253 (8.83%) VMware Infrastructure
3 126 (4.40%) Docker
4 87 (3.04%) Hyper-V
5 65 (2.27%) Virtual Desktop
6 58 (2.02%) vSphere
7 56 (1.95%) Virtual Machines
8 50 (1.74%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.08%) VMware NSX
10 25 (0.87%) BitLocker
10 25 (0.87%) DFS Replication
10 25 (0.87%) Microsoft App-V
11 24 (0.84%) Firmware
12 20 (0.70%) NFS
13 16 (0.56%) Terminal Services
14 15 (0.52%) Virtual Servers
14 15 (0.52%) XenApp
15 10 (0.35%) Brightmail
15 10 (0.35%) Dovecot
15 10 (0.35%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 431 (15.04%) SCCM
2 313 (10.92%) Microsoft Intune
3 180 (6.28%) Terraform
4 152 (5.30%) Ansible
5 97 (3.38%) Kubernetes
6 56 (1.95%) vCenter Server
7 49 (1.71%) Single Sign-On
8 44 (1.54%) Grafana
9 43 (1.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 42 (1.47%) Jamf Pro
11 33 (1.15%) Progress Chef
12 30 (1.05%) Prometheus
12 30 (1.05%) WSUS
13 29 (1.01%) SCOM
14 26 (0.91%) Nessus
15 25 (0.87%) Puppet
16 24 (0.84%) Microsoft Clustering
17 16 (0.56%) Proxmox
18 14 (0.49%) WMI
19 13 (0.45%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 1,277 (44.56%) Microsoft
2 361 (12.60%) VMware
3 257 (8.97%) ServiceNow
4 230 (8.03%) Oracle
5 186 (6.49%) Cisco
6 179 (6.25%) Citrix
7 150 (5.23%) Splunk
8 89 (3.11%) Apple
9 77 (2.69%) HP
10 71 (2.48%) Red Hat
11 68 (2.37%) IBM
12 60 (2.09%) Dell
13 59 (2.06%) Veeam
14 53 (1.85%) SAP
15 52 (1.81%) Google
16 48 (1.67%) SolarWinds
17 45 (1.57%) NetApp
18 44 (1.54%) AppDynamics
19 43 (1.50%) CyberArk
20 42 (1.47%) Remedy