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 10 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 22 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -6 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,766 2,606 3,950
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.55% 8.17% 9.21%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.33% 58.48% 62.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,913 1,678 2,662
10th Percentile £163 £181 £158
25th Percentile £204 £225 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £575
90th Percentile £638 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £363 £370
% change year-on-year -10.34% -2.03% -1.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 249 108 219
10th Percentile £13.79 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.14 £18.15 £16.70
Median hourly rate £22.00 £23.99 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.30% +14.24% +5.00%
75th Percentile £43.75 £44.06 £47.64
90th Percentile £67.84 £66.13 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £23.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year -6.70% +15.00% +6.81%

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 4,662 4,456 6,346
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.73% 13.97% 14.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,069 2,781 4,332
10th Percentile £175 £200 £180
25th Percentile £268 £317 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £411 £425 £425
% change year-on-year -3.29% - -5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 330 165 311
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.25 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.00 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £32.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% +9.38% +28.00%
75th Percentile £61.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.99 £70.60 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £31.08 £25.18
% change year-on-year -19.56% +23.43% +11.91%

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 10 January 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 10 January 2026.

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 10 January 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 2,454 £390 -2.50% 1,048
UK excluding London -2 1,876 £325 -10.34% 1,001
London -18 715 £450 +11.11% 202
Work from Home -9 549 £424 -5.83% 335
South East +1 501 £400 -0.06% 353
North of England -3 424 £238 -31.93% 210
South West +4 314 £425 +6.25% 128
Midlands -3 307 £354 +9.00% 123
North West -3 242 £263 -25.00% 104
West Midlands -6 205 £475 +46.15% 66
East of England +5 192 £230 -29.23% 127
Yorkshire -15 155 £290 -17.20% 86
Scotland -11 106 £450 +2.86% 55
East Midlands +3 102 £210 -36.12% 56
Wales 0 44 £180 -24.21% 25
North East +2 30 £184 -42.58% 26
Northern Ireland -13 11 £203 +28.57% 9

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
1 235 (8.50%) Microsoft Exchange
2 177 (6.40%) SharePoint
3 78 (2.82%) Confluence
4 48 (1.74%) Apache
5 47 (1.70%) IIS
6 27 (0.98%) WebLogic
7 19 (0.69%) WebSphere
8 18 (0.65%) Skype for Business
9 16 (0.58%) nginx
10 14 (0.51%) JBoss
11 12 (0.43%) SAS
12 11 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2010
12 11 (0.40%) SharePoint Server
12 11 (0.40%) TPMS
12 11 (0.40%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.36%) iPlanet
14 9 (0.33%) Tomcat
14 9 (0.33%) Tuxedo
15 8 (0.29%) Exchange Server 2013
16 6 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2003
Applications
1 270 (9.76%) Microsoft Office
2 82 (2.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 32 (1.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (0.47%) MS Visio
5 10 (0.36%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.072%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.072%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.072%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.072%) Windchill
8 1 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.036%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.036%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.036%) Camtasia
8 1 (0.036%) InDesign
8 1 (0.036%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.036%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 23 (0.83%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.29%) assyst
3 5 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.072%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.072%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.072%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.072%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.072%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.072%) SystmOne
6 2 (0.072%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.036%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.036%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.036%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.036%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.036%) Pegasus Opera
7 1 (0.036%) Primavera
7 1 (0.036%) RMDS
7 1 (0.036%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 741 (26.79%) Microsoft 365
2 666 (24.08%) Azure
3 260 (9.40%) AWS
4 230 (8.32%) Entra ID
5 87 (3.15%) OneDrive
6 75 (2.71%) GCP
7 70 (2.53%) SaaS
8 58 (2.10%) GitHub
9 56 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
10 48 (1.74%) IaaS
11 47 (1.70%) Google Workspace
12 35 (1.27%) Azure Monitor
13 32 (1.16%) PaaS
13 32 (1.16%) Power Platform
14 27 (0.98%) Azure Sentinel
15 26 (0.94%) Amazon S3
16 24 (0.87%) Amazon EC2
16 24 (0.87%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 20 (0.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 20 (0.72%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 346 (12.51%) DNS
2 313 (11.32%) Firewall
3 209 (7.56%) DHCP
4 196 (7.09%) TCP/IP
5 176 (6.36%) VPN
6 104 (3.76%) WAN
6 104 (3.76%) Wi-Fi
7 96 (3.47%) LAN
8 91 (3.29%) Network Security
9 72 (2.60%) Wireless
10 61 (2.21%) SSH
10 61 (2.21%) VLAN
11 49 (1.77%) HTTP
12 36 (1.30%) SAN
12 36 (1.30%) Skype
13 33 (1.19%) Cisco IOS
14 32 (1.16%) SSL
15 31 (1.12%) SD-WAN
16 30 (1.08%) Kerberos
16 30 (1.08%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 128 (4.63%) SQL Server
2 77 (2.78%) Oracle Database
3 61 (2.21%) Relational Database
4 48 (1.74%) MySQL
5 34 (1.23%) PostgreSQL
6 20 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.47%) BigQuery
7 13 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
8 12 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
9 11 (0.40%) Power BI
10 10 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
10 10 (0.36%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.33%) Data Warehouse
11 9 (0.33%) GIS
11 9 (0.33%) MongoDB
12 7 (0.25%) Data Lake
12 7 (0.25%) SAP HANA
13 6 (0.22%) RDBMS
14 5 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 4 (0.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 155 (5.60%) JIRA
2 87 (3.15%) Git
3 86 (3.11%) Jenkins
4 56 (2.02%) GitLab
5 34 (1.23%) Eclipse
6 33 (1.19%) MSI
7 29 (1.05%) Visual Studio
8 21 (0.76%) Android Studio
9 20 (0.72%) Browser DevTools
10 19 (0.69%) Bitbucket
10 19 (0.69%) Xcode
11 18 (0.65%) Artifactory
11 18 (0.65%) Burp Suite
11 18 (0.65%) Metasploit
12 16 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
12 16 (0.58%) Vagrant
13 15 (0.54%) InstallShield
14 12 (0.43%) Bitbucket Server
14 12 (0.43%) CA Release Automation
15 11 (0.40%) AdminStudio
General
1 1,058 (38.25%) Social Skills
2 331 (11.97%) Finance
3 248 (8.97%) Analytical Skills
4 239 (8.64%) Public Sector
5 127 (4.59%) Banking
6 116 (4.19%) Documentation Skills
7 92 (3.33%) Legal
8 70 (2.53%) Organisational Skills
9 63 (2.28%) Manufacturing
10 52 (1.88%) Military
11 47 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
11 47 (1.70%) Telecoms
12 40 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 38 (1.37%) Retail
14 31 (1.12%) Aerospace
14 31 (1.12%) Marketing
15 26 (0.94%) Law
16 25 (0.90%) Front Office
17 23 (0.83%) Electronics
18 20 (0.72%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 409 (14.79%) Support Engineer
2 340 (12.29%) Analyst
3 333 (12.04%) IT Support
4 185 (6.69%) IT Engineer
5 170 (6.15%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 153 (5.53%) Windows Engineer
7 152 (5.50%) Architect
8 149 (5.39%) Desktop Support
8 149 (5.39%) Support Analyst
9 143 (5.17%) Senior
10 138 (4.99%) IT Support Engineer
11 131 (4.74%) Desktop Engineer
12 119 (4.30%) Deployment Engineer
13 114 (4.12%) Technical Support
14 113 (4.09%) 2nd Line Support
15 102 (3.69%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 98 (3.54%) Developer
17 88 (3.18%) Platform Engineer
18 82 (2.96%) IT Analyst
19 79 (2.86%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.68%) .NET
2 58 (2.10%) LDAP
3 55 (1.99%) REST
4 43 (1.55%) Middleware
5 41 (1.48%) .NET Framework
6 40 (1.45%) OAuth
6 40 (1.45%) SAML
7 36 (1.30%) React
8 34 (1.23%) AngularJS
9 33 (1.19%) OpenID
10 31 (1.12%) WPF
11 27 (0.98%) Web Services
12 26 (0.94%) CSS
12 26 (0.94%) Kafka
13 24 (0.87%) Node.js
14 21 (0.76%) SOAP
15 20 (0.72%) Ajax
15 20 (0.72%) GraphQL
15 20 (0.72%) XML
16 19 (0.69%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 141 (5.10%) Onboarding
2 96 (3.47%) Data Centre
3 93 (3.36%) PKI
4 86 (3.11%) Driving Licence
5 70 (2.53%) Enterprise Software
6 59 (2.13%) Replication
7 57 (2.06%) Self-Motivation
8 56 (2.02%) Smartphone
9 55 (1.99%) Management Information System
10 46 (1.66%) Security Posture
11 36 (1.30%) Analytical Mindset
12 35 (1.27%) Hybrid Cloud
13 31 (1.12%) Mobile App
14 30 (1.08%) Clustering
14 30 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
15 29 (1.05%) Data Protection Act
15 29 (1.05%) NHS
16 27 (0.98%) Video Conferencing
17 26 (0.94%) Public Cloud
17 26 (0.94%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 710 (25.67%) Linux
2 582 (21.04%) Windows 10
3 541 (19.56%) Windows Server
4 193 (6.98%) Unix
5 145 (5.24%) Android
6 144 (5.21%) Mac OS
7 104 (3.76%) Apple iOS
8 69 (2.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 64 (2.31%) Windows Server 2016
10 52 (1.88%) Windows Server 2019
11 47 (1.70%) Windows 7
12 37 (1.34%) Windows Server 2012
13 32 (1.16%) Windows Server 2003
14 28 (1.01%) VMS
15 27 (0.98%) AIX
16 21 (0.76%) Ubuntu
17 18 (0.65%) Solaris
18 16 (0.58%) Amazon Linux
19 12 (0.43%) Windows Server 2008
20 10 (0.36%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 504 (18.22%) Problem-Solving
2 417 (15.08%) Customer Service
3 409 (14.79%) ITIL
4 297 (10.74%) Agile
5 277 (10.01%) Migration
6 247 (8.93%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 241 (8.71%) DevOps
8 222 (8.03%) Service Management
9 214 (7.74%) Cybersecurity
10 211 (7.63%) CI/CD
11 197 (7.12%) ITSM
12 193 (6.98%) Continuous Improvement
13 170 (6.15%) Change Management
14 131 (4.74%) Incident Response
15 130 (4.70%) User Experience
16 129 (4.66%) SIEM
17 120 (4.34%) Stakeholder Management
18 119 (4.30%) Computer Science
19 117 (4.23%) Disaster Recovery
20 116 (4.19%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 543 (19.63%) PowerShell
2 356 (12.87%) Python
3 277 (10.01%) SQL
4 144 (5.21%) Java
5 119 (4.30%) C#
6 115 (4.16%) Bash
7 80 (2.89%) JavaScript
8 76 (2.75%) Perl
9 63 (2.28%) C++
10 50 (1.81%) PL/SQL
11 34 (1.23%) Shell Script
12 32 (1.16%) Kusto Query Language
13 31 (1.12%) T-SQL
14 30 (1.08%) VBScript
15 27 (0.98%) Groovy
16 24 (0.87%) VB
17 23 (0.83%) VBA
18 18 (0.65%) C
19 15 (0.54%) Go
20 14 (0.51%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 844 (30.51%) Security Cleared
2 562 (20.32%) SC Cleared
3 294 (10.63%) Degree
4 239 (8.64%) DV Cleared
5 159 (5.75%) Microsoft Certification
6 84 (3.04%) Computer Science Degree
7 67 (2.42%) Azure Certification
8 54 (1.95%) A+ Certification
9 52 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
10 46 (1.66%) MCSE
11 44 (1.59%) ITIL Certification
12 38 (1.37%) CISSP
13 37 (1.34%) AWS Certification
14 34 (1.23%) BPSS Clearance
14 34 (1.23%) CompTIA Security+
15 32 (1.16%) CCNP
16 30 (1.08%) CCNA
17 27 (0.98%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 24 (0.87%) DBS Check
19 22 (0.80%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (3.33%) SLA
2 86 (3.11%) GDPR
3 74 (2.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 66 (2.39%) QA
5 51 (1.84%) NIST
6 31 (1.12%) PCI DSS
7 16 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
8 13 (0.47%) PMO
9 12 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 11 (0.40%) GLBA
11 10 (0.36%) HIPAA
11 10 (0.36%) NCSC
12 8 (0.29%) MiFID
13 7 (0.25%) COBIT
14 6 (0.22%) SOC 2
15 5 (0.18%) FINRA
16 4 (0.14%) Accessibility
16 4 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
16 4 (0.14%) NIST 800
17 3 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 983 (35.54%) Active Directory
2 239 (8.64%) VMware Infrastructure
3 117 (4.23%) Docker
4 94 (3.40%) Hyper-V
5 62 (2.24%) Virtual Desktop
6 49 (1.77%) Virtual Machines
7 47 (1.70%) vSphere
8 42 (1.52%) VMware ESXi
9 29 (1.05%) VMware NSX
10 23 (0.83%) BitLocker
11 19 (0.69%) DFS Replication
11 19 (0.69%) Firmware
12 16 (0.58%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.58%) Terminal Services
13 15 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
14 11 (0.40%) XenApp
15 10 (0.36%) Dovecot
15 10 (0.36%) Postfix
15 10 (0.36%) Squid
16 8 (0.29%) Tivoli Directory Server
Systems Management
1 378 (13.67%) SCCM
2 289 (10.45%) Microsoft Intune
3 181 (6.54%) Terraform
4 153 (5.53%) Ansible
5 97 (3.51%) Kubernetes
6 64 (2.31%) Single Sign-On
6 64 (2.31%) vCenter Server
7 51 (1.84%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 41 (1.48%) Grafana
9 40 (1.45%) Jamf Pro
10 30 (1.08%) WSUS
11 28 (1.01%) SCOM
12 26 (0.94%) Prometheus
13 25 (0.90%) Nessus
14 20 (0.72%) Microsoft Clustering
14 20 (0.72%) Progress Chef
15 18 (0.65%) Nmap
16 17 (0.61%) WMI
17 16 (0.58%) Proxmox
17 16 (0.58%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,162 (42.01%) Microsoft
2 341 (12.33%) VMware
3 258 (9.33%) ServiceNow
4 229 (8.28%) Oracle
5 181 (6.54%) Cisco
6 168 (6.07%) Citrix
7 139 (5.03%) Splunk
8 80 (2.89%) Apple
9 68 (2.46%) HP
10 63 (2.28%) Dell
11 56 (2.02%) Red Hat
12 53 (1.92%) Veeam
13 52 (1.88%) SolarWinds
14 51 (1.84%) IBM
14 51 (1.84%) SAP
15 50 (1.81%) Google
16 41 (1.48%) CyberArk
17 40 (1.45%) Palo Alto
18 38 (1.37%) CrowdStrike
19 37 (1.34%) Remedy