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

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -4 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,945 2,512 3,564
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.81% 8.41% 8.12%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.91% 60.34% 60.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,896 1,706 2,408
10th Percentile £163 £181 £165
25th Percentile £225 £240 £231
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.56%
75th Percentile £559 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £415 £400 £425
% change year-on-year +3.75% -5.88% +9.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 248 173 289
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.12 £12.00
25th Percentile £17.98 £16.95 £14.27
Median hourly rate £25.51 £18.87 £18.27
Median % change year-on-year +35.16% +3.28% -23.43%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £28.75
90th Percentile £68.60 £62.60 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.82 £17.72
% change year-on-year +36.82% +6.21% -19.45%

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 4,835 4,163 5,888
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.55% 13.94% 13.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,095 2,720 3,881
10th Percentile £190 £200 £188
25th Percentile £317 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.43% -2.21% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £581 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 332 206 428
10th Percentile £14.60 £15.42 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.44 £16.00
Median hourly rate £30.24 £21.95 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +37.77% -9.22% -44.96%
75th Percentile £64.06 £40.31 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.20 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.88 £18.87 £25.25
% change year-on-year +47.75% -25.27% -32.67%

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 June 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 20 June 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 20 June 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 -7 2,573 £425 - 827
UK excluding London -13 1,951 £415 +3.75% 820
London -20 826 £425 -2.86% 168
Work from Home -11 623 £475 +2.70% 295
South East -8 519 £475 -5.00% 252
North of England -8 466 £365 +1.96% 169
Midlands -15 277 £325 +17.12% 112
South West -12 252 £488 - 133
North West -7 246 £350 -5.79% 99
East of England -1 216 £338 -6.90% 83
Yorkshire -13 202 £365 -8.75% 50
Scotland -5 172 £425 -1.39% 23
West Midlands -22 170 £450 +50.00% 49
East Midlands +6 102 £225 +12.50% 63
Wales +5 47 £375 +36.36% 21
North East -38 22 £326 +8.75% 22
Northern Ireland -5 14 £139 -30.75% 59
Channel Islands +2 2 £500 -

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
1 228 (7.74%) Microsoft Exchange
2 190 (6.45%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.07%) IIS
4 57 (1.94%) Confluence
5 19 (0.65%) Apache
5 19 (0.65%) Tomcat
6 16 (0.54%) nginx
7 14 (0.48%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
9 10 (0.34%) WebLogic
10 9 (0.31%) NetWeaver
11 8 (0.27%) HCL Notes
12 7 (0.24%) Appian
12 7 (0.24%) SAS
13 6 (0.20%) TPMS
14 5 (0.17%) Camunda
14 5 (0.17%) WebSphere
15 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 3 (0.10%) Documentum
16 3 (0.10%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 186 (6.32%) Microsoft Office
2 66 (2.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 23 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.27%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.14%) Acrobat
8 2 (0.068%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.034%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 43 (1.46%) Remedy ITSM
2 18 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.41%) Teamcenter
4 8 (0.27%) Finacle
5 5 (0.17%) OpenText MBPM
5 5 (0.17%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.10%) assyst
6 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.068%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.068%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.068%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.034%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.034%) Dynamics GP
8 1 (0.034%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.034%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.034%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 885 (30.05%) Azure
2 812 (27.57%) Microsoft 365
3 376 (12.77%) Entra ID
4 296 (10.05%) AWS
5 114 (3.87%) OneDrive
6 89 (3.02%) GCP
7 78 (2.65%) Azure DevOps
8 75 (2.55%) SaaS
9 67 (2.28%) GitHub
10 62 (2.11%) IaaS
11 59 (2.00%) Power Platform
12 53 (1.80%) PaaS
13 45 (1.53%) Azure Monitor
14 40 (1.36%) OpenShift
15 38 (1.29%) Azure Sentinel
16 30 (1.02%) Google Workspace
17 29 (0.98%) GitHub Actions
18 22 (0.75%) Microsoft Purview
19 21 (0.71%) AWS CloudFormation
19 21 (0.71%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 395 (13.41%) DNS
2 304 (10.32%) Firewall
3 275 (9.34%) DHCP
4 218 (7.40%) VPN
5 188 (6.38%) WAN
6 183 (6.21%) TCP/IP
7 179 (6.08%) LAN
8 147 (4.99%) Wi-Fi
9 87 (2.95%) SAN
10 67 (2.28%) Network Security
11 58 (1.97%) VLAN
12 45 (1.53%) BGP
12 45 (1.53%) SD-WAN
13 42 (1.43%) SSL
14 41 (1.39%) Internet
14 41 (1.39%) NAS
15 37 (1.26%) SNMP
16 36 (1.22%) Wireless
17 35 (1.19%) OSPF
17 35 (1.19%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 244 (8.29%) SQL Server
2 58 (1.97%) Oracle Database
3 37 (1.26%) Power BI
4 28 (0.95%) PostgreSQL
4 28 (0.95%) Relational Database
5 25 (0.85%) MySQL
6 19 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
7 16 (0.54%) Data Warehouse
8 15 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
8 15 (0.51%) Db2
8 15 (0.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 13 (0.44%) NoSQL
10 11 (0.37%) MongoDB
10 11 (0.37%) RDBMS
11 10 (0.34%) GIS
12 9 (0.31%) SAP HANA
13 8 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
13 8 (0.27%) Oracle BI EE
13 8 (0.27%) Sybase ASE
14 7 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 183 (6.21%) JIRA
2 54 (1.83%) Git
3 53 (1.80%) Jenkins
4 44 (1.49%) GitLab
5 43 (1.46%) MSI
6 39 (1.32%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.58%) Eclipse
8 10 (0.34%) Burp Suite
9 9 (0.31%) Chocolatey
9 9 (0.31%) Metasploit
9 9 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (0.24%) Bitbucket
11 6 (0.20%) Android Studio
11 6 (0.20%) Artifactory
11 6 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
11 6 (0.20%) InstallShield
11 6 (0.20%) Xcode
12 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.17%) Maven
12 5 (0.17%) Selenium
General
1 1,007 (34.19%) Social Skills
2 317 (10.76%) Analytical Skills
3 313 (10.63%) Finance
4 200 (6.79%) Public Sector
5 152 (5.16%) Banking
6 117 (3.97%) Legal
7 105 (3.57%) Documentation Skills
8 78 (2.65%) Organisational Skills
9 57 (1.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 52 (1.77%) Retail
11 48 (1.63%) Military
12 42 (1.43%) Manufacturing
13 38 (1.29%) Investment Banking
14 33 (1.12%) Front Office
14 33 (1.12%) Law
15 30 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
16 28 (0.95%) Telecoms
17 25 (0.85%) Spanish Language
18 23 (0.78%) French Language
19 18 (0.61%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 378 (12.84%) Support Engineer
2 368 (12.50%) IT Support
3 297 (10.08%) Analyst
4 267 (9.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 246 (8.35%) IT Engineer
6 204 (6.93%) IT Support Engineer
7 181 (6.15%) Senior
8 155 (5.26%) Architect
9 121 (4.11%) Desktop Support
10 111 (3.77%) Desktop Engineer
11 110 (3.74%) Support Analyst
12 102 (3.46%) 2nd Line Support
12 102 (3.46%) Lead
13 100 (3.40%) Developer
14 92 (3.12%) IT Analyst
14 92 (3.12%) Windows Engineer
15 87 (2.95%) Consultant
16 82 (2.78%) Technical Support
17 77 (2.61%) Cloud Engineer
18 74 (2.51%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (3.46%) .NET
2 96 (3.26%) REST
3 59 (2.00%) .NET Framework
4 41 (1.39%) LDAP
5 34 (1.15%) Microsoft Graph
5 34 (1.15%) SAML
6 30 (1.02%) 802.1X
6 30 (1.02%) Middleware
7 27 (0.92%) Software Packaging
7 27 (0.92%) Web Services
8 26 (0.88%) Kafka
8 26 (0.88%) WinForms
8 26 (0.88%) WPF
9 25 (0.85%) OAuth
10 22 (0.75%) Elastic Stack
11 20 (0.68%) CSS
12 18 (0.61%) JSON
13 17 (0.58%) Node.js
13 17 (0.58%) RESTful
14 16 (0.54%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 271 (9.20%) Onboarding
2 159 (5.40%) Data Centre
3 128 (4.35%) PKI
4 88 (2.99%) Enterprise Software
5 73 (2.48%) Clustering
6 71 (2.41%) Self-Motivation
7 66 (2.24%) Management Information System
8 61 (2.07%) Driving Licence
9 60 (2.04%) Cloud Native
10 56 (1.90%) Replication
11 55 (1.87%) Legacy Systems
11 55 (1.87%) Security Posture
12 53 (1.80%) Hybrid Cloud
13 51 (1.73%) Virtual Team
14 40 (1.36%) Data Protection Act
15 37 (1.26%) Smartphone
16 34 (1.15%) CMDB
17 32 (1.09%) Operational Technology
18 31 (1.05%) Analytical Mindset
18 31 (1.05%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 734 (24.92%) Linux
2 703 (23.87%) Windows Server
3 488 (16.57%) Windows 10
4 181 (6.15%) Mac OS
5 156 (5.30%) Unix
6 141 (4.79%) Apple iOS
7 137 (4.65%) Android
8 105 (3.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 77 (2.61%) Windows Server 2019
10 61 (2.07%) Windows Server 2016
11 52 (1.77%) Windows 7
12 38 (1.29%) Windows Server 2012
13 33 (1.12%) AIX
14 29 (0.98%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.81%) Solaris
16 21 (0.71%) VMS
17 17 (0.58%) Windows Server 2003
17 17 (0.58%) Windows Server 2008
18 13 (0.44%) CentOS
19 9 (0.31%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 645 (21.90%) Problem-Solving
2 442 (15.01%) ITIL
3 426 (14.47%) Customer Service
4 344 (11.68%) Migration
5 342 (11.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 301 (10.22%) ITSM
7 276 (9.37%) Agile
7 276 (9.37%) DevOps
8 255 (8.66%) CI/CD
9 222 (7.54%) Continuous Improvement
10 205 (6.96%) Service Management
11 203 (6.89%) High Availability
12 199 (6.76%) Change Management
13 175 (5.94%) Disaster Recovery
14 167 (5.67%) Infrastructure as Code
15 165 (5.60%) Cybersecurity
16 155 (5.26%) Stakeholder Management
17 150 (5.09%) Service Delivery
18 145 (4.92%) SIEM
19 142 (4.82%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 627 (21.29%) PowerShell
2 302 (10.25%) Python
3 279 (9.47%) SQL
4 130 (4.41%) C#
5 116 (3.94%) Bash
6 69 (2.34%) Java
7 66 (2.24%) JavaScript
8 55 (1.87%) PL/SQL
9 50 (1.70%) C++
10 47 (1.60%) T-SQL
11 29 (0.98%) Perl
12 24 (0.81%) Kusto Query Language
12 24 (0.81%) VB
13 23 (0.78%) Search Processing Language
13 23 (0.78%) Shell Script
14 21 (0.71%) Bicep
15 20 (0.68%) VBScript
16 14 (0.48%) TypeScript
17 13 (0.44%) C
17 13 (0.44%) VBA
Qualifications
1 847 (28.76%) Security Cleared
2 549 (18.64%) SC Cleared
3 317 (10.76%) Degree
4 263 (8.93%) DV Cleared
5 112 (3.80%) Microsoft Certification
6 95 (3.23%) Cisco Certification
7 85 (2.89%) Computer Science Degree
8 66 (2.24%) CISSP
9 56 (1.90%) Azure Certification
10 47 (1.60%) MCSE
11 46 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
12 45 (1.53%) AWS Certification
13 42 (1.43%) CCNA
14 32 (1.09%) CompTIA Security+
15 31 (1.05%) CCNP
16 30 (1.02%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 28 (0.95%) ITIL Certification
18 27 (0.92%) MCSA
19 26 (0.88%) CISM
20 22 (0.75%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 126 (4.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 115 (3.90%) SLA
3 93 (3.16%) NIST
4 86 (2.92%) QA
5 69 (2.34%) GDPR
6 38 (1.29%) PCI DSS
7 32 (1.09%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 26 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials
9 19 (0.65%) NCSC
10 13 (0.44%) Disclosure Scotland
10 13 (0.44%) PMO
11 12 (0.41%) Data Quality
12 11 (0.37%) HIPAA
12 11 (0.37%) SOC 2
13 10 (0.34%) FINRA
13 10 (0.34%) MiFID
13 10 (0.34%) NIST 800
14 9 (0.31%) GRC
15 8 (0.27%) Accessibility
16 6 (0.20%) GLBA
System Software
1 1,086 (36.88%) Active Directory
2 370 (12.56%) VMware Infrastructure
3 155 (5.26%) Hyper-V
4 113 (3.84%) VMware ESXi
5 102 (3.46%) vSphere
6 93 (3.16%) Virtual Machines
7 92 (3.12%) Docker
8 68 (2.31%) Virtual Desktop
9 54 (1.83%) VMware NSX
10 40 (1.36%) Firmware
11 39 (1.32%) BitLocker
12 28 (0.95%) Microsoft App-V
13 20 (0.68%) KVM
14 11 (0.37%) Oracle RAC
14 11 (0.37%) vCloud
14 11 (0.37%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.34%) XenApp
16 8 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
17 6 (0.20%) etcd
17 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 390 (13.24%) Microsoft Intune
2 262 (8.90%) SCCM
3 197 (6.69%) Ansible
4 189 (6.42%) Terraform
5 140 (4.75%) Kubernetes
6 86 (2.92%) vCenter Server
7 54 (1.83%) Single Sign-On
8 50 (1.70%) Jamf Pro
9 47 (1.60%) FortiGate
10 40 (1.36%) SCOM
11 38 (1.29%) WSUS
12 37 (1.26%) Progress Chef
13 36 (1.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 34 (1.15%) Grafana
15 32 (1.09%) Prometheus
16 28 (0.95%) Puppet
17 24 (0.81%) Nagios
18 21 (0.71%) ZABBIX
19 20 (0.68%) Packer
19 20 (0.68%) vMotion
Vendors
1 1,247 (42.34%) Microsoft
2 474 (16.10%) VMware
3 259 (8.79%) ServiceNow
4 223 (7.57%) Cisco
5 195 (6.62%) Citrix
6 186 (6.32%) Oracle
7 144 (4.89%) Splunk
8 79 (2.68%) SolarWinds
9 77 (2.61%) HP
10 69 (2.34%) Apple
10 69 (2.34%) Dell
10 69 (2.34%) Red Hat
11 60 (2.04%) F5
11 60 (2.04%) Google
12 59 (2.00%) CyberArk
13 55 (1.87%) Remedy
14 54 (1.83%) Palo Alto
15 52 (1.77%) BeyondTrust
15 52 (1.77%) IBM
16 48 (1.63%) Juniper