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

6 months to
28 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 20 17
Rank change year-on-year -7 -3 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,875 2,462 3,764
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.47% 8.47% 8.51%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.32% 59.15% 63.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,924 1,714 2,556
10th Percentile £160 £181 £158
25th Percentile £208 £240 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £413 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.94% +6.25% -10.80%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £642 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £365 £400 £378
% change year-on-year -8.75% +5.82% -2.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 248 111 286
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.33 £12.32
25th Percentile £16.44 £16.95 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.50 £22.00 £17.86
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% +23.18% -16.19%
75th Percentile £53.00 £28.21 £24.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £63.25 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.30 £21.11 £17.69
% change year-on-year +0.90% +19.33% -7.58%

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 4,766 4,162 5,975
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.72% 14.32% 13.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,118 2,778 4,000
10th Percentile £181 £200 £181
25th Percentile £300 £325 £281
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -12.62%
75th Percentile £569 £600 £594
90th Percentile £658 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £424 £450 £438
% change year-on-year -5.69% +2.86% -7.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 341 162 407
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.67 £12.86
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.50 £15.50
Median hourly rate £23.50 £24.83 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.36% +12.86% -24.14%
75th Percentile £63.75 £63.06 £57.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £68.69 £68.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.81 £24.66 £20.85
% change year-on-year -7.50% +18.26% -21.25%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 2,529 £413 -1.79% 989
UK excluding London -9 1,911 £365 -8.75% 879
London -19 778 £443 +0.57% 231
Work from Home -18 584 £450 -2.70% 328
South East -4 516 £467 -1.68% 277
North of England -8 482 £295 -15.71% 201
Midlands -15 274 £325 - 130
North West -4 266 £261 -25.36% 130
South West -5 252 £450 -15.89% 129
East of England +7 212 £275 +22.22% 97
Yorkshire -15 192 £358 -10.63% 58
West Midlands -26 164 £442 +36.08% 76
Scotland -3 136 £425 -3.30% 42
East Midlands -2 106 £200 -20.00% 54
Wales -2 46 £200 -45.21% 20
North East -8 27 £188 -27.88% 17
Northern Ireland -14 8 £175 +9.38% 4
Channel Islands +2 2 £500 +68.07% 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
1 249 (8.66%) Microsoft Exchange
2 169 (5.88%) SharePoint
3 54 (1.88%) Confluence
4 46 (1.60%) IIS
5 27 (0.94%) Apache
6 23 (0.80%) WebLogic
7 13 (0.45%) Tomcat
8 12 (0.42%) SAS
8 12 (0.42%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.42%) TPMS
8 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
9 11 (0.38%) nginx
10 7 (0.24%) WebSphere
11 6 (0.21%) NetWeaver
12 5 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.10%) ArcGIS
14 3 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2010
15 2 (0.070%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 222 (7.72%) Microsoft Office
2 70 (2.43%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.42%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.035%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 32 (1.11%) Remedy ITSM
2 16 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.24%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.17%) assyst
5 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.070%) Dynamics CRM
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%) Eikon
8 1 (0.035%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 816 (28.38%) Microsoft 365
2 773 (26.89%) Azure
3 310 (10.78%) Entra ID
4 226 (7.86%) AWS
5 93 (3.23%) OneDrive
6 72 (2.50%) GCP
7 70 (2.43%) Azure DevOps
8 68 (2.37%) SaaS
9 56 (1.95%) Google Workspace
10 49 (1.70%) GitHub
10 49 (1.70%) IaaS
11 42 (1.46%) PaaS
11 42 (1.46%) Power Platform
12 36 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
13 30 (1.04%) Azure Sentinel
14 26 (0.90%) OpenShift
15 24 (0.83%) AWS CloudFormation
15 24 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
16 21 (0.73%) Nutanix
17 17 (0.59%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 382 (13.29%) DNS
2 345 (12.00%) Firewall
3 248 (8.63%) DHCP
4 199 (6.92%) VPN
5 188 (6.54%) TCP/IP
6 170 (5.91%) LAN
7 168 (5.84%) WAN
8 164 (5.70%) Wi-Fi
9 82 (2.85%) Network Security
10 67 (2.33%) VLAN
11 63 (2.19%) SAN
12 57 (1.98%) Wireless
13 41 (1.43%) BGP
14 40 (1.39%) SSL
15 39 (1.36%) SD-WAN
16 37 (1.29%) Skype
16 37 (1.29%) VoIP
17 32 (1.11%) SNMP
17 32 (1.11%) SSH
18 31 (1.08%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 173 (6.02%) SQL Server
2 57 (1.98%) Oracle Database
3 38 (1.32%) Relational Database
4 37 (1.29%) MySQL
5 26 (0.90%) PostgreSQL
6 17 (0.59%) Data Warehouse
6 17 (0.59%) Power BI
7 15 (0.52%) DB2
7 15 (0.52%) Elasticsearch
8 13 (0.45%) BigQuery
8 13 (0.45%) MongoDB
8 13 (0.45%) Oracle Reports
9 10 (0.35%) GIS
9 10 (0.35%) SAP HANA
10 8 (0.28%) NoSQL
11 7 (0.24%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 7 (0.24%) Sybase ASE
12 6 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
12 6 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
12 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 170 (5.91%) JIRA
2 65 (2.26%) GitLab
2 65 (2.26%) Jenkins
3 54 (1.88%) Git
4 41 (1.43%) MSI
5 35 (1.22%) Visual Studio
6 24 (0.83%) Eclipse
7 17 (0.59%) Burp Suite
7 17 (0.59%) Metasploit
8 15 (0.52%) Artifactory
9 14 (0.49%) Android Studio
10 12 (0.42%) Xcode
11 11 (0.38%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.38%) Chocolatey
12 10 (0.35%) Browser DevTools
13 9 (0.31%) InstallShield
14 8 (0.28%) JUnit
14 8 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
15 7 (0.24%) Robot Framework
15 7 (0.24%) Selenium
General
1 1,012 (35.20%) Social Skills
2 277 (9.63%) Finance
3 260 (9.04%) Analytical Skills
4 242 (8.42%) Public Sector
5 143 (4.97%) Banking
6 132 (4.59%) Legal
7 110 (3.83%) Documentation Skills
8 84 (2.92%) Organisational Skills
9 58 (2.02%) Military
10 57 (1.98%) Manufacturing
11 41 (1.43%) Presentation Skills
12 39 (1.36%) Telecoms
13 38 (1.32%) Retail
14 36 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 29 (1.01%) Law
16 25 (0.87%) Investment Banking
17 21 (0.73%) Front Office
18 20 (0.70%) Local Government
19 17 (0.59%) Aerospace
20 16 (0.56%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 390 (13.57%) IT Support
2 373 (12.97%) Analyst
3 372 (12.94%) Support Engineer
4 229 (7.97%) IT Engineer
5 192 (6.68%) IT Support Engineer
6 190 (6.61%) Architect
7 185 (6.43%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 167 (5.81%) Senior
9 154 (5.36%) Support Analyst
10 120 (4.17%) Desktop Support
11 108 (3.76%) Developer
12 106 (3.69%) Technical Support
13 103 (3.58%) 2nd Line Support
13 103 (3.58%) Windows Engineer
14 99 (3.44%) Desktop Engineer
15 96 (3.34%) IT Analyst
16 93 (3.23%) Lead
17 81 (2.82%) Consultant
18 75 (2.61%) IT Support Analyst
19 73 (2.54%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (3.10%) .NET
2 79 (2.75%) REST
3 51 (1.77%) LDAP
4 50 (1.74%) .NET Framework
5 47 (1.63%) SAML
6 45 (1.57%) OAuth
7 41 (1.43%) Middleware
8 33 (1.15%) Kafka
9 31 (1.08%) Web Services
10 28 (0.97%) WPF
11 27 (0.94%) WinForms
12 26 (0.90%) Microsoft Graph
12 26 (0.90%) OpenID
13 24 (0.83%) CSS
14 23 (0.80%) 802.1X
14 23 (0.80%) React
15 22 (0.77%) AngularJS
16 21 (0.73%) Node.js
17 20 (0.70%) Apache NiFi
17 20 (0.70%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 201 (6.99%) Onboarding
2 127 (4.42%) Data Centre
3 104 (3.62%) PKI
4 84 (2.92%) Enterprise Software
5 79 (2.75%) Driving Licence
6 68 (2.37%) Self-Motivation
7 59 (2.05%) Clustering
8 58 (2.02%) Replication
9 51 (1.77%) Management Information System
10 49 (1.70%) Hybrid Cloud
11 48 (1.67%) Smartphone
12 46 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
12 46 (1.60%) Security Posture
13 40 (1.39%) Product Ownership
14 37 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
14 37 (1.29%) Security Operations Centre
15 34 (1.18%) CMDB
16 33 (1.15%) Virtual Team
17 32 (1.11%) NHS
18 30 (1.04%) Cloud Native
Operating Systems
1 715 (24.87%) Linux
2 635 (22.09%) Windows Server
3 547 (19.03%) Windows 10
4 159 (5.53%) Unix
5 154 (5.36%) Android
6 153 (5.32%) Mac OS
7 115 (4.00%) Apple iOS
8 99 (3.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 74 (2.57%) Windows Server 2016
10 63 (2.19%) Windows Server 2019
11 48 (1.67%) Windows 7
12 39 (1.36%) AIX
13 38 (1.32%) Windows Server 2012
14 28 (0.97%) Windows Server 2003
15 20 (0.70%) Solaris
16 19 (0.66%) Ubuntu
16 19 (0.66%) VMS
17 13 (0.45%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.35%) Mac OS X
19 9 (0.31%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 581 (20.21%) Problem-Solving
2 478 (16.63%) Customer Service
3 410 (14.26%) ITIL
4 314 (10.92%) Agile
5 313 (10.89%) Migration
6 276 (9.60%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 260 (9.04%) DevOps
8 235 (8.17%) CI/CD
9 231 (8.03%) ITSM
10 215 (7.48%) Cybersecurity
11 201 (6.99%) Continuous Improvement
12 197 (6.85%) Service Management
13 173 (6.02%) Change Management
13 173 (6.02%) Disaster Recovery
14 147 (5.11%) High Availability
15 145 (5.04%) Stakeholder Management
16 136 (4.73%) SIEM
17 131 (4.56%) Service Delivery
18 128 (4.45%) Infrastructure as Code
19 123 (4.28%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 617 (21.46%) PowerShell
2 316 (10.99%) Python
3 260 (9.04%) SQL
4 125 (4.35%) C#
5 124 (4.31%) Bash
6 97 (3.37%) Java
7 76 (2.64%) JavaScript
8 60 (2.09%) PL/SQL
9 56 (1.95%) C++
9 56 (1.95%) Perl
10 40 (1.39%) T-SQL
11 31 (1.08%) Kusto Query Language
12 23 (0.80%) VB
13 22 (0.77%) Shell Script
14 21 (0.73%) VBScript
15 14 (0.49%) Bicep
15 14 (0.49%) Search Processing Language
15 14 (0.49%) VBA
16 13 (0.45%) Go
17 12 (0.42%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 881 (30.64%) Security Cleared
2 585 (20.35%) SC Cleared
3 292 (10.16%) Degree
4 255 (8.87%) DV Cleared
5 125 (4.35%) Microsoft Certification
6 90 (3.13%) Computer Science Degree
7 68 (2.37%) Cisco Certification
8 46 (1.60%) Azure Certification
9 45 (1.57%) MCSE
10 43 (1.50%) CISSP
11 41 (1.43%) ITIL Certification
12 38 (1.32%) CompTIA Security+
13 37 (1.29%) BPSS Clearance
14 32 (1.11%) CCNA
15 31 (1.08%) AWS Certification
16 29 (1.01%) A+ Certification
17 28 (0.97%) CCNP
18 23 (0.80%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
19 22 (0.77%) MCSA
20 20 (0.70%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (3.34%) GDPR
1 96 (3.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 92 (3.20%) SLA
3 87 (3.03%) QA
4 70 (2.43%) NIST
5 44 (1.53%) PCI DSS
6 27 (0.94%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 20 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
8 15 (0.52%) NCSC
8 15 (0.52%) PMO
9 12 (0.42%) GLBA
9 12 (0.42%) MiFID
9 12 (0.42%) NIST 800
10 10 (0.35%) Data Quality
10 10 (0.35%) FINRA
11 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
12 6 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
13 5 (0.17%) GMP
13 5 (0.17%) GxP
13 5 (0.17%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,049 (36.49%) Active Directory
2 301 (10.47%) VMware Infrastructure
3 125 (4.35%) Hyper-V
4 108 (3.76%) Docker
5 77 (2.68%) vSphere
6 65 (2.26%) VMware ESXi
7 60 (2.09%) Virtual Machines
8 55 (1.91%) Virtual Desktop
9 38 (1.32%) VMware NSX
10 34 (1.18%) Firmware
11 28 (0.97%) BitLocker
12 23 (0.80%) Microsoft App-V
13 16 (0.56%) KVM
14 10 (0.35%) XenApp
14 10 (0.35%) XenDesktop
15 9 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
16 6 (0.21%) etcd
16 6 (0.21%) NFS
17 5 (0.17%) Terminal Services
17 5 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 371 (12.90%) Microsoft Intune
2 309 (10.75%) SCCM
3 185 (6.43%) Ansible
4 180 (6.26%) Terraform
5 138 (4.80%) Kubernetes
6 80 (2.78%) Single Sign-On
7 66 (2.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 62 (2.16%) vCenter Server
9 45 (1.57%) Jamf Pro
10 37 (1.29%) FortiGate
10 37 (1.29%) Grafana
11 33 (1.15%) WSUS
12 31 (1.08%) Prometheus
13 23 (0.80%) SCOM
14 22 (0.77%) Progress Chef
15 19 (0.66%) Nagios
16 17 (0.59%) Nessus
16 17 (0.59%) Puppet
17 16 (0.56%) Nmap
17 16 (0.56%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,235 (42.96%) Microsoft
2 409 (14.23%) VMware
3 245 (8.52%) ServiceNow
4 210 (7.30%) Citrix
5 190 (6.61%) Oracle
6 187 (6.50%) Cisco
7 150 (5.22%) Splunk
8 91 (3.17%) HP
9 75 (2.61%) Dell
10 69 (2.40%) Red Hat
11 66 (2.30%) SolarWinds
12 62 (2.16%) Apple
12 62 (2.16%) Google
13 59 (2.05%) IBM
14 48 (1.67%) Remedy
15 44 (1.53%) Juniper
15 44 (1.53%) Palo Alto
16 43 (1.50%) Veeam
17 42 (1.46%) SAP
18 41 (1.43%) F5