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

6 months to
1 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 3,003 2,528 3,544
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.84% 8.22% 8.21%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.14% 59.82% 60.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,926 1,696 2,388
10th Percentile £165 £181 £165
25th Percentile £223 £231 £235
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.56%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £674 £672
UK excluding London median daily rate £418 £400 £436
% change year-on-year +4.38% -8.31% +10.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 255 181 295
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.12 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.13 £16.95 £14.34
Median hourly rate £25.26 £18.87 £19.18
Median % change year-on-year +33.86% -1.62% -19.61%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.94 £63.75 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £18.00
% change year-on-year +36.46% +4.83% -18.18%

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 4,912 4,226 5,864
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.56% 13.74% 13.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,128 2,743 3,860
10th Percentile £190 £200 £190
25th Percentile £313 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.43% -2.21% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £580 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £463
% change year-on-year - -2.70% +0.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 334 217 435
10th Percentile £14.80 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.44 £16.25
Median hourly rate £26.47 £22.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.32% -12.00% -41.18%
75th Percentile £63.75 £42.16 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £66.20 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.00 £18.87 £31.25
% change year-on-year +37.78% -39.62% -6.72%

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 1 July 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 1 July 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 1 July 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 -6 2,628 £425 - 1,096
UK excluding London -13 1,986 £418 +4.38% 974
London -21 852 £425 -3.41% 283
Work from Home -9 636 £475 +0.26% 378
South East -8 528 £475 -5.00% 306
North of England -9 472 £365 +3.11% 200
Midlands -15 277 £338 +22.73% 134
South West -11 264 £488 +8.33% 162
North West -4 249 £363 -1.29% 117
East of England -2 218 £318 +14.39% 105
Yorkshire -12 204 £365 -8.75% 60
West Midlands -22 174 £450 +50.00% 64
Scotland -4 171 £419 -3.68% 44
East Midlands +11 98 £263 +31.25% 70
Wales +9 53 £375 +30.43% 37
North East -33 23 £290 -3.33% 29
Northern Ireland -3 15 £139 -28.97% 27
Channel Islands +3 3 £518 -

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 (7.83%) Microsoft Exchange
2 198 (6.59%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.00%) IIS
4 58 (1.93%) Confluence
5 19 (0.63%) Tomcat
6 18 (0.60%) Apache
7 16 (0.53%) nginx
8 14 (0.47%) Skype for Business
9 11 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
10 10 (0.33%) WebLogic
11 9 (0.30%) NetWeaver
12 8 (0.27%) HCL Notes
13 7 (0.23%) Appian
14 6 (0.20%) SAS
15 5 (0.17%) Camunda
15 5 (0.17%) Documentum
16 4 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
17 3 (0.100%) CloudStack
17 3 (0.100%) Exchange Server 2010
17 3 (0.100%) WebSphere
Applications
1 187 (6.23%) Microsoft Office
2 67 (2.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 22 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.20%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.067%) Acrobat
7 2 (0.067%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.033%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.033%) Houdini
8 1 (0.033%) InDesign
8 1 (0.033%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 40 (1.33%) Remedy ITSM
2 19 (0.63%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.40%) Teamcenter
4 10 (0.33%) Finacle
5 5 (0.17%) OpenText MBPM
5 5 (0.17%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.100%) assyst
7 1 (0.033%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.033%) Dynamics GP
7 1 (0.033%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.033%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.033%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.033%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.033%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.033%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 905 (30.14%) Azure
2 827 (27.54%) Microsoft 365
3 391 (13.02%) Entra ID
4 311 (10.36%) AWS
5 118 (3.93%) OneDrive
6 92 (3.06%) GCP
7 87 (2.90%) Azure DevOps
8 77 (2.56%) SaaS
9 67 (2.23%) GitHub
10 62 (2.06%) Power Platform
11 61 (2.03%) IaaS
12 53 (1.76%) Azure Monitor
13 51 (1.70%) PaaS
14 39 (1.30%) OpenShift
15 38 (1.27%) Azure Sentinel
16 32 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
17 29 (0.97%) Google Workspace
18 28 (0.93%) AWS CloudFormation
19 24 (0.80%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 23 (0.77%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 408 (13.59%) DNS
2 308 (10.26%) Firewall
3 283 (9.42%) DHCP
4 219 (7.29%) VPN
5 186 (6.19%) WAN
6 183 (6.09%) LAN
6 183 (6.09%) TCP/IP
7 151 (5.03%) Wi-Fi
8 96 (3.20%) SAN
9 68 (2.26%) Network Security
10 60 (2.00%) VLAN
11 48 (1.60%) BGP
12 45 (1.50%) NAS
12 45 (1.50%) SSL
13 44 (1.47%) SD-WAN
14 42 (1.40%) Internet
15 38 (1.27%) OSPF
15 38 (1.27%) VoIP
16 35 (1.17%) Wireless
17 34 (1.13%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 256 (8.52%) SQL Server
2 60 (2.00%) Oracle Database
3 40 (1.33%) Power BI
4 31 (1.03%) Relational Database
5 28 (0.93%) MySQL
5 28 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
6 19 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
6 19 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 18 (0.60%) Db2
7 18 (0.60%) Elasticsearch
8 14 (0.47%) NoSQL
9 13 (0.43%) Data Warehouse
9 13 (0.43%) RDBMS
10 11 (0.37%) MongoDB
11 10 (0.33%) GIS
12 9 (0.30%) SAP HANA
13 8 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
13 8 (0.27%) Oracle BI EE
13 8 (0.27%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.27%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 184 (6.13%) JIRA
2 59 (1.96%) Git
3 54 (1.80%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.57%) MSI
5 42 (1.40%) GitLab
6 37 (1.23%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.57%) Eclipse
8 9 (0.30%) Chocolatey
9 8 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (0.23%) Bitbucket
10 7 (0.23%) Burp Suite
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%) Metasploit
11 6 (0.20%) Xcode
12 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.17%) Maven
12 5 (0.17%) Selenium
General
1 1,044 (34.77%) Social Skills
2 330 (10.99%) Analytical Skills
3 318 (10.59%) Finance
4 209 (6.96%) Public Sector
5 149 (4.96%) Banking
6 111 (3.70%) Legal
7 105 (3.50%) Documentation Skills
8 83 (2.76%) Organisational Skills
9 58 (1.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 54 (1.80%) Retail
11 47 (1.57%) Military
12 40 (1.33%) Manufacturing
13 35 (1.17%) Front Office
14 34 (1.13%) Investment Banking
15 32 (1.07%) Telecoms
16 30 (1.00%) Law
17 26 (0.87%) Presentation Skills
18 24 (0.80%) Spanish Language
19 21 (0.70%) French Language
20 18 (0.60%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 396 (13.19%) Support Engineer
2 381 (12.69%) IT Support
3 291 (9.69%) Analyst
4 273 (9.09%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 263 (8.76%) IT Engineer
6 218 (7.26%) IT Support Engineer
7 187 (6.23%) Senior
8 157 (5.23%) Architect
9 121 (4.03%) Desktop Support
10 111 (3.70%) 2nd Line Support
11 108 (3.60%) Support Analyst
12 107 (3.56%) Desktop Engineer
13 106 (3.53%) Developer
13 106 (3.53%) Lead
14 94 (3.13%) Consultant
15 91 (3.03%) IT Analyst
16 90 (3.00%) Windows Engineer
17 85 (2.83%) Cloud Engineer
18 79 (2.63%) Technical Support
19 75 (2.50%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 105 (3.50%) .NET
2 101 (3.36%) REST
3 61 (2.03%) .NET Framework
4 44 (1.47%) LDAP
5 34 (1.13%) SAML
6 31 (1.03%) 802.1X
6 31 (1.03%) Microsoft Graph
6 31 (1.03%) Middleware
7 28 (0.93%) Software Packaging
7 28 (0.93%) WPF
8 27 (0.90%) WinForms
9 26 (0.87%) Web Services
10 25 (0.83%) Kafka
10 25 (0.83%) OAuth
11 24 (0.80%) Elastic Stack
12 22 (0.73%) CSS
13 19 (0.63%) JSON
13 19 (0.63%) RESTful
14 17 (0.57%) Node.js
14 17 (0.57%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 282 (9.39%) Onboarding
2 163 (5.43%) Data Centre
3 137 (4.56%) PKI
4 87 (2.90%) Enterprise Software
5 79 (2.63%) Clustering
6 72 (2.40%) Management Information System
7 71 (2.36%) Self-Motivation
8 63 (2.10%) Cloud Native
8 63 (2.10%) Driving Licence
9 62 (2.06%) Replication
10 57 (1.90%) Legacy Systems
11 54 (1.80%) Security Posture
12 52 (1.73%) Hybrid Cloud
13 51 (1.70%) Virtual Team
14 39 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
15 38 (1.27%) Video Conferencing
16 33 (1.10%) Smartphone
17 32 (1.07%) CMDB
17 32 (1.07%) Linux Command Line
17 32 (1.07%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 737 (24.54%) Linux
2 723 (24.08%) Windows Server
3 490 (16.32%) Windows 10
4 189 (6.29%) Mac OS
5 158 (5.26%) Unix
6 140 (4.66%) Apple iOS
7 138 (4.60%) Android
8 112 (3.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 77 (2.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 59 (1.96%) Windows Server 2016
11 51 (1.70%) Windows 7
12 41 (1.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 35 (1.17%) AIX
14 33 (1.10%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.80%) Solaris
16 22 (0.73%) VMS
17 17 (0.57%) Windows Server 2008
18 16 (0.53%) Windows Server 2003
19 15 (0.50%) CentOS
20 9 (0.30%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 661 (22.01%) Problem-Solving
2 468 (15.58%) ITIL
3 438 (14.59%) Customer Service
4 352 (11.72%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 351 (11.69%) Migration
6 310 (10.32%) ITSM
7 285 (9.49%) DevOps
8 270 (8.99%) Agile
9 253 (8.42%) CI/CD
10 248 (8.26%) Continuous Improvement
11 218 (7.26%) Service Management
12 214 (7.13%) High Availability
13 196 (6.53%) Change Management
14 180 (5.99%) Infrastructure as Code
15 172 (5.73%) Disaster Recovery
16 164 (5.46%) Stakeholder Management
17 163 (5.43%) Cybersecurity
18 162 (5.39%) Service Delivery
19 145 (4.83%) Runbook
19 145 (4.83%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 631 (21.01%) PowerShell
2 308 (10.26%) Python
3 287 (9.56%) SQL
4 135 (4.50%) C#
5 121 (4.03%) Bash
6 73 (2.43%) Java
7 66 (2.20%) JavaScript
8 53 (1.76%) PL/SQL
9 52 (1.73%) T-SQL
10 51 (1.70%) C++
11 27 (0.90%) Perl
12 24 (0.80%) VB
13 23 (0.77%) Search Processing Language
14 22 (0.73%) Bicep
14 22 (0.73%) Kusto Query Language
14 22 (0.73%) Shell Script
15 21 (0.70%) VBScript
16 16 (0.53%) TypeScript
17 14 (0.47%) C
17 14 (0.47%) VBA
Qualifications
1 878 (29.24%) Security Cleared
2 572 (19.05%) SC Cleared
3 311 (10.36%) Degree
4 268 (8.92%) DV Cleared
5 117 (3.90%) Microsoft Certification
6 101 (3.36%) Cisco Certification
7 80 (2.66%) Computer Science Degree
8 66 (2.20%) CISSP
9 58 (1.93%) Azure Certification
10 51 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
11 48 (1.60%) AWS Certification
11 48 (1.60%) MCSE
12 45 (1.50%) CCNA
13 35 (1.17%) CCNP
14 31 (1.03%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 29 (0.97%) CompTIA Security+
15 29 (0.97%) ITIL Certification
16 25 (0.83%) A+ Certification
16 25 (0.83%) CISM
16 25 (0.83%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 125 (4.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 121 (4.03%) SLA
3 92 (3.06%) NIST
4 89 (2.96%) QA
5 61 (2.03%) GDPR
6 33 (1.10%) PCI DSS
7 31 (1.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 27 (0.90%) Cyber Essentials
9 21 (0.70%) NCSC
10 14 (0.47%) Disclosure Scotland
11 13 (0.43%) Data Quality
12 11 (0.37%) Accessibility
12 11 (0.37%) HIPAA
12 11 (0.37%) PMO
13 10 (0.33%) GRC
13 10 (0.33%) NIST 800
13 10 (0.33%) SOC 2
14 8 (0.27%) WCAG
15 7 (0.23%) FINRA
15 7 (0.23%) MiFID
System Software
1 1,121 (37.33%) Active Directory
2 382 (12.72%) VMware Infrastructure
3 156 (5.19%) Hyper-V
4 117 (3.90%) VMware ESXi
5 106 (3.53%) vSphere
6 104 (3.46%) Virtual Machines
7 93 (3.10%) Docker
8 74 (2.46%) Virtual Desktop
9 56 (1.86%) VMware NSX
10 40 (1.33%) Firmware
11 38 (1.27%) BitLocker
12 28 (0.93%) Microsoft App-V
13 18 (0.60%) KVM
14 12 (0.40%) vCloud
15 10 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
16 9 (0.30%) XenDesktop
17 8 (0.27%) NFS
17 8 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
17 8 (0.27%) XenApp
18 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 406 (13.52%) Microsoft Intune
2 263 (8.76%) SCCM
3 204 (6.79%) Terraform
4 195 (6.49%) Ansible
5 148 (4.93%) Kubernetes
6 90 (3.00%) vCenter Server
7 56 (1.86%) Jamf Pro
8 54 (1.80%) Single Sign-On
9 48 (1.60%) SCOM
10 45 (1.50%) FortiGate
11 40 (1.33%) WSUS
12 37 (1.23%) Progress Chef
13 34 (1.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 34 (1.13%) Prometheus
14 33 (1.10%) Grafana
15 29 (0.97%) Puppet
16 25 (0.83%) Nagios
17 22 (0.73%) ZABBIX
18 21 (0.70%) Nessus
19 20 (0.67%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 1,279 (42.59%) Microsoft
2 491 (16.35%) VMware
3 277 (9.22%) ServiceNow
4 226 (7.53%) Cisco
5 200 (6.66%) Citrix
6 185 (6.16%) Oracle
7 137 (4.56%) Splunk
8 81 (2.70%) SolarWinds
9 80 (2.66%) Apple
9 80 (2.66%) HP
10 72 (2.40%) Dell
10 72 (2.40%) Red Hat
11 68 (2.26%) CyberArk
12 64 (2.13%) Google
13 60 (2.00%) BeyondTrust
14 59 (1.96%) F5
15 53 (1.76%) IBM
16 51 (1.70%) Remedy
17 50 (1.67%) Juniper
17 50 (1.67%) Palo Alto