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

6 months to
30 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,835 2,398 3,632
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.01% 8.21% 8.33%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.31% 58.88% 62.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,875 1,661 2,498
10th Percentile £162 £180 £160
25th Percentile £213 £240 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.35% +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £400 £400
Number of hourly rates quoted 226 128 277
10th Percentile £14.75 £15.25 £11.92
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £23.16 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +23.03% +4.56% -20.00%
75th Percentile £63.75 £28.00 £25.28
90th Percentile £74.84 £63.40 £61.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.75 £18.82 £17.69
% change year-on-year +26.20% +6.39% -11.55%

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 4,701 4,073 5,812
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.96% 13.94% 13.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,064 2,686 3,913
10th Percentile £185 £200 £183
25th Percentile £313 £319 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £468
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +1.50% -7.33%
75th Percentile £575 £594 £588
90th Percentile £663 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -5.56% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 324 177 397
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.13 £18.13 £15.50
Median hourly rate £42.22 £24.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.61% +9.91% -44.02%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £23.00 £22.00
% change year-on-year +106.52% +4.55% -29.60%

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 30 April 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 30 April 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 30 April 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 2,461 £415 - 837
UK excluding London -11 1,870 £400 - 796
London -22 772 £440 -2.00% 178
Work from Home -15 572 £475 +2.70% 296
South East -8 492 £473 -5.50% 267
North of England -15 459 £325 - 170
Midlands -12 279 £325 +18.18% 86
North West -5 256 £260 -25.71% 96
South West -13 228 £450 -14.29% 116
East of England +3 208 £350 +54.87% 101
Yorkshire -19 186 £365 +12.31% 55
West Midlands -24 161 £450 +57.89% 40
Scotland 0 150 £425 -5.56% 29
East Midlands +6 113 £223 +7.88% 46
Wales 0 53 £200 -32.20% 30
North East -22 21 £188 -14.77% 24
Northern Ireland -6 13 £175 -12.50% 31
Channel Islands 0 2 £500 +68.07%

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
1 242 (8.54%) Microsoft Exchange
2 153 (5.40%) SharePoint
3 54 (1.90%) IIS
4 48 (1.69%) Confluence
5 22 (0.78%) Apache
6 19 (0.67%) WebLogic
7 14 (0.49%) Tomcat
8 13 (0.46%) nginx
9 12 (0.42%) SAS
9 12 (0.42%) Skype for Business
9 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
10 10 (0.35%) TPMS
11 7 (0.25%) WebSphere
12 6 (0.21%) NetWeaver
13 5 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
15 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
16 2 (0.071%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 2 (0.071%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 200 (7.05%) Microsoft Office
2 65 (2.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.39%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.071%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 41 (1.45%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.28%) Teamcenter
4 7 (0.25%) assyst
5 4 (0.14%) Finacle
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.071%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.071%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.071%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.035%) Eikon
8 1 (0.035%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.035%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 797 (28.11%) Microsoft 365
2 786 (27.72%) Azure
3 314 (11.08%) Entra ID
4 235 (8.29%) AWS
5 77 (2.72%) GCP
6 76 (2.68%) OneDrive
6 76 (2.68%) SaaS
7 73 (2.57%) Azure DevOps
8 58 (2.05%) IaaS
9 55 (1.94%) GitHub
10 51 (1.80%) PaaS
11 46 (1.62%) Google Workspace
12 43 (1.52%) Power Platform
13 40 (1.41%) Azure Monitor
14 32 (1.13%) Azure Sentinel
15 31 (1.09%) OpenShift
16 26 (0.92%) GitHub Actions
17 19 (0.67%) AWS CloudFormation
17 19 (0.67%) Azure AKS
17 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 397 (14.00%) DNS
2 321 (11.32%) Firewall
3 269 (9.49%) DHCP
4 209 (7.37%) VPN
5 178 (6.28%) WAN
6 177 (6.24%) LAN
7 173 (6.10%) TCP/IP
8 150 (5.29%) Wi-Fi
9 79 (2.79%) Network Security
10 71 (2.50%) SAN
11 65 (2.29%) VLAN
12 47 (1.66%) Wireless
13 44 (1.55%) SD-WAN
14 40 (1.41%) Skype
15 39 (1.38%) BGP
16 38 (1.34%) SSL
17 36 (1.27%) VoIP
18 35 (1.23%) OSPF
19 33 (1.16%) Internet
20 31 (1.09%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 198 (6.98%) SQL Server
2 57 (2.01%) Oracle Database
3 33 (1.16%) Relational Database
4 28 (0.99%) MySQL
5 25 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
6 23 (0.81%) Power BI
7 19 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.53%) DB2
9 14 (0.49%) Data Warehouse
10 13 (0.46%) MongoDB
11 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
11 11 (0.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 9 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.28%) GIS
14 7 (0.25%) BigQuery
14 7 (0.25%) RDBMS
14 7 (0.25%) Sybase ASE
15 6 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
15 6 (0.21%) SAP HANA
15 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 169 (5.96%) JIRA
2 57 (2.01%) GitLab
3 52 (1.83%) Jenkins
4 50 (1.76%) Git
5 46 (1.62%) MSI
6 34 (1.20%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.71%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.63%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.39%) Artifactory
10 11 (0.39%) Chocolatey
11 10 (0.35%) Android Studio
11 10 (0.35%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.35%) InstallShield
12 9 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
13 8 (0.28%) Browser DevTools
13 8 (0.28%) Xcode
14 7 (0.25%) AdminStudio
14 7 (0.25%) JUnit
14 7 (0.25%) Selenium
General
1 984 (34.71%) Social Skills
2 280 (9.88%) Finance
3 263 (9.28%) Analytical Skills
4 226 (7.97%) Public Sector
5 146 (5.15%) Banking
6 125 (4.41%) Legal
7 105 (3.70%) Documentation Skills
8 71 (2.50%) Organisational Skills
9 62 (2.19%) Military
10 49 (1.73%) Manufacturing
11 41 (1.45%) Telecoms
12 39 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 39 (1.38%) Retail
13 36 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
14 35 (1.23%) Law
15 29 (1.02%) Investment Banking
16 28 (0.99%) Front Office
17 20 (0.71%) Local Government
18 19 (0.67%) Police
19 17 (0.60%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 364 (12.84%) IT Support
2 331 (11.68%) Support Engineer
3 320 (11.29%) Analyst
4 234 (8.25%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 218 (7.69%) IT Engineer
6 178 (6.28%) Architect
6 178 (6.28%) Senior
7 177 (6.24%) IT Support Engineer
8 126 (4.44%) Support Analyst
9 121 (4.27%) Desktop Support
10 105 (3.70%) Developer
11 98 (3.46%) Windows Engineer
12 94 (3.32%) IT Analyst
12 94 (3.32%) Lead
13 93 (3.28%) Desktop Engineer
14 89 (3.14%) Technical Support
15 83 (2.93%) 2nd Line Support
16 71 (2.50%) 1st Line Support
16 71 (2.50%) Service Analyst
17 69 (2.43%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (3.35%) .NET
2 82 (2.89%) REST
3 54 (1.90%) .NET Framework
4 43 (1.52%) LDAP
5 41 (1.45%) SAML
6 36 (1.27%) Middleware
7 35 (1.23%) Kafka
8 29 (1.02%) OAuth
8 29 (1.02%) WinForms
8 29 (1.02%) WPF
9 28 (0.99%) Microsoft Graph
10 27 (0.95%) 802.1X
10 27 (0.95%) Web Services
11 21 (0.74%) Node.js
12 20 (0.71%) OpenID
13 19 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
13 19 (0.67%) Software Packaging
14 18 (0.63%) CSS
14 18 (0.63%) React
15 16 (0.56%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 223 (7.87%) Onboarding
2 132 (4.66%) Data Centre
3 106 (3.74%) PKI
4 90 (3.17%) Enterprise Software
5 76 (2.68%) Driving Licence
6 75 (2.65%) Clustering
7 70 (2.47%) Self-Motivation
8 60 (2.12%) Replication
9 50 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
10 47 (1.66%) Hybrid Cloud
11 46 (1.62%) Management Information System
12 45 (1.59%) Security Posture
13 43 (1.52%) Smartphone
14 40 (1.41%) Virtual Team
15 34 (1.20%) Cloud Native
16 33 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
17 31 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
17 31 (1.09%) Security Operations Centre
18 30 (1.06%) CMDB
19 28 (0.99%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 711 (25.08%) Linux
2 661 (23.32%) Windows Server
3 504 (17.78%) Windows 10
4 172 (6.07%) Mac OS
5 149 (5.26%) Android
6 145 (5.11%) Unix
7 122 (4.30%) Apple iOS
8 94 (3.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 78 (2.75%) Windows Server 2016
10 71 (2.50%) Windows Server 2019
11 50 (1.76%) Windows 7
12 42 (1.48%) Windows Server 2012
13 35 (1.23%) AIX
14 22 (0.78%) Ubuntu
15 21 (0.74%) VMS
16 20 (0.71%) Windows Server 2003
17 19 (0.67%) Solaris
18 13 (0.46%) Windows Server 2008
19 11 (0.39%) CentOS
20 9 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 592 (20.88%) Problem-Solving
2 445 (15.70%) Customer Service
3 410 (14.46%) ITIL
4 325 (11.46%) Migration
5 308 (10.86%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 293 (10.34%) Agile
7 253 (8.92%) DevOps
8 234 (8.25%) CI/CD
9 229 (8.08%) ITSM
10 186 (6.56%) Disaster Recovery
11 184 (6.49%) Cybersecurity
12 179 (6.31%) Continuous Improvement
13 177 (6.24%) Service Management
14 172 (6.07%) Change Management
15 162 (5.71%) High Availability
16 142 (5.01%) SIEM
17 134 (4.73%) Infrastructure as Code
17 134 (4.73%) Stakeholder Management
18 129 (4.55%) Computer Science
19 121 (4.27%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 597 (21.06%) PowerShell
2 281 (9.91%) Python
3 268 (9.45%) SQL
4 135 (4.76%) C#
5 103 (3.63%) Bash
6 78 (2.75%) Java
7 70 (2.47%) JavaScript
8 63 (2.22%) PL/SQL
9 50 (1.76%) C++
10 46 (1.62%) T-SQL
11 33 (1.16%) Perl
12 27 (0.95%) Kusto Query Language
13 25 (0.88%) VB
14 23 (0.81%) Shell Script
15 19 (0.67%) Search Processing Language
16 18 (0.63%) VBScript
17 15 (0.53%) VBA
18 14 (0.49%) Go
19 12 (0.42%) Bicep
19 12 (0.42%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 863 (30.44%) Security Cleared
2 576 (20.32%) SC Cleared
3 280 (9.88%) Degree
4 262 (9.24%) DV Cleared
5 111 (3.92%) Microsoft Certification
6 87 (3.07%) Computer Science Degree
7 72 (2.54%) Cisco Certification
8 47 (1.66%) MCSE
9 45 (1.59%) Azure Certification
10 42 (1.48%) BPSS Clearance
11 40 (1.41%) CISSP
12 37 (1.31%) ITIL Certification
13 36 (1.27%) CompTIA Security+
14 35 (1.23%) CCNA
15 32 (1.13%) AWS Certification
15 32 (1.13%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 29 (1.02%) A+ Certification
17 28 (0.99%) MCSA
18 18 (0.63%) CompTIA CySA+
19 17 (0.60%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 105 (3.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 91 (3.21%) QA
3 89 (3.14%) GDPR
3 89 (3.14%) SLA
4 69 (2.43%) NIST
5 43 (1.52%) PCI DSS
6 30 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 22 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials
8 17 (0.60%) NCSC
9 15 (0.53%) PMO
10 12 (0.42%) NIST 800
11 11 (0.39%) Data Quality
11 11 (0.39%) MiFID
12 10 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
12 10 (0.35%) FINRA
12 10 (0.35%) GLBA
13 7 (0.25%) DICOM
14 6 (0.21%) HIPAA
14 6 (0.21%) HL7
14 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,055 (37.21%) Active Directory
2 333 (11.75%) VMware Infrastructure
3 152 (5.36%) Hyper-V
4 89 (3.14%) vSphere
5 88 (3.10%) Docker
6 83 (2.93%) VMware ESXi
7 76 (2.68%) Virtual Machines
8 55 (1.94%) Virtual Desktop
9 38 (1.34%) Firmware
10 37 (1.31%) VMware NSX
11 32 (1.13%) BitLocker
12 25 (0.88%) Microsoft App-V
13 22 (0.78%) KVM
14 13 (0.46%) XenApp
14 13 (0.46%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
16 6 (0.21%) etcd
17 5 (0.18%) Terminal Services
18 4 (0.14%) NFS
18 4 (0.14%) Snort
Systems Management
1 361 (12.73%) Microsoft Intune
2 290 (10.23%) SCCM
3 185 (6.53%) Ansible
4 167 (5.89%) Terraform
5 133 (4.69%) Kubernetes
6 67 (2.36%) vCenter Server
7 64 (2.26%) Single Sign-On
8 49 (1.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 46 (1.62%) WSUS
10 40 (1.41%) Jamf Pro
11 38 (1.34%) FortiGate
12 37 (1.31%) Grafana
13 31 (1.09%) Prometheus
14 25 (0.88%) SCOM
15 24 (0.85%) Nagios
16 23 (0.81%) Nessus
17 21 (0.74%) Progress Chef
18 18 (0.63%) Puppet
19 16 (0.56%) Nmap
19 16 (0.56%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,213 (42.79%) Microsoft
2 435 (15.34%) VMware
3 222 (7.83%) ServiceNow
4 211 (7.44%) Citrix
5 199 (7.02%) Cisco
6 181 (6.38%) Oracle
7 150 (5.29%) Splunk
8 84 (2.96%) HP
9 72 (2.54%) Dell
10 66 (2.33%) SolarWinds
11 57 (2.01%) Red Hat
12 56 (1.98%) Apple
12 56 (1.98%) Google
13 55 (1.94%) IBM
14 54 (1.90%) Remedy
15 48 (1.69%) F5
16 47 (1.66%) Palo Alto
17 46 (1.62%) CyberArk
18 40 (1.41%) Veeam
19 39 (1.38%) Juniper