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

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -4 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,861 2,514 3,771
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.63% 8.56% 8.48%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.31% 59.69% 62.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,916 1,715 2,547
10th Percentile £161 £181 £158
25th Percentile £206 £228 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £408 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -4.12% +6.25% -9.55%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £642 £675 £664
UK excluding London median daily rate £357 £400 £375
% change year-on-year -10.88% +6.67% -6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 259 107 278
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.30 £12.25
25th Percentile £16.38 £17.54 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.46 £22.50 £17.86
Median % change year-on-year -4.62% +25.98% -18.82%
75th Percentile £41.94 £31.38 £25.95
90th Percentile £67.84 £65.00 £61.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.28 £22.00 £17.69
% change year-on-year -3.30% +24.36% -8.74%

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 4,744 4,212 6,020
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.99% 14.34% 13.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,107 2,764 4,024
10th Percentile £180 £200 £181
25th Percentile £283 £318 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £475 £452
Median % change year-on-year -5.89% +5.20% -12.33%
75th Percentile £565 £600 £588
90th Percentile £657 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £450 £430
% change year-on-year -8.33% +4.65% -9.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 352 157 403
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.60 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.51 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.81 £28.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.54% +24.44% -15.09%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £59.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £24.66 £22.50
% change year-on-year -8.76% +9.60% -13.46%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 2,523 £408 -1.81% 974
UK excluding London -8 1,913 £357 -10.88% 890
London -19 765 £439 +3.24% 214
Work from Home -18 568 £450 -2.70% 351
South East -3 526 £431 -6.76% 295
North of England -7 479 £275 -21.48% 200
South West -4 260 £450 -14.29% 121
Midlands -16 259 £323 -0.77% 119
North West -8 258 £260 -28.28% 123
East of England +4 215 £240 +6.19% 99
Yorkshire -12 193 £325 -18.75% 61
West Midlands -26 153 £455 +37.88% 63
Scotland -4 134 £425 -1.16% 48
East Midlands -2 103 £200 -20.00% 56
Wales -1 47 £200 -45.21% 19
North East -10 31 £184 -38.75% 23
Northern Ireland -16 8 £175 +9.38% 8
Channel Islands +5 1 - - 1

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
1 251 (8.77%) Microsoft Exchange
2 166 (5.80%) SharePoint
3 58 (2.03%) Confluence
4 44 (1.54%) IIS
5 26 (0.91%) Apache
6 22 (0.77%) WebLogic
7 13 (0.45%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.42%) TPMS
8 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
9 11 (0.38%) Tomcat
10 10 (0.35%) nginx
10 10 (0.35%) SAS
11 6 (0.21%) WebSphere
12 5 (0.17%) NetWeaver
13 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.10%) ArcGIS
14 3 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2010
14 3 (0.10%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 235 (8.21%) Microsoft Office
2 75 (2.62%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.42%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
7 3 (0.10%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.070%) InDesign
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.035%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 29 (1.01%) Remedy ITSM
2 16 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.24%) assyst
3 7 (0.24%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.070%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.070%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.070%) SystmOne
7 1 (0.035%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.035%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.035%) Eikon
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.035%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 816 (28.52%) Microsoft 365
2 730 (25.52%) Azure
3 291 (10.17%) Entra ID
4 214 (7.48%) AWS
5 97 (3.39%) OneDrive
6 71 (2.48%) GCP
7 69 (2.41%) SaaS
8 63 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
9 54 (1.89%) Google Workspace
10 48 (1.68%) GitHub
11 46 (1.61%) IaaS
12 41 (1.43%) Power Platform
13 40 (1.40%) PaaS
14 31 (1.08%) Azure Monitor
15 29 (1.01%) Azure Sentinel
16 25 (0.87%) OpenShift
17 24 (0.84%) AWS CloudFormation
17 24 (0.84%) GitHub Actions
18 23 (0.80%) Nutanix
19 17 (0.59%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 384 (13.42%) DNS
2 336 (11.74%) Firewall
3 248 (8.67%) DHCP
4 192 (6.71%) TCP/IP
4 192 (6.71%) VPN
5 164 (5.73%) WAN
6 160 (5.59%) LAN
6 160 (5.59%) Wi-Fi
7 78 (2.73%) Network Security
8 61 (2.13%) VLAN
8 61 (2.13%) Wireless
9 54 (1.89%) SAN
10 40 (1.40%) BGP
11 38 (1.33%) Skype
12 37 (1.29%) SSH
12 37 (1.29%) SSL
13 36 (1.26%) SD-WAN
13 36 (1.26%) VoIP
14 35 (1.22%) HTTP
15 29 (1.01%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 165 (5.77%) SQL Server
2 58 (2.03%) Oracle Database
3 39 (1.36%) Relational Database
4 36 (1.26%) MySQL
5 24 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
6 18 (0.63%) Power BI
7 15 (0.52%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (0.49%) DB2
8 14 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
9 13 (0.45%) BigQuery
10 12 (0.42%) Oracle Reports
11 11 (0.38%) MongoDB
12 10 (0.35%) GIS
12 10 (0.35%) SAP HANA
13 9 (0.31%) NoSQL
14 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
14 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 6 (0.21%) Sybase ASE
15 5 (0.17%) Oracle Database 10g
15 5 (0.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 168 (5.87%) JIRA
2 67 (2.34%) Jenkins
3 66 (2.31%) GitLab
4 59 (2.06%) Git
5 42 (1.47%) MSI
6 34 (1.19%) Visual Studio
7 25 (0.87%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.59%) Burp Suite
8 17 (0.59%) Metasploit
9 15 (0.52%) Android Studio
10 14 (0.49%) Artifactory
11 13 (0.45%) Xcode
12 11 (0.38%) Browser DevTools
13 10 (0.35%) Bitbucket
13 10 (0.35%) Chocolatey
14 8 (0.28%) JUnit
15 7 (0.24%) Robot Framework
15 7 (0.24%) Selenium
15 7 (0.24%) Sonatype Nexus
16 6 (0.21%) Toad
General
1 1,031 (36.04%) Social Skills
2 275 (9.61%) Finance
3 261 (9.12%) Analytical Skills
4 240 (8.39%) Public Sector
5 137 (4.79%) Banking
6 131 (4.58%) Legal
7 116 (4.05%) Documentation Skills
8 84 (2.94%) Organisational Skills
9 60 (2.10%) Military
10 57 (1.99%) Manufacturing
11 43 (1.50%) Presentation Skills
12 36 (1.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 36 (1.26%) Retail
12 36 (1.26%) Telecoms
13 26 (0.91%) Law
14 22 (0.77%) Aerospace
15 21 (0.73%) Investment Banking
16 20 (0.70%) Local Government
17 17 (0.59%) Front Office
18 16 (0.56%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 383 (13.39%) IT Support
2 379 (13.25%) Support Engineer
3 367 (12.83%) Analyst
4 224 (7.83%) IT Engineer
5 186 (6.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 186 (6.50%) IT Support Engineer
6 184 (6.43%) Architect
7 161 (5.63%) Senior
8 155 (5.42%) Support Analyst
9 131 (4.58%) Desktop Support
10 117 (4.09%) Windows Engineer
11 112 (3.91%) Technical Support
12 111 (3.88%) 2nd Line Support
13 109 (3.81%) Desktop Engineer
13 109 (3.81%) Developer
14 95 (3.32%) Lead
15 86 (3.01%) IT Analyst
16 79 (2.76%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 74 (2.59%) Consultant
17 74 (2.59%) Deployment Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (3.01%) .NET
2 71 (2.48%) REST
3 52 (1.82%) LDAP
4 49 (1.71%) .NET Framework
5 48 (1.68%) SAML
6 47 (1.64%) OAuth
7 36 (1.26%) Middleware
8 32 (1.12%) Kafka
9 31 (1.08%) Web Services
10 28 (0.98%) WPF
11 27 (0.94%) OpenID
12 26 (0.91%) Microsoft Graph
13 25 (0.87%) CSS
13 25 (0.87%) WinForms
14 24 (0.84%) React
15 23 (0.80%) AngularJS
16 22 (0.77%) 802.1X
17 21 (0.73%) OAuth2
18 20 (0.70%) Node.js
19 19 (0.66%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 191 (6.68%) Onboarding
2 124 (4.33%) Data Centre
3 106 (3.70%) PKI
4 90 (3.15%) Driving Licence
5 83 (2.90%) Enterprise Software
6 74 (2.59%) Self-Motivation
7 59 (2.06%) Smartphone
8 54 (1.89%) Clustering
9 52 (1.82%) Management Information System
10 48 (1.68%) Replication
11 46 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
12 43 (1.50%) Security Posture
13 42 (1.47%) Hybrid Cloud
14 37 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
14 37 (1.29%) Product Ownership
15 36 (1.26%) Security Operations Centre
16 35 (1.22%) CMDB
16 35 (1.22%) Virtual Team
17 34 (1.19%) NHS
18 28 (0.98%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 687 (24.01%) Linux
2 629 (21.99%) Windows Server
3 571 (19.96%) Windows 10
4 156 (5.45%) Unix
5 149 (5.21%) Android
6 148 (5.17%) Mac OS
7 115 (4.02%) Apple iOS
8 89 (3.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 72 (2.52%) Windows Server 2016
10 59 (2.06%) Windows Server 2019
11 51 (1.78%) Windows 7
12 38 (1.33%) Windows Server 2012
13 34 (1.19%) AIX
14 31 (1.08%) Windows Server 2003
15 18 (0.63%) Solaris
16 15 (0.52%) Ubuntu
16 15 (0.52%) Windows Server 2008
17 14 (0.49%) VMS
18 10 (0.35%) Mac OS X
19 8 (0.28%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 568 (19.85%) Problem-Solving
2 477 (16.67%) Customer Service
3 407 (14.23%) ITIL
4 311 (10.87%) Agile
5 298 (10.42%) Migration
6 277 (9.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 250 (8.74%) DevOps
8 231 (8.07%) CI/CD
9 226 (7.90%) ITSM
10 221 (7.72%) Cybersecurity
11 195 (6.82%) Continuous Improvement
12 194 (6.78%) Service Management
13 167 (5.84%) Change Management
14 166 (5.80%) Disaster Recovery
15 142 (4.96%) Stakeholder Management
16 138 (4.82%) High Availability
17 136 (4.75%) Service Delivery
18 131 (4.58%) SIEM
19 128 (4.47%) Computer Science
20 126 (4.40%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 591 (20.66%) PowerShell
2 320 (11.18%) Python
3 254 (8.88%) SQL
4 126 (4.40%) C#
5 122 (4.26%) Bash
6 98 (3.43%) Java
7 76 (2.66%) JavaScript
8 57 (1.99%) C++
8 57 (1.99%) PL/SQL
9 56 (1.96%) Perl
10 40 (1.40%) T-SQL
11 32 (1.12%) Kusto Query Language
12 23 (0.80%) Shell Script
12 23 (0.80%) VB
12 23 (0.80%) VBScript
13 14 (0.49%) Bicep
13 14 (0.49%) VBA
14 13 (0.45%) Go
15 11 (0.38%) Search Processing Language
15 11 (0.38%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 883 (30.86%) Security Cleared
2 589 (20.59%) SC Cleared
3 295 (10.31%) Degree
4 252 (8.81%) DV Cleared
5 131 (4.58%) Microsoft Certification
6 92 (3.22%) Computer Science Degree
7 65 (2.27%) Cisco Certification
8 46 (1.61%) Azure Certification
9 45 (1.57%) MCSE
10 43 (1.50%) CISSP
11 42 (1.47%) ITIL Certification
12 39 (1.36%) CompTIA Security+
13 37 (1.29%) BPSS Clearance
14 33 (1.15%) CCNA
15 32 (1.12%) AWS Certification
16 29 (1.01%) A+ Certification
17 28 (0.98%) CCNP
18 23 (0.80%) MCSA
19 22 (0.77%) Microsoft Certified Professional
19 22 (0.77%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 100 (3.50%) GDPR
2 98 (3.43%) SLA
3 88 (3.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 84 (2.94%) QA
5 59 (2.06%) NIST
6 42 (1.47%) PCI DSS
7 24 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 18 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.56%) PMO
10 14 (0.49%) NCSC
11 13 (0.45%) MiFID
12 12 (0.42%) GLBA
13 10 (0.35%) FINRA
14 9 (0.31%) NIST 800
15 8 (0.28%) Data Quality
15 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
16 5 (0.17%) COBIT
16 5 (0.17%) Disclosure Scotland
16 5 (0.17%) GxP
16 5 (0.17%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,050 (36.70%) Active Directory
2 285 (9.96%) VMware Infrastructure
3 117 (4.09%) Hyper-V
4 108 (3.77%) Docker
5 68 (2.38%) vSphere
6 57 (1.99%) Virtual Machines
7 56 (1.96%) VMware ESXi
8 55 (1.92%) Virtual Desktop
9 34 (1.19%) VMware NSX
10 30 (1.05%) Firmware
11 28 (0.98%) BitLocker
12 25 (0.87%) Microsoft App-V
13 16 (0.56%) KVM
14 9 (0.31%) XenApp
14 9 (0.31%) XenDesktop
15 8 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
16 7 (0.24%) Terminal Services
17 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
18 5 (0.17%) etcd
19 4 (0.14%) NFS
Systems Management
1 361 (12.62%) Microsoft Intune
2 331 (11.57%) SCCM
3 178 (6.22%) Terraform
4 174 (6.08%) Ansible
5 135 (4.72%) Kubernetes
6 79 (2.76%) Single Sign-On
7 69 (2.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 58 (2.03%) vCenter Server
9 43 (1.50%) Jamf Pro
10 38 (1.33%) Grafana
11 37 (1.29%) FortiGate
12 30 (1.05%) Prometheus
12 30 (1.05%) WSUS
13 24 (0.84%) SCOM
14 20 (0.70%) Progress Chef
15 17 (0.59%) Nessus
15 17 (0.59%) Puppet
15 17 (0.59%) WMI
16 16 (0.56%) Nmap
17 14 (0.49%) Nagios
Vendors
1 1,217 (42.54%) Microsoft
2 395 (13.81%) VMware
3 246 (8.60%) ServiceNow
4 205 (7.17%) Citrix
5 182 (6.36%) Oracle
6 177 (6.19%) Cisco
7 149 (5.21%) Splunk
8 85 (2.97%) HP
9 72 (2.52%) Dell
10 68 (2.38%) Red Hat
11 64 (2.24%) SolarWinds
12 62 (2.17%) Google
13 59 (2.06%) Apple
14 53 (1.85%) IBM
15 45 (1.57%) Remedy
16 44 (1.54%) Juniper
16 44 (1.54%) SAP
17 43 (1.50%) Veeam
18 40 (1.40%) Palo Alto
19 39 (1.36%) F5