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

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,836 2,426 3,654
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.10% 8.21% 8.37%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.55% 59.04% 62.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,881 1,683 2,516
10th Percentile £161 £180 £160
25th Percentile £213 £236 £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 £388 £400 £396
% change year-on-year -3.13% +0.95% +2.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 224 130 279
10th Percentile £14.65 £15.26 £11.96
25th Percentile £17.55 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £23.75 £19.50 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.79% +8.33% -20.00%
75th Percentile £64.06 £28.00 £25.14
90th Percentile £74.90 £63.88 £61.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.00 £18.82 £17.69
% change year-on-year +27.52% +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 4,684 4,109 5,847
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.08% 13.91% 13.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,056 2,725 3,940
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £320 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £465
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.15% -9.27%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £594
90th Percentile £659 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -5.56% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 322 178 400
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.13 £15.44
Median hourly rate £36.93 £24.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +52.72% +9.91% -41.33%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £23.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year +82.35% +9.52% -30.00%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 2,466 £415 +0.61% 821
UK excluding London -10 1,872 £388 -3.13% 787
London -23 767 £443 -0.34% 162
Work from Home -18 575 £475 +2.70% 366
South East -7 499 £473 -3.67% 261
North of England -11 467 £308 -5.15% 164
Midlands -13 278 £335 +23.50% 104
North West -4 256 £230 -34.29% 95
South West -12 227 £450 -14.29% 110
East of England +4 207 £350 +54.87% 105
Yorkshire -18 193 £365 +12.31% 49
West Midlands -23 162 £463 +66.67% 51
Scotland +2 148 £425 -2.86% 29
East Midlands +6 111 £215 +4.24% 53
Wales -2 49 £200 -32.20% 25
North East -19 22 £188 -14.77% 25
Northern Ireland -6 12 £175 -10.26% 29
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
1 239 (8.43%) Microsoft Exchange
2 145 (5.11%) SharePoint
3 49 (1.73%) IIS
4 48 (1.69%) Confluence
5 23 (0.81%) WebLogic
6 22 (0.78%) Apache
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%) WordPress
Applications
1 206 (7.26%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.92%) 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
7 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.071%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 38 (1.34%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.28%) Teamcenter
4 6 (0.21%) assyst
5 3 (0.11%) Finacle
5 3 (0.11%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.071%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.071%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.035%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.035%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.035%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 792 (27.93%) Microsoft 365
2 783 (27.61%) Azure
3 314 (11.07%) Entra ID
4 232 (8.18%) AWS
5 78 (2.75%) GCP
6 77 (2.72%) SaaS
7 74 (2.61%) Azure DevOps
8 69 (2.43%) OneDrive
9 58 (2.05%) IaaS
10 54 (1.90%) GitHub
11 51 (1.80%) PaaS
12 49 (1.73%) Google Workspace
13 42 (1.48%) Azure Monitor
14 41 (1.45%) Power Platform
15 32 (1.13%) Azure Sentinel
16 30 (1.06%) OpenShift
17 26 (0.92%) GitHub Actions
18 19 (0.67%) Azure AKS
18 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Purview
18 19 (0.67%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 395 (13.93%) DNS
2 327 (11.53%) Firewall
3 266 (9.38%) DHCP
4 207 (7.30%) VPN
5 181 (6.38%) TCP/IP
6 178 (6.28%) WAN
7 176 (6.21%) LAN
8 152 (5.36%) Wi-Fi
9 79 (2.79%) Network Security
10 68 (2.40%) SAN
11 65 (2.29%) VLAN
12 48 (1.69%) Wireless
13 43 (1.52%) SD-WAN
14 39 (1.38%) BGP
14 39 (1.38%) Skype
15 37 (1.30%) SSL
15 37 (1.30%) VoIP
16 35 (1.23%) OSPF
17 33 (1.16%) Internet
18 30 (1.06%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 193 (6.81%) SQL Server
2 55 (1.94%) Oracle Database
3 34 (1.20%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.06%) MySQL
5 25 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
6 21 (0.74%) Power BI
7 19 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.53%) DB2
9 14 (0.49%) Data Warehouse
10 13 (0.46%) MongoDB
11 10 (0.35%) NoSQL
11 10 (0.35%) Oracle Reports
12 9 (0.32%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 8 (0.28%) BigQuery
13 8 (0.28%) GIS
14 7 (0.25%) SAP HANA
14 7 (0.25%) Sybase ASE
15 6 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
15 6 (0.21%) RDBMS
15 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 175 (6.17%) 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 21 (0.74%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.63%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.39%) Android Studio
10 11 (0.39%) Artifactory
10 11 (0.39%) Chocolatey
11 10 (0.35%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.35%) InstallShield
12 9 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
12 9 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
12 9 (0.32%) Xcode
13 7 (0.25%) AdminStudio
13 7 (0.25%) JUnit
14 6 (0.21%) Toad
General
1 980 (34.56%) Social Skills
2 278 (9.80%) Finance
3 257 (9.06%) Analytical Skills
4 234 (8.25%) Public Sector
5 149 (5.25%) Banking
6 126 (4.44%) Legal
7 107 (3.77%) Documentation Skills
8 73 (2.57%) Organisational Skills
9 63 (2.22%) Military
10 49 (1.73%) Manufacturing
11 41 (1.45%) Telecoms
12 38 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 37 (1.30%) Retail
14 36 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
15 34 (1.20%) Law
16 30 (1.06%) Investment Banking
17 27 (0.95%) Front Office
18 20 (0.71%) Local Government
19 17 (0.60%) Aerospace
19 17 (0.60%) Police
Job Titles
1 371 (13.08%) IT Support
2 333 (11.74%) Analyst
3 331 (11.67%) Support Engineer
4 229 (8.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 223 (7.86%) IT Engineer
6 180 (6.35%) Architect
7 179 (6.31%) Senior
8 178 (6.28%) IT Support Engineer
9 127 (4.48%) Support Analyst
10 117 (4.13%) Desktop Support
11 105 (3.70%) Developer
12 102 (3.60%) Windows Engineer
13 93 (3.28%) IT Analyst
13 93 (3.28%) Lead
14 91 (3.21%) Desktop Engineer
14 91 (3.21%) Technical Support
15 83 (2.93%) 2nd Line Support
16 71 (2.50%) Service Analyst
17 70 (2.47%) IT Support Analyst
18 69 (2.43%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (3.31%) .NET
2 77 (2.72%) REST
3 53 (1.87%) .NET Framework
4 44 (1.55%) LDAP
5 42 (1.48%) SAML
6 37 (1.30%) Middleware
7 34 (1.20%) Kafka
8 30 (1.06%) OAuth
9 29 (1.02%) WinForms
10 28 (0.99%) Microsoft Graph
10 28 (0.99%) WPF
11 27 (0.95%) Web Services
12 26 (0.92%) 802.1X
13 21 (0.74%) Node.js
13 21 (0.74%) OpenID
14 19 (0.67%) CSS
14 19 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
14 19 (0.67%) React
15 18 (0.63%) Software Packaging
16 17 (0.60%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 216 (7.62%) Onboarding
2 129 (4.55%) Data Centre
3 101 (3.56%) PKI
4 89 (3.14%) Enterprise Software
5 78 (2.75%) Driving Licence
6 75 (2.64%) Clustering
7 71 (2.50%) Self-Motivation
8 60 (2.12%) Replication
9 49 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
10 47 (1.66%) Hybrid Cloud
11 44 (1.55%) Management Information System
12 43 (1.52%) Security Posture
12 43 (1.52%) Smartphone
13 37 (1.30%) Virtual Team
14 33 (1.16%) Cloud Native
14 33 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
14 33 (1.16%) Security Operations Centre
15 30 (1.06%) CMDB
16 29 (1.02%) Analytical Mindset
17 28 (0.99%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 714 (25.18%) Linux
2 658 (23.20%) Windows Server
3 516 (18.19%) Windows 10
4 173 (6.10%) Mac OS
5 159 (5.61%) Android
6 147 (5.18%) Unix
7 126 (4.44%) Apple iOS
8 93 (3.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 75 (2.64%) Windows Server 2016
10 67 (2.36%) Windows Server 2019
11 50 (1.76%) Windows 7
12 41 (1.45%) Windows Server 2012
13 35 (1.23%) AIX
14 23 (0.81%) Windows Server 2003
15 22 (0.78%) VMS
16 20 (0.71%) Ubuntu
17 18 (0.63%) Solaris
18 14 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
19 10 (0.35%) CentOS
20 9 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 588 (20.73%) Problem-Solving
2 450 (15.87%) Customer Service
3 409 (14.42%) ITIL
4 322 (11.35%) Migration
5 301 (10.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 292 (10.30%) Agile
7 250 (8.82%) DevOps
8 231 (8.15%) CI/CD
9 219 (7.72%) ITSM
10 188 (6.63%) Cybersecurity
11 185 (6.52%) Disaster Recovery
12 178 (6.28%) Continuous Improvement
13 176 (6.21%) Service Management
14 169 (5.96%) Change Management
15 157 (5.54%) High Availability
16 146 (5.15%) SIEM
17 136 (4.80%) Stakeholder Management
18 129 (4.55%) Infrastructure as Code
19 127 (4.48%) Computer Science
20 119 (4.20%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 603 (21.26%) PowerShell
2 283 (9.98%) Python
3 269 (9.49%) SQL
4 134 (4.72%) C#
5 105 (3.70%) Bash
6 84 (2.96%) Java
7 72 (2.54%) JavaScript
8 62 (2.19%) PL/SQL
9 50 (1.76%) C++
10 44 (1.55%) T-SQL
11 35 (1.23%) Perl
12 29 (1.02%) Kusto Query Language
13 24 (0.85%) VB
14 22 (0.78%) Shell Script
15 18 (0.63%) VBScript
16 17 (0.60%) Search Processing Language
17 14 (0.49%) Go
17 14 (0.49%) VBA
18 12 (0.42%) Bicep
18 12 (0.42%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 854 (30.11%) Security Cleared
2 569 (20.06%) SC Cleared
3 281 (9.91%) Degree
4 252 (8.89%) DV Cleared
5 115 (4.06%) Microsoft Certification
6 87 (3.07%) Computer Science Degree
7 64 (2.26%) Cisco Certification
8 47 (1.66%) MCSE
9 46 (1.62%) Azure Certification
10 42 (1.48%) BPSS Clearance
11 41 (1.45%) CISSP
12 39 (1.38%) ITIL Certification
13 37 (1.30%) CompTIA Security+
14 32 (1.13%) AWS Certification
15 31 (1.09%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 29 (1.02%) A+ Certification
16 29 (1.02%) CCNA
17 28 (0.99%) MCSA
18 19 (0.67%) CompTIA CySA+
19 17 (0.60%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 104 (3.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 89 (3.14%) QA
3 87 (3.07%) GDPR
4 81 (2.86%) SLA
5 71 (2.50%) NIST
6 41 (1.45%) PCI DSS
7 28 (0.99%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 20 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.56%) NCSC
10 15 (0.53%) PMO
11 12 (0.42%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.39%) Data Quality
12 11 (0.39%) MiFID
13 10 (0.35%) FINRA
13 10 (0.35%) GLBA
14 9 (0.32%) Disclosure Scotland
15 7 (0.25%) DICOM
16 6 (0.21%) HL7
16 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
17 5 (0.18%) GxP
System Software
1 1,060 (37.38%) Active Directory
2 330 (11.64%) VMware Infrastructure
3 146 (5.15%) Hyper-V
4 89 (3.14%) vSphere
5 88 (3.10%) Docker
6 83 (2.93%) VMware ESXi
7 71 (2.50%) Virtual Machines
8 56 (1.97%) Virtual Desktop
9 38 (1.34%) Firmware
9 38 (1.34%) VMware NSX
10 30 (1.06%) BitLocker
11 25 (0.88%) Microsoft App-V
12 21 (0.74%) KVM
13 13 (0.46%) XenApp
13 13 (0.46%) XenDesktop
14 10 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
15 6 (0.21%) etcd
16 5 (0.18%) NFS
16 5 (0.18%) Terminal Services
17 4 (0.14%) Snort
Systems Management
1 364 (12.83%) Microsoft Intune
2 291 (10.26%) SCCM
3 187 (6.59%) Ansible
4 164 (5.78%) Terraform
5 131 (4.62%) Kubernetes
6 69 (2.43%) Single Sign-On
6 69 (2.43%) vCenter Server
7 52 (1.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 42 (1.48%) Jamf Pro
9 41 (1.45%) WSUS
10 38 (1.34%) FortiGate
11 37 (1.30%) Grafana
12 31 (1.09%) Prometheus
13 26 (0.92%) SCOM
14 22 (0.78%) Nagios
14 22 (0.78%) Nessus
15 21 (0.74%) Progress Chef
16 18 (0.63%) Puppet
17 16 (0.56%) Nmap
18 15 (0.53%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,209 (42.63%) Microsoft
2 429 (15.13%) VMware
3 220 (7.76%) ServiceNow
4 208 (7.33%) Citrix
5 195 (6.88%) Cisco
6 184 (6.49%) Oracle
7 151 (5.32%) Splunk
8 84 (2.96%) HP
9 73 (2.57%) Dell
10 65 (2.29%) SolarWinds
11 58 (2.05%) Google
12 57 (2.01%) Apple
12 57 (2.01%) Red Hat
13 54 (1.90%) IBM
14 52 (1.83%) Remedy
15 47 (1.66%) CyberArk
15 47 (1.66%) F5
16 45 (1.59%) Palo Alto
17 40 (1.41%) Juniper
17 40 (1.41%) Veeam