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 8 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 16
Rank change year-on-year -3 -3 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,840 2,947 4,323
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.83% 8.25% 9.51%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.40% 58.55% 63.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,911 1,845 2,883
10th Percentile £163 £180 £160
25th Percentile £203 £238 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £388 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -8.82% +6.25% -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £559 £575
90th Percentile £625 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £383 £379
% change year-on-year -15.14% +1.06% +1.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 288 130 254
10th Percentile £15.22 £15.22 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.74 £18.53 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.02% +9.91% +7.32%
75th Percentile £38.94 £57.62 £54.55
90th Percentile £65.60 £67.63 £67.10
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.48 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -11.17% +15.14% +12.00%

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 4,781 5,033 6,851
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.18% 14.09% 15.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,092 3,100 4,660
10th Percentile £175 £200 £181
25th Percentile £263 £325 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £608
90th Percentile £662 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £440 £440
% change year-on-year -9.09% - -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 361 200 347
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.96 £14.86
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.00 £17.75
Median hourly rate £25.00 £50.00 £32.00
Median % change year-on-year -50.00% +56.25% +28.00%
75th Percentile £52.58 £67.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.84 £70.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £50.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year -50.00% +81.82% +22.22%

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 8 December 2025.

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 8 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows in the UK

Windows
Top 17 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 8 December 2025. 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 -3 2,524 £375 -6.31% 2,553
UK excluding London -1 1,894 £325 -15.14% 2,542
London -12 775 £425 - 304
Work from Home -8 569 £423 -6.11% 846
South East +2 516 £350 -15.66% 739
North of England -4 410 £230 -39.07% 550
South West +4 327 £425 - 287
Midlands -3 303 £400 +15.94% 449
North West -4 235 £304 -24.08% 277
West Midlands -4 212 £430 +32.31% 255
East of England +2 201 £225 -33.33% 370
Yorkshire -16 148 £228 -35.05% 233
Scotland -14 109 £425 -2.86% 99
East Midlands +2 91 £205 -45.33% 173
Wales 0 44 £180 -18.18% 73
North East +4 30 £188 -41.41% 48
Northern Ireland -12 15 £203 +23.85% 34

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 (8.77%) Microsoft Exchange
2 183 (6.44%) SharePoint
3 81 (2.85%) Confluence
4 53 (1.87%) Apache
5 45 (1.58%) IIS
6 26 (0.92%) WebLogic
7 25 (0.88%) WebSphere
8 22 (0.77%) Skype for Business
9 20 (0.70%) JBoss
10 15 (0.53%) Exchange Server 2010
10 15 (0.53%) SharePoint Server
11 14 (0.49%) nginx
12 13 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2013
13 11 (0.39%) WebSphere Application Server
14 10 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2003
14 10 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2007
14 10 (0.35%) iPlanet
14 10 (0.35%) Office Communications Server
14 10 (0.35%) SAS
15 9 (0.32%) Tomcat
Applications
1 283 (9.96%) Microsoft Office
2 92 (3.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 29 (1.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.35%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 9 (0.32%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.070%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.070%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.070%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.070%) Windchill
8 1 (0.035%) Acrobat
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.035%) Camtasia
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.035%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 21 (0.74%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.25%) assyst
3 5 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.14%) Maximo
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.11%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.070%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.070%) Eikon
6 2 (0.070%) Fidessa
6 2 (0.070%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.070%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.070%) SystmOne
6 2 (0.070%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.035%) Eze OMS
7 1 (0.035%) OpenText MBPM
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.035%) Pegasus Opera
7 1 (0.035%) Primavera
7 1 (0.035%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.035%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 732 (25.77%) Microsoft 365
2 633 (22.29%) Azure
3 270 (9.51%) AWS
4 232 (8.17%) Entra ID
5 84 (2.96%) OneDrive
6 79 (2.78%) SaaS
7 68 (2.39%) Azure DevOps
7 68 (2.39%) GitHub
8 65 (2.29%) GCP
9 58 (2.04%) IaaS
10 43 (1.51%) Google Workspace
11 41 (1.44%) PaaS
11 41 (1.44%) Power Platform
12 35 (1.23%) Amazon S3
13 33 (1.16%) Amazon EC2
13 33 (1.16%) Azure Monitor
14 32 (1.13%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 29 (1.02%) Azure Sentinel
16 28 (0.99%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 24 (0.85%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 344 (12.11%) DNS
2 328 (11.55%) Firewall
3 213 (7.50%) DHCP
4 197 (6.94%) TCP/IP
5 168 (5.92%) VPN
6 101 (3.56%) Wi-Fi
7 91 (3.20%) LAN
8 86 (3.03%) Network Security
8 86 (3.03%) WAN
9 66 (2.32%) Wireless
10 64 (2.25%) VLAN
11 62 (2.18%) SSH
12 60 (2.11%) SAN
13 54 (1.90%) HTTP
14 50 (1.76%) Cisco IOS
15 36 (1.27%) SSL
16 34 (1.20%) Skype
17 31 (1.09%) VoIP
18 30 (1.06%) FTP
18 30 (1.06%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 130 (4.58%) SQL Server
2 88 (3.10%) Oracle Database
3 65 (2.29%) Relational Database
4 48 (1.69%) MySQL
5 31 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
6 29 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
7 16 (0.56%) Power BI
8 14 (0.49%) Oracle Reports
9 12 (0.42%) Amazon Aurora
10 11 (0.39%) GIS
10 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
11 10 (0.35%) BigQuery
12 9 (0.32%) DB2
12 9 (0.32%) RDBMS
13 8 (0.28%) SAP HANA
14 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.25%) Data Lake
14 7 (0.25%) Elasticsearch
14 7 (0.25%) MongoDB
15 6 (0.21%) Apache Cassandra
Development Applications
1 163 (5.74%) JIRA
2 107 (3.77%) Git
3 104 (3.66%) Jenkins
4 51 (1.80%) GitLab
5 41 (1.44%) Eclipse
6 39 (1.37%) Visual Studio
7 34 (1.20%) MSI
8 30 (1.06%) Bitbucket
9 23 (0.81%) Vagrant
10 21 (0.74%) Android Studio
11 20 (0.70%) Browser DevTools
12 19 (0.67%) Xcode
13 18 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
14 15 (0.53%) InstallShield
15 14 (0.49%) Artifactory
15 14 (0.49%) Bitbucket Server
15 14 (0.49%) CA Release Automation
16 12 (0.42%) IntelliJ
17 11 (0.39%) AdminStudio
17 11 (0.39%) SonarQube
General
1 1,075 (37.85%) Social Skills
2 360 (12.68%) Finance
3 270 (9.51%) Public Sector
4 254 (8.94%) Analytical Skills
5 139 (4.89%) Banking
6 120 (4.23%) Documentation Skills
7 82 (2.89%) Legal
8 65 (2.29%) Manufacturing
8 65 (2.29%) Organisational Skills
9 55 (1.94%) Telecoms
10 53 (1.87%) Military
11 51 (1.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 48 (1.69%) Presentation Skills
13 43 (1.51%) Retail
14 40 (1.41%) Marketing
15 29 (1.02%) Aerospace
16 28 (0.99%) Electronics
17 25 (0.88%) Games
18 24 (0.85%) Front Office
19 23 (0.81%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 447 (15.74%) Support Engineer
2 343 (12.08%) Analyst
3 324 (11.41%) IT Support
4 201 (7.08%) IT Engineer
5 159 (5.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 158 (5.56%) Windows Engineer
7 149 (5.25%) Desktop Support
8 148 (5.21%) Support Analyst
9 145 (5.11%) Desktop Engineer
10 143 (5.04%) IT Support Engineer
11 135 (4.75%) Architect
11 135 (4.75%) Deployment Engineer
12 134 (4.72%) Senior
13 115 (4.05%) 2nd Line Support
14 112 (3.94%) Technical Support
15 111 (3.91%) Developer
16 107 (3.77%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 102 (3.59%) Platform Engineer
18 91 (3.20%) Administrator
19 80 (2.82%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (2.64%) .NET
2 54 (1.90%) LDAP
3 47 (1.65%) Middleware
4 43 (1.51%) REST
5 42 (1.48%) .NET Framework
6 38 (1.34%) OAuth
6 38 (1.34%) Web Services
7 36 (1.27%) AngularJS
7 36 (1.27%) SAML
8 35 (1.23%) Node.js
9 34 (1.20%) WPF
10 33 (1.16%) React
11 30 (1.06%) OpenID
11 30 (1.06%) XML
12 26 (0.92%) CSS
12 26 (0.92%) SOAP
13 24 (0.85%) Kafka
14 21 (0.74%) Ajax
15 20 (0.70%) GraphQL
16 19 (0.67%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 114 (4.01%) Onboarding
2 96 (3.38%) Data Centre
3 95 (3.35%) PKI
4 79 (2.78%) Driving Licence
5 67 (2.36%) Replication
6 63 (2.22%) Enterprise Software
7 62 (2.18%) Self-Motivation
8 60 (2.11%) Management Information System
9 43 (1.51%) Smartphone
10 42 (1.48%) Security Posture
11 36 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
12 34 (1.20%) iPhone
13 33 (1.16%) NHS
14 32 (1.13%) Analytical Mindset
14 32 (1.13%) Hybrid Cloud
14 32 (1.13%) Video Conferencing
15 31 (1.09%) Mobile App
16 30 (1.06%) Public Cloud
17 29 (1.02%) Legacy Systems
18 28 (0.99%) iPad
Operating Systems
1 721 (25.39%) Linux
2 586 (20.63%) Windows 10
3 543 (19.12%) Windows Server
4 196 (6.90%) Unix
5 157 (5.53%) Android
5 157 (5.53%) Mac OS
6 101 (3.56%) Apple iOS
7 82 (2.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 66 (2.32%) Windows Server 2016
9 63 (2.22%) Windows 7
10 58 (2.04%) Windows Server 2019
11 45 (1.58%) Windows Server 2012
12 39 (1.37%) VMS
13 35 (1.23%) Ubuntu
13 35 (1.23%) Windows Server 2003
14 28 (0.99%) AIX
15 20 (0.70%) Amazon Linux
16 18 (0.63%) CentOS
16 18 (0.63%) Solaris
17 14 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 504 (17.75%) Problem-Solving
2 414 (14.58%) ITIL
3 387 (13.63%) Customer Service
4 293 (10.32%) Migration
5 290 (10.21%) Agile
6 242 (8.52%) DevOps
7 236 (8.31%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 218 (7.68%) Service Management
9 214 (7.54%) CI/CD
10 206 (7.25%) ITSM
11 196 (6.90%) Cybersecurity
12 186 (6.55%) Continuous Improvement
13 157 (5.53%) Change Management
14 130 (4.58%) User Experience
15 120 (4.23%) Stakeholder Management
16 119 (4.19%) Incident Response
17 113 (3.98%) Service Delivery
18 111 (3.91%) Incident Management
19 110 (3.87%) Cloud Security
20 107 (3.77%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 520 (18.31%) PowerShell
2 364 (12.82%) Python
3 295 (10.39%) SQL
4 149 (5.25%) Java
5 140 (4.93%) C#
6 124 (4.37%) Bash
7 88 (3.10%) JavaScript
8 80 (2.82%) Perl
9 76 (2.68%) C++
10 47 (1.65%) PL/SQL
11 39 (1.37%) Shell Script
12 32 (1.13%) VB
13 31 (1.09%) Groovy
13 31 (1.09%) Kusto Query Language
13 31 (1.09%) VBScript
14 27 (0.95%) T-SQL
15 26 (0.92%) VBA
16 25 (0.88%) C
17 23 (0.81%) PHP
18 17 (0.60%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 825 (29.05%) Security Cleared
2 570 (20.07%) SC Cleared
3 275 (9.68%) Degree
4 212 (7.46%) DV Cleared
5 190 (6.69%) Microsoft Certification
6 72 (2.54%) Computer Science Degree
7 68 (2.39%) Azure Certification
8 54 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
9 52 (1.83%) A+ Certification
10 51 (1.80%) MCSE
11 40 (1.41%) ITIL Certification
12 39 (1.37%) AWS Certification
13 38 (1.34%) CISSP
14 34 (1.20%) CCNA
14 34 (1.20%) CCNP
15 31 (1.09%) DBS Check
16 29 (1.02%) BPSS Clearance
17 26 (0.92%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 24 (0.85%) MCSA
19 23 (0.81%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (3.06%) SLA
2 77 (2.71%) QA
3 72 (2.54%) GDPR
4 60 (2.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 51 (1.80%) NIST
6 24 (0.85%) PCI DSS
7 15 (0.53%) HIPAA
8 13 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
8 13 (0.46%) PMO
9 11 (0.39%) NCSC
10 7 (0.25%) Accessibility
10 7 (0.25%) GLBA
10 7 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (0.21%) COBIT
12 5 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
13 4 (0.14%) SOC 2
14 3 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 3 (0.11%) Data Quality
14 3 (0.11%) ECSS
14 3 (0.11%) SEPA
System Software
1 1,016 (35.77%) Active Directory
2 244 (8.59%) VMware Infrastructure
3 128 (4.51%) Docker
4 86 (3.03%) Hyper-V
5 61 (2.15%) Virtual Desktop
6 54 (1.90%) Virtual Machines
7 48 (1.69%) VMware ESXi
8 46 (1.62%) vSphere
9 31 (1.09%) VMware NSX
10 22 (0.77%) BitLocker
11 21 (0.74%) DFS Replication
11 21 (0.74%) Firmware
12 20 (0.70%) Microsoft App-V
13 18 (0.63%) NFS
14 16 (0.56%) Terminal Services
15 15 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
16 14 (0.49%) XenApp
17 10 (0.35%) Brightmail
17 10 (0.35%) Dovecot
17 10 (0.35%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 416 (14.65%) SCCM
2 294 (10.35%) Microsoft Intune
3 182 (6.41%) Terraform
4 150 (5.28%) Ansible
5 97 (3.42%) Kubernetes
6 60 (2.11%) vCenter Server
7 57 (2.01%) Single Sign-On
8 50 (1.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 44 (1.55%) Jamf Pro
10 42 (1.48%) Grafana
11 32 (1.13%) Progress Chef
12 29 (1.02%) SCOM
12 29 (1.02%) WSUS
13 27 (0.95%) Nessus
13 27 (0.95%) Prometheus
14 20 (0.70%) Puppet
15 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Clustering
16 16 (0.56%) Proxmox
17 15 (0.53%) WMI
18 14 (0.49%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 1,231 (43.35%) Microsoft
2 350 (12.32%) VMware
3 256 (9.01%) ServiceNow
4 236 (8.31%) Oracle
5 184 (6.48%) Cisco
6 177 (6.23%) Citrix
7 144 (5.07%) Splunk
8 87 (3.06%) Apple
9 77 (2.71%) HP
10 71 (2.50%) Red Hat
11 66 (2.32%) IBM
12 58 (2.04%) Dell
13 54 (1.90%) SAP
13 54 (1.90%) Veeam
14 47 (1.65%) Google
15 44 (1.55%) NetApp
15 44 (1.55%) SolarWinds
16 43 (1.51%) AppDynamics
17 41 (1.44%) CyberArk
17 41 (1.44%) Remedy