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 27 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -1 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,853 2,583 3,947
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.49% 8.31% 8.89%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.01% 58.82% 62.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,977 1,660 2,660
10th Percentile £160 £181 £158
25th Percentile £204 £225 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.88%
75th Percentile £540 £560 £575
90th Percentile £638 £650 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £331 £373 £375
% change year-on-year -11.07% -0.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 253 103 252
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.65 £18.13 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.02% +15.14% -
75th Percentile £43.75 £41.25 £45.46
90th Percentile £67.67 £65.00 £62.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £23.00 £19.50
% change year-on-year -6.70% +17.95% +1.14%

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 4,754 4,391 6,320
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.49% 14.12% 14.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,146 2,725 4,275
10th Percentile £173 £200 £181
25th Percentile £263 £318 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.77%
75th Percentile £565 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £695 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £405 £425 £425
% change year-on-year -4.71% - -5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 337 159 366
10th Percentile £14.60 £16.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.02 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.00 £34.00 £26.25
Median % change year-on-year -26.47% +29.52% +2.10%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £70.20 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.50 £31.08 £25.25
% change year-on-year -24.39% +23.09% +5.12%

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 27 January 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 27 January 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 27 January 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 +1 2,529 £390 -2.50% 1,207
UK excluding London -2 1,933 £331 -11.07% 1,171
London -14 742 £450 +9.09% 237
Work from Home -8 579 £425 -8.11% 392
South East 0 505 £400 -4.76% 404
North of England -4 448 £263 -25.00% 231
South West +3 316 £425 +0.47% 154
Midlands -6 301 £275 -15.38% 146
North West -4 257 £280 -20.14% 100
East of England +6 210 £251 -13.36% 155
West Midlands -11 185 £400 +23.08% 77
Yorkshire -13 162 £302 -14.99% 106
Scotland -7 123 £450 +3.75% 70
East Midlands +2 115 £215 -39.61% 69
Wales -1 40 £180 -24.21% 32
North East -6 32 £184 -43.46% 31
Northern Ireland -16 8 £175 +9.38% 8
Channel Islands +2 1 - - 2

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
1 237 (8.31%) Microsoft Exchange
2 175 (6.13%) SharePoint
3 69 (2.42%) Confluence
4 47 (1.65%) IIS
5 42 (1.47%) Apache
6 23 (0.81%) WebLogic
7 20 (0.70%) Skype for Business
8 19 (0.67%) WebSphere
9 16 (0.56%) nginx
10 13 (0.46%) JBoss
10 13 (0.46%) TPMS
11 12 (0.42%) SAS
12 11 (0.39%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.35%) iPlanet
14 9 (0.32%) SharePoint Server
14 9 (0.32%) Tomcat
14 9 (0.32%) Tuxedo
15 8 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2010
16 6 (0.21%) Exchange Server 2013
17 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
Applications
1 264 (9.25%) Microsoft Office
2 80 (2.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 30 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.39%) MS Visio
5 8 (0.28%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
7 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.14%) PTC Creo
8 2 (0.070%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.070%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.070%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.070%) Windchill
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.035%) Camtasia
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
9 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.035%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 24 (0.84%) Remedy ITSM
2 9 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.25%) assyst
3 7 (0.25%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.11%) 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%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.035%) Eikon
7 1 (0.035%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.035%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 772 (27.06%) Microsoft 365
2 705 (24.71%) Azure
3 262 (9.18%) AWS
4 258 (9.04%) Entra ID
5 92 (3.22%) OneDrive
6 73 (2.56%) GCP
7 71 (2.49%) SaaS
8 58 (2.03%) Azure DevOps
9 57 (2.00%) GitHub
10 53 (1.86%) Google Workspace
11 45 (1.58%) IaaS
12 31 (1.09%) Power Platform
13 30 (1.05%) PaaS
14 26 (0.91%) Azure Sentinel
15 25 (0.88%) Azure Monitor
16 24 (0.84%) Nutanix
17 22 (0.77%) OpenShift
18 21 (0.74%) Amazon S3
18 21 (0.74%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 19 (0.67%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 361 (12.65%) DNS
2 301 (10.55%) Firewall
3 227 (7.96%) DHCP
4 190 (6.66%) TCP/IP
5 175 (6.13%) VPN
6 118 (4.14%) WAN
7 110 (3.86%) Wi-Fi
8 102 (3.58%) LAN
9 86 (3.01%) Network Security
10 67 (2.35%) VLAN
11 64 (2.24%) Wireless
12 57 (2.00%) SSH
13 47 (1.65%) HTTP
14 43 (1.51%) SAN
15 41 (1.44%) Kerberos
15 41 (1.44%) Skype
16 33 (1.16%) SD-WAN
17 32 (1.12%) Cisco IOS
17 32 (1.12%) SSL
18 30 (1.05%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 127 (4.45%) SQL Server
2 75 (2.63%) Oracle Database
3 59 (2.07%) Relational Database
4 47 (1.65%) MySQL
5 33 (1.16%) PostgreSQL
6 15 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.46%) BigQuery
7 13 (0.46%) NoSQL
8 12 (0.42%) GIS
9 11 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
9 11 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.39%) Power BI
10 10 (0.35%) Amazon Aurora
10 10 (0.35%) MongoDB
11 9 (0.32%) Data Warehouse
12 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
12 6 (0.21%) SAP HANA
13 5 (0.18%) DB2
13 5 (0.18%) RDBMS
13 5 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 154 (5.40%) JIRA
2 85 (2.98%) Jenkins
3 79 (2.77%) Git
4 56 (1.96%) GitLab
5 37 (1.30%) MSI
6 31 (1.09%) Visual Studio
7 29 (1.02%) Eclipse
8 19 (0.67%) Burp Suite
8 19 (0.67%) Metasploit
9 18 (0.63%) Android Studio
10 17 (0.60%) Bitbucket
10 17 (0.60%) Browser DevTools
11 16 (0.56%) Sonatype Nexus
11 16 (0.56%) Xcode
12 15 (0.53%) Artifactory
12 15 (0.53%) InstallShield
13 12 (0.42%) Vagrant
14 11 (0.39%) AdminStudio
14 11 (0.39%) Bitbucket Server
14 11 (0.39%) CA Release Automation
General
1 1,061 (37.19%) Social Skills
2 317 (11.11%) Finance
3 252 (8.83%) Analytical Skills
4 243 (8.52%) Public Sector
5 128 (4.49%) Banking
6 117 (4.10%) Documentation Skills
7 103 (3.61%) Legal
8 77 (2.70%) Organisational Skills
9 63 (2.21%) Manufacturing
10 52 (1.82%) Military
11 46 (1.61%) Presentation Skills
12 42 (1.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 40 (1.40%) Telecoms
14 37 (1.30%) Retail
15 28 (0.98%) Marketing
16 24 (0.84%) Aerospace
16 24 (0.84%) Front Office
17 23 (0.81%) Law
18 22 (0.77%) Investment Banking
19 19 (0.67%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 404 (14.16%) Support Engineer
2 358 (12.55%) Analyst
3 354 (12.41%) IT Support
4 188 (6.59%) IT Engineer
5 182 (6.38%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 161 (5.64%) Architect
7 152 (5.33%) Support Analyst
8 148 (5.19%) Windows Engineer
9 147 (5.15%) IT Support Engineer
10 146 (5.12%) Desktop Support
11 142 (4.98%) Senior
12 127 (4.45%) Desktop Engineer
13 123 (4.31%) Technical Support
14 117 (4.10%) 2nd Line Support
15 114 (4.00%) Deployment Engineer
16 106 (3.72%) Developer
17 98 (3.43%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 93 (3.26%) Lead
19 83 (2.91%) IT Analyst
20 81 (2.84%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (2.77%) .NET
2 66 (2.31%) LDAP
3 59 (2.07%) REST
4 55 (1.93%) SAML
5 54 (1.89%) OAuth
6 44 (1.54%) .NET Framework
7 43 (1.51%) Middleware
8 37 (1.30%) OpenID
9 35 (1.23%) React
10 33 (1.16%) WPF
11 31 (1.09%) AngularJS
12 25 (0.88%) CSS
12 25 (0.88%) Kafka
12 25 (0.88%) Web Services
13 22 (0.77%) Node.js
14 21 (0.74%) SOAP
15 19 (0.67%) OAuth2
15 19 (0.67%) RESTful
15 19 (0.67%) WinForms
16 18 (0.63%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 159 (5.57%) Onboarding
2 100 (3.51%) Data Centre
3 94 (3.29%) Driving Licence
4 93 (3.26%) PKI
5 76 (2.66%) Enterprise Software
6 69 (2.42%) Replication
7 60 (2.10%) Self-Motivation
8 59 (2.07%) Management Information System
9 55 (1.93%) Smartphone
10 44 (1.54%) Security Posture
11 41 (1.44%) Hybrid Cloud
12 34 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
12 34 (1.19%) Legacy Systems
13 32 (1.12%) Clustering
13 32 (1.12%) NHS
14 30 (1.05%) Security Operations Centre
14 30 (1.05%) Virtual Team
15 29 (1.02%) Mobile App
15 29 (1.02%) Public Cloud
16 28 (0.98%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 719 (25.20%) Linux
2 610 (21.38%) Windows 10
3 573 (20.08%) Windows Server
4 181 (6.34%) Unix
5 148 (5.19%) Mac OS
6 139 (4.87%) Android
7 108 (3.79%) Apple iOS
8 75 (2.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 67 (2.35%) Windows Server 2016
10 57 (2.00%) Windows Server 2019
11 55 (1.93%) Windows 7
12 40 (1.40%) Windows Server 2012
13 31 (1.09%) Windows Server 2003
14 25 (0.88%) AIX
15 22 (0.77%) VMS
16 18 (0.63%) Solaris
16 18 (0.63%) Ubuntu
17 14 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
18 12 (0.42%) Amazon Linux
19 8 (0.28%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 526 (18.44%) Problem-Solving
2 454 (15.91%) Customer Service
3 412 (14.44%) ITIL
4 313 (10.97%) Agile
5 275 (9.64%) Migration
6 261 (9.15%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 255 (8.94%) DevOps
8 230 (8.06%) Service Management
9 222 (7.78%) Cybersecurity
10 216 (7.57%) CI/CD
11 209 (7.33%) ITSM
12 203 (7.12%) Continuous Improvement
13 162 (5.68%) Change Management
14 139 (4.87%) Disaster Recovery
15 131 (4.59%) Service Delivery
16 127 (4.45%) SIEM
17 126 (4.42%) Computer Science
18 123 (4.31%) User Experience
19 120 (4.21%) Incident Response
20 118 (4.14%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 568 (19.91%) PowerShell
2 348 (12.20%) Python
3 265 (9.29%) SQL
4 146 (5.12%) Java
5 116 (4.07%) C#
6 115 (4.03%) Bash
7 78 (2.73%) JavaScript
8 73 (2.56%) Perl
9 58 (2.03%) C++
10 54 (1.89%) PL/SQL
11 34 (1.19%) Shell Script
11 34 (1.19%) T-SQL
12 33 (1.16%) VBScript
13 31 (1.09%) Kusto Query Language
14 27 (0.95%) VB
15 23 (0.81%) Groovy
16 22 (0.77%) VBA
17 17 (0.60%) C
18 15 (0.53%) Go
19 13 (0.46%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 874 (30.63%) Security Cleared
2 580 (20.33%) SC Cleared
3 302 (10.59%) Degree
4 253 (8.87%) DV Cleared
5 154 (5.40%) Microsoft Certification
6 94 (3.29%) Computer Science Degree
7 63 (2.21%) Azure Certification
8 49 (1.72%) A+ Certification
8 49 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
9 47 (1.65%) ITIL Certification
10 45 (1.58%) MCSE
11 35 (1.23%) AWS Certification
12 33 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
13 32 (1.12%) CompTIA Security+
14 31 (1.09%) CCNA
15 30 (1.05%) CCNP
15 30 (1.05%) CISSP
16 27 (0.95%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 23 (0.81%) MCSA
18 21 (0.74%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (3.40%) GDPR
2 96 (3.36%) SLA
3 73 (2.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 69 (2.42%) QA
5 51 (1.79%) NIST
6 33 (1.16%) PCI DSS
7 25 (0.88%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 17 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
9 13 (0.46%) GLBA
9 13 (0.46%) PMO
10 12 (0.42%) NCSC
11 11 (0.39%) MiFID
12 9 (0.32%) COBIT
13 8 (0.28%) FINRA
13 8 (0.28%) HIPAA
14 6 (0.21%) NIST 800
15 5 (0.18%) Accessibility
15 5 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
15 5 (0.18%) SOC 2
16 4 (0.14%) GxP
System Software
1 1,017 (35.65%) Active Directory
2 259 (9.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 121 (4.24%) Docker
4 97 (3.40%) Hyper-V
5 62 (2.17%) Virtual Desktop
6 57 (2.00%) Virtual Machines
7 54 (1.89%) vSphere
8 47 (1.65%) VMware ESXi
9 37 (1.30%) VMware NSX
10 26 (0.91%) BitLocker
11 19 (0.67%) Microsoft App-V
12 18 (0.63%) Firmware
13 15 (0.53%) DFS Replication
13 15 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
14 8 (0.28%) Dovecot
14 8 (0.28%) KVM
14 8 (0.28%) Postfix
14 8 (0.28%) Squid
14 8 (0.28%) Tivoli Directory Server
14 8 (0.28%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 388 (13.60%) SCCM
2 318 (11.15%) Microsoft Intune
3 174 (6.10%) Terraform
4 159 (5.57%) Ansible
5 109 (3.82%) Kubernetes
6 84 (2.94%) Single Sign-On
7 72 (2.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 68 (2.38%) vCenter Server
9 44 (1.54%) Grafana
9 44 (1.54%) Jamf Pro
10 31 (1.09%) WSUS
11 30 (1.05%) SCOM
12 28 (0.98%) Prometheus
13 22 (0.77%) Nessus
14 20 (0.70%) Progress Chef
15 18 (0.63%) Nmap
15 18 (0.63%) WMI
16 15 (0.53%) Microsoft Clustering
16 15 (0.53%) Puppet
17 14 (0.49%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 1,210 (42.41%) Microsoft
2 357 (12.51%) VMware
3 254 (8.90%) ServiceNow
4 223 (7.82%) Oracle
5 182 (6.38%) Cisco
6 162 (5.68%) Citrix
7 131 (4.59%) Splunk
8 73 (2.56%) Apple
9 72 (2.52%) HP
10 71 (2.49%) Dell
11 53 (1.86%) Google
12 52 (1.82%) IBM
13 51 (1.79%) Red Hat
13 51 (1.79%) SolarWinds
13 51 (1.79%) Veeam
14 50 (1.75%) SAP
15 39 (1.37%) CyberArk
15 39 (1.37%) Palo Alto
16 34 (1.19%) CrowdStrike
16 34 (1.19%) Remedy