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 20 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 3,159 2,630 3,220
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.90% 8.01% 8.30%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.69% 60.09% 59.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,019 1,737 2,167
10th Percentile £166 £170 £175
25th Percentile £225 £221 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £413 £449
Median % change year-on-year +3.03% -8.13% +4.42%
75th Percentile £556 £561 £575
90th Percentile £650 £650 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £411 £392 £450
% change year-on-year +5.04% -13.00% +20.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 281 214 231
10th Percentile £15.31 £15.38 £11.07
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.52 £15.44
Median hourly rate £25.75 £20.38 £21.80
Median % change year-on-year +26.38% -6.54% -3.11%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £53.38
90th Percentile £74.00 £65.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £20.64
% change year-on-year +36.46% -8.59% -3.13%

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 5,205 4,377 5,414
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.73% 13.33% 13.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,302 2,793 3,578
10th Percentile £193 £190 £200
25th Percentile £315 £308 £332
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £471 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.61% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £663 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £470
% change year-on-year - -4.26% +4.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 354 263 329
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.51 £12.41
25th Percentile £17.50 £18.45 £17.00
Median hourly rate £26.00 £25.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -9.09% -31.25%
75th Percentile £65.00 £57.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.85 £67.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £24.00 £38.25
% change year-on-year +16.67% -37.25% +39.09%

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 20 August 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 20 August 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 20 August 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 -6 2,752 £425 +4.29% 955
UK excluding London -14 2,040 £411 +5.04% 846
London -12 923 £425 +1.19% 214
Work from Home -11 631 £475 +5.56% 291
South East -10 570 £475 -4.23% 301
North of England -5 502 £325 - 188
North West +2 292 £344 -1.71% 93
South West -15 284 £484 +38.21% 101
Midlands -18 259 £379 -5.38% 129
East of England -2 196 £335 - 114
Yorkshire -20 183 £324 +3.60% 69
West Midlands -28 164 £419 -2.39% 82
Scotland -7 163 £363 -22.04% 26
East Midlands +7 91 £270 +35.00% 47
Wales +4 64 £425 +54.55% 17
North East -29 31 £250 -4.76% 35
Northern Ireland -1 16 £139 -30.75% 4
Channel Islands 0 2 £518 - 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
1 254 (8.04%) SharePoint
2 244 (7.72%) Microsoft Exchange
3 69 (2.18%) IIS
4 59 (1.87%) Confluence
5 19 (0.60%) Skype for Business
6 18 (0.57%) nginx
7 16 (0.51%) Apache
8 15 (0.47%) Oracle Workflow
8 15 (0.47%) Tomcat
9 14 (0.44%) HCL Notes
10 9 (0.28%) NetWeaver
11 8 (0.25%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.19%) Documentum
13 5 (0.16%) Apache Solr
13 5 (0.16%) Appian
13 5 (0.16%) Camunda
13 5 (0.16%) SAS
14 4 (0.13%) FactoryTalk
15 3 (0.095%) Exchange Server 2013
15 3 (0.095%) WebSphere
Applications
1 208 (6.58%) Microsoft Office
2 71 (2.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.16%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.095%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.095%) Houdini
6 3 (0.095%) NUKE
7 2 (0.063%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.032%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.032%) InDesign
8 1 (0.032%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 57 (1.80%) Remedy ITSM
2 13 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (0.32%) Finacle
4 7 (0.22%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.22%) Oracle BPM
5 6 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
6 5 (0.16%) Teamcenter
7 4 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
8 3 (0.095%) assyst
9 2 (0.063%) Dynamics GP
9 2 (0.063%) SAP FI
10 1 (0.032%) Dynamics NAV
10 1 (0.032%) Infor LN
10 1 (0.032%) Oracle BRM
10 1 (0.032%) Oracle ERP
10 1 (0.032%) SAP BRIM
10 1 (0.032%) SAP ERP
10 1 (0.032%) SAP EWM
10 1 (0.032%) SAP FI-CA
10 1 (0.032%) SAP FS
Cloud Services
1 985 (31.18%) Azure
2 971 (30.74%) Microsoft 365
3 483 (15.29%) Entra ID
4 338 (10.70%) AWS
5 140 (4.43%) OneDrive
6 117 (3.70%) Azure DevOps
7 102 (3.23%) GCP
8 78 (2.47%) Azure Monitor
9 75 (2.37%) Power Platform
10 74 (2.34%) SaaS
11 73 (2.31%) GitHub
12 66 (2.09%) IaaS
13 51 (1.61%) PaaS
14 44 (1.39%) Azure Sentinel
15 39 (1.23%) OpenShift
16 32 (1.01%) AWS CloudFormation
17 28 (0.89%) GitHub Actions
18 27 (0.85%) Google Workspace
19 26 (0.82%) Azure AKS
20 25 (0.79%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 473 (14.97%) DNS
2 351 (11.11%) Firewall
3 338 (10.70%) DHCP
4 276 (8.74%) VPN
5 228 (7.22%) TCP/IP
6 157 (4.97%) LAN
6 157 (4.97%) WAN
7 143 (4.53%) Wi-Fi
8 99 (3.13%) SAN
9 87 (2.75%) VLAN
10 86 (2.72%) Network Security
11 48 (1.52%) NAS
12 47 (1.49%) SSL
13 45 (1.42%) Wireless
14 44 (1.39%) Internet
15 39 (1.23%) VSAN
16 35 (1.11%) Skype
17 32 (1.01%) BGP
17 32 (1.01%) SD-WAN
18 27 (0.85%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 306 (9.69%) SQL Server
2 60 (1.90%) Oracle Database
3 56 (1.77%) Power BI
4 36 (1.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 35 (1.11%) Relational Database
6 34 (1.08%) PostgreSQL
7 25 (0.79%) MySQL
8 20 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
9 17 (0.54%) RDBMS
10 16 (0.51%) Data Warehouse
10 16 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 15 (0.47%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 13 (0.41%) Elasticsearch
13 11 (0.35%) Geospatial Data
13 11 (0.35%) Oracle Reports
14 10 (0.32%) Db2
15 9 (0.28%) SAP HANA
16 8 (0.25%) MongoDB
16 8 (0.25%) Oracle BI EE
16 8 (0.25%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 173 (5.48%) JIRA
2 77 (2.44%) Git
3 60 (1.90%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.49%) MSI
5 43 (1.36%) GitLab
6 36 (1.14%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.60%) Bitbucket
8 17 (0.54%) Eclipse
9 10 (0.32%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 9 (0.28%) Selenium
11 8 (0.25%) Artifactory
11 8 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
12 7 (0.22%) Browser DevTools
12 7 (0.22%) Chocolatey
12 7 (0.22%) Team Foundation Server
13 6 (0.19%) Oracle Forms
14 5 (0.16%) AdminStudio
14 5 (0.16%) Claude Code
14 5 (0.16%) InstallShield
14 5 (0.16%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 1,149 (36.37%) Social Skills
2 398 (12.60%) Analytical Skills
3 376 (11.90%) Finance
4 182 (5.76%) Public Sector
5 162 (5.13%) Banking
6 108 (3.42%) Documentation Skills
7 90 (2.85%) Legal
8 77 (2.44%) Organisational Skills
9 69 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 58 (1.84%) Manufacturing
11 57 (1.80%) Retail
12 49 (1.55%) Telecoms
13 40 (1.27%) Front Office
14 37 (1.17%) Law
14 37 (1.17%) Military
15 33 (1.04%) Investment Banking
16 28 (0.89%) Spanish Language
17 25 (0.79%) Financial Institution
17 25 (0.79%) French Language
18 21 (0.66%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 492 (15.57%) Support Engineer
2 421 (13.33%) IT Support
3 327 (10.35%) IT Engineer
4 326 (10.32%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 273 (8.64%) IT Support Engineer
6 268 (8.48%) Analyst
7 242 (7.66%) Senior
8 141 (4.46%) Desktop Support
9 130 (4.12%) 2nd Line Support
10 129 (4.08%) Architect
11 115 (3.64%) Cloud Engineer
12 114 (3.61%) Desktop Engineer
12 114 (3.61%) Lead
13 109 (3.45%) Developer
14 106 (3.36%) Windows Engineer
15 102 (3.23%) Consultant
15 102 (3.23%) Support Analyst
16 86 (2.72%) 1st Line Support
17 84 (2.66%) Service Analyst
18 83 (2.63%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 271 (8.58%) Terraform
2 135 (4.27%) .NET
3 118 (3.74%) REST
4 69 (2.18%) .NET Framework
5 45 (1.42%) Middleware
6 36 (1.14%) JSON
7 32 (1.01%) LDAP
7 32 (1.01%) WinForms
8 29 (0.92%) WPF
8 29 (0.92%) XML
9 27 (0.85%) HTML
9 27 (0.85%) Kafka
10 26 (0.82%) Software Packaging
10 26 (0.82%) Web Services
11 22 (0.70%) ARM Templates
11 22 (0.70%) CSS
12 21 (0.66%) Elastic Stack
12 21 (0.66%) RESTful
13 20 (0.63%) SAML
14 19 (0.60%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 360 (11.40%) Onboarding
2 182 (5.76%) Data Centre
3 161 (5.10%) PKI
4 90 (2.85%) Management Information System
5 88 (2.79%) Clustering
6 83 (2.63%) Enterprise Software
6 83 (2.63%) Hybrid Cloud
7 79 (2.50%) Cloud Native
7 79 (2.50%) Driving Licence
8 69 (2.18%) Video Conferencing
9 66 (2.09%) Self-Motivation
10 65 (2.06%) Replication
11 50 (1.58%) Security Posture
12 49 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
13 42 (1.33%) Virtual Team
14 40 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
15 39 (1.23%) Enterprise Storage
15 39 (1.23%) Operational Technology
16 38 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
17 37 (1.17%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 837 (26.50%) Windows Server
2 789 (24.98%) Linux
3 545 (17.25%) Windows 10
4 192 (6.08%) Mac OS
5 147 (4.65%) Unix
6 138 (4.37%) Android
7 136 (4.31%) Apple iOS
8 128 (4.05%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 77 (2.44%) Windows Server 2019
10 55 (1.74%) Windows 7
11 50 (1.58%) Windows Server 2016
12 46 (1.46%) Ubuntu
13 40 (1.27%) Windows Server 2012
14 35 (1.11%) AIX
15 31 (0.98%) CentOS
16 23 (0.73%) VMS
17 20 (0.63%) Windows Server 2008
18 19 (0.60%) Solaris
19 11 (0.35%) Windows Server 2003
20 10 (0.32%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 752 (23.81%) Problem-Solving
2 571 (18.08%) ITIL
3 515 (16.30%) Customer Service
4 416 (13.17%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 411 (13.01%) ITSM
6 401 (12.69%) Migration
7 314 (9.94%) DevOps
8 312 (9.88%) Continuous Improvement
9 290 (9.18%) Service Management
10 273 (8.64%) CI/CD
11 267 (8.45%) Agile
12 251 (7.95%) Infrastructure as Code
13 226 (7.15%) Change Management
14 205 (6.49%) Stakeholder Management
15 200 (6.33%) High Availability
16 198 (6.27%) Disaster Recovery
17 196 (6.20%) Service Delivery
18 187 (5.92%) Cybersecurity
19 183 (5.79%) Validation
20 179 (5.67%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 762 (24.12%) PowerShell
2 338 (10.70%) Python
3 319 (10.10%) SQL
4 185 (5.86%) Bash
5 161 (5.10%) C#
6 78 (2.47%) Java
7 67 (2.12%) JavaScript
8 61 (1.93%) T-SQL
9 56 (1.77%) PL/SQL
10 48 (1.52%) Bicep
11 45 (1.42%) C++
12 30 (0.95%) VBScript
13 28 (0.89%) VB
14 25 (0.79%) Search Processing Language
15 21 (0.66%) Perl
15 21 (0.66%) Shell Script
16 18 (0.57%) VBA
17 16 (0.51%) TypeScript
18 12 (0.38%) C
19 11 (0.35%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 968 (30.64%) Security Cleared
2 613 (19.40%) SC Cleared
3 331 (10.48%) DV Cleared
4 296 (9.37%) Degree
5 122 (3.86%) Microsoft Certification
6 100 (3.17%) Cisco Certification
7 84 (2.66%) Azure Certification
8 77 (2.44%) Computer Science Degree
9 61 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
9 61 (1.93%) CISSP
10 55 (1.74%) AWS Certification
11 53 (1.68%) A+ Certification
12 47 (1.49%) CCNA
13 42 (1.33%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 38 (1.20%) CCNP
15 36 (1.14%) DBS Check
16 35 (1.11%) MCSE
17 33 (1.04%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 28 (0.89%) ITIL Certification
19 25 (0.79%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 163 (5.16%) SLA
2 111 (3.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 98 (3.10%) QA
4 82 (2.60%) NIST
5 39 (1.23%) GDPR
6 30 (0.95%) NCSC
7 27 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials
8 23 (0.73%) PCI DSS
9 16 (0.51%) Data Quality
9 16 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 15 (0.47%) Disclosure Scotland
11 14 (0.44%) GxP
12 13 (0.41%) Accessibility
12 13 (0.41%) PMO
13 11 (0.35%) GRC
13 11 (0.35%) HIPAA
13 11 (0.35%) WCAG
14 9 (0.28%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 9 (0.28%) GMP
15 7 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 1,285 (40.68%) Active Directory
2 463 (14.66%) VMware Infrastructure
3 204 (6.46%) Hyper-V
4 143 (4.53%) VMware ESXi
5 128 (4.05%) vSphere
6 110 (3.48%) Docker
7 99 (3.13%) Virtual Machines
8 94 (2.98%) Virtual Desktop
9 82 (2.60%) VMware NSX
10 42 (1.33%) Firmware
11 40 (1.27%) BitLocker
12 20 (0.63%) vCloud
13 17 (0.54%) Microsoft App-V
14 14 (0.44%) Virtual Servers
15 10 (0.32%) KVM
16 9 (0.28%) NFS
16 9 (0.28%) XenApp
16 9 (0.28%) XenDesktop
17 8 (0.25%) VMware Workstation
18 7 (0.22%) Citrix Hypervisor
Systems Management
1 442 (13.99%) Microsoft Intune
2 322 (10.19%) SCCM
3 239 (7.57%) Ansible
4 168 (5.32%) Kubernetes
5 116 (3.67%) vCenter Server
6 82 (2.60%) SCOM
7 49 (1.55%) Jamf Pro
8 48 (1.52%) WSUS
9 42 (1.33%) Progress Chef
10 37 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
11 32 (1.01%) Puppet
12 27 (0.85%) FortiGate
12 27 (0.85%) NetBackup
13 26 (0.82%) Nagios
13 26 (0.82%) WMI
14 25 (0.79%) Packer
14 25 (0.79%) Prometheus
15 24 (0.76%) Grafana
16 23 (0.73%) VxRail
17 22 (0.70%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,456 (46.09%) Microsoft
2 611 (19.34%) VMware
3 370 (11.71%) ServiceNow
4 217 (6.87%) Cisco
5 205 (6.49%) Oracle
6 185 (5.86%) Citrix
7 117 (3.70%) Splunk
8 105 (3.32%) Apple
9 96 (3.04%) CyberArk
10 81 (2.56%) Google
11 79 (2.50%) SolarWinds
12 74 (2.34%) BeyondTrust
12 74 (2.34%) Red Hat
13 70 (2.22%) HP
14 61 (1.93%) Remedy
15 57 (1.80%) Dell
16 51 (1.61%) Palo Alto
17 49 (1.55%) BMC
18 46 (1.46%) NetApp
19 45 (1.42%) Meraki