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

6 months to
4 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,884 2,447 3,736
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.39% 8.37% 8.47%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.27% 59.42% 62.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,933 1,700 2,536
10th Percentile £160 £181 £158
25th Percentile £206 £243 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £409 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -3.76% +6.25% -9.09%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £639 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £365 £400 £388
% change year-on-year -8.75% +3.23% +2.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 241 117 283
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.30 £12.28
25th Percentile £16.62 £16.95 £14.16
Median hourly rate £22.00 £21.00 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% +18.51% -20.20%
75th Percentile £54.00 £28.41 £23.94
90th Percentile £72.00 £64.25 £59.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.50 £20.00 £17.69
% change year-on-year +7.50% +13.06% -10.45%

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 4,785 4,118 5,975
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.60% 14.09% 13.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,136 2,753 3,998
10th Percentile £181 £200 £181
25th Percentile £300 £325 £290
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.70% -9.76%
75th Percentile £568 £600 £594
90th Percentile £653 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £450 £439
% change year-on-year -5.56% +2.45% -7.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 339 166 404
10th Percentile £15.17 £16.58 £12.78
25th Percentile £18.69 £18.15 £15.50
Median hourly rate £25.08 £24.66 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.68% +12.09% -32.31%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.63 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.09 £68.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £24.42 £20.00
% change year-on-year +2.38% +22.10% -30.56%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -4 2,534 £410 -3.65% 989
UK excluding London -9 1,921 £365 -8.75% 879
London -20 776 £425 -5.56% 231
Work from Home -16 590 £450 -2.70% 328
South East -4 514 £465 -2.11% 277
North of England -8 482 £300 -11.76% 201
Midlands -14 282 £320 +6.67% 130
North West -3 264 £260 -25.71% 130
South West -7 245 £463 -13.95% 129
East of England +6 217 £285 +26.67% 97
Yorkshire -12 193 £363 +7.41% 58
West Midlands -25 169 £438 +34.62% 76
Scotland -2 140 £425 -4.44% 42
East Midlands +1 109 £200 -5.88% 54
Wales -3 47 £190 -47.95% 20
North East -11 28 £188 -14.77% 17
Northern Ireland -13 8 £175 -7.89% 4
Channel Islands 0 2 £500 +68.07% 3

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 (8.63%) Microsoft Exchange
2 173 (6.00%) SharePoint
3 51 (1.77%) Confluence
4 47 (1.63%) IIS
5 26 (0.90%) Apache
6 23 (0.80%) WebLogic
7 14 (0.49%) Tomcat
8 12 (0.42%) nginx
8 12 (0.42%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
9 11 (0.38%) TPMS
10 10 (0.35%) SAS
11 6 (0.21%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.21%) WebSphere
12 5 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.10%) ArcGIS
14 3 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2010
15 2 (0.069%) WordPress
Applications
1 218 (7.56%) Microsoft Office
2 71 (2.46%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.38%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.035%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 37 (1.28%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.24%) Teamcenter
4 6 (0.21%) assyst
5 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.069%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.069%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.069%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.035%) Eikon
8 1 (0.035%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 815 (28.26%) Microsoft 365
2 765 (26.53%) Azure
3 317 (10.99%) Entra ID
4 216 (7.49%) AWS
5 96 (3.33%) OneDrive
6 73 (2.53%) SaaS
7 71 (2.46%) GCP
8 67 (2.32%) Azure DevOps
9 54 (1.87%) Google Workspace
10 49 (1.70%) IaaS
11 46 (1.60%) GitHub
12 43 (1.49%) PaaS
13 42 (1.46%) Power Platform
14 36 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
15 31 (1.07%) Azure Sentinel
16 26 (0.90%) OpenShift
17 23 (0.80%) GitHub Actions
18 21 (0.73%) AWS CloudFormation
18 21 (0.73%) Nutanix
19 18 (0.62%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 394 (13.66%) DNS
2 347 (12.03%) Firewall
3 258 (8.95%) DHCP
4 206 (7.14%) VPN
5 189 (6.55%) TCP/IP
6 172 (5.96%) LAN
7 169 (5.86%) WAN
8 157 (5.44%) Wi-Fi
9 83 (2.88%) Network Security
10 68 (2.36%) VLAN
11 63 (2.18%) SAN
12 53 (1.84%) Wireless
13 41 (1.42%) BGP
13 41 (1.42%) SD-WAN
13 41 (1.42%) SSL
14 38 (1.32%) Skype
15 37 (1.28%) VoIP
16 33 (1.14%) SNMP
17 31 (1.07%) OSPF
18 30 (1.04%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 177 (6.14%) SQL Server
2 56 (1.94%) Oracle Database
3 36 (1.25%) MySQL
3 36 (1.25%) Relational Database
4 27 (0.94%) PostgreSQL
5 19 (0.66%) Power BI
6 17 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
7 15 (0.52%) Data Warehouse
7 15 (0.52%) DB2
8 13 (0.45%) BigQuery
8 13 (0.45%) Oracle Reports
9 12 (0.42%) MongoDB
10 10 (0.35%) GIS
11 9 (0.31%) NoSQL
12 8 (0.28%) SAP HANA
12 8 (0.28%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 7 (0.24%) Sybase ASE
14 6 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
14 6 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
14 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 167 (5.79%) JIRA
2 62 (2.15%) GitLab
3 59 (2.05%) Jenkins
4 52 (1.80%) Git
5 41 (1.42%) MSI
6 35 (1.21%) Visual Studio
7 23 (0.80%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.59%) Burp Suite
8 17 (0.59%) Metasploit
9 13 (0.45%) Android Studio
9 13 (0.45%) Artifactory
10 11 (0.38%) Browser DevTools
10 11 (0.38%) Chocolatey
10 11 (0.38%) Xcode
11 10 (0.35%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.31%) InstallShield
13 8 (0.28%) JUnit
13 8 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
14 7 (0.24%) Robot Framework
14 7 (0.24%) Selenium
General
1 1,006 (34.88%) Social Skills
2 271 (9.40%) Finance
3 264 (9.15%) Analytical Skills
4 232 (8.04%) Public Sector
5 144 (4.99%) Banking
6 132 (4.58%) Legal
7 104 (3.61%) Documentation Skills
8 85 (2.95%) Organisational Skills
9 58 (2.01%) Military
10 56 (1.94%) Manufacturing
11 41 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
12 40 (1.39%) Telecoms
13 38 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 38 (1.32%) Retail
14 31 (1.07%) Law
15 27 (0.94%) Investment Banking
16 22 (0.76%) Front Office
17 20 (0.69%) Local Government
18 18 (0.62%) Aerospace
19 15 (0.52%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 395 (13.70%) IT Support
2 366 (12.69%) Support Engineer
3 364 (12.62%) Analyst
4 236 (8.18%) IT Engineer
5 199 (6.90%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 194 (6.73%) IT Support Engineer
7 188 (6.52%) Architect
8 169 (5.86%) Senior
9 147 (5.10%) Support Analyst
10 121 (4.20%) Desktop Support
11 111 (3.85%) Developer
12 106 (3.68%) Technical Support
13 103 (3.57%) Windows Engineer
14 100 (3.47%) 2nd Line Support
15 99 (3.43%) Desktop Engineer
16 97 (3.36%) IT Analyst
17 91 (3.16%) Lead
18 82 (2.84%) Consultant
19 76 (2.64%) IT Support Analyst
20 72 (2.50%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (3.12%) .NET
2 78 (2.70%) REST
3 55 (1.91%) SAML
4 52 (1.80%) .NET Framework
4 52 (1.80%) LDAP
5 43 (1.49%) OAuth
6 42 (1.46%) Middleware
7 33 (1.14%) Kafka
8 31 (1.07%) OpenID
9 30 (1.04%) WPF
10 29 (1.01%) Web Services
10 29 (1.01%) WinForms
11 26 (0.90%) Microsoft Graph
12 24 (0.83%) 802.1X
12 24 (0.83%) CSS
13 23 (0.80%) React
14 22 (0.76%) Node.js
15 21 (0.73%) AngularJS
16 19 (0.66%) Apache NiFi
16 19 (0.66%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 202 (7.00%) Onboarding
2 127 (4.40%) Data Centre
3 106 (3.68%) PKI
4 85 (2.95%) Enterprise Software
5 79 (2.74%) Driving Licence
6 72 (2.50%) Self-Motivation
7 63 (2.18%) Clustering
8 60 (2.08%) Replication
9 48 (1.66%) Legacy Systems
9 48 (1.66%) Management Information System
10 47 (1.63%) Hybrid Cloud
10 47 (1.63%) Smartphone
11 41 (1.42%) Security Posture
12 40 (1.39%) Product Ownership
13 36 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
14 34 (1.18%) CMDB
14 34 (1.18%) Security Operations Centre
15 32 (1.11%) Cloud Native
15 32 (1.11%) Virtual Team
16 31 (1.07%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 716 (24.83%) Linux
2 642 (22.26%) Windows Server
3 551 (19.11%) Windows 10
4 160 (5.55%) Mac OS
5 153 (5.31%) Android
6 148 (5.13%) Unix
7 120 (4.16%) Apple iOS
8 96 (3.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 69 (2.39%) Windows Server 2016
10 61 (2.12%) Windows Server 2019
11 48 (1.66%) Windows 7
12 41 (1.42%) AIX
13 40 (1.39%) Windows Server 2012
14 29 (1.01%) Windows Server 2003
15 21 (0.73%) Solaris
16 20 (0.69%) VMS
17 18 (0.62%) Ubuntu
18 14 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
19 9 (0.31%) CentOS
19 9 (0.31%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 593 (20.56%) Problem-Solving
2 477 (16.54%) Customer Service
3 421 (14.60%) ITIL
4 316 (10.96%) Migration
5 303 (10.51%) Agile
6 284 (9.85%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 255 (8.84%) DevOps
8 236 (8.18%) ITSM
9 229 (7.94%) CI/CD
10 207 (7.18%) Cybersecurity
11 199 (6.90%) Service Management
12 198 (6.87%) Continuous Improvement
13 175 (6.07%) Change Management
14 173 (6.00%) Disaster Recovery
15 148 (5.13%) High Availability
16 141 (4.89%) Stakeholder Management
17 131 (4.54%) SIEM
18 130 (4.51%) Service Delivery
19 124 (4.30%) Infrastructure as Code
20 122 (4.23%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 620 (21.50%) PowerShell
2 306 (10.61%) Python
3 265 (9.19%) SQL
4 127 (4.40%) Bash
4 127 (4.40%) C#
5 94 (3.26%) Java
6 77 (2.67%) JavaScript
7 63 (2.18%) PL/SQL
8 55 (1.91%) Perl
9 53 (1.84%) C++
10 42 (1.46%) T-SQL
11 29 (1.01%) Kusto Query Language
12 24 (0.83%) VB
13 22 (0.76%) Shell Script
14 20 (0.69%) VBScript
15 16 (0.55%) Search Processing Language
16 15 (0.52%) VBA
17 14 (0.49%) Bicep
18 13 (0.45%) Go
18 13 (0.45%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 877 (30.41%) Security Cleared
2 586 (20.32%) SC Cleared
3 290 (10.06%) Degree
4 258 (8.95%) DV Cleared
5 123 (4.26%) Microsoft Certification
6 88 (3.05%) Computer Science Degree
7 65 (2.25%) Cisco Certification
8 48 (1.66%) Azure Certification
9 44 (1.53%) MCSE
10 43 (1.49%) CISSP
10 43 (1.49%) ITIL Certification
11 38 (1.32%) CompTIA Security+
12 37 (1.28%) BPSS Clearance
13 31 (1.07%) AWS Certification
13 31 (1.07%) CCNA
14 29 (1.01%) A+ Certification
15 25 (0.87%) CCNP
16 24 (0.83%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 20 (0.69%) CompTIA CySA+
17 20 (0.69%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 99 (3.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 94 (3.26%) GDPR
3 91 (3.16%) SLA
4 89 (3.09%) QA
5 65 (2.25%) NIST
6 44 (1.53%) PCI DSS
7 28 (0.97%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 21 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
9 14 (0.49%) NCSC
10 13 (0.45%) PMO
11 12 (0.42%) MiFID
12 11 (0.38%) GLBA
12 11 (0.38%) NIST 800
13 10 (0.35%) Data Quality
13 10 (0.35%) FINRA
14 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
15 6 (0.21%) DICOM
15 6 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
15 6 (0.21%) HIPAA
16 5 (0.17%) HL7
System Software
1 1,063 (36.86%) Active Directory
2 310 (10.75%) VMware Infrastructure
3 129 (4.47%) Hyper-V
4 105 (3.64%) Docker
5 83 (2.88%) vSphere
6 70 (2.43%) VMware ESXi
7 59 (2.05%) Virtual Machines
8 52 (1.80%) Virtual Desktop
9 38 (1.32%) VMware NSX
10 34 (1.18%) Firmware
11 31 (1.07%) BitLocker
12 24 (0.83%) Microsoft App-V
13 17 (0.59%) KVM
14 10 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
14 10 (0.35%) XenDesktop
15 9 (0.31%) XenApp
16 6 (0.21%) etcd
16 6 (0.21%) NFS
17 5 (0.17%) Terminal Services
17 5 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 381 (13.21%) Microsoft Intune
2 306 (10.61%) SCCM
3 176 (6.10%) Ansible
4 167 (5.79%) Terraform
5 135 (4.68%) Kubernetes
6 82 (2.84%) Single Sign-On
7 67 (2.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 63 (2.18%) vCenter Server
9 47 (1.63%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (1.25%) FortiGate
10 36 (1.25%) Grafana
11 35 (1.21%) WSUS
12 30 (1.04%) Prometheus
13 25 (0.87%) SCOM
14 22 (0.76%) Progress Chef
15 21 (0.73%) Nagios
16 20 (0.69%) Nessus
17 18 (0.62%) Puppet
18 16 (0.55%) Nmap
19 15 (0.52%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,241 (43.03%) Microsoft
2 417 (14.46%) VMware
3 241 (8.36%) ServiceNow
4 212 (7.35%) Citrix
5 186 (6.45%) Oracle
6 184 (6.38%) Cisco
7 150 (5.20%) Splunk
8 88 (3.05%) HP
9 75 (2.60%) Dell
10 68 (2.36%) Red Hat
11 65 (2.25%) SolarWinds
12 61 (2.12%) Google
13 59 (2.05%) Apple
13 59 (2.05%) IBM
14 51 (1.77%) Remedy
15 42 (1.46%) Juniper
16 41 (1.42%) F5
16 41 (1.42%) Palo Alto
16 41 (1.42%) Veeam
17 40 (1.39%) CyberArk