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 2 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 22 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -6 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,870 2,577 3,998
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.47% 8.29% 8.87%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.59% 58.46% 62.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,990 1,664 2,685
10th Percentile £160 £181 £158
25th Percentile £204 £223 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £395 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year -1.31% - -5.88%
75th Percentile £540 £559 £575
90th Percentile £639 £650 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £365 £370
% change year-on-year -10.96% -1.35% -1.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 254 100 273
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.63 £18.13 £15.50
Median hourly rate £21.80 £23.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.22% +15.00% -8.05%
75th Percentile £42.55 £36.03 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.59 £65.00 £62.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £22.69 £18.50
% change year-on-year -5.41% +22.64% -4.05%

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 4,737 4,408 6,403
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.33% 14.19% 14.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,151 2,733 4,305
10th Percentile £173 £200 £180
25th Percentile £263 £313 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £475 £470
Median % change year-on-year -7.89% +1.06% -8.56%
75th Percentile £565 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £689 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £402 £425 £425
% change year-on-year -5.35% - -6.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 334 157 393
10th Percentile £14.30 £16.19 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.76 £21.00 £16.86
Median hourly rate £23.79 £32.50 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.81% +30.00% -2.76%
75th Percentile £55.64 £65.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £69.62 £69.25 £72.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.54 £29.89 £23.14
% change year-on-year -24.60% +29.20% -4.18%

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 2 February 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 2 February 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 2 February 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 0 2,552 £378 -5.63% 1,085
UK excluding London -2 1,942 £325 -10.96% 1,028
London -13 749 £450 +7.14% 240
Work from Home -9 584 £425 -5.56% 329
South East -1 504 £400 -5.88% 357
North of England -4 459 £263 -25.00% 218
South West +2 317 £425 +6.25% 124
Midlands -6 300 £275 -15.38% 142
North West -3 257 £263 -25.00% 104
East of England +7 215 £251 -14.10% 126
West Midlands -11 184 £375 +15.38% 87
Yorkshire -14 171 £313 -10.57% 95
East Midlands +5 115 £225 -36.80% 55
Scotland -9 114 £425 - 65
Wales 0 43 £180 -24.21% 18
North East -5 34 £188 -43.61% 25
Northern Ireland -14 8 £163 +1.56% 2
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
1 243 (8.47%) Microsoft Exchange
2 176 (6.13%) SharePoint
3 68 (2.37%) Confluence
4 47 (1.64%) IIS
5 42 (1.46%) Apache
6 22 (0.77%) WebLogic
7 18 (0.63%) Skype for Business
8 17 (0.59%) WebSphere
9 15 (0.52%) nginx
10 13 (0.45%) JBoss
10 13 (0.45%) TPMS
11 11 (0.38%) SAS
12 10 (0.35%) iPlanet
12 10 (0.35%) WebSphere Application Server
13 9 (0.31%) Tuxedo
14 7 (0.24%) SharePoint Server
14 7 (0.24%) Tomcat
15 5 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2010
16 4 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
16 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
Applications
1 256 (8.92%) Microsoft Office
2 77 (2.68%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.35%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.24%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 6 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.17%) Acrobat
7 5 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
8 4 (0.14%) PTC Creo
9 2 (0.070%) Adobe Premiere
9 2 (0.070%) Photoshop
9 2 (0.070%) Windchill
10 1 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
10 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
10 1 (0.035%) Camtasia
10 1 (0.035%) InDesign
10 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
10 1 (0.035%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 25 (0.87%) Remedy ITSM
2 9 (0.31%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.24%) assyst
3 7 (0.24%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.10%) 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%) Aladdin
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
1 787 (27.42%) Microsoft 365
2 711 (24.77%) Azure
3 268 (9.34%) Entra ID
4 255 (8.89%) AWS
5 97 (3.38%) OneDrive
6 73 (2.54%) SaaS
7 70 (2.44%) GCP
8 57 (1.99%) Azure DevOps
9 54 (1.88%) Google Workspace
10 45 (1.57%) GitHub
10 45 (1.57%) IaaS
11 35 (1.22%) Power Platform
12 31 (1.08%) PaaS
13 28 (0.98%) Azure Monitor
13 28 (0.98%) OpenShift
14 27 (0.94%) Azure Sentinel
15 26 (0.91%) Nutanix
16 19 (0.66%) AWS CloudFormation
16 19 (0.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 18 (0.63%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 371 (12.93%) DNS
2 300 (10.45%) Firewall
3 236 (8.22%) DHCP
4 192 (6.69%) TCP/IP
5 178 (6.20%) VPN
6 125 (4.36%) WAN
6 125 (4.36%) Wi-Fi
7 112 (3.90%) LAN
8 86 (3.00%) Network Security
9 66 (2.30%) Wireless
10 65 (2.26%) VLAN
11 51 (1.78%) SSH
12 48 (1.67%) HTTP
13 42 (1.46%) Skype
14 41 (1.43%) SAN
15 40 (1.39%) Kerberos
16 33 (1.15%) SD-WAN
16 33 (1.15%) SSL
16 33 (1.15%) VoIP
17 32 (1.11%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 129 (4.49%) SQL Server
2 67 (2.33%) Oracle Database
3 57 (1.99%) Relational Database
4 45 (1.57%) MySQL
5 30 (1.05%) PostgreSQL
6 14 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.45%) BigQuery
7 13 (0.45%) Power BI
8 12 (0.42%) Elasticsearch
8 12 (0.42%) GIS
9 10 (0.35%) Data Warehouse
9 10 (0.35%) Oracle Reports
10 9 (0.31%) Amazon Aurora
11 8 (0.28%) DB2
11 8 (0.28%) MongoDB
11 8 (0.28%) NoSQL
12 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
12 6 (0.21%) SAP HANA
12 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 4 (0.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 157 (5.47%) JIRA
2 80 (2.79%) Jenkins
3 76 (2.65%) Git
4 58 (2.02%) GitLab
5 38 (1.32%) MSI
6 28 (0.98%) Visual Studio
7 27 (0.94%) Eclipse
8 19 (0.66%) Burp Suite
8 19 (0.66%) Metasploit
9 18 (0.63%) Android Studio
10 17 (0.59%) Browser DevTools
11 16 (0.56%) Xcode
12 15 (0.52%) Artifactory
12 15 (0.52%) InstallShield
13 14 (0.49%) Sonatype Nexus
14 13 (0.45%) Bitbucket
15 11 (0.38%) AdminStudio
15 11 (0.38%) Bitbucket Server
15 11 (0.38%) CA Release Automation
16 10 (0.35%) Vagrant
General
1 1,059 (36.90%) Social Skills
2 310 (10.80%) Finance
3 255 (8.89%) Analytical Skills
4 252 (8.78%) Public Sector
5 128 (4.46%) Banking
6 119 (4.15%) Documentation Skills
7 103 (3.59%) Legal
8 81 (2.82%) Organisational Skills
9 64 (2.23%) Manufacturing
10 52 (1.81%) Military
11 43 (1.50%) Presentation Skills
12 41 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 38 (1.32%) Telecoms
14 37 (1.29%) Retail
15 27 (0.94%) Marketing
16 24 (0.84%) Aerospace
16 24 (0.84%) Front Office
17 23 (0.80%) Law
18 21 (0.73%) Investment Banking
19 18 (0.63%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 401 (13.97%) Support Engineer
2 365 (12.72%) Analyst
3 357 (12.44%) IT Support
4 190 (6.62%) IT Engineer
5 186 (6.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 165 (5.75%) Architect
7 153 (5.33%) Support Analyst
8 150 (5.23%) Desktop Support
8 150 (5.23%) IT Support Engineer
9 143 (4.98%) Windows Engineer
10 141 (4.91%) Senior
11 127 (4.43%) Desktop Engineer
12 126 (4.39%) Technical Support
13 120 (4.18%) 2nd Line Support
14 107 (3.73%) Deployment Engineer
15 104 (3.62%) Developer
16 99 (3.45%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 95 (3.31%) Lead
18 83 (2.89%) IT Analyst
19 78 (2.72%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (2.82%) .NET
2 64 (2.23%) LDAP
3 60 (2.09%) REST
4 55 (1.92%) OAuth
4 55 (1.92%) SAML
5 44 (1.53%) .NET Framework
6 41 (1.43%) Middleware
7 37 (1.29%) OpenID
8 33 (1.15%) React
9 32 (1.11%) WPF
10 29 (1.01%) AngularJS
11 26 (0.91%) Kafka
12 25 (0.87%) CSS
13 24 (0.84%) Web Services
14 22 (0.77%) RESTful
15 21 (0.73%) Node.js
15 21 (0.73%) SOAP
16 20 (0.70%) Microsoft Graph
16 20 (0.70%) OAuth2
17 19 (0.66%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 170 (5.92%) Onboarding
2 102 (3.55%) Data Centre
3 96 (3.34%) PKI
4 95 (3.31%) Driving Licence
5 79 (2.75%) Enterprise Software
6 62 (2.16%) Self-Motivation
7 60 (2.09%) Replication
8 57 (1.99%) Smartphone
9 56 (1.95%) Management Information System
10 43 (1.50%) Security Posture
11 40 (1.39%) Hybrid Cloud
12 36 (1.25%) Legacy Systems
13 33 (1.15%) NHS
14 32 (1.11%) Analytical Mindset
14 32 (1.11%) Security Operations Centre
15 29 (1.01%) Clustering
15 29 (1.01%) Mobile App
15 29 (1.01%) Product Ownership
16 28 (0.98%) Public Cloud
16 28 (0.98%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 712 (24.81%) Linux
2 611 (21.29%) Windows 10
3 585 (20.38%) Windows Server
4 176 (6.13%) Unix
5 156 (5.44%) Mac OS
6 142 (4.95%) Android
7 111 (3.87%) Apple iOS
8 77 (2.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 70 (2.44%) Windows Server 2016
10 61 (2.13%) Windows Server 2019
11 52 (1.81%) Windows 7
12 40 (1.39%) Windows Server 2012
13 29 (1.01%) Windows Server 2003
14 25 (0.87%) AIX
15 20 (0.70%) VMS
16 17 (0.59%) Solaris
16 17 (0.59%) Ubuntu
17 14 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.35%) Amazon Linux
18 10 (0.35%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 536 (18.68%) Problem-Solving
2 476 (16.59%) Customer Service
3 420 (14.63%) ITIL
4 313 (10.91%) Agile
5 281 (9.79%) Migration
6 268 (9.34%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 250 (8.71%) DevOps
8 234 (8.15%) Service Management
9 217 (7.56%) CI/CD
9 217 (7.56%) ITSM
10 216 (7.53%) Cybersecurity
11 199 (6.93%) Continuous Improvement
12 156 (5.44%) Change Management
13 140 (4.88%) Disaster Recovery
14 131 (4.56%) Service Delivery
15 128 (4.46%) Stakeholder Management
16 125 (4.36%) Computer Science
17 123 (4.29%) User Experience
18 122 (4.25%) SIEM
19 116 (4.04%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 574 (20.00%) PowerShell
2 349 (12.16%) Python
3 261 (9.09%) SQL
4 132 (4.60%) Java
5 120 (4.18%) Bash
6 113 (3.94%) C#
7 75 (2.61%) JavaScript
8 69 (2.40%) Perl
9 55 (1.92%) PL/SQL
10 54 (1.88%) C++
11 36 (1.25%) T-SQL
12 32 (1.11%) VBScript
13 31 (1.08%) Shell Script
14 29 (1.01%) Kusto Query Language
15 26 (0.91%) VB
16 21 (0.73%) Groovy
16 21 (0.73%) VBA
17 16 (0.56%) Go
18 14 (0.49%) Bicep
19 11 (0.38%) PHP
Qualifications
1 875 (30.49%) Security Cleared
2 577 (20.10%) SC Cleared
3 304 (10.59%) Degree
4 255 (8.89%) DV Cleared
5 152 (5.30%) Microsoft Certification
6 94 (3.28%) Computer Science Degree
7 62 (2.16%) Azure Certification
8 49 (1.71%) Cisco Certification
9 47 (1.64%) A+ Certification
10 45 (1.57%) ITIL Certification
10 45 (1.57%) MCSE
11 34 (1.18%) AWS Certification
12 33 (1.15%) BPSS Clearance
13 32 (1.11%) CompTIA Security+
14 31 (1.08%) CCNA
15 30 (1.05%) CCNP
15 30 (1.05%) CISSP
16 27 (0.94%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 23 (0.80%) MCSA
18 21 (0.73%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (3.34%) GDPR
1 96 (3.34%) SLA
2 69 (2.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 67 (2.33%) QA
4 49 (1.71%) NIST
5 34 (1.18%) PCI DSS
6 25 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 17 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
8 13 (0.45%) GLBA
8 13 (0.45%) PMO
9 12 (0.42%) NCSC
10 11 (0.38%) MiFID
11 9 (0.31%) COBIT
12 8 (0.28%) FINRA
13 7 (0.24%) HIPAA
14 6 (0.21%) NIST 800
15 5 (0.17%) Accessibility
15 5 (0.17%) Disclosure Scotland
16 4 (0.14%) GxP
16 4 (0.14%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,029 (35.85%) Active Directory
2 269 (9.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 122 (4.25%) Docker
4 102 (3.55%) Hyper-V
5 64 (2.23%) Virtual Desktop
6 62 (2.16%) Virtual Machines
7 57 (1.99%) vSphere
8 47 (1.64%) VMware ESXi
9 37 (1.29%) VMware NSX
10 24 (0.84%) BitLocker
11 20 (0.70%) Microsoft App-V
12 17 (0.59%) Firmware
13 14 (0.49%) Virtual Servers
14 13 (0.45%) DFS Replication
15 11 (0.38%) KVM
16 8 (0.28%) Tivoli Directory Server
16 8 (0.28%) XenApp
17 7 (0.24%) Dovecot
17 7 (0.24%) Postfix
17 7 (0.24%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 387 (13.48%) SCCM
2 326 (11.36%) Microsoft Intune
3 174 (6.06%) Terraform
4 157 (5.47%) Ansible
5 110 (3.83%) Kubernetes
6 85 (2.96%) Single Sign-On
7 74 (2.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 68 (2.37%) vCenter Server
9 46 (1.60%) Jamf Pro
10 45 (1.57%) Grafana
11 31 (1.08%) WSUS
12 29 (1.01%) Prometheus
13 28 (0.98%) SCOM
14 21 (0.73%) Nessus
15 20 (0.70%) Progress Chef
16 18 (0.63%) Nmap
16 18 (0.63%) WMI
17 14 (0.49%) FortiGate
18 13 (0.45%) Proxmox
19 12 (0.42%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 1,221 (42.54%) Microsoft
2 367 (12.79%) VMware
3 262 (9.13%) ServiceNow
4 211 (7.35%) Oracle
5 175 (6.10%) Cisco
6 164 (5.71%) Citrix
7 134 (4.67%) Splunk
8 72 (2.51%) Apple
9 71 (2.47%) Dell
10 70 (2.44%) HP
11 55 (1.92%) Google
11 55 (1.92%) Red Hat
12 52 (1.81%) SolarWinds
13 51 (1.78%) Veeam
14 50 (1.74%) IBM
15 49 (1.71%) SAP
16 39 (1.36%) Palo Alto
17 38 (1.32%) CyberArk
18 36 (1.25%) Remedy
19 32 (1.11%) CrowdStrike