Windows Contracts

Microsoft Windows
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Windows skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Windows over the 6 months leading up to 8 December 2024, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Dec 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 19 16 16
Rank change year-on-year -3 0 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,899 4,265 7,167
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 8.27% 9.50% 9.34%
As % of the Operating Systems category 58.76% 62.93% 57.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,814 2,853 4,936
10th Percentile £180 £160 £160
25th Percentile £238 £213 £219
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £424 £403 £425
Median % change year-on-year +5.34% -5.29% +1.19%
75th Percentile £560 £575 £575
90th Percentile £639 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £380 £385 £373
% change year-on-year -1.30% +3.36% +24.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 127 248 433
10th Percentile £15.22 £14.16 £12.32
25th Percentile £19.82 £17.72 £15.75
Median hourly rate £24.18 £22.00 £20.50
Median % change year-on-year +9.91% +7.32% +20.94%
75th Percentile £57.62 £53.94 £57.50
90th Percentile £68.00 £65.60 £65.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.18 £21.00 £18.75
% change year-on-year +15.14% +12.00% +17.19%

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 4,934 6,777 12,500
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 14.07% 15.10% 16.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,038 4,614 8,587
10th Percentile £200 £183 £185
25th Percentile £325 £300 £345
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £480 £513
Median % change year-on-year -1.04% -6.34% +4.59%
75th Percentile £588 £612 £625
90th Percentile £688 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £449 £450
% change year-on-year -2.51% -0.28% +12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 195 339 559
10th Percentile £16.28 £15.05 £13.16
25th Percentile £22.38 £17.75 £16.50
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.67% +20.00% +38.89%
75th Percentile £67.25 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £74.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.25 £27.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year +89.81% +20.00% +32.35%

Windows
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Windows as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Windows in the UK

Windows
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Windows.

Daily rate trend for Windows in the UK

Windows
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Windows over the 6 months to 8 December 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Windows in the UK

Windows
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Windows.

Hourly rate trend for Windows in the UK

Windows
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Windows over the 6 months to 8 December 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows in the UK

Windows
Top 17 Contract 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 2024. 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 2,466 £400 - 1,369
UK excluding London -1 1,687 £380 -1.30% 1,060
London -12 984 £425 -5.56% 411
Work from Home -3 728 £450 -3.23% 1,012
South East -5 451 £418 +25.56% 254
North of England -1 363 £375 - 281
South West +2 260 £425 -9.57% 163
Midlands -6 229 £325 -7.14% 155
North West +1 206 £400 - 163
Scotland +6 196 £438 -12.50% 67
West Midlands -3 168 £302 -19.47% 95
Yorkshire 0 136 £350 +0.07% 89
East of England +2 127 £325 -22.62% 129
East Midlands -10 60 £375 +66.67% 60
Wales -12 49 £220 -26.67% 27
Northern Ireland +10 23 £155 +4.20% 16
North East -16 20 £323 +76.71% 31

Windows
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 360 (12.42%) Microsoft Exchange
2 215 (7.42%) SharePoint
3 83 (2.86%) Confluence
4 59 (2.04%) IIS
5 25 (0.86%) Apache
6 20 (0.69%) Tomcat
7 19 (0.66%) CMS
8 18 (0.62%) Exchange Server 2013
8 18 (0.62%) Skype for Business
9 16 (0.55%) WebSphere
10 13 (0.45%) Exchange Server 2010
10 13 (0.45%) IBM Notes
11 7 (0.24%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
11 7 (0.24%) JBoss
11 7 (0.24%) Site Server
12 6 (0.21%) nginx
12 6 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
12 6 (0.21%) Umbraco
12 6 (0.21%) WebLogic
13 5 (0.17%) IBM Domino
Applications
1 326 (11.25%) Microsoft Office
2 89 (3.07%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 26 (0.90%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.17%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 4 (0.14%) Trello
7 2 (0.069%) Adobe Captivate
7 2 (0.069%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.069%) Simulink
8 1 (0.034%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.034%) Doxygen
8 1 (0.034%) EngageOne
8 1 (0.034%) Final Cut Pro
8 1 (0.034%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.034%) Maya
8 1 (0.034%) NUKE
8 1 (0.034%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.034%) QuarkXPress
Business Applications
1 9 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
2 8 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
3 6 (0.21%) assyst
3 6 (0.21%) Dynamics GP
3 6 (0.21%) Oracle Applications
3 6 (0.21%) Oracle Assets
3 6 (0.21%) Oracle Cash Management
3 6 (0.21%) Oracle EBS R12
3 6 (0.21%) Oracle E-Business Tax
3 6 (0.21%) Oracle General Ledger
3 6 (0.21%) Oracle Internet Expenses
3 6 (0.21%) Oracle iProcurement
3 6 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
3 6 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
3 6 (0.21%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 5 (0.17%) NetSuite
5 3 (0.10%) Elite 3E
5 3 (0.10%) Siebel CRM
5 3 (0.10%) SystmOne
6 2 (0.069%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 805 (27.77%) Microsoft 365
2 727 (25.08%) Azure
3 287 (9.90%) Entra ID
4 237 (8.18%) AWS
5 103 (3.55%) OneDrive
6 74 (2.55%) GCP
7 72 (2.48%) SaaS
8 64 (2.21%) IaaS
9 52 (1.79%) Azure DevOps
9 52 (1.79%) PaaS
10 48 (1.66%) GitHub
11 44 (1.52%) Power Platform
12 33 (1.14%) Google Workspace
13 29 (1.00%) Cloud Computing
14 27 (0.93%) WhatsApp
15 26 (0.90%) OpenShift
16 24 (0.83%) Azure Monitor
17 22 (0.76%) Amazon EC2
17 22 (0.76%) Serverless
18 21 (0.72%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 347 (11.97%) DNS
2 294 (10.14%) Firewall
3 274 (9.45%) DHCP
4 239 (8.24%) VPN
5 169 (5.83%) TCP/IP
6 123 (4.24%) WAN
7 122 (4.21%) LAN
8 104 (3.59%) SAN
9 101 (3.48%) Network Security
10 85 (2.93%) Wi-Fi
11 69 (2.38%) VoIP
12 67 (2.31%) Internet
13 64 (2.21%) VLAN
14 61 (2.10%) SMTP
14 61 (2.10%) Wireless
15 58 (2.00%) HTTP
16 53 (1.83%) Remote Desktop
17 49 (1.69%) SSL
18 48 (1.66%) NAS
19 41 (1.41%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 228 (7.86%) SQL Server
2 74 (2.55%) Oracle Database
3 62 (2.14%) Relational Database
4 61 (2.10%) MySQL
5 42 (1.45%) PostgreSQL
6 36 (1.24%) RDBMS
7 27 (0.93%) MongoDB
7 27 (0.93%) Power BI
8 26 (0.90%) Big Data
9 19 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 18 (0.62%) DB2
11 17 (0.59%) Metadata
12 13 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
13 11 (0.38%) Crystal Reports
13 11 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 10 (0.34%) NoSQL
14 10 (0.34%) Oracle Reports
14 10 (0.34%) Tableau
15 8 (0.28%) Data Lake
16 7 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 133 (4.59%) JIRA
2 92 (3.17%) Git
3 79 (2.73%) Jenkins
4 54 (1.86%) GitLab
5 53 (1.83%) MSI
5 53 (1.83%) Visual Studio
6 31 (1.07%) Bitbucket
7 29 (1.00%) Eclipse
8 23 (0.79%) TeamCity
9 22 (0.76%) Selenium
10 20 (0.69%) Artifactory
10 20 (0.69%) Robot Framework
11 13 (0.45%) JMeter
12 12 (0.41%) Locust
12 12 (0.41%) Octopus Deploy
12 12 (0.41%) Sonatype Nexus
12 12 (0.41%) TestCafe
13 10 (0.34%) InstallShield
14 9 (0.31%) SonarQube
15 8 (0.28%) Postman
General
1 866 (29.87%) Social Skills
2 513 (17.70%) Finance
3 325 (11.21%) Public Sector
4 228 (7.86%) Analytical Skills
5 156 (5.38%) Banking
6 138 (4.76%) Telecoms
7 137 (4.73%) Manufacturing
8 115 (3.97%) Marketing
9 107 (3.69%) Electronics
10 67 (2.31%) Documentation Skills
10 67 (2.31%) Legal
11 49 (1.69%) Military
12 46 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
13 39 (1.35%) Investment Banking
14 37 (1.28%) Organisational Skills
15 36 (1.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 31 (1.07%) Financial Institution
17 28 (0.97%) Law
18 17 (0.59%) Front Office
18 17 (0.59%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 354 (12.21%) Support Engineer
2 332 (11.45%) Analyst
3 270 (9.31%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 223 (7.69%) Senior
5 182 (6.28%) IT Support
6 177 (6.11%) Architect
7 165 (5.69%) Desktop Support
8 149 (5.14%) Desktop Engineer
9 147 (5.07%) Developer
10 134 (4.62%) IT Engineer
11 127 (4.38%) Service Analyst
12 125 (4.31%) Service Desk Analyst
13 118 (4.07%) 2nd Line Support
14 114 (3.93%) Windows Engineer
15 110 (3.79%) Administrator
16 109 (3.76%) Support Analyst
17 90 (3.10%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 84 (2.90%) IT Support Engineer
19 79 (2.73%) 2nd Line Engineer
20 78 (2.69%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 124 (4.28%) .NET
2 84 (2.90%) .NET Framework
3 65 (2.24%) Web Services
4 53 (1.83%) WPF
5 43 (1.48%) Middleware
6 41 (1.41%) LDAP
7 32 (1.10%) Node.js
8 29 (1.00%) REST
9 26 (0.90%) SAML
10 24 (0.83%) SOAP
10 24 (0.83%) WinForms
10 24 (0.83%) XML
11 22 (0.76%) HTML
12 21 (0.72%) ASP.NET
13 19 (0.66%) JSON
13 19 (0.66%) React
14 17 (0.59%) WCF
15 15 (0.52%) YAML
16 14 (0.48%) PyQt
16 14 (0.48%) PySide
Miscellaneous
1 118 (4.07%) Data Centre
2 116 (4.00%) PKI
3 102 (3.52%) Video Conferencing
4 84 (2.90%) Clustering
5 83 (2.86%) Management Information System
6 75 (2.59%) Onboarding
7 65 (2.24%) Self-Motivation
8 58 (2.00%) Public Cloud
9 41 (1.41%) Smartphone
10 37 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
10 37 (1.28%) Driving Licence
11 32 (1.10%) Hybrid Cloud
11 32 (1.10%) Security Posture
11 32 (1.10%) Virtual Team
12 31 (1.07%) iPhone
13 29 (1.00%) Enterprise Software
14 28 (0.97%) NHS
14 28 (0.97%) Replication
15 27 (0.93%) Enterprise Storage
16 23 (0.79%) iPad
Operating Systems
1 726 (25.04%) Windows Server
2 702 (24.22%) Linux
3 698 (24.08%) Windows 10
4 220 (7.59%) Unix
5 152 (5.24%) Windows Server 2012
6 133 (4.59%) Apple iOS
7 110 (3.79%) Android
7 110 (3.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 109 (3.76%) Windows Server 2016
9 98 (3.38%) Windows Server 2019
10 97 (3.35%) Mac OS
11 83 (2.86%) Windows 7
12 48 (1.66%) Windows Server 2008
13 42 (1.45%) CentOS
14 38 (1.31%) VMS
15 33 (1.14%) Ubuntu
16 28 (0.97%) Solaris
17 24 (0.83%) Mac OS X
17 24 (0.83%) Windows Server 2003
18 18 (0.62%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 504 (17.39%) Problem-Solving
2 399 (13.76%) ITIL
3 366 (12.63%) Customer Service
4 358 (12.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 338 (11.66%) Agile
6 248 (8.55%) Migration
7 237 (8.18%) DevOps
8 202 (6.97%) CI/CD
9 170 (5.86%) Cybersecurity
10 162 (5.59%) Service Management
11 140 (4.83%) ITSM
12 137 (4.73%) Change Management
13 132 (4.55%) Disaster Recovery
14 127 (4.38%) Business Intelligence
15 112 (3.86%) Incident Management
16 110 (3.79%) Project Management
16 110 (3.79%) Test Automation
17 108 (3.73%) Programme Management
18 102 (3.52%) Digital Marketing
19 97 (3.35%) Configuration Management
Programming Languages
1 551 (19.01%) PowerShell
2 383 (13.21%) SQL
3 294 (10.14%) Python
4 163 (5.62%) C#
5 98 (3.38%) Java
6 91 (3.14%) Bash
7 85 (2.93%) JavaScript
8 73 (2.52%) PL/SQL
9 65 (2.24%) C++
10 64 (2.21%) VB
11 57 (1.97%) Perl
12 51 (1.76%) T-SQL
13 50 (1.72%) Shell Script
14 47 (1.62%) VBA
15 31 (1.07%) VB.NET
16 24 (0.83%) C
17 21 (0.72%) VBScript
18 19 (0.66%) Bicep
18 19 (0.66%) TypeScript
19 14 (0.48%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 874 (30.15%) Security Cleared
2 564 (19.45%) SC Cleared
3 304 (10.49%) DV Cleared
4 261 (9.00%) Degree
5 128 (4.42%) Microsoft Certification
6 64 (2.21%) Cisco Certification
7 60 (2.07%) MCSE
8 58 (2.00%) CCNA
9 45 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
10 36 (1.24%) Azure Certification
11 34 (1.17%) DBS Check
12 32 (1.10%) A+ Certification
13 31 (1.07%) AWS Certification
13 31 (1.07%) CISSP
13 31 (1.07%) Computer Science Degree
14 30 (1.03%) CCNP
15 29 (1.00%) ITIL Certification
16 26 (0.90%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 23 (0.79%) MCP
18 18 (0.62%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 119 (4.10%) SLA
2 88 (3.04%) QA
3 21 (0.72%) GDPR
3 21 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 18 (0.62%) Accessibility
5 15 (0.52%) NIST
6 12 (0.41%) Disclosure Scotland
7 11 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
7 11 (0.38%) PCI DSS
8 7 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 6 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
9 6 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
9 6 (0.21%) SEPA
10 5 (0.17%) Data Quality
10 5 (0.17%) NCSC
10 5 (0.17%) PMO
10 5 (0.17%) RMADS
11 4 (0.14%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 4 (0.14%) NIST 800
12 3 (0.10%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 1,146 (39.53%) Active Directory
2 378 (13.04%) VMware Infrastructure
3 177 (6.11%) Hyper-V
4 127 (4.38%) VMware ESXi
5 103 (3.55%) Docker
6 89 (3.07%) vSphere
7 80 (2.76%) Virtual Machines
8 76 (2.62%) Virtual Desktop
9 75 (2.59%) Microsoft App-V
10 56 (1.93%) BitLocker
11 48 (1.66%) XenApp
12 42 (1.45%) XenDesktop
13 39 (1.35%) Terminal Services
14 37 (1.28%) Firmware
15 27 (0.93%) VMware NSX
16 19 (0.66%) Virtual Servers
17 17 (0.59%) NFS
18 10 (0.34%) Microcode
19 7 (0.24%) VMware Workstation
20 6 (0.21%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 460 (15.87%) SCCM
2 318 (10.97%) Microsoft Intune
3 199 (6.86%) Ansible
4 164 (5.66%) Terraform
5 137 (4.73%) Kubernetes
6 78 (2.69%) vCenter Server
7 73 (2.52%) WSUS
8 48 (1.66%) Puppet
9 37 (1.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 37 (1.28%) Single Sign-On
10 34 (1.17%) vMotion
11 30 (1.03%) Progress Chef
11 30 (1.03%) SCOM
12 28 (0.97%) Jamf Pro
12 28 (0.97%) Nessus
13 24 (0.83%) Microsoft Clustering
14 18 (0.62%) Dell DRAC
15 16 (0.55%) Failover Clustering
16 15 (0.52%) AppManager
16 15 (0.52%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 1,292 (44.57%) Microsoft
2 578 (19.94%) VMware
3 261 (9.00%) Oracle
4 231 (7.97%) Citrix
5 179 (6.17%) Cisco
6 154 (5.31%) ServiceNow
7 118 (4.07%) SAP
8 110 (3.79%) Apple
9 105 (3.62%) Red Hat
10 94 (3.24%) Dell
11 77 (2.66%) HP
12 64 (2.21%) Google
13 58 (2.00%) Splunk
14 54 (1.86%) EMC
15 52 (1.79%) CyberArk
16 36 (1.24%) Meraki
16 36 (1.24%) Palo Alto
17 35 (1.21%) Fortinet
18 33 (1.14%) Veeam
19 29 (1.00%) IBM