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 25 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,864 2,454 3,762
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.52% 8.44% 8.50%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.40% 59.10% 62.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,922 1,706 2,542
10th Percentile £162 £181 £156
25th Percentile £210 £231 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £411 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -3.24% +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £640 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £365 £400 £378
% change year-on-year -8.75% +5.82% -3.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 245 106 287
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.30 £12.33
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.95 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.46 £22.05 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -2.65% +24.41% -18.17%
75th Percentile £48.75 £28.94 £23.94
90th Percentile £67.84 £63.50 £59.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.13 £21.64 £17.69
% change year-on-year -2.38% +22.33% -7.58%

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 4,742 4,152 5,974
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.80% 14.28% 13.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,110 2,763 3,989
10th Percentile £181 £200 £180
25th Percentile £300 £320 £281
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £459
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +3.49% -10.87%
75th Percentile £565 £594 £594
90th Percentile £655 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £420 £450 £436
% change year-on-year -6.67% +3.21% -8.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 335 159 409
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.63 £12.86
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.51 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.81 £28.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.54% +27.27% -24.14%
75th Percentile £60.75 £63.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £69.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £24.66 £20.00
% change year-on-year -8.76% +23.30% -24.53%

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 25 March 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 25 March 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 25 March 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 -5 2,522 £410 -0.91% 986
UK excluding London -9 1,908 £365 -8.75% 876
London -19 769 £430 +1.18% 229
Work from Home -17 581 £450 -2.70% 325
South East -4 523 £464 -1.33% 277
North of England -8 478 £300 -14.29% 202
Midlands -16 270 £323 +1.98% 132
North West -5 262 £263 -27.59% 131
South West -4 256 £450 -15.09% 128
East of England +4 208 £275 +21.95% 96
Yorkshire -14 192 £358 -10.63% 58
West Midlands -24 160 £442 +36.08% 79
Scotland -4 132 £425 -3.35% 42
East Midlands -3 106 £200 -13.51% 53
Wales 0 48 £200 -45.21% 17
North East -12 27 £188 -37.50% 17
Northern Ireland -14 8 £175 +9.38% 4
Channel Islands +4 1 - - 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
1 247 (8.62%) Microsoft Exchange
2 170 (5.94%) SharePoint
3 57 (1.99%) Confluence
4 46 (1.61%) IIS
5 27 (0.94%) Apache
6 22 (0.77%) WebLogic
7 12 (0.42%) SAS
7 12 (0.42%) Skype for Business
7 12 (0.42%) Tomcat
7 12 (0.42%) TPMS
7 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
8 10 (0.35%) nginx
9 7 (0.24%) WebSphere
10 6 (0.21%) NetWeaver
11 5 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.10%) ArcGIS
13 3 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2010
14 2 (0.070%) CMS
Applications
1 226 (7.89%) Microsoft Office
2 71 (2.48%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.42%) 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 31 (1.08%) Remedy ITSM
2 16 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.24%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.17%) assyst
5 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.070%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.070%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.070%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.035%) Eikon
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
8 1 (0.035%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 816 (28.49%) Microsoft 365
2 758 (26.47%) Azure
3 307 (10.72%) Entra ID
4 221 (7.72%) AWS
5 95 (3.32%) OneDrive
6 72 (2.51%) GCP
7 68 (2.37%) Azure DevOps
8 67 (2.34%) SaaS
9 56 (1.96%) Google Workspace
10 49 (1.71%) GitHub
11 48 (1.68%) IaaS
12 42 (1.47%) Power Platform
13 41 (1.43%) PaaS
14 34 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
15 30 (1.05%) Azure Sentinel
16 26 (0.91%) OpenShift
17 24 (0.84%) AWS CloudFormation
17 24 (0.84%) GitHub Actions
18 22 (0.77%) Nutanix
19 17 (0.59%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 384 (13.41%) DNS
2 340 (11.87%) Firewall
3 249 (8.69%) DHCP
4 197 (6.88%) VPN
5 187 (6.53%) TCP/IP
6 166 (5.80%) LAN
7 165 (5.76%) WAN
8 164 (5.73%) Wi-Fi
9 80 (2.79%) Network Security
10 64 (2.23%) VLAN
11 62 (2.16%) SAN
12 57 (1.99%) Wireless
13 41 (1.43%) BGP
14 40 (1.40%) SSL
15 37 (1.29%) Skype
15 37 (1.29%) VoIP
16 36 (1.26%) SD-WAN
16 36 (1.26%) SSH
17 31 (1.08%) HTTP
17 31 (1.08%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 174 (6.08%) SQL Server
2 58 (2.03%) Oracle Database
3 38 (1.33%) Relational Database
4 37 (1.29%) MySQL
5 26 (0.91%) PostgreSQL
6 18 (0.63%) Power BI
7 17 (0.59%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (0.49%) DB2
8 14 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
9 13 (0.45%) BigQuery
9 13 (0.45%) MongoDB
9 13 (0.45%) Oracle Reports
10 10 (0.35%) GIS
10 10 (0.35%) SAP HANA
11 8 (0.28%) NoSQL
12 7 (0.24%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 7 (0.24%) Sybase ASE
13 6 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
13 6 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
13 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 174 (6.08%) JIRA
2 66 (2.30%) Jenkins
3 65 (2.27%) GitLab
4 57 (1.99%) Git
5 39 (1.36%) MSI
6 34 (1.19%) Visual Studio
7 24 (0.84%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.59%) Burp Suite
8 17 (0.59%) Metasploit
9 15 (0.52%) Artifactory
10 14 (0.49%) Android Studio
11 12 (0.42%) Xcode
12 11 (0.38%) Bitbucket
12 11 (0.38%) Chocolatey
13 10 (0.35%) Browser DevTools
14 9 (0.31%) InstallShield
15 8 (0.28%) JUnit
16 7 (0.24%) Robot Framework
16 7 (0.24%) Selenium
17 6 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,017 (35.51%) Social Skills
2 275 (9.60%) Finance
3 258 (9.01%) Analytical Skills
4 240 (8.38%) Public Sector
5 143 (4.99%) Banking
6 128 (4.47%) Legal
7 113 (3.95%) Documentation Skills
8 86 (3.00%) Organisational Skills
9 60 (2.09%) Military
10 57 (1.99%) Manufacturing
11 41 (1.43%) Presentation Skills
12 37 (1.29%) Telecoms
13 36 (1.26%) Retail
14 35 (1.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 28 (0.98%) Law
16 25 (0.87%) Investment Banking
17 21 (0.73%) Front Office
18 20 (0.70%) Aerospace
18 20 (0.70%) Local Government
19 16 (0.56%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 387 (13.51%) IT Support
2 377 (13.16%) Support Engineer
3 374 (13.06%) Analyst
4 229 (8.00%) IT Engineer
5 191 (6.67%) IT Support Engineer
6 190 (6.63%) Architect
7 183 (6.39%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 170 (5.94%) Senior
9 152 (5.31%) Support Analyst
10 125 (4.36%) Desktop Support
11 107 (3.74%) Developer
12 106 (3.70%) Technical Support
13 104 (3.63%) 2nd Line Support
13 104 (3.63%) Windows Engineer
14 102 (3.56%) Desktop Engineer
15 95 (3.32%) IT Analyst
16 92 (3.21%) Lead
17 78 (2.72%) Consultant
18 75 (2.62%) Desktop Support Engineer
19 73 (2.55%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.07%) .NET
2 75 (2.62%) REST
3 52 (1.82%) LDAP
4 50 (1.75%) .NET Framework
5 47 (1.64%) SAML
6 45 (1.57%) OAuth
7 38 (1.33%) Middleware
8 33 (1.15%) Kafka
9 31 (1.08%) Web Services
10 27 (0.94%) WPF
11 26 (0.91%) Microsoft Graph
11 26 (0.91%) OpenID
12 25 (0.87%) WinForms
13 24 (0.84%) CSS
14 23 (0.80%) 802.1X
14 23 (0.80%) React
15 22 (0.77%) AngularJS
16 21 (0.73%) Node.js
17 20 (0.70%) Apache NiFi
17 20 (0.70%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 199 (6.95%) Onboarding
2 125 (4.36%) Data Centre
3 108 (3.77%) PKI
4 84 (2.93%) Enterprise Software
5 81 (2.83%) Driving Licence
6 71 (2.48%) Self-Motivation
7 58 (2.03%) Clustering
8 54 (1.89%) Replication
9 51 (1.78%) Management Information System
9 51 (1.78%) Smartphone
10 46 (1.61%) Hybrid Cloud
10 46 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
11 45 (1.57%) Security Posture
12 40 (1.40%) Product Ownership
13 38 (1.33%) Data Protection Act
14 37 (1.29%) Security Operations Centre
15 36 (1.26%) Virtual Team
16 32 (1.12%) CMDB
16 32 (1.12%) NHS
17 30 (1.05%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 701 (24.48%) Linux
2 634 (22.14%) Windows Server
3 555 (19.38%) Windows 10
4 160 (5.59%) Unix
5 153 (5.34%) Android
5 153 (5.34%) Mac OS
6 117 (4.09%) Apple iOS
7 95 (3.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 73 (2.55%) Windows Server 2016
9 62 (2.16%) Windows Server 2019
10 49 (1.71%) Windows 7
11 39 (1.36%) Windows Server 2012
12 37 (1.29%) AIX
13 29 (1.01%) Windows Server 2003
14 19 (0.66%) Solaris
15 18 (0.63%) Ubuntu
16 17 (0.59%) VMS
17 13 (0.45%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.35%) Mac OS X
19 8 (0.28%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 571 (19.94%) Problem-Solving
2 471 (16.45%) Customer Service
3 413 (14.42%) ITIL
4 321 (11.21%) Agile
5 301 (10.51%) Migration
6 276 (9.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 258 (9.01%) DevOps
8 232 (8.10%) CI/CD
9 231 (8.07%) ITSM
10 216 (7.54%) Cybersecurity
11 198 (6.91%) Continuous Improvement
11 198 (6.91%) Service Management
12 177 (6.18%) Change Management
13 175 (6.11%) Disaster Recovery
14 144 (5.03%) Stakeholder Management
15 140 (4.89%) High Availability
16 134 (4.68%) SIEM
17 133 (4.64%) Service Delivery
18 127 (4.43%) Infrastructure as Code
19 125 (4.36%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 613 (21.40%) PowerShell
2 320 (11.17%) Python
3 259 (9.04%) SQL
4 126 (4.40%) C#
5 123 (4.29%) Bash
6 98 (3.42%) Java
7 76 (2.65%) JavaScript
8 58 (2.03%) PL/SQL
9 57 (1.99%) C++
10 56 (1.96%) Perl
11 40 (1.40%) T-SQL
12 31 (1.08%) Kusto Query Language
13 23 (0.80%) Shell Script
13 23 (0.80%) VB
14 21 (0.73%) VBScript
15 14 (0.49%) Bicep
15 14 (0.49%) Search Processing Language
15 14 (0.49%) VBA
16 13 (0.45%) Go
17 12 (0.42%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 886 (30.94%) Security Cleared
2 589 (20.57%) SC Cleared
3 293 (10.23%) Degree
4 257 (8.97%) DV Cleared
5 126 (4.40%) Microsoft Certification
6 92 (3.21%) Computer Science Degree
7 65 (2.27%) Cisco Certification
8 45 (1.57%) Azure Certification
9 44 (1.54%) MCSE
10 42 (1.47%) CISSP
11 41 (1.43%) ITIL Certification
12 38 (1.33%) CompTIA Security+
13 37 (1.29%) BPSS Clearance
14 31 (1.08%) AWS Certification
14 31 (1.08%) CCNA
15 27 (0.94%) A+ Certification
15 27 (0.94%) CCNP
16 24 (0.84%) MCSA
17 23 (0.80%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 22 (0.77%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 95 (3.32%) GDPR
2 93 (3.25%) SLA
3 91 (3.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 86 (3.00%) QA
5 66 (2.30%) NIST
6 43 (1.50%) PCI DSS
7 26 (0.91%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 19 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.56%) PMO
10 15 (0.52%) NCSC
11 13 (0.45%) MiFID
12 12 (0.42%) GLBA
13 11 (0.38%) NIST 800
14 10 (0.35%) Data Quality
14 10 (0.35%) FINRA
15 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
16 6 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
17 5 (0.17%) GMP
17 5 (0.17%) GxP
17 5 (0.17%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,047 (36.56%) Active Directory
2 294 (10.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 122 (4.26%) Hyper-V
4 106 (3.70%) Docker
5 75 (2.62%) vSphere
6 61 (2.13%) VMware ESXi
7 57 (1.99%) Virtual Machines
8 56 (1.96%) Virtual Desktop
9 38 (1.33%) VMware NSX
10 32 (1.12%) Firmware
11 28 (0.98%) BitLocker
12 23 (0.80%) Microsoft App-V
13 16 (0.56%) KVM
14 10 (0.35%) XenApp
14 10 (0.35%) XenDesktop
15 8 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
16 6 (0.21%) etcd
16 6 (0.21%) Terminal Services
17 5 (0.17%) NFS
17 5 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 370 (12.92%) Microsoft Intune
2 317 (11.07%) SCCM
3 183 (6.39%) Ansible
4 179 (6.25%) Terraform
5 137 (4.78%) Kubernetes
6 80 (2.79%) Single Sign-On
7 66 (2.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 61 (2.13%) vCenter Server
9 44 (1.54%) Jamf Pro
10 37 (1.29%) FortiGate
10 37 (1.29%) Grafana
11 33 (1.15%) WSUS
12 31 (1.08%) Prometheus
13 23 (0.80%) SCOM
14 21 (0.73%) Progress Chef
15 17 (0.59%) Nagios
15 17 (0.59%) Nessus
15 17 (0.59%) Puppet
15 17 (0.59%) WMI
16 16 (0.56%) Nmap
Vendors
1 1,232 (43.02%) Microsoft
2 403 (14.07%) VMware
3 243 (8.48%) ServiceNow
4 212 (7.40%) Citrix
5 190 (6.63%) Oracle
6 179 (6.25%) Cisco
7 151 (5.27%) Splunk
8 88 (3.07%) HP
9 74 (2.58%) Dell
10 68 (2.37%) Red Hat
11 65 (2.27%) SolarWinds
12 62 (2.16%) Apple
12 62 (2.16%) Google
13 57 (1.99%) IBM
14 47 (1.64%) Remedy
15 45 (1.57%) Juniper
16 44 (1.54%) SAP
17 42 (1.47%) Palo Alto
18 41 (1.43%) Veeam
19 39 (1.36%) F5