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 15 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -8 -3 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 3,281 2,699 3,116
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.93% 8.13% 8.28%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.21% 59.12% 58.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,083 1,790 1,959
10th Percentile £180 £163 £180
25th Percentile £225 £204 £240
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £400 £425
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -5.88% -
75th Percentile £569 £538 £566
90th Percentile £668 £625 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £338 £400
% change year-on-year +22.22% -15.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 354 259 159
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.84 £15.60
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.69 £18.33
Median hourly rate £25.75 £22.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +17.05% -9.02% +2.89%
75th Percentile £59.38 £25.20 £64.75
90th Percentile £74.00 £65.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £21.28 £24.18
% change year-on-year +21.01% -11.99% +9.91%

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 5,360 4,565 5,302
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.69% 13.75% 14.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,387 2,924 3,268
10th Percentile £193 £185 £200
25th Percentile £313 £275 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £450 £470
Median % change year-on-year +4.44% -4.31% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £675 £650 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £420 £444
% change year-on-year +7.14% -5.41% -1.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 413 311 249
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.33 £16.30
25th Percentile £17.25 £18.87 £23.13
Median hourly rate £25.77 £25.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.08% -54.55% +21.04%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £67.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £23.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year +12.04% -60.00% +35.29%

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 15 October 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 15 October 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 15 October 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 -9 2,865 £423 +5.81% 668
UK excluding London -13 2,102 £413 +22.22% 564
London -6 973 £423 -0.59% 161
Work from Home -12 627 £475 +10.47% 269
South East -7 559 £480 +31.51% 163
North of England -12 487 £344 +18.62% 135
Midlands -14 296 £400 - 78
North West -3 290 £354 +8.98% 75
South West -18 271 £550 +57.14% 112
East of England 0 251 £220 -37.14% 62
West Midlands -21 206 £407 +1.81% 45
Scotland -7 157 £322 -28.44% 15
Yorkshire -13 157 £245 +13.95% 49
East Midlands +1 89 £275 +37.50% 33
Wales +9 73 £468 +61.21% 13
North East -23 42 £273 +36.25% 17
Northern Ireland -1 17 £102 -49.00% 6
Channel Islands -3 2 £535 - 4

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
1 268 (8.17%) SharePoint
2 241 (7.35%) Microsoft Exchange
3 73 (2.22%) IIS
4 62 (1.89%) Confluence
5 29 (0.88%) nginx
6 23 (0.70%) Apache
7 19 (0.58%) Skype for Business
8 15 (0.46%) Tomcat
9 14 (0.43%) HCL Notes
10 13 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.21%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.18%) Documentum
12 6 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2013
13 5 (0.15%) Apache Solr
13 5 (0.15%) Appian
13 5 (0.15%) Camunda
13 5 (0.15%) CICS
13 5 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2010
15 3 (0.091%) OpenStack
Applications
1 230 (7.01%) Microsoft Office
2 69 (2.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.15%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.15%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.091%) Houdini
6 3 (0.091%) NUKE
6 3 (0.091%) PTC Creo
7 2 (0.061%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.061%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.061%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.030%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.030%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.030%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 45 (1.37%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.30%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.24%) Finacle
4 7 (0.21%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.21%) Oracle BPM
4 7 (0.21%) Teamcenter
5 5 (0.15%) Dynamics CRM
6 3 (0.091%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.091%) ResourceLink
6 3 (0.091%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.061%) assyst
7 2 (0.061%) Dynamics GP
8 1 (0.030%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.030%) Eikon
8 1 (0.030%) Monis
8 1 (0.030%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.030%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.030%) SAP MDG
8 1 (0.030%) SAP Oil and Gas
8 1 (0.030%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 1,038 (31.64%) Microsoft 365
2 1,003 (30.57%) Azure
3 556 (16.95%) Entra ID
4 343 (10.45%) AWS
5 151 (4.60%) OneDrive
6 119 (3.63%) GCP
7 118 (3.60%) Azure DevOps
8 82 (2.50%) Azure Monitor
9 77 (2.35%) GitHub
10 67 (2.04%) Power Platform
11 65 (1.98%) SaaS
12 59 (1.80%) IaaS
13 50 (1.52%) Azure Sentinel
14 41 (1.25%) PaaS
15 38 (1.16%) OpenShift
16 34 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
16 34 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
17 30 (0.91%) Google Workspace
18 24 (0.73%) Amazon EC2
18 24 (0.73%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 487 (14.84%) DNS
2 341 (10.39%) DHCP
3 340 (10.36%) Firewall
4 286 (8.72%) VPN
5 256 (7.80%) TCP/IP
6 132 (4.02%) LAN
7 127 (3.87%) WAN
8 123 (3.75%) Wi-Fi
9 107 (3.26%) Network Security
10 90 (2.74%) SAN
11 83 (2.53%) VLAN
12 63 (1.92%) Wireless
13 52 (1.58%) SSL
14 39 (1.19%) BGP
14 39 (1.19%) Internet
14 39 (1.19%) NAS
15 34 (1.04%) Skype
16 33 (1.01%) VoIP
17 32 (0.98%) HTTP
18 30 (0.91%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 287 (8.75%) SQL Server
2 60 (1.83%) Oracle Database
3 54 (1.65%) Power BI
4 48 (1.46%) PostgreSQL
5 39 (1.19%) Relational Database
5 39 (1.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 34 (1.04%) Amazon RDS
7 24 (0.73%) MySQL
8 19 (0.58%) RDBMS
9 18 (0.55%) Data Warehouse
9 18 (0.55%) Db2
10 15 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 14 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
11 14 (0.43%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 11 (0.34%) Geospatial Data
13 10 (0.30%) Azure SQL Database
14 8 (0.24%) Data Lake
14 8 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
14 8 (0.24%) MS Access
15 7 (0.21%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 159 (4.85%) JIRA
2 89 (2.71%) Git
3 76 (2.32%) Jenkins
4 59 (1.80%) GitLab
5 51 (1.55%) MSI
6 38 (1.16%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.55%) Artifactory
8 17 (0.52%) Bitbucket
9 15 (0.46%) Eclipse
10 11 (0.34%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 10 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
12 9 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
13 8 (0.24%) Oracle Forms
13 8 (0.24%) Toad
14 7 (0.21%) Octopus Deploy
14 7 (0.21%) Rational DOORS
15 6 (0.18%) Robot Framework
15 6 (0.18%) SonarQube
15 6 (0.18%) TeamCity
15 6 (0.18%) Zephyr
General
1 1,207 (36.79%) Social Skills
2 394 (12.01%) Finance
3 385 (11.73%) Analytical Skills
4 163 (4.97%) Public Sector
5 155 (4.72%) Banking
6 115 (3.51%) Documentation Skills
7 86 (2.62%) Legal
8 78 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 78 (2.38%) Organisational Skills
9 69 (2.10%) Manufacturing
10 55 (1.68%) Telecoms
11 50 (1.52%) Retail
12 42 (1.28%) Front Office
12 42 (1.28%) Law
13 39 (1.19%) Military
14 37 (1.13%) Police
15 32 (0.98%) Investment Banking
16 26 (0.79%) Financial Institution
17 25 (0.76%) Aerospace
17 25 (0.76%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 542 (16.52%) Support Engineer
2 445 (13.56%) IT Support
3 346 (10.55%) IT Engineer
4 321 (9.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 295 (8.99%) IT Support Engineer
6 278 (8.47%) Analyst
7 265 (8.08%) Senior
8 150 (4.57%) Desktop Support
9 135 (4.11%) Desktop Engineer
10 134 (4.08%) 2nd Line Support
10 134 (4.08%) Architect
11 125 (3.81%) Cloud Engineer
12 121 (3.69%) Lead
13 117 (3.57%) Windows Engineer
14 109 (3.32%) Developer
15 103 (3.14%) Consultant
16 97 (2.96%) Support Analyst
17 88 (2.68%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 88 (2.68%) Service Analyst
18 84 (2.56%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 296 (9.02%) Terraform
2 153 (4.66%) .NET
3 127 (3.87%) REST
4 67 (2.04%) .NET Framework
5 58 (1.77%) Middleware
6 50 (1.52%) LDAP
7 47 (1.43%) JSON
8 42 (1.28%) WPF
9 35 (1.07%) XML
10 30 (0.91%) Web Services
11 29 (0.88%) WinForms
12 28 (0.85%) ARM Templates
12 28 (0.85%) Kafka
12 28 (0.85%) Software Packaging
13 25 (0.76%) HTML
14 24 (0.73%) .NET Core
15 20 (0.61%) RESTful
16 18 (0.55%) ASP.NET
16 18 (0.55%) React
16 18 (0.55%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 390 (11.89%) Onboarding
2 201 (6.13%) Data Centre
3 165 (5.03%) PKI
4 111 (3.38%) Management Information System
5 92 (2.80%) Enterprise Software
6 91 (2.77%) Hybrid Cloud
7 87 (2.65%) Driving Licence
8 86 (2.62%) Cloud Native
9 85 (2.59%) Video Conferencing
10 73 (2.22%) Clustering
11 70 (2.13%) Replication
12 69 (2.10%) Security Posture
13 52 (1.58%) Self-Motivation
14 48 (1.46%) Operational Technology
15 43 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
16 42 (1.28%) CMDB
17 40 (1.22%) Linux Command Line
18 39 (1.19%) Enterprise Storage
18 39 (1.19%) Smartphone
19 36 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 925 (28.19%) Windows Server
2 795 (24.23%) Linux
3 583 (17.77%) Windows 10
4 195 (5.94%) macOS
5 145 (4.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 143 (4.36%) Unix
7 142 (4.33%) Apple iOS
8 135 (4.11%) Android
9 77 (2.35%) Windows Server 2019
10 49 (1.49%) Ubuntu
11 48 (1.46%) Windows 7
12 46 (1.40%) Windows Server 2012
13 43 (1.31%) Windows Server 2016
14 39 (1.19%) CentOS
15 31 (0.94%) AIX
16 21 (0.64%) Solaris
17 17 (0.52%) VMS
18 16 (0.49%) Rocky
18 16 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
19 11 (0.34%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 760 (23.16%) Problem-Solving
2 627 (19.11%) ITIL
3 578 (17.62%) Customer Service
4 450 (13.72%) ITSM
5 415 (12.65%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 415 (12.65%) Migration
6 378 (11.52%) Continuous Improvement
7 350 (10.67%) Service Management
8 341 (10.39%) DevOps
9 315 (9.60%) CI/CD
10 308 (9.39%) Infrastructure as Code
11 288 (8.78%) Stakeholder Management
12 268 (8.17%) Agile
13 246 (7.50%) Root Cause Analysis
14 238 (7.25%) Cybersecurity
15 236 (7.19%) Change Management
16 235 (7.16%) Disaster Recovery
17 224 (6.83%) Validation
18 190 (5.79%) Service Delivery
19 189 (5.76%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 803 (24.47%) PowerShell
2 344 (10.48%) Python
3 314 (9.57%) SQL
4 208 (6.34%) Bash
5 171 (5.21%) C#
6 83 (2.53%) Java
7 78 (2.38%) T-SQL
8 63 (1.92%) JavaScript
9 60 (1.83%) Bicep
10 52 (1.58%) PL/SQL
11 38 (1.16%) C++
12 29 (0.88%) VBScript
13 28 (0.85%) VB
14 22 (0.67%) Perl
15 21 (0.64%) Groovy
16 19 (0.58%) Shell Script
17 18 (0.55%) VBA
18 16 (0.49%) TypeScript
19 14 (0.43%) Go
20 11 (0.34%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 1,007 (30.69%) Security Cleared
2 605 (18.44%) SC Cleared
3 391 (11.92%) DV Cleared
4 287 (8.75%) Degree
5 121 (3.69%) Microsoft Certification
6 88 (2.68%) Azure Certification
7 84 (2.56%) Cisco Certification
8 79 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
9 65 (1.98%) CISSP
9 65 (1.98%) Computer Science Degree
10 56 (1.71%) AWS Certification
11 53 (1.62%) A+ Certification
12 49 (1.49%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 47 (1.43%) DBS Check
14 43 (1.31%) CCNA
15 41 (1.25%) CCNP
16 38 (1.16%) ITIL Certification
17 35 (1.07%) CISM
18 33 (1.01%) MCSE
19 28 (0.85%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 174 (5.30%) SLA
2 103 (3.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 89 (2.71%) QA
4 81 (2.47%) NIST
5 36 (1.10%) Cyber Essentials
6 32 (0.98%) GDPR
7 30 (0.91%) PCI DSS
8 29 (0.88%) NCSC
9 17 (0.52%) Accessibility
9 17 (0.52%) GRC
9 17 (0.52%) GxP
10 16 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 14 (0.43%) Data Quality
12 13 (0.40%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 12 (0.37%) WCAG
14 11 (0.34%) ISO 31000
14 11 (0.34%) PMO
15 10 (0.30%) Disclosure Scotland
15 10 (0.30%) GMP
16 9 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 1,374 (41.88%) Active Directory
2 488 (14.87%) VMware Infrastructure
3 219 (6.67%) Hyper-V
4 152 (4.63%) VMware ESXi
5 142 (4.33%) vSphere
6 134 (4.08%) Docker
7 113 (3.44%) Virtual Desktop
8 106 (3.23%) Virtual Machines
9 70 (2.13%) VMware NSX
10 39 (1.19%) BitLocker
11 38 (1.16%) Firmware
12 24 (0.73%) vCloud
13 20 (0.61%) Virtual Servers
14 17 (0.52%) Microsoft App-V
15 16 (0.49%) NFS
16 15 (0.46%) Citrix Hypervisor
17 12 (0.37%) XenApp
18 10 (0.30%) KVM
18 10 (0.30%) Microsoft Virtual Server
18 10 (0.30%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 483 (14.72%) Microsoft Intune
2 382 (11.64%) SCCM
3 238 (7.25%) Ansible
4 173 (5.27%) Kubernetes
5 118 (3.60%) vCenter Server
6 102 (3.11%) SCOM
7 52 (1.58%) Jamf Pro
8 41 (1.25%) Grafana
8 41 (1.25%) WSUS
9 36 (1.10%) Prometheus
10 33 (1.01%) NetBackup
10 33 (1.01%) Progress Chef
11 30 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
11 30 (0.91%) WMI
12 29 (0.88%) Puppet
13 25 (0.76%) VxRail
14 21 (0.64%) Failover Clustering
14 21 (0.64%) Nagios
15 20 (0.61%) Microsoft Clustering
15 20 (0.61%) Packer
Vendors
1 1,597 (48.67%) Microsoft
2 635 (19.35%) VMware
3 393 (11.98%) ServiceNow
4 238 (7.25%) Cisco
5 203 (6.19%) Oracle
6 179 (5.46%) Citrix
7 112 (3.41%) Apple
8 111 (3.38%) Splunk
9 97 (2.96%) CyberArk
9 97 (2.96%) Google
10 85 (2.59%) Red Hat
11 74 (2.26%) SolarWinds
12 69 (2.10%) BeyondTrust
13 60 (1.83%) Dell
14 58 (1.77%) Palo Alto
15 52 (1.58%) NetApp
16 49 (1.49%) CrowdStrike
16 49 (1.49%) Remedy
17 45 (1.37%) HP
18 41 (1.25%) Fortinet