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 28 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 17
Rank change year-on-year -3 -2 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,817 2,780 4,033
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.63% 8.29% 9.27%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.41% 59.09% 62.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,925 1,778 2,704
10th Percentile £161 £180 £158
25th Percentile £204 £227 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £575
90th Percentile £638 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £364 £373
% change year-on-year -10.65% -2.35% -0.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 268 117 229
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.13 £17.00
Median hourly rate £22.00 £23.80 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.56% +13.33% +5.00%
75th Percentile £43.00 £48.75 £48.40
90th Percentile £67.84 £65.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £23.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year -4.35% +15.00% +8.11%

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 4,705 6,473
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.84% 14.02% 14.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,095 2,938 4,406
10th Percentile £175 £200 £181
25th Percentile £263 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £561 £588 £600
90th Percentile £668 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £410 £425 £430
% change year-on-year -3.53% -1.16% -4.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 353 176 318
10th Percentile £15.36 £16.13 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.94 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.15 £37.25 £32.25
Median % change year-on-year -32.48% +15.50% +32.99%
75th Percentile £61.25 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.64 £25.18
% change year-on-year -20.51% +25.66% +14.45%

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 28 December 2025.

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 28 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows in the UK

Windows
Top 17 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 28 December 2025. 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 -1 2,497 £390 -2.50% 2,140
UK excluding London -3 1,902 £325 -10.65% 1,887
London -17 734 £450 +12.50% 460
Work from Home -12 558 £425 -5.56% 782
South East 0 518 £381 -7.58% 573
North of England -3 427 £248 -29.07% 410
South West +4 315 £425 +6.18% 238
Midlands -4 312 £380 +16.92% 306
North West -3 245 £290 -17.14% 204
West Midlands -4 211 £450 +38.46% 165
East of England +5 192 £228 -27.20% 242
Yorkshire -17 153 £260 -25.77% 165
Scotland -12 105 £438 - 95
East Midlands +1 101 £215 -39.61% 135
Wales -2 44 £180 -24.21% 55
North East +3 32 £188 -41.41% 49
Northern Ireland -13 13 £203 +30.65% 16

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
1 240 (8.52%) Microsoft Exchange
2 183 (6.50%) SharePoint
3 76 (2.70%) Confluence
4 48 (1.70%) Apache
5 47 (1.67%) IIS
6 27 (0.96%) WebLogic
7 19 (0.67%) Skype for Business
7 19 (0.67%) WebSphere
8 16 (0.57%) JBoss
8 16 (0.57%) nginx
9 12 (0.43%) Exchange Server 2010
9 12 (0.43%) SharePoint Server
10 11 (0.39%) SAS
10 11 (0.39%) WebSphere Application Server
11 10 (0.35%) iPlanet
12 9 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
12 9 (0.32%) Tomcat
12 9 (0.32%) TPMS
12 9 (0.32%) Tuxedo
13 7 (0.25%) Exchange Server 2007
Applications
1 277 (9.83%) Microsoft Office
2 86 (3.05%) Microsoft Excel
3 28 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.35%) Mozilla Thunderbird
4 10 (0.35%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.11%) Acrobat
6 3 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.071%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.071%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.071%) Windchill
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.035%) Camtasia
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.035%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 22 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.28%) assyst
3 5 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 2 (0.071%) Eikon
5 2 (0.071%) Fidessa
5 2 (0.071%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.071%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.071%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.071%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.071%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 1 (0.035%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.035%) Eze OMS
6 1 (0.035%) ION MarketView
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle General Ledger
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 1 (0.035%) Primavera
6 1 (0.035%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 752 (26.70%) Microsoft 365
2 670 (23.78%) Azure
3 271 (9.62%) AWS
4 247 (8.77%) Entra ID
5 85 (3.02%) OneDrive
6 79 (2.80%) GCP
7 74 (2.63%) SaaS
8 65 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
9 64 (2.27%) GitHub
10 52 (1.85%) IaaS
11 46 (1.63%) Google Workspace
12 37 (1.31%) PaaS
12 37 (1.31%) Power Platform
13 36 (1.28%) Azure Monitor
14 31 (1.10%) Azure Sentinel
15 30 (1.06%) Amazon S3
16 28 (0.99%) Amazon EC2
16 28 (0.99%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 24 (0.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 23 (0.82%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 366 (12.99%) DNS
2 322 (11.43%) Firewall
3 214 (7.60%) DHCP
4 204 (7.24%) TCP/IP
5 175 (6.21%) VPN
6 104 (3.69%) Wi-Fi
7 97 (3.44%) LAN
8 93 (3.30%) Network Security
8 93 (3.30%) WAN
9 73 (2.59%) Wireless
10 62 (2.20%) VLAN
11 61 (2.17%) SSH
12 51 (1.81%) HTTP
13 47 (1.67%) SAN
14 36 (1.28%) Cisco IOS
14 36 (1.28%) Skype
15 34 (1.21%) SSL
16 33 (1.17%) VoIP
17 30 (1.06%) FTP
17 30 (1.06%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 127 (4.51%) SQL Server
2 81 (2.88%) Oracle Database
3 63 (2.24%) Relational Database
4 48 (1.70%) MySQL
5 34 (1.21%) PostgreSQL
6 22 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
7 15 (0.53%) Power BI
8 14 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
9 12 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
9 12 (0.43%) BigQuery
10 10 (0.35%) Elasticsearch
10 10 (0.35%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.32%) GIS
11 9 (0.32%) MongoDB
12 8 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
12 8 (0.28%) RDBMS
13 7 (0.25%) Data Lake
13 7 (0.25%) SAP HANA
14 6 (0.21%) Apache Cassandra
14 6 (0.21%) DB2
Development Applications
1 156 (5.54%) JIRA
2 96 (3.41%) Git
2 96 (3.41%) Jenkins
3 60 (2.13%) GitLab
4 39 (1.38%) Eclipse
5 33 (1.17%) MSI
5 33 (1.17%) Visual Studio
6 24 (0.85%) Bitbucket
7 23 (0.82%) Android Studio
8 22 (0.78%) Browser DevTools
9 21 (0.75%) Xcode
10 18 (0.64%) Artifactory
11 17 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
11 17 (0.60%) Vagrant
12 15 (0.53%) Burp Suite
12 15 (0.53%) InstallShield
12 15 (0.53%) Metasploit
13 13 (0.46%) Bitbucket Server
13 13 (0.46%) CA Release Automation
14 11 (0.39%) AdminStudio
General
1 1,085 (38.52%) Social Skills
2 331 (11.75%) Finance
3 255 (9.05%) Public Sector
4 251 (8.91%) Analytical Skills
5 124 (4.40%) Banking
6 115 (4.08%) Documentation Skills
7 88 (3.12%) Legal
8 69 (2.45%) Organisational Skills
9 64 (2.27%) Manufacturing
10 54 (1.92%) Military
11 48 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
11 48 (1.70%) Telecoms
12 42 (1.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 42 (1.49%) Retail
13 32 (1.14%) Aerospace
13 32 (1.14%) Marketing
14 26 (0.92%) Law
15 25 (0.89%) Front Office
16 24 (0.85%) Electronics
17 18 (0.64%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 429 (15.23%) Support Engineer
2 351 (12.46%) Analyst
3 333 (11.82%) IT Support
4 192 (6.82%) IT Engineer
5 169 (6.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 156 (5.54%) Windows Engineer
7 153 (5.43%) Desktop Support
8 150 (5.32%) Support Analyst
9 147 (5.22%) Senior
10 146 (5.18%) Architect
11 142 (5.04%) IT Support Engineer
12 138 (4.90%) Desktop Engineer
13 125 (4.44%) Deployment Engineer
14 117 (4.15%) 2nd Line Support
14 117 (4.15%) Technical Support
15 107 (3.80%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 103 (3.66%) Developer
17 92 (3.27%) Platform Engineer
18 81 (2.88%) DevOps Engineer
18 81 (2.88%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.63%) .NET
2 59 (2.09%) LDAP
3 55 (1.95%) REST
4 45 (1.60%) Middleware
5 41 (1.46%) .NET Framework
6 40 (1.42%) SAML
7 39 (1.38%) OAuth
8 38 (1.35%) React
9 36 (1.28%) AngularJS
10 33 (1.17%) OpenID
10 33 (1.17%) WPF
11 30 (1.06%) Web Services
12 28 (0.99%) CSS
13 27 (0.96%) XML
14 26 (0.92%) Kafka
14 26 (0.92%) Node.js
15 23 (0.82%) Ajax
16 22 (0.78%) GraphQL
16 22 (0.78%) SOAP
17 19 (0.67%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 137 (4.86%) Onboarding
2 94 (3.34%) Data Centre
3 93 (3.30%) PKI
4 84 (2.98%) Driving Licence
5 65 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
6 63 (2.24%) Replication
7 59 (2.09%) Management Information System
8 58 (2.06%) Self-Motivation
9 55 (1.95%) Smartphone
10 48 (1.70%) Security Posture
11 36 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
12 34 (1.21%) Hybrid Cloud
13 33 (1.17%) Mobile App
14 31 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
14 31 (1.10%) NHS
15 30 (1.06%) Clustering
15 30 (1.06%) Legacy Systems
15 30 (1.06%) Video Conferencing
16 29 (1.03%) Public Cloud
17 27 (0.96%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 726 (25.77%) Linux
2 596 (21.16%) Windows 10
3 545 (19.35%) Windows Server
4 197 (6.99%) Unix
5 156 (5.54%) Mac OS
6 149 (5.29%) Android
7 105 (3.73%) Apple iOS
8 80 (2.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 67 (2.38%) Windows Server 2016
10 56 (1.99%) Windows Server 2019
11 50 (1.77%) Windows 7
12 44 (1.56%) Windows Server 2012
13 34 (1.21%) Windows Server 2003
14 33 (1.17%) VMS
15 28 (0.99%) AIX
16 24 (0.85%) Ubuntu
17 18 (0.64%) Solaris
18 17 (0.60%) Amazon Linux
19 13 (0.46%) Windows Server 2008
20 12 (0.43%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 503 (17.86%) Problem-Solving
2 423 (15.02%) ITIL
3 406 (14.41%) Customer Service
4 289 (10.26%) Migration
5 286 (10.15%) Agile
6 248 (8.80%) DevOps
6 248 (8.80%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 217 (7.70%) CI/CD
7 217 (7.70%) Cybersecurity
7 217 (7.70%) Service Management
8 192 (6.82%) ITSM
9 189 (6.71%) Continuous Improvement
10 166 (5.89%) Change Management
11 137 (4.86%) User Experience
12 135 (4.79%) Incident Response
13 130 (4.61%) SIEM
14 124 (4.40%) Computer Science
14 124 (4.40%) Stakeholder Management
15 123 (4.37%) Disaster Recovery
16 113 (4.01%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 547 (19.42%) PowerShell
2 368 (13.06%) Python
3 288 (10.22%) SQL
4 153 (5.43%) Java
5 130 (4.61%) C#
6 125 (4.44%) Bash
7 85 (3.02%) JavaScript
8 80 (2.84%) Perl
9 67 (2.38%) C++
10 49 (1.74%) PL/SQL
11 42 (1.49%) Shell Script
12 32 (1.14%) Kusto Query Language
13 30 (1.06%) VBScript
14 29 (1.03%) T-SQL
15 28 (0.99%) Groovy
15 28 (0.99%) VB
16 25 (0.89%) VBA
17 20 (0.71%) C
18 15 (0.53%) Bicep
18 15 (0.53%) Go
Qualifications
1 844 (29.96%) Security Cleared
2 565 (20.06%) SC Cleared
3 299 (10.61%) Degree
4 235 (8.34%) DV Cleared
5 176 (6.25%) Microsoft Certification
6 89 (3.16%) Computer Science Degree
7 70 (2.48%) Azure Certification
8 54 (1.92%) A+ Certification
9 53 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
9 53 (1.88%) MCSE
10 43 (1.53%) ITIL Certification
11 42 (1.49%) CISSP
12 37 (1.31%) AWS Certification
13 36 (1.28%) CompTIA Security+
14 34 (1.21%) BPSS Clearance
15 32 (1.14%) CCNA
15 32 (1.14%) CCNP
16 28 (0.99%) DBS Check
17 27 (0.96%) MCSA
18 26 (0.92%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (3.23%) SLA
2 85 (3.02%) GDPR
3 74 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 63 (2.24%) QA
5 53 (1.88%) NIST
6 28 (0.99%) PCI DSS
7 17 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
8 11 (0.39%) HIPAA
8 11 (0.39%) NCSC
8 11 (0.39%) PMO
9 9 (0.32%) GLBA
9 9 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 6 (0.21%) COBIT
10 6 (0.21%) MiFID
10 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
11 5 (0.18%) Accessibility
12 4 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
12 4 (0.14%) NIST 800
13 3 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 3 (0.11%) SEPA
System Software
1 1,016 (36.07%) Active Directory
2 246 (8.73%) VMware Infrastructure
3 122 (4.33%) Docker
4 93 (3.30%) Hyper-V
5 59 (2.09%) Virtual Desktop
6 51 (1.81%) Virtual Machines
7 49 (1.74%) vSphere
8 44 (1.56%) VMware ESXi
9 32 (1.14%) VMware NSX
10 22 (0.78%) BitLocker
11 20 (0.71%) DFS Replication
12 19 (0.67%) Firmware
13 17 (0.60%) Terminal Services
14 15 (0.53%) Microsoft App-V
14 15 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
15 12 (0.43%) XenApp
16 11 (0.39%) NFS
17 10 (0.35%) Dovecot
17 10 (0.35%) Postfix
17 10 (0.35%) Squid
Systems Management
1 397 (14.09%) SCCM
2 300 (10.65%) Microsoft Intune
3 187 (6.64%) Terraform
4 156 (5.54%) Ansible
5 104 (3.69%) Kubernetes
6 65 (2.31%) vCenter Server
7 63 (2.24%) Single Sign-On
8 55 (1.95%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 42 (1.49%) Grafana
10 39 (1.38%) Jamf Pro
11 29 (1.03%) Nessus
11 29 (1.03%) WSUS
12 28 (0.99%) SCOM
13 27 (0.96%) Prometheus
14 25 (0.89%) Progress Chef
15 21 (0.75%) Microsoft Clustering
16 17 (0.60%) NetBackup
17 16 (0.57%) Proxmox
18 15 (0.53%) Nmap
18 15 (0.53%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,206 (42.81%) Microsoft
2 346 (12.28%) VMware
3 258 (9.16%) ServiceNow
4 232 (8.24%) Oracle
5 178 (6.32%) Cisco
6 176 (6.25%) Citrix
7 153 (5.43%) Splunk
8 83 (2.95%) Apple
9 77 (2.73%) HP
10 67 (2.38%) Red Hat
11 63 (2.24%) Dell
12 56 (1.99%) IBM
13 55 (1.95%) Veeam
14 51 (1.81%) Google
14 51 (1.81%) SolarWinds
15 50 (1.77%) SAP
16 43 (1.53%) CyberArk
17 42 (1.49%) NetApp
18 40 (1.42%) AppDynamics
18 40 (1.42%) CrowdStrike