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

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -4 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 3,278 2,703 3,096
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.93% 8.15% 8.26%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.18% 59.16% 58.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,079 1,793 1,945
10th Percentile £177 £163 £180
25th Percentile £225 £205 £240
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £400 £425
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -5.88% -
75th Percentile £571 £538 £566
90th Percentile £668 £625 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £340 £400
% change year-on-year +21.32% -15.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 350 256 158
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.60 £15.58
25th Percentile £17.05 £17.69 £18.25
Median hourly rate £25.75 £22.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +17.05% -9.02% +2.89%
75th Percentile £59.38 £25.94 £64.88
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 5,358 4,569 5,277
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.69% 13.77% 14.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,383 2,926 3,249
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% -4.26% -5.05%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £675 £653 £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 410 308 248
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.30 £16.30
25th Percentile £17.25 £18.87 £23.63
Median hourly rate £25.77 £25.00 £55.33
Median % change year-on-year +3.08% -54.81% +21.75%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £74.32 £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 14 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 14 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 14 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 2,859 £420 +5.00% 2,162
UK excluding London -14 2,101 £413 +21.32% 1,361
London -4 970 £420 -1.18% 888
Work from Home -12 627 £473 +9.88% 845
South East -7 561 £480 +31.51% 343
North of England -10 488 £335 +15.52% 293
Midlands -15 294 £400 +3.23% 213
North West -3 290 £350 +7.69% 162
South West -18 270 £550 +57.14% 190
East of England -1 249 £220 -37.14% 160
West Midlands -20 205 £407 +1.81% 114
Scotland -8 158 £322 -28.44% 92
Yorkshire -15 158 £245 +13.95% 102
East Midlands -1 88 £275 +29.41% 99
Wales +8 73 £468 +61.21% 40
North East -27 42 £273 +22.06% 35
Northern Ireland +1 17 £102 -49.00% 48
Channel Islands -3 2 £535 - 6

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
1 267 (8.15%) SharePoint
2 239 (7.29%) Microsoft Exchange
3 73 (2.23%) 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 (0.092%) OpenStack
Applications
1 228 (6.96%) 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 (0.092%) Houdini
6 3 (0.092%) NUKE
6 3 (0.092%) PTC Creo
7 2 (0.061%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.061%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.061%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.031%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.031%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.031%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 46 (1.40%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.31%) 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 (0.092%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.092%) ResourceLink
6 3 (0.092%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.061%) assyst
7 2 (0.061%) Dynamics GP
8 1 (0.031%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.031%) Monis
8 1 (0.031%) Oracle BRM
8 1 (0.031%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.031%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.031%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.031%) SAP FS
8 1 (0.031%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,034 (31.54%) Microsoft 365
2 1,003 (30.60%) Azure
3 553 (16.87%) Entra ID
4 341 (10.40%) AWS
5 151 (4.61%) OneDrive
6 119 (3.63%) Azure DevOps
7 116 (3.54%) GCP
8 82 (2.50%) Azure Monitor
9 78 (2.38%) GitHub
10 67 (2.04%) Power Platform
11 65 (1.98%) SaaS
12 59 (1.80%) IaaS
13 49 (1.49%) Azure Sentinel
14 41 (1.25%) PaaS
15 37 (1.13%) OpenShift
16 35 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
17 34 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
18 29 (0.88%) Google Workspace
19 24 (0.73%) Amazon EC2
19 24 (0.73%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 483 (14.73%) DNS
2 340 (10.37%) Firewall
3 337 (10.28%) DHCP
4 287 (8.76%) VPN
5 256 (7.81%) TCP/IP
6 133 (4.06%) LAN
7 129 (3.94%) WAN
8 124 (3.78%) Wi-Fi
9 107 (3.26%) Network Security
10 89 (2.72%) SAN
11 82 (2.50%) VLAN
12 63 (1.92%) Wireless
13 52 (1.59%) SSL
14 40 (1.22%) BGP
15 39 (1.19%) Internet
15 39 (1.19%) NAS
16 34 (1.04%) Skype
17 33 (1.01%) VoIP
18 32 (0.98%) HTTP
19 30 (0.92%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 287 (8.76%) SQL Server
2 60 (1.83%) Oracle Database
3 54 (1.65%) Power BI
4 48 (1.46%) PostgreSQL
5 40 (1.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 39 (1.19%) Relational Database
7 34 (1.04%) Amazon RDS
8 24 (0.73%) MySQL
9 19 (0.58%) RDBMS
10 18 (0.55%) Data Warehouse
11 17 (0.52%) Db2
12 15 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 14 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
13 14 (0.43%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 11 (0.34%) Geospatial Data
15 10 (0.31%) Azure SQL Database
16 8 (0.24%) Data Lake
16 8 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
16 8 (0.24%) MS Access
17 7 (0.21%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 159 (4.85%) JIRA
2 89 (2.72%) Git
3 76 (2.32%) Jenkins
4 59 (1.80%) GitLab
5 51 (1.56%) 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 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
12 9 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
13 8 (0.24%) Octopus Deploy
13 8 (0.24%) Oracle Forms
13 8 (0.24%) Toad
14 7 (0.21%) Rational DOORS
15 6 (0.18%) Selenium
15 6 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
15 6 (0.18%) TeamCity
15 6 (0.18%) Zephyr
General
1 1,200 (36.61%) Social Skills
2 392 (11.96%) Finance
3 384 (11.71%) Analytical Skills
4 161 (4.91%) Public Sector
5 155 (4.73%) Banking
6 114 (3.48%) Documentation Skills
7 88 (2.68%) Legal
8 79 (2.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 76 (2.32%) Organisational Skills
10 66 (2.01%) Manufacturing
11 55 (1.68%) Telecoms
12 50 (1.53%) Retail
13 42 (1.28%) Front Office
13 42 (1.28%) Law
14 38 (1.16%) Military
15 37 (1.13%) Police
16 32 (0.98%) Investment Banking
17 26 (0.79%) Financial Institution
18 25 (0.76%) Aerospace
18 25 (0.76%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 538 (16.41%) Support Engineer
2 442 (13.48%) IT Support
3 343 (10.46%) IT Engineer
4 322 (9.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 292 (8.91%) IT Support Engineer
6 277 (8.45%) Analyst
7 266 (8.11%) Senior
8 149 (4.55%) Desktop Support
9 135 (4.12%) Desktop Engineer
10 134 (4.09%) Architect
11 132 (4.03%) 2nd Line Support
12 123 (3.75%) Cloud Engineer
13 120 (3.66%) Lead
14 117 (3.57%) Windows Engineer
15 109 (3.33%) Developer
16 103 (3.14%) Consultant
17 97 (2.96%) Support Analyst
18 87 (2.65%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 87 (2.65%) Service Analyst
19 83 (2.53%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 296 (9.03%) Terraform
2 154 (4.70%) .NET
3 128 (3.90%) REST
4 67 (2.04%) .NET Framework
5 59 (1.80%) Middleware
6 50 (1.53%) LDAP
7 48 (1.46%) JSON
8 42 (1.28%) WPF
9 36 (1.10%) XML
10 30 (0.92%) 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%) Elastic Stack
16 18 (0.55%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 390 (11.90%) Onboarding
2 204 (6.22%) Data Centre
3 165 (5.03%) PKI
4 111 (3.39%) Management Information System
5 95 (2.90%) Enterprise Software
6 91 (2.78%) Hybrid Cloud
7 88 (2.68%) Driving Licence
8 86 (2.62%) Cloud Native
9 85 (2.59%) Video Conferencing
10 75 (2.29%) Clustering
11 70 (2.14%) Replication
12 68 (2.07%) Security Posture
13 51 (1.56%) 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 38 (1.16%) Enterprise Storage
18 38 (1.16%) Smartphone
19 37 (1.13%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 922 (28.13%) Windows Server
2 798 (24.34%) Linux
3 579 (17.66%) Windows 10
4 196 (5.98%) macOS
5 144 (4.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 143 (4.36%) Apple iOS
7 142 (4.33%) Unix
8 136 (4.15%) 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 (0.95%) AIX
16 21 (0.64%) Solaris
17 18 (0.55%) VMS
18 16 (0.49%) Rocky
18 16 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
19 11 (0.34%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 762 (23.25%) Problem-Solving
2 625 (19.07%) ITIL
3 577 (17.60%) Customer Service
4 449 (13.70%) ITSM
5 419 (12.78%) Migration
6 416 (12.69%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 375 (11.44%) Continuous Improvement
8 350 (10.68%) Service Management
9 342 (10.43%) DevOps
10 316 (9.64%) CI/CD
11 308 (9.40%) Infrastructure as Code
12 287 (8.76%) Stakeholder Management
13 269 (8.21%) Agile
14 245 (7.47%) Root Cause Analysis
15 236 (7.20%) Change Management
16 235 (7.17%) Cybersecurity
16 235 (7.17%) Disaster Recovery
17 226 (6.89%) Validation
18 189 (5.77%) Service Delivery
18 189 (5.77%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 802 (24.47%) PowerShell
2 343 (10.46%) Python
3 313 (9.55%) SQL
4 208 (6.35%) Bash
5 171 (5.22%) C#
6 83 (2.53%) Java
7 78 (2.38%) T-SQL
8 63 (1.92%) JavaScript
9 60 (1.83%) Bicep
10 52 (1.59%) PL/SQL
11 38 (1.16%) C++
12 29 (0.88%) VBScript
13 28 (0.85%) VB
14 21 (0.64%) Groovy
14 21 (0.64%) Perl
15 19 (0.58%) Shell Script
16 18 (0.55%) VBA
17 16 (0.49%) TypeScript
18 14 (0.43%) Go
19 10 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 1,004 (30.63%) Security Cleared
2 602 (18.36%) SC Cleared
3 389 (11.87%) DV Cleared
4 287 (8.76%) Degree
5 121 (3.69%) Microsoft Certification
6 88 (2.68%) Azure Certification
7 87 (2.65%) 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 44 (1.34%) CCNA
15 42 (1.28%) CCNP
16 37 (1.13%) 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 (5.31%) SLA
2 101 (3.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 89 (2.72%) QA
4 79 (2.41%) NIST
5 36 (1.10%) Cyber Essentials
6 32 (0.98%) GDPR
7 29 (0.88%) NCSC
8 28 (0.85%) PCI DSS
9 17 (0.52%) Accessibility
9 17 (0.52%) GRC
9 17 (0.52%) GxP
10 16 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 13 (0.40%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 13 (0.40%) Data Quality
12 12 (0.37%) WCAG
13 11 (0.34%) Disclosure Scotland
13 11 (0.34%) ISO 31000
13 11 (0.34%) PMO
14 10 (0.31%) GMP
15 9 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 1,366 (41.67%) Active Directory
2 488 (14.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 220 (6.71%) Hyper-V
4 151 (4.61%) VMware ESXi
5 141 (4.30%) vSphere
6 133 (4.06%) Docker
7 114 (3.48%) Virtual Desktop
8 107 (3.26%) Virtual Machines
9 70 (2.14%) 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 15 (0.46%) Citrix Hypervisor
15 15 (0.46%) NFS
16 12 (0.37%) XenApp
17 10 (0.31%) KVM
17 10 (0.31%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 10 (0.31%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 480 (14.64%) Microsoft Intune
2 379 (11.56%) SCCM
3 238 (7.26%) Ansible
4 172 (5.25%) Kubernetes
5 117 (3.57%) vCenter Server
6 102 (3.11%) SCOM
7 52 (1.59%) Jamf Pro
8 41 (1.25%) Grafana
9 40 (1.22%) WSUS
10 36 (1.10%) Prometheus
11 34 (1.04%) Progress Chef
12 33 (1.01%) NetBackup
13 30 (0.92%) WMI
14 29 (0.88%) Puppet
14 29 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
15 25 (0.76%) VxRail
16 21 (0.64%) Failover Clustering
16 21 (0.64%) Nagios
17 20 (0.61%) FortiGate
17 20 (0.61%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 1,593 (48.60%) Microsoft
2 634 (19.34%) VMware
3 390 (11.90%) ServiceNow
4 241 (7.35%) Cisco
5 202 (6.16%) Oracle
6 179 (5.46%) Citrix
7 113 (3.45%) Apple
8 109 (3.33%) Splunk
9 97 (2.96%) CyberArk
10 95 (2.90%) Google
11 84 (2.56%) Red Hat
12 75 (2.29%) SolarWinds
13 69 (2.10%) BeyondTrust
14 59 (1.80%) Dell
14 59 (1.80%) Palo Alto
15 51 (1.56%) NetApp
16 50 (1.53%) Remedy
17 49 (1.49%) CrowdStrike
18 45 (1.37%) HP
19 41 (1.25%) Fortinet