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 11 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -1 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,908 2,573 3,899
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.33% 8.36% 8.75%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.24% 58.61% 62.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,007 1,671 2,633
10th Percentile £161 £181 £158
25th Percentile £204 £220 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.57%
75th Percentile £538 £561 £575
90th Percentile £641 £650 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £330 £373 £370
% change year-on-year -11.41% +0.68% -4.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 262 100 261
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.63 £18.13 £15.50
Median hourly rate £21.90 £23.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.78% +15.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £41.94 £33.81 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.75 £64.55 £62.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.48 £22.50 £18.00
% change year-on-year -4.53% +25.00% -6.64%

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 4,827 4,390 6,247
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.16% 14.26% 14.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,215 2,742 4,201
10th Percentile £176 £197 £181
25th Percentile £263 £313 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £440 £475 £465
Median % change year-on-year -7.37% +2.15% -9.71%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £594
90th Percentile £675 £690 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £405 £425 £425
% change year-on-year -4.71% - -9.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 341 154 388
10th Percentile £14.00 £16.15 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.96 £16.91
Median hourly rate £23.50 £29.89 £25.25
Median % change year-on-year -21.38% +18.38% -2.88%
75th Percentile £55.00 £64.31 £62.50
90th Percentile £69.99 £69.63 £72.08
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.54 £27.50 £25.15
% change year-on-year -18.05% +9.35% -2.81%

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 11 February 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 11 February 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 11 February 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 0 2,591 £400 -0.13% 1,036
UK excluding London -2 1,960 £330 -11.41% 987
London -14 774 £450 +12.50% 216
Work from Home -10 587 £425 -5.56% 331
South East -1 511 £403 -5.29% 368
North of England -6 462 £263 -25.00% 211
South West +2 313 £425 - 119
Midlands -6 300 £275 -15.38% 127
North West -4 253 £225 -35.71% 108
East of England +7 223 £231 -20.26% 116
West Midlands -14 183 £375 +15.38% 81
Yorkshire -15 177 £325 -7.21% 88
East Midlands +5 116 £225 -26.83% 46
Scotland -9 115 £425 - 50
Wales +1 46 £227 -9.20% 18
North East -5 35 £188 -42.31% 21
Northern Ireland -15 8 £163 -7.14% 5
Channel Islands +3 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
1 251 (8.63%) Microsoft Exchange
2 183 (6.29%) SharePoint
3 65 (2.24%) Confluence
4 44 (1.51%) IIS
5 36 (1.24%) Apache
6 21 (0.72%) WebLogic
7 17 (0.58%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.45%) nginx
8 13 (0.45%) TPMS
8 13 (0.45%) WebSphere
9 11 (0.38%) SAS
10 10 (0.34%) Tuxedo
11 9 (0.31%) JBoss
12 7 (0.24%) iPlanet
12 7 (0.24%) Tomcat
12 7 (0.24%) WebSphere Application Server
13 6 (0.21%) SharePoint Server
14 4 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2010
14 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 259 (8.91%) Microsoft Office
2 79 (2.72%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.38%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.21%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.17%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.069%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.069%) Windchill
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.034%) InDesign
8 1 (0.034%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.034%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 28 (0.96%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.34%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.28%) Teamcenter
4 7 (0.24%) assyst
5 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.069%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.069%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.069%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.034%) Aladdin
8 1 (0.034%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.034%) Eikon
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.034%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.034%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 813 (27.96%) Microsoft 365
2 735 (25.28%) Azure
3 284 (9.77%) Entra ID
4 252 (8.67%) AWS
5 105 (3.61%) OneDrive
6 74 (2.54%) GCP
7 73 (2.51%) SaaS
8 58 (1.99%) Azure DevOps
9 55 (1.89%) Google Workspace
10 49 (1.69%) GitHub
11 45 (1.55%) IaaS
12 37 (1.27%) Power Platform
13 32 (1.10%) PaaS
14 28 (0.96%) Azure Sentinel
15 27 (0.93%) Azure Monitor
16 25 (0.86%) OpenShift
17 24 (0.83%) Nutanix
18 20 (0.69%) AWS CloudFormation
19 19 (0.65%) GitHub Actions
20 18 (0.62%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 379 (13.03%) DNS
2 299 (10.28%) Firewall
3 241 (8.29%) DHCP
4 195 (6.71%) TCP/IP
5 186 (6.40%) VPN
6 134 (4.61%) Wi-Fi
7 132 (4.54%) WAN
8 121 (4.16%) LAN
9 83 (2.85%) Network Security
10 68 (2.34%) VLAN
10 68 (2.34%) Wireless
11 50 (1.72%) SSH
12 46 (1.58%) HTTP
13 41 (1.41%) SAN
13 41 (1.41%) Skype
14 37 (1.27%) Kerberos
15 34 (1.17%) SSL
16 33 (1.13%) SD-WAN
16 33 (1.13%) VoIP
17 30 (1.03%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 140 (4.81%) SQL Server
2 64 (2.20%) Oracle Database
3 52 (1.79%) Relational Database
4 43 (1.48%) MySQL
5 31 (1.07%) PostgreSQL
6 13 (0.45%) BigQuery
6 13 (0.45%) Power BI
7 12 (0.41%) DB2
7 12 (0.41%) GIS
8 11 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
8 11 (0.38%) Data Warehouse
8 11 (0.38%) MongoDB
8 11 (0.38%) NoSQL
8 11 (0.38%) Oracle Reports
9 10 (0.34%) Elasticsearch
10 8 (0.28%) Amazon Aurora
11 7 (0.24%) Data Lake
12 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 5 (0.17%) Oracle Database 10g
13 5 (0.17%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 160 (5.50%) JIRA
2 77 (2.65%) Jenkins
3 73 (2.51%) Git
4 63 (2.17%) GitLab
5 42 (1.44%) MSI
6 27 (0.93%) Visual Studio
7 25 (0.86%) Eclipse
8 19 (0.65%) Android Studio
8 19 (0.65%) Burp Suite
8 19 (0.65%) Metasploit
9 17 (0.58%) Xcode
10 16 (0.55%) Browser DevTools
11 15 (0.52%) Artifactory
12 13 (0.45%) Sonatype Nexus
13 11 (0.38%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.38%) InstallShield
14 8 (0.28%) Selenium
14 8 (0.28%) Vagrant
15 7 (0.24%) AdminStudio
15 7 (0.24%) SoapUI
General
1 1,071 (36.83%) Social Skills
2 309 (10.63%) Finance
3 264 (9.08%) Analytical Skills
4 255 (8.77%) Public Sector
5 129 (4.44%) Banking
6 120 (4.13%) Documentation Skills
7 109 (3.75%) Legal
8 84 (2.89%) Organisational Skills
9 64 (2.20%) Manufacturing
10 53 (1.82%) Military
11 42 (1.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 41 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
13 40 (1.38%) Telecoms
14 34 (1.17%) Retail
15 26 (0.89%) Marketing
16 25 (0.86%) Aerospace
17 23 (0.79%) Law
18 22 (0.76%) Front Office
19 21 (0.72%) Investment Banking
20 18 (0.62%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 408 (14.03%) Support Engineer
2 374 (12.86%) Analyst
3 369 (12.69%) IT Support
4 201 (6.91%) IT Engineer
5 190 (6.53%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 170 (5.85%) Architect
7 160 (5.50%) IT Support Engineer
8 158 (5.43%) Support Analyst
9 151 (5.19%) Senior
10 148 (5.09%) Desktop Support
11 138 (4.75%) Windows Engineer
12 128 (4.40%) Technical Support
13 125 (4.30%) 2nd Line Support
13 125 (4.30%) Desktop Engineer
14 109 (3.75%) Developer
15 103 (3.54%) Deployment Engineer
16 97 (3.34%) Lead
17 96 (3.30%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 85 (2.92%) IT Analyst
19 77 (2.65%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (2.82%) .NET
2 64 (2.20%) REST
3 58 (1.99%) LDAP
4 53 (1.82%) OAuth
5 51 (1.75%) SAML
6 44 (1.51%) .NET Framework
7 41 (1.41%) Middleware
8 35 (1.20%) React
9 33 (1.13%) OpenID
10 32 (1.10%) WPF
11 30 (1.03%) Kafka
12 28 (0.96%) AngularJS
13 26 (0.89%) CSS
14 25 (0.86%) Microsoft Graph
14 25 (0.86%) Web Services
15 23 (0.79%) RESTful
16 22 (0.76%) SOAP
17 21 (0.72%) OAuth2
18 20 (0.69%) WinForms
19 18 (0.62%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 185 (6.36%) Onboarding
2 102 (3.51%) Data Centre
3 98 (3.37%) Driving Licence
4 97 (3.34%) PKI
5 81 (2.79%) Enterprise Software
6 66 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
7 59 (2.03%) Management Information System
7 59 (2.03%) Smartphone
8 55 (1.89%) Replication
9 42 (1.44%) Hybrid Cloud
9 42 (1.44%) Security Posture
10 36 (1.24%) Legacy Systems
10 36 (1.24%) NHS
11 32 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
11 32 (1.10%) Product Ownership
11 32 (1.10%) Security Operations Centre
12 31 (1.07%) Virtual Team
13 30 (1.03%) Clustering
13 30 (1.03%) Mobile App
14 29 (1.00%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 715 (24.59%) Linux
2 622 (21.39%) Windows 10
3 598 (20.56%) Windows Server
4 176 (6.05%) Unix
5 169 (5.81%) Mac OS
6 151 (5.19%) Android
7 119 (4.09%) Apple iOS
8 77 (2.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 71 (2.44%) Windows Server 2016
10 61 (2.10%) Windows Server 2019
11 53 (1.82%) Windows 7
12 40 (1.38%) Windows Server 2012
13 30 (1.03%) Windows Server 2003
14 23 (0.79%) AIX
15 20 (0.69%) VMS
16 17 (0.58%) Ubuntu
17 15 (0.52%) Solaris
18 12 (0.41%) Windows Server 2008
19 11 (0.38%) Mac OS X
20 8 (0.28%) Amazon Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 551 (18.95%) Problem-Solving
2 483 (16.61%) Customer Service
3 417 (14.34%) ITIL
4 318 (10.94%) Agile
5 294 (10.11%) Migration
6 272 (9.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 247 (8.49%) DevOps
8 234 (8.05%) Service Management
9 226 (7.77%) ITSM
10 223 (7.67%) CI/CD
11 220 (7.57%) Cybersecurity
12 199 (6.84%) Continuous Improvement
13 149 (5.12%) Change Management
14 143 (4.92%) Disaster Recovery
15 134 (4.61%) Service Delivery
16 133 (4.57%) Computer Science
17 131 (4.50%) Stakeholder Management
18 128 (4.40%) SIEM
19 126 (4.33%) User Experience
20 122 (4.20%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 577 (19.84%) PowerShell
2 355 (12.21%) Python
3 256 (8.80%) SQL
4 128 (4.40%) Java
5 124 (4.26%) Bash
6 115 (3.95%) C#
7 77 (2.65%) JavaScript
8 68 (2.34%) Perl
9 55 (1.89%) C++
10 54 (1.86%) PL/SQL
11 37 (1.27%) T-SQL
12 30 (1.03%) Shell Script
13 29 (1.00%) Kusto Query Language
14 28 (0.96%) VBScript
15 27 (0.93%) VB
16 23 (0.79%) VBA
17 18 (0.62%) Go
18 16 (0.55%) Bicep
19 15 (0.52%) Groovy
20 11 (0.38%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 879 (30.23%) Security Cleared
2 574 (19.74%) SC Cleared
3 315 (10.83%) Degree
4 259 (8.91%) DV Cleared
5 153 (5.26%) Microsoft Certification
6 95 (3.27%) Computer Science Degree
7 62 (2.13%) Azure Certification
8 47 (1.62%) Cisco Certification
9 46 (1.58%) MCSE
10 45 (1.55%) ITIL Certification
11 43 (1.48%) A+ Certification
12 38 (1.31%) BPSS Clearance
13 33 (1.13%) AWS Certification
14 32 (1.10%) CCNA
15 31 (1.07%) CISSP
16 30 (1.03%) CompTIA Security+
17 27 (0.93%) CCNP
18 26 (0.89%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
19 24 (0.83%) Microsoft Certified Professional
20 23 (0.79%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 99 (3.40%) GDPR
2 95 (3.27%) SLA
3 77 (2.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 69 (2.37%) QA
5 55 (1.89%) NIST
6 36 (1.24%) PCI DSS
7 25 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 17 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
9 13 (0.45%) GLBA
9 13 (0.45%) PMO
10 12 (0.41%) MiFID
11 11 (0.38%) NCSC
12 9 (0.31%) FINRA
13 7 (0.24%) COBIT
13 7 (0.24%) HIPAA
13 7 (0.24%) NIST 800
14 6 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
15 5 (0.17%) Accessibility
15 5 (0.17%) SOC 2
16 4 (0.14%) GxP
System Software
1 1,063 (36.55%) Active Directory
2 278 (9.56%) VMware Infrastructure
3 117 (4.02%) Docker
4 108 (3.71%) Hyper-V
5 67 (2.30%) Virtual Desktop
6 62 (2.13%) Virtual Machines
7 58 (1.99%) vSphere
8 47 (1.62%) VMware ESXi
9 35 (1.20%) VMware NSX
10 26 (0.89%) BitLocker
11 23 (0.79%) Microsoft App-V
12 18 (0.62%) Firmware
13 14 (0.48%) Virtual Servers
14 12 (0.41%) KVM
15 11 (0.38%) DFS Replication
16 9 (0.31%) XenApp
17 7 (0.24%) Terminal Services
17 7 (0.24%) XenDesktop
18 6 (0.21%) Microsoft Virtual Server
18 6 (0.21%) Squid
Systems Management
1 387 (13.31%) SCCM
2 343 (11.80%) Microsoft Intune
3 181 (6.22%) Terraform
4 159 (5.47%) Ansible
5 119 (4.09%) Kubernetes
6 85 (2.92%) Single Sign-On
7 73 (2.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 66 (2.27%) vCenter Server
9 48 (1.65%) Jamf Pro
10 46 (1.58%) Grafana
11 32 (1.10%) Prometheus
12 30 (1.03%) WSUS
13 28 (0.96%) SCOM
14 21 (0.72%) Nessus
15 18 (0.62%) Nmap
15 18 (0.62%) WMI
16 15 (0.52%) FortiGate
16 15 (0.52%) Progress Chef
17 13 (0.45%) Packer
17 13 (0.45%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,239 (42.61%) Microsoft
2 381 (13.10%) VMware
3 265 (9.11%) ServiceNow
4 200 (6.88%) Oracle
5 175 (6.02%) Citrix
6 170 (5.85%) Cisco
7 132 (4.54%) Splunk
8 73 (2.51%) Apple
9 71 (2.44%) Dell
10 70 (2.41%) HP
11 58 (1.99%) Red Hat
12 56 (1.93%) Google
13 51 (1.75%) SolarWinds
14 50 (1.72%) Veeam
15 48 (1.65%) SAP
16 47 (1.62%) IBM
17 40 (1.38%) CyberArk
18 39 (1.34%) Palo Alto
18 39 (1.34%) Remedy
19 32 (1.10%) CrowdStrike