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 20 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 3,056 2,648 3,515
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.79% 8.07% 8.42%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.24% 59.86% 60.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,942 1,756 2,357
10th Percentile £170 £178 £165
25th Percentile £225 £225 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.56%
75th Percentile £556 £570 £575
90th Percentile £647 £673 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £400 £448
% change year-on-year +6.25% -10.71% +18.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 271 203 288
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.33 £12.00
25th Percentile £17.55 £17.33 £15.21
Median hourly rate £25.26 £18.87 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.86% -5.65% -17.73%
75th Percentile £54.50 £25.15 £40.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £65.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £18.27
% change year-on-year +36.46% +3.28% -16.95%

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 5,073 4,424 5,782
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.61% 13.49% 13.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,217 2,851 3,801
10th Percentile £191 £200 £190
25th Percentile £319 £313 £324
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £463 £475
Median % change year-on-year +0.54% -2.63% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £463
% change year-on-year - -2.70% +2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 344 247 409
10th Percentile £15.77 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £18.44 £18.10 £16.25
Median hourly rate £26.00 £23.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -8.00% -41.18%
75th Percentile £63.75 £54.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £67.40 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.50 £21.59 £31.25
% change year-on-year +22.74% -30.91% +4.17%

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 20 July 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 20 July 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 20 July 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 -6 2,673 £424 +2.17% 860
UK excluding London -13 2,019 £425 +6.25% 768
London -19 864 £415 -7.78% 199
Work from Home -13 640 £475 - 293
South East -8 565 £475 -3.06% 274
North of England -9 475 £355 +1.31% 182
Midlands -16 277 £335 +11.67% 99
South West -11 268 £488 +8.33% 97
North West -7 250 £350 -1.13% 100
East of England -2 205 £335 +34.00% 95
Yorkshire -12 203 £365 -8.75% 51
West Midlands -27 172 £450 +38.46% 52
Scotland -7 166 £413 -5.71% 29
East Midlands +10 100 £270 +35.00% 47
Wales +6 59 £408 +48.18% 20
North East -34 26 £273 -0.91% 37
Northern Ireland -2 17 £139 -28.97% 4
Channel Islands +3 2 £518 - 2

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
1 237 (7.76%) Microsoft Exchange
2 231 (7.56%) SharePoint
3 67 (2.19%) IIS
4 61 (2.00%) Confluence
5 19 (0.62%) nginx
5 19 (0.62%) Tomcat
6 18 (0.59%) Apache
7 14 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
8 10 (0.33%) HCL Notes
8 10 (0.33%) Skype for Business
9 9 (0.29%) NetWeaver
10 7 (0.23%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.20%) Appian
11 6 (0.20%) Documentum
12 5 (0.16%) Camunda
12 5 (0.16%) SAS
13 4 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.098%) CloudStack
14 3 (0.098%) Exchange Server 2010
14 3 (0.098%) FactoryTalk
Applications
1 192 (6.28%) Microsoft Office
2 73 (2.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.13%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.098%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.098%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.065%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.065%) Houdini
8 2 (0.065%) NUKE
8 2 (0.065%) PTC Creo
9 1 (0.033%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 49 (1.60%) Remedy ITSM
2 16 (0.52%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (0.33%) Finacle
4 8 (0.26%) Teamcenter
5 6 (0.20%) OpenText MBPM
5 6 (0.20%) Oracle BPM
6 4 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
7 3 (0.098%) assyst
8 2 (0.065%) Dynamics CRM
8 2 (0.065%) Dynamics GP
9 1 (0.033%) Dynamics NAV
9 1 (0.033%) Infor LN
9 1 (0.033%) Oracle ERP
9 1 (0.033%) Payment Gateway
9 1 (0.033%) SAP EWM
9 1 (0.033%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 925 (30.27%) Azure
2 886 (28.99%) Microsoft 365
3 423 (13.84%) Entra ID
4 322 (10.54%) AWS
5 130 (4.25%) OneDrive
6 97 (3.17%) GCP
7 96 (3.14%) Azure DevOps
8 76 (2.49%) SaaS
9 65 (2.13%) GitHub
9 65 (2.13%) Power Platform
10 64 (2.09%) Azure Monitor
10 64 (2.09%) IaaS
11 56 (1.83%) PaaS
12 43 (1.41%) Azure Sentinel
13 39 (1.28%) OpenShift
14 30 (0.98%) AWS CloudFormation
15 27 (0.88%) GitHub Actions
15 27 (0.88%) Google Workspace
16 26 (0.85%) Azure AKS
16 26 (0.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 442 (14.46%) DNS
2 325 (10.63%) Firewall
3 299 (9.78%) DHCP
4 237 (7.76%) VPN
5 209 (6.84%) TCP/IP
6 175 (5.73%) LAN
7 163 (5.33%) WAN
8 149 (4.88%) Wi-Fi
9 101 (3.30%) SAN
10 70 (2.29%) Network Security
11 63 (2.06%) VLAN
12 49 (1.60%) SSL
13 48 (1.57%) NAS
14 47 (1.54%) BGP
15 43 (1.41%) Internet
16 38 (1.24%) Wireless
17 36 (1.18%) OSPF
17 36 (1.18%) VoIP
18 31 (1.01%) SNMP
19 30 (0.98%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 278 (9.10%) SQL Server
2 61 (2.00%) Oracle Database
3 43 (1.41%) Power BI
4 34 (1.11%) PostgreSQL
4 34 (1.11%) Relational Database
5 26 (0.85%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 25 (0.82%) MySQL
7 22 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
8 21 (0.69%) Db2
9 17 (0.56%) Elasticsearch
10 16 (0.52%) Data Warehouse
11 14 (0.46%) RDBMS
12 12 (0.39%) NoSQL
13 11 (0.36%) MongoDB
14 10 (0.33%) GIS
14 10 (0.33%) Oracle Reports
15 9 (0.29%) Geospatial Data
15 9 (0.29%) SAP HANA
15 9 (0.29%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 9 (0.29%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 181 (5.92%) JIRA
2 68 (2.23%) Git
3 58 (1.90%) Jenkins
4 49 (1.60%) MSI
5 40 (1.31%) Visual Studio
6 39 (1.28%) GitLab
7 17 (0.56%) Eclipse
8 13 (0.43%) Bitbucket
9 8 (0.26%) Chocolatey
10 7 (0.23%) Artifactory
10 7 (0.23%) Browser DevTools
10 7 (0.23%) Team Foundation Server
11 6 (0.20%) Android Studio
11 6 (0.20%) InstallShield
11 6 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
11 6 (0.20%) Xcode
12 5 (0.16%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.16%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 5 (0.16%) Maven
12 5 (0.16%) Selenium
General
1 1,096 (35.86%) Social Skills
2 351 (11.49%) Analytical Skills
3 329 (10.77%) Finance
4 210 (6.87%) Public Sector
5 159 (5.20%) Banking
6 106 (3.47%) Documentation Skills
7 100 (3.27%) Legal
8 85 (2.78%) Organisational Skills
9 65 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 51 (1.67%) Retail
11 46 (1.51%) Manufacturing
11 46 (1.51%) Military
12 36 (1.18%) Front Office
12 36 (1.18%) Investment Banking
13 34 (1.11%) Telecoms
14 32 (1.05%) Law
15 26 (0.85%) Spanish Language
16 22 (0.72%) Financial Institution
16 22 (0.72%) French Language
17 21 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 426 (13.94%) Support Engineer
2 396 (12.96%) IT Support
3 290 (9.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 287 (9.39%) Analyst
5 285 (9.33%) IT Engineer
6 240 (7.85%) IT Support Engineer
7 212 (6.94%) Senior
8 134 (4.38%) Architect
9 124 (4.06%) Desktop Support
10 119 (3.89%) 2nd Line Support
11 116 (3.80%) Developer
12 107 (3.50%) Lead
13 106 (3.47%) Desktop Engineer
13 106 (3.47%) Support Analyst
14 103 (3.37%) Cloud Engineer
15 97 (3.17%) Consultant
16 91 (2.98%) IT Analyst
16 91 (2.98%) Windows Engineer
17 83 (2.72%) Service Analyst
18 80 (2.62%) Service Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 122 (3.99%) .NET
2 111 (3.63%) REST
3 67 (2.19%) .NET Framework
4 38 (1.24%) LDAP
4 38 (1.24%) Middleware
5 34 (1.11%) WinForms
6 31 (1.01%) 802.1X
7 29 (0.95%) Microsoft Graph
7 29 (0.95%) Web Services
8 28 (0.92%) WPF
9 27 (0.88%) JSON
9 27 (0.88%) Kafka
9 27 (0.88%) Software Packaging
10 23 (0.75%) HTML
11 22 (0.72%) CSS
11 22 (0.72%) Elastic Stack
11 22 (0.72%) SAML
12 21 (0.69%) RESTful
12 21 (0.69%) XML
13 17 (0.56%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 305 (9.98%) Onboarding
2 164 (5.37%) Data Centre
3 156 (5.10%) PKI
4 84 (2.75%) Clustering
5 82 (2.68%) Enterprise Software
6 79 (2.59%) Management Information System
7 74 (2.42%) Cloud Native
8 71 (2.32%) Self-Motivation
9 67 (2.19%) Driving Licence
10 65 (2.13%) Replication
11 58 (1.90%) Legacy Systems
12 56 (1.83%) Hybrid Cloud
13 55 (1.80%) Security Posture
14 51 (1.67%) Video Conferencing
15 45 (1.47%) Virtual Team
16 39 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
17 37 (1.21%) Linux Command Line
18 35 (1.15%) Operational Technology
19 32 (1.05%) Analytical Mindset
19 32 (1.05%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 756 (24.74%) Linux
2 747 (24.44%) Windows Server
3 502 (16.43%) Windows 10
4 196 (6.41%) Mac OS
5 159 (5.20%) Unix
6 137 (4.48%) Android
6 137 (4.48%) Apple iOS
7 125 (4.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 79 (2.59%) Windows Server 2019
9 57 (1.87%) Windows Server 2016
10 39 (1.28%) Windows 7
11 38 (1.24%) AIX
11 38 (1.24%) Ubuntu
12 37 (1.21%) Windows Server 2012
13 25 (0.82%) Solaris
14 22 (0.72%) VMS
15 19 (0.62%) CentOS
16 18 (0.59%) Windows Server 2008
17 11 (0.36%) Windows Server 2003
18 9 (0.29%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 686 (22.45%) Problem-Solving
2 508 (16.62%) ITIL
3 456 (14.92%) Customer Service
4 372 (12.17%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 368 (12.04%) Migration
6 335 (10.96%) ITSM
7 292 (9.55%) DevOps
8 270 (8.84%) Agile
9 266 (8.70%) CI/CD
9 266 (8.70%) Continuous Improvement
10 231 (7.56%) Service Management
11 207 (6.77%) Infrastructure as Code
12 206 (6.74%) High Availability
13 199 (6.51%) Change Management
14 179 (5.86%) Stakeholder Management
15 177 (5.79%) Service Delivery
16 173 (5.66%) Cybersecurity
17 169 (5.53%) Disaster Recovery
18 157 (5.14%) Validation
19 155 (5.07%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 662 (21.66%) PowerShell
2 320 (10.47%) Python
3 307 (10.05%) SQL
4 156 (5.10%) Bash
5 147 (4.81%) C#
6 74 (2.42%) Java
7 67 (2.19%) JavaScript
8 63 (2.06%) PL/SQL
9 61 (2.00%) T-SQL
10 48 (1.57%) C++
11 34 (1.11%) Bicep
12 25 (0.82%) Perl
12 25 (0.82%) Search Processing Language
13 24 (0.79%) Shell Script
14 21 (0.69%) VB
14 21 (0.69%) VBA
14 21 (0.69%) VBScript
15 18 (0.59%) Kusto Query Language
16 17 (0.56%) TypeScript
17 14 (0.46%) C
Qualifications
1 908 (29.71%) Security Cleared
2 569 (18.62%) SC Cleared
3 304 (9.95%) Degree
4 298 (9.75%) DV Cleared
5 122 (3.99%) Microsoft Certification
6 99 (3.24%) Cisco Certification
7 76 (2.49%) Computer Science Degree
8 65 (2.13%) CISSP
9 63 (2.06%) Azure Certification
10 59 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
11 52 (1.70%) AWS Certification
12 46 (1.51%) MCSE
13 44 (1.44%) CCNA
14 36 (1.18%) A+ Certification
15 33 (1.08%) CCNP
16 32 (1.05%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 27 (0.88%) ITIL Certification
18 26 (0.85%) CompTIA Security+
18 26 (0.85%) DBS Check
18 26 (0.85%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (4.35%) SLA
2 116 (3.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 88 (2.88%) QA
4 86 (2.81%) NIST
5 42 (1.37%) GDPR
6 27 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials
7 26 (0.85%) PCI DSS
8 25 (0.82%) NCSC
9 19 (0.62%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 17 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
11 14 (0.46%) Data Quality
11 14 (0.46%) GxP
11 14 (0.46%) PMO
12 12 (0.39%) Accessibility
13 11 (0.36%) HIPAA
14 10 (0.33%) GMP
14 10 (0.33%) GRC
14 10 (0.33%) SOC 2
15 9 (0.29%) NIST 800
15 9 (0.29%) WCAG
System Software
1 1,187 (38.84%) Active Directory
2 412 (13.48%) VMware Infrastructure
3 163 (5.33%) Hyper-V
4 134 (4.38%) VMware ESXi
5 113 (3.70%) vSphere
6 107 (3.50%) Virtual Machines
7 102 (3.34%) Docker
8 76 (2.49%) Virtual Desktop
9 68 (2.23%) VMware NSX
10 37 (1.21%) Firmware
11 33 (1.08%) BitLocker
12 26 (0.85%) Microsoft App-V
13 18 (0.59%) KVM
14 15 (0.49%) vCloud
15 9 (0.29%) NFS
15 9 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
16 8 (0.26%) VMware Workstation
16 8 (0.26%) XenDesktop
17 7 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
17 7 (0.23%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 419 (13.71%) Microsoft Intune
2 276 (9.03%) SCCM
3 232 (7.59%) Terraform
4 209 (6.84%) Ansible
5 161 (5.27%) Kubernetes
6 111 (3.63%) vCenter Server
7 61 (2.00%) SCOM
8 56 (1.83%) Jamf Pro
9 39 (1.28%) FortiGate
9 39 (1.28%) Progress Chef
9 39 (1.28%) WSUS
10 38 (1.24%) Single Sign-On
11 34 (1.11%) Grafana
12 29 (0.95%) Prometheus
12 29 (0.95%) Puppet
13 25 (0.82%) Nagios
14 23 (0.75%) Packer
15 22 (0.72%) ZABBIX
16 21 (0.69%) Nessus
17 20 (0.65%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,320 (43.19%) Microsoft
2 538 (17.60%) VMware
3 307 (10.05%) ServiceNow
4 217 (7.10%) Cisco
5 200 (6.54%) Citrix
6 197 (6.45%) Oracle
7 135 (4.42%) Splunk
8 92 (3.01%) Apple
9 87 (2.85%) SolarWinds
10 81 (2.65%) CyberArk
11 76 (2.49%) Red Hat
12 74 (2.42%) HP
13 69 (2.26%) Google
14 66 (2.16%) BeyondTrust
15 65 (2.13%) Dell
16 60 (1.96%) Remedy
17 57 (1.87%) F5
18 54 (1.77%) IBM
19 52 (1.70%) Juniper
20 43 (1.41%) Palo Alto