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 25 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,832 2,428 3,644
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.07% 8.23% 8.35%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.50% 58.99% 62.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,876 1,684 2,506
10th Percentile £161 £180 £160
25th Percentile £213 £240 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.35% +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - +1.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 222 131 278
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.26 £11.94
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £23.75 £19.00 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% +5.56% -20.00%
75th Percentile £64.69 £28.00 £25.00
90th Percentile £74.97 £63.75 £61.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.58 £18.82 £17.60
% change year-on-year +30.58% +6.96% -12.03%

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 4,681 4,116 5,822
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.04% 13.94% 13.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,057 2,725 3,919
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £320 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £468
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +1.50% -8.68%
75th Percentile £575 £597 £594
90th Percentile £660 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -5.56% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 319 179 397
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.13 £15.25
Median hourly rate £41.94 £24.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.45% +9.91% -41.33%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.50 £59.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.10 £23.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year +96.10% +9.52% -30.00%

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 25 April 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 25 April 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 25 April 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 -5 2,461 £415 - 819
UK excluding London -10 1,866 £400 - 793
London -22 770 £443 +0.57% 159
Work from Home -17 574 £475 +2.70% 652
South East -7 496 £475 -5.00% 262
North of England -11 466 £313 -3.69% 161
Midlands -11 278 £335 +21.82% 102
North West -4 259 £230 -34.29% 91
South West -14 225 £450 -14.29% 113
East of England +3 205 £350 +54.87% 107
Yorkshire -19 190 £365 +12.31% 50
West Midlands -23 162 £463 +65.18% 50
Scotland 0 148 £425 -5.56% 29
East Midlands +3 111 £215 +4.24% 52
Wales +1 51 £200 -32.20% 29
North East -23 21 £188 -14.77% 25
Northern Ireland -6 12 £175 -12.50% 28
Channel Islands 0 2 £500 +68.07%

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 (8.37%) Microsoft Exchange
2 145 (5.12%) SharePoint
3 52 (1.84%) IIS
4 49 (1.73%) Confluence
5 23 (0.81%) WebLogic
6 22 (0.78%) Apache
7 14 (0.49%) Tomcat
8 13 (0.46%) nginx
9 12 (0.42%) SAS
9 12 (0.42%) Skype for Business
9 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
10 10 (0.35%) TPMS
11 7 (0.25%) WebSphere
12 6 (0.21%) NetWeaver
13 5 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
15 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
16 2 (0.071%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 2 (0.071%) WordPress
Applications
1 203 (7.17%) Microsoft Office
2 65 (2.30%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.39%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.071%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 40 (1.41%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.28%) Teamcenter
4 6 (0.21%) assyst
5 3 (0.11%) Finacle
5 3 (0.11%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.071%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.071%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.035%) Eikon
7 1 (0.035%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.035%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 786 (27.75%) Microsoft 365
2 780 (27.54%) Azure
3 313 (11.05%) Entra ID
4 231 (8.16%) AWS
5 79 (2.79%) GCP
6 77 (2.72%) SaaS
7 75 (2.65%) Azure DevOps
8 69 (2.44%) OneDrive
9 58 (2.05%) IaaS
10 54 (1.91%) GitHub
11 51 (1.80%) PaaS
12 48 (1.69%) Google Workspace
13 42 (1.48%) Azure Monitor
13 42 (1.48%) Power Platform
14 32 (1.13%) Azure Sentinel
15 30 (1.06%) OpenShift
16 26 (0.92%) GitHub Actions
17 19 (0.67%) Azure AKS
17 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Purview
17 19 (0.67%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 396 (13.98%) DNS
2 326 (11.51%) Firewall
3 266 (9.39%) DHCP
4 208 (7.34%) VPN
5 179 (6.32%) TCP/IP
6 178 (6.29%) WAN
7 176 (6.21%) LAN
8 149 (5.26%) Wi-Fi
9 79 (2.79%) Network Security
10 69 (2.44%) SAN
11 65 (2.30%) VLAN
12 48 (1.69%) Wireless
13 43 (1.52%) SD-WAN
14 39 (1.38%) BGP
14 39 (1.38%) Skype
15 38 (1.34%) SSL
16 36 (1.27%) VoIP
17 35 (1.24%) OSPF
18 34 (1.20%) Internet
19 30 (1.06%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 197 (6.96%) SQL Server
2 56 (1.98%) Oracle Database
3 34 (1.20%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.06%) MySQL
5 25 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
6 22 (0.78%) Power BI
7 19 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.53%) DB2
9 14 (0.49%) Data Warehouse
10 13 (0.46%) MongoDB
11 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
11 11 (0.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 10 (0.35%) Oracle Reports
13 9 (0.32%) BigQuery
14 8 (0.28%) GIS
15 7 (0.25%) SAP HANA
15 7 (0.25%) Sybase ASE
16 6 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
16 6 (0.21%) RDBMS
16 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 177 (6.25%) JIRA
2 57 (2.01%) GitLab
3 52 (1.84%) Jenkins
4 50 (1.77%) Git
5 46 (1.62%) MSI
6 34 (1.20%) Visual Studio
7 21 (0.74%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.64%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.39%) Android Studio
10 11 (0.39%) Artifactory
10 11 (0.39%) Chocolatey
11 10 (0.35%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.35%) InstallShield
12 9 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
12 9 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
12 9 (0.32%) Xcode
13 7 (0.25%) AdminStudio
13 7 (0.25%) JUnit
13 7 (0.25%) Selenium
General
1 977 (34.50%) Social Skills
2 278 (9.82%) Finance
3 257 (9.07%) Analytical Skills
4 233 (8.23%) Public Sector
5 149 (5.26%) Banking
6 127 (4.48%) Legal
7 106 (3.74%) Documentation Skills
8 72 (2.54%) Organisational Skills
9 63 (2.22%) Military
10 49 (1.73%) Manufacturing
11 41 (1.45%) Telecoms
12 39 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 37 (1.31%) Retail
14 36 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
15 34 (1.20%) Law
16 30 (1.06%) Investment Banking
17 27 (0.95%) Front Office
18 20 (0.71%) Local Government
19 17 (0.60%) Aerospace
19 17 (0.60%) Police
Job Titles
1 365 (12.89%) IT Support
2 327 (11.55%) Support Engineer
3 325 (11.48%) Analyst
4 230 (8.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 218 (7.70%) IT Engineer
6 180 (6.36%) Architect
6 180 (6.36%) Senior
7 174 (6.14%) IT Support Engineer
8 124 (4.38%) Support Analyst
9 118 (4.17%) Desktop Support
10 106 (3.74%) Developer
11 102 (3.60%) Windows Engineer
12 94 (3.32%) Lead
13 91 (3.21%) Desktop Engineer
13 91 (3.21%) Technical Support
14 90 (3.18%) IT Analyst
15 81 (2.86%) 2nd Line Support
16 70 (2.47%) 1st Line Support
17 69 (2.44%) Service Analyst
18 68 (2.40%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (3.35%) .NET
2 77 (2.72%) REST
3 54 (1.91%) .NET Framework
4 43 (1.52%) LDAP
5 42 (1.48%) SAML
6 37 (1.31%) Middleware
7 35 (1.24%) Kafka
8 30 (1.06%) OAuth
9 29 (1.02%) WinForms
9 29 (1.02%) WPF
10 28 (0.99%) Microsoft Graph
11 27 (0.95%) 802.1X
11 27 (0.95%) Web Services
12 21 (0.74%) Node.js
12 21 (0.74%) OpenID
13 19 (0.67%) CSS
13 19 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
13 19 (0.67%) React
14 18 (0.64%) Software Packaging
15 17 (0.60%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 215 (7.59%) Onboarding
2 131 (4.63%) Data Centre
3 102 (3.60%) PKI
4 91 (3.21%) Enterprise Software
5 76 (2.68%) Clustering
5 76 (2.68%) Driving Licence
6 71 (2.51%) Self-Motivation
7 61 (2.15%) Replication
8 50 (1.77%) Legacy Systems
9 47 (1.66%) Hybrid Cloud
10 44 (1.55%) Management Information System
11 43 (1.52%) Security Posture
11 43 (1.52%) Smartphone
12 37 (1.31%) Virtual Team
13 33 (1.17%) Cloud Native
13 33 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
14 32 (1.13%) Security Operations Centre
15 30 (1.06%) CMDB
16 29 (1.02%) Analytical Mindset
17 28 (0.99%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 712 (25.14%) Linux
2 661 (23.34%) Windows Server
3 510 (18.01%) Windows 10
4 173 (6.11%) Mac OS
5 156 (5.51%) Android
6 148 (5.23%) Unix
7 124 (4.38%) Apple iOS
8 93 (3.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 76 (2.68%) Windows Server 2016
10 68 (2.40%) Windows Server 2019
11 50 (1.77%) Windows 7
12 41 (1.45%) Windows Server 2012
13 35 (1.24%) AIX
14 22 (0.78%) VMS
14 22 (0.78%) Windows Server 2003
15 20 (0.71%) Ubuntu
16 18 (0.64%) Solaris
17 14 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.35%) CentOS
19 9 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 584 (20.62%) Problem-Solving
2 449 (15.85%) Customer Service
3 411 (14.51%) ITIL
4 322 (11.37%) Migration
5 302 (10.66%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 292 (10.31%) Agile
7 249 (8.79%) DevOps
8 230 (8.12%) CI/CD
9 221 (7.80%) ITSM
10 187 (6.60%) Cybersecurity
10 187 (6.60%) Disaster Recovery
11 179 (6.32%) Service Management
12 178 (6.29%) Continuous Improvement
13 170 (6.00%) Change Management
14 160 (5.65%) High Availability
15 145 (5.12%) SIEM
16 136 (4.80%) Stakeholder Management
17 129 (4.56%) Infrastructure as Code
18 126 (4.45%) Computer Science
19 120 (4.24%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 599 (21.15%) PowerShell
2 281 (9.92%) Python
3 272 (9.60%) SQL
4 135 (4.77%) C#
5 104 (3.67%) Bash
6 85 (3.00%) Java
7 73 (2.58%) JavaScript
8 63 (2.22%) PL/SQL
9 50 (1.77%) C++
10 46 (1.62%) T-SQL
11 35 (1.24%) Perl
12 29 (1.02%) Kusto Query Language
13 25 (0.88%) VB
14 22 (0.78%) Shell Script
15 18 (0.64%) VBScript
16 17 (0.60%) Search Processing Language
17 15 (0.53%) VBA
18 14 (0.49%) Go
19 12 (0.42%) Bicep
19 12 (0.42%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 858 (30.30%) Security Cleared
2 572 (20.20%) SC Cleared
3 278 (9.82%) Degree
4 255 (9.00%) DV Cleared
5 114 (4.03%) Microsoft Certification
6 86 (3.04%) Computer Science Degree
7 66 (2.33%) Cisco Certification
8 46 (1.62%) Azure Certification
8 46 (1.62%) MCSE
9 42 (1.48%) BPSS Clearance
10 40 (1.41%) CISSP
11 38 (1.34%) ITIL Certification
12 37 (1.31%) CompTIA Security+
13 32 (1.13%) AWS Certification
14 31 (1.09%) CCNA
14 31 (1.09%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 29 (1.02%) A+ Certification
16 28 (0.99%) MCSA
17 18 (0.64%) CompTIA CySA+
18 17 (0.60%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (3.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 91 (3.21%) QA
3 87 (3.07%) GDPR
4 84 (2.97%) SLA
5 71 (2.51%) NIST
6 41 (1.45%) PCI DSS
7 28 (0.99%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 20 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.56%) NCSC
10 15 (0.53%) PMO
11 12 (0.42%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.39%) Data Quality
12 11 (0.39%) MiFID
13 10 (0.35%) FINRA
13 10 (0.35%) GLBA
14 9 (0.32%) Disclosure Scotland
15 7 (0.25%) DICOM
16 6 (0.21%) HL7
16 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
17 5 (0.18%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,056 (37.29%) Active Directory
2 333 (11.76%) VMware Infrastructure
3 147 (5.19%) Hyper-V
4 89 (3.14%) vSphere
5 87 (3.07%) Docker
6 84 (2.97%) VMware ESXi
7 72 (2.54%) Virtual Machines
8 56 (1.98%) Virtual Desktop
9 39 (1.38%) VMware NSX
10 38 (1.34%) Firmware
11 30 (1.06%) BitLocker
12 25 (0.88%) Microsoft App-V
13 22 (0.78%) KVM
14 13 (0.46%) XenApp
14 13 (0.46%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
16 6 (0.21%) etcd
17 5 (0.18%) NFS
17 5 (0.18%) Terminal Services
18 4 (0.14%) Snort
Systems Management
1 362 (12.78%) Microsoft Intune
2 289 (10.20%) SCCM
3 186 (6.57%) Ansible
4 163 (5.76%) Terraform
5 130 (4.59%) Kubernetes
6 70 (2.47%) vCenter Server
7 67 (2.37%) Single Sign-On
8 52 (1.84%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 43 (1.52%) WSUS
10 41 (1.45%) Jamf Pro
11 38 (1.34%) FortiGate
12 37 (1.31%) Grafana
13 31 (1.09%) Prometheus
14 26 (0.92%) SCOM
15 22 (0.78%) Nagios
15 22 (0.78%) Nessus
16 21 (0.74%) Progress Chef
17 18 (0.64%) Puppet
18 16 (0.56%) Nmap
18 16 (0.56%) vMotion
Vendors
1 1,205 (42.55%) Microsoft
2 433 (15.29%) VMware
3 221 (7.80%) ServiceNow
4 210 (7.42%) Citrix
5 198 (6.99%) Cisco
6 186 (6.57%) Oracle
7 150 (5.30%) Splunk
8 83 (2.93%) HP
9 73 (2.58%) Dell
10 66 (2.33%) SolarWinds
11 57 (2.01%) Google
11 57 (2.01%) Red Hat
12 55 (1.94%) Apple
13 54 (1.91%) IBM
13 54 (1.91%) Remedy
14 47 (1.66%) CyberArk
14 47 (1.66%) F5
15 46 (1.62%) Palo Alto
16 40 (1.41%) SAP
16 40 (1.41%) Veeam