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

6 months to
10 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 3,087 2,634 3,618
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.87% 8.14% 8.38%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.82% 60.05% 60.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,980 1,754 2,411
10th Percentile £163 £180 £165
25th Percentile £225 £231 £240
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.56%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £663 £656
UK excluding London median daily rate £420 £400 £430
% change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% +7.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 268 194 305
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.19 £12.10
25th Percentile £17.84 £17.03 £14.72
Median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.46% -5.65% -15.93%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £40.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £64.63 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £18.13
% change year-on-year +36.46% +4.08% -17.59%

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 5,076 4,386 5,940
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.64% 13.55% 13.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,252 2,836 3,878
10th Percentile £190 £200 £190
25th Percentile £315 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -2.11% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £580 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £460
% change year-on-year - -2.17% +1.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 345 238 441
10th Percentile £15.77 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.01 £16.25
Median hourly rate £26.50 £23.00 £24.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.22% -6.12% -42.35%
75th Percentile £63.75 £52.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.44 £67.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.47 £21.02 £30.00
% change year-on-year +25.96% -29.95% +1.18%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 2,695 £425 +2.16% 995
UK excluding London -12 2,034 £420 +5.00% 919
London -18 879 £425 -2.86% 224
Work from Home -8 656 £475 +0.53% 349
South East -8 548 £475 -3.46% 302
North of England -10 478 £363 +3.57% 218
Midlands -17 280 £338 +14.41% 121
South West -12 273 £488 +6.85% 128
North West -9 254 £358 +0.10% 115
East of England 0 219 £300 +8.08% 104
Yorkshire -13 202 £365 -9.88% 71
West Midlands -26 175 £450 +50.00% 63
Scotland -4 174 £425 -2.86% 37
East Midlands +9 100 £270 +35.00% 58
Wales +11 58 £408 +41.74% 19
North East -37 26 £273 -5.22% 40
Northern Ireland -3 16 £139 -28.97% 26
Channel Islands +3 3 £518 - 4

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
1 241 (7.81%) Microsoft Exchange
2 211 (6.84%) SharePoint
3 65 (2.11%) IIS
4 56 (1.81%) Confluence
5 19 (0.62%) Apache
5 19 (0.62%) Tomcat
6 18 (0.58%) nginx
7 14 (0.45%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
9 10 (0.32%) WebLogic
10 9 (0.29%) HCL Notes
10 9 (0.29%) NetWeaver
11 7 (0.23%) Appian
12 6 (0.19%) Documentum
13 5 (0.16%) Camunda
13 5 (0.16%) SAS
14 4 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.097%) CloudStack
15 3 (0.097%) Exchange Server 2010
15 3 (0.097%) WebSphere
Applications
1 192 (6.22%) Microsoft Office
2 70 (2.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (0.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.16%) PTC Creo
5 5 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.13%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.097%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.032%) Acrobat
8 1 (0.032%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.032%) Houdini
8 1 (0.032%) InDesign
8 1 (0.032%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 44 (1.43%) Remedy ITSM
2 20 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.39%) Teamcenter
4 10 (0.32%) Finacle
5 6 (0.19%) OpenText MBPM
5 6 (0.19%) Oracle BPM
6 4 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
7 3 (0.097%) assyst
8 1 (0.032%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.032%) Dynamics GP
8 1 (0.032%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.032%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.032%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.032%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.032%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.032%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 930 (30.13%) Azure
2 873 (28.28%) Microsoft 365
3 416 (13.48%) Entra ID
4 319 (10.33%) AWS
5 122 (3.95%) OneDrive
6 94 (3.05%) Azure DevOps
6 94 (3.05%) GCP
7 78 (2.53%) SaaS
8 67 (2.17%) GitHub
9 64 (2.07%) Power Platform
10 62 (2.01%) IaaS
11 56 (1.81%) Azure Monitor
12 55 (1.78%) PaaS
13 40 (1.30%) OpenShift
14 38 (1.23%) Azure Sentinel
15 32 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
16 29 (0.94%) AWS CloudFormation
16 29 (0.94%) Google Workspace
17 25 (0.81%) Azure AKS
18 24 (0.78%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 442 (14.32%) DNS
2 313 (10.14%) Firewall
3 300 (9.72%) DHCP
4 228 (7.39%) VPN
5 194 (6.28%) TCP/IP
6 181 (5.86%) LAN
7 175 (5.67%) WAN
8 150 (4.86%) Wi-Fi
9 100 (3.24%) SAN
10 67 (2.17%) Network Security
11 64 (2.07%) VLAN
12 47 (1.52%) BGP
13 46 (1.49%) NAS
13 46 (1.49%) SSL
14 44 (1.43%) Internet
15 37 (1.20%) OSPF
15 37 (1.20%) SD-WAN
15 37 (1.20%) VoIP
16 35 (1.13%) Wireless
17 33 (1.07%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 270 (8.75%) SQL Server
2 62 (2.01%) Oracle Database
3 42 (1.36%) Power BI
4 34 (1.10%) Relational Database
5 31 (1.00%) PostgreSQL
6 27 (0.87%) MySQL
7 22 (0.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 20 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
9 19 (0.62%) Db2
10 17 (0.55%) Elasticsearch
11 15 (0.49%) Data Warehouse
12 14 (0.45%) NoSQL
12 14 (0.45%) RDBMS
13 11 (0.36%) MongoDB
14 10 (0.32%) GIS
14 10 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
15 9 (0.29%) SAP HANA
16 8 (0.26%) Azure SQL Database
16 8 (0.26%) Oracle BI EE
16 8 (0.26%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 181 (5.86%) JIRA
2 65 (2.11%) Git
3 59 (1.91%) Jenkins
4 48 (1.55%) MSI
5 43 (1.39%) GitLab
6 39 (1.26%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.55%) Eclipse
8 9 (0.29%) Bitbucket
8 9 (0.29%) Chocolatey
9 7 (0.23%) Browser DevTools
9 7 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
9 7 (0.23%) Team Foundation Server
10 6 (0.19%) Android Studio
10 6 (0.19%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.19%) InstallShield
10 6 (0.19%) Xcode
11 5 (0.16%) AdminStudio
11 5 (0.16%) Maven
11 5 (0.16%) Selenium
12 4 (0.13%) Atlassian Bamboo
General
1 1,089 (35.28%) Social Skills
2 347 (11.24%) Analytical Skills
3 323 (10.46%) Finance
4 214 (6.93%) Public Sector
5 155 (5.02%) Banking
6 109 (3.53%) Documentation Skills
6 109 (3.53%) Legal
7 89 (2.88%) Organisational Skills
8 62 (2.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 53 (1.72%) Retail
10 44 (1.43%) Manufacturing
10 44 (1.43%) Military
11 37 (1.20%) Front Office
12 35 (1.13%) Investment Banking
13 33 (1.07%) Telecoms
14 31 (1.00%) Law
15 25 (0.81%) Spanish Language
16 24 (0.78%) Presentation Skills
17 23 (0.75%) French Language
18 20 (0.65%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 424 (13.74%) Support Engineer
2 398 (12.89%) IT Support
3 299 (9.69%) Analyst
4 288 (9.33%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 280 (9.07%) IT Engineer
6 236 (7.64%) IT Support Engineer
7 199 (6.45%) Senior
8 148 (4.79%) Architect
9 124 (4.02%) Desktop Support
10 117 (3.79%) 2nd Line Support
11 116 (3.76%) Developer
12 110 (3.56%) Desktop Engineer
12 110 (3.56%) Lead
13 107 (3.47%) Support Analyst
14 97 (3.14%) Consultant
15 95 (3.08%) Cloud Engineer
16 93 (3.01%) Windows Engineer
17 92 (2.98%) IT Analyst
18 84 (2.72%) Service Analyst
19 81 (2.62%) Service Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (3.73%) .NET
2 109 (3.53%) REST
3 64 (2.07%) .NET Framework
4 45 (1.46%) LDAP
5 35 (1.13%) Middleware
6 34 (1.10%) SAML
7 32 (1.04%) WinForms
8 31 (1.00%) 802.1X
9 29 (0.94%) Microsoft Graph
9 29 (0.94%) WPF
10 28 (0.91%) Software Packaging
10 28 (0.91%) Web Services
11 26 (0.84%) Kafka
12 25 (0.81%) Elastic Stack
13 24 (0.78%) OAuth
14 23 (0.75%) JSON
15 22 (0.71%) CSS
16 21 (0.68%) HTML
17 20 (0.65%) RESTful
18 17 (0.55%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 296 (9.59%) Onboarding
2 166 (5.38%) Data Centre
3 145 (4.70%) PKI
4 87 (2.82%) Enterprise Software
5 80 (2.59%) Clustering
6 77 (2.49%) Management Information System
7 73 (2.36%) Self-Motivation
8 69 (2.24%) Driving Licence
8 69 (2.24%) Replication
9 67 (2.17%) Cloud Native
10 58 (1.88%) Legacy Systems
11 53 (1.72%) Security Posture
12 52 (1.68%) Virtual Team
13 51 (1.65%) Hybrid Cloud
14 43 (1.39%) Video Conferencing
15 40 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
16 37 (1.20%) Linux Command Line
17 34 (1.10%) Operational Technology
18 33 (1.07%) Smartphone
19 31 (1.00%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 756 (24.49%) Linux
2 752 (24.36%) Windows Server
3 517 (16.75%) Windows 10
4 195 (6.32%) Mac OS
5 160 (5.18%) Unix
6 139 (4.50%) Android
6 139 (4.50%) Apple iOS
7 121 (3.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 77 (2.49%) Windows Server 2019
9 59 (1.91%) Windows Server 2016
10 48 (1.55%) Windows 7
11 40 (1.30%) Windows Server 2012
12 36 (1.17%) AIX
12 36 (1.17%) Ubuntu
13 24 (0.78%) Solaris
14 22 (0.71%) VMS
15 18 (0.58%) CentOS
16 17 (0.55%) Windows Server 2008
17 15 (0.49%) Windows Server 2003
18 9 (0.29%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 689 (22.32%) Problem-Solving
2 490 (15.87%) ITIL
3 453 (14.67%) Customer Service
4 370 (11.99%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 363 (11.76%) Migration
6 325 (10.53%) ITSM
7 296 (9.59%) DevOps
8 264 (8.55%) CI/CD
9 263 (8.52%) Agile
10 260 (8.42%) Continuous Improvement
11 226 (7.32%) Service Management
12 216 (7.00%) High Availability
13 198 (6.41%) Infrastructure as Code
14 190 (6.15%) Change Management
15 174 (5.64%) Disaster Recovery
16 173 (5.60%) Stakeholder Management
17 172 (5.57%) Cybersecurity
18 168 (5.44%) Service Delivery
19 152 (4.92%) SIEM
19 152 (4.92%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 654 (21.19%) PowerShell
2 319 (10.33%) Python
3 302 (9.78%) SQL
4 145 (4.70%) C#
5 136 (4.41%) Bash
6 75 (2.43%) Java
7 66 (2.14%) JavaScript
8 59 (1.91%) PL/SQL
8 59 (1.91%) T-SQL
9 51 (1.65%) C++
10 26 (0.84%) Perl
11 25 (0.81%) Search Processing Language
11 25 (0.81%) VB
12 24 (0.78%) Bicep
12 24 (0.78%) VBScript
13 22 (0.71%) Shell Script
14 20 (0.65%) Kusto Query Language
15 19 (0.62%) VBA
16 16 (0.52%) TypeScript
17 14 (0.45%) C
Qualifications
1 910 (29.48%) Security Cleared
2 590 (19.11%) SC Cleared
3 312 (10.11%) Degree
4 284 (9.20%) DV Cleared
5 123 (3.98%) Microsoft Certification
6 100 (3.24%) Cisco Certification
7 83 (2.69%) Computer Science Degree
8 64 (2.07%) CISSP
9 61 (1.98%) Azure Certification
10 58 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
11 49 (1.59%) AWS Certification
12 48 (1.55%) MCSE
13 45 (1.46%) CCNA
14 34 (1.10%) CCNP
15 32 (1.04%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 29 (0.94%) A+ Certification
17 28 (0.91%) ITIL Certification
18 27 (0.87%) CompTIA Security+
19 25 (0.81%) DBS Check
19 25 (0.81%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 131 (4.24%) SLA
2 118 (3.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 89 (2.88%) NIST
3 89 (2.88%) QA
4 54 (1.75%) GDPR
5 29 (0.94%) PCI DSS
5 29 (0.94%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 26 (0.84%) Cyber Essentials
7 25 (0.81%) NCSC
8 16 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
9 14 (0.45%) Data Quality
10 13 (0.42%) PMO
11 11 (0.36%) Accessibility
11 11 (0.36%) GxP
11 11 (0.36%) HIPAA
12 10 (0.32%) GRC
12 10 (0.32%) NIST 800
12 10 (0.32%) SOC 2
13 9 (0.29%) GMP
14 8 (0.26%) WCAG
System Software
1 1,181 (38.26%) Active Directory
2 399 (12.93%) VMware Infrastructure
3 165 (5.34%) Hyper-V
4 125 (4.05%) VMware ESXi
5 110 (3.56%) vSphere
6 106 (3.43%) Virtual Machines
7 100 (3.24%) Docker
8 77 (2.49%) Virtual Desktop
9 65 (2.11%) VMware NSX
10 40 (1.30%) Firmware
11 37 (1.20%) BitLocker
12 27 (0.87%) Microsoft App-V
13 18 (0.58%) KVM
14 14 (0.45%) 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 (13.57%) Microsoft Intune
2 281 (9.10%) SCCM
3 219 (7.09%) Terraform
4 205 (6.64%) Ansible
5 161 (5.22%) Kubernetes
6 99 (3.21%) vCenter Server
7 56 (1.81%) Jamf Pro
8 55 (1.78%) SCOM
9 54 (1.75%) Single Sign-On
10 42 (1.36%) FortiGate
11 40 (1.30%) WSUS
12 37 (1.20%) Progress Chef
13 34 (1.10%) Grafana
13 34 (1.10%) Prometheus
14 33 (1.07%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 29 (0.94%) Puppet
16 25 (0.81%) Nagios
17 22 (0.71%) Packer
17 22 (0.71%) ZABBIX
18 21 (0.68%) Nessus
Vendors
1 1,328 (43.02%) Microsoft
2 521 (16.88%) VMware
3 293 (9.49%) ServiceNow
4 216 (7.00%) Cisco
5 206 (6.67%) Citrix
6 198 (6.41%) Oracle
7 140 (4.54%) Splunk
8 88 (2.85%) Apple
9 83 (2.69%) SolarWinds
10 79 (2.56%) HP
11 77 (2.49%) CyberArk
12 74 (2.40%) Red Hat
13 70 (2.27%) Dell
14 67 (2.17%) Google
15 64 (2.07%) BeyondTrust
16 58 (1.88%) F5
17 54 (1.75%) IBM
17 54 (1.75%) Remedy
18 51 (1.65%) Juniper
19 45 (1.46%) Palo Alto