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

6 months to
27 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 3,069 2,636 3,378
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.81% 8.00% 8.41%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.41% 59.54% 60.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,951 1,748 2,282
10th Percentile £170 £176 £167
25th Percentile £225 £225 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £415 £430
Median % change year-on-year +2.37% -3.45% -3.11%
75th Percentile £556 £564 £575
90th Percentile £650 £663 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £415 £400 £450
% change year-on-year +3.75% -11.11% +20.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 272 207 259
10th Percentile £15.81 £15.33 £11.80
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.33 £15.22
Median hourly rate £25.13 £18.87 £20.29
Median % change year-on-year +33.17% -6.98% -15.48%
75th Percentile £54.25 £25.15 £48.13
90th Percentile £69.80 £65.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £18.30
% change year-on-year +36.46% +3.14% -16.84%

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 5,080 4,427 5,608
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.62% 13.43% 13.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,231 2,856 3,709
10th Percentile £193 £200 £193
25th Percentile £319 £313 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £463 £475
Median % change year-on-year +1.41% -2.63% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £465
% change year-on-year - -3.23% +3.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 342 251 375
10th Percentile £15.53 £15.50 £12.60
25th Percentile £17.94 £18.12 £16.83
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 £70.20 £67.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.47 £21.90 £34.50
% change year-on-year +20.87% -36.52% +6.15%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -7 2,689 £424 +2.79% 952
UK excluding London -13 2,018 £415 +3.75% 822
London -17 877 £420 -2.72% 249
Work from Home -9 635 £475 +1.17% 311
South East -8 578 £475 -3.46% 281
North of England -10 477 £344 -0.29% 188
Midlands -21 270 £384 +18.00% 107
South West -12 267 £488 +21.88% 104
North West -9 252 £344 -3.91% 95
East of England -3 203 £335 +34.00% 106
Yorkshire -11 202 £360 +6.67% 64
West Midlands -27 173 £450 +12.50% 61
Scotland -3 163 £400 -8.57% 32
East Midlands +8 93 £270 +35.00% 46
Wales +4 58 £408 +48.18% 23
North East -39 27 £270 -1.82% 35
Northern Ireland -3 17 £139 -28.97% 10
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
1 243 (7.92%) Microsoft Exchange
2 238 (7.75%) SharePoint
3 68 (2.22%) IIS
4 63 (2.05%) Confluence
5 18 (0.59%) Apache
5 18 (0.59%) nginx
6 17 (0.55%) Tomcat
7 14 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
8 12 (0.39%) HCL Notes
9 11 (0.36%) Skype for Business
10 9 (0.29%) NetWeaver
10 9 (0.29%) 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
13 4 (0.13%) FactoryTalk
14 3 (0.098%) CloudStack
14 3 (0.098%) Exchange Server 2010
Applications
1 199 (6.48%) Microsoft Office
2 73 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
5 7 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.13%) Acrobat
6 4 (0.13%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.098%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.098%) Houdini
7 3 (0.098%) NUKE
8 2 (0.065%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.033%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.033%) InDesign
9 1 (0.033%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 53 (1.73%) Remedy ITSM
2 15 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (0.33%) Finacle
4 7 (0.23%) Teamcenter
5 6 (0.20%) OpenText MBPM
5 6 (0.20%) Oracle BPM
6 4 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
6 4 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
7 3 (0.098%) assyst
8 2 (0.065%) Dynamics GP
8 2 (0.065%) SAP FI
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 BRIM
9 1 (0.033%) SAP EWM
9 1 (0.033%) SAP FI-CA
9 1 (0.033%) SAP FS
9 1 (0.033%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 937 (30.53%) Azure
2 912 (29.72%) Microsoft 365
3 438 (14.27%) Entra ID
4 325 (10.59%) AWS
5 132 (4.30%) OneDrive
6 102 (3.32%) GCP
7 100 (3.26%) Azure DevOps
8 80 (2.61%) SaaS
9 68 (2.22%) Azure Monitor
9 68 (2.22%) GitHub
9 68 (2.22%) Power Platform
10 64 (2.09%) IaaS
11 56 (1.82%) PaaS
12 43 (1.40%) Azure Sentinel
13 37 (1.21%) OpenShift
14 32 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
15 27 (0.88%) Azure AKS
15 27 (0.88%) GitHub Actions
16 26 (0.85%) Amazon EC2
17 25 (0.81%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 449 (14.63%) DNS
2 340 (11.08%) Firewall
3 306 (9.97%) DHCP
4 246 (8.02%) VPN
5 211 (6.88%) TCP/IP
6 176 (5.73%) LAN
7 162 (5.28%) WAN
8 151 (4.92%) Wi-Fi
9 97 (3.16%) SAN
10 75 (2.44%) Network Security
11 67 (2.18%) VLAN
12 53 (1.73%) SSL
13 48 (1.56%) BGP
13 48 (1.56%) NAS
14 43 (1.40%) Internet
15 39 (1.27%) Wireless
16 36 (1.17%) OSPF
17 34 (1.11%) VoIP
18 31 (1.01%) SNMP
19 30 (0.98%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 294 (9.58%) SQL Server
2 61 (1.99%) Oracle Database
3 48 (1.56%) Power BI
4 33 (1.08%) PostgreSQL
5 31 (1.01%) Relational Database
6 30 (0.98%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 25 (0.81%) MySQL
8 22 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
9 20 (0.65%) Db2
10 17 (0.55%) Data Warehouse
11 15 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
11 15 (0.49%) RDBMS
12 12 (0.39%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 11 (0.36%) NoSQL
14 10 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
14 10 (0.33%) MongoDB
14 10 (0.33%) Oracle Reports
14 10 (0.33%) SQL Server Analysis Services
15 9 (0.29%) SAP HANA
15 9 (0.29%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 186 (6.06%) JIRA
2 73 (2.38%) Git
3 58 (1.89%) Jenkins
4 48 (1.56%) MSI
5 41 (1.34%) GitLab
6 38 (1.24%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.55%) Eclipse
8 14 (0.46%) Bitbucket
9 8 (0.26%) Artifactory
9 8 (0.26%) Chocolatey
9 8 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (0.23%) Atlassian Bamboo
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%) Xcode
12 5 (0.16%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.16%) Maven
12 5 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
General
1 1,112 (36.23%) Social Skills
2 369 (12.02%) Analytical Skills
3 342 (11.14%) Finance
4 204 (6.65%) Public Sector
5 159 (5.18%) Banking
6 106 (3.45%) Documentation Skills
7 99 (3.23%) Legal
8 82 (2.67%) Organisational Skills
9 63 (2.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 55 (1.79%) Retail
11 48 (1.56%) Manufacturing
11 48 (1.56%) Military
12 37 (1.21%) Front Office
12 37 (1.21%) Telecoms
13 34 (1.11%) Investment Banking
13 34 (1.11%) Law
14 27 (0.88%) Spanish Language
15 25 (0.81%) Financial Institution
16 22 (0.72%) French Language
17 20 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 441 (14.37%) Support Engineer
2 404 (13.16%) IT Support
3 297 (9.68%) IT Engineer
4 295 (9.61%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 283 (9.22%) Analyst
6 250 (8.15%) IT Support Engineer
7 223 (7.27%) Senior
8 129 (4.20%) Architect
9 123 (4.01%) 2nd Line Support
9 123 (4.01%) Desktop Support
10 115 (3.75%) Developer
11 108 (3.52%) Cloud Engineer
12 107 (3.49%) Lead
13 105 (3.42%) Support Analyst
14 104 (3.39%) Desktop Engineer
15 95 (3.10%) Consultant
16 91 (2.97%) IT Analyst
16 91 (2.97%) Windows Engineer
17 82 (2.67%) Service Analyst
18 81 (2.64%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 121 (3.94%) .NET
2 114 (3.71%) REST
3 66 (2.15%) .NET Framework
4 39 (1.27%) Middleware
5 34 (1.11%) WinForms
6 33 (1.08%) LDAP
7 31 (1.01%) 802.1X
8 30 (0.98%) JSON
9 29 (0.94%) Web Services
10 28 (0.91%) Kafka
10 28 (0.91%) Microsoft Graph
10 28 (0.91%) WPF
11 26 (0.85%) Software Packaging
11 26 (0.85%) XML
12 25 (0.81%) HTML
13 23 (0.75%) CSS
14 22 (0.72%) RESTful
15 21 (0.68%) Elastic Stack
16 18 (0.59%) SAML
17 17 (0.55%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 319 (10.39%) Onboarding
2 163 (5.31%) Data Centre
3 162 (5.28%) PKI
4 85 (2.77%) Clustering
5 82 (2.67%) Enterprise Software
6 80 (2.61%) Management Information System
7 78 (2.54%) Cloud Native
8 73 (2.38%) Driving Licence
9 68 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
10 61 (1.99%) Replication
11 58 (1.89%) Hybrid Cloud
12 56 (1.82%) Security Posture
13 55 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
13 55 (1.79%) Video Conferencing
14 43 (1.40%) Virtual Team
15 42 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
16 38 (1.24%) Smartphone
17 37 (1.21%) Linux Command Line
18 35 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
18 35 (1.14%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 759 (24.73%) Linux
2 756 (24.63%) Windows Server
3 506 (16.49%) Windows 10
4 197 (6.42%) Mac OS
5 160 (5.21%) Unix
6 139 (4.53%) Android
7 137 (4.46%) Apple iOS
8 124 (4.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 75 (2.44%) Windows Server 2019
10 51 (1.66%) Windows Server 2016
11 40 (1.30%) Ubuntu
12 39 (1.27%) Windows 7
13 38 (1.24%) AIX
14 35 (1.14%) Windows Server 2012
15 23 (0.75%) Solaris
16 22 (0.72%) CentOS
17 21 (0.68%) VMS
18 17 (0.55%) Windows Server 2008
19 10 (0.33%) Windows Server 2003
20 9 (0.29%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 698 (22.74%) Problem-Solving
2 513 (16.72%) ITIL
3 473 (15.41%) Customer Service
4 383 (12.48%) Migration
5 381 (12.41%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 344 (11.21%) ITSM
7 291 (9.48%) DevOps
8 280 (9.12%) Continuous Improvement
9 270 (8.80%) CI/CD
10 267 (8.70%) Agile
11 242 (7.89%) Service Management
12 217 (7.07%) Infrastructure as Code
13 202 (6.58%) Change Management
13 202 (6.58%) High Availability
14 190 (6.19%) Stakeholder Management
15 176 (5.73%) Cybersecurity
15 176 (5.73%) Service Delivery
16 170 (5.54%) Validation
17 168 (5.47%) Disaster Recovery
18 157 (5.12%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 673 (21.93%) PowerShell
2 323 (10.52%) Python
3 312 (10.17%) SQL
4 164 (5.34%) Bash
5 150 (4.89%) C#
6 78 (2.54%) Java
7 69 (2.25%) JavaScript
8 62 (2.02%) T-SQL
9 60 (1.96%) PL/SQL
10 48 (1.56%) C++
11 40 (1.30%) Bicep
12 25 (0.81%) Search Processing Language
13 22 (0.72%) Perl
13 22 (0.72%) Shell Script
13 22 (0.72%) VB
14 21 (0.68%) VBA
14 21 (0.68%) VBScript
15 16 (0.52%) Kusto Query Language
15 16 (0.52%) TypeScript
16 14 (0.46%) C
Qualifications
1 911 (29.68%) Security Cleared
2 571 (18.61%) SC Cleared
3 305 (9.94%) Degree
4 303 (9.87%) DV Cleared
5 118 (3.84%) Microsoft Certification
6 102 (3.32%) Cisco Certification
7 73 (2.38%) Computer Science Degree
8 68 (2.22%) CISSP
9 67 (2.18%) Azure Certification
10 61 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
11 54 (1.76%) AWS Certification
12 44 (1.43%) CCNA
13 42 (1.37%) MCSE
14 37 (1.21%) A+ Certification
15 35 (1.14%) CCNP
16 28 (0.91%) DBS Check
17 27 (0.88%) ITIL Certification
17 27 (0.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 25 (0.81%) CISM
18 25 (0.81%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 139 (4.53%) SLA
2 118 (3.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 87 (2.83%) NIST
3 87 (2.83%) QA
4 40 (1.30%) GDPR
5 28 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials
6 25 (0.81%) NCSC
6 25 (0.81%) PCI DSS
7 16 (0.52%) Data Quality
7 16 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
7 16 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 15 (0.49%) PMO
9 14 (0.46%) GxP
10 12 (0.39%) Accessibility
11 11 (0.36%) GRC
11 11 (0.36%) HIPAA
12 10 (0.33%) SOC 2
13 9 (0.29%) GMP
13 9 (0.29%) WCAG
14 8 (0.26%) 21 CFR Part 11
System Software
1 1,207 (39.33%) Active Directory
2 409 (13.33%) VMware Infrastructure
3 168 (5.47%) Hyper-V
4 130 (4.24%) VMware ESXi
5 108 (3.52%) vSphere
6 102 (3.32%) Docker
7 100 (3.26%) Virtual Machines
8 80 (2.61%) Virtual Desktop
9 68 (2.22%) VMware NSX
10 41 (1.34%) Firmware
11 33 (1.08%) BitLocker
12 24 (0.78%) Microsoft App-V
13 17 (0.55%) KVM
14 16 (0.52%) vCloud
15 9 (0.29%) NFS
16 8 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
16 8 (0.26%) VMware Workstation
16 8 (0.26%) XenDesktop
17 7 (0.23%) XenApp
18 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 422 (13.75%) Microsoft Intune
2 280 (9.12%) SCCM
3 249 (8.11%) Terraform
4 214 (6.97%) Ansible
5 167 (5.44%) Kubernetes
6 108 (3.52%) vCenter Server
7 64 (2.09%) SCOM
8 55 (1.79%) Jamf Pro
9 41 (1.34%) Progress Chef
10 39 (1.27%) FortiGate
10 39 (1.27%) WSUS
11 35 (1.14%) Single Sign-On
12 32 (1.04%) Puppet
13 28 (0.91%) Grafana
13 28 (0.91%) Prometheus
14 25 (0.81%) Nagios
15 24 (0.78%) Packer
16 22 (0.72%) ZABBIX
17 20 (0.65%) NetBackup
17 20 (0.65%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,336 (43.53%) Microsoft
2 545 (17.76%) VMware
3 321 (10.46%) ServiceNow
4 212 (6.91%) Cisco
5 198 (6.45%) Oracle
6 196 (6.39%) Citrix
7 132 (4.30%) Splunk
8 93 (3.03%) Apple
9 89 (2.90%) SolarWinds
10 84 (2.74%) CyberArk
11 78 (2.54%) Red Hat
12 74 (2.41%) Google
13 72 (2.35%) HP
14 69 (2.25%) BeyondTrust
15 64 (2.09%) Remedy
16 62 (2.02%) Dell
17 57 (1.86%) F5
18 53 (1.73%) Juniper
19 51 (1.66%) IBM
20 44 (1.43%) BMC