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

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,840 2,432 3,670
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.12% 8.23% 8.39%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.46% 59.13% 62.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,890 1,686 2,525
10th Percentile £161 £180 £160
25th Percentile £213 £238 £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 £398
% change year-on-year - +0.63% +2.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 225 130 280
10th Percentile £14.70 £15.26 £11.98
25th Percentile £17.12 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £22.81 £19.50 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.97% +8.33% -20.00%
75th Percentile £63.75 £28.00 £25.00
90th Percentile £74.51 £63.88 £60.16
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.81 £18.82 £17.50
% change year-on-year +21.20% +7.54% -12.50%

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 4,697 4,113 5,864
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.12% 13.93% 13.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,064 2,724 3,954
10th Percentile £185 £200 £183
25th Percentile £313 £320 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.70% -9.76%
75th Percentile £575 £596 £593
90th Percentile £658 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £450 £448
% change year-on-year -5.56% +0.56% -5.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 322 180 401
10th Percentile £15.94 £16.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.13 £15.25
Median hourly rate £34.57 £24.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +42.95% +9.91% -41.33%
75th Percentile £67.69 £62.50 £59.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.68 £23.59 £21.00
% change year-on-year +51.24% +12.33% -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 23 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 23 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 23 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 2,472 £415 -0.24% 891
UK excluding London -9 1,883 £400 - 857
London -23 761 £445 -0.89% 182
Work from Home -18 574 £475 +2.70% 313
South East -5 498 £470 -4.18% 265
North of England -9 479 £325 - 174
Midlands -15 277 £330 +21.66% 112
North West -2 267 £263 -25.00% 99
South West -11 228 £453 -15.67% 125
East of England +6 208 £350 +55.21% 112
Yorkshire -15 193 £365 +12.31% 53
West Midlands -24 164 £455 +63.96% 56
Scotland -2 146 £425 -2.86% 44
East Midlands +6 109 £210 +1.82% 56
Wales +1 50 £200 -32.20% 31
North East -19 26 £244 +10.80% 27
Northern Ireland -6 12 £175 -10.26% 30
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
1 248 (8.73%) Microsoft Exchange
2 154 (5.42%) SharePoint
3 47 (1.65%) IIS
4 46 (1.62%) Confluence
5 23 (0.81%) WebLogic
6 22 (0.77%) 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 (0.070%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 2 (0.070%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 207 (7.29%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.25%) 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 (0.070%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 39 (1.37%) 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 (0.070%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.070%) SAP FI
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 Receivables
7 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.035%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 793 (27.92%) Microsoft 365
2 778 (27.39%) Azure
3 319 (11.23%) Entra ID
4 232 (8.17%) AWS
5 78 (2.75%) GCP
6 75 (2.64%) SaaS
7 74 (2.61%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (2.57%) OneDrive
9 57 (2.01%) IaaS
10 53 (1.87%) GitHub
11 50 (1.76%) PaaS
12 49 (1.73%) Google Workspace
13 41 (1.44%) Azure Monitor
14 39 (1.37%) Power Platform
15 32 (1.13%) Azure Sentinel
16 30 (1.06%) OpenShift
17 26 (0.92%) GitHub Actions
18 19 (0.67%) Azure AKS
18 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Purview
18 19 (0.67%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 397 (13.98%) DNS
2 333 (11.73%) Firewall
3 268 (9.44%) DHCP
4 206 (7.25%) VPN
5 183 (6.44%) TCP/IP
6 177 (6.23%) WAN
7 174 (6.13%) LAN
8 152 (5.35%) Wi-Fi
9 82 (2.89%) Network Security
10 72 (2.54%) VLAN
11 67 (2.36%) SAN
12 50 (1.76%) Wireless
13 44 (1.55%) BGP
13 44 (1.55%) SD-WAN
14 39 (1.37%) Skype
14 39 (1.37%) VoIP
15 37 (1.30%) SSL
16 34 (1.20%) OSPF
17 33 (1.16%) Internet
18 30 (1.06%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 189 (6.65%) SQL Server
2 54 (1.90%) Oracle Database
3 34 (1.20%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.06%) MySQL
5 25 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
6 19 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
6 19 (0.67%) Power BI
7 15 (0.53%) DB2
8 14 (0.49%) Data Warehouse
9 13 (0.46%) MongoDB
10 10 (0.35%) NoSQL
10 10 (0.35%) Oracle Reports
11 8 (0.28%) BigQuery
11 8 (0.28%) GIS
12 7 (0.25%) SAP HANA
12 7 (0.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 7 (0.25%) Sybase ASE
13 6 (0.21%) RDBMS
13 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 5 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 170 (5.99%) JIRA
2 57 (2.01%) GitLab
3 53 (1.87%) Jenkins
4 51 (1.80%) Git
5 46 (1.62%) MSI
6 34 (1.20%) Visual Studio
7 21 (0.74%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.63%) 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
14 6 (0.21%) Toad
General
1 981 (34.54%) Social Skills
2 279 (9.82%) Finance
3 266 (9.37%) Analytical Skills
4 236 (8.31%) Public Sector
5 149 (5.25%) Banking
6 133 (4.68%) Legal
7 103 (3.63%) Documentation Skills
8 74 (2.61%) Organisational Skills
9 63 (2.22%) Military
10 49 (1.73%) Manufacturing
11 40 (1.41%) Telecoms
12 38 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 36 (1.27%) Retail
14 35 (1.23%) Presentation Skills
15 34 (1.20%) Law
16 30 (1.06%) Investment Banking
17 27 (0.95%) Front Office
18 20 (0.70%) Local Government
19 17 (0.60%) Police
20 16 (0.56%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 373 (13.13%) IT Support
2 333 (11.73%) Analyst
2 333 (11.73%) Support Engineer
3 226 (7.96%) IT Engineer
4 225 (7.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 180 (6.34%) Architect
5 180 (6.34%) IT Support Engineer
6 178 (6.27%) Senior
7 127 (4.47%) Support Analyst
8 116 (4.08%) Desktop Support
9 105 (3.70%) Developer
10 104 (3.66%) Windows Engineer
11 93 (3.27%) Lead
11 93 (3.27%) Technical Support
12 92 (3.24%) IT Analyst
13 91 (3.20%) Desktop Engineer
14 86 (3.03%) 2nd Line Support
15 71 (2.50%) Service Analyst
16 70 (2.46%) Consultant
16 70 (2.46%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (3.27%) .NET
2 77 (2.71%) REST
3 53 (1.87%) .NET Framework
4 44 (1.55%) LDAP
5 43 (1.51%) SAML
6 37 (1.30%) Middleware
7 34 (1.20%) Kafka
8 31 (1.09%) OAuth
9 29 (1.02%) WinForms
10 28 (0.99%) Microsoft Graph
10 28 (0.99%) WPF
11 27 (0.95%) Web Services
12 25 (0.88%) 802.1X
13 22 (0.77%) OpenID
14 21 (0.74%) Node.js
15 19 (0.67%) CSS
15 19 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
15 19 (0.67%) React
16 18 (0.63%) Software Packaging
17 17 (0.60%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 215 (7.57%) Onboarding
2 132 (4.65%) Data Centre
3 100 (3.52%) PKI
4 87 (3.06%) Enterprise Software
5 78 (2.75%) Driving Licence
6 74 (2.61%) Clustering
7 72 (2.54%) Self-Motivation
8 61 (2.15%) Replication
9 48 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
10 47 (1.65%) Hybrid Cloud
11 45 (1.58%) Management Information System
12 43 (1.51%) Security Posture
12 43 (1.51%) Smartphone
13 40 (1.41%) Product Ownership
14 37 (1.30%) Virtual Team
15 33 (1.16%) Cloud Native
15 33 (1.16%) Security Operations Centre
16 32 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
17 30 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
17 30 (1.06%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 722 (25.42%) Linux
2 667 (23.49%) Windows Server
3 520 (18.31%) Windows 10
4 172 (6.06%) Mac OS
5 158 (5.56%) Android
6 145 (5.11%) Unix
7 125 (4.40%) Apple iOS
8 103 (3.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 75 (2.64%) Windows Server 2016
10 67 (2.36%) Windows Server 2019
11 50 (1.76%) Windows 7
12 41 (1.44%) Windows Server 2012
13 35 (1.23%) AIX
14 23 (0.81%) Windows Server 2003
15 21 (0.74%) VMS
16 19 (0.67%) Ubuntu
17 18 (0.63%) Solaris
18 14 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
19 9 (0.32%) Mac OS X
20 8 (0.28%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 598 (21.06%) Problem-Solving
2 455 (16.02%) Customer Service
3 411 (14.47%) ITIL
4 319 (11.23%) Migration
5 301 (10.60%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 292 (10.28%) Agile
7 251 (8.84%) DevOps
8 233 (8.20%) CI/CD
9 231 (8.13%) ITSM
10 197 (6.94%) Cybersecurity
11 186 (6.55%) Continuous Improvement
11 186 (6.55%) Service Management
12 184 (6.48%) Disaster Recovery
13 170 (5.99%) Change Management
14 158 (5.56%) High Availability
15 146 (5.14%) SIEM
16 132 (4.65%) Stakeholder Management
17 130 (4.58%) Computer Science
18 128 (4.51%) Infrastructure as Code
19 126 (4.44%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 616 (21.69%) PowerShell
2 290 (10.21%) Python
3 266 (9.37%) SQL
4 133 (4.68%) C#
5 119 (4.19%) Bash
6 84 (2.96%) Java
7 72 (2.54%) JavaScript
8 62 (2.18%) PL/SQL
9 49 (1.73%) C++
10 44 (1.55%) Perl
11 43 (1.51%) T-SQL
12 30 (1.06%) Kusto Query Language
13 24 (0.85%) VB
14 22 (0.77%) Shell Script
15 18 (0.63%) VBScript
16 17 (0.60%) Search Processing Language
17 14 (0.49%) Go
17 14 (0.49%) VBA
18 12 (0.42%) Bicep
18 12 (0.42%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 865 (30.46%) Security Cleared
2 580 (20.42%) SC Cleared
3 285 (10.04%) Degree
4 253 (8.91%) DV Cleared
5 115 (4.05%) Microsoft Certification
6 87 (3.06%) Computer Science Degree
7 72 (2.54%) Cisco Certification
8 47 (1.65%) MCSE
9 46 (1.62%) Azure Certification
10 43 (1.51%) BPSS Clearance
11 42 (1.48%) CISSP
12 39 (1.37%) ITIL Certification
13 38 (1.34%) CCNA
13 38 (1.34%) CompTIA Security+
14 32 (1.13%) AWS Certification
15 31 (1.09%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 28 (0.99%) A+ Certification
16 28 (0.99%) MCSA
17 24 (0.85%) CCNP
18 20 (0.70%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (3.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 89 (3.13%) QA
3 87 (3.06%) GDPR
4 81 (2.85%) SLA
5 70 (2.46%) NIST
6 41 (1.44%) PCI DSS
7 28 (0.99%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 20 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.56%) NCSC
10 13 (0.46%) 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 8 (0.28%) 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 1,064 (37.46%) Active Directory
2 333 (11.73%) VMware Infrastructure
3 147 (5.18%) Hyper-V
4 91 (3.20%) Docker
5 89 (3.13%) vSphere
6 83 (2.92%) VMware ESXi
7 71 (2.50%) Virtual Machines
8 56 (1.97%) Virtual Desktop
9 38 (1.34%) VMware NSX
10 37 (1.30%) Firmware
11 30 (1.06%) BitLocker
12 25 (0.88%) Microsoft App-V
13 21 (0.74%) 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
1 365 (12.85%) Microsoft Intune
2 294 (10.35%) SCCM
3 186 (6.55%) Ansible
4 163 (5.74%) Terraform
5 134 (4.72%) Kubernetes
6 70 (2.46%) Single Sign-On
7 69 (2.43%) vCenter Server
8 58 (2.04%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 42 (1.48%) Jamf Pro
10 41 (1.44%) WSUS
11 38 (1.34%) Grafana
12 37 (1.30%) FortiGate
13 32 (1.13%) Prometheus
14 26 (0.92%) SCOM
15 22 (0.77%) Nagios
15 22 (0.77%) Nessus
16 21 (0.74%) Progress Chef
17 18 (0.63%) Puppet
18 16 (0.56%) Nmap
19 15 (0.53%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,220 (42.96%) Microsoft
2 437 (15.39%) VMware
3 224 (7.89%) ServiceNow
4 216 (7.61%) Citrix
5 201 (7.08%) Cisco
6 181 (6.37%) Oracle
7 150 (5.28%) Splunk
8 83 (2.92%) HP
9 73 (2.57%) Dell
10 69 (2.43%) Red Hat
11 64 (2.25%) SolarWinds
12 59 (2.08%) Google
13 57 (2.01%) Apple
14 54 (1.90%) IBM
15 53 (1.87%) Remedy
16 46 (1.62%) CyberArk
16 46 (1.62%) F5
17 45 (1.58%) Palo Alto
18 40 (1.41%) Veeam
19 38 (1.34%) Juniper