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 9 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -5 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,916 2,441 3,514
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.87% 8.34% 8.12%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.88% 60.20% 60.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,878 1,667 2,409
10th Percentile £163 £181 £163
25th Percentile £220 £241 £215
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £410
Median % change year-on-year - +3.66% -8.89%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £673 £667
UK excluding London median daily rate £415 £400 £420
% change year-on-year +3.75% -4.76% +10.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 252 162 275
10th Percentile £15.94 £15.09 £11.88
25th Percentile £18.19 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.46% +4.83% -24.78%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £24.59
90th Percentile £70.55 £58.60 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.82 £17.69
% change year-on-year +36.82% +6.39% -19.59%

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 4,790 4,055 5,829
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.64% 13.85% 13.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,048 2,654 3,891
10th Percentile £188 £200 £185
25th Percentile £316 £313 £309
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £465 £470
Median % change year-on-year -1.08% -1.06% -6.00%
75th Percentile £575 £586 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 346 192 407
10th Percentile £14.75 £15.13 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.33 £15.50
Median hourly rate £32.50 £22.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +47.73% -2.22% -48.57%
75th Percentile £65.00 £41.25 £62.25
90th Percentile £71.75 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £18.87 £24.18
% change year-on-year +72.23% -21.96% -38.08%

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 9 June 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 9 June 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 9 June 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 2,535 £425 - 924
UK excluding London -13 1,949 £415 +3.75% 866
London -20 797 £434 -3.61% 196
Work from Home -14 599 £475 +2.26% 398
South East -7 525 £475 -3.06% 293
North of England -7 470 £365 +4.29% 187
Midlands -16 276 £325 +16.07% 103
North West -2 251 £354 -3.49% 105
South West -14 231 £475 +2.70% 141
East of England -2 218 £350 -13.31% 79
Yorkshire -18 200 £365 -8.75% 63
Scotland 0 178 £425 -1.62% 37
West Midlands -26 165 £450 +50.00% 63
East Midlands +5 106 £225 +5.88% 40
Wales +2 49 £360 +20.00% 27
North East -28 23 £290 +0.87% 22
Northern Ireland -2 15 £139 -30.75% 19
Channel Islands -2 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 (8.13%) Microsoft Exchange
2 183 (6.28%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.06%) IIS
4 52 (1.78%) Confluence
5 23 (0.79%) Apache
6 19 (0.65%) Tomcat
7 18 (0.62%) nginx
8 14 (0.48%) Skype for Business
9 11 (0.38%) WebLogic
10 9 (0.31%) NetWeaver
10 9 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
11 8 (0.27%) HCL Notes
12 7 (0.24%) SAS
13 6 (0.21%) TPMS
14 5 (0.17%) Appian
14 5 (0.17%) WebSphere
15 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 4 (0.14%) Tuxedo
16 3 (0.10%) Camunda
17 2 (0.069%) Apache Pulsar
Applications
1 180 (6.17%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 23 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.27%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.14%) Acrobat
8 2 (0.069%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.034%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 45 (1.54%) Remedy ITSM
2 19 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.41%) Teamcenter
4 6 (0.21%) Finacle
5 3 (0.10%) assyst
5 3 (0.10%) OpenText MBPM
5 3 (0.10%) Oracle BPM
5 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.034%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.034%) Dynamics GP
7 1 (0.034%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.034%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 870 (29.84%) Azure
2 821 (28.16%) Microsoft 365
3 364 (12.48%) Entra ID
4 276 (9.47%) AWS
5 105 (3.60%) OneDrive
6 96 (3.29%) GCP
7 75 (2.57%) SaaS
8 74 (2.54%) Azure DevOps
9 67 (2.30%) IaaS
10 66 (2.26%) GitHub
11 57 (1.95%) Power Platform
12 56 (1.92%) PaaS
13 41 (1.41%) OpenShift
14 38 (1.30%) Azure Monitor
15 36 (1.23%) Google Workspace
16 35 (1.20%) Azure Sentinel
17 31 (1.06%) GitHub Actions
18 23 (0.79%) Nutanix
19 20 (0.69%) AWS CloudFormation
19 20 (0.69%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 409 (14.03%) DNS
2 306 (10.49%) Firewall
3 278 (9.53%) DHCP
4 215 (7.37%) VPN
5 184 (6.31%) TCP/IP
6 174 (5.97%) WAN
7 173 (5.93%) LAN
8 143 (4.90%) Wi-Fi
9 86 (2.95%) SAN
10 68 (2.33%) Network Security
11 60 (2.06%) VLAN
12 46 (1.58%) SD-WAN
13 40 (1.37%) NAS
13 40 (1.37%) SSL
14 39 (1.34%) BGP
14 39 (1.34%) VoIP
15 38 (1.30%) Wireless
16 37 (1.27%) Internet
17 36 (1.23%) SNMP
18 34 (1.17%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 235 (8.06%) SQL Server
2 53 (1.82%) Oracle Database
3 35 (1.20%) Power BI
4 33 (1.13%) Relational Database
5 29 (0.99%) MySQL
6 27 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
7 21 (0.72%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.51%) Db2
8 15 (0.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 14 (0.48%) Data Warehouse
9 14 (0.48%) MongoDB
10 13 (0.45%) NoSQL
11 11 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
12 10 (0.34%) GIS
13 9 (0.31%) RDBMS
13 9 (0.31%) SAP HANA
14 8 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
14 8 (0.27%) Oracle BI EE
14 8 (0.27%) Oracle Reports
14 8 (0.27%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 181 (6.21%) JIRA
2 55 (1.89%) Jenkins
3 48 (1.65%) Git
4 45 (1.54%) GitLab
5 36 (1.23%) MSI
5 36 (1.23%) Visual Studio
6 19 (0.65%) Eclipse
7 11 (0.38%) Burp Suite
8 10 (0.34%) Metasploit
8 10 (0.34%) Sonatype Nexus
9 9 (0.31%) Artifactory
9 9 (0.31%) Chocolatey
10 8 (0.27%) Android Studio
10 8 (0.27%) Browser DevTools
10 8 (0.27%) Xcode
11 7 (0.24%) Bitbucket
11 7 (0.24%) Selenium
12 6 (0.21%) InstallShield
12 6 (0.21%) Robot Framework
13 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
General
1 990 (33.95%) Social Skills
2 302 (10.36%) Finance
3 298 (10.22%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (7.03%) Public Sector
5 153 (5.25%) Banking
6 117 (4.01%) Legal
7 101 (3.46%) Documentation Skills
8 75 (2.57%) Organisational Skills
9 52 (1.78%) Military
10 50 (1.71%) Retail
11 49 (1.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 45 (1.54%) Manufacturing
13 39 (1.34%) Law
14 38 (1.30%) Investment Banking
15 32 (1.10%) Front Office
16 31 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
17 26 (0.89%) Telecoms
18 22 (0.75%) Local Government
18 22 (0.75%) Spanish Language
19 21 (0.72%) French Language
Job Titles
1 363 (12.45%) Support Engineer
2 362 (12.41%) IT Support
3 307 (10.53%) Analyst
4 269 (9.22%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 234 (8.02%) IT Engineer
6 193 (6.62%) IT Support Engineer
7 182 (6.24%) Senior
8 156 (5.35%) Architect
9 122 (4.18%) Desktop Support
10 114 (3.91%) Support Analyst
11 109 (3.74%) Desktop Engineer
12 106 (3.64%) Lead
13 95 (3.26%) 2nd Line Support
14 94 (3.22%) IT Analyst
15 93 (3.19%) Windows Engineer
16 88 (3.02%) Developer
17 84 (2.88%) Technical Support
18 80 (2.74%) Consultant
19 71 (2.43%) 1st Line Support
19 71 (2.43%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (3.19%) REST
2 90 (3.09%) .NET
3 49 (1.68%) .NET Framework
4 44 (1.51%) LDAP
5 36 (1.23%) SAML
6 34 (1.17%) Microsoft Graph
7 30 (1.03%) Kafka
8 29 (0.99%) Middleware
9 28 (0.96%) 802.1X
10 27 (0.93%) WinForms
11 26 (0.89%) Software Packaging
12 25 (0.86%) Web Services
13 24 (0.82%) OAuth
14 21 (0.72%) WPF
15 20 (0.69%) Elastic Stack
16 17 (0.58%) AngularJS
16 17 (0.58%) CSS
16 17 (0.58%) Node.js
17 16 (0.55%) RabbitMQ
17 16 (0.55%) React
Miscellaneous
1 263 (9.02%) Onboarding
2 155 (5.32%) Data Centre
3 129 (4.42%) PKI
4 84 (2.88%) Enterprise Software
5 77 (2.64%) Clustering
6 63 (2.16%) Management Information System
6 63 (2.16%) Self-Motivation
7 61 (2.09%) Driving Licence
8 60 (2.06%) Replication
9 53 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
9 53 (1.82%) Security Posture
10 52 (1.78%) Hybrid Cloud
11 51 (1.75%) Virtual Team
12 49 (1.68%) Cloud Native
13 44 (1.51%) Smartphone
14 38 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
15 34 (1.17%) CMDB
15 34 (1.17%) Enterprise Storage
15 34 (1.17%) Operational Technology
16 33 (1.13%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 733 (25.14%) Linux
2 708 (24.28%) Windows Server
3 491 (16.84%) Windows 10
4 184 (6.31%) Mac OS
5 154 (5.28%) Unix
6 142 (4.87%) Apple iOS
7 136 (4.66%) Android
8 108 (3.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 80 (2.74%) Windows Server 2019
10 66 (2.26%) Windows Server 2016
11 54 (1.85%) Windows 7
12 39 (1.34%) Windows Server 2012
13 33 (1.13%) AIX
14 27 (0.93%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.82%) Solaris
16 22 (0.75%) VMS
17 19 (0.65%) Windows Server 2003
18 17 (0.58%) Windows Server 2008
19 12 (0.41%) CentOS
20 8 (0.27%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 632 (21.67%) Problem-Solving
2 437 (14.99%) ITIL
3 423 (14.51%) Customer Service
4 344 (11.80%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 336 (11.52%) Migration
6 290 (9.95%) ITSM
7 283 (9.71%) Agile
8 272 (9.33%) DevOps
9 244 (8.37%) CI/CD
10 199 (6.82%) Continuous Improvement
11 197 (6.76%) High Availability
11 197 (6.76%) Service Management
12 194 (6.65%) Change Management
13 183 (6.28%) Disaster Recovery
14 176 (6.04%) Cybersecurity
15 155 (5.32%) SIEM
15 155 (5.32%) Stakeholder Management
16 147 (5.04%) Infrastructure as Code
17 141 (4.84%) Service Delivery
18 133 (4.56%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 639 (21.91%) PowerShell
2 304 (10.43%) Python
3 274 (9.40%) SQL
4 124 (4.25%) C#
5 118 (4.05%) Bash
6 79 (2.71%) Java
7 68 (2.33%) JavaScript
8 53 (1.82%) PL/SQL
9 48 (1.65%) C++
10 44 (1.51%) T-SQL
11 30 (1.03%) Perl
12 26 (0.89%) Kusto Query Language
12 26 (0.89%) Shell Script
13 25 (0.86%) VB
14 23 (0.79%) Search Processing Language
15 19 (0.65%) VBScript
16 16 (0.55%) Bicep
17 14 (0.48%) VBA
18 13 (0.45%) C
19 9 (0.31%) Go
Qualifications
1 850 (29.15%) Security Cleared
2 551 (18.90%) SC Cleared
3 310 (10.63%) Degree
4 266 (9.12%) DV Cleared
5 111 (3.81%) Microsoft Certification
6 93 (3.19%) Cisco Certification
7 91 (3.12%) Computer Science Degree
8 65 (2.23%) CISSP
9 55 (1.89%) Azure Certification
10 49 (1.68%) MCSE
11 46 (1.58%) BPSS Clearance
12 39 (1.34%) AWS Certification
12 39 (1.34%) CCNA
13 37 (1.27%) CompTIA Security+
14 34 (1.17%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 31 (1.06%) CCNP
16 30 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
16 30 (1.03%) MCSA
17 26 (0.89%) A+ Certification
17 26 (0.89%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 125 (4.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 112 (3.84%) SLA
3 90 (3.09%) NIST
4 85 (2.91%) QA
5 76 (2.61%) GDPR
6 35 (1.20%) PCI DSS
7 31 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 27 (0.93%) Cyber Essentials
9 15 (0.51%) NCSC
10 13 (0.45%) PMO
11 12 (0.41%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.41%) Disclosure Scotland
11 12 (0.41%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.38%) MiFID
12 11 (0.38%) SOC 2
13 10 (0.34%) FINRA
13 10 (0.34%) HIPAA
14 8 (0.27%) GRC
15 6 (0.21%) GLBA
15 6 (0.21%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 1,082 (37.11%) Active Directory
2 378 (12.96%) VMware Infrastructure
3 161 (5.52%) Hyper-V
4 111 (3.81%) VMware ESXi
5 106 (3.64%) vSphere
6 94 (3.22%) Docker
6 94 (3.22%) Virtual Machines
7 61 (2.09%) Virtual Desktop
8 54 (1.85%) VMware NSX
9 39 (1.34%) Firmware
10 38 (1.30%) BitLocker
11 28 (0.96%) Microsoft App-V
12 21 (0.72%) KVM
13 11 (0.38%) Oracle RAC
13 11 (0.38%) XenDesktop
14 10 (0.34%) vCloud
14 10 (0.34%) XenApp
15 8 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
16 6 (0.21%) etcd
16 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 387 (13.27%) Microsoft Intune
2 257 (8.81%) SCCM
3 199 (6.82%) Ansible
4 167 (5.73%) Terraform
5 146 (5.01%) Kubernetes
6 87 (2.98%) vCenter Server
7 55 (1.89%) Single Sign-On
8 49 (1.68%) Jamf Pro
9 41 (1.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 40 (1.37%) FortiGate
10 40 (1.37%) SCOM
10 40 (1.37%) WSUS
11 38 (1.30%) Grafana
12 33 (1.13%) Prometheus
13 29 (0.99%) Progress Chef
14 24 (0.82%) Nagios
15 22 (0.75%) Puppet
16 20 (0.69%) Nessus
16 20 (0.69%) vMotion
16 20 (0.69%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,247 (42.76%) Microsoft
2 487 (16.70%) VMware
3 258 (8.85%) ServiceNow
4 219 (7.51%) Cisco
5 199 (6.82%) Citrix
6 186 (6.38%) Oracle
7 158 (5.42%) Splunk
8 82 (2.81%) HP
9 73 (2.50%) Dell
10 72 (2.47%) Red Hat
10 72 (2.47%) SolarWinds
11 65 (2.23%) Google
12 62 (2.13%) Apple
13 60 (2.06%) F5
14 57 (1.95%) Remedy
15 55 (1.89%) Palo Alto
16 54 (1.85%) CyberArk
17 52 (1.78%) IBM
18 47 (1.61%) Juniper
19 46 (1.58%) BeyondTrust