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

6 months to
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,904 2,414 3,491
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.93% 8.37% 8.14%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.96% 60.38% 60.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,871 1,659 2,399
10th Percentile £163 £181 £163
25th Percentile £218 £240 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year - +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £673 £673
UK excluding London median daily rate £405 £400 £413
% change year-on-year +1.25% -3.03% +6.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 254 154 273
10th Percentile £15.66 £14.47 £11.84
25th Percentile £17.94 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.21 £18.87 £18.13
Median % change year-on-year +33.57% +4.08% -22.85%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £25.00
90th Percentile £70.48 £57.80 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.82 £17.69
% change year-on-year +36.82% +6.39% -16.97%

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 4,764 3,998 5,766
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.73% 13.87% 13.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,033 2,628 3,876
10th Percentile £188 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £465 £470
Median % change year-on-year -1.29% -1.06% -6.00%
75th Percentile £570 £585 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -3.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 348 187 400
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.12 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.33 £15.50
Median hourly rate £32.50 £22.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +47.73% -2.22% -47.06%
75th Percentile £65.00 £49.63 £61.60
90th Percentile £71.65 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £18.94 £22.79
% change year-on-year +71.64% -16.92% -40.81%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 2,521 £424 +0.65% 1,089
UK excluding London -12 1,947 £405 +1.25% 946
London -22 784 £434 -1.42% 278
Work from Home -13 596 £475 +2.70% 414
South East -7 519 £475 -1.86% 321
North of England -10 475 £365 +4.29% 193
Midlands -15 272 £325 +16.07% 120
North West +2 262 £344 -1.71% 110
South West -14 229 £475 -1.04% 158
East of England 0 222 £348 -9.15% 90
Yorkshire -20 195 £365 -8.75% 63
Scotland -1 178 £425 -2.24% 34
West Midlands -26 160 £450 +50.00% 68
East Midlands +8 107 £225 +5.88% 52
Wales -1 50 £345 +15.00% 29
North East -31 22 £326 +8.75% 23
Northern Ireland 0 15 £139 -30.75% 25
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
1 235 (8.09%) Microsoft Exchange
2 185 (6.37%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.10%) IIS
4 52 (1.79%) Confluence
5 23 (0.79%) Apache
6 19 (0.65%) Tomcat
7 18 (0.62%) nginx
8 14 (0.48%) Skype for Business
8 14 (0.48%) WebLogic
9 9 (0.31%) NetWeaver
9 9 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
10 8 (0.28%) HCL Notes
10 8 (0.28%) SAS
11 7 (0.24%) Tuxedo
12 6 (0.21%) TPMS
13 5 (0.17%) Appian
13 5 (0.17%) WebSphere
14 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.10%) Camunda
16 2 (0.069%) Apache Pulsar
Applications
1 182 (6.27%) Microsoft Office
2 63 (2.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 23 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.28%) 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 47 (1.62%) Remedy ITSM
2 19 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.41%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.17%) Finacle
5 4 (0.14%) assyst
6 3 (0.10%) OpenText MBPM
6 3 (0.10%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.069%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.034%) Dynamics GP
8 1 (0.034%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.034%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 865 (29.79%) Azure
2 821 (28.27%) Microsoft 365
3 362 (12.47%) Entra ID
4 271 (9.33%) AWS
5 103 (3.55%) OneDrive
6 93 (3.20%) GCP
7 76 (2.62%) SaaS
8 74 (2.55%) Azure DevOps
9 65 (2.24%) GitHub
10 64 (2.20%) IaaS
11 58 (2.00%) Power Platform
12 55 (1.89%) PaaS
13 39 (1.34%) Azure Monitor
13 39 (1.34%) OpenShift
14 37 (1.27%) Azure Sentinel
15 34 (1.17%) Google Workspace
16 30 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
17 20 (0.69%) AWS CloudFormation
17 20 (0.69%) Nutanix
18 19 (0.65%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 402 (13.84%) DNS
2 304 (10.47%) Firewall
3 275 (9.47%) DHCP
4 215 (7.40%) VPN
5 179 (6.16%) TCP/IP
6 175 (6.03%) WAN
7 174 (5.99%) LAN
8 143 (4.92%) Wi-Fi
9 85 (2.93%) SAN
10 73 (2.51%) Network Security
11 58 (2.00%) VLAN
12 46 (1.58%) SD-WAN
13 41 (1.41%) Wireless
14 39 (1.34%) BGP
14 39 (1.34%) NAS
14 39 (1.34%) VoIP
15 37 (1.27%) SSL
16 36 (1.24%) Internet
16 36 (1.24%) Skype
17 35 (1.21%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 232 (7.99%) SQL Server
2 52 (1.79%) Oracle Database
3 35 (1.21%) Power BI
4 33 (1.14%) Relational Database
5 30 (1.03%) MySQL
6 28 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
7 19 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.52%) DB2
8 15 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 14 (0.48%) Data Warehouse
10 13 (0.45%) MongoDB
10 13 (0.45%) NoSQL
11 10 (0.34%) GIS
12 9 (0.31%) SAP HANA
13 8 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle BI EE
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.28%) RDBMS
13 8 (0.28%) Sybase ASE
14 7 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 183 (6.30%) JIRA
2 55 (1.89%) Jenkins
3 48 (1.65%) Git
4 46 (1.58%) GitLab
5 38 (1.31%) MSI
6 36 (1.24%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.65%) Eclipse
8 11 (0.38%) Burp Suite
9 10 (0.34%) Metasploit
9 10 (0.34%) Sonatype Nexus
10 9 (0.31%) Artifactory
10 9 (0.31%) Chocolatey
11 8 (0.28%) Android Studio
11 8 (0.28%) Browser DevTools
11 8 (0.28%) Xcode
12 7 (0.24%) Bitbucket
12 7 (0.24%) Selenium
13 6 (0.21%) InstallShield
13 6 (0.21%) Robot Framework
14 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
General
1 993 (34.19%) Social Skills
2 298 (10.26%) Finance
3 293 (10.09%) Analytical Skills
4 204 (7.02%) Public Sector
5 151 (5.20%) Banking
6 117 (4.03%) Legal
7 96 (3.31%) Documentation Skills
8 79 (2.72%) Organisational Skills
9 52 (1.79%) Military
10 48 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 48 (1.65%) Retail
11 45 (1.55%) Manufacturing
12 39 (1.34%) Law
13 35 (1.21%) Investment Banking
14 30 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
15 28 (0.96%) Front Office
16 27 (0.93%) Telecoms
17 21 (0.72%) Local Government
18 20 (0.69%) French Language
18 20 (0.69%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 367 (12.64%) IT Support
2 360 (12.40%) Support Engineer
3 306 (10.54%) Analyst
4 257 (8.85%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 232 (7.99%) IT Engineer
6 192 (6.61%) IT Support Engineer
7 178 (6.13%) Senior
8 158 (5.44%) Architect
9 126 (4.34%) Desktop Support
10 120 (4.13%) Support Analyst
11 111 (3.82%) Desktop Engineer
12 106 (3.65%) Lead
13 98 (3.37%) 2nd Line Support
14 94 (3.24%) IT Analyst
15 88 (3.03%) Developer
15 88 (3.03%) Windows Engineer
16 86 (2.96%) Technical Support
17 79 (2.72%) Consultant
18 74 (2.55%) 1st Line Support
19 73 (2.51%) Desktop Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (3.20%) REST
2 91 (3.13%) .NET
3 49 (1.69%) .NET Framework
4 44 (1.52%) LDAP
5 36 (1.24%) SAML
6 34 (1.17%) Microsoft Graph
7 30 (1.03%) Kafka
8 29 (1.00%) Middleware
9 28 (0.96%) 802.1X
10 27 (0.93%) WinForms
11 26 (0.90%) Software Packaging
12 25 (0.86%) Web Services
13 24 (0.83%) OAuth
14 21 (0.72%) WPF
15 20 (0.69%) Elastic Stack
16 17 (0.59%) AngularJS
16 17 (0.59%) CSS
16 17 (0.59%) Node.js
17 16 (0.55%) React
18 15 (0.52%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 257 (8.85%) Onboarding
2 151 (5.20%) Data Centre
3 122 (4.20%) PKI
4 87 (3.00%) Enterprise Software
5 82 (2.82%) Clustering
6 65 (2.24%) Self-Motivation
7 63 (2.17%) Driving Licence
8 60 (2.07%) Management Information System
9 59 (2.03%) Replication
10 52 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
10 52 (1.79%) Security Posture
11 50 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
11 50 (1.72%) Virtual Team
12 49 (1.69%) Cloud Native
13 44 (1.52%) Smartphone
14 38 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
15 35 (1.21%) CMDB
15 35 (1.21%) Enterprise Storage
16 34 (1.17%) Operational Technology
16 34 (1.17%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 728 (25.07%) Linux
2 694 (23.90%) Windows Server
3 501 (17.25%) Windows 10
4 187 (6.44%) Mac OS
5 155 (5.34%) Unix
6 143 (4.92%) Apple iOS
7 138 (4.75%) Android
8 111 (3.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 79 (2.72%) Windows Server 2019
10 68 (2.34%) Windows Server 2016
11 54 (1.86%) Windows 7
12 38 (1.31%) Windows Server 2012
13 33 (1.14%) AIX
14 26 (0.90%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.83%) Solaris
16 22 (0.76%) VMS
17 19 (0.65%) Windows Server 2003
18 18 (0.62%) Windows Server 2008
19 12 (0.41%) CentOS
20 8 (0.28%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 619 (21.32%) Problem-Solving
2 433 (14.91%) ITIL
3 430 (14.81%) Customer Service
4 332 (11.43%) Migration
5 331 (11.40%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 282 (9.71%) ITSM
7 280 (9.64%) Agile
8 269 (9.26%) DevOps
9 244 (8.40%) CI/CD
10 197 (6.78%) Continuous Improvement
11 195 (6.71%) Change Management
12 193 (6.65%) High Availability
12 193 (6.65%) Service Management
13 186 (6.40%) Disaster Recovery
14 172 (5.92%) Cybersecurity
15 157 (5.41%) SIEM
16 150 (5.17%) Stakeholder Management
17 146 (5.03%) Infrastructure as Code
18 138 (4.75%) Service Delivery
19 133 (4.58%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 632 (21.76%) PowerShell
2 301 (10.37%) Python
3 275 (9.47%) SQL
4 123 (4.24%) C#
5 118 (4.06%) Bash
6 79 (2.72%) Java
7 69 (2.38%) JavaScript
8 54 (1.86%) PL/SQL
9 48 (1.65%) C++
10 45 (1.55%) T-SQL
11 31 (1.07%) Perl
12 26 (0.90%) Kusto Query Language
13 25 (0.86%) VB
14 24 (0.83%) Shell Script
15 23 (0.79%) Search Processing Language
16 19 (0.65%) VBScript
17 17 (0.59%) Bicep
18 14 (0.48%) VBA
19 13 (0.45%) C
20 10 (0.34%) Go
Qualifications
1 843 (29.03%) Security Cleared
2 544 (18.73%) SC Cleared
3 307 (10.57%) Degree
4 265 (9.13%) DV Cleared
5 107 (3.68%) Microsoft Certification
6 93 (3.20%) Cisco Certification
6 93 (3.20%) Computer Science Degree
7 65 (2.24%) CISSP
8 53 (1.83%) Azure Certification
9 48 (1.65%) MCSE
10 45 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
11 39 (1.34%) CCNA
12 38 (1.31%) AWS Certification
13 37 (1.27%) CompTIA Security+
14 33 (1.14%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 31 (1.07%) CCNP
16 30 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
17 29 (1.00%) MCSA
18 26 (0.90%) A+ Certification
18 26 (0.90%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 119 (4.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 111 (3.82%) SLA
3 86 (2.96%) NIST
4 84 (2.89%) QA
5 76 (2.62%) GDPR
6 35 (1.21%) PCI DSS
7 31 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 26 (0.90%) Cyber Essentials
9 15 (0.52%) 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 (0.28%) GRC
15 6 (0.21%) GLBA
15 6 (0.21%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 1,081 (37.22%) Active Directory
2 368 (12.67%) VMware Infrastructure
3 162 (5.58%) Hyper-V
4 103 (3.55%) VMware ESXi
5 101 (3.48%) vSphere
6 91 (3.13%) Virtual Machines
7 90 (3.10%) Docker
8 60 (2.07%) Virtual Desktop
9 52 (1.79%) VMware NSX
10 39 (1.34%) Firmware
11 36 (1.24%) BitLocker
12 26 (0.90%) Microsoft App-V
13 21 (0.72%) KVM
14 12 (0.41%) Oracle RAC
15 11 (0.38%) XenDesktop
16 10 (0.34%) XenApp
17 9 (0.31%) vCloud
18 8 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
19 6 (0.21%) etcd
19 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 385 (13.26%) Microsoft Intune
2 255 (8.78%) SCCM
3 199 (6.85%) Ansible
4 172 (5.92%) Terraform
5 138 (4.75%) Kubernetes
6 81 (2.79%) vCenter Server
7 53 (1.83%) Single Sign-On
8 48 (1.65%) Jamf Pro
9 42 (1.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 40 (1.38%) FortiGate
11 39 (1.34%) Grafana
11 39 (1.34%) SCOM
12 37 (1.27%) WSUS
13 33 (1.14%) Prometheus
14 29 (1.00%) Progress Chef
15 27 (0.93%) Nagios
16 20 (0.69%) Nessus
16 20 (0.69%) Puppet
16 20 (0.69%) Tivoli
16 20 (0.69%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,245 (42.87%) Microsoft
2 471 (16.22%) VMware
3 258 (8.88%) ServiceNow
4 220 (7.58%) Cisco
5 192 (6.61%) Citrix
6 179 (6.16%) Oracle
7 159 (5.48%) Splunk
8 81 (2.79%) HP
9 75 (2.58%) SolarWinds
10 74 (2.55%) Dell
11 71 (2.44%) Red Hat
12 64 (2.20%) Apple
13 60 (2.07%) Google
14 59 (2.03%) F5
14 59 (2.03%) Remedy
15 54 (1.86%) Palo Alto
16 52 (1.79%) IBM
17 51 (1.76%) CyberArk
18 46 (1.58%) Juniper
19 42 (1.45%) BeyondTrust