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 15 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -5 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,816 2,418 3,491
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.90% 8.32% 8.18%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.72% 59.73% 61.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,834 1,672 2,409
10th Percentile £162 £178 £163
25th Percentile £213 £230 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £423 £400
Median % change year-on-year -1.89% +5.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £393 £400
% change year-on-year +1.78% -1.75% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 232 136 271
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.05 £11.80
25th Percentile £17.07 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.52 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.57% +4.56% -20.23%
75th Percentile £60.94 £25.00 £24.59
90th Percentile £74.97 £41.71 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.11 £18.82 £17.50
% change year-on-year +38.71% +7.54% -13.04%

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 4,638 4,048 5,681
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.73% 13.93% 13.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,987 2,661 3,836
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £455 £467 £468
Median % change year-on-year -2.57% -0.11% -7.24%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £658 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £443 £450
% change year-on-year -1.13% -1.67% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 322 177 390
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.24 £12.73
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.44 £15.31
Median hourly rate £47.50 £22.88 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +107.65% +3.98% -43.59%
75th Percentile £67.25 £57.50 £60.56
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £21.95 £22.25
% change year-on-year +116.40% -1.35% -25.83%

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 15 May 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 15 May 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 15 May 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 2,436 £415 - 999
UK excluding London -11 1,882 £400 +1.78% 895
London -26 746 £438 -2.78% 224
Work from Home -15 578 £475 +2.70% 317
South East -5 516 £467 -4.69% 291
North of England -11 451 £338 +4.00% 195
Midlands -16 264 £323 +29.00% 112
North West -3 255 £300 -7.69% 113
South West -14 223 £450 -14.29% 141
East of England -2 213 £350 +40.00% 102
Yorkshire -18 181 £375 +16.28% 69
Scotland +1 161 £425 -2.24% 33
West Midlands -28 153 £447 +67.10% 59
East Midlands +6 106 £225 +9.09% 53
Wales 0 50 £254 -30.41% 38
North East -23 19 £225 -25.00% 16
Northern Ireland -7 15 £175 -12.50% 10
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
1 230 (8.17%) Microsoft Exchange
2 164 (5.82%) SharePoint
3 56 (1.99%) IIS
4 51 (1.81%) Confluence
5 24 (0.85%) Apache
6 19 (0.67%) WebLogic
7 16 (0.57%) Tomcat
8 14 (0.50%) nginx
9 12 (0.43%) Skype for Business
9 12 (0.43%) Tuxedo
10 11 (0.39%) SAS
11 9 (0.32%) NetWeaver
12 8 (0.28%) TPMS
13 7 (0.25%) WebSphere
14 6 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
15 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 4 (0.14%) HCL Notes
15 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
16 2 (0.071%) JBoss
16 2 (0.071%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 184 (6.53%) Microsoft Office
2 65 (2.31%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.32%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.14%) Acrobat
8 2 (0.071%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.036%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 44 (1.56%) Remedy ITSM
2 19 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.39%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.18%) assyst
5 4 (0.14%) Finacle
6 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.071%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.071%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.071%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.036%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle 11i
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.036%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 801 (28.44%) Azure
2 790 (28.05%) Microsoft 365
3 328 (11.65%) Entra ID
4 246 (8.74%) AWS
5 86 (3.05%) OneDrive
6 75 (2.66%) GCP
7 74 (2.63%) Azure DevOps
7 74 (2.63%) SaaS
8 64 (2.27%) IaaS
9 58 (2.06%) GitHub
10 55 (1.95%) PaaS
11 50 (1.78%) Power Platform
12 38 (1.35%) Azure Monitor
13 36 (1.28%) Google Workspace
14 34 (1.21%) Azure Sentinel
14 34 (1.21%) OpenShift
15 28 (0.99%) GitHub Actions
16 20 (0.71%) Nutanix
17 19 (0.67%) AWS CloudFormation
17 19 (0.67%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 388 (13.78%) DNS
2 306 (10.87%) Firewall
3 263 (9.34%) DHCP
4 204 (7.24%) VPN
5 175 (6.21%) TCP/IP
6 173 (6.14%) WAN
7 170 (6.04%) LAN
8 140 (4.97%) Wi-Fi
9 72 (2.56%) Network Security
9 72 (2.56%) SAN
10 60 (2.13%) VLAN
11 45 (1.60%) SD-WAN
12 43 (1.53%) Wireless
13 39 (1.38%) BGP
14 36 (1.28%) Skype
14 36 (1.28%) SNMP
14 36 (1.28%) SSL
15 35 (1.24%) OSPF
15 35 (1.24%) VoIP
16 33 (1.17%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 211 (7.49%) SQL Server
2 49 (1.74%) Oracle Database
3 33 (1.17%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.07%) Power BI
5 29 (1.03%) MySQL
6 27 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
7 19 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
8 16 (0.57%) DB2
9 14 (0.50%) MongoDB
10 13 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
10 13 (0.46%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
12 9 (0.32%) GIS
12 9 (0.32%) SAP HANA
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.28%) Sybase ASE
14 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.25%) BigQuery
14 7 (0.25%) Oracle BI EE
14 7 (0.25%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 177 (6.29%) JIRA
2 52 (1.85%) GitLab
3 50 (1.78%) Jenkins
4 45 (1.60%) MSI
5 42 (1.49%) Git
6 35 (1.24%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.71%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.64%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.39%) Sonatype Nexus
11 10 (0.36%) Artifactory
12 9 (0.32%) Android Studio
12 9 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
12 9 (0.32%) Chocolatey
12 9 (0.32%) Xcode
13 8 (0.28%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.28%) InstallShield
14 7 (0.25%) Robot Framework
14 7 (0.25%) Selenium
15 5 (0.18%) JUnit
General
1 947 (33.63%) Social Skills
2 271 (9.62%) Finance
3 266 (9.45%) Analytical Skills
4 207 (7.35%) Public Sector
5 138 (4.90%) Banking
6 122 (4.33%) Legal
7 98 (3.48%) Documentation Skills
8 73 (2.59%) Organisational Skills
9 59 (2.10%) Military
10 47 (1.67%) Manufacturing
11 44 (1.56%) Retail
12 39 (1.38%) Law
13 38 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 34 (1.21%) Telecoms
15 31 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
16 29 (1.03%) Investment Banking
17 26 (0.92%) Front Office
18 20 (0.71%) Local Government
18 20 (0.71%) Police
19 16 (0.57%) French Language
Job Titles
1 354 (12.57%) IT Support
2 328 (11.65%) Support Engineer
3 315 (11.19%) Analyst
4 235 (8.35%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 213 (7.56%) IT Engineer
6 173 (6.14%) IT Support Engineer
7 169 (6.00%) Senior
8 158 (5.61%) Architect
9 121 (4.30%) Support Analyst
10 119 (4.23%) Desktop Support
11 100 (3.55%) Desktop Engineer
12 98 (3.48%) Lead
13 92 (3.27%) 2nd Line Support
13 92 (3.27%) IT Analyst
14 91 (3.23%) Developer
15 87 (3.09%) Technical Support
15 87 (3.09%) Windows Engineer
16 72 (2.56%) 1st Line Support
17 71 (2.52%) Consultant
17 71 (2.52%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (3.16%) .NET
2 87 (3.09%) REST
3 48 (1.70%) .NET Framework
4 45 (1.60%) LDAP
5 40 (1.42%) SAML
6 33 (1.17%) Kafka
7 32 (1.14%) Middleware
8 28 (0.99%) Microsoft Graph
8 28 (0.99%) OAuth
9 27 (0.96%) 802.1X
10 26 (0.92%) Web Services
11 25 (0.89%) WinForms
12 23 (0.82%) WPF
13 20 (0.71%) Elastic Stack
13 20 (0.71%) Node.js
13 20 (0.71%) React
14 19 (0.67%) CSS
14 19 (0.67%) OpenID
14 19 (0.67%) Software Packaging
15 18 (0.64%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 230 (8.17%) Onboarding
2 139 (4.94%) Data Centre
3 110 (3.91%) PKI
4 87 (3.09%) Enterprise Software
5 79 (2.81%) Clustering
6 67 (2.38%) Driving Licence
7 63 (2.24%) Self-Motivation
8 57 (2.02%) Replication
9 49 (1.74%) Management Information System
10 48 (1.70%) Hybrid Cloud
10 48 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
11 44 (1.56%) Security Posture
11 44 (1.56%) Smartphone
11 44 (1.56%) Virtual Team
12 39 (1.38%) Cloud Native
13 32 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
13 32 (1.14%) Security Operations Centre
14 31 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
14 31 (1.10%) Operational Technology
15 30 (1.07%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 713 (25.32%) Linux
2 657 (23.33%) Windows Server
3 484 (17.19%) Windows 10
4 183 (6.50%) Mac OS
5 154 (5.47%) Unix
6 140 (4.97%) Android
7 134 (4.76%) Apple iOS
8 92 (3.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 72 (2.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 71 (2.52%) Windows Server 2016
11 50 (1.78%) Windows 7
12 34 (1.21%) AIX
13 32 (1.14%) Windows Server 2012
14 22 (0.78%) Ubuntu
15 20 (0.71%) Solaris
15 20 (0.71%) VMS
16 19 (0.67%) Windows Server 2003
17 14 (0.50%) Windows Server 2008
18 9 (0.32%) CentOS
18 9 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 592 (21.02%) Problem-Solving
2 430 (15.27%) Customer Service
3 416 (14.77%) ITIL
4 316 (11.22%) Migration
5 309 (10.97%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 281 (9.98%) Agile
7 256 (9.09%) ITSM
8 251 (8.91%) DevOps
9 239 (8.49%) CI/CD
10 186 (6.61%) Disaster Recovery
11 180 (6.39%) Cybersecurity
12 176 (6.25%) Service Management
13 175 (6.21%) Change Management
13 175 (6.21%) Continuous Improvement
14 172 (6.11%) High Availability
15 150 (5.33%) SIEM
16 133 (4.72%) Infrastructure as Code
16 133 (4.72%) Stakeholder Management
17 127 (4.51%) Computer Science
18 125 (4.44%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 591 (20.99%) PowerShell
2 293 (10.40%) Python
3 277 (9.84%) SQL
4 126 (4.47%) C#
5 105 (3.73%) Bash
6 76 (2.70%) Java
7 72 (2.56%) JavaScript
8 59 (2.10%) PL/SQL
9 49 (1.74%) C++
10 46 (1.63%) T-SQL
11 30 (1.07%) Perl
12 26 (0.92%) Kusto Query Language
13 24 (0.85%) Shell Script
13 24 (0.85%) VB
14 23 (0.82%) Search Processing Language
15 16 (0.57%) VBScript
16 15 (0.53%) Go
17 14 (0.50%) VBA
18 12 (0.43%) Bicep
18 12 (0.43%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 852 (30.26%) Security Cleared
2 549 (19.50%) SC Cleared
3 283 (10.05%) Degree
4 270 (9.59%) DV Cleared
5 100 (3.55%) Microsoft Certification
6 91 (3.23%) Computer Science Degree
7 85 (3.02%) Cisco Certification
8 50 (1.78%) CISSP
9 47 (1.67%) Azure Certification
10 45 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
11 41 (1.46%) MCSE
12 37 (1.31%) CCNA
13 35 (1.24%) AWS Certification
13 35 (1.24%) CompTIA Security+
14 31 (1.10%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 30 (1.07%) ITIL Certification
16 28 (0.99%) A+ Certification
17 25 (0.89%) MCSA
18 24 (0.85%) CCNP
19 19 (0.67%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (4.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 93 (3.30%) SLA
3 91 (3.23%) QA
4 86 (3.05%) GDPR
5 76 (2.70%) NIST
6 42 (1.49%) PCI DSS
7 30 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 28 (0.99%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.57%) NCSC
10 15 (0.53%) PMO
11 12 (0.43%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.43%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.39%) Disclosure Scotland
12 11 (0.39%) MiFID
13 10 (0.36%) FINRA
14 8 (0.28%) GLBA
14 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
15 7 (0.25%) DICOM
16 6 (0.21%) HIPAA
16 6 (0.21%) HL7
System Software
1 1,039 (36.90%) Active Directory
2 334 (11.86%) VMware Infrastructure
3 151 (5.36%) Hyper-V
4 94 (3.34%) Docker
5 90 (3.20%) VMware ESXi
5 90 (3.20%) vSphere
6 78 (2.77%) Virtual Machines
7 56 (1.99%) Virtual Desktop
8 43 (1.53%) VMware NSX
9 36 (1.28%) Firmware
10 29 (1.03%) BitLocker
11 27 (0.96%) Microsoft App-V
12 21 (0.75%) KVM
13 11 (0.39%) XenDesktop
14 10 (0.36%) Oracle RAC
14 10 (0.36%) XenApp
15 6 (0.21%) etcd
15 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
16 5 (0.18%) NFS
16 5 (0.18%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 349 (12.39%) Microsoft Intune
2 264 (9.38%) SCCM
3 189 (6.71%) Ansible
4 160 (5.68%) Terraform
5 139 (4.94%) Kubernetes
6 74 (2.63%) vCenter Server
7 58 (2.06%) Single Sign-On
8 48 (1.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 42 (1.49%) Jamf Pro
9 42 (1.49%) WSUS
10 39 (1.38%) FortiGate
10 39 (1.38%) Grafana
11 31 (1.10%) Prometheus
12 30 (1.07%) SCOM
13 28 (0.99%) Nagios
14 23 (0.82%) Nessus
15 21 (0.75%) Progress Chef
16 20 (0.71%) ZABBIX
17 19 (0.67%) Puppet
17 19 (0.67%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 1,191 (42.29%) Microsoft
2 441 (15.66%) VMware
3 239 (8.49%) ServiceNow
4 201 (7.14%) Cisco
5 199 (7.07%) Citrix
6 177 (6.29%) Oracle
7 160 (5.68%) Splunk
8 83 (2.95%) HP
9 73 (2.59%) SolarWinds
10 70 (2.49%) Dell
11 60 (2.13%) Apple
12 58 (2.06%) Red Hat
13 57 (2.02%) Remedy
14 54 (1.92%) IBM
15 53 (1.88%) F5
15 53 (1.88%) Palo Alto
16 46 (1.63%) Google
17 45 (1.60%) CyberArk
18 40 (1.42%) Juniper
19 39 (1.38%) BeyondTrust