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 11 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 3,117 2,606 3,266
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.84% 7.91% 8.39%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.40% 59.67% 59.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,985 1,715 2,202
10th Percentile £165 £171 £175
25th Percentile £225 £225 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £415 £447
Median % change year-on-year +2.41% -7.21% +1.65%
75th Percentile £556 £563 £575
90th Percentile £650 £660 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £420 £400 £450
% change year-on-year +5.00% -11.11% +20.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 284 211 233
10th Percentile £15.77 £15.33 £11.22
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.44 £15.65
Median hourly rate £25.51 £19.36 £21.80
Median % change year-on-year +31.74% -11.19% -3.11%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £53.00
90th Percentile £71.83 £65.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £21.00
% change year-on-year +36.46% -10.14% -1.45%

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 5,161 4,367 5,453
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.66% 13.26% 14.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,265 2,793 3,610
10th Percentile £193 £200 £200
25th Percentile £320 £313 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £460 £475
Median % change year-on-year +3.26% -3.16% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £663 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £450 £473
% change year-on-year +2.00% -4.91% +5.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 358 259 334
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.50 £12.44
25th Percentile £17.60 £18.13 £17.69
Median hourly rate £25.92 £24.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.00% -12.73% -31.80%
75th Percentile £65.00 £56.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.15 £67.20 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.66 £22.56 £45.00
% change year-on-year +18.17% -49.87% +63.64%

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 11 August 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 11 August 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 11 August 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 2,727 £425 +3.66% 1,185
UK excluding London -13 2,034 £420 +5.00% 929
London -14 897 £425 - 379
Work from Home -9 634 £475 +3.26% 401
South East -8 583 £475 -3.06% 304
North of England -8 486 £338 +2.42% 210
South West -12 282 £488 +32.65% 113
North West -1 276 £350 -2.23% 125
Midlands -22 264 £400 - 118
East of England -2 198 £340 +36.00% 126
Yorkshire -15 185 £337 +12.17% 62
West Midlands -31 169 £450 +5.88% 79
Scotland -7 162 £375 -19.35% 44
East Midlands +7 91 £270 +35.00% 39
Wales +5 57 £425 +54.55% 30
North East -37 29 £250 -4.76% 30
Northern Ireland -2 17 £139 -30.75% 13
Channel Islands +3 2 £518 - 1

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
1 247 (7.92%) Microsoft Exchange
2 244 (7.83%) SharePoint
3 69 (2.21%) IIS
4 60 (1.92%) Confluence
5 18 (0.58%) nginx
5 18 (0.58%) Skype for Business
6 17 (0.55%) Apache
7 16 (0.51%) Tomcat
8 14 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
9 13 (0.42%) HCL Notes
10 9 (0.29%) NetWeaver
11 8 (0.26%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.19%) Documentum
13 5 (0.16%) Appian
13 5 (0.16%) Camunda
13 5 (0.16%) SAS
14 4 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.13%) Apache Solr
14 4 (0.13%) FactoryTalk
15 3 (0.096%) CloudStack
Applications
1 205 (6.58%) Microsoft Office
2 70 (2.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.13%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.096%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.096%) Houdini
7 3 (0.096%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.096%) NUKE
8 2 (0.064%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.032%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.032%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 56 (1.80%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (0.32%) Finacle
4 7 (0.22%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.22%) Oracle BPM
5 6 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
5 6 (0.19%) Teamcenter
6 4 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
7 3 (0.096%) assyst
8 2 (0.064%) Dynamics GP
8 2 (0.064%) SAP FI
9 1 (0.032%) Dynamics NAV
9 1 (0.032%) Infor LN
9 1 (0.032%) Oracle BRM
9 1 (0.032%) Oracle ERP
9 1 (0.032%) SAP BRIM
9 1 (0.032%) SAP ERP
9 1 (0.032%) SAP EWM
9 1 (0.032%) SAP FI-CA
9 1 (0.032%) SAP FS
Cloud Services
1 971 (31.15%) Azure
2 947 (30.38%) Microsoft 365
3 467 (14.98%) Entra ID
4 327 (10.49%) AWS
5 135 (4.33%) OneDrive
6 109 (3.50%) Azure DevOps
7 101 (3.24%) GCP
8 74 (2.37%) SaaS
9 73 (2.34%) Azure Monitor
9 73 (2.34%) Power Platform
10 72 (2.31%) GitHub
11 65 (2.09%) IaaS
12 51 (1.64%) PaaS
13 42 (1.35%) Azure Sentinel
14 37 (1.19%) OpenShift
15 31 (0.99%) AWS CloudFormation
16 28 (0.90%) GitHub Actions
17 26 (0.83%) Azure AKS
17 26 (0.83%) Google Workspace
18 25 (0.80%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 483 (15.50%) DNS
2 362 (11.61%) Firewall
3 334 (10.72%) DHCP
4 266 (8.53%) VPN
5 224 (7.19%) TCP/IP
6 168 (5.39%) LAN
7 162 (5.20%) WAN
8 143 (4.59%) Wi-Fi
9 97 (3.11%) SAN
10 81 (2.60%) Network Security
11 79 (2.53%) VLAN
12 51 (1.64%) SSL
13 47 (1.51%) BGP
13 47 (1.51%) NAS
14 44 (1.41%) Internet
15 42 (1.35%) Wireless
16 38 (1.22%) VSAN
17 35 (1.12%) OSPF
18 33 (1.06%) Skype
19 30 (0.96%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 297 (9.53%) SQL Server
2 61 (1.96%) Oracle Database
3 53 (1.70%) Power BI
4 35 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 33 (1.06%) Relational Database
6 31 (0.99%) PostgreSQL
7 26 (0.83%) MySQL
8 21 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
9 16 (0.51%) Data Warehouse
9 16 (0.51%) RDBMS
10 15 (0.48%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 14 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 13 (0.42%) Db2
12 13 (0.42%) Elasticsearch
13 11 (0.35%) Geospatial Data
14 9 (0.29%) Oracle Reports
14 9 (0.29%) SAP HANA
15 8 (0.26%) MongoDB
15 8 (0.26%) MS Access
15 8 (0.26%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 171 (5.49%) JIRA
2 74 (2.37%) Git
3 55 (1.76%) Jenkins
4 49 (1.57%) MSI
5 40 (1.28%) GitLab
6 37 (1.19%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.55%) Bitbucket
7 17 (0.55%) Eclipse
8 10 (0.32%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 8 (0.26%) Artifactory
9 8 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (0.22%) Browser DevTools
10 7 (0.22%) Chocolatey
10 7 (0.22%) Team Foundation Server
11 5 (0.16%) AdminStudio
11 5 (0.16%) Claude Code
11 5 (0.16%) InstallShield
11 5 (0.16%) Maven
11 5 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
11 5 (0.16%) Selenium
General
1 1,139 (36.54%) Social Skills
2 389 (12.48%) Analytical Skills
3 358 (11.49%) Finance
4 189 (6.06%) Public Sector
5 160 (5.13%) Banking
6 104 (3.34%) Documentation Skills
7 95 (3.05%) Legal
8 78 (2.50%) Organisational Skills
9 64 (2.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 58 (1.86%) Retail
11 57 (1.83%) Manufacturing
12 43 (1.38%) Military
13 41 (1.32%) Front Office
14 39 (1.25%) Telecoms
15 36 (1.15%) Law
16 34 (1.09%) Investment Banking
17 28 (0.90%) Spanish Language
18 25 (0.80%) Financial Institution
19 23 (0.74%) French Language
20 21 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 468 (15.01%) Support Engineer
2 412 (13.22%) IT Support
3 316 (10.14%) IT Engineer
4 315 (10.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 273 (8.76%) Analyst
6 264 (8.47%) IT Support Engineer
7 234 (7.51%) Senior
8 135 (4.33%) Desktop Support
9 129 (4.14%) Architect
10 127 (4.07%) 2nd Line Support
11 116 (3.72%) Cloud Engineer
12 114 (3.66%) Lead
13 112 (3.59%) Desktop Engineer
14 111 (3.56%) Developer
15 101 (3.24%) Support Analyst
15 101 (3.24%) Windows Engineer
16 98 (3.14%) Consultant
17 85 (2.73%) 1st Line Support
17 85 (2.73%) IT Analyst
18 82 (2.63%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 129 (4.14%) .NET
2 117 (3.75%) REST
3 68 (2.18%) .NET Framework
4 42 (1.35%) Middleware
5 34 (1.09%) JSON
5 34 (1.09%) WinForms
6 33 (1.06%) LDAP
7 30 (0.96%) 802.1X
7 30 (0.96%) WPF
8 29 (0.93%) XML
9 28 (0.90%) HTML
10 26 (0.83%) Web Services
11 24 (0.77%) CSS
11 24 (0.77%) Kafka
11 24 (0.77%) Software Packaging
12 21 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
13 20 (0.64%) Microsoft Graph
13 20 (0.64%) RESTful
14 19 (0.61%) ARM Templates
14 19 (0.61%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 332 (10.65%) Onboarding
2 172 (5.52%) Data Centre
3 166 (5.33%) PKI
4 96 (3.08%) Clustering
5 83 (2.66%) Enterprise Software
5 83 (2.66%) Management Information System
6 79 (2.53%) Cloud Native
7 77 (2.47%) Hybrid Cloud
8 72 (2.31%) Driving Licence
9 65 (2.09%) Self-Motivation
10 63 (2.02%) Replication
11 60 (1.92%) Video Conferencing
12 56 (1.80%) Security Posture
13 53 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
14 43 (1.38%) Virtual Team
15 39 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
15 39 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
15 39 (1.25%) Operational Technology
16 37 (1.19%) Linux Command Line
17 36 (1.15%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 808 (25.92%) Windows Server
2 772 (24.77%) Linux
3 525 (16.84%) Windows 10
4 188 (6.03%) Mac OS
5 156 (5.00%) Unix
6 132 (4.23%) Android
7 131 (4.20%) Apple iOS
8 124 (3.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 77 (2.47%) Windows Server 2019
10 53 (1.70%) Windows 7
11 47 (1.51%) Windows Server 2016
12 40 (1.28%) Ubuntu
13 39 (1.25%) AIX
13 39 (1.25%) Windows Server 2012
14 24 (0.77%) CentOS
15 23 (0.74%) VMS
16 22 (0.71%) Windows Server 2008
17 21 (0.67%) Solaris
18 10 (0.32%) Rocky
18 10 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 747 (23.97%) Problem-Solving
2 546 (17.52%) ITIL
3 496 (15.91%) Customer Service
4 406 (13.03%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 390 (12.51%) Migration
6 381 (12.22%) ITSM
7 308 (9.88%) Continuous Improvement
8 307 (9.85%) DevOps
9 271 (8.69%) CI/CD
9 271 (8.69%) Service Management
10 269 (8.63%) Agile
11 238 (7.64%) Infrastructure as Code
12 226 (7.25%) Change Management
13 209 (6.71%) High Availability
14 196 (6.29%) Service Delivery
15 193 (6.19%) Stakeholder Management
16 186 (5.97%) Cybersecurity
17 184 (5.90%) Disaster Recovery
18 175 (5.61%) Incident Management
19 168 (5.39%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 729 (23.39%) PowerShell
2 325 (10.43%) Python
3 313 (10.04%) SQL
4 178 (5.71%) Bash
5 158 (5.07%) C#
6 77 (2.47%) Java
7 70 (2.25%) JavaScript
8 62 (1.99%) T-SQL
9 58 (1.86%) PL/SQL
10 48 (1.54%) C++
11 44 (1.41%) Bicep
12 29 (0.93%) VBScript
13 28 (0.90%) VB
14 25 (0.80%) Search Processing Language
15 22 (0.71%) Perl
16 20 (0.64%) Shell Script
17 19 (0.61%) VBA
18 17 (0.55%) TypeScript
19 15 (0.48%) C
20 12 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 957 (30.70%) Security Cleared
2 602 (19.31%) SC Cleared
3 323 (10.36%) DV Cleared
4 292 (9.37%) Degree
5 124 (3.98%) Microsoft Certification
6 101 (3.24%) Cisco Certification
7 75 (2.41%) Computer Science Degree
8 74 (2.37%) Azure Certification
9 68 (2.18%) CISSP
10 59 (1.89%) BPSS Clearance
11 53 (1.70%) AWS Certification
12 46 (1.48%) A+ Certification
13 42 (1.35%) CCNA
14 41 (1.32%) MCSE
15 36 (1.15%) CCNP
16 35 (1.12%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 33 (1.06%) DBS Check
18 32 (1.03%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
19 27 (0.87%) ITIL Certification
20 24 (0.77%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 155 (4.97%) SLA
2 113 (3.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 93 (2.98%) QA
4 85 (2.73%) NIST
5 41 (1.32%) GDPR
6 30 (0.96%) NCSC
7 28 (0.90%) Cyber Essentials
8 23 (0.74%) PCI DSS
9 16 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 15 (0.48%) Data Quality
10 15 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
11 14 (0.45%) GxP
11 14 (0.45%) PMO
12 13 (0.42%) Accessibility
13 11 (0.35%) HIPAA
13 11 (0.35%) WCAG
14 10 (0.32%) GRC
15 9 (0.29%) GMP
15 9 (0.29%) SOC 2
16 8 (0.26%) 21 CFR Part 11
System Software
1 1,251 (40.13%) Active Directory
2 439 (14.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 193 (6.19%) Hyper-V
4 138 (4.43%) VMware ESXi
5 119 (3.82%) vSphere
6 107 (3.43%) Docker
7 101 (3.24%) Virtual Machines
8 88 (2.82%) Virtual Desktop
9 79 (2.53%) VMware NSX
10 38 (1.22%) BitLocker
10 38 (1.22%) Firmware
11 21 (0.67%) Microsoft App-V
12 18 (0.58%) vCloud
13 13 (0.42%) KVM
14 12 (0.38%) Virtual Servers
15 9 (0.29%) NFS
16 8 (0.26%) VMware Workstation
17 6 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
17 6 (0.19%) XenApp
17 6 (0.19%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 429 (13.76%) Microsoft Intune
2 300 (9.62%) SCCM
3 263 (8.44%) Terraform
4 230 (7.38%) Ansible
5 170 (5.45%) Kubernetes
6 114 (3.66%) vCenter Server
7 78 (2.50%) SCOM
8 53 (1.70%) Jamf Pro
9 46 (1.48%) WSUS
10 42 (1.35%) Progress Chef
11 40 (1.28%) FortiGate
12 37 (1.19%) Single Sign-On
13 31 (0.99%) Puppet
14 27 (0.87%) NetBackup
15 25 (0.80%) Nagios
15 25 (0.80%) Packer
16 23 (0.74%) Prometheus
16 23 (0.74%) WMI
17 22 (0.71%) VxRail
17 22 (0.71%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,402 (44.98%) Microsoft
2 588 (18.86%) VMware
3 351 (11.26%) ServiceNow
4 220 (7.06%) Cisco
5 202 (6.48%) Oracle
6 192 (6.16%) Citrix
7 135 (4.33%) Splunk
8 99 (3.18%) Apple
9 93 (2.98%) CyberArk
10 91 (2.92%) SolarWinds
11 75 (2.41%) Google
12 74 (2.37%) Red Hat
13 72 (2.31%) HP
14 70 (2.25%) BeyondTrust
15 67 (2.15%) Remedy
16 61 (1.96%) Dell
17 57 (1.83%) F5
18 54 (1.73%) Juniper
19 49 (1.57%) Palo Alto
20 47 (1.51%) BMC