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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -5 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,881 2,383 3,490
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.91% 8.34% 8.18%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.69% 60.22% 60.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,855 1,638 2,417
10th Percentile £163 £180 £163
25th Percentile £213 £232 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year - +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £403 £400 £400
% change year-on-year +0.63% - +3.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 250 139 276
10th Percentile £15.61 £14.91 £11.90
25th Percentile £17.94 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.51 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.52% +4.56% -20.00%
75th Percentile £57.50 £25.20 £25.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £54.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.82 £17.69
% change year-on-year +36.82% +6.39% -11.55%

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 4,747 3,957 5,734
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.74% 13.85% 13.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,029 2,607 3,886
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £467 £470
Median % change year-on-year -1.61% -0.74% -6.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £650 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 345 172 401
10th Percentile £15.55 £15.23 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.44 £15.50
Median hourly rate £35.22 £21.95 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +60.46% -2.44% -47.06%
75th Percentile £65.00 £54.06 £60.75
90th Percentile £74.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.57 £19.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year +81.92% -15.56% -28.00%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -6 2,494 £415 -1.83% 924
UK excluding London -11 1,941 £403 +0.63% 803
London -24 761 £425 -5.56% 237
Work from Home -12 585 £475 +1.17% 308
South East -5 531 £475 - 264
North of England -8 462 £355 +4.41% 175
Midlands -17 270 £313 +13.64% 104
North West 0 259 £330 -5.71% 100
South West -14 231 £466 -4.95% 123
East of England -1 219 £350 -8.50% 88
Yorkshire -17 187 £370 +0.34% 55
Scotland 0 174 £425 -1.62% 33
West Midlands -27 157 £447 +59.64% 57
East Midlands +9 108 £225 -2.70% 47
Wales +1 53 £318 -2.31% 30
North East -29 20 £290 -3.33% 23
Northern Ireland -4 14 £175 -12.50% 8
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
1 232 (8.05%) Microsoft Exchange
2 176 (6.11%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.15%) IIS
4 51 (1.77%) Confluence
5 23 (0.80%) Apache
6 19 (0.66%) WebLogic
7 17 (0.59%) Tomcat
8 16 (0.56%) nginx
9 14 (0.49%) Skype for Business
10 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
11 10 (0.35%) SAS
12 9 (0.31%) NetWeaver
13 8 (0.28%) HCL Notes
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
14 6 (0.21%) TPMS
15 5 (0.17%) WebSphere
16 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 4 (0.14%) Appian
17 2 (0.069%) Apache Pulsar
17 2 (0.069%) Camunda
Applications
1 187 (6.49%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.22%) Microsoft Excel
3 22 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.31%) 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 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 43 (1.49%) Remedy ITSM
2 19 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.42%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.14%) assyst
4 4 (0.14%) Finacle
5 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.069%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.069%) OpenText MBPM
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle BPM
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.035%) Dynamics GP
7 1 (0.035%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle 11i
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 840 (29.16%) Azure
2 808 (28.05%) Microsoft 365
3 346 (12.01%) Entra ID
4 253 (8.78%) AWS
5 94 (3.26%) OneDrive
6 78 (2.71%) GCP
7 77 (2.67%) Azure DevOps
8 76 (2.64%) SaaS
9 66 (2.29%) IaaS
10 61 (2.12%) GitHub
11 57 (1.98%) Power Platform
12 55 (1.91%) PaaS
13 41 (1.42%) Azure Monitor
14 39 (1.35%) OpenShift
15 35 (1.21%) Azure Sentinel
16 34 (1.18%) Google Workspace
17 29 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
18 19 (0.66%) AWS CloudFormation
18 19 (0.66%) Azure AKS
18 19 (0.66%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 394 (13.68%) DNS
2 304 (10.55%) Firewall
3 267 (9.27%) DHCP
4 212 (7.36%) VPN
5 178 (6.18%) WAN
6 177 (6.14%) LAN
7 172 (5.97%) TCP/IP
8 141 (4.89%) Wi-Fi
9 83 (2.88%) SAN
10 76 (2.64%) Network Security
11 60 (2.08%) VLAN
12 47 (1.63%) SD-WAN
13 40 (1.39%) BGP
13 40 (1.39%) Wireless
14 39 (1.35%) NAS
15 37 (1.28%) Skype
15 37 (1.28%) SSL
15 37 (1.28%) VoIP
16 36 (1.25%) Internet
16 36 (1.25%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 223 (7.74%) SQL Server
2 50 (1.74%) Oracle Database
3 34 (1.18%) Power BI
3 34 (1.18%) Relational Database
4 32 (1.11%) MySQL
5 24 (0.83%) PostgreSQL
6 18 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
7 16 (0.56%) DB2
8 15 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 14 (0.49%) MongoDB
10 13 (0.45%) Data Warehouse
11 12 (0.42%) NoSQL
12 9 (0.31%) GIS
12 9 (0.31%) SAP HANA
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle BI EE
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.28%) Sybase ASE
14 7 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
14 7 (0.24%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.24%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 180 (6.25%) JIRA
2 54 (1.87%) Jenkins
3 46 (1.60%) GitLab
4 45 (1.56%) Git
5 44 (1.53%) MSI
6 36 (1.25%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.66%) Eclipse
8 14 (0.49%) Burp Suite
9 13 (0.45%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.38%) Sonatype Nexus
11 9 (0.31%) Android Studio
11 9 (0.31%) Artifactory
11 9 (0.31%) Browser DevTools
11 9 (0.31%) Chocolatey
11 9 (0.31%) Xcode
12 7 (0.24%) Bitbucket
12 7 (0.24%) Robot Framework
12 7 (0.24%) Selenium
13 6 (0.21%) InstallShield
14 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
General
1 967 (33.56%) Social Skills
2 283 (9.82%) Analytical Skills
3 279 (9.68%) Finance
4 204 (7.08%) Public Sector
5 145 (5.03%) Banking
6 119 (4.13%) Legal
7 94 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
8 78 (2.71%) Organisational Skills
9 55 (1.91%) Military
10 48 (1.67%) Retail
11 47 (1.63%) Manufacturing
12 44 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 36 (1.25%) Law
14 32 (1.11%) Investment Banking
15 30 (1.04%) Presentation Skills
16 29 (1.01%) Telecoms
17 26 (0.90%) Front Office
18 21 (0.73%) Local Government
19 19 (0.66%) French Language
20 18 (0.62%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 362 (12.57%) IT Support
2 347 (12.04%) Support Engineer
3 316 (10.97%) Analyst
4 252 (8.75%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 225 (7.81%) IT Engineer
6 184 (6.39%) IT Support Engineer
7 176 (6.11%) Senior
8 155 (5.38%) Architect
9 122 (4.23%) Desktop Support
10 121 (4.20%) Support Analyst
11 105 (3.64%) Lead
12 104 (3.61%) Desktop Engineer
13 97 (3.37%) 2nd Line Support
14 95 (3.30%) IT Analyst
15 89 (3.09%) Technical Support
16 88 (3.05%) Developer
17 87 (3.02%) Windows Engineer
18 79 (2.74%) Consultant
19 74 (2.57%) 1st Line Support
20 73 (2.53%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (3.09%) REST
2 88 (3.05%) .NET
3 50 (1.74%) .NET Framework
4 44 (1.53%) LDAP
5 38 (1.32%) SAML
6 34 (1.18%) Microsoft Graph
7 32 (1.11%) Kafka
8 31 (1.08%) Middleware
9 28 (0.97%) 802.1X
9 28 (0.97%) WinForms
10 26 (0.90%) OAuth
11 22 (0.76%) Web Services
11 22 (0.76%) WPF
12 20 (0.69%) Software Packaging
13 19 (0.66%) CSS
13 19 (0.66%) Elastic Stack
13 19 (0.66%) React
14 18 (0.62%) Node.js
15 17 (0.59%) AngularJS
15 17 (0.59%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 249 (8.64%) Onboarding
2 146 (5.07%) Data Centre
3 118 (4.10%) PKI
4 86 (2.99%) Enterprise Software
5 82 (2.85%) Clustering
6 66 (2.29%) Driving Licence
7 64 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
8 59 (2.05%) Replication
9 54 (1.87%) Management Information System
10 51 (1.77%) Hybrid Cloud
11 50 (1.74%) Virtual Team
12 47 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
13 46 (1.60%) Smartphone
14 44 (1.53%) Security Posture
15 39 (1.35%) Cloud Native
16 35 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
17 34 (1.18%) Operational Technology
17 34 (1.18%) Security Operations Centre
18 33 (1.15%) Enterprise Storage
18 33 (1.15%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 724 (25.13%) Linux
2 679 (23.57%) Windows Server
3 501 (17.39%) Windows 10
4 185 (6.42%) Mac OS
5 162 (5.62%) Unix
6 136 (4.72%) Android
6 136 (4.72%) Apple iOS
7 96 (3.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 80 (2.78%) Windows Server 2019
9 71 (2.46%) Windows Server 2016
10 51 (1.77%) Windows 7
11 36 (1.25%) Windows Server 2012
12 34 (1.18%) AIX
13 24 (0.83%) Ubuntu
14 20 (0.69%) Solaris
15 19 (0.66%) VMS
15 19 (0.66%) Windows Server 2003
16 16 (0.56%) Windows Server 2008
17 12 (0.42%) CentOS
18 8 (0.28%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 607 (21.07%) Problem-Solving
2 433 (15.03%) Customer Service
3 430 (14.93%) ITIL
4 329 (11.42%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 325 (11.28%) Migration
6 284 (9.86%) Agile
7 267 (9.27%) ITSM
8 258 (8.96%) DevOps
9 241 (8.37%) CI/CD
10 192 (6.66%) Continuous Improvement
11 190 (6.59%) Disaster Recovery
12 186 (6.46%) Change Management
13 184 (6.39%) High Availability
14 180 (6.25%) Service Management
15 172 (5.97%) Cybersecurity
16 149 (5.17%) SIEM
17 140 (4.86%) Infrastructure as Code
18 139 (4.82%) Stakeholder Management
19 133 (4.62%) Computer Science
20 132 (4.58%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 621 (21.56%) PowerShell
2 297 (10.31%) Python
3 276 (9.58%) SQL
4 119 (4.13%) C#
5 109 (3.78%) Bash
6 71 (2.46%) Java
7 69 (2.40%) JavaScript
8 57 (1.98%) PL/SQL
9 47 (1.63%) C++
10 46 (1.60%) T-SQL
11 33 (1.15%) Perl
12 27 (0.94%) Kusto Query Language
13 25 (0.87%) VB
14 24 (0.83%) Shell Script
15 23 (0.80%) Search Processing Language
16 19 (0.66%) VBScript
17 15 (0.52%) VBA
18 14 (0.49%) Bicep
19 13 (0.45%) C
20 12 (0.42%) Go
Qualifications
1 850 (29.50%) Security Cleared
2 548 (19.02%) SC Cleared
3 301 (10.45%) Degree
4 274 (9.51%) DV Cleared
5 103 (3.58%) Microsoft Certification
6 94 (3.26%) Cisco Certification
7 92 (3.19%) Computer Science Degree
8 56 (1.94%) CISSP
9 47 (1.63%) Azure Certification
10 46 (1.60%) MCSE
11 45 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
12 39 (1.35%) CCNA
13 38 (1.32%) CompTIA Security+
14 32 (1.11%) CCNP
15 31 (1.08%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 30 (1.04%) AWS Certification
16 30 (1.04%) ITIL Certification
17 27 (0.94%) MCSA
18 26 (0.90%) A+ Certification
19 23 (0.80%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 116 (4.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 106 (3.68%) SLA
3 87 (3.02%) QA
4 81 (2.81%) NIST
5 79 (2.74%) GDPR
6 38 (1.32%) PCI DSS
7 30 (1.04%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 27 (0.94%) Cyber Essentials
9 15 (0.52%) NCSC
10 14 (0.49%) PMO
11 12 (0.42%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.42%) Disclosure Scotland
11 12 (0.42%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.38%) MiFID
13 10 (0.35%) FINRA
14 9 (0.31%) SOC 2
15 7 (0.24%) DICOM
15 7 (0.24%) GRC
15 7 (0.24%) HIPAA
16 6 (0.21%) HL7
System Software
1 1,074 (37.28%) Active Directory
2 357 (12.39%) VMware Infrastructure
3 161 (5.59%) Hyper-V
4 98 (3.40%) VMware ESXi
4 98 (3.40%) vSphere
5 87 (3.02%) Virtual Machines
6 82 (2.85%) Docker
7 58 (2.01%) Virtual Desktop
8 50 (1.74%) VMware NSX
9 37 (1.28%) Firmware
10 33 (1.15%) BitLocker
11 26 (0.90%) Microsoft App-V
12 21 (0.73%) KVM
13 11 (0.38%) Oracle RAC
13 11 (0.38%) XenDesktop
14 10 (0.35%) XenApp
15 8 (0.28%) vCloud
15 8 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
16 6 (0.21%) etcd
16 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 366 (12.70%) Microsoft Intune
2 263 (9.13%) SCCM
3 193 (6.70%) Ansible
4 164 (5.69%) Terraform
5 133 (4.62%) Kubernetes
6 80 (2.78%) vCenter Server
7 54 (1.87%) Single Sign-On
8 45 (1.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 42 (1.46%) Jamf Pro
10 40 (1.39%) FortiGate
11 39 (1.35%) WSUS
12 38 (1.32%) Grafana
13 36 (1.25%) SCOM
14 32 (1.11%) Prometheus
15 27 (0.94%) Nagios
16 21 (0.73%) Nessus
16 21 (0.73%) Progress Chef
16 21 (0.73%) Puppet
17 20 (0.69%) Tivoli
17 20 (0.69%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,219 (42.31%) Microsoft
2 466 (16.17%) VMware
3 249 (8.64%) ServiceNow
4 218 (7.57%) Cisco
5 193 (6.70%) Citrix
6 177 (6.14%) Oracle
7 155 (5.38%) Splunk
8 82 (2.85%) HP
9 73 (2.53%) Dell
9 73 (2.53%) SolarWinds
10 62 (2.15%) Red Hat
11 60 (2.08%) Apple
11 60 (2.08%) F5
12 56 (1.94%) Remedy
13 55 (1.91%) Palo Alto
14 51 (1.77%) CyberArk
14 51 (1.77%) IBM
15 48 (1.67%) Google
16 46 (1.60%) Juniper
17 42 (1.46%) BeyondTrust