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 1 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,866 2,437 3,759
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.41% 8.39% 8.49%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.34% 59.04% 62.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,921 1,693 2,551
10th Percentile £160 £181 £158
25th Percentile £206 £243 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £410 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -3.53% +6.25% -10.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £640 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £365 £400 £380
% change year-on-year -8.75% +5.26% -1.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 243 113 286
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.48 £12.32
25th Percentile £16.56 £16.95 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.80 £21.28 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% +18.22% -18.18%
75th Percentile £53.38 £28.41 £24.00
90th Percentile £71.60 £63.65 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £20.00 £17.69
% change year-on-year +7.30% +13.06% -8.25%

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 4,750 4,128 5,988
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.63% 14.21% 13.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,116 2,752 4,012
10th Percentile £181 £200 £181
25th Percentile £300 £325 £287
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.70% -9.76%
75th Percentile £569 £600 £594
90th Percentile £655 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £424 £450 £438
% change year-on-year -5.69% +2.86% -7.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 339 164 406
10th Percentile £15.17 £16.67 £12.86
25th Percentile £17.95 £18.20 £15.50
Median hourly rate £25.00 £24.83 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.68% +12.86% -26.67%
75th Percentile £64.38 £63.38 £57.50
90th Percentile £74.34 £68.58 £67.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.50 £24.66 £20.35
% change year-on-year -4.70% +21.16% -27.57%

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 1 April 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 1 April 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 1 April 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 2,518 £409 -2.85% 989
UK excluding London -9 1,903 £365 -8.75% 879
London -20 775 £430 -4.23% 231
Work from Home -18 584 £450 -2.70% 328
South East -3 515 £466 -1.89% 277
North of England -9 476 £295 -15.71% 201
Midlands -14 276 £320 +1.19% 130
North West -3 263 £260 -25.71% 130
South West -7 246 £450 -16.28% 129
East of England +6 214 £275 +22.22% 97
Yorkshire -20 189 £360 +6.67% 58
West Midlands -25 165 £442 +36.08% 76
Scotland -1 137 £425 -5.56% 42
East Midlands 0 107 £200 -20.00% 54
Wales 0 45 £200 -46.84% 20
North East -9 27 £188 -14.77% 17
Northern Ireland -9 8 £175 -7.89% 4
Channel Islands 0 2 £500 +68.07% 3

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
1 245 (8.55%) Microsoft Exchange
2 170 (5.93%) SharePoint
3 51 (1.78%) Confluence
4 47 (1.64%) IIS
5 26 (0.91%) Apache
6 23 (0.80%) WebLogic
7 14 (0.49%) Tomcat
8 12 (0.42%) nginx
8 12 (0.42%) SAS
8 12 (0.42%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.42%) TPMS
8 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
9 7 (0.24%) WebSphere
10 6 (0.21%) NetWeaver
11 5 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.10%) ArcGIS
13 3 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2010
14 2 (0.070%) Oracle HTTP Server
Applications
1 216 (7.54%) Microsoft Office
2 72 (2.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.42%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.035%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 35 (1.22%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.24%) Teamcenter
4 6 (0.21%) assyst
5 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.070%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.070%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.070%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.035%) Eikon
8 1 (0.035%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 810 (28.26%) Microsoft 365
2 762 (26.59%) Azure
3 310 (10.82%) Entra ID
4 222 (7.75%) AWS
5 94 (3.28%) OneDrive
6 69 (2.41%) Azure DevOps
6 69 (2.41%) GCP
7 68 (2.37%) SaaS
8 53 (1.85%) Google Workspace
9 49 (1.71%) GitHub
9 49 (1.71%) IaaS
10 42 (1.47%) PaaS
11 41 (1.43%) Power Platform
12 35 (1.22%) Azure Monitor
13 30 (1.05%) Azure Sentinel
14 26 (0.91%) OpenShift
15 24 (0.84%) GitHub Actions
16 23 (0.80%) AWS CloudFormation
17 22 (0.77%) Nutanix
18 17 (0.59%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 391 (13.64%) DNS
2 345 (12.04%) Firewall
3 254 (8.86%) DHCP
4 202 (7.05%) VPN
5 187 (6.52%) TCP/IP
6 170 (5.93%) LAN
7 167 (5.83%) WAN
8 157 (5.48%) Wi-Fi
9 82 (2.86%) Network Security
10 67 (2.34%) VLAN
11 64 (2.23%) SAN
12 52 (1.81%) Wireless
13 41 (1.43%) BGP
14 40 (1.40%) SSL
15 39 (1.36%) SD-WAN
16 38 (1.33%) Skype
17 37 (1.29%) VoIP
18 32 (1.12%) SNMP
19 31 (1.08%) HTTP
19 31 (1.08%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 175 (6.11%) SQL Server
2 57 (1.99%) Oracle Database
3 36 (1.26%) MySQL
3 36 (1.26%) Relational Database
4 27 (0.94%) PostgreSQL
5 19 (0.66%) Power BI
6 17 (0.59%) Data Warehouse
6 17 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
7 15 (0.52%) DB2
8 13 (0.45%) BigQuery
8 13 (0.45%) Oracle Reports
9 12 (0.42%) MongoDB
10 10 (0.35%) GIS
11 8 (0.28%) NoSQL
11 8 (0.28%) SAP HANA
12 7 (0.24%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 7 (0.24%) Sybase ASE
13 6 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
13 6 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
14 5 (0.17%) MaxDB
Development Applications
1 166 (5.79%) JIRA
2 63 (2.20%) GitLab
3 61 (2.13%) Jenkins
4 53 (1.85%) Git
5 41 (1.43%) MSI
6 35 (1.22%) Visual Studio
7 23 (0.80%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.59%) Burp Suite
8 17 (0.59%) Metasploit
9 13 (0.45%) Android Studio
9 13 (0.45%) Artifactory
10 11 (0.38%) Chocolatey
10 11 (0.38%) Xcode
11 10 (0.35%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.31%) Browser DevTools
12 9 (0.31%) InstallShield
13 8 (0.28%) JUnit
13 8 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
14 7 (0.24%) Robot Framework
14 7 (0.24%) Selenium
General
1 1,002 (34.96%) Social Skills
2 274 (9.56%) Finance
3 260 (9.07%) Analytical Skills
4 236 (8.23%) Public Sector
5 143 (4.99%) Banking
6 131 (4.57%) Legal
7 105 (3.66%) Documentation Skills
8 85 (2.97%) Organisational Skills
9 58 (2.02%) Military
10 57 (1.99%) Manufacturing
11 41 (1.43%) Presentation Skills
12 39 (1.36%) Telecoms
13 37 (1.29%) Retail
14 36 (1.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 31 (1.08%) Law
16 26 (0.91%) Investment Banking
17 23 (0.80%) Front Office
18 20 (0.70%) Local Government
19 17 (0.59%) Aerospace
20 15 (0.52%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 394 (13.75%) IT Support
2 373 (13.01%) Support Engineer
3 366 (12.77%) Analyst
4 233 (8.13%) IT Engineer
5 194 (6.77%) IT Support Engineer
6 192 (6.70%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 188 (6.56%) Architect
8 165 (5.76%) Senior
9 149 (5.20%) Support Analyst
10 123 (4.29%) Desktop Support
11 110 (3.84%) Developer
12 106 (3.70%) Technical Support
13 103 (3.59%) 2nd Line Support
13 103 (3.59%) Windows Engineer
14 101 (3.52%) Desktop Engineer
15 98 (3.42%) IT Analyst
16 92 (3.21%) Lead
17 80 (2.79%) Consultant
18 76 (2.65%) IT Support Analyst
19 73 (2.55%) Desktop Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.07%) .NET
2 77 (2.69%) REST
3 51 (1.78%) LDAP
4 50 (1.74%) .NET Framework
4 50 (1.74%) SAML
5 43 (1.50%) OAuth
6 42 (1.47%) Middleware
7 33 (1.15%) Kafka
8 29 (1.01%) Web Services
9 28 (0.98%) OpenID
9 28 (0.98%) WPF
10 27 (0.94%) WinForms
11 25 (0.87%) Microsoft Graph
12 24 (0.84%) 802.1X
12 24 (0.84%) CSS
13 23 (0.80%) React
14 22 (0.77%) Node.js
15 21 (0.73%) AngularJS
16 19 (0.66%) Apache NiFi
16 19 (0.66%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 200 (6.98%) Onboarding
2 126 (4.40%) Data Centre
3 107 (3.73%) PKI
4 83 (2.90%) Enterprise Software
5 79 (2.76%) Driving Licence
6 71 (2.48%) Self-Motivation
7 62 (2.16%) Clustering
8 58 (2.02%) Replication
9 50 (1.74%) Management Information System
10 49 (1.71%) Smartphone
11 47 (1.64%) Hybrid Cloud
12 46 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
13 44 (1.54%) Security Posture
14 40 (1.40%) Product Ownership
15 36 (1.26%) Security Operations Centre
16 35 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
17 34 (1.19%) CMDB
17 34 (1.19%) Virtual Team
18 31 (1.08%) NHS
19 30 (1.05%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 707 (24.67%) Linux
2 639 (22.30%) Windows Server
3 550 (19.19%) Windows 10
4 154 (5.37%) Mac OS
5 152 (5.30%) Android
6 151 (5.27%) Unix
7 117 (4.08%) Apple iOS
8 98 (3.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 73 (2.55%) Windows Server 2016
10 63 (2.20%) Windows Server 2019
11 49 (1.71%) Windows 7
12 39 (1.36%) AIX
12 39 (1.36%) Windows Server 2012
13 29 (1.01%) Windows Server 2003
14 21 (0.73%) Solaris
15 19 (0.66%) VMS
16 18 (0.63%) Ubuntu
17 13 (0.45%) Windows Server 2008
18 9 (0.31%) CentOS
18 9 (0.31%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 579 (20.20%) Problem-Solving
2 478 (16.68%) Customer Service
3 414 (14.45%) ITIL
4 309 (10.78%) Agile
4 309 (10.78%) Migration
5 279 (9.73%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 260 (9.07%) DevOps
7 235 (8.20%) ITSM
8 233 (8.13%) CI/CD
9 209 (7.29%) Cybersecurity
10 197 (6.87%) Service Management
11 195 (6.80%) Continuous Improvement
12 176 (6.14%) Change Management
13 173 (6.04%) Disaster Recovery
14 149 (5.20%) High Availability
15 142 (4.95%) Stakeholder Management
16 132 (4.61%) SIEM
17 129 (4.50%) Service Delivery
18 126 (4.40%) Infrastructure as Code
19 124 (4.33%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 614 (21.42%) PowerShell
2 306 (10.68%) Python
3 261 (9.11%) SQL
4 124 (4.33%) Bash
5 123 (4.29%) C#
6 95 (3.31%) Java
7 76 (2.65%) JavaScript
8 62 (2.16%) PL/SQL
9 55 (1.92%) Perl
10 53 (1.85%) C++
11 41 (1.43%) T-SQL
12 30 (1.05%) Kusto Query Language
13 23 (0.80%) VB
14 22 (0.77%) Shell Script
15 20 (0.70%) VBScript
16 14 (0.49%) Bicep
16 14 (0.49%) Search Processing Language
16 14 (0.49%) VBA
17 13 (0.45%) Go
17 13 (0.45%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 882 (30.77%) Security Cleared
2 584 (20.38%) SC Cleared
3 291 (10.15%) Degree
4 259 (9.04%) DV Cleared
5 122 (4.26%) Microsoft Certification
6 91 (3.18%) Computer Science Degree
7 67 (2.34%) Cisco Certification
8 45 (1.57%) Azure Certification
9 44 (1.54%) CISSP
9 44 (1.54%) MCSE
10 41 (1.43%) ITIL Certification
11 38 (1.33%) CompTIA Security+
12 37 (1.29%) BPSS Clearance
13 31 (1.08%) AWS Certification
13 31 (1.08%) CCNA
14 29 (1.01%) A+ Certification
15 27 (0.94%) CCNP
16 23 (0.80%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 20 (0.70%) CompTIA CySA+
17 20 (0.70%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (3.38%) GDPR
2 95 (3.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 92 (3.21%) SLA
4 87 (3.04%) QA
5 67 (2.34%) NIST
6 44 (1.54%) PCI DSS
7 27 (0.94%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 20 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
9 14 (0.49%) NCSC
9 14 (0.49%) PMO
10 12 (0.42%) GLBA
10 12 (0.42%) MiFID
11 11 (0.38%) NIST 800
12 10 (0.35%) Data Quality
12 10 (0.35%) FINRA
13 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
14 6 (0.21%) DICOM
14 6 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
15 5 (0.17%) GxP
15 5 (0.17%) HL7
System Software
1 1,053 (36.74%) Active Directory
2 302 (10.54%) VMware Infrastructure
3 126 (4.40%) Hyper-V
4 107 (3.73%) Docker
5 78 (2.72%) vSphere
6 68 (2.37%) VMware ESXi
7 59 (2.06%) Virtual Machines
8 55 (1.92%) Virtual Desktop
9 37 (1.29%) VMware NSX
10 32 (1.12%) Firmware
11 29 (1.01%) BitLocker
12 24 (0.84%) Microsoft App-V
13 16 (0.56%) KVM
14 10 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
14 10 (0.35%) XenDesktop
15 9 (0.31%) XenApp
16 6 (0.21%) etcd
16 6 (0.21%) NFS
17 5 (0.17%) Terminal Services
17 5 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 372 (12.98%) Microsoft Intune
2 302 (10.54%) SCCM
3 179 (6.25%) Ansible
4 172 (6.00%) Terraform
5 135 (4.71%) Kubernetes
6 79 (2.76%) Single Sign-On
7 65 (2.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 63 (2.20%) vCenter Server
9 44 (1.54%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (1.26%) FortiGate
10 36 (1.26%) Grafana
11 35 (1.22%) WSUS
12 30 (1.05%) Prometheus
13 23 (0.80%) SCOM
14 22 (0.77%) Progress Chef
15 19 (0.66%) Nagios
15 19 (0.66%) Nessus
16 18 (0.63%) Puppet
17 16 (0.56%) Nmap
17 16 (0.56%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,231 (42.95%) Microsoft
2 409 (14.27%) VMware
3 245 (8.55%) ServiceNow
4 212 (7.40%) Citrix
5 188 (6.56%) Oracle
6 187 (6.52%) Cisco
7 149 (5.20%) Splunk
8 85 (2.97%) HP
9 74 (2.58%) Dell
10 68 (2.37%) Red Hat
11 65 (2.27%) SolarWinds
12 60 (2.09%) Google
13 59 (2.06%) IBM
14 58 (2.02%) Apple
15 49 (1.71%) Remedy
16 44 (1.54%) Juniper
17 42 (1.47%) Palo Alto
18 41 (1.43%) F5
19 40 (1.40%) SAP
20 39 (1.36%) Veeam