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 12 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 15
Rank change year-on-year -3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,820 2,994 4,500
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 8.01% 8.26% 9.66%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.12% 58.59% 63.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,881 1,872 2,990
10th Percentile £163 £181 £160
25th Percentile £204 £245 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £425 £420
Median % change year-on-year -8.24% +1.19% -1.18%
75th Percentile £538 £563 £575
90th Percentile £636 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £400 £375
% change year-on-year -18.75% +6.67% +7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 295 137 263
10th Percentile £15.05 £15.22 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.16 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.02% +7.47% +9.76%
75th Percentile £25.15 £57.62 £55.46
90th Percentile £65.00 £67.50 £68.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.30 £24.18 £21.31
% change year-on-year -11.91% +13.47% +15.19%

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 4,770 5,110 7,108
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.56% 14.10% 15.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,064 3,137 4,810
10th Percentile £185 £200 £181
25th Percentile £270 £325 £303
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -4.95%
75th Percentile £574 £583 £613
90th Percentile £659 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £410 £450 £440
% change year-on-year -8.89% +2.27% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 361 213 358
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.25 £14.96
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.50 £18.50
Median hourly rate £24.00 £50.00 £35.92
Median % change year-on-year -52.00% +39.20% +48.12%
75th Percentile £41.94 £68.18 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £70.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.53 £52.50 £27.50
% change year-on-year -57.09% +90.91% +23.37%

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 12 November 2025.

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 12 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows in the UK

Windows
Top 17 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 12 November 2025. 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 -2 2,506 £390 -7.14% 1,936
UK excluding London +1 1,890 £325 -18.75% 1,540
London -13 781 £431 +6.48% 645
Work from Home -9 565 £425 -6.39% 728
South East +3 507 £350 -17.65% 491
North of England -4 391 £290 -27.50% 314
South West +5 333 £425 -5.56% 221
Midlands -7 297 £375 -1.32% 217
North West -5 215 £332 -26.28% 193
East of England -1 212 £225 -47.06% 163
West Midlands -5 210 £418 +8.44% 123
Yorkshire -9 148 £240 -36.42% 97
Scotland -13 123 £450 +12.50% 100
East Midlands -1 86 £215 -42.67% 94
Wales -2 43 £275 +37.50% 34
North East +3 31 £200 -35.48% 24
Northern Ireland -9 18 £175 -5.41% 30

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
1 262 (9.29%) Microsoft Exchange
2 173 (6.13%) SharePoint
3 85 (3.01%) Confluence
4 53 (1.88%) Apache
5 44 (1.56%) IIS
6 26 (0.92%) WebSphere
7 23 (0.82%) Skype for Business
8 21 (0.74%) JBoss
9 18 (0.64%) WebLogic
10 15 (0.53%) Exchange Server 2013
10 15 (0.53%) SharePoint Server
11 13 (0.46%) nginx
12 12 (0.43%) Exchange Server 2010
13 11 (0.39%) WebSphere Application Server
14 10 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2003
14 10 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2007
14 10 (0.35%) iPlanet
14 10 (0.35%) Office Communications Server
15 8 (0.28%) Tomcat
16 6 (0.21%) SAS
Applications
1 264 (9.36%) Microsoft Office
2 91 (3.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.35%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 6 (0.21%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.071%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.071%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.071%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.071%) Windchill
9 1 (0.035%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.035%) Camtasia
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
9 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.035%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 20 (0.71%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.25%) Maximo
3 6 (0.21%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.11%) assyst
4 3 (0.11%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.071%) Dynamics GP
5 2 (0.071%) Eikon
5 2 (0.071%) Fidessa
5 2 (0.071%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.071%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.071%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.071%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.071%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.071%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.035%) OpenText MBPM
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle 11i
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.035%) Pegasus Opera
6 1 (0.035%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 744 (26.38%) Microsoft 365
2 637 (22.59%) Azure
3 268 (9.50%) AWS
4 234 (8.30%) Entra ID
5 88 (3.12%) OneDrive
6 83 (2.94%) SaaS
7 75 (2.66%) GitHub
8 64 (2.27%) Azure DevOps
9 62 (2.20%) GCP
10 56 (1.99%) IaaS
11 48 (1.70%) Google Workspace
12 42 (1.49%) PaaS
13 41 (1.45%) Power Platform
14 39 (1.38%) Azure Sentinel
15 37 (1.31%) Amazon S3
16 36 (1.28%) Amazon EC2
17 35 (1.24%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 32 (1.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 29 (1.03%) Azure Monitor
20 28 (0.99%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 339 (12.02%) DNS
2 320 (11.35%) Firewall
3 201 (7.13%) DHCP
4 196 (6.95%) TCP/IP
5 166 (5.89%) VPN
6 103 (3.65%) Wi-Fi
7 102 (3.62%) LAN
8 99 (3.51%) WAN
9 84 (2.98%) Network Security
10 69 (2.45%) SAN
11 66 (2.34%) VLAN
12 62 (2.20%) SSH
13 55 (1.95%) Wireless
14 53 (1.88%) Cisco IOS
15 51 (1.81%) HTTP
16 36 (1.28%) SSL
17 35 (1.24%) VoIP
18 31 (1.10%) SMTP
19 30 (1.06%) Internet
19 30 (1.06%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 126 (4.47%) SQL Server
2 81 (2.87%) Oracle Database
3 64 (2.27%) Relational Database
4 45 (1.60%) MySQL
5 36 (1.28%) Amazon RDS
6 27 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
7 17 (0.60%) Power BI
8 13 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
9 12 (0.43%) DB2
10 11 (0.39%) Amazon Aurora
10 11 (0.39%) GIS
10 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
11 10 (0.35%) RDBMS
12 9 (0.32%) BigQuery
12 9 (0.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 8 (0.28%) MongoDB
13 8 (0.28%) SAP HANA
14 7 (0.25%) Apache Cassandra
14 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 166 (5.89%) JIRA
2 121 (4.29%) Git
3 112 (3.97%) Jenkins
4 46 (1.63%) GitLab
5 37 (1.31%) Eclipse
6 35 (1.24%) Visual Studio
7 31 (1.10%) Bitbucket
8 29 (1.03%) MSI
9 25 (0.89%) Vagrant
10 20 (0.71%) Android Studio
10 20 (0.71%) Sonatype Nexus
11 19 (0.67%) Browser DevTools
12 18 (0.64%) Xcode
13 15 (0.53%) Bitbucket Server
13 15 (0.53%) CA Release Automation
14 14 (0.50%) AdminStudio
14 14 (0.50%) Artifactory
14 14 (0.50%) InstallShield
14 14 (0.50%) IntelliJ
14 14 (0.50%) Postman
General
1 1,056 (37.45%) Social Skills
2 378 (13.40%) Finance
3 270 (9.57%) Analytical Skills
4 264 (9.36%) Public Sector
5 132 (4.68%) Banking
6 117 (4.15%) Documentation Skills
7 76 (2.70%) Legal
8 66 (2.34%) Manufacturing
9 60 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 60 (2.13%) Organisational Skills
10 48 (1.70%) Telecoms
11 45 (1.60%) Presentation Skills
12 44 (1.56%) Military
13 43 (1.52%) Retail
14 36 (1.28%) Marketing
15 31 (1.10%) Games
16 25 (0.89%) Electronics
17 24 (0.85%) Front Office
18 23 (0.82%) Aerospace
19 22 (0.78%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 447 (15.85%) Support Engineer
2 345 (12.23%) Analyst
3 306 (10.85%) IT Support
4 198 (7.02%) IT Engineer
5 174 (6.17%) Windows Engineer
6 155 (5.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 152 (5.39%) Support Analyst
8 151 (5.35%) Desktop Support
9 150 (5.32%) Desktop Engineer
10 140 (4.96%) Architect
11 137 (4.86%) IT Support Engineer
12 135 (4.79%) Deployment Engineer
13 129 (4.57%) Senior
14 118 (4.18%) 2nd Line Support
15 111 (3.94%) Technical Support
16 107 (3.79%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 103 (3.65%) Developer
18 101 (3.58%) Platform Engineer
19 96 (3.40%) Administrator
20 84 (2.98%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (2.41%) .NET
2 52 (1.84%) LDAP
3 48 (1.70%) Middleware
4 41 (1.45%) REST
5 40 (1.42%) .NET Framework
6 39 (1.38%) WPF
7 37 (1.31%) Web Services
8 34 (1.21%) AngularJS
8 34 (1.21%) OAuth
9 33 (1.17%) XML
10 32 (1.13%) Node.js
10 32 (1.13%) SAML
11 29 (1.03%) React
12 26 (0.92%) OpenID
13 25 (0.89%) SOAP
14 23 (0.82%) CSS
15 20 (0.71%) Ajax
16 19 (0.67%) GraphQL
16 19 (0.67%) RESTful
17 16 (0.57%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 107 (3.79%) Onboarding
2 95 (3.37%) Data Centre
3 84 (2.98%) PKI
4 76 (2.70%) Driving Licence
5 66 (2.34%) Replication
6 62 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
7 60 (2.13%) Self-Motivation
8 56 (1.99%) Management Information System
9 40 (1.42%) iPhone
10 39 (1.38%) Security Posture
11 37 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
12 36 (1.28%) iPad
13 34 (1.21%) NHS
13 34 (1.21%) Smartphone
14 32 (1.13%) Video Conferencing
15 31 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
16 30 (1.06%) Mobile App
17 28 (0.99%) Legacy Systems
18 27 (0.96%) Public Cloud
19 26 (0.92%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 687 (24.36%) Linux
2 600 (21.28%) Windows 10
3 522 (18.51%) Windows Server
4 184 (6.52%) Unix
5 153 (5.43%) Mac OS
6 149 (5.28%) Android
7 108 (3.83%) Apple iOS
8 81 (2.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 75 (2.66%) Windows Server 2016
10 71 (2.52%) Windows 7
11 70 (2.48%) Windows Server 2019
12 50 (1.77%) Windows Server 2012
13 41 (1.45%) VMS
14 39 (1.38%) Windows Server 2003
15 36 (1.28%) Ubuntu
16 24 (0.85%) CentOS
17 23 (0.82%) AIX
17 23 (0.82%) Amazon Linux
18 18 (0.64%) Solaris
19 15 (0.53%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 512 (18.16%) Problem-Solving
2 410 (14.54%) ITIL
3 361 (12.80%) Customer Service
4 300 (10.64%) Migration
5 278 (9.86%) Agile
6 251 (8.90%) DevOps
7 222 (7.87%) Service Management
8 220 (7.80%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 208 (7.38%) ITSM
10 207 (7.34%) Cybersecurity
11 194 (6.88%) CI/CD
12 164 (5.82%) Continuous Improvement
13 155 (5.50%) Change Management
14 127 (4.50%) Incident Response
15 125 (4.43%) Stakeholder Management
16 122 (4.33%) User Experience
17 116 (4.11%) Service Delivery
18 114 (4.04%) Cloud Security
19 109 (3.87%) SIEM
20 105 (3.72%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 517 (18.33%) PowerShell
2 362 (12.84%) Python
3 276 (9.79%) SQL
4 148 (5.25%) Java
5 137 (4.86%) C#
6 125 (4.43%) Bash
7 83 (2.94%) JavaScript
8 75 (2.66%) Perl
9 74 (2.62%) C++
10 40 (1.42%) VB
11 39 (1.38%) PL/SQL
12 38 (1.35%) Shell Script
13 34 (1.21%) Kusto Query Language
14 33 (1.17%) Groovy
15 31 (1.10%) VBA
15 31 (1.10%) VBScript
16 30 (1.06%) C
17 20 (0.71%) PHP
17 20 (0.71%) T-SQL
18 15 (0.53%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 783 (27.77%) Security Cleared
2 545 (19.33%) SC Cleared
3 261 (9.26%) Degree
4 199 (7.06%) DV Cleared
5 195 (6.91%) Microsoft Certification
6 69 (2.45%) Computer Science Degree
7 66 (2.34%) Azure Certification
8 56 (1.99%) Cisco Certification
9 55 (1.95%) MCSE
10 50 (1.77%) A+ Certification
11 45 (1.60%) CISSP
12 37 (1.31%) DBS Check
13 36 (1.28%) CCNA
14 35 (1.24%) AWS Certification
14 35 (1.24%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 34 (1.21%) CCNP
15 34 (1.21%) ITIL Certification
16 27 (0.96%) MCSA
17 26 (0.92%) BPSS Clearance
17 26 (0.92%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 102 (3.62%) SLA
2 74 (2.62%) QA
3 65 (2.30%) GDPR
4 58 (2.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 55 (1.95%) NIST
6 19 (0.67%) HIPAA
7 14 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
7 14 (0.50%) PCI DSS
8 11 (0.39%) PMO
9 10 (0.35%) NCSC
10 9 (0.32%) Accessibility
11 8 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 6 (0.21%) COBIT
12 6 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
13 5 (0.18%) GLBA
14 4 (0.14%) SOC 2
15 3 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 3 (0.11%) Data Quality
15 3 (0.11%) ECSS
15 3 (0.11%) GxP
System Software
1 1,007 (35.71%) Active Directory
2 250 (8.87%) VMware Infrastructure
3 120 (4.26%) Docker
4 81 (2.87%) Hyper-V
5 67 (2.38%) Virtual Desktop
6 61 (2.16%) vSphere
7 60 (2.13%) Virtual Machines
8 53 (1.88%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.10%) VMware NSX
10 26 (0.92%) BitLocker
11 25 (0.89%) DFS Replication
12 24 (0.85%) Firmware
12 24 (0.85%) Microsoft App-V
12 24 (0.85%) Virtual Servers
13 20 (0.71%) NFS
14 16 (0.57%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 14 (0.50%) Terminal Services
16 13 (0.46%) XenApp
17 10 (0.35%) Brightmail
17 10 (0.35%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 424 (15.04%) SCCM
2 309 (10.96%) Microsoft Intune
3 179 (6.35%) Terraform
4 152 (5.39%) Ansible
5 93 (3.30%) Kubernetes
6 56 (1.99%) vCenter Server
7 45 (1.60%) Single Sign-On
8 43 (1.52%) Grafana
9 41 (1.45%) Jamf Pro
9 41 (1.45%) WSUS
10 40 (1.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 33 (1.17%) Progress Chef
12 31 (1.10%) Prometheus
13 26 (0.92%) Nessus
14 25 (0.89%) Microsoft Clustering
14 25 (0.89%) Puppet
14 25 (0.89%) SCOM
15 16 (0.57%) Proxmox
16 13 (0.46%) NetBackup
16 13 (0.46%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,259 (44.65%) Microsoft
2 358 (12.70%) VMware
3 266 (9.43%) ServiceNow
4 227 (8.05%) Oracle
5 180 (6.38%) Cisco
6 171 (6.06%) Citrix
7 155 (5.50%) Splunk
8 85 (3.01%) Apple
9 71 (2.52%) HP
9 71 (2.52%) Red Hat
10 62 (2.20%) IBM
11 58 (2.06%) Dell
12 57 (2.02%) NetApp
13 55 (1.95%) Google
14 53 (1.88%) SAP
14 53 (1.88%) Veeam
15 46 (1.63%) SolarWinds
16 44 (1.56%) AppDynamics
16 44 (1.56%) Remedy
17 42 (1.49%) CyberArk