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 6 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -5 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,920 2,416 3,501
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.91% 8.32% 8.13%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.88% 60.04% 60.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,881 1,655 2,407
10th Percentile £163 £181 £163
25th Percentile £220 £243 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year - +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £674 £673
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £400 £420
% change year-on-year +3.13% -4.65% +8.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 253 156 275
10th Percentile £15.79 £14.65 £11.88
25th Percentile £18.25 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £18.13
Median % change year-on-year +36.46% +4.08% -22.85%
75th Percentile £55.50 £25.18 £25.00
90th Percentile £71.71 £59.50 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.82 £17.69
% change year-on-year +36.82% +6.39% -16.99%

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 4,796 4,024 5,797
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.71% 13.86% 13.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,057 2,638 3,883
10th Percentile £188 £200 £185
25th Percentile £315 £314 £305
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £465 £468
Median % change year-on-year -1.08% -0.64% -6.40%
75th Percentile £575 £587 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -3.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 347 187 405
10th Percentile £14.80 £15.12 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.33 £15.50
Median hourly rate £32.50 £22.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +47.73% -2.22% -47.83%
75th Percentile £65.00 £45.83 £62.00
90th Percentile £72.80 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £18.94 £24.18
% change year-on-year +71.64% -21.69% -37.19%

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 6 June 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 6 June 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 6 June 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 2,540 £425 - 1,059
UK excluding London -12 1,957 £413 +3.13% 924
London -23 792 £430 -4.44% 272
Work from Home -13 599 £475 +2.26% 389
South East -6 527 £475 -3.06% 309
North of England -9 474 £365 +4.29% 194
Midlands -15 274 £325 +14.04% 112
North West 0 257 £350 -4.63% 113
South West -13 231 £475 +1.33% 153
East of England 0 222 £348 -13.93% 89
Yorkshire -20 198 £365 -8.75% 62
Scotland -1 178 £425 -1.62% 40
West Midlands -26 163 £454 +51.42% 64
East Midlands +7 106 £225 -2.70% 48
Wales -3 49 £360 +20.00% 28
North East -29 23 £290 -3.33% 22
Northern Ireland 0 15 £139 -30.75% 21
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
1 236 (8.08%) Microsoft Exchange
2 182 (6.23%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.09%) IIS
4 52 (1.78%) Confluence
5 23 (0.79%) Apache
6 19 (0.65%) Tomcat
7 18 (0.62%) nginx
8 14 (0.48%) Skype for Business
9 11 (0.38%) WebLogic
10 9 (0.31%) NetWeaver
10 9 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
11 8 (0.27%) HCL Notes
12 7 (0.24%) SAS
13 6 (0.21%) TPMS
14 5 (0.17%) Appian
14 5 (0.17%) WebSphere
15 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 4 (0.14%) Tuxedo
16 3 (0.10%) Camunda
17 2 (0.068%) Apache Pulsar
Applications
1 180 (6.16%) Microsoft Office
2 63 (2.16%) Microsoft Excel
3 23 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.27%) 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 (0.068%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.034%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 45 (1.54%) Remedy ITSM
2 19 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.41%) Teamcenter
4 6 (0.21%) Finacle
5 4 (0.14%) assyst
6 3 (0.10%) OpenText MBPM
6 3 (0.10%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.068%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.068%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.068%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.068%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.034%) Dynamics GP
8 1 (0.034%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.034%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 867 (29.69%) Azure
2 822 (28.15%) Microsoft 365
3 362 (12.40%) Entra ID
4 273 (9.35%) AWS
5 103 (3.53%) OneDrive
6 95 (3.25%) GCP
7 75 (2.57%) SaaS
8 74 (2.53%) Azure DevOps
9 66 (2.26%) IaaS
10 65 (2.23%) GitHub
11 57 (1.95%) PaaS
11 57 (1.95%) Power Platform
12 41 (1.40%) OpenShift
13 38 (1.30%) Azure Monitor
14 37 (1.27%) Azure Sentinel
14 37 (1.27%) Google Workspace
15 30 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
16 20 (0.68%) AWS CloudFormation
16 20 (0.68%) Microsoft Purview
16 20 (0.68%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 405 (13.87%) DNS
2 307 (10.51%) Firewall
3 276 (9.45%) DHCP
4 217 (7.43%) VPN
5 182 (6.23%) TCP/IP
6 175 (5.99%) WAN
7 174 (5.96%) LAN
8 141 (4.83%) Wi-Fi
9 85 (2.91%) SAN
10 73 (2.50%) Network Security
11 59 (2.02%) VLAN
12 46 (1.58%) SD-WAN
13 40 (1.37%) Wireless
14 39 (1.34%) BGP
14 39 (1.34%) NAS
14 39 (1.34%) VoIP
15 38 (1.30%) SSL
16 37 (1.27%) Internet
17 36 (1.23%) SNMP
18 34 (1.16%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 235 (8.05%) SQL Server
2 52 (1.78%) Oracle Database
3 35 (1.20%) Power BI
4 33 (1.13%) Relational Database
5 29 (0.99%) MySQL
6 27 (0.92%) PostgreSQL
7 21 (0.72%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 14 (0.48%) Db2
10 13 (0.45%) Data Warehouse
10 13 (0.45%) MongoDB
10 13 (0.45%) NoSQL
11 10 (0.34%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (0.34%) GIS
12 9 (0.31%) RDBMS
12 9 (0.31%) SAP HANA
13 8 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
13 8 (0.27%) Oracle BI EE
13 8 (0.27%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.27%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 183 (6.27%) JIRA
2 55 (1.88%) Jenkins
3 48 (1.64%) Git
4 45 (1.54%) GitLab
5 36 (1.23%) MSI
5 36 (1.23%) Visual Studio
6 19 (0.65%) Eclipse
7 11 (0.38%) Burp Suite
8 10 (0.34%) Metasploit
8 10 (0.34%) Sonatype Nexus
9 9 (0.31%) Artifactory
9 9 (0.31%) Chocolatey
10 8 (0.27%) Android Studio
10 8 (0.27%) Browser DevTools
10 8 (0.27%) Xcode
11 7 (0.24%) Bitbucket
11 7 (0.24%) Selenium
12 6 (0.21%) InstallShield
12 6 (0.21%) Robot Framework
13 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
General
1 993 (34.01%) Social Skills
2 301 (10.31%) Finance
3 297 (10.17%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (7.02%) Public Sector
5 152 (5.21%) Banking
6 118 (4.04%) Legal
7 97 (3.32%) Documentation Skills
8 76 (2.60%) Organisational Skills
9 53 (1.82%) Military
10 49 (1.68%) Retail
11 48 (1.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 45 (1.54%) Manufacturing
13 39 (1.34%) Law
14 37 (1.27%) Investment Banking
15 32 (1.10%) Front Office
16 31 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
17 27 (0.92%) Telecoms
18 21 (0.72%) Local Government
19 20 (0.68%) French Language
19 20 (0.68%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 366 (12.53%) IT Support
2 361 (12.36%) Support Engineer
3 310 (10.62%) Analyst
4 263 (9.01%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 232 (7.95%) IT Engineer
6 192 (6.58%) IT Support Engineer
7 181 (6.20%) Senior
8 157 (5.38%) Architect
9 124 (4.25%) Desktop Support
10 119 (4.08%) Support Analyst
11 112 (3.84%) Desktop Engineer
12 106 (3.63%) Lead
13 98 (3.36%) IT Analyst
14 95 (3.25%) 2nd Line Support
15 91 (3.12%) Windows Engineer
16 88 (3.01%) Developer
17 84 (2.88%) Technical Support
18 80 (2.74%) Consultant
19 71 (2.43%) 1st Line Support
19 71 (2.43%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (3.18%) REST
2 91 (3.12%) .NET
3 49 (1.68%) .NET Framework
4 44 (1.51%) LDAP
5 36 (1.23%) SAML
6 34 (1.16%) Microsoft Graph
7 29 (0.99%) Kafka
7 29 (0.99%) Middleware
8 28 (0.96%) 802.1X
9 27 (0.92%) WinForms
10 26 (0.89%) Software Packaging
11 25 (0.86%) Web Services
12 24 (0.82%) OAuth
13 21 (0.72%) WPF
14 20 (0.68%) Elastic Stack
15 17 (0.58%) AngularJS
15 17 (0.58%) CSS
15 17 (0.58%) Node.js
16 16 (0.55%) RabbitMQ
16 16 (0.55%) React
Miscellaneous
1 262 (8.97%) Onboarding
2 154 (5.27%) Data Centre
3 128 (4.38%) PKI
4 86 (2.95%) Enterprise Software
5 83 (2.84%) Clustering
6 65 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
7 62 (2.12%) Management Information System
8 61 (2.09%) Driving Licence
9 59 (2.02%) Replication
10 53 (1.82%) Security Posture
11 52 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
12 51 (1.75%) Virtual Team
13 50 (1.71%) Hybrid Cloud
14 49 (1.68%) Cloud Native
15 43 (1.47%) Smartphone
16 38 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
17 35 (1.20%) CMDB
17 35 (1.20%) Enterprise Storage
18 34 (1.16%) Operational Technology
19 33 (1.13%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 734 (25.14%) Linux
2 706 (24.18%) Windows Server
3 499 (17.09%) Windows 10
4 185 (6.34%) Mac OS
5 153 (5.24%) Unix
6 141 (4.83%) Apple iOS
7 136 (4.66%) Android
8 111 (3.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 79 (2.71%) Windows Server 2019
10 68 (2.33%) Windows Server 2016
11 54 (1.85%) Windows 7
12 38 (1.30%) Windows Server 2012
13 33 (1.13%) AIX
14 26 (0.89%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.82%) Solaris
16 22 (0.75%) VMS
17 20 (0.68%) Windows Server 2003
18 18 (0.62%) Windows Server 2008
19 12 (0.41%) CentOS
20 8 (0.27%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 629 (21.54%) Problem-Solving
2 438 (15.00%) ITIL
3 428 (14.66%) Customer Service
4 337 (11.54%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 333 (11.40%) Migration
6 284 (9.73%) ITSM
7 283 (9.69%) Agile
8 271 (9.28%) DevOps
9 243 (8.32%) CI/CD
10 197 (6.75%) Continuous Improvement
11 196 (6.71%) High Availability
11 196 (6.71%) Service Management
12 195 (6.68%) Change Management
13 186 (6.37%) Disaster Recovery
14 175 (5.99%) Cybersecurity
15 159 (5.45%) SIEM
16 155 (5.31%) Stakeholder Management
17 146 (5.00%) Infrastructure as Code
18 140 (4.79%) Service Delivery
19 134 (4.59%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 644 (22.05%) PowerShell
2 306 (10.48%) Python
3 273 (9.35%) SQL
4 123 (4.21%) C#
5 118 (4.04%) Bash
6 78 (2.67%) Java
7 68 (2.33%) JavaScript
8 53 (1.82%) PL/SQL
9 48 (1.64%) C++
10 45 (1.54%) T-SQL
11 30 (1.03%) Perl
12 26 (0.89%) Kusto Query Language
13 25 (0.86%) Shell Script
13 25 (0.86%) VB
14 23 (0.79%) Search Processing Language
15 19 (0.65%) VBScript
16 17 (0.58%) Bicep
17 14 (0.48%) VBA
18 13 (0.45%) C
19 10 (0.34%) Go
Qualifications
1 851 (29.14%) Security Cleared
2 549 (18.80%) SC Cleared
3 310 (10.62%) Degree
4 267 (9.14%) DV Cleared
5 111 (3.80%) Microsoft Certification
6 93 (3.18%) Cisco Certification
7 92 (3.15%) Computer Science Degree
8 66 (2.26%) CISSP
9 56 (1.92%) Azure Certification
10 49 (1.68%) MCSE
11 47 (1.61%) BPSS Clearance
12 39 (1.34%) AWS Certification
12 39 (1.34%) CCNA
13 37 (1.27%) CompTIA Security+
14 34 (1.16%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 31 (1.06%) CCNP
16 30 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
16 30 (1.03%) MCSA
17 27 (0.92%) CISM
18 26 (0.89%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 123 (4.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 111 (3.80%) SLA
3 89 (3.05%) NIST
4 84 (2.88%) QA
5 76 (2.60%) GDPR
6 35 (1.20%) PCI DSS
7 31 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 26 (0.89%) Cyber Essentials
9 15 (0.51%) NCSC
10 13 (0.45%) PMO
11 12 (0.41%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.41%) Disclosure Scotland
11 12 (0.41%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.38%) MiFID
12 11 (0.38%) SOC 2
13 10 (0.34%) FINRA
13 10 (0.34%) HIPAA
14 8 (0.27%) GRC
15 6 (0.21%) DICOM
15 6 (0.21%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 1,084 (37.12%) Active Directory
2 374 (12.81%) VMware Infrastructure
3 165 (5.65%) Hyper-V
4 109 (3.73%) VMware ESXi
5 103 (3.53%) vSphere
6 94 (3.22%) Docker
7 92 (3.15%) Virtual Machines
8 60 (2.05%) Virtual Desktop
9 54 (1.85%) VMware NSX
10 39 (1.34%) Firmware
11 38 (1.30%) BitLocker
12 28 (0.96%) Microsoft App-V
13 21 (0.72%) KVM
14 11 (0.38%) Oracle RAC
14 11 (0.38%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.34%) vCloud
15 10 (0.34%) XenApp
16 8 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
17 6 (0.21%) etcd
17 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 383 (13.12%) Microsoft Intune
2 256 (8.77%) SCCM
3 204 (6.99%) Ansible
4 172 (5.89%) Terraform
5 144 (4.93%) Kubernetes
6 87 (2.98%) vCenter Server
7 53 (1.82%) Single Sign-On
8 48 (1.64%) Jamf Pro
9 41 (1.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 41 (1.40%) SCOM
10 40 (1.37%) FortiGate
10 40 (1.37%) WSUS
11 38 (1.30%) Grafana
12 33 (1.13%) Prometheus
13 29 (0.99%) Nagios
13 29 (0.99%) Progress Chef
14 22 (0.75%) Puppet
15 20 (0.68%) Nessus
15 20 (0.68%) vMotion
15 20 (0.68%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,248 (42.74%) Microsoft
2 481 (16.47%) VMware
3 259 (8.87%) ServiceNow
4 218 (7.47%) Cisco
5 199 (6.82%) Citrix
6 184 (6.30%) Oracle
7 161 (5.51%) Splunk
8 82 (2.81%) HP
9 77 (2.64%) SolarWinds
10 74 (2.53%) Dell
11 71 (2.43%) Red Hat
12 64 (2.19%) Google
13 61 (2.09%) Apple
14 60 (2.05%) F5
15 57 (1.95%) Remedy
16 55 (1.88%) Palo Alto
17 53 (1.82%) CyberArk
18 51 (1.75%) IBM
19 46 (1.58%) Juniper
20 45 (1.54%) BeyondTrust