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

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -5 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,815 2,411 3,509
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.92% 8.32% 8.21%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.75% 59.63% 61.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,840 1,667 2,419
10th Percentile £162 £178 £163
25th Percentile £213 £231 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.29% +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £400 £400
Number of hourly rates quoted 230 136 271
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.05 £11.80
25th Percentile £17.26 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.52 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.57% +4.56% -20.00%
75th Percentile £62.81 £25.00 £24.17
90th Percentile £75.00 £41.71 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.11 £18.82 £17.50
% change year-on-year +38.71% +7.54% -12.50%

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 4,634 4,043 5,692
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.74% 13.95% 13.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,995 2,655 3,844
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £456 £470 £465
Median % change year-on-year -2.98% +1.08% -7.92%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £658 £689 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £449 £445
% change year-on-year -2.51% +0.84% -6.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 321 178 390
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.25 £12.73
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.53 £15.31
Median hourly rate £47.50 £22.94 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +107.08% +4.26% -42.86%
75th Percentile £67.25 £57.50 £60.56
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £22.00 £22.25
% change year-on-year +115.91% -1.12% -24.06%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 2,434 £415 -0.24% 1,017
UK excluding London -11 1,883 £400 - 906
London -27 744 £443 -1.67% 236
Work from Home -14 580 £475 +1.82% 322
South East -6 514 £467 -4.79% 297
North of England -12 448 £335 +3.08% 192
Midlands -18 267 £316 +31.36% 111
North West -3 255 £300 -7.69% 112
South West -15 222 £450 -14.29% 144
East of England -2 215 £350 +40.00% 106
Yorkshire -20 178 £375 +17.19% 66
Scotland +2 161 £425 -2.86% 39
West Midlands -26 154 £442 +70.92% 59
East Midlands +8 108 £225 +9.09% 52
Wales 0 53 £267 -26.85% 36
North East -23 19 £225 -25.00% 17
Northern Ireland -6 14 £175 -12.50% 10
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
1 233 (8.28%) Microsoft Exchange
2 164 (5.83%) SharePoint
3 56 (1.99%) IIS
4 50 (1.78%) Confluence
5 24 (0.85%) Apache
6 19 (0.67%) WebLogic
7 16 (0.57%) Tomcat
8 14 (0.50%) nginx
9 12 (0.43%) Skype for Business
9 12 (0.43%) Tuxedo
10 11 (0.39%) SAS
11 8 (0.28%) TPMS
12 7 (0.25%) NetWeaver
12 7 (0.25%) WebSphere
13 5 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.14%) HCL Notes
14 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
16 2 (0.071%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 186 (6.61%) Microsoft Office
2 65 (2.31%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.32%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.14%) Acrobat
8 2 (0.071%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.036%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 44 (1.56%) Remedy ITSM
2 17 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (0.36%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.18%) assyst
5 4 (0.14%) Finacle
6 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.071%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.071%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.071%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.036%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle 11i
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.036%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 801 (28.45%) Azure
2 785 (27.89%) Microsoft 365
3 326 (11.58%) Entra ID
4 243 (8.63%) AWS
5 85 (3.02%) OneDrive
6 75 (2.66%) Azure DevOps
6 75 (2.66%) GCP
6 75 (2.66%) SaaS
7 63 (2.24%) IaaS
8 57 (2.02%) GitHub
9 55 (1.95%) PaaS
10 50 (1.78%) Power Platform
11 38 (1.35%) Azure Monitor
11 38 (1.35%) Google Workspace
12 34 (1.21%) Azure Sentinel
12 34 (1.21%) OpenShift
13 28 (0.99%) GitHub Actions
14 20 (0.71%) Nutanix
15 19 (0.67%) AWS CloudFormation
15 19 (0.67%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 393 (13.96%) DNS
2 307 (10.91%) Firewall
3 266 (9.45%) DHCP
4 203 (7.21%) VPN
5 173 (6.15%) TCP/IP
5 173 (6.15%) WAN
6 169 (6.00%) LAN
7 139 (4.94%) Wi-Fi
8 71 (2.52%) Network Security
8 71 (2.52%) SAN
9 60 (2.13%) VLAN
10 45 (1.60%) SD-WAN
11 43 (1.53%) Wireless
12 39 (1.39%) BGP
13 37 (1.31%) Skype
13 37 (1.31%) VoIP
14 36 (1.28%) SSL
15 35 (1.24%) OSPF
16 33 (1.17%) Internet
17 32 (1.14%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 208 (7.39%) SQL Server
2 48 (1.71%) Oracle Database
3 33 (1.17%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.07%) Power BI
5 29 (1.03%) MySQL
6 27 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
7 19 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.53%) DB2
9 13 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
9 13 (0.46%) MongoDB
9 13 (0.46%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.32%) GIS
12 8 (0.28%) Sybase ASE
13 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (0.25%) BigQuery
13 7 (0.25%) Oracle BI EE
13 7 (0.25%) Oracle Reports
13 7 (0.25%) RDBMS
13 7 (0.25%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 176 (6.25%) JIRA
2 52 (1.85%) GitLab
3 50 (1.78%) Jenkins
4 46 (1.63%) MSI
5 42 (1.49%) Git
6 35 (1.24%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.71%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.64%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.39%) Sonatype Nexus
11 10 (0.36%) Artifactory
12 9 (0.32%) Android Studio
12 9 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
12 9 (0.32%) Chocolatey
12 9 (0.32%) InstallShield
12 9 (0.32%) Xcode
13 8 (0.28%) Bitbucket
14 7 (0.25%) Robot Framework
14 7 (0.25%) Selenium
15 6 (0.21%) AdminStudio
General
1 945 (33.57%) Social Skills
2 267 (9.48%) Finance
3 266 (9.45%) Analytical Skills
4 212 (7.53%) Public Sector
5 136 (4.83%) Banking
6 123 (4.37%) Legal
7 100 (3.55%) Documentation Skills
8 73 (2.59%) Organisational Skills
9 61 (2.17%) Military
10 47 (1.67%) Manufacturing
11 44 (1.56%) Retail
12 39 (1.39%) Law
13 38 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 35 (1.24%) Telecoms
15 31 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
16 29 (1.03%) Investment Banking
17 26 (0.92%) Front Office
18 20 (0.71%) Local Government
18 20 (0.71%) Police
19 17 (0.60%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 354 (12.58%) IT Support
2 328 (11.65%) Support Engineer
3 317 (11.26%) Analyst
4 239 (8.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 212 (7.53%) IT Engineer
6 173 (6.15%) IT Support Engineer
6 173 (6.15%) Senior
7 163 (5.79%) Architect
8 120 (4.26%) Support Analyst
9 118 (4.19%) Desktop Support
10 99 (3.52%) Desktop Engineer
11 98 (3.48%) Lead
12 91 (3.23%) IT Analyst
13 90 (3.20%) 2nd Line Support
13 90 (3.20%) Developer
14 87 (3.09%) Technical Support
14 87 (3.09%) Windows Engineer
15 74 (2.63%) Service Analyst
16 71 (2.52%) 1st Line Support
16 71 (2.52%) Service Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.13%) .NET
2 86 (3.06%) REST
3 48 (1.71%) .NET Framework
4 45 (1.60%) LDAP
5 40 (1.42%) SAML
6 33 (1.17%) Kafka
6 33 (1.17%) Middleware
7 28 (0.99%) Microsoft Graph
7 28 (0.99%) OAuth
8 27 (0.96%) 802.1X
9 26 (0.92%) Web Services
10 25 (0.89%) WinForms
11 23 (0.82%) WPF
12 20 (0.71%) Elastic Stack
12 20 (0.71%) Node.js
12 20 (0.71%) React
12 20 (0.71%) Software Packaging
13 19 (0.67%) CSS
13 19 (0.67%) OpenID
14 18 (0.64%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 227 (8.06%) Onboarding
2 139 (4.94%) Data Centre
3 113 (4.01%) PKI
4 89 (3.16%) Enterprise Software
5 80 (2.84%) Clustering
6 68 (2.42%) Driving Licence
7 62 (2.20%) Self-Motivation
8 58 (2.06%) Replication
9 49 (1.74%) Management Information System
10 48 (1.71%) Hybrid Cloud
10 48 (1.71%) Legacy Systems
11 46 (1.63%) Smartphone
12 44 (1.56%) Virtual Team
13 43 (1.53%) Security Posture
14 39 (1.39%) Cloud Native
15 32 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
15 32 (1.14%) Security Operations Centre
16 31 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
16 31 (1.10%) Operational Technology
17 30 (1.07%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 711 (25.26%) Linux
2 660 (23.45%) Windows Server
3 486 (17.26%) Windows 10
4 184 (6.54%) Mac OS
5 153 (5.44%) Unix
6 143 (5.08%) Android
7 134 (4.76%) Apple iOS
8 96 (3.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 73 (2.59%) Windows Server 2016
9 73 (2.59%) Windows Server 2019
10 49 (1.74%) Windows 7
11 34 (1.21%) Windows Server 2012
12 32 (1.14%) AIX
13 22 (0.78%) Ubuntu
14 20 (0.71%) Solaris
14 20 (0.71%) VMS
15 18 (0.64%) Windows Server 2003
16 14 (0.50%) Windows Server 2008
17 9 (0.32%) CentOS
17 9 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 595 (21.14%) Problem-Solving
2 434 (15.42%) Customer Service
3 419 (14.88%) ITIL
4 315 (11.19%) Migration
5 312 (11.08%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 282 (10.02%) Agile
7 255 (9.06%) ITSM
8 252 (8.95%) DevOps
9 241 (8.56%) CI/CD
10 186 (6.61%) Disaster Recovery
11 180 (6.39%) Cybersecurity
12 177 (6.29%) Continuous Improvement
13 176 (6.25%) Service Management
14 172 (6.11%) Change Management
14 172 (6.11%) High Availability
15 154 (5.47%) SIEM
16 133 (4.72%) Infrastructure as Code
17 132 (4.69%) Stakeholder Management
18 129 (4.58%) Computer Science
19 125 (4.44%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 601 (21.35%) PowerShell
2 297 (10.55%) Python
3 271 (9.63%) SQL
4 126 (4.48%) C#
5 104 (3.69%) Bash
6 76 (2.70%) Java
7 72 (2.56%) JavaScript
8 58 (2.06%) PL/SQL
9 50 (1.78%) C++
10 46 (1.63%) T-SQL
11 30 (1.07%) Perl
12 26 (0.92%) Kusto Query Language
13 24 (0.85%) VB
14 23 (0.82%) Search Processing Language
14 23 (0.82%) Shell Script
15 17 (0.60%) VBScript
16 15 (0.53%) Go
17 14 (0.50%) VBA
18 12 (0.43%) Bicep
18 12 (0.43%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 855 (30.37%) Security Cleared
2 553 (19.64%) SC Cleared
3 283 (10.05%) Degree
4 270 (9.59%) DV Cleared
5 102 (3.62%) Microsoft Certification
6 91 (3.23%) Computer Science Degree
7 85 (3.02%) Cisco Certification
8 50 (1.78%) CISSP
9 47 (1.67%) Azure Certification
10 46 (1.63%) BPSS Clearance
11 41 (1.46%) MCSE
12 37 (1.31%) CCNA
12 37 (1.31%) CompTIA Security+
13 35 (1.24%) AWS Certification
14 33 (1.17%) ITIL Certification
15 31 (1.10%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 28 (0.99%) A+ Certification
17 25 (0.89%) MCSA
18 24 (0.85%) CCNP
19 19 (0.67%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (4.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 93 (3.30%) SLA
3 90 (3.20%) QA
4 86 (3.06%) GDPR
5 77 (2.74%) NIST
6 42 (1.49%) PCI DSS
7 30 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 28 (0.99%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.57%) NCSC
10 15 (0.53%) PMO
11 12 (0.43%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.43%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.39%) Disclosure Scotland
12 11 (0.39%) MiFID
13 10 (0.36%) FINRA
14 8 (0.28%) GLBA
14 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
15 7 (0.25%) DICOM
16 6 (0.21%) HIPAA
16 6 (0.21%) HL7
System Software
1 1,045 (37.12%) Active Directory
2 340 (12.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 153 (5.44%) Hyper-V
4 92 (3.27%) Docker
5 91 (3.23%) VMware ESXi
6 90 (3.20%) vSphere
7 78 (2.77%) Virtual Machines
8 55 (1.95%) Virtual Desktop
9 43 (1.53%) VMware NSX
10 36 (1.28%) Firmware
11 29 (1.03%) BitLocker
12 27 (0.96%) Microsoft App-V
13 21 (0.75%) KVM
14 11 (0.39%) XenApp
14 11 (0.39%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.36%) Oracle RAC
16 6 (0.21%) etcd
16 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
17 5 (0.18%) vCloud
17 5 (0.18%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 346 (12.29%) Microsoft Intune
2 267 (9.48%) SCCM
3 186 (6.61%) Ansible
4 160 (5.68%) Terraform
5 138 (4.90%) Kubernetes
6 73 (2.59%) vCenter Server
7 60 (2.13%) Single Sign-On
8 48 (1.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 43 (1.53%) WSUS
10 41 (1.46%) Jamf Pro
11 39 (1.39%) FortiGate
11 39 (1.39%) Grafana
12 31 (1.10%) Prometheus
12 31 (1.10%) SCOM
13 28 (0.99%) Nagios
14 23 (0.82%) Nessus
15 21 (0.75%) Progress Chef
16 20 (0.71%) ZABBIX
17 19 (0.67%) Puppet
17 19 (0.67%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 1,191 (42.31%) Microsoft
2 446 (15.84%) VMware
3 234 (8.31%) ServiceNow
4 200 (7.10%) Citrix
5 197 (7.00%) Cisco
6 173 (6.15%) Oracle
7 160 (5.68%) Splunk
8 83 (2.95%) HP
9 69 (2.45%) Dell
9 69 (2.45%) SolarWinds
10 60 (2.13%) Apple
11 58 (2.06%) Red Hat
12 57 (2.02%) Remedy
13 54 (1.92%) IBM
14 49 (1.74%) F5
14 49 (1.74%) Palo Alto
15 48 (1.71%) Google
16 47 (1.67%) CyberArk
17 40 (1.42%) Juniper
18 39 (1.39%) BeyondTrust