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

6 months to
19 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 15
Rank change year-on-year -3 -4 +1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,863 2,988 4,494
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 8.02% 8.24% 9.71%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.35% 58.27% 63.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,920 1,860 2,996
10th Percentile £163 £181 £160
25th Percentile £204 £240 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £420 £420
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.18%
75th Percentile £538 £557 £575
90th Percentile £625 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £400 £388
% change year-on-year -18.75% +3.23% +8.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 301 140 257
10th Percentile £15.12 £15.22 £14.17
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.13 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.02% +7.47% +9.76%
75th Percentile £30.00 £57.62 £55.47
90th Percentile £65.00 £68.84 £68.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £24.18 £22.00
% change year-on-year -11.25% +9.91% +17.49%

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 4,824 5,128 7,072
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.51% 14.15% 15.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,116 3,142 4,799
10th Percentile £182 £200 £182
25th Percentile £270 £325 £305
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -5.88%
75th Percentile £573 £584 £612
90th Percentile £660 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £405 £450 £441
% change year-on-year -10.00% +2.04% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 369 219 353
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.25 £15.30
25th Percentile £18.87 £23.45 £18.50
Median hourly rate £24.00 £50.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -52.00% +33.33% +50.00%
75th Percentile £43.75 £68.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £70.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.25 £52.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year -55.71% +75.00% +33.33%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 2,549 £390 -2.56% 1,921
UK excluding London 0 1,911 £325 -18.75% 1,509
London -12 800 £450 +12.50% 621
Work from Home -8 578 £425 -5.56% 773
South East +2 513 £350 -17.65% 520
North of England -4 399 £280 -30.00% 299
South West +5 331 £425 - 231
Midlands -7 308 £400 +5.26% 200
North West -3 220 £328 -27.22% 182
West Midlands -5 218 £427 +12.37% 120
East of England -1 212 £225 -43.75% 148
Yorkshire -10 150 £240 -31.43% 92
Scotland -13 120 £450 +9.09% 96
East Midlands -4 89 £210 -44.00% 79
Wales +1 44 £275 +37.50% 30
North East +2 32 £190 -38.71% 25
Northern Ireland -12 17 £175 -0.57% 23

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
1 267 (9.33%) Microsoft Exchange
2 179 (6.25%) SharePoint
3 85 (2.97%) Confluence
4 57 (1.99%) Apache
5 45 (1.57%) IIS
6 28 (0.98%) WebSphere
7 22 (0.77%) Skype for Business
8 21 (0.73%) JBoss
9 18 (0.63%) WebLogic
10 15 (0.52%) SharePoint Server
11 14 (0.49%) Exchange Server 2010
11 14 (0.49%) Exchange Server 2013
12 13 (0.45%) nginx
13 11 (0.38%) 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 9 (0.31%) Tomcat
16 7 (0.24%) SAS
Applications
1 270 (9.43%) Microsoft Office
2 89 (3.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 21 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.35%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 8 (0.28%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.070%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.070%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.070%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.070%) Windchill
8 1 (0.035%) Acrobat
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.035%) Camtasia
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.035%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 21 (0.73%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.24%) Maximo
3 6 (0.21%) assyst
4 5 (0.17%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.10%) ION MarketView
5 3 (0.10%) Oracle 11i
6 2 (0.070%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.070%) Eikon
6 2 (0.070%) Fidessa
6 2 (0.070%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.070%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.070%) SystmOne
6 2 (0.070%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.035%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.035%) RMDS
7 1 (0.035%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.035%) SAP GRC
7 1 (0.035%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 753 (26.30%) Microsoft 365
2 645 (22.53%) Azure
3 270 (9.43%) AWS
4 237 (8.28%) Entra ID
5 89 (3.11%) OneDrive
6 83 (2.90%) SaaS
7 76 (2.65%) GitHub
8 66 (2.31%) GCP
9 65 (2.27%) Azure DevOps
10 55 (1.92%) IaaS
11 50 (1.75%) Google Workspace
12 41 (1.43%) Power Platform
13 40 (1.40%) PaaS
14 38 (1.33%) Azure Sentinel
15 37 (1.29%) Amazon S3
16 36 (1.26%) Amazon EC2
17 35 (1.22%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 32 (1.12%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 29 (1.01%) Azure Monitor
20 28 (0.98%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 348 (12.16%) DNS
2 327 (11.42%) Firewall
3 217 (7.58%) DHCP
4 207 (7.23%) TCP/IP
5 167 (5.83%) VPN
6 103 (3.60%) Wi-Fi
7 96 (3.35%) LAN
8 92 (3.21%) WAN
9 84 (2.93%) Network Security
10 68 (2.38%) VLAN
11 62 (2.17%) SAN
11 62 (2.17%) SSH
12 58 (2.03%) Wireless
13 54 (1.89%) Cisco IOS
13 54 (1.89%) HTTP
14 36 (1.26%) SSL
15 35 (1.22%) VoIP
16 32 (1.12%) SMTP
17 30 (1.05%) FTP
17 30 (1.05%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 128 (4.47%) SQL Server
2 83 (2.90%) Oracle Database
3 65 (2.27%) Relational Database
4 45 (1.57%) MySQL
5 36 (1.26%) Amazon RDS
6 26 (0.91%) PostgreSQL
7 17 (0.59%) Power BI
8 13 (0.45%) Oracle Reports
9 12 (0.42%) DB2
10 11 (0.38%) Amazon Aurora
10 11 (0.38%) GIS
10 11 (0.38%) NoSQL
11 10 (0.35%) BigQuery
11 10 (0.35%) RDBMS
12 8 (0.28%) SAP HANA
13 7 (0.24%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
13 7 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
13 7 (0.24%) MongoDB
14 6 (0.21%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 169 (5.90%) JIRA
2 118 (4.12%) Git
3 113 (3.95%) Jenkins
4 46 (1.61%) GitLab
5 42 (1.47%) Eclipse
6 39 (1.36%) Visual Studio
7 31 (1.08%) Bitbucket
7 31 (1.08%) MSI
8 25 (0.87%) Vagrant
9 20 (0.70%) Android Studio
9 20 (0.70%) Sonatype Nexus
10 19 (0.66%) Browser DevTools
11 18 (0.63%) Xcode
12 16 (0.56%) InstallShield
13 15 (0.52%) AdminStudio
13 15 (0.52%) Bitbucket Server
13 15 (0.52%) CA Release Automation
14 14 (0.49%) Postman
15 13 (0.45%) Artifactory
15 13 (0.45%) IntelliJ
General
1 1,081 (37.76%) Social Skills
2 383 (13.38%) Finance
3 275 (9.61%) Analytical Skills
4 274 (9.57%) Public Sector
5 137 (4.79%) Banking
6 120 (4.19%) Documentation Skills
7 81 (2.83%) Legal
8 66 (2.31%) Manufacturing
9 59 (2.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 57 (1.99%) Organisational Skills
11 53 (1.85%) Telecoms
12 52 (1.82%) Military
13 50 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
14 42 (1.47%) Retail
15 38 (1.33%) Marketing
16 31 (1.08%) Games
17 26 (0.91%) Aerospace
17 26 (0.91%) Electronics
18 25 (0.87%) Front Office
19 22 (0.77%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 446 (15.58%) Support Engineer
2 350 (12.22%) Analyst
3 307 (10.72%) IT Support
4 195 (6.81%) IT Engineer
5 174 (6.08%) Windows Engineer
6 166 (5.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 153 (5.34%) Desktop Engineer
7 153 (5.34%) Support Analyst
8 151 (5.27%) Desktop Support
9 144 (5.03%) Architect
10 137 (4.79%) Deployment Engineer
10 137 (4.79%) Senior
11 134 (4.68%) IT Support Engineer
12 120 (4.19%) 2nd Line Support
13 111 (3.88%) Developer
14 110 (3.84%) Technical Support
15 108 (3.77%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 105 (3.67%) Platform Engineer
17 93 (3.25%) Administrator
18 83 (2.90%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (2.48%) .NET
2 52 (1.82%) LDAP
3 51 (1.78%) Middleware
4 43 (1.50%) Web Services
5 42 (1.47%) REST
6 41 (1.43%) .NET Framework
7 40 (1.40%) WPF
8 38 (1.33%) Node.js
9 36 (1.26%) OAuth
10 34 (1.19%) AngularJS
10 34 (1.19%) SAML
10 34 (1.19%) XML
11 29 (1.01%) React
12 28 (0.98%) OpenID
12 28 (0.98%) SOAP
13 23 (0.80%) CSS
14 20 (0.70%) Ajax
15 19 (0.66%) GraphQL
15 19 (0.66%) Kafka
15 19 (0.66%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 110 (3.84%) Onboarding
2 97 (3.39%) Data Centre
3 93 (3.25%) PKI
4 76 (2.65%) Driving Licence
5 66 (2.31%) Replication
6 64 (2.24%) Self-Motivation
7 63 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
8 56 (1.96%) Management Information System
9 38 (1.33%) iPhone
9 38 (1.33%) Security Posture
10 37 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
10 37 (1.29%) Smartphone
11 34 (1.19%) Video Conferencing
12 33 (1.15%) Analytical Mindset
12 33 (1.15%) iPad
12 33 (1.15%) NHS
13 30 (1.05%) Mobile App
14 29 (1.01%) Legacy Systems
15 28 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
16 26 (0.91%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 707 (24.69%) Linux
2 602 (21.03%) Windows 10
3 535 (18.69%) Windows Server
4 186 (6.50%) Unix
5 156 (5.45%) Android
6 155 (5.41%) Mac OS
7 106 (3.70%) Apple iOS
8 86 (3.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 70 (2.44%) Windows 7
10 65 (2.27%) Windows Server 2016
11 61 (2.13%) Windows Server 2019
12 48 (1.68%) Windows Server 2012
13 41 (1.43%) VMS
14 38 (1.33%) Windows Server 2003
15 37 (1.29%) Ubuntu
16 26 (0.91%) AIX
17 24 (0.84%) CentOS
18 23 (0.80%) Amazon Linux
19 18 (0.63%) Solaris
20 15 (0.52%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 527 (18.41%) Problem-Solving
2 418 (14.60%) ITIL
3 369 (12.89%) Customer Service
4 311 (10.86%) Migration
5 291 (10.16%) Agile
6 256 (8.94%) DevOps
7 232 (8.10%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 229 (8.00%) Service Management
9 212 (7.40%) ITSM
10 210 (7.33%) Cybersecurity
11 207 (7.23%) CI/CD
12 170 (5.94%) Continuous Improvement
13 159 (5.55%) Change Management
14 129 (4.51%) Incident Response
15 125 (4.37%) Stakeholder Management
16 122 (4.26%) User Experience
17 114 (3.98%) Service Delivery
18 113 (3.95%) Cloud Security
19 110 (3.84%) SIEM
20 108 (3.77%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 532 (18.58%) PowerShell
2 376 (13.13%) Python
3 282 (9.85%) SQL
4 153 (5.34%) Java
5 146 (5.10%) C#
6 130 (4.54%) Bash
7 90 (3.14%) JavaScript
8 81 (2.83%) C++
9 79 (2.76%) Perl
10 43 (1.50%) PL/SQL
11 40 (1.40%) VB
12 39 (1.36%) Shell Script
13 33 (1.15%) Groovy
13 33 (1.15%) Kusto Query Language
14 32 (1.12%) VBScript
15 30 (1.05%) C
15 30 (1.05%) VBA
16 22 (0.77%) T-SQL
17 20 (0.70%) PHP
18 15 (0.52%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 804 (28.08%) Security Cleared
2 568 (19.84%) SC Cleared
3 267 (9.33%) Degree
4 199 (6.95%) Microsoft Certification
5 197 (6.88%) DV Cleared
6 70 (2.44%) Computer Science Degree
7 65 (2.27%) Azure Certification
8 55 (1.92%) Cisco Certification
9 54 (1.89%) MCSE
10 50 (1.75%) A+ Certification
11 44 (1.54%) CISSP
12 38 (1.33%) AWS Certification
12 38 (1.33%) ITIL Certification
13 37 (1.29%) DBS Check
14 35 (1.22%) CCNA
15 34 (1.19%) CCNP
16 32 (1.12%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 27 (0.94%) MCSA
18 26 (0.91%) BPSS Clearance
19 25 (0.87%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (3.21%) SLA
2 79 (2.76%) QA
3 65 (2.27%) GDPR
4 58 (2.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 55 (1.92%) NIST
6 19 (0.66%) HIPAA
7 14 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
7 14 (0.49%) PCI DSS
8 11 (0.38%) NCSC
8 11 (0.38%) PMO
9 9 (0.31%) Accessibility
10 8 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (0.21%) COBIT
12 5 (0.17%) Disclosure Scotland
12 5 (0.17%) GLBA
13 4 (0.14%) SOC 2
14 3 (0.10%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 3 (0.10%) Data Quality
14 3 (0.10%) ECSS
14 3 (0.10%) GxP
System Software
1 1,028 (35.91%) Active Directory
2 257 (8.98%) VMware Infrastructure
3 125 (4.37%) Docker
4 88 (3.07%) Hyper-V
5 66 (2.31%) Virtual Desktop
6 59 (2.06%) vSphere
7 58 (2.03%) Virtual Machines
8 52 (1.82%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.08%) VMware NSX
10 25 (0.87%) BitLocker
10 25 (0.87%) DFS Replication
10 25 (0.87%) Microsoft App-V
11 24 (0.84%) Firmware
12 20 (0.70%) NFS
13 16 (0.56%) Terminal Services
13 16 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
14 15 (0.52%) XenApp
15 10 (0.35%) Brightmail
15 10 (0.35%) Dovecot
15 10 (0.35%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 433 (15.12%) SCCM
2 312 (10.90%) Microsoft Intune
3 182 (6.36%) Terraform
4 152 (5.31%) Ansible
5 95 (3.32%) Kubernetes
6 57 (1.99%) vCenter Server
7 48 (1.68%) Single Sign-On
8 44 (1.54%) Grafana
9 42 (1.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 41 (1.43%) Jamf Pro
11 33 (1.15%) Progress Chef
12 32 (1.12%) WSUS
13 30 (1.05%) Prometheus
14 29 (1.01%) SCOM
15 27 (0.94%) Nessus
16 25 (0.87%) Puppet
17 24 (0.84%) Microsoft Clustering
18 16 (0.56%) Proxmox
19 14 (0.49%) WMI
20 13 (0.45%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 1,274 (44.50%) Microsoft
2 365 (12.75%) VMware
3 258 (9.01%) ServiceNow
4 231 (8.07%) Oracle
5 184 (6.43%) Cisco
6 180 (6.29%) Citrix
7 150 (5.24%) Splunk
8 88 (3.07%) Apple
9 76 (2.65%) HP
10 70 (2.44%) Red Hat
11 67 (2.34%) IBM
12 59 (2.06%) Dell
13 58 (2.03%) Veeam
14 55 (1.92%) Google
15 53 (1.85%) SAP
16 48 (1.68%) SolarWinds
17 46 (1.61%) NetApp
18 44 (1.54%) AppDynamics
19 43 (1.50%) CyberArk
20 42 (1.47%) Remedy