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 4 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -4 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,916 2,531 3,791
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.92% 8.42% 8.56%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.36% 59.11% 62.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,970 1,693 2,564
10th Percentile £161 £181 £155
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £401 £413 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.73% +3.13% -8.99%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £664
UK excluding London median daily rate £350 £400 £375
% change year-on-year -12.50% +6.67% -3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 269 96 268
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.24 £13.97
25th Percentile £16.62 £18.13 £14.72
Median hourly rate £22.00 £22.69 £18.93
Median % change year-on-year -3.03% +19.85% -15.87%
75th Percentile £43.75 £33.81 £39.42
90th Percentile £67.17 £65.38 £63.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.50 £22.09 £17.72
% change year-on-year -2.67% +24.66% -11.40%

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 4,831 4,282 6,091
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.46% 14.25% 13.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,189 2,744 4,079
10th Percentile £178 £200 £180
25th Percentile £275 £317 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £460
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +3.26% -10.24%
75th Percentile £569 £596 £588
90th Percentile £669 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £436 £425
% change year-on-year -5.44% +2.65% -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 352 148 394
10th Percentile £15.02 £16.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.91 £20.78 £16.25
Median hourly rate £23.25 £29.89 £23.63
Median % change year-on-year -22.21% +26.52% -17.11%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £60.75
90th Percentile £68.68 £69.13 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.81 £27.75 £22.51
% change year-on-year -17.80% +23.28% -15.60%

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 4 March 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 4 March 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 4 March 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 -4 2,587 £403 +0.63% 1,135
UK excluding London -8 1,960 £350 -12.50% 1,013
London -17 776 £446 +5.94% 277
Work from Home -14 586 £450 -2.70% 409
South East -1 519 £425 -1.16% 366
North of England -7 484 £268 -23.36% 229
South West -2 286 £450 -4.76% 112
Midlands -13 279 £265 -18.54% 127
North West -7 261 £263 -27.59% 129
East of England +8 225 £240 - 122
Yorkshire -15 191 £325 -7.14% 88
West Midlands -22 169 £400 +23.08% 57
Scotland -7 130 £425 -3.30% 52
East Midlands +2 109 £210 -16.00% 68
Wales -2 47 £200 -15.79% 21
North East -6 35 £188 -39.52% 18
Northern Ireland -13 8 £175 +9.38% 6
Channel Islands +4 1 - - 2

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
1 259 (8.88%) Microsoft Exchange
2 179 (6.14%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.09%) Confluence
4 41 (1.41%) IIS
5 31 (1.06%) Apache
6 22 (0.75%) WebLogic
7 16 (0.55%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.41%) TPMS
8 12 (0.41%) Tuxedo
9 11 (0.38%) nginx
9 11 (0.38%) Tomcat
9 11 (0.38%) WebSphere
10 9 (0.31%) SAS
11 6 (0.21%) JBoss
12 5 (0.17%) iPlanet
12 5 (0.17%) SharePoint Server
12 5 (0.17%) WebSphere Application Server
13 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 256 (8.78%) Microsoft Office
2 75 (2.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.41%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.17%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.069%) InDesign
7 2 (0.069%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.034%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.034%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 29 (0.99%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.24%) assyst
3 7 (0.24%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.069%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.069%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.069%) SystmOne
7 1 (0.034%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.034%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.034%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.034%) RMDS
7 1 (0.034%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 834 (28.60%) Microsoft 365
2 737 (25.27%) Azure
3 291 (9.98%) Entra ID
4 236 (8.09%) AWS
5 104 (3.57%) OneDrive
6 78 (2.67%) GCP
7 74 (2.54%) SaaS
8 59 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
9 54 (1.85%) Google Workspace
10 48 (1.65%) GitHub
11 46 (1.58%) IaaS
12 39 (1.34%) PaaS
12 39 (1.34%) Power Platform
13 26 (0.89%) Nutanix
14 25 (0.86%) Azure Sentinel
14 25 (0.86%) OpenShift
15 23 (0.79%) AWS CloudFormation
15 23 (0.79%) Azure Monitor
16 21 (0.72%) GitHub Actions
17 16 (0.55%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 393 (13.48%) DNS
2 326 (11.18%) Firewall
3 249 (8.54%) DHCP
4 204 (7.00%) TCP/IP
5 188 (6.45%) VPN
6 152 (5.21%) WAN
7 150 (5.14%) Wi-Fi
8 146 (5.01%) LAN
9 75 (2.57%) Network Security
10 67 (2.30%) VLAN
11 65 (2.23%) Wireless
12 49 (1.68%) SAN
13 44 (1.51%) HTTP
14 42 (1.44%) Skype
14 42 (1.44%) SSH
15 37 (1.27%) SSL
16 35 (1.20%) BGP
16 35 (1.20%) VoIP
17 34 (1.17%) Kerberos
17 34 (1.17%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 159 (5.45%) SQL Server
2 65 (2.23%) Oracle Database
3 45 (1.54%) Relational Database
4 39 (1.34%) MySQL
5 28 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
6 15 (0.51%) DB2
6 15 (0.51%) Power BI
7 14 (0.48%) Data Warehouse
8 13 (0.45%) BigQuery
8 13 (0.45%) Elasticsearch
9 12 (0.41%) GIS
9 12 (0.41%) Oracle Reports
10 11 (0.38%) MongoDB
11 9 (0.31%) NoSQL
12 8 (0.27%) SAP HANA
13 6 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
13 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
13 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 5 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
14 5 (0.17%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 167 (5.73%) JIRA
2 71 (2.43%) Jenkins
3 70 (2.40%) Git
4 65 (2.23%) GitLab
5 44 (1.51%) MSI
6 36 (1.23%) Visual Studio
7 30 (1.03%) Eclipse
8 20 (0.69%) Burp Suite
8 20 (0.69%) Metasploit
9 18 (0.62%) Android Studio
10 16 (0.55%) Xcode
11 15 (0.51%) Artifactory
12 13 (0.45%) Browser DevTools
13 12 (0.41%) Sonatype Nexus
14 10 (0.34%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.34%) Chocolatey
15 7 (0.24%) InstallShield
15 7 (0.24%) Robot Framework
16 6 (0.21%) JUnit
16 6 (0.21%) Toad
General
1 1,077 (36.93%) Social Skills
2 293 (10.05%) Finance
3 267 (9.16%) Analytical Skills
4 251 (8.61%) Public Sector
5 140 (4.80%) Banking
6 124 (4.25%) Legal
7 118 (4.05%) Documentation Skills
8 86 (2.95%) Organisational Skills
9 63 (2.16%) Military
10 57 (1.95%) Manufacturing
11 50 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
12 38 (1.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 38 (1.30%) Telecoms
13 37 (1.27%) Retail
14 25 (0.86%) Law
15 24 (0.82%) Aerospace
16 23 (0.79%) Investment Banking
17 19 (0.65%) Front Office
17 19 (0.65%) Marketing
18 17 (0.58%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 405 (13.89%) Support Engineer
2 387 (13.27%) IT Support
3 377 (12.93%) Analyst
4 220 (7.54%) IT Engineer
5 183 (6.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 180 (6.17%) Architect
6 180 (6.17%) IT Support Engineer
7 157 (5.38%) Senior
8 155 (5.32%) Support Analyst
9 142 (4.87%) Desktop Support
10 124 (4.25%) Windows Engineer
11 122 (4.18%) 2nd Line Support
12 120 (4.12%) Technical Support
13 119 (4.08%) Desktop Engineer
14 115 (3.94%) Developer
15 100 (3.43%) Lead
16 91 (3.12%) IT Analyst
17 90 (3.09%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 89 (3.05%) Deployment Engineer
19 75 (2.57%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (2.95%) .NET
2 68 (2.33%) REST
3 59 (2.02%) LDAP
4 51 (1.75%) OAuth
4 51 (1.75%) SAML
5 47 (1.61%) .NET Framework
6 38 (1.30%) Middleware
7 34 (1.17%) Web Services
8 31 (1.06%) OpenID
8 31 (1.06%) WPF
9 29 (0.99%) React
10 27 (0.93%) AngularJS
10 27 (0.93%) CSS
10 27 (0.93%) Kafka
11 26 (0.89%) Microsoft Graph
12 24 (0.82%) WinForms
13 23 (0.79%) Node.js
14 21 (0.72%) OAuth2
15 19 (0.65%) Apache NiFi
16 18 (0.62%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 186 (6.38%) Onboarding
2 123 (4.22%) Data Centre
3 108 (3.70%) PKI
4 91 (3.12%) Driving Licence
5 85 (2.91%) Enterprise Software
6 72 (2.47%) Self-Motivation
7 58 (1.99%) Smartphone
8 54 (1.85%) Management Information System
9 49 (1.68%) Replication
10 48 (1.65%) Security Posture
11 46 (1.58%) Clustering
12 42 (1.44%) Hybrid Cloud
12 42 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
13 37 (1.27%) NHS
13 37 (1.27%) Product Ownership
14 36 (1.23%) Security Operations Centre
15 33 (1.13%) Virtual Team
16 31 (1.06%) Data Protection Act
17 30 (1.03%) Analytical Mindset
18 29 (0.99%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 707 (24.25%) Linux
2 612 (20.99%) Windows 10
3 602 (20.64%) Windows Server
4 170 (5.83%) Unix
5 158 (5.42%) Mac OS
6 155 (5.32%) Android
7 124 (4.25%) Apple iOS
8 85 (2.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 73 (2.50%) Windows Server 2016
10 59 (2.02%) Windows Server 2019
11 53 (1.82%) Windows 7
12 38 (1.30%) Windows Server 2012
13 30 (1.03%) Windows Server 2003
14 29 (0.99%) AIX
15 20 (0.69%) Solaris
16 15 (0.51%) Windows Server 2008
17 14 (0.48%) VMS
18 12 (0.41%) Ubuntu
19 10 (0.34%) Mac OS X
20 8 (0.27%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 583 (19.99%) Problem-Solving
2 501 (17.18%) Customer Service
3 419 (14.37%) ITIL
4 325 (11.15%) Agile
5 302 (10.36%) Migration
6 272 (9.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 251 (8.61%) DevOps
8 235 (8.06%) CI/CD
9 230 (7.89%) ITSM
10 221 (7.58%) Service Management
11 219 (7.51%) Cybersecurity
12 203 (6.96%) Continuous Improvement
13 164 (5.62%) Change Management
14 154 (5.28%) Disaster Recovery
15 151 (5.18%) Stakeholder Management
16 141 (4.84%) Service Delivery
17 133 (4.56%) Computer Science
18 132 (4.53%) User Experience
19 128 (4.39%) High Availability
19 128 (4.39%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 571 (19.58%) PowerShell
2 330 (11.32%) Python
3 256 (8.78%) SQL
4 133 (4.56%) C#
5 130 (4.46%) Bash
6 114 (3.91%) Java
7 80 (2.74%) JavaScript
8 65 (2.23%) C++
9 60 (2.06%) Perl
9 60 (2.06%) PL/SQL
10 42 (1.44%) T-SQL
11 30 (1.03%) Kusto Query Language
12 28 (0.96%) Shell Script
13 25 (0.86%) VB
14 22 (0.75%) VBScript
15 18 (0.62%) VBA
16 15 (0.51%) C
17 14 (0.48%) Bicep
17 14 (0.48%) Go
18 12 (0.41%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 885 (30.35%) Security Cleared
2 574 (19.68%) SC Cleared
3 308 (10.56%) Degree
4 257 (8.81%) DV Cleared
5 145 (4.97%) Microsoft Certification
6 95 (3.26%) Computer Science Degree
7 61 (2.09%) Cisco Certification
8 52 (1.78%) Azure Certification
9 49 (1.68%) MCSE
10 45 (1.54%) ITIL Certification
11 40 (1.37%) CISSP
12 37 (1.27%) BPSS Clearance
12 37 (1.27%) CompTIA Security+
13 33 (1.13%) A+ Certification
13 33 (1.13%) CCNA
14 32 (1.10%) AWS Certification
15 28 (0.96%) CCNP
16 25 (0.86%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 23 (0.79%) MCSA
18 22 (0.75%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (3.53%) GDPR
2 97 (3.33%) SLA
3 85 (2.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 76 (2.61%) QA
5 57 (1.95%) NIST
6 39 (1.34%) PCI DSS
7 25 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 18 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
9 15 (0.51%) PMO
10 13 (0.45%) MiFID
11 12 (0.41%) GLBA
11 12 (0.41%) NCSC
12 10 (0.34%) FINRA
13 9 (0.31%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.27%) SOC 2
15 7 (0.24%) COBIT
15 7 (0.24%) HIPAA
16 6 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
17 5 (0.17%) GxP
18 4 (0.14%) Accessibility
System Software
1 1,070 (36.69%) Active Directory
2 287 (9.84%) VMware Infrastructure
3 119 (4.08%) Docker
4 110 (3.77%) Hyper-V
5 64 (2.19%) Virtual Desktop
5 64 (2.19%) vSphere
6 63 (2.16%) Virtual Machines
7 56 (1.92%) VMware ESXi
8 36 (1.23%) VMware NSX
9 27 (0.93%) Firmware
10 26 (0.89%) BitLocker
11 23 (0.79%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.55%) KVM
13 9 (0.31%) Virtual Servers
14 8 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
14 8 (0.27%) XenApp
14 8 (0.27%) XenDesktop
15 6 (0.21%) NFS
15 6 (0.21%) Terminal Services
16 5 (0.17%) NDS
Systems Management
1 376 (12.89%) Microsoft Intune
2 365 (12.52%) SCCM
3 177 (6.07%) Terraform
4 166 (5.69%) Ansible
5 134 (4.60%) Kubernetes
6 85 (2.91%) Single Sign-On
7 71 (2.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 65 (2.23%) vCenter Server
9 45 (1.54%) Jamf Pro
10 41 (1.41%) Grafana
11 32 (1.10%) FortiGate
12 29 (0.99%) WSUS
13 27 (0.93%) Prometheus
14 25 (0.86%) SCOM
15 22 (0.75%) Nessus
16 21 (0.72%) Progress Chef
17 19 (0.65%) Nmap
18 18 (0.62%) WMI
19 15 (0.51%) Puppet
20 12 (0.41%) CASB
Vendors
1 1,258 (43.14%) Microsoft
2 402 (13.79%) VMware
3 260 (8.92%) ServiceNow
4 203 (6.96%) Citrix
5 196 (6.72%) Oracle
6 183 (6.28%) Cisco
7 151 (5.18%) Splunk
8 76 (2.61%) HP
9 73 (2.50%) Dell
10 64 (2.19%) Apple
10 64 (2.19%) Red Hat
10 64 (2.19%) SolarWinds
11 62 (2.13%) Google
12 53 (1.82%) IBM
13 46 (1.58%) Remedy
13 46 (1.58%) Veeam
14 45 (1.54%) Juniper
14 45 (1.54%) SAP
15 41 (1.41%) Palo Alto
16 38 (1.30%) F5