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

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -6 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,987 2,522 3,543
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.82% 8.24% 8.21%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.11% 59.78% 60.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,915 1,694 2,387
10th Percentile £167 £180 £165
25th Percentile £225 £231 £235
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.56%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £674 £672
UK excluding London median daily rate £418 £400 £438
% change year-on-year +4.38% -8.57% +10.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 253 180 295
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.12 £12.00
25th Percentile £17.92 £16.95 £14.34
Median hourly rate £25.26 £18.87 £19.18
Median % change year-on-year +33.86% -1.62% -19.61%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.97 £63.88 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.51 £18.87 £18.00
% change year-on-year +35.16% +4.83% -18.18%

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 4,888 4,219 5,865
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.52% 13.79% 13.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,114 2,739 3,860
10th Percentile £190 £200 £190
25th Percentile £313 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.43% -2.21% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £581 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £463
% change year-on-year - -2.70% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 331 216 435
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £18.75 £17.41 £16.25
Median hourly rate £26.66 £22.25 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +19.82% -11.00% -41.18%
75th Percentile £63.75 £42.56 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £66.25 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.44 £18.87 £31.25
% change year-on-year +40.12% -39.62% -6.72%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 -6 2,614 £425 - 863
UK excluding London -13 1,977 £418 +4.38% 792
London -22 848 £425 -3.41% 207
Work from Home -8 636 £475 - 290
South East -8 528 £475 -3.06% 267
North of England -7 468 £365 +1.96% 170
Midlands -15 276 £339 +23.18% 110
South West -11 260 £488 +8.33% 123
North West -6 246 £364 -1.09% 98
East of England -2 218 £318 +14.39% 88
Yorkshire -15 203 £365 -9.32% 53
West Midlands -24 174 £450 +50.00% 55
Scotland -5 171 £425 -2.24% 32
East Midlands +9 97 £263 +31.25% 55
Wales +8 53 £375 +30.43% 18
North East -36 23 £290 -3.33% 25
Northern Ireland -6 15 £139 -30.75% 22
Channel Islands +3 3 £518 -

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
1 234 (7.83%) Microsoft Exchange
2 193 (6.46%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.01%) IIS
4 56 (1.87%) Confluence
5 19 (0.64%) Tomcat
6 18 (0.60%) Apache
7 16 (0.54%) nginx
8 14 (0.47%) Skype for Business
9 11 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
10 10 (0.33%) WebLogic
11 9 (0.30%) NetWeaver
12 8 (0.27%) HCL Notes
13 7 (0.23%) Appian
14 6 (0.20%) SAS
15 5 (0.17%) Camunda
16 4 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 4 (0.13%) Documentum
16 4 (0.13%) WebSphere
17 3 (0.10%) CloudStack
17 3 (0.10%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 191 (6.39%) Microsoft Office
2 67 (2.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 22 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
4 7 (0.23%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
5 5 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.067%) Acrobat
6 2 (0.067%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.033%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 41 (1.37%) Remedy ITSM
2 18 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.40%) Teamcenter
4 10 (0.33%) Finacle
5 5 (0.17%) OpenText MBPM
5 5 (0.17%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.10%) assyst
7 1 (0.033%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.033%) Dynamics GP
7 1 (0.033%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.033%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.033%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.033%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.033%) Oracle General Ledger
7 1 (0.033%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.033%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.033%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.033%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.033%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.033%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 897 (30.03%) Azure
2 823 (27.55%) Microsoft 365
3 386 (12.92%) Entra ID
4 311 (10.41%) AWS
5 116 (3.88%) OneDrive
6 92 (3.08%) GCP
7 83 (2.78%) Azure DevOps
8 77 (2.58%) SaaS
9 67 (2.24%) GitHub
10 62 (2.08%) IaaS
10 62 (2.08%) Power Platform
11 52 (1.74%) Azure Monitor
11 52 (1.74%) PaaS
12 39 (1.31%) OpenShift
13 38 (1.27%) Azure Sentinel
14 32 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
15 30 (1.00%) Google Workspace
16 28 (0.94%) AWS CloudFormation
17 24 (0.80%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 23 (0.77%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 402 (13.46%) DNS
2 311 (10.41%) Firewall
3 279 (9.34%) DHCP
4 218 (7.30%) VPN
5 186 (6.23%) WAN
6 183 (6.13%) LAN
7 181 (6.06%) TCP/IP
8 151 (5.06%) Wi-Fi
9 96 (3.21%) SAN
10 67 (2.24%) Network Security
11 60 (2.01%) VLAN
12 48 (1.61%) BGP
13 45 (1.51%) NAS
13 45 (1.51%) SD-WAN
14 44 (1.47%) SSL
15 42 (1.41%) Internet
16 38 (1.27%) OSPF
16 38 (1.27%) VoIP
17 34 (1.14%) SNMP
17 34 (1.14%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 259 (8.67%) SQL Server
2 60 (2.01%) Oracle Database
3 40 (1.34%) Power BI
4 30 (1.00%) Relational Database
5 28 (0.94%) MySQL
6 27 (0.90%) PostgreSQL
7 20 (0.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 19 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
9 18 (0.60%) Db2
9 18 (0.60%) Elasticsearch
10 14 (0.47%) Data Warehouse
10 14 (0.47%) NoSQL
11 13 (0.44%) RDBMS
12 10 (0.33%) GIS
12 10 (0.33%) MongoDB
13 9 (0.30%) SAP HANA
14 8 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
14 8 (0.27%) Oracle BI EE
14 8 (0.27%) Sybase ASE
15 7 (0.23%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 182 (6.09%) JIRA
2 54 (1.81%) Git
2 54 (1.81%) Jenkins
3 45 (1.51%) MSI
4 42 (1.41%) GitLab
5 38 (1.27%) Visual Studio
6 17 (0.57%) Eclipse
7 9 (0.30%) Chocolatey
8 8 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
9 7 (0.23%) Bitbucket
9 7 (0.23%) Burp Suite
10 6 (0.20%) Android Studio
10 6 (0.20%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
10 6 (0.20%) InstallShield
10 6 (0.20%) Metasploit
10 6 (0.20%) Xcode
11 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
11 5 (0.17%) Maven
11 5 (0.17%) Selenium
General
1 1,039 (34.78%) Social Skills
2 328 (10.98%) Analytical Skills
3 322 (10.78%) Finance
4 206 (6.90%) Public Sector
5 152 (5.09%) Banking
6 114 (3.82%) Legal
7 105 (3.52%) Documentation Skills
8 83 (2.78%) Organisational Skills
9 59 (1.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 54 (1.81%) Retail
11 47 (1.57%) Military
12 40 (1.34%) Manufacturing
13 36 (1.21%) Front Office
13 36 (1.21%) Investment Banking
14 32 (1.07%) Telecoms
15 29 (0.97%) Law
16 27 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
17 25 (0.84%) Spanish Language
18 23 (0.77%) French Language
19 18 (0.60%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 392 (13.12%) Support Engineer
2 380 (12.72%) IT Support
3 292 (9.78%) Analyst
4 272 (9.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 261 (8.74%) IT Engineer
6 217 (7.26%) IT Support Engineer
7 186 (6.23%) Senior
8 156 (5.22%) Architect
9 118 (3.95%) Desktop Support
10 110 (3.68%) 2nd Line Support
11 108 (3.62%) Support Analyst
12 107 (3.58%) Desktop Engineer
13 105 (3.52%) Lead
14 103 (3.45%) Developer
15 93 (3.11%) Consultant
16 91 (3.05%) Windows Engineer
17 90 (3.01%) IT Analyst
18 84 (2.81%) Cloud Engineer
19 78 (2.61%) Technical Support
20 74 (2.48%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (3.45%) .NET
2 97 (3.25%) REST
3 59 (1.98%) .NET Framework
4 44 (1.47%) LDAP
5 34 (1.14%) SAML
6 31 (1.04%) 802.1X
6 31 (1.04%) Microsoft Graph
6 31 (1.04%) Middleware
7 28 (0.94%) Software Packaging
8 27 (0.90%) WinForms
9 26 (0.87%) Web Services
9 26 (0.87%) WPF
10 25 (0.84%) Kafka
10 25 (0.84%) OAuth
11 24 (0.80%) Elastic Stack
12 20 (0.67%) CSS
13 19 (0.64%) JSON
14 17 (0.57%) Node.js
14 17 (0.57%) RESTful
15 16 (0.54%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 277 (9.27%) Onboarding
2 165 (5.52%) Data Centre
3 136 (4.55%) PKI
4 86 (2.88%) Enterprise Software
5 79 (2.64%) Clustering
6 71 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
7 70 (2.34%) Management Information System
8 64 (2.14%) Driving Licence
9 62 (2.08%) Replication
10 61 (2.04%) Cloud Native
11 55 (1.84%) Legacy Systems
12 54 (1.81%) Security Posture
13 52 (1.74%) Hybrid Cloud
13 52 (1.74%) Virtual Team
14 39 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
15 34 (1.14%) Video Conferencing
16 33 (1.10%) Smartphone
17 32 (1.07%) CMDB
17 32 (1.07%) Linux Command Line
17 32 (1.07%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 735 (24.61%) Linux
2 721 (24.14%) Windows Server
3 493 (16.50%) Windows 10
4 187 (6.26%) Mac OS
5 158 (5.29%) Unix
6 139 (4.65%) Apple iOS
7 136 (4.55%) Android
8 112 (3.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 77 (2.58%) Windows Server 2019
10 60 (2.01%) Windows Server 2016
11 52 (1.74%) Windows 7
12 41 (1.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 35 (1.17%) AIX
14 33 (1.10%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.80%) Solaris
16 22 (0.74%) VMS
17 17 (0.57%) Windows Server 2008
18 16 (0.54%) Windows Server 2003
19 15 (0.50%) CentOS
20 9 (0.30%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 662 (22.16%) Problem-Solving
2 461 (15.43%) ITIL
3 432 (14.46%) Customer Service
4 350 (11.72%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 348 (11.65%) Migration
6 301 (10.08%) ITSM
7 281 (9.41%) DevOps
8 269 (9.01%) Agile
9 251 (8.40%) CI/CD
10 243 (8.14%) Continuous Improvement
11 215 (7.20%) Service Management
12 213 (7.13%) High Availability
13 193 (6.46%) Change Management
14 177 (5.93%) Infrastructure as Code
15 172 (5.76%) Disaster Recovery
16 164 (5.49%) Stakeholder Management
17 161 (5.39%) Cybersecurity
18 157 (5.26%) Service Delivery
19 144 (4.82%) SIEM
20 143 (4.79%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 631 (21.12%) PowerShell
2 307 (10.28%) Python
3 289 (9.68%) SQL
4 133 (4.45%) C#
5 119 (3.98%) Bash
6 69 (2.31%) Java
7 64 (2.14%) JavaScript
8 54 (1.81%) PL/SQL
9 53 (1.77%) T-SQL
10 50 (1.67%) C++
11 27 (0.90%) Perl
12 24 (0.80%) VB
13 23 (0.77%) Search Processing Language
14 22 (0.74%) Kusto Query Language
14 22 (0.74%) Shell Script
15 21 (0.70%) VBScript
16 20 (0.67%) Bicep
17 14 (0.47%) TypeScript
17 14 (0.47%) VBA
18 13 (0.44%) C
Qualifications
1 866 (28.99%) Security Cleared
2 567 (18.98%) SC Cleared
3 314 (10.51%) Degree
4 260 (8.70%) DV Cleared
5 117 (3.92%) Microsoft Certification
6 101 (3.38%) Cisco Certification
7 82 (2.75%) Computer Science Degree
8 65 (2.18%) CISSP
9 58 (1.94%) Azure Certification
10 49 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
11 48 (1.61%) AWS Certification
11 48 (1.61%) MCSE
12 45 (1.51%) CCNA
13 35 (1.17%) CCNP
14 31 (1.04%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 29 (0.97%) ITIL Certification
16 28 (0.94%) CompTIA Security+
17 26 (0.87%) MCSA
18 25 (0.84%) CISM
19 22 (0.74%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 123 (4.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 117 (3.92%) SLA
3 92 (3.08%) NIST
4 89 (2.98%) QA
5 61 (2.04%) GDPR
6 33 (1.10%) PCI DSS
7 32 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 26 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials
9 19 (0.64%) NCSC
10 13 (0.44%) Data Quality
10 13 (0.44%) Disclosure Scotland
11 11 (0.37%) HIPAA
11 11 (0.37%) PMO
12 10 (0.33%) GRC
12 10 (0.33%) NIST 800
12 10 (0.33%) SOC 2
13 9 (0.30%) Accessibility
14 7 (0.23%) FINRA
14 7 (0.23%) MiFID
15 6 (0.20%) DICOM
System Software
1 1,112 (37.23%) Active Directory
2 376 (12.59%) VMware Infrastructure
3 156 (5.22%) Hyper-V
4 114 (3.82%) VMware ESXi
5 105 (3.52%) Virtual Machines
6 104 (3.48%) vSphere
7 90 (3.01%) Docker
8 70 (2.34%) Virtual Desktop
9 55 (1.84%) VMware NSX
10 41 (1.37%) Firmware
11 38 (1.27%) BitLocker
12 28 (0.94%) Microsoft App-V
13 19 (0.64%) KVM
14 12 (0.40%) vCloud
15 10 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
15 10 (0.33%) XenDesktop
16 9 (0.30%) XenApp
17 8 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
18 7 (0.23%) NFS
19 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 400 (13.39%) Microsoft Intune
2 264 (8.84%) SCCM
3 199 (6.66%) Terraform
4 192 (6.43%) Ansible
5 143 (4.79%) Kubernetes
6 86 (2.88%) vCenter Server
7 54 (1.81%) Jamf Pro
7 54 (1.81%) Single Sign-On
8 46 (1.54%) FortiGate
9 44 (1.47%) SCOM
10 40 (1.34%) WSUS
11 37 (1.24%) Progress Chef
12 34 (1.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 32 (1.07%) Grafana
13 32 (1.07%) Prometheus
14 27 (0.90%) Puppet
15 24 (0.80%) Nagios
16 21 (0.70%) Nessus
16 21 (0.70%) ZABBIX
17 20 (0.67%) Packer
Vendors
1 1,269 (42.48%) Microsoft
2 485 (16.24%) VMware
3 270 (9.04%) ServiceNow
4 228 (7.63%) Cisco
5 198 (6.63%) Citrix
6 187 (6.26%) Oracle
7 136 (4.55%) Splunk
8 81 (2.71%) HP
9 78 (2.61%) Apple
10 77 (2.58%) SolarWinds
11 72 (2.41%) Red Hat
12 71 (2.38%) Dell
13 64 (2.14%) CyberArk
13 64 (2.14%) Google
14 59 (1.98%) F5
15 57 (1.91%) BeyondTrust
16 53 (1.77%) IBM
17 52 (1.74%) Palo Alto
17 52 (1.74%) Remedy
18 50 (1.67%) Juniper