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

6 months to
5 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,834 2,407 3,584
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.96% 8.22% 8.31%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.62% 58.61% 62.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,867 1,668 2,467
10th Percentile £162 £180 £163
25th Percentile £213 £242 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.35% +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 225 134 276
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.15 £11.90
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.63% +4.56% -20.00%
75th Percentile £63.75 £25.11 £25.00
90th Percentile £74.87 £60.78 £63.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £18.82 £17.50
% change year-on-year +36.93% +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 4,675 4,107 5,765
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.83% 14.02% 13.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,032 2,706 3,887
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £319 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £470
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +1.06% -6.93%
75th Percentile £575 £589 £588
90th Percentile £656 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £431 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -4.22% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 320 184 394
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.15 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.13 £18.10 £15.50
Median hourly rate £47.50 £24.09 £22.08
Median % change year-on-year +97.18% +9.13% -43.40%
75th Percentile £67.25 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £22.88 £22.50
% change year-on-year +107.65% +1.67% -25.00%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -5 2,461 £415 -0.14% 990
UK excluding London -11 1,871 £400 - 897
London -23 773 £440 - 230
Work from Home -13 571 £475 - 357
South East -5 504 £473 -5.50% 304
North of England -13 456 £328 +0.77% 191
Midlands -15 276 £325 +21.50% 106
North West -4 258 £263 -25.00% 101
South West -14 223 £453 -13.67% 134
East of England +2 208 £350 +55.21% 107
Yorkshire -23 183 £365 +12.31% 70
West Midlands -26 159 £450 +63.64% 55
Scotland 0 150 £425 -2.86% 42
East Midlands +5 112 £220 +6.67% 51
Wales +1 52 £254 -30.41% 36
North East -25 19 £188 -27.88% 24
Northern Ireland -6 15 £175 -12.50% 12
Channel Islands -1 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
1 237 (8.36%) Microsoft Exchange
2 155 (5.47%) SharePoint
3 54 (1.91%) IIS
4 49 (1.73%) Confluence
5 22 (0.78%) Apache
6 19 (0.67%) WebLogic
7 14 (0.49%) Tomcat
8 13 (0.46%) nginx
9 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
10 11 (0.39%) SAS
10 11 (0.39%) Skype for Business
11 9 (0.32%) TPMS
12 7 (0.25%) WebSphere
13 6 (0.21%) NetWeaver
14 5 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
15 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
16 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
17 2 (0.071%) Apache ServiceMix
17 2 (0.071%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 190 (6.70%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.39%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.071%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 43 (1.52%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.28%) Teamcenter
4 7 (0.25%) assyst
5 4 (0.14%) Finacle
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle 11i
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 (0.035%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 795 (28.05%) Microsoft 365
2 792 (27.95%) Azure
3 317 (11.19%) Entra ID
4 240 (8.47%) AWS
5 78 (2.75%) SaaS
6 77 (2.72%) GCP
7 76 (2.68%) OneDrive
8 74 (2.61%) Azure DevOps
9 62 (2.19%) IaaS
10 55 (1.94%) GitHub
11 54 (1.91%) PaaS
12 46 (1.62%) Power Platform
13 43 (1.52%) Google Workspace
14 40 (1.41%) Azure Monitor
15 32 (1.13%) Azure Sentinel
15 32 (1.13%) OpenShift
16 26 (0.92%) GitHub Actions
17 19 (0.67%) AWS CloudFormation
17 19 (0.67%) Azure AKS
18 18 (0.64%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 391 (13.80%) DNS
2 316 (11.15%) Firewall
3 261 (9.21%) DHCP
4 202 (7.13%) VPN
5 173 (6.10%) WAN
6 172 (6.07%) TCP/IP
7 169 (5.96%) LAN
8 141 (4.98%) Wi-Fi
9 77 (2.72%) Network Security
10 70 (2.47%) SAN
11 60 (2.12%) VLAN
12 48 (1.69%) Wireless
13 44 (1.55%) SD-WAN
14 39 (1.38%) BGP
15 37 (1.31%) SSL
16 36 (1.27%) Skype
17 35 (1.24%) OSPF
17 35 (1.24%) VoIP
18 33 (1.16%) SNMP
19 32 (1.13%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 203 (7.16%) SQL Server
2 54 (1.91%) Oracle Database
3 34 (1.20%) Relational Database
4 29 (1.02%) MySQL
5 25 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
5 25 (0.88%) Power BI
6 19 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
7 15 (0.53%) DB2
8 13 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
8 13 (0.46%) MongoDB
9 12 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
11 8 (0.28%) GIS
11 8 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
12 7 (0.25%) BigQuery
12 7 (0.25%) RDBMS
12 7 (0.25%) Sybase ASE
13 6 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
13 6 (0.21%) SAP HANA
14 5 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 171 (6.03%) JIRA
2 56 (1.98%) GitLab
3 53 (1.87%) Jenkins
4 51 (1.80%) Git
5 47 (1.66%) MSI
6 34 (1.20%) Visual Studio
7 21 (0.74%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.64%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
10 12 (0.42%) Artifactory
11 11 (0.39%) Android Studio
11 11 (0.39%) Chocolatey
11 11 (0.39%) Sonatype Nexus
12 10 (0.35%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.35%) InstallShield
13 9 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
13 9 (0.32%) Xcode
14 7 (0.25%) AdminStudio
14 7 (0.25%) Robot Framework
14 7 (0.25%) Selenium
General
1 981 (34.62%) Social Skills
2 277 (9.77%) Finance
3 266 (9.39%) Analytical Skills
4 219 (7.73%) Public Sector
5 145 (5.12%) Banking
6 125 (4.41%) Legal
7 105 (3.71%) Documentation Skills
8 71 (2.51%) Organisational Skills
9 63 (2.22%) Military
10 43 (1.52%) Manufacturing
11 40 (1.41%) Retail
12 39 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 37 (1.31%) Law
13 37 (1.31%) Telecoms
14 36 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
15 30 (1.06%) Investment Banking
16 28 (0.99%) Front Office
17 20 (0.71%) Local Government
17 20 (0.71%) Police
18 17 (0.60%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 350 (12.35%) IT Support
2 327 (11.54%) Support Engineer
3 314 (11.08%) Analyst
4 232 (8.19%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 209 (7.37%) IT Engineer
6 178 (6.28%) Senior
7 174 (6.14%) Architect
8 170 (6.00%) IT Support Engineer
9 122 (4.30%) Desktop Support
10 120 (4.23%) Support Analyst
11 103 (3.63%) Desktop Engineer
11 103 (3.63%) Developer
12 97 (3.42%) Windows Engineer
13 94 (3.32%) Lead
14 91 (3.21%) IT Analyst
15 90 (3.18%) Technical Support
16 87 (3.07%) 2nd Line Support
17 73 (2.58%) 1st Line Support
18 71 (2.51%) Service Analyst
19 68 (2.40%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (3.35%) .NET
2 86 (3.03%) REST
3 53 (1.87%) .NET Framework
4 43 (1.52%) LDAP
5 41 (1.45%) SAML
6 36 (1.27%) Kafka
6 36 (1.27%) Middleware
7 29 (1.02%) OAuth
8 28 (0.99%) Microsoft Graph
8 28 (0.99%) WinForms
8 28 (0.99%) WPF
9 27 (0.95%) 802.1X
9 27 (0.95%) Web Services
10 21 (0.74%) Node.js
11 20 (0.71%) OpenID
11 20 (0.71%) Software Packaging
12 19 (0.67%) CSS
12 19 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
12 19 (0.67%) React
13 17 (0.60%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 228 (8.05%) Onboarding
2 134 (4.73%) Data Centre
3 108 (3.81%) PKI
4 89 (3.14%) Enterprise Software
5 77 (2.72%) Clustering
6 75 (2.65%) Driving Licence
7 67 (2.36%) Self-Motivation
8 59 (2.08%) Replication
9 49 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
10 47 (1.66%) Hybrid Cloud
11 46 (1.62%) Management Information System
12 44 (1.55%) Security Posture
12 44 (1.55%) Smartphone
13 40 (1.41%) Virtual Team
14 35 (1.24%) Cloud Native
15 32 (1.13%) Analytical Mindset
15 32 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
15 32 (1.13%) Security Operations Centre
16 30 (1.06%) Operational Technology
17 29 (1.02%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 718 (25.34%) Linux
2 658 (23.22%) Windows Server
3 496 (17.50%) Windows 10
4 172 (6.07%) Mac OS
5 151 (5.33%) Unix
6 146 (5.15%) Android
7 124 (4.38%) Apple iOS
8 93 (3.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 75 (2.65%) Windows Server 2016
10 72 (2.54%) Windows Server 2019
11 49 (1.73%) Windows 7
12 37 (1.31%) Windows Server 2012
13 35 (1.24%) AIX
14 21 (0.74%) Ubuntu
15 20 (0.71%) VMS
16 18 (0.64%) Solaris
16 18 (0.64%) Windows Server 2003
17 13 (0.46%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.35%) CentOS
19 9 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 593 (20.92%) Problem-Solving
2 439 (15.49%) Customer Service
3 408 (14.40%) ITIL
4 326 (11.50%) Migration
5 306 (10.80%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 293 (10.34%) Agile
7 254 (8.96%) DevOps
8 242 (8.54%) CI/CD
9 237 (8.36%) ITSM
10 186 (6.56%) Cybersecurity
11 185 (6.53%) Disaster Recovery
12 176 (6.21%) Continuous Improvement
12 176 (6.21%) Service Management
13 175 (6.18%) Change Management
14 166 (5.86%) High Availability
15 151 (5.33%) SIEM
16 133 (4.69%) Infrastructure as Code
16 133 (4.69%) Stakeholder Management
17 127 (4.48%) Computer Science
18 122 (4.30%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 603 (21.28%) PowerShell
2 290 (10.23%) Python
3 272 (9.60%) SQL
4 134 (4.73%) C#
5 103 (3.63%) Bash
6 80 (2.82%) Java
7 72 (2.54%) JavaScript
8 62 (2.19%) PL/SQL
9 51 (1.80%) C++
10 45 (1.59%) T-SQL
11 34 (1.20%) Perl
12 27 (0.95%) Kusto Query Language
13 23 (0.81%) Search Processing Language
13 23 (0.81%) Shell Script
13 23 (0.81%) VB
14 18 (0.64%) VBScript
15 15 (0.53%) Go
16 14 (0.49%) VBA
17 12 (0.42%) Bicep
17 12 (0.42%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 870 (30.70%) Security Cleared
2 575 (20.29%) SC Cleared
3 279 (9.84%) Degree
4 267 (9.42%) DV Cleared
5 108 (3.81%) Microsoft Certification
6 89 (3.14%) Computer Science Degree
7 79 (2.79%) Cisco Certification
8 46 (1.62%) CISSP
9 45 (1.59%) Azure Certification
9 45 (1.59%) MCSE
10 43 (1.52%) BPSS Clearance
11 37 (1.31%) CCNA
12 36 (1.27%) CompTIA Security+
13 33 (1.16%) ITIL Certification
14 32 (1.13%) AWS Certification
14 32 (1.13%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 28 (0.99%) MCSA
16 27 (0.95%) A+ Certification
17 19 (0.67%) CCNP
18 18 (0.64%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (3.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 90 (3.18%) QA
3 89 (3.14%) SLA
4 88 (3.11%) GDPR
5 75 (2.65%) NIST
6 43 (1.52%) PCI DSS
7 30 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 28 (0.99%) Cyber Essentials
9 17 (0.60%) NCSC
10 15 (0.53%) PMO
11 12 (0.42%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.39%) Data Quality
12 11 (0.39%) MiFID
13 10 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
13 10 (0.35%) FINRA
14 9 (0.32%) GLBA
15 7 (0.25%) DICOM
16 6 (0.21%) GRC
16 6 (0.21%) HIPAA
16 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,050 (37.05%) Active Directory
2 332 (11.71%) VMware Infrastructure
3 151 (5.33%) Hyper-V
4 88 (3.11%) vSphere
5 86 (3.03%) Docker
6 85 (3.00%) VMware ESXi
7 77 (2.72%) Virtual Machines
8 53 (1.87%) Virtual Desktop
9 38 (1.34%) Firmware
9 38 (1.34%) VMware NSX
10 32 (1.13%) BitLocker
11 25 (0.88%) Microsoft App-V
12 22 (0.78%) KVM
13 12 (0.42%) XenApp
13 12 (0.42%) XenDesktop
14 10 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
15 6 (0.21%) etcd
16 5 (0.18%) Terminal Services
17 4 (0.14%) NFS
17 4 (0.14%) Snort
Systems Management
1 358 (12.63%) Microsoft Intune
2 288 (10.16%) SCCM
3 186 (6.56%) Ansible
4 167 (5.89%) Terraform
5 133 (4.69%) Kubernetes
6 68 (2.40%) vCenter Server
7 63 (2.22%) Single Sign-On
8 49 (1.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 45 (1.59%) WSUS
10 39 (1.38%) Jamf Pro
11 38 (1.34%) FortiGate
11 38 (1.34%) Grafana
12 31 (1.09%) Prometheus
13 27 (0.95%) Nagios
14 25 (0.88%) SCOM
15 24 (0.85%) Nessus
16 21 (0.74%) Progress Chef
17 20 (0.71%) ZABBIX
18 19 (0.67%) Tivoli
19 18 (0.64%) Netcool
Vendors
1 1,207 (42.59%) Microsoft
2 434 (15.31%) VMware
3 223 (7.87%) ServiceNow
4 208 (7.34%) Citrix
5 198 (6.99%) Cisco
6 179 (6.32%) Oracle
7 157 (5.54%) Splunk
8 86 (3.03%) HP
9 72 (2.54%) Dell
10 68 (2.40%) SolarWinds
11 56 (1.98%) Apple
11 56 (1.98%) Red Hat
11 56 (1.98%) Remedy
12 55 (1.94%) IBM
13 52 (1.83%) Google
14 48 (1.69%) CyberArk
14 48 (1.69%) F5
14 48 (1.69%) Palo Alto
15 39 (1.38%) Juniper
16 38 (1.34%) Veeam