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

6 months to
8 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,894 2,556 3,798
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.83% 8.50% 8.51%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.22% 59.65% 62.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,947 1,715 2,555
10th Percentile £161 £181 £155
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £421 £395
Median % change year-on-year -4.99% +6.58% -10.23%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £641 £675 £657
UK excluding London median daily rate £350 £400 £375
% change year-on-year -12.50% +6.67% -3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 265 103 286
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.27 £12.25
25th Percentile £16.62 £16.98 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.80 £22.50 £17.86
Median % change year-on-year -3.11% +25.98% -18.82%
75th Percentile £41.94 £33.88 £29.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £65.00 £62.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £22.00 £17.72
% change year-on-year -2.45% +24.15% -8.86%

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 4,806 4,285 6,105
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.34% 14.25% 13.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,160 2,755 4,071
10th Percentile £180 £200 £180
25th Percentile £275 £316 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -6.32% +5.56% -12.20%
75th Percentile £565 £594 £588
90th Percentile £663 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £438 £425
% change year-on-year -5.71% +2.94% -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 354 156 414
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.38 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.76 £19.63 £15.54
Median hourly rate £22.91 £28.71 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -20.21% +27.58% -15.03%
75th Percentile £59.50 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.54 £24.83 £22.50
% change year-on-year -9.23% +10.36% -13.46%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 2,566 £403 -1.23% 1,015
UK excluding London -8 1,937 £350 -12.50% 948
London -17 774 £425 - 230
Work from Home -16 578 £450 -2.70% 343
South East -2 519 £425 -5.56% 345
North of England -9 480 £268 -23.36% 214
South West -2 278 £450 -13.46% 108
Midlands -16 274 £271 -16.62% 108
North West -8 257 £251 -28.21% 128
East of England +6 222 £238 +2.48% 109
Yorkshire -17 192 £325 -18.75% 66
West Midlands -26 165 £400 +21.21% 48
Scotland -6 127 £425 -2.86% 57
East Midlands +1 108 £210 -9.19% 59
Wales -1 47 £200 -15.79% 18
North East -5 34 £188 -37.50% 25
Northern Ireland -13 8 £175 +9.38% 8
Channel Islands +4 1 - - 1

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
1 256 (8.85%) Microsoft Exchange
2 172 (5.94%) SharePoint
3 57 (1.97%) Confluence
4 38 (1.31%) IIS
5 28 (0.97%) Apache
6 22 (0.76%) WebLogic
7 15 (0.52%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.41%) TPMS
8 12 (0.41%) Tuxedo
9 11 (0.38%) Tomcat
10 10 (0.35%) nginx
11 9 (0.31%) SAS
12 8 (0.28%) WebSphere
13 5 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.14%) NetWeaver
14 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
14 4 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.14%) SharePoint Server
15 3 (0.10%) ArcGIS
15 3 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2010
Applications
1 249 (8.60%) Microsoft Office
2 74 (2.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.90%) 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 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 28 (0.97%) Remedy ITSM
2 15 (0.52%) 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 (0.035%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.035%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.035%) RMDS
7 1 (0.035%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 826 (28.54%) Microsoft 365
2 738 (25.50%) Azure
3 295 (10.19%) Entra ID
4 225 (7.77%) AWS
5 102 (3.52%) OneDrive
6 77 (2.66%) GCP
7 72 (2.49%) SaaS
8 61 (2.11%) Azure DevOps
9 54 (1.87%) Google Workspace
10 51 (1.76%) GitHub
11 47 (1.62%) IaaS
12 39 (1.35%) PaaS
13 38 (1.31%) Power Platform
14 27 (0.93%) Azure Sentinel
15 25 (0.86%) Nutanix
16 24 (0.83%) Azure Monitor
16 24 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
17 23 (0.79%) AWS CloudFormation
18 22 (0.76%) OpenShift
19 15 (0.52%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 386 (13.34%) DNS
2 328 (11.33%) Firewall
3 247 (8.53%) DHCP
4 201 (6.95%) TCP/IP
5 192 (6.63%) VPN
6 155 (5.36%) WAN
7 151 (5.22%) Wi-Fi
8 150 (5.18%) LAN
9 75 (2.59%) Network Security
10 66 (2.28%) VLAN
11 61 (2.11%) Wireless
12 52 (1.80%) SAN
13 41 (1.42%) Skype
14 40 (1.38%) HTTP
15 38 (1.31%) SSH
15 38 (1.31%) SSL
16 37 (1.28%) BGP
17 35 (1.21%) SD-WAN
17 35 (1.21%) VoIP
18 31 (1.07%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (5.67%) SQL Server
2 61 (2.11%) Oracle Database
3 44 (1.52%) Relational Database
4 39 (1.35%) MySQL
5 27 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
6 15 (0.52%) DB2
6 15 (0.52%) Power BI
7 14 (0.48%) Data Warehouse
8 13 (0.45%) BigQuery
8 13 (0.45%) Elasticsearch
9 12 (0.41%) Oracle Reports
10 11 (0.38%) GIS
10 11 (0.38%) MongoDB
11 9 (0.31%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.31%) SAP HANA
12 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
12 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 5 (0.17%) Oracle Database 10g
13 5 (0.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 5 (0.17%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 166 (5.74%) JIRA
2 66 (2.28%) Jenkins
3 65 (2.25%) GitLab
4 63 (2.18%) Git
5 43 (1.49%) MSI
6 34 (1.17%) Visual Studio
7 27 (0.93%) Eclipse
8 20 (0.69%) Burp Suite
8 20 (0.69%) Metasploit
9 17 (0.59%) Android Studio
10 15 (0.52%) Artifactory
10 15 (0.52%) Xcode
11 12 (0.41%) Browser DevTools
12 10 (0.35%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.35%) Chocolatey
13 9 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
14 7 (0.24%) InstallShield
14 7 (0.24%) JUnit
14 7 (0.24%) Robot Framework
15 6 (0.21%) Toad
General
1 1,058 (36.56%) Social Skills
2 287 (9.92%) Finance
3 266 (9.19%) Analytical Skills
4 249 (8.60%) Public Sector
5 137 (4.73%) Banking
6 124 (4.28%) Legal
7 116 (4.01%) Documentation Skills
8 88 (3.04%) Organisational Skills
9 62 (2.14%) Military
10 57 (1.97%) Manufacturing
11 46 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
12 37 (1.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 37 (1.28%) Retail
13 36 (1.24%) Telecoms
14 25 (0.86%) Law
15 23 (0.79%) Aerospace
15 23 (0.79%) Investment Banking
16 19 (0.66%) Local Government
17 18 (0.62%) Front Office
18 17 (0.59%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 392 (13.55%) Support Engineer
2 387 (13.37%) IT Support
3 376 (12.99%) Analyst
4 219 (7.57%) IT Engineer
5 180 (6.22%) Architect
5 180 (6.22%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 180 (6.22%) IT Support Engineer
6 157 (5.43%) Support Analyst
7 155 (5.36%) Senior
8 136 (4.70%) Desktop Support
9 122 (4.22%) 2nd Line Support
10 118 (4.08%) Technical Support
10 118 (4.08%) Windows Engineer
11 114 (3.94%) Desktop Engineer
12 111 (3.84%) Developer
13 102 (3.52%) Lead
14 91 (3.14%) IT Analyst
15 86 (2.97%) Deployment Engineer
16 84 (2.90%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 75 (2.59%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (2.94%) .NET
2 71 (2.45%) REST
3 55 (1.90%) LDAP
4 49 (1.69%) OAuth
4 49 (1.69%) SAML
5 45 (1.55%) .NET Framework
6 39 (1.35%) Middleware
7 33 (1.14%) Web Services
8 30 (1.04%) WPF
9 29 (1.00%) OpenID
10 28 (0.97%) React
11 27 (0.93%) AngularJS
11 27 (0.93%) CSS
11 27 (0.93%) Kafka
12 26 (0.90%) Microsoft Graph
13 25 (0.86%) WinForms
14 21 (0.73%) Node.js
14 21 (0.73%) OAuth2
15 20 (0.69%) 802.1X
16 19 (0.66%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 185 (6.39%) Onboarding
2 123 (4.25%) Data Centre
3 106 (3.66%) PKI
4 92 (3.18%) Driving Licence
5 86 (2.97%) Enterprise Software
6 73 (2.52%) Self-Motivation
7 59 (2.04%) Smartphone
8 52 (1.80%) Management Information System
9 49 (1.69%) Clustering
10 47 (1.62%) Security Posture
11 46 (1.59%) Replication
12 42 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
13 41 (1.42%) Hybrid Cloud
14 38 (1.31%) Product Ownership
15 37 (1.28%) NHS
16 36 (1.24%) Security Operations Centre
17 33 (1.14%) Virtual Team
18 32 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
19 30 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
20 29 (1.00%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 699 (24.15%) Linux
2 610 (21.08%) Windows Server
3 601 (20.77%) Windows 10
4 161 (5.56%) Unix
5 156 (5.39%) Mac OS
6 154 (5.32%) Android
7 123 (4.25%) Apple iOS
8 86 (2.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 72 (2.49%) Windows Server 2016
10 60 (2.07%) Windows Server 2019
11 51 (1.76%) Windows 7
12 37 (1.28%) Windows Server 2012
13 31 (1.07%) AIX
14 30 (1.04%) Windows Server 2003
15 20 (0.69%) Solaris
16 15 (0.52%) Windows Server 2008
17 13 (0.45%) VMS
18 12 (0.41%) Ubuntu
19 10 (0.35%) Mac OS X
20 8 (0.28%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 576 (19.90%) Problem-Solving
2 495 (17.10%) Customer Service
3 415 (14.34%) ITIL
4 316 (10.92%) Agile
5 307 (10.61%) Migration
6 268 (9.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 248 (8.57%) DevOps
8 231 (7.98%) CI/CD
9 222 (7.67%) ITSM
10 218 (7.53%) Cybersecurity
11 208 (7.19%) Service Management
12 204 (7.05%) Continuous Improvement
13 163 (5.63%) Change Management
14 159 (5.49%) Disaster Recovery
15 149 (5.15%) Stakeholder Management
16 145 (5.01%) Service Delivery
17 133 (4.60%) High Availability
17 133 (4.60%) User Experience
18 129 (4.46%) Computer Science
18 129 (4.46%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 574 (19.83%) PowerShell
2 329 (11.37%) Python
3 262 (9.05%) SQL
4 130 (4.49%) Bash
5 129 (4.46%) C#
6 108 (3.73%) Java
7 78 (2.70%) JavaScript
8 61 (2.11%) C++
9 58 (2.00%) Perl
9 58 (2.00%) PL/SQL
10 41 (1.42%) T-SQL
11 31 (1.07%) Kusto Query Language
12 26 (0.90%) Shell Script
13 24 (0.83%) VB
14 22 (0.76%) VBScript
15 16 (0.55%) VBA
16 14 (0.48%) Bicep
16 14 (0.48%) C
17 13 (0.45%) Go
18 12 (0.41%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 883 (30.51%) Security Cleared
2 580 (20.04%) SC Cleared
3 297 (10.26%) Degree
4 250 (8.64%) DV Cleared
5 145 (5.01%) Microsoft Certification
6 93 (3.21%) Computer Science Degree
7 63 (2.18%) Cisco Certification
8 50 (1.73%) Azure Certification
9 48 (1.66%) MCSE
10 44 (1.52%) ITIL Certification
11 41 (1.42%) CISSP
12 38 (1.31%) CompTIA Security+
13 37 (1.28%) BPSS Clearance
14 34 (1.17%) CCNA
15 32 (1.11%) A+ Certification
15 32 (1.11%) AWS Certification
16 27 (0.93%) CCNP
17 25 (0.86%) Microsoft Certified Professional
18 23 (0.79%) MCSA
19 22 (0.76%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 106 (3.66%) GDPR
2 100 (3.46%) SLA
3 88 (3.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 80 (2.76%) QA
5 57 (1.97%) NIST
6 40 (1.38%) PCI DSS
7 25 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 18 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.55%) PMO
10 13 (0.45%) MiFID
11 12 (0.41%) GLBA
11 12 (0.41%) NCSC
12 10 (0.35%) FINRA
13 9 (0.31%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
15 7 (0.24%) HIPAA
16 6 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
16 6 (0.21%) GxP
17 5 (0.17%) COBIT
18 4 (0.14%) GMP
System Software
1 1,065 (36.80%) Active Directory
2 287 (9.92%) VMware Infrastructure
3 114 (3.94%) Docker
4 111 (3.84%) Hyper-V
5 66 (2.28%) vSphere
6 62 (2.14%) Virtual Machines
7 61 (2.11%) Virtual Desktop
8 54 (1.87%) VMware ESXi
9 33 (1.14%) VMware NSX
10 29 (1.00%) Firmware
11 26 (0.90%) BitLocker
12 23 (0.79%) Microsoft App-V
13 16 (0.55%) KVM
14 8 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
14 8 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
14 8 (0.28%) XenApp
14 8 (0.28%) XenDesktop
15 6 (0.21%) NFS
15 6 (0.21%) Terminal Services
16 5 (0.17%) NDS
Systems Management
1 374 (12.92%) Microsoft Intune
2 358 (12.37%) SCCM
3 174 (6.01%) Terraform
4 165 (5.70%) Ansible
5 135 (4.66%) Kubernetes
6 81 (2.80%) Single Sign-On
7 70 (2.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 59 (2.04%) vCenter Server
9 44 (1.52%) Jamf Pro
10 39 (1.35%) Grafana
11 33 (1.14%) FortiGate
12 29 (1.00%) WSUS
13 25 (0.86%) Prometheus
13 25 (0.86%) SCOM
14 21 (0.73%) Nessus
14 21 (0.73%) Progress Chef
15 19 (0.66%) Nmap
16 17 (0.59%) WMI
17 16 (0.55%) Puppet
18 12 (0.41%) CASB
Vendors
1 1,246 (43.05%) Microsoft
2 402 (13.89%) VMware
3 253 (8.74%) ServiceNow
4 202 (6.98%) Citrix
5 190 (6.57%) Oracle
6 183 (6.32%) Cisco
7 148 (5.11%) Splunk
8 80 (2.76%) HP
9 71 (2.45%) Dell
10 64 (2.21%) Red Hat
11 62 (2.14%) Apple
11 62 (2.14%) SolarWinds
12 61 (2.11%) Google
13 51 (1.76%) IBM
14 45 (1.55%) Remedy
14 45 (1.55%) SAP
14 45 (1.55%) Veeam
15 43 (1.49%) Juniper
16 41 (1.42%) Palo Alto
17 38 (1.31%) F5