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

6 months to
11 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -5 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,906 2,471 3,535
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.82% 8.41% 8.10%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.86% 60.27% 60.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,870 1,693 2,420
10th Percentile £163 £181 £163
25th Percentile £220 £240 £215
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £411
Median % change year-on-year - +3.53% -8.78%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £670
UK excluding London median daily rate £415 £400 £421
% change year-on-year +3.75% -5.03% +9.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 250 163 277
10th Percentile £15.91 £15.10 £11.92
25th Percentile £17.94 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £18.87 £18.13
Median % change year-on-year +33.28% +4.08% -26.36%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £25.00
90th Percentile £68.20 £58.20 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.26 £18.82 £17.69
% change year-on-year +34.22% +6.39% -21.38%

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 4,775 4,100 5,877
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.57% 13.96% 13.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,039 2,690 3,912
10th Percentile £188 £200 £185
25th Percentile £315 £313 £309
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £465 £470
Median % change year-on-year -1.08% -1.12% -5.95%
75th Percentile £575 £585 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 341 194 409
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.15 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.33 £15.50
Median hourly rate £31.00 £21.95 £22.52
Median % change year-on-year +41.23% -2.53% -50.02%
75th Percentile £63.75 £41.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.74 £18.87 £24.18
% change year-on-year +52.31% -21.96% -40.43%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -8 2,532 £425 - 954
UK excluding London -14 1,948 £415 +3.75% 837
London -21 795 £425 -3.41% 228
Work from Home -16 600 £475 +0.53% 330
South East -8 523 £475 -3.06% 286
North of England -8 468 £365 +4.29% 190
Midlands -16 279 £325 +14.04% 113
North West -6 248 £352 -6.11% 119
South West -13 234 £475 -2.06% 141
East of England -1 218 £350 -7.59% 78
Yorkshire -14 202 £365 -9.32% 52
Scotland -2 177 £425 -1.62% 29
West Midlands -21 167 £450 +50.00% 64
East Midlands +4 107 £225 +9.09% 49
Wales +1 47 £375 +25.00% 14
North East -32 22 £283 -1.74% 21
Northern Ireland 0 15 £139 -30.75% 10
Channel Islands -2 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
1 232 (7.98%) Microsoft Exchange
2 187 (6.43%) SharePoint
3 59 (2.03%) IIS
4 55 (1.89%) Confluence
5 19 (0.65%) Apache
5 19 (0.65%) Tomcat
6 16 (0.55%) nginx
7 14 (0.48%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.38%) WebLogic
9 9 (0.31%) NetWeaver
9 9 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
10 8 (0.28%) HCL Notes
11 7 (0.24%) SAS
12 6 (0.21%) TPMS
13 5 (0.17%) Appian
13 5 (0.17%) WebSphere
14 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.14%) Tuxedo
15 3 (0.10%) Camunda
16 2 (0.069%) Apache Pulsar
Applications
1 178 (6.13%) Microsoft Office
2 63 (2.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 23 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.14%) Acrobat
8 2 (0.069%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.034%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 45 (1.55%) Remedy ITSM
2 19 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.41%) Teamcenter
4 6 (0.21%) Finacle
5 3 (0.10%) assyst
5 3 (0.10%) OpenText MBPM
5 3 (0.10%) Oracle BPM
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
7 1 (0.034%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.034%) Dynamics GP
7 1 (0.034%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.034%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 875 (30.11%) Azure
2 818 (28.15%) Microsoft 365
3 363 (12.49%) Entra ID
4 282 (9.70%) AWS
5 108 (3.72%) OneDrive
6 93 (3.20%) GCP
7 76 (2.62%) Azure DevOps
8 75 (2.58%) SaaS
9 68 (2.34%) GitHub
10 65 (2.24%) IaaS
11 58 (2.00%) Power Platform
12 55 (1.89%) PaaS
13 40 (1.38%) Azure Monitor
13 40 (1.38%) OpenShift
14 36 (1.24%) Google Workspace
15 32 (1.10%) Azure Sentinel
15 32 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
16 23 (0.79%) Nutanix
17 21 (0.72%) Microsoft Purview
18 20 (0.69%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 408 (14.04%) DNS
2 299 (10.29%) Firewall
3 282 (9.70%) DHCP
4 211 (7.26%) VPN
5 185 (6.37%) TCP/IP
6 175 (6.02%) WAN
7 174 (5.99%) LAN
8 142 (4.89%) Wi-Fi
9 86 (2.96%) SAN
10 66 (2.27%) Network Security
11 58 (2.00%) VLAN
12 46 (1.58%) SD-WAN
13 41 (1.41%) SSL
14 40 (1.38%) NAS
15 39 (1.34%) BGP
16 38 (1.31%) VoIP
16 38 (1.31%) Wireless
17 36 (1.24%) Internet
17 36 (1.24%) SNMP
18 34 (1.17%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 240 (8.26%) SQL Server
2 52 (1.79%) Oracle Database
3 36 (1.24%) Power BI
4 32 (1.10%) Relational Database
5 28 (0.96%) MySQL
5 28 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
6 18 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
7 15 (0.52%) Db2
7 15 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 14 (0.48%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (0.48%) MongoDB
9 13 (0.45%) NoSQL
10 12 (0.41%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (0.34%) GIS
12 9 (0.31%) RDBMS
12 9 (0.31%) SAP HANA
13 8 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle BI EE
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.28%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 184 (6.33%) JIRA
2 55 (1.89%) Jenkins
3 52 (1.79%) Git
4 40 (1.38%) MSI
5 39 (1.34%) GitLab
6 36 (1.24%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.62%) Eclipse
8 11 (0.38%) Burp Suite
9 10 (0.34%) Metasploit
10 9 (0.31%) Chocolatey
10 9 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
11 7 (0.24%) Android Studio
11 7 (0.24%) Bitbucket
11 7 (0.24%) Browser DevTools
11 7 (0.24%) Selenium
11 7 (0.24%) Xcode
12 6 (0.21%) InstallShield
13 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
13 5 (0.17%) Artifactory
13 5 (0.17%) Maven
General
1 992 (34.14%) Social Skills
2 308 (10.60%) Finance
3 306 (10.53%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (7.05%) Public Sector
5 152 (5.23%) Banking
6 117 (4.03%) Legal
7 102 (3.51%) Documentation Skills
8 76 (2.62%) Organisational Skills
9 55 (1.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 52 (1.79%) Retail
11 51 (1.75%) Military
12 43 (1.48%) Manufacturing
13 39 (1.34%) Law
14 38 (1.31%) Investment Banking
15 32 (1.10%) Front Office
16 30 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
17 26 (0.89%) Telecoms
18 23 (0.79%) Spanish Language
19 22 (0.76%) Local Government
20 21 (0.72%) French Language
Job Titles
1 364 (12.53%) Support Engineer
2 362 (12.46%) IT Support
3 306 (10.53%) Analyst
4 270 (9.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 236 (8.12%) IT Engineer
6 195 (6.71%) IT Support Engineer
7 183 (6.30%) Senior
8 151 (5.20%) Architect
9 119 (4.09%) Desktop Support
10 110 (3.79%) Support Analyst
11 109 (3.75%) Desktop Engineer
12 105 (3.61%) Lead
13 96 (3.30%) 2nd Line Support
14 92 (3.17%) IT Analyst
15 91 (3.13%) Developer
15 91 (3.13%) Windows Engineer
16 84 (2.89%) Technical Support
17 80 (2.75%) Consultant
18 72 (2.48%) 1st Line Support
18 72 (2.48%) Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (3.20%) .NET
2 90 (3.10%) REST
3 53 (1.82%) .NET Framework
4 40 (1.38%) LDAP
5 35 (1.20%) SAML
6 34 (1.17%) Microsoft Graph
7 30 (1.03%) Kafka
8 29 (1.00%) Middleware
9 28 (0.96%) 802.1X
10 26 (0.89%) Software Packaging
10 26 (0.89%) WinForms
11 25 (0.86%) Web Services
12 23 (0.79%) OAuth
12 23 (0.79%) WPF
13 19 (0.65%) CSS
13 19 (0.65%) Elastic Stack
14 17 (0.58%) Node.js
15 16 (0.55%) AngularJS
15 16 (0.55%) RabbitMQ
16 15 (0.52%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 263 (9.05%) Onboarding
2 160 (5.51%) Data Centre
3 126 (4.34%) PKI
4 82 (2.82%) Enterprise Software
5 75 (2.58%) Clustering
6 64 (2.20%) Management Information System
6 64 (2.20%) Self-Motivation
7 60 (2.06%) Driving Licence
8 59 (2.03%) Replication
9 55 (1.89%) Cloud Native
9 55 (1.89%) Legacy Systems
10 52 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
10 52 (1.79%) Security Posture
11 51 (1.75%) Virtual Team
12 42 (1.45%) Smartphone
13 38 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
14 35 (1.20%) CMDB
14 35 (1.20%) Security Operations Centre
15 34 (1.17%) Operational Technology
16 32 (1.10%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 729 (25.09%) Linux
2 704 (24.23%) Windows Server
3 490 (16.86%) Windows 10
4 186 (6.40%) Mac OS
5 154 (5.30%) Unix
6 145 (4.99%) Apple iOS
7 137 (4.71%) Android
8 102 (3.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 80 (2.75%) Windows Server 2019
10 66 (2.27%) Windows Server 2016
11 53 (1.82%) Windows 7
12 39 (1.34%) Windows Server 2012
13 33 (1.14%) AIX
14 28 (0.96%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.83%) Solaris
16 22 (0.76%) VMS
17 18 (0.62%) Windows Server 2003
18 17 (0.58%) Windows Server 2008
19 12 (0.41%) CentOS
20 8 (0.28%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 634 (21.82%) Problem-Solving
2 438 (15.07%) ITIL
3 424 (14.59%) Customer Service
4 348 (11.98%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 341 (11.73%) Migration
6 293 (10.08%) ITSM
7 280 (9.64%) Agile
8 265 (9.12%) DevOps
9 243 (8.36%) CI/CD
10 203 (6.99%) Continuous Improvement
11 198 (6.81%) Service Management
12 194 (6.68%) High Availability
13 193 (6.64%) Change Management
14 180 (6.19%) Disaster Recovery
15 179 (6.16%) Cybersecurity
16 158 (5.44%) Infrastructure as Code
17 153 (5.26%) Stakeholder Management
18 150 (5.16%) SIEM
19 143 (4.92%) Service Delivery
20 132 (4.54%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 630 (21.68%) PowerShell
2 302 (10.39%) Python
3 273 (9.39%) SQL
4 128 (4.40%) C#
5 122 (4.20%) Bash
6 78 (2.68%) Java
7 70 (2.41%) JavaScript
8 53 (1.82%) PL/SQL
9 48 (1.65%) C++
10 44 (1.51%) T-SQL
11 31 (1.07%) Perl
12 26 (0.89%) Shell Script
13 25 (0.86%) Kusto Query Language
14 24 (0.83%) VB
15 23 (0.79%) Search Processing Language
16 19 (0.65%) Bicep
16 19 (0.65%) VBScript
17 13 (0.45%) C
17 13 (0.45%) VBA
18 11 (0.38%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 841 (28.94%) Security Cleared
2 552 (19.00%) SC Cleared
3 311 (10.70%) Degree
4 257 (8.84%) DV Cleared
5 116 (3.99%) Microsoft Certification
6 93 (3.20%) Cisco Certification
7 89 (3.06%) Computer Science Degree
8 64 (2.20%) CISSP
9 53 (1.82%) Azure Certification
10 51 (1.75%) MCSE
11 45 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
12 43 (1.48%) AWS Certification
13 40 (1.38%) CCNA
14 39 (1.34%) CompTIA Security+
15 34 (1.17%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 31 (1.07%) CCNP
17 30 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
17 30 (1.03%) MCSA
18 26 (0.89%) CISM
19 23 (0.79%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 124 (4.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 113 (3.89%) SLA
3 92 (3.17%) NIST
4 82 (2.82%) QA
5 71 (2.44%) GDPR
6 36 (1.24%) PCI DSS
7 30 (1.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 25 (0.86%) Cyber Essentials
9 18 (0.62%) NCSC
10 13 (0.45%) Disclosure Scotland
10 13 (0.45%) PMO
11 12 (0.41%) Data Quality
12 11 (0.38%) MiFID
12 11 (0.38%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.38%) SOC 2
13 10 (0.34%) FINRA
13 10 (0.34%) HIPAA
14 8 (0.28%) GRC
15 6 (0.21%) Accessibility
15 6 (0.21%) GLBA
System Software
1 1,077 (37.06%) Active Directory
2 375 (12.90%) VMware Infrastructure
3 159 (5.47%) Hyper-V
4 111 (3.82%) VMware ESXi
5 107 (3.68%) vSphere
6 96 (3.30%) Virtual Machines
7 94 (3.23%) Docker
8 64 (2.20%) Virtual Desktop
9 54 (1.86%) VMware NSX
10 39 (1.34%) Firmware
11 37 (1.27%) BitLocker
12 27 (0.93%) Microsoft App-V
13 21 (0.72%) KVM
14 11 (0.38%) Oracle RAC
14 11 (0.38%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.34%) vCloud
15 10 (0.34%) XenApp
16 8 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
17 6 (0.21%) etcd
17 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 390 (13.42%) Microsoft Intune
2 259 (8.91%) SCCM
3 196 (6.74%) Ansible
4 170 (5.85%) Terraform
5 144 (4.96%) Kubernetes
6 85 (2.92%) vCenter Server
7 55 (1.89%) Single Sign-On
8 51 (1.75%) Jamf Pro
9 40 (1.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 40 (1.38%) FortiGate
10 39 (1.34%) SCOM
11 38 (1.31%) Grafana
12 37 (1.27%) WSUS
13 34 (1.17%) Progress Chef
14 33 (1.14%) Prometheus
15 25 (0.86%) Puppet
16 23 (0.79%) Nagios
17 20 (0.69%) Tivoli
17 20 (0.69%) ZABBIX
18 19 (0.65%) Nessus
Vendors
1 1,246 (42.88%) Microsoft
2 480 (16.52%) VMware
3 261 (8.98%) ServiceNow
4 217 (7.47%) Cisco
5 195 (6.71%) Citrix
6 185 (6.37%) Oracle
7 154 (5.30%) Splunk
8 79 (2.72%) HP
9 74 (2.55%) SolarWinds
10 71 (2.44%) Dell
11 66 (2.27%) Red Hat
12 63 (2.17%) Google
13 62 (2.13%) Apple
14 60 (2.06%) F5
15 57 (1.96%) Remedy
16 55 (1.89%) CyberArk
17 54 (1.86%) Palo Alto
18 52 (1.79%) IBM
19 47 (1.62%) BeyondTrust
19 47 (1.62%) Juniper