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 13 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 21 17
Rank change year-on-year -9 -4 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 3,260 2,688 3,097
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.94% 8.16% 8.26%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.20% 59.19% 58.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,067 1,786 1,946
10th Percentile £177 £163 £180
25th Percentile £225 £205 £241
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £400 £425
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -5.88% -
75th Percentile £571 £538 £566
90th Percentile £668 £625 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £340 £400
% change year-on-year +21.32% -15.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 348 256 160
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.60 £15.22
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.69 £18.13
Median hourly rate £25.75 £22.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +17.05% -9.02% +2.89%
75th Percentile £60.00 £25.94 £64.63
90th Percentile £74.00 £65.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £21.25 £24.18
% change year-on-year +21.18% -12.12% +9.91%

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 5,327 4,541 5,279
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.70% 13.79% 14.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,363 2,911 3,251
10th Percentile £193 £185 £200
25th Percentile £313 £275 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £450 £470
Median % change year-on-year +4.44% -4.26% -5.05%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £675 £653 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £420 £444
% change year-on-year +7.14% -5.41% -1.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 407 308 250
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.30 £16.25
25th Percentile £17.25 £18.86 £23.11
Median hourly rate £25.77 £25.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.08% -54.55% +19.88%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £74.13 £67.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £23.00 £57.38
% change year-on-year +12.04% -59.91% +35.00%

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 13 October 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 13 October 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 13 October 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 -9 2,842 £420 +5.00% 2,152
UK excluding London -13 2,092 £413 +21.32% 1,336
London -4 962 £420 -1.24% 897
Work from Home -12 624 £470 +8.80% 825
South East -7 557 £480 +31.51% 342
North of England -10 487 £335 +14.53% 286
Midlands -14 294 £400 +3.23% 215
North West -3 289 £350 +7.69% 154
South West -16 267 £550 +57.14% 183
East of England -1 248 £220 -37.14% 154
West Midlands -23 205 £407 +1.81% 112
Scotland -5 158 £322 -28.44% 90
Yorkshire -14 158 £245 +11.36% 104
East Midlands +2 88 £275 +29.41% 102
Wales +6 73 £468 +61.21% 38
North East -25 42 £273 +22.06% 35
Northern Ireland -1 17 £102 -49.00% 46
Channel Islands -3 2 £535 - 6

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
1 267 (8.19%) SharePoint
2 240 (7.36%) Microsoft Exchange
3 72 (2.21%) IIS
4 62 (1.90%) Confluence
5 28 (0.86%) nginx
6 22 (0.67%) Apache
7 19 (0.58%) Skype for Business
8 15 (0.46%) Tomcat
9 14 (0.43%) HCL Notes
10 13 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.21%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.18%) Documentum
12 6 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2013
13 5 (0.15%) Apache Solr
13 5 (0.15%) Appian
13 5 (0.15%) Camunda
13 5 (0.15%) CICS
13 5 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2010
15 3 (0.092%) CloudStack
Applications
1 225 (6.90%) Microsoft Office
2 69 (2.12%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.15%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.15%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.092%) Houdini
6 3 (0.092%) NUKE
7 2 (0.061%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.061%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.061%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.061%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.031%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.031%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 46 (1.41%) Remedy ITSM
2 9 (0.28%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.25%) Finacle
4 7 (0.21%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.21%) Oracle BPM
5 6 (0.18%) Teamcenter
6 5 (0.15%) Dynamics CRM
7 3 (0.092%) Oracle EBS
7 3 (0.092%) ResourceLink
7 3 (0.092%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.061%) assyst
8 2 (0.061%) Dynamics GP
9 1 (0.031%) Dynamics NAV
9 1 (0.031%) Eikon
9 1 (0.031%) Monis
9 1 (0.031%) Oracle BRM
9 1 (0.031%) SAP ERP
9 1 (0.031%) SAP FI-CA
9 1 (0.031%) SAP FS
9 1 (0.031%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,027 (31.50%) Microsoft 365
2 999 (30.64%) Azure
3 550 (16.87%) Entra ID
4 338 (10.37%) AWS
5 151 (4.63%) OneDrive
6 118 (3.62%) Azure DevOps
7 114 (3.50%) GCP
8 82 (2.52%) Azure Monitor
9 77 (2.36%) GitHub
10 67 (2.06%) Power Platform
11 65 (1.99%) SaaS
12 59 (1.81%) IaaS
13 47 (1.44%) Azure Sentinel
14 41 (1.26%) PaaS
15 37 (1.13%) OpenShift
16 34 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
16 34 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
17 29 (0.89%) Google Workspace
18 24 (0.74%) Amazon EC2
18 24 (0.74%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 484 (14.85%) DNS
2 339 (10.40%) Firewall
3 338 (10.37%) DHCP
4 288 (8.83%) VPN
5 256 (7.85%) TCP/IP
6 134 (4.11%) LAN
7 130 (3.99%) WAN
8 125 (3.83%) Wi-Fi
9 108 (3.31%) Network Security
10 89 (2.73%) SAN
11 83 (2.55%) VLAN
12 61 (1.87%) Wireless
13 52 (1.60%) SSL
14 40 (1.23%) BGP
15 39 (1.20%) NAS
16 38 (1.17%) Internet
17 34 (1.04%) Skype
18 33 (1.01%) VoIP
19 32 (0.98%) HTTP
20 30 (0.92%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 288 (8.83%) SQL Server
2 60 (1.84%) Oracle Database
3 54 (1.66%) Power BI
4 48 (1.47%) PostgreSQL
5 40 (1.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 39 (1.20%) Relational Database
7 34 (1.04%) Amazon RDS
8 24 (0.74%) MySQL
9 19 (0.58%) RDBMS
10 18 (0.55%) Data Warehouse
11 17 (0.52%) Db2
12 15 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 14 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
13 14 (0.43%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 11 (0.34%) Geospatial Data
15 10 (0.31%) Azure SQL Database
16 8 (0.25%) Data Lake
16 8 (0.25%) Elasticsearch
16 8 (0.25%) MS Access
17 7 (0.21%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 159 (4.88%) JIRA
2 89 (2.73%) Git
3 75 (2.30%) Jenkins
4 58 (1.78%) GitLab
5 51 (1.56%) MSI
6 38 (1.17%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.52%) Artifactory
7 17 (0.52%) Bitbucket
8 15 (0.46%) Eclipse
9 11 (0.34%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 10 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
11 9 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
12 8 (0.25%) Oracle Forms
12 8 (0.25%) Toad
13 7 (0.21%) Octopus Deploy
13 7 (0.21%) Rational DOORS
14 6 (0.18%) Robot Framework
14 6 (0.18%) SonarQube
14 6 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
14 6 (0.18%) Zephyr
General
1 1,194 (36.63%) Social Skills
2 391 (11.99%) Finance
3 384 (11.78%) Analytical Skills
4 159 (4.88%) Public Sector
5 155 (4.75%) Banking
6 113 (3.47%) Documentation Skills
7 88 (2.70%) Legal
8 78 (2.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 76 (2.33%) Organisational Skills
10 66 (2.02%) Manufacturing
11 55 (1.69%) Telecoms
12 50 (1.53%) Retail
13 42 (1.29%) Front Office
13 42 (1.29%) Law
14 38 (1.17%) Military
15 37 (1.13%) Police
16 32 (0.98%) Investment Banking
17 26 (0.80%) Financial Institution
18 25 (0.77%) Aerospace
18 25 (0.77%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 533 (16.35%) Support Engineer
2 438 (13.44%) IT Support
3 339 (10.40%) IT Engineer
4 322 (9.88%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 288 (8.83%) IT Support Engineer
6 275 (8.44%) Analyst
7 264 (8.10%) Senior
8 148 (4.54%) Desktop Support
9 134 (4.11%) Desktop Engineer
10 132 (4.05%) Architect
11 129 (3.96%) 2nd Line Support
12 123 (3.77%) Cloud Engineer
13 120 (3.68%) Lead
14 117 (3.59%) Windows Engineer
15 109 (3.34%) Developer
16 102 (3.13%) Consultant
17 96 (2.94%) Support Analyst
18 86 (2.64%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 86 (2.64%) Service Analyst
19 83 (2.55%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 292 (8.96%) Terraform
2 153 (4.69%) .NET
3 127 (3.90%) REST
4 67 (2.06%) .NET Framework
5 59 (1.81%) Middleware
6 50 (1.53%) LDAP
7 48 (1.47%) JSON
8 42 (1.29%) WPF
9 36 (1.10%) XML
10 30 (0.92%) Web Services
11 29 (0.89%) WinForms
12 28 (0.86%) ARM Templates
12 28 (0.86%) Kafka
12 28 (0.86%) Software Packaging
13 25 (0.77%) HTML
14 24 (0.74%) .NET Core
15 20 (0.61%) RESTful
16 18 (0.55%) ASP.NET
16 18 (0.55%) Elastic Stack
16 18 (0.55%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 390 (11.96%) Onboarding
2 204 (6.26%) Data Centre
3 165 (5.06%) PKI
4 110 (3.37%) Management Information System
5 95 (2.91%) Enterprise Software
6 91 (2.79%) Hybrid Cloud
7 88 (2.70%) Driving Licence
8 84 (2.58%) Cloud Native
8 84 (2.58%) Video Conferencing
9 75 (2.30%) Clustering
10 70 (2.15%) Replication
11 66 (2.02%) Security Posture
12 52 (1.60%) Self-Motivation
13 48 (1.47%) Operational Technology
14 43 (1.32%) Legacy Systems
15 40 (1.23%) CMDB
15 40 (1.23%) Linux Command Line
16 38 (1.17%) Enterprise Storage
16 38 (1.17%) Smartphone
16 38 (1.17%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 920 (28.22%) Windows Server
2 792 (24.29%) Linux
3 573 (17.58%) Windows 10
4 194 (5.95%) macOS
5 143 (4.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 142 (4.36%) Apple iOS
6 142 (4.36%) Unix
7 135 (4.14%) Android
8 76 (2.33%) Windows Server 2019
9 48 (1.47%) Ubuntu
9 48 (1.47%) Windows 7
10 46 (1.41%) Windows Server 2012
11 42 (1.29%) Windows Server 2016
12 39 (1.20%) CentOS
13 31 (0.95%) AIX
14 21 (0.64%) Solaris
15 18 (0.55%) VMS
16 16 (0.49%) Rocky
16 16 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
17 11 (0.34%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 761 (23.34%) Problem-Solving
2 625 (19.17%) ITIL
3 574 (17.61%) Customer Service
4 445 (13.65%) ITSM
5 417 (12.79%) Migration
6 416 (12.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 374 (11.47%) Continuous Improvement
8 347 (10.64%) Service Management
9 338 (10.37%) DevOps
10 314 (9.63%) CI/CD
11 305 (9.36%) Infrastructure as Code
12 282 (8.65%) Stakeholder Management
13 268 (8.22%) Agile
14 244 (7.48%) Root Cause Analysis
15 236 (7.24%) Change Management
16 235 (7.21%) Disaster Recovery
17 233 (7.15%) Cybersecurity
18 225 (6.90%) Validation
19 189 (5.80%) Technical Leadership
20 188 (5.77%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 799 (24.51%) PowerShell
2 340 (10.43%) Python
3 312 (9.57%) SQL
4 207 (6.35%) Bash
5 171 (5.25%) C#
6 82 (2.52%) Java
7 78 (2.39%) T-SQL
8 62 (1.90%) JavaScript
9 58 (1.78%) Bicep
10 52 (1.60%) PL/SQL
11 38 (1.17%) C++
12 29 (0.89%) VBScript
13 28 (0.86%) VB
14 21 (0.64%) Perl
15 20 (0.61%) Groovy
16 19 (0.58%) Shell Script
17 18 (0.55%) VBA
18 15 (0.46%) TypeScript
19 13 (0.40%) Go
20 10 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 999 (30.64%) Security Cleared
2 598 (18.34%) SC Cleared
3 389 (11.93%) DV Cleared
4 287 (8.80%) Degree
5 120 (3.68%) Microsoft Certification
6 88 (2.70%) Azure Certification
7 87 (2.67%) Cisco Certification
8 78 (2.39%) BPSS Clearance
9 65 (1.99%) Computer Science Degree
10 63 (1.93%) CISSP
11 55 (1.69%) AWS Certification
12 53 (1.63%) A+ Certification
13 49 (1.50%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 47 (1.44%) DBS Check
15 44 (1.35%) CCNA
16 42 (1.29%) CCNP
17 37 (1.13%) ITIL Certification
18 34 (1.04%) CISM
19 33 (1.01%) MCSE
20 28 (0.86%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 173 (5.31%) SLA
2 100 (3.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 88 (2.70%) QA
4 78 (2.39%) NIST
5 36 (1.10%) Cyber Essentials
6 32 (0.98%) GDPR
7 29 (0.89%) NCSC
8 28 (0.86%) PCI DSS
9 17 (0.52%) Accessibility
9 17 (0.52%) GRC
9 17 (0.52%) GxP
10 16 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 13 (0.40%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 13 (0.40%) Data Quality
12 12 (0.37%) WCAG
13 11 (0.34%) Disclosure Scotland
13 11 (0.34%) ISO 31000
13 11 (0.34%) PMO
14 10 (0.31%) GMP
15 9 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 1,358 (41.66%) Active Directory
2 488 (14.97%) VMware Infrastructure
3 220 (6.75%) Hyper-V
4 150 (4.60%) VMware ESXi
5 140 (4.29%) vSphere
6 131 (4.02%) Docker
7 113 (3.47%) Virtual Desktop
8 107 (3.28%) Virtual Machines
9 70 (2.15%) VMware NSX
10 39 (1.20%) BitLocker
11 38 (1.17%) Firmware
12 24 (0.74%) vCloud
13 20 (0.61%) Virtual Servers
14 17 (0.52%) Microsoft App-V
15 15 (0.46%) Citrix Hypervisor
15 15 (0.46%) NFS
16 12 (0.37%) XenApp
17 10 (0.31%) KVM
17 10 (0.31%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 10 (0.31%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 477 (14.63%) Microsoft Intune
2 378 (11.60%) SCCM
3 236 (7.24%) Ansible
4 171 (5.25%) Kubernetes
5 117 (3.59%) vCenter Server
6 102 (3.13%) SCOM
7 52 (1.60%) Jamf Pro
8 41 (1.26%) Grafana
8 41 (1.26%) WSUS
9 36 (1.10%) Prometheus
10 34 (1.04%) Progress Chef
11 33 (1.01%) NetBackup
12 30 (0.92%) WMI
13 29 (0.89%) Puppet
13 29 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
14 25 (0.77%) VxRail
15 21 (0.64%) Failover Clustering
15 21 (0.64%) Nagios
16 20 (0.61%) FortiGate
16 20 (0.61%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 1,584 (48.59%) Microsoft
2 634 (19.45%) VMware
3 386 (11.84%) ServiceNow
4 241 (7.39%) Cisco
5 202 (6.20%) Oracle
6 178 (5.46%) Citrix
7 113 (3.47%) Apple
8 106 (3.25%) Splunk
9 97 (2.98%) CyberArk
10 94 (2.88%) Google
11 84 (2.58%) Red Hat
12 75 (2.30%) SolarWinds
13 69 (2.12%) BeyondTrust
14 59 (1.81%) Palo Alto
15 58 (1.78%) Dell
16 51 (1.56%) NetApp
17 50 (1.53%) Remedy
18 47 (1.44%) CrowdStrike
19 44 (1.35%) HP
20 41 (1.26%) Fortinet