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 28 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,838 2,414 3,608
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.04% 8.22% 8.33%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.41% 59.08% 62.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,870 1,675 2,479
10th Percentile £161 £180 £160
25th Percentile £213 £240 £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
% change year-on-year -0.13% - +3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 228 131 274
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.26 £11.86
25th Percentile £17.55 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £23.16 £19.00 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.87% +5.56% -20.00%
75th Percentile £63.75 £28.00 £25.00
90th Percentile £74.78 £63.75 £61.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.75 £18.82 £17.50
% change year-on-year +26.20% +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 4,698 4,086 5,775
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.00% 13.92% 13.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,054 2,704 3,885
10th Percentile £185 £200 £184
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 £600 £591
90th Percentile £658 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -5.56% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 325 179 394
10th Percentile £15.96 £16.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.54 £18.13 £15.31
Median hourly rate £41.94 £24.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.45% +9.91% -43.23%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.50 £59.88
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.22 £23.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year +83.57% +9.52% -32.80%

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 28 April 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 28 April 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 28 April 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 2,462 £415 -0.02% 908
UK excluding London -10 1,875 £400 -0.13% 879
London -21 767 £440 - 184
Work from Home -18 570 £475 +2.70% 342
South East -6 496 £475 -5.00% 296
North of England -12 465 £313 -3.69% 185
Midlands -17 282 £330 +20.00% 92
North West -3 260 £230 -34.29% 103
South West -13 225 £450 -14.29% 139
East of England +3 206 £350 +54.87% 106
Yorkshire -21 188 £365 +12.31% 58
West Midlands -23 164 £460 +61.40% 42
Scotland -1 149 £425 -5.56% 31
East Midlands +5 113 £215 +4.24% 50
Wales 0 53 £200 -32.20% 33
North East -24 21 £188 -14.77% 29
Northern Ireland -3 13 £175 -12.50% 32
Channel Islands 0 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
1 240 (8.46%) Microsoft Exchange
2 147 (5.18%) SharePoint
3 52 (1.83%) IIS
4 48 (1.69%) Confluence
5 22 (0.78%) Apache
5 22 (0.78%) WebLogic
6 14 (0.49%) Tomcat
7 13 (0.46%) nginx
8 12 (0.42%) SAS
8 12 (0.42%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
9 10 (0.35%) TPMS
10 7 (0.25%) WebSphere
11 6 (0.21%) NetWeaver
12 5 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
14 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
15 2 (0.070%) Apache Geronimo
15 2 (0.070%) Apache ServiceMix
Applications
1 204 (7.19%) Microsoft Office
2 65 (2.29%) 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
7 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.070%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 40 (1.41%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.28%) Teamcenter
4 6 (0.21%) assyst
5 3 (0.11%) Finacle
5 3 (0.11%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.070%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.070%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.035%) Eikon
7 1 (0.035%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.035%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 790 (27.84%) Microsoft 365
2 780 (27.48%) Azure
3 313 (11.03%) Entra ID
4 231 (8.14%) AWS
5 77 (2.71%) GCP
6 75 (2.64%) Azure DevOps
6 75 (2.64%) SaaS
7 70 (2.47%) OneDrive
8 57 (2.01%) IaaS
9 55 (1.94%) GitHub
10 50 (1.76%) PaaS
11 48 (1.69%) Google Workspace
12 42 (1.48%) Azure Monitor
13 41 (1.44%) Power Platform
14 32 (1.13%) Azure Sentinel
15 30 (1.06%) OpenShift
16 26 (0.92%) GitHub Actions
17 19 (0.67%) Azure AKS
17 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Purview
17 19 (0.67%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 395 (13.92%) DNS
2 325 (11.45%) Firewall
3 264 (9.30%) DHCP
4 209 (7.36%) VPN
5 178 (6.27%) WAN
6 177 (6.24%) LAN
7 176 (6.20%) TCP/IP
8 150 (5.29%) Wi-Fi
9 80 (2.82%) Network Security
10 70 (2.47%) SAN
11 65 (2.29%) VLAN
12 47 (1.66%) Wireless
13 44 (1.55%) SD-WAN
14 41 (1.44%) Skype
15 39 (1.37%) BGP
16 38 (1.34%) SSL
17 35 (1.23%) OSPF
17 35 (1.23%) VoIP
18 34 (1.20%) Internet
19 30 (1.06%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 197 (6.94%) SQL Server
2 56 (1.97%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.13%) Relational Database
4 28 (0.99%) MySQL
5 25 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
6 21 (0.74%) Power BI
7 19 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.53%) DB2
9 14 (0.49%) Data Warehouse
10 13 (0.46%) MongoDB
11 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
11 11 (0.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 9 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.28%) GIS
14 7 (0.25%) BigQuery
14 7 (0.25%) SAP HANA
14 7 (0.25%) Sybase ASE
15 6 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
15 6 (0.21%) RDBMS
15 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 175 (6.17%) JIRA
2 57 (2.01%) GitLab
3 52 (1.83%) Jenkins
4 50 (1.76%) Git
5 47 (1.66%) MSI
6 34 (1.20%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.70%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.63%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.39%) Artifactory
10 11 (0.39%) Chocolatey
11 10 (0.35%) Android Studio
11 10 (0.35%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.35%) InstallShield
12 9 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
13 8 (0.28%) Browser DevTools
13 8 (0.28%) Xcode
14 7 (0.25%) AdminStudio
14 7 (0.25%) JUnit
14 7 (0.25%) Selenium
General
1 982 (34.60%) Social Skills
2 279 (9.83%) Finance
3 261 (9.20%) Analytical Skills
4 232 (8.17%) Public Sector
5 149 (5.25%) Banking
6 126 (4.44%) Legal
7 106 (3.74%) Documentation Skills
8 72 (2.54%) Organisational Skills
9 62 (2.18%) Military
10 51 (1.80%) Manufacturing
11 41 (1.44%) Telecoms
12 39 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 38 (1.34%) Retail
14 36 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
15 34 (1.20%) Law
16 30 (1.06%) Investment Banking
17 27 (0.95%) Front Office
18 20 (0.70%) Local Government
19 17 (0.60%) Aerospace
19 17 (0.60%) Police
Job Titles
1 364 (12.83%) IT Support
2 327 (11.52%) Support Engineer
3 321 (11.31%) Analyst
4 234 (8.25%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 216 (7.61%) IT Engineer
6 179 (6.31%) Senior
7 178 (6.27%) Architect
8 172 (6.06%) IT Support Engineer
9 125 (4.40%) Support Analyst
10 122 (4.30%) Desktop Support
11 105 (3.70%) Developer
12 102 (3.59%) Windows Engineer
13 96 (3.38%) Lead
14 92 (3.24%) Desktop Engineer
15 91 (3.21%) IT Analyst
16 88 (3.10%) Technical Support
17 83 (2.92%) 2nd Line Support
18 70 (2.47%) 1st Line Support
19 69 (2.43%) Service Analyst
20 68 (2.40%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (3.35%) .NET
2 77 (2.71%) REST
3 54 (1.90%) .NET Framework
4 43 (1.52%) LDAP
5 41 (1.44%) SAML
6 37 (1.30%) Middleware
7 35 (1.23%) Kafka
8 29 (1.02%) OAuth
8 29 (1.02%) WinForms
8 29 (1.02%) WPF
9 28 (0.99%) Microsoft Graph
10 27 (0.95%) 802.1X
10 27 (0.95%) Web Services
11 21 (0.74%) Node.js
12 20 (0.70%) OpenID
13 19 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
13 19 (0.67%) Software Packaging
14 18 (0.63%) CSS
14 18 (0.63%) React
15 16 (0.56%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 214 (7.54%) Onboarding
2 131 (4.62%) Data Centre
3 102 (3.59%) PKI
4 92 (3.24%) Enterprise Software
5 76 (2.68%) Clustering
6 75 (2.64%) Driving Licence
7 71 (2.50%) Self-Motivation
8 60 (2.11%) Replication
9 50 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
10 47 (1.66%) Hybrid Cloud
11 43 (1.52%) Management Information System
11 43 (1.52%) Security Posture
11 43 (1.52%) Smartphone
12 38 (1.34%) Virtual Team
13 34 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
14 33 (1.16%) Cloud Native
15 31 (1.09%) Security Operations Centre
16 30 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
16 30 (1.06%) CMDB
17 28 (0.99%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 711 (25.05%) Linux
2 663 (23.36%) Windows Server
3 510 (17.97%) Windows 10
4 173 (6.10%) Mac OS
5 155 (5.46%) Android
6 146 (5.14%) Unix
7 124 (4.37%) Apple iOS
8 94 (3.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 75 (2.64%) Windows Server 2016
10 68 (2.40%) Windows Server 2019
11 50 (1.76%) Windows 7
12 42 (1.48%) Windows Server 2012
13 34 (1.20%) AIX
14 22 (0.78%) VMS
15 21 (0.74%) Ubuntu
15 21 (0.74%) Windows Server 2003
16 19 (0.67%) Solaris
17 14 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.35%) CentOS
19 9 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 590 (20.79%) Problem-Solving
2 451 (15.89%) Customer Service
3 411 (14.48%) ITIL
4 324 (11.42%) Migration
5 306 (10.78%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 291 (10.25%) Agile
7 249 (8.77%) DevOps
8 230 (8.10%) CI/CD
9 224 (7.89%) ITSM
10 187 (6.59%) Cybersecurity
11 186 (6.55%) Disaster Recovery
12 180 (6.34%) Continuous Improvement
12 180 (6.34%) Service Management
13 172 (6.06%) Change Management
14 162 (5.71%) High Availability
15 144 (5.07%) SIEM
16 134 (4.72%) Stakeholder Management
17 129 (4.55%) Infrastructure as Code
18 128 (4.51%) Computer Science
19 122 (4.30%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 596 (21.00%) PowerShell
2 279 (9.83%) Python
3 270 (9.51%) SQL
4 135 (4.76%) C#
5 105 (3.70%) Bash
6 82 (2.89%) Java
7 70 (2.47%) JavaScript
8 63 (2.22%) PL/SQL
9 50 (1.76%) C++
10 46 (1.62%) T-SQL
11 33 (1.16%) Perl
12 29 (1.02%) Kusto Query Language
13 25 (0.88%) VB
14 22 (0.78%) Shell Script
15 18 (0.63%) VBScript
16 17 (0.60%) Search Processing Language
17 15 (0.53%) VBA
18 14 (0.49%) Go
19 12 (0.42%) Bicep
19 12 (0.42%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 861 (30.34%) Security Cleared
2 575 (20.26%) SC Cleared
3 279 (9.83%) Degree
4 259 (9.13%) DV Cleared
5 113 (3.98%) Microsoft Certification
6 87 (3.07%) Computer Science Degree
7 70 (2.47%) Cisco Certification
8 47 (1.66%) MCSE
9 46 (1.62%) Azure Certification
10 41 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
11 39 (1.37%) CISSP
12 38 (1.34%) ITIL Certification
13 37 (1.30%) CompTIA Security+
14 35 (1.23%) CCNA
15 32 (1.13%) AWS Certification
15 32 (1.13%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 29 (1.02%) A+ Certification
17 28 (0.99%) MCSA
18 18 (0.63%) CompTIA CySA+
19 17 (0.60%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (3.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 91 (3.21%) QA
3 87 (3.07%) SLA
4 86 (3.03%) GDPR
5 70 (2.47%) NIST
6 41 (1.44%) PCI DSS
7 28 (0.99%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 21 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.56%) 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
13 10 (0.35%) GLBA
14 7 (0.25%) DICOM
15 6 (0.21%) HL7
15 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
16 5 (0.18%) GxP
System Software
1 1,051 (37.03%) Active Directory
2 334 (11.77%) VMware Infrastructure
3 149 (5.25%) Hyper-V
4 89 (3.14%) vSphere
5 88 (3.10%) Docker
6 84 (2.96%) VMware ESXi
7 72 (2.54%) Virtual Machines
8 56 (1.97%) Virtual Desktop
9 38 (1.34%) Firmware
9 38 (1.34%) VMware NSX
10 30 (1.06%) BitLocker
11 25 (0.88%) Microsoft App-V
12 22 (0.78%) KVM
13 13 (0.46%) XenApp
13 13 (0.46%) XenDesktop
14 10 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
15 6 (0.21%) etcd
16 5 (0.18%) NFS
16 5 (0.18%) Terminal Services
17 4 (0.14%) Snort
Systems Management
1 362 (12.76%) Microsoft Intune
2 289 (10.18%) SCCM
3 187 (6.59%) Ansible
4 163 (5.74%) Terraform
5 131 (4.62%) Kubernetes
6 69 (2.43%) vCenter Server
7 64 (2.26%) Single Sign-On
8 50 (1.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 45 (1.59%) WSUS
10 40 (1.41%) Jamf Pro
11 38 (1.34%) FortiGate
12 37 (1.30%) Grafana
13 31 (1.09%) Prometheus
14 26 (0.92%) SCOM
15 23 (0.81%) Nessus
16 22 (0.78%) Nagios
17 21 (0.74%) Progress Chef
18 18 (0.63%) Puppet
19 16 (0.56%) Nmap
19 16 (0.56%) vMotion
Vendors
1 1,212 (42.71%) Microsoft
2 435 (15.33%) VMware
3 219 (7.72%) ServiceNow
4 210 (7.40%) Citrix
5 199 (7.01%) Cisco
6 183 (6.45%) Oracle
7 148 (5.21%) Splunk
8 84 (2.96%) HP
9 72 (2.54%) Dell
10 65 (2.29%) SolarWinds
11 57 (2.01%) Google
11 57 (2.01%) Red Hat
12 56 (1.97%) Apple
13 54 (1.90%) Remedy
14 53 (1.87%) IBM
15 48 (1.69%) F5
16 47 (1.66%) CyberArk
16 47 (1.66%) Palo Alto
17 40 (1.41%) Veeam
18 39 (1.37%) SAP