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

6 months to
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,884 2,516 3,796
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.75% 8.55% 8.50%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.40% 59.65% 62.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,932 1,710 2,553
10th Percentile £161 £181 £155
25th Percentile £204 £225 £209
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £403 £420 £400
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £640 £675 £656
UK excluding London median daily rate £350 £400 £375
% change year-on-year -12.50% +6.67% -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 263 100 286
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.26 £12.25
25th Percentile £16.25 £17.83 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.46 £22.50 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.62% +25.00% -18.18%
75th Percentile £41.94 £34.07 £30.00
90th Percentile £67.27 £65.08 £62.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.28 £22.00 £17.72
% change year-on-year -3.30% +24.15% -9.13%

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 4,218 6,081
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.18% 14.33% 13.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,132 2,750 4,057
10th Percentile £180 £200 £180
25th Percentile £279 £314 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.95% +5.56% -12.20%
75th Percentile £564 £588 £588
90th Percentile £656 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £440 £425
% change year-on-year -6.20% +3.47% -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 352 152 414
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.52 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.00 £15.54
Median hourly rate £22.68 £29.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.79% +28.89% -15.09%
75th Percentile £58.50 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £26.25 £22.50
% change year-on-year -14.29% +16.67% -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 12 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 12 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 12 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 -5 2,548 £405 -0.61% 968
UK excluding London -8 1,934 £350 -12.50% 886
London -18 766 £440 +4.64% 223
Work from Home -17 574 £450 -2.70% 336
South East -2 528 £425 -5.56% 302
North of England -7 487 £274 -21.71% 203
Midlands -16 268 £310 -4.62% 115
South West -4 264 £450 -14.29% 112
North West -8 261 £240 -31.43% 116
East of England +6 215 £235 +3.98% 99
Yorkshire -10 197 £325 -14.47% 68
West Midlands -29 157 £442 +34.02% 59
Scotland -5 133 £425 -2.86% 52
East Midlands 0 108 £205 -11.35% 56
Wales -1 47 £200 -45.21% 15
North East -8 32 £188 -37.50% 27
Northern Ireland -14 8 £175 +9.38% 7
Channel Islands +5 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
1 248 (8.60%) Microsoft Exchange
2 168 (5.83%) SharePoint
3 57 (1.98%) Confluence
4 42 (1.46%) IIS
5 27 (0.94%) Apache
6 22 (0.76%) WebLogic
7 14 (0.49%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.42%) TPMS
8 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
9 11 (0.38%) Tomcat
10 10 (0.35%) nginx
10 10 (0.35%) SAS
11 8 (0.28%) WebSphere
12 5 (0.17%) NetWeaver
13 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.10%) ArcGIS
14 3 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2010
14 3 (0.10%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 249 (8.63%) Microsoft Office
2 77 (2.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.42%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.17%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.069%) InDesign
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.035%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 28 (0.97%) Remedy ITSM
2 16 (0.55%) 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%) Eikon
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.035%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 822 (28.50%) Microsoft 365
2 737 (25.55%) Azure
3 296 (10.26%) Entra ID
4 225 (7.80%) AWS
5 100 (3.47%) OneDrive
6 73 (2.53%) GCP
7 71 (2.46%) SaaS
8 63 (2.18%) Azure DevOps
9 55 (1.91%) Google Workspace
10 50 (1.73%) GitHub
11 47 (1.63%) IaaS
12 40 (1.39%) Power Platform
13 39 (1.35%) PaaS
14 30 (1.04%) Azure Monitor
15 28 (0.97%) Azure Sentinel
16 26 (0.90%) OpenShift
17 25 (0.87%) GitHub Actions
18 24 (0.83%) Nutanix
19 23 (0.80%) AWS CloudFormation
20 16 (0.55%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 387 (13.42%) DNS
2 337 (11.69%) Firewall
3 250 (8.67%) DHCP
4 197 (6.83%) TCP/IP
5 192 (6.66%) VPN
6 164 (5.69%) WAN
7 162 (5.62%) Wi-Fi
8 160 (5.55%) LAN
9 78 (2.70%) Network Security
10 62 (2.15%) VLAN
11 61 (2.12%) Wireless
12 53 (1.84%) SAN
13 40 (1.39%) BGP
13 40 (1.39%) SSL
14 39 (1.35%) HTTP
14 39 (1.35%) Skype
15 37 (1.28%) SD-WAN
15 37 (1.28%) SSH
16 35 (1.21%) VoIP
17 30 (1.04%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 168 (5.83%) SQL Server
2 59 (2.05%) Oracle Database
3 42 (1.46%) Relational Database
4 37 (1.28%) MySQL
5 27 (0.94%) PostgreSQL
6 16 (0.55%) Power BI
7 15 (0.52%) Data Warehouse
7 15 (0.52%) DB2
8 13 (0.45%) BigQuery
8 13 (0.45%) Elasticsearch
9 12 (0.42%) Oracle Reports
10 11 (0.38%) GIS
10 11 (0.38%) MongoDB
11 10 (0.35%) SAP HANA
12 9 (0.31%) NoSQL
13 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
13 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 6 (0.21%) Sybase ASE
14 5 (0.17%) Oracle Database 10g
14 5 (0.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 167 (5.79%) JIRA
2 68 (2.36%) Jenkins
3 66 (2.29%) GitLab
4 61 (2.12%) Git
5 44 (1.53%) MSI
6 33 (1.14%) Visual Studio
7 25 (0.87%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.59%) Burp Suite
8 17 (0.59%) Metasploit
9 16 (0.55%) Android Studio
10 14 (0.49%) Artifactory
10 14 (0.49%) Xcode
11 12 (0.42%) Browser DevTools
12 10 (0.35%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.35%) Chocolatey
13 8 (0.28%) JUnit
13 8 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
14 7 (0.24%) Robot Framework
14 7 (0.24%) Selenium
15 6 (0.21%) Toad
General
1 1,050 (36.41%) Social Skills
2 279 (9.67%) Finance
3 261 (9.05%) Analytical Skills
4 241 (8.36%) Public Sector
5 138 (4.79%) Banking
6 127 (4.40%) Legal
7 116 (4.02%) Documentation Skills
8 84 (2.91%) Organisational Skills
9 60 (2.08%) Military
10 56 (1.94%) Manufacturing
11 44 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
12 37 (1.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 37 (1.28%) Retail
13 36 (1.25%) Telecoms
14 26 (0.90%) Law
15 22 (0.76%) Aerospace
15 22 (0.76%) Investment Banking
16 20 (0.69%) Local Government
17 17 (0.59%) Front Office
18 15 (0.52%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 389 (13.49%) IT Support
2 387 (13.42%) Support Engineer
3 369 (12.79%) Analyst
4 223 (7.73%) IT Engineer
5 185 (6.41%) IT Support Engineer
6 184 (6.38%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 181 (6.28%) Architect
8 159 (5.51%) Senior
9 153 (5.31%) Support Analyst
10 131 (4.54%) Desktop Support
11 119 (4.13%) Windows Engineer
12 117 (4.06%) 2nd Line Support
13 114 (3.95%) Technical Support
14 112 (3.88%) Desktop Engineer
15 110 (3.81%) Developer
16 98 (3.40%) Lead
17 87 (3.02%) IT Analyst
18 82 (2.84%) Desktop Support Engineer
19 77 (2.67%) Deployment Engineer
20 74 (2.57%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (3.02%) .NET
2 70 (2.43%) REST
3 54 (1.87%) LDAP
4 49 (1.70%) .NET Framework
4 49 (1.70%) SAML
5 48 (1.66%) OAuth
6 37 (1.28%) Middleware
7 33 (1.14%) Kafka
8 31 (1.07%) Web Services
9 29 (1.01%) WPF
10 28 (0.97%) OpenID
11 26 (0.90%) CSS
11 26 (0.90%) Microsoft Graph
12 25 (0.87%) AngularJS
12 25 (0.87%) React
12 25 (0.87%) WinForms
13 22 (0.76%) 802.1X
14 21 (0.73%) OAuth2
15 20 (0.69%) Node.js
16 19 (0.66%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 192 (6.66%) Onboarding
2 127 (4.40%) Data Centre
3 104 (3.61%) PKI
4 90 (3.12%) Driving Licence
5 88 (3.05%) Enterprise Software
6 73 (2.53%) Self-Motivation
7 59 (2.05%) Smartphone
8 52 (1.80%) Clustering
9 51 (1.77%) Management Information System
10 47 (1.63%) Replication
11 45 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
12 44 (1.53%) Security Posture
13 42 (1.46%) Hybrid Cloud
14 38 (1.32%) Product Ownership
15 36 (1.25%) Security Operations Centre
16 35 (1.21%) CMDB
16 35 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
16 35 (1.21%) Virtual Team
17 34 (1.18%) NHS
18 29 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 689 (23.89%) Linux
2 625 (21.67%) Windows Server
3 583 (20.21%) Windows 10
4 157 (5.44%) Unix
5 154 (5.34%) Mac OS
6 152 (5.27%) Android
7 120 (4.16%) Apple iOS
8 89 (3.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 71 (2.46%) Windows Server 2016
10 58 (2.01%) Windows Server 2019
11 51 (1.77%) Windows 7
12 38 (1.32%) Windows Server 2012
13 32 (1.11%) AIX
14 30 (1.04%) Windows Server 2003
15 18 (0.62%) Solaris
16 15 (0.52%) Windows Server 2008
17 14 (0.49%) Ubuntu
17 14 (0.49%) VMS
18 11 (0.38%) Mac OS X
19 8 (0.28%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 571 (19.80%) Problem-Solving
2 488 (16.92%) Customer Service
3 416 (14.42%) ITIL
4 311 (10.78%) Agile
5 295 (10.23%) Migration
6 275 (9.54%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 247 (8.56%) DevOps
8 231 (8.01%) CI/CD
9 230 (7.98%) ITSM
10 221 (7.66%) Cybersecurity
11 203 (7.04%) Continuous Improvement
12 200 (6.93%) Service Management
13 166 (5.76%) Change Management
14 164 (5.69%) Disaster Recovery
15 147 (5.10%) Stakeholder Management
16 141 (4.89%) Service Delivery
17 138 (4.79%) High Availability
18 131 (4.54%) SIEM
19 129 (4.47%) Computer Science
20 128 (4.44%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 586 (20.32%) PowerShell
2 324 (11.23%) Python
3 259 (8.98%) SQL
4 125 (4.33%) Bash
4 125 (4.33%) C#
5 102 (3.54%) Java
6 75 (2.60%) JavaScript
7 58 (2.01%) PL/SQL
8 57 (1.98%) C++
8 57 (1.98%) Perl
9 40 (1.39%) T-SQL
10 31 (1.07%) Kusto Query Language
11 24 (0.83%) VB
12 23 (0.80%) Shell Script
12 23 (0.80%) VBScript
13 15 (0.52%) VBA
14 14 (0.49%) Bicep
15 13 (0.45%) Go
16 11 (0.38%) C
16 11 (0.38%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 879 (30.48%) Security Cleared
2 584 (20.25%) SC Cleared
3 299 (10.37%) Degree
4 247 (8.56%) DV Cleared
5 134 (4.65%) Microsoft Certification
6 93 (3.22%) Computer Science Degree
7 67 (2.32%) Cisco Certification
8 47 (1.63%) Azure Certification
9 46 (1.60%) MCSE
10 43 (1.49%) CISSP
10 43 (1.49%) ITIL Certification
11 39 (1.35%) CompTIA Security+
12 38 (1.32%) BPSS Clearance
13 35 (1.21%) CCNA
14 32 (1.11%) AWS Certification
15 29 (1.01%) A+ Certification
15 29 (1.01%) CCNP
16 23 (0.80%) MCSA
17 22 (0.76%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 22 (0.76%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 105 (3.64%) GDPR
2 100 (3.47%) SLA
3 89 (3.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 84 (2.91%) QA
5 57 (1.98%) NIST
6 41 (1.42%) PCI DSS
7 26 (0.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 18 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.55%) PMO
10 14 (0.49%) NCSC
11 13 (0.45%) MiFID
12 12 (0.42%) GLBA
13 10 (0.35%) FINRA
14 9 (0.31%) NIST 800
15 8 (0.28%) Data Quality
15 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
16 7 (0.24%) HIPAA
17 6 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
18 5 (0.17%) COBIT
18 5 (0.17%) GxP
System Software
1 1,056 (36.62%) Active Directory
2 286 (9.92%) VMware Infrastructure
3 113 (3.92%) Hyper-V
4 112 (3.88%) Docker
5 67 (2.32%) vSphere
6 60 (2.08%) Virtual Machines
7 57 (1.98%) Virtual Desktop
8 53 (1.84%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.07%) VMware NSX
10 29 (1.01%) Firmware
11 26 (0.90%) BitLocker
12 24 (0.83%) Microsoft App-V
13 16 (0.55%) KVM
14 9 (0.31%) XenApp
14 9 (0.31%) XenDesktop
15 8 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
16 7 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
17 6 (0.21%) Terminal Services
18 5 (0.17%) NDS
18 5 (0.17%) NetIQ eDirectory
Systems Management
1 374 (12.97%) Microsoft Intune
2 343 (11.89%) SCCM
3 175 (6.07%) Terraform
4 168 (5.83%) Ansible
5 138 (4.79%) Kubernetes
6 80 (2.77%) Single Sign-On
7 69 (2.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 57 (1.98%) vCenter Server
9 43 (1.49%) Jamf Pro
10 39 (1.35%) Grafana
11 37 (1.28%) FortiGate
12 30 (1.04%) Prometheus
12 30 (1.04%) WSUS
13 24 (0.83%) SCOM
14 21 (0.73%) Progress Chef
15 17 (0.59%) Nessus
15 17 (0.59%) WMI
16 16 (0.55%) Nmap
16 16 (0.55%) Puppet
17 12 (0.42%) Nagios
Vendors
1 1,239 (42.96%) Microsoft
2 397 (13.77%) VMware
3 252 (8.74%) ServiceNow
4 206 (7.14%) Citrix
5 188 (6.52%) Oracle
6 181 (6.28%) Cisco
7 151 (5.24%) Splunk
8 84 (2.91%) HP
9 72 (2.50%) Dell
10 67 (2.32%) Red Hat
11 63 (2.18%) Apple
11 63 (2.18%) SolarWinds
12 62 (2.15%) Google
13 53 (1.84%) IBM
14 45 (1.56%) Juniper
14 45 (1.56%) Remedy
15 44 (1.53%) SAP
16 43 (1.49%) Veeam
17 41 (1.42%) Palo Alto
18 39 (1.35%) F5