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 23 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 16
Rank change year-on-year -3 -3 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,832 2,791 4,087
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.65% 8.27% 9.40%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.25% 58.88% 62.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,926 1,781 2,742
10th Percentile £163 £180 £158
25th Percentile £204 £228 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £395 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year -1.25% - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £575
90th Percentile £638 £650 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £363 £373
% change year-on-year -10.34% -2.68% -0.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 273 117 231
10th Percentile £14.20 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.13 £17.25
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £21.31
Median % change year-on-year -9.02% +13.47% +6.55%
75th Percentile £43.75 £53.00 £49.81
90th Percentile £67.67 £65.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.02% +15.14% +13.51%

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 4,780 4,740 6,529
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.92% 14.04% 15.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,112 2,964 4,445
10th Percentile £175 £200 £180
25th Percentile £263 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £563 £588 £600
90th Percentile £660 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £410 £425 £430
% change year-on-year -3.53% -1.16% -4.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 358 176 318
10th Percentile £15.45 £16.13 £14.23
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.00 £17.73
Median hourly rate £25.15 £41.00 £32.25
Median % change year-on-year -38.66% +27.13% +34.26%
75th Percentile £62.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £37.75 £27.00
% change year-on-year -33.38% +39.81% +22.73%

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 23 December 2025.

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 23 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows in the UK

Windows
Top 17 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 23 December 2025. 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 -1 2,503 £388 -3.13% 1,614
UK excluding London -2 1,915 £325 -10.34% 1,505
London -17 740 £444 +5.65% 295
Work from Home -10 559 £425 -5.56% 549
South East 0 524 £375 -9.37% 478
North of England -3 417 £248 -26.99% 332
South West +4 316 £425 +6.25% 215
Midlands -3 312 £390 +20.00% 215
North West -5 239 £305 -12.86% 178
West Midlands -4 214 £449 +48.51% 121
East of England +3 197 £225 -25.00% 192
Yorkshire -14 149 £250 -28.67% 130
Scotland -13 113 £450 +2.86% 66
East Midlands +2 98 £215 -41.18% 88
Wales -3 45 £180 -20.00% 40
North East 0 32 £188 -41.41% 32
Northern Ireland -10 15 £203 +33.66% 14

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
1 239 (8.44%) Microsoft Exchange
2 182 (6.43%) SharePoint
3 75 (2.65%) Confluence
4 47 (1.66%) Apache
5 46 (1.62%) IIS
6 27 (0.95%) WebLogic
7 21 (0.74%) WebSphere
8 19 (0.67%) Skype for Business
9 17 (0.60%) JBoss
10 16 (0.56%) nginx
11 12 (0.42%) Exchange Server 2010
11 12 (0.42%) SharePoint Server
12 11 (0.39%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.35%) iPlanet
13 10 (0.35%) SAS
14 9 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
14 9 (0.32%) Tomcat
14 9 (0.32%) TPMS
14 9 (0.32%) Tuxedo
15 7 (0.25%) Exchange Server 2007
Applications
1 277 (9.78%) Microsoft Office
2 89 (3.14%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.35%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 9 (0.32%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.071%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.071%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.071%) Windchill
9 1 (0.035%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.035%) Camtasia
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
9 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.035%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 23 (0.81%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.28%) assyst
3 5 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 2 (0.071%) Eikon
5 2 (0.071%) Fidessa
5 2 (0.071%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.071%) Maximo
5 2 (0.071%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.071%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.071%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.071%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.035%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.035%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.035%) Eze OMS
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.035%) Primavera
6 1 (0.035%) RMDS
6 1 (0.035%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.035%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 748 (26.41%) Microsoft 365
2 664 (23.45%) Azure
3 276 (9.75%) AWS
4 245 (8.65%) Entra ID
5 83 (2.93%) OneDrive
6 79 (2.79%) GCP
7 73 (2.58%) SaaS
8 67 (2.37%) Azure DevOps
8 67 (2.37%) GitHub
9 55 (1.94%) IaaS
10 46 (1.62%) Google Workspace
11 38 (1.34%) PaaS
11 38 (1.34%) Power Platform
12 36 (1.27%) Azure Monitor
13 32 (1.13%) Amazon S3
13 32 (1.13%) Azure Sentinel
14 30 (1.06%) Amazon EC2
14 30 (1.06%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 26 (0.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 25 (0.88%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 372 (13.14%) DNS
2 323 (11.41%) Firewall
3 217 (7.66%) DHCP
4 203 (7.17%) TCP/IP
5 178 (6.29%) VPN
6 103 (3.64%) Wi-Fi
7 95 (3.35%) LAN
8 93 (3.28%) Network Security
9 90 (3.18%) WAN
10 70 (2.47%) Wireless
11 62 (2.19%) SSH
12 61 (2.15%) VLAN
13 52 (1.84%) HTTP
14 49 (1.73%) SAN
15 38 (1.34%) Cisco IOS
16 36 (1.27%) Skype
17 35 (1.24%) SSL
17 35 (1.24%) VoIP
18 31 (1.09%) FTP
18 31 (1.09%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (4.41%) SQL Server
2 81 (2.86%) Oracle Database
3 63 (2.22%) Relational Database
4 49 (1.73%) MySQL
5 33 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
6 25 (0.88%) Amazon RDS
7 15 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
7 15 (0.53%) Power BI
8 12 (0.42%) Amazon Aurora
9 11 (0.39%) BigQuery
9 11 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
9 11 (0.39%) GIS
10 10 (0.35%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.32%) MongoDB
11 9 (0.32%) RDBMS
12 7 (0.25%) DB2
12 7 (0.25%) SAP HANA
13 6 (0.21%) Apache Cassandra
13 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
13 6 (0.21%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 159 (5.61%) JIRA
2 103 (3.64%) Jenkins
3 100 (3.53%) Git
4 58 (2.05%) GitLab
5 39 (1.38%) Eclipse
6 34 (1.20%) Visual Studio
7 33 (1.17%) MSI
8 27 (0.95%) Bitbucket
9 23 (0.81%) Android Studio
10 22 (0.78%) Browser DevTools
11 21 (0.74%) Xcode
12 18 (0.64%) Artifactory
12 18 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
12 18 (0.64%) Vagrant
13 15 (0.53%) InstallShield
14 14 (0.49%) Bitbucket Server
14 14 (0.49%) CA Release Automation
15 12 (0.42%) Burp Suite
15 12 (0.42%) Metasploit
16 11 (0.39%) AdminStudio
General
1 1,085 (38.31%) Social Skills
2 340 (12.01%) Finance
3 259 (9.15%) Analytical Skills
4 258 (9.11%) Public Sector
5 124 (4.38%) Banking
6 116 (4.10%) Documentation Skills
7 88 (3.11%) Legal
8 70 (2.47%) Organisational Skills
9 64 (2.26%) Manufacturing
10 53 (1.87%) Military
11 50 (1.77%) Telecoms
12 46 (1.62%) Presentation Skills
13 45 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 43 (1.52%) Retail
15 33 (1.17%) Aerospace
15 33 (1.17%) Marketing
16 26 (0.92%) Front Office
16 26 (0.92%) Law
17 24 (0.85%) Electronics
18 20 (0.71%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 435 (15.36%) Support Engineer
2 351 (12.39%) Analyst
3 333 (11.76%) IT Support
4 195 (6.89%) IT Engineer
5 172 (6.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 157 (5.54%) Desktop Support
6 157 (5.54%) Windows Engineer
7 148 (5.23%) Support Analyst
8 146 (5.16%) Senior
9 145 (5.12%) IT Support Engineer
10 142 (5.01%) Architect
11 139 (4.91%) Desktop Engineer
12 128 (4.52%) Deployment Engineer
13 118 (4.17%) 2nd Line Support
14 115 (4.06%) Technical Support
15 108 (3.81%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 103 (3.64%) Developer
17 95 (3.35%) Platform Engineer
18 84 (2.97%) DevOps Engineer
19 83 (2.93%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (2.58%) .NET
2 58 (2.05%) LDAP
3 55 (1.94%) REST
4 45 (1.59%) Middleware
5 40 (1.41%) .NET Framework
6 39 (1.38%) OAuth
6 39 (1.38%) SAML
7 38 (1.34%) React
8 36 (1.27%) AngularJS
9 33 (1.17%) WPF
10 32 (1.13%) OpenID
11 30 (1.06%) Web Services
12 28 (0.99%) CSS
13 27 (0.95%) XML
14 26 (0.92%) Node.js
15 25 (0.88%) Kafka
16 23 (0.81%) Ajax
16 23 (0.81%) SOAP
17 22 (0.78%) GraphQL
18 19 (0.67%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 130 (4.59%) Onboarding
2 95 (3.35%) PKI
3 94 (3.32%) Data Centre
4 84 (2.97%) Driving Licence
5 65 (2.30%) Replication
6 61 (2.15%) Enterprise Software
7 59 (2.08%) Self-Motivation
8 58 (2.05%) Management Information System
9 54 (1.91%) Smartphone
10 47 (1.66%) Security Posture
11 36 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
12 33 (1.17%) Hybrid Cloud
12 33 (1.17%) Mobile App
13 32 (1.13%) Legacy Systems
13 32 (1.13%) NHS
14 30 (1.06%) Clustering
14 30 (1.06%) Public Cloud
14 30 (1.06%) Video Conferencing
15 29 (1.02%) Data Protection Act
16 28 (0.99%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 730 (25.78%) Linux
2 589 (20.80%) Windows 10
3 551 (19.46%) Windows Server
4 200 (7.06%) Unix
5 164 (5.79%) Mac OS
6 150 (5.30%) Android
7 103 (3.64%) Apple iOS
8 84 (2.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 66 (2.33%) Windows Server 2016
10 57 (2.01%) Windows Server 2019
11 52 (1.84%) Windows 7
12 46 (1.62%) Windows Server 2012
13 35 (1.24%) VMS
14 34 (1.20%) Windows Server 2003
15 28 (0.99%) AIX
16 26 (0.92%) Ubuntu
17 18 (0.64%) Amazon Linux
17 18 (0.64%) Solaris
18 14 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
19 13 (0.46%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 506 (17.87%) Problem-Solving
2 422 (14.90%) ITIL
3 403 (14.23%) Customer Service
4 287 (10.13%) Agile
5 286 (10.10%) Migration
6 253 (8.93%) DevOps
7 248 (8.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 217 (7.66%) Service Management
9 216 (7.63%) CI/CD
10 215 (7.59%) Cybersecurity
11 194 (6.85%) ITSM
12 187 (6.60%) Continuous Improvement
13 162 (5.72%) Change Management
14 139 (4.91%) User Experience
15 132 (4.66%) Incident Response
16 129 (4.56%) SIEM
17 124 (4.38%) Stakeholder Management
18 122 (4.31%) Computer Science
19 117 (4.13%) Disaster Recovery
20 114 (4.03%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 545 (19.24%) PowerShell
2 371 (13.10%) Python
3 291 (10.28%) SQL
4 157 (5.54%) Java
5 134 (4.73%) C#
6 126 (4.45%) Bash
7 85 (3.00%) JavaScript
8 82 (2.90%) Perl
9 70 (2.47%) C++
10 46 (1.62%) PL/SQL
11 41 (1.45%) Shell Script
12 31 (1.09%) Kusto Query Language
13 30 (1.06%) VBScript
14 29 (1.02%) Groovy
14 29 (1.02%) VB
15 28 (0.99%) T-SQL
16 25 (0.88%) VBA
17 21 (0.74%) C
18 16 (0.56%) TypeScript
19 15 (0.53%) Go
Qualifications
1 843 (29.77%) Security Cleared
2 566 (19.99%) SC Cleared
3 296 (10.45%) Degree
4 235 (8.30%) DV Cleared
5 179 (6.32%) Microsoft Certification
6 88 (3.11%) Computer Science Degree
7 69 (2.44%) Azure Certification
8 55 (1.94%) Cisco Certification
9 53 (1.87%) A+ Certification
10 52 (1.84%) MCSE
11 44 (1.55%) ITIL Certification
12 41 (1.45%) CISSP
13 38 (1.34%) AWS Certification
14 35 (1.24%) CompTIA Security+
15 34 (1.20%) CCNA
16 33 (1.17%) BPSS Clearance
16 33 (1.17%) CCNP
17 30 (1.06%) DBS Check
18 26 (0.92%) MCSA
19 25 (0.88%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (3.18%) SLA
2 81 (2.86%) GDPR
3 70 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 64 (2.26%) QA
5 53 (1.87%) NIST
6 25 (0.88%) PCI DSS
7 16 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
8 12 (0.42%) HIPAA
8 12 (0.42%) NCSC
9 9 (0.32%) GLBA
9 9 (0.32%) PMO
10 8 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (0.21%) COBIT
12 5 (0.18%) Accessibility
12 5 (0.18%) SOC 2
13 4 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
13 4 (0.14%) NIST 800
14 3 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 3 (0.11%) ECSS
14 3 (0.11%) MiFID
System Software
1 1,030 (36.37%) Active Directory
2 252 (8.90%) VMware Infrastructure
3 123 (4.34%) Docker
4 94 (3.32%) Hyper-V
5 58 (2.05%) Virtual Desktop
6 53 (1.87%) Virtual Machines
7 50 (1.77%) vSphere
8 46 (1.62%) VMware ESXi
9 33 (1.17%) VMware NSX
10 23 (0.81%) BitLocker
11 21 (0.74%) DFS Replication
11 21 (0.74%) Firmware
12 18 (0.64%) Terminal Services
13 15 (0.53%) Microsoft App-V
13 15 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
14 13 (0.46%) NFS
14 13 (0.46%) XenApp
15 10 (0.35%) Dovecot
15 10 (0.35%) Postfix
15 10 (0.35%) Squid
Systems Management
1 402 (14.19%) SCCM
2 301 (10.63%) Microsoft Intune
3 191 (6.74%) Terraform
4 158 (5.58%) Ansible
5 107 (3.78%) Kubernetes
6 66 (2.33%) vCenter Server
7 62 (2.19%) Single Sign-On
8 53 (1.87%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 42 (1.48%) Grafana
10 41 (1.45%) Jamf Pro
11 30 (1.06%) WSUS
12 29 (1.02%) Nessus
13 28 (0.99%) Prometheus
13 28 (0.99%) SCOM
14 26 (0.92%) Progress Chef
15 21 (0.74%) Microsoft Clustering
16 17 (0.60%) NetBackup
17 16 (0.56%) Proxmox
18 15 (0.53%) Puppet
18 15 (0.53%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,218 (43.01%) Microsoft
2 355 (12.54%) VMware
3 259 (9.15%) ServiceNow
4 229 (8.09%) Oracle
5 179 (6.32%) Citrix
6 178 (6.29%) Cisco
7 158 (5.58%) Splunk
8 86 (3.04%) Apple
9 80 (2.82%) HP
10 70 (2.47%) Red Hat
11 64 (2.26%) Dell
12 58 (2.05%) IBM
13 55 (1.94%) Google
14 54 (1.91%) Veeam
15 49 (1.73%) SAP
15 49 (1.73%) SolarWinds
16 44 (1.55%) NetApp
17 42 (1.48%) CyberArk
18 40 (1.41%) AppDynamics
18 40 (1.41%) CrowdStrike