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 6 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,836 2,396 3,583
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.96% 8.17% 8.30%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.56% 58.54% 62.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,868 1,657 2,466
10th Percentile £162 £180 £163
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
Number of hourly rates quoted 226 134 276
10th Percentile £14.75 £15.15 £11.90
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.63% +4.56% -20.00%
75th Percentile £63.75 £25.11 £25.00
90th Percentile £74.84 £60.78 £63.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.52 £18.82 £17.50
% change year-on-year +35.57% +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 4,683 4,093 5,764
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.83% 13.96% 13.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,035 2,689 3,886
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £320 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £470
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +1.06% -6.84%
75th Percentile £575 £589 £588
90th Percentile £655 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £432 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -3.94% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 321 184 394
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.15 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.54 £18.10 £15.50
Median hourly rate £47.50 £24.09 £22.08
Median % change year-on-year +97.18% +9.13% -42.66%
75th Percentile £67.25 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £22.88 £22.50
% change year-on-year +107.65% +1.67% -24.11%

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 6 May 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 6 May 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 6 May 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 2,460 £415 -0.72% 1,074
UK excluding London -10 1,876 £400 - 970
London -22 769 £439 -2.50% 242
Work from Home -11 575 £475 +2.70% 366
South East -5 506 £470 -6.00% 342
North of England -10 455 £330 +1.54% 221
Midlands -14 274 £320 +17.97% 112
North West -3 259 £263 -25.00% 126
South West -13 225 £450 -14.29% 132
East of England +2 208 £350 +55.21% 110
Yorkshire -23 182 £365 +13.18% 77
West Midlands -25 157 £447 +61.08% 63
Scotland +2 152 £425 -2.86% 43
East Midlands +8 112 £220 +6.67% 49
Wales -1 53 £227 -37.81% 31
North East -26 18 £225 -13.46% 23
Northern Ireland -4 16 £175 -12.50% 13
Channel Islands -1 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
1 236 (8.32%) Microsoft Exchange
2 154 (5.43%) SharePoint
3 55 (1.94%) IIS
4 49 (1.73%) Confluence
5 22 (0.78%) Apache
6 19 (0.67%) WebLogic
7 14 (0.49%) Tomcat
8 13 (0.46%) nginx
9 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
10 11 (0.39%) SAS
10 11 (0.39%) Skype for Business
11 9 (0.32%) TPMS
12 7 (0.25%) WebSphere
13 6 (0.21%) NetWeaver
14 5 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
15 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
16 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
17 2 (0.071%) Oracle SOA Suite
17 2 (0.071%) WordPress
Applications
1 193 (6.81%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.26%) 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
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.071%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 43 (1.52%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.28%) Teamcenter
4 7 (0.25%) assyst
5 4 (0.14%) Finacle
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.071%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.071%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.071%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.035%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 794 (28.00%) Azure
2 793 (27.96%) Microsoft 365
3 322 (11.35%) Entra ID
4 242 (8.53%) AWS
5 79 (2.79%) OneDrive
6 78 (2.75%) SaaS
7 77 (2.72%) GCP
8 73 (2.57%) Azure DevOps
9 63 (2.22%) IaaS
10 58 (2.05%) GitHub
11 55 (1.94%) PaaS
12 46 (1.62%) Power Platform
13 43 (1.52%) Google Workspace
14 39 (1.38%) Azure Monitor
15 33 (1.16%) Azure Sentinel
16 32 (1.13%) OpenShift
17 28 (0.99%) GitHub Actions
18 19 (0.67%) AWS CloudFormation
18 19 (0.67%) Azure AKS
19 18 (0.63%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 394 (13.89%) DNS
2 314 (11.07%) Firewall
3 263 (9.27%) DHCP
4 201 (7.09%) VPN
5 172 (6.06%) WAN
6 171 (6.03%) TCP/IP
7 169 (5.96%) LAN
8 139 (4.90%) Wi-Fi
9 76 (2.68%) Network Security
10 71 (2.50%) SAN
11 61 (2.15%) VLAN
12 48 (1.69%) Wireless
13 44 (1.55%) SD-WAN
14 39 (1.38%) BGP
15 37 (1.30%) SSL
16 36 (1.27%) Skype
16 36 (1.27%) VoIP
17 35 (1.23%) OSPF
18 33 (1.16%) SNMP
19 32 (1.13%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 204 (7.19%) SQL Server
2 54 (1.90%) Oracle Database
3 34 (1.20%) Relational Database
4 29 (1.02%) MySQL
5 26 (0.92%) Power BI
6 25 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
7 19 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.53%) DB2
9 13 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
9 13 (0.46%) MongoDB
10 12 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
12 8 (0.28%) GIS
12 8 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
13 7 (0.25%) BigQuery
13 7 (0.25%) RDBMS
13 7 (0.25%) Sybase ASE
14 6 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
14 6 (0.21%) Oracle BI EE
14 6 (0.21%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 173 (6.10%) JIRA
2 55 (1.94%) GitLab
3 53 (1.87%) Jenkins
4 52 (1.83%) Git
5 47 (1.66%) MSI
6 34 (1.20%) Visual Studio
7 21 (0.74%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.63%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
10 12 (0.42%) Artifactory
11 11 (0.39%) Chocolatey
11 11 (0.39%) Sonatype Nexus
12 10 (0.35%) Android Studio
12 10 (0.35%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.35%) InstallShield
13 9 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
13 9 (0.32%) Xcode
14 7 (0.25%) AdminStudio
14 7 (0.25%) Robot Framework
14 7 (0.25%) Selenium
General
1 975 (34.38%) Social Skills
2 277 (9.77%) Finance
3 269 (9.49%) Analytical Skills
4 217 (7.65%) Public Sector
5 143 (5.04%) Banking
6 125 (4.41%) Legal
7 104 (3.67%) Documentation Skills
8 72 (2.54%) Organisational Skills
9 63 (2.22%) Military
10 44 (1.55%) Manufacturing
11 40 (1.41%) Retail
12 39 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 37 (1.30%) Law
13 37 (1.30%) Telecoms
14 36 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
15 30 (1.06%) Investment Banking
16 28 (0.99%) Front Office
17 20 (0.71%) Local Government
17 20 (0.71%) Police
18 17 (0.60%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 349 (12.31%) IT Support
2 326 (11.50%) Support Engineer
3 315 (11.11%) Analyst
4 231 (8.15%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 208 (7.33%) IT Engineer
6 175 (6.17%) Senior
7 174 (6.14%) Architect
8 168 (5.92%) IT Support Engineer
9 121 (4.27%) Desktop Support
10 119 (4.20%) Support Analyst
11 103 (3.63%) Desktop Engineer
12 102 (3.60%) Developer
13 96 (3.39%) Lead
14 95 (3.35%) Windows Engineer
15 91 (3.21%) IT Analyst
16 90 (3.17%) Technical Support
17 87 (3.07%) 2nd Line Support
18 74 (2.61%) 1st Line Support
19 72 (2.54%) Service Analyst
20 68 (2.40%) Service Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (3.31%) .NET
2 86 (3.03%) REST
3 53 (1.87%) .NET Framework
4 43 (1.52%) LDAP
5 41 (1.45%) SAML
6 36 (1.27%) Kafka
6 36 (1.27%) Middleware
7 29 (1.02%) OAuth
8 28 (0.99%) Microsoft Graph
8 28 (0.99%) WinForms
8 28 (0.99%) WPF
9 27 (0.95%) 802.1X
9 27 (0.95%) Web Services
10 21 (0.74%) Node.js
11 20 (0.71%) OpenID
11 20 (0.71%) Software Packaging
12 19 (0.67%) CSS
12 19 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
12 19 (0.67%) React
13 17 (0.60%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 228 (8.04%) Onboarding
2 135 (4.76%) Data Centre
3 109 (3.84%) PKI
4 91 (3.21%) Enterprise Software
5 77 (2.72%) Clustering
6 75 (2.64%) Driving Licence
7 64 (2.26%) Self-Motivation
8 60 (2.12%) Replication
9 49 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
10 47 (1.66%) Hybrid Cloud
10 47 (1.66%) Management Information System
11 44 (1.55%) Security Posture
11 44 (1.55%) Smartphone
12 41 (1.45%) Virtual Team
13 35 (1.23%) Cloud Native
14 32 (1.13%) Analytical Mindset
14 32 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
14 32 (1.13%) Security Operations Centre
15 30 (1.06%) CMDB
15 30 (1.06%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 720 (25.39%) Linux
2 658 (23.20%) Windows Server
3 490 (17.28%) Windows 10
4 175 (6.17%) Mac OS
5 152 (5.36%) Unix
6 145 (5.11%) Android
7 124 (4.37%) Apple iOS
8 93 (3.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 75 (2.64%) Windows Server 2016
10 72 (2.54%) Windows Server 2019
11 49 (1.73%) Windows 7
12 37 (1.30%) Windows Server 2012
13 35 (1.23%) AIX
14 21 (0.74%) Ubuntu
15 20 (0.71%) VMS
16 18 (0.63%) Solaris
16 18 (0.63%) Windows Server 2003
17 13 (0.46%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.35%) CentOS
19 9 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 600 (21.16%) Problem-Solving
2 438 (15.44%) Customer Service
3 408 (14.39%) ITIL
4 325 (11.46%) Migration
5 307 (10.83%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 293 (10.33%) Agile
7 253 (8.92%) DevOps
8 246 (8.67%) CI/CD
9 241 (8.50%) ITSM
10 184 (6.49%) Disaster Recovery
11 183 (6.45%) Cybersecurity
12 179 (6.31%) Continuous Improvement
13 178 (6.28%) Service Management
14 176 (6.21%) Change Management
15 167 (5.89%) High Availability
16 152 (5.36%) SIEM
17 135 (4.76%) Infrastructure as Code
18 133 (4.69%) Stakeholder Management
19 128 (4.51%) Computer Science
20 122 (4.30%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 606 (21.37%) PowerShell
2 292 (10.30%) Python
3 273 (9.63%) SQL
4 133 (4.69%) C#
5 105 (3.70%) Bash
6 79 (2.79%) Java
7 71 (2.50%) JavaScript
8 62 (2.19%) PL/SQL
9 50 (1.76%) C++
10 45 (1.59%) T-SQL
11 34 (1.20%) Perl
12 27 (0.95%) Kusto Query Language
13 23 (0.81%) Search Processing Language
13 23 (0.81%) Shell Script
13 23 (0.81%) VB
14 18 (0.63%) VBScript
15 15 (0.53%) Go
16 14 (0.49%) VBA
17 12 (0.42%) Bicep
17 12 (0.42%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 872 (30.75%) Security Cleared
2 574 (20.24%) SC Cleared
3 280 (9.87%) Degree
4 269 (9.49%) DV Cleared
5 109 (3.84%) Microsoft Certification
6 89 (3.14%) Computer Science Degree
7 81 (2.86%) Cisco Certification
8 48 (1.69%) CISSP
9 46 (1.62%) Azure Certification
10 44 (1.55%) MCSE
11 43 (1.52%) BPSS Clearance
12 37 (1.30%) CCNA
13 36 (1.27%) CompTIA Security+
14 34 (1.20%) AWS Certification
14 34 (1.20%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 32 (1.13%) ITIL Certification
16 28 (0.99%) MCSA
17 27 (0.95%) A+ Certification
18 20 (0.71%) CCNP
19 19 (0.67%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 115 (4.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 90 (3.17%) QA
3 88 (3.10%) GDPR
3 88 (3.10%) SLA
4 77 (2.72%) NIST
5 43 (1.52%) PCI DSS
6 30 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 29 (1.02%) Cyber Essentials
8 17 (0.60%) NCSC
9 15 (0.53%) PMO
10 12 (0.42%) NIST 800
11 11 (0.39%) Data Quality
11 11 (0.39%) MiFID
12 10 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
12 10 (0.35%) FINRA
13 9 (0.32%) GLBA
14 7 (0.25%) DICOM
15 6 (0.21%) HIPAA
15 6 (0.21%) HL7
15 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,052 (37.09%) Active Directory
2 339 (11.95%) VMware Infrastructure
3 152 (5.36%) Hyper-V
4 88 (3.10%) Docker
4 88 (3.10%) vSphere
5 86 (3.03%) VMware ESXi
6 77 (2.72%) Virtual Machines
7 54 (1.90%) Virtual Desktop
8 39 (1.38%) VMware NSX
9 37 (1.30%) Firmware
10 32 (1.13%) BitLocker
11 27 (0.95%) Microsoft App-V
12 22 (0.78%) KVM
13 12 (0.42%) XenApp
13 12 (0.42%) XenDesktop
14 10 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
15 6 (0.21%) etcd
16 5 (0.18%) NFS
16 5 (0.18%) Terminal Services
16 5 (0.18%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 357 (12.59%) Microsoft Intune
2 287 (10.12%) SCCM
3 188 (6.63%) Ansible
4 168 (5.92%) Terraform
5 132 (4.65%) Kubernetes
6 70 (2.47%) vCenter Server
7 62 (2.19%) Single Sign-On
8 49 (1.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 46 (1.62%) WSUS
10 38 (1.34%) FortiGate
10 38 (1.34%) Grafana
11 37 (1.30%) Jamf Pro
12 31 (1.09%) Prometheus
13 27 (0.95%) Nagios
13 27 (0.95%) SCOM
14 24 (0.85%) Nessus
15 21 (0.74%) Progress Chef
16 20 (0.71%) ZABBIX
17 19 (0.67%) Tivoli
18 18 (0.63%) Netcool
Vendors
1 1,207 (42.56%) Microsoft
2 442 (15.59%) VMware
3 221 (7.79%) ServiceNow
4 208 (7.33%) Citrix
5 199 (7.02%) Cisco
6 180 (6.35%) Oracle
7 157 (5.54%) Splunk
8 87 (3.07%) HP
9 73 (2.57%) Dell
10 68 (2.40%) SolarWinds
11 56 (1.97%) Red Hat
11 56 (1.97%) Remedy
12 55 (1.94%) Apple
12 55 (1.94%) IBM
13 52 (1.83%) Google
14 49 (1.73%) CyberArk
15 48 (1.69%) F5
15 48 (1.69%) Palo Alto
16 39 (1.38%) Juniper
16 39 (1.38%) Veeam