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

6 months to
2 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,844 2,409 3,631
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.01% 8.21% 8.35%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.58% 58.73% 62.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,880 1,665 2,496
10th Percentile £162 £180 £161
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 £395 £400 £400
% change year-on-year -1.31% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 226 132 280
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.13 £11.98
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £24.58 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +30.58% +4.56% -20.00%
75th Percentile £63.75 £25.86 £25.07
90th Percentile £74.84 £62.43 £61.69
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.21 £18.82 £17.69
% change year-on-year +33.93% +6.39% -11.55%

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 4,695 4,102 5,818
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.92% 13.99% 13.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,052 2,700 3,920
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £320 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £468
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +1.50% -7.14%
75th Percentile £575 £589 £588
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 323 181 400
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.10 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.41 £18.10 £15.50
Median hourly rate £42.71 £24.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +77.94% +9.09% -43.59%
75th Percentile £67.54 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £22.69 £22.00
% change year-on-year +109.37% +3.13% -26.67%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 -5 2,474 £415 -1.19% 1,009
UK excluding London -10 1,880 £395 -1.31% 890
London -24 773 £439 -2.50% 236
Work from Home -15 575 £475 - 332
South East -6 504 £470 -6.00% 296
North of England -12 462 £326 +0.38% 200
Midlands -14 277 £325 +21.50% 107
North West -3 259 £263 -25.00% 108
South West -13 227 £450 -14.29% 138
East of England +2 208 £350 +55.56% 111
Yorkshire -23 187 £365 +12.31% 73
West Midlands -25 160 £450 +63.64% 57
Scotland 0 150 £425 -5.56% 30
East Midlands +4 112 £220 +6.67% 50
Wales +1 51 £200 -32.20% 31
North East -24 20 £206 -6.25% 25
Northern Ireland -5 13 £175 -12.50% 11
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
1 240 (8.44%) Microsoft Exchange
2 154 (5.41%) SharePoint
3 54 (1.90%) IIS
4 49 (1.72%) Confluence
5 22 (0.77%) Apache
6 19 (0.67%) WebLogic
7 14 (0.49%) Tomcat
8 13 (0.46%) nginx
8 13 (0.46%) Skype for Business
9 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
10 11 (0.39%) SAS
11 10 (0.35%) 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 (0.070%) Oracle SOA Suite
17 2 (0.070%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 197 (6.93%) 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
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.070%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 42 (1.48%) 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 (0.070%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.070%) 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
1 803 (28.23%) Microsoft 365
2 789 (27.74%) Azure
3 320 (11.25%) Entra ID
4 237 (8.33%) AWS
5 79 (2.78%) SaaS
6 78 (2.74%) GCP
7 77 (2.71%) OneDrive
8 73 (2.57%) Azure DevOps
9 62 (2.18%) IaaS
10 55 (1.93%) GitHub
10 55 (1.93%) PaaS
11 45 (1.58%) Google Workspace
12 44 (1.55%) Power Platform
13 40 (1.41%) Azure Monitor
14 31 (1.09%) Azure Sentinel
14 31 (1.09%) OpenShift
15 26 (0.91%) GitHub Actions
16 19 (0.67%) AWS CloudFormation
16 19 (0.67%) Azure AKS
16 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 396 (13.92%) DNS
2 321 (11.29%) Firewall
3 267 (9.39%) DHCP
4 207 (7.28%) VPN
5 175 (6.15%) WAN
6 173 (6.08%) LAN
6 173 (6.08%) TCP/IP
7 148 (5.20%) Wi-Fi
8 79 (2.78%) Network Security
9 70 (2.46%) SAN
10 63 (2.22%) VLAN
11 47 (1.65%) Wireless
12 44 (1.55%) SD-WAN
13 39 (1.37%) BGP
13 39 (1.37%) Skype
14 38 (1.34%) SSL
15 36 (1.27%) VoIP
16 35 (1.23%) OSPF
17 34 (1.20%) SNMP
18 33 (1.16%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 202 (7.10%) SQL Server
2 56 (1.97%) Oracle Database
3 34 (1.20%) Relational Database
4 29 (1.02%) MySQL
5 25 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
6 23 (0.81%) Power BI
7 19 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.53%) DB2
9 13 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
9 13 (0.46%) MongoDB
10 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
10 11 (0.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 9 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
12 8 (0.28%) GIS
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%) SAP HANA
15 5 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 170 (5.98%) JIRA
2 56 (1.97%) GitLab
3 53 (1.86%) Jenkins
4 50 (1.76%) Git
5 47 (1.65%) 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%) Android Studio
11 11 (0.39%) Chocolatey
11 11 (0.39%) Sonatype Nexus
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%) JUnit
14 7 (0.25%) Robot Framework
14 7 (0.25%) Selenium
General
1 990 (34.81%) Social Skills
2 278 (9.77%) Finance
3 261 (9.18%) Analytical Skills
4 224 (7.88%) Public Sector
5 144 (5.06%) Banking
6 125 (4.40%) Legal
7 107 (3.76%) Documentation Skills
8 71 (2.50%) Organisational Skills
9 63 (2.22%) Military
10 46 (1.62%) Manufacturing
11 40 (1.41%) Telecoms
12 39 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 39 (1.37%) Retail
13 37 (1.30%) Law
14 36 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
15 29 (1.02%) Investment Banking
16 28 (0.98%) Front Office
17 20 (0.70%) Local Government
17 20 (0.70%) Police
18 17 (0.60%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 362 (12.73%) IT Support
2 334 (11.74%) Support Engineer
3 318 (11.18%) Analyst
4 230 (8.09%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 217 (7.63%) IT Engineer
6 179 (6.29%) Senior
7 178 (6.26%) IT Support Engineer
8 177 (6.22%) Architect
9 124 (4.36%) Desktop Support
9 124 (4.36%) Support Analyst
10 105 (3.69%) Developer
11 101 (3.55%) Desktop Engineer
12 97 (3.41%) Windows Engineer
13 95 (3.34%) Lead
14 93 (3.27%) IT Analyst
15 90 (3.16%) Technical Support
16 88 (3.09%) 2nd Line Support
17 71 (2.50%) 1st Line Support
17 71 (2.50%) Service Analyst
18 70 (2.46%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (3.38%) .NET
2 86 (3.02%) REST
3 54 (1.90%) .NET Framework
4 43 (1.51%) LDAP
5 41 (1.44%) SAML
6 36 (1.27%) Kafka
6 36 (1.27%) Middleware
7 29 (1.02%) OAuth
7 29 (1.02%) WinForms
7 29 (1.02%) WPF
8 28 (0.98%) Microsoft Graph
9 27 (0.95%) 802.1X
9 27 (0.95%) Web Services
10 21 (0.74%) Node.js
11 20 (0.70%) OpenID
12 19 (0.67%) CSS
12 19 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
12 19 (0.67%) React
12 19 (0.67%) Software Packaging
13 17 (0.60%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 228 (8.02%) Onboarding
2 132 (4.64%) Data Centre
3 108 (3.80%) PKI
4 90 (3.16%) Enterprise Software
5 77 (2.71%) Clustering
6 76 (2.67%) Driving Licence
7 70 (2.46%) Self-Motivation
8 59 (2.07%) Replication
9 50 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
10 47 (1.65%) Hybrid Cloud
11 46 (1.62%) Management Information System
12 44 (1.55%) Security Posture
12 44 (1.55%) Smartphone
13 40 (1.41%) Virtual Team
14 34 (1.20%) Cloud Native
15 32 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
16 31 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
16 31 (1.09%) Security Operations Centre
17 30 (1.05%) CMDB
18 29 (1.02%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 717 (25.21%) Linux
2 656 (23.07%) Windows Server
3 502 (17.65%) Windows 10
4 173 (6.08%) Mac OS
5 151 (5.31%) Unix
6 150 (5.27%) Android
7 125 (4.40%) Apple iOS
8 93 (3.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 76 (2.67%) Windows Server 2016
10 72 (2.53%) Windows Server 2019
11 52 (1.83%) Windows 7
12 37 (1.30%) Windows Server 2012
13 36 (1.27%) AIX
14 21 (0.74%) Ubuntu
14 21 (0.74%) VMS
15 19 (0.67%) Windows Server 2003
16 18 (0.63%) Solaris
17 13 (0.46%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.35%) CentOS
19 9 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 591 (20.78%) Problem-Solving
2 442 (15.54%) Customer Service
3 410 (14.42%) ITIL
4 327 (11.50%) Migration
5 305 (10.72%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 292 (10.27%) Agile
7 253 (8.90%) DevOps
8 239 (8.40%) CI/CD
9 237 (8.33%) ITSM
10 188 (6.61%) Cybersecurity
11 187 (6.58%) Disaster Recovery
12 179 (6.29%) Service Management
13 177 (6.22%) Continuous Improvement
14 174 (6.12%) Change Management
15 164 (5.77%) High Availability
16 148 (5.20%) SIEM
17 136 (4.78%) Stakeholder Management
18 133 (4.68%) Infrastructure as Code
19 129 (4.54%) Computer Science
20 123 (4.32%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 602 (21.17%) PowerShell
2 287 (10.09%) Python
3 272 (9.56%) SQL
4 135 (4.75%) C#
5 102 (3.59%) Bash
6 80 (2.81%) Java
7 72 (2.53%) JavaScript
8 63 (2.22%) PL/SQL
9 51 (1.79%) C++
10 46 (1.62%) T-SQL
11 34 (1.20%) Perl
12 27 (0.95%) Kusto Query Language
13 26 (0.91%) VB
14 23 (0.81%) Shell Script
15 22 (0.77%) Search Processing Language
16 20 (0.70%) VBScript
17 15 (0.53%) VBA
18 14 (0.49%) Go
19 12 (0.42%) Bicep
19 12 (0.42%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 873 (30.70%) Security Cleared
2 579 (20.36%) SC Cleared
3 281 (9.88%) Degree
4 267 (9.39%) DV Cleared
5 108 (3.80%) Microsoft Certification
6 88 (3.09%) Computer Science Degree
7 75 (2.64%) Cisco Certification
8 45 (1.58%) Azure Certification
8 45 (1.58%) MCSE
9 44 (1.55%) CISSP
10 43 (1.51%) BPSS Clearance
11 36 (1.27%) CompTIA Security+
12 35 (1.23%) CCNA
12 35 (1.23%) ITIL Certification
13 32 (1.13%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 31 (1.09%) AWS Certification
15 28 (0.98%) A+ Certification
15 28 (0.98%) MCSA
16 18 (0.63%) CompTIA CySA+
17 17 (0.60%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (3.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 91 (3.20%) QA
3 89 (3.13%) GDPR
3 89 (3.13%) SLA
4 75 (2.64%) NIST
5 44 (1.55%) PCI DSS
6 30 (1.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 27 (0.95%) Cyber Essentials
8 18 (0.63%) 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
12 10 (0.35%) GLBA
13 7 (0.25%) DICOM
14 6 (0.21%) GRC
14 6 (0.21%) HL7
14 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,057 (37.17%) Active Directory
2 331 (11.64%) VMware Infrastructure
3 150 (5.27%) Hyper-V
4 89 (3.13%) vSphere
5 86 (3.02%) Docker
6 84 (2.95%) VMware ESXi
7 77 (2.71%) Virtual Machines
8 53 (1.86%) Virtual Desktop
9 38 (1.34%) Firmware
9 38 (1.34%) VMware NSX
10 34 (1.20%) BitLocker
11 25 (0.88%) Microsoft App-V
12 22 (0.77%) 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%) Terminal Services
17 4 (0.14%) NFS
17 4 (0.14%) Snort
Systems Management
1 360 (12.66%) Microsoft Intune
2 288 (10.13%) SCCM
3 184 (6.47%) Ansible
4 168 (5.91%) Terraform
5 132 (4.64%) Kubernetes
6 69 (2.43%) vCenter Server
7 64 (2.25%) Single Sign-On
8 49 (1.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 44 (1.55%) WSUS
10 40 (1.41%) Jamf Pro
11 38 (1.34%) FortiGate
11 38 (1.34%) Grafana
12 31 (1.09%) Prometheus
13 27 (0.95%) Nagios
14 25 (0.88%) SCOM
15 23 (0.81%) Nessus
16 21 (0.74%) Progress Chef
17 20 (0.70%) ZABBIX
18 19 (0.67%) Tivoli
19 18 (0.63%) Netcool
Vendors
1 1,217 (42.79%) Microsoft
2 433 (15.23%) VMware
3 223 (7.84%) ServiceNow
4 210 (7.38%) Citrix
5 196 (6.89%) Cisco
6 181 (6.36%) Oracle
7 155 (5.45%) Splunk
8 86 (3.02%) HP
9 73 (2.57%) Dell
10 68 (2.39%) SolarWinds
11 57 (2.00%) IBM
12 56 (1.97%) Apple
12 56 (1.97%) Red Hat
13 55 (1.93%) Remedy
14 54 (1.90%) Google
15 48 (1.69%) F5
16 47 (1.65%) CyberArk
16 47 (1.65%) Palo Alto
17 39 (1.37%) Juniper
18 38 (1.34%) Veeam