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 3 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,889 2,403 3,504
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.91% 8.35% 8.13%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.92% 60.30% 60.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,857 1,653 2,405
10th Percentile £163 £181 £163
25th Percentile £218 £238 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year - +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £672
UK excluding London median daily rate £405 £400 £413
% change year-on-year +1.25% -3.03% +6.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 253 151 276
10th Percentile £15.65 £15.09 £11.90
25th Percentile £17.92 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £18.87 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.28% +4.83% -23.40%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £25.00
90th Percentile £70.51 £53.75 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.51 £18.82 £17.69
% change year-on-year +35.52% +6.39% -16.97%

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 4,742 3,985 5,785
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.71% 13.85% 13.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,015 2,625 3,888
10th Percentile £188 £200 £185
25th Percentile £315 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £465 £470
Median % change year-on-year -1.08% -1.06% -6.00%
75th Percentile £571 £586 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -3.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 346 184 405
10th Percentile £14.75 £15.15 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.06 £17.33 £15.50
Median hourly rate £32.50 £22.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +47.73% -2.22% -47.06%
75th Percentile £65.00 £44.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £71.75 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £18.87 £22.58
% change year-on-year +72.23% -16.43% -41.35%

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 3 June 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 3 June 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 3 June 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 -7 2,505 £425 +0.95% 1,051
UK excluding London -12 1,938 £405 +1.25% 930
London -22 778 £438 -0.51% 267
Work from Home -13 595 £475 +2.70% 392
South East -7 515 £475 -1.96% 309
North of England -9 472 £365 +4.29% 193
Midlands -15 272 £325 +18.18% 124
North West +3 262 £344 -1.71% 109
South West -13 227 £466 -1.95% 147
East of England 0 221 £350 -8.50% 90
Yorkshire -17 193 £365 -8.75% 63
Scotland +1 178 £425 -2.24% 34
West Midlands -25 160 £450 +57.89% 74
East Midlands +6 107 £225 +5.88% 50
Wales +1 51 £318 +5.83% 31
North East -34 21 £290 -3.33% 24
Northern Ireland -1 15 £139 -30.75% 27
Channel Islands -2 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
1 232 (8.03%) Microsoft Exchange
2 183 (6.33%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.18%) IIS
4 52 (1.80%) Confluence
5 23 (0.80%) Apache
6 19 (0.66%) Tomcat
7 18 (0.62%) nginx
8 14 (0.48%) Skype for Business
8 14 (0.48%) WebLogic
9 9 (0.31%) NetWeaver
9 9 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
10 8 (0.28%) HCL Notes
10 8 (0.28%) SAS
11 7 (0.24%) Tuxedo
12 6 (0.21%) TPMS
13 5 (0.17%) Appian
13 5 (0.17%) WebSphere
14 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.10%) Camunda
16 2 (0.069%) Apache Pulsar
Applications
1 182 (6.30%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.22%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.14%) Acrobat
8 2 (0.069%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 45 (1.56%) Remedy ITSM
2 19 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.42%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.17%) Finacle
5 4 (0.14%) assyst
6 3 (0.10%) OpenText MBPM
6 3 (0.10%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.069%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.035%) Dynamics GP
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
1 856 (29.63%) Azure
2 813 (28.14%) Microsoft 365
3 359 (12.43%) Entra ID
4 270 (9.35%) AWS
5 101 (3.50%) OneDrive
6 93 (3.22%) GCP
7 76 (2.63%) SaaS
8 73 (2.53%) Azure DevOps
9 64 (2.22%) GitHub
9 64 (2.22%) IaaS
10 58 (2.01%) Power Platform
11 55 (1.90%) PaaS
12 39 (1.35%) OpenShift
13 38 (1.32%) Azure Monitor
14 37 (1.28%) Azure Sentinel
15 34 (1.18%) Google Workspace
16 30 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
17 20 (0.69%) AWS CloudFormation
17 20 (0.69%) Nutanix
18 19 (0.66%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 401 (13.88%) DNS
2 303 (10.49%) Firewall
3 273 (9.45%) DHCP
4 213 (7.37%) VPN
5 179 (6.20%) TCP/IP
6 175 (6.06%) WAN
7 174 (6.02%) LAN
8 144 (4.98%) Wi-Fi
9 84 (2.91%) SAN
10 74 (2.56%) Network Security
11 58 (2.01%) VLAN
12 46 (1.59%) SD-WAN
13 41 (1.42%) Wireless
14 39 (1.35%) BGP
14 39 (1.35%) NAS
15 38 (1.32%) SSL
16 37 (1.28%) Internet
16 37 (1.28%) VoIP
17 36 (1.25%) Skype
18 35 (1.21%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 232 (8.03%) SQL Server
2 53 (1.83%) Oracle Database
3 35 (1.21%) Power BI
4 33 (1.14%) Relational Database
5 30 (1.04%) MySQL
6 27 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
7 19 (0.66%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.52%) DB2
8 15 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 14 (0.48%) Data Warehouse
10 13 (0.45%) MongoDB
10 13 (0.45%) NoSQL
11 10 (0.35%) GIS
12 9 (0.31%) SAP HANA
13 8 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle BI EE
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.28%) RDBMS
13 8 (0.28%) Sybase ASE
14 7 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 182 (6.30%) JIRA
2 55 (1.90%) Jenkins
3 46 (1.59%) Git
4 45 (1.56%) GitLab
5 38 (1.32%) MSI
6 37 (1.28%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.66%) Eclipse
8 12 (0.42%) Burp Suite
9 11 (0.38%) Metasploit
10 10 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
11 9 (0.31%) Artifactory
11 9 (0.31%) Chocolatey
12 8 (0.28%) Android Studio
12 8 (0.28%) Browser DevTools
12 8 (0.28%) Xcode
13 7 (0.24%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.24%) Selenium
14 6 (0.21%) InstallShield
14 6 (0.21%) Robot Framework
15 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
General
1 986 (34.13%) Social Skills
2 297 (10.28%) Finance
3 290 (10.04%) Analytical Skills
4 203 (7.03%) Public Sector
5 152 (5.26%) Banking
6 118 (4.08%) Legal
7 95 (3.29%) Documentation Skills
8 80 (2.77%) Organisational Skills
9 52 (1.80%) Military
10 48 (1.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 48 (1.66%) Retail
11 45 (1.56%) Manufacturing
12 39 (1.35%) Law
13 35 (1.21%) Investment Banking
14 30 (1.04%) Presentation Skills
15 28 (0.97%) Front Office
16 27 (0.93%) Telecoms
17 21 (0.73%) Local Government
18 20 (0.69%) French Language
18 20 (0.69%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 365 (12.63%) IT Support
2 354 (12.25%) Support Engineer
3 308 (10.66%) Analyst
4 254 (8.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 230 (7.96%) IT Engineer
6 190 (6.58%) IT Support Engineer
7 179 (6.20%) Senior
8 156 (5.40%) Architect
9 126 (4.36%) Desktop Support
10 121 (4.19%) Support Analyst
11 111 (3.84%) Desktop Engineer
12 105 (3.63%) Lead
13 95 (3.29%) 2nd Line Support
14 94 (3.25%) IT Analyst
15 89 (3.08%) Developer
16 88 (3.05%) Windows Engineer
17 86 (2.98%) Technical Support
18 79 (2.73%) Consultant
19 74 (2.56%) 1st Line Support
20 73 (2.53%) Desktop Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (3.18%) .NET
2 91 (3.15%) REST
3 51 (1.77%) .NET Framework
4 44 (1.52%) LDAP
5 36 (1.25%) SAML
6 34 (1.18%) Microsoft Graph
7 30 (1.04%) Kafka
8 29 (1.00%) Middleware
9 28 (0.97%) 802.1X
10 27 (0.93%) WinForms
11 25 (0.87%) Web Services
12 24 (0.83%) OAuth
12 24 (0.83%) Software Packaging
13 21 (0.73%) WPF
14 20 (0.69%) Elastic Stack
15 17 (0.59%) Node.js
16 16 (0.55%) AngularJS
16 16 (0.55%) CSS
16 16 (0.55%) React
17 15 (0.52%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 256 (8.86%) Onboarding
2 150 (5.19%) Data Centre
3 123 (4.26%) PKI
4 89 (3.08%) Enterprise Software
5 82 (2.84%) Clustering
6 65 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
7 63 (2.18%) Driving Licence
8 60 (2.08%) Management Information System
9 59 (2.04%) Replication
10 53 (1.83%) Security Posture
11 52 (1.80%) Hybrid Cloud
12 51 (1.77%) Virtual Team
13 50 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
14 49 (1.70%) Cloud Native
15 45 (1.56%) Smartphone
16 37 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
17 34 (1.18%) CMDB
17 34 (1.18%) Enterprise Storage
17 34 (1.18%) Operational Technology
17 34 (1.18%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 724 (25.06%) Linux
2 691 (23.92%) Windows Server
3 499 (17.27%) Windows 10
4 185 (6.40%) Mac OS
5 156 (5.40%) Unix
6 141 (4.88%) Apple iOS
7 136 (4.71%) Android
8 111 (3.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 80 (2.77%) Windows Server 2019
10 69 (2.39%) Windows Server 2016
11 53 (1.83%) Windows 7
12 38 (1.32%) Windows Server 2012
13 33 (1.14%) AIX
14 26 (0.90%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.83%) Solaris
16 22 (0.76%) VMS
17 19 (0.66%) Windows Server 2003
18 18 (0.62%) Windows Server 2008
19 12 (0.42%) CentOS
20 8 (0.28%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 614 (21.25%) Problem-Solving
2 431 (14.92%) Customer Service
3 430 (14.88%) ITIL
4 331 (11.46%) Migration
5 328 (11.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 280 (9.69%) Agile
7 279 (9.66%) ITSM
8 268 (9.28%) DevOps
9 245 (8.48%) CI/CD
10 197 (6.82%) Change Management
11 195 (6.75%) Continuous Improvement
12 192 (6.65%) High Availability
13 190 (6.58%) Service Management
14 189 (6.54%) Disaster Recovery
15 172 (5.95%) Cybersecurity
16 157 (5.43%) SIEM
17 149 (5.16%) Stakeholder Management
18 146 (5.05%) Infrastructure as Code
19 135 (4.67%) Service Delivery
20 133 (4.60%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 630 (21.81%) PowerShell
2 302 (10.45%) Python
3 276 (9.55%) SQL
4 123 (4.26%) C#
5 119 (4.12%) Bash
6 77 (2.67%) Java
7 68 (2.35%) JavaScript
8 56 (1.94%) PL/SQL
9 47 (1.63%) C++
9 47 (1.63%) T-SQL
10 31 (1.07%) Perl
11 26 (0.90%) Kusto Query Language
12 25 (0.87%) VB
13 24 (0.83%) Shell Script
14 23 (0.80%) Search Processing Language
15 19 (0.66%) VBScript
16 17 (0.59%) Bicep
17 14 (0.48%) VBA
18 13 (0.45%) C
19 11 (0.38%) Go
Qualifications
1 838 (29.01%) Security Cleared
2 544 (18.83%) SC Cleared
3 308 (10.66%) Degree
4 262 (9.07%) DV Cleared
5 104 (3.60%) Microsoft Certification
6 93 (3.22%) Cisco Certification
6 93 (3.22%) Computer Science Degree
7 65 (2.25%) CISSP
8 52 (1.80%) Azure Certification
9 46 (1.59%) MCSE
10 44 (1.52%) BPSS Clearance
11 39 (1.35%) CCNA
12 38 (1.32%) AWS Certification
13 37 (1.28%) CompTIA Security+
14 31 (1.07%) CCNP
14 31 (1.07%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 29 (1.00%) ITIL Certification
16 27 (0.93%) MCSA
17 26 (0.90%) A+ Certification
17 26 (0.90%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 120 (4.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 109 (3.77%) SLA
3 87 (3.01%) QA
4 86 (2.98%) NIST
5 77 (2.67%) GDPR
6 36 (1.25%) PCI DSS
7 31 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 26 (0.90%) Cyber Essentials
9 15 (0.52%) NCSC
10 14 (0.48%) PMO
11 12 (0.42%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.42%) Disclosure Scotland
11 12 (0.42%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.38%) MiFID
12 11 (0.38%) SOC 2
13 10 (0.35%) FINRA
13 10 (0.35%) HIPAA
14 8 (0.28%) GRC
15 6 (0.21%) GLBA
15 6 (0.21%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 1,071 (37.07%) Active Directory
2 364 (12.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 161 (5.57%) Hyper-V
4 101 (3.50%) VMware ESXi
5 100 (3.46%) vSphere
6 90 (3.12%) Docker
6 90 (3.12%) Virtual Machines
7 59 (2.04%) Virtual Desktop
8 52 (1.80%) VMware NSX
9 38 (1.32%) Firmware
10 36 (1.25%) BitLocker
11 26 (0.90%) Microsoft App-V
12 21 (0.73%) KVM
13 12 (0.42%) Oracle RAC
14 11 (0.38%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.35%) XenApp
16 9 (0.31%) vCloud
17 8 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
18 6 (0.21%) etcd
18 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 379 (13.12%) Microsoft Intune
2 254 (8.79%) SCCM
3 199 (6.89%) Ansible
4 172 (5.95%) Terraform
5 138 (4.78%) Kubernetes
6 79 (2.73%) vCenter Server
7 54 (1.87%) Single Sign-On
8 47 (1.63%) Jamf Pro
9 42 (1.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 40 (1.38%) FortiGate
11 39 (1.35%) Grafana
12 37 (1.28%) WSUS
13 36 (1.25%) SCOM
14 33 (1.14%) Prometheus
15 28 (0.97%) Progress Chef
16 27 (0.93%) Nagios
17 20 (0.69%) Nessus
17 20 (0.69%) Puppet
17 20 (0.69%) Tivoli
17 20 (0.69%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,234 (42.71%) Microsoft
2 468 (16.20%) VMware
3 252 (8.72%) ServiceNow
4 220 (7.62%) Cisco
5 194 (6.72%) Citrix
6 180 (6.23%) Oracle
7 159 (5.50%) Splunk
8 82 (2.84%) HP
9 75 (2.60%) Dell
10 74 (2.56%) SolarWinds
11 71 (2.46%) Red Hat
12 61 (2.11%) Apple
13 60 (2.08%) Google
14 59 (2.04%) F5
15 57 (1.97%) Remedy
16 54 (1.87%) Palo Alto
17 52 (1.80%) IBM
18 51 (1.77%) CyberArk
19 45 (1.56%) Juniper
20 42 (1.45%) BeyondTrust