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 29 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 15
Rank change year-on-year -3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,836 2,967 4,425
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.87% 8.14% 9.64%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.33% 57.90% 63.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,904 1,845 2,945
10th Percentile £163 £180 £161
25th Percentile £204 £237 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £415 £415
Median % change year-on-year -6.02% - -2.35%
75th Percentile £538 £553 £575
90th Percentile £625 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £380 £388
% change year-on-year -14.47% -1.94% +4.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 297 133 261
10th Percentile £15.22 £15.22 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.75 £18.13 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.28
Median % change year-on-year -9.02% +8.55% +8.66%
75th Percentile £34.50 £57.62 £54.56
90th Percentile £65.00 £67.50 £66.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.50 £24.18 £21.31
% change year-on-year -11.08% +13.47% +13.44%

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 5,124 6,967
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.26% 14.06% 15.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,082 3,117 4,722
10th Percentile £181 £200 £183
25th Percentile £267 £325 £303
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -6.34%
75th Percentile £564 £583 £612
90th Percentile £660 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £405 £438 £440
% change year-on-year -7.43% -0.57% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 368 211 352
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.25 £14.37
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.50 £18.27
Median hourly rate £25.00 £52.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -52.38% +61.54% +30.00%
75th Percentile £48.94 £68.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.43 £70.00 £74.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £52.50 £27.50
% change year-on-year -52.38% +90.91% +22.22%

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 29 November 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 29 November 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 29 November 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 -3 2,529 £389 -2.81% 1,306
UK excluding London -2 1,883 £325 -14.47% 1,252
London -11 789 £431 +4.55% 285
Work from Home -9 568 £425 -5.56% 400
South East +2 514 £350 -15.41% 478
North of England -3 404 £250 -37.50% 220
South West +4 327 £425 +0.47% 153
Midlands -4 299 £383 +8.51% 198
North West -5 227 £320 -24.71% 115
West Midlands -2 208 £425 +30.77% 115
East of England 0 205 £225 -33.33% 146
Yorkshire -13 149 £230 -34.33% 90
Scotland -14 109 £431 +1.47% 60
East Midlands 0 91 £210 -44.00% 80
Wales -1 42 £180 -18.18% 30
North East +2 31 £189 -41.02% 15
Northern Ireland -12 15 £203 +21.26% 9

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
1 260 (9.17%) Microsoft Exchange
2 180 (6.35%) SharePoint
3 82 (2.89%) Confluence
4 54 (1.90%) Apache
5 43 (1.52%) IIS
6 25 (0.88%) WebSphere
7 22 (0.78%) Skype for Business
8 20 (0.71%) JBoss
9 18 (0.63%) WebLogic
10 15 (0.53%) Exchange Server 2010
10 15 (0.53%) SharePoint Server
11 14 (0.49%) nginx
12 13 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2013
13 11 (0.39%) WebSphere Application Server
14 10 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2003
14 10 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2007
14 10 (0.35%) iPlanet
14 10 (0.35%) Office Communications Server
15 9 (0.32%) SAS
15 9 (0.32%) Tomcat
Applications
1 279 (9.84%) Microsoft Office
2 92 (3.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.35%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 8 (0.28%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.071%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.071%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.071%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.071%) Windchill
8 1 (0.035%) Acrobat
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.035%) Camtasia
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.035%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 20 (0.71%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.25%) assyst
3 5 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.14%) Maximo
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.11%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.071%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.071%) Eikon
6 2 (0.071%) Fidessa
6 2 (0.071%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.071%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.071%) SystmOne
6 2 (0.071%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.035%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.035%) Eze OMS
7 1 (0.035%) OpenText MBPM
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.035%) Pegasus Opera
7 1 (0.035%) Primavera
7 1 (0.035%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 736 (25.95%) Microsoft 365
2 643 (22.67%) Azure
3 274 (9.66%) AWS
4 239 (8.43%) Entra ID
5 89 (3.14%) OneDrive
6 80 (2.82%) SaaS
7 72 (2.54%) GitHub
8 69 (2.43%) Azure DevOps
9 65 (2.29%) GCP
10 57 (2.01%) IaaS
11 46 (1.62%) Google Workspace
12 41 (1.45%) Power Platform
13 40 (1.41%) PaaS
14 34 (1.20%) Amazon S3
15 33 (1.16%) Amazon EC2
15 33 (1.16%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 31 (1.09%) Azure Sentinel
17 30 (1.06%) Azure Monitor
18 28 (0.99%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 25 (0.88%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 341 (12.02%) DNS
2 325 (11.46%) Firewall
3 210 (7.40%) DHCP
4 201 (7.09%) TCP/IP
5 164 (5.78%) VPN
6 100 (3.53%) Wi-Fi
7 90 (3.17%) LAN
8 86 (3.03%) WAN
9 84 (2.96%) Network Security
10 66 (2.33%) VLAN
11 63 (2.22%) SSH
12 62 (2.19%) Wireless
13 61 (2.15%) SAN
14 55 (1.94%) HTTP
15 53 (1.87%) Cisco IOS
16 36 (1.27%) SSL
17 32 (1.13%) Skype
18 31 (1.09%) FTP
18 31 (1.09%) SMTP
18 31 (1.09%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 131 (4.62%) SQL Server
2 87 (3.07%) Oracle Database
3 65 (2.29%) Relational Database
4 46 (1.62%) MySQL
5 30 (1.06%) Amazon RDS
5 30 (1.06%) PostgreSQL
6 17 (0.60%) Power BI
7 13 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
8 11 (0.39%) Amazon Aurora
8 11 (0.39%) GIS
8 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
9 10 (0.35%) BigQuery
10 9 (0.32%) DB2
10 9 (0.32%) RDBMS
11 8 (0.28%) SAP HANA
12 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
12 7 (0.25%) Data Lake
12 7 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
12 7 (0.25%) Elasticsearch
13 6 (0.21%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 165 (5.82%) JIRA
2 112 (3.95%) Git
3 105 (3.70%) Jenkins
4 51 (1.80%) GitLab
5 41 (1.45%) Eclipse
6 40 (1.41%) Visual Studio
7 31 (1.09%) Bitbucket
8 30 (1.06%) MSI
9 24 (0.85%) Vagrant
10 20 (0.71%) Android Studio
11 19 (0.67%) Browser DevTools
11 19 (0.67%) Sonatype Nexus
12 18 (0.63%) Xcode
13 17 (0.60%) InstallShield
14 15 (0.53%) AdminStudio
15 14 (0.49%) Artifactory
15 14 (0.49%) Bitbucket Server
15 14 (0.49%) CA Release Automation
16 13 (0.46%) IntelliJ
17 12 (0.42%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 1,072 (37.80%) Social Skills
2 370 (13.05%) Finance
3 272 (9.59%) Public Sector
4 258 (9.10%) Analytical Skills
5 139 (4.90%) Banking
6 123 (4.34%) Documentation Skills
7 80 (2.82%) Legal
8 67 (2.36%) Manufacturing
9 62 (2.19%) Organisational Skills
10 55 (1.94%) Telecoms
11 53 (1.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 50 (1.76%) Military
13 49 (1.73%) Presentation Skills
14 44 (1.55%) Retail
15 40 (1.41%) Marketing
16 29 (1.02%) Aerospace
17 28 (0.99%) Electronics
17 28 (0.99%) Games
18 25 (0.88%) Front Office
19 22 (0.78%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 447 (15.76%) Support Engineer
2 344 (12.13%) Analyst
3 320 (11.28%) IT Support
4 197 (6.95%) IT Engineer
5 160 (5.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 160 (5.64%) Windows Engineer
6 152 (5.36%) Support Analyst
7 150 (5.29%) Desktop Engineer
7 150 (5.29%) Desktop Support
8 140 (4.94%) IT Support Engineer
9 134 (4.72%) Architect
10 133 (4.69%) Senior
11 132 (4.65%) Deployment Engineer
12 119 (4.20%) 2nd Line Support
13 112 (3.95%) Developer
14 109 (3.84%) Technical Support
15 108 (3.81%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 105 (3.70%) Platform Engineer
17 93 (3.28%) Administrator
18 81 (2.86%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 76 (2.68%) .NET
2 54 (1.90%) LDAP
3 47 (1.66%) Middleware
4 44 (1.55%) REST
5 42 (1.48%) .NET Framework
6 39 (1.38%) Web Services
7 37 (1.30%) WPF
8 36 (1.27%) OAuth
9 35 (1.23%) AngularJS
9 35 (1.23%) Node.js
10 34 (1.20%) SAML
11 33 (1.16%) XML
12 30 (1.06%) React
13 28 (0.99%) OpenID
14 26 (0.92%) SOAP
15 23 (0.81%) CSS
16 22 (0.78%) Kafka
17 20 (0.71%) Ajax
18 19 (0.67%) GraphQL
18 19 (0.67%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 112 (3.95%) Onboarding
2 96 (3.39%) Data Centre
3 94 (3.31%) PKI
4 76 (2.68%) Driving Licence
5 67 (2.36%) Replication
6 63 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
7 60 (2.12%) Enterprise Software
8 58 (2.05%) Management Information System
9 40 (1.41%) Security Posture
10 37 (1.30%) iPhone
10 37 (1.30%) Smartphone
11 36 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
12 34 (1.20%) Video Conferencing
13 33 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
13 33 (1.16%) NHS
14 32 (1.13%) Mobile App
15 31 (1.09%) iPad
16 30 (1.06%) Hybrid Cloud
16 30 (1.06%) Public Cloud
17 29 (1.02%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 714 (25.18%) Linux
2 586 (20.66%) Windows 10
3 538 (18.97%) Windows Server
4 186 (6.56%) Unix
5 161 (5.68%) Mac OS
6 160 (5.64%) Android
7 102 (3.60%) Apple iOS
8 84 (2.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 67 (2.36%) Windows 7
10 64 (2.26%) Windows Server 2016
11 60 (2.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 46 (1.62%) Windows Server 2012
13 40 (1.41%) VMS
14 36 (1.27%) Windows Server 2003
15 34 (1.20%) Ubuntu
16 28 (0.99%) AIX
17 21 (0.74%) Amazon Linux
18 20 (0.71%) CentOS
19 18 (0.63%) Solaris
20 14 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 507 (17.88%) Problem-Solving
2 416 (14.67%) ITIL
3 374 (13.19%) Customer Service
4 296 (10.44%) Migration
5 291 (10.26%) Agile
6 243 (8.57%) DevOps
7 235 (8.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 223 (7.86%) Service Management
9 213 (7.51%) Cybersecurity
10 211 (7.44%) ITSM
11 207 (7.30%) CI/CD
12 181 (6.38%) Continuous Improvement
13 154 (5.43%) Change Management
14 127 (4.48%) User Experience
15 126 (4.44%) Incident Response
16 121 (4.27%) Stakeholder Management
17 115 (4.06%) Cloud Security
18 112 (3.95%) Service Delivery
19 108 (3.81%) Incident Management
20 105 (3.70%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 528 (18.62%) PowerShell
2 369 (13.01%) Python
3 287 (10.12%) SQL
4 153 (5.39%) Java
5 147 (5.18%) C#
6 128 (4.51%) Bash
7 88 (3.10%) JavaScript
8 80 (2.82%) Perl
9 79 (2.79%) C++
10 46 (1.62%) PL/SQL
11 40 (1.41%) Shell Script
12 36 (1.27%) VB
13 32 (1.13%) Groovy
14 31 (1.09%) Kusto Query Language
14 31 (1.09%) VBScript
15 29 (1.02%) C
16 28 (0.99%) VBA
17 26 (0.92%) T-SQL
18 24 (0.85%) PHP
19 15 (0.53%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 805 (28.39%) Security Cleared
2 562 (19.82%) SC Cleared
3 270 (9.52%) Degree
4 204 (7.19%) DV Cleared
5 196 (6.91%) Microsoft Certification
6 71 (2.50%) Computer Science Degree
7 67 (2.36%) Azure Certification
8 54 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
9 53 (1.87%) MCSE
10 52 (1.83%) A+ Certification
11 40 (1.41%) ITIL Certification
12 39 (1.38%) CISSP
13 38 (1.34%) AWS Certification
14 34 (1.20%) CCNA
15 33 (1.16%) CCNP
16 32 (1.13%) DBS Check
17 28 (0.99%) BPSS Clearance
17 28 (0.99%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 26 (0.92%) MCSA
19 23 (0.81%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (3.07%) SLA
2 78 (2.75%) QA
3 72 (2.54%) GDPR
4 62 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 56 (1.97%) NIST
6 21 (0.74%) PCI DSS
7 18 (0.63%) HIPAA
8 14 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
9 12 (0.42%) NCSC
10 11 (0.39%) PMO
11 9 (0.32%) Accessibility
12 8 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 7 (0.25%) GLBA
14 6 (0.21%) COBIT
15 5 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
16 4 (0.14%) SOC 2
17 3 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 3 (0.11%) Data Quality
17 3 (0.11%) ECSS
17 3 (0.11%) SEPA
System Software
1 1,014 (35.75%) Active Directory
2 245 (8.64%) VMware Infrastructure
3 129 (4.55%) Docker
4 85 (3.00%) Hyper-V
5 62 (2.19%) Virtual Desktop
6 56 (1.97%) Virtual Machines
7 52 (1.83%) vSphere
8 47 (1.66%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.09%) VMware NSX
10 24 (0.85%) DFS Replication
11 23 (0.81%) BitLocker
12 22 (0.78%) Firmware
13 20 (0.71%) Microsoft App-V
14 19 (0.67%) NFS
15 16 (0.56%) Terminal Services
16 15 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
17 14 (0.49%) XenApp
18 10 (0.35%) Dovecot
18 10 (0.35%) Postfix
18 10 (0.35%) Squid
Systems Management
1 423 (14.92%) SCCM
2 299 (10.54%) Microsoft Intune
3 181 (6.38%) Terraform
4 149 (5.25%) Ansible
5 99 (3.49%) Kubernetes
6 58 (2.05%) vCenter Server
7 53 (1.87%) Single Sign-On
8 46 (1.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 45 (1.59%) Jamf Pro
10 42 (1.48%) Grafana
11 32 (1.13%) Progress Chef
12 31 (1.09%) WSUS
13 29 (1.02%) SCOM
14 28 (0.99%) Prometheus
15 27 (0.95%) Nessus
16 20 (0.71%) Puppet
17 18 (0.63%) Microsoft Clustering
18 16 (0.56%) Proxmox
19 15 (0.53%) WMI
20 14 (0.49%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 1,249 (44.04%) Microsoft
2 351 (12.38%) VMware
3 257 (9.06%) ServiceNow
4 234 (8.25%) Oracle
5 185 (6.52%) Cisco
6 175 (6.17%) Citrix
7 150 (5.29%) Splunk
8 86 (3.03%) Apple
9 76 (2.68%) HP
10 73 (2.57%) Red Hat
11 67 (2.36%) IBM
12 59 (2.08%) Dell
13 55 (1.94%) SAP
13 55 (1.94%) Veeam
14 50 (1.76%) Google
15 46 (1.62%) SolarWinds
16 44 (1.55%) NetApp
17 43 (1.52%) AppDynamics
17 43 (1.52%) CyberArk
18 38 (1.34%) Remedy