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

6 months to
23 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 15
Rank change year-on-year -3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,852 3,031 4,496
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.98% 8.20% 9.67%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.39% 58.20% 63.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,915 1,878 2,996
10th Percentile £163 £182 £160
25th Percentile £204 £245 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £425 £420
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% +1.19% -1.18%
75th Percentile £538 £560 £575
90th Percentile £625 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £400 £395
% change year-on-year -18.75% +1.27% +8.97%
Number of hourly rates quoted 302 144 261
10th Percentile £15.23 £15.22 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.71 £18.15 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.02% +7.47% +9.76%
75th Percentile £30.19 £56.59 £55.46
90th Percentile £65.00 £67.50 £68.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £24.18 £21.31
% change year-on-year -11.25% +13.47% +13.65%

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 4,802 5,208 7,071
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.44% 14.10% 15.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,099 3,183 4,796
10th Percentile £181 £200 £183
25th Percentile £271 £329 £304
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -5.88%
75th Percentile £569 £585 £611
90th Percentile £656 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £405 £450 £442
% change year-on-year -10.00% +1.81% -1.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 372 222 351
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.25 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.50 £18.27
Median hourly rate £24.50 £49.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -50.00% +50.77% +30.00%
75th Percentile £43.75 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.79 £50.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year -52.43% +81.82% +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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -2 2,541 £390 -6.02% 1,238
UK excluding London 0 1,896 £325 -18.75% 1,171
London -11 799 £438 +8.02% 264
Work from Home -6 574 £425 -5.56% 418
South East +3 501 £351 -17.50% 455
North of England -5 403 £275 -31.25% 197
South West +4 331 £425 -2.86% 161
Midlands -5 308 £400 +5.96% 169
North West -4 222 £325 -27.78% 95
West Midlands -6 216 £430 +13.03% 97
East of England 0 210 £225 -41.56% 124
Yorkshire -9 152 £255 -28.17% 88
Scotland -16 115 £450 +5.88% 55
East Midlands 0 92 £210 -44.00% 67
Wales -2 44 £230 +15.00% 27
North East +5 32 £190 -40.63% 14
Northern Ireland -12 16 £203 +21.26% 16

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
1 263 (9.22%) Microsoft Exchange
2 180 (6.31%) SharePoint
3 84 (2.95%) Confluence
4 54 (1.89%) Apache
5 43 (1.51%) IIS
6 25 (0.88%) WebSphere
7 22 (0.77%) Skype for Business
8 21 (0.74%) JBoss
9 18 (0.63%) WebLogic
10 15 (0.53%) SharePoint Server
11 14 (0.49%) Exchange Server 2010
11 14 (0.49%) Exchange Server 2013
12 13 (0.46%) nginx
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%) Tomcat
16 7 (0.25%) SAS
Applications
1 272 (9.54%) Microsoft Office
2 89 (3.12%) Microsoft Excel
3 21 (0.74%) 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 (0.070%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.070%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.070%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.070%) 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 23 (0.81%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.25%) assyst
3 5 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.14%) Maximo
5 3 (0.11%) ION MarketView
5 3 (0.11%) Oracle 11i
6 2 (0.070%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.070%) Eikon
6 2 (0.070%) Fidessa
6 2 (0.070%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.070%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.070%) SystmOne
6 2 (0.070%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.035%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.035%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.035%) Eze OMS
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle BPM
7 1 (0.035%) RMDS
7 1 (0.035%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.035%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 744 (26.09%) Microsoft 365
2 643 (22.55%) Azure
3 273 (9.57%) AWS
4 237 (8.31%) Entra ID
5 89 (3.12%) OneDrive
6 81 (2.84%) SaaS
7 73 (2.56%) GitHub
8 66 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
8 66 (2.31%) GCP
9 54 (1.89%) IaaS
10 47 (1.65%) Google Workspace
11 42 (1.47%) Power Platform
12 39 (1.37%) PaaS
13 37 (1.30%) Azure Sentinel
14 35 (1.23%) Amazon S3
15 34 (1.19%) Amazon EC2
16 33 (1.16%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 30 (1.05%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 29 (1.02%) Azure Monitor
19 27 (0.95%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 341 (11.96%) DNS
2 327 (11.47%) Firewall
3 211 (7.40%) DHCP
4 205 (7.19%) TCP/IP
5 164 (5.75%) VPN
6 102 (3.58%) Wi-Fi
7 94 (3.30%) LAN
8 89 (3.12%) WAN
9 84 (2.95%) Network Security
10 65 (2.28%) VLAN
11 63 (2.21%) SSH
12 61 (2.14%) SAN
13 57 (2.00%) Wireless
14 55 (1.93%) Cisco IOS
15 54 (1.89%) HTTP
16 35 (1.23%) SSL
17 32 (1.12%) SMTP
17 32 (1.12%) VoIP
18 31 (1.09%) FTP
18 31 (1.09%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 129 (4.52%) SQL Server
2 85 (2.98%) Oracle Database
3 65 (2.28%) Relational Database
4 45 (1.58%) MySQL
5 31 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
6 30 (1.05%) PostgreSQL
7 18 (0.63%) Power BI
8 13 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.39%) Amazon Aurora
9 11 (0.39%) GIS
9 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
10 10 (0.35%) BigQuery
10 10 (0.35%) RDBMS
11 9 (0.32%) DB2
12 8 (0.28%) SAP HANA
13 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (0.25%) Data Lake
13 7 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
13 7 (0.25%) Elasticsearch
13 7 (0.25%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 169 (5.93%) JIRA
2 119 (4.17%) Git
3 112 (3.93%) Jenkins
4 50 (1.75%) GitLab
5 42 (1.47%) Eclipse
6 40 (1.40%) Visual Studio
7 31 (1.09%) Bitbucket
8 29 (1.02%) MSI
9 25 (0.88%) Vagrant
10 20 (0.70%) Android Studio
11 19 (0.67%) Browser DevTools
11 19 (0.67%) Sonatype Nexus
12 18 (0.63%) Xcode
13 16 (0.56%) InstallShield
14 15 (0.53%) AdminStudio
14 15 (0.53%) Bitbucket Server
14 15 (0.53%) CA Release Automation
15 14 (0.49%) Artifactory
15 14 (0.49%) Postman
16 13 (0.46%) IntelliJ
General
1 1,070 (37.52%) Social Skills
2 379 (13.29%) Finance
3 272 (9.54%) Analytical Skills
4 271 (9.50%) Public Sector
5 138 (4.84%) Banking
6 123 (4.31%) Documentation Skills
7 80 (2.81%) Legal
8 67 (2.35%) Manufacturing
9 59 (2.07%) Organisational Skills
10 55 (1.93%) Telecoms
11 53 (1.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 53 (1.86%) Military
12 50 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
13 43 (1.51%) Retail
14 39 (1.37%) Marketing
15 31 (1.09%) Games
16 27 (0.95%) Electronics
17 26 (0.91%) Aerospace
17 26 (0.91%) Front Office
18 21 (0.74%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 448 (15.71%) Support Engineer
2 349 (12.24%) Analyst
3 313 (10.97%) IT Support
4 195 (6.84%) IT Engineer
5 170 (5.96%) Windows Engineer
6 158 (5.54%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 154 (5.40%) Desktop Engineer
8 153 (5.36%) Desktop Support
9 151 (5.29%) Support Analyst
10 141 (4.94%) Architect
11 137 (4.80%) IT Support Engineer
12 136 (4.77%) Deployment Engineer
13 135 (4.73%) Senior
14 118 (4.14%) 2nd Line Support
15 113 (3.96%) Developer
16 110 (3.86%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 107 (3.75%) Platform Engineer
17 107 (3.75%) Technical Support
18 93 (3.26%) Administrator
19 80 (2.81%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (2.73%) .NET
2 52 (1.82%) LDAP
3 51 (1.79%) Middleware
4 43 (1.51%) REST
5 42 (1.47%) .NET Framework
5 42 (1.47%) WPF
6 41 (1.44%) Web Services
7 36 (1.26%) Node.js
7 36 (1.26%) OAuth
8 35 (1.23%) AngularJS
9 34 (1.19%) SAML
10 31 (1.09%) XML
11 30 (1.05%) React
12 28 (0.98%) OpenID
13 24 (0.84%) SOAP
14 23 (0.81%) CSS
15 20 (0.70%) Ajax
15 20 (0.70%) Kafka
16 19 (0.67%) GraphQL
16 19 (0.67%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 111 (3.89%) Onboarding
2 98 (3.44%) Data Centre
3 93 (3.26%) PKI
4 78 (2.73%) Driving Licence
5 68 (2.38%) Replication
6 63 (2.21%) Enterprise Software
6 63 (2.21%) Self-Motivation
7 56 (1.96%) Management Information System
8 38 (1.33%) Security Posture
9 37 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
9 37 (1.30%) iPhone
10 36 (1.26%) Smartphone
11 33 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
11 33 (1.16%) NHS
11 33 (1.16%) Video Conferencing
12 32 (1.12%) iPad
13 31 (1.09%) Mobile App
14 29 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
14 29 (1.02%) Legacy Systems
15 28 (0.98%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 714 (25.04%) Linux
2 595 (20.86%) Windows 10
3 535 (18.76%) Windows Server
4 186 (6.52%) Unix
5 160 (5.61%) Android
6 157 (5.50%) Mac OS
7 105 (3.68%) Apple iOS
8 84 (2.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 70 (2.45%) Windows 7
10 65 (2.28%) Windows Server 2016
11 58 (2.03%) Windows Server 2019
12 48 (1.68%) Windows Server 2012
13 41 (1.44%) VMS
14 36 (1.26%) Ubuntu
14 36 (1.26%) Windows Server 2003
15 26 (0.91%) AIX
16 23 (0.81%) CentOS
17 22 (0.77%) Amazon Linux
18 18 (0.63%) Solaris
19 14 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 516 (18.09%) Problem-Solving
2 419 (14.69%) ITIL
3 368 (12.90%) Customer Service
4 304 (10.66%) Migration
5 294 (10.31%) Agile
6 251 (8.80%) DevOps
7 228 (7.99%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 225 (7.89%) Service Management
9 214 (7.50%) Cybersecurity
10 210 (7.36%) ITSM
11 208 (7.29%) CI/CD
12 173 (6.07%) Continuous Improvement
13 159 (5.58%) Change Management
14 130 (4.56%) Incident Response
15 122 (4.28%) User Experience
16 120 (4.21%) Stakeholder Management
17 115 (4.03%) Cloud Security
17 115 (4.03%) Service Delivery
18 107 (3.75%) Incident Management
19 105 (3.68%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 526 (18.44%) PowerShell
2 372 (13.04%) Python
3 283 (9.92%) SQL
4 153 (5.36%) Java
5 152 (5.33%) C#
6 130 (4.56%) Bash
7 88 (3.09%) JavaScript
8 80 (2.81%) C++
9 79 (2.77%) Perl
10 44 (1.54%) PL/SQL
11 39 (1.37%) Shell Script
11 39 (1.37%) VB
12 34 (1.19%) Kusto Query Language
13 33 (1.16%) Groovy
14 31 (1.09%) VBScript
15 30 (1.05%) C
15 30 (1.05%) VBA
16 25 (0.88%) T-SQL
17 23 (0.81%) PHP
18 15 (0.53%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 804 (28.19%) Security Cleared
2 566 (19.85%) SC Cleared
3 270 (9.47%) Degree
4 201 (7.05%) DV Cleared
5 197 (6.91%) Microsoft Certification
6 70 (2.45%) Computer Science Degree
7 66 (2.31%) Azure Certification
8 54 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
9 53 (1.86%) MCSE
10 50 (1.75%) A+ Certification
11 44 (1.54%) CISSP
12 39 (1.37%) AWS Certification
12 39 (1.37%) ITIL Certification
13 34 (1.19%) CCNA
13 34 (1.19%) CCNP
13 34 (1.19%) DBS Check
14 32 (1.12%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 27 (0.95%) BPSS Clearance
16 26 (0.91%) MCSA
17 25 (0.88%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (3.16%) SLA
2 78 (2.73%) QA
3 66 (2.31%) GDPR
4 57 (2.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 55 (1.93%) NIST
6 18 (0.63%) HIPAA
7 15 (0.53%) PCI DSS
8 13 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
9 11 (0.39%) NCSC
9 11 (0.39%) PMO
10 9 (0.32%) Accessibility
11 8 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 6 (0.21%) COBIT
12 6 (0.21%) GLBA
13 5 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
14 4 (0.14%) SOC 2
15 3 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 3 (0.11%) Data Quality
15 3 (0.11%) ECSS
15 3 (0.11%) GxP
System Software
1 1,015 (35.59%) Active Directory
2 252 (8.84%) VMware Infrastructure
3 130 (4.56%) Docker
4 85 (2.98%) Hyper-V
5 65 (2.28%) Virtual Desktop
6 56 (1.96%) Virtual Machines
7 55 (1.93%) vSphere
8 49 (1.72%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.09%) VMware NSX
10 25 (0.88%) BitLocker
10 25 (0.88%) DFS Replication
10 25 (0.88%) Firmware
11 21 (0.74%) Microsoft App-V
12 19 (0.67%) NFS
13 16 (0.56%) Terminal Services
14 15 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
14 15 (0.53%) XenApp
15 10 (0.35%) Brightmail
15 10 (0.35%) Dovecot
15 10 (0.35%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 426 (14.94%) SCCM
2 308 (10.80%) Microsoft Intune
3 178 (6.24%) Terraform
4 153 (5.36%) Ansible
5 98 (3.44%) Kubernetes
6 56 (1.96%) vCenter Server
7 51 (1.79%) Single Sign-On
8 45 (1.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 44 (1.54%) Grafana
10 42 (1.47%) Jamf Pro
11 33 (1.16%) Progress Chef
12 30 (1.05%) Prometheus
13 29 (1.02%) WSUS
14 28 (0.98%) SCOM
15 26 (0.91%) Nessus
16 25 (0.88%) Puppet
17 24 (0.84%) Microsoft Clustering
18 16 (0.56%) Proxmox
19 14 (0.49%) WMI
20 13 (0.46%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 1,268 (44.46%) Microsoft
2 358 (12.55%) VMware
3 258 (9.05%) ServiceNow
4 231 (8.10%) Oracle
5 185 (6.49%) Cisco
6 178 (6.24%) Citrix
7 151 (5.29%) Splunk
8 88 (3.09%) Apple
9 77 (2.70%) HP
10 72 (2.52%) Red Hat
11 64 (2.24%) IBM
12 59 (2.07%) Dell
13 56 (1.96%) Veeam
14 54 (1.89%) SAP
15 52 (1.82%) Google
16 45 (1.58%) SolarWinds
17 44 (1.54%) AppDynamics
17 44 (1.54%) NetApp
18 43 (1.51%) CyberArk
19 42 (1.47%) Remedy