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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 21 19
Rank change year-on-year -7 -2 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,913 2,509 3,521
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.80% 8.47% 8.08%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.92% 60.55% 60.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,870 1,708 2,387
10th Percentile £163 £181 £164
25th Percentile £220 £239 £225
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.56%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £673
UK excluding London median daily rate £414 £400 £425
% change year-on-year +3.44% -5.88% +9.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 249 172 284
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.12 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.00 £16.95 £14.16
Median hourly rate £25.15 £18.87 £18.27
Median % change year-on-year +33.28% +3.28% -25.79%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £27.44
90th Percentile £68.40 £59.90 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.51 £18.82 £17.72
% change year-on-year +35.52% +6.21% -21.24%

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 4,782 4,144 5,825
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.52% 13.99% 13.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,050 2,701 3,844
10th Percentile £189 £200 £188
25th Percentile £315 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.08% -2.11% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £585 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 335 206 420
10th Percentile £14.70 £15.28 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.44 £15.85
Median hourly rate £28.00 £22.00 £23.98
Median % change year-on-year +27.27% -8.24% -49.53%
75th Percentile £63.75 £41.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.14 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.69 £18.87 £25.25
% change year-on-year +46.74% -25.27% -40.59%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 2,535 £425 - 1,072
UK excluding London -14 1,940 £414 +3.44% 912
London -22 810 £425 -3.41% 289
Work from Home -13 608 £475 +0.26% 349
South East -8 519 £475 -3.11% 312
North of England -7 467 £365 +4.29% 194
Midlands -17 273 £325 +17.12% 118
North West -4 248 £352 -4.06% 117
South West -16 238 £488 +1.56% 149
East of England -3 212 £341 -9.00% 97
Yorkshire -14 201 £365 -9.88% 50
Scotland -1 181 £425 -1.62% 35
West Midlands -24 168 £450 +50.00% 66
East Midlands +5 100 £200 -3.03% 52
Wales +2 47 £375 +30.43% 13
North East -39 22 £283 -1.74% 30
Northern Ireland -3 15 £139 -30.75% 24
Channel Islands 0 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
1 233 (8.00%) Microsoft Exchange
2 184 (6.32%) SharePoint
3 59 (2.03%) IIS
4 55 (1.89%) Confluence
5 19 (0.65%) Apache
5 19 (0.65%) Tomcat
6 16 (0.55%) nginx
7 14 (0.48%) Skype for Business
8 10 (0.34%) WebLogic
9 9 (0.31%) NetWeaver
9 9 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
10 8 (0.27%) HCL Notes
11 7 (0.24%) SAS
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
15 3 (0.10%) Documentum
15 3 (0.10%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 177 (6.08%) Microsoft Office
2 61 (2.09%) Microsoft Excel
3 21 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.27%) 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 (0.034%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 44 (1.51%) Remedy ITSM
2 18 (0.62%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.41%) Teamcenter
4 7 (0.24%) Finacle
5 3 (0.10%) assyst
5 3 (0.10%) OpenText MBPM
5 3 (0.10%) Oracle BPM
5 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.034%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.034%) Dynamics GP
7 1 (0.034%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.034%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.034%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 878 (30.14%) Azure
2 815 (27.98%) Microsoft 365
3 363 (12.46%) Entra ID
4 281 (9.65%) AWS
5 110 (3.78%) OneDrive
6 89 (3.06%) GCP
7 75 (2.57%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (2.51%) SaaS
9 67 (2.30%) GitHub
10 65 (2.23%) IaaS
11 58 (1.99%) Power Platform
12 53 (1.82%) PaaS
13 44 (1.51%) Azure Monitor
14 40 (1.37%) OpenShift
15 37 (1.27%) Azure Sentinel
16 31 (1.06%) Google Workspace
17 30 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
18 22 (0.76%) Microsoft Purview
19 21 (0.72%) Nutanix
20 20 (0.69%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 403 (13.83%) DNS
2 299 (10.26%) Firewall
3 277 (9.51%) DHCP
4 212 (7.28%) VPN
5 185 (6.35%) TCP/IP
6 182 (6.25%) WAN
7 174 (5.97%) LAN
8 145 (4.98%) Wi-Fi
9 86 (2.95%) SAN
10 67 (2.30%) Network Security
11 56 (1.92%) VLAN
12 47 (1.61%) SD-WAN
13 43 (1.48%) BGP
14 42 (1.44%) SSL
15 40 (1.37%) NAS
16 38 (1.30%) Internet
17 37 (1.27%) Wireless
18 36 (1.24%) SNMP
19 34 (1.17%) OSPF
19 34 (1.17%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 239 (8.20%) SQL Server
2 53 (1.82%) Oracle Database
3 36 (1.24%) Power BI
4 29 (1.00%) Relational Database
5 27 (0.93%) MySQL
5 27 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
6 19 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
7 15 (0.51%) Data Warehouse
7 15 (0.51%) Db2
7 15 (0.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 14 (0.48%) Amazon RDS
9 13 (0.45%) NoSQL
10 12 (0.41%) MongoDB
11 10 (0.34%) GIS
11 10 (0.34%) RDBMS
12 9 (0.31%) SAP HANA
13 8 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
13 8 (0.27%) Oracle BI EE
13 8 (0.27%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.27%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 180 (6.18%) JIRA
2 53 (1.82%) Jenkins
3 52 (1.79%) Git
4 40 (1.37%) MSI
5 37 (1.27%) GitLab
6 36 (1.24%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.62%) Eclipse
8 10 (0.34%) Burp Suite
9 9 (0.31%) Chocolatey
9 9 (0.31%) Metasploit
9 9 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (0.24%) Android Studio
10 7 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 7 (0.24%) Browser DevTools
10 7 (0.24%) Xcode
11 6 (0.21%) Artifactory
11 6 (0.21%) InstallShield
12 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.17%) Maven
12 5 (0.17%) Selenium
General
1 998 (34.26%) Social Skills
2 315 (10.81%) Analytical Skills
3 314 (10.78%) Finance
4 202 (6.93%) Public Sector
5 149 (5.12%) Banking
6 120 (4.12%) Legal
7 103 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
8 75 (2.57%) Organisational Skills
9 56 (1.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 52 (1.79%) Retail
11 49 (1.68%) Military
12 43 (1.48%) Manufacturing
13 38 (1.30%) Investment Banking
14 34 (1.17%) Law
15 32 (1.10%) Front Office
16 30 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
17 27 (0.93%) Telecoms
18 24 (0.82%) Spanish Language
19 22 (0.76%) French Language
20 19 (0.65%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 375 (12.87%) Support Engineer
2 366 (12.56%) IT Support
3 306 (10.50%) Analyst
4 263 (9.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 241 (8.27%) IT Engineer
6 201 (6.90%) IT Support Engineer
7 183 (6.28%) Senior
8 148 (5.08%) Architect
9 123 (4.22%) Desktop Support
10 112 (3.84%) Desktop Engineer
11 109 (3.74%) Support Analyst
12 102 (3.50%) Lead
13 99 (3.40%) 2nd Line Support
14 92 (3.16%) Developer
14 92 (3.16%) IT Analyst
15 89 (3.06%) Windows Engineer
16 85 (2.92%) Consultant
17 83 (2.85%) Technical Support
18 74 (2.54%) Cloud Engineer
19 72 (2.47%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (3.23%) .NET
2 91 (3.12%) REST
3 52 (1.79%) .NET Framework
4 41 (1.41%) LDAP
5 35 (1.20%) SAML
6 34 (1.17%) Microsoft Graph
7 29 (1.00%) Middleware
8 28 (0.96%) 802.1X
8 28 (0.96%) Kafka
9 27 (0.93%) Software Packaging
10 26 (0.89%) WinForms
11 25 (0.86%) Web Services
12 23 (0.79%) OAuth
13 22 (0.76%) WPF
14 21 (0.72%) Elastic Stack
15 19 (0.65%) CSS
16 17 (0.58%) Node.js
17 16 (0.55%) RabbitMQ
18 15 (0.51%) JSON
18 15 (0.51%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 265 (9.10%) Onboarding
2 160 (5.49%) Data Centre
3 127 (4.36%) PKI
4 86 (2.95%) Enterprise Software
5 77 (2.64%) Clustering
6 66 (2.27%) Management Information System
6 66 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
7 64 (2.20%) Driving Licence
8 60 (2.06%) Replication
9 57 (1.96%) Cloud Native
10 55 (1.89%) Legacy Systems
11 53 (1.82%) Virtual Team
12 52 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
12 52 (1.79%) Security Posture
13 39 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
14 38 (1.30%) Security Operations Centre
15 36 (1.24%) Smartphone
16 35 (1.20%) CMDB
17 33 (1.13%) Operational Technology
18 32 (1.10%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 730 (25.06%) Linux
2 701 (24.06%) Windows Server
3 487 (16.72%) Windows 10
4 182 (6.25%) Mac OS
5 151 (5.18%) Unix
6 143 (4.91%) Apple iOS
7 136 (4.67%) Android
8 102 (3.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 78 (2.68%) Windows Server 2019
10 63 (2.16%) Windows Server 2016
11 53 (1.82%) Windows 7
12 39 (1.34%) Windows Server 2012
13 33 (1.13%) AIX
14 28 (0.96%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.82%) Solaris
16 21 (0.72%) VMS
17 18 (0.62%) Windows Server 2003
18 17 (0.58%) Windows Server 2008
19 12 (0.41%) CentOS
20 9 (0.31%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 641 (22.00%) Problem-Solving
2 439 (15.07%) ITIL
3 419 (14.38%) Customer Service
4 345 (11.84%) Migration
5 341 (11.71%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 297 (10.20%) ITSM
7 274 (9.41%) Agile
8 263 (9.03%) DevOps
9 242 (8.31%) CI/CD
10 207 (7.11%) Continuous Improvement
11 204 (7.00%) Service Management
12 197 (6.76%) High Availability
13 193 (6.63%) Change Management
14 176 (6.04%) Disaster Recovery
15 175 (6.01%) Cybersecurity
16 160 (5.49%) Infrastructure as Code
17 153 (5.25%) SIEM
18 151 (5.18%) Stakeholder Management
19 143 (4.91%) Service Delivery
20 138 (4.74%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 624 (21.42%) PowerShell
2 298 (10.23%) Python
3 273 (9.37%) SQL
4 123 (4.22%) C#
5 115 (3.95%) Bash
6 72 (2.47%) Java
7 66 (2.27%) JavaScript
8 53 (1.82%) PL/SQL
9 49 (1.68%) C++
10 45 (1.54%) T-SQL
11 31 (1.06%) Perl
12 25 (0.86%) Kusto Query Language
13 24 (0.82%) Shell Script
13 24 (0.82%) VB
14 23 (0.79%) Search Processing Language
15 19 (0.65%) VBScript
16 18 (0.62%) Bicep
17 13 (0.45%) C
17 13 (0.45%) VBA
18 11 (0.38%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 836 (28.70%) Security Cleared
2 546 (18.74%) SC Cleared
3 310 (10.64%) Degree
4 260 (8.93%) DV Cleared
5 113 (3.88%) Microsoft Certification
6 95 (3.26%) Cisco Certification
7 88 (3.02%) Computer Science Degree
8 68 (2.33%) CISSP
9 55 (1.89%) Azure Certification
10 51 (1.75%) MCSE
11 45 (1.54%) AWS Certification
11 45 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
12 42 (1.44%) CCNA
13 39 (1.34%) CompTIA Security+
14 34 (1.17%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 31 (1.06%) CCNP
16 30 (1.03%) MCSA
17 28 (0.96%) CISM
18 27 (0.93%) ITIL Certification
19 22 (0.76%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 125 (4.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 114 (3.91%) SLA
3 92 (3.16%) NIST
4 82 (2.81%) QA
5 69 (2.37%) GDPR
6 38 (1.30%) PCI DSS
7 31 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 26 (0.89%) Cyber Essentials
9 17 (0.58%) NCSC
10 13 (0.45%) Disclosure Scotland
11 12 (0.41%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.41%) PMO
11 12 (0.41%) SOC 2
12 11 (0.38%) HIPAA
13 10 (0.34%) FINRA
13 10 (0.34%) MiFID
13 10 (0.34%) NIST 800
14 9 (0.31%) GRC
15 6 (0.21%) Accessibility
15 6 (0.21%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 1,078 (37.01%) Active Directory
2 367 (12.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 157 (5.39%) Hyper-V
4 113 (3.88%) VMware ESXi
5 105 (3.60%) vSphere
6 95 (3.26%) Virtual Machines
7 92 (3.16%) Docker
8 65 (2.23%) Virtual Desktop
9 54 (1.85%) VMware NSX
10 39 (1.34%) Firmware
11 38 (1.30%) BitLocker
12 28 (0.96%) Microsoft App-V
13 20 (0.69%) KVM
14 11 (0.38%) Oracle RAC
14 11 (0.38%) vCloud
14 11 (0.38%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.34%) XenApp
16 8 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
17 6 (0.21%) Terminal Services
17 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 387 (13.29%) Microsoft Intune
2 254 (8.72%) SCCM
3 198 (6.80%) Ansible
4 173 (5.94%) Terraform
5 139 (4.77%) Kubernetes
6 86 (2.95%) vCenter Server
7 54 (1.85%) Single Sign-On
8 51 (1.75%) Jamf Pro
9 45 (1.54%) FortiGate
10 40 (1.37%) SCOM
11 38 (1.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 37 (1.27%) Progress Chef
12 37 (1.27%) WSUS
13 36 (1.24%) Grafana
14 33 (1.13%) Prometheus
15 27 (0.93%) Puppet
16 24 (0.82%) Nagios
17 21 (0.72%) ZABBIX
18 20 (0.69%) Tivoli
18 20 (0.69%) vMotion
Vendors
1 1,244 (42.71%) Microsoft
2 472 (16.20%) VMware
3 261 (8.96%) ServiceNow
4 220 (7.55%) Cisco
5 192 (6.59%) Citrix
6 181 (6.21%) Oracle
7 154 (5.29%) Splunk
8 81 (2.78%) HP
9 76 (2.61%) SolarWinds
10 72 (2.47%) Dell
11 66 (2.27%) Red Hat
12 65 (2.23%) Apple
13 61 (2.09%) Google
14 59 (2.03%) F5
15 56 (1.92%) CyberArk
15 56 (1.92%) Remedy
16 54 (1.85%) Palo Alto
17 52 (1.79%) IBM
18 47 (1.61%) BeyondTrust
18 47 (1.61%) Juniper