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

6 months to
4 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,812 2,407 3,584
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.96% 8.22% 8.31%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.64% 58.61% 62.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,855 1,668 2,467
10th Percentile £162 £180 £163
25th Percentile £213 £242 £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 £400 £400 £400
Number of hourly rates quoted 223 134 276
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.15 £11.90
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.63% +4.56% -20.00%
75th Percentile £63.75 £25.11 £25.00
90th Percentile £74.94 £60.78 £63.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.26 £18.82 £17.50
% change year-on-year +34.22% +7.54% -12.50%

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 4,637 4,107 5,765
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.83% 14.02% 13.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,008 2,706 3,887
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £319 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £470
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +1.06% -6.93%
75th Percentile £575 £589 £588
90th Percentile £655 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £430 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -4.44% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 318 184 394
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.15 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.74 £18.10 £15.50
Median hourly rate £45.10 £24.09 £22.08
Median % change year-on-year +87.22% +9.13% -43.40%
75th Percentile £67.25 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £22.88 £22.50
% change year-on-year +107.65% +1.67% -25.00%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 2,444 £415 -0.14% 1,002
UK excluding London -11 1,858 £400 - 906
London -24 765 £439 -0.28% 230
Work from Home -13 568 £475 - 358
South East -6 500 £475 -5.00% 305
North of England -13 454 £328 +0.77% 201
Midlands -16 275 £325 +21.50% 108
North West -4 256 £263 -25.00% 109
South West -14 223 £453 -13.67% 137
East of England +3 205 £350 +55.21% 107
Yorkshire -23 183 £365 +12.31% 72
West Midlands -26 158 £450 +63.64% 58
Scotland +1 149 £425 -2.86% 39
East Midlands +6 112 £220 +6.67% 50
Wales 0 50 £254 -30.41% 36
North East -27 19 £188 -27.88% 26
Northern Ireland -5 14 £175 -12.50% 10
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
1 234 (8.32%) Microsoft Exchange
2 154 (5.48%) SharePoint
3 54 (1.92%) IIS
4 49 (1.74%) Confluence
5 22 (0.78%) Apache
6 19 (0.68%) WebLogic
7 14 (0.50%) Tomcat
8 13 (0.46%) nginx
9 12 (0.43%) Tuxedo
10 11 (0.39%) SAS
11 10 (0.36%) Skype for Business
12 9 (0.32%) TPMS
13 7 (0.25%) WebSphere
14 6 (0.21%) NetWeaver
15 5 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
16 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
17 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
17 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
18 2 (0.071%) Oracle SOA Suite
18 2 (0.071%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 188 (6.69%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (0.89%) 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 (0.071%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.036%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 42 (1.49%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.50%) 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 (0.071%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.071%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.071%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.036%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.036%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.036%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 790 (28.09%) Microsoft 365
2 785 (27.92%) Azure
3 314 (11.17%) Entra ID
4 237 (8.43%) AWS
5 78 (2.77%) SaaS
6 77 (2.74%) GCP
7 76 (2.70%) OneDrive
8 73 (2.60%) Azure DevOps
9 61 (2.17%) IaaS
10 55 (1.96%) GitHub
11 53 (1.88%) PaaS
12 45 (1.60%) Power Platform
13 43 (1.53%) Google Workspace
14 40 (1.42%) Azure Monitor
15 31 (1.10%) Azure Sentinel
15 31 (1.10%) OpenShift
16 26 (0.92%) GitHub Actions
17 19 (0.68%) AWS CloudFormation
17 19 (0.68%) Azure AKS
18 18 (0.64%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 389 (13.83%) DNS
2 315 (11.20%) Firewall
3 260 (9.25%) DHCP
4 200 (7.11%) VPN
5 172 (6.12%) WAN
6 171 (6.08%) TCP/IP
7 168 (5.97%) LAN
8 141 (5.01%) Wi-Fi
9 75 (2.67%) Network Security
10 70 (2.49%) SAN
11 60 (2.13%) VLAN
12 47 (1.67%) Wireless
13 44 (1.56%) SD-WAN
14 39 (1.39%) BGP
15 37 (1.32%) SSL
16 35 (1.24%) OSPF
16 35 (1.24%) VoIP
17 34 (1.21%) Skype
18 33 (1.17%) SNMP
19 32 (1.14%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 203 (7.22%) SQL Server
2 54 (1.92%) Oracle Database
3 34 (1.21%) Relational Database
4 29 (1.03%) MySQL
5 25 (0.89%) PostgreSQL
6 24 (0.85%) Power BI
7 19 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.53%) DB2
9 13 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
9 13 (0.46%) MongoDB
10 12 (0.43%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
12 8 (0.28%) GIS
12 8 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
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
1 171 (6.08%) JIRA
2 56 (1.99%) GitLab
3 53 (1.88%) Jenkins
4 50 (1.78%) Git
5 46 (1.64%) MSI
6 34 (1.21%) Visual Studio
7 21 (0.75%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.64%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
10 12 (0.43%) Artifactory
11 11 (0.39%) Android Studio
11 11 (0.39%) Chocolatey
11 11 (0.39%) Sonatype Nexus
12 10 (0.36%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.36%) 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
1 973 (34.60%) Social Skills
2 274 (9.74%) Finance
3 260 (9.25%) Analytical Skills
4 219 (7.79%) Public Sector
5 144 (5.12%) Banking
6 125 (4.45%) Legal
7 105 (3.73%) Documentation Skills
8 71 (2.52%) Organisational Skills
9 63 (2.24%) Military
10 42 (1.49%) Manufacturing
11 39 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 38 (1.35%) Retail
13 37 (1.32%) Law
13 37 (1.32%) Telecoms
14 36 (1.28%) Presentation Skills
15 29 (1.03%) Investment Banking
16 28 (1.00%) Front Office
17 20 (0.71%) Local Government
17 20 (0.71%) Police
18 17 (0.60%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 348 (12.38%) IT Support
2 324 (11.52%) Support Engineer
3 314 (11.17%) Analyst
4 228 (8.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 207 (7.36%) IT Engineer
6 177 (6.29%) Senior
7 174 (6.19%) Architect
8 168 (5.97%) IT Support Engineer
9 122 (4.34%) Desktop Support
10 120 (4.27%) Support Analyst
11 103 (3.66%) Developer
12 101 (3.59%) Desktop Engineer
13 97 (3.45%) Windows Engineer
14 93 (3.31%) Lead
15 91 (3.24%) IT Analyst
16 89 (3.17%) Technical Support
17 86 (3.06%) 2nd Line Support
18 73 (2.60%) 1st Line Support
19 71 (2.52%) Service Analyst
20 68 (2.42%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (3.38%) .NET
2 86 (3.06%) REST
3 53 (1.88%) .NET Framework
4 42 (1.49%) LDAP
5 41 (1.46%) SAML
6 36 (1.28%) Kafka
6 36 (1.28%) Middleware
7 29 (1.03%) OAuth
8 28 (1.00%) Microsoft Graph
8 28 (1.00%) WinForms
8 28 (1.00%) WPF
9 27 (0.96%) 802.1X
9 27 (0.96%) Web Services
10 21 (0.75%) Node.js
11 20 (0.71%) OpenID
12 19 (0.68%) CSS
12 19 (0.68%) Elastic Stack
12 19 (0.68%) React
12 19 (0.68%) Software Packaging
13 17 (0.60%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 226 (8.04%) Onboarding
2 133 (4.73%) Data Centre
3 108 (3.84%) PKI
4 89 (3.17%) Enterprise Software
5 77 (2.74%) Clustering
6 75 (2.67%) Driving Licence
7 67 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
8 59 (2.10%) Replication
9 49 (1.74%) Legacy Systems
10 47 (1.67%) Hybrid Cloud
11 45 (1.60%) Management Information System
12 44 (1.56%) Security Posture
12 44 (1.56%) Smartphone
13 40 (1.42%) Virtual Team
14 34 (1.21%) Cloud Native
15 32 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
16 31 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
16 31 (1.10%) Security Operations Centre
17 29 (1.03%) CMDB
17 29 (1.03%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 712 (25.32%) Linux
2 653 (23.22%) Windows Server
3 493 (17.53%) Windows 10
4 170 (6.05%) Mac OS
5 150 (5.33%) Unix
6 145 (5.16%) Android
7 122 (4.34%) Apple iOS
8 93 (3.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 75 (2.67%) Windows Server 2016
10 72 (2.56%) Windows Server 2019
11 48 (1.71%) Windows 7
12 37 (1.32%) Windows Server 2012
13 35 (1.24%) AIX
14 21 (0.75%) Ubuntu
15 20 (0.71%) VMS
16 18 (0.64%) Solaris
16 18 (0.64%) Windows Server 2003
17 13 (0.46%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.36%) CentOS
19 9 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 587 (20.87%) Problem-Solving
2 435 (15.47%) Customer Service
3 406 (14.44%) ITIL
4 323 (11.49%) Migration
5 302 (10.74%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 292 (10.38%) Agile
7 253 (9.00%) DevOps
8 239 (8.50%) CI/CD
9 232 (8.25%) ITSM
10 185 (6.58%) Cybersecurity
10 185 (6.58%) Disaster Recovery
11 175 (6.22%) Service Management
12 174 (6.19%) Change Management
12 174 (6.19%) Continuous Improvement
13 164 (5.83%) High Availability
14 148 (5.26%) SIEM
15 133 (4.73%) Stakeholder Management
16 132 (4.69%) Infrastructure as Code
17 126 (4.48%) Computer Science
18 120 (4.27%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 595 (21.16%) PowerShell
2 287 (10.21%) Python
3 271 (9.64%) SQL
4 134 (4.77%) C#
5 102 (3.63%) Bash
6 80 (2.84%) Java
7 72 (2.56%) JavaScript
8 62 (2.20%) PL/SQL
9 51 (1.81%) C++
10 45 (1.60%) T-SQL
11 34 (1.21%) Perl
12 27 (0.96%) Kusto Query Language
13 23 (0.82%) Shell Script
14 22 (0.78%) Search Processing Language
14 22 (0.78%) VB
15 17 (0.60%) VBScript
16 14 (0.50%) Go
16 14 (0.50%) VBA
17 12 (0.43%) Bicep
17 12 (0.43%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 863 (30.69%) Security Cleared
2 570 (20.27%) SC Cleared
3 277 (9.85%) Degree
4 264 (9.39%) DV Cleared
5 108 (3.84%) Microsoft Certification
6 88 (3.13%) Computer Science Degree
7 74 (2.63%) Cisco Certification
8 45 (1.60%) Azure Certification
8 45 (1.60%) MCSE
9 44 (1.56%) CISSP
10 43 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
11 36 (1.28%) CompTIA Security+
12 34 (1.21%) CCNA
13 33 (1.17%) ITIL Certification
14 32 (1.14%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 31 (1.10%) AWS Certification
16 28 (1.00%) MCSA
17 27 (0.96%) A+ Certification
18 18 (0.64%) CompTIA CySA+
19 17 (0.60%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (3.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 90 (3.20%) QA
3 88 (3.13%) GDPR
3 88 (3.13%) SLA
4 74 (2.63%) NIST
5 43 (1.53%) PCI DSS
6 30 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 27 (0.96%) Cyber Essentials
8 17 (0.60%) NCSC
9 15 (0.53%) PMO
10 12 (0.43%) NIST 800
11 11 (0.39%) Data Quality
11 11 (0.39%) MiFID
12 10 (0.36%) Disclosure Scotland
12 10 (0.36%) FINRA
13 9 (0.32%) GLBA
14 7 (0.25%) DICOM
15 6 (0.21%) GRC
15 6 (0.21%) HL7
15 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,042 (37.06%) Active Directory
2 331 (11.77%) VMware Infrastructure
3 150 (5.33%) Hyper-V
4 88 (3.13%) vSphere
5 86 (3.06%) Docker
6 84 (2.99%) VMware ESXi
7 77 (2.74%) Virtual Machines
8 53 (1.88%) Virtual Desktop
9 38 (1.35%) Firmware
9 38 (1.35%) VMware NSX
10 31 (1.10%) BitLocker
11 25 (0.89%) Microsoft App-V
12 22 (0.78%) KVM
13 12 (0.43%) XenApp
13 12 (0.43%) XenDesktop
14 10 (0.36%) 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
1 357 (12.70%) Microsoft Intune
2 285 (10.14%) SCCM
3 184 (6.54%) Ansible
4 167 (5.94%) Terraform
5 132 (4.69%) Kubernetes
6 68 (2.42%) vCenter Server
7 63 (2.24%) Single Sign-On
8 49 (1.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 44 (1.56%) WSUS
10 38 (1.35%) Grafana
10 38 (1.35%) Jamf Pro
11 37 (1.32%) FortiGate
12 31 (1.10%) Prometheus
13 27 (0.96%) Nagios
14 25 (0.89%) SCOM
15 23 (0.82%) Nessus
16 21 (0.75%) Progress Chef
17 20 (0.71%) ZABBIX
18 19 (0.68%) Tivoli
19 18 (0.64%) Netcool
Vendors
1 1,198 (42.60%) Microsoft
2 433 (15.40%) VMware
3 219 (7.79%) ServiceNow
4 208 (7.40%) Citrix
5 195 (6.93%) Cisco
6 179 (6.37%) Oracle
7 154 (5.48%) Splunk
8 86 (3.06%) HP
9 72 (2.56%) Dell
10 68 (2.42%) SolarWinds
11 56 (1.99%) Red Hat
12 55 (1.96%) Apple
12 55 (1.96%) IBM
12 55 (1.96%) Remedy
13 52 (1.85%) Google
14 48 (1.71%) F5
15 47 (1.67%) CyberArk
15 47 (1.67%) Palo Alto
16 39 (1.39%) Juniper
17 38 (1.35%) Veeam