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

6 months to
17 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -5 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,848 2,454 3,459
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.92% 8.35% 8.13%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.65% 59.90% 61.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,857 1,694 2,391
10th Percentile £162 £178 £163
25th Percentile £213 £230 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £416 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.12% +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - +3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 232 137 271
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.05 £11.80
25th Percentile £17.07 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.21 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.93% +4.56% -20.46%
75th Percentile £60.94 £25.00 £24.59
90th Percentile £74.97 £41.61 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £18.82 £17.50
% change year-on-year +36.93% +7.54% -13.04%

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 4,696 4,097 5,656
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.76% 13.95% 13.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,028 2,691 3,820
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £456 £467 £469
Median % change year-on-year -2.25% -0.53% -6.20%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £657 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £445 £447 £450
% change year-on-year -0.50% -0.61% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 325 178 392
10th Percentile £15.75 £15.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.53 £15.44
Median hourly rate £47.50 £22.53 £22.08
Median % change year-on-year +110.83% +2.06% -43.47%
75th Percentile £67.25 £56.88 £60.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.10 £21.90 £22.50
% change year-on-year +105.95% -2.67% -24.11%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -7 2,465 £415 -0.02% 987
UK excluding London -11 1,905 £400 - 911
London -25 756 £430 -4.44% 221
Work from Home -17 583 £475 +2.70% 433
South East -5 522 £469 -4.39% 302
North of England -11 456 £340 +4.62% 191
Midlands -18 269 £325 +30.00% 108
North West -1 257 £300 -7.69% 105
South West -14 225 £450 -14.29% 137
East of England -2 214 £350 +7.69% 99
Yorkshire -21 184 £375 +15.38% 66
Scotland +2 164 £425 -4.23% 57
West Midlands -27 158 £449 +67.66% 58
East Midlands +7 106 £225 +9.09% 50
Wales -1 51 £267 -22.61% 38
North East -27 19 £225 -25.00% 23
Northern Ireland -6 15 £175 -12.50% 9
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 (8.15%) Microsoft Exchange
2 166 (5.83%) SharePoint
3 57 (2.00%) IIS
4 51 (1.79%) Confluence
5 25 (0.88%) Apache
6 19 (0.67%) WebLogic
7 16 (0.56%) Tomcat
8 14 (0.49%) nginx
9 12 (0.42%) Skype for Business
9 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
10 11 (0.39%) SAS
11 9 (0.32%) NetWeaver
12 8 (0.28%) TPMS
13 7 (0.25%) WebSphere
14 6 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
15 5 (0.18%) HCL Notes
16 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
17 2 (0.070%) CloudStack
17 2 (0.070%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 185 (6.50%) Microsoft Office
2 65 (2.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.32%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.14%) Acrobat
8 2 (0.070%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 44 (1.54%) Remedy ITSM
2 19 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.39%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.18%) assyst
5 4 (0.14%) Finacle
6 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.070%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.035%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle 11i
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
1 810 (28.44%) Azure
2 793 (27.84%) Microsoft 365
3 332 (11.66%) Entra ID
4 251 (8.81%) AWS
5 86 (3.02%) OneDrive
6 75 (2.63%) GCP
7 74 (2.60%) Azure DevOps
7 74 (2.60%) SaaS
8 65 (2.28%) IaaS
9 60 (2.11%) GitHub
10 55 (1.93%) PaaS
11 50 (1.76%) Power Platform
12 40 (1.40%) Azure Monitor
13 37 (1.30%) OpenShift
14 36 (1.26%) Google Workspace
15 34 (1.19%) Azure Sentinel
16 28 (0.98%) GitHub Actions
17 20 (0.70%) Nutanix
18 19 (0.67%) AWS CloudFormation
18 19 (0.67%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 390 (13.69%) DNS
2 306 (10.74%) Firewall
3 264 (9.27%) DHCP
4 205 (7.20%) VPN
5 176 (6.18%) TCP/IP
6 175 (6.14%) WAN
7 172 (6.04%) LAN
8 140 (4.92%) Wi-Fi
9 76 (2.67%) SAN
10 72 (2.53%) Network Security
11 61 (2.14%) VLAN
12 45 (1.58%) SD-WAN
13 43 (1.51%) Wireless
14 39 (1.37%) BGP
15 38 (1.33%) SNMP
16 36 (1.26%) NAS
16 36 (1.26%) Skype
16 36 (1.26%) SSL
17 35 (1.23%) OSPF
17 35 (1.23%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 212 (7.44%) SQL Server
2 49 (1.72%) Oracle Database
3 33 (1.16%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.05%) Power BI
5 29 (1.02%) MySQL
6 27 (0.95%) PostgreSQL
7 19 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
8 16 (0.56%) DB2
9 14 (0.49%) MongoDB
10 13 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
10 13 (0.46%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
12 9 (0.32%) GIS
12 9 (0.32%) SAP HANA
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.28%) Sybase ASE
14 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.25%) BigQuery
14 7 (0.25%) Oracle BI EE
14 7 (0.25%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 177 (6.21%) JIRA
2 52 (1.83%) GitLab
3 50 (1.76%) Jenkins
4 45 (1.58%) MSI
5 42 (1.47%) Git
6 35 (1.23%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.70%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.63%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.39%) Sonatype Nexus
11 10 (0.35%) Artifactory
12 9 (0.32%) Android Studio
12 9 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
12 9 (0.32%) Chocolatey
12 9 (0.32%) Xcode
13 8 (0.28%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.28%) InstallShield
14 7 (0.25%) Robot Framework
14 7 (0.25%) Selenium
15 5 (0.18%) CircleCI
General
1 956 (33.57%) Social Skills
2 273 (9.59%) Finance
3 268 (9.41%) Analytical Skills
4 210 (7.37%) Public Sector
5 138 (4.85%) Banking
6 122 (4.28%) Legal
7 98 (3.44%) Documentation Skills
8 74 (2.60%) Organisational Skills
9 59 (2.07%) Military
10 48 (1.69%) Manufacturing
11 45 (1.58%) Retail
12 39 (1.37%) Law
13 38 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 35 (1.23%) Telecoms
15 31 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
16 30 (1.05%) Investment Banking
17 26 (0.91%) Front Office
18 20 (0.70%) Local Government
18 20 (0.70%) Police
19 16 (0.56%) French Language
Job Titles
1 358 (12.57%) IT Support
2 335 (11.76%) Support Engineer
3 317 (11.13%) Analyst
4 242 (8.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 217 (7.62%) IT Engineer
6 177 (6.21%) IT Support Engineer
7 170 (5.97%) Senior
8 157 (5.51%) Architect
9 121 (4.25%) Support Analyst
10 120 (4.21%) Desktop Support
11 101 (3.55%) Desktop Engineer
12 100 (3.51%) Lead
13 93 (3.27%) IT Analyst
14 92 (3.23%) 2nd Line Support
14 92 (3.23%) Developer
15 87 (3.05%) Technical Support
15 87 (3.05%) Windows Engineer
16 73 (2.56%) 1st Line Support
17 72 (2.53%) Service Analyst
18 71 (2.49%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (3.20%) REST
2 89 (3.13%) .NET
3 47 (1.65%) .NET Framework
4 45 (1.58%) LDAP
5 40 (1.40%) SAML
6 35 (1.23%) Kafka
7 32 (1.12%) Middleware
8 30 (1.05%) Microsoft Graph
9 28 (0.98%) OAuth
10 27 (0.95%) 802.1X
11 26 (0.91%) Web Services
11 26 (0.91%) WinForms
12 23 (0.81%) WPF
13 21 (0.74%) Elastic Stack
14 20 (0.70%) Node.js
14 20 (0.70%) React
14 20 (0.70%) Software Packaging
15 19 (0.67%) CSS
15 19 (0.67%) OpenID
16 18 (0.63%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 232 (8.15%) Onboarding
2 141 (4.95%) Data Centre
3 113 (3.97%) PKI
4 87 (3.05%) Enterprise Software
5 80 (2.81%) Clustering
6 67 (2.35%) Driving Licence
7 64 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
8 57 (2.00%) Replication
9 51 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
10 49 (1.72%) Management Information System
11 48 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
12 44 (1.54%) Security Posture
12 44 (1.54%) Smartphone
12 44 (1.54%) Virtual Team
13 39 (1.37%) Cloud Native
14 33 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
14 33 (1.16%) Security Operations Centre
15 32 (1.12%) Operational Technology
16 31 (1.09%) Enterprise Storage
17 30 (1.05%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 728 (25.56%) Linux
2 666 (23.38%) Windows Server
3 489 (17.17%) Windows 10
4 183 (6.43%) Mac OS
5 159 (5.58%) Unix
6 141 (4.95%) Android
7 135 (4.74%) Apple iOS
8 93 (3.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 73 (2.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 71 (2.49%) Windows Server 2016
11 50 (1.76%) Windows 7
12 34 (1.19%) AIX
13 33 (1.16%) Windows Server 2012
14 23 (0.81%) Ubuntu
15 20 (0.70%) Solaris
15 20 (0.70%) VMS
16 19 (0.67%) Windows Server 2003
17 15 (0.53%) Windows Server 2008
18 9 (0.32%) CentOS
18 9 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 598 (21.00%) Problem-Solving
2 432 (15.17%) Customer Service
3 418 (14.68%) ITIL
4 321 (11.27%) Migration
5 318 (11.17%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 281 (9.87%) Agile
7 256 (8.99%) ITSM
8 254 (8.92%) DevOps
9 239 (8.39%) CI/CD
10 189 (6.64%) Disaster Recovery
11 181 (6.36%) Cybersecurity
12 177 (6.21%) Change Management
12 177 (6.21%) Continuous Improvement
13 176 (6.18%) Service Management
14 175 (6.14%) High Availability
15 154 (5.41%) SIEM
16 134 (4.71%) Infrastructure as Code
16 134 (4.71%) Stakeholder Management
17 127 (4.46%) Computer Science
17 127 (4.46%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 602 (21.14%) PowerShell
2 297 (10.43%) Python
3 280 (9.83%) SQL
4 125 (4.39%) C#
5 105 (3.69%) Bash
6 76 (2.67%) Java
7 72 (2.53%) JavaScript
8 58 (2.04%) PL/SQL
9 49 (1.72%) C++
10 45 (1.58%) T-SQL
11 32 (1.12%) Perl
12 26 (0.91%) Kusto Query Language
13 24 (0.84%) Shell Script
13 24 (0.84%) VB
14 23 (0.81%) Search Processing Language
15 16 (0.56%) VBScript
16 15 (0.53%) Go
17 14 (0.49%) Bicep
17 14 (0.49%) VBA
18 12 (0.42%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 859 (30.16%) Security Cleared
2 553 (19.42%) SC Cleared
3 286 (10.04%) Degree
4 275 (9.66%) DV Cleared
5 103 (3.62%) Microsoft Certification
6 91 (3.20%) Computer Science Degree
7 86 (3.02%) Cisco Certification
8 50 (1.76%) CISSP
9 48 (1.69%) Azure Certification
10 45 (1.58%) BPSS Clearance
11 42 (1.47%) MCSE
12 37 (1.30%) CCNA
13 36 (1.26%) AWS Certification
14 35 (1.23%) CompTIA Security+
15 33 (1.16%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 30 (1.05%) ITIL Certification
17 28 (0.98%) A+ Certification
18 26 (0.91%) MCSA
19 25 (0.88%) CCNP
20 19 (0.67%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 116 (4.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 95 (3.34%) SLA
3 92 (3.23%) QA
4 87 (3.05%) GDPR
5 78 (2.74%) NIST
6 43 (1.51%) PCI DSS
7 31 (1.09%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 28 (0.98%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.56%) NCSC
10 15 (0.53%) PMO
11 12 (0.42%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.42%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.39%) Disclosure Scotland
12 11 (0.39%) MiFID
13 10 (0.35%) FINRA
14 8 (0.28%) GLBA
14 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
15 7 (0.25%) DICOM
15 7 (0.25%) GRC
15 7 (0.25%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,048 (36.80%) Active Directory
2 343 (12.04%) VMware Infrastructure
3 154 (5.41%) Hyper-V
4 95 (3.34%) Docker
5 93 (3.27%) vSphere
6 92 (3.23%) VMware ESXi
7 79 (2.77%) Virtual Machines
8 59 (2.07%) Virtual Desktop
9 46 (1.62%) VMware NSX
10 36 (1.26%) Firmware
11 29 (1.02%) BitLocker
12 27 (0.95%) Microsoft App-V
13 21 (0.74%) KVM
14 11 (0.39%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
15 10 (0.35%) XenApp
16 7 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
17 6 (0.21%) etcd
17 6 (0.21%) vCloud
17 6 (0.21%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 352 (12.36%) Microsoft Intune
2 264 (9.27%) SCCM
3 193 (6.78%) Ansible
4 160 (5.62%) Terraform
5 144 (5.06%) Kubernetes
6 75 (2.63%) vCenter Server
7 59 (2.07%) Single Sign-On
8 48 (1.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 42 (1.47%) Jamf Pro
9 42 (1.47%) WSUS
10 40 (1.40%) Grafana
11 39 (1.37%) FortiGate
12 32 (1.12%) Prometheus
13 31 (1.09%) SCOM
14 28 (0.98%) Nagios
15 23 (0.81%) Nessus
16 21 (0.74%) Progress Chef
17 20 (0.70%) ZABBIX
18 19 (0.67%) Puppet
18 19 (0.67%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 1,200 (42.13%) Microsoft
2 451 (15.84%) VMware
3 242 (8.50%) ServiceNow
4 206 (7.23%) Cisco
5 203 (7.13%) Citrix
6 176 (6.18%) Oracle
7 162 (5.69%) Splunk
8 83 (2.91%) HP
9 75 (2.63%) SolarWinds
10 70 (2.46%) Dell
11 60 (2.11%) Apple
12 59 (2.07%) Red Hat
13 57 (2.00%) Remedy
14 55 (1.93%) F5
14 55 (1.93%) Palo Alto
15 54 (1.90%) IBM
16 46 (1.62%) CyberArk
16 46 (1.62%) Google
17 41 (1.44%) Juniper
18 40 (1.40%) BeyondTrust