Windows Contracts

Microsoft Windows
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Windows skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Windows over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 18 14
Rank change year-on-year -4 -4 +3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,399 3,632 5,875
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 8.21% 8.33% 9.84%
As % of the Operating Systems category 58.87% 62.49% 60.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,662 2,498 4,162
10th Percentile £180 £160 £163
25th Percentile £240 £213 £230
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £400 £450
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -11.11% +5.88%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - +23.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 128 277 300
10th Percentile £15.25 £11.92 £13.29
25th Percentile £16.95 £14.00 £16.50
Median hourly rate £18.82 £18.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.56% -20.00% +12.50%
75th Percentile £28.00 £25.28 £52.22
90th Percentile £63.40 £61.96 £67.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.82 £17.69 £20.00
% change year-on-year +6.39% -11.55% +6.81%

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 4,075 5,812 9,696
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.94% 13.33% 16.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,687 3,913 6,831
10th Percentile £200 £183 £190
25th Percentile £319 £300 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £468 £505
Median % change year-on-year +1.50% -7.33% +1.00%
75th Percentile £594 £588 £638
90th Percentile £699 £700 £719
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 177 397 416
10th Percentile £16.25 £12.75 £14.25
25th Percentile £18.13 £15.50 £17.75
Median hourly rate £24.18 £22.00 £39.30
Median % change year-on-year +9.91% -44.02% +74.67%
75th Percentile £62.50 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £22.00 £31.25
% change year-on-year +4.55% -29.60% +56.25%

Windows
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Windows as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Windows in the UK

Windows
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Windows.

Daily rate trend for Windows in the UK

Windows
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Windows over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Windows in the UK

Windows
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Windows.

Hourly rate trend for Windows in the UK

Windows
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Windows over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows in the UK

Windows
Top 18 Contract 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 30 April 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 -5 2,059 £415 +3.75% 1,775
UK excluding London +2 1,432 £400 - 1,349
London -3 793 £450 +12.50% 545
Work from Home +1 610 £463 +2.78% 904
South East -2 367 £500 +17.65% 357
North of England +1 334 £325 -7.14% 328
South West +5 220 £525 +6.06% 189
Midlands -5 187 £275 -21.43% 218
North West -1 185 £350 - 182
Scotland +5 167 £450 - 80
West Midlands 0 144 £285 -28.75% 119
Yorkshire +2 122 £325 - 109
East of England +6 111 £226 -23.39% 161
East Midlands -14 42 £206 +3.13% 98
Wales +3 32 £295 +2.61% 24
North East -2 27 £220 -47.99% 45
Northern Ireland +5 23 £200 -42.86% 29
Channel Islands - 2 £298 - 1

Windows
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 229 (9.55%) Microsoft Exchange
2 199 (8.30%) SharePoint
3 59 (2.46%) Confluence
4 53 (2.21%) IIS
5 23 (0.96%) JBoss
6 21 (0.88%) Skype for Business
7 20 (0.83%) CMS
8 18 (0.75%) Tomcat
9 16 (0.67%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 13 (0.54%) Apache
11 11 (0.46%) WebLogic
12 10 (0.42%) BizTalk Server
13 7 (0.29%) WebSphere
14 6 (0.25%) Jupyter
15 5 (0.21%) Exchange Server 2010
15 5 (0.21%) nginx
15 5 (0.21%) SharePoint Server
16 4 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2003
16 4 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2007
16 4 (0.17%) SharePoint 2010
Applications
1 295 (12.30%) Microsoft Office
2 73 (3.04%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.88%) MS Visio
5 11 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.17%) InfoPath
7 3 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.083%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.083%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.083%) ProjectWise
8 2 (0.083%) Trello
9 1 (0.042%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.042%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.042%) Final Cut Pro
9 1 (0.042%) Notion
9 1 (0.042%) QuarkXPress
9 1 (0.042%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 11 (0.46%) Remedy ITSM
2 6 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.21%) Dynamics GP
4 4 (0.17%) Sage X3
5 3 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.083%) Actimize
6 2 (0.083%) Alphatax
6 2 (0.083%) NEC Housing
6 2 (0.083%) Oracle 11i
6 2 (0.083%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.083%) Oracle Assets
6 2 (0.083%) Oracle Cash Management
6 2 (0.083%) Oracle EBS R12
6 2 (0.083%) Oracle E-Business Tax
6 2 (0.083%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.083%) Oracle Internet Expenses
6 2 (0.083%) Oracle iProcurement
6 2 (0.083%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.083%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.083%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 640 (26.68%) Azure
2 638 (26.59%) Microsoft 365
3 264 (11.00%) AWS
4 263 (10.96%) Entra ID
5 99 (4.13%) OneDrive
6 69 (2.88%) IaaS
7 61 (2.54%) GCP
8 54 (2.25%) OpenShift
9 50 (2.08%) SaaS
10 49 (2.04%) Azure DevOps
11 45 (1.88%) GitHub
11 45 (1.88%) Google Workspace
12 35 (1.46%) PaaS
13 32 (1.33%) Cloud Computing
14 31 (1.29%) Power Platform
15 28 (1.17%) Amazon S3
16 26 (1.08%) Amazon EC2
17 22 (0.92%) Nutanix
18 20 (0.83%) AWS CloudFormation
19 18 (0.75%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 320 (13.34%) DNS
2 240 (10.00%) Firewall
3 227 (9.46%) VPN
4 213 (8.88%) DHCP
5 114 (4.75%) TCP/IP
6 96 (4.00%) LAN
7 89 (3.71%) WAN
8 80 (3.33%) SAN
9 74 (3.08%) Network Security
10 72 (3.00%) Wi-Fi
11 56 (2.33%) Remote Desktop
12 48 (2.00%) VLAN
13 45 (1.88%) SMTP
14 40 (1.67%) NAS
15 39 (1.63%) HTTP
16 33 (1.38%) Skype
16 33 (1.38%) SSL
17 31 (1.29%) Internet
17 31 (1.29%) VoIP
18 30 (1.25%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 172 (7.17%) SQL Server
2 72 (3.00%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.33%) Elasticsearch
3 32 (1.33%) Relational Database
4 26 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
5 25 (1.04%) MongoDB
6 23 (0.96%) Big Data
7 22 (0.92%) PostgreSQL
8 19 (0.79%) MySQL
8 19 (0.79%) RDBMS
8 19 (0.79%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 15 (0.63%) KDB
9 15 (0.63%) Kdb+
9 15 (0.63%) Power BI
10 14 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
11 13 (0.54%) DB2
12 11 (0.46%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 8 (0.33%) Data Warehouse
13 8 (0.33%) Oracle Reports
14 7 (0.29%) MS Access
Development Applications
1 129 (5.38%) JIRA
2 114 (4.75%) Git
3 91 (3.79%) Jenkins
4 35 (1.46%) GitLab
5 31 (1.29%) Bitbucket
6 30 (1.25%) MSI
7 29 (1.21%) Visual Studio
8 21 (0.88%) Selenium
8 21 (0.88%) TeamCity
9 19 (0.79%) SonarQube
10 15 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (0.54%) Subversion
12 11 (0.46%) JMeter
12 11 (0.46%) LoadRunner
12 11 (0.46%) Maven
13 10 (0.42%) QARun
13 10 (0.42%) WinRunner
14 9 (0.38%) Bitbucket Server
14 9 (0.38%) CA Release Automation
15 8 (0.33%) Ant
General
1 841 (35.06%) Social Skills
2 440 (18.34%) Finance
3 231 (9.63%) Analytical Skills
4 224 (9.34%) Public Sector
5 188 (7.84%) Banking
6 92 (3.83%) Manufacturing
7 88 (3.67%) Telecoms
8 73 (3.04%) Legal
9 63 (2.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 63 (2.63%) Marketing
10 61 (2.54%) Electronics
11 56 (2.33%) Organisational Skills
12 53 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
13 52 (2.17%) Investment Banking
14 32 (1.33%) Law
15 25 (1.04%) Front Office
16 22 (0.92%) Presentation Skills
17 21 (0.88%) Military
18 19 (0.79%) Retail
19 18 (0.75%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 310 (12.92%) Support Engineer
2 260 (10.84%) Analyst
3 245 (10.21%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 183 (7.63%) Architect
5 155 (6.46%) Senior
6 154 (6.42%) IT Support
7 153 (6.38%) Windows Engineer
8 146 (6.09%) Desktop Engineer
9 139 (5.79%) IT Engineer
10 134 (5.59%) Desktop Support
11 131 (5.46%) Developer
12 101 (4.21%) 2nd Line Support
13 97 (4.04%) Desktop Support Engineer
14 89 (3.71%) Deployment Engineer
15 85 (3.54%) IT Support Engineer
16 80 (3.33%) Service Analyst
17 79 (3.29%) Service Desk Analyst
18 75 (3.13%) Support Analyst
19 74 (3.08%) 2nd Line Engineer
20 61 (2.54%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (4.46%) .NET
2 44 (1.83%) .NET Framework
3 35 (1.46%) WPF
4 33 (1.38%) Middleware
4 33 (1.38%) REST
5 32 (1.33%) Web Services
6 27 (1.13%) Kafka
6 27 (1.13%) LDAP
7 23 (0.96%) SOAP
8 18 (0.75%) HTML
9 17 (0.71%) ASP.NET
9 17 (0.71%) XML
10 15 (0.63%) CSS
10 15 (0.63%) Node.js
10 15 (0.63%) Software Packaging
11 14 (0.58%) Elastic Stack
11 14 (0.58%) WCF
12 13 (0.54%) WinForms
13 12 (0.50%) Spring Boot
14 11 (0.46%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 110 (4.59%) Data Centre
2 87 (3.63%) Onboarding
3 83 (3.46%) PKI
4 70 (2.92%) Management Information System
5 60 (2.50%) Self-Motivation
6 51 (2.13%) Clustering
7 47 (1.96%) Video Conferencing
8 45 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
8 45 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
9 42 (1.75%) Hybrid Cloud
10 39 (1.63%) Driving Licence
11 35 (1.46%) iPhone
11 35 (1.46%) Replication
12 33 (1.38%) Linux Command Line
13 31 (1.29%) Security Posture
14 30 (1.25%) Public Cloud
15 29 (1.21%) iPad
15 29 (1.21%) Product Ownership
16 27 (1.13%) NHS
17 25 (1.04%) Cloud Native
Operating Systems
1 641 (26.72%) Linux
2 622 (25.93%) Windows Server
3 517 (21.55%) Windows 10
4 134 (5.59%) Unix
5 116 (4.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 99 (4.13%) Windows Server 2016
7 98 (4.09%) Mac OS
8 90 (3.75%) Apple iOS
9 83 (3.46%) Windows Server 2019
10 69 (2.88%) Windows Server 2012
11 67 (2.79%) Android
12 66 (2.75%) Windows 7
13 30 (1.25%) Ubuntu
13 30 (1.25%) VMS
14 28 (1.17%) Windows Server 2003
15 25 (1.04%) CentOS
16 24 (1.00%) Solaris
17 23 (0.96%) AIX
18 16 (0.67%) Windows Server 2008
19 12 (0.50%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 541 (22.55%) Problem-Solving
2 369 (15.38%) ITIL
3 314 (13.09%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 274 (11.42%) Customer Service
5 268 (11.17%) Agile
6 255 (10.63%) Migration
7 233 (9.71%) DevOps
8 157 (6.54%) ITSM
9 153 (6.38%) Service Management
10 138 (5.75%) CI/CD
10 138 (5.75%) Cybersecurity
11 112 (4.67%) Disaster Recovery
12 103 (4.29%) Change Management
13 102 (4.25%) Time Management
14 99 (4.13%) High Availability
15 93 (3.88%) Incident Management
16 91 (3.79%) Test Automation
17 90 (3.75%) Project Management
17 90 (3.75%) Stakeholder Management
18 89 (3.71%) Configuration Management
Programming Languages
1 517 (21.55%) PowerShell
2 300 (12.51%) Python
3 270 (11.25%) SQL
4 136 (5.67%) Bash
5 133 (5.54%) C#
6 100 (4.17%) PL/SQL
7 93 (3.88%) Java
8 57 (2.38%) Perl
9 54 (2.25%) VB
10 50 (2.08%) C++
11 37 (1.54%) JavaScript
12 35 (1.46%) VBA
13 34 (1.42%) Shell Script
14 28 (1.17%) T-SQL
15 23 (0.96%) VBScript
16 17 (0.71%) VB.NET
17 16 (0.67%) C
17 16 (0.67%) Delphi
17 16 (0.67%) TypeScript
18 11 (0.46%) ActionScript
Qualifications
1 609 (25.39%) Security Cleared
2 430 (17.92%) SC Cleared
3 200 (8.34%) Degree
4 171 (7.13%) DV Cleared
5 139 (5.79%) Microsoft Certification
6 56 (2.33%) A+ Certification
6 56 (2.33%) Cisco Certification
7 42 (1.75%) Azure Certification
8 38 (1.58%) CISSP
9 37 (1.54%) DBS Check
10 36 (1.50%) MCSE
11 33 (1.38%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 28 (1.17%) ITIL Certification
13 27 (1.13%) AWS Certification
14 24 (1.00%) CCNA
15 20 (0.83%) CISM
15 20 (0.83%) MCP
16 17 (0.71%) CCNP
16 17 (0.71%) Computer Science Degree
17 15 (0.63%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 101 (4.21%) SLA
2 90 (3.75%) QA
3 29 (1.21%) GDPR
4 24 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 24 (1.00%) NIST
5 15 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
6 12 (0.50%) NCSC
7 10 (0.42%) Accessibility
8 9 (0.38%) Disclosure Scotland
9 8 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 6 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
10 6 (0.25%) PCI DSS
10 6 (0.25%) PMO
10 6 (0.25%) SOC 2
11 5 (0.21%) Data Quality
11 5 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 4 (0.17%) NIST 800
13 3 (0.13%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 3 (0.13%) SEPA
14 2 (0.083%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 924 (38.52%) Active Directory
2 287 (11.96%) VMware Infrastructure
3 131 (5.46%) Hyper-V
4 117 (4.88%) Docker
5 72 (3.00%) VMware ESXi
6 70 (2.92%) vSphere
7 51 (2.13%) Virtual Machines
8 48 (2.00%) Virtual Desktop
9 34 (1.42%) BitLocker
10 32 (1.33%) Microsoft App-V
11 23 (0.96%) Virtual Servers
12 19 (0.79%) VMware NSX
13 13 (0.54%) Terminal Services
14 11 (0.46%) NFS
14 11 (0.46%) XenApp
14 11 (0.46%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.42%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 8 (0.33%) Firmware
17 7 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
18 6 (0.25%) DFS Replication
Systems Management
1 307 (12.80%) Microsoft Intune
2 306 (12.76%) SCCM
3 172 (7.17%) Ansible
4 151 (6.29%) Kubernetes
5 132 (5.50%) Terraform
6 70 (2.92%) Puppet
7 64 (2.67%) vCenter Server
8 62 (2.58%) WSUS
9 48 (2.00%) Progress Chef
10 34 (1.42%) Jamf Pro
11 25 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
12 22 (0.92%) Microsoft Clustering
13 20 (0.83%) NetBackup
13 20 (0.83%) SCOM
14 18 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 18 (0.75%) Kibana
14 18 (0.75%) Nessus
15 17 (0.71%) Grafana
16 15 (0.63%) FortiGate
16 15 (0.63%) vMotion
Vendors
1 1,007 (41.98%) Microsoft
2 427 (17.80%) VMware
3 194 (8.09%) Oracle
4 169 (7.04%) ServiceNow
5 168 (7.00%) Cisco
6 134 (5.59%) Citrix
7 101 (4.21%) Red Hat
8 87 (3.63%) Apple
9 84 (3.50%) Dell
10 82 (3.42%) Google
11 79 (3.29%) HP
12 76 (3.17%) Splunk
13 70 (2.92%) SAP
14 50 (2.08%) IBM
15 43 (1.79%) CyberArk
16 40 (1.67%) SolarWinds
17 35 (1.46%) Symantec
18 33 (1.38%) Veritas
19 29 (1.21%) Palo Alto
20 28 (1.17%) Zscaler