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

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -5 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,936 2,524 3,553
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.81% 8.46% 8.10%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.09% 60.48% 60.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,886 1,713 2,398
10th Percentile £163 £181 £165
25th Percentile £222 £243 £228
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.56%
75th Percentile £558 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £414 £400 £425
% change year-on-year +3.44% -5.88% +9.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 248 178 287
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.12 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.44 £16.95 £14.27
Median hourly rate £25.51 £18.87 £18.27
Median % change year-on-year +35.16% +3.28% -25.79%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £27.88
90th Percentile £68.60 £60.98 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.82 £17.72
% change year-on-year +36.82% +6.21% -21.09%

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 4,806 4,173 5,870
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.51% 13.99% 13.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,069 2,723 3,863
10th Percentile £190 £200 £188
25th Percentile £316 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.43% -2.21% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £581 £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 332 212 424
10th Percentile £14.60 £15.35 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.44 £16.00
Median hourly rate £30.24 £20.64 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +46.51% -14.64% -49.09%
75th Percentile £64.06 £38.44 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.20 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £18.87 £25.25
% change year-on-year +48.38% -25.27% -37.02%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -8 2,558 £425 - 870
UK excluding London -14 1,947 £414 +3.44% 824
London -23 819 £425 -2.86% 179
Work from Home -12 626 £475 +0.53% 299
South East -8 519 £475 -3.11% 268
North of England -9 465 £365 +3.11% 174
Midlands -12 277 £325 +17.12% 114
South West -12 246 £480 -1.54% 143
North West -6 245 £350 -4.89% 103
East of England -1 215 £338 -10.89% 83
Yorkshire -15 202 £365 -9.32% 50
Scotland -4 176 £425 -1.62% 25
West Midlands -23 170 £450 +50.00% 51
East Midlands +7 102 £225 +12.50% 63
Wales +3 47 £375 +36.36% 24
North East -39 22 £326 +13.48% 24
Northern Ireland -6 14 £139 -30.75% 24
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 (7.90%) Microsoft Exchange
2 191 (6.51%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.04%) IIS
4 58 (1.98%) Confluence
5 19 (0.65%) Apache
5 19 (0.65%) Tomcat
6 16 (0.54%) nginx
7 14 (0.48%) Skype for Business
8 10 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
8 10 (0.34%) WebLogic
9 9 (0.31%) NetWeaver
10 8 (0.27%) HCL Notes
11 7 (0.24%) SAS
12 6 (0.20%) Appian
12 6 (0.20%) TPMS
13 5 (0.17%) WebSphere
14 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.14%) Camunda
15 3 (0.10%) Documentum
15 3 (0.10%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 183 (6.23%) Microsoft Office
2 66 (2.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 23 (0.78%) 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 (0.068%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.034%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 44 (1.50%) Remedy ITSM
2 18 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.41%) Teamcenter
4 7 (0.24%) Finacle
5 4 (0.14%) OpenText MBPM
5 4 (0.14%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.10%) assyst
6 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.068%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.068%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.068%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.034%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.034%) Dynamics GP
8 1 (0.034%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.034%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.034%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 891 (30.35%) Azure
2 816 (27.79%) Microsoft 365
3 378 (12.87%) Entra ID
4 292 (9.95%) AWS
5 114 (3.88%) OneDrive
6 90 (3.07%) GCP
7 79 (2.69%) Azure DevOps
8 75 (2.55%) SaaS
9 67 (2.28%) GitHub
10 64 (2.18%) IaaS
11 59 (2.01%) Power Platform
12 53 (1.81%) PaaS
13 45 (1.53%) Azure Monitor
14 39 (1.33%) OpenShift
15 38 (1.29%) Azure Sentinel
16 31 (1.06%) Google Workspace
17 29 (0.99%) GitHub Actions
18 21 (0.72%) Microsoft Purview
18 21 (0.72%) Nutanix
19 20 (0.68%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 400 (13.62%) DNS
2 306 (10.42%) Firewall
3 282 (9.60%) DHCP
4 219 (7.46%) VPN
5 186 (6.34%) WAN
6 178 (6.06%) TCP/IP
7 176 (5.99%) LAN
8 147 (5.01%) Wi-Fi
9 89 (3.03%) SAN
10 67 (2.28%) Network Security
11 58 (1.98%) VLAN
12 46 (1.57%) SD-WAN
13 45 (1.53%) BGP
14 43 (1.46%) SSL
15 41 (1.40%) NAS
16 39 (1.33%) Internet
17 37 (1.26%) SNMP
18 36 (1.23%) Wireless
19 35 (1.19%) OSPF
19 35 (1.19%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 243 (8.28%) SQL Server
2 56 (1.91%) Oracle Database
3 37 (1.26%) Power BI
4 27 (0.92%) PostgreSQL
4 27 (0.92%) Relational Database
5 25 (0.85%) MySQL
6 19 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
7 16 (0.54%) Data Warehouse
8 15 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
8 15 (0.51%) Db2
8 15 (0.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 13 (0.44%) NoSQL
10 11 (0.37%) 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%) Sybase ASE
14 7 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 184 (6.27%) JIRA
2 54 (1.84%) Git
3 53 (1.81%) Jenkins
4 44 (1.50%) GitLab
5 43 (1.46%) MSI
6 39 (1.33%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.58%) 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%) Bitbucket
11 6 (0.20%) Android Studio
11 6 (0.20%) Artifactory
11 6 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
11 6 (0.20%) InstallShield
11 6 (0.20%) Xcode
12 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.17%) Maven
12 5 (0.17%) Selenium
General
1 1,003 (34.16%) Social Skills
2 317 (10.80%) Analytical Skills
3 313 (10.66%) Finance
4 202 (6.88%) Public Sector
5 150 (5.11%) Banking
6 116 (3.95%) Legal
7 104 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
8 77 (2.62%) Organisational Skills
9 57 (1.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 53 (1.81%) Retail
11 49 (1.67%) Military
12 43 (1.46%) Manufacturing
13 38 (1.29%) Investment Banking
14 33 (1.12%) Law
15 32 (1.09%) Front Office
16 30 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
17 27 (0.92%) Telecoms
18 25 (0.85%) Spanish Language
19 23 (0.78%) French Language
20 18 (0.61%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 379 (12.91%) Support Engineer
2 367 (12.50%) IT Support
3 297 (10.12%) Analyst
4 269 (9.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 245 (8.34%) IT Engineer
6 203 (6.91%) IT Support Engineer
7 181 (6.16%) Senior
8 151 (5.14%) Architect
9 122 (4.16%) Desktop Support
10 112 (3.81%) Desktop Engineer
11 109 (3.71%) Support Analyst
12 101 (3.44%) 2nd Line Support
13 98 (3.34%) Developer
13 98 (3.34%) Lead
14 91 (3.10%) IT Analyst
15 90 (3.07%) Windows Engineer
16 86 (2.93%) Consultant
17 83 (2.83%) Technical Support
18 78 (2.66%) Cloud Engineer
19 75 (2.55%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (3.44%) .NET
2 96 (3.27%) REST
3 58 (1.98%) .NET Framework
4 41 (1.40%) LDAP
5 35 (1.19%) Microsoft Graph
5 35 (1.19%) SAML
6 30 (1.02%) 802.1X
6 30 (1.02%) Middleware
7 27 (0.92%) Kafka
7 27 (0.92%) Software Packaging
7 27 (0.92%) Web Services
8 26 (0.89%) WinForms
8 26 (0.89%) WPF
9 25 (0.85%) OAuth
10 22 (0.75%) Elastic Stack
11 20 (0.68%) CSS
12 17 (0.58%) JSON
12 17 (0.58%) Node.js
12 17 (0.58%) RESTful
13 16 (0.54%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 270 (9.20%) Onboarding
2 161 (5.48%) Data Centre
3 127 (4.33%) PKI
4 88 (3.00%) Enterprise Software
5 73 (2.49%) Clustering
6 70 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
7 65 (2.21%) Management Information System
8 61 (2.08%) Driving Licence
9 60 (2.04%) Cloud Native
10 56 (1.91%) Replication
11 55 (1.87%) Legacy Systems
11 55 (1.87%) Security Posture
12 53 (1.81%) Hybrid Cloud
13 51 (1.74%) Virtual Team
14 39 (1.33%) Data Protection Act
15 37 (1.26%) Smartphone
16 35 (1.19%) CMDB
17 32 (1.09%) Operational Technology
18 31 (1.06%) Enterprise Storage
18 31 (1.06%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 732 (24.93%) Linux
2 703 (23.94%) Windows Server
3 482 (16.42%) Windows 10
4 181 (6.16%) Mac OS
5 155 (5.28%) Unix
6 140 (4.77%) Apple iOS
7 136 (4.63%) Android
8 105 (3.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 78 (2.66%) Windows Server 2019
10 62 (2.11%) Windows Server 2016
11 52 (1.77%) Windows 7
12 38 (1.29%) Windows Server 2012
13 33 (1.12%) AIX
14 28 (0.95%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.82%) Solaris
16 21 (0.72%) VMS
17 17 (0.58%) Windows Server 2003
17 17 (0.58%) Windows Server 2008
18 13 (0.44%) CentOS
19 9 (0.31%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 638 (21.73%) Problem-Solving
2 444 (15.12%) ITIL
3 423 (14.41%) Customer Service
4 349 (11.89%) Migration
5 345 (11.75%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 302 (10.29%) ITSM
7 277 (9.43%) Agile
8 276 (9.40%) DevOps
9 254 (8.65%) CI/CD
10 213 (7.25%) Continuous Improvement
11 202 (6.88%) Service Management
12 201 (6.85%) High Availability
13 199 (6.78%) Change Management
14 174 (5.93%) Disaster Recovery
15 168 (5.72%) Cybersecurity
16 166 (5.65%) Infrastructure as Code
17 150 (5.11%) Stakeholder Management
18 148 (5.04%) Service Delivery
19 145 (4.94%) SIEM
20 143 (4.87%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 627 (21.36%) PowerShell
2 300 (10.22%) Python
3 275 (9.37%) SQL
4 129 (4.39%) C#
5 114 (3.88%) Bash
6 70 (2.38%) Java
7 66 (2.25%) JavaScript
8 54 (1.84%) PL/SQL
9 50 (1.70%) C++
10 46 (1.57%) T-SQL
11 29 (0.99%) Perl
12 24 (0.82%) Kusto Query Language
12 24 (0.82%) VB
13 23 (0.78%) Search Processing Language
13 23 (0.78%) Shell Script
14 21 (0.72%) Bicep
15 20 (0.68%) VBScript
16 13 (0.44%) C
16 13 (0.44%) TypeScript
16 13 (0.44%) VBA
Qualifications
1 839 (28.58%) Security Cleared
2 546 (18.60%) SC Cleared
3 315 (10.73%) Degree
4 257 (8.75%) DV Cleared
5 112 (3.81%) Microsoft Certification
6 96 (3.27%) Cisco Certification
7 83 (2.83%) Computer Science Degree
8 66 (2.25%) CISSP
9 56 (1.91%) Azure Certification
10 47 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
10 47 (1.60%) MCSE
11 45 (1.53%) AWS Certification
12 42 (1.43%) CCNA
13 32 (1.09%) CCNP
13 32 (1.09%) CompTIA Security+
14 30 (1.02%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 28 (0.95%) ITIL Certification
16 27 (0.92%) MCSA
17 26 (0.89%) CISM
18 23 (0.78%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 127 (4.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 116 (3.95%) SLA
3 93 (3.17%) NIST
4 84 (2.86%) QA
5 69 (2.35%) GDPR
6 38 (1.29%) PCI DSS
7 32 (1.09%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 26 (0.89%) Cyber Essentials
9 19 (0.65%) NCSC
10 13 (0.44%) Disclosure Scotland
10 13 (0.44%) PMO
11 12 (0.41%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.41%) SOC 2
12 11 (0.37%) HIPAA
13 10 (0.34%) FINRA
13 10 (0.34%) MiFID
13 10 (0.34%) NIST 800
14 9 (0.31%) GRC
15 8 (0.27%) Accessibility
16 6 (0.20%) GLBA
System Software
1 1,095 (37.30%) Active Directory
2 369 (12.57%) VMware Infrastructure
3 156 (5.31%) Hyper-V
4 112 (3.81%) VMware ESXi
5 102 (3.47%) vSphere
6 93 (3.17%) Virtual Machines
7 92 (3.13%) Docker
8 66 (2.25%) Virtual Desktop
9 54 (1.84%) VMware NSX
10 40 (1.36%) Firmware
11 39 (1.33%) BitLocker
12 28 (0.95%) Microsoft App-V
13 20 (0.68%) KVM
14 11 (0.37%) Oracle RAC
14 11 (0.37%) vCloud
14 11 (0.37%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.34%) XenApp
16 8 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
17 6 (0.20%) etcd
17 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 391 (13.32%) Microsoft Intune
2 257 (8.75%) SCCM
3 197 (6.71%) Ansible
4 187 (6.37%) Terraform
5 139 (4.73%) Kubernetes
6 85 (2.90%) vCenter Server
7 55 (1.87%) Single Sign-On
8 50 (1.70%) Jamf Pro
9 47 (1.60%) FortiGate
10 40 (1.36%) SCOM
11 38 (1.29%) WSUS
12 37 (1.26%) Progress Chef
13 36 (1.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 34 (1.16%) Grafana
15 32 (1.09%) Prometheus
16 28 (0.95%) Puppet
17 24 (0.82%) Nagios
18 21 (0.72%) ZABBIX
19 20 (0.68%) Packer
19 20 (0.68%) vMotion
Vendors
1 1,250 (42.57%) Microsoft
2 473 (16.11%) VMware
3 262 (8.92%) ServiceNow
4 223 (7.60%) Cisco
5 196 (6.68%) Citrix
6 184 (6.27%) Oracle
7 144 (4.90%) Splunk
8 80 (2.72%) SolarWinds
9 77 (2.62%) HP
10 69 (2.35%) Dell
10 69 (2.35%) Red Hat
11 67 (2.28%) Apple
12 61 (2.08%) F5
13 60 (2.04%) Google
14 59 (2.01%) CyberArk
15 56 (1.91%) Remedy
16 54 (1.84%) Palo Alto
17 52 (1.77%) BeyondTrust
17 52 (1.77%) IBM
18 48 (1.63%) Juniper