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 18 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -3 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,920 2,602 3,847
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.20% 8.48% 8.67%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.27% 58.95% 62.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,994 1,692 2,586
10th Percentile £161 £181 £156
25th Percentile £204 £223 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £545 £565 £575
90th Percentile £643 £650 £668
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £375 £370
% change year-on-year -13.33% +1.35% -7.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 263 98 261
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.64 £18.13 £15.50
Median hourly rate £21.80 £22.94 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.96% +14.69% -9.09%
75th Percentile £41.94 £32.56 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.67 £66.13 £62.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.48 £22.50 £18.00
% change year-on-year -4.53% +25.00% -7.14%

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 4,845 4,414 6,192
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.95% 14.39% 13.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,205 2,765 4,139
10th Percentile £178 £200 £181
25th Percentile £263 £313 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £440 £470 £465
Median % change year-on-year -6.38% +1.08% -9.71%
75th Percentile £565 £588 £594
90th Percentile £675 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £409 £425 £425
% change year-on-year -3.87% - -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 341 150 390
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.24 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.94 £17.05
Median hourly rate £23.00 £29.00 £25.52
Median % change year-on-year -20.69% +13.64% -1.85%
75th Percentile £53.75 £64.69 £62.50
90th Percentile £69.99 £70.10 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £27.50 £25.25
% change year-on-year -18.18% +8.91% -2.88%

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 18 February 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 18 February 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 18 February 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 0 2,593 £400 - 1,064
UK excluding London -5 1,978 £325 -13.33% 1,008
London -17 766 £450 +12.50% 238
Work from Home -15 584 £425 -5.56% 346
South East -2 512 £403 -5.29% 373
North of England -7 475 £263 -25.00% 222
South West +2 313 £445 -5.32% 111
Midlands -7 293 £275 -15.38% 124
North West -6 265 £240 -31.43% 127
East of England +6 226 £225 -11.76% 116
Yorkshire -15 177 £325 -7.14% 83
West Midlands -16 177 £375 +15.38% 84
Scotland -7 122 £425 - 61
East Midlands +6 115 £225 -19.28% 39
Wales 0 48 £200 -20.00% 20
North East -5 36 £188 -41.41% 17
Northern Ireland -14 9 £163 -7.14% 3
Channel Islands +3 1 - - 3

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
1 250 (8.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 185 (6.34%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.16%) Confluence
4 45 (1.54%) IIS
5 36 (1.23%) Apache
6 22 (0.75%) WebLogic
7 17 (0.58%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.45%) nginx
8 13 (0.45%) TPMS
8 13 (0.45%) WebSphere
9 10 (0.34%) SAS
9 10 (0.34%) Tuxedo
10 9 (0.31%) JBoss
10 9 (0.31%) Tomcat
11 7 (0.24%) iPlanet
11 7 (0.24%) WebSphere Application Server
12 6 (0.21%) SharePoint Server
13 4 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2010
13 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.10%) CMS
Applications
1 264 (9.04%) Microsoft Office
2 81 (2.77%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (0.48%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.17%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
5 5 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.14%) Mozilla Thunderbird
7 2 (0.068%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.068%) Windchill
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.034%) InDesign
8 1 (0.034%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.034%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 29 (0.99%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.34%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.27%) Teamcenter
4 7 (0.24%) assyst
5 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
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
7 2 (0.068%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.068%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.068%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.034%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.034%) Eikon
8 1 (0.034%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.034%) Primavera
8 1 (0.034%) RMDS
8 1 (0.034%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 819 (28.05%) Microsoft 365
2 740 (25.34%) Azure
3 279 (9.55%) Entra ID
4 246 (8.42%) AWS
5 108 (3.70%) OneDrive
6 75 (2.57%) SaaS
7 71 (2.43%) GCP
8 55 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
8 55 (1.88%) Google Workspace
9 48 (1.64%) GitHub
10 44 (1.51%) IaaS
11 37 (1.27%) Power Platform
12 34 (1.16%) PaaS
13 28 (0.96%) Azure Sentinel
14 25 (0.86%) OpenShift
15 24 (0.82%) Azure Monitor
15 24 (0.82%) Nutanix
16 20 (0.68%) AWS CloudFormation
17 19 (0.65%) GitHub Actions
18 17 (0.58%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 397 (13.60%) DNS
2 319 (10.92%) Firewall
3 250 (8.56%) DHCP
4 204 (6.99%) TCP/IP
5 192 (6.58%) VPN
6 144 (4.93%) WAN
7 140 (4.79%) LAN
7 140 (4.79%) Wi-Fi
8 84 (2.88%) Network Security
9 72 (2.47%) VLAN
10 69 (2.36%) Wireless
11 49 (1.68%) HTTP
12 48 (1.64%) SSH
13 44 (1.51%) SAN
14 41 (1.40%) Skype
15 38 (1.30%) SSL
16 37 (1.27%) Kerberos
17 35 (1.20%) VoIP
18 31 (1.06%) SD-WAN
19 30 (1.03%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (4.90%) SQL Server
2 66 (2.26%) Oracle Database
3 49 (1.68%) Relational Database
4 41 (1.40%) MySQL
5 30 (1.03%) PostgreSQL
6 15 (0.51%) DB2
7 13 (0.45%) Power BI
8 12 (0.41%) BigQuery
8 12 (0.41%) GIS
8 12 (0.41%) NoSQL
9 11 (0.38%) Data Warehouse
9 11 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
9 11 (0.38%) MongoDB
9 11 (0.38%) Oracle Reports
10 9 (0.31%) Amazon RDS
11 7 (0.24%) Data Lake
12 6 (0.21%) Amazon Aurora
12 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 5 (0.17%) Oracle Database 10g
13 5 (0.17%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 159 (5.45%) JIRA
2 72 (2.47%) Git
3 71 (2.43%) Jenkins
4 60 (2.05%) GitLab
5 46 (1.58%) MSI
6 25 (0.86%) Visual Studio
7 24 (0.82%) Eclipse
8 20 (0.68%) Burp Suite
8 20 (0.68%) Metasploit
9 19 (0.65%) Android Studio
10 17 (0.58%) Xcode
11 16 (0.55%) Browser DevTools
12 15 (0.51%) Artifactory
13 13 (0.45%) Sonatype Nexus
14 11 (0.38%) InstallShield
15 8 (0.27%) Bitbucket
15 8 (0.27%) Chocolatey
16 7 (0.24%) AdminStudio
16 7 (0.24%) Bitbucket Server
16 7 (0.24%) CA Release Automation
General
1 1,069 (36.61%) Social Skills
2 300 (10.27%) Finance
3 259 (8.87%) Analytical Skills
4 256 (8.77%) Public Sector
5 132 (4.52%) Banking
6 125 (4.28%) Documentation Skills
7 117 (4.01%) Legal
8 89 (3.05%) Organisational Skills
9 64 (2.19%) Manufacturing
10 58 (1.99%) Military
11 43 (1.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 42 (1.44%) Presentation Skills
12 42 (1.44%) Telecoms
13 34 (1.16%) Retail
14 25 (0.86%) Aerospace
15 24 (0.82%) Marketing
16 22 (0.75%) Front Office
16 22 (0.75%) Investment Banking
17 21 (0.72%) Law
18 19 (0.65%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 414 (14.18%) Support Engineer
2 379 (12.98%) IT Support
3 376 (12.88%) Analyst
4 213 (7.29%) IT Engineer
5 190 (6.51%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 170 (5.82%) IT Support Engineer
7 169 (5.79%) Architect
8 156 (5.34%) Senior
9 155 (5.31%) Support Analyst
10 148 (5.07%) Desktop Support
11 130 (4.45%) Windows Engineer
12 128 (4.38%) Technical Support
13 124 (4.25%) 2nd Line Support
13 124 (4.25%) Desktop Engineer
14 110 (3.77%) Developer
15 101 (3.46%) Lead
16 98 (3.36%) Deployment Engineer
17 96 (3.29%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 87 (2.98%) IT Analyst
19 74 (2.53%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (2.74%) .NET
2 62 (2.12%) REST
3 61 (2.09%) LDAP
4 53 (1.82%) OAuth
5 51 (1.75%) SAML
6 45 (1.54%) .NET Framework
7 41 (1.40%) Middleware
8 35 (1.20%) React
9 33 (1.13%) OpenID
9 33 (1.13%) WPF
10 29 (0.99%) AngularJS
10 29 (0.99%) Kafka
11 27 (0.92%) CSS
12 25 (0.86%) Microsoft Graph
12 25 (0.86%) Web Services
13 21 (0.72%) OAuth2
13 21 (0.72%) WinForms
14 20 (0.68%) SOAP
15 18 (0.62%) Apache NiFi
15 18 (0.62%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 189 (6.47%) Onboarding
2 111 (3.80%) Data Centre
3 107 (3.66%) PKI
4 94 (3.22%) Driving Licence
5 84 (2.88%) Enterprise Software
6 66 (2.26%) Self-Motivation
7 60 (2.05%) Smartphone
8 56 (1.92%) Management Information System
9 52 (1.78%) Replication
10 48 (1.64%) Security Posture
11 41 (1.40%) Clustering
11 41 (1.40%) Hybrid Cloud
12 38 (1.30%) NHS
13 36 (1.23%) Legacy Systems
14 35 (1.20%) Security Operations Centre
15 33 (1.13%) Product Ownership
16 31 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
16 31 (1.06%) Data Protection Act
16 31 (1.06%) Virtual Team
17 30 (1.03%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 710 (24.32%) Linux
2 628 (21.51%) Windows 10
3 601 (20.58%) Windows Server
4 178 (6.10%) Unix
5 169 (5.79%) Mac OS
6 152 (5.21%) Android
7 121 (4.14%) Apple iOS
8 78 (2.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 71 (2.43%) Windows Server 2016
10 61 (2.09%) Windows Server 2019
11 54 (1.85%) Windows 7
12 41 (1.40%) Windows Server 2012
13 30 (1.03%) Windows Server 2003
14 29 (0.99%) AIX
15 19 (0.65%) Solaris
16 18 (0.62%) VMS
17 15 (0.51%) Ubuntu
18 13 (0.45%) Windows Server 2008
19 10 (0.34%) Mac OS X
20 6 (0.21%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 560 (19.18%) Problem-Solving
2 491 (16.82%) Customer Service
3 424 (14.52%) ITIL
4 314 (10.75%) Agile
5 295 (10.10%) Migration
6 272 (9.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 245 (8.39%) DevOps
8 236 (8.08%) Service Management
9 231 (7.91%) ITSM
10 223 (7.64%) Cybersecurity
11 215 (7.36%) CI/CD
12 202 (6.92%) Continuous Improvement
13 152 (5.21%) Change Management
14 145 (4.97%) Disaster Recovery
15 141 (4.83%) Service Delivery
16 137 (4.69%) Stakeholder Management
17 130 (4.45%) Computer Science
18 126 (4.32%) SIEM
19 124 (4.25%) User Experience
20 122 (4.18%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 561 (19.21%) PowerShell
2 333 (11.40%) Python
3 247 (8.46%) SQL
4 124 (4.25%) Bash
5 121 (4.14%) Java
6 115 (3.94%) C#
7 72 (2.47%) JavaScript
8 65 (2.23%) Perl
9 57 (1.95%) PL/SQL
10 56 (1.92%) C++
11 38 (1.30%) T-SQL
12 31 (1.06%) Kusto Query Language
13 30 (1.03%) Shell Script
14 29 (0.99%) VBScript
15 28 (0.96%) VB
16 24 (0.82%) VBA
17 15 (0.51%) Go
18 14 (0.48%) C
19 13 (0.45%) Bicep
19 13 (0.45%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 885 (30.31%) Security Cleared
2 571 (19.55%) SC Cleared
3 315 (10.79%) Degree
4 258 (8.84%) DV Cleared
5 162 (5.55%) Microsoft Certification
6 92 (3.15%) Computer Science Degree
7 61 (2.09%) Azure Certification
8 56 (1.92%) Cisco Certification
9 52 (1.78%) MCSE
10 46 (1.58%) ITIL Certification
11 41 (1.40%) A+ Certification
12 40 (1.37%) CISSP
13 36 (1.23%) BPSS Clearance
13 36 (1.23%) CompTIA Security+
14 33 (1.13%) CCNA
15 32 (1.10%) AWS Certification
16 28 (0.96%) CCNP
16 28 (0.96%) MCSA
17 26 (0.89%) Microsoft Certified Professional
18 23 (0.79%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 100 (3.42%) GDPR
2 95 (3.25%) SLA
3 82 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 70 (2.40%) QA
5 59 (2.02%) NIST
6 37 (1.27%) PCI DSS
7 25 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 19 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
9 14 (0.48%) PMO
10 13 (0.45%) GLBA
10 13 (0.45%) MiFID
11 10 (0.34%) FINRA
11 10 (0.34%) NCSC
12 7 (0.24%) COBIT
12 7 (0.24%) HIPAA
12 7 (0.24%) NIST 800
12 7 (0.24%) SOC 2
13 6 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
14 5 (0.17%) Accessibility
14 5 (0.17%) GxP
System Software
1 1,070 (36.64%) Active Directory
2 278 (9.52%) VMware Infrastructure
3 115 (3.94%) Docker
4 114 (3.90%) Hyper-V
5 67 (2.29%) Virtual Desktop
6 65 (2.23%) Virtual Machines
7 62 (2.12%) vSphere
8 50 (1.71%) VMware ESXi
9 34 (1.16%) VMware NSX
10 26 (0.89%) BitLocker
10 26 (0.89%) Microsoft App-V
11 19 (0.65%) Firmware
12 15 (0.51%) KVM
13 14 (0.48%) Virtual Servers
14 9 (0.31%) DFS Replication
14 9 (0.31%) XenApp
15 7 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
15 7 (0.24%) Terminal Services
15 7 (0.24%) XenDesktop
16 6 (0.21%) NFS
Systems Management
1 382 (13.08%) SCCM
2 351 (12.02%) Microsoft Intune
3 174 (5.96%) Terraform
4 156 (5.34%) Ansible
5 120 (4.11%) Kubernetes
6 85 (2.91%) Single Sign-On
7 73 (2.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 67 (2.29%) vCenter Server
9 52 (1.78%) Jamf Pro
10 44 (1.51%) Grafana
11 31 (1.06%) WSUS
12 30 (1.03%) Prometheus
13 27 (0.92%) FortiGate
13 27 (0.92%) SCOM
14 25 (0.86%) Nessus
15 19 (0.65%) Nmap
16 18 (0.62%) WMI
17 15 (0.51%) Progress Chef
18 12 (0.41%) CASB
18 12 (0.41%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,247 (42.71%) Microsoft
2 382 (13.08%) VMware
3 265 (9.08%) ServiceNow
4 198 (6.78%) Oracle
5 186 (6.37%) Citrix
6 184 (6.30%) Cisco
7 153 (5.24%) Splunk
8 74 (2.53%) Dell
9 73 (2.50%) Apple
10 72 (2.47%) HP
11 62 (2.12%) SolarWinds
12 58 (1.99%) Red Hat
13 56 (1.92%) Google
14 52 (1.78%) IBM
15 50 (1.71%) Veeam
16 47 (1.61%) Remedy
17 45 (1.54%) SAP
18 40 (1.37%) Juniper
19 39 (1.34%) Palo Alto
20 37 (1.27%) CyberArk