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

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -5 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,822 2,429 3,474
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.85% 8.35% 8.17%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.58% 60.05% 61.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,829 1,674 2,409
10th Percentile £163 £180 £163
25th Percentile £213 £230 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year - +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £402 £400 £400
% change year-on-year +0.50% - +3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 231 137 272
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.68 £11.82
25th Percentile £16.90 £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 £60.00 £25.00 £25.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £46.80 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £18.82 £17.50
% change year-on-year +33.63% +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 4,658 4,045 5,687
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.65% 13.90% 13.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,988 2,657 3,850
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £456 £467 £466
Median % change year-on-year -2.25% +0.11% -7.33%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £651 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -0.11% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 321 175 393
10th Percentile £15.62 £15.24 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.44 £15.50
Median hourly rate £41.94 £22.00 £22.15
Median % change year-on-year +90.64% -0.68% -43.28%
75th Percentile £65.00 £56.25 £60.75
90th Percentile £74.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.83 £20.94 £22.50
% change year-on-year +99.74% -6.93% -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 21 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 21 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 21 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 2,432 £415 -1.19% 931
UK excluding London -11 1,897 £402 +0.50% 855
London -25 740 £430 -4.44% 206
Work from Home -15 575 £475 - 311
South East -4 524 £475 -1.96% 272
North of England -10 452 £353 +8.46% 187
Midlands -16 261 £313 +25.00% 108
North West -2 250 £305 -12.86% 106
South West -13 222 £453 -9.35% 123
East of England -2 211 £350 - 96
Yorkshire -18 188 £375 +13.21% 65
Scotland +1 169 £425 -4.23% 33
West Midlands -27 151 £442 +60.82% 59
East Midlands +8 105 £225 +9.09% 49
Wales +1 55 £290 -10.77% 30
North East -28 18 £345 +15.00% 19
Northern Ireland -8 14 £175 -12.50% 27
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
1 228 (8.08%) Microsoft Exchange
2 162 (5.74%) SharePoint
3 59 (2.09%) IIS
4 48 (1.70%) Confluence
5 21 (0.74%) Apache
6 19 (0.67%) WebLogic
7 15 (0.53%) nginx
7 15 (0.53%) Tomcat
8 12 (0.43%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.43%) Tuxedo
9 10 (0.35%) SAS
10 9 (0.32%) NetWeaver
11 7 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.25%) TPMS
12 6 (0.21%) HCL Notes
13 5 (0.18%) WebSphere
14 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.11%) Appian
16 2 (0.071%) Apache Pulsar
16 2 (0.071%) CloudStack
Applications
1 181 (6.41%) Microsoft Office
2 65 (2.30%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.92%) 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 (0.071%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 41 (1.45%) Remedy ITSM
2 19 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.43%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.14%) Finacle
5 3 (0.11%) assyst
5 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.071%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.035%) Dynamics GP
7 1 (0.035%) OpenText MBPM
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle 11i
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle BPM
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 814 (28.84%) Azure
2 783 (27.75%) Microsoft 365
3 332 (11.76%) Entra ID
4 250 (8.86%) AWS
5 87 (3.08%) OneDrive
6 76 (2.69%) GCP
7 74 (2.62%) Azure DevOps
7 74 (2.62%) SaaS
8 67 (2.37%) IaaS
9 59 (2.09%) GitHub
10 55 (1.95%) PaaS
11 53 (1.88%) Power Platform
12 41 (1.45%) Azure Monitor
13 38 (1.35%) OpenShift
14 35 (1.24%) Google Workspace
15 34 (1.20%) Azure Sentinel
16 27 (0.96%) GitHub Actions
17 19 (0.67%) Azure AKS
18 18 (0.64%) Microsoft Purview
18 18 (0.64%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 382 (13.54%) DNS
2 304 (10.77%) Firewall
3 256 (9.07%) DHCP
4 203 (7.19%) VPN
5 175 (6.20%) WAN
6 171 (6.06%) LAN
7 165 (5.85%) TCP/IP
8 137 (4.85%) Wi-Fi
9 79 (2.80%) SAN
10 72 (2.55%) Network Security
11 59 (2.09%) VLAN
12 45 (1.59%) SD-WAN
13 41 (1.45%) Wireless
14 39 (1.38%) BGP
15 37 (1.31%) NAS
15 37 (1.31%) SNMP
15 37 (1.31%) VoIP
16 36 (1.28%) SSL
17 35 (1.24%) OSPF
17 35 (1.24%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 218 (7.73%) SQL Server
2 48 (1.70%) Oracle Database
3 33 (1.17%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.06%) MySQL
4 30 (1.06%) Power BI
5 27 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
6 19 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
7 16 (0.57%) DB2
8 15 (0.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 14 (0.50%) MongoDB
10 13 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
11 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
12 9 (0.32%) GIS
12 9 (0.32%) SAP HANA
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle BI EE
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.28%) Sybase ASE
14 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.25%) RDBMS
15 6 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 174 (6.17%) JIRA
2 51 (1.81%) Jenkins
3 48 (1.70%) GitLab
4 44 (1.56%) MSI
5 43 (1.52%) Git
6 35 (1.24%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.67%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.64%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.39%) Sonatype Nexus
11 9 (0.32%) Android Studio
11 9 (0.32%) Artifactory
11 9 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
11 9 (0.32%) Chocolatey
11 9 (0.32%) Xcode
12 7 (0.25%) Bitbucket
12 7 (0.25%) InstallShield
12 7 (0.25%) Robot Framework
12 7 (0.25%) Selenium
13 5 (0.18%) AdminStudio
General
1 949 (33.63%) Social Skills
2 271 (9.60%) Analytical Skills
3 270 (9.57%) Finance
4 206 (7.30%) Public Sector
5 138 (4.89%) Banking
6 120 (4.25%) Legal
7 92 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
8 75 (2.66%) Organisational Skills
9 55 (1.95%) Military
10 48 (1.70%) Manufacturing
11 47 (1.67%) Retail
12 39 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 37 (1.31%) Law
14 31 (1.10%) Investment Banking
15 30 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
15 30 (1.06%) Telecoms
16 27 (0.96%) Front Office
17 20 (0.71%) Local Government
18 18 (0.64%) French Language
19 17 (0.60%) Police
Job Titles
1 353 (12.51%) IT Support
2 330 (11.69%) Support Engineer
3 310 (10.99%) Analyst
4 246 (8.72%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 215 (7.62%) IT Engineer
6 176 (6.24%) IT Support Engineer
7 169 (5.99%) Senior
8 155 (5.49%) Architect
9 118 (4.18%) Support Analyst
10 116 (4.11%) Desktop Support
11 103 (3.65%) Lead
12 97 (3.44%) Desktop Engineer
13 92 (3.26%) 2nd Line Support
13 92 (3.26%) IT Analyst
14 90 (3.19%) Developer
15 89 (3.15%) Technical Support
16 85 (3.01%) Windows Engineer
17 73 (2.59%) 1st Line Support
18 72 (2.55%) Consultant
18 72 (2.55%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (3.15%) REST
2 88 (3.12%) .NET
3 48 (1.70%) .NET Framework
4 45 (1.59%) LDAP
5 38 (1.35%) SAML
6 33 (1.17%) Kafka
7 32 (1.13%) Microsoft Graph
8 29 (1.03%) Middleware
9 27 (0.96%) 802.1X
10 26 (0.92%) OAuth
10 26 (0.92%) WinForms
11 22 (0.78%) Web Services
12 21 (0.74%) WPF
13 20 (0.71%) Software Packaging
14 19 (0.67%) CSS
14 19 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
14 19 (0.67%) React
15 18 (0.64%) Node.js
16 17 (0.60%) AngularJS
16 17 (0.60%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 231 (8.19%) Onboarding
2 142 (5.03%) Data Centre
3 113 (4.00%) PKI
4 84 (2.98%) Enterprise Software
5 80 (2.83%) Clustering
6 66 (2.34%) Driving Licence
7 61 (2.16%) Self-Motivation
8 57 (2.02%) Replication
9 52 (1.84%) Management Information System
10 50 (1.77%) Hybrid Cloud
11 47 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
11 47 (1.67%) Virtual Team
12 45 (1.59%) Security Posture
12 45 (1.59%) Smartphone
13 39 (1.38%) Cloud Native
14 34 (1.20%) Operational Technology
15 33 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
15 33 (1.17%) Security Operations Centre
16 32 (1.13%) Enterprise Storage
17 29 (1.03%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 715 (25.34%) Linux
2 663 (23.49%) Windows Server
3 487 (17.26%) Windows 10
4 178 (6.31%) Mac OS
5 160 (5.67%) Unix
6 134 (4.75%) Android
7 133 (4.71%) Apple iOS
8 92 (3.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 76 (2.69%) Windows Server 2019
10 71 (2.52%) Windows Server 2016
11 50 (1.77%) Windows 7
12 34 (1.20%) AIX
12 34 (1.20%) Windows Server 2012
13 24 (0.85%) Ubuntu
14 19 (0.67%) Solaris
14 19 (0.67%) VMS
14 19 (0.67%) Windows Server 2003
15 16 (0.57%) Windows Server 2008
16 10 (0.35%) CentOS
17 8 (0.28%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 592 (20.98%) Problem-Solving
2 429 (15.20%) Customer Service
3 415 (14.71%) ITIL
4 321 (11.37%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 317 (11.23%) Migration
6 274 (9.71%) Agile
7 253 (8.97%) DevOps
8 252 (8.93%) ITSM
9 230 (8.15%) CI/CD
10 190 (6.73%) Disaster Recovery
11 182 (6.45%) Continuous Improvement
12 176 (6.24%) Cybersecurity
13 175 (6.20%) Change Management
14 174 (6.17%) High Availability
15 171 (6.06%) Service Management
16 147 (5.21%) SIEM
17 134 (4.75%) Infrastructure as Code
18 133 (4.71%) Stakeholder Management
19 130 (4.61%) Computer Science
20 129 (4.57%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 602 (21.33%) PowerShell
2 291 (10.31%) Python
3 279 (9.89%) SQL
4 122 (4.32%) C#
5 103 (3.65%) Bash
6 72 (2.55%) Java
7 68 (2.41%) JavaScript
8 58 (2.06%) PL/SQL
9 47 (1.67%) C++
10 46 (1.63%) T-SQL
11 33 (1.17%) Perl
12 26 (0.92%) Kusto Query Language
13 24 (0.85%) Shell Script
14 23 (0.82%) Search Processing Language
14 23 (0.82%) VB
15 17 (0.60%) VBScript
16 15 (0.53%) VBA
17 14 (0.50%) Bicep
18 12 (0.43%) Go
19 11 (0.39%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 842 (29.84%) Security Cleared
2 545 (19.31%) SC Cleared
3 289 (10.24%) Degree
4 267 (9.46%) DV Cleared
5 101 (3.58%) Microsoft Certification
6 91 (3.22%) Computer Science Degree
7 88 (3.12%) Cisco Certification
8 50 (1.77%) CISSP
9 47 (1.67%) Azure Certification
10 46 (1.63%) BPSS Clearance
11 45 (1.59%) MCSE
12 37 (1.31%) CCNA
13 35 (1.24%) CompTIA Security+
14 31 (1.10%) ITIL Certification
15 30 (1.06%) AWS Certification
15 30 (1.06%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 28 (0.99%) A+ Certification
17 27 (0.96%) CCNP
18 26 (0.92%) MCSA
19 19 (0.67%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 116 (4.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 95 (3.37%) SLA
3 85 (3.01%) QA
4 84 (2.98%) GDPR
5 77 (2.73%) NIST
6 42 (1.49%) PCI DSS
7 30 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 28 (0.99%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.57%) NCSC
9 16 (0.57%) PMO
10 12 (0.43%) Data Quality
10 12 (0.43%) NIST 800
11 11 (0.39%) Disclosure Scotland
11 11 (0.39%) MiFID
12 10 (0.35%) FINRA
13 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
14 7 (0.25%) DICOM
14 7 (0.25%) GLBA
14 7 (0.25%) GRC
14 7 (0.25%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,040 (36.85%) Active Directory
2 348 (12.33%) VMware Infrastructure
3 158 (5.60%) Hyper-V
4 96 (3.40%) vSphere
5 95 (3.37%) VMware ESXi
6 87 (3.08%) Docker
7 84 (2.98%) Virtual Machines
8 57 (2.02%) Virtual Desktop
9 47 (1.67%) VMware NSX
10 36 (1.28%) Firmware
11 29 (1.03%) BitLocker
12 26 (0.92%) 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%) vCloud
16 7 (0.25%) VMware Workstation
17 6 (0.21%) etcd
18 5 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 357 (12.65%) Microsoft Intune
2 260 (9.21%) SCCM
3 187 (6.63%) Ansible
4 158 (5.60%) Terraform
5 134 (4.75%) Kubernetes
6 77 (2.73%) vCenter Server
7 56 (1.98%) Single Sign-On
8 45 (1.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 42 (1.49%) WSUS
10 40 (1.42%) Jamf Pro
11 39 (1.38%) FortiGate
12 38 (1.35%) Grafana
13 33 (1.17%) SCOM
14 32 (1.13%) Prometheus
15 28 (0.99%) Nagios
16 22 (0.78%) Nessus
17 21 (0.74%) Progress Chef
18 20 (0.71%) Puppet
18 20 (0.71%) Tivoli
18 20 (0.71%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,192 (42.24%) Microsoft
2 457 (16.19%) VMware
3 240 (8.50%) ServiceNow
4 207 (7.34%) Cisco
5 193 (6.84%) Citrix
6 174 (6.17%) Oracle
7 158 (5.60%) Splunk
8 82 (2.91%) HP
9 73 (2.59%) SolarWinds
10 70 (2.48%) Dell
11 58 (2.06%) Red Hat
12 57 (2.02%) Apple
13 56 (1.98%) F5
14 54 (1.91%) Remedy
15 52 (1.84%) Palo Alto
16 51 (1.81%) IBM
17 47 (1.67%) CyberArk
18 46 (1.63%) Google
19 44 (1.56%) Juniper
20 41 (1.45%) BeyondTrust