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

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,832 2,423 3,636
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.12% 8.23% 8.37%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.38% 59.07% 62.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,888 1,684 2,501
10th Percentile £160 £181 £160
25th Percentile £209 £240 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.35% +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £383 £400 £395
% change year-on-year -4.38% +1.27% +1.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 227 126 277
10th Percentile £14.30 £15.30 £11.92
25th Percentile £16.64 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £22.81 £20.00 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +14.05% +12.87% -21.24%
75th Percentile £63.75 £28.00 £25.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £64.38 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.81 £18.82 £17.50
% change year-on-year +21.20% +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 4,690 4,102 5,813
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.13% 13.93% 13.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,058 2,729 3,920
10th Percentile £182 £200 £183
25th Percentile £310 £320 £292
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.70% -9.76%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £592
90th Percentile £656 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £450 £445
% change year-on-year -5.56% +1.12% -6.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 325 175 398
10th Percentile £15.55 £16.35 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.32 £18.13 £15.19
Median hourly rate £31.00 £24.66 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +25.71% +12.09% -37.19%
75th Percentile £67.25 £62.50 £59.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £69.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.00 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year +40.61% +15.14% -28.33%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 -6 2,469 £415 -1.31% 924
UK excluding London -9 1,873 £383 -4.38% 879
London -23 766 £425 -3.41% 186
Work from Home -19 572 £475 +0.53% 318
South East -7 500 £467 -6.60% 270
North of England -10 468 £308 -5.15% 188
Midlands -13 279 £325 +19.82% 122
North West -2 255 £230 -34.29% 111
South West -13 227 £466 -13.35% 122
East of England +6 210 £350 +55.56% 102
Yorkshire -19 192 £365 +12.31% 56
West Midlands -22 163 £460 +65.77% 60
Scotland 0 146 £419 -3.68% 45
East Midlands +5 112 £210 +1.82% 61
Wales -2 46 £180 -38.98% 28
North East -13 27 £225 +2.27% 27
Northern Ireland -6 12 £175 -10.26% 32
Channel Islands 0 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
1 246 (8.69%) Microsoft Exchange
2 155 (5.47%) SharePoint
3 47 (1.66%) IIS
4 46 (1.62%) Confluence
5 23 (0.81%) WebLogic
6 21 (0.74%) Apache
7 14 (0.49%) Tomcat
8 13 (0.46%) nginx
9 12 (0.42%) SAS
9 12 (0.42%) Skype for Business
9 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
10 10 (0.35%) TPMS
11 6 (0.21%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.21%) WebSphere
12 5 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
14 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
15 2 (0.071%) Apache Geronimo
15 2 (0.071%) Apache ServiceMix
Applications
1 207 (7.31%) Microsoft Office
2 66 (2.33%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.39%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.071%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 39 (1.38%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.28%) Teamcenter
4 6 (0.21%) assyst
5 3 (0.11%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.071%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.071%) Finacle
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.071%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.035%) Eikon
7 1 (0.035%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.035%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 790 (27.90%) Microsoft 365
2 774 (27.33%) Azure
3 320 (11.30%) Entra ID
4 232 (8.19%) AWS
5 78 (2.75%) GCP
6 75 (2.65%) SaaS
7 74 (2.61%) Azure DevOps
7 74 (2.61%) OneDrive
8 57 (2.01%) IaaS
9 52 (1.84%) Google Workspace
10 50 (1.77%) PaaS
11 49 (1.73%) GitHub
12 40 (1.41%) Power Platform
13 36 (1.27%) Azure Monitor
14 32 (1.13%) Azure Sentinel
15 28 (0.99%) OpenShift
16 23 (0.81%) GitHub Actions
17 19 (0.67%) AWS CloudFormation
17 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Purview
17 19 (0.67%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 399 (14.09%) DNS
2 337 (11.90%) Firewall
3 270 (9.53%) DHCP
4 208 (7.34%) VPN
5 183 (6.46%) TCP/IP
6 176 (6.21%) WAN
7 175 (6.18%) LAN
8 151 (5.33%) Wi-Fi
9 84 (2.97%) Network Security
10 74 (2.61%) VLAN
11 67 (2.37%) SAN
12 50 (1.77%) Wireless
13 44 (1.55%) BGP
13 44 (1.55%) SD-WAN
14 39 (1.38%) Skype
14 39 (1.38%) VoIP
15 38 (1.34%) SSL
16 34 (1.20%) OSPF
17 33 (1.17%) Internet
18 31 (1.09%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 185 (6.53%) SQL Server
2 52 (1.84%) Oracle Database
3 32 (1.13%) Relational Database
4 29 (1.02%) MySQL
5 26 (0.92%) PostgreSQL
6 20 (0.71%) Power BI
7 18 (0.64%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.53%) DB2
9 14 (0.49%) Data Warehouse
10 12 (0.42%) MongoDB
11 10 (0.35%) NoSQL
11 10 (0.35%) Oracle Reports
12 8 (0.28%) BigQuery
12 8 (0.28%) GIS
13 7 (0.25%) SAP HANA
13 7 (0.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 7 (0.25%) Sybase ASE
14 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 5 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
15 5 (0.18%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 169 (5.97%) JIRA
2 58 (2.05%) GitLab
3 52 (1.84%) Jenkins
4 50 (1.77%) Git
5 43 (1.52%) MSI
6 34 (1.20%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.71%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.64%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.39%) Chocolatey
11 10 (0.35%) Android Studio
11 10 (0.35%) Artifactory
11 10 (0.35%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.35%) InstallShield
12 8 (0.28%) Browser DevTools
12 8 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
12 8 (0.28%) Xcode
13 7 (0.25%) AdminStudio
13 7 (0.25%) JUnit
14 6 (0.21%) Toad
General
1 977 (34.50%) Social Skills
2 279 (9.85%) Finance
3 263 (9.29%) Analytical Skills
4 237 (8.37%) Public Sector
5 147 (5.19%) Banking
6 130 (4.59%) Legal
7 103 (3.64%) Documentation Skills
8 80 (2.82%) Organisational Skills
9 62 (2.19%) Military
10 51 (1.80%) Manufacturing
11 41 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 40 (1.41%) Telecoms
13 36 (1.27%) Retail
14 35 (1.24%) Presentation Skills
15 34 (1.20%) Law
16 30 (1.06%) Investment Banking
17 26 (0.92%) Front Office
18 20 (0.71%) Local Government
19 17 (0.60%) Police
20 16 (0.56%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 379 (13.38%) IT Support
2 341 (12.04%) Support Engineer
3 339 (11.97%) Analyst
4 230 (8.12%) IT Engineer
5 220 (7.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 184 (6.50%) IT Support Engineer
7 180 (6.36%) Architect
8 172 (6.07%) Senior
9 130 (4.59%) Support Analyst
10 118 (4.17%) Desktop Support
11 106 (3.74%) Developer
12 102 (3.60%) Windows Engineer
13 96 (3.39%) IT Analyst
14 94 (3.32%) Lead
15 93 (3.28%) Desktop Engineer
16 92 (3.25%) Technical Support
17 86 (3.04%) 2nd Line Support
18 73 (2.58%) Consultant
18 73 (2.58%) IT Support Analyst
18 73 (2.58%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (3.25%) .NET
2 79 (2.79%) REST
3 52 (1.84%) .NET Framework
4 45 (1.59%) LDAP
4 45 (1.59%) SAML
5 36 (1.27%) Middleware
6 33 (1.17%) Kafka
6 33 (1.17%) OAuth
7 29 (1.02%) WinForms
8 28 (0.99%) Microsoft Graph
8 28 (0.99%) WPF
9 27 (0.95%) Web Services
10 25 (0.88%) 802.1X
11 24 (0.85%) OpenID
12 21 (0.74%) Node.js
13 18 (0.64%) CSS
13 18 (0.64%) React
14 17 (0.60%) Elastic Stack
14 17 (0.60%) XML
15 16 (0.56%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 213 (7.52%) Onboarding
2 130 (4.59%) Data Centre
3 99 (3.50%) PKI
4 90 (3.18%) Enterprise Software
5 77 (2.72%) Driving Licence
6 72 (2.54%) Self-Motivation
7 66 (2.33%) Clustering
8 56 (1.98%) Replication
9 48 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
10 46 (1.62%) Hybrid Cloud
11 44 (1.55%) Management Information System
12 43 (1.52%) Smartphone
13 41 (1.45%) Security Posture
14 40 (1.41%) Product Ownership
15 36 (1.27%) Virtual Team
16 33 (1.17%) Cloud Native
16 33 (1.17%) Security Operations Centre
17 32 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
18 30 (1.06%) CMDB
19 29 (1.02%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 716 (25.28%) Linux
2 657 (23.20%) Windows Server
3 524 (18.50%) Windows 10
4 174 (6.14%) Mac OS
5 158 (5.58%) Android
6 144 (5.08%) Unix
7 128 (4.52%) Apple iOS
8 98 (3.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 76 (2.68%) Windows Server 2016
10 67 (2.37%) Windows Server 2019
11 49 (1.73%) Windows 7
12 40 (1.41%) Windows Server 2012
13 35 (1.24%) AIX
14 23 (0.81%) Windows Server 2003
15 22 (0.78%) VMS
16 19 (0.67%) Ubuntu
17 17 (0.60%) Solaris
18 14 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
19 10 (0.35%) Mac OS X
20 8 (0.28%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 593 (20.94%) Problem-Solving
2 458 (16.17%) Customer Service
3 411 (14.51%) ITIL
4 322 (11.37%) Migration
5 299 (10.56%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 290 (10.24%) Agile
7 250 (8.83%) DevOps
8 238 (8.40%) ITSM
9 230 (8.12%) CI/CD
10 197 (6.96%) Cybersecurity
11 191 (6.74%) Continuous Improvement
12 187 (6.60%) Service Management
13 176 (6.21%) Disaster Recovery
14 172 (6.07%) Change Management
15 151 (5.33%) High Availability
16 142 (5.01%) SIEM
17 129 (4.56%) Stakeholder Management
18 127 (4.48%) Computer Science
19 126 (4.45%) Infrastructure as Code
19 126 (4.45%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 606 (21.40%) PowerShell
2 292 (10.31%) Python
3 264 (9.32%) SQL
4 129 (4.56%) C#
5 117 (4.13%) Bash
6 84 (2.97%) Java
7 70 (2.47%) JavaScript
8 62 (2.19%) PL/SQL
9 49 (1.73%) C++
10 43 (1.52%) Perl
10 43 (1.52%) T-SQL
11 28 (0.99%) Kusto Query Language
12 24 (0.85%) VB
13 22 (0.78%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.67%) VBScript
15 17 (0.60%) Search Processing Language
16 15 (0.53%) VBA
17 14 (0.49%) Go
18 12 (0.42%) Bicep
18 12 (0.42%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 853 (30.12%) Security Cleared
2 569 (20.09%) SC Cleared
3 288 (10.17%) Degree
4 253 (8.93%) DV Cleared
5 112 (3.95%) Microsoft Certification
6 85 (3.00%) Computer Science Degree
7 72 (2.54%) Cisco Certification
8 46 (1.62%) Azure Certification
9 42 (1.48%) CISSP
10 41 (1.45%) BPSS Clearance
10 41 (1.45%) MCSE
11 39 (1.38%) ITIL Certification
12 38 (1.34%) CCNA
12 38 (1.34%) CompTIA Security+
13 32 (1.13%) AWS Certification
14 30 (1.06%) A+ Certification
15 25 (0.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 24 (0.85%) CCNP
17 22 (0.78%) MCSA
18 20 (0.71%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (3.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 90 (3.18%) QA
3 88 (3.11%) GDPR
4 82 (2.90%) SLA
5 70 (2.47%) NIST
6 41 (1.45%) PCI DSS
7 29 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 21 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.56%) NCSC
10 13 (0.46%) PMO
11 12 (0.42%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.39%) MiFID
13 10 (0.35%) Data Quality
13 10 (0.35%) FINRA
13 10 (0.35%) GLBA
14 8 (0.28%) Disclosure Scotland
15 7 (0.25%) DICOM
16 6 (0.21%) HIPAA
16 6 (0.21%) HL7
16 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,061 (37.46%) Active Directory
2 326 (11.51%) VMware Infrastructure
3 146 (5.16%) Hyper-V
4 93 (3.28%) Docker
5 81 (2.86%) vSphere
6 76 (2.68%) VMware ESXi
7 59 (2.08%) Virtual Machines
8 55 (1.94%) Virtual Desktop
9 39 (1.38%) VMware NSX
10 37 (1.31%) Firmware
11 31 (1.09%) BitLocker
12 25 (0.88%) Microsoft App-V
13 20 (0.71%) KVM
14 13 (0.46%) XenApp
14 13 (0.46%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
16 6 (0.21%) etcd
17 5 (0.18%) NFS
17 5 (0.18%) Terminal Services
18 4 (0.14%) Snort
Systems Management
1 369 (13.03%) Microsoft Intune
2 295 (10.42%) SCCM
3 179 (6.32%) Ansible
4 161 (5.69%) Terraform
5 132 (4.66%) Kubernetes
6 71 (2.51%) Single Sign-On
7 64 (2.26%) vCenter Server
8 60 (2.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 45 (1.59%) Jamf Pro
10 41 (1.45%) WSUS
11 38 (1.34%) Grafana
12 37 (1.31%) FortiGate
13 32 (1.13%) Prometheus
14 25 (0.88%) SCOM
15 22 (0.78%) Nagios
15 22 (0.78%) Nessus
16 21 (0.74%) Progress Chef
17 17 (0.60%) Puppet
18 16 (0.56%) Nmap
19 15 (0.53%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,215 (42.90%) Microsoft
2 429 (15.15%) VMware
3 229 (8.09%) ServiceNow
4 218 (7.70%) Citrix
5 191 (6.74%) Cisco
6 180 (6.36%) Oracle
7 149 (5.26%) Splunk
8 83 (2.93%) HP
9 73 (2.58%) Dell
10 68 (2.40%) Red Hat
11 65 (2.30%) SolarWinds
12 60 (2.12%) Google
13 58 (2.05%) Apple
14 54 (1.91%) IBM
14 54 (1.91%) Remedy
15 47 (1.66%) CyberArk
16 46 (1.62%) F5
17 45 (1.59%) Palo Alto
18 40 (1.41%) Veeam
19 39 (1.38%) Juniper