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

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 3,073 2,602 3,335
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.79% 7.93% 8.39%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.39% 59.41% 60.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,945 1,719 2,251
10th Percentile £165 £175 £167
25th Percentile £225 £225 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £415 £425
Median % change year-on-year +2.37% -2.32% -5.56%
75th Percentile £556 £563 £575
90th Percentile £650 £660 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £420 £400 £450
% change year-on-year +5.00% -11.11% +19.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 275 210 251
10th Percentile £15.81 £15.33 £11.80
25th Percentile £17.50 £17.44 £15.24
Median hourly rate £25.26 £19.27 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year +31.08% -8.24% -10.64%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £48.75
90th Percentile £70.44 £65.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £19.00
% change year-on-year +36.46% -0.68% -13.64%

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 5,089 4,380 5,524
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.58% 13.35% 13.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,219 2,823 3,656
10th Percentile £193 £200 £193
25th Percentile £319 £313 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £463 £475
Median % change year-on-year +1.62% -2.63% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £455 £450 £465
% change year-on-year +1.11% -3.25% +3.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 347 256 362
10th Percentile £15.65 £15.50 £12.53
25th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £17.00
Median hourly rate £26.00 £24.00 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% -11.11% -36.47%
75th Percentile £65.00 £55.63 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.70 £67.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.66 £22.50 £37.08
% change year-on-year +18.49% -39.32% +7.49%

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 31 July 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 31 July 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 31 July 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 2,691 £425 +3.03% 1,018
UK excluding London -13 2,001 £420 +5.00% 852
London -16 895 £425 - 289
Work from Home -10 634 £475 +2.70% 350
South East -7 577 £475 -5.00% 300
North of England -8 465 £337 -0.66% 183
South West -9 277 £488 +8.33% 109
Midlands -23 261 £400 +23.08% 123
North West -9 251 £340 -5.17% 94
East of England -3 200 £339 +38.97% 110
Yorkshire -16 192 £365 +12.31% 60
West Midlands -30 169 £450 +12.50% 74
Scotland -6 163 £388 -13.89% 26
East Midlands +6 88 £270 +35.00% 49
Wales +2 55 £425 +54.55% 26
North East -44 26 £270 -1.82% 35
Northern Ireland -4 18 £139 -30.75% 9
Channel Islands +3 2 £518 - 2

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
1 240 (7.81%) Microsoft Exchange
2 235 (7.65%) SharePoint
3 68 (2.21%) IIS
4 58 (1.89%) Confluence
5 17 (0.55%) Apache
5 17 (0.55%) nginx
6 16 (0.52%) Tomcat
7 14 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
8 13 (0.42%) HCL Notes
9 11 (0.36%) Skype for Business
10 9 (0.29%) NetWeaver
10 9 (0.29%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.20%) Appian
11 6 (0.20%) Documentum
12 5 (0.16%) Camunda
12 5 (0.16%) SAS
13 4 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.13%) FactoryTalk
14 3 (0.098%) CloudStack
14 3 (0.098%) Exchange Server 2010
Applications
1 204 (6.64%) Microsoft Office
2 73 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (0.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
5 4 (0.13%) Acrobat
5 4 (0.13%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.098%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.098%) Houdini
6 3 (0.098%) NUKE
7 2 (0.065%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.033%) CINEMA 4D
8 1 (0.033%) InDesign
8 1 (0.033%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 56 (1.82%) Remedy ITSM
2 15 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (0.33%) Finacle
4 7 (0.23%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.23%) Oracle BPM
4 7 (0.23%) Teamcenter
5 4 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
5 4 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.098%) assyst
7 2 (0.065%) Dynamics GP
7 2 (0.065%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.033%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.033%) Oracle BRM
8 1 (0.033%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.033%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.033%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.033%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.033%) SAP FI-CA
8 1 (0.033%) SAP FS
8 1 (0.033%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 945 (30.75%) Azure
2 922 (30.00%) Microsoft 365
3 443 (14.42%) Entra ID
4 327 (10.64%) AWS
5 130 (4.23%) OneDrive
6 105 (3.42%) GCP
7 104 (3.38%) Azure DevOps
8 76 (2.47%) SaaS
9 72 (2.34%) GitHub
10 68 (2.21%) Power Platform
11 65 (2.12%) Azure Monitor
12 64 (2.08%) IaaS
13 55 (1.79%) PaaS
14 42 (1.37%) Azure Sentinel
15 35 (1.14%) OpenShift
16 31 (1.01%) AWS CloudFormation
17 27 (0.88%) GitHub Actions
18 26 (0.85%) Amazon EC2
18 26 (0.85%) Azure AKS
19 25 (0.81%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 455 (14.81%) DNS
2 352 (11.45%) Firewall
3 309 (10.06%) DHCP
4 249 (8.10%) VPN
5 212 (6.90%) TCP/IP
6 167 (5.43%) LAN
7 157 (5.11%) WAN
8 141 (4.59%) Wi-Fi
9 96 (3.12%) SAN
10 77 (2.51%) Network Security
11 74 (2.41%) VLAN
12 50 (1.63%) SSL
13 48 (1.56%) BGP
14 45 (1.46%) NAS
15 43 (1.40%) Internet
15 43 (1.40%) Wireless
16 36 (1.17%) OSPF
17 33 (1.07%) VSAN
18 32 (1.04%) VoIP
19 30 (0.98%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 299 (9.73%) SQL Server
2 62 (2.02%) Oracle Database
3 49 (1.59%) Power BI
4 34 (1.11%) PostgreSQL
4 34 (1.11%) Relational Database
5 32 (1.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 26 (0.85%) MySQL
7 21 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
8 17 (0.55%) Data Warehouse
8 17 (0.55%) Db2
9 16 (0.52%) RDBMS
10 14 (0.46%) Elasticsearch
11 13 (0.42%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 12 (0.39%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 11 (0.36%) MongoDB
13 11 (0.36%) NoSQL
14 10 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
14 10 (0.33%) Oracle Reports
15 9 (0.29%) SAP HANA
16 8 (0.26%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 175 (5.69%) JIRA
2 74 (2.41%) Git
3 59 (1.92%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.53%) MSI
5 44 (1.43%) GitLab
6 37 (1.20%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.55%) Eclipse
8 16 (0.52%) Bitbucket
9 9 (0.29%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 9 (0.29%) Chocolatey
9 9 (0.29%) Sonatype Nexus
10 8 (0.26%) Artifactory
11 7 (0.23%) Browser DevTools
11 7 (0.23%) Team Foundation Server
12 6 (0.20%) Android Studio
12 6 (0.20%) InstallShield
12 6 (0.20%) Xcode
13 5 (0.16%) AdminStudio
13 5 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
13 5 (0.16%) Selenium
General
1 1,117 (36.35%) Social Skills
2 382 (12.43%) Analytical Skills
3 351 (11.42%) Finance
4 192 (6.25%) Public Sector
5 162 (5.27%) Banking
6 104 (3.38%) Documentation Skills
7 98 (3.19%) Legal
8 81 (2.64%) Organisational Skills
9 65 (2.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 56 (1.82%) Retail
11 49 (1.59%) Manufacturing
12 46 (1.50%) Military
13 39 (1.27%) Front Office
13 39 (1.27%) Telecoms
14 36 (1.17%) Law
15 34 (1.11%) Investment Banking
16 27 (0.88%) Spanish Language
17 25 (0.81%) Financial Institution
18 23 (0.75%) French Language
19 21 (0.68%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 442 (14.38%) Support Engineer
2 402 (13.08%) IT Support
3 300 (9.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 299 (9.73%) IT Engineer
5 277 (9.01%) Analyst
6 249 (8.10%) IT Support Engineer
7 233 (7.58%) Senior
8 128 (4.17%) Architect
9 127 (4.13%) Desktop Support
10 124 (4.04%) 2nd Line Support
11 115 (3.74%) Developer
12 112 (3.64%) Cloud Engineer
13 111 (3.61%) Lead
14 104 (3.38%) Desktop Engineer
14 104 (3.38%) Support Analyst
15 95 (3.09%) Consultant
16 93 (3.03%) Windows Engineer
17 88 (2.86%) IT Analyst
18 81 (2.64%) 1st Line Support
18 81 (2.64%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 125 (4.07%) .NET
2 115 (3.74%) REST
3 66 (2.15%) .NET Framework
4 39 (1.27%) Middleware
5 34 (1.11%) WinForms
6 32 (1.04%) LDAP
7 31 (1.01%) 802.1X
8 29 (0.94%) JSON
8 29 (0.94%) Kafka
9 28 (0.91%) Web Services
9 28 (0.91%) WPF
9 28 (0.91%) XML
10 27 (0.88%) HTML
10 27 (0.88%) Software Packaging
11 24 (0.78%) CSS
11 24 (0.78%) Microsoft Graph
12 21 (0.68%) Elastic Stack
13 20 (0.65%) RESTful
14 19 (0.62%) SAML
15 18 (0.59%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 327 (10.64%) Onboarding
2 169 (5.50%) Data Centre
3 165 (5.37%) PKI
4 89 (2.90%) Clustering
5 85 (2.77%) Enterprise Software
6 82 (2.67%) Management Information System
7 79 (2.57%) Cloud Native
8 74 (2.41%) Driving Licence
9 68 (2.21%) Self-Motivation
10 64 (2.08%) Hybrid Cloud
11 62 (2.02%) Replication
12 57 (1.85%) Video Conferencing
13 56 (1.82%) Security Posture
14 54 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
15 46 (1.50%) Virtual Team
16 41 (1.33%) Data Protection Act
17 37 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
18 36 (1.17%) Linux Command Line
18 36 (1.17%) Operational Technology
18 36 (1.17%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 774 (25.19%) Windows Server
2 764 (24.86%) Linux
3 514 (16.73%) Windows 10
4 191 (6.22%) Mac OS
5 161 (5.24%) Unix
6 136 (4.43%) Android
7 133 (4.33%) Apple iOS
8 121 (3.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 78 (2.54%) Windows Server 2019
10 49 (1.59%) Windows Server 2016
11 41 (1.33%) Windows 7
12 40 (1.30%) Ubuntu
13 37 (1.20%) AIX
13 37 (1.20%) Windows Server 2012
14 23 (0.75%) CentOS
14 23 (0.75%) VMS
15 21 (0.68%) Solaris
16 20 (0.65%) Windows Server 2008
17 10 (0.33%) Rocky
18 9 (0.29%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 713 (23.20%) Problem-Solving
2 525 (17.08%) ITIL
3 473 (15.39%) Customer Service
4 390 (12.69%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 384 (12.50%) Migration
6 353 (11.49%) ITSM
7 298 (9.70%) DevOps
8 291 (9.47%) Continuous Improvement
9 270 (8.79%) CI/CD
10 266 (8.66%) Agile
11 246 (8.01%) Service Management
12 225 (7.32%) Infrastructure as Code
13 212 (6.90%) Change Management
14 203 (6.61%) High Availability
15 189 (6.15%) Service Delivery
16 186 (6.05%) Stakeholder Management
17 178 (5.79%) Cybersecurity
18 173 (5.63%) Disaster Recovery
19 166 (5.40%) Incident Management
19 166 (5.40%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 686 (22.32%) PowerShell
2 323 (10.51%) Python
3 312 (10.15%) SQL
4 168 (5.47%) Bash
5 154 (5.01%) C#
6 78 (2.54%) Java
7 71 (2.31%) JavaScript
8 62 (2.02%) T-SQL
9 58 (1.89%) PL/SQL
10 49 (1.59%) C++
11 39 (1.27%) Bicep
12 25 (0.81%) Search Processing Language
13 23 (0.75%) Perl
14 22 (0.72%) VB
14 22 (0.72%) VBScript
15 21 (0.68%) VBA
16 20 (0.65%) Shell Script
17 16 (0.52%) TypeScript
18 15 (0.49%) C
19 14 (0.46%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 921 (29.97%) Security Cleared
2 576 (18.74%) SC Cleared
3 311 (10.12%) DV Cleared
4 300 (9.76%) Degree
5 121 (3.94%) Microsoft Certification
6 101 (3.29%) Cisco Certification
7 76 (2.47%) Computer Science Degree
8 70 (2.28%) Azure Certification
9 68 (2.21%) CISSP
10 63 (2.05%) BPSS Clearance
11 55 (1.79%) AWS Certification
12 43 (1.40%) A+ Certification
12 43 (1.40%) CCNA
13 41 (1.33%) MCSE
14 35 (1.14%) CCNP
15 32 (1.04%) DBS Check
16 30 (0.98%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 28 (0.91%) ITIL Certification
18 27 (0.88%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
19 24 (0.78%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 154 (5.01%) SLA
2 120 (3.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 90 (2.93%) QA
4 88 (2.86%) NIST
5 42 (1.37%) GDPR
6 28 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials
7 25 (0.81%) NCSC
8 24 (0.78%) PCI DSS
9 16 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
9 16 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 15 (0.49%) Data Quality
10 15 (0.49%) PMO
11 14 (0.46%) GxP
12 12 (0.39%) Accessibility
13 11 (0.36%) GRC
13 11 (0.36%) HIPAA
14 10 (0.33%) SOC 2
15 9 (0.29%) GMP
15 9 (0.29%) WCAG
16 8 (0.26%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,222 (39.77%) Active Directory
2 413 (13.44%) VMware Infrastructure
3 171 (5.56%) Hyper-V
4 133 (4.33%) VMware ESXi
5 111 (3.61%) vSphere
6 107 (3.48%) Docker
7 96 (3.12%) Virtual Machines
8 83 (2.70%) Virtual Desktop
9 74 (2.41%) VMware NSX
10 39 (1.27%) Firmware
11 33 (1.07%) BitLocker
12 23 (0.75%) Microsoft App-V
13 16 (0.52%) vCloud
14 13 (0.42%) KVM
15 9 (0.29%) NFS
16 8 (0.26%) Virtual Servers
16 8 (0.26%) VMware Workstation
17 7 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
17 7 (0.23%) XenApp
17 7 (0.23%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 427 (13.90%) Microsoft Intune
2 285 (9.27%) SCCM
3 255 (8.30%) Terraform
4 223 (7.26%) Ansible
5 172 (5.60%) Kubernetes
6 111 (3.61%) vCenter Server
7 69 (2.25%) SCOM
8 51 (1.66%) Jamf Pro
9 41 (1.33%) Progress Chef
10 40 (1.30%) WSUS
11 39 (1.27%) FortiGate
12 35 (1.14%) Single Sign-On
13 32 (1.04%) Puppet
14 26 (0.85%) Grafana
14 26 (0.85%) Prometheus
15 25 (0.81%) Nagios
16 24 (0.78%) Packer
17 23 (0.75%) NetBackup
18 22 (0.72%) ZABBIX
19 20 (0.65%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,349 (43.90%) Microsoft
2 553 (18.00%) VMware
3 329 (10.71%) ServiceNow
4 217 (7.06%) Cisco
5 203 (6.61%) Oracle
6 194 (6.31%) Citrix
7 131 (4.26%) Splunk
8 92 (2.99%) Apple
9 88 (2.86%) SolarWinds
10 87 (2.83%) CyberArk
11 74 (2.41%) Google
11 74 (2.41%) HP
11 74 (2.41%) Red Hat
12 72 (2.34%) BeyondTrust
13 66 (2.15%) Remedy
14 60 (1.95%) Dell
15 57 (1.85%) F5
16 55 (1.79%) Juniper
17 47 (1.53%) IBM
17 47 (1.53%) Palo Alto