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

6 months to
3 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,842 2,405 3,626
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.00% 8.21% 8.35%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.58% 58.62% 62.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,877 1,667 2,496
10th Percentile £162 £180 £160
25th Percentile £213 £241 £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 £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year -0.13% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 226 133 278
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.14 £11.94
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £24.58 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +30.58% +4.56% -20.00%
75th Percentile £63.75 £25.15 £25.00
90th Percentile £74.84 £61.60 £61.87
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.21 £18.82 £17.50
% change year-on-year +33.93% +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 4,691 4,103 5,811
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.90% 14.01% 13.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,048 2,705 3,915
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £319 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £465
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.15% -7.74%
75th Percentile £575 £589 £588
90th Percentile £658 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -5.56% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 322 182 399
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.12 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.74 £18.10 £15.50
Median hourly rate £42.60 £24.09 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +76.85% +9.50% -44.02%
75th Percentile £67.25 £62.25 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £22.88 £22.00
% change year-on-year +107.65% +3.98% -26.67%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -5 2,471 £415 -0.04% 1,003
UK excluding London -10 1,877 £400 -0.13% 911
London -23 773 £439 -0.28% 223
Work from Home -12 575 £475 - 362
South East -6 504 £470 -6.00% 301
North of England -13 461 £328 +0.77% 209
Midlands -16 275 £325 +21.50% 106
North West -4 259 £263 -25.00% 113
South West -13 227 £450 -14.29% 140
East of England +2 208 £350 +55.56% 108
Yorkshire -24 186 £365 +12.31% 76
West Midlands -25 158 £450 +63.64% 54
Scotland 0 150 £425 -2.86% 38
East Midlands +6 112 £220 +6.67% 52
Wales 0 50 £200 -45.21% 37
North East -25 20 £206 -20.67% 26
Northern Ireland -4 14 £175 -12.50% 10
Channel Islands -1 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
1 239 (8.41%) Microsoft Exchange
2 154 (5.42%) SharePoint
3 55 (1.94%) IIS
4 49 (1.72%) Confluence
5 22 (0.77%) Apache
6 19 (0.67%) WebLogic
7 14 (0.49%) Tomcat
8 13 (0.46%) nginx
8 13 (0.46%) Skype for Business
9 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
10 11 (0.39%) SAS
11 10 (0.35%) TPMS
12 7 (0.25%) WebSphere
13 6 (0.21%) NetWeaver
14 5 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
15 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
16 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
17 2 (0.070%) Oracle SOA Suite
17 2 (0.070%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 195 (6.86%) Microsoft Office
2 65 (2.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (0.88%) 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
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.070%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 42 (1.48%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.28%) Teamcenter
4 7 (0.25%) assyst
5 4 (0.14%) Finacle
6 3 (0.11%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.070%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.035%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 801 (28.18%) Microsoft 365
2 788 (27.73%) Azure
3 319 (11.22%) Entra ID
4 237 (8.34%) AWS
5 79 (2.78%) SaaS
6 78 (2.74%) GCP
7 77 (2.71%) OneDrive
8 73 (2.57%) Azure DevOps
9 62 (2.18%) IaaS
10 55 (1.94%) GitHub
11 54 (1.90%) PaaS
12 45 (1.58%) Power Platform
13 44 (1.55%) Google Workspace
14 40 (1.41%) Azure Monitor
15 31 (1.09%) Azure Sentinel
15 31 (1.09%) OpenShift
16 26 (0.91%) GitHub Actions
17 19 (0.67%) AWS CloudFormation
17 19 (0.67%) Azure AKS
17 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 396 (13.93%) DNS
2 319 (11.22%) Firewall
3 267 (9.39%) DHCP
4 207 (7.28%) VPN
5 175 (6.16%) WAN
6 173 (6.09%) LAN
6 173 (6.09%) TCP/IP
7 148 (5.21%) Wi-Fi
8 77 (2.71%) Network Security
9 70 (2.46%) SAN
10 63 (2.22%) VLAN
11 47 (1.65%) Wireless
12 44 (1.55%) SD-WAN
13 39 (1.37%) BGP
14 38 (1.34%) Skype
14 38 (1.34%) SSL
15 36 (1.27%) VoIP
16 35 (1.23%) OSPF
17 34 (1.20%) SNMP
18 33 (1.16%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 203 (7.14%) SQL Server
2 56 (1.97%) Oracle Database
3 34 (1.20%) Relational Database
4 29 (1.02%) MySQL
5 25 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
6 24 (0.84%) Power BI
7 19 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.53%) DB2
9 13 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
9 13 (0.46%) MongoDB
10 12 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
12 9 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.28%) GIS
14 7 (0.25%) BigQuery
14 7 (0.25%) RDBMS
14 7 (0.25%) Sybase ASE
15 6 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
15 6 (0.21%) SAP HANA
16 5 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 171 (6.02%) JIRA
2 56 (1.97%) GitLab
3 53 (1.86%) Jenkins
4 50 (1.76%) Git
5 47 (1.65%) MSI
6 34 (1.20%) Visual Studio
7 21 (0.74%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.63%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
10 12 (0.42%) Artifactory
11 11 (0.39%) Android Studio
11 11 (0.39%) Chocolatey
11 11 (0.39%) Sonatype Nexus
12 10 (0.35%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.35%) InstallShield
13 9 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
13 9 (0.32%) Xcode
14 7 (0.25%) JUnit
14 7 (0.25%) Robot Framework
14 7 (0.25%) Selenium
General
1 990 (34.83%) Social Skills
2 277 (9.75%) Finance
3 261 (9.18%) Analytical Skills
4 223 (7.85%) Public Sector
5 144 (5.07%) Banking
6 125 (4.40%) Legal
7 106 (3.73%) Documentation Skills
8 71 (2.50%) Organisational Skills
9 63 (2.22%) Military
10 45 (1.58%) Manufacturing
11 39 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 39 (1.37%) Retail
11 39 (1.37%) Telecoms
12 37 (1.30%) Law
13 36 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
14 29 (1.02%) Investment Banking
15 28 (0.99%) Front Office
16 20 (0.70%) Local Government
16 20 (0.70%) Police
17 17 (0.60%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 360 (12.67%) IT Support
2 334 (11.75%) Support Engineer
3 317 (11.15%) Analyst
4 229 (8.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 217 (7.64%) IT Engineer
6 179 (6.30%) Senior
7 178 (6.26%) IT Support Engineer
8 177 (6.23%) Architect
9 123 (4.33%) Desktop Support
9 123 (4.33%) Support Analyst
10 105 (3.69%) Developer
11 101 (3.55%) Desktop Engineer
12 97 (3.41%) Windows Engineer
13 95 (3.34%) Lead
14 92 (3.24%) IT Analyst
15 90 (3.17%) Technical Support
16 87 (3.06%) 2nd Line Support
17 73 (2.57%) 1st Line Support
18 71 (2.50%) Service Analyst
19 70 (2.46%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (3.38%) .NET
2 86 (3.03%) REST
3 54 (1.90%) .NET Framework
4 43 (1.51%) LDAP
5 41 (1.44%) SAML
6 36 (1.27%) Kafka
6 36 (1.27%) Middleware
7 29 (1.02%) OAuth
7 29 (1.02%) WinForms
7 29 (1.02%) WPF
8 28 (0.99%) Microsoft Graph
9 27 (0.95%) 802.1X
9 27 (0.95%) Web Services
10 21 (0.74%) Node.js
11 20 (0.70%) OpenID
12 19 (0.67%) CSS
12 19 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
12 19 (0.67%) React
12 19 (0.67%) Software Packaging
13 17 (0.60%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 228 (8.02%) Onboarding
2 132 (4.64%) Data Centre
3 108 (3.80%) PKI
4 91 (3.20%) Enterprise Software
5 77 (2.71%) Clustering
6 76 (2.67%) Driving Licence
7 70 (2.46%) Self-Motivation
8 59 (2.08%) Replication
9 49 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
10 47 (1.65%) Hybrid Cloud
11 46 (1.62%) Management Information System
12 44 (1.55%) Security Posture
12 44 (1.55%) Smartphone
13 40 (1.41%) Virtual Team
14 34 (1.20%) Cloud Native
15 32 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
16 31 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
16 31 (1.09%) Security Operations Centre
17 30 (1.06%) CMDB
18 29 (1.02%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 716 (25.19%) Linux
2 656 (23.08%) Windows Server
3 502 (17.66%) Windows 10
4 172 (6.05%) Mac OS
5 151 (5.31%) Unix
6 149 (5.24%) Android
7 125 (4.40%) Apple iOS
8 93 (3.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 76 (2.67%) Windows Server 2016
10 72 (2.53%) Windows Server 2019
11 52 (1.83%) Windows 7
12 37 (1.30%) Windows Server 2012
13 36 (1.27%) AIX
14 21 (0.74%) Ubuntu
15 20 (0.70%) VMS
16 19 (0.67%) Windows Server 2003
17 18 (0.63%) Solaris
18 13 (0.46%) Windows Server 2008
19 10 (0.35%) CentOS
20 9 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 590 (20.76%) Problem-Solving
2 441 (15.52%) Customer Service
3 410 (14.43%) ITIL
4 326 (11.47%) Migration
5 304 (10.70%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 292 (10.27%) Agile
7 253 (8.90%) DevOps
8 239 (8.41%) CI/CD
9 237 (8.34%) ITSM
10 188 (6.62%) Cybersecurity
11 187 (6.58%) Disaster Recovery
12 179 (6.30%) Service Management
13 176 (6.19%) Continuous Improvement
14 175 (6.16%) Change Management
15 164 (5.77%) High Availability
16 148 (5.21%) SIEM
17 135 (4.75%) Stakeholder Management
18 133 (4.68%) Infrastructure as Code
19 128 (4.50%) Computer Science
20 122 (4.29%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 603 (21.22%) PowerShell
2 287 (10.10%) Python
3 272 (9.57%) SQL
4 135 (4.75%) C#
5 102 (3.59%) Bash
6 80 (2.81%) Java
7 72 (2.53%) JavaScript
8 63 (2.22%) PL/SQL
9 51 (1.79%) C++
10 46 (1.62%) T-SQL
11 34 (1.20%) Perl
12 27 (0.95%) Kusto Query Language
13 26 (0.91%) VB
14 23 (0.81%) Shell Script
15 22 (0.77%) Search Processing Language
16 20 (0.70%) VBScript
17 15 (0.53%) VBA
18 14 (0.49%) Go
19 12 (0.42%) Bicep
19 12 (0.42%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 872 (30.68%) Security Cleared
2 578 (20.34%) SC Cleared
3 280 (9.85%) Degree
4 267 (9.39%) DV Cleared
5 108 (3.80%) Microsoft Certification
6 88 (3.10%) Computer Science Degree
7 75 (2.64%) Cisco Certification
8 45 (1.58%) Azure Certification
8 45 (1.58%) MCSE
9 44 (1.55%) CISSP
10 43 (1.51%) BPSS Clearance
11 36 (1.27%) CompTIA Security+
12 35 (1.23%) CCNA
13 34 (1.20%) ITIL Certification
14 32 (1.13%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 31 (1.09%) AWS Certification
16 28 (0.99%) A+ Certification
16 28 (0.99%) MCSA
17 18 (0.63%) CompTIA CySA+
18 17 (0.60%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (3.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 91 (3.20%) QA
3 89 (3.13%) GDPR
3 89 (3.13%) SLA
4 75 (2.64%) NIST
5 44 (1.55%) PCI DSS
6 30 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 27 (0.95%) Cyber Essentials
8 18 (0.63%) NCSC
9 15 (0.53%) PMO
10 12 (0.42%) NIST 800
11 11 (0.39%) Data Quality
11 11 (0.39%) MiFID
12 10 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
12 10 (0.35%) FINRA
12 10 (0.35%) GLBA
13 7 (0.25%) DICOM
14 6 (0.21%) GRC
14 6 (0.21%) HL7
14 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,056 (37.16%) Active Directory
2 331 (11.65%) VMware Infrastructure
3 150 (5.28%) Hyper-V
4 88 (3.10%) vSphere
5 86 (3.03%) Docker
6 84 (2.96%) VMware ESXi
7 77 (2.71%) Virtual Machines
8 53 (1.86%) Virtual Desktop
9 38 (1.34%) Firmware
9 38 (1.34%) VMware NSX
10 34 (1.20%) BitLocker
11 25 (0.88%) Microsoft App-V
12 22 (0.77%) KVM
13 12 (0.42%) XenApp
13 12 (0.42%) XenDesktop
14 10 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
15 6 (0.21%) etcd
16 5 (0.18%) Terminal Services
17 4 (0.14%) NFS
17 4 (0.14%) Snort
Systems Management
1 360 (12.67%) Microsoft Intune
2 289 (10.17%) SCCM
3 184 (6.47%) Ansible
4 168 (5.91%) Terraform
5 132 (4.64%) Kubernetes
6 68 (2.39%) vCenter Server
7 64 (2.25%) Single Sign-On
8 49 (1.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 44 (1.55%) WSUS
10 40 (1.41%) Jamf Pro
11 38 (1.34%) FortiGate
11 38 (1.34%) Grafana
12 31 (1.09%) Prometheus
13 27 (0.95%) Nagios
14 25 (0.88%) SCOM
15 23 (0.81%) Nessus
16 21 (0.74%) Progress Chef
17 20 (0.70%) ZABBIX
18 19 (0.67%) Tivoli
19 18 (0.63%) Netcool
Vendors
1 1,214 (42.72%) Microsoft
2 433 (15.24%) VMware
3 223 (7.85%) ServiceNow
4 210 (7.39%) Citrix
5 195 (6.86%) Cisco
6 182 (6.40%) Oracle
7 155 (5.45%) Splunk
8 86 (3.03%) HP
9 72 (2.53%) Dell
10 68 (2.39%) SolarWinds
11 57 (2.01%) IBM
12 56 (1.97%) Apple
12 56 (1.97%) Red Hat
13 55 (1.94%) Remedy
14 53 (1.86%) Google
15 48 (1.69%) F5
16 47 (1.65%) CyberArk
16 47 (1.65%) Palo Alto
17 39 (1.37%) Juniper
18 38 (1.34%) Veeam