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 25 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 16
Rank change year-on-year -3 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,825 2,797 4,059
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.61% 8.25% 9.35%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.32% 58.83% 62.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,931 1,788 2,725
10th Percentile £163 £180 £158
25th Percentile £204 £227 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £575
90th Percentile £638 £646 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £330 £363 £375
% change year-on-year -8.97% -3.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 268 117 231
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.13 £17.25
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £21.31
Median % change year-on-year -9.02% +13.47% +6.55%
75th Percentile £43.75 £53.00 £49.81
90th Percentile £67.84 £66.50 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £20.85
% change year-on-year -9.02% +15.96% +12.72%

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 4,762 4,754 6,500
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.83% 14.03% 14.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,109 2,972 4,424
10th Percentile £175 £200 £180
25th Percentile £268 £317 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £600
90th Percentile £662 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £425 £430
% change year-on-year -2.94% -1.16% -4.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 353 177 319
10th Percentile £15.36 £16.15 £14.24
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.00 £17.74
Median hourly rate £25.15 £41.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -38.66% +26.15% +30.00%
75th Percentile £62.25 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £70.40 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £37.50 £27.00
% change year-on-year -32.93% +38.89% +22.73%

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 25 December 2025.

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 25 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows in the UK

Windows
Top 17 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 25 December 2025. 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 2,499 £390 -2.50% 1,427
UK excluding London -3 1,908 £330 -8.97% 1,335
London -16 739 £450 +7.14% 271
Work from Home -13 556 £425 -5.56% 482
South East 0 520 £375 -9.09% 427
North of England -3 423 £250 -28.57% 302
South West +4 317 £425 +6.25% 178
Midlands -4 310 £390 +20.00% 187
North West -4 241 £305 -12.86% 156
West Midlands -5 212 £449 +38.00% 107
East of England +5 193 £226 -27.60% 172
Yorkshire -13 153 £260 -25.82% 129
Scotland -14 110 £450 +2.86% 62
East Midlands +1 98 £215 -41.18% 76
Wales -1 44 £180 -22.16% 38
North East +2 32 £188 -41.41% 25
Northern Ireland -9 15 £203 +30.65% 11

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
1 238 (8.42%) Microsoft Exchange
2 183 (6.48%) SharePoint
3 77 (2.73%) Confluence
4 48 (1.70%) Apache
5 47 (1.66%) IIS
6 27 (0.96%) WebLogic
7 21 (0.74%) WebSphere
8 19 (0.67%) Skype for Business
9 17 (0.60%) JBoss
10 16 (0.57%) nginx
11 12 (0.42%) Exchange Server 2010
11 12 (0.42%) SharePoint Server
12 11 (0.39%) SAS
12 11 (0.39%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.35%) iPlanet
14 9 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
14 9 (0.32%) Tomcat
14 9 (0.32%) TPMS
14 9 (0.32%) Tuxedo
15 7 (0.25%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 278 (9.84%) Microsoft Office
2 85 (3.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.35%) Mozilla Thunderbird
4 10 (0.35%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.11%) Acrobat
6 3 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.071%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.071%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.071%) Windchill
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.035%) Camtasia
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.035%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 21 (0.74%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.28%) assyst
3 5 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 2 (0.071%) Eikon
5 2 (0.071%) Fidessa
5 2 (0.071%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.071%) Maximo
5 2 (0.071%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.071%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.071%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.071%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.035%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.035%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.035%) Eze OMS
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.035%) Primavera
6 1 (0.035%) RMDS
6 1 (0.035%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.035%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 747 (26.44%) Microsoft 365
2 669 (23.68%) Azure
3 276 (9.77%) AWS
4 243 (8.60%) Entra ID
5 83 (2.94%) OneDrive
6 80 (2.83%) GCP
7 75 (2.65%) SaaS
8 67 (2.37%) Azure DevOps
8 67 (2.37%) GitHub
9 54 (1.91%) IaaS
10 45 (1.59%) Google Workspace
11 38 (1.35%) PaaS
12 37 (1.31%) Power Platform
13 36 (1.27%) Azure Monitor
14 32 (1.13%) Amazon S3
15 31 (1.10%) Azure Sentinel
16 30 (1.06%) Amazon EC2
16 30 (1.06%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 26 (0.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 25 (0.88%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 370 (13.10%) DNS
2 323 (11.43%) Firewall
3 216 (7.65%) DHCP
4 205 (7.26%) TCP/IP
5 176 (6.23%) VPN
6 103 (3.65%) Wi-Fi
7 95 (3.36%) LAN
8 93 (3.29%) Network Security
9 91 (3.22%) WAN
10 70 (2.48%) Wireless
11 62 (2.19%) SSH
12 61 (2.16%) VLAN
13 52 (1.84%) HTTP
14 48 (1.70%) SAN
15 36 (1.27%) Skype
16 35 (1.24%) Cisco IOS
16 35 (1.24%) SSL
17 34 (1.20%) VoIP
18 31 (1.10%) FTP
18 31 (1.10%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 127 (4.50%) SQL Server
2 82 (2.90%) Oracle Database
3 64 (2.27%) Relational Database
4 49 (1.73%) MySQL
5 34 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
6 25 (0.88%) Amazon RDS
7 15 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
8 14 (0.50%) Power BI
9 12 (0.42%) Amazon Aurora
9 12 (0.42%) BigQuery
10 11 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
11 10 (0.35%) GIS
11 10 (0.35%) MongoDB
11 10 (0.35%) NoSQL
12 9 (0.32%) RDBMS
13 7 (0.25%) Data Lake
13 7 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
13 7 (0.25%) DB2
13 7 (0.25%) SAP HANA
14 6 (0.21%) Apache Cassandra
Development Applications
1 159 (5.63%) JIRA
2 103 (3.65%) Jenkins
3 100 (3.54%) Git
4 60 (2.12%) GitLab
5 39 (1.38%) Eclipse
6 35 (1.24%) Visual Studio
7 33 (1.17%) MSI
8 27 (0.96%) Bitbucket
9 23 (0.81%) Android Studio
10 22 (0.78%) Browser DevTools
11 21 (0.74%) Xcode
12 18 (0.64%) Artifactory
12 18 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
12 18 (0.64%) Vagrant
13 15 (0.53%) InstallShield
14 14 (0.50%) Bitbucket Server
14 14 (0.50%) CA Release Automation
15 12 (0.42%) Burp Suite
15 12 (0.42%) Metasploit
16 11 (0.39%) AdminStudio
General
1 1,082 (38.30%) Social Skills
2 341 (12.07%) Finance
3 257 (9.10%) Public Sector
4 253 (8.96%) Analytical Skills
5 126 (4.46%) Banking
6 116 (4.11%) Documentation Skills
7 86 (3.04%) Legal
8 69 (2.44%) Organisational Skills
9 63 (2.23%) Manufacturing
10 55 (1.95%) Military
11 48 (1.70%) Telecoms
12 46 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
13 44 (1.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 42 (1.49%) Retail
15 33 (1.17%) Marketing
16 32 (1.13%) Aerospace
17 27 (0.96%) Law
18 26 (0.92%) Front Office
19 24 (0.85%) Electronics
20 20 (0.71%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 428 (15.15%) Support Engineer
2 348 (12.32%) Analyst
3 331 (11.72%) IT Support
4 193 (6.83%) IT Engineer
5 171 (6.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 158 (5.59%) Windows Engineer
7 155 (5.49%) Desktop Support
8 148 (5.24%) Senior
9 147 (5.20%) Architect
9 147 (5.20%) Support Analyst
10 143 (5.06%) IT Support Engineer
11 137 (4.85%) Desktop Engineer
12 126 (4.46%) Deployment Engineer
13 116 (4.11%) 2nd Line Support
14 114 (4.04%) Technical Support
15 106 (3.75%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 104 (3.68%) Developer
17 93 (3.29%) Platform Engineer
18 85 (3.01%) DevOps Engineer
19 83 (2.94%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.62%) .NET
2 58 (2.05%) LDAP
3 55 (1.95%) REST
4 45 (1.59%) Middleware
5 41 (1.45%) .NET Framework
6 39 (1.38%) OAuth
6 39 (1.38%) SAML
7 38 (1.35%) React
8 36 (1.27%) AngularJS
9 33 (1.17%) WPF
10 32 (1.13%) OpenID
11 31 (1.10%) Web Services
12 28 (0.99%) CSS
13 27 (0.96%) XML
14 26 (0.92%) Kafka
14 26 (0.92%) Node.js
15 23 (0.81%) Ajax
15 23 (0.81%) SOAP
16 22 (0.78%) GraphQL
17 19 (0.67%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 133 (4.71%) Onboarding
2 96 (3.40%) PKI
3 95 (3.36%) Data Centre
4 84 (2.97%) Driving Licence
5 65 (2.30%) Replication
6 63 (2.23%) Enterprise Software
7 59 (2.09%) Self-Motivation
8 58 (2.05%) Management Information System
9 54 (1.91%) Smartphone
10 47 (1.66%) Security Posture
11 35 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
12 33 (1.17%) Hybrid Cloud
12 33 (1.17%) Mobile App
13 32 (1.13%) Legacy Systems
14 31 (1.10%) NHS
14 31 (1.10%) Public Cloud
15 30 (1.06%) Clustering
15 30 (1.06%) Video Conferencing
16 29 (1.03%) Data Protection Act
17 27 (0.96%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 733 (25.95%) Linux
2 593 (20.99%) Windows 10
3 551 (19.50%) Windows Server
4 202 (7.15%) Unix
5 160 (5.66%) Mac OS
6 148 (5.24%) Android
7 103 (3.65%) Apple iOS
8 83 (2.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 68 (2.41%) Windows Server 2016
10 58 (2.05%) Windows Server 2019
11 51 (1.81%) Windows 7
12 46 (1.63%) Windows Server 2012
13 35 (1.24%) VMS
14 34 (1.20%) Windows Server 2003
15 28 (0.99%) AIX
16 25 (0.88%) Ubuntu
17 18 (0.64%) Amazon Linux
17 18 (0.64%) Solaris
18 14 (0.50%) Windows Server 2008
19 12 (0.42%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 507 (17.95%) Problem-Solving
2 425 (15.04%) ITIL
3 400 (14.16%) Customer Service
4 291 (10.30%) Agile
5 286 (10.12%) Migration
6 253 (8.96%) DevOps
7 249 (8.81%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 220 (7.79%) CI/CD
9 218 (7.72%) Service Management
10 216 (7.65%) Cybersecurity
11 193 (6.83%) ITSM
12 188 (6.65%) Continuous Improvement
13 168 (5.95%) Change Management
14 139 (4.92%) User Experience
15 133 (4.71%) Incident Response
16 129 (4.57%) SIEM
17 124 (4.39%) Stakeholder Management
18 122 (4.32%) Computer Science
19 119 (4.21%) Disaster Recovery
20 114 (4.04%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 546 (19.33%) PowerShell
2 371 (13.13%) Python
3 294 (10.41%) SQL
4 158 (5.59%) Java
5 133 (4.71%) C#
6 125 (4.42%) Bash
7 86 (3.04%) JavaScript
8 82 (2.90%) Perl
9 69 (2.44%) C++
10 48 (1.70%) PL/SQL
11 41 (1.45%) Shell Script
12 31 (1.10%) Kusto Query Language
13 30 (1.06%) VBScript
14 29 (1.03%) Groovy
14 29 (1.03%) T-SQL
15 28 (0.99%) VB
16 25 (0.88%) VBA
17 21 (0.74%) C
18 16 (0.57%) TypeScript
19 15 (0.53%) Go
Qualifications
1 849 (30.05%) Security Cleared
2 568 (20.11%) SC Cleared
3 296 (10.48%) Degree
4 237 (8.39%) DV Cleared
5 179 (6.34%) Microsoft Certification
6 88 (3.12%) Computer Science Degree
7 69 (2.44%) Azure Certification
8 53 (1.88%) A+ Certification
8 53 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
8 53 (1.88%) MCSE
9 44 (1.56%) ITIL Certification
10 41 (1.45%) CISSP
11 38 (1.35%) AWS Certification
12 35 (1.24%) CompTIA Security+
13 33 (1.17%) BPSS Clearance
14 32 (1.13%) CCNA
14 32 (1.13%) CCNP
15 30 (1.06%) DBS Check
16 26 (0.92%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 26 (0.92%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (3.22%) SLA
2 82 (2.90%) GDPR
3 69 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 63 (2.23%) QA
5 52 (1.84%) NIST
6 25 (0.88%) PCI DSS
7 17 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
8 12 (0.42%) NCSC
9 11 (0.39%) HIPAA
10 9 (0.32%) GLBA
10 9 (0.32%) PMO
11 8 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 6 (0.21%) COBIT
13 5 (0.18%) Accessibility
13 5 (0.18%) MiFID
13 5 (0.18%) SOC 2
14 4 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
14 4 (0.14%) NIST 800
15 3 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 3 (0.11%) SEPA
System Software
1 1,017 (36.00%) Active Directory
2 249 (8.81%) VMware Infrastructure
3 124 (4.39%) Docker
4 93 (3.29%) Hyper-V
5 59 (2.09%) Virtual Desktop
6 53 (1.88%) Virtual Machines
7 51 (1.81%) vSphere
8 46 (1.63%) VMware ESXi
9 33 (1.17%) VMware NSX
10 22 (0.78%) BitLocker
11 21 (0.74%) DFS Replication
12 20 (0.71%) Firmware
13 18 (0.64%) Terminal Services
14 15 (0.53%) Microsoft App-V
14 15 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
15 14 (0.50%) XenApp
16 13 (0.46%) NFS
17 10 (0.35%) Dovecot
17 10 (0.35%) Postfix
17 10 (0.35%) Squid
Systems Management
1 398 (14.09%) SCCM
2 298 (10.55%) Microsoft Intune
3 191 (6.76%) Terraform
4 160 (5.66%) Ansible
5 108 (3.82%) Kubernetes
6 67 (2.37%) vCenter Server
7 63 (2.23%) Single Sign-On
8 54 (1.91%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 43 (1.52%) Grafana
10 39 (1.38%) Jamf Pro
11 30 (1.06%) WSUS
12 29 (1.03%) Nessus
13 28 (0.99%) Prometheus
13 28 (0.99%) SCOM
14 26 (0.92%) Progress Chef
15 21 (0.74%) Microsoft Clustering
16 17 (0.60%) NetBackup
17 16 (0.57%) Proxmox
18 15 (0.53%) Puppet
18 15 (0.53%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,208 (42.76%) Microsoft
2 353 (12.50%) VMware
3 255 (9.03%) ServiceNow
4 233 (8.25%) Oracle
5 182 (6.44%) Citrix
6 178 (6.30%) Cisco
7 156 (5.52%) Splunk
8 83 (2.94%) Apple
9 79 (2.80%) HP
10 69 (2.44%) Red Hat
11 63 (2.23%) Dell
12 58 (2.05%) IBM
13 56 (1.98%) Veeam
14 51 (1.81%) Google
15 50 (1.77%) SolarWinds
16 49 (1.73%) SAP
17 43 (1.52%) NetApp
18 42 (1.49%) CyberArk
19 41 (1.45%) AppDynamics
20 40 (1.42%) CrowdStrike