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 18 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 15
Rank change year-on-year -3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,834 2,963 4,529
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 8.01% 8.22% 9.69%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.25% 58.24% 63.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,899 1,844 3,019
10th Percentile £163 £181 £160
25th Percentile £204 £240 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £423 £423
Median % change year-on-year -5.44% +0.12% -0.59%
75th Percentile £538 £559 £575
90th Percentile £627 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £400 £386
% change year-on-year -18.75% +3.56% +10.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 299 137 257
10th Percentile £15.12 £15.22 £14.17
25th Percentile £17.69 £19.64 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.02% +7.47% +9.76%
75th Percentile £25.58 £57.62 £55.47
90th Percentile £65.00 £69.13 £68.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £24.18 £22.00
% change year-on-year -11.25% +9.91% +17.33%

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 4,783 5,088 7,124
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.51% 14.11% 15.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,087 3,120 4,834
10th Percentile £182 £200 £182
25th Percentile £270 £325 £305
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -5.88%
75th Percentile £573 £585 £613
90th Percentile £660 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £405 £450 £440
% change year-on-year -10.00% +2.27% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 366 215 354
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.25 £15.33
25th Percentile £18.87 £23.45 £18.50
Median hourly rate £24.00 £52.50 £37.83
Median % change year-on-year -54.29% +38.79% +51.31%
75th Percentile £43.75 £68.09 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £70.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £52.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year -56.19% +75.00% +33.33%

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 18 November 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 18 November 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 18 November 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 -2 2,520 £393 -3.39% 1,946
UK excluding London 0 1,892 £325 -18.75% 1,538
London -11 790 £450 +12.50% 630
Work from Home -9 572 £425 -5.56% 775
South East +3 507 £350 -17.65% 522
North of England -4 395 £285 -28.75% 312
South West +5 328 £425 - 227
Midlands -7 303 £400 +4.44% 206
North West -5 216 £330 -26.67% 191
West Midlands -7 213 £427 +10.91% 118
East of England -1 211 £225 -43.75% 154
Yorkshire -10 150 £240 -32.39% 96
Scotland -12 120 £450 +9.09% 101
East Midlands -2 89 £210 -44.00% 87
Wales -1 44 £275 +37.50% 29
North East +2 32 £190 -38.71% 25
Northern Ireland -11 17 £175 -0.57% 25

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
1 264 (9.32%) Microsoft Exchange
2 178 (6.28%) SharePoint
3 83 (2.93%) Confluence
4 55 (1.94%) Apache
5 43 (1.52%) IIS
6 28 (0.99%) WebSphere
7 22 (0.78%) Skype for Business
8 21 (0.74%) JBoss
9 18 (0.64%) WebLogic
10 15 (0.53%) SharePoint Server
11 14 (0.49%) Exchange Server 2010
11 14 (0.49%) Exchange Server 2013
12 13 (0.46%) nginx
13 11 (0.39%) WebSphere Application Server
14 10 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2003
14 10 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2007
14 10 (0.35%) iPlanet
14 10 (0.35%) Office Communications Server
15 9 (0.32%) Tomcat
16 7 (0.25%) SAS
Applications
1 269 (9.49%) Microsoft Office
2 88 (3.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.35%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 8 (0.28%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.071%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.071%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.071%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.071%) Windchill
8 1 (0.035%) Acrobat
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
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 20 (0.71%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.25%) Maximo
3 6 (0.21%) assyst
4 5 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.11%) ION MarketView
5 3 (0.11%) Oracle 11i
6 2 (0.071%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.071%) Eikon
6 2 (0.071%) Fidessa
6 2 (0.071%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.071%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.071%) SystmOne
6 2 (0.071%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.035%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.035%) Eze OMS
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle BPM
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.035%) RMDS
7 1 (0.035%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 747 (26.36%) Microsoft 365
2 633 (22.34%) Azure
3 266 (9.39%) AWS
4 230 (8.12%) Entra ID
5 89 (3.14%) OneDrive
6 83 (2.93%) SaaS
7 75 (2.65%) GitHub
8 64 (2.26%) Azure DevOps
8 64 (2.26%) GCP
9 55 (1.94%) IaaS
10 49 (1.73%) Google Workspace
11 41 (1.45%) Power Platform
12 40 (1.41%) PaaS
13 38 (1.34%) Azure Sentinel
14 37 (1.31%) Amazon S3
15 36 (1.27%) Amazon EC2
16 35 (1.24%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 32 (1.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 29 (1.02%) Azure Monitor
19 28 (0.99%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 338 (11.93%) DNS
2 319 (11.26%) Firewall
3 209 (7.37%) DHCP
4 202 (7.13%) TCP/IP
5 166 (5.86%) VPN
6 102 (3.60%) Wi-Fi
7 95 (3.35%) LAN
8 92 (3.25%) WAN
9 84 (2.96%) Network Security
10 68 (2.40%) VLAN
11 63 (2.22%) SAN
12 62 (2.19%) SSH
13 57 (2.01%) Wireless
14 54 (1.91%) Cisco IOS
14 54 (1.91%) HTTP
15 35 (1.24%) SSL
16 33 (1.16%) VoIP
17 31 (1.09%) SMTP
18 30 (1.06%) Internet
18 30 (1.06%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 127 (4.48%) SQL Server
2 83 (2.93%) Oracle Database
3 65 (2.29%) Relational Database
4 45 (1.59%) MySQL
5 36 (1.27%) Amazon RDS
6 26 (0.92%) PostgreSQL
7 17 (0.60%) Power BI
8 13 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
9 12 (0.42%) DB2
10 11 (0.39%) Amazon Aurora
10 11 (0.39%) GIS
10 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
11 10 (0.35%) RDBMS
12 9 (0.32%) BigQuery
13 8 (0.28%) SAP HANA
14 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
14 7 (0.25%) Elasticsearch
14 7 (0.25%) MongoDB
15 6 (0.21%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 166 (5.86%) JIRA
2 118 (4.16%) Git
3 112 (3.95%) Jenkins
4 45 (1.59%) GitLab
5 42 (1.48%) Eclipse
6 39 (1.38%) Visual Studio
7 31 (1.09%) Bitbucket
8 30 (1.06%) MSI
9 25 (0.88%) Vagrant
10 20 (0.71%) Android Studio
10 20 (0.71%) Sonatype Nexus
11 19 (0.67%) Browser DevTools
12 18 (0.64%) Xcode
13 15 (0.53%) AdminStudio
13 15 (0.53%) Bitbucket Server
13 15 (0.53%) CA Release Automation
13 15 (0.53%) InstallShield
14 14 (0.49%) Postman
15 13 (0.46%) Artifactory
15 13 (0.46%) IntelliJ
General
1 1,069 (37.72%) Social Skills
2 383 (13.51%) Finance
3 274 (9.67%) Analytical Skills
4 270 (9.53%) Public Sector
5 137 (4.83%) Banking
6 118 (4.16%) Documentation Skills
7 79 (2.79%) Legal
8 66 (2.33%) Manufacturing
9 59 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 57 (2.01%) Organisational Skills
11 52 (1.83%) Telecoms
12 50 (1.76%) Military
12 50 (1.76%) Presentation Skills
13 42 (1.48%) Retail
14 37 (1.31%) Marketing
15 31 (1.09%) Games
16 26 (0.92%) Electronics
17 25 (0.88%) Aerospace
17 25 (0.88%) Front Office
18 22 (0.78%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 445 (15.70%) Support Engineer
2 346 (12.21%) Analyst
3 305 (10.76%) IT Support
4 194 (6.85%) IT Engineer
5 174 (6.14%) Windows Engineer
6 160 (5.65%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 153 (5.40%) Desktop Engineer
8 152 (5.36%) Support Analyst
9 151 (5.33%) Desktop Support
10 142 (5.01%) Architect
11 136 (4.80%) Deployment Engineer
12 134 (4.73%) IT Support Engineer
13 133 (4.69%) Senior
14 118 (4.16%) 2nd Line Support
15 110 (3.88%) Developer
15 110 (3.88%) Technical Support
16 108 (3.81%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 103 (3.63%) Platform Engineer
18 93 (3.28%) Administrator
19 83 (2.93%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (2.51%) .NET
2 52 (1.83%) LDAP
3 51 (1.80%) Middleware
4 43 (1.52%) Web Services
5 42 (1.48%) REST
6 41 (1.45%) .NET Framework
7 40 (1.41%) WPF
8 38 (1.34%) Node.js
9 34 (1.20%) AngularJS
9 34 (1.20%) OAuth
9 34 (1.20%) XML
10 32 (1.13%) SAML
11 29 (1.02%) React
12 28 (0.99%) SOAP
13 26 (0.92%) OpenID
14 23 (0.81%) CSS
15 20 (0.71%) Ajax
16 19 (0.67%) GraphQL
16 19 (0.67%) RESTful
17 17 (0.60%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 110 (3.88%) Onboarding
2 96 (3.39%) Data Centre
3 87 (3.07%) PKI
4 76 (2.68%) Driving Licence
5 66 (2.33%) Replication
6 61 (2.15%) Self-Motivation
7 60 (2.12%) Enterprise Software
8 56 (1.98%) Management Information System
9 38 (1.34%) Security Posture
10 37 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
10 37 (1.31%) iPhone
11 36 (1.27%) Smartphone
12 33 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
12 33 (1.16%) iPad
12 33 (1.16%) NHS
12 33 (1.16%) Video Conferencing
13 30 (1.06%) Mobile App
14 27 (0.95%) Hybrid Cloud
14 27 (0.95%) Legacy Systems
15 26 (0.92%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 697 (24.59%) Linux
2 600 (21.17%) Windows 10
3 526 (18.56%) Windows Server
4 186 (6.56%) Unix
5 154 (5.43%) Mac OS
6 152 (5.36%) Android
7 105 (3.71%) Apple iOS
8 84 (2.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 71 (2.51%) Windows 7
10 66 (2.33%) Windows Server 2016
11 62 (2.19%) Windows Server 2019
12 48 (1.69%) Windows Server 2012
13 40 (1.41%) VMS
14 38 (1.34%) Windows Server 2003
15 37 (1.31%) Ubuntu
16 26 (0.92%) AIX
17 24 (0.85%) CentOS
18 23 (0.81%) Amazon Linux
19 17 (0.60%) Solaris
20 15 (0.53%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 519 (18.31%) Problem-Solving
2 412 (14.54%) ITIL
3 366 (12.91%) Customer Service
4 307 (10.83%) Migration
5 286 (10.09%) Agile
6 254 (8.96%) DevOps
7 227 (8.01%) Service Management
8 226 (7.97%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 211 (7.45%) ITSM
10 206 (7.27%) Cybersecurity
11 201 (7.09%) CI/CD
12 168 (5.93%) Continuous Improvement
13 159 (5.61%) Change Management
14 128 (4.52%) Incident Response
15 123 (4.34%) Stakeholder Management
16 122 (4.30%) User Experience
17 113 (3.99%) Cloud Security
17 113 (3.99%) Service Delivery
18 108 (3.81%) Incident Management
19 104 (3.67%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 524 (18.49%) PowerShell
2 369 (13.02%) Python
3 280 (9.88%) SQL
4 152 (5.36%) Java
5 146 (5.15%) C#
6 125 (4.41%) Bash
7 89 (3.14%) JavaScript
8 81 (2.86%) C++
9 78 (2.75%) Perl
10 43 (1.52%) PL/SQL
11 39 (1.38%) Shell Script
11 39 (1.38%) VB
12 33 (1.16%) Groovy
12 33 (1.16%) Kusto Query Language
13 31 (1.09%) VBScript
14 30 (1.06%) C
14 30 (1.06%) VBA
15 22 (0.78%) T-SQL
16 20 (0.71%) PHP
17 15 (0.53%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 790 (27.88%) Security Cleared
2 559 (19.72%) SC Cleared
3 265 (9.35%) Degree
4 197 (6.95%) Microsoft Certification
5 193 (6.81%) DV Cleared
6 70 (2.47%) Computer Science Degree
7 65 (2.29%) Azure Certification
8 55 (1.94%) Cisco Certification
9 54 (1.91%) MCSE
10 50 (1.76%) A+ Certification
11 44 (1.55%) CISSP
12 37 (1.31%) ITIL Certification
13 36 (1.27%) DBS Check
14 35 (1.24%) CCNA
15 34 (1.20%) AWS Certification
15 34 (1.20%) CCNP
16 32 (1.13%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 27 (0.95%) MCSA
18 26 (0.92%) BPSS Clearance
19 25 (0.88%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (3.21%) SLA
2 77 (2.72%) QA
3 64 (2.26%) GDPR
4 58 (2.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 55 (1.94%) NIST
6 19 (0.67%) HIPAA
7 14 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
7 14 (0.49%) PCI DSS
8 11 (0.39%) NCSC
8 11 (0.39%) PMO
9 9 (0.32%) Accessibility
10 8 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (0.21%) COBIT
12 5 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
12 5 (0.18%) GLBA
13 4 (0.14%) SOC 2
14 3 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 3 (0.11%) Data Quality
14 3 (0.11%) ECSS
14 3 (0.11%) GxP
System Software
1 1,012 (35.71%) Active Directory
2 252 (8.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 120 (4.23%) Docker
4 82 (2.89%) Hyper-V
5 65 (2.29%) Virtual Desktop
6 59 (2.08%) vSphere
7 58 (2.05%) Virtual Machines
8 51 (1.80%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.09%) VMware NSX
10 25 (0.88%) BitLocker
10 25 (0.88%) DFS Replication
11 24 (0.85%) Firmware
11 24 (0.85%) Microsoft App-V
12 19 (0.67%) NFS
13 16 (0.56%) Terminal Services
13 16 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
14 15 (0.53%) XenApp
15 10 (0.35%) ISA Server
15 10 (0.35%) Postfix
15 10 (0.35%) Squid
Systems Management
1 430 (15.17%) SCCM
2 308 (10.87%) Microsoft Intune
3 177 (6.25%) Terraform
4 145 (5.12%) Ansible
5 90 (3.18%) Kubernetes
6 56 (1.98%) vCenter Server
7 46 (1.62%) Single Sign-On
8 43 (1.52%) Grafana
9 41 (1.45%) Jamf Pro
10 40 (1.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 33 (1.16%) Progress Chef
11 33 (1.16%) WSUS
12 30 (1.06%) Prometheus
13 28 (0.99%) SCOM
14 27 (0.95%) Nessus
15 25 (0.88%) Puppet
16 24 (0.85%) Microsoft Clustering
17 16 (0.56%) Proxmox
18 14 (0.49%) WMI
19 13 (0.46%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 1,266 (44.67%) Microsoft
2 359 (12.67%) VMware
3 257 (9.07%) ServiceNow
4 230 (8.12%) Oracle
5 182 (6.42%) Cisco
6 177 (6.25%) Citrix
7 150 (5.29%) Splunk
8 88 (3.11%) Apple
9 76 (2.68%) HP
10 69 (2.43%) Red Hat
11 65 (2.29%) IBM
12 59 (2.08%) Dell
13 55 (1.94%) Veeam
14 54 (1.91%) Google
15 53 (1.87%) SAP
16 47 (1.66%) NetApp
17 46 (1.62%) SolarWinds
18 44 (1.55%) AppDynamics
19 43 (1.52%) CyberArk
20 41 (1.45%) Remedy