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

6 months to
19 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -5 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,820 2,433 3,462
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.87% 8.33% 8.13%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.54% 59.91% 61.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,833 1,681 2,392
10th Percentile £163 £178 £163
25th Percentile £213 £231 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £420 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -1.18% +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 - - +3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 135 272
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.04 £11.82
25th Percentile £16.90 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.63% +4.56% -20.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £25.00 £24.39
90th Percentile £74.34 £41.80 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.52 £18.82 £17.50
% change year-on-year +35.57% +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 4,658 4,061 5,668
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.70% 13.91% 13.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,994 2,671 3,828
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £456 £468 £470
Median % change year-on-year -2.46% -0.53% -6.01%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £656 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £448 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -0.35% - -4.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 321 175 392
10th Percentile £15.62 £15.24 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.44 £15.44
Median hourly rate £42.50 £22.50 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +88.89% +2.27% -42.86%
75th Percentile £65.00 £56.25 £60.75
90th Percentile £74.68 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £21.11 £22.50
% change year-on-year +98.67% -6.18% -23.21%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -7 2,437 £415 -1.31% 983
UK excluding London -11 1,886 £400 - 897
London -26 747 £425 -5.56% 214
Work from Home -15 573 £475 +1.17% 313
South East -5 519 £475 -3.06% 294
North of England -9 449 £350 +7.69% 193
Midlands -17 262 £325 +30.00% 113
North West -4 253 £305 -9.63% 110
South West -12 224 £450 -14.29% 136
East of England -2 213 £350 +3.70% 101
Yorkshire -21 184 £375 +13.21% 66
Scotland +1 165 £425 -4.23% 45
West Midlands -26 150 £450 +68.22% 57
East Midlands +5 107 £225 +9.09% 56
Wales -2 50 £280 -18.84% 31
North East -31 16 £400 +33.33% 20
Northern Ireland -7 15 £175 -12.50% 9
Channel Islands -2 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
1 228 (8.09%) Microsoft Exchange
2 162 (5.74%) SharePoint
3 58 (2.06%) IIS
4 49 (1.74%) Confluence
5 21 (0.74%) Apache
6 19 (0.67%) WebLogic
7 14 (0.50%) nginx
7 14 (0.50%) Tomcat
8 12 (0.43%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.43%) Tuxedo
9 10 (0.35%) SAS
10 9 (0.32%) NetWeaver
11 8 (0.28%) TPMS
12 7 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
13 6 (0.21%) HCL Notes
14 5 (0.18%) WebSphere
15 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 3 (0.11%) Appian
17 2 (0.071%) Apache Pulsar
17 2 (0.071%) CloudStack
Applications
1 185 (6.56%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.32%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.14%) Acrobat
8 2 (0.071%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 43 (1.52%) Remedy ITSM
2 19 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.43%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.14%) assyst
4 4 (0.14%) Finacle
5 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.071%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.035%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.035%) OpenText MBPM
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle 11i
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle BPM
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 801 (28.40%) Azure
2 783 (27.77%) Microsoft 365
3 326 (11.56%) Entra ID
4 247 (8.76%) AWS
5 86 (3.05%) OneDrive
6 75 (2.66%) Azure DevOps
6 75 (2.66%) GCP
7 74 (2.62%) SaaS
8 65 (2.30%) IaaS
9 57 (2.02%) GitHub
10 55 (1.95%) PaaS
11 50 (1.77%) Power Platform
12 40 (1.42%) Azure Monitor
13 38 (1.35%) OpenShift
14 35 (1.24%) Google Workspace
15 34 (1.21%) Azure Sentinel
16 26 (0.92%) GitHub Actions
17 19 (0.67%) Azure AKS
18 18 (0.64%) Microsoft Purview
18 18 (0.64%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 380 (13.48%) DNS
2 298 (10.57%) Firewall
3 256 (9.08%) DHCP
4 204 (7.23%) VPN
5 175 (6.21%) WAN
6 172 (6.10%) LAN
7 169 (5.99%) TCP/IP
8 139 (4.93%) Wi-Fi
9 77 (2.73%) SAN
10 72 (2.55%) Network Security
11 59 (2.09%) VLAN
12 45 (1.60%) SD-WAN
13 41 (1.45%) Wireless
14 39 (1.38%) BGP
15 38 (1.35%) SNMP
16 36 (1.28%) NAS
16 36 (1.28%) Skype
17 35 (1.24%) OSPF
17 35 (1.24%) SSL
17 35 (1.24%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 215 (7.62%) SQL Server
2 50 (1.77%) Oracle Database
3 33 (1.17%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.06%) Power BI
5 29 (1.03%) MySQL
6 27 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
7 19 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
8 16 (0.57%) DB2
9 14 (0.50%) MongoDB
9 14 (0.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 13 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
11 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
12 9 (0.32%) GIS
12 9 (0.32%) SAP HANA
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.28%) Sybase ASE
14 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.25%) Oracle BI EE
14 7 (0.25%) RDBMS
15 6 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 173 (6.13%) JIRA
2 50 (1.77%) GitLab
3 49 (1.74%) Jenkins
4 44 (1.56%) MSI
5 43 (1.52%) Git
6 35 (1.24%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.67%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.64%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.39%) Sonatype Nexus
11 10 (0.35%) Artifactory
12 9 (0.32%) Android Studio
12 9 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
12 9 (0.32%) Chocolatey
12 9 (0.32%) Xcode
13 7 (0.25%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.25%) InstallShield
13 7 (0.25%) Robot Framework
13 7 (0.25%) Selenium
14 5 (0.18%) AdminStudio
General
1 946 (33.55%) Social Skills
2 272 (9.65%) Finance
3 270 (9.57%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (7.27%) Public Sector
5 139 (4.93%) Banking
6 120 (4.26%) Legal
7 96 (3.40%) Documentation Skills
8 76 (2.70%) Organisational Skills
9 56 (1.99%) Military
10 48 (1.70%) Manufacturing
11 46 (1.63%) Retail
12 39 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 38 (1.35%) Law
14 33 (1.17%) Telecoms
15 30 (1.06%) Investment Banking
15 30 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
16 26 (0.92%) Front Office
17 20 (0.71%) Local Government
18 18 (0.64%) Police
19 17 (0.60%) French Language
Job Titles
1 358 (12.70%) IT Support
2 339 (12.02%) Support Engineer
3 313 (11.10%) Analyst
4 239 (8.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 220 (7.80%) IT Engineer
6 181 (6.42%) IT Support Engineer
7 166 (5.89%) Senior
8 155 (5.50%) Architect
9 120 (4.26%) Desktop Support
10 118 (4.18%) Support Analyst
11 102 (3.62%) Lead
12 101 (3.58%) Desktop Engineer
13 93 (3.30%) Developer
14 92 (3.26%) IT Analyst
15 91 (3.23%) 2nd Line Support
16 88 (3.12%) Technical Support
17 86 (3.05%) Windows Engineer
18 73 (2.59%) 1st Line Support
18 73 (2.59%) Service Analyst
19 71 (2.52%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (3.23%) .NET
1 91 (3.23%) REST
2 49 (1.74%) .NET Framework
3 45 (1.60%) LDAP
4 38 (1.35%) SAML
5 33 (1.17%) Kafka
6 31 (1.10%) Microsoft Graph
6 31 (1.10%) Middleware
7 27 (0.96%) 802.1X
7 27 (0.96%) WinForms
8 26 (0.92%) OAuth
9 23 (0.82%) Web Services
9 23 (0.82%) WPF
10 20 (0.71%) React
10 20 (0.71%) Software Packaging
11 19 (0.67%) CSS
11 19 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
12 18 (0.64%) AngularJS
12 18 (0.64%) Node.js
13 17 (0.60%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 233 (8.26%) Onboarding
2 140 (4.96%) Data Centre
3 108 (3.83%) PKI
4 84 (2.98%) Enterprise Software
5 80 (2.84%) Clustering
6 67 (2.38%) Driving Licence
7 62 (2.20%) Self-Motivation
8 58 (2.06%) Replication
9 50 (1.77%) Hybrid Cloud
9 50 (1.77%) Management Information System
10 47 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
11 46 (1.63%) Virtual Team
12 44 (1.56%) Security Posture
12 44 (1.56%) Smartphone
13 39 (1.38%) Cloud Native
14 33 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
14 33 (1.17%) Security Operations Centre
15 32 (1.13%) Operational Technology
16 31 (1.10%) Enterprise Storage
17 30 (1.06%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 714 (25.32%) Linux
2 656 (23.26%) Windows Server
3 489 (17.34%) Windows 10
4 181 (6.42%) Mac OS
5 160 (5.67%) Unix
6 136 (4.82%) Android
7 135 (4.79%) Apple iOS
8 91 (3.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 76 (2.70%) Windows Server 2019
10 71 (2.52%) Windows Server 2016
11 50 (1.77%) Windows 7
12 34 (1.21%) AIX
12 34 (1.21%) Windows Server 2012
13 22 (0.78%) Ubuntu
14 19 (0.67%) Solaris
14 19 (0.67%) VMS
14 19 (0.67%) Windows Server 2003
15 15 (0.53%) Windows Server 2008
16 9 (0.32%) CentOS
16 9 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 591 (20.96%) Problem-Solving
2 430 (15.25%) Customer Service
3 414 (14.68%) ITIL
4 318 (11.28%) Migration
5 317 (11.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 276 (9.79%) Agile
7 255 (9.04%) ITSM
8 253 (8.97%) DevOps
9 233 (8.26%) CI/CD
10 188 (6.67%) Disaster Recovery
11 181 (6.42%) Continuous Improvement
12 176 (6.24%) Change Management
12 176 (6.24%) Cybersecurity
13 175 (6.21%) High Availability
14 170 (6.03%) Service Management
15 146 (5.18%) SIEM
16 133 (4.72%) Infrastructure as Code
17 132 (4.68%) Stakeholder Management
18 129 (4.57%) Computer Science
19 128 (4.54%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 592 (20.99%) PowerShell
2 288 (10.21%) Python
3 277 (9.82%) SQL
4 125 (4.43%) C#
5 101 (3.58%) Bash
6 72 (2.55%) Java
7 69 (2.45%) JavaScript
8 58 (2.06%) PL/SQL
9 47 (1.67%) C++
9 47 (1.67%) T-SQL
10 32 (1.13%) Perl
11 26 (0.92%) Kusto Query Language
12 24 (0.85%) Shell Script
13 23 (0.82%) Search Processing Language
13 23 (0.82%) VB
14 16 (0.57%) VBScript
15 15 (0.53%) VBA
16 14 (0.50%) Bicep
17 12 (0.43%) Go
18 11 (0.39%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 846 (30.00%) Security Cleared
2 546 (19.36%) SC Cleared
3 287 (10.18%) Degree
4 270 (9.57%) DV Cleared
5 101 (3.58%) Microsoft Certification
6 91 (3.23%) Computer Science Degree
7 87 (3.09%) Cisco Certification
8 50 (1.77%) CISSP
9 49 (1.74%) Azure Certification
10 45 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
11 42 (1.49%) MCSE
12 37 (1.31%) CCNA
13 35 (1.24%) CompTIA Security+
14 32 (1.13%) AWS Certification
15 30 (1.06%) ITIL Certification
15 30 (1.06%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 29 (1.03%) A+ Certification
17 26 (0.92%) CCNP
17 26 (0.92%) MCSA
18 19 (0.67%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 116 (4.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 95 (3.37%) SLA
3 88 (3.12%) QA
4 86 (3.05%) GDPR
5 78 (2.77%) NIST
6 43 (1.52%) PCI DSS
7 31 (1.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 28 (0.99%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.57%) NCSC
9 16 (0.57%) PMO
10 12 (0.43%) Data Quality
10 12 (0.43%) NIST 800
11 11 (0.39%) Disclosure Scotland
11 11 (0.39%) MiFID
12 10 (0.35%) FINRA
13 8 (0.28%) GLBA
13 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
14 7 (0.25%) DICOM
14 7 (0.25%) GRC
14 7 (0.25%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,034 (36.67%) Active Directory
2 338 (11.99%) VMware Infrastructure
3 149 (5.28%) Hyper-V
4 94 (3.33%) vSphere
5 93 (3.30%) VMware ESXi
6 88 (3.12%) Docker
7 81 (2.87%) Virtual Machines
8 58 (2.06%) Virtual Desktop
9 46 (1.63%) VMware NSX
10 36 (1.28%) Firmware
11 29 (1.03%) BitLocker
12 26 (0.92%) Microsoft App-V
13 21 (0.74%) KVM
14 11 (0.39%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
15 10 (0.35%) XenApp
16 7 (0.25%) VMware Workstation
17 6 (0.21%) etcd
17 6 (0.21%) vCloud
18 5 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 351 (12.45%) Microsoft Intune
2 261 (9.26%) SCCM
3 182 (6.45%) Ansible
4 153 (5.43%) Terraform
5 137 (4.86%) Kubernetes
6 75 (2.66%) vCenter Server
7 57 (2.02%) Single Sign-On
8 46 (1.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 42 (1.49%) WSUS
10 41 (1.45%) Jamf Pro
11 39 (1.38%) FortiGate
12 38 (1.35%) Grafana
13 32 (1.13%) Prometheus
14 31 (1.10%) SCOM
15 28 (0.99%) Nagios
16 22 (0.78%) Nessus
17 21 (0.74%) Progress Chef
18 20 (0.71%) Tivoli
18 20 (0.71%) ZABBIX
19 19 (0.67%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,193 (42.30%) Microsoft
2 445 (15.78%) VMware
3 241 (8.55%) ServiceNow
4 204 (7.23%) Cisco
5 198 (7.02%) Citrix
6 175 (6.21%) Oracle
7 160 (5.67%) Splunk
8 83 (2.94%) HP
9 73 (2.59%) SolarWinds
10 70 (2.48%) Dell
11 58 (2.06%) Apple
11 58 (2.06%) Red Hat
12 56 (1.99%) Remedy
13 55 (1.95%) F5
14 53 (1.88%) Palo Alto
15 52 (1.84%) IBM
16 46 (1.63%) CyberArk
17 45 (1.60%) Google
18 42 (1.49%) Juniper
19 40 (1.42%) BeyondTrust