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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -5 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,853 2,388 3,486
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.88% 8.35% 8.17%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.55% 60.26% 60.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,842 1,642 2,414
10th Percentile £163 £178 £163
25th Percentile £213 £225 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £421 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -1.00% +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £402 £400 £400
% change year-on-year +0.50% - +3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 246 138 276
10th Percentile £15.69 £14.82 £11.90
25th Percentile £18.06 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.51 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.52% +4.56% -20.23%
75th Percentile £57.50 £25.23 £25.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £54.13 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.82 £17.69
% change year-on-year +36.82% +6.39% -11.55%

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 4,712 3,963 5,731
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.71% 13.86% 13.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,011 2,606 3,883
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £466 £470
Median % change year-on-year -1.45% -0.90% -6.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £650 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -3.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 340 171 401
10th Percentile £15.74 £15.22 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.44 £15.50
Median hourly rate £37.50 £22.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +70.45% -2.22% -47.06%
75th Percentile £65.00 £54.38 £60.75
90th Percentile £74.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.36 £19.50 £22.50
% change year-on-year +86.44% -13.33% -30.77%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 2,466 £415 -1.19% 903
UK excluding London -10 1,927 £402 +0.50% 792
London -28 748 £425 -5.56% 224
Work from Home -14 578 £475 +2.70% 295
South East -6 522 £475 - 250
North of England -11 463 £355 +9.11% 183
Midlands -18 265 £313 +15.21% 106
North West +2 260 £329 -6.07% 110
South West -14 232 £453 -6.55% 113
East of England -2 215 £350 -8.50% 89
Yorkshire -21 188 £365 -1.02% 56
Scotland +3 175 £425 -1.62% 35
West Midlands -27 154 £442 +60.82% 56
East Midlands +7 106 £225 +5.88% 50
Wales +2 53 £318 -2.31% 29
North East -28 19 £290 -3.33% 20
Northern Ireland -4 14 £175 -12.50% 8
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
1 230 (8.06%) Microsoft Exchange
2 173 (6.06%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.17%) IIS
4 52 (1.82%) Confluence
5 23 (0.81%) Apache
6 19 (0.67%) WebLogic
7 17 (0.60%) Tomcat
8 16 (0.56%) nginx
9 14 (0.49%) Skype for Business
10 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
11 10 (0.35%) SAS
12 9 (0.32%) NetWeaver
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
14 7 (0.25%) HCL Notes
14 7 (0.25%) TPMS
15 5 (0.18%) WebSphere
16 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 4 (0.14%) Appian
17 2 (0.070%) Apache Pulsar
17 2 (0.070%) Camunda
Applications
1 183 (6.41%) Microsoft Office
2 63 (2.21%) Microsoft Excel
3 22 (0.77%) 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 (0.070%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 42 (1.47%) Remedy ITSM
2 19 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.42%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.14%) assyst
4 4 (0.14%) Finacle
5 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.070%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.070%) OpenText MBPM
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle BPM
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.035%) Dynamics GP
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle 11i
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
1 830 (29.09%) Azure
2 800 (28.04%) Microsoft 365
3 341 (11.95%) Entra ID
4 247 (8.66%) AWS
5 93 (3.26%) OneDrive
6 77 (2.70%) GCP
7 76 (2.66%) Azure DevOps
7 76 (2.66%) SaaS
8 65 (2.28%) IaaS
9 60 (2.10%) GitHub
10 55 (1.93%) PaaS
11 54 (1.89%) Power Platform
12 41 (1.44%) Azure Monitor
13 39 (1.37%) OpenShift
14 34 (1.19%) Azure Sentinel
14 34 (1.19%) Google Workspace
15 28 (0.98%) GitHub Actions
16 19 (0.67%) Azure AKS
16 19 (0.67%) Nutanix
17 18 (0.63%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 387 (13.56%) DNS
2 302 (10.59%) Firewall
3 261 (9.15%) DHCP
4 209 (7.33%) VPN
5 175 (6.13%) WAN
6 174 (6.10%) LAN
7 169 (5.92%) TCP/IP
8 140 (4.91%) Wi-Fi
9 82 (2.87%) SAN
10 75 (2.63%) Network Security
11 60 (2.10%) VLAN
12 47 (1.65%) SD-WAN
13 40 (1.40%) BGP
14 39 (1.37%) NAS
14 39 (1.37%) Wireless
15 37 (1.30%) Skype
15 37 (1.30%) SNMP
15 37 (1.30%) VoIP
16 36 (1.26%) Internet
16 36 (1.26%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 219 (7.68%) SQL Server
2 51 (1.79%) Oracle Database
3 33 (1.16%) Relational Database
4 32 (1.12%) MySQL
5 31 (1.09%) Power BI
6 23 (0.81%) PostgreSQL
7 18 (0.63%) Elasticsearch
8 16 (0.56%) DB2
9 15 (0.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 14 (0.49%) MongoDB
11 13 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
12 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
13 9 (0.32%) GIS
13 9 (0.32%) SAP HANA
14 8 (0.28%) Oracle BI EE
14 8 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
14 8 (0.28%) Sybase ASE
15 7 (0.25%) Amazon RDS
15 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
15 7 (0.25%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 177 (6.20%) JIRA
2 52 (1.82%) Jenkins
3 46 (1.61%) GitLab
4 44 (1.54%) MSI
5 43 (1.51%) Git
6 37 (1.30%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.67%) Eclipse
8 14 (0.49%) Burp Suite
9 13 (0.46%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.39%) Sonatype Nexus
11 9 (0.32%) Android Studio
11 9 (0.32%) Artifactory
11 9 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
11 9 (0.32%) Chocolatey
11 9 (0.32%) Xcode
12 7 (0.25%) Bitbucket
12 7 (0.25%) Robot Framework
12 7 (0.25%) Selenium
13 6 (0.21%) InstallShield
14 5 (0.18%) AdminStudio
General
1 959 (33.61%) Social Skills
2 278 (9.74%) Analytical Skills
3 272 (9.53%) Finance
4 205 (7.19%) Public Sector
5 141 (4.94%) Banking
6 120 (4.21%) Legal
7 93 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
8 76 (2.66%) Organisational Skills
9 55 (1.93%) Military
10 47 (1.65%) Manufacturing
10 47 (1.65%) Retail
11 43 (1.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 37 (1.30%) Law
13 31 (1.09%) Investment Banking
14 30 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
15 29 (1.02%) Telecoms
16 26 (0.91%) Front Office
17 21 (0.74%) Local Government
18 18 (0.63%) French Language
18 18 (0.63%) Police
Job Titles
1 357 (12.51%) IT Support
2 337 (11.81%) Support Engineer
3 313 (10.97%) Analyst
4 249 (8.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 222 (7.78%) IT Engineer
6 179 (6.27%) IT Support Engineer
7 172 (6.03%) Senior
8 154 (5.40%) Architect
9 120 (4.21%) Support Analyst
10 117 (4.10%) Desktop Support
11 103 (3.61%) Lead
12 101 (3.54%) Desktop Engineer
13 94 (3.29%) 2nd Line Support
13 94 (3.29%) IT Analyst
14 89 (3.12%) Developer
15 88 (3.08%) Technical Support
15 88 (3.08%) Windows Engineer
16 78 (2.73%) Consultant
17 74 (2.59%) 1st Line Support
18 72 (2.52%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (3.05%) .NET
1 87 (3.05%) REST
2 50 (1.75%) .NET Framework
3 43 (1.51%) LDAP
4 38 (1.33%) SAML
5 33 (1.16%) Kafka
6 32 (1.12%) Microsoft Graph
7 30 (1.05%) Middleware
8 28 (0.98%) WinForms
9 27 (0.95%) 802.1X
10 26 (0.91%) OAuth
11 22 (0.77%) Web Services
12 21 (0.74%) WPF
13 20 (0.70%) Software Packaging
14 19 (0.67%) CSS
14 19 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
14 19 (0.67%) React
15 18 (0.63%) Node.js
16 17 (0.60%) AngularJS
16 17 (0.60%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 245 (8.59%) Onboarding
2 142 (4.98%) Data Centre
3 111 (3.89%) PKI
4 83 (2.91%) Enterprise Software
5 81 (2.84%) Clustering
6 66 (2.31%) Driving Licence
7 63 (2.21%) Self-Motivation
8 58 (2.03%) Replication
9 55 (1.93%) Management Information System
10 51 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
11 48 (1.68%) Virtual Team
12 47 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
13 46 (1.61%) Smartphone
14 44 (1.54%) Security Posture
15 39 (1.37%) Cloud Native
16 34 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
16 34 (1.19%) Operational Technology
16 34 (1.19%) Security Operations Centre
17 32 (1.12%) Enterprise Storage
18 31 (1.09%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 716 (25.10%) Linux
2 673 (23.59%) Windows Server
3 501 (17.56%) Windows 10
4 182 (6.38%) Mac OS
5 161 (5.64%) Unix
6 136 (4.77%) Android
7 135 (4.73%) Apple iOS
8 94 (3.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 79 (2.77%) Windows Server 2019
10 71 (2.49%) Windows Server 2016
11 51 (1.79%) Windows 7
12 36 (1.26%) Windows Server 2012
13 34 (1.19%) AIX
14 24 (0.84%) Ubuntu
15 20 (0.70%) Solaris
16 19 (0.67%) VMS
16 19 (0.67%) Windows Server 2003
17 16 (0.56%) Windows Server 2008
18 12 (0.42%) CentOS
19 8 (0.28%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 601 (21.07%) Problem-Solving
2 432 (15.14%) Customer Service
3 419 (14.69%) ITIL
4 324 (11.36%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 322 (11.29%) Migration
6 277 (9.71%) Agile
7 264 (9.25%) ITSM
8 256 (8.97%) DevOps
9 237 (8.31%) CI/CD
10 190 (6.66%) Disaster Recovery
11 185 (6.48%) Continuous Improvement
12 182 (6.38%) Change Management
13 180 (6.31%) High Availability
14 175 (6.13%) Service Management
15 173 (6.06%) Cybersecurity
16 147 (5.15%) SIEM
17 138 (4.84%) Infrastructure as Code
18 136 (4.77%) Stakeholder Management
19 132 (4.63%) Computer Science
20 131 (4.59%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 614 (21.52%) PowerShell
2 296 (10.38%) Python
3 275 (9.64%) SQL
4 119 (4.17%) C#
5 105 (3.68%) Bash
6 72 (2.52%) Java
7 68 (2.38%) JavaScript
8 59 (2.07%) PL/SQL
9 47 (1.65%) C++
9 47 (1.65%) T-SQL
10 34 (1.19%) Perl
11 26 (0.91%) Kusto Query Language
12 25 (0.88%) VB
13 24 (0.84%) Shell Script
14 23 (0.81%) Search Processing Language
15 19 (0.67%) VBScript
16 15 (0.53%) VBA
17 14 (0.49%) Bicep
18 12 (0.42%) C
18 12 (0.42%) Go
Qualifications
1 846 (29.65%) Security Cleared
2 547 (19.17%) SC Cleared
3 295 (10.34%) Degree
4 269 (9.43%) DV Cleared
5 102 (3.58%) Microsoft Certification
6 92 (3.22%) Cisco Certification
6 92 (3.22%) Computer Science Degree
7 55 (1.93%) CISSP
8 47 (1.65%) Azure Certification
9 46 (1.61%) MCSE
10 44 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
11 38 (1.33%) CCNA
11 38 (1.33%) CompTIA Security+
12 31 (1.09%) CCNP
12 31 (1.09%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 30 (1.05%) AWS Certification
13 30 (1.05%) ITIL Certification
14 28 (0.98%) A+ Certification
15 27 (0.95%) MCSA
16 22 (0.77%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (4.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 103 (3.61%) SLA
3 86 (3.01%) QA
4 80 (2.80%) GDPR
5 79 (2.77%) NIST
6 39 (1.37%) PCI DSS
7 30 (1.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 27 (0.95%) Cyber Essentials
9 15 (0.53%) NCSC
10 14 (0.49%) PMO
11 12 (0.42%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.42%) Disclosure Scotland
11 12 (0.42%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.39%) MiFID
13 10 (0.35%) FINRA
14 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
15 7 (0.25%) DICOM
15 7 (0.25%) GLBA
15 7 (0.25%) GRC
15 7 (0.25%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,056 (37.01%) Active Directory
2 351 (12.30%) VMware Infrastructure
3 161 (5.64%) Hyper-V
4 98 (3.43%) vSphere
5 97 (3.40%) VMware ESXi
6 86 (3.01%) Virtual Machines
7 82 (2.87%) Docker
8 57 (2.00%) Virtual Desktop
9 48 (1.68%) VMware NSX
10 37 (1.30%) Firmware
11 32 (1.12%) BitLocker
12 26 (0.91%) 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 8 (0.28%) vCloud
16 8 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
17 6 (0.21%) etcd
18 5 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 363 (12.72%) Microsoft Intune
2 261 (9.15%) SCCM
3 191 (6.69%) Ansible
4 161 (5.64%) Terraform
5 133 (4.66%) Kubernetes
6 79 (2.77%) vCenter Server
7 53 (1.86%) Single Sign-On
8 45 (1.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 42 (1.47%) Jamf Pro
10 40 (1.40%) FortiGate
11 39 (1.37%) WSUS
12 38 (1.33%) Grafana
13 35 (1.23%) SCOM
14 32 (1.12%) Prometheus
15 27 (0.95%) Nagios
16 21 (0.74%) Nessus
16 21 (0.74%) Progress Chef
17 20 (0.70%) Puppet
17 20 (0.70%) Tivoli
17 20 (0.70%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,209 (42.38%) Microsoft
2 457 (16.02%) VMware
3 244 (8.55%) ServiceNow
4 213 (7.47%) Cisco
5 191 (6.69%) Citrix
6 178 (6.24%) Oracle
7 155 (5.43%) Splunk
8 83 (2.91%) HP
9 72 (2.52%) SolarWinds
10 71 (2.49%) Dell
11 61 (2.14%) Red Hat
12 60 (2.10%) Apple
12 60 (2.10%) F5
13 55 (1.93%) Remedy
14 53 (1.86%) Palo Alto
15 51 (1.79%) IBM
16 48 (1.68%) CyberArk
17 47 (1.65%) Google
18 46 (1.61%) Juniper
19 42 (1.47%) BeyondTrust