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 7 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,924 2,606 3,835
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.85% 8.50% 8.54%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.30% 59.62% 62.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,970 1,741 2,588
10th Percentile £161 £181 £155
25th Percentile £204 £225 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £420 £400
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £640 £675 £661
UK excluding London median daily rate £345 £400 £375
% change year-on-year -13.75% +6.67% -3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 266 103 278
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.23 £13.29
25th Percentile £16.62 £17.56 £14.27
Median hourly rate £21.80 £22.50 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.11% +25.00% -18.18%
75th Percentile £41.94 £34.15 £33.75
90th Percentile £67.42 £65.00 £62.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £22.00 £17.72
% change year-on-year -2.45% +24.15% -8.59%

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 4,849 4,371 6,175
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.35% 14.26% 13.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,188 2,800 4,132
10th Percentile £180 £200 £180
25th Percentile £275 £317 £279
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £475 £458
Median % change year-on-year -6.32% +3.71% -10.63%
75th Percentile £565 £600 £588
90th Percentile £663 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £438 £425
% change year-on-year -5.71% +2.94% -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 355 157 406
10th Percentile £15.09 £16.25 £13.94
25th Percentile £17.84 £20.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £23.00 £30.78 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -25.28% +36.80% -15.03%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £60.56
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.58 £28.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year -19.38% +24.44% -13.46%

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 7 March 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 7 March 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 7 March 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 -3 2,592 £403 +0.36% 1,040
UK excluding London -8 1,956 £345 -13.75% 962
London -17 784 £425 - 239
Work from Home -17 586 £450 -3.28% 354
South East -2 524 £416 -2.86% 352
North of England -8 485 £268 -23.36% 219
South West -2 281 £450 -11.76% 107
Midlands -14 276 £271 -16.62% 111
North West -6 259 £263 -27.59% 130
East of England +6 225 £240 +1.05% 108
Yorkshire -14 195 £325 -16.67% 71
West Midlands -24 167 £400 +23.08% 49
Scotland -6 129 £425 -3.35% 56
East Midlands +2 108 £210 -9.19% 61
Wales +2 47 £200 -15.79% 18
North East -8 34 £188 -37.50% 23
Northern Ireland -11 8 £175 +9.38% 8
Channel Islands +4 1 - - 1

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
1 256 (8.76%) Microsoft Exchange
2 172 (5.88%) SharePoint
3 60 (2.05%) Confluence
4 39 (1.33%) IIS
5 29 (0.99%) Apache
6 22 (0.75%) WebLogic
7 15 (0.51%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.41%) TPMS
8 12 (0.41%) Tuxedo
9 11 (0.38%) nginx
9 11 (0.38%) Tomcat
10 9 (0.31%) SAS
10 9 (0.31%) WebSphere
11 5 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.14%) JBoss
12 4 (0.14%) NetWeaver
12 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.14%) SharePoint Server
13 3 (0.10%) iPlanet
Applications
1 251 (8.58%) Microsoft Office
2 75 (2.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.41%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.17%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.068%) InDesign
7 2 (0.068%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.034%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.034%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 28 (0.96%) Remedy ITSM
2 15 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.24%) assyst
3 7 (0.24%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.068%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.068%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.068%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.068%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.068%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.068%) SystmOne
7 1 (0.034%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.034%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.034%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.034%) RMDS
7 1 (0.034%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 834 (28.52%) Microsoft 365
2 747 (25.55%) Azure
3 296 (10.12%) Entra ID
4 231 (7.90%) AWS
5 102 (3.49%) OneDrive
6 79 (2.70%) GCP
7 73 (2.50%) SaaS
8 61 (2.09%) Azure DevOps
9 54 (1.85%) Google Workspace
10 51 (1.74%) GitHub
11 47 (1.61%) IaaS
12 39 (1.33%) PaaS
12 39 (1.33%) Power Platform
13 27 (0.92%) Azure Sentinel
14 25 (0.85%) Nutanix
15 24 (0.82%) Azure Monitor
15 24 (0.82%) GitHub Actions
16 23 (0.79%) AWS CloudFormation
16 23 (0.79%) OpenShift
17 15 (0.51%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 388 (13.27%) DNS
2 333 (11.39%) Firewall
3 248 (8.48%) DHCP
4 201 (6.87%) TCP/IP
5 192 (6.57%) VPN
6 155 (5.30%) WAN
7 153 (5.23%) Wi-Fi
8 150 (5.13%) LAN
9 75 (2.56%) Network Security
10 68 (2.33%) VLAN
11 63 (2.15%) Wireless
12 53 (1.81%) SAN
13 42 (1.44%) HTTP
14 41 (1.40%) Skype
15 39 (1.33%) SSH
16 38 (1.30%) SSL
17 37 (1.27%) BGP
18 35 (1.20%) SD-WAN
18 35 (1.20%) VoIP
19 32 (1.09%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 165 (5.64%) SQL Server
2 63 (2.15%) Oracle Database
3 44 (1.50%) Relational Database
4 39 (1.33%) MySQL
5 28 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
6 15 (0.51%) DB2
6 15 (0.51%) Power BI
7 14 (0.48%) Data Warehouse
8 13 (0.44%) BigQuery
8 13 (0.44%) Elasticsearch
9 12 (0.41%) GIS
9 12 (0.41%) Oracle Reports
10 11 (0.38%) MongoDB
11 9 (0.31%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.31%) SAP HANA
12 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
12 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 5 (0.17%) Oracle Database 10g
13 5 (0.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 5 (0.17%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 169 (5.78%) JIRA
2 69 (2.36%) Jenkins
3 65 (2.22%) Git
3 65 (2.22%) GitLab
4 44 (1.50%) MSI
5 34 (1.16%) Visual Studio
6 27 (0.92%) Eclipse
7 20 (0.68%) Burp Suite
7 20 (0.68%) Metasploit
8 17 (0.58%) Android Studio
9 15 (0.51%) Artifactory
9 15 (0.51%) Xcode
10 12 (0.41%) Browser DevTools
11 10 (0.34%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.34%) Chocolatey
11 10 (0.34%) Sonatype Nexus
12 7 (0.24%) InstallShield
12 7 (0.24%) JUnit
12 7 (0.24%) Robot Framework
13 6 (0.21%) Toad
General
1 1,070 (36.59%) Social Skills
2 295 (10.09%) Finance
3 268 (9.17%) Analytical Skills
4 250 (8.55%) Public Sector
5 141 (4.82%) Banking
6 127 (4.34%) Legal
7 118 (4.04%) Documentation Skills
8 88 (3.01%) Organisational Skills
9 61 (2.09%) Military
10 57 (1.95%) Manufacturing
11 48 (1.64%) Presentation Skills
12 41 (1.40%) Retail
13 37 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 37 (1.27%) Telecoms
14 25 (0.85%) Law
15 23 (0.79%) Aerospace
15 23 (0.79%) Investment Banking
16 19 (0.65%) Front Office
16 19 (0.65%) Local Government
17 18 (0.62%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 399 (13.65%) Support Engineer
2 387 (13.24%) IT Support
3 377 (12.89%) Analyst
4 219 (7.49%) IT Engineer
5 183 (6.26%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 181 (6.19%) Architect
7 180 (6.16%) IT Support Engineer
8 157 (5.37%) Support Analyst
9 156 (5.34%) Senior
10 140 (4.79%) Desktop Support
11 124 (4.24%) 2nd Line Support
12 121 (4.14%) Windows Engineer
13 119 (4.07%) Technical Support
14 118 (4.04%) Desktop Engineer
15 113 (3.86%) Developer
16 102 (3.49%) Lead
17 91 (3.11%) IT Analyst
18 88 (3.01%) Desktop Support Engineer
19 86 (2.94%) Deployment Engineer
20 75 (2.56%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (2.98%) .NET
2 72 (2.46%) REST
3 57 (1.95%) LDAP
4 50 (1.71%) OAuth
4 50 (1.71%) SAML
5 46 (1.57%) .NET Framework
6 40 (1.37%) Middleware
7 33 (1.13%) Web Services
8 31 (1.06%) WPF
9 30 (1.03%) OpenID
10 28 (0.96%) React
11 27 (0.92%) AngularJS
11 27 (0.92%) CSS
11 27 (0.92%) Kafka
12 26 (0.89%) Microsoft Graph
13 25 (0.85%) WinForms
14 21 (0.72%) Node.js
14 21 (0.72%) OAuth2
15 20 (0.68%) 802.1X
16 19 (0.65%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 185 (6.33%) Onboarding
2 127 (4.34%) Data Centre
3 106 (3.63%) PKI
4 92 (3.15%) Driving Licence
5 88 (3.01%) Enterprise Software
6 73 (2.50%) Self-Motivation
7 59 (2.02%) Smartphone
8 54 (1.85%) Management Information System
9 50 (1.71%) Clustering
10 48 (1.64%) Replication
10 48 (1.64%) Security Posture
11 43 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
12 42 (1.44%) Hybrid Cloud
13 37 (1.27%) NHS
13 37 (1.27%) Product Ownership
14 36 (1.23%) Security Operations Centre
15 33 (1.13%) Virtual Team
16 32 (1.09%) Data Protection Act
17 30 (1.03%) Analytical Mindset
18 29 (0.99%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 706 (24.15%) Linux
2 616 (21.07%) Windows Server
3 604 (20.66%) Windows 10
4 165 (5.64%) Unix
5 157 (5.37%) Mac OS
6 154 (5.27%) Android
7 124 (4.24%) Apple iOS
8 86 (2.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 72 (2.46%) Windows Server 2016
10 60 (2.05%) Windows Server 2019
11 51 (1.74%) Windows 7
12 38 (1.30%) Windows Server 2012
13 31 (1.06%) AIX
14 30 (1.03%) Windows Server 2003
15 20 (0.68%) Solaris
16 15 (0.51%) Windows Server 2008
17 14 (0.48%) VMS
18 13 (0.44%) Ubuntu
19 10 (0.34%) Mac OS X
20 8 (0.27%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 582 (19.90%) Problem-Solving
2 499 (17.07%) Customer Service
3 420 (14.36%) ITIL
4 319 (10.91%) Agile
5 310 (10.60%) Migration
6 274 (9.37%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 252 (8.62%) DevOps
8 235 (8.04%) CI/CD
9 224 (7.66%) Cybersecurity
9 224 (7.66%) ITSM
10 209 (7.15%) Service Management
11 207 (7.08%) Continuous Improvement
12 166 (5.68%) Change Management
13 159 (5.44%) Disaster Recovery
14 152 (5.20%) Stakeholder Management
15 145 (4.96%) Service Delivery
16 134 (4.58%) User Experience
17 132 (4.51%) High Availability
18 129 (4.41%) Computer Science
18 129 (4.41%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 579 (19.80%) PowerShell
2 333 (11.39%) Python
3 265 (9.06%) SQL
4 131 (4.48%) Bash
4 131 (4.48%) C#
5 110 (3.76%) Java
6 78 (2.67%) JavaScript
7 62 (2.12%) C++
8 60 (2.05%) PL/SQL
9 58 (1.98%) Perl
10 42 (1.44%) T-SQL
11 32 (1.09%) Kusto Query Language
12 27 (0.92%) Shell Script
13 25 (0.85%) VB
14 22 (0.75%) VBScript
15 17 (0.58%) VBA
16 14 (0.48%) Bicep
16 14 (0.48%) C
16 14 (0.48%) Go
17 12 (0.41%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 885 (30.27%) Security Cleared
2 581 (19.87%) SC Cleared
3 303 (10.36%) Degree
4 250 (8.55%) DV Cleared
5 146 (4.99%) Microsoft Certification
6 93 (3.18%) Computer Science Degree
7 64 (2.19%) Cisco Certification
8 51 (1.74%) Azure Certification
9 48 (1.64%) MCSE
10 44 (1.50%) ITIL Certification
11 42 (1.44%) CISSP
12 38 (1.30%) CompTIA Security+
13 37 (1.27%) BPSS Clearance
14 34 (1.16%) AWS Certification
14 34 (1.16%) CCNA
15 32 (1.09%) A+ Certification
16 27 (0.92%) CCNP
17 25 (0.85%) Microsoft Certified Professional
18 23 (0.79%) MCSA
19 22 (0.75%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 106 (3.63%) GDPR
2 100 (3.42%) SLA
3 89 (3.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 80 (2.74%) QA
5 58 (1.98%) NIST
6 40 (1.37%) PCI DSS
7 25 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 18 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.55%) PMO
10 13 (0.44%) MiFID
11 12 (0.41%) GLBA
11 12 (0.41%) NCSC
12 10 (0.34%) FINRA
13 9 (0.31%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.27%) SOC 2
15 7 (0.24%) COBIT
15 7 (0.24%) HIPAA
16 6 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
16 6 (0.21%) GxP
17 4 (0.14%) GMP
System Software
1 1,073 (36.70%) Active Directory
2 287 (9.82%) VMware Infrastructure
3 116 (3.97%) Docker
4 110 (3.76%) Hyper-V
5 67 (2.29%) vSphere
6 63 (2.15%) Virtual Machines
7 62 (2.12%) Virtual Desktop
8 56 (1.92%) VMware ESXi
9 33 (1.13%) VMware NSX
10 29 (0.99%) Firmware
11 26 (0.89%) BitLocker
12 23 (0.79%) Microsoft App-V
13 16 (0.55%) KVM
14 8 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
14 8 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
14 8 (0.27%) XenApp
14 8 (0.27%) XenDesktop
15 6 (0.21%) NFS
15 6 (0.21%) Terminal Services
16 5 (0.17%) NDS
Systems Management
1 377 (12.89%) Microsoft Intune
2 364 (12.45%) SCCM
3 179 (6.12%) Terraform
4 169 (5.78%) Ansible
5 135 (4.62%) Kubernetes
6 82 (2.80%) Single Sign-On
7 70 (2.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 60 (2.05%) vCenter Server
9 44 (1.50%) Jamf Pro
10 40 (1.37%) Grafana
11 33 (1.13%) FortiGate
12 30 (1.03%) WSUS
13 26 (0.89%) Prometheus
14 25 (0.85%) SCOM
15 22 (0.75%) Nessus
16 21 (0.72%) Progress Chef
17 19 (0.65%) Nmap
18 17 (0.58%) Puppet
18 17 (0.58%) WMI
19 12 (0.41%) CASB
Vendors
1 1,254 (42.89%) Microsoft
2 403 (13.78%) VMware
3 257 (8.79%) ServiceNow
4 203 (6.94%) Citrix
5 195 (6.67%) Oracle
6 184 (6.29%) Cisco
7 149 (5.10%) Splunk
8 82 (2.80%) HP
9 74 (2.53%) Dell
10 64 (2.19%) Red Hat
11 62 (2.12%) Apple
11 62 (2.12%) SolarWinds
12 61 (2.09%) Google
13 52 (1.78%) IBM
14 45 (1.54%) Remedy
14 45 (1.54%) SAP
14 45 (1.54%) Veeam
15 43 (1.47%) Juniper
16 42 (1.44%) Palo Alto
17 40 (1.37%) F5