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

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -5 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,827 2,437 3,466
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.87% 8.36% 8.14%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.63% 60.04% 61.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,834 1,680 2,397
10th Percentile £163 £180 £163
25th Percentile £213 £231 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -0.12% +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 232 136 272
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.05 £11.82
25th Percentile £16.83 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £24.58 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +30.58% +4.56% -20.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £25.04 £24.39
90th Percentile £74.00 £47.96 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.58 £18.82 £17.50
% change year-on-year +30.58% +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 4,663 4,059 5,675
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.69% 13.92% 13.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,996 2,668 3,836
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £456 £469 £470
Median % change year-on-year -2.72% -0.27% -6.50%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £654 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -0.11% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 324 176 392
10th Percentile £15.72 £15.24 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.44 £15.44
Median hourly rate £41.94 £22.25 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +88.49% +1.14% -43.66%
75th Percentile £65.00 £57.50 £60.75
90th Percentile £74.18 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £20.94 £22.50
% change year-on-year +100.29% -6.93% -25.00%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 2,439 £415 -1.89% 926
UK excluding London -9 1,896 £400 - 839
London -26 744 £430 -4.44% 208
Work from Home -15 574 £475 - 303
South East -3 522 £475 -3.06% 266
North of England -11 452 £350 +7.69% 195
Midlands -18 261 £325 +30.00% 104
North West -3 252 £300 -14.29% 109
South West -15 224 £453 -13.67% 124
East of England -1 213 £350 -3.45% 94
Yorkshire -20 186 £375 +13.21% 69
Scotland 0 166 £425 -5.56% 43
West Midlands -25 150 £450 +65.90% 55
East Midlands +7 106 £225 +9.09% 49
Wales +1 55 £290 -15.94% 28
North East -29 18 £345 +15.00% 20
Northern Ireland -8 14 £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
1 227 (8.03%) Microsoft Exchange
2 161 (5.70%) SharePoint
3 59 (2.09%) IIS
4 48 (1.70%) Confluence
5 21 (0.74%) Apache
6 19 (0.67%) WebLogic
7 14 (0.50%) nginx
7 14 (0.50%) Tomcat
8 12 (0.42%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
9 10 (0.35%) SAS
10 9 (0.32%) NetWeaver
11 7 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.25%) TPMS
12 6 (0.21%) HCL Notes
13 5 (0.18%) WebSphere
14 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.11%) Appian
16 2 (0.071%) Apache Pulsar
16 2 (0.071%) CloudStack
Applications
1 182 (6.44%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.26%) 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 41 (1.45%) Remedy ITSM
2 19 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.42%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.14%) Finacle
5 3 (0.11%) assyst
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
1 809 (28.62%) Azure
2 779 (27.56%) Microsoft 365
3 326 (11.53%) Entra ID
4 249 (8.81%) AWS
5 85 (3.01%) OneDrive
6 75 (2.65%) Azure DevOps
6 75 (2.65%) GCP
7 74 (2.62%) SaaS
8 65 (2.30%) IaaS
9 58 (2.05%) GitHub
10 55 (1.95%) PaaS
11 50 (1.77%) Power Platform
12 41 (1.45%) Azure Monitor
13 38 (1.34%) OpenShift
14 35 (1.24%) Google Workspace
15 34 (1.20%) Azure Sentinel
16 27 (0.96%) GitHub Actions
17 19 (0.67%) Azure AKS
18 18 (0.64%) Microsoft Purview
18 18 (0.64%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 384 (13.58%) DNS
2 300 (10.61%) Firewall
3 259 (9.16%) DHCP
4 202 (7.15%) VPN
5 176 (6.23%) WAN
6 172 (6.08%) LAN
7 168 (5.94%) TCP/IP
8 138 (4.88%) Wi-Fi
9 78 (2.76%) SAN
10 72 (2.55%) Network Security
11 59 (2.09%) VLAN
12 45 (1.59%) SD-WAN
13 40 (1.41%) Wireless
14 39 (1.38%) BGP
15 37 (1.31%) SNMP
16 36 (1.27%) NAS
17 35 (1.24%) OSPF
17 35 (1.24%) Skype
17 35 (1.24%) SSL
17 35 (1.24%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 219 (7.75%) 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 15 (0.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 14 (0.50%) 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%) Azure SQL Database
15 7 (0.25%) RDBMS
16 6 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 174 (6.15%) JIRA
2 51 (1.80%) Jenkins
3 50 (1.77%) GitLab
4 44 (1.56%) Git
4 44 (1.56%) MSI
5 35 (1.24%) Visual Studio
6 19 (0.67%) Eclipse
7 18 (0.64%) Burp Suite
8 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
9 11 (0.39%) Sonatype Nexus
10 10 (0.35%) Artifactory
11 9 (0.32%) Android Studio
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%) InstallShield
12 7 (0.25%) Robot Framework
12 7 (0.25%) Selenium
13 5 (0.18%) AdminStudio
General
1 944 (33.39%) Social Skills
2 272 (9.62%) Analytical Skills
3 270 (9.55%) Finance
4 206 (7.29%) Public Sector
5 137 (4.85%) Banking
6 120 (4.24%) Legal
7 93 (3.29%) Documentation Skills
8 75 (2.65%) Organisational Skills
9 55 (1.95%) Military
10 49 (1.73%) Manufacturing
11 48 (1.70%) Retail
12 39 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 37 (1.31%) Law
14 32 (1.13%) 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%) French Language
19 17 (0.60%) Police
Job Titles
1 357 (12.63%) IT Support
2 334 (11.81%) Support Engineer
3 314 (11.11%) Analyst
4 245 (8.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 218 (7.71%) IT Engineer
6 179 (6.33%) IT Support Engineer
7 167 (5.91%) Senior
8 158 (5.59%) Architect
9 118 (4.17%) Support Analyst
10 117 (4.14%) Desktop Support
11 102 (3.61%) Lead
12 98 (3.47%) Desktop Engineer
13 93 (3.29%) Developer
14 92 (3.25%) 2nd Line Support
14 92 (3.25%) IT Analyst
15 89 (3.15%) Technical Support
16 85 (3.01%) Windows Engineer
17 73 (2.58%) 1st Line Support
17 73 (2.58%) Service Analyst
18 71 (2.51%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (3.22%) .NET
1 91 (3.22%) REST
2 49 (1.73%) .NET Framework
3 45 (1.59%) LDAP
4 38 (1.34%) SAML
5 33 (1.17%) Kafka
6 32 (1.13%) Microsoft Graph
7 31 (1.10%) Middleware
8 27 (0.96%) 802.1X
8 27 (0.96%) WinForms
9 26 (0.92%) OAuth
10 23 (0.81%) Web Services
10 23 (0.81%) WPF
11 20 (0.71%) React
11 20 (0.71%) Software Packaging
12 19 (0.67%) CSS
12 19 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
13 18 (0.64%) AngularJS
13 18 (0.64%) Node.js
14 17 (0.60%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 232 (8.21%) Onboarding
2 141 (4.99%) Data Centre
3 108 (3.82%) PKI
4 85 (3.01%) Enterprise Software
5 80 (2.83%) Clustering
6 66 (2.33%) Driving Licence
7 61 (2.16%) Self-Motivation
8 58 (2.05%) Replication
9 51 (1.80%) Hybrid Cloud
9 51 (1.80%) Management Information System
10 47 (1.66%) Legacy Systems
10 47 (1.66%) Virtual Team
11 45 (1.59%) Security Posture
12 44 (1.56%) Smartphone
13 39 (1.38%) Cloud Native
14 33 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
14 33 (1.17%) Operational Technology
14 33 (1.17%) Security Operations Centre
15 32 (1.13%) Enterprise Storage
16 30 (1.06%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 716 (25.33%) Linux
2 662 (23.42%) Windows Server
3 487 (17.23%) Windows 10
4 180 (6.37%) Mac OS
5 160 (5.66%) Unix
6 135 (4.78%) Apple iOS
7 134 (4.74%) Android
8 91 (3.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 76 (2.69%) Windows Server 2019
10 71 (2.51%) Windows Server 2016
11 50 (1.77%) Windows 7
12 34 (1.20%) AIX
12 34 (1.20%) Windows Server 2012
13 23 (0.81%) Ubuntu
14 19 (0.67%) Solaris
14 19 (0.67%) VMS
14 19 (0.67%) Windows Server 2003
15 16 (0.57%) Windows Server 2008
16 9 (0.32%) CentOS
16 9 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 592 (20.94%) Problem-Solving
2 429 (15.18%) Customer Service
3 413 (14.61%) ITIL
4 321 (11.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 316 (11.18%) Migration
6 275 (9.73%) Agile
7 255 (9.02%) DevOps
8 250 (8.84%) ITSM
9 233 (8.24%) CI/CD
10 191 (6.76%) Disaster Recovery
11 182 (6.44%) Continuous Improvement
12 175 (6.19%) Change Management
12 175 (6.19%) Cybersecurity
13 174 (6.15%) High Availability
14 170 (6.01%) Service Management
15 147 (5.20%) SIEM
16 133 (4.70%) Infrastructure as Code
17 132 (4.67%) Stakeholder Management
18 129 (4.56%) Computer Science
19 127 (4.49%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 600 (21.22%) PowerShell
2 290 (10.26%) Python
3 279 (9.87%) SQL
4 125 (4.42%) C#
5 102 (3.61%) Bash
6 72 (2.55%) Java
7 68 (2.41%) JavaScript
8 58 (2.05%) PL/SQL
9 48 (1.70%) T-SQL
10 47 (1.66%) C++
11 32 (1.13%) Perl
12 27 (0.96%) Kusto Query Language
13 24 (0.85%) Shell Script
14 23 (0.81%) Search Processing Language
14 23 (0.81%) VB
15 17 (0.60%) VBScript
16 15 (0.53%) VBA
17 14 (0.50%) Bicep
18 12 (0.42%) Go
19 11 (0.39%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 845 (29.89%) Security Cleared
2 550 (19.46%) SC Cleared
3 286 (10.12%) Degree
4 266 (9.41%) DV Cleared
5 100 (3.54%) Microsoft Certification
6 91 (3.22%) Computer Science Degree
7 87 (3.08%) Cisco Certification
8 50 (1.77%) CISSP
9 48 (1.70%) Azure Certification
10 45 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
11 42 (1.49%) MCSE
12 37 (1.31%) CCNA
13 35 (1.24%) CompTIA Security+
14 31 (1.10%) 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 (4.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 94 (3.33%) SLA
3 87 (3.08%) QA
4 85 (3.01%) GDPR
5 77 (2.72%) NIST
6 42 (1.49%) PCI DSS
7 30 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 28 (0.99%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.57%) NCSC
9 16 (0.57%) PMO
10 12 (0.42%) Data Quality
10 12 (0.42%) NIST 800
11 11 (0.39%) Disclosure Scotland
11 11 (0.39%) MiFID
12 10 (0.35%) FINRA
13 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
14 7 (0.25%) DICOM
14 7 (0.25%) GLBA
14 7 (0.25%) GRC
14 7 (0.25%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,038 (36.72%) Active Directory
2 347 (12.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 154 (5.45%) Hyper-V
4 96 (3.40%) vSphere
5 95 (3.36%) VMware ESXi
6 88 (3.11%) Docker
7 82 (2.90%) Virtual Machines
8 57 (2.02%) Virtual Desktop
9 46 (1.63%) VMware NSX
10 37 (1.31%) 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
1 350 (12.38%) Microsoft Intune
2 259 (9.16%) SCCM
3 187 (6.61%) Ansible
4 156 (5.52%) Terraform
5 136 (4.81%) Kubernetes
6 75 (2.65%) vCenter Server
7 56 (1.98%) Single Sign-On
8 45 (1.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 42 (1.49%) WSUS
10 40 (1.41%) Jamf Pro
11 39 (1.38%) FortiGate
12 38 (1.34%) 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%) Puppet
18 20 (0.71%) Tivoli
18 20 (0.71%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,196 (42.31%) Microsoft
2 454 (16.06%) VMware
3 239 (8.45%) ServiceNow
4 203 (7.18%) Cisco
5 196 (6.93%) Citrix
6 176 (6.23%) Oracle
7 159 (5.62%) Splunk
8 82 (2.90%) HP
9 73 (2.58%) SolarWinds
10 69 (2.44%) Dell
11 58 (2.05%) Red Hat
12 57 (2.02%) Apple
13 55 (1.95%) F5
14 54 (1.91%) Remedy
15 53 (1.87%) Palo Alto
16 51 (1.80%) IBM
17 46 (1.63%) CyberArk
18 45 (1.59%) Google
19 43 (1.52%) Juniper
20 40 (1.41%) BeyondTrust