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 16 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 16
Rank change year-on-year -3 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,834 2,828 4,174
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.72% 8.26% 9.44%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.07% 59.10% 62.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,916 1,793 2,791
10th Percentile £163 £180 £158
25th Percentile £204 £235 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £415 £400
Median % change year-on-year -6.02% +3.75% -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £556 £575
90th Percentile £625 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £375 £375
% change year-on-year -13.33% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 280 119 243
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.22 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.90 £17.36
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.02% +9.91% +10.00%
75th Percentile £43.75 £55.33 £52.47
90th Percentile £67.08 £67.75 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.10 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -8.62% +15.14% +13.51%

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 4,798 4,785 6,679
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.07% 13.98% 15.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,113 2,989 4,547
10th Percentile £175 £200 £181
25th Percentile £263 £319 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £603
90th Percentile £660 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £403 £428 £430
% change year-on-year -5.96% -0.47% -4.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 362 182 332
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.26 £14.25
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.25 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.15 £47.50 £31.00
Median % change year-on-year -47.05% +53.23% +28.39%
75th Percentile £63.00 £67.19 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.11 £50.00 £27.00
% change year-on-year -49.78% +85.19% +22.73%

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 16 December 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 16 December 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 16 December 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 -1 2,517 £375 -6.25% 1,118
UK excluding London -2 1,894 £325 -13.33% 1,099
London -15 762 £431 +2.07% 215
Work from Home -10 570 £423 -6.11% 354
South East +1 518 £365 -12.05% 384
North of England -4 412 £247 -31.76% 244
South West +3 317 £425 +0.47% 132
Midlands -1 308 £400 +23.08% 152
North West -5 235 £305 -18.67% 132
West Midlands -5 213 £450 +38.46% 105
East of England +1 204 £225 -30.77% 139
Yorkshire -14 149 £230 -36.11% 94
Scotland -15 101 £420 -4.22% 58
East Midlands +2 95 £220 -39.81% 47
Wales 0 46 £190 -15.56% 28
North East -1 31 £184 -43.02% 26
Northern Ireland -9 15 £203 +33.66% 8

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
1 241 (8.50%) Microsoft Exchange
2 184 (6.49%) SharePoint
3 79 (2.79%) Confluence
4 56 (1.98%) Apache
5 48 (1.69%) IIS
6 27 (0.95%) WebLogic
7 25 (0.88%) WebSphere
8 21 (0.74%) Skype for Business
9 20 (0.71%) JBoss
10 16 (0.56%) nginx
11 14 (0.49%) Exchange Server 2010
11 14 (0.49%) SharePoint Server
12 11 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2013
12 11 (0.39%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.35%) iPlanet
13 10 (0.35%) SAS
14 9 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2007
14 9 (0.32%) Office Communications Server
14 9 (0.32%) Tomcat
14 9 (0.32%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 283 (9.99%) Microsoft Office
2 95 (3.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 31 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.35%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 9 (0.32%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.071%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.071%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.071%) Windchill
9 1 (0.035%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.035%) Camtasia
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
9 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.035%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 22 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.28%) assyst
3 5 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.14%) Maximo
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 2 (0.071%) Eikon
5 2 (0.071%) Fidessa
5 2 (0.071%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.071%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.071%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.071%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.071%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.035%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.035%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.035%) Eze OMS
6 1 (0.035%) OpenText MBPM
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.035%) Primavera
6 1 (0.035%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.035%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 733 (25.86%) Microsoft 365
2 647 (22.83%) Azure
3 275 (9.70%) AWS
4 242 (8.54%) Entra ID
5 84 (2.96%) OneDrive
6 76 (2.68%) GCP
7 75 (2.65%) SaaS
8 70 (2.47%) Azure DevOps
9 67 (2.36%) GitHub
10 55 (1.94%) IaaS
11 47 (1.66%) Google Workspace
12 40 (1.41%) PaaS
13 39 (1.38%) Power Platform
14 36 (1.27%) Azure Monitor
15 33 (1.16%) Amazon S3
15 33 (1.16%) Azure Sentinel
16 31 (1.09%) Amazon EC2
16 31 (1.09%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 27 (0.95%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 25 (0.88%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 357 (12.60%) DNS
2 323 (11.40%) Firewall
3 218 (7.69%) DHCP
4 194 (6.85%) TCP/IP
5 176 (6.21%) VPN
6 101 (3.56%) Wi-Fi
7 94 (3.32%) LAN
8 91 (3.21%) Network Security
9 89 (3.14%) WAN
10 68 (2.40%) Wireless
11 61 (2.15%) SSH
11 61 (2.15%) VLAN
12 53 (1.87%) HTTP
13 51 (1.80%) SAN
14 41 (1.45%) Cisco IOS
15 36 (1.27%) SSL
16 35 (1.24%) Skype
16 35 (1.24%) VoIP
17 30 (1.06%) FTP
17 30 (1.06%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 129 (4.55%) SQL Server
2 83 (2.93%) Oracle Database
3 65 (2.29%) Relational Database
4 50 (1.76%) MySQL
5 31 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
6 28 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
7 16 (0.56%) Power BI
8 14 (0.49%) Oracle Reports
9 12 (0.42%) Amazon Aurora
10 11 (0.39%) GIS
11 10 (0.35%) BigQuery
11 10 (0.35%) Elasticsearch
11 10 (0.35%) NoSQL
12 9 (0.32%) DB2
12 9 (0.32%) RDBMS
13 8 (0.28%) MongoDB
14 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.25%) SAP HANA
15 6 (0.21%) Apache Cassandra
15 6 (0.21%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 163 (5.75%) JIRA
2 104 (3.67%) Jenkins
3 100 (3.53%) Git
4 56 (1.98%) GitLab
5 40 (1.41%) Eclipse
6 36 (1.27%) Visual Studio
7 34 (1.20%) MSI
8 29 (1.02%) Bitbucket
9 22 (0.78%) Android Studio
9 22 (0.78%) Vagrant
10 21 (0.74%) Browser DevTools
11 20 (0.71%) Xcode
12 18 (0.64%) Artifactory
12 18 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
13 15 (0.53%) InstallShield
14 14 (0.49%) Bitbucket Server
14 14 (0.49%) CA Release Automation
15 12 (0.42%) Burp Suite
15 12 (0.42%) Metasploit
16 11 (0.39%) AdminStudio
General
1 1,084 (38.25%) Social Skills
2 347 (12.24%) Finance
3 259 (9.14%) Public Sector
4 253 (8.93%) Analytical Skills
5 134 (4.73%) Banking
6 117 (4.13%) Documentation Skills
7 83 (2.93%) Legal
8 70 (2.47%) Organisational Skills
9 64 (2.26%) Manufacturing
10 53 (1.87%) Military
11 52 (1.83%) Telecoms
12 47 (1.66%) Presentation Skills
13 46 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 42 (1.48%) Retail
15 37 (1.31%) Marketing
16 32 (1.13%) Aerospace
17 26 (0.92%) Front Office
18 25 (0.88%) Electronics
19 24 (0.85%) Law
20 20 (0.71%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 439 (15.49%) Support Engineer
2 340 (12.00%) Analyst
3 331 (11.68%) IT Support
4 196 (6.92%) IT Engineer
5 165 (5.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 163 (5.75%) Windows Engineer
7 152 (5.36%) Desktop Support
8 150 (5.29%) Support Analyst
9 144 (5.08%) Architect
10 143 (5.05%) IT Support Engineer
11 142 (5.01%) Desktop Engineer
12 135 (4.76%) Senior
13 134 (4.73%) Deployment Engineer
14 116 (4.09%) 2nd Line Support
15 113 (3.99%) Technical Support
16 107 (3.78%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 107 (3.78%) Developer
17 97 (3.42%) Platform Engineer
18 86 (3.03%) Administrator
19 85 (3.00%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 76 (2.68%) .NET
2 58 (2.05%) LDAP
3 52 (1.83%) REST
4 47 (1.66%) Middleware
5 42 (1.48%) .NET Framework
6 39 (1.38%) OAuth
7 38 (1.34%) SAML
8 37 (1.31%) React
9 36 (1.27%) AngularJS
10 35 (1.24%) WPF
11 34 (1.20%) Web Services
12 31 (1.09%) OpenID
13 29 (1.02%) Node.js
13 29 (1.02%) XML
14 27 (0.95%) CSS
15 26 (0.92%) Kafka
16 25 (0.88%) SOAP
17 22 (0.78%) Ajax
18 21 (0.74%) GraphQL
19 19 (0.67%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 127 (4.48%) Onboarding
2 98 (3.46%) PKI
3 94 (3.32%) Data Centre
4 80 (2.82%) Driving Licence
5 66 (2.33%) Replication
6 62 (2.19%) Enterprise Software
6 62 (2.19%) Self-Motivation
7 58 (2.05%) Management Information System
8 51 (1.80%) Smartphone
9 46 (1.62%) Security Posture
10 34 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
11 33 (1.16%) NHS
12 32 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
12 32 (1.13%) Hybrid Cloud
12 32 (1.13%) Mobile App
13 31 (1.09%) Video Conferencing
14 30 (1.06%) iPhone
14 30 (1.06%) Legacy Systems
15 29 (1.02%) Public Cloud
16 25 (0.88%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 724 (25.55%) Linux
2 584 (20.61%) Windows 10
3 539 (19.02%) Windows Server
4 196 (6.92%) Unix
5 161 (5.68%) Mac OS
6 152 (5.36%) Android
7 102 (3.60%) Apple iOS
8 90 (3.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 64 (2.26%) Windows Server 2016
10 57 (2.01%) Windows Server 2019
11 53 (1.87%) Windows 7
12 45 (1.59%) Windows Server 2012
13 38 (1.34%) VMS
14 35 (1.24%) Windows Server 2003
15 29 (1.02%) Ubuntu
16 28 (0.99%) AIX
17 19 (0.67%) Amazon Linux
18 18 (0.64%) Solaris
19 17 (0.60%) CentOS
20 14 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 503 (17.75%) Problem-Solving
2 420 (14.82%) ITIL
3 400 (14.11%) Customer Service
4 293 (10.34%) Agile
5 292 (10.30%) Migration
6 256 (9.03%) DevOps
7 239 (8.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 220 (7.76%) CI/CD
9 216 (7.62%) Service Management
10 200 (7.06%) ITSM
11 195 (6.88%) Cybersecurity
12 187 (6.60%) Continuous Improvement
13 161 (5.68%) Change Management
14 139 (4.90%) User Experience
15 122 (4.30%) Stakeholder Management
16 118 (4.16%) Incident Response
17 115 (4.06%) SIEM
18 113 (3.99%) Computer Science
18 113 (3.99%) Incident Management
19 112 (3.95%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 541 (19.09%) PowerShell
2 372 (13.13%) Python
3 300 (10.59%) SQL
4 154 (5.43%) Java
5 141 (4.98%) C#
6 133 (4.69%) Bash
7 91 (3.21%) JavaScript
8 80 (2.82%) Perl
9 75 (2.65%) C++
10 47 (1.66%) PL/SQL
11 41 (1.45%) Shell Script
12 32 (1.13%) VB
13 30 (1.06%) Groovy
13 30 (1.06%) Kusto Query Language
13 30 (1.06%) VBScript
14 28 (0.99%) T-SQL
15 26 (0.92%) VBA
16 24 (0.85%) C
17 18 (0.64%) PHP
18 17 (0.60%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 835 (29.46%) Security Cleared
2 561 (19.80%) SC Cleared
3 286 (10.09%) Degree
4 223 (7.87%) DV Cleared
5 183 (6.46%) Microsoft Certification
6 78 (2.75%) Computer Science Degree
7 72 (2.54%) Azure Certification
8 55 (1.94%) Cisco Certification
9 54 (1.91%) A+ Certification
10 48 (1.69%) MCSE
11 44 (1.55%) ITIL Certification
12 39 (1.38%) CISSP
13 38 (1.34%) AWS Certification
14 34 (1.20%) CCNA
14 34 (1.20%) CCNP
15 32 (1.13%) BPSS Clearance
16 29 (1.02%) DBS Check
17 25 (0.88%) CompTIA Security+
17 25 (0.88%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 23 (0.81%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (3.07%) SLA
2 79 (2.79%) GDPR
3 75 (2.65%) QA
4 69 (2.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 53 (1.87%) NIST
6 24 (0.85%) PCI DSS
7 14 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
7 14 (0.49%) PMO
8 13 (0.46%) HIPAA
9 12 (0.42%) NCSC
10 8 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 7 (0.25%) GLBA
12 6 (0.21%) Accessibility
12 6 (0.21%) COBIT
13 4 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
13 4 (0.14%) NIST 800
13 4 (0.14%) SOC 2
14 3 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 3 (0.11%) ECSS
14 3 (0.11%) MiFID
System Software
1 1,028 (36.27%) Active Directory
2 250 (8.82%) VMware Infrastructure
3 128 (4.52%) Docker
4 93 (3.28%) Hyper-V
5 56 (1.98%) Virtual Desktop
6 52 (1.83%) Virtual Machines
7 46 (1.62%) VMware ESXi
8 44 (1.55%) vSphere
9 32 (1.13%) VMware NSX
10 23 (0.81%) BitLocker
11 21 (0.74%) Firmware
12 19 (0.67%) DFS Replication
12 19 (0.67%) Microsoft App-V
13 16 (0.56%) Terminal Services
14 15 (0.53%) NFS
14 15 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
15 14 (0.49%) XenApp
16 10 (0.35%) Dovecot
16 10 (0.35%) Postfix
16 10 (0.35%) Squid
Systems Management
1 402 (14.18%) SCCM
2 294 (10.37%) Microsoft Intune
3 194 (6.85%) Terraform
4 157 (5.54%) Ansible
5 104 (3.67%) Kubernetes
6 63 (2.22%) vCenter Server
7 60 (2.12%) Single Sign-On
8 51 (1.80%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 41 (1.45%) Jamf Pro
10 39 (1.38%) Grafana
11 31 (1.09%) WSUS
12 30 (1.06%) Progress Chef
13 29 (1.02%) Nessus
14 28 (0.99%) SCOM
15 26 (0.92%) Prometheus
16 24 (0.85%) Microsoft Clustering
17 18 (0.64%) Puppet
18 16 (0.56%) Proxmox
19 15 (0.53%) WMI
20 14 (0.49%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 1,220 (43.05%) Microsoft
2 357 (12.60%) VMware
3 257 (9.07%) ServiceNow
4 234 (8.26%) Oracle
5 182 (6.42%) Citrix
6 176 (6.21%) Cisco
7 143 (5.05%) Splunk
8 86 (3.03%) Apple
9 78 (2.75%) HP
10 72 (2.54%) Red Hat
11 65 (2.29%) IBM
12 60 (2.12%) Dell
13 54 (1.91%) Google
14 53 (1.87%) Veeam
15 51 (1.80%) SAP
16 49 (1.73%) SolarWinds
17 42 (1.48%) CyberArk
17 42 (1.48%) NetApp
18 39 (1.38%) AppDynamics
18 39 (1.38%) CrowdStrike