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

6 months to
7 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 16
Rank change year-on-year -3 -3 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,833 3,031 4,504
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 8.10% 8.25% 9.64%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.38% 58.54% 63.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,891 1,901 3,008
10th Percentile £163 £181 £160
25th Percentile £204 £246 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year -8.24% - -
75th Percentile £538 £563 £576
90th Percentile £625 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £400 £375
% change year-on-year -18.75% +6.67% +7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 292 139 263
10th Percentile £15.01 £15.22 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.15 £17.71
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.02% +9.91% +7.32%
75th Percentile £25.15 £57.62 £55.01
90th Percentile £65.00 £67.50 £68.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.29 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -11.95% +15.14% +12.00%

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 4,771 5,178 7,122
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.65% 14.10% 15.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,067 3,189 4,842
10th Percentile £185 £200 £181
25th Percentile £268 £325 £305
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -2.56% -4.41%
75th Percentile £573 £576 £613
90th Percentile £657 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £410 £449 £443
% change year-on-year -8.80% +1.47% -1.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 354 218 357
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.25 £14.26
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.31 £18.00
Median hourly rate £24.00 £52.50 £33.50
Median % change year-on-year -54.29% +56.72% +34.00%
75th Percentile £41.31 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £70.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.53 £52.75 £27.50
% change year-on-year -57.29% +91.82% +22.22%

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 November 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 7 November 2025.

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 November 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 -2 2,510 £390 -7.14% 2,974
UK excluding London +1 1,903 £325 -18.75% 2,692
London -14 776 £438 +9.38% 948
Work from Home -10 567 £425 -8.11% 1,105
South East +4 510 £333 -22.22% 1,172
North of England -3 387 £290 -27.50% 495
South West +5 332 £400 -11.11% 297
Midlands -7 298 £365 -3.95% 289
East of England 0 216 £252 -40.63% 215
West Midlands -6 212 £400 +5.26% 140
North West -4 211 £335 -25.56% 341
Yorkshire -11 146 £230 -38.67% 110
Scotland -11 131 £450 +25.70% 155
East Midlands -3 85 £210 -44.00% 141
Wales +2 42 £275 +37.50% 64
North East +5 33 £200 -37.50% 44
Northern Ireland -11 16 £175 -5.41% 34
Channel Islands - 1 - - 24

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
1 263 (9.28%) Microsoft Exchange
2 174 (6.14%) SharePoint
3 83 (2.93%) Confluence
4 53 (1.87%) Apache
5 43 (1.52%) IIS
6 26 (0.92%) WebSphere
7 23 (0.81%) Skype for Business
8 21 (0.74%) JBoss
9 18 (0.64%) WebLogic
10 16 (0.56%) Exchange Server 2013
11 15 (0.53%) SharePoint Server
12 13 (0.46%) nginx
13 12 (0.42%) Exchange Server 2010
14 11 (0.39%) WebSphere Application Server
15 10 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2003
15 10 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2007
15 10 (0.35%) iPlanet
15 10 (0.35%) Office Communications Server
16 8 (0.28%) Tomcat
17 6 (0.21%) SAS
Applications
1 262 (9.25%) Microsoft Office
2 94 (3.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.35%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 6 (0.21%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.071%) Adobe Creative Suite
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 Illustrator
9 1 (0.035%) Camtasia
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
9 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.035%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 20 (0.71%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.25%) Maximo
3 6 (0.21%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.11%) assyst
4 3 (0.11%) ION MarketView
4 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.071%) Dynamics GP
5 2 (0.071%) Eikon
5 2 (0.071%) Fidessa
5 2 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.071%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
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%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.035%) SAP EHS
6 1 (0.035%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.035%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 757 (26.72%) Microsoft 365
2 638 (22.52%) Azure
3 266 (9.39%) AWS
4 235 (8.30%) Entra ID
5 88 (3.11%) OneDrive
6 81 (2.86%) SaaS
7 76 (2.68%) GitHub
8 68 (2.40%) Azure DevOps
9 59 (2.08%) GCP
10 55 (1.94%) IaaS
11 46 (1.62%) Google Workspace
12 43 (1.52%) Power Platform
13 42 (1.48%) PaaS
14 40 (1.41%) Azure Sentinel
15 37 (1.31%) Amazon S3
16 36 (1.27%) Amazon EC2
17 35 (1.24%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 32 (1.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 29 (1.02%) Azure Monitor
20 28 (0.99%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 341 (12.04%) DNS
2 317 (11.19%) Firewall
3 200 (7.06%) DHCP
4 197 (6.95%) TCP/IP
5 173 (6.11%) VPN
6 104 (3.67%) LAN
7 102 (3.60%) WAN
7 102 (3.60%) Wi-Fi
8 82 (2.89%) Network Security
9 77 (2.72%) SAN
10 66 (2.33%) VLAN
11 61 (2.15%) SSH
12 53 (1.87%) Cisco IOS
13 52 (1.84%) Wireless
14 51 (1.80%) HTTP
15 36 (1.27%) VoIP
16 35 (1.24%) SSL
17 31 (1.09%) SMTP
18 29 (1.02%) Internet
18 29 (1.02%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (4.41%) SQL Server
2 77 (2.72%) Oracle Database
3 64 (2.26%) Relational Database
4 46 (1.62%) MySQL
5 36 (1.27%) Amazon RDS
6 28 (0.99%) PostgreSQL
7 17 (0.60%) Power BI
8 12 (0.42%) DB2
8 12 (0.42%) NoSQL
8 12 (0.42%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.39%) Amazon Aurora
9 11 (0.39%) GIS
10 10 (0.35%) RDBMS
11 9 (0.32%) BigQuery
11 9 (0.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 8 (0.28%) MongoDB
12 8 (0.28%) SAP HANA
13 7 (0.25%) Apache Cassandra
13 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 168 (5.93%) JIRA
2 114 (4.02%) Git
3 112 (3.95%) Jenkins
4 46 (1.62%) GitLab
5 37 (1.31%) Eclipse
5 37 (1.31%) Visual Studio
6 35 (1.24%) MSI
7 30 (1.06%) Bitbucket
8 25 (0.88%) Vagrant
9 20 (0.71%) Sonatype Nexus
10 19 (0.67%) Android Studio
10 19 (0.67%) Browser DevTools
11 18 (0.64%) Xcode
12 16 (0.56%) AdminStudio
12 16 (0.56%) InstallShield
13 15 (0.53%) Bitbucket Server
13 15 (0.53%) CA Release Automation
13 15 (0.53%) IntelliJ
14 14 (0.49%) Postman
14 14 (0.49%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 1,056 (37.27%) Social Skills
2 378 (13.34%) Finance
3 263 (9.28%) Analytical Skills
4 262 (9.25%) Public Sector
5 128 (4.52%) Banking
6 114 (4.02%) Documentation Skills
7 84 (2.97%) Legal
8 67 (2.36%) Manufacturing
9 62 (2.19%) Organisational Skills
10 61 (2.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 48 (1.69%) Telecoms
12 44 (1.55%) Presentation Skills
13 42 (1.48%) Military
13 42 (1.48%) Retail
14 36 (1.27%) Marketing
15 31 (1.09%) Games
16 25 (0.88%) Electronics
16 25 (0.88%) Front Office
17 23 (0.81%) Aerospace
18 19 (0.67%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 449 (15.85%) Support Engineer
2 346 (12.21%) Analyst
3 301 (10.62%) IT Support
4 196 (6.92%) IT Engineer
5 172 (6.07%) Windows Engineer
6 158 (5.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 153 (5.40%) Desktop Support
8 150 (5.29%) Support Analyst
9 148 (5.22%) Desktop Engineer
10 143 (5.05%) Deployment Engineer
11 139 (4.91%) Architect
12 135 (4.77%) IT Support Engineer
13 125 (4.41%) Senior
14 117 (4.13%) 2nd Line Support
15 111 (3.92%) Technical Support
16 106 (3.74%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 101 (3.57%) Platform Engineer
18 96 (3.39%) Developer
19 90 (3.18%) Administrator
20 84 (2.97%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (2.29%) .NET
2 52 (1.84%) LDAP
3 50 (1.76%) Middleware
4 37 (1.31%) REST
4 37 (1.31%) Web Services
5 36 (1.27%) .NET Framework
6 35 (1.24%) WPF
7 34 (1.20%) AngularJS
8 33 (1.16%) OAuth
8 33 (1.16%) XML
9 32 (1.13%) Node.js
10 31 (1.09%) SAML
11 29 (1.02%) React
12 25 (0.88%) OpenID
12 25 (0.88%) SOAP
13 23 (0.81%) CSS
14 20 (0.71%) Ajax
15 19 (0.67%) GraphQL
16 15 (0.53%) ARM Templates
16 15 (0.53%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 103 (3.64%) Onboarding
2 94 (3.32%) Data Centre
3 80 (2.82%) PKI
4 77 (2.72%) Driving Licence
5 65 (2.29%) Replication
6 62 (2.19%) Enterprise Software
7 60 (2.12%) Self-Motivation
8 55 (1.94%) Management Information System
9 40 (1.41%) iPhone
10 39 (1.38%) Security Posture
11 36 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
11 36 (1.27%) iPad
12 34 (1.20%) NHS
12 34 (1.20%) Smartphone
13 32 (1.13%) Video Conferencing
14 30 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
14 30 (1.06%) Mobile App
15 28 (0.99%) Public Cloud
16 26 (0.92%) Hybrid Cloud
16 26 (0.92%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 679 (23.97%) Linux
2 615 (21.71%) Windows 10
3 527 (18.60%) Windows Server
4 186 (6.57%) Unix
5 149 (5.26%) Mac OS
6 145 (5.12%) Android
7 108 (3.81%) Apple iOS
8 80 (2.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 80 (2.82%) Windows Server 2016
9 76 (2.68%) Windows Server 2019
10 73 (2.58%) Windows 7
11 48 (1.69%) Windows Server 2012
12 41 (1.45%) VMS
13 38 (1.34%) Windows Server 2003
14 36 (1.27%) Ubuntu
15 23 (0.81%) Amazon Linux
15 23 (0.81%) CentOS
16 22 (0.78%) AIX
17 18 (0.64%) Solaris
18 15 (0.53%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 514 (18.14%) Problem-Solving
2 421 (14.86%) ITIL
3 354 (12.50%) Customer Service
4 304 (10.73%) Migration
5 277 (9.78%) Agile
6 249 (8.79%) DevOps
7 222 (7.84%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 218 (7.70%) Service Management
9 209 (7.38%) ITSM
10 205 (7.24%) Cybersecurity
11 188 (6.64%) CI/CD
12 159 (5.61%) Continuous Improvement
13 151 (5.33%) Change Management
14 128 (4.52%) Stakeholder Management
15 125 (4.41%) Incident Response
16 119 (4.20%) User Experience
17 117 (4.13%) SIEM
18 116 (4.09%) Service Delivery
19 112 (3.95%) Cloud Security
20 106 (3.74%) Patch Management
Programming Languages
1 517 (18.25%) PowerShell
2 358 (12.64%) Python
3 272 (9.60%) SQL
4 148 (5.22%) Java
5 136 (4.80%) C#
6 124 (4.38%) Bash
7 82 (2.89%) JavaScript
8 75 (2.65%) Perl
9 72 (2.54%) C++
10 45 (1.59%) VB
11 38 (1.34%) PL/SQL
11 38 (1.34%) Shell Script
12 35 (1.24%) Kusto Query Language
13 33 (1.16%) Groovy
14 32 (1.13%) VBA
14 32 (1.13%) VBScript
15 30 (1.06%) C
16 20 (0.71%) PHP
17 18 (0.64%) T-SQL
18 16 (0.56%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 780 (27.53%) Security Cleared
2 541 (19.10%) SC Cleared
3 259 (9.14%) Degree
4 200 (7.06%) DV Cleared
5 194 (6.85%) Microsoft Certification
6 68 (2.40%) Computer Science Degree
7 65 (2.29%) Azure Certification
8 56 (1.98%) Cisco Certification
9 52 (1.84%) MCSE
10 51 (1.80%) A+ Certification
11 46 (1.62%) CISSP
12 38 (1.34%) DBS Check
12 38 (1.34%) ITIL Certification
13 36 (1.27%) AWS Certification
13 36 (1.27%) CCNA
13 36 (1.27%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 34 (1.20%) CCNP
15 27 (0.95%) GCIH
16 26 (0.92%) BPSS Clearance
17 24 (0.85%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 105 (3.71%) SLA
2 76 (2.68%) QA
3 66 (2.33%) GDPR
4 57 (2.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 54 (1.91%) NIST
6 20 (0.71%) HIPAA
7 14 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
7 14 (0.49%) PCI DSS
8 11 (0.39%) Accessibility
8 11 (0.39%) PMO
9 10 (0.35%) NCSC
10 8 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (0.21%) COBIT
11 6 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
12 4 (0.14%) GLBA
12 4 (0.14%) SOC 2
13 3 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 3 (0.11%) Data Quality
13 3 (0.11%) ECSS
13 3 (0.11%) GxP
System Software
1 1,015 (35.83%) Active Directory
2 254 (8.97%) VMware Infrastructure
3 120 (4.24%) Docker
4 84 (2.97%) Hyper-V
5 68 (2.40%) Virtual Desktop
6 61 (2.15%) vSphere
7 60 (2.12%) Virtual Machines
8 54 (1.91%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.09%) VMware NSX
10 30 (1.06%) Virtual Servers
11 25 (0.88%) DFS Replication
11 25 (0.88%) Firmware
12 24 (0.85%) BitLocker
12 24 (0.85%) Microsoft App-V
13 22 (0.78%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 20 (0.71%) NFS
15 14 (0.49%) Terminal Services
15 14 (0.49%) XenApp
16 10 (0.35%) Postfix
16 10 (0.35%) Squid
Systems Management
1 440 (15.53%) SCCM
2 306 (10.80%) Microsoft Intune
3 174 (6.14%) Terraform
4 155 (5.47%) Ansible
5 95 (3.35%) Kubernetes
6 56 (1.98%) vCenter Server
7 46 (1.62%) WSUS
8 43 (1.52%) Grafana
8 43 (1.52%) Jamf Pro
8 43 (1.52%) Single Sign-On
9 39 (1.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 33 (1.16%) Progress Chef
11 31 (1.09%) Prometheus
12 26 (0.92%) Nessus
13 25 (0.88%) Microsoft Clustering
13 25 (0.88%) Puppet
14 24 (0.85%) SCOM
15 16 (0.56%) Proxmox
16 13 (0.46%) NetBackup
16 13 (0.46%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 1,270 (44.83%) Microsoft
2 361 (12.74%) VMware
3 270 (9.53%) ServiceNow
4 223 (7.87%) Oracle
5 177 (6.25%) Cisco
6 170 (6.00%) Citrix
7 162 (5.72%) Splunk
8 82 (2.89%) Apple
9 73 (2.58%) HP
10 70 (2.47%) Red Hat
11 63 (2.22%) NetApp
12 62 (2.19%) IBM
13 58 (2.05%) Dell
14 53 (1.87%) Google
14 53 (1.87%) SAP
15 52 (1.84%) Veeam
16 45 (1.59%) SolarWinds
17 44 (1.55%) AppDynamics
17 44 (1.55%) Remedy
18 41 (1.45%) CyberArk