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 12 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 23 17
Rank change year-on-year 0 -6 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,733 2,574 3,945
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.54% 8.17% 9.19%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.43% 58.39% 62.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,890 1,650 2,658
10th Percentile £163 £181 £158
25th Percentile £204 £225 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £551 £575
90th Percentile £638 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £361 £373
% change year-on-year -10.03% -3.02% -0.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 248 108 221
10th Percentile £13.69 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.14 £18.15 £16.54
Median hourly rate £22.00 £23.99 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.30% +14.24% +5.00%
75th Percentile £43.00 £41.88 £46.88
90th Percentile £67.84 £66.13 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £23.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year -6.70% +15.00% +6.81%

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 4,599 4,408 6,359
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.69% 13.99% 14.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,024 2,741 4,339
10th Percentile £175 £200 £180
25th Percentile £267 £317 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £600
90th Percentile £670 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £425 £425
% change year-on-year -2.94% - -5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 332 165 314
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.25 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.00 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.00 £31.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.03% +9.68% +24.00%
75th Percentile £61.25 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £70.60 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £30.93 £25.18
% change year-on-year -19.17% +22.84% +11.91%

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 12 January 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 12 January 2026.

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 12 January 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 +1 2,422 £390 -2.50% 1,327
UK excluding London -2 1,851 £325 -10.03% 1,311
London -19 704 £450 +11.11% 206
Work from Home -11 544 £423 -5.97% 392
South East 0 494 £400 - 420
North of England -3 423 £238 -31.93% 265
South West +3 308 £425 +6.25% 185
Midlands -3 304 £350 +7.69% 171
North West -5 241 £263 -25.00% 116
West Midlands -6 202 £450 +38.46% 74
East of England +6 187 £253 -22.31% 176
Yorkshire -13 155 £290 -17.26% 119
Scotland -9 106 £450 +5.88% 71
East Midlands 0 102 £210 -36.12% 96
Wales -1 42 £180 -26.15% 44
North East 0 30 £184 -43.02% 36
Northern Ireland -14 10 £203 +28.57% 19

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
1 233 (8.53%) Microsoft Exchange
2 176 (6.44%) SharePoint
3 77 (2.82%) Confluence
4 48 (1.76%) Apache
5 47 (1.72%) IIS
6 27 (0.99%) WebLogic
7 19 (0.70%) WebSphere
8 18 (0.66%) Skype for Business
9 15 (0.55%) nginx
10 14 (0.51%) JBoss
11 12 (0.44%) SAS
12 11 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2010
12 11 (0.40%) SharePoint Server
12 11 (0.40%) TPMS
12 11 (0.40%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.37%) iPlanet
14 9 (0.33%) Tomcat
14 9 (0.33%) Tuxedo
15 8 (0.29%) Exchange Server 2013
16 6 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2003
Applications
1 267 (9.77%) Microsoft Office
2 81 (2.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 32 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (0.48%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.33%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.073%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.073%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.073%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.073%) Windchill
8 1 (0.037%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.037%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.037%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.037%) Camtasia
8 1 (0.037%) InDesign
8 1 (0.037%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.037%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 23 (0.84%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.29%) assyst
3 4 (0.15%) Oracle 11i
3 4 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 2 (0.073%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.073%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.073%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.073%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.073%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.073%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.073%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.037%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.037%) Eikon
6 1 (0.037%) ION MarketView
6 1 (0.037%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.037%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.037%) Primavera
6 1 (0.037%) RMDS
6 1 (0.037%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 732 (26.78%) Microsoft 365
2 658 (24.08%) Azure
3 255 (9.33%) AWS
4 229 (8.38%) Entra ID
5 87 (3.18%) OneDrive
6 72 (2.63%) GCP
7 69 (2.52%) SaaS
8 58 (2.12%) GitHub
9 54 (1.98%) Azure DevOps
10 47 (1.72%) Google Workspace
11 46 (1.68%) IaaS
12 35 (1.28%) Azure Monitor
13 32 (1.17%) Power Platform
14 30 (1.10%) PaaS
15 27 (0.99%) Azure Sentinel
16 24 (0.88%) Amazon S3
17 23 (0.84%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 22 (0.80%) Amazon EC2
19 20 (0.73%) Nutanix
20 19 (0.70%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 342 (12.51%) DNS
2 310 (11.34%) Firewall
3 207 (7.57%) DHCP
4 193 (7.06%) TCP/IP
5 174 (6.37%) VPN
6 104 (3.81%) WAN
6 104 (3.81%) Wi-Fi
7 95 (3.48%) LAN
8 90 (3.29%) Network Security
9 71 (2.60%) Wireless
10 61 (2.23%) VLAN
11 60 (2.20%) SSH
12 48 (1.76%) HTTP
13 36 (1.32%) Skype
14 35 (1.28%) SAN
15 32 (1.17%) Cisco IOS
15 32 (1.17%) SSL
16 31 (1.13%) SD-WAN
17 30 (1.10%) Kerberos
18 29 (1.06%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (4.57%) SQL Server
2 76 (2.78%) Oracle Database
3 60 (2.20%) Relational Database
4 48 (1.76%) MySQL
5 33 (1.21%) PostgreSQL
6 18 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.48%) BigQuery
8 12 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
9 11 (0.40%) Amazon Aurora
9 11 (0.40%) Power BI
10 10 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
10 10 (0.37%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.33%) Data Warehouse
11 9 (0.33%) GIS
11 9 (0.33%) MongoDB
12 7 (0.26%) Data Lake
13 6 (0.22%) RDBMS
13 6 (0.22%) SAP HANA
14 5 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 4 (0.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 153 (5.60%) JIRA
2 84 (3.07%) Git
2 84 (3.07%) Jenkins
3 54 (1.98%) GitLab
4 34 (1.24%) Eclipse
5 33 (1.21%) MSI
6 29 (1.06%) Visual Studio
7 21 (0.77%) Android Studio
8 20 (0.73%) Browser DevTools
9 19 (0.70%) Bitbucket
9 19 (0.70%) Xcode
10 18 (0.66%) Artifactory
10 18 (0.66%) Burp Suite
10 18 (0.66%) Metasploit
11 16 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
12 15 (0.55%) InstallShield
12 15 (0.55%) Vagrant
13 12 (0.44%) Bitbucket Server
13 12 (0.44%) CA Release Automation
14 11 (0.40%) AdminStudio
General
1 1,039 (38.02%) Social Skills
2 325 (11.89%) Finance
3 240 (8.78%) Analytical Skills
4 232 (8.49%) Public Sector
5 125 (4.57%) Banking
6 113 (4.13%) Documentation Skills
7 89 (3.26%) Legal
8 68 (2.49%) Organisational Skills
9 62 (2.27%) Manufacturing
10 53 (1.94%) Military
11 46 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
11 46 (1.68%) Telecoms
12 39 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 36 (1.32%) Retail
14 30 (1.10%) Aerospace
14 30 (1.10%) Marketing
15 25 (0.91%) Law
16 24 (0.88%) Front Office
17 22 (0.80%) Electronics
18 20 (0.73%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 404 (14.78%) Support Engineer
2 334 (12.22%) Analyst
3 330 (12.07%) IT Support
4 183 (6.70%) IT Engineer
5 167 (6.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 150 (5.49%) Architect
7 149 (5.45%) Windows Engineer
8 147 (5.38%) Desktop Support
8 147 (5.38%) Support Analyst
9 141 (5.16%) Senior
10 137 (5.01%) IT Support Engineer
11 129 (4.72%) Desktop Engineer
12 117 (4.28%) Deployment Engineer
13 112 (4.10%) 2nd Line Support
13 112 (4.10%) Technical Support
14 100 (3.66%) Desktop Support Engineer
15 98 (3.59%) Developer
16 86 (3.15%) Platform Engineer
17 81 (2.96%) IT Analyst
18 80 (2.93%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.71%) .NET
2 57 (2.09%) LDAP
3 55 (2.01%) REST
4 43 (1.57%) Middleware
5 41 (1.50%) .NET Framework
6 40 (1.46%) OAuth
6 40 (1.46%) SAML
7 36 (1.32%) React
8 34 (1.24%) AngularJS
9 33 (1.21%) OpenID
10 31 (1.13%) WPF
11 27 (0.99%) Web Services
12 26 (0.95%) CSS
12 26 (0.95%) Kafka
13 24 (0.88%) Node.js
14 21 (0.77%) SOAP
15 20 (0.73%) Ajax
15 20 (0.73%) GraphQL
15 20 (0.73%) XML
16 19 (0.70%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 139 (5.09%) Onboarding
2 95 (3.48%) Data Centre
3 93 (3.40%) PKI
4 86 (3.15%) Driving Licence
5 70 (2.56%) Enterprise Software
6 57 (2.09%) Replication
7 56 (2.05%) Self-Motivation
8 55 (2.01%) Smartphone
9 53 (1.94%) Management Information System
10 45 (1.65%) Security Posture
11 36 (1.32%) Analytical Mindset
12 35 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
13 31 (1.13%) Mobile App
14 30 (1.10%) Clustering
14 30 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
15 28 (1.02%) Data Protection Act
15 28 (1.02%) NHS
16 27 (0.99%) Video Conferencing
17 26 (0.95%) Public Cloud
18 25 (0.91%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 699 (25.58%) Linux
2 578 (21.15%) Windows 10
3 531 (19.43%) Windows Server
4 192 (7.03%) Unix
5 143 (5.23%) Android
6 142 (5.20%) Mac OS
7 103 (3.77%) Apple iOS
8 68 (2.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 61 (2.23%) Windows Server 2016
10 51 (1.87%) Windows Server 2019
11 46 (1.68%) Windows 7
12 36 (1.32%) Windows Server 2012
13 31 (1.13%) Windows Server 2003
14 26 (0.95%) VMS
15 25 (0.91%) AIX
16 19 (0.70%) Ubuntu
17 17 (0.62%) Solaris
18 15 (0.55%) Amazon Linux
19 12 (0.44%) Windows Server 2008
20 9 (0.33%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 495 (18.11%) Problem-Solving
2 415 (15.18%) Customer Service
3 405 (14.82%) ITIL
4 295 (10.79%) Agile
5 274 (10.03%) Migration
6 243 (8.89%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 237 (8.67%) DevOps
8 221 (8.09%) Service Management
9 212 (7.76%) Cybersecurity
10 207 (7.57%) CI/CD
11 196 (7.17%) ITSM
12 191 (6.99%) Continuous Improvement
13 168 (6.15%) Change Management
14 128 (4.68%) Incident Response
14 128 (4.68%) User Experience
15 127 (4.65%) SIEM
16 119 (4.35%) Stakeholder Management
17 117 (4.28%) Computer Science
18 116 (4.24%) Service Delivery
19 115 (4.21%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 534 (19.54%) PowerShell
2 351 (12.84%) Python
3 274 (10.03%) SQL
4 144 (5.27%) Java
5 118 (4.32%) C#
6 113 (4.13%) Bash
7 80 (2.93%) JavaScript
8 76 (2.78%) Perl
9 61 (2.23%) C++
10 50 (1.83%) PL/SQL
11 32 (1.17%) Kusto Query Language
11 32 (1.17%) Shell Script
12 31 (1.13%) T-SQL
13 30 (1.10%) VBScript
14 26 (0.95%) Groovy
15 24 (0.88%) VB
16 23 (0.84%) VBA
17 17 (0.62%) C
18 15 (0.55%) Go
19 14 (0.51%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 833 (30.48%) Security Cleared
2 555 (20.31%) SC Cleared
3 289 (10.57%) Degree
4 236 (8.64%) DV Cleared
5 156 (5.71%) Microsoft Certification
6 83 (3.04%) Computer Science Degree
7 63 (2.31%) Azure Certification
8 53 (1.94%) A+ Certification
9 51 (1.87%) Cisco Certification
10 45 (1.65%) MCSE
11 44 (1.61%) ITIL Certification
12 36 (1.32%) CISSP
13 34 (1.24%) AWS Certification
13 34 (1.24%) CompTIA Security+
14 32 (1.17%) BPSS Clearance
14 32 (1.17%) CCNP
15 30 (1.10%) CCNA
16 27 (0.99%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 23 (0.84%) DBS Check
18 22 (0.80%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (3.29%) SLA
2 82 (3.00%) GDPR
3 72 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 66 (2.41%) QA
5 49 (1.79%) NIST
6 31 (1.13%) PCI DSS
7 16 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
8 13 (0.48%) PMO
9 12 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 11 (0.40%) GLBA
11 10 (0.37%) NCSC
12 8 (0.29%) HIPAA
12 8 (0.29%) MiFID
13 7 (0.26%) COBIT
14 6 (0.22%) SOC 2
15 5 (0.18%) FINRA
16 4 (0.15%) Accessibility
16 4 (0.15%) Disclosure Scotland
16 4 (0.15%) NIST 800
17 3 (0.11%) SEPA
System Software
1 971 (35.53%) Active Directory
2 238 (8.71%) VMware Infrastructure
3 112 (4.10%) Docker
4 93 (3.40%) Hyper-V
5 60 (2.20%) Virtual Desktop
6 49 (1.79%) Virtual Machines
7 46 (1.68%) vSphere
8 41 (1.50%) VMware ESXi
9 29 (1.06%) VMware NSX
10 23 (0.84%) BitLocker
11 19 (0.70%) Firmware
12 18 (0.66%) DFS Replication
13 16 (0.59%) Microsoft App-V
14 15 (0.55%) Terminal Services
14 15 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
15 10 (0.37%) XenApp
16 9 (0.33%) Dovecot
16 9 (0.33%) Postfix
16 9 (0.33%) Squid
17 8 (0.29%) Tivoli Directory Server
Systems Management
1 373 (13.65%) SCCM
2 282 (10.32%) Microsoft Intune
3 178 (6.51%) Terraform
4 150 (5.49%) Ansible
5 95 (3.48%) Kubernetes
6 64 (2.34%) Single Sign-On
7 63 (2.31%) vCenter Server
8 51 (1.87%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 40 (1.46%) Jamf Pro
10 39 (1.43%) Grafana
11 30 (1.10%) WSUS
12 28 (1.02%) SCOM
13 24 (0.88%) Nessus
13 24 (0.88%) Prometheus
14 20 (0.73%) Microsoft Clustering
14 20 (0.73%) Progress Chef
15 18 (0.66%) Nmap
16 17 (0.62%) WMI
17 15 (0.55%) Proxmox
17 15 (0.55%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,146 (41.93%) Microsoft
2 339 (12.40%) VMware
3 253 (9.26%) ServiceNow
4 225 (8.23%) Oracle
5 179 (6.55%) Cisco
6 163 (5.96%) Citrix
7 136 (4.98%) Splunk
8 78 (2.85%) Apple
9 67 (2.45%) HP
10 63 (2.31%) Dell
11 53 (1.94%) Red Hat
12 52 (1.90%) SolarWinds
12 52 (1.90%) Veeam
13 50 (1.83%) IBM
14 48 (1.76%) Google
14 48 (1.76%) SAP
15 41 (1.50%) CyberArk
16 39 (1.43%) Palo Alto
17 37 (1.35%) Remedy
18 36 (1.32%) CrowdStrike