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 8 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 3,076 2,611 3,597
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.90% 8.17% 8.34%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.06% 59.94% 60.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,976 1,743 2,412
10th Percentile £163 £180 £165
25th Percentile £222 £235 £240
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £421 £425
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% -0.94% -5.56%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £663 £662
UK excluding London median daily rate £415 £400 £430
% change year-on-year +3.75% -6.98% +8.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 262 186 296
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.12 £12.00
25th Percentile £17.61 £16.95 £14.46
Median hourly rate £25.13 £18.87 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.17% -5.65% -15.93%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.84 £64.38 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £18.07
% change year-on-year +36.46% +4.46% -17.89%

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 5,038 4,356 5,914
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.66% 13.64% 13.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,226 2,821 3,872
10th Percentile £190 £200 £190
25th Percentile £313 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -2.11% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £580 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £694
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £461
% change year-on-year - -2.44% +0.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 339 224 432
10th Percentile £15.30 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.70 £16.25
Median hourly rate £26.00 £23.00 £25.13
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -8.46% -40.88%
75th Percentile £63.75 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £65.93 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £19.07 £35.58
% change year-on-year +35.13% -46.41% +20.01%

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 8 July 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 8 July 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 8 July 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 -6 2,687 £425 +2.41% 1,139
UK excluding London -13 2,031 £415 +3.75% 968
London -19 874 £425 -2.86% 278
Work from Home -8 649 £475 +1.82% 425
South East -9 545 £475 -3.06% 302
North of England -7 480 £363 +3.57% 216
Midlands -17 282 £336 +13.98% 133
South West -12 268 £488 +6.85% 135
North West -6 256 £354 -1.06% 116
East of England -1 220 £298 +17.91% 106
Yorkshire -12 203 £365 -9.32% 70
West Midlands -24 177 £450 +50.00% 63
Scotland -1 175 £425 -2.86% 45
East Midlands +9 100 £270 +35.00% 70
Wales +8 57 £390 +35.65% 26
North East -39 25 £275 -4.35% 38
Northern Ireland -2 16 £139 -28.97% 41
Channel Islands +3 3 £518 - 4

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
1 240 (7.80%) Microsoft Exchange
2 208 (6.76%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.02%) IIS
4 57 (1.85%) Confluence
5 19 (0.62%) Tomcat
6 18 (0.59%) Apache
7 17 (0.55%) nginx
8 14 (0.46%) Skype for Business
9 13 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
10 10 (0.33%) WebLogic
11 9 (0.29%) HCL Notes
11 9 (0.29%) NetWeaver
12 7 (0.23%) Appian
13 6 (0.20%) Documentum
14 5 (0.16%) Camunda
14 5 (0.16%) SAS
15 4 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 3 (0.098%) CloudStack
16 3 (0.098%) Exchange Server 2010
16 3 (0.098%) WebSphere
Applications
1 189 (6.14%) Microsoft Office
2 67 (2.18%) Microsoft Excel
3 21 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.20%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.16%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.098%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.033%) Acrobat
8 1 (0.033%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.033%) Houdini
8 1 (0.033%) InDesign
8 1 (0.033%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 43 (1.40%) Remedy ITSM
2 20 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.39%) Teamcenter
4 10 (0.33%) Finacle
5 6 (0.20%) OpenText MBPM
5 6 (0.20%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.098%) assyst
6 3 (0.098%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.033%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.033%) Dynamics GP
7 1 (0.033%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.033%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.033%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.033%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.033%) SAP EWM
7 1 (0.033%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 922 (29.97%) Azure
2 867 (28.19%) Microsoft 365
3 406 (13.20%) Entra ID
4 315 (10.24%) AWS
5 120 (3.90%) OneDrive
6 94 (3.06%) GCP
7 90 (2.93%) Azure DevOps
8 77 (2.50%) SaaS
9 67 (2.18%) GitHub
10 64 (2.08%) Power Platform
11 62 (2.02%) IaaS
12 54 (1.76%) Azure Monitor
12 54 (1.76%) PaaS
13 40 (1.30%) OpenShift
14 38 (1.24%) Azure Sentinel
15 32 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
16 30 (0.98%) Google Workspace
17 29 (0.94%) AWS CloudFormation
18 24 (0.78%) Amazon EC2
18 24 (0.78%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 436 (14.17%) DNS
2 309 (10.05%) Firewall
3 296 (9.62%) DHCP
4 231 (7.51%) VPN
5 188 (6.11%) TCP/IP
6 184 (5.98%) LAN
7 179 (5.82%) WAN
8 150 (4.88%) Wi-Fi
9 98 (3.19%) SAN
10 69 (2.24%) Network Security
11 62 (2.02%) VLAN
12 48 (1.56%) BGP
13 46 (1.50%) NAS
14 45 (1.46%) SSL
15 44 (1.43%) Internet
16 38 (1.24%) OSPF
16 38 (1.24%) SD-WAN
16 38 (1.24%) VoIP
17 36 (1.17%) Wireless
18 33 (1.07%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 262 (8.52%) SQL Server
2 62 (2.02%) Oracle Database
3 42 (1.37%) Power BI
4 34 (1.11%) Relational Database
5 30 (0.98%) PostgreSQL
6 28 (0.91%) MySQL
7 20 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
7 20 (0.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 19 (0.62%) Db2
9 18 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
10 14 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
10 14 (0.46%) NoSQL
10 14 (0.46%) RDBMS
11 11 (0.36%) MongoDB
12 10 (0.33%) GIS
12 10 (0.33%) Oracle Reports
13 9 (0.29%) SAP HANA
14 8 (0.26%) Azure SQL Database
14 8 (0.26%) Oracle BI EE
14 8 (0.26%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 181 (5.88%) JIRA
2 61 (1.98%) Git
3 56 (1.82%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.53%) MSI
5 43 (1.40%) GitLab
6 37 (1.20%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.55%) Eclipse
8 9 (0.29%) Chocolatey
9 8 (0.26%) Bitbucket
9 8 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (0.23%) Browser DevTools
11 6 (0.20%) Android Studio
11 6 (0.20%) Artifactory
11 6 (0.20%) InstallShield
11 6 (0.20%) Xcode
12 5 (0.16%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.16%) Maven
12 5 (0.16%) Selenium
12 5 (0.16%) Team Foundation Server
13 4 (0.13%) Rational DOORS
General
1 1,084 (35.24%) Social Skills
2 343 (11.15%) Analytical Skills
3 320 (10.40%) Finance
4 212 (6.89%) Public Sector
5 153 (4.97%) Banking
6 112 (3.64%) Legal
7 107 (3.48%) Documentation Skills
8 88 (2.86%) Organisational Skills
9 62 (2.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 53 (1.72%) Retail
11 44 (1.43%) Military
12 42 (1.37%) Manufacturing
13 37 (1.20%) Front Office
14 35 (1.14%) Investment Banking
15 34 (1.11%) Telecoms
16 31 (1.01%) Law
17 25 (0.81%) Presentation Skills
17 25 (0.81%) Spanish Language
18 22 (0.72%) French Language
19 19 (0.62%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 421 (13.69%) Support Engineer
2 398 (12.94%) IT Support
3 300 (9.75%) Analyst
4 284 (9.23%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 277 (9.01%) IT Engineer
6 233 (7.57%) IT Support Engineer
7 195 (6.34%) Senior
8 153 (4.97%) Architect
9 124 (4.03%) Desktop Support
10 116 (3.77%) 2nd Line Support
11 113 (3.67%) Developer
12 110 (3.58%) Lead
13 109 (3.54%) Desktop Engineer
14 107 (3.48%) Support Analyst
15 95 (3.09%) Consultant
16 94 (3.06%) IT Analyst
17 93 (3.02%) Cloud Engineer
18 92 (2.99%) Windows Engineer
19 85 (2.76%) Service Analyst
20 82 (2.67%) Service Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (3.64%) .NET
2 107 (3.48%) REST
3 64 (2.08%) .NET Framework
4 45 (1.46%) LDAP
5 35 (1.14%) Middleware
5 35 (1.14%) SAML
6 31 (1.01%) 802.1X
7 29 (0.94%) Microsoft Graph
7 29 (0.94%) Software Packaging
7 29 (0.94%) WinForms
7 29 (0.94%) WPF
8 28 (0.91%) Web Services
9 26 (0.85%) Kafka
10 25 (0.81%) Elastic Stack
10 25 (0.81%) OAuth
11 22 (0.72%) CSS
12 20 (0.65%) JSON
12 20 (0.65%) RESTful
13 18 (0.59%) HTML
14 17 (0.55%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 292 (9.49%) Onboarding
2 162 (5.27%) Data Centre
3 143 (4.65%) PKI
4 88 (2.86%) Enterprise Software
5 81 (2.63%) Clustering
6 76 (2.47%) Management Information System
7 73 (2.37%) Self-Motivation
8 68 (2.21%) Driving Licence
9 67 (2.18%) Replication
10 65 (2.11%) Cloud Native
11 58 (1.89%) Legacy Systems
12 53 (1.72%) Security Posture
13 51 (1.66%) Hybrid Cloud
13 51 (1.66%) Virtual Team
14 43 (1.40%) Video Conferencing
15 40 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
16 36 (1.17%) Linux Command Line
17 35 (1.14%) Smartphone
18 33 (1.07%) Operational Technology
19 31 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 751 (24.41%) Windows Server
2 748 (24.32%) Linux
3 512 (16.64%) Windows 10
4 196 (6.37%) Mac OS
5 161 (5.23%) Unix
6 140 (4.55%) Apple iOS
7 139 (4.52%) Android
8 118 (3.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 81 (2.63%) Windows Server 2019
10 60 (1.95%) Windows Server 2016
11 51 (1.66%) Windows 7
12 40 (1.30%) Windows Server 2012
13 36 (1.17%) AIX
14 35 (1.14%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.78%) Solaris
16 22 (0.72%) VMS
17 17 (0.55%) CentOS
17 17 (0.55%) Windows Server 2008
18 16 (0.52%) Windows Server 2003
19 9 (0.29%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 687 (22.33%) Problem-Solving
2 489 (15.90%) ITIL
3 454 (14.76%) Customer Service
4 365 (11.87%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 358 (11.64%) Migration
6 323 (10.50%) ITSM
7 293 (9.53%) DevOps
8 270 (8.78%) Agile
9 262 (8.52%) Continuous Improvement
10 257 (8.36%) CI/CD
11 227 (7.38%) Service Management
12 217 (7.05%) High Availability
13 193 (6.27%) Change Management
14 191 (6.21%) Infrastructure as Code
15 173 (5.62%) Disaster Recovery
16 170 (5.53%) Service Delivery
17 169 (5.49%) Stakeholder Management
18 165 (5.36%) Cybersecurity
19 150 (4.88%) Validation
20 148 (4.81%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 646 (21.00%) PowerShell
2 314 (10.21%) Python
3 298 (9.69%) SQL
4 142 (4.62%) C#
5 128 (4.16%) Bash
6 76 (2.47%) Java
7 67 (2.18%) JavaScript
8 56 (1.82%) PL/SQL
8 56 (1.82%) T-SQL
9 51 (1.66%) C++
10 27 (0.88%) Perl
11 25 (0.81%) VB
12 24 (0.78%) Bicep
12 24 (0.78%) Search Processing Language
13 22 (0.72%) VBScript
14 21 (0.68%) Shell Script
15 20 (0.65%) Kusto Query Language
16 16 (0.52%) TypeScript
16 16 (0.52%) VBA
17 14 (0.46%) C
Qualifications
1 909 (29.55%) Security Cleared
2 586 (19.05%) SC Cleared
3 311 (10.11%) Degree
4 284 (9.23%) DV Cleared
5 122 (3.97%) Microsoft Certification
6 102 (3.32%) Cisco Certification
7 82 (2.67%) Computer Science Degree
8 65 (2.11%) CISSP
9 59 (1.92%) Azure Certification
10 55 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
11 49 (1.59%) AWS Certification
12 48 (1.56%) MCSE
13 46 (1.50%) CCNA
14 35 (1.14%) CCNP
15 32 (1.04%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 30 (0.98%) ITIL Certification
17 29 (0.94%) A+ Certification
18 28 (0.91%) CompTIA Security+
19 25 (0.81%) DBS Check
19 25 (0.81%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 126 (4.10%) SLA
2 120 (3.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 90 (2.93%) NIST
4 89 (2.89%) QA
5 56 (1.82%) GDPR
6 31 (1.01%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 30 (0.98%) PCI DSS
8 26 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials
9 23 (0.75%) NCSC
10 15 (0.49%) Disclosure Scotland
11 14 (0.46%) Data Quality
12 12 (0.39%) PMO
13 11 (0.36%) Accessibility
13 11 (0.36%) HIPAA
14 10 (0.33%) GRC
14 10 (0.33%) NIST 800
14 10 (0.33%) SOC 2
15 8 (0.26%) GMP
15 8 (0.26%) GxP
15 8 (0.26%) WCAG
System Software
1 1,173 (38.13%) Active Directory
2 397 (12.91%) VMware Infrastructure
3 162 (5.27%) Hyper-V
4 125 (4.06%) VMware ESXi
5 112 (3.64%) vSphere
6 106 (3.45%) Virtual Machines
7 96 (3.12%) Docker
8 76 (2.47%) Virtual Desktop
9 63 (2.05%) VMware NSX
10 40 (1.30%) Firmware
11 38 (1.24%) BitLocker
12 28 (0.91%) Microsoft App-V
13 18 (0.59%) KVM
14 14 (0.46%) vCloud
15 9 (0.29%) NFS
15 9 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
15 9 (0.29%) XenDesktop
16 8 (0.26%) VMware Workstation
16 8 (0.26%) XenApp
17 7 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 418 (13.59%) Microsoft Intune
2 277 (9.01%) SCCM
3 213 (6.92%) Terraform
4 201 (6.53%) Ansible
5 155 (5.04%) Kubernetes
6 99 (3.22%) vCenter Server
7 57 (1.85%) Jamf Pro
8 55 (1.79%) Single Sign-On
9 54 (1.76%) SCOM
10 42 (1.37%) FortiGate
11 40 (1.30%) WSUS
12 37 (1.20%) Progress Chef
13 34 (1.11%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 34 (1.11%) Grafana
13 34 (1.11%) Prometheus
14 30 (0.98%) Puppet
15 25 (0.81%) Nagios
16 22 (0.72%) ZABBIX
17 21 (0.68%) Nessus
17 21 (0.68%) Packer
Vendors
1 1,317 (42.82%) Microsoft
2 514 (16.71%) VMware
3 291 (9.46%) ServiceNow
4 215 (6.99%) Cisco
5 207 (6.73%) Citrix
6 192 (6.24%) Oracle
7 138 (4.49%) Splunk
8 87 (2.83%) Apple
9 82 (2.67%) SolarWinds
10 80 (2.60%) HP
11 73 (2.37%) Dell
11 73 (2.37%) Red Hat
12 71 (2.31%) CyberArk
13 67 (2.18%) Google
14 62 (2.02%) BeyondTrust
15 59 (1.92%) F5
16 54 (1.76%) IBM
16 54 (1.76%) Remedy
17 52 (1.69%) Juniper
18 45 (1.46%) Palo Alto