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 14 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -2 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,907 2,608 3,908
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.24% 8.42% 8.72%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.21% 58.84% 62.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,996 1,698 2,639
10th Percentile £161 £181 £156
25th Percentile £204 £221 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.57%
75th Percentile £540 £564 £575
90th Percentile £642 £650 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £375 £370
% change year-on-year -13.33% +1.35% -4.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 260 100 260
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.64 £17.44 £15.50
Median hourly rate £21.90 £22.69 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.47% +13.44% -9.09%
75th Percentile £41.94 £29.00 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.08 £63.88 £62.54
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £22.30 £18.00
% change year-on-year -3.75% +23.86% -6.64%

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 4,828 4,432 6,273
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.03% 14.31% 14.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,202 2,776 4,217
10th Percentile £176 £200 £181
25th Percentile £263 £313 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £440 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -7.37% +2.70% -10.19%
75th Percentile £562 £588 £594
90th Percentile £675 £689 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £405 £425 £425
% change year-on-year -4.71% - -9.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 338 153 387
10th Percentile £14.70 £16.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.76 £20.30 £16.96
Median hourly rate £23.25 £28.41 £25.25
Median % change year-on-year -18.16% +12.51% -1.79%
75th Percentile £53.75 £63.75 £62.50
90th Percentile £69.12 £69.75 £72.14
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £25.00 £25.15
% change year-on-year -10.00% -0.59% -0.45%

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 14 February 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 14 February 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 14 February 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 0 2,586 £400 - 1,052
UK excluding London -2 1,966 £325 -13.33% 992
London -15 768 £450 +11.11% 214
Work from Home -11 579 £425 -5.56% 347
South East -2 508 £403 -5.29% 360
North of England -6 467 £263 -25.00% 213
South West +2 313 £425 -4.23% 118
Midlands -6 294 £263 -19.23% 134
North West -5 256 £235 -32.86% 114
East of England +7 228 £228 -15.74% 119
Yorkshire -15 178 £325 -7.21% 86
West Midlands -18 176 £359 +10.31% 87
Scotland -8 118 £425 -1.16% 51
East Midlands +7 117 £225 -19.28% 47
Wales -1 47 £227 -9.20% 18
North East -6 36 £188 -41.41% 20
Northern Ireland -16 9 £163 -7.14% 4
Channel Islands +3 1 - - 3

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
1 248 (8.53%) Microsoft Exchange
2 184 (6.33%) SharePoint
3 66 (2.27%) Confluence
4 45 (1.55%) IIS
5 36 (1.24%) Apache
6 22 (0.76%) WebLogic
7 17 (0.58%) Skype for Business
8 15 (0.52%) nginx
9 13 (0.45%) TPMS
9 13 (0.45%) WebSphere
10 10 (0.34%) SAS
10 10 (0.34%) Tuxedo
11 9 (0.31%) JBoss
11 9 (0.31%) Tomcat
12 7 (0.24%) iPlanet
12 7 (0.24%) WebSphere Application Server
13 6 (0.21%) SharePoint Server
14 4 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2010
14 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.10%) CMS
Applications
1 263 (9.05%) Microsoft Office
2 81 (2.79%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.41%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.21%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.17%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.069%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.069%) Windchill
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.034%) InDesign
8 1 (0.034%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.034%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 28 (0.96%) Remedy ITSM
2 10 (0.34%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.28%) Teamcenter
4 7 (0.24%) assyst
5 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.069%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.069%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.069%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.034%) Aladdin
8 1 (0.034%) Eikon
8 1 (0.034%) Fidessa
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.034%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.034%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 815 (28.04%) Microsoft 365
2 735 (25.28%) Azure
3 278 (9.56%) Entra ID
4 248 (8.53%) AWS
5 105 (3.61%) OneDrive
6 73 (2.51%) GCP
6 73 (2.51%) SaaS
7 56 (1.93%) Azure DevOps
8 55 (1.89%) Google Workspace
9 48 (1.65%) GitHub
10 42 (1.44%) IaaS
11 36 (1.24%) Power Platform
12 32 (1.10%) PaaS
13 28 (0.96%) Azure Sentinel
14 25 (0.86%) OpenShift
15 24 (0.83%) Azure Monitor
15 24 (0.83%) Nutanix
16 20 (0.69%) AWS CloudFormation
17 19 (0.65%) GitHub Actions
18 17 (0.58%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 388 (13.35%) DNS
2 307 (10.56%) Firewall
3 239 (8.22%) DHCP
4 203 (6.98%) TCP/IP
5 189 (6.50%) VPN
6 136 (4.68%) Wi-Fi
7 134 (4.61%) WAN
8 126 (4.33%) LAN
9 85 (2.92%) Network Security
10 70 (2.41%) VLAN
11 69 (2.37%) Wireless
12 51 (1.75%) HTTP
13 50 (1.72%) SSH
14 43 (1.48%) SAN
15 40 (1.38%) Skype
16 37 (1.27%) Kerberos
16 37 (1.27%) SSL
17 34 (1.17%) VoIP
18 32 (1.10%) SD-WAN
19 31 (1.07%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 140 (4.82%) SQL Server
2 66 (2.27%) Oracle Database
3 51 (1.75%) Relational Database
4 43 (1.48%) MySQL
5 32 (1.10%) PostgreSQL
6 13 (0.45%) BigQuery
6 13 (0.45%) Power BI
7 12 (0.41%) DB2
7 12 (0.41%) GIS
7 12 (0.41%) NoSQL
8 11 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
8 11 (0.38%) Data Warehouse
8 11 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
8 11 (0.38%) MongoDB
8 11 (0.38%) Oracle Reports
9 8 (0.28%) Amazon Aurora
10 7 (0.24%) Data Lake
11 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 5 (0.17%) Oracle Database 10g
12 5 (0.17%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 164 (5.64%) JIRA
2 76 (2.61%) Jenkins
3 74 (2.55%) Git
4 61 (2.10%) GitLab
5 43 (1.48%) MSI
6 26 (0.89%) Visual Studio
7 25 (0.86%) Eclipse
8 20 (0.69%) Burp Suite
8 20 (0.69%) Metasploit
9 19 (0.65%) Android Studio
10 17 (0.58%) Xcode
11 16 (0.55%) Browser DevTools
12 15 (0.52%) Artifactory
13 13 (0.45%) Sonatype Nexus
14 11 (0.38%) InstallShield
15 10 (0.34%) Bitbucket
16 8 (0.28%) Selenium
16 8 (0.28%) Vagrant
17 7 (0.24%) AdminStudio
17 7 (0.24%) SoapUI
General
1 1,070 (36.81%) Social Skills
2 302 (10.39%) Finance
3 260 (8.94%) Analytical Skills
3 260 (8.94%) Public Sector
4 128 (4.40%) Banking
5 123 (4.23%) Documentation Skills
6 111 (3.82%) Legal
7 86 (2.96%) Organisational Skills
8 66 (2.27%) Manufacturing
9 58 (2.00%) Military
10 44 (1.51%) Presentation Skills
11 41 (1.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 41 (1.41%) Telecoms
12 34 (1.17%) Retail
13 26 (0.89%) Marketing
14 25 (0.86%) Aerospace
15 22 (0.76%) Law
16 21 (0.72%) Electronics
17 20 (0.69%) Front Office
17 20 (0.69%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 412 (14.17%) Support Engineer
2 376 (12.93%) IT Support
3 373 (12.83%) Analyst
4 206 (7.09%) IT Engineer
5 190 (6.54%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 167 (5.74%) Architect
7 165 (5.68%) IT Support Engineer
8 158 (5.44%) Support Analyst
9 151 (5.19%) Senior
10 148 (5.09%) Desktop Support
11 135 (4.64%) Windows Engineer
12 131 (4.51%) Technical Support
13 125 (4.30%) 2nd Line Support
14 124 (4.27%) Desktop Engineer
15 109 (3.75%) Developer
16 99 (3.41%) Deployment Engineer
17 98 (3.37%) Lead
18 96 (3.30%) Desktop Support Engineer
19 86 (2.96%) IT Analyst
20 75 (2.58%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (2.82%) .NET
2 65 (2.24%) REST
3 61 (2.10%) LDAP
4 53 (1.82%) OAuth
5 51 (1.75%) SAML
6 45 (1.55%) .NET Framework
7 41 (1.41%) Middleware
8 35 (1.20%) React
9 33 (1.14%) OpenID
9 33 (1.14%) WPF
10 30 (1.03%) Kafka
11 29 (1.00%) AngularJS
12 27 (0.93%) CSS
13 26 (0.89%) Web Services
14 25 (0.86%) Microsoft Graph
15 23 (0.79%) SOAP
16 21 (0.72%) OAuth2
16 21 (0.72%) RESTful
16 21 (0.72%) WinForms
17 18 (0.62%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 189 (6.50%) Onboarding
2 102 (3.51%) Data Centre
3 98 (3.37%) PKI
4 95 (3.27%) Driving Licence
5 82 (2.82%) Enterprise Software
6 66 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
7 60 (2.06%) Smartphone
8 58 (2.00%) Management Information System
9 55 (1.89%) Replication
10 46 (1.58%) Security Posture
11 41 (1.41%) Hybrid Cloud
12 39 (1.34%) Legacy Systems
13 37 (1.27%) NHS
14 33 (1.14%) Product Ownership
14 33 (1.14%) Security Operations Centre
15 31 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
15 31 (1.07%) Clustering
15 31 (1.07%) Virtual Team
16 30 (1.03%) Mobile App
17 29 (1.00%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 710 (24.42%) Linux
2 626 (21.53%) Windows 10
3 598 (20.57%) Windows Server
4 175 (6.02%) Unix
5 167 (5.74%) Mac OS
6 150 (5.16%) Android
7 119 (4.09%) Apple iOS
8 78 (2.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 73 (2.51%) Windows Server 2016
10 62 (2.13%) Windows Server 2019
11 53 (1.82%) Windows 7
12 40 (1.38%) Windows Server 2012
13 30 (1.03%) Windows Server 2003
14 24 (0.83%) AIX
15 20 (0.69%) VMS
16 18 (0.62%) Solaris
16 18 (0.62%) Ubuntu
17 13 (0.45%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.34%) Mac OS X
19 8 (0.28%) Amazon Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 554 (19.06%) Problem-Solving
2 488 (16.79%) Customer Service
3 419 (14.41%) ITIL
4 320 (11.01%) Agile
5 295 (10.15%) Migration
6 271 (9.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 247 (8.50%) DevOps
8 232 (7.98%) Service Management
9 227 (7.81%) ITSM
10 220 (7.57%) CI/CD
11 219 (7.53%) Cybersecurity
12 200 (6.88%) Continuous Improvement
13 154 (5.30%) Change Management
14 144 (4.95%) Disaster Recovery
15 138 (4.75%) Service Delivery
16 132 (4.54%) Computer Science
16 132 (4.54%) Stakeholder Management
17 125 (4.30%) SIEM
17 125 (4.30%) User Experience
18 120 (4.13%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 562 (19.33%) PowerShell
2 340 (11.70%) Python
3 254 (8.74%) SQL
4 127 (4.37%) Java
5 122 (4.20%) Bash
6 118 (4.06%) C#
7 76 (2.61%) JavaScript
8 67 (2.30%) Perl
9 57 (1.96%) C++
9 57 (1.96%) PL/SQL
10 38 (1.31%) T-SQL
11 30 (1.03%) Shell Script
12 29 (1.00%) Kusto Query Language
12 29 (1.00%) VBScript
13 28 (0.96%) VB
14 24 (0.83%) VBA
15 16 (0.55%) Go
16 15 (0.52%) Groovy
17 14 (0.48%) C
18 13 (0.45%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 881 (30.31%) Security Cleared
2 572 (19.68%) SC Cleared
3 318 (10.94%) Degree
4 257 (8.84%) DV Cleared
5 158 (5.44%) Microsoft Certification
6 94 (3.23%) Computer Science Degree
7 62 (2.13%) Azure Certification
8 49 (1.69%) MCSE
9 48 (1.65%) Cisco Certification
10 44 (1.51%) ITIL Certification
11 43 (1.48%) A+ Certification
12 37 (1.27%) CISSP
13 36 (1.24%) BPSS Clearance
14 34 (1.17%) AWS Certification
14 34 (1.17%) CompTIA Security+
15 33 (1.14%) CCNA
16 28 (0.96%) CCNP
17 26 (0.89%) MCSA
18 24 (0.83%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
18 24 (0.83%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 99 (3.41%) GDPR
2 97 (3.34%) SLA
3 80 (2.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 70 (2.41%) QA
5 58 (2.00%) NIST
6 37 (1.27%) PCI DSS
7 25 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 18 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
9 14 (0.48%) PMO
10 13 (0.45%) GLBA
11 12 (0.41%) MiFID
12 10 (0.34%) NCSC
13 9 (0.31%) FINRA
14 7 (0.24%) COBIT
14 7 (0.24%) HIPAA
14 7 (0.24%) NIST 800
15 6 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
15 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
16 5 (0.17%) Accessibility
16 5 (0.17%) GxP
System Software
1 1,070 (36.81%) Active Directory
2 279 (9.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 118 (4.06%) Docker
4 111 (3.82%) Hyper-V
5 68 (2.34%) Virtual Desktop
6 63 (2.17%) Virtual Machines
7 59 (2.03%) vSphere
8 49 (1.69%) VMware ESXi
9 36 (1.24%) VMware NSX
10 26 (0.89%) BitLocker
11 23 (0.79%) Microsoft App-V
12 19 (0.65%) Firmware
13 14 (0.48%) Virtual Servers
14 12 (0.41%) KVM
15 11 (0.38%) DFS Replication
16 9 (0.31%) XenApp
17 7 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
17 7 (0.24%) Terminal Services
17 7 (0.24%) XenDesktop
18 6 (0.21%) Squid
Systems Management
1 384 (13.21%) SCCM
2 344 (11.83%) Microsoft Intune
3 177 (6.09%) Terraform
4 157 (5.40%) Ansible
5 119 (4.09%) Kubernetes
6 85 (2.92%) Single Sign-On
7 73 (2.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 65 (2.24%) vCenter Server
9 50 (1.72%) Jamf Pro
10 46 (1.58%) Grafana
11 32 (1.10%) Prometheus
12 30 (1.03%) WSUS
13 27 (0.93%) SCOM
14 25 (0.86%) Nessus
15 19 (0.65%) Nmap
16 18 (0.62%) WMI
17 17 (0.58%) FortiGate
18 15 (0.52%) Progress Chef
19 12 (0.41%) Puppet
20 11 (0.38%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 1,241 (42.69%) Microsoft
2 381 (13.11%) VMware
3 265 (9.12%) ServiceNow
4 202 (6.95%) Oracle
5 177 (6.09%) Citrix
6 173 (5.95%) Cisco
7 139 (4.78%) Splunk
8 73 (2.51%) Apple
9 72 (2.48%) Dell
10 71 (2.44%) HP
11 58 (2.00%) Red Hat
12 56 (1.93%) Google
13 53 (1.82%) SolarWinds
14 50 (1.72%) Veeam
15 49 (1.69%) IBM
16 47 (1.62%) SAP
17 42 (1.44%) Remedy
18 39 (1.34%) Palo Alto
19 36 (1.24%) CrowdStrike
19 36 (1.24%) CyberArk