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 19 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,843 2,424 3,676
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.16% 8.24% 8.41%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.35% 59.17% 62.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,905 1,683 2,524
10th Percentile £160 £181 £160
25th Percentile £212 £239 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.35% +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £388 £400 £390
% change year-on-year -3.13% +2.56% +2.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 225 126 283
10th Percentile £14.20 £15.30 £12.00
25th Percentile £16.65 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £22.81 £20.00 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +14.05% +12.87% -19.45%
75th Percentile £63.75 £28.00 £24.44
90th Percentile £74.26 £64.38 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.81 £18.82 £17.50
% change year-on-year +21.20% +7.54% -10.01%

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 4,711 4,097 5,861
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.20% 13.92% 13.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,069 2,727 3,946
10th Percentile £181 £200 £183
25th Percentile £310 £320 £290
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.70% -9.76%
75th Percentile £575 £595 £594
90th Percentile £660 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £450 £440
% change year-on-year -5.56% +2.27% -7.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 322 173 403
10th Percentile £15.51 £16.30 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.37 £18.13 £15.21
Median hourly rate £32.50 £24.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +34.41% +9.91% -29.60%
75th Percentile £67.25 £62.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £68.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.07 £24.18 £20.00
% change year-on-year +40.88% +20.90% -25.93%

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 19 April 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 19 April 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 19 April 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 -5 2,480 £415 -1.19% 947
UK excluding London -9 1,879 £388 -3.13% 875
London -21 773 £425 -3.41% 187
Work from Home -19 575 £475 +0.53% 304
South East -7 497 £467 -6.60% 261
North of England -11 468 £313 -3.69% 205
Midlands -11 281 £330 +21.66% 124
North West -4 255 £235 -32.86% 120
South West -10 235 £490 -8.84% 124
East of England +5 209 £345 +53.33% 107
Yorkshire -17 192 £365 +12.31% 63
West Midlands -24 166 £455 +63.96% 62
Scotland 0 146 £419 -3.68% 48
East Midlands +5 111 £210 +1.82% 61
Wales -2 47 £190 -35.59% 26
North East -14 27 £225 +2.27% 28
Northern Ireland -6 12 £175 -10.26% 9
Channel Islands 0 2 £500 +68.07%

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
1 245 (8.62%) Microsoft Exchange
2 155 (5.45%) SharePoint
3 48 (1.69%) Confluence
4 46 (1.62%) IIS
5 23 (0.81%) WebLogic
6 22 (0.77%) Apache
7 14 (0.49%) Tomcat
8 13 (0.46%) nginx
9 12 (0.42%) SAS
9 12 (0.42%) Skype for Business
9 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
10 10 (0.35%) TPMS
11 6 (0.21%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.21%) WebSphere
12 5 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
14 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
15 2 (0.070%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 2 (0.070%) WordPress
Applications
1 208 (7.32%) Microsoft Office
2 66 (2.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.39%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.070%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 39 (1.37%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.28%) Teamcenter
4 6 (0.21%) assyst
5 3 (0.11%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.070%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.070%) Finacle
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.070%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.070%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.035%) Eikon
7 1 (0.035%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.035%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 790 (27.79%) Microsoft 365
2 771 (27.12%) Azure
3 318 (11.19%) Entra ID
4 232 (8.16%) AWS
5 81 (2.85%) GCP
6 77 (2.71%) SaaS
7 75 (2.64%) OneDrive
8 73 (2.57%) Azure DevOps
9 57 (2.00%) IaaS
10 52 (1.83%) Google Workspace
11 50 (1.76%) PaaS
12 48 (1.69%) GitHub
13 40 (1.41%) Power Platform
14 34 (1.20%) Azure Monitor
15 32 (1.13%) Azure Sentinel
16 27 (0.95%) OpenShift
17 22 (0.77%) GitHub Actions
18 19 (0.67%) AWS CloudFormation
18 19 (0.67%) Microsoft Purview
18 19 (0.67%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 405 (14.25%) DNS
2 345 (12.14%) Firewall
3 270 (9.50%) DHCP
4 208 (7.32%) VPN
5 183 (6.44%) TCP/IP
6 175 (6.16%) LAN
6 175 (6.16%) WAN
7 151 (5.31%) Wi-Fi
8 83 (2.92%) Network Security
9 73 (2.57%) VLAN
10 67 (2.36%) SAN
11 51 (1.79%) Wireless
12 44 (1.55%) BGP
12 44 (1.55%) SD-WAN
13 39 (1.37%) Skype
13 39 (1.37%) VoIP
14 38 (1.34%) SSL
15 34 (1.20%) OSPF
16 33 (1.16%) Internet
17 31 (1.09%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 184 (6.47%) SQL Server
2 53 (1.86%) Oracle Database
3 34 (1.20%) Relational Database
4 31 (1.09%) MySQL
5 26 (0.91%) PostgreSQL
6 20 (0.70%) Power BI
7 18 (0.63%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.53%) DB2
9 14 (0.49%) Data Warehouse
10 12 (0.42%) BigQuery
10 12 (0.42%) MongoDB
11 10 (0.35%) NoSQL
11 10 (0.35%) Oracle Reports
12 8 (0.28%) GIS
13 7 (0.25%) SAP HANA
13 7 (0.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 7 (0.25%) Sybase ASE
14 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 5 (0.18%) Azure SQL Database
15 5 (0.18%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 169 (5.94%) JIRA
2 59 (2.08%) GitLab
3 52 (1.83%) Jenkins
4 50 (1.76%) Git
5 42 (1.48%) MSI
6 34 (1.20%) Visual Studio
7 21 (0.74%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.63%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.39%) Android Studio
10 11 (0.39%) Artifactory
10 11 (0.39%) Chocolatey
11 10 (0.35%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
12 9 (0.32%) InstallShield
12 9 (0.32%) Xcode
13 8 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
14 7 (0.25%) JUnit
15 6 (0.21%) AdminStudio
15 6 (0.21%) Toad
General
1 978 (34.40%) Social Skills
2 278 (9.78%) Finance
3 264 (9.29%) Analytical Skills
4 237 (8.34%) Public Sector
5 146 (5.14%) Banking
6 132 (4.64%) Legal
7 108 (3.80%) Documentation Skills
8 80 (2.81%) Organisational Skills
9 62 (2.18%) Military
10 51 (1.79%) Manufacturing
11 41 (1.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 40 (1.41%) Telecoms
13 37 (1.30%) Presentation Skills
14 35 (1.23%) Retail
15 33 (1.16%) Law
16 30 (1.06%) Investment Banking
17 26 (0.91%) Front Office
18 20 (0.70%) Local Government
19 16 (0.56%) Aerospace
19 16 (0.56%) Police
Job Titles
1 378 (13.30%) IT Support
2 345 (12.14%) Analyst
3 340 (11.96%) Support Engineer
4 228 (8.02%) IT Engineer
5 217 (7.63%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 184 (6.47%) Architect
7 183 (6.44%) IT Support Engineer
8 172 (6.05%) Senior
9 130 (4.57%) Support Analyst
10 117 (4.12%) Desktop Support
11 107 (3.76%) Developer
12 102 (3.59%) Windows Engineer
13 95 (3.34%) IT Analyst
14 93 (3.27%) Desktop Engineer
14 93 (3.27%) Lead
15 92 (3.24%) Technical Support
16 84 (2.95%) 2nd Line Support
17 76 (2.67%) Consultant
18 72 (2.53%) IT Support Analyst
18 72 (2.53%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (3.27%) .NET
2 80 (2.81%) REST
3 55 (1.93%) SAML
4 52 (1.83%) .NET Framework
5 47 (1.65%) LDAP
6 43 (1.51%) OAuth
7 37 (1.30%) Middleware
8 33 (1.16%) Kafka
9 32 (1.13%) OpenID
10 29 (1.02%) WinForms
10 29 (1.02%) WPF
11 28 (0.98%) Web Services
12 27 (0.95%) Microsoft Graph
13 25 (0.88%) 802.1X
14 21 (0.74%) Node.js
15 20 (0.70%) OAuth2
15 20 (0.70%) React
16 19 (0.67%) CSS
17 18 (0.63%) AngularJS
17 18 (0.63%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 212 (7.46%) Onboarding
2 131 (4.61%) Data Centre
3 99 (3.48%) PKI
4 90 (3.17%) Enterprise Software
5 77 (2.71%) Driving Licence
6 70 (2.46%) Self-Motivation
7 66 (2.32%) Clustering
8 59 (2.08%) Replication
9 48 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
10 44 (1.55%) Hybrid Cloud
10 44 (1.55%) Management Information System
11 43 (1.51%) Smartphone
12 41 (1.44%) Security Posture
13 40 (1.41%) Product Ownership
14 35 (1.23%) Virtual Team
15 33 (1.16%) Cloud Native
15 33 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
15 33 (1.16%) Security Operations Centre
16 30 (1.06%) CMDB
17 29 (1.02%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 717 (25.22%) Linux
2 660 (23.21%) Windows Server
3 522 (18.36%) Windows 10
4 174 (6.12%) Mac OS
5 158 (5.56%) Android
6 146 (5.14%) Unix
7 127 (4.47%) Apple iOS
8 97 (3.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 75 (2.64%) Windows Server 2016
10 66 (2.32%) Windows Server 2019
11 49 (1.72%) Windows 7
12 39 (1.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 37 (1.30%) AIX
14 23 (0.81%) Windows Server 2003
15 22 (0.77%) VMS
16 19 (0.67%) Solaris
16 19 (0.67%) Ubuntu
17 14 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.35%) Mac OS X
19 8 (0.28%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 597 (21.00%) Problem-Solving
2 455 (16.00%) Customer Service
3 409 (14.39%) ITIL
4 322 (11.33%) Migration
5 297 (10.45%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 294 (10.34%) Agile
7 250 (8.79%) DevOps
8 238 (8.37%) ITSM
9 229 (8.05%) CI/CD
10 197 (6.93%) Cybersecurity
11 189 (6.65%) Continuous Improvement
11 189 (6.65%) Service Management
12 177 (6.23%) Disaster Recovery
13 172 (6.05%) Change Management
14 152 (5.35%) High Availability
15 142 (4.99%) SIEM
16 130 (4.57%) Stakeholder Management
17 129 (4.54%) Computer Science
18 126 (4.43%) Service Delivery
19 124 (4.36%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 613 (21.56%) PowerShell
2 294 (10.34%) Python
3 263 (9.25%) SQL
4 129 (4.54%) C#
5 117 (4.12%) Bash
6 86 (3.02%) Java
7 72 (2.53%) JavaScript
8 62 (2.18%) PL/SQL
9 49 (1.72%) C++
10 45 (1.58%) Perl
11 44 (1.55%) T-SQL
12 28 (0.98%) Kusto Query Language
13 24 (0.84%) VB
14 22 (0.77%) Shell Script
15 19 (0.67%) VBScript
16 17 (0.60%) Search Processing Language
17 15 (0.53%) VBA
18 14 (0.49%) Go
19 12 (0.42%) Bicep
19 12 (0.42%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 861 (30.28%) Security Cleared
2 567 (19.94%) SC Cleared
3 290 (10.20%) Degree
4 262 (9.22%) DV Cleared
5 119 (4.19%) Microsoft Certification
6 86 (3.02%) Computer Science Degree
7 72 (2.53%) Cisco Certification
8 46 (1.62%) Azure Certification
9 42 (1.48%) CISSP
10 41 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
10 41 (1.44%) MCSE
11 38 (1.34%) CCNA
11 38 (1.34%) CompTIA Security+
11 38 (1.34%) ITIL Certification
12 32 (1.13%) AWS Certification
13 30 (1.06%) A+ Certification
14 25 (0.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 24 (0.84%) CCNP
16 22 (0.77%) MCSA
17 20 (0.70%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (3.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 92 (3.24%) QA
3 88 (3.10%) GDPR
4 81 (2.85%) SLA
5 70 (2.46%) NIST
6 41 (1.44%) PCI DSS
7 29 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 21 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.56%) NCSC
10 13 (0.46%) PMO
11 12 (0.42%) MiFID
11 12 (0.42%) NIST 800
12 10 (0.35%) Data Quality
12 10 (0.35%) FINRA
12 10 (0.35%) GLBA
13 8 (0.28%) Disclosure Scotland
14 7 (0.25%) DICOM
15 6 (0.21%) HIPAA
15 6 (0.21%) HL7
15 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,067 (37.53%) Active Directory
2 322 (11.33%) VMware Infrastructure
3 144 (5.07%) Hyper-V
4 93 (3.27%) Docker
5 80 (2.81%) vSphere
6 77 (2.71%) VMware ESXi
7 57 (2.00%) Virtual Machines
8 54 (1.90%) Virtual Desktop
9 39 (1.37%) VMware NSX
10 37 (1.30%) Firmware
11 31 (1.09%) BitLocker
12 24 (0.84%) Microsoft App-V
13 20 (0.70%) KVM
14 13 (0.46%) XenDesktop
15 12 (0.42%) XenApp
16 10 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
17 6 (0.21%) etcd
18 5 (0.18%) NFS
18 5 (0.18%) Terminal Services
19 4 (0.14%) Snort
Systems Management
1 368 (12.94%) Microsoft Intune
2 295 (10.38%) SCCM
3 179 (6.30%) Ansible
4 160 (5.63%) Terraform
5 132 (4.64%) Kubernetes
6 79 (2.78%) Single Sign-On
7 68 (2.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 64 (2.25%) vCenter Server
9 45 (1.58%) Jamf Pro
10 40 (1.41%) WSUS
11 37 (1.30%) FortiGate
11 37 (1.30%) Grafana
12 31 (1.09%) Prometheus
13 25 (0.88%) SCOM
14 22 (0.77%) Nagios
14 22 (0.77%) Nessus
15 21 (0.74%) Progress Chef
16 17 (0.60%) Puppet
17 16 (0.56%) Nmap
18 15 (0.53%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,220 (42.91%) Microsoft
2 429 (15.09%) VMware
3 231 (8.13%) ServiceNow
4 217 (7.63%) Citrix
5 191 (6.72%) Cisco
6 184 (6.47%) Oracle
7 151 (5.31%) Splunk
8 83 (2.92%) HP
9 73 (2.57%) Dell
10 68 (2.39%) Red Hat
11 65 (2.29%) SolarWinds
12 60 (2.11%) Google
13 58 (2.04%) Apple
14 54 (1.90%) IBM
14 54 (1.90%) Remedy
15 49 (1.72%) CyberArk
16 46 (1.62%) F5
17 45 (1.58%) Palo Alto
18 40 (1.41%) Veeam
19 39 (1.37%) Juniper