Windows Contracts

Microsoft Windows
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Windows skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Windows over the 6 months leading up to 2 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 21 18 14
Rank change year-on-year -3 -4 +4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,535 3,565 5,500
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 8.17% 8.21% 9.86%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.75% 60.37% 61.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,701 2,401 3,824
10th Percentile £181 £165 £165
25th Percentile £231 £235 £231
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £450
Median % change year-on-year - -5.56% +5.88%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £673 £672 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £430 £395
% change year-on-year -6.98% +8.86% +21.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 296 285
10th Percentile £15.12 £12.00 £13.29
25th Percentile £16.95 £14.38 £17.00
Median hourly rate £18.87 £19.59 £23.86
Median % change year-on-year -3.68% -17.90% +19.30%
75th Percentile £25.15 £40.00 £52.97
90th Percentile £63.75 £65.00 £69.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.87 £18.00 £22.00
% change year-on-year +4.83% -18.18% +17.33%

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 4,243 5,905 8,884
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.68% 13.61% 15.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,753 3,889 6,146
10th Percentile £200 £190 £190
25th Percentile £313 £313 £338
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.11% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £580 £588 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £717
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £463 £462
% change year-on-year -2.70% +0.13% +8.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 218 434 407
10th Percentile £15.50 £12.75 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.44 £16.25 £18.44
Median hourly rate £22.25 £24.93 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -10.74% -41.35% +88.89%
75th Percentile £43.35 £64.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £66.15 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.87 £31.25 £33.50
% change year-on-year -39.62% -6.72% +67.50%

Windows
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Windows as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Windows in the UK

Windows
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Windows.

Daily rate trend for Windows in the UK

Windows
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Windows over the 6 months to 2 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Windows in the UK

Windows
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Windows.

Hourly rate trend for Windows in the UK

Windows
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Windows over the 6 months to 2 July 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows in the UK

Windows
Top 18 Contract 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 2 July 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 -4 2,197 £425 - 5,948
UK excluding London 0 1,551 £400 -6.98% 3,888
London -3 821 £440 +10.00% 2,398
Work from Home -3 566 £474 -0.26% 2,406
South East -1 429 £500 +3.31% 1,055
North of England -4 316 £350 -5.08% 952
South West +2 237 £450 -14.29% 509
Midlands -9 191 £275 -22.75% 559
Scotland +1 186 £435 +27.87% 219
East of England +8 169 £278 -30.61% 457
North West -5 166 £368 -5.64% 568
West Midlands -5 145 £300 -25.00% 309
Yorkshire -3 123 £400 +23.08% 322
East Midlands -21 45 £200 -40.74% 250
North East +7 28 £288 -36.11% 70
Wales -6 22 £288 +30.68% 112
Northern Ireland -7 21 £195 - 72
Channel Islands - 1 - -

Windows
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 231 (9.11%) Microsoft Exchange
2 162 (6.39%) SharePoint
3 59 (2.33%) Confluence
4 50 (1.97%) IIS
5 25 (0.99%) Apache
5 25 (0.99%) JBoss
6 21 (0.83%) IBM Domino
6 21 (0.83%) Skype for Business
7 16 (0.63%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 16 (0.63%) WebSphere
8 14 (0.55%) CMS
9 11 (0.43%) Tomcat
10 10 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2013
10 10 (0.39%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.24%) BizTalk Server
11 6 (0.24%) Exchange Server 2003
11 6 (0.24%) Exchange Server 2007
11 6 (0.24%) Exchange Server 2010
11 6 (0.24%) Office Communications Server
11 6 (0.24%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 236 (9.31%) Microsoft Office
2 78 (3.08%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (0.67%) MS Visio
5 10 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.16%) InfoPath
7 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.079%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.079%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.079%) ProjectWise
8 2 (0.079%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.079%) Trello
9 1 (0.039%) Notion
Business Applications
1 16 (0.63%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (0.28%) Maximo
3 4 (0.16%) Dynamics GP
3 4 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
3 4 (0.16%) Sage X3
4 3 (0.12%) Oracle 11i
5 2 (0.079%) Alphatax
5 2 (0.079%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.079%) NEC Housing
5 2 (0.079%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.079%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.079%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.039%) IBM Planning Analytics
6 1 (0.039%) IntelliMatch
6 1 (0.039%) Oracle BPM
6 1 (0.039%) Oracle EBS R12
6 1 (0.039%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.039%) Remedy AR System
6 1 (0.039%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 644 (25.40%) Microsoft 365
2 624 (24.62%) Azure
3 252 (9.94%) Entra ID
4 251 (9.90%) AWS
5 75 (2.96%) OneDrive
6 74 (2.92%) IaaS
7 64 (2.52%) SaaS
8 61 (2.41%) Google Workspace
9 59 (2.33%) GCP
10 57 (2.25%) Azure DevOps
11 54 (2.13%) GitHub
12 48 (1.89%) PaaS
13 46 (1.81%) OpenShift
14 41 (1.62%) Azure Sentinel
15 33 (1.30%) Amazon S3
16 32 (1.26%) Power Platform
17 30 (1.18%) Cohesity
18 27 (1.07%) Cloud Computing
19 26 (1.03%) Amazon EC2
20 22 (0.87%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 339 (13.37%) DNS
2 265 (10.45%) Firewall
3 217 (8.56%) DHCP
4 197 (7.77%) VPN
5 141 (5.56%) TCP/IP
6 101 (3.98%) SAN
7 97 (3.83%) LAN
8 91 (3.59%) WAN
9 63 (2.49%) Wi-Fi
10 59 (2.33%) Network Security
11 53 (2.09%) VLAN
12 39 (1.54%) Remote Desktop
13 36 (1.42%) SMTP
14 34 (1.34%) NAS
15 31 (1.22%) HTTP
15 31 (1.22%) Wireless
16 29 (1.14%) Internet
16 29 (1.14%) SSL
17 28 (1.10%) Skype
18 27 (1.07%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 158 (6.23%) SQL Server
2 72 (2.84%) Oracle Database
3 39 (1.54%) Relational Database
4 38 (1.50%) Amazon RDS
5 32 (1.26%) Elasticsearch
6 23 (0.91%) Big Data
7 21 (0.83%) MongoDB
8 20 (0.79%) MySQL
8 20 (0.79%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 19 (0.75%) RDBMS
10 17 (0.67%) DB2
11 15 (0.59%) PostgreSQL
12 13 (0.51%) Power BI
13 10 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
13 10 (0.39%) KDB
13 10 (0.39%) Kdb+
14 9 (0.36%) MS Access
15 8 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
16 7 (0.28%) NoSQL
16 7 (0.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 145 (5.72%) JIRA
2 135 (5.33%) Git
3 107 (4.22%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.50%) GitLab
4 38 (1.50%) MSI
5 37 (1.46%) Bitbucket
6 32 (1.26%) Visual Studio
7 24 (0.95%) SonarQube
8 23 (0.91%) TeamCity
9 22 (0.87%) Sonatype Nexus
10 19 (0.75%) Selenium
11 15 (0.59%) Eclipse
12 12 (0.47%) Bitbucket Server
12 12 (0.47%) CA Release Automation
12 12 (0.47%) Postman
13 11 (0.43%) AdminStudio
13 11 (0.43%) JMeter
14 10 (0.39%) IntelliJ
14 10 (0.39%) QARun
14 10 (0.39%) WinRunner
General
1 868 (34.24%) Social Skills
2 455 (17.95%) Finance
3 244 (9.63%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (8.09%) Public Sector
5 201 (7.93%) Banking
6 87 (3.43%) Legal
7 78 (3.08%) Documentation Skills
8 77 (3.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 75 (2.96%) Manufacturing
10 66 (2.60%) Organisational Skills
11 64 (2.52%) Telecoms
12 48 (1.89%) Marketing
13 43 (1.70%) Electronics
14 41 (1.62%) Investment Banking
15 34 (1.34%) Law
16 33 (1.30%) Military
17 30 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
18 26 (1.03%) Retail
19 23 (0.91%) Front Office
20 22 (0.87%) Games
Job Titles
1 315 (12.43%) Support Engineer
2 296 (11.68%) Analyst
3 217 (8.56%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 180 (7.10%) Windows Engineer
5 176 (6.94%) Architect
6 172 (6.79%) IT Support
7 154 (6.07%) IT Engineer
8 144 (5.68%) Desktop Engineer
9 134 (5.29%) Senior
10 125 (4.93%) Desktop Support
11 123 (4.85%) Deployment Engineer
12 112 (4.42%) Developer
13 96 (3.79%) Support Analyst
14 95 (3.75%) 2nd Line Support
15 89 (3.51%) IT Support Engineer
16 87 (3.43%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 78 (3.08%) Service Analyst
18 77 (3.04%) Service Desk Analyst
19 75 (2.96%) 2nd Line Engineer
20 69 (2.72%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (4.02%) .NET
2 48 (1.89%) Middleware
3 47 (1.85%) .NET Framework
4 44 (1.74%) WPF
5 41 (1.62%) Web Services
6 32 (1.26%) REST
6 32 (1.26%) SOAP
6 32 (1.26%) XML
7 29 (1.14%) Node.js
7 29 (1.14%) Software Packaging
8 26 (1.03%) Kafka
9 19 (0.75%) HTML
10 18 (0.71%) LDAP
11 17 (0.67%) ASP.NET
11 17 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
12 15 (0.59%) Spring Boot
12 15 (0.59%) WCF
13 14 (0.55%) WinForms
14 13 (0.51%) CSS
15 11 (0.43%) FIX Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 109 (4.30%) Data Centre
2 83 (3.27%) Onboarding
2 83 (3.27%) PKI
3 71 (2.80%) Self-Motivation
4 53 (2.09%) iPhone
5 52 (2.05%) Management Information System
6 49 (1.93%) iPad
7 48 (1.89%) Driving Licence
8 47 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
9 42 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
9 42 (1.66%) Replication
10 40 (1.58%) Clustering
11 29 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
11 29 (1.14%) Linux Command Line
12 28 (1.10%) Public Cloud
13 27 (1.07%) Video Conferencing
14 24 (0.95%) Cyber Threat
15 23 (0.91%) Product Ownership
16 22 (0.87%) Smartphone
16 22 (0.87%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 619 (24.42%) Linux
2 589 (23.23%) Windows Server
3 529 (20.87%) Windows 10
4 129 (5.09%) Unix
5 113 (4.46%) Mac OS
6 112 (4.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 100 (3.94%) Apple iOS
7 100 (3.94%) Windows Server 2016
8 99 (3.91%) Windows Server 2019
9 94 (3.71%) Android
10 80 (3.16%) Windows 7
11 57 (2.25%) Windows Server 2012
12 41 (1.62%) Ubuntu
13 34 (1.34%) Windows Server 2003
14 30 (1.18%) VMS
15 28 (1.10%) CentOS
16 26 (1.03%) Solaris
17 19 (0.75%) AIX
18 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2008
18 13 (0.51%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 550 (21.70%) Problem-Solving
2 372 (14.67%) ITIL
3 290 (11.44%) Agile
4 285 (11.24%) Migration
5 278 (10.97%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 270 (10.65%) Customer Service
7 247 (9.74%) DevOps
8 185 (7.30%) ITSM
9 164 (6.47%) Service Management
10 163 (6.43%) Cybersecurity
11 154 (6.07%) CI/CD
12 108 (4.26%) Disaster Recovery
13 105 (4.14%) Stakeholder Management
14 103 (4.06%) Time Management
15 102 (4.02%) Change Management
16 101 (3.98%) High Availability
17 98 (3.87%) Deployment Automation
17 98 (3.87%) Test Automation
18 97 (3.83%) Project Management
19 96 (3.79%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 545 (21.50%) PowerShell
2 292 (11.52%) Python
3 264 (10.41%) SQL
4 152 (6.00%) C#
5 133 (5.25%) Bash
6 103 (4.06%) Java
7 83 (3.27%) PL/SQL
8 67 (2.64%) VB
9 56 (2.21%) Perl
10 54 (2.13%) C++
11 48 (1.89%) JavaScript
12 40 (1.58%) VBA
13 29 (1.14%) Shell Script
14 24 (0.95%) C
15 23 (0.91%) VBScript
16 20 (0.79%) VB.NET
17 19 (0.75%) TypeScript
18 17 (0.67%) T-SQL
19 13 (0.51%) Kusto Query Language
19 13 (0.51%) PHP
Qualifications
1 637 (25.13%) Security Cleared
2 453 (17.87%) SC Cleared
3 190 (7.50%) DV Cleared
4 184 (7.26%) Degree
5 156 (6.15%) Microsoft Certification
6 51 (2.01%) Cisco Certification
7 44 (1.74%) A+ Certification
8 40 (1.58%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 39 (1.54%) CISSP
10 36 (1.42%) DBS Check
10 36 (1.42%) MCSE
11 34 (1.34%) Azure Certification
12 29 (1.14%) ITIL Certification
13 24 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
14 22 (0.87%) CCNA
15 17 (0.67%) CCNP
15 17 (0.67%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 16 (0.63%) MCP
16 16 (0.63%) PMP
17 15 (0.59%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 119 (4.69%) QA
2 98 (3.87%) SLA
3 43 (1.70%) GDPR
4 33 (1.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 28 (1.10%) NIST
6 17 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
7 11 (0.43%) Accessibility
7 11 (0.43%) Disclosure Scotland
7 11 (0.43%) HIPAA
7 11 (0.43%) PMO
8 10 (0.39%) NCSC
8 10 (0.39%) PCI DSS
9 7 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 6 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 6 (0.24%) SOC 2
11 4 (0.16%) Data Quality
12 3 (0.12%) ECSS
12 3 (0.12%) SEPA
13 2 (0.079%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 2 (0.079%) IEC 61131
System Software
1 931 (36.73%) Active Directory
2 273 (10.77%) VMware Infrastructure
3 112 (4.42%) Docker
3 112 (4.42%) Hyper-V
4 87 (3.43%) VMware ESXi
5 83 (3.27%) vSphere
6 56 (2.21%) Virtual Desktop
7 54 (2.13%) Virtual Machines
8 39 (1.54%) Microsoft App-V
9 38 (1.50%) Virtual Servers
10 30 (1.18%) BitLocker
11 27 (1.07%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 19 (0.75%) NFS
13 17 (0.67%) VMware NSX
14 16 (0.63%) XenApp
14 16 (0.63%) XenDesktop
15 14 (0.55%) DFS Replication
16 13 (0.51%) Terminal Services
17 9 (0.36%) Firmware
18 6 (0.24%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 365 (14.40%) SCCM
2 307 (12.11%) Microsoft Intune
3 188 (7.42%) Ansible
4 142 (5.60%) Terraform
5 135 (5.33%) Kubernetes
6 80 (3.16%) WSUS
7 65 (2.56%) Puppet
8 58 (2.29%) vCenter Server
9 52 (2.05%) Progress Chef
10 28 (1.10%) Jamf Pro
10 28 (1.10%) Microsoft Clustering
11 27 (1.07%) Grafana
12 22 (0.87%) Single Sign-On
13 20 (0.79%) Kibana
13 20 (0.79%) SCOM
14 19 (0.75%) Prometheus
15 17 (0.67%) FortiGate
16 16 (0.63%) NetBackup
17 15 (0.59%) Nagios
18 14 (0.55%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 1,085 (42.80%) Microsoft
2 410 (16.17%) VMware
3 191 (7.53%) ServiceNow
4 187 (7.38%) Oracle
5 163 (6.43%) Citrix
6 158 (6.23%) Cisco
7 119 (4.69%) Splunk
8 95 (3.75%) Google
9 89 (3.51%) Red Hat
10 87 (3.43%) Apple
11 82 (3.23%) Dell
11 82 (3.23%) HP
12 66 (2.60%) IBM
13 54 (2.13%) SAP
14 51 (2.01%) NetApp
15 43 (1.70%) SolarWinds
16 40 (1.58%) Veeam
17 38 (1.50%) CyberArk
18 35 (1.38%) Zscaler
19 34 (1.34%) MobileIron