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

6 months to
8 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,906 2,434 3,722
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.35% 8.33% 8.48%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.28% 59.11% 62.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,948 1,693 2,524
10th Percentile £160 £181 £158
25th Percentile £206 £243 £212
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £413 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.94% +6.25% -9.91%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £641 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £400 £388
% change year-on-year -6.25% +3.23% +3.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 242 119 286
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.95 £12.13
25th Percentile £16.62 £17.20 £14.16
Median hourly rate £22.11 £21.00 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +18.51% -19.45%
75th Percentile £59.75 £28.21 £23.84
90th Percentile £74.00 £64.00 £59.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.80 £20.00 £17.69
% change year-on-year +9.00% +13.06% -8.74%

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 4,821 4,118 5,952
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.54% 14.09% 13.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,155 2,750 3,982
10th Percentile £181 £200 £181
25th Percentile £300 £325 £290
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.70% -9.76%
75th Percentile £569 £600 £594
90th Percentile £655 £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 340 169 407
10th Percentile £15.47 £16.63 £12.75
25th Percentile £18.87 £18.13 £15.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £24.66 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.99% +12.09% -26.67%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.04 £68.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.08 £24.66 £20.00
% change year-on-year +1.68% +23.30% -27.27%

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 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 8 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 8 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 2,547 £413 -2.37% 989
UK excluding London -9 1,932 £375 -6.25% 879
London -20 781 £425 -5.56% 231
Work from Home -15 598 £453 -2.00% 328
South East -5 511 £475 -1.96% 277
North of England -9 480 £300 -11.11% 201
Midlands -13 289 £325 +10.17% 130
North West -4 263 £260 -25.71% 130
South West -8 245 £463 -14.94% 129
East of England +7 221 £300 +33.33% 97
Yorkshire -13 195 £363 +3.42% 58
West Midlands -24 171 £447 +37.54% 76
Scotland -1 142 £425 -4.44% 42
East Midlands +1 114 £200 -5.88% 54
Wales -2 49 £190 -47.95% 20
North East -14 26 £206 -6.25% 17
Northern Ireland -13 9 £175 -7.89% 4
Channel Islands -1 2 £500 +68.07% 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
1 254 (8.74%) Microsoft Exchange
2 168 (5.78%) SharePoint
3 48 (1.65%) Confluence
4 45 (1.55%) IIS
5 23 (0.79%) Apache
5 23 (0.79%) WebLogic
6 13 (0.45%) Tomcat
7 12 (0.41%) nginx
7 12 (0.41%) Skype for Business
7 12 (0.41%) Tuxedo
8 11 (0.38%) SAS
8 11 (0.38%) TPMS
9 6 (0.21%) NetWeaver
9 6 (0.21%) WebSphere
10 5 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2010
13 2 (0.069%) Apache ServiceMix
13 2 (0.069%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 220 (7.57%) Microsoft Office
2 71 (2.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.38%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.034%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.034%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.034%) InDesign
8 1 (0.034%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 37 (1.27%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.28%) Teamcenter
4 6 (0.21%) assyst
5 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
6 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.069%) Dynamics CRM
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%) SystmOne
8 1 (0.034%) Eikon
8 1 (0.034%) Finacle
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.034%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 821 (28.25%) Microsoft 365
2 777 (26.74%) Azure
3 323 (11.11%) Entra ID
4 229 (7.88%) AWS
5 93 (3.20%) OneDrive
6 79 (2.72%) GCP
7 78 (2.68%) SaaS
8 66 (2.27%) Azure DevOps
9 54 (1.86%) IaaS
10 53 (1.82%) Google Workspace
11 48 (1.65%) PaaS
12 46 (1.58%) GitHub
13 40 (1.38%) Power Platform
14 36 (1.24%) Azure Monitor
15 33 (1.14%) Azure Sentinel
16 26 (0.89%) OpenShift
17 22 (0.76%) GitHub Actions
18 21 (0.72%) AWS CloudFormation
18 21 (0.72%) Nutanix
19 18 (0.62%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 402 (13.83%) DNS
2 348 (11.98%) Firewall
3 265 (9.12%) DHCP
4 206 (7.09%) VPN
5 191 (6.57%) TCP/IP
6 173 (5.95%) LAN
7 170 (5.85%) WAN
8 159 (5.47%) Wi-Fi
9 84 (2.89%) Network Security
10 69 (2.37%) VLAN
11 67 (2.31%) SAN
12 53 (1.82%) Wireless
13 44 (1.51%) SSL
14 41 (1.41%) BGP
15 40 (1.38%) SD-WAN
16 38 (1.31%) Skype
16 38 (1.31%) VoIP
17 33 (1.14%) SNMP
18 31 (1.07%) OSPF
19 30 (1.03%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 177 (6.09%) SQL Server
2 56 (1.93%) Oracle Database
3 35 (1.20%) Relational Database
4 34 (1.17%) MySQL
5 27 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
6 19 (0.65%) Power BI
7 17 (0.58%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.52%) Data Warehouse
8 15 (0.52%) DB2
9 13 (0.45%) BigQuery
9 13 (0.45%) Oracle Reports
10 12 (0.41%) MongoDB
11 9 (0.31%) GIS
11 9 (0.31%) NoSQL
12 8 (0.28%) SAP HANA
12 8 (0.28%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 7 (0.24%) Sybase ASE
14 6 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
14 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 5 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 166 (5.71%) JIRA
2 60 (2.06%) GitLab
3 58 (2.00%) Jenkins
4 53 (1.82%) Git
5 42 (1.45%) MSI
6 34 (1.17%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.76%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.58%) Burp Suite
8 17 (0.58%) Metasploit
9 12 (0.41%) Android Studio
9 12 (0.41%) Artifactory
10 11 (0.38%) Chocolatey
11 10 (0.34%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.34%) Browser DevTools
11 10 (0.34%) Xcode
12 9 (0.31%) InstallShield
13 8 (0.28%) JUnit
13 8 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
14 7 (0.24%) Robot Framework
14 7 (0.24%) Selenium
General
1 1,014 (34.89%) Social Skills
2 273 (9.39%) Finance
3 269 (9.26%) Analytical Skills
4 237 (8.16%) Public Sector
5 146 (5.02%) Banking
6 133 (4.58%) Legal
7 105 (3.61%) Documentation Skills
8 84 (2.89%) Organisational Skills
9 60 (2.06%) Military
10 55 (1.89%) Manufacturing
11 42 (1.45%) Telecoms
12 40 (1.38%) Presentation Skills
13 39 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 38 (1.31%) Retail
15 32 (1.10%) Law
16 28 (0.96%) Investment Banking
17 24 (0.83%) Front Office
18 20 (0.69%) Local Government
19 19 (0.65%) Aerospace
20 15 (0.52%) Police
Job Titles
1 392 (13.49%) IT Support
2 367 (12.63%) Support Engineer
3 361 (12.42%) Analyst
4 237 (8.16%) IT Engineer
5 210 (7.23%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 194 (6.68%) IT Support Engineer
7 187 (6.43%) Architect
8 172 (5.92%) Senior
9 144 (4.96%) Support Analyst
10 124 (4.27%) Desktop Support
11 111 (3.82%) Developer
12 104 (3.58%) Technical Support
13 102 (3.51%) Windows Engineer
14 99 (3.41%) 2nd Line Support
14 99 (3.41%) Desktop Engineer
15 94 (3.23%) IT Analyst
16 93 (3.20%) Lead
17 83 (2.86%) Consultant
18 73 (2.51%) Service Analyst
19 72 (2.48%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (3.06%) .NET
2 78 (2.68%) REST
3 55 (1.89%) SAML
4 53 (1.82%) LDAP
5 51 (1.75%) .NET Framework
6 43 (1.48%) OAuth
7 41 (1.41%) Middleware
8 33 (1.14%) Kafka
9 31 (1.07%) OpenID
10 30 (1.03%) WPF
11 29 (1.00%) WinForms
12 28 (0.96%) Web Services
13 27 (0.93%) Microsoft Graph
14 24 (0.83%) 802.1X
15 22 (0.76%) CSS
15 22 (0.76%) Node.js
15 22 (0.76%) React
16 20 (0.69%) AngularJS
17 19 (0.65%) OAuth2
18 18 (0.62%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 206 (7.09%) Onboarding
2 130 (4.47%) Data Centre
3 106 (3.65%) PKI
4 85 (2.92%) Enterprise Software
5 82 (2.82%) Driving Licence
6 73 (2.51%) Self-Motivation
7 63 (2.17%) Clustering
8 60 (2.06%) Replication
9 48 (1.65%) Hybrid Cloud
9 48 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
9 48 (1.65%) Smartphone
10 46 (1.58%) Management Information System
11 42 (1.45%) Security Posture
12 40 (1.38%) Product Ownership
13 37 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
14 34 (1.17%) Security Operations Centre
15 33 (1.14%) CMDB
15 33 (1.14%) Virtual Team
16 32 (1.10%) Cloud Native
17 31 (1.07%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 724 (24.91%) Linux
2 653 (22.47%) Windows Server
3 554 (19.06%) Windows 10
4 168 (5.78%) Mac OS
5 161 (5.54%) Android
6 144 (4.96%) Unix
7 130 (4.47%) Apple iOS
8 97 (3.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 72 (2.48%) Windows Server 2016
10 61 (2.10%) Windows Server 2019
11 53 (1.82%) Windows 7
12 41 (1.41%) AIX
13 40 (1.38%) Windows Server 2012
14 29 (1.00%) Windows Server 2003
15 21 (0.72%) Solaris
15 21 (0.72%) VMS
16 18 (0.62%) Ubuntu
17 14 (0.48%) Windows Server 2008
18 10 (0.34%) Mac OS X
19 9 (0.31%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 608 (20.92%) Problem-Solving
2 479 (16.48%) Customer Service
3 423 (14.56%) ITIL
4 320 (11.01%) Migration
5 305 (10.50%) Agile
6 295 (10.15%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 253 (8.71%) DevOps
8 234 (8.05%) ITSM
9 226 (7.78%) CI/CD
10 205 (7.05%) Cybersecurity
11 200 (6.88%) Service Management
12 196 (6.74%) Continuous Improvement
13 175 (6.02%) Change Management
14 174 (5.99%) Disaster Recovery
15 152 (5.23%) High Availability
16 140 (4.82%) Stakeholder Management
17 133 (4.58%) SIEM
18 131 (4.51%) Service Delivery
19 122 (4.20%) Computer Science
19 122 (4.20%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 616 (21.20%) PowerShell
2 301 (10.36%) Python
3 265 (9.12%) SQL
4 128 (4.40%) Bash
5 126 (4.34%) C#
6 91 (3.13%) Java
7 74 (2.55%) JavaScript
8 62 (2.13%) PL/SQL
9 53 (1.82%) C++
9 53 (1.82%) Perl
10 42 (1.45%) T-SQL
11 29 (1.00%) Kusto Query Language
12 24 (0.83%) VB
13 22 (0.76%) Shell Script
14 20 (0.69%) VBScript
15 16 (0.55%) Search Processing Language
16 15 (0.52%) VBA
17 13 (0.45%) Bicep
17 13 (0.45%) Go
17 13 (0.45%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 881 (30.32%) Security Cleared
2 591 (20.34%) SC Cleared
3 290 (9.98%) Degree
4 260 (8.95%) DV Cleared
5 124 (4.27%) Microsoft Certification
6 87 (2.99%) Computer Science Degree
7 67 (2.31%) Cisco Certification
8 47 (1.62%) Azure Certification
9 44 (1.51%) MCSE
10 42 (1.45%) CISSP
10 42 (1.45%) ITIL Certification
11 38 (1.31%) CompTIA Security+
12 37 (1.27%) BPSS Clearance
13 33 (1.14%) CCNA
14 31 (1.07%) A+ Certification
14 31 (1.07%) AWS Certification
15 26 (0.89%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 25 (0.86%) CCNP
17 20 (0.69%) CompTIA CySA+
17 20 (0.69%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 98 (3.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 94 (3.23%) GDPR
3 89 (3.06%) QA
4 87 (2.99%) SLA
5 66 (2.27%) NIST
6 44 (1.51%) PCI DSS
7 29 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 23 (0.79%) Cyber Essentials
9 15 (0.52%) NCSC
10 13 (0.45%) PMO
11 12 (0.41%) MiFID
12 11 (0.38%) GLBA
12 11 (0.38%) NIST 800
13 10 (0.34%) Data Quality
13 10 (0.34%) FINRA
14 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
15 7 (0.24%) DICOM
15 7 (0.24%) HIPAA
16 6 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
16 6 (0.21%) HL7
System Software
1 1,083 (37.27%) Active Directory
2 317 (10.91%) VMware Infrastructure
3 135 (4.65%) Hyper-V
4 104 (3.58%) Docker
5 84 (2.89%) vSphere
6 74 (2.55%) VMware ESXi
7 60 (2.06%) Virtual Machines
8 52 (1.79%) Virtual Desktop
9 41 (1.41%) VMware NSX
10 35 (1.20%) Firmware
11 32 (1.10%) BitLocker
12 24 (0.83%) Microsoft App-V
13 17 (0.58%) KVM
14 11 (0.38%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
15 10 (0.34%) XenApp
16 6 (0.21%) etcd
16 6 (0.21%) NFS
17 5 (0.17%) Terminal Services
17 5 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 382 (13.15%) Microsoft Intune
2 303 (10.43%) SCCM
3 176 (6.06%) Ansible
4 165 (5.68%) Terraform
5 133 (4.58%) Kubernetes
6 81 (2.79%) Single Sign-On
7 69 (2.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 65 (2.24%) vCenter Server
9 47 (1.62%) Jamf Pro
10 37 (1.27%) WSUS
11 36 (1.24%) FortiGate
11 36 (1.24%) Grafana
12 30 (1.03%) Prometheus
13 25 (0.86%) SCOM
14 22 (0.76%) Nagios
14 22 (0.76%) Progress Chef
15 20 (0.69%) Nessus
16 18 (0.62%) Puppet
17 16 (0.55%) Nmap
18 15 (0.52%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,251 (43.05%) Microsoft
2 428 (14.73%) VMware
3 239 (8.22%) ServiceNow
4 213 (7.33%) Citrix
5 186 (6.40%) Cisco
6 183 (6.30%) Oracle
7 151 (5.20%) Splunk
8 88 (3.03%) HP
9 75 (2.58%) Dell
10 68 (2.34%) Red Hat
11 66 (2.27%) SolarWinds
12 61 (2.10%) Google
13 60 (2.06%) Apple
14 57 (1.96%) IBM
15 51 (1.75%) Remedy
16 42 (1.45%) Juniper
17 41 (1.41%) CyberArk
17 41 (1.41%) Palo Alto
17 41 (1.41%) Veeam
18 40 (1.38%) F5