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 31 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 17
Rank change year-on-year -3 -2 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,824 2,773 3,986
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.63% 8.31% 9.28%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.44% 59.23% 62.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,936 1,773 2,675
10th Percentile £163 £181 £158
25th Percentile £204 £227 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £575
90th Percentile £638 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £368 £370
% change year-on-year -11.56% -0.68% -1.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 117 222
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.61 £18.13 £16.94
Median hourly rate £22.00 £23.80 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.56% +13.33% +5.79%
75th Percentile £43.75 £48.75 £49.40
90th Percentile £67.84 £65.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £23.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year -4.35% +15.00% +8.11%

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 4,751 4,682 6,400
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.83% 14.02% 14.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,109 2,922 4,351
10th Percentile £175 £200 £180
25th Percentile £263 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £600
90th Percentile £668 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £410 £425 £430
% change year-on-year -3.53% -1.16% -4.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 350 176 310
10th Percentile £15.22 £16.25 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.94 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.15 £36.00 £32.25
Median % change year-on-year -30.14% +11.63% +29.00%
75th Percentile £62.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.20 £70.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £30.78 £26.09
% change year-on-year -18.29% +17.98% +18.59%

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 31 December 2025.

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 31 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows in the UK

Windows
Top 17 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 31 December 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 -1 2,505 £390 -2.50% 2,413
UK excluding London -2 1,907 £325 -11.56% 2,231
London -17 737 £450 +12.50% 436
Work from Home -11 562 £425 -5.56% 1,016
South East 0 517 £375 -9.09% 645
North of England -5 427 £248 -29.07% 476
South West +4 316 £425 +6.12% 291
Midlands -2 314 £380 +16.92% 362
North West -3 243 £288 -17.86% 245
West Midlands -5 212 £450 +38.46% 190
East of England +5 195 £228 -27.20% 289
Yorkshire -18 155 £290 -18.37% 191
Scotland -13 105 £450 +2.86% 129
East Midlands +3 102 £210 -40.51% 158
Wales 0 44 £180 -24.21% 63
North East +1 32 £188 -41.41% 46
Northern Ireland -14 13 £203 +28.57% 24

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
1 242 (8.57%) Microsoft Exchange
2 185 (6.55%) SharePoint
3 76 (2.69%) Confluence
4 48 (1.70%) Apache
5 47 (1.66%) IIS
6 27 (0.96%) WebLogic
7 20 (0.71%) WebSphere
8 19 (0.67%) Skype for Business
9 16 (0.57%) nginx
10 15 (0.53%) JBoss
11 12 (0.42%) Exchange Server 2010
11 12 (0.42%) SharePoint Server
12 11 (0.39%) SAS
12 11 (0.39%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.35%) iPlanet
13 10 (0.35%) TPMS
14 9 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
14 9 (0.32%) Tomcat
14 9 (0.32%) Tuxedo
15 7 (0.25%) Exchange Server 2003
Applications
1 281 (9.95%) Microsoft Office
2 85 (3.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 28 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.39%) MS Visio
5 10 (0.35%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.11%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.071%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.071%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.071%) Windchill
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.035%) Camtasia
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
9 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.035%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 23 (0.81%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.28%) assyst
3 5 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 2 (0.071%) Eikon
5 2 (0.071%) Fidessa
5 2 (0.071%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.071%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.071%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.071%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.071%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.071%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.071%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 1 (0.035%) ION MarketView
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.035%) Primavera
6 1 (0.035%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 752 (26.63%) Microsoft 365
2 670 (23.73%) Azure
3 267 (9.45%) AWS
4 243 (8.60%) Entra ID
5 85 (3.01%) OneDrive
6 76 (2.69%) GCP
7 73 (2.58%) SaaS
8 63 (2.23%) GitHub
9 62 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
10 53 (1.88%) IaaS
11 46 (1.63%) Google Workspace
12 38 (1.35%) PaaS
13 37 (1.31%) Power Platform
14 36 (1.27%) Azure Monitor
15 31 (1.10%) Azure Sentinel
16 30 (1.06%) Amazon S3
17 28 (0.99%) Amazon EC2
17 28 (0.99%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 24 (0.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 23 (0.81%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 364 (12.89%) DNS
2 325 (11.51%) Firewall
3 213 (7.54%) DHCP
4 203 (7.19%) TCP/IP
5 178 (6.30%) VPN
6 104 (3.68%) Wi-Fi
7 97 (3.43%) LAN
8 94 (3.33%) Network Security
8 94 (3.33%) WAN
9 72 (2.55%) Wireless
10 62 (2.20%) SSH
11 61 (2.16%) VLAN
12 51 (1.81%) HTTP
13 47 (1.66%) SAN
14 36 (1.27%) Cisco IOS
14 36 (1.27%) Skype
15 34 (1.20%) SSL
16 33 (1.17%) VoIP
17 30 (1.06%) FTP
17 30 (1.06%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 130 (4.60%) SQL Server
2 80 (2.83%) Oracle Database
3 62 (2.20%) Relational Database
4 48 (1.70%) MySQL
5 35 (1.24%) PostgreSQL
6 22 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
7 15 (0.53%) Power BI
8 14 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
9 13 (0.46%) BigQuery
10 12 (0.42%) Amazon Aurora
11 10 (0.35%) NoSQL
12 9 (0.32%) Data Warehouse
12 9 (0.32%) Elasticsearch
12 9 (0.32%) GIS
12 9 (0.32%) MongoDB
13 7 (0.25%) Data Lake
13 7 (0.25%) RDBMS
13 7 (0.25%) SAP HANA
14 6 (0.21%) Apache Cassandra
14 6 (0.21%) DB2
Development Applications
1 155 (5.49%) JIRA
2 94 (3.33%) Git
3 93 (3.29%) Jenkins
4 59 (2.09%) GitLab
5 36 (1.27%) Eclipse
6 33 (1.17%) MSI
7 32 (1.13%) Visual Studio
8 23 (0.81%) Bitbucket
9 22 (0.78%) Android Studio
10 21 (0.74%) Browser DevTools
11 20 (0.71%) Xcode
12 18 (0.64%) Artifactory
13 17 (0.60%) Vagrant
14 16 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
15 15 (0.53%) Burp Suite
15 15 (0.53%) InstallShield
15 15 (0.53%) Metasploit
16 12 (0.42%) Bitbucket Server
16 12 (0.42%) CA Release Automation
17 11 (0.39%) AdminStudio
General
1 1,085 (38.42%) Social Skills
2 335 (11.86%) Finance
3 254 (8.99%) Public Sector
4 252 (8.92%) Analytical Skills
5 128 (4.53%) Banking
6 118 (4.18%) Documentation Skills
7 91 (3.22%) Legal
8 69 (2.44%) Organisational Skills
9 65 (2.30%) Manufacturing
10 53 (1.88%) Military
11 48 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
11 48 (1.70%) Telecoms
12 43 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 42 (1.49%) Retail
14 32 (1.13%) Aerospace
14 32 (1.13%) Marketing
15 26 (0.92%) Front Office
15 26 (0.92%) Law
16 24 (0.85%) Electronics
17 20 (0.71%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 427 (15.12%) Support Engineer
2 354 (12.54%) Analyst
3 334 (11.83%) IT Support
4 192 (6.80%) IT Engineer
5 173 (6.13%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 157 (5.56%) Windows Engineer
7 154 (5.45%) Desktop Support
8 150 (5.31%) Support Analyst
9 147 (5.21%) Senior
10 145 (5.13%) Architect
11 142 (5.03%) IT Support Engineer
12 138 (4.89%) Desktop Engineer
13 125 (4.43%) Deployment Engineer
14 118 (4.18%) Technical Support
15 116 (4.11%) 2nd Line Support
16 107 (3.79%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 101 (3.58%) Developer
18 93 (3.29%) Platform Engineer
19 82 (2.90%) IT Analyst
20 81 (2.87%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.62%) .NET
2 59 (2.09%) LDAP
3 55 (1.95%) REST
4 46 (1.63%) Middleware
5 41 (1.45%) .NET Framework
6 39 (1.38%) OAuth
6 39 (1.38%) SAML
7 37 (1.31%) React
8 35 (1.24%) AngularJS
9 33 (1.17%) OpenID
10 32 (1.13%) WPF
11 29 (1.03%) Web Services
12 27 (0.96%) CSS
12 27 (0.96%) XML
13 26 (0.92%) Kafka
14 25 (0.89%) Node.js
15 22 (0.78%) SOAP
16 21 (0.74%) Ajax
16 21 (0.74%) GraphQL
17 19 (0.67%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 139 (4.92%) Onboarding
2 95 (3.36%) Data Centre
3 92 (3.26%) PKI
4 85 (3.01%) Driving Licence
5 66 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
6 63 (2.23%) Replication
7 60 (2.12%) Management Information System
8 58 (2.05%) Self-Motivation
9 55 (1.95%) Smartphone
10 48 (1.70%) Security Posture
11 36 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
12 34 (1.20%) Hybrid Cloud
13 32 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
13 32 (1.13%) Mobile App
14 31 (1.10%) NHS
15 30 (1.06%) Clustering
15 30 (1.06%) Legacy Systems
16 29 (1.03%) Video Conferencing
17 28 (0.99%) Public Cloud
18 27 (0.96%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 727 (25.74%) Linux
2 596 (21.10%) Windows 10
3 548 (19.41%) Windows Server
4 198 (7.01%) Unix
5 151 (5.35%) Mac OS
6 148 (5.24%) Android
7 104 (3.68%) Apple iOS
8 79 (2.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 68 (2.41%) Windows Server 2016
10 57 (2.02%) Windows Server 2019
11 48 (1.70%) Windows 7
12 43 (1.52%) Windows Server 2012
13 33 (1.17%) Windows Server 2003
14 32 (1.13%) VMS
15 28 (0.99%) AIX
16 24 (0.85%) Ubuntu
17 18 (0.64%) Solaris
18 17 (0.60%) Amazon Linux
19 12 (0.42%) CentOS
19 12 (0.42%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 508 (17.99%) Problem-Solving
2 420 (14.87%) ITIL
3 407 (14.41%) Customer Service
4 290 (10.27%) Agile
4 290 (10.27%) Migration
5 253 (8.96%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 247 (8.75%) DevOps
7 222 (7.86%) Service Management
8 218 (7.72%) Cybersecurity
9 213 (7.54%) CI/CD
10 194 (6.87%) ITSM
11 186 (6.59%) Continuous Improvement
12 167 (5.91%) Change Management
13 135 (4.78%) Incident Response
14 133 (4.71%) User Experience
15 131 (4.64%) SIEM
16 124 (4.39%) Disaster Recovery
17 123 (4.36%) Computer Science
17 123 (4.36%) Stakeholder Management
18 113 (4.00%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 551 (19.51%) PowerShell
2 368 (13.03%) Python
3 289 (10.23%) SQL
4 150 (5.31%) Java
5 127 (4.50%) C#
6 123 (4.36%) Bash
7 83 (2.94%) JavaScript
8 79 (2.80%) Perl
9 66 (2.34%) C++
10 49 (1.74%) PL/SQL
11 42 (1.49%) Shell Script
12 32 (1.13%) Kusto Query Language
13 30 (1.06%) T-SQL
13 30 (1.06%) VBScript
14 28 (0.99%) Groovy
15 27 (0.96%) VB
16 24 (0.85%) VBA
17 20 (0.71%) C
18 15 (0.53%) Bicep
18 15 (0.53%) Go
Qualifications
1 849 (30.06%) Security Cleared
2 570 (20.18%) SC Cleared
3 300 (10.62%) Degree
4 236 (8.36%) DV Cleared
5 172 (6.09%) Microsoft Certification
6 89 (3.15%) Computer Science Degree
7 70 (2.48%) Azure Certification
8 54 (1.91%) A+ Certification
9 53 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
9 53 (1.88%) MCSE
10 42 (1.49%) CISSP
10 42 (1.49%) ITIL Certification
11 37 (1.31%) AWS Certification
12 36 (1.27%) CompTIA Security+
13 34 (1.20%) BPSS Clearance
14 32 (1.13%) CCNA
14 32 (1.13%) CCNP
15 28 (0.99%) DBS Check
16 27 (0.96%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 27 (0.96%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (3.15%) SLA
2 83 (2.94%) GDPR
3 71 (2.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 64 (2.27%) QA
5 54 (1.91%) NIST
6 29 (1.03%) PCI DSS
7 17 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
8 11 (0.39%) HIPAA
8 11 (0.39%) NCSC
8 11 (0.39%) PMO
9 10 (0.35%) GLBA
9 10 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 6 (0.21%) COBIT
10 6 (0.21%) MiFID
10 6 (0.21%) SOC 2
11 5 (0.18%) Accessibility
12 4 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
12 4 (0.14%) NIST 800
13 3 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 3 (0.11%) Data Quality
System Software
1 1,013 (35.87%) Active Directory
2 245 (8.68%) VMware Infrastructure
3 120 (4.25%) Docker
4 95 (3.36%) Hyper-V
5 59 (2.09%) Virtual Desktop
6 52 (1.84%) Virtual Machines
7 49 (1.74%) vSphere
8 44 (1.56%) VMware ESXi
9 32 (1.13%) VMware NSX
10 22 (0.78%) BitLocker
11 20 (0.71%) DFS Replication
11 20 (0.71%) Firmware
12 17 (0.60%) Terminal Services
13 15 (0.53%) Microsoft App-V
13 15 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
14 13 (0.46%) XenApp
15 11 (0.39%) NFS
16 10 (0.35%) Dovecot
16 10 (0.35%) Postfix
16 10 (0.35%) Squid
Systems Management
1 396 (14.02%) SCCM
2 298 (10.55%) Microsoft Intune
3 185 (6.55%) Terraform
4 154 (5.45%) Ansible
5 101 (3.58%) Kubernetes
6 65 (2.30%) vCenter Server
7 63 (2.23%) Single Sign-On
8 55 (1.95%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 42 (1.49%) Grafana
10 39 (1.38%) Jamf Pro
11 30 (1.06%) WSUS
12 29 (1.03%) Nessus
13 28 (0.99%) SCOM
14 27 (0.96%) Prometheus
15 23 (0.81%) Progress Chef
16 21 (0.74%) Microsoft Clustering
17 17 (0.60%) NetBackup
18 16 (0.57%) Proxmox
19 15 (0.53%) Nmap
19 15 (0.53%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,205 (42.67%) Microsoft
2 345 (12.22%) VMware
3 257 (9.10%) ServiceNow
4 234 (8.29%) Oracle
5 180 (6.37%) Cisco
6 176 (6.23%) Citrix
7 152 (5.38%) Splunk
8 83 (2.94%) Apple
9 78 (2.76%) HP
10 66 (2.34%) Red Hat
11 64 (2.27%) Dell
12 56 (1.98%) IBM
13 55 (1.95%) Veeam
14 52 (1.84%) SAP
15 51 (1.81%) SolarWinds
16 50 (1.77%) Google
17 43 (1.52%) CyberArk
18 42 (1.49%) NetApp
19 40 (1.42%) CrowdStrike
20 39 (1.38%) Remedy