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

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 3,017 2,534 3,565
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.86% 8.18% 8.21%
As % of the Operating Systems category 61.22% 59.75% 60.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,943 1,700 2,401
10th Percentile £165 £181 £165
25th Percentile £221 £231 £235
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.56%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £673 £672
UK excluding London median daily rate £418 £400 £430
% change year-on-year +4.38% -6.98% +8.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 256 181 296
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.12 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.19 £16.95 £14.38
Median hourly rate £25.51 £18.87 £19.59
Median % change year-on-year +35.16% -3.68% -17.90%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £40.00
90th Percentile £67.92 £63.75 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £18.00
% change year-on-year +36.46% +4.83% -18.18%

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 4,928 4,241 5,905
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.58% 13.70% 13.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,148 2,752 3,889
10th Percentile £190 £200 £190
25th Percentile £313 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year +0.05% -2.16% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £580 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £463
% change year-on-year - -2.70% +0.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 334 218 434
10th Percentile £14.80 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.44 £16.25
Median hourly rate £26.22 £22.25 £24.93
Median % change year-on-year +17.84% -10.74% -41.35%
75th Percentile £63.75 £43.35 £64.69
90th Percentile £70.00 £66.15 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.00 £18.87 £31.25
% change year-on-year +37.78% -39.62% -6.72%

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 2 July 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 2 July 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 2 July 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 -6 2,636 £425 - 1,046
UK excluding London -13 1,987 £418 +4.38% 925
London -17 862 £425 -3.13% 274
Work from Home -9 642 £475 +0.53% 367
South East -8 530 £475 -5.00% 292
North of England -8 470 £365 +4.29% 194
Midlands -17 276 £339 +23.18% 130
South West -11 262 £488 +8.33% 153
North West -5 249 £363 -1.49% 111
East of England 0 219 £300 +8.08% 99
Yorkshire -12 202 £365 -8.75% 60
West Midlands -24 174 £450 +50.00% 62
Scotland -2 173 £425 -2.24% 40
East Midlands +8 97 £263 +31.25% 68
Wales +7 54 £383 +33.04% 28
North East -35 23 £290 +0.87% 30
Northern Ireland -4 15 £139 -28.97% 30
Channel Islands +3 3 £518 -

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
1 235 (7.79%) Microsoft Exchange
2 197 (6.53%) SharePoint
3 60 (1.99%) IIS
4 56 (1.86%) Confluence
5 19 (0.63%) Tomcat
6 18 (0.60%) Apache
7 16 (0.53%) nginx
8 14 (0.46%) Skype for Business
9 11 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
10 10 (0.33%) WebLogic
11 9 (0.30%) NetWeaver
12 8 (0.27%) HCL Notes
13 7 (0.23%) Appian
14 5 (0.17%) Camunda
14 5 (0.17%) Documentum
14 5 (0.17%) SAS
15 4 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 3 (0.099%) CloudStack
16 3 (0.099%) Exchange Server 2010
16 3 (0.099%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 187 (6.20%) Microsoft Office
2 67 (2.22%) Microsoft Excel
3 22 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.20%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.066%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.033%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.033%) Houdini
8 1 (0.033%) InDesign
8 1 (0.033%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 39 (1.29%) Remedy ITSM
2 19 (0.63%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.40%) Teamcenter
4 10 (0.33%) Finacle
5 6 (0.20%) OpenText MBPM
5 6 (0.20%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.099%) assyst
7 2 (0.066%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.033%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.033%) Dynamics GP
8 1 (0.033%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.033%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.033%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.033%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.033%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 910 (30.16%) Azure
2 832 (27.58%) Microsoft 365
3 395 (13.09%) Entra ID
4 311 (10.31%) AWS
5 117 (3.88%) OneDrive
6 93 (3.08%) GCP
7 87 (2.88%) Azure DevOps
8 75 (2.49%) SaaS
9 67 (2.22%) GitHub
10 62 (2.06%) Power Platform
11 61 (2.02%) IaaS
12 54 (1.79%) Azure Monitor
13 52 (1.72%) PaaS
14 39 (1.29%) OpenShift
15 38 (1.26%) Azure Sentinel
16 32 (1.06%) GitHub Actions
17 29 (0.96%) Google Workspace
18 28 (0.93%) AWS CloudFormation
19 24 (0.80%) Amazon EC2
19 24 (0.80%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 413 (13.69%) DNS
2 308 (10.21%) Firewall
3 284 (9.41%) DHCP
4 219 (7.26%) VPN
5 183 (6.07%) WAN
6 181 (6.00%) LAN
7 179 (5.93%) TCP/IP
8 150 (4.97%) Wi-Fi
9 96 (3.18%) SAN
10 70 (2.32%) Network Security
11 60 (1.99%) VLAN
12 48 (1.59%) BGP
13 45 (1.49%) NAS
13 45 (1.49%) SSL
14 43 (1.43%) SD-WAN
15 42 (1.39%) Internet
16 38 (1.26%) OSPF
16 38 (1.26%) VoIP
17 35 (1.16%) Wireless
18 34 (1.13%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 258 (8.55%) SQL Server
2 60 (1.99%) Oracle Database
3 40 (1.33%) Power BI
4 32 (1.06%) Relational Database
5 29 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
6 28 (0.93%) MySQL
7 19 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
7 19 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 18 (0.60%) Db2
8 18 (0.60%) Elasticsearch
9 14 (0.46%) NoSQL
9 14 (0.46%) RDBMS
10 13 (0.43%) Data Warehouse
11 11 (0.36%) MongoDB
12 10 (0.33%) GIS
13 9 (0.30%) SAP HANA
14 8 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
14 8 (0.27%) Oracle BI EE
14 8 (0.27%) Oracle Reports
14 8 (0.27%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 182 (6.03%) JIRA
2 59 (1.96%) Git
3 54 (1.79%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.56%) MSI
5 42 (1.39%) GitLab
6 37 (1.23%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.56%) Eclipse
8 9 (0.30%) Chocolatey
9 8 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (0.23%) Bitbucket
10 7 (0.23%) Burp Suite
11 6 (0.20%) Android Studio
11 6 (0.20%) Artifactory
11 6 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
11 6 (0.20%) InstallShield
11 6 (0.20%) Metasploit
11 6 (0.20%) Xcode
12 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.17%) Maven
12 5 (0.17%) Selenium
General
1 1,051 (34.84%) Social Skills
2 336 (11.14%) Analytical Skills
3 317 (10.51%) Finance
4 209 (6.93%) Public Sector
5 148 (4.91%) Banking
6 110 (3.65%) Legal
7 108 (3.58%) Documentation Skills
8 82 (2.72%) Organisational Skills
9 58 (1.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 54 (1.79%) Retail
11 45 (1.49%) Military
12 40 (1.33%) Manufacturing
13 35 (1.16%) Front Office
14 34 (1.13%) Investment Banking
15 32 (1.06%) Telecoms
16 29 (0.96%) Law
17 26 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
18 24 (0.80%) Spanish Language
19 22 (0.73%) French Language
20 18 (0.60%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 402 (13.32%) Support Engineer
2 385 (12.76%) IT Support
3 293 (9.71%) Analyst
4 275 (9.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 267 (8.85%) IT Engineer
6 222 (7.36%) IT Support Engineer
7 189 (6.26%) Senior
8 154 (5.10%) Architect
9 122 (4.04%) Desktop Support
10 112 (3.71%) 2nd Line Support
11 108 (3.58%) Support Analyst
12 107 (3.55%) Desktop Engineer
12 107 (3.55%) Developer
12 107 (3.55%) Lead
13 94 (3.12%) Consultant
14 91 (3.02%) IT Analyst
15 90 (2.98%) Windows Engineer
16 88 (2.92%) Cloud Engineer
17 81 (2.68%) Technical Support
18 75 (2.49%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (3.55%) .NET
2 102 (3.38%) REST
3 61 (2.02%) .NET Framework
4 44 (1.46%) LDAP
5 34 (1.13%) SAML
6 33 (1.09%) Middleware
7 31 (1.03%) 802.1X
8 30 (0.99%) Microsoft Graph
9 28 (0.93%) Software Packaging
9 28 (0.93%) WPF
10 27 (0.89%) WinForms
11 26 (0.86%) Web Services
12 25 (0.83%) Elastic Stack
12 25 (0.83%) Kafka
12 25 (0.83%) OAuth
13 22 (0.73%) CSS
14 19 (0.63%) JSON
14 19 (0.63%) RESTful
15 17 (0.56%) Node.js
15 17 (0.56%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 284 (9.41%) Onboarding
2 163 (5.40%) Data Centre
3 137 (4.54%) PKI
4 85 (2.82%) Enterprise Software
5 79 (2.62%) Clustering
6 73 (2.42%) Management Information System
6 73 (2.42%) Self-Motivation
7 64 (2.12%) Cloud Native
8 62 (2.06%) Driving Licence
8 62 (2.06%) Replication
9 58 (1.92%) Legacy Systems
10 54 (1.79%) Security Posture
11 52 (1.72%) Hybrid Cloud
12 51 (1.69%) Virtual Team
13 41 (1.36%) Video Conferencing
14 39 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
15 33 (1.09%) Linux Command Line
15 33 (1.09%) Smartphone
16 31 (1.03%) Analytical Mindset
16 31 (1.03%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 742 (24.59%) Linux
2 733 (24.30%) Windows Server
3 490 (16.24%) Windows 10
4 191 (6.33%) Mac OS
5 160 (5.30%) Unix
6 140 (4.64%) Apple iOS
7 138 (4.57%) Android
8 114 (3.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 79 (2.62%) Windows Server 2019
10 59 (1.96%) Windows Server 2016
11 51 (1.69%) Windows 7
12 41 (1.36%) Windows Server 2012
13 36 (1.19%) AIX
14 34 (1.13%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.80%) Solaris
16 22 (0.73%) VMS
17 17 (0.56%) Windows Server 2008
18 16 (0.53%) Windows Server 2003
19 15 (0.50%) CentOS
20 9 (0.30%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 666 (22.07%) Problem-Solving
2 467 (15.48%) ITIL
3 439 (14.55%) Customer Service
4 355 (11.77%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 354 (11.73%) Migration
6 313 (10.37%) ITSM
7 288 (9.55%) DevOps
8 269 (8.92%) Agile
9 254 (8.42%) CI/CD
10 251 (8.32%) Continuous Improvement
11 219 (7.26%) Service Management
12 215 (7.13%) High Availability
13 196 (6.50%) Change Management
14 184 (6.10%) Infrastructure as Code
15 174 (5.77%) Disaster Recovery
16 165 (5.47%) Stakeholder Management
17 162 (5.37%) Cybersecurity
17 162 (5.37%) Service Delivery
18 148 (4.91%) Runbook
19 147 (4.87%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 634 (21.01%) PowerShell
2 311 (10.31%) Python
3 289 (9.58%) SQL
4 137 (4.54%) C#
5 125 (4.14%) Bash
6 75 (2.49%) Java
7 65 (2.15%) JavaScript
8 53 (1.76%) PL/SQL
8 53 (1.76%) T-SQL
9 51 (1.69%) C++
10 27 (0.89%) Perl
11 24 (0.80%) VB
12 23 (0.76%) Bicep
12 23 (0.76%) Search Processing Language
13 22 (0.73%) Shell Script
14 21 (0.70%) Kusto Query Language
14 21 (0.70%) VBScript
15 16 (0.53%) TypeScript
16 14 (0.46%) C
16 14 (0.46%) VBA
Qualifications
1 884 (29.30%) Security Cleared
2 576 (19.09%) SC Cleared
3 310 (10.28%) Degree
4 270 (8.95%) DV Cleared
5 116 (3.84%) Microsoft Certification
6 101 (3.35%) Cisco Certification
7 80 (2.65%) Computer Science Degree
8 66 (2.19%) CISSP
9 59 (1.96%) Azure Certification
10 53 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
11 48 (1.59%) AWS Certification
12 47 (1.56%) MCSE
13 45 (1.49%) CCNA
14 35 (1.16%) CCNP
15 31 (1.03%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 29 (0.96%) CompTIA Security+
16 29 (0.96%) ITIL Certification
17 27 (0.89%) A+ Certification
18 25 (0.83%) CISM
18 25 (0.83%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 125 (4.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 123 (4.08%) SLA
3 92 (3.05%) NIST
4 88 (2.92%) QA
5 62 (2.06%) GDPR
6 34 (1.13%) PCI DSS
7 31 (1.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 27 (0.89%) Cyber Essentials
9 21 (0.70%) NCSC
10 14 (0.46%) Disclosure Scotland
11 13 (0.43%) Data Quality
12 12 (0.40%) PMO
13 11 (0.36%) Accessibility
13 11 (0.36%) HIPAA
14 10 (0.33%) GRC
14 10 (0.33%) NIST 800
14 10 (0.33%) SOC 2
15 8 (0.27%) WCAG
16 6 (0.20%) FINRA
16 6 (0.20%) MiFID
System Software
1 1,135 (37.62%) Active Directory
2 389 (12.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 158 (5.24%) Hyper-V
4 121 (4.01%) VMware ESXi
5 107 (3.55%) vSphere
6 105 (3.48%) Virtual Machines
7 93 (3.08%) Docker
8 73 (2.42%) Virtual Desktop
9 57 (1.89%) VMware NSX
10 40 (1.33%) Firmware
11 38 (1.26%) BitLocker
12 28 (0.93%) Microsoft App-V
13 18 (0.60%) KVM
14 12 (0.40%) vCloud
15 9 (0.30%) Oracle RAC
15 9 (0.30%) XenDesktop
16 8 (0.27%) NFS
16 8 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
16 8 (0.27%) XenApp
17 6 (0.20%) etcd
Systems Management
1 407 (13.49%) Microsoft Intune
2 267 (8.85%) SCCM
3 207 (6.86%) Terraform
4 197 (6.53%) Ansible
5 150 (4.97%) Kubernetes
6 94 (3.12%) vCenter Server
7 56 (1.86%) Jamf Pro
8 54 (1.79%) Single Sign-On
9 50 (1.66%) SCOM
10 44 (1.46%) FortiGate
11 40 (1.33%) WSUS
12 37 (1.23%) Progress Chef
13 34 (1.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 34 (1.13%) Grafana
13 34 (1.13%) Prometheus
14 30 (0.99%) Puppet
15 25 (0.83%) Nagios
16 22 (0.73%) ZABBIX
17 21 (0.70%) Nessus
18 20 (0.66%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 1,284 (42.56%) Microsoft
2 499 (16.54%) VMware
3 280 (9.28%) ServiceNow
4 222 (7.36%) Cisco
5 199 (6.60%) Citrix
6 187 (6.20%) Oracle
7 138 (4.57%) Splunk
8 83 (2.75%) SolarWinds
9 82 (2.72%) Apple
10 80 (2.65%) HP
11 72 (2.39%) Dell
11 72 (2.39%) Red Hat
12 70 (2.32%) CyberArk
13 65 (2.15%) Google
14 61 (2.02%) BeyondTrust
15 59 (1.96%) F5
16 54 (1.79%) IBM
17 51 (1.69%) Juniper
18 50 (1.66%) Remedy
19 49 (1.62%) Palo Alto