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

6 months to
12 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,875 2,420 3,731
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.27% 8.27% 8.50%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.46% 59.39% 62.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,933 1,679 2,543
10th Percentile £160 £181 £158
25th Percentile £208 £243 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £413 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.94% +6.25% -10.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £400 £399
% change year-on-year -6.25% +0.31% +6.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 236 123 285
10th Percentile £14.75 £15.48 £12.10
25th Percentile £16.64 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £22.50 £20.94 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +7.45% +18.17% -19.45%
75th Percentile £60.00 £28.21 £23.75
90th Percentile £74.00 £64.75 £56.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £18.91 £17.50
% change year-on-year +18.98% +8.06% -9.48%

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 4,755 4,075 5,964
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.37% 13.92% 13.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,108 2,715 4,002
10th Percentile £181 £200 £181
25th Percentile £306 £320 £293
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +2.70% -9.76%
75th Percentile £574 £600 £594
90th Percentile £660 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -5.56% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 335 171 407
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.54 £18.13 £15.50
Median hourly rate £26.50 £24.66 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.46% +12.09% -25.80%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £55.63
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £69.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.22 £24.18 £20.00
% change year-on-year +8.44% +20.90% -24.53%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 2,518 £415 -2.35% 861
UK excluding London -9 1,903 £375 -6.25% 799
London -22 779 £425 -3.41% 191
Work from Home -16 589 £464 -2.37% 301
South East -7 505 £473 -3.67% 263
North of England -11 472 £313 -3.77% 183
Midlands -14 289 £325 +8.33% 105
North West -2 263 £260 -25.71% 115
South West -9 240 £480 -10.70% 106
East of England +7 215 £310 +37.78% 88
Yorkshire -15 187 £365 +8.15% 52
West Midlands -23 169 £449 +38.00% 53
Scotland -2 139 £425 -3.08% 52
East Midlands +2 116 £210 -16.00% 52
Wales 0 50 £200 -45.21% 17
North East -12 28 £206 +3.13% 22
Northern Ireland -11 9 £175 -7.89% 9
Channel Islands 0 2 £500 +68.07% 1

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
1 248 (8.63%) Microsoft Exchange
2 161 (5.60%) SharePoint
3 48 (1.67%) Confluence
4 46 (1.60%) IIS
5 23 (0.80%) Apache
5 23 (0.80%) WebLogic
6 13 (0.45%) Tomcat
7 12 (0.42%) nginx
7 12 (0.42%) SAS
7 12 (0.42%) Skype for Business
7 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
8 10 (0.35%) 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 (0.070%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.070%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 213 (7.41%) Microsoft Office
2 69 (2.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (0.87%) 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 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.035%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 38 (1.32%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.28%) Teamcenter
4 6 (0.21%) assyst
5 3 (0.10%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.10%) 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
6 2 (0.070%) SystmOne
7 1 (0.035%) Eikon
7 1 (0.035%) Fidessa
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%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 806 (28.03%) Microsoft 365
2 773 (26.89%) Azure
3 321 (11.17%) Entra ID
4 233 (8.10%) AWS
5 86 (2.99%) OneDrive
6 81 (2.82%) GCP
7 80 (2.78%) SaaS
8 70 (2.43%) Azure DevOps
9 56 (1.95%) IaaS
10 50 (1.74%) Google Workspace
10 50 (1.74%) PaaS
11 47 (1.63%) GitHub
12 40 (1.39%) Power Platform
13 36 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
14 32 (1.11%) Azure Sentinel
15 26 (0.90%) OpenShift
16 22 (0.77%) GitHub Actions
17 20 (0.70%) Nutanix
18 19 (0.66%) AWS CloudFormation
19 18 (0.63%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 396 (13.77%) DNS
2 343 (11.93%) Firewall
3 263 (9.15%) DHCP
4 204 (7.10%) VPN
5 187 (6.50%) TCP/IP
6 170 (5.91%) LAN
7 167 (5.81%) WAN
8 153 (5.32%) Wi-Fi
9 81 (2.82%) Network Security
10 69 (2.40%) VLAN
11 66 (2.30%) SAN
12 52 (1.81%) Wireless
13 43 (1.50%) SSL
14 41 (1.43%) BGP
15 39 (1.36%) SD-WAN
16 38 (1.32%) VoIP
17 37 (1.29%) Skype
18 32 (1.11%) Internet
18 32 (1.11%) SNMP
19 31 (1.08%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 183 (6.37%) SQL Server
2 54 (1.88%) Oracle Database
3 36 (1.25%) Relational Database
4 34 (1.18%) MySQL
5 27 (0.94%) PostgreSQL
6 20 (0.70%) Power BI
7 17 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.52%) Data Warehouse
8 15 (0.52%) DB2
9 13 (0.45%) BigQuery
10 12 (0.42%) MongoDB
11 11 (0.38%) Oracle Reports
12 10 (0.35%) NoSQL
13 9 (0.31%) GIS
14 8 (0.28%) SAP HANA
14 8 (0.28%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 7 (0.24%) Sybase ASE
16 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 5 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
17 5 (0.17%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 167 (5.81%) JIRA
2 61 (2.12%) GitLab
3 57 (1.98%) Jenkins
4 52 (1.81%) Git
5 42 (1.46%) MSI
6 34 (1.18%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.77%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.63%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.59%) Metasploit
10 12 (0.42%) Android Studio
10 12 (0.42%) Artifactory
11 11 (0.38%) Chocolatey
12 10 (0.35%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.35%) Browser DevTools
12 10 (0.35%) Xcode
13 9 (0.31%) InstallShield
14 8 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
15 7 (0.24%) JUnit
15 7 (0.24%) Robot Framework
15 7 (0.24%) Selenium
General
1 990 (34.43%) Social Skills
2 273 (9.50%) Finance
3 267 (9.29%) Analytical Skills
4 240 (8.35%) Public Sector
5 147 (5.11%) Banking
6 132 (4.59%) Legal
7 108 (3.76%) Documentation Skills
8 82 (2.85%) Organisational Skills
9 61 (2.12%) Military
10 54 (1.88%) Manufacturing
11 40 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
11 40 (1.39%) Telecoms
12 38 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 35 (1.22%) Retail
14 32 (1.11%) Law
15 29 (1.01%) Investment Banking
16 26 (0.90%) Front Office
17 20 (0.70%) Local Government
18 18 (0.63%) Aerospace
19 15 (0.52%) Police
Job Titles
1 383 (13.32%) IT Support
2 358 (12.45%) Support Engineer
3 355 (12.35%) Analyst
4 232 (8.07%) IT Engineer
5 209 (7.27%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 190 (6.61%) IT Support Engineer
7 186 (6.47%) Architect
8 174 (6.05%) Senior
9 137 (4.77%) Support Analyst
10 123 (4.28%) Desktop Support
11 111 (3.86%) Developer
12 103 (3.58%) Windows Engineer
13 98 (3.41%) Technical Support
14 97 (3.37%) Desktop Engineer
15 94 (3.27%) IT Analyst
16 92 (3.20%) Lead
17 90 (3.13%) 2nd Line Support
18 83 (2.89%) Consultant
19 72 (2.50%) IT Support Analyst
19 72 (2.50%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (3.20%) .NET
2 79 (2.75%) REST
3 55 (1.91%) SAML
4 53 (1.84%) LDAP
5 52 (1.81%) .NET Framework
6 43 (1.50%) OAuth
7 38 (1.32%) Middleware
8 32 (1.11%) Kafka
9 31 (1.08%) OpenID
9 31 (1.08%) WPF
10 30 (1.04%) WinForms
11 28 (0.97%) Web Services
12 27 (0.94%) Microsoft Graph
13 24 (0.83%) 802.1X
14 22 (0.77%) CSS
14 22 (0.77%) Node.js
14 22 (0.77%) React
15 20 (0.70%) AngularJS
16 19 (0.66%) OAuth2
17 18 (0.63%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 212 (7.37%) Onboarding
2 129 (4.49%) Data Centre
3 101 (3.51%) PKI
4 86 (2.99%) Enterprise Software
5 78 (2.71%) Driving Licence
6 71 (2.47%) Self-Motivation
7 63 (2.19%) Clustering
8 59 (2.05%) Replication
9 48 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
9 48 (1.67%) Management Information System
10 46 (1.60%) Smartphone
11 45 (1.57%) Hybrid Cloud
12 42 (1.46%) Security Posture
13 40 (1.39%) Product Ownership
14 36 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
15 34 (1.18%) Security Operations Centre
16 33 (1.15%) Cloud Native
16 33 (1.15%) Virtual Team
17 31 (1.08%) CMDB
18 29 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 725 (25.22%) Linux
2 650 (22.61%) Windows Server
3 540 (18.78%) Windows 10
4 170 (5.91%) Mac OS
5 158 (5.50%) Android
6 149 (5.18%) Unix
7 128 (4.45%) Apple iOS
8 97 (3.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 69 (2.40%) Windows Server 2016
10 59 (2.05%) Windows Server 2019
11 51 (1.77%) Windows 7
12 39 (1.36%) AIX
13 38 (1.32%) Windows Server 2012
14 25 (0.87%) Windows Server 2003
15 21 (0.73%) VMS
16 20 (0.70%) Solaris
17 18 (0.63%) Ubuntu
18 13 (0.45%) Windows Server 2008
19 10 (0.35%) CentOS
19 10 (0.35%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 602 (20.94%) Problem-Solving
2 466 (16.21%) Customer Service
3 412 (14.33%) ITIL
4 323 (11.23%) Migration
5 301 (10.47%) Agile
6 292 (10.16%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 254 (8.83%) DevOps
8 240 (8.35%) ITSM
9 229 (7.97%) CI/CD
10 204 (7.10%) Cybersecurity
11 193 (6.71%) Service Management
12 191 (6.64%) Continuous Improvement
13 175 (6.09%) Change Management
14 174 (6.05%) Disaster Recovery
15 149 (5.18%) High Availability
16 141 (4.90%) SIEM
17 137 (4.77%) Stakeholder Management
18 128 (4.45%) Service Delivery
19 126 (4.38%) Computer Science
20 122 (4.24%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 625 (21.74%) PowerShell
2 306 (10.64%) Python
3 269 (9.36%) SQL
4 130 (4.52%) C#
5 127 (4.42%) Bash
6 89 (3.10%) Java
7 75 (2.61%) JavaScript
8 62 (2.16%) PL/SQL
9 52 (1.81%) Perl
10 51 (1.77%) C++
11 43 (1.50%) T-SQL
12 29 (1.01%) Kusto Query Language
13 25 (0.87%) VB
14 21 (0.73%) Shell Script
15 20 (0.70%) VBScript
16 16 (0.56%) Search Processing Language
16 16 (0.56%) VBA
17 13 (0.45%) Go
17 13 (0.45%) TypeScript
18 12 (0.42%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 879 (30.57%) Security Cleared
2 588 (20.45%) SC Cleared
3 290 (10.09%) Degree
4 257 (8.94%) DV Cleared
5 118 (4.10%) Microsoft Certification
6 86 (2.99%) Computer Science Degree
7 66 (2.30%) Cisco Certification
8 47 (1.63%) Azure Certification
9 43 (1.50%) CISSP
10 41 (1.43%) MCSE
11 39 (1.36%) BPSS Clearance
11 39 (1.36%) ITIL Certification
12 38 (1.32%) CompTIA Security+
13 33 (1.15%) CCNA
14 32 (1.11%) AWS Certification
15 30 (1.04%) A+ Certification
16 25 (0.87%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 24 (0.83%) CCNP
18 20 (0.70%) CompTIA CySA+
18 20 (0.70%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 107 (3.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 92 (3.20%) GDPR
3 90 (3.13%) QA
4 84 (2.92%) SLA
5 73 (2.54%) NIST
6 43 (1.50%) PCI DSS
7 30 (1.04%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 21 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
9 14 (0.49%) NCSC
10 13 (0.45%) PMO
11 12 (0.42%) MiFID
12 11 (0.38%) NIST 800
13 10 (0.35%) Data Quality
13 10 (0.35%) FINRA
13 10 (0.35%) GLBA
14 8 (0.28%) HIPAA
14 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
15 7 (0.24%) DICOM
16 6 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
16 6 (0.21%) HL7
System Software
1 1,074 (37.36%) Active Directory
2 312 (10.85%) VMware Infrastructure
3 134 (4.66%) Hyper-V
4 101 (3.51%) Docker
5 80 (2.78%) vSphere
6 72 (2.50%) VMware ESXi
7 56 (1.95%) Virtual Machines
8 51 (1.77%) Virtual Desktop
9 40 (1.39%) VMware NSX
10 37 (1.29%) Firmware
11 34 (1.18%) BitLocker
12 24 (0.83%) Microsoft App-V
13 18 (0.63%) KVM
14 11 (0.38%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
15 10 (0.35%) 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
1 375 (13.04%) Microsoft Intune
2 299 (10.40%) SCCM
3 177 (6.16%) Ansible
4 164 (5.70%) Terraform
5 133 (4.63%) Kubernetes
6 80 (2.78%) Single Sign-On
7 68 (2.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 64 (2.23%) vCenter Server
9 46 (1.60%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (1.25%) FortiGate
10 36 (1.25%) Grafana
11 35 (1.22%) WSUS
12 30 (1.04%) Prometheus
13 25 (0.87%) SCOM
14 22 (0.77%) Progress Chef
15 21 (0.73%) Nagios
16 20 (0.70%) Nessus
17 17 (0.59%) Puppet
18 16 (0.56%) Nmap
19 15 (0.52%) vMotion
Vendors
1 1,227 (42.68%) Microsoft
2 420 (14.61%) VMware
3 236 (8.21%) ServiceNow
4 211 (7.34%) Citrix
5 188 (6.54%) Oracle
6 184 (6.40%) Cisco
7 151 (5.25%) Splunk
8 85 (2.96%) HP
9 73 (2.54%) Dell
10 68 (2.37%) Red Hat
11 65 (2.26%) SolarWinds
12 59 (2.05%) Google
13 58 (2.02%) Apple
14 54 (1.88%) IBM
15 52 (1.81%) CyberArk
15 52 (1.81%) Remedy
16 42 (1.46%) Juniper
17 41 (1.43%) Palo Alto
18 40 (1.39%) F5
18 40 (1.39%) Veeam