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 30 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 15
Rank change year-on-year -3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,827 2,953 4,409
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.89% 8.14% 9.63%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.49% 57.97% 63.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,895 1,841 2,945
10th Percentile £163 £180 £160
25th Percentile £204 £238 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £420 £413
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% +1.82% -2.94%
75th Percentile £538 £556 £575
90th Percentile £625 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £384 £388
% change year-on-year -15.36% -0.90% +4.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 298 134 256
10th Percentile £15.30 £15.22 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.81 £18.14 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.14
Median % change year-on-year -9.02% +9.23% +7.99%
75th Percentile £37.96 £57.28 £54.52
90th Percentile £65.00 £67.50 £67.94
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.75 £24.18 £21.31
% change year-on-year -10.05% +13.47% +13.44%

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 4,752 5,094 6,938
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.26% 14.05% 15.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,062 3,109 4,717
10th Percentile £181 £200 £183
25th Percentile £263 £325 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £563 £583 £609
90th Percentile £660 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £401 £440 £438
% change year-on-year -8.86% +0.57% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 368 208 343
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.18 £14.47
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.44 £18.13
Median hourly rate £25.00 £50.00 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -50.00% +66.67% +20.00%
75th Percentile £55.03 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.84 £70.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £51.25 £27.25
% change year-on-year -51.22% +88.07% +21.11%

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 30 November 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 30 November 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 30 November 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 -3 2,521 £388 -3.13% 1,234
UK excluding London -1 1,879 £325 -15.36% 1,190
London -11 784 £438 +5.42% 269
Work from Home -9 567 £425 -5.56% 380
South East +2 509 £350 -15.41% 459
North of England -5 404 £250 -37.50% 209
South West +5 327 £425 +0.24% 144
Midlands -2 300 £383 +9.29% 185
North West -4 227 £320 -24.71% 106
West Midlands -4 209 £425 +30.77% 109
East of England +1 205 £225 -33.33% 145
Yorkshire -13 149 £230 -34.38% 88
Scotland -14 108 £431 -1.43% 56
East Midlands +1 91 £210 -44.00% 74
Wales -2 42 £180 -18.18% 27
North East +1 31 £189 -41.02% 15
Northern Ireland -13 15 £203 +21.26% 8

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
1 260 (9.20%) Microsoft Exchange
2 181 (6.40%) SharePoint
3 82 (2.90%) Confluence
4 54 (1.91%) Apache
5 43 (1.52%) IIS
6 25 (0.88%) WebSphere
7 22 (0.78%) Skype for Business
8 20 (0.71%) JBoss
9 18 (0.64%) WebLogic
10 15 (0.53%) Exchange Server 2010
10 15 (0.53%) SharePoint Server
11 14 (0.50%) nginx
12 13 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2013
13 11 (0.39%) WebSphere Application Server
14 10 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2003
14 10 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2007
14 10 (0.35%) iPlanet
14 10 (0.35%) Office Communications Server
15 9 (0.32%) SAS
15 9 (0.32%) Tomcat
Applications
1 280 (9.90%) Microsoft Office
2 92 (3.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.35%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 8 (0.28%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.071%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.071%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.071%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.071%) Windchill
8 1 (0.035%) Acrobat
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.035%) Camtasia
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.035%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 20 (0.71%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.25%) assyst
3 5 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.14%) Maximo
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.11%) ION MarketView
6 2 (0.071%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.071%) Eikon
6 2 (0.071%) Fidessa
6 2 (0.071%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.071%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.071%) SystmOne
6 2 (0.071%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.035%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.035%) Eze OMS
7 1 (0.035%) OpenText MBPM
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.035%) Pegasus Opera
7 1 (0.035%) Primavera
7 1 (0.035%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 734 (25.96%) Microsoft 365
2 639 (22.60%) Azure
3 271 (9.59%) AWS
4 238 (8.42%) Entra ID
5 89 (3.15%) OneDrive
6 80 (2.83%) SaaS
7 71 (2.51%) GitHub
8 68 (2.41%) Azure DevOps
9 65 (2.30%) GCP
10 57 (2.02%) IaaS
11 46 (1.63%) Google Workspace
12 41 (1.45%) Power Platform
13 40 (1.41%) PaaS
14 34 (1.20%) Amazon S3
15 33 (1.17%) Amazon EC2
15 33 (1.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 31 (1.10%) Azure Sentinel
17 30 (1.06%) Azure Monitor
18 28 (0.99%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 25 (0.88%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 340 (12.03%) DNS
2 324 (11.46%) Firewall
3 209 (7.39%) DHCP
4 201 (7.11%) TCP/IP
5 164 (5.80%) VPN
6 100 (3.54%) Wi-Fi
7 91 (3.22%) LAN
8 87 (3.08%) WAN
9 84 (2.97%) Network Security
10 66 (2.33%) VLAN
11 63 (2.23%) SSH
12 62 (2.19%) Wireless
13 61 (2.16%) SAN
14 55 (1.95%) HTTP
15 53 (1.87%) Cisco IOS
16 36 (1.27%) SSL
17 32 (1.13%) Skype
18 31 (1.10%) FTP
18 31 (1.10%) SMTP
18 31 (1.10%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 128 (4.53%) SQL Server
2 87 (3.08%) Oracle Database
3 65 (2.30%) Relational Database
4 46 (1.63%) MySQL
5 30 (1.06%) Amazon RDS
5 30 (1.06%) PostgreSQL
6 17 (0.60%) Power BI
7 13 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
8 11 (0.39%) Amazon Aurora
8 11 (0.39%) GIS
8 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
9 10 (0.35%) BigQuery
10 9 (0.32%) DB2
10 9 (0.32%) RDBMS
11 8 (0.28%) SAP HANA
12 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
12 7 (0.25%) Data Lake
12 7 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
12 7 (0.25%) Elasticsearch
13 6 (0.21%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 164 (5.80%) JIRA
2 111 (3.93%) Git
3 105 (3.71%) Jenkins
4 50 (1.77%) GitLab
5 41 (1.45%) Eclipse
6 40 (1.41%) Visual Studio
7 31 (1.10%) Bitbucket
8 30 (1.06%) MSI
9 24 (0.85%) Vagrant
10 20 (0.71%) Android Studio
11 19 (0.67%) Browser DevTools
11 19 (0.67%) Sonatype Nexus
12 18 (0.64%) Xcode
13 17 (0.60%) InstallShield
14 15 (0.53%) AdminStudio
15 14 (0.50%) Artifactory
15 14 (0.50%) Bitbucket Server
15 14 (0.50%) CA Release Automation
16 13 (0.46%) IntelliJ
17 12 (0.42%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 1,069 (37.81%) Social Skills
2 366 (12.95%) Finance
3 270 (9.55%) Public Sector
4 257 (9.09%) Analytical Skills
5 138 (4.88%) Banking
6 123 (4.35%) Documentation Skills
7 80 (2.83%) Legal
8 67 (2.37%) Manufacturing
9 62 (2.19%) Organisational Skills
10 55 (1.95%) Telecoms
11 52 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 50 (1.77%) Military
13 49 (1.73%) Presentation Skills
14 44 (1.56%) Retail
15 40 (1.41%) Marketing
16 29 (1.03%) Aerospace
17 28 (0.99%) Electronics
17 28 (0.99%) Games
18 25 (0.88%) Front Office
19 22 (0.78%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 446 (15.78%) Support Engineer
2 343 (12.13%) Analyst
3 320 (11.32%) IT Support
4 197 (6.97%) IT Engineer
5 159 (5.62%) Windows Engineer
6 157 (5.55%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 151 (5.34%) Support Analyst
8 149 (5.27%) Desktop Support
9 148 (5.24%) Desktop Engineer
10 140 (4.95%) IT Support Engineer
11 135 (4.78%) Architect
12 132 (4.67%) Deployment Engineer
12 132 (4.67%) Senior
13 119 (4.21%) 2nd Line Support
14 111 (3.93%) Developer
15 109 (3.86%) Technical Support
16 107 (3.78%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 105 (3.71%) Platform Engineer
18 93 (3.29%) Administrator
19 81 (2.87%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (2.62%) .NET
2 54 (1.91%) LDAP
3 48 (1.70%) Middleware
4 44 (1.56%) REST
5 41 (1.45%) .NET Framework
6 39 (1.38%) Web Services
7 36 (1.27%) OAuth
8 35 (1.24%) AngularJS
8 35 (1.24%) Node.js
8 35 (1.24%) WPF
9 34 (1.20%) SAML
10 32 (1.13%) XML
11 31 (1.10%) React
12 28 (0.99%) OpenID
13 26 (0.92%) SOAP
14 24 (0.85%) CSS
15 22 (0.78%) Kafka
16 20 (0.71%) Ajax
17 19 (0.67%) GraphQL
17 19 (0.67%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 111 (3.93%) Onboarding
2 96 (3.40%) Data Centre
3 94 (3.33%) PKI
4 75 (2.65%) Driving Licence
5 67 (2.37%) Replication
6 63 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
7 60 (2.12%) Enterprise Software
8 58 (2.05%) Management Information System
9 40 (1.41%) Security Posture
10 38 (1.34%) Smartphone
11 37 (1.31%) iPhone
12 36 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
13 34 (1.20%) Video Conferencing
14 33 (1.17%) Analytical Mindset
14 33 (1.17%) NHS
15 32 (1.13%) Mobile App
16 31 (1.10%) iPad
16 31 (1.10%) Public Cloud
17 30 (1.06%) Hybrid Cloud
18 29 (1.03%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 715 (25.29%) Linux
2 586 (20.73%) Windows 10
3 537 (19.00%) Windows Server
4 185 (6.54%) Unix
5 161 (5.70%) Android
5 161 (5.70%) Mac OS
6 103 (3.64%) Apple iOS
7 84 (2.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 67 (2.37%) Windows 7
9 63 (2.23%) Windows Server 2016
10 59 (2.09%) Windows Server 2019
11 46 (1.63%) Windows Server 2012
12 40 (1.41%) VMS
13 36 (1.27%) Windows Server 2003
14 33 (1.17%) Ubuntu
15 28 (0.99%) AIX
16 21 (0.74%) Amazon Linux
17 19 (0.67%) CentOS
18 18 (0.64%) Solaris
19 14 (0.50%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 503 (17.79%) Problem-Solving
2 416 (14.72%) ITIL
3 375 (13.26%) Customer Service
4 295 (10.44%) Migration
5 289 (10.22%) Agile
6 241 (8.52%) DevOps
7 232 (8.21%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 223 (7.89%) Service Management
9 211 (7.46%) Cybersecurity
9 211 (7.46%) ITSM
10 207 (7.32%) CI/CD
11 182 (6.44%) Continuous Improvement
12 154 (5.45%) Change Management
13 127 (4.49%) User Experience
14 126 (4.46%) Incident Response
15 121 (4.28%) Stakeholder Management
16 114 (4.03%) Cloud Security
17 112 (3.96%) Service Delivery
18 108 (3.82%) Incident Management
19 105 (3.71%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 527 (18.64%) PowerShell
2 367 (12.98%) Python
3 285 (10.08%) SQL
4 152 (5.38%) Java
5 144 (5.09%) C#
6 127 (4.49%) Bash
7 88 (3.11%) JavaScript
8 80 (2.83%) Perl
9 79 (2.79%) C++
10 45 (1.59%) PL/SQL
11 40 (1.41%) Shell Script
12 35 (1.24%) VB
13 32 (1.13%) Groovy
14 31 (1.10%) Kusto Query Language
14 31 (1.10%) VBScript
15 28 (0.99%) C
16 27 (0.96%) VBA
17 25 (0.88%) T-SQL
18 24 (0.85%) PHP
19 16 (0.57%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 803 (28.40%) Security Cleared
2 560 (19.81%) SC Cleared
3 270 (9.55%) Degree
4 201 (7.11%) DV Cleared
5 196 (6.93%) Microsoft Certification
6 71 (2.51%) Computer Science Degree
7 67 (2.37%) Azure Certification
8 53 (1.87%) Cisco Certification
8 53 (1.87%) MCSE
9 52 (1.84%) A+ Certification
10 40 (1.41%) ITIL Certification
11 38 (1.34%) AWS Certification
11 38 (1.34%) CISSP
12 34 (1.20%) CCNA
13 33 (1.17%) CCNP
14 31 (1.10%) DBS Check
15 28 (0.99%) BPSS Clearance
15 28 (0.99%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 26 (0.92%) MCSA
17 23 (0.81%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (3.08%) SLA
2 76 (2.69%) QA
3 72 (2.55%) GDPR
4 61 (2.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 55 (1.95%) NIST
6 21 (0.74%) PCI DSS
7 18 (0.64%) HIPAA
8 14 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
9 12 (0.42%) NCSC
10 11 (0.39%) PMO
11 9 (0.32%) Accessibility
12 8 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 7 (0.25%) GLBA
14 6 (0.21%) COBIT
15 5 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
16 4 (0.14%) SOC 2
17 3 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 3 (0.11%) Data Quality
17 3 (0.11%) ECSS
17 3 (0.11%) SEPA
System Software
1 1,011 (35.76%) Active Directory
2 244 (8.63%) VMware Infrastructure
3 128 (4.53%) Docker
4 85 (3.01%) Hyper-V
5 62 (2.19%) Virtual Desktop
6 55 (1.95%) Virtual Machines
7 50 (1.77%) vSphere
8 47 (1.66%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.10%) VMware NSX
10 24 (0.85%) DFS Replication
11 23 (0.81%) BitLocker
12 22 (0.78%) Firmware
13 20 (0.71%) Microsoft App-V
14 19 (0.67%) NFS
15 16 (0.57%) Terminal Services
16 15 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
17 14 (0.50%) XenApp
18 10 (0.35%) Dovecot
18 10 (0.35%) Postfix
18 10 (0.35%) Squid
Systems Management
1 423 (14.96%) SCCM
2 298 (10.54%) Microsoft Intune
3 180 (6.37%) Terraform
4 149 (5.27%) Ansible
5 98 (3.47%) Kubernetes
6 58 (2.05%) vCenter Server
7 52 (1.84%) Single Sign-On
8 46 (1.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 45 (1.59%) Jamf Pro
10 42 (1.49%) Grafana
11 32 (1.13%) Progress Chef
12 31 (1.10%) WSUS
13 29 (1.03%) SCOM
14 28 (0.99%) Prometheus
15 27 (0.96%) Nessus
16 20 (0.71%) Puppet
17 18 (0.64%) Microsoft Clustering
18 16 (0.57%) Proxmox
19 15 (0.53%) WMI
20 14 (0.50%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 1,245 (44.04%) Microsoft
2 349 (12.35%) VMware
3 257 (9.09%) ServiceNow
4 233 (8.24%) Oracle
5 184 (6.51%) Cisco
6 175 (6.19%) Citrix
7 150 (5.31%) Splunk
8 86 (3.04%) Apple
9 76 (2.69%) HP
10 72 (2.55%) Red Hat
11 67 (2.37%) IBM
12 58 (2.05%) Dell
13 55 (1.95%) SAP
13 55 (1.95%) Veeam
14 50 (1.77%) Google
15 46 (1.63%) SolarWinds
16 44 (1.56%) NetApp
17 43 (1.52%) AppDynamics
18 41 (1.45%) CyberArk
19 38 (1.34%) Remedy