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

6 months to
15 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 15
Rank change year-on-year -3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,848 3,011 4,530
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 8.02% 8.22% 9.67%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.20% 58.26% 63.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,903 1,880 3,019
10th Percentile £163 £181 £160
25th Percentile £204 £245 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £425 £420
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% +1.19% -1.18%
75th Percentile £538 £560 £575
90th Percentile £625 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £400 £380
% change year-on-year -18.75% +5.26% +8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 298 138 261
10th Percentile £15.12 £15.22 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.53 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £22.28
Median % change year-on-year -9.02% +8.55% +8.66%
75th Percentile £25.15 £57.62 £55.46
90th Percentile £65.00 £69.03 £68.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £24.18 £21.31
% change year-on-year -11.25% +13.47% +15.19%

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 4,811 5,168 7,144
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.55% 14.11% 15.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,097 3,173 4,847
10th Percentile £185 £200 £181
25th Percentile £270 £325 £305
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -5.78%
75th Percentile £575 £584 £613
90th Percentile £654 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £410 £450 £442
% change year-on-year -8.89% +1.75% -1.72%
Number of hourly rates quoted 365 219 357
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.25 £14.86
25th Percentile £18.87 £23.45 £18.50
Median hourly rate £24.00 £52.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -54.29% +50.00% +42.86%
75th Percentile £43.75 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £70.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.56 £52.50 £28.75
% change year-on-year -57.03% +82.61% +27.78%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -2 2,533 £395 -4.82% 1,909
UK excluding London +1 1,899 £325 -18.75% 1,509
London -12 796 £438 +9.38% 625
Work from Home -11 573 £425 -5.56% 733
South East +3 506 £335 -21.18% 496
North of England -4 396 £290 -27.50% 310
South West +5 327 £425 -5.56% 221
Midlands -7 303 £375 -2.09% 206
East of England 0 218 £225 -46.43% 158
North West -4 216 £328 -27.22% 188
West Midlands -7 213 £425 +6.25% 120
Yorkshire -8 152 £250 -30.56% 97
Scotland -13 121 £450 +12.50% 99
East Midlands -1 89 £210 -44.00% 86
Wales -1 44 £275 +37.50% 29
North East -2 31 £200 -35.48% 25
Northern Ireland -8 17 £175 -5.41% 23

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
1 265 (9.30%) Microsoft Exchange
2 175 (6.14%) SharePoint
3 83 (2.91%) Confluence
4 53 (1.86%) Apache
5 43 (1.51%) IIS
6 26 (0.91%) WebSphere
7 23 (0.81%) Skype for Business
8 21 (0.74%) JBoss
9 18 (0.63%) WebLogic
10 15 (0.53%) SharePoint Server
11 14 (0.49%) Exchange Server 2010
11 14 (0.49%) Exchange Server 2013
12 13 (0.46%) nginx
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 7 (0.25%) Tomcat
16 6 (0.21%) SAS
Applications
1 269 (9.45%) Microsoft Office
2 90 (3.16%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (0.70%) 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 (0.070%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.070%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.070%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.070%) 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 (0.70%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.25%) Maximo
3 5 (0.18%) assyst
3 5 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.11%) ION MarketView
4 3 (0.11%) Oracle 11i
5 2 (0.070%) Dynamics GP
5 2 (0.070%) Eikon
5 2 (0.070%) Fidessa
5 2 (0.070%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.070%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.070%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.070%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.035%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.035%) Eze OMS
6 1 (0.035%) OpenText MBPM
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 1 (0.035%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 747 (26.23%) Microsoft 365
2 640 (22.47%) Azure
3 267 (9.38%) AWS
4 234 (8.22%) Entra ID
5 91 (3.20%) OneDrive
6 84 (2.95%) SaaS
7 74 (2.60%) GitHub
8 65 (2.28%) Azure DevOps
9 64 (2.25%) GCP
10 55 (1.93%) IaaS
11 53 (1.86%) Google Workspace
12 41 (1.44%) PaaS
12 41 (1.44%) Power Platform
13 38 (1.33%) Azure Sentinel
14 37 (1.30%) Amazon S3
15 36 (1.26%) Amazon EC2
16 35 (1.23%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 32 (1.12%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 29 (1.02%) Azure Monitor
19 28 (0.98%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 338 (11.87%) DNS
2 318 (11.17%) Firewall
3 205 (7.20%) DHCP
4 200 (7.02%) TCP/IP
5 167 (5.86%) VPN
6 103 (3.62%) Wi-Fi
7 96 (3.37%) LAN
8 93 (3.27%) WAN
9 85 (2.98%) Network Security
10 67 (2.35%) SAN
11 66 (2.32%) VLAN
12 62 (2.18%) SSH
13 56 (1.97%) Wireless
14 54 (1.90%) Cisco IOS
14 54 (1.90%) HTTP
15 35 (1.23%) SSL
16 33 (1.16%) VoIP
17 31 (1.09%) Skype
17 31 (1.09%) SMTP
18 30 (1.05%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 127 (4.46%) SQL Server
2 84 (2.95%) Oracle Database
3 65 (2.28%) Relational Database
4 45 (1.58%) MySQL
5 36 (1.26%) Amazon RDS
6 26 (0.91%) PostgreSQL
7 17 (0.60%) Power BI
8 13 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
9 12 (0.42%) DB2
10 11 (0.39%) Amazon Aurora
10 11 (0.39%) GIS
10 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
11 10 (0.35%) RDBMS
12 9 (0.32%) BigQuery
13 8 (0.28%) MongoDB
13 8 (0.28%) SAP HANA
14 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
14 7 (0.25%) Elasticsearch
15 6 (0.21%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 165 (5.79%) JIRA
2 119 (4.18%) Git
3 112 (3.93%) Jenkins
4 45 (1.58%) GitLab
5 41 (1.44%) Eclipse
6 39 (1.37%) Visual Studio
7 31 (1.09%) Bitbucket
8 30 (1.05%) MSI
9 25 (0.88%) Vagrant
10 20 (0.70%) Android Studio
10 20 (0.70%) Sonatype Nexus
11 19 (0.67%) Browser DevTools
12 18 (0.63%) Xcode
13 15 (0.53%) AdminStudio
13 15 (0.53%) Bitbucket Server
13 15 (0.53%) CA Release Automation
13 15 (0.53%) InstallShield
14 14 (0.49%) IntelliJ
14 14 (0.49%) Postman
15 13 (0.46%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 1,073 (37.68%) Social Skills
2 383 (13.45%) Finance
3 271 (9.52%) Analytical Skills
4 269 (9.45%) Public Sector
5 137 (4.81%) Banking
6 119 (4.18%) Documentation Skills
7 80 (2.81%) Legal
8 66 (2.32%) Manufacturing
9 61 (2.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 58 (2.04%) Organisational Skills
11 51 (1.79%) Telecoms
12 49 (1.72%) Military
12 49 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
13 42 (1.47%) Retail
14 37 (1.30%) Marketing
15 31 (1.09%) Games
16 26 (0.91%) Electronics
16 26 (0.91%) Front Office
17 25 (0.88%) Aerospace
18 22 (0.77%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 447 (15.70%) Support Engineer
2 345 (12.11%) Analyst
3 307 (10.78%) IT Support
4 197 (6.92%) IT Engineer
5 177 (6.21%) Windows Engineer
6 159 (5.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 154 (5.41%) Desktop Engineer
8 152 (5.34%) Desktop Support
8 152 (5.34%) Support Analyst
9 144 (5.06%) Architect
10 136 (4.78%) Deployment Engineer
10 136 (4.78%) IT Support Engineer
11 135 (4.74%) Senior
12 117 (4.11%) 2nd Line Support
13 111 (3.90%) Developer
14 110 (3.86%) Technical Support
15 108 (3.79%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 102 (3.58%) Platform Engineer
17 95 (3.34%) Administrator
18 84 (2.95%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (2.49%) .NET
2 52 (1.83%) LDAP
3 49 (1.72%) Middleware
4 41 (1.44%) .NET Framework
4 41 (1.44%) REST
4 41 (1.44%) WPF
5 40 (1.40%) Web Services
6 36 (1.26%) Node.js
7 34 (1.19%) AngularJS
7 34 (1.19%) OAuth
7 34 (1.19%) XML
8 32 (1.12%) SAML
9 29 (1.02%) React
10 28 (0.98%) SOAP
11 26 (0.91%) OpenID
12 23 (0.81%) CSS
13 20 (0.70%) Ajax
14 19 (0.67%) GraphQL
14 19 (0.67%) RESTful
15 16 (0.56%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 109 (3.83%) Onboarding
2 96 (3.37%) Data Centre
3 88 (3.09%) PKI
4 76 (2.67%) Driving Licence
5 65 (2.28%) Replication
6 61 (2.14%) Enterprise Software
6 61 (2.14%) Self-Motivation
7 58 (2.04%) Management Information System
8 40 (1.40%) iPhone
9 39 (1.37%) Security Posture
10 37 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
11 36 (1.26%) iPad
11 36 (1.26%) Smartphone
12 34 (1.19%) NHS
13 32 (1.12%) Video Conferencing
14 31 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
14 31 (1.09%) Mobile App
15 28 (0.98%) Legacy Systems
16 27 (0.95%) Hybrid Cloud
16 27 (0.95%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 699 (24.54%) Linux
2 600 (21.07%) Windows 10
3 524 (18.40%) Windows Server
4 187 (6.57%) Unix
5 153 (5.37%) Mac OS
6 152 (5.34%) Android
7 111 (3.90%) Apple iOS
8 85 (2.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 71 (2.49%) Windows Server 2016
10 70 (2.46%) Windows 7
11 67 (2.35%) Windows Server 2019
12 49 (1.72%) Windows Server 2012
13 40 (1.40%) VMS
14 38 (1.33%) Windows Server 2003
15 36 (1.26%) Ubuntu
16 26 (0.91%) AIX
17 24 (0.84%) CentOS
18 23 (0.81%) Amazon Linux
19 17 (0.60%) Solaris
20 15 (0.53%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 519 (18.22%) Problem-Solving
2 410 (14.40%) ITIL
3 368 (12.92%) Customer Service
4 312 (10.96%) Migration
5 284 (9.97%) Agile
6 255 (8.95%) DevOps
7 225 (7.90%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 225 (7.90%) Service Management
8 209 (7.34%) ITSM
9 207 (7.27%) Cybersecurity
10 199 (6.99%) CI/CD
11 169 (5.93%) Continuous Improvement
12 158 (5.55%) Change Management
13 126 (4.42%) Incident Response
14 124 (4.35%) Stakeholder Management
15 121 (4.25%) User Experience
16 115 (4.04%) Service Delivery
17 113 (3.97%) Cloud Security
18 108 (3.79%) SIEM
19 104 (3.65%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 526 (18.47%) PowerShell
2 367 (12.89%) Python
3 275 (9.66%) SQL
4 150 (5.27%) Java
5 144 (5.06%) C#
6 125 (4.39%) Bash
7 87 (3.05%) JavaScript
8 79 (2.77%) C++
9 78 (2.74%) Perl
10 41 (1.44%) PL/SQL
11 40 (1.40%) VB
12 39 (1.37%) Shell Script
13 33 (1.16%) Groovy
13 33 (1.16%) Kusto Query Language
14 31 (1.09%) VBA
14 31 (1.09%) VBScript
15 30 (1.05%) C
16 21 (0.74%) T-SQL
17 20 (0.70%) PHP
18 15 (0.53%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 790 (27.74%) Security Cleared
2 555 (19.49%) SC Cleared
3 263 (9.23%) Degree
4 197 (6.92%) Microsoft Certification
5 196 (6.88%) DV Cleared
6 69 (2.42%) Computer Science Degree
7 65 (2.28%) Azure Certification
8 56 (1.97%) Cisco Certification
9 54 (1.90%) MCSE
10 50 (1.76%) A+ Certification
11 44 (1.54%) CISSP
12 37 (1.30%) DBS Check
12 37 (1.30%) ITIL Certification
13 36 (1.26%) CCNA
14 34 (1.19%) AWS Certification
14 34 (1.19%) CCNP
15 32 (1.12%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 27 (0.95%) MCSA
17 26 (0.91%) BPSS Clearance
18 25 (0.88%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (3.27%) SLA
2 76 (2.67%) QA
3 64 (2.25%) GDPR
4 59 (2.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 56 (1.97%) NIST
6 19 (0.67%) HIPAA
7 14 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
7 14 (0.49%) PCI DSS
8 11 (0.39%) NCSC
8 11 (0.39%) PMO
9 9 (0.32%) Accessibility
10 8 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (0.21%) COBIT
11 6 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
12 5 (0.18%) GLBA
13 4 (0.14%) SOC 2
14 3 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 3 (0.11%) Data Quality
14 3 (0.11%) ECSS
14 3 (0.11%) GxP
System Software
1 1,015 (35.64%) Active Directory
2 254 (8.92%) VMware Infrastructure
3 118 (4.14%) Docker
4 81 (2.84%) Hyper-V
5 67 (2.35%) Virtual Desktop
6 59 (2.07%) vSphere
7 58 (2.04%) Virtual Machines
8 51 (1.79%) VMware ESXi
9 31 (1.09%) VMware NSX
10 27 (0.95%) BitLocker
11 25 (0.88%) DFS Replication
12 24 (0.84%) Firmware
12 24 (0.84%) Microsoft App-V
13 20 (0.70%) Virtual Servers
14 19 (0.67%) NFS
15 15 (0.53%) Terminal Services
15 15 (0.53%) XenApp
16 12 (0.42%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 10 (0.35%) Postfix
17 10 (0.35%) Squid
Systems Management
1 434 (15.24%) SCCM
2 314 (11.03%) Microsoft Intune
3 177 (6.21%) Terraform
4 147 (5.16%) Ansible
5 91 (3.20%) Kubernetes
6 55 (1.93%) vCenter Server
7 47 (1.65%) Single Sign-On
8 43 (1.51%) Grafana
9 41 (1.44%) Jamf Pro
10 40 (1.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 39 (1.37%) WSUS
12 33 (1.16%) Progress Chef
13 31 (1.09%) Prometheus
14 26 (0.91%) Nessus
14 26 (0.91%) SCOM
15 25 (0.88%) Puppet
16 24 (0.84%) Microsoft Clustering
17 16 (0.56%) Proxmox
18 13 (0.46%) NetBackup
18 13 (0.46%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,273 (44.70%) Microsoft
2 359 (12.61%) VMware
3 260 (9.13%) ServiceNow
4 228 (8.01%) Oracle
5 182 (6.39%) Cisco
6 179 (6.29%) Citrix
7 154 (5.41%) Splunk
8 86 (3.02%) Apple
9 75 (2.63%) HP
10 70 (2.46%) Red Hat
11 64 (2.25%) IBM
12 58 (2.04%) Dell
12 58 (2.04%) Google
13 53 (1.86%) SAP
13 53 (1.86%) Veeam
14 52 (1.83%) NetApp
15 45 (1.58%) SolarWinds
16 44 (1.54%) AppDynamics
16 44 (1.54%) CyberArk
17 43 (1.51%) Remedy