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

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,913 2,405 3,512
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.93% 8.33% 8.18%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.61% 60.23% 60.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,884 1,654 2,416
10th Percentile £163 £181 £163
25th Percentile £215 £243 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year - +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £672
UK excluding London median daily rate £403 £400 £413
% change year-on-year +0.63% -3.03% +6.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 252 143 277
10th Percentile £15.64 £14.38 £11.92
25th Percentile £17.72 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.21 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.93% +4.56% -23.40%
75th Percentile £56.00 £25.15 £25.00
90th Percentile £71.85 £51.43 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.51 £18.82 £17.69
% change year-on-year +35.52% +6.39% -15.03%

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 4,806 3,993 5,778
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.78% 13.83% 13.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,074 2,634 3,897
10th Percentile £188 £200 £185
25th Percentile £314 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £467 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.71% -1.68% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £650 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 347 177 406
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.12 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.44 £15.50
Median hourly rate £34.13 £22.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.14% -2.22% -48.99%
75th Percentile £65.00 £49.75 £61.56
90th Percentile £72.80 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.25 £18.94 £22.50
% change year-on-year +75.60% -15.84% -43.18%

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 May 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 30 May 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 30 May 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 2,527 £420 -1.18% 784
UK excluding London -11 1,961 £403 +0.63% 743
London -23 776 £430 -4.44% 160
Work from Home -14 594 £475 +1.82% 252
South East -6 528 £475 -1.86% 257
North of England -9 472 £363 +3.57% 169
Midlands -16 277 £325 +18.18% 96
North West +2 265 £340 -2.86% 102
South West -14 232 £457 -3.89% 112
East of England -1 223 £350 -8.50% 82
Yorkshire -22 190 £365 -8.75% 52
Scotland +2 175 £425 -2.24% 22
West Midlands -26 164 £450 +57.89% 52
East Midlands +8 108 £213 - 44
Wales 0 52 £345 +15.00% 27
North East -28 21 £290 -3.33% 18
Northern Ireland -1 15 £139 -30.75% 3
Channel Islands -2 2 £500 +68.07%

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
1 231 (7.93%) Microsoft Exchange
2 181 (6.21%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.09%) IIS
4 52 (1.79%) Confluence
5 23 (0.79%) Apache
6 19 (0.65%) WebLogic
7 17 (0.58%) Tomcat
8 16 (0.55%) nginx
9 14 (0.48%) Skype for Business
10 12 (0.41%) Tuxedo
11 9 (0.31%) NetWeaver
11 9 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
12 8 (0.27%) HCL Notes
12 8 (0.27%) SAS
13 6 (0.21%) TPMS
14 5 (0.17%) Appian
14 5 (0.17%) WebSphere
15 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 3 (0.10%) Camunda
17 2 (0.069%) Apache Pulsar
Applications
1 187 (6.42%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.20%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.31%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.14%) Acrobat
8 2 (0.069%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.034%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 45 (1.54%) Remedy ITSM
2 19 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.41%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.17%) Finacle
5 4 (0.14%) assyst
6 3 (0.10%) OpenText MBPM
6 3 (0.10%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.069%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.069%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.034%) Dynamics GP
8 1 (0.034%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.034%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.034%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 856 (29.39%) Azure
2 816 (28.01%) Microsoft 365
3 356 (12.22%) Entra ID
4 268 (9.20%) AWS
5 97 (3.33%) OneDrive
6 90 (3.09%) GCP
7 76 (2.61%) SaaS
8 73 (2.51%) Azure DevOps
9 67 (2.30%) IaaS
10 63 (2.16%) GitHub
11 57 (1.96%) Power Platform
12 56 (1.92%) PaaS
13 40 (1.37%) Azure Monitor
14 39 (1.34%) Azure Sentinel
14 39 (1.34%) OpenShift
15 34 (1.17%) Google Workspace
16 30 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
17 20 (0.69%) AWS CloudFormation
18 18 (0.62%) Azure AKS
18 18 (0.62%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 407 (13.97%) DNS
2 313 (10.74%) Firewall
3 278 (9.54%) DHCP
4 215 (7.38%) VPN
5 178 (6.11%) LAN
5 178 (6.11%) WAN
6 176 (6.04%) TCP/IP
7 144 (4.94%) Wi-Fi
8 83 (2.85%) SAN
9 77 (2.64%) Network Security
10 59 (2.03%) VLAN
11 47 (1.61%) SD-WAN
12 40 (1.37%) BGP
12 40 (1.37%) Wireless
13 39 (1.34%) NAS
14 38 (1.30%) SSL
14 38 (1.30%) VoIP
15 37 (1.27%) Internet
16 36 (1.24%) Skype
16 36 (1.24%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 231 (7.93%) SQL Server
2 51 (1.75%) Oracle Database
3 34 (1.17%) Power BI
3 34 (1.17%) Relational Database
4 31 (1.06%) MySQL
5 25 (0.86%) PostgreSQL
6 18 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
7 16 (0.55%) DB2
8 15 (0.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 14 (0.48%) MongoDB
10 13 (0.45%) Data Warehouse
10 13 (0.45%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.31%) GIS
11 9 (0.31%) SAP HANA
12 8 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
12 8 (0.27%) Oracle BI EE
12 8 (0.27%) Oracle Reports
12 8 (0.27%) RDBMS
12 8 (0.27%) Sybase ASE
13 7 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 182 (6.25%) JIRA
2 53 (1.82%) Jenkins
3 46 (1.58%) GitLab
4 44 (1.51%) Git
5 43 (1.48%) MSI
6 37 (1.27%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.69%) Eclipse
8 14 (0.48%) Burp Suite
9 13 (0.45%) Metasploit
10 10 (0.34%) Sonatype Nexus
11 9 (0.31%) Android Studio
11 9 (0.31%) Artifactory
11 9 (0.31%) Browser DevTools
11 9 (0.31%) Chocolatey
11 9 (0.31%) Xcode
12 7 (0.24%) Bitbucket
12 7 (0.24%) Selenium
13 6 (0.21%) InstallShield
13 6 (0.21%) Robot Framework
14 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
General
1 982 (33.71%) Social Skills
2 290 (9.96%) Analytical Skills
2 290 (9.96%) Finance
3 204 (7.00%) Public Sector
4 148 (5.08%) Banking
5 119 (4.09%) Legal
6 95 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
7 79 (2.71%) Organisational Skills
8 56 (1.92%) Military
9 48 (1.65%) Retail
10 47 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 46 (1.58%) Manufacturing
12 39 (1.34%) Law
13 33 (1.13%) Investment Banking
14 30 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
15 27 (0.93%) Front Office
15 27 (0.93%) Telecoms
16 21 (0.72%) Local Government
17 20 (0.69%) French Language
18 19 (0.65%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 363 (12.46%) IT Support
2 350 (12.02%) Support Engineer
3 315 (10.81%) Analyst
4 259 (8.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 227 (7.79%) IT Engineer
6 186 (6.39%) IT Support Engineer
7 179 (6.14%) Senior
8 157 (5.39%) Architect
9 122 (4.19%) Desktop Support
10 121 (4.15%) Support Analyst
11 105 (3.60%) Desktop Engineer
11 105 (3.60%) Lead
12 98 (3.36%) 2nd Line Support
13 97 (3.33%) IT Analyst
14 88 (3.02%) Developer
14 88 (3.02%) Technical Support
14 88 (3.02%) Windows Engineer
15 78 (2.68%) Consultant
16 76 (2.61%) 1st Line Support
17 71 (2.44%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (3.16%) .NET
2 89 (3.06%) REST
3 51 (1.75%) .NET Framework
4 44 (1.51%) LDAP
5 38 (1.30%) SAML
6 34 (1.17%) Microsoft Graph
7 31 (1.06%) Kafka
8 28 (0.96%) 802.1X
8 28 (0.96%) Middleware
9 27 (0.93%) WinForms
10 26 (0.89%) OAuth
11 24 (0.82%) Web Services
12 21 (0.72%) Software Packaging
12 21 (0.72%) WPF
13 20 (0.69%) Elastic Stack
14 18 (0.62%) CSS
14 18 (0.62%) Node.js
14 18 (0.62%) React
15 17 (0.58%) AngularJS
15 17 (0.58%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 254 (8.72%) Onboarding
2 148 (5.08%) Data Centre
3 123 (4.22%) PKI
4 88 (3.02%) Enterprise Software
5 82 (2.81%) Clustering
6 65 (2.23%) Driving Licence
6 65 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
7 61 (2.09%) Management Information System
8 60 (2.06%) Replication
9 54 (1.85%) Security Posture
10 52 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
11 51 (1.75%) Virtual Team
12 50 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
13 49 (1.68%) Cloud Native
14 44 (1.51%) Smartphone
15 36 (1.24%) Data Protection Act
16 34 (1.17%) CMDB
16 34 (1.17%) Enterprise Storage
16 34 (1.17%) Operational Technology
16 34 (1.17%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 736 (25.27%) Linux
2 693 (23.79%) Windows Server
3 506 (17.37%) Windows 10
4 179 (6.14%) Mac OS
5 163 (5.60%) Unix
6 136 (4.67%) Apple iOS
7 134 (4.60%) Android
8 110 (3.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 79 (2.71%) Windows Server 2019
10 71 (2.44%) Windows Server 2016
11 51 (1.75%) Windows 7
12 37 (1.27%) Windows Server 2012
13 33 (1.13%) AIX
14 28 (0.96%) Ubuntu
15 22 (0.76%) VMS
16 21 (0.72%) Solaris
17 19 (0.65%) Windows Server 2003
18 16 (0.55%) Windows Server 2008
19 12 (0.41%) CentOS
20 8 (0.27%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 615 (21.11%) Problem-Solving
2 436 (14.97%) Customer Service
3 433 (14.86%) ITIL
4 334 (11.47%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 329 (11.29%) Migration
6 284 (9.75%) Agile
7 273 (9.37%) ITSM
8 269 (9.23%) DevOps
9 247 (8.48%) CI/CD
10 197 (6.76%) Change Management
11 193 (6.63%) Disaster Recovery
12 190 (6.52%) Continuous Improvement
13 189 (6.49%) Service Management
14 188 (6.45%) High Availability
15 174 (5.97%) Cybersecurity
16 160 (5.49%) SIEM
17 148 (5.08%) Stakeholder Management
18 147 (5.05%) Infrastructure as Code
19 134 (4.60%) Service Delivery
20 133 (4.57%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 631 (21.66%) PowerShell
2 304 (10.44%) Python
3 280 (9.61%) SQL
4 123 (4.22%) C#
5 116 (3.98%) Bash
6 76 (2.61%) Java
7 69 (2.37%) JavaScript
8 56 (1.92%) PL/SQL
9 48 (1.65%) C++
10 47 (1.61%) T-SQL
11 31 (1.06%) Perl
12 26 (0.89%) Kusto Query Language
13 24 (0.82%) VB
14 23 (0.79%) Search Processing Language
14 23 (0.79%) Shell Script
15 19 (0.65%) Bicep
15 19 (0.65%) VBScript
16 14 (0.48%) VBA
17 13 (0.45%) C
18 12 (0.41%) Go
Qualifications
1 857 (29.42%) Security Cleared
2 552 (18.95%) SC Cleared
3 308 (10.57%) Degree
4 274 (9.41%) DV Cleared
5 105 (3.60%) Microsoft Certification
6 93 (3.19%) Cisco Certification
6 93 (3.19%) Computer Science Degree
7 66 (2.27%) CISSP
8 54 (1.85%) Azure Certification
9 46 (1.58%) MCSE
10 45 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
11 39 (1.34%) AWS Certification
12 38 (1.30%) CCNA
12 38 (1.30%) CompTIA Security+
13 32 (1.10%) CCNP
14 31 (1.06%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 29 (1.00%) ITIL Certification
16 27 (0.93%) MCSA
17 26 (0.89%) A+ Certification
17 26 (0.89%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 120 (4.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 107 (3.67%) SLA
3 88 (3.02%) QA
4 86 (2.95%) NIST
5 78 (2.68%) GDPR
6 37 (1.27%) PCI DSS
7 30 (1.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 27 (0.93%) Cyber Essentials
9 15 (0.51%) NCSC
10 14 (0.48%) PMO
11 12 (0.41%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.41%) Disclosure Scotland
11 12 (0.41%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.38%) MiFID
12 11 (0.38%) SOC 2
13 10 (0.34%) FINRA
14 9 (0.31%) HIPAA
15 7 (0.24%) DICOM
15 7 (0.24%) GRC
16 6 (0.21%) HL7
System Software
1 1,082 (37.14%) Active Directory
2 366 (12.56%) VMware Infrastructure
3 164 (5.63%) Hyper-V
4 101 (3.47%) VMware ESXi
5 100 (3.43%) vSphere
6 90 (3.09%) Docker
6 90 (3.09%) Virtual Machines
7 60 (2.06%) Virtual Desktop
8 52 (1.79%) VMware NSX
9 38 (1.30%) Firmware
10 34 (1.17%) BitLocker
11 26 (0.89%) Microsoft App-V
12 21 (0.72%) KVM
13 11 (0.38%) Oracle RAC
13 11 (0.38%) XenDesktop
14 10 (0.34%) XenApp
15 9 (0.31%) vCloud
16 8 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
17 6 (0.21%) etcd
17 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 373 (12.80%) Microsoft Intune
2 259 (8.89%) SCCM
3 198 (6.80%) Ansible
4 174 (5.97%) Terraform
5 139 (4.77%) Kubernetes
6 81 (2.78%) vCenter Server
7 57 (1.96%) Single Sign-On
8 45 (1.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 42 (1.44%) Jamf Pro
10 40 (1.37%) FortiGate
11 39 (1.34%) Grafana
11 39 (1.34%) WSUS
12 37 (1.27%) SCOM
13 33 (1.13%) Prometheus
14 28 (0.96%) Progress Chef
15 27 (0.93%) Nagios
16 21 (0.72%) Nessus
17 20 (0.69%) Puppet
17 20 (0.69%) Tivoli
17 20 (0.69%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,234 (42.36%) Microsoft
2 474 (16.27%) VMware
3 256 (8.79%) ServiceNow
4 221 (7.59%) Cisco
5 194 (6.66%) Citrix
6 177 (6.08%) Oracle
7 159 (5.46%) Splunk
8 82 (2.81%) HP
9 75 (2.57%) Dell
10 74 (2.54%) SolarWinds
11 69 (2.37%) Red Hat
12 61 (2.09%) F5
13 59 (2.03%) Google
14 58 (1.99%) Apple
14 58 (1.99%) Remedy
15 54 (1.85%) Palo Alto
16 50 (1.72%) CyberArk
16 50 (1.72%) IBM
17 46 (1.58%) Juniper
18 42 (1.44%) BeyondTrust