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

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -6 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,912 2,493 3,545
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.82% 8.45% 8.12%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.96% 60.51% 60.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,870 1,702 2,416
10th Percentile £163 £181 £163
25th Percentile £220 £243 £224
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £420
Median % change year-on-year - +1.19% -6.67%
75th Percentile £558 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £672
UK excluding London median daily rate £415 £400 £425
% change year-on-year +3.75% -5.88% +9.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 251 167 278
10th Percentile £15.93 £15.11 £11.94
25th Percentile £17.71 £16.95 £14.16
Median hourly rate £25.15 £18.87 £18.13
Median % change year-on-year +33.28% +4.08% -26.36%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £25.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £61.30 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.21 £18.82 £17.69
% change year-on-year +33.93% +6.39% -21.38%

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 4,777 4,120 5,874
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.55% 13.96% 13.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,043 2,694 3,894
10th Percentile £188 £200 £188
25th Percentile £316 £313 £310
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.08% -2.11% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £585 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 338 198 413
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.19 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.36 £15.76
Median hourly rate £27.94 £21.95 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.29% -4.57% -50.80%
75th Percentile £63.75 £41.93 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.07 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £18.87 £24.18
% change year-on-year +45.73% -21.96% -40.43%

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 13 June 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 13 June 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 13 June 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 -8 2,536 £425 - 965
UK excluding London -14 1,947 £415 +3.75% 880
London -20 803 £425 -5.56% 209
Work from Home -12 605 £480 +1.05% 310
South East -8 522 £475 -4.09% 298
North of England -8 471 £365 +4.29% 186
Midlands -17 271 £325 +12.07% 122
North West -5 250 £350 -6.67% 111
South West -14 239 £484 -1.28% 153
East of England -2 214 £341 -9.00% 86
Yorkshire -14 203 £370 -8.07% 52
Scotland -1 180 £425 -1.62% 31
West Midlands -25 166 £450 +50.00% 68
East Midlands +8 100 £200 -3.03% 54
Wales +1 47 £375 +25.00% 18
North East -38 22 £283 -1.74% 26
Northern Ireland -3 15 £139 -30.75% 15
Channel Islands -1 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
1 233 (8.00%) Microsoft Exchange
2 186 (6.39%) SharePoint
3 58 (1.99%) IIS
4 55 (1.89%) Confluence
5 19 (0.65%) Apache
5 19 (0.65%) Tomcat
6 16 (0.55%) nginx
7 14 (0.48%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.38%) WebLogic
9 9 (0.31%) NetWeaver
9 9 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
10 8 (0.27%) HCL Notes
11 7 (0.24%) SAS
12 6 (0.21%) TPMS
13 5 (0.17%) Appian
13 5 (0.17%) WebSphere
14 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.14%) Tuxedo
15 3 (0.10%) Camunda
15 3 (0.10%) Documentum
Applications
1 177 (6.08%) Microsoft Office
2 62 (2.13%) Microsoft Excel
3 21 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.27%) 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 (1.55%) Remedy ITSM
2 18 (0.62%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.41%) Teamcenter
4 6 (0.21%) Finacle
5 3 (0.10%) assyst
5 3 (0.10%) OpenText MBPM
5 3 (0.10%) Oracle BPM
5 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.069%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.034%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.034%) Dynamics GP
7 1 (0.034%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.034%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.034%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 877 (30.12%) Azure
2 816 (28.02%) Microsoft 365
3 361 (12.40%) Entra ID
4 280 (9.62%) AWS
5 109 (3.74%) OneDrive
6 90 (3.09%) GCP
7 75 (2.58%) Azure DevOps
8 73 (2.51%) SaaS
9 69 (2.37%) GitHub
10 65 (2.23%) IaaS
11 58 (1.99%) Power Platform
12 53 (1.82%) PaaS
13 45 (1.55%) Azure Monitor
14 39 (1.34%) OpenShift
15 38 (1.30%) Azure Sentinel
16 32 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
16 32 (1.10%) Google Workspace
17 22 (0.76%) Microsoft Purview
17 22 (0.76%) Nutanix
18 21 (0.72%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 407 (13.98%) DNS
2 303 (10.41%) Firewall
3 278 (9.55%) DHCP
4 213 (7.31%) VPN
5 187 (6.42%) TCP/IP
6 183 (6.28%) WAN
7 175 (6.01%) LAN
8 144 (4.95%) Wi-Fi
9 86 (2.95%) SAN
10 66 (2.27%) Network Security
11 56 (1.92%) VLAN
12 47 (1.61%) SD-WAN
13 44 (1.51%) BGP
14 41 (1.41%) SSL
15 40 (1.37%) NAS
16 37 (1.27%) Internet
16 37 (1.27%) Wireless
17 36 (1.24%) SNMP
18 35 (1.20%) VoIP
19 34 (1.17%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 240 (8.24%) SQL Server
2 52 (1.79%) Oracle Database
3 36 (1.24%) Power BI
4 29 (1.00%) PostgreSQL
5 28 (0.96%) Relational Database
6 27 (0.93%) MySQL
7 18 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.52%) Db2
8 15 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 14 (0.48%) Data Warehouse
9 14 (0.48%) MongoDB
10 13 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
10 13 (0.45%) NoSQL
11 10 (0.34%) GIS
12 9 (0.31%) RDBMS
12 9 (0.31%) SAP HANA
13 8 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
13 8 (0.27%) Oracle BI EE
13 8 (0.27%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.27%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 185 (6.35%) JIRA
2 55 (1.89%) Jenkins
3 54 (1.85%) Git
4 41 (1.41%) MSI
5 39 (1.34%) GitLab
6 36 (1.24%) Visual Studio
7 18 (0.62%) Eclipse
8 10 (0.34%) Burp Suite
9 9 (0.31%) Chocolatey
9 9 (0.31%) Metasploit
9 9 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (0.24%) Android Studio
10 7 (0.24%) Bitbucket
10 7 (0.24%) Browser DevTools
10 7 (0.24%) Xcode
11 6 (0.21%) Artifactory
11 6 (0.21%) InstallShield
12 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.17%) Maven
12 5 (0.17%) Selenium
General
1 998 (34.27%) Social Skills
2 313 (10.75%) Analytical Skills
3 310 (10.65%) Finance
4 203 (6.97%) Public Sector
5 151 (5.19%) Banking
6 119 (4.09%) Legal
7 103 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
8 76 (2.61%) Organisational Skills
9 55 (1.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 51 (1.75%) Retail
11 50 (1.72%) Military
12 43 (1.48%) Manufacturing
13 38 (1.30%) Investment Banking
14 36 (1.24%) Law
15 32 (1.10%) Front Office
16 30 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
17 27 (0.93%) Telecoms
18 23 (0.79%) Spanish Language
19 21 (0.72%) French Language
20 20 (0.69%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 371 (12.74%) Support Engineer
2 366 (12.57%) IT Support
3 307 (10.54%) Analyst
4 264 (9.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 239 (8.21%) IT Engineer
6 199 (6.83%) IT Support Engineer
7 182 (6.25%) Senior
8 150 (5.15%) Architect
9 121 (4.16%) Desktop Support
10 111 (3.81%) Desktop Engineer
11 110 (3.78%) Support Analyst
12 104 (3.57%) Lead
13 97 (3.33%) 2nd Line Support
14 93 (3.19%) IT Analyst
15 92 (3.16%) Developer
16 89 (3.06%) Windows Engineer
17 85 (2.92%) Consultant
18 82 (2.82%) Technical Support
19 74 (2.54%) Cloud Engineer
20 71 (2.44%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (3.26%) .NET
2 91 (3.13%) REST
3 53 (1.82%) .NET Framework
4 41 (1.41%) LDAP
5 35 (1.20%) SAML
6 34 (1.17%) Microsoft Graph
7 30 (1.03%) Kafka
7 30 (1.03%) Middleware
8 28 (0.96%) 802.1X
9 27 (0.93%) Software Packaging
10 26 (0.89%) WinForms
11 25 (0.86%) Web Services
12 23 (0.79%) OAuth
12 23 (0.79%) WPF
13 21 (0.72%) Elastic Stack
14 19 (0.65%) CSS
15 17 (0.58%) Node.js
16 16 (0.55%) RabbitMQ
17 15 (0.52%) JSON
17 15 (0.52%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 267 (9.17%) Onboarding
2 160 (5.49%) Data Centre
3 125 (4.29%) PKI
4 84 (2.88%) Enterprise Software
5 76 (2.61%) Clustering
6 66 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
7 65 (2.23%) Management Information System
8 62 (2.13%) Driving Licence
9 60 (2.06%) Replication
10 56 (1.92%) Cloud Native
11 55 (1.89%) Legacy Systems
12 54 (1.85%) Hybrid Cloud
13 52 (1.79%) Virtual Team
14 51 (1.75%) Security Posture
15 38 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
15 38 (1.30%) Security Operations Centre
16 37 (1.27%) Smartphone
17 35 (1.20%) CMDB
18 33 (1.13%) Operational Technology
19 32 (1.10%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 731 (25.10%) Linux
2 702 (24.11%) Windows Server
3 489 (16.79%) Windows 10
4 182 (6.25%) Mac OS
5 154 (5.29%) Unix
6 143 (4.91%) Apple iOS
7 136 (4.67%) Android
8 102 (3.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 79 (2.71%) Windows Server 2019
10 65 (2.23%) Windows Server 2016
11 53 (1.82%) Windows 7
12 39 (1.34%) Windows Server 2012
13 33 (1.13%) AIX
14 29 (1.00%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.82%) Solaris
16 21 (0.72%) VMS
17 18 (0.62%) Windows Server 2003
18 17 (0.58%) Windows Server 2008
19 13 (0.45%) CentOS
20 9 (0.31%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 640 (21.98%) Problem-Solving
2 437 (15.01%) ITIL
3 420 (14.42%) Customer Service
4 346 (11.88%) Migration
5 343 (11.78%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 295 (10.13%) ITSM
7 276 (9.48%) Agile
8 263 (9.03%) DevOps
9 243 (8.34%) CI/CD
10 205 (7.04%) Continuous Improvement
11 202 (6.94%) Service Management
12 197 (6.77%) High Availability
13 193 (6.63%) Change Management
14 180 (6.18%) Disaster Recovery
15 177 (6.08%) Cybersecurity
16 162 (5.56%) Infrastructure as Code
17 154 (5.29%) SIEM
18 150 (5.15%) Stakeholder Management
19 145 (4.98%) Service Delivery
20 139 (4.77%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 624 (21.43%) PowerShell
2 299 (10.27%) Python
3 274 (9.41%) SQL
4 124 (4.26%) C#
5 116 (3.98%) Bash
6 74 (2.54%) Java
7 66 (2.27%) JavaScript
8 53 (1.82%) PL/SQL
9 49 (1.68%) C++
10 44 (1.51%) T-SQL
11 31 (1.06%) Perl
12 26 (0.89%) Shell Script
13 25 (0.86%) Kusto Query Language
14 24 (0.82%) VB
15 23 (0.79%) Search Processing Language
16 19 (0.65%) Bicep
16 19 (0.65%) VBScript
17 13 (0.45%) C
17 13 (0.45%) VBA
18 11 (0.38%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 838 (28.78%) Security Cleared
2 548 (18.82%) SC Cleared
3 308 (10.58%) Degree
4 260 (8.93%) DV Cleared
5 113 (3.88%) Microsoft Certification
6 95 (3.26%) Cisco Certification
7 88 (3.02%) Computer Science Degree
8 67 (2.30%) CISSP
9 54 (1.85%) Azure Certification
10 51 (1.75%) MCSE
11 46 (1.58%) BPSS Clearance
12 44 (1.51%) AWS Certification
13 42 (1.44%) CCNA
14 39 (1.34%) CompTIA Security+
15 34 (1.17%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 31 (1.06%) CCNP
17 30 (1.03%) MCSA
18 28 (0.96%) CISM
18 28 (0.96%) ITIL Certification
19 23 (0.79%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 124 (4.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 114 (3.91%) SLA
3 92 (3.16%) NIST
4 82 (2.82%) QA
5 69 (2.37%) GDPR
6 38 (1.30%) PCI DSS
7 31 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 25 (0.86%) Cyber Essentials
9 17 (0.58%) NCSC
10 13 (0.45%) Disclosure Scotland
11 12 (0.41%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.41%) PMO
11 12 (0.41%) SOC 2
12 11 (0.38%) HIPAA
12 11 (0.38%) MiFID
13 10 (0.34%) FINRA
13 10 (0.34%) NIST 800
14 9 (0.31%) GRC
15 6 (0.21%) Accessibility
15 6 (0.21%) GLBA
System Software
1 1,077 (36.98%) Active Directory
2 370 (12.71%) VMware Infrastructure
3 157 (5.39%) Hyper-V
4 112 (3.85%) VMware ESXi
5 106 (3.64%) vSphere
6 95 (3.26%) Virtual Machines
7 91 (3.13%) Docker
8 64 (2.20%) Virtual Desktop
9 55 (1.89%) VMware NSX
10 39 (1.34%) Firmware
11 37 (1.27%) BitLocker
12 27 (0.93%) Microsoft App-V
13 20 (0.69%) KVM
14 11 (0.38%) Oracle RAC
14 11 (0.38%) vCloud
14 11 (0.38%) XenDesktop
15 10 (0.34%) XenApp
16 8 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
17 6 (0.21%) etcd
17 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 388 (13.32%) Microsoft Intune
2 254 (8.72%) SCCM
3 198 (6.80%) Ansible
4 175 (6.01%) Terraform
5 139 (4.77%) Kubernetes
6 86 (2.95%) vCenter Server
7 53 (1.82%) Single Sign-On
8 51 (1.75%) Jamf Pro
9 45 (1.55%) FortiGate
10 40 (1.37%) SCOM
11 38 (1.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 38 (1.30%) Grafana
12 37 (1.27%) WSUS
13 35 (1.20%) Progress Chef
14 33 (1.13%) Prometheus
15 26 (0.89%) Puppet
16 23 (0.79%) Nagios
17 21 (0.72%) ZABBIX
18 20 (0.69%) Tivoli
19 19 (0.65%) Nessus
Vendors
1 1,247 (42.82%) Microsoft
2 475 (16.31%) VMware
3 262 (9.00%) ServiceNow
4 220 (7.55%) Cisco
5 193 (6.63%) Citrix
6 183 (6.28%) Oracle
7 156 (5.36%) Splunk
8 79 (2.71%) HP
9 75 (2.58%) SolarWinds
10 71 (2.44%) Dell
11 66 (2.27%) Red Hat
12 64 (2.20%) Apple
13 59 (2.03%) F5
13 59 (2.03%) Google
14 57 (1.96%) Remedy
15 56 (1.92%) CyberArk
16 54 (1.85%) Palo Alto
17 52 (1.79%) IBM
18 47 (1.61%) BeyondTrust
18 47 (1.61%) Juniper