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

6 months to
11 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 3,103 2,641 3,619
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.87% 8.14% 8.42%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.82% 59.90% 60.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,988 1,755 2,414
10th Percentile £163 £180 £165
25th Percentile £225 £230 £240
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.56%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £663 £656
UK excluding London median daily rate £418 £400 £430
% change year-on-year +4.38% -6.98% +8.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 269 194 303
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.19 £12.05
25th Percentile £17.92 £17.03 £14.60
Median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.46% -5.65% -16.05%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £40.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £18.13
% change year-on-year +36.46% +4.08% -17.59%

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 5,102 4,409 5,936
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.65% 13.59% 13.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,265 2,848 3,880
10th Percentile £190 £200 £190
25th Percentile £315 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -2.11% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £579 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -2.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 343 238 439
10th Percentile £15.76 £15.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.01 £16.25
Median hourly rate £26.00 £23.00 £24.86
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -7.46% -41.52%
75th Percentile £63.75 £54.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.44 £21.28 £31.13
% change year-on-year +24.25% -31.63% +4.97%

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 11 July 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 11 July 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 11 July 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 -6 2,710 £425 +2.39% 928
UK excluding London -13 2,042 £418 +4.38% 868
London -17 886 £425 -3.41% 207
Work from Home -8 661 £475 +0.26% 317
South East -9 551 £475 -3.46% 302
North of England -8 479 £363 +3.57% 207
Midlands -16 281 £338 +14.41% 114
South West -12 275 £488 +8.33% 104
North West -7 254 £354 -1.06% 109
East of England 0 220 £300 +17.82% 95
Yorkshire -14 203 £365 -9.88% 65
West Midlands -26 176 £450 +50.00% 55
Scotland -5 174 £425 -2.86% 36
East Midlands +8 100 £270 +35.00% 59
Wales +11 58 £408 +48.18% 21
North East -33 26 £273 -0.91% 41
Northern Ireland -2 16 £139 -28.97% 24
Channel Islands +3 3 £518 - 4

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
1 242 (7.80%) Microsoft Exchange
2 214 (6.90%) SharePoint
3 67 (2.16%) IIS
4 57 (1.84%) Confluence
5 19 (0.61%) Apache
5 19 (0.61%) Tomcat
6 18 (0.58%) nginx
7 14 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
7 14 (0.45%) Skype for Business
8 10 (0.32%) WebLogic
9 9 (0.29%) HCL Notes
9 9 (0.29%) NetWeaver
10 7 (0.23%) Appian
11 6 (0.19%) Documentum
12 5 (0.16%) Camunda
12 5 (0.16%) SAS
13 4 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.097%) CloudStack
14 3 (0.097%) Exchange Server 2010
14 3 (0.097%) WebSphere
Applications
1 194 (6.25%) Microsoft Office
2 71 (2.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.16%) PTC Creo
5 5 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.13%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.097%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.032%) Acrobat
8 1 (0.032%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.032%) Houdini
8 1 (0.032%) InDesign
8 1 (0.032%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 44 (1.42%) Remedy ITSM
2 20 (0.64%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.39%) Teamcenter
4 10 (0.32%) Finacle
5 6 (0.19%) OpenText MBPM
5 6 (0.19%) Oracle BPM
6 4 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
7 3 (0.097%) assyst
8 1 (0.032%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.032%) Dynamics GP
8 1 (0.032%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.032%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.032%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.032%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.032%) SAP EWM
8 1 (0.032%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 937 (30.20%) Azure
2 878 (28.30%) Microsoft 365
3 421 (13.57%) Entra ID
4 320 (10.31%) AWS
5 123 (3.96%) OneDrive
6 97 (3.13%) Azure DevOps
7 94 (3.03%) GCP
8 78 (2.51%) SaaS
9 67 (2.16%) GitHub
10 64 (2.06%) Power Platform
11 63 (2.03%) IaaS
12 56 (1.80%) Azure Monitor
13 55 (1.77%) PaaS
14 40 (1.29%) OpenShift
15 38 (1.22%) Azure Sentinel
16 32 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
17 29 (0.93%) AWS CloudFormation
17 29 (0.93%) Google Workspace
18 25 (0.81%) Azure AKS
19 24 (0.77%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 443 (14.28%) DNS
2 314 (10.12%) Firewall
3 301 (9.70%) DHCP
4 229 (7.38%) VPN
5 195 (6.28%) TCP/IP
6 181 (5.83%) LAN
7 175 (5.64%) WAN
8 151 (4.87%) Wi-Fi
9 101 (3.25%) SAN
10 67 (2.16%) Network Security
11 64 (2.06%) VLAN
12 47 (1.51%) BGP
12 47 (1.51%) NAS
13 46 (1.48%) SSL
14 44 (1.42%) Internet
15 37 (1.19%) OSPF
15 37 (1.19%) SD-WAN
15 37 (1.19%) VoIP
16 36 (1.16%) Wireless
17 33 (1.06%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 274 (8.83%) SQL Server
2 63 (2.03%) Oracle Database
3 42 (1.35%) Power BI
4 35 (1.13%) Relational Database
5 32 (1.03%) PostgreSQL
6 27 (0.87%) MySQL
7 24 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 20 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
9 19 (0.61%) Db2
10 17 (0.55%) Elasticsearch
11 15 (0.48%) Data Warehouse
12 14 (0.45%) NoSQL
12 14 (0.45%) RDBMS
13 11 (0.35%) MongoDB
13 11 (0.35%) Oracle Reports
14 10 (0.32%) GIS
15 9 (0.29%) Geospatial Data
15 9 (0.29%) SAP HANA
16 8 (0.26%) Azure SQL Database
16 8 (0.26%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 182 (5.87%) JIRA
2 68 (2.19%) Git
3 61 (1.97%) Jenkins
4 49 (1.58%) MSI
5 43 (1.39%) GitLab
6 42 (1.35%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.55%) Eclipse
8 9 (0.29%) Bitbucket
8 9 (0.29%) Chocolatey
8 9 (0.29%) Team Foundation Server
9 7 (0.23%) Browser DevTools
9 7 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (0.19%) Android Studio
10 6 (0.19%) Artifactory
10 6 (0.19%) InstallShield
10 6 (0.19%) Xcode
11 5 (0.16%) AdminStudio
11 5 (0.16%) Maven
11 5 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
11 5 (0.16%) Selenium
General
1 1,098 (35.39%) Social Skills
2 349 (11.25%) Analytical Skills
3 326 (10.51%) Finance
4 216 (6.96%) Public Sector
5 157 (5.06%) Banking
6 110 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
7 109 (3.51%) Legal
8 89 (2.87%) Organisational Skills
9 62 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 53 (1.71%) Retail
11 44 (1.42%) Manufacturing
11 44 (1.42%) Military
12 37 (1.19%) Front Office
13 35 (1.13%) Investment Banking
14 34 (1.10%) Telecoms
15 31 (1.00%) Law
16 25 (0.81%) Spanish Language
17 24 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
18 23 (0.74%) French Language
19 21 (0.68%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 425 (13.70%) Support Engineer
2 399 (12.86%) IT Support
3 301 (9.70%) Analyst
4 290 (9.35%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 282 (9.09%) IT Engineer
6 237 (7.64%) IT Support Engineer
7 200 (6.45%) Senior
8 149 (4.80%) Architect
9 125 (4.03%) Desktop Support
10 121 (3.90%) Developer
11 118 (3.80%) 2nd Line Support
12 115 (3.71%) Lead
13 110 (3.54%) Desktop Engineer
14 108 (3.48%) Support Analyst
15 98 (3.16%) Consultant
16 96 (3.09%) Cloud Engineer
17 93 (3.00%) Windows Engineer
18 92 (2.96%) IT Analyst
19 85 (2.74%) Service Analyst
20 82 (2.64%) Service Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 120 (3.87%) .NET
2 112 (3.61%) REST
3 67 (2.16%) .NET Framework
4 45 (1.45%) LDAP
5 36 (1.16%) Middleware
6 34 (1.10%) SAML
6 34 (1.10%) WinForms
7 31 (1.00%) 802.1X
8 30 (0.97%) WPF
9 29 (0.93%) Microsoft Graph
9 29 (0.93%) Web Services
10 28 (0.90%) Software Packaging
11 26 (0.84%) Kafka
12 25 (0.81%) Elastic Stack
12 25 (0.81%) JSON
13 24 (0.77%) HTML
13 24 (0.77%) OAuth
14 23 (0.74%) CSS
15 21 (0.68%) RESTful
16 20 (0.64%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 300 (9.67%) Onboarding
2 166 (5.35%) Data Centre
3 145 (4.67%) PKI
4 87 (2.80%) Enterprise Software
5 80 (2.58%) Clustering
6 79 (2.55%) Management Information System
7 73 (2.35%) Self-Motivation
8 71 (2.29%) Replication
9 70 (2.26%) Driving Licence
10 68 (2.19%) Cloud Native
11 59 (1.90%) Legacy Systems
12 53 (1.71%) Security Posture
13 52 (1.68%) Hybrid Cloud
13 52 (1.68%) Virtual Team
14 44 (1.42%) Video Conferencing
15 40 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
16 37 (1.19%) Linux Command Line
17 34 (1.10%) Operational Technology
18 33 (1.06%) Smartphone
19 31 (1.00%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 759 (24.46%) Linux
2 756 (24.36%) Windows Server
3 519 (16.73%) Windows 10
4 197 (6.35%) Mac OS
5 160 (5.16%) Unix
6 139 (4.48%) Android
6 139 (4.48%) Apple iOS
7 122 (3.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 78 (2.51%) Windows Server 2019
9 59 (1.90%) Windows Server 2016
10 48 (1.55%) Windows 7
11 40 (1.29%) Windows Server 2012
12 37 (1.19%) Ubuntu
13 36 (1.16%) AIX
14 24 (0.77%) Solaris
15 22 (0.71%) VMS
16 18 (0.58%) CentOS
17 17 (0.55%) Windows Server 2008
18 15 (0.48%) Windows Server 2003
19 9 (0.29%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 695 (22.40%) Problem-Solving
2 497 (16.02%) ITIL
3 456 (14.70%) Customer Service
4 373 (12.02%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 364 (11.73%) Migration
6 328 (10.57%) ITSM
7 299 (9.64%) DevOps
8 266 (8.57%) Agile
9 265 (8.54%) CI/CD
10 262 (8.44%) Continuous Improvement
11 230 (7.41%) Service Management
12 217 (6.99%) High Availability
13 199 (6.41%) Infrastructure as Code
14 194 (6.25%) Change Management
15 175 (5.64%) Disaster Recovery
16 174 (5.61%) Stakeholder Management
17 172 (5.54%) Cybersecurity
18 170 (5.48%) Service Delivery
19 154 (4.96%) Runbook
19 154 (4.96%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 655 (21.11%) PowerShell
2 321 (10.34%) Python
3 306 (9.86%) SQL
4 150 (4.83%) C#
5 137 (4.42%) Bash
6 75 (2.42%) Java
7 67 (2.16%) JavaScript
8 62 (2.00%) PL/SQL
8 62 (2.00%) T-SQL
9 51 (1.64%) C++
10 26 (0.84%) Perl
11 25 (0.81%) Bicep
11 25 (0.81%) Search Processing Language
11 25 (0.81%) VB
11 25 (0.81%) VBScript
12 22 (0.71%) Shell Script
13 21 (0.68%) VBA
14 20 (0.64%) Kusto Query Language
15 17 (0.55%) TypeScript
16 14 (0.45%) C
Qualifications
1 920 (29.65%) Security Cleared
2 596 (19.21%) SC Cleared
3 314 (10.12%) Degree
4 288 (9.28%) DV Cleared
5 125 (4.03%) Microsoft Certification
6 100 (3.22%) Cisco Certification
7 84 (2.71%) Computer Science Degree
8 64 (2.06%) CISSP
9 61 (1.97%) Azure Certification
10 60 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
11 49 (1.58%) AWS Certification
12 48 (1.55%) MCSE
13 45 (1.45%) CCNA
14 34 (1.10%) CCNP
15 32 (1.03%) A+ Certification
15 32 (1.03%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 28 (0.90%) ITIL Certification
17 27 (0.87%) CompTIA Security+
18 26 (0.84%) MCSA
19 25 (0.81%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 131 (4.22%) SLA
2 118 (3.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 91 (2.93%) QA
4 89 (2.87%) NIST
5 54 (1.74%) GDPR
6 29 (0.93%) PCI DSS
6 29 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 26 (0.84%) Cyber Essentials
7 26 (0.84%) NCSC
8 16 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
9 14 (0.45%) Data Quality
10 13 (0.42%) PMO
11 12 (0.39%) Accessibility
11 12 (0.39%) GxP
12 11 (0.35%) HIPAA
13 10 (0.32%) GMP
13 10 (0.32%) GRC
13 10 (0.32%) NIST 800
13 10 (0.32%) SOC 2
14 9 (0.29%) WCAG
System Software
1 1,189 (38.32%) Active Directory
2 401 (12.92%) VMware Infrastructure
3 165 (5.32%) Hyper-V
4 126 (4.06%) VMware ESXi
5 110 (3.54%) vSphere
6 106 (3.42%) Virtual Machines
7 101 (3.25%) Docker
8 77 (2.48%) Virtual Desktop
9 65 (2.09%) VMware NSX
10 40 (1.29%) Firmware
11 37 (1.19%) BitLocker
12 27 (0.87%) Microsoft App-V
13 18 (0.58%) KVM
14 14 (0.45%) vCloud
15 9 (0.29%) NFS
15 9 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
16 8 (0.26%) VMware Workstation
16 8 (0.26%) XenDesktop
17 7 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
17 7 (0.23%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 422 (13.60%) Microsoft Intune
2 281 (9.06%) SCCM
3 220 (7.09%) Terraform
4 205 (6.61%) Ansible
5 163 (5.25%) Kubernetes
6 100 (3.22%) vCenter Server
7 57 (1.84%) Jamf Pro
8 55 (1.77%) SCOM
9 54 (1.74%) Single Sign-On
10 42 (1.35%) FortiGate
11 40 (1.29%) WSUS
12 37 (1.19%) Progress Chef
13 34 (1.10%) Grafana
13 34 (1.10%) Prometheus
14 33 (1.06%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 29 (0.93%) Puppet
16 25 (0.81%) Nagios
17 22 (0.71%) Packer
17 22 (0.71%) ZABBIX
18 21 (0.68%) Nessus
Vendors
1 1,339 (43.15%) Microsoft
2 524 (16.89%) VMware
3 296 (9.54%) ServiceNow
4 217 (6.99%) Cisco
5 207 (6.67%) Citrix
6 203 (6.54%) Oracle
7 140 (4.51%) Splunk
8 89 (2.87%) Apple
9 83 (2.67%) SolarWinds
10 79 (2.55%) HP
11 78 (2.51%) CyberArk
12 75 (2.42%) Red Hat
13 71 (2.29%) Dell
14 67 (2.16%) Google
15 65 (2.09%) BeyondTrust
16 58 (1.87%) F5
17 55 (1.77%) Remedy
18 54 (1.74%) IBM
19 51 (1.64%) Juniper
20 45 (1.45%) Palo Alto