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

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -6 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,948 2,519 3,556
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.81% 8.41% 8.15%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.91% 60.31% 60.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,893 1,709 2,393
10th Percentile £165 £181 £165
25th Percentile £223 £240 £235
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.56%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £400 £430
% change year-on-year +3.13% -6.98% +10.97%
Number of hourly rates quoted 249 175 294
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.12 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.25 £16.95 £14.27
Median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £18.65
Median % change year-on-year +36.46% +1.18% -24.25%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £31.72
90th Percentile £68.40 £63.55 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.82 £17.72
% change year-on-year +36.82% +6.21% -21.24%

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 4,840 4,177 5,870
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.53% 13.94% 13.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,094 2,721 3,863
10th Percentile £190 £200 £188
25th Percentile £313 £313 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.54% -2.11% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £585 £588
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £455
% change year-on-year - -1.10% -1.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 331 209 434
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.47 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.44 £16.06
Median hourly rate £28.00 £22.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +27.27% -9.02% -47.43%
75th Percentile £64.38 £41.25 £63.75
90th Percentile £70.23 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.08 £18.87 £27.50
% change year-on-year +43.51% -31.38% -30.56%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -6 2,582 £425 - 878
UK excluding London -14 1,950 £413 +3.13% 810
London -21 831 £425 -2.86% 203
Work from Home -9 625 £480 +3.34% 288
South East -8 520 £475 -5.00% 264
North of England -7 465 £365 +1.96% 170
Midlands -14 276 £335 +21.82% 118
South West -12 256 £488 - 133
North West -6 244 £350 -5.79% 98
East of England 0 217 £336 -7.24% 89
Yorkshire -14 203 £365 -8.75% 53
West Midlands -23 172 £450 +50.00% 56
Scotland -5 167 £425 -1.16% 28
East Midlands +8 99 £225 +12.50% 62
Wales +2 47 £375 +30.43% 19
North East -38 22 £326 +8.75% 24
Northern Ireland -6 14 £139 -30.75% 26
Channel Islands +2 2 £500 -

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
1 230 (7.80%) Microsoft Exchange
2 189 (6.41%) SharePoint
3 61 (2.07%) IIS
4 57 (1.93%) Confluence
5 19 (0.64%) Apache
5 19 (0.64%) Tomcat
6 16 (0.54%) nginx
7 14 (0.47%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
9 10 (0.34%) WebLogic
10 9 (0.31%) NetWeaver
11 8 (0.27%) HCL Notes
12 7 (0.24%) Appian
12 7 (0.24%) SAS
13 5 (0.17%) Camunda
13 5 (0.17%) WebSphere
14 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.14%) Documentum
14 4 (0.14%) TPMS
15 3 (0.10%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 188 (6.38%) Microsoft Office
2 67 (2.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 23 (0.78%) 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 (0.068%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.034%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 42 (1.42%) Remedy ITSM
2 18 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.41%) Teamcenter
4 9 (0.31%) Finacle
5 5 (0.17%) OpenText MBPM
5 5 (0.17%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.10%) assyst
6 3 (0.10%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 2 (0.068%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.068%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.068%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.034%) Dynamics CRM
8 1 (0.034%) Dynamics GP
8 1 (0.034%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.034%) Infor LN
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
1 885 (30.02%) Azure
2 812 (27.54%) Microsoft 365
3 377 (12.79%) Entra ID
4 299 (10.14%) AWS
5 116 (3.93%) OneDrive
6 90 (3.05%) GCP
7 79 (2.68%) Azure DevOps
8 77 (2.61%) SaaS
9 66 (2.24%) GitHub
10 61 (2.07%) IaaS
11 59 (2.00%) Power Platform
12 52 (1.76%) PaaS
13 45 (1.53%) Azure Monitor
14 39 (1.32%) OpenShift
15 38 (1.29%) Azure Sentinel
16 30 (1.02%) Google Workspace
17 29 (0.98%) GitHub Actions
18 25 (0.85%) AWS CloudFormation
19 22 (0.75%) Microsoft Purview
20 21 (0.71%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 392 (13.30%) DNS
2 306 (10.38%) Firewall
3 276 (9.36%) DHCP
4 216 (7.33%) VPN
5 188 (6.38%) WAN
6 182 (6.17%) TCP/IP
7 181 (6.14%) LAN
8 147 (4.99%) Wi-Fi
9 87 (2.95%) SAN
10 66 (2.24%) Network Security
11 58 (1.97%) VLAN
12 45 (1.53%) BGP
13 44 (1.49%) SD-WAN
14 41 (1.39%) Internet
14 41 (1.39%) NAS
15 40 (1.36%) SSL
16 36 (1.22%) VoIP
16 36 (1.22%) Wireless
17 35 (1.19%) OSPF
17 35 (1.19%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 247 (8.38%) SQL Server
2 59 (2.00%) Oracle Database
3 37 (1.26%) Power BI
4 30 (1.02%) Relational Database
5 27 (0.92%) PostgreSQL
6 25 (0.85%) MySQL
7 18 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
8 16 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
8 16 (0.54%) Data Warehouse
8 16 (0.54%) Db2
9 15 (0.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 13 (0.44%) NoSQL
11 12 (0.41%) RDBMS
12 11 (0.37%) MongoDB
13 10 (0.34%) GIS
14 9 (0.31%) SAP HANA
15 8 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
15 8 (0.27%) Oracle BI EE
15 8 (0.27%) Sybase ASE
16 7 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 183 (6.21%) JIRA
2 53 (1.80%) Git
3 50 (1.70%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.46%) GitLab
4 43 (1.46%) MSI
5 39 (1.32%) Visual Studio
6 17 (0.58%) Eclipse
7 10 (0.34%) Burp Suite
8 9 (0.31%) Chocolatey
8 9 (0.31%) Metasploit
9 8 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (0.24%) Bitbucket
11 6 (0.20%) Android Studio
11 6 (0.20%) Artifactory
11 6 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
11 6 (0.20%) InstallShield
11 6 (0.20%) Xcode
12 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.17%) Maven
12 5 (0.17%) Selenium
General
1 1,014 (34.40%) Social Skills
2 324 (10.99%) Analytical Skills
3 314 (10.65%) Finance
4 200 (6.78%) Public Sector
5 152 (5.16%) Banking
6 118 (4.00%) Legal
7 105 (3.56%) Documentation Skills
8 78 (2.65%) Organisational Skills
9 58 (1.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 53 (1.80%) Retail
11 49 (1.66%) Military
12 42 (1.42%) Manufacturing
13 37 (1.26%) Investment Banking
14 34 (1.15%) Front Office
15 31 (1.05%) Law
16 29 (0.98%) Presentation Skills
16 29 (0.98%) Telecoms
17 26 (0.88%) Spanish Language
18 23 (0.78%) French Language
19 18 (0.61%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 381 (12.92%) Support Engineer
2 371 (12.58%) IT Support
3 294 (9.97%) Analyst
4 265 (8.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 251 (8.51%) IT Engineer
6 208 (7.06%) IT Support Engineer
7 180 (6.11%) Senior
8 156 (5.29%) Architect
9 120 (4.07%) Desktop Support
10 111 (3.77%) Support Analyst
11 109 (3.70%) Desktop Engineer
12 105 (3.56%) 2nd Line Support
13 101 (3.43%) Developer
14 99 (3.36%) Lead
15 91 (3.09%) IT Analyst
16 90 (3.05%) Windows Engineer
17 88 (2.99%) Consultant
18 82 (2.78%) Technical Support
19 78 (2.65%) Cloud Engineer
20 74 (2.51%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (3.46%) .NET
2 96 (3.26%) REST
3 59 (2.00%) .NET Framework
4 43 (1.46%) LDAP
5 34 (1.15%) Microsoft Graph
5 34 (1.15%) SAML
6 31 (1.05%) Middleware
7 30 (1.02%) 802.1X
8 27 (0.92%) Software Packaging
8 27 (0.92%) Web Services
9 26 (0.88%) Kafka
9 26 (0.88%) WinForms
9 26 (0.88%) WPF
10 25 (0.85%) OAuth
11 22 (0.75%) Elastic Stack
12 20 (0.68%) CSS
13 18 (0.61%) JSON
14 17 (0.58%) Node.js
14 17 (0.58%) RESTful
15 16 (0.54%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 274 (9.29%) Onboarding
2 161 (5.46%) Data Centre
3 127 (4.31%) PKI
4 88 (2.99%) Enterprise Software
5 73 (2.48%) Clustering
6 72 (2.44%) Self-Motivation
7 67 (2.27%) Management Information System
8 61 (2.07%) Driving Licence
9 60 (2.04%) Cloud Native
10 56 (1.90%) Replication
11 55 (1.87%) Security Posture
12 54 (1.83%) Legacy Systems
13 52 (1.76%) Hybrid Cloud
14 51 (1.73%) Virtual Team
15 41 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
16 35 (1.19%) Smartphone
17 34 (1.15%) CMDB
18 32 (1.09%) Operational Technology
19 31 (1.05%) Analytical Mindset
20 30 (1.02%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 730 (24.76%) Linux
2 703 (23.85%) Windows Server
3 491 (16.66%) Windows 10
4 181 (6.14%) Mac OS
5 154 (5.22%) Unix
6 141 (4.78%) Apple iOS
7 139 (4.72%) Android
8 106 (3.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 76 (2.58%) Windows Server 2019
10 60 (2.04%) Windows Server 2016
11 51 (1.73%) Windows 7
12 37 (1.26%) Windows Server 2012
13 34 (1.15%) AIX
14 29 (0.98%) Ubuntu
15 24 (0.81%) Solaris
16 21 (0.71%) VMS
17 17 (0.58%) Windows Server 2008
18 16 (0.54%) Windows Server 2003
19 13 (0.44%) CentOS
20 9 (0.31%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 652 (22.12%) Problem-Solving
2 447 (15.16%) ITIL
3 428 (14.52%) Customer Service
4 344 (11.67%) Migration
5 340 (11.53%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 301 (10.21%) ITSM
7 274 (9.29%) DevOps
8 271 (9.19%) Agile
9 253 (8.58%) CI/CD
10 229 (7.77%) Continuous Improvement
11 209 (7.09%) Service Management
12 206 (6.99%) High Availability
13 197 (6.68%) Change Management
14 172 (5.83%) Disaster Recovery
15 170 (5.77%) Infrastructure as Code
16 160 (5.43%) Cybersecurity
17 154 (5.22%) Stakeholder Management
18 153 (5.19%) Service Delivery
19 143 (4.85%) SIEM
20 142 (4.82%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 624 (21.17%) PowerShell
2 301 (10.21%) Python
3 284 (9.63%) SQL
4 130 (4.41%) C#
5 119 (4.04%) Bash
6 69 (2.34%) Java
7 66 (2.24%) JavaScript
8 55 (1.87%) PL/SQL
9 50 (1.70%) C++
10 47 (1.59%) T-SQL
11 27 (0.92%) Perl
12 24 (0.81%) Kusto Query Language
12 24 (0.81%) VB
13 23 (0.78%) Search Processing Language
13 23 (0.78%) Shell Script
14 21 (0.71%) Bicep
15 20 (0.68%) VBScript
16 14 (0.47%) TypeScript
17 13 (0.44%) C
17 13 (0.44%) VBA
Qualifications
1 849 (28.80%) Security Cleared
2 553 (18.76%) SC Cleared
3 314 (10.65%) Degree
4 256 (8.68%) DV Cleared
5 112 (3.80%) Microsoft Certification
6 96 (3.26%) Cisco Certification
7 82 (2.78%) Computer Science Degree
8 66 (2.24%) CISSP
9 55 (1.87%) Azure Certification
10 47 (1.59%) MCSE
11 46 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
12 45 (1.53%) AWS Certification
13 43 (1.46%) CCNA
14 31 (1.05%) CCNP
15 30 (1.02%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 29 (0.98%) CompTIA Security+
17 28 (0.95%) ITIL Certification
18 27 (0.92%) MCSA
19 26 (0.88%) CISM
20 23 (0.78%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 126 (4.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 114 (3.87%) SLA
3 91 (3.09%) NIST
4 86 (2.92%) QA
5 67 (2.27%) GDPR
6 36 (1.22%) PCI DSS
7 32 (1.09%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 26 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials
9 19 (0.64%) NCSC
10 13 (0.44%) Disclosure Scotland
10 13 (0.44%) PMO
11 12 (0.41%) Data Quality
12 11 (0.37%) HIPAA
12 11 (0.37%) SOC 2
13 10 (0.34%) FINRA
13 10 (0.34%) GRC
13 10 (0.34%) MiFID
13 10 (0.34%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.27%) Accessibility
15 6 (0.20%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 1,090 (36.97%) Active Directory
2 368 (12.48%) VMware Infrastructure
3 155 (5.26%) Hyper-V
4 113 (3.83%) VMware ESXi
5 101 (3.43%) vSphere
6 94 (3.19%) Virtual Machines
7 90 (3.05%) Docker
8 68 (2.31%) Virtual Desktop
9 54 (1.83%) VMware NSX
10 40 (1.36%) Firmware
11 38 (1.29%) BitLocker
12 27 (0.92%) Microsoft App-V
13 20 (0.68%) KVM
14 12 (0.41%) vCloud
15 11 (0.37%) Oracle RAC
15 11 (0.37%) XenDesktop
16 10 (0.34%) XenApp
17 8 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
18 6 (0.20%) etcd
18 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 391 (13.26%) Microsoft Intune
2 259 (8.79%) SCCM
3 192 (6.51%) Ansible
3 192 (6.51%) Terraform
4 138 (4.68%) Kubernetes
5 85 (2.88%) vCenter Server
6 53 (1.80%) Single Sign-On
7 50 (1.70%) Jamf Pro
8 46 (1.56%) FortiGate
9 40 (1.36%) SCOM
10 39 (1.32%) WSUS
11 37 (1.26%) Progress Chef
12 36 (1.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 31 (1.05%) Grafana
14 30 (1.02%) Prometheus
15 27 (0.92%) Puppet
16 24 (0.81%) Nagios
17 21 (0.71%) ZABBIX
18 20 (0.68%) Nessus
18 20 (0.68%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 1,248 (42.33%) Microsoft
2 474 (16.08%) VMware
3 261 (8.85%) ServiceNow
4 223 (7.56%) Cisco
5 194 (6.58%) Citrix
6 187 (6.34%) Oracle
7 137 (4.65%) Splunk
8 80 (2.71%) HP
9 79 (2.68%) SolarWinds
10 72 (2.44%) Apple
11 70 (2.37%) Red Hat
12 69 (2.34%) Dell
13 62 (2.10%) Google
14 60 (2.04%) CyberArk
15 59 (2.00%) F5
16 54 (1.83%) Remedy
17 53 (1.80%) Palo Alto
18 52 (1.76%) BeyondTrust
18 52 (1.76%) IBM
19 48 (1.63%) Juniper