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

6 months to
22 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -5 -5 -3
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,893 2,493 3,764
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.59% 8.44% 8.50%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.31% 59.10% 63.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,940 1,712 2,541
10th Percentile £162 £181 £156
25th Percentile £208 £225 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £408 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -4.12% +6.25% -10.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £640 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £363 £400 £375
% change year-on-year -9.38% +6.67% -5.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 255 105 285
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.29 £12.40
25th Percentile £16.50 £16.95 £14.16
Median hourly rate £21.46 £22.09 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -2.85% +24.66% -19.45%
75th Percentile £42.35 £29.00 £23.88
90th Percentile £67.84 £63.55 £59.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.28 £22.00 £17.69
% change year-on-year -3.30% +24.36% -6.89%

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 4,797 4,218 5,975
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.92% 14.28% 13.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,146 2,781 3,983
10th Percentile £181 £200 £180
25th Percentile £290 £319 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -12.62%
75th Percentile £565 £589 £594
90th Percentile £654 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £415 £450 £430
% change year-on-year -7.78% +4.65% -9.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 346 157 410
10th Percentile £15.11 £16.60 £13.21
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.51 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.81 £28.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.54% +27.27% -20.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £24.66 £20.85
% change year-on-year -8.76% +18.26% -19.80%

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 22 March 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 22 March 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 22 March 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 2,548 £408 -1.21% 1,006
UK excluding London -8 1,930 £363 -9.38% 905
London -18 772 £430 +1.18% 227
Work from Home -19 584 £450 -2.70% 364
South East -3 534 £450 -4.26% 291
North of England -8 478 £290 -17.14% 209
Midlands -15 268 £325 - 123
South West -6 262 £450 -16.08% 122
North West -6 258 £260 -25.71% 129
East of England +5 215 £258 +14.19% 109
Yorkshire -14 193 £355 -11.25% 65
West Midlands -29 158 £447 +37.54% 72
Scotland -4 132 £425 -3.08% 50
East Midlands -3 106 £200 -20.00% 51
Wales +1 48 £200 -45.21% 19
North East -14 30 £184 -38.75% 21
Northern Ireland -14 8 £175 +9.38% 6
Channel Islands +4 1 - - 1

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
1 249 (8.61%) Microsoft Exchange
2 170 (5.88%) SharePoint
3 58 (2.00%) Confluence
4 46 (1.59%) IIS
5 27 (0.93%) Apache
6 22 (0.76%) WebLogic
7 13 (0.45%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.41%) Tomcat
8 12 (0.41%) TPMS
8 12 (0.41%) Tuxedo
9 11 (0.38%) SAS
10 10 (0.35%) nginx
11 6 (0.21%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.21%) WebSphere
12 5 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.14%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.10%) ArcGIS
14 3 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2010
14 3 (0.10%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 230 (7.95%) Microsoft Office
2 70 (2.42%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (0.41%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.17%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.17%) PTC Creo
7 4 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.035%) InDesign
8 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 29 (1.00%) Remedy ITSM
2 17 (0.59%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.24%) assyst
3 7 (0.24%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
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
6 2 (0.069%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.069%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.069%) SystmOne
7 1 (0.035%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.035%) Eikon
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.035%) RMDS
7 1 (0.035%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 821 (28.38%) Microsoft 365
2 758 (26.20%) Azure
3 303 (10.47%) Entra ID
4 221 (7.64%) AWS
5 99 (3.42%) OneDrive
6 71 (2.45%) GCP
7 70 (2.42%) SaaS
8 67 (2.32%) Azure DevOps
9 56 (1.94%) Google Workspace
10 49 (1.69%) GitHub
11 47 (1.62%) IaaS
12 42 (1.45%) Power Platform
13 41 (1.42%) PaaS
14 33 (1.14%) Azure Monitor
15 30 (1.04%) Azure Sentinel
16 26 (0.90%) OpenShift
17 24 (0.83%) AWS CloudFormation
17 24 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
18 23 (0.80%) Nutanix
19 17 (0.59%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 386 (13.34%) DNS
2 339 (11.72%) Firewall
3 249 (8.61%) DHCP
4 194 (6.71%) VPN
5 189 (6.53%) TCP/IP
6 166 (5.74%) WAN
7 164 (5.67%) LAN
8 163 (5.63%) Wi-Fi
9 78 (2.70%) Network Security
10 62 (2.14%) VLAN
11 59 (2.04%) Wireless
12 57 (1.97%) SAN
13 40 (1.38%) BGP
14 39 (1.35%) SSL
15 38 (1.31%) Skype
16 37 (1.28%) SSH
17 36 (1.24%) SD-WAN
17 36 (1.24%) VoIP
18 34 (1.18%) HTTP
19 30 (1.04%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (5.88%) SQL Server
2 57 (1.97%) Oracle Database
3 39 (1.35%) Relational Database
4 37 (1.28%) MySQL
5 25 (0.86%) PostgreSQL
6 17 (0.59%) Power BI
7 16 (0.55%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (0.48%) DB2
8 14 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
9 13 (0.45%) BigQuery
10 12 (0.41%) MongoDB
10 12 (0.41%) Oracle Reports
11 11 (0.38%) SAP HANA
12 10 (0.35%) GIS
13 9 (0.31%) NoSQL
14 7 (0.24%) Sybase ASE
15 6 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
15 6 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
15 6 (0.21%) Data Lake
15 6 (0.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 173 (5.98%) JIRA
2 66 (2.28%) GitLab
2 66 (2.28%) Jenkins
3 59 (2.04%) Git
4 41 (1.42%) MSI
5 34 (1.18%) Visual Studio
6 25 (0.86%) Eclipse
7 17 (0.59%) Burp Suite
7 17 (0.59%) Metasploit
8 15 (0.52%) Android Studio
8 15 (0.52%) Artifactory
9 13 (0.45%) Xcode
10 11 (0.38%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.38%) Browser DevTools
11 10 (0.35%) Chocolatey
12 9 (0.31%) InstallShield
13 8 (0.28%) JUnit
14 7 (0.24%) Robot Framework
14 7 (0.24%) Selenium
15 6 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1,032 (35.67%) Social Skills
2 276 (9.54%) Finance
3 260 (8.99%) Analytical Skills
4 244 (8.43%) Public Sector
5 139 (4.80%) Banking
6 130 (4.49%) Legal
7 113 (3.91%) Documentation Skills
8 85 (2.94%) Organisational Skills
9 60 (2.07%) Military
10 57 (1.97%) Manufacturing
11 43 (1.49%) Presentation Skills
12 37 (1.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 37 (1.28%) Telecoms
13 36 (1.24%) Retail
14 27 (0.93%) Law
15 25 (0.86%) Investment Banking
16 21 (0.73%) Front Office
17 20 (0.69%) Aerospace
17 20 (0.69%) Local Government
18 16 (0.55%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 385 (13.31%) IT Support
2 384 (13.27%) Support Engineer
3 370 (12.79%) Analyst
4 228 (7.88%) IT Engineer
5 189 (6.53%) IT Support Engineer
6 186 (6.43%) Architect
7 185 (6.39%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 167 (5.77%) Senior
9 152 (5.25%) Support Analyst
10 127 (4.39%) Desktop Support
11 114 (3.94%) Windows Engineer
12 110 (3.80%) Developer
12 110 (3.80%) Technical Support
13 108 (3.73%) 2nd Line Support
14 104 (3.59%) Desktop Engineer
15 93 (3.21%) Lead
16 92 (3.18%) IT Analyst
17 80 (2.77%) Consultant
18 76 (2.63%) Desktop Support Engineer
19 73 (2.52%) Deployment Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.04%) .NET
2 73 (2.52%) REST
3 53 (1.83%) LDAP
4 50 (1.73%) .NET Framework
5 48 (1.66%) SAML
6 47 (1.62%) OAuth
7 37 (1.28%) Middleware
8 33 (1.14%) Kafka
9 31 (1.07%) Web Services
10 28 (0.97%) Microsoft Graph
11 27 (0.93%) OpenID
11 27 (0.93%) WPF
12 25 (0.86%) CSS
12 25 (0.86%) React
12 25 (0.86%) WinForms
13 23 (0.80%) AngularJS
14 22 (0.76%) 802.1X
15 21 (0.73%) Node.js
15 21 (0.73%) OAuth2
16 20 (0.69%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 199 (6.88%) Onboarding
2 124 (4.29%) Data Centre
3 108 (3.73%) PKI
4 84 (2.90%) Driving Licence
4 84 (2.90%) Enterprise Software
5 69 (2.39%) Self-Motivation
6 54 (1.87%) Clustering
7 52 (1.80%) Management Information System
8 51 (1.76%) Smartphone
9 50 (1.73%) Replication
10 46 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
11 45 (1.56%) Security Posture
12 44 (1.52%) Hybrid Cloud
13 40 (1.38%) Product Ownership
14 39 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
15 37 (1.28%) Security Operations Centre
16 35 (1.21%) CMDB
16 35 (1.21%) Virtual Team
17 33 (1.14%) NHS
18 29 (1.00%) Cloud Native
Operating Systems
1 701 (24.23%) Linux
2 636 (21.98%) Windows Server
3 569 (19.67%) Windows 10
4 159 (5.50%) Unix
5 152 (5.25%) Mac OS
6 151 (5.22%) Android
7 115 (3.98%) Apple iOS
8 91 (3.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 73 (2.52%) Windows Server 2016
10 61 (2.11%) Windows Server 2019
11 51 (1.76%) Windows 7
12 39 (1.35%) Windows Server 2012
13 36 (1.24%) AIX
14 31 (1.07%) Windows Server 2003
15 18 (0.62%) Solaris
16 15 (0.52%) Ubuntu
16 15 (0.52%) Windows Server 2008
17 14 (0.48%) VMS
18 10 (0.35%) Mac OS X
19 8 (0.28%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 572 (19.77%) Problem-Solving
2 475 (16.42%) Customer Service
3 413 (14.28%) ITIL
4 321 (11.10%) Agile
5 305 (10.54%) Migration
6 279 (9.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 257 (8.88%) DevOps
8 233 (8.05%) CI/CD
9 228 (7.88%) ITSM
10 220 (7.60%) Cybersecurity
11 200 (6.91%) Continuous Improvement
11 200 (6.91%) Service Management
12 174 (6.01%) Change Management
13 170 (5.88%) Disaster Recovery
14 144 (4.98%) Stakeholder Management
15 140 (4.84%) High Availability
16 135 (4.67%) SIEM
17 133 (4.60%) Service Delivery
18 128 (4.42%) Infrastructure as Code
19 127 (4.39%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 611 (21.12%) PowerShell
2 323 (11.16%) Python
3 257 (8.88%) SQL
4 126 (4.36%) C#
5 121 (4.18%) Bash
6 99 (3.42%) Java
7 77 (2.66%) JavaScript
8 58 (2.00%) C++
8 58 (2.00%) PL/SQL
9 56 (1.94%) Perl
10 39 (1.35%) T-SQL
11 32 (1.11%) Kusto Query Language
12 24 (0.83%) Shell Script
13 23 (0.80%) VB
14 21 (0.73%) VBScript
15 14 (0.48%) Bicep
15 14 (0.48%) VBA
16 13 (0.45%) Go
16 13 (0.45%) Search Processing Language
17 12 (0.41%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 897 (31.01%) Security Cleared
2 599 (20.71%) SC Cleared
3 296 (10.23%) Degree
4 254 (8.78%) DV Cleared
5 131 (4.53%) Microsoft Certification
6 93 (3.21%) Computer Science Degree
7 66 (2.28%) Cisco Certification
8 46 (1.59%) MCSE
9 45 (1.56%) Azure Certification
10 43 (1.49%) ITIL Certification
11 42 (1.45%) CISSP
12 38 (1.31%) BPSS Clearance
12 38 (1.31%) CompTIA Security+
13 33 (1.14%) CCNA
14 32 (1.11%) AWS Certification
15 29 (1.00%) CCNP
16 27 (0.93%) A+ Certification
17 24 (0.83%) MCSA
18 22 (0.76%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
19 21 (0.73%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 95 (3.28%) GDPR
2 92 (3.18%) SLA
3 90 (3.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 86 (2.97%) QA
5 63 (2.18%) NIST
6 43 (1.49%) PCI DSS
7 24 (0.83%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 19 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.55%) PMO
10 15 (0.52%) NCSC
11 13 (0.45%) MiFID
12 12 (0.41%) GLBA
13 10 (0.35%) FINRA
14 9 (0.31%) Data Quality
14 9 (0.31%) NIST 800
15 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
16 5 (0.17%) GMP
16 5 (0.17%) GxP
16 5 (0.17%) HIPAA
17 4 (0.14%) COBIT
System Software
1 1,064 (36.78%) Active Directory
2 293 (10.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 122 (4.22%) Hyper-V
4 108 (3.73%) Docker
5 69 (2.39%) vSphere
6 57 (1.97%) Virtual Desktop
6 57 (1.97%) Virtual Machines
6 57 (1.97%) VMware ESXi
7 35 (1.21%) VMware NSX
8 30 (1.04%) Firmware
9 28 (0.97%) BitLocker
10 24 (0.83%) Microsoft App-V
11 16 (0.55%) KVM
12 10 (0.35%) XenApp
12 10 (0.35%) XenDesktop
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
14 7 (0.24%) Terminal Services
15 6 (0.21%) etcd
15 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
16 4 (0.14%) NFS
Systems Management
1 375 (12.96%) Microsoft Intune
2 334 (11.55%) SCCM
3 182 (6.29%) Terraform
4 178 (6.15%) Ansible
5 138 (4.77%) Kubernetes
6 79 (2.73%) Single Sign-On
7 69 (2.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 59 (2.04%) vCenter Server
9 45 (1.56%) Jamf Pro
10 38 (1.31%) Grafana
11 36 (1.24%) FortiGate
12 33 (1.14%) WSUS
13 31 (1.07%) Prometheus
14 23 (0.80%) SCOM
15 21 (0.73%) Progress Chef
16 17 (0.59%) Nessus
16 17 (0.59%) Puppet
16 17 (0.59%) WMI
17 16 (0.55%) Nagios
17 16 (0.55%) Nmap
Vendors
1 1,247 (43.10%) Microsoft
2 400 (13.83%) VMware
3 247 (8.54%) ServiceNow
4 210 (7.26%) Citrix
5 187 (6.46%) Oracle
6 181 (6.26%) Cisco
7 155 (5.36%) Splunk
8 89 (3.08%) HP
9 73 (2.52%) Dell
10 69 (2.39%) Red Hat
11 65 (2.25%) SolarWinds
12 63 (2.18%) Google
13 61 (2.11%) Apple
14 55 (1.90%) IBM
15 46 (1.59%) SAP
16 45 (1.56%) Remedy
17 44 (1.52%) Juniper
18 43 (1.49%) Veeam
19 41 (1.42%) Palo Alto
20 38 (1.31%) F5