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

6 months to
2 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,876 2,426 3,503
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.90% 8.38% 8.14%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.53% 60.35% 60.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,854 1,666 2,405
10th Percentile £163 £181 £163
25th Percentile £216 £240 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year - +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £556 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £672
UK excluding London median daily rate £403 £400 £413
% change year-on-year +0.63% -3.03% +6.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 251 151 275
10th Percentile £15.62 £15.09 £11.88
25th Percentile £17.52 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £18.87 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.28% +4.83% -23.40%
75th Percentile £55.25 £25.15 £25.00
90th Percentile £70.59 £53.75 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.26 £18.82 £17.69
% change year-on-year +34.22% +6.39% -16.95%

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 4,751 4,020 5,784
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.74% 13.89% 13.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,028 2,649 3,888
10th Percentile £188 £200 £185
25th Percentile £315 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £467 £470
Median % change year-on-year -1.50% -0.64% -6.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £650 £676 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -3.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 344 184 404
10th Percentile £14.65 £15.15 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.33 £15.50
Median hourly rate £32.50 £22.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +47.73% -2.22% -47.06%
75th Percentile £65.00 £44.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £71.85 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £18.87 £22.79
% change year-on-year +72.23% -17.20% -40.81%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 -9 2,494 £425 -0.12% 1,043
UK excluding London -12 1,932 £403 +0.63% 914
London -20 771 £438 -2.78% 278
Work from Home -12 589 £475 +2.70% 402
South East -7 513 £475 -2.36% 302
North of England -7 472 £365 +4.29% 194
Midlands -16 271 £313 +13.64% 117
North West +1 263 £344 -1.71% 112
South West -13 229 £457 -3.89% 142
East of England 0 220 £350 -8.50% 93
Yorkshire -17 192 £365 -8.75% 61
Scotland +1 174 £425 -2.24% 37
West Midlands -24 158 £450 +57.89% 69
East Midlands +9 108 £213 - 48
Wales -1 51 £318 +5.83% 31
North East -30 21 £290 -3.33% 24
Northern Ireland -1 15 £139 -30.75% 25
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
1 230 (8.00%) Microsoft Exchange
2 179 (6.22%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.16%) IIS
4 51 (1.77%) Confluence
5 23 (0.80%) Apache
6 17 (0.59%) Tomcat
7 16 (0.56%) nginx
8 14 (0.49%) Skype for Business
8 14 (0.49%) WebLogic
9 9 (0.31%) NetWeaver
9 9 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
10 8 (0.28%) HCL Notes
10 8 (0.28%) SAS
11 7 (0.24%) Tuxedo
12 6 (0.21%) TPMS
13 5 (0.17%) Appian
13 5 (0.17%) WebSphere
14 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.10%) Camunda
16 2 (0.070%) Apache Pulsar
Applications
1 183 (6.36%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.28%) 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 (0.070%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 45 (1.56%) Remedy ITSM
2 19 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.42%) 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 (0.070%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.070%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.035%) Dynamics GP
8 1 (0.035%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
8 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 850 (29.55%) Azure
2 807 (28.06%) Microsoft 365
3 354 (12.31%) Entra ID
4 267 (9.28%) AWS
5 100 (3.48%) OneDrive
6 91 (3.16%) GCP
7 76 (2.64%) SaaS
8 73 (2.54%) Azure DevOps
9 64 (2.23%) IaaS
10 63 (2.19%) GitHub
11 57 (1.98%) Power Platform
12 54 (1.88%) PaaS
13 39 (1.36%) OpenShift
14 38 (1.32%) Azure Monitor
15 37 (1.29%) Azure Sentinel
16 34 (1.18%) Google Workspace
17 30 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
18 20 (0.70%) AWS CloudFormation
19 19 (0.66%) Nutanix
20 18 (0.63%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 401 (13.94%) DNS
2 304 (10.57%) Firewall
3 272 (9.46%) DHCP
4 211 (7.34%) VPN
5 177 (6.15%) TCP/IP
6 175 (6.08%) LAN
6 175 (6.08%) WAN
7 144 (5.01%) Wi-Fi
8 83 (2.89%) SAN
9 74 (2.57%) Network Security
10 58 (2.02%) VLAN
11 46 (1.60%) SD-WAN
12 39 (1.36%) BGP
12 39 (1.36%) NAS
13 38 (1.32%) SSL
13 38 (1.32%) Wireless
14 37 (1.29%) Internet
14 37 (1.29%) VoIP
15 36 (1.25%) Skype
16 35 (1.22%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 228 (7.93%) SQL Server
2 52 (1.81%) Oracle Database
3 34 (1.18%) Power BI
4 33 (1.15%) Relational Database
5 30 (1.04%) MySQL
6 25 (0.87%) PostgreSQL
7 18 (0.63%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (0.52%) DB2
8 15 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 14 (0.49%) Data Warehouse
10 13 (0.45%) MongoDB
10 13 (0.45%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.31%) GIS
11 9 (0.31%) SAP HANA
12 8 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
12 8 (0.28%) Oracle BI EE
12 8 (0.28%) RDBMS
12 8 (0.28%) Sybase ASE
13 7 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
13 7 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 180 (6.26%) JIRA
2 53 (1.84%) Jenkins
3 46 (1.60%) GitLab
4 44 (1.53%) Git
5 38 (1.32%) MSI
6 37 (1.29%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.66%) Eclipse
8 12 (0.42%) Burp Suite
9 11 (0.38%) Metasploit
10 10 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
11 9 (0.31%) Artifactory
11 9 (0.31%) Chocolatey
12 8 (0.28%) Android Studio
12 8 (0.28%) Browser DevTools
12 8 (0.28%) Xcode
13 7 (0.24%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.24%) Selenium
14 6 (0.21%) InstallShield
14 6 (0.21%) Robot Framework
15 5 (0.17%) AdminStudio
General
1 976 (33.94%) Social Skills
2 291 (10.12%) Finance
3 286 (9.94%) Analytical Skills
4 202 (7.02%) Public Sector
5 148 (5.15%) Banking
6 117 (4.07%) Legal
7 95 (3.30%) Documentation Skills
8 78 (2.71%) Organisational Skills
9 53 (1.84%) Military
10 48 (1.67%) Retail
11 46 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 46 (1.60%) Manufacturing
12 40 (1.39%) Law
13 33 (1.15%) Investment Banking
14 30 (1.04%) Presentation Skills
15 27 (0.94%) Front Office
15 27 (0.94%) Telecoms
16 21 (0.73%) Local Government
17 20 (0.70%) French Language
18 19 (0.66%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 360 (12.52%) IT Support
2 346 (12.03%) Support Engineer
3 307 (10.67%) Analyst
4 255 (8.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 225 (7.82%) IT Engineer
6 185 (6.43%) IT Support Engineer
7 179 (6.22%) Senior
8 157 (5.46%) Architect
9 122 (4.24%) Desktop Support
10 120 (4.17%) Support Analyst
11 106 (3.69%) Desktop Engineer
12 105 (3.65%) Lead
13 95 (3.30%) 2nd Line Support
13 95 (3.30%) IT Analyst
14 90 (3.13%) Windows Engineer
15 88 (3.06%) Developer
16 86 (2.99%) Technical Support
17 77 (2.68%) Consultant
18 74 (2.57%) 1st Line Support
19 70 (2.43%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (3.20%) .NET
2 90 (3.13%) REST
3 51 (1.77%) .NET Framework
4 44 (1.53%) LDAP
5 38 (1.32%) SAML
6 34 (1.18%) Microsoft Graph
7 31 (1.08%) Kafka
8 28 (0.97%) 802.1X
8 28 (0.97%) Middleware
9 27 (0.94%) WinForms
10 26 (0.90%) OAuth
11 24 (0.83%) Web Services
12 21 (0.73%) Software Packaging
12 21 (0.73%) WPF
13 20 (0.70%) Elastic Stack
14 17 (0.59%) Node.js
14 17 (0.59%) OpenID
15 16 (0.56%) AngularJS
15 16 (0.56%) CSS
15 16 (0.56%) React
Miscellaneous
1 253 (8.80%) Onboarding
2 149 (5.18%) Data Centre
3 122 (4.24%) PKI
4 88 (3.06%) Enterprise Software
5 82 (2.85%) Clustering
6 65 (2.26%) Self-Motivation
7 63 (2.19%) Driving Licence
8 60 (2.09%) Management Information System
8 60 (2.09%) Replication
9 53 (1.84%) Security Posture
10 52 (1.81%) Hybrid Cloud
11 51 (1.77%) Virtual Team
12 50 (1.74%) Legacy Systems
13 49 (1.70%) Cloud Native
14 44 (1.53%) Smartphone
15 37 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
16 34 (1.18%) CMDB
16 34 (1.18%) Enterprise Storage
16 34 (1.18%) Operational Technology
16 34 (1.18%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 723 (25.14%) Linux
2 687 (23.89%) Windows Server
3 496 (17.25%) Windows 10
4 181 (6.29%) Mac OS
5 155 (5.39%) Unix
6 137 (4.76%) Apple iOS
7 134 (4.66%) Android
8 110 (3.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 80 (2.78%) Windows Server 2019
10 70 (2.43%) Windows Server 2016
11 51 (1.77%) Windows 7
12 37 (1.29%) Windows Server 2012
13 33 (1.15%) AIX
14 27 (0.94%) Ubuntu
15 22 (0.76%) VMS
16 21 (0.73%) Solaris
17 19 (0.66%) Windows Server 2003
18 16 (0.56%) Windows Server 2008
19 12 (0.42%) CentOS
20 8 (0.28%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 607 (21.11%) Problem-Solving
2 428 (14.88%) Customer Service
3 427 (14.85%) ITIL
4 329 (11.44%) Migration
5 328 (11.40%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 279 (9.70%) Agile
7 275 (9.56%) ITSM
8 265 (9.21%) DevOps
9 242 (8.41%) CI/CD
10 195 (6.78%) Change Management
11 191 (6.64%) Continuous Improvement
12 190 (6.61%) Disaster Recovery
13 188 (6.54%) High Availability
13 188 (6.54%) Service Management
14 172 (5.98%) Cybersecurity
15 157 (5.46%) SIEM
16 148 (5.15%) Stakeholder Management
17 145 (5.04%) Infrastructure as Code
18 134 (4.66%) Service Delivery
19 133 (4.62%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 628 (21.84%) PowerShell
2 300 (10.43%) Python
3 271 (9.42%) SQL
4 123 (4.28%) C#
5 115 (4.00%) Bash
6 75 (2.61%) Java
7 68 (2.36%) JavaScript
8 56 (1.95%) PL/SQL
9 47 (1.63%) C++
9 47 (1.63%) T-SQL
10 30 (1.04%) Perl
11 26 (0.90%) Kusto Query Language
12 24 (0.83%) VB
13 23 (0.80%) Search Processing Language
13 23 (0.80%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.66%) VBScript
15 17 (0.59%) Bicep
16 14 (0.49%) VBA
17 13 (0.45%) C
18 11 (0.38%) Go
Qualifications
1 836 (29.07%) Security Cleared
2 542 (18.85%) SC Cleared
3 306 (10.64%) Degree
4 264 (9.18%) DV Cleared
5 105 (3.65%) Microsoft Certification
6 93 (3.23%) Computer Science Degree
7 92 (3.20%) Cisco Certification
8 65 (2.26%) CISSP
9 52 (1.81%) Azure Certification
10 46 (1.60%) MCSE
11 45 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
12 38 (1.32%) AWS Certification
12 38 (1.32%) CCNA
13 37 (1.29%) CompTIA Security+
14 31 (1.08%) CCNP
14 31 (1.08%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 29 (1.01%) ITIL Certification
16 27 (0.94%) MCSA
17 26 (0.90%) A+ Certification
17 26 (0.90%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 119 (4.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 106 (3.69%) SLA
3 87 (3.03%) QA
4 86 (2.99%) NIST
5 77 (2.68%) GDPR
6 36 (1.25%) PCI DSS
7 31 (1.08%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 26 (0.90%) Cyber Essentials
9 15 (0.52%) NCSC
10 13 (0.45%) PMO
11 12 (0.42%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.42%) Disclosure Scotland
11 12 (0.42%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.38%) MiFID
12 11 (0.38%) SOC 2
13 10 (0.35%) FINRA
13 10 (0.35%) HIPAA
14 8 (0.28%) GRC
15 6 (0.21%) GLBA
15 6 (0.21%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 1,067 (37.10%) Active Directory
2 362 (12.59%) VMware Infrastructure
3 161 (5.60%) Hyper-V
4 100 (3.48%) vSphere
5 99 (3.44%) VMware ESXi
6 90 (3.13%) Docker
6 90 (3.13%) Virtual Machines
7 60 (2.09%) Virtual Desktop
8 52 (1.81%) VMware NSX
9 38 (1.32%) Firmware
10 34 (1.18%) BitLocker
11 26 (0.90%) Microsoft App-V
12 21 (0.73%) KVM
13 11 (0.38%) Oracle RAC
13 11 (0.38%) XenDesktop
14 10 (0.35%) XenApp
15 9 (0.31%) vCloud
16 8 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
17 6 (0.21%) etcd
17 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 373 (12.97%) Microsoft Intune
2 259 (9.01%) SCCM
3 195 (6.78%) Ansible
4 170 (5.91%) Terraform
5 138 (4.80%) Kubernetes
6 79 (2.75%) vCenter Server
7 56 (1.95%) Single Sign-On
8 44 (1.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 44 (1.53%) Jamf Pro
9 40 (1.39%) FortiGate
10 39 (1.36%) Grafana
11 37 (1.29%) WSUS
12 36 (1.25%) SCOM
13 33 (1.15%) Prometheus
14 28 (0.97%) Progress Chef
15 27 (0.94%) Nagios
16 20 (0.70%) Nessus
16 20 (0.70%) Puppet
16 20 (0.70%) Tivoli
16 20 (0.70%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,227 (42.66%) Microsoft
2 467 (16.24%) VMware
3 249 (8.66%) ServiceNow
4 220 (7.65%) Cisco
5 194 (6.75%) Citrix
6 175 (6.08%) Oracle
7 158 (5.49%) Splunk
8 82 (2.85%) HP
9 75 (2.61%) Dell
10 74 (2.57%) SolarWinds
11 70 (2.43%) Red Hat
12 60 (2.09%) Google
13 59 (2.05%) F5
14 57 (1.98%) Apple
15 56 (1.95%) Remedy
16 54 (1.88%) Palo Alto
17 50 (1.74%) CyberArk
17 50 (1.74%) IBM
18 45 (1.56%) Juniper
19 42 (1.46%) BeyondTrust