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 16 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 18 16
Rank change year-on-year -4 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,707 3,117 4,581
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 8.14% 8.29% 9.61%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.04% 58.90% 62.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,790 1,963 3,062
10th Percentile £163 £180 £163
25th Percentile £205 £246 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% - -
75th Percentile £538 £569 £575
90th Percentile £625 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £340 £400 £400
% change year-on-year -15.00% - +14.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 265 155 260
10th Percentile £15.12 £15.54 £13.93
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.15 £17.64
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £23.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.02% +2.89% +14.63%
75th Percentile £25.15 £59.38 £59.09
90th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.28 £24.18 £22.00
% change year-on-year -11.99% +9.91% +14.20%

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 4,585 5,292 7,307
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.78% 14.07% 15.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,923 3,267 4,970
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £275 £325 £320
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £615
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £420 £449 £450
% change year-on-year -6.46% -0.22% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 321 244 354
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.27 £14.25
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.95 £18.50
Median hourly rate £25.00 £54.00 £45.44
Median % change year-on-year -53.70% +18.84% +89.33%
75th Percentile £43.75 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £70.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.50 £56.75 £42.50
% change year-on-year -58.59% +33.52% +88.89%

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 16 October 2025.

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 16 October 2025.

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 16 October 2025. 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 -2 2,378 £400 -5.88% 1,494
UK excluding London +1 1,810 £340 -15.00% 1,410
London -16 750 £425 +1.19% 345
Work from Home -10 541 £429 -7.74% 699
South East +2 488 £365 -14.12% 500
North of England -5 342 £293 -31.18% 337
South West +7 317 £350 -22.22% 187
Midlands -7 275 £375 -1.32% 152
East of England -1 212 £350 -20.00% 170
West Midlands -7 201 £400 +5.26% 69
North West -7 181 £325 -27.78% 190
Scotland -9 147 £450 +32.35% 52
Yorkshire -12 132 £220 -48.24% 110
East Midlands -8 73 £200 -47.23% 83
Wales -4 32 £290 +45.00% 33
North East +3 29 £200 -38.46% 50
Northern Ireland -7 22 £200 +3.90% 9
Channel Islands - 1 - - 5

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
1 239 (8.83%) Microsoft Exchange
2 173 (6.39%) SharePoint
3 84 (3.10%) Confluence
4 54 (1.99%) Apache
5 41 (1.51%) IIS
6 27 (1.00%) WebSphere
7 23 (0.85%) JBoss
8 18 (0.66%) Skype for Business
9 16 (0.59%) Exchange Server 2013
9 16 (0.59%) WebLogic
10 15 (0.55%) nginx
11 14 (0.52%) SharePoint Server
12 12 (0.44%) Exchange Server 2010
12 12 (0.44%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.37%) Exchange Server 2003
13 10 (0.37%) Exchange Server 2007
13 10 (0.37%) iPlanet
13 10 (0.37%) Office Communications Server
14 8 (0.30%) Tomcat
15 6 (0.22%) SAS
Applications
1 231 (8.53%) Microsoft Office
2 89 (3.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (0.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.37%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 9 (0.33%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.074%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.074%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.074%) Windchill
9 1 (0.037%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.037%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.037%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.037%) Camtasia
9 1 (0.037%) InDesign
9 1 (0.037%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.037%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 18 (0.66%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.26%) Maximo
3 6 (0.22%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.15%) Oracle 11i
5 3 (0.11%) assyst
5 3 (0.11%) ION MarketView
5 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.074%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.074%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.074%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.074%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.074%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.074%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.037%) Alphatax
7 1 (0.037%) Eikon
7 1 (0.037%) Eze OMS
7 1 (0.037%) OpenText MBPM
7 1 (0.037%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.037%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.037%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 706 (26.08%) Microsoft 365
2 640 (23.64%) Azure
3 263 (9.72%) AWS
4 235 (8.68%) Entra ID
5 85 (3.14%) OneDrive
6 83 (3.07%) SaaS
7 76 (2.81%) GitHub
8 63 (2.33%) Azure DevOps
9 61 (2.25%) IaaS
10 52 (1.92%) GCP
11 44 (1.63%) Google Workspace
11 44 (1.63%) PaaS
12 41 (1.51%) Azure Sentinel
13 37 (1.37%) Power Platform
14 36 (1.33%) Amazon S3
14 36 (1.33%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 35 (1.29%) Amazon EC2
16 30 (1.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 30 (1.11%) OpenShift
17 28 (1.03%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 332 (12.26%) DNS
2 287 (10.60%) Firewall
3 194 (7.17%) DHCP
4 182 (6.72%) TCP/IP
5 160 (5.91%) VPN
6 93 (3.44%) LAN
7 91 (3.36%) WAN
8 82 (3.03%) SAN
9 75 (2.77%) Wi-Fi
10 68 (2.51%) Network Security
11 57 (2.11%) SSH
12 55 (2.03%) VLAN
13 54 (1.99%) Wireless
14 53 (1.96%) HTTP
15 46 (1.70%) Cisco IOS
16 35 (1.29%) SMTP
17 33 (1.22%) SSL
17 33 (1.22%) VoIP
18 30 (1.11%) FTP
19 29 (1.07%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 126 (4.65%) SQL Server
2 74 (2.73%) Oracle Database
3 57 (2.11%) Relational Database
4 40 (1.48%) MySQL
5 38 (1.40%) Amazon RDS
6 28 (1.03%) PostgreSQL
7 14 (0.52%) GIS
7 14 (0.52%) NoSQL
7 14 (0.52%) Power BI
8 13 (0.48%) Oracle Reports
9 12 (0.44%) DB2
10 11 (0.41%) Amazon Aurora
10 11 (0.41%) Elasticsearch
10 11 (0.41%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 10 (0.37%) Big Data
11 10 (0.37%) RDBMS
12 9 (0.33%) MongoDB
13 7 (0.26%) Apache Cassandra
13 7 (0.26%) Azure SQL Database
14 6 (0.22%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 162 (5.98%) JIRA
2 113 (4.17%) Git
3 111 (4.10%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.48%) GitLab
5 36 (1.33%) Visual Studio
6 34 (1.26%) Eclipse
6 34 (1.26%) MSI
7 33 (1.22%) Bitbucket
8 25 (0.92%) Vagrant
9 22 (0.81%) Sonatype Nexus
10 20 (0.74%) AdminStudio
11 19 (0.70%) InstallShield
12 16 (0.59%) Browser DevTools
13 15 (0.55%) Android Studio
13 15 (0.55%) Bitbucket Server
13 15 (0.55%) CA Release Automation
13 15 (0.55%) IntelliJ
13 15 (0.55%) Xcode
14 14 (0.52%) Postman
14 14 (0.52%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 990 (36.57%) Social Skills
2 381 (14.07%) Finance
3 249 (9.20%) Public Sector
4 246 (9.09%) Analytical Skills
5 136 (5.02%) Banking
6 108 (3.99%) Documentation Skills
7 85 (3.14%) Legal
8 71 (2.62%) Organisational Skills
9 62 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 57 (2.11%) Manufacturing
11 45 (1.66%) Military
11 45 (1.66%) Retail
12 42 (1.55%) Telecoms
13 41 (1.51%) Presentation Skills
14 31 (1.15%) Games
14 31 (1.15%) Marketing
15 26 (0.96%) Front Office
16 23 (0.85%) Financial Institution
17 22 (0.81%) Aerospace
18 20 (0.74%) Law
Job Titles
1 389 (14.37%) Support Engineer
2 308 (11.38%) Analyst
3 244 (9.01%) IT Support
4 175 (6.46%) Windows Engineer
5 163 (6.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 152 (5.62%) IT Engineer
7 149 (5.50%) Desktop Engineer
8 144 (5.32%) Deployment Engineer
8 144 (5.32%) Desktop Support
9 138 (5.10%) Architect
10 128 (4.73%) Support Analyst
11 119 (4.40%) Senior
12 106 (3.92%) 2nd Line Support
13 103 (3.80%) Desktop Support Engineer
14 97 (3.58%) Technical Support
15 95 (3.51%) Developer
16 93 (3.44%) IT Support Engineer
17 91 (3.36%) Administrator
18 84 (3.10%) Platform Engineer
19 79 (2.92%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (2.51%) .NET
2 55 (2.03%) Middleware
3 49 (1.81%) LDAP
4 37 (1.37%) Web Services
5 36 (1.33%) .NET Framework
6 35 (1.29%) WPF
7 34 (1.26%) Node.js
8 32 (1.18%) REST
9 31 (1.15%) SOAP
9 31 (1.15%) XML
10 30 (1.11%) AngularJS
11 28 (1.03%) React
12 22 (0.81%) CSS
13 20 (0.74%) Software Packaging
14 18 (0.66%) OAuth
15 17 (0.63%) Ajax
15 17 (0.63%) Kafka
16 16 (0.59%) GraphQL
16 16 (0.59%) SAML
17 15 (0.55%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 95 (3.51%) Onboarding
2 86 (3.18%) Data Centre
3 81 (2.99%) PKI
4 63 (2.33%) Driving Licence
5 61 (2.25%) Replication
6 55 (2.03%) Self-Motivation
7 54 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
8 50 (1.85%) Management Information System
9 38 (1.40%) iPhone
10 37 (1.37%) iPad
11 35 (1.29%) Security Posture
12 34 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
13 33 (1.22%) Smartphone
14 31 (1.15%) Public Cloud
14 31 (1.15%) Video Conferencing
15 26 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
15 26 (0.96%) Hybrid Cloud
15 26 (0.96%) Legacy Systems
15 26 (0.96%) NHS
16 25 (0.92%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 646 (23.86%) Linux
2 562 (20.76%) Windows 10
3 487 (17.99%) Windows Server
4 184 (6.80%) Unix
5 150 (5.54%) Mac OS
6 122 (4.51%) Android
7 96 (3.55%) Apple iOS
8 84 (3.10%) Windows Server 2016
9 83 (3.07%) Windows Server 2019
10 72 (2.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 67 (2.48%) Windows 7
12 42 (1.55%) Windows Server 2012
13 38 (1.40%) Ubuntu
13 38 (1.40%) VMS
14 35 (1.29%) Windows Server 2003
15 24 (0.89%) CentOS
16 23 (0.85%) Amazon Linux
17 19 (0.70%) AIX
17 19 (0.70%) Solaris
18 14 (0.52%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 487 (17.99%) Problem-Solving
2 396 (14.63%) ITIL
3 316 (11.67%) Customer Service
4 306 (11.30%) Migration
5 270 (9.97%) Agile
6 246 (9.09%) DevOps
7 214 (7.91%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 188 (6.94%) Service Management
9 187 (6.91%) Cybersecurity
10 174 (6.43%) CI/CD
11 171 (6.32%) ITSM
12 137 (5.06%) Change Management
13 123 (4.54%) Incident Response
14 122 (4.51%) Continuous Improvement
15 121 (4.47%) Stakeholder Management
16 119 (4.40%) SIEM
17 109 (4.03%) Patch Management
18 105 (3.88%) Cloud Security
19 103 (3.80%) Service Delivery
20 97 (3.58%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 471 (17.40%) PowerShell
2 327 (12.08%) Python
3 264 (9.75%) SQL
4 142 (5.25%) Java
5 135 (4.99%) C#
6 96 (3.55%) Bash
7 78 (2.88%) JavaScript
8 75 (2.77%) C++
9 66 (2.44%) Perl
10 45 (1.66%) Shell Script
11 44 (1.63%) PL/SQL
12 41 (1.51%) VB
13 33 (1.22%) Groovy
13 33 (1.22%) Kusto Query Language
14 31 (1.15%) C
14 31 (1.15%) VBA
15 30 (1.11%) VBScript
16 20 (0.74%) PHP
17 17 (0.63%) TypeScript
17 17 (0.63%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 729 (26.93%) Security Cleared
2 505 (18.66%) SC Cleared
3 234 (8.64%) Degree
4 188 (6.94%) Microsoft Certification
5 186 (6.87%) DV Cleared
6 63 (2.33%) Azure Certification
7 62 (2.29%) Computer Science Degree
8 49 (1.81%) MCSE
9 47 (1.74%) Cisco Certification
10 46 (1.70%) A+ Certification
11 45 (1.66%) CISSP
12 41 (1.51%) DBS Check
13 35 (1.29%) AWS Certification
14 33 (1.22%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 31 (1.15%) ITIL Certification
16 28 (1.03%) CCNA
17 26 (0.96%) CCNP
18 25 (0.92%) MCSA
19 24 (0.89%) BPSS Clearance
20 23 (0.85%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 102 (3.77%) SLA
2 78 (2.88%) QA
3 63 (2.33%) GDPR
4 52 (1.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 48 (1.77%) NIST
6 17 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
6 17 (0.63%) HIPAA
7 12 (0.44%) Accessibility
7 12 (0.44%) PCI DSS
7 12 (0.44%) PMO
8 9 (0.33%) NCSC
9 8 (0.30%) Disclosure Scotland
10 7 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (0.22%) COBIT
11 6 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 5 (0.18%) SOC 2
13 4 (0.15%) SEPA
14 3 (0.11%) Data Quality
14 3 (0.11%) ECSS
14 3 (0.11%) GLBA
System Software
1 949 (35.06%) Active Directory
2 240 (8.87%) VMware Infrastructure
3 118 (4.36%) Docker
4 89 (3.29%) Hyper-V
5 64 (2.36%) vSphere
6 63 (2.33%) Virtual Desktop
6 63 (2.33%) Virtual Machines
7 60 (2.22%) VMware ESXi
8 36 (1.33%) Virtual Servers
9 28 (1.03%) Microsoft App-V
9 28 (1.03%) VMware NSX
10 25 (0.92%) DFS Replication
10 25 (0.92%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 23 (0.85%) Firmware
12 21 (0.78%) BitLocker
12 21 (0.78%) NFS
13 17 (0.63%) Terminal Services
14 16 (0.59%) XenApp
15 10 (0.37%) Postfix
15 10 (0.37%) Squid
Systems Management
1 422 (15.59%) SCCM
2 282 (10.42%) Microsoft Intune
3 163 (6.02%) Terraform
4 148 (5.47%) Ansible
5 96 (3.55%) Kubernetes
6 55 (2.03%) vCenter Server
7 48 (1.77%) WSUS
8 40 (1.48%) Grafana
8 40 (1.48%) Jamf Pro
9 34 (1.26%) Progress Chef
10 29 (1.07%) Puppet
11 28 (1.03%) Nessus
11 28 (1.03%) Prometheus
12 25 (0.92%) Microsoft Clustering
13 24 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
14 19 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 19 (0.70%) SCOM
15 14 (0.52%) Tivoli
16 13 (0.48%) NetBackup
16 13 (0.48%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 1,212 (44.77%) Microsoft
2 347 (12.82%) VMware
3 245 (9.05%) ServiceNow
4 213 (7.87%) Oracle
5 165 (6.10%) Cisco
6 162 (5.98%) Citrix
7 160 (5.91%) Splunk
8 84 (3.10%) Apple
9 73 (2.70%) HP
10 67 (2.48%) NetApp
11 64 (2.36%) IBM
12 58 (2.14%) Dell
13 56 (2.07%) Red Hat
14 54 (1.99%) Google
15 51 (1.88%) Veeam
16 46 (1.70%) SolarWinds
17 43 (1.59%) AppDynamics
18 41 (1.51%) Remedy
19 39 (1.44%) SAP
20 35 (1.29%) CyberArk