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 13 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 23 17
Rank change year-on-year 0 -6 -1
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,757 2,568 3,933
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.53% 8.19% 9.17%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.39% 58.48% 61.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,912 1,651 2,654
10th Percentile £161 £181 £158
25th Percentile £204 £225 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £551 £575
90th Percentile £638 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £363 £370
% change year-on-year -10.34% -2.03% +1.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 247 107 220
10th Percentile £13.59 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.14 £18.15 £16.54
Median hourly rate £22.00 £23.80 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.56% +13.33% +5.00%
75th Percentile £42.35 £41.25 £46.88
90th Percentile £67.84 £66.50 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.46 £23.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year -6.70% +15.00% +6.95%

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 4,642 4,391 6,352
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.69% 14.00% 14.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,060 2,736 4,335
10th Percentile £175 £200 £180
25th Percentile £264 £317 £298
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £600
90th Percentile £670 £689 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £411 £425 £425
% change year-on-year -3.29% - -5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 331 164 313
10th Percentile £15.00 £16.25 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.00 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.15 £33.25 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -24.36% +10.83% +20.00%
75th Percentile £61.25 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £70.70 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £30.78 £25.18
% change year-on-year -18.78% +22.24% +11.91%

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 13 January 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 13 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Windows in the UK

Windows
Top 17 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 13 January 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 +1 2,445 £390 -2.50% 1,023
UK excluding London -2 1,867 £325 -10.34% 1,002
London -19 712 £450 +11.80% 195
Work from Home -11 552 £423 -6.11% 329
South East 0 498 £400 -0.06% 336
North of England -3 428 £250 -28.57% 208
South West +3 309 £425 +6.12% 137
Midlands -3 308 £350 +7.69% 121
North West -3 244 £268 -23.36% 100
West Midlands -6 205 £463 +42.31% 62
East of England +5 188 £229 -29.62% 128
Yorkshire -13 157 £290 -17.26% 85
Scotland -9 107 £450 +5.88% 62
East Midlands +1 103 £210 -36.12% 57
Wales -2 42 £180 -26.15% 27
North East -2 30 £184 -43.02% 29
Northern Ireland -14 10 £203 +28.57% 11

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
1 234 (8.49%) Microsoft Exchange
2 176 (6.38%) SharePoint
3 77 (2.79%) Confluence
4 50 (1.81%) Apache
5 48 (1.74%) IIS
6 29 (1.05%) WebLogic
7 19 (0.69%) WebSphere
8 18 (0.65%) Skype for Business
9 15 (0.54%) nginx
10 14 (0.51%) JBoss
11 12 (0.44%) SAS
11 12 (0.44%) TPMS
12 11 (0.40%) Exchange Server 2010
12 11 (0.40%) SharePoint Server
12 11 (0.40%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.36%) iPlanet
14 9 (0.33%) Tomcat
14 9 (0.33%) Tuxedo
15 8 (0.29%) Exchange Server 2013
16 6 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2007
Applications
1 268 (9.72%) Microsoft Office
2 84 (3.05%) Microsoft Excel
3 32 (1.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (0.47%) MS Visio
5 9 (0.33%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.18%) Acrobat
6 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.073%) Adobe Premiere
7 2 (0.073%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.073%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.073%) Windchill
8 1 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.036%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.036%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.036%) Camtasia
8 1 (0.036%) InDesign
8 1 (0.036%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.036%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 23 (0.83%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.29%) assyst
3 4 (0.15%) Oracle 11i
3 4 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 2 (0.073%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.073%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.073%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.073%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.073%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.073%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.073%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.036%) Eikon
6 1 (0.036%) Fidessa
6 1 (0.036%) ION MarketView
6 1 (0.036%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.036%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.036%) Pegasus Opera
6 1 (0.036%) Primavera
6 1 (0.036%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 741 (26.88%) Microsoft 365
2 668 (24.23%) Azure
3 257 (9.32%) AWS
4 232 (8.41%) Entra ID
5 87 (3.16%) OneDrive
6 72 (2.61%) GCP
7 71 (2.58%) SaaS
8 58 (2.10%) GitHub
9 54 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
10 47 (1.70%) Google Workspace
11 46 (1.67%) IaaS
12 35 (1.27%) Azure Monitor
13 33 (1.20%) Power Platform
14 30 (1.09%) PaaS
15 27 (0.98%) Azure Sentinel
16 24 (0.87%) Amazon S3
17 23 (0.83%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 22 (0.80%) Amazon EC2
19 20 (0.73%) Nutanix
20 19 (0.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 343 (12.44%) DNS
2 311 (11.28%) Firewall
3 208 (7.54%) DHCP
4 193 (7.00%) TCP/IP
5 176 (6.38%) VPN
6 106 (3.84%) WAN
7 104 (3.77%) Wi-Fi
8 96 (3.48%) LAN
9 90 (3.26%) Network Security
10 71 (2.58%) Wireless
11 61 (2.21%) SSH
11 61 (2.21%) VLAN
12 48 (1.74%) HTTP
13 36 (1.31%) SAN
13 36 (1.31%) Skype
14 33 (1.20%) SSL
15 32 (1.16%) Cisco IOS
15 32 (1.16%) SD-WAN
16 30 (1.09%) Kerberos
17 29 (1.05%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 126 (4.57%) SQL Server
2 78 (2.83%) Oracle Database
3 60 (2.18%) Relational Database
4 48 (1.74%) MySQL
5 33 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
6 18 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (0.47%) BigQuery
7 13 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
8 12 (0.44%) NoSQL
8 12 (0.44%) Power BI
9 11 (0.40%) Amazon Aurora
10 10 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
11 9 (0.33%) Data Warehouse
11 9 (0.33%) GIS
11 9 (0.33%) MongoDB
12 7 (0.25%) Data Lake
13 6 (0.22%) RDBMS
13 6 (0.22%) SAP HANA
14 5 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 4 (0.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 153 (5.55%) JIRA
2 85 (3.08%) Git
3 84 (3.05%) Jenkins
4 54 (1.96%) GitLab
5 34 (1.23%) Eclipse
6 33 (1.20%) MSI
7 29 (1.05%) Visual Studio
8 21 (0.76%) Android Studio
9 20 (0.73%) Browser DevTools
10 19 (0.69%) Bitbucket
10 19 (0.69%) Xcode
11 18 (0.65%) Artifactory
11 18 (0.65%) Burp Suite
11 18 (0.65%) Metasploit
12 16 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
13 15 (0.54%) InstallShield
13 15 (0.54%) Vagrant
14 12 (0.44%) Bitbucket Server
14 12 (0.44%) CA Release Automation
15 11 (0.40%) AdminStudio
General
1 1,044 (37.87%) Social Skills
2 328 (11.90%) Finance
3 243 (8.81%) Analytical Skills
4 234 (8.49%) Public Sector
5 128 (4.64%) Banking
6 113 (4.10%) Documentation Skills
7 89 (3.23%) Legal
8 69 (2.50%) Organisational Skills
9 62 (2.25%) Manufacturing
10 53 (1.92%) Military
11 46 (1.67%) Presentation Skills
11 46 (1.67%) Telecoms
12 39 (1.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 36 (1.31%) Retail
14 30 (1.09%) Marketing
15 29 (1.05%) Aerospace
16 25 (0.91%) Law
17 24 (0.87%) Front Office
18 22 (0.80%) Electronics
19 20 (0.73%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 407 (14.76%) Support Engineer
2 339 (12.30%) Analyst
3 332 (12.04%) IT Support
4 183 (6.64%) IT Engineer
5 168 (6.09%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 153 (5.55%) Architect
7 151 (5.48%) Windows Engineer
8 149 (5.40%) Support Analyst
9 147 (5.33%) Desktop Support
10 141 (5.11%) Senior
11 137 (4.97%) IT Support Engineer
12 130 (4.72%) Desktop Engineer
13 117 (4.24%) Deployment Engineer
14 115 (4.17%) Technical Support
15 113 (4.10%) 2nd Line Support
16 101 (3.66%) Desktop Support Engineer
16 101 (3.66%) Developer
17 87 (3.16%) Platform Engineer
18 82 (2.97%) IT Analyst
19 81 (2.94%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (2.72%) .NET
2 57 (2.07%) LDAP
3 56 (2.03%) REST
4 43 (1.56%) Middleware
5 42 (1.52%) .NET Framework
6 40 (1.45%) OAuth
6 40 (1.45%) SAML
7 36 (1.31%) React
8 34 (1.23%) AngularJS
9 33 (1.20%) OpenID
9 33 (1.20%) WPF
10 27 (0.98%) Web Services
11 26 (0.94%) CSS
11 26 (0.94%) Kafka
12 24 (0.87%) Node.js
13 21 (0.76%) SOAP
14 20 (0.73%) Ajax
14 20 (0.73%) GraphQL
14 20 (0.73%) XML
15 19 (0.69%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 141 (5.11%) Onboarding
2 95 (3.45%) Data Centre
3 93 (3.37%) PKI
4 87 (3.16%) Driving Licence
5 72 (2.61%) Enterprise Software
6 58 (2.10%) Self-Motivation
7 57 (2.07%) Replication
8 55 (1.99%) Smartphone
9 53 (1.92%) Management Information System
10 45 (1.63%) Security Posture
11 37 (1.34%) Analytical Mindset
12 35 (1.27%) Hybrid Cloud
13 31 (1.12%) Mobile App
14 30 (1.09%) Clustering
14 30 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
15 29 (1.05%) Data Protection Act
16 28 (1.02%) NHS
16 28 (1.02%) Video Conferencing
17 27 (0.98%) Public Cloud
18 25 (0.91%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 703 (25.50%) Linux
2 588 (21.33%) Windows 10
3 536 (19.44%) Windows Server
4 196 (7.11%) Unix
5 143 (5.19%) Android
6 142 (5.15%) Mac OS
7 103 (3.74%) Apple iOS
8 68 (2.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 63 (2.29%) Windows Server 2016
10 51 (1.85%) Windows Server 2019
11 48 (1.74%) Windows 7
12 36 (1.31%) Windows Server 2012
13 33 (1.20%) Windows Server 2003
14 26 (0.94%) AIX
14 26 (0.94%) VMS
15 19 (0.69%) Ubuntu
16 17 (0.62%) Solaris
17 15 (0.54%) Amazon Linux
18 12 (0.44%) Windows Server 2008
19 9 (0.33%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 498 (18.06%) Problem-Solving
2 419 (15.20%) Customer Service
3 408 (14.80%) ITIL
4 297 (10.77%) Agile
5 277 (10.05%) Migration
6 245 (8.89%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 239 (8.67%) DevOps
8 224 (8.12%) Service Management
9 213 (7.73%) Cybersecurity
10 210 (7.62%) CI/CD
11 198 (7.18%) ITSM
12 194 (7.04%) Continuous Improvement
13 169 (6.13%) Change Management
14 129 (4.68%) User Experience
15 128 (4.64%) Incident Response
16 127 (4.61%) SIEM
17 123 (4.46%) Stakeholder Management
18 119 (4.32%) Computer Science
19 118 (4.28%) Service Delivery
20 116 (4.21%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 537 (19.48%) PowerShell
2 354 (12.84%) Python
3 278 (10.08%) SQL
4 146 (5.30%) Java
5 120 (4.35%) C#
6 113 (4.10%) Bash
7 80 (2.90%) JavaScript
8 76 (2.76%) Perl
9 62 (2.25%) C++
10 51 (1.85%) PL/SQL
11 32 (1.16%) Kusto Query Language
11 32 (1.16%) Shell Script
11 32 (1.16%) T-SQL
12 30 (1.09%) VBScript
13 26 (0.94%) Groovy
14 25 (0.91%) VB
15 24 (0.87%) VBA
16 17 (0.62%) C
17 15 (0.54%) Go
18 14 (0.51%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 839 (30.43%) Security Cleared
2 559 (20.28%) SC Cleared
3 290 (10.52%) Degree
4 236 (8.56%) DV Cleared
5 156 (5.66%) Microsoft Certification
6 84 (3.05%) Computer Science Degree
7 63 (2.29%) Azure Certification
8 53 (1.92%) A+ Certification
9 51 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
10 46 (1.67%) MCSE
11 45 (1.63%) ITIL Certification
12 36 (1.31%) CISSP
13 34 (1.23%) AWS Certification
13 34 (1.23%) CompTIA Security+
14 32 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
14 32 (1.16%) CCNP
15 30 (1.09%) CCNA
16 27 (0.98%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 22 (0.80%) DBS Check
17 22 (0.80%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (3.30%) SLA
2 84 (3.05%) GDPR
3 74 (2.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 67 (2.43%) QA
5 50 (1.81%) NIST
6 33 (1.20%) PCI DSS
7 16 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
8 13 (0.47%) PMO
8 13 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 12 (0.44%) GLBA
10 10 (0.36%) NCSC
11 8 (0.29%) COBIT
11 8 (0.29%) HIPAA
11 8 (0.29%) MiFID
12 6 (0.22%) SOC 2
13 5 (0.18%) FINRA
14 4 (0.15%) Accessibility
14 4 (0.15%) Disclosure Scotland
14 4 (0.15%) NIST 800
15 3 (0.11%) SEPA
System Software
1 979 (35.51%) Active Directory
2 240 (8.71%) VMware Infrastructure
3 112 (4.06%) Docker
4 93 (3.37%) Hyper-V
5 61 (2.21%) Virtual Desktop
6 49 (1.78%) Virtual Machines
7 46 (1.67%) vSphere
8 41 (1.49%) VMware ESXi
9 29 (1.05%) VMware NSX
10 23 (0.83%) BitLocker
11 19 (0.69%) Firmware
12 18 (0.65%) DFS Replication
13 16 (0.58%) Microsoft App-V
14 15 (0.54%) Terminal Services
14 15 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
15 10 (0.36%) XenApp
16 9 (0.33%) Dovecot
16 9 (0.33%) Postfix
16 9 (0.33%) Squid
17 8 (0.29%) Tivoli Directory Server
Systems Management
1 375 (13.60%) SCCM
2 288 (10.45%) Microsoft Intune
3 181 (6.57%) Terraform
4 152 (5.51%) Ansible
5 97 (3.52%) Kubernetes
6 64 (2.32%) Single Sign-On
7 63 (2.29%) vCenter Server
8 51 (1.85%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 41 (1.49%) Jamf Pro
10 39 (1.41%) Grafana
11 30 (1.09%) WSUS
12 28 (1.02%) SCOM
13 24 (0.87%) Nessus
13 24 (0.87%) Prometheus
14 20 (0.73%) Microsoft Clustering
14 20 (0.73%) Progress Chef
15 18 (0.65%) Nmap
16 17 (0.62%) WMI
17 15 (0.54%) Proxmox
17 15 (0.54%) Puppet
Vendors
1 1,156 (41.93%) Microsoft
2 341 (12.37%) VMware
3 255 (9.25%) ServiceNow
4 229 (8.31%) Oracle
5 179 (6.49%) Cisco
6 167 (6.06%) Citrix
7 137 (4.97%) Splunk
8 78 (2.83%) Apple
9 67 (2.43%) HP
10 63 (2.29%) Dell
11 53 (1.92%) Red Hat
11 53 (1.92%) Veeam
12 52 (1.89%) SolarWinds
13 51 (1.85%) IBM
14 48 (1.74%) Google
14 48 (1.74%) SAP
15 41 (1.49%) CyberArk
16 39 (1.41%) Palo Alto
17 37 (1.34%) Remedy
18 36 (1.31%) CrowdStrike