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

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 22 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -4 -4
Contract jobs citing Windows 3,120 2,598 3,263
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.85% 7.89% 8.38%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.41% 59.70% 59.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,991 1,708 2,203
10th Percentile £165 £171 £175
25th Percentile £225 £225 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £429 £415 £450
Median % change year-on-year +3.37% -7.78% +2.27%
75th Percentile £556 £563 £575
90th Percentile £650 £659 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £415 £395 £450
% change year-on-year +5.06% -12.22% +20.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 285 213 231
10th Percentile £15.77 £15.36 £11.07
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.44 £15.69
Median hourly rate £25.75 £19.36 £21.80
Median % change year-on-year +33.01% -11.19% -3.11%
75th Percentile £55.00 £25.15 £53.38
90th Percentile £73.20 £65.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £18.87 £21.00
% change year-on-year +36.46% -10.14% -1.45%

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 5,165 4,352 5,457
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.68% 13.21% 14.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,272 2,778 3,620
10th Percentile £193 £191 £200
25th Percentile £325 £308 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £459 £475
Median % change year-on-year +3.54% -3.42% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £663 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £450 £472
% change year-on-year +2.00% -4.66% +4.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 360 262 332
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.51 £12.43
25th Percentile £17.60 £18.13 £17.69
Median hourly rate £26.00 £24.25 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.22% -11.82% -31.25%
75th Percentile £65.00 £56.88 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.55 £67.90 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £22.78 £45.00
% change year-on-year +22.91% -49.38% +63.64%

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 August 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 August 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 13 August 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 2,734 £425 +3.91% 1,837
UK excluding London -13 2,030 £415 +5.06% 1,175
London -13 904 £425 - 822
Work from Home -8 633 £475 +3.26% 612
South East -8 576 £475 -3.06% 372
North of England -6 496 £338 +4.00% 259
North West +1 285 £352 +0.60% 150
South West -11 284 £488 +35.42% 161
Midlands -21 261 £393 -1.88% 136
East of England -2 196 £340 +36.00% 161
Yorkshire -16 185 £335 +21.82% 81
West Midlands -28 168 £440 +3.53% 90
Scotland -7 159 £400 -12.57% 59
East Midlands +10 89 £270 +36.71% 46
Wales +3 58 £425 +54.55% 36
North East -35 30 £250 -9.09% 35
Northern Ireland -2 16 £139 -30.75% 22
Channel Islands +3 2 £518 - 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
1 246 (7.88%) Microsoft Exchange
2 244 (7.82%) SharePoint
3 69 (2.21%) IIS
4 60 (1.92%) Confluence
5 19 (0.61%) Skype for Business
6 18 (0.58%) nginx
7 17 (0.54%) Apache
8 16 (0.51%) Tomcat
9 14 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
10 13 (0.42%) HCL Notes
11 9 (0.29%) NetWeaver
12 8 (0.26%) WebLogic
13 6 (0.19%) Documentum
14 5 (0.16%) Apache Solr
14 5 (0.16%) Appian
14 5 (0.16%) Camunda
14 5 (0.16%) SAS
15 4 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 4 (0.13%) FactoryTalk
16 3 (0.096%) CloudStack
Applications
1 203 (6.51%) Microsoft Office
2 69 (2.21%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.13%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.096%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.096%) Houdini
7 3 (0.096%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.096%) NUKE
8 2 (0.064%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.032%) CINEMA 4D
9 1 (0.032%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 57 (1.83%) Remedy ITSM
2 14 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
3 10 (0.32%) Finacle
4 7 (0.22%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.22%) Oracle BPM
5 6 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
5 6 (0.19%) Teamcenter
6 4 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
7 3 (0.096%) assyst
8 2 (0.064%) Dynamics GP
8 2 (0.064%) SAP FI
9 1 (0.032%) Dynamics NAV
9 1 (0.032%) Infor LN
9 1 (0.032%) Oracle ERP
9 1 (0.032%) SAP BRIM
9 1 (0.032%) SAP ERP
9 1 (0.032%) SAP EWM
9 1 (0.032%) SAP FI-CA
9 1 (0.032%) SAP FS
9 1 (0.032%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 970 (31.09%) Azure
2 946 (30.32%) Microsoft 365
3 470 (15.06%) Entra ID
4 329 (10.54%) AWS
5 137 (4.39%) OneDrive
6 109 (3.49%) Azure DevOps
7 101 (3.24%) GCP
8 76 (2.44%) Power Platform
8 76 (2.44%) SaaS
9 74 (2.37%) Azure Monitor
10 72 (2.31%) GitHub
11 67 (2.15%) IaaS
12 51 (1.63%) PaaS
13 43 (1.38%) Azure Sentinel
14 38 (1.22%) OpenShift
15 31 (0.99%) AWS CloudFormation
16 28 (0.90%) GitHub Actions
17 26 (0.83%) Azure AKS
17 26 (0.83%) Google Workspace
18 25 (0.80%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 479 (15.35%) DNS
2 358 (11.47%) Firewall
3 337 (10.80%) DHCP
4 265 (8.49%) VPN
5 219 (7.02%) TCP/IP
6 166 (5.32%) LAN
7 162 (5.19%) WAN
8 142 (4.55%) Wi-Fi
9 96 (3.08%) SAN
10 79 (2.53%) Network Security
10 79 (2.53%) VLAN
11 50 (1.60%) SSL
12 47 (1.51%) NAS
13 46 (1.47%) BGP
14 44 (1.41%) Internet
15 43 (1.38%) Wireless
16 38 (1.22%) VSAN
17 34 (1.09%) OSPF
17 34 (1.09%) Skype
18 30 (0.96%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 301 (9.65%) SQL Server
2 61 (1.96%) Oracle Database
3 56 (1.79%) Power BI
4 36 (1.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 33 (1.06%) Relational Database
6 31 (0.99%) PostgreSQL
7 26 (0.83%) MySQL
8 21 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
9 16 (0.51%) Data Warehouse
9 16 (0.51%) RDBMS
9 16 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 15 (0.48%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 13 (0.42%) Db2
11 13 (0.42%) Elasticsearch
12 11 (0.35%) Geospatial Data
13 9 (0.29%) Oracle Reports
13 9 (0.29%) SAP HANA
14 8 (0.26%) MongoDB
14 8 (0.26%) MS Access
14 8 (0.26%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 168 (5.38%) JIRA
2 74 (2.37%) Git
3 56 (1.79%) Jenkins
4 49 (1.57%) MSI
5 41 (1.31%) GitLab
6 37 (1.19%) Visual Studio
7 17 (0.54%) Bitbucket
7 17 (0.54%) Eclipse
8 10 (0.32%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 8 (0.26%) Artifactory
9 8 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (0.22%) Browser DevTools
10 7 (0.22%) Chocolatey
10 7 (0.22%) Team Foundation Server
11 6 (0.19%) Selenium
12 5 (0.16%) AdminStudio
12 5 (0.16%) Claude Code
12 5 (0.16%) InstallShield
12 5 (0.16%) Maven
12 5 (0.16%) Oracle Forms
General
1 1,140 (36.54%) Social Skills
2 389 (12.47%) Analytical Skills
3 362 (11.60%) Finance
4 190 (6.09%) Public Sector
5 161 (5.16%) Banking
6 104 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
7 97 (3.11%) Legal
8 77 (2.47%) Organisational Skills
9 66 (2.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 58 (1.86%) Retail
11 56 (1.79%) Manufacturing
12 42 (1.35%) Telecoms
13 41 (1.31%) Front Office
14 40 (1.28%) Military
15 37 (1.19%) Law
16 35 (1.12%) Investment Banking
17 28 (0.90%) Spanish Language
18 25 (0.80%) Financial Institution
19 23 (0.74%) French Language
20 20 (0.64%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 466 (14.94%) Support Engineer
2 408 (13.08%) IT Support
3 317 (10.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 312 (10.00%) IT Engineer
5 273 (8.75%) Analyst
6 260 (8.33%) IT Support Engineer
7 234 (7.50%) Senior
8 137 (4.39%) Desktop Support
9 129 (4.13%) Architect
10 126 (4.04%) 2nd Line Support
11 116 (3.72%) Lead
12 114 (3.65%) Cloud Engineer
13 113 (3.62%) Desktop Engineer
14 110 (3.53%) Developer
15 101 (3.24%) Support Analyst
15 101 (3.24%) Windows Engineer
16 98 (3.14%) Consultant
17 86 (2.76%) 1st Line Support
18 84 (2.69%) IT Analyst
19 82 (2.63%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 130 (4.17%) .NET
2 117 (3.75%) REST
3 68 (2.18%) .NET Framework
4 42 (1.35%) Middleware
5 36 (1.15%) JSON
6 34 (1.09%) WinForms
7 33 (1.06%) LDAP
8 30 (0.96%) 802.1X
8 30 (0.96%) WPF
9 29 (0.93%) XML
10 28 (0.90%) HTML
11 26 (0.83%) Web Services
12 25 (0.80%) Kafka
13 24 (0.77%) CSS
13 24 (0.77%) Software Packaging
14 21 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
15 20 (0.64%) ARM Templates
15 20 (0.64%) RESTful
16 19 (0.61%) Microsoft Graph
16 19 (0.61%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 336 (10.77%) Onboarding
2 178 (5.71%) Data Centre
3 167 (5.35%) PKI
4 98 (3.14%) Clustering
5 83 (2.66%) Management Information System
6 82 (2.63%) Enterprise Software
7 78 (2.50%) Cloud Native
7 78 (2.50%) Hybrid Cloud
8 75 (2.40%) Driving Licence
9 63 (2.02%) Replication
9 63 (2.02%) Self-Motivation
10 62 (1.99%) Video Conferencing
11 53 (1.70%) Security Posture
12 51 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
13 43 (1.38%) Virtual Team
14 39 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
14 39 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
14 39 (1.25%) Operational Technology
15 37 (1.19%) Linux Command Line
16 36 (1.15%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 810 (25.96%) Windows Server
2 771 (24.71%) Linux
3 522 (16.73%) Windows 10
4 189 (6.06%) Mac OS
5 154 (4.94%) Unix
6 133 (4.26%) Android
7 131 (4.20%) Apple iOS
8 124 (3.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 78 (2.50%) Windows Server 2019
10 56 (1.79%) Windows 7
11 47 (1.51%) Windows Server 2016
12 39 (1.25%) AIX
12 39 (1.25%) Ubuntu
12 39 (1.25%) Windows Server 2012
13 24 (0.77%) CentOS
14 23 (0.74%) VMS
15 22 (0.71%) Windows Server 2008
16 21 (0.67%) Solaris
17 12 (0.38%) Windows Server 2003
18 10 (0.32%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 747 (23.94%) Problem-Solving
2 549 (17.60%) ITIL
3 494 (15.83%) Customer Service
4 407 (13.04%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 393 (12.60%) Migration
6 385 (12.34%) ITSM
7 308 (9.87%) Continuous Improvement
8 307 (9.84%) DevOps
9 278 (8.91%) Service Management
10 272 (8.72%) CI/CD
11 268 (8.59%) Agile
12 237 (7.60%) Infrastructure as Code
13 223 (7.15%) Change Management
14 209 (6.70%) High Availability
15 197 (6.31%) Stakeholder Management
16 194 (6.22%) Service Delivery
17 188 (6.03%) Cybersecurity
18 187 (5.99%) Disaster Recovery
19 174 (5.58%) Incident Management
20 170 (5.45%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 741 (23.75%) PowerShell
2 329 (10.54%) Python
3 315 (10.10%) SQL
4 180 (5.77%) Bash
5 158 (5.06%) C#
6 77 (2.47%) Java
7 71 (2.28%) JavaScript
8 62 (1.99%) T-SQL
9 58 (1.86%) PL/SQL
10 49 (1.57%) C++
11 45 (1.44%) Bicep
12 29 (0.93%) VB
12 29 (0.93%) VBScript
13 25 (0.80%) Search Processing Language
14 22 (0.71%) Perl
15 20 (0.64%) Shell Script
16 19 (0.61%) VBA
17 17 (0.54%) TypeScript
18 16 (0.51%) C
19 12 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 957 (30.67%) Security Cleared
2 601 (19.26%) SC Cleared
3 324 (10.38%) DV Cleared
4 290 (9.29%) Degree
5 126 (4.04%) Microsoft Certification
6 103 (3.30%) Cisco Certification
7 79 (2.53%) Azure Certification
8 75 (2.40%) Computer Science Degree
9 65 (2.08%) CISSP
10 59 (1.89%) BPSS Clearance
11 53 (1.70%) AWS Certification
12 48 (1.54%) A+ Certification
13 43 (1.38%) CCNA
14 41 (1.31%) MCSE
15 37 (1.19%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 36 (1.15%) CCNP
17 33 (1.06%) DBS Check
17 33 (1.06%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 27 (0.87%) ITIL Certification
19 24 (0.77%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 155 (4.97%) SLA
2 109 (3.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 94 (3.01%) QA
4 84 (2.69%) NIST
5 39 (1.25%) GDPR
6 30 (0.96%) NCSC
7 27 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials
8 22 (0.71%) PCI DSS
9 16 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 15 (0.48%) Data Quality
10 15 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
11 14 (0.45%) GxP
12 13 (0.42%) Accessibility
12 13 (0.42%) PMO
13 11 (0.35%) HIPAA
13 11 (0.35%) WCAG
14 10 (0.32%) GRC
15 9 (0.29%) GMP
15 9 (0.29%) SOC 2
16 8 (0.26%) 21 CFR Part 11
System Software
1 1,246 (39.94%) Active Directory
2 443 (14.20%) VMware Infrastructure
3 194 (6.22%) Hyper-V
4 137 (4.39%) VMware ESXi
5 120 (3.85%) vSphere
6 108 (3.46%) Docker
7 100 (3.21%) Virtual Machines
8 89 (2.85%) Virtual Desktop
9 79 (2.53%) VMware NSX
10 40 (1.28%) BitLocker
11 37 (1.19%) Firmware
12 20 (0.64%) Microsoft App-V
13 18 (0.58%) vCloud
14 13 (0.42%) KVM
14 13 (0.42%) Virtual Servers
15 9 (0.29%) NFS
16 8 (0.26%) VMware Workstation
17 6 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
17 6 (0.19%) XenApp
17 6 (0.19%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 430 (13.78%) Microsoft Intune
2 305 (9.78%) SCCM
3 265 (8.49%) Terraform
4 233 (7.47%) Ansible
5 169 (5.42%) Kubernetes
6 114 (3.65%) vCenter Server
7 78 (2.50%) SCOM
8 50 (1.60%) Jamf Pro
9 48 (1.54%) WSUS
10 42 (1.35%) Progress Chef
11 40 (1.28%) FortiGate
12 37 (1.19%) Single Sign-On
13 31 (0.99%) Puppet
14 27 (0.87%) NetBackup
15 25 (0.80%) Nagios
15 25 (0.80%) Packer
16 23 (0.74%) Prometheus
16 23 (0.74%) WMI
17 22 (0.71%) VxRail
17 22 (0.71%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 1,404 (45.00%) Microsoft
2 592 (18.97%) VMware
3 355 (11.38%) ServiceNow
4 222 (7.12%) Cisco
5 203 (6.51%) Oracle
6 191 (6.12%) Citrix
7 132 (4.23%) Splunk
8 97 (3.11%) Apple
9 96 (3.08%) CyberArk
10 92 (2.95%) SolarWinds
11 75 (2.40%) Google
11 75 (2.40%) Red Hat
12 72 (2.31%) BeyondTrust
13 71 (2.28%) HP
14 67 (2.15%) Remedy
15 59 (1.89%) Dell
16 57 (1.83%) F5
17 54 (1.73%) Juniper
18 49 (1.57%) Palo Alto
19 48 (1.54%) BMC