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

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -5 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,826 2,456 3,462
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.89% 8.36% 8.13%
As % of the Operating Systems category 60.58% 59.93% 61.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,837 1,696 2,392
10th Percentile £163 £178 £163
25th Percentile £213 £231 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £416 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.12% +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £400 £400
% change year-on-year - - +3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 230 137 272
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.05 £11.82
25th Percentile £16.95 £16.95 £14.00
Median hourly rate £25.21 £18.82 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.93% +4.56% -20.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £25.00 £24.39
90th Percentile £75.00 £41.61 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £18.82 £17.50
% change year-on-year +36.93% +7.54% -12.50%

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 4,665 4,098 5,668
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.73% 13.94% 13.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,001 2,692 3,828
10th Percentile £185 £200 £185
25th Percentile £313 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £456 £467 £470
Median % change year-on-year -2.15% -0.74% -6.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £658 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £448 £448 £450
% change year-on-year +0.11% -0.56% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 323 178 392
10th Percentile £15.68 £15.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.53 £15.44
Median hourly rate £47.50 £22.53 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +110.83% +2.41% -42.86%
75th Percentile £67.25 £56.88 £60.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.71 £21.90 £22.50
% change year-on-year +95.00% -2.67% -23.21%

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 18 May 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 18 May 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 18 May 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 -6 2,447 £415 -0.04% 981
UK excluding London -11 1,890 £400 - 898
London -26 750 £425 -5.56% 218
Work from Home -16 578 £475 +2.70% 431
South East -5 521 £475 -3.06% 298
North of England -9 451 £344 +5.85% 192
Midlands -17 265 £325 +30.00% 114
North West -4 256 £300 -7.69% 108
South West -12 223 £453 -13.67% 131
East of England -1 214 £350 +7.69% 98
Yorkshire -20 183 £375 +15.38% 66
Scotland +1 162 £425 -4.23% 48
West Midlands -27 154 £449 +67.66% 62
East Midlands +5 106 £225 +9.09% 52
Wales -1 50 £280 -18.84% 35
North East -30 16 £400 +33.33% 21
Northern Ireland -6 15 £175 -12.50% 9
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
1 231 (8.17%) Microsoft Exchange
2 161 (5.70%) SharePoint
3 57 (2.02%) IIS
4 51 (1.80%) Confluence
5 23 (0.81%) Apache
6 19 (0.67%) WebLogic
7 14 (0.50%) nginx
7 14 (0.50%) Tomcat
8 12 (0.42%) Skype for Business
8 12 (0.42%) Tuxedo
9 10 (0.35%) SAS
10 9 (0.32%) NetWeaver
11 8 (0.28%) TPMS
12 6 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
13 5 (0.18%) HCL Notes
13 5 (0.18%) WebSphere
14 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.11%) OpenStack
16 2 (0.071%) CloudStack
16 2 (0.071%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 182 (6.44%) Microsoft Office
2 64 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.32%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.18%) PTC Creo
6 5 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.14%) Acrobat
8 2 (0.071%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 44 (1.56%) Remedy ITSM
2 19 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.39%) Teamcenter
4 4 (0.14%) assyst
4 4 (0.14%) Finacle
5 3 (0.11%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 2 (0.071%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.071%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.035%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle 11i
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.035%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.035%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 805 (28.49%) Azure
2 786 (27.81%) Microsoft 365
3 331 (11.71%) Entra ID
4 249 (8.81%) AWS
5 86 (3.04%) OneDrive
6 75 (2.65%) GCP
7 74 (2.62%) Azure DevOps
7 74 (2.62%) SaaS
8 64 (2.26%) IaaS
9 58 (2.05%) GitHub
10 55 (1.95%) PaaS
11 50 (1.77%) Power Platform
12 40 (1.42%) Azure Monitor
13 37 (1.31%) OpenShift
14 35 (1.24%) Google Workspace
15 34 (1.20%) Azure Sentinel
16 27 (0.96%) GitHub Actions
17 20 (0.71%) Nutanix
18 19 (0.67%) AWS CloudFormation
18 19 (0.67%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 386 (13.66%) DNS
2 305 (10.79%) Firewall
3 260 (9.20%) DHCP
4 204 (7.22%) VPN
5 175 (6.19%) WAN
6 173 (6.12%) TCP/IP
7 172 (6.09%) LAN
8 140 (4.95%) Wi-Fi
9 75 (2.65%) SAN
10 71 (2.51%) Network Security
11 59 (2.09%) VLAN
12 45 (1.59%) SD-WAN
13 42 (1.49%) Wireless
14 39 (1.38%) BGP
15 38 (1.34%) SNMP
16 36 (1.27%) Skype
16 36 (1.27%) SSL
17 35 (1.24%) NAS
17 35 (1.24%) OSPF
17 35 (1.24%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 212 (7.50%) SQL Server
2 49 (1.73%) Oracle Database
3 33 (1.17%) Relational Database
4 30 (1.06%) Power BI
5 29 (1.03%) MySQL
6 27 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
7 19 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
8 16 (0.57%) DB2
9 14 (0.50%) MongoDB
10 13 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
10 13 (0.46%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 11 (0.39%) NoSQL
12 9 (0.32%) GIS
12 9 (0.32%) SAP HANA
13 8 (0.28%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.28%) Sybase ASE
14 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.25%) BigQuery
14 7 (0.25%) Oracle BI EE
14 7 (0.25%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 175 (6.19%) JIRA
2 51 (1.80%) GitLab
3 49 (1.73%) Jenkins
4 45 (1.59%) MSI
5 42 (1.49%) Git
6 34 (1.20%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.67%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.64%) Burp Suite
9 17 (0.60%) Metasploit
10 11 (0.39%) Sonatype Nexus
11 10 (0.35%) Artifactory
12 9 (0.32%) Android Studio
12 9 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
12 9 (0.32%) Chocolatey
12 9 (0.32%) Xcode
13 8 (0.28%) InstallShield
14 7 (0.25%) Bitbucket
14 7 (0.25%) Robot Framework
14 7 (0.25%) Selenium
15 5 (0.18%) JUnit
General
1 950 (33.62%) Social Skills
2 271 (9.59%) Finance
3 267 (9.45%) Analytical Skills
4 208 (7.36%) Public Sector
5 138 (4.88%) Banking
6 122 (4.32%) Legal
7 98 (3.47%) Documentation Skills
8 75 (2.65%) Organisational Skills
9 57 (2.02%) Military
10 48 (1.70%) Manufacturing
11 45 (1.59%) Retail
12 39 (1.38%) Law
13 38 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 34 (1.20%) Telecoms
15 30 (1.06%) Investment Banking
15 30 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
16 26 (0.92%) Front Office
17 20 (0.71%) Local Government
18 18 (0.64%) Police
19 16 (0.57%) French Language
Job Titles
1 356 (12.60%) IT Support
2 334 (11.82%) Support Engineer
3 314 (11.11%) Analyst
4 241 (8.53%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 217 (7.68%) IT Engineer
6 177 (6.26%) IT Support Engineer
7 169 (5.98%) Senior
8 157 (5.56%) Architect
9 120 (4.25%) Desktop Support
10 119 (4.21%) Support Analyst
11 101 (3.57%) Desktop Engineer
11 101 (3.57%) Lead
12 92 (3.26%) Developer
12 92 (3.26%) IT Analyst
13 91 (3.22%) 2nd Line Support
14 87 (3.08%) Technical Support
15 86 (3.04%) Windows Engineer
16 73 (2.58%) 1st Line Support
17 72 (2.55%) Service Analyst
18 71 (2.51%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (3.18%) REST
2 89 (3.15%) .NET
3 47 (1.66%) .NET Framework
4 45 (1.59%) LDAP
5 40 (1.42%) SAML
6 34 (1.20%) Kafka
7 30 (1.06%) Microsoft Graph
7 30 (1.06%) Middleware
8 28 (0.99%) OAuth
9 27 (0.96%) 802.1X
10 26 (0.92%) WinForms
11 23 (0.81%) Web Services
11 23 (0.81%) WPF
12 20 (0.71%) Elastic Stack
12 20 (0.71%) React
12 20 (0.71%) Software Packaging
13 19 (0.67%) CSS
13 19 (0.67%) OpenID
14 18 (0.64%) AngularJS
14 18 (0.64%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 232 (8.21%) Onboarding
2 140 (4.95%) Data Centre
3 113 (4.00%) PKI
4 87 (3.08%) Enterprise Software
5 80 (2.83%) Clustering
6 67 (2.37%) Driving Licence
7 64 (2.26%) Self-Motivation
8 57 (2.02%) Replication
9 50 (1.77%) Hybrid Cloud
10 49 (1.73%) Management Information System
11 48 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
12 44 (1.56%) Security Posture
12 44 (1.56%) Smartphone
12 44 (1.56%) Virtual Team
13 39 (1.38%) Cloud Native
14 33 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
14 33 (1.17%) Security Operations Centre
15 32 (1.13%) Operational Technology
16 31 (1.10%) Enterprise Storage
17 30 (1.06%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 721 (25.51%) Linux
2 659 (23.32%) Windows Server
3 487 (17.23%) Windows 10
4 181 (6.40%) Mac OS
5 159 (5.63%) Unix
6 139 (4.92%) Android
7 135 (4.78%) Apple iOS
8 93 (3.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 74 (2.62%) Windows Server 2019
10 71 (2.51%) Windows Server 2016
11 50 (1.77%) Windows 7
12 34 (1.20%) AIX
13 33 (1.17%) Windows Server 2012
14 22 (0.78%) Ubuntu
15 20 (0.71%) Solaris
15 20 (0.71%) VMS
16 19 (0.67%) Windows Server 2003
17 15 (0.53%) Windows Server 2008
18 9 (0.32%) CentOS
18 9 (0.32%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 594 (21.02%) Problem-Solving
2 428 (15.15%) Customer Service
3 415 (14.69%) ITIL
4 320 (11.32%) Migration
5 317 (11.22%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 277 (9.80%) Agile
7 253 (8.95%) ITSM
8 251 (8.88%) DevOps
9 236 (8.35%) CI/CD
10 188 (6.65%) Disaster Recovery
11 180 (6.37%) Cybersecurity
12 178 (6.30%) Continuous Improvement
13 175 (6.19%) Change Management
13 175 (6.19%) High Availability
14 172 (6.09%) Service Management
15 153 (5.41%) SIEM
16 134 (4.74%) Infrastructure as Code
16 134 (4.74%) Stakeholder Management
17 127 (4.49%) Service Delivery
18 126 (4.46%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 598 (21.16%) PowerShell
2 294 (10.40%) Python
3 275 (9.73%) SQL
4 123 (4.35%) C#
5 104 (3.68%) Bash
6 73 (2.58%) Java
7 70 (2.48%) JavaScript
8 56 (1.98%) PL/SQL
9 47 (1.66%) C++
10 45 (1.59%) T-SQL
11 32 (1.13%) Perl
12 26 (0.92%) Kusto Query Language
13 24 (0.85%) Shell Script
13 24 (0.85%) VB
14 23 (0.81%) Search Processing Language
15 16 (0.57%) VBScript
16 14 (0.50%) Bicep
16 14 (0.50%) VBA
17 13 (0.46%) Go
18 11 (0.39%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 852 (30.15%) Security Cleared
2 547 (19.36%) SC Cleared
3 285 (10.08%) Degree
4 273 (9.66%) DV Cleared
5 102 (3.61%) Microsoft Certification
6 90 (3.18%) Computer Science Degree
7 86 (3.04%) Cisco Certification
8 50 (1.77%) CISSP
9 48 (1.70%) Azure Certification
10 45 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
11 42 (1.49%) MCSE
12 37 (1.31%) CCNA
13 36 (1.27%) AWS Certification
14 35 (1.24%) CompTIA Security+
15 33 (1.17%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 30 (1.06%) ITIL Certification
17 28 (0.99%) A+ Certification
18 26 (0.92%) MCSA
19 25 (0.88%) CCNP
20 19 (0.67%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 116 (4.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 95 (3.36%) SLA
3 90 (3.18%) QA
4 87 (3.08%) GDPR
5 78 (2.76%) NIST
6 43 (1.52%) PCI DSS
7 31 (1.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 28 (0.99%) Cyber Essentials
9 16 (0.57%) NCSC
10 15 (0.53%) PMO
11 12 (0.42%) Data Quality
11 12 (0.42%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.39%) Disclosure Scotland
12 11 (0.39%) MiFID
13 10 (0.35%) FINRA
14 8 (0.28%) GLBA
14 8 (0.28%) SOC 2
15 7 (0.25%) DICOM
15 7 (0.25%) GRC
15 7 (0.25%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,041 (36.84%) Active Directory
2 340 (12.03%) VMware Infrastructure
3 153 (5.41%) Hyper-V
4 93 (3.29%) vSphere
5 92 (3.26%) Docker
5 92 (3.26%) VMware ESXi
6 79 (2.80%) Virtual Machines
7 59 (2.09%) Virtual Desktop
8 46 (1.63%) VMware NSX
9 36 (1.27%) Firmware
10 29 (1.03%) BitLocker
11 27 (0.96%) Microsoft App-V
12 21 (0.74%) KVM
13 11 (0.39%) XenDesktop
14 10 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
14 10 (0.35%) XenApp
15 6 (0.21%) etcd
15 6 (0.21%) vCloud
15 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
15 6 (0.21%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 352 (12.46%) Microsoft Intune
2 263 (9.31%) SCCM
3 189 (6.69%) Ansible
4 157 (5.56%) Terraform
5 141 (4.99%) Kubernetes
6 75 (2.65%) vCenter Server
7 59 (2.09%) Single Sign-On
8 48 (1.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 42 (1.49%) WSUS
10 41 (1.45%) Jamf Pro
11 39 (1.38%) FortiGate
11 39 (1.38%) Grafana
12 32 (1.13%) Prometheus
13 31 (1.10%) SCOM
14 28 (0.99%) Nagios
15 22 (0.78%) Nessus
16 21 (0.74%) Progress Chef
17 20 (0.71%) ZABBIX
18 19 (0.67%) Puppet
18 19 (0.67%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 1,193 (42.22%) Microsoft
2 447 (15.82%) VMware
3 240 (8.49%) ServiceNow
4 205 (7.25%) Cisco
5 200 (7.08%) Citrix
6 174 (6.16%) Oracle
7 161 (5.70%) Splunk
8 82 (2.90%) HP
9 74 (2.62%) SolarWinds
10 69 (2.44%) Dell
11 59 (2.09%) Red Hat
12 58 (2.05%) Apple
13 57 (2.02%) Remedy
14 55 (1.95%) F5
14 55 (1.95%) Palo Alto
15 53 (1.88%) IBM
16 46 (1.63%) CyberArk
17 45 (1.59%) Google
18 42 (1.49%) Juniper
19 40 (1.42%) BeyondTrust