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 20 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 19 16
Rank change year-on-year -3 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Windows 2,822 2,817 4,154
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.66% 8.27% 9.44%
As % of the Operating Systems category 59.22% 58.87% 62.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,914 1,790 2,783
10th Percentile £163 £180 £158
25th Percentile £204 £228 £211
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £390 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £575
90th Percentile £625 £648 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £325 £363 £375
% change year-on-year -10.34% -3.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 274 123 238
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.22 £14.11
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.15 £17.30
Median hourly rate £22.10 £24.18 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.62% +9.91% +10.00%
75th Percentile £43.75 £53.75 £54.31
90th Percentile £67.59 £65.00 £65.03
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.02% +15.14% +13.51%

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 4,765 4,785 6,622
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.93% 14.04% 15.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,093 2,985 4,509
10th Percentile £175 £200 £181
25th Percentile £263 £317 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -7.32%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £600
90th Percentile £655 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £406 £425 £430
% change year-on-year -4.41% -1.16% -4.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 358 184 326
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.33 £14.25
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.05 £17.73
Median hourly rate £25.15 £43.75 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -42.51% +34.62% +34.02%
75th Percentile £63.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.11 £43.00 £27.25
% change year-on-year -41.60% +57.80% +23.86%

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 20 December 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 20 December 2025.

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 20 December 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 -1 2,497 £388 -3.13% 960
UK excluding London -2 1,897 £325 -10.34% 932
London -15 745 £438 +4.17% 182
Work from Home -11 563 £425 -5.56% 277
South East +2 518 £365 -11.52% 331
North of England -5 415 £238 -31.93% 207
South West +4 316 £425 +6.25% 121
Midlands -4 309 £400 +23.08% 133
North West -3 239 £305 -12.86% 114
West Midlands -4 214 £449 +43.06% 83
East of England +4 198 £225 -24.37% 115
Yorkshire -18 147 £230 -37.41% 78
Scotland -13 108 £438 - 41
East Midlands +1 95 £220 -38.20% 50
Wales -2 46 £190 -15.56% 20
North East -1 32 £188 -41.41% 21
Northern Ireland -12 15 £203 +33.66% 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
1 243 (8.61%) Microsoft Exchange
2 181 (6.41%) SharePoint
3 77 (2.73%) Confluence
4 50 (1.77%) Apache
5 46 (1.63%) IIS
6 27 (0.96%) WebLogic
7 23 (0.82%) WebSphere
8 20 (0.71%) Skype for Business
9 17 (0.60%) JBoss
10 16 (0.57%) nginx
11 13 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2010
11 13 (0.46%) SharePoint Server
12 11 (0.39%) WebSphere Application Server
13 10 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2013
13 10 (0.35%) iPlanet
13 10 (0.35%) SAS
14 9 (0.32%) Tomcat
14 9 (0.32%) Tuxedo
15 8 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2003
15 8 (0.28%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 276 (9.78%) Microsoft Office
2 89 (3.15%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.35%) Mozilla Thunderbird
5 9 (0.32%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.071%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.071%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.071%) Windchill
9 1 (0.035%) Acrobat
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.035%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.035%) Camtasia
9 1 (0.035%) InDesign
9 1 (0.035%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.035%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 22 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (0.28%) assyst
3 5 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
5 2 (0.071%) Eikon
5 2 (0.071%) Fidessa
5 2 (0.071%) ION MarketView
5 2 (0.071%) Maximo
5 2 (0.071%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.071%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.071%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.071%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.035%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.035%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.035%) Eze OMS
6 1 (0.035%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.035%) Primavera
6 1 (0.035%) RMDS
6 1 (0.035%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.035%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 743 (26.33%) Microsoft 365
2 663 (23.49%) Azure
3 278 (9.85%) AWS
4 247 (8.75%) Entra ID
5 84 (2.98%) OneDrive
6 81 (2.87%) GCP
7 75 (2.66%) SaaS
8 69 (2.45%) Azure DevOps
9 68 (2.41%) GitHub
10 57 (2.02%) IaaS
11 47 (1.67%) Google Workspace
12 40 (1.42%) PaaS
13 38 (1.35%) Power Platform
14 36 (1.28%) Azure Monitor
15 32 (1.13%) Amazon S3
15 32 (1.13%) Azure Sentinel
16 30 (1.06%) Amazon EC2
16 30 (1.06%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 26 (0.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 25 (0.89%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 365 (12.93%) DNS
2 321 (11.37%) Firewall
3 216 (7.65%) DHCP
4 200 (7.09%) TCP/IP
5 177 (6.27%) VPN
6 104 (3.69%) Wi-Fi
7 95 (3.37%) LAN
8 93 (3.30%) Network Security
9 90 (3.19%) WAN
10 70 (2.48%) Wireless
11 61 (2.16%) VLAN
12 60 (2.13%) SSH
13 52 (1.84%) HTTP
14 50 (1.77%) SAN
15 38 (1.35%) Cisco IOS
16 35 (1.24%) Skype
16 35 (1.24%) VoIP
17 33 (1.17%) SSL
18 31 (1.10%) FTP
19 30 (1.06%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (4.43%) SQL Server
2 81 (2.87%) Oracle Database
3 63 (2.23%) Relational Database
4 52 (1.84%) MySQL
5 32 (1.13%) PostgreSQL
6 25 (0.89%) Amazon RDS
7 15 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
7 15 (0.53%) Power BI
8 12 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
9 11 (0.39%) BigQuery
9 11 (0.39%) GIS
10 10 (0.35%) Elasticsearch
10 10 (0.35%) NoSQL
11 9 (0.32%) MongoDB
11 9 (0.32%) RDBMS
12 7 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
12 7 (0.25%) DB2
12 7 (0.25%) SAP HANA
13 6 (0.21%) Apache Cassandra
13 6 (0.21%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 161 (5.71%) JIRA
2 103 (3.65%) Jenkins
3 99 (3.51%) Git
4 57 (2.02%) GitLab
5 40 (1.42%) Eclipse
6 35 (1.24%) Visual Studio
7 33 (1.17%) MSI
8 29 (1.03%) Bitbucket
9 23 (0.82%) Android Studio
10 22 (0.78%) Browser DevTools
11 21 (0.74%) Vagrant
11 21 (0.74%) Xcode
12 18 (0.64%) Artifactory
13 17 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
14 15 (0.53%) InstallShield
15 14 (0.50%) Bitbucket Server
15 14 (0.50%) CA Release Automation
16 12 (0.43%) Burp Suite
16 12 (0.43%) Metasploit
17 11 (0.39%) AdminStudio
General
1 1,081 (38.31%) Social Skills
2 337 (11.94%) Finance
3 259 (9.18%) Public Sector
4 258 (9.14%) Analytical Skills
5 125 (4.43%) Banking
6 114 (4.04%) Documentation Skills
7 89 (3.15%) Legal
8 69 (2.45%) Organisational Skills
9 65 (2.30%) Manufacturing
10 54 (1.91%) Military
11 51 (1.81%) Telecoms
12 46 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
13 45 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 43 (1.52%) Retail
15 34 (1.20%) Marketing
16 33 (1.17%) Aerospace
17 26 (0.92%) Front Office
18 25 (0.89%) Electronics
19 24 (0.85%) Law
20 20 (0.71%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 434 (15.38%) Support Engineer
2 347 (12.30%) Analyst
3 332 (11.76%) IT Support
4 195 (6.91%) IT Engineer
5 169 (5.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 156 (5.53%) Windows Engineer
7 153 (5.42%) Desktop Support
8 148 (5.24%) Support Analyst
9 145 (5.14%) IT Support Engineer
10 144 (5.10%) Senior
11 140 (4.96%) Architect
12 138 (4.89%) Desktop Engineer
13 128 (4.54%) Deployment Engineer
14 118 (4.18%) 2nd Line Support
15 114 (4.04%) Technical Support
16 106 (3.76%) Desktop Support Engineer
17 104 (3.69%) Developer
18 95 (3.37%) Platform Engineer
19 86 (3.05%) Administrator
20 85 (3.01%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (2.59%) .NET
2 58 (2.06%) LDAP
3 53 (1.88%) REST
4 47 (1.67%) Middleware
5 40 (1.42%) .NET Framework
6 39 (1.38%) OAuth
6 39 (1.38%) SAML
7 38 (1.35%) React
8 36 (1.28%) AngularJS
9 33 (1.17%) WPF
10 32 (1.13%) OpenID
11 31 (1.10%) Web Services
12 28 (0.99%) CSS
13 27 (0.96%) Node.js
13 27 (0.96%) XML
14 25 (0.89%) Kafka
15 23 (0.82%) Ajax
15 23 (0.82%) SOAP
16 22 (0.78%) GraphQL
17 19 (0.67%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 129 (4.57%) Onboarding
2 93 (3.30%) Data Centre
2 93 (3.30%) PKI
3 84 (2.98%) Driving Licence
4 66 (2.34%) Replication
5 61 (2.16%) Enterprise Software
6 60 (2.13%) Self-Motivation
7 59 (2.09%) Management Information System
8 52 (1.84%) Smartphone
9 47 (1.67%) Security Posture
10 35 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
11 33 (1.17%) Mobile App
12 32 (1.13%) Hybrid Cloud
12 32 (1.13%) NHS
13 31 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
14 30 (1.06%) Public Cloud
14 30 (1.06%) Video Conferencing
15 29 (1.03%) Clustering
15 29 (1.03%) Data Protection Act
16 27 (0.96%) iPhone
Operating Systems
1 733 (25.97%) Linux
2 585 (20.73%) Windows 10
3 549 (19.45%) Windows Server
4 199 (7.05%) Unix
5 163 (5.78%) Mac OS
6 150 (5.32%) Android
7 103 (3.65%) Apple iOS
8 87 (3.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 65 (2.30%) Windows Server 2016
10 56 (1.98%) Windows Server 2019
11 51 (1.81%) Windows 7
12 45 (1.59%) Windows Server 2012
13 37 (1.31%) VMS
14 34 (1.20%) Windows Server 2003
15 29 (1.03%) Ubuntu
16 28 (0.99%) AIX
17 18 (0.64%) Amazon Linux
17 18 (0.64%) Solaris
18 16 (0.57%) CentOS
19 14 (0.50%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 501 (17.75%) Problem-Solving
2 421 (14.92%) ITIL
3 400 (14.17%) Customer Service
4 288 (10.21%) Agile
4 288 (10.21%) Migration
5 254 (9.00%) DevOps
6 245 (8.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 217 (7.69%) CI/CD
8 216 (7.65%) Service Management
9 210 (7.44%) Cybersecurity
10 193 (6.84%) ITSM
11 186 (6.59%) Continuous Improvement
12 160 (5.67%) Change Management
13 139 (4.93%) User Experience
14 128 (4.54%) Incident Response
15 126 (4.46%) SIEM
16 121 (4.29%) Stakeholder Management
17 119 (4.22%) Computer Science
18 114 (4.04%) Disaster Recovery
18 114 (4.04%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 539 (19.10%) PowerShell
2 372 (13.18%) Python
3 295 (10.45%) SQL
4 157 (5.56%) Java
5 136 (4.82%) C#
6 133 (4.71%) Bash
7 89 (3.15%) JavaScript
8 82 (2.91%) Perl
9 73 (2.59%) C++
10 46 (1.63%) PL/SQL
11 42 (1.49%) Shell Script
12 31 (1.10%) Kusto Query Language
13 30 (1.06%) VB
13 30 (1.06%) VBScript
14 29 (1.03%) Groovy
15 28 (0.99%) T-SQL
16 25 (0.89%) VBA
17 23 (0.82%) C
18 17 (0.60%) Bicep
19 16 (0.57%) PHP
Qualifications
1 838 (29.70%) Security Cleared
2 566 (20.06%) SC Cleared
3 292 (10.35%) Degree
4 226 (8.01%) DV Cleared
5 182 (6.45%) Microsoft Certification
6 85 (3.01%) Computer Science Degree
7 70 (2.48%) Azure Certification
8 55 (1.95%) Cisco Certification
9 53 (1.88%) A+ Certification
10 52 (1.84%) MCSE
11 44 (1.56%) ITIL Certification
12 41 (1.45%) CISSP
13 38 (1.35%) AWS Certification
14 34 (1.20%) CCNA
15 33 (1.17%) BPSS Clearance
15 33 (1.17%) CCNP
16 32 (1.13%) CompTIA Security+
17 30 (1.06%) DBS Check
18 26 (0.92%) MCSA
19 25 (0.89%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (3.12%) SLA
2 79 (2.80%) GDPR
3 70 (2.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 68 (2.41%) QA
5 51 (1.81%) NIST
6 23 (0.82%) PCI DSS
7 16 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
8 12 (0.43%) HIPAA
8 12 (0.43%) NCSC
9 9 (0.32%) PMO
10 8 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 7 (0.25%) GLBA
12 6 (0.21%) COBIT
13 5 (0.18%) Accessibility
13 5 (0.18%) SOC 2
14 4 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
14 4 (0.14%) NIST 800
15 3 (0.11%) Data Quality
15 3 (0.11%) MiFID
15 3 (0.11%) SEPA
System Software
1 1,032 (36.57%) Active Directory
2 251 (8.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 127 (4.50%) Docker
4 93 (3.30%) Hyper-V
5 58 (2.06%) Virtual Desktop
6 54 (1.91%) Virtual Machines
7 49 (1.74%) vSphere
8 44 (1.56%) VMware ESXi
9 32 (1.13%) VMware NSX
10 22 (0.78%) BitLocker
11 21 (0.74%) Firmware
12 20 (0.71%) DFS Replication
13 18 (0.64%) Terminal Services
14 15 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
15 14 (0.50%) Microsoft App-V
16 13 (0.46%) NFS
16 13 (0.46%) XenApp
17 10 (0.35%) Dovecot
17 10 (0.35%) Postfix
17 10 (0.35%) Squid
Systems Management
1 399 (14.14%) SCCM
2 298 (10.56%) Microsoft Intune
3 192 (6.80%) Terraform
4 156 (5.53%) Ansible
5 106 (3.76%) Kubernetes
6 64 (2.27%) vCenter Server
7 61 (2.16%) Single Sign-On
8 53 (1.88%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 41 (1.45%) Jamf Pro
10 39 (1.38%) Grafana
11 30 (1.06%) WSUS
12 29 (1.03%) Nessus
12 29 (1.03%) Progress Chef
13 27 (0.96%) SCOM
14 26 (0.92%) Prometheus
15 22 (0.78%) Microsoft Clustering
16 17 (0.60%) Puppet
17 16 (0.57%) Proxmox
18 15 (0.53%) NetBackup
19 14 (0.50%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,215 (43.05%) Microsoft
2 354 (12.54%) VMware
3 261 (9.25%) ServiceNow
4 231 (8.19%) Oracle
5 179 (6.34%) Citrix
6 177 (6.27%) Cisco
7 150 (5.32%) Splunk
8 86 (3.05%) Apple
9 82 (2.91%) HP
10 70 (2.48%) Red Hat
11 64 (2.27%) Dell
12 60 (2.13%) IBM
13 56 (1.98%) Google
14 54 (1.91%) Veeam
15 51 (1.81%) SAP
16 49 (1.74%) SolarWinds
17 43 (1.52%) NetApp
18 42 (1.49%) CyberArk
19 40 (1.42%) CrowdStrike
20 39 (1.38%) AppDynamics