WSUS Contract Job Trends

Windows Server Update Services (WSUS)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring WSUS skills. It covers vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 490 453 552
Rank change year-on-year -37 +99 +146
Contract jobs citing WSUS 57 116 110
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.17% 0.31% 0.22%
As % of the Systems Management category 1.10% 2.25% 1.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 47 99 67
10th Percentile £342 £266 £300
25th Percentile £513 £355 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year - +10.00% +14.29%
75th Percentile £575 £608 £588
90th Percentile £607 £613 £660
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £500
% change year-on-year - +10.00% +12.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 10
10th Percentile - - £58.78
25th Percentile - £20.50 -
Median hourly rate - £21.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year - -65.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile - £21.50 £64.50
90th Percentile - - £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £78.00
% change year-on-year - - +29.38%

All Systems Management Skills
UK

WSUS falls under the Systems Management category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring systems management skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for systems management skills 5,170 5,160 7,454
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.83% 13.57% 14.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,397 3,500 5,224
10th Percentile £300 £307 £325
25th Percentile £410 £421 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £668
90th Percentile £682 £704 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -2.00% -4.76% +2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 90 61 179
10th Percentile £13.75 £20.00 £18.45
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.18 £33.50
Median hourly rate £29.25 £38.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -24.03% -30.00% +130.03%
75th Percentile £63.06 £60.00 £75.25
90th Percentile £67.78 £74.00 £79.34
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.39 £39.25 £46.18
% change year-on-year -45.50% -15.01% +114.79%

WSUS
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing WSUS as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for WSUS in the UK

WSUS
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing WSUS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing WSUS

WSUS
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing WSUS over the 6 months to 16 September 2025.

Daily rate histogram for WSUS in the UK

WSUS
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing WSUS.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing WSUS

WSUS
Top 9 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing WSUS within the UK over the 6 months to 16 September 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 -36 56 £550 - 9
UK excluding London -45 45 £550 - 10
East of England +26 22 £550 +107.55% 1
South West +27 15 £518 +15.00% 3
Work from Home +20 13 £537 -11.20% 5
London +20 10 £588 +46.88% 2
South East -46 5 £553 +0.45% 4
North West - 3 £325 - 1
North of England - 3 £325 - 1

WSUS
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 9 (15.79%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (10.53%) IIS
2 6 (10.53%) SharePoint
3 5 (8.77%) Skype for Business
4 1 (1.75%) Confluence
4 1 (1.75%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 6 (10.53%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 21 (36.84%) Cohesity
2 11 (19.30%) Azure
3 5 (8.77%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (5.26%) AWS
5 1 (1.75%) Azure Monitor
5 1 (1.75%) Azure Storage
5 1 (1.75%) Entra ID
5 1 (1.75%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 41 (71.93%) DNS
2 20 (35.09%) SAN
3 17 (29.82%) DHCP
4 8 (14.04%) Skype
5 5 (8.77%) Unified Communications
6 3 (5.26%) Firewall
6 3 (5.26%) TCP/IP
7 1 (1.75%) HTTP
7 1 (1.75%) HTTPS
7 1 (1.75%) SSL
7 1 (1.75%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.75%) Power BI
1 1 (1.75%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (1.75%) Bitbucket
1 1 (1.75%) JIRA
General
1 11 (19.30%) Social Skills
2 8 (14.04%) Public Sector
3 7 (12.28%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (3.51%) Banking
4 2 (3.51%) Finance
5 1 (1.75%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (1.75%) Front Office
5 1 (1.75%) Legal
5 1 (1.75%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 5 (8.77%) Administrator
1 5 (8.77%) Analyst
1 5 (8.77%) Infrastructure Analyst
1 5 (8.77%) Security Engineer
1 5 (8.77%) Wintel Engineer
2 4 (7.02%) Security Analyst
3 3 (5.26%) IT Engineer
3 3 (5.26%) IT Security Engineer
3 3 (5.26%) Server Administrator
4 2 (3.51%) Consultant
4 2 (3.51%) Desktop Engineer
4 2 (3.51%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 2 (3.51%) Operations Engineer
4 2 (3.51%) Senior
4 2 (3.51%) VMWare Administrator
4 2 (3.51%) Wintel Administrator
5 1 (1.75%) Infrastructure Manager
5 1 (1.75%) Security Consultant
5 1 (1.75%) Support Engineer
5 1 (1.75%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (1.75%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 8 (14.04%) PKI
2 4 (7.02%) Legacy Applications
3 1 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
3 1 (1.75%) Data Centre
3 1 (1.75%) Management Information System
3 1 (1.75%) Onboarding
3 1 (1.75%) Security Posture
3 1 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
3 1 (1.75%) Smartcard
3 1 (1.75%) YubiKey
Operating Systems
1 53 (92.98%) Windows
2 43 (75.44%) Windows Server
3 26 (45.61%) Windows Server 2019
4 25 (43.86%) Windows Server 2016
5 7 (12.28%) Linux
5 7 (12.28%) Windows Server 2012
6 5 (8.77%) Windows 10
7 3 (5.26%) Unix
8 1 (1.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (1.75%) Ubuntu
8 1 (1.75%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (42.11%) SIEM
2 20 (35.09%) Build Automation
2 20 (35.09%) Deployment Automation
2 20 (35.09%) Operations Management
3 15 (26.32%) ITIL
3 15 (26.32%) Patch Management
4 8 (14.04%) Service Management
4 8 (14.04%) Vulnerability Management
5 7 (12.28%) Vulnerability Remediation
6 6 (10.53%) Critical Thinking
6 6 (10.53%) Root Cause Analysis
6 6 (10.53%) System Testing
6 6 (10.53%) Vulnerability Scanning
7 5 (8.77%) Incident Response
7 5 (8.77%) Security Hardening
7 5 (8.77%) Virtual Environments
8 4 (7.02%) CI/CD
8 4 (7.02%) Cloud Security
8 4 (7.02%) Server Hardening
8 4 (7.02%) Server Management
Programming Languages
1 32 (56.14%) PowerShell
2 10 (17.54%) SQL
3 1 (1.75%) Bicep
3 1 (1.75%) C#
3 1 (1.75%) Java
3 1 (1.75%) VB
3 1 (1.75%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 39 (68.42%) Security Cleared
2 26 (45.61%) DV Cleared
3 16 (28.07%) SC Cleared
4 8 (14.04%) Degree
5 5 (8.77%) MCSE
5 5 (8.77%) Microsoft Certification
6 4 (7.02%) CCNA
6 4 (7.02%) CCNP
6 4 (7.02%) Cisco Certification
6 4 (7.02%) ITIL Certification
6 4 (7.02%) Master's Degree
7 1 (1.75%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 1 (1.75%) PMI Certification
7 1 (1.75%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (7.02%) SLA
System Software
1 39 (68.42%) Active Directory
2 31 (54.39%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (43.86%) Microsoft Virtual Server
3 25 (43.86%) Virtual Servers
4 9 (15.79%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (10.53%) Hyper-V
6 5 (8.77%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (5.26%) NFS
8 2 (3.51%) VMware NSX
9 1 (1.75%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (1.75%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (1.75%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 42 (73.68%) SCCM
2 24 (42.11%) Ansible
3 6 (10.53%) Nessus
3 6 (10.53%) vCenter Server
4 4 (7.02%) Microsoft Clustering
4 4 (7.02%) Microsoft Intune
4 4 (7.02%) NetApp OnCommand
4 4 (7.02%) vMotion
5 3 (5.26%) Terraform
6 2 (3.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (3.51%) Kubernetes
7 1 (1.75%) SCOM
7 1 (1.75%) VxRail
Vendors
1 35 (61.40%) Microsoft
2 31 (54.39%) VMware
3 24 (42.11%) Splunk
4 20 (35.09%) NetApp
5 7 (12.28%) Veeam
6 6 (10.53%) Cisco
6 6 (10.53%) Qualys
6 6 (10.53%) SolarWinds
7 3 (5.26%) Sophos
7 3 (5.26%) Tenable
8 2 (3.51%) Rapid7
9 1 (1.75%) Atlassian
9 1 (1.75%) Dell
9 1 (1.75%) Fortinet
9 1 (1.75%) Kaseya
9 1 (1.75%) Palo Alto
9 1 (1.75%) Progress
9 1 (1.75%) Red Hat