WSUS Contracts

Windows Server Update Services (WSUS)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring WSUS skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited WSUS over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 445 473 597
Rank change year-on-year +28 +124 +133
Contract jobs citing WSUS 74 127 116
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.25% 0.29% 0.19%
As % of the Systems Management category 1.61% 2.47% 1.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 57 101 83
10th Percentile £320 £258 £300
25th Percentile £400 £413 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £475
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% +21.05% +11.76%
75th Percentile £575 £608 £544
90th Percentile £610 - £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £575 £488
% change year-on-year -8.70% +17.95% +14.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 9 8
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - £20.50 £36.75
Median hourly rate - £21.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year - -65.00% +21.59%
75th Percentile - £36.84 £61.13
90th Percentile - £39.45 £64.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £40.31 £38.50
% change year-on-year - +4.70% +28.92%

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 4,603 5,146 9,616
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.74% 11.80% 16.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,154 3,676 6,945
10th Percentile £313 £257 £356
25th Percentile £419 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £563
Median % change year-on-year +1.92% -8.43% -0.44%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £675
90th Percentile £725 £700 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 127 209
10th Percentile £13.75 £14.00 £16.48
25th Percentile £20.13 £17.77 £22.75
Median hourly rate £26.45 £30.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.83% -47.83% +155.56%
75th Percentile £51.75 £54.38 £71.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £70.50 £82.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.34 £38.50 £43.75
% change year-on-year -34.18% -12.00% +118.75%

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
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing WSUS.

Daily rate trend for WSUS in the UK

WSUS
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing WSUS over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for WSUS in the UK

WSUS
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing WSUS.

Hourly rate trend for WSUS in the UK

WSUS
Top 13 Contract 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 30 April 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 +11 68 £525 -8.70% 27
UK excluding London +14 59 £525 -8.70% 28
Work from Home +46 26 £533 -11.98% 17
North of England +49 23 £463 +22.52% 9
North West +30 20 £525 -8.70% 2
South West +55 14 £575 +9.52% 5
South East -24 14 £533 -7.39% 7
London +19 10 £500 +76.21% 1
East of England +34 5 £500 +88.68% 8
Scotland +6 2 £475 +15.85%
North East +1 2 £450 +150.00%
Midlands +24 1 £535 +12.63%
West Midlands - 1 £535 -

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 31 (41.89%) Microsoft Exchange
2 23 (31.08%) SharePoint
3 18 (24.32%) IIS
4 6 (8.11%) Confluence
4 6 (8.11%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 19 (25.68%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.35%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (2.70%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 31 (41.89%) Azure
2 30 (40.54%) Microsoft 365
3 17 (22.97%) Entra ID
4 6 (8.11%) AWS
4 6 (8.11%) OneDrive
5 4 (5.41%) Cohesity
6 2 (2.70%) AWS CloudFormation
6 2 (2.70%) GitHub
7 1 (1.35%) Amazon EC2
7 1 (1.35%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (1.35%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (1.35%) Azure Storage
7 1 (1.35%) Nutanix
7 1 (1.35%) Power Platform
7 1 (1.35%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 46 (62.16%) DNS
2 30 (40.54%) DHCP
3 12 (16.22%) Skype
4 8 (10.81%) Firewall
5 7 (9.46%) TCP/IP
6 6 (8.11%) HTTP
6 6 (8.11%) NetScaler
6 6 (8.11%) SAN
6 6 (8.11%) SMTP
7 5 (6.76%) HTTPS
7 5 (6.76%) SSL
7 5 (6.76%) Unified Communications
7 5 (6.76%) VSAN
8 2 (2.70%) Remote Desktop
8 2 (2.70%) VPN
8 2 (2.70%) Wireless
9 1 (1.35%) Cisco ASA
9 1 (1.35%) Intranet
9 1 (1.35%) IP Telephony
9 1 (1.35%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (4.05%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.35%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 6 (8.11%) JIRA
2 3 (4.05%) Bitbucket
3 2 (2.70%) Git
4 1 (1.35%) GitLab
General
1 23 (31.08%) Social Skills
2 12 (16.22%) Public Sector
3 11 (14.86%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (5.41%) Legal
4 4 (5.41%) Military
5 3 (4.05%) Finance
6 2 (2.70%) Banking
7 1 (1.35%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (1.35%) Financial Institution
7 1 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.35%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (1.35%) Retail
Job Titles
1 12 (16.22%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
2 9 (12.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 7 (9.46%) Senior
4 6 (8.11%) Wintel Engineer
5 5 (6.76%) SCCM Engineer
6 4 (5.41%) Administrator
6 4 (5.41%) Azure Engineer
6 4 (5.41%) Desktop Engineer
6 4 (5.41%) Security Engineer
6 4 (5.41%) Senior Wintel Engineer
6 4 (5.41%) VMWare Administrator
6 4 (5.41%) Wintel Administrator
7 3 (4.05%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 3 (4.05%) Infrastructure Specialist
7 3 (4.05%) Operations Engineer
7 3 (4.05%) Support Engineer
7 3 (4.05%) Windows Engineer
8 2 (2.70%) Cloud Engineer
8 2 (2.70%) IT Support
8 2 (2.70%) Senior Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (2.70%) ARM Templates
2 1 (1.35%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 19 (25.68%) PKI
2 9 (12.16%) Clustering
3 5 (6.76%) Data Centre
4 2 (2.70%) Cloud Native
4 2 (2.70%) CMDB
4 2 (2.70%) Smartcard
4 2 (2.70%) YubiKey
5 1 (1.35%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (1.35%) Blackberry
5 1 (1.35%) Blog
5 1 (1.35%) Legacy Applications
5 1 (1.35%) Mobile App
5 1 (1.35%) RSA SecurID
5 1 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (1.35%) Video Conferencing
5 1 (1.35%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 62 (83.78%) Windows
2 54 (72.97%) Windows Server
3 20 (27.03%) Windows Server 2012
3 20 (27.03%) Windows Server 2016
4 17 (22.97%) Windows 10
4 17 (22.97%) Windows Server 2019
5 11 (14.86%) VMS
6 9 (12.16%) Linux
7 8 (10.81%) Windows Server 2003
8 4 (5.41%) Unix
8 4 (5.41%) Windows 7
9 1 (1.35%) Android
9 1 (1.35%) Apple iOS
9 1 (1.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (1.35%) Ubuntu
9 1 (1.35%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (44.59%) ITIL
2 24 (32.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 14 (18.92%) ITSM
3 14 (18.92%) Patch Management
4 13 (17.57%) DevOps
5 12 (16.22%) Collaborative Working
6 10 (13.51%) High Availability
7 8 (10.81%) Multi-Factor Authentication
7 8 (10.81%) Service Management
8 7 (9.46%) Configuration Management
8 7 (9.46%) Critical Thinking
8 7 (9.46%) System Testing
9 6 (8.11%) Agile
9 6 (8.11%) Information Security
9 6 (8.11%) Virtual Environments
9 6 (8.11%) Virtual Infrastructure
10 5 (6.76%) Performance Tuning
10 5 (6.76%) Problem-Solving
10 5 (6.76%) Prototyping
10 5 (6.76%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 33 (44.59%) PowerShell
2 13 (17.57%) SQL
3 6 (8.11%) Shell Script
4 4 (5.41%) Python
4 4 (5.41%) VBScript
5 2 (2.70%) Java
6 1 (1.35%) Bicep
6 1 (1.35%) C#
6 1 (1.35%) VB
Qualifications
1 39 (52.70%) Security Cleared
2 24 (32.43%) SC Cleared
3 18 (24.32%) DV Cleared
4 16 (21.62%) Degree
5 8 (10.81%) MCSE
5 8 (10.81%) Microsoft Certification
6 4 (5.41%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 3 (4.05%) CTC Cleared
8 1 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (1.35%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 1 (1.35%) PMI Certification
8 1 (1.35%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (8.11%) SLA
System Software
1 61 (82.43%) Active Directory
2 18 (24.32%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (20.27%) Hyper-V
4 14 (18.92%) Virtual Machines
4 14 (18.92%) vSphere
5 11 (14.86%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (9.46%) Virtual Servers
6 7 (9.46%) XenApp
6 7 (9.46%) XenDesktop
7 6 (8.11%) Microsoft App-V
7 6 (8.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 2 (2.70%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (1.35%) BitLocker
9 1 (1.35%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 27 (36.49%) SCCM
2 21 (28.38%) Microsoft Intune
3 13 (17.57%) vCenter Server
4 11 (14.86%) Microsoft Clustering
5 5 (6.76%) Ansible
5 5 (6.76%) Nessus
5 5 (6.76%) NetApp OnCommand
5 5 (6.76%) vMotion
6 3 (4.05%) Failover Clustering
6 3 (4.05%) Norton AntiVirus
6 3 (4.05%) Terraform
7 2 (2.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (2.70%) Kubernetes
7 2 (2.70%) Packer
7 2 (2.70%) SCOM
8 1 (1.35%) AirWatch
8 1 (1.35%) VxRail
Vendors
1 49 (66.22%) Microsoft
2 40 (54.05%) VMware
3 13 (17.57%) Citrix
4 7 (9.46%) Dell
4 7 (9.46%) HP
5 5 (6.76%) Veeam
6 4 (5.41%) Cisco
6 4 (5.41%) Tenable
7 3 (4.05%) Atlassian
7 3 (4.05%) Rapid7
7 3 (4.05%) Sophos
7 3 (4.05%) Symantec
8 2 (2.70%) Ariba
8 2 (2.70%) CyberArk
8 2 (2.70%) Juniper
8 2 (2.70%) NETGEAR
8 2 (2.70%) Remedy
8 2 (2.70%) SolarWinds
8 2 (2.70%) Splunk
8 2 (2.70%) TP-LINK