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 contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 513 456 510
Rank change year-on-year -57 +54 +174
Contract jobs citing WSUS 52 117 119
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.16% 0.31% 0.25%
As % of the Systems Management category 0.96% 2.22% 1.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 45 100 82
10th Percentile £355 £284 £301
25th Percentile £525 £360 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £521 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.52% +4.25% +11.11%
75th Percentile £575 £608 £575
90th Percentile £628 £608 £615
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £527 £500
% change year-on-year +4.31% +5.45% +12.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 10
10th Percentile - - £58.78
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate - - £60.00
75th Percentile - - £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 5,440 5,268 7,079
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.34% 14.07% 14.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,552 3,444 4,993
10th Percentile £300 £313 £325
25th Percentile £411 £414 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £650
90th Percentile £675 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £515
% change year-on-year -1.60% -2.91% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 99 57 177
10th Percentile £15.47 £19.82 £19.25
25th Percentile £18.87 £23.80 £35.00
Median hourly rate £26.00 £34.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.53% -38.18% +130.03%
75th Percentile £62.38 £58.75 £75.00
90th Percentile £69.30 £74.66 £78.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.39 £34.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year -37.09% -26.38% +110.96%

WSUS
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing WSUS relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

WSUS job vacancy trend 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 18 October 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 10 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 18 October 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 -35 52 £550 - 11
UK excluding London -66 43 £550 +4.31% 11
East of England - 22 £550 - 1
South West +18 15 £550 -2.22% 3
Work from Home +15 10 £538 -11.16% 5
London +13 9 £613 +44.12% 1
North of England -28 3 £330 -30.53%
South East -52 3 - - 7
North West -12 2 £328 -31.05%
Yorkshire - 1 £375 -

WSUS
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 10 (19.23%) Microsoft Exchange
2 8 (15.38%) SharePoint
3 5 (9.62%) Skype for Business
4 4 (7.69%) IIS
5 3 (5.77%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 6 (11.54%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.92%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 21 (40.38%) Cohesity
2 10 (19.23%) Azure
3 4 (7.69%) AWS
4 3 (5.77%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (1.92%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (1.92%) GCP
5 1 (1.92%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 39 (75.00%) DNS
2 20 (38.46%) SAN
3 15 (28.85%) DHCP
4 10 (19.23%) Skype
5 5 (9.62%) Unified Communications
6 3 (5.77%) TCP/IP
7 1 (1.92%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (5.77%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.92%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 1 (1.92%) JIRA
1 1 (1.92%) Metasploit
General
1 7 (13.46%) Public Sector
1 7 (13.46%) Social Skills
2 6 (11.54%) Analytical Skills
3 2 (3.85%) Finance
4 1 (1.92%) Banking
4 1 (1.92%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (1.92%) Front Office
4 1 (1.92%) Legal
4 1 (1.92%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 6 (11.54%) Wintel Engineer
2 5 (9.62%) Security Engineer
3 4 (7.69%) Administrator
3 4 (7.69%) Analyst
3 4 (7.69%) Infrastructure Analyst
4 3 (5.77%) IT Engineer
4 3 (5.77%) IT Security Engineer
4 3 (5.77%) Platform Engineer
4 3 (5.77%) Security Analyst
4 3 (5.77%) Server Administrator
5 2 (3.85%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 2 (3.85%) Operations Engineer
6 1 (1.92%) Consultant
6 1 (1.92%) SCCM Engineer
6 1 (1.92%) Security Consultant
6 1 (1.92%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 1 (1.92%) Systems Engineer
6 1 (1.92%) Technical Analyst
6 1 (1.92%) Technical Infrastructure Analyst
6 1 (1.92%) Wintel Administrator
Miscellaneous
1 9 (17.31%) PKI
2 3 (5.77%) Legacy Applications
3 1 (1.92%) Legacy Systems
3 1 (1.92%) Management Information System
3 1 (1.92%) Onboarding
3 1 (1.92%) Security Posture
3 1 (1.92%) Smartcard
3 1 (1.92%) YubiKey
Operating Systems
1 48 (92.31%) Windows
2 40 (76.92%) Windows Server
3 24 (46.15%) Windows Server 2016
3 24 (46.15%) Windows Server 2019
4 9 (17.31%) Linux
5 5 (9.62%) Windows Server 2012
6 4 (7.69%) Windows 10
7 3 (5.77%) Unix
8 1 (1.92%) CentOS
8 1 (1.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (48.08%) SIEM
2 20 (38.46%) Build Automation
2 20 (38.46%) Deployment Automation
2 20 (38.46%) Operations Management
3 12 (23.08%) ITIL
3 12 (23.08%) Patch Management
4 9 (17.31%) Service Management
4 9 (17.31%) Vulnerability Management
5 7 (13.46%) Root Cause Analysis
6 6 (11.54%) Critical Thinking
6 6 (11.54%) Server Management
6 6 (11.54%) System Testing
7 5 (9.62%) Computer Science
7 5 (9.62%) Continuous Improvement
7 5 (9.62%) Incident Response
7 5 (9.62%) Vulnerability Remediation
7 5 (9.62%) Vulnerability Scanning
8 4 (7.69%) Change Management
8 4 (7.69%) Cloud Security
8 4 (7.69%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 31 (59.62%) PowerShell
2 9 (17.31%) SQL
3 2 (3.85%) Bash
3 2 (3.85%) Python
4 1 (1.92%) Java
Qualifications
1 35 (67.31%) Security Cleared
2 21 (40.38%) DV Cleared
3 14 (26.92%) SC Cleared
4 7 (13.46%) Degree
5 6 (11.54%) MCSE
5 6 (11.54%) Microsoft Certification
6 5 (9.62%) CCNA
6 5 (9.62%) CCNP
6 5 (9.62%) Cisco Certification
6 5 (9.62%) ITIL Certification
6 5 (9.62%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (7.69%) SLA
2 2 (3.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (1.92%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (1.92%) GDPR
3 1 (1.92%) NIST
System Software
1 35 (67.31%) Active Directory
2 32 (61.54%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (48.08%) Microsoft Virtual Server
3 25 (48.08%) Virtual Servers
4 9 (17.31%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (7.69%) Hyper-V
5 4 (7.69%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (5.77%) NFS
6 3 (5.77%) VMware NSX
7 1 (1.92%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 39 (75.00%) SCCM
2 26 (50.00%) Ansible
3 6 (11.54%) vCenter Server
4 4 (7.69%) Microsoft Intune
4 4 (7.69%) Nessus
5 3 (5.77%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 3 (5.77%) Microsoft Clustering
5 3 (5.77%) NetApp OnCommand
5 3 (5.77%) Terraform
5 3 (5.77%) vMotion
6 1 (1.92%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 35 (67.31%) Microsoft
2 33 (63.46%) VMware
3 25 (48.08%) Splunk
4 20 (38.46%) NetApp
5 9 (17.31%) SolarWinds
5 9 (17.31%) Veeam
6 8 (15.38%) Cisco
7 5 (9.62%) Qualys
8 4 (7.69%) Tenable
9 3 (5.77%) Sophos
10 2 (3.85%) Rapid7
10 2 (3.85%) Red Hat
11 1 (1.92%) Kaseya
11 1 (1.92%) Progress
11 1 (1.92%) ServiceNow
11 1 (1.92%) Veracode