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 3 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 507 446 527
Rank change year-on-year -61 +81 +149
Contract jobs citing WSUS 51 112 110
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.15% 0.31% 0.23%
As % of the Systems Management category 0.91% 2.17% 1.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 44 95 77
10th Percentile £350 £275 £315
25th Percentile £525 £360 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -2.44% +11.41%
75th Percentile £575 £579 £600
90th Percentile £646 £608 £615
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £503 £500
% change year-on-year +9.45% +0.50% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 6
10th Percentile - - £53.92
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate - - £60.00
75th Percentile - - £73.50
90th Percentile - - £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £78.00
% change year-on-year - - +92.24%

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 5,624 5,155 6,744
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.40% 14.20% 14.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,726 3,332 4,810
10th Percentile £300 £313 £313
25th Percentile £410 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.71% -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £600 £632 £650
90th Percentile £680 £725 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £500 £515
% change year-on-year -1.50% -2.91% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 102 56 168
10th Percentile £15.50 £19.79 £18.50
25th Percentile £19.00 £23.80 £27.19
Median hourly rate £29.25 £35.08 £49.87
Median % change year-on-year -16.63% -29.65% +99.46%
75th Percentile £63.40 £60.63 £75.31
90th Percentile £78.63 £76.25 £78.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.79 £35.08 £46.18
% change year-on-year -32.20% -24.03% +109.91%

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 3 November 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 3 November 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 -58 51 £550 +9.45% 7
UK excluding London -79 42 £550 +9.45% 7
East of England - 20 £550 -
South West +10 16 £550 +4.51% 1
London -10 9 £613 +51.23%
Work from Home -12 9 £538 -9.66%
North of England -40 3 £330 -30.53%
South East -47 3 - - 6
North West -27 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 12 (23.53%) Microsoft Exchange
2 8 (15.69%) SharePoint
3 5 (9.80%) Skype for Business
4 4 (7.84%) IIS
5 3 (5.88%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 7 (13.73%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.96%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 19 (37.25%) Cohesity
2 10 (19.61%) Azure
3 4 (7.84%) AWS
3 4 (7.84%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (3.92%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (1.96%) Entra ID
5 1 (1.96%) GCP
5 1 (1.96%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 37 (72.55%) DNS
2 18 (35.29%) SAN
3 15 (29.41%) DHCP
4 11 (21.57%) Skype
5 5 (9.80%) Unified Communications
6 3 (5.88%) TCP/IP
7 1 (1.96%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (5.88%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.96%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 1 (1.96%) JIRA
1 1 (1.96%) Metasploit
General
1 8 (15.69%) Social Skills
2 7 (13.73%) Analytical Skills
2 7 (13.73%) Public Sector
3 2 (3.92%) Finance
4 1 (1.96%) Banking
4 1 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (1.96%) Front Office
4 1 (1.96%) Legal
4 1 (1.96%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 7 (13.73%) Wintel Engineer
2 6 (11.76%) Security Engineer
3 4 (7.84%) Administrator
4 3 (5.88%) Analyst
4 3 (5.88%) Infrastructure Analyst
4 3 (5.88%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 3 (5.88%) IT Engineer
4 3 (5.88%) IT Security Engineer
4 3 (5.88%) Platform Engineer
4 3 (5.88%) Server Administrator
5 2 (3.92%) Operations Engineer
5 2 (3.92%) Security Analyst
6 1 (1.96%) Infrastructure Security Engineer
6 1 (1.96%) Microsoft Engineer
6 1 (1.96%) Microsoft Infrastructure Engineer
6 1 (1.96%) SCCM Engineer
6 1 (1.96%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 1 (1.96%) Technical Analyst
6 1 (1.96%) Technical Infrastructure Analyst
6 1 (1.96%) Wintel Administrator
Miscellaneous
1 10 (19.61%) PKI
2 2 (3.92%) Legacy Applications
2 2 (3.92%) Security Posture
3 1 (1.96%) Legacy Systems
3 1 (1.96%) Management Information System
3 1 (1.96%) Onboarding
3 1 (1.96%) Smartcard
3 1 (1.96%) YubiKey
Operating Systems
1 47 (92.16%) Windows
2 39 (76.47%) Windows Server
3 22 (43.14%) Windows Server 2016
3 22 (43.14%) Windows Server 2019
4 10 (19.61%) Linux
5 7 (13.73%) Windows Server 2012
6 6 (11.76%) Windows 10
7 3 (5.88%) Unix
8 2 (3.92%) CentOS
9 1 (1.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (47.06%) SIEM
2 18 (35.29%) Build Automation
2 18 (35.29%) Deployment Automation
2 18 (35.29%) Operations Management
3 13 (25.49%) ITIL
4 12 (23.53%) Patch Management
5 10 (19.61%) Service Management
6 8 (15.69%) Vulnerability Management
7 7 (13.73%) Critical Thinking
7 7 (13.73%) Root Cause Analysis
7 7 (13.73%) System Testing
8 6 (11.76%) Continuous Improvement
8 6 (11.76%) Server Management
9 5 (9.80%) Change Management
9 5 (9.80%) Computer Science
9 5 (9.80%) Cybersecurity
9 5 (9.80%) Vulnerability Scanning
10 4 (7.84%) Incident Response
10 4 (7.84%) Security Hardening
10 4 (7.84%) Vulnerability Remediation
Programming Languages
1 31 (60.78%) PowerShell
2 10 (19.61%) SQL
3 2 (3.92%) Bash
3 2 (3.92%) Python
4 1 (1.96%) Java
Qualifications
1 34 (66.67%) Security Cleared
2 19 (37.25%) DV Cleared
3 15 (29.41%) SC Cleared
4 8 (15.69%) Degree
5 7 (13.73%) MCSE
5 7 (13.73%) Microsoft Certification
6 5 (9.80%) CCNA
6 5 (9.80%) CCNP
6 5 (9.80%) Cisco Certification
6 5 (9.80%) ITIL Certification
6 5 (9.80%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (7.84%) SLA
2 2 (3.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (1.96%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (1.96%) GDPR
3 1 (1.96%) NIST
System Software
1 35 (68.63%) Active Directory
2 30 (58.82%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (45.10%) Microsoft Virtual Server
3 23 (45.10%) Virtual Servers
4 9 (17.65%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (7.84%) Hyper-V
5 4 (7.84%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (5.88%) NFS
6 3 (5.88%) VMware NSX
7 1 (1.96%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 37 (72.55%) SCCM
2 24 (47.06%) Ansible
3 6 (11.76%) vCenter Server
4 5 (9.80%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (5.88%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 3 (5.88%) Microsoft Clustering
5 3 (5.88%) Nessus
5 3 (5.88%) NetApp OnCommand
5 3 (5.88%) Terraform
5 3 (5.88%) vMotion
6 1 (1.96%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 35 (68.63%) Microsoft
2 31 (60.78%) VMware
3 23 (45.10%) Splunk
4 18 (35.29%) NetApp
5 9 (17.65%) SolarWinds
5 9 (17.65%) Veeam
6 8 (15.69%) Cisco
7 4 (7.84%) Qualys
7 4 (7.84%) Tenable
8 3 (5.88%) Red Hat
8 3 (5.88%) Sophos
9 2 (3.92%) Rapid7
10 1 (1.96%) Kaseya
10 1 (1.96%) Progress
10 1 (1.96%) ServiceNow
10 1 (1.96%) Veracode