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 21 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 582 439 452
Rank change year-on-year -143 +13 +120
Contract jobs citing WSUS 48 87 127
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.099% 0.30% 0.30%
As % of the Systems Management category 0.74% 1.91% 2.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 30 71 105
10th Percentile £185 £350 £280
25th Percentile £393 £480 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% -4.35% +21.05%
75th Percentile £542 £575 £608
90th Percentile £580 £606 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £550 £575
% change year-on-year -18.18% -4.35% +16.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 0 5
10th Percentile £44.86 - -
25th Percentile £72.13 - £20.50
Median hourly rate £74.00 - £21.00
75th Percentile £75.88 - £21.50
90th Percentile £85.25 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.00 - -

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 6,482 4,566 5,096
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.43% 15.69% 11.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,455 3,113 3,684
10th Percentile £325 £305 £263
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £513
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +1.46% -8.15%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £688 £706 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £492 £488
% change year-on-year +0.01% +0.92% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 49 110
10th Percentile £20.09 £13.75 £14.00
25th Percentile £30.63 £21.39 £17.76
Median hourly rate £55.00 £27.50 £26.38
Median % change year-on-year +100.00% +4.24% -49.75%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.25 £50.19
90th Percentile £74.80 £78.96 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £37.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year +46.67% +25.00% -25.09%

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 21 May 2026.

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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing WSUS over the 6 months to 21 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for WSUS in the UK

WSUS
Top 14 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 21 May 2026. 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 -146 41 £450 -18.18% 12
UK excluding London -145 32 £450 -18.18% 10
London -55 11 £538 - 3
Work from Home -67 9 £525 -1.41% 6
Midlands -50 8 £450 -15.89%
East of England -42 7 £450 -18.18%
South East -61 7 £600 +12.10% 6
East Midlands - 6 - -
North of England -85 5 £190 -63.81% 3
North West -53 4 £190 -63.81% 2
Wales - 4 £170 - 1
West Midlands -56 2 £450 -15.89%
South West -45 1 - -
Yorkshire - 1 £500 - 1

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 16 (33.33%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (6.25%) IIS
2 3 (6.25%) nginx
3 1 (2.08%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (2.08%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 11 (22.92%) Microsoft 365
2 7 (14.58%) Azure
3 6 (12.50%) Cohesity
4 5 (10.42%) AWS
5 4 (8.33%) Google Workspace
6 1 (2.08%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 29 (60.42%) DNS
2 18 (37.50%) DHCP
3 10 (20.83%) TCP/IP
4 9 (18.75%) Firewall
5 8 (16.67%) VLAN
6 7 (14.58%) VPN
7 6 (12.50%) IPv4
7 6 (12.50%) IPv6
7 6 (12.50%) Skype
8 5 (10.42%) LAN
8 5 (10.42%) Network Security
8 5 (10.42%) VSAN
9 4 (8.33%) DMZ
9 4 (8.33%) WAN
10 3 (6.25%) SAN
11 2 (4.17%) VoIP
12 1 (2.08%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (16.67%) SQL Server
2 3 (6.25%) Elasticsearch
3 2 (4.17%) MariaDB
4 1 (2.08%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 3 (6.25%) GitLab
1 3 (6.25%) JIRA
General
1 18 (37.50%) Social Skills
2 6 (12.50%) Banking
2 6 (12.50%) Investment Banking
3 5 (10.42%) Finance
4 4 (8.33%) Front Office
5 3 (6.25%) Spanish Language
6 2 (4.17%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (4.17%) Military
6 2 (4.17%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (2.08%) Legal
7 1 (2.08%) Manufacturing
7 1 (2.08%) Pharmaceutical
7 1 (2.08%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 15 (31.25%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 7 (14.58%) IT Engineer
3 5 (10.42%) Analyst
3 5 (10.42%) Help Desk Analyst
3 5 (10.42%) IT Analyst
3 5 (10.42%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
4 4 (8.33%) Administrator
4 4 (8.33%) Security Engineer
5 3 (6.25%) Network Engineer
5 3 (6.25%) Senior
5 3 (6.25%) Server Engineer
6 2 (4.17%) Citrix Administrator
6 2 (4.17%) Desktop Engineer
6 2 (4.17%) Operations Engineer
6 2 (4.17%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
7 1 (2.08%) Network Operations Engineer
7 1 (2.08%) Platform Engineer
7 1 (2.08%) Senior Wintel Engineer
7 1 (2.08%) VMware Engineer
7 1 (2.08%) Wintel Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (10.42%) LDAP
2 3 (6.25%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 9 (18.75%) Onboarding
2 6 (12.50%) Self-Motivation
2 6 (12.50%) Smartcard
2 6 (12.50%) YubiKey
3 5 (10.42%) PKI
3 5 (10.42%) Virtual Team
4 3 (6.25%) Client/Server
4 3 (6.25%) Data Centre
5 2 (4.17%) Clustering
5 2 (4.17%) Cyber Defence
6 1 (2.08%) CCTV
6 1 (2.08%) Enterprise Storage
6 1 (2.08%) Fat Client
6 1 (2.08%) Life Science
6 1 (2.08%) Security Operations Centre
6 1 (2.08%) Security Posture
6 1 (2.08%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 42 (87.50%) Windows
2 29 (60.42%) Windows Server
3 11 (22.92%) Linux
4 8 (16.67%) Windows 10
4 8 (16.67%) Windows Server 2019
5 6 (12.50%) Windows Server 2016
6 4 (8.33%) Windows Server 2012
7 3 (6.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (6.25%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (35.42%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 16 (33.33%) ITIL
3 12 (25.00%) Patch Management
3 12 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
4 9 (18.75%) SIEM
5 7 (14.58%) Service Management
6 6 (12.50%) Agile
6 6 (12.50%) Decision-Making
6 6 (12.50%) Technical Leadership
7 5 (10.42%) Analytics
7 5 (10.42%) Continuous Improvement
7 5 (10.42%) Cybersecurity
7 5 (10.42%) High Availability
7 5 (10.42%) Security Operations
7 5 (10.42%) Service Delivery
7 5 (10.42%) Threat Detection
8 4 (8.33%) Data Security
8 4 (8.33%) Information Security
8 4 (8.33%) Internal Audit
8 4 (8.33%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 11 (22.92%) PowerShell
2 6 (12.50%) SQL
3 1 (2.08%) Bash
3 1 (2.08%) Python
Qualifications
1 24 (50.00%) Security Cleared
2 16 (33.33%) SC Cleared
3 10 (20.83%) DV Cleared
4 9 (18.75%) Degree
5 4 (8.33%) Microsoft Certification
6 3 (6.25%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (6.25%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 3 (6.25%) MCSA
7 1 (2.08%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (2.08%) MCSE
7 1 (2.08%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (4.17%) Cyber Essentials
1 2 (4.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 2 (4.17%) JSP 440
2 1 (2.08%) SLA
System Software
1 24 (50.00%) Active Directory
2 17 (35.42%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (16.67%) Hyper-V
4 6 (12.50%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (10.42%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (8.33%) vSphere
7 3 (6.25%) Docker
7 3 (6.25%) VMware NSX
8 2 (4.17%) XenApp
8 2 (4.17%) XenDesktop
9 1 (2.08%) BitLocker
9 1 (2.08%) Citrix Presentation Server
9 1 (2.08%) KVM
Systems Management
1 22 (45.83%) SCCM
2 8 (16.67%) Nessus
3 4 (8.33%) Microsoft Intune
3 4 (8.33%) vCenter Server
4 3 (6.25%) Ansible
5 2 (4.17%) Check_MK
5 2 (4.17%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (2.08%) Backup Exec
6 1 (2.08%) FortiGate
6 1 (2.08%) Kubernetes
6 1 (2.08%) Microsoft Clustering
6 1 (2.08%) NetApp OnCommand
6 1 (2.08%) Norton AntiVirus
6 1 (2.08%) Progress Chef
6 1 (2.08%) SCOM
6 1 (2.08%) Terraform
6 1 (2.08%) vMotion
6 1 (2.08%) WhatsUp Gold
Vendors
1 23 (47.92%) VMware
2 16 (33.33%) Citrix
3 13 (27.08%) Microsoft
4 8 (16.67%) Tenable
5 6 (12.50%) Cisco
6 4 (8.33%) Bloomberg
6 4 (8.33%) ION Trading
6 4 (8.33%) Red Hat
6 4 (8.33%) Reuters
6 4 (8.33%) Sophos
7 3 (6.25%) NVIDIA
7 3 (6.25%) SolarWinds
7 3 (6.25%) Splunk
8 2 (4.17%) Ariba
8 2 (4.17%) Fortinet
8 2 (4.17%) McAfee
8 2 (4.17%) Palo Alto
8 2 (4.17%) SAP
8 2 (4.17%) Tanium
9 1 (2.08%) Qualys