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 25 June 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 448 445 575
Rank change year-on-year -3 +130 +154
Contract jobs citing WSUS 82 147 114
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.27% 0.34% 0.21%
As % of the Systems Management category 1.72% 2.75% 1.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 65 119 79
10th Percentile £360 £267 £312
25th Percentile £500 £399 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year - +10.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £575 £608 £538
90th Percentile £613 £609 £590
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £575 £500
% change year-on-year -4.35% +15.00% +10.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 5 7
10th Percentile - - £55.13
25th Percentile - £20.50 -
Median hourly rate - £21.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year - -65.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile - £21.50 £62.25
90th Percentile - - £64.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £47.83
% change year-on-year - - +139.15%

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 4,754 5,337 8,574
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.76% 12.25% 15.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,179 3,836 6,106
10th Percentile £300 £300 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £516 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.74% -6.12% -2.65%
75th Percentile £603 £625 £675
90th Percentile £700 £700 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 103 184
10th Percentile £13.75 £15.72 £18.65
25th Percentile £21.39 £20.50 £25.71
Median hourly rate £37.50 £31.50 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +19.05% -45.22% +155.56%
75th Percentile £63.40 £49.38 £73.75
90th Percentile £78.70 £71.25 £84.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.00 £40.00 £43.75
% change year-on-year +42.50% -8.57% +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 25 June 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 12 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 25 June 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 +16 80 £550 -4.35% 35
UK excluding London -3 68 £550 -4.35% 35
East of England +46 25 £550 +107.55% 5
Work from Home +33 24 £538 -11.07% 29
North of England +33 16 £525 +39.07% 12
North West +17 15 £525 -8.70% 3
South West +56 14 £575 +20.73% 6
South East -35 12 £540 -6.09% 8
London +30 11 £575 +49.35% 5
Midlands +11 1 £535 +12.63% 2
West Midlands +6 1 £535 - 2
North East 0 1 £350 +94.44%

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 28 (34.15%) Microsoft Exchange
2 17 (20.73%) SharePoint
3 11 (13.41%) IIS
4 6 (7.32%) Confluence
4 6 (7.32%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 16 (19.51%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 26 (31.71%) Azure
2 24 (29.27%) Cohesity
3 17 (20.73%) Microsoft 365
4 13 (15.85%) Entra ID
5 4 (4.88%) OneDrive
6 2 (2.44%) AWS
6 2 (2.44%) AWS CloudFormation
6 2 (2.44%) GitHub
7 1 (1.22%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (1.22%) Azure Storage
7 1 (1.22%) Nutanix
7 1 (1.22%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 56 (68.29%) DNS
2 25 (30.49%) SAN
3 21 (25.61%) DHCP
4 13 (15.85%) Skype
5 5 (6.10%) NetScaler
5 5 (6.10%) SMTP
5 5 (6.10%) Unified Communications
5 5 (6.10%) VSAN
6 4 (4.88%) Firewall
6 4 (4.88%) TCP/IP
7 3 (3.66%) HTTP
8 2 (2.44%) HTTPS
8 2 (2.44%) SSL
9 1 (1.22%) VLAN
9 1 (1.22%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.66%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.22%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 6 (7.32%) JIRA
2 3 (3.66%) Bitbucket
3 2 (2.44%) Git
4 1 (1.22%) GitLab
General
1 19 (23.17%) Social Skills
2 8 (9.76%) Analytical Skills
2 8 (9.76%) Public Sector
3 4 (4.88%) Finance
3 4 (4.88%) Legal
4 3 (3.66%) Banking
5 2 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (2.44%) Military
6 1 (1.22%) Financial Institution
6 1 (1.22%) Front Office
6 1 (1.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.22%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 10 (12.20%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 9 (10.98%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
3 6 (7.32%) Wintel Engineer
4 5 (6.10%) Senior
5 4 (4.88%) Administrator
5 4 (4.88%) Analyst
5 4 (4.88%) Infrastructure Analyst
5 4 (4.88%) Security Analyst
5 4 (4.88%) Senior Wintel Engineer
6 3 (3.66%) Infrastructure Specialist
6 3 (3.66%) SCCM Engineer
6 3 (3.66%) Security Engineer
6 3 (3.66%) Support Engineer
6 3 (3.66%) Windows Engineer
7 2 (2.44%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 2 (2.44%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
7 2 (2.44%) Azure Engineer
7 2 (2.44%) IT Engineer
7 2 (2.44%) VMWare Administrator
7 2 (2.44%) Wintel Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (1.22%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 17 (20.73%) PKI
2 8 (9.76%) Clustering
3 5 (6.10%) Data Centre
4 4 (4.88%) Legacy Applications
5 3 (3.66%) Smartcard
5 3 (3.66%) YubiKey
6 1 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.22%) Blackberry
6 1 (1.22%) Management Information System
6 1 (1.22%) RSA SecurID
6 1 (1.22%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (1.22%) Video Conferencing
6 1 (1.22%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 79 (96.34%) Windows
2 68 (82.93%) Windows Server
3 36 (43.90%) Windows Server 2016
4 35 (42.68%) Windows Server 2019
5 14 (17.07%) Windows Server 2012
6 13 (15.85%) Windows 10
7 11 (13.41%) Linux
8 8 (9.76%) VMS
9 6 (7.32%) Unix
9 6 (7.32%) Windows Server 2003
10 2 (2.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (1.22%) Android
11 1 (1.22%) Apple iOS
11 1 (1.22%) Ubuntu
11 1 (1.22%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 21 (25.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
1 21 (25.61%) SIEM
2 20 (24.39%) Build Automation
2 20 (24.39%) Deployment Automation
2 20 (24.39%) ITIL
2 20 (24.39%) Operations Management
3 9 (10.98%) DevOps
3 9 (10.98%) Multi-Factor Authentication
3 9 (10.98%) Patch Management
4 8 (9.76%) Collaborative Working
4 8 (9.76%) ITSM
4 8 (9.76%) Service Management
5 7 (8.54%) Critical Thinking
5 7 (8.54%) System Testing
6 6 (7.32%) Agile
6 6 (7.32%) High Availability
6 6 (7.32%) Virtual Environments
6 6 (7.32%) Vulnerability Management
6 6 (7.32%) Vulnerability Remediation
7 5 (6.10%) Security Hardening
Programming Languages
1 47 (57.32%) PowerShell
2 12 (14.63%) SQL
3 5 (6.10%) Shell Script
4 4 (4.88%) VBScript
5 2 (2.44%) Java
5 2 (2.44%) Python
6 1 (1.22%) Bicep
6 1 (1.22%) C#
6 1 (1.22%) VB
Qualifications
1 50 (60.98%) Security Cleared
2 35 (42.68%) DV Cleared
3 22 (26.83%) SC Cleared
4 14 (17.07%) Degree
5 8 (9.76%) MCSE
5 8 (9.76%) Microsoft Certification
6 4 (4.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 1 (1.22%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (1.22%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 1 (1.22%) PMI Certification
7 1 (1.22%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (3.66%) SLA
System Software
1 69 (84.15%) Active Directory
2 33 (40.24%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (30.49%) Microsoft Virtual Server
3 25 (30.49%) Virtual Servers
4 13 (15.85%) Hyper-V
4 13 (15.85%) vSphere
5 8 (9.76%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (9.76%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (7.32%) XenApp
6 6 (7.32%) XenDesktop
7 3 (3.66%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (2.44%) NFS
8 2 (2.44%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (1.22%) BitLocker
9 1 (1.22%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 41 (50.00%) SCCM
2 26 (31.71%) Ansible
3 14 (17.07%) Microsoft Intune
4 10 (12.20%) vCenter Server
5 8 (9.76%) Nessus
6 7 (8.54%) Microsoft Clustering
7 4 (4.88%) Terraform
8 3 (3.66%) Failover Clustering
8 3 (3.66%) Norton AntiVirus
9 2 (2.44%) Kubernetes
9 2 (2.44%) NetApp OnCommand
9 2 (2.44%) Packer
9 2 (2.44%) SCOM
9 2 (2.44%) vMotion
10 1 (1.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 1 (1.22%) VxRail
Vendors
1 58 (70.73%) Microsoft
2 51 (62.20%) VMware
3 21 (25.61%) NetApp
3 21 (25.61%) Splunk
4 12 (14.63%) Citrix
5 6 (7.32%) Dell
5 6 (7.32%) HP
5 6 (7.32%) Veeam
6 5 (6.10%) Qualys
6 5 (6.10%) Tenable
7 3 (3.66%) Atlassian
7 3 (3.66%) Cisco
7 3 (3.66%) SolarWinds
7 3 (3.66%) Symantec
8 2 (2.44%) CyberArk
8 2 (2.44%) Juniper
8 2 (2.44%) NETGEAR
8 2 (2.44%) Red Hat
8 2 (2.44%) TP-LINK
9 1 (1.22%) Palo Alto