Systems Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

System Engineer
UK > England

The median System Engineer daily rate in England is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 September 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 220 333 235
Rank change year-on-year +113 -98 +102
Contract jobs requiring a Systems Engineer 551 182 334
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.21% 0.66% 1.01%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.31% 0.72% 1.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 116 55 69
10th Percentile £281 £327 £313
25th Percentile £382 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -18.18%
75th Percentile £571 £588 £538
90th Percentile £725 £633 £625
UK median daily rate £475 £475 £450
% change year-on-year - +5.56% -16.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 288 55 121
10th Percentile £46.61 £44.96 £39.96
25th Percentile £56.74 £51.72 £45.22
Median hourly rate £65.90 £56.44 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.76% -13.17% +15.06%
75th Percentile £74.25 £73.50 £71.25
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.47 £76.86
UK median hourly rate £67.24 £56.24 £62.66
% change year-on-year +19.55% -10.24% +10.91%

All Contract IT Job Roles
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in England. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in England with a recognized job title 42,208 25,248 30,773
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.43% 91.56% 93.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,337 16,299 19,707
10th Percentile £325 £281 £303
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £635 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,268 1,358 1,625
10th Percentile £15.18 £13.69 £14.16
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.34 £21.00
Median hourly rate £43.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +72.96% -44.11% +2.86%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £66.74
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%

Systems Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Systems Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Systems Engineer job vacancy trend in England

Systems Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Systems Engineer job vacancies in England.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Systems Engineer job vacancies in England

Systems Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Systems Engineer in England over the 6 months to 1 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Systems Engineer in England

Systems Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Systems Engineer job vacancies in England.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Systems Engineer job vacancies in England

Systems Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Systems Engineer in England over the 6 months to 1 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Systems Engineer in England

Systems Engineer
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Systems Engineer within the England region over the 6 months to 1 September 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
South East +43 150 £500 +5.26% 212
South West +50 137 £500 - 131
London -27 86 £475 -9.09% 208
North of England -30 62 £444 -1.39% 97
Midlands -19 59 £463 +8.82% 62
East of England -9 56 £233 -57.73% 92
North West -38 41 £500 +11.11% 48
West Midlands -28 33 £410 -3.53% 42
East Midlands +1 26 £475 - 19
North East - 12 £350 - 30
Yorkshire - 9 £275 - 26
Systems Engineer
UK

Systems Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 1 September 2026, Systems Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the England region featuring Systems Engineer in the job title.

1 99 (17.97%) Systems Engineering
2 96 (17.42%) Security Cleared
3 79 (14.34%) SC Cleared
4 59 (10.71%) Validation
5 47 (8.53%) Windows
6 43 (7.80%) Verification and Validation
7 37 (6.72%) Linux
7 37 (6.72%) Microsoft
7 37 (6.72%) Rational DOORS
8 32 (5.81%) Degree
9 27 (4.90%) Azure
9 27 (4.90%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
9 27 (4.90%) Problem-Solving
9 27 (4.90%) Windows Server
10 26 (4.72%) Active Directory
11 23 (4.17%) Configuration Management
11 23 (4.17%) VMware
12 22 (3.99%) Python
12 22 (3.99%) VMware Infrastructure
13 20 (3.63%) Disaster Recovery
13 20 (3.63%) DNS
14 19 (3.45%) ITIL
15 18 (3.27%) Firewall
15 18 (3.27%) PowerShell
16 17 (3.09%) BPSS Clearance
16 17 (3.09%) Hyper-V
17 16 (2.90%) DHCP
17 16 (2.90%) EMC
17 16 (2.90%) MATLAB
17 16 (2.90%) Microsoft 365

Systems Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 4 (0.73%) JBoss
1 4 (0.73%) Microsoft Exchange
1 4 (0.73%) SAS
2 3 (0.54%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.36%) Confluence
Applications
1 15 (2.72%) Simulink
2 4 (0.73%) Stateflow
3 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (0.54%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.18%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 27 (4.90%) Azure
2 16 (2.90%) Microsoft 365
3 13 (2.36%) Entra ID
4 11 (2.00%) AWS
4 11 (2.00%) OpenShift
5 10 (1.81%) SaaS
6 5 (0.91%) GitHub
7 4 (0.73%) Azure Monitor
7 4 (0.73%) GCP
8 3 (0.54%) Azure Logic Apps
8 3 (0.54%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (0.36%) Cloudflare
9 2 (0.36%) OneDrive
10 1 (0.18%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 1 (0.18%) AWS Lambda
10 1 (0.18%) AWS Step Functions
10 1 (0.18%) Azure Sentinel
10 1 (0.18%) Azure Service Bus
10 1 (0.18%) IaaS
10 1 (0.18%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 20 (3.63%) DNS
2 18 (3.27%) Firewall
3 16 (2.90%) DHCP
4 13 (2.36%) TCP/IP
5 11 (2.00%) VPN
6 10 (1.81%) Network Security
7 8 (1.45%) LAN
8 6 (1.09%) IPv4
8 6 (1.09%) Kerberos
8 6 (1.09%) Modbus
8 6 (1.09%) VLAN
9 5 (0.91%) ATM
10 4 (0.73%) WAN
11 3 (0.54%) NAS
11 3 (0.54%) SAN
11 3 (0.54%) Software-Defined Networking
11 3 (0.54%) VoIP
12 2 (0.36%) DKIM
12 2 (0.36%) DMARC
13 1 (0.18%) SpaceWire
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.73%) Big Data
1 4 (0.73%) Hadoop
2 3 (0.54%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.18%) Db2
3 1 (0.18%) GIS
3 1 (0.18%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 37 (6.72%) Rational DOORS
2 7 (1.27%) Rational Rhapsody
3 3 (0.54%) JIRA
4 1 (0.18%) CANoe
4 1 (0.18%) Git
4 1 (0.18%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.18%) Storybook
General
1 89 (16.15%) Aerospace
2 43 (7.80%) Social Skills
3 36 (6.53%) Avionics
4 26 (4.72%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (4.72%) Military
5 20 (3.63%) Manufacturing
6 19 (3.45%) Automotive
7 14 (2.54%) Finance
8 12 (2.18%) Electronics
9 10 (1.81%) Law
10 5 (0.91%) Aviation
11 4 (0.73%) Games
11 4 (0.73%) Influencing Skills
11 4 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.54%) Documentation Skills
12 3 (0.54%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.36%) Public Sector
14 1 (0.18%) Banking
14 1 (0.18%) Financial Institution
14 1 (0.18%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (2.00%) Terraform
2 6 (1.09%) NETCONF
3 5 (0.91%) OpenID
3 5 (0.91%) SAML
4 3 (0.54%) ARM Templates
4 3 (0.54%) ISPF
4 3 (0.54%) REST
5 2 (0.36%) HTML
5 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Graph
5 2 (0.36%) Middleware
6 1 (0.18%) CSS
6 1 (0.18%) JSON
6 1 (0.18%) Node.js
6 1 (0.18%) OpenGL
6 1 (0.18%) Qt
6 1 (0.18%) RESTful
6 1 (0.18%) SailPoint
6 1 (0.18%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 11 (2.00%) Operational Technology
2 10 (1.81%) SCADA
3 9 (1.63%) Renewable Energy
4 7 (1.27%) Hybrid Cloud
5 6 (1.09%) IoT
5 6 (1.09%) Mainframe
5 6 (1.09%) Management Information System
6 5 (0.91%) Clustering
6 5 (0.91%) Virtual Team
7 4 (0.73%) Algorithms
7 4 (0.73%) Animation
7 4 (0.73%) Cloud Native
7 4 (0.73%) Data Centre
7 4 (0.73%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (0.54%) Acoustics
8 3 (0.54%) CCTV
8 3 (0.54%) Embedded Systems
8 3 (0.54%) Linux Command Line
8 3 (0.54%) Onboarding
8 3 (0.54%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 47 (8.53%) Windows
2 37 (6.72%) Linux
3 27 (4.90%) Windows Server
4 12 (2.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (1.09%) Windows 10
6 5 (0.91%) Unix
7 4 (0.73%) zOS
8 3 (0.54%) Android
8 3 (0.54%) MVS
9 2 (0.36%) Debian
10 1 (0.18%) FreeRTOS
10 1 (0.18%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (17.97%) Systems Engineering
2 59 (10.71%) Validation
3 43 (7.80%) Verification and Validation
4 27 (4.90%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
4 27 (4.90%) Problem-Solving
5 23 (4.17%) Configuration Management
6 20 (3.63%) Disaster Recovery
7 19 (3.45%) ITIL
8 15 (2.72%) Root Cause Analysis
9 14 (2.54%) Project Management
10 13 (2.36%) Infrastructure as Code
10 13 (2.36%) Workflow
11 12 (2.18%) Requirements Management
12 11 (2.00%) Agile
12 11 (2.00%) Continuous Improvement
12 11 (2.00%) Migration
12 11 (2.00%) Project Delivery
12 11 (2.00%) Stakeholder Management
13 10 (1.81%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 10 (1.81%) Network Architecture
Programming Languages
1 22 (3.99%) Python
2 18 (3.27%) PowerShell
3 16 (2.90%) MATLAB
4 10 (1.81%) Bash
5 6 (1.09%) REXX
6 4 (0.73%) Bicep
6 4 (0.73%) C
7 3 (0.54%) JCL
7 3 (0.54%) SQL
8 2 (0.36%) C++
8 2 (0.36%) Java
9 1 (0.18%) COBOL
9 1 (0.18%) Perl
9 1 (0.18%) Rust
9 1 (0.18%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 96 (17.42%) Security Cleared
2 79 (14.34%) SC Cleared
3 32 (5.81%) Degree
4 17 (3.09%) BPSS Clearance
5 9 (1.63%) DV Cleared
6 7 (1.27%) Microsoft Certification
7 6 (1.09%) Azure Certification
8 5 (0.91%) Chartered Engineer
8 5 (0.91%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (0.73%) CCNA
9 4 (0.73%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (0.73%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 3 (0.54%) CCA
10 3 (0.54%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 2 (0.36%) AWS Certification
11 2 (0.36%) CCNP
11 2 (0.36%) HND
12 1 (0.18%) HNC
12 1 (0.18%) Master's Degree
12 1 (0.18%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (1.27%) Def Stans
2 3 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 15288
2 3 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (0.54%) NCSC
2 3 (0.54%) QA
3 2 (0.36%) GxP
4 1 (0.18%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.18%) ARP4761
4 1 (0.18%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.18%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 1 (0.18%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.18%) DICOM
4 1 (0.18%) DO-254
4 1 (0.18%) HAZOP
4 1 (0.18%) HL7
4 1 (0.18%) MIL-STD-1553
4 1 (0.18%) NIST
4 1 (0.18%) NIST 800
4 1 (0.18%) WCAG
System Software
1 26 (4.72%) Active Directory
2 22 (3.99%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (3.09%) Hyper-V
4 6 (1.09%) Docker
5 4 (0.73%) Firmware
5 4 (0.73%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.36%) VMware Workstation
7 1 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.18%) Job Entry Subsystem
7 1 (0.18%) KVM
7 1 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
7 1 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.18%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 14 (2.54%) Ansible
2 12 (2.18%) Kubernetes
3 9 (1.63%) Microsoft Intune
4 8 (1.45%) Puppet
5 5 (0.91%) Failover Clustering
5 5 (0.91%) Red Hat Satellite
6 4 (0.73%) Grafana
6 4 (0.73%) Progress Chef
6 4 (0.73%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.54%) Istio
8 2 (0.36%) Functional Safety
8 2 (0.36%) Tivoli NetView
9 1 (0.18%) Amdocs OSS
9 1 (0.18%) Check_MK
9 1 (0.18%) Control-M
9 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Clustering
9 1 (0.18%) PingFederate
9 1 (0.18%) Podman
9 1 (0.18%) SCCM
9 1 (0.18%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 37 (6.72%) Microsoft
2 23 (4.17%) VMware
3 16 (2.90%) EMC
4 13 (2.36%) Cisco
4 13 (2.36%) Red Hat
5 10 (1.81%) IBM
6 4 (0.73%) Perforce
6 4 (0.73%) SaltStack
6 4 (0.73%) ServiceNow
7 3 (0.54%) AVEVA
7 3 (0.54%) Fortinet
7 3 (0.54%) NEC
7 3 (0.54%) Okta
7 3 (0.54%) Rockwell
7 3 (0.54%) Siemens
7 3 (0.54%) Sparx
7 3 (0.54%) Splunk
8 2 (0.36%) BeyondTrust
8 2 (0.36%) Broadcom
8 2 (0.36%) CrowdStrike