Operations Engineer Contract Job Trends in the South West

Operations Engineer
England > South West

The median Operations Engineer daily rate in the South West is £515, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 12 September 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 150 115 138
Rank change year-on-year -35 +23 +15
Contract jobs requiring an Operations Engineer 9 2 2
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 0.24% 0.10% 0.075%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.26% 0.11% 0.081%
Number of daily rates quoted 3 0 2
10th Percentile £447 - £620
25th Percentile £469 - £631
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 - £655
Median % change year-on-year - - +24.76%
75th Percentile £526 - £673
90th Percentile £529 - £680
England median daily rate £410 £513 £458
% change year-on-year -20.00% +11.84% +1.83%

All Contract IT Job Roles
South West

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the South West. 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 the South West with a recognized job title 3,491 1,760 2,469
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.54% 89.02% 92.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,888 1,011 1,508
10th Percentile £331 £225 £224
25th Percentile £438 £366 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £614
90th Percentile £725 £706 £700
England median daily rate £525 £506 £525
% change year-on-year +3.75% -3.62% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 604 201 269
10th Percentile £16.81 £13.50 £13.82
25th Percentile £32.19 £18.13 £40.00
Median hourly rate £62.25 £25.15 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +147.51% -62.74% +12.50%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 £72.50
90th Percentile £78.70 £70.00 £75.00
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +68.99% -47.05% +6.15%

Operations Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

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

Operations Engineer job vacancy trend in the South West

Operations Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Operations Engineer job vacancies in the South West.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Operations Engineer job vacancies in the South West

Operations Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Operations Engineer job vacancies in the South West.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Operations Engineer job vacancies in the South West

Operations Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the South West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Operations Engineer within the South West region over the 6 months to 12 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
Devon - 7 £515 - 2
Bristol -13 1 - -
Somerset -34 1 - - 1
Operations Engineer
England

Operations Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West

For the 6 months to 12 September 2026, Operations 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 South West region featuring Operations Engineer in the job title.

1 7 (77.78%) Handlebars
1 7 (77.78%) Service Delivery
1 7 (77.78%) ServiceNow
2 5 (55.56%) Change Management
3 4 (44.44%) ITSM
3 4 (44.44%) Security Cleared
4 3 (33.33%) Configuration Management
4 3 (33.33%) Mustache
4 3 (33.33%) SC Cleared
4 3 (33.33%) Test Scripting
5 2 (22.22%) Incident Management
5 2 (22.22%) Problem Management
5 2 (22.22%) Problem-Solving
5 2 (22.22%) Service Management
5 2 (22.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 2 (22.22%) Validation
6 1 (11.11%) Active Directory
6 1 (11.11%) Agile
6 1 (11.11%) Availability Management
6 1 (11.11%) Batch Processing
6 1 (11.11%) Capacity Management
6 1 (11.11%) Change Control
6 1 (11.11%) Collaborative Working
6 1 (11.11%) CSS
6 1 (11.11%) DevOps
6 1 (11.11%) Digital Transformation Programme
6 1 (11.11%) Document Management
6 1 (11.11%) Google
6 1 (11.11%) Google Workspace
6 1 (11.11%) ITIL

Operations Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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 1 (11.11%) Microsoft Exchange
1 1 (11.11%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (11.11%) LaTeX
Cloud Services
1 1 (11.11%) Google Workspace
1 1 (11.11%) Microsoft 365
1 1 (11.11%) SaaS
General
1 3 (33.33%) Public Sector
2 2 (22.22%) Social Skills
3 1 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
3 1 (11.11%) Documentation Skills
3 1 (11.11%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (77.78%) Handlebars
2 3 (33.33%) Mustache
3 1 (11.11%) CSS
3 1 (11.11%) XML
3 1 (11.11%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 6 (66.67%) Onboarding
2 2 (22.22%) Enterprise Software
3 1 (11.11%) Legacy Systems
3 1 (11.11%) Management Information System
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (77.78%) Service Delivery
2 5 (55.56%) Change Management
3 4 (44.44%) ITSM
4 3 (33.33%) Configuration Management
4 3 (33.33%) Test Scripting
5 2 (22.22%) Incident Management
5 2 (22.22%) Problem Management
5 2 (22.22%) Problem-Solving
5 2 (22.22%) Service Management
5 2 (22.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 2 (22.22%) Validation
6 1 (11.11%) Availability Management
6 1 (11.11%) Batch Processing
6 1 (11.11%) Collaborative Working
6 1 (11.11%) DevOps
6 1 (11.11%) Digital Transformation Programme
6 1 (11.11%) Migration
6 1 (11.11%) Project Delivery
6 1 (11.11%) Records Management
6 1 (11.11%) Site Reliability Engineering
Qualifications
1 4 (44.44%) Security Cleared
2 3 (33.33%) SC Cleared
System Software
1 1 (11.11%) Active Directory
Vendors
1 7 (77.78%) ServiceNow
2 1 (11.11%) Google
2 1 (11.11%) Microsoft