Build Engineer Contract Job Trends

Build Engineer
UK

The median Build Engineer daily rate in the UK is £219, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 January 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 546 496 554
Rank change year-on-year -50 +58 +114
Contract jobs requiring a Build Engineer 33 38 48
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.090% 0.12% 0.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.098% 0.13% 0.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 12 19 39
10th Percentile £142 £129 £176
25th Percentile £168 £158 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £219 £250 £550
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% -54.55% +155.81%
75th Percentile £477 £488 £575
90th Percentile £489 £525 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £184 £250 £575
% change year-on-year -26.50% -56.52% +170.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 0 4
10th Percentile - - £13.15
25th Percentile £25.00 - £13.16
Median hourly rate £25.15 - £15.33
75th Percentile - - £18.19
90th Percentile - - £18.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 - £17.50
% change year-on-year - - +14.75%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 UK with a recognized job title 33,508 29,606 39,607
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.31% 92.68% 93.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,195 18,121 26,431
10th Percentile £300 £291 £281
25th Percentile £405 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £479 £500
% change year-on-year -0.89% -4.15% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,969 900 1,622
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.52 £14.18
25th Percentile £18.22 £21.05 £19.06
Median hourly rate £26.50 £32.50 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.46% -26.97% +34.85%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.24 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.46 £73.75 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.50 £45.11
% change year-on-year -20.16% -30.16% +67.04%

Build Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Build Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Build Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Build Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Build Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Build Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Build Engineer over the 6 months to 9 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Build Engineer in the UK

Build Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Build Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Build Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Build Engineer
Top 13 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Build Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 9 January 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 -43 32 £219 -28.75% 5
UK excluding London -49 30 £184 -26.50% 11
South East -11 11 - - 3
Midlands -36 8 £170 -1.45%
North of England -45 7 £180 -62.11%
South West -10 4 £288 +43.75%
West Midlands -35 4 £170 -1.45%
East Midlands - 4 - -
North West -30 3 £181 -61.84%
Yorkshire -44 3 £307 +145.80%
London -15 2 £583 +79.23%
Work from Home -25 1 - -
North East - 1 £180 -

Build Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 January 2026, Build 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 featuring Build Engineer in the job title.

1 20 (60.61%) Windows
2 14 (42.42%) Security Cleared
3 13 (39.39%) SC Cleared
4 5 (15.15%) Microsoft
4 5 (15.15%) Windows 10
5 4 (12.12%) Ansible
5 4 (12.12%) CI/CD
5 4 (12.12%) Kubernetes
5 4 (12.12%) Linux
5 4 (12.12%) Migration
5 4 (12.12%) SCCM
5 4 (12.12%) Terraform
6 3 (9.09%) API Integration
6 3 (9.09%) BitLocker
6 3 (9.09%) Change Management
6 3 (9.09%) CISM
6 3 (9.09%) CISSP
6 3 (9.09%) Cloud Security
6 3 (9.09%) DevOps
6 3 (9.09%) Docker
6 3 (9.09%) Identity Access Management
6 3 (9.09%) IT Governance
6 3 (9.09%) Key Management
6 3 (9.09%) OpenShift
6 3 (9.09%) QA
6 3 (9.09%) Runbook
6 3 (9.09%) Security Architecture
6 3 (9.09%) SSL
7 2 (6.06%) Active Directory
7 2 (6.06%) Asset Management

Build Engineer Skill Set
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:

Cloud Services
1 3 (9.09%) OpenShift
2 2 (6.06%) GCP
2 2 (6.06%) Microsoft 365
3 1 (3.03%) AWS
3 1 (3.03%) Azure
3 1 (3.03%) CloudBees
Communications & Networking
1 3 (9.09%) SSL
Development Applications
1 2 (6.06%) Git
1 2 (6.06%) Jenkins
2 1 (3.03%) Artifactory
2 1 (3.03%) Clang
2 1 (3.03%) CMake
2 1 (3.03%) GCC
2 1 (3.03%) GitLab
2 1 (3.03%) Gradle
2 1 (3.03%) JIRA
2 1 (3.03%) SonarQube
General
1 6 (18.18%) Social Skills
2 3 (9.09%) Documentation Skills
2 3 (9.09%) Public Sector
3 2 (6.06%) Aerospace
3 2 (6.06%) Retail
3 2 (6.06%) Telecoms
4 1 (3.03%) Banking
4 1 (3.03%) Electronics
4 1 (3.03%) Finance
4 1 (3.03%) Games
4 1 (3.03%) Manufacturing
4 1 (3.03%) Marketing
4 1 (3.03%) Organisational Skills
4 1 (3.03%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (3.03%) Bazel
1 1 (3.03%) X-Windows
Miscellaneous
1 5 (15.15%) Driving Licence
2 3 (9.09%) PKI
3 1 (3.03%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (3.03%) NHS
3 1 (3.03%) Onboarding
3 1 (3.03%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 20 (60.61%) Windows
2 5 (15.15%) Windows 10
3 4 (12.12%) Linux
4 2 (6.06%) Mac OS
5 1 (3.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (12.12%) CI/CD
1 4 (12.12%) Migration
2 3 (9.09%) API Integration
2 3 (9.09%) Change Management
2 3 (9.09%) Cloud Security
2 3 (9.09%) DevOps
2 3 (9.09%) Identity Access Management
2 3 (9.09%) IT Governance
2 3 (9.09%) Key Management
2 3 (9.09%) Runbook
2 3 (9.09%) Security Architecture
3 2 (6.06%) Asset Management
3 2 (6.06%) Inventory Management
3 2 (6.06%) Logistics
3 2 (6.06%) Workflow
4 1 (3.03%) Business Intelligence
4 1 (3.03%) Configuration Management
4 1 (3.03%) Continuous Integration
4 1 (3.03%) Digital Marketing
4 1 (3.03%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 2 (6.06%) Bash
1 2 (6.06%) Python
2 1 (3.03%) C
2 1 (3.03%) C++
2 1 (3.03%) Groovy
2 1 (3.03%) Java
2 1 (3.03%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 14 (42.42%) Security Cleared
2 13 (39.39%) SC Cleared
3 3 (9.09%) CISM
3 3 (9.09%) CISSP
4 1 (3.03%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (9.09%) QA
System Software
1 3 (9.09%) BitLocker
1 3 (9.09%) Docker
2 2 (6.06%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 4 (12.12%) Ansible
1 4 (12.12%) Kubernetes
1 4 (12.12%) SCCM
1 4 (12.12%) Terraform
2 1 (3.03%) Microsoft Intune
2 1 (3.03%) Puppet
Vendors
1 5 (15.15%) Microsoft
2 2 (6.06%) SAP
3 1 (3.03%) ConnectWise
3 1 (3.03%) Dell
3 1 (3.03%) Red Hat