Build Engineer Contract Job Trends

Build Engineer
UK

The median Build Engineer daily rate in the UK is £225, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 November 2025.

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

6 months to
7 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 543 531 596
Rank change year-on-year -12 +65 +140
Contract jobs requiring a Build Engineer 44 24 38
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.13% 0.065% 0.081%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.14% 0.070% 0.087%
Number of daily rates quoted 21 16 23
10th Percentile £150 £134 £153
25th Percentile £180 £158 £183
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £225 £440 £225
Median % change year-on-year -48.81% +95.33% +5.26%
75th Percentile £475 £491 £575
90th Percentile - £525 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £180 £404 £375
% change year-on-year -55.45% +7.73% +76.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 0 9
10th Percentile £25.00 - £13.16
25th Percentile £25.04 - £15.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 - £16.50
75th Percentile - - £19.50
90th Percentile - - £21.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 - £17.00
% change year-on-year - - -1.45%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 31,779 34,114 43,832
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.90% 92.88% 93.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,168 20,586 29,825
10th Percentile £278 £300 £298
25th Percentile £402 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,814 1,278 1,528
10th Percentile £14.06 £15.09 £14.98
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.20 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £37.00 £44.75
Median % change year-on-year -32.03% -17.32% +54.84%
75th Percentile £51.19 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.65 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £36.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -30.14% -19.10% +85.42%

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 7 November 2025.

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 7 November 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 -1 42 £225 -52.63% 18
UK excluding London -23 32 £180 -55.45% 18
South East +12 14 £475 - 4
London +5 10 £338 -32.50%
Midlands -16 9 £160 - 3
West Midlands -29 5 £160 -
North of England -32 5 £178 -62.63% 4
South West +7 4 £320 +52.38% 5
East Midlands - 4 - - 2
North West -25 2 £175 -63.16% 4
North East - 2 £228 -
Work from Home +15 1 - - 2
Yorkshire -29 1 £133 +6.00%

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

For the 6 months to 7 November 2025, 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 30 (68.18%) Windows
2 17 (38.64%) Security Cleared
3 15 (34.09%) SC Cleared
4 11 (25.00%) SCCM
5 9 (20.45%) Microsoft
6 7 (15.91%) Docker
6 7 (15.91%) Linux
6 7 (15.91%) Windows 10
7 6 (13.64%) Active Directory
7 6 (13.64%) Microsoft 365
7 6 (13.64%) Python
8 5 (11.36%) Azure
8 5 (11.36%) Bash
8 5 (11.36%) C
8 5 (11.36%) C++
8 5 (11.36%) GCP
8 5 (11.36%) SAP
9 4 (9.09%) Asset Management
9 4 (9.09%) AWS
9 4 (9.09%) Build Automation
9 4 (9.09%) Business Intelligence
9 4 (9.09%) Clang
9 4 (9.09%) DBS Check
9 4 (9.09%) Digital Marketing
9 4 (9.09%) GCC
9 4 (9.09%) PowerShell
9 4 (9.09%) Programme Management
10 3 (6.82%) BitLocker
10 3 (6.82%) Mac OS
10 3 (6.82%) QA

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 6 (13.64%) Microsoft 365
2 5 (11.36%) Azure
2 5 (11.36%) GCP
3 4 (9.09%) AWS
4 1 (2.27%) CloudBees
4 1 (2.27%) GitHub
4 1 (2.27%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.27%) DHCP
1 1 (2.27%) DNS
1 1 (2.27%) TCP/IP
1 1 (2.27%) VPN
Development Applications
1 4 (9.09%) Clang
1 4 (9.09%) GCC
2 2 (4.55%) CMake
2 2 (4.55%) Git
2 2 (4.55%) Gradle
2 2 (4.55%) Jenkins
3 1 (2.27%) Artifactory
3 1 (2.27%) GitLab
3 1 (2.27%) JIRA
3 1 (2.27%) SonarQube
General
1 8 (18.18%) Public Sector
2 6 (13.64%) Social Skills
3 5 (11.36%) Telecoms
4 4 (9.09%) Electronics
4 4 (9.09%) Finance
4 4 (9.09%) Manufacturing
4 4 (9.09%) Marketing
5 3 (6.82%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (6.82%) Retail
6 1 (2.27%) Aerospace
6 1 (2.27%) Banking
6 1 (2.27%) Games
6 1 (2.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (2.27%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (2.27%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (4.55%) Bazel
2 1 (2.27%) X-Windows
Miscellaneous
1 7 (15.91%) Driving Licence
2 4 (9.09%) Onboarding
3 1 (2.27%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (2.27%) NHS
3 1 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 30 (68.18%) Windows
2 7 (15.91%) Linux
2 7 (15.91%) Windows 10
3 3 (6.82%) Mac OS
4 1 (2.27%) Apple iOS
4 1 (2.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (9.09%) Asset Management
1 4 (9.09%) Build Automation
1 4 (9.09%) Business Intelligence
1 4 (9.09%) Digital Marketing
1 4 (9.09%) Programme Management
2 2 (4.55%) CI/CD
2 2 (4.55%) Containerisation
2 2 (4.55%) Deployment Automation
2 2 (4.55%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 2 (4.55%) Inventory Management
2 2 (4.55%) ITSM
2 2 (4.55%) Machine Learning
2 2 (4.55%) Migration
2 2 (4.55%) Workflow
3 1 (2.27%) Configuration Management
3 1 (2.27%) Desktop Virtualisation
3 1 (2.27%) Mobile Device Management
3 1 (2.27%) Performance Monitoring
3 1 (2.27%) Scrum
3 1 (2.27%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 6 (13.64%) Python
2 5 (11.36%) Bash
2 5 (11.36%) C
2 5 (11.36%) C++
3 4 (9.09%) PowerShell
4 1 (2.27%) Groovy
4 1 (2.27%) Java
Qualifications
1 17 (38.64%) Security Cleared
2 15 (34.09%) SC Cleared
3 4 (9.09%) DBS Check
4 1 (2.27%) BPSS Clearance
4 1 (2.27%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (6.82%) QA
2 1 (2.27%) SLA
System Software
1 7 (15.91%) Docker
2 6 (13.64%) Active Directory
3 3 (6.82%) BitLocker
4 1 (2.27%) Hyper-V
4 1 (2.27%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (2.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (2.27%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 11 (25.00%) SCCM
2 2 (4.55%) Kubernetes
3 1 (2.27%) Ansible
3 1 (2.27%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (2.27%) Puppet
3 1 (2.27%) Terraform
Vendors
1 9 (20.45%) Microsoft
2 5 (11.36%) SAP
3 2 (4.55%) Apple
3 2 (4.55%) VMware
4 1 (2.27%) ConnectWise
4 1 (2.27%) Juniper
4 1 (2.27%) NetApp
4 1 (2.27%) Okta
4 1 (2.27%) Red Hat
4 1 (2.27%) ServiceNow
4 1 (2.27%) Snow