Build Engineer Contract Job Trends

Build Engineer
UK

The median Build Engineer daily rate in the UK is £300, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 September 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 511 543 604
Rank change year-on-year +32 +61 +182
Contract jobs requiring a Build Engineer 48 30 35
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.15% 0.078% 0.071%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.16% 0.084% 0.075%
Number of daily rates quoted 29 15 20
10th Percentile £160 £154 £158
25th Percentile £185 £170 £184
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £300 £404 £206
Median % change year-on-year -25.74% +95.88% -8.33%
75th Percentile £469 £588 £303
90th Percentile £475 £765 £508
UK excluding London median daily rate £315 £230 £206
% change year-on-year +36.96% +11.52% -4.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 10
10th Percentile - - £14.93
25th Percentile - - £15.38
Median hourly rate £25.15 £15.10 £16.75
Median % change year-on-year +66.56% -9.85% +6.35%
75th Percentile - - £19.06
90th Percentile - - £21.28
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £15.10 £16.75
% change year-on-year +66.56% -9.85% +6.35%

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 29,996 35,551 46,729
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.07% 92.96% 94.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,952 21,923 31,999
10th Percentile £278 £300 £300
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £621 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,570 1,683 1,490
10th Percentile £13.75 £14.73 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £43.88
Median % change year-on-year -41.51% -2.01% +68.77%
75th Percentile £52.50 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -44.11% +5.88% +93.18%

Build Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Build Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Build Engineer 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 17 September 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 17 September 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 +51 46 £300 -31.74% 17
UK excluding London +8 29 £315 +36.96% 15
London +33 16 £238 -66.07% 3
South West +34 12 £325 +54.76% 3
South East +21 9 £475 +62.67% 2
Work from Home +10 4 £463 - 3
Midlands -13 4 £150 -54.55% 5
North of England - 4 £180 - 3
West Midlands -12 3 £150 -6.25% 3
Yorkshire - 2 £159 -
East Midlands -5 1 - - 2
North East - 1 £275 - 1
North West - 1 £175 - 2

Build Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 17 September 2025, Build Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Build Engineer in the job title.

1 30 (62.50%) Windows
2 16 (33.33%) Security Cleared
3 14 (29.17%) SC Cleared
4 11 (22.92%) SCCM
4 11 (22.92%) Azure
5 10 (20.83%) Social Skills
6 9 (18.75%) Onboarding
7 8 (16.67%) Public Sector
7 8 (16.67%) Linux
7 8 (16.67%) Microsoft
8 7 (14.58%) Active Directory
8 7 (14.58%) Finance
8 7 (14.58%) Application Packaging
8 7 (14.58%) GCP
8 7 (14.58%) Microsoft 365
8 7 (14.58%) AWS
8 7 (14.58%) CI/CD
9 6 (12.50%) Microsoft Intune
9 6 (12.50%) Docker
9 6 (12.50%) Retail
10 5 (10.42%) Asset Management
10 5 (10.42%) PowerShell
10 5 (10.42%) Telecoms
10 5 (10.42%) Python
10 5 (10.42%) C
10 5 (10.42%) C++
10 5 (10.42%) Build Automation
10 5 (10.42%) GitLab
10 5 (10.42%) Deployment Automation
11 4 (8.33%) Platform Engineering

Build Engineer Skill Set
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 1 (2.08%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 11 (22.92%) Azure
2 7 (14.58%) AWS
2 7 (14.58%) GCP
2 7 (14.58%) Microsoft 365
3 2 (4.17%) GitHub
4 1 (2.08%) Entra ID
4 1 (2.08%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 2 (4.17%) VPN
2 1 (2.08%) DHCP
2 1 (2.08%) DNS
2 1 (2.08%) TCP/IP
Development Applications
1 5 (10.42%) GitLab
2 4 (8.33%) Clang
2 4 (8.33%) GCC
3 2 (4.17%) Jenkins
4 1 (2.08%) Artifactory
4 1 (2.08%) CMake
4 1 (2.08%) Git
4 1 (2.08%) Gradle
4 1 (2.08%) JIRA
4 1 (2.08%) SonarQube
4 1 (2.08%) Subversion
4 1 (2.08%) TeamCity
General
1 10 (20.83%) Social Skills
2 8 (16.67%) Public Sector
3 7 (14.58%) Finance
4 6 (12.50%) Retail
5 5 (10.42%) Telecoms
6 4 (8.33%) Banking
6 4 (8.33%) Electronics
6 4 (8.33%) Manufacturing
6 4 (8.33%) Marketing
7 2 (4.17%) Military
8 1 (2.08%) Aerospace
8 1 (2.08%) Games
8 1 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (2.08%) International Banking
8 1 (2.08%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (2.08%) Bazel
Miscellaneous
1 9 (18.75%) Onboarding
2 4 (8.33%) Driving Licence
3 1 (2.08%) NHS
3 1 (2.08%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 30 (62.50%) Windows
2 8 (16.67%) Linux
3 3 (6.25%) Mac OS
3 3 (6.25%) Windows 10
4 1 (2.08%) Apple iOS
4 1 (2.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (14.58%) Application Packaging
1 7 (14.58%) CI/CD
2 5 (10.42%) Asset Management
2 5 (10.42%) Build Automation
2 5 (10.42%) Deployment Automation
3 4 (8.33%) Business Intelligence
3 4 (8.33%) DevOps
3 4 (8.33%) Digital Marketing
3 4 (8.33%) Migration
3 4 (8.33%) Platform Engineering
3 4 (8.33%) Programme Management
3 4 (8.33%) Requirements Gathering
4 3 (6.25%) Problem-Solving
5 2 (4.17%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 2 (4.17%) Inventory Management
5 2 (4.17%) Logistics
5 2 (4.17%) Machine Learning
5 2 (4.17%) Product Management
5 2 (4.17%) Server Building
5 2 (4.17%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 5 (10.42%) C
1 5 (10.42%) C++
1 5 (10.42%) PowerShell
1 5 (10.42%) Python
2 4 (8.33%) Bash
2 4 (8.33%) Java
Qualifications
1 16 (33.33%) Security Cleared
2 14 (29.17%) SC Cleared
3 4 (8.33%) DBS Check
4 1 (2.08%) BPSS Clearance
4 1 (2.08%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (6.25%) QA
2 1 (2.08%) SLA
System Software
1 7 (14.58%) Active Directory
2 6 (12.50%) Docker
3 1 (2.08%) BitLocker
3 1 (2.08%) Hyper-V
3 1 (2.08%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (2.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (2.08%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 11 (22.92%) SCCM
2 6 (12.50%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (2.08%) Ansible
3 1 (2.08%) Kubernetes
3 1 (2.08%) Terraform
Vendors
1 8 (16.67%) Microsoft
2 4 (8.33%) SAP
2 4 (8.33%) ServiceNow
3 3 (6.25%) Apple
3 3 (6.25%) VMware
4 1 (2.08%) Citrix
4 1 (2.08%) Juniper
4 1 (2.08%) MobileIron
4 1 (2.08%) NetApp
4 1 (2.08%) Okta
4 1 (2.08%) Red Hat
4 1 (2.08%) Snow