IT Engineer Contract Job Trends

IT Engineer
UK

The median IT Engineer daily rate in the UK is £200, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 August 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 261 200 272
Rank change year-on-year -61 +72 +4
Contract jobs requiring an IT Engineer 531 441 349
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.99% 1.33% 0.90%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.07% 1.46% 0.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 344 274 226
10th Percentile £150 £126 £123
25th Percentile £174 £150 £150
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £200 £190 £200
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £275 £250 £300
90th Percentile £415 £423 £500
UK excluding London median daily rate £200 £160 £186
% change year-on-year +25.00% -14.09% +3.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 100 65
10th Percentile £17.20 £18.51 £11.75
25th Percentile £18.31 £18.87 £13.85
Median hourly rate £21.25 £24.66 £18.27
Median % change year-on-year -13.83% +34.98% +3.10%
75th Percentile £25.75 £25.15 £22.00
90th Percentile £35.22 - £24.18
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.00 £24.66 £16.19
% change year-on-year -18.90% +52.32% -8.63%

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 49,618 30,282 36,100
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.59% 91.38% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,853 19,212 23,341
10th Percentile £329 £283 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,461 1,511 2,024
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.28 £20.30
Median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.19% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.65 £25.13 £45.00
% change year-on-year +69.72% -44.16% +23.29%

IT Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

IT Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

IT Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

IT Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing IT Engineer over the 6 months to 9 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for IT Engineer in the UK

IT Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

IT Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing IT Engineer over the 6 months to 9 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for IT Engineer in the UK

IT Engineer
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing IT Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 9 August 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 -57 466 £200 +5.26% 251
UK excluding London -36 395 £200 +25.00% 216
London -75 128 £226 +0.22% 57
South East -42 110 £238 +36.69% 61
North of England -34 84 £195 +11.43% 38
East of England +3 50 £200 +14.29% 40
North West -26 49 £200 +25.00% 21
South West -57 48 £200 +25.00% 29
Midlands -60 45 £200 +33.33% 35
Scotland +2 35 £150 -21.05% 10
Yorkshire -24 33 £190 +2.70% 13
East Midlands -7 27 £200 +56.86% 14
Work from Home -73 24 £305 +10.91% 51
Wales -9 21 £190 +18.75% 9
West Midlands -64 17 £185 +15.63% 21
North East -44 3 £313 +56.25% 5
Northern Ireland +6 2 - - 2

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

For the 6 months to 9 August 2026, IT 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 IT Engineer in the job title.

1 320 (60.26%) Windows
2 265 (49.91%) Microsoft
3 248 (46.70%) Microsoft 365
4 240 (45.20%) Active Directory
5 158 (29.76%) Customer Service
6 147 (27.68%) Windows 10
7 142 (26.74%) Problem-Solving
8 95 (17.89%) ITIL
9 87 (16.38%) Microsoft Intune
10 83 (15.63%) Azure
11 82 (15.44%) ServiceNow
12 75 (14.12%) Security Cleared
13 67 (12.62%) ITSM
14 66 (12.43%) Entra ID
14 66 (12.43%) SC Cleared
15 62 (11.68%) SharePoint
16 56 (10.55%) Microsoft Certification
17 54 (10.17%) A+ Certification
18 52 (9.79%) Break/Fix
18 52 (9.79%) SAN
19 51 (9.60%) Network+ Certification
19 51 (9.60%) VPN
20 49 (9.23%) DNS
20 49 (9.23%) Microsoft Exchange
21 47 (8.85%) Dell
22 45 (8.47%) Asset Management
23 44 (8.29%) DHCP
23 44 (8.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
24 43 (8.10%) CCNA
24 43 (8.10%) Cisco Certification

IT 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:

Application Platforms
1 62 (11.68%) SharePoint
2 49 (9.23%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (2.07%) HCL Notes
4 4 (0.75%) Confluence
Applications
1 23 (4.33%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.19%) Acrobat
3 1 (0.19%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (0.75%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.38%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 248 (46.70%) Microsoft 365
2 83 (15.63%) Azure
3 66 (12.43%) Entra ID
4 28 (5.27%) OneDrive
5 16 (3.01%) Azure DevOps
6 15 (2.82%) SaaS
7 14 (2.64%) AWS
8 9 (1.69%) IaaS
9 7 (1.32%) PaaS
10 5 (0.94%) Mimecast
10 5 (0.94%) Nutanix
11 4 (0.75%) GitHub
11 4 (0.75%) Power Platform
12 3 (0.56%) Amazon EC2
12 3 (0.56%) Amazon S3
12 3 (0.56%) Datadog
12 3 (0.56%) Google Workspace
12 3 (0.56%) PowerApps
13 2 (0.38%) Amazon EKS
13 2 (0.38%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 52 (9.79%) SAN
2 51 (9.60%) VPN
3 49 (9.23%) DNS
4 44 (8.29%) DHCP
5 34 (6.40%) Wi-Fi
6 32 (6.03%) TCP/IP
7 27 (5.08%) LAN
8 24 (4.52%) VLAN
9 16 (3.01%) WAN
10 15 (2.82%) Firewall
11 12 (2.26%) Internet
12 7 (1.32%) WLAN
13 5 (0.94%) IPv4
13 5 (0.94%) IPv6
13 5 (0.94%) Network Security
13 5 (0.94%) Skype
14 4 (0.75%) Remote Desktop
14 4 (0.75%) Wireless
15 2 (0.38%) Ethernet VPN
15 2 (0.38%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.07%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.38%) Power BI
2 2 (0.38%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.19%) MariaDB
3 1 (0.19%) MySQL
3 1 (0.19%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 41 (7.72%) JIRA
2 6 (1.13%) Git
3 4 (0.75%) GitLab
4 3 (0.56%) Chocolatey
General
1 246 (46.33%) Social Skills
2 80 (15.07%) Analytical Skills
3 29 (5.46%) Finance
4 27 (5.08%) Manufacturing
5 23 (4.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 18 (3.39%) Banking
7 14 (2.64%) Organisational Skills
8 12 (2.26%) Public Sector
9 7 (1.32%) Marketing
10 6 (1.13%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (0.75%) Financial Institution
11 4 (0.75%) Investment Banking
11 4 (0.75%) Legal
11 4 (0.75%) Retail
12 3 (0.56%) Italian Language
12 3 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.56%) Telecoms
13 1 (0.19%) Aviation
13 1 (0.19%) Japanese Language
13 1 (0.19%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (0.75%) React
2 2 (0.38%) JSON
2 2 (0.38%) Middleware
2 2 (0.38%) RabbitMQ
2 2 (0.38%) REST
2 2 (0.38%) XML
3 1 (0.19%) 802.1X
3 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Graph
3 1 (0.19%) OpenID
3 1 (0.19%) PySpark
3 1 (0.19%) Redfish
3 1 (0.19%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 68 (12.81%) Onboarding
2 52 (9.79%) Data Centre
3 45 (8.47%) Analytical Mindset
4 17 (3.20%) Video Conferencing
5 16 (3.01%) Driving Licence
6 13 (2.45%) Blackberry
6 13 (2.45%) Self-Motivation
6 13 (2.45%) Virtual Team
7 8 (1.51%) EPoS
8 7 (1.32%) Hybrid Cloud
8 7 (1.32%) Operational Technology
9 6 (1.13%) iPhone
10 5 (0.94%) iPad
10 5 (0.94%) SCADA
11 4 (0.75%) CCTV
11 4 (0.75%) CMDB
11 4 (0.75%) Enterprise Software
11 4 (0.75%) Renewable Energy
12 3 (0.56%) Cyber Defence
12 3 (0.56%) Digital Signage
Operating Systems
1 320 (60.26%) Windows
2 147 (27.68%) Windows 10
3 43 (8.10%) Windows Server
4 29 (5.46%) Mac OS
5 24 (4.52%) Apple iOS
6 19 (3.58%) Android
7 10 (1.88%) Linux
8 4 (0.75%) Windows 7
8 4 (0.75%) Windows Server 2019
9 3 (0.56%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.19%) Solaris
11 1 (0.19%) Unix
11 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 158 (29.76%) Customer Service
2 142 (26.74%) Problem-Solving
3 95 (17.89%) ITIL
4 67 (12.62%) ITSM
5 52 (9.79%) Break/Fix
6 45 (8.47%) Asset Management
7 44 (8.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 41 (7.72%) Continuous Improvement
9 40 (7.53%) Service Delivery
10 34 (6.40%) User Experience
11 33 (6.21%) Migration
12 28 (5.27%) Change Management
13 24 (4.52%) Cybersecurity
13 24 (4.52%) Service Management
14 21 (3.95%) Disaster Recovery
15 20 (3.77%) Problem Management
16 18 (3.39%) DevOps
17 15 (2.82%) Inventory Management
18 14 (2.64%) Data Protection
19 13 (2.45%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 38 (7.16%) PowerShell
2 22 (4.14%) SQL
3 16 (3.01%) C#
4 10 (1.88%) Python
5 6 (1.13%) JavaScript
6 4 (0.75%) Java
6 4 (0.75%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 75 (14.12%) Security Cleared
2 66 (12.43%) SC Cleared
3 56 (10.55%) Microsoft Certification
4 54 (10.17%) A+ Certification
5 51 (9.60%) Network+ Certification
6 43 (8.10%) CCNA
6 43 (8.10%) Cisco Certification
6 43 (8.10%) MCSE
7 20 (3.77%) Degree
8 12 (2.26%) DV Cleared
9 8 (1.51%) DBS Check
10 5 (0.94%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 3 (0.56%) CEH
11 3 (0.56%) CISM
11 3 (0.56%) CISSP
11 3 (0.56%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 2 (0.38%) Azure Certification
12 2 (0.38%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (0.38%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (6.03%) SLA
2 9 (1.69%) Cyber Essentials
3 8 (1.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 4 (0.75%) GDPR
5 3 (0.56%) NIST
5 3 (0.56%) PCI DSS
5 3 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 2 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 2 (0.38%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.38%) Disclosure Scotland
6 2 (0.38%) GxP
6 2 (0.38%) NCSC
7 1 (0.19%) ITGC
System Software
1 240 (45.20%) Active Directory
2 22 (4.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 19 (3.58%) Hyper-V
4 4 (0.75%) Firmware
5 3 (0.56%) Docker
5 3 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.56%) vSphere
6 1 (0.19%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 87 (16.38%) Microsoft Intune
2 32 (6.03%) SCCM
3 9 (1.69%) WSUS
4 6 (1.13%) Jamf Pro
4 6 (1.13%) Kubernetes
4 6 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (0.94%) Terraform
6 3 (0.56%) Ansible
6 3 (0.56%) Dell DRAC
7 2 (0.38%) Failover Clustering
7 2 (0.38%) PaperCut
7 2 (0.38%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.19%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.19%) Grafana
8 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
8 1 (0.19%) ServiceCenter
Vendors
1 265 (49.91%) Microsoft
2 82 (15.44%) ServiceNow
3 47 (8.85%) Dell
4 33 (6.21%) VMware
5 31 (5.84%) Apple
6 16 (3.01%) Cisco
7 13 (2.45%) Lotus
8 11 (2.07%) Citrix
9 10 (1.88%) HP
10 9 (1.69%) Veeam
11 7 (1.32%) Remedy
11 7 (1.32%) Samsung
12 5 (0.94%) Fortinet
13 4 (0.75%) Dynatrace
13 4 (0.75%) iManage
13 4 (0.75%) Tenable
14 3 (0.56%) AppDynamics
14 3 (0.56%) Freshdesk
14 3 (0.56%) Meraki
14 3 (0.56%) Okta