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 23 August 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 269 209 270
Rank change year-on-year -60 +61 +3
Contract jobs requiring an IT Engineer 532 423 331
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.99% 1.28% 0.85%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.07% 1.41% 0.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 343 261 209
10th Percentile £150 £126 £125
25th Percentile £173 £148 £160
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £200 £190 £200
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £275 £250 £330
90th Percentile £411 £423 £530
UK excluding London median daily rate £200 £160 £190
% change year-on-year +25.00% -15.79% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 106 62
10th Percentile £17.20 £18.51 £11.75
25th Percentile £18.29 £18.87 £15.10
Median hourly rate £21.25 £24.87 £18.89
Median % change year-on-year -14.55% +31.68% +6.57%
75th Percentile £25.75 £25.15 £22.00
90th Percentile £35.22 - £24.18
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.63 £24.66 £16.19
% change year-on-year -16.36% +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 49,814 30,093 36,057
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.45% 91.25% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,857 19,013 23,018
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £728 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,530 1,571 1,954
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.69 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.62 £17.30 £19.52
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.93 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +8.65%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -64 459 £200 +5.96% 216
UK excluding London -50 388 £200 +25.00% 202
London -63 134 £226 +0.22% 41
South East -40 99 £250 +33.33% 58
North of England -18 87 £200 +14.29% 37
North West -14 53 £200 +25.00% 18
South West -54 49 £200 +25.00% 27
East of England -2 46 £175 - 35
Midlands -56 44 £200 +25.00% 38
Scotland +5 41 £175 -6.67% 10
Yorkshire -23 33 £190 +2.70% 14
East Midlands -13 26 £275 +115.69% 14
Work from Home -60 26 £310 +7.83% 59
Wales -11 20 £190 +18.75% 6
West Midlands -66 17 £185 -7.50% 24
Northern Ireland +2 2 - -
North East -44 2 £175 -12.50% 5

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

For the 6 months to 23 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.

1 330 (62.03%) Windows
2 275 (51.69%) Microsoft
3 252 (47.37%) Microsoft 365
4 242 (45.49%) Active Directory
5 172 (32.33%) Customer Service
6 153 (28.76%) Problem-Solving
7 148 (27.82%) Windows 10
8 105 (19.74%) ITIL
9 88 (16.54%) ServiceNow
10 87 (16.35%) Microsoft Intune
11 84 (15.79%) Security Cleared
12 83 (15.60%) Azure
13 75 (14.10%) ITSM
14 74 (13.91%) SC Cleared
15 69 (12.97%) SharePoint
16 68 (12.78%) Entra ID
17 57 (10.71%) A+ Certification
18 53 (9.96%) VPN
19 52 (9.77%) Break/Fix
20 51 (9.59%) Microsoft Certification
20 51 (9.59%) Microsoft Exchange
21 49 (9.21%) SAN
22 48 (9.02%) DNS
22 48 (9.02%) Network+ Certification
23 47 (8.83%) Continuous Improvement
24 46 (8.65%) Asset Management
25 45 (8.46%) Windows Server
26 44 (8.27%) Dell
26 44 (8.27%) Infrastructure Engineering
27 42 (7.89%) DHCP

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 69 (12.97%) SharePoint
2 51 (9.59%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (2.07%) HCL Notes
4 4 (0.75%) Confluence
5 2 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 28 (5.26%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.38%) Acrobat
2 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.38%) MS Visio
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
1 252 (47.37%) Microsoft 365
2 83 (15.60%) Azure
3 68 (12.78%) Entra ID
4 31 (5.83%) OneDrive
5 15 (2.82%) SaaS
6 14 (2.63%) AWS
7 13 (2.44%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (1.50%) IaaS
9 6 (1.13%) Mimecast
9 6 (1.13%) PaaS
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%) Google Workspace
12 3 (0.56%) PowerApps
13 2 (0.38%) Amazon EKS
13 2 (0.38%) Azure Sentinel
13 2 (0.38%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 53 (9.96%) VPN
2 49 (9.21%) SAN
3 48 (9.02%) DNS
4 42 (7.89%) DHCP
5 40 (7.52%) TCP/IP
6 30 (5.64%) Wi-Fi
7 28 (5.26%) LAN
8 23 (4.32%) VLAN
9 20 (3.76%) WAN
10 15 (2.82%) Firewall
11 11 (2.07%) Internet
12 6 (1.13%) Network Security
12 6 (1.13%) Skype
13 5 (0.94%) IPv4
13 5 (0.94%) IPv6
13 5 (0.94%) WLAN
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%) Oracle Database
2 2 (0.38%) Power BI
2 2 (0.38%) Relational Database
2 2 (0.38%) Tableau
3 1 (0.19%) MariaDB
3 1 (0.19%) MySQL
3 1 (0.19%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 35 (6.58%) JIRA
2 8 (1.50%) Git
3 3 (0.56%) GitLab
3 3 (0.56%) Postman
3 3 (0.56%) SoapUI
4 2 (0.38%) Chocolatey
4 2 (0.38%) eggPlant
4 2 (0.38%) JMeter
4 2 (0.38%) LoadRunner
4 2 (0.38%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.19%) Cucumber
5 1 (0.19%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.19%) Robot Framework
5 1 (0.19%) Selenium
5 1 (0.19%) WebDriver
General
1 251 (47.18%) Social Skills
2 85 (15.98%) Analytical Skills
3 34 (6.39%) Finance
4 23 (4.32%) Manufacturing
5 22 (4.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 16 (3.01%) Banking
7 14 (2.63%) Public Sector
8 13 (2.44%) Organisational Skills
9 7 (1.32%) Marketing
10 5 (0.94%) Documentation Skills
10 5 (0.94%) Legal
11 4 (0.75%) Financial Institution
11 4 (0.75%) Retail
12 3 (0.56%) Investment Banking
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 5 (0.94%) Terraform
2 4 (0.75%) Middleware
2 4 (0.75%) XML
3 3 (0.56%) Kafka
3 3 (0.56%) React
4 2 (0.38%) .NET
4 2 (0.38%) HTML
4 2 (0.38%) JSON
4 2 (0.38%) RabbitMQ
4 2 (0.38%) REST
4 2 (0.38%) SOAP
4 2 (0.38%) Web Services
4 2 (0.38%) XBRL
5 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Graph
5 1 (0.19%) OpenID
5 1 (0.19%) PySpark
5 1 (0.19%) Redfish
5 1 (0.19%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 71 (13.35%) Onboarding
2 55 (10.34%) Data Centre
3 43 (8.08%) Analytical Mindset
4 21 (3.95%) Video Conferencing
5 19 (3.57%) Driving Licence
6 14 (2.63%) Blackberry
7 12 (2.26%) Virtual Team
8 11 (2.07%) Self-Motivation
9 8 (1.50%) EPoS
9 8 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
10 7 (1.32%) iPhone
10 7 (1.32%) Operational Technology
11 5 (0.94%) iPad
11 5 (0.94%) SCADA
12 4 (0.75%) CCTV
12 4 (0.75%) CMDB
12 4 (0.75%) Digital Signage
12 4 (0.75%) Enterprise Software
12 4 (0.75%) Renewable Energy
12 4 (0.75%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 330 (62.03%) Windows
2 148 (27.82%) Windows 10
3 45 (8.46%) Windows Server
4 31 (5.83%) Mac OS
5 30 (5.64%) Apple iOS
6 24 (4.51%) Android
7 13 (2.44%) Linux
8 4 (0.75%) Windows Server 2019
9 3 (0.56%) Unix
9 3 (0.56%) Windows 7
10 2 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.38%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.19%) Solaris
11 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 172 (32.33%) Customer Service
2 153 (28.76%) Problem-Solving
3 105 (19.74%) ITIL
4 75 (14.10%) ITSM
5 52 (9.77%) Break/Fix
6 47 (8.83%) Continuous Improvement
7 46 (8.65%) Asset Management
8 44 (8.27%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 40 (7.52%) Service Delivery
10 36 (6.77%) User Experience
11 32 (6.02%) Service Management
12 31 (5.83%) Migration
13 25 (4.70%) Change Management
14 22 (4.14%) Cybersecurity
15 21 (3.95%) Problem Management
16 20 (3.76%) Disaster Recovery
17 17 (3.20%) Inventory Management
18 16 (3.01%) Data Protection
18 16 (3.01%) DevOps
19 14 (2.63%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 36 (6.77%) PowerShell
2 23 (4.32%) SQL
3 14 (2.63%) Python
4 13 (2.44%) C#
5 7 (1.32%) Java
5 7 (1.32%) JavaScript
6 3 (0.56%) TypeScript
7 2 (0.38%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 84 (15.79%) Security Cleared
2 74 (13.91%) SC Cleared
3 57 (10.71%) A+ Certification
4 51 (9.59%) Microsoft Certification
5 48 (9.02%) Network+ Certification
6 40 (7.52%) CCNA
6 40 (7.52%) Cisco Certification
6 40 (7.52%) MCSE
7 24 (4.51%) Degree
8 14 (2.63%) DV Cleared
9 10 (1.88%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 9 (1.69%) DBS Check
11 5 (0.94%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 3 (0.56%) Azure Certification
12 3 (0.56%) BPSS Clearance
12 3 (0.56%) CEH
12 3 (0.56%) CISM
12 3 (0.56%) CISSP
13 2 (0.38%) ISTQB
13 2 (0.38%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (6.95%) SLA
2 8 (1.50%) Cyber Essentials
3 7 (1.32%) 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
7 1 (0.19%) QA
System Software
1 242 (45.49%) Active Directory
2 23 (4.32%) VMware Infrastructure
3 19 (3.57%) Hyper-V
4 4 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.56%) Docker
5 3 (0.56%) Firmware
5 3 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.56%) vSphere
6 1 (0.19%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 87 (16.35%) Microsoft Intune
2 34 (6.39%) SCCM
3 10 (1.88%) WSUS
4 6 (1.13%) Kubernetes
4 6 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (0.94%) Ansible
5 5 (0.94%) Jamf Pro
6 3 (0.56%) Dell DRAC
7 2 (0.38%) Control-M
7 2 (0.38%) Failover Clustering
7 2 (0.38%) HP Fortify
7 2 (0.38%) PaperCut
7 2 (0.38%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.19%) Grafana
8 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
8 1 (0.19%) ServiceCenter
Vendors
1 275 (51.69%) Microsoft
2 88 (16.54%) ServiceNow
3 44 (8.27%) Dell
4 34 (6.39%) Apple
4 34 (6.39%) VMware
5 16 (3.01%) Cisco
6 14 (2.63%) Lotus
7 11 (2.07%) Citrix
7 11 (2.07%) HP
8 9 (1.69%) Veeam
9 8 (1.50%) Samsung
10 7 (1.32%) iManage
10 7 (1.32%) Remedy
11 5 (0.94%) Fortinet
11 5 (0.94%) IBM
12 4 (0.75%) Google
12 4 (0.75%) Sophos
13 3 (0.56%) Dynatrace
13 3 (0.56%) Meraki
13 3 (0.56%) Oracle