Support Engineer Contract Job Trends

Support Engineer
UK

The median Support Engineer daily rate in the UK is £226, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 19 September 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 172 128 126
Rank change year-on-year -44 -2 -38
Contract jobs requiring a Support Engineer 904 724 737
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.65% 2.20% 1.91%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.79% 2.41% 2.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 581 490 498
10th Percentile £163 £160 £140
25th Percentile £185 £190 £185
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £226 £235 £240
Median % change year-on-year -4.04% -2.08% -4.00%
75th Percentile £375 £356 £350
90th Percentile £500 £550 £529
UK excluding London median daily rate £210 £233 £225
% change year-on-year -9.97% +3.67% +4.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 77 47
10th Percentile £15.24 £16.50 £18.03
25th Percentile £18.38 £20.00 £19.17
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.15 £23.59
Median % change year-on-year -12.52% +6.61% +22.55%
75th Percentile £35.61 £43.75 £27.88
90th Percentile £44.70 £68.00 £58.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £25.15 £23.59
% change year-on-year -12.52% +6.61% +23.38%

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 50,612 30,015 35,830
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.27% 91.09% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,983 18,953 22,040
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £626 £623 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,861 1,585 1,681
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.30 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +2.86%

Support Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Support Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Support Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

Support Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Support Engineer over the 6 months to 19 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Support Engineer in the UK

Support Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

Support Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Support Engineer over the 6 months to 19 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Support Engineer in the UK

Support Engineer
Top 18 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Support Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 19 September 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 -46 772 £225 -5.26% 470
UK excluding London -36 590 £210 -9.97% 319
London -25 278 £255 +2.00% 193
South East -45 160 £260 +4.00% 108
North of England -19 138 £200 -7.51% 68
North West -4 101 £200 -9.09% 41
Work from Home -84 93 £300 +9.09% 136
Scotland +40 81 £350 +32.08% 29
East of England +10 79 £200 -9.09% 44
Midlands -69 66 £250 -5.66% 59
South West -63 52 £200 -14.89% 16
West Midlands -71 48 £211 -23.18% 32
Yorkshire -27 34 £190 -13.64% 18
East Midlands -17 18 £270 +38.46% 27
Wales -25 8 £625 +194.12% 1
Northern Ireland +6 6 £175 -12.50% 4
North East -54 4 £239 +22.44% 12
Channel Islands - 1 £550 -

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

For the 6 months to 19 September 2026, Support 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 Support Engineer in the job title.

1 524 (57.96%) Windows
2 435 (48.12%) Microsoft
3 406 (44.91%) Active Directory
4 366 (40.49%) Microsoft 365
5 225 (24.89%) Customer Service
6 223 (24.67%) Problem-Solving
7 198 (21.90%) Windows 10
8 187 (20.69%) ITIL
9 179 (19.80%) Security Cleared
10 150 (16.59%) Azure
11 146 (16.15%) Entra ID
12 140 (15.49%) Microsoft Intune
13 137 (15.15%) ITSM
14 124 (13.72%) ServiceNow
14 124 (13.72%) SharePoint
15 107 (11.84%) PowerShell
16 102 (11.28%) DNS
17 100 (11.06%) SC Cleared
18 88 (9.73%) Continuous Improvement
19 81 (8.96%) Linux
20 80 (8.85%) Windows Server
21 78 (8.63%) Service Delivery
22 77 (8.52%) Asset Management
22 77 (8.52%) Microsoft Exchange
23 76 (8.41%) Service Management
24 75 (8.30%) Degree
25 74 (8.19%) VPN
26 72 (7.96%) Migration
26 72 (7.96%) SQL
27 69 (7.63%) VMware

Support 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
1 124 (13.72%) SharePoint
2 77 (8.52%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (1.22%) HCL Notes
4 6 (0.66%) NetWeaver
5 5 (0.55%) MTS
6 3 (0.33%) Confluence
6 3 (0.33%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2013
7 2 (0.22%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.22%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.11%) IIS
Applications
1 56 (6.19%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (1.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.55%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.22%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.11%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 5 (0.55%) Remedy ITSM
1 5 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.44%) SAP EHS
3 3 (0.33%) SAP Retail
4 1 (0.11%) Bloomberg TOMS
4 1 (0.11%) Oracle BRM
4 1 (0.11%) SAP BRIM
4 1 (0.11%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.11%) SAP FI-CA
4 1 (0.11%) SAP FS
4 1 (0.11%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 366 (40.49%) Microsoft 365
2 150 (16.59%) Azure
3 146 (16.15%) Entra ID
4 50 (5.53%) OneDrive
5 42 (4.65%) AWS
6 22 (2.43%) SaaS
7 17 (1.88%) GCP
8 10 (1.11%) Power Platform
9 8 (0.88%) Google Workspace
10 7 (0.77%) Azure DevOps
11 6 (0.66%) Mimecast
12 5 (0.55%) AWS CloudFormation
13 4 (0.44%) Amazon EC2
13 4 (0.44%) Cloud Functions
13 4 (0.44%) Google App Engine
13 4 (0.44%) Google Compute Engine
13 4 (0.44%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 4 (0.44%) IaaS
13 4 (0.44%) PaaS
13 4 (0.44%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 102 (11.28%) DNS
2 74 (8.19%) VPN
3 68 (7.52%) TCP/IP
4 57 (6.31%) DHCP
5 38 (4.20%) Wi-Fi
6 36 (3.98%) LAN
7 33 (3.65%) WAN
8 28 (3.10%) Firewall
9 19 (2.10%) Internet
10 16 (1.77%) VLAN
11 14 (1.55%) Wireless
12 12 (1.33%) SAN
13 9 (1.00%) SD-WAN
14 8 (0.88%) WebEx
15 7 (0.77%) Network Security
16 6 (0.66%) SMTP
17 5 (0.55%) BGP
17 5 (0.55%) OSPF
17 5 (0.55%) Skype
17 5 (0.55%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (3.21%) SQL Server
2 12 (1.33%) MySQL
3 8 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (0.88%) Power BI
3 8 (0.88%) Relational Database
4 6 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
4 6 (0.66%) SAP HANA
5 5 (0.55%) MaxDB
5 5 (0.55%) Oracle Database
5 5 (0.55%) Sybase ASE
6 3 (0.33%) Big Data
6 3 (0.33%) Elasticsearch
6 3 (0.33%) KDB
7 2 (0.22%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (0.22%) MariaDB
7 2 (0.22%) Pentaho
7 2 (0.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 1 (0.11%) Amazon Aurora
8 1 (0.11%) Kdb+
8 1 (0.11%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 51 (5.64%) JIRA
2 16 (1.77%) Git
3 6 (0.66%) Browser DevTools
4 3 (0.33%) Android Studio
4 3 (0.33%) Artifactory
4 3 (0.33%) Eclipse
4 3 (0.33%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.33%) Xcode
5 2 (0.22%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.22%) Firebug
5 2 (0.22%) Team Foundation Server
6 1 (0.11%) Claude Code
6 1 (0.11%) Gemini Tracker
6 1 (0.11%) GitLab
6 1 (0.11%) Subversion
6 1 (0.11%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 382 (42.26%) Social Skills
2 99 (10.95%) Analytical Skills
3 82 (9.07%) Finance
4 45 (4.98%) Manufacturing
5 40 (4.42%) Banking
6 27 (2.99%) Organisational Skills
7 23 (2.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 21 (2.32%) Investment Banking
9 20 (2.21%) Front Office
10 19 (2.10%) Legal
11 17 (1.88%) Documentation Skills
11 17 (1.88%) Retail
12 15 (1.66%) Telecoms
13 14 (1.55%) Law
14 13 (1.44%) Financial Institution
15 11 (1.22%) Public Sector
16 10 (1.11%) Spanish Language
17 7 (0.77%) Marketing
18 5 (0.55%) Aerospace
19 4 (0.44%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (1.88%) .NET
1 17 (1.88%) Terraform
2 12 (1.33%) LDAP
3 10 (1.11%) XML
4 7 (0.77%) .NET Framework
4 7 (0.77%) JDO
5 6 (0.66%) CSS
6 5 (0.55%) REST
6 5 (0.55%) SAP Basis
6 5 (0.55%) SAP Fiori
6 5 (0.55%) SAPUI5
6 5 (0.55%) Software Packaging
7 4 (0.44%) FIX Protocol
7 4 (0.44%) HTML
7 4 (0.44%) React
8 3 (0.33%) Ajax
8 3 (0.33%) AngularJS
8 3 (0.33%) Jakarta EE
8 3 (0.33%) Kafka
8 3 (0.33%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 130 (14.38%) Onboarding
2 34 (3.76%) Video Conferencing
3 33 (3.65%) Data Centre
4 22 (2.43%) Self-Motivation
5 20 (2.21%) PKI
6 19 (2.10%) Driving Licence
7 18 (1.99%) Hedge funds
8 17 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
9 16 (1.77%) Data Protection Act
10 15 (1.66%) Analytical Mindset
11 13 (1.44%) Management Information System
11 13 (1.44%) Smartphone
12 11 (1.22%) Blackberry
12 11 (1.22%) iPhone
12 11 (1.22%) Virtual Team
13 10 (1.11%) CMDB
14 9 (1.00%) Distributed Systems
15 7 (0.77%) iPad
15 7 (0.77%) Legacy Systems
16 6 (0.66%) BYOD
Operating Systems
1 524 (57.96%) Windows
2 198 (21.90%) Windows 10
3 81 (8.96%) Linux
4 80 (8.85%) Windows Server
5 67 (7.41%) Mac OS
6 45 (4.98%) Android
7 42 (4.65%) Apple iOS
8 28 (3.10%) Unix
9 18 (1.99%) Windows 7
10 13 (1.44%) Ubuntu
10 13 (1.44%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 5 (0.55%) CentOS
13 4 (0.44%) OpenVMS
13 4 (0.44%) Solaris
13 4 (0.44%) VMS
13 4 (0.44%) Windows Server 2008
14 3 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.33%) Windows XP
15 2 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 225 (24.89%) Customer Service
2 223 (24.67%) Problem-Solving
3 187 (20.69%) ITIL
4 137 (15.15%) ITSM
5 88 (9.73%) Continuous Improvement
6 78 (8.63%) Service Delivery
7 77 (8.52%) Asset Management
8 76 (8.41%) Service Management
9 72 (7.96%) Migration
10 66 (7.30%) Root Cause Analysis
11 54 (5.97%) User Experience
12 53 (5.86%) Problem Management
13 50 (5.53%) Incident Management
14 46 (5.09%) Identity Access Management
15 44 (4.87%) Technical Leadership
16 42 (4.65%) Infrastructure Engineering
17 36 (3.98%) Data Protection
18 34 (3.76%) Change Management
18 34 (3.76%) Runbook
19 32 (3.54%) Task Automation
Programming Languages
1 107 (11.84%) PowerShell
2 72 (7.96%) SQL
3 49 (5.42%) Python
4 29 (3.21%) Java
5 24 (2.65%) JavaScript
6 21 (2.32%) Bash
7 18 (1.99%) C#
8 8 (0.88%) Shell Script
9 7 (0.77%) C++
10 5 (0.55%) Perl
10 5 (0.55%) Tcl
10 5 (0.55%) T-SQL
11 4 (0.44%) Go
11 4 (0.44%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.22%) DCL
13 1 (0.11%) C
13 1 (0.11%) Korn
13 1 (0.11%) TypeScript
13 1 (0.11%) VBA
13 1 (0.11%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 179 (19.80%) Security Cleared
2 100 (11.06%) SC Cleared
3 75 (8.30%) Degree
4 63 (6.97%) DV Cleared
5 30 (3.32%) A+ Certification
6 20 (2.21%) Microsoft Certification
7 19 (2.10%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 14 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
8 14 (1.55%) Network+ Certification
9 13 (1.44%) Cisco Certification
10 12 (1.33%) DBS Check
11 10 (1.11%) CCNA
12 9 (1.00%) Computer Science Degree
13 7 (0.77%) MCSE
13 7 (0.77%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 6 (0.66%) Azure Certification
15 5 (0.55%) ITIL Certification
16 4 (0.44%) NVQ Level 4
17 3 (0.33%) CCNP
17 3 (0.33%) OCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 58 (6.42%) SLA
2 6 (0.66%) QA
3 4 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 3 (0.33%) Data Quality
4 3 (0.33%) GxP
5 2 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (0.22%) GDPR
6 1 (0.11%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.11%) GRC
6 1 (0.11%) ITGC
6 1 (0.11%) NCSC
System Software
1 406 (44.91%) Active Directory
2 52 (5.75%) VMware Infrastructure
3 32 (3.54%) VMware ESXi
4 24 (2.65%) Hyper-V
5 18 (1.99%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (1.88%) VMware NSX
7 15 (1.66%) vCloud
8 10 (1.11%) Docker
9 7 (0.77%) vSphere
10 5 (0.55%) BitLocker
10 5 (0.55%) NFS
11 4 (0.44%) Firmware
12 3 (0.33%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.33%) Terminal Services
13 2 (0.22%) zsh
14 1 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
14 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 140 (15.49%) Microsoft Intune
2 63 (6.97%) SCCM
3 32 (3.54%) vCenter Server
4 26 (2.88%) SCOM
5 19 (2.10%) Single Sign-On
6 17 (1.88%) Jamf Pro
6 17 (1.88%) Kubernetes
7 15 (1.66%) Ansible
8 8 (0.88%) Grafana
9 7 (0.77%) WSUS
10 5 (0.55%) Red Hat Satellite
11 4 (0.44%) ITRS Geneos
12 3 (0.33%) Nagios
12 3 (0.33%) Prometheus
12 3 (0.33%) Puppet
12 3 (0.33%) vMotion
13 2 (0.22%) AirWatch
13 2 (0.22%) Kibana
13 2 (0.22%) NetBackup
13 2 (0.22%) vRealize
Vendors
1 435 (48.12%) Microsoft
2 124 (13.72%) ServiceNow
3 69 (7.63%) VMware
4 43 (4.76%) Apple
5 39 (4.31%) Cisco
6 31 (3.43%) Okta
7 29 (3.21%) Citrix
7 29 (3.21%) Oracle
8 28 (3.10%) Google
9 21 (2.32%) BeyondTrust
10 17 (1.88%) Splunk
11 16 (1.77%) Meraki
12 15 (1.66%) SAP
13 14 (1.55%) Bloomberg
14 13 (1.44%) iManage
14 13 (1.44%) Samsung
15 12 (1.33%) Broadcom
16 11 (1.22%) Dell
16 11 (1.22%) Lotus
16 11 (1.22%) SolarWinds