Support Engineer Contract Job Trends

Support Engineer
UK

The median Support Engineer daily rate in the UK is £213, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 31 March 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 157 123 106
Rank change year-on-year -34 -17 +23
Contract jobs requiring a Support Engineer 784 643 932
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.76% 2.21% 2.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.91% 2.38% 2.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 534 430 667
10th Percentile £151 £153 £134
25th Percentile £185 £185 £163
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £213 £230 £213
Median % change year-on-year -7.61% +8.24% -15.00%
75th Percentile £350 £385 £300
90th Percentile £500 £500 £423
UK excluding London median daily rate £205 £220 £200
% change year-on-year -6.82% +10.00% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 101 40 58
10th Percentile £18.07 £18.13 £16.18
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.51 £17.72
Median hourly rate £23.83 £23.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.59% +15.00% -
75th Percentile £34.00 £25.50 £28.82
90th Percentile £37.50 £41.50 £46.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £22.50 £18.00
% change year-on-year +2.22% +25.00% -4.00%

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 40,988 26,987 41,095
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.05% 92.82% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,540 17,745 26,925
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.67%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +2.11% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,566 944 2,532
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.02 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.72 £20.92 £16.25
Median hourly rate £38.63 £32.50 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +18.86% -1.20% -25.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.91 £71.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £31.88 £32.90
% change year-on-year +25.47% -3.09% -21.32%

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 31 March 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 31 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Support Engineer in the UK

Support 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 Support Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 31 March 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 -32 700 £210 -12.50% 309
UK excluding London -27 540 £205 -6.82% 282
London -54 208 £275 -10.57% 62
South East -21 128 £219 +6.71% 88
North of England -40 123 £190 -12.64% 71
South West -14 92 £210 -6.67% 39
Midlands -29 91 £200 -27.27% 39
Work from Home -79 72 £225 -30.77% 68
North West -22 67 £158 -27.24% 43
East of England -13 59 £203 -8.99% 28
West Midlands -45 56 £269 -10.50% 19
Yorkshire -27 48 £205 -11.83% 24
Scotland +17 41 £250 +57.73% 13
East Midlands -10 36 £200 +5.26% 20
Wales -14 10 £200 - 5
North East -17 8 £106 -45.64% 7
Northern Ireland -11 2 £175 +18.24% 4

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

For the 6 months to 31 March 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.

1 372 (47.45%) Windows
2 280 (35.71%) Microsoft
3 253 (32.27%) Microsoft 365
4 242 (30.87%) Active Directory
5 200 (25.51%) Security Cleared
6 171 (21.81%) Windows 10
7 169 (21.56%) Customer Service
8 164 (20.92%) SC Cleared
9 138 (17.60%) Problem-Solving
10 118 (15.05%) Azure
11 97 (12.37%) Microsoft Intune
12 93 (11.86%) ITIL
13 92 (11.73%) ServiceNow
14 71 (9.06%) Migration
15 69 (8.80%) PowerShell
16 64 (8.16%) Entra ID
16 64 (8.16%) ITSM
16 64 (8.16%) SharePoint
17 58 (7.40%) Wi-Fi
18 55 (7.02%) DNS
19 53 (6.76%) Asset Management
20 50 (6.38%) Linux
20 50 (6.38%) SCCM
21 48 (6.12%) DHCP
21 48 (6.12%) SQL
21 48 (6.12%) TCP/IP
22 47 (5.99%) JIRA
23 45 (5.74%) Microsoft Office
24 41 (5.23%) VPN
25 40 (5.10%) Workflow

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 64 (8.16%) SharePoint
2 34 (4.34%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (1.40%) Skype for Business
4 6 (0.77%) NetWeaver
5 4 (0.51%) Apache
5 4 (0.51%) Confluence
6 3 (0.38%) IIS
7 2 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.26%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.26%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.26%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.26%) Smallworld
7 2 (0.26%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.13%) Tuxedo
8 1 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 45 (5.74%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (1.91%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 9 (1.15%) SAP EHS
2 8 (1.02%) Remedy ITSM
3 7 (0.89%) Shopify
4 6 (0.77%) SAP S/4HANA
4 6 (0.77%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.26%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.13%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.13%) Alphatax
6 1 (0.13%) assyst
6 1 (0.13%) Bloomberg TOMS
6 1 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.13%) Dynamics GP
6 1 (0.13%) Eikon
6 1 (0.13%) Fidessa
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.13%) Primavera
6 1 (0.13%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 253 (32.27%) Microsoft 365
2 118 (15.05%) Azure
3 64 (8.16%) Entra ID
4 30 (3.83%) OneDrive
5 23 (2.93%) AWS
6 19 (2.42%) Google Workspace
7 18 (2.30%) Azure DevOps
8 17 (2.17%) SaaS
9 11 (1.40%) Dynamics 365
10 10 (1.28%) Power Platform
11 8 (1.02%) Sauce Labs
12 6 (0.77%) Amazon S3
13 5 (0.64%) Azure Data Factory
13 5 (0.64%) npm
13 5 (0.64%) PaaS
14 4 (0.51%) Datadog
14 4 (0.51%) Snowflake
15 3 (0.38%) GCP
15 3 (0.38%) Nutanix
16 2 (0.26%) Amazon OpenSearch
Communications & Networking
1 58 (7.40%) Wi-Fi
2 55 (7.02%) DNS
3 48 (6.12%) DHCP
3 48 (6.12%) TCP/IP
4 41 (5.23%) VPN
5 36 (4.59%) LAN
6 27 (3.44%) WAN
7 24 (3.06%) Firewall
8 18 (2.30%) Wireless
9 14 (1.79%) Network Security
10 13 (1.66%) SAN
10 13 (1.66%) Skype
11 12 (1.53%) Internet
12 10 (1.28%) VoIP
13 8 (1.02%) VLAN
14 7 (0.89%) HTTP
15 6 (0.77%) MPLS
15 6 (0.77%) PABX
15 6 (0.77%) WLAN
16 5 (0.64%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (2.81%) SQL Server
2 17 (2.17%) MySQL
3 13 (1.66%) Relational Database
4 12 (1.53%) Amazon Redshift
5 9 (1.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 8 (1.02%) Power BI
7 6 (0.77%) Pentaho
7 6 (0.77%) SAP HANA
7 6 (0.77%) Sybase ASE
8 5 (0.64%) MaxDB
8 5 (0.64%) Oracle Database
9 4 (0.51%) Amazon Athena
9 4 (0.51%) Oracle Database 12c
10 3 (0.38%) InfluxDB
10 3 (0.38%) Tableau
11 2 (0.26%) Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.26%) GIS
11 2 (0.26%) PostgreSQL
11 2 (0.26%) RDBMS
11 2 (0.26%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 47 (5.99%) JIRA
2 16 (2.04%) Git
3 13 (1.66%) Browser DevTools
4 8 (1.02%) Android Studio
4 8 (1.02%) Eclipse
4 8 (1.02%) Xcode
5 5 (0.64%) Maven
6 3 (0.38%) Jenkins
7 1 (0.13%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.13%) Firebug
7 1 (0.13%) Hudson
7 1 (0.13%) MSI
7 1 (0.13%) RStudio
7 1 (0.13%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.13%) Subversion
General
1 333 (42.47%) Social Skills
2 62 (7.91%) Finance
3 60 (7.65%) Analytical Skills
4 51 (6.51%) Manufacturing
5 38 (4.85%) Banking
6 31 (3.95%) Public Sector
7 30 (3.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 23 (2.93%) Aerospace
9 22 (2.81%) Organisational Skills
10 15 (1.91%) Aviation
10 15 (1.91%) Investment Banking
10 15 (1.91%) Telecoms
11 10 (1.28%) Electronics
11 10 (1.28%) Marketing
12 9 (1.15%) Law
12 9 (1.15%) Legal
13 8 (1.02%) Front Office
14 7 (0.89%) Documentation Skills
15 4 (0.51%) Advertising
15 4 (0.51%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (1.66%) Middleware
2 9 (1.15%) CSS
2 9 (1.15%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 8 (1.02%) Ajax
3 8 (1.02%) AngularJS
3 8 (1.02%) GraphQL
3 8 (1.02%) React
4 6 (0.77%) SAP Basis
5 5 (0.64%) .NET
5 5 (0.64%) JDO
5 5 (0.64%) REST
5 5 (0.64%) SAML
5 5 (0.64%) YAML
6 4 (0.51%) OAuth
6 4 (0.51%) PySpark
7 2 (0.26%) EDI
7 2 (0.26%) RESTful
7 2 (0.26%) SOAP
7 2 (0.26%) Software Packaging
7 2 (0.26%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 52 (6.63%) Onboarding
2 35 (4.46%) Self-Motivation
3 28 (3.57%) Driving Licence
4 26 (3.32%) Data Centre
5 17 (2.17%) Analytical Mindset
5 17 (2.17%) Smartphone
6 13 (1.66%) iPhone
6 13 (1.66%) PKI
7 12 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
7 12 (1.53%) Virtual Team
8 11 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
8 11 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
9 10 (1.28%) SCADA
10 8 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
10 8 (1.02%) Mobile App
11 6 (0.77%) iPad
11 6 (0.77%) Management Information System
12 5 (0.64%) Video Conferencing
13 4 (0.51%) Hedge funds
14 2 (0.26%) Fat Client
Operating Systems
1 372 (47.45%) Windows
2 171 (21.81%) Windows 10
3 50 (6.38%) Linux
4 39 (4.97%) Android
4 39 (4.97%) Mac OS
5 38 (4.85%) Windows Server
6 32 (4.08%) Unix
7 31 (3.95%) Apple iOS
8 7 (0.89%) Windows Server 2016
9 6 (0.77%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.51%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 2 (0.26%) CentOS
12 2 (0.26%) Mac OS X
12 2 (0.26%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.13%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 169 (21.56%) Customer Service
2 138 (17.60%) Problem-Solving
3 93 (11.86%) ITIL
4 71 (9.06%) Migration
5 64 (8.16%) ITSM
6 53 (6.76%) Asset Management
7 40 (5.10%) Workflow
8 39 (4.97%) User Experience
9 36 (4.59%) Service Management
10 33 (4.21%) Root Cause Analysis
11 32 (4.08%) Continuous Improvement
12 31 (3.95%) Change Management
12 31 (3.95%) Workflow Management
13 30 (3.83%) Logistics
14 28 (3.57%) Incident Management
15 27 (3.44%) Infrastructure Engineering
16 26 (3.32%) DevOps
16 26 (3.32%) Stakeholder Management
17 25 (3.19%) Break/Fix
17 25 (3.19%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 69 (8.80%) PowerShell
2 48 (6.12%) SQL
3 31 (3.95%) Python
4 23 (2.93%) Java
5 18 (2.30%) C#
5 18 (2.30%) JavaScript
5 18 (2.30%) Shell Script
6 12 (1.53%) Bash
7 10 (1.28%) Perl
8 9 (1.15%) Korn
9 5 (0.64%) C
9 5 (0.64%) C++
10 4 (0.51%) Ada
11 3 (0.38%) VB.NET
12 2 (0.26%) AWK
12 2 (0.26%) Magik
12 2 (0.26%) VBA
12 2 (0.26%) VBScript
13 1 (0.13%) R
13 1 (0.13%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 200 (25.51%) Security Cleared
2 164 (20.92%) SC Cleared
3 37 (4.72%) DV Cleared
4 32 (4.08%) Degree
5 21 (2.68%) Microsoft Certification
6 17 (2.17%) A+ Certification
7 14 (1.79%) CCNA
7 14 (1.79%) Cisco Certification
8 13 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
9 12 (1.53%) MCSE
10 11 (1.40%) Network+ Certification
11 7 (0.89%) ITIL Certification
12 6 (0.77%) DBS Check
13 5 (0.64%) Azure Certification
14 4 (0.51%) Computer Science Degree
15 3 (0.38%) Master's Degree
16 2 (0.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 1 (0.13%) AWS Certification
17 1 (0.13%) City & Guilds
17 1 (0.13%) MCITP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (3.57%) SLA
2 5 (0.64%) GDPR
3 4 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
3 4 (0.51%) Data Quality
4 3 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (0.38%) QA
5 2 (0.26%) GLP
5 2 (0.26%) GMP
6 1 (0.13%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.13%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.13%) GAAP
6 1 (0.13%) GxP
6 1 (0.13%) IFRS
6 1 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.13%) SOC 2
System Software
1 242 (30.87%) Active Directory
2 17 (2.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (1.15%) Hyper-V
3 9 (1.15%) Oracle RAC
3 9 (1.15%) Virtual Desktop
4 8 (1.02%) VMware NSX
5 7 (0.89%) Firmware
6 5 (0.64%) Docker
7 3 (0.38%) Virtual Servers
7 3 (0.38%) vSphere
8 2 (0.26%) NFS
9 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 1 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.13%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 97 (12.37%) Microsoft Intune
2 50 (6.38%) SCCM
3 27 (3.44%) Jamf Pro
4 16 (2.04%) Grafana
5 13 (1.66%) Ansible
6 11 (1.40%) Terraform
7 9 (1.15%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 9 (1.15%) Oracle RMAN
7 9 (1.15%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (1.02%) vCenter Server
9 5 (0.64%) Kubernetes
10 4 (0.51%) Kibana
11 2 (0.26%) McAfee ePO
11 2 (0.26%) PaperCut
11 2 (0.26%) Prometheus
11 2 (0.26%) WMI
11 2 (0.26%) WSUS
12 1 (0.13%) AirWatch
12 1 (0.13%) Autotask
12 1 (0.13%) vRealize
Vendors
1 280 (35.71%) Microsoft
2 92 (11.73%) ServiceNow
3 35 (4.46%) Oracle
4 33 (4.21%) SAP
5 28 (3.57%) Dell
6 24 (3.06%) Cisco
7 22 (2.81%) Apple
7 22 (2.81%) VMware
8 20 (2.55%) HP
9 19 (2.42%) Google
10 12 (1.53%) Splunk
11 11 (1.40%) Juniper
12 10 (1.28%) Bloomberg
12 10 (1.28%) McAfee
12 10 (1.28%) Remedy
13 9 (1.15%) Starlink
14 8 (1.02%) Citrix
14 8 (1.02%) SolarWinds
15 7 (0.89%) Denodo
15 7 (0.89%) Talend