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 27 March 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 154 130 108
Rank change year-on-year -24 -22 +20
Contract jobs requiring a Support Engineer 783 642 928
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.78% 2.21% 2.10%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.93% 2.38% 2.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 535 430 663
10th Percentile £151 £153 £135
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 £413
UK excluding London median daily rate £205 £220 £200
% change year-on-year -6.82% +10.00% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 99 41 58
10th Percentile £18.07 £18.13 £16.18
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.51 £17.56
Median hourly rate £23.83 £23.00 £19.47
Median % change year-on-year +3.59% +18.16% -2.68%
75th Percentile £33.73 £24.66 £28.82
90th Percentile £37.75 £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 40,577 26,954 41,100
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.01% 92.86% 92.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,287 17,764 26,916
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.18%
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 2,523 918 2,518
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.19 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.41 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £37.50 £32.50 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +15.38% -1.20% -24.38%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.74 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.73 £76.53 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.63 £31.88 £32.90
% change year-on-year +21.17% -3.09% -21.31%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 £213 -10.99% 309
UK excluding London -29 538 £205 -6.82% 282
London -54 209 £275 -10.57% 62
South East -21 129 £225 +9.76% 88
North of England -41 122 £190 -12.64% 71
Midlands -31 92 £200 -23.81% 39
South West -15 91 £214 -5.00% 39
Work from Home -85 71 £225 -30.77% 68
North West -23 66 £152 -30.34% 43
East of England -9 58 £203 -8.99% 28
West Midlands -45 57 £270 -6.09% 19
Yorkshire -27 48 £205 -11.83% 24
Scotland +15 41 £250 +57.73% 13
East Midlands -4 36 £200 +5.26% 20
Wales -14 9 £200 - 5
North East -17 8 £106 -45.64% 7
Northern Ireland -13 2 £175 +18.24% 4

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

For the 6 months to 27 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 (47.51%) Windows
2 276 (35.25%) Microsoft
3 250 (31.93%) Microsoft 365
4 241 (30.78%) Active Directory
5 203 (25.93%) Security Cleared
6 169 (21.58%) Windows 10
7 167 (21.33%) Customer Service
8 165 (21.07%) SC Cleared
9 138 (17.62%) Problem-Solving
10 119 (15.20%) Azure
11 94 (12.01%) Microsoft Intune
11 94 (12.01%) ServiceNow
12 90 (11.49%) ITIL
13 71 (9.07%) Migration
13 71 (9.07%) PowerShell
14 65 (8.30%) Entra ID
15 64 (8.17%) ITSM
16 62 (7.92%) SharePoint
17 58 (7.41%) Wi-Fi
18 57 (7.28%) DNS
19 52 (6.64%) Asset Management
20 51 (6.51%) Linux
21 50 (6.39%) DHCP
21 50 (6.39%) TCP/IP
22 49 (6.26%) SCCM
23 47 (6.00%) JIRA
23 47 (6.00%) SQL
24 43 (5.49%) Microsoft Office
25 42 (5.36%) VPN
26 41 (5.24%) Windows Server

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 62 (7.92%) SharePoint
2 35 (4.47%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.53%) 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 43 (5.49%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (1.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.26%) 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
1 250 (31.93%) Microsoft 365
2 119 (15.20%) Azure
3 65 (8.30%) Entra ID
4 29 (3.70%) OneDrive
5 23 (2.94%) AWS
6 19 (2.43%) Google Workspace
6 19 (2.43%) SaaS
7 18 (2.30%) Azure DevOps
8 11 (1.40%) Dynamics 365
9 9 (1.15%) Power Platform
9 9 (1.15%) Sauce Labs
10 6 (0.77%) Amazon S3
11 5 (0.64%) Azure Data Factory
11 5 (0.64%) npm
11 5 (0.64%) PaaS
12 4 (0.51%) Datadog
12 4 (0.51%) Snowflake
13 3 (0.38%) GCP
13 3 (0.38%) Nutanix
14 2 (0.26%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 58 (7.41%) Wi-Fi
2 57 (7.28%) DNS
3 50 (6.39%) DHCP
3 50 (6.39%) TCP/IP
4 42 (5.36%) VPN
5 37 (4.73%) LAN
6 29 (3.70%) WAN
7 25 (3.19%) Firewall
8 20 (2.55%) Wireless
9 14 (1.79%) Network Security
9 14 (1.79%) Skype
10 13 (1.66%) Internet
10 13 (1.66%) SAN
11 10 (1.28%) VoIP
12 9 (1.15%) VLAN
13 8 (1.02%) HTTP
14 7 (0.89%) Cisco Firepower
14 7 (0.89%) Cisco IOS
14 7 (0.89%) Cisco ISE
14 7 (0.89%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (2.94%) SQL Server
2 18 (2.30%) MySQL
3 14 (1.79%) Relational Database
4 12 (1.53%) Amazon Redshift
5 9 (1.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 7 (0.89%) 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 (6.00%) JIRA
2 16 (2.04%) Git
3 15 (1.92%) Browser DevTools
4 9 (1.15%) Android Studio
4 9 (1.15%) Eclipse
4 9 (1.15%) Xcode
5 5 (0.64%) Maven
6 3 (0.38%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.26%) Firebug
8 1 (0.13%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.13%) Fiddler
8 1 (0.13%) Hudson
8 1 (0.13%) MSI
8 1 (0.13%) RStudio
8 1 (0.13%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 1 (0.13%) Subversion
General
1 333 (42.53%) Social Skills
2 63 (8.05%) Finance
3 59 (7.54%) Analytical Skills
4 50 (6.39%) Manufacturing
5 38 (4.85%) Banking
6 31 (3.96%) Public Sector
7 30 (3.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 23 (2.94%) Aerospace
8 23 (2.94%) Organisational Skills
9 15 (1.92%) Aviation
9 15 (1.92%) Investment Banking
9 15 (1.92%) Telecoms
10 10 (1.28%) Electronics
10 10 (1.28%) Marketing
11 9 (1.15%) Law
11 9 (1.15%) Legal
12 8 (1.02%) Front Office
13 7 (0.89%) Documentation Skills
14 4 (0.51%) Advertising
15 3 (0.38%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (1.66%) Middleware
2 11 (1.40%) CSS
3 9 (1.15%) Ajax
3 9 (1.15%) AngularJS
3 9 (1.15%) GraphQL
3 9 (1.15%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 9 (1.15%) React
4 6 (0.77%) SAP Basis
5 5 (0.64%) OAuth
5 5 (0.64%) REST
5 5 (0.64%) SAML
5 5 (0.64%) YAML
6 4 (0.51%) .NET
6 4 (0.51%) JDO
6 4 (0.51%) PySpark
7 3 (0.38%) HTML
7 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Graph
8 2 (0.26%) Node.js
8 2 (0.26%) RESTful
8 2 (0.26%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 52 (6.64%) Onboarding
2 34 (4.34%) Self-Motivation
3 28 (3.58%) Driving Licence
4 27 (3.45%) Data Centre
5 17 (2.17%) Analytical Mindset
5 17 (2.17%) Smartphone
6 14 (1.79%) PKI
7 12 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
7 12 (1.53%) iPhone
7 12 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
7 12 (1.53%) Virtual Team
8 11 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
9 10 (1.28%) SCADA
10 9 (1.15%) Mobile App
11 8 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
12 7 (0.89%) Management Information System
13 6 (0.77%) iPad
14 5 (0.64%) Video Conferencing
15 4 (0.51%) Hedge funds
16 3 (0.38%) CCTV
Operating Systems
1 372 (47.51%) Windows
2 169 (21.58%) Windows 10
3 51 (6.51%) Linux
4 41 (5.24%) Windows Server
5 39 (4.98%) Android
5 39 (4.98%) Mac OS
6 33 (4.21%) Unix
7 30 (3.83%) 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
1 167 (21.33%) Customer Service
2 138 (17.62%) Problem-Solving
3 90 (11.49%) ITIL
4 71 (9.07%) Migration
5 64 (8.17%) ITSM
6 52 (6.64%) Asset Management
7 40 (5.11%) Workflow
8 39 (4.98%) User Experience
9 36 (4.60%) Service Management
10 32 (4.09%) Root Cause Analysis
10 32 (4.09%) Workflow Management
11 31 (3.96%) Change Management
11 31 (3.96%) Continuous Improvement
12 29 (3.70%) Logistics
13 28 (3.58%) Incident Management
14 27 (3.45%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 26 (3.32%) DevOps
15 26 (3.32%) Stakeholder Management
16 25 (3.19%) Break/Fix
16 25 (3.19%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 71 (9.07%) PowerShell
2 47 (6.00%) SQL
3 32 (4.09%) Python
4 25 (3.19%) Java
5 20 (2.55%) JavaScript
6 18 (2.30%) C#
6 18 (2.30%) Shell Script
7 12 (1.53%) Bash
8 11 (1.40%) Perl
9 9 (1.15%) Korn
10 5 (0.64%) C
10 5 (0.64%) C++
11 4 (0.51%) Ada
12 3 (0.38%) VB.NET
13 2 (0.26%) AWK
13 2 (0.26%) Magik
13 2 (0.26%) VBA
13 2 (0.26%) VBScript
14 1 (0.13%) PL/SQL
14 1 (0.13%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 203 (25.93%) Security Cleared
2 165 (21.07%) SC Cleared
3 40 (5.11%) DV Cleared
4 30 (3.83%) Degree
5 22 (2.81%) Microsoft Certification
6 17 (2.17%) A+ Certification
7 15 (1.92%) CCNA
7 15 (1.92%) Cisco Certification
8 13 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
9 12 (1.53%) MCSE
9 12 (1.53%) Network+ Certification
10 7 (0.89%) ITIL Certification
11 6 (0.77%) DBS Check
12 5 (0.64%) Azure Certification
13 4 (0.51%) Computer Science Degree
14 3 (0.38%) Master's Degree
15 2 (0.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 2 (0.26%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 1 (0.13%) AWS Certification
16 1 (0.13%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (3.58%) 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%) IFRS
6 1 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.13%) SOC 2
System Software
1 241 (30.78%) Active Directory
2 17 (2.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (1.28%) VMware NSX
4 9 (1.15%) Hyper-V
4 9 (1.15%) Oracle RAC
4 9 (1.15%) Virtual Desktop
5 8 (1.02%) 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 94 (12.01%) Microsoft Intune
2 49 (6.26%) SCCM
3 27 (3.45%) Jamf Pro
4 16 (2.04%) Grafana
5 13 (1.66%) Ansible
6 11 (1.40%) Terraform
7 10 (1.28%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.15%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 9 (1.15%) Oracle RMAN
8 9 (1.15%) Single Sign-On
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%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 1 (0.13%) Autotask
12 1 (0.13%) vRealize
Vendors
1 276 (35.25%) Microsoft
2 94 (12.01%) ServiceNow
3 36 (4.60%) Oracle
4 33 (4.21%) SAP
5 28 (3.58%) Dell
6 27 (3.45%) Cisco
7 22 (2.81%) VMware
8 21 (2.68%) Apple
9 20 (2.55%) HP
10 19 (2.43%) Google
11 14 (1.79%) Juniper
12 13 (1.66%) Splunk
13 10 (1.28%) Bloomberg
13 10 (1.28%) Remedy
13 10 (1.28%) SolarWinds
14 9 (1.15%) McAfee
15 8 (1.02%) Citrix
15 8 (1.02%) Starlink
16 7 (0.89%) Denodo
16 7 (0.89%) Talend