Support Engineer Contract Job Trends

Support Engineer
UK

The median Support Engineer daily rate in the UK is £220, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 14 March 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 146 134 104
Rank change year-on-year -12 -30 +24
Contract jobs requiring a Support Engineer 821 620 952
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.90% 2.10% 2.14%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.07% 2.26% 2.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 550 415 673
10th Percentile £152 £152 £138
25th Percentile £185 £181 £163
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £220 £225 £215
Median % change year-on-year -2.22% +4.65% -14.00%
75th Percentile £350 £375 £300
90th Percentile £500 £488 £433
UK excluding London median daily rate £206 £215 £200
% change year-on-year -4.19% +7.50% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 119 39 60
10th Percentile £17.89 £16.67 £15.79
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.36 £17.38
Median hourly rate £24.00 £22.50 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% +12.50% +3.63%
75th Percentile £30.00 £24.66 £30.00
90th Percentile £53.00 £41.50 £46.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.58 £22.30 £19.00
% change year-on-year +5.74% +17.34% +8.57%

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 39,662 27,424 41,343
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.89% 92.92% 92.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,771 17,715 27,123
10th Percentile £313 £296 £270
25th Percentile £410 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.40%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £487
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.46% -2.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,471 874 2,496
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.36 £12.96
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.24 £16.25
Median hourly rate £35.00 £33.06 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% +1.71% -23.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.44
90th Percentile £75.79 £77.50 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +7.69% - -19.90%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -7 739 £218 -5.43% 271
UK excluding London -9 568 £206 -4.19% 272
London -39 217 £275 -8.33% 42
South East -4 144 £238 +18.75% 92
North of England -38 119 £190 -13.64% 66
South West +3 109 £250 +11.11% 31
Midlands -17 93 £200 -10.11% 30
Work from Home -66 79 £270 -10.37% 63
North West -22 64 £152 -29.53% 38
East of England -5 58 £203 -8.99% 33
West Midlands -47 56 £250 -9.09% 18
Yorkshire -29 46 £205 -11.83% 24
Scotland +20 40 £225 +41.96% 15
East Midlands -1 38 £200 +5.26% 12
North East -16 9 £106 -45.64% 8
Wales -16 9 £200 - 6
Northern Ireland -12 2 £175 +18.24% 7

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

For the 6 months to 14 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.

1 386 (47.02%) Windows
2 287 (34.96%) Microsoft
3 253 (30.82%) Microsoft 365
4 237 (28.87%) Security Cleared
5 231 (28.14%) Active Directory
6 192 (23.39%) SC Cleared
7 175 (21.32%) Windows 10
8 170 (20.71%) Customer Service
9 143 (17.42%) Problem-Solving
10 111 (13.52%) Azure
11 104 (12.67%) ServiceNow
12 94 (11.45%) ITIL
13 93 (11.33%) Microsoft Intune
14 78 (9.50%) Migration
15 76 (9.26%) PowerShell
16 67 (8.16%) Linux
17 65 (7.92%) ITSM
18 63 (7.67%) DNS
19 59 (7.19%) Wi-Fi
20 58 (7.06%) Entra ID
20 58 (7.06%) SCCM
20 58 (7.06%) SharePoint
21 57 (6.94%) Asset Management
21 57 (6.94%) DHCP
22 54 (6.58%) TCP/IP
23 48 (5.85%) Workflow
24 47 (5.72%) Microsoft Office
25 46 (5.60%) Mac OS
25 46 (5.60%) SQL
25 46 (5.60%) VPN

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 58 (7.06%) SharePoint
2 40 (4.87%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (1.83%) Skype for Business
4 5 (0.61%) NetWeaver
5 4 (0.49%) Apache
5 4 (0.49%) Confluence
6 3 (0.37%) IIS
7 2 (0.24%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.24%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.24%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.24%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.24%) Smallworld
7 2 (0.24%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.12%) Tuxedo
8 1 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 47 (5.72%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (2.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (1.10%) SAP EHS
2 8 (0.97%) Remedy ITSM
3 7 (0.85%) Shopify
4 6 (0.73%) Teamcenter
5 5 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
6 3 (0.37%) Primavera
7 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.12%) Alphatax
7 1 (0.12%) assyst
7 1 (0.12%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.12%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
7 1 (0.12%) Eikon
7 1 (0.12%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.12%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.12%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 253 (30.82%) Microsoft 365
2 111 (13.52%) Azure
3 58 (7.06%) Entra ID
4 34 (4.14%) OneDrive
5 26 (3.17%) AWS
6 22 (2.68%) SaaS
7 19 (2.31%) Google Workspace
8 15 (1.83%) Azure DevOps
9 11 (1.34%) Dynamics 365
9 11 (1.34%) Sauce Labs
10 9 (1.10%) Power Platform
11 6 (0.73%) npm
12 5 (0.61%) Amazon S3
12 5 (0.61%) Azure Data Factory
12 5 (0.61%) PaaS
13 4 (0.49%) Datadog
13 4 (0.49%) Snowflake
14 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Purview
14 3 (0.37%) Nutanix
14 3 (0.37%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 63 (7.67%) DNS
2 59 (7.19%) Wi-Fi
3 57 (6.94%) DHCP
4 54 (6.58%) TCP/IP
5 46 (5.60%) VPN
6 37 (4.51%) LAN
7 28 (3.41%) WAN
8 24 (2.92%) Firewall
8 24 (2.92%) Wireless
9 16 (1.95%) Skype
10 13 (1.58%) Network Security
10 13 (1.58%) PABX
10 13 (1.58%) VLAN
11 12 (1.46%) SAN
12 11 (1.34%) Internet
13 10 (1.22%) VoIP
14 8 (0.97%) HTTP
15 7 (0.85%) Cisco IOS
15 7 (0.85%) Junos
15 7 (0.85%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (2.68%) SQL Server
2 18 (2.19%) MySQL
3 16 (1.95%) Relational Database
4 10 (1.22%) Amazon Redshift
5 9 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 7 (0.85%) Power BI
7 5 (0.61%) Oracle Database
7 5 (0.61%) SAP HANA
7 5 (0.61%) Sybase ASE
8 4 (0.49%) Amazon Athena
8 4 (0.49%) MaxDB
8 4 (0.49%) Oracle Database 12c
8 4 (0.49%) Pentaho
9 3 (0.37%) InfluxDB
9 3 (0.37%) RDBMS
9 3 (0.37%) Tableau
10 2 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.24%) GIS
10 2 (0.24%) PostgreSQL
11 1 (0.12%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 43 (5.24%) JIRA
2 18 (2.19%) Browser DevTools
3 13 (1.58%) Git
4 11 (1.34%) Android Studio
4 11 (1.34%) Eclipse
4 11 (1.34%) Xcode
5 6 (0.73%) Maven
6 4 (0.49%) Firebug
7 3 (0.37%) Jenkins
8 2 (0.24%) Fiddler
8 2 (0.24%) MSI
9 1 (0.12%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.12%) Hudson
9 1 (0.12%) RStudio
9 1 (0.12%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 345 (42.02%) Social Skills
2 65 (7.92%) Finance
3 58 (7.06%) Analytical Skills
4 54 (6.58%) Manufacturing
5 43 (5.24%) Public Sector
6 39 (4.75%) Banking
7 28 (3.41%) Organisational Skills
8 27 (3.29%) Aerospace
8 27 (3.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 18 (2.19%) Telecoms
10 16 (1.95%) Aviation
11 15 (1.83%) Investment Banking
12 13 (1.58%) Electronics
12 13 (1.58%) Marketing
13 10 (1.22%) Law
14 9 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
14 9 (1.10%) Legal
15 7 (0.85%) Front Office
16 4 (0.49%) Advertising
16 4 (0.49%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (2.56%) Middleware
2 15 (1.83%) CSS
3 11 (1.34%) Ajax
3 11 (1.34%) AngularJS
3 11 (1.34%) GraphQL
3 11 (1.34%) React
4 9 (1.10%) Oracle GoldenGate
5 5 (0.61%) OAuth
5 5 (0.61%) REST
5 5 (0.61%) SAP Basis
5 5 (0.61%) YAML
6 4 (0.49%) HTML
6 4 (0.49%) Microsoft Graph
6 4 (0.49%) PySpark
6 4 (0.49%) SAML
6 4 (0.49%) XML
7 3 (0.37%) .NET
7 3 (0.37%) JDO
8 2 (0.24%) EDI
8 2 (0.24%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 53 (6.46%) Onboarding
2 41 (4.99%) Self-Motivation
3 30 (3.65%) Driving Licence
4 29 (3.53%) Data Centre
5 24 (2.92%) Smartphone
6 18 (2.19%) Analytical Mindset
7 14 (1.71%) PKI
8 13 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
9 12 (1.46%) iPhone
9 12 (1.46%) Virtual Team
10 11 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
10 11 (1.34%) Mobile App
11 10 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
11 10 (1.22%) SCADA
12 8 (0.97%) Hybrid Cloud
13 7 (0.85%) Management Information System
13 7 (0.85%) Video Conferencing
14 6 (0.73%) iPad
15 4 (0.49%) Hedge funds
16 3 (0.37%) CCTV
Operating Systems
1 386 (47.02%) Windows
2 175 (21.32%) Windows 10
3 67 (8.16%) Linux
4 46 (5.60%) Mac OS
5 43 (5.24%) Android
6 40 (4.87%) Windows Server
7 35 (4.26%) Unix
8 31 (3.78%) Apple iOS
9 12 (1.46%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.85%) Windows 7
10 7 (0.85%) Windows Server 2016
11 6 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 4 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.37%) CentOS
14 2 (0.24%) Mac OS X
14 2 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
15 1 (0.12%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 170 (20.71%) Customer Service
2 143 (17.42%) Problem-Solving
3 94 (11.45%) ITIL
4 78 (9.50%) Migration
5 65 (7.92%) ITSM
6 57 (6.94%) Asset Management
7 48 (5.85%) Workflow
8 40 (4.87%) User Experience
9 38 (4.63%) Workflow Management
10 37 (4.51%) Service Management
11 35 (4.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 33 (4.02%) Root Cause Analysis
13 29 (3.53%) Continuous Improvement
14 28 (3.41%) Logistics
15 27 (3.29%) Break/Fix
15 27 (3.29%) Change Management
15 27 (3.29%) Service Delivery
15 27 (3.29%) Stakeholder Management
16 25 (3.05%) Cybersecurity
16 25 (3.05%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 76 (9.26%) PowerShell
2 46 (5.60%) SQL
3 33 (4.02%) Python
4 30 (3.65%) Java
4 30 (3.65%) JavaScript
5 26 (3.17%) Shell Script
6 16 (1.95%) C#
7 14 (1.71%) Bash
8 13 (1.58%) Perl
9 12 (1.46%) Ada
9 12 (1.46%) C
9 12 (1.46%) C++
10 9 (1.10%) Korn
11 3 (0.37%) VB.NET
12 2 (0.24%) AWK
12 2 (0.24%) Magik
12 2 (0.24%) VBA
12 2 (0.24%) VBScript
13 1 (0.12%) Tcl
13 1 (0.12%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 237 (28.87%) Security Cleared
2 192 (23.39%) SC Cleared
3 45 (5.48%) DV Cleared
4 27 (3.29%) Degree
4 27 (3.29%) Microsoft Certification
5 16 (1.95%) A+ Certification
6 14 (1.71%) Network+ Certification
7 13 (1.58%) BPSS Clearance
7 13 (1.58%) CCNA
7 13 (1.58%) Cisco Certification
8 12 (1.46%) MCSE
9 8 (0.97%) Azure Certification
10 7 (0.85%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (0.49%) Computer Science Degree
11 4 (0.49%) DBS Check
12 3 (0.37%) Master's Degree
12 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 3 (0.37%) Server+ Certification
13 1 (0.12%) HND
13 1 (0.12%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (4.14%) SLA
2 9 (1.10%) GDPR
3 5 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (0.37%) Data Quality
4 3 (0.37%) QA
5 1 (0.12%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.12%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.12%) GAAP
5 1 (0.12%) GLP
5 1 (0.12%) GMP
5 1 (0.12%) IFRS
5 1 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.12%) SOC 2
System Software
1 231 (28.14%) Active Directory
2 20 (2.44%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (1.46%) Hyper-V
4 10 (1.22%) VMware NSX
5 9 (1.10%) Oracle RAC
5 9 (1.10%) Virtual Desktop
6 8 (0.97%) Firmware
7 6 (0.73%) Docker
8 3 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
8 3 (0.37%) vSphere
9 2 (0.24%) NFS
10 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 1 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.12%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 93 (11.33%) Microsoft Intune
2 58 (7.06%) SCCM
3 28 (3.41%) Jamf Pro
4 15 (1.83%) Grafana
5 14 (1.71%) Ansible
6 11 (1.34%) Terraform
7 10 (1.22%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.10%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 9 (1.10%) Oracle RMAN
8 9 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
9 5 (0.61%) Kubernetes
10 4 (0.49%) Kibana
11 2 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 2 (0.24%) McAfee ePO
11 2 (0.24%) Prometheus
11 2 (0.24%) Red Hat Satellite
11 2 (0.24%) WMI
11 2 (0.24%) WSUS
12 1 (0.12%) ITRS Geneos
12 1 (0.12%) Nagios
Vendors
1 287 (34.96%) Microsoft
2 104 (12.67%) ServiceNow
3 38 (4.63%) Oracle
4 35 (4.26%) SAP
5 29 (3.53%) Apple
5 29 (3.53%) Dell
6 28 (3.41%) VMware
7 27 (3.29%) Cisco
8 21 (2.56%) HP
9 18 (2.19%) Google
10 15 (1.83%) Red Hat
11 14 (1.71%) Juniper
11 14 (1.71%) Splunk
12 13 (1.58%) Twitter
13 11 (1.34%) Citrix
14 10 (1.22%) Bloomberg
14 10 (1.22%) Remedy
14 10 (1.22%) SolarWinds
15 8 (0.97%) Zscaler
16 7 (0.85%) Starlink