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 28 February 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 141 135 99
Rank change year-on-year -6 -36 +36
Contract jobs requiring a Support Engineer 820 612 983
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.97% 2.00% 2.21%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.14% 2.15% 2.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 550 411 703
10th Percentile £153 £153 £140
25th Percentile £185 £182 £163
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £213 £230 £215
Median % change year-on-year -7.61% +6.98% -10.45%
75th Percentile £338 £375 £310
90th Percentile £500 £500 £450
UK excluding London median daily rate £205 £220 £200
% change year-on-year -6.82% +10.00% -3.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 118 44 59
10th Percentile £18.07 £17.11 £16.20
25th Percentile £21.25 £20.43 £17.72
Median hourly rate £24.00 £23.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +15.00% +3.63%
75th Percentile £29.72 £25.50 £30.00
90th Percentile £42.13 £41.50 £46.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.58 £23.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +2.50% +15.00% +14.38%

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 38,243 28,404 41,374
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.82% 92.82% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,036 17,847 27,236
10th Percentile £310 £293 £275
25th Percentile £409 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,330 852 2,355
10th Percentile £14.64 £16.25 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.30
Median hourly rate £33.50 £34.75 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.60% -0.71% -12.50%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.50 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -3.08% -7.14% -6.67%

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 28 February 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 28 February 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 28 February 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 +5 744 £213 -7.61% 310
UK excluding London -9 573 £205 -6.82% 299
London -21 212 £263 -13.22% 67
South East +7 163 £238 +13.77% 115
North of England -33 109 £190 -13.64% 69
South West +3 107 £250 +11.11% 30
Midlands -10 98 £200 -19.19% 35
Work from Home -37 96 £259 -20.46% 71
West Midlands -25 61 £220 -16.19% 20
East of England +1 58 £201 -6.40% 28
North West -28 57 £152 -29.53% 37
Yorkshire -39 43 £205 -11.83% 27
East Midlands +8 39 £200 +5.26% 15
Scotland +6 37 £200 +19.76% 21
North East -12 9 £106 -48.29% 9
Wales -14 8 £185 -7.50% 4
Northern Ireland -10 2 £175 +18.24% 5

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

For the 6 months to 28 February 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.

1 407 (49.63%) Windows
2 297 (36.22%) Microsoft
3 256 (31.22%) Microsoft 365
4 240 (29.27%) Security Cleared
5 231 (28.17%) Active Directory
6 192 (23.41%) SC Cleared
7 179 (21.83%) Windows 10
8 164 (20.00%) Customer Service
9 157 (19.15%) Problem-Solving
10 115 (14.02%) Azure
11 102 (12.44%) ServiceNow
12 100 (12.20%) ITIL
13 93 (11.34%) Microsoft Intune
14 86 (10.49%) Linux
15 79 (9.63%) Migration
16 73 (8.90%) PowerShell
17 68 (8.29%) ITSM
18 67 (8.17%) SCCM
19 66 (8.05%) DNS
20 62 (7.56%) DHCP
21 59 (7.20%) SharePoint
22 58 (7.07%) TCP/IP
23 57 (6.95%) Microsoft Office
23 57 (6.95%) Wi-Fi
24 55 (6.71%) Service Management
25 54 (6.59%) Entra ID
26 53 (6.46%) Asset Management
27 49 (5.98%) Android
27 49 (5.98%) DV Cleared
27 49 (5.98%) Mac OS

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 59 (7.20%) SharePoint
2 46 (5.61%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (1.71%) Skype for Business
4 4 (0.49%) Apache
4 4 (0.49%) Confluence
5 3 (0.37%) NetWeaver
6 2 (0.24%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.24%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.24%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.24%) IIS
6 2 (0.24%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
6 2 (0.24%) Smallworld
6 2 (0.24%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.12%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.12%) Tuxedo
7 1 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 57 (6.95%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (2.68%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (1.10%) SAP EHS
2 7 (0.85%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.85%) Shopify
3 6 (0.73%) Teamcenter
4 5 (0.61%) Primavera
5 3 (0.37%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.12%) assyst
6 1 (0.12%) Bloomberg TOMS
6 1 (0.12%) Eikon
6 1 (0.12%) Fidessa
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.12%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 256 (31.22%) Microsoft 365
2 115 (14.02%) Azure
3 54 (6.59%) Entra ID
4 36 (4.39%) OneDrive
5 31 (3.78%) AWS
6 23 (2.80%) SaaS
7 19 (2.32%) Google Workspace
8 15 (1.83%) Azure DevOps
9 13 (1.59%) Sauce Labs
10 10 (1.22%) Dynamics 365
10 10 (1.22%) Power Platform
11 7 (0.85%) npm
12 5 (0.61%) Amazon S3
12 5 (0.61%) Azure Data Factory
13 4 (0.49%) OpenShift
13 4 (0.49%) PaaS
14 3 (0.37%) GitHub
14 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Purview
14 3 (0.37%) PowerApps
14 3 (0.37%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 66 (8.05%) DNS
2 62 (7.56%) DHCP
3 58 (7.07%) TCP/IP
4 57 (6.95%) Wi-Fi
5 47 (5.73%) VPN
6 35 (4.27%) LAN
7 30 (3.66%) Firewall
8 28 (3.41%) Wireless
9 26 (3.17%) WAN
10 21 (2.56%) VLAN
11 15 (1.83%) Skype
12 13 (1.59%) Network Security
12 13 (1.59%) PABX
13 11 (1.34%) Junos
14 10 (1.22%) Cisco Firepower
14 10 (1.22%) Cisco IOS
14 10 (1.22%) Cisco ISE
14 10 (1.22%) VoIP
15 9 (1.10%) Internet
16 8 (0.98%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.32%) Relational Database
2 18 (2.20%) SQL Server
3 16 (1.95%) MySQL
4 7 (0.85%) Power BI
4 7 (0.85%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 6 (0.73%) Amazon Redshift
6 5 (0.61%) Oracle Database
7 4 (0.49%) Amazon Athena
7 4 (0.49%) RDBMS
8 3 (0.37%) InfluxDB
8 3 (0.37%) SAP HANA
8 3 (0.37%) Sybase ASE
9 2 (0.24%) GIS
9 2 (0.24%) MaxDB
9 2 (0.24%) Oracle Database 12c
9 2 (0.24%) Tableau
10 1 (0.12%) Apache Cassandra
10 1 (0.12%) Azure SQL Database
10 1 (0.12%) MongoDB
10 1 (0.12%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 37 (4.51%) JIRA
2 17 (2.07%) Browser DevTools
3 13 (1.59%) Android Studio
3 13 (1.59%) Eclipse
3 13 (1.59%) Xcode
4 10 (1.22%) Git
5 7 (0.85%) Maven
6 4 (0.49%) Firebug
7 3 (0.37%) MSI
8 2 (0.24%) Fiddler
8 2 (0.24%) Jenkins
9 1 (0.12%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.12%) ClearCase
9 1 (0.12%) Hudson
9 1 (0.12%) RStudio
General
1 349 (42.56%) Social Skills
2 66 (8.05%) Finance
3 63 (7.68%) Analytical Skills
4 51 (6.22%) Manufacturing
5 45 (5.49%) Public Sector
6 44 (5.37%) Banking
7 29 (3.54%) Organisational Skills
8 26 (3.17%) Aerospace
8 26 (3.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 19 (2.32%) Telecoms
10 17 (2.07%) Investment Banking
11 15 (1.83%) Aviation
12 13 (1.59%) Electronics
12 13 (1.59%) Marketing
13 11 (1.34%) Law
14 9 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
14 9 (1.10%) Front Office
15 7 (0.85%) Legal
16 5 (0.61%) Automotive
17 4 (0.49%) French Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (2.80%) Middleware
2 17 (2.07%) CSS
3 13 (1.59%) Ajax
3 13 (1.59%) AngularJS
3 13 (1.59%) GraphQL
3 13 (1.59%) React
4 7 (0.85%) REST
5 6 (0.73%) PySpark
5 6 (0.73%) SOAP
6 5 (0.61%) YAML
7 4 (0.49%) HTML
7 4 (0.49%) JDO
7 4 (0.49%) Microsoft Graph
7 4 (0.49%) Oracle GoldenGate
7 4 (0.49%) XML
8 3 (0.37%) SAP Basis
9 2 (0.24%) .NET
9 2 (0.24%) ADO
9 2 (0.24%) EDI
9 2 (0.24%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 49 (5.98%) Onboarding
2 37 (4.51%) Self-Motivation
3 30 (3.66%) Driving Licence
4 27 (3.29%) Data Centre
5 23 (2.80%) Smartphone
6 22 (2.68%) Analytical Mindset
7 18 (2.20%) PKI
8 15 (1.83%) Data Protection Act
9 13 (1.59%) Mobile App
10 12 (1.46%) Virtual Team
11 11 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
12 10 (1.22%) Video Conferencing
13 9 (1.10%) Management Information System
14 8 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
14 8 (0.98%) iPhone
15 7 (0.85%) Legacy Systems
15 7 (0.85%) SCADA
16 4 (0.49%) Hedge funds
17 3 (0.37%) iPad
17 3 (0.37%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 407 (49.63%) Windows
2 179 (21.83%) Windows 10
3 86 (10.49%) Linux
4 49 (5.98%) Android
4 49 (5.98%) Mac OS
5 43 (5.24%) Windows Server
6 38 (4.63%) Apple iOS
7 34 (4.15%) Unix
8 12 (1.46%) Ubuntu
9 11 (1.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 8 (0.98%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.73%) Windows Server 2016
12 4 (0.49%) CentOS
13 3 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
14 2 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.12%) Mac OS X
15 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
15 1 (0.12%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 164 (20.00%) Customer Service
2 157 (19.15%) Problem-Solving
3 100 (12.20%) ITIL
4 79 (9.63%) Migration
5 68 (8.29%) ITSM
6 55 (6.71%) Service Management
7 53 (6.46%) Asset Management
8 48 (5.85%) Workflow
9 46 (5.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 38 (4.63%) Workflow Management
11 36 (4.39%) User Experience
12 30 (3.66%) Root Cause Analysis
13 29 (3.54%) Service Delivery
14 28 (3.41%) Stakeholder Management
15 27 (3.29%) Continuous Improvement
15 27 (3.29%) Logistics
16 26 (3.17%) Cybersecurity
17 24 (2.93%) Break/Fix
17 24 (2.93%) DevOps
17 24 (2.93%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 73 (8.90%) PowerShell
2 41 (5.00%) SQL
3 36 (4.39%) Java
4 34 (4.15%) Python
5 32 (3.90%) JavaScript
6 22 (2.68%) Shell Script
7 15 (1.83%) Perl
8 13 (1.59%) C
8 13 (1.59%) C#
8 13 (1.59%) C++
9 12 (1.46%) Ada
10 11 (1.34%) Bash
11 4 (0.49%) Korn
12 2 (0.24%) AWK
12 2 (0.24%) Magik
12 2 (0.24%) TypeScript
12 2 (0.24%) VB.NET
12 2 (0.24%) VBScript
13 1 (0.12%) Tcl
13 1 (0.12%) VBA
Qualifications
1 240 (29.27%) Security Cleared
2 192 (23.41%) SC Cleared
3 49 (5.98%) DV Cleared
4 35 (4.27%) Microsoft Certification
5 33 (4.02%) Degree
6 19 (2.32%) Network+ Certification
7 18 (2.20%) Azure Certification
8 15 (1.83%) A+ Certification
9 12 (1.46%) BPSS Clearance
10 11 (1.34%) Server+ Certification
11 9 (1.10%) CCNA
11 9 (1.10%) Cisco Certification
11 9 (1.10%) MCSE
12 8 (0.98%) DBS Check
13 5 (0.61%) Computer Science Degree
14 4 (0.49%) ITIL Certification
15 3 (0.37%) Master's Degree
15 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 1 (0.12%) CompTIA Security+
16 1 (0.12%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (4.02%) SLA
2 9 (1.10%) GDPR
3 4 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (0.37%) QA
5 2 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (0.24%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.12%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.12%) GAAP
6 1 (0.12%) GLP
6 1 (0.12%) GMP
6 1 (0.12%) IFRS
6 1 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.12%) SOC 2
System Software
1 231 (28.17%) Active Directory
2 31 (3.78%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (2.44%) Hyper-V
4 12 (1.46%) Virtual Desktop
4 12 (1.46%) VMware NSX
5 8 (0.98%) Firmware
6 7 (0.85%) Docker
7 4 (0.49%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.49%) vSphere
8 3 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
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 (11.34%) Microsoft Intune
2 67 (8.17%) SCCM
3 28 (3.41%) Jamf Pro
4 19 (2.32%) Ansible
5 13 (1.59%) Terraform
5 13 (1.59%) vCenter Server
6 12 (1.46%) Grafana
7 6 (0.73%) Kubernetes
7 6 (0.73%) Red Hat Satellite
8 5 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
9 4 (0.49%) Kibana
9 4 (0.49%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 4 (0.49%) Oracle RMAN
10 3 (0.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 3 (0.37%) ITRS Geneos
11 2 (0.24%) Prometheus
11 2 (0.24%) SCOM
11 2 (0.24%) WSUS
12 1 (0.12%) McAfee ePO
12 1 (0.12%) WMI
Vendors
1 297 (36.22%) Microsoft
2 102 (12.44%) ServiceNow
3 42 (5.12%) VMware
4 37 (4.51%) Oracle
5 34 (4.15%) Apple
6 33 (4.02%) Cisco
7 31 (3.78%) SAP
8 27 (3.29%) Dell
9 21 (2.56%) Google
10 20 (2.44%) HP
11 19 (2.32%) Red Hat
12 18 (2.20%) Juniper
13 16 (1.95%) Splunk
14 14 (1.71%) SolarWinds
15 12 (1.46%) Citrix
15 12 (1.46%) Twitter
16 10 (1.22%) Remedy
17 9 (1.10%) Bloomberg
18 6 (0.73%) New Relic
18 6 (0.73%) Siemens