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 15 February 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 140 139 99
Rank change year-on-year -1 -40 +36
Contract jobs requiring a Support Engineer 814 589 1,013
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.04% 1.91% 2.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.22% 2.05% 2.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 551 392 719
10th Percentile £151 £150 £140
25th Percentile £185 £181 £164
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £213 £225 £215
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% +4.65% -10.42%
75th Percentile £328 £368 £320
90th Percentile £500 £519 £488
UK excluding London median daily rate £207 £220 £200
% change year-on-year -5.91% +10.00% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 116 41 60
10th Percentile £17.14 £16.67 £16.25
25th Percentile £20.85 £18.20 £17.72
Median hourly rate £23.75 £23.00 £20.25
Median % change year-on-year +3.26% +13.58% +3.85%
75th Percentile £26.14 £24.18 £30.00
90th Percentile £36.00 £41.50 £46.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £22.50 £20.00
% change year-on-year +2.22% +12.50% +12.87%

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 36,606 28,720 41,783
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.62% 92.93% 93.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,016 17,759 27,499
10th Percentile £303 £290 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £477 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +0.32% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,236 814 2,315
10th Percentile £14.61 £16.07 £13.14
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.30 £16.30
Median hourly rate £30.00 £33.25 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.77% -5.00% -2.78%
75th Percentile £61.84 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £72.52 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.60 £31.76 £35.00
% change year-on-year -6.80% -9.26% -

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +9 741 £213 -7.61% 408
UK excluding London +1 572 £207 -5.91% 391
London -7 208 £260 -5.45% 84
South East +6 162 £238 +13.77% 148
South West +15 109 £250 +11.11% 38
North of England -33 104 £183 -17.05% 84
Midlands -5 101 £200 -21.57% 54
Work from Home -28 96 £250 -16.67% 83
West Midlands -17 65 £220 -16.19% 33
East of England +4 61 £203 -8.99% 42
North West -22 57 £152 -28.71% 50
East Midlands +3 38 £200 +5.26% 21
Yorkshire -44 38 £205 -11.83% 27
Scotland -2 36 £180 +7.78% 21
North East -9 9 £106 -69.71% 11
Wales -6 6 £185 -38.33% 7
Northern Ireland -4 3 £163 +9.80% 3

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

For the 6 months to 15 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.

1 415 (50.98%) Windows
2 298 (36.61%) Microsoft
3 253 (31.08%) Microsoft 365
4 243 (29.85%) Security Cleared
5 236 (28.99%) Active Directory
6 192 (23.59%) SC Cleared
7 184 (22.60%) Windows 10
8 166 (20.39%) Customer Service
9 164 (20.15%) Problem-Solving
10 113 (13.88%) Azure
11 104 (12.78%) ITIL
12 100 (12.29%) ServiceNow
13 95 (11.67%) Microsoft Intune
14 89 (10.93%) Linux
15 77 (9.46%) Migration
16 73 (8.97%) ITSM
17 69 (8.48%) SCCM
18 68 (8.35%) DNS
19 66 (8.11%) PowerShell
20 65 (7.99%) SharePoint
21 64 (7.86%) DHCP
21 64 (7.86%) Microsoft Office
22 61 (7.49%) Service Management
23 59 (7.25%) TCP/IP
24 57 (7.00%) VPN
25 53 (6.51%) Android
25 53 (6.51%) Wi-Fi
26 52 (6.39%) Asset Management
26 52 (6.39%) DV Cleared
27 49 (6.02%) 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 65 (7.99%) SharePoint
2 47 (5.77%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (1.84%) Skype for Business
4 5 (0.61%) Confluence
5 4 (0.49%) Apache
6 2 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.25%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.25%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.25%) IIS
6 2 (0.25%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
6 2 (0.25%) SharePoint Server
6 2 (0.25%) Smallworld
7 1 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2003
7 1 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2007
7 1 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2010
7 1 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2013
7 1 (0.12%) Office Communications Server
7 1 (0.12%) WebLogic
Applications
1 64 (7.86%) Microsoft Office
2 23 (2.83%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.12%) DaVinci Resolve
4 1 (0.12%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.12%) OmniGraffle
4 1 (0.12%) Pro Tools
4 1 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (1.11%) SAP EHS
2 7 (0.86%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.86%) Shopify
3 5 (0.61%) Primavera
3 5 (0.61%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.12%) assyst
4 1 (0.12%) Bloomberg TOMS
4 1 (0.12%) Eikon
4 1 (0.12%) Fidessa
4 1 (0.12%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.12%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 253 (31.08%) Microsoft 365
2 113 (13.88%) Azure
3 47 (5.77%) Entra ID
4 35 (4.30%) OneDrive
5 34 (4.18%) AWS
6 26 (3.19%) SaaS
7 18 (2.21%) Google Workspace
8 15 (1.84%) Sauce Labs
9 10 (1.23%) Dynamics 365
9 10 (1.23%) Power Platform
10 9 (1.11%) Azure DevOps
11 7 (0.86%) npm
12 5 (0.61%) Amazon S3
12 5 (0.61%) Azure Data Factory
13 4 (0.49%) OpenShift
14 3 (0.37%) GitHub
14 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Purview
14 3 (0.37%) PowerApps
15 2 (0.25%) Amazon EKS
15 2 (0.25%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 68 (8.35%) DNS
2 64 (7.86%) DHCP
3 59 (7.25%) TCP/IP
4 57 (7.00%) VPN
5 53 (6.51%) Wi-Fi
6 35 (4.30%) LAN
7 32 (3.93%) Wireless
8 31 (3.81%) Firewall
9 30 (3.69%) WAN
10 22 (2.70%) VLAN
11 15 (1.84%) Junos
11 15 (1.84%) Skype
12 14 (1.72%) Cisco IOS
12 14 (1.72%) Network Security
13 13 (1.60%) Cisco Firepower
13 13 (1.60%) Cisco ISE
13 13 (1.60%) MPLS
13 13 (1.60%) PABX
14 11 (1.35%) BGP
14 11 (1.35%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (2.70%) Relational Database
2 19 (2.33%) MySQL
3 13 (1.60%) SQL Server
4 7 (0.86%) Power BI
5 6 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
5 6 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 4 (0.49%) Amazon Athena
6 4 (0.49%) RDBMS
7 3 (0.37%) InfluxDB
7 3 (0.37%) Oracle Database
8 2 (0.25%) GIS
8 2 (0.25%) Tableau
9 1 (0.12%) Apache Cassandra
9 1 (0.12%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.12%) Electronic Patient Records
9 1 (0.12%) MariaDB
9 1 (0.12%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle ODI
9 1 (0.12%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 29 (3.56%) JIRA
2 20 (2.46%) Browser DevTools
3 15 (1.84%) Android Studio
3 15 (1.84%) Eclipse
3 15 (1.84%) Xcode
4 9 (1.11%) Git
5 7 (0.86%) Maven
6 4 (0.49%) Firebug
7 2 (0.25%) Fiddler
7 2 (0.25%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.25%) MSI
8 1 (0.12%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.12%) ClearCase
8 1 (0.12%) Hudson
8 1 (0.12%) RStudio
General
1 357 (43.86%) Social Skills
2 66 (8.11%) Finance
3 60 (7.37%) Analytical Skills
4 50 (6.14%) Public Sector
5 49 (6.02%) Manufacturing
6 41 (5.04%) Banking
7 27 (3.32%) Organisational Skills
8 26 (3.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 24 (2.95%) Aerospace
10 20 (2.46%) Telecoms
11 16 (1.97%) Investment Banking
12 14 (1.72%) Aviation
12 14 (1.72%) Law
13 13 (1.60%) Electronics
13 13 (1.60%) Marketing
14 9 (1.11%) Documentation Skills
14 9 (1.11%) Front Office
15 7 (0.86%) Legal
16 5 (0.61%) Automotive
16 5 (0.61%) French Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (2.70%) Middleware
2 20 (2.46%) CSS
3 16 (1.97%) Ajax
3 16 (1.97%) AngularJS
3 16 (1.97%) GraphQL
3 16 (1.97%) React
4 7 (0.86%) REST
4 7 (0.86%) SOAP
5 6 (0.74%) PySpark
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%) XML
8 2 (0.25%) .NET
8 2 (0.25%) ADO
8 2 (0.25%) EDI
8 2 (0.25%) OAuth
8 2 (0.25%) OpenTelemetry
8 2 (0.25%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 48 (5.90%) Onboarding
2 40 (4.91%) Self-Motivation
3 30 (3.69%) Driving Licence
4 24 (2.95%) Smartphone
5 22 (2.70%) PKI
6 21 (2.58%) Data Centre
7 16 (1.97%) Mobile App
8 15 (1.84%) Analytical Mindset
8 15 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
9 12 (1.47%) iPhone
9 12 (1.47%) Management Information System
10 11 (1.35%) Video Conferencing
10 11 (1.35%) Virtual Team
11 10 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
12 8 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
13 7 (0.86%) iPad
13 7 (0.86%) Legacy Systems
14 4 (0.49%) CCTV
14 4 (0.49%) Hedge funds
15 3 (0.37%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 415 (50.98%) Windows
2 184 (22.60%) Windows 10
3 89 (10.93%) Linux
4 53 (6.51%) Android
5 49 (6.02%) Mac OS
6 48 (5.90%) Windows Server
7 41 (5.04%) Apple iOS
8 32 (3.93%) Unix
9 12 (1.47%) Ubuntu
10 11 (1.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 8 (0.98%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.61%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.49%) CentOS
14 3 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
15 1 (0.12%) Mac OS X
15 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
15 1 (0.12%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 166 (20.39%) Customer Service
2 164 (20.15%) Problem-Solving
3 104 (12.78%) ITIL
4 77 (9.46%) Migration
5 73 (8.97%) ITSM
6 61 (7.49%) Service Management
7 52 (6.39%) Asset Management
8 49 (6.02%) Workflow
9 45 (5.53%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 38 (4.67%) Workflow Management
11 37 (4.55%) User Experience
12 33 (4.05%) Root Cause Analysis
13 28 (3.44%) Logistics
13 28 (3.44%) Service Delivery
13 28 (3.44%) Stakeholder Management
14 27 (3.32%) Cybersecurity
15 26 (3.19%) Continuous Improvement
15 26 (3.19%) Incident Management
15 26 (3.19%) OO
16 21 (2.58%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 66 (8.11%) PowerShell
2 39 (4.79%) Java
3 35 (4.30%) JavaScript
3 35 (4.30%) Python
4 34 (4.18%) SQL
5 19 (2.33%) Shell Script
6 18 (2.21%) Perl
7 13 (1.60%) C
7 13 (1.60%) C++
8 12 (1.47%) Ada
8 12 (1.47%) Bash
9 7 (0.86%) C#
10 2 (0.25%) AWK
10 2 (0.25%) Magik
10 2 (0.25%) TypeScript
10 2 (0.25%) VB.NET
10 2 (0.25%) VBScript
11 1 (0.12%) Korn
11 1 (0.12%) R
11 1 (0.12%) VBA
Qualifications
1 243 (29.85%) Security Cleared
2 192 (23.59%) SC Cleared
3 52 (6.39%) DV Cleared
4 33 (4.05%) Degree
5 29 (3.56%) Microsoft Certification
6 19 (2.33%) Azure Certification
7 13 (1.60%) Network+ Certification
8 11 (1.35%) BPSS Clearance
8 11 (1.35%) Server+ Certification
9 10 (1.23%) A+ Certification
10 8 (0.98%) DBS Check
10 8 (0.98%) ITIL Certification
11 5 (0.61%) CCNA
11 5 (0.61%) Cisco Certification
12 4 (0.49%) Computer Science Degree
12 4 (0.49%) MCSE
12 4 (0.49%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 3 (0.37%) Master's Degree
14 2 (0.25%) CompTIA Security+
14 2 (0.25%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (3.69%) SLA
2 8 (0.98%) GDPR
3 5 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 4 (0.49%) QA
5 2 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.12%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.12%) Data Quality
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
1 236 (28.99%) Active Directory
2 31 (3.81%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (2.46%) Hyper-V
4 14 (1.72%) Virtual Desktop
4 14 (1.72%) VMware NSX
5 7 (0.86%) Docker
6 6 (0.74%) Firmware
7 5 (0.61%) vSphere
8 3 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.25%) NFS
10 1 (0.12%) Brightmail
10 1 (0.12%) ISA Server
10 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 1 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.12%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 95 (11.67%) Microsoft Intune
2 69 (8.48%) SCCM
3 27 (3.32%) Jamf Pro
4 19 (2.33%) Ansible
5 16 (1.97%) vCenter Server
6 13 (1.60%) Terraform
7 11 (1.35%) Grafana
8 6 (0.74%) Kubernetes
8 6 (0.74%) Red Hat Satellite
9 5 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
10 4 (0.49%) Kibana
11 3 (0.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.37%) ITRS Geneos
11 3 (0.37%) SCOM
12 2 (0.25%) Prometheus
12 2 (0.25%) WSUS
13 1 (0.12%) Failover Clustering
13 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Clustering
13 1 (0.12%) Nagios
13 1 (0.12%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
Vendors
1 298 (36.61%) Microsoft
2 100 (12.29%) ServiceNow
3 43 (5.28%) VMware
4 40 (4.91%) Cisco
5 35 (4.30%) Oracle
6 34 (4.18%) Apple
7 27 (3.32%) SAP
8 24 (2.95%) Juniper
9 22 (2.70%) HP
10 21 (2.58%) Google
11 20 (2.46%) Dell
11 20 (2.46%) Red Hat
12 19 (2.33%) SolarWinds
13 18 (2.21%) Splunk
14 13 (1.60%) Citrix
15 10 (1.23%) Remedy
15 10 (1.23%) Twitter
16 8 (0.98%) Bloomberg
17 7 (0.86%) Starlink
18 6 (0.74%) New Relic