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 3 March 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 146 135 100
Rank change year-on-year -11 -35 +34
Contract jobs requiring a Support Engineer 818 605 981
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.96% 2.03% 2.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.14% 2.18% 2.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 549 404 692
10th Percentile £152 £153 £138
25th Percentile £185 £182 £163
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £213 £226 £215
Median % change year-on-year -5.76% +4.88% -12.27%
75th Percentile £338 £375 £300
90th Percentile £500 £511 £413
UK excluding London median daily rate £205 £220 £200
% change year-on-year -6.82% +10.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 118 44 61
10th Percentile £18.07 £17.11 £16.25
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 38,312 27,714 41,419
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.84% 92.81% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,044 17,552 27,221
10th Percentile £310 £290 £275
25th Percentile £409 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £487
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.46% -2.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,352 838 2,415
10th Percentile £14.83 £16.25 £13.05
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.25
Median hourly rate £33.50 £34.31 £34.08
Median % change year-on-year -2.35% +0.66% -15.85%
75th Percentile £64.03 £64.74 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.33 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year - -7.14% -9.68%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -3 741 £213 -7.61% 345
UK excluding London -9 572 £205 -6.82% 340
London -26 211 £261 -13.28% 64
South East +6 157 £225 +9.76% 126
North of England -30 111 £190 -13.64% 85
South West +8 108 £250 +11.11% 32
Midlands -9 98 £200 -18.37% 36
Work from Home -58 90 £275 -15.38% 76
West Midlands -26 61 £220 -15.38% 19
East of England -1 58 £201 -6.40% 33
North West -28 57 £152 -29.53% 47
Yorkshire -36 45 £205 -11.83% 31
East Midlands -1 39 £200 +5.26% 17
Scotland +12 37 £200 +26.18% 24
North East -11 9 £106 -48.29% 11
Wales -13 9 £200 - 5
Northern Ireland -8 2 £175 +18.24% 6

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

For the 6 months to 3 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.

1 401 (49.02%) Windows
2 292 (35.70%) Microsoft
3 257 (31.42%) Microsoft 365
4 236 (28.85%) Security Cleared
5 232 (28.36%) Active Directory
6 188 (22.98%) SC Cleared
7 180 (22.00%) Windows 10
8 167 (20.42%) Customer Service
9 152 (18.58%) Problem-Solving
10 107 (13.08%) Azure
11 104 (12.71%) ServiceNow
12 94 (11.49%) ITIL
13 92 (11.25%) Microsoft Intune
14 79 (9.66%) Migration
15 77 (9.41%) Linux
16 74 (9.05%) PowerShell
17 69 (8.44%) ITSM
18 66 (8.07%) SCCM
19 61 (7.46%) DNS
20 59 (7.21%) SharePoint
21 57 (6.97%) DHCP
21 57 (6.97%) Microsoft Office
22 55 (6.72%) Wi-Fi
23 53 (6.48%) Asset Management
23 53 (6.48%) Entra ID
24 52 (6.36%) TCP/IP
25 49 (5.99%) Android
25 49 (5.99%) DV Cleared
25 49 (5.99%) Mac OS
26 48 (5.87%) Service Management

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 (7.21%) SharePoint
2 46 (5.62%) 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 (6.97%) Microsoft Office
2 21 (2.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (1.10%) SAP EHS
2 8 (0.98%) Remedy ITSM
3 7 (0.86%) Shopify
4 6 (0.73%) Teamcenter
5 5 (0.61%) Primavera
6 3 (0.37%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.12%) assyst
7 1 (0.12%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.12%) Eikon
7 1 (0.12%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.12%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 257 (31.42%) Microsoft 365
2 107 (13.08%) Azure
3 53 (6.48%) Entra ID
4 35 (4.28%) OneDrive
5 25 (3.06%) AWS
6 23 (2.81%) SaaS
7 19 (2.32%) Google Workspace
8 14 (1.71%) Azure DevOps
9 13 (1.59%) Sauce Labs
10 10 (1.22%) Dynamics 365
10 10 (1.22%) Power Platform
11 7 (0.86%) 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%) Nutanix
14 3 (0.37%) PowerApps
14 3 (0.37%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 61 (7.46%) DNS
2 57 (6.97%) DHCP
3 55 (6.72%) Wi-Fi
4 52 (6.36%) TCP/IP
5 47 (5.75%) VPN
6 34 (4.16%) LAN
7 30 (3.67%) Firewall
8 28 (3.42%) Wireless
9 25 (3.06%) WAN
10 15 (1.83%) Skype
10 15 (1.83%) VLAN
11 13 (1.59%) Network Security
11 13 (1.59%) PABX
12 11 (1.34%) Junos
13 10 (1.22%) Cisco Firepower
13 10 (1.22%) Cisco IOS
13 10 (1.22%) Cisco ISE
13 10 (1.22%) Internet
13 10 (1.22%) VoIP
14 9 (1.10%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (2.44%) SQL Server
2 19 (2.32%) Relational Database
3 16 (1.96%) MySQL
4 7 (0.86%) Power BI
4 7 (0.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 6 (0.73%) Amazon Redshift
5 6 (0.73%) Oracle Database
6 4 (0.49%) Amazon Athena
6 4 (0.49%) RDBMS
7 3 (0.37%) InfluxDB
7 3 (0.37%) Oracle Database 12c
7 3 (0.37%) SAP HANA
7 3 (0.37%) Sybase ASE
8 2 (0.24%) GIS
8 2 (0.24%) MaxDB
8 2 (0.24%) Tableau
9 1 (0.12%) Apache Cassandra
9 1 (0.12%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.12%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.12%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 39 (4.77%) JIRA
2 17 (2.08%) Browser DevTools
3 13 (1.59%) Android Studio
3 13 (1.59%) Eclipse
3 13 (1.59%) Xcode
4 9 (1.10%) Git
5 7 (0.86%) 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
1 351 (42.91%) Social Skills
2 65 (7.95%) Finance
3 57 (6.97%) Analytical Skills
4 51 (6.23%) Manufacturing
5 45 (5.50%) Public Sector
6 43 (5.26%) Banking
7 29 (3.55%) Organisational Skills
8 26 (3.18%) Aerospace
8 26 (3.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 19 (2.32%) Telecoms
10 17 (2.08%) 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
15 8 (0.98%) Front Office
16 7 (0.86%) Legal
17 5 (0.61%) Automotive
18 4 (0.49%) French Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (2.81%) Middleware
2 17 (2.08%) CSS
3 13 (1.59%) Ajax
3 13 (1.59%) AngularJS
3 13 (1.59%) GraphQL
3 13 (1.59%) React
4 6 (0.73%) Oracle GoldenGate
4 6 (0.73%) PySpark
4 6 (0.73%) REST
5 5 (0.61%) SOAP
5 5 (0.61%) YAML
6 4 (0.49%) HTML
6 4 (0.49%) JDO
6 4 (0.49%) Microsoft Graph
6 4 (0.49%) XML
7 3 (0.37%) SAP Basis
8 2 (0.24%) .NET
8 2 (0.24%) ADO
8 2 (0.24%) EDI
8 2 (0.24%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 50 (6.11%) Onboarding
2 39 (4.77%) Self-Motivation
3 30 (3.67%) Driving Licence
4 28 (3.42%) Data Centre
5 23 (2.81%) Smartphone
6 18 (2.20%) PKI
7 17 (2.08%) Analytical Mindset
8 15 (1.83%) Data Protection Act
9 13 (1.59%) Mobile App
10 12 (1.47%) Virtual Team
11 11 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
12 10 (1.22%) iPhone
13 9 (1.10%) Management Information System
13 9 (1.10%) Video Conferencing
14 8 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
14 8 (0.98%) SCADA
15 6 (0.73%) Legacy Systems
16 5 (0.61%) iPad
17 4 (0.49%) Hedge funds
18 3 (0.37%) CCTV
Operating Systems
1 401 (49.02%) Windows
2 180 (22.00%) Windows 10
3 77 (9.41%) Linux
4 49 (5.99%) Android
4 49 (5.99%) Mac OS
5 43 (5.26%) Windows Server
6 37 (4.52%) Apple iOS
7 35 (4.28%) Unix
8 12 (1.47%) Ubuntu
9 9 (1.10%) 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
1 167 (20.42%) Customer Service
2 152 (18.58%) Problem-Solving
3 94 (11.49%) ITIL
4 79 (9.66%) Migration
5 69 (8.44%) ITSM
6 53 (6.48%) Asset Management
7 48 (5.87%) Service Management
7 48 (5.87%) Workflow
8 38 (4.65%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 38 (4.65%) Workflow Management
9 37 (4.52%) User Experience
10 30 (3.67%) Root Cause Analysis
11 29 (3.55%) Stakeholder Management
12 28 (3.42%) Service Delivery
13 27 (3.30%) Logistics
14 26 (3.18%) Continuous Improvement
15 25 (3.06%) Break/Fix
15 25 (3.06%) Cybersecurity
16 23 (2.81%) DevOps
16 23 (2.81%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 74 (9.05%) PowerShell
2 41 (5.01%) SQL
3 35 (4.28%) Java
4 34 (4.16%) Python
5 32 (3.91%) JavaScript
6 24 (2.93%) Shell Script
7 15 (1.83%) Perl
8 13 (1.59%) C
8 13 (1.59%) C#
8 13 (1.59%) C++
9 12 (1.47%) Ada
10 11 (1.34%) Bash
11 6 (0.73%) 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
1 236 (28.85%) Security Cleared
2 188 (22.98%) SC Cleared
3 49 (5.99%) DV Cleared
4 33 (4.03%) Degree
5 30 (3.67%) Microsoft Certification
6 16 (1.96%) A+ Certification
7 14 (1.71%) Network+ Certification
8 12 (1.47%) Azure Certification
8 12 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
9 10 (1.22%) CCNA
9 10 (1.22%) Cisco Certification
9 10 (1.22%) MCSE
10 8 (0.98%) DBS Check
11 5 (0.61%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (0.61%) ITIL Certification
11 5 (0.61%) Server+ Certification
12 3 (0.37%) Master's Degree
12 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 1 (0.12%) City & Guilds
13 1 (0.12%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (4.03%) 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
1 232 (28.36%) Active Directory
2 26 (3.18%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (1.83%) Hyper-V
4 12 (1.47%) VMware NSX
5 11 (1.34%) Virtual Desktop
6 8 (0.98%) Firmware
7 7 (0.86%) Docker
8 6 (0.73%) Oracle RAC
9 4 (0.49%) vSphere
10 3 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.24%) NFS
12 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
12 1 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.12%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 92 (11.25%) Microsoft Intune
2 66 (8.07%) SCCM
3 28 (3.42%) Jamf Pro
4 17 (2.08%) Ansible
5 13 (1.59%) vCenter Server
6 12 (1.47%) Grafana
6 12 (1.47%) Terraform
7 6 (0.73%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 6 (0.73%) Oracle RMAN
8 5 (0.61%) Kubernetes
8 5 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
9 4 (0.49%) Kibana
9 4 (0.49%) Red Hat Satellite
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%) WMI
11 2 (0.24%) WSUS
12 1 (0.12%) McAfee ePO
Vendors
1 292 (35.70%) Microsoft
2 104 (12.71%) ServiceNow
3 39 (4.77%) Oracle
4 35 (4.28%) VMware
5 34 (4.16%) Apple
6 33 (4.03%) Cisco
7 31 (3.79%) SAP
8 28 (3.42%) Dell
9 21 (2.57%) Google
10 20 (2.44%) HP
11 18 (2.20%) Juniper
12 17 (2.08%) Red Hat
13 16 (1.96%) Splunk
14 14 (1.71%) SolarWinds
15 12 (1.47%) Citrix
15 12 (1.47%) Twitter
16 11 (1.34%) Remedy
17 10 (1.22%) Bloomberg
18 6 (0.73%) New Relic
18 6 (0.73%) Siemens