Support Engineer Contract Job Trends

Support Engineer
UK

The median Support Engineer daily rate in the UK is £238, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 October 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 179 121 132
Rank change year-on-year -58 +11 -43
Contract jobs requiring a Support Engineer 903 769 715
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.63% 2.32% 1.90%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.78% 2.55% 2.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 587 515 478
10th Percentile £163 £158 £143
25th Percentile £190 £188 £188
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £238 £235 £240
Median % change year-on-year +1.06% -2.08% -4.00%
75th Percentile £380 £347 £350
90th Percentile £512 £538 £519
UK excluding London median daily rate £223 £228 £225
% change year-on-year -1.98% +1.11% +4.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 93 48
10th Percentile £15.24 £16.63 £17.17
25th Percentile £18.25 £20.64 £18.56
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.15 £23.89
Median % change year-on-year -12.52% +5.30% +24.08%
75th Percentile £25.75 £35.00 £27.44
90th Percentile £47.75 £68.00 £55.10
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £25.15 £23.59
% change year-on-year -12.52% +6.61% +23.77%

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 50,841 30,184 35,017
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.94% 90.90% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,834 19,073 21,148
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,158 1,652 1,437
10th Percentile £14.31 £13.80 £15.09
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.30 £20.50
Median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £41.27
Median % change year-on-year +65.23% -39.05% -8.30%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.30 £68.52 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.06 £25.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +64.24% -41.18% -4.49%

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 October 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 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Support Engineer in the UK

Support Engineer
Top 18 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 October 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 -67 766 £226 -4.04% 189
UK excluding London -42 588 £223 -1.98% 173
London -23 277 £250 - 31
South East -54 164 £260 +9.24% 37
North of England -20 130 £200 -3.61% 41
North West +2 97 £200 - 24
Work from Home -90 92 £310 +12.73% 116
East of England +21 90 £200 -9.09% 28
Scotland +34 84 £250 +11.11% 7
Midlands -64 71 £213 -16.67% 22
West Midlands -64 51 £210 -23.64% 10
South West -89 35 £225 -10.00% 40
Yorkshire -31 30 £225 +2.27% 10
East Midlands -15 20 £270 +44.00% 12
Northern Ireland +7 8 - - 1
Wales -29 6 £625 +194.12% 4
North East -43 4 £239 +32.64% 8
Channel Islands - 1 £550 - 3

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

For the 6 months to 15 October 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.

1 542 (60.02%) Windows
2 440 (48.73%) Microsoft
3 411 (45.51%) Active Directory
4 381 (42.19%) Microsoft 365
5 230 (25.47%) Customer Service
6 226 (25.03%) Problem-Solving
7 205 (22.70%) Windows 10
8 184 (20.38%) ITIL
9 176 (19.49%) Security Cleared
10 149 (16.50%) Azure
11 148 (16.39%) Entra ID
12 144 (15.95%) ITSM
13 135 (14.95%) Microsoft Intune
14 130 (14.40%) ServiceNow
15 116 (12.85%) SharePoint
16 110 (12.18%) PowerShell
17 106 (11.74%) DNS
18 93 (10.30%) SC Cleared
19 90 (9.97%) Windows Server
20 87 (9.63%) VPN
21 85 (9.41%) Microsoft Exchange
22 83 (9.19%) Continuous Improvement
23 82 (9.08%) Linux
24 81 (8.97%) Service Delivery
25 79 (8.75%) Root Cause Analysis
25 79 (8.75%) Service Management
26 77 (8.53%) Asset Management
27 73 (8.08%) Migration
28 72 (7.97%) SCCM
28 72 (7.97%) SQL

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
1 116 (12.85%) SharePoint
2 85 (9.41%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (1.22%) HCL Notes
4 6 (0.66%) Confluence
4 6 (0.66%) NetWeaver
5 5 (0.55%) MTS
6 3 (0.33%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2013
7 2 (0.22%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.22%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.11%) Appian
8 1 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
8 1 (0.11%) IIS
8 1 (0.11%) SharePoint 2010
8 1 (0.11%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 52 (5.76%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (0.66%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.22%) Acrobat
5 1 (0.11%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 1 (0.11%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.11%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 5 (0.55%) Remedy ITSM
1 5 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.44%) SAP EHS
3 3 (0.33%) SAP Retail
4 1 (0.11%) Bloomberg TOMS
4 1 (0.11%) Eikon
4 1 (0.11%) Oracle BRM
4 1 (0.11%) SAP BRIM
4 1 (0.11%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.11%) SAP FI-CA
4 1 (0.11%) SAP FS
4 1 (0.11%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 381 (42.19%) Microsoft 365
2 149 (16.50%) Azure
3 148 (16.39%) Entra ID
4 56 (6.20%) OneDrive
5 48 (5.32%) AWS
6 22 (2.44%) SaaS
7 15 (1.66%) GCP
8 8 (0.89%) Google Workspace
9 6 (0.66%) AWS CloudFormation
10 5 (0.55%) AWS Direct Connect
10 5 (0.55%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 4 (0.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 4 (0.44%) Amazon EKS
11 4 (0.44%) Cloud Functions
11 4 (0.44%) Google Compute Engine
11 4 (0.44%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 4 (0.44%) IaaS
11 4 (0.44%) Mimecast
11 4 (0.44%) Power Platform
11 4 (0.44%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 106 (11.74%) DNS
2 87 (9.63%) VPN
3 70 (7.75%) TCP/IP
4 61 (6.76%) DHCP
5 45 (4.98%) LAN
6 38 (4.21%) WAN
6 38 (4.21%) Wi-Fi
7 33 (3.65%) Firewall
8 21 (2.33%) Internet
9 19 (2.10%) VLAN
10 15 (1.66%) Wireless
11 11 (1.22%) SD-WAN
12 8 (0.89%) SAN
12 8 (0.89%) WebEx
13 7 (0.78%) BGP
13 7 (0.78%) Network Security
13 7 (0.78%) OSPF
13 7 (0.78%) SMTP
14 6 (0.66%) MPLS
15 5 (0.55%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (3.21%) SQL Server
2 11 (1.22%) MySQL
3 9 (1.00%) PostgreSQL
4 8 (0.89%) Relational Database
5 7 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
6 6 (0.66%) SAP HANA
7 5 (0.55%) MaxDB
7 5 (0.55%) Oracle Database
7 5 (0.55%) Sybase ASE
8 3 (0.33%) Big Data
8 3 (0.33%) Elasticsearch
8 3 (0.33%) KDB
9 2 (0.22%) Amazon Aurora
9 2 (0.22%) MariaDB
9 2 (0.22%) Power BI
9 2 (0.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 1 (0.11%) Amazon Athena
10 1 (0.11%) Hadoop
10 1 (0.11%) Kdb+
10 1 (0.11%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 48 (5.32%) JIRA
2 13 (1.44%) Git
3 6 (0.66%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.55%) Artifactory
4 5 (0.55%) Browser DevTools
5 3 (0.33%) Android Studio
5 3 (0.33%) Bitbucket
5 3 (0.33%) Eclipse
5 3 (0.33%) Xcode
6 2 (0.22%) Firebug
6 2 (0.22%) GitLab
6 2 (0.22%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.11%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.11%) eggPlant
7 1 (0.11%) Gemini Tracker
7 1 (0.11%) Postman
7 1 (0.11%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 386 (42.75%) Social Skills
2 93 (10.30%) Finance
3 91 (10.08%) Analytical Skills
4 51 (5.65%) Manufacturing
5 47 (5.20%) Banking
6 33 (3.65%) Organisational Skills
7 21 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 20 (2.21%) Front Office
8 20 (2.21%) Investment Banking
9 19 (2.10%) Documentation Skills
9 19 (2.10%) Legal
10 18 (1.99%) Financial Institution
10 18 (1.99%) Retail
11 16 (1.77%) Telecoms
12 14 (1.55%) Law
12 14 (1.55%) Public Sector
13 10 (1.11%) Spanish Language
14 7 (0.78%) Aerospace
14 7 (0.78%) Marketing
15 4 (0.44%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (1.99%) Terraform
2 17 (1.88%) .NET
3 14 (1.55%) XML
4 12 (1.33%) LDAP
5 9 (1.00%) CSS
6 7 (0.78%) .NET Framework
6 7 (0.78%) React
7 6 (0.66%) HTML
8 5 (0.55%) JSON
8 5 (0.55%) REST
8 5 (0.55%) SAP Basis
8 5 (0.55%) SAP Fiori
8 5 (0.55%) SAPUI5
8 5 (0.55%) Software Packaging
9 4 (0.44%) FIX Protocol
9 4 (0.44%) Swagger
9 4 (0.44%) Web Services
10 3 (0.33%) AngularJS
10 3 (0.33%) GraphQL
10 3 (0.33%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 136 (15.06%) Onboarding
2 40 (4.43%) Video Conferencing
3 34 (3.77%) Data Centre
4 24 (2.66%) Self-Motivation
5 23 (2.55%) Driving Licence
6 20 (2.21%) Management Information System
6 20 (2.21%) PKI
7 18 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
7 18 (1.99%) Hedge funds
8 15 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
9 14 (1.55%) Smartphone
10 12 (1.33%) CMDB
11 11 (1.22%) Blackberry
11 11 (1.22%) Virtual Team
12 10 (1.11%) Analytical Mindset
12 10 (1.11%) iPhone
13 9 (1.00%) Distributed Systems
13 9 (1.00%) Life Science
14 7 (0.78%) iPad
14 7 (0.78%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 542 (60.02%) Windows
2 205 (22.70%) Windows 10
3 90 (9.97%) Windows Server
4 82 (9.08%) Linux
5 70 (7.75%) macOS
6 46 (5.09%) Android
7 45 (4.98%) Apple iOS
8 28 (3.10%) Unix
9 14 (1.55%) Windows 7
10 13 (1.44%) Ubuntu
10 13 (1.44%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 6 (0.66%) VMS
13 5 (0.55%) CentOS
14 4 (0.44%) OpenVMS
14 4 (0.44%) Solaris
14 4 (0.44%) Windows Server 2008
14 4 (0.44%) Windows Server 2012
15 3 (0.33%) Windows XP
16 2 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 230 (25.47%) Customer Service
2 226 (25.03%) Problem-Solving
3 184 (20.38%) ITIL
4 144 (15.95%) ITSM
5 83 (9.19%) Continuous Improvement
6 81 (8.97%) Service Delivery
7 79 (8.75%) Root Cause Analysis
7 79 (8.75%) Service Management
8 77 (8.53%) Asset Management
9 73 (8.08%) Migration
10 57 (6.31%) User Experience
11 52 (5.76%) Problem Management
12 49 (5.43%) Identity Access Management
13 48 (5.32%) Incident Management
14 44 (4.87%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 43 (4.76%) Technical Leadership
16 38 (4.21%) Runbook
17 36 (3.99%) Data Protection
18 33 (3.65%) Disaster Recovery
19 32 (3.54%) Task Automation
Programming Languages
1 110 (12.18%) PowerShell
2 72 (7.97%) SQL
3 55 (6.09%) Python
4 34 (3.77%) Java
5 30 (3.32%) JavaScript
6 22 (2.44%) Bash
7 17 (1.88%) C#
8 10 (1.11%) Shell Script
9 7 (0.78%) C++
9 7 (0.78%) Go
10 5 (0.55%) Perl
10 5 (0.55%) Tcl
10 5 (0.55%) T-SQL
11 4 (0.44%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.22%) DCL
13 1 (0.11%) Ruby
13 1 (0.11%) Search Processing Language
13 1 (0.11%) TypeScript
13 1 (0.11%) VBA
13 1 (0.11%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 176 (19.49%) Security Cleared
2 93 (10.30%) SC Cleared
3 68 (7.53%) Degree
3 68 (7.53%) DV Cleared
4 28 (3.10%) A+ Certification
5 19 (2.10%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
5 19 (2.10%) Microsoft Certification
6 13 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
7 10 (1.11%) DBS Check
7 10 (1.11%) Network+ Certification
8 9 (1.00%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (1.00%) Computer Science Degree
9 6 (0.66%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 5 (0.55%) Azure Certification
10 5 (0.55%) CCNA
10 5 (0.55%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (0.44%) NVQ Level 4
12 3 (0.33%) MCSE
12 3 (0.33%) OCA
12 3 (0.33%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 63 (6.98%) SLA
2 7 (0.78%) QA
3 4 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 3 (0.33%) Data Quality
4 3 (0.33%) GDPR
5 2 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (0.22%) GxP
6 1 (0.11%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.11%) GRC
6 1 (0.11%) NCSC
System Software
1 411 (45.51%) Active Directory
2 53 (5.87%) VMware Infrastructure
3 33 (3.65%) VMware ESXi
4 27 (2.99%) Hyper-V
5 19 (2.10%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (1.88%) VMware NSX
7 15 (1.66%) vCloud
8 10 (1.11%) Docker
9 8 (0.89%) vSphere
10 7 (0.78%) BitLocker
11 5 (0.55%) Firmware
11 5 (0.55%) NFS
12 3 (0.33%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.33%) Terminal Services
13 2 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
13 2 (0.22%) zsh
14 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 135 (14.95%) Microsoft Intune
2 72 (7.97%) SCCM
3 33 (3.65%) vCenter Server
4 26 (2.88%) SCOM
5 21 (2.33%) Kubernetes
6 19 (2.10%) Ansible
6 19 (2.10%) Single Sign-On
7 15 (1.66%) Jamf Pro
8 9 (1.00%) WSUS
9 8 (0.89%) Grafana
10 5 (0.55%) ITRS Geneos
10 5 (0.55%) Red Hat Satellite
11 4 (0.44%) Prometheus
12 3 (0.33%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.33%) Nagios
12 3 (0.33%) Puppet
12 3 (0.33%) vMotion
13 2 (0.22%) AirWatch
13 2 (0.22%) Kibana
13 2 (0.22%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 440 (48.73%) Microsoft
2 130 (14.40%) ServiceNow
3 72 (7.97%) VMware
4 42 (4.65%) Apple
5 40 (4.43%) Cisco
6 33 (3.65%) Citrix
7 32 (3.54%) Oracle
8 31 (3.43%) Okta
9 25 (2.77%) Google
10 22 (2.44%) BeyondTrust
11 19 (2.10%) Splunk
12 16 (1.77%) Bloomberg
12 16 (1.77%) SAP
13 14 (1.55%) Meraki
14 13 (1.44%) Samsung
15 11 (1.22%) Broadcom
15 11 (1.22%) Lotus
15 11 (1.22%) SolarWinds
16 10 (1.11%) Red Hat
16 10 (1.11%) Sybase