Support Engineer Contract Job Trends

Support Engineer
UK

The median Support Engineer daily rate in the UK is £226, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 4 September 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 169 130 122
Rank change year-on-year -39 -8 -33
Contract jobs requiring a Support Engineer 895 708 737
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.67% 2.19% 1.94%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.81% 2.40% 2.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 585 467 506
10th Percentile £163 £160 £140
25th Percentile £185 £200 £182
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £226 £238 £238
Median % change year-on-year -5.25% +0.21% -6.86%
75th Percentile £392 £385 £350
90th Percentile £500 £538 £525
UK excluding London median daily rate £210 £235 £225
% change year-on-year -10.64% +4.44% +0.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 72 46
10th Percentile £15.39 £16.50 £18.00
25th Percentile £18.38 £20.64 £18.17
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.20 £23.23
Median % change year-on-year -12.70% +8.47% +21.51%
75th Percentile £36.00 £43.75 £24.80
90th Percentile £49.90 £68.00 £58.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £25.15 £23.59
% change year-on-year -12.52% +6.61% +24.16%

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 49,584 29,450 35,463
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.44% 91.15% 93.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,603 18,569 22,312
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,590 1,537 1,792
10th Percentile £14.85 £13.60 £14.42
25th Percentile £20.48 £17.00 £20.21
Median hourly rate £42.13 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.50% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £70.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +12.50%

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 4 September 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 4 September 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 4 September 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 -49 759 £225 -5.46% 431
UK excluding London -32 579 £210 -10.64% 335
London -37 279 £245 -2.00% 152
South East -45 158 £250 - 109
North of England -21 140 £200 -9.09% 61
North West +6 101 £200 -12.09% 28
Work from Home -71 93 £300 - 107
Scotland +44 85 £350 +26.13% 25
East of England +2 66 £198 -10.23% 53
Midlands -67 63 £250 -9.09% 58
South West -67 53 £205 -12.77% 31
West Midlands -68 44 £250 -9.09% 34
Yorkshire -26 36 £190 -13.64% 24
East Midlands -20 18 £270 +47.54% 24
Wales -27 8 £625 +194.12% 4
Northern Ireland +4 6 £175 -12.50% 6
North East -42 4 £239 +22.44% 13
Channel Islands - 1 £550 -

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

For the 6 months to 4 September 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.

1 511 (57.09%) Windows
2 423 (47.26%) Microsoft
3 398 (44.47%) Active Directory
4 359 (40.11%) Microsoft 365
5 217 (24.25%) Problem-Solving
6 216 (24.13%) Customer Service
7 195 (21.79%) Windows 10
8 181 (20.22%) ITIL
8 181 (20.22%) Security Cleared
9 143 (15.98%) Entra ID
10 142 (15.87%) Azure
11 141 (15.75%) Microsoft Intune
12 132 (14.75%) ITSM
13 127 (14.19%) ServiceNow
14 121 (13.52%) SharePoint
15 107 (11.96%) SC Cleared
16 104 (11.62%) PowerShell
17 99 (11.06%) DNS
18 86 (9.61%) Continuous Improvement
19 78 (8.72%) Linux
19 78 (8.72%) Windows Server
20 76 (8.49%) Asset Management
21 73 (8.16%) Service Delivery
22 72 (8.04%) Degree
22 72 (8.04%) Service Management
23 71 (7.93%) Microsoft Exchange
23 71 (7.93%) SQL
23 71 (7.93%) VPN
24 68 (7.60%) Migration
24 68 (7.60%) TCP/IP

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
1 121 (13.52%) SharePoint
2 71 (7.93%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (1.23%) HCL Notes
4 8 (0.89%) NetWeaver
5 5 (0.56%) MTS
6 3 (0.34%) Confluence
6 3 (0.34%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2013
7 2 (0.22%) IIS
7 2 (0.22%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.22%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 53 (5.92%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (1.68%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (0.45%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.22%) Acrobat
5 1 (0.11%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 7 (0.78%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.45%) SAP EHS
4 3 (0.34%) SAP Retail
5 2 (0.22%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.11%) Bloomberg TOMS
6 1 (0.11%) Oracle BRM
6 1 (0.11%) SAP BRIM
6 1 (0.11%) SAP FI
6 1 (0.11%) SAP FI-CA
6 1 (0.11%) SAP FS
6 1 (0.11%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 359 (40.11%) Microsoft 365
2 143 (15.98%) Entra ID
3 142 (15.87%) Azure
4 49 (5.47%) OneDrive
5 38 (4.25%) AWS
6 22 (2.46%) SaaS
7 16 (1.79%) GCP
8 10 (1.12%) Power Platform
9 8 (0.89%) Azure DevOps
9 8 (0.89%) Google Workspace
10 6 (0.67%) Mimecast
11 5 (0.56%) AWS CloudFormation
11 5 (0.56%) IaaS
12 4 (0.45%) Cloud Functions
12 4 (0.45%) Google App Engine
12 4 (0.45%) Google Compute Engine
12 4 (0.45%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 4 (0.45%) PaaS
13 3 (0.34%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 3 (0.34%) Amazon OpenSearch
Communications & Networking
1 99 (11.06%) DNS
2 71 (7.93%) VPN
3 68 (7.60%) TCP/IP
4 56 (6.26%) DHCP
5 42 (4.69%) Wi-Fi
6 37 (4.13%) LAN
7 33 (3.69%) WAN
8 25 (2.79%) Firewall
9 19 (2.12%) Internet
10 15 (1.68%) VLAN
11 12 (1.34%) SAN
12 11 (1.23%) Wireless
13 7 (0.78%) Network Security
13 7 (0.78%) SD-WAN
14 6 (0.67%) WebEx
15 5 (0.56%) Skype
15 5 (0.56%) SMTP
15 5 (0.56%) WLAN
16 4 (0.45%) BGP
16 4 (0.45%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (3.80%) SQL Server
2 15 (1.68%) MySQL
3 9 (1.01%) Relational Database
4 8 (0.89%) Power BI
4 8 (0.89%) SAP HANA
5 7 (0.78%) MaxDB
5 7 (0.78%) Sybase ASE
6 6 (0.67%) Oracle Database
6 6 (0.67%) PostgreSQL
7 5 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
7 5 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
7 5 (0.56%) Pentaho
8 3 (0.34%) Big Data
8 3 (0.34%) Elasticsearch
8 3 (0.34%) KDB
9 2 (0.22%) MariaDB
9 2 (0.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 2 (0.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 1 (0.11%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.11%) NonStop SQL
Development Applications
1 50 (5.59%) JIRA
2 19 (2.12%) Git
3 6 (0.67%) Browser DevTools
4 3 (0.34%) Android Studio
4 3 (0.34%) Artifactory
4 3 (0.34%) Eclipse
4 3 (0.34%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.34%) Xcode
5 2 (0.22%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.22%) Firebug
6 1 (0.11%) Claude Code
6 1 (0.11%) Gemini Tracker
6 1 (0.11%) GitLab
6 1 (0.11%) Subversion
6 1 (0.11%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 377 (42.12%) Social Skills
2 105 (11.73%) Analytical Skills
3 79 (8.83%) Finance
4 41 (4.58%) Manufacturing
5 38 (4.25%) Banking
6 27 (3.02%) Organisational Skills
7 23 (2.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 21 (2.35%) Investment Banking
9 19 (2.12%) Front Office
10 18 (2.01%) Retail
11 17 (1.90%) Documentation Skills
12 15 (1.68%) Legal
12 15 (1.68%) Telecoms
13 14 (1.56%) Law
14 12 (1.34%) Financial Institution
14 12 (1.34%) Public Sector
15 10 (1.12%) Spanish Language
16 7 (0.78%) Marketing
17 5 (0.56%) Aerospace
18 4 (0.45%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (1.90%) .NET
2 15 (1.68%) Terraform
3 12 (1.34%) LDAP
4 10 (1.12%) XML
5 7 (0.78%) .NET Framework
5 7 (0.78%) JDO
5 7 (0.78%) SAP Basis
6 6 (0.67%) Software Packaging
7 5 (0.56%) CSS
7 5 (0.56%) REST
7 5 (0.56%) SAP Fiori
7 5 (0.56%) SAPUI5
8 4 (0.45%) FIX Protocol
8 4 (0.45%) React
9 3 (0.34%) Ajax
9 3 (0.34%) AngularJS
9 3 (0.34%) HTML
9 3 (0.34%) Jakarta EE
9 3 (0.34%) Kafka
9 3 (0.34%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 123 (13.74%) Onboarding
2 32 (3.58%) Video Conferencing
3 31 (3.46%) Data Centre
4 21 (2.35%) Self-Motivation
5 20 (2.23%) PKI
6 18 (2.01%) Driving Licence
7 17 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
7 17 (1.90%) Hedge funds
8 16 (1.79%) Analytical Mindset
8 16 (1.79%) Data Protection Act
9 13 (1.45%) Smartphone
10 12 (1.34%) iPhone
10 12 (1.34%) Management Information System
11 11 (1.23%) Blackberry
12 10 (1.12%) CMDB
12 10 (1.12%) Legacy Systems
12 10 (1.12%) Virtual Team
13 9 (1.01%) Distributed Systems
14 7 (0.78%) iPad
15 6 (0.67%) BYOD
Operating Systems
1 511 (57.09%) Windows
2 195 (21.79%) Windows 10
3 78 (8.72%) Linux
3 78 (8.72%) Windows Server
4 64 (7.15%) Mac OS
5 43 (4.80%) Apple iOS
6 42 (4.69%) Android
7 32 (3.58%) Unix
8 19 (2.12%) Windows 7
9 11 (1.23%) Ubuntu
10 10 (1.12%) Windows Server 2019
11 7 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 4 (0.45%) OpenVMS
12 4 (0.45%) Solaris
12 4 (0.45%) VMS
12 4 (0.45%) Windows Server 2008
12 4 (0.45%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.34%) CentOS
13 3 (0.34%) Windows XP
14 2 (0.22%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 217 (24.25%) Problem-Solving
2 216 (24.13%) Customer Service
3 181 (20.22%) ITIL
4 132 (14.75%) ITSM
5 86 (9.61%) Continuous Improvement
6 76 (8.49%) Asset Management
7 73 (8.16%) Service Delivery
8 72 (8.04%) Service Management
9 68 (7.60%) Migration
10 57 (6.37%) Root Cause Analysis
11 52 (5.81%) Problem Management
11 52 (5.81%) User Experience
12 51 (5.70%) Incident Management
13 47 (5.25%) Identity Access Management
14 42 (4.69%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 39 (4.36%) Technical Leadership
16 37 (4.13%) Change Management
17 34 (3.80%) Data Protection
17 34 (3.80%) Runbook
18 29 (3.24%) Inventory Management
Programming Languages
1 104 (11.62%) PowerShell
2 71 (7.93%) SQL
3 46 (5.14%) Python
4 29 (3.24%) Java
5 23 (2.57%) JavaScript
6 20 (2.23%) Bash
7 18 (2.01%) C#
8 9 (1.01%) Shell Script
9 7 (0.78%) C++
10 5 (0.56%) Perl
10 5 (0.56%) Tcl
10 5 (0.56%) T-SQL
11 4 (0.45%) Go
11 4 (0.45%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.34%) Korn
13 2 (0.22%) DCL
14 1 (0.11%) C
14 1 (0.11%) TypeScript
14 1 (0.11%) VBA
14 1 (0.11%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 181 (20.22%) Security Cleared
2 107 (11.96%) SC Cleared
3 72 (8.04%) Degree
4 58 (6.48%) DV Cleared
5 29 (3.24%) A+ Certification
6 19 (2.12%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 19 (2.12%) Microsoft Certification
7 14 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
7 14 (1.56%) Network+ Certification
8 12 (1.34%) Cisco Certification
9 11 (1.23%) DBS Check
10 10 (1.12%) CCNA
11 9 (1.01%) Computer Science Degree
12 7 (0.78%) MCSE
12 7 (0.78%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 6 (0.67%) Azure Certification
13 6 (0.67%) ITIL Certification
14 4 (0.45%) NVQ Level 4
15 3 (0.34%) OCA
15 3 (0.34%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 61 (6.82%) SLA
2 6 (0.67%) QA
3 4 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (0.34%) Data Quality
4 3 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 2 (0.22%) GDPR
5 2 (0.22%) GxP
5 2 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.11%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.11%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.11%) GLP
6 1 (0.11%) GMP
6 1 (0.11%) GRC
6 1 (0.11%) ITGC
6 1 (0.11%) NCSC
System Software
1 398 (44.47%) Active Directory
2 48 (5.36%) VMware Infrastructure
3 29 (3.24%) VMware ESXi
4 23 (2.57%) Hyper-V
5 18 (2.01%) Virtual Desktop
5 18 (2.01%) VMware NSX
6 15 (1.68%) vCloud
7 10 (1.12%) Docker
8 7 (0.78%) vSphere
9 5 (0.56%) BitLocker
9 5 (0.56%) NFS
10 3 (0.34%) Firmware
10 3 (0.34%) Microsoft App-V
10 3 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
10 3 (0.34%) Terminal Services
11 2 (0.22%) zsh
12 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 141 (15.75%) Microsoft Intune
2 61 (6.82%) SCCM
3 29 (3.24%) vCenter Server
4 23 (2.57%) SCOM
5 20 (2.23%) Single Sign-On
6 17 (1.90%) Kubernetes
7 16 (1.79%) Jamf Pro
8 13 (1.45%) Ansible
9 11 (1.23%) Grafana
10 7 (0.78%) WSUS
11 5 (0.56%) Red Hat Satellite
12 4 (0.45%) ITRS Geneos
13 3 (0.34%) AirWatch
13 3 (0.34%) Nagios
13 3 (0.34%) NetBackup
13 3 (0.34%) Oracle RMAN
13 3 (0.34%) Prometheus
13 3 (0.34%) Puppet
13 3 (0.34%) vMotion
13 3 (0.34%) vRealize
Vendors
1 423 (47.26%) Microsoft
2 127 (14.19%) ServiceNow
3 65 (7.26%) VMware
4 42 (4.69%) Apple
5 34 (3.80%) Cisco
6 33 (3.69%) Okta
7 32 (3.58%) Oracle
8 27 (3.02%) Google
9 26 (2.91%) Citrix
10 21 (2.35%) BeyondTrust
11 17 (1.90%) Splunk
12 16 (1.79%) SAP
13 15 (1.68%) Meraki
14 13 (1.45%) Bloomberg
14 13 (1.45%) iManage
14 13 (1.45%) Samsung
15 12 (1.34%) Sybase
16 11 (1.23%) Dell
16 11 (1.23%) Lotus
17 10 (1.12%) HP