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 1 April 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 155 126 105
Rank change year-on-year -29 -21 +20
Contract jobs requiring a Support Engineer 782 642 932
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.75% 2.21% 2.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.90% 2.38% 2.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 534 430 667
10th Percentile £151 £152 £134
25th Percentile £185 £185 £163
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £213 £230 £213
Median % change year-on-year -7.61% +8.24% -15.00%
75th Percentile £350 £385 £300
90th Percentile £490 £500 £423
UK excluding London median daily rate £205 £220 £200
% change year-on-year -6.82% +10.00% -6.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 100 40 58
10th Percentile £18.07 £18.13 £16.18
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.51 £17.72
Median hourly rate £23.79 £23.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.42% +15.00% -
75th Percentile £34.31 £25.50 £28.82
90th Percentile £37.63 £41.50 £46.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.75 £22.50 £18.00
% change year-on-year +1.11% +25.00% -4.00%

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 41,143 26,962 41,094
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.09% 92.84% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,657 17,725 26,925
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.54%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +2.11% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,568 945 2,533
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.03 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.74 £20.94 £16.25
Median hourly rate £38.63 £32.50 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +18.86% -1.20% -25.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.81 £71.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £31.76 £32.90
% change year-on-year +25.94% -3.45% -21.68%

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 1 April 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 1 April 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 1 April 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 -27 698 £210 -12.50% 309
UK excluding London -27 538 £205 -6.82% 282
London -60 208 £275 -10.57% 62
South East -18 128 £219 +4.79% 88
North of England -39 124 £190 -11.63% 71
South West -15 90 £210 -6.67% 39
Midlands -36 90 £200 -27.27% 39
Work from Home -88 72 £225 -30.77% 68
North West -29 68 £165 -23.26% 43
East of England -5 59 £203 -10.00% 28
West Midlands -47 55 £269 -10.50% 19
Yorkshire -27 48 £205 -11.83% 24
Scotland +21 41 £250 +57.73% 13
East Midlands -5 36 £200 +5.26% 20
Wales -15 10 £200 +2.56% 5
North East -17 8 £106 -45.64% 7
Northern Ireland -9 2 £175 +18.24% 4

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

For the 6 months to 1 April 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.

1 373 (47.70%) Windows
2 279 (35.68%) Microsoft
3 252 (32.23%) Microsoft 365
4 243 (31.07%) Active Directory
5 197 (25.19%) Security Cleared
6 172 (21.99%) Windows 10
7 171 (21.87%) Customer Service
8 162 (20.72%) SC Cleared
9 138 (17.65%) Problem-Solving
10 120 (15.35%) Azure
11 98 (12.53%) Microsoft Intune
12 94 (12.02%) ITIL
13 92 (11.76%) ServiceNow
14 70 (8.95%) Migration
15 66 (8.44%) PowerShell
16 65 (8.31%) Entra ID
17 64 (8.18%) ITSM
18 63 (8.06%) SharePoint
19 58 (7.42%) Wi-Fi
20 52 (6.65%) Asset Management
20 52 (6.65%) DNS
21 50 (6.39%) Linux
22 49 (6.27%) SCCM
23 48 (6.14%) SQL
24 47 (6.01%) JIRA
25 46 (5.88%) Microsoft Office
26 45 (5.75%) DHCP
26 45 (5.75%) TCP/IP
27 41 (5.24%) VPN
28 39 (4.99%) Android

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 63 (8.06%) SharePoint
2 32 (4.09%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (1.15%) Skype for Business
4 6 (0.77%) NetWeaver
5 4 (0.51%) Apache
5 4 (0.51%) Confluence
6 3 (0.38%) IIS
7 2 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.26%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.26%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.26%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.26%) Smallworld
7 2 (0.26%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.13%) Tuxedo
8 1 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 46 (5.88%) Microsoft Office
2 16 (2.05%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 9 (1.15%) SAP EHS
2 8 (1.02%) Remedy ITSM
3 7 (0.90%) Shopify
4 6 (0.77%) SAP S/4HANA
4 6 (0.77%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.26%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.13%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.13%) Alphatax
6 1 (0.13%) assyst
6 1 (0.13%) Bloomberg TOMS
6 1 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.13%) Dynamics GP
6 1 (0.13%) Eikon
6 1 (0.13%) Fidessa
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.13%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 252 (32.23%) Microsoft 365
2 120 (15.35%) Azure
3 65 (8.31%) Entra ID
4 30 (3.84%) OneDrive
5 23 (2.94%) AWS
6 19 (2.43%) Google Workspace
7 18 (2.30%) Azure DevOps
8 17 (2.17%) SaaS
9 11 (1.41%) Dynamics 365
10 10 (1.28%) Power Platform
11 8 (1.02%) Sauce Labs
12 6 (0.77%) Amazon S3
13 5 (0.64%) Azure Data Factory
13 5 (0.64%) npm
13 5 (0.64%) PaaS
14 4 (0.51%) Datadog
14 4 (0.51%) Snowflake
15 3 (0.38%) GCP
15 3 (0.38%) Nutanix
16 2 (0.26%) Amazon OpenSearch
Communications & Networking
1 58 (7.42%) Wi-Fi
2 52 (6.65%) DNS
3 45 (5.75%) DHCP
3 45 (5.75%) TCP/IP
4 41 (5.24%) VPN
5 36 (4.60%) LAN
6 27 (3.45%) WAN
7 24 (3.07%) Firewall
8 18 (2.30%) Wireless
9 14 (1.79%) SAN
10 13 (1.66%) Network Security
11 12 (1.53%) Internet
12 11 (1.41%) Skype
13 10 (1.28%) VoIP
14 8 (1.02%) VLAN
15 7 (0.90%) HTTP
16 6 (0.77%) MPLS
16 6 (0.77%) PABX
16 6 (0.77%) WLAN
17 5 (0.64%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (2.81%) SQL Server
2 17 (2.17%) MySQL
3 13 (1.66%) Relational Database
4 12 (1.53%) Amazon Redshift
5 9 (1.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 8 (1.02%) Power BI
7 6 (0.77%) Pentaho
7 6 (0.77%) SAP HANA
7 6 (0.77%) Sybase ASE
8 5 (0.64%) MaxDB
8 5 (0.64%) Oracle Database
9 4 (0.51%) Amazon Athena
9 4 (0.51%) Oracle Database 12c
10 3 (0.38%) InfluxDB
10 3 (0.38%) Tableau
11 2 (0.26%) Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.26%) GIS
11 2 (0.26%) PostgreSQL
11 2 (0.26%) RDBMS
11 2 (0.26%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 47 (6.01%) JIRA
2 16 (2.05%) Git
3 13 (1.66%) Browser DevTools
4 8 (1.02%) Android Studio
4 8 (1.02%) Eclipse
4 8 (1.02%) Xcode
5 5 (0.64%) Maven
6 3 (0.38%) Jenkins
7 1 (0.13%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.13%) Firebug
7 1 (0.13%) Hudson
7 1 (0.13%) MSI
7 1 (0.13%) RStudio
7 1 (0.13%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.13%) Subversion
General
1 329 (42.07%) Social Skills
2 60 (7.67%) Analytical Skills
2 60 (7.67%) Finance
3 50 (6.39%) Manufacturing
4 38 (4.86%) Banking
5 30 (3.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 30 (3.84%) Public Sector
6 23 (2.94%) Aerospace
7 20 (2.56%) Organisational Skills
8 15 (1.92%) Aviation
8 15 (1.92%) Investment Banking
9 14 (1.79%) Telecoms
10 9 (1.15%) Electronics
10 9 (1.15%) Front Office
10 9 (1.15%) Law
10 9 (1.15%) Legal
10 9 (1.15%) Marketing
11 7 (0.90%) Documentation Skills
12 4 (0.51%) French Language
12 4 (0.51%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (1.66%) Middleware
2 9 (1.15%) CSS
2 9 (1.15%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 8 (1.02%) Ajax
3 8 (1.02%) AngularJS
3 8 (1.02%) GraphQL
3 8 (1.02%) React
4 6 (0.77%) SAP Basis
5 5 (0.64%) .NET
5 5 (0.64%) JDO
5 5 (0.64%) REST
5 5 (0.64%) SAML
5 5 (0.64%) YAML
6 4 (0.51%) OAuth
6 4 (0.51%) PySpark
7 2 (0.26%) EDI
7 2 (0.26%) Microsoft Graph
7 2 (0.26%) RESTful
7 2 (0.26%) SOAP
7 2 (0.26%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 51 (6.52%) Onboarding
2 36 (4.60%) Self-Motivation
3 28 (3.58%) Driving Licence
4 27 (3.45%) Data Centre
5 18 (2.30%) Analytical Mindset
6 17 (2.17%) Smartphone
7 13 (1.66%) iPhone
7 13 (1.66%) PKI
8 12 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
8 12 (1.53%) Virtual Team
9 11 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
9 11 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
10 10 (1.28%) SCADA
11 8 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
11 8 (1.02%) Mobile App
12 6 (0.77%) iPad
12 6 (0.77%) Management Information System
13 5 (0.64%) Video Conferencing
14 3 (0.38%) Hedge funds
15 2 (0.26%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 373 (47.70%) Windows
2 172 (21.99%) Windows 10
3 50 (6.39%) Linux
4 39 (4.99%) Android
4 39 (4.99%) Mac OS
5 38 (4.86%) Windows Server
6 32 (4.09%) Unix
7 31 (3.96%) Apple iOS
8 7 (0.90%) Windows 7
8 7 (0.90%) Windows Server 2016
9 4 (0.51%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 2 (0.26%) CentOS
11 2 (0.26%) Mac OS X
11 2 (0.26%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.13%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 171 (21.87%) Customer Service
2 138 (17.65%) Problem-Solving
3 94 (12.02%) ITIL
4 70 (8.95%) Migration
5 64 (8.18%) ITSM
6 52 (6.65%) Asset Management
7 39 (4.99%) User Experience
7 39 (4.99%) Workflow
8 36 (4.60%) Service Management
9 34 (4.35%) Root Cause Analysis
10 32 (4.09%) Continuous Improvement
11 31 (3.96%) Change Management
11 31 (3.96%) Logistics
12 30 (3.84%) Workflow Management
13 29 (3.71%) Incident Management
14 27 (3.45%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 26 (3.32%) Break/Fix
15 26 (3.32%) DevOps
16 25 (3.20%) Service Delivery
16 25 (3.20%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 66 (8.44%) PowerShell
2 48 (6.14%) SQL
3 31 (3.96%) Python
4 23 (2.94%) Java
5 18 (2.30%) C#
5 18 (2.30%) JavaScript
5 18 (2.30%) Shell Script
6 12 (1.53%) Bash
7 10 (1.28%) Perl
8 9 (1.15%) Korn
9 5 (0.64%) C
9 5 (0.64%) C++
10 4 (0.51%) Ada
11 3 (0.38%) VB.NET
12 2 (0.26%) AWK
12 2 (0.26%) Magik
12 2 (0.26%) VBA
12 2 (0.26%) VBScript
13 1 (0.13%) R
13 1 (0.13%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 197 (25.19%) Security Cleared
2 162 (20.72%) SC Cleared
3 35 (4.48%) DV Cleared
4 31 (3.96%) Degree
5 22 (2.81%) Microsoft Certification
6 18 (2.30%) A+ Certification
7 15 (1.92%) CCNA
7 15 (1.92%) Cisco Certification
8 13 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
8 13 (1.66%) MCSE
9 12 (1.53%) Network+ Certification
10 7 (0.90%) ITIL Certification
11 6 (0.77%) Azure Certification
11 6 (0.77%) DBS Check
12 4 (0.51%) Computer Science Degree
13 3 (0.38%) Master's Degree
14 2 (0.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 1 (0.13%) AWS Certification
15 1 (0.13%) CompTIA Security+
15 1 (0.13%) MCITP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (3.58%) SLA
2 5 (0.64%) GDPR
3 4 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
3 4 (0.51%) Data Quality
4 3 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (0.38%) QA
5 2 (0.26%) GLP
5 2 (0.26%) GMP
6 1 (0.13%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.13%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.13%) GAAP
6 1 (0.13%) GxP
6 1 (0.13%) IFRS
6 1 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.13%) SOC 2
System Software
1 243 (31.07%) Active Directory
2 17 (2.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (1.15%) Hyper-V
3 9 (1.15%) Oracle RAC
3 9 (1.15%) Virtual Desktop
4 8 (1.02%) VMware NSX
5 6 (0.77%) Firmware
6 5 (0.64%) Docker
7 3 (0.38%) Virtual Servers
7 3 (0.38%) vSphere
8 2 (0.26%) NFS
9 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 1 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.13%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 98 (12.53%) Microsoft Intune
2 49 (6.27%) SCCM
3 27 (3.45%) Jamf Pro
4 16 (2.05%) Grafana
5 13 (1.66%) Ansible
6 11 (1.41%) Terraform
7 9 (1.15%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 9 (1.15%) Oracle RMAN
7 9 (1.15%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (1.02%) vCenter Server
9 5 (0.64%) Kubernetes
10 4 (0.51%) Kibana
11 2 (0.26%) McAfee ePO
11 2 (0.26%) PaperCut
11 2 (0.26%) Prometheus
11 2 (0.26%) WMI
11 2 (0.26%) WSUS
12 1 (0.13%) Autotask
12 1 (0.13%) Cisco Prime
12 1 (0.13%) Nagios
Vendors
1 279 (35.68%) Microsoft
2 92 (11.76%) ServiceNow
3 35 (4.48%) Oracle
4 32 (4.09%) SAP
5 29 (3.71%) Dell
6 24 (3.07%) Cisco
7 22 (2.81%) Apple
7 22 (2.81%) VMware
8 20 (2.56%) HP
9 19 (2.43%) Google
10 12 (1.53%) Splunk
11 11 (1.41%) Juniper
11 11 (1.41%) McAfee
12 10 (1.28%) Bloomberg
12 10 (1.28%) Remedy
12 10 (1.28%) Starlink
13 8 (1.02%) Citrix
13 8 (1.02%) SolarWinds
14 7 (0.90%) Denodo
14 7 (0.90%) Talend