Support Engineer Contract Job Trends

Support Engineer
UK

The median Support Engineer daily rate in the UK is £225, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 July 2026.

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

 6 months to
2 Jul 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 170 132 109
Rank change year-on-year -38 -23 0
Contract jobs requiring a Support Engineer 797 644 875
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.55% 2.08% 2.02%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.68% 2.26% 2.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 519 414 589
10th Percentile £155 £160 £140
25th Percentile £185 £200 £163
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £225 £239 £220
Median % change year-on-year -5.76% +8.52% -12.00%
75th Percentile £383 £375 £340
90th Percentile £490 £499 £500
UK excluding London median daily rate £208 £226 £205
% change year-on-year -7.98% +10.00% -5.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 52 57
10th Percentile £17.49 £18.10 £16.25
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.64 £18.13
Median hourly rate £24.00 £25.08 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.29% +11.44% +12.50%
75th Percentile £36.00 £44.69 £40.00
90th Percentile £46.80 £68.00 £54.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £25.00 £24.18
% change year-on-year -10.00% +3.39% +33.52%

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 47,563 28,496 40,366
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.42% 92.02% 93.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,794 18,232 25,937
10th Percentile £325 £288 £285
25th Percentile £415 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,217 1,276 2,865
10th Percentile £15.72 £13.82 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.41 £16.58
Median hourly rate £43.00 £26.75 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +60.75% -28.67% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £56.30 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -

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 2 July 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 2 July 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 2 July 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 -47 684 £213 -10.53% 284
UK excluding London -42 535 £208 -7.98% 308
London -46 233 £261 -3.24% 52
South East -31 151 £238 -5.00% 79
North of England -66 93 £190 -7.32% 54
Work from Home -83 85 £229 -23.75% 76
Midlands -33 77 £210 -17.65% 45
Scotland +43 68 £437 +48.14% 38
East of England +5 65 £195 -13.33% 26
South West -49 65 £210 -10.64% 55
North West -47 55 £190 -5.00% 30
West Midlands -61 47 £250 -9.09% 21
Yorkshire -24 37 £190 -19.15% 18
East Midlands +1 29 £200 +16.96% 24
Wales -20 11 £195 -2.50% 5
Northern Ireland -2 5 £175 - 14
North East -46 1 £290 +48.72% 8
Channel Islands - 1 £550 -

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

For the 6 months to 2 July 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.

1 402 (50.44%) Windows
2 315 (39.52%) Active Directory
3 298 (37.39%) Microsoft
4 266 (33.38%) Microsoft 365
5 175 (21.96%) Problem-Solving
6 167 (20.95%) Windows 10
7 159 (19.95%) Security Cleared
8 149 (18.70%) Customer Service
9 140 (17.57%) ITIL
10 137 (17.19%) Azure
11 114 (14.30%) Microsoft Intune
12 106 (13.30%) SC Cleared
13 101 (12.67%) ServiceNow
14 95 (11.92%) Entra ID
15 78 (9.79%) DNS
16 75 (9.41%) ITSM
16 75 (9.41%) SharePoint
17 73 (9.16%) PowerShell
18 64 (8.03%) SQL
19 60 (7.53%) JIRA
19 60 (7.53%) Linux
20 56 (7.03%) Migration
21 54 (6.78%) Continuous Improvement
21 54 (6.78%) VPN
22 53 (6.65%) Mac OS
23 51 (6.40%) Windows Server
24 50 (6.27%) DHCP
25 49 (6.15%) Microsoft Exchange
25 49 (6.15%) Service Delivery
25 49 (6.15%) Wi-Fi

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 75 (9.41%) SharePoint
2 49 (6.15%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.51%) NetWeaver
4 7 (0.88%) HCL Notes
5 5 (0.63%) Confluence
6 3 (0.38%) IIS
6 3 (0.38%) Skype for Business
7 2 (0.25%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.25%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.13%) Apache
8 1 (0.13%) Tuxedo
8 1 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 39 (4.89%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (1.63%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.13%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 11 (1.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.75%) Teamcenter
3 4 (0.50%) SAP EHS
4 3 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
5 2 (0.25%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.13%) Alphatax
6 1 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.13%) Dynamics GP
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.13%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 266 (33.38%) Microsoft 365
2 137 (17.19%) Azure
3 95 (11.92%) Entra ID
4 32 (4.02%) AWS
5 29 (3.64%) OneDrive
6 21 (2.63%) Azure DevOps
7 19 (2.38%) SaaS
8 13 (1.63%) GCP
9 10 (1.25%) Power Platform
10 9 (1.13%) PaaS
11 6 (0.75%) Amazon S3
11 6 (0.75%) IaaS
12 5 (0.63%) Azure Data Factory
12 5 (0.63%) Google Workspace
13 4 (0.50%) Dynamics 365
13 4 (0.50%) Mimecast
14 3 (0.38%) Amazon EC2
14 3 (0.38%) OpenShift
14 3 (0.38%) Sauce Labs
15 2 (0.25%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 78 (9.79%) DNS
2 54 (6.78%) VPN
3 50 (6.27%) DHCP
4 49 (6.15%) Wi-Fi
5 45 (5.65%) TCP/IP
6 42 (5.27%) LAN
7 26 (3.26%) WAN
8 24 (3.01%) SAN
9 19 (2.38%) Firewall
10 17 (2.13%) Internet
11 13 (1.63%) VLAN
12 11 (1.38%) WLAN
13 9 (1.13%) Wireless
14 7 (0.88%) HTTP
14 7 (0.88%) Skype
15 6 (0.75%) VoIP
16 4 (0.50%) Network Security
16 4 (0.50%) Remote Desktop
17 3 (0.38%) Unified Communications
17 3 (0.38%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (4.27%) SQL Server
2 18 (2.26%) MySQL
3 12 (1.51%) Amazon Redshift
3 12 (1.51%) SAP HANA
4 11 (1.38%) Sybase ASE
5 10 (1.25%) MaxDB
6 9 (1.13%) Relational Database
7 8 (1.00%) Power BI
8 7 (0.88%) Pentaho
8 7 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 6 (0.75%) PostgreSQL
10 5 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
11 4 (0.50%) Oracle Database
11 4 (0.50%) Oracle Database 12c
12 3 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
12 3 (0.38%) Big Data
12 3 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
12 3 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 2 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
13 2 (0.25%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 60 (7.53%) JIRA
2 18 (2.26%) Git
3 9 (1.13%) Browser DevTools
4 3 (0.38%) Android Studio
4 3 (0.38%) Eclipse
4 3 (0.38%) Xcode
5 2 (0.25%) Firebug
5 2 (0.25%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.13%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.13%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 1 (0.13%) Claude Code
6 1 (0.13%) Gemini Tracker
6 1 (0.13%) GitLab
6 1 (0.13%) MSI
6 1 (0.13%) RStudio
6 1 (0.13%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 1 (0.13%) Subversion
6 1 (0.13%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 311 (39.02%) Social Skills
2 93 (11.67%) Analytical Skills
3 63 (7.90%) Finance
4 45 (5.65%) Manufacturing
5 34 (4.27%) Banking
6 21 (2.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 19 (2.38%) Investment Banking
7 19 (2.38%) Organisational Skills
8 15 (1.88%) Aerospace
9 14 (1.76%) Aviation
9 14 (1.76%) Documentation Skills
9 14 (1.76%) Retail
10 13 (1.63%) Law
11 8 (1.00%) Front Office
12 7 (0.88%) Financial Institution
12 7 (0.88%) Legal
12 7 (0.88%) Marketing
12 7 (0.88%) Public Sector
12 7 (0.88%) Telecoms
13 6 (0.75%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (1.38%) SAP Basis
2 10 (1.25%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 9 (1.13%) REST
4 8 (1.00%) .NET
5 7 (0.88%) JDO
5 7 (0.88%) Software Packaging
6 6 (0.75%) SAP Fiori
6 6 (0.75%) SAPUI5
7 5 (0.63%) CSS
7 5 (0.63%) LDAP
7 5 (0.63%) SAML
8 4 (0.50%) Middleware
8 4 (0.50%) OAuth
8 4 (0.50%) PySpark
9 3 (0.38%) Ajax
9 3 (0.38%) AngularJS
9 3 (0.38%) GraphQL
9 3 (0.38%) React
9 3 (0.38%) RESTful
9 3 (0.38%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 78 (9.79%) Onboarding
2 35 (4.39%) Data Centre
3 24 (3.01%) Self-Motivation
4 21 (2.63%) Analytical Mindset
5 19 (2.38%) Video Conferencing
5 19 (2.38%) Virtual Team
6 15 (1.88%) PKI
7 14 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
7 14 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
7 14 (1.76%) iPhone
8 12 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
9 10 (1.25%) Driving Licence
9 10 (1.25%) SCADA
9 10 (1.25%) Smartphone
10 8 (1.00%) Hedge funds
11 7 (0.88%) Blackberry
11 7 (0.88%) iPad
12 6 (0.75%) BYOD
12 6 (0.75%) Management Information System
13 5 (0.63%) CCTV
Operating Systems
1 402 (50.44%) Windows
2 167 (20.95%) Windows 10
3 60 (7.53%) Linux
4 53 (6.65%) Mac OS
5 51 (6.40%) Windows Server
6 43 (5.40%) Unix
7 26 (3.26%) Apple iOS
8 23 (2.89%) Android
9 15 (1.88%) Windows 7
10 8 (1.00%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 7 (0.88%) Ubuntu
12 6 (0.75%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.50%) Solaris
13 4 (0.50%) Windows XP
14 3 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
15 2 (0.25%) Mac OS X
15 2 (0.25%) OpenVMS
15 2 (0.25%) VMS
16 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 175 (21.96%) Problem-Solving
2 149 (18.70%) Customer Service
3 140 (17.57%) ITIL
4 75 (9.41%) ITSM
5 56 (7.03%) Migration
6 54 (6.78%) Continuous Improvement
7 49 (6.15%) Service Delivery
8 45 (5.65%) Change Management
9 42 (5.27%) Asset Management
10 39 (4.89%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 37 (4.64%) Problem Management
12 36 (4.52%) Incident Management
12 36 (4.52%) User Experience
13 35 (4.39%) DevOps
14 34 (4.27%) Root Cause Analysis
14 34 (4.27%) Service Management
15 28 (3.51%) High Availability
16 27 (3.39%) Data Protection
17 25 (3.14%) Identity Access Management
18 24 (3.01%) Break/Fix
Programming Languages
1 73 (9.16%) PowerShell
2 64 (8.03%) SQL
3 33 (4.14%) Python
4 21 (2.63%) C#
5 19 (2.38%) Java
6 16 (2.01%) Bash
6 16 (2.01%) Shell Script
7 15 (1.88%) JavaScript
8 10 (1.25%) Korn
9 7 (0.88%) C++
9 7 (0.88%) Perl
10 3 (0.38%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.25%) DCL
12 1 (0.13%) C
12 1 (0.13%) Go
12 1 (0.13%) R
12 1 (0.13%) VB.NET
12 1 (0.13%) VBA
12 1 (0.13%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 159 (19.95%) Security Cleared
2 106 (13.30%) SC Cleared
3 47 (5.90%) Degree
4 37 (4.64%) DV Cleared
5 26 (3.26%) Microsoft Certification
6 24 (3.01%) A+ Certification
7 21 (2.63%) CCNA
7 21 (2.63%) Cisco Certification
7 21 (2.63%) Network+ Certification
8 16 (2.01%) MCSE
9 14 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
10 8 (1.00%) Azure Certification
10 8 (1.00%) Computer Science Degree
10 8 (1.00%) DBS Check
11 7 (0.88%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 6 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
13 4 (0.50%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 4 (0.50%) NVQ Level 4
14 1 (0.13%) AWS Certification
14 1 (0.13%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (4.77%) SLA
2 4 (0.50%) Data Quality
2 4 (0.50%) GDPR
2 4 (0.50%) QA
3 3 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 2 (0.25%) GLP
4 2 (0.25%) GMP
4 2 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.13%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.13%) GRC
5 1 (0.13%) GxP
5 1 (0.13%) ITGC
System Software
1 315 (39.52%) Active Directory
2 36 (4.52%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (2.51%) VMware ESXi
4 19 (2.38%) Hyper-V
5 16 (2.01%) VMware NSX
6 12 (1.51%) Virtual Desktop
7 11 (1.38%) vCloud
8 10 (1.25%) Oracle RAC
9 8 (1.00%) vSphere
10 5 (0.63%) Docker
10 5 (0.63%) NFS
11 4 (0.50%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.38%) Firmware
12 3 (0.38%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.38%) Terminal Services
13 2 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
14 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.13%) XenDesktop
14 1 (0.13%) zsh
Systems Management
1 114 (14.30%) Microsoft Intune
2 43 (5.40%) SCCM
3 20 (2.51%) Jamf Pro
3 20 (2.51%) vCenter Server
4 18 (2.26%) Single Sign-On
5 14 (1.76%) SCOM
6 12 (1.51%) Grafana
7 10 (1.25%) Ansible
7 10 (1.25%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 10 (1.25%) Oracle RMAN
8 6 (0.75%) Kubernetes
8 6 (0.75%) Terraform
9 5 (0.63%) Red Hat Satellite
10 3 (0.38%) AirWatch
10 3 (0.38%) Nagios
10 3 (0.38%) Puppet
10 3 (0.38%) vMotion
10 3 (0.38%) vRealize
11 2 (0.25%) ITRS Geneos
11 2 (0.25%) McAfee ePO
Vendors
1 298 (37.39%) Microsoft
2 101 (12.67%) ServiceNow
3 44 (5.52%) VMware
4 32 (4.02%) Apple
5 31 (3.89%) Oracle
6 22 (2.76%) Okta
7 21 (2.63%) Dell
7 21 (2.63%) SAP
8 17 (2.13%) Citrix
9 15 (1.88%) Cisco
9 15 (1.88%) HP
10 14 (1.76%) Google
11 12 (1.51%) BeyondTrust
12 11 (1.38%) Sybase
13 9 (1.13%) McAfee
14 8 (1.00%) Denodo
14 8 (1.00%) Meraki
14 8 (1.00%) Red Hat
14 8 (1.00%) Splunk
14 8 (1.00%) Talend
347 Support Engineer jobs Nationwide