Support Engineer Contract Job Trends

Support Engineer
UK

The median Support Engineer daily rate in the UK is £210, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 May 2026.

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

6 months to
13 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 171 130 116
Rank change year-on-year -41 -14 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Support Engineer 734 627 838
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.56% 2.16% 1.96%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.68% 2.34% 2.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 494 399 585
10th Percentile £151 £152 £140
25th Percentile £183 £188 £163
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £210 £235 £210
Median % change year-on-year -10.64% +11.90% -16.00%
75th Percentile £356 £385 £300
90th Percentile £470 £500 £441
UK excluding London median daily rate £203 £225 £200
% change year-on-year -10.00% +12.50% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 79 54 52
10th Percentile £17.88 £18.13 £16.25
25th Percentile £21.25 £21.00 £17.54
Median hourly rate £23.83 £24.66 £20.82
Median % change year-on-year -3.39% +18.47% +4.08%
75th Percentile £36.00 £35.63 £29.06
90th Percentile £37.75 £68.00 £46.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £24.58 £18.13
% change year-on-year -8.46% +35.58% -3.31%

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 43,568 26,796 39,671
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.30% 92.46% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,699 17,460 25,789
10th Percentile £320 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +4.21% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,848 1,033 2,665
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.20 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.85 £28.18 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.59% -24.85% -16.67%
75th Percentile £66.50 £62.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.26
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £27.24 £40.00
% change year-on-year +65.21% -31.91% -4.94%

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 13 May 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 13 May 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 13 May 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 -46 648 £210 -12.50% 312
UK excluding London -43 496 £203 -10.00% 288
London -47 205 £275 -6.78% 61
South East -25 133 £210 -16.00% 95
North of England -69 94 £190 -11.63% 70
Midlands -33 86 £200 -23.81% 45
Work from Home -67 82 £208 -30.83% 69
South West -37 73 £210 -10.64% 32
East of England -11 58 £200 -10.11% 32
North West -33 58 £183 -15.12% 39
West Midlands -58 52 £250 -9.09% 29
Scotland +29 46 £394 +162.33% 13
East Midlands -1 35 £200 -5.88% 16
Yorkshire -39 35 £190 -19.15% 24
Wales -16 9 £250 +28.21% 1
Northern Ireland -6 3 £175 +18.24% 2
North East -32 1 - - 10

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

For the 6 months to 13 May 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.

1 325 (44.28%) Windows
2 255 (34.74%) Microsoft
3 238 (32.43%) Active Directory
4 229 (31.20%) Microsoft 365
5 152 (20.71%) Windows 10
6 146 (19.89%) Customer Service
6 146 (19.89%) Security Cleared
7 136 (18.53%) Problem-Solving
8 131 (17.85%) Azure
9 114 (15.53%) SC Cleared
10 100 (13.62%) ITIL
11 94 (12.81%) Microsoft Intune
12 83 (11.31%) ServiceNow
13 76 (10.35%) Entra ID
14 57 (7.77%) Migration
15 55 (7.49%) ITSM
15 55 (7.49%) PowerShell
16 52 (7.08%) SharePoint
16 52 (7.08%) SQL
17 51 (6.95%) JIRA
18 45 (6.13%) DNS
19 44 (5.99%) Wi-Fi
20 43 (5.86%) Linux
20 43 (5.86%) SCCM
21 39 (5.31%) Mac OS
22 38 (5.18%) Continuous Improvement
22 38 (5.18%) Degree
22 38 (5.18%) Unix
23 37 (5.04%) Windows Server
24 36 (4.90%) VPN

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 52 (7.08%) SharePoint
2 24 (3.27%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (1.09%) NetWeaver
4 4 (0.54%) Confluence
4 4 (0.54%) IIS
5 3 (0.41%) HCL Notes
5 3 (0.41%) Skype for Business
6 2 (0.27%) Apache
6 2 (0.27%) OpenStack
6 2 (0.27%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.14%) Tuxedo
7 1 (0.14%) WebSphere
Applications
1 33 (4.50%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (1.63%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 9 (1.23%) SAP EHS
2 7 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (0.95%) Shopify
3 6 (0.82%) Remedy ITSM
3 6 (0.82%) Teamcenter
4 2 (0.27%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.14%) Alphatax
5 1 (0.14%) assyst
5 1 (0.14%) Bloomberg TOMS
5 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.14%) Dynamics GP
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.14%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 229 (31.20%) Microsoft 365
2 131 (17.85%) Azure
3 76 (10.35%) Entra ID
4 25 (3.41%) AWS
5 22 (3.00%) Azure DevOps
6 21 (2.86%) OneDrive
6 21 (2.86%) SaaS
7 12 (1.63%) Power Platform
8 11 (1.50%) Dynamics 365
9 10 (1.36%) GCP
10 7 (0.95%) Google Workspace
11 6 (0.82%) Amazon S3
11 6 (0.82%) PaaS
11 6 (0.82%) Sauce Labs
12 5 (0.68%) Azure Data Factory
13 4 (0.54%) Datadog
13 4 (0.54%) Mimecast
13 4 (0.54%) Snowflake
14 3 (0.41%) GitHub
14 3 (0.41%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 45 (6.13%) DNS
2 44 (5.99%) Wi-Fi
3 36 (4.90%) VPN
4 35 (4.77%) DHCP
5 34 (4.63%) LAN
6 30 (4.09%) TCP/IP
7 21 (2.86%) WAN
8 19 (2.59%) SAN
9 15 (2.04%) Firewall
10 12 (1.63%) Internet
11 10 (1.36%) Wireless
12 9 (1.23%) VLAN
13 7 (0.95%) HTTP
13 7 (0.95%) WLAN
14 6 (0.82%) VoIP
15 5 (0.68%) Skype
16 4 (0.54%) Network Security
16 4 (0.54%) Unified Communications
17 3 (0.41%) AMQP
17 3 (0.41%) Softphone
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (3.41%) SQL Server
2 20 (2.72%) MySQL
3 14 (1.91%) Relational Database
4 13 (1.77%) Amazon Redshift
5 10 (1.36%) Power BI
6 9 (1.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 8 (1.09%) SAP HANA
8 7 (0.95%) Pentaho
8 7 (0.95%) Sybase ASE
9 6 (0.82%) MaxDB
10 5 (0.68%) Oracle Database
11 4 (0.54%) Amazon Athena
11 4 (0.54%) Oracle Database 12c
11 4 (0.54%) PostgreSQL
12 3 (0.41%) MariaDB
13 2 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
13 2 (0.27%) Data Warehouse
13 2 (0.27%) InfluxDB
13 2 (0.27%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 1 (0.14%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 51 (6.95%) JIRA
2 20 (2.72%) Git
3 13 (1.77%) Browser DevTools
4 6 (0.82%) Android Studio
4 6 (0.82%) Eclipse
4 6 (0.82%) Xcode
5 3 (0.41%) Firebug
5 3 (0.41%) Maven
6 2 (0.27%) Jenkins
7 1 (0.14%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.14%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.14%) Gemini Tracker
7 1 (0.14%) MSI
7 1 (0.14%) RStudio
7 1 (0.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.14%) Subversion
7 1 (0.14%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 287 (39.10%) Social Skills
2 76 (10.35%) Analytical Skills
3 48 (6.54%) Manufacturing
4 44 (5.99%) Finance
5 32 (4.36%) Banking
6 22 (3.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 21 (2.86%) Aerospace
8 16 (2.18%) Aviation
8 16 (2.18%) Investment Banking
8 16 (2.18%) Law
9 11 (1.50%) Organisational Skills
9 11 (1.50%) Public Sector
10 9 (1.23%) Documentation Skills
10 9 (1.23%) Legal
11 8 (1.09%) Front Office
12 7 (0.95%) Retail
12 7 (0.95%) Telecoms
13 6 (0.82%) French Language
14 4 (0.54%) Advertising
14 4 (0.54%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (1.36%) Oracle GoldenGate
2 9 (1.23%) CSS
3 8 (1.09%) REST
4 7 (0.95%) JDO
4 7 (0.95%) SAP Basis
5 6 (0.82%) .NET
5 6 (0.82%) Ajax
5 6 (0.82%) AngularJS
5 6 (0.82%) GraphQL
5 6 (0.82%) React
6 5 (0.68%) Middleware
6 5 (0.68%) PySpark
6 5 (0.68%) SAML
6 5 (0.68%) YAML
7 4 (0.54%) HTML
7 4 (0.54%) OAuth
8 3 (0.41%) JSP
8 3 (0.41%) LDAP
8 3 (0.41%) Web Services
8 3 (0.41%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 50 (6.81%) Onboarding
2 30 (4.09%) Data Centre
3 25 (3.41%) Self-Motivation
4 23 (3.13%) Analytical Mindset
5 17 (2.32%) Driving Licence
6 14 (1.91%) Smartphone
7 12 (1.63%) Enterprise Software
7 12 (1.63%) PKI
7 12 (1.63%) Virtual Team
8 11 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
8 11 (1.50%) iPhone
9 10 (1.36%) SCADA
10 9 (1.23%) Legacy Systems
11 8 (1.09%) Hybrid Cloud
12 7 (0.95%) Video Conferencing
13 6 (0.82%) Mobile App
14 4 (0.54%) CCTV
14 4 (0.54%) iPad
14 4 (0.54%) Management Information System
15 3 (0.41%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 325 (44.28%) Windows
2 152 (20.71%) Windows 10
3 43 (5.86%) Linux
4 39 (5.31%) Mac OS
5 38 (5.18%) Unix
6 37 (5.04%) Windows Server
7 23 (3.13%) Android
8 20 (2.72%) Apple iOS
9 14 (1.91%) Windows 7
10 6 (0.82%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.41%) Mac OS X
11 3 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.41%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 2 (0.27%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.14%) CentOS
13 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.14%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (19.89%) Customer Service
2 136 (18.53%) Problem-Solving
3 100 (13.62%) ITIL
4 57 (7.77%) Migration
5 55 (7.49%) ITSM
6 38 (5.18%) Continuous Improvement
7 35 (4.77%) Asset Management
8 34 (4.63%) Root Cause Analysis
9 33 (4.50%) Change Management
9 33 (4.50%) User Experience
10 32 (4.36%) DevOps
11 30 (4.09%) Incident Management
12 28 (3.81%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 27 (3.68%) Service Management
14 26 (3.54%) Break/Fix
14 26 (3.54%) Service Delivery
15 23 (3.13%) Problem Management
15 23 (3.13%) Workflow
16 22 (3.00%) CI/CD
16 22 (3.00%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 55 (7.49%) PowerShell
2 52 (7.08%) SQL
3 28 (3.81%) Python
4 21 (2.86%) Java
5 20 (2.72%) C#
6 19 (2.59%) JavaScript
7 15 (2.04%) Shell Script
8 10 (1.36%) Korn
8 10 (1.36%) Perl
9 8 (1.09%) Bash
10 2 (0.27%) C++
11 1 (0.14%) C
11 1 (0.14%) R
11 1 (0.14%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.14%) VB.NET
11 1 (0.14%) VBA
11 1 (0.14%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 146 (19.89%) Security Cleared
2 114 (15.53%) SC Cleared
3 38 (5.18%) Degree
4 25 (3.41%) DV Cleared
5 24 (3.27%) Microsoft Certification
6 22 (3.00%) A+ Certification
7 20 (2.72%) CCNA
7 20 (2.72%) Cisco Certification
8 16 (2.18%) MCSE
8 16 (2.18%) Network+ Certification
9 15 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
10 10 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
11 9 (1.23%) Azure Certification
12 7 (0.95%) DBS Check
13 6 (0.82%) ITIL Certification
14 3 (0.41%) NVQ Level 4
15 2 (0.27%) Master's Degree
16 1 (0.14%) AWS Certification
16 1 (0.14%) CompTIA Security+
16 1 (0.14%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (3.95%) SLA
2 5 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
3 4 (0.54%) GDPR
4 3 (0.41%) Data Quality
4 3 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.27%) GLP
5 2 (0.27%) GMP
6 1 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.14%) GRC
6 1 (0.14%) GxP
6 1 (0.14%) ITGC
6 1 (0.14%) QA
6 1 (0.14%) SOC 2
System Software
1 238 (32.43%) Active Directory
2 22 (3.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (1.63%) Hyper-V
4 10 (1.36%) Oracle RAC
5 8 (1.09%) Virtual Desktop
5 8 (1.09%) VMware NSX
6 6 (0.82%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.68%) vSphere
8 4 (0.54%) Firmware
9 3 (0.41%) vCloud
10 2 (0.27%) Docker
10 2 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.14%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.14%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 94 (12.81%) Microsoft Intune
2 43 (5.86%) SCCM
3 17 (2.32%) Jamf Pro
4 16 (2.18%) Grafana
4 16 (2.18%) Single Sign-On
5 10 (1.36%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
5 10 (1.36%) Oracle RMAN
5 10 (1.36%) Terraform
6 9 (1.23%) Ansible
7 6 (0.82%) vCenter Server
8 5 (0.68%) Kubernetes
9 3 (0.41%) Kibana
9 3 (0.41%) SCOM
9 3 (0.41%) vRealize
10 2 (0.27%) AirWatch
10 2 (0.27%) McAfee ePO
10 2 (0.27%) PaperCut
10 2 (0.27%) Prometheus
10 2 (0.27%) WMI
11 1 (0.14%) Autotask
Vendors
1 255 (34.74%) Microsoft
2 83 (11.31%) ServiceNow
3 34 (4.63%) Oracle
4 28 (3.81%) Dell
5 25 (3.41%) VMware
6 24 (3.27%) SAP
7 21 (2.86%) Apple
8 18 (2.45%) HP
9 17 (2.32%) Cisco
10 13 (1.77%) Google
11 11 (1.50%) Okta
12 10 (1.36%) McAfee
13 9 (1.23%) Bloomberg
14 8 (1.09%) Denodo
14 8 (1.09%) Remedy
14 8 (1.09%) Splunk
14 8 (1.09%) Starlink
14 8 (1.09%) Talend
15 7 (0.95%) Citrix
15 7 (0.95%) Sybase