Support Engineer Contract Job Trends

Support Engineer
UK

The median Support Engineer daily rate in the UK is £220, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 24 January 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 146 96
Rank change year-on-year +11 -50 +41
Contract jobs requiring a Support Engineer 807 575 995
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.12% 1.82% 2.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.32% 1.96% 2.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 556 385 717
10th Percentile £151 £150 £140
25th Percentile £185 £182 £180
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £220 £225 £225
Median % change year-on-year -2.22% - -5.26%
75th Percentile £338 £350 £338
90th Percentile £500 £523 £490
UK excluding London median daily rate £208 £220 £205
% change year-on-year -5.68% +7.32% +0.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 116 38 52
10th Percentile £17.14 £15.02 £16.33
25th Percentile £20.30 £19.28 £17.72
Median hourly rate £23.75 £23.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.26% +15.00% +3.63%
75th Percentile £25.15 £27.05 £24.51
90th Percentile £36.00 £41.50 £43.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.04 £23.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +0.16% +15.00% +14.48%

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 34,755 29,351 41,026
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.46% 92.84% 93.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,967 17,954 27,186
10th Percentile £300 £291 £275
25th Percentile £406 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £477 £500
% change year-on-year +0.16% -4.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,062 872 2,014
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.92 £13.41
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.64
Median hourly rate £27.72 £32.50 £38.10
Median % change year-on-year -14.72% -14.69% +9.53%
75th Percentile £60.72 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.98 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.00 £30.98 £40.00
% change year-on-year -16.07% -22.56% +33.33%

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 24 January 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 24 January 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 24 January 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 +9 739 £220 -4.35% 391
UK excluding London +10 567 £208 -5.68% 402
London -4 204 £260 -11.86% 47
South East +16 164 £238 +16.10% 140
South West +21 109 £250 +11.11% 48
North of England -10 109 £195 -12.36% 78
Midlands +3 102 £200 -21.57% 59
Work from Home -31 98 £250 -18.37% 86
West Midlands -21 66 £250 -3.85% 37
North West -7 60 £152 -29.53% 41
East of England 0 52 £200 -9.09% 47
Yorkshire -36 39 £205 -8.89% 29
East Midlands +2 38 £180 -19.10% 22
Scotland -8 30 £200 +26.18% 27
North East -4 10 £106 -48.29% 11
Wales -8 9 £200 - 8
Northern Ireland -7 2 £163 +9.80% 6

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

For the 6 months to 24 January 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.

1 407 (50.43%) Windows
2 300 (37.17%) Microsoft
3 245 (30.36%) Security Cleared
4 235 (29.12%) Microsoft 365
5 221 (27.39%) Active Directory
6 190 (23.54%) SC Cleared
7 169 (20.94%) Windows 10
8 164 (20.32%) Customer Service
9 161 (19.95%) Problem-Solving
10 110 (13.63%) Azure
11 98 (12.14%) Microsoft Intune
12 97 (12.02%) ITIL
13 95 (11.77%) ServiceNow
14 94 (11.65%) Linux
15 77 (9.54%) Migration
16 71 (8.80%) Microsoft Office
17 70 (8.67%) SCCM
18 69 (8.55%) ITSM
19 64 (7.93%) DNS
19 64 (7.93%) Service Management
19 64 (7.93%) SharePoint
20 61 (7.56%) PowerShell
21 59 (7.31%) DHCP
21 59 (7.31%) TCP/IP
21 59 (7.31%) VPN
22 56 (6.94%) DV Cleared
23 54 (6.69%) Android
24 52 (6.44%) Microsoft Exchange
25 51 (6.32%) Asset Management
26 50 (6.20%) Infrastructure Engineering

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 64 (7.93%) SharePoint
2 52 (6.44%) Microsoft Exchange
3 18 (2.23%) Skype for Business
4 5 (0.62%) Exchange Server 2010
4 5 (0.62%) SharePoint Server
5 4 (0.50%) Apache
5 4 (0.50%) Exchange Server 2003
5 4 (0.50%) Exchange Server 2007
5 4 (0.50%) Exchange Server 2013
5 4 (0.50%) Office Communications Server
6 2 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.25%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.25%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.25%) IIS
6 2 (0.25%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.25%) Smallworld
7 1 (0.12%) Confluence
Applications
1 71 (8.80%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.97%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.12%) AutoCAD
4 1 (0.12%) DaVinci Resolve
4 1 (0.12%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.12%) OmniGraffle
4 1 (0.12%) Pro Tools
4 1 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (1.12%) SAP EHS
2 7 (0.87%) Remedy ITSM
2 7 (0.87%) Shopify
3 5 (0.62%) Primavera
4 3 (0.37%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.25%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.12%) assyst
6 1 (0.12%) Bloomberg TOMS
6 1 (0.12%) Eikon
6 1 (0.12%) Fidessa
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.12%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 235 (29.12%) Microsoft 365
2 110 (13.63%) Azure
3 46 (5.70%) Entra ID
4 31 (3.84%) AWS
5 26 (3.22%) OneDrive
5 26 (3.22%) SaaS
6 17 (2.11%) Google Workspace
6 17 (2.11%) Sauce Labs
7 10 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
8 8 (0.99%) Power Platform
9 7 (0.87%) npm
10 5 (0.62%) Azure Data Factory
10 5 (0.62%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (0.50%) Amazon S3
11 4 (0.50%) Microsoft Purview
11 4 (0.50%) OpenShift
12 3 (0.37%) Slack
13 2 (0.25%) Amazon EKS
13 2 (0.25%) Datadog
13 2 (0.25%) Mimecast
Communications & Networking
1 64 (7.93%) DNS
2 59 (7.31%) DHCP
2 59 (7.31%) TCP/IP
2 59 (7.31%) VPN
3 39 (4.83%) Wi-Fi
4 34 (4.21%) Wireless
5 33 (4.09%) Firewall
6 28 (3.47%) WAN
7 22 (2.73%) LAN
8 21 (2.60%) VLAN
9 18 (2.23%) Junos
10 16 (1.98%) Cisco IOS
10 16 (1.98%) MPLS
11 15 (1.86%) Cisco Firepower
11 15 (1.86%) Cisco ISE
11 15 (1.86%) Skype
12 14 (1.73%) BGP
12 14 (1.73%) IPsec
12 14 (1.73%) Network Security
13 13 (1.61%) PABX
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (3.35%) Relational Database
2 23 (2.85%) MySQL
3 13 (1.61%) SQL Server
4 7 (0.87%) Power BI
5 6 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 5 (0.62%) Amazon Redshift
7 4 (0.50%) Amazon Athena
7 4 (0.50%) RDBMS
8 3 (0.37%) InfluxDB
8 3 (0.37%) MariaDB
8 3 (0.37%) Oracle Database
9 2 (0.25%) GIS
9 2 (0.25%) Tableau
10 1 (0.12%) Apache Cassandra
10 1 (0.12%) Azure SQL Database
10 1 (0.12%) Elasticsearch
10 1 (0.12%) Electronic Patient Records
10 1 (0.12%) Oracle ODI
10 1 (0.12%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 24 (2.97%) Browser DevTools
2 17 (2.11%) Android Studio
2 17 (2.11%) Eclipse
2 17 (2.11%) JIRA
2 17 (2.11%) Xcode
3 9 (1.12%) Git
4 7 (0.87%) Maven
5 6 (0.74%) Firebug
6 3 (0.37%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.25%) Fiddler
7 2 (0.25%) MSI
8 1 (0.12%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.12%) ClearCase
8 1 (0.12%) Hudson
General
1 350 (43.37%) Social Skills
2 73 (9.05%) Finance
3 57 (7.06%) Analytical Skills
4 56 (6.94%) Public Sector
5 41 (5.08%) Banking
6 40 (4.96%) Manufacturing
7 29 (3.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 24 (2.97%) Organisational Skills
9 21 (2.60%) Aerospace
9 21 (2.60%) Telecoms
10 15 (1.86%) Investment Banking
11 14 (1.73%) Electronics
11 14 (1.73%) Law
11 14 (1.73%) Marketing
12 13 (1.61%) Front Office
13 9 (1.12%) Aviation
13 9 (1.12%) Documentation Skills
13 9 (1.12%) Legal
14 6 (0.74%) Automotive
15 5 (0.62%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.10%) Middleware
2 24 (2.97%) CSS
3 18 (2.23%) Ajax
3 18 (2.23%) AngularJS
3 18 (2.23%) GraphQL
3 18 (2.23%) React
4 7 (0.87%) XML
5 6 (0.74%) HTML
5 6 (0.74%) PySpark
5 6 (0.74%) REST
6 5 (0.62%) SOAP
6 5 (0.62%) YAML
7 4 (0.50%) JDO
8 3 (0.37%) .NET
9 2 (0.25%) ADO
9 2 (0.25%) EDI
9 2 (0.25%) Kafka
9 2 (0.25%) Microsoft Graph
9 2 (0.25%) OAuth
9 2 (0.25%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 41 (5.08%) Onboarding
2 38 (4.71%) Self-Motivation
3 30 (3.72%) Driving Licence
4 25 (3.10%) PKI
5 24 (2.97%) Smartphone
6 21 (2.60%) Data Centre
7 18 (2.23%) Mobile App
8 17 (2.11%) Data Protection Act
9 14 (1.73%) Analytical Mindset
10 13 (1.61%) Management Information System
11 12 (1.49%) iPhone
12 11 (1.36%) Video Conferencing
13 10 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
13 10 (1.24%) Virtual Team
14 8 (0.99%) Hybrid Cloud
15 7 (0.87%) iPad
15 7 (0.87%) Legacy Systems
16 6 (0.74%) Replication
17 4 (0.50%) Operational Technology
18 3 (0.37%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 407 (50.43%) Windows
2 169 (20.94%) Windows 10
3 94 (11.65%) Linux
4 54 (6.69%) Android
5 49 (6.07%) Windows Server
6 45 (5.58%) Mac OS
7 40 (4.96%) Apple iOS
8 32 (3.97%) Unix
9 12 (1.49%) Ubuntu
10 10 (1.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 10 (1.24%) Windows 7
11 4 (0.50%) CentOS
11 4 (0.50%) Windows Server 2003
11 4 (0.50%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.12%) Mac OS X
14 1 (0.12%) Windows 8
14 1 (0.12%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 164 (20.32%) Customer Service
2 161 (19.95%) Problem-Solving
3 97 (12.02%) ITIL
4 77 (9.54%) Migration
5 69 (8.55%) ITSM
6 64 (7.93%) Service Management
7 51 (6.32%) Asset Management
8 50 (6.20%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 48 (5.95%) Workflow
10 38 (4.71%) Workflow Management
11 36 (4.46%) User Experience
12 31 (3.84%) Root Cause Analysis
13 29 (3.59%) Logistics
13 29 (3.59%) Service Delivery
14 28 (3.47%) Continuous Improvement
14 28 (3.47%) OO
15 25 (3.10%) Cybersecurity
15 25 (3.10%) Stakeholder Management
16 23 (2.85%) Incident Management
17 22 (2.73%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 61 (7.56%) PowerShell
2 39 (4.83%) JavaScript
3 38 (4.71%) Java
4 35 (4.34%) Python
5 28 (3.47%) SQL
6 19 (2.35%) Perl
7 17 (2.11%) Shell Script
8 13 (1.61%) C
8 13 (1.61%) C++
9 12 (1.49%) Ada
10 11 (1.36%) Bash
11 2 (0.25%) AWK
11 2 (0.25%) C#
11 2 (0.25%) Magik
11 2 (0.25%) TypeScript
11 2 (0.25%) VB.NET
12 1 (0.12%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.12%) Tcl
12 1 (0.12%) VBA
12 1 (0.12%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 245 (30.36%) Security Cleared
2 190 (23.54%) SC Cleared
3 56 (6.94%) DV Cleared
4 35 (4.34%) Degree
5 26 (3.22%) Microsoft Certification
6 18 (2.23%) Azure Certification
7 12 (1.49%) Network+ Certification
8 11 (1.36%) Server+ Certification
9 10 (1.24%) A+ Certification
9 10 (1.24%) BPSS Clearance
10 8 (0.99%) DBS Check
10 8 (0.99%) ITIL Certification
11 5 (0.62%) Computer Science Degree
12 4 (0.50%) MCP
13 3 (0.37%) CCNA
13 3 (0.37%) Cisco Certification
13 3 (0.37%) Master's Degree
13 3 (0.37%) MCSE
14 2 (0.25%) CompTIA Security+
14 2 (0.25%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (3.72%) SLA
2 7 (0.87%) GDPR
3 5 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 4 (0.50%) QA
5 2 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.12%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.12%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.12%) GAAP
6 1 (0.12%) IFRS
6 1 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.12%) SOC 2
System Software
1 221 (27.39%) Active Directory
2 30 (3.72%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (2.23%) Hyper-V
4 16 (1.98%) VMware NSX
5 15 (1.86%) Virtual Desktop
6 8 (0.99%) Docker
7 7 (0.87%) Firmware
8 5 (0.62%) vSphere
9 4 (0.50%) Brightmail
9 4 (0.50%) ISA Server
10 3 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.25%) NFS
12 1 (0.12%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
12 1 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
12 1 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.12%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 98 (12.14%) Microsoft Intune
2 70 (8.67%) SCCM
3 29 (3.59%) Jamf Pro
4 21 (2.60%) Ansible
5 18 (2.23%) vCenter Server
6 13 (1.61%) Terraform
7 12 (1.49%) Grafana
8 6 (0.74%) Kubernetes
8 6 (0.74%) Red Hat Satellite
9 5 (0.62%) Kibana
9 5 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
10 4 (0.50%) ITRS Geneos
10 4 (0.50%) Microsoft Clustering
11 3 (0.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.37%) SCOM
12 2 (0.25%) FortiGate
12 2 (0.25%) Prometheus
12 2 (0.25%) WSUS
13 1 (0.12%) logstash
13 1 (0.12%) Nagios
Vendors
1 300 (37.17%) Microsoft
2 95 (11.77%) ServiceNow
3 44 (5.45%) Cisco
3 44 (5.45%) VMware
4 40 (4.96%) Apple
5 38 (4.71%) Oracle
6 29 (3.59%) Juniper
7 27 (3.35%) SAP
8 25 (3.10%) HP
9 21 (2.60%) SolarWinds
10 20 (2.48%) Google
10 20 (2.48%) Splunk
11 19 (2.35%) Dell
11 19 (2.35%) Red Hat
12 14 (1.73%) Citrix
13 10 (1.24%) Bloomberg
14 9 (1.12%) Remedy
15 7 (0.87%) McAfee
15 7 (0.87%) New Relic
15 7 (0.87%) Starlink