Support Engineer Contract Job Trends

Support Engineer
UK

The median Support Engineer daily rate in the UK is £214, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 March 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 155 127 104
Rank change year-on-year -28 -23 +25
Contract jobs requiring a Support Engineer 782 637 931
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.78% 2.19% 2.10%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.93% 2.36% 2.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 535 425 666
10th Percentile £153 £153 £136
25th Percentile £185 £185 £163
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £214 £230 £213
Median % change year-on-year -6.96% +8.24% -15.00%
75th Percentile £350 £385 £300
90th Percentile £500 £500 £413
UK excluding London median daily rate £205 £220 £200
% change year-on-year -6.82% +10.00% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 101 41 58
10th Percentile £18.07 £18.10 £16.18
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.51 £17.56
Median hourly rate £24.00 £23.00 £19.47
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +18.16% -2.68%
75th Percentile £33.73 £24.66 £28.82
90th Percentile £37.50 £41.50 £46.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.58 £22.50 £18.00
% change year-on-year +4.78% +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 40,460 27,000 41,116
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.01% 92.90% 92.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,246 17,765 26,949
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.37%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.68% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,509 917 2,520
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £37.20 £32.50 £32.95
Median % change year-on-year +14.46% -1.36% -24.26%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.52 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £76.25 £72.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £31.76 £32.90
% change year-on-year +18.07% -3.45% -21.30%

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 26 March 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 26 March 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 26 March 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 -31 697 £213 -9.09% 309
UK excluding London -31 538 £205 -6.82% 282
London -43 207 £275 -8.33% 62
South East -22 133 £238 +15.85% 88
North of England -41 118 £190 -13.64% 71
Midlands -26 92 £200 -27.27% 39
South West -16 90 £215 -4.44% 39
Work from Home -84 73 £238 -26.77% 68
North West -32 63 £152 -30.34% 43
East of England -8 58 £203 -8.99% 28
West Midlands -49 57 £270 -10.00% 19
Yorkshire -25 47 £205 -14.58% 24
Scotland +22 41 £250 +57.73% 13
East Midlands -6 36 £200 +5.26% 20
Wales -16 10 £200 +2.56% 5
North East -17 8 £106 -45.64% 7
Northern Ireland -14 2 £175 +18.24% 4

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

For the 6 months to 26 March 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
2 276 (35.29%) Microsoft
3 245 (31.33%) Microsoft 365
4 237 (30.31%) Active Directory
5 206 (26.34%) Security Cleared
6 171 (21.87%) Windows 10
7 168 (21.48%) SC Cleared
8 166 (21.23%) Customer Service
9 138 (17.65%) Problem-Solving
10 116 (14.83%) Azure
11 94 (12.02%) ServiceNow
12 92 (11.76%) Microsoft Intune
13 91 (11.64%) ITIL
14 73 (9.34%) Migration
15 71 (9.08%) PowerShell
16 64 (8.18%) ITSM
17 62 (7.93%) Entra ID
18 59 (7.54%) SharePoint
19 58 (7.42%) Wi-Fi
20 57 (7.29%) DNS
21 52 (6.65%) Asset Management
21 52 (6.65%) Linux
22 51 (6.52%) DHCP
23 50 (6.39%) SCCM
23 50 (6.39%) TCP/IP
24 47 (6.01%) JIRA
24 47 (6.01%) SQL
25 43 (5.50%) Microsoft Office
26 42 (5.37%) VPN
26 42 (5.37%) Workflow

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 59 (7.54%) SharePoint
2 35 (4.48%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.53%) 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 43 (5.50%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (1.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.26%) 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%) Primavera
6 1 (0.13%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 245 (31.33%) Microsoft 365
2 116 (14.83%) Azure
3 62 (7.93%) Entra ID
4 29 (3.71%) OneDrive
5 24 (3.07%) AWS
6 19 (2.43%) Google Workspace
6 19 (2.43%) SaaS
7 18 (2.30%) Azure DevOps
8 11 (1.41%) Dynamics 365
9 9 (1.15%) Power Platform
9 9 (1.15%) Sauce Labs
10 6 (0.77%) Amazon S3
11 5 (0.64%) Azure Data Factory
11 5 (0.64%) npm
11 5 (0.64%) PaaS
12 4 (0.51%) Datadog
12 4 (0.51%) Snowflake
13 3 (0.38%) GCP
13 3 (0.38%) Nutanix
14 2 (0.26%) Amazon OpenSearch
Communications & Networking
1 58 (7.42%) Wi-Fi
2 57 (7.29%) DNS
3 51 (6.52%) DHCP
4 50 (6.39%) TCP/IP
5 42 (5.37%) VPN
6 37 (4.73%) LAN
7 29 (3.71%) WAN
8 25 (3.20%) Firewall
9 20 (2.56%) Wireless
10 14 (1.79%) Network Security
10 14 (1.79%) Skype
11 13 (1.66%) Internet
11 13 (1.66%) SAN
12 10 (1.28%) VLAN
12 10 (1.28%) VoIP
13 7 (0.90%) Cisco IOS
13 7 (0.90%) Cisco ISE
13 7 (0.90%) HTTP
13 7 (0.90%) Junos
13 7 (0.90%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (2.94%) SQL Server
2 18 (2.30%) MySQL
3 14 (1.79%) Relational Database
4 12 (1.53%) Amazon Redshift
5 9 (1.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 7 (0.90%) 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 14 (1.79%) Browser DevTools
4 9 (1.15%) Android Studio
4 9 (1.15%) Eclipse
4 9 (1.15%) Xcode
5 5 (0.64%) Maven
6 3 (0.38%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.26%) Firebug
7 2 (0.26%) MSI
8 1 (0.13%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.13%) Fiddler
8 1 (0.13%) Hudson
8 1 (0.13%) RStudio
8 1 (0.13%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 1 (0.13%) Subversion
General
1 332 (42.46%) Social Skills
2 63 (8.06%) Finance
3 58 (7.42%) Analytical Skills
4 50 (6.39%) Manufacturing
5 38 (4.86%) Banking
6 32 (4.09%) Public Sector
7 28 (3.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 23 (2.94%) Aerospace
8 23 (2.94%) Organisational Skills
9 15 (1.92%) Aviation
9 15 (1.92%) Investment Banking
9 15 (1.92%) Telecoms
10 10 (1.28%) Electronics
10 10 (1.28%) Marketing
11 9 (1.15%) Law
11 9 (1.15%) Legal
12 8 (1.02%) Front Office
13 7 (0.90%) Documentation Skills
14 4 (0.51%) Advertising
15 3 (0.38%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (1.66%) Middleware
2 11 (1.41%) CSS
3 9 (1.15%) Ajax
3 9 (1.15%) AngularJS
3 9 (1.15%) GraphQL
3 9 (1.15%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 9 (1.15%) React
4 6 (0.77%) SAP Basis
5 5 (0.64%) REST
5 5 (0.64%) YAML
6 4 (0.51%) .NET
6 4 (0.51%) JDO
6 4 (0.51%) OAuth
6 4 (0.51%) PySpark
6 4 (0.51%) SAML
7 3 (0.38%) HTML
7 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Graph
8 2 (0.26%) Node.js
8 2 (0.26%) Software Packaging
8 2 (0.26%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 52 (6.65%) Onboarding
2 34 (4.35%) Self-Motivation
3 29 (3.71%) Driving Licence
4 27 (3.45%) Data Centre
5 18 (2.30%) Analytical Mindset
6 17 (2.17%) Smartphone
7 14 (1.79%) PKI
8 12 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
8 12 (1.53%) iPhone
8 12 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
8 12 (1.53%) Virtual Team
9 11 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
10 10 (1.28%) SCADA
11 9 (1.15%) Mobile App
12 8 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
13 7 (0.90%) Management Information System
14 6 (0.77%) iPad
15 5 (0.64%) Video Conferencing
16 4 (0.51%) Hedge funds
17 3 (0.38%) CCTV
Operating Systems
1 373 (47.70%) Windows
2 171 (21.87%) Windows 10
3 52 (6.65%) Linux
4 41 (5.24%) Windows Server
5 40 (5.12%) Android
6 39 (4.99%) Mac OS
7 33 (4.22%) Unix
8 31 (3.96%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.90%) Windows Server 2016
10 6 (0.77%) Windows 7
11 4 (0.51%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 2 (0.26%) CentOS
13 2 (0.26%) Mac OS X
13 2 (0.26%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.13%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 166 (21.23%) Customer Service
2 138 (17.65%) Problem-Solving
3 91 (11.64%) ITIL
4 73 (9.34%) Migration
5 64 (8.18%) ITSM
6 52 (6.65%) Asset Management
7 42 (5.37%) Workflow
8 39 (4.99%) User Experience
9 37 (4.73%) Service Management
10 34 (4.35%) Workflow Management
11 32 (4.09%) Root Cause Analysis
12 31 (3.96%) Change Management
12 31 (3.96%) Continuous Improvement
13 29 (3.71%) Logistics
14 28 (3.58%) Incident Management
14 28 (3.58%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 26 (3.32%) DevOps
16 25 (3.20%) Break/Fix
16 25 (3.20%) Service Delivery
16 25 (3.20%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 71 (9.08%) PowerShell
2 47 (6.01%) SQL
3 31 (3.96%) Python
4 25 (3.20%) Java
5 19 (2.43%) JavaScript
6 18 (2.30%) C#
6 18 (2.30%) Shell Script
7 11 (1.41%) Bash
7 11 (1.41%) 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
1 206 (26.34%) Security Cleared
2 168 (21.48%) SC Cleared
3 40 (5.12%) DV Cleared
4 30 (3.84%) Degree
5 23 (2.94%) Microsoft Certification
6 17 (2.17%) A+ Certification
7 15 (1.92%) CCNA
7 15 (1.92%) Cisco Certification
8 13 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
8 13 (1.66%) Network+ Certification
9 12 (1.53%) MCSE
10 7 (0.90%) ITIL Certification
11 6 (0.77%) Azure Certification
12 4 (0.51%) Computer Science Degree
12 4 (0.51%) DBS Check
13 3 (0.38%) Master's Degree
14 2 (0.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 2 (0.26%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 1 (0.13%) HND
15 1 (0.13%) MCSA
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%) IFRS
6 1 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.13%) SOC 2
System Software
1 237 (30.31%) Active Directory
2 18 (2.30%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (1.28%) Hyper-V
3 10 (1.28%) VMware NSX
4 9 (1.15%) Oracle RAC
4 9 (1.15%) Virtual Desktop
5 8 (1.02%) 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 92 (11.76%) Microsoft Intune
2 50 (6.39%) SCCM
3 25 (3.20%) Jamf Pro
4 16 (2.05%) Grafana
5 13 (1.66%) Ansible
6 11 (1.41%) Terraform
7 10 (1.28%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.15%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 9 (1.15%) Oracle RMAN
9 8 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
10 5 (0.64%) Kubernetes
11 4 (0.51%) Kibana
12 2 (0.26%) McAfee ePO
12 2 (0.26%) PaperCut
12 2 (0.26%) Prometheus
12 2 (0.26%) WMI
12 2 (0.26%) WSUS
13 1 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 1 (0.13%) AirWatch
13 1 (0.13%) vRealize
Vendors
1 276 (35.29%) Microsoft
2 94 (12.02%) ServiceNow
3 36 (4.60%) Oracle
4 33 (4.22%) SAP
5 28 (3.58%) Dell
6 25 (3.20%) Cisco
7 23 (2.94%) VMware
8 22 (2.81%) Apple
9 20 (2.56%) HP
10 19 (2.43%) Google
11 14 (1.79%) Juniper
12 13 (1.66%) Splunk
13 10 (1.28%) Bloomberg
13 10 (1.28%) Remedy
13 10 (1.28%) SolarWinds
14 9 (1.15%) McAfee
15 8 (1.02%) Citrix
15 8 (1.02%) Starlink
16 7 (0.90%) Denodo
16 7 (0.90%) Talend