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 10 March 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 143 136 105
Rank change year-on-year -7 -31 +26
Contract jobs requiring a Support Engineer 821 606 963
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.94% 2.05% 2.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.10% 2.20% 2.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 550 409 681
10th Percentile £152 £153 £136
25th Percentile £185 £181 £163
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £213 £225 £215
Median % change year-on-year -5.22% +4.65% -14.00%
75th Percentile £350 £375 £300
90th Percentile £500 £500 £413
UK excluding London median daily rate £207 £215 £200
% change year-on-year -3.72% +7.50% -5.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 118 38 60
10th Percentile £17.79 £16.67 £16.23
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.33 £17.67
Median hourly rate £24.00 £22.50 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% +12.50% +3.63%
75th Percentile £29.72 £24.54 £30.00
90th Percentile £43.03 £41.50 £46.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.58 £22.50 £20.00
% change year-on-year +4.78% +12.50% +14.29%

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 39,016 27,486 41,551
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.96% 92.97% 92.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,419 17,729 27,243
10th Percentile £310 £293 £270
25th Percentile £410 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.46%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.16% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,405 862 2,505
10th Percentile £14.91 £15.64 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.24 £16.25
Median hourly rate £35.00 £33.20 £32.69
Median % change year-on-year +5.42% +1.56% -22.84%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.10 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.75 £32.50 £32.70
% change year-on-year +3.85% -0.60% -18.26%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -4 739 £213 -7.61% 314
UK excluding London -5 569 £207 -3.72% 307
London -21 215 £275 -6.78% 60
South East -5 143 £238 +15.85% 108
North of England -30 118 £190 -13.64% 77
South West +2 110 £250 +11.11% 35
Midlands -16 96 £200 - 28
Work from Home -61 81 £270 -13.94% 83
North West -19 63 £152 -29.53% 44
East of England -7 58 £203 -7.95% 33
West Midlands -39 57 £225 -10.00% 17
Yorkshire -30 46 £205 -11.83% 27
East Midlands -2 40 £200 +5.26% 11
Scotland +16 39 £225 +50.00% 22
Wales -9 10 £200 - 6
North East -15 9 £106 -39.43% 10
Northern Ireland -12 2 £175 +18.24% 7

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

For the 6 months to 10 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.

1 388 (47.26%) Windows
2 286 (34.84%) Microsoft
3 250 (30.45%) Microsoft 365
4 239 (29.11%) Security Cleared
5 227 (27.65%) Active Directory
6 192 (23.39%) SC Cleared
7 173 (21.07%) Windows 10
8 164 (19.98%) Customer Service
9 146 (17.78%) Problem-Solving
10 109 (13.28%) Azure
11 106 (12.91%) ServiceNow
12 95 (11.57%) ITIL
13 90 (10.96%) Microsoft Intune
14 78 (9.50%) Migration
15 76 (9.26%) PowerShell
16 70 (8.53%) Linux
17 64 (7.80%) ITSM
18 61 (7.43%) DNS
19 60 (7.31%) SCCM
20 58 (7.06%) SharePoint
21 57 (6.94%) Wi-Fi
22 55 (6.70%) Asset Management
22 55 (6.70%) Entra ID
22 55 (6.70%) TCP/IP
23 54 (6.58%) DHCP
24 52 (6.33%) Microsoft Office
25 48 (5.85%) Workflow
26 47 (5.72%) DV Cleared
26 47 (5.72%) Mac OS
27 46 (5.60%) 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 58 (7.06%) SharePoint
2 42 (5.12%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (1.83%) Skype for Business
4 4 (0.49%) Apache
4 4 (0.49%) Confluence
4 4 (0.49%) NetWeaver
5 2 (0.24%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.24%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.24%) ArcGIS
5 2 (0.24%) IIS
5 2 (0.24%) Jupyter
5 2 (0.24%) Smallworld
5 2 (0.24%) WebLogic
6 1 (0.12%) Tuxedo
6 1 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 52 (6.33%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (2.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (1.10%) SAP EHS
2 8 (0.97%) Remedy ITSM
3 7 (0.85%) Shopify
4 6 (0.73%) Teamcenter
5 4 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
6 3 (0.37%) Primavera
7 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.12%) Alphatax
7 1 (0.12%) assyst
7 1 (0.12%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.12%) Dynamics CRM
7 1 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
7 1 (0.12%) Eikon
7 1 (0.12%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.12%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 250 (30.45%) Microsoft 365
2 109 (13.28%) Azure
3 55 (6.70%) Entra ID
4 35 (4.26%) OneDrive
5 26 (3.17%) AWS
6 23 (2.80%) SaaS
7 19 (2.31%) Google Workspace
8 15 (1.83%) Azure DevOps
9 12 (1.46%) Sauce Labs
10 11 (1.34%) Dynamics 365
10 11 (1.34%) Power Platform
11 7 (0.85%) npm
12 5 (0.61%) Amazon S3
12 5 (0.61%) Azure Data Factory
12 5 (0.61%) PaaS
13 4 (0.49%) OpenShift
13 4 (0.49%) Snowflake
14 3 (0.37%) GCP
14 3 (0.37%) Nutanix
14 3 (0.37%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 61 (7.43%) DNS
2 57 (6.94%) Wi-Fi
3 55 (6.70%) TCP/IP
4 54 (6.58%) DHCP
5 46 (5.60%) VPN
6 37 (4.51%) LAN
7 27 (3.29%) Firewall
7 27 (3.29%) WAN
8 25 (3.05%) Wireless
9 16 (1.95%) Skype
10 13 (1.58%) Network Security
10 13 (1.58%) PABX
10 13 (1.58%) VLAN
11 12 (1.46%) SAN
12 11 (1.34%) Internet
13 10 (1.22%) VoIP
14 9 (1.10%) HTTP
15 7 (0.85%) AMQP
15 7 (0.85%) Junos
15 7 (0.85%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (2.56%) SQL Server
2 18 (2.19%) MySQL
2 18 (2.19%) Relational Database
3 9 (1.10%) Amazon Redshift
3 9 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 8 (0.97%) Power BI
5 7 (0.85%) Oracle Database
6 4 (0.49%) Amazon Athena
6 4 (0.49%) Oracle Database 12c
6 4 (0.49%) RDBMS
6 4 (0.49%) SAP HANA
6 4 (0.49%) Sybase ASE
7 3 (0.37%) InfluxDB
7 3 (0.37%) MaxDB
7 3 (0.37%) Pentaho
7 3 (0.37%) Tableau
8 2 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.24%) GIS
8 2 (0.24%) PostgreSQL
9 1 (0.12%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 42 (5.12%) JIRA
2 19 (2.31%) Browser DevTools
3 13 (1.58%) Git
4 12 (1.46%) Android Studio
4 12 (1.46%) Eclipse
4 12 (1.46%) Xcode
5 7 (0.85%) Maven
6 4 (0.49%) Firebug
7 3 (0.37%) Jenkins
7 3 (0.37%) MSI
8 2 (0.24%) Fiddler
9 1 (0.12%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.12%) ClearCase
9 1 (0.12%) Hudson
9 1 (0.12%) RStudio
9 1 (0.12%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 348 (42.39%) Social Skills
2 66 (8.04%) Finance
3 59 (7.19%) Analytical Skills
4 53 (6.46%) Manufacturing
5 44 (5.36%) Public Sector
6 40 (4.87%) Banking
7 28 (3.41%) Organisational Skills
8 27 (3.29%) Aerospace
9 25 (3.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 18 (2.19%) Telecoms
11 16 (1.95%) Aviation
11 16 (1.95%) Investment Banking
12 13 (1.58%) Electronics
12 13 (1.58%) Marketing
13 11 (1.34%) Law
14 9 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
14 9 (1.10%) Legal
15 7 (0.85%) Front Office
16 4 (0.49%) Advertising
16 4 (0.49%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (2.56%) Middleware
2 16 (1.95%) CSS
3 12 (1.46%) Ajax
3 12 (1.46%) AngularJS
3 12 (1.46%) GraphQL
3 12 (1.46%) React
4 9 (1.10%) Oracle GoldenGate
5 6 (0.73%) REST
6 5 (0.61%) OAuth
6 5 (0.61%) YAML
7 4 (0.49%) HTML
7 4 (0.49%) JDO
7 4 (0.49%) Microsoft Graph
7 4 (0.49%) PySpark
7 4 (0.49%) SAML
7 4 (0.49%) SAP Basis
7 4 (0.49%) SOAP
7 4 (0.49%) XML
8 3 (0.37%) .NET
9 2 (0.24%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 50 (6.09%) Onboarding
2 40 (4.87%) Self-Motivation
3 30 (3.65%) Data Centre
3 30 (3.65%) Driving Licence
4 24 (2.92%) Smartphone
5 17 (2.07%) Analytical Mindset
6 14 (1.71%) PKI
7 13 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
8 12 (1.46%) Mobile App
8 12 (1.46%) Virtual Team
9 11 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
9 11 (1.34%) iPhone
9 11 (1.34%) SCADA
10 9 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
11 8 (0.97%) Hybrid Cloud
11 8 (0.97%) Management Information System
11 8 (0.97%) Video Conferencing
12 6 (0.73%) iPad
13 4 (0.49%) Hedge funds
14 3 (0.37%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 388 (47.26%) Windows
2 173 (21.07%) Windows 10
3 70 (8.53%) Linux
4 47 (5.72%) Mac OS
5 46 (5.60%) Android
6 40 (4.87%) Windows Server
7 36 (4.38%) Unix
8 33 (4.02%) Apple iOS
9 12 (1.46%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 7 (0.85%) Windows Server 2016
11 6 (0.73%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.49%) CentOS
12 4 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.12%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.12%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 164 (19.98%) Customer Service
2 146 (17.78%) Problem-Solving
3 95 (11.57%) ITIL
4 78 (9.50%) Migration
5 64 (7.80%) ITSM
6 55 (6.70%) Asset Management
7 48 (5.85%) Workflow
8 38 (4.63%) Service Management
8 38 (4.63%) User Experience
8 38 (4.63%) Workflow Management
9 35 (4.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 33 (4.02%) Root Cause Analysis
11 30 (3.65%) Service Delivery
12 29 (3.53%) Continuous Improvement
13 28 (3.41%) Break/Fix
13 28 (3.41%) Logistics
13 28 (3.41%) Stakeholder Management
14 25 (3.05%) Change Management
14 25 (3.05%) Cybersecurity
15 24 (2.92%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 76 (9.26%) PowerShell
2 46 (5.60%) SQL
3 34 (4.14%) Java
3 34 (4.14%) Python
4 31 (3.78%) JavaScript
5 28 (3.41%) Shell Script
6 15 (1.83%) C#
7 14 (1.71%) Bash
7 14 (1.71%) Perl
8 13 (1.58%) C
8 13 (1.58%) C++
9 12 (1.46%) Ada
10 9 (1.10%) Korn
11 3 (0.37%) VB.NET
12 2 (0.24%) AWK
12 2 (0.24%) Magik
12 2 (0.24%) VBA
12 2 (0.24%) VBScript
13 1 (0.12%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.12%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 239 (29.11%) Security Cleared
2 192 (23.39%) SC Cleared
3 47 (5.72%) DV Cleared
4 28 (3.41%) Degree
5 27 (3.29%) Microsoft Certification
6 16 (1.95%) A+ Certification
7 14 (1.71%) Network+ Certification
8 13 (1.58%) BPSS Clearance
8 13 (1.58%) CCNA
8 13 (1.58%) Cisco Certification
9 12 (1.46%) MCSE
10 8 (0.97%) Azure Certification
11 7 (0.85%) DBS Check
12 6 (0.73%) ITIL Certification
13 4 (0.49%) Computer Science Degree
14 3 (0.37%) Master's Degree
14 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 3 (0.37%) Server+ Certification
15 1 (0.12%) HND
15 1 (0.12%) MCITP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (4.26%) SLA
2 9 (1.10%) GDPR
3 4 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (0.37%) Data Quality
4 3 (0.37%) QA
5 2 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.12%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.12%) GAAP
6 1 (0.12%) GLP
6 1 (0.12%) GMP
6 1 (0.12%) IFRS
6 1 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.12%) SOC 2
System Software
1 227 (27.65%) Active Directory
2 22 (2.68%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (1.46%) Hyper-V
4 11 (1.34%) Virtual Desktop
5 9 (1.10%) Oracle RAC
5 9 (1.10%) VMware NSX
6 8 (0.97%) Firmware
7 7 (0.85%) Docker
8 3 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
8 3 (0.37%) vSphere
9 2 (0.24%) NFS
10 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 1 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.12%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 90 (10.96%) Microsoft Intune
2 60 (7.31%) SCCM
3 28 (3.41%) Jamf Pro
4 15 (1.83%) Ansible
4 15 (1.83%) Grafana
5 12 (1.46%) Terraform
6 9 (1.10%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 9 (1.10%) Oracle RMAN
6 9 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
6 9 (1.10%) vCenter Server
7 5 (0.61%) Kubernetes
8 4 (0.49%) Kibana
9 2 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.24%) McAfee ePO
9 2 (0.24%) Prometheus
9 2 (0.24%) Red Hat Satellite
9 2 (0.24%) WMI
9 2 (0.24%) WSUS
10 1 (0.12%) Autotask
10 1 (0.12%) ITRS Geneos
Vendors
1 286 (34.84%) Microsoft
2 106 (12.91%) ServiceNow
3 42 (5.12%) Oracle
4 34 (4.14%) SAP
5 33 (4.02%) Apple
6 30 (3.65%) VMware
7 29 (3.53%) Dell
8 28 (3.41%) Cisco
9 21 (2.56%) HP
10 20 (2.44%) Google
11 15 (1.83%) Red Hat
11 15 (1.83%) Splunk
12 14 (1.71%) Juniper
13 13 (1.58%) Twitter
14 12 (1.46%) Citrix
15 11 (1.34%) Remedy
16 10 (1.22%) SolarWinds
17 9 (1.10%) Bloomberg
18 8 (0.97%) Zscaler
19 6 (0.73%) New Relic