Systems Engineer Contract Job Trends

System Engineer
UK

The median System Engineer daily rate in the UK is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 31 August 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 236 360 259
Rank change year-on-year +124 -101 +94
Contract jobs requiring a Systems Engineer 591 208 363
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.10% 0.63% 0.94%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.19% 0.69% 1.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 135 65 77
10th Percentile £278 £327 £313
25th Percentile £391 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -17.43%
75th Percentile £533 £575 £538
90th Percentile £668 £623 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £425
% change year-on-year - +11.76% -17.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 299 58 130
10th Percentile £46.61 £44.94 £39.21
25th Percentile £56.74 £48.44 £44.94
Median hourly rate £67.00 £56.24 £62.58
Median % change year-on-year +19.13% -10.13% +10.78%
75th Percentile £74.25 £73.25 £70.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.24 £76.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £56.44 £65.00
% change year-on-year +19.60% -13.17% +15.06%

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 49,691 30,076 35,928
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.46% 91.26% 93.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,638 19,002 22,670
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,580 1,568 1,839
10th Percentile £14.96 £13.73 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.51 £17.00 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.96%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.78 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.41 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £44.04
% change year-on-year +68.99% -42.89% +13.95%

Systems Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Systems Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Systems Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Systems Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Systems Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Systems Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Systems Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Systems Engineer over the 6 months to 31 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Systems Engineer in the UK

Systems Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Systems Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Systems Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Systems Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Systems Engineer over the 6 months to 31 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Systems Engineer in the UK

Systems Engineer
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Systems Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 31 August 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 +114 547 £475 - 477
UK excluding London +90 491 £475 - 405
South East +42 151 £500 +5.26% 148
South West +47 136 £500 - 69
London -20 86 £475 -9.09% 111
Work from Home -7 84 £465 -13.89% 186
Midlands -13 59 £463 +8.82% 48
North of England -35 58 £419 -6.94% 65
East of England -3 56 £233 -57.73% 51
North West -33 39 £500 +11.11% 28
West Midlands -23 33 £410 -3.53% 32
East Midlands +2 26 £475 - 15
Scotland -15 18 £400 -20.00% 33
Wales -2 13 £465 - 6
North East - 10 £350 - 24
Yorkshire - 9 £275 - 15

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

For the 6 months to 31 August 2026, Systems 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 Systems Engineer in the job title.

1 108 (18.27%) Systems Engineering
2 105 (17.77%) Security Cleared
3 87 (14.72%) SC Cleared
4 65 (11.00%) Validation
5 57 (9.64%) Linux
6 54 (9.14%) Windows
7 43 (7.28%) Verification and Validation
8 40 (6.77%) Microsoft
9 37 (6.26%) Rational DOORS
10 31 (5.25%) Degree
10 31 (5.25%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
11 29 (4.91%) Active Directory
11 29 (4.91%) Azure
12 28 (4.74%) Problem-Solving
12 28 (4.74%) Python
12 28 (4.74%) Windows Server
13 26 (4.40%) Configuration Management
14 23 (3.89%) DNS
15 21 (3.55%) PowerShell
15 21 (3.55%) VMware
15 21 (3.55%) VMware Infrastructure
16 19 (3.21%) Ansible
16 19 (3.21%) DHCP
16 19 (3.21%) Disaster Recovery
16 19 (3.21%) Firewall
16 19 (3.21%) ITIL
17 17 (2.88%) MATLAB
17 17 (2.88%) Root Cause Analysis
18 16 (2.71%) BPSS Clearance
18 16 (2.71%) EMC

Systems 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 4 (0.68%) JBoss
1 4 (0.68%) SAS
2 3 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (0.51%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.34%) Confluence
4 1 (0.17%) IIS
Applications
1 15 (2.54%) Simulink
2 4 (0.68%) Stateflow
3 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (0.51%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.17%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 29 (4.91%) Azure
2 16 (2.71%) Microsoft 365
3 14 (2.37%) AWS
4 13 (2.20%) Entra ID
5 11 (1.86%) OpenShift
5 11 (1.86%) SaaS
6 5 (0.85%) GCP
6 5 (0.85%) GitHub
7 4 (0.68%) Azure Monitor
8 3 (0.51%) Azure Logic Apps
8 3 (0.51%) GitHub Actions
8 3 (0.51%) IaaS
9 2 (0.34%) Amazon EC2
9 2 (0.34%) Amazon S3
9 2 (0.34%) Cloudflare
9 2 (0.34%) OneDrive
10 1 (0.17%) Amazon EKS
10 1 (0.17%) AWS Step Functions
10 1 (0.17%) Figma
10 1 (0.17%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 23 (3.89%) DNS
2 19 (3.21%) DHCP
2 19 (3.21%) Firewall
3 13 (2.20%) TCP/IP
4 11 (1.86%) Network Security
4 11 (1.86%) VPN
5 9 (1.52%) LAN
6 6 (1.02%) IPv4
6 6 (1.02%) Kerberos
6 6 (1.02%) Modbus
6 6 (1.02%) VLAN
7 5 (0.85%) ATM
8 4 (0.68%) WAN
9 3 (0.51%) NAS
9 3 (0.51%) Remote Desktop
9 3 (0.51%) SAN
9 3 (0.51%) Software-Defined Networking
10 2 (0.34%) DKIM
10 2 (0.34%) DMARC
10 2 (0.34%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.68%) Big Data
1 4 (0.68%) Hadoop
1 4 (0.68%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.34%) GIS
3 1 (0.17%) Db2
3 1 (0.17%) Geospatial Data
3 1 (0.17%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.17%) QGIS
3 1 (0.17%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 37 (6.26%) Rational DOORS
2 7 (1.18%) Rational Rhapsody
3 4 (0.68%) JIRA
4 3 (0.51%) Git
4 3 (0.51%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.17%) CANoe
5 1 (0.17%) Storybook
General
1 89 (15.06%) Aerospace
2 48 (8.12%) Social Skills
3 35 (5.92%) Avionics
4 29 (4.91%) Analytical Skills
5 25 (4.23%) Military
6 22 (3.72%) Manufacturing
7 19 (3.21%) Automotive
8 14 (2.37%) Finance
9 11 (1.86%) Electronics
10 10 (1.69%) Law
11 5 (0.85%) Aviation
12 4 (0.68%) Documentation Skills
12 4 (0.68%) Games
12 4 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (0.68%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (0.68%) Telecoms
13 3 (0.51%) Public Sector
14 1 (0.17%) Banking
14 1 (0.17%) Legal
14 1 (0.17%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (1.86%) Terraform
2 6 (1.02%) NETCONF
2 6 (1.02%) OpenID
2 6 (1.02%) SAML
3 3 (0.51%) ARM Templates
3 3 (0.51%) HTML
3 3 (0.51%) ISPF
3 3 (0.51%) REST
4 2 (0.34%) FastAPI
4 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Graph
4 2 (0.34%) Middleware
4 2 (0.34%) React
4 2 (0.34%) RESTful
5 1 (0.17%) JSON
5 1 (0.17%) Node.js
5 1 (0.17%) OpenGL
5 1 (0.17%) OpenLayers
5 1 (0.17%) Qt
5 1 (0.17%) SailPoint
5 1 (0.17%) Streamlit
Miscellaneous
1 12 (2.03%) Operational Technology
2 10 (1.69%) Renewable Energy
2 10 (1.69%) SCADA
3 8 (1.35%) Virtual Team
4 7 (1.18%) CUDA
4 7 (1.18%) Hybrid Cloud
4 7 (1.18%) IoT
5 6 (1.02%) Mainframe
5 6 (1.02%) Management Information System
6 5 (0.85%) Cloud Native
6 5 (0.85%) Clustering
6 5 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (0.68%) Algorithms
7 4 (0.68%) Animation
7 4 (0.68%) CCTV
7 4 (0.68%) Data Centre
7 4 (0.68%) Legacy Systems
7 4 (0.68%) Onboarding
8 3 (0.51%) Embedded Systems
8 3 (0.51%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 57 (9.64%) Linux
2 54 (9.14%) Windows
3 28 (4.74%) Windows Server
4 14 (2.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (1.18%) Unix
6 6 (1.02%) Windows 10
7 4 (0.68%) zOS
8 3 (0.51%) Android
8 3 (0.51%) MVS
9 2 (0.34%) Debian
10 1 (0.17%) FreeRTOS
10 1 (0.17%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.17%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 108 (18.27%) Systems Engineering
2 65 (11.00%) Validation
3 43 (7.28%) Verification and Validation
4 31 (5.25%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
5 28 (4.74%) Problem-Solving
6 26 (4.40%) Configuration Management
7 19 (3.21%) Disaster Recovery
7 19 (3.21%) ITIL
8 17 (2.88%) Root Cause Analysis
9 16 (2.71%) Requirements Management
10 14 (2.37%) Infrastructure as Code
10 14 (2.37%) Project Management
11 13 (2.20%) Test Automation
11 13 (2.20%) Workflow
12 12 (2.03%) Agile
12 12 (2.03%) AI
12 12 (2.03%) Continuous Improvement
12 12 (2.03%) Performance Tuning
13 11 (1.86%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 11 (1.86%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 28 (4.74%) Python
2 21 (3.55%) PowerShell
3 17 (2.88%) MATLAB
4 11 (1.86%) Bash
5 6 (1.02%) C
5 6 (1.02%) REXX
6 5 (0.85%) SQL
7 4 (0.68%) Bicep
7 4 (0.68%) C++
8 3 (0.51%) Java
8 3 (0.51%) JCL
8 3 (0.51%) Perl
9 2 (0.34%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.17%) C#
10 1 (0.17%) COBOL
10 1 (0.17%) Rust
10 1 (0.17%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 105 (17.77%) Security Cleared
2 87 (14.72%) SC Cleared
3 31 (5.25%) Degree
4 16 (2.71%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (1.69%) DV Cleared
6 7 (1.18%) Azure Certification
6 7 (1.18%) Microsoft Certification
7 5 (0.85%) Chartered Engineer
7 5 (0.85%) Cisco Certification
8 4 (0.68%) CCNA
8 4 (0.68%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 3 (0.51%) CCA
9 3 (0.51%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (0.51%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 2 (0.34%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.34%) CCNP
11 1 (0.17%) CompTIA CySA+
11 1 (0.17%) HND
11 1 (0.17%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.17%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (1.02%) Def Stans
2 3 (0.51%) GxP
2 3 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 15288
2 3 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (0.51%) NCSC
2 3 (0.51%) QA
3 1 (0.17%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.17%) ARP4761
3 1 (0.17%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.17%) DICOM
3 1 (0.17%) Disclosure Scotland
3 1 (0.17%) DO-254
3 1 (0.17%) GMP
3 1 (0.17%) HAZOP
3 1 (0.17%) HL7
3 1 (0.17%) MIL-STD-1553
3 1 (0.17%) NIST
3 1 (0.17%) NIST 800
3 1 (0.17%) SLA
3 1 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 29 (4.91%) Active Directory
2 21 (3.55%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (2.71%) Hyper-V
4 7 (1.18%) Docker
5 6 (1.02%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 5 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.68%) Firmware
7 4 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.34%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.17%) Job Entry Subsystem
9 1 (0.17%) KVM
9 1 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 19 (3.21%) Ansible
2 16 (2.71%) Puppet
3 13 (2.20%) Kubernetes
4 8 (1.35%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (1.02%) Progress Chef
6 5 (0.85%) Failover Clustering
7 4 (0.68%) Red Hat Satellite
8 3 (0.51%) Grafana
8 3 (0.51%) Istio
8 3 (0.51%) Prometheus
9 2 (0.34%) Functional Safety
9 2 (0.34%) Salt
9 2 (0.34%) SCCM
9 2 (0.34%) Tivoli NetView
10 1 (0.17%) Amdocs OSS
10 1 (0.17%) Control-M
10 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Clustering
10 1 (0.17%) Packer
10 1 (0.17%) PingFederate
10 1 (0.17%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 40 (6.77%) Microsoft
2 21 (3.55%) VMware
3 16 (2.71%) EMC
4 14 (2.37%) Red Hat
5 12 (2.03%) Cisco
6 10 (1.69%) IBM
7 7 (1.18%) NVIDIA
8 6 (1.02%) SaltStack
8 6 (1.02%) ServiceNow
9 4 (0.68%) AVEVA
9 4 (0.68%) Perforce
10 3 (0.51%) Fortinet
10 3 (0.51%) NEC
10 3 (0.51%) Rockwell
10 3 (0.51%) Siemens
10 3 (0.51%) Sparx
10 3 (0.51%) Splunk
11 2 (0.34%) BeyondTrust
11 2 (0.34%) CrowdStrike
11 2 (0.34%) CyberArk