Systems Engineer Contract Job Trends

System Engineer
UK

The median System Engineer daily rate in the UK is £450, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 December 2025.

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

6 months to
2 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 384 338 325
Rank change year-on-year -46 -13 +152
Contract jobs requiring a Systems Engineer 201 234 311
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.56% 0.66% 0.68%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.61% 0.71% 0.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 50 71 176
10th Percentile £187 £330 £341
25th Percentile £326 £378 £441
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -18.18% +10.00%
75th Percentile £533 £556 £645
90th Percentile £600 £738 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £450 £560
% change year-on-year -2.78% -19.64% +12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 71 55 56
10th Percentile £42.00 £23.82 £35.00
25th Percentile £44.58 £40.85 £51.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% +15.06% -5.85%
75th Percentile £68.01 £70.00 £63.19
90th Percentile £75.79 £76.14 £78.64
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year -15.38% +15.06% -5.85%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 32,727 33,118 42,499
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.97% 92.81% 93.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,756 20,117 28,647
10th Percentile £284 £300 £294
25th Percentile £402 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £645
90th Percentile £724 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -4.14% -0.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,905 1,179 1,517
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.32 £15.21
25th Percentile £17.96 £20.63 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -20.45% +44.26%
75th Percentile £57.50 £64.61 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.97% +78.00%

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 2 December 2025.

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 2 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Systems Engineer in the UK

Systems Engineer
Top 15 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 2 December 2025. 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 -70 180 £450 - 614
UK excluding London -43 170 £438 -2.78% 580
Work from Home -17 41 £454 -1.84% 252
East of England -12 39 £454 +3.77% 110
South West +19 36 £344 -37.50% 169
Midlands -29 32 £300 -29.41% 66
London -8 26 £500 +11.11% 65
South East -18 25 £300 -30.43% 186
North of England -67 25 £450 -5.26% 66
North West -36 24 £450 -5.26% 36
Scotland +14 16 £500 -25.93% 9
East Midlands -16 16 £497 +5.92% 18
West Midlands -28 16 £300 -22.58% 45
Yorkshire -36 1 - - 18
Wales - 1 - - 3

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

For the 6 months to 2 December 2025, 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 47 (23.38%) Security Cleared
2 36 (17.91%) SC Cleared
3 21 (10.45%) Linux
4 19 (9.45%) Validation
5 16 (7.96%) Java
5 16 (7.96%) Windows
6 15 (7.46%) Python
7 14 (6.97%) Problem-Solving
8 13 (6.47%) Microsoft
9 12 (5.97%) AWS
9 12 (5.97%) Azure
9 12 (5.97%) Oracle
9 12 (5.97%) Systems Engineering
9 12 (5.97%) Verification and Validation
10 11 (5.47%) C
10 11 (5.47%) DevOps
10 11 (5.47%) GitHub
11 10 (4.98%) Asset Management
11 10 (4.98%) Cybersecurity
11 10 (4.98%) Firewall
11 10 (4.98%) Rational DOORS
11 10 (4.98%) SQL
12 9 (4.48%) Active Directory
12 9 (4.48%) Ansible
12 9 (4.48%) BPSS Clearance
12 9 (4.48%) Terraform
12 9 (4.48%) VMware
13 8 (3.98%) Agile
13 8 (3.98%) Cisco
13 8 (3.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux

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 3 (1.49%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.00%) Confluence
2 2 (1.00%) NetWeaver
2 2 (1.00%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.50%) Apache
3 1 (0.50%) CMS
3 1 (0.50%) IIS
3 1 (0.50%) Tomcat
Applications
1 7 (3.48%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (2.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (2.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (1.99%) Simulink
4 1 (0.50%) CANalyzer
4 1 (0.50%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (1.00%) SAP Oil and Gas
2 1 (0.50%) Pegasus Opera
Cloud Services
1 12 (5.97%) AWS
1 12 (5.97%) Azure
2 11 (5.47%) GitHub
3 7 (3.48%) Microsoft 365
4 4 (1.99%) Amazon S3
5 3 (1.49%) Amazon EC2
5 3 (1.49%) AWS CloudFormation
5 3 (1.49%) Entra ID
5 3 (1.49%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (1.00%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 2 (1.00%) AWS Lambda
6 2 (1.00%) Cloud Computing
6 2 (1.00%) GCP
6 2 (1.00%) GitHub Copilot
6 2 (1.00%) Google Workspace
6 2 (1.00%) Serverless
7 1 (0.50%) IaaS
7 1 (0.50%) OneDrive
7 1 (0.50%) PaaS
7 1 (0.50%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 10 (4.98%) Firewall
2 5 (2.49%) SSL
3 4 (1.99%) VPN
4 3 (1.49%) DHCP
4 3 (1.49%) DNS
4 3 (1.49%) SAN
4 3 (1.49%) SNMP
4 3 (1.49%) TCP/IP
4 3 (1.49%) Wireless
5 2 (1.00%) Ethernet
5 2 (1.00%) LAN
5 2 (1.00%) Modbus
5 2 (1.00%) NAS
5 2 (1.00%) Software-Defined Radio
5 2 (1.00%) VoIP
5 2 (1.00%) WAN
6 1 (0.50%) HTTP
6 1 (0.50%) RS-232
6 1 (0.50%) RS-485
6 1 (0.50%) SpaceWire
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.99%) Oracle Database
2 2 (1.00%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.50%) Azure SQL Database
3 1 (0.50%) Electronic Patient Records
3 1 (0.50%) Metadata
3 1 (0.50%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 10 (4.98%) Rational DOORS
2 7 (3.48%) ClearCase
3 3 (1.49%) Git
3 3 (1.49%) JIRA
4 2 (1.00%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.50%) CANoe
5 1 (0.50%) CMake
5 1 (0.50%) GitLab
5 1 (0.50%) Gradle
5 1 (0.50%) LabVIEW
5 1 (0.50%) Postman
5 1 (0.50%) Selenium
5 1 (0.50%) Snyk
General
1 44 (21.89%) Aerospace
2 22 (10.95%) Social Skills
3 12 (5.97%) Manufacturing
4 8 (3.98%) Military
5 6 (2.99%) Electronics
6 5 (2.49%) Banking
6 5 (2.49%) Finance
6 5 (2.49%) Public Sector
7 4 (1.99%) Analytical Skills
7 4 (1.99%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.99%) Retail Banking
8 2 (1.00%) Avionics
8 2 (1.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.00%) Legal
8 2 (1.00%) Marketing
8 2 (1.00%) Social Housing
8 2 (1.00%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.50%) Digital Health
9 1 (0.50%) Local Government
9 1 (0.50%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.99%) Kafka
2 3 (1.49%) Web Services
3 2 (1.00%) ISPF
3 2 (1.00%) Spring
3 2 (1.00%) Spring Boot
4 1 (0.50%) Bazel
4 1 (0.50%) FastAPI
4 1 (0.50%) GraphQL
4 1 (0.50%) Middleware
4 1 (0.50%) Oracle Fusion
4 1 (0.50%) RabbitMQ
4 1 (0.50%) React
4 1 (0.50%) Redux
4 1 (0.50%) REST
4 1 (0.50%) XML
4 1 (0.50%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 12 (5.97%) SCADA
2 7 (3.48%) Onboarding
2 7 (3.48%) Operational Technology
2 7 (3.48%) Renewable Energy
3 6 (2.99%) Legacy Systems
4 4 (1.99%) Distributed Systems
5 3 (1.49%) Data Centre
5 3 (1.49%) Replication
6 2 (1.00%) Algorithms
6 2 (1.00%) Clustering
6 2 (1.00%) Driving Licence
6 2 (1.00%) Embedded Systems
6 2 (1.00%) Life Science
6 2 (1.00%) Mainframe
6 2 (1.00%) Security Posture
7 1 (0.50%) Acoustics
7 1 (0.50%) Device Driver
7 1 (0.50%) Enterprise Storage
7 1 (0.50%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.50%) State Machine
Operating Systems
1 21 (10.45%) Linux
2 16 (7.96%) Windows
3 8 (3.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.49%) Unix
4 3 (1.49%) Windows Server
5 2 (1.00%) CentOS
5 2 (1.00%) FreeRTOS
5 2 (1.00%) Mac OS
5 2 (1.00%) Ubuntu
5 2 (1.00%) zOS
6 1 (0.50%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
6 1 (0.50%) VMS
6 1 (0.50%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (9.45%) Validation
2 14 (6.97%) Problem-Solving
3 12 (5.97%) Systems Engineering
3 12 (5.97%) Verification and Validation
4 11 (5.47%) DevOps
5 10 (4.98%) Asset Management
5 10 (4.98%) Cybersecurity
6 8 (3.98%) Agile
6 8 (3.98%) System Testing
7 7 (3.48%) CI/CD
7 7 (3.48%) Infrastructure as Code
7 7 (3.48%) Mentoring
7 7 (3.48%) Requirements Management
7 7 (3.48%) Service Management
8 6 (2.99%) Software Engineering
9 5 (2.49%) AI
9 5 (2.49%) Continuous Improvement
9 5 (2.49%) ERP
9 5 (2.49%) Migration
9 5 (2.49%) Signal Processing
Programming Languages
1 16 (7.96%) Java
2 15 (7.46%) Python
3 11 (5.47%) C
4 10 (4.98%) SQL
5 7 (3.48%) Shell Script
6 6 (2.99%) MATLAB
6 6 (2.99%) PowerShell
7 5 (2.49%) Bash
7 5 (2.49%) C++
8 3 (1.49%) Go
9 2 (1.00%) JCL
9 2 (1.00%) REXX
10 1 (0.50%) C#
10 1 (0.50%) Embedded C
10 1 (0.50%) Embedded C++
10 1 (0.50%) Ladder Logic
10 1 (0.50%) Perl
10 1 (0.50%) Ruby
10 1 (0.50%) Tcl
10 1 (0.50%) VBA
Qualifications
1 47 (23.38%) Security Cleared
2 36 (17.91%) SC Cleared
3 9 (4.48%) BPSS Clearance
4 7 (3.48%) Degree
5 2 (1.00%) CCNA
5 2 (1.00%) Cisco Certification
5 2 (1.00%) RHCE
6 1 (0.50%) AWS Certification
6 1 (0.50%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (0.50%) DV Cleared
6 1 (0.50%) HND
6 1 (0.50%) ISACA
6 1 (0.50%) Network+ Certification
6 1 (0.50%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (1.99%) IEC 61131
2 2 (1.00%) Cyber Essentials
2 2 (1.00%) ISO 26262
3 1 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 1 (0.50%) Def Stans
3 1 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
3 1 (0.50%) IEC 61508
3 1 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.50%) QA
System Software
1 9 (4.48%) Active Directory
2 5 (2.49%) Docker
2 5 (2.49%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.49%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (1.00%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (1.00%) Firmware
4 2 (1.00%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 1 (0.50%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.50%) Job Entry Subsystem
5 1 (0.50%) Virtual Servers
5 1 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.50%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 9 (4.48%) Ansible
1 9 (4.48%) Terraform
2 5 (2.49%) Kubernetes
2 5 (2.49%) Microsoft Intune
3 2 (1.00%) Prometheus
3 2 (1.00%) SCCM
3 2 (1.00%) SELinux
3 2 (1.00%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (0.50%) FortiGate
4 1 (0.50%) Grafana
4 1 (0.50%) Jamf Pro
4 1 (0.50%) Nagios
4 1 (0.50%) Progress Chef
4 1 (0.50%) Puppet
4 1 (0.50%) Red Hat Satellite
4 1 (0.50%) WSUS
4 1 (0.50%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 13 (6.47%) Microsoft
2 12 (5.97%) Oracle
3 9 (4.48%) VMware
4 8 (3.98%) Cisco
5 6 (2.99%) IBM
5 6 (2.99%) NetApp
5 6 (2.99%) SAP
5 6 (2.99%) Siemens
6 5 (2.49%) Rockwell
7 4 (1.99%) Wonderware
8 3 (1.49%) Axway
8 3 (1.49%) Okta
8 3 (1.49%) Red Hat
8 3 (1.49%) ServiceNow
9 2 (1.00%) CyberArk
9 2 (1.00%) Google
9 2 (1.00%) Palo Alto
9 2 (1.00%) Splunk
10 1 (0.50%) AVEVA
10 1 (0.50%) Fortinet