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 31 December 2025.

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

6 months to
31 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 391 396 291
Rank change year-on-year +5 -105 +187
Contract jobs requiring a Systems Engineer 206 146 335
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.56% 0.44% 0.78%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.61% 0.47% 0.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 57 52 179
10th Percentile £233 £300 £346
25th Percentile £330 £350 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -18.18% +10.00%
75th Percentile £550 £581 £638
90th Percentile £600 £738 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £550
% change year-on-year - -18.18% +15.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 27 68
10th Percentile £42.00 £23.82 £39.09
25th Percentile £44.58 £24.16 £50.94
Median hourly rate £55.00 £47.50 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -15.91% -5.85%
75th Percentile £65.00 £70.00 £63.19
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.50 £75.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £47.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year +10.53% -15.91% -5.85%

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 33,780 30,959 40,080
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.21% 92.73% 93.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,373 19,013 26,849
10th Percentile £300 £300 £281
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £485 £500
% change year-on-year -2.06% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,964 958 1,543
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.50 £14.50
25th Percentile £18.24 £21.01 £19.25
Median hourly rate £26.00 £32.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% -27.78% +38.46%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.49 £73.75 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.76 £46.18
% change year-on-year -20.81% -31.23% +77.62%

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 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 31 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 31 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 +4 186 £450 - 251
UK excluding London +12 167 £450 - 224
East of England +2 40 £454 +3.77% 44
Work from Home -9 40 £467 +3.78% 119
South West +27 38 £505 -8.18% 56
Midlands -25 30 £300 -22.58% 22
London -13 29 £480 -4.00% 42
South East -13 28 £300 -27.27% 93
North of England -55 22 £450 - 27
North West -26 19 £450 - 19
West Midlands -26 17 £300 -7.69% 13
East Midlands -10 13 £497 +10.33% 9
Scotland +18 12 £513 -24.07% 9
Yorkshire -45 3 - - 5
Wales - 1 - -

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

For the 6 months to 31 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 52 (25.24%) Security Cleared
2 38 (18.45%) SC Cleared
3 20 (9.71%) Validation
4 19 (9.22%) Linux
5 18 (8.74%) Windows
6 15 (7.28%) Java
7 14 (6.80%) Python
8 13 (6.31%) Azure
8 13 (6.31%) Degree
8 13 (6.31%) Microsoft
8 13 (6.31%) Problem-Solving
8 13 (6.31%) Systems Engineering
9 12 (5.83%) Oracle
9 12 (5.83%) Rational DOORS
10 11 (5.34%) Firewall
10 11 (5.34%) VMware
11 10 (4.85%) Active Directory
11 10 (4.85%) Asset Management
11 10 (4.85%) Cybersecurity
11 10 (4.85%) GitHub
11 10 (4.85%) SQL
11 10 (4.85%) Verification and Validation
12 9 (4.37%) Agile
12 9 (4.37%) Ansible
12 9 (4.37%) AWS
12 9 (4.37%) C
12 9 (4.37%) PowerShell
13 8 (3.88%) BPSS Clearance
13 8 (3.88%) Cisco
13 8 (3.88%) DevOps

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 (1.94%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (1.46%) Confluence
3 2 (0.97%) NetWeaver
3 2 (0.97%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.49%) Apache
4 1 (0.49%) CMS
4 1 (0.49%) IIS
4 1 (0.49%) Tomcat
Applications
1 7 (3.40%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (2.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (2.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (1.94%) Simulink
4 1 (0.49%) CANalyzer
4 1 (0.49%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.97%) SAP Oil and Gas
2 1 (0.49%) Pegasus Opera
2 1 (0.49%) SAP HCM
2 1 (0.49%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 13 (6.31%) Azure
2 10 (4.85%) GitHub
3 9 (4.37%) AWS
4 6 (2.91%) Microsoft 365
5 3 (1.46%) Entra ID
5 3 (1.46%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (0.97%) Amazon S3
6 2 (0.97%) Cloud Computing
6 2 (0.97%) GCP
6 2 (0.97%) GitHub Copilot
6 2 (0.97%) Google Workspace
7 1 (0.49%) Amazon EC2
7 1 (0.49%) IaaS
7 1 (0.49%) Microsoft Copilot
7 1 (0.49%) Microsoft Purview
7 1 (0.49%) OneDrive
7 1 (0.49%) OpenShift
7 1 (0.49%) PaaS
7 1 (0.49%) Slack
7 1 (0.49%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 11 (5.34%) Firewall
2 4 (1.94%) SAN
2 4 (1.94%) TCP/IP
3 3 (1.46%) SNMP
3 3 (1.46%) SSL
3 3 (1.46%) VPN
3 3 (1.46%) Wireless
4 2 (0.97%) Ethernet
4 2 (0.97%) LAN
4 2 (0.97%) LTE
4 2 (0.97%) Modbus
4 2 (0.97%) NAS
4 2 (0.97%) TETRA
4 2 (0.97%) VoIP
4 2 (0.97%) WAN
5 1 (0.49%) DHCP
5 1 (0.49%) DNS
5 1 (0.49%) HTTP
5 1 (0.49%) RS-232
5 1 (0.49%) Software-Defined Radio
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.91%) Oracle Database
2 2 (0.97%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.49%) Azure SQL Database
3 1 (0.49%) Electronic Patient Records
3 1 (0.49%) Metadata
3 1 (0.49%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 12 (5.83%) Rational DOORS
2 7 (3.40%) ClearCase
3 4 (1.94%) JIRA
4 2 (0.97%) Git
5 1 (0.49%) CANoe
5 1 (0.49%) CMake
5 1 (0.49%) GitLab
5 1 (0.49%) Gradle
5 1 (0.49%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.49%) LabVIEW
5 1 (0.49%) Postman
5 1 (0.49%) Selenium
General
1 42 (20.39%) Aerospace
2 29 (14.08%) Social Skills
3 16 (7.77%) Manufacturing
4 9 (4.37%) Military
5 8 (3.88%) Electronics
6 6 (2.91%) Analytical Skills
7 5 (2.43%) Banking
7 5 (2.43%) Public Sector
8 4 (1.94%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (1.94%) Finance
8 4 (1.94%) Retail Banking
9 3 (1.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (1.46%) Telecoms
10 2 (0.97%) Legal
10 2 (0.97%) Marketing
10 2 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.49%) Avionics
11 1 (0.49%) Digital Health
11 1 (0.49%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.49%) Social Housing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.94%) Kafka
2 2 (0.97%) ISPF
2 2 (0.97%) REST
2 2 (0.97%) Spring
2 2 (0.97%) Spring Boot
2 2 (0.97%) Web Services
3 1 (0.49%) Bazel
3 1 (0.49%) FastAPI
3 1 (0.49%) GraphQL
3 1 (0.49%) Middleware
3 1 (0.49%) RabbitMQ
3 1 (0.49%) React
3 1 (0.49%) Redux
3 1 (0.49%) SAP Fiori
3 1 (0.49%) XML
3 1 (0.49%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 10 (4.85%) SCADA
2 7 (3.40%) Onboarding
2 7 (3.40%) Operational Technology
3 6 (2.91%) Legacy Systems
4 5 (2.43%) Data Centre
5 4 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
5 4 (1.94%) Renewable Energy
6 3 (1.46%) Replication
7 2 (0.97%) Algorithms
7 2 (0.97%) Clustering
7 2 (0.97%) Driving Licence
7 2 (0.97%) Enterprise Storage
7 2 (0.97%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (0.97%) Life Science
7 2 (0.97%) Mainframe
7 2 (0.97%) Security Posture
8 1 (0.49%) Acoustics
8 1 (0.49%) Cyber Threat
8 1 (0.49%) Digital Signage
8 1 (0.49%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 19 (9.22%) Linux
2 18 (8.74%) Windows
3 7 (3.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.97%) Mac OS
4 2 (0.97%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.97%) zOS
5 1 (0.49%) Android
5 1 (0.49%) CentOS
5 1 (0.49%) FreeRTOS
5 1 (0.49%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
5 1 (0.49%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.49%) Unix
5 1 (0.49%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (9.71%) Validation
2 13 (6.31%) Problem-Solving
2 13 (6.31%) Systems Engineering
3 10 (4.85%) Asset Management
3 10 (4.85%) Cybersecurity
3 10 (4.85%) Verification and Validation
4 9 (4.37%) Agile
5 8 (3.88%) DevOps
6 7 (3.40%) Disaster Recovery
6 7 (3.40%) Infrastructure as Code
6 7 (3.40%) Migration
6 7 (3.40%) Requirements Management
6 7 (3.40%) Service Management
7 6 (2.91%) High Availability
7 6 (2.91%) Mentoring
7 6 (2.91%) Stakeholder Management
8 5 (2.43%) Continuous Improvement
8 5 (2.43%) Performance Tuning
8 5 (2.43%) Root Cause Analysis
8 5 (2.43%) Signal Processing
Programming Languages
1 15 (7.28%) Java
2 14 (6.80%) Python
3 10 (4.85%) SQL
4 9 (4.37%) C
4 9 (4.37%) PowerShell
5 7 (3.40%) Shell Script
6 5 (2.43%) MATLAB
7 4 (1.94%) C++
8 3 (1.46%) Go
9 2 (0.97%) Bash
9 2 (0.97%) JCL
9 2 (0.97%) REXX
10 1 (0.49%) C#
10 1 (0.49%) Embedded C
10 1 (0.49%) Embedded C++
10 1 (0.49%) Groovy
10 1 (0.49%) JavaScript
10 1 (0.49%) Korn
10 1 (0.49%) Perl
Qualifications
1 52 (25.24%) Security Cleared
2 38 (18.45%) SC Cleared
3 13 (6.31%) Degree
4 8 (3.88%) BPSS Clearance
5 3 (1.46%) DV Cleared
6 2 (0.97%) CCNA
6 2 (0.97%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (0.97%) RHCE
7 1 (0.49%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.49%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.49%) HND
7 1 (0.49%) ISACA
7 1 (0.49%) Network+ Certification
7 1 (0.49%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (1.46%) IEC 61131
2 2 (0.97%) Cyber Essentials
2 2 (0.97%) ISO 26262
3 1 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 1 (0.49%) Def Stans
3 1 (0.49%) Disclosure Scotland
3 1 (0.49%) IEC 61508
3 1 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 10 (4.85%) Active Directory
2 7 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (2.43%) Docker
4 3 (1.46%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.97%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.97%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 2 (0.97%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.97%) vSphere
6 1 (0.49%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.49%) Firmware
6 1 (0.49%) Job Entry Subsystem
6 1 (0.49%) KVM
6 1 (0.49%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.49%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 9 (4.37%) Ansible
2 8 (3.88%) Terraform
3 5 (2.43%) Kubernetes
3 5 (2.43%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (0.97%) SCCM
4 2 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.49%) FortiGate
5 1 (0.49%) Jamf Pro
5 1 (0.49%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.49%) Red Hat Satellite
5 1 (0.49%) WSUS
5 1 (0.49%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 13 (6.31%) Microsoft
2 12 (5.83%) Oracle
3 11 (5.34%) VMware
4 8 (3.88%) Cisco
5 6 (2.91%) IBM
5 6 (2.91%) NetApp
5 6 (2.91%) SAP
6 5 (2.43%) Rockwell
6 5 (2.43%) Siemens
7 4 (1.94%) Red Hat
7 4 (1.94%) Wonderware
8 3 (1.46%) Okta
8 3 (1.46%) ServiceNow
8 3 (1.46%) Veeam
9 2 (0.97%) Axway
9 2 (0.97%) CyberArk
9 2 (0.97%) Google
9 2 (0.97%) Palo Alto
9 2 (0.97%) Splunk
10 1 (0.49%) Brocade