Desktop Support Engineer Job Trends

Desktop Support Engineer
UK

The median Desktop Support Engineer salary in the UK is £35,170 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 27 February 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 512 580 585
Rank change year-on-year +68 +5 +142
Permanent jobs requiring a Desktop Support Engineer 158 104 217
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.23% 0.22% 0.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.25% 0.24% 0.30%
Number of salaries quoted 82 78 199
10th Percentile £25,750 - £25,450
25th Percentile £31,500 £21,250 £27,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £35,170 £33,500 £32,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.99% +4.69% -3.03%
75th Percentile £40,000 £39,688 £35,750
90th Percentile £43,750 £57,500 £51,300
UK excluding London median annual salary £35,000 £28,500 £28,290
% change year-on-year +22.81% +0.74% -3.78%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent 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 permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 63,755 43,253 71,453
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.42% 91.31% 94.74%
Number of salaries quoted 40,200 23,124 55,563
10th Percentile £29,250 £32,500 £28,500
25th Percentile £37,674 £45,000 £39,302
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -4.76%

Desktop Support Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Desktop Support Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Desktop Support Engineer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Desktop Support Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Desktop Support Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Desktop Support Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Desktop Support Engineer over the 6 months to 27 February 2026.

Salary histogram for Desktop Support Engineer in the UK

Desktop Support Engineer
Top 12 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Desktop Support Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 27 February 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
UK excluding London +61 134 £35,000 +22.81% 11
England +3 94 £36,000 +7.46% 13
Work from Home +73 72 £34,000 +1.49% 2
Scotland - 52 £40,000 - 1
South West +38 46 £37,500 +25.00% 5
London +17 22 £37,750 -9.04% 3
North of England -10 15 £27,500 -3.51% 3
North West +3 10 £41,000 +54.72% 1
Wales - 10 £35,000 -
South East -23 8 £32,250 -3.73% 3
Yorkshire -37 5 £26,500 -7.02% 2
East of England -12 3 £35,340 +57.07%

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

For the 6 months to 27 February 2026, Desktop Support Engineer 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 permanent job ads featuring Desktop Support Engineer in the job title.

1 102 (64.56%) Windows
2 100 (63.29%) Microsoft 365
3 92 (58.23%) Customer Service
4 83 (52.53%) Windows 10
5 78 (49.37%) ITIL
6 73 (46.20%) SLA
7 69 (43.67%) Microsoft
7 69 (43.67%) Microsoft Office
8 66 (41.77%) Degree
8 66 (41.77%) Security Cleared
9 65 (41.14%) Continuous Improvement
9 65 (41.14%) Patch Management
10 63 (39.87%) SC Cleared
11 62 (39.24%) Customer Experience
12 61 (38.61%) Cisco
12 61 (38.61%) Cybersecurity
13 60 (37.97%) Analytics
13 60 (37.97%) CTC Cleared
13 60 (37.97%) Customer Acquisition
13 60 (37.97%) Software Deployment
13 60 (37.97%) Ticket Management
14 41 (25.95%) Active Directory
15 38 (24.05%) Entra ID
16 24 (15.19%) People Management
17 20 (12.66%) SCCM
17 20 (12.66%) Service Delivery
18 19 (12.03%) Problem-Solving
19 15 (9.49%) Microsoft Intune
20 13 (8.23%) Azure
20 13 (8.23%) ITSM

Desktop 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 8 (5.06%) SharePoint
2 7 (4.43%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (1.27%) Confluence
Applications
1 69 (43.67%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.63%) Acrobat
2 1 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.63%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (1.27%) NetSuite
2 1 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 100 (63.29%) Microsoft 365
2 38 (24.05%) Entra ID
3 13 (8.23%) Azure
4 7 (4.43%) OneDrive
5 5 (3.16%) AWS
5 5 (3.16%) SaaS
6 3 (1.90%) Mimecast
Communications & Networking
1 11 (6.96%) DHCP
1 11 (6.96%) DNS
2 9 (5.70%) LAN
3 8 (5.06%) WAN
4 7 (4.43%) TCP/IP
4 7 (4.43%) VPN
4 7 (4.43%) Wi-Fi
5 5 (3.16%) VLAN
6 4 (2.53%) Firewall
7 2 (1.27%) WebEx
8 1 (0.63%) Internet
8 1 (0.63%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.16%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 8 (5.06%) JIRA
General
1 110 (69.62%) Social Skills
2 60 (37.97%) Back Office
3 13 (8.23%) Finance
3 13 (8.23%) Organisational Skills
4 6 (3.80%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (3.80%) Banking
4 6 (3.80%) Manufacturing
5 5 (3.16%) Front Office
5 5 (3.16%) Marketing
6 4 (2.53%) Retail
7 3 (1.90%) Aerospace
7 3 (1.90%) Electronics
7 3 (1.90%) Public Sector
7 3 (1.90%) Telecoms
8 2 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.63%) Fire and Rescue
9 1 (0.63%) Police
9 1 (0.63%) Presentation Skills
Miscellaneous
1 11 (6.96%) CMDB
1 11 (6.96%) Self-Motivation
2 8 (5.06%) Management Information System
3 7 (4.43%) Driving Licence
3 7 (4.43%) Mobile App
4 3 (1.90%) Onboarding
5 2 (1.27%) IoT
6 1 (0.63%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (0.63%) Fat Client
6 1 (0.63%) Housing Association
6 1 (0.63%) iPhone
6 1 (0.63%) IPTV
6 1 (0.63%) Thin Client
6 1 (0.63%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 102 (64.56%) Windows
2 83 (52.53%) Windows 10
3 7 (4.43%) Android
4 4 (2.53%) Windows Server
5 3 (1.90%) Linux
6 2 (1.27%) Apple iOS
6 2 (1.27%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.63%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (58.23%) Customer Service
2 78 (49.37%) ITIL
3 65 (41.14%) Continuous Improvement
3 65 (41.14%) Patch Management
4 62 (39.24%) Customer Experience
5 61 (38.61%) Cybersecurity
6 60 (37.97%) Analytics
6 60 (37.97%) Customer Acquisition
6 60 (37.97%) Software Deployment
6 60 (37.97%) Ticket Management
7 24 (15.19%) People Management
8 20 (12.66%) Service Delivery
9 19 (12.03%) Problem-Solving
10 13 (8.23%) ITSM
10 13 (8.23%) Service Management
11 11 (6.96%) Configuration Management
11 11 (6.96%) Time Management
12 10 (6.33%) Incident Management
13 6 (3.80%) Critical Thinking
13 6 (3.80%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 4 (2.53%) PowerShell
2 2 (1.27%) SQL
3 1 (0.63%) Bash
3 1 (0.63%) Python
Qualifications
1 66 (41.77%) Degree
1 66 (41.77%) Security Cleared
2 63 (39.87%) SC Cleared
3 60 (37.97%) CTC Cleared
4 6 (3.80%) Microsoft Certification
5 4 (2.53%) A+ Certification
6 2 (1.27%) Server+ Certification
7 1 (0.63%) CompTIA Security+
7 1 (0.63%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 1 (0.63%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 73 (46.20%) SLA
2 5 (3.16%) PMO
System Software
1 41 (25.95%) Active Directory
2 4 (2.53%) BitLocker
3 3 (1.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.63%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.63%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 20 (12.66%) SCCM
2 15 (9.49%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 69 (43.67%) Microsoft
2 61 (38.61%) Cisco
3 6 (3.80%) Adobe
3 6 (3.80%) Citrix
4 5 (3.16%) CrowdStrike
4 5 (3.16%) McAfee
4 5 (3.16%) Salesforce
4 5 (3.16%) ServiceNow
4 5 (3.16%) Tenable
4 5 (3.16%) Zoho
4 5 (3.16%) Zscaler
5 3 (1.90%) SAP
5 3 (1.90%) VMware
6 2 (1.27%) Apple
6 2 (1.27%) HP
7 1 (0.63%) Draytek
7 1 (0.63%) Logitech
7 1 (0.63%) Polycom
7 1 (0.63%) Yealink