Systems Engineer Contracts

System Engineer
UK

The median System Engineer daily rate in the UK is £450 according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 2 June 2024.

The first table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics including a comparison to same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
2 Jun 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 235 376 505
Rank change year-on-year +141 +129 +24
Contract jobs requiring a Systems Engineer 427 334 368
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.99% 0.59% 0.42%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.07% 0.63% 0.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 99 165 238
10th Percentile £313 £343 £313
25th Percentile £363 £445 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -12.20% +2.50% +17.65%
75th Percentile £563 £650 £550
90th Percentile £638 £745 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% +11.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 85 43
10th Percentile £39.55 £47.50 £17.00
25th Percentile £47.11 £52.50 £26.18
Median hourly rate £57.50 £61.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.50% +36.67% -5.19%
75th Percentile £71.25 £68.75 £53.75
90th Percentile £76.25 £71.50 £60.79
UK excluding London median hourly rate £59.44 £59.90 £45.00
% change year-on-year -0.77% +33.11% -2.60%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

The following table is for comparison with the above and includes 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 40,001 53,325 83,708
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.83% 94.58% 95.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,880 37,256 59,003
10th Percentile £280 £313 £315
25th Percentile £409 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £540 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% +2.86% +7.69%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -2.50% +5.26% +9.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,851 1,473 1,957
10th Percentile £12.86 £14.25 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.30 £19.06 £15.90
Median hourly rate £37.50 £45.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +80.00% +14.34%
75th Percentile £61.60 £65.75 £49.41
90th Percentile £73.75 £76.45 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £42.50 £20.00
% change year-on-year -5.88% +112.50% +5.26%

Systems Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Systems Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Systems Engineer in the UK

Systems Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Systems Engineer.

Daily rate trend for Systems Engineer in the UK

Systems Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Systems Engineer over the 6 months to 2 June 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Systems Engineer in the UK

Systems Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Systems Engineer.

Hourly rate trend for Systems Engineer in the UK

Systems Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Systems Engineer over the 6 months to 2 June 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Systems Engineer in the UK

Systems Engineer
Top 16 Contract 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 June 2024. 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 +154 377 £450 -12.20% 550
UK excluding London +130 342 £450 -10.00% 513
South East +24 87 £500 +5.26% 140
South West +44 86 £650 +48.57% 98
Work from Home +72 83 £450 -7.69% 180
London +74 63 £450 -25.00% 73
North of England +72 60 £430 -10.65% 94
East of England +41 59 £197 -57.46% 67
North West +48 45 - - 50
Scotland +56 24 £450 +9.09% 38
Midlands +24 19 £450 -12.20% 92
West Midlands +18 16 £450 -30.77% 47
North East - 9 - - 15
Wales +13 7 £425 -29.17% 13
Yorkshire +23 6 £430 +244.00% 32
East Midlands +6 3 - - 45

Systems Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 2 June 2024, Systems Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Systems Engineer in the job title.

1 85 (19.91%) Security Cleared
2 73 (17.10%) Systems Engineering
3 68 (15.93%) SC Cleared
4 59 (13.82%) Aerospace
5 48 (11.24%) Degree
6 42 (9.84%) Validation
7 35 (8.20%) Windows
7 35 (8.20%) Social Skills
8 34 (7.96%) Verification and Validation
9 32 (7.49%) Rational DOORS
10 30 (7.03%) Azure
11 29 (6.79%) Problem-Solving
11 29 (6.79%) Customer Requirements
11 29 (6.79%) Military
12 28 (6.56%) Linux
13 26 (6.09%) MATLAB
13 26 (6.09%) Software Engineering
13 26 (6.09%) Agile
14 25 (5.85%) DV Cleared
15 22 (5.15%) Microsoft
15 22 (5.15%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
16 21 (4.92%) Simulink
16 21 (4.92%) Automotive
17 20 (4.68%) VMware
17 20 (4.68%) Python
17 20 (4.68%) PowerShell
18 18 (4.22%) SysML
18 18 (4.22%) UML
18 18 (4.22%) Master's Degree
19 17 (3.98%) Active Directory

Systems Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 8 (1.87%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (1.41%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.94%) Confluence
3 4 (0.94%) IIS
4 1 (0.23%) CICS
4 1 (0.23%) MTS
4 1 (0.23%) SAS
4 1 (0.23%) Tomcat
4 1 (0.23%) WebSphere
Applications
1 21 (4.92%) Simulink
2 5 (1.17%) Stateflow
2 5 (1.17%) TargetLink
3 3 (0.70%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.47%) InVision
4 2 (0.47%) Sketch
5 1 (0.23%) CATIA
5 1 (0.23%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (1.87%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 30 (7.03%) Azure
2 12 (2.81%) Microsoft 365
3 8 (1.87%) AWS
4 7 (1.64%) Azure DevOps
5 6 (1.41%) Entra ID
6 5 (1.17%) IaaS
7 3 (0.70%) Cloud Computing
7 3 (0.70%) GitHub
7 3 (0.70%) PaaS
8 2 (0.47%) Azure Sentinel
8 2 (0.47%) Cohesity
8 2 (0.47%) GCP
8 2 (0.47%) Nutanix
8 2 (0.47%) OCI
8 2 (0.47%) SaaS
9 1 (0.23%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.23%) Azure AKS
9 1 (0.23%) Mimecast
9 1 (0.23%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 14 (3.28%) Firewall
2 10 (2.34%) TCP/IP
3 9 (2.11%) VoIP
4 7 (1.64%) LAN
4 7 (1.64%) VPN
4 7 (1.64%) WAN
5 6 (1.41%) DHCP
5 6 (1.41%) Network Security
5 6 (1.41%) SAN
6 5 (1.17%) Asterisk PBX
6 5 (1.17%) DNS
6 5 (1.17%) VLAN
7 4 (0.94%) Internet
7 4 (0.94%) WAAS
8 3 (0.70%) 4G
8 3 (0.70%) 5G
8 3 (0.70%) DWDM
8 3 (0.70%) NAS
8 3 (0.70%) SSL
8 3 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.70%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.47%) Amazon RDS
2 2 (0.47%) Data Mining
3 1 (0.23%) MySQL
3 1 (0.23%) NonStop SQL
3 1 (0.23%) Oracle Exadata
3 1 (0.23%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 32 (7.49%) Rational DOORS
2 7 (1.64%) Git
3 6 (1.41%) JIRA
4 5 (1.17%) Bitbucket
4 5 (1.17%) Subversion
5 4 (0.94%) TestRail
6 3 (0.70%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.47%) LabVIEW
8 1 (0.23%) GitLab
8 1 (0.23%) SonarQube
General
1 59 (13.82%) Aerospace
2 35 (8.20%) Social Skills
3 29 (6.79%) Military
4 21 (4.92%) Automotive
5 16 (3.75%) Finance
6 13 (3.04%) Presentation Skills
7 10 (2.34%) Analytical Skills
7 10 (2.34%) Public Sector
8 9 (2.11%) Electronics
9 8 (1.87%) Manufacturing
9 8 (1.87%) Marketing
10 6 (1.41%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (0.70%) Aviation
11 3 (0.70%) Avionics
11 3 (0.70%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.47%) Advertising
12 2 (0.47%) Banking
12 2 (0.47%) French Language
12 2 (0.47%) Portuguese Language
12 2 (0.47%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (1.17%) ISPF
1 5 (1.17%) React
2 3 (0.70%) .NET
2 3 (0.70%) Middleware
2 3 (0.70%) Next.js
3 2 (0.47%) .NET Core
3 2 (0.47%) Node.js
4 1 (0.23%) eBPF
4 1 (0.23%) Keycloak
4 1 (0.23%) LDAP
4 1 (0.23%) OAuth
4 1 (0.23%) OAuth2
4 1 (0.23%) OpenID
4 1 (0.23%) PyTorch
4 1 (0.23%) REST
4 1 (0.23%) SailPoint
4 1 (0.23%) SAML
4 1 (0.23%) TensorFlow
4 1 (0.23%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 16 (3.75%) Algorithms
1 16 (3.75%) Data Centre
2 11 (2.58%) Management Information System
3 8 (1.87%) Mainframe
4 5 (1.17%) Clustering
4 5 (1.17%) Digital Signage
4 5 (1.17%) SCADA
5 4 (0.94%) LPAR
5 4 (0.94%) Product Ownership
5 4 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (0.70%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (0.70%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (0.47%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (0.47%) CCTV
7 2 (0.47%) Cyber Defence
7 2 (0.47%) Data Structures
7 2 (0.47%) FPGA
7 2 (0.47%) Life Science
7 2 (0.47%) PKI
7 2 (0.47%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 35 (8.20%) Windows
2 28 (6.56%) Linux
3 15 (3.51%) Unix
4 10 (2.34%) zOS
5 8 (1.87%) Windows Server
6 5 (1.17%) CentOS
6 5 (1.17%) Windows 10
7 3 (0.70%) Android
8 2 (0.47%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.47%) Debian
8 2 (0.47%) VMS
8 2 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.23%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.23%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.23%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 73 (17.10%) Systems Engineering
2 42 (9.84%) Validation
3 34 (7.96%) Verification and Validation
4 29 (6.79%) Customer Requirements
4 29 (6.79%) Problem-Solving
5 26 (6.09%) Agile
5 26 (6.09%) Software Engineering
6 22 (5.15%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
7 18 (4.22%) SysML
7 18 (4.22%) UML
8 14 (3.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 13 (3.04%) Requirements Management
10 12 (2.81%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 12 (2.81%) Risk Management
11 11 (2.58%) Customer Engagement
11 11 (2.58%) Functional Testing
11 11 (2.58%) ITIL
11 11 (2.58%) Stakeholder Management
11 11 (2.58%) Technical Leadership
12 10 (2.34%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 26 (6.09%) MATLAB
2 20 (4.68%) PowerShell
2 20 (4.68%) Python
3 10 (2.34%) C
4 7 (1.64%) SQL
5 5 (1.17%) JCL
5 5 (1.17%) Shell Script
5 5 (1.17%) TypeScript
6 4 (0.94%) Java
6 4 (0.94%) REXX
7 3 (0.70%) CLIST
7 3 (0.70%) JavaScript
7 3 (0.70%) Perl
8 2 (0.47%) Bash
8 2 (0.47%) C#
8 2 (0.47%) C++
8 2 (0.47%) Kusto Query Language
8 2 (0.47%) Rust
9 1 (0.23%) Assembly Language
Qualifications
1 85 (19.91%) Security Cleared
2 68 (15.93%) SC Cleared
3 48 (11.24%) Degree
4 25 (5.85%) DV Cleared
5 18 (4.22%) Master's Degree
6 7 (1.64%) ITIL Certification
7 6 (1.41%) TOGAF Certification
8 5 (1.17%) Microsoft Certification
9 4 (0.94%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (0.94%) HNC
9 4 (0.94%) ISTQB
9 4 (0.94%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 2 (0.47%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.47%) CCNA
10 2 (0.47%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.47%) CISSP
10 2 (0.47%) CompTIA Security+
10 2 (0.47%) MCSE
10 2 (0.47%) PhD
10 2 (0.47%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (1.64%) PCI DSS
2 6 (1.41%) DO-160
2 6 (1.41%) ISO 26262
3 5 (1.17%) AUTOSAR
3 5 (1.17%) MISRA
3 5 (1.17%) MISRA C
3 5 (1.17%) QA
4 3 (0.70%) JSP 440
5 2 (0.47%) SLA
6 1 (0.23%) ARP4754
6 1 (0.23%) DO-178B
6 1 (0.23%) IEC 61508
6 1 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 1 (0.23%) NCSC
System Software
1 17 (3.98%) Active Directory
2 11 (2.58%) Firmware
3 10 (2.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (1.64%) vSphere
5 6 (1.41%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (1.17%) Time Sharing Option
7 4 (0.94%) Job Entry Subsystem
7 4 (0.94%) Microcode
8 3 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.47%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.47%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 2 (0.47%) Terminal Services
9 2 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.23%) ACF2
10 1 (0.23%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 1 (0.23%) RACF
10 1 (0.23%) Terminal Server
Systems Management
1 9 (2.11%) Nagios
1 9 (2.11%) SCCM
2 5 (1.17%) Ansible
2 5 (1.17%) Kubernetes
2 5 (1.17%) SCOM
2 5 (1.17%) vCenter Server
3 4 (0.94%) Dell DRAC
3 4 (0.94%) Terraform
4 3 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.23%) Check_MK
6 1 (0.23%) Cilium
6 1 (0.23%) Functional Safety
6 1 (0.23%) Nessus
6 1 (0.23%) OMEGAMON
6 1 (0.23%) Puppet
Vendors
1 22 (5.15%) Microsoft
2 20 (4.68%) VMware
3 12 (2.81%) Cisco
4 9 (2.11%) IBM
5 8 (1.87%) Dell
5 8 (1.87%) Sparx
6 6 (1.41%) HP
7 5 (1.17%) Citrix
8 4 (0.94%) Oracle
8 4 (0.94%) Supermicro
9 3 (0.70%) Apple
9 3 (0.70%) EMC
9 3 (0.70%) F5
9 3 (0.70%) Palo Alto
9 3 (0.70%) Red Hat
9 3 (0.70%) Remedy
9 3 (0.70%) Siemens
9 3 (0.70%) SolarWinds
9 3 (0.70%) Splunk
9 3 (0.70%) Thales