Infrastructure Engineering Contract Job Trends in the North West

Infrastructure Engineering
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Infrastructure Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 22 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 69 81 64
Rank change year-on-year +12 -17 -3
Contract jobs citing Infrastructure Engineering 116 47 69
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.15% 2.19% 2.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.78% 2.49% 3.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 77 22 52
10th Percentile £350 £350 £313
25th Percentile £400 £423 £359
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £450
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% +16.67% -5.26%
75th Percentile £618 £619 £556
90th Percentile £675 £638 £643
England median daily rate £530 £525 £500
% change year-on-year +0.95% +5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 5
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £33.64 - £45.00
75th Percentile - - £46.18
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £72.54 £77.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -5.79% +23.20% -13.79%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North West

Infrastructure Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 3,070 1,889 2,168
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 83.42% 87.86% 84.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,811 1,231 1,332
10th Percentile £297 £270 £300
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £450 £493
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% -8.72% -1.40%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £585
90th Percentile £675 £671 £675
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 294 122 221
10th Percentile £17.25 £13.50 £10.95
25th Percentile £25.38 £18.92 £15.92
Median hourly rate £55.72 £28.88 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +92.97% +3.13% -4.44%
75th Percentile £76.00 £59.12 £48.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £74.88 £69.75
England median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -37.13% -6.98%

Infrastructure Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Infrastructure Engineering relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Infrastructure Engineering job vacancy trend in the North West

Infrastructure Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Infrastructure Engineering.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Infrastructure Engineering

Infrastructure Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Infrastructure Engineering in the North West over the 6 months to 22 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Infrastructure Engineering in the North West

Infrastructure Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Infrastructure Engineering.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Infrastructure Engineering

Infrastructure Engineering
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Infrastructure Engineering within the North West region over the 6 months to 22 July 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
Manchester -16 48 £500 -16.67% 31
Lancashire +16 38 £575 +31.43% 9
Cheshire +11 18 £521 +3.17% 9
Merseyside - 7 £350 - 6
Cumbria -13 4 £350 -33.33%
Infrastructure Engineering
England

Infrastructure Engineering
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 2 (1.72%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.86%) Confluence
2 1 (0.86%) nginx
2 1 (0.86%) OpenStack
2 1 (0.86%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (1.72%) Chatbot
1 2 (1.72%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.86%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.86%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.86%) Primavera
1 1 (0.86%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 43 (37.07%) Azure
2 35 (30.17%) AWS
3 23 (19.83%) OCI
4 10 (8.62%) SaaS
5 9 (7.76%) Entra ID
5 9 (7.76%) GCP
6 7 (6.03%) Microsoft 365
7 6 (5.17%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (4.31%) AWS CloudFormation
8 5 (4.31%) Azure Sentinel
8 5 (4.31%) GitHub
9 4 (3.45%) GitHub Actions
9 4 (3.45%) Serverless
10 3 (2.59%) Azure Monitor
10 3 (2.59%) IaaS
10 3 (2.59%) Rubrik
11 2 (1.72%) Azure AKS
11 2 (1.72%) Azure Key Vault
11 2 (1.72%) Azure Storage
11 2 (1.72%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 32 (27.59%) Firewall
2 23 (19.83%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
3 19 (16.38%) DNS
4 15 (12.93%) BIG-IP
4 15 (12.93%) WAN
5 13 (11.21%) BGP
5 13 (11.21%) Ethernet VPN
5 13 (11.21%) OSPF
5 13 (11.21%) SD-WAN
5 13 (11.21%) VXLAN
6 11 (9.48%) Wi-Fi
6 11 (9.48%) WLAN
7 10 (8.62%) Network Security
8 5 (4.31%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
8 5 (4.31%) TCP/IP
8 5 (4.31%) VPN
9 4 (3.45%) DMZ
10 3 (2.59%) DHCP
10 3 (2.59%) LAN
10 3 (2.59%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (10.34%) Relational Database
2 11 (9.48%) Oracle Database
3 10 (8.62%) Oracle Exadata
3 10 (8.62%) RDBMS
4 3 (2.59%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (1.72%) SQL Server
6 1 (0.86%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.86%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 23 (19.83%) GitLab
2 16 (13.79%) Git
3 3 (2.59%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.86%) Claude Code
4 1 (0.86%) JIRA
4 1 (0.86%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 14 (12.07%) Social Skills
2 12 (10.34%) Finance
2 12 (10.34%) Public Sector
3 7 (6.03%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (5.17%) Banking
5 3 (2.59%) Military
6 2 (1.72%) Automotive
6 2 (1.72%) Manufacturing
6 2 (1.72%) Retail
7 1 (0.86%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.86%) Games
7 1 (0.86%) Legal
7 1 (0.86%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 70 (60.34%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 38 (32.76%) Senior
3 34 (29.31%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
4 7 (6.03%) Cloud Engineer
5 6 (5.17%) Azure Engineer
6 5 (4.31%) Platform Engineer
6 5 (4.31%) Security Engineer
7 4 (3.45%) Architect
7 4 (3.45%) Cloud Security Engineer
7 4 (3.45%) VMware Engineer
8 3 (2.59%) Analyst
8 3 (2.59%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
8 3 (2.59%) Developer
8 3 (2.59%) Infrastructure Analyst
8 3 (2.59%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
8 3 (2.59%) Lead
8 3 (2.59%) Project Manager
8 3 (2.59%) Solutions Architect
9 2 (1.72%) Consultant
9 2 (1.72%) Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (8.62%) Oracle GoldenGate
2 5 (4.31%) REST
3 4 (3.45%) JSON
4 2 (1.72%) ARM Templates
4 2 (1.72%) Django
4 2 (1.72%) GraphQL
4 2 (1.72%) OAuth
4 2 (1.72%) XML
5 1 (0.86%) Flash
5 1 (0.86%) Hugging Face
5 1 (0.86%) Kafka
5 1 (0.86%) LangChain
5 1 (0.86%) Middleware
5 1 (0.86%) vLLM
5 1 (0.86%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (15.52%) Public Cloud
2 16 (13.79%) Data Centre
3 11 (9.48%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (8.62%) Cloud Native
5 5 (4.31%) Enterprise Cloud
6 3 (2.59%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (2.59%) Management Information System
6 3 (2.59%) Private Cloud
6 3 (2.59%) Security Posture
7 2 (1.72%) AI Agents
7 2 (1.72%) Driving Licence
7 2 (1.72%) Linux Command Line
7 2 (1.72%) Onboarding
7 2 (1.72%) Replication
8 1 (0.86%) Algorithms
8 1 (0.86%) Analytical Mindset
8 1 (0.86%) Animation
8 1 (0.86%) Data Structures
8 1 (0.86%) NHS
8 1 (0.86%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 27 (23.28%) Linux
2 14 (12.07%) Windows
3 11 (9.48%) Windows Server
4 10 (8.62%) AIX
5 3 (2.59%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (1.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (1.72%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.86%) CentOS
7 1 (0.86%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.86%) Unix
7 1 (0.86%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (42.24%) Infrastructure as Code
2 32 (27.59%) CI/CD
3 27 (23.28%) DevOps
4 25 (21.55%) Migration
5 22 (18.97%) Project Delivery
6 19 (16.38%) Load Balancing
7 16 (13.79%) High Availability
8 15 (12.93%) Zero Trust
9 12 (10.34%) Site Reliability Engineering
10 11 (9.48%) Network Architecture
10 11 (9.48%) Network Design
10 11 (9.48%) Problem-Solving
11 10 (8.62%) Data Migration
11 10 (8.62%) Infrastructure Automation
11 10 (8.62%) Stakeholder Management
12 9 (7.76%) Containerisation
12 9 (7.76%) Continuous Improvement
12 9 (7.76%) Platform Engineering
13 8 (6.90%) Agile
13 8 (6.90%) Cloud Security
Programming Languages
1 26 (22.41%) Python
2 14 (12.07%) PowerShell
3 13 (11.21%) Bicep
4 10 (8.62%) Bash
5 1 (0.86%) ActionScript
5 1 (0.86%) C#
5 1 (0.86%) Shell Script
5 1 (0.86%) SQL
Qualifications
1 20 (17.24%) Security Cleared
2 12 (10.34%) SC Cleared
3 5 (4.31%) Degree
4 4 (3.45%) Azure Certification
5 1 (0.86%) CCIE
5 1 (0.86%) CCNP
5 1 (0.86%) Cisco Certification
5 1 (0.86%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (4.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 5 (4.31%) NIST
2 1 (0.86%) GRC
2 1 (0.86%) SLA
System Software
1 12 (10.34%) Active Directory
1 12 (10.34%) Docker
1 12 (10.34%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (8.62%) Oracle RAC
3 7 (6.03%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (2.59%) Hyper-V
4 3 (2.59%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (1.72%) VMware NSX
5 2 (1.72%) vSphere
6 1 (0.86%) Ceph
6 1 (0.86%) GPFS
6 1 (0.86%) KVM
6 1 (0.86%) NFS
Systems Management
1 42 (36.21%) Terraform
2 30 (25.86%) Ansible
3 19 (16.38%) Kubernetes
4 10 (8.62%) Data Guard
4 10 (8.62%) Oracle RMAN
5 4 (3.45%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (3.45%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (1.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (1.72%) CASB
6 2 (1.72%) Grafana
6 2 (1.72%) Progress Chef
6 2 (1.72%) Prometheus
6 2 (1.72%) Puppet
6 2 (1.72%) SCCM
7 1 (0.86%) Argo
7 1 (0.86%) Backup Exec
7 1 (0.86%) Packer
7 1 (0.86%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.86%) WSUS
Vendors
1 27 (23.28%) F5
2 18 (15.52%) Microsoft
3 14 (12.07%) Palo Alto
3 14 (12.07%) VMware
4 13 (11.21%) Oracle
5 11 (9.48%) Arista
6 10 (8.62%) Aruba
7 4 (3.45%) Cisco
7 4 (3.45%) Red Hat
8 3 (2.59%) ServiceNow
8 3 (2.59%) Veeam
9 2 (1.72%) Zscaler
10 1 (0.86%) Citrix
10 1 (0.86%) DocuSign
10 1 (0.86%) IBM
10 1 (0.86%) Perforce
10 1 (0.86%) Symantec
10 1 (0.86%) Tanium