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 26 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 82 60
Rank change year-on-year -1 -22 -6
Contract jobs citing Infrastructure Engineering 76 41 78
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.29% 2.11% 2.92%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.75% 2.34% 3.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 47 18 50
10th Percentile £315 £306 £313
25th Percentile £406 £359 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £525 £425
Median % change year-on-year +9.52% +23.53% -10.53%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £531
90th Percentile £680 £583 £613
England median daily rate £525 £525 £475
% change year-on-year - +10.53% -7.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 10
10th Percentile - - £37.63
25th Percentile - - £45.00
Median hourly rate - - £45.59
75th Percentile - - £46.18
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £72.54 £62.50 £54.88
% change year-on-year +16.06% +13.90% -15.58%

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 2,764 1,751 2,277
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 83.25% 90.26% 85.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,662 1,140 1,438
10th Percentile £300 £294 £307
25th Percentile £393 £388 £402
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.58% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £586 £563 £588
90th Percentile £669 £662 £682
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 236 96 262
10th Percentile £17.06 £14.55 £11.00
25th Percentile £25.38 £22.92 £14.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £30.20 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +82.12% +16.15% -25.75%
75th Percentile £74.26 £63.10 £46.18
90th Percentile £85.00 £84.88 £66.61
England median hourly rate £45.59 £28.00 £36.50
% change year-on-year +62.80% -23.29% -2.67%

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 26 May 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 26 May 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 -3 47 £525 +36.43% 34
Lancashire +1 16 £575 +31.43% 10
Cheshire -6 6 £487 -3.66% 5
Merseyside -12 6 £330 +53.49% 6
Cumbria -16 1 - - 2
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 (2.63%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.32%) IIS
2 1 (1.32%) nginx
2 1 (1.32%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (2.63%) Chatbot
2 1 (1.32%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (1.32%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 34 (44.74%) Azure
2 20 (26.32%) AWS
3 14 (18.42%) SaaS
4 11 (14.47%) OCI
5 9 (11.84%) Microsoft 365
6 7 (9.21%) Entra ID
7 6 (7.89%) GitHub
8 5 (6.58%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (6.58%) GCP
9 4 (5.26%) Nutanix
9 4 (5.26%) Serverless
10 3 (3.95%) Azure Monitor
10 3 (3.95%) GitHub Actions
11 2 (2.63%) Azure AKS
11 2 (2.63%) Azure Functions
11 2 (2.63%) Azure Logic Apps
11 2 (2.63%) Azure Storage
11 2 (2.63%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 1 (1.32%) IaaS
12 1 (1.32%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 23 (30.26%) Firewall
2 19 (25.00%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
3 14 (18.42%) BIG-IP
3 14 (18.42%) DNS
4 12 (15.79%) BGP
4 12 (15.79%) Ethernet VPN
4 12 (15.79%) OSPF
4 12 (15.79%) VXLAN
5 10 (13.16%) WLAN
6 9 (11.84%) SD-WAN
6 9 (11.84%) WAN
6 9 (11.84%) Wi-Fi
7 5 (6.58%) TCP/IP
8 4 (5.26%) DHCP
8 4 (5.26%) NetScaler
9 3 (3.95%) VPN
10 2 (2.63%) Network Security
10 2 (2.63%) SAN
10 2 (2.63%) SSL
11 1 (1.32%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.95%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (1.32%) Oracle Database
2 1 (1.32%) Power BI
2 1 (1.32%) Relational Database
2 1 (1.32%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 11 (14.47%) GitLab
2 4 (5.26%) Git
3 3 (3.95%) Jenkins
3 3 (3.95%) JIRA
General
1 15 (19.74%) Public Sector
2 8 (10.53%) Finance
3 6 (7.89%) Social Skills
4 5 (6.58%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (5.26%) Banking
6 3 (3.95%) Military
6 3 (3.95%) Retail
7 1 (1.32%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 53 (69.74%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 28 (36.84%) Senior
3 26 (34.21%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
4 6 (7.89%) Infrastructure Support
4 6 (7.89%) Platform Engineer
5 5 (6.58%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
5 5 (6.58%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
5 5 (6.58%) IT Engineer
5 5 (6.58%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
5 5 (6.58%) IT Support
5 5 (6.58%) IT Support Engineer
5 5 (6.58%) Support Engineer
6 4 (5.26%) Architect
6 4 (5.26%) Cybersecurity Engineer
6 4 (5.26%) Infrastructure Security Engineer
6 4 (5.26%) Security Engineer
6 4 (5.26%) Senior Security Engineer
7 3 (3.95%) Analyst
7 3 (3.95%) Azure Engineer
7 3 (3.95%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (2.63%) ARM Templates
1 2 (2.63%) GraphQL
1 2 (2.63%) OAuth
1 2 (2.63%) REST
2 1 (1.32%) Flash
2 1 (1.32%) Hugging Face
2 1 (1.32%) LangChain
2 1 (1.32%) Middleware
2 1 (1.32%) vLLM
Miscellaneous
1 14 (18.42%) Data Centre
2 13 (17.11%) Public Cloud
3 9 (11.84%) Hybrid Cloud
4 8 (10.53%) Cloud Native
5 5 (6.58%) Private Cloud
6 2 (2.63%) AI Agents
6 2 (2.63%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (2.63%) Driving Licence
6 2 (2.63%) Linux Command Line
6 2 (2.63%) Onboarding
7 1 (1.32%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (1.32%) CMDB
7 1 (1.32%) NHS
7 1 (1.32%) PKI
7 1 (1.32%) Replication
7 1 (1.32%) Security Posture
7 1 (1.32%) Taxonomies
7 1 (1.32%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 14 (18.42%) Windows
2 11 (14.47%) Linux
3 10 (13.16%) Windows Server
4 6 (7.89%) Windows Server 2019
5 4 (5.26%) Windows Server 2012
6 2 (2.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (1.32%) CentOS
7 1 (1.32%) Ubuntu
7 1 (1.32%) Windows Server 2003
7 1 (1.32%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (35.53%) DevOps
1 27 (35.53%) Infrastructure as Code
2 24 (31.58%) CI/CD
3 16 (21.05%) Load Balancing
4 15 (19.74%) Project Delivery
5 14 (18.42%) Zero Trust
6 12 (15.79%) High Availability
7 10 (13.16%) Network Architecture
7 10 (13.16%) Network Design
7 10 (13.16%) Problem-Solving
8 9 (11.84%) Containerisation
8 9 (11.84%) Site Reliability Engineering
9 8 (10.53%) Platform Engineering
9 8 (10.53%) Root Cause Analysis
10 7 (9.21%) Business Continuity
10 7 (9.21%) Migration
11 5 (6.58%) Data Protection
11 5 (6.58%) ITIL
12 4 (5.26%) Agile
12 4 (5.26%) AI
Programming Languages
1 21 (27.63%) Python
2 10 (13.16%) PowerShell
3 6 (7.89%) Bash
4 4 (5.26%) Bicep
5 2 (2.63%) ActionScript
6 1 (1.32%) Shell Script
6 1 (1.32%) SQL
Qualifications
1 13 (17.11%) Security Cleared
2 9 (11.84%) SC Cleared
3 4 (5.26%) Azure Certification
4 1 (1.32%) CISM
4 1 (1.32%) CISSP
4 1 (1.32%) Degree
4 1 (1.32%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 2 (2.63%) NIST
2 1 (1.32%) Cyber Essentials
2 1 (1.32%) GDPR
2 1 (1.32%) SLA
System Software
1 13 (17.11%) Docker
2 12 (15.79%) Active Directory
3 8 (10.53%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (9.21%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (6.58%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (6.58%) vSphere
6 3 (3.95%) Hyper-V
7 1 (1.32%) GPFS
7 1 (1.32%) NFS
Systems Management
1 23 (30.26%) Terraform
2 15 (19.74%) Kubernetes
3 13 (17.11%) Ansible
4 6 (7.89%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (6.58%) SCCM
6 4 (5.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (3.95%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (2.63%) Grafana
8 2 (2.63%) Istio
8 2 (2.63%) Prometheus
9 1 (1.32%) Argo
9 1 (1.32%) Backup Exec
9 1 (1.32%) Packer
9 1 (1.32%) Progress Chef
9 1 (1.32%) Puppet
9 1 (1.32%) vCenter Server
9 1 (1.32%) WSUS
Vendors
1 25 (32.89%) F5
2 13 (17.11%) Palo Alto
3 12 (15.79%) VMware
4 11 (14.47%) Arista
5 10 (13.16%) Microsoft
6 9 (11.84%) Aruba
7 5 (6.58%) Veeam
8 3 (3.95%) Red Hat
9 2 (2.63%) Citrix
9 2 (2.63%) Google
9 2 (2.63%) Oracle
9 2 (2.63%) ServiceNow
10 1 (1.32%) AlienVault
10 1 (1.32%) Cisco
10 1 (1.32%) DocuSign
10 1 (1.32%) IBM
10 1 (1.32%) Qualys
10 1 (1.32%) SolarWinds
10 1 (1.32%) Symantec
10 1 (1.32%) Tanium