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 1 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 69 79 67
Rank change year-on-year +10 -12 -2
Contract jobs citing Infrastructure Engineering 121 47 62
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.22% 2.16% 2.57%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.87% 2.45% 3.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 79 20 48
10th Percentile £350 £348 £313
25th Percentile £403 £503 £359
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £538 £438
Median % change year-on-year +2.33% +22.86% -7.89%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £548
90th Percentile £677 £639 £643
England median daily rate £536 £525 £508
% change year-on-year +2.17% +3.45% -0.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 2
Median hourly rate £33.64 £27.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +24.59% -40.00% -
England median hourly rate £72.54 £65.94 £68.75
% change year-on-year +10.01% -4.09% -5.17%

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 3,123 1,920 2,037
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 83.06% 88.15% 84.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,821 1,232 1,246
10th Percentile £278 £278 £300
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £461 £500
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% -7.75% -
75th Percentile £594 £575 £588
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 316 125 187
10th Percentile £17.25 £13.50 £10.95
25th Percentile £25.38 £18.87 £16.06
Median hourly rate £50.00 £28.43 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +75.87% -12.52% +6.04%
75th Percentile £74.26 £58.27 £51.91
90th Percentile £85.00 £74.50 £70.90
England median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £42.03
% change year-on-year +78.93% -40.16% -1.11%

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 1 August 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 1 August 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 -21 46 £500 -20.00% 41
Lancashire +20 41 £575 +64.29% 10
Cheshire +16 22 £550 -8.33% 7
Merseyside - 7 £350 - 8
Cumbria -11 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 (1.65%) Microsoft Exchange
1 2 (1.65%) OpenStack
2 1 (0.83%) Confluence
2 1 (0.83%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (2.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (1.65%) Chatbot
2 2 (1.65%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 2 (1.65%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.83%) Primavera
1 1 (0.83%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 44 (36.36%) Azure
2 36 (29.75%) AWS
3 23 (19.01%) OCI
4 11 (9.09%) GCP
5 10 (8.26%) SaaS
6 9 (7.44%) Entra ID
7 7 (5.79%) AWS CloudFormation
7 7 (5.79%) Azure Sentinel
8 6 (4.96%) Azure DevOps
9 5 (4.13%) GitHub
9 5 (4.13%) Microsoft 365
10 4 (3.31%) GitHub Actions
10 4 (3.31%) Serverless
11 3 (2.48%) Azure Monitor
11 3 (2.48%) IaaS
11 3 (2.48%) Rubrik
12 2 (1.65%) Azure AKS
12 2 (1.65%) Azure Key Vault
12 2 (1.65%) Azure Logic Apps
12 2 (1.65%) Azure Storage
Communications & Networking
1 29 (23.97%) Firewall
2 23 (19.01%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
3 17 (14.05%) DNS
4 16 (13.22%) WAN
5 15 (12.40%) BIG-IP
6 13 (10.74%) BGP
6 13 (10.74%) Ethernet VPN
6 13 (10.74%) OSPF
6 13 (10.74%) SD-WAN
6 13 (10.74%) VXLAN
7 11 (9.09%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (9.09%) WLAN
8 10 (8.26%) Network Security
9 6 (4.96%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
10 5 (4.13%) DMZ
10 5 (4.13%) VPN
11 4 (3.31%) LAN
12 3 (2.48%) SAN
12 3 (2.48%) TCP/IP
12 3 (2.48%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (9.92%) Relational Database
2 11 (9.09%) Oracle Database
2 11 (9.09%) Oracle Exadata
2 11 (9.09%) RDBMS
3 2 (1.65%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (1.65%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.83%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.83%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 21 (17.36%) GitLab
2 15 (12.40%) Git
3 3 (2.48%) Jenkins
4 2 (1.65%) JIRA
5 1 (0.83%) Claude Code
5 1 (0.83%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 16 (13.22%) Social Skills
2 13 (10.74%) Finance
2 13 (10.74%) Public Sector
3 7 (5.79%) Banking
4 6 (4.96%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (3.31%) Military
6 3 (2.48%) Automotive
6 3 (2.48%) Manufacturing
7 2 (1.65%) Retail
8 1 (0.83%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.83%) Games
8 1 (0.83%) Legal
8 1 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 69 (57.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 37 (30.58%) Senior
3 34 (28.10%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
4 9 (7.44%) Cloud Engineer
5 7 (5.79%) Security Engineer
6 6 (4.96%) Azure Engineer
6 6 (4.96%) Cloud Security Engineer
7 5 (4.13%) Architect
7 5 (4.13%) VMware Engineer
8 4 (3.31%) Lead
8 4 (3.31%) Project Manager
8 4 (3.31%) Solutions Architect
9 3 (2.48%) Analyst
9 3 (2.48%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
9 3 (2.48%) Developer
9 3 (2.48%) Infrastructure Analyst
10 2 (1.65%) Consultant
10 2 (1.65%) Lead Architect
10 2 (1.65%) Network Engineer
10 2 (1.65%) Network Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (9.09%) Oracle GoldenGate
2 5 (4.13%) REST
3 4 (3.31%) JSON
4 2 (1.65%) ARM Templates
4 2 (1.65%) Django
4 2 (1.65%) GraphQL
4 2 (1.65%) OAuth
4 2 (1.65%) XML
5 1 (0.83%) Flash
5 1 (0.83%) Kafka
5 1 (0.83%) Middleware
5 1 (0.83%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 16 (13.22%) Data Centre
2 15 (12.40%) Public Cloud
3 11 (9.09%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (8.26%) Cloud Native
5 7 (5.79%) Enterprise Cloud
6 4 (3.31%) Management Information System
6 4 (3.31%) Security Posture
7 3 (2.48%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (2.48%) Replication
8 2 (1.65%) AI Agents
8 2 (1.65%) Driving Licence
8 2 (1.65%) Linux Command Line
8 2 (1.65%) Private Cloud
9 1 (0.83%) Algorithms
9 1 (0.83%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.83%) Animation
9 1 (0.83%) Data Structures
9 1 (0.83%) NHS
9 1 (0.83%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.83%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 28 (23.14%) Linux
2 12 (9.92%) Windows
3 11 (9.09%) AIX
4 9 (7.44%) Windows Server
5 2 (1.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.83%) CentOS
6 1 (0.83%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.83%) Unix
6 1 (0.83%) Windows Server 2003
6 1 (0.83%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 51 (42.15%) Infrastructure as Code
2 31 (25.62%) CI/CD
3 28 (23.14%) Migration
4 24 (19.83%) DevOps
5 20 (16.53%) Project Delivery
6 18 (14.88%) Load Balancing
7 17 (14.05%) High Availability
8 15 (12.40%) Zero Trust
9 13 (10.74%) Continuous Improvement
10 12 (9.92%) Site Reliability Engineering
10 12 (9.92%) Stakeholder Management
11 11 (9.09%) Data Migration
11 11 (9.09%) Network Architecture
11 11 (9.09%) Network Design
12 10 (8.26%) Agile
12 10 (8.26%) Cloud Security
12 10 (8.26%) Infrastructure Automation
13 9 (7.44%) Threat Modelling
14 8 (6.61%) Containerisation
14 8 (6.61%) Cryptography
Programming Languages
1 26 (21.49%) Python
2 15 (12.40%) Bicep
3 13 (10.74%) PowerShell
4 10 (8.26%) Bash
5 1 (0.83%) ActionScript
5 1 (0.83%) C#
5 1 (0.83%) SQL
Qualifications
1 20 (16.53%) Security Cleared
2 14 (11.57%) SC Cleared
3 7 (5.79%) Degree
4 4 (3.31%) Azure Certification
5 1 (0.83%) CCIE
5 1 (0.83%) CCNP
5 1 (0.83%) Cisco Certification
5 1 (0.83%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (4.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 5 (4.13%) NIST
2 2 (1.65%) GRC
2 2 (1.65%) SLA
System Software
1 11 (9.09%) Oracle RAC
1 11 (9.09%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (8.26%) Active Directory
3 8 (6.61%) Docker
4 6 (4.96%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (2.48%) Hyper-V
6 2 (1.65%) Ceph
6 2 (1.65%) KVM
6 2 (1.65%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.83%) GPFS
7 1 (0.83%) NFS
7 1 (0.83%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 44 (36.36%) Terraform
2 32 (26.45%) Ansible
3 19 (15.70%) Kubernetes
4 11 (9.09%) Data Guard
4 11 (9.09%) Oracle RMAN
5 4 (3.31%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (1.65%) CASB
6 2 (1.65%) Grafana
6 2 (1.65%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (1.65%) Progress Chef
6 2 (1.65%) Prometheus
6 2 (1.65%) Puppet
7 1 (0.83%) Argo
7 1 (0.83%) Backup Exec
7 1 (0.83%) Packer
7 1 (0.83%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.83%) WSUS
Vendors
1 25 (20.66%) F5
2 20 (16.53%) Microsoft
3 14 (11.57%) Palo Alto
4 13 (10.74%) Oracle
4 13 (10.74%) VMware
5 11 (9.09%) Arista
6 10 (8.26%) Aruba
7 4 (3.31%) Cisco
7 4 (3.31%) Red Hat
7 4 (3.31%) ServiceNow
8 2 (1.65%) Zscaler
9 1 (0.83%) Citrix
9 1 (0.83%) DocuSign
9 1 (0.83%) IBM
9 1 (0.83%) Perforce
9 1 (0.83%) Symantec
9 1 (0.83%) Tanium
9 1 (0.83%) Veeam