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 3 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 80 61
Rank change year-on-year +4 -19 -10
Contract jobs citing Infrastructure Engineering 101 48 79
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.81% 2.31% 2.84%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.37% 2.61% 3.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 66 23 55
10th Percentile £350 £330 £313
25th Percentile £356 £395 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £525 £450
Median % change year-on-year -1.19% +16.67% -5.26%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £550
90th Percentile £675 £638 £643
England median daily rate £525 £525 £500
% change year-on-year - +5.00% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 10
10th Percentile - - £37.63
25th Percentile - - £45.00
Median hourly rate £33.64 - £45.59
75th Percentile - - £46.18
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £72.54 £57.75 £54.88
% change year-on-year +25.61% +5.24% -24.31%

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 2,994 1,839 2,344
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 83.31% 88.67% 84.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,758 1,216 1,427
10th Percentile £300 £300 £304
25th Percentile £400 £378 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £453 £495
Median % change year-on-year +4.80% -8.43% -1.00%
75th Percentile £588 £563 £585
90th Percentile £675 £666 £675
England median daily rate £523 £515 £525
% change year-on-year +1.46% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 277 112 267
10th Percentile £17.25 £12.89 £11.00
25th Percentile £25.38 £19.19 £15.36
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.88 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +61.92% +2.93% -1.77%
75th Percentile £76.00 £60.75 £46.18
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.00 £66.61
England median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% +1.65%

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 3 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 3 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 -20 44 £490 -18.33% 49
Lancashire +13 33 £575 +31.43% 19
Cheshire +4 13 £481 -4.75% 9
Merseyside -10 6 £350 +62.79% 4
Cumbria -19 4 £350 -33.33% 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 (1.98%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.99%) Confluence
2 1 (0.99%) nginx
2 1 (0.99%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (1.98%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.99%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.99%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 38 (37.62%) Azure
2 25 (24.75%) AWS
3 17 (16.83%) OCI
4 11 (10.89%) SaaS
5 9 (8.91%) Entra ID
6 7 (6.93%) Microsoft 365
7 5 (4.95%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (4.95%) GCP
8 4 (3.96%) GitHub
8 4 (3.96%) Serverless
9 3 (2.97%) Azure Monitor
9 3 (2.97%) GitHub Actions
9 3 (2.97%) IaaS
9 3 (2.97%) Rubrik
10 2 (1.98%) Azure AKS
10 2 (1.98%) Azure Functions
10 2 (1.98%) Azure Key Vault
10 2 (1.98%) Azure Logic Apps
10 2 (1.98%) Azure Storage
10 2 (1.98%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 31 (30.69%) Firewall
2 22 (21.78%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
3 17 (16.83%) DNS
4 14 (13.86%) BIG-IP
5 13 (12.87%) WAN
6 12 (11.88%) BGP
6 12 (11.88%) Ethernet VPN
6 12 (11.88%) OSPF
6 12 (11.88%) SD-WAN
6 12 (11.88%) VXLAN
7 11 (10.89%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (10.89%) WLAN
8 9 (8.91%) Network Security
9 4 (3.96%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
9 4 (3.96%) TCP/IP
9 4 (3.96%) VPN
10 3 (2.97%) DMZ
10 3 (2.97%) SAN
10 3 (2.97%) Wireless
11 2 (1.98%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (6.93%) Relational Database
2 6 (5.94%) Oracle Database
3 5 (4.95%) Oracle Exadata
3 5 (4.95%) RDBMS
4 3 (2.97%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (1.98%) SQL Server
6 1 (0.99%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.99%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 18 (17.82%) GitLab
2 11 (10.89%) Git
3 2 (1.98%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.98%) JIRA
4 1 (0.99%) Claude Code
General
1 11 (10.89%) Public Sector
2 8 (7.92%) Finance
2 8 (7.92%) Social Skills
3 5 (4.95%) Banking
4 3 (2.97%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (2.97%) Military
4 3 (2.97%) Retail
5 1 (0.99%) Automotive
5 1 (0.99%) Games
5 1 (0.99%) Legal
5 1 (0.99%) Manufacturing
5 1 (0.99%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 66 (65.35%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 33 (32.67%) Senior
3 31 (30.69%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
4 6 (5.94%) Azure Engineer
5 4 (3.96%) Architect
5 4 (3.96%) Platform Engineer
6 3 (2.97%) Analyst
6 3 (2.97%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
6 3 (2.97%) Cloud Engineer
6 3 (2.97%) Developer
6 3 (2.97%) Infrastructure Analyst
6 3 (2.97%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
6 3 (2.97%) VMware Engineer
7 2 (1.98%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 2 (1.98%) Environment Manager
7 2 (1.98%) Lead
7 2 (1.98%) Lead Architect
7 2 (1.98%) Lead Solutions Architect
7 2 (1.98%) Linux Engineer
7 2 (1.98%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (4.95%) Oracle GoldenGate
2 4 (3.96%) REST
3 3 (2.97%) JSON
4 2 (1.98%) ARM Templates
4 2 (1.98%) Django
4 2 (1.98%) GraphQL
4 2 (1.98%) OAuth
4 2 (1.98%) XML
5 1 (0.99%) Flash
5 1 (0.99%) Hugging Face
5 1 (0.99%) Kafka
5 1 (0.99%) LangChain
5 1 (0.99%) Middleware
5 1 (0.99%) vLLM
Miscellaneous
1 16 (15.84%) Data Centre
2 14 (13.86%) Public Cloud
3 10 (9.90%) Cloud Native
3 10 (9.90%) Hybrid Cloud
4 3 (2.97%) Management Information System
4 3 (2.97%) Private Cloud
5 2 (1.98%) AI Agents
5 2 (1.98%) Data Protection Act
5 2 (1.98%) Driving Licence
5 2 (1.98%) Linux Command Line
5 2 (1.98%) Onboarding
6 1 (0.99%) Algorithms
6 1 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.99%) CMDB
6 1 (0.99%) Data Structures
6 1 (0.99%) Enterprise Cloud
6 1 (0.99%) NHS
6 1 (0.99%) Replication
6 1 (0.99%) Security Posture
6 1 (0.99%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 18 (17.82%) Linux
2 13 (12.87%) Windows
3 10 (9.90%) Windows Server
4 5 (4.95%) AIX
5 3 (2.97%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (1.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (1.98%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.99%) CentOS
7 1 (0.99%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.99%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 38 (37.62%) Infrastructure as Code
2 28 (27.72%) CI/CD
3 26 (25.74%) DevOps
4 20 (19.80%) Project Delivery
5 19 (18.81%) Migration
6 17 (16.83%) Load Balancing
7 14 (13.86%) High Availability
7 14 (13.86%) Zero Trust
8 12 (11.88%) Site Reliability Engineering
9 11 (10.89%) Network Architecture
9 11 (10.89%) Network Design
10 9 (8.91%) Containerisation
11 8 (7.92%) Platform Engineering
11 8 (7.92%) Problem-Solving
12 6 (5.94%) AI
12 6 (5.94%) Data Protection
12 6 (5.94%) Infrastructure Automation
12 6 (5.94%) Observability
12 6 (5.94%) Root Cause Analysis
13 5 (4.95%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 24 (23.76%) Python
2 11 (10.89%) PowerShell
3 9 (8.91%) Bicep
4 7 (6.93%) Bash
5 2 (1.98%) ActionScript
6 1 (0.99%) C#
6 1 (0.99%) Shell Script
6 1 (0.99%) SQL
Qualifications
1 16 (15.84%) Security Cleared
2 9 (8.91%) SC Cleared
3 4 (3.96%) Azure Certification
4 2 (1.98%) Degree
5 1 (0.99%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (3.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 4 (3.96%) NIST
2 1 (0.99%) SLA
System Software
1 12 (11.88%) Active Directory
2 11 (10.89%) Docker
3 10 (9.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (6.93%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (4.95%) Oracle RAC
6 3 (2.97%) Hyper-V
6 3 (2.97%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (1.98%) vSphere
8 1 (0.99%) GPFS
8 1 (0.99%) NFS
Systems Management
1 32 (31.68%) Terraform
2 22 (21.78%) Ansible
3 12 (11.88%) Kubernetes
4 5 (4.95%) Data Guard
4 5 (4.95%) Oracle RMAN
5 4 (3.96%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (3.96%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (1.98%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (1.98%) CASB
6 2 (1.98%) Grafana
6 2 (1.98%) Prometheus
6 2 (1.98%) SCCM
7 1 (0.99%) Argo
7 1 (0.99%) Backup Exec
7 1 (0.99%) Packer
7 1 (0.99%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.99%) Puppet
7 1 (0.99%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.99%) WSUS
Vendors
1 26 (25.74%) F5
2 14 (13.86%) Microsoft
3 13 (12.87%) Palo Alto
4 12 (11.88%) VMware
5 11 (10.89%) Arista
6 10 (9.90%) Aruba
7 7 (6.93%) Oracle
8 4 (3.96%) ServiceNow
9 3 (2.97%) Cisco
9 3 (2.97%) Red Hat
9 3 (2.97%) Veeam
10 2 (1.98%) Zscaler
11 1 (0.99%) Citrix
11 1 (0.99%) DocuSign
11 1 (0.99%) IBM
11 1 (0.99%) Perforce
11 1 (0.99%) Symantec
11 1 (0.99%) Tanium