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 14 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 89 64
Rank change year-on-year +33 -25 -6
Contract jobs citing Infrastructure Engineering 145 36 50
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.70% 1.67% 2.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.47% 1.89% 2.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 94 18 36
10th Percentile £350 £303 £339
25th Percentile £406 £420 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £522 £525 £438
Median % change year-on-year -0.57% +20.00% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £534
90th Percentile £646 £673 £659
England median daily rate £549 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +9.80% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 0
Median hourly rate £33.64 £27.00 -
Median % change year-on-year +24.59% - -
England median hourly rate £74.00 £30.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year +146.67% -57.14% -1.75%

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 3,244 1,909 1,991
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 82.80% 88.79% 83.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,881 1,256 1,169
10th Percentile £295 £299 £300
25th Percentile £400 £370 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £498
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -9.55% -0.50%
75th Percentile £594 £553 £588
90th Percentile £675 £661 £688
England median daily rate £525 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 335 127 107
10th Percentile £16.00 £13.51 £16.71
25th Percentile £24.46 £17.34 £26.63
Median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +88.90% -40.84% +21.43%
75th Percentile £73.25 £48.94 £56.64
90th Percentile £85.00 £70.68 £70.90
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -1.71%

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 14 September 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 14 September 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 49 £514 -10.65% 96
Lancashire +11 47 £575 +130.00% 21
Cheshire +23 32 £550 +23.32% 12
Merseyside -7 11 £350 - 11
Cumbria - 5 £350 -
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 3 (2.07%) OpenStack
1 3 (2.07%) SharePoint
2 2 (1.38%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.69%) Confluence
Applications
1 6 (4.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (2.76%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (2.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (2.07%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.69%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.69%) Primavera
1 1 (0.69%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 42 (28.97%) Azure
2 38 (26.21%) AWS
3 24 (16.55%) OCI
4 10 (6.90%) GCP
4 10 (6.90%) SaaS
5 8 (5.52%) AWS CloudFormation
6 7 (4.83%) Azure Sentinel
6 7 (4.83%) Entra ID
6 7 (4.83%) IaaS
7 6 (4.14%) Microsoft 365
8 4 (2.76%) Power Platform
9 3 (2.07%) GitHub
10 2 (1.38%) Azure DevOps
10 2 (1.38%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 2 (1.38%) Azure Key Vault
10 2 (1.38%) Rubrik
11 1 (0.69%) AWS Direct Connect
11 1 (0.69%) Azure App Service
11 1 (0.69%) GitHub Actions
11 1 (0.69%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 33 (22.76%) Firewall
2 25 (17.24%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
3 21 (14.48%) DNS
4 18 (12.41%) Network Security
5 17 (11.72%) BIG-IP
5 17 (11.72%) WAN
6 13 (8.97%) BGP
6 13 (8.97%) Ethernet VPN
6 13 (8.97%) OSPF
6 13 (8.97%) SD-WAN
6 13 (8.97%) VXLAN
7 12 (8.28%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
8 11 (7.59%) Wi-Fi
8 11 (7.59%) WLAN
9 10 (6.90%) DMZ
10 8 (5.52%) VPN
11 5 (3.45%) LAN
12 3 (2.07%) SAN
12 3 (2.07%) TCP/IP
12 3 (2.07%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (8.97%) Relational Database
2 12 (8.28%) Oracle Database
2 12 (8.28%) Oracle Exadata
2 12 (8.28%) RDBMS
3 3 (2.07%) Power BI
4 2 (1.38%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
5 1 (0.69%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 20 (13.79%) GitLab
2 12 (8.28%) Git
3 6 (4.14%) JIRA
4 4 (2.76%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.69%) Claude Code
5 1 (0.69%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 30 (20.69%) Social Skills
2 16 (11.03%) Finance
2 16 (11.03%) Public Sector
3 11 (7.59%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (6.90%) Banking
5 5 (3.45%) Automotive
5 5 (3.45%) Manufacturing
5 5 (3.45%) Military
6 4 (2.76%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (2.07%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.69%) Games
8 1 (0.69%) Legal
Job Titles
1 82 (56.55%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 39 (26.90%) Senior
3 35 (24.14%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
4 12 (8.28%) Cloud Engineer
5 10 (6.90%) VMware Engineer
6 9 (6.21%) Network Engineer
6 9 (6.21%) Security Engineer
7 6 (4.14%) Cloud Security Engineer
7 6 (4.14%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
7 6 (4.14%) Project Manager
8 5 (3.45%) Azure Engineer
9 4 (2.76%) Automation Engineer
10 3 (2.07%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 3 (2.07%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
10 3 (2.07%) Compliance Specialist
10 3 (2.07%) LAN Specialist
10 3 (2.07%) Lead
10 3 (2.07%) Lead Infrastructure Engineer
10 3 (2.07%) Oracle Infrastructure Engineer
10 3 (2.07%) WAN Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (31.03%) Terraform
2 12 (8.28%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 4 (2.76%) JSON
4 3 (2.07%) REST
5 2 (1.38%) Django
5 2 (1.38%) XML
6 1 (0.69%) Flash
6 1 (0.69%) Kafka
6 1 (0.69%) Middleware
6 1 (0.69%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (12.41%) Data Centre
2 13 (8.97%) Public Cloud
3 11 (7.59%) Cloud Native
3 11 (7.59%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (6.90%) Management Information System
5 8 (5.52%) Enterprise Cloud
6 5 (3.45%) Replication
6 5 (3.45%) Security Posture
7 3 (2.07%) PKI
7 3 (2.07%) Private Cloud
8 2 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (1.38%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (0.69%) Animation
9 1 (0.69%) Data Structures
9 1 (0.69%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 1 (0.69%) Driving Licence
9 1 (0.69%) Enterprise Storage
9 1 (0.69%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.69%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.69%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 30 (20.69%) Linux
2 14 (9.66%) Windows
3 12 (8.28%) AIX
4 10 (6.90%) Windows Server
5 2 (1.38%) Unix
5 2 (1.38%) Windows Server 2003
6 1 (0.69%) Android
6 1 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.69%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.69%) Windows 7
6 1 (0.69%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (33.10%) Infrastructure as Code
2 31 (21.38%) Migration
3 28 (19.31%) CI/CD
4 23 (15.86%) Load Balancing
4 23 (15.86%) Stakeholder Management
5 22 (15.17%) Continuous Improvement
6 21 (14.48%) DevOps
7 19 (13.10%) Project Delivery
8 16 (11.03%) High Availability
9 15 (10.34%) Zero Trust
10 13 (8.97%) Cloud Security
10 13 (8.97%) Data Migration
10 13 (8.97%) Network Architecture
10 13 (8.97%) Problem-Solving
11 12 (8.28%) Change Management
11 12 (8.28%) Infrastructure Automation
11 12 (8.28%) Site Reliability Engineering
12 11 (7.59%) Agile
12 11 (7.59%) Network Design
13 10 (6.90%) Cryptography
Programming Languages
1 27 (18.62%) Python
2 13 (8.97%) PowerShell
3 12 (8.28%) Bicep
4 10 (6.90%) Bash
5 2 (1.38%) ActionScript
6 1 (0.69%) C#
6 1 (0.69%) SQL
Qualifications
1 25 (17.24%) Security Cleared
2 18 (12.41%) SC Cleared
3 7 (4.83%) Degree
4 3 (2.07%) CCIE
4 3 (2.07%) CCNP
4 3 (2.07%) Cisco Certification
4 3 (2.07%) CISSP
5 2 (1.38%) (ISC)2 CCSP
5 2 (1.38%) AWS Certification
5 2 (1.38%) CCIE Security
5 2 (1.38%) CCSA
5 2 (1.38%) CCSE
5 2 (1.38%) CCSP
5 2 (1.38%) GCIA
5 2 (1.38%) GCIH
5 2 (1.38%) GIAC
6 1 (0.69%) Azure Certification
6 1 (0.69%) CISM
6 1 (0.69%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (3.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 5 (3.45%) NIST
2 3 (2.07%) Data Quality
2 3 (2.07%) GRC
2 3 (2.07%) PMO
2 3 (2.07%) SLA
3 2 (1.38%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.69%) QA
System Software
1 14 (9.66%) VMware Infrastructure
2 12 (8.28%) Oracle RAC
3 11 (7.59%) Active Directory
4 4 (2.76%) VMware NSX
5 3 (2.07%) Ceph
5 3 (2.07%) Docker
5 3 (2.07%) KVM
5 3 (2.07%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (1.38%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.69%) GPFS
7 1 (0.69%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.69%) NFS
Systems Management
1 35 (24.14%) Ansible
2 15 (10.34%) Kubernetes
3 12 (8.28%) Data Guard
3 12 (8.28%) Oracle RMAN
4 3 (2.07%) CASB
4 3 (2.07%) Progress Chef
4 3 (2.07%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (1.38%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (1.38%) SCCM
5 2 (1.38%) WSUS
6 1 (0.69%) Backup Exec
6 1 (0.69%) Grafana
6 1 (0.69%) Packer
6 1 (0.69%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.69%) Puppet
6 1 (0.69%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 27 (18.62%) F5
2 22 (15.17%) Microsoft
3 16 (11.03%) Palo Alto
3 16 (11.03%) VMware
4 14 (9.66%) Oracle
5 11 (7.59%) Arista
6 10 (6.90%) Aruba
7 5 (3.45%) Cisco
8 4 (2.76%) ServiceNow
9 3 (2.07%) AlgoSec
9 3 (2.07%) Red Hat
9 3 (2.07%) Zscaler
10 2 (1.38%) CheckPoint
10 2 (1.38%) Citrix
11 1 (0.69%) Fortinet
11 1 (0.69%) Google
11 1 (0.69%) IBM
11 1 (0.69%) Perforce
11 1 (0.69%) Symantec
11 1 (0.69%) Veeam