Infrastructure Engineer Contract Job Trends in the South East

Infrastructure Engineer
England > South East

The median Infrastructure Engineer daily rate in the South East is £545, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 30 August 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 63 91 68
Rank change year-on-year +28 -23 +35
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 223 77 130
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.35% 2.17% 2.75%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.65% 2.40% 2.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 135 57 99
10th Percentile £385 £258 £358
25th Percentile £470 £329 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £545 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year +9.00% +11.11% -10.00%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £592
90th Percentile £630 £600 £608
England median daily rate £525 £500 £486
% change year-on-year +5.00% +2.93% -2.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 1 0
10th Percentile £67.48 - -
25th Percentile £76.25 £71.00 -
Median hourly rate £77.50 £77.00 -
Median % change year-on-year +0.65% - -
75th Percentile £78.75 £83.00 -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £72.54 £30.00 £67.50
% change year-on-year +141.80% -55.56% -6.90%

All Contract IT Job Roles
South East

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the South East. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the South East with a recognized job title 6,105 3,203 4,363
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.76% 90.20% 92.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,561 2,060 2,629
10th Percentile £303 £205 £250
25th Percentile £425 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% +2.50%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £625
90th Percentile £720 £664 £688
England median daily rate £525 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 756 285 350
10th Percentile £15.50 £13.75 £16.23
25th Percentile £23.75 £15.50 £30.00
Median hourly rate £52.43 £25.15 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +108.45% -56.15% +14.70%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £75.00
90th Percentile £86.31 £71.50 £80.00
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +2.60%

Infrastructure Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Infrastructure Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Infrastructure Engineer job vacancy trend in the South East

Infrastructure Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Infrastructure Engineer job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Infrastructure Engineer job vacancies in the South East

Infrastructure Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Infrastructure Engineer in the South East over the 6 months to 30 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Infrastructure Engineer in the South East

Infrastructure Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Infrastructure Engineer job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Infrastructure Engineer job vacancies in the South East

Infrastructure Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Infrastructure Engineer in the South East over the 6 months to 30 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Infrastructure Engineer in the South East

Infrastructure Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Infrastructure Engineer within the South East region over the 6 months to 30 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
Thames Valley +30 129 £536 +47.97% 14
Buckinghamshire +20 81 £575 +4.55% 7
Hampshire +13 71 £575 - 13
Oxfordshire -4 24 £250 - 3
Berkshire -19 24 £450 -3.49% 4
Surrey -11 11 £475 -11.63% 11
Isle of Wight - 10 - -
West Sussex -21 1 - - 3
Middlesex - 1 - - 1
Infrastructure Engineer
England

Infrastructure Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East

For the 6 months to 30 August 2026, Infrastructure Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the South East region featuring Infrastructure Engineer in the job title.

1 221 (99.10%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 134 (60.09%) Security Cleared
3 92 (41.26%) SC Cleared
4 84 (37.67%) VMware
5 72 (32.29%) Azure
6 69 (30.94%) Microsoft
7 68 (30.49%) Windows
8 62 (27.80%) VMware Infrastructure
9 53 (23.77%) DV Cleared
10 51 (22.87%) Active Directory
11 48 (21.52%) Windows Server
12 47 (21.08%) Linux
12 47 (21.08%) PowerShell
13 30 (13.45%) Citrix
13 30 (13.45%) DNS
14 26 (11.66%) Entra ID
14 26 (11.66%) Problem-Solving
15 23 (10.31%) Infrastructure as Code
15 23 (10.31%) VMware NSX
16 22 (9.87%) DHCP
16 22 (9.87%) Terraform
16 22 (9.87%) vSphere
17 21 (9.42%) AWS
17 21 (9.42%) Firewall
17 21 (9.42%) ITIL
18 20 (8.97%) vCenter Server
19 19 (8.52%) Virtual Machines
19 19 (8.52%) VMware ESXi
20 18 (8.07%) DevOps
21 16 (7.17%) Disaster Recovery

Infrastructure Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 10 (4.48%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (0.90%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 3 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.45%) CINEMA 4D
2 1 (0.45%) Houdini
2 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.45%) NUKE
Cloud Services
1 72 (32.29%) Azure
2 26 (11.66%) Entra ID
3 21 (9.42%) AWS
4 16 (7.17%) Microsoft 365
5 14 (6.28%) IaaS
6 10 (4.48%) Azure Monitor
7 6 (2.69%) GCP
8 4 (1.79%) Azure Sentinel
9 3 (1.35%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 3 (1.35%) Microsoft Copilot
9 3 (1.35%) SaaS
10 2 (0.90%) Azure Data Factory
10 2 (0.90%) OneDrive
10 2 (0.90%) OpenShift
10 2 (0.90%) Rubrik
11 1 (0.45%) Azure DevOps
11 1 (0.45%) Datadog
11 1 (0.45%) GitHub Actions
11 1 (0.45%) Nutanix
11 1 (0.45%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 30 (13.45%) DNS
2 22 (9.87%) DHCP
3 21 (9.42%) Firewall
4 16 (7.17%) VPN
5 14 (6.28%) VLAN
5 14 (6.28%) VSAN
6 12 (5.38%) TCP/IP
7 8 (3.59%) LAN
7 8 (3.59%) WAN
8 5 (2.24%) SD-WAN
9 4 (1.79%) Network Security
9 4 (1.79%) SSH
9 4 (1.79%) Wi-Fi
10 3 (1.35%) SAN
10 3 (1.35%) SMTP
11 2 (0.90%) NAS
11 2 (0.90%) Software-Defined Networking
11 2 (0.90%) Wireless
12 1 (0.45%) FTP
12 1 (0.45%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.79%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.35%) Data Mining
3 2 (0.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.45%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 2 (0.90%) Git
2 1 (0.45%) GitLab
2 1 (0.45%) JIRA
2 1 (0.45%) MLflow
2 1 (0.45%) Robot Framework
General
1 25 (11.21%) Social Skills
2 15 (6.73%) Public Sector
3 11 (4.93%) Aerospace
3 11 (4.93%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (4.48%) Marketing
5 9 (4.04%) Manufacturing
6 8 (3.59%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (3.14%) Finance
8 4 (1.79%) Military
9 3 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.45%) Advertising
10 1 (0.45%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (9.87%) Terraform
2 7 (3.14%) ARM Templates
3 1 (0.45%) Pulumi
3 1 (0.45%) REST
3 1 (0.45%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (8.07%) Data Centre
2 17 (7.62%) Hybrid Cloud
2 17 (7.62%) PKI
3 12 (5.38%) Public Cloud
4 9 (4.04%) Onboarding
5 7 (3.14%) Private Cloud
6 5 (2.24%) Management Information System
7 3 (1.35%) ARM Cortex
7 3 (1.35%) Cloud Native
7 3 (1.35%) Driving Licence
8 2 (0.90%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (0.90%) Distributed Architecture
8 2 (0.90%) Distributed Computing
8 2 (0.90%) Replication
9 1 (0.45%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.45%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (0.45%) Enterprise Storage
9 1 (0.45%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.45%) Renewable Energy
9 1 (0.45%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 68 (30.49%) Windows
2 48 (21.52%) Windows Server
3 47 (21.08%) Linux
4 6 (2.69%) Debian
5 4 (1.79%) Oracle Linux
5 4 (1.79%) Windows 10
6 3 (1.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (1.35%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.45%) CentOS
7 1 (0.45%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.45%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 221 (99.10%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 26 (11.66%) Problem-Solving
3 23 (10.31%) Infrastructure as Code
4 21 (9.42%) ITIL
5 18 (8.07%) DevOps
6 16 (7.17%) Disaster Recovery
7 14 (6.28%) Continuous Improvement
7 14 (6.28%) High Availability
7 14 (6.28%) Migration
7 14 (6.28%) Project Delivery
8 13 (5.83%) Agile
8 13 (5.83%) RBAC
8 13 (5.83%) Zero Trust
9 12 (5.38%) Analytics
9 12 (5.38%) CI/CD
9 12 (5.38%) Identity Access Management
9 12 (5.38%) Privileged Access Management
9 12 (5.38%) Security Hardening
10 11 (4.93%) Service Delivery
10 11 (4.93%) Vulnerability Remediation
Programming Languages
1 47 (21.08%) PowerShell
2 12 (5.38%) Bicep
3 11 (4.93%) Bash
4 10 (4.48%) Python
5 6 (2.69%) SQL
Qualifications
1 134 (60.09%) Security Cleared
2 92 (41.26%) SC Cleared
3 53 (23.77%) DV Cleared
4 12 (5.38%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 10 (4.48%) Degree
5 10 (4.48%) VCAP
6 9 (4.04%) Microsoft Certification
7 6 (2.69%) MCSA
8 4 (1.79%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.79%) MCSE
9 3 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.45%) NCDA
10 1 (0.45%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.45%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (3.59%) NCSC
2 4 (1.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (1.79%) NIST
3 2 (0.90%) QA
4 1 (0.45%) GDPR
4 1 (0.45%) NIST 800
System Software
1 62 (27.80%) VMware Infrastructure
2 51 (22.87%) Active Directory
3 23 (10.31%) VMware NSX
4 22 (9.87%) vSphere
5 19 (8.52%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (8.52%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (6.73%) Hyper-V
7 7 (3.14%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (1.79%) KVM
9 2 (0.90%) Docker
10 1 (0.45%) UAG
10 1 (0.45%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 20 (8.97%) vCenter Server
2 15 (6.73%) Microsoft Intune
3 11 (4.93%) Ansible
3 11 (4.93%) SCCM
4 10 (4.48%) SCOM
5 5 (2.24%) Kubernetes
6 3 (1.35%) PowerCLI
6 3 (1.35%) SCSM
7 2 (0.90%) Dell DRAC
7 2 (0.90%) Istio
7 2 (0.90%) NetBackup
7 2 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (0.45%) Avamar
8 1 (0.45%) McAfee ePO
8 1 (0.45%) VxRail
Vendors
1 84 (37.67%) VMware
2 69 (30.94%) Microsoft
3 30 (13.45%) Citrix
4 13 (5.83%) Veeam
5 7 (3.14%) Cisco
6 6 (2.69%) SolarWinds
7 5 (2.24%) Google
7 5 (2.24%) NetApp
7 5 (2.24%) Oracle
7 5 (2.24%) ServiceNow
8 4 (1.79%) BT
8 4 (1.79%) CheckPoint
8 4 (1.79%) Commvault
8 4 (1.79%) CrowdStrike
8 4 (1.79%) Meraki
8 4 (1.79%) Xerox
9 3 (1.35%) Broadcom
9 3 (1.35%) Trend Micro
9 3 (1.35%) Zerto
9 3 (1.35%) Zscaler