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 23 August 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 65 104 75
Rank change year-on-year +39 -29 +33
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 228 67 128
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.40% 1.89% 2.69%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.69% 2.09% 2.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 144 48 98
10th Percentile £402 £328 £360
25th Percentile £477 £329 £386
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £545 £538 £450
Median % change year-on-year +1.33% +19.44% -10.00%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £600
90th Percentile £625 £601 £608
England median daily rate £525 £510 £500
% change year-on-year +2.94% +2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
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 £72.75
% change year-on-year +141.80% -58.76% +0.34%

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 6,181 3,204 4,392
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.13% 90.20% 92.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,633 2,069 2,669
10th Percentile £305 £205 £250
25th Percentile £425 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.91% +3.00%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £631
90th Percentile £720 £675 £688
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 748 286 365
10th Percentile £15.72 £13.75 £16.00
25th Percentile £25.56 £15.50 £27.50
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -56.15% +14.70%
75th Percentile £71.25 £57.50 £73.75
90th Percentile £86.61 £75.00 £80.00
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.32 £45.00
% change year-on-year +67.85% -43.73% +2.63%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 +39 133 £536 +2.17% 15
Buckinghamshire +21 87 £575 +4.55% 6
Hampshire +13 71 £575 - 10
Oxfordshire -6 23 £250 - 5
Berkshire -21 23 £435 -20.91% 4
Surrey -12 12 £488 -9.30% 5
Isle of Wight - 10 - -
West Sussex -21 1 - -
Middlesex - 1 - -
Infrastructure Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 23 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.

1 225 (98.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 134 (58.77%) Security Cleared
3 91 (39.91%) SC Cleared
4 83 (36.40%) VMware
5 73 (32.02%) Azure
6 69 (30.26%) Microsoft
7 68 (29.82%) Windows
8 61 (26.75%) VMware Infrastructure
9 54 (23.68%) DV Cleared
10 52 (22.81%) Active Directory
11 48 (21.05%) Windows Server
12 47 (20.61%) Linux
13 46 (20.18%) PowerShell
14 33 (14.47%) Citrix
15 30 (13.16%) DNS
16 26 (11.40%) Entra ID
17 25 (10.96%) Problem-Solving
18 23 (10.09%) VMware NSX
19 22 (9.65%) DHCP
19 22 (9.65%) vSphere
20 21 (9.21%) AWS
20 21 (9.21%) Infrastructure as Code
20 21 (9.21%) ITIL
20 21 (9.21%) Terraform
21 20 (8.77%) Firewall
22 19 (8.33%) vCenter Server
22 19 (8.33%) Virtual Machines
23 18 (7.89%) VMware ESXi
24 17 (7.46%) DevOps
24 17 (7.46%) High Availability

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 11 (4.82%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (0.88%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 3 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.44%) CINEMA 4D
2 1 (0.44%) Houdini
2 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.44%) NUKE
Cloud Services
1 73 (32.02%) Azure
2 26 (11.40%) Entra ID
3 21 (9.21%) AWS
4 17 (7.46%) Microsoft 365
5 14 (6.14%) IaaS
6 10 (4.39%) Azure Monitor
7 6 (2.63%) GCP
8 4 (1.75%) Azure Sentinel
8 4 (1.75%) Microsoft Copilot
9 3 (1.32%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 3 (1.32%) SaaS
10 2 (0.88%) Azure Data Factory
10 2 (0.88%) OneDrive
10 2 (0.88%) Rubrik
11 1 (0.44%) AWS CloudFormation
11 1 (0.44%) Azure DevOps
11 1 (0.44%) Datadog
11 1 (0.44%) GitHub Actions
11 1 (0.44%) Nutanix
11 1 (0.44%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 30 (13.16%) DNS
2 22 (9.65%) DHCP
3 20 (8.77%) Firewall
4 15 (6.58%) VPN
5 14 (6.14%) VLAN
6 13 (5.70%) VSAN
7 11 (4.82%) TCP/IP
8 8 (3.51%) LAN
8 8 (3.51%) WAN
9 5 (2.19%) SD-WAN
10 4 (1.75%) Network Security
10 4 (1.75%) SMTP
10 4 (1.75%) SSH
10 4 (1.75%) Wi-Fi
11 3 (1.32%) SAN
12 2 (0.88%) NAS
12 2 (0.88%) Wireless
13 1 (0.44%) FTP
13 1 (0.44%) Software-Defined Networking
13 1 (0.44%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.75%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.32%) Data Mining
3 2 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.44%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 2 (0.88%) Git
2 1 (0.44%) GitLab
2 1 (0.44%) JIRA
2 1 (0.44%) MLflow
2 1 (0.44%) Robot Framework
General
1 24 (10.53%) Social Skills
2 16 (7.02%) Public Sector
3 11 (4.82%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (4.39%) Aerospace
4 10 (4.39%) Marketing
5 9 (3.95%) Manufacturing
6 8 (3.51%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (3.07%) Finance
8 3 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (1.32%) Military
9 1 (0.44%) Advertising
9 1 (0.44%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (9.21%) Terraform
2 6 (2.63%) ARM Templates
3 1 (0.44%) Pulumi
3 1 (0.44%) REST
3 1 (0.44%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (7.89%) Data Centre
1 18 (7.89%) PKI
2 15 (6.58%) Hybrid Cloud
3 12 (5.26%) Public Cloud
4 9 (3.95%) Onboarding
5 7 (3.07%) Private Cloud
6 4 (1.75%) Management Information System
7 3 (1.32%) ARM Cortex
7 3 (1.32%) Driving Licence
7 3 (1.32%) Replication
8 2 (0.88%) Cloud Native
8 2 (0.88%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (0.88%) Enterprise Storage
9 1 (0.44%) Distributed Architecture
9 1 (0.44%) Distributed Computing
9 1 (0.44%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (0.44%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.44%) Renewable Energy
9 1 (0.44%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.44%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 68 (29.82%) Windows
2 48 (21.05%) Windows Server
3 47 (20.61%) Linux
4 6 (2.63%) Debian
5 4 (1.75%) Oracle Linux
5 4 (1.75%) Windows 10
5 4 (1.75%) Windows Server 2019
6 3 (1.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.44%) CentOS
7 1 (0.44%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.44%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 225 (98.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 25 (10.96%) Problem-Solving
3 21 (9.21%) Infrastructure as Code
3 21 (9.21%) ITIL
4 17 (7.46%) DevOps
4 17 (7.46%) High Availability
5 15 (6.58%) Disaster Recovery
6 14 (6.14%) Project Delivery
7 13 (5.70%) Continuous Improvement
7 13 (5.70%) RBAC
8 12 (5.26%) Agile
8 12 (5.26%) Analytics
8 12 (5.26%) CI/CD
8 12 (5.26%) Identity Access Management
8 12 (5.26%) Migration
8 12 (5.26%) Privileged Access Management
9 11 (4.82%) Security Hardening
9 11 (4.82%) Zero Trust
10 10 (4.39%) Infrastructure Monitoring
10 10 (4.39%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 46 (20.18%) PowerShell
2 11 (4.82%) Bicep
3 10 (4.39%) Bash
4 9 (3.95%) Python
5 6 (2.63%) SQL
Qualifications
1 134 (58.77%) Security Cleared
2 91 (39.91%) SC Cleared
3 54 (23.68%) DV Cleared
4 11 (4.82%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 10 (4.39%) VCAP
6 9 (3.95%) Degree
7 8 (3.51%) Microsoft Certification
8 6 (2.63%) MCSA
9 4 (1.75%) MCSE
10 3 (1.32%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.88%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.88%) NCDA
12 1 (0.44%) CCA
12 1 (0.44%) CESG Certified Professional
12 1 (0.44%) Citrix Certification
12 1 (0.44%) PMI Certification
12 1 (0.44%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (3.07%) NCSC
2 4 (1.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (1.75%) NIST
3 2 (0.88%) QA
4 1 (0.44%) GDPR
4 1 (0.44%) NIST 800
System Software
1 61 (26.75%) VMware Infrastructure
2 52 (22.81%) Active Directory
3 23 (10.09%) VMware NSX
4 22 (9.65%) vSphere
5 19 (8.33%) Virtual Machines
6 18 (7.89%) VMware ESXi
7 14 (6.14%) Hyper-V
8 8 (3.51%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (1.75%) KVM
10 2 (0.88%) Docker
11 1 (0.44%) UAG
11 1 (0.44%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 19 (8.33%) vCenter Server
2 15 (6.58%) Microsoft Intune
3 10 (4.39%) Ansible
3 10 (4.39%) SCCM
3 10 (4.39%) SCOM
4 4 (1.75%) Kubernetes
5 3 (1.32%) PowerCLI
5 3 (1.32%) SCSM
6 2 (0.88%) Dell DRAC
6 2 (0.88%) NetBackup
6 2 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 1 (0.44%) Avamar
7 1 (0.44%) Istio
7 1 (0.44%) McAfee ePO
7 1 (0.44%) VxRail
Vendors
1 83 (36.40%) VMware
2 69 (30.26%) Microsoft
3 33 (14.47%) Citrix
4 14 (6.14%) Veeam
5 7 (3.07%) Cisco
6 6 (2.63%) NetApp
6 6 (2.63%) SolarWinds
7 5 (2.19%) Google
7 5 (2.19%) Oracle
7 5 (2.19%) ServiceNow
8 4 (1.75%) BT
8 4 (1.75%) CheckPoint
8 4 (1.75%) Commvault
8 4 (1.75%) CrowdStrike
8 4 (1.75%) Meraki
8 4 (1.75%) Xerox
8 4 (1.75%) Zscaler
9 3 (1.32%) Broadcom
9 3 (1.32%) Trend Micro
9 3 (1.32%) Zerto