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 £548, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 September 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 65 85 68
Rank change year-on-year +20 -17 +41
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 216 80 129
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.28% 2.29% 2.76%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.57% 2.54% 2.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 130 61 97
10th Percentile £407 £250 £350
25th Percentile £480 £329 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £548 £483 £450
Median % change year-on-year +13.47% +7.22% -10.00%
75th Percentile £599 £588 £596
90th Percentile £630 £600 £608
England median daily rate £525 £483 £486
% change year-on-year +8.81% -0.67% -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 6,050 3,148 4,325
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.74% 90.23% 92.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,521 2,033 2,603
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 £715 £661 £688
England median daily rate £525 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 756 282 340
10th Percentile £15.36 £13.75 £16.23
25th Percentile £23.00 £15.50 £33.50
Median hourly rate £52.21 £25.15 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +107.60% -56.15% +14.70%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £75.00
90th Percentile £85.13 £72.85 £80.00
England median hourly rate £43.56 £25.15 £46.87
% change year-on-year +73.20% -46.34% +6.85%

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 6 September 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 6 September 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 6 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
Thames Valley +21 124 £541 +18.96% 17
Buckinghamshire +26 77 £575 +4.55% 8
Hampshire +18 67 £575 - 14
Oxfordshire -4 24 £250 - 4
Berkshire -27 23 £500 +6.24% 5
Surrey -11 11 £475 -11.63% 11
Isle of Wight - 10 - -
West Sussex -21 3 £513 +36.67% 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 6 September 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.

1 215 (99.54%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 131 (60.65%) Security Cleared
3 92 (42.59%) SC Cleared
4 81 (37.50%) VMware
5 70 (32.41%) Azure
6 68 (31.48%) Microsoft
6 68 (31.48%) Windows
7 59 (27.31%) VMware Infrastructure
8 52 (24.07%) DV Cleared
9 50 (23.15%) Active Directory
10 48 (22.22%) Windows Server
11 47 (21.76%) PowerShell
12 45 (20.83%) Linux
13 30 (13.89%) Citrix
14 29 (13.43%) DNS
15 26 (12.04%) Entra ID
15 26 (12.04%) Problem-Solving
16 25 (11.57%) Infrastructure as Code
17 22 (10.19%) ITIL
17 22 (10.19%) VMware NSX
18 21 (9.72%) AWS
18 21 (9.72%) DHCP
18 21 (9.72%) Firewall
18 21 (9.72%) Terraform
18 21 (9.72%) vSphere
19 20 (9.26%) Virtual Machines
20 19 (8.80%) vCenter Server
21 18 (8.33%) Disaster Recovery
21 18 (8.33%) VMware ESXi
22 17 (7.87%) DevOps

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 (5.09%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (0.93%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 3 (1.39%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.46%) CINEMA 4D
2 1 (0.46%) Houdini
2 1 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.46%) NUKE
Cloud Services
1 70 (32.41%) Azure
2 26 (12.04%) Entra ID
3 21 (9.72%) AWS
4 17 (7.87%) Microsoft 365
5 14 (6.48%) IaaS
6 10 (4.63%) Azure Monitor
7 6 (2.78%) GCP
8 4 (1.85%) Azure Sentinel
9 3 (1.39%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 3 (1.39%) Microsoft Copilot
9 3 (1.39%) SaaS
10 2 (0.93%) Azure Data Factory
10 2 (0.93%) OneDrive
10 2 (0.93%) OpenShift
10 2 (0.93%) Rubrik
11 1 (0.46%) AWS CloudFormation
11 1 (0.46%) Datadog
11 1 (0.46%) GitHub Actions
11 1 (0.46%) Nutanix
11 1 (0.46%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 29 (13.43%) DNS
2 21 (9.72%) DHCP
2 21 (9.72%) Firewall
3 17 (7.87%) VPN
4 13 (6.02%) VLAN
4 13 (6.02%) VSAN
5 12 (5.56%) TCP/IP
6 9 (4.17%) LAN
6 9 (4.17%) WAN
7 5 (2.31%) SD-WAN
8 4 (1.85%) Network Security
8 4 (1.85%) SSH
8 4 (1.85%) Wi-Fi
8 4 (1.85%) Wireless
9 3 (1.39%) SAN
9 3 (1.39%) SMTP
10 2 (0.93%) NAS
10 2 (0.93%) Software-Defined Networking
11 1 (0.46%) FTP
11 1 (0.46%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.31%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.39%) Data Mining
3 2 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.46%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 2 (0.93%) Git
2 1 (0.46%) GitLab
2 1 (0.46%) JIRA
2 1 (0.46%) MLflow
General
1 26 (12.04%) Social Skills
2 14 (6.48%) Public Sector
3 11 (5.09%) Aerospace
3 11 (5.09%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (4.63%) Marketing
5 9 (4.17%) Manufacturing
6 8 (3.70%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (3.24%) Finance
8 4 (1.85%) Military
9 3 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.46%) Advertising
10 1 (0.46%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (9.72%) Terraform
2 7 (3.24%) ARM Templates
3 1 (0.46%) Pulumi
3 1 (0.46%) REST
3 1 (0.46%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (8.33%) Data Centre
2 17 (7.87%) Hybrid Cloud
3 15 (6.94%) PKI
4 12 (5.56%) Public Cloud
5 10 (4.63%) Onboarding
6 6 (2.78%) Private Cloud
7 5 (2.31%) Management Information System
8 3 (1.39%) ARM Cortex
8 3 (1.39%) Cloud Native
8 3 (1.39%) Driving Licence
9 2 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (0.93%) Distributed Architecture
9 2 (0.93%) Distributed Computing
9 2 (0.93%) Replication
10 1 (0.46%) Enterprise Software
10 1 (0.46%) Enterprise Storage
10 1 (0.46%) Legacy Systems
10 1 (0.46%) Renewable Energy
10 1 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
10 1 (0.46%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 68 (31.48%) Windows
2 48 (22.22%) Windows Server
3 45 (20.83%) Linux
4 6 (2.78%) Debian
5 4 (1.85%) Oracle Linux
5 4 (1.85%) Windows 10
6 3 (1.39%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.46%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 215 (99.54%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 26 (12.04%) Problem-Solving
3 25 (11.57%) Infrastructure as Code
4 22 (10.19%) ITIL
5 18 (8.33%) Disaster Recovery
6 17 (7.87%) DevOps
7 15 (6.94%) Project Delivery
8 14 (6.48%) Migration
9 13 (6.02%) Continuous Improvement
9 13 (6.02%) RBAC
9 13 (6.02%) Zero Trust
10 12 (5.56%) Agile
10 12 (5.56%) Analytics
10 12 (5.56%) CI/CD
10 12 (5.56%) High Availability
10 12 (5.56%) Identity Access Management
10 12 (5.56%) Privileged Access Management
10 12 (5.56%) Security Hardening
11 11 (5.09%) Service Delivery
11 11 (5.09%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 47 (21.76%) PowerShell
2 12 (5.56%) Bicep
3 11 (5.09%) Bash
4 9 (4.17%) Python
5 6 (2.78%) SQL
Qualifications
1 131 (60.65%) Security Cleared
2 92 (42.59%) SC Cleared
3 52 (24.07%) DV Cleared
4 11 (5.09%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 10 (4.63%) Degree
6 9 (4.17%) Microsoft Certification
6 9 (4.17%) VCAP
7 6 (2.78%) MCSA
8 4 (1.85%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.85%) MCSE
9 3 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.46%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.46%) NCDA
10 1 (0.46%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.46%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (3.70%) NCSC
2 4 (1.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (1.85%) NIST
3 2 (0.93%) QA
4 1 (0.46%) GDPR
4 1 (0.46%) NIST 800
4 1 (0.46%) SLA
System Software
1 59 (27.31%) VMware Infrastructure
2 50 (23.15%) Active Directory
3 22 (10.19%) VMware NSX
4 21 (9.72%) vSphere
5 20 (9.26%) Virtual Machines
6 18 (8.33%) VMware ESXi
7 16 (7.41%) Hyper-V
8 7 (3.24%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (1.85%) KVM
10 2 (0.93%) Docker
11 1 (0.46%) UAG
11 1 (0.46%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 19 (8.80%) vCenter Server
2 15 (6.94%) Microsoft Intune
3 12 (5.56%) SCCM
4 10 (4.63%) Ansible
4 10 (4.63%) SCOM
5 5 (2.31%) Kubernetes
6 3 (1.39%) PowerCLI
6 3 (1.39%) SCSM
7 2 (0.93%) Dell DRAC
7 2 (0.93%) Istio
7 2 (0.93%) NetBackup
7 2 (0.93%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (0.46%) Avamar
8 1 (0.46%) McAfee ePO
8 1 (0.46%) VxRail
Vendors
1 81 (37.50%) VMware
2 68 (31.48%) Microsoft
3 30 (13.89%) Citrix
4 13 (6.02%) Veeam
5 7 (3.24%) Cisco
6 6 (2.78%) SolarWinds
7 5 (2.31%) Google
7 5 (2.31%) NetApp
7 5 (2.31%) Oracle
7 5 (2.31%) ServiceNow
8 4 (1.85%) BT
8 4 (1.85%) CheckPoint
8 4 (1.85%) Commvault
8 4 (1.85%) CrowdStrike
8 4 (1.85%) Meraki
8 4 (1.85%) Xerox
9 3 (1.39%) Broadcom
9 3 (1.39%) Trend Micro
9 3 (1.39%) Zerto
9 3 (1.39%) Zscaler