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 £536, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 August 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 64 93 67
Rank change year-on-year +29 -26 +33
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 222 71 136
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.33% 2.03% 2.73%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.60% 2.24% 2.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 149 47 105
10th Percentile £400 £329 £361
25th Percentile £463 £369 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £536 £550 £463
Median % change year-on-year -2.47% +18.92% -6.33%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £625 £611 £608
England median daily rate £525 £525 £500
% change year-on-year - +5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 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 £78.98 - -
England median hourly rate £72.54 £77.00 £72.75
% change year-on-year -5.79% +5.84% +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 6,167 3,169 4,590
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.40% 90.59% 92.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,651 2,055 2,807
10th Percentile £305 £213 £255
25th Percentile £425 £376 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £638
90th Percentile £713 £663 £688
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 713 256 381
10th Percentile £16.04 £13.93 £15.96
25th Percentile £26.25 £15.50 £26.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -56.15% +14.70%
75th Percentile £75.40 £58.75 £72.33
90th Percentile £87.93 £75.00 £80.00
England median hourly rate £45.00 £26.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +73.08% -42.22% +4.65%

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 2 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
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 2 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 +32 133 £536 -0.20% 20
Buckinghamshire +20 84 £575 +4.55% 5
Hampshire +7 66 £575 - 21
Berkshire -20 27 £425 -29.17% 4
Oxfordshire -3 22 £250 - 11
Surrey -11 11 £500 -6.98% 13
Isle of Wight - 10 - -
West Sussex -19 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 2 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.

1 219 (98.65%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 123 (55.41%) Security Cleared
3 81 (36.49%) SC Cleared
4 76 (34.23%) VMware
5 72 (32.43%) Azure
6 63 (28.38%) Microsoft
7 61 (27.48%) Windows
8 54 (24.32%) VMware Infrastructure
9 49 (22.07%) Active Directory
9 49 (22.07%) DV Cleared
10 45 (20.27%) Linux
11 41 (18.47%) PowerShell
12 40 (18.02%) Windows Server
13 33 (14.86%) Citrix
14 29 (13.06%) DNS
15 25 (11.26%) Entra ID
16 23 (10.36%) VMware NSX
17 22 (9.91%) Problem-Solving
17 22 (9.91%) vSphere
18 21 (9.46%) AWS
18 21 (9.46%) Terraform
19 20 (9.01%) DHCP
20 19 (8.56%) Infrastructure as Code
20 19 (8.56%) vCenter Server
20 19 (8.56%) Virtual Machines
20 19 (8.56%) VMware ESXi
21 18 (8.11%) Firewall
21 18 (8.11%) High Availability
21 18 (8.11%) Microsoft 365
22 17 (7.66%) 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 10 (4.50%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (1.35%) 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 Excel
2 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.45%) NUKE
Cloud Services
1 72 (32.43%) Azure
2 25 (11.26%) Entra ID
3 21 (9.46%) AWS
4 18 (8.11%) Microsoft 365
5 12 (5.41%) IaaS
6 7 (3.15%) Azure Monitor
7 6 (2.70%) GCP
8 4 (1.80%) Azure Sentinel
8 4 (1.80%) Microsoft Copilot
9 3 (1.35%) OneDrive
9 3 (1.35%) SaaS
10 2 (0.90%) Azure Data Factory
10 2 (0.90%) Azure DevOps
10 2 (0.90%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 2 (0.90%) Rubrik
11 1 (0.45%) Azure Key Vault
11 1 (0.45%) GitHub Actions
11 1 (0.45%) Nutanix
11 1 (0.45%) Power Platform
11 1 (0.45%) Pulumi
Communications & Networking
1 29 (13.06%) DNS
2 20 (9.01%) DHCP
3 18 (8.11%) Firewall
4 14 (6.31%) VLAN
5 13 (5.86%) VSAN
6 12 (5.41%) VPN
7 8 (3.60%) TCP/IP
8 7 (3.15%) LAN
8 7 (3.15%) WAN
9 5 (2.25%) SD-WAN
10 4 (1.80%) Wi-Fi
11 3 (1.35%) Network Security
11 3 (1.35%) SAN
11 3 (1.35%) SMTP
11 3 (1.35%) SSH
12 2 (0.90%) NAS
12 2 (0.90%) Wireless
13 1 (0.45%) Broadband
13 1 (0.45%) FTP
13 1 (0.45%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.80%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.35%) Data Mining
3 2 (0.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.45%) Oracle Database
4 1 (0.45%) Power BI
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 23 (10.36%) Social Skills
2 14 (6.31%) Public Sector
3 10 (4.50%) Analytical Skills
3 10 (4.50%) Marketing
4 9 (4.05%) Aerospace
4 9 (4.05%) Manufacturing
5 8 (3.60%) Documentation Skills
6 7 (3.15%) Finance
7 3 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (1.35%) Legal
8 2 (0.90%) Military
9 1 (0.45%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (2.25%) ARM Templates
2 1 (0.45%) REST
2 1 (0.45%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 19 (8.56%) Data Centre
2 18 (8.11%) PKI
3 12 (5.41%) Public Cloud
4 10 (4.50%) Hybrid Cloud
5 7 (3.15%) Private Cloud
6 6 (2.70%) Onboarding
7 3 (1.35%) ARM Cortex
7 3 (1.35%) Management Information System
7 3 (1.35%) Replication
8 2 (0.90%) Cloud Native
8 2 (0.90%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (0.90%) Driving Licence
8 2 (0.90%) Enterprise Storage
9 1 (0.45%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.45%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (0.45%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.45%) Renewable Energy
9 1 (0.45%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.45%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 61 (27.48%) Windows
2 45 (20.27%) Linux
3 40 (18.02%) Windows Server
4 6 (2.70%) Debian
5 4 (1.80%) Oracle Linux
5 4 (1.80%) Windows 10
6 3 (1.35%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.45%) CentOS
8 1 (0.45%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.45%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 219 (98.65%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 22 (9.91%) Problem-Solving
3 19 (8.56%) Infrastructure as Code
4 18 (8.11%) High Availability
5 17 (7.66%) DevOps
6 16 (7.21%) ITIL
7 14 (6.31%) Continuous Improvement
7 14 (6.31%) Disaster Recovery
8 13 (5.86%) Identity Access Management
8 13 (5.86%) Project Delivery
8 13 (5.86%) RBAC
9 12 (5.41%) Agile
9 12 (5.41%) CI/CD
9 12 (5.41%) Identity Management
9 12 (5.41%) Privileged Access Management
10 11 (4.95%) Migration
10 11 (4.95%) Zero Trust
11 10 (4.50%) Security Hardening
11 10 (4.50%) Service Delivery
12 9 (4.05%) Infrastructure Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 41 (18.47%) PowerShell
2 10 (4.50%) Bicep
3 8 (3.60%) Bash
3 8 (3.60%) Python
4 5 (2.25%) SQL
Qualifications
1 123 (55.41%) Security Cleared
2 81 (36.49%) SC Cleared
3 49 (22.07%) DV Cleared
4 10 (4.50%) VCAP
4 10 (4.50%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 7 (3.15%) Degree
6 6 (2.70%) Microsoft Certification
7 5 (2.25%) MCSA
8 4 (1.80%) MCSE
9 2 (0.90%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.90%) CCA
9 2 (0.90%) CESG Certified Professional
9 2 (0.90%) Citrix Certification
9 2 (0.90%) NCDA
10 1 (0.45%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.45%) ISTQB
10 1 (0.45%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 1 (0.45%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.45%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (2.70%) NCSC
2 5 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (2.25%) NIST
3 2 (0.90%) NIST 800
3 2 (0.90%) QA
4 1 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.45%) GDPR
4 1 (0.45%) SLA
System Software
1 54 (24.32%) VMware Infrastructure
2 49 (22.07%) Active Directory
3 23 (10.36%) VMware NSX
4 22 (9.91%) vSphere
5 19 (8.56%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (8.56%) VMware ESXi
6 13 (5.86%) Hyper-V
7 9 (4.05%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (1.80%) KVM
9 3 (1.35%) Docker
10 2 (0.90%) UAG
11 1 (0.45%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 21 (9.46%) Terraform
2 19 (8.56%) vCenter Server
3 14 (6.31%) Microsoft Intune
4 10 (4.50%) SCCM
5 9 (4.05%) Ansible
6 7 (3.15%) SCOM
7 4 (1.80%) Kubernetes
8 3 (1.35%) PowerCLI
8 3 (1.35%) SCSM
9 2 (0.90%) NetBackup
9 2 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 1 (0.45%) Avamar
10 1 (0.45%) Dell DRAC
10 1 (0.45%) McAfee ePO
10 1 (0.45%) VxRail
Vendors
1 76 (34.23%) VMware
2 63 (28.38%) Microsoft
3 33 (14.86%) Citrix
4 14 (6.31%) Veeam
5 8 (3.60%) Cisco
6 6 (2.70%) NetApp
6 6 (2.70%) SolarWinds
7 5 (2.25%) Google
7 5 (2.25%) Oracle
8 4 (1.80%) BT
8 4 (1.80%) CheckPoint
8 4 (1.80%) Commvault
8 4 (1.80%) CrowdStrike
8 4 (1.80%) Meraki
8 4 (1.80%) ServiceNow
8 4 (1.80%) Xerox
8 4 (1.80%) Zscaler
9 3 (1.35%) Broadcom
9 3 (1.35%) Trend Micro
9 3 (1.35%) Zerto