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 19 July 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 94 64
Rank change year-on-year +22 -30 +34
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 201 73 153
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.06% 2.13% 2.78%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.32% 2.35% 3.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 143 48 116
10th Percentile £400 £329 £358
25th Percentile £463 £375 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £536 £550 £450
Median % change year-on-year -2.47% +22.22% -7.69%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £588
90th Percentile £625 £623 £608
England median daily rate £525 £525 £475
% change year-on-year - +10.53% -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 £138.50 £72.75
% change year-on-year -47.62% +90.38% +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 6,053 3,100 5,082
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.16% 90.54% 92.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,611 2,005 3,030
10th Percentile £303 £213 £250
25th Percentile £425 £375 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% +2.50%
75th Percentile £622 £600 £629
90th Percentile £713 £663 £700
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 661 242 472
10th Percentile £16.35 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £26.25 £15.50 £19.25
Median hourly rate £52.43 £27.63 £54.88
Median % change year-on-year +89.74% -49.65% +9.75%
75th Percentile £77.50 £62.24 £70.23
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £80.00
England median hourly rate £45.50 £27.50 £40.33
% change year-on-year +65.45% -31.80% -8.35%

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 19 July 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 19 July 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 +24 125 £536 -0.20% 22
Buckinghamshire +21 78 £590 +7.27% 5
Hampshire -6 52 £575 - 21
Berkshire -22 27 £425 -29.17% 9
Oxfordshire -7 20 £250 - 8
Surrey -13 10 £500 -6.98% 8
Isle of Wight - 10 - -
West Sussex -21 2 £625 +66.67% 1
East Sussex +2 1 £600 -
Kent -16 1 £525 +40.00% 1
Infrastructure Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 19 July 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.

1 198 (98.51%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 109 (54.23%) Security Cleared
3 73 (36.32%) VMware
4 70 (34.83%) SC Cleared
5 64 (31.84%) Azure
6 58 (28.86%) Microsoft
7 57 (28.36%) Windows
8 50 (24.88%) VMware Infrastructure
9 48 (23.88%) Active Directory
9 48 (23.88%) DV Cleared
10 41 (20.40%) Linux
11 38 (18.91%) Windows Server
12 35 (17.41%) PowerShell
13 31 (15.42%) Citrix
14 27 (13.43%) DNS
15 22 (10.95%) VMware NSX
16 21 (10.45%) vSphere
17 20 (9.95%) Problem-Solving
18 19 (9.45%) AWS
18 19 (9.45%) Entra ID
19 18 (8.96%) DHCP
19 18 (8.96%) Firewall
19 18 (8.96%) High Availability
19 18 (8.96%) Terraform
19 18 (8.96%) vCenter Server
19 18 (8.96%) VMware ESXi
20 17 (8.46%) DevOps
20 17 (8.46%) Infrastructure as Code
21 16 (7.96%) ITIL
22 15 (7.46%) 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 (4.98%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.00%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.50%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 3 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.50%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 64 (31.84%) Azure
2 19 (9.45%) AWS
2 19 (9.45%) Entra ID
3 15 (7.46%) Microsoft 365
4 8 (3.98%) IaaS
5 7 (3.48%) Azure Monitor
6 4 (1.99%) Azure Sentinel
6 4 (1.99%) Microsoft Copilot
7 3 (1.49%) SaaS
8 2 (1.00%) Azure Data Factory
8 2 (1.00%) Azure DevOps
8 2 (1.00%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 2 (1.00%) Nutanix
8 2 (1.00%) OneDrive
8 2 (1.00%) PaaS
9 1 (0.50%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 1 (0.50%) Azure AKS
9 1 (0.50%) Microsoft Purview
9 1 (0.50%) OCI
9 1 (0.50%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 27 (13.43%) DNS
2 18 (8.96%) DHCP
2 18 (8.96%) Firewall
3 13 (6.47%) VLAN
4 12 (5.97%) VSAN
5 10 (4.98%) VPN
6 7 (3.48%) TCP/IP
7 6 (2.99%) LAN
7 6 (2.99%) WAN
8 5 (2.49%) SD-WAN
9 4 (1.99%) Network Security
9 4 (1.99%) Wi-Fi
10 3 (1.49%) SAN
10 3 (1.49%) SMTP
10 3 (1.49%) SSH
11 2 (1.00%) NAS
12 1 (0.50%) FTP
12 1 (0.50%) SNMP
12 1 (0.50%) SSL
12 1 (0.50%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.49%) Data Mining
1 3 (1.49%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.50%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.50%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 2 (1.00%) Git
2 1 (0.50%) GitLab
2 1 (0.50%) JIRA
2 1 (0.50%) MLflow
2 1 (0.50%) Robot Framework
General
1 21 (10.45%) Social Skills
2 14 (6.97%) Public Sector
3 10 (4.98%) Analytical Skills
3 10 (4.98%) Marketing
4 9 (4.48%) Aerospace
4 9 (4.48%) Manufacturing
5 8 (3.98%) Documentation Skills
6 5 (2.49%) Finance
7 3 (1.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (1.49%) Legal
8 2 (1.00%) Military
9 1 (0.50%) Advertising
9 1 (0.50%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (2.49%) ARM Templates
2 1 (0.50%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 19 (9.45%) Data Centre
2 18 (8.96%) PKI
3 12 (5.97%) Public Cloud
4 11 (5.47%) Hybrid Cloud
5 6 (2.99%) Private Cloud
6 5 (2.49%) Onboarding
7 3 (1.49%) ARM Cortex
7 3 (1.49%) Management Information System
7 3 (1.49%) Replication
8 2 (1.00%) Cloud Native
8 2 (1.00%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (1.00%) Driving Licence
8 2 (1.00%) Enterprise Storage
9 1 (0.50%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.50%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (0.50%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.50%) Renewable Energy
9 1 (0.50%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 57 (28.36%) Windows
2 41 (20.40%) Linux
3 38 (18.91%) Windows Server
4 6 (2.99%) Debian
5 4 (1.99%) Windows 10
6 3 (1.49%) Oracle Linux
6 3 (1.49%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (1.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.50%) CentOS
8 1 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 198 (98.51%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 20 (9.95%) Problem-Solving
3 18 (8.96%) High Availability
4 17 (8.46%) DevOps
4 17 (8.46%) Infrastructure as Code
5 16 (7.96%) ITIL
6 15 (7.46%) Disaster Recovery
7 13 (6.47%) Agile
7 13 (6.47%) Identity Access Management
8 12 (5.97%) Continuous Improvement
8 12 (5.97%) Project Delivery
8 12 (5.97%) RBAC
9 11 (5.47%) Identity Management
9 11 (5.47%) Migration
9 11 (5.47%) Privileged Access Management
9 11 (5.47%) Zero Trust
10 10 (4.98%) CI/CD
10 10 (4.98%) Security Hardening
10 10 (4.98%) Service Delivery
11 9 (4.48%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 35 (17.41%) PowerShell
2 10 (4.98%) Bicep
3 7 (3.48%) Bash
4 6 (2.99%) Python
5 5 (2.49%) SQL
Qualifications
1 109 (54.23%) Security Cleared
2 70 (34.83%) SC Cleared
3 48 (23.88%) DV Cleared
4 9 (4.48%) VCAP
4 9 (4.48%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 7 (3.48%) Degree
6 6 (2.99%) Microsoft Certification
7 5 (2.49%) MCSA
8 4 (1.99%) MCSE
9 2 (1.00%) Azure Certification
9 2 (1.00%) CCA
9 2 (1.00%) CESG Certified Professional
9 2 (1.00%) Citrix Certification
9 2 (1.00%) NCDA
10 1 (0.50%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.50%) ISTQB
10 1 (0.50%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 1 (0.50%) OCP
10 1 (0.50%) Oracle Certification
10 1 (0.50%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (2.99%) NCSC
2 5 (2.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (2.49%) NIST
3 2 (1.00%) NIST 800
3 2 (1.00%) QA
4 1 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.50%) GDPR
4 1 (0.50%) SLA
System Software
1 50 (24.88%) VMware Infrastructure
2 48 (23.88%) Active Directory
3 22 (10.95%) VMware NSX
4 21 (10.45%) vSphere
5 18 (8.96%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (6.97%) Virtual Machines
7 11 (5.47%) Hyper-V
8 8 (3.98%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (1.49%) Docker
9 3 (1.49%) KVM
10 2 (1.00%) UAG
11 1 (0.50%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 18 (8.96%) Terraform
1 18 (8.96%) vCenter Server
2 13 (6.47%) Microsoft Intune
3 9 (4.48%) SCCM
4 8 (3.98%) Ansible
5 6 (2.99%) SCOM
6 5 (2.49%) Kubernetes
7 3 (1.49%) PowerCLI
7 3 (1.49%) SCSM
8 2 (1.00%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 1 (0.50%) Avamar
9 1 (0.50%) Dell DRAC
9 1 (0.50%) Fluentd
9 1 (0.50%) Grafana
9 1 (0.50%) McAfee ePO
9 1 (0.50%) NetBackup
9 1 (0.50%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.50%) VxRail
Vendors
1 73 (36.32%) VMware
2 58 (28.86%) Microsoft
3 31 (15.42%) Citrix
4 14 (6.97%) Veeam
5 8 (3.98%) Cisco
6 6 (2.99%) NetApp
7 5 (2.49%) Oracle
7 5 (2.49%) SolarWinds
8 4 (1.99%) BT
8 4 (1.99%) CheckPoint
8 4 (1.99%) Commvault
8 4 (1.99%) CrowdStrike
8 4 (1.99%) Meraki
8 4 (1.99%) ServiceNow
8 4 (1.99%) Xerox
8 4 (1.99%) Zscaler
9 3 (1.49%) Broadcom
9 3 (1.49%) Trend Micro
9 3 (1.49%) Zerto
10 2 (1.00%) Becrypt