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 £560, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 20 September 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 65 87 76
Rank change year-on-year +22 -11 +29
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 208 80 113
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.14% 2.30% 2.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.44% 2.55% 2.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 123 64 82
10th Percentile £411 £219 £350
25th Percentile £495 £329 £366
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £483 £450
Median % change year-on-year +16.06% +7.22% -10.00%
75th Percentile £598 £588 £588
90th Percentile £630 £600 £608
England median daily rate £530 £488 £500
% change year-on-year +8.72% -2.50% -
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 £73.27 £30.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +144.23% -50.00% -14.29%

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 6,046 3,136 4,242
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.41% 90.06% 92.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,472 2,028 2,531
10th Percentile £303 £204 £243
25th Percentile £431 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -1.96% +2.00%
75th Percentile £625 £595 £625
90th Percentile £725 £650 £688
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 786 277 309
10th Percentile £15.05 £13.40 £16.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £15.50 £30.41
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -56.26% +11.82%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £75.00
90th Percentile £86.31 £72.10 £80.00
England median hourly rate £43.61 £25.15 £46.18
% change year-on-year +73.38% -45.54% +2.62%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 +18 117 £555 +23.33% 54
Buckinghamshire +23 74 £575 +4.55% 19
Hampshire +11 65 £575 - 21
Oxfordshire -12 22 £250 -4.76% 22
Berkshire -35 21 £575 +22.18% 14
Surrey -5 12 £488 -9.30% 21
Isle of Wight - 10 - -
West Sussex -23 3 £513 +36.67% 6
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 20 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.

1 208 (100.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 126 (60.58%) Security Cleared
3 90 (43.27%) SC Cleared
4 78 (37.50%) VMware
5 67 (32.21%) Azure
6 66 (31.73%) Windows
7 64 (30.77%) Microsoft
8 56 (26.92%) VMware Infrastructure
9 51 (24.52%) DV Cleared
10 47 (22.60%) Active Directory
10 47 (22.60%) Windows Server
11 45 (21.63%) PowerShell
12 44 (21.15%) Linux
13 31 (14.90%) Citrix
14 29 (13.94%) DNS
15 25 (12.02%) Entra ID
16 24 (11.54%) Infrastructure as Code
17 22 (10.58%) Problem-Solving
17 22 (10.58%) VMware NSX
18 21 (10.10%) DHCP
18 21 (10.10%) vSphere
19 20 (9.62%) AWS
19 20 (9.62%) Firewall
19 20 (9.62%) vCenter Server
19 20 (9.62%) Virtual Machines
20 19 (9.13%) ITIL
20 19 (9.13%) Terraform
20 19 (9.13%) VMware ESXi
21 18 (8.65%) VPN
22 15 (7.21%) 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 9 (4.33%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (0.96%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.48%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 2 (0.96%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.48%) CINEMA 4D
2 1 (0.48%) Houdini
2 1 (0.48%) NUKE
Cloud Services
1 67 (32.21%) Azure
2 25 (12.02%) Entra ID
3 20 (9.62%) AWS
4 15 (7.21%) Microsoft 365
5 14 (6.73%) IaaS
6 10 (4.81%) Azure Monitor
7 6 (2.88%) GCP
8 4 (1.92%) Azure Sentinel
9 3 (1.44%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 3 (1.44%) Microsoft Copilot
9 3 (1.44%) SaaS
10 2 (0.96%) Azure Data Factory
10 2 (0.96%) OneDrive
10 2 (0.96%) OpenShift
10 2 (0.96%) Rubrik
11 1 (0.48%) Datadog
11 1 (0.48%) Google Workspace
11 1 (0.48%) Nutanix
11 1 (0.48%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 29 (13.94%) DNS
2 21 (10.10%) DHCP
3 20 (9.62%) Firewall
4 18 (8.65%) VPN
5 14 (6.73%) VLAN
6 13 (6.25%) TCP/IP
6 13 (6.25%) VSAN
7 9 (4.33%) LAN
7 9 (4.33%) WAN
8 5 (2.40%) Wireless
9 4 (1.92%) Network Security
9 4 (1.92%) SD-WAN
9 4 (1.92%) SSH
9 4 (1.92%) Wi-Fi
10 3 (1.44%) SMTP
11 2 (0.96%) SAN
11 2 (0.96%) Software-Defined Networking
12 1 (0.48%) Broadband
12 1 (0.48%) FTP
12 1 (0.48%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.40%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.96%) Data Mining
2 2 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 2 (0.96%) Git
2 1 (0.48%) GitLab
2 1 (0.48%) MLflow
General
1 24 (11.54%) Social Skills
2 12 (5.77%) Public Sector
3 11 (5.29%) Aerospace
4 10 (4.81%) Marketing
5 9 (4.33%) Documentation Skills
5 9 (4.33%) Manufacturing
6 8 (3.85%) Analytical Skills
7 6 (2.88%) Finance
8 4 (1.92%) Military
9 3 (1.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.48%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (9.13%) Terraform
2 7 (3.37%) ARM Templates
3 1 (0.48%) REST
3 1 (0.48%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 17 (8.17%) Hybrid Cloud
2 16 (7.69%) Data Centre
3 14 (6.73%) PKI
4 12 (5.77%) Public Cloud
5 11 (5.29%) Onboarding
6 6 (2.88%) Private Cloud
7 4 (1.92%) Management Information System
8 3 (1.44%) ARM Cortex
8 3 (1.44%) Driving Licence
9 2 (0.96%) Cloud Native
9 2 (0.96%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (0.96%) Distributed Architecture
9 2 (0.96%) Distributed Computing
10 1 (0.48%) Legacy Systems
10 1 (0.48%) Renewable Energy
10 1 (0.48%) Replication
10 1 (0.48%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 66 (31.73%) Windows
2 47 (22.60%) Windows Server
3 44 (21.15%) Linux
4 6 (2.88%) Debian
5 4 (1.92%) Oracle Linux
5 4 (1.92%) Windows 10
6 3 (1.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (1.44%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.48%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.48%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 208 (100.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 24 (11.54%) Infrastructure as Code
3 22 (10.58%) Problem-Solving
4 19 (9.13%) ITIL
5 15 (7.21%) DevOps
5 15 (7.21%) Project Delivery
6 14 (6.73%) Disaster Recovery
7 13 (6.25%) Migration
7 13 (6.25%) RBAC
8 12 (5.77%) Continuous Improvement
8 12 (5.77%) Privileged Access Management
8 12 (5.77%) Security Hardening
8 12 (5.77%) Service Management
9 11 (5.29%) Analytics
9 11 (5.29%) CI/CD
9 11 (5.29%) Identity Access Management
9 11 (5.29%) Vulnerability Remediation
9 11 (5.29%) Zero Trust
10 10 (4.81%) Infrastructure Automation
10 10 (4.81%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 45 (21.63%) PowerShell
2 11 (5.29%) Bash
2 11 (5.29%) Bicep
3 9 (4.33%) Python
4 5 (2.40%) SQL
Qualifications
1 126 (60.58%) Security Cleared
2 90 (43.27%) SC Cleared
3 51 (24.52%) DV Cleared
4 11 (5.29%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 9 (4.33%) Microsoft Certification
5 9 (4.33%) VCAP
6 8 (3.85%) Degree
7 6 (2.88%) MCSA
8 4 (1.92%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.92%) MCSE
9 3 (1.44%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.48%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (3.85%) NCSC
2 3 (1.44%) NIST
3 2 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (0.96%) QA
4 1 (0.48%) NIST 800
4 1 (0.48%) SLA
System Software
1 56 (26.92%) VMware Infrastructure
2 47 (22.60%) Active Directory
3 22 (10.58%) VMware NSX
4 21 (10.10%) vSphere
5 20 (9.62%) Virtual Machines
6 19 (9.13%) VMware ESXi
7 15 (7.21%) Hyper-V
8 7 (3.37%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (1.92%) KVM
10 1 (0.48%) Docker
10 1 (0.48%) UAG
10 1 (0.48%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 20 (9.62%) vCenter Server
2 15 (7.21%) Microsoft Intune
3 10 (4.81%) SCCM
4 9 (4.33%) Ansible
4 9 (4.33%) SCOM
5 4 (1.92%) Kubernetes
6 3 (1.44%) PowerCLI
7 2 (0.96%) Dell DRAC
7 2 (0.96%) Istio
7 2 (0.96%) NetBackup
7 2 (0.96%) SCSM
8 1 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (0.48%) Avamar
8 1 (0.48%) McAfee ePO
8 1 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.48%) VxRail
Vendors
1 78 (37.50%) VMware
2 64 (30.77%) Microsoft
3 31 (14.90%) Citrix
4 10 (4.81%) Veeam
5 7 (3.37%) Cisco
6 6 (2.88%) SolarWinds
7 5 (2.40%) Google
8 4 (1.92%) BT
8 4 (1.92%) CheckPoint
8 4 (1.92%) Commvault
8 4 (1.92%) CrowdStrike
8 4 (1.92%) Meraki
8 4 (1.92%) NetApp
8 4 (1.92%) Oracle
8 4 (1.92%) ServiceNow
8 4 (1.92%) Xerox
9 3 (1.44%) Broadcom
9 3 (1.44%) Dell
9 3 (1.44%) Zerto
9 3 (1.44%) Zscaler