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 £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 24 April 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 96 83 69
Rank change year-on-year -13 -14 +32
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 121 73 155
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.11% 2.44% 2.78%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.29% 2.64% 3.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 87 46 127
10th Percentile £411 £327 £312
25th Percentile £456 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £559 £450
Median % change year-on-year -6.12% +24.28% -5.26%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £556
90th Percentile £625 £653 £608
England median daily rate £510 £525 £463
% change year-on-year -2.86% +13.51% -7.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 2 0
10th Percentile £75.63 - -
25th Percentile £76.25 - -
Median hourly rate £77.50 £24.18 -
Median % change year-on-year +220.51% - -
75th Percentile £79.69 - -
90th Percentile £81.55 - -
England median hourly rate £72.54 £112.09 £22.50
% change year-on-year -35.28% +398.18% -65.38%

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 5,277 2,766 5,159
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.87% 92.29% 92.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,296 1,816 3,106
10th Percentile £300 £246 £213
25th Percentile £413 £400 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.65% - -
75th Percentile £613 £600 £614
90th Percentile £713 £663 £688
England median daily rate £510 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.90% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 495 162 477
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.78
25th Percentile £24.25 £20.30 £18.32
Median hourly rate £52.50 £32.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.54% -31.58% -1.21%
75th Percentile £81.05 £63.75 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £76.86
England median hourly rate £45.46 £31.76 £35.00
% change year-on-year +43.14% -9.26% -22.22%

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 24 April 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 24 April 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 -10 62 £510 +4.62% 18
Buckinghamshire -2 32 £568 +13.39% 10
Hampshire -16 30 £588 +2.17% 22
Berkshire -27 26 £425 -12.82% 3
Surrey -9 9 £510 +8.51% 4
Isle of Wight - 8 - - 2
Kent -14 4 £571 +26.80% 2
Oxfordshire -18 4 £450 +71.43% 5
East Sussex +2 3 £600 +14.29%
West Sussex -11 2 £575 +53.33%
Infrastructure Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 24 April 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.

1 118 (97.52%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 58 (47.93%) Security Cleared
3 48 (39.67%) Azure
4 46 (38.02%) Microsoft
5 44 (36.36%) VMware
6 36 (29.75%) Active Directory
6 36 (29.75%) Windows
7 34 (28.10%) VMware Infrastructure
8 31 (25.62%) SC Cleared
9 25 (20.66%) DV Cleared
9 25 (20.66%) Linux
9 25 (20.66%) PowerShell
10 22 (18.18%) Windows Server
11 18 (14.88%) Citrix
11 18 (14.88%) DNS
11 18 (14.88%) Firewall
12 16 (13.22%) DevOps
12 16 (13.22%) Microsoft Exchange
13 15 (12.40%) DHCP
13 15 (12.40%) Infrastructure as Code
13 15 (12.40%) ITIL
13 15 (12.40%) Problem-Solving
13 15 (12.40%) Terraform
13 15 (12.40%) vSphere
14 14 (11.57%) Disaster Recovery
15 13 (10.74%) AWS
15 13 (10.74%) High Availability
15 13 (10.74%) Microsoft 365
16 12 (9.92%) Agile
16 12 (9.92%) Veeam

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 16 (13.22%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (3.31%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.83%) Exchange Server 2010
Applications
1 3 (2.48%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.83%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 48 (39.67%) Azure
2 13 (10.74%) AWS
2 13 (10.74%) Microsoft 365
3 9 (7.44%) Entra ID
4 5 (4.13%) AWS CloudFormation
4 5 (4.13%) Azure Monitor
4 5 (4.13%) IaaS
5 4 (3.31%) Azure DevOps
5 4 (3.31%) Microsoft Copilot
5 4 (3.31%) PaaS
6 3 (2.48%) Azure Key Vault
7 2 (1.65%) Azure AKS
7 2 (1.65%) Nutanix
8 1 (0.83%) Amazon OpenSearch
8 1 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (0.83%) Microsoft Purview
8 1 (0.83%) OCI
8 1 (0.83%) OneDrive
8 1 (0.83%) Power Platform
8 1 (0.83%) Pulumi
Communications & Networking
1 18 (14.88%) DNS
1 18 (14.88%) Firewall
2 15 (12.40%) DHCP
3 8 (6.61%) TCP/IP
3 8 (6.61%) VLAN
4 5 (4.13%) SAN
5 4 (3.31%) LAN
5 4 (3.31%) VSAN
5 4 (3.31%) WAN
6 3 (2.48%) SMTP
7 2 (1.65%) Fibre Channel
7 2 (1.65%) NAS
7 2 (1.65%) SD-WAN
7 2 (1.65%) Wi-Fi
8 1 (0.83%) MPLS
8 1 (0.83%) Network Security
8 1 (0.83%) SNMP
8 1 (0.83%) Unified Communications
8 1 (0.83%) VoIP
8 1 (0.83%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.48%) Data Mining
2 1 (0.83%) Oracle Database
2 1 (0.83%) Power BI
2 1 (0.83%) SAP HANA
2 1 (0.83%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (0.83%) JIRA
1 1 (0.83%) Robot Framework
General
1 11 (9.09%) Public Sector
2 8 (6.61%) Aerospace
2 8 (6.61%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (5.79%) Manufacturing
3 7 (5.79%) Social Skills
4 3 (2.48%) Legal
5 2 (1.65%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (0.83%) Advertising
6 1 (0.83%) Finance
6 1 (0.83%) Retail
6 1 (0.83%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.65%) ARM Templates
2 1 (0.83%) ADO
Miscellaneous
1 18 (14.88%) PKI
2 7 (5.79%) Data Centre
3 4 (3.31%) Hybrid Cloud
3 4 (3.31%) Private Cloud
4 3 (2.48%) Cloud Native
4 3 (2.48%) Public Cloud
5 2 (1.65%) Enterprise Storage
5 2 (1.65%) Onboarding
5 2 (1.65%) Replication
5 2 (1.65%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.83%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.83%) Clustering
6 1 (0.83%) Cyber Defence
6 1 (0.83%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (0.83%) Fat Client
6 1 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.83%) Management Information System
6 1 (0.83%) Smartphone
6 1 (0.83%) Thin Client
6 1 (0.83%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 36 (29.75%) Windows
2 25 (20.66%) Linux
3 22 (18.18%) Windows Server
4 4 (3.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (1.65%) Debian
5 2 (1.65%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.83%) CentOS
6 1 (0.83%) SUSE
6 1 (0.83%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
6 1 (0.83%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 118 (97.52%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 16 (13.22%) DevOps
3 15 (12.40%) Infrastructure as Code
3 15 (12.40%) ITIL
3 15 (12.40%) Problem-Solving
4 14 (11.57%) Disaster Recovery
5 13 (10.74%) High Availability
6 12 (9.92%) Agile
7 11 (9.09%) Cybersecurity
8 10 (8.26%) CI/CD
9 7 (5.79%) Continuous Improvement
9 7 (5.79%) DevSecOps
9 7 (5.79%) Performance Tuning
9 7 (5.79%) Platform Engineering
10 6 (4.96%) Analytics
10 6 (4.96%) Containerisation
10 6 (4.96%) Network Virtualisation
10 6 (4.96%) RBAC
10 6 (4.96%) Technical Leadership
10 6 (4.96%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 25 (20.66%) PowerShell
2 7 (5.79%) Python
3 6 (4.96%) Bicep
4 5 (4.13%) Bash
5 2 (1.65%) SQL
Qualifications
1 58 (47.93%) Security Cleared
2 31 (25.62%) SC Cleared
3 25 (20.66%) DV Cleared
4 5 (4.13%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 4 (3.31%) AWS Certification
5 4 (3.31%) Degree
6 3 (2.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 2 (1.65%) CCA
7 2 (1.65%) CESG Certified Professional
7 2 (1.65%) Citrix Certification
7 2 (1.65%) NCDA
7 2 (1.65%) VCAP
8 1 (0.83%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.83%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.83%) ISTQB
8 1 (0.83%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 1 (0.83%) OCP
8 1 (0.83%) Oracle Certification
8 1 (0.83%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.83%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (5.79%) SLA
2 4 (3.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (3.31%) NCSC
2 4 (3.31%) NIST
3 2 (1.65%) NIST 800
3 2 (1.65%) QA
4 1 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.83%) GDPR
System Software
1 36 (29.75%) Active Directory
2 34 (28.10%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (12.40%) vSphere
4 11 (9.09%) Hyper-V
5 9 (7.44%) VMware ESXi
6 8 (6.61%) Docker
6 8 (6.61%) VMware NSX
7 5 (4.13%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (2.48%) DFS Replication
8 3 (2.48%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (1.65%) UAG
10 1 (0.83%) Sendmail
10 1 (0.83%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 15 (12.40%) Terraform
2 10 (8.26%) Kubernetes
2 10 (8.26%) Microsoft Intune
3 9 (7.44%) vCenter Server
4 8 (6.61%) SCCM
5 7 (5.79%) Ansible
5 7 (5.79%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (4.13%) SCOM
7 4 (3.31%) VxRail
8 3 (2.48%) SCSM
9 2 (1.65%) PowerCLI
10 1 (0.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 1 (0.83%) Fluentd
10 1 (0.83%) Grafana
10 1 (0.83%) McAfee ePO
10 1 (0.83%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 46 (38.02%) Microsoft
2 44 (36.36%) VMware
3 18 (14.88%) Citrix
4 12 (9.92%) Veeam
5 4 (3.31%) NetApp
5 4 (3.31%) Red Hat
5 4 (3.31%) Zscaler
6 3 (2.48%) Cisco
6 3 (2.48%) Dell
6 3 (2.48%) Trend Micro
7 2 (1.65%) Becrypt
7 2 (1.65%) Fortinet
7 2 (1.65%) Oracle
7 2 (1.65%) ServiceNow
7 2 (1.65%) Zerto
8 1 (0.83%) CheckPoint
8 1 (0.83%) Commvault
8 1 (0.83%) Ericsson
8 1 (0.83%) McAfee
8 1 (0.83%) Qualys