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 12 July 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 75 88 63
Rank change year-on-year +13 -25 +32
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 185 70 164
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.84% 2.07% 2.93%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.09% 2.28% 3.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 135 47 124
10th Percentile £400 £329 £352
25th Percentile £456 £375 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £536 £550 £463
Median % change year-on-year -2.47% +18.92% -5.13%
75th Percentile £598 £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 £67.50
% change year-on-year -47.62% +105.19% -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 5,985 3,072 5,175
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.88% 90.81% 92.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,592 1,987 3,056
10th Percentile £303 £213 £250
25th Percentile £422 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% +2.50%
75th Percentile £619 £600 £627
90th Percentile £706 £662 £688
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 635 235 505
10th Percentile £16.29 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £25.77 £15.50 £18.75
Median hourly rate £52.43 £28.00 £53.03
Median % change year-on-year +87.23% -47.20% +8.22%
75th Percentile £78.75 £62.24 £70.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.30 £80.00
England median hourly rate £45.00 £28.18 £40.00
% change year-on-year +59.69% -29.55% -9.09%

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 12 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 12 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 +25 116 £536 -0.20% 23
Buckinghamshire +21 70 £575 +4.55% 7
Hampshire -5 45 £575 - 30
Berkshire -27 27 £425 -29.17% 9
Oxfordshire -13 19 £250 - 7
Surrey -14 10 £500 -6.98% 11
Isle of Wight - 10 - -
West Sussex -19 2 £625 +66.67% 1
East Sussex -1 1 £600 -
Kent -17 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 12 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.

1 182 (98.38%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 97 (52.43%) Security Cleared
3 67 (36.22%) VMware
4 65 (35.14%) SC Cleared
5 56 (30.27%) Azure
6 51 (27.57%) Windows
7 50 (27.03%) Microsoft
8 44 (23.78%) VMware Infrastructure
9 42 (22.70%) Active Directory
10 41 (22.16%) DV Cleared
11 36 (19.46%) Linux
12 33 (17.84%) Windows Server
13 31 (16.76%) Citrix
14 28 (15.14%) PowerShell
15 22 (11.89%) DNS
16 20 (10.81%) VMware NSX
16 20 (10.81%) vSphere
17 19 (10.27%) AWS
17 19 (10.27%) Problem-Solving
18 17 (9.19%) High Availability
19 15 (8.11%) Disaster Recovery
19 15 (8.11%) vCenter Server
19 15 (8.11%) VMware ESXi
20 14 (7.57%) DevOps
20 14 (7.57%) Infrastructure as Code
20 14 (7.57%) Microsoft 365
21 13 (7.03%) DHCP
21 13 (7.03%) Entra ID
21 13 (7.03%) Firewall
21 13 (7.03%) Identity Access Management

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 (5.41%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.08%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 3 (1.62%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 56 (30.27%) Azure
2 19 (10.27%) AWS
3 14 (7.57%) Microsoft 365
4 13 (7.03%) Entra ID
5 6 (3.24%) IaaS
6 4 (2.16%) Microsoft Copilot
7 3 (1.62%) Azure Monitor
7 3 (1.62%) SaaS
8 2 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
8 2 (1.08%) Azure DevOps
8 2 (1.08%) Nutanix
8 2 (1.08%) OneDrive
8 2 (1.08%) PaaS
9 1 (0.54%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 1 (0.54%) Azure AKS
9 1 (0.54%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (0.54%) Microsoft Purview
9 1 (0.54%) OCI
9 1 (0.54%) Power Platform
9 1 (0.54%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 22 (11.89%) DNS
2 13 (7.03%) DHCP
2 13 (7.03%) Firewall
3 12 (6.49%) VLAN
4 10 (5.41%) VSAN
5 6 (3.24%) LAN
5 6 (3.24%) WAN
6 5 (2.70%) SD-WAN
6 5 (2.70%) VPN
7 4 (2.16%) Wi-Fi
8 3 (1.62%) SAN
8 3 (1.62%) SMTP
9 2 (1.08%) NAS
9 2 (1.08%) Network Security
9 2 (1.08%) TCP/IP
10 1 (0.54%) FTP
10 1 (0.54%) SNMP
10 1 (0.54%) SSL
10 1 (0.54%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.62%) Data Mining
1 3 (1.62%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.54%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.54%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 2 (1.08%) Git
2 1 (0.54%) GitLab
2 1 (0.54%) JIRA
2 1 (0.54%) MLflow
2 1 (0.54%) Robot Framework
General
1 20 (10.81%) Social Skills
2 11 (5.95%) Public Sector
3 10 (5.41%) Marketing
4 9 (4.86%) Aerospace
4 9 (4.86%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (4.86%) Manufacturing
5 8 (4.32%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (2.16%) Finance
7 3 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (1.62%) Legal
8 1 (0.54%) Advertising
8 1 (0.54%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (0.54%) ARM Templates
1 1 (0.54%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (9.73%) Data Centre
1 18 (9.73%) PKI
2 11 (5.95%) Public Cloud
3 7 (3.78%) Hybrid Cloud
4 5 (2.70%) Private Cloud
5 2 (1.08%) Cloud Native
5 2 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
5 2 (1.08%) Driving Licence
5 2 (1.08%) Enterprise Storage
5 2 (1.08%) Onboarding
5 2 (1.08%) Replication
6 1 (0.54%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.54%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (0.54%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.54%) Management Information System
6 1 (0.54%) Renewable Energy
6 1 (0.54%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 51 (27.57%) Windows
2 36 (19.46%) Linux
3 33 (17.84%) Windows Server
4 6 (3.24%) Debian
5 4 (2.16%) Windows 10
6 3 (1.62%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (1.08%) Oracle Linux
7 2 (1.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.54%) CentOS
8 1 (0.54%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 182 (98.38%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 19 (10.27%) Problem-Solving
3 17 (9.19%) High Availability
4 15 (8.11%) Disaster Recovery
5 14 (7.57%) DevOps
5 14 (7.57%) Infrastructure as Code
6 13 (7.03%) Identity Access Management
6 13 (7.03%) ITIL
7 12 (6.49%) Agile
7 12 (6.49%) Project Delivery
8 11 (5.95%) Continuous Improvement
8 11 (5.95%) Identity Management
8 11 (5.95%) Migration
8 11 (5.95%) Privileged Access Management
9 10 (5.41%) RBAC
9 10 (5.41%) Service Delivery
9 10 (5.41%) Zero Trust
10 8 (4.32%) Collaborative Working
10 8 (4.32%) Security Hardening
11 7 (3.78%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 28 (15.14%) PowerShell
2 6 (3.24%) Python
3 5 (2.70%) Bicep
3 5 (2.70%) SQL
4 3 (1.62%) Bash
Qualifications
1 97 (52.43%) Security Cleared
2 65 (35.14%) SC Cleared
3 41 (22.16%) DV Cleared
4 7 (3.78%) VCAP
4 7 (3.78%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 5 (2.70%) Degree
5 5 (2.70%) MCSA
5 5 (2.70%) Microsoft Certification
6 4 (2.16%) MCSE
7 2 (1.08%) Azure Certification
7 2 (1.08%) CCA
7 2 (1.08%) CESG Certified Professional
7 2 (1.08%) Citrix Certification
7 2 (1.08%) NCDA
8 1 (0.54%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.54%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 1 (0.54%) OCP
8 1 (0.54%) Oracle Certification
8 1 (0.54%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.54%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (2.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 5 (2.70%) NCSC
1 5 (2.70%) NIST
2 2 (1.08%) NIST 800
2 2 (1.08%) QA
3 1 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (0.54%) GDPR
3 1 (0.54%) SLA
System Software
1 44 (23.78%) VMware Infrastructure
2 42 (22.70%) Active Directory
3 20 (10.81%) VMware NSX
3 20 (10.81%) vSphere
4 15 (8.11%) VMware ESXi
5 12 (6.49%) Virtual Machines
6 11 (5.95%) Hyper-V
7 8 (4.32%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (1.62%) Docker
9 2 (1.08%) KVM
9 2 (1.08%) UAG
10 1 (0.54%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 15 (8.11%) vCenter Server
2 13 (7.03%) Terraform
3 9 (4.86%) Microsoft Intune
4 6 (3.24%) SCCM
4 6 (3.24%) SCOM
5 5 (2.70%) Ansible
5 5 (2.70%) Kubernetes
6 3 (1.62%) PowerCLI
6 3 (1.62%) SCSM
7 2 (1.08%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (0.54%) Avamar
8 1 (0.54%) Dell DRAC
8 1 (0.54%) Fluentd
8 1 (0.54%) Grafana
8 1 (0.54%) McAfee ePO
8 1 (0.54%) NetBackup
8 1 (0.54%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.54%) VxRail
Vendors
1 67 (36.22%) VMware
2 50 (27.03%) Microsoft
3 31 (16.76%) Citrix
4 13 (7.03%) Veeam
5 8 (4.32%) Cisco
6 6 (3.24%) NetApp
7 5 (2.70%) SolarWinds
8 4 (2.16%) BT
8 4 (2.16%) CheckPoint
8 4 (2.16%) Commvault
8 4 (2.16%) Meraki
8 4 (2.16%) Oracle
8 4 (2.16%) ServiceNow
8 4 (2.16%) Xerox
8 4 (2.16%) Zscaler
9 3 (1.62%) Trend Micro
9 3 (1.62%) Zerto
10 2 (1.08%) Becrypt
10 2 (1.08%) Broadcom
10 2 (1.08%) Dell