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 £570, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 October 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 67 90 82
Rank change year-on-year +23 -8 +19
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 214 82 101
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.28% 2.30% 2.34%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.60% 2.57% 2.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 126 68 75
10th Percentile £428 £219 £350
25th Percentile £492 £269 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £570 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year +26.67% - -10.00%
75th Percentile £600 £541 £588
90th Percentile £630 £600 £611
England median daily rate £540 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +13.68% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 0
10th Percentile £64.70 - -
25th Percentile £66.50 £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 £74.00 £32.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +131.25% -46.67% -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 5,949 3,190 3,986
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.16% 89.36% 92.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,336 2,064 2,375
10th Percentile £291 £204 £245
25th Percentile £425 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -0.99% -0.49%
75th Percentile £625 £598 £625
90th Percentile £725 £663 £688
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 828 296 240
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.06 £16.00
25th Percentile £20.43 £15.82 £27.00
Median hourly rate £48.59 £24.00 £59.25
Median % change year-on-year +102.45% -59.49% +13.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £55.00 £75.00
90th Percentile £87.83 £71.38 £78.88
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -6.89%

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 11 October 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 11 October 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 +21 124 £570 +107.27% 39
Buckinghamshire +23 76 £580 +5.45% 14
Hampshire +17 67 £575 +4.55% 32
Oxfordshire -2 25 £250 -23.08% 15
Berkshire -33 23 £575 +111.01% 11
Surrey -5 16 £500 -9.09% 13
West Sussex -22 3 £513 +7.89% 3
Isle of Wight - 3 - - 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 11 October 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.

1 214 (100.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 126 (58.88%) Security Cleared
3 88 (41.12%) SC Cleared
4 76 (35.51%) Microsoft
4 76 (35.51%) VMware
5 74 (34.58%) Azure
6 66 (30.84%) Windows
7 60 (28.04%) VMware Infrastructure
8 53 (24.77%) PowerShell
9 51 (23.83%) Active Directory
9 51 (23.83%) DV Cleared
10 48 (22.43%) Windows Server
11 44 (20.56%) Linux
12 37 (17.29%) Entra ID
13 36 (16.82%) DNS
14 28 (13.08%) Citrix
14 28 (13.08%) DHCP
14 28 (13.08%) Virtual Machines
15 26 (12.15%) Infrastructure as Code
16 23 (10.75%) Firewall
16 23 (10.75%) Microsoft 365
16 23 (10.75%) VPN
17 22 (10.28%) IaaS
18 21 (9.81%) Problem-Solving
18 21 (9.81%) VMware NSX
19 20 (9.35%) ITIL
19 20 (9.35%) Terraform
20 19 (8.88%) vCenter Server
21 18 (8.41%) Hyper-V
21 18 (8.41%) VMware ESXi

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 8 (3.74%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (0.93%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.47%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 1 (0.47%) CINEMA 4D
1 1 (0.47%) Houdini
1 1 (0.47%) NUKE
Cloud Services
1 74 (34.58%) Azure
2 37 (17.29%) Entra ID
3 23 (10.75%) Microsoft 365
4 22 (10.28%) IaaS
5 16 (7.48%) AWS
6 14 (6.54%) Azure Monitor
7 7 (3.27%) Azure Sentinel
8 6 (2.80%) GCP
9 5 (2.34%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 2 (0.93%) Azure Data Factory
10 2 (0.93%) Microsoft Copilot
10 2 (0.93%) OneDrive
10 2 (0.93%) OpenShift
10 2 (0.93%) Rubrik
10 2 (0.93%) SaaS
11 1 (0.47%) Google Workspace
11 1 (0.47%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 36 (16.82%) DNS
2 28 (13.08%) DHCP
3 23 (10.75%) Firewall
3 23 (10.75%) VPN
4 15 (7.01%) TCP/IP
5 12 (5.61%) VLAN
5 12 (5.61%) VSAN
6 10 (4.67%) LAN
6 10 (4.67%) WAN
7 6 (2.80%) Network Security
7 6 (2.80%) SD-WAN
7 6 (2.80%) SSH
7 6 (2.80%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (2.34%) Wireless
9 2 (0.93%) SAN
9 2 (0.93%) SMTP
9 2 (0.93%) Software-Defined Networking
10 1 (0.47%) Broadband
10 1 (0.47%) FTP
10 1 (0.47%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.34%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 2 (0.93%) Git
2 1 (0.47%) GitLab
2 1 (0.47%) MLflow
General
1 26 (12.15%) Social Skills
2 14 (6.54%) Public Sector
3 10 (4.67%) Marketing
4 9 (4.21%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (3.74%) Documentation Skills
6 6 (2.80%) Finance
7 5 (2.34%) Aerospace
7 5 (2.34%) Military
8 3 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (1.40%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.47%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (9.35%) Terraform
2 11 (5.14%) ARM Templates
3 1 (0.47%) REST
3 1 (0.47%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 21 (9.81%) Data Centre
2 20 (9.35%) Hybrid Cloud
3 14 (6.54%) Onboarding
4 13 (6.07%) PKI
5 11 (5.14%) Public Cloud
6 6 (2.80%) ARM Cortex
7 5 (2.34%) Management Information System
7 5 (2.34%) Private Cloud
8 3 (1.40%) Driving Licence
9 2 (0.93%) Cloud Native
9 2 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (0.93%) Distributed Architecture
9 2 (0.93%) Distributed Computing
9 2 (0.93%) Replication
10 1 (0.47%) Clustering
10 1 (0.47%) Renewable Energy
10 1 (0.47%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 66 (30.84%) Windows
2 48 (22.43%) Windows Server
3 44 (20.56%) Linux
4 4 (1.87%) Debian
4 4 (1.87%) Oracle Linux
4 4 (1.87%) Windows 10
5 3 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (1.40%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.47%) macOS
6 1 (0.47%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 214 (100.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 26 (12.15%) Infrastructure as Code
3 21 (9.81%) Problem-Solving
4 20 (9.35%) ITIL
5 17 (7.94%) Project Delivery
6 16 (7.48%) Vulnerability Remediation
7 15 (7.01%) Analytics
7 15 (7.01%) Continuous Improvement
7 15 (7.01%) DevOps
8 14 (6.54%) Platform Engineering
9 13 (6.07%) Disaster Recovery
9 13 (6.07%) Log Analytics
9 13 (6.07%) Migration
9 13 (6.07%) RBAC
9 13 (6.07%) Service Management
10 12 (5.61%) Privileged Access Management
10 12 (5.61%) Security Hardening
11 11 (5.14%) CI/CD
11 11 (5.14%) Cybersecurity
12 10 (4.67%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 53 (24.77%) PowerShell
2 15 (7.01%) Bash
3 14 (6.54%) Bicep
4 8 (3.74%) Python
5 5 (2.34%) SQL
Qualifications
1 126 (58.88%) Security Cleared
2 88 (41.12%) SC Cleared
3 51 (23.83%) DV Cleared
4 13 (6.07%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 11 (5.14%) VCAP
6 9 (4.21%) Degree
6 9 (4.21%) Microsoft Certification
7 6 (2.80%) MCSA
8 4 (1.87%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.87%) MCSE
9 3 (1.40%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.47%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (3.27%) NCSC
2 2 (0.93%) NIST
3 1 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.47%) NIST 800
3 1 (0.47%) QA
3 1 (0.47%) SLA
System Software
1 60 (28.04%) VMware Infrastructure
2 51 (23.83%) Active Directory
3 28 (13.08%) Virtual Machines
4 21 (9.81%) VMware NSX
5 18 (8.41%) Hyper-V
5 18 (8.41%) VMware ESXi
5 18 (8.41%) vSphere
6 6 (2.80%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (1.87%) KVM
7 4 (1.87%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 4 (1.87%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.47%) Docker
8 1 (0.47%) UAG
8 1 (0.47%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 19 (8.88%) vCenter Server
2 16 (7.48%) Microsoft Intune
3 11 (5.14%) Ansible
3 11 (5.14%) SCCM
4 7 (3.27%) SCOM
5 4 (1.87%) Kubernetes
6 2 (0.93%) Dell DRAC
6 2 (0.93%) Istio
6 2 (0.93%) NetBackup
7 1 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 1 (0.47%) Avamar
7 1 (0.47%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (0.47%) McAfee ePO
7 1 (0.47%) PowerCLI
7 1 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.47%) VxRail
Vendors
1 76 (35.51%) Microsoft
1 76 (35.51%) VMware
2 28 (13.08%) Citrix
3 8 (3.74%) Cisco
3 8 (3.74%) Veeam
4 7 (3.27%) CrowdStrike
4 7 (3.27%) SolarWinds
5 6 (2.80%) Commvault
5 6 (2.80%) Meraki
6 5 (2.34%) BT
6 5 (2.34%) CheckPoint
6 5 (2.34%) Google
6 5 (2.34%) NetApp
6 5 (2.34%) Xerox
7 4 (1.87%) Dell
7 4 (1.87%) Oracle
7 4 (1.87%) ServiceNow
8 3 (1.40%) Broadcom
8 3 (1.40%) Red Hat
9 2 (0.93%) Remedy