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 £515, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 May 2026.

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

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 82 64
Rank change year-on-year +1 -18 +27
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 155 64 162
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.59% 2.19% 2.96%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.83% 2.41% 3.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 121 42 134
10th Percentile £375 £325 £318
25th Percentile £450 £358 £377
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £538 £450
Median % change year-on-year -4.19% +19.44% -1.64%
75th Percentile £595 £600 £575
90th Percentile £625 £623 £608
England median daily rate £525 £525 £450
% change year-on-year - +16.67% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £76.25 - -
Median hourly rate £77.50 £24.18 -
Median % change year-on-year +220.51% - -
75th Percentile £78.75 - -
90th Percentile £78.98 - -
England median hourly rate £72.54 £200.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year -63.73% +788.89% -64.76%

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 5,484 2,658 5,052
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.75% 91.15% 92.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,403 1,788 3,030
10th Percentile £300 £220 £225
25th Percentile £413 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% - -
75th Percentile £613 £600 £619
90th Percentile £700 £650 £688
England median daily rate £515 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 524 160 490
10th Percentile £15.06 £14.20 £12.82
25th Percentile £24.25 £18.43 £18.32
Median hourly rate £52.43 £32.28 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +62.43% -32.05% -1.86%
75th Percentile £81.05 £63.19 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £77.04
England median hourly rate £45.00 £29.07 £37.18
% change year-on-year +54.80% -21.81% -17.38%

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 23 May 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 23 May 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 +7 88 £500 +33.33% 25
Buckinghamshire +4 50 £570 +13.89% 17
Hampshire -4 34 £588 +2.17% 8
Berkshire -27 22 £425 -34.62% 5
Oxfordshire -9 16 £333 +33.00% 3
Surrey -6 11 £500 -4.76% 3
Isle of Wight - 10 - -
Kent -18 4 £571 +52.33% 3
East Sussex +2 3 £600 -
West Sussex -16 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 23 May 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.

1 152 (98.06%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 70 (45.16%) Security Cleared
3 55 (35.48%) VMware
4 50 (32.26%) Azure
5 49 (31.61%) Microsoft
6 44 (28.39%) SC Cleared
6 44 (28.39%) Windows
7 43 (27.74%) Active Directory
8 33 (21.29%) VMware Infrastructure
9 31 (20.00%) Citrix
9 31 (20.00%) Linux
10 28 (18.06%) DV Cleared
10 28 (18.06%) Windows Server
11 26 (16.77%) PowerShell
12 18 (11.61%) Firewall
12 18 (11.61%) Microsoft Exchange
12 18 (11.61%) vSphere
13 17 (10.97%) DevOps
14 16 (10.32%) DNS
14 16 (10.32%) ITIL
14 16 (10.32%) Microsoft 365
15 15 (9.68%) Disaster Recovery
15 15 (9.68%) Veeam
16 14 (9.03%) Problem-Solving
17 13 (8.39%) AWS
17 13 (8.39%) DHCP
17 13 (8.39%) High Availability
18 12 (7.74%) Agile
18 12 (7.74%) Infrastructure as Code
18 12 (7.74%) Terraform

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 18 (11.61%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (2.58%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.65%) Exchange Server 2010
Applications
1 3 (1.94%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 50 (32.26%) Azure
2 16 (10.32%) Microsoft 365
3 13 (8.39%) AWS
4 10 (6.45%) Entra ID
5 6 (3.87%) IaaS
6 5 (3.23%) Azure Monitor
7 4 (2.58%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (2.58%) Microsoft Copilot
7 4 (2.58%) PaaS
8 3 (1.94%) Azure Key Vault
9 2 (1.29%) Azure AKS
9 2 (1.29%) Nutanix
10 1 (0.65%) Amazon OpenSearch
10 1 (0.65%) GitHub Actions
10 1 (0.65%) Microsoft Purview
10 1 (0.65%) OCI
10 1 (0.65%) OneDrive
10 1 (0.65%) Power Platform
10 1 (0.65%) Pulumi
10 1 (0.65%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 18 (11.61%) Firewall
2 16 (10.32%) DNS
3 13 (8.39%) DHCP
4 11 (7.10%) VLAN
5 7 (4.52%) LAN
5 7 (4.52%) WAN
6 5 (3.23%) SAN
6 5 (3.23%) SD-WAN
6 5 (3.23%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (2.58%) VPN
7 4 (2.58%) VSAN
8 3 (1.94%) SMTP
8 3 (1.94%) TCP/IP
9 2 (1.29%) Fibre Channel
9 2 (1.29%) NAS
10 1 (0.65%) Network Security
10 1 (0.65%) SNMP
10 1 (0.65%) Unified Communications
10 1 (0.65%) VoIP
10 1 (0.65%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.94%) Data Mining
2 1 (0.65%) Oracle Database
2 1 (0.65%) Power BI
2 1 (0.65%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (0.65%) JIRA
1 1 (0.65%) Robot Framework
General
1 11 (7.10%) Public Sector
2 10 (6.45%) Social Skills
3 9 (5.81%) Aerospace
3 9 (5.81%) Manufacturing
4 8 (5.16%) Analytical Skills
4 8 (5.16%) Marketing
5 3 (1.94%) Legal
6 2 (1.29%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (1.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (0.65%) Advertising
7 1 (0.65%) Finance
7 1 (0.65%) Retail
7 1 (0.65%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.29%) ARM Templates
2 1 (0.65%) ADO
Miscellaneous
1 16 (10.32%) PKI
2 13 (8.39%) Data Centre
3 6 (3.87%) Public Cloud
4 4 (2.58%) Hybrid Cloud
4 4 (2.58%) Private Cloud
5 3 (1.94%) Cloud Native
6 2 (1.29%) Enterprise Storage
6 2 (1.29%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.29%) Replication
6 2 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.65%) Cyber Defence
7 1 (0.65%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.65%) Fat Client
7 1 (0.65%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.65%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.65%) Renewable Energy
7 1 (0.65%) Smartphone
7 1 (0.65%) Thin Client
7 1 (0.65%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 44 (28.39%) Windows
2 31 (20.00%) Linux
3 28 (18.06%) Windows Server
4 5 (3.23%) Debian
5 4 (2.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (2.58%) Windows 10
6 2 (1.29%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.65%) CentOS
7 1 (0.65%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 152 (98.06%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 17 (10.97%) DevOps
3 16 (10.32%) ITIL
4 15 (9.68%) Disaster Recovery
5 14 (9.03%) Problem-Solving
6 13 (8.39%) High Availability
7 12 (7.74%) Agile
7 12 (7.74%) Infrastructure as Code
8 9 (5.81%) Migration
9 8 (5.16%) Cybersecurity
9 8 (5.16%) Identity Access Management
9 8 (5.16%) Privileged Access Management
10 7 (4.52%) Change Control
10 7 (4.52%) Continuous Improvement
10 7 (4.52%) Performance Tuning
10 7 (4.52%) Project Delivery
11 6 (3.87%) CI/CD
11 6 (3.87%) Network Virtualisation
11 6 (3.87%) RBAC
11 6 (3.87%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 26 (16.77%) PowerShell
2 6 (3.87%) Bicep
3 3 (1.94%) Python
4 2 (1.29%) SQL
5 1 (0.65%) Bash
Qualifications
1 70 (45.16%) Security Cleared
2 44 (28.39%) SC Cleared
3 28 (18.06%) DV Cleared
4 5 (3.23%) Degree
5 2 (1.29%) CCA
5 2 (1.29%) CESG Certified Professional
5 2 (1.29%) Citrix Certification
5 2 (1.29%) NCDA
5 2 (1.29%) VCAP
5 2 (1.29%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 1 (0.65%) Azure Certification
6 1 (0.65%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (0.65%) ISTQB
6 1 (0.65%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (0.65%) OCP
6 1 (0.65%) Oracle Certification
6 1 (0.65%) PMI Certification
6 1 (0.65%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (3.87%) SLA
2 5 (3.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (3.23%) NIST
3 4 (2.58%) NCSC
4 2 (1.29%) NIST 800
4 2 (1.29%) QA
5 1 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.65%) GDPR
System Software
1 43 (27.74%) Active Directory
2 33 (21.29%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (11.61%) vSphere
4 12 (7.74%) VMware NSX
5 9 (5.81%) VMware ESXi
6 8 (5.16%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (4.52%) Hyper-V
8 4 (2.58%) Docker
9 3 (1.94%) DFS Replication
9 3 (1.94%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (1.29%) UAG
11 1 (0.65%) Sendmail
11 1 (0.65%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 12 (7.74%) Terraform
2 11 (7.10%) Microsoft Intune
3 9 (5.81%) vCenter Server
4 8 (5.16%) SCCM
5 6 (3.87%) Kubernetes
5 6 (3.87%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (3.23%) SCOM
7 4 (2.58%) VxRail
8 3 (1.94%) Ansible
8 3 (1.94%) SCSM
9 2 (1.29%) PowerCLI
10 1 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 1 (0.65%) Fluentd
10 1 (0.65%) Grafana
10 1 (0.65%) McAfee ePO
10 1 (0.65%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 55 (35.48%) VMware
2 49 (31.61%) Microsoft
3 31 (20.00%) Citrix
4 15 (9.68%) Veeam
5 7 (4.52%) Cisco
5 7 (4.52%) NetApp
6 4 (2.58%) BT
6 4 (2.58%) CheckPoint
6 4 (2.58%) Commvault
6 4 (2.58%) Meraki
6 4 (2.58%) Red Hat
6 4 (2.58%) SolarWinds
6 4 (2.58%) Xerox
6 4 (2.58%) Zscaler
7 3 (1.94%) Dell
7 3 (1.94%) Trend Micro
8 2 (1.29%) Becrypt
8 2 (1.29%) Fortinet
8 2 (1.29%) Oracle
8 2 (1.29%) Zerto