Infrastructure Engineering Contract Job Trends in the South West

Infrastructure Engineering
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South West requiring Infrastructure Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 8 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 53 45
Rank change year-on-year +11 -8 +16
Contract jobs citing Infrastructure Engineering 122 61 124
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 3.70% 3.61% 3.90%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.73% 3.98% 4.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 88 58 109
10th Percentile £382 £438 £175
25th Percentile £450 £514 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £569 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.49% +13.75% -9.09%
75th Percentile £594 £629 £588
90th Percentile £638 £725 £625
England median daily rate £523 £525 £475
% change year-on-year -0.48% +10.53% -6.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 4
10th Percentile £46.80 - £47.13
25th Percentile £48.00 - £57.81
Median hourly rate £50.00 - £68.75
75th Percentile £69.50 - £72.94
90th Percentile £81.20 - £75.98
England median hourly rate £72.54 £63.75 £46.18
% change year-on-year +13.79% +38.05% -27.66%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South West

Infrastructure Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the South West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,582 1,532 2,646
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 78.38% 90.65% 83.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,423 961 1,688
10th Percentile £319 £235 £220
25th Percentile £413 £400 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.44% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £623 £625
90th Percentile £715 £688 £700
England median daily rate £510 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.86% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 448 152 335
10th Percentile £16.62 £18.51 £13.86
25th Percentile £25.62 £18.87 £28.63
Median hourly rate £57.50 £62.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.00% +13.64% -8.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £70.00 £77.50
England median hourly rate £46.47 £29.15 £36.50
% change year-on-year +59.40% -20.14% -2.14%

Infrastructure Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Infrastructure Engineering relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West.

Infrastructure Engineering job vacancy trend in the South West

Infrastructure Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Infrastructure Engineering.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Infrastructure Engineering

Infrastructure Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Infrastructure Engineering in the South West over the 6 months to 8 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Infrastructure Engineering in the South West

Infrastructure Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Infrastructure Engineering.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Infrastructure Engineering

Infrastructure Engineering
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Infrastructure Engineering in the South West over the 6 months to 8 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Infrastructure Engineering in the South West

Infrastructure Engineering
Contract Job Locations in the South West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Infrastructure Engineering within the South West region over the 6 months to 8 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
Wiltshire +13 80 £558 -0.89% 3
Bristol -14 16 £488 +7.85% 8
Gloucestershire +4 12 £425 -39.29% 9
Somerset -10 6 £575 +109.09% 5
Devon - 3 £325 - 4
Dorset -13 2 £449 -18.36% 3
Infrastructure Engineering
England

Infrastructure Engineering
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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 2 (1.64%) Confluence
1 2 (1.64%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.82%) Apache
2 1 (0.82%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 7 (5.74%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 5 (4.10%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 24 (19.67%) Azure
2 13 (10.66%) AWS
3 8 (6.56%) Azure Monitor
3 8 (6.56%) Azure Sentinel
3 8 (6.56%) GCP
4 7 (5.74%) IaaS
5 6 (4.92%) Azure DevOps
5 6 (4.92%) Microsoft 365
5 6 (4.92%) OpenShift
6 5 (4.10%) Azure AKS
6 5 (4.10%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 5 (4.10%) Entra ID
7 4 (3.28%) GitHub
7 4 (3.28%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 4 (3.28%) PaaS
8 3 (2.46%) Microsoft Copilot
9 2 (1.64%) GitHub Actions
10 1 (0.82%) Azure Stack
10 1 (0.82%) GitHub Copilot
10 1 (0.82%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 14 (11.48%) VPN
2 13 (10.66%) DNS
3 10 (8.20%) Firewall
4 6 (4.92%) DHCP
5 4 (3.28%) BGP
5 4 (3.28%) Cisco ASA
5 4 (3.28%) Cisco IOS
5 4 (3.28%) LAN
5 4 (3.28%) MPLS
5 4 (3.28%) Network Security
5 4 (3.28%) TACACS
6 3 (2.46%) SAN
7 2 (1.64%) Cisco Nexus
7 2 (1.64%) NAS
7 2 (1.64%) VLAN
7 2 (1.64%) VSAN
7 2 (1.64%) WAN
8 1 (0.82%) SD-WAN
8 1 (0.82%) Structured Cabling
8 1 (0.82%) WireGuard
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (3.28%) SQL Server
2 3 (2.46%) NonStop SQL
3 1 (0.82%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.82%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.82%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 9 (7.38%) Jenkins
2 6 (4.92%) GitLab
3 3 (2.46%) Bitbucket
3 3 (2.46%) Git
3 3 (2.46%) JIRA
4 1 (0.82%) Artifactory
4 1 (0.82%) Atlassian Bamboo
4 1 (0.82%) GoCD
4 1 (0.82%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 17 (13.93%) Social Skills
2 14 (11.48%) Public Sector
3 11 (9.02%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (4.10%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (2.46%) Military
6 2 (1.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (0.82%) Back Office
7 1 (0.82%) Finance
Job Titles
1 94 (77.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 26 (21.31%) Automation Engineer
3 10 (8.20%) DevOps Engineer
4 8 (6.56%) Security Engineer
5 7 (5.74%) Infrastructure Security Engineer
6 6 (4.92%) Azure Engineer
6 6 (4.92%) Senior
6 6 (4.92%) VMware Engineer
6 6 (4.92%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
7 5 (4.10%) Azure DevOps Engineer
7 5 (4.10%) Infrastructure Support
7 5 (4.10%) Software Engineer
7 5 (4.10%) Virtualisation Engineer
7 5 (4.10%) Windows Engineer
7 5 (4.10%) Windows Infrastructure Engineer
8 4 (3.28%) Architect
8 4 (3.28%) GCP Engineer
8 4 (3.28%) Linux Engineer
8 4 (3.28%) Network Engineer
9 3 (2.46%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (10.66%) REST
2 12 (9.84%) SOAP
3 6 (4.92%) LDAP
4 5 (4.10%) ARM Templates
4 5 (4.10%) Web Services
5 3 (2.46%) Apache NiFi
5 3 (2.46%) Keycloak
5 3 (2.46%) OAuth
5 3 (2.46%) OAuth2
5 3 (2.46%) SAML
6 2 (1.64%) Flash
7 1 (0.82%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.82%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 7 (5.74%) Enterprise Software
1 7 (5.74%) PKI
2 6 (4.92%) Hybrid Cloud
3 4 (3.28%) Data Centre
4 3 (2.46%) Private Cloud
4 3 (2.46%) Public Cloud
4 3 (2.46%) Replication
5 2 (1.64%) Cloud Native
5 2 (1.64%) Clustering
5 2 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.82%) CCTV
6 1 (0.82%) Client/Server
6 1 (0.82%) Enterprise Storage
6 1 (0.82%) Onboarding
6 1 (0.82%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 34 (27.87%) Windows
2 24 (19.67%) Linux
3 19 (15.57%) Windows Server
4 11 (9.02%) Ubuntu
5 6 (4.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (3.28%) CentOS
7 1 (0.82%) Data ONTAP
7 1 (0.82%) Rocky
7 1 (0.82%) SUSE
7 1 (0.82%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (27.05%) Infrastructure Automation
2 29 (23.77%) DevOps
3 24 (19.67%) Agile
4 20 (16.39%) Problem-Solving
5 16 (13.11%) Infrastructure as Code
6 13 (10.66%) ITIL
7 12 (9.84%) Service Management
8 11 (9.02%) High Availability
9 9 (7.38%) Configuration Management
9 9 (7.38%) Deployment Automation
10 8 (6.56%) Analytics
10 8 (6.56%) CI/CD
10 8 (6.56%) SIEM
10 8 (6.56%) System Testing
11 7 (5.74%) Change Management
11 7 (5.74%) Cloud Security
11 7 (5.74%) Continuous Improvement
11 7 (5.74%) Disaster Recovery
11 7 (5.74%) Identity Access Management
11 7 (5.74%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 23 (18.85%) Python
2 16 (13.11%) PowerShell
3 15 (12.30%) Bash
4 9 (7.38%) PHP
5 8 (6.56%) Bicep
6 6 (4.92%) JavaScript
7 3 (2.46%) SQL
8 1 (0.82%) Go
8 1 (0.82%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 78 (63.93%) Security Cleared
2 54 (44.26%) SC Cleared
3 38 (31.15%) DV Cleared
4 10 (8.20%) Azure Certification
5 8 (6.56%) Microsoft Certification
6 5 (4.10%) Cisco Certification
6 5 (4.10%) CISM
6 5 (4.10%) CISSP
6 5 (4.10%) Degree
6 5 (4.10%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
6 5 (4.10%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 3 (2.46%) CCNP
7 3 (2.46%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (2.46%) GIAC
7 3 (2.46%) GSEC
7 3 (2.46%) OCA
7 3 (2.46%) Oracle Certification
7 3 (2.46%) RHCA
7 3 (2.46%) RHCE
7 3 (2.46%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (7.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 9 (7.38%) NIST
2 5 (4.10%) NIST 800
3 3 (2.46%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (2.46%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 3 (2.46%) QA
System Software
1 23 (18.85%) VMware Infrastructure
2 22 (18.03%) Active Directory
3 13 (10.66%) VMware ESXi
4 12 (9.84%) Hyper-V
5 6 (4.92%) Docker
5 6 (4.92%) VMware NSX
6 5 (4.10%) vSphere
7 2 (1.64%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.82%) iptables
8 1 (0.82%) KVM
8 1 (0.82%) NFS
8 1 (0.82%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 24 (19.67%) Kubernetes
1 24 (19.67%) Terraform
2 22 (18.03%) Ansible
3 10 (8.20%) vCenter Server
4 6 (4.92%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (4.10%) SCOM
6 4 (3.28%) Nessus
6 4 (3.28%) NetBackup
6 4 (3.28%) Packer
6 4 (3.28%) vRealize
7 3 (2.46%) Grafana
7 3 (2.46%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (2.46%) Progress Chef
7 3 (2.46%) Puppet
7 3 (2.46%) SCCM
7 3 (2.46%) VxRail
8 2 (1.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (1.64%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.82%) Argo
9 1 (0.82%) Dell DRAC
Vendors
1 36 (29.51%) VMware
2 27 (22.13%) Microsoft
3 10 (8.20%) Cisco
4 8 (6.56%) Red Hat
5 5 (4.10%) Dell
5 5 (4.10%) Google
5 5 (4.10%) IBM
6 4 (3.28%) Veritas
7 3 (2.46%) BeyondTrust
7 3 (2.46%) Thales
8 2 (1.64%) Citrix
8 2 (1.64%) NetApp
8 2 (1.64%) Splunk
9 1 (0.82%) EMC
9 1 (0.82%) Juniper
9 1 (0.82%) Palo Alto
9 1 (0.82%) Remedy
9 1 (0.82%) SolarWinds
9 1 (0.82%) Veeam
9 1 (0.82%) Zerto