Infrastructure Automation Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Infrastructure Automation
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Infrastructure Automation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 246 242 273
Rank change year-on-year -4 +31 +60
Contract jobs citing Infrastructure Automation 250 145 105
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.89% 0.92% 0.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.09% 1.03% 0.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 162 100 74
10th Percentile £402 £381 £381
25th Percentile £426 £445 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £506 £425
Median % change year-on-year -0.25% +19.12% -22.73%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £579
90th Percentile £712 £726 £622
UK median daily rate £545 £503 £500
% change year-on-year +8.46% +0.50% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 2 1
10th Percentile - £66.53 -
25th Percentile £33.70 £67.69 £82.50
Median hourly rate £49.81 £72.75 £85.00
Median % change year-on-year -31.53% -14.41% -
75th Percentile £75.58 £80.19 £87.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £82.78 -
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £64.50 £85.00
% change year-on-year -18.60% -24.12% -

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

Infrastructure Automation 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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 22,837 14,117 14,616
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.09% 89.12% 83.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,661 8,480 8,261
10th Percentile £300 £225 £243
25th Percentile £409 £368 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £671 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,888 1,547 1,050
10th Percentile £13.48 £14.05 £14.98
25th Percentile £16.50 £17.11 £18.15
Median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.43% -46.35% -2.35%
75th Percentile £65.88 £40.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £77.50 £66.20 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.16
% change year-on-year +49.11% -37.38% -8.38%

Infrastructure Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Infrastructure Automation relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Infrastructure Automation job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Infrastructure Automation
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Infrastructure Automation.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Infrastructure Automation

Infrastructure Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Infrastructure Automation in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 10 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Infrastructure Automation in the UK excluding London

Infrastructure Automation
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Infrastructure Automation.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Infrastructure Automation

Infrastructure Automation
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Infrastructure Automation in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 10 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Infrastructure Automation in the UK excluding London

Infrastructure Automation
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Infrastructure Automation within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 10 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
North of England -57 97 £500 - 72
South East -24 61 £575 +15.00% 82
North West -18 59 £500 -5.84% 41
Yorkshire -49 33 £500 - 22
Scotland -16 26 £425 -10.53% 28
Midlands -35 25 £460 -21.70% 14
South West -17 21 £575 +4.55% 37
West Midlands -42 19 £470 -17.90% 8
Wales - 8 £465 - 5
East Midlands -9 6 £425 -39.29% 6
East of England -32 6 £638 -25.00% 16
North East - 6 £375 - 9
Northern Ireland - 5 £446 - 5
Channel Islands - 1 - -
Infrastructure Automation
UK

Infrastructure Automation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 5 (2.00%) Apache
1 5 (2.00%) Apache Spark
2 4 (1.60%) Apache Airflow
2 4 (1.60%) FactoryTalk
3 3 (1.20%) Jupyter
4 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.40%) nginx
4 1 (0.40%) SAS
4 1 (0.40%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.40%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 134 (53.60%) Azure
2 123 (49.20%) AWS
3 75 (30.00%) GCP
4 44 (17.60%) Azure DevOps
5 34 (13.60%) GitHub
6 27 (10.80%) Azure AKS
6 27 (10.80%) Entra ID
6 27 (10.80%) OpenShift
7 24 (9.60%) AWS CloudFormation
7 24 (9.60%) GitHub Actions
8 20 (8.00%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 18 (7.20%) Amazon EKS
10 17 (6.80%) Azure Monitor
11 16 (6.40%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 15 (6.00%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 13 (5.20%) Serverless
14 11 (4.40%) AWS Lambda
15 10 (4.00%) Amazon ECS
16 7 (2.80%) Amazon S3
16 7 (2.80%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 37 (14.80%) Firewall
2 22 (8.80%) DNS
3 16 (6.40%) Network Security
3 16 (6.40%) TCP/IP
4 14 (5.60%) VLAN
5 11 (4.40%) DHCP
6 7 (2.80%) iSCSI
6 7 (2.80%) SAN
7 6 (2.40%) Fibre Channel
7 6 (2.40%) NAS
7 6 (2.40%) VSAN
8 5 (2.00%) VPN
9 4 (1.60%) WAN
9 4 (1.60%) Wireless
10 3 (1.20%) Broadband
10 3 (1.20%) SD-WAN
11 2 (0.80%) Ethernet VPN
11 2 (0.80%) Internet
11 2 (0.80%) NX-OS
11 2 (0.80%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (5.20%) Relational Database
2 8 (3.20%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (2.40%) Amazon RDS
3 6 (2.40%) Oracle Database
3 6 (2.40%) Oracle Exadata
3 6 (2.40%) RDBMS
4 4 (1.60%) Flink
4 4 (1.60%) MongoDB
4 4 (1.60%) NoSQL
5 3 (1.20%) Data Lake
5 3 (1.20%) SQL Server
6 2 (0.80%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.40%) Amazon Aurora
7 1 (0.40%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (0.40%) Big Data
7 1 (0.40%) BigQuery
7 1 (0.40%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.40%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.40%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 52 (20.80%) Git
2 40 (16.00%) GitLab
3 35 (14.00%) Jenkins
4 9 (3.60%) Claude Code
5 5 (2.00%) SonarQube
5 5 (2.00%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.80%) Spinnaker
7 1 (0.40%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.40%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.40%) JIRA
7 1 (0.40%) JUnit
7 1 (0.40%) Maven
7 1 (0.40%) Mockito
General
1 60 (24.00%) Social Skills
2 44 (17.60%) Finance
3 26 (10.40%) Public Sector
4 18 (7.20%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (5.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 11 (4.40%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (3.60%) Banking
8 7 (2.80%) Military
9 6 (2.40%) Aerospace
10 4 (1.60%) Law
10 4 (1.60%) Manufacturing
10 4 (1.60%) Pharmaceutical
11 3 (1.20%) Games
12 1 (0.40%) Advertising
12 1 (0.40%) Billing
12 1 (0.40%) Financial Institution
12 1 (0.40%) Investment Banking
12 1 (0.40%) Legal
12 1 (0.40%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.40%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 37 (14.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 34 (13.60%) DevOps Engineer
3 31 (12.40%) Senior
4 30 (12.00%) Cloud Engineer
5 24 (9.60%) Lead
6 22 (8.80%) Platform Engineer
7 19 (7.60%) Azure Engineer
7 19 (7.60%) Security Engineer
8 15 (6.00%) Architect
9 14 (5.60%) Developer
10 13 (5.20%) Cloud Platform Engineer
10 13 (5.20%) Technical Leader
11 12 (4.80%) GCP Engineer
12 11 (4.40%) Linux Engineer
12 11 (4.40%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 10 (4.00%) Automation Engineer
13 10 (4.00%) AWS Engineer
13 10 (4.00%) Azure DevOps Engineer
13 10 (4.00%) Site Reliability Engineer
14 9 (3.60%) Cloud Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 146 (58.40%) Terraform
2 17 (6.80%) REST
3 15 (6.00%) OAuth
4 14 (5.60%) OpenID
5 12 (4.80%) OAuth2
6 10 (4.00%) RESTful
7 9 (3.60%) Django
7 9 (3.60%) Kafka
7 9 (3.60%) React
8 8 (3.20%) ARM Templates
8 8 (3.20%) JSON
8 8 (3.20%) Web Services
8 8 (3.20%) YAML
9 7 (2.80%) CSS
9 7 (2.80%) HTML
9 7 (2.80%) LDAP
9 7 (2.80%) SailPoint
9 7 (2.80%) Spring
9 7 (2.80%) Spring Boot
10 6 (2.40%) Oracle GoldenGate
Miscellaneous
1 75 (30.00%) Cloud Native
2 18 (7.20%) Data Centre
2 18 (7.20%) Management Information System
2 18 (7.20%) Public Cloud
3 17 (6.80%) Security Posture
4 15 (6.00%) Distributed Systems
5 12 (4.80%) Hybrid Cloud
6 11 (4.40%) Data Protection Act
6 11 (4.40%) Enterprise Cloud
6 11 (4.40%) Onboarding
7 9 (3.60%) Linux Command Line
7 9 (3.60%) PKI
8 6 (2.40%) Cloud Security Posture
8 6 (2.40%) CUDA
9 5 (2.00%) Product Ownership
10 4 (1.60%) Clustering
10 4 (1.60%) Enterprise Storage
10 4 (1.60%) Life Science
10 4 (1.60%) Operational Technology
10 4 (1.60%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 82 (32.80%) Linux
2 52 (20.80%) Windows
3 30 (12.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 26 (10.40%) Windows Server
5 6 (2.40%) AIX
5 6 (2.40%) CentOS
5 6 (2.40%) Unix
6 5 (2.00%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.80%) Solaris
8 1 (0.40%) Android
8 1 (0.40%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.40%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 171 (68.40%) CI/CD
2 145 (58.00%) Infrastructure as Code
3 134 (53.60%) DevOps
4 86 (34.40%) Containerisation
5 70 (28.00%) Platform Engineering
6 64 (25.60%) Problem-Solving
7 60 (24.00%) Observability
8 57 (22.80%) Agile
9 50 (20.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 42 (16.80%) Analytics
11 37 (14.80%) RBAC
12 35 (14.00%) Cloud Security
13 34 (13.60%) AI
13 34 (13.60%) DevSecOps
13 34 (13.60%) Migration
14 32 (12.80%) Technical Leadership
15 31 (12.40%) Continuous Improvement
16 30 (12.00%) High Availability
16 30 (12.00%) Software Engineering
16 30 (12.00%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 125 (50.00%) Python
2 68 (27.20%) PowerShell
3 65 (26.00%) Bash
4 32 (12.80%) Java
5 23 (9.20%) Bicep
6 16 (6.40%) SQL
7 9 (3.60%) Go
8 8 (3.20%) JavaScript
9 7 (2.80%) Perl
9 7 (2.80%) Shell Script
10 3 (1.20%) C#
11 2 (0.80%) BeanShell
12 1 (0.40%) Groovy
12 1 (0.40%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
12 1 (0.40%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 84 (33.60%) Security Cleared
2 67 (26.80%) SC Cleared
3 30 (12.00%) Degree
4 27 (10.80%) AWS Certification
5 24 (9.60%) Azure Certification
6 18 (7.20%) CISSP
6 18 (7.20%) DV Cleared
7 12 (4.80%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (4.00%) Computer Science Degree
9 5 (2.00%) Master's Degree
9 5 (2.00%) VCAP
10 4 (1.60%) ITIL Certification
10 4 (1.60%) PMI Certification
10 4 (1.60%) PMP
10 4 (1.60%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 3 (1.20%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 3 (1.20%) BPSS Clearance
11 3 (1.20%) Cisco Certification
11 3 (1.20%) CISM
11 3 (1.20%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (7.60%) QA
2 12 (4.80%) Data Quality
2 12 (4.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (3.60%) Accessibility
3 9 (3.60%) NIST
4 6 (2.40%) GxP
5 4 (1.60%) 21 CFR Part 11
5 4 (1.60%) GDPR
6 3 (1.20%) NCSC
7 2 (0.80%) WCAG
8 1 (0.40%) HL7
8 1 (0.40%) SLA
8 1 (0.40%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 74 (29.60%) Docker
2 36 (14.40%) Active Directory
3 33 (13.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (9.20%) vSphere
5 15 (6.00%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (4.00%) VMware NSX
7 7 (2.80%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (2.40%) Oracle RAC
8 6 (2.40%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 4 (1.60%) Firmware
9 4 (1.60%) Hyper-V
9 4 (1.60%) NFS
10 2 (0.80%) GPFS
11 1 (0.40%) KVM
11 1 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.40%) XenApp
11 1 (0.40%) zsh
Systems Management
1 114 (45.60%) Kubernetes
2 76 (30.40%) Ansible
3 25 (10.00%) Grafana
4 19 (7.60%) Prometheus
5 16 (6.40%) Progress Chef
6 11 (4.40%) vCenter Server
7 10 (4.00%) Microsoft Intune
7 10 (4.00%) Puppet
8 8 (3.20%) SCCM
9 7 (2.80%) Argo
9 7 (2.80%) vMotion
10 6 (2.40%) Data Guard
10 6 (2.40%) Oracle RMAN
11 5 (2.00%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (2.00%) VxRail
12 4 (1.60%) Istio
12 4 (1.60%) PowerCLI
13 3 (1.20%) Failover Clustering
13 3 (1.20%) linkerd
14 2 (0.80%) Podman
Vendors
1 57 (22.80%) Microsoft
2 38 (15.20%) Google
2 38 (15.20%) VMware
3 26 (10.40%) Red Hat
4 10 (4.00%) Dynatrace
4 10 (4.00%) Splunk
5 9 (3.60%) Cisco
5 9 (3.60%) Oracle
6 7 (2.80%) ServiceNow
7 6 (2.40%) NVIDIA
8 4 (1.60%) 3PAR
8 4 (1.60%) Citrix
8 4 (1.60%) IBM
8 4 (1.60%) Nimble Storage
8 4 (1.60%) Rockwell
9 3 (1.20%) Dell
9 3 (1.20%) Fujitsu
9 3 (1.20%) Perforce
9 3 (1.20%) Trend Micro
9 3 (1.20%) Veeam