Infrastructure Engineer Contract Job Trends

Infrastructure Engineer
UK

The median Infrastructure Engineer daily rate in the UK is £485, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 February 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 210 208 145
Rank change year-on-year -2 -63 +32
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 494 390 751
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.26% 1.27% 1.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.37% 1.37% 1.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 363 264 551
10th Percentile £300 £321 £325
25th Percentile £400 £367 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -3.00% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £601 £600
90th Percentile £638 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £477 £475
% change year-on-year +0.10% +0.42% +3.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 4 17
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £26.25 £24.18 £21.25
Median hourly rate £34.00 £34.59 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.71% +50.39% -64.62%
75th Percentile £55.00 £50.63 £72.50
90th Percentile £77.85 £56.25 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £24.18 £23.00
% change year-on-year +127.46% +5.13% -60.00%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 UK with a recognized job title 36,029 28,524 41,865
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.54% 92.93% 93.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,696 17,486 27,607
10th Percentile £300 £290 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £716 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £478 £490
% change year-on-year -0.63% -2.45% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,191 825 2,307
10th Percentile £14.61 £15.91 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.25 £16.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £33.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.45% -4.29% -1.41%
75th Percentile £62.05 £63.25 £60.75
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.60 £31.76 £35.00
% change year-on-year -6.80% -9.26% -

Infrastructure Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Infrastructure Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Infrastructure Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Infrastructure Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Infrastructure Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Infrastructure Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Infrastructure Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Infrastructure Engineer over the 6 months to 10 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Infrastructure Engineer in the UK

Infrastructure Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Infrastructure Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Infrastructure Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Infrastructure Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Infrastructure Engineer over the 6 months to 10 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Infrastructure Engineer in the UK

Infrastructure Engineer
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

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 UK over the 6 months to 10 February 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
England -9 441 £483 -6.76% 237
UK excluding London -8 335 £478 +0.10% 208
Work from Home +12 121 £450 +4.65% 79
London -55 117 £500 -4.76% 51
South East -2 91 £465 -3.93% 58
North of England -26 84 £466 +14.71% 56
South West +13 77 £550 -8.33% 28
Yorkshire -32 42 £363 -12.12% 22
North West -15 36 £472 +20.13% 25
East of England +1 30 £425 -8.90% 19
Midlands -55 29 £425 -15.00% 40
Scotland +5 20 £483 -12.27% 7
West Midlands -51 18 £425 -19.05% 25
East Midlands -27 11 £433 -13.50% 15
North East -8 6 £488 - 9
Wales -15 6 £550 +22.22% 2
Northern Ireland - 1 £375 -

Infrastructure Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 10 February 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 featuring Infrastructure Engineer in the job title.

1 472 (95.55%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 189 (38.26%) Windows
3 184 (37.25%) Azure
4 173 (35.02%) Microsoft
5 155 (31.38%) VMware
6 138 (27.94%) Security Cleared
7 126 (25.51%) Active Directory
8 115 (23.28%) VMware Infrastructure
9 100 (20.24%) Windows Server
10 95 (19.23%) Linux
11 93 (18.83%) SC Cleared
12 92 (18.62%) Problem-Solving
13 88 (17.81%) Terraform
14 84 (17.00%) DevOps
15 83 (16.80%) Firewall
16 80 (16.19%) Microsoft 365
16 80 (16.19%) PowerShell
17 79 (15.99%) DNS
18 75 (15.18%) Infrastructure as Code
19 73 (14.78%) AWS
20 70 (14.17%) Hyper-V
21 67 (13.56%) ITIL
22 60 (12.15%) CI/CD
23 59 (11.94%) DHCP
24 52 (10.53%) DV Cleared
24 52 (10.53%) Microsoft Intune
25 51 (10.32%) Python
25 51 (10.32%) SCCM
26 49 (9.92%) Ansible
27 46 (9.31%) Entra ID

Infrastructure Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 45 (9.11%) Microsoft Exchange
2 12 (2.43%) SharePoint
3 11 (2.23%) TPMS
4 7 (1.42%) Apache
4 7 (1.42%) IIS
5 5 (1.01%) Confluence
6 3 (0.61%) Exchange Server 2010
7 2 (0.40%) iPlanet
7 2 (0.40%) JBoss
7 2 (0.40%) nginx
7 2 (0.40%) Skype for Business
7 2 (0.40%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.40%) WebSphere Application Server
8 1 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.20%) CICS
8 1 (0.20%) Traefik
Applications
1 8 (1.62%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.61%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (0.61%) Maximo
2 2 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 184 (37.25%) Azure
2 80 (16.19%) Microsoft 365
3 73 (14.78%) AWS
4 46 (9.31%) Entra ID
5 25 (5.06%) IaaS
6 23 (4.66%) GCP
6 23 (4.66%) GitHub
7 22 (4.45%) PaaS
8 19 (3.85%) Azure DevOps
9 18 (3.64%) Nutanix
10 17 (3.44%) Azure Monitor
11 15 (3.04%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 14 (2.83%) Azure Sentinel
13 11 (2.23%) Mimecast
14 9 (1.82%) Microsoft Purview
14 9 (1.82%) OCI
14 9 (1.82%) OneDrive
14 9 (1.82%) OpenShift
15 8 (1.62%) Serverless
16 7 (1.42%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 83 (16.80%) Firewall
2 79 (15.99%) DNS
3 59 (11.94%) DHCP
4 39 (7.89%) VPN
5 38 (7.69%) TCP/IP
6 32 (6.48%) WAN
7 29 (5.87%) VLAN
8 25 (5.06%) LAN
9 22 (4.45%) SAN
10 21 (4.25%) Wi-Fi
11 19 (3.85%) Network Security
12 15 (3.04%) SSL
13 14 (2.83%) SNMP
14 13 (2.63%) SSH
15 9 (1.82%) MPLS
16 7 (1.42%) SD-WAN
17 6 (1.21%) 4G
17 6 (1.21%) BGP
17 6 (1.21%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 5 (1.01%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (2.83%) SQL Server
2 5 (1.01%) Elasticsearch
3 3 (0.61%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.61%) Oracle Database
3 3 (0.61%) Power BI
4 2 (0.40%) Amazon Aurora
4 2 (0.40%) MySQL
4 2 (0.40%) SAP HANA
5 1 (0.20%) Apache Iceberg
5 1 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.20%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
5 1 (0.20%) Delta Lake
5 1 (0.20%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.20%) Parquet
5 1 (0.20%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 14 (2.83%) GitLab
2 12 (2.43%) Jenkins
3 8 (1.62%) JIRA
4 7 (1.42%) Artifactory
4 7 (1.42%) Git
5 3 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.40%) Bitbucket Server
6 2 (0.40%) CA Release Automation
7 1 (0.20%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.20%) GoCD
7 1 (0.20%) MSI
General
1 92 (18.62%) Social Skills
2 51 (10.32%) Finance
3 50 (10.12%) Public Sector
4 44 (8.91%) Analytical Skills
5 22 (4.45%) Documentation Skills
6 10 (2.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 10 (2.02%) Legal
7 9 (1.82%) Banking
7 9 (1.82%) Billing
8 8 (1.62%) Military
9 7 (1.42%) Local Government
9 7 (1.42%) Telecoms
10 6 (1.21%) Aviation
10 6 (1.21%) Spanish Language
11 4 (0.81%) Aerospace
12 3 (0.61%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (0.61%) Retail
13 2 (0.40%) Financial Institution
13 2 (0.40%) Marketing
14 1 (0.20%) Back Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (1.82%) LDAP
1 9 (1.82%) SAML
2 8 (1.62%) ARM Templates
3 7 (1.42%) OpenID
3 7 (1.42%) REST
4 5 (1.01%) Microsoft Graph
4 5 (1.01%) Middleware
5 4 (0.81%) Keycloak
5 4 (0.81%) OAuth
5 4 (0.81%) SOAP
5 4 (0.81%) Web Services
6 3 (0.61%) ADO
6 3 (0.61%) Oracle Fusion
6 3 (0.61%) YAML
7 2 (0.40%) .NET Core
7 2 (0.40%) Apache NiFi
7 2 (0.40%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.40%) Elastic Stack
7 2 (0.40%) OAuth2
7 2 (0.40%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 28 (5.67%) Data Centre
1 28 (5.67%) PKI
2 20 (4.05%) Hybrid Cloud
3 16 (3.24%) Public Cloud
4 13 (2.63%) Analytical Mindset
5 10 (2.02%) Onboarding
6 9 (1.82%) Clustering
6 9 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
6 9 (1.82%) Private Cloud
7 8 (1.62%) Replication
8 7 (1.42%) NHS
8 7 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (1.01%) Cloud Native
10 4 (0.81%) Enterprise Storage
10 4 (0.81%) Management Information System
10 4 (0.81%) Mobile App
11 3 (0.61%) Client/Server
11 3 (0.61%) Cyber Threat
11 3 (0.61%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (0.61%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 189 (38.26%) Windows
2 100 (20.24%) Windows Server
3 95 (19.23%) Linux
4 17 (3.44%) Windows 10
5 14 (2.83%) Ubuntu
6 13 (2.63%) Windows Server 2012
6 13 (2.63%) Windows Server 2019
7 11 (2.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 10 (2.02%) VMS
9 9 (1.82%) Windows Server 2016
10 6 (1.21%) Android
10 6 (1.21%) Apple iOS
11 5 (1.01%) Unix
11 5 (1.01%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (0.40%) CentOS
12 2 (0.40%) Debian
12 2 (0.40%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.40%) SUSE
12 2 (0.40%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.40%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 472 (95.55%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 92 (18.62%) Problem-Solving
3 84 (17.00%) DevOps
4 75 (15.18%) Infrastructure as Code
5 67 (13.56%) ITIL
6 60 (12.15%) CI/CD
7 46 (9.31%) Infrastructure Automation
8 45 (9.11%) Cybersecurity
9 44 (8.91%) Migration
10 43 (8.70%) Disaster Recovery
11 39 (7.89%) Agile
12 33 (6.68%) Observability
13 28 (5.67%) High Availability
14 26 (5.26%) Platform Engineering
14 26 (5.26%) Project Delivery
15 24 (4.86%) Cloud Security
15 24 (4.86%) Service Management
16 23 (4.66%) Roadmaps
17 21 (4.25%) Stakeholder Management
18 20 (4.05%) Business Continuity
Programming Languages
1 80 (16.19%) PowerShell
2 51 (10.32%) Python
3 21 (4.25%) Bash
4 17 (3.44%) Bicep
5 11 (2.23%) SQL
6 8 (1.62%) PHP
7 7 (1.42%) Java
7 7 (1.42%) JavaScript
8 5 (1.01%) Perl
9 3 (0.61%) Go
10 2 (0.40%) ActionScript
10 2 (0.40%) C#
10 2 (0.40%) Groovy
10 2 (0.40%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.20%) C++
11 1 (0.20%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.20%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.20%) Ruby
11 1 (0.20%) Scala
11 1 (0.20%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 138 (27.94%) Security Cleared
2 93 (18.83%) SC Cleared
3 52 (10.53%) DV Cleared
4 27 (5.47%) Azure Certification
5 22 (4.45%) Microsoft Certification
6 13 (2.63%) Degree
6 13 (2.63%) Network+ Certification
7 12 (2.43%) Server+ Certification
8 11 (2.23%) FFIEC
9 7 (1.42%) AWS Certification
9 7 (1.42%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (1.21%) CCNA
10 6 (1.21%) CompTIA Security+
10 6 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (1.01%) BPSS Clearance
11 5 (1.01%) CISSP
11 5 (1.01%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 4 (0.81%) CISM
12 4 (0.81%) GIAC
12 4 (0.81%) GSEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (4.45%) NIST
2 15 (3.04%) GDPR
3 11 (2.23%) GLBA
3 11 (2.23%) PCI DSS
3 11 (2.23%) SLA
4 9 (1.82%) Cyber Essentials
4 9 (1.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (0.81%) NIST 800
6 3 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 2 (0.40%) HIPAA
7 2 (0.40%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.20%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.20%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.20%) QA
System Software
1 126 (25.51%) Active Directory
2 115 (23.28%) VMware Infrastructure
3 70 (14.17%) Hyper-V
4 38 (7.69%) Docker
5 30 (6.07%) vSphere
6 20 (4.05%) VMware ESXi
7 12 (2.43%) Virtual Machines
8 10 (2.02%) Virtual Desktop
9 9 (1.82%) VMware NSX
10 5 (1.01%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.61%) DFS Replication
11 3 (0.61%) Microsoft App-V
11 3 (0.61%) Sendmail
11 3 (0.61%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.40%) Firmware
12 2 (0.40%) QEMU
12 2 (0.40%) Tivoli Directory Server
13 1 (0.20%) etcd
13 1 (0.20%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 1 (0.20%) UAG
Systems Management
1 88 (17.81%) Terraform
2 52 (10.53%) Microsoft Intune
3 51 (10.32%) SCCM
4 49 (9.92%) Ansible
5 45 (9.11%) Kubernetes
6 21 (4.25%) vCenter Server
7 18 (3.64%) Single Sign-On
8 9 (1.82%) VxRail
9 7 (1.42%) AirWatch
9 7 (1.42%) FortiGate
9 7 (1.42%) Grafana
9 7 (1.42%) Prometheus
9 7 (1.42%) SCOM
10 6 (1.21%) CASB
10 6 (1.21%) Istio
10 6 (1.21%) Red Hat Satellite
10 6 (1.21%) SCOrch
11 5 (1.01%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.81%) Nessus
12 4 (0.81%) Packer
Vendors
1 173 (35.02%) Microsoft
2 155 (31.38%) VMware
3 34 (6.88%) Cisco
4 25 (5.06%) Dell
5 21 (4.25%) Veeam
6 17 (3.44%) Google
7 16 (3.24%) F5
8 15 (3.04%) Citrix
8 15 (3.04%) Palo Alto
8 15 (3.04%) Red Hat
8 15 (3.04%) Splunk
9 14 (2.83%) Thales
10 13 (2.63%) Oracle
10 13 (2.63%) SolarWinds
11 11 (2.23%) ServiceNow
12 9 (1.82%) Fortinet
13 8 (1.62%) Aruba
13 8 (1.62%) HP
14 7 (1.42%) CyberArk
14 7 (1.42%) NetApp