Infrastructure Engineer Contract Job Trends

Infrastructure Engineer
UK

The median Infrastructure Engineer daily rate in the UK is £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 March 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 223 199 159
Rank change year-on-year -24 -40 +15
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 522 401 708
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.22% 1.31% 1.58%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.33% 1.41% 1.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 384 271 512
10th Percentile £316 £325 £313
25th Percentile £400 £383 £384
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £475
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +10.53% -5.00%
75th Percentile £580 £613 £600
90th Percentile £638 £675 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £525 £475
% change year-on-year -6.67% +10.53% +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 5 17
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £26.25 £24.18 £21.25
Median hourly rate £34.00 £60.00 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.33% +160.87% -63.31%
75th Percentile £62.13 £200.00 £76.53
90th Percentile £80.00 - £76.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £23.00
% change year-on-year -8.33% +160.87% -58.39%

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 39,253 28,458 41,733
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.91% 92.86% 92.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,589 18,093 27,411
10th Percentile £310 £293 £273
25th Percentile £409 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £485
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.06% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,404 876 2,465
10th Percentile £14.84 £16.17 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.89 £21.39 £16.25
Median hourly rate £34.50 £35.00 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.44% +6.06% -18.67%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.25 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.17 £32.50 £33.07
% change year-on-year +2.06% -1.71% -14.67%

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 7 March 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 7 March 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 7 March 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 -25 463 £500 -5.88% 203
UK excluding London -17 353 £490 -6.67% 183
London -44 130 £525 -4.55% 38
Work from Home 0 115 £500 +2.56% 79
South East -4 99 £500 -4.76% 51
North of England -34 85 £413 - 59
South West +1 80 £538 -8.51% 31
Yorkshire -34 49 £363 -12.12% 23
North West -30 30 £533 +1.43% 29
Midlands -62 30 £425 -10.53% 19
East of England -10 29 £438 -4.53% 16
Scotland +11 23 £500 -9.09% 4
East Midlands -22 16 £450 +28.57% 7
West Midlands -60 14 £400 -27.27% 12
Wales -7 7 £550 +29.41% 4
North East -10 6 £488 +33.56% 7
Northern Ireland - 1 £375 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 7 March 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.

1 500 (95.79%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 183 (35.06%) Windows
3 182 (34.87%) Azure
4 165 (31.61%) Microsoft
5 155 (29.69%) Security Cleared
5 155 (29.69%) VMware
6 127 (24.33%) Active Directory
7 118 (22.61%) VMware Infrastructure
8 108 (20.69%) SC Cleared
9 103 (19.73%) Windows Server
10 93 (17.82%) PowerShell
11 90 (17.24%) DevOps
12 88 (16.86%) Terraform
13 85 (16.28%) Linux
14 83 (15.90%) Firewall
15 79 (15.13%) Problem-Solving
16 78 (14.94%) Infrastructure as Code
17 76 (14.56%) Microsoft 365
18 75 (14.37%) DNS
19 66 (12.64%) CI/CD
20 65 (12.45%) Python
21 59 (11.30%) AWS
22 57 (10.92%) Hyper-V
23 56 (10.73%) DHCP
23 56 (10.73%) ITIL
24 53 (10.15%) DV Cleared
25 51 (9.77%) Kubernetes
26 49 (9.39%) Ansible
27 48 (9.20%) SCCM
28 47 (9.00%) Infrastructure Automation

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 44 (8.43%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (2.11%) SharePoint
3 10 (1.92%) TPMS
4 5 (0.96%) Confluence
4 5 (0.96%) IIS
5 4 (0.77%) Apache
6 3 (0.57%) Exchange Server 2010
7 2 (0.38%) nginx
8 1 (0.19%) CICS
8 1 (0.19%) IBM HTTP Server
8 1 (0.19%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.19%) Traefik
8 1 (0.19%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.19%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 9 (1.72%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.57%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.38%) Maximo
2 1 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 182 (34.87%) Azure
2 76 (14.56%) Microsoft 365
3 59 (11.30%) AWS
4 41 (7.85%) Entra ID
5 36 (6.90%) GitHub
6 27 (5.17%) GCP
7 26 (4.98%) PaaS
8 25 (4.79%) IaaS
9 20 (3.83%) Azure DevOps
10 18 (3.45%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 18 (3.45%) Nutanix
11 17 (3.26%) Azure Monitor
12 12 (2.30%) Azure Sentinel
13 10 (1.92%) Microsoft Purview
14 9 (1.72%) Mimecast
14 9 (1.72%) OCI
14 9 (1.72%) OneDrive
15 8 (1.53%) Azure AKS
15 8 (1.53%) SaaS
16 7 (1.34%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 83 (15.90%) Firewall
2 75 (14.37%) DNS
3 56 (10.73%) DHCP
4 37 (7.09%) VPN
5 32 (6.13%) WAN
6 28 (5.36%) TCP/IP
7 25 (4.79%) LAN
8 23 (4.41%) VLAN
9 21 (4.02%) SAN
10 19 (3.64%) Wi-Fi
11 17 (3.26%) Network Security
12 13 (2.49%) SNMP
13 12 (2.30%) SSH
13 12 (2.30%) SSL
14 9 (1.72%) MPLS
15 7 (1.34%) SD-WAN
15 7 (1.34%) SMTP
16 6 (1.15%) 4G
16 6 (1.15%) BGP
16 6 (1.15%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (3.07%) SQL Server
2 6 (1.15%) Elasticsearch
3 5 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.57%) Power BI
5 2 (0.38%) Amazon Aurora
5 2 (0.38%) DynamoDB
5 2 (0.38%) MySQL
5 2 (0.38%) SAP HANA
6 1 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
6 1 (0.19%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.19%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Database
6 1 (0.19%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 14 (2.68%) Jenkins
2 11 (2.11%) GitLab
2 11 (2.11%) JIRA
3 8 (1.53%) Artifactory
4 6 (1.15%) Git
5 3 (0.57%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.19%) Chocolatey
6 1 (0.19%) GoCD
6 1 (0.19%) IntelliJ
6 1 (0.19%) Introscope
6 1 (0.19%) MSI
6 1 (0.19%) Robot Framework
6 1 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 88 (16.86%) Social Skills
2 49 (9.39%) Finance
2 49 (9.39%) Public Sector
3 36 (6.90%) Analytical Skills
4 23 (4.41%) Documentation Skills
5 16 (3.07%) Legal
6 14 (2.68%) Banking
7 10 (1.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 9 (1.72%) Billing
9 6 (1.15%) Aviation
9 6 (1.15%) Spanish Language
10 5 (0.96%) Local Government
10 5 (0.96%) Military
10 5 (0.96%) Telecoms
11 4 (0.77%) Aerospace
12 3 (0.57%) Retail
13 2 (0.38%) Financial Institution
14 1 (0.19%) Advertising
14 1 (0.19%) Back Office
14 1 (0.19%) Italian Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (1.92%) REST
2 8 (1.53%) LDAP
3 7 (1.34%) ARM Templates
3 7 (1.34%) SAML
3 7 (1.34%) SOAP
4 5 (0.96%) OpenID
4 5 (0.96%) Web Services
5 4 (0.77%) Keycloak
5 4 (0.77%) Microsoft Graph
6 3 (0.57%) ADO
6 3 (0.57%) Elastic Stack
6 3 (0.57%) Middleware
6 3 (0.57%) Oracle Fusion
6 3 (0.57%) YAML
7 2 (0.38%) .NET
7 2 (0.38%) Flash
7 2 (0.38%) OAuth
7 2 (0.38%) OAuth2
7 2 (0.38%) Software Packaging
7 2 (0.38%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 33 (6.32%) PKI
2 30 (5.75%) Data Centre
3 19 (3.64%) Public Cloud
4 16 (3.07%) Hybrid Cloud
5 10 (1.92%) Clustering
6 9 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
6 9 (1.72%) Onboarding
6 9 (1.72%) Private Cloud
7 8 (1.53%) Enterprise Storage
7 8 (1.53%) Self-Motivation
8 7 (1.34%) Cloud Native
9 5 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
9 5 (0.96%) NHS
9 5 (0.96%) Replication
10 4 (0.77%) Legacy Systems
11 3 (0.57%) Client/Server
11 3 (0.57%) Cyber Threat
11 3 (0.57%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (0.57%) Greenfield Project
12 2 (0.38%) EMC VMAX
Operating Systems
1 183 (35.06%) Windows
2 103 (19.73%) Windows Server
3 85 (16.28%) Linux
4 17 (3.26%) Windows Server 2019
5 13 (2.49%) Ubuntu
5 13 (2.49%) Windows 10
5 13 (2.49%) Windows Server 2012
6 12 (2.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (2.30%) Windows Server 2016
7 11 (2.11%) VMS
8 8 (1.53%) Unix
9 5 (0.96%) Windows Server 2003
10 3 (0.57%) Android
10 3 (0.57%) Apple iOS
11 2 (0.38%) CentOS
11 2 (0.38%) Debian
11 2 (0.38%) SUSE
11 2 (0.38%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 2 (0.38%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 500 (95.79%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 90 (17.24%) DevOps
3 79 (15.13%) Problem-Solving
4 78 (14.94%) Infrastructure as Code
5 66 (12.64%) CI/CD
6 56 (10.73%) ITIL
7 47 (9.00%) Infrastructure Automation
8 46 (8.81%) Migration
9 45 (8.62%) Agile
9 45 (8.62%) Cybersecurity
10 37 (7.09%) Disaster Recovery
11 29 (5.56%) High Availability
11 29 (5.56%) Observability
11 29 (5.56%) Project Delivery
12 24 (4.60%) Platform Engineering
13 23 (4.41%) Cloud Security
13 23 (4.41%) Containerisation
13 23 (4.41%) Roadmaps
14 22 (4.21%) Service Management
14 22 (4.21%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 93 (17.82%) PowerShell
2 65 (12.45%) Python
3 22 (4.21%) Bash
4 16 (3.07%) SQL
5 13 (2.49%) Bicep
6 9 (1.72%) JavaScript
6 9 (1.72%) PHP
7 7 (1.34%) C#
8 6 (1.15%) Java
9 4 (0.77%) Perl
9 4 (0.77%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.38%) ActionScript
10 2 (0.38%) Go
11 1 (0.19%) C++
11 1 (0.19%) Jython
11 1 (0.19%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.19%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.19%) Ruby
11 1 (0.19%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 155 (29.69%) Security Cleared
2 108 (20.69%) SC Cleared
3 53 (10.15%) DV Cleared
4 19 (3.64%) Azure Certification
5 13 (2.49%) Microsoft Certification
6 12 (2.30%) Degree
7 10 (1.92%) FFIEC
7 10 (1.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 8 (1.53%) AWS Certification
8 8 (1.53%) Cisco Certification
9 6 (1.15%) CCNA
9 6 (1.15%) CompTIA Security+
10 5 (0.96%) BPSS Clearance
11 4 (0.77%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 4 (0.77%) CCNP
11 4 (0.77%) CISSP
11 4 (0.77%) Computer Science Degree
11 4 (0.77%) GIAC
11 4 (0.77%) Network+ Certification
11 4 (0.77%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (3.45%) NIST
2 14 (2.68%) GDPR
3 10 (1.92%) Cyber Essentials
3 10 (1.92%) GLBA
3 10 (1.92%) PCI DSS
3 10 (1.92%) SLA
4 9 (1.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 3 (0.57%) NIST 800
6 2 (0.38%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.38%) QA
6 2 (0.38%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.19%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.19%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 127 (24.33%) Active Directory
2 118 (22.61%) VMware Infrastructure
3 57 (10.92%) Hyper-V
4 35 (6.70%) vSphere
5 33 (6.32%) Docker
6 23 (4.41%) VMware ESXi
7 12 (2.30%) Virtual Desktop
7 12 (2.30%) Virtual Machines
8 9 (1.72%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.96%) BitLocker
10 4 (0.77%) Microsoft App-V
11 3 (0.57%) DFS Replication
11 3 (0.57%) Sendmail
12 2 (0.38%) QEMU
12 2 (0.38%) SRDF
13 1 (0.19%) etcd
13 1 (0.19%) Firmware
13 1 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 1 (0.19%) UAG
13 1 (0.19%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 88 (16.86%) Terraform
2 51 (9.77%) Kubernetes
3 49 (9.39%) Ansible
4 48 (9.20%) SCCM
5 47 (9.00%) Microsoft Intune
6 22 (4.21%) vCenter Server
7 16 (3.07%) Single Sign-On
8 9 (1.72%) Istio
8 9 (1.72%) Puppet
8 9 (1.72%) VxRail
9 7 (1.34%) Grafana
9 7 (1.34%) Prometheus
9 7 (1.34%) SCOM
10 6 (1.15%) AirWatch
10 6 (1.15%) CASB
10 6 (1.15%) SCOrch
11 5 (0.96%) FortiGate
11 5 (0.96%) Nessus
11 5 (0.96%) Packer
11 5 (0.96%) WSUS
Vendors
1 165 (31.61%) Microsoft
2 155 (29.69%) VMware
3 34 (6.51%) Cisco
4 28 (5.36%) Dell
5 23 (4.41%) Citrix
6 22 (4.21%) Veeam
7 20 (3.83%) Google
8 14 (2.68%) F5
8 14 (2.68%) Thales
9 12 (2.30%) Fortinet
9 12 (2.30%) Oracle
9 12 (2.30%) Red Hat
9 12 (2.30%) ServiceNow
9 12 (2.30%) SolarWinds
9 12 (2.30%) Splunk
10 11 (2.11%) Aruba
10 11 (2.11%) NetApp
11 9 (1.72%) Palo Alto
12 8 (1.53%) HP
13 6 (1.15%) CyberArk