Infrastructure Engineer Contract Job Trends

Infrastructure Engineer
UK

The median Infrastructure Engineer daily rate in the UK is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 5 June 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 153 207 151
Rank change year-on-year +54 -56 +20
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 847 374 686
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.72% 1.29% 1.60%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.87% 1.40% 1.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 573 253 523
10th Percentile £325 £329 £310
25th Percentile £415 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +16.67% -10.00%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £575
90th Percentile £674 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £501 £450
% change year-on-year +2.90% +11.22% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 2 7
10th Percentile £44.20 - £20.73
25th Percentile £58.43 - £21.25
Median hourly rate £72.54 £200.00 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year -63.73% +196.30% +5.73%
75th Percentile £77.06 - £77.00
90th Percentile £78.75 - £77.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.54 £200.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year -63.73% +788.89% -64.16%

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 45,342 26,733 39,846
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.39% 92.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,608 17,258 25,745
10th Percentile £325 £287 £280
25th Percentile £413 £404 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.40% -4.67% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,029 1,088 2,850
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.69 £17.87 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.69 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +56.04% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £58.75 £61.60
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -5.88%

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 5 June 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 5 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Infrastructure Engineer in the UK

Infrastructure Engineer
Top 18 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 5 June 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 +46 728 £525 - 257
UK excluding London +40 589 £515 +2.90% 230
Work from Home +47 188 £556 +11.25% 96
London -7 181 £525 - 51
North of England +17 171 £500 +17.65% 52
South East +6 163 £525 -4.55% 74
South West +18 95 £550 -4.35% 53
Yorkshire -14 74 £350 -26.32% 17
Midlands -11 70 £450 +12.50% 24
North West +8 67 £575 +29.94% 23
Scotland +20 46 £570 +8.57% 10
West Midlands -35 43 £475 +18.75% 18
North East -1 37 £600 -7.69% 12
East of England -16 34 £475 +3.66% 13
East Midlands -5 26 £450 +12.50% 6
Wales -7 13 £400 -30.43% 9
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 1
Channel Islands - 1 £550 -

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

For the 6 months to 5 June 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.

1 830 (97.99%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 313 (36.95%) Security Cleared
3 262 (30.93%) Windows
4 261 (30.81%) Azure
5 216 (25.50%) VMware
6 212 (25.03%) SC Cleared
7 177 (20.90%) Microsoft
8 164 (19.36%) Windows Server
9 159 (18.77%) Active Directory
10 158 (18.65%) VMware Infrastructure
11 149 (17.59%) Infrastructure as Code
12 139 (16.41%) Terraform
13 131 (15.47%) DNS
14 130 (15.35%) DevOps
15 128 (15.11%) Linux
16 121 (14.29%) Firewall
17 118 (13.93%) AWS
18 117 (13.81%) PowerShell
19 112 (13.22%) DV Cleared
20 109 (12.87%) Python
21 108 (12.75%) CI/CD
22 95 (11.22%) DHCP
23 89 (10.51%) Problem-Solving
24 83 (9.80%) Ansible
25 79 (9.33%) Kubernetes
26 77 (9.09%) Migration
27 75 (8.85%) Hyper-V
28 70 (8.26%) Infrastructure Automation
29 63 (7.44%) Microsoft 365
29 63 (7.44%) vSphere

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 47 (5.55%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (1.06%) SharePoint
3 6 (0.71%) TPMS
4 4 (0.47%) Apache
4 4 (0.47%) Confluence
5 2 (0.24%) CloudStack
6 1 (0.12%) IBM HTTP Server
6 1 (0.12%) IIS
6 1 (0.12%) MS Project Server
6 1 (0.12%) nginx
6 1 (0.12%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.12%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 11 (1.30%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 261 (30.81%) Azure
2 118 (13.93%) AWS
3 63 (7.44%) Microsoft 365
4 60 (7.08%) GitHub
5 51 (6.02%) GCP
6 44 (5.19%) Entra ID
7 40 (4.72%) IaaS
8 36 (4.25%) OCI
9 33 (3.90%) SaaS
10 32 (3.78%) PaaS
11 28 (3.31%) Azure DevOps
12 25 (2.95%) Nutanix
13 24 (2.83%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 21 (2.48%) Azure Monitor
15 17 (2.01%) GitHub Actions
16 15 (1.77%) Azure AKS
17 8 (0.94%) Cohesity
18 7 (0.83%) Azure Stack
19 6 (0.71%) Azure Key Vault
19 6 (0.71%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 131 (15.47%) DNS
2 121 (14.29%) Firewall
3 95 (11.22%) DHCP
4 43 (5.08%) WAN
5 40 (4.72%) VLAN
5 40 (4.72%) VPN
6 33 (3.90%) SAN
7 31 (3.66%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 30 (3.54%) Network Security
9 27 (3.19%) BIG-IP
9 27 (3.19%) LAN
10 24 (2.83%) BGP
10 24 (2.83%) TCP/IP
11 23 (2.72%) Ethernet VPN
11 23 (2.72%) SD-WAN
12 22 (2.60%) VXLAN
13 20 (2.36%) OSPF
14 17 (2.01%) Wi-Fi
15 14 (1.65%) SMTP
15 14 (1.65%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (3.66%) SQL Server
2 10 (1.18%) Elasticsearch
3 7 (0.83%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.35%) Data Mining
4 3 (0.35%) NonStop SQL
4 3 (0.35%) Power BI
5 2 (0.24%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (0.24%) Big Data
5 2 (0.24%) DynamoDB
5 2 (0.24%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.24%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.12%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.12%) Flink
6 1 (0.12%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.12%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.12%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.12%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.12%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 33 (3.90%) GitLab
2 26 (3.07%) Jenkins
3 17 (2.01%) JIRA
4 9 (1.06%) Git
5 8 (0.94%) Artifactory
6 4 (0.47%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.12%) Chocolatey
7 1 (0.12%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.12%) CMake
7 1 (0.12%) GoCD
7 1 (0.12%) Gradle
7 1 (0.12%) IntelliJ
7 1 (0.12%) Introscope
7 1 (0.12%) MSI
7 1 (0.12%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.12%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 99 (11.69%) Social Skills
2 72 (8.50%) Public Sector
3 50 (5.90%) Finance
4 42 (4.96%) Analytical Skills
5 23 (2.72%) Documentation Skills
6 16 (1.89%) Banking
6 16 (1.89%) Legal
7 12 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 11 (1.30%) Aerospace
9 10 (1.18%) Billing
9 10 (1.18%) Marketing
10 9 (1.06%) Manufacturing
11 6 (0.71%) Telecoms
12 5 (0.59%) Military
13 4 (0.47%) Local Government
14 3 (0.35%) Law
15 2 (0.24%) Advertising
15 2 (0.24%) Investment Banking
15 2 (0.24%) Retail
16 1 (0.12%) Mandarin Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (1.30%) REST
2 9 (1.06%) LDAP
3 8 (0.94%) SOAP
4 7 (0.83%) Elastic Stack
4 7 (0.83%) Flash
5 5 (0.59%) ARM Templates
5 5 (0.59%) Web Services
6 4 (0.47%) Keycloak
6 4 (0.47%) OpenID
7 3 (0.35%) ADO
7 3 (0.35%) Oracle Fusion
7 3 (0.35%) SAML
7 3 (0.35%) YAML
8 2 (0.24%) .NET
8 2 (0.24%) JSON
8 2 (0.24%) Kafka
8 2 (0.24%) Middleware
8 2 (0.24%) Node.js
8 2 (0.24%) OAuth
8 2 (0.24%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 88 (10.39%) Data Centre
2 40 (4.72%) Hybrid Cloud
3 39 (4.60%) PKI
4 35 (4.13%) Public Cloud
5 20 (2.36%) Cloud Native
5 20 (2.36%) Onboarding
6 18 (2.13%) Enterprise Storage
7 17 (2.01%) Self-Motivation
8 13 (1.53%) Private Cloud
9 12 (1.42%) Replication
10 11 (1.30%) Clustering
10 11 (1.30%) Operational Technology
11 8 (0.94%) Virtual Team
12 7 (0.83%) Enterprise Software
13 6 (0.71%) Linux Command Line
13 6 (0.71%) SCADA
13 6 (0.71%) Smartcard
13 6 (0.71%) YubiKey
14 5 (0.59%) Distributed Systems
14 5 (0.59%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 262 (30.93%) Windows
2 164 (19.36%) Windows Server
3 128 (15.11%) Linux
4 23 (2.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (2.48%) Windows Server 2019
6 15 (1.77%) Windows 10
6 15 (1.77%) Windows Server 2016
7 13 (1.53%) Ubuntu
8 10 (1.18%) Apple iOS
8 10 (1.18%) VMS
9 9 (1.06%) Mac OS
9 9 (1.06%) Unix
10 8 (0.94%) Android
10 8 (0.94%) Debian
10 8 (0.94%) Windows Server 2003
11 7 (0.83%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.59%) CentOS
13 1 (0.12%) AIX
13 1 (0.12%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.12%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 830 (97.99%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 149 (17.59%) Infrastructure as Code
3 130 (15.35%) DevOps
4 108 (12.75%) CI/CD
5 89 (10.51%) Problem-Solving
6 77 (9.09%) Migration
7 70 (8.26%) Infrastructure Automation
8 58 (6.85%) High Availability
9 56 (6.61%) Agile
10 55 (6.49%) ITIL
11 51 (6.02%) Disaster Recovery
12 48 (5.67%) Zero Trust
13 45 (5.31%) Project Delivery
14 40 (4.72%) Cybersecurity
15 38 (4.49%) Validation
16 35 (4.13%) Site Reliability Engineering
17 32 (3.78%) Continuous Improvement
17 32 (3.78%) Load Balancing
18 30 (3.54%) Observability
19 28 (3.31%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 117 (13.81%) PowerShell
2 109 (12.87%) Python
3 34 (4.01%) Bash
4 25 (2.95%) SQL
5 20 (2.36%) Bicep
6 14 (1.65%) C#
7 9 (1.06%) PHP
8 8 (0.94%) JavaScript
9 6 (0.71%) ActionScript
10 5 (0.59%) Java
10 5 (0.59%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.24%) Go
11 2 (0.24%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.12%) C
12 1 (0.12%) C++
12 1 (0.12%) Jython
12 1 (0.12%) VB
Qualifications
1 313 (36.95%) Security Cleared
2 212 (25.03%) SC Cleared
3 112 (13.22%) DV Cleared
4 26 (3.07%) Degree
5 16 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
5 16 (1.89%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 12 (1.42%) Azure Certification
6 12 (1.42%) Microsoft Certification
7 11 (1.30%) CCNA
8 9 (1.06%) MCSE
9 8 (0.94%) CCNP
10 6 (0.71%) FFIEC
10 6 (0.71%) VCAP
11 5 (0.59%) RHCA
12 4 (0.47%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.47%) CompTIA Security+
12 4 (0.47%) Computer Science Degree
13 3 (0.35%) APMG
13 3 (0.35%) GIAC
13 3 (0.35%) GSEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (2.60%) NIST
2 18 (2.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 17 (2.01%) QA
4 12 (1.42%) Cyber Essentials
5 11 (1.30%) SLA
6 9 (1.06%) GDPR
7 6 (0.71%) GLBA
7 6 (0.71%) NCSC
7 6 (0.71%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 3 (0.35%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.24%) Disclosure Scotland
9 2 (0.24%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.12%) FedRAMP
10 1 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 159 (18.77%) Active Directory
2 158 (18.65%) VMware Infrastructure
3 75 (8.85%) Hyper-V
4 63 (7.44%) vSphere
5 55 (6.49%) VMware ESXi
6 37 (4.37%) Docker
7 29 (3.42%) VMware NSX
8 22 (2.60%) Virtual Machines
9 13 (1.53%) Virtual Desktop
10 11 (1.30%) BitLocker
10 11 (1.30%) NFS
11 9 (1.06%) Microsoft App-V
12 5 (0.59%) Firmware
12 5 (0.59%) GPFS
13 3 (0.35%) DFS Replication
13 3 (0.35%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.35%) Virtual Servers
14 2 (0.24%) QEMU
14 2 (0.24%) SRDF
14 2 (0.24%) UAG
Systems Management
1 139 (16.41%) Terraform
2 83 (9.80%) Ansible
3 79 (9.33%) Kubernetes
4 39 (4.60%) Microsoft Intune
5 38 (4.49%) vCenter Server
6 31 (3.66%) SCCM
7 14 (1.65%) WSUS
8 13 (1.53%) Puppet
9 12 (1.42%) Grafana
9 12 (1.42%) Istio
9 12 (1.42%) SCOM
10 11 (1.30%) Prometheus
11 9 (1.06%) vMotion
11 9 (1.06%) vRealize
11 9 (1.06%) VxRail
12 8 (0.94%) AirWatch
12 8 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
13 7 (0.83%) Nessus
14 6 (0.71%) Packer
15 5 (0.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 216 (25.50%) VMware
2 177 (20.90%) Microsoft
3 57 (6.73%) Citrix
4 49 (5.79%) Cisco
5 39 (4.60%) F5
6 36 (4.25%) Veeam
7 33 (3.90%) Palo Alto
8 30 (3.54%) Google
9 25 (2.95%) Dell
10 24 (2.83%) NetApp
11 23 (2.72%) Aruba
11 23 (2.72%) Red Hat
12 20 (2.36%) Arista
12 20 (2.36%) Oracle
13 13 (1.53%) ServiceNow
13 13 (1.53%) SolarWinds
14 11 (1.30%) Fortinet
15 10 (1.18%) Tenable
15 10 (1.18%) Thales
16 9 (1.06%) Splunk