Infrastructure Engineer Contract Job Trends

Infrastructure Engineer
UK

The median Infrastructure Engineer daily rate in the UK is £538, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 October 2026.

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

 6 months to
9 Oct 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 150 237 180
Rank change year-on-year +87 -57 -33
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 1,056 382 540
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.94% 1.15% 1.42%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.10% 1.27% 1.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 619 257 381
10th Percentile £350 £255 £329
25th Percentile £425 £375 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £480 £475
Median % change year-on-year +11.98% +1.05% -5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £575
90th Percentile £650 £638 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £538 £459 £450
% change year-on-year +17.17% +1.94% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 10 3
10th Percentile £34.99 £25.70 £46.00
25th Percentile £58.43 £29.00 £51.25
Median hourly rate £75.00 £32.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +134.38% -46.67% -14.29%
75th Percentile £77.50 £35.00 £68.50
90th Percentile £100.00 £40.16 £73.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £75.00 £52.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +44.23% -13.33% -15.79%

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 50,176 30,117 35,319
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.07% 90.80% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,458 18,999 21,350
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.85% -1.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,042 1,639 1,491
10th Percentile £14.32 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £19.36 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £41.57
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -39.49% -6.60%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £68.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £25.00 £42.96
% change year-on-year +66.84% -41.80% -3.47%

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 9 October 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 9 October 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 9 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
England +73 902 £540 +13.09% 714
UK excluding London +105 774 £538 +17.17% 472
Work from Home +20 224 £525 +23.53% 257
North of England +60 223 £550 +10.00% 135
South East +24 213 £570 +25.45% 104
London -24 205 £540 +4.60% 267
South West +27 102 £565 +2.22% 61
North West +14 100 £519 -5.64% 82
Midlands +19 98 £475 +5.56% 59
Yorkshire +16 75 £413 -17.50% 30
West Midlands 0 71 £475 +5.56% 36
Scotland +33 65 £525 +52.17% 52
North East +1 58 £600 +6.67% 24
East of England +9 54 £500 +36.52% 45
East Midlands +3 26 £450 -18.18% 23
Wales +13 24 £513 - 15
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 6
Channel Islands - 1 £550 -

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

For the 6 months to 9 October 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 1,022 (96.78%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 407 (38.54%) Security Cleared
3 320 (30.30%) Windows
4 316 (29.92%) Azure
5 282 (26.70%) VMware
6 264 (25.00%) Microsoft
7 246 (23.30%) SC Cleared
8 238 (22.54%) Infrastructure as Code
9 225 (21.31%) VMware Infrastructure
10 221 (20.93%) Active Directory
11 218 (20.64%) Windows Server
12 214 (20.27%) Linux
13 193 (18.28%) DNS
14 186 (17.61%) PowerShell
15 183 (17.33%) Terraform
16 170 (16.10%) Firewall
17 152 (14.39%) DV Cleared
18 147 (13.92%) AWS
19 143 (13.54%) CI/CD
20 140 (13.26%) Python
21 136 (12.88%) DevOps
22 132 (12.50%) DHCP
23 128 (12.12%) Ansible
24 120 (11.36%) Entra ID
25 112 (10.61%) Problem-Solving
26 111 (10.51%) Migration
27 100 (9.47%) Microsoft 365
28 96 (9.09%) Kubernetes
29 94 (8.90%) Hyper-V
30 82 (7.77%) 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 55 (5.21%) Microsoft Exchange
2 37 (3.50%) SharePoint
3 17 (1.61%) Confluence
4 13 (1.23%) CICS
4 13 (1.23%) WebSphere
5 5 (0.47%) Apache
5 5 (0.47%) SharePoint Server
6 3 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2010
6 3 (0.28%) nginx
6 3 (0.28%) Skype for Business
7 2 (0.19%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.19%) CloudStack
8 1 (0.095%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.095%) CMS
8 1 (0.095%) Exchange Server 2013
8 1 (0.095%) IIS
8 1 (0.095%) MS Project Server
8 1 (0.095%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.095%) Traefik
Applications
1 7 (0.66%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.095%) CINEMA 4D
3 1 (0.095%) Houdini
3 1 (0.095%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 8 (0.76%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.095%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 316 (29.92%) Azure
2 147 (13.92%) AWS
3 120 (11.36%) Entra ID
4 100 (9.47%) Microsoft 365
5 71 (6.72%) IaaS
6 51 (4.83%) OCI
7 43 (4.07%) GCP
7 43 (4.07%) GitHub
8 35 (3.31%) Azure Monitor
9 31 (2.94%) SaaS
10 28 (2.65%) Azure DevOps
10 28 (2.65%) PaaS
11 20 (1.89%) GitHub Actions
11 20 (1.89%) Nutanix
12 16 (1.52%) Azure AKS
13 13 (1.23%) Azure Data Factory
14 12 (1.14%) OpenShift
15 10 (0.95%) Azure Sentinel
16 9 (0.85%) AWS CloudFormation
17 8 (0.76%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 193 (18.28%) DNS
2 170 (16.10%) Firewall
3 132 (12.50%) DHCP
4 66 (6.25%) TCP/IP
5 62 (5.87%) VPN
6 55 (5.21%) SAN
6 55 (5.21%) VLAN
7 46 (4.36%) Network Security
8 39 (3.69%) WAN
9 38 (3.60%) BIG-IP
10 33 (3.13%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
11 30 (2.84%) Wi-Fi
12 24 (2.27%) SD-WAN
13 22 (2.08%) LAN
14 21 (1.99%) Ethernet VPN
15 20 (1.89%) VXLAN
16 19 (1.80%) BGP
16 19 (1.80%) OSPF
16 19 (1.80%) VSAN
17 17 (1.61%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (4.73%) SQL Server
2 22 (2.08%) Oracle Exadata
3 16 (1.52%) Relational Database
4 15 (1.42%) Oracle Database
5 14 (1.33%) RDBMS
6 9 (0.85%) Data Lake
7 7 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
7 7 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
8 6 (0.57%) NoSQL
9 5 (0.47%) Big Data
9 5 (0.47%) Elasticsearch
9 5 (0.47%) Power BI
10 4 (0.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 3 (0.28%) PostgreSQL
12 2 (0.19%) BigQuery
12 2 (0.19%) MySQL
12 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 1 (0.095%) InfluxDB
13 1 (0.095%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 51 (4.83%) GitLab
2 34 (3.22%) JIRA
3 29 (2.75%) Git
4 25 (2.37%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.38%) Chocolatey
5 4 (0.38%) Fiddler
6 2 (0.19%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.095%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.095%) CMake
7 1 (0.095%) Gerrit
7 1 (0.095%) Gradle
7 1 (0.095%) MLflow
7 1 (0.095%) Tricentis qTest
7 1 (0.095%) Visual Studio
General
1 112 (10.61%) Social Skills
2 67 (6.34%) Finance
3 62 (5.87%) Public Sector
4 42 (3.98%) Analytical Skills
5 35 (3.31%) Documentation Skills
6 21 (1.99%) Banking
7 20 (1.89%) Telecoms
8 13 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 13 (1.23%) Military
9 10 (0.95%) Manufacturing
9 10 (0.95%) Marketing
10 9 (0.85%) Aerospace
11 8 (0.76%) Legal
12 6 (0.57%) Automotive
13 4 (0.38%) Investment Banking
13 4 (0.38%) Law
14 2 (0.19%) Billing
14 2 (0.19%) Front Office
14 2 (0.19%) Local Government
14 2 (0.19%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 183 (17.33%) Terraform
2 22 (2.08%) ARM Templates
3 17 (1.61%) Middleware
4 14 (1.33%) Oracle GoldenGate
5 9 (0.85%) YAML
6 7 (0.66%) LDAP
7 6 (0.57%) 802.1X
7 6 (0.57%) JSON
7 6 (0.57%) OpenID
8 5 (0.47%) .NET
8 5 (0.47%) Flash
8 5 (0.47%) Kafka
8 5 (0.47%) OAuth
8 5 (0.47%) REST
9 4 (0.38%) Elastic Stack
9 4 (0.38%) SAML
10 3 (0.28%) OAuth2
11 2 (0.19%) Apache NiFi
11 2 (0.19%) Keycloak
11 2 (0.19%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 122 (11.55%) Data Centre
2 72 (6.82%) Hybrid Cloud
3 52 (4.92%) PKI
4 39 (3.69%) Public Cloud
5 31 (2.94%) Onboarding
6 30 (2.84%) Cloud Native
7 29 (2.75%) Replication
8 25 (2.37%) Enterprise Storage
9 24 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
10 23 (2.18%) SCADA
11 21 (1.99%) Private Cloud
12 20 (1.89%) Linux Command Line
13 18 (1.70%) Management Information System
14 17 (1.61%) Clustering
15 13 (1.23%) Mainframe
16 12 (1.14%) Self-Motivation
17 11 (1.04%) Operational Technology
18 10 (0.95%) Driving Licence
19 8 (0.76%) Data Protection Act
19 8 (0.76%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 320 (30.30%) Windows
2 218 (20.64%) Windows Server
3 214 (20.27%) Linux
4 39 (3.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 19 (1.80%) VMS
5 19 (1.80%) Windows Server 2019
6 16 (1.52%) Ubuntu
7 15 (1.42%) Windows Server 2016
8 14 (1.33%) AIX
8 14 (1.33%) CentOS
8 14 (1.33%) Windows 10
9 13 (1.23%) zOS
10 10 (0.95%) Unix
10 10 (0.95%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.85%) Rocky
12 5 (0.47%) Oracle Linux
13 4 (0.38%) Android
13 4 (0.38%) Data ONTAP
13 4 (0.38%) Debian
13 4 (0.38%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,022 (96.78%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 238 (22.54%) Infrastructure as Code
3 143 (13.54%) CI/CD
4 136 (12.88%) DevOps
5 112 (10.61%) Problem-Solving
6 111 (10.51%) Migration
7 82 (7.77%) Infrastructure Automation
8 75 (7.10%) Disaster Recovery
9 71 (6.72%) High Availability
10 67 (6.34%) Continuous Improvement
10 67 (6.34%) ITIL
10 67 (6.34%) Platform Engineering
10 67 (6.34%) Project Delivery
11 58 (5.49%) Validation
12 54 (5.11%) Cybersecurity
13 52 (4.92%) Vulnerability Remediation
14 49 (4.64%) Root Cause Analysis
15 47 (4.45%) Agile
16 45 (4.26%) Identity Access Management
17 44 (4.17%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 186 (17.61%) PowerShell
2 140 (13.26%) Python
3 78 (7.39%) Bash
4 43 (4.07%) SQL
5 35 (3.31%) Bicep
6 13 (1.23%) C#
7 11 (1.04%) Java
7 11 (1.04%) Perl
8 10 (0.95%) ActionScript
9 6 (0.57%) Go
10 3 (0.28%) C++
11 2 (0.19%) VB
12 1 (0.095%) C
12 1 (0.095%) Groovy
12 1 (0.095%) JavaScript
12 1 (0.095%) Kusto Query Language
12 1 (0.095%) MATLAB
12 1 (0.095%) PHP
12 1 (0.095%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 407 (38.54%) Security Cleared
2 246 (23.30%) SC Cleared
3 152 (14.39%) DV Cleared
4 41 (3.88%) Degree
5 31 (2.94%) Microsoft Certification
6 22 (2.08%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 21 (1.99%) Azure Certification
8 18 (1.70%) Cisco Certification
9 15 (1.42%) Computer Science Degree
10 14 (1.33%) MCSE
10 14 (1.33%) VCAP
11 12 (1.14%) CCNA
11 12 (1.14%) CCNP
12 7 (0.66%) AWS Certification
13 6 (0.57%) MCSA
14 5 (0.47%) DBS Check
15 4 (0.38%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 4 (0.38%) BPSS Clearance
15 4 (0.38%) JNCIP
15 4 (0.38%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (4.36%) QA
2 17 (1.61%) SLA
3 13 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials
4 9 (0.85%) NIST
5 8 (0.76%) NCSC
6 6 (0.57%) Disclosure Scotland
7 4 (0.38%) Data Quality
8 3 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.19%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.19%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.095%) FedRAMP
10 1 (0.095%) GDPR
10 1 (0.095%) GLBA
10 1 (0.095%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 225 (21.31%) VMware Infrastructure
2 221 (20.93%) Active Directory
3 94 (8.90%) Hyper-V
4 75 (7.10%) VMware ESXi
5 74 (7.01%) vSphere
6 53 (5.02%) Virtual Machines
7 41 (3.88%) Docker
8 29 (2.75%) VMware NSX
9 27 (2.56%) Virtual Desktop
10 18 (1.70%) Virtual Servers
11 14 (1.33%) Oracle RAC
12 13 (1.23%) NFS
13 12 (1.14%) Firmware
14 7 (0.66%) KVM
15 6 (0.57%) oVirt
16 5 (0.47%) GPFS
17 4 (0.38%) BitLocker
17 4 (0.38%) Microsoft Virtual Server
18 3 (0.28%) Microsoft App-V
18 3 (0.28%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 128 (12.12%) Ansible
2 96 (9.09%) Kubernetes
3 69 (6.53%) Microsoft Intune
4 52 (4.92%) SCCM
5 38 (3.60%) vCenter Server
6 16 (1.52%) NetBackup
7 15 (1.42%) Prometheus
7 15 (1.42%) SCOM
8 14 (1.33%) Data Guard
8 14 (1.33%) Oracle RMAN
8 14 (1.33%) WSUS
9 12 (1.14%) Grafana
10 9 (0.85%) Failover Clustering
10 9 (0.85%) Nessus
10 9 (0.85%) Puppet
10 9 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (0.76%) FortiGate
12 7 (0.66%) VxRail
13 6 (0.57%) Red Hat Satellite
14 5 (0.47%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 282 (26.70%) VMware
2 264 (25.00%) Microsoft
3 61 (5.78%) Cisco
4 51 (4.83%) Citrix
5 48 (4.55%) NetApp
6 42 (3.98%) F5
7 41 (3.88%) Oracle
8 39 (3.69%) Veeam
9 34 (3.22%) Palo Alto
10 29 (2.75%) Red Hat
11 27 (2.56%) Google
12 21 (1.99%) IBM
13 19 (1.80%) Aruba
13 19 (1.80%) Dell
14 18 (1.70%) Arista
15 17 (1.61%) CyberArk
15 17 (1.61%) SolarWinds
16 15 (1.42%) Commvault
17 13 (1.23%) Juniper
17 13 (1.23%) ServiceNow
843 Infrastructure Engineer jobs Nationwide