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 8 September 2026.

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

 6 months to
8 Sep 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 140 234 156
Rank change year-on-year +94 -78 0
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 1,048 379 619
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.94% 1.17% 1.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.10% 1.28% 1.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 614 251 457
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £425 £375 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £483 £475
Median % change year-on-year +8.81% +1.58% -5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £575
90th Percentile £656 £638 £642
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £474 £450
% change year-on-year +10.82% +5.28% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 6 3
10th Percentile £46.00 £27.50 £49.40
25th Percentile £58.43 £29.00 £59.75
Median hourly rate £72.54 £30.00 £77.00
Median % change year-on-year +141.80% -61.04% +8.07%
75th Percentile £78.75 £34.00 -
90th Percentile £100.00 £59.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.54 £52.00 -
% change year-on-year +39.50% - -

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 49,961 29,586 35,470
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.41% 91.15% 93.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,786 18,646 22,240
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,633 1,533 1,754
10th Percentile £14.94 £13.69 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.50 £17.08 £20.74
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -42.71% +3.29%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.55 £25.15 £46.18
% change year-on-year +69.19% -45.54% +15.45%

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 8 September 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 8 September 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 8 September 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 +70 893 £525 +8.81% 537
UK excluding London +90 747 £525 +10.82% 333
Work from Home +21 218 £525 +16.67% 298
London +12 216 £540 +8.00% 257
South East +19 215 £548 +13.47% 80
North of England +36 209 £522 +4.40% 79
South West +19 107 £550 -0.90% 53
Midlands +6 99 £469 +4.17% 45
North West -1 87 £515 -1.90% 44
Yorkshire +15 79 £463 -4.15% 20
West Midlands -7 67 £475 +5.56% 29
Scotland +25 56 £525 +12.00% 28
North East 0 53 £600 -7.69% 16
East of England -5 39 £450 +17.65% 44
East Midlands +11 31 £450 +5.88% 16
Wales +10 27 £500 - 9
Channel Islands - 1 £550 -
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 3

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

For the 6 months to 8 September 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 1,033 (98.57%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 426 (40.65%) Security Cleared
3 334 (31.87%) Windows
4 316 (30.15%) Azure
5 283 (27.00%) VMware
6 275 (26.24%) SC Cleared
7 252 (24.05%) Microsoft
8 225 (21.47%) Windows Server
9 222 (21.18%) VMware Infrastructure
10 219 (20.90%) Active Directory
11 218 (20.80%) Infrastructure as Code
12 201 (19.18%) Linux
13 186 (17.75%) DNS
14 183 (17.46%) Terraform
15 179 (17.08%) PowerShell
16 160 (15.27%) Firewall
17 152 (14.50%) AWS
17 152 (14.50%) DV Cleared
18 140 (13.36%) DevOps
19 136 (12.98%) Python
20 135 (12.88%) CI/CD
21 132 (12.60%) DHCP
22 124 (11.83%) Ansible
23 117 (11.16%) Migration
24 113 (10.78%) Problem-Solving
25 103 (9.83%) Hyper-V
26 101 (9.64%) Kubernetes
27 98 (9.35%) Entra ID
28 92 (8.78%) Microsoft 365
29 81 (7.73%) 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 60 (5.73%) Microsoft Exchange
2 33 (3.15%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.24%) CICS
3 13 (1.24%) WebSphere
4 10 (0.95%) Confluence
5 5 (0.48%) SharePoint Server
6 3 (0.29%) Apache
6 3 (0.29%) Exchange Server 2010
7 2 (0.19%) CloudStack
7 2 (0.19%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.095%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.095%) Exchange Server 2013
8 1 (0.095%) IIS
8 1 (0.095%) MS Project Server
8 1 (0.095%) OpenStack
Applications
1 10 (0.95%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.095%) CINEMA 4D
3 1 (0.095%) Houdini
3 1 (0.095%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.095%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 4 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.095%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 316 (30.15%) Azure
2 152 (14.50%) AWS
3 98 (9.35%) Entra ID
4 92 (8.78%) Microsoft 365
5 63 (6.01%) IaaS
6 53 (5.06%) GCP
7 52 (4.96%) OCI
8 49 (4.68%) GitHub
9 42 (4.01%) SaaS
10 37 (3.53%) Azure DevOps
11 34 (3.24%) PaaS
12 29 (2.77%) Azure Monitor
13 22 (2.10%) GitHub Actions
14 19 (1.81%) Nutanix
15 17 (1.62%) Azure AKS
16 11 (1.05%) OpenShift
17 10 (0.95%) Azure Data Factory
18 8 (0.76%) Google Kubernetes Engine
18 8 (0.76%) OneDrive
18 8 (0.76%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 186 (17.75%) DNS
2 160 (15.27%) Firewall
3 132 (12.60%) DHCP
4 57 (5.44%) VLAN
4 57 (5.44%) VPN
5 56 (5.34%) TCP/IP
6 52 (4.96%) SAN
7 41 (3.91%) WAN
8 40 (3.82%) Network Security
9 31 (2.96%) BIG-IP
9 31 (2.96%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
10 26 (2.48%) Wi-Fi
11 24 (2.29%) LAN
12 23 (2.19%) Ethernet VPN
12 23 (2.19%) SD-WAN
13 22 (2.10%) VXLAN
14 20 (1.91%) BGP
14 20 (1.91%) OSPF
14 20 (1.91%) VSAN
15 14 (1.34%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (4.96%) SQL Server
2 22 (2.10%) Oracle Exadata
3 17 (1.62%) Relational Database
4 16 (1.53%) Oracle Database
5 14 (1.34%) RDBMS
6 7 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
6 7 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
7 6 (0.57%) Data Lake
8 5 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
9 4 (0.38%) NoSQL
9 4 (0.38%) PostgreSQL
9 4 (0.38%) Power BI
9 4 (0.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 3 (0.29%) Big Data
10 3 (0.29%) Data Mining
10 3 (0.29%) NonStop SQL
11 2 (0.19%) BigQuery
11 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 1 (0.095%) Flink
Development Applications
1 48 (4.58%) GitLab
2 26 (2.48%) JIRA
3 25 (2.39%) Git
4 22 (2.10%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.38%) Chocolatey
6 3 (0.29%) Fiddler
7 1 (0.095%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.095%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.095%) CMake
7 1 (0.095%) Gradle
7 1 (0.095%) MLflow
7 1 (0.095%) MSI
7 1 (0.095%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.095%) Visual Studio
General
1 119 (11.35%) Social Skills
2 74 (7.06%) Public Sector
3 46 (4.39%) Analytical Skills
4 45 (4.29%) Finance
5 36 (3.44%) Documentation Skills
6 18 (1.72%) Banking
7 15 (1.43%) Aerospace
7 15 (1.43%) Military
8 13 (1.24%) Manufacturing
9 12 (1.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 10 (0.95%) Marketing
10 10 (0.95%) Telecoms
11 7 (0.67%) Law
12 6 (0.57%) Automotive
12 6 (0.57%) Legal
13 4 (0.38%) Investment Banking
14 2 (0.19%) Billing
14 2 (0.19%) Local Government
14 2 (0.19%) Pharmaceutical
14 2 (0.19%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 183 (17.46%) Terraform
2 17 (1.62%) Middleware
3 16 (1.53%) ARM Templates
4 14 (1.34%) Oracle GoldenGate
5 9 (0.86%) YAML
6 6 (0.57%) 802.1X
6 6 (0.57%) JSON
6 6 (0.57%) OpenID
7 5 (0.48%) .NET
7 5 (0.48%) Elastic Stack
7 5 (0.48%) Flash
7 5 (0.48%) REST
7 5 (0.48%) SAML
8 4 (0.38%) LDAP
9 3 (0.29%) Kafka
9 3 (0.29%) OAuth
10 2 (0.19%) OAuth2
10 2 (0.19%) RabbitMQ
10 2 (0.19%) React
10 2 (0.19%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 119 (11.35%) Data Centre
2 65 (6.20%) Hybrid Cloud
3 55 (5.25%) PKI
4 38 (3.63%) Public Cloud
5 30 (2.86%) Enterprise Storage
6 28 (2.67%) Onboarding
6 28 (2.67%) Replication
7 26 (2.48%) Cloud Native
8 19 (1.81%) Clustering
8 19 (1.81%) Distributed Systems
9 17 (1.62%) Management Information System
10 16 (1.53%) Linux Command Line
10 16 (1.53%) Private Cloud
11 15 (1.43%) Self-Motivation
12 13 (1.24%) Mainframe
13 11 (1.05%) Operational Technology
14 9 (0.86%) Driving Licence
15 8 (0.76%) Enterprise Software
15 8 (0.76%) Smartcard
15 8 (0.76%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 334 (31.87%) Windows
2 225 (21.47%) Windows Server
3 201 (19.18%) Linux
4 35 (3.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 19 (1.81%) Windows 10
5 19 (1.81%) Windows Server 2019
6 18 (1.72%) Windows Server 2016
7 15 (1.43%) Ubuntu
7 15 (1.43%) VMS
8 14 (1.34%) AIX
9 13 (1.24%) CentOS
9 13 (1.24%) zOS
10 11 (1.05%) Android
10 11 (1.05%) Apple iOS
11 10 (0.95%) Mac OS
11 10 (0.95%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.76%) Rocky
13 6 (0.57%) Debian
14 5 (0.48%) Unix
14 5 (0.48%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,033 (98.57%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 218 (20.80%) Infrastructure as Code
3 140 (13.36%) DevOps
4 135 (12.88%) CI/CD
5 117 (11.16%) Migration
6 113 (10.78%) Problem-Solving
7 81 (7.73%) Infrastructure Automation
8 76 (7.25%) Disaster Recovery
8 76 (7.25%) High Availability
9 66 (6.30%) Continuous Improvement
9 66 (6.30%) ITIL
10 62 (5.92%) Platform Engineering
11 60 (5.73%) Project Delivery
12 58 (5.53%) Validation
13 50 (4.77%) Zero Trust
14 46 (4.39%) Root Cause Analysis
15 43 (4.10%) Identity Access Management
15 43 (4.10%) Load Balancing
16 42 (4.01%) Agile
16 42 (4.01%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 179 (17.08%) PowerShell
2 136 (12.98%) Python
3 77 (7.35%) Bash
4 38 (3.63%) SQL
5 32 (3.05%) Bicep
6 13 (1.24%) C#
7 9 (0.86%) Java
8 6 (0.57%) ActionScript
8 6 (0.57%) Go
9 5 (0.48%) Perl
10 2 (0.19%) C++
10 2 (0.19%) VB
11 1 (0.095%) C
11 1 (0.095%) PHP
11 1 (0.095%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.095%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.095%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 426 (40.65%) Security Cleared
2 275 (26.24%) SC Cleared
3 152 (14.50%) DV Cleared
4 42 (4.01%) Degree
5 35 (3.34%) Microsoft Certification
6 24 (2.29%) Azure Certification
7 21 (2.00%) Cisco Certification
8 20 (1.91%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 18 (1.72%) MCSE
10 14 (1.34%) CCNA
11 13 (1.24%) Computer Science Degree
12 12 (1.15%) CCNP
12 12 (1.15%) VCAP
13 6 (0.57%) AWS Certification
13 6 (0.57%) MCSA
14 5 (0.48%) DBS Check
14 5 (0.48%) ITIL Certification
15 4 (0.38%) JNCIP
15 4 (0.38%) JNCIS
15 4 (0.38%) RHCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (3.34%) QA
2 20 (1.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 17 (1.62%) SLA
4 14 (1.34%) Cyber Essentials
5 12 (1.15%) NIST
6 11 (1.05%) NCSC
7 6 (0.57%) Disclosure Scotland
8 3 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 3 (0.29%) Data Quality
9 2 (0.19%) GDPR
9 2 (0.19%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.19%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.095%) FedRAMP
System Software
1 222 (21.18%) VMware Infrastructure
2 219 (20.90%) Active Directory
3 103 (9.83%) Hyper-V
4 72 (6.87%) vSphere
5 71 (6.77%) VMware ESXi
6 45 (4.29%) Virtual Machines
7 40 (3.82%) Docker
8 32 (3.05%) VMware NSX
9 25 (2.39%) Virtual Desktop
10 14 (1.34%) Oracle RAC
11 12 (1.15%) NFS
12 11 (1.05%) Firmware
12 11 (1.05%) Virtual Servers
13 8 (0.76%) BitLocker
14 7 (0.67%) KVM
15 6 (0.57%) Microsoft App-V
16 5 (0.48%) GPFS
16 5 (0.48%) oVirt
17 4 (0.38%) Terminal Services
18 2 (0.19%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 124 (11.83%) Ansible
2 101 (9.64%) Kubernetes
3 62 (5.92%) Microsoft Intune
4 47 (4.48%) SCCM
5 42 (4.01%) vCenter Server
6 19 (1.81%) NetBackup
6 19 (1.81%) SCOM
6 19 (1.81%) WSUS
7 16 (1.53%) Prometheus
8 14 (1.34%) Data Guard
8 14 (1.34%) Oracle RMAN
9 13 (1.24%) Grafana
10 10 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (0.76%) Failover Clustering
11 8 (0.76%) Nessus
12 7 (0.67%) FortiGate
12 7 (0.67%) Puppet
12 7 (0.67%) vMotion
12 7 (0.67%) vRealize
13 6 (0.57%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 283 (27.00%) VMware
2 252 (24.05%) Microsoft
3 62 (5.92%) Citrix
4 59 (5.63%) Cisco
5 44 (4.20%) NetApp
6 41 (3.91%) Oracle
7 37 (3.53%) Veeam
8 34 (3.24%) F5
9 31 (2.96%) Palo Alto
10 29 (2.77%) Google
11 27 (2.58%) Red Hat
12 20 (1.91%) IBM
13 19 (1.81%) Arista
14 18 (1.72%) Aruba
15 17 (1.62%) CyberArk
15 17 (1.62%) Dell
16 16 (1.53%) Juniper
16 16 (1.53%) ServiceNow
17 15 (1.43%) SolarWinds
18 13 (1.24%) Tenable
612 Infrastructure Engineer jobs Nationwide