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 14 June 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 150 209 151
Rank change year-on-year +59 -58 +19
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 879 384 692
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.75% 1.30% 1.58%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.90% 1.41% 1.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 578 259 523
10th Percentile £325 £328 £310
25th Percentile £416 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £463
Median % change year-on-year - +13.51% -7.50%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £575
90th Percentile £675 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £501 £463
% change year-on-year +2.90% +8.22% -7.50%
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% +3.85%
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% -65.38%

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 46,278 27,307 40,582
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.39% 92.32% 92.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,166 17,569 26,038
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.80% -4.76% -2.42%
75th Percentile £623 £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 3,090 1,147 2,946
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.79 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.30 £27.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.46% -26.67% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.00
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% -1.45%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 +50 756 £525 - 200
UK excluding London +45 608 £515 +2.90% 186
Work from Home +37 193 £553 +10.50% 91
London -7 192 £525 - 42
North of England +25 183 £540 +21.35% 38
South East +8 166 £525 -4.55% 47
South West +23 95 £539 -6.30% 43
Yorkshire -11 78 £350 -24.73% 9
Midlands -11 74 £450 +12.50% 30
North West +4 69 £575 +29.94% 21
Scotland +8 47 £571 +8.81% 4
West Midlands -29 46 £475 +22.58% 16
North East 0 44 £600 -7.69% 8
East of England -20 33 £450 - 14
East Midlands -3 27 £450 +12.50% 14
Wales -3 13 £400 -11.11% 13
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 3
Channel Islands - 1 £550 -

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

For the 6 months to 14 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.

1 861 (97.95%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 320 (36.41%) Security Cleared
3 267 (30.38%) Azure
4 264 (30.03%) Windows
5 217 (24.69%) VMware
6 212 (24.12%) SC Cleared
7 177 (20.14%) Microsoft
8 165 (18.77%) Windows Server
9 161 (18.32%) Active Directory
10 158 (17.97%) Infrastructure as Code
11 157 (17.86%) VMware Infrastructure
12 147 (16.72%) Terraform
13 135 (15.36%) DevOps
14 134 (15.24%) DNS
15 132 (15.02%) Linux
16 123 (13.99%) Firewall
17 119 (13.54%) AWS
18 117 (13.31%) PowerShell
19 116 (13.20%) DV Cleared
19 116 (13.20%) Python
20 112 (12.74%) CI/CD
21 97 (11.04%) DHCP
22 89 (10.13%) Problem-Solving
23 85 (9.67%) Ansible
24 84 (9.56%) Kubernetes
25 82 (9.33%) Migration
26 74 (8.42%) Hyper-V
27 65 (7.39%) GitHub
28 64 (7.28%) vSphere
29 63 (7.17%) High Availability

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 (5.12%) Microsoft Exchange
2 10 (1.14%) SharePoint
3 6 (0.68%) TPMS
4 5 (0.57%) Confluence
5 4 (0.46%) Apache
6 2 (0.23%) CloudStack
7 1 (0.11%) IBM HTTP Server
7 1 (0.11%) IIS
7 1 (0.11%) MS Project Server
7 1 (0.11%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.11%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 7 (0.80%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.11%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 267 (30.38%) Azure
2 119 (13.54%) AWS
3 65 (7.39%) GitHub
4 62 (7.05%) Microsoft 365
5 53 (6.03%) GCP
6 48 (5.46%) Entra ID
7 42 (4.78%) IaaS
8 39 (4.44%) OCI
9 34 (3.87%) SaaS
10 32 (3.64%) PaaS
11 29 (3.30%) Azure DevOps
12 26 (2.96%) Nutanix
13 24 (2.73%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 22 (2.50%) Azure Monitor
15 21 (2.39%) GitHub Actions
16 17 (1.93%) Azure AKS
17 8 (0.91%) Cohesity
18 7 (0.80%) Azure Stack
19 6 (0.68%) Azure Key Vault
19 6 (0.68%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 134 (15.24%) DNS
2 123 (13.99%) Firewall
3 97 (11.04%) DHCP
4 45 (5.12%) WAN
5 43 (4.89%) VLAN
6 39 (4.44%) VPN
7 36 (4.10%) SAN
8 32 (3.64%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 31 (3.53%) Network Security
10 29 (3.30%) BIG-IP
10 29 (3.30%) LAN
11 26 (2.96%) TCP/IP
12 24 (2.73%) BGP
13 23 (2.62%) Ethernet VPN
13 23 (2.62%) SD-WAN
14 22 (2.50%) VXLAN
15 20 (2.28%) OSPF
16 17 (1.93%) Wi-Fi
17 14 (1.59%) SMTP
17 14 (1.59%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (3.64%) SQL Server
2 9 (1.02%) Elasticsearch
3 7 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
4 4 (0.46%) Oracle Database
5 3 (0.34%) Data Mining
5 3 (0.34%) NonStop SQL
5 3 (0.34%) Power BI
5 3 (0.34%) Relational Database
6 2 (0.23%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.23%) Big Data
6 2 (0.23%) DynamoDB
6 2 (0.23%) Oracle Exadata
6 2 (0.23%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.23%) RDBMS
7 1 (0.11%) BigQuery
7 1 (0.11%) Flink
7 1 (0.11%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.11%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.11%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (0.11%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 35 (3.98%) GitLab
2 29 (3.30%) Jenkins
3 20 (2.28%) JIRA
4 10 (1.14%) Git
5 8 (0.91%) Artifactory
6 4 (0.46%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.11%) Chocolatey
7 1 (0.11%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.11%) CMake
7 1 (0.11%) GoCD
7 1 (0.11%) Gradle
7 1 (0.11%) IntelliJ
7 1 (0.11%) Introscope
7 1 (0.11%) MSI
7 1 (0.11%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.11%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 96 (10.92%) Social Skills
2 68 (7.74%) Public Sector
3 51 (5.80%) Finance
4 37 (4.21%) Analytical Skills
5 23 (2.62%) Documentation Skills
6 17 (1.93%) Legal
7 16 (1.82%) Banking
8 13 (1.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 10 (1.14%) Aerospace
9 10 (1.14%) Billing
9 10 (1.14%) Marketing
10 9 (1.02%) Manufacturing
11 6 (0.68%) Telecoms
12 5 (0.57%) Military
13 3 (0.34%) Law
13 3 (0.34%) Local Government
14 2 (0.23%) Advertising
14 2 (0.23%) Investment Banking
14 2 (0.23%) Retail
15 1 (0.11%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (0.91%) LDAP
2 7 (0.80%) Flash
2 7 (0.80%) REST
3 6 (0.68%) Elastic Stack
4 5 (0.57%) ARM Templates
4 5 (0.57%) Keycloak
5 4 (0.46%) OpenID
5 4 (0.46%) SOAP
6 3 (0.34%) ADO
6 3 (0.34%) Apache NiFi
6 3 (0.34%) Oracle Fusion
6 3 (0.34%) SAML
6 3 (0.34%) YAML
7 2 (0.23%) Bazel
7 2 (0.23%) JSON
7 2 (0.23%) Kafka
7 2 (0.23%) Middleware
7 2 (0.23%) Node.js
7 2 (0.23%) OAuth
7 2 (0.23%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 90 (10.24%) Data Centre
2 43 (4.89%) Hybrid Cloud
3 39 (4.44%) PKI
4 37 (4.21%) Public Cloud
5 22 (2.50%) Onboarding
6 21 (2.39%) Cloud Native
7 18 (2.05%) Enterprise Storage
7 18 (2.05%) Self-Motivation
8 12 (1.37%) Private Cloud
8 12 (1.37%) Replication
9 11 (1.25%) Clustering
9 11 (1.25%) Operational Technology
10 8 (0.91%) Virtual Team
11 7 (0.80%) Distributed Systems
11 7 (0.80%) Enterprise Software
11 7 (0.80%) Linux Command Line
12 6 (0.68%) Management Information System
12 6 (0.68%) SCADA
12 6 (0.68%) Smartcard
12 6 (0.68%) YubiKey
Operating Systems
1 264 (30.03%) Windows
2 165 (18.77%) Windows Server
3 132 (15.02%) Linux
4 24 (2.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 20 (2.28%) Windows Server 2019
6 16 (1.82%) Windows 10
7 14 (1.59%) Windows Server 2016
8 13 (1.48%) Ubuntu
9 11 (1.25%) VMS
10 10 (1.14%) Apple iOS
10 10 (1.14%) Unix
11 9 (1.02%) Mac OS
12 8 (0.91%) Android
12 8 (0.91%) Debian
12 8 (0.91%) Windows Server 2003
13 7 (0.80%) Windows Server 2012
14 5 (0.57%) CentOS
15 3 (0.34%) AIX
16 1 (0.11%) Data ONTAP
16 1 (0.11%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 861 (97.95%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 158 (17.97%) Infrastructure as Code
3 135 (15.36%) DevOps
4 112 (12.74%) CI/CD
5 89 (10.13%) Problem-Solving
6 82 (9.33%) Migration
7 63 (7.17%) High Availability
8 61 (6.94%) Infrastructure Automation
9 54 (6.14%) Agile
10 53 (6.03%) ITIL
11 51 (5.80%) Disaster Recovery
12 48 (5.46%) Zero Trust
13 46 (5.23%) Project Delivery
14 41 (4.66%) Validation
15 40 (4.55%) Cybersecurity
16 38 (4.32%) Site Reliability Engineering
17 34 (3.87%) Continuous Improvement
17 34 (3.87%) Observability
18 31 (3.53%) Load Balancing
19 29 (3.30%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 117 (13.31%) PowerShell
2 116 (13.20%) Python
3 38 (4.32%) Bash
4 25 (2.84%) SQL
5 20 (2.28%) Bicep
6 16 (1.82%) C#
7 7 (0.80%) ActionScript
7 7 (0.80%) Java
8 5 (0.57%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.46%) Go
9 4 (0.46%) PHP
10 3 (0.34%) JavaScript
11 2 (0.23%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.11%) C
12 1 (0.11%) C++
12 1 (0.11%) Jython
12 1 (0.11%) VB
Qualifications
1 320 (36.41%) Security Cleared
2 212 (24.12%) SC Cleared
3 116 (13.20%) DV Cleared
4 25 (2.84%) Degree
5 16 (1.82%) Cisco Certification
5 16 (1.82%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 12 (1.37%) Azure Certification
6 12 (1.37%) Microsoft Certification
7 11 (1.25%) CCNA
8 9 (1.02%) MCSE
9 8 (0.91%) CCNP
10 6 (0.68%) FFIEC
10 6 (0.68%) VCAP
11 5 (0.57%) RHCA
12 4 (0.46%) AWS Certification
13 3 (0.34%) APMG
13 3 (0.34%) CompTIA Security+
13 3 (0.34%) GIAC
13 3 (0.34%) ITIL Certification
13 3 (0.34%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (2.50%) NIST
2 20 (2.28%) QA
3 19 (2.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 13 (1.48%) Cyber Essentials
5 11 (1.25%) SLA
6 9 (1.02%) GDPR
7 7 (0.80%) NCSC
8 6 (0.68%) GLBA
8 6 (0.68%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 3 (0.34%) Disclosure Scotland
10 3 (0.34%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.23%) SOC 2
12 1 (0.11%) FedRAMP
12 1 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 161 (18.32%) Active Directory
2 157 (17.86%) VMware Infrastructure
3 74 (8.42%) Hyper-V
4 64 (7.28%) vSphere
5 57 (6.48%) VMware ESXi
6 34 (3.87%) Docker
7 29 (3.30%) VMware NSX
8 26 (2.96%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (1.59%) Virtual Desktop
10 12 (1.37%) NFS
11 11 (1.25%) BitLocker
12 9 (1.02%) Microsoft App-V
13 5 (0.57%) Firmware
13 5 (0.57%) GPFS
14 3 (0.34%) DFS Replication
14 3 (0.34%) Terminal Services
14 3 (0.34%) Virtual Servers
15 2 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
15 2 (0.23%) UAG
15 2 (0.23%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 147 (16.72%) Terraform
2 85 (9.67%) Ansible
3 84 (9.56%) Kubernetes
4 40 (4.55%) Microsoft Intune
5 37 (4.21%) vCenter Server
6 31 (3.53%) SCCM
7 14 (1.59%) Prometheus
7 14 (1.59%) Puppet
8 13 (1.48%) Grafana
8 13 (1.48%) WSUS
9 12 (1.37%) Istio
9 12 (1.37%) SCOM
10 11 (1.25%) Single Sign-On
11 9 (1.02%) vMotion
11 9 (1.02%) vRealize
11 9 (1.02%) VxRail
12 8 (0.91%) AirWatch
13 7 (0.80%) Nessus
14 6 (0.68%) Packer
14 6 (0.68%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 217 (24.69%) VMware
2 177 (20.14%) Microsoft
3 57 (6.48%) Citrix
4 52 (5.92%) Cisco
5 40 (4.55%) F5
6 33 (3.75%) Palo Alto
6 33 (3.75%) Veeam
7 31 (3.53%) Google
8 25 (2.84%) Dell
9 24 (2.73%) NetApp
10 23 (2.62%) Aruba
10 23 (2.62%) Oracle
10 23 (2.62%) Red Hat
11 20 (2.28%) Arista
12 14 (1.59%) ServiceNow
12 14 (1.59%) SolarWinds
13 11 (1.25%) Fortinet
13 11 (1.25%) Thales
14 10 (1.14%) Tenable
15 9 (1.02%) Splunk