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 28 March 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 215 194 148
Rank change year-on-year -21 -46 +32
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 560 405 714
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.26% 1.39% 1.61%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.37% 1.50% 1.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 406 283 520
10th Percentile £325 £325 £310
25th Percentile £410 £375 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £475
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +10.53% -5.00%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £595
90th Percentile £638 £650 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £465
% change year-on-year -4.76% +12.91% +1.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 4 14
10th Percentile £26.25 - -
25th Percentile £49.00 £24.18 £21.25
Median hourly rate £68.52 £112.09 £45.25
Median % change year-on-year -38.87% +147.71% -27.81%
75th Percentile £77.06 £200.00 £76.53
90th Percentile £80.53 - £77.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.52 £112.09 £23.00
% change year-on-year -38.87% +387.35% -61.03%

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 40,899 26,977 41,058
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.01% 92.83% 92.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,498 17,746 26,889
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.67%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +2.11% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,538 929 2,519
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.19 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.51 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £37.54 £32.50 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.51% -1.52% -23.26%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.52 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £77.25 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.63 £32.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year +18.86% -1.52% -18.70%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 -31 491 £500 -4.76% 240
UK excluding London -9 385 £500 -4.76% 226
London -43 134 £520 -0.95% 35
Work from Home -3 112 £500 +5.82% 93
South East -21 107 £518 -5.91% 61
North of England -35 94 £413 +3.13% 67
South West +12 85 £540 -6.09% 40
Yorkshire -28 55 £363 -9.38% 22
Midlands -64 36 £428 +6.88% 29
North West -29 35 £413 -21.43% 37
Scotland +4 28 £500 -9.09% 8
East of England -23 27 £425 -9.48% 17
East Midlands -24 18 £450 +12.50% 7
West Midlands -55 18 £413 +10.00% 22
Wales -16 8 £550 +29.41% 6
North East -12 4 £500 +36.99% 8
Northern Ireland - 1 £375 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 28 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.

1 540 (96.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 188 (33.57%) Azure
3 185 (33.04%) Windows
4 172 (30.71%) Security Cleared
5 165 (29.46%) VMware
6 160 (28.57%) Microsoft
7 129 (23.04%) Active Directory
8 128 (22.86%) VMware Infrastructure
9 119 (21.25%) SC Cleared
10 110 (19.64%) Windows Server
11 103 (18.39%) PowerShell
12 100 (17.86%) Terraform
13 94 (16.79%) DevOps
14 88 (15.71%) Firewall
14 88 (15.71%) Infrastructure as Code
15 87 (15.54%) Linux
16 85 (15.18%) DNS
17 74 (13.21%) Microsoft 365
18 72 (12.86%) Problem-Solving
19 71 (12.68%) Python
20 70 (12.50%) CI/CD
21 62 (11.07%) DV Cleared
22 61 (10.89%) DHCP
22 61 (10.89%) Hyper-V
23 59 (10.54%) Kubernetes
24 54 (9.64%) Ansible
24 54 (9.64%) AWS
24 54 (9.64%) Infrastructure Automation
25 53 (9.46%) ITIL
25 53 (9.46%) Migration

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 (7.86%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (1.96%) SharePoint
3 10 (1.79%) TPMS
4 5 (0.89%) IIS
5 4 (0.71%) Apache
5 4 (0.71%) Confluence
6 3 (0.54%) Exchange Server 2010
7 2 (0.36%) nginx
8 1 (0.18%) CICS
8 1 (0.18%) IBM HTTP Server
8 1 (0.18%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.18%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.18%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 10 (1.79%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.36%) Maximo
2 1 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 188 (33.57%) Azure
2 74 (13.21%) Microsoft 365
3 54 (9.64%) AWS
4 43 (7.68%) GitHub
5 41 (7.32%) Entra ID
6 33 (5.89%) GCP
7 29 (5.18%) IaaS
8 26 (4.64%) PaaS
9 25 (4.46%) Azure DevOps
10 20 (3.57%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 18 (3.21%) Azure Monitor
11 18 (3.21%) Nutanix
12 11 (1.96%) Azure Sentinel
13 10 (1.79%) OCI
13 10 (1.79%) SaaS
14 9 (1.61%) GitHub Actions
15 8 (1.43%) Azure AKS
15 8 (1.43%) Microsoft Purview
16 7 (1.25%) AWS CloudFormation
16 7 (1.25%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 88 (15.71%) Firewall
2 85 (15.18%) DNS
3 61 (10.89%) DHCP
4 44 (7.86%) VPN
5 32 (5.71%) WAN
6 28 (5.00%) LAN
7 25 (4.46%) TCP/IP
8 21 (3.75%) VLAN
9 20 (3.57%) Network Security
10 19 (3.39%) SAN
11 13 (2.32%) SNMP
11 13 (2.32%) Wi-Fi
12 12 (2.14%) SSH
12 12 (2.14%) SSL
13 9 (1.61%) MPLS
13 9 (1.61%) SMTP
14 8 (1.43%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 8 (1.43%) SD-WAN
15 7 (1.25%) BGP
15 7 (1.25%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (3.57%) SQL Server
2 7 (1.25%) Elasticsearch
3 5 (0.89%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.54%) NonStop SQL
5 2 (0.36%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (0.36%) DynamoDB
5 2 (0.36%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.36%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.36%) Power BI
5 2 (0.36%) SAP HANA
6 1 (0.18%) Amazon Aurora
6 1 (0.18%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.18%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.18%) MySQL
6 1 (0.18%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 17 (3.04%) Jenkins
2 12 (2.14%) JIRA
3 11 (1.96%) GitLab
4 8 (1.43%) Artifactory
5 7 (1.25%) Git
6 3 (0.54%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.18%) Chocolatey
7 1 (0.18%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.18%) GoCD
7 1 (0.18%) IntelliJ
7 1 (0.18%) Introscope
7 1 (0.18%) MSI
7 1 (0.18%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 82 (14.64%) Social Skills
2 53 (9.46%) Public Sector
3 51 (9.11%) Finance
4 35 (6.25%) Analytical Skills
5 23 (4.11%) Documentation Skills
6 18 (3.21%) Legal
7 17 (3.04%) Banking
8 9 (1.61%) Billing
8 9 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 5 (0.89%) Aerospace
9 5 (0.89%) Military
9 5 (0.89%) Telecoms
10 3 (0.54%) Local Government
10 3 (0.54%) Retail
10 3 (0.54%) Spanish Language
11 2 (0.36%) Advertising
11 2 (0.36%) Aviation
11 2 (0.36%) Investment Banking
12 1 (0.18%) Financial Institution
12 1 (0.18%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (1.96%) REST
2 8 (1.43%) ARM Templates
2 8 (1.43%) LDAP
2 8 (1.43%) SOAP
3 5 (0.89%) Web Services
4 4 (0.71%) ADO
4 4 (0.71%) Elastic Stack
4 4 (0.71%) Keycloak
5 3 (0.54%) Oracle Fusion
5 3 (0.54%) SAML
6 2 (0.36%) Apache NiFi
6 2 (0.36%) Flash
6 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Graph
6 2 (0.36%) OAuth
6 2 (0.36%) OAuth2
6 2 (0.36%) YAML
7 1 (0.18%) .NET Core
7 1 (0.18%) 802.1X
7 1 (0.18%) AWS CDK
7 1 (0.18%) Bazel
Miscellaneous
1 38 (6.79%) PKI
2 34 (6.07%) Data Centre
3 23 (4.11%) Public Cloud
4 20 (3.57%) Hybrid Cloud
5 12 (2.14%) Self-Motivation
6 11 (1.96%) Clustering
6 11 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (1.96%) Enterprise Storage
7 9 (1.61%) Cloud Native
7 9 (1.61%) Onboarding
7 9 (1.61%) Private Cloud
8 6 (1.07%) Replication
9 4 (0.71%) NHS
10 3 (0.54%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (0.54%) CCTV
10 3 (0.54%) Client/Server
10 3 (0.54%) Greenfield Project
10 3 (0.54%) Legacy Systems
11 2 (0.36%) Acoustics
11 2 (0.36%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 185 (33.04%) Windows
2 110 (19.64%) Windows Server
3 87 (15.54%) Linux
4 18 (3.21%) Windows Server 2019
5 14 (2.50%) Ubuntu
6 13 (2.32%) Windows Server 2012
7 12 (2.14%) Windows Server 2016
8 11 (1.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 11 (1.96%) VMS
8 11 (1.96%) Windows 10
9 8 (1.43%) Unix
10 6 (1.07%) Windows Server 2003
11 3 (0.54%) Debian
12 2 (0.36%) CentOS
12 2 (0.36%) SUSE
12 2 (0.36%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.36%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.18%) AIX
13 1 (0.18%) Android
13 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 540 (96.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 94 (16.79%) DevOps
3 88 (15.71%) Infrastructure as Code
4 72 (12.86%) Problem-Solving
5 70 (12.50%) CI/CD
6 54 (9.64%) Infrastructure Automation
7 53 (9.46%) ITIL
7 53 (9.46%) Migration
8 48 (8.57%) Agile
8 48 (8.57%) Cybersecurity
8 48 (8.57%) Disaster Recovery
9 35 (6.25%) High Availability
10 31 (5.54%) Project Delivery
11 29 (5.18%) Platform Engineering
12 27 (4.82%) Containerisation
12 27 (4.82%) Observability
13 24 (4.29%) Cloud Security
13 24 (4.29%) Roadmaps
14 23 (4.11%) Continuous Improvement
14 23 (4.11%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 103 (18.39%) PowerShell
2 71 (12.68%) Python
3 27 (4.82%) Bash
4 18 (3.21%) Bicep
4 18 (3.21%) SQL
5 9 (1.61%) PHP
6 8 (1.43%) JavaScript
7 6 (1.07%) C#
8 4 (0.71%) Java
8 4 (0.71%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.36%) ActionScript
9 2 (0.36%) Perl
10 1 (0.18%) C++
10 1 (0.18%) Go
10 1 (0.18%) Jython
10 1 (0.18%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.18%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.18%) Ruby
10 1 (0.18%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 172 (30.71%) Security Cleared
2 119 (21.25%) SC Cleared
3 62 (11.07%) DV Cleared
4 16 (2.86%) Azure Certification
5 15 (2.68%) Degree
6 12 (2.14%) Microsoft Certification
7 11 (1.96%) Cisco Certification
8 10 (1.79%) FFIEC
8 10 (1.79%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 8 (1.43%) AWS Certification
9 8 (1.43%) CCNA
10 6 (1.07%) CompTIA Security+
11 5 (0.89%) BPSS Clearance
11 5 (0.89%) CCNP
12 4 (0.71%) CISSP
12 4 (0.71%) Computer Science Degree
12 4 (0.71%) GIAC
12 4 (0.71%) GSEC
12 4 (0.71%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (0.71%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (4.11%) NIST
2 16 (2.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 14 (2.50%) GDPR
4 13 (2.32%) Cyber Essentials
5 11 (1.96%) SLA
6 10 (1.79%) GLBA
6 10 (1.79%) PCI DSS
7 5 (0.89%) QA
8 3 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 3 (0.54%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.18%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.18%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.18%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.18%) NCSC
9 1 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.18%) SOC 2
System Software
1 129 (23.04%) Active Directory
2 128 (22.86%) VMware Infrastructure
3 61 (10.89%) Hyper-V
4 43 (7.68%) vSphere
5 36 (6.43%) Docker
6 32 (5.71%) VMware ESXi
7 15 (2.68%) VMware NSX
8 14 (2.50%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (1.96%) Virtual Desktop
10 7 (1.25%) BitLocker
11 6 (1.07%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.54%) DFS Replication
12 3 (0.54%) Sendmail
13 2 (0.36%) QEMU
13 2 (0.36%) SRDF
14 1 (0.18%) Firmware
14 1 (0.18%) Terminal Services
14 1 (0.18%) UAG
14 1 (0.18%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 100 (17.86%) Terraform
2 59 (10.54%) Kubernetes
3 54 (9.64%) Ansible
4 43 (7.68%) Microsoft Intune
4 43 (7.68%) SCCM
5 30 (5.36%) vCenter Server
6 17 (3.04%) Single Sign-On
7 10 (1.79%) Istio
7 10 (1.79%) Puppet
8 9 (1.61%) Prometheus
8 9 (1.61%) SCOM
8 9 (1.61%) VxRail
9 8 (1.43%) Grafana
10 7 (1.25%) WSUS
11 6 (1.07%) vMotion
11 6 (1.07%) vRealize
12 5 (0.89%) AirWatch
12 5 (0.89%) Nessus
12 5 (0.89%) Packer
13 4 (0.71%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 165 (29.46%) VMware
2 160 (28.57%) Microsoft
3 36 (6.43%) Cisco
4 34 (6.07%) Citrix
5 29 (5.18%) Dell
6 27 (4.82%) Veeam
7 24 (4.29%) Google
8 15 (2.68%) F5
9 14 (2.50%) Oracle
9 14 (2.50%) Thales
10 13 (2.32%) NetApp
10 13 (2.32%) Red Hat
10 13 (2.32%) SolarWinds
11 12 (2.14%) Aruba
11 12 (2.14%) Fortinet
11 12 (2.14%) Splunk
12 10 (1.79%) ServiceNow
13 8 (1.43%) Palo Alto
14 7 (1.25%) HP
15 5 (0.89%) CyberArk