Infrastructure Engineer Contract Job Trends

Infrastructure Engineer
UK

The median Infrastructure Engineer daily rate in the UK is £483, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 31 January 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 216 213 145
Rank change year-on-year -3 -68 +29
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 493 392 764
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.27% 1.25% 1.71%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.39% 1.34% 1.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 359 268 557
10th Percentile £297 £310 £325
25th Percentile £366 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -3.50% +5.26% -3.06%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £638 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £469 £474 £473
% change year-on-year -1.11% +0.26% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 4 18
10th Percentile £26.25 - £20.86
25th Percentile £26.94 £24.18 £21.25
Median hourly rate £34.00 £34.59 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.71% +50.39% -64.62%
75th Percentile £50.10 £50.63 £72.35
90th Percentile £76.78 £56.25 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £24.18 £23.00
% change year-on-year +127.46% +5.13% -64.62%

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 35,445 29,208 41,662
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.48% 92.89% 93.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,347 17,858 27,594
10th Percentile £300 £296 £275
25th Percentile £405 £409 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £479 £495
% change year-on-year -0.84% -3.23% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,112 858 2,186
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.91 £13.25
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.00
Median hourly rate £29.60 £32.50 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.92% -10.96% +4.29%
75th Percentile £61.18 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.52 £38.00
% change year-on-year -12.75% -17.05% +26.67%

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 31 January 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 31 January 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 31 January 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 -2 442 £483 -3.50% 233
UK excluding London -1 329 £469 -1.11% 212
Work from Home +42 132 £450 +7.46% 77
London -49 122 £525 - 46
South East -8 89 £465 -2.52% 62
North of England -19 82 £431 +4.55% 55
South West +13 75 £550 -8.33% 35
Yorkshire -28 40 £350 -15.15% 22
North West -16 36 £446 +8.12% 24
Midlands -41 31 £415 -17.00% 27
East of England +3 29 £425 -8.90% 23
Scotland +3 20 £483 -12.27% 11
West Midlands -44 20 £400 -20.00% 18
East Midlands -18 11 £433 -13.50% 9
North East -13 6 £488 - 9
Wales -12 5 £550 +22.22%
Northern Ireland - 1 £375 -

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

For the 6 months to 31 January 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.

1 469 (95.13%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 187 (37.93%) Windows
3 184 (37.32%) Azure
4 173 (35.09%) Microsoft
5 152 (30.83%) VMware
6 134 (27.18%) Security Cleared
7 124 (25.15%) Active Directory
8 113 (22.92%) VMware Infrastructure
9 102 (20.69%) Linux
10 98 (19.88%) Windows Server
11 93 (18.86%) SC Cleared
11 93 (18.86%) Terraform
12 92 (18.66%) Problem-Solving
13 90 (18.26%) DevOps
14 85 (17.24%) Firewall
15 81 (16.43%) Microsoft 365
16 80 (16.23%) PowerShell
17 78 (15.82%) Infrastructure as Code
18 77 (15.62%) AWS
18 77 (15.62%) DNS
19 70 (14.20%) Hyper-V
20 66 (13.39%) ITIL
21 63 (12.78%) CI/CD
22 61 (12.37%) Python
23 58 (11.76%) Ansible
24 57 (11.56%) DHCP
25 53 (10.75%) Microsoft Intune
26 50 (10.14%) Infrastructure Automation
26 50 (10.14%) SCCM
27 46 (9.33%) DV Cleared

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 46 (9.33%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (2.23%) SharePoint
2 11 (2.23%) TPMS
3 7 (1.42%) Apache
3 7 (1.42%) IIS
4 5 (1.01%) Confluence
5 3 (0.61%) Exchange Server 2010
6 2 (0.41%) iPlanet
6 2 (0.41%) JBoss
6 2 (0.41%) nginx
6 2 (0.41%) Skype for Business
6 2 (0.41%) WebSphere
6 2 (0.41%) WebSphere Application Server
7 1 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.20%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.20%) CICS
7 1 (0.20%) Traefik
Applications
1 8 (1.62%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.41%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (0.61%) Maximo
2 2 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.20%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 184 (37.32%) Azure
2 81 (16.43%) Microsoft 365
3 77 (15.62%) AWS
4 46 (9.33%) Entra ID
5 24 (4.87%) IaaS
6 21 (4.26%) PaaS
7 20 (4.06%) GCP
7 20 (4.06%) GitHub
8 19 (3.85%) Azure DevOps
9 18 (3.65%) Nutanix
10 17 (3.45%) Azure Monitor
11 14 (2.84%) Azure Sentinel
11 14 (2.84%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 11 (2.23%) Mimecast
13 10 (2.03%) Amazon S3
14 9 (1.83%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 9 (1.83%) Microsoft Purview
14 9 (1.83%) OpenShift
15 8 (1.62%) AWS CloudFormation
15 8 (1.62%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 85 (17.24%) Firewall
2 77 (15.62%) DNS
3 57 (11.56%) DHCP
4 46 (9.33%) TCP/IP
5 42 (8.52%) VPN
6 33 (6.69%) WAN
7 28 (5.68%) VLAN
8 25 (5.07%) SAN
9 23 (4.67%) LAN
9 23 (4.67%) Wi-Fi
10 22 (4.46%) SSL
11 19 (3.85%) Network Security
12 14 (2.84%) SNMP
13 13 (2.64%) SSH
14 9 (1.83%) MPLS
15 8 (1.62%) SD-WAN
16 6 (1.22%) 4G
16 6 (1.22%) BGP
16 6 (1.22%) HTTP
17 5 (1.01%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (2.84%) SQL Server
2 4 (0.81%) Elasticsearch
3 3 (0.61%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.61%) Oracle Database
4 2 (0.41%) Amazon Aurora
4 2 (0.41%) MySQL
4 2 (0.41%) Power BI
4 2 (0.41%) SAP HANA
5 1 (0.20%) Apache Iceberg
5 1 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.20%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
5 1 (0.20%) Delta Lake
5 1 (0.20%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.20%) Parquet
5 1 (0.20%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 17 (3.45%) GitLab
2 14 (2.84%) Jenkins
3 11 (2.23%) Git
4 7 (1.42%) Artifactory
4 7 (1.42%) JIRA
5 3 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.41%) Bitbucket Server
6 2 (0.41%) CA Release Automation
7 1 (0.20%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.20%) GoCD
7 1 (0.20%) MSI
7 1 (0.20%) Robot Framework
General
1 95 (19.27%) Social Skills
2 54 (10.95%) Finance
3 52 (10.55%) Public Sector
4 44 (8.92%) Analytical Skills
5 22 (4.46%) Documentation Skills
6 10 (2.03%) Banking
6 10 (2.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 9 (1.83%) Billing
8 8 (1.62%) Local Government
8 8 (1.62%) Military
9 7 (1.42%) Telecoms
10 6 (1.22%) Aerospace
10 6 (1.22%) Aviation
10 6 (1.22%) Spanish Language
11 5 (1.01%) Legal
12 4 (0.81%) Manufacturing
13 3 (0.61%) Financial Institution
13 3 (0.61%) Organisational Skills
13 3 (0.61%) Retail
14 2 (0.41%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (1.83%) LDAP
1 9 (1.83%) SAML
2 8 (1.62%) ARM Templates
3 7 (1.42%) Middleware
3 7 (1.42%) OpenID
3 7 (1.42%) REST
4 5 (1.01%) Microsoft Graph
5 4 (0.81%) Keycloak
5 4 (0.81%) OAuth
5 4 (0.81%) SOAP
5 4 (0.81%) Web Services
6 3 (0.61%) ADO
6 3 (0.61%) AWS CDK
6 3 (0.61%) YAML
7 2 (0.41%) .NET Core
7 2 (0.41%) Apache NiFi
7 2 (0.41%) Elastic Stack
7 2 (0.41%) Oracle Fusion
7 2 (0.41%) Software Packaging
7 2 (0.41%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 29 (5.88%) Data Centre
2 26 (5.27%) PKI
3 20 (4.06%) Hybrid Cloud
4 13 (2.64%) Analytical Mindset
4 13 (2.64%) Private Cloud
5 11 (2.23%) Public Cloud
5 11 (2.23%) Replication
6 9 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
7 8 (1.62%) Clustering
7 8 (1.62%) Onboarding
8 7 (1.42%) NHS
8 7 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (1.01%) Cloud Native
9 5 (1.01%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (0.81%) Management Information System
10 4 (0.81%) Mobile App
11 3 (0.61%) Client/Server
11 3 (0.61%) Cyber Threat
11 3 (0.61%) Enterprise Storage
11 3 (0.61%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 187 (37.93%) Windows
2 102 (20.69%) Linux
3 98 (19.88%) Windows Server
4 17 (3.45%) Windows 10
5 14 (2.84%) Ubuntu
6 13 (2.64%) Windows Server 2012
7 12 (2.43%) Windows Server 2019
8 11 (2.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 10 (2.03%) Unix
9 10 (2.03%) VMS
10 9 (1.83%) Windows Server 2016
11 6 (1.22%) Android
11 6 (1.22%) Apple iOS
12 4 (0.81%) Windows Server 2003
13 3 (0.61%) CentOS
14 2 (0.41%) Debian
14 2 (0.41%) Mac OS
14 2 (0.41%) SUSE
14 2 (0.41%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 2 (0.41%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 469 (95.13%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 92 (18.66%) Problem-Solving
3 90 (18.26%) DevOps
4 78 (15.82%) Infrastructure as Code
5 66 (13.39%) ITIL
6 63 (12.78%) CI/CD
7 50 (10.14%) Infrastructure Automation
8 45 (9.13%) Cybersecurity
8 45 (9.13%) Migration
9 42 (8.52%) Disaster Recovery
10 38 (7.71%) Agile
11 34 (6.90%) High Availability
12 33 (6.69%) Observability
13 24 (4.87%) Cloud Security
14 23 (4.67%) Platform Engineering
14 23 (4.67%) Project Delivery
14 23 (4.67%) Roadmaps
14 23 (4.67%) Service Management
15 22 (4.46%) Containerisation
15 22 (4.46%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 80 (16.23%) PowerShell
2 61 (12.37%) Python
3 25 (5.07%) Bash
4 17 (3.45%) Bicep
5 11 (2.23%) SQL
6 10 (2.03%) Perl
7 8 (1.62%) PHP
8 7 (1.42%) Java
8 7 (1.42%) JavaScript
9 5 (1.01%) Go
9 5 (1.01%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.41%) C#
10 2 (0.41%) Groovy
11 1 (0.20%) ActionScript
11 1 (0.20%) C++
11 1 (0.20%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.20%) Ruby
11 1 (0.20%) Scala
11 1 (0.20%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.20%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 134 (27.18%) Security Cleared
2 93 (18.86%) SC Cleared
3 46 (9.33%) DV Cleared
4 27 (5.48%) Azure Certification
5 22 (4.46%) Microsoft Certification
6 13 (2.64%) Degree
6 13 (2.64%) Network+ Certification
7 12 (2.43%) Server+ Certification
8 11 (2.23%) FFIEC
9 7 (1.42%) AWS Certification
10 6 (1.22%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (1.22%) CompTIA Security+
10 6 (1.22%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (1.01%) BPSS Clearance
11 5 (1.01%) CCNA
11 5 (1.01%) CISSP
11 5 (1.01%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 4 (0.81%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 4 (0.81%) GIAC
12 4 (0.81%) GSEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (4.26%) NIST
2 15 (3.04%) GDPR
3 12 (2.43%) SLA
4 11 (2.23%) GLBA
4 11 (2.23%) PCI DSS
5 9 (1.83%) Cyber Essentials
5 9 (1.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 3 (0.61%) NIST 800
7 2 (0.41%) HIPAA
7 2 (0.41%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.20%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.20%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.20%) QA
System Software
1 124 (25.15%) Active Directory
2 113 (22.92%) VMware Infrastructure
3 70 (14.20%) Hyper-V
4 40 (8.11%) Docker
5 28 (5.68%) vSphere
6 17 (3.45%) VMware ESXi
7 12 (2.43%) Virtual Machines
8 11 (2.23%) Virtual Desktop
9 9 (1.83%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.81%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.61%) DFS Replication
11 3 (0.61%) Sendmail
11 3 (0.61%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.41%) Firmware
12 2 (0.41%) Microsoft App-V
12 2 (0.41%) QEMU
12 2 (0.41%) Tivoli Directory Server
13 1 (0.20%) etcd
13 1 (0.20%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 1 (0.20%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 93 (18.86%) Terraform
2 58 (11.76%) Ansible
3 53 (10.75%) Microsoft Intune
4 50 (10.14%) SCCM
5 44 (8.92%) Kubernetes
6 19 (3.85%) vCenter Server
7 18 (3.65%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (1.62%) FortiGate
8 8 (1.62%) VxRail
9 7 (1.42%) AirWatch
9 7 (1.42%) Grafana
9 7 (1.42%) Prometheus
10 6 (1.22%) CASB
10 6 (1.22%) Red Hat Satellite
10 6 (1.22%) SCOM
10 6 (1.22%) SCOrch
11 5 (1.01%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 5 (1.01%) Istio
11 5 (1.01%) Packer
12 4 (0.81%) Nessus
Vendors
1 173 (35.09%) Microsoft
2 152 (30.83%) VMware
3 31 (6.29%) Cisco
4 24 (4.87%) Dell
5 21 (4.26%) Veeam
6 20 (4.06%) Palo Alto
7 19 (3.85%) F5
8 16 (3.25%) Red Hat
9 15 (3.04%) Splunk
10 14 (2.84%) Citrix
10 14 (2.84%) Google
10 14 (2.84%) Thales
11 13 (2.64%) ServiceNow
11 13 (2.64%) SolarWinds
12 10 (2.03%) Oracle
13 9 (1.83%) Aruba
13 9 (1.83%) HP
14 8 (1.62%) Fortinet
15 7 (1.42%) CheckPoint
15 7 (1.42%) NetApp