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 20 September 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 147 245 158
Rank change year-on-year +98 -87 -15
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 1,058 369 600
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.94% 1.12% 1.56%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.10% 1.23% 1.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 616 248 432
10th Percentile £350 £269 £325
25th Percentile £425 £375 £387
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £494 £486
Median % change year-on-year +6.33% +1.65% -2.85%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £575
90th Percentile £659 £650 £643
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £483 £450
% change year-on-year +8.81% +7.22% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 9 3
10th Percentile £52.78 £25.40 £46.00
25th Percentile £58.43 £29.00 £51.25
Median hourly rate £74.00 £30.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +146.67% -50.00% -12.58%
75th Percentile £78.75 £35.00 £68.50
90th Percentile £100.00 £44.60 £73.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.00 £52.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +42.31% -13.33% -14.29%

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 50,359 29,970 35,820
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 91.09% 92.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,785 18,920 22,014
10th Percentile £325 £278 £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 £626 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,867 1,585 1,673
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.29 £20.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.16 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +2.68%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 +78 904 £530 +8.72% 746
UK excluding London +97 766 £525 +8.81% 491
Work from Home +13 219 £525 +16.67% 239
North of England +57 217 £522 +4.40% 146
London -2 210 £540 +8.00% 285
South East +22 208 £560 +16.06% 131
Midlands +21 109 £463 +2.78% 61
South West +16 101 £550 -0.45% 57
North West +13 91 £515 -6.36% 89
Yorkshire +10 80 £500 - 31
West Midlands -2 74 £475 +5.56% 39
Scotland +31 59 £525 +16.67% 38
North East +4 57 £600 -7.69% 28
East of England +11 51 £475 +35.71% 49
East Midlands +11 34 £450 -18.18% 22
Wales +14 26 £513 - 10
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 4
Channel Islands - 1 £550 -

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

For the 6 months to 20 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 1,036 (97.92%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 425 (40.17%) Security Cleared
3 340 (32.14%) Windows
4 315 (29.77%) Azure
5 284 (26.84%) VMware
6 270 (25.52%) SC Cleared
7 251 (23.72%) Microsoft
8 228 (21.55%) Windows Server
9 223 (21.08%) Infrastructure as Code
10 221 (20.89%) VMware Infrastructure
11 219 (20.70%) Active Directory
12 213 (20.13%) Linux
13 184 (17.39%) DNS
14 181 (17.11%) Terraform
15 175 (16.54%) PowerShell
16 161 (15.22%) Firewall
17 157 (14.84%) AWS
18 154 (14.56%) DV Cleared
19 141 (13.33%) CI/CD
19 141 (13.33%) DevOps
20 137 (12.95%) Python
21 131 (12.38%) DHCP
22 124 (11.72%) Ansible
23 118 (11.15%) Problem-Solving
24 114 (10.78%) Migration
25 103 (9.74%) Entra ID
26 100 (9.45%) Hyper-V
26 100 (9.45%) Kubernetes
27 89 (8.41%) Microsoft 365
28 83 (7.84%) 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 59 (5.58%) Microsoft Exchange
2 34 (3.21%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.23%) CICS
3 13 (1.23%) Confluence
3 13 (1.23%) WebSphere
4 5 (0.47%) Apache
4 5 (0.47%) SharePoint Server
5 3 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2010
5 3 (0.28%) Skype for Business
6 2 (0.19%) CloudStack
7 1 (0.095%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.095%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.095%) Exchange Server 2013
7 1 (0.095%) IIS
7 1 (0.095%) MS Project Server
7 1 (0.095%) OpenStack
Applications
1 9 (0.85%) 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 6 (0.57%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.095%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 315 (29.77%) Azure
2 157 (14.84%) AWS
3 103 (9.74%) Entra ID
4 89 (8.41%) Microsoft 365
5 65 (6.14%) IaaS
6 51 (4.82%) OCI
7 50 (4.73%) GCP
8 43 (4.06%) GitHub
9 41 (3.88%) SaaS
10 34 (3.21%) PaaS
11 32 (3.02%) Azure DevOps
12 27 (2.55%) Azure Monitor
13 19 (1.80%) GitHub Actions
13 19 (1.80%) Nutanix
14 17 (1.61%) Azure AKS
15 12 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
15 12 (1.13%) OpenShift
16 8 (0.76%) Azure Sentinel
16 8 (0.76%) OneDrive
17 7 (0.66%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 184 (17.39%) DNS
2 161 (15.22%) Firewall
3 131 (12.38%) DHCP
4 62 (5.86%) VLAN
5 60 (5.67%) TCP/IP
6 54 (5.10%) VPN
7 53 (5.01%) SAN
8 43 (4.06%) Network Security
9 38 (3.59%) WAN
10 32 (3.02%) BIG-IP
10 32 (3.02%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
11 27 (2.55%) Wi-Fi
12 23 (2.17%) Ethernet VPN
13 22 (2.08%) SD-WAN
13 22 (2.08%) VXLAN
14 21 (1.98%) LAN
15 20 (1.89%) BGP
15 20 (1.89%) OSPF
15 20 (1.89%) VSAN
16 16 (1.51%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (4.91%) SQL Server
2 22 (2.08%) Oracle Exadata
3 17 (1.61%) Relational Database
4 15 (1.42%) Oracle Database
5 14 (1.32%) RDBMS
6 8 (0.76%) Data Lake
7 7 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
8 6 (0.57%) Elasticsearch
8 6 (0.57%) NoSQL
9 4 (0.38%) Azure SQL Database
9 4 (0.38%) Big Data
9 4 (0.38%) Power BI
9 4 (0.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 3 (0.28%) PostgreSQL
11 2 (0.19%) BigQuery
11 2 (0.19%) Data Mining
11 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 1 (0.095%) InfluxDB
12 1 (0.095%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 49 (4.63%) GitLab
2 29 (2.74%) JIRA
3 27 (2.55%) Git
4 22 (2.08%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.38%) Chocolatey
6 3 (0.28%) Fiddler
7 1 (0.095%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.095%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.095%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.095%) CMake
7 1 (0.095%) Gerrit
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%) Tricentis qTest
7 1 (0.095%) Visual Studio
General
1 117 (11.06%) Social Skills
2 70 (6.62%) Public Sector
3 52 (4.91%) Finance
4 45 (4.25%) Analytical Skills
5 36 (3.40%) Documentation Skills
6 18 (1.70%) Banking
7 15 (1.42%) Aerospace
7 15 (1.42%) Manufacturing
8 14 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 14 (1.32%) Military
9 13 (1.23%) Telecoms
10 10 (0.95%) Marketing
11 7 (0.66%) Law
12 6 (0.57%) Automotive
13 4 (0.38%) Legal
14 3 (0.28%) Investment Banking
15 2 (0.19%) Billing
15 2 (0.19%) Local Government
15 2 (0.19%) Pharmaceutical
16 1 (0.095%) Front Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 181 (17.11%) Terraform
2 17 (1.61%) ARM Templates
2 17 (1.61%) Middleware
3 14 (1.32%) Oracle GoldenGate
4 9 (0.85%) YAML
5 6 (0.57%) 802.1X
5 6 (0.57%) JSON
5 6 (0.57%) LDAP
5 6 (0.57%) OpenID
5 6 (0.57%) SAML
6 5 (0.47%) .NET
6 5 (0.47%) Flash
6 5 (0.47%) REST
7 4 (0.38%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.28%) Kafka
8 3 (0.28%) OAuth
9 2 (0.19%) OAuth2
9 2 (0.19%) RabbitMQ
9 2 (0.19%) React
9 2 (0.19%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 112 (10.59%) Data Centre
2 68 (6.43%) Hybrid Cloud
3 54 (5.10%) PKI
4 39 (3.69%) Public Cloud
5 29 (2.74%) Onboarding
6 28 (2.65%) Cloud Native
6 28 (2.65%) Enterprise Storage
6 28 (2.65%) Replication
7 21 (1.98%) Distributed Systems
8 18 (1.70%) Linux Command Line
8 18 (1.70%) Private Cloud
9 17 (1.61%) Clustering
9 17 (1.61%) Management Information System
10 15 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
11 13 (1.23%) Mainframe
11 13 (1.23%) Operational Technology
12 12 (1.13%) SCADA
13 10 (0.95%) Driving Licence
14 8 (0.76%) Smartcard
14 8 (0.76%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 340 (32.14%) Windows
2 228 (21.55%) Windows Server
3 213 (20.13%) Linux
4 39 (3.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 20 (1.89%) Windows 10
6 18 (1.70%) Windows Server 2016
6 18 (1.70%) Windows Server 2019
7 17 (1.61%) VMS
8 16 (1.51%) Ubuntu
9 14 (1.32%) AIX
9 14 (1.32%) CentOS
10 13 (1.23%) zOS
11 11 (1.04%) Android
11 11 (1.04%) Apple iOS
12 10 (0.95%) Mac OS
12 10 (0.95%) Windows Server 2012
13 9 (0.85%) Rocky
14 8 (0.76%) Unix
15 6 (0.57%) Debian
16 5 (0.47%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,036 (97.92%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 223 (21.08%) Infrastructure as Code
3 141 (13.33%) CI/CD
3 141 (13.33%) DevOps
4 118 (11.15%) Problem-Solving
5 114 (10.78%) Migration
6 83 (7.84%) Infrastructure Automation
7 71 (6.71%) High Availability
8 70 (6.62%) Disaster Recovery
9 67 (6.33%) Continuous Improvement
10 65 (6.14%) Project Delivery
11 64 (6.05%) ITIL
12 62 (5.86%) Platform Engineering
13 56 (5.29%) Validation
14 50 (4.73%) Root Cause Analysis
15 46 (4.35%) Zero Trust
16 43 (4.06%) Agile
16 43 (4.06%) Identity Access Management
17 42 (3.97%) Cybersecurity
18 41 (3.88%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 175 (16.54%) PowerShell
2 137 (12.95%) Python
3 74 (6.99%) Bash
4 41 (3.88%) SQL
5 30 (2.84%) Bicep
6 13 (1.23%) C#
7 9 (0.85%) Java
8 7 (0.66%) ActionScript
8 7 (0.66%) Perl
9 6 (0.57%) Go
10 2 (0.19%) C++
10 2 (0.19%) VB
11 1 (0.095%) C
11 1 (0.095%) Groovy
11 1 (0.095%) MATLAB
11 1 (0.095%) PHP
11 1 (0.095%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.095%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.095%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 425 (40.17%) Security Cleared
2 270 (25.52%) SC Cleared
3 154 (14.56%) DV Cleared
4 40 (3.78%) Degree
5 33 (3.12%) Microsoft Certification
6 23 (2.17%) Azure Certification
7 21 (1.98%) Cisco Certification
8 20 (1.89%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 16 (1.51%) MCSE
10 14 (1.32%) CCNA
11 13 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
12 12 (1.13%) CCNP
12 12 (1.13%) VCAP
13 7 (0.66%) AWS Certification
14 6 (0.57%) MCSA
15 5 (0.47%) DBS Check
16 4 (0.38%) BPSS Clearance
16 4 (0.38%) JNCIP
16 4 (0.38%) JNCIS
16 4 (0.38%) RHCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (3.69%) QA
2 17 (1.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 17 (1.61%) SLA
3 12 (1.13%) Cyber Essentials
4 10 (0.95%) NCSC
4 10 (0.95%) NIST
5 6 (0.57%) Disclosure Scotland
6 3 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 3 (0.28%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.19%) NIST 800
7 2 (0.19%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.095%) FedRAMP
System Software
1 221 (20.89%) VMware Infrastructure
2 219 (20.70%) Active Directory
3 100 (9.45%) Hyper-V
4 71 (6.71%) vSphere
5 70 (6.62%) VMware ESXi
6 45 (4.25%) Virtual Machines
7 42 (3.97%) Docker
8 28 (2.65%) VMware NSX
9 25 (2.36%) Virtual Desktop
10 14 (1.32%) Oracle RAC
11 13 (1.23%) NFS
11 13 (1.23%) Virtual Servers
12 11 (1.04%) Firmware
13 7 (0.66%) KVM
14 6 (0.57%) BitLocker
14 6 (0.57%) oVirt
15 5 (0.47%) GPFS
16 4 (0.38%) Microsoft App-V
17 3 (0.28%) Terminal Services
18 2 (0.19%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 124 (11.72%) Ansible
2 100 (9.45%) Kubernetes
3 64 (6.05%) Microsoft Intune
4 49 (4.63%) SCCM
5 37 (3.50%) vCenter Server
6 19 (1.80%) WSUS
7 18 (1.70%) SCOM
8 15 (1.42%) NetBackup
9 14 (1.32%) Data Guard
9 14 (1.32%) Oracle RMAN
9 14 (1.32%) Prometheus
10 11 (1.04%) Grafana
11 9 (0.85%) Nessus
11 9 (0.85%) Puppet
11 9 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
12 8 (0.76%) Failover Clustering
13 7 (0.66%) VxRail
14 6 (0.57%) FortiGate
14 6 (0.57%) Red Hat Satellite
15 5 (0.47%) Istio
Vendors
1 284 (26.84%) VMware
2 251 (23.72%) Microsoft
3 63 (5.95%) Cisco
4 60 (5.67%) Citrix
5 45 (4.25%) NetApp
6 40 (3.78%) Oracle
7 36 (3.40%) Veeam
8 35 (3.31%) F5
9 33 (3.12%) Palo Alto
10 28 (2.65%) Red Hat
11 26 (2.46%) Google
12 20 (1.89%) Aruba
12 20 (1.89%) IBM
13 19 (1.80%) Arista
14 17 (1.61%) CyberArk
14 17 (1.61%) Dell
15 15 (1.42%) Juniper
15 15 (1.42%) ServiceNow
15 15 (1.42%) SolarWinds
16 13 (1.23%) Tenable