Infrastructure Engineer Contract Job Trends

Infrastructure Engineer
UK

The median Infrastructure Engineer daily rate in the UK is £515, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 24 May 2026.

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

6 months to
24 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 162 206 157
Rank change year-on-year +44 -49 +21
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 794 372 662
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.63% 1.29% 1.56%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.77% 1.40% 1.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 544 255 504
10th Percentile £325 £329 £300
25th Percentile £413 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £450
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% +16.67% -10.00%
75th Percentile £596 £600 £575
90th Percentile £661 £645 £642
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £501 £450
% change year-on-year +1.90% +11.22% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 3 9
10th Percentile £44.20 £59.34 £20.99
25th Percentile £58.43 £112.09 £21.25
Median hourly rate £72.54 £200.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -63.73% +788.89% -64.10%
75th Percentile £77.06 - £77.00
90th Percentile £78.75 - £77.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.54 £200.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year -63.73% +788.89% -62.84%

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 44,870 26,596 39,472
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.30% 92.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,419 17,312 25,704
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -3.31%
75th Percentile £618 £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 2,946 1,014 2,724
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.83
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.81% -23.30% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.44 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £26.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +64.87% -33.75% -5.11%

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 24 May 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 24 May 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 24 May 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 +33 679 £525 - 196
UK excluding London +39 551 £510 +1.90% 181
Work from Home +42 172 £525 +5.00% 89
London -14 170 £525 - 34
South East +8 155 £515 -4.19% 52
North of England -4 145 £500 +25.00% 43
South West +16 95 £545 -5.22% 27
Midlands -31 66 £450 +12.50% 30
Yorkshire -26 64 £350 -15.15% 9
North West -8 55 £575 +49.35% 25
Scotland +19 43 £550 - 5
West Midlands -44 38 £525 +35.48% 15
East of England -22 33 £450 -3.54% 20
North East -9 29 £600 -7.69% 9
East Midlands -8 27 £450 +12.50% 15
Wales +3 15 £400 -30.43% 5
Northern Ireland - 2 £375 - 3

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

For the 6 months to 24 May 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.

1 777 (97.86%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 295 (37.15%) Security Cleared
3 252 (31.74%) Windows
4 246 (30.98%) Azure
5 205 (25.82%) SC Cleared
5 205 (25.82%) VMware
6 170 (21.41%) Microsoft
7 158 (19.90%) Windows Server
8 153 (19.27%) Active Directory
9 146 (18.39%) VMware Infrastructure
10 137 (17.25%) Infrastructure as Code
11 136 (17.13%) Terraform
12 124 (15.62%) Linux
13 120 (15.11%) DevOps
13 120 (15.11%) DNS
14 112 (14.11%) PowerShell
15 111 (13.98%) Firewall
16 106 (13.35%) DV Cleared
17 104 (13.10%) AWS
18 99 (12.47%) CI/CD
19 96 (12.09%) Python
20 93 (11.71%) Problem-Solving
21 87 (10.96%) DHCP
22 78 (9.82%) Kubernetes
23 74 (9.32%) Hyper-V
24 73 (9.19%) Ansible
25 72 (9.07%) Migration
26 66 (8.31%) Infrastructure Automation
27 65 (8.19%) Microsoft 365
28 61 (7.68%) ITIL

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 53 (6.68%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (1.39%) SharePoint
3 6 (0.76%) TPMS
4 4 (0.50%) Apache
4 4 (0.50%) Confluence
5 2 (0.25%) CloudStack
5 2 (0.25%) nginx
6 1 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2010
6 1 (0.13%) IBM HTTP Server
6 1 (0.13%) IIS
6 1 (0.13%) MS Project Server
6 1 (0.13%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.13%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 11 (1.39%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 246 (30.98%) Azure
2 104 (13.10%) AWS
3 65 (8.19%) Microsoft 365
4 56 (7.05%) GitHub
5 44 (5.54%) Entra ID
5 44 (5.54%) GCP
6 39 (4.91%) IaaS
7 32 (4.03%) PaaS
8 30 (3.78%) OCI
9 29 (3.65%) SaaS
10 27 (3.40%) Azure DevOps
11 23 (2.90%) Nutanix
12 22 (2.77%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 21 (2.64%) Azure Monitor
14 16 (2.02%) GitHub Actions
15 15 (1.89%) Azure AKS
16 7 (0.88%) Cohesity
17 6 (0.76%) Azure Key Vault
17 6 (0.76%) Azure Sentinel
17 6 (0.76%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 120 (15.11%) DNS
2 111 (13.98%) Firewall
3 87 (10.96%) DHCP
4 43 (5.42%) WAN
5 41 (5.16%) VPN
6 35 (4.41%) VLAN
7 31 (3.90%) Network Security
8 29 (3.65%) LAN
9 28 (3.53%) SAN
10 26 (3.27%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
11 22 (2.77%) BGP
11 22 (2.77%) BIG-IP
12 21 (2.64%) Ethernet VPN
12 21 (2.64%) SD-WAN
13 20 (2.52%) VXLAN
14 19 (2.39%) TCP/IP
15 18 (2.27%) OSPF
16 16 (2.02%) Wi-Fi
17 12 (1.51%) SMTP
18 11 (1.39%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (4.03%) SQL Server
2 9 (1.13%) Elasticsearch
3 5 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.38%) Data Mining
4 3 (0.38%) NonStop SQL
5 2 (0.25%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (0.25%) DynamoDB
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.25%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.25%) Power BI
6 1 (0.13%) Flink
6 1 (0.13%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.13%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.13%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.13%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.13%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 30 (3.78%) GitLab
2 22 (2.77%) Jenkins
3 12 (1.51%) JIRA
4 9 (1.13%) Git
5 8 (1.01%) Artifactory
6 4 (0.50%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.13%) Chocolatey
7 1 (0.13%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.13%) CMake
7 1 (0.13%) GoCD
7 1 (0.13%) Gradle
7 1 (0.13%) IntelliJ
7 1 (0.13%) Introscope
7 1 (0.13%) MSI
7 1 (0.13%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 98 (12.34%) Social Skills
2 70 (8.82%) Public Sector
3 48 (6.05%) Finance
4 44 (5.54%) Analytical Skills
5 20 (2.52%) Documentation Skills
6 16 (2.02%) Legal
7 15 (1.89%) Banking
8 12 (1.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 11 (1.39%) Aerospace
10 9 (1.13%) Billing
10 9 (1.13%) Manufacturing
11 8 (1.01%) Marketing
12 6 (0.76%) Military
12 6 (0.76%) Telecoms
13 4 (0.50%) Local Government
14 3 (0.38%) Law
14 3 (0.38%) Retail
15 2 (0.25%) Advertising
15 2 (0.25%) Investment Banking
16 1 (0.13%) Mandarin Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (1.26%) LDAP
1 10 (1.26%) REST
2 8 (1.01%) Elastic Stack
2 8 (1.01%) SOAP
3 7 (0.88%) Flash
4 5 (0.63%) ARM Templates
4 5 (0.63%) Web Services
5 4 (0.50%) Keycloak
5 4 (0.50%) OpenID
6 3 (0.38%) ADO
6 3 (0.38%) Oracle Fusion
6 3 (0.38%) SAML
7 2 (0.25%) Apache NiFi
7 2 (0.25%) Bazel
7 2 (0.25%) Kafka
7 2 (0.25%) Middleware
7 2 (0.25%) Node.js
7 2 (0.25%) OAuth
7 2 (0.25%) OAuth2
7 2 (0.25%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 73 (9.19%) Data Centre
2 36 (4.53%) PKI
3 35 (4.41%) Hybrid Cloud
4 31 (3.90%) Public Cloud
5 17 (2.14%) Onboarding
6 16 (2.02%) Enterprise Storage
6 16 (2.02%) Self-Motivation
7 14 (1.76%) Cloud Native
8 13 (1.64%) Replication
9 11 (1.39%) Operational Technology
9 11 (1.39%) Private Cloud
10 9 (1.13%) Clustering
11 8 (1.01%) Virtual Team
12 7 (0.88%) Enterprise Software
13 6 (0.76%) SCADA
13 6 (0.76%) Smartcard
13 6 (0.76%) YubiKey
14 5 (0.63%) Data Protection Act
14 5 (0.63%) Linux Command Line
15 4 (0.50%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 252 (31.74%) Windows
2 158 (19.90%) Windows Server
3 124 (15.62%) Linux
4 22 (2.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (2.64%) Windows Server 2019
6 16 (2.02%) Ubuntu
6 16 (2.02%) Windows Server 2016
7 14 (1.76%) Windows 10
8 11 (1.39%) VMS
9 10 (1.26%) Apple iOS
10 9 (1.13%) Mac OS
11 8 (1.01%) Android
11 8 (1.01%) Unix
11 8 (1.01%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.88%) Debian
12 7 (0.88%) Windows Server 2003
13 5 (0.63%) CentOS
14 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.13%) SUSE
14 1 (0.13%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 777 (97.86%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 137 (17.25%) Infrastructure as Code
3 120 (15.11%) DevOps
4 99 (12.47%) CI/CD
5 93 (11.71%) Problem-Solving
6 72 (9.07%) Migration
7 66 (8.31%) Infrastructure Automation
8 61 (7.68%) ITIL
9 54 (6.80%) Agile
10 52 (6.55%) Disaster Recovery
11 50 (6.30%) High Availability
12 44 (5.54%) Zero Trust
13 38 (4.79%) Project Delivery
14 37 (4.66%) Cybersecurity
15 34 (4.28%) Validation
16 30 (3.78%) Continuous Improvement
16 30 (3.78%) Load Balancing
17 29 (3.65%) Site Reliability Engineering
18 28 (3.53%) Observability
19 27 (3.40%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 112 (14.11%) PowerShell
2 96 (12.09%) Python
3 30 (3.78%) Bash
4 25 (3.15%) SQL
5 22 (2.77%) Bicep
6 14 (1.76%) C#
7 9 (1.13%) PHP
8 8 (1.01%) JavaScript
9 5 (0.63%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.38%) ActionScript
10 3 (0.38%) Java
11 2 (0.25%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.13%) C++
12 1 (0.13%) Jython
12 1 (0.13%) VB
Qualifications
1 295 (37.15%) Security Cleared
2 205 (25.82%) SC Cleared
3 106 (13.35%) DV Cleared
4 24 (3.02%) Degree
5 17 (2.14%) Cisco Certification
6 13 (1.64%) Azure Certification
6 13 (1.64%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 12 (1.51%) CCNA
8 9 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
9 8 (1.01%) CCNP
10 7 (0.88%) MCSE
11 6 (0.76%) FFIEC
12 5 (0.63%) RHCA
13 4 (0.50%) AWS Certification
13 4 (0.50%) CompTIA Security+
13 4 (0.50%) Computer Science Degree
14 3 (0.38%) GIAC
14 3 (0.38%) GSEC
14 3 (0.38%) SSCP
14 3 (0.38%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (2.52%) NIST
2 16 (2.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 16 (2.02%) QA
3 12 (1.51%) Cyber Essentials
4 11 (1.39%) SLA
5 9 (1.13%) GDPR
6 6 (0.76%) GLBA
6 6 (0.76%) NCSC
6 6 (0.76%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 3 (0.38%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.13%) FedRAMP
8 1 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.13%) SOC 2
System Software
1 153 (19.27%) Active Directory
2 146 (18.39%) VMware Infrastructure
3 74 (9.32%) Hyper-V
4 60 (7.56%) vSphere
5 44 (5.54%) VMware ESXi
6 37 (4.66%) Docker
7 24 (3.02%) Virtual Machines
8 23 (2.90%) VMware NSX
9 13 (1.64%) Virtual Desktop
10 10 (1.26%) NFS
11 9 (1.13%) BitLocker
12 7 (0.88%) Microsoft App-V
13 5 (0.63%) Firmware
13 5 (0.63%) GPFS
14 3 (0.38%) DFS Replication
15 2 (0.25%) QEMU
15 2 (0.25%) SRDF
15 2 (0.25%) UAG
15 2 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
15 2 (0.25%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 136 (17.13%) Terraform
2 78 (9.82%) Kubernetes
3 73 (9.19%) Ansible
4 39 (4.91%) Microsoft Intune
5 33 (4.16%) SCCM
6 31 (3.90%) vCenter Server
7 15 (1.89%) WSUS
8 12 (1.51%) Grafana
8 12 (1.51%) Istio
8 12 (1.51%) SCOM
9 11 (1.39%) Prometheus
9 11 (1.39%) Puppet
10 10 (1.26%) Single Sign-On
11 9 (1.13%) Nessus
11 9 (1.13%) vRealize
11 9 (1.13%) VxRail
12 8 (1.01%) AirWatch
12 8 (1.01%) Packer
13 7 (0.88%) vMotion
14 5 (0.63%) Podman
Vendors
1 205 (25.82%) VMware
2 170 (21.41%) Microsoft
3 54 (6.80%) Citrix
4 49 (6.17%) Cisco
5 36 (4.53%) Veeam
6 34 (4.28%) F5
7 29 (3.65%) Palo Alto
8 27 (3.40%) Google
9 25 (3.15%) Dell
9 25 (3.15%) NetApp
10 23 (2.90%) Red Hat
11 20 (2.52%) Aruba
12 19 (2.39%) Oracle
13 18 (2.27%) Arista
14 13 (1.64%) SolarWinds
15 12 (1.51%) Fortinet
15 12 (1.51%) ServiceNow
16 10 (1.26%) Tenable
16 10 (1.26%) Thales
17 9 (1.13%) Splunk