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 17 August 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 143 226 149
Rank change year-on-year +83 -77 +8
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 1,037 381 637
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.94% 1.15% 1.64%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.09% 1.26% 1.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 614 241 483
10th Percentile £350 £329 £325
25th Percentile £425 £385 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £484
Median % change year-on-year +0.48% +7.95% -3.20%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £575
90th Percentile £673 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £475
% change year-on-year +5.00% +5.26% -3.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 6 5
10th Percentile £44.76 £27.50 £51.00
25th Percentile £58.43 £29.00 £63.75
Median hourly rate £72.54 £30.00 £77.00
Median % change year-on-year +141.80% -61.04% +8.07%
75th Percentile £78.75 £70.00 -
90th Percentile £100.00 £141.50 £77.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.54 £77.00 £72.75
% change year-on-year -5.79% +5.84% +0.34%

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 49,505 30,216 36,013
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.52% 91.29% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,709 19,089 23,205
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £621 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,494 1,545 1,999
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.96 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +21.62%

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 17 August 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 17 August 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 17 August 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 +75 895 £525 +0.48% 230
UK excluding London +77 729 £525 +5.00% 196
South East +33 229 £541 -1.71% 49
London +19 227 £540 +2.86% 55
Work from Home +34 218 £536 +7.25% 74
North of England +32 201 £520 -0.95% 49
South West +23 107 £550 - 48
Midlands +4 88 £450 - 19
Yorkshire +12 84 £400 -20.00% 14
North West +5 77 £450 -25.00% 26
West Midlands -17 59 £475 +5.56% 13
North East -3 50 £600 -7.69% 10
Scotland +28 47 £570 +14.00% 9
East of England -5 35 £450 +12.50% 29
East Midlands +3 28 £450 +5.88% 6
Wales +11 26 £500 - 2
Channel Islands - 1 £550 -
Northern Ireland - 1 - -

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

For the 6 months to 17 August 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 1,021 (98.46%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 421 (40.60%) Security Cleared
3 321 (30.95%) Windows
4 317 (30.57%) Azure
5 283 (27.29%) SC Cleared
6 265 (25.55%) VMware
7 241 (23.24%) Microsoft
8 210 (20.25%) Active Directory
9 208 (20.06%) Windows Server
10 206 (19.86%) VMware Infrastructure
11 202 (19.48%) Infrastructure as Code
12 188 (18.13%) Linux
13 179 (17.26%) DNS
13 179 (17.26%) Terraform
14 173 (16.68%) PowerShell
15 151 (14.56%) Firewall
16 148 (14.27%) DevOps
17 144 (13.89%) AWS
17 144 (13.89%) DV Cleared
18 139 (13.40%) Python
19 132 (12.73%) CI/CD
20 130 (12.54%) DHCP
21 122 (11.76%) Ansible
22 114 (10.99%) Migration
23 111 (10.70%) Problem-Solving
24 96 (9.26%) Kubernetes
25 95 (9.16%) Hyper-V
26 88 (8.49%) Entra ID
27 83 (8.00%) Microsoft 365
28 77 (7.43%) 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 57 (5.50%) Microsoft Exchange
2 30 (2.89%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.35%) WebSphere
4 13 (1.25%) CICS
5 10 (0.96%) Confluence
6 5 (0.48%) SharePoint Server
7 3 (0.29%) Apache
7 3 (0.29%) Exchange Server 2010
8 2 (0.19%) CloudStack
9 1 (0.096%) Apache Airflow
9 1 (0.096%) Exchange Server 2013
9 1 (0.096%) IBM HTTP Server
9 1 (0.096%) IIS
9 1 (0.096%) MS Project Server
9 1 (0.096%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.096%) Skype for Business
9 1 (0.096%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 11 (1.06%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.096%) CINEMA 4D
3 1 (0.096%) Houdini
3 1 (0.096%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.096%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 3 (0.29%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.096%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 317 (30.57%) Azure
2 144 (13.89%) AWS
3 88 (8.49%) Entra ID
4 83 (8.00%) Microsoft 365
5 58 (5.59%) IaaS
6 55 (5.30%) GCP
6 55 (5.30%) GitHub
7 51 (4.92%) OCI
8 40 (3.86%) Azure DevOps
8 40 (3.86%) SaaS
9 34 (3.28%) PaaS
10 30 (2.89%) Azure Monitor
11 24 (2.31%) GitHub Actions
12 20 (1.93%) Azure AKS
13 16 (1.54%) Nutanix
14 11 (1.06%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 10 (0.96%) OpenShift
16 8 (0.77%) Cohesity
16 8 (0.77%) OneDrive
16 8 (0.77%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 179 (17.26%) DNS
2 151 (14.56%) Firewall
3 130 (12.54%) DHCP
4 55 (5.30%) VLAN
4 55 (5.30%) VPN
5 53 (5.11%) SAN
6 52 (5.01%) TCP/IP
7 42 (4.05%) WAN
8 41 (3.95%) Network Security
9 30 (2.89%) BIG-IP
9 30 (2.89%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
10 25 (2.41%) LAN
10 25 (2.41%) Wi-Fi
11 23 (2.22%) Ethernet VPN
11 23 (2.22%) SD-WAN
12 22 (2.12%) VSAN
12 22 (2.12%) VXLAN
13 20 (1.93%) BGP
13 20 (1.93%) OSPF
14 14 (1.35%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (4.82%) SQL Server
2 21 (2.03%) Oracle Exadata
3 16 (1.54%) Relational Database
4 15 (1.45%) Oracle Database
5 13 (1.25%) RDBMS
6 8 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
7 6 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
8 4 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
8 4 (0.39%) PostgreSQL
8 4 (0.39%) Power BI
8 4 (0.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 3 (0.29%) Big Data
9 3 (0.29%) Data Mining
9 3 (0.29%) NonStop SQL
10 2 (0.19%) BigQuery
10 2 (0.19%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 1 (0.096%) Flink
11 1 (0.096%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 44 (4.24%) GitLab
2 27 (2.60%) JIRA
3 26 (2.51%) Jenkins
4 24 (2.31%) Git
5 5 (0.48%) Chocolatey
6 3 (0.29%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.19%) Fiddler
8 1 (0.096%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.096%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.096%) CMake
8 1 (0.096%) Gradle
8 1 (0.096%) IntelliJ
8 1 (0.096%) Introscope
8 1 (0.096%) MLflow
8 1 (0.096%) MSI
8 1 (0.096%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.096%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 116 (11.19%) Social Skills
2 74 (7.14%) Public Sector
3 46 (4.44%) Analytical Skills
3 46 (4.44%) Finance
4 36 (3.47%) Documentation Skills
5 23 (2.22%) Banking
6 14 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (1.16%) Aerospace
8 11 (1.06%) Military
9 10 (0.96%) Legal
9 10 (0.96%) Manufacturing
9 10 (0.96%) Marketing
9 10 (0.96%) Telecoms
10 7 (0.68%) Law
11 6 (0.58%) Automotive
12 3 (0.29%) Investment Banking
13 2 (0.19%) Advertising
13 2 (0.19%) Billing
13 2 (0.19%) Local Government
13 2 (0.19%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (1.64%) Middleware
2 14 (1.35%) ARM Templates
3 13 (1.25%) Oracle GoldenGate
4 8 (0.77%) REST
5 7 (0.68%) Flash
5 7 (0.68%) YAML
6 6 (0.58%) 802.1X
6 6 (0.58%) JSON
6 6 (0.58%) OpenID
7 5 (0.48%) Elastic Stack
7 5 (0.48%) SAML
8 4 (0.39%) .NET
8 4 (0.39%) SOAP
9 3 (0.29%) Kafka
9 3 (0.29%) LDAP
9 3 (0.29%) OAuth
10 2 (0.19%) Bazel
10 2 (0.19%) OAuth2
10 2 (0.19%) RabbitMQ
10 2 (0.19%) React
Miscellaneous
1 121 (11.67%) Data Centre
2 58 (5.59%) Hybrid Cloud
3 52 (5.01%) PKI
4 38 (3.66%) Public Cloud
5 29 (2.80%) Enterprise Storage
6 26 (2.51%) Onboarding
7 25 (2.41%) Replication
8 24 (2.31%) Cloud Native
9 19 (1.83%) Clustering
10 18 (1.74%) Self-Motivation
11 14 (1.35%) Linux Command Line
11 14 (1.35%) Management Information System
12 13 (1.25%) Distributed Systems
12 13 (1.25%) Mainframe
13 10 (0.96%) Operational Technology
13 10 (0.96%) Private Cloud
14 9 (0.87%) Driving Licence
14 9 (0.87%) Enterprise Software
14 9 (0.87%) Smartcard
15 8 (0.77%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 321 (30.95%) Windows
2 208 (20.06%) Windows Server
3 188 (18.13%) Linux
4 35 (3.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 20 (1.93%) Windows Server 2019
6 19 (1.83%) Windows Server 2016
7 18 (1.74%) Windows 10
8 15 (1.45%) VMS
9 14 (1.35%) AIX
10 13 (1.25%) zOS
11 12 (1.16%) Ubuntu
12 11 (1.06%) Apple iOS
13 10 (0.96%) Android
13 10 (0.96%) Mac OS
14 9 (0.87%) CentOS
15 7 (0.68%) Unix
15 7 (0.68%) Windows Server 2012
16 6 (0.58%) Debian
16 6 (0.58%) Rocky
17 5 (0.48%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,021 (98.46%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 202 (19.48%) Infrastructure as Code
3 148 (14.27%) DevOps
4 132 (12.73%) CI/CD
5 114 (10.99%) Migration
6 111 (10.70%) Problem-Solving
7 77 (7.43%) High Availability
7 77 (7.43%) Infrastructure Automation
8 68 (6.56%) Continuous Improvement
9 66 (6.36%) Disaster Recovery
10 61 (5.88%) ITIL
10 61 (5.88%) Project Delivery
11 55 (5.30%) Platform Engineering
11 55 (5.30%) Validation
12 48 (4.63%) Agile
13 47 (4.53%) Zero Trust
14 42 (4.05%) Root Cause Analysis
15 39 (3.76%) Cybersecurity
15 39 (3.76%) Site Reliability Engineering
16 38 (3.66%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 173 (16.68%) PowerShell
2 139 (13.40%) Python
3 72 (6.94%) Bash
4 39 (3.76%) SQL
5 28 (2.70%) Bicep
6 17 (1.64%) C#
7 11 (1.06%) Java
8 6 (0.58%) ActionScript
8 6 (0.58%) Go
9 4 (0.39%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.19%) C++
10 2 (0.19%) TypeScript
10 2 (0.19%) VB
11 1 (0.096%) C
11 1 (0.096%) JavaScript
11 1 (0.096%) Jython
11 1 (0.096%) Perl
11 1 (0.096%) PHP
11 1 (0.096%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 421 (40.60%) Security Cleared
2 283 (27.29%) SC Cleared
3 144 (13.89%) DV Cleared
4 39 (3.76%) Degree
5 32 (3.09%) Microsoft Certification
6 24 (2.31%) Azure Certification
6 24 (2.31%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 23 (2.22%) Cisco Certification
8 18 (1.74%) MCSE
9 14 (1.35%) CCNA
10 13 (1.25%) CCNP
10 13 (1.25%) VCAP
11 11 (1.06%) Computer Science Degree
12 6 (0.58%) MCSA
12 6 (0.58%) RHCA
13 5 (0.48%) DBS Check
14 4 (0.39%) ITIL Certification
14 4 (0.39%) JNCIP
14 4 (0.39%) JNCIS
15 3 (0.29%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (3.09%) QA
2 19 (1.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 16 (1.54%) SLA
4 12 (1.16%) Cyber Essentials
4 12 (1.16%) NIST
5 10 (0.96%) NCSC
6 6 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
7 3 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.19%) Data Quality
8 2 (0.19%) GDPR
8 2 (0.19%) NIST 800
8 2 (0.19%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.096%) FedRAMP
9 1 (0.096%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 210 (20.25%) Active Directory
2 206 (19.86%) VMware Infrastructure
3 95 (9.16%) Hyper-V
4 69 (6.65%) vSphere
5 65 (6.27%) VMware ESXi
6 45 (4.34%) Virtual Machines
7 35 (3.38%) VMware NSX
8 32 (3.09%) Docker
9 26 (2.51%) Virtual Desktop
10 13 (1.25%) Oracle RAC
11 12 (1.16%) NFS
12 9 (0.87%) BitLocker
13 8 (0.77%) Firmware
14 7 (0.68%) Microsoft App-V
15 6 (0.58%) KVM
15 6 (0.58%) Virtual Servers
16 5 (0.48%) GPFS
17 4 (0.39%) Terminal Services
18 2 (0.19%) SRDF
18 2 (0.19%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 179 (17.26%) Terraform
2 122 (11.76%) Ansible
3 96 (9.26%) Kubernetes
4 57 (5.50%) Microsoft Intune
5 44 (4.24%) vCenter Server
6 42 (4.05%) SCCM
7 20 (1.93%) WSUS
8 18 (1.74%) SCOM
9 16 (1.54%) NetBackup
10 15 (1.45%) Prometheus
11 13 (1.25%) Data Guard
11 13 (1.25%) Oracle RMAN
11 13 (1.25%) Puppet
12 12 (1.16%) Grafana
13 10 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
14 9 (0.87%) Nessus
15 8 (0.77%) Istio
15 8 (0.77%) vMotion
15 8 (0.77%) vRealize
16 7 (0.68%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 265 (25.55%) VMware
2 241 (23.24%) Microsoft
3 66 (6.36%) Citrix
4 57 (5.50%) Cisco
5 41 (3.95%) Oracle
6 38 (3.66%) NetApp
7 34 (3.28%) Veeam
8 33 (3.18%) F5
9 31 (2.99%) Google
10 30 (2.89%) Palo Alto
11 27 (2.60%) Red Hat
12 20 (1.93%) Aruba
12 20 (1.93%) IBM
13 19 (1.83%) Arista
13 19 (1.83%) Dell
14 17 (1.64%) CyberArk
14 17 (1.64%) Juniper
14 17 (1.64%) ServiceNow
15 15 (1.45%) Tenable
16 14 (1.35%) SolarWinds