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 24 March 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 202 194 149
Rank change year-on-year -8 -45 +35
Contract jobs requiring an Infrastructure Engineer 552 403 712
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.26% 1.38% 1.61%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.37% 1.49% 1.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 401 278 517
10th Percentile £325 £323 £310
25th Percentile £408 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £473
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +11.11% -5.50%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £588
90th Percentile £638 £652 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £465
% change year-on-year -4.76% +12.91% +0.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 4 14
10th Percentile £26.25 - -
25th Percentile £31.19 £24.18 £21.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £112.09 £45.25
Median % change year-on-year -53.16% +147.71% -27.81%
75th Percentile £72.81 £200.00 £76.53
90th Percentile £80.60 - £77.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £112.09 £23.00
% change year-on-year -53.16% +387.35% -58.39%

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 40,297 27,081 41,111
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.96% 92.96% 92.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,161 17,787 26,923
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £411 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.37%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £724 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,500 900 2,514
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.20 £12.88
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £36.70 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.92% - -24.42%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.73 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £76.34 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.71 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +12.94% - -21.53%

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 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 24 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 24 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 -28 484 £500 -4.76% 246
UK excluding London -15 375 £500 -4.76% 232
London -46 137 £525 - 35
Work from Home -11 111 £500 +6.95% 91
South East -16 104 £500 -6.98% 67
North of England -36 93 £413 +3.13% 71
South West +2 85 £545 -5.22% 37
Yorkshire -31 55 £363 -10.77% 26
North West -26 34 £413 -10.81% 36
Midlands -60 31 £430 +7.50% 28
Scotland +7 28 £500 -9.09% 8
East of England -22 26 £438 -6.82% 18
East Midlands -24 17 £450 +12.50% 7
West Midlands -62 14 £425 +21.43% 21
Wales -11 8 £550 +29.41% 5
North East -19 4 £500 +36.99% 9
Northern Ireland - 1 £375 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 24 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.

1 530 (96.01%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 191 (34.60%) Azure
3 184 (33.33%) Windows
4 169 (30.62%) Microsoft
5 167 (30.25%) Security Cleared
6 157 (28.44%) VMware
7 133 (24.09%) Active Directory
8 125 (22.64%) VMware Infrastructure
9 115 (20.83%) SC Cleared
10 106 (19.20%) Windows Server
11 104 (18.84%) PowerShell
12 99 (17.93%) Terraform
13 93 (16.85%) DevOps
14 87 (15.76%) Firewall
15 86 (15.58%) Infrastructure as Code
16 84 (15.22%) DNS
17 83 (15.04%) Linux
18 75 (13.59%) Microsoft 365
19 72 (13.04%) Problem-Solving
20 69 (12.50%) Python
21 68 (12.32%) CI/CD
22 60 (10.87%) DHCP
22 60 (10.87%) Hyper-V
23 58 (10.51%) DV Cleared
24 57 (10.33%) Kubernetes
25 54 (9.78%) AWS
25 54 (9.78%) ITIL
26 53 (9.60%) Ansible
26 53 (9.60%) Migration
27 52 (9.42%) 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 44 (7.97%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (1.99%) SharePoint
3 10 (1.81%) TPMS
4 5 (0.91%) IIS
5 4 (0.72%) Apache
5 4 (0.72%) 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 (1.81%) 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%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 191 (34.60%) Azure
2 75 (13.59%) Microsoft 365
3 54 (9.78%) AWS
4 42 (7.61%) Entra ID
5 41 (7.43%) GitHub
6 32 (5.80%) GCP
7 29 (5.25%) IaaS
8 27 (4.89%) PaaS
9 24 (4.35%) Azure DevOps
10 19 (3.44%) Azure Monitor
10 19 (3.44%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 18 (3.26%) Nutanix
12 12 (2.17%) Azure Sentinel
13 10 (1.81%) OCI
13 10 (1.81%) SaaS
14 9 (1.63%) GitHub Actions
14 9 (1.63%) OneDrive
15 8 (1.45%) Azure AKS
15 8 (1.45%) Microsoft Purview
15 8 (1.45%) Mimecast
Communications & Networking
1 87 (15.76%) Firewall
2 84 (15.22%) DNS
3 60 (10.87%) DHCP
4 44 (7.97%) VPN
5 32 (5.80%) WAN
6 27 (4.89%) LAN
7 24 (4.35%) TCP/IP
8 20 (3.62%) Network Security
9 19 (3.44%) SAN
10 18 (3.26%) VLAN
11 16 (2.90%) Wi-Fi
12 13 (2.36%) SNMP
13 12 (2.17%) SSH
13 12 (2.17%) SSL
14 9 (1.63%) MPLS
14 9 (1.63%) SMTP
15 8 (1.45%) SD-WAN
16 7 (1.27%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 6 (1.09%) 4G
17 6 (1.09%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (3.44%) SQL Server
2 7 (1.27%) Elasticsearch
3 5 (0.91%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.54%) NonStop SQL
4 3 (0.54%) Power BI
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%) 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 16 (2.90%) Jenkins
2 12 (2.17%) JIRA
3 11 (1.99%) GitLab
4 8 (1.45%) Artifactory
5 7 (1.27%) 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 84 (15.22%) Social Skills
2 52 (9.42%) Public Sector
3 49 (8.88%) Finance
4 36 (6.52%) Analytical Skills
5 23 (4.17%) Documentation Skills
6 18 (3.26%) Legal
7 16 (2.90%) Banking
8 9 (1.63%) Billing
8 9 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (1.09%) Telecoms
10 5 (0.91%) Military
11 4 (0.72%) Aerospace
11 4 (0.72%) Spanish Language
12 3 (0.54%) Aviation
12 3 (0.54%) Local Government
12 3 (0.54%) Retail
13 2 (0.36%) Investment Banking
14 1 (0.18%) Advertising
14 1 (0.18%) Italian Language
14 1 (0.18%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (1.99%) REST
2 8 (1.45%) ARM Templates
2 8 (1.45%) LDAP
2 8 (1.45%) SOAP
3 5 (0.91%) Web Services
4 4 (0.72%) Elastic Stack
4 4 (0.72%) Keycloak
4 4 (0.72%) SAML
5 3 (0.54%) ADO
5 3 (0.54%) Oracle Fusion
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%) OpenID
6 2 (0.36%) Software Packaging
6 2 (0.36%) YAML
7 1 (0.18%) .NET Core
7 1 (0.18%) Bazel
Miscellaneous
1 37 (6.70%) PKI
2 35 (6.34%) Data Centre
3 21 (3.80%) Public Cloud
4 20 (3.62%) Hybrid Cloud
5 11 (1.99%) Clustering
5 11 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
5 11 (1.99%) Enterprise Storage
6 10 (1.81%) Self-Motivation
7 9 (1.63%) Cloud Native
7 9 (1.63%) Onboarding
7 9 (1.63%) Private Cloud
8 6 (1.09%) Replication
9 4 (0.72%) NHS
10 3 (0.54%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (0.54%) CCTV
10 3 (0.54%) Client/Server
10 3 (0.54%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (0.54%) Greenfield Project
10 3 (0.54%) Legacy Systems
11 2 (0.36%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 184 (33.33%) Windows
2 106 (19.20%) Windows Server
3 83 (15.04%) Linux
4 18 (3.26%) Windows Server 2019
5 14 (2.54%) Ubuntu
6 13 (2.36%) Windows 10
6 13 (2.36%) Windows Server 2012
7 12 (2.17%) Windows Server 2016
8 11 (1.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 10 (1.81%) VMS
10 8 (1.45%) Unix
11 6 (1.09%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (0.36%) CentOS
12 2 (0.36%) Debian
12 2 (0.36%) SUSE
12 2 (0.36%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.36%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.18%) Android
13 1 (0.18%) Apple iOS
13 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 530 (96.01%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 93 (16.85%) DevOps
3 86 (15.58%) Infrastructure as Code
4 72 (13.04%) Problem-Solving
5 68 (12.32%) CI/CD
6 54 (9.78%) ITIL
7 53 (9.60%) Migration
8 52 (9.42%) Infrastructure Automation
9 49 (8.88%) Cybersecurity
10 48 (8.70%) Agile
11 47 (8.51%) Disaster Recovery
12 32 (5.80%) High Availability
13 30 (5.43%) Project Delivery
14 29 (5.25%) Platform Engineering
15 27 (4.89%) Observability
16 26 (4.71%) Containerisation
17 25 (4.53%) Cloud Security
18 24 (4.35%) Roadmaps
19 23 (4.17%) Stakeholder Management
20 22 (3.99%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 104 (18.84%) PowerShell
2 69 (12.50%) Python
3 26 (4.71%) Bash
4 18 (3.26%) Bicep
5 17 (3.08%) SQL
6 9 (1.63%) PHP
7 8 (1.45%) JavaScript
8 6 (1.09%) C#
9 4 (0.72%) Java
9 4 (0.72%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.36%) ActionScript
10 2 (0.36%) Perl
11 1 (0.18%) C++
11 1 (0.18%) Go
11 1 (0.18%) Jython
11 1 (0.18%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.18%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.18%) Ruby
11 1 (0.18%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 167 (30.25%) Security Cleared
2 115 (20.83%) SC Cleared
3 58 (10.51%) DV Cleared
4 17 (3.08%) Azure Certification
5 14 (2.54%) Degree
6 11 (1.99%) Microsoft Certification
7 10 (1.81%) FFIEC
8 9 (1.63%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (1.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 8 (1.45%) AWS Certification
10 7 (1.27%) CCNA
11 6 (1.09%) CompTIA Security+
12 5 (0.91%) BPSS Clearance
12 5 (0.91%) CCNP
13 4 (0.72%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 4 (0.72%) CISSP
13 4 (0.72%) Computer Science Degree
13 4 (0.72%) GIAC
13 4 (0.72%) GSEC
13 4 (0.72%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (4.17%) NIST
2 15 (2.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 14 (2.54%) GDPR
4 12 (2.17%) Cyber Essentials
5 11 (1.99%) SLA
6 10 (1.81%) GLBA
6 10 (1.81%) PCI DSS
7 4 (0.72%) 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
1 133 (24.09%) Active Directory
2 125 (22.64%) VMware Infrastructure
3 60 (10.87%) Hyper-V
4 41 (7.43%) vSphere
5 35 (6.34%) Docker
6 30 (5.43%) VMware ESXi
7 13 (2.36%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (2.36%) VMware NSX
8 12 (2.17%) Virtual Desktop
9 7 (1.27%) BitLocker
10 6 (1.09%) Microsoft App-V
11 3 (0.54%) DFS Replication
11 3 (0.54%) Sendmail
12 2 (0.36%) QEMU
12 2 (0.36%) SRDF
13 1 (0.18%) Firmware
13 1 (0.18%) Terminal Services
13 1 (0.18%) UAG
13 1 (0.18%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 99 (17.93%) Terraform
2 57 (10.33%) Kubernetes
3 53 (9.60%) Ansible
4 47 (8.51%) SCCM
5 44 (7.97%) Microsoft Intune
6 28 (5.07%) vCenter Server
7 17 (3.08%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (1.81%) Puppet
9 9 (1.63%) Istio
9 9 (1.63%) Prometheus
9 9 (1.63%) VxRail
10 8 (1.45%) Grafana
10 8 (1.45%) SCOM
11 6 (1.09%) vMotion
11 6 (1.09%) vRealize
11 6 (1.09%) WSUS
12 5 (0.91%) AirWatch
12 5 (0.91%) Nessus
12 5 (0.91%) Packer
13 4 (0.72%) CASB
Vendors
1 169 (30.62%) Microsoft
2 157 (28.44%) VMware
3 33 (5.98%) Cisco
4 29 (5.25%) Dell
5 28 (5.07%) Citrix
6 25 (4.53%) Veeam
7 23 (4.17%) Google
8 14 (2.54%) F5
8 14 (2.54%) Oracle
8 14 (2.54%) Thales
9 13 (2.36%) NetApp
9 13 (2.36%) Red Hat
9 13 (2.36%) SolarWinds
10 12 (2.17%) Aruba
10 12 (2.17%) Fortinet
10 12 (2.17%) ServiceNow
10 12 (2.17%) Splunk
11 7 (1.27%) HP
11 7 (1.27%) Palo Alto
12 5 (0.91%) Zscaler