How To Become An Infrastructure Lead: What It Is and Career Path

What is an infrastructure lead and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Maryam Farahani

The average infrastructure lead salary is $118,378. The most common degree is a bachelor's degree degree with an computer science major. It usually takes 1-2 years of experience to become an infrastructure lead. Infrastructure leads with a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification earn more money. Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 5% and produce 18,200 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to an infrastructure lead?

Maryam Farahani

Engineering Instructor, Bakersfield College

Thinking about the fields they want to experience or try. And to be intentional about their job search. The best advice is learning as much as they can about what company offers. Visualizing themselves in the next 5 years as a starting point. Do they want to travel a lot, or be in management positions? Do they want to be subject matter expert, or a hands-on engineer or technologist? Their goal may change as they progress in their career but having one makes a big difference in their career choices and keeping them on track.

ScoreInfrastructure LeadUS Average

Salary

8.1

Avg. Salary $118,378

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.7

Growth rate 5%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.6

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.31%

Asian 13.66%

Black or African American 7.85%

Hispanic or Latino 11.57%

Unknown 5.00%

White 61.61%

Gender

female 11.70%

male 88.30%

Age - 42

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 42

Stress level

5.7

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

7.2

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.1

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an infrastructure lead

Explore infrastructure lead education requirements

Most common infrastructure lead degrees

Bachelor's

66.9 %

Master's

17.2 %

Associate

10.4 %

Start to develop specific infrastructure lead skills

Skills	Percentages
Cloud	9.78%
Architecture	8.03%
AWS	5.15%
Linux	5.05%
Project Management	5.01%

Complete relevant infrastructure lead training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New infrastructure leads learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an infrastructure lead based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real infrastructure lead resumes.

Research infrastructure lead duties and responsibilities

Manage and justify VDI with VMware view.
Manage vendor engagement for vmware consultation, design, and implementation.
Verse in configuring and managing Cisco routers, switches and VoIP networks.
Manage VPN solution (both appliance and Cisco router) with PKI for Verizon.

Get infrastructure lead experience

Generally, it takes 1-2 years to become an infrastructure lead. The most common roles before becoming an infrastructure lead include systems administrator, network administrator team lead and senior system administrator.

Prepare your infrastructure lead resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your infrastructure lead resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an infrastructure lead resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable infrastructure lead resume templates

Build a professional infrastructure lead resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your infrastructure lead resume.