Data Centre Contract Job Trends in England

Data Center
UK > England

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Data Centre in contract job vacancies in England. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Data Centre over the 6 months leading up to 14 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 111 131 104
Rank change year-on-year +20 -27 -8
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 902 520 784
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.22% 2.16% 2.14%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.91% 6.33% 6.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 583 347 569
10th Percentile £318 £350 £300
25th Percentile £400 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -8.10% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £725 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £482 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -5.49% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 14 34
10th Percentile £16.01 £24.18 £21.25
25th Percentile £16.53 £24.66 £22.13
Median hourly rate £19.34 £26.08 £24.87
Median % change year-on-year -25.84% +4.87% +14.77%
75th Percentile £33.75 £42.81 £40.00
90th Percentile £74.01 £43.75 £41.25
UK median hourly rate £19.34 £27.50 £24.00
% change year-on-year -29.67% +14.58% +10.75%

All Generic Skills
England

Data Centre falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 13,057 8,212 11,220
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.14% 34.05% 30.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,262 5,376 7,359
10th Percentile £313 £300 £268
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.63% -1.82% -4.14%
75th Percentile £626 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £788 £800
UK median daily rate £508 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -3.24% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 664 321 819
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.67 £12.25
25th Percentile £21.00 £21.00 £15.17
Median hourly rate £45.00 £34.50 £32.12
Median % change year-on-year +30.43% +7.43% +42.83%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.52 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £31.91 £31.25
% change year-on-year +33.21% +2.10% +38.98%

Data Centre
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Data Centre relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Data Centre job vacancy trend in England

Data Centre
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Data Centre.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Data Centre

Data Centre
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Centre in England over the 6 months to 14 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Centre in England

Data Centre
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Data Centre.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Data Centre

Data Centre
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Centre in England over the 6 months to 14 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Centre in England

Data Centre
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Data Centre within the England region over the 6 months to 14 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
London +6 315 £550 +4.76% 193
North of England +25 208 £460 +8.24% 78
South East +6 194 £463 +2.78% 100
Yorkshire -5 98 £365 -14.12% 24
North West +12 90 £481 -3.75% 39
Midlands -49 54 £467 -15.12% 34
South West -33 49 £498 -9.22% 33
West Midlands -46 48 £468 -14.83% 25
East of England -13 42 £487 +77.18% 31
North East +4 22 £400 +263.64% 15
East Midlands -30 5 £400 -27.27% 9
Data Centre
UK

Data Centre
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 20 (2.22%) Confluence
2 13 (1.44%) SharePoint
3 10 (1.11%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (1.00%) CICS
5 4 (0.44%) nginx
5 4 (0.44%) OpenStack
5 4 (0.44%) WebLogic
6 3 (0.33%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.22%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.11%) Apache
8 1 (0.11%) CloudStack
Applications
1 17 (1.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.55%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (1.22%) MS Visio
5 10 (1.11%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.33%) Adobe Illustrator
6 3 (0.33%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.22%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.22%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 3 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
1 3 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
2 2 (0.22%) DELMIA
2 2 (0.22%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.11%) Maximo
3 1 (0.11%) Oracle Financials
3 1 (0.11%) Primavera
3 1 (0.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 169 (18.74%) Azure
2 143 (15.85%) AWS
3 44 (4.88%) GCP
4 29 (3.22%) Microsoft 365
5 22 (2.44%) OCI
5 22 (2.44%) SaaS
6 18 (2.00%) IaaS
7 17 (1.88%) Entra ID
8 15 (1.66%) GitHub
8 15 (1.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 13 (1.44%) PaaS
10 12 (1.33%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 12 (1.33%) Power Platform
11 9 (1.00%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 9 (1.00%) GitHub Actions
11 9 (1.00%) OpenShift
12 8 (0.89%) Amazon EKS
12 8 (0.89%) Azure DevOps
12 8 (0.89%) Azure Sentinel
13 6 (0.67%) AWS Direct Connect
Communications & Networking
1 249 (27.61%) Firewall
2 168 (18.63%) WAN
3 151 (16.74%) BGP
4 121 (13.41%) OSPF
5 99 (10.98%) LAN
6 96 (10.64%) Network Security
7 86 (9.53%) VPN
8 85 (9.42%) VXLAN
9 82 (9.09%) SAN
9 82 (9.09%) Structured Cabling
10 73 (8.09%) DNS
11 71 (7.87%) VLAN
12 59 (6.54%) Ethernet VPN
13 56 (6.21%) DHCP
14 47 (5.21%) SD-WAN
15 39 (4.32%) BIG-IP
16 37 (4.10%) Cisco Nexus
16 37 (4.10%) Wi-Fi
17 35 (3.88%) NX-OS
18 30 (3.33%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (1.00%) DataStage
2 7 (0.78%) Power BI
3 6 (0.67%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (0.55%) SQL Server
5 4 (0.44%) MongoDB
5 4 (0.44%) Power Query
5 4 (0.44%) PowerPivot
5 4 (0.44%) SAP Data Services
6 3 (0.33%) Big Data
6 3 (0.33%) GIS
6 3 (0.33%) Oracle Reports
7 2 (0.22%) Data Lake
7 2 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (0.22%) InfluxDB
8 1 (0.11%) Amazon RDS
8 1 (0.11%) Elasticsearch
8 1 (0.11%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.11%) Oracle Database 12c
8 1 (0.11%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.11%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 42 (4.66%) JIRA
2 36 (3.99%) Git
3 31 (3.44%) GitLab
4 21 (2.33%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.78%) Maven
6 5 (0.55%) ScriptRunner
7 4 (0.44%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 4 (0.44%) Eclipse
7 4 (0.44%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.44%) Subversion
8 3 (0.33%) Zephyr
9 2 (0.22%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.11%) AppScan
10 1 (0.11%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.11%) Metasploit
General
1 236 (26.16%) Social Skills
2 129 (14.30%) Finance
3 107 (11.86%) Analytical Skills
4 71 (7.87%) Public Sector
5 56 (6.21%) Documentation Skills
6 42 (4.66%) Banking
7 26 (2.88%) Telecoms
8 25 (2.77%) Retail
9 24 (2.66%) Legal
10 21 (2.33%) Manufacturing
11 18 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
12 12 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 11 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
14 9 (1.00%) Military
15 8 (0.89%) Aerospace
15 8 (0.89%) Marketing
16 7 (0.78%) Law
17 6 (0.67%) Organisational Skills
18 5 (0.55%) Financial Institution
18 5 (0.55%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 158 (17.52%) Network Engineer
2 123 (13.64%) Architect
3 97 (10.75%) Senior
4 71 (7.87%) Data Centre Engineer
5 66 (7.32%) Project Manager
6 57 (6.32%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 46 (5.10%) Lead
8 44 (4.88%) IT Engineer
9 42 (4.66%) Data Centre Manager
9 42 (4.66%) Field Engineer
10 40 (4.43%) Network Architect
11 39 (4.32%) Field Service Engineer
12 34 (3.77%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 31 (3.44%) Analyst
14 26 (2.88%) Infrastructure Manager
14 26 (2.88%) Support Engineer
15 25 (2.77%) Administrator
15 25 (2.77%) Cisco Engineer
15 25 (2.77%) Solutions Architect
16 24 (2.66%) Cisco Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (3.44%) 802.1X
1 31 (3.44%) Middleware
2 11 (1.22%) LDAP
3 8 (0.89%) Redfish
4 7 (0.78%) Spring
5 5 (0.55%) Elastic Stack
5 5 (0.55%) Jinja
5 5 (0.55%) XML
6 4 (0.44%) ADO
6 4 (0.44%) Kafka
6 4 (0.44%) NETCONF
6 4 (0.44%) REST
6 4 (0.44%) Spring Boot
6 4 (0.44%) VML
7 3 (0.33%) EJB
7 3 (0.33%) Java EE
7 3 (0.33%) OpenConfig
7 3 (0.33%) RESTCONF
7 3 (0.33%) RFC 2544
7 3 (0.33%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 57 (6.32%) Hybrid Cloud
2 46 (5.10%) Analytical Mindset
3 28 (3.10%) Clustering
4 27 (2.99%) PKI
5 25 (2.77%) Fibre Optics
6 23 (2.55%) Cloud Native
7 19 (2.11%) Replication
8 18 (2.00%) Driving Licence
8 18 (2.00%) Management Information System
9 17 (1.88%) Onboarding
9 17 (1.88%) Public Cloud
10 15 (1.66%) CMDB
10 15 (1.66%) Private Cloud
10 15 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
11 14 (1.55%) Enterprise Storage
12 12 (1.33%) SCADA
13 11 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
13 11 (1.22%) Mainframe
14 9 (1.00%) BYOD
14 9 (1.00%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 108 (11.97%) Windows
2 99 (10.98%) Linux
3 33 (3.66%) Windows Server
4 29 (3.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 21 (2.33%) Unix
6 20 (2.22%) AIX
7 16 (1.77%) Solaris
8 12 (1.33%) CentOS
9 7 (0.78%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.67%) VMS
11 4 (0.44%) HPUX
11 4 (0.44%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.44%) Oracle Linux
11 4 (0.44%) SUSE
12 3 (0.33%) Apple iOS
12 3 (0.33%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.22%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.22%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.11%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 168 (18.63%) Problem-Solving
2 156 (17.29%) Migration
3 89 (9.87%) Stakeholder Management
4 84 (9.31%) ITIL
5 80 (8.87%) High Availability
6 79 (8.76%) Continuous Improvement
7 73 (8.09%) Roadmaps
8 69 (7.65%) Infrastructure as Code
8 69 (7.65%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 68 (7.54%) Change Management
10 67 (7.43%) Load Balancing
11 66 (7.32%) CI/CD
11 66 (7.32%) Project Management
12 63 (6.98%) Project Delivery
13 61 (6.76%) Validation
14 52 (5.76%) Customer Service
15 51 (5.65%) Break/Fix
15 51 (5.65%) Data Centre Operations
16 50 (5.54%) Network Design
17 49 (5.43%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 98 (10.86%) Python
2 34 (3.77%) PowerShell
3 26 (2.88%) SQL
4 22 (2.44%) Java
5 21 (2.33%) Bash
6 16 (1.77%) Shell Script
7 11 (1.22%) COBOL
7 11 (1.22%) MATLAB
8 8 (0.89%) Perl
9 7 (0.78%) Bicep
10 6 (0.67%) PL/SQL
11 5 (0.55%) JavaScript
11 5 (0.55%) VBA
12 2 (0.22%) C++
12 2 (0.22%) Korn
12 2 (0.22%) Lisp
13 1 (0.11%) C
13 1 (0.11%) Groovy
13 1 (0.11%) Scala
13 1 (0.11%) VB
Qualifications
1 273 (30.27%) Security Cleared
2 198 (21.95%) SC Cleared
3 189 (20.95%) Cisco Certification
4 119 (13.19%) CCNP
5 84 (9.31%) CCNA
6 61 (6.76%) Degree
7 56 (6.21%) DV Cleared
8 46 (5.10%) Network+ Certification
9 40 (4.43%) Microsoft Certification
10 37 (4.10%) A+ Certification
10 37 (4.10%) MCSE
11 22 (2.44%) PMP
12 20 (2.22%) Azure Certification
12 20 (2.22%) CCIE
12 20 (2.22%) City & Guilds
13 19 (2.11%) PMI Certification
14 18 (2.00%) AWS Certification
15 17 (1.88%) BICSI Certification
16 16 (1.77%) JNCIS
17 14 (1.55%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (3.44%) SLA
2 22 (2.44%) PMO
3 20 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 19 (2.11%) NIST
5 18 (2.00%) QA
6 15 (1.66%) GDPR
7 9 (1.00%) NCSC
7 9 (1.00%) PCI DSS
8 8 (0.89%) GRC
9 6 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.33%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.22%) Data Quality
11 2 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.11%) COBIT
12 1 (0.11%) NEBOSH
12 1 (0.11%) RMADS
12 1 (0.11%) SOC 1
System Software
1 78 (8.65%) VMware Infrastructure
2 47 (5.21%) Active Directory
3 31 (3.44%) VMware NSX
4 30 (3.33%) Firmware
5 24 (2.66%) VMware ESXi
6 23 (2.55%) vSphere
7 22 (2.44%) Virtual Machines
8 18 (2.00%) Hyper-V
9 11 (1.22%) Docker
10 10 (1.11%) KVM
11 4 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.44%) VMware Workstation
12 3 (0.33%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.33%) NFS
12 3 (0.33%) PowerHA
12 3 (0.33%) SRDF
12 3 (0.33%) UAG
12 3 (0.33%) Veritas Cluster Server
13 2 (0.22%) Ceph
13 2 (0.22%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 100 (11.09%) Ansible
2 76 (8.43%) Terraform
3 50 (5.54%) FortiGate
4 39 (4.32%) Kubernetes
5 28 (3.10%) Grafana
6 23 (2.55%) Prometheus
7 16 (1.77%) Microsoft Intune
8 13 (1.44%) SCCM
9 12 (1.33%) Check_MK
10 11 (1.22%) Podman
10 11 (1.22%) Red Hat Satellite
11 10 (1.11%) NetBackup
11 10 (1.11%) vCenter Server
12 8 (0.89%) Dell DRAC
13 7 (0.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (0.78%) PowerCLI
14 5 (0.55%) Endace
14 5 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
14 5 (0.55%) Tivoli Storage Manager
14 5 (0.55%) vMotion
Vendors
1 247 (27.38%) Cisco
2 123 (13.64%) VMware
3 121 (13.41%) Palo Alto
4 84 (9.31%) Microsoft
5 82 (9.09%) F5
6 75 (8.31%) Juniper
7 69 (7.65%) Dell
8 50 (5.54%) Arista
9 47 (5.21%) Aruba
10 46 (5.10%) CheckPoint
11 44 (4.88%) Fortinet
12 36 (3.99%) ServiceNow
12 36 (3.99%) SolarWinds
13 31 (3.44%) IBM
14 28 (3.10%) Splunk
15 27 (2.99%) Red Hat
16 25 (2.77%) Meraki
16 25 (2.77%) Oracle
17 22 (2.44%) Atlassian
17 22 (2.44%) Google