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 31 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 123 124 114
Rank change year-on-year +1 -10 -15
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,004 626 689
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.19% 2.26% 2.09%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.53% 6.29% 6.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 638 414 472
10th Percentile £329 £305 £363
25th Percentile £414 £408 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £655 £613 £619
90th Percentile £775 £719 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -0.34%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 29 28
10th Percentile £16.01 £25.13 £11.75
25th Percentile £18.53 - £12.08
Median hourly rate £23.00 £25.15 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -8.55% +5.67% +2.37%
75th Percentile £38.75 £38.75 £25.83
90th Percentile £88.65 £48.45 £28.58
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £25.15 £19.38
% change year-on-year -16.50% +29.81% -3.13%

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 15,379 9,945 10,155
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.61% 35.84% 30.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,371 6,299 6,425
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £650 £688
90th Percentile £750 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £519 £550
% change year-on-year +1.20% -5.68% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 969 493 487
10th Percentile £14.59 £15.48 £13.50
25th Percentile £19.03 £18.87 £20.88
Median hourly rate £38.25 £32.71 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +16.94% -37.70% +16.67%
75th Percentile £68.75 £60.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £77.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £29.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year +31.25% -34.44% +7.54%

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 31 August 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 31 August 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 31 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
London +18 419 £550 - 449
North of England -10 214 £492 +9.33% 80
South East -5 181 £545 +10.66% 109
Yorkshire -2 129 £465 +12.05% 31
North West -19 70 £503 -5.98% 26
South West -22 67 £588 +6.82% 58
Midlands -71 48 £453 -9.40% 36
West Midlands -63 39 £475 -5.10% 29
East of England -7 37 £479 -20.21% 51
North East -17 21 £625 +468.18% 23
East Midlands -20 8 £400 -25.93% 7
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 26 (2.59%) Confluence
2 17 (1.69%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.70%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.50%) Apache
5 5 (0.50%) CloudStack
6 2 (0.20%) CICS
7 1 (0.100%) IIS
7 1 (0.100%) nginx
7 1 (0.100%) SAS
7 1 (0.100%) Tomcat
Applications
1 19 (1.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (1.69%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.80%) Microsoft Project
3 8 (0.80%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.50%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.20%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 13 (1.29%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.20%) OpenText MBPM
2 2 (0.20%) Oracle BPM
3 1 (0.100%) Cloudability
3 1 (0.100%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.100%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 220 (21.91%) Azure
2 180 (17.93%) AWS
3 46 (4.58%) GCP
4 42 (4.18%) GitHub
5 36 (3.59%) SaaS
6 33 (3.29%) IaaS
7 30 (2.99%) Microsoft 365
8 29 (2.89%) OCI
9 25 (2.49%) Entra ID
10 17 (1.69%) Power Platform
11 14 (1.39%) OneDrive
11 14 (1.39%) PaaS
12 13 (1.29%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 12 (1.20%) Azure DevOps
14 11 (1.10%) OpenShift
14 11 (1.10%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 7 (0.70%) GitHub Actions
16 6 (0.60%) AWS Direct Connect
16 6 (0.60%) Azure Sentinel
17 5 (0.50%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 246 (24.50%) Firewall
2 164 (16.33%) BGP
2 164 (16.33%) WAN
3 119 (11.85%) DNS
4 105 (10.46%) VXLAN
5 104 (10.36%) OSPF
6 99 (9.86%) VLAN
7 96 (9.56%) VPN
8 94 (9.36%) SAN
9 89 (8.86%) Network Security
10 88 (8.76%) DHCP
11 86 (8.57%) LAN
12 75 (7.47%) TCP/IP
13 73 (7.27%) SD-WAN
14 68 (6.77%) Ethernet VPN
15 64 (6.37%) Structured Cabling
16 52 (5.18%) Wireless
17 50 (4.98%) Wi-Fi
18 47 (4.68%) NX-OS
19 46 (4.58%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (2.39%) SQL Server
2 14 (1.39%) Power BI
3 11 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 10 (1.00%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 10 (1.00%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 7 (0.70%) Oracle Database
6 6 (0.60%) Big Data
7 5 (0.50%) Db2
7 5 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
8 4 (0.40%) Amazon RDS
8 4 (0.40%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (0.40%) Oracle Database 12c
8 4 (0.40%) Oracle Reports
8 4 (0.40%) PostgreSQL
9 2 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
10 1 (0.100%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.100%) MS Access
10 1 (0.100%) Oracle Exadata
10 1 (0.100%) SAP Data Services
10 1 (0.100%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 66 (6.57%) JIRA
2 36 (3.59%) GitLab
3 24 (2.39%) Git
4 21 (2.09%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.30%) ScriptRunner
6 3 (0.30%) Zephyr
7 2 (0.20%) MSI
7 2 (0.20%) Toad
8 1 (0.100%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.100%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.100%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.100%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.100%) Maven
8 1 (0.100%) Subversion
General
1 244 (24.30%) Social Skills
2 150 (14.94%) Finance
3 100 (9.96%) Analytical Skills
4 52 (5.18%) Public Sector
5 49 (4.88%) Banking
6 43 (4.28%) Telecoms
7 39 (3.88%) Documentation Skills
8 31 (3.09%) Retail
9 21 (2.09%) Legal
10 17 (1.69%) Influencing Skills
10 17 (1.69%) Manufacturing
11 14 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 9 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (0.90%) Police
13 7 (0.70%) Financial Institution
13 7 (0.70%) Law
14 6 (0.60%) Marketing
15 5 (0.50%) Investment Banking
16 4 (0.40%) Cyber-Physical System
17 3 (0.30%) Military
Job Titles
1 160 (15.94%) Network Engineer
2 152 (15.14%) Architect
3 132 (13.15%) Senior
4 110 (10.96%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 74 (7.37%) Data Centre Engineer
6 72 (7.17%) Project Manager
7 62 (6.18%) Lead
8 56 (5.58%) Network Architect
9 38 (3.78%) Consultant
10 36 (3.59%) Data Centre Manager
10 36 (3.59%) IT Engineer
10 36 (3.59%) Senior Network Engineer
11 34 (3.39%) Infrastructure Manager
12 30 (2.99%) Field Engineer
12 30 (2.99%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 28 (2.79%) Solutions Architect
14 27 (2.69%) Field Service Engineer
15 25 (2.49%) Data Manager
16 24 (2.39%) Technical Manager
17 22 (2.19%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (9.76%) Terraform
2 24 (2.39%) Middleware
3 22 (2.19%) REST
4 15 (1.49%) 802.1X
5 13 (1.29%) YAML
6 11 (1.10%) JSON
7 8 (0.80%) Elastic Stack
7 8 (0.80%) LDAP
7 8 (0.80%) NETCONF
7 8 (0.80%) Redfish
8 6 (0.60%) OpenConfig
8 6 (0.60%) RESTCONF
8 6 (0.60%) SAML
8 6 (0.60%) YANG
9 5 (0.50%) .NET
10 4 (0.40%) GeoJSON
10 4 (0.40%) Kafka
10 4 (0.40%) RESTful
11 3 (0.30%) .NET Framework
11 3 (0.30%) Jinja
Miscellaneous
1 71 (7.07%) Hybrid Cloud
2 36 (3.59%) PKI
3 34 (3.39%) Analytical Mindset
4 33 (3.29%) Cloud Native
4 33 (3.29%) Private Cloud
5 29 (2.89%) Clustering
6 27 (2.69%) Enterprise Storage
6 27 (2.69%) Fibre Optics
7 24 (2.39%) Public Cloud
7 24 (2.39%) Replication
8 23 (2.29%) Onboarding
9 20 (1.99%) Data Protection Act
10 16 (1.59%) Operational Technology
11 15 (1.49%) CMDB
11 15 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
12 14 (1.39%) Driving Licence
13 12 (1.20%) Management Information System
14 11 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
15 10 (1.00%) Virtual Team
16 9 (0.90%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 149 (14.84%) Windows
2 97 (9.66%) Linux
3 47 (4.68%) Windows Server
4 28 (2.79%) Unix
5 18 (1.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (1.49%) AIX
7 11 (1.10%) Mac OS
8 10 (1.00%) Apple iOS
9 8 (0.80%) Solaris
9 8 (0.80%) VMS
10 6 (0.60%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.50%) HPUX
11 5 (0.50%) Oracle Linux
11 5 (0.50%) SUSE
11 5 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
12 4 (0.40%) CentOS
12 4 (0.40%) Data ONTAP
12 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
12 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.30%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 220 (21.91%) Migration
2 158 (15.74%) Problem-Solving
3 136 (13.55%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 133 (13.25%) Stakeholder Management
5 102 (10.16%) Infrastructure as Code
6 95 (9.46%) ITIL
7 92 (9.16%) Agile
8 88 (8.76%) High Availability
9 85 (8.47%) CI/CD
10 78 (7.77%) Validation
11 77 (7.67%) Roadmaps
12 76 (7.57%) Project Delivery
13 73 (7.27%) Change Management
13 73 (7.27%) Continuous Improvement
14 68 (6.77%) Disaster Recovery
14 68 (6.77%) Zero Trust
15 64 (6.37%) Technical Leadership
16 61 (6.08%) Mentoring
17 60 (5.98%) Load Balancing
17 60 (5.98%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 147 (14.64%) Python
2 56 (5.58%) PowerShell
3 34 (3.39%) SQL
4 30 (2.99%) Bash
5 10 (1.00%) Bicep
6 9 (0.90%) ActionScript
7 8 (0.80%) Shell Script
8 7 (0.70%) PL/SQL
9 5 (0.50%) C#
9 5 (0.50%) Java
9 5 (0.50%) Perl
10 4 (0.40%) Go
10 4 (0.40%) MATLAB
11 3 (0.30%) COBOL
11 3 (0.30%) JavaScript
11 3 (0.30%) Lisp
12 2 (0.20%) C++
12 2 (0.20%) JCL
12 2 (0.20%) REXX
12 2 (0.20%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 266 (26.49%) Security Cleared
2 171 (17.03%) SC Cleared
3 148 (14.74%) Cisco Certification
4 92 (9.16%) CCNP
4 92 (9.16%) DV Cleared
5 57 (5.68%) Degree
6 54 (5.38%) CCNA
7 36 (3.59%) Network+ Certification
8 30 (2.99%) Microsoft Certification
9 28 (2.79%) AWS Certification
10 26 (2.59%) CCIE
11 25 (2.49%) A+ Certification
11 25 (2.49%) MCSE
12 23 (2.29%) Azure Certification
12 23 (2.29%) PMP
13 22 (2.19%) City & Guilds
13 22 (2.19%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 20 (1.99%) PMI Certification
15 18 (1.79%) CISSP
16 17 (1.69%) BICSI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (2.79%) QA
2 25 (2.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 25 (2.49%) SLA
3 18 (1.79%) NIST
4 13 (1.29%) PMO
5 12 (1.20%) GDPR
6 9 (0.90%) JSP 440
6 9 (0.90%) NCSC
7 6 (0.60%) GRC
8 4 (0.40%) RMADS
9 3 (0.30%) Data Quality
9 3 (0.30%) NIST 800
10 2 (0.20%) Accessibility
10 2 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.20%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.20%) WCAG
11 1 (0.100%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.100%) NEBOSH
System Software
1 125 (12.45%) VMware Infrastructure
2 71 (7.07%) Active Directory
3 43 (4.28%) vSphere
4 41 (4.08%) VMware NSX
5 37 (3.69%) VMware ESXi
6 29 (2.89%) Docker
7 27 (2.69%) Hyper-V
8 26 (2.59%) Firmware
9 14 (1.39%) Virtual Machines
10 12 (1.20%) NFS
11 6 (0.60%) Microsoft App-V
11 6 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
12 5 (0.50%) PowerHA
13 4 (0.40%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.40%) Oracle RAC
13 4 (0.40%) SRDF
13 4 (0.40%) Terminal Services
13 4 (0.40%) Veritas Cluster Server
14 3 (0.30%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 3 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 138 (13.75%) Ansible
2 56 (5.58%) Kubernetes
3 33 (3.29%) FortiGate
4 26 (2.59%) Prometheus
5 23 (2.29%) Grafana
6 20 (1.99%) Microsoft Intune
7 18 (1.79%) vCenter Server
8 15 (1.49%) VxRail
9 13 (1.29%) SCCM
10 12 (1.20%) Microsoft Clustering
10 12 (1.20%) vMotion
11 10 (1.00%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (1.00%) NetBackup
12 9 (0.90%) Dell DRAC
12 9 (0.90%) PowerCLI
12 9 (0.90%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 8 (0.80%) Nagios
13 8 (0.80%) SCOM
14 7 (0.70%) Check_MK
15 5 (0.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 251 (25.00%) Cisco
2 170 (16.93%) VMware
3 111 (11.06%) Microsoft
4 110 (10.96%) Palo Alto
5 93 (9.26%) F5
6 68 (6.77%) Arista
7 67 (6.67%) Juniper
8 66 (6.57%) Fortinet
9 55 (5.48%) Dell
10 52 (5.18%) ServiceNow
11 38 (3.78%) Aruba
12 34 (3.39%) CheckPoint
13 29 (2.89%) Red Hat
14 23 (2.29%) IBM
14 23 (2.29%) SolarWinds
15 22 (2.19%) Google
15 22 (2.19%) Oracle
15 22 (2.19%) Veeam
16 20 (1.99%) Zscaler
17 19 (1.89%) NetApp