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 3 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Nov 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 137 113 101
Rank change year-on-year -24 -12 +12
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 629 647 963
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.16% 2.09% 2.41%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.94% 6.70% 7.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 408 401 668
10th Percentile £224 £363 £333
25th Percentile £380 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £506 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.62% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £650
90th Percentile £711 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 21 16
10th Percentile - £11.75 £19.54
25th Percentile - £12.08 £22.07
Median hourly rate £25.15 £18.75 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +34.13% -18.48% -63.35%
75th Percentile £35.00 £25.00 £48.13
90th Percentile £69.17 £28.75 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £22.50 £23.00
% change year-on-year +11.78% -2.17% -62.60%

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 10,595 9,650 12,941
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 36.35% 31.21% 32.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,608 5,783 8,847
10th Percentile £290 £296 £285
25th Percentile £409 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% -1.82% -2.22%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £782
UK median daily rate £513 £526 £550
% change year-on-year -2.57% -4.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 581 292 462
10th Percentile £14.25 £16.73 £17.13
25th Percentile £18.25 £23.80 £21.27
Median hourly rate £28.13 £47.50 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -40.79% +6.74% +64.94%
75th Percentile £52.50 £70.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.16 £77.95
UK median hourly rate £27.21 £40.00 £43.92
% change year-on-year -31.98% -8.93% +62.79%

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 3 November 2025.

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 3 November 2025.

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 3 November 2025. 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 -11 245 £525 - 289
North of England -3 145 £490 -1.75% 54
Midlands -2 94 £437 -24.85% 25
North West +1 75 £550 +10.00% 40
West Midlands -13 71 £470 -21.67% 19
South East -29 71 £419 -19.47% 236
Yorkshire -7 65 £466 -4.02% 10
South West -19 37 £550 - 36
East of England -11 27 £600 +60.00% 39
East Midlands -5 23 £358 -16.79% 6
North East -10 8 £175 -58.82% 4
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 27 (4.29%) SharePoint
2 22 (3.50%) Confluence
3 18 (2.86%) Microsoft Exchange
4 11 (1.75%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.79%) Apache
5 5 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.79%) Apache Spark
5 5 (0.79%) HCL Notes
6 3 (0.48%) CICS
6 3 (0.48%) GeoServer
6 3 (0.48%) nginx
6 3 (0.48%) Smallworld
6 3 (0.48%) ThingWorx
6 3 (0.48%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.32%) FileNet
7 2 (0.32%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.16%) IIS
8 1 (0.16%) OpenEdge
8 1 (0.16%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 53 (8.43%) Microsoft Office
2 29 (4.61%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (3.82%) MS Visio
4 15 (2.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (2.07%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.16%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.95%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (0.64%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.48%) Oracle Financials
4 2 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.16%) Epicor iScala
5 1 (0.16%) StreamServe
Cloud Services
1 114 (18.12%) Azure
2 91 (14.47%) AWS
3 64 (10.17%) Microsoft 365
4 35 (5.56%) GCP
5 20 (3.18%) Power Platform
6 18 (2.86%) Entra ID
7 13 (2.07%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 13 (2.07%) OpenShift
8 9 (1.43%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 9 (1.43%) PaaS
8 9 (1.43%) SaaS
9 8 (1.27%) IaaS
10 7 (1.11%) AWS Direct Connect
10 7 (1.11%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 6 (0.95%) Akamai
11 6 (0.95%) Cloud Computing
11 6 (0.95%) OneDrive
12 5 (0.79%) GitHub
12 5 (0.79%) Nutanix
12 5 (0.79%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 169 (26.87%) Firewall
2 111 (17.65%) WAN
3 91 (14.47%) Wireless
4 62 (9.86%) BGP
5 59 (9.38%) DNS
6 54 (8.59%) LAN
6 54 (8.59%) VPN
7 44 (7.00%) SD-WAN
8 41 (6.52%) SAN
9 39 (6.20%) OSPF
10 37 (5.88%) Cisco Nexus
11 35 (5.56%) Network Security
12 34 (5.41%) DHCP
13 33 (5.25%) Cisco ISE
13 33 (5.25%) Wi-Fi
14 32 (5.09%) VLAN
14 32 (5.09%) VXLAN
15 29 (4.61%) MPLS
16 27 (4.29%) TCP/IP
17 21 (3.34%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.70%) Power BI
2 13 (2.07%) Relational Database
3 9 (1.43%) SQL Server
4 7 (1.11%) RDBMS
5 6 (0.95%) NoSQL
6 5 (0.79%) Apache Hive
6 5 (0.79%) Hadoop
6 5 (0.79%) HBase
6 5 (0.79%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (0.64%) Data Mining
7 4 (0.64%) GIS
7 4 (0.64%) Oracle Database
8 3 (0.48%) Big Data
8 3 (0.48%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.48%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (0.48%) DataStage
8 3 (0.48%) Geospatial Data
8 3 (0.48%) Metadata
8 3 (0.48%) QGIS
8 3 (0.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 24 (3.82%) JIRA
2 15 (2.38%) Git
3 12 (1.91%) GitLab
3 12 (1.91%) Jenkins
3 12 (1.91%) Sonatype Nexus
4 9 (1.43%) SonarQube
5 8 (1.27%) Maven
6 4 (0.64%) Gradle
6 4 (0.64%) Selenium
6 4 (0.64%) TeamCity
7 3 (0.48%) ER Studio
7 3 (0.48%) ERwin
8 2 (0.32%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.32%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.16%) Fiddler
9 1 (0.16%) Postman
General
1 152 (24.17%) Social Skills
2 131 (20.83%) Finance
3 73 (11.61%) Public Sector
4 66 (10.49%) Telecoms
5 62 (9.86%) Banking
6 61 (9.70%) Analytical Skills
7 32 (5.09%) Manufacturing
8 29 (4.61%) Documentation Skills
9 25 (3.97%) Electronics
9 25 (3.97%) Marketing
10 19 (3.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 17 (2.70%) Presentation Skills
12 14 (2.23%) Organisational Skills
13 12 (1.91%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (1.11%) Front Office
14 7 (1.11%) Local Government
15 6 (0.95%) Investment Banking
15 6 (0.95%) Legal
16 5 (0.79%) Billing
16 5 (0.79%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 106 (16.85%) Network Engineer
2 98 (15.58%) Architect
3 73 (11.61%) Analyst
4 46 (7.31%) Project Manager
5 37 (5.88%) Senior
6 32 (5.09%) Network Architect
7 28 (4.45%) Data Centre Manager
7 28 (4.45%) IT Support
8 27 (4.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 27 (4.29%) Infrastructure Manager
8 27 (4.29%) Security Engineer
9 26 (4.13%) Support Engineer
10 24 (3.82%) Consultant
11 23 (3.66%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
11 23 (3.66%) 2nd Line Support
11 23 (3.66%) Desktop Support
11 23 (3.66%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
12 22 (3.50%) Data Centre Engineer
13 21 (3.34%) Infrastructure Project Manager
13 21 (3.34%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (2.86%) 802.1X
2 17 (2.70%) Middleware
2 17 (2.70%) RFC 2544
3 5 (0.79%) Spark Streaming
4 4 (0.64%) Jinja
5 2 (0.32%) LDAP
5 2 (0.32%) ModSecurity
5 2 (0.32%) REST
6 1 (0.16%) .NET
6 1 (0.16%) ASP.NET
6 1 (0.16%) EJB
6 1 (0.16%) Elastic Stack
6 1 (0.16%) gRPC
6 1 (0.16%) Java SE
6 1 (0.16%) OpenLayers
6 1 (0.16%) RabbitMQ
6 1 (0.16%) RESTful
6 1 (0.16%) SAML
6 1 (0.16%) Spring
6 1 (0.16%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 29 (4.61%) Hybrid Cloud
2 23 (3.66%) Cloud Native
3 19 (3.02%) Public Cloud
4 18 (2.86%) Fibre Optics
4 18 (2.86%) Replication
5 17 (2.70%) Driving Licence
5 17 (2.70%) Onboarding
6 13 (2.07%) Mainframe
6 13 (2.07%) Private Cloud
7 11 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
7 11 (1.75%) Management Information System
7 11 (1.75%) PKI
8 9 (1.43%) Enterprise Storage
8 9 (1.43%) Product Ownership
8 9 (1.43%) SCADA
8 9 (1.43%) Self-Motivation
9 8 (1.27%) Clustering
10 7 (1.11%) Linux Command Line
11 6 (0.95%) Renewable Energy
11 6 (0.95%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 87 (13.83%) Windows
2 64 (10.17%) Linux
3 42 (6.68%) Android
4 40 (6.36%) Mac OS
5 28 (4.45%) Windows Server
6 20 (3.18%) Unix
7 18 (2.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (2.07%) CentOS
9 10 (1.59%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.64%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.64%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.64%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.64%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.48%) Solaris
12 2 (0.32%) AIX
12 2 (0.32%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.32%) zOS
13 1 (0.16%) MVS
13 1 (0.16%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 113 (17.97%) Migration
2 69 (10.97%) Problem-Solving
3 64 (10.17%) Stakeholder Management
4 62 (9.86%) Agile
5 46 (7.31%) Service Management
6 45 (7.15%) ITIL
7 43 (6.84%) Change Management
7 43 (6.84%) Customer Service
8 41 (6.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 39 (6.20%) DevOps
9 39 (6.20%) High Availability
9 39 (6.20%) Roadmaps
10 38 (6.04%) Business Intelligence
10 38 (6.04%) CI/CD
11 37 (5.88%) Infrastructure as Code
11 37 (5.88%) Network Design
12 36 (5.72%) Disaster Recovery
13 32 (5.09%) Cybersecurity
13 32 (5.09%) Load Balancing
13 32 (5.09%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 67 (10.65%) Python
2 35 (5.56%) PowerShell
3 30 (4.77%) SQL
4 17 (2.70%) Bash
5 16 (2.54%) Java
6 10 (1.59%) Perl
6 10 (1.59%) Shell Script
7 7 (1.11%) Lisp
8 4 (0.64%) C
8 4 (0.64%) Go
9 3 (0.48%) Bicep
9 3 (0.48%) C#
10 2 (0.32%) AWK
10 2 (0.32%) JavaScript
10 2 (0.32%) sed
11 1 (0.16%) C++
11 1 (0.16%) COBOL
11 1 (0.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 1 (0.16%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.16%) VBA
Qualifications
1 197 (31.32%) Security Cleared
2 169 (26.87%) SC Cleared
3 76 (12.08%) Cisco Certification
4 48 (7.63%) Degree
5 47 (7.47%) CCNP
6 35 (5.56%) DV Cleared
7 25 (3.97%) CCIE
8 21 (3.34%) CCNA
9 16 (2.54%) AWS Certification
10 13 (2.07%) CISSP
11 11 (1.75%) JNCIE
12 8 (1.27%) Computer Science Degree
12 8 (1.27%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 7 (1.11%) PMI Certification
13 7 (1.11%) PMP
14 6 (0.95%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 6 (0.95%) BPSS Clearance
14 6 (0.95%) CCSP
14 6 (0.95%) VCAP
15 5 (0.79%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (3.18%) PCI DSS
2 19 (3.02%) NIST
2 19 (3.02%) SLA
3 16 (2.54%) PMO
4 15 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 11 (1.75%) Data Quality
6 10 (1.59%) GDPR
7 8 (1.27%) QA
8 4 (0.64%) NCSC
9 2 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.16%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.16%) GRC
10 1 (0.16%) ISO 22301
10 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 1 (0.16%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.16%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.16%) RMADS
10 1 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.16%) SOC 2
System Software
1 60 (9.54%) VMware Infrastructure
2 51 (8.11%) Active Directory
3 24 (3.82%) VMware NSX
4 22 (3.50%) Docker
5 18 (2.86%) Hyper-V
6 15 (2.38%) vSphere
7 10 (1.59%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (1.11%) Firmware
8 7 (1.11%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.79%) HDFS
10 4 (0.64%) KVM
10 4 (0.64%) NFS
11 3 (0.48%) GPFS
12 2 (0.32%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.16%) Lustre
13 1 (0.16%) Samba
13 1 (0.16%) SRDF
13 1 (0.16%) Veritas Cluster Server
13 1 (0.16%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.16%) Xen
Systems Management
1 63 (10.02%) Ansible
2 47 (7.47%) Terraform
3 26 (4.13%) FortiGate
4 21 (3.34%) SCCM
5 20 (3.18%) Kubernetes
6 13 (2.07%) Microsoft Intune
7 9 (1.43%) vCenter Server
8 7 (1.11%) Grafana
9 6 (0.95%) Puppet
10 5 (0.79%) CASB
10 5 (0.79%) Hadoop YARN
10 5 (0.79%) SCOM
10 5 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
11 4 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (0.64%) Argo
11 4 (0.64%) OpenView
11 4 (0.64%) SCOrch
12 3 (0.48%) HAProxy
12 3 (0.48%) Jamf Pro
12 3 (0.48%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 210 (33.39%) Cisco
2 94 (14.94%) Microsoft
3 78 (12.40%) VMware
4 59 (9.38%) F5
5 56 (8.90%) Dell
6 49 (7.79%) HP
7 47 (7.47%) Palo Alto
8 46 (7.31%) Juniper
9 39 (6.20%) Apple
10 34 (5.41%) ServiceNow
11 32 (5.09%) Fortinet
12 30 (4.77%) SAP
13 29 (4.61%) SolarWinds
14 24 (3.82%) Meraki
15 23 (3.66%) Arista
16 22 (3.50%) Oracle
17 16 (2.54%) CheckPoint
18 15 (2.38%) Citrix
19 14 (2.23%) Remedy
20 13 (2.07%) NetApp
559 Data Centre jobs in England