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 16 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 140 131 94
Rank change year-on-year -9 -37 +13
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 641 539 855
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.01% 2.00% 2.37%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.76% 6.14% 7.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 429 327 606
10th Percentile £277 £350 £300
25th Percentile £400 £425 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.24% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £688 £709 £709
UK median daily rate £492 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -5.38% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 14 23
10th Percentile £21.46 £11.75 £18.96
25th Percentile £25.15 £21.17 £21.25
Median hourly rate £25.77 £24.18 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.58% +5.13% -64.62%
75th Percentile £51.13 £24.66 £40.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £50.78 £76.47
UK median hourly rate £25.77 £24.18 £23.00
% change year-on-year +6.58% +5.13% -64.06%

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 11,130 8,779 11,330
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.96% 32.57% 31.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,098 5,286 7,598
10th Percentile £282 £275 £263
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.82% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £675
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £531 £549
% change year-on-year -5.75% -3.37% -1.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 540 254 521
10th Percentile £14.95 £17.65 £15.17
25th Percentile £18.50 £24.18 £19.47
Median hourly rate £28.06 £37.25 £37.75
Median % change year-on-year -24.66% -1.32% +58.68%
75th Percentile £61.50 £66.89 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £83.20 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £34.50 £37.50
% change year-on-year -20.29% -8.00% +57.63%

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 16 January 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 16 January 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 16 January 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 -8 233 £528 +0.48% 134
North of England +1 146 £475 -4.76% 85
South East 0 98 £445 +1.14% 162
North West +22 89 £519 +3.85% 37
Midlands -8 79 £437 -24.66% 46
West Midlands -10 63 £474 -18.28% 18
Yorkshire -35 49 £438 +4.29% 33
South West -30 34 £550 - 48
East of England -12 28 £485 +14.79% 69
East Midlands -17 16 £158 -74.80% 26
North East -6 11 £175 - 16
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 29 (4.52%) SharePoint
2 21 (3.28%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (1.40%) Confluence
3 9 (1.40%) OpenStack
4 7 (1.09%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.78%) Apache
5 5 (0.78%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.62%) HCL Notes
7 3 (0.47%) GeoServer
7 3 (0.47%) Smallworld
7 3 (0.47%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.31%) CICS
8 2 (0.31%) nginx
8 2 (0.31%) ThingWorx
8 2 (0.31%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.16%) FileNet
9 1 (0.16%) IIS
9 1 (0.16%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 51 (7.96%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (4.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (4.06%) MS Visio
4 20 (3.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (2.18%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.16%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.94%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.62%) Oracle Financials
3 2 (0.31%) DELMIA
3 2 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.16%) Epicor iScala
4 1 (0.16%) Maximo
4 1 (0.16%) Primavera
4 1 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 113 (17.63%) Azure
2 90 (14.04%) AWS
3 61 (9.52%) Microsoft 365
4 34 (5.30%) GCP
5 24 (3.74%) Power Platform
6 13 (2.03%) OpenShift
6 13 (2.03%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 11 (1.72%) SaaS
8 10 (1.56%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 10 (1.56%) Entra ID
9 8 (1.25%) GitHub
9 8 (1.25%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 8 (1.25%) PaaS
10 7 (1.09%) AWS CloudFormation
10 7 (1.09%) AWS Direct Connect
10 7 (1.09%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (1.09%) npm
10 7 (1.09%) OCI
11 6 (0.94%) IaaS
12 5 (0.78%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 190 (29.64%) Firewall
2 127 (19.81%) WAN
3 81 (12.64%) Wireless
4 73 (11.39%) LAN
5 72 (11.23%) BGP
6 70 (10.92%) VPN
7 61 (9.52%) Network Security
8 50 (7.80%) OSPF
9 47 (7.33%) Wi-Fi
10 45 (7.02%) DNS
11 44 (6.86%) VLAN
12 37 (5.77%) SAN
13 32 (4.99%) VXLAN
14 30 (4.68%) Cisco ISE
15 29 (4.52%) SD-WAN
16 28 (4.37%) DHCP
16 28 (4.37%) IPsec
16 28 (4.37%) Structured Cabling
17 27 (4.21%) MPLS
17 27 (4.21%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (3.43%) Power BI
2 12 (1.87%) Relational Database
3 7 (1.09%) RDBMS
3 7 (1.09%) SQL Server
4 6 (0.94%) NoSQL
5 5 (0.78%) Apache Hive
5 5 (0.78%) Hadoop
5 5 (0.78%) HBase
6 4 (0.62%) Data Mining
6 4 (0.62%) GIS
6 4 (0.62%) Power Query
6 4 (0.62%) PowerPivot
7 3 (0.47%) Big Data
7 3 (0.47%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.47%) Data Vault
7 3 (0.47%) Geospatial Data
7 3 (0.47%) InfluxDB
7 3 (0.47%) Metadata
7 3 (0.47%) PostgreSQL
7 3 (0.47%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 27 (4.21%) Git
2 22 (3.43%) Jenkins
3 15 (2.34%) GitLab
4 11 (1.72%) Sonatype Nexus
5 10 (1.56%) JIRA
6 9 (1.40%) Maven
7 7 (1.09%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.47%) ER Studio
8 3 (0.47%) ERwin
9 2 (0.31%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.31%) Gradle
9 2 (0.31%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.31%) ScriptRunner
9 2 (0.31%) Selenium
General
1 174 (27.15%) Social Skills
2 122 (19.03%) Finance
3 85 (13.26%) Analytical Skills
4 81 (12.64%) Public Sector
5 61 (9.52%) Telecoms
6 52 (8.11%) Banking
7 47 (7.33%) Documentation Skills
8 38 (5.93%) Manufacturing
9 27 (4.21%) Marketing
10 25 (3.90%) Electronics
11 21 (3.28%) Presentation Skills
12 17 (2.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 13 (2.03%) Organisational Skills
13 13 (2.03%) Retail
14 7 (1.09%) Front Office
14 7 (1.09%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (1.09%) Investment Banking
14 7 (1.09%) Law
14 7 (1.09%) Local Government
15 6 (0.94%) Legal
Job Titles
1 123 (19.19%) Network Engineer
2 98 (15.29%) Architect
3 63 (9.83%) Project Manager
4 59 (9.20%) Analyst
5 42 (6.55%) Senior
6 38 (5.93%) Network Architect
7 30 (4.68%) Data Centre Manager
8 29 (4.52%) Cisco Engineer
8 29 (4.52%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 28 (4.37%) Lead
10 27 (4.21%) Cisco Network Engineer
10 27 (4.21%) IT Support
11 25 (3.90%) Desktop Support
11 25 (3.90%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 25 (3.90%) Security Engineer
12 24 (3.74%) Data Centre Engineer
13 23 (3.59%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
13 23 (3.59%) 2nd Line Support
13 23 (3.59%) Consultant
13 23 (3.59%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.59%) 802.1X
2 21 (3.28%) Middleware
3 8 (1.25%) LDAP
4 7 (1.09%) RFC 2544
5 5 (0.78%) Spark Streaming
6 4 (0.62%) ADO
6 4 (0.62%) Jinja
6 4 (0.62%) VML
7 3 (0.47%) ARM Templates
8 2 (0.31%) CSS
8 2 (0.31%) HTML
8 2 (0.31%) ModSecurity
8 2 (0.31%) NETCONF
8 2 (0.31%) OpenConfig
8 2 (0.31%) REST
8 2 (0.31%) RESTCONF
8 2 (0.31%) YANG
9 1 (0.16%) Elastic Stack
9 1 (0.16%) OpenLayers
9 1 (0.16%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 40 (6.24%) Hybrid Cloud
2 23 (3.59%) Public Cloud
3 18 (2.81%) Cloud Native
3 18 (2.81%) Self-Motivation
4 16 (2.50%) Onboarding
5 15 (2.34%) Replication
6 14 (2.18%) Mainframe
6 14 (2.18%) Management Information System
7 12 (1.87%) Analytical Mindset
7 12 (1.87%) Driving Licence
7 12 (1.87%) Fibre Optics
7 12 (1.87%) Private Cloud
8 11 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
9 10 (1.56%) PKI
10 8 (1.25%) Clustering
11 7 (1.09%) Product Ownership
11 7 (1.09%) SCADA
12 6 (0.94%) Distributed Systems
12 6 (0.94%) Legacy Systems
12 6 (0.94%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 81 (12.64%) Windows
2 61 (9.52%) Linux
3 39 (6.08%) Windows Server
4 36 (5.62%) Android
4 36 (5.62%) Mac OS
5 20 (3.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (1.56%) CentOS
6 10 (1.56%) Unix
7 6 (0.94%) Windows 10
7 6 (0.94%) Windows Server 2019
8 4 (0.62%) VMS
8 4 (0.62%) Windows Server 2008
8 4 (0.62%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (0.31%) Solaris
9 2 (0.31%) zOS
10 1 (0.16%) MVS
10 1 (0.16%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (15.29%) Migration
2 93 (14.51%) Problem-Solving
3 83 (12.95%) Stakeholder Management
4 60 (9.36%) ITIL
5 55 (8.58%) Agile
6 49 (7.64%) Project Delivery
6 49 (7.64%) Project Management
7 46 (7.18%) DevOps
8 43 (6.71%) Business Intelligence
8 43 (6.71%) CI/CD
8 43 (6.71%) Network Design
9 41 (6.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 40 (6.24%) Customer Service
11 39 (6.08%) Change Management
12 38 (5.93%) Service Management
13 37 (5.77%) Continuous Improvement
13 37 (5.77%) Infrastructure as Code
13 37 (5.77%) Programme Management
14 36 (5.62%) Load Balancing
15 35 (5.46%) Change Control
Programming Languages
1 66 (10.30%) Python
2 42 (6.55%) PowerShell
3 31 (4.84%) SQL
4 19 (2.96%) Bash
5 16 (2.50%) Java
6 11 (1.72%) Shell Script
7 10 (1.56%) Perl
8 8 (1.25%) Lisp
9 6 (0.94%) MATLAB
10 5 (0.78%) VBA
11 3 (0.47%) Bicep
11 3 (0.47%) JavaScript
12 1 (0.16%) C#
12 1 (0.16%) C++
12 1 (0.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.16%) Go
12 1 (0.16%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 234 (36.51%) Security Cleared
2 196 (30.58%) SC Cleared
3 98 (15.29%) Cisco Certification
4 78 (12.17%) CCNP
5 57 (8.89%) Degree
6 41 (6.40%) DV Cleared
7 39 (6.08%) CCNA
8 24 (3.74%) CCIE
9 21 (3.28%) AWS Certification
10 15 (2.34%) PMP
11 14 (2.18%) PMI Certification
12 12 (1.87%) CISSP
12 12 (1.87%) JNCIE
13 8 (1.25%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 7 (1.09%) Azure Certification
14 7 (1.09%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 6 (0.94%) A+ Certification
15 6 (0.94%) CCSP
15 6 (0.94%) JNCIS
15 6 (0.94%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (3.12%) SLA
2 18 (2.81%) PMO
3 16 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 15 (2.34%) NIST
5 14 (2.18%) PCI DSS
5 14 (2.18%) QA
6 13 (2.03%) Data Quality
7 11 (1.72%) GDPR
8 6 (0.94%) NCSC
9 1 (0.16%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.16%) GRC
9 1 (0.16%) ISO 22301
9 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 1 (0.16%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.16%) SOC 2
System Software
1 65 (10.14%) VMware Infrastructure
2 47 (7.33%) Active Directory
3 35 (5.46%) VMware NSX
4 20 (3.12%) Docker
5 18 (2.81%) Virtual Machines
6 16 (2.50%) Hyper-V
7 10 (1.56%) vSphere
8 9 (1.40%) Firmware
9 8 (1.25%) KVM
10 7 (1.09%) VMware ESXi
11 5 (0.78%) HDFS
12 3 (0.47%) Lustre
13 2 (0.31%) Ceph
13 2 (0.31%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.31%) NFS
13 2 (0.31%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 2 (0.31%) SRDF
13 2 (0.31%) vCloud
13 2 (0.31%) Xen
14 1 (0.16%) Veritas Cluster Server
Systems Management
1 72 (11.23%) Ansible
2 62 (9.67%) Terraform
3 31 (4.84%) FortiGate
4 25 (3.90%) SCCM
5 19 (2.96%) Kubernetes
6 11 (1.72%) Grafana
7 9 (1.40%) Microsoft Intune
7 9 (1.40%) vCenter Server
8 8 (1.25%) SCOM
9 7 (1.09%) Puppet
10 6 (0.94%) CASB
10 6 (0.94%) Check_MK
10 6 (0.94%) Podman
10 6 (0.94%) Red Hat Satellite
10 6 (0.94%) SCOrch
11 5 (0.78%) Hadoop YARN
12 4 (0.62%) Nagios
12 4 (0.62%) Prometheus
12 4 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
13 3 (0.47%) OPNET
Vendors
1 229 (35.73%) Cisco
2 88 (13.73%) Palo Alto
3 86 (13.42%) VMware
4 78 (12.17%) Microsoft
5 61 (9.52%) Dell
6 54 (8.42%) Juniper
7 50 (7.80%) F5
8 46 (7.18%) HP
9 41 (6.40%) CheckPoint
10 36 (5.62%) Apple
11 31 (4.84%) Aruba
11 31 (4.84%) Fortinet
11 31 (4.84%) ServiceNow
12 30 (4.68%) Meraki
13 29 (4.52%) SAP
14 24 (3.74%) Oracle
15 17 (2.65%) Arista
16 16 (2.50%) Citrix
17 14 (2.18%) Remedy
17 14 (2.18%) SolarWinds