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 2 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Dec 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 137 121 94
Rank change year-on-year -16 -27 +17
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 645 648 926
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.10% 2.14% 2.40%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.80% 6.69% 7.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 414 385 650
10th Percentile £230 £358 £325
25th Percentile £382 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £509 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -3.00% -2.78% -
75th Percentile £600 £611 £650
90th Percentile £704 £720 £743
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 26 20
10th Percentile £23.61 £11.75 £20.31
25th Percentile - £12.08 £21.81
Median hourly rate £25.15 £22.70 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.82% -1.33% -63.49%
75th Percentile £31.00 £26.50 £45.94
90th Percentile £67.25 £30.19 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £24.17 £23.00
% change year-on-year +4.08% +5.07% -63.35%

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 11,125 9,684 12,348
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 36.27% 31.91% 32.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,996 5,799 8,394
10th Percentile £285 £295 £270
25th Percentile £406 £413 £424
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.55% - -3.51%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £775
UK median daily rate £501 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -6.77% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 569 310 459
10th Percentile £13.50 £15.72 £17.00
25th Percentile £18.25 £23.65 £21.25
Median hourly rate £27.50 £40.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -31.25% -10.11% +27.14%
75th Percentile £58.00 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.48 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £27.00 £35.00 £43.33
% change year-on-year -22.86% -19.22% +23.80%

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 2 December 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 2 December 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 2 December 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 +7 263 £525 -1.18% 117
North of England -17 142 £490 -2.10% 40
Midlands +8 93 £431 -25.69% 22
North West +7 81 £548 +9.50% 26
South East -32 73 £447 -10.60% 115
West Midlands -2 70 £465 -19.83% 17
Yorkshire -23 56 £405 -3.57% 10
South West -33 34 £550 +0.36% 24
East of England -20 26 £600 +45.90% 18
East Midlands -2 23 £358 -32.48% 4
North East -4 8 £175 - 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 30 (4.65%) SharePoint
2 22 (3.41%) Microsoft Exchange
3 19 (2.95%) Confluence
4 9 (1.40%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.78%) Apache
5 5 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.78%) Apache Spark
6 4 (0.62%) HCL Notes
7 3 (0.47%) CICS
7 3 (0.47%) GeoServer
7 3 (0.47%) Smallworld
7 3 (0.47%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.31%) FileNet
8 2 (0.31%) ThingWorx
8 2 (0.31%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.16%) IIS
9 1 (0.16%) nginx
9 1 (0.16%) OpenEdge
9 1 (0.16%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 58 (8.99%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (4.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (3.88%) MS Visio
4 18 (2.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (2.17%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.16%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.93%) Payment Gateway
1 6 (0.93%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.62%) Oracle Financials
3 2 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.16%) Epicor iScala
4 1 (0.16%) Primavera
4 1 (0.16%) StreamServe
Cloud Services
1 115 (17.83%) Azure
2 86 (13.33%) AWS
3 70 (10.85%) Microsoft 365
4 34 (5.27%) GCP
5 23 (3.57%) Power Platform
6 20 (3.10%) Entra ID
7 15 (2.33%) OpenShift
8 13 (2.02%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 10 (1.55%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 10 (1.55%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 9 (1.40%) SaaS
11 8 (1.24%) PaaS
12 7 (1.09%) IaaS
12 7 (1.09%) npm
12 7 (1.09%) OCI
13 6 (0.93%) Akamai
13 6 (0.93%) AWS Direct Connect
14 5 (0.78%) AWS CloudFormation
14 5 (0.78%) Nutanix
14 5 (0.78%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 180 (27.91%) Firewall
2 109 (16.90%) WAN
3 98 (15.19%) Wireless
4 61 (9.46%) BGP
5 60 (9.30%) VPN
6 58 (8.99%) DNS
7 52 (8.06%) LAN
8 42 (6.51%) Wi-Fi
9 39 (6.05%) OSPF
10 38 (5.89%) Network Security
11 37 (5.74%) Cisco ISE
11 37 (5.74%) SAN
12 36 (5.58%) DHCP
13 34 (5.27%) SD-WAN
14 32 (4.96%) Cisco Nexus
15 30 (4.65%) VLAN
16 29 (4.50%) VXLAN
17 28 (4.34%) MPLS
18 27 (4.19%) TCP/IP
19 22 (3.41%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (3.10%) Power BI
2 14 (2.17%) Relational Database
3 9 (1.40%) SQL Server
4 8 (1.24%) RDBMS
5 6 (0.93%) NoSQL
6 5 (0.78%) Apache Hive
6 5 (0.78%) Hadoop
6 5 (0.78%) HBase
6 5 (0.78%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (0.62%) Data Mining
7 4 (0.62%) GIS
7 4 (0.62%) InfluxDB
7 4 (0.62%) Oracle Database
8 3 (0.47%) Big Data
8 3 (0.47%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.47%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (0.47%) DataStage
8 3 (0.47%) Geospatial Data
8 3 (0.47%) QGIS
8 3 (0.47%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 17 (2.64%) Git
2 16 (2.48%) JIRA
3 13 (2.02%) Jenkins
3 13 (2.02%) Sonatype Nexus
4 11 (1.71%) Maven
5 9 (1.40%) SonarQube
6 8 (1.24%) GitLab
7 4 (0.62%) Gradle
7 4 (0.62%) Selenium
8 3 (0.47%) ER Studio
8 3 (0.47%) ERwin
9 2 (0.31%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.16%) Fiddler
10 1 (0.16%) Postman
10 1 (0.16%) TeamCity
General
1 164 (25.43%) Social Skills
2 131 (20.31%) Finance
3 74 (11.47%) Analytical Skills
3 74 (11.47%) Public Sector
4 69 (10.70%) Banking
5 67 (10.39%) Telecoms
6 35 (5.43%) Documentation Skills
7 33 (5.12%) Manufacturing
8 25 (3.88%) Electronics
8 25 (3.88%) Marketing
9 20 (3.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 20 (3.10%) Presentation Skills
10 14 (2.17%) Organisational Skills
11 12 (1.86%) Influencing Skills
12 8 (1.24%) Retail
13 7 (1.09%) Investment Banking
13 7 (1.09%) Local Government
14 6 (0.93%) Front Office
14 6 (0.93%) Legal
14 6 (0.93%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 103 (15.97%) Network Engineer
2 97 (15.04%) Architect
3 67 (10.39%) Analyst
4 54 (8.37%) Project Manager
5 36 (5.58%) Senior
6 34 (5.27%) Data Centre Manager
7 32 (4.96%) Network Architect
8 31 (4.81%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 31 (4.81%) Security Engineer
8 31 (4.81%) Support Engineer
9 28 (4.34%) IT Support
10 26 (4.03%) Consultant
11 25 (3.88%) Desktop Support
11 25 (3.88%) Infrastructure Manager
12 23 (3.57%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
12 23 (3.57%) 2nd Line Support
12 23 (3.57%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
13 22 (3.41%) Lead
14 21 (3.26%) Data Centre Engineer
15 20 (3.10%) Cisco Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.41%) 802.1X
2 14 (2.17%) Middleware
3 13 (2.02%) RFC 2544
4 5 (0.78%) Spark Streaming
5 4 (0.62%) Jinja
6 2 (0.31%) ARM Templates
6 2 (0.31%) LDAP
6 2 (0.31%) ModSecurity
6 2 (0.31%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.31%) OpenConfig
6 2 (0.31%) REST
6 2 (0.31%) RESTCONF
6 2 (0.31%) VML
6 2 (0.31%) YANG
7 1 (0.16%) .NET
7 1 (0.16%) ASP.NET
7 1 (0.16%) eBPF
7 1 (0.16%) EJB
7 1 (0.16%) OpenTelemetry
7 1 (0.16%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 36 (5.58%) Hybrid Cloud
2 25 (3.88%) Cloud Native
3 21 (3.26%) Public Cloud
3 21 (3.26%) Replication
4 19 (2.95%) Driving Licence
5 17 (2.64%) Onboarding
6 14 (2.17%) Fibre Optics
6 14 (2.17%) Mainframe
7 12 (1.86%) Private Cloud
7 12 (1.86%) Self-Motivation
8 11 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
8 11 (1.71%) PKI
9 10 (1.55%) Clustering
10 9 (1.40%) Management Information System
10 9 (1.40%) Product Ownership
11 8 (1.24%) SCADA
12 7 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
13 6 (0.93%) Distributed Systems
13 6 (0.93%) Renewable Energy
13 6 (0.93%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 91 (14.11%) Windows
2 54 (8.37%) Linux
3 47 (7.29%) Android
4 45 (6.98%) Mac OS
5 40 (6.20%) Windows Server
6 16 (2.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (1.86%) Unix
8 7 (1.09%) CentOS
9 6 (0.93%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.62%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.62%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.47%) Solaris
11 3 (0.47%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.31%) AIX
12 2 (0.31%) VMS
12 2 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.31%) zOS
13 1 (0.16%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (18.60%) Migration
2 78 (12.09%) Problem-Solving
3 73 (11.32%) Stakeholder Management
4 62 (9.61%) Agile
5 52 (8.06%) ITIL
6 46 (7.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 45 (6.98%) Change Management
7 45 (6.98%) Customer Service
8 44 (6.82%) CI/CD
9 43 (6.67%) Infrastructure as Code
9 43 (6.67%) Service Management
10 41 (6.36%) Business Intelligence
10 41 (6.36%) Network Design
11 40 (6.20%) Load Balancing
12 39 (6.05%) DevOps
12 39 (6.05%) Roadmaps
13 37 (5.74%) Project Delivery
14 36 (5.58%) Cybersecurity
14 36 (5.58%) High Availability
14 36 (5.58%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 63 (9.77%) Python
2 43 (6.67%) PowerShell
3 33 (5.12%) SQL
4 18 (2.79%) Java
5 17 (2.64%) Bash
6 10 (1.55%) Perl
7 8 (1.24%) Lisp
8 6 (0.93%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.62%) Go
10 3 (0.47%) Bicep
10 3 (0.47%) C
10 3 (0.47%) VBA
11 2 (0.31%) AWK
11 2 (0.31%) C#
11 2 (0.31%) JavaScript
11 2 (0.31%) sed
12 1 (0.16%) C++
12 1 (0.16%) COBOL
12 1 (0.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.16%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 201 (31.16%) Security Cleared
2 168 (26.05%) SC Cleared
3 74 (11.47%) Cisco Certification
4 50 (7.75%) CCNP
5 49 (7.60%) Degree
6 41 (6.36%) DV Cleared
7 24 (3.72%) CCIE
8 23 (3.57%) CCNA
9 18 (2.79%) AWS Certification
10 12 (1.86%) CISSP
10 12 (1.86%) JNCIE
11 9 (1.40%) PMP
12 8 (1.24%) Computer Science Degree
12 8 (1.24%) PMI Certification
12 8 (1.24%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 6 (0.93%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 6 (0.93%) BPSS Clearance
13 6 (0.93%) CCSP
13 6 (0.93%) VCAP
14 5 (0.78%) CCDP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (3.26%) SLA
2 19 (2.95%) PCI DSS
3 18 (2.79%) NIST
3 18 (2.79%) PMO
4 16 (2.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (2.02%) QA
6 12 (1.86%) GDPR
7 11 (1.71%) Data Quality
8 5 (0.78%) NCSC
9 2 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.16%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.16%) ISO 22301
10 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 1 (0.16%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.16%) SOC 2
System Software
1 66 (10.23%) VMware Infrastructure
2 53 (8.22%) Active Directory
3 32 (4.96%) VMware NSX
4 23 (3.57%) Docker
5 16 (2.48%) Hyper-V
6 13 (2.02%) Virtual Machines
6 13 (2.02%) vSphere
7 7 (1.09%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.78%) Firmware
8 5 (0.78%) HDFS
9 4 (0.62%) KVM
9 4 (0.62%) NFS
10 3 (0.47%) GPFS
11 2 (0.31%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.16%) Lustre
12 1 (0.16%) Samba
12 1 (0.16%) SRDF
12 1 (0.16%) Veritas Cluster Server
12 1 (0.16%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.16%) Xen
Systems Management
1 61 (9.46%) Ansible
2 58 (8.99%) Terraform
3 31 (4.81%) FortiGate
4 27 (4.19%) SCCM
5 19 (2.95%) Kubernetes
6 14 (2.17%) Microsoft Intune
7 10 (1.55%) Grafana
7 10 (1.55%) SCOM
8 9 (1.40%) vCenter Server
9 8 (1.24%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (1.09%) CASB
10 7 (1.09%) Puppet
11 6 (0.93%) SCOrch
12 5 (0.78%) Hadoop YARN
13 4 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 4 (0.62%) Argo
14 3 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
14 3 (0.47%) OPNET
14 3 (0.47%) PowerCLI
14 3 (0.47%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 221 (34.26%) Cisco
2 98 (15.19%) Microsoft
3 81 (12.56%) VMware
4 64 (9.92%) Dell
5 58 (8.99%) F5
6 56 (8.68%) Palo Alto
7 54 (8.37%) HP
8 50 (7.75%) Juniper
9 44 (6.82%) Apple
10 33 (5.12%) ServiceNow
11 31 (4.81%) Fortinet
11 31 (4.81%) SAP
12 29 (4.50%) Meraki
13 25 (3.88%) Oracle
14 22 (3.41%) CheckPoint
15 21 (3.26%) SolarWinds
16 20 (3.10%) Arista
17 17 (2.64%) Remedy
18 16 (2.48%) Citrix
19 15 (2.33%) NetApp
287 Data Centre jobs in England