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 7 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 107 123 104
Rank change year-on-year +16 -19 -9
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,014 590 813
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.29% 2.22% 2.19%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.94% 6.39% 7.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 611 389 572
10th Percentile £318 £303 £325
25th Percentile £405 £413 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £617 £610 £625
90th Percentile £738 £688 £699
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £538
% change year-on-year -0.99% -6.05% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 18 42
10th Percentile £16.01 £24.66 £12.08
25th Percentile £18.07 £25.07 £22.08
Median hourly rate £19.85 £25.15 £24.87
Median % change year-on-year -21.07% +1.13% +14.77%
75th Percentile £33.75 £42.81 £40.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £60.63 £41.13
UK median hourly rate £19.85 £25.15 £23.90
% change year-on-year -21.07% +5.23% +15.43%

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 14,612 9,228 11,422
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.93% 34.73% 30.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,072 5,886 7,346
10th Percentile £313 £304 £281
25th Percentile £415 £408 £414
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -2.22%
75th Percentile £638 £660 £675
90th Percentile £750 £788 £825
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 787 441 822
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £12.24
25th Percentile £21.08 £18.90 £15.39
Median hourly rate £43.96 £32.89 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +33.66% -12.29% +36.36%
75th Percentile £71.00 £59.30 £63.75
90th Percentile £87.16 £80.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.50 £30.81 £36.02
% change year-on-year +41.21% -14.48% +38.55%

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 7 July 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 7 July 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 7 July 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 +3 374 £550 +3.77% 252
North of England +14 247 £475 +2.04% 61
South East +6 216 £488 +8.33% 112
Yorkshire 0 132 £365 -18.89% 26
North West +5 91 £500 -4.76% 26
Midlands -56 56 £460 -14.81% 29
West Midlands -51 51 £467 -13.15% 14
South West -31 49 £495 -10.00% 38
East of England -17 35 £513 +36.67% 39
North East -10 30 £625 +468.18% 9
East Midlands -24 4 £363 -32.87% 15
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 22 (2.17%) Confluence
2 16 (1.58%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.08%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.99%) CICS
5 5 (0.49%) Apache
5 5 (0.49%) CloudStack
5 5 (0.49%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.39%) WebLogic
7 3 (0.30%) nginx
7 3 (0.30%) Tomcat
8 1 (0.099%) IIS
8 1 (0.099%) SAS
Applications
1 14 (1.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (1.18%) Microsoft Office
4 10 (0.99%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.69%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.49%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.30%) Adobe Illustrator
7 3 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.20%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 3 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
2 2 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 2 (0.20%) Primavera
2 2 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.099%) OpenText MBPM
3 1 (0.099%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 215 (21.20%) Azure
2 185 (18.24%) AWS
3 55 (5.42%) GCP
4 41 (4.04%) IaaS
5 37 (3.65%) SaaS
6 36 (3.55%) Microsoft 365
7 34 (3.35%) GitHub
8 30 (2.96%) OCI
9 22 (2.17%) Entra ID
9 22 (2.17%) PaaS
10 21 (2.07%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 13 (1.28%) OneDrive
11 13 (1.28%) OpenShift
12 12 (1.18%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 11 (1.08%) Power Platform
14 9 (0.89%) Amazon EKS
14 9 (0.89%) Azure DevOps
14 9 (0.89%) Azure Sentinel
15 8 (0.79%) Amazon GuardDuty
15 8 (0.79%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 271 (26.73%) Firewall
2 178 (17.55%) WAN
3 170 (16.77%) BGP
4 128 (12.62%) OSPF
5 114 (11.24%) DNS
6 108 (10.65%) VXLAN
7 102 (10.06%) LAN
8 100 (9.86%) SAN
9 96 (9.47%) VPN
10 92 (9.07%) Network Security
10 92 (9.07%) VLAN
11 82 (8.09%) Structured Cabling
12 81 (7.99%) DHCP
13 73 (7.20%) SD-WAN
14 72 (7.10%) Ethernet VPN
15 58 (5.72%) BIG-IP
16 56 (5.52%) TCP/IP
17 48 (4.73%) Wireless
18 43 (4.24%) NAS
18 43 (4.24%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (0.99%) SQL Server
2 9 (0.89%) DataStage
3 6 (0.59%) Big Data
3 6 (0.59%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (0.59%) Power BI
4 4 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
4 4 (0.39%) Db2
4 4 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
4 4 (0.39%) Geospatial Data
4 4 (0.39%) MongoDB
4 4 (0.39%) Oracle Database
4 4 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
4 4 (0.39%) SAP Data Services
5 3 (0.30%) GIS
6 2 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.20%) Data Lake
6 2 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.20%) Oracle Database 12c
7 1 (0.099%) Oracle Exadata
7 1 (0.099%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 65 (6.41%) JIRA
2 33 (3.25%) GitLab
3 26 (2.56%) Git
3 26 (2.56%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.49%) Sonatype Nexus
5 4 (0.39%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 4 (0.39%) Eclipse
5 4 (0.39%) Maven
5 4 (0.39%) Subversion
6 3 (0.30%) ScriptRunner
6 3 (0.30%) Zephyr
7 2 (0.20%) MSI
8 1 (0.099%) AppScan
8 1 (0.099%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.099%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.099%) Metasploit
General
1 256 (25.25%) Social Skills
2 143 (14.10%) Finance
3 107 (10.55%) Analytical Skills
4 69 (6.80%) Public Sector
5 48 (4.73%) Documentation Skills
6 44 (4.34%) Banking
7 41 (4.04%) Telecoms
8 28 (2.76%) Legal
9 26 (2.56%) Retail
10 25 (2.47%) Influencing Skills
11 17 (1.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 16 (1.58%) Manufacturing
13 10 (0.99%) Organisational Skills
14 9 (0.89%) Military
15 8 (0.79%) Marketing
16 7 (0.69%) Law
17 6 (0.59%) Financial Institution
17 6 (0.59%) Investment Banking
17 6 (0.59%) Police
18 5 (0.49%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 155 (15.29%) Network Engineer
2 142 (14.00%) Architect
3 120 (11.83%) Senior
4 101 (9.96%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 90 (8.88%) Data Centre Engineer
6 67 (6.61%) Project Manager
7 53 (5.23%) Network Architect
8 50 (4.93%) Lead
9 42 (4.14%) IT Engineer
10 40 (3.94%) Field Engineer
11 37 (3.65%) Infrastructure Manager
12 36 (3.55%) Field Service Engineer
13 32 (3.16%) Data Centre Manager
14 30 (2.96%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
15 28 (2.76%) Analyst
15 28 (2.76%) Support Engineer
16 26 (2.56%) Solutions Architect
17 25 (2.47%) Infrastructure Project Manager
17 25 (2.47%) IT Support
17 25 (2.47%) Senior Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (3.16%) Middleware
2 31 (3.06%) 802.1X
3 10 (0.99%) Redfish
4 9 (0.89%) LDAP
5 8 (0.79%) REST
6 7 (0.69%) Elastic Stack
6 7 (0.69%) Spring
7 5 (0.49%) Jinja
7 5 (0.49%) Kafka
7 5 (0.49%) NETCONF
7 5 (0.49%) SAML
7 5 (0.49%) XML
8 4 (0.39%) .NET
8 4 (0.39%) GeoJSON
8 4 (0.39%) OpenConfig
8 4 (0.39%) RESTCONF
8 4 (0.39%) RESTful
8 4 (0.39%) Spring Boot
8 4 (0.39%) YAML
8 4 (0.39%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 69 (6.80%) Hybrid Cloud
2 42 (4.14%) Analytical Mindset
3 36 (3.55%) Cloud Native
4 34 (3.35%) PKI
5 31 (3.06%) Clustering
6 29 (2.86%) Fibre Optics
6 29 (2.86%) Private Cloud
7 28 (2.76%) Onboarding
8 27 (2.66%) Enterprise Storage
9 19 (1.87%) Driving Licence
9 19 (1.87%) Replication
10 16 (1.58%) Management Information System
11 15 (1.48%) CMDB
11 15 (1.48%) Public Cloud
12 14 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
12 14 (1.38%) Mainframe
13 11 (1.08%) Self-Motivation
14 10 (0.99%) Operational Technology
14 10 (0.99%) SCADA
15 9 (0.89%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 131 (12.92%) Windows
2 101 (9.96%) Linux
3 37 (3.65%) Windows Server
4 29 (2.86%) Unix
5 26 (2.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 22 (2.17%) AIX
7 17 (1.68%) Solaris
8 10 (0.99%) Apple iOS
8 10 (0.99%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.59%) CentOS
9 6 (0.59%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.59%) Windows Server 2019
10 5 (0.49%) HPUX
10 5 (0.49%) Oracle Linux
10 5 (0.49%) SUSE
10 5 (0.49%) VMS
11 4 (0.39%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.30%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.20%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 188 (18.54%) Migration
2 172 (16.96%) Problem-Solving
3 128 (12.62%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 111 (10.95%) Stakeholder Management
5 105 (10.36%) ITIL
6 93 (9.17%) Infrastructure as Code
7 92 (9.07%) CI/CD
8 89 (8.78%) High Availability
9 81 (7.99%) Continuous Improvement
9 81 (7.99%) Roadmaps
10 77 (7.59%) Agile
11 75 (7.40%) Change Management
12 72 (7.10%) Load Balancing
13 70 (6.90%) Project Delivery
14 68 (6.71%) Validation
14 68 (6.71%) Zero Trust
15 65 (6.41%) Project Management
16 63 (6.21%) DevOps
17 61 (6.02%) ITSM
18 59 (5.82%) Network Design
Programming Languages
1 131 (12.92%) Python
2 36 (3.55%) PowerShell
3 26 (2.56%) SQL
4 21 (2.07%) Bash
5 17 (1.68%) Java
6 14 (1.38%) Bicep
7 12 (1.18%) Shell Script
8 11 (1.08%) COBOL
9 9 (0.89%) ActionScript
10 8 (0.79%) Perl
10 8 (0.79%) PL/SQL
11 6 (0.59%) JavaScript
11 6 (0.59%) MATLAB
12 4 (0.39%) C#
12 4 (0.39%) Lisp
13 2 (0.20%) C++
13 2 (0.20%) JCL
13 2 (0.20%) Korn
13 2 (0.20%) REXX
13 2 (0.20%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 275 (27.12%) Security Cleared
2 180 (17.75%) Cisco Certification
2 180 (17.75%) SC Cleared
3 108 (10.65%) CCNP
4 86 (8.48%) DV Cleared
5 74 (7.30%) CCNA
6 64 (6.31%) Degree
7 49 (4.83%) Network+ Certification
8 40 (3.94%) Microsoft Certification
9 34 (3.35%) A+ Certification
9 34 (3.35%) MCSE
10 26 (2.56%) Azure Certification
11 23 (2.27%) AWS Certification
11 23 (2.27%) CCIE
12 22 (2.17%) City & Guilds
13 21 (2.07%) PMP
14 20 (1.97%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 19 (1.87%) PMI Certification
16 17 (1.68%) BICSI Certification
17 16 (1.58%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (3.06%) SLA
2 23 (2.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 22 (2.17%) NIST
4 19 (1.87%) PMO
5 18 (1.78%) QA
6 16 (1.58%) GDPR
7 15 (1.48%) NCSC
8 10 (0.99%) GRC
9 9 (0.89%) PCI DSS
10 6 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
11 5 (0.49%) RMADS
12 4 (0.39%) JSP 440
13 3 (0.30%) NIST 800
14 2 (0.20%) Accessibility
14 2 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
14 2 (0.20%) Data Quality
14 2 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 2 (0.20%) WCAG
15 1 (0.099%) COBIT
15 1 (0.099%) NEBOSH
System Software
1 96 (9.47%) VMware Infrastructure
2 51 (5.03%) Active Directory
3 34 (3.35%) VMware ESXi
4 29 (2.86%) Firmware
5 28 (2.76%) VMware NSX
6 27 (2.66%) vSphere
7 21 (2.07%) Hyper-V
7 21 (2.07%) Virtual Machines
8 15 (1.48%) Docker
9 10 (0.99%) NFS
10 8 (0.79%) KVM
11 6 (0.59%) Microsoft App-V
12 5 (0.49%) SRDF
12 5 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
13 4 (0.39%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.39%) Terminal Services
13 4 (0.39%) VMware Workstation
14 3 (0.30%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 3 (0.30%) UAG
14 3 (0.30%) Veritas Cluster Server
Systems Management
1 117 (11.54%) Ansible
2 96 (9.47%) Terraform
3 48 (4.73%) Kubernetes
4 47 (4.64%) FortiGate
5 30 (2.96%) Grafana
6 28 (2.76%) Prometheus
7 26 (2.56%) Microsoft Intune
8 15 (1.48%) vCenter Server
9 11 (1.08%) NetBackup
10 10 (0.99%) Dell DRAC
10 10 (0.99%) Jamf Pro
11 9 (0.89%) Check_MK
11 9 (0.89%) PowerCLI
11 9 (0.89%) SCCM
12 8 (0.79%) vMotion
13 7 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (0.69%) Tivoli Storage Manager
14 6 (0.59%) Podman
14 6 (0.59%) Red Hat Satellite
15 5 (0.49%) EMC VPLEX
Vendors
1 254 (25.05%) Cisco
2 143 (14.10%) VMware
3 115 (11.34%) Palo Alto
4 104 (10.26%) Microsoft
5 103 (10.16%) F5
6 84 (8.28%) Juniper
7 65 (6.41%) Arista
7 65 (6.41%) Dell
8 64 (6.31%) Fortinet
9 50 (4.93%) ServiceNow
10 43 (4.24%) SolarWinds
11 37 (3.65%) Aruba
12 35 (3.45%) IBM
13 32 (3.16%) CheckPoint
14 31 (3.06%) Google
15 29 (2.86%) Splunk
16 28 (2.76%) Red Hat
17 24 (2.37%) Oracle
18 22 (2.17%) Extreme Networks
18 22 (2.17%) HP