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 5 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 141 132 90
Rank change year-on-year -9 -42 +17
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 669 524 891
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.00% 1.99% 2.36%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.80% 6.04% 7.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 451 308 630
10th Percentile £263 £348 £300
25th Percentile £383 £425 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.70% -0.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £584 £638 £630
90th Percentile £688 £725 £700
UK median daily rate £482 £518 £525
% change year-on-year -6.93% -1.43% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 12 38
10th Percentile £21.46 £20.68 £21.25
25th Percentile £25.15 £24.18 £22.13
Median hourly rate £26.14 £24.42 £31.31
Median % change year-on-year +7.02% -22.00% -48.25%
75th Percentile £67.25 £25.81 £40.94
90th Percentile £73.90 £56.93 £70.13
UK median hourly rate £25.77 £24.18 £31.31
% change year-on-year +6.58% -22.77% -46.07%

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 11,541 8,677 11,753
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.55% 33.02% 31.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,388 5,228 7,787
10th Percentile £276 £268 £253
25th Percentile £406 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £550 £545
Median % change year-on-year -7.27% +0.92% -5.22%
75th Percentile £630 £675 £661
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 567 249 739
10th Percentile £15.43 £18.51 £13.40
25th Percentile £18.82 £24.25 £17.00
Median hourly rate £31.36 £37.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.37% +15.38% +44.54%
75th Percentile £63.75 £66.00 £58.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £83.20 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £32.22
% change year-on-year -14.29% +8.64% +44.02%

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 5 February 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 5 February 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 5 February 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 -24 238 £525 - 198
North of England +5 156 £475 -4.52% 76
South East -4 106 £445 +1.14% 130
North West +24 93 £517 +3.35% 40
Midlands -26 73 £445 -24.58% 23
West Midlands -17 58 £474 -19.66% 19
Yorkshire -38 49 £454 +8.10% 25
South West -21 36 £550 - 22
East of England -18 29 £485 +14.79% 39
North East +1 17 £175 - 11
East Midlands -16 15 £158 -70.70% 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 28 (4.19%) SharePoint
2 23 (3.44%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (1.64%) Confluence
4 9 (1.35%) OpenStack
5 7 (1.05%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.75%) Apache
6 5 (0.75%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.60%) HCL Notes
8 3 (0.45%) CICS
8 3 (0.45%) GeoServer
8 3 (0.45%) Smallworld
9 2 (0.30%) ThingWorx
10 1 (0.15%) nginx
Applications
1 50 (7.47%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (3.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (3.89%) MS Visio
3 18 (2.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (2.09%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.30%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.15%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.90%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.60%) Oracle Financials
3 2 (0.30%) DELMIA
3 2 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
3 2 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.15%) Epicor iScala
4 1 (0.15%) Maximo
4 1 (0.15%) Primavera
4 1 (0.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 111 (16.59%) Azure
2 91 (13.60%) AWS
3 61 (9.12%) Microsoft 365
4 31 (4.63%) GCP
5 17 (2.54%) Power Platform
5 17 (2.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 14 (2.09%) OpenShift
7 13 (1.94%) Entra ID
7 13 (1.94%) SaaS
8 12 (1.79%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 11 (1.64%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 9 (1.35%) AWS Direct Connect
11 8 (1.20%) AWS CloudFormation
11 8 (1.20%) Azure DevOps
11 8 (1.20%) IaaS
11 8 (1.20%) PaaS
12 7 (1.05%) AWS CloudTrail
12 7 (1.05%) AWS KMS
12 7 (1.05%) GitHub
12 7 (1.05%) npm
Communications & Networking
1 193 (28.85%) Firewall
2 129 (19.28%) WAN
3 81 (12.11%) BGP
4 77 (11.51%) LAN
5 75 (11.21%) VPN
5 75 (11.21%) Wireless
6 71 (10.61%) Network Security
7 55 (8.22%) OSPF
8 47 (7.03%) VLAN
9 46 (6.88%) DNS
10 42 (6.28%) Wi-Fi
11 38 (5.68%) Structured Cabling
12 34 (5.08%) SAN
13 30 (4.48%) Cisco ISE
13 30 (4.48%) DHCP
14 29 (4.33%) TCP/IP
15 28 (4.19%) IPsec
16 27 (4.04%) VXLAN
17 25 (3.74%) SD-WAN
18 24 (3.59%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (2.39%) Power BI
2 10 (1.49%) Relational Database
3 7 (1.05%) RDBMS
3 7 (1.05%) SQL Server
4 6 (0.90%) DataStage
5 5 (0.75%) Apache Hive
5 5 (0.75%) Hadoop
5 5 (0.75%) HBase
6 4 (0.60%) Power Query
6 4 (0.60%) PowerPivot
7 3 (0.45%) Big Data
7 3 (0.45%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.45%) Data Vault
7 3 (0.45%) Data Warehouse
7 3 (0.45%) Geospatial Data
7 3 (0.45%) InfluxDB
7 3 (0.45%) Metadata
7 3 (0.45%) NoSQL
7 3 (0.45%) QGIS
7 3 (0.45%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 22 (3.29%) Git
2 17 (2.54%) Jenkins
3 14 (2.09%) GitLab
4 12 (1.79%) JIRA
5 8 (1.20%) Maven
6 6 (0.90%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.45%) ER Studio
7 3 (0.45%) ERwin
7 3 (0.45%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.30%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.30%) Rational DOORS
8 2 (0.30%) ScriptRunner
9 1 (0.15%) AppScan
9 1 (0.15%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.15%) Gradle
9 1 (0.15%) Metasploit
9 1 (0.15%) Selenium
General
1 183 (27.35%) Social Skills
2 121 (18.09%) Finance
3 88 (13.15%) Analytical Skills
3 88 (13.15%) Public Sector
4 55 (8.22%) Documentation Skills
5 53 (7.92%) Telecoms
6 44 (6.58%) Banking
7 41 (6.13%) Manufacturing
8 29 (4.33%) Marketing
9 25 (3.74%) Electronics
10 18 (2.69%) Presentation Skills
11 17 (2.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 13 (1.94%) Retail
13 12 (1.79%) Legal
14 11 (1.64%) Organisational Skills
15 10 (1.49%) Influencing Skills
16 8 (1.20%) Investment Banking
17 7 (1.05%) Local Government
18 6 (0.90%) Law
18 6 (0.90%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 122 (18.24%) Network Engineer
2 97 (14.50%) Architect
3 66 (9.87%) Project Manager
4 54 (8.07%) Analyst
5 39 (5.83%) Senior
6 37 (5.53%) Network Architect
7 32 (4.78%) Data Centre Engineer
7 32 (4.78%) Lead
7 32 (4.78%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 29 (4.33%) Cisco Engineer
8 29 (4.33%) Data Centre Manager
8 29 (4.33%) IT Support
9 27 (4.04%) Cisco Network Engineer
9 27 (4.04%) Security Engineer
10 26 (3.89%) Consultant
11 25 (3.74%) Desktop Support
11 25 (3.74%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 23 (3.44%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
12 23 (3.44%) 2nd Line Support
12 23 (3.44%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.29%) Middleware
2 19 (2.84%) 802.1X
3 7 (1.05%) LDAP
3 7 (1.05%) RFC 2544
4 5 (0.75%) Spark Streaming
5 4 (0.60%) ADO
5 4 (0.60%) VML
6 3 (0.45%) ARM Templates
7 2 (0.30%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.30%) CSS
7 2 (0.30%) HTML
7 2 (0.30%) Kafka
7 2 (0.30%) ModSecurity
7 2 (0.30%) NETCONF
7 2 (0.30%) OpenConfig
7 2 (0.30%) REST
7 2 (0.30%) RESTCONF
7 2 (0.30%) YANG
8 1 (0.15%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.15%) JSSE
Miscellaneous
1 41 (6.13%) Hybrid Cloud
2 22 (3.29%) Public Cloud
3 19 (2.84%) Self-Motivation
4 17 (2.54%) Onboarding
5 15 (2.24%) Analytical Mindset
5 15 (2.24%) Private Cloud
6 14 (2.09%) Driving Licence
6 14 (2.09%) Replication
7 13 (1.94%) Cloud Native
8 12 (1.79%) Fibre Optics
8 12 (1.79%) Management Information System
9 10 (1.49%) SCADA
10 9 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
10 9 (1.35%) Mainframe
11 8 (1.20%) PKI
12 7 (1.05%) Operational Technology
13 6 (0.90%) CMDB
13 6 (0.90%) Legacy Systems
13 6 (0.90%) Security Posture
14 5 (0.75%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 81 (12.11%) Windows
2 69 (10.31%) Linux
3 40 (5.98%) Windows Server
4 34 (5.08%) Android
4 34 (5.08%) Mac OS
5 20 (2.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.64%) CentOS
7 9 (1.35%) Unix
8 7 (1.05%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.90%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.75%) VMS
11 4 (0.60%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.45%) AIX
12 3 (0.45%) Solaris
12 3 (0.45%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.15%) Kali Linux
13 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 111 (16.59%) Migration
2 99 (14.80%) Problem-Solving
3 83 (12.41%) Stakeholder Management
4 52 (7.77%) ITIL
5 51 (7.62%) Project Delivery
5 51 (7.62%) Project Management
6 50 (7.47%) Agile
7 44 (6.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 43 (6.43%) CI/CD
9 41 (6.13%) Continuous Improvement
10 40 (5.98%) DevOps
10 40 (5.98%) Network Design
11 39 (5.83%) Business Intelligence
11 39 (5.83%) Change Management
11 39 (5.83%) Infrastructure as Code
12 37 (5.53%) Change Control
12 37 (5.53%) Customer Service
12 37 (5.53%) Programme Management
12 37 (5.53%) Roadmaps
13 36 (5.38%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 63 (9.42%) Python
2 45 (6.73%) PowerShell
3 23 (3.44%) SQL
4 19 (2.84%) Bash
5 12 (1.79%) Shell Script
6 11 (1.64%) Java
7 10 (1.49%) Perl
8 9 (1.35%) Lisp
9 7 (1.05%) MATLAB
10 5 (0.75%) VBA
11 3 (0.45%) Bicep
11 3 (0.45%) COBOL
12 2 (0.30%) JavaScript
13 1 (0.15%) C#
13 1 (0.15%) C++
13 1 (0.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.15%) Korn
13 1 (0.15%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 241 (36.02%) Security Cleared
2 200 (29.90%) SC Cleared
3 108 (16.14%) Cisco Certification
4 87 (13.00%) CCNP
5 57 (8.52%) Degree
6 44 (6.58%) CCNA
6 44 (6.58%) DV Cleared
7 23 (3.44%) CCIE
8 21 (3.14%) AWS Certification
9 17 (2.54%) PMP
10 15 (2.24%) PMI Certification
11 11 (1.64%) CISSP
11 11 (1.64%) JNCIE
12 9 (1.35%) A+ Certification
12 9 (1.35%) MCSE
12 9 (1.35%) Microsoft Certification
12 9 (1.35%) Network+ Certification
12 9 (1.35%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 8 (1.20%) Azure Certification
13 8 (1.20%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (3.29%) PMO
2 19 (2.84%) SLA
3 17 (2.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 17 (2.54%) NIST
3 17 (2.54%) PCI DSS
4 15 (2.24%) GDPR
5 14 (2.09%) QA
6 11 (1.64%) Data Quality
7 7 (1.05%) NCSC
8 4 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
8 4 (0.60%) GRC
9 2 (0.30%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.15%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.15%) COBIT
10 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.15%) ISO 22301
10 1 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 1 (0.15%) RMADS
10 1 (0.15%) SOC 2
System Software
1 72 (10.76%) VMware Infrastructure
2 50 (7.47%) Active Directory
3 37 (5.53%) VMware NSX
4 22 (3.29%) Virtual Machines
5 17 (2.54%) Hyper-V
6 14 (2.09%) Docker
6 14 (2.09%) vSphere
7 10 (1.49%) Firmware
7 10 (1.49%) KVM
7 10 (1.49%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.75%) HDFS
9 3 (0.45%) Lustre
10 2 (0.30%) Ceph
10 2 (0.30%) Microsoft App-V
10 2 (0.30%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 2 (0.30%) vCloud
11 1 (0.15%) NFS
11 1 (0.15%) SRDF
11 1 (0.15%) UAG
11 1 (0.15%) Xen
Systems Management
1 68 (10.16%) Ansible
2 61 (9.12%) Terraform
3 31 (4.63%) FortiGate
4 24 (3.59%) SCCM
5 18 (2.69%) Kubernetes
6 15 (2.24%) Grafana
7 11 (1.64%) Microsoft Intune
7 11 (1.64%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.35%) SCOM
9 8 (1.20%) Prometheus
10 7 (1.05%) Check_MK
10 7 (1.05%) Podman
10 7 (1.05%) Red Hat Satellite
11 6 (0.90%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.90%) CASB
11 6 (0.90%) Puppet
11 6 (0.90%) SCOrch
12 5 (0.75%) Hadoop YARN
13 4 (0.60%) Nagios
13 4 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 228 (34.08%) Cisco
2 97 (14.50%) Palo Alto
3 95 (14.20%) VMware
4 77 (11.51%) Microsoft
5 66 (9.87%) Dell
6 51 (7.62%) Juniper
7 44 (6.58%) HP
8 43 (6.43%) F5
9 41 (6.13%) CheckPoint
10 34 (5.08%) Apple
10 34 (5.08%) Meraki
11 33 (4.93%) Aruba
12 31 (4.63%) ServiceNow
13 30 (4.48%) Fortinet
14 29 (4.33%) SAP
15 22 (3.29%) Citrix
16 19 (2.84%) Oracle
17 15 (2.24%) SolarWinds
18 14 (2.09%) Google
18 14 (2.09%) Remedy