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 9 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 121 131 112
Rank change year-on-year +10 -19 -16
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,010 600 683
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.18% 2.17% 2.10%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.45% 6.04% 6.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 636 391 448
10th Percentile £328 £313 £363
25th Percentile £413 £413 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £536
Median % change year-on-year - -2.10% -2.50%
75th Percentile £650 £615 £619
90th Percentile £753 £725 £691
UK median daily rate £519 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -1.14% -1.87% -1.34%
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 30 25
10th Percentile £16.01 £25.14 £11.75
25th Percentile £18.59 - £12.08
Median hourly rate £29.00 £25.15 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.31% +25.75% -13.04%
75th Percentile £49.75 £38.56 £25.00
90th Percentile £84.25 £46.10 £28.65
UK median hourly rate £28.00 £25.15 £19.38
% change year-on-year +11.33% +29.81% -9.88%

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 15,658 9,926 10,026
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.81% 35.97% 30.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,529 6,257 6,243
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £408 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £650 £677
90th Percentile £750 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £515 £550
% change year-on-year +1.94% -6.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,006 491 439
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.50 £14.34
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.87 £22.45
Median hourly rate £37.50 £33.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +13.64% -42.46% +25.00%
75th Percentile £69.31 £60.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £77.50 £75.16
UK median hourly rate £38.25 £30.00 £49.50
% change year-on-year +27.50% -39.39% +12.70%

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 9 September 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 9 September 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 9 September 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 +18 427 £550 - 976
North of England 0 215 £500 +6.33% 129
South East -12 176 £540 +9.64% 173
Yorkshire +4 127 £475 +5.56% 43
North West -17 72 £503 -6.42% 57
South West -26 66 £600 +4.35% 85
Midlands -68 53 £438 -12.50% 58
West Midlands -60 42 £474 -5.20% 39
East of England -13 35 £479 -20.21% 94
North East -25 22 £625 - 30
East Midlands -20 10 £413 -23.61% 19
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 25 (2.48%) Confluence
2 17 (1.68%) SharePoint
3 12 (1.19%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.69%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.50%) Apache
5 5 (0.50%) CloudStack
6 3 (0.30%) IIS
7 2 (0.20%) CICS
8 1 (0.099%) nginx
8 1 (0.099%) SAS
8 1 (0.099%) Tomcat
Applications
1 21 (2.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (1.68%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
4 7 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.69%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.50%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.20%) EPLAN
7 1 (0.099%) Navisworks
7 1 (0.099%) Revit
Business Applications
1 13 (1.29%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.20%) OpenText MBPM
2 2 (0.20%) Oracle BPM
3 1 (0.099%) Cloudability
3 1 (0.099%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 223 (22.08%) Azure
2 180 (17.82%) AWS
3 46 (4.55%) GCP
4 44 (4.36%) GitHub
5 37 (3.66%) IaaS
5 37 (3.66%) SaaS
6 31 (3.07%) Microsoft 365
7 29 (2.87%) OCI
8 27 (2.67%) Entra ID
9 18 (1.78%) Power Platform
10 16 (1.58%) PaaS
11 14 (1.39%) OneDrive
12 13 (1.29%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 12 (1.19%) Azure DevOps
14 11 (1.09%) OpenShift
15 10 (0.99%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 7 (0.69%) GitHub Actions
17 6 (0.59%) AWS Direct Connect
17 6 (0.59%) Azure Sentinel
18 5 (0.50%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 247 (24.46%) Firewall
2 163 (16.14%) WAN
3 158 (15.64%) BGP
4 122 (12.08%) DNS
5 101 (10.00%) VLAN
6 100 (9.90%) VXLAN
7 99 (9.80%) OSPF
8 94 (9.31%) SAN
9 93 (9.21%) Network Security
10 90 (8.91%) LAN
10 90 (8.91%) VPN
11 87 (8.61%) DHCP
12 72 (7.13%) TCP/IP
13 71 (7.03%) SD-WAN
14 65 (6.44%) Ethernet VPN
15 62 (6.14%) Structured Cabling
16 59 (5.84%) Wireless
17 50 (4.95%) Wi-Fi
18 47 (4.65%) BIG-IP
19 46 (4.55%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (2.77%) SQL Server
2 15 (1.49%) Power BI
3 11 (1.09%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 10 (0.99%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 10 (0.99%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 7 (0.69%) Oracle Database
6 6 (0.59%) Big Data
6 6 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
7 5 (0.50%) Db2
8 4 (0.40%) Amazon RDS
8 4 (0.40%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (0.40%) Oracle Database 12c
8 4 (0.40%) Oracle Reports
8 4 (0.40%) PostgreSQL
9 3 (0.30%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.20%) Flink
10 2 (0.20%) Metadata
11 1 (0.099%) Data Lake
11 1 (0.099%) MS Access
Development Applications
1 68 (6.73%) JIRA
2 36 (3.56%) GitLab
3 23 (2.28%) Jenkins
4 22 (2.18%) Git
5 6 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.30%) ScriptRunner
6 3 (0.30%) Zephyr
7 2 (0.20%) MSI
7 2 (0.20%) Toad
8 1 (0.099%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.099%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.099%) Claude Code
General
1 246 (24.36%) Social Skills
2 150 (14.85%) Finance
3 95 (9.41%) Analytical Skills
4 54 (5.35%) Banking
5 48 (4.75%) Public Sector
6 44 (4.36%) Telecoms
7 40 (3.96%) Documentation Skills
8 28 (2.77%) Retail
9 25 (2.48%) Legal
10 17 (1.68%) Influencing Skills
10 17 (1.68%) Manufacturing
11 13 (1.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 11 (1.09%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (0.89%) Police
14 7 (0.69%) Financial Institution
15 6 (0.59%) Law
15 6 (0.59%) Marketing
16 5 (0.50%) Investment Banking
17 4 (0.40%) Cyber-Physical System
18 3 (0.30%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 167 (16.53%) Network Engineer
2 154 (15.25%) Architect
3 131 (12.97%) Senior
4 109 (10.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 71 (7.03%) Project Manager
6 68 (6.73%) Data Centre Engineer
7 62 (6.14%) Lead
8 58 (5.74%) Network Architect
9 39 (3.86%) Consultant
10 36 (3.56%) Data Centre Manager
10 36 (3.56%) IT Engineer
10 36 (3.56%) Senior Network Engineer
11 33 (3.27%) Infrastructure Manager
12 30 (2.97%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 29 (2.87%) Field Engineer
14 27 (2.67%) Solutions Architect
15 26 (2.57%) Field Service Engineer
16 24 (2.38%) Data Manager
16 24 (2.38%) Technical Manager
17 22 (2.18%) Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (9.90%) Terraform
2 24 (2.38%) Middleware
2 24 (2.38%) REST
3 16 (1.58%) 802.1X
4 13 (1.29%) YAML
5 11 (1.09%) JSON
6 9 (0.89%) Elastic Stack
7 8 (0.79%) LDAP
8 7 (0.69%) .NET
8 7 (0.69%) NETCONF
9 6 (0.59%) Redfish
9 6 (0.59%) SAML
10 5 (0.50%) Kafka
10 5 (0.50%) OpenConfig
10 5 (0.50%) RESTCONF
10 5 (0.50%) YANG
11 4 (0.40%) GeoJSON
11 4 (0.40%) RESTful
12 3 (0.30%) .NET Framework
13 2 (0.20%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 73 (7.23%) Hybrid Cloud
2 35 (3.47%) PKI
3 33 (3.27%) Private Cloud
4 32 (3.17%) Analytical Mindset
4 32 (3.17%) Cloud Native
5 28 (2.77%) Clustering
5 28 (2.77%) Public Cloud
6 27 (2.67%) Enterprise Storage
6 27 (2.67%) Fibre Optics
6 27 (2.67%) Replication
7 23 (2.28%) Onboarding
8 22 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
9 18 (1.78%) Operational Technology
10 15 (1.49%) CMDB
10 15 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
11 14 (1.39%) Management Information System
12 13 (1.29%) Driving Licence
13 11 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
13 11 (1.09%) Virtual Team
14 10 (0.99%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 151 (14.95%) Windows
2 100 (9.90%) Linux
3 52 (5.15%) Windows Server
4 29 (2.87%) Unix
5 18 (1.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (1.49%) AIX
7 11 (1.09%) Mac OS
8 10 (0.99%) Apple iOS
9 8 (0.79%) Solaris
9 8 (0.79%) VMS
10 6 (0.59%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.50%) HPUX
11 5 (0.50%) Oracle Linux
11 5 (0.50%) SUSE
12 4 (0.40%) CentOS
12 4 (0.40%) Data ONTAP
12 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
12 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.30%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 221 (21.88%) Migration
2 155 (15.35%) Problem-Solving
3 137 (13.56%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 135 (13.37%) Stakeholder Management
5 102 (10.10%) Infrastructure as Code
6 100 (9.90%) ITIL
7 91 (9.01%) High Availability
8 90 (8.91%) Agile
9 85 (8.42%) CI/CD
10 77 (7.62%) Validation
11 76 (7.52%) Project Delivery
12 73 (7.23%) Continuous Improvement
13 70 (6.93%) Disaster Recovery
13 70 (6.93%) Roadmaps
14 68 (6.73%) Zero Trust
15 67 (6.63%) Change Management
16 64 (6.34%) Technical Leadership
17 60 (5.94%) ITSM
17 60 (5.94%) Project Management
18 59 (5.84%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 142 (14.06%) Python
2 58 (5.74%) PowerShell
3 38 (3.76%) SQL
4 30 (2.97%) Bash
5 11 (1.09%) ActionScript
6 10 (0.99%) Bicep
7 8 (0.79%) Shell Script
8 7 (0.69%) C#
8 7 (0.69%) PL/SQL
9 6 (0.59%) Perl
10 4 (0.40%) Go
10 4 (0.40%) Java
10 4 (0.40%) MATLAB
10 4 (0.40%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.30%) COBOL
11 3 (0.30%) JavaScript
11 3 (0.30%) Lisp
12 2 (0.20%) C++
12 2 (0.20%) JCL
12 2 (0.20%) REXX
Qualifications
1 268 (26.53%) Security Cleared
2 173 (17.13%) SC Cleared
3 147 (14.55%) Cisco Certification
4 93 (9.21%) DV Cleared
5 91 (9.01%) CCNP
6 56 (5.54%) Degree
7 54 (5.35%) CCNA
8 35 (3.47%) Network+ Certification
9 29 (2.87%) Microsoft Certification
10 28 (2.77%) AWS Certification
11 24 (2.38%) A+ Certification
11 24 (2.38%) CCIE
11 24 (2.38%) MCSE
12 23 (2.28%) Azure Certification
13 22 (2.18%) PMP
13 22 (2.18%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 20 (1.98%) CISSP
14 20 (1.98%) City & Guilds
14 20 (1.98%) PMI Certification
15 17 (1.68%) BICSI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (2.67%) QA
2 26 (2.57%) SLA
3 25 (2.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 20 (1.98%) NIST
5 15 (1.49%) PMO
6 12 (1.19%) GDPR
7 9 (0.89%) JSP 440
7 9 (0.89%) NCSC
8 8 (0.79%) GRC
9 4 (0.40%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.40%) RMADS
10 3 (0.30%) Data Quality
10 3 (0.30%) NIST 800
10 3 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.20%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.20%) ISO 31000
11 2 (0.20%) ISO 9001
11 2 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 131 (12.97%) VMware Infrastructure
2 74 (7.33%) Active Directory
3 45 (4.46%) vSphere
4 41 (4.06%) VMware NSX
5 37 (3.66%) VMware ESXi
6 30 (2.97%) Docker
7 29 (2.87%) Hyper-V
8 24 (2.38%) Firmware
9 14 (1.39%) Virtual Machines
10 12 (1.19%) NFS
11 6 (0.59%) Microsoft App-V
11 6 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
12 5 (0.50%) PowerHA
13 4 (0.40%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.40%) Oracle RAC
13 4 (0.40%) SRDF
13 4 (0.40%) Terminal Services
13 4 (0.40%) Veritas Cluster Server
13 4 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
14 3 (0.30%) EMC RecoverPoint
Systems Management
1 132 (13.07%) Ansible
2 53 (5.25%) Kubernetes
3 32 (3.17%) FortiGate
4 25 (2.48%) Prometheus
5 22 (2.18%) Grafana
6 18 (1.78%) vCenter Server
7 17 (1.68%) Microsoft Intune
8 15 (1.49%) VxRail
9 13 (1.29%) SCCM
10 12 (1.19%) Microsoft Clustering
10 12 (1.19%) vMotion
11 10 (0.99%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.99%) NetBackup
11 10 (0.99%) PowerCLI
12 9 (0.89%) Dell DRAC
12 9 (0.89%) SCOM
12 9 (0.89%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 8 (0.79%) Nagios
14 7 (0.69%) Check_MK
15 5 (0.50%) Cisco Prime
Vendors
1 257 (25.45%) Cisco
2 176 (17.43%) VMware
3 117 (11.58%) Microsoft
4 112 (11.09%) Palo Alto
5 98 (9.70%) F5
6 66 (6.53%) Fortinet
6 66 (6.53%) Juniper
7 64 (6.34%) Arista
8 55 (5.45%) ServiceNow
9 54 (5.35%) Dell
10 39 (3.86%) Aruba
11 36 (3.56%) CheckPoint
12 29 (2.87%) Red Hat
13 24 (2.38%) Oracle
13 24 (2.38%) Veeam
14 23 (2.28%) IBM
14 23 (2.28%) SolarWinds
15 22 (2.18%) Google
16 21 (2.08%) Zscaler
17 20 (1.98%) Commvault