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

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 128 130 113
Rank change year-on-year +2 -17 -18
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 989 614 700
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.15% 2.23% 2.13%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.35% 6.17% 6.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 627 404 449
10th Percentile £345 £300 £367
25th Percentile £423 £405 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £650 £614 £619
90th Percentile £750 £725 £705
UK median daily rate £519 £515 £535
% change year-on-year +0.78% -3.74% -0.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 31 26
10th Percentile £17.31 - £11.75
25th Percentile £19.33 - £12.08
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £21.90
Median % change year-on-year +29.22% +14.84% -5.81%
75th Percentile £55.56 £36.50 £26.50
90th Percentile £82.05 £43.75 £28.75
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £20.80
% change year-on-year +29.22% +20.94% -9.59%

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 15,584 9,946 10,135
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.80% 36.06% 30.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,426 6,248 6,234
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £750 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £515 £540
% change year-on-year +1.94% -4.63% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,064 500 408
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.24 £15.12
25th Percentile £17.99 £18.87 £23.80
Median hourly rate £37.50 £32.72 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +14.60% -42.94% +25.08%
75th Percentile £69.87 £58.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £75.16
UK median hourly rate £38.25 £29.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year +29.66% -41.00% +12.36%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 +20 406 £550 - 1,393
North of England +3 222 £500 +4.17% 172
South East -21 165 £550 +22.22% 268
Yorkshire +7 134 £485 +7.78% 47
North West -23 71 £525 -3.67% 84
South West -21 65 £621 +12.82% 84
Midlands -69 56 £465 -7.00% 115
West Midlands -63 45 £475 -4.23% 87
East of England -15 37 £475 -20.83% 139
North East -18 23 £625 - 42
East Midlands -20 11 £413 -21.43% 28
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 26 (2.63%) Confluence
2 17 (1.72%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.11%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.81%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.51%) Apache
5 5 (0.51%) CloudStack
5 5 (0.51%) IIS
6 2 (0.20%) CICS
7 1 (0.10%) nginx
7 1 (0.10%) SAS
7 1 (0.10%) Tomcat
Applications
1 19 (1.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (1.72%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.01%) MS Visio
4 9 (0.91%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.51%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.30%) Navisworks
7 3 (0.30%) Revit
8 2 (0.20%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 11 (1.11%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.20%) OpenText MBPM
2 2 (0.20%) Oracle BPM
3 1 (0.10%) Cloudability
3 1 (0.10%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.10%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 222 (22.45%) Azure
2 176 (17.80%) AWS
3 51 (5.16%) GCP
4 48 (4.85%) GitHub
5 42 (4.25%) IaaS
6 38 (3.84%) SaaS
7 32 (3.24%) Microsoft 365
8 30 (3.03%) Entra ID
9 29 (2.93%) OCI
10 18 (1.82%) PaaS
11 15 (1.52%) Power Platform
12 14 (1.42%) Azure DevOps
12 14 (1.42%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 14 (1.42%) OneDrive
12 14 (1.42%) OpenShift
13 10 (1.01%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 8 (0.81%) AWS Direct Connect
15 6 (0.61%) GitHub Actions
16 5 (0.51%) Azure Monitor
16 5 (0.51%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 242 (24.47%) Firewall
2 154 (15.57%) WAN
3 150 (15.17%) BGP
4 121 (12.23%) DNS
5 99 (10.01%) VLAN
6 96 (9.71%) VXLAN
7 93 (9.40%) Network Security
8 91 (9.20%) OSPF
9 87 (8.80%) VPN
10 86 (8.70%) SAN
11 84 (8.49%) DHCP
11 84 (8.49%) LAN
12 74 (7.48%) TCP/IP
13 67 (6.77%) Ethernet VPN
14 65 (6.57%) SD-WAN
15 57 (5.76%) Wireless
16 50 (5.06%) Wi-Fi
17 49 (4.95%) BIG-IP
18 47 (4.75%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 47 (4.75%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (3.34%) SQL Server
2 15 (1.52%) Power BI
3 11 (1.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 10 (1.01%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 10 (1.01%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 7 (0.71%) Oracle Database
6 6 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
7 5 (0.51%) Db2
8 4 (0.40%) Azure SQL Database
8 4 (0.40%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (0.40%) Oracle Database 12c
8 4 (0.40%) Oracle Reports
9 3 (0.30%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.30%) Big Data
9 3 (0.30%) Data Warehouse
9 3 (0.30%) PostgreSQL
10 2 (0.20%) Flink
10 2 (0.20%) Metadata
10 2 (0.20%) Sybase ASE
10 2 (0.20%) Sybase IQ
Development Applications
1 70 (7.08%) JIRA
2 38 (3.84%) GitLab
3 26 (2.63%) Jenkins
4 24 (2.43%) Git
5 6 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.30%) ScriptRunner
6 3 (0.30%) Zephyr
7 2 (0.20%) MSI
7 2 (0.20%) Toad
8 1 (0.10%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.10%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.10%) Claude Code
General
1 237 (23.96%) Social Skills
2 156 (15.77%) Finance
3 87 (8.80%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (5.97%) Banking
5 44 (4.45%) Public Sector
6 42 (4.25%) Telecoms
7 40 (4.04%) Documentation Skills
8 26 (2.63%) Retail
9 23 (2.33%) Legal
10 18 (1.82%) Influencing Skills
11 16 (1.62%) Manufacturing
12 13 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 13 (1.31%) Organisational Skills
13 7 (0.71%) Police
14 6 (0.61%) Financial Institution
14 6 (0.61%) Investment Banking
15 5 (0.51%) Cyber-Physical System
15 5 (0.51%) Marketing
16 4 (0.40%) Law
17 3 (0.30%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 167 (16.89%) Network Engineer
2 155 (15.67%) Architect
3 129 (13.04%) Senior
4 101 (10.21%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 70 (7.08%) Project Manager
6 68 (6.88%) Data Centre Engineer
7 66 (6.67%) Lead
8 59 (5.97%) Network Architect
9 40 (4.04%) Consultant
10 36 (3.64%) Data Centre Manager
10 36 (3.64%) Senior Network Engineer
11 33 (3.34%) IT Engineer
12 31 (3.13%) Infrastructure Manager
13 29 (2.93%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
14 26 (2.63%) Technical Manager
15 24 (2.43%) Analyst
15 24 (2.43%) Solutions Architect
16 23 (2.33%) Administrator
16 23 (2.33%) Data Manager
16 23 (2.33%) Field Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (10.31%) Terraform
2 26 (2.63%) REST
3 21 (2.12%) Middleware
4 16 (1.62%) YAML
5 15 (1.52%) 802.1X
6 13 (1.31%) JSON
7 11 (1.11%) .NET
8 8 (0.81%) LDAP
9 7 (0.71%) NETCONF
10 6 (0.61%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (0.61%) Redfish
10 6 (0.61%) SAML
11 5 (0.51%) Kafka
11 5 (0.51%) OpenConfig
11 5 (0.51%) RESTCONF
11 5 (0.51%) YANG
12 4 (0.40%) GeoJSON
12 4 (0.40%) RESTful
13 3 (0.30%) .NET Framework
14 2 (0.20%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 77 (7.79%) Hybrid Cloud
2 37 (3.74%) Public Cloud
3 33 (3.34%) Private Cloud
4 32 (3.24%) Cloud Native
4 32 (3.24%) PKI
5 28 (2.83%) Replication
6 27 (2.73%) Analytical Mindset
6 27 (2.73%) Enterprise Storage
7 25 (2.53%) Clustering
8 21 (2.12%) Onboarding
9 20 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
10 19 (1.92%) Operational Technology
11 16 (1.62%) Fibre Optics
11 16 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
12 15 (1.52%) Management Information System
13 14 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
14 13 (1.31%) CMDB
15 12 (1.21%) Driving Licence
16 11 (1.11%) Virtual Team
17 10 (1.01%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 161 (16.28%) Windows
2 102 (10.31%) Linux
3 61 (6.17%) Windows Server
4 31 (3.13%) Unix
5 18 (1.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (1.42%) AIX
7 11 (1.11%) Mac OS
8 10 (1.01%) Apple iOS
9 8 (0.81%) Solaris
9 8 (0.81%) VMS
10 6 (0.61%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.61%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.51%) HPUX
11 5 (0.51%) Oracle Linux
11 5 (0.51%) 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
1 220 (22.24%) Migration
2 149 (15.07%) Problem-Solving
3 141 (14.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 132 (13.35%) Stakeholder Management
5 109 (11.02%) Infrastructure as Code
6 95 (9.61%) Agile
7 94 (9.50%) ITIL
8 89 (9.00%) CI/CD
9 81 (8.19%) High Availability
10 80 (8.09%) Validation
11 77 (7.79%) Continuous Improvement
12 75 (7.58%) Project Delivery
13 73 (7.38%) Disaster Recovery
14 70 (7.08%) Roadmaps
15 68 (6.88%) Zero Trust
16 66 (6.67%) Change Management
17 61 (6.17%) Technical Leadership
18 60 (6.07%) ITSM
19 59 (5.97%) Cybersecurity
20 58 (5.86%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 145 (14.66%) Python
2 60 (6.07%) PowerShell
3 43 (4.35%) SQL
4 30 (3.03%) Bash
5 14 (1.42%) ActionScript
6 11 (1.11%) C#
7 10 (1.01%) Bicep
8 8 (0.81%) Shell Script
8 8 (0.81%) T-SQL
9 7 (0.71%) PL/SQL
10 6 (0.61%) Perl
11 4 (0.40%) Go
11 4 (0.40%) MATLAB
12 3 (0.30%) Java
12 3 (0.30%) JavaScript
12 3 (0.30%) Lisp
13 2 (0.20%) COBOL
13 2 (0.20%) JCL
13 2 (0.20%) REXX
13 2 (0.20%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 260 (26.29%) Security Cleared
2 166 (16.78%) SC Cleared
3 138 (13.95%) Cisco Certification
4 94 (9.50%) DV Cleared
5 86 (8.70%) CCNP
6 55 (5.56%) Degree
7 49 (4.95%) CCNA
8 31 (3.13%) Network+ Certification
9 30 (3.03%) AWS Certification
10 25 (2.53%) Microsoft Certification
10 25 (2.53%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 23 (2.33%) Azure Certification
11 23 (2.33%) CCIE
12 22 (2.22%) CISSP
13 21 (2.12%) PMI Certification
13 21 (2.12%) PMP
14 20 (2.02%) A+ Certification
14 20 (2.02%) MCSE
15 17 (1.72%) VCAP
16 14 (1.42%) City & Guilds
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (2.63%) QA
2 24 (2.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 24 (2.43%) SLA
3 18 (1.82%) NIST
4 15 (1.52%) PMO
5 11 (1.11%) GRC
6 10 (1.01%) GDPR
7 9 (0.91%) JSP 440
7 9 (0.91%) NCSC
8 6 (0.61%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.40%) ISO 31000
9 4 (0.40%) ISO 9001
9 4 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27005
9 4 (0.40%) RMADS
10 3 (0.30%) Data Quality
10 3 (0.30%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.20%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 128 (12.94%) VMware Infrastructure
2 75 (7.58%) Active Directory
3 47 (4.75%) vSphere
4 43 (4.35%) VMware NSX
5 34 (3.44%) VMware ESXi
6 28 (2.83%) Docker
6 28 (2.83%) Hyper-V
7 24 (2.43%) Firmware
8 13 (1.31%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (1.21%) NFS
10 6 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
11 5 (0.51%) Microsoft App-V
12 4 (0.40%) ISA Server
12 4 (0.40%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.40%) PowerHA
12 4 (0.40%) SRDF
12 4 (0.40%) Veritas Cluster Server
12 4 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
13 3 (0.30%) BitLocker
13 3 (0.30%) EMC RecoverPoint
Systems Management
1 137 (13.85%) Ansible
2 49 (4.95%) Kubernetes
3 33 (3.34%) FortiGate
4 19 (1.92%) Prometheus
5 18 (1.82%) Microsoft Intune
6 17 (1.72%) vCenter Server
7 16 (1.62%) Grafana
8 14 (1.42%) VxRail
9 12 (1.21%) Microsoft Clustering
9 12 (1.21%) SCCM
10 11 (1.11%) vMotion
11 10 (1.01%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (1.01%) NetBackup
11 10 (1.01%) PowerCLI
12 9 (0.91%) Dell DRAC
12 9 (0.91%) SCOM
12 9 (0.91%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 8 (0.81%) Nagios
14 7 (0.71%) Check_MK
15 5 (0.51%) Cisco Prime
Vendors
1 252 (25.48%) Cisco
2 170 (17.19%) VMware
3 119 (12.03%) Microsoft
4 109 (11.02%) Palo Alto
5 99 (10.01%) F5
6 62 (6.27%) Arista
6 62 (6.27%) Fortinet
7 60 (6.07%) Juniper
8 59 (5.97%) ServiceNow
9 48 (4.85%) Dell
10 39 (3.94%) Aruba
11 33 (3.34%) CheckPoint
12 29 (2.93%) Oracle
12 29 (2.93%) Red Hat
13 26 (2.63%) Veeam
14 24 (2.43%) Google
14 24 (2.43%) Zscaler
15 22 (2.22%) Commvault
15 22 (2.22%) SolarWinds
16 21 (2.12%) IBM