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 17 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 125 135 102
Rank change year-on-year +10 -33 -8
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 831 520 824
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.11% 2.13% 2.21%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.46% 6.26% 7.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 531 342 594
10th Percentile £313 £350 £300
25th Percentile £403 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £482 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -8.19% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £606 £638
90th Percentile £725 £675 £713
UK median daily rate £481 £518 £525
% change year-on-year -7.00% -1.43% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 15 35
10th Percentile £16.01 - £21.25
25th Percentile £18.07 £24.18 £22.04
Median hourly rate £21.46 £24.66 £24.87
Median % change year-on-year -12.98% -0.84% +14.77%
75th Percentile £52.65 £43.75 £40.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £56.50 £41.25
UK median hourly rate £21.46 £24.66 £24.87
% change year-on-year -12.98% -0.84% +14.77%

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 12,872 8,304 11,577
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.71% 33.98% 31.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,171 5,455 7,565
10th Percentile £300 £300 £263
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £548 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.39% -0.45% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £675
90th Percentile £744 £788 £788
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 654 311 821
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.67 £12.25
25th Percentile £21.00 £22.72 £15.13
Median hourly rate £45.46 £36.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +26.28% +30.91% +22.22%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.50 £58.48
90th Percentile £85.40 £85.00 £67.50
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £27.00
% change year-on-year +39.88% +20.37% +20.08%

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 17 April 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 17 April 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 17 April 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 -5 298 £540 +2.86% 180
North of England +21 182 £460 +8.76% 45
South East +1 178 £469 -5.54% 99
North West +15 88 £500 - 18
Yorkshire -7 81 £365 -3.95% 22
Midlands -49 58 £474 -18.63% 35
West Midlands -38 49 £474 -24.16% 28
South West -36 45 £498 -9.22% 47
East of England -15 36 £478 +13.14% 38
North East -4 15 £175 +59.09% 5
East Midlands -30 8 £200 -63.64% 7
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 18 (2.17%) SharePoint
2 16 (1.93%) Confluence
3 13 (1.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (1.08%) CICS
5 4 (0.48%) OpenStack
5 4 (0.48%) WebLogic
6 3 (0.36%) nginx
7 2 (0.24%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.24%) HCL Notes
7 2 (0.24%) Tomcat
Applications
1 26 (3.13%) Microsoft Office
2 21 (2.53%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (2.17%) MS Visio
4 16 (1.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (1.44%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.36%) Adobe Illustrator
6 3 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.12%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.12%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 6 (0.72%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
3 2 (0.24%) DELMIA
3 2 (0.24%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 2 (0.24%) Primavera
4 1 (0.12%) Maximo
4 1 (0.12%) Oracle Financials
4 1 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 139 (16.73%) Azure
2 124 (14.92%) AWS
3 46 (5.54%) GCP
4 39 (4.69%) Microsoft 365
5 21 (2.53%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 16 (1.93%) SaaS
7 15 (1.81%) Entra ID
7 15 (1.81%) IaaS
8 14 (1.68%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 13 (1.56%) Power Platform
10 11 (1.32%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 11 (1.32%) GitHub
10 11 (1.32%) PaaS
11 10 (1.20%) OpenShift
12 9 (1.08%) Azure DevOps
13 8 (0.96%) AWS Direct Connect
14 7 (0.84%) AWS CloudFormation
14 7 (0.84%) AWS KMS
14 7 (0.84%) Azure Sentinel
14 7 (0.84%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 236 (28.40%) Firewall
2 158 (19.01%) WAN
3 141 (16.97%) BGP
4 105 (12.64%) OSPF
5 102 (12.27%) LAN
6 88 (10.59%) Network Security
7 85 (10.23%) VPN
8 74 (8.90%) Structured Cabling
9 72 (8.66%) VXLAN
10 69 (8.30%) DNS
11 68 (8.18%) VLAN
12 65 (7.82%) SAN
13 55 (6.62%) DHCP
14 47 (5.66%) Wireless
15 44 (5.29%) Ethernet VPN
16 35 (4.21%) Cisco ISE
16 35 (4.21%) SD-WAN
17 32 (3.85%) NX-OS
18 30 (3.61%) Cisco Nexus
18 30 (3.61%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (1.08%) DataStage
2 8 (0.96%) Power BI
3 5 (0.60%) PostgreSQL
4 4 (0.48%) MongoDB
4 4 (0.48%) Power Query
4 4 (0.48%) PowerPivot
4 4 (0.48%) SAP Data Services
4 4 (0.48%) SQL Server
5 3 (0.36%) Big Data
5 3 (0.36%) InfluxDB
6 2 (0.24%) Data Lake
6 2 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.24%) GIS
6 2 (0.24%) RDBMS
6 2 (0.24%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.12%) Amazon RDS
7 1 (0.12%) DB2
7 1 (0.12%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.12%) MS Access
7 1 (0.12%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 33 (3.97%) Git
1 33 (3.97%) JIRA
2 18 (2.17%) Jenkins
3 17 (2.05%) GitLab
4 9 (1.08%) Maven
5 4 (0.48%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 4 (0.48%) Eclipse
5 4 (0.48%) Sonatype Nexus
5 4 (0.48%) Subversion
6 2 (0.24%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.24%) ScriptRunner
7 1 (0.12%) AppScan
7 1 (0.12%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.12%) Metasploit
General
1 220 (26.47%) Social Skills
2 122 (14.68%) Finance
3 103 (12.39%) Analytical Skills
4 72 (8.66%) Public Sector
5 54 (6.50%) Documentation Skills
6 42 (5.05%) Banking
7 32 (3.85%) Telecoms
8 24 (2.89%) Manufacturing
9 23 (2.77%) Legal
10 22 (2.65%) Retail
11 18 (2.17%) Influencing Skills
12 15 (1.81%) Marketing
13 14 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
14 13 (1.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 9 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
16 8 (0.96%) Investment Banking
16 8 (0.96%) Military
17 7 (0.84%) Aerospace
17 7 (0.84%) Electronics
17 7 (0.84%) Law
Job Titles
1 148 (17.81%) Network Engineer
2 117 (14.08%) Architect
3 76 (9.15%) Senior
4 71 (8.54%) Project Manager
5 65 (7.82%) Data Centre Engineer
6 43 (5.17%) Data Centre Manager
7 40 (4.81%) Network Architect
8 38 (4.57%) Analyst
9 37 (4.45%) Lead
10 36 (4.33%) IT Engineer
11 34 (4.09%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 33 (3.97%) Field Engineer
12 33 (3.97%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 31 (3.73%) Field Service Engineer
14 29 (3.49%) Infrastructure Manager
15 28 (3.37%) Cisco Engineer
16 27 (3.25%) Cisco Network Engineer
17 26 (3.13%) Solutions Architect
18 24 (2.89%) Data Centre Project Manager
18 24 (2.89%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (3.97%) 802.1X
2 28 (3.37%) Middleware
3 9 (1.08%) LDAP
4 7 (0.84%) Redfish
5 6 (0.72%) Spring
6 5 (0.60%) Jinja
6 5 (0.60%) NETCONF
6 5 (0.60%) XML
7 4 (0.48%) ADO
7 4 (0.48%) ARM Templates
7 4 (0.48%) Elastic Stack
7 4 (0.48%) OpenConfig
7 4 (0.48%) REST
7 4 (0.48%) RESTCONF
7 4 (0.48%) Spring Boot
7 4 (0.48%) VML
7 4 (0.48%) YANG
8 3 (0.36%) Kafka
8 3 (0.36%) RFC 2544
9 2 (0.24%) FIX Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 44 (5.29%) Hybrid Cloud
2 38 (4.57%) Analytical Mindset
3 28 (3.37%) Clustering
4 27 (3.25%) PKI
5 22 (2.65%) Fibre Optics
6 20 (2.41%) Driving Licence
7 19 (2.29%) Onboarding
8 18 (2.17%) Replication
9 16 (1.93%) Cloud Native
9 16 (1.93%) Management Information System
9 16 (1.93%) Public Cloud
9 16 (1.93%) Self-Motivation
10 15 (1.81%) Private Cloud
11 13 (1.56%) CMDB
12 12 (1.44%) Enterprise Storage
12 12 (1.44%) Mainframe
13 10 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
14 9 (1.08%) BYOD
14 9 (1.08%) VSAM
15 8 (0.96%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 107 (12.88%) Windows
2 92 (11.07%) Linux
3 38 (4.57%) Windows Server
4 29 (3.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 19 (2.29%) Unix
6 17 (2.05%) AIX
7 14 (1.68%) Solaris
8 12 (1.44%) Android
8 12 (1.44%) Mac OS
9 11 (1.32%) CentOS
10 7 (0.84%) VMS
11 5 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.36%) HPUX
12 3 (0.36%) Oracle Linux
12 3 (0.36%) SUSE
12 3 (0.36%) Windows 10
13 2 (0.24%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.24%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.12%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (17.69%) Problem-Solving
2 141 (16.97%) Migration
3 86 (10.35%) Stakeholder Management
4 78 (9.39%) ITIL
5 71 (8.54%) Continuous Improvement
6 68 (8.18%) Roadmaps
7 65 (7.82%) High Availability
8 64 (7.70%) Project Management
9 62 (7.46%) Change Management
10 56 (6.74%) Project Delivery
11 55 (6.62%) Load Balancing
12 51 (6.14%) Infrastructure as Code
13 50 (6.02%) CI/CD
14 46 (5.54%) Break/Fix
14 46 (5.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 46 (5.54%) Technical Leadership
15 45 (5.42%) Customer Service
15 45 (5.42%) ITSM
16 44 (5.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
16 44 (5.29%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 79 (9.51%) Python
2 40 (4.81%) PowerShell
3 22 (2.65%) Java
4 21 (2.53%) Bash
5 20 (2.41%) SQL
6 13 (1.56%) Perl
6 13 (1.56%) Shell Script
7 11 (1.32%) COBOL
8 9 (1.08%) MATLAB
9 6 (0.72%) Bicep
9 6 (0.72%) VBA
10 5 (0.60%) Lisp
11 4 (0.48%) JavaScript
12 2 (0.24%) C++
12 2 (0.24%) Korn
12 2 (0.24%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.12%) Go
13 1 (0.12%) Ruby
13 1 (0.12%) SystemVerilog
13 1 (0.12%) VB
Qualifications
1 273 (32.85%) Security Cleared
2 197 (23.71%) SC Cleared
3 177 (21.30%) Cisco Certification
4 117 (14.08%) CCNP
5 76 (9.15%) CCNA
6 67 (8.06%) Degree
7 62 (7.46%) DV Cleared
8 35 (4.21%) Network+ Certification
9 30 (3.61%) Microsoft Certification
10 29 (3.49%) A+ Certification
10 29 (3.49%) MCSE
11 24 (2.89%) CCIE
12 22 (2.65%) PMP
13 20 (2.41%) AWS Certification
14 18 (2.17%) Azure Certification
14 18 (2.17%) PMI Certification
15 16 (1.93%) JNCIS
16 14 (1.68%) City & Guilds
16 14 (1.68%) JNCIP
17 13 (1.56%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (3.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 27 (3.25%) SLA
3 25 (3.01%) NIST
4 23 (2.77%) GDPR
4 23 (2.77%) PMO
5 17 (2.05%) PCI DSS
6 15 (1.81%) QA
7 9 (1.08%) NCSC
8 7 (0.84%) GRC
9 5 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.36%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.24%) Data Quality
11 2 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.12%) COBIT
12 1 (0.12%) NEBOSH
12 1 (0.12%) RMADS
12 1 (0.12%) SOC 1
System Software
1 75 (9.03%) VMware Infrastructure
2 53 (6.38%) Active Directory
3 36 (4.33%) VMware NSX
4 22 (2.65%) Firmware
5 21 (2.53%) Virtual Machines
6 18 (2.17%) VMware ESXi
7 17 (2.05%) Hyper-V
8 16 (1.93%) vSphere
9 10 (1.20%) Docker
9 10 (1.20%) KVM
10 3 (0.36%) NFS
10 3 (0.36%) PowerHA
10 3 (0.36%) SRDF
10 3 (0.36%) UAG
10 3 (0.36%) Veritas Cluster Server
11 2 (0.24%) Ceph
11 2 (0.24%) Lustre
11 2 (0.24%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 2 (0.24%) vCloud
11 2 (0.24%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 82 (9.87%) Ansible
2 70 (8.42%) Terraform
3 47 (5.66%) FortiGate
4 37 (4.45%) Kubernetes
5 28 (3.37%) Grafana
6 21 (2.53%) Prometheus
7 16 (1.93%) SCCM
8 14 (1.68%) Microsoft Intune
9 9 (1.08%) Check_MK
9 9 (1.08%) NetBackup
9 9 (1.08%) Podman
9 9 (1.08%) Red Hat Satellite
9 9 (1.08%) vCenter Server
10 7 (0.84%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 7 (0.84%) Dell DRAC
10 7 (0.84%) SCOM
11 5 (0.60%) Endace
11 5 (0.60%) Nagios
11 5 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
12 4 (0.48%) EMC NetWorker
Vendors
1 248 (29.84%) Cisco
2 111 (13.36%) VMware
3 101 (12.15%) Palo Alto
4 85 (10.23%) Microsoft
5 73 (8.78%) Dell
6 71 (8.54%) Juniper
7 66 (7.94%) F5
8 41 (4.93%) CheckPoint
9 38 (4.57%) ServiceNow
10 37 (4.45%) Arista
10 37 (4.45%) SolarWinds
11 36 (4.33%) Aruba
11 36 (4.33%) Fortinet
12 29 (3.49%) Meraki
13 28 (3.37%) Splunk
14 27 (3.25%) IBM
15 26 (3.13%) HP
15 26 (3.13%) Red Hat
16 22 (2.65%) Citrix
16 22 (2.65%) Google