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 16 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Oct 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 124 130 119
Rank change year-on-year +6 -11 -21
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,024 617 666
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.19% 2.19% 2.08%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.30% 5.99% 6.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 647 405 408
10th Percentile £350 £259 £357
25th Percentile £425 £380 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £668 £613 £613
90th Percentile £758 £723 £725
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 34 24
10th Percentile £18.22 - £11.75
25th Percentile £20.21 - £12.08
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £21.90
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% +14.84% -6.81%
75th Percentile £54.69 £35.00 £25.50
90th Percentile £78.75 £59.08 £28.75
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £22.05
% change year-on-year +49.11% +14.08% -4.15%

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 16,246 10,305 9,994
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.70% 36.53% 31.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,758 6,445 6,012
10th Percentile £322 £300 £294
25th Percentile £425 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £543
Median % change year-on-year - -3.23% -1.36%
75th Percentile £645 £644 £675
90th Percentile £750 £763 £820
UK median daily rate £525 £515 £528
% change year-on-year +1.94% -2.37% -4.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,239 548 350
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.91 £17.08
25th Percentile £17.42 £18.51 £24.63
Median hourly rate £33.60 £29.50 £53.25
Median % change year-on-year +13.90% -44.60% +15.31%
75th Percentile £67.50 £55.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £73.75 £75.16
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £27.33 £47.37
% change year-on-year +28.06% -42.31% +5.27%

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 16 October 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 16 October 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 16 October 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 +16 423 £550 +4.76% 102
North of England 0 223 £507 +6.74% 44
South East -3 166 £525 +27.27% 54
Yorkshire +14 133 £500 +11.11% 9
Midlands -62 73 £475 +2.15% 23
North West -29 70 £550 +2.80% 29
West Midlands -53 60 £500 +0.81% 17
South West -28 51 £650 +18.18% 26
East of England -3 50 £500 -16.67% 16
North East -16 26 £625 +257.14% 6
East Midlands -13 13 £425 +2.16% 6
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 32 (3.13%) Confluence
2 16 (1.56%) SharePoint
3 12 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.88%) OpenStack
5 8 (0.78%) IIS
6 5 (0.49%) Apache
6 5 (0.49%) CloudStack
7 1 (0.098%) CICS
7 1 (0.098%) nginx
7 1 (0.098%) SAS
7 1 (0.098%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.098%) WebLogic
Applications
1 21 (2.05%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (1.76%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
3 9 (0.88%) MS Visio
3 9 (0.88%) Revit
4 7 (0.68%) Navisworks
5 6 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.49%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.20%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 11 (1.07%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.20%) OpenText MBPM
2 2 (0.20%) Oracle BPM
3 1 (0.098%) Cloudability
3 1 (0.098%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.098%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.098%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.098%) Primavera
3 1 (0.098%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 234 (22.85%) Azure
2 180 (17.58%) AWS
3 61 (5.96%) GCP
4 50 (4.88%) GitHub
5 44 (4.30%) IaaS
6 41 (4.00%) SaaS
7 37 (3.61%) Microsoft 365
8 35 (3.42%) Entra ID
9 33 (3.22%) OCI
10 20 (1.95%) PaaS
11 19 (1.86%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 18 (1.76%) AWS Direct Connect
12 18 (1.76%) Azure DevOps
12 18 (1.76%) OpenShift
13 16 (1.56%) Power Platform
14 14 (1.37%) OneDrive
15 13 (1.27%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 7 (0.68%) Azure Monitor
17 5 (0.49%) GitHub Actions
18 4 (0.39%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 236 (23.05%) Firewall
2 157 (15.33%) WAN
3 146 (14.26%) BGP
4 122 (11.91%) DNS
5 105 (10.25%) Network Security
6 95 (9.28%) VLAN
7 89 (8.69%) VPN
8 86 (8.40%) LAN
8 86 (8.40%) OSPF
9 84 (8.20%) VXLAN
10 83 (8.11%) SAN
11 80 (7.81%) TCP/IP
12 78 (7.62%) DHCP
13 76 (7.42%) SD-WAN
14 63 (6.15%) Ethernet VPN
15 55 (5.37%) Wireless
16 49 (4.79%) BIG-IP
16 49 (4.79%) Wi-Fi
17 48 (4.69%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 40 (3.91%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (3.81%) SQL Server
2 16 (1.56%) Power BI
3 11 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 10 (0.98%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 10 (0.98%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 7 (0.68%) Oracle Database
6 6 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
7 5 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
8 4 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
8 4 (0.39%) Db2
8 4 (0.39%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (0.39%) Oracle Database 12c
8 4 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
9 3 (0.29%) Big Data
9 3 (0.29%) PostgreSQL
10 2 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
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 73 (7.13%) JIRA
2 37 (3.61%) GitLab
3 29 (2.83%) Jenkins
4 24 (2.34%) Git
5 7 (0.68%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (0.39%) ScriptRunner
7 3 (0.29%) Zephyr
8 2 (0.20%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.20%) MSI
8 2 (0.20%) Toad
9 1 (0.098%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.098%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.098%) Claude Code
General
1 256 (25.00%) Social Skills
2 172 (16.80%) Finance
3 79 (7.71%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (5.76%) Banking
5 49 (4.79%) Public Sector
6 47 (4.59%) Telecoms
7 44 (4.30%) Documentation Skills
8 23 (2.25%) Legal
8 23 (2.25%) Retail
9 20 (1.95%) Manufacturing
10 19 (1.86%) Organisational Skills
11 16 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
12 12 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 8 (0.78%) Police
14 6 (0.59%) Financial Institution
14 6 (0.59%) Investment Banking
15 5 (0.49%) Cyber-Physical System
15 5 (0.49%) Law
15 5 (0.49%) Presentation Skills
16 4 (0.39%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 159 (15.53%) Architect
2 158 (15.43%) Network Engineer
3 122 (11.91%) Senior
4 109 (10.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 75 (7.32%) Project Manager
6 74 (7.23%) Lead
7 73 (7.13%) Data Centre Engineer
8 66 (6.45%) Network Architect
9 42 (4.10%) Consultant
10 35 (3.42%) Data Centre Manager
11 32 (3.13%) Senior Network Engineer
12 31 (3.03%) Analyst
13 30 (2.93%) Infrastructure Manager
13 30 (2.93%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
14 28 (2.73%) IT Engineer
14 28 (2.73%) Solutions Architect
15 27 (2.64%) Technical Manager
16 25 (2.44%) IT Support
16 25 (2.44%) Support Engineer
17 23 (2.25%) Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (10.35%) Terraform
2 29 (2.83%) REST
3 18 (1.76%) YAML
4 15 (1.46%) .NET
5 14 (1.37%) JSON
5 14 (1.37%) Middleware
6 11 (1.07%) 802.1X
7 6 (0.59%) LDAP
7 6 (0.59%) NETCONF
7 6 (0.59%) OpenAPI
7 6 (0.59%) SAML
7 6 (0.59%) Swagger
8 5 (0.49%) Elastic Stack
8 5 (0.49%) OpenConfig
8 5 (0.49%) RESTCONF
8 5 (0.49%) YANG
9 4 (0.39%) GeoJSON
9 4 (0.39%) Kafka
9 4 (0.39%) RESTful
9 4 (0.39%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 77 (7.52%) Hybrid Cloud
2 43 (4.20%) Public Cloud
3 34 (3.32%) Enterprise Storage
4 31 (3.03%) Cloud Native
5 29 (2.83%) PKI
5 29 (2.83%) Private Cloud
6 26 (2.54%) Replication
7 24 (2.34%) Onboarding
8 23 (2.25%) Clustering
9 21 (2.05%) Self-Motivation
10 20 (1.95%) Operational Technology
11 19 (1.86%) Data Protection Act
12 18 (1.76%) CMDB
13 16 (1.56%) Analytical Mindset
14 15 (1.46%) Management Information System
15 13 (1.27%) SCADA
16 12 (1.17%) Driving Licence
16 12 (1.17%) Fibre Optics
17 11 (1.07%) Product Ownership
18 10 (0.98%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 167 (16.31%) Windows
2 97 (9.47%) Linux
3 72 (7.03%) Windows Server
4 25 (2.44%) Unix
5 13 (1.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.07%) AIX
6 11 (1.07%) macOS
7 10 (0.98%) Apple iOS
8 7 (0.68%) VMS
8 7 (0.68%) Windows Server 2012
9 5 (0.49%) Solaris
9 5 (0.49%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.39%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.39%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.29%) Windows Server 2008
11 3 (0.29%) zOS
12 2 (0.20%) CentOS
12 2 (0.20%) HPUX
12 2 (0.20%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 234 (22.85%) Migration
2 158 (15.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 155 (15.14%) Stakeholder Management
4 147 (14.36%) Problem-Solving
5 121 (11.82%) Infrastructure as Code
6 107 (10.45%) Agile
7 95 (9.28%) CI/CD
8 93 (9.08%) ITIL
9 90 (8.79%) Project Delivery
10 89 (8.69%) High Availability
11 88 (8.59%) Validation
12 83 (8.11%) Continuous Improvement
13 78 (7.62%) Disaster Recovery
14 77 (7.52%) Zero Trust
15 76 (7.42%) Change Management
16 72 (7.03%) Roadmaps
17 68 (6.64%) Cybersecurity
18 64 (6.25%) DevOps
19 61 (5.96%) Technical Leadership
20 60 (5.86%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 151 (14.75%) Python
2 67 (6.54%) PowerShell
3 49 (4.79%) SQL
4 32 (3.13%) Bash
5 17 (1.66%) ActionScript
6 15 (1.46%) C#
7 12 (1.17%) T-SQL
8 10 (0.98%) Bicep
9 7 (0.68%) PL/SQL
10 6 (0.59%) Perl
10 6 (0.59%) Shell Script
11 5 (0.49%) Go
12 3 (0.29%) Java
12 3 (0.29%) JavaScript
13 2 (0.20%) JCL
13 2 (0.20%) Lisp
13 2 (0.20%) MATLAB
13 2 (0.20%) REXX
13 2 (0.20%) TypeScript
14 1 (0.098%) R
Qualifications
1 261 (25.49%) Security Cleared
2 174 (16.99%) SC Cleared
3 115 (11.23%) Cisco Certification
4 94 (9.18%) DV Cleared
5 74 (7.23%) CCNP
6 54 (5.27%) Degree
7 37 (3.61%) CCNA
8 30 (2.93%) AWS Certification
9 25 (2.44%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 24 (2.34%) CCIE
11 22 (2.15%) Network+ Certification
11 22 (2.15%) PMI Certification
12 21 (2.05%) CISSP
12 21 (2.05%) PMP
13 20 (1.95%) Azure Certification
14 19 (1.86%) VCAP
15 18 (1.76%) Microsoft Certification
16 13 (1.27%) A+ Certification
16 13 (1.27%) MCSE
17 12 (1.17%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (2.73%) QA
2 25 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 24 (2.34%) SLA
4 20 (1.95%) NIST
5 13 (1.27%) PMO
6 11 (1.07%) GDPR
6 11 (1.07%) GRC
7 9 (0.88%) JSP 440
8 8 (0.78%) NCSC
8 8 (0.78%) PCI DSS
9 6 (0.59%) ISO 31000
9 6 (0.59%) ISO 9001
9 6 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 27005
10 4 (0.39%) RMADS
11 3 (0.29%) Data Quality
11 3 (0.29%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.20%) Accessibility
12 2 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
12 2 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 2 (0.20%) HIPAA
System Software
1 137 (13.38%) VMware Infrastructure
2 77 (7.52%) Active Directory
3 51 (4.98%) vSphere
4 43 (4.20%) VMware NSX
5 32 (3.13%) Hyper-V
6 31 (3.03%) Docker
6 31 (3.03%) VMware ESXi
7 26 (2.54%) Firmware
8 14 (1.37%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (1.07%) NFS
10 5 (0.49%) ISA Server
10 5 (0.49%) Microsoft App-V
10 5 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
10 5 (0.49%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.39%) BitLocker
11 4 (0.39%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.39%) PowerHA
12 3 (0.29%) SRDF
12 3 (0.29%) Terminal Services
13 2 (0.20%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 137 (13.38%) Ansible
2 55 (5.37%) Kubernetes
3 30 (2.93%) FortiGate
4 18 (1.76%) Microsoft Intune
5 17 (1.66%) Prometheus
6 16 (1.56%) SCCM
7 15 (1.46%) vCenter Server
7 15 (1.46%) VxRail
8 14 (1.37%) Grafana
9 12 (1.17%) Microsoft Clustering
10 11 (1.07%) vMotion
11 10 (0.98%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.98%) PowerCLI
11 10 (0.98%) SCOM
12 9 (0.88%) Dell DRAC
12 9 (0.88%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 7 (0.68%) Nagios
14 6 (0.59%) CASB
14 6 (0.59%) Cisco Prime
14 6 (0.59%) WSUS
Vendors
1 235 (22.95%) Cisco
2 176 (17.19%) VMware
3 132 (12.89%) Microsoft
4 115 (11.23%) Palo Alto
5 92 (8.98%) F5
6 62 (6.05%) Fortinet
7 56 (5.47%) Arista
8 55 (5.37%) ServiceNow
9 54 (5.27%) Juniper
10 41 (4.00%) Aruba
10 41 (4.00%) Dell
11 34 (3.32%) Oracle
12 33 (3.22%) CheckPoint
13 31 (3.03%) Google
14 28 (2.73%) Veeam
15 27 (2.64%) Red Hat
16 26 (2.54%) Commvault
17 24 (2.34%) Zscaler
18 21 (2.05%) IBM
18 21 (2.05%) NetApp
243 Data Centre jobs in England