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 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Dec 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 133 117 96
Rank change year-on-year -16 -21 +15
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 649 657 922
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.10% 2.17% 2.39%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.80% 6.76% 7.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 416 394 644
10th Percentile £234 £358 £325
25th Percentile £400 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £509 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -3.00% -2.78% -
75th Percentile £600 £614 £650
90th Percentile £711 £725 £741
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 26 20
10th Percentile £23.96 £11.75 £20.31
25th Percentile - £12.08 £21.81
Median hourly rate £25.15 £22.70 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.82% -1.33% -64.06%
75th Percentile £34.00 £26.50 £45.94
90th Percentile £68.07 £30.19 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £24.17 £23.00
% change year-on-year +4.08% +5.07% -63.49%

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 11,187 9,716 12,330
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 36.13% 32.04% 32.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,048 5,852 8,375
10th Percentile £285 £294 £270
25th Percentile £408 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.68% - -3.51%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £675
90th Percentile £748 £800 £775
UK median daily rate £503 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -6.51% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 568 306 460
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.82 £17.00
25th Percentile £18.24 £23.59 £21.05
Median hourly rate £27.21 £38.54 £43.92
Median % change year-on-year -29.39% -12.26% +25.49%
75th Percentile £57.63 £67.76 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £78.58 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £26.50 £34.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -22.06% -20.00% +21.43%

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025. 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 -9 267 £525 - 140
North of England -9 140 £489 -2.30% 86
Midlands -1 91 £437 -24.66% 50
North West +19 82 £543 +8.50% 43
South East -44 73 £450 -10.00% 155
West Midlands -2 70 £470 -19.05% 27
Yorkshire -32 53 £422 +0.36% 34
South West -38 33 £550 +0.36% 41
East of England -16 29 £600 +50.00% 63
East Midlands -5 21 £203 -61.81% 20
North East -1 8 £175 - 10
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 31 (4.78%) SharePoint
2 22 (3.39%) Microsoft Exchange
3 18 (2.77%) Confluence
4 10 (1.54%) OpenStack
5 6 (0.92%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.77%) Apache
6 5 (0.77%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.62%) HCL Notes
8 3 (0.46%) CICS
8 3 (0.46%) GeoServer
8 3 (0.46%) Smallworld
8 3 (0.46%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.31%) FileNet
9 2 (0.31%) ThingWorx
9 2 (0.31%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.15%) IIS
10 1 (0.15%) nginx
10 1 (0.15%) OpenEdge
10 1 (0.15%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 59 (9.09%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (4.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (3.70%) MS Visio
4 18 (2.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (2.31%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.15%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.92%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.62%) Oracle Financials
3 3 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.15%) Epicor iScala
5 1 (0.15%) Maximo
5 1 (0.15%) Primavera
5 1 (0.15%) StreamServe
Cloud Services
1 112 (17.26%) Azure
2 83 (12.79%) AWS
3 71 (10.94%) Microsoft 365
4 34 (5.24%) GCP
5 23 (3.54%) Power Platform
6 19 (2.93%) Entra ID
7 16 (2.47%) OpenShift
8 13 (2.00%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 10 (1.54%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 10 (1.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 9 (1.39%) SaaS
11 8 (1.23%) PaaS
12 7 (1.08%) IaaS
12 7 (1.08%) npm
12 7 (1.08%) OCI
13 6 (0.92%) Akamai
13 6 (0.92%) AWS Direct Connect
14 5 (0.77%) AWS CloudFormation
14 5 (0.77%) GitHub
14 5 (0.77%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 181 (27.89%) Firewall
2 113 (17.41%) WAN
3 97 (14.95%) Wireless
4 63 (9.71%) BGP
5 62 (9.55%) VPN
6 57 (8.78%) DNS
7 54 (8.32%) LAN
8 47 (7.24%) Wi-Fi
9 42 (6.47%) OSPF
10 38 (5.86%) Cisco ISE
10 38 (5.86%) Network Security
10 38 (5.86%) SAN
11 35 (5.39%) DHCP
12 34 (5.24%) SD-WAN
13 32 (4.93%) Cisco Nexus
14 31 (4.78%) VLAN
15 29 (4.47%) MPLS
15 29 (4.47%) VXLAN
16 27 (4.16%) TCP/IP
17 25 (3.85%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (3.08%) Power BI
2 14 (2.16%) Relational Database
3 9 (1.39%) SQL Server
4 8 (1.23%) RDBMS
5 6 (0.92%) NoSQL
6 5 (0.77%) Apache Hive
6 5 (0.77%) Hadoop
6 5 (0.77%) HBase
6 5 (0.77%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (0.62%) Data Mining
7 4 (0.62%) GIS
7 4 (0.62%) InfluxDB
7 4 (0.62%) Oracle Database
8 3 (0.46%) Big Data
8 3 (0.46%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (0.46%) DataStage
8 3 (0.46%) Geospatial Data
8 3 (0.46%) QGIS
8 3 (0.46%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 20 (3.08%) Git
2 17 (2.62%) JIRA
3 14 (2.16%) Jenkins
4 13 (2.00%) Sonatype Nexus
5 11 (1.69%) Maven
6 9 (1.39%) GitLab
6 9 (1.39%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.62%) Gradle
7 4 (0.62%) Selenium
8 3 (0.46%) ER Studio
8 3 (0.46%) ERwin
9 2 (0.31%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.15%) Fiddler
10 1 (0.15%) Postman
10 1 (0.15%) TeamCity
General
1 166 (25.58%) Social Skills
2 126 (19.41%) Finance
3 77 (11.86%) Public Sector
4 75 (11.56%) Analytical Skills
5 67 (10.32%) Banking
6 66 (10.17%) Telecoms
7 35 (5.39%) Documentation Skills
8 34 (5.24%) Manufacturing
9 25 (3.85%) Electronics
9 25 (3.85%) Marketing
10 20 (3.08%) Presentation Skills
11 19 (2.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 15 (2.31%) Organisational Skills
13 10 (1.54%) Retail
14 9 (1.39%) Influencing Skills
15 7 (1.08%) Investment Banking
15 7 (1.08%) Local Government
16 6 (0.92%) Front Office
16 6 (0.92%) Legal
16 6 (0.92%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 105 (16.18%) Network Engineer
2 96 (14.79%) Architect
3 66 (10.17%) Analyst
4 57 (8.78%) Project Manager
5 38 (5.86%) Senior
6 34 (5.24%) Data Centre Manager
7 32 (4.93%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 32 (4.93%) Network Architect
8 31 (4.78%) Security Engineer
9 30 (4.62%) Support Engineer
10 28 (4.31%) IT Support
11 26 (4.01%) Consultant
11 26 (4.01%) Infrastructure Manager
12 25 (3.85%) Desktop Support
13 23 (3.54%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
13 23 (3.54%) 2nd Line Support
13 23 (3.54%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
14 21 (3.24%) Lead
15 20 (3.08%) Cisco Engineer
15 20 (3.08%) Infrastructure Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.54%) 802.1X
2 13 (2.00%) Middleware
3 10 (1.54%) RFC 2544
4 5 (0.77%) Spark Streaming
5 4 (0.62%) Jinja
6 3 (0.46%) VML
7 2 (0.31%) ARM Templates
7 2 (0.31%) LDAP
7 2 (0.31%) ModSecurity
7 2 (0.31%) NETCONF
7 2 (0.31%) OpenConfig
7 2 (0.31%) REST
7 2 (0.31%) RESTCONF
7 2 (0.31%) YANG
8 1 (0.15%) eBPF
8 1 (0.15%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.15%) OpenLayers
8 1 (0.15%) OpenTelemetry
8 1 (0.15%) RabbitMQ
8 1 (0.15%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 36 (5.55%) Hybrid Cloud
2 24 (3.70%) Cloud Native
3 22 (3.39%) Public Cloud
3 22 (3.39%) Replication
4 18 (2.77%) Driving Licence
5 17 (2.62%) Onboarding
6 15 (2.31%) Mainframe
7 13 (2.00%) Private Cloud
8 12 (1.85%) Self-Motivation
9 11 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
9 11 (1.69%) Fibre Optics
9 11 (1.69%) PKI
10 10 (1.54%) Clustering
11 9 (1.39%) Product Ownership
12 8 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
12 8 (1.23%) Management Information System
12 8 (1.23%) SCADA
13 7 (1.08%) Virtual Team
14 6 (0.92%) Distributed Systems
14 6 (0.92%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 91 (14.02%) Windows
2 57 (8.78%) Linux
3 47 (7.24%) Android
4 45 (6.93%) Mac OS
5 40 (6.16%) Windows Server
6 16 (2.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (1.85%) Unix
8 7 (1.08%) CentOS
9 6 (0.92%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.62%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.62%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.46%) Solaris
11 3 (0.46%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.46%) VMS
12 2 (0.31%) AIX
12 2 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.31%) zOS
13 1 (0.15%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (18.80%) Migration
2 81 (12.48%) Problem-Solving
3 76 (11.71%) Stakeholder Management
4 58 (8.94%) Agile
5 53 (8.17%) ITIL
6 49 (7.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 48 (7.40%) Change Management
8 46 (7.09%) Customer Service
9 43 (6.63%) CI/CD
9 43 (6.63%) Infrastructure as Code
10 42 (6.47%) Load Balancing
11 41 (6.32%) Business Intelligence
11 41 (6.32%) DevOps
12 40 (6.16%) Network Design
12 40 (6.16%) Service Management
13 39 (6.01%) Project Delivery
13 39 (6.01%) Project Management
14 37 (5.70%) Cybersecurity
14 37 (5.70%) Roadmaps
15 35 (5.39%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 65 (10.02%) Python
2 44 (6.78%) PowerShell
3 33 (5.08%) SQL
4 19 (2.93%) Bash
5 18 (2.77%) Java
6 10 (1.54%) Perl
7 8 (1.23%) Lisp
8 6 (0.92%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.62%) Go
10 3 (0.46%) Bicep
10 3 (0.46%) C
10 3 (0.46%) VBA
11 2 (0.31%) AWK
11 2 (0.31%) C#
11 2 (0.31%) JavaScript
11 2 (0.31%) sed
12 1 (0.15%) C++
12 1 (0.15%) COBOL
12 1 (0.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.15%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 205 (31.59%) Security Cleared
2 171 (26.35%) SC Cleared
3 77 (11.86%) Cisco Certification
4 53 (8.17%) CCNP
5 49 (7.55%) Degree
6 42 (6.47%) DV Cleared
7 25 (3.85%) CCIE
8 23 (3.54%) CCNA
9 18 (2.77%) AWS Certification
10 12 (1.85%) CISSP
10 12 (1.85%) JNCIE
11 9 (1.39%) PMP
11 9 (1.39%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 8 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
12 8 (1.23%) PMI Certification
13 7 (1.08%) VCAP
14 6 (0.92%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 6 (0.92%) CCSP
15 5 (0.77%) CCDP
15 5 (0.77%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (3.08%) SLA
2 17 (2.62%) NIST
2 17 (2.62%) PCI DSS
2 17 (2.62%) PMO
3 16 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (2.16%) QA
5 12 (1.85%) GDPR
6 11 (1.69%) Data Quality
7 5 (0.77%) NCSC
8 2 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.15%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.15%) ISO 22301
9 1 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 1 (0.15%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.15%) SOC 2
System Software
1 65 (10.02%) VMware Infrastructure
2 52 (8.01%) Active Directory
3 35 (5.39%) VMware NSX
4 24 (3.70%) Docker
5 16 (2.47%) Hyper-V
6 14 (2.16%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (2.16%) vSphere
7 8 (1.23%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (1.08%) Firmware
9 5 (0.77%) HDFS
10 4 (0.62%) KVM
10 4 (0.62%) NFS
11 3 (0.46%) GPFS
12 2 (0.31%) Lustre
12 2 (0.31%) Microsoft App-V
12 2 (0.31%) SRDF
13 1 (0.15%) Samba
13 1 (0.15%) Veritas Cluster Server
13 1 (0.15%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.15%) Xen
Systems Management
1 63 (9.71%) Ansible
2 59 (9.09%) Terraform
3 31 (4.78%) FortiGate
4 26 (4.01%) SCCM
5 21 (3.24%) Kubernetes
6 13 (2.00%) Microsoft Intune
7 12 (1.85%) Grafana
8 10 (1.54%) SCOM
9 9 (1.39%) vCenter Server
10 8 (1.23%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (1.08%) CASB
11 7 (1.08%) Puppet
12 6 (0.92%) SCOrch
13 5 (0.77%) Hadoop YARN
13 5 (0.77%) Prometheus
14 4 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 4 (0.62%) Argo
15 3 (0.46%) Jamf Pro
15 3 (0.46%) OPNET
15 3 (0.46%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 221 (34.05%) Cisco
2 97 (14.95%) Microsoft
3 82 (12.63%) VMware
4 68 (10.48%) Dell
5 60 (9.24%) Palo Alto
6 59 (9.09%) F5
7 54 (8.32%) HP
8 50 (7.70%) Juniper
9 44 (6.78%) Apple
10 34 (5.24%) ServiceNow
11 31 (4.78%) Meraki
11 31 (4.78%) SAP
12 30 (4.62%) Fortinet
13 26 (4.01%) CheckPoint
14 25 (3.85%) Oracle
15 21 (3.24%) SolarWinds
16 19 (2.93%) Arista
17 17 (2.62%) Remedy
18 16 (2.47%) Citrix
19 15 (2.31%) NetApp
497 Data Centre jobs in England