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 28 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 119 124 111
Rank change year-on-year +5 -13 -13
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,008 625 699
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.20% 2.27% 2.11%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.55% 6.33% 6.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 639 416 482
10th Percentile £325 £312 £351
25th Percentile £413 £411 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -0.46%
75th Percentile £650 £613 £620
90th Percentile £775 £716 £688
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.05% -2.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 29 29
10th Percentile £16.01 £25.13 £11.75
25th Percentile £18.53 - £12.08
Median hourly rate £25.00 £25.15 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -0.60% +5.67% +2.37%
75th Percentile £38.75 £38.75 £25.83
90th Percentile £89.75 £48.45 £28.55
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £25.15 £20.00
% change year-on-year -16.50% +25.75% -

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 15,379 9,878 10,199
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.60% 35.85% 30.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,379 6,246 6,504
10th Percentile £325 £301 £300
25th Percentile £425 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £650 £688
90th Percentile £750 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £550
% change year-on-year +0.96% -5.45% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 960 493 502
10th Percentile £14.68 £15.48 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.87 £19.49
Median hourly rate £40.00 £32.74 £49.75
Median % change year-on-year +22.19% -34.20% +8.44%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £84.00 £77.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.96 £30.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +36.53% -29.41% -2.95%

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 28 August 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 28 August 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 28 August 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 +4 418 £550 - 837
North of England -11 216 £485 +7.78% 125
South East -2 182 £539 +9.34% 166
Yorkshire -3 132 £465 +12.05% 43
North West -17 69 £500 -6.54% 47
South West -8 68 £588 +6.82% 83
Midlands -70 50 £425 -15.00% 60
West Midlands -69 42 £456 -8.80% 48
East of England -11 36 £479 -20.21% 95
North East -20 21 £625 +468.18% 36
East Midlands -25 7 £400 -25.93% 12
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 (2.58%) Confluence
2 17 (1.69%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.09%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.69%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.50%) Apache
5 5 (0.50%) CloudStack
6 2 (0.20%) CICS
7 1 (0.099%) IIS
7 1 (0.099%) nginx
7 1 (0.099%) SAS
7 1 (0.099%) Tomcat
Applications
1 19 (1.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (1.69%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
3 9 (0.89%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.50%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.20%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 13 (1.29%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.20%) OpenText MBPM
2 2 (0.20%) Oracle BPM
2 2 (0.20%) Primavera
3 1 (0.099%) Cloudability
3 1 (0.099%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 221 (21.92%) Azure
2 181 (17.96%) AWS
3 46 (4.56%) GCP
4 42 (4.17%) GitHub
5 36 (3.57%) SaaS
6 33 (3.27%) IaaS
7 30 (2.98%) Microsoft 365
7 30 (2.98%) OCI
8 25 (2.48%) Entra ID
9 17 (1.69%) Power Platform
10 14 (1.39%) OneDrive
10 14 (1.39%) PaaS
11 13 (1.29%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 12 (1.19%) Azure DevOps
12 12 (1.19%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 11 (1.09%) OpenShift
14 7 (0.69%) GitHub Actions
15 6 (0.60%) AWS Direct Connect
15 6 (0.60%) Azure Sentinel
16 5 (0.50%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 246 (24.40%) Firewall
2 163 (16.17%) BGP
3 162 (16.07%) WAN
4 118 (11.71%) DNS
5 106 (10.52%) VXLAN
6 103 (10.22%) OSPF
7 98 (9.72%) SAN
8 97 (9.62%) VLAN
9 93 (9.23%) VPN
10 88 (8.73%) DHCP
10 88 (8.73%) Network Security
11 86 (8.53%) LAN
12 75 (7.44%) TCP/IP
13 72 (7.14%) SD-WAN
14 70 (6.94%) Ethernet VPN
15 64 (6.35%) Structured Cabling
16 51 (5.06%) Wireless
17 50 (4.96%) Wi-Fi
18 46 (4.56%) NX-OS
19 45 (4.46%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (2.38%) SQL Server
2 14 (1.39%) 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 (0.60%) Big Data
7 5 (0.50%) Db2
7 5 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
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 2 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
10 1 (0.099%) Data Lake
10 1 (0.099%) Flink
10 1 (0.099%) GIS
10 1 (0.099%) Oracle Exadata
10 1 (0.099%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 68 (6.75%) JIRA
2 36 (3.57%) GitLab
3 25 (2.48%) Git
4 21 (2.08%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.69%) 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
8 1 (0.099%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.099%) Maven
8 1 (0.099%) Subversion
General
1 244 (24.21%) Social Skills
2 151 (14.98%) Finance
3 100 (9.92%) Analytical Skills
4 52 (5.16%) Public Sector
5 49 (4.86%) Banking
6 43 (4.27%) Telecoms
7 36 (3.57%) Documentation Skills
8 31 (3.08%) Retail
9 21 (2.08%) Legal
10 17 (1.69%) Influencing Skills
11 16 (1.59%) Manufacturing
12 14 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 9 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (0.89%) Police
14 7 (0.69%) Financial Institution
14 7 (0.69%) Law
15 6 (0.60%) Marketing
16 5 (0.50%) Investment Banking
17 3 (0.30%) Aerospace
17 3 (0.30%) Billing
Job Titles
1 157 (15.58%) Network Engineer
2 151 (14.98%) Architect
3 131 (13.00%) Senior
4 112 (11.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 74 (7.34%) Data Centre Engineer
6 72 (7.14%) Project Manager
7 60 (5.95%) Lead
8 54 (5.36%) Network Architect
9 37 (3.67%) Consultant
9 37 (3.67%) Data Centre Manager
10 36 (3.57%) Senior Network Engineer
11 35 (3.47%) IT Engineer
12 34 (3.37%) Infrastructure Manager
13 31 (3.08%) Field Engineer
14 30 (2.98%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
15 28 (2.78%) Field Service Engineer
15 28 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
16 26 (2.58%) Data Manager
17 24 (2.38%) Administrator
17 24 (2.38%) Technical Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (9.72%) Terraform
2 24 (2.38%) Middleware
3 21 (2.08%) REST
4 15 (1.49%) 802.1X
5 13 (1.29%) YAML
6 11 (1.09%) JSON
7 8 (0.79%) Elastic Stack
7 8 (0.79%) LDAP
7 8 (0.79%) Redfish
8 7 (0.69%) NETCONF
9 6 (0.60%) OpenConfig
9 6 (0.60%) SAML
9 6 (0.60%) YANG
10 5 (0.50%) .NET
10 5 (0.50%) RESTCONF
11 4 (0.40%) GeoJSON
11 4 (0.40%) Kafka
11 4 (0.40%) RESTful
12 3 (0.30%) .NET Framework
12 3 (0.30%) Jinja
Miscellaneous
1 72 (7.14%) Hybrid Cloud
2 37 (3.67%) PKI
3 35 (3.47%) Analytical Mindset
4 33 (3.27%) Cloud Native
4 33 (3.27%) Private Cloud
5 32 (3.17%) Clustering
5 32 (3.17%) Enterprise Storage
6 27 (2.68%) Fibre Optics
7 26 (2.58%) Replication
8 24 (2.38%) Public Cloud
9 23 (2.28%) Onboarding
10 20 (1.98%) Data Protection Act
11 15 (1.49%) CMDB
11 15 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
12 14 (1.39%) Driving Licence
12 14 (1.39%) Operational Technology
13 12 (1.19%) Management Information System
14 11 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
15 10 (0.99%) Virtual Team
16 8 (0.79%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 151 (14.98%) Windows
2 97 (9.62%) Linux
3 46 (4.56%) Windows Server
4 30 (2.98%) Unix
5 18 (1.79%) AIX
5 18 (1.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.09%) Mac OS
7 10 (0.99%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.79%) Solaris
9 7 (0.69%) VMS
10 6 (0.60%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.50%) HPUX
11 5 (0.50%) Oracle Linux
11 5 (0.50%) SUSE
11 5 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
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
1 225 (22.32%) Migration
2 160 (15.87%) Problem-Solving
3 138 (13.69%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 131 (13.00%) Stakeholder Management
5 102 (10.12%) Infrastructure as Code
6 100 (9.92%) ITIL
7 92 (9.13%) Agile
8 87 (8.63%) High Availability
9 86 (8.53%) CI/CD
10 78 (7.74%) Roadmaps
10 78 (7.74%) Validation
11 77 (7.64%) Project Delivery
12 74 (7.34%) Change Management
13 73 (7.24%) Continuous Improvement
14 69 (6.85%) Disaster Recovery
15 68 (6.75%) Zero Trust
16 64 (6.35%) Technical Leadership
17 60 (5.95%) Load Balancing
17 60 (5.95%) Mentoring
17 60 (5.95%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 148 (14.68%) Python
2 56 (5.56%) PowerShell
3 34 (3.37%) SQL
4 31 (3.08%) Bash
5 10 (0.99%) Bicep
6 9 (0.89%) ActionScript
7 8 (0.79%) Shell Script
8 7 (0.69%) Perl
8 7 (0.69%) PL/SQL
9 5 (0.50%) C#
9 5 (0.50%) Java
10 4 (0.40%) Go
10 4 (0.40%) MATLAB
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
12 2 (0.20%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 265 (26.29%) Security Cleared
2 169 (16.77%) SC Cleared
3 149 (14.78%) Cisco Certification
4 93 (9.23%) DV Cleared
5 92 (9.13%) CCNP
6 58 (5.75%) Degree
7 55 (5.46%) CCNA
8 37 (3.67%) Network+ Certification
9 31 (3.08%) Microsoft Certification
10 28 (2.78%) AWS Certification
11 26 (2.58%) A+ Certification
11 26 (2.58%) MCSE
12 25 (2.48%) CCIE
13 24 (2.38%) Azure Certification
14 23 (2.28%) PMP
15 22 (2.18%) City & Guilds
15 22 (2.18%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 21 (2.08%) PMI Certification
17 18 (1.79%) CISSP
18 17 (1.69%) BICSI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (2.78%) QA
2 25 (2.48%) SLA
3 24 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 17 (1.69%) NIST
5 13 (1.29%) PMO
6 12 (1.19%) GDPR
7 9 (0.89%) JSP 440
7 9 (0.89%) NCSC
8 6 (0.60%) GRC
9 4 (0.40%) RMADS
10 3 (0.30%) Data Quality
10 3 (0.30%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.20%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.20%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.20%) WCAG
12 1 (0.099%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.099%) HIPAA
System Software
1 128 (12.70%) VMware Infrastructure
2 70 (6.94%) Active Directory
3 42 (4.17%) vSphere
4 41 (4.07%) VMware NSX
5 36 (3.57%) VMware ESXi
6 29 (2.88%) Docker
6 29 (2.88%) Firmware
7 27 (2.68%) Hyper-V
8 14 (1.39%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (1.19%) NFS
10 7 (0.69%) PowerHA
11 6 (0.60%) Microsoft App-V
11 6 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (0.40%) BitLocker
12 4 (0.40%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.40%) SRDF
12 4 (0.40%) Terminal Services
12 4 (0.40%) Veritas Cluster Server
13 3 (0.30%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 3 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 135 (13.39%) Ansible
2 56 (5.56%) Kubernetes
3 33 (3.27%) FortiGate
4 26 (2.58%) Prometheus
5 24 (2.38%) Grafana
6 20 (1.98%) Microsoft Intune
7 17 (1.69%) vCenter Server
8 15 (1.49%) VxRail
9 13 (1.29%) SCCM
10 12 (1.19%) Microsoft Clustering
10 12 (1.19%) NetBackup
11 11 (1.09%) vMotion
12 10 (0.99%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.99%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 9 (0.89%) Dell DRAC
13 9 (0.89%) PowerCLI
14 8 (0.79%) Nagios
14 8 (0.79%) SCOM
15 7 (0.69%) Check_MK
16 6 (0.60%) EMC NetWorker
Vendors
1 249 (24.70%) Cisco
2 174 (17.26%) VMware
3 112 (11.11%) Microsoft
4 108 (10.71%) Palo Alto
5 91 (9.03%) F5
6 68 (6.75%) Arista
7 67 (6.65%) Juniper
8 63 (6.25%) Fortinet
9 54 (5.36%) Dell
10 52 (5.16%) ServiceNow
11 38 (3.77%) Aruba
12 33 (3.27%) CheckPoint
13 29 (2.88%) Red Hat
14 26 (2.58%) IBM
15 25 (2.48%) SolarWinds
16 22 (2.18%) Google
16 22 (2.18%) Oracle
17 21 (2.08%) NetApp
17 21 (2.08%) Veeam
18 19 (1.88%) Commvault