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

6 months to
29 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 139 125 93
Rank change year-on-year -14 -32 +13
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 653 576 864
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.07% 2.04% 2.36%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.85% 6.28% 7.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 431 347 617
10th Percentile £278 £350 £313
25th Percentile £405 £429 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.41% -2.70%
75th Percentile £600 £609 £650
90th Percentile £700 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 14 20
10th Percentile £21.83 £11.75 £20.31
25th Percentile - £13.89 £21.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £24.18 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.01% +5.13% -64.62%
75th Percentile £35.00 £27.98 £45.94
90th Percentile £69.72 £51.34 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £24.18 £23.00
% change year-on-year +4.01% +5.13% -64.06%

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 11,156 9,168 11,582
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 35.37% 32.47% 31.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,055 5,531 7,831
10th Percentile £283 £275 £263
25th Percentile £409 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.55% - -3.51%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £784 £775
UK median daily rate £505 £530 £548
% change year-on-year -4.81% -3.20% -0.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 547 265 471
10th Percentile £14.25 £17.15 £16.25
25th Percentile £18.50 £23.80 £20.50
Median hourly rate £28.13 £37.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.99% -12.94% +28.79%
75th Percentile £63.05 £66.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.82 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £27.21 £33.75 £41.50
% change year-on-year -19.38% -18.67% +29.69%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -6 247 £525 - 257
North of England -9 138 £480 -3.52% 148
South East -8 92 £450 -10.00% 218
Midlands -1 89 £465 -19.83% 93
North West +18 87 £533 +6.60% 73
West Midlands +1 69 £472 -18.62% 50
Yorkshire -36 46 £405 -3.57% 64
South West -24 36 £550 +0.18% 80
East of England -15 29 £546 +29.23% 100
East Midlands -8 20 £203 -67.60% 39
North East -2 8 £175 - 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 31 (4.75%) SharePoint
2 21 (3.22%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (2.14%) Confluence
4 10 (1.53%) OpenStack
5 7 (1.07%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.77%) Apache
6 5 (0.77%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.61%) 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%) nginx
9 2 (0.31%) ThingWorx
9 2 (0.31%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.15%) IIS
10 1 (0.15%) OpenEdge
10 1 (0.15%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 55 (8.42%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (4.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (3.98%) MS Visio
4 18 (2.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (1.99%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.15%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.92%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.61%) Oracle Financials
3 3 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.15%) DELMIA
5 1 (0.15%) Epicor iScala
5 1 (0.15%) Maximo
5 1 (0.15%) Primavera
5 1 (0.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.15%) StreamServe
Cloud Services
1 119 (18.22%) Azure
2 90 (13.78%) AWS
3 67 (10.26%) Microsoft 365
4 34 (5.21%) GCP
5 24 (3.68%) Power Platform
6 16 (2.45%) OpenShift
7 15 (2.30%) Entra ID
8 14 (2.14%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 11 (1.68%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 9 (1.38%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 9 (1.38%) SaaS
11 8 (1.23%) AWS Direct Connect
11 8 (1.23%) npm
11 8 (1.23%) PaaS
12 7 (1.07%) AWS CloudFormation
12 7 (1.07%) GitHub
12 7 (1.07%) IaaS
12 7 (1.07%) OCI
13 5 (0.77%) OneDrive
14 4 (0.61%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 191 (29.25%) Firewall
2 122 (18.68%) WAN
3 84 (12.86%) Wireless
4 74 (11.33%) VPN
5 67 (10.26%) BGP
6 65 (9.95%) LAN
7 55 (8.42%) Network Security
8 49 (7.50%) DNS
9 48 (7.35%) Wi-Fi
10 46 (7.04%) OSPF
11 39 (5.97%) VLAN
12 36 (5.51%) SAN
13 31 (4.75%) SD-WAN
14 30 (4.59%) DHCP
14 30 (4.59%) MPLS
14 30 (4.59%) VXLAN
15 29 (4.44%) Cisco ISE
16 27 (4.13%) IPsec
17 25 (3.83%) TCP/IP
18 24 (3.68%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (3.22%) Power BI
2 14 (2.14%) Relational Database
3 8 (1.23%) RDBMS
3 8 (1.23%) SQL Server
4 6 (0.92%) NoSQL
5 5 (0.77%) Apache Hive
5 5 (0.77%) Hadoop
5 5 (0.77%) HBase
6 4 (0.61%) Data Mining
6 4 (0.61%) GIS
6 4 (0.61%) InfluxDB
7 3 (0.46%) Big Data
7 3 (0.46%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.46%) Data Vault
7 3 (0.46%) Geospatial Data
7 3 (0.46%) Metadata
7 3 (0.46%) PostgreSQL
7 3 (0.46%) Power Query
7 3 (0.46%) PowerPivot
7 3 (0.46%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 24 (3.68%) Git
2 17 (2.60%) Jenkins
3 13 (1.99%) JIRA
3 13 (1.99%) Sonatype Nexus
4 11 (1.68%) Maven
5 10 (1.53%) GitLab
6 8 (1.23%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.46%) ER Studio
7 3 (0.46%) ERwin
7 3 (0.46%) Gradle
7 3 (0.46%) Selenium
8 2 (0.31%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.15%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.15%) Fiddler
9 1 (0.15%) Postman
9 1 (0.15%) ScriptRunner
General
1 176 (26.95%) Social Skills
2 124 (18.99%) Finance
3 81 (12.40%) Analytical Skills
4 80 (12.25%) Public Sector
5 63 (9.65%) Telecoms
6 60 (9.19%) Banking
7 41 (6.28%) Documentation Skills
8 38 (5.82%) Manufacturing
9 25 (3.83%) Electronics
9 25 (3.83%) Marketing
10 21 (3.22%) Presentation Skills
11 18 (2.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 14 (2.14%) Organisational Skills
13 11 (1.68%) Retail
14 8 (1.23%) Influencing Skills
15 7 (1.07%) Front Office
15 7 (1.07%) Investment Banking
15 7 (1.07%) Local Government
16 6 (0.92%) Law
16 6 (0.92%) Legal
Job Titles
1 109 (16.69%) Network Engineer
2 103 (15.77%) Architect
3 62 (9.49%) Analyst
3 62 (9.49%) Project Manager
4 43 (6.58%) Senior
5 41 (6.28%) Network Architect
6 34 (5.21%) Data Centre Manager
7 30 (4.59%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 28 (4.29%) IT Support
8 28 (4.29%) Security Engineer
9 26 (3.98%) Support Engineer
10 25 (3.83%) Desktop Support
11 24 (3.68%) Consultant
11 24 (3.68%) Data Centre Engineer
11 24 (3.68%) Lead
12 23 (3.52%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
12 23 (3.52%) 2nd Line Support
12 23 (3.52%) Infrastructure Manager
12 23 (3.52%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
13 22 (3.37%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.52%) 802.1X
2 16 (2.45%) Middleware
3 9 (1.38%) RFC 2544
4 5 (0.77%) Spark Streaming
5 4 (0.61%) Jinja
5 4 (0.61%) LDAP
5 4 (0.61%) VML
6 2 (0.31%) ADO
6 2 (0.31%) ARM Templates
6 2 (0.31%) ModSecurity
6 2 (0.31%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.31%) OpenConfig
6 2 (0.31%) REST
6 2 (0.31%) RESTCONF
6 2 (0.31%) YANG
7 1 (0.15%) .NET
7 1 (0.15%) ASP.NET
7 1 (0.15%) CSS
7 1 (0.15%) EJB
7 1 (0.15%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 40 (6.13%) Hybrid Cloud
2 24 (3.68%) Cloud Native
3 23 (3.52%) Public Cloud
4 18 (2.76%) Replication
4 18 (2.76%) Self-Motivation
5 15 (2.30%) Driving Licence
5 15 (2.30%) Mainframe
6 13 (1.99%) Onboarding
7 12 (1.84%) Fibre Optics
7 12 (1.84%) Private Cloud
8 11 (1.68%) Analytical Mindset
8 11 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
9 10 (1.53%) Management Information System
9 10 (1.53%) PKI
10 8 (1.23%) Clustering
11 7 (1.07%) Product Ownership
11 7 (1.07%) SCADA
11 7 (1.07%) Virtual Team
12 6 (0.92%) Distributed Systems
12 6 (0.92%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 85 (13.02%) Windows
2 59 (9.04%) Linux
3 41 (6.28%) Mac OS
4 40 (6.13%) Android
5 39 (5.97%) Windows Server
6 16 (2.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (1.68%) Unix
8 8 (1.23%) CentOS
9 6 (0.92%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.92%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (0.61%) VMS
10 4 (0.61%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.61%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.46%) Solaris
12 2 (0.31%) AIX
12 2 (0.31%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.31%) zOS
13 1 (0.15%) Apple iOS
13 1 (0.15%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (17.15%) Migration
2 94 (14.40%) Problem-Solving
3 81 (12.40%) Stakeholder Management
4 58 (8.88%) ITIL
5 54 (8.27%) Agile
6 46 (7.04%) Project Management
7 45 (6.89%) Change Management
7 45 (6.89%) Project Delivery
7 45 (6.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 44 (6.74%) Infrastructure as Code
9 43 (6.58%) CI/CD
9 43 (6.58%) Network Design
10 42 (6.43%) Business Intelligence
10 42 (6.43%) DevOps
11 41 (6.28%) Customer Service
12 40 (6.13%) Service Management
13 39 (5.97%) Load Balancing
14 36 (5.51%) Cybersecurity
15 35 (5.36%) Data Centre Operations
15 35 (5.36%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 67 (10.26%) Python
2 42 (6.43%) PowerShell
3 32 (4.90%) SQL
4 20 (3.06%) Java
5 18 (2.76%) Bash
6 10 (1.53%) Perl
7 8 (1.23%) Lisp
8 7 (1.07%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.61%) VBA
10 3 (0.46%) Bicep
10 3 (0.46%) Go
10 3 (0.46%) JavaScript
11 2 (0.31%) C
11 2 (0.31%) C#
11 2 (0.31%) MATLAB
12 1 (0.15%) C++
12 1 (0.15%) COBOL
12 1 (0.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.15%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.15%) PromQL
Qualifications
1 218 (33.38%) Security Cleared
2 182 (27.87%) SC Cleared
3 90 (13.78%) Cisco Certification
4 70 (10.72%) CCNP
5 53 (8.12%) Degree
6 42 (6.43%) DV Cleared
7 31 (4.75%) CCNA
8 25 (3.83%) CCIE
9 21 (3.22%) AWS Certification
10 13 (1.99%) CISSP
10 13 (1.99%) JNCIE
11 11 (1.68%) PMP
12 10 (1.53%) PMI Certification
13 8 (1.23%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 7 (1.07%) Computer Science Degree
14 7 (1.07%) Network+ Certification
15 6 (0.92%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 6 (0.92%) Azure Certification
15 6 (0.92%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 6 (0.92%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (2.91%) NIST
2 18 (2.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 18 (2.76%) SLA
3 17 (2.60%) PCI DSS
3 17 (2.60%) PMO
4 14 (2.14%) QA
5 12 (1.84%) GDPR
6 11 (1.68%) Data Quality
7 6 (0.92%) NCSC
8 3 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.15%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.15%) ISO 22301
10 1 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 1 (0.15%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.15%) SOC 2
System Software
1 66 (10.11%) VMware Infrastructure
2 46 (7.04%) Active Directory
3 36 (5.51%) VMware NSX
4 24 (3.68%) Docker
5 16 (2.45%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (2.14%) Hyper-V
7 13 (1.99%) vSphere
8 8 (1.23%) Firmware
9 6 (0.92%) KVM
9 6 (0.92%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.77%) HDFS
11 3 (0.46%) Lustre
12 2 (0.31%) Ceph
12 2 (0.31%) Microsoft App-V
12 2 (0.31%) NFS
12 2 (0.31%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 2 (0.31%) SRDF
12 2 (0.31%) Xen
13 1 (0.15%) Samba
13 1 (0.15%) Veritas Cluster Server
Systems Management
1 72 (11.03%) Ansible
2 65 (9.95%) Terraform
3 28 (4.29%) FortiGate
4 23 (3.52%) SCCM
5 21 (3.22%) Kubernetes
6 13 (1.99%) Grafana
7 11 (1.68%) Microsoft Intune
8 10 (1.53%) SCOM
9 9 (1.38%) vCenter Server
10 7 (1.07%) CASB
10 7 (1.07%) Puppet
11 6 (0.92%) SCOrch
11 6 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
12 5 (0.77%) Hadoop YARN
12 5 (0.77%) Prometheus
13 3 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 3 (0.46%) Argo
13 3 (0.46%) Nagios
13 3 (0.46%) OPNET
13 3 (0.46%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 224 (34.30%) Cisco
2 84 (12.86%) Microsoft
3 82 (12.56%) VMware
4 79 (12.10%) Palo Alto
5 64 (9.80%) Dell
6 54 (8.27%) Juniper
7 50 (7.66%) F5
8 48 (7.35%) HP
9 40 (6.13%) Apple
10 36 (5.51%) CheckPoint
11 31 (4.75%) SAP
11 31 (4.75%) ServiceNow
12 30 (4.59%) Fortinet
13 29 (4.44%) Meraki
14 26 (3.98%) Oracle
15 25 (3.83%) Aruba
16 18 (2.76%) Arista
17 17 (2.60%) Citrix
18 14 (2.14%) NetApp
18 14 (2.14%) Remedy