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 19 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 108 123 104
Rank change year-on-year +15 -19 -8
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,039 611 793
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.31% 2.23% 2.20%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.95% 6.40% 7.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 638 402 558
10th Percentile £325 £313 £350
25th Percentile £407 £413 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -2.24% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £638 £612 £625
90th Percentile £750 £688 £689
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £538
% change year-on-year -1.96% -5.12% -1.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 20 43
10th Percentile £16.01 £25.00 £12.08
25th Percentile £18.07 - £20.73
Median hourly rate £19.85 £25.15 £24.87
Median % change year-on-year -21.07% +1.13% +14.77%
75th Percentile £35.22 £40.94 £35.56
90th Percentile £78.75 £49.38 £40.00
UK median hourly rate £19.85 £25.15 £23.80
% change year-on-year -21.07% +5.67% +14.95%

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 14,958 9,554 11,187
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.20% 34.86% 31.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,289 6,062 7,230
10th Percentile £316 £306 £298
25th Percentile £420 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £750 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £539
% change year-on-year - -2.51% -2.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 804 469 729
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £12.48
25th Percentile £21.00 £18.87 £16.24
Median hourly rate £43.96 £33.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.21% -17.50% +13.48%
75th Percentile £71.62 £62.24 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.82 £80.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +46.53% -20.00% +7.14%

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 19 July 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 19 July 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 19 July 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 +13 394 £550 +2.80% 269
North of England +10 244 £482 +3.54% 50
South East +1 214 £500 +0.76% 94
Yorkshire 0 136 £365 -18.89% 11
North West -11 88 £516 -1.81% 26
South West -31 57 £498 -9.55% 22
Midlands -52 56 £460 -14.81% 20
West Midlands -55 51 £467 -8.91% 16
East of England -9 33 £513 +13.89% 30
North East -12 26 £625 +468.18% 13
East Midlands -22 4 £363 -34.09% 4
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 23 (2.21%) Confluence
2 16 (1.54%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.06%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.96%) CICS
5 7 (0.67%) OpenStack
6 5 (0.48%) Apache
6 5 (0.48%) CloudStack
7 4 (0.38%) WebLogic
8 3 (0.29%) nginx
8 3 (0.29%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.096%) IIS
9 1 (0.096%) SAS
Applications
1 16 (1.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (1.44%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.96%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.67%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.48%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.29%) Adobe Illustrator
7 3 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.19%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 4 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
3 2 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 2 (0.19%) Primavera
4 1 (0.096%) OpenText MBPM
4 1 (0.096%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 228 (21.94%) Azure
2 190 (18.29%) AWS
3 57 (5.49%) GCP
4 40 (3.85%) IaaS
5 38 (3.66%) Microsoft 365
6 36 (3.46%) GitHub
7 35 (3.37%) SaaS
8 30 (2.89%) OCI
9 24 (2.31%) Entra ID
10 19 (1.83%) PaaS
10 19 (1.83%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 15 (1.44%) OpenShift
12 13 (1.25%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 13 (1.25%) OneDrive
13 12 (1.15%) Azure DevOps
14 11 (1.06%) Power Platform
15 9 (0.87%) Azure Sentinel
16 8 (0.77%) Amazon GuardDuty
16 8 (0.77%) GitHub Actions
17 7 (0.67%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 282 (27.14%) Firewall
2 184 (17.71%) WAN
3 177 (17.04%) BGP
4 130 (12.51%) OSPF
5 124 (11.93%) DNS
6 108 (10.39%) VXLAN
7 103 (9.91%) LAN
8 100 (9.62%) SAN
8 100 (9.62%) VPN
9 96 (9.24%) Network Security
10 95 (9.14%) VLAN
11 91 (8.76%) DHCP
12 81 (7.80%) Structured Cabling
13 73 (7.03%) Ethernet VPN
13 73 (7.03%) SD-WAN
14 67 (6.45%) TCP/IP
15 57 (5.49%) BIG-IP
16 51 (4.91%) Wireless
17 44 (4.23%) NAS
18 43 (4.14%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (1.35%) SQL Server
2 9 (0.87%) DataStage
3 7 (0.67%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (0.58%) Big Data
4 6 (0.58%) Oracle Database
4 6 (0.58%) Power BI
5 5 (0.48%) Db2
6 4 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (0.38%) Geospatial Data
6 4 (0.38%) MongoDB
6 4 (0.38%) Oracle Database 12c
6 4 (0.38%) Oracle Reports
6 4 (0.38%) SAP Data Services
7 3 (0.29%) GIS
8 2 (0.19%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.19%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 68 (6.54%) JIRA
2 29 (2.79%) GitLab
3 24 (2.31%) Git
4 22 (2.12%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.48%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (0.38%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 4 (0.38%) Eclipse
6 4 (0.38%) Maven
6 4 (0.38%) Subversion
7 3 (0.29%) ScriptRunner
7 3 (0.29%) Zephyr
8 2 (0.19%) MSI
8 2 (0.19%) Toad
9 1 (0.096%) AppScan
9 1 (0.096%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.096%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.096%) Metasploit
General
1 264 (25.41%) Social Skills
2 150 (14.44%) Finance
3 109 (10.49%) Analytical Skills
4 70 (6.74%) Public Sector
5 46 (4.43%) Documentation Skills
6 44 (4.23%) Banking
7 43 (4.14%) Telecoms
8 26 (2.50%) Influencing Skills
8 26 (2.50%) Legal
8 26 (2.50%) Retail
9 17 (1.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 17 (1.64%) Manufacturing
10 11 (1.06%) Organisational Skills
11 9 (0.87%) Military
12 8 (0.77%) Law
13 7 (0.67%) Police
14 6 (0.58%) Financial Institution
14 6 (0.58%) Investment Banking
14 6 (0.58%) Marketing
15 4 (0.38%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 154 (14.82%) Network Engineer
2 146 (14.05%) Architect
3 127 (12.22%) Senior
4 109 (10.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 91 (8.76%) Data Centre Engineer
6 75 (7.22%) Project Manager
7 58 (5.58%) Network Architect
8 50 (4.81%) Lead
9 40 (3.85%) IT Engineer
10 39 (3.75%) Field Engineer
10 39 (3.75%) Infrastructure Manager
11 37 (3.56%) Data Centre Manager
12 35 (3.37%) Field Service Engineer
13 30 (2.89%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
14 28 (2.69%) Support Engineer
15 27 (2.60%) Analyst
15 27 (2.60%) Infrastructure Project Manager
15 27 (2.60%) IT Support
15 27 (2.60%) Senior Network Engineer
16 25 (2.41%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (2.98%) 802.1X
2 30 (2.89%) Middleware
3 10 (0.96%) Redfish
4 8 (0.77%) LDAP
4 8 (0.77%) REST
5 7 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
5 7 (0.67%) NETCONF
5 7 (0.67%) Spring
6 6 (0.58%) OpenConfig
6 6 (0.58%) RESTCONF
6 6 (0.58%) SAML
6 6 (0.58%) YANG
7 5 (0.48%) Jinja
7 5 (0.48%) Kafka
7 5 (0.48%) XML
8 4 (0.38%) .NET
8 4 (0.38%) GeoJSON
8 4 (0.38%) RESTful
8 4 (0.38%) Spring Boot
8 4 (0.38%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 71 (6.83%) Hybrid Cloud
2 43 (4.14%) Analytical Mindset
3 42 (4.04%) PKI
4 36 (3.46%) Cloud Native
5 33 (3.18%) Clustering
6 30 (2.89%) Private Cloud
7 28 (2.69%) Fibre Optics
8 27 (2.60%) Enterprise Storage
9 24 (2.31%) Onboarding
10 22 (2.12%) Replication
11 20 (1.92%) Driving Licence
12 18 (1.73%) Public Cloud
13 15 (1.44%) Mainframe
13 15 (1.44%) Management Information System
14 14 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
15 13 (1.25%) CMDB
16 12 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
17 11 (1.06%) Operational Technology
18 10 (0.96%) SCADA
19 9 (0.87%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 142 (13.67%) Windows
2 107 (10.30%) Linux
3 39 (3.75%) Windows Server
4 32 (3.08%) Unix
5 24 (2.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 22 (2.12%) AIX
7 17 (1.64%) Solaris
8 10 (0.96%) Apple iOS
8 10 (0.96%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.58%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
10 5 (0.48%) HPUX
10 5 (0.48%) Oracle Linux
10 5 (0.48%) SUSE
10 5 (0.48%) VMS
11 4 (0.38%) CentOS
11 4 (0.38%) Data ONTAP
12 3 (0.29%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.19%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 206 (19.83%) Migration
2 178 (17.13%) Problem-Solving
3 135 (12.99%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 117 (11.26%) Stakeholder Management
5 103 (9.91%) ITIL
6 97 (9.34%) Infrastructure as Code
7 94 (9.05%) CI/CD
7 94 (9.05%) High Availability
8 86 (8.28%) Agile
9 82 (7.89%) Roadmaps
10 81 (7.80%) Continuous Improvement
11 78 (7.51%) Change Management
12 73 (7.03%) Load Balancing
13 72 (6.93%) Project Delivery
13 72 (6.93%) Zero Trust
14 69 (6.64%) Validation
15 66 (6.35%) Project Management
16 63 (6.06%) DevOps
17 61 (5.87%) Network Design
18 60 (5.77%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 140 (13.47%) Python
2 44 (4.23%) PowerShell
3 31 (2.98%) SQL
4 27 (2.60%) Bash
5 17 (1.64%) Java
6 13 (1.25%) Bicep
7 11 (1.06%) COBOL
7 11 (1.06%) Shell Script
8 9 (0.87%) ActionScript
9 8 (0.77%) Perl
9 8 (0.77%) PL/SQL
10 5 (0.48%) JavaScript
11 4 (0.38%) C#
11 4 (0.38%) Lisp
11 4 (0.38%) MATLAB
12 2 (0.19%) C++
12 2 (0.19%) JCL
12 2 (0.19%) Korn
12 2 (0.19%) REXX
12 2 (0.19%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 279 (26.85%) Security Cleared
2 178 (17.13%) Cisco Certification
3 173 (16.65%) SC Cleared
4 105 (10.11%) CCNP
5 99 (9.53%) DV Cleared
6 70 (6.74%) CCNA
7 61 (5.87%) Degree
8 48 (4.62%) Network+ Certification
9 39 (3.75%) Microsoft Certification
10 33 (3.18%) A+ Certification
10 33 (3.18%) MCSE
11 26 (2.50%) Azure Certification
12 25 (2.41%) AWS Certification
12 25 (2.41%) CCIE
13 23 (2.21%) PMP
14 22 (2.12%) City & Guilds
14 22 (2.12%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 20 (1.92%) PMI Certification
16 17 (1.64%) BICSI Certification
16 17 (1.64%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (2.69%) SLA
2 24 (2.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 21 (2.02%) NIST
4 20 (1.92%) PMO
5 19 (1.83%) QA
6 15 (1.44%) GDPR
6 15 (1.44%) NCSC
7 9 (0.87%) GRC
8 8 (0.77%) PCI DSS
9 6 (0.58%) JSP 440
10 5 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
10 5 (0.48%) RMADS
11 3 (0.29%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.19%) Accessibility
12 2 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
12 2 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.19%) WCAG
13 1 (0.096%) COBIT
13 1 (0.096%) NEBOSH
13 1 (0.096%) SOC 1
System Software
1 105 (10.11%) VMware Infrastructure
2 59 (5.68%) Active Directory
3 36 (3.46%) VMware ESXi
4 35 (3.37%) VMware NSX
5 34 (3.27%) vSphere
6 29 (2.79%) Firmware
7 27 (2.60%) Hyper-V
8 21 (2.02%) Virtual Machines
9 20 (1.92%) Docker
10 11 (1.06%) NFS
11 8 (0.77%) KVM
12 6 (0.58%) Microsoft App-V
13 5 (0.48%) SRDF
13 5 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
14 4 (0.38%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.38%) Terminal Services
14 4 (0.38%) VMware Workstation
15 3 (0.29%) EMC RecoverPoint
15 3 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
15 3 (0.29%) Veritas Cluster Server
Systems Management
1 122 (11.74%) Ansible
2 100 (9.62%) Terraform
3 52 (5.00%) Kubernetes
4 47 (4.52%) FortiGate
5 30 (2.89%) Grafana
6 28 (2.69%) Prometheus
7 26 (2.50%) Microsoft Intune
8 17 (1.64%) vCenter Server
9 11 (1.06%) NetBackup
10 10 (0.96%) Dell DRAC
10 10 (0.96%) Jamf Pro
10 10 (0.96%) PowerCLI
11 8 (0.77%) vMotion
11 8 (0.77%) VxRail
12 7 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.67%) Check_MK
12 7 (0.67%) SCCM
12 7 (0.67%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 6 (0.58%) Nagios
14 5 (0.48%) EMC NetWorker
Vendors
1 254 (24.45%) Cisco
2 151 (14.53%) VMware
3 115 (11.07%) Palo Alto
4 107 (10.30%) Microsoft
5 106 (10.20%) F5
6 84 (8.08%) Juniper
7 66 (6.35%) Fortinet
8 65 (6.26%) Arista
9 62 (5.97%) Dell
10 49 (4.72%) ServiceNow
11 40 (3.85%) SolarWinds
12 35 (3.37%) Aruba
12 35 (3.37%) IBM
13 33 (3.18%) CheckPoint
14 30 (2.89%) Google
14 30 (2.89%) Splunk
15 28 (2.69%) Red Hat
16 25 (2.41%) Oracle
17 22 (2.12%) Extreme Networks
18 20 (1.92%) HP