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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 116 128 101
Rank change year-on-year +12 -27 +2
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,015 617 712
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.22% 2.24% 2.14%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.61% 6.31% 6.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 641 403 504
10th Percentile £325 £313 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £529 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year +0.76% -2.33% -0.46%
75th Percentile £656 £613 £625
90th Percentile £775 £712 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 30 29
10th Percentile £16.01 £25.14 £11.75
25th Percentile £18.21 - £12.08
Median hourly rate £20.43 £25.15 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -18.79% +5.67% +1.28%
75th Percentile £38.75 £39.69 £25.83
90th Percentile £90.53 £67.25 £28.55
UK median hourly rate £19.85 £25.15 £20.00
% change year-on-year -21.07% +25.75% +1.57%

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 15,362 9,774 10,243
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.60% 35.43% 30.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,425 6,154 6,623
10th Percentile £325 £306 £300
25th Percentile £425 £408 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £650 £687
90th Percentile £750 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 923 499 523
10th Percentile £14.89 £15.45 £12.55
25th Percentile £19.34 £18.87 £18.50
Median hourly rate £41.00 £31.36 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +30.74% -33.98% +8.36%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.63 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.96 £29.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year +42.24% -34.44% +10.86%

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 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 19 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 19 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 +17 413 £569 +4.84% 553
North of England -1 225 £492 +9.33% 103
South East -13 188 £525 +6.87% 128
Yorkshire +2 137 £400 -1.23% 29
North West -13 73 £525 +0.48% 43
South West -25 68 £575 +4.55% 42
Midlands -55 53 £465 -11.43% 50
West Midlands -60 47 £475 -5.10% 35
East of England -25 31 £475 -20.83% 70
North East -19 21 £625 +468.18% 32
East Midlands -24 5 £400 -26.61% 15
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 25 (2.46%) Confluence
2 18 (1.77%) SharePoint
3 10 (0.99%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.69%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.49%) Apache
5 5 (0.49%) CloudStack
6 4 (0.39%) CICS
7 2 (0.20%) nginx
7 2 (0.20%) Tomcat
8 1 (0.099%) IIS
8 1 (0.099%) SAS
Applications
1 21 (2.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (1.67%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.99%) MS Visio
4 9 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.49%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.20%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 12 (1.18%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.20%) OpenText MBPM
2 2 (0.20%) Oracle BPM
2 2 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 2 (0.20%) Primavera
3 1 (0.099%) Cloudability
Cloud Services
1 224 (22.07%) Azure
2 183 (18.03%) AWS
3 48 (4.73%) GCP
4 42 (4.14%) GitHub
5 34 (3.35%) IaaS
6 33 (3.25%) SaaS
7 31 (3.05%) Microsoft 365
8 29 (2.86%) OCI
9 23 (2.27%) Entra ID
10 18 (1.77%) Power Platform
11 14 (1.38%) OneDrive
11 14 (1.38%) PaaS
11 14 (1.38%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 12 (1.18%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 11 (1.08%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (1.08%) OpenShift
14 8 (0.79%) GitHub Actions
15 6 (0.59%) Azure Sentinel
16 5 (0.49%) AWS Direct Connect
16 5 (0.49%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 254 (25.02%) Firewall
2 164 (16.16%) WAN
3 163 (16.06%) BGP
4 126 (12.41%) DNS
5 110 (10.84%) OSPF
6 109 (10.74%) VXLAN
7 101 (9.95%) SAN
8 97 (9.56%) VLAN
9 94 (9.26%) DHCP
10 93 (9.16%) VPN
11 89 (8.77%) LAN
12 82 (8.08%) Network Security
13 77 (7.59%) TCP/IP
14 74 (7.29%) Ethernet VPN
15 73 (7.19%) SD-WAN
16 69 (6.80%) Structured Cabling
17 52 (5.12%) Wireless
18 50 (4.93%) NX-OS
19 49 (4.83%) Wi-Fi
20 47 (4.63%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (2.27%) SQL Server
2 15 (1.48%) Power BI
3 10 (0.99%) SQL Server Analysis Services
3 10 (0.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 10 (0.99%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 7 (0.69%) Oracle Database
5 6 (0.59%) Big Data
6 5 (0.49%) Db2
6 5 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
6 5 (0.49%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.39%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (0.39%) Oracle Database 12c
7 4 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
7 4 (0.39%) SAP Data Services
8 3 (0.30%) DataStage
9 2 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.20%) Data Lake
9 2 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.20%) GIS
Development Applications
1 70 (6.90%) JIRA
2 35 (3.45%) GitLab
3 25 (2.46%) Git
4 20 (1.97%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.30%) ScriptRunner
6 3 (0.30%) Zephyr
7 2 (0.20%) Eclipse
7 2 (0.20%) Maven
7 2 (0.20%) MSI
7 2 (0.20%) Subversion
7 2 (0.20%) Toad
8 1 (0.099%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.099%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.099%) Claude Code
General
1 246 (24.24%) Social Skills
2 151 (14.88%) Finance
3 105 (10.34%) Analytical Skills
4 54 (5.32%) Public Sector
5 45 (4.43%) Banking
6 44 (4.33%) Telecoms
7 35 (3.45%) Documentation Skills
8 30 (2.96%) Retail
9 21 (2.07%) Legal
10 19 (1.87%) Influencing Skills
11 18 (1.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 14 (1.38%) Manufacturing
13 9 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (0.89%) Police
14 8 (0.79%) Law
15 7 (0.69%) Financial Institution
16 5 (0.49%) Marketing
17 4 (0.39%) Billing
18 3 (0.30%) Aerospace
18 3 (0.30%) Military
Job Titles
1 155 (15.27%) Network Engineer
2 154 (15.17%) Architect
3 132 (13.00%) Senior
4 113 (11.13%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 77 (7.59%) Data Centre Engineer
6 74 (7.29%) Project Manager
7 57 (5.62%) Lead
8 55 (5.42%) Network Architect
9 40 (3.94%) Data Centre Manager
10 39 (3.84%) Infrastructure Manager
11 37 (3.65%) Senior Network Engineer
12 36 (3.55%) IT Engineer
13 33 (3.25%) Field Engineer
14 32 (3.15%) Consultant
15 30 (2.96%) Field Service Engineer
15 30 (2.96%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
16 27 (2.66%) Solutions Architect
17 26 (2.56%) Data Manager
18 25 (2.46%) Infrastructure Project Manager
19 24 (2.36%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (2.56%) Middleware
2 20 (1.97%) 802.1X
3 19 (1.87%) REST
4 12 (1.18%) YAML
5 11 (1.08%) JSON
6 10 (0.99%) Redfish
7 8 (0.79%) Elastic Stack
7 8 (0.79%) LDAP
7 8 (0.79%) NETCONF
8 7 (0.69%) OpenConfig
8 7 (0.69%) YANG
9 6 (0.59%) RESTCONF
9 6 (0.59%) SAML
10 5 (0.49%) .NET
10 5 (0.49%) Jinja
11 4 (0.39%) GeoJSON
11 4 (0.39%) Kafka
11 4 (0.39%) RESTful
12 3 (0.30%) .NET Framework
12 3 (0.30%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 71 (7.00%) Hybrid Cloud
2 43 (4.24%) PKI
3 38 (3.74%) Analytical Mindset
4 36 (3.55%) Clustering
5 33 (3.25%) Cloud Native
5 33 (3.25%) Private Cloud
6 31 (3.05%) Enterprise Storage
7 27 (2.66%) Fibre Optics
8 26 (2.56%) Onboarding
9 25 (2.46%) Replication
10 23 (2.27%) Public Cloud
11 20 (1.97%) Data Protection Act
12 16 (1.58%) CMDB
13 15 (1.48%) Driving Licence
13 15 (1.48%) Management Information System
14 14 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
15 12 (1.18%) Operational Technology
16 11 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
17 10 (0.99%) Virtual Team
18 9 (0.89%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 150 (14.78%) Windows
2 97 (9.56%) Linux
3 44 (4.33%) Windows Server
4 31 (3.05%) Unix
5 20 (1.97%) AIX
6 17 (1.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 10 (0.99%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.99%) Mac OS
7 10 (0.99%) Solaris
8 6 (0.59%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.59%) VMS
9 5 (0.49%) HPUX
9 5 (0.49%) Oracle Linux
9 5 (0.49%) SUSE
9 5 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (0.39%) CentOS
10 4 (0.39%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (0.39%) Windows Server 2008
11 3 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 219 (21.58%) Migration
2 168 (16.55%) Problem-Solving
3 137 (13.50%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 127 (12.51%) Stakeholder Management
5 103 (10.15%) Infrastructure as Code
6 100 (9.85%) ITIL
7 93 (9.16%) Agile
8 87 (8.57%) CI/CD
8 87 (8.57%) High Availability
9 76 (7.49%) Project Delivery
9 76 (7.49%) Roadmaps
9 76 (7.49%) Validation
10 74 (7.29%) Change Management
10 74 (7.29%) Continuous Improvement
11 64 (6.31%) Zero Trust
12 63 (6.21%) Disaster Recovery
13 62 (6.11%) Project Management
13 62 (6.11%) Technical Leadership
14 61 (6.01%) Load Balancing
15 60 (5.91%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 147 (14.48%) Python
2 54 (5.32%) PowerShell
3 35 (3.45%) SQL
4 31 (3.05%) Bash
5 10 (0.99%) Bicep
6 9 (0.89%) ActionScript
7 8 (0.79%) PL/SQL
8 7 (0.69%) Java
8 7 (0.69%) Perl
8 7 (0.69%) Shell Script
9 5 (0.49%) C#
9 5 (0.49%) COBOL
10 4 (0.39%) JavaScript
10 4 (0.39%) MATLAB
11 3 (0.30%) Go
11 3 (0.30%) Lisp
12 2 (0.20%) C++
12 2 (0.20%) JCL
12 2 (0.20%) REXX
12 2 (0.20%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 262 (25.81%) Security Cleared
2 167 (16.45%) SC Cleared
3 156 (15.37%) Cisco Certification
4 93 (9.16%) CCNP
5 91 (8.97%) DV Cleared
6 59 (5.81%) CCNA
7 57 (5.62%) Degree
8 42 (4.14%) Network+ Certification
9 33 (3.25%) Microsoft Certification
10 28 (2.76%) A+ Certification
10 28 (2.76%) MCSE
11 27 (2.66%) AWS Certification
12 26 (2.56%) CCIE
13 24 (2.36%) Azure Certification
14 22 (2.17%) City & Guilds
15 21 (2.07%) PMP
15 21 (2.07%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 19 (1.87%) PMI Certification
17 17 (1.67%) BICSI Certification
17 17 (1.67%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (2.76%) QA
2 26 (2.56%) SLA
3 23 (2.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 18 (1.77%) NIST
5 16 (1.58%) PMO
6 12 (1.18%) GDPR
7 11 (1.08%) NCSC
8 9 (0.89%) JSP 440
9 6 (0.59%) GRC
10 4 (0.39%) NIST 800
10 4 (0.39%) RMADS
11 3 (0.30%) Data Quality
11 3 (0.30%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.20%) Accessibility
12 2 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.20%) WCAG
13 1 (0.099%) Cyber Essentials
13 1 (0.099%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 1 (0.099%) HIPAA
13 1 (0.099%) SOC 1
System Software
1 120 (11.82%) VMware Infrastructure
2 67 (6.60%) Active Directory
3 41 (4.04%) VMware NSX
3 41 (4.04%) vSphere
4 36 (3.55%) VMware ESXi
5 32 (3.15%) Firmware
6 29 (2.86%) Docker
7 25 (2.46%) Hyper-V
8 13 (1.28%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (1.08%) NFS
10 7 (0.69%) PowerHA
11 6 (0.59%) Microsoft App-V
11 6 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (0.39%) BitLocker
12 4 (0.39%) SRDF
12 4 (0.39%) Terminal Services
12 4 (0.39%) VMware Workstation
13 3 (0.30%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 3 (0.30%) Veritas Cluster Server
13 3 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 134 (13.20%) Ansible
2 100 (9.85%) Terraform
3 56 (5.52%) Kubernetes
4 37 (3.65%) FortiGate
5 25 (2.46%) Prometheus
6 24 (2.36%) Grafana
7 23 (2.27%) Microsoft Intune
8 16 (1.58%) vCenter Server
8 16 (1.58%) VxRail
9 12 (1.18%) Microsoft Clustering
10 11 (1.08%) Dell DRAC
10 11 (1.08%) NetBackup
10 11 (1.08%) Tivoli Storage Manager
10 11 (1.08%) vMotion
11 10 (0.99%) Jamf Pro
12 9 (0.89%) SCCM
13 7 (0.69%) Check_MK
13 7 (0.69%) Nagios
13 7 (0.69%) PowerCLI
14 6 (0.59%) SCOM
Vendors
1 245 (24.14%) Cisco
2 169 (16.65%) VMware
3 114 (11.23%) Microsoft
4 103 (10.15%) Palo Alto
5 94 (9.26%) F5
6 72 (7.09%) Juniper
7 65 (6.40%) Arista
8 62 (6.11%) Fortinet
9 57 (5.62%) Dell
10 55 (5.42%) ServiceNow
11 34 (3.35%) Aruba
12 33 (3.25%) CheckPoint
13 32 (3.15%) IBM
14 29 (2.86%) SolarWinds
15 28 (2.76%) Red Hat
16 25 (2.46%) Google
17 22 (2.17%) Oracle
18 20 (1.97%) Splunk
19 19 (1.87%) Veeam
19 19 (1.87%) Zscaler