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

6 months to
28 Nov 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 129 119 93
Rank change year-on-year -10 -26 +15
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 652 650 934
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.12% 2.09% 2.41%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.84% 6.60% 7.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 415 386 650
10th Percentile £232 £358 £325
25th Percentile £380 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £543
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -3.23% +0.46%
75th Percentile £600 £614 £650
90th Percentile £704 £725 £743
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 24 19
10th Percentile £23.96 £11.75 £20.11
25th Percentile - £12.08 £22.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £20.80 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.94% -9.59% -63.49%
75th Percentile £34.00 £27.44 £53.13
90th Percentile £68.07 £30.56 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £23.80 £23.00
% change year-on-year +5.67% +3.48% -63.35%

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 11,163 9,846 12,395
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 36.30% 31.63% 32.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,008 5,874 8,422
10th Percentile £285 £300 £270
25th Percentile £408 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.36% - -3.51%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £775
UK median daily rate £506 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -5.86% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 578 315 459
10th Percentile £14.03 £15.80 £17.00
25th Percentile £18.25 £23.80 £21.25
Median hourly rate £27.75 £43.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -35.47% -3.37% +27.14%
75th Percentile £57.50 £70.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.48 £75.21 £77.60
UK median hourly rate £27.00 £35.13 £44.25
% change year-on-year -23.13% -20.62% +26.43%

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 28 November 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 28 November 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 28 November 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 -6 263 £525 -1.18% 117
North of England -9 143 £489 -2.30% 33
Midlands +9 94 £431 -25.69% 24
North West +14 80 £550 +10.00% 23
South East -30 75 £447 -10.60% 107
West Midlands -9 71 £465 -19.83% 19
Yorkshire -26 58 £405 -3.57% 5
South West -29 35 £550 +0.36% 22
East of England -23 27 £600 +45.90% 19
East Midlands +2 23 £358 -32.48% 4
North East -4 8 £175 - 5
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 30 (4.60%) SharePoint
2 21 (3.22%) Confluence
2 21 (3.22%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (1.38%) OpenStack
4 5 (0.77%) Apache
4 5 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
4 5 (0.77%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.61%) HCL Notes
6 3 (0.46%) CICS
6 3 (0.46%) GeoServer
6 3 (0.46%) nginx
6 3 (0.46%) Smallworld
6 3 (0.46%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.31%) FileNet
7 2 (0.31%) ThingWorx
7 2 (0.31%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.15%) IIS
8 1 (0.15%) OpenEdge
8 1 (0.15%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 58 (8.90%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (5.21%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (4.14%) MS Visio
4 18 (2.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (2.15%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.15%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.92%) Payment Gateway
2 5 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.61%) Oracle Financials
4 2 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.15%) Epicor iScala
5 1 (0.15%) Primavera
5 1 (0.15%) StreamServe
Cloud Services
1 118 (18.10%) Azure
2 90 (13.80%) AWS
3 69 (10.58%) Microsoft 365
4 36 (5.52%) GCP
5 23 (3.53%) Power Platform
6 20 (3.07%) Entra ID
7 15 (2.30%) OpenShift
8 13 (1.99%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 11 (1.69%) SaaS
10 10 (1.53%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 10 (1.53%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 8 (1.23%) PaaS
12 7 (1.07%) IaaS
12 7 (1.07%) npm
12 7 (1.07%) OCI
13 6 (0.92%) Akamai
13 6 (0.92%) AWS Direct Connect
13 6 (0.92%) GitHub
14 5 (0.77%) AWS CloudFormation
14 5 (0.77%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 185 (28.37%) Firewall
2 112 (17.18%) WAN
3 99 (15.18%) Wireless
4 64 (9.82%) BGP
5 62 (9.51%) VPN
6 59 (9.05%) DNS
7 54 (8.28%) LAN
8 42 (6.44%) Wi-Fi
9 41 (6.29%) OSPF
10 40 (6.13%) Network Security
11 37 (5.67%) Cisco ISE
11 37 (5.67%) DHCP
11 37 (5.67%) SAN
12 35 (5.37%) SD-WAN
13 32 (4.91%) Cisco Nexus
13 32 (4.91%) VLAN
14 31 (4.75%) VXLAN
15 30 (4.60%) TCP/IP
16 29 (4.45%) MPLS
17 24 (3.68%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (3.07%) Power BI
2 14 (2.15%) Relational Database
3 9 (1.38%) 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 (0.61%) Data Mining
7 4 (0.61%) GIS
7 4 (0.61%) InfluxDB
7 4 (0.61%) 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 19 (2.91%) Git
2 16 (2.45%) JIRA
3 13 (1.99%) Jenkins
3 13 (1.99%) Sonatype Nexus
4 11 (1.69%) Maven
5 10 (1.53%) GitLab
6 9 (1.38%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.61%) Gradle
7 4 (0.61%) Selenium
8 3 (0.46%) ER Studio
8 3 (0.46%) ERwin
9 2 (0.31%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.31%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.15%) Fiddler
10 1 (0.15%) Postman
10 1 (0.15%) TeamCity
General
1 165 (25.31%) Social Skills
2 131 (20.09%) Finance
3 74 (11.35%) Public Sector
4 72 (11.04%) Analytical Skills
5 69 (10.58%) Telecoms
6 68 (10.43%) Banking
7 35 (5.37%) Documentation Skills
8 33 (5.06%) Manufacturing
9 25 (3.83%) Electronics
9 25 (3.83%) Marketing
10 20 (3.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 20 (3.07%) Presentation Skills
11 14 (2.15%) Organisational Skills
12 12 (1.84%) Influencing Skills
13 8 (1.23%) Retail
14 7 (1.07%) Investment Banking
14 7 (1.07%) Local Government
15 6 (0.92%) Front Office
15 6 (0.92%) Legal
15 6 (0.92%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 107 (16.41%) Network Engineer
2 98 (15.03%) Architect
3 69 (10.58%) Analyst
4 50 (7.67%) Project Manager
5 35 (5.37%) Senior
6 32 (4.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 32 (4.91%) Network Architect
6 32 (4.91%) Support Engineer
7 31 (4.75%) Security Engineer
8 30 (4.60%) Data Centre Manager
9 28 (4.29%) Consultant
9 28 (4.29%) IT Support
10 25 (3.83%) Desktop Support
10 25 (3.83%) Infrastructure Manager
11 23 (3.53%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
11 23 (3.53%) 2nd Line Support
11 23 (3.53%) Cisco Engineer
11 23 (3.53%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
12 22 (3.37%) Business Analyst
12 22 (3.37%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.37%) 802.1X
2 17 (2.61%) Middleware
3 15 (2.30%) RFC 2544
4 5 (0.77%) Spark Streaming
5 4 (0.61%) Jinja
6 2 (0.31%) ARM Templates
6 2 (0.31%) LDAP
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%) VML
6 2 (0.31%) YANG
7 1 (0.15%) eBPF
7 1 (0.15%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.15%) OpenLayers
7 1 (0.15%) OpenTelemetry
7 1 (0.15%) React
7 1 (0.15%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 36 (5.52%) Hybrid Cloud
2 25 (3.83%) Cloud Native
3 23 (3.53%) Public Cloud
4 21 (3.22%) Replication
5 19 (2.91%) Driving Licence
6 17 (2.61%) Onboarding
7 16 (2.45%) Fibre Optics
8 14 (2.15%) Mainframe
8 14 (2.15%) Private Cloud
9 12 (1.84%) Self-Motivation
10 11 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
10 11 (1.69%) PKI
11 10 (1.53%) Management Information System
12 9 (1.38%) Clustering
12 9 (1.38%) Product Ownership
13 8 (1.23%) SCADA
14 7 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
15 6 (0.92%) Distributed Systems
15 6 (0.92%) Legacy Systems
15 6 (0.92%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 95 (14.57%) Windows
2 58 (8.90%) Linux
3 47 (7.21%) Android
4 45 (6.90%) Mac OS
5 40 (6.13%) Windows Server
6 17 (2.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (2.45%) Unix
8 10 (1.53%) CentOS
9 6 (0.92%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.92%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.61%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.61%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.46%) Solaris
12 2 (0.31%) AIX
12 2 (0.31%) VMS
12 2 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.31%) zOS
13 1 (0.15%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 119 (18.25%) Migration
2 78 (11.96%) Problem-Solving
3 72 (11.04%) Stakeholder Management
4 63 (9.66%) Agile
5 53 (8.13%) ITIL
6 49 (7.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 48 (7.36%) Change Management
8 47 (7.21%) Service Management
9 45 (6.90%) Customer Service
10 44 (6.75%) CI/CD
11 43 (6.60%) Infrastructure as Code
11 43 (6.60%) Network Design
12 41 (6.29%) Business Intelligence
13 40 (6.13%) Load Balancing
14 39 (5.98%) DevOps
14 39 (5.98%) Roadmaps
15 37 (5.67%) High Availability
15 37 (5.67%) Project Delivery
16 36 (5.52%) Cybersecurity
17 35 (5.37%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 65 (9.97%) Python
2 42 (6.44%) PowerShell
3 33 (5.06%) SQL
4 18 (2.76%) Java
5 17 (2.61%) Bash
6 10 (1.53%) Perl
7 8 (1.23%) Lisp
8 6 (0.92%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.61%) 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%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.15%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.15%) PromQL
Qualifications
1 206 (31.60%) Security Cleared
2 173 (26.53%) SC Cleared
3 77 (11.81%) Cisco Certification
4 52 (7.98%) CCNP
5 48 (7.36%) Degree
6 44 (6.75%) DV Cleared
7 25 (3.83%) CCIE
8 23 (3.53%) CCNA
9 18 (2.76%) AWS Certification
10 13 (1.99%) CISSP
11 12 (1.84%) JNCIE
12 9 (1.38%) PMP
13 8 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
13 8 (1.23%) PMI Certification
13 8 (1.23%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 7 (1.07%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 7 (1.07%) CCSP
15 6 (0.92%) BPSS Clearance
15 6 (0.92%) VCAP
16 5 (0.77%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (3.07%) SLA
2 19 (2.91%) NIST
2 19 (2.91%) PCI DSS
3 18 (2.76%) PMO
4 17 (2.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (1.99%) GDPR
5 13 (1.99%) QA
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%) GRC
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 68 (10.43%) VMware Infrastructure
2 55 (8.44%) Active Directory
3 34 (5.21%) VMware NSX
4 23 (3.53%) Docker
5 16 (2.45%) Hyper-V
5 16 (2.45%) vSphere
6 13 (1.99%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (1.07%) Firmware
7 7 (1.07%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.77%) HDFS
9 4 (0.61%) KVM
9 4 (0.61%) NFS
10 3 (0.46%) GPFS
11 2 (0.31%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.15%) Lustre
12 1 (0.15%) Samba
12 1 (0.15%) SRDF
12 1 (0.15%) Veritas Cluster Server
12 1 (0.15%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.15%) Xen
Systems Management
1 63 (9.66%) Ansible
2 58 (8.90%) Terraform
3 31 (4.75%) FortiGate
4 27 (4.14%) SCCM
5 20 (3.07%) Kubernetes
6 14 (2.15%) Microsoft Intune
7 10 (1.53%) Grafana
8 9 (1.38%) SCOM
8 9 (1.38%) vCenter Server
9 8 (1.23%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (1.07%) CASB
10 7 (1.07%) Puppet
11 6 (0.92%) SCOrch
12 5 (0.77%) Hadoop YARN
13 4 (0.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 4 (0.61%) Argo
14 3 (0.46%) Jamf Pro
14 3 (0.46%) OpenView
14 3 (0.46%) OPNET
14 3 (0.46%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 226 (34.66%) Cisco
2 98 (15.03%) Microsoft
3 86 (13.19%) VMware
4 64 (9.82%) Dell
5 61 (9.36%) F5
6 58 (8.90%) Palo Alto
7 54 (8.28%) HP
8 52 (7.98%) Juniper
9 44 (6.75%) Apple
10 33 (5.06%) ServiceNow
11 32 (4.91%) Fortinet
12 30 (4.60%) SAP
13 29 (4.45%) Meraki
14 25 (3.83%) Oracle
15 22 (3.37%) CheckPoint
16 21 (3.22%) SolarWinds
17 20 (3.07%) Arista
18 16 (2.45%) Citrix
18 16 (2.45%) Remedy
19 15 (2.30%) NetApp
273 Data Centre jobs in England