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

6 months to
9 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 139 126 92
Rank change year-on-year -13 -34 +10
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 658 525 890
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.98% 2.02% 2.33%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.74% 6.09% 7.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 436 308 630
10th Percentile £263 £349 £300
25th Percentile £380 £425 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £482 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -8.26% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £577 £638 £627
90th Percentile £675 £725 £700
UK median daily rate £480 £518 £525
% change year-on-year -7.25% -1.43% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 12 38
10th Percentile £21.33 £20.68 £21.25
25th Percentile £25.15 £24.18 £22.13
Median hourly rate £26.50 £24.42 £31.31
Median % change year-on-year +8.52% -22.00% -48.25%
75th Percentile £67.25 £25.81 £40.94
90th Percentile £74.26 £56.93 £70.13
UK median hourly rate £26.14 £24.18 £25.12
% change year-on-year +8.09% -3.72% -56.74%

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 11,460 8,620 11,891
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.43% 33.13% 31.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,325 5,201 7,854
10th Percentile £273 £270 £255
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £548 £546
Median % change year-on-year -7.31% +0.23% -5.00%
75th Percentile £626 £670 £660
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £527
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.28% -4.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 571 245 751
10th Percentile £15.34 £18.51 £13.06
25th Percentile £18.66 £24.18 £17.00
Median hourly rate £31.65 £39.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.85% +20.00% +44.54%
75th Percentile £63.75 £66.50 £58.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £84.28 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £32.12
% change year-on-year -14.29% +8.98% +42.83%

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 9 February 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 9 February 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 9 February 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 -32 237 £525 - 166
North of England +6 156 £475 -4.62% 67
South East -4 102 £445 +1.14% 118
North West +24 92 £508 +1.50% 37
Midlands -17 72 £445 -24.58% 24
West Midlands -25 57 £474 -19.66% 17
Yorkshire -40 50 £454 +8.10% 18
South West -26 34 £550 -0.90% 25
East of England -18 27 £478 +13.14% 35
North East -1 17 £175 - 12
East Midlands -20 15 £158 -70.70% 7
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 28 (4.26%) SharePoint
2 21 (3.19%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.82%) Confluence
4 8 (1.22%) OpenStack
5 7 (1.06%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.76%) Apache
6 5 (0.76%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.61%) CICS
8 3 (0.46%) GeoServer
8 3 (0.46%) HCL Notes
8 3 (0.46%) Smallworld
9 1 (0.15%) nginx
9 1 (0.15%) WebLogic
Applications
1 49 (7.45%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (3.95%) MS Visio
3 25 (3.80%) Microsoft Excel
4 18 (2.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (2.13%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.46%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.15%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.91%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.61%) Oracle Financials
3 3 (0.46%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.30%) DELMIA
4 2 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.15%) Epicor iScala
5 1 (0.15%) Maximo
5 1 (0.15%) Primavera
5 1 (0.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 112 (17.02%) Azure
2 92 (13.98%) AWS
3 61 (9.27%) Microsoft 365
4 30 (4.56%) GCP
5 18 (2.74%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 16 (2.43%) Power Platform
7 13 (1.98%) Entra ID
7 13 (1.98%) OpenShift
7 13 (1.98%) SaaS
8 12 (1.82%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 11 (1.67%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 9 (1.37%) AWS Direct Connect
10 9 (1.37%) Azure DevOps
11 8 (1.22%) AWS CloudFormation
11 8 (1.22%) IaaS
11 8 (1.22%) PaaS
12 7 (1.06%) Amazon S3
12 7 (1.06%) AWS CloudTrail
12 7 (1.06%) GitHub
12 7 (1.06%) npm
Communications & Networking
1 188 (28.57%) Firewall
2 126 (19.15%) WAN
3 83 (12.61%) BGP
4 77 (11.70%) LAN
5 76 (11.55%) VPN
6 73 (11.09%) Network Security
6 73 (11.09%) Wireless
7 56 (8.51%) OSPF
8 48 (7.29%) VLAN
9 44 (6.69%) DNS
10 41 (6.23%) Structured Cabling
11 38 (5.78%) Wi-Fi
12 31 (4.71%) SAN
13 29 (4.41%) DHCP
14 28 (4.26%) Cisco ISE
14 28 (4.26%) IPsec
14 28 (4.26%) TCP/IP
15 27 (4.10%) VXLAN
16 24 (3.65%) MPLS
16 24 (3.65%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (2.28%) Power BI
2 9 (1.37%) Relational Database
3 6 (0.91%) DataStage
3 6 (0.91%) RDBMS
3 6 (0.91%) SQL Server
4 5 (0.76%) Apache Hive
4 5 (0.76%) Hadoop
4 5 (0.76%) HBase
5 4 (0.61%) Power Query
5 4 (0.61%) PowerPivot
6 3 (0.46%) Geospatial Data
6 3 (0.46%) GIS
6 3 (0.46%) InfluxDB
6 3 (0.46%) QGIS
7 2 (0.30%) Big Data
7 2 (0.30%) Data Lake
7 2 (0.30%) Data Mining
7 2 (0.30%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (0.30%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (0.30%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 23 (3.50%) Git
2 17 (2.58%) Jenkins
3 14 (2.13%) GitLab
4 13 (1.98%) JIRA
5 7 (1.06%) Maven
6 5 (0.76%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.30%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.30%) ER Studio
7 2 (0.30%) ERwin
7 2 (0.30%) Rational DOORS
7 2 (0.30%) ScriptRunner
8 1 (0.15%) AppScan
8 1 (0.15%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.15%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.15%) Metasploit
8 1 (0.15%) SonarQube
General
1 184 (27.96%) Social Skills
2 120 (18.24%) Finance
3 87 (13.22%) Public Sector
4 85 (12.92%) Analytical Skills
5 55 (8.36%) Documentation Skills
6 53 (8.05%) Telecoms
7 42 (6.38%) Banking
8 41 (6.23%) Manufacturing
9 30 (4.56%) Marketing
10 25 (3.80%) Electronics
11 17 (2.58%) Presentation Skills
12 16 (2.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 14 (2.13%) Legal
14 13 (1.98%) Retail
15 11 (1.67%) Influencing Skills
15 11 (1.67%) Organisational Skills
16 8 (1.22%) Investment Banking
17 6 (0.91%) Law
17 6 (0.91%) Local Government
17 6 (0.91%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 122 (18.54%) Network Engineer
2 90 (13.68%) Architect
3 66 (10.03%) Project Manager
4 53 (8.05%) Analyst
5 41 (6.23%) Senior
6 36 (5.47%) Network Architect
7 33 (5.02%) Data Centre Engineer
8 31 (4.71%) Lead
8 31 (4.71%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 29 (4.41%) Cisco Engineer
9 29 (4.41%) Data Centre Manager
9 29 (4.41%) IT Support
10 27 (4.10%) Cisco Network Engineer
11 26 (3.95%) Consultant
11 26 (3.95%) Security Engineer
12 25 (3.80%) Desktop Support
13 23 (3.50%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
13 23 (3.50%) 2nd Line Support
13 23 (3.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 23 (3.50%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.19%) Middleware
2 17 (2.58%) 802.1X
3 7 (1.06%) LDAP
3 7 (1.06%) RFC 2544
4 5 (0.76%) Spark Streaming
5 4 (0.61%) ADO
5 4 (0.61%) ARM Templates
5 4 (0.61%) VML
6 2 (0.30%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.30%) CSS
6 2 (0.30%) HTML
6 2 (0.30%) Kafka
6 2 (0.30%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.30%) OpenConfig
6 2 (0.30%) REST
6 2 (0.30%) RESTCONF
6 2 (0.30%) YANG
7 1 (0.15%) JSSE
7 1 (0.15%) RabbitMQ
7 1 (0.15%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 39 (5.93%) Hybrid Cloud
2 21 (3.19%) Public Cloud
3 19 (2.89%) Self-Motivation
4 16 (2.43%) Onboarding
5 15 (2.28%) Analytical Mindset
5 15 (2.28%) Driving Licence
6 13 (1.98%) Fibre Optics
7 12 (1.82%) Management Information System
7 12 (1.82%) Replication
8 11 (1.67%) Cloud Native
8 11 (1.67%) Private Cloud
9 9 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
9 9 (1.37%) Mainframe
10 8 (1.22%) SCADA
11 7 (1.06%) Security Posture
12 6 (0.91%) CMDB
12 6 (0.91%) Legacy Systems
12 6 (0.91%) PKI
12 6 (0.91%) Product Ownership
13 5 (0.76%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 78 (11.85%) Windows
2 70 (10.64%) Linux
3 39 (5.93%) Windows Server
4 33 (5.02%) Android
4 33 (5.02%) Mac OS
5 21 (3.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.67%) CentOS
7 10 (1.52%) Unix
8 5 (0.76%) VMS
9 4 (0.61%) AIX
9 4 (0.61%) Solaris
9 4 (0.61%) Windows 10
10 3 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.15%) Kali Linux
12 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 109 (16.57%) Migration
2 101 (15.35%) Problem-Solving
3 82 (12.46%) Stakeholder Management
4 51 (7.75%) Project Delivery
5 50 (7.60%) Project Management
6 49 (7.45%) ITIL
7 48 (7.29%) Agile
8 43 (6.53%) Continuous Improvement
9 42 (6.38%) CI/CD
9 42 (6.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 40 (6.08%) Change Management
11 38 (5.78%) Business Intelligence
11 38 (5.78%) Cybersecurity
11 38 (5.78%) Network Design
12 37 (5.62%) Change Control
13 36 (5.47%) DevOps
13 36 (5.47%) Infrastructure as Code
14 35 (5.32%) Customer Service
14 35 (5.32%) Programme Management
14 35 (5.32%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 63 (9.57%) Python
2 47 (7.14%) PowerShell
3 21 (3.19%) Bash
4 20 (3.04%) SQL
5 13 (1.98%) Shell Script
6 12 (1.82%) Perl
7 10 (1.52%) Java
8 9 (1.37%) Lisp
9 7 (1.06%) MATLAB
10 5 (0.76%) VBA
11 4 (0.61%) Bicep
11 4 (0.61%) COBOL
12 2 (0.30%) JavaScript
13 1 (0.15%) C#
13 1 (0.15%) C++
13 1 (0.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.15%) Korn
13 1 (0.15%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 243 (36.93%) Security Cleared
2 199 (30.24%) SC Cleared
3 110 (16.72%) Cisco Certification
4 90 (13.68%) CCNP
5 58 (8.81%) Degree
6 46 (6.99%) CCNA
7 45 (6.84%) DV Cleared
8 22 (3.34%) CCIE
9 20 (3.04%) AWS Certification
10 17 (2.58%) PMP
11 15 (2.28%) PMI Certification
12 11 (1.67%) CISSP
13 10 (1.52%) JNCIE
14 9 (1.37%) A+ Certification
14 9 (1.37%) MCSE
14 9 (1.37%) Microsoft Certification
14 9 (1.37%) Network+ Certification
14 9 (1.37%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 8 (1.22%) Azure Certification
15 8 (1.22%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (3.34%) PMO
2 18 (2.74%) SLA
3 17 (2.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 17 (2.58%) NIST
3 17 (2.58%) PCI DSS
4 15 (2.28%) GDPR
5 14 (2.13%) QA
6 9 (1.37%) Data Quality
7 6 (0.91%) NCSC
8 4 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
8 4 (0.61%) GRC
9 2 (0.30%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.15%) COBIT
10 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.15%) ISO 22301
10 1 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 1 (0.15%) RMADS
10 1 (0.15%) SOC 2
System Software
1 67 (10.18%) VMware Infrastructure
2 50 (7.60%) Active Directory
3 37 (5.62%) VMware NSX
4 22 (3.34%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (2.43%) Hyper-V
6 14 (2.13%) vSphere
7 12 (1.82%) Docker
8 10 (1.52%) Firmware
8 10 (1.52%) KVM
9 8 (1.22%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.76%) HDFS
11 2 (0.30%) Ceph
11 2 (0.30%) Lustre
11 2 (0.30%) Microsoft App-V
11 2 (0.30%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 2 (0.30%) vCloud
12 1 (0.15%) NFS
12 1 (0.15%) SRDF
12 1 (0.15%) UAG
12 1 (0.15%) Xen
Systems Management
1 69 (10.49%) Ansible
2 61 (9.27%) Terraform
3 30 (4.56%) FortiGate
4 23 (3.50%) SCCM
5 19 (2.89%) Kubernetes
6 15 (2.28%) Grafana
7 11 (1.67%) Microsoft Intune
8 9 (1.37%) SCOM
9 8 (1.22%) Prometheus
10 7 (1.06%) Check_MK
10 7 (1.06%) Podman
10 7 (1.06%) Red Hat Satellite
10 7 (1.06%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.91%) CASB
11 6 (0.91%) Puppet
11 6 (0.91%) SCOrch
12 5 (0.76%) Hadoop YARN
13 4 (0.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 4 (0.61%) Nagios
13 4 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 224 (34.04%) Cisco
2 93 (14.13%) Palo Alto
3 91 (13.83%) VMware
4 75 (11.40%) Microsoft
5 63 (9.57%) Dell
6 49 (7.45%) Juniper
7 42 (6.38%) F5
7 42 (6.38%) HP
8 41 (6.23%) CheckPoint
9 33 (5.02%) Apple
9 33 (5.02%) Aruba
10 32 (4.86%) Meraki
11 31 (4.71%) ServiceNow
12 29 (4.41%) SAP
13 28 (4.26%) Fortinet
14 22 (3.34%) Citrix
15 19 (2.89%) Oracle
16 15 (2.28%) SolarWinds
17 14 (2.13%) Remedy
18 13 (1.98%) Red Hat
397 Data Centre jobs in England