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

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 133 105
Rank change year-on-year +6 -28 -6
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 800 499 813
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.10% 2.06% 2.16%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.32% 6.04% 7.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 511 334 576
10th Percentile £311 £337 £295
25th Percentile £406 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.29% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £638
90th Percentile £700 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £485 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -5.83% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 14 36
10th Percentile £16.01 - £21.25
25th Percentile £18.07 £24.18 £22.06
Median hourly rate £22.27 £24.66 £24.87
Median % change year-on-year -9.71% -0.84% +14.77%
75th Percentile £72.00 £40.13 £40.00
90th Percentile £76.36 £58.63 £41.25
UK median hourly rate £23.71 £24.66 £24.87
% change year-on-year -3.86% -0.84% +14.77%

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 12,662 8,268 11,603
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.28% 34.06% 30.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,047 5,421 7,581
10th Percentile £300 £300 £263
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £543 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.53% -1.36% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £669 £670
90th Percentile £749 £775 £788
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 636 313 803
10th Percentile £15.79 £16.68 £12.49
25th Percentile £19.75 £22.72 £15.17
Median hourly rate £45.00 £35.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +28.57% +27.27% +22.22%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £85.75 £84.80 £67.38
UK median hourly rate £42.60 £32.50 £27.50
% change year-on-year +31.08% +18.18% +22.30%

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 31 March 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 31 March 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 31 March 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 -2 296 £550 +4.76% 184
North of England +28 186 £460 +8.24% 53
South East +5 160 £475 -5.00% 115
North West +21 96 £500 - 28
Yorkshire -8 75 £365 -5.93% 17
Midlands -29 66 £474 -24.16% 32
West Midlands -27 54 £475 -24.08% 14
East of England -23 35 £478 +13.14% 45
South West -44 33 £550 - 31
North East +3 17 £175 +59.09% 8
East Midlands -30 11 £200 -55.56% 18
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 21 (2.63%) SharePoint
2 16 (2.00%) Confluence
3 15 (1.88%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (1.00%) CICS
5 4 (0.50%) OpenStack
5 4 (0.50%) WebLogic
6 3 (0.38%) nginx
7 2 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.25%) HCL Notes
7 2 (0.25%) Tomcat
Applications
1 34 (4.25%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (2.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 21 (2.63%) MS Visio
4 17 (2.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (1.63%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.38%) Adobe Illustrator
6 3 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.75%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.38%) Salesforce CRM
3 2 (0.25%) DELMIA
3 2 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 2 (0.25%) Primavera
4 1 (0.13%) Maximo
4 1 (0.13%) Oracle Financials
4 1 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 141 (17.63%) Azure
2 119 (14.88%) AWS
3 49 (6.13%) Microsoft 365
4 45 (5.63%) GCP
5 22 (2.75%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 17 (2.13%) SaaS
7 15 (1.88%) IaaS
8 14 (1.75%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 14 (1.75%) Entra ID
9 13 (1.63%) Power Platform
10 11 (1.38%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 11 (1.38%) PaaS
11 9 (1.13%) Azure DevOps
11 9 (1.13%) GitHub
11 9 (1.13%) OpenShift
12 8 (1.00%) AWS CloudFormation
12 8 (1.00%) AWS Direct Connect
13 7 (0.88%) Amazon S3
13 7 (0.88%) AWS CloudTrail
13 7 (0.88%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 232 (29.00%) Firewall
2 152 (19.00%) WAN
3 131 (16.38%) BGP
4 95 (11.88%) LAN
4 95 (11.88%) OSPF
5 85 (10.63%) VPN
6 84 (10.50%) Network Security
7 71 (8.88%) Structured Cabling
8 64 (8.00%) DNS
9 62 (7.75%) VXLAN
10 59 (7.38%) VLAN
11 56 (7.00%) SAN
12 54 (6.75%) Wireless
13 50 (6.25%) DHCP
14 40 (5.00%) Ethernet VPN
15 37 (4.63%) Cisco ISE
16 33 (4.13%) SD-WAN
17 32 (4.00%) Wi-Fi
18 30 (3.75%) TCP/IP
19 29 (3.63%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.00%) DataStage
1 8 (1.00%) Power BI
2 5 (0.63%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (0.50%) MongoDB
3 4 (0.50%) Power Query
3 4 (0.50%) PowerPivot
3 4 (0.50%) SAP Data Services
3 4 (0.50%) SQL Server
4 3 (0.38%) Big Data
4 3 (0.38%) InfluxDB
5 2 (0.25%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.25%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.25%) GIS
5 2 (0.25%) RDBMS
5 2 (0.25%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.13%) DB2
6 1 (0.13%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 33 (4.13%) Git
2 29 (3.63%) JIRA
3 18 (2.25%) Jenkins
4 16 (2.00%) GitLab
5 9 (1.13%) Maven
6 4 (0.50%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 4 (0.50%) Eclipse
6 4 (0.50%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (0.50%) Subversion
7 2 (0.25%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.25%) Rational DOORS
7 2 (0.25%) ScriptRunner
8 1 (0.13%) AppScan
8 1 (0.13%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.13%) Metasploit
General
1 214 (26.75%) Social Skills
2 127 (15.88%) Finance
3 94 (11.75%) Analytical Skills
4 80 (10.00%) Public Sector
5 53 (6.63%) Documentation Skills
6 42 (5.25%) Telecoms
7 38 (4.75%) Banking
8 32 (4.00%) Manufacturing
9 23 (2.88%) Marketing
10 22 (2.75%) Legal
11 19 (2.38%) Retail
12 17 (2.13%) Influencing Skills
13 16 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 15 (1.88%) Electronics
14 15 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
15 11 (1.38%) Organisational Skills
16 10 (1.25%) Investment Banking
17 8 (1.00%) Aerospace
17 8 (1.00%) Law
17 8 (1.00%) Military
Job Titles
1 137 (17.13%) Network Engineer
2 117 (14.63%) Architect
3 74 (9.25%) Project Manager
4 72 (9.00%) Senior
5 60 (7.50%) Data Centre Engineer
6 44 (5.50%) Data Centre Manager
7 42 (5.25%) Analyst
8 41 (5.13%) Network Architect
9 34 (4.25%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 30 (3.75%) Infrastructure Manager
10 30 (3.75%) Solutions Architect
11 29 (3.63%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 29 (3.63%) Lead
12 28 (3.50%) Cisco Engineer
13 27 (3.38%) Cisco Network Engineer
13 27 (3.38%) IT Support
14 25 (3.13%) IT Engineer
15 24 (3.00%) Infrastructure Project Manager
16 23 (2.88%) Data Centre Project Manager
16 23 (2.88%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (4.00%) 802.1X
2 25 (3.13%) Middleware
3 9 (1.13%) LDAP
4 6 (0.75%) Spring
5 5 (0.63%) Redfish
6 4 (0.50%) ADO
6 4 (0.50%) ARM Templates
6 4 (0.50%) Jinja
6 4 (0.50%) NETCONF
6 4 (0.50%) OpenConfig
6 4 (0.50%) RESTCONF
6 4 (0.50%) Spring Boot
6 4 (0.50%) VML
6 4 (0.50%) XML
6 4 (0.50%) YANG
7 3 (0.38%) Elastic Stack
7 3 (0.38%) RFC 2544
8 2 (0.25%) AWS CDK
8 2 (0.25%) EJB
8 2 (0.25%) OpenLayers
Miscellaneous
1 42 (5.25%) Hybrid Cloud
2 27 (3.38%) Analytical Mindset
3 26 (3.25%) Clustering
4 25 (3.13%) PKI
5 20 (2.50%) Driving Licence
6 19 (2.38%) Fibre Optics
7 18 (2.25%) Onboarding
8 16 (2.00%) Replication
8 16 (2.00%) Self-Motivation
9 15 (1.88%) Management Information System
10 13 (1.63%) Cloud Native
10 13 (1.63%) Public Cloud
11 11 (1.38%) Mainframe
12 10 (1.25%) CMDB
12 10 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
13 9 (1.13%) Private Cloud
14 8 (1.00%) BYOD
14 8 (1.00%) Enterprise Storage
14 8 (1.00%) VSAM
15 7 (0.88%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 101 (12.63%) Windows
2 85 (10.63%) Linux
3 38 (4.75%) Windows Server
4 27 (3.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 20 (2.50%) Android
5 20 (2.50%) Mac OS
6 14 (1.75%) Unix
7 13 (1.63%) AIX
8 11 (1.38%) CentOS
9 10 (1.25%) Solaris
10 6 (0.75%) VMS
11 5 (0.63%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.38%) Windows 10
13 2 (0.25%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.13%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 132 (16.50%) Problem-Solving
2 127 (15.88%) Migration
3 93 (11.63%) Stakeholder Management
4 75 (9.38%) ITIL
5 65 (8.13%) High Availability
5 65 (8.13%) Project Management
5 65 (8.13%) Roadmaps
6 62 (7.75%) Continuous Improvement
7 60 (7.50%) Load Balancing
8 58 (7.25%) Change Management
8 58 (7.25%) Project Delivery
9 49 (6.13%) CI/CD
10 48 (6.00%) Agile
11 45 (5.63%) Data Centre Operations
11 45 (5.63%) Infrastructure as Code
12 44 (5.50%) Network Design
13 42 (5.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 42 (5.25%) Technical Leadership
14 40 (5.00%) Customer Service
14 40 (5.00%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 80 (10.00%) Python
2 46 (5.75%) PowerShell
3 24 (3.00%) Bash
4 22 (2.75%) Java
5 20 (2.50%) SQL
6 16 (2.00%) Perl
7 13 (1.63%) Shell Script
8 10 (1.25%) COBOL
9 9 (1.13%) MATLAB
10 6 (0.75%) Lisp
11 5 (0.63%) Bicep
11 5 (0.63%) VBA
12 4 (0.50%) JavaScript
13 2 (0.25%) C++
13 2 (0.25%) Korn
13 2 (0.25%) PL/SQL
14 1 (0.13%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 271 (33.88%) Security Cleared
2 202 (25.25%) SC Cleared
3 154 (19.25%) Cisco Certification
4 109 (13.63%) CCNP
5 66 (8.25%) Degree
6 64 (8.00%) CCNA
7 58 (7.25%) DV Cleared
8 24 (3.00%) Network+ Certification
9 23 (2.88%) CCIE
10 22 (2.75%) PMP
11 20 (2.50%) AWS Certification
11 20 (2.50%) Microsoft Certification
12 19 (2.38%) A+ Certification
12 19 (2.38%) MCSE
13 18 (2.25%) PMI Certification
14 16 (2.00%) Azure Certification
14 16 (2.00%) JNCIS
15 14 (1.75%) JNCIP
16 12 (1.50%) JNCIA
16 12 (1.50%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (3.38%) SLA
2 26 (3.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 24 (3.00%) PMO
4 22 (2.75%) NIST
5 21 (2.63%) GDPR
6 17 (2.13%) PCI DSS
7 14 (1.75%) QA
8 8 (1.00%) NCSC
9 5 (0.63%) Actionable Recommendations
10 4 (0.50%) GRC
11 3 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
12 2 (0.25%) Data Quality
12 2 (0.25%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 1 (0.13%) COBIT
13 1 (0.13%) NEBOSH
13 1 (0.13%) RMADS
13 1 (0.13%) SOC 1
System Software
1 69 (8.63%) VMware Infrastructure
2 53 (6.63%) Active Directory
3 31 (3.88%) VMware NSX
4 21 (2.63%) Firmware
4 21 (2.63%) Virtual Machines
5 15 (1.88%) Hyper-V
6 14 (1.75%) Docker
6 14 (1.75%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (1.75%) vSphere
7 10 (1.25%) KVM
8 3 (0.38%) PowerHA
9 2 (0.25%) Ceph
9 2 (0.25%) Lustre
9 2 (0.25%) NFS
9 2 (0.25%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 2 (0.25%) SRDF
9 2 (0.25%) vCloud
9 2 (0.25%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.13%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.13%) RHEV
Systems Management
1 81 (10.13%) Ansible
2 69 (8.63%) Terraform
3 43 (5.38%) FortiGate
4 37 (4.63%) Kubernetes
5 26 (3.25%) Grafana
6 19 (2.38%) Prometheus
7 17 (2.13%) SCCM
8 14 (1.75%) Microsoft Intune
9 9 (1.13%) Check_MK
9 9 (1.13%) Podman
9 9 (1.13%) Red Hat Satellite
10 7 (0.88%) SCOM
11 5 (0.63%) Dell DRAC
11 5 (0.63%) Endace
11 5 (0.63%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.50%) CASB
12 4 (0.50%) Nagios
12 4 (0.50%) PowerCLI
12 4 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 245 (30.63%) Cisco
2 102 (12.75%) Palo Alto
3 101 (12.63%) VMware
4 79 (9.88%) Microsoft
5 73 (9.13%) Juniper
6 68 (8.50%) Dell
7 60 (7.50%) F5
8 40 (5.00%) CheckPoint
9 36 (4.50%) Aruba
10 35 (4.38%) ServiceNow
11 34 (4.25%) Arista
12 33 (4.13%) Fortinet
12 33 (4.13%) Meraki
12 33 (4.13%) SolarWinds
13 31 (3.88%) HP
14 28 (3.50%) IBM
15 26 (3.25%) Splunk
16 23 (2.88%) Citrix
16 23 (2.88%) Red Hat
17 22 (2.75%) Google