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

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 117 128 104
Rank change year-on-year +11 -24 -5
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,012 631 709
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.22% 2.28% 2.13%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.64% 6.45% 6.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 626 414 506
10th Percentile £325 £313 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £461
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £650 £609 £625
90th Percentile £775 £705 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £538
% change year-on-year +0.96% -3.26% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 27 29
10th Percentile £16.01 £25.11 £11.75
25th Percentile £18.25 - £12.08
Median hourly rate £25.77 £25.15 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year +2.47% +5.67% +1.28%
75th Percentile £38.75 £38.38 £25.83
90th Percentile £85.65 £43.75 £28.55
UK median hourly rate £25.00 £25.15 £20.00
% change year-on-year -0.60% +25.75% -

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 15,250 9,787 10,262
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.47% 35.40% 30.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,356 6,184 6,654
10th Percentile £325 £305 £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 £676
90th Percentile £750 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 899 490 542
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.48 £13.03
25th Percentile £19.50 £18.87 £18.91
Median hourly rate £43.56 £30.25 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +44.00% -36.32% +15.10%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.50 £29.33 £45.00
% change year-on-year +48.31% -34.82% +12.74%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +5 403 £568 +5.58% 828
North of England +1 223 £492 +9.33% 143
South East +3 202 £525 +4.22% 150
Yorkshire -3 128 £365 -9.88% 41
North West -2 80 £525 +0.96% 54
South West -25 65 £513 -6.82% 57
Midlands -63 55 £456 -13.24% 48
West Midlands -46 49 £465 -7.00% 36
East of England -20 29 £479 -20.21% 99
North East -23 21 £625 +468.18% 49
East Midlands -25 5 £400 -26.61% 12
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 27 (2.67%) Confluence
2 17 (1.68%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.09%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.69%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.49%) Apache
5 5 (0.49%) CloudStack
6 4 (0.40%) CICS
7 3 (0.30%) nginx
7 3 (0.30%) Tomcat
8 1 (0.099%) IIS
8 1 (0.099%) SAS
8 1 (0.099%) WebLogic
Applications
1 19 (1.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (1.58%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.99%) MS Visio
4 8 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.49%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.20%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 12 (1.19%) 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
1 221 (21.84%) Azure
2 182 (17.98%) AWS
3 47 (4.64%) GCP
4 38 (3.75%) GitHub
5 37 (3.66%) IaaS
6 35 (3.46%) SaaS
7 31 (3.06%) Microsoft 365
8 29 (2.87%) OCI
9 23 (2.27%) Entra ID
10 19 (1.88%) Power Platform
11 15 (1.48%) PaaS
11 15 (1.48%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 14 (1.38%) OneDrive
13 13 (1.28%) OpenShift
14 11 (1.09%) Azure ExpressRoute
15 10 (0.99%) Azure DevOps
16 8 (0.79%) GitHub Actions
17 6 (0.59%) Azure Sentinel
18 5 (0.49%) Datadog
18 5 (0.49%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 257 (25.40%) Firewall
2 166 (16.40%) WAN
3 164 (16.21%) BGP
4 129 (12.75%) DNS
5 116 (11.46%) OSPF
6 112 (11.07%) VXLAN
7 101 (9.98%) SAN
8 97 (9.58%) DHCP
9 93 (9.19%) LAN
10 88 (8.70%) VLAN
10 88 (8.70%) VPN
11 79 (7.81%) Network Security
12 76 (7.51%) Ethernet VPN
13 74 (7.31%) TCP/IP
14 71 (7.02%) SD-WAN
15 69 (6.82%) Structured Cabling
16 57 (5.63%) BIG-IP
17 49 (4.84%) Wireless
18 43 (4.25%) NX-OS
18 43 (4.25%) Wi-Fi
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
5 6 (0.59%) PostgreSQL
6 5 (0.49%) Db2
6 5 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
7 4 (0.40%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.40%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (0.40%) Oracle Database 12c
7 4 (0.40%) Oracle Reports
7 4 (0.40%) SAP Data Services
8 3 (0.30%) DataStage
8 3 (0.30%) GIS
9 2 (0.20%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.20%) Data Lake
9 2 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 72 (7.11%) JIRA
2 31 (3.06%) GitLab
3 22 (2.17%) Git
4 20 (1.98%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.30%) ScriptRunner
6 3 (0.30%) Zephyr
7 2 (0.20%) Atlassian Bamboo
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%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.099%) Claude Code
General
1 247 (24.41%) Social Skills
2 146 (14.43%) Finance
3 104 (10.28%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (5.93%) Public Sector
5 48 (4.74%) Banking
6 40 (3.95%) Telecoms
7 35 (3.46%) Documentation Skills
8 30 (2.96%) Retail
9 22 (2.17%) Legal
10 21 (2.08%) Influencing Skills
11 18 (1.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 14 (1.38%) Manufacturing
13 11 (1.09%) Organisational Skills
14 8 (0.79%) Law
14 8 (0.79%) Police
15 7 (0.69%) Financial Institution
15 7 (0.69%) Military
16 5 (0.49%) Investment Banking
16 5 (0.49%) Marketing
17 4 (0.40%) Billing
Job Titles
1 150 (14.82%) Architect
2 146 (14.43%) Network Engineer
3 128 (12.65%) Senior
4 113 (11.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 81 (8.00%) Data Centre Engineer
6 76 (7.51%) Project Manager
7 55 (5.43%) Network Architect
8 54 (5.34%) Lead
9 40 (3.95%) Infrastructure Manager
10 37 (3.66%) Data Centre Manager
10 37 (3.66%) IT Engineer
11 34 (3.36%) Field Engineer
12 31 (3.06%) Field Service Engineer
12 31 (3.06%) Senior Network Engineer
13 30 (2.96%) Consultant
13 30 (2.96%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
14 29 (2.87%) Solutions Architect
15 28 (2.77%) Infrastructure Project Manager
16 26 (2.57%) Support Engineer
17 25 (2.47%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (2.96%) 802.1X
2 26 (2.57%) Middleware
3 14 (1.38%) REST
4 10 (0.99%) Redfish
5 8 (0.79%) Elastic Stack
5 8 (0.79%) LDAP
5 8 (0.79%) NETCONF
5 8 (0.79%) YAML
6 7 (0.69%) JSON
6 7 (0.69%) OpenConfig
6 7 (0.69%) YANG
7 6 (0.59%) RESTCONF
7 6 (0.59%) SAML
8 5 (0.49%) .NET
8 5 (0.49%) Jinja
9 4 (0.40%) GeoJSON
9 4 (0.40%) Kafka
9 4 (0.40%) RESTful
9 4 (0.40%) Spring
10 3 (0.30%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 69 (6.82%) Hybrid Cloud
2 50 (4.94%) PKI
3 46 (4.55%) Clustering
4 40 (3.95%) Analytical Mindset
5 33 (3.26%) Cloud Native
6 31 (3.06%) Private Cloud
7 30 (2.96%) Enterprise Storage
8 25 (2.47%) Fibre Optics
9 24 (2.37%) Onboarding
9 24 (2.37%) Replication
10 21 (2.08%) Data Protection Act
11 20 (1.98%) Public Cloud
12 15 (1.48%) CMDB
12 15 (1.48%) Management Information System
13 14 (1.38%) Driving Licence
14 13 (1.28%) Self-Motivation
15 12 (1.19%) Operational Technology
16 11 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
16 11 (1.09%) Virtual Team
17 9 (0.89%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 154 (15.22%) Windows
2 91 (8.99%) Linux
3 42 (4.15%) Windows Server
4 33 (3.26%) Unix
5 20 (1.98%) AIX
5 20 (1.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.09%) Solaris
7 10 (0.99%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.99%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.59%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.59%) Windows Server 2019
9 5 (0.49%) HPUX
9 5 (0.49%) Oracle Linux
9 5 (0.49%) SUSE
9 5 (0.49%) VMS
9 5 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.40%) CentOS
10 4 (0.40%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.20%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 216 (21.34%) Migration
2 175 (17.29%) Problem-Solving
3 138 (13.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 124 (12.25%) Stakeholder Management
5 105 (10.38%) ITIL
6 96 (9.49%) High Availability
7 94 (9.29%) Agile
7 94 (9.29%) Infrastructure as Code
8 85 (8.40%) CI/CD
9 77 (7.61%) Continuous Improvement
9 77 (7.61%) Project Delivery
10 76 (7.51%) Change Management
10 76 (7.51%) Roadmaps
11 70 (6.92%) Load Balancing
11 70 (6.92%) Validation
12 65 (6.42%) ITSM
12 65 (6.42%) Project Management
13 64 (6.32%) Zero Trust
14 61 (6.03%) Technical Leadership
15 59 (5.83%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 142 (14.03%) Python
2 52 (5.14%) PowerShell
3 37 (3.66%) SQL
4 28 (2.77%) Bash
5 10 (0.99%) Bicep
6 9 (0.89%) ActionScript
6 9 (0.89%) Java
6 9 (0.89%) PL/SQL
7 8 (0.79%) Perl
7 8 (0.79%) Shell Script
8 5 (0.49%) C#
8 5 (0.49%) COBOL
8 5 (0.49%) JavaScript
9 4 (0.40%) MATLAB
10 3 (0.30%) Lisp
11 2 (0.20%) C++
11 2 (0.20%) JCL
11 2 (0.20%) Korn
11 2 (0.20%) REXX
11 2 (0.20%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 269 (26.58%) Security Cleared
2 165 (16.30%) SC Cleared
3 160 (15.81%) Cisco Certification
4 97 (9.58%) DV Cleared
5 89 (8.79%) CCNP
6 58 (5.73%) CCNA
7 57 (5.63%) Degree
8 43 (4.25%) Network+ Certification
9 34 (3.36%) Microsoft Certification
10 29 (2.87%) A+ Certification
10 29 (2.87%) MCSE
11 26 (2.57%) CCIE
12 25 (2.47%) AWS Certification
12 25 (2.47%) Azure Certification
13 22 (2.17%) City & Guilds
13 22 (2.17%) PMP
13 22 (2.17%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 20 (1.98%) PMI Certification
15 17 (1.68%) BICSI Certification
15 17 (1.68%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (3.06%) SLA
2 28 (2.77%) QA
3 25 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 19 (1.88%) NIST
5 17 (1.68%) PMO
6 12 (1.19%) GDPR
7 11 (1.09%) NCSC
8 9 (0.89%) JSP 440
9 6 (0.59%) GRC
10 4 (0.40%) NIST 800
10 4 (0.40%) PCI DSS
10 4 (0.40%) RMADS
11 2 (0.20%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.20%) Data Quality
11 2 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.20%) WCAG
12 1 (0.099%) NEBOSH
12 1 (0.099%) SOC 1
System Software
1 114 (11.26%) VMware Infrastructure
2 65 (6.42%) Active Directory
3 39 (3.85%) VMware NSX
4 38 (3.75%) vSphere
5 34 (3.36%) VMware ESXi
6 30 (2.96%) Firmware
7 27 (2.67%) Docker
8 26 (2.57%) Hyper-V
9 13 (1.28%) Virtual Machines
10 11 (1.09%) NFS
11 7 (0.69%) PowerHA
12 6 (0.59%) Microsoft App-V
12 6 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
13 5 (0.49%) SRDF
14 4 (0.40%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.40%) Terminal Services
14 4 (0.40%) VMware Workstation
15 3 (0.30%) EMC RecoverPoint
15 3 (0.30%) Oracle RAC
15 3 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 127 (12.55%) Ansible
2 96 (9.49%) Terraform
3 54 (5.34%) Kubernetes
4 47 (4.64%) FortiGate
5 25 (2.47%) Grafana
6 24 (2.37%) Microsoft Intune
6 24 (2.37%) Prometheus
7 15 (1.48%) vCenter Server
7 15 (1.48%) VxRail
8 12 (1.19%) Microsoft Clustering
9 11 (1.09%) Dell DRAC
9 11 (1.09%) NetBackup
9 11 (1.09%) Tivoli Storage Manager
10 10 (0.99%) Jamf Pro
11 9 (0.89%) SCCM
11 9 (0.89%) vMotion
12 8 (0.79%) PowerCLI
13 7 (0.69%) Check_MK
14 6 (0.59%) Nagios
14 6 (0.59%) SCOM
Vendors
1 238 (23.52%) Cisco
2 160 (15.81%) VMware
3 109 (10.77%) Microsoft
4 104 (10.28%) F5
5 103 (10.18%) Palo Alto
6 81 (8.00%) Juniper
7 62 (6.13%) Arista
7 62 (6.13%) Fortinet
8 58 (5.73%) Dell
9 52 (5.14%) ServiceNow
10 39 (3.85%) SolarWinds
11 36 (3.56%) IBM
12 31 (3.06%) Aruba
13 29 (2.87%) CheckPoint
13 29 (2.87%) Splunk
14 27 (2.67%) Red Hat
15 24 (2.37%) Google
15 24 (2.37%) Oracle
16 22 (2.17%) Extreme Networks
17 20 (1.98%) HP