Data Centre Contract Job Trends in the South East

Data Center
England > South East

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Data Centre in contract job vacancies in the South East. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Data Centre over the 6 months leading up to 25 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 64 67 63
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 +9
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 185 91 163
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.20% 3.03% 2.93%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 10.78% 9.03% 10.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 121 59 116
10th Percentile £303 £168 £280
25th Percentile £400 £368 £346
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.61% -2.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £588 £608
90th Percentile £725 £629 £650
England median daily rate £481 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 8 6
10th Percentile - - £16.00
25th Percentile £16.01 £24.18 £21.38
Median hourly rate £19.34 £24.42 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.80% +1.75% -65.71%
75th Percentile - £25.81 £27.38
90th Percentile £49.65 £75.59 £48.00
England median hourly rate £19.60 £24.66 £24.87
% change year-on-year -20.54% -0.84% +10.53%

All Generic Skills
South East

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 the South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 1,716 1,008 1,603
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 29.72% 33.60% 28.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,149 628 935
10th Percentile £255 £207 £205
25th Percentile £393 £363 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -2.91%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £700 £660 £688
England median daily rate £510 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -7.27% - -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 126 63 153
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.95 £11.73
25th Percentile £27.91 £23.50 £18.35
Median hourly rate £70.00 £47.81 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +46.43% +0.64% -5.00%
75th Percentile £87.50 £64.13 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.50 £65.00
England median hourly rate £45.46 £34.25 £28.50
% change year-on-year +32.73% +20.18% +26.67%

Data Centre
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Data Centre relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Data Centre job vacancy trend in the South East

Data Centre
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Data Centre.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Data Centre

Data Centre
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Centre in the South East over the 6 months to 25 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Centre in the South East

Data Centre
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Data Centre.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Data Centre

Data Centre
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Centre in the South East over the 6 months to 25 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Centre in the South East

Data Centre
Contract Job Locations in the South East

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 South East region over the 6 months to 25 April 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
Thames Valley +15 106 £400 -25.23% 28
Berkshire +22 95 £375 -28.57% 23
Hampshire -10 50 £500 -4.76% 26
Kent +8 18 £444 -8.97% 4
Buckinghamshire -28 9 £525 -3.67% 3
Surrey -30 6 £485 +188.69% 7
West Sussex -15 4 £700 +86.67% 6
Oxfordshire - 2 £500 - 2
East Sussex +1 1 £475 -24.00% 1
Data Centre
England

Data Centre
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 2 (1.08%) Confluence
2 1 (0.54%) SharePoint
Applications
1 10 (5.41%) MS Visio
2 7 (3.78%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (3.24%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (2.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (2.16%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.54%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 26 (14.05%) Azure
2 16 (8.65%) AWS
3 5 (2.70%) Entra ID
4 4 (2.16%) IaaS
4 4 (2.16%) Microsoft 365
5 3 (1.62%) Azure Sentinel
5 3 (1.62%) PaaS
5 3 (1.62%) SaaS
6 2 (1.08%) GitHub
7 1 (0.54%) AWS Direct Connect
7 1 (0.54%) GCP
7 1 (0.54%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 75 (40.54%) Firewall
2 72 (38.92%) WAN
3 70 (37.84%) LAN
4 58 (31.35%) BGP
5 52 (28.11%) OSPF
6 30 (16.22%) Ethernet VPN
6 30 (16.22%) VXLAN
7 29 (15.68%) DNS
7 29 (15.68%) VPN
8 28 (15.14%) DHCP
8 28 (15.14%) Structured Cabling
9 24 (12.97%) BIG-IP
10 22 (11.89%) Junos
11 18 (9.73%) Cisco ISE
12 17 (9.19%) IPsec
13 16 (8.65%) SAN
14 13 (7.03%) Cisco Nexus
14 13 (7.03%) TCP/IP
15 12 (6.49%) MPLS
15 12 (6.49%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.08%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 4 (2.16%) Eclipse
1 4 (2.16%) Maven
1 4 (2.16%) Subversion
2 3 (1.62%) JIRA
3 2 (1.08%) Bitbucket
3 2 (1.08%) ScriptRunner
4 1 (0.54%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 51 (27.57%) Social Skills
2 19 (10.27%) Analytical Skills
2 19 (10.27%) Documentation Skills
3 13 (7.03%) Manufacturing
3 13 (7.03%) Public Sector
4 12 (6.49%) Finance
4 12 (6.49%) Retail
5 7 (3.78%) Influencing Skills
6 6 (3.24%) Legal
7 5 (2.70%) Military
8 4 (2.16%) Telecoms
9 3 (1.62%) Marketing
9 3 (1.62%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.54%) Back Office
10 1 (0.54%) Billing
10 1 (0.54%) Front Office
10 1 (0.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 48 (25.95%) Network Engineer
2 19 (10.27%) Senior
3 16 (8.65%) Architect
4 15 (8.11%) Project Manager
5 14 (7.57%) Cisco Engineer
5 14 (7.57%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 14 (7.57%) Firewall Specialist
5 14 (7.57%) Network Specialist
6 12 (6.49%) Network Architect
7 11 (5.95%) Analyst
7 11 (5.95%) Data Centre Analyst
7 11 (5.95%) Data Centre Engineer
7 11 (5.95%) Data Centre Manager
7 11 (5.95%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 10 (5.41%) Data Analyst
8 10 (5.41%) IT Engineer
8 10 (5.41%) Lead
8 10 (5.41%) Senior Network Engineer
9 9 (4.86%) Field Engineer
9 9 (4.86%) Field Service Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (13.51%) 802.1X
2 4 (2.16%) NETCONF
2 4 (2.16%) OpenConfig
2 4 (2.16%) RESTCONF
2 4 (2.16%) XML
2 4 (2.16%) YANG
3 1 (0.54%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 22 (11.89%) Clustering
1 22 (11.89%) PKI
2 16 (8.65%) Hybrid Cloud
3 14 (7.57%) Analytical Mindset
4 11 (5.95%) Self-Motivation
5 8 (4.32%) Driving Licence
5 8 (4.32%) Fibre Optics
6 4 (2.16%) Replication
7 3 (1.62%) Linux Command Line
8 2 (1.08%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 2 (1.08%) Management Information System
8 2 (1.08%) Private Cloud
8 2 (1.08%) Public Cloud
8 2 (1.08%) Virtual Team
9 1 (0.54%) CCTV
9 1 (0.54%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.54%) NHS
9 1 (0.54%) PMI
9 1 (0.54%) Smartphone
9 1 (0.54%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 36 (19.46%) Windows
2 15 (8.11%) Linux
3 8 (4.32%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.54%) VMS
4 1 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (24.86%) Problem-Solving
2 32 (17.30%) High Availability
2 32 (17.30%) ITIL
3 26 (14.05%) Load Balancing
4 25 (13.51%) Migration
5 24 (12.97%) Identity Access Management
6 22 (11.89%) Observability
6 22 (11.89%) Roadmaps
7 18 (9.73%) Continuous Improvement
8 16 (8.65%) Project Delivery
9 14 (7.57%) Change Management
9 14 (7.57%) Project Management
10 13 (7.03%) Budget Management
10 13 (7.03%) Change Control
10 13 (7.03%) Disaster Recovery
11 12 (6.49%) Agile
11 12 (6.49%) Break/Fix
11 12 (6.49%) ITSM
11 12 (6.49%) Service Management
12 11 (5.95%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 5 (2.70%) Java
1 5 (2.70%) Python
1 5 (2.70%) SQL
2 2 (1.08%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 104 (56.22%) Security Cleared
2 69 (37.30%) Cisco Certification
3 64 (34.59%) SC Cleared
4 35 (18.92%) CCNP
5 32 (17.30%) DV Cleared
6 23 (12.43%) Degree
7 22 (11.89%) CCNA
8 14 (7.57%) JNCIS
9 11 (5.95%) JNCIA
9 11 (5.95%) JNCIP
10 10 (5.41%) Microsoft Certification
11 9 (4.86%) A+ Certification
11 9 (4.86%) MCSE
11 9 (4.86%) Network+ Certification
12 7 (3.78%) CCIE
13 6 (3.24%) PMP
14 5 (2.70%) BICSI Certification
14 5 (2.70%) City & Guilds
14 5 (2.70%) JNCIE
15 4 (2.16%) CCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (5.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (3.24%) NIST
2 6 (3.24%) SLA
3 5 (2.70%) GDPR
4 3 (1.62%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (1.62%) NCSC
5 2 (1.08%) NIST 800
5 2 (1.08%) PMO
System Software
1 20 (10.81%) VMware Infrastructure
2 12 (6.49%) Active Directory
3 9 (4.86%) VMware ESXi
3 9 (4.86%) VMware NSX
4 5 (2.70%) vSphere
5 4 (2.16%) Hyper-V
6 3 (1.62%) UAG
6 3 (1.62%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (1.08%) vCloud
8 1 (0.54%) KVM
8 1 (0.54%) RHEV
8 1 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.54%) Xen
Systems Management
1 25 (13.51%) FortiGate
2 10 (5.41%) Ansible
3 6 (3.24%) Microsoft Intune
3 6 (3.24%) Terraform
4 5 (2.70%) Endace
4 5 (2.70%) Single Sign-On
5 4 (2.16%) Nagios
6 3 (1.62%) SCCM
6 3 (1.62%) vCenter Server
7 2 (1.08%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (0.54%) Avamar
8 1 (0.54%) CASB
8 1 (0.54%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.54%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 81 (43.78%) Cisco
2 41 (22.16%) Juniper
3 35 (18.92%) F5
4 28 (15.14%) Palo Alto
4 28 (15.14%) SolarWinds
4 28 (15.14%) VMware
5 22 (11.89%) CheckPoint
5 22 (11.89%) Extreme Networks
5 22 (11.89%) Splunk
6 19 (10.27%) Aruba
7 15 (8.11%) Microsoft
8 11 (5.95%) Fortinet
9 10 (5.41%) Dell
10 6 (3.24%) Atlassian
11 5 (2.70%) Zscaler
12 4 (2.16%) Mellanox
12 4 (2.16%) Meraki
12 4 (2.16%) NVIDIA
12 4 (2.16%) ServiceNow
12 4 (2.16%) Zerto