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

6 months to
20 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 68 66 61
Rank change year-on-year -2 -5 +25
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 105 131 184
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 3.02% 2.85% 3.27%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 9.41% 9.66% 10.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 76 84 133
10th Percentile £285 £350 £318
25th Percentile £313 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £608 £600
90th Percentile £644 £651 £671
England median daily rate £525 £535 £550
% change year-on-year -1.87% -2.73% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 9 2
10th Percentile - £12.05 £29.56
25th Percentile - - £37.39
Median hourly rate - £12.08 £50.82
Median % change year-on-year - -76.23% -
75th Percentile - £18.75 £63.87
90th Percentile - £22.20 £71.47
England median hourly rate £25.15 £21.90 £23.25
% change year-on-year +14.84% -5.81% -61.57%

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 1,116 1,356 1,783
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 32.05% 29.50% 31.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 709 780 1,212
10th Percentile £204 £237 £205
25th Percentile £353 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% - -1.96%
75th Percentile £588 £608 £619
90th Percentile £665 £688 £700
England median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 108 102
10th Percentile £15.13 £12.90 £16.25
25th Percentile £16.95 £30.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £33.05 £57.35 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -42.37% +4.27% +135.14%
75th Percentile £58.38 £70.05 £67.42
90th Percentile £70.16 £75.16 £77.40
England median hourly rate £32.83 £57.35 £45.85
% change year-on-year -42.76% +25.08% +79.80%

Data Centre
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Job postings citing Data Centre as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Job vacancy trend for Data Centre 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 20 September 2025.

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
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 20 September 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
Thames Valley +18 58 £413 -25.00% 75
Berkshire +17 44 £333 -41.92% 62
Hampshire -5 31 £520 -0.95% 32
Buckinghamshire +7 12 £545 +28.24% 9
West Sussex +2 7 £725 +28.89%
Surrey -3 3 £425 -15.00% 12
Kent -1 2 - - 4
Oxfordshire -4 2 £600 +20.00% 5
East Sussex +1 1 - -
Data Centre
England

Data Centre
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 8 (7.62%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (5.71%) OpenStack
3 4 (3.81%) ThingWorx
4 1 (0.95%) Confluence
Applications
1 4 (3.81%) Microsoft Project
2 3 (2.86%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 18 (17.14%) AWS
2 15 (14.29%) OpenShift
3 11 (10.48%) IaaS
4 9 (8.57%) GCP
5 8 (7.62%) Azure
5 8 (7.62%) PaaS
6 5 (4.76%) Entra ID
7 3 (2.86%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 2 (1.90%) Azure Sentinel
8 2 (1.90%) Microsoft 365
9 1 (0.95%) Amazon EKS
9 1 (0.95%) Azure DevOps
9 1 (0.95%) GitHub
9 1 (0.95%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (0.95%) Microsoft Purview
9 1 (0.95%) Nutanix
9 1 (0.95%) SaaS
9 1 (0.95%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 31 (29.52%) Firewall
2 13 (12.38%) VPN
3 12 (11.43%) WAN
4 10 (9.52%) DNS
5 9 (8.57%) BGP
5 9 (8.57%) DHCP
5 9 (8.57%) LAN
5 9 (8.57%) OSPF
6 8 (7.62%) SAN
6 8 (7.62%) SMTP
7 7 (6.67%) MPLS
7 7 (6.67%) SNMP
7 7 (6.67%) Wireless
8 6 (5.71%) TACACS
9 5 (4.76%) Network Security
10 4 (3.81%) 4G
10 4 (3.81%) ADSL
10 4 (3.81%) NAS
11 3 (2.86%) Cisco Nexus
11 3 (2.86%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (7.62%) Amazon RDS
1 8 (7.62%) Big Data
1 8 (7.62%) Elasticsearch
2 2 (1.90%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (1.90%) Git
1 2 (1.90%) Jenkins
2 1 (0.95%) JIRA
General
1 19 (18.10%) Public Sector
2 12 (11.43%) Finance
3 11 (10.48%) Social Skills
4 10 (9.52%) Telecoms
5 9 (8.57%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (6.67%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (4.76%) Retail
8 3 (2.86%) Front Office
9 2 (1.90%) Banking
9 2 (1.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (1.90%) Legal
10 1 (0.95%) Back Office
10 1 (0.95%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 18 (17.14%) Network Engineer
2 14 (13.33%) Test Engineer
3 12 (11.43%) Architect
4 10 (9.52%) Data Centre Manager
4 10 (9.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 8 (7.62%) 3rd Line Engineer
5 8 (7.62%) 3rd Line Support
5 8 (7.62%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
5 8 (7.62%) Support Engineer
6 7 (6.67%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
6 7 (6.67%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Support
6 7 (6.67%) Infrastructure Support
6 7 (6.67%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
7 6 (5.71%) Designer
7 6 (5.71%) IP Designer
8 5 (4.76%) Analyst
8 5 (4.76%) Project Manager
9 4 (3.81%) Data Centre Project Manager
9 4 (3.81%) Senior
9 4 (3.81%) VMware Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (15.24%) RFC 2544
2 4 (3.81%) Middleware
3 1 (0.95%) ADO
3 1 (0.95%) PySpark
3 1 (0.95%) React
3 1 (0.95%) Web Services
3 1 (0.95%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 16 (15.24%) Fibre Optics
2 8 (7.62%) Clustering
2 8 (7.62%) PKI
3 7 (6.67%) Hybrid Cloud
4 5 (4.76%) CMDB
5 4 (3.81%) Industrial Internet of Things
5 4 (3.81%) IoT
5 4 (3.81%) Operational Technology
5 4 (3.81%) SCADA
6 3 (2.86%) Distributed Systems
6 3 (2.86%) Private Cloud
6 3 (2.86%) Virtual Team
7 2 (1.90%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (1.90%) Cloud Native
7 2 (1.90%) Driving Licence
7 2 (1.90%) Management Information System
7 2 (1.90%) Onboarding
7 2 (1.90%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (0.95%) Legacy Applications
8 1 (0.95%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 17 (16.19%) Linux
2 16 (15.24%) Windows
3 10 (9.52%) Windows Server
4 4 (3.81%) Unix
5 3 (2.86%) Windows Server 2003
6 2 (1.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (1.90%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (1.90%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.95%) CentOS
7 1 (0.95%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (20.95%) Migration
2 16 (15.24%) Service Management
2 16 (15.24%) Test Scripting
3 14 (13.33%) Capacity Management
3 14 (13.33%) Case Management
4 13 (12.38%) Defect Management
4 13 (12.38%) DevOps
4 13 (12.38%) Disaster Recovery
5 11 (10.48%) Change Management
5 11 (10.48%) Incident Management
5 11 (10.48%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 11 (10.48%) Project Management
6 9 (8.57%) Problem-Solving
6 9 (8.57%) Validation
7 8 (7.62%) Agile
7 8 (7.62%) Artificial Intelligence
7 8 (7.62%) Machine Learning
7 8 (7.62%) Network Virtualisation
7 8 (7.62%) Software Deployment
8 7 (6.67%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 17 (16.19%) PowerShell
2 11 (10.48%) Python
3 3 (2.86%) Java
4 2 (1.90%) Bash
4 2 (1.90%) SQL
5 1 (0.95%) C#
5 1 (0.95%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 55 (52.38%) Security Cleared
2 31 (29.52%) SC Cleared
3 22 (20.95%) DV Cleared
4 14 (13.33%) Cisco Certification
4 14 (13.33%) Degree
5 6 (5.71%) AWS Certification
5 6 (5.71%) CCIE
5 6 (5.71%) CCNP
5 6 (5.71%) JNCIE
6 5 (4.76%) ACCA
6 5 (4.76%) CCNA
6 5 (4.76%) CIMA
7 4 (3.81%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 3 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
8 3 (2.86%) Server+ Certification
8 3 (2.86%) VCAP
9 2 (1.90%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.95%) A+ Certification
10 1 (0.95%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.95%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 3 (2.86%) PMO
1 3 (2.86%) QA
2 2 (1.90%) Cyber Essentials
2 2 (1.90%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
2 2 (1.90%) PCI DSS
3 1 (0.95%) Accessibility
System Software
1 26 (24.76%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (13.33%) Active Directory
3 12 (11.43%) VMware NSX
4 11 (10.48%) VMware ESXi
5 9 (8.57%) Hyper-V
6 8 (7.62%) BitLocker
6 8 (7.62%) Docker
6 8 (7.62%) Microsoft App-V
6 8 (7.62%) Terminal Services
7 6 (5.71%) vSphere
8 1 (0.95%) Firmware
8 1 (0.95%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 19 (18.10%) Ansible
2 11 (10.48%) vCenter Server
3 10 (9.52%) Terraform
4 9 (8.57%) Kubernetes
5 8 (7.62%) Nagios
5 8 (7.62%) Puppet
5 8 (7.62%) vMotion
6 4 (3.81%) SCCM
7 3 (2.86%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (2.86%) vRealize
7 3 (2.86%) vRealize Orchestrator
8 2 (1.90%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.95%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 1 (0.95%) Cisco CUCM
9 1 (0.95%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.95%) QRadar
9 1 (0.95%) VxRail
Vendors
1 32 (30.48%) Cisco
2 27 (25.71%) VMware
3 16 (15.24%) Microsoft
4 10 (9.52%) HP
5 9 (8.57%) Citrix
6 8 (7.62%) F5
6 8 (7.62%) Google
6 8 (7.62%) Juniper
6 8 (7.62%) Symantec
7 6 (5.71%) Fortinet
7 6 (5.71%) ServiceNow
8 3 (2.86%) Mellanox
8 3 (2.86%) NVIDIA
9 2 (1.90%) Dell
9 2 (1.90%) NetApp
9 2 (1.90%) Sophos
9 2 (1.90%) Tanium
10 1 (0.95%) Commvault
10 1 (0.95%) EMC
10 1 (0.95%) Oracle