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

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 75 83 71
Rank change year-on-year +8 -12 +12
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 126 78 158
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.62% 2.47% 2.86%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 8.63% 7.37% 9.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 89 44 113
10th Percentile £303 £158 £280
25th Percentile £363 £310 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £445 £463
Median % change year-on-year - -3.78% -13.95%
75th Percentile £500 £568 £608
90th Percentile £550 £626 £675
England median daily rate £478 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -8.08% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 8 9
10th Percentile £44.28 £23.01 £18.70
25th Percentile £48.68 - £24.00
Median hourly rate £57.02 £24.18 £25.12
Median % change year-on-year +135.80% -3.72% -64.12%
75th Percentile £65.01 £24.66 £76.53
90th Percentile £69.20 £26.04 -
England median hourly rate £26.50 £24.66 £31.31
% change year-on-year +7.46% -21.23% -48.25%

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 1,460 1,059 1,645
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 30.32% 33.51% 29.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 973 617 975
10th Percentile £219 £239 £205
25th Percentile £375 £386 £329
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £485
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +7.22% -7.62%
75th Percentile £588 £620 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £688
England median daily rate £510 £540 £550
% change year-on-year -5.56% -1.82% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 41 120
10th Percentile £12.50 £18.50 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.74 £24.18 £22.21
Median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% -31.58% +11.76%
75th Percentile £71.41 £62.24 £60.67
90th Percentile £87.80 £71.25 £76.53
England median hourly rate £33.00 £36.25 £32.50
% change year-on-year -8.97% +11.54% +44.44%

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 21 February 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 21 February 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 21 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
Thames Valley +9 71 £375 -29.58% 41
Berkshire +19 64 £375 -28.57% 33
Hampshire -23 27 £500 +11.11% 25
Kent +9 18 £444 -19.32% 5
Buckinghamshire -9 5 £525 -2.78% 3
Surrey -26 5 £505 +200.60% 6
West Sussex -14 3 £700 +19.15% 6
Oxfordshire - 2 £500 - 5
East Sussex +3 1 £475 -24.00%
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 3 (2.38%) GeoServer
1 3 (2.38%) OpenStack
1 3 (2.38%) Smallworld
2 2 (1.59%) Confluence
3 1 (0.79%) SharePoint
Applications
1 7 (5.56%) Microsoft Office
1 7 (5.56%) MS Visio
2 4 (3.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (3.17%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (1.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 13 (10.32%) Azure
2 9 (7.14%) AWS
3 3 (2.38%) IaaS
3 3 (2.38%) Microsoft 365
3 3 (2.38%) OpenShift
3 3 (2.38%) PaaS
3 3 (2.38%) SaaS
4 2 (1.59%) Entra ID
4 2 (1.59%) GitHub
5 1 (0.79%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (0.79%) GCP
5 1 (0.79%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 50 (39.68%) WAN
2 49 (38.89%) Firewall
2 49 (38.89%) LAN
3 41 (32.54%) BGP
4 38 (30.16%) OSPF
5 19 (15.08%) Structured Cabling
6 18 (14.29%) Ethernet VPN
6 18 (14.29%) IPsec
6 18 (14.29%) VPN
7 16 (12.70%) VXLAN
8 13 (10.32%) DNS
9 12 (9.52%) BIG-IP
9 12 (9.52%) DHCP
10 11 (8.73%) Cisco ISE
10 11 (8.73%) Junos
10 11 (8.73%) Network Security
10 11 (8.73%) Wireless
11 8 (6.35%) Cisco Nexus
11 8 (6.35%) MPLS
11 8 (6.35%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.38%) Geospatial Data
1 3 (2.38%) GIS
1 3 (2.38%) QGIS
1 3 (2.38%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (1.59%) Bitbucket
1 2 (1.59%) Eclipse
1 2 (1.59%) JIRA
1 2 (1.59%) Maven
1 2 (1.59%) Rational DOORS
1 2 (1.59%) ScriptRunner
1 2 (1.59%) Subversion
2 1 (0.79%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 33 (26.19%) Social Skills
2 20 (15.87%) Documentation Skills
3 12 (9.52%) Public Sector
4 11 (8.73%) Manufacturing
5 8 (6.35%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (5.56%) Finance
7 6 (4.76%) Telecoms
8 5 (3.97%) Military
8 5 (3.97%) Retail
9 3 (2.38%) Influencing Skills
9 3 (2.38%) Legal
9 3 (2.38%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.79%) Back Office
10 1 (0.79%) Billing
10 1 (0.79%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 40 (31.75%) Network Engineer
2 14 (11.11%) Analyst
2 14 (11.11%) Cisco Engineer
2 14 (11.11%) Cisco Network Engineer
2 14 (11.11%) Data Centre Analyst
3 13 (10.32%) Data Analyst
3 13 (10.32%) Project Manager
4 12 (9.52%) Senior
5 11 (8.73%) Architect
6 10 (7.94%) Data Centre Engineer
6 10 (7.94%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
7 8 (6.35%) Network Architect
8 6 (4.76%) Data Network Engineer
8 6 (4.76%) Designer
8 6 (4.76%) Senior Network Engineer
9 5 (3.97%) Data Centre Manager
9 5 (3.97%) Data Centre Project Manager
9 5 (3.97%) Firewall Specialist
9 5 (3.97%) Lead
9 5 (3.97%) Network Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (10.32%) 802.1X
2 3 (2.38%) RFC 2544
3 2 (1.59%) NETCONF
3 2 (1.59%) OpenConfig
3 2 (1.59%) RESTCONF
3 2 (1.59%) XML
3 2 (1.59%) YANG
4 1 (0.79%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 12 (9.52%) PKI
2 11 (8.73%) Clustering
2 11 (8.73%) Hybrid Cloud
3 10 (7.94%) Self-Motivation
4 6 (4.76%) Driving Licence
5 4 (3.17%) Analytical Mindset
5 4 (3.17%) Fibre Optics
5 4 (3.17%) Virtual Team
6 3 (2.38%) Legacy Systems
6 3 (2.38%) Linux Command Line
6 3 (2.38%) Replication
7 1 (0.79%) CCTV
7 1 (0.79%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.79%) Fat Client
7 1 (0.79%) iSeries
7 1 (0.79%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.79%) NHS
7 1 (0.79%) Smartphone
7 1 (0.79%) Thin Client
7 1 (0.79%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 16 (12.70%) Windows
2 9 (7.14%) Linux
3 2 (1.59%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.79%) VMS
4 1 (0.79%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.79%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (18.25%) Problem-Solving
2 22 (17.46%) ITIL
3 18 (14.29%) High Availability
4 15 (11.90%) Continuous Improvement
5 14 (11.11%) Change Control
5 14 (11.11%) Incident Management
6 13 (10.32%) Migration
7 12 (9.52%) Customer Requirements
7 12 (9.52%) Load Balancing
7 12 (9.52%) Project Management
8 11 (8.73%) Identity Access Management
8 11 (8.73%) Observability
8 11 (8.73%) Service Management
9 9 (7.14%) Agile
9 9 (7.14%) ITSM
10 8 (6.35%) Budget Management
10 8 (6.35%) PRINCE2
10 8 (6.35%) Project Delivery
11 7 (5.56%) Availability Management
11 7 (5.56%) Business Case
Programming Languages
1 6 (4.76%) Python
2 4 (3.17%) SQL
3 3 (2.38%) Java
4 2 (1.59%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 77 (61.11%) Security Cleared
2 56 (44.44%) SC Cleared
3 44 (34.92%) Cisco Certification
4 29 (23.02%) CCNP
5 20 (15.87%) DV Cleared
6 19 (15.08%) Degree
7 15 (11.90%) CCNA
8 11 (8.73%) JNCIS
9 8 (6.35%) JNCIA
10 7 (5.56%) JNCIP
11 6 (4.76%) CCIE
12 5 (3.97%) JNCIE
13 4 (3.17%) AWS Certification
14 2 (1.59%) CCSE
14 2 (1.59%) Computer Science Degree
14 2 (1.59%) DBS Check
14 2 (1.59%) ITIL Certification
14 2 (1.59%) Master's Degree
14 2 (1.59%) Microsoft Certification
15 1 (0.79%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (3.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (3.17%) PMO
2 4 (3.17%) SLA
3 3 (2.38%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (2.38%) Data Quality
3 3 (2.38%) QA
4 2 (1.59%) NCSC
4 2 (1.59%) NIST
5 1 (0.79%) NIST 800
5 1 (0.79%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 13 (10.32%) VMware Infrastructure
2 9 (7.14%) VMware NSX
3 3 (2.38%) Active Directory
3 3 (2.38%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (1.59%) Hyper-V
4 2 (1.59%) vCloud
4 2 (1.59%) vSphere
5 1 (0.79%) KVM
5 1 (0.79%) NFS
5 1 (0.79%) RHEV
5 1 (0.79%) UAG
5 1 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.79%) Xen
Systems Management
1 12 (9.52%) FortiGate
2 10 (7.94%) Ansible
3 8 (6.35%) Terraform
4 4 (3.17%) Nagios
4 4 (3.17%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (2.38%) Endace
5 3 (2.38%) SCCM
6 1 (0.79%) CASB
6 1 (0.79%) Cisco CUCM
6 1 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.79%) Proxmox
6 1 (0.79%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 63 (50.00%) Cisco
2 30 (23.81%) Juniper
3 25 (19.84%) F5
3 25 (19.84%) Palo Alto
4 20 (15.87%) CheckPoint
5 19 (15.08%) Aruba
6 17 (13.49%) VMware
7 16 (12.70%) SolarWinds
8 11 (8.73%) Extreme Networks
8 11 (8.73%) Splunk
9 8 (6.35%) Fortinet
9 8 (6.35%) Microsoft
10 4 (3.17%) Atlassian
10 4 (3.17%) Mellanox
10 4 (3.17%) NVIDIA
10 4 (3.17%) Zscaler
11 3 (2.38%) ESRI
11 3 (2.38%) Intergraph
11 3 (2.38%) ServiceNow
12 2 (1.59%) Citrix