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

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 79 69 66
Rank change year-on-year -10 -3 -4
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 189 101 142
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.80% 2.83% 2.93%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 9.40% 8.87% 10.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 115 71 95
10th Percentile £300 £290 £318
25th Percentile £400 £365 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £493 £525
Median % change year-on-year +6.60% -6.19% +5.00%
75th Percentile £638 £594 £608
90th Percentile £778 £650 £654
England median daily rate £530 £525 £538
% change year-on-year +0.95% -2.33% -0.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 1 9
10th Percentile £16.01 - £12.05
25th Percentile £18.87 £181.24 -
Median hourly rate £20.17 £182.48 £12.08
Median % change year-on-year -88.95% +1410.55% -
75th Percentile £33.75 £183.71 £18.75
90th Percentile £33.90 - £22.20
England median hourly rate £21.00 £25.15 £23.80
% change year-on-year -16.50% +5.67% -0.16%

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 2,011 1,139 1,413
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 29.79% 31.97% 29.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,253 704 836
10th Percentile £281 £204 £213
25th Percentile £413 £363 £396
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £508
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -1.59% +1.62%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £638
90th Percentile £700 £668 £700
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 205 101 144
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.13 £11.98
25th Percentile £21.01 £16.95 £21.99
Median hourly rate £55.00 £33.05 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +66.41% -42.37% +14.70%
75th Percentile £84.00 £58.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £80.00 £75.16
England median hourly rate £42.50 £31.18 £47.50
% change year-on-year +36.31% -34.36% +11.76%

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 17 August 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 17 August 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 17 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
Thames Valley -2 119 £463 +3.12% 31
Berkshire +18 98 £400 +3.23% 22
Hampshire -3 62 £600 +6.67% 13
Buckinghamshire -29 20 £605 +11.01% 6
Surrey -24 5 £475 +11.76% 11
West Sussex -30 2 £550 -24.14% 5
Middlesex - 2 - - 2
Oxfordshire -27 1 £500 -16.67% 4
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 12 (6.35%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.59%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.53%) Confluence
3 1 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 5 (2.65%) MS Visio
2 4 (2.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (2.12%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (2.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (1.59%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.53%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 43 (22.75%) Azure
2 34 (17.99%) AWS
3 13 (6.88%) Microsoft 365
4 10 (5.29%) OneDrive
5 6 (3.17%) GCP
6 5 (2.65%) Azure Sentinel
6 5 (2.65%) Entra ID
7 3 (1.59%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 2 (1.06%) AWS Direct Connect
8 2 (1.06%) IaaS
8 2 (1.06%) OpenShift
8 2 (1.06%) Power Platform
9 1 (0.53%) AWS CloudFormation
9 1 (0.53%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 46 (24.34%) WAN
2 44 (23.28%) Firewall
3 41 (21.69%) LAN
4 35 (18.52%) DNS
5 34 (17.99%) BGP
6 31 (16.40%) DHCP
7 24 (12.70%) VPN
8 22 (11.64%) OSPF
8 22 (11.64%) VXLAN
9 21 (11.11%) TCP/IP
10 19 (10.05%) Ethernet VPN
10 19 (10.05%) SD-WAN
11 16 (8.47%) BIG-IP
11 16 (8.47%) SAN
12 15 (7.94%) MPLS
13 14 (7.41%) Cisco Nexus
13 14 (7.41%) VLAN
14 13 (6.88%) Network Security
15 12 (6.35%) Junos
15 12 (6.35%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.06%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 2 (1.06%) Eclipse
1 2 (1.06%) JIRA
1 2 (1.06%) Maven
1 2 (1.06%) Sonatype Nexus
1 2 (1.06%) Subversion
2 1 (0.53%) Git
General
1 59 (31.22%) Social Skills
2 23 (12.17%) Analytical Skills
3 16 (8.47%) Finance
4 13 (6.88%) Telecoms
5 10 (5.29%) Retail
6 7 (3.70%) Documentation Skills
6 7 (3.70%) Influencing Skills
6 7 (3.70%) Public Sector
7 6 (3.17%) Legal
7 6 (3.17%) Manufacturing
8 5 (2.65%) Marketing
9 3 (1.59%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (1.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 27 (14.29%) Architect
2 22 (11.64%) Network Architect
3 20 (10.58%) Network Engineer
4 18 (9.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 14 (7.41%) IT Engineer
6 13 (6.88%) IT Support
7 12 (6.35%) Senior
8 11 (5.82%) Field Engineer
8 11 (5.82%) Field Service Engineer
9 9 (4.76%) Analyst
9 9 (4.76%) Data Centre Engineer
9 9 (4.76%) Data Centre Manager
9 9 (4.76%) Firewall Specialist
9 9 (4.76%) Network Specialist
10 8 (4.23%) Data Manager
10 8 (4.23%) Lead
10 8 (4.23%) Site Manager
11 7 (3.70%) Data Analyst
11 7 (3.70%) Data Centre Analyst
11 7 (3.70%) Strategy Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (7.94%) 802.1X
2 5 (2.65%) NETCONF
2 5 (2.65%) OpenConfig
2 5 (2.65%) YANG
3 4 (2.12%) RESTCONF
4 2 (1.06%) XML
5 1 (0.53%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 16 (8.47%) Analytical Mindset
1 16 (8.47%) Hybrid Cloud
2 12 (6.35%) Clustering
2 12 (6.35%) PKI
3 10 (5.29%) Fibre Optics
4 8 (4.23%) Private Cloud
5 5 (2.65%) Driving Licence
5 5 (2.65%) Public Cloud
6 4 (2.12%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 3 (1.59%) Cloud Native
7 3 (1.59%) Onboarding
7 3 (1.59%) Replication
7 3 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (1.06%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (1.06%) Management Information System
8 2 (1.06%) Social Media
9 1 (0.53%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.53%) Operational Technology
9 1 (0.53%) Security Posture
9 1 (0.53%) TM Forum
Operating Systems
1 38 (20.11%) Windows
2 10 (5.29%) Apple iOS
2 10 (5.29%) Mac OS
3 9 (4.76%) Linux
4 8 (4.23%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (24.34%) Problem-Solving
2 38 (20.11%) ITIL
3 27 (14.29%) Migration
4 26 (13.76%) Roadmaps
5 22 (11.64%) Customer Service
6 21 (11.11%) ITSM
7 20 (10.58%) Change Management
7 20 (10.58%) Disaster Recovery
7 20 (10.58%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 19 (10.05%) High Availability
8 19 (10.05%) Load Balancing
9 18 (9.52%) Project Delivery
9 18 (9.52%) Stakeholder Management
10 16 (8.47%) AI
11 15 (7.94%) Agile
11 15 (7.94%) Time Management
12 14 (7.41%) Continuous Improvement
12 14 (7.41%) Identity Access Management
13 13 (6.88%) Capacity Management
13 13 (6.88%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 7 (3.70%) Python
2 2 (1.06%) Java
2 2 (1.06%) PowerShell
2 2 (1.06%) SQL
Qualifications
1 82 (43.39%) Security Cleared
2 44 (23.28%) Cisco Certification
3 43 (22.75%) DV Cleared
4 38 (20.11%) SC Cleared
5 22 (11.64%) Degree
6 15 (7.94%) CCNP
7 11 (5.82%) A+ Certification
7 11 (5.82%) CCNA
7 11 (5.82%) MCSE
7 11 (5.82%) Microsoft Certification
7 11 (5.82%) Network+ Certification
8 10 (5.29%) CCIE
9 7 (3.70%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 6 (3.17%) JNCIE
11 5 (2.65%) AWS Certification
11 5 (2.65%) BICSI Certification
11 5 (2.65%) CCSE
11 5 (2.65%) CCSM
11 5 (2.65%) JNCIP
11 5 (2.65%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (8.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (4.76%) JSP 440
3 8 (4.23%) SLA
4 6 (3.17%) NCSC
4 6 (3.17%) NIST
5 5 (2.65%) GDPR
6 4 (2.12%) QA
6 4 (2.12%) RMADS
7 1 (0.53%) GRC
7 1 (0.53%) NIST 800
System Software
1 23 (12.17%) VMware Infrastructure
2 13 (6.88%) VMware ESXi
3 11 (5.82%) Active Directory
4 9 (4.76%) VMware NSX
5 8 (4.23%) vSphere
6 6 (3.17%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (2.12%) Hyper-V
8 2 (1.06%) UAG
9 1 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 17 (8.99%) Microsoft Intune
2 16 (8.47%) FortiGate
3 10 (5.29%) Ansible
3 10 (5.29%) Jamf Pro
4 6 (3.17%) Terraform
5 5 (2.65%) vCenter Server
6 3 (1.59%) Avamar
7 2 (1.06%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (1.06%) Endace
7 2 (1.06%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.53%) CASB
8 1 (0.53%) Grafana
8 1 (0.53%) Kubernetes
8 1 (0.53%) PowerCLI
8 1 (0.53%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.53%) SCCM
Vendors
1 49 (25.93%) Cisco
2 35 (18.52%) VMware
3 31 (16.40%) Microsoft
4 25 (13.23%) F5
5 21 (11.11%) Juniper
6 19 (10.05%) SolarWinds
7 15 (7.94%) Palo Alto
8 12 (6.35%) Dell
8 12 (6.35%) Extreme Networks
8 12 (6.35%) ServiceNow
8 12 (6.35%) Splunk
9 11 (5.82%) Fortinet
10 10 (5.29%) CheckPoint
11 5 (2.65%) Meraki
11 5 (2.65%) Veeam
12 4 (2.12%) BT
12 4 (2.12%) Commvault
12 4 (2.12%) NetApp
12 4 (2.12%) Xerox
12 4 (2.12%) Zerto