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 27 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 67 65
Rank change year-on-year +17 -2 +6
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 212 92 156
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.53% 3.16% 2.82%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 12.15% 9.55% 10.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 138 64 111
10th Percentile £303 £215 £280
25th Percentile £400 £361 £341
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.78% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £538 £588 £608
90th Percentile £623 £643 £646
England median daily rate £492 £523 £525
% change year-on-year -5.84% -0.48% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 6 4
10th Percentile £16.01 - £15.25
25th Percentile £19.34 £24.18 £20.88
Median hourly rate £25.92 £24.42 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.14% +1.75% -65.71%
75th Percentile £33.75 £24.66 £25.13
90th Percentile £41.41 £104.19 £27.15
England median hourly rate £19.85 £24.66 £24.87
% change year-on-year -19.51% -0.84% +14.77%

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 1,745 963 1,555
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 29.06% 33.10% 28.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,153 613 943
10th Percentile £268 £200 £205
25th Percentile £400 £350 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -2.68%
75th Percentile £600 £594 £608
90th Percentile £700 £650 £688
England median daily rate £520 £535 £550
% change year-on-year -2.80% -2.73% -3.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 134 67 153
10th Percentile £18.08 £15.13 £11.73
25th Percentile £27.60 £20.61 £18.35
Median hourly rate £66.75 £47.81 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +39.63% +0.64% -5.00%
75th Percentile £85.40 £63.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.50 £74.04
England median hourly rate £42.50 £34.21 £35.50
% change year-on-year +24.25% -3.65% +60.20%

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 27 May 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 27 May 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 27 May 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 +18 124 £400 -18.78% 31
Berkshire +25 108 £400 -7.25% 25
Hampshire +1 57 £500 - 24
Kent +7 18 £444 +4.41% 1
Buckinghamshire -31 14 £494 -9.40% 4
Surrey -31 9 £475 +171.06% 12
West Sussex -19 3 £700 -3.45% 2
Oxfordshire - 2 £500 - 2
East Sussex 0 1 £475 -
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 7 (3.30%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.94%) Confluence
3 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 8 (3.77%) MS Visio
2 5 (2.36%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (1.89%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.89%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.47%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 38 (17.92%) Azure
2 25 (11.79%) AWS
3 10 (4.72%) Microsoft 365
4 6 (2.83%) Azure Sentinel
4 6 (2.83%) Entra ID
5 5 (2.36%) IaaS
5 5 (2.36%) OneDrive
6 3 (1.42%) PaaS
6 3 (1.42%) SaaS
7 2 (0.94%) GitHub
8 1 (0.47%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (0.47%) AWS Direct Connect
8 1 (0.47%) GCP
8 1 (0.47%) Nutanix
8 1 (0.47%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 82 (38.68%) Firewall
2 75 (35.38%) LAN
2 75 (35.38%) WAN
3 57 (26.89%) BGP
4 53 (25.00%) OSPF
5 37 (17.45%) DNS
6 36 (16.98%) DHCP
7 32 (15.09%) VPN
8 31 (14.62%) VXLAN
9 30 (14.15%) Ethernet VPN
10 28 (13.21%) Structured Cabling
11 24 (11.32%) BIG-IP
12 22 (10.38%) Junos
13 18 (8.49%) Cisco ISE
13 18 (8.49%) SAN
14 17 (8.02%) Cisco Nexus
14 17 (8.02%) IPsec
15 16 (7.55%) TCP/IP
16 15 (7.08%) SD-WAN
17 14 (6.60%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.47%) Power BI
1 1 (0.47%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 4 (1.89%) Eclipse
1 4 (1.89%) Maven
1 4 (1.89%) Subversion
2 3 (1.42%) JIRA
3 2 (0.94%) Bitbucket
3 2 (0.94%) ScriptRunner
4 1 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 58 (27.36%) Social Skills
2 21 (9.91%) Analytical Skills
2 21 (9.91%) Documentation Skills
3 17 (8.02%) Finance
3 17 (8.02%) Manufacturing
4 13 (6.13%) Retail
5 12 (5.66%) Public Sector
6 7 (3.30%) Influencing Skills
6 7 (3.30%) Telecoms
7 6 (2.83%) Legal
8 5 (2.36%) Military
9 4 (1.89%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (1.42%) Marketing
11 2 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 1 (0.47%) Back Office
12 1 (0.47%) Billing
12 1 (0.47%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 54 (25.47%) Network Engineer
2 20 (9.43%) Senior
3 17 (8.02%) Data Centre Engineer
4 16 (7.55%) Architect
5 15 (7.08%) Project Manager
6 14 (6.60%) Cisco Engineer
6 14 (6.60%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 14 (6.60%) Firewall Specialist
6 14 (6.60%) Network Specialist
7 12 (5.66%) Analyst
7 12 (5.66%) Data Centre Manager
7 12 (5.66%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 12 (5.66%) IT Engineer
7 12 (5.66%) Network Architect
7 12 (5.66%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 11 (5.19%) Data Centre Analyst
8 11 (5.19%) Field Engineer
8 11 (5.19%) Field Service Engineer
9 10 (4.72%) Data Analyst
9 10 (4.72%) Senior Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (11.79%) 802.1X
2 4 (1.89%) XML
3 2 (0.94%) NETCONF
3 2 (0.94%) OpenConfig
3 2 (0.94%) RESTCONF
3 2 (0.94%) YANG
4 1 (0.47%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 22 (10.38%) Clustering
1 22 (10.38%) PKI
2 14 (6.60%) Analytical Mindset
3 12 (5.66%) Hybrid Cloud
4 9 (4.25%) Driving Licence
4 9 (4.25%) Self-Motivation
5 8 (3.77%) Fibre Optics
6 4 (1.89%) Replication
7 3 (1.42%) Linux Command Line
8 2 (0.94%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (0.94%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 2 (0.94%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (0.94%) Management Information System
8 2 (0.94%) Onboarding
8 2 (0.94%) Private Cloud
8 2 (0.94%) Public Cloud
8 2 (0.94%) Virtual Team
9 1 (0.47%) Fat Client
9 1 (0.47%) iSeries
9 1 (0.47%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 45 (21.23%) Windows
2 18 (8.49%) Linux
3 9 (4.25%) Windows Server
4 5 (2.36%) Apple iOS
4 5 (2.36%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.47%) VMS
5 1 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 52 (24.53%) Problem-Solving
2 40 (18.87%) ITIL
3 32 (15.09%) High Availability
4 30 (14.15%) Load Balancing
5 28 (13.21%) Migration
6 24 (11.32%) Identity Access Management
7 23 (10.85%) Roadmaps
8 22 (10.38%) Observability
9 20 (9.43%) Change Management
10 18 (8.49%) Continuous Improvement
10 18 (8.49%) Project Delivery
11 17 (8.02%) Customer Service
11 17 (8.02%) ITSM
12 16 (7.55%) Change Control
13 15 (7.08%) Agile
13 15 (7.08%) Disaster Recovery
13 15 (7.08%) Project Management
14 14 (6.60%) Break/Fix
14 14 (6.60%) Capacity Management
14 14 (6.60%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 5 (2.36%) Java
2 4 (1.89%) SQL
3 3 (1.42%) Python
4 2 (0.94%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 112 (52.83%) Security Cleared
2 73 (34.43%) Cisco Certification
3 71 (33.49%) SC Cleared
4 39 (18.40%) CCNP
5 37 (17.45%) DV Cleared
6 29 (13.68%) Degree
7 24 (11.32%) CCNA
8 14 (6.60%) JNCIS
9 12 (5.66%) Microsoft Certification
10 11 (5.19%) A+ Certification
10 11 (5.19%) JNCIA
10 11 (5.19%) JNCIP
10 11 (5.19%) MCSE
10 11 (5.19%) Network+ Certification
11 7 (3.30%) CCSE
12 6 (2.83%) CCIE
12 6 (2.83%) PMP
13 5 (2.36%) BICSI Certification
13 5 (2.36%) CCSM
13 5 (2.36%) City & Guilds
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (5.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (4.25%) SLA
3 7 (3.30%) NIST
4 5 (2.36%) GDPR
5 3 (1.42%) Cyber Essentials
5 3 (1.42%) NCSC
6 2 (0.94%) JSP 440
6 2 (0.94%) NIST 800
6 2 (0.94%) PMO
6 2 (0.94%) RMADS
System Software
1 27 (12.74%) VMware Infrastructure
2 13 (6.13%) Active Directory
3 12 (5.66%) VMware ESXi
4 8 (3.77%) vSphere
5 7 (3.30%) VMware NSX
6 6 (2.83%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (2.36%) Hyper-V
8 3 (1.42%) UAG
9 2 (0.94%) vCloud
10 1 (0.47%) KVM
10 1 (0.47%) RHEV
10 1 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.47%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.47%) Xen
Systems Management
1 26 (12.26%) FortiGate
2 12 (5.66%) Microsoft Intune
3 9 (4.25%) Ansible
4 8 (3.77%) Terraform
5 5 (2.36%) Endace
5 5 (2.36%) Jamf Pro
6 4 (1.89%) Nagios
7 3 (1.42%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (1.42%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.94%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.94%) Avamar
8 2 (0.94%) CASB
8 2 (0.94%) SCCM
9 1 (0.47%) Cisco CUCM
9 1 (0.47%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 89 (41.98%) Cisco
2 40 (18.87%) Juniper
3 35 (16.51%) F5
3 35 (16.51%) VMware
4 31 (14.62%) SolarWinds
5 30 (14.15%) Palo Alto
6 29 (13.68%) CheckPoint
7 22 (10.38%) Extreme Networks
7 22 (10.38%) Microsoft
7 22 (10.38%) Splunk
8 20 (9.43%) Aruba
9 12 (5.66%) Dell
9 12 (5.66%) Fortinet
10 9 (4.25%) ServiceNow
11 7 (3.30%) Meraki
12 6 (2.83%) Atlassian
13 4 (1.89%) BT
13 4 (1.89%) Commvault
13 4 (1.89%) NetApp
13 4 (1.89%) Veeam