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

6 months to
30 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 79 73 65
Rank change year-on-year -6 -8 -2
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 183 97 136
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.75% 2.73% 2.88%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 9.35% 8.62% 9.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 113 69 87
10th Percentile £300 £292 £350
25th Percentile £400 £358 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £493 £540
Median % change year-on-year +9.64% -8.80% +8.00%
75th Percentile £669 £600 £608
90th Percentile £779 £653 £664
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 0 9
10th Percentile £16.01 - £12.05
25th Percentile £18.87 - -
Median hourly rate £20.17 - £12.08
75th Percentile £33.75 - £18.75
90th Percentile £33.90 - £22.20
England median hourly rate £23.00 £25.15 £23.80
% change year-on-year -8.55% +5.67% +2.37%

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 1,958 1,125 1,380
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 29.43% 31.68% 29.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,213 706 795
10th Percentile £280 £204 £215
25th Percentile £413 £350 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -
75th Percentile £615 £600 £624
90th Percentile £700 £675 £700
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 207 98 133
10th Percentile £14.73 £15.39 £12.04
25th Percentile £18.57 £16.95 £25.99
Median hourly rate £50.00 £33.89 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +47.56% -40.92% +9.24%
75th Percentile £82.68 £63.37 £67.02
90th Percentile £88.00 £71.95 £75.16
England median hourly rate £38.72 £32.71 £52.50
% change year-on-year +18.37% -37.70% +14.50%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 +5 112 £450 +2.86% 48
Berkshire +23 92 £400 +15.94% 31
Hampshire -2 61 £600 +4.35% 9
Buckinghamshire -30 19 £605 +11.01% 3
Surrey -18 5 £475 +11.76% 18
West Sussex -25 3 £625 -13.79% 1
Middlesex - 3 - -
Oxfordshire -24 1 £500 -16.67% 14
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 (6.56%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.64%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.55%) Confluence
3 1 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 4 (2.19%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.64%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.64%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 3 (1.64%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.55%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 42 (22.95%) Azure
2 33 (18.03%) AWS
3 13 (7.10%) Microsoft 365
4 10 (5.46%) OneDrive
5 6 (3.28%) GCP
6 5 (2.73%) Azure Sentinel
6 5 (2.73%) Entra ID
7 3 (1.64%) IaaS
7 3 (1.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 2 (1.09%) AWS Direct Connect
8 2 (1.09%) OpenShift
8 2 (1.09%) Power Platform
9 1 (0.55%) AWS CloudFormation
9 1 (0.55%) dbt
9 1 (0.55%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 41 (22.40%) WAN
2 39 (21.31%) Firewall
3 36 (19.67%) LAN
4 32 (17.49%) DNS
5 31 (16.94%) BGP
6 28 (15.30%) DHCP
7 26 (14.21%) VPN
8 20 (10.93%) OSPF
8 20 (10.93%) SD-WAN
8 20 (10.93%) TCP/IP
9 19 (10.38%) VXLAN
10 16 (8.74%) VLAN
11 15 (8.20%) BIG-IP
11 15 (8.20%) Ethernet VPN
12 14 (7.65%) Cisco Nexus
12 14 (7.65%) MPLS
12 14 (7.65%) Network Security
13 13 (7.10%) SAN
14 12 (6.56%) Structured Cabling
15 10 (5.46%) Cisco Firepower
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.09%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 2 (1.09%) JIRA
1 2 (1.09%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (0.55%) Eclipse
2 1 (0.55%) Git
2 1 (0.55%) Maven
2 1 (0.55%) Subversion
General
1 59 (32.24%) Social Skills
2 21 (11.48%) Analytical Skills
3 17 (9.29%) Finance
4 13 (7.10%) Telecoms
5 10 (5.46%) Retail
6 8 (4.37%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (3.83%) Influencing Skills
8 6 (3.28%) Legal
8 6 (3.28%) Manufacturing
8 6 (3.28%) Marketing
8 6 (3.28%) Public Sector
9 3 (1.64%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 30 (16.39%) Architect
2 23 (12.57%) Network Architect
3 18 (9.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 17 (9.29%) Network Engineer
5 12 (6.56%) IT Engineer
6 11 (6.01%) IT Support
7 9 (4.92%) Analyst
7 9 (4.92%) Data Centre Engineer
7 9 (4.92%) Data Centre Manager
7 9 (4.92%) Field Engineer
7 9 (4.92%) Field Service Engineer
7 9 (4.92%) Senior
8 8 (4.37%) Data Manager
8 8 (4.37%) Lead
8 8 (4.37%) Site Manager
9 7 (3.83%) Data Analyst
9 7 (3.83%) Data Centre Analyst
9 7 (3.83%) Firewall Specialist
9 7 (3.83%) Network Specialist
9 7 (3.83%) Strategy Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (6.01%) 802.1X
2 6 (3.28%) Terraform
3 5 (2.73%) NETCONF
4 4 (2.19%) OpenConfig
4 4 (2.19%) RESTCONF
4 4 (2.19%) YANG
5 2 (1.09%) REST
6 1 (0.55%) gRPC
6 1 (0.55%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 15 (8.20%) Hybrid Cloud
2 13 (7.10%) Analytical Mindset
3 10 (5.46%) Fibre Optics
4 8 (4.37%) Clustering
4 8 (4.37%) PKI
4 8 (4.37%) Private Cloud
5 5 (2.73%) Driving Licence
5 5 (2.73%) Public Cloud
6 4 (2.19%) Cloud Native
6 4 (2.19%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 3 (1.64%) Onboarding
7 3 (1.64%) Social Media
8 2 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (1.09%) Management Information System
8 2 (1.09%) Replication
8 2 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.55%) Enterprise Cloud
9 1 (0.55%) Operational Technology
9 1 (0.55%) Security Posture
9 1 (0.55%) TM Forum
Operating Systems
1 35 (19.13%) Windows
2 10 (5.46%) Apple iOS
2 10 (5.46%) Mac OS
3 9 (4.92%) Linux
3 9 (4.92%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (21.31%) Problem-Solving
2 33 (18.03%) ITIL
3 25 (13.66%) Migration
3 25 (13.66%) Roadmaps
4 21 (11.48%) Disaster Recovery
4 21 (11.48%) ITSM
5 20 (10.93%) Change Management
5 20 (10.93%) Customer Service
5 20 (10.93%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 18 (9.84%) Load Balancing
6 18 (9.84%) Project Delivery
6 18 (9.84%) Stakeholder Management
7 17 (9.29%) AI
8 16 (8.74%) Agile
8 16 (8.74%) Capacity Management
8 16 (8.74%) High Availability
9 15 (8.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 15 (8.20%) Time Management
10 14 (7.65%) Continuous Improvement
10 14 (7.65%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 9 (4.92%) Python
2 3 (1.64%) PowerShell
3 1 (0.55%) Java
3 1 (0.55%) SQL
Qualifications
1 79 (43.17%) Security Cleared
2 45 (24.59%) DV Cleared
3 38 (20.77%) Cisco Certification
4 36 (19.67%) SC Cleared
5 21 (11.48%) Degree
6 15 (8.20%) CCNP
7 10 (5.46%) CCIE
8 9 (4.92%) A+ Certification
8 9 (4.92%) CCNA
8 9 (4.92%) MCSE
8 9 (4.92%) Microsoft Certification
8 9 (4.92%) Network+ Certification
9 8 (4.37%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 6 (3.28%) JNCIE
11 5 (2.73%) AWS Certification
11 5 (2.73%) BICSI Certification
11 5 (2.73%) CCSE
11 5 (2.73%) CCSM
11 5 (2.73%) City & Guilds
11 5 (2.73%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (8.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (4.92%) JSP 440
3 8 (4.37%) SLA
4 5 (2.73%) GDPR
4 5 (2.73%) NCSC
4 5 (2.73%) NIST
5 4 (2.19%) QA
5 4 (2.19%) RMADS
6 1 (0.55%) GRC
6 1 (0.55%) NIST 800
System Software
1 24 (13.11%) VMware Infrastructure
2 13 (7.10%) VMware ESXi
3 12 (6.56%) Active Directory
4 11 (6.01%) VMware NSX
5 8 (4.37%) vSphere
6 6 (3.28%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (2.19%) Hyper-V
8 2 (1.09%) UAG
9 1 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 17 (9.29%) Microsoft Intune
2 12 (6.56%) FortiGate
3 11 (6.01%) Ansible
4 10 (5.46%) Jamf Pro
5 6 (3.28%) vCenter Server
6 3 (1.64%) Avamar
7 2 (1.09%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (1.09%) Endace
7 2 (1.09%) SCCM
7 2 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.55%) CASB
8 1 (0.55%) Grafana
8 1 (0.55%) Kubernetes
8 1 (0.55%) PowerCLI
8 1 (0.55%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.55%) vRealize
8 1 (0.55%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 45 (24.59%) Cisco
2 36 (19.67%) VMware
3 31 (16.94%) Microsoft
4 22 (12.02%) F5
5 18 (9.84%) Juniper
6 15 (8.20%) SolarWinds
7 14 (7.65%) Palo Alto
8 12 (6.56%) Fortinet
8 12 (6.56%) ServiceNow
9 10 (5.46%) CheckPoint
9 10 (5.46%) Dell
10 8 (4.37%) Extreme Networks
10 8 (4.37%) Splunk
11 5 (2.73%) Meraki
11 5 (2.73%) Veeam
12 4 (2.19%) BT
12 4 (2.19%) Commvault
12 4 (2.19%) NetApp
12 4 (2.19%) Xerox
13 3 (1.64%) Zerto