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

6 months to
30 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 69 68
Rank change year-on-year -2 -1 -5
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 209 101 142
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.16% 2.91% 2.77%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 10.55% 9.20% 9.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 122 70 93
10th Percentile £300 £277 £350
25th Percentile £400 £361 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £470 £550
Median % change year-on-year +10.64% -14.55% +10.00%
75th Percentile £608 £588 £608
90th Percentile £774 £639 £650
England median daily rate £514 £525 £539
% change year-on-year -2.10% -2.60% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 2 9
10th Percentile £16.16 £40.32 £12.05
25th Percentile £19.33 £63.80 -
Median hourly rate £23.00 £103.57 £12.08
Median % change year-on-year -77.79% +757.35% -
75th Percentile £33.75 £143.95 £18.75
90th Percentile £35.22 £167.81 £22.20
England median hourly rate £23.00 £25.15 £23.80
% change year-on-year -8.55% +5.67% +1.28%

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 1,981 1,098 1,487
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 29.98% 31.69% 29.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,249 669 887
10th Percentile £270 £204 £219
25th Percentile £411 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.91% +3.00%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £700 £663 £700
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 183 100 148
10th Percentile £17.50 £15.13 £12.01
25th Percentile £29.63 £16.95 £19.22
Median hourly rate £57.50 £33.47 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +71.81% -41.64% +11.90%
75th Percentile £85.20 £62.24 £62.23
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.50 £75.16
England median hourly rate £43.96 £32.05 £45.00
% change year-on-year +37.16% -28.78% +12.04%

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 July 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 July 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 July 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 +13 136 £463 +2.78% 30
Berkshire +20 114 £400 +1.27% 20
Hampshire -4 61 £600 +9.09% 28
Buckinghamshire -27 21 £600 +10.09% 2
Surrey -22 8 £475 +90.00% 3
Kent -1 2 £504 +18.53% 5
West Sussex -26 2 £550 -24.14% 3
Oxfordshire -22 1 £500 -16.67% 8
Middlesex - 1 - -
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 (5.74%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.96%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.48%) Confluence
3 1 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 5 (2.39%) MS Visio
2 4 (1.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.91%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (1.44%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.48%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 47 (22.49%) Azure
2 36 (17.22%) AWS
3 14 (6.70%) Microsoft 365
4 10 (4.78%) OneDrive
5 7 (3.35%) GCP
6 6 (2.87%) Azure Sentinel
6 6 (2.87%) Entra ID
7 3 (1.44%) IaaS
7 3 (1.44%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 2 (0.96%) AWS Direct Connect
8 2 (0.96%) OpenShift
8 2 (0.96%) Power Platform
9 1 (0.48%) AWS CloudFormation
9 1 (0.48%) dbt
9 1 (0.48%) PaaS
9 1 (0.48%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 61 (29.19%) WAN
2 58 (27.75%) Firewall
3 55 (26.32%) LAN
4 47 (22.49%) BGP
5 45 (21.53%) DNS
6 41 (19.62%) DHCP
7 36 (17.22%) OSPF
8 33 (15.79%) VXLAN
9 31 (14.83%) Ethernet VPN
10 27 (12.92%) VPN
11 26 (12.44%) BIG-IP
12 22 (10.53%) Junos
13 21 (10.05%) TCP/IP
14 20 (9.57%) SD-WAN
15 17 (8.13%) Cisco ISE
16 16 (7.66%) Cisco Nexus
16 16 (7.66%) SAN
17 15 (7.18%) MPLS
17 15 (7.18%) Network Security
18 14 (6.70%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.96%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 4 (1.91%) Eclipse
1 4 (1.91%) Maven
1 4 (1.91%) Subversion
2 3 (1.44%) Sonatype Nexus
3 2 (0.96%) JIRA
4 1 (0.48%) Git
General
1 59 (28.23%) Social Skills
2 22 (10.53%) Analytical Skills
3 15 (7.18%) Finance
4 13 (6.22%) Telecoms
5 10 (4.78%) Retail
6 9 (4.31%) Public Sector
7 8 (3.83%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (3.83%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (3.35%) Manufacturing
9 6 (2.87%) Legal
10 5 (2.39%) Military
10 5 (2.39%) Organisational Skills
11 4 (1.91%) Marketing
12 2 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 29 (13.88%) Architect
1 29 (13.88%) Network Engineer
2 24 (11.48%) Network Architect
3 19 (9.09%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 17 (8.13%) Senior
5 14 (6.70%) Firewall Specialist
5 14 (6.70%) IT Engineer
5 14 (6.70%) Network Specialist
6 13 (6.22%) IT Support
7 12 (5.74%) Analyst
8 11 (5.26%) Field Engineer
8 11 (5.26%) Field Service Engineer
9 10 (4.78%) Data Analyst
9 10 (4.78%) Data Centre Analyst
9 10 (4.78%) Data Centre Engineer
9 10 (4.78%) Lead
9 10 (4.78%) Senior Network Engineer
10 9 (4.31%) Data Centre Manager
11 8 (3.83%) Applications Developer
11 8 (3.83%) Data Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (12.44%) 802.1X
2 4 (1.91%) NETCONF
2 4 (1.91%) OpenConfig
2 4 (1.91%) RESTCONF
2 4 (1.91%) XML
2 4 (1.91%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 22 (10.53%) Clustering
1 22 (10.53%) PKI
2 18 (8.61%) Hybrid Cloud
3 16 (7.66%) Analytical Mindset
4 10 (4.78%) Fibre Optics
5 8 (3.83%) Private Cloud
6 7 (3.35%) Driving Licence
7 5 (2.39%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.91%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 4 (1.91%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (1.44%) Cloud Native
9 3 (1.44%) Onboarding
9 3 (1.44%) Replication
10 2 (0.96%) Legacy Systems
10 2 (0.96%) Management Information System
11 1 (0.48%) Cyber Kill Chain
11 1 (0.48%) Greenfield Project
11 1 (0.48%) Linux Command Line
11 1 (0.48%) Operational Technology
11 1 (0.48%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 50 (23.92%) Windows
2 15 (7.18%) Linux
3 10 (4.78%) Apple iOS
3 10 (4.78%) Mac OS
4 8 (3.83%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.48%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (25.84%) Problem-Solving
2 44 (21.05%) ITIL
3 30 (14.35%) Load Balancing
4 29 (13.88%) High Availability
4 29 (13.88%) Migration
5 25 (11.96%) ITSM
5 25 (11.96%) Roadmaps
6 24 (11.48%) Identity Access Management
7 23 (11.00%) Observability
8 22 (10.53%) Customer Service
9 21 (10.05%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 20 (9.57%) Change Management
10 20 (9.57%) Disaster Recovery
11 19 (9.09%) Project Delivery
12 17 (8.13%) Stakeholder Management
13 16 (7.66%) Continuous Improvement
13 16 (7.66%) Time Management
14 15 (7.18%) AI
15 14 (6.70%) Agile
15 14 (6.70%) Network Architecture
Programming Languages
1 7 (3.35%) Python
2 4 (1.91%) Java
2 4 (1.91%) SQL
3 2 (0.96%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 101 (48.33%) Security Cleared
2 56 (26.79%) Cisco Certification
3 53 (25.36%) DV Cleared
4 47 (22.49%) SC Cleared
5 25 (11.96%) Degree
6 20 (9.57%) CCNP
7 13 (6.22%) CCNA
8 12 (5.74%) Microsoft Certification
9 11 (5.26%) A+ Certification
9 11 (5.26%) MCSE
9 11 (5.26%) Network+ Certification
10 10 (4.78%) CCIE
10 10 (4.78%) JNCIP
11 9 (4.31%) JNCIA
11 9 (4.31%) JNCIS
12 7 (3.35%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 6 (2.87%) AWS Certification
13 6 (2.87%) CCSE
14 5 (2.39%) CCSM
14 5 (2.39%) City & Guilds
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (8.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (4.78%) SLA
3 7 (3.35%) JSP 440
3 7 (3.35%) NCSC
3 7 (3.35%) NIST
4 5 (2.39%) GDPR
5 4 (1.91%) QA
5 4 (1.91%) RMADS
6 2 (0.96%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (0.96%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.48%) GRC
System Software
1 24 (11.48%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (6.70%) VMware ESXi
3 12 (5.74%) Active Directory
4 10 (4.78%) VMware NSX
5 8 (3.83%) vSphere
6 6 (2.87%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (2.39%) Hyper-V
8 3 (1.44%) UAG
9 1 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.48%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 26 (12.44%) FortiGate
2 17 (8.13%) Microsoft Intune
3 12 (5.74%) Ansible
4 10 (4.78%) Jamf Pro
5 9 (4.31%) Terraform
6 6 (2.87%) vCenter Server
7 3 (1.44%) Avamar
8 2 (0.96%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.96%) CASB
8 2 (0.96%) Endace
8 2 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.48%) Cisco CUCM
9 1 (0.48%) Grafana
9 1 (0.48%) PowerCLI
9 1 (0.48%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.48%) SCCM
Vendors
1 65 (31.10%) Cisco
2 37 (17.70%) VMware
3 35 (16.75%) F5
4 33 (15.79%) Juniper
5 32 (15.31%) Microsoft
6 30 (14.35%) SolarWinds
7 22 (10.53%) Extreme Networks
7 22 (10.53%) Splunk
8 18 (8.61%) Palo Alto
9 14 (6.70%) ServiceNow
10 13 (6.22%) CheckPoint
10 13 (6.22%) Fortinet
11 12 (5.74%) Dell
12 6 (2.87%) Meraki
13 5 (2.39%) Veeam
14 4 (1.91%) Aruba
14 4 (1.91%) Atlassian
14 4 (1.91%) BT
14 4 (1.91%) Commvault
14 4 (1.91%) NetApp