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

6 months to
11 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 55 64 67
Rank change year-on-year +9 +3 +1
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 213 92 160
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.51% 3.08% 2.79%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 11.95% 9.43% 9.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 130 66 113
10th Percentile £303 £250 £280
25th Percentile £375 £328 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.78% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £584 £608
90th Percentile £680 £638 £649
England median daily rate £495 £520 £538
% change year-on-year -4.81% -3.26% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 3 6
10th Percentile £16.01 - £11.79
25th Percentile £19.34 - £12.08
Median hourly rate £32.50 £24.66 £18.04
Median % change year-on-year +31.79% +36.70% -74.23%
75th Percentile £33.75 £104.19 £24.00
90th Percentile £36.99 £151.90 £26.25
England median hourly rate £23.00 £37.50 £24.87
% change year-on-year -38.67% +50.78% +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 1,782 976 1,624
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 29.35% 32.66% 28.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,157 615 965
10th Percentile £275 £200 £208
25th Percentile £400 £350 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -0.99%
75th Percentile £600 £589 £608
90th Percentile £700 £650 £688
England median daily rate £525 £526 £550
% change year-on-year -0.18% -4.38% -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 153 75 169
10th Percentile £18.35 £15.13 £11.79
25th Percentile £28.00 £16.95 £18.35
Median hourly rate £66.00 £41.00 £51.00
Median % change year-on-year +60.98% -19.61% -4.56%
75th Percentile £85.40 £61.12 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.50 £75.16
England median hourly rate £43.96 £33.91 £36.27
% change year-on-year +29.64% -6.51% +61.32%

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 11 June 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 11 June 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 11 June 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 +20 132 £400 -15.12% 32
Berkshire +23 115 £375 -6.25% 26
Hampshire 0 60 £525 +7.14% 26
Buckinghamshire -28 15 £525 -1.87% 4
Kent +8 12 £444 +4.41%
Surrey -22 8 £475 +119.67% 14
West Sussex -23 3 £700 -3.45% 2
Oxfordshire - 2 £500 - 2
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 11 (5.16%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.94%) Confluence
3 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 6 (2.82%) MS Visio
2 4 (1.88%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (1.41%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.94%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.47%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 43 (20.19%) Azure
2 32 (15.02%) AWS
3 14 (6.57%) Microsoft 365
4 10 (4.69%) OneDrive
5 6 (2.82%) Azure Sentinel
5 6 (2.82%) Entra ID
6 5 (2.35%) IaaS
7 4 (1.88%) GCP
8 3 (1.41%) PaaS
8 3 (1.41%) SaaS
9 2 (0.94%) GitHub
10 1 (0.47%) AWS CloudFormation
10 1 (0.47%) AWS Direct Connect
10 1 (0.47%) Nutanix
10 1 (0.47%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 73 (34.27%) Firewall
2 68 (31.92%) LAN
2 68 (31.92%) WAN
3 52 (24.41%) BGP
4 48 (22.54%) OSPF
5 42 (19.72%) DNS
6 41 (19.25%) DHCP
7 30 (14.08%) Ethernet VPN
7 30 (14.08%) VPN
7 30 (14.08%) VXLAN
8 24 (11.27%) BIG-IP
9 23 (10.80%) Structured Cabling
10 22 (10.33%) Junos
11 19 (8.92%) TCP/IP
12 18 (8.45%) Cisco ISE
13 17 (7.98%) Cisco Nexus
13 17 (7.98%) SAN
13 17 (7.98%) SD-WAN
14 12 (5.63%) IPsec
14 12 (5.63%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.47%) Power BI
1 1 (0.47%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 4 (1.88%) Eclipse
1 4 (1.88%) Maven
1 4 (1.88%) Subversion
2 3 (1.41%) JIRA
3 2 (0.94%) Bitbucket
3 2 (0.94%) ScriptRunner
4 1 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 64 (30.05%) Social Skills
2 22 (10.33%) Analytical Skills
3 17 (7.98%) Documentation Skills
4 15 (7.04%) Finance
5 14 (6.57%) Manufacturing
6 11 (5.16%) Public Sector
6 11 (5.16%) Retail
7 9 (4.23%) Telecoms
8 6 (2.82%) Influencing Skills
8 6 (2.82%) Legal
9 5 (2.35%) Military
10 3 (1.41%) Marketing
10 3 (1.41%) Organisational Skills
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 48 (22.54%) Network Engineer
2 19 (8.92%) Data Centre Engineer
2 19 (8.92%) Senior
3 17 (7.98%) Analyst
4 16 (7.51%) Architect
5 15 (7.04%) Data Analyst
5 15 (7.04%) Data Centre Analyst
6 14 (6.57%) Firewall Specialist
6 14 (6.57%) IT Engineer
6 14 (6.57%) Network Specialist
7 13 (6.10%) IT Support
8 12 (5.63%) Cisco Engineer
8 12 (5.63%) Cisco Network Engineer
8 12 (5.63%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 12 (5.63%) Project Manager
9 11 (5.16%) Field Engineer
9 11 (5.16%) Field Service Engineer
10 10 (4.69%) Data Centre Manager
10 10 (4.69%) Network Architect
10 10 (4.69%) Senior Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (11.74%) 802.1X
2 4 (1.88%) 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 (10.33%) Clustering
1 22 (10.33%) PKI
2 14 (6.57%) Analytical Mindset
3 11 (5.16%) Hybrid Cloud
4 9 (4.23%) Driving Licence
4 9 (4.23%) Self-Motivation
5 8 (3.76%) Fibre Optics
6 4 (1.88%) Replication
7 3 (1.41%) Linux Command Line
7 3 (1.41%) Onboarding
7 3 (1.41%) Public Cloud
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%) Private Cloud
9 1 (0.47%) iSeries
9 1 (0.47%) NHS
9 1 (0.47%) PMI
9 1 (0.47%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 51 (23.94%) Windows
2 18 (8.45%) Linux
3 10 (4.69%) Apple iOS
3 10 (4.69%) Mac OS
4 9 (4.23%) Windows Server
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 56 (26.29%) Problem-Solving
2 49 (23.00%) ITIL
3 32 (15.02%) High Availability
4 30 (14.08%) Load Balancing
5 29 (13.62%) Migration
6 24 (11.27%) Identity Access Management
6 24 (11.27%) ITSM
7 23 (10.80%) Roadmaps
8 22 (10.33%) Customer Service
8 22 (10.33%) Observability
9 18 (8.45%) Change Management
9 18 (8.45%) Disaster Recovery
9 18 (8.45%) Project Delivery
10 16 (7.51%) Change Control
10 16 (7.51%) Continuous Improvement
10 16 (7.51%) Incident Management
11 15 (7.04%) Agile
12 14 (6.57%) Capacity Management
12 14 (6.57%) Data Protection
12 14 (6.57%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 5 (2.35%) Java
2 4 (1.88%) SQL
3 3 (1.41%) Python
4 2 (0.94%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 109 (51.17%) Security Cleared
2 70 (32.86%) SC Cleared
3 65 (30.52%) Cisco Certification
4 38 (17.84%) DV Cleared
5 31 (14.55%) CCNP
6 28 (13.15%) Degree
7 19 (8.92%) CCNA
8 12 (5.63%) JNCIS
8 12 (5.63%) Microsoft Certification
9 11 (5.16%) A+ Certification
9 11 (5.16%) JNCIP
9 11 (5.16%) MCSE
9 11 (5.16%) Network+ Certification
10 10 (4.69%) JNCIA
11 6 (2.82%) CCIE
11 6 (2.82%) CCSE
11 6 (2.82%) PMP
12 5 (2.35%) AWS Certification
12 5 (2.35%) BICSI Certification
12 5 (2.35%) CCSM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (6.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (3.76%) SLA
3 7 (3.29%) NIST
4 5 (2.35%) GDPR
5 4 (1.88%) JSP 440
5 4 (1.88%) RMADS
6 3 (1.41%) NCSC
7 2 (0.94%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (0.94%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.47%) GRC
System Software
1 26 (12.21%) VMware Infrastructure
2 13 (6.10%) Active Directory
2 13 (6.10%) VMware ESXi
3 8 (3.76%) vSphere
4 7 (3.29%) VMware NSX
5 6 (2.82%) Virtual Machines
6 5 (2.35%) Hyper-V
7 3 (1.41%) UAG
8 2 (0.94%) vCloud
9 1 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.47%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 26 (12.21%) FortiGate
2 17 (7.98%) Microsoft Intune
3 10 (4.69%) Jamf Pro
4 9 (4.23%) Ansible
5 8 (3.76%) Terraform
6 4 (1.88%) Endace
6 4 (1.88%) vCenter Server
7 2 (0.94%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (0.94%) Avamar
7 2 (0.94%) CASB
7 2 (0.94%) Nagios
7 2 (0.94%) SCCM
7 2 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.47%) Cisco CUCM
Vendors
1 82 (38.50%) Cisco
2 36 (16.90%) Juniper
3 35 (16.43%) VMware
4 33 (15.49%) F5
5 29 (13.62%) SolarWinds
6 28 (13.15%) Microsoft
7 23 (10.80%) CheckPoint
7 23 (10.80%) Palo Alto
8 22 (10.33%) Extreme Networks
8 22 (10.33%) Splunk
9 14 (6.57%) Aruba
10 13 (6.10%) ServiceNow
11 12 (5.63%) Dell
12 11 (5.16%) Fortinet
13 7 (3.29%) Meraki
14 6 (2.82%) Atlassian
15 4 (1.88%) BT
15 4 (1.88%) Commvault
15 4 (1.88%) NetApp
15 4 (1.88%) Veeam