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

6 months to
26 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 83 69
Rank change year-on-year +3 -14 +10
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 130 79 154
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.66% 2.50% 2.83%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 8.68% 7.43% 9.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 91 45 106
10th Percentile £303 £159 £280
25th Percentile £363 £313 £312
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £450 £463
Median % change year-on-year -1.11% -2.70% -11.90%
75th Percentile £500 £575 £608
90th Percentile £550 £626 £675
England median daily rate £481 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -7.57% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 8 9
10th Percentile £44.28 £23.01 £18.70
25th Percentile £48.68 - £24.00
Median hourly rate £57.02 £24.18 £25.12
Median % change year-on-year +135.80% -3.72% -64.12%
75th Percentile £65.01 £24.66 £76.53
90th Percentile £69.20 £26.04 -
England median hourly rate £26.50 £24.66 £31.31
% change year-on-year +7.46% -21.23% -43.69%

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 1,497 1,063 1,623
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 30.62% 33.67% 29.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 995 625 957
10th Percentile £219 £238 £205
25th Percentile £381 £385 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £518 £480
Median % change year-on-year -3.38% +7.81% -7.69%
75th Percentile £588 £620 £600
90th Percentile £684 £675 £675
England median daily rate £513 £540 £548
% change year-on-year -5.09% -1.50% -4.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 41 119
10th Percentile £12.50 £18.50 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.21 £24.18 £22.61
Median hourly rate £27.69 £32.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.80% -31.58% +4.40%
75th Percentile £79.89 £62.24 £60.95
90th Percentile £87.40 £71.25 £76.53
England median hourly rate £33.09 £37.00 £31.50
% change year-on-year -10.58% +17.46% +40.00%

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 26 February 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 26 February 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 26 February 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 +16 74 £375 -30.56% 38
Berkshire +16 67 £375 -30.23% 30
Hampshire -25 28 £500 +11.11% 29
Kent +10 18 £444 -19.32% 5
Buckinghamshire -14 5 £525 -2.78% 3
Surrey -19 5 £505 +200.60% 4
West Sussex -11 3 £700 +19.15% 7
Oxfordshire - 2 £500 - 5
East Sussex +3 1 £475 -24.00%
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 3 (2.31%) GeoServer
1 3 (2.31%) Smallworld
2 2 (1.54%) Confluence
2 2 (1.54%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.77%) SharePoint
Applications
1 8 (6.15%) Microsoft Office
1 8 (6.15%) MS Visio
2 5 (3.85%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (3.08%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (2.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 13 (10.00%) Azure
2 8 (6.15%) AWS
3 3 (2.31%) IaaS
3 3 (2.31%) Microsoft 365
3 3 (2.31%) PaaS
3 3 (2.31%) SaaS
4 2 (1.54%) Entra ID
4 2 (1.54%) GitHub
4 2 (1.54%) OpenShift
5 1 (0.77%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (0.77%) GCP
5 1 (0.77%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 51 (39.23%) WAN
2 50 (38.46%) Firewall
3 49 (37.69%) LAN
4 42 (32.31%) BGP
5 38 (29.23%) OSPF
6 19 (14.62%) Ethernet VPN
6 19 (14.62%) Structured Cabling
7 18 (13.85%) IPsec
7 18 (13.85%) VPN
8 17 (13.08%) VXLAN
9 14 (10.77%) DNS
10 13 (10.00%) BIG-IP
10 13 (10.00%) DHCP
11 12 (9.23%) Junos
12 11 (8.46%) Cisco ISE
12 11 (8.46%) Network Security
13 10 (7.69%) Wireless
14 9 (6.92%) TCP/IP
15 8 (6.15%) Cisco Nexus
15 8 (6.15%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.31%) Geospatial Data
1 3 (2.31%) GIS
1 3 (2.31%) QGIS
1 3 (2.31%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 3 (2.31%) Eclipse
1 3 (2.31%) Maven
1 3 (2.31%) Subversion
2 2 (1.54%) Bitbucket
2 2 (1.54%) JIRA
2 2 (1.54%) Rational DOORS
2 2 (1.54%) ScriptRunner
3 1 (0.77%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 34 (26.15%) Social Skills
2 19 (14.62%) Documentation Skills
3 12 (9.23%) Public Sector
4 11 (8.46%) Manufacturing
5 10 (7.69%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (5.38%) Finance
7 6 (4.62%) Telecoms
8 5 (3.85%) Military
8 5 (3.85%) Retail
9 3 (2.31%) Influencing Skills
9 3 (2.31%) Legal
9 3 (2.31%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.77%) Back Office
10 1 (0.77%) Billing
10 1 (0.77%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 41 (31.54%) Network Engineer
2 14 (10.77%) Analyst
2 14 (10.77%) Cisco Engineer
2 14 (10.77%) Cisco Network Engineer
2 14 (10.77%) Data Centre Analyst
3 13 (10.00%) Data Analyst
3 13 (10.00%) Project Manager
3 13 (10.00%) Senior
4 11 (8.46%) Architect
5 10 (7.69%) Data Centre Engineer
5 10 (7.69%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
6 8 (6.15%) Network Architect
7 7 (5.38%) Senior Network Engineer
8 6 (4.62%) Data Network Engineer
8 6 (4.62%) Firewall Specialist
8 6 (4.62%) Network Specialist
9 5 (3.85%) Applications Developer
9 5 (3.85%) Data Centre Manager
9 5 (3.85%) Data Centre Project Manager
9 5 (3.85%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (10.77%) 802.1X
2 3 (2.31%) NETCONF
2 3 (2.31%) OpenConfig
2 3 (2.31%) RESTCONF
2 3 (2.31%) RFC 2544
2 3 (2.31%) XML
2 3 (2.31%) YANG
3 1 (0.77%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 13 (10.00%) PKI
2 12 (9.23%) Clustering
3 11 (8.46%) Hybrid Cloud
3 11 (8.46%) Self-Motivation
4 6 (4.62%) Analytical Mindset
4 6 (4.62%) Driving Licence
5 4 (3.08%) Fibre Optics
5 4 (3.08%) Virtual Team
6 3 (2.31%) Legacy Systems
6 3 (2.31%) Linux Command Line
6 3 (2.31%) Replication
7 1 (0.77%) CCTV
7 1 (0.77%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.77%) Fat Client
7 1 (0.77%) iSeries
7 1 (0.77%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.77%) NHS
7 1 (0.77%) Smartphone
7 1 (0.77%) Thin Client
7 1 (0.77%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 17 (13.08%) Windows
2 10 (7.69%) Linux
3 2 (1.54%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.77%) VMS
4 1 (0.77%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.77%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (20.77%) Problem-Solving
2 23 (17.69%) ITIL
3 19 (14.62%) High Availability
4 15 (11.54%) Continuous Improvement
5 14 (10.77%) Change Control
5 14 (10.77%) Incident Management
5 14 (10.77%) Migration
6 13 (10.00%) Load Balancing
7 12 (9.23%) Customer Requirements
7 12 (9.23%) Identity Access Management
7 12 (9.23%) Observability
7 12 (9.23%) Project Management
7 12 (9.23%) Service Management
8 10 (7.69%) ITSM
9 9 (6.92%) Agile
9 9 (6.92%) Availability Management
10 8 (6.15%) Budget Management
10 8 (6.15%) Network Design
10 8 (6.15%) PRINCE2
10 8 (6.15%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 6 (4.62%) Python
2 5 (3.85%) SQL
3 4 (3.08%) Java
4 2 (1.54%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 80 (61.54%) Security Cleared
2 57 (43.85%) SC Cleared
3 46 (35.38%) Cisco Certification
4 29 (22.31%) CCNP
5 22 (16.92%) DV Cleared
6 19 (14.62%) Degree
7 16 (12.31%) CCNA
8 12 (9.23%) JNCIS
9 9 (6.92%) JNCIA
10 8 (6.15%) JNCIP
11 6 (4.62%) CCIE
12 5 (3.85%) JNCIE
13 3 (2.31%) AWS Certification
13 3 (2.31%) Microsoft Certification
14 2 (1.54%) A+ Certification
14 2 (1.54%) Computer Science Degree
14 2 (1.54%) DBS Check
14 2 (1.54%) ITIL Certification
14 2 (1.54%) Master's Degree
14 2 (1.54%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (3.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (3.08%) PMO
2 4 (3.08%) SLA
3 3 (2.31%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (2.31%) Data Quality
3 3 (2.31%) QA
4 2 (1.54%) NCSC
4 2 (1.54%) NIST
5 1 (0.77%) NIST 800
5 1 (0.77%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 12 (9.23%) VMware Infrastructure
2 8 (6.15%) VMware NSX
3 3 (2.31%) Active Directory
3 3 (2.31%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (1.54%) Hyper-V
4 2 (1.54%) vCloud
4 2 (1.54%) vSphere
5 1 (0.77%) KVM
5 1 (0.77%) NFS
5 1 (0.77%) RHEV
5 1 (0.77%) UAG
5 1 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.77%) Xen
Systems Management
1 13 (10.00%) FortiGate
2 10 (7.69%) Ansible
3 7 (5.38%) Terraform
4 4 (3.08%) Nagios
4 4 (3.08%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (2.31%) Endace
5 3 (2.31%) SCCM
6 1 (0.77%) CASB
6 1 (0.77%) Cisco CUCM
6 1 (0.77%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.77%) Proxmox
6 1 (0.77%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 64 (49.23%) Cisco
2 31 (23.85%) Juniper
3 26 (20.00%) F5
4 25 (19.23%) Palo Alto
5 20 (15.38%) CheckPoint
6 19 (14.62%) Aruba
7 17 (13.08%) SolarWinds
8 16 (12.31%) VMware
9 12 (9.23%) Extreme Networks
9 12 (9.23%) Splunk
10 9 (6.92%) Microsoft
11 8 (6.15%) Fortinet
12 5 (3.85%) Atlassian
13 4 (3.08%) Mellanox
13 4 (3.08%) NVIDIA
13 4 (3.08%) Zscaler
14 3 (2.31%) ESRI
14 3 (2.31%) Intergraph
14 3 (2.31%) ServiceNow
15 2 (1.54%) Dell