Data Centre Contract Job Trends in the South West

Data Center
England > South West

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Data Centre in contract job vacancies in the South West. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Data Centre over the 6 months leading up to 7 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 91 66 41
Rank change year-on-year -25 -25 +37
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 64 52 125
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 1.78% 2.74% 4.43%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.84% 8.52% 14.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 42 38 92
10th Percentile £129 £451 £442
25th Percentile £449 £516 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year -6.82% +2.33% +1.42%
75th Percentile £705 £661 £675
90th Percentile £749 £738 -
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.37% -2.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 0 4
10th Percentile £48.53 - -
25th Percentile - - £11.75
Median hourly rate £98.82 - £13.50
75th Percentile - - £15.25
90th Percentile £99.53 - -
England median hourly rate £25.39 £25.15 £23.80
% change year-on-year +0.93% +5.67% +1.28%

All Generic Skills
South West

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 West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 935 610 849
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 26.04% 32.17% 30.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 535 378 528
10th Percentile £313 £250 £313
25th Percentile £413 £400 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £536 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.83% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £613 £638 £650
90th Percentile £728 £700 £700
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 108 48 129
10th Percentile £14.00 £6.00 £13.69
25th Percentile £17.25 £15.21 £45.00
Median hourly rate £42.30 £18.87 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +124.17% -73.04% -2.08%
75th Percentile £68.75 £42.94 £72.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.11 £75.00
England median hourly rate £43.56 £32.05 £47.50
% change year-on-year +35.91% -32.53% +14.46%

Data Centre
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Data Centre relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West.

Data Centre job vacancy trend in the South West

Data Centre
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Data Centre.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Data Centre

Data Centre
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Centre in the South West over the 6 months to 7 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Centre in the South West

Data Centre
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Data Centre.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Data Centre

Data Centre
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Centre in the South West over the 6 months to 7 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Centre in the South West

Data Centre
Contract Job Locations in the South West

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 West region over the 6 months to 7 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
Somerset -19 18 £698 +26.95% 7
Devon - 17 £495 - 3
Bristol -25 10 £123 -78.70% 23
Wiltshire -20 8 £621 +7.91% 4
Gloucestershire -16 6 £375 -31.82% 3
Dorset - 4 £547 - 2
Data Centre
England

Data Centre
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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 2 (3.13%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 14 (21.88%) AWS
2 13 (20.31%) Azure
3 3 (4.69%) Entra ID
3 3 (4.69%) GitHub
4 2 (3.13%) Azure DevOps
4 2 (3.13%) Azure Key Vault
4 2 (3.13%) Azure Logic Apps
4 2 (3.13%) Azure Monitor
5 1 (1.56%) GCP
5 1 (1.56%) GitHub Actions
5 1 (1.56%) Google Ads
5 1 (1.56%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 19 (29.69%) Firewall
2 16 (25.00%) DHCP
2 16 (25.00%) DNS
3 14 (21.88%) TCP/IP
4 13 (20.31%) SAN
4 13 (20.31%) VSAN
5 12 (18.75%) VLAN
6 11 (17.19%) BGP
6 11 (17.19%) Cisco Nexus
6 11 (17.19%) OSPF
6 11 (17.19%) VXLAN
7 9 (14.06%) NX-OS
8 2 (3.13%) LAN
8 2 (3.13%) Structured Cabling
9 1 (1.56%) Network Security
9 1 (1.56%) VPN
9 1 (1.56%) WAN
9 1 (1.56%) Wireless
9 1 (1.56%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (6.25%) Geospatial Data
2 2 (3.13%) Azure SQL Database
3 1 (1.56%) MS Access
3 1 (1.56%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 3 (4.69%) Git
2 2 (3.13%) JIRA
2 2 (3.13%) MSI
3 1 (1.56%) GitLab
General
1 15 (23.44%) Analytical Skills
2 7 (10.94%) Social Skills
3 6 (9.38%) Public Sector
4 5 (7.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (1.56%) Finance
5 1 (1.56%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 14 (21.88%) IT Engineer
2 13 (20.31%) Field Engineer
2 13 (20.31%) Field Service Engineer
3 9 (14.06%) Architect
3 9 (14.06%) Platform Engineer
4 8 (12.50%) Field Support Engineer
4 8 (12.50%) IT Support
4 8 (12.50%) IT Support Engineer
4 8 (12.50%) Support Engineer
5 7 (10.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 7 (10.94%) Principal Engineer
6 3 (4.69%) Cabling Engineer
6 3 (4.69%) Developer
6 3 (4.69%) Infrastructure Specialist
6 3 (4.69%) Network Architect
6 3 (4.69%) Network Engineer
6 3 (4.69%) Senior
6 3 (4.69%) Technical Architect
7 2 (3.13%) Cloud Platform Engineer
7 2 (3.13%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (6.25%) GeoJSON
1 4 (6.25%) RESTful
2 3 (4.69%) REST
3 2 (3.13%) .NET
3 2 (3.13%) .NET Core
3 2 (3.13%) .NET Framework
3 2 (3.13%) ATL
3 2 (3.13%) COM
3 2 (3.13%) CSS
3 2 (3.13%) CSS3
3 2 (3.13%) HTML
3 2 (3.13%) HTML5
3 2 (3.13%) MFC
3 2 (3.13%) OpenAPI
3 2 (3.13%) Swagger
3 2 (3.13%) WPF
4 1 (1.56%) Jinja
4 1 (1.56%) NETCONF
4 1 (1.56%) ODBC
Miscellaneous
1 13 (20.31%) Analytical Mindset
1 13 (20.31%) PKI
2 4 (6.25%) Cloud Native
2 4 (6.25%) Public Cloud
3 3 (4.69%) Virtual Team
4 2 (3.13%) Data Protection Act
4 2 (3.13%) Onboarding
4 2 (3.13%) Product Ownership
5 1 (1.56%) Fibre Optics
5 1 (1.56%) Hybrid Cloud
5 1 (1.56%) Legacy Applications
5 1 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (1.56%) PMI
5 1 (1.56%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 22 (34.38%) Windows
2 17 (26.56%) Linux
3 5 (7.81%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (39.06%) Problem-Solving
2 20 (31.25%) Infrastructure as Code
2 20 (31.25%) Mentoring
2 20 (31.25%) Technical Leadership
3 17 (26.56%) DevSecOps
4 13 (20.31%) Break/Fix
4 13 (20.31%) Continuous Improvement
4 13 (20.31%) Converged Infrastructure
4 13 (20.31%) Customer Service
4 13 (20.31%) Network Virtualisation
4 13 (20.31%) Platform Engineering
4 13 (20.31%) SIEM
4 13 (20.31%) Systems Engineering
5 12 (18.75%) CI/CD
5 12 (18.75%) Customer Requirements
6 10 (15.63%) Cybersecurity
7 8 (12.50%) Agile
7 8 (12.50%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 7 (10.94%) Commercial Awareness
9 6 (9.38%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 19 (29.69%) Python
2 17 (26.56%) PowerShell
3 14 (21.88%) Bash
4 4 (6.25%) Bicep
5 3 (4.69%) SQL
6 2 (3.13%) C#
6 2 (3.13%) JavaScript
6 2 (3.13%) TypeScript
7 1 (1.56%) C
7 1 (1.56%) VB
7 1 (1.56%) VBA
Qualifications
1 28 (43.75%) Security Cleared
2 17 (26.56%) DV Cleared
3 16 (25.00%) Cisco Certification
4 14 (21.88%) CCNA
4 14 (21.88%) SC Cleared
5 13 (20.31%) A+ Certification
5 13 (20.31%) MCSE
5 13 (20.31%) Microsoft Certification
5 13 (20.31%) Network+ Certification
6 11 (17.19%) VCAP
7 6 (9.38%) AWS Certification
8 2 (3.13%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 1 (1.56%) APMP
9 1 (1.56%) BICSI Certification
9 1 (1.56%) CCIE
9 1 (1.56%) City & Guilds
9 1 (1.56%) Degree
9 1 (1.56%) MAPM
9 1 (1.56%) PMI Certification
9 1 (1.56%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (6.25%) NCSC
2 3 (4.69%) SLA
3 2 (3.13%) Accessibility
3 2 (3.13%) QA
3 2 (3.13%) WCAG
4 1 (1.56%) PMO
System Software
1 18 (28.13%) Active Directory
2 17 (26.56%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (25.00%) VMware NSX
4 13 (20.31%) vSphere
5 11 (17.19%) Docker
6 10 (15.63%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 19 (29.69%) Terraform
2 17 (26.56%) Kubernetes
3 15 (23.44%) Ansible
4 13 (20.31%) VxRail
5 2 (3.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 1 (1.56%) FortiGate
6 1 (1.56%) Nagios
Vendors
1 17 (26.56%) VMware
2 15 (23.44%) Cisco
3 13 (20.31%) Dell
4 11 (17.19%) F5
5 6 (9.38%) Microsoft
6 4 (6.25%) CyberArk
7 3 (4.69%) Thales
8 2 (3.13%) Infoblox
9 1 (1.56%) FireEye
9 1 (1.56%) Fortinet
9 1 (1.56%) Juniper
9 1 (1.56%) NetScout
9 1 (1.56%) Oracle
9 1 (1.56%) Palo Alto