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

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 103 76 86
Rank change year-on-year -27 +10 -11
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 35 43 68
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 1.33% 2.29% 2.15%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 4.62% 8.87% 6.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 30 27 52
10th Percentile £435 £515 £255
25th Percentile £513 £547 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year - -8.33% +9.09%
75th Percentile £711 £719 £675
90th Percentile £775 £738 £725
England median daily rate £492 £523 £525
% change year-on-year -5.84% -0.48% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 8
Median hourly rate - £13.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year - -66.25% -28.06%
England median hourly rate £26.14 £24.18 £31.31
% change year-on-year +8.09% -22.77% -48.25%

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 757 485 996
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 28.67% 25.81% 31.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 464 284 627
10th Percentile £213 £180 £250
25th Percentile £378 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £548 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.20% -0.36% -
75th Percentile £625 £657 £642
90th Percentile £738 £721 £715
England median daily rate £510 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -7.27% - -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 114 27 119
10th Percentile £15.61 £16.87 £13.94
25th Percentile £22.69 £24.31 £15.17
Median hourly rate £52.50 £58.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.48% +45.00% +308.16%
75th Percentile £65.00 £69.38 £70.00
90th Percentile £67.25 £75.00 £83.40
England median hourly rate £31.83 £37.50 £34.21
% change year-on-year -15.13% +9.62% +52.04%

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 2 February 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
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 2 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
Wiltshire -20 11 £606 -11.82% 6
Gloucestershire -9 10 £550 +0.36% 3
Bristol -15 7 £494 -5.05% 9
Somerset -8 1 £610 +16.10% 3
Devon - 1 £750 -
Dorset - 1 £300 - 1
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 4 (11.43%) Microsoft Exchange
Cloud Services
1 9 (25.71%) Azure
2 8 (22.86%) AWS
3 7 (20.00%) npm
4 4 (11.43%) OpenShift
5 2 (5.71%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (5.71%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 1 (2.86%) AWS Direct Connect
6 1 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (2.86%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 1 (2.86%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (2.86%) Entra ID
6 1 (2.86%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 9 (25.71%) Firewall
2 7 (20.00%) AMQP
3 6 (17.14%) Network Security
4 3 (8.57%) Skype
4 3 (8.57%) VSAN
5 2 (5.71%) DWDM
5 2 (5.71%) NGFW
5 2 (5.71%) SDH
5 2 (5.71%) SD-WAN
5 2 (5.71%) VPN
5 2 (5.71%) WAN
6 1 (2.86%) BGP
6 1 (2.86%) Cisco ASA
6 1 (2.86%) Cisco Nexus
6 1 (2.86%) DHCP
6 1 (2.86%) OSPF
6 1 (2.86%) SAN
6 1 (2.86%) tcpdump
6 1 (2.86%) VLAN
6 1 (2.86%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (11.43%) RDBMS
1 4 (11.43%) Relational Database
2 3 (8.57%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 7 (20.00%) Git
1 7 (20.00%) Maven
2 2 (5.71%) Rational DOORS
3 1 (2.86%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 12 (34.29%) Analytical Skills
1 12 (34.29%) Social Skills
2 6 (17.14%) Public Sector
3 3 (8.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 2 (5.71%) Telecoms
5 1 (2.86%) Finance
Job Titles
1 10 (28.57%) Architect
2 7 (20.00%) Applications Engineer
2 7 (20.00%) Applications Support
2 7 (20.00%) Applications Support Engineer
2 7 (20.00%) Support Engineer
3 3 (8.57%) Analyst
3 3 (8.57%) Business Analyst
3 3 (8.57%) Network Engineer
3 3 (8.57%) Security Architect
3 3 (8.57%) Technical Architect
4 2 (5.71%) Head of Technology
4 2 (5.71%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 2 (5.71%) Infrastructure Manager
4 2 (5.71%) Network Architect
4 2 (5.71%) Security Engineer
4 2 (5.71%) Site Manager
4 2 (5.71%) Solutions Architect
4 2 (5.71%) Technical Infrastructure Manager
4 2 (5.71%) Technical Manager
4 2 (5.71%) Telecoms Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (5.71%) ModSecurity
2 1 (2.86%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 4 (11.43%) Private Cloud
2 3 (8.57%) Cyber Defence
2 3 (8.57%) PKI
3 2 (5.71%) Hybrid Cloud
4 1 (2.86%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (2.86%) Cloud Native
4 1 (2.86%) Driving Licence
4 1 (2.86%) Fibre Optics
4 1 (2.86%) Public Cloud
4 1 (2.86%) Security Posture
4 1 (2.86%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 12 (34.29%) Windows
2 11 (31.43%) Linux
3 6 (17.14%) Windows Server
4 4 (11.43%) CentOS
4 4 (11.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (11.43%) Unix
5 3 (8.57%) Windows 10
5 3 (8.57%) Windows Server 2008
5 3 (8.57%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (2.86%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 10 (28.57%) Problem-Solving
2 8 (22.86%) Data Centre Operations
2 8 (22.86%) Infrastructure as Code
2 8 (22.86%) ITIL
3 7 (20.00%) Microservices
3 7 (20.00%) Test Automation
4 6 (17.14%) Decision-Making
4 6 (17.14%) Roadmaps
4 6 (17.14%) Stakeholder Management
5 5 (14.29%) Continuous Improvement
5 5 (14.29%) Service Delivery
5 5 (14.29%) Site Reliability Engineering
5 5 (14.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 4 (11.43%) CI/CD
6 4 (11.43%) People Management
6 4 (11.43%) Root Cause Analysis
6 4 (11.43%) Security Architecture
6 4 (11.43%) Task Automation
6 4 (11.43%) Zero Trust
7 3 (8.57%) DataOps
Programming Languages
1 7 (20.00%) Java
2 3 (8.57%) SQL
3 2 (5.71%) PowerShell
4 1 (2.86%) Python
Qualifications
1 19 (54.29%) Security Cleared
2 13 (37.14%) DV Cleared
3 8 (22.86%) SC Cleared
4 2 (5.71%) BPSS Clearance
5 1 (2.86%) A+ Certification
5 1 (2.86%) CCNA
5 1 (2.86%) Cisco Certification
5 1 (2.86%) MCSE
5 1 (2.86%) Microsoft Certification
5 1 (2.86%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (11.43%) NCSC
2 2 (5.71%) NIST
2 2 (5.71%) PCI DSS
3 1 (2.86%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (2.86%) GDPR
3 1 (2.86%) GRC
3 1 (2.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 7 (20.00%) VMware Infrastructure
2 5 (14.29%) Active Directory
3 4 (11.43%) Docker
3 4 (11.43%) VMware NSX
4 3 (8.57%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (2.86%) Hyper-V
5 1 (2.86%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 8 (22.86%) Ansible
1 8 (22.86%) Terraform
2 7 (20.00%) Grafana
3 6 (17.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 3 (8.57%) OPNET
4 3 (8.57%) vCenter Server
5 1 (2.86%) FortiGate
5 1 (2.86%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (2.86%) SCCM
Vendors
1 8 (22.86%) VMware
2 7 (20.00%) Oracle
3 6 (17.14%) Cisco
4 5 (14.29%) Microsoft
5 3 (8.57%) F5
5 3 (8.57%) Palo Alto
6 2 (5.71%) IBM
6 2 (5.71%) Juniper
6 2 (5.71%) Nokia
7 1 (2.86%) Brocade
7 1 (2.86%) CheckPoint
7 1 (2.86%) Dell
7 1 (2.86%) Extreme Networks
7 1 (2.86%) Fortinet
7 1 (2.86%) NetApp
7 1 (2.86%) Sophos
7 1 (2.86%) Zscaler