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

	6 months to 16 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	107	79	72
Rank change year-on-year	-28	-7	+26
Contract jobs citing Data Centre	51	44	64
As % of all contract jobs in the South West	1.37%	2.20%	2.55%
As % of the Miscellaneous category	5.13%	6.61%	9.25%
Number of daily rates quoted	35	36	45
10^th Percentile	£464	£441	£449
25^th Percentile	£544	£509	£513
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£650	£550	£538
Median % change year-on-year	+18.18%	+2.23%	-3.28%
75^th Percentile	£741	£719	£667
90^th Percentile	£800	£775	£738
England median daily rate	£550	£500	£525
% change year-on-year	+10.00%	-4.76%	-3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted	6	0	3
10^th Percentile	£33.88	-	-
25^th Percentile	£64.27	-	£11.75
Median hourly rate	£98.82	-	£13.50
75^th Percentile	-	-	£15.25
90^th Percentile	£99.41	-	-
England median hourly rate	£37.50	£25.15	£21.90
% change year-on-year	+49.11%	+14.84%	-6.81%

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.

	6 months to 16 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills	994	666	692
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West	26.71%	33.37%	27.53%
Number of daily rates quoted	547	396	370
10^th Percentile	£312	£225	£207
25^th Percentile	£419	£363	£433
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£535	£525	£550
Median % change year-on-year	+1.90%	-4.55%	-
75^th Percentile	£669	£638	£672
90^th Percentile	£750	£715	£725
England median daily rate	£525	£525	£543
% change year-on-year	-	-3.23%	-1.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted	135	84	93
10^th Percentile	£14.04	£6.00	£20.36
25^th Percentile	£17.55	£15.57	£66.25
Median hourly rate	£25.75	£21.60	£70.00
Median % change year-on-year	+19.21%	-69.14%	-10.26%
75^th Percentile	£64.38	£63.75	£72.50
90^th Percentile	£82.60	£75.00	£74.75
England median hourly rate	£33.60	£29.50	£53.25
% change year-on-year	+13.90%	-44.60%	+15.31%

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 Daily Rate Trend in the South West

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 16 October 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.

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 16 October 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 16 October 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	-13	19	£700	+27.27%	5
Bristol	-15	10	£700	+27.27%	6
Devon	-	7	£495	-	4
Wiltshire	-18	6	£600	-3.03%	11
Dorset	-	6	£650	-
Gloucestershire	-13	3	£200	-63.64%	8
Data Centre England

Data Centre Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West

For the 6 months to 16 October 2026, contractor job vacancies citing Data Centre also mentioned the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the South West region with a requirement for Data Centre.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Security Cleared	60.8%	31
2	DV Cleared	45.1%	23
3	Infrastructure as Code	43.1%	22
3	Windows	43.1%	22
5	Terraform	37.3%	19
5	VMware	37.3%	19
5	VMware Infrastructure	37.3%	19
8	DevSecOps	35.3%	18
8	PowerShell	35.3%	18
8	Python	35.3%	18
8	Technical Leadership	35.3%	18
12	Active Directory	33.3%	17
12	Ansible	33.3%	17
12	Firewall	33.3%	17
15	DNS	31.4%	16
15	Kubernetes	31.4%	16
15	Linux	31.4%	16
15	Mentoring	31.4%	16
15	TCP/IP	31.4%	16
20	Bash	29.4%	15
20	DHCP	29.4%	15
22	AWS	27.5%	14
22	Converged Infrastructure	27.5%	14
22	Platform Engineering	27.5%	14
22	SIEM	27.5%	14
22	Systems Engineering	27.5%	14
22	VMware NSX	27.5%	14
22	VSAN	27.5%	14
22	vSphere	27.5%	14
22	VxRail	27.5%	14

Data Centre Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Miscellaneous

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	PKI	27.5%	14
2	Public Cloud	9.8%	5
3	Cloud Native	7.8%	4
4	Analytical Mindset	5.9%	3
4	Virtual Team	5.9%	3
6	Onboarding	3.9%	2
6	Product Ownership	3.9%	2
8	Data Protection Act	2.0%	1
8	Driving Licence	2.0%	1
8	Fibre Optics	2.0%	1