SAN Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Storage Area Network (SAN)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring SAN skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 6 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 314 239 193
Rank change year-on-year -75 -46 +63
Contract jobs citing SAN 104 105 230
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.53% 0.77% 1.10%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.50% 4.67% 6.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 76 67 161
10th Percentile £329 £293 £280
25th Percentile £395 £415 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £487 £513 £465
Median % change year-on-year -4.98% +10.22% +3.33%
75th Percentile £561 £570 £550
90th Percentile £622 £590 £608
UK median daily rate £500 £480 £465
% change year-on-year +4.17% +3.23% -2.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 15
10th Percentile - £12.70 £16.25
25th Percentile £65.75 £14.13 £29.98
Median hourly rate £66.50 £18.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +269.44% -55.00% -27.93%
75th Percentile £67.25 £21.63 -
90th Percentile - £22.90 £73.80
UK median hourly rate £34.00 £18.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +88.89% -55.00% +55.58%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK excluding London

SAN falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 2,313 2,249 3,654
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 11.84% 16.56% 17.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,539 1,284 2,101
10th Percentile £191 £185 £205
25th Percentile £306 £300 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £467 £475
Median % change year-on-year -3.64% -1.68% +2.15%
75th Percentile £563 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £493
% change year-on-year -5.00% +1.52% -5.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 122 110 335
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.42 £14.83
25th Percentile £16.00 £21.00 £22.50
Median hourly rate £41.24 £30.04 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.28% -45.38% +176.66%
75th Percentile £65.00 £61.16 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.93 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £33.75 £50.00
% change year-on-year -11.11% -32.50% +150.00%

SAN
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SAN relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

SAN job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

SAN
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SAN.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SAN

SAN
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SAN in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 6 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SAN in the UK excluding London

SAN
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SAN.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SAN

SAN
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SAN within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 6 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
North of England -47 40 £498 -5.24% 23
South East -21 29 £550 -1.65% 9
Yorkshire -48 19 £435 -19.07% 15
North West -31 18 £553 +5.49% 6
Midlands -56 10 £450 +68.22% 12
Scotland +6 8 £425 -22.73% 3
East Midlands -20 7 £288 -47.57% 5
Northern Ireland - 6 £375 - 1
East of England -36 5 £513 +5.18% 4
Wales -1 3 £345 -5.48% 1
South West -24 3 £550 +6.80% 3
West Midlands -51 3 £500 +92.31% 7
North East - 3 - - 2
SAN
UK

SAN
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 (3.85%) SharePoint
2 3 (2.88%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (1.92%) Apache
3 2 (1.92%) Exchange Server 2003
3 2 (1.92%) Exchange Server 2007
3 2 (1.92%) Exchange Server 2010
3 2 (1.92%) Exchange Server 2013
3 2 (1.92%) Office Communications Server
3 2 (1.92%) SharePoint Server
3 2 (1.92%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 3 (2.88%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.92%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.96%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 22 (21.15%) OpenShift
2 17 (16.35%) Azure
3 11 (10.58%) AWS
4 4 (3.85%) Microsoft 365
5 3 (2.88%) IaaS
5 3 (2.88%) Nutanix
6 2 (1.92%) GCP
6 2 (1.92%) PaaS
7 1 (0.96%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (0.96%) Entra ID
7 1 (0.96%) GitHub
7 1 (0.96%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (0.96%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 35 (33.65%) NAS
2 13 (12.50%) Fibre Channel
2 13 (12.50%) Firewall
3 12 (11.54%) DNS
4 11 (10.58%) iSCSI
5 10 (9.62%) DHCP
5 10 (9.62%) TCP/IP
6 4 (3.85%) VPN
6 4 (3.85%) WAN
7 3 (2.88%) LAN
7 3 (2.88%) VLAN
8 2 (1.92%) DDNS
9 1 (0.96%) HTTPS
9 1 (0.96%) MPLS
9 1 (0.96%) SD-WAN
9 1 (0.96%) VXLAN
9 1 (0.96%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.88%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.96%) NoSQL
2 1 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 7 (6.73%) Jenkins
2 5 (4.81%) Git
3 2 (1.92%) GitLab
3 2 (1.92%) JIRA
4 1 (0.96%) Bitbucket
General
1 30 (28.85%) Social Skills
2 16 (15.38%) Analytical Skills
3 10 (9.62%) Public Sector
4 3 (2.88%) Banking
4 3 (2.88%) Documentation Skills
4 3 (2.88%) Finance
5 1 (0.96%) Advertising
5 1 (0.96%) Aerospace
5 1 (0.96%) Investment Banking
5 1 (0.96%) Legal
5 1 (0.96%) Local Government
5 1 (0.96%) Retail
Job Titles
1 16 (15.38%) Architect
1 16 (15.38%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 11 (10.58%) IT Engineer
2 11 (10.58%) Storage Engineer
3 10 (9.62%) Field Engineer
3 10 (9.62%) Field Service Engineer
4 9 (8.65%) Infrastructure Architect
5 8 (7.69%) Technical Architect
6 6 (5.77%) Administrator
7 4 (3.85%) Analyst
7 4 (3.85%) Automation Engineer
8 3 (2.88%) Consultant
8 3 (2.88%) Infrastructure Manager
8 3 (2.88%) Infrastructure Operations Manager
8 3 (2.88%) NetApp Engineer
8 3 (2.88%) Operations Manager
8 3 (2.88%) Server Engineer
8 3 (2.88%) Storage Manager
8 3 (2.88%) Support Engineer
8 3 (2.88%) Systems Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (3.85%) Loki
1 4 (3.85%) REST
2 3 (2.88%) LDAP
3 2 (1.92%) Middleware
4 1 (0.96%) .NET
4 1 (0.96%) Apache NiFi
4 1 (0.96%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 28 (26.92%) Data Centre
1 28 (26.92%) Replication
2 12 (11.54%) Enterprise Storage
3 10 (9.62%) Analytical Mindset
4 5 (4.81%) Hybrid Cloud
5 4 (3.85%) Clustering
5 4 (3.85%) Legacy Systems
6 3 (2.88%) Management Information System
6 3 (2.88%) NVMe
7 2 (1.92%) CMDB
7 2 (1.92%) FlexPod
7 2 (1.92%) HP Storage
7 2 (1.92%) Operational Technology
8 1 (0.96%) Cloud Native
8 1 (0.96%) Cyber Defence
8 1 (0.96%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.96%) Fat Client
8 1 (0.96%) Onboarding
8 1 (0.96%) Product Ownership
8 1 (0.96%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 34 (32.69%) Windows
2 27 (25.96%) Linux
3 13 (12.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 13 (12.50%) Windows Server
4 4 (3.85%) Ubuntu
4 4 (3.85%) Unix
5 3 (2.88%) Data ONTAP
5 3 (2.88%) Debian
5 3 (2.88%) VMS
5 3 (2.88%) Windows Server 2003
5 3 (2.88%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (1.92%) CentOS
6 2 (1.92%) CoreOS
7 1 (0.96%) AIX
7 1 (0.96%) Solaris
7 1 (0.96%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.96%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (26.92%) Disaster Recovery
1 28 (26.92%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 24 (23.08%) Migration
3 21 (20.19%) Customer Service
3 21 (20.19%) High Availability
4 20 (19.23%) Problem-Solving
5 18 (17.31%) Data Protection
5 18 (17.31%) Technical Leadership
6 17 (16.35%) Capacity Planning
6 17 (16.35%) ITIL
7 12 (11.54%) Change Management
7 12 (11.54%) DevOps
7 12 (11.54%) Infrastructure as Code
8 11 (10.58%) CI/CD
8 11 (10.58%) Containerisation
9 10 (9.62%) Break/Fix
9 10 (9.62%) Performance Tuning
10 9 (8.65%) Observability
11 8 (7.69%) Application Virtualisation
12 7 (6.73%) Due Diligence
Programming Languages
1 16 (15.38%) PowerShell
2 14 (13.46%) Python
3 6 (5.77%) Perl
4 5 (4.81%) Shell Script
5 4 (3.85%) SQL
6 3 (2.88%) Bash
7 1 (0.96%) Bicep
7 1 (0.96%) C++
7 1 (0.96%) Java
7 1 (0.96%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 42 (40.38%) Security Cleared
2 27 (25.96%) SC Cleared
3 16 (15.38%) DV Cleared
4 11 (10.58%) Microsoft Certification
5 10 (9.62%) A+ Certification
5 10 (9.62%) CCNA
5 10 (9.62%) Cisco Certification
5 10 (9.62%) MCSE
5 10 (9.62%) Network+ Certification
6 6 (5.77%) Degree
7 5 (4.81%) BPSS Clearance
8 3 (2.88%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (1.92%) NCDA
9 2 (1.92%) OCP
9 2 (1.92%) Oracle Certification
9 2 (1.92%) VCP6
9 2 (1.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 1 (0.96%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.96%) TOGAF Certification
10 1 (0.96%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (3.85%) SLA
2 1 (0.96%) Disclosure Scotland
2 1 (0.96%) Government Security Classifications
2 1 (0.96%) NCSC
2 1 (0.96%) QA
System Software
1 29 (27.88%) VMware Infrastructure
2 19 (18.27%) Active Directory
3 11 (10.58%) NFS
4 9 (8.65%) vSphere
5 6 (5.77%) Hyper-V
6 4 (3.85%) Firmware
6 4 (3.85%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (2.88%) DFS Replication
7 3 (2.88%) VMware NSX
8 2 (1.92%) Brightmail
8 2 (1.92%) ISA Server
8 2 (1.92%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.96%) Docker
9 1 (0.96%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 17 (16.35%) Ansible
1 17 (16.35%) Kubernetes
2 9 (8.65%) NetBackup
3 8 (7.69%) Grafana
4 6 (5.77%) EMC NetWorker
4 6 (5.77%) EMC VPLEX
4 6 (5.77%) Terraform
5 4 (3.85%) Prometheus
6 3 (2.88%) SCCM
6 3 (2.88%) SnapMirror
6 3 (2.88%) vCenter Server
6 3 (2.88%) vMotion
6 3 (2.88%) vRealize
7 2 (1.92%) Microsoft Clustering
7 2 (1.92%) Microsoft Intune
7 2 (1.92%) PowerCLI
8 1 (0.96%) logstash
8 1 (0.96%) Podman
8 1 (0.96%) Red Hat Satellite
8 1 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 45 (43.27%) VMware
2 27 (25.96%) NetApp
3 25 (24.04%) Dell
4 18 (17.31%) EMC
5 16 (15.38%) Microsoft
6 15 (14.42%) Cisco
7 13 (12.50%) Red Hat
7 13 (12.50%) Veritas
8 11 (10.58%) Brocade
9 6 (5.77%) Isilon
9 6 (5.77%) Pure Storage
9 6 (5.77%) Veeam
10 5 (4.81%) Commvault
10 5 (4.81%) HP
10 5 (4.81%) IBM
11 3 (2.88%) 3PAR
11 3 (2.88%) Capita
11 3 (2.88%) Nimble Storage
11 3 (2.88%) Oracle
11 3 (2.88%) SolarWinds