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 2 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 275 226 192
Rank change year-on-year -49 -34 +59
Contract jobs citing SAN 167 113 225
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.70% 0.88% 1.08%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.36% 5.74% 6.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 107 74 162
10th Percentile £126 £358 £282
25th Percentile £358 £415 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £488 £521
Median % change year-on-year -12.82% -6.47% +22.65%
75th Percentile £534 £569 £600
90th Percentile £581 £602 £648
UK median daily rate £475 £475 £513
% change year-on-year - -7.32% -1.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 17
10th Percentile - - £12.75
25th Percentile - - £16.25
Median hourly rate £15.00 - £40.00
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK median hourly rate £61.00 - £23.80
% change year-on-year - - -58.61%

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 2,625 1,967 3,448
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.93% 15.39% 16.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,587 1,202 1,978
10th Percentile £210 £200 £203
25th Percentile £358 £305 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £465 £481
Median % change year-on-year +2.15% -3.38% +1.32%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £655 £638 £675
UK median daily rate £495 £488 £495
% change year-on-year +1.54% -1.52% -4.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 193 135 360
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.20 £13.48
25th Percentile £21.25 £16.30 £16.30
Median hourly rate £50.00 £24.66 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year +102.76% -46.25% +148.00%
75th Percentile £68.75 £62.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £78.61 £70.66
UK median hourly rate £41.94 £36.57 £40.00
% change year-on-year +14.68% -8.57% +110.53%

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 2 May 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 2 May 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 -22 67 £494 +21.85% 21
Yorkshire -19 42 £475 +21.79% 8
South East -54 37 £415 -24.55% 8
North West -32 22 £575 +17.95% 9
South West -20 16 £123 -71.18% 2
Midlands -67 15 £413 -13.16% 9
Scotland -1 14 £425 -15.00% 2
Wales +2 11 £345 -5.48% 5
West Midlands -63 9 £413 -13.16% 6
East Midlands -31 6 £450 -18.18% 3
East of England -37 6 £513 +0.05%
Northern Ireland +6 3 £375 - 2
North East - 3 - - 5
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 (2.40%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.20%) Apache
3 1 (0.60%) SharePoint
Applications
1 6 (3.59%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.60%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 34 (20.36%) OpenShift
2 27 (16.17%) Azure
3 21 (12.57%) AWS
4 6 (3.59%) Microsoft 365
5 5 (2.99%) GCP
5 5 (2.99%) IaaS
6 3 (1.80%) Entra ID
6 3 (1.80%) GitHub
6 3 (1.80%) GitHub Actions
6 3 (1.80%) Nutanix
7 2 (1.20%) PaaS
8 1 (0.60%) Azure Storage
8 1 (0.60%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 59 (35.33%) NAS
2 22 (13.17%) Firewall
3 20 (11.98%) iSCSI
4 19 (11.38%) DNS
4 19 (11.38%) Fibre Channel
5 15 (8.98%) DHCP
6 11 (6.59%) VLAN
7 7 (4.19%) LAN
8 6 (3.59%) Cisco IOS
8 6 (3.59%) NX-OS
8 6 (3.59%) Structured Cabling
8 6 (3.59%) TCP/IP
8 6 (3.59%) WAN
8 6 (3.59%) Wireless
9 5 (2.99%) VPN
10 3 (1.80%) VSAN
11 2 (1.20%) Connectrix
11 2 (1.20%) MPLS
11 2 (1.20%) SD-WAN
11 2 (1.20%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.40%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.60%) MySQL
3 1 (0.60%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.60%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (0.60%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 13 (7.78%) Jenkins
2 12 (7.19%) JIRA
3 7 (4.19%) Git
4 2 (1.20%) GitLab
5 1 (0.60%) Bitbucket
General
1 61 (36.53%) Analytical Skills
2 35 (20.96%) Social Skills
3 14 (8.38%) Banking
4 7 (4.19%) Documentation Skills
4 7 (4.19%) Public Sector
5 4 (2.40%) Legal
6 3 (1.80%) Investment Banking
7 2 (1.20%) Finance
7 2 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.60%) Advertising
8 1 (0.60%) Aerospace
8 1 (0.60%) Military
8 1 (0.60%) Retail
8 1 (0.60%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 53 (31.74%) IT Engineer
2 49 (29.34%) Field Engineer
2 49 (29.34%) Field Service Engineer
3 18 (10.78%) IT Support
3 18 (10.78%) IT Support Engineer
3 18 (10.78%) Support Engineer
4 17 (10.18%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 16 (9.58%) Field Support Engineer
6 13 (7.78%) Architect
7 11 (6.59%) Administrator
8 10 (5.99%) Storage Engineer
9 9 (5.39%) Senior
10 6 (3.59%) Automation Engineer
10 6 (3.59%) Data Centre Engineer
11 5 (2.99%) NetApp Engineer
11 5 (2.99%) Project Manager
12 4 (2.40%) Analyst
12 4 (2.40%) Consultant
12 4 (2.40%) Infrastructure Architect
12 4 (2.40%) Systems Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (3.59%) Loki
1 6 (3.59%) Redfish
1 6 (3.59%) REST
2 3 (1.80%) LDAP
3 2 (1.20%) Middleware
4 1 (0.60%) .NET
4 1 (0.60%) Apache NiFi
4 1 (0.60%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 83 (49.70%) Data Centre
2 51 (30.54%) Analytical Mindset
3 32 (19.16%) Replication
4 23 (13.77%) Enterprise Storage
5 10 (5.99%) Hybrid Cloud
6 7 (4.19%) EMC VMAX
7 6 (3.59%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (2.99%) FlexPod
8 5 (2.99%) Management Information System
9 4 (2.40%) Cloud Native
9 4 (2.40%) Clustering
10 3 (1.80%) NVMe
11 2 (1.20%) CMDB
11 2 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (1.20%) EMC VNX
11 2 (1.20%) Onboarding
11 2 (1.20%) Operational Technology
11 2 (1.20%) Product Ownership
12 1 (0.60%) Cyber Defence
12 1 (0.60%) Fat Client
Operating Systems
1 52 (31.14%) Windows
2 41 (24.55%) Linux
3 25 (14.97%) Windows Server
4 21 (12.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 14 (8.38%) Unix
6 8 (4.79%) Data ONTAP
6 8 (4.79%) VMS
7 6 (3.59%) Windows Server 2016
8 5 (2.99%) AIX
8 5 (2.99%) CoreOS
8 5 (2.99%) Ubuntu
9 3 (1.80%) Debian
10 1 (0.60%) CentOS
10 1 (0.60%) Solaris
10 1 (0.60%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 69 (41.32%) Problem-Solving
2 53 (31.74%) Customer Service
3 49 (29.34%) Break/Fix
4 45 (26.95%) Migration
5 44 (26.35%) Disaster Recovery
6 36 (21.56%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 30 (17.96%) Capacity Planning
8 29 (17.37%) ITIL
9 27 (16.17%) Data Protection
10 23 (13.77%) High Availability
11 21 (12.57%) Performance Tuning
12 18 (10.78%) DevOps
12 18 (10.78%) Infrastructure as Code
13 17 (10.18%) CI/CD
14 16 (9.58%) Containerisation
14 16 (9.58%) Runbook
15 15 (8.98%) Change Management
15 15 (8.98%) ITSM
16 14 (8.38%) Technical Leadership
17 13 (7.78%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 27 (16.17%) Python
2 21 (12.57%) PowerShell
3 11 (6.59%) Perl
4 9 (5.39%) Bash
5 7 (4.19%) Shell Script
6 3 (1.80%) SQL
7 1 (0.60%) C++
7 1 (0.60%) Java
7 1 (0.60%) Korn
7 1 (0.60%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 57 (34.13%) Cisco Certification
2 56 (33.53%) CCNA
3 55 (32.93%) Network+ Certification
4 53 (31.74%) Microsoft Certification
5 49 (29.34%) A+ Certification
5 49 (29.34%) MCSE
6 32 (19.16%) Security Cleared
7 19 (11.38%) SC Cleared
8 14 (8.38%) DV Cleared
9 10 (5.99%) Degree
10 8 (4.79%) CCNP
11 7 (4.19%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 6 (3.59%) Server+ Certification
13 5 (2.99%) OCP
13 5 (2.99%) Oracle Certification
14 3 (1.80%) Computer Science Degree
14 3 (1.80%) NCDA
14 3 (1.80%) VCAP
15 2 (1.20%) BPSS Clearance
15 2 (1.20%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (3.59%) SLA
2 2 (1.20%) Disclosure Scotland
2 2 (1.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (1.20%) NIST
2 2 (1.20%) QA
3 1 (0.60%) GDPR
3 1 (0.60%) GRC
3 1 (0.60%) GxP
System Software
1 41 (24.55%) VMware Infrastructure
2 25 (14.97%) Active Directory
3 21 (12.57%) vSphere
4 18 (10.78%) NFS
5 15 (8.98%) Firmware
6 14 (8.38%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (4.19%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (2.99%) VMware NSX
9 4 (2.40%) Hyper-V
10 3 (1.80%) DFS Replication
10 3 (1.80%) PowerHA
10 3 (1.80%) SRDF
11 2 (1.20%) Docker
12 1 (0.60%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 1 (0.60%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 1 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 30 (17.96%) Ansible
2 28 (16.77%) Kubernetes
3 13 (7.78%) NetBackup
4 11 (6.59%) Grafana
5 10 (5.99%) Terraform
6 8 (4.79%) Dell DRAC
6 8 (4.79%) SnapMirror
7 7 (4.19%) Prometheus
8 6 (3.59%) vCenter Server
9 5 (2.99%) EMC NetWorker
9 5 (2.99%) EMC VPLEX
9 5 (2.99%) SCCM
9 5 (2.99%) vMotion
9 5 (2.99%) vRealize
10 4 (2.40%) PowerCLI
11 3 (1.80%) SnapVault
11 3 (1.80%) WSUS
12 2 (1.20%) Progress Chef
12 2 (1.20%) Puppet
12 2 (1.20%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 68 (40.72%) Dell
2 55 (32.93%) VMware
3 29 (17.37%) Cisco
4 27 (16.17%) NetApp
5 20 (11.98%) Microsoft
6 19 (11.38%) EMC
7 16 (9.58%) Red Hat
8 14 (8.38%) Brocade
8 14 (8.38%) Veritas
9 13 (7.78%) Pure Storage
10 10 (5.99%) IBM
10 10 (5.99%) ServiceNow
10 10 (5.99%) Veeam
11 8 (4.79%) Commvault
11 8 (4.79%) HP
12 5 (2.99%) 3PAR
12 5 (2.99%) Google
12 5 (2.99%) Oracle
13 4 (2.40%) Fortinet
13 4 (2.40%) Isilon