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

6 months to
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 304 222 222
Rank change year-on-year -82 0 0
Contract jobs citing SAN 176 145 155
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.65% 0.95% 0.84%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.07% 6.73% 5.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 107 106 105
10th Percentile £126 £360 £300
25th Percentile £358 £440 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% +34.38%
75th Percentile £571 £575 £601
90th Percentile £609 £603 £619
UK median daily rate £500 £503 £512
% change year-on-year -0.60% -1.71% +7.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 17
10th Percentile - £27.55 £11.75
25th Percentile - £29.86 £12.00
Median hourly rate £15.00 £34.23 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -56.17% +14.08% -38.46%
75th Percentile - £38.09 £48.75
90th Percentile - £40.11 £51.50
UK median hourly rate £46.50 £35.73 £23.80
% change year-on-year +30.16% +50.11% -52.40%

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 2,898 2,154 2,796
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.62% 14.14% 15.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,628 1,304 1,636
10th Percentile £224 £200 £205
25th Percentile £372 £325 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% +9.89%
75th Percentile £581 £575 £607
90th Percentile £650 £638 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £488 £500
% change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 303 136 282
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £19.45 £18.27
Median hourly rate £26.66 £45.00 £54.88
Median % change year-on-year -40.76% -18.00% -4.42%
75th Percentile £65.55 £68.17 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £87.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £26.66 £50.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year -46.68% +5.26% -5.79%

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 August 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 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
North of England -27 73 £510 +10.52% 15
Yorkshire -25 38 £500 +21.21% 3
North West -32 34 £575 +21.05% 9
South East -89 28 £400 -22.52% 13
South West -23 24 £123 -73.51% 4
Midlands -43 18 £425 -10.53% 3
West Midlands -47 15 £425 -10.53% 3
East of England -36 12 £600 +9.09% 2
Wales - 12 £525 - 1
Scotland -4 11 £127 -72.89% 1
East Midlands -6 3 £450 -8.81%
North East - 1 £200 - 4
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 9 (5.11%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (1.70%) Apache
2 3 (1.70%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.14%) CloudStack
3 2 (1.14%) IIS
4 1 (0.57%) Exchange Server 2010
4 1 (0.57%) nginx
4 1 (0.57%) Tomcat
Applications
1 4 (2.27%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.57%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.57%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 34 (19.32%) Azure
2 21 (11.93%) AWS
2 21 (11.93%) OpenShift
3 15 (8.52%) Microsoft 365
4 10 (5.68%) Entra ID
5 6 (3.41%) GCP
6 4 (2.27%) IaaS
7 3 (1.70%) GitHub
7 3 (1.70%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (1.14%) Azure Sentinel
8 2 (1.14%) Azure Storage
8 2 (1.14%) Datadog
9 1 (0.57%) Azure Stack
9 1 (0.57%) Cloudflare
9 1 (0.57%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 65 (36.93%) NAS
2 45 (25.57%) Firewall
3 41 (23.30%) DNS
4 36 (20.45%) VLAN
5 30 (17.05%) DHCP
6 19 (10.80%) Structured Cabling
7 17 (9.66%) Wireless
8 16 (9.09%) Cisco IOS
8 16 (9.09%) NX-OS
9 11 (6.25%) iSCSI
10 8 (4.55%) Fibre Channel
11 7 (3.98%) LAN
11 7 (3.98%) VPN
12 5 (2.84%) VoIP
12 5 (2.84%) WAN
13 4 (2.27%) TCP/IP
13 4 (2.27%) VSAN
14 2 (1.14%) Remote Desktop
14 2 (1.14%) SD-WAN
14 2 (1.14%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (5.11%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.14%) MySQL
3 1 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (0.57%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.57%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 19 (10.80%) JIRA
2 7 (3.98%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.70%) Git
General
1 56 (31.82%) Analytical Skills
2 49 (27.84%) Social Skills
3 20 (11.36%) Documentation Skills
4 11 (6.25%) Banking
5 5 (2.84%) Finance
5 5 (2.84%) Public Sector
6 4 (2.27%) Games
7 3 (1.70%) Legal
7 3 (1.70%) Military
8 2 (1.14%) Investment Banking
8 2 (1.14%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.57%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.57%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 49 (27.84%) IT Engineer
2 42 (23.86%) Field Engineer
2 42 (23.86%) Field Service Engineer
3 39 (22.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 26 (14.77%) Architect
5 21 (11.93%) Senior
6 19 (10.80%) Support Engineer
7 18 (10.23%) IT Support
7 18 (10.23%) IT Support Engineer
8 16 (9.09%) Field Support Engineer
9 15 (8.52%) Data Centre Engineer
10 12 (6.82%) Storage Engineer
11 10 (5.68%) Administrator
12 9 (5.11%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 9 (5.11%) Storage Architect
13 7 (3.98%) Data Centre Infrastructure Engineer
13 7 (3.98%) Network Architect
13 7 (3.98%) Technical Architect
14 6 (3.41%) NetApp Engineer
14 6 (3.41%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (4.55%) Redfish
2 5 (2.84%) REST
3 4 (2.27%) Celery
3 4 (2.27%) Kafka
3 4 (2.27%) RabbitMQ
4 3 (1.70%) Elastic Stack
5 2 (1.14%) Loki
6 1 (0.57%) LAMP
6 1 (0.57%) LDAP
6 1 (0.57%) LEMP Stack
6 1 (0.57%) RESTful
6 1 (0.57%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 101 (57.39%) Data Centre
2 44 (25.00%) Analytical Mindset
3 34 (19.32%) Replication
4 31 (17.61%) Enterprise Storage
5 9 (5.11%) Clustering
5 9 (5.11%) EMC VMAX
5 9 (5.11%) Hybrid Cloud
6 6 (3.41%) PKI
7 5 (2.84%) Fat Client
7 5 (2.84%) Thin Client
8 4 (2.27%) Animation
8 4 (2.27%) Cloud Native
8 4 (2.27%) EMC VNX
8 4 (2.27%) Public Cloud
9 3 (1.70%) FlexPod
9 3 (1.70%) Smartcard
10 2 (1.14%) Greenfield Project
10 2 (1.14%) Legacy Systems
10 2 (1.14%) Management Information System
11 1 (0.57%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 70 (39.77%) Windows
2 52 (29.55%) Linux
3 45 (25.57%) Windows Server
4 27 (15.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (10.23%) Unix
6 12 (6.82%) AIX
7 11 (6.25%) CentOS
8 10 (5.68%) Rocky
9 8 (4.55%) Data ONTAP
10 6 (3.41%) Ubuntu
11 5 (2.84%) VMS
11 5 (2.84%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (1.70%) CoreOS
12 3 (1.70%) Solaris
12 3 (1.70%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (1.14%) HPUX
14 1 (0.57%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.57%) SUSE
14 1 (0.57%) Windows Server 2003
14 1 (0.57%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 66 (37.50%) Problem-Solving
2 54 (30.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 42 (23.86%) Break/Fix
3 42 (23.86%) Customer Service
4 40 (22.73%) Disaster Recovery
5 35 (19.89%) Migration
6 30 (17.05%) Capacity Planning
7 25 (14.20%) ITIL
8 22 (12.50%) ITSM
9 20 (11.36%) Data Centre Operations
10 17 (9.66%) Data Protection
10 17 (9.66%) Performance Tuning
11 16 (9.09%) High Availability
11 16 (9.09%) Infrastructure as Code
11 16 (9.09%) Network Segmentation
11 16 (9.09%) Runbook
12 15 (8.52%) Storage Management
13 13 (7.39%) Infrastructure Management
13 13 (7.39%) Server Management
13 13 (7.39%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 30 (17.05%) PowerShell
1 30 (17.05%) Python
2 13 (7.39%) Bash
3 12 (6.82%) Perl
4 4 (2.27%) Shell Script
5 2 (1.14%) SQL
6 1 (0.57%) Bicep
6 1 (0.57%) Korn
Qualifications
1 61 (34.66%) Cisco Certification
2 58 (32.95%) CCNA
3 57 (32.39%) Network+ Certification
4 50 (28.41%) Security Cleared
5 48 (27.27%) Microsoft Certification
6 44 (25.00%) MCSE
7 42 (23.86%) A+ Certification
8 36 (20.45%) SC Cleared
9 19 (10.80%) CCNP
10 15 (8.52%) Server+ Certification
11 9 (5.11%) DV Cleared
11 9 (5.11%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 5 (2.84%) Azure Certification
12 5 (2.84%) Degree
13 3 (1.70%) NCDA
13 3 (1.70%) NCIE
13 3 (1.70%) OCP
13 3 (1.70%) Oracle Certification
14 2 (1.14%) ITIL Certification
14 2 (1.14%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (2.84%) SLA
2 4 (2.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (1.14%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (1.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 2 (1.14%) Disclosure Scotland
3 2 (1.14%) NIST
4 1 (0.57%) GDPR
4 1 (0.57%) GRC
4 1 (0.57%) GxP
4 1 (0.57%) QA
System Software
1 51 (28.98%) VMware Infrastructure
2 33 (18.75%) Active Directory
3 21 (11.93%) VMware ESXi
4 20 (11.36%) vSphere
5 18 (10.23%) Firmware
6 17 (9.66%) Hyper-V
7 12 (6.82%) NFS
8 6 (3.41%) PowerHA
9 5 (2.84%) SRDF
9 5 (2.84%) Virtual Machines
10 4 (2.27%) VMware NSX
11 3 (1.70%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 3 (1.70%) Virtual Desktop
12 2 (1.14%) Docker
13 1 (0.57%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 1 (0.57%) Dovecot
13 1 (0.57%) KVM
13 1 (0.57%) Postfix
13 1 (0.57%) Virtual Servers
13 1 (0.57%) VMFS
Systems Management
1 31 (17.61%) Ansible
2 22 (12.50%) Kubernetes
3 21 (11.93%) NetBackup
4 12 (6.82%) vCenter Server
5 11 (6.25%) Dell DRAC
5 11 (6.25%) Terraform
6 8 (4.55%) SnapMirror
6 8 (4.55%) Tivoli Storage Manager
7 7 (3.98%) Grafana
7 7 (3.98%) Microsoft Intune
7 7 (3.98%) Prometheus
7 7 (3.98%) WSUS
8 4 (2.27%) EMC VPLEX
8 4 (2.27%) SCCM
8 4 (2.27%) SnapVault
9 3 (1.70%) EMC NetWorker
9 3 (1.70%) Failover Clustering
9 3 (1.70%) Single Sign-On
9 3 (1.70%) vMotion
10 2 (1.14%) Argo
Vendors
1 62 (35.23%) Dell
2 60 (34.09%) VMware
3 46 (26.14%) Cisco
4 30 (17.05%) Microsoft
5 26 (14.77%) NetApp
5 26 (14.77%) Veeam
6 20 (11.36%) ServiceNow
7 15 (8.52%) Red Hat
8 13 (7.39%) Juniper
9 11 (6.25%) Brocade
9 11 (6.25%) IBM
10 10 (5.68%) HP
11 9 (5.11%) Pure Storage
12 8 (4.55%) Commvault
12 8 (4.55%) Veritas
13 7 (3.98%) EMC
14 6 (3.41%) Broadcom
15 5 (2.84%) 3PAR
15 5 (2.84%) Fortinet
16 4 (2.27%) Perforce