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

6 months to
5 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 315 225 230
Rank change year-on-year -90 +5 +12
Contract jobs citing SAN 153 149 142
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.55% 0.98% 0.80%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 5.22% 7.23% 5.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 93 111 98
10th Percentile £126 £329 £299
25th Percentile £358 £419 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% +25.00%
75th Percentile £576 £575 £600
90th Percentile £608 £603 £611
UK median daily rate £476 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -9.33% +5.00% +8.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 3 17
10th Percentile - £29.09 -
25th Percentile - £33.73 £11.75
Median hourly rate £15.00 £41.45 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -63.81% +38.17% -38.46%
75th Percentile - £54.35 £48.75
90th Percentile - £62.09 £51.50
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £34.00 £23.80
% change year-on-year +54.41% +42.86% -40.50%

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 2,931 2,061 2,560
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.56% 13.54% 14.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,644 1,267 1,445
10th Percentile £210 £204 £213
25th Percentile £356 £325 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £466 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.11% -6.90% +10.50%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £641 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 322 134 239
10th Percentile £14.85 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.90 £18.50 £21.37
Median hourly rate £25.92 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -39.01% -25.89% +1.52%
75th Percentile £65.88 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £84.40 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £43.00 £51.50
% change year-on-year -39.53% -16.50% -7.88%

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 5 September 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 5 September 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 -38 61 £525 +10.53% 10
Yorkshire -27 31 £523 +26.67% 4
North West -47 29 £565 +3.67% 3
South West -16 23 £123 -73.51% 9
South East -113 23 £375 -25.56% 19
East of England -39 14 £600 +9.09% 9
Midlands -46 13 £425 -9.28% 17
West Midlands -39 11 £425 -19.05% 13
Scotland -28 10 £127 -73.09% 2
Wales - 9 £525 - 3
East Midlands -18 2 £388 +40.40% 4
North East - 1 £200 - 3
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 10 (6.54%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (3.27%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.96%) Apache
4 2 (1.31%) CloudStack
4 2 (1.31%) IIS
5 1 (0.65%) Exchange Server 2010
5 1 (0.65%) nginx
5 1 (0.65%) Skype for Business
5 1 (0.65%) Tomcat
Applications
1 4 (2.61%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.65%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.65%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.65%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 35 (22.88%) Azure
2 20 (13.07%) AWS
3 16 (10.46%) Microsoft 365
3 16 (10.46%) OpenShift
4 11 (7.19%) Entra ID
5 4 (2.61%) GCP
5 4 (2.61%) IaaS
6 3 (1.96%) GitHub
6 3 (1.96%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (1.31%) Azure Sentinel
7 2 (1.31%) Azure Storage
7 2 (1.31%) Datadog
8 1 (0.65%) Azure Stack
8 1 (0.65%) Cloudflare
8 1 (0.65%) Cohesity
8 1 (0.65%) OneDrive
8 1 (0.65%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 56 (36.60%) NAS
2 42 (27.45%) DNS
2 42 (27.45%) Firewall
3 33 (21.57%) VLAN
4 29 (18.95%) DHCP
5 15 (9.80%) Structured Cabling
6 13 (8.50%) Wireless
7 12 (7.84%) Cisco IOS
7 12 (7.84%) NX-OS
8 10 (6.54%) iSCSI
9 8 (5.23%) Fibre Channel
10 7 (4.58%) LAN
10 7 (4.58%) VPN
11 5 (3.27%) TCP/IP
11 5 (3.27%) VoIP
11 5 (3.27%) WAN
12 4 (2.61%) VSAN
13 2 (1.31%) SD-WAN
13 2 (1.31%) SSL
13 2 (1.31%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (5.88%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.65%) MySQL
2 1 (0.65%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 20 (13.07%) JIRA
2 3 (1.96%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.31%) Git
General
1 44 (28.76%) Analytical Skills
2 41 (26.80%) Social Skills
3 22 (14.38%) Documentation Skills
4 6 (3.92%) Finance
5 5 (3.27%) Public Sector
6 4 (2.61%) Banking
6 4 (2.61%) Games
7 3 (1.96%) Legal
7 3 (1.96%) Military
8 1 (0.65%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.65%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.65%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 38 (24.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
1 38 (24.84%) IT Engineer
2 32 (20.92%) Field Engineer
2 32 (20.92%) Field Service Engineer
3 23 (15.03%) Architect
4 20 (13.07%) Senior
5 15 (9.80%) Storage Engineer
6 13 (8.50%) Data Centre Engineer
7 9 (5.88%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
7 9 (5.88%) Storage Architect
8 8 (5.23%) Support Engineer
9 7 (4.58%) Administrator
9 7 (4.58%) Data Centre Infrastructure Engineer
9 7 (4.58%) IT Support
9 7 (4.58%) IT Support Engineer
9 7 (4.58%) Technical Architect
10 6 (3.92%) Field Support Engineer
10 6 (3.92%) NetApp Engineer
11 5 (3.27%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
11 5 (3.27%) Senior Unix Technical Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (7.19%) Terraform
2 6 (3.92%) Redfish
3 4 (2.61%) Celery
3 4 (2.61%) Kafka
3 4 (2.61%) RabbitMQ
3 4 (2.61%) REST
4 3 (1.96%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (0.65%) JSON
5 1 (0.65%) LAMP
5 1 (0.65%) LDAP
5 1 (0.65%) LEMP Stack
5 1 (0.65%) RESTful
5 1 (0.65%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 86 (56.21%) Data Centre
2 34 (22.22%) Analytical Mindset
3 31 (20.26%) Replication
4 29 (18.95%) Enterprise Storage
5 9 (5.88%) Clustering
6 6 (3.92%) Hybrid Cloud
6 6 (3.92%) PKI
7 5 (3.27%) EMC VMAX
7 5 (3.27%) Fat Client
7 5 (3.27%) Thin Client
8 4 (2.61%) Animation
8 4 (2.61%) EMC VNX
8 4 (2.61%) Public Cloud
9 3 (1.96%) Cloud Native
9 3 (1.96%) Smartcard
10 2 (1.31%) Greenfield Project
11 1 (0.65%) CMDB
11 1 (0.65%) Linux Command Line
11 1 (0.65%) Management Information System
11 1 (0.65%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 67 (43.79%) Windows
2 50 (32.68%) Windows Server
3 49 (32.03%) Linux
4 24 (15.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 14 (9.15%) CentOS
6 12 (7.84%) Rocky
6 12 (7.84%) Unix
7 9 (5.88%) AIX
8 7 (4.58%) Ubuntu
8 7 (4.58%) Windows Server 2019
9 5 (3.27%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (2.61%) Solaris
11 2 (1.31%) HPUX
11 2 (1.31%) VMS
11 2 (1.31%) Windows Server 2003
11 2 (1.31%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (1.31%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.65%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.65%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (35.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 53 (34.64%) Problem-Solving
3 37 (24.18%) Disaster Recovery
4 32 (20.92%) Break/Fix
4 32 (20.92%) Customer Service
5 28 (18.30%) Capacity Planning
6 26 (16.99%) Migration
7 24 (15.69%) ITIL
8 18 (11.76%) Data Centre Operations
8 18 (11.76%) ITSM
9 17 (11.11%) Validation
10 16 (10.46%) High Availability
11 15 (9.80%) Infrastructure as Code
11 15 (9.80%) Server Management
12 14 (9.15%) Performance Tuning
13 13 (8.50%) Patch Management
13 13 (8.50%) Storage Management
14 12 (7.84%) Network Segmentation
14 12 (7.84%) Runbook
15 11 (7.19%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 30 (19.61%) PowerShell
2 22 (14.38%) Python
3 10 (6.54%) Bash
4 8 (5.23%) Perl
5 4 (2.61%) SQL
6 3 (1.96%) Shell Script
7 1 (0.65%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 53 (34.64%) Security Cleared
2 46 (30.07%) Cisco Certification
3 43 (28.10%) CCNA
3 43 (28.10%) Network+ Certification
4 37 (24.18%) Microsoft Certification
5 36 (23.53%) SC Cleared
6 34 (22.22%) MCSE
7 32 (20.92%) A+ Certification
8 14 (9.15%) CCNP
9 12 (7.84%) DV Cleared
10 11 (7.19%) Server+ Certification
11 9 (5.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 5 (3.27%) Azure Certification
13 4 (2.61%) Degree
14 3 (1.96%) ITIL Certification
14 3 (1.96%) NCDA
14 3 (1.96%) NCIE
15 2 (1.31%) PMI Certification
15 2 (1.31%) PMP
15 2 (1.31%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (3.27%) SLA
2 4 (2.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (1.31%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (1.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 2 (1.31%) Disclosure Scotland
3 2 (1.31%) NIST
4 1 (0.65%) GDPR
4 1 (0.65%) QA
System Software
1 52 (33.99%) VMware Infrastructure
2 36 (23.53%) Active Directory
3 22 (14.38%) VMware ESXi
4 20 (13.07%) Hyper-V
5 17 (11.11%) vSphere
6 16 (10.46%) Firmware
7 11 (7.19%) NFS
8 4 (2.61%) PowerHA
8 4 (2.61%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (2.61%) VMware NSX
9 3 (1.96%) Docker
9 3 (1.96%) EMC RecoverPoint
9 3 (1.96%) SRDF
9 3 (1.96%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.65%) Dovecot
10 1 (0.65%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.65%) Postfix
10 1 (0.65%) Veritas Cluster Server
10 1 (0.65%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 1 (0.65%) VMFS
Systems Management
1 29 (18.95%) Ansible
2 20 (13.07%) NetBackup
3 17 (11.11%) Kubernetes
4 15 (9.80%) vCenter Server
5 11 (7.19%) Dell DRAC
6 8 (5.23%) WSUS
7 7 (4.58%) Microsoft Intune
8 6 (3.92%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 6 (3.92%) vMotion
9 5 (3.27%) Failover Clustering
9 5 (3.27%) Grafana
9 5 (3.27%) Prometheus
9 5 (3.27%) SCCM
9 5 (3.27%) SnapMirror
10 4 (2.61%) EMC NetWorker
10 4 (2.61%) EMC VPLEX
10 4 (2.61%) SnapVault
11 3 (1.96%) Single Sign-On
12 2 (1.31%) Argo
12 2 (1.31%) Check_MK
Vendors
1 58 (37.91%) VMware
2 51 (33.33%) Dell
3 39 (25.49%) Cisco
4 32 (20.92%) Microsoft
5 27 (17.65%) NetApp
6 26 (16.99%) Veeam
7 17 (11.11%) ServiceNow
8 13 (8.50%) Juniper
9 12 (7.84%) Red Hat
10 10 (6.54%) Brocade
11 8 (5.23%) IBM
12 7 (4.58%) EMC
12 7 (4.58%) Pure Storage
12 7 (4.58%) Veritas
13 6 (3.92%) Commvault
13 6 (3.92%) HP
14 4 (2.61%) 3PAR
14 4 (2.61%) Fortinet
14 4 (2.61%) Oracle
14 4 (2.61%) Perforce