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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 355 261 249
Rank change year-on-year -94 -12 -21
Contract jobs citing SAN 128 126 121
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.46% 0.80% 0.69%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.37% 5.92% 4.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 81 99 75
10th Percentile £128 £329 £289
25th Percentile £358 £409 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £529 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.39% +5.70% +17.65%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £589
90th Percentile £608 £614 £608
UK median daily rate £500 £532 £500
% change year-on-year -5.97% +6.35% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 3 17
10th Percentile - £29.09 £11.75
25th Percentile - £33.73 £12.00
Median hourly rate £15.00 £41.45 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -63.81% +38.17% -49.15%
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 2,926 2,127 2,551
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.40% 13.42% 14.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,610 1,365 1,394
10th Percentile £213 £194 £200
25th Percentile £353 £305 £342
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £485
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -7.22% +5.43%
75th Percentile £576 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £645 £660
UK median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 355 136 159
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.42 £15.01
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.53 £24.97
Median hourly rate £26.14 £41.48 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -36.97% -24.59% -4.35%
75th Percentile £65.88 £65.00 £66.01
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.68 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £35.00 £49.00
% change year-on-year -7.14% -28.57% -13.26%

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 9 October 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 9 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
North of England -34 51 £525 -3.67% 17
North West -39 26 £550 +0.46% 10
Yorkshire -16 24 £522 +16.78% 3
East of England -38 20 £550 - 9
Midlands -33 16 £425 -2.75% 15
South West -17 15 £123 -73.51% 7
South East -105 13 £415 -17.00% 17
West Midlands -36 11 £425 -19.05% 4
Scotland -18 9 £127 -70.89% 12
East Midlands -17 5 £425 +235.44% 11
Wales - 4 £525 -
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 (7.03%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (4.69%) SharePoint
3 3 (2.34%) Apache
4 2 (1.56%) CloudStack
4 2 (1.56%) IIS
4 2 (1.56%) Skype for Business
5 1 (0.78%) Exchange Server 2010
5 1 (0.78%) nginx
5 1 (0.78%) Tomcat
Applications
1 3 (2.34%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.78%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 32 (25.00%) Azure
2 17 (13.28%) Microsoft 365
3 15 (11.72%) AWS
4 11 (8.59%) OpenShift
5 9 (7.03%) Entra ID
6 5 (3.91%) GCP
7 3 (2.34%) Cohesity
7 3 (2.34%) IaaS
8 2 (1.56%) Azure Sentinel
9 1 (0.78%) Azure Stack
9 1 (0.78%) Azure Storage
9 1 (0.78%) Cloudflare
9 1 (0.78%) Datadog
9 1 (0.78%) GitHub
9 1 (0.78%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (0.78%) OneDrive
9 1 (0.78%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 43 (33.59%) NAS
2 39 (30.47%) Firewall
3 36 (28.13%) DNS
4 30 (23.44%) VLAN
5 25 (19.53%) DHCP
6 13 (10.16%) Structured Cabling
7 11 (8.59%) Wireless
8 10 (7.81%) Cisco IOS
8 10 (7.81%) Fibre Channel
8 10 (7.81%) NX-OS
9 8 (6.25%) TCP/IP
10 7 (5.47%) VPN
11 6 (4.69%) iSCSI
12 5 (3.91%) Ethernet
13 4 (3.13%) LAN
13 4 (3.13%) VoIP
14 3 (2.34%) WAN
15 2 (1.56%) Connectrix
15 2 (1.56%) SSL
15 2 (1.56%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (7.03%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.78%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 15 (11.72%) JIRA
2 2 (1.56%) Git
3 1 (0.78%) Jenkins
General
1 41 (32.03%) Social Skills
2 23 (17.97%) Documentation Skills
3 22 (17.19%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (5.47%) Finance
5 4 (3.13%) Games
6 3 (2.34%) Public Sector
7 2 (1.56%) Back Office
7 2 (1.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 2 (1.56%) Military
8 1 (0.78%) Banking
8 1 (0.78%) Investment Banking
8 1 (0.78%) Legal
8 1 (0.78%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.78%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (0.78%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 41 (32.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 19 (14.84%) IT Engineer
3 18 (14.06%) Senior
4 17 (13.28%) Data Centre Engineer
5 15 (11.72%) Architect
5 15 (11.72%) Storage Engineer
6 14 (10.94%) Field Engineer
6 14 (10.94%) Field Service Engineer
7 10 (7.81%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
8 7 (5.47%) Backup Engineer
8 7 (5.47%) Data Centre Infrastructure Engineer
8 7 (5.47%) Storage and Backup Engineer
9 6 (4.69%) Administrator
9 6 (4.69%) NetApp Engineer
9 6 (4.69%) Storage Architect
10 5 (3.91%) Backup Specialist
10 5 (3.91%) Consultant
10 5 (3.91%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
10 5 (3.91%) Technical Architect
10 5 (3.91%) Technical Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (7.03%) Terraform
2 5 (3.91%) REST
3 4 (3.13%) Celery
3 4 (3.13%) Kafka
3 4 (3.13%) RabbitMQ
3 4 (3.13%) Redfish
4 3 (2.34%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (0.78%) JSON
5 1 (0.78%) LAMP
5 1 (0.78%) LDAP
5 1 (0.78%) LEMP Stack
5 1 (0.78%) RESTful
5 1 (0.78%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 66 (51.56%) Data Centre
2 29 (22.66%) Enterprise Storage
3 18 (14.06%) Replication
4 14 (10.94%) Analytical Mindset
5 8 (6.25%) Clustering
6 6 (4.69%) PKI
7 5 (3.91%) CMDB
7 5 (3.91%) Fat Client
7 5 (3.91%) Thin Client
8 4 (3.13%) Animation
8 4 (3.13%) Hybrid Cloud
8 4 (3.13%) Public Cloud
9 3 (2.34%) Driving Licence
9 3 (2.34%) Smartcard
10 2 (1.56%) EMC VMAX
10 2 (1.56%) EMC VNX
10 2 (1.56%) Greenfield Project
10 2 (1.56%) Linux Command Line
11 1 (0.78%) Cloud Native
11 1 (0.78%) NVMe
Operating Systems
1 63 (49.22%) Windows
2 50 (39.06%) Windows Server
3 41 (32.03%) Linux
4 21 (16.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 15 (11.72%) CentOS
6 12 (9.38%) Rocky
7 10 (7.81%) Unix
8 8 (6.25%) AIX
9 7 (5.47%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (4.69%) Ubuntu
11 3 (2.34%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (2.34%) Mac OS
11 3 (2.34%) Solaris
12 2 (1.56%) HPUX
12 2 (1.56%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (1.56%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (1.56%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.78%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (43.75%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 32 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
3 28 (21.88%) Disaster Recovery
4 22 (17.19%) ITIL
5 19 (14.84%) Capacity Planning
6 16 (12.50%) Validation
7 15 (11.72%) Data Centre Operations
8 14 (10.94%) Break/Fix
8 14 (10.94%) Customer Service
8 14 (10.94%) ITSM
9 13 (10.16%) Change Management
9 13 (10.16%) High Availability
9 13 (10.16%) Server Management
10 12 (9.38%) Migration
10 12 (9.38%) Patch Management
10 12 (9.38%) Storage Management
11 11 (8.59%) Asset Management
11 11 (8.59%) Infrastructure as Code
12 10 (7.81%) Network Segmentation
13 9 (7.03%) Problem Management
Programming Languages
1 28 (21.88%) PowerShell
2 17 (13.28%) Python
3 7 (5.47%) Bash
3 7 (5.47%) Perl
4 6 (4.69%) SQL
5 3 (2.34%) Shell Script
6 1 (0.78%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 52 (40.63%) Security Cleared
2 36 (28.13%) SC Cleared
3 26 (20.31%) Cisco Certification
4 23 (17.97%) CCNA
4 23 (17.97%) Network+ Certification
5 17 (13.28%) Microsoft Certification
6 16 (12.50%) MCSE
7 14 (10.94%) A+ Certification
8 12 (9.38%) CCNP
8 12 (9.38%) DV Cleared
9 9 (7.03%) Server+ Certification
10 4 (3.13%) Azure Certification
10 4 (3.13%) Degree
10 4 (3.13%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 3 (2.34%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (1.56%) AWS Certification
12 2 (1.56%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (1.56%) NCDA
12 2 (1.56%) NCIE
13 1 (0.78%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.34%) SLA
2 2 (1.56%) Cyber Essentials
2 2 (1.56%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
2 2 (1.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.78%) Disclosure Scotland
3 1 (0.78%) QA
System Software
1 47 (36.72%) VMware Infrastructure
2 29 (22.66%) Active Directory
3 20 (15.63%) Hyper-V
4 15 (11.72%) Firmware
4 15 (11.72%) VMware ESXi
5 11 (8.59%) vSphere
6 8 (6.25%) NFS
7 4 (3.13%) Docker
8 3 (2.34%) PowerHA
8 3 (2.34%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (1.56%) EMC RecoverPoint
9 2 (1.56%) GPFS
9 2 (1.56%) SRDF
9 2 (1.56%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (1.56%) VMware NSX
10 1 (0.78%) KVM
10 1 (0.78%) Postfix
10 1 (0.78%) Veritas Cluster Server
10 1 (0.78%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 1 (0.78%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 22 (17.19%) Ansible
2 18 (14.06%) NetBackup
3 13 (10.16%) Kubernetes
4 10 (7.81%) Dell DRAC
4 10 (7.81%) vCenter Server
5 7 (5.47%) Microsoft Intune
5 7 (5.47%) WSUS
6 6 (4.69%) Tivoli Storage Manager
7 5 (3.91%) Failover Clustering
7 5 (3.91%) SCCM
8 4 (3.13%) Grafana
8 4 (3.13%) Prometheus
8 4 (3.13%) vMotion
9 3 (2.34%) Single Sign-On
9 3 (2.34%) SnapMirror
9 3 (2.34%) SnapVault
10 2 (1.56%) Check_MK
10 2 (1.56%) EMC VPLEX
10 2 (1.56%) FortiGate
10 2 (1.56%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 56 (43.75%) VMware
2 32 (25.00%) Cisco
3 30 (23.44%) Dell
3 30 (23.44%) Microsoft
4 26 (20.31%) NetApp
5 24 (18.75%) Veeam
6 13 (10.16%) Juniper
7 11 (8.59%) ServiceNow
8 10 (7.81%) Red Hat
9 8 (6.25%) IBM
10 6 (4.69%) Veritas
11 5 (3.91%) Brocade
11 5 (3.91%) Commvault
11 5 (3.91%) Fortinet
11 5 (3.91%) HP
12 4 (3.13%) Perforce
12 4 (3.13%) Pure Storage
13 3 (2.34%) Citrix
13 3 (2.34%) EMC
13 3 (2.34%) McAfee