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

6 months to
22 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 294 235 182
Rank change year-on-year -59 -53 +66
Contract jobs citing SAN 128 109 239
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.58% 0.85% 1.14%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 5.08% 5.11% 6.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 86 70 176
10th Percentile £358 £358 £280
25th Percentile £402 £418 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £480
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +4.17% +12.94%
75th Percentile £548 £575 £550
90th Percentile £612 £603 £615
UK median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -1.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 14
10th Percentile - - £16.25
25th Percentile - - £17.18
Median hourly rate - - £40.00
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK median hourly rate £69.50 - £40.00
% change year-on-year - - -20.00%

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 2,520 2,135 3,649
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 11.43% 16.63% 17.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,610 1,286 2,124
10th Percentile £203 £193 £200
25th Percentile £350 £313 £330
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £473 £475
Median % change year-on-year +0.53% -0.53% -
75th Percentile £575 £580 £588
90th Percentile £656 £638 £677
UK median daily rate £490 £488 £475
% change year-on-year +0.51% +2.63% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 151 121 325
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £16.50 £21.00 £17.72
Median hourly rate £41.94 £32.50 £41.23
Median % change year-on-year +29.05% -21.17% +122.86%
75th Percentile £66.63 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.40
UK median hourly rate £32.52 £35.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year -7.09% +7.69% +71.05%

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 22 March 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 22 March 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 -61 55 £500 +5.26% 20
Yorkshire -37 33 £475 +21.79% 11
South East -39 30 £550 -4.35% 17
North West -34 19 £594 +13.32% 9
Midlands -60 12 £431 -9.21% 4
Scotland -1 11 £425 -15.00% 2
Wales +1 8 £345 -5.48% 1
South West -34 7 £123 -77.73% 4
West Midlands -71 7 £413 -13.16% 2
East Midlands -31 5 £450 -18.18% 2
East of England -32 4 £513 +0.05% 8
Northern Ireland - 3 £375 -
North East - 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 2 (1.56%) Apache
2 1 (0.78%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.78%) SharePoint
Applications
1 6 (4.69%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.78%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 29 (22.66%) OpenShift
2 19 (14.84%) AWS
2 19 (14.84%) Azure
3 5 (3.91%) GCP
3 5 (3.91%) IaaS
4 3 (2.34%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (2.34%) Nutanix
5 2 (1.56%) Entra ID
5 2 (1.56%) PaaS
6 1 (0.78%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (0.78%) GitHub
6 1 (0.78%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 50 (39.06%) NAS
2 19 (14.84%) Firewall
3 17 (13.28%) Fibre Channel
4 16 (12.50%) iSCSI
5 13 (10.16%) DHCP
5 13 (10.16%) DNS
6 8 (6.25%) VLAN
7 7 (5.47%) TCP/IP
8 6 (4.69%) WAN
9 5 (3.91%) LAN
10 4 (3.13%) Cisco IOS
10 4 (3.13%) NX-OS
10 4 (3.13%) Structured Cabling
10 4 (3.13%) Wireless
11 3 (2.34%) SD-WAN
11 3 (2.34%) VPN
12 1 (0.78%) HTTPS
12 1 (0.78%) Intrusion Detection
12 1 (0.78%) MPLS
12 1 (0.78%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.34%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.56%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.78%) MySQL
3 1 (0.78%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.78%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 11 (8.59%) Jenkins
2 8 (6.25%) JIRA
3 7 (5.47%) Git
4 2 (1.56%) GitLab
5 1 (0.78%) Bitbucket
General
1 34 (26.56%) Analytical Skills
2 30 (23.44%) Social Skills
3 11 (8.59%) Banking
4 8 (6.25%) Public Sector
5 4 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
6 3 (2.34%) Investment Banking
6 3 (2.34%) Legal
7 2 (1.56%) Finance
7 2 (1.56%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.78%) Advertising
8 1 (0.78%) Aerospace
8 1 (0.78%) Retail
Job Titles
1 28 (21.88%) IT Engineer
2 25 (19.53%) Field Engineer
2 25 (19.53%) Field Service Engineer
3 17 (13.28%) Architect
4 15 (11.72%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 12 (9.38%) IT Support
5 12 (9.38%) IT Support Engineer
5 12 (9.38%) Support Engineer
6 11 (8.59%) Infrastructure Architect
7 10 (7.81%) Field Support Engineer
8 9 (7.03%) Administrator
9 7 (5.47%) Storage Engineer
10 6 (4.69%) Automation Engineer
11 5 (3.91%) NetApp Engineer
11 5 (3.91%) Project Manager
12 4 (3.13%) Analyst
12 4 (3.13%) Senior
12 4 (3.13%) Site Engineer
12 4 (3.13%) Site Reliability Engineer
12 4 (3.13%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (4.69%) Loki
1 6 (4.69%) REST
2 3 (2.34%) LDAP
3 2 (1.56%) Middleware
3 2 (1.56%) Redfish
4 1 (0.78%) .NET
4 1 (0.78%) Apache NiFi
4 1 (0.78%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 54 (42.19%) Data Centre
2 27 (21.09%) Analytical Mindset
3 26 (20.31%) Replication
4 16 (12.50%) Enterprise Storage
5 7 (5.47%) Hybrid Cloud
6 6 (4.69%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (3.91%) EMC VMAX
7 5 (3.91%) FlexPod
8 4 (3.13%) Clustering
8 4 (3.13%) Management Information System
9 3 (2.34%) NVMe
10 2 (1.56%) Cloud Native
10 2 (1.56%) CMDB
10 2 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
10 2 (1.56%) Onboarding
10 2 (1.56%) Operational Technology
10 2 (1.56%) Product Ownership
11 1 (0.78%) Fat Client
11 1 (0.78%) HP Storage
11 1 (0.78%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 41 (32.03%) Windows
2 37 (28.91%) Linux
3 18 (14.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 16 (12.50%) Windows Server
5 13 (10.16%) Unix
6 6 (4.69%) Data ONTAP
6 6 (4.69%) VMS
7 5 (3.91%) AIX
7 5 (3.91%) CoreOS
7 5 (3.91%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (2.34%) Debian
8 3 (2.34%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.78%) CentOS
9 1 (0.78%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (31.25%) Problem-Solving
2 38 (29.69%) Disaster Recovery
2 38 (29.69%) Migration
3 32 (25.00%) Customer Service
4 28 (21.88%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 25 (19.53%) Break/Fix
6 24 (18.75%) Data Protection
6 24 (18.75%) ITIL
7 21 (16.41%) Capacity Planning
7 21 (16.41%) High Availability
8 17 (13.28%) DevOps
8 17 (13.28%) Technical Leadership
9 16 (12.50%) CI/CD
9 16 (12.50%) Infrastructure as Code
9 16 (12.50%) Performance Tuning
10 13 (10.16%) Containerisation
11 12 (9.38%) Observability
12 11 (8.59%) Change Management
13 10 (7.81%) Storage Management
14 9 (7.03%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 24 (18.75%) Python
2 18 (14.06%) PowerShell
3 11 (8.59%) Perl
4 7 (5.47%) Shell Script
5 6 (4.69%) Bash
6 2 (1.56%) SQL
7 1 (0.78%) Bicep
7 1 (0.78%) C++
7 1 (0.78%) Java
7 1 (0.78%) Korn
7 1 (0.78%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 35 (27.34%) Security Cleared
2 30 (23.44%) CCNA
2 30 (23.44%) Cisco Certification
3 29 (22.66%) Network+ Certification
4 27 (21.09%) Microsoft Certification
5 25 (19.53%) A+ Certification
5 25 (19.53%) MCSE
6 22 (17.19%) SC Cleared
7 12 (9.38%) DV Cleared
8 9 (7.03%) Degree
9 5 (3.91%) CCNP
9 5 (3.91%) OCP
9 5 (3.91%) Oracle Certification
10 4 (3.13%) Server+ Certification
11 3 (2.34%) Computer Science Degree
12 2 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (1.56%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (1.56%) PMI Certification
12 2 (1.56%) PMP
12 2 (1.56%) VCP6
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (3.13%) SLA
2 2 (1.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (1.56%) NIST
3 1 (0.78%) Disclosure Scotland
3 1 (0.78%) GDPR
3 1 (0.78%) Government Security Classifications
3 1 (0.78%) GRC
3 1 (0.78%) GxP
3 1 (0.78%) NCSC
3 1 (0.78%) QA
System Software
1 35 (27.34%) VMware Infrastructure
2 21 (16.41%) Active Directory
3 16 (12.50%) vSphere
4 15 (11.72%) NFS
5 11 (8.59%) Firmware
6 7 (5.47%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (3.91%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (3.13%) Hyper-V
9 3 (2.34%) DFS Replication
9 3 (2.34%) PowerHA
9 3 (2.34%) VMware NSX
10 2 (1.56%) Docker
10 2 (1.56%) SRDF
11 1 (0.78%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 1 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 25 (19.53%) Ansible
2 24 (18.75%) Kubernetes
3 11 (8.59%) NetBackup
4 10 (7.81%) Grafana
5 9 (7.03%) Terraform
6 6 (4.69%) Prometheus
6 6 (4.69%) SnapMirror
7 3 (2.34%) EMC NetWorker
7 3 (2.34%) EMC VPLEX
7 3 (2.34%) SCCM
7 3 (2.34%) vMotion
7 3 (2.34%) vRealize
8 2 (1.56%) Dell DRAC
8 2 (1.56%) PowerCLI
8 2 (1.56%) Progress Chef
8 2 (1.56%) Puppet
8 2 (1.56%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 1 (0.78%) Podman
9 1 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.78%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 48 (37.50%) VMware
2 39 (30.47%) Dell
3 25 (19.53%) NetApp
4 20 (15.63%) Cisco
5 16 (12.50%) EMC
6 14 (10.94%) Microsoft
6 14 (10.94%) Red Hat
6 14 (10.94%) Veritas
7 10 (7.81%) IBM
7 10 (7.81%) Pure Storage
8 9 (7.03%) Brocade
9 8 (6.25%) Commvault
9 8 (6.25%) HP
9 8 (6.25%) ServiceNow
10 6 (4.69%) Veeam
11 5 (3.91%) Google
12 4 (3.13%) Broadcom
12 4 (3.13%) Isilon
12 4 (3.13%) Oracle
13 3 (2.34%) 3PAR