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

6 months to
20 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 322 238 204
Rank change year-on-year -84 -34 +54
Contract jobs citing SAN 103 111 223
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.51% 0.82% 1.07%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.39% 4.95% 6.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 70 71 159
10th Percentile £344 £350 £280
25th Percentile £402 £415 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £513 £465
Median % change year-on-year -6.15% +10.22% +3.33%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £550
90th Percentile £619 £603 £608
UK median daily rate £500 £475 £465
% change year-on-year +5.26% +2.15% -2.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 16
10th Percentile - - £16.25
25th Percentile - £21.25 £19.03
Median hourly rate - £22.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year - -43.75% -27.93%
75th Percentile - £23.75 -
90th Percentile - - £72.75
UK median hourly rate £34.00 £22.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +51.11% -43.75% +55.58%

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 2,348 2,242 3,592
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 11.55% 16.65% 17.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,528 1,314 2,066
10th Percentile £190 £185 £205
25th Percentile £306 £300 £340
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £457 £469 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% -1.32% -
75th Percentile £569 £579 £588
90th Percentile £663 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £486
% change year-on-year -5.00% +2.88% -6.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 129 106 324
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.39 £14.27
25th Percentile £16.25 £20.81 £21.25
Median hourly rate £40.54 £26.75 £50.91
Median % change year-on-year +51.55% -47.45% +156.06%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.41 £72.50 £75.88
UK median hourly rate £34.00 £32.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year +4.62% -31.58% +143.59%

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 20 February 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 20 February 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 -57 42 £499 -2.44% 15
South East -26 26 £550 -3.25% 13
Yorkshire -54 20 £435 -13.00% 7
North West -31 19 £555 +6.22% 7
Midlands -57 11 £385 -18.95% 6
Scotland +3 10 £425 -22.73% 2
East Midlands -20 8 £450 -18.18% 3
East of England -35 5 £500 - 2
Wales 0 4 £345 -5.48% 1
Northern Ireland - 4 £375 -
South West -22 3 £550 - 4
West Midlands -57 3 £320 -28.89% 3
North East - 3 - - 1
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 (1.94%) Apache
2 1 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.97%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (1.94%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.97%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.97%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 24 (23.30%) OpenShift
2 15 (14.56%) Azure
3 12 (11.65%) AWS
4 3 (2.91%) IaaS
4 3 (2.91%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (2.91%) Nutanix
5 2 (1.94%) GCP
5 2 (1.94%) PaaS
6 1 (0.97%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (0.97%) Entra ID
6 1 (0.97%) GitHub
6 1 (0.97%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 40 (38.83%) NAS
2 14 (13.59%) Firewall
3 13 (12.62%) Fibre Channel
4 9 (8.74%) iSCSI
5 8 (7.77%) DHCP
5 8 (7.77%) DNS
6 7 (6.80%) TCP/IP
7 4 (3.88%) WAN
8 3 (2.91%) LAN
8 3 (2.91%) VLAN
8 3 (2.91%) VPN
9 1 (0.97%) Cisco IOS
9 1 (0.97%) HTTPS
9 1 (0.97%) Intrusion Detection
9 1 (0.97%) MPLS
9 1 (0.97%) NX-OS
9 1 (0.97%) SD-WAN
9 1 (0.97%) Structured Cabling
9 1 (0.97%) Wireless
9 1 (0.97%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.97%) NoSQL
1 1 (0.97%) PostgreSQL
1 1 (0.97%) SQL Server
1 1 (0.97%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 9 (8.74%) Jenkins
2 7 (6.80%) Git
3 2 (1.94%) GitLab
3 2 (1.94%) JIRA
4 1 (0.97%) Bitbucket
General
1 30 (29.13%) Social Skills
2 21 (20.39%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (7.77%) Public Sector
4 5 (4.85%) Banking
5 3 (2.91%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (2.91%) Investment Banking
6 2 (1.94%) Legal
7 1 (0.97%) Advertising
7 1 (0.97%) Aerospace
7 1 (0.97%) Finance
7 1 (0.97%) Local Government
7 1 (0.97%) Retail
Job Titles
1 17 (16.50%) Architect
2 15 (14.56%) IT Engineer
3 14 (13.59%) Field Engineer
3 14 (13.59%) Field Service Engineer
3 14 (13.59%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 10 (9.71%) Infrastructure Architect
5 8 (7.77%) Technical Architect
6 7 (6.80%) Storage Engineer
7 6 (5.83%) Analyst
7 6 (5.83%) Automation Engineer
8 5 (4.85%) Administrator
8 5 (4.85%) IT Support
8 5 (4.85%) IT Support Engineer
8 5 (4.85%) Support Engineer
9 4 (3.88%) Field Support Engineer
9 4 (3.88%) Site Engineer
9 4 (3.88%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 3 (2.91%) NetApp Engineer
10 3 (2.91%) Storage Manager
11 2 (1.94%) Network Infrastructure Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (5.83%) Loki
1 6 (5.83%) REST
2 3 (2.91%) LDAP
3 2 (1.94%) Middleware
4 1 (0.97%) .NET
4 1 (0.97%) Apache NiFi
4 1 (0.97%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 34 (33.01%) Data Centre
2 22 (21.36%) Replication
3 14 (13.59%) Analytical Mindset
4 12 (11.65%) Enterprise Storage
5 6 (5.83%) Legacy Systems
6 4 (3.88%) Clustering
6 4 (3.88%) Hybrid Cloud
7 3 (2.91%) Management Information System
7 3 (2.91%) NVMe
7 3 (2.91%) Operational Technology
8 2 (1.94%) CMDB
8 2 (1.94%) FlexPod
9 1 (0.97%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.97%) Fat Client
9 1 (0.97%) HP Storage
9 1 (0.97%) PACS
9 1 (0.97%) PKI
9 1 (0.97%) Product Ownership
9 1 (0.97%) Smartphone
9 1 (0.97%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 34 (33.01%) Windows
2 25 (24.27%) Linux
3 15 (14.56%) Windows Server
4 11 (10.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (7.77%) Unix
6 4 (3.88%) Windows Server 2016
7 3 (2.91%) Data ONTAP
7 3 (2.91%) Debian
7 3 (2.91%) Ubuntu
7 3 (2.91%) VMS
8 2 (1.94%) CoreOS
9 1 (0.97%) CentOS
9 1 (0.97%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (26.21%) Disaster Recovery
2 26 (25.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 26 (25.24%) Problem-Solving
3 25 (24.27%) Customer Service
4 24 (23.30%) Migration
5 20 (19.42%) High Availability
6 19 (18.45%) Data Protection
7 18 (17.48%) Technical Leadership
8 16 (15.53%) ITIL
9 14 (13.59%) Break/Fix
10 13 (12.62%) Capacity Planning
10 13 (12.62%) CI/CD
11 12 (11.65%) DevOps
11 12 (11.65%) Infrastructure as Code
12 11 (10.68%) Containerisation
12 11 (10.68%) Observability
13 10 (9.71%) Performance Tuning
14 9 (8.74%) Change Management
15 8 (7.77%) Application Virtualisation
16 7 (6.80%) Due Diligence
Programming Languages
1 16 (15.53%) Python
2 15 (14.56%) PowerShell
3 8 (7.77%) Perl
4 5 (4.85%) Shell Script
5 3 (2.91%) Bash
5 3 (2.91%) SQL
6 1 (0.97%) Bicep
6 1 (0.97%) C++
6 1 (0.97%) Java
6 1 (0.97%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 35 (33.98%) Security Cleared
2 23 (22.33%) SC Cleared
3 16 (15.53%) CCNA
3 16 (15.53%) Cisco Certification
3 16 (15.53%) Microsoft Certification
4 15 (14.56%) Network+ Certification
5 14 (13.59%) A+ Certification
5 14 (13.59%) MCSE
6 13 (12.62%) DV Cleared
7 6 (5.83%) Degree
8 3 (2.91%) BPSS Clearance
8 3 (2.91%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (1.94%) CCNP
9 2 (1.94%) ITIL Certification
9 2 (1.94%) NCDA
9 2 (1.94%) OCP
9 2 (1.94%) Oracle Certification
9 2 (1.94%) VCP6
9 2 (1.94%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 1 (0.97%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (3.88%) SLA
2 1 (0.97%) Disclosure Scotland
2 1 (0.97%) Government Security Classifications
2 1 (0.97%) GxP
2 1 (0.97%) NCSC
2 1 (0.97%) QA
System Software
1 27 (26.21%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (15.53%) Active Directory
3 11 (10.68%) NFS
3 11 (10.68%) vSphere
4 6 (5.83%) VMware ESXi
5 4 (3.88%) Firmware
6 3 (2.91%) DFS Replication
6 3 (2.91%) Hyper-V
6 3 (2.91%) VMware NSX
7 2 (1.94%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.97%) Docker
8 1 (0.97%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 19 (18.45%) Ansible
1 19 (18.45%) Kubernetes
2 10 (9.71%) Grafana
2 10 (9.71%) NetBackup
3 6 (5.83%) Prometheus
3 6 (5.83%) Terraform
4 4 (3.88%) EMC NetWorker
4 4 (3.88%) EMC VPLEX
5 3 (2.91%) SCCM
5 3 (2.91%) SnapMirror
5 3 (2.91%) vMotion
5 3 (2.91%) vRealize
6 2 (1.94%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (1.94%) PowerCLI
7 1 (0.97%) Check_MK
7 1 (0.97%) Kibana
7 1 (0.97%) logstash
7 1 (0.97%) Red Hat Satellite
7 1 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.97%) SnapVault
Vendors
1 39 (37.86%) VMware
2 25 (24.27%) Dell
3 23 (22.33%) NetApp
4 15 (14.56%) EMC
5 14 (13.59%) Microsoft
5 14 (13.59%) Veritas
6 13 (12.62%) Cisco
7 11 (10.68%) Red Hat
8 8 (7.77%) Brocade
9 6 (5.83%) Pure Storage
10 5 (4.85%) Commvault
10 5 (4.85%) IBM
11 4 (3.88%) HP
11 4 (3.88%) Isilon
12 3 (2.91%) 3PAR
12 3 (2.91%) Capita
12 3 (2.91%) Nimble Storage
12 3 (2.91%) Oracle
12 3 (2.91%) Veeam
13 2 (1.94%) Remedy