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

6 months to
4 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 305 254 210
Rank change year-on-year -51 -44 +28
Contract jobs citing SAN 93 95 210
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.51% 0.67% 1.08%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.22% 4.16% 6.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 70 60 161
10th Percentile £329 £282 £210
25th Percentile £402 £434 £334
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £518 £463
Median % change year-on-year -3.38% +11.89% +12.12%
75th Percentile £585 £568 £550
90th Percentile £638 £588 £608
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £465
% change year-on-year +5.00% +7.53% +9.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 9 4
10th Percentile £29.98 - £28.93
25th Percentile £35.94 £11.75 £47.94
Median hourly rate £46.75 £22.50 £70.50
Median % change year-on-year +107.78% -68.09% +46.88%
75th Percentile £57.44 £48.75 £78.00
90th Percentile £63.33 £51.00 -
UK median hourly rate £34.00 £22.50 £23.50
% change year-on-year +51.11% -4.26% -8.60%

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 2,202 2,282 3,429
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 12.12% 16.07% 17.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,463 1,281 2,052
10th Percentile £200 £190 £205
25th Percentile £300 £313 £335
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £470
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +1.06% +4.44%
75th Percentile £563 £580 £595
90th Percentile £650 £650 £683
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 129 110 269
10th Percentile £15.31 £15.20 £17.72
25th Percentile £16.25 £20.30 £26.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £31.79 £59.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.69% -46.12% +66.20%
75th Percentile £67.84 £61.13 £65.98
90th Percentile £83.15 £71.25 £75.05
UK median hourly rate £36.75 £32.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year +13.08% -42.47% +76.53%

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 4 January 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SAN in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 4 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SAN in the UK excluding London

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 4 January 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
South East +4 36 £550 - 13
North of England -50 31 £492 -8.42% 15
North West -20 21 £548 +9.77% 6
Yorkshire -47 10 £461 -17.31% 5
Midlands -39 9 £379 +45.58% 8
Northern Ireland -4 6 £375 +141.94% 1
East of England -22 6 £513 +1.28% 2
East Midlands - 6 £127 - 1
West Midlands -45 3 £500 +92.31% 7
Scotland -4 2 £425 -22.73% 2
South West -19 2 £550 +6.80% 4
Wales -8 1 - - 2
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 8 (8.60%) SharePoint
2 7 (7.53%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (6.45%) Exchange Server 2003
3 6 (6.45%) Exchange Server 2007
3 6 (6.45%) Exchange Server 2010
3 6 (6.45%) Exchange Server 2013
3 6 (6.45%) Office Communications Server
3 6 (6.45%) SharePoint Server
3 6 (6.45%) Skype for Business
4 2 (2.15%) Apache
5 1 (1.08%) CICS
5 1 (1.08%) Confluence
5 1 (1.08%) Tomcat
5 1 (1.08%) WebSphere
5 1 (1.08%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 7 (7.53%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.08%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 15 (16.13%) Azure
2 8 (8.60%) OpenShift
3 6 (6.45%) AWS
4 4 (4.30%) Microsoft 365
5 3 (3.23%) IaaS
5 3 (3.23%) SaaS
6 2 (2.15%) PaaS
7 1 (1.08%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (1.08%) Entra ID
7 1 (1.08%) GCP
7 1 (1.08%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 28 (30.11%) NAS
2 20 (21.51%) DNS
3 15 (16.13%) Firewall
4 13 (13.98%) DHCP
5 12 (12.90%) iSCSI
6 11 (11.83%) TCP/IP
7 9 (9.68%) Fibre Channel
8 7 (7.53%) VPN
9 6 (6.45%) DDNS
10 4 (4.30%) VLAN
10 4 (4.30%) WAN
11 2 (2.15%) LAN
12 1 (1.08%) Cisco Nexus
12 1 (1.08%) FCoE
12 1 (1.08%) MPLS
12 1 (1.08%) Multicast
12 1 (1.08%) SD-WAN
12 1 (1.08%) VSAN
12 1 (1.08%) Wi-Fi
12 1 (1.08%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (4.30%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.08%) NoSQL
2 1 (1.08%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 7 (7.53%) Jenkins
2 6 (6.45%) Git
3 4 (4.30%) GitLab
4 1 (1.08%) JIRA
4 1 (1.08%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 25 (26.88%) Social Skills
2 11 (11.83%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (8.60%) Public Sector
4 4 (4.30%) Finance
5 3 (3.23%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (3.23%) Front Office
6 2 (2.15%) Banking
7 1 (1.08%) Aerospace
7 1 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.08%) Local Government
7 1 (1.08%) Retail
Job Titles
1 17 (18.28%) Architect
2 14 (15.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 13 (13.98%) Storage Engineer
4 10 (10.75%) Infrastructure Architect
5 8 (8.60%) Technical Architect
6 7 (7.53%) Field Engineer
6 7 (7.53%) Field Service Engineer
7 6 (6.45%) Exchange Engineer
7 6 (6.45%) Exchange Support
7 6 (6.45%) IT Engineer
7 6 (6.45%) Server Engineer
7 6 (6.45%) Support Engineer
8 5 (5.38%) Administrator
8 5 (5.38%) Analyst
9 4 (4.30%) Data Centre Technician
9 4 (4.30%) Data Technician
10 3 (3.23%) Infrastructure Operations Manager
10 3 (3.23%) Migration Specialist
10 3 (3.23%) Server Migration Specialist
10 3 (3.23%) Systems Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (6.45%) Middleware
2 2 (2.15%) LDAP
2 2 (2.15%) Loki
2 2 (2.15%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 31 (33.33%) Replication
2 29 (31.18%) Data Centre
3 7 (7.53%) Analytical Mindset
3 7 (7.53%) Enterprise Storage
4 6 (6.45%) Clustering
5 4 (4.30%) Distributed Systems
6 3 (3.23%) Management Information System
7 2 (2.15%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (2.15%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (2.15%) Operational Technology
8 1 (1.08%) CMDB
8 1 (1.08%) Cyber Defence
8 1 (1.08%) Fat Client
8 1 (1.08%) HP Storage
8 1 (1.08%) IBM Mainframe
8 1 (1.08%) Linux Command Line
8 1 (1.08%) PKI
8 1 (1.08%) Private Cloud
8 1 (1.08%) Public Cloud
8 1 (1.08%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 33 (35.48%) Windows
2 24 (25.81%) Linux
3 14 (15.05%) Windows Server
4 8 (8.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (7.53%) Windows Server 2003
6 6 (6.45%) Unix
7 4 (4.30%) Ubuntu
8 3 (3.23%) CentOS
8 3 (3.23%) Debian
8 3 (3.23%) VMS
9 2 (2.15%) Solaris
9 2 (2.15%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (1.08%) AIX
10 1 (1.08%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (1.08%) MVS
10 1 (1.08%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (1.08%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (1.08%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (26.88%) ITIL
2 24 (25.81%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 21 (22.58%) Customer Service
3 21 (22.58%) High Availability
4 19 (20.43%) Disaster Recovery
5 17 (18.28%) Problem-Solving
6 16 (17.20%) Migration
7 15 (16.13%) Capacity Planning
8 14 (15.05%) Technical Leadership
9 12 (12.90%) Change Management
10 10 (10.75%) Data Protection
11 9 (9.68%) Project Delivery
12 8 (8.60%) Application Virtualisation
12 8 (8.60%) Performance Tuning
13 7 (7.53%) Agile
13 7 (7.53%) Break/Fix
13 7 (7.53%) DevOps
13 7 (7.53%) Due Diligence
13 7 (7.53%) Incident Management
13 7 (7.53%) Technical Architecture
Programming Languages
1 16 (17.20%) PowerShell
2 9 (9.68%) Python
3 6 (6.45%) Shell Script
4 3 (3.23%) SQL
5 2 (2.15%) Perl
6 1 (1.08%) Bash
6 1 (1.08%) Bicep
6 1 (1.08%) Java
6 1 (1.08%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 43 (46.24%) Security Cleared
2 24 (25.81%) SC Cleared
3 20 (21.51%) DV Cleared
4 8 (8.60%) Microsoft Certification
5 7 (7.53%) A+ Certification
5 7 (7.53%) CCNA
5 7 (7.53%) Cisco Certification
5 7 (7.53%) MCSE
5 7 (7.53%) Network+ Certification
6 6 (6.45%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (5.38%) Degree
8 4 (4.30%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (4.30%) Server+ Certification
9 1 (1.08%) BC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (4.30%) SLA
2 1 (1.08%) Government Security Classifications
2 1 (1.08%) NCSC
System Software
1 27 (29.03%) Active Directory
2 25 (26.88%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (8.60%) NFS
4 7 (7.53%) Hyper-V
4 7 (7.53%) vSphere
5 6 (6.45%) Brightmail
5 6 (6.45%) ISA Server
6 5 (5.38%) Firmware
7 3 (3.23%) DFS Replication
7 3 (3.23%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (3.23%) VMware NSX
8 2 (2.15%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (1.08%) KVM
9 1 (1.08%) SRDF
9 1 (1.08%) Veritas Cluster Server
9 1 (1.08%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (1.08%) Xen
Systems Management
1 11 (11.83%) Ansible
2 9 (9.68%) Kubernetes
3 7 (7.53%) vCenter Server
4 6 (6.45%) EMC NetWorker
4 6 (6.45%) EMC VPLEX
4 6 (6.45%) Microsoft Clustering
5 4 (4.30%) NetBackup
6 3 (3.23%) vRealize
7 2 (2.15%) Grafana
7 2 (2.15%) Prometheus
7 2 (2.15%) SCCM
7 2 (2.15%) Terraform
8 1 (1.08%) Check_MK
8 1 (1.08%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (1.08%) Puppet
8 1 (1.08%) Red Hat Satellite
8 1 (1.08%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (1.08%) SnapMirror
8 1 (1.08%) SnapVault
8 1 (1.08%) VxRail
Vendors
1 39 (41.94%) VMware
2 22 (23.66%) NetApp
3 21 (22.58%) Microsoft
4 20 (21.51%) Dell
5 18 (19.35%) EMC
6 13 (13.98%) Cisco
7 11 (11.83%) Red Hat
8 8 (8.60%) Veritas
9 7 (7.53%) Brocade
10 6 (6.45%) IBM
10 6 (6.45%) Isilon
10 6 (6.45%) Veeam
11 5 (5.38%) SolarWinds
12 4 (4.30%) F5
13 3 (3.23%) Capita
13 3 (3.23%) Oracle
14 2 (2.15%) HP
14 2 (2.15%) Pure Storage
15 1 (1.08%) Commvault
15 1 (1.08%) Google