Data Centre Contract Job Trends

Data Center
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Data Centre in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Data Centre over the 6 months leading up to 6 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 142 115 97
Rank change year-on-year -27 -18 +9
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 722 735 1,154
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.09% 2.01% 2.49%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.83% 6.55% 7.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 454 445 778
10th Percentile £245 £363 £332
25th Percentile £380 £450 £427
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £548
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.11% +4.29%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £650
90th Percentile £713 £720 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £525 £513
% change year-on-year -9.52% +2.44% +5.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 33 21
10th Percentile £20.25 £11.79 £17.72
25th Percentile - £12.08 £20.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £22.50 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.78% -2.17% -63.20%
75th Percentile £31.00 £24.18 £72.50
90th Percentile £67.25 £28.75 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £21.59 £23.00
% change year-on-year +16.49% -6.13% -41.77%

All Generic Skills
UK

Data Centre falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 12,394 11,215 14,905
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 35.80% 30.70% 32.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,644 6,627 10,056
10th Percentile £281 £275 £281
25th Percentile £406 £409 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £659 £673
90th Percentile £750 £788 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 675 345 494
10th Percentile £13.50 £16.85 £17.00
25th Percentile £18.22 £22.40 £21.05
Median hourly rate £27.00 £40.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -32.50% -10.11% +64.94%
75th Percentile £50.00 £70.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.16 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.25 £42.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year -38.24% -7.97% +100.78%

Data Centre
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Data Centre relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Data Centre job vacancy trend in the UK

Data Centre
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Centre.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Centre

Data Centre
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Centre over the 6 months to 6 November 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Data Centre in the UK

Data Centre
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Centre.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Centre

Data Centre
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Centre over the 6 months to 6 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Centre in the UK

Data Centre
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Data Centre within the UK over the 6 months to 6 November 2025. 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
England -18 631 £506 -3.62% 958
UK excluding London -13 404 £475 -9.52% 697
London -15 248 £525 - 505
Work from Home +21 198 £525 -4.55% 358
North of England 0 145 £491 -1.80% 81
Midlands -7 95 £444 -23.73% 56
North West +5 75 £550 +10.00% 60
West Midlands -10 72 £475 -20.83% 37
South East -28 72 £419 -20.24% 414
Yorkshire -8 65 £466 -4.02% 13
South West -17 36 £550 - 54
Scotland -1 31 £438 -7.89% 6
East of England -15 25 £600 +60.00% 69
East Midlands -10 23 £358 -16.79% 18
Wales +5 14 £288 -11.54% 21
North East -10 8 £175 -58.82% 8

Data Centre
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 27 (3.74%) SharePoint
2 23 (3.19%) Confluence
3 19 (2.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 11 (1.52%) OpenStack
5 6 (0.83%) Apache
6 5 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.69%) Apache Spark
6 5 (0.69%) HCL Notes
7 4 (0.55%) nginx
8 3 (0.42%) CICS
8 3 (0.42%) GeoServer
8 3 (0.42%) Smallworld
8 3 (0.42%) ThingWorx
8 3 (0.42%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.28%) FileNet
9 2 (0.28%) Oracle Coherence
9 2 (0.28%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.14%) IIS
10 1 (0.14%) OpenEdge
10 1 (0.14%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 55 (7.62%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (4.43%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (3.46%) MS Visio
4 16 (2.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (2.08%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.14%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.83%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (0.55%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.42%) Oracle Financials
4 2 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.14%) Epicor iScala
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.14%) Primavera
5 1 (0.14%) StreamServe
Cloud Services
1 133 (18.42%) Azure
2 109 (15.10%) AWS
3 64 (8.86%) Microsoft 365
4 40 (5.54%) GCP
5 20 (2.77%) Power Platform
6 19 (2.63%) Entra ID
7 15 (2.08%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 14 (1.94%) OpenShift
9 11 (1.52%) IaaS
9 11 (1.52%) PaaS
9 11 (1.52%) SaaS
10 10 (1.39%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 9 (1.25%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 7 (0.97%) AWS Direct Connect
13 6 (0.83%) Akamai
13 6 (0.83%) GitHub
13 6 (0.83%) Nutanix
13 6 (0.83%) OneDrive
14 5 (0.69%) Cloud Computing
14 5 (0.69%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 195 (27.01%) Firewall
2 129 (17.87%) WAN
3 100 (13.85%) Wireless
4 74 (10.25%) BGP
5 62 (8.59%) VPN
6 61 (8.45%) DNS
6 61 (8.45%) LAN
7 56 (7.76%) SD-WAN
8 51 (7.06%) Cisco Nexus
9 50 (6.93%) OSPF
10 39 (5.40%) SAN
10 39 (5.40%) Wi-Fi
11 38 (5.26%) Cisco ISE
11 38 (5.26%) Network Security
12 36 (4.99%) VXLAN
13 35 (4.85%) DHCP
13 35 (4.85%) VLAN
14 34 (4.71%) MPLS
15 30 (4.16%) TCP/IP
16 24 (3.32%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (2.49%) Relational Database
2 17 (2.35%) Power BI
3 11 (1.52%) RDBMS
4 9 (1.25%) GIS
4 9 (1.25%) SQL Server
5 6 (0.83%) NoSQL
5 6 (0.83%) Oracle Database
5 6 (0.83%) PostgreSQL
6 5 (0.69%) Apache Hive
6 5 (0.69%) Hadoop
6 5 (0.69%) HBase
7 4 (0.55%) Data Mining
8 3 (0.42%) Big Data
8 3 (0.42%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.42%) Data Vault
8 3 (0.42%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (0.42%) DataStage
8 3 (0.42%) Geospatial Data
8 3 (0.42%) QGIS
8 3 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 22 (3.05%) JIRA
2 15 (2.08%) Git
2 15 (2.08%) Sonatype Nexus
3 12 (1.66%) Jenkins
4 11 (1.52%) GitLab
5 9 (1.25%) SonarQube
6 8 (1.11%) Maven
7 4 (0.55%) Gradle
7 4 (0.55%) Selenium
8 3 (0.42%) ER Studio
8 3 (0.42%) ERwin
8 3 (0.42%) TeamCity
9 2 (0.28%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.28%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.14%) Fiddler
10 1 (0.14%) Postman
General
1 163 (22.58%) Social Skills
2 136 (18.84%) Finance
3 77 (10.66%) Public Sector
4 70 (9.70%) Telecoms
5 65 (9.00%) Banking
6 64 (8.86%) Analytical Skills
7 33 (4.57%) Manufacturing
8 30 (4.16%) Documentation Skills
9 27 (3.74%) Marketing
10 25 (3.46%) Electronics
11 19 (2.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 19 (2.63%) Presentation Skills
12 15 (2.08%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (1.94%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (0.97%) Front Office
14 7 (0.97%) Legal
14 7 (0.97%) Local Government
15 6 (0.83%) Investment Banking
16 5 (0.69%) Retail
16 5 (0.69%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 118 (16.34%) Network Engineer
2 113 (15.65%) Architect
3 80 (11.08%) Analyst
4 50 (6.93%) Project Manager
5 39 (5.40%) Senior
6 35 (4.85%) Network Architect
7 33 (4.57%) IT Support
8 31 (4.29%) Consultant
9 30 (4.16%) Infrastructure Manager
10 29 (4.02%) Security Engineer
11 28 (3.88%) Data Centre Engineer
11 28 (3.88%) Data Centre Manager
11 28 (3.88%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 26 (3.60%) Support Engineer
13 25 (3.46%) Solutions Architect
14 24 (3.32%) Business Analyst
15 23 (3.19%) 2nd Line Support
15 23 (3.19%) Cisco Engineer
15 23 (3.19%) Desktop Support
15 23 (3.19%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.32%) RFC 2544
2 23 (3.19%) Middleware
3 18 (2.49%) 802.1X
4 5 (0.69%) Spark Streaming
5 4 (0.55%) Jinja
6 3 (0.42%) REST
7 2 (0.28%) eBPF
7 2 (0.28%) EJB
7 2 (0.28%) Java SE
7 2 (0.28%) LDAP
7 2 (0.28%) ModSecurity
7 2 (0.28%) OpenLayers
7 2 (0.28%) Spring
8 1 (0.14%) .NET
8 1 (0.14%) ASP.NET
8 1 (0.14%) Java EE
8 1 (0.14%) JSP
8 1 (0.14%) RabbitMQ
8 1 (0.14%) RESTful
8 1 (0.14%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 33 (4.57%) Hybrid Cloud
2 26 (3.60%) Cloud Native
3 23 (3.19%) Fibre Optics
4 22 (3.05%) Driving Licence
5 20 (2.77%) Public Cloud
6 18 (2.49%) Onboarding
6 18 (2.49%) Replication
7 17 (2.35%) Private Cloud
8 14 (1.94%) Mainframe
9 11 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
9 11 (1.52%) Management Information System
9 11 (1.52%) PKI
9 11 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
10 10 (1.39%) SCADA
11 9 (1.25%) Product Ownership
12 8 (1.11%) Clustering
12 8 (1.11%) CMDB
12 8 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
13 7 (0.97%) Enterprise Storage
13 7 (0.97%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 93 (12.88%) Windows
2 73 (10.11%) Linux
3 43 (5.96%) Android
4 41 (5.68%) Mac OS
5 30 (4.16%) Windows Server
6 24 (3.32%) Unix
7 19 (2.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 11 (1.52%) CentOS
9 8 (1.11%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.55%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.55%) Solaris
10 4 (0.55%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.55%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.28%) AIX
11 2 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.28%) zOS
12 1 (0.14%) MVS
12 1 (0.14%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 133 (18.42%) Migration
2 82 (11.36%) Problem-Solving
3 71 (9.83%) Stakeholder Management
4 69 (9.56%) Agile
5 55 (7.62%) Service Management
6 52 (7.20%) ITIL
7 51 (7.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 48 (6.65%) Disaster Recovery
8 48 (6.65%) Roadmaps
9 46 (6.37%) High Availability
10 45 (6.23%) Change Management
10 45 (6.23%) Customer Service
11 44 (6.09%) Infrastructure as Code
11 44 (6.09%) Network Design
12 43 (5.96%) DevOps
13 41 (5.68%) CI/CD
14 39 (5.40%) Business Intelligence
15 38 (5.26%) Data Centre Operations
15 38 (5.26%) Project Delivery
15 38 (5.26%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 77 (10.66%) Python
2 39 (5.40%) PowerShell
3 34 (4.71%) SQL
4 19 (2.63%) Bash
5 17 (2.35%) Java
6 10 (1.39%) Perl
6 10 (1.39%) Shell Script
7 7 (0.97%) Go
7 7 (0.97%) Lisp
8 5 (0.69%) C
9 3 (0.42%) Bicep
9 3 (0.42%) C#
10 2 (0.28%) AWK
10 2 (0.28%) JavaScript
10 2 (0.28%) JCL
10 2 (0.28%) Korn
10 2 (0.28%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.28%) Ruby
10 2 (0.28%) sed
11 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 212 (29.36%) Security Cleared
2 184 (25.48%) SC Cleared
3 92 (12.74%) Cisco Certification
4 58 (8.03%) CCNP
5 55 (7.62%) Degree
6 36 (4.99%) DV Cleared
7 29 (4.02%) CCIE
8 25 (3.46%) CCNA
9 17 (2.35%) AWS Certification
10 14 (1.94%) CISSP
11 11 (1.52%) JNCIE
12 10 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
13 9 (1.25%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 8 (1.11%) BPSS Clearance
15 7 (0.97%) Azure Certification
15 7 (0.97%) PMI Certification
15 7 (0.97%) PMP
16 6 (0.83%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 6 (0.83%) CCDP
16 6 (0.83%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (2.91%) NIST
2 19 (2.63%) PCI DSS
2 19 (2.63%) SLA
3 16 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 16 (2.22%) PMO
4 11 (1.52%) Data Quality
4 11 (1.52%) GDPR
5 8 (1.11%) QA
6 4 (0.55%) NCSC
7 2 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 2 (0.28%) Disclosure Scotland
7 2 (0.28%) GRC
7 2 (0.28%) ISO 22301
7 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 2 (0.28%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.14%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.14%) JSP 440
8 1 (0.14%) RMADS
8 1 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 64 (8.86%) VMware Infrastructure
2 57 (7.89%) Active Directory
3 25 (3.46%) VMware NSX
4 24 (3.32%) Docker
5 18 (2.49%) Hyper-V
6 17 (2.35%) vSphere
7 13 (1.80%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.97%) Firmware
8 7 (0.97%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.69%) HDFS
10 4 (0.55%) KVM
10 4 (0.55%) NFS
11 3 (0.42%) GPFS
12 2 (0.28%) Microsoft App-V
12 2 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
13 1 (0.14%) Lustre
13 1 (0.14%) Samba
13 1 (0.14%) Veritas Cluster Server
13 1 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.14%) Xen
Systems Management
1 68 (9.42%) Ansible
2 53 (7.34%) Terraform
3 26 (3.60%) FortiGate
4 23 (3.19%) Kubernetes
5 22 (3.05%) SCCM
6 13 (1.80%) Microsoft Intune
7 9 (1.25%) Grafana
7 9 (1.25%) vCenter Server
8 8 (1.11%) Puppet
9 7 (0.97%) Control-M
10 6 (0.83%) CASB
11 5 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 5 (0.69%) Hadoop YARN
11 5 (0.69%) Prometheus
11 5 (0.69%) SCOM
11 5 (0.69%) SCOrch
11 5 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
12 4 (0.55%) Argo
12 4 (0.55%) OpenView
13 3 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 236 (32.69%) Cisco
2 102 (14.13%) Microsoft
3 85 (11.77%) VMware
4 64 (8.86%) F5
5 57 (7.89%) Dell
6 55 (7.62%) Palo Alto
7 50 (6.93%) HP
8 46 (6.37%) Juniper
9 40 (5.54%) Apple
10 38 (5.26%) ServiceNow
11 37 (5.12%) SAP
12 33 (4.57%) Fortinet
13 30 (4.16%) SolarWinds
14 29 (4.02%) Oracle
15 27 (3.74%) Meraki
16 23 (3.19%) Arista
17 18 (2.49%) Citrix
18 16 (2.22%) CheckPoint
19 15 (2.08%) Red Hat
20 14 (1.94%) Remedy