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 23 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 144 118 96
Rank change year-on-year -26 -22 +4
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 726 758 1,153
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.03% 2.05% 2.48%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.68% 6.61% 7.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 452 452 775
10th Percentile £243 £363 £328
25th Percentile £379 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% +2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £650
90th Percentile £706 £706 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -9.52% - +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 35 23
10th Percentile £20.25 £11.83 £17.72
25th Percentile - £12.08 £21.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £23.80 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.67% +3.48% -63.49%
75th Percentile £31.00 £26.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £67.25 £30.37 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £22.05 £23.00
% change year-on-year +14.08% -4.15% -49.56%

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 12,786 11,474 14,820
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 35.78% 31.06% 31.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,907 6,764 9,953
10th Percentile £275 £285 £275
25th Percentile £406 £410 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.12% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £663 £668
90th Percentile £738 £788 £770
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 683 387 497
10th Percentile £13.50 £16.99 £16.81
25th Percentile £18.23 £22.50 £21.00
Median hourly rate £27.21 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.26% -21.35% +34.85%
75th Percentile £55.00 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.16 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.21 £35.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year -22.26% -24.21% +74.26%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -21 636 £519 -3.40% 288
UK excluding London -20 391 £475 -9.52% 229
London +1 264 £525 -4.07% 102
Work from Home +17 192 £525 -4.55% 100
North of England -9 137 £488 -2.50% 34
Midlands -4 94 £437 -26.12% 26
North West +6 75 £550 +10.00% 24
West Midlands -4 71 £470 -21.67% 21
South East -37 70 £425 -18.27% 108
Yorkshire -17 57 £422 +0.36% 5
South West -38 35 £550 - 25
Scotland -8 30 £425 -5.56% 11
East of England -23 24 £600 +45.90% 25
East Midlands +2 23 £358 -17.80% 5
Wales +6 15 £276 -19.34% 10
North East -3 8 £175 - 5

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 30 (4.13%) SharePoint
2 22 (3.03%) Confluence
3 20 (2.75%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (1.24%) OpenStack
5 6 (0.83%) Apache
6 5 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.69%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.55%) HCL Notes
7 4 (0.55%) nginx
8 3 (0.41%) CICS
8 3 (0.41%) GeoServer
8 3 (0.41%) Smallworld
8 3 (0.41%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.28%) FileNet
9 2 (0.28%) Oracle Coherence
9 2 (0.28%) ThingWorx
9 2 (0.28%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.14%) IIS
10 1 (0.14%) OpenEdge
10 1 (0.14%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 57 (7.85%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (4.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (3.58%) MS Visio
4 18 (2.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (1.93%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.14%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.83%) Payment Gateway
2 5 (0.69%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.55%) 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 (18.32%) Azure
2 108 (14.88%) AWS
3 68 (9.37%) Microsoft 365
4 41 (5.65%) GCP
5 23 (3.17%) Power Platform
6 20 (2.75%) Entra ID
7 15 (2.07%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 15 (2.07%) OpenShift
7 15 (2.07%) SaaS
8 12 (1.65%) IaaS
8 12 (1.65%) PaaS
8 12 (1.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 10 (1.38%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 7 (0.96%) AWS Direct Connect
10 7 (0.96%) npm
10 7 (0.96%) OCI
11 6 (0.83%) Akamai
11 6 (0.83%) GitHub
11 6 (0.83%) Nutanix
12 5 (0.69%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 201 (27.69%) Firewall
2 119 (16.39%) WAN
3 105 (14.46%) Wireless
4 72 (9.92%) BGP
5 64 (8.82%) VPN
6 62 (8.54%) DNS
7 56 (7.71%) LAN
8 47 (6.47%) OSPF
8 47 (6.47%) SD-WAN
9 44 (6.06%) Network Security
10 42 (5.79%) Cisco Nexus
11 40 (5.51%) Wi-Fi
12 39 (5.37%) Cisco ISE
12 39 (5.37%) DHCP
13 37 (5.10%) SAN
14 35 (4.82%) VXLAN
15 34 (4.68%) MPLS
15 34 (4.68%) VLAN
16 30 (4.13%) TCP/IP
17 25 (3.44%) Cisco Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (2.75%) Power BI
2 19 (2.62%) Relational Database
3 12 (1.65%) RDBMS
4 9 (1.24%) GIS
5 8 (1.10%) SQL Server
6 6 (0.83%) NoSQL
6 6 (0.83%) Oracle Database
6 6 (0.83%) PostgreSQL
7 5 (0.69%) Apache Hive
7 5 (0.69%) Hadoop
7 5 (0.69%) HBase
8 4 (0.55%) Data Mining
8 4 (0.55%) InfluxDB
9 3 (0.41%) Big Data
9 3 (0.41%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.41%) Data Vault
9 3 (0.41%) Geospatial Data
9 3 (0.41%) Metadata
9 3 (0.41%) QGIS
9 3 (0.41%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 18 (2.48%) Git
2 17 (2.34%) JIRA
3 14 (1.93%) Sonatype Nexus
4 12 (1.65%) Jenkins
5 11 (1.52%) Maven
6 9 (1.24%) GitLab
6 9 (1.24%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.55%) Gradle
7 4 (0.55%) Selenium
8 3 (0.41%) ER Studio
8 3 (0.41%) ERwin
9 2 (0.28%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.28%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.14%) Fiddler
10 1 (0.14%) Postman
10 1 (0.14%) TeamCity
General
1 174 (23.97%) Social Skills
2 137 (18.87%) Finance
3 78 (10.74%) Public Sector
4 72 (9.92%) Analytical Skills
5 71 (9.78%) Telecoms
6 69 (9.50%) Banking
7 34 (4.68%) Documentation Skills
8 32 (4.41%) Manufacturing
9 27 (3.72%) Marketing
10 25 (3.44%) Electronics
11 22 (3.03%) Presentation Skills
12 20 (2.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 15 (2.07%) Organisational Skills
14 14 (1.93%) Influencing Skills
15 8 (1.10%) Retail
16 7 (0.96%) Front Office
16 7 (0.96%) Investment Banking
16 7 (0.96%) Legal
16 7 (0.96%) Local Government
17 5 (0.69%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 114 (15.70%) Network Engineer
2 109 (15.01%) Architect
3 74 (10.19%) Analyst
4 53 (7.30%) Project Manager
5 42 (5.79%) Senior
6 34 (4.68%) Consultant
7 33 (4.55%) IT Support
7 33 (4.55%) Network Architect
8 31 (4.27%) Support Engineer
9 30 (4.13%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 29 (3.99%) Infrastructure Manager
10 29 (3.99%) Security Engineer
11 28 (3.86%) Data Centre Engineer
11 28 (3.86%) Data Centre Manager
12 26 (3.58%) Business Analyst
13 25 (3.44%) Desktop Support
14 24 (3.31%) Cisco Engineer
14 24 (3.31%) Solutions Architect
15 23 (3.17%) 2nd Line Support
15 23 (3.17%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.17%) Middleware
2 21 (2.89%) RFC 2544
3 18 (2.48%) 802.1X
4 5 (0.69%) Spark Streaming
5 4 (0.55%) Jinja
6 3 (0.41%) REST
7 2 (0.28%) ARM Templates
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%) JSP
8 1 (0.14%) SAML
8 1 (0.14%) VML
8 1 (0.14%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 40 (5.51%) Hybrid Cloud
2 29 (3.99%) Cloud Native
3 24 (3.31%) Public Cloud
4 22 (3.03%) Driving Licence
5 21 (2.89%) Fibre Optics
5 21 (2.89%) Replication
6 19 (2.62%) Onboarding
7 17 (2.34%) Private Cloud
8 14 (1.93%) Mainframe
9 13 (1.79%) Self-Motivation
10 11 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
10 11 (1.52%) PKI
10 11 (1.52%) SCADA
11 10 (1.38%) Management Information System
12 9 (1.24%) Clustering
12 9 (1.24%) Product Ownership
13 8 (1.10%) CMDB
13 8 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
14 7 (0.96%) Operational Technology
14 7 (0.96%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 98 (13.50%) Windows
2 70 (9.64%) Linux
3 47 (6.47%) Android
4 45 (6.20%) Mac OS
5 39 (5.37%) Windows Server
6 22 (3.03%) Unix
7 18 (2.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 10 (1.38%) CentOS
9 6 (0.83%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.83%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.55%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.55%) Solaris
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
1 134 (18.46%) Migration
2 92 (12.67%) Problem-Solving
3 81 (11.16%) Stakeholder Management
4 70 (9.64%) Agile
5 57 (7.85%) ITIL
6 55 (7.58%) Service Management
6 55 (7.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 48 (6.61%) Infrastructure as Code
8 47 (6.47%) Customer Service
8 47 (6.47%) Roadmaps
9 46 (6.34%) Disaster Recovery
10 45 (6.20%) Change Management
10 45 (6.20%) CI/CD
11 44 (6.06%) Project Delivery
12 43 (5.92%) DevOps
12 43 (5.92%) Network Design
13 42 (5.79%) Business Intelligence
13 42 (5.79%) High Availability
14 41 (5.65%) Data Centre Operations
14 41 (5.65%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 76 (10.47%) Python
2 44 (6.06%) PowerShell
3 36 (4.96%) SQL
4 20 (2.75%) Java
5 19 (2.62%) Bash
6 10 (1.38%) Perl
7 9 (1.24%) Shell Script
8 8 (1.10%) Lisp
9 7 (0.96%) Go
10 5 (0.69%) C
11 3 (0.41%) Bicep
11 3 (0.41%) C#
11 3 (0.41%) JCL
11 3 (0.41%) Korn
11 3 (0.41%) VBA
12 2 (0.28%) AWK
12 2 (0.28%) JavaScript
12 2 (0.28%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.28%) Ruby
12 2 (0.28%) sed
Qualifications
1 214 (29.48%) Security Cleared
2 179 (24.66%) SC Cleared
3 86 (11.85%) Cisco Certification
4 58 (7.99%) CCNP
5 55 (7.58%) Degree
6 43 (5.92%) DV Cleared
7 27 (3.72%) CCIE
8 23 (3.17%) CCNA
9 19 (2.62%) AWS Certification
10 14 (1.93%) CISSP
11 12 (1.65%) JNCIE
12 10 (1.38%) Computer Science Degree
12 10 (1.38%) PMP
13 9 (1.24%) PMI Certification
13 9 (1.24%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 8 (1.10%) BPSS Clearance
15 7 (0.96%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 7 (0.96%) Azure Certification
15 7 (0.96%) CCSP
16 6 (0.83%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (2.89%) NIST
2 20 (2.75%) PCI DSS
2 20 (2.75%) SLA
3 18 (2.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 17 (2.34%) PMO
5 14 (1.93%) GDPR
6 12 (1.65%) QA
7 11 (1.52%) Data Quality
8 4 (0.55%) NCSC
9 2 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.28%) GRC
9 2 (0.28%) ISO 22301
9 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 2 (0.28%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.14%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
10 1 (0.14%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 72 (9.92%) VMware Infrastructure
2 58 (7.99%) Active Directory
3 36 (4.96%) VMware NSX
4 25 (3.44%) Docker
5 18 (2.48%) vSphere
6 16 (2.20%) Hyper-V
7 13 (1.79%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.96%) Firmware
8 7 (0.96%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.69%) HDFS
10 4 (0.55%) KVM
10 4 (0.55%) NFS
11 3 (0.41%) 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%) SRDF
13 1 (0.14%) Veritas Cluster Server
13 1 (0.14%) Xen
Systems Management
1 69 (9.50%) Ansible
2 61 (8.40%) Terraform
3 32 (4.41%) FortiGate
4 25 (3.44%) SCCM
5 21 (2.89%) Kubernetes
6 13 (1.79%) Microsoft Intune
7 12 (1.65%) Grafana
8 9 (1.24%) SCOM
8 9 (1.24%) vCenter Server
9 8 (1.10%) Control-M
9 8 (1.10%) Puppet
10 7 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
11 6 (0.83%) CASB
12 5 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (0.69%) Hadoop YARN
12 5 (0.69%) Prometheus
12 5 (0.69%) SCOrch
13 4 (0.55%) Argo
13 4 (0.55%) OpenView
14 3 (0.41%) OPNET
Vendors
1 238 (32.78%) Cisco
2 102 (14.05%) Microsoft
3 94 (12.95%) VMware
4 65 (8.95%) F5
5 62 (8.54%) Dell
6 56 (7.71%) Palo Alto
7 54 (7.44%) HP
8 51 (7.02%) Juniper
9 44 (6.06%) Apple
10 37 (5.10%) SAP
10 37 (5.10%) ServiceNow
11 34 (4.68%) Fortinet
12 33 (4.55%) Oracle
13 29 (3.99%) Meraki
14 23 (3.17%) SolarWinds
15 22 (3.03%) Arista
16 18 (2.48%) CheckPoint
17 17 (2.34%) Citrix
18 16 (2.20%) Remedy
19 15 (2.07%) NetApp