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 9 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 124 137 120
Rank change year-on-year +13 -17 -29
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,192 720 760
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.19% 2.17% 2.00%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.33% 6.02% 6.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 728 453 457
10th Percentile £325 £278 £357
25th Percentile £413 £380 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £650 £600 £613
90th Percentile £750 £724 £718
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £525
% change year-on-year +5.26% -9.52% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 41 35
10th Percentile £16.01 £20.25 £11.83
25th Percentile £18.90 - £12.08
Median hourly rate £33.86 £25.15 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +34.63% +11.78% -2.17%
75th Percentile £53.81 £31.00 £26.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £40.00 £28.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £25.11 £15.00
% change year-on-year -12.39% +67.42% -34.78%

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 18,832 11,957 11,618
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.55% 36.05% 30.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,247 7,331 6,955
10th Percentile £323 £294 £275
25th Percentile £425 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £668
90th Percentile £750 £750 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,304 622 414
10th Percentile £13.91 £14.69 £15.65
25th Percentile £17.50 £18.51 £22.50
Median hourly rate £36.00 £27.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +30.91% -42.11% +6.15%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.44 £70.00
90th Percentile £82.03 £72.40 £75.16
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.11 £27.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +27.67% -50.00% +8.46%

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 9 October 2026.

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 9 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Centre in the UK

Data Centre
Top 18 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 9 October 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
England +8 1,016 £537 +4.53% 2,269
UK excluding London -14 642 £500 +5.26% 934
London +10 413 £550 - 1,323
Work from Home -25 278 £540 +5.88% 558
North of England +3 225 £500 +5.26% 216
South East -6 166 £525 +27.27% 278
Yorkshire +15 132 £500 +11.11% 53
North West -25 73 £550 +2.80% 107
Midlands -55 72 £475 -1.30% 120
West Midlands -52 59 £500 - 89
South West -20 57 £650 +18.18% 71
East of England -4 50 £500 -16.67% 138
Scotland -7 46 £375 -16.67% 55
Wales +7 33 £468 +61.21% 42
North East -17 26 £625 +257.14% 56
East Midlands -25 13 £425 -4.17% 31
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 22
Channel Islands - 1 £575 -

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 35 (2.94%) Confluence
2 19 (1.59%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.76%) OpenStack
5 7 (0.59%) IIS
6 5 (0.42%) Apache
6 5 (0.42%) CloudStack
7 1 (0.084%) CICS
7 1 (0.084%) nginx
7 1 (0.084%) SAS
7 1 (0.084%) Tomcat
Applications
1 23 (1.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 22 (1.85%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.92%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.84%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.42%) AutoCAD
6 5 (0.42%) Navisworks
6 5 (0.42%) Revit
7 2 (0.17%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 11 (0.92%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.17%) OpenText MBPM
2 2 (0.17%) Oracle BPM
3 1 (0.084%) Cloudability
3 1 (0.084%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.084%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.084%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 259 (21.73%) Azure
2 209 (17.53%) AWS
3 67 (5.62%) GCP
4 60 (5.03%) GitHub
5 48 (4.03%) IaaS
5 48 (4.03%) Microsoft 365
6 40 (3.36%) Entra ID
7 39 (3.27%) SaaS
8 31 (2.60%) OCI
9 21 (1.76%) Azure DevOps
9 21 (1.76%) PaaS
10 18 (1.51%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 17 (1.43%) OpenShift
12 15 (1.26%) AWS Direct Connect
12 15 (1.26%) OneDrive
12 15 (1.26%) Power Platform
13 12 (1.01%) Nutanix
13 12 (1.01%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 8 (0.67%) Azure Monitor
15 6 (0.50%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 282 (23.66%) Firewall
2 185 (15.52%) WAN
3 168 (14.09%) BGP
4 129 (10.82%) DNS
5 122 (10.23%) Network Security
6 121 (10.15%) VPN
7 110 (9.23%) LAN
8 105 (8.81%) VLAN
9 104 (8.72%) VXLAN
10 102 (8.56%) OSPF
11 88 (7.38%) SD-WAN
11 88 (7.38%) TCP/IP
12 85 (7.13%) SAN
13 84 (7.05%) DHCP
14 76 (6.38%) Ethernet VPN
15 63 (5.29%) Wireless
16 59 (4.95%) Wi-Fi
17 58 (4.87%) Structured Cabling
18 54 (4.53%) BIG-IP
19 53 (4.45%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (3.86%) SQL Server
2 15 (1.26%) Power BI
3 11 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 10 (0.84%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 10 (0.84%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 7 (0.59%) Oracle Database
6 6 (0.50%) Azure SQL Database
7 5 (0.42%) Db2
7 5 (0.42%) Elasticsearch
8 4 (0.34%) Amazon RDS
8 4 (0.34%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (0.34%) Oracle Database 12c
8 4 (0.34%) Oracle Reports
9 3 (0.25%) Big Data
9 3 (0.25%) PostgreSQL
10 2 (0.17%) Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.17%) Flink
10 2 (0.17%) Metadata
10 2 (0.17%) Sybase ASE
10 2 (0.17%) Sybase IQ
Development Applications
1 80 (6.71%) JIRA
2 38 (3.19%) Jenkins
3 37 (3.10%) GitLab
4 28 (2.35%) Git
5 8 (0.67%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.25%) ScriptRunner
6 3 (0.25%) Zephyr
7 2 (0.17%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.17%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.17%) MSI
7 2 (0.17%) Toad
8 1 (0.084%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.084%) Cucumber
General
1 286 (23.99%) Social Skills
2 178 (14.93%) Finance
3 90 (7.55%) Analytical Skills
4 62 (5.20%) Banking
5 56 (4.70%) Telecoms
6 54 (4.53%) Public Sector
7 48 (4.03%) Documentation Skills
8 25 (2.10%) Legal
9 24 (2.01%) Retail
10 19 (1.59%) Manufacturing
11 17 (1.43%) Organisational Skills
12 16 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
13 13 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 8 (0.67%) Police
15 6 (0.50%) Financial Institution
15 6 (0.50%) Investment Banking
16 5 (0.42%) Cyber-Physical System
16 5 (0.42%) Law
16 5 (0.42%) Presentation Skills
17 4 (0.34%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 191 (16.02%) Architect
1 191 (16.02%) Network Engineer
2 147 (12.33%) Senior
3 122 (10.23%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 83 (6.96%) Data Centre Engineer
5 81 (6.80%) Project Manager
6 73 (6.12%) Lead
7 71 (5.96%) Network Architect
8 48 (4.03%) Consultant
9 44 (3.69%) Data Centre Manager
10 38 (3.19%) Senior Network Engineer
11 37 (3.10%) IT Engineer
12 36 (3.02%) Technical Architect
13 34 (2.85%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
14 33 (2.77%) Solutions Architect
14 33 (2.77%) Support Engineer
15 32 (2.68%) Analyst
16 31 (2.60%) Infrastructure Manager
17 29 (2.43%) Technical Manager
18 28 (2.35%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 118 (9.90%) Terraform
2 32 (2.68%) REST
3 29 (2.43%) Middleware
4 18 (1.51%) YAML
5 16 (1.34%) .NET
5 16 (1.34%) JSON
6 15 (1.26%) 802.1X
7 6 (0.50%) LDAP
7 6 (0.50%) NETCONF
7 6 (0.50%) SAML
8 5 (0.42%) Elastic Stack
8 5 (0.42%) OpenConfig
8 5 (0.42%) RESTCONF
8 5 (0.42%) YANG
9 4 (0.34%) GeoJSON
9 4 (0.34%) Kafka
9 4 (0.34%) OpenAPI
9 4 (0.34%) Redfish
9 4 (0.34%) RESTful
9 4 (0.34%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 83 (6.96%) Hybrid Cloud
2 48 (4.03%) Public Cloud
3 34 (2.85%) Cloud Native
4 32 (2.68%) Enterprise Storage
4 32 (2.68%) Private Cloud
5 30 (2.52%) Management Information System
5 30 (2.52%) PKI
6 28 (2.35%) Onboarding
6 28 (2.35%) Replication
7 26 (2.18%) Operational Technology
8 25 (2.10%) Data Protection Act
9 24 (2.01%) Clustering
10 21 (1.76%) Analytical Mindset
10 21 (1.76%) SCADA
10 21 (1.76%) Self-Motivation
11 18 (1.51%) CMDB
12 17 (1.43%) Fibre Optics
13 15 (1.26%) Driving Licence
14 14 (1.17%) Legacy Systems
15 11 (0.92%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 204 (17.11%) Windows
2 127 (10.65%) Linux
3 78 (6.54%) Windows Server
4 29 (2.43%) Unix
5 17 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (1.09%) Mac OS
7 12 (1.01%) AIX
8 10 (0.84%) Apple iOS
9 9 (0.76%) VMS
9 9 (0.76%) Windows 10
10 8 (0.67%) Windows Server 2012
11 6 (0.50%) Solaris
12 5 (0.42%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.25%) HPUX
13 3 (0.25%) Oracle Linux
13 3 (0.25%) SUSE
13 3 (0.25%) Windows Server 2008
13 3 (0.25%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 260 (21.81%) Migration
2 176 (14.77%) Problem-Solving
3 175 (14.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 168 (14.09%) Stakeholder Management
5 133 (11.16%) Infrastructure as Code
6 112 (9.40%) ITIL
7 110 (9.23%) CI/CD
8 109 (9.14%) Agile
9 100 (8.39%) Project Delivery
10 99 (8.31%) High Availability
10 99 (8.31%) Validation
11 93 (7.80%) Continuous Improvement
12 89 (7.47%) Disaster Recovery
13 87 (7.30%) Roadmaps
14 83 (6.96%) Zero Trust
15 80 (6.71%) Change Management
16 78 (6.54%) Cybersecurity
17 74 (6.21%) DevOps
18 71 (5.96%) Technical Leadership
19 69 (5.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 165 (13.84%) Python
2 76 (6.38%) PowerShell
3 55 (4.61%) SQL
4 34 (2.85%) Bash
5 19 (1.59%) ActionScript
6 16 (1.34%) C#
7 12 (1.01%) T-SQL
8 11 (0.92%) Bicep
9 8 (0.67%) Perl
10 7 (0.59%) PL/SQL
10 7 (0.59%) Shell Script
11 4 (0.34%) Go
11 4 (0.34%) JavaScript
12 3 (0.25%) Java
12 3 (0.25%) JCL
12 3 (0.25%) Lisp
12 3 (0.25%) TypeScript
13 2 (0.17%) Korn
13 2 (0.17%) MATLAB
13 2 (0.17%) REXX
Qualifications
1 302 (25.34%) Security Cleared
2 207 (17.37%) SC Cleared
3 143 (12.00%) Cisco Certification
4 100 (8.39%) DV Cleared
5 91 (7.63%) CCNP
6 59 (4.95%) Degree
7 49 (4.11%) CCNA
8 34 (2.85%) AWS Certification
9 28 (2.35%) CCIE
10 26 (2.18%) CISSP
10 26 (2.18%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 25 (2.10%) Microsoft Certification
11 25 (2.10%) Network+ Certification
12 24 (2.01%) Azure Certification
13 23 (1.93%) A+ Certification
14 22 (1.85%) PMI Certification
15 21 (1.76%) PMP
16 19 (1.59%) VCAP
17 17 (1.43%) MCSE
18 15 (1.26%) City & Guilds
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (2.94%) QA
2 29 (2.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 27 (2.27%) SLA
4 26 (2.18%) NIST
5 14 (1.17%) PMO
6 13 (1.09%) GDPR
7 12 (1.01%) GRC
8 9 (0.76%) JSP 440
8 9 (0.76%) NCSC
9 8 (0.67%) PCI DSS
10 6 (0.50%) ISO 31000
10 6 (0.50%) ISO 9001
10 6 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 5 (0.42%) Disclosure Scotland
11 5 (0.42%) NIST 800
12 4 (0.34%) RMADS
13 3 (0.25%) Data Quality
14 2 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials
14 2 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 2 (0.17%) HIPAA
System Software
1 154 (12.92%) VMware Infrastructure
2 100 (8.39%) Active Directory
3 55 (4.61%) vSphere
4 48 (4.03%) VMware NSX
5 41 (3.44%) Hyper-V
6 36 (3.02%) Docker
7 34 (2.85%) VMware ESXi
8 26 (2.18%) Firmware
9 14 (1.17%) Virtual Machines
10 11 (0.92%) NFS
11 8 (0.67%) Virtual Servers
12 6 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
13 5 (0.42%) ISA Server
13 5 (0.42%) Microsoft App-V
14 4 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
14 4 (0.34%) PowerHA
15 3 (0.25%) BitLocker
15 3 (0.25%) KVM
15 3 (0.25%) SRDF
15 3 (0.25%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 147 (12.33%) Ansible
2 59 (4.95%) Kubernetes
3 34 (2.85%) FortiGate
4 20 (1.68%) Microsoft Intune
5 17 (1.43%) Prometheus
6 16 (1.34%) SCCM
6 16 (1.34%) vCenter Server
6 16 (1.34%) VxRail
7 14 (1.17%) Grafana
8 12 (1.01%) Microsoft Clustering
8 12 (1.01%) PowerCLI
9 11 (0.92%) SCOM
9 11 (0.92%) vMotion
10 10 (0.84%) Jamf Pro
11 9 (0.76%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 8 (0.67%) Dell DRAC
13 7 (0.59%) Nagios
14 6 (0.50%) CASB
14 6 (0.50%) Cisco Prime
14 6 (0.50%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 284 (23.83%) Cisco
2 203 (17.03%) VMware
3 159 (13.34%) Microsoft
4 134 (11.24%) Palo Alto
5 111 (9.31%) F5
6 68 (5.70%) Fortinet
6 68 (5.70%) ServiceNow
7 60 (5.03%) Arista
8 59 (4.95%) Juniper
9 49 (4.11%) Dell
10 44 (3.69%) Aruba
11 37 (3.10%) CheckPoint
12 35 (2.94%) Oracle
13 34 (2.85%) Google
14 32 (2.68%) Veeam
15 31 (2.60%) Red Hat
16 26 (2.18%) Commvault
17 25 (2.10%) Zscaler
18 22 (1.85%) IBM
18 22 (1.85%) NetApp