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

6 months to
30 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 139 124 93
Rank change year-on-year -15 -31 +6
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 735 740 1,132
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.05% 2.04% 2.47%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.76% 6.51% 7.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 458 432 762
10th Percentile £248 £358 £326
25th Percentile £380 £449 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% +2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £610 £650
90th Percentile £707 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -9.52% - +6.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 37 25
10th Percentile £20.25 £11.87 £17.72
25th Percentile - £12.08 £21.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £24.15 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.14% +5.00% -63.35%
75th Percentile £31.00 £25.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £68.62 £30.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £23.51 £23.00
% change year-on-year +6.96% +2.23% -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 12,765 11,364 14,530
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 35.61% 31.34% 31.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,924 6,702 9,750
10th Percentile £275 £285 £270
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.05% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £630 £663 £669
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 663 376 494
10th Percentile £13.50 £16.80 £16.87
25th Percentile £18.22 £22.50 £21.00
Median hourly rate £27.00 £35.00 £43.84
Median % change year-on-year -22.86% -20.16% +25.25%
75th Percentile £56.25 £66.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.16 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.00 £32.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year -16.92% -29.62% +59.79%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 -14 644 £506 -3.62% 253
UK excluding London -14 404 £475 -9.52% 207
London +3 260 £525 -1.18% 106
Work from Home +7 184 £533 -3.18% 77
North of England -4 142 £490 -2.10% 31
Midlands +9 94 £431 -25.69% 23
North West +12 81 £548 +9.50% 23
South East -35 73 £447 -10.60% 102
West Midlands +3 71 £465 -19.83% 18
Yorkshire -20 56 £405 -3.57% 5
South West -25 34 £550 +0.36% 24
Scotland +5 32 £425 -5.56% 8
East of England -17 27 £600 +45.90% 18
East Midlands -4 23 £358 -32.48% 4
Wales +8 16 £276 -19.34% 7
North East -5 8 £175 - 3

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 (4.08%) SharePoint
2 21 (2.86%) Microsoft Exchange
3 19 (2.59%) Confluence
4 10 (1.36%) OpenStack
5 6 (0.82%) Apache
6 5 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.68%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.54%) HCL Notes
7 4 (0.54%) nginx
8 3 (0.41%) CICS
8 3 (0.41%) GeoServer
8 3 (0.41%) Smallworld
8 3 (0.41%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.27%) FileNet
9 2 (0.27%) Oracle Coherence
9 2 (0.27%) ThingWorx
9 2 (0.27%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.14%) IIS
10 1 (0.14%) OpenEdge
10 1 (0.14%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 59 (8.03%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (4.63%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (3.40%) MS Visio
4 19 (2.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (2.04%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.14%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.82%) Payment Gateway
2 5 (0.68%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.54%) Oracle Financials
4 2 (0.27%) 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
1 134 (18.23%) Azure
2 109 (14.83%) AWS
3 69 (9.39%) Microsoft 365
4 43 (5.85%) GCP
5 23 (3.13%) Power Platform
6 21 (2.86%) Entra ID
7 16 (2.18%) OpenShift
8 15 (2.04%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 15 (2.04%) SaaS
9 12 (1.63%) IaaS
9 12 (1.63%) PaaS
9 12 (1.63%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 11 (1.50%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 7 (0.95%) AWS Direct Connect
11 7 (0.95%) GitHub
11 7 (0.95%) npm
11 7 (0.95%) OCI
12 6 (0.82%) Akamai
12 6 (0.82%) Nutanix
13 5 (0.68%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 205 (27.89%) Firewall
2 127 (17.28%) WAN
3 105 (14.29%) Wireless
4 76 (10.34%) BGP
5 68 (9.25%) VPN
6 63 (8.57%) DNS
7 60 (8.16%) LAN
8 51 (6.94%) OSPF
9 46 (6.26%) SD-WAN
9 46 (6.26%) Wi-Fi
10 44 (5.99%) Network Security
11 43 (5.85%) Cisco Nexus
12 42 (5.71%) Cisco ISE
13 38 (5.17%) DHCP
14 37 (5.03%) SAN
15 35 (4.76%) VXLAN
16 34 (4.63%) MPLS
16 34 (4.63%) VLAN
17 33 (4.49%) TCP/IP
18 26 (3.54%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (2.72%) Power BI
2 19 (2.59%) Relational Database
3 12 (1.63%) RDBMS
4 9 (1.22%) GIS
4 9 (1.22%) SQL Server
5 6 (0.82%) NoSQL
5 6 (0.82%) Oracle Database
5 6 (0.82%) PostgreSQL
6 5 (0.68%) Apache Hive
6 5 (0.68%) Hadoop
6 5 (0.68%) HBase
7 4 (0.54%) Data Mining
7 4 (0.54%) InfluxDB
8 3 (0.41%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.41%) Big Data
8 3 (0.41%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.41%) Data Vault
8 3 (0.41%) Geospatial Data
8 3 (0.41%) Metadata
8 3 (0.41%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 19 (2.59%) Git
2 17 (2.31%) JIRA
3 15 (2.04%) Sonatype Nexus
4 14 (1.90%) Jenkins
5 11 (1.50%) Maven
6 10 (1.36%) GitLab
7 9 (1.22%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.54%) Gradle
8 4 (0.54%) Selenium
9 3 (0.41%) ER Studio
9 3 (0.41%) ERwin
10 2 (0.27%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.27%) Rational DOORS
11 1 (0.14%) Fiddler
11 1 (0.14%) Postman
11 1 (0.14%) TeamCity
General
1 177 (24.08%) Social Skills
2 137 (18.64%) Finance
3 79 (10.75%) Public Sector
4 74 (10.07%) Analytical Skills
5 71 (9.66%) Banking
6 70 (9.52%) Telecoms
7 36 (4.90%) Documentation Skills
8 34 (4.63%) Manufacturing
9 27 (3.67%) Marketing
10 25 (3.40%) Electronics
11 22 (2.99%) Presentation Skills
12 20 (2.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 15 (2.04%) Influencing Skills
13 15 (2.04%) Organisational Skills
14 9 (1.22%) Retail
15 7 (0.95%) Investment Banking
15 7 (0.95%) Legal
15 7 (0.95%) Local Government
16 6 (0.82%) Front Office
16 6 (0.82%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 116 (15.78%) Network Engineer
2 109 (14.83%) Architect
3 73 (9.93%) Analyst
4 56 (7.62%) Project Manager
5 42 (5.71%) Senior
6 34 (4.63%) Network Architect
7 33 (4.49%) Consultant
7 33 (4.49%) Data Centre Manager
7 33 (4.49%) IT Support
8 32 (4.35%) Security Engineer
8 32 (4.35%) Support Engineer
9 31 (4.22%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 28 (3.81%) Infrastructure Manager
11 27 (3.67%) Data Centre Engineer
12 25 (3.40%) Business Analyst
12 25 (3.40%) Cisco Engineer
12 25 (3.40%) Desktop Support
13 24 (3.27%) Lead
13 24 (3.27%) Solutions Architect
14 23 (3.13%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (2.99%) 802.1X
2 19 (2.59%) Middleware
3 18 (2.45%) RFC 2544
4 5 (0.68%) Spark Streaming
5 4 (0.54%) Jinja
6 3 (0.41%) LDAP
6 3 (0.41%) REST
7 2 (0.27%) ARM Templates
7 2 (0.27%) eBPF
7 2 (0.27%) EJB
7 2 (0.27%) Java SE
7 2 (0.27%) ModSecurity
7 2 (0.27%) NETCONF
7 2 (0.27%) OpenConfig
7 2 (0.27%) OpenLayers
7 2 (0.27%) RESTCONF
7 2 (0.27%) Spring
7 2 (0.27%) VML
7 2 (0.27%) YANG
8 1 (0.14%) ONNX
Miscellaneous
1 41 (5.58%) Hybrid Cloud
2 29 (3.95%) Cloud Native
3 25 (3.40%) Public Cloud
4 22 (2.99%) Driving Licence
5 21 (2.86%) Replication
6 20 (2.72%) Onboarding
7 19 (2.59%) Fibre Optics
8 18 (2.45%) Private Cloud
9 14 (1.90%) Mainframe
9 14 (1.90%) Self-Motivation
10 12 (1.63%) SCADA
11 11 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
11 11 (1.50%) PKI
12 9 (1.22%) Clustering
12 9 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
12 9 (1.22%) Management Information System
12 9 (1.22%) Product Ownership
13 8 (1.09%) CMDB
14 7 (0.95%) Analytical Mindset
14 7 (0.95%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 96 (13.06%) Windows
2 67 (9.12%) Linux
3 47 (6.39%) Android
4 45 (6.12%) Mac OS
5 40 (5.44%) Windows Server
6 18 (2.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 17 (2.31%) Unix
8 7 (0.95%) CentOS
9 6 (0.82%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.68%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.54%) Apple iOS
11 4 (0.54%) Solaris
11 4 (0.54%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.41%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.27%) AIX
13 2 (0.27%) VMS
13 2 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.27%) zOS
14 1 (0.14%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 137 (18.64%) Migration
2 90 (12.24%) Problem-Solving
3 81 (11.02%) Stakeholder Management
4 71 (9.66%) Agile
5 59 (8.03%) ITIL
6 51 (6.94%) Infrastructure as Code
6 51 (6.94%) Service Management
7 50 (6.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 48 (6.53%) CI/CD
9 47 (6.39%) Change Management
9 47 (6.39%) Customer Service
9 47 (6.39%) Network Design
9 47 (6.39%) Roadmaps
10 44 (5.99%) DevOps
10 44 (5.99%) Project Delivery
11 43 (5.85%) Load Balancing
11 43 (5.85%) Project Management
12 42 (5.71%) Business Intelligence
12 42 (5.71%) High Availability
13 41 (5.58%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 78 (10.61%) Python
2 47 (6.39%) PowerShell
3 38 (5.17%) SQL
4 19 (2.59%) Bash
4 19 (2.59%) Java
5 10 (1.36%) Perl
6 9 (1.22%) Shell Script
7 8 (1.09%) Lisp
8 7 (0.95%) Go
9 4 (0.54%) C
10 3 (0.41%) Bicep
10 3 (0.41%) JCL
10 3 (0.41%) Korn
10 3 (0.41%) VBA
11 2 (0.27%) AWK
11 2 (0.27%) C#
11 2 (0.27%) JavaScript
11 2 (0.27%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.27%) Ruby
11 2 (0.27%) sed
Qualifications
1 220 (29.93%) Security Cleared
2 184 (25.03%) SC Cleared
3 89 (12.11%) Cisco Certification
4 60 (8.16%) CCNP
5 57 (7.76%) Degree
6 45 (6.12%) DV Cleared
7 28 (3.81%) CCIE
8 25 (3.40%) CCNA
9 19 (2.59%) AWS Certification
10 14 (1.90%) CISSP
11 13 (1.77%) JNCIE
12 11 (1.50%) PMP
13 10 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
13 10 (1.36%) PMI Certification
14 9 (1.22%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 8 (1.09%) BPSS Clearance
16 7 (0.95%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 7 (0.95%) Azure Certification
16 7 (0.95%) CCSP
17 6 (0.82%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (2.86%) NIST
2 20 (2.72%) PCI DSS
2 20 (2.72%) SLA
3 19 (2.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 19 (2.59%) PMO
4 14 (1.90%) GDPR
5 13 (1.77%) QA
6 11 (1.50%) Data Quality
7 5 (0.68%) NCSC
8 3 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.27%) GRC
9 2 (0.27%) ISO 22301
9 2 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 2 (0.27%) 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 74 (10.07%) VMware Infrastructure
2 59 (8.03%) Active Directory
3 38 (5.17%) VMware NSX
4 26 (3.54%) Docker
5 17 (2.31%) Hyper-V
6 15 (2.04%) vSphere
7 14 (1.90%) Virtual Machines
8 8 (1.09%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.95%) Firmware
10 5 (0.68%) HDFS
11 4 (0.54%) KVM
11 4 (0.54%) NFS
12 3 (0.41%) GPFS
13 2 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.27%) Virtual Desktop
14 1 (0.14%) Lustre
14 1 (0.14%) Samba
14 1 (0.14%) Veritas Cluster Server
14 1 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.14%) Xen
Systems Management
1 70 (9.52%) Ansible
2 65 (8.84%) Terraform
3 31 (4.22%) FortiGate
4 27 (3.67%) SCCM
5 23 (3.13%) Kubernetes
6 14 (1.90%) Microsoft Intune
7 12 (1.63%) Grafana
8 10 (1.36%) vCenter Server
9 9 (1.22%) Puppet
9 9 (1.22%) SCOM
10 8 (1.09%) Control-M
10 8 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (0.95%) CASB
12 6 (0.82%) SCOrch
13 5 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 5 (0.68%) Hadoop YARN
13 5 (0.68%) Prometheus
14 4 (0.54%) Argo
15 3 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
15 3 (0.41%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 244 (33.20%) Cisco
2 104 (14.15%) Microsoft
3 94 (12.79%) VMware
4 64 (8.71%) Dell
4 64 (8.71%) F5
5 63 (8.57%) Palo Alto
6 54 (7.35%) HP
7 52 (7.07%) Juniper
8 44 (5.99%) Apple
9 39 (5.31%) ServiceNow
10 37 (5.03%) SAP
11 34 (4.63%) Fortinet
12 33 (4.49%) Oracle
13 32 (4.35%) Meraki
14 23 (3.13%) CheckPoint
15 22 (2.99%) SolarWinds
16 21 (2.86%) Arista
17 18 (2.45%) Citrix
18 16 (2.18%) Remedy
19 15 (2.04%) NetApp