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 16 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 121 130 114
Rank change year-on-year +9 -16 -24
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,188 720 794
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.19% 2.19% 2.08%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.45% 6.15% 6.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 718 453 492
10th Percentile £318 £295 £363
25th Percentile £411 £388 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £515 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.19% -4.19% -0.46%
75th Percentile £650 £600 £619
90th Percentile £741 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £487 £538
% change year-on-year +2.62% -9.35% +7.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 42 40
10th Percentile £16.01 £20.25 £11.75
25th Percentile £17.69 £25.07 £12.08
Median hourly rate £29.00 £25.15 £20.80
Median % change year-on-year +15.31% +20.94% -9.59%
75th Percentile £45.06 £34.00 £25.50
90th Percentile £78.75 £43.75 £28.99
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.34 £25.08 £18.00
% change year-on-year -22.87% +39.31% -16.28%

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 18,410 11,706 11,640
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.92% 35.54% 30.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,035 7,155 7,137
10th Percentile £322 £299 £294
25th Percentile £425 £406 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £540
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -4.63% -1.82%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £750 £756 £802
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,169 586 477
10th Percentile £14.06 £15.13 £14.41
25th Percentile £17.97 £18.87 £21.25
Median hourly rate £37.50 £30.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% -40.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £68.75 £55.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £30.05 £57.35
% change year-on-year +28.84% -47.60% +17.04%

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 16 September 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 16 September 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 16 September 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 +6 997 £525 - 2,187
UK excluding London -21 621 £500 +2.62% 835
London +14 416 £550 +2.09% 1,393
Work from Home -3 280 £522 +2.35% 563
North of England +3 221 £500 +5.26% 169
South East -13 168 £540 +20.00% 232
Yorkshire -1 132 £480 +6.67% 53
North West -14 72 £525 -2.78% 79
South West -28 64 £600 +9.09% 81
Midlands -66 52 £438 -12.50% 109
Scotland -15 49 £375 -11.76% 73
West Midlands -69 41 £474 -4.44% 80
East of England -9 38 £474 -21.08% 134
Wales +8 36 £468 +55.83% 26
North East -17 23 £625 - 37
East Midlands -17 10 £413 -21.43% 29
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 19
Channel Islands - 1 £575 - 2

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 32 (2.69%) Confluence
2 19 (1.60%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.59%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.42%) Apache
5 5 (0.42%) CloudStack
6 4 (0.34%) IIS
7 3 (0.25%) CICS
8 1 (0.084%) nginx
8 1 (0.084%) SAS
8 1 (0.084%) Tomcat
Applications
1 25 (2.10%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (1.60%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.93%) Microsoft Project
4 8 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.59%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.42%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.17%) EPLAN
7 2 (0.17%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.17%) Revit
Business Applications
1 13 (1.09%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.17%) OpenText MBPM
2 2 (0.17%) Oracle BPM
3 1 (0.084%) Cloudability
3 1 (0.084%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 248 (20.88%) Azure
2 211 (17.76%) AWS
3 55 (4.63%) GitHub
4 54 (4.55%) GCP
5 44 (3.70%) IaaS
5 44 (3.70%) Microsoft 365
6 37 (3.11%) SaaS
7 30 (2.53%) Entra ID
8 29 (2.44%) OCI
9 18 (1.52%) PaaS
10 17 (1.43%) Azure DevOps
11 16 (1.35%) Power Platform
12 15 (1.26%) OneDrive
13 14 (1.18%) OpenShift
14 12 (1.01%) Azure ExpressRoute
15 11 (0.93%) Nutanix
16 10 (0.84%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 7 (0.59%) Azure Sentinel
18 6 (0.51%) Azure Monitor
18 6 (0.51%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 291 (24.49%) Firewall
2 183 (15.40%) WAN
3 174 (14.65%) BGP
4 124 (10.44%) DNS
5 123 (10.35%) VPN
6 115 (9.68%) VXLAN
7 114 (9.60%) Network Security
8 111 (9.34%) OSPF
9 108 (9.09%) VLAN
10 106 (8.92%) LAN
11 97 (8.16%) SAN
12 84 (7.07%) DHCP
12 84 (7.07%) TCP/IP
13 82 (6.90%) Ethernet VPN
14 77 (6.48%) SD-WAN
15 74 (6.23%) Structured Cabling
16 63 (5.30%) Wireless
17 59 (4.97%) Wi-Fi
18 54 (4.55%) Cisco Nexus
19 53 (4.46%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (3.11%) SQL Server
2 15 (1.26%) Power BI
3 11 (0.93%) 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 (0.51%) Db2
6 6 (0.51%) Elasticsearch
7 4 (0.34%) Azure SQL Database
7 4 (0.34%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (0.34%) Oracle Database 12c
7 4 (0.34%) Oracle Reports
8 3 (0.25%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.25%) Big Data
8 3 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (0.25%) PostgreSQL
9 2 (0.17%) DataStage
9 2 (0.17%) Metadata
9 2 (0.17%) Sybase ASE
9 2 (0.17%) Sybase IQ
Development Applications
1 80 (6.73%) JIRA
2 36 (3.03%) GitLab
3 35 (2.95%) Jenkins
4 24 (2.02%) Git
5 7 (0.59%) 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
General
1 289 (24.33%) Social Skills
2 162 (13.64%) Finance
3 102 (8.59%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (5.05%) Banking
5 56 (4.71%) Public Sector
6 49 (4.12%) Documentation Skills
6 49 (4.12%) Telecoms
7 26 (2.19%) Retail
8 25 (2.10%) Legal
9 18 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
9 18 (1.52%) Manufacturing
10 14 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 14 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
11 8 (0.67%) Police
12 6 (0.51%) Financial Institution
12 6 (0.51%) Investment Banking
12 6 (0.51%) Law
13 5 (0.42%) Cyber-Physical System
13 5 (0.42%) Marketing
14 3 (0.25%) Military
Job Titles
1 203 (17.09%) Network Engineer
2 190 (15.99%) Architect
3 160 (13.47%) Senior
4 113 (9.51%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 88 (7.41%) Data Centre Engineer
6 75 (6.31%) Project Manager
7 64 (5.39%) Lead
7 64 (5.39%) Network Architect
8 50 (4.21%) IT Engineer
9 48 (4.04%) Consultant
10 45 (3.79%) Senior Network Engineer
11 40 (3.37%) Data Centre Manager
12 37 (3.11%) Technical Architect
13 36 (3.03%) Field Engineer
14 34 (2.86%) Infrastructure Manager
14 34 (2.86%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
15 32 (2.69%) Support Engineer
16 30 (2.53%) Field Service Engineer
16 30 (2.53%) Solutions Architect
17 28 (2.36%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (9.34%) Terraform
2 39 (3.28%) Middleware
3 27 (2.27%) REST
4 16 (1.35%) 802.1X
5 14 (1.18%) YAML
6 12 (1.01%) JSON
7 9 (0.76%) .NET
8 8 (0.67%) LDAP
9 7 (0.59%) NETCONF
10 6 (0.51%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (0.51%) Redfish
10 6 (0.51%) SAML
11 5 (0.42%) Kafka
11 5 (0.42%) OpenConfig
11 5 (0.42%) RESTCONF
11 5 (0.42%) YANG
12 4 (0.34%) GeoJSON
12 4 (0.34%) RESTful
13 3 (0.25%) .NET Framework
13 3 (0.25%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 79 (6.65%) Hybrid Cloud
2 38 (3.20%) Public Cloud
3 37 (3.11%) Analytical Mindset
4 36 (3.03%) Private Cloud
5 32 (2.69%) Cloud Native
5 32 (2.69%) PKI
6 31 (2.61%) Management Information System
7 30 (2.53%) Fibre Optics
7 30 (2.53%) Replication
8 28 (2.36%) Enterprise Storage
9 26 (2.19%) Clustering
9 26 (2.19%) Data Protection Act
9 26 (2.19%) Onboarding
10 24 (2.02%) Operational Technology
11 19 (1.60%) SCADA
12 17 (1.43%) Self-Motivation
13 16 (1.35%) CMDB
13 16 (1.35%) Driving Licence
14 15 (1.26%) Distributed Systems
15 13 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 190 (15.99%) Windows
2 133 (11.20%) Linux
3 63 (5.30%) Windows Server
4 33 (2.78%) Unix
5 21 (1.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (1.35%) AIX
7 13 (1.09%) Mac OS
8 10 (0.84%) Apple iOS
8 10 (0.84%) Solaris
8 10 (0.84%) VMS
9 8 (0.67%) Windows 10
10 7 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
11 6 (0.51%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.42%) HPUX
12 5 (0.42%) Oracle Linux
12 5 (0.42%) SUSE
12 5 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.34%) CentOS
13 4 (0.34%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 249 (20.96%) Migration
2 182 (15.32%) Problem-Solving
3 152 (12.79%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 151 (12.71%) Stakeholder Management
5 119 (10.02%) Infrastructure as Code
6 113 (9.51%) ITIL
7 102 (8.59%) Agile
7 102 (8.59%) High Availability
8 100 (8.42%) CI/CD
9 90 (7.58%) Project Delivery
10 88 (7.41%) Validation
11 87 (7.32%) Roadmaps
12 78 (6.57%) Disaster Recovery
13 77 (6.48%) Zero Trust
14 76 (6.40%) Continuous Improvement
15 72 (6.06%) Change Management
16 71 (5.98%) ITSM
17 70 (5.89%) Technical Leadership
18 69 (5.81%) DevOps
19 68 (5.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 160 (13.47%) Python
2 67 (5.64%) PowerShell
3 46 (3.87%) SQL
4 32 (2.69%) Bash
5 16 (1.35%) ActionScript
6 10 (0.84%) Bicep
7 9 (0.76%) C#
7 9 (0.76%) Shell Script
8 8 (0.67%) Perl
9 7 (0.59%) PL/SQL
10 5 (0.42%) T-SQL
11 4 (0.34%) Go
11 4 (0.34%) Java
11 4 (0.34%) JavaScript
11 4 (0.34%) MATLAB
12 3 (0.25%) COBOL
12 3 (0.25%) JCL
12 3 (0.25%) Lisp
12 3 (0.25%) TypeScript
13 2 (0.17%) Korn
Qualifications
1 304 (25.59%) Security Cleared
2 208 (17.51%) SC Cleared
3 176 (14.81%) Cisco Certification
4 106 (8.92%) CCNP
5 95 (8.00%) DV Cleared
6 68 (5.72%) CCNA
7 59 (4.97%) Degree
8 40 (3.37%) Network+ Certification
9 38 (3.20%) Microsoft Certification
10 36 (3.03%) A+ Certification
11 31 (2.61%) AWS Certification
12 30 (2.53%) MCSE
13 28 (2.36%) CCIE
14 25 (2.10%) Azure Certification
14 25 (2.10%) CISSP
14 25 (2.10%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 24 (2.02%) City & Guilds
16 22 (1.85%) PMP
17 21 (1.77%) PMI Certification
18 20 (1.68%) BICSI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (2.95%) QA
2 27 (2.27%) SLA
3 26 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 22 (1.85%) NIST
5 16 (1.35%) PMO
6 11 (0.93%) GDPR
7 10 (0.84%) GRC
8 9 (0.76%) JSP 440
8 9 (0.76%) NCSC
9 6 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
10 5 (0.42%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.34%) NIST 800
11 4 (0.34%) RMADS
12 3 (0.25%) Data Quality
12 3 (0.25%) ISO 31000
12 3 (0.25%) ISO 9001
12 3 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 2 (0.17%) HIPAA
13 2 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 2 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 143 (12.04%) VMware Infrastructure
2 92 (7.74%) Active Directory
3 50 (4.21%) vSphere
4 45 (3.79%) VMware NSX
5 38 (3.20%) Hyper-V
6 37 (3.11%) VMware ESXi
7 30 (2.53%) Docker
8 25 (2.10%) Firmware
9 14 (1.18%) Virtual Machines
10 12 (1.01%) NFS
11 6 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
11 6 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.42%) Microsoft App-V
13 4 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
13 4 (0.34%) PowerHA
13 4 (0.34%) SRDF
13 4 (0.34%) Veritas Cluster Server
14 3 (0.25%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 3 (0.25%) ISA Server
14 3 (0.25%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 145 (12.21%) Ansible
2 51 (4.29%) Kubernetes
3 33 (2.78%) FortiGate
4 19 (1.60%) Microsoft Intune
4 19 (1.60%) Prometheus
5 17 (1.43%) vCenter Server
6 16 (1.35%) Grafana
7 15 (1.26%) VxRail
8 14 (1.18%) SCCM
9 12 (1.01%) Microsoft Clustering
9 12 (1.01%) PowerCLI
10 11 (0.93%) NetBackup
10 11 (0.93%) SCOM
10 11 (0.93%) vMotion
11 10 (0.84%) Jamf Pro
12 9 (0.76%) Dell DRAC
12 9 (0.76%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 8 (0.67%) Nagios
14 7 (0.59%) Check_MK
15 5 (0.42%) Cisco Prime
Vendors
1 298 (25.08%) Cisco
2 196 (16.50%) VMware
3 146 (12.29%) Microsoft
4 128 (10.77%) Palo Alto
5 112 (9.43%) F5
6 70 (5.89%) Arista
7 69 (5.81%) Dell
7 69 (5.81%) Fortinet
8 67 (5.64%) ServiceNow
9 63 (5.30%) Juniper
10 41 (3.45%) Aruba
11 38 (3.20%) CheckPoint
12 33 (2.78%) Red Hat
13 30 (2.53%) Veeam
14 28 (2.36%) Oracle
15 26 (2.19%) Google
16 25 (2.10%) IBM
17 24 (2.02%) Zscaler
18 22 (1.85%) Commvault
18 22 (1.85%) SolarWinds