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

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 100 129 103
Rank change year-on-year +29 -26 -10
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,121 642 910
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.33% 2.20% 2.14%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 7.28% 6.51% 7.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 697 420 615
10th Percentile £318 £350 £299
25th Percentile £406 £413 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £511 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.13% -2.62% -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £725 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £469 £475 £536
% change year-on-year -1.26% -11.42% +7.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 22 44
10th Percentile £16.00 £24.18 £14.33
25th Percentile £16.01 £24.66 £20.51
Median hourly rate £19.34 £27.50 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year -29.67% +14.58% +10.75%
75th Percentile £33.75 £41.25 £40.00
90th Percentile £74.11 £43.75 £41.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.34 £24.66 £23.25
% change year-on-year -21.57% +6.06% +9.36%

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 15,398 9,868 12,916
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.06% 33.87% 30.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,556 6,300 8,320
10th Percentile £313 £300 £269
25th Percentile £413 £411 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £509 £525 £543
Median % change year-on-year -3.05% -3.23% -1.36%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £670
90th Percentile £739 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +0.26% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 731 391 893
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.75 £12.25
25th Percentile £19.93 £20.64 £15.17
Median hourly rate £42.50 £31.76 £31.25
Median % change year-on-year +33.82% +1.63% +38.98%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £87.50 £83.20 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £30.39 £28.50
% change year-on-year +56.43% +6.63% +29.55%

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 May 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 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Centre in the UK

Data Centre
Top 17 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 May 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 +17 910 £485 -7.62% 461
UK excluding London +9 637 £469 -1.26% 292
London +11 316 £550 +4.27% 202
Work from Home +36 293 £475 -8.21% 152
North of England +21 209 £464 +9.12% 81
South East 0 197 £463 +2.78% 90
Yorkshire -6 97 £365 -14.12% 27
North West +16 92 £481 -3.75% 40
Scotland +6 56 £469 +10.35% 19
Midlands -57 53 £460 -16.36% 35
South West -37 51 £495 -9.84% 31
West Midlands -54 47 £465 -15.45% 27
East of England -8 42 £487 +94.90% 32
Wales +3 35 £468 +16.88% 5
North East 0 22 £400 +263.64% 14
East Midlands -25 5 £400 -27.27% 8
Northern Ireland - 3 £425 - 6

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 22 (1.96%) Confluence
2 13 (1.16%) SharePoint
3 11 (0.98%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.89%) CICS
5 5 (0.45%) nginx
6 4 (0.36%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.36%) WebLogic
7 3 (0.27%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.18%) Apache
8 2 (0.18%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.18%) CloudStack
9 1 (0.089%) Mendix
Applications
1 18 (1.61%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (1.34%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.98%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.27%) Adobe Illustrator
5 3 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.18%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.18%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 3 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
1 3 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
2 2 (0.18%) DELMIA
2 2 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 2 (0.18%) Primavera
3 1 (0.089%) Maximo
3 1 (0.089%) Oracle Financials
3 1 (0.089%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 219 (19.54%) Azure
2 181 (16.15%) AWS
3 68 (6.07%) GCP
4 34 (3.03%) Microsoft 365
5 23 (2.05%) SaaS
6 21 (1.87%) Entra ID
6 21 (1.87%) GitHub
7 20 (1.78%) IaaS
7 20 (1.78%) OCI
8 17 (1.52%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 15 (1.34%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 13 (1.16%) OpenShift
10 13 (1.16%) PaaS
11 12 (1.07%) Power Platform
12 11 (0.98%) Azure DevOps
13 10 (0.89%) Azure Sentinel
14 9 (0.80%) Amazon GuardDuty
14 9 (0.80%) AWS Direct Connect
14 9 (0.80%) GitHub Actions
14 9 (0.80%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 312 (27.83%) Firewall
2 194 (17.31%) WAN
3 173 (15.43%) BGP
4 140 (12.49%) OSPF
5 120 (10.70%) Network Security
6 117 (10.44%) LAN
6 117 (10.44%) VPN
7 108 (9.63%) SAN
8 105 (9.37%) VXLAN
9 91 (8.12%) Structured Cabling
10 83 (7.40%) VLAN
11 82 (7.31%) DNS
12 74 (6.60%) Ethernet VPN
13 65 (5.80%) SD-WAN
14 64 (5.71%) DHCP
15 53 (4.73%) Cisco Nexus
16 51 (4.55%) Wi-Fi
17 41 (3.66%) BIG-IP
17 41 (3.66%) NX-OS
18 37 (3.30%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (1.07%) SQL Server
2 10 (0.89%) DataStage
3 7 (0.62%) Power BI
4 6 (0.54%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (0.45%) Relational Database
6 4 (0.36%) Big Data
6 4 (0.36%) MongoDB
6 4 (0.36%) Oracle Database
6 4 (0.36%) SAP Data Services
7 3 (0.27%) GIS
7 3 (0.27%) Oracle Reports
7 3 (0.27%) Power Query
7 3 (0.27%) PowerPivot
8 2 (0.18%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.18%) Data Lake
8 2 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.18%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.18%) InfluxDB
8 2 (0.18%) Oracle Database 12c
9 1 (0.089%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 45 (4.01%) JIRA
2 36 (3.21%) Git
3 33 (2.94%) GitLab
4 27 (2.41%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.71%) Sonatype Nexus
6 7 (0.62%) Maven
7 6 (0.54%) ScriptRunner
8 5 (0.45%) JMeter
9 4 (0.36%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 4 (0.36%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.36%) Subversion
10 3 (0.27%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.27%) Zephyr
11 1 (0.089%) AppScan
11 1 (0.089%) Burp Suite
11 1 (0.089%) LoadRunner
11 1 (0.089%) Metasploit
11 1 (0.089%) Postman
General
1 276 (24.62%) Social Skills
2 150 (13.38%) Finance
3 132 (11.78%) Analytical Skills
4 82 (7.31%) Public Sector
5 62 (5.53%) Documentation Skills
6 45 (4.01%) Banking
7 32 (2.85%) Legal
8 28 (2.50%) Telecoms
9 25 (2.23%) Manufacturing
10 23 (2.05%) Retail
11 22 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
12 12 (1.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 10 (0.89%) Military
13 10 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
14 9 (0.80%) Law
15 8 (0.71%) Aerospace
15 8 (0.71%) Financial Institution
15 8 (0.71%) Marketing
16 6 (0.54%) Organisational Skills
17 5 (0.45%) Portuguese Language
Job Titles
1 201 (17.93%) Network Engineer
2 181 (16.15%) Architect
3 123 (10.97%) Senior
4 83 (7.40%) Data Centre Engineer
5 73 (6.51%) Project Manager
6 65 (5.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 59 (5.26%) IT Engineer
8 56 (5.00%) Field Engineer
9 54 (4.82%) Lead
10 53 (4.73%) Field Service Engineer
11 52 (4.64%) Network Architect
12 45 (4.01%) Data Centre Manager
13 42 (3.75%) Solutions Architect
14 39 (3.48%) Analyst
15 38 (3.39%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
16 35 (3.12%) Senior Network Engineer
17 33 (2.94%) Infrastructure Manager
17 33 (2.94%) Technical Architect
18 32 (2.85%) Administrator
18 32 (2.85%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (4.10%) Middleware
2 32 (2.85%) 802.1X
3 13 (1.16%) LDAP
4 8 (0.71%) Elastic Stack
4 8 (0.71%) Redfish
5 7 (0.62%) Spring
6 5 (0.45%) Jinja
6 5 (0.45%) REST
6 5 (0.45%) XML
7 4 (0.36%) ADO
7 4 (0.36%) Kafka
7 4 (0.36%) NETCONF
7 4 (0.36%) Spring Boot
7 4 (0.36%) VML
8 3 (0.27%) OpenConfig
8 3 (0.27%) OpenLayers
8 3 (0.27%) RESTCONF
8 3 (0.27%) RFC 2544
8 3 (0.27%) YANG
8 3 (0.27%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 60 (5.35%) Analytical Mindset
2 59 (5.26%) Hybrid Cloud
3 33 (2.94%) Management Information System
4 28 (2.50%) Clustering
4 28 (2.50%) PKI
5 25 (2.23%) Fibre Optics
6 24 (2.14%) Cloud Native
7 21 (1.87%) SCADA
8 20 (1.78%) CMDB
8 20 (1.78%) Public Cloud
9 19 (1.69%) Driving Licence
9 19 (1.69%) Enterprise Storage
9 19 (1.69%) Onboarding
9 19 (1.69%) Replication
10 17 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
11 16 (1.43%) Private Cloud
12 14 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
12 14 (1.25%) NHS
13 13 (1.16%) Operational Technology
14 12 (1.07%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 144 (12.85%) Linux
2 142 (12.67%) Windows
3 40 (3.57%) Windows Server
4 38 (3.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (2.05%) Unix
6 21 (1.87%) AIX
7 17 (1.52%) Solaris
8 12 (1.07%) CentOS
9 9 (0.80%) Windows Server 2019
10 7 (0.62%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.62%) VMS
11 5 (0.45%) Mac OS
12 4 (0.36%) Apple iOS
12 4 (0.36%) HPUX
12 4 (0.36%) Oracle Linux
12 4 (0.36%) SUSE
13 3 (0.27%) Embedded Linux
13 3 (0.27%) Windows Server 2008
13 3 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 206 (18.38%) Problem-Solving
2 190 (16.95%) Migration
3 105 (9.37%) High Availability
4 101 (9.01%) Stakeholder Management
5 98 (8.74%) ITIL
6 97 (8.65%) Infrastructure as Code
7 93 (8.30%) Roadmaps
8 89 (7.94%) Continuous Improvement
9 83 (7.40%) CI/CD
10 81 (7.23%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 79 (7.05%) Load Balancing
12 75 (6.69%) Validation
13 72 (6.42%) Change Management
14 71 (6.33%) Project Management
15 68 (6.07%) Project Delivery
16 67 (5.98%) Customer Service
17 65 (5.80%) Break/Fix
17 65 (5.80%) DevOps
18 62 (5.53%) Agile
18 62 (5.53%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 118 (10.53%) Python
2 39 (3.48%) PowerShell
3 37 (3.30%) SQL
4 25 (2.23%) Bash
5 23 (2.05%) Java
6 16 (1.43%) Shell Script
7 12 (1.07%) COBOL
8 11 (0.98%) MATLAB
9 10 (0.89%) Perl
10 9 (0.80%) Bicep
11 7 (0.62%) PL/SQL
12 5 (0.45%) C
12 5 (0.45%) C++
12 5 (0.45%) JavaScript
13 4 (0.36%) VBA
14 2 (0.18%) Groovy
14 2 (0.18%) Korn
14 2 (0.18%) Lisp
15 1 (0.089%) Ruby
15 1 (0.089%) Scala
Qualifications
1 314 (28.01%) Security Cleared
2 237 (21.14%) Cisco Certification
2 237 (21.14%) SC Cleared
3 144 (12.85%) CCNP
4 108 (9.63%) CCNA
5 66 (5.89%) Degree
6 64 (5.71%) DV Cleared
6 64 (5.71%) Network+ Certification
7 54 (4.82%) Microsoft Certification
8 51 (4.55%) A+ Certification
8 51 (4.55%) MCSE
9 26 (2.32%) CCIE
10 24 (2.14%) Azure Certification
11 23 (2.05%) City & Guilds
11 23 (2.05%) PMP
12 22 (1.96%) PMI Certification
13 20 (1.78%) AWS Certification
13 20 (1.78%) BICSI Certification
14 16 (1.43%) JNCIS
14 16 (1.43%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (2.77%) SLA
2 24 (2.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 24 (2.14%) PMO
2 24 (2.14%) QA
3 22 (1.96%) NIST
4 18 (1.61%) GDPR
5 11 (0.98%) NCSC
6 9 (0.80%) Disclosure Scotland
6 9 (0.80%) PCI DSS
7 8 (0.71%) GRC
8 6 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
9 4 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
9 4 (0.36%) RMADS
10 3 (0.27%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.18%) Data Quality
11 2 (0.18%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.089%) COBIT
12 1 (0.089%) JSP 440
12 1 (0.089%) NEBOSH
System Software
1 95 (8.47%) VMware Infrastructure
2 60 (5.35%) Active Directory
3 41 (3.66%) VMware NSX
4 31 (2.77%) Firmware
4 31 (2.77%) vSphere
5 25 (2.23%) VMware ESXi
6 24 (2.14%) Virtual Machines
7 20 (1.78%) Hyper-V
8 14 (1.25%) Docker
9 10 (0.89%) KVM
10 6 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.36%) SRDF
11 4 (0.36%) VMware Workstation
12 3 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.27%) NFS
12 3 (0.27%) PowerHA
12 3 (0.27%) UAG
12 3 (0.27%) Veritas Cluster Server
12 3 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.18%) Ceph
Systems Management
1 123 (10.97%) Ansible
2 94 (8.39%) Terraform
3 59 (5.26%) FortiGate
4 44 (3.93%) Kubernetes
5 35 (3.12%) Grafana
6 27 (2.41%) Prometheus
7 17 (1.52%) Microsoft Intune
8 14 (1.25%) Check_MK
9 12 (1.07%) NetBackup
9 12 (1.07%) SCCM
10 11 (0.98%) Podman
10 11 (0.98%) Red Hat Satellite
10 11 (0.98%) vCenter Server
11 9 (0.80%) PowerCLI
12 8 (0.71%) Dell DRAC
12 8 (0.71%) vMotion
13 7 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.54%) EMC NetWorker
15 5 (0.45%) Avamar
15 5 (0.45%) Endace
Vendors
1 303 (27.03%) Cisco
2 144 (12.85%) VMware
3 141 (12.58%) Palo Alto
4 102 (9.10%) Microsoft
5 99 (8.83%) F5
6 95 (8.47%) Dell
7 86 (7.67%) Juniper
8 61 (5.44%) Arista
9 54 (4.82%) Fortinet
10 53 (4.73%) Aruba
11 48 (4.28%) CheckPoint
12 47 (4.19%) ServiceNow
13 40 (3.57%) SolarWinds
14 38 (3.39%) Google
15 37 (3.30%) Red Hat
16 33 (2.94%) IBM
17 30 (2.68%) Splunk
18 29 (2.59%) Meraki
18 29 (2.59%) Oracle
19 26 (2.32%) NVIDIA