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 5 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Dec 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 138 122 94
Rank change year-on-year -16 -28 +10
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 751 750 1,099
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.06% 2.08% 2.44%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.81% 6.58% 7.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 474 446 741
10th Percentile £258 £361 £331
25th Percentile £388 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% +2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £609 £650
90th Percentile £704 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -10.00% - +7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 36 24
10th Percentile £20.25 £11.85 £17.98
25th Percentile - £12.08 £21.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £24.17 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.08% +5.07% -63.49%
75th Percentile £31.00 £25.50 £68.75
90th Percentile £67.25 £30.19 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £23.51 £23.00
% change year-on-year +6.96% +2.23% -55.51%

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 12,931 11,393 14,235
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 35.43% 31.54% 31.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,047 6,740 9,522
10th Percentile £275 £281 £270
25th Percentile £406 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £628 £663 £670
90th Percentile £738 £788 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 658 371 494
10th Percentile £13.50 £16.85 £16.72
25th Percentile £18.22 £22.50 £20.50
Median hourly rate £26.89 £34.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.06% -18.82% +21.43%
75th Percentile £56.19 £65.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.16 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.75 £32.50 £45.21
% change year-on-year -17.69% -28.11% +53.25%

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 5 December 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 5 December 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 5 December 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 -19 660 £506 -3.62% 516
UK excluding London -15 411 £473 -10.00% 449
London -2 269 £525 - 130
Work from Home +8 192 £525 -4.11% 191
North of England -8 143 £490 -2.10% 79
Midlands +6 95 £437 -24.66% 67
North West +14 82 £543 +8.50% 40
South East -37 74 £447 -10.60% 175
West Midlands 0 71 £465 -19.83% 43
Yorkshire -19 56 £405 -3.57% 31
Scotland +6 33 £438 -2.78% 17
South West -38 33 £550 +0.36% 48
East of England -19 30 £600 +45.90% 55
East Midlands +1 24 £377 -29.00% 21
Wales +4 16 £276 -19.34% 15
North East -3 8 £175 - 8

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 (3.99%) SharePoint
2 22 (2.93%) Microsoft Exchange
3 19 (2.53%) Confluence
4 11 (1.46%) OpenStack
5 6 (0.80%) Apache
5 6 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.67%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.53%) HCL Notes
8 3 (0.40%) CICS
8 3 (0.40%) GeoServer
8 3 (0.40%) Smallworld
8 3 (0.40%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.27%) FileNet
9 2 (0.27%) nginx
9 2 (0.27%) Oracle Coherence
9 2 (0.27%) ThingWorx
9 2 (0.27%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.13%) IIS
10 1 (0.13%) OpenEdge
10 1 (0.13%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 59 (7.86%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (4.53%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (3.33%) MS Visio
4 19 (2.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (2.00%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.13%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.80%) Payment Gateway
1 6 (0.80%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.53%) Oracle Financials
3 2 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.13%) Epicor iScala
4 1 (0.13%) Maximo
4 1 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.13%) Primavera
4 1 (0.13%) StreamServe
Cloud Services
1 131 (17.44%) Azure
2 106 (14.11%) AWS
3 70 (9.32%) Microsoft 365
4 41 (5.46%) GCP
5 23 (3.06%) Power Platform
6 21 (2.80%) Entra ID
7 17 (2.26%) OpenShift
8 15 (2.00%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 13 (1.73%) SaaS
10 12 (1.60%) IaaS
10 12 (1.60%) PaaS
10 12 (1.60%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 11 (1.46%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 7 (0.93%) AWS Direct Connect
12 7 (0.93%) npm
12 7 (0.93%) OCI
13 6 (0.80%) Akamai
13 6 (0.80%) GitHub
13 6 (0.80%) Nutanix
14 5 (0.67%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 205 (27.30%) Firewall
2 129 (17.18%) WAN
3 104 (13.85%) Wireless
4 77 (10.25%) BGP
5 68 (9.05%) VPN
6 62 (8.26%) DNS
7 61 (8.12%) LAN
8 53 (7.06%) OSPF
9 51 (6.79%) Wi-Fi
10 45 (5.99%) SD-WAN
11 44 (5.86%) Cisco Nexus
12 43 (5.73%) Cisco ISE
13 42 (5.59%) Network Security
14 38 (5.06%) SAN
15 37 (4.93%) DHCP
16 34 (4.53%) MPLS
17 33 (4.39%) VLAN
17 33 (4.39%) VXLAN
18 30 (3.99%) TCP/IP
19 27 (3.60%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (2.66%) Power BI
2 19 (2.53%) Relational Database
3 12 (1.60%) RDBMS
4 9 (1.20%) GIS
4 9 (1.20%) SQL Server
5 6 (0.80%) NoSQL
5 6 (0.80%) Oracle Database
5 6 (0.80%) PostgreSQL
6 5 (0.67%) Apache Hive
6 5 (0.67%) Hadoop
6 5 (0.67%) HBase
7 4 (0.53%) Data Mining
7 4 (0.53%) InfluxDB
8 3 (0.40%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.40%) Big Data
8 3 (0.40%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.40%) Data Vault
8 3 (0.40%) Geospatial Data
8 3 (0.40%) Metadata
8 3 (0.40%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 20 (2.66%) Git
2 18 (2.40%) JIRA
3 15 (2.00%) Jenkins
3 15 (2.00%) Sonatype Nexus
4 11 (1.46%) Maven
5 9 (1.20%) GitLab
5 9 (1.20%) SonarQube
6 4 (0.53%) Gradle
6 4 (0.53%) Selenium
7 3 (0.40%) ER Studio
7 3 (0.40%) ERwin
8 2 (0.27%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.13%) Fiddler
9 1 (0.13%) Postman
9 1 (0.13%) TeamCity
General
1 182 (24.23%) Social Skills
2 139 (18.51%) Finance
3 81 (10.79%) Public Sector
4 78 (10.39%) Analytical Skills
5 71 (9.45%) Banking
6 70 (9.32%) Telecoms
7 38 (5.06%) Documentation Skills
8 35 (4.66%) Manufacturing
9 27 (3.60%) Marketing
10 25 (3.33%) Electronics
11 22 (2.93%) Presentation Skills
12 20 (2.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 16 (2.13%) Organisational Skills
14 15 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
15 11 (1.46%) Retail
16 7 (0.93%) Investment Banking
16 7 (0.93%) Legal
16 7 (0.93%) Local Government
17 6 (0.80%) Front Office
17 6 (0.80%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 118 (15.71%) Network Engineer
2 111 (14.78%) Architect
3 73 (9.72%) Analyst
4 64 (8.52%) Project Manager
5 45 (5.99%) Senior
6 38 (5.06%) Data Centre Manager
7 34 (4.53%) Network Architect
8 33 (4.39%) Consultant
8 33 (4.39%) IT Support
9 32 (4.26%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 32 (4.26%) Security Engineer
10 31 (4.13%) Infrastructure Manager
10 31 (4.13%) Support Engineer
11 27 (3.60%) Data Centre Engineer
12 26 (3.46%) Solutions Architect
13 25 (3.33%) Business Analyst
13 25 (3.33%) Desktop Support
13 25 (3.33%) Lead
14 24 (3.20%) Cisco Engineer
15 23 (3.06%) Infrastructure Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.06%) 802.1X
2 19 (2.53%) Middleware
3 15 (2.00%) RFC 2544
4 5 (0.67%) Spark Streaming
5 4 (0.53%) Jinja
6 3 (0.40%) LDAP
6 3 (0.40%) REST
6 3 (0.40%) VML
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%) YANG
8 1 (0.13%) ONNX
Miscellaneous
1 42 (5.59%) Hybrid Cloud
2 29 (3.86%) Cloud Native
3 23 (3.06%) Public Cloud
4 22 (2.93%) Driving Licence
5 21 (2.80%) Replication
6 20 (2.66%) Onboarding
7 17 (2.26%) Private Cloud
8 16 (2.13%) Fibre Optics
9 15 (2.00%) Mainframe
10 14 (1.86%) Self-Motivation
11 12 (1.60%) SCADA
12 11 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
12 11 (1.46%) PKI
13 10 (1.33%) Clustering
13 10 (1.33%) CMDB
14 9 (1.20%) Legacy Systems
14 9 (1.20%) Management Information System
14 9 (1.20%) Product Ownership
15 8 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
16 7 (0.93%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 96 (12.78%) Windows
2 71 (9.45%) Linux
3 47 (6.26%) Android
4 45 (5.99%) Mac OS
5 40 (5.33%) Windows Server
6 18 (2.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 17 (2.26%) Unix
8 7 (0.93%) CentOS
9 6 (0.80%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.67%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.53%) Apple iOS
11 4 (0.53%) Solaris
11 4 (0.53%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.40%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.40%) VMS
13 2 (0.27%) AIX
13 2 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.27%) zOS
14 1 (0.13%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 139 (18.51%) Migration
2 95 (12.65%) Problem-Solving
3 85 (11.32%) Stakeholder Management
4 71 (9.45%) Agile
5 58 (7.72%) ITIL
6 52 (6.92%) Infrastructure as Code
6 52 (6.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 50 (6.66%) Change Management
8 49 (6.52%) CI/CD
8 49 (6.52%) Roadmaps
9 48 (6.39%) Customer Service
9 48 (6.39%) Project Delivery
10 47 (6.26%) DevOps
10 47 (6.26%) Service Management
11 46 (6.13%) Network Design
11 46 (6.13%) Project Management
12 45 (5.99%) Load Balancing
13 42 (5.59%) Business Intelligence
14 41 (5.46%) High Availability
15 40 (5.33%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 79 (10.52%) Python
2 49 (6.52%) PowerShell
3 38 (5.06%) SQL
4 21 (2.80%) Bash
5 19 (2.53%) Java
6 10 (1.33%) Perl
7 9 (1.20%) Shell Script
8 8 (1.07%) Lisp
9 7 (0.93%) Go
10 4 (0.53%) C
11 3 (0.40%) Bicep
11 3 (0.40%) JCL
11 3 (0.40%) Korn
11 3 (0.40%) VBA
12 2 (0.27%) AWK
12 2 (0.27%) C#
12 2 (0.27%) JavaScript
12 2 (0.27%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.27%) Ruby
12 2 (0.27%) sed
Qualifications
1 224 (29.83%) Security Cleared
2 187 (24.90%) SC Cleared
3 93 (12.38%) Cisco Certification
4 63 (8.39%) CCNP
5 59 (7.86%) Degree
6 44 (5.86%) DV Cleared
7 28 (3.73%) CCIE
7 28 (3.73%) CCNA
8 19 (2.53%) AWS Certification
9 13 (1.73%) CISSP
9 13 (1.73%) JNCIE
10 11 (1.46%) PMP
11 10 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
11 10 (1.33%) PMI Certification
12 9 (1.20%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 8 (1.07%) BPSS Clearance
14 7 (0.93%) Azure Certification
15 6 (0.80%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 6 (0.80%) Microsoft Certification
15 6 (0.80%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (2.80%) SLA
2 20 (2.66%) NIST
2 20 (2.66%) PCI DSS
3 19 (2.53%) PMO
4 18 (2.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 14 (1.86%) QA
6 13 (1.73%) GDPR
7 11 (1.46%) Data Quality
8 5 (0.67%) NCSC
9 3 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.27%) ISO 22301
10 2 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 2 (0.27%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.13%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.13%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.13%) GRC
11 1 (0.13%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 74 (9.85%) VMware Infrastructure
2 59 (7.86%) Active Directory
3 38 (5.06%) VMware NSX
4 27 (3.60%) Docker
5 17 (2.26%) Hyper-V
6 15 (2.00%) Virtual Machines
6 15 (2.00%) vSphere
7 8 (1.07%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.93%) Firmware
9 5 (0.67%) HDFS
10 4 (0.53%) KVM
10 4 (0.53%) NFS
11 3 (0.40%) GPFS
12 2 (0.27%) Lustre
12 2 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
12 2 (0.27%) Virtual Desktop
13 1 (0.13%) Samba
13 1 (0.13%) SRDF
13 1 (0.13%) Veritas Cluster Server
13 1 (0.13%) Xen
Systems Management
1 71 (9.45%) Ansible
2 66 (8.79%) Terraform
3 31 (4.13%) FortiGate
4 27 (3.60%) SCCM
5 25 (3.33%) Kubernetes
6 14 (1.86%) Grafana
6 14 (1.86%) Microsoft Intune
7 10 (1.33%) SCOM
7 10 (1.33%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.20%) Puppet
8 9 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (1.07%) Control-M
10 7 (0.93%) CASB
10 7 (0.93%) Prometheus
11 6 (0.80%) SCOrch
12 5 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (0.67%) Hadoop YARN
13 4 (0.53%) Argo
14 3 (0.40%) Jamf Pro
14 3 (0.40%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 243 (32.36%) Cisco
2 104 (13.85%) Microsoft
3 95 (12.65%) VMware
4 67 (8.92%) Dell
5 66 (8.79%) Palo Alto
6 62 (8.26%) F5
7 54 (7.19%) HP
8 50 (6.66%) Juniper
9 44 (5.86%) Apple
10 39 (5.19%) ServiceNow
11 38 (5.06%) SAP
12 34 (4.53%) Meraki
13 33 (4.39%) Fortinet
13 33 (4.39%) Oracle
14 27 (3.60%) CheckPoint
15 22 (2.93%) SolarWinds
16 21 (2.80%) Arista
17 18 (2.40%) Citrix
18 17 (2.26%) Remedy
19 16 (2.13%) IBM
564 Data Centre jobs Nationwide