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

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 101 120 103
Rank change year-on-year +19 -17 -13
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,244 735 931
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.36% 2.26% 2.21%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 7.10% 6.52% 7.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 729 468 620
10th Percentile £325 £308 £325
25th Percentile £413 £406 £432
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -5.12% -1.56%
75th Percentile £630 £600 £625
90th Percentile £738 £688 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £476 £487 £538
% change year-on-year -2.31% -9.43% +7.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 29 52
10th Percentile £16.01 £20.25 £12.08
25th Percentile £16.01 £24.66 £15.81
Median hourly rate £19.85 £25.15 £23.90
Median % change year-on-year -21.07% +5.23% +15.43%
75th Percentile £35.22 £38.00 £29.34
90th Percentile £78.90 £43.75 £40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.34 £24.66 £22.00
% change year-on-year -21.57% +12.09% +6.25%

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 17,509 11,276 12,889
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.25% 34.67% 30.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,724 6,979 8,211
10th Percentile £317 £300 £284
25th Percentile £416 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £630 £648 £663
90th Percentile £749 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 888 538 820
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.33 £12.25
25th Percentile £20.58 £18.87 £15.75
Median hourly rate £43.96 £30.25 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +45.32% -19.33% +25.00%
75th Percentile £70.06 £58.46 £63.75
90th Percentile £87.50 £77.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £30.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +44.13% -23.75% +4.61%

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 17 July 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 17 July 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 17 July 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 +20 1,034 £514 -2.10% 478
UK excluding London -1 687 £476 -2.31% 280
London +9 391 £550 +2.80% 266
Work from Home +6 316 £513 +0.49% 182
North of England +5 243 £480 +3.01% 64
South East +5 213 £500 - 97
Yorkshire -1 135 £365 -18.89% 21
North West -5 88 £516 -1.81% 31
South West -33 57 £498 -9.55% 24
Scotland -1 56 £450 +1.41% 10
Midlands -58 56 £460 -13.62% 25
West Midlands -53 51 £467 -8.91% 18
Wales +6 40 £468 +24.67% 20
East of England -13 33 £513 +36.67% 34
North East -13 26 £625 +468.18% 12
East Midlands -24 4 £363 -33.49% 7
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 26 (2.09%) Confluence
2 16 (1.29%) SharePoint
3 11 (0.88%) CICS
3 11 (0.88%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.56%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.40%) Apache
5 5 (0.40%) CloudStack
6 4 (0.32%) WebLogic
7 3 (0.24%) nginx
7 3 (0.24%) Tomcat
8 1 (0.080%) IIS
8 1 (0.080%) Mendix
8 1 (0.080%) SAS
Applications
1 18 (1.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.80%) MS Visio
5 8 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.40%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.24%) Adobe Illustrator
7 3 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.16%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 4 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.24%) Primavera
2 3 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
3 2 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.080%) OpenText MBPM
4 1 (0.080%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 267 (21.46%) Azure
2 232 (18.65%) AWS
3 77 (6.19%) GCP
4 42 (3.38%) GitHub
4 42 (3.38%) IaaS
5 41 (3.30%) Microsoft 365
6 35 (2.81%) SaaS
7 30 (2.41%) OCI
8 28 (2.25%) Entra ID
9 19 (1.53%) PaaS
9 19 (1.53%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 18 (1.45%) OpenShift
11 17 (1.37%) Azure DevOps
12 13 (1.05%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 13 (1.05%) OneDrive
13 12 (0.96%) Power Platform
14 11 (0.88%) Azure Sentinel
14 11 (0.88%) Nutanix
15 8 (0.64%) Amazon GuardDuty
15 8 (0.64%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 344 (27.65%) Firewall
2 200 (16.08%) WAN
3 197 (15.84%) BGP
4 149 (11.98%) OSPF
5 136 (10.93%) VPN
6 129 (10.37%) DNS
7 124 (9.97%) VXLAN
8 121 (9.73%) SAN
9 120 (9.65%) Network Security
10 119 (9.57%) LAN
11 103 (8.28%) VLAN
12 95 (7.64%) DHCP
13 92 (7.40%) Structured Cabling
14 87 (6.99%) Ethernet VPN
15 85 (6.83%) SD-WAN
16 70 (5.63%) TCP/IP
17 60 (4.82%) BIG-IP
18 58 (4.66%) Wi-Fi
19 57 (4.58%) Wireless
20 55 (4.42%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (1.53%) SQL Server
2 10 (0.80%) DataStage
3 7 (0.56%) Big Data
3 7 (0.56%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (0.56%) Power BI
4 6 (0.48%) Db2
4 6 (0.48%) Oracle Database
5 4 (0.32%) Amazon RDS
5 4 (0.32%) Elasticsearch
5 4 (0.32%) Geospatial Data
5 4 (0.32%) MongoDB
5 4 (0.32%) Oracle Database 12c
5 4 (0.32%) Oracle Reports
5 4 (0.32%) Relational Database
5 4 (0.32%) SAP Data Services
6 3 (0.24%) GIS
7 2 (0.16%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (0.16%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 2 (0.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 2 (0.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 71 (5.71%) JIRA
2 29 (2.33%) GitLab
2 29 (2.33%) Jenkins
3 26 (2.09%) Git
4 9 (0.72%) Sonatype Nexus
5 5 (0.40%) JMeter
6 4 (0.32%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 4 (0.32%) Eclipse
6 4 (0.32%) Maven
6 4 (0.32%) Subversion
7 3 (0.24%) ScriptRunner
7 3 (0.24%) Zephyr
8 2 (0.16%) MSI
8 2 (0.16%) Toad
9 1 (0.080%) AppScan
9 1 (0.080%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.080%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.080%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.080%) Metasploit
9 1 (0.080%) Postman
General
1 310 (24.92%) Social Skills
2 169 (13.59%) Finance
3 132 (10.61%) Analytical Skills
4 82 (6.59%) Public Sector
5 53 (4.26%) Documentation Skills
6 48 (3.86%) Banking
6 48 (3.86%) Telecoms
7 29 (2.33%) Legal
8 28 (2.25%) Influencing Skills
9 26 (2.09%) Retail
10 18 (1.45%) Manufacturing
11 17 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 12 (0.96%) Organisational Skills
13 10 (0.80%) Military
14 9 (0.72%) Financial Institution
14 9 (0.72%) Law
15 7 (0.56%) Police
16 6 (0.48%) Investment Banking
16 6 (0.48%) Marketing
17 5 (0.40%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 204 (16.40%) Architect
2 200 (16.08%) Network Engineer
3 149 (11.98%) Senior
4 115 (9.24%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 109 (8.76%) Data Centre Engineer
6 80 (6.43%) Project Manager
7 65 (5.23%) Network Architect
8 58 (4.66%) Lead
9 53 (4.26%) IT Engineer
10 51 (4.10%) Field Engineer
11 47 (3.78%) Field Service Engineer
12 45 (3.62%) Infrastructure Manager
13 43 (3.46%) Technical Architect
14 42 (3.38%) Data Centre Manager
15 39 (3.14%) Solutions Architect
16 37 (2.97%) Senior Network Engineer
17 35 (2.81%) Analyst
17 35 (2.81%) Support Engineer
18 32 (2.57%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
19 30 (2.41%) Infrastructure Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (4.18%) Middleware
2 32 (2.57%) 802.1X
3 10 (0.80%) Redfish
3 10 (0.80%) REST
4 8 (0.64%) Elastic Stack
4 8 (0.64%) LDAP
5 7 (0.56%) NETCONF
5 7 (0.56%) Spring
6 6 (0.48%) OpenConfig
6 6 (0.48%) RESTCONF
6 6 (0.48%) SAML
6 6 (0.48%) YANG
7 5 (0.40%) Jinja
7 5 (0.40%) Kafka
7 5 (0.40%) XML
8 4 (0.32%) .NET
8 4 (0.32%) GeoJSON
8 4 (0.32%) RESTful
8 4 (0.32%) Spring Boot
8 4 (0.32%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 78 (6.27%) Hybrid Cloud
2 55 (4.42%) Analytical Mindset
3 42 (3.38%) PKI
4 37 (2.97%) Cloud Native
5 35 (2.81%) Management Information System
6 33 (2.65%) Clustering
7 31 (2.49%) Enterprise Storage
7 31 (2.49%) Private Cloud
8 28 (2.25%) Fibre Optics
8 28 (2.25%) Onboarding
9 24 (1.93%) Replication
10 22 (1.77%) Public Cloud
11 21 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
11 21 (1.69%) Driving Licence
12 19 (1.53%) CMDB
13 17 (1.37%) Mainframe
14 16 (1.29%) Operational Technology
14 16 (1.29%) SCADA
15 15 (1.21%) Self-Motivation
16 13 (1.05%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 167 (13.42%) Windows
2 144 (11.58%) Linux
3 45 (3.62%) Windows Server
4 34 (2.73%) Unix
5 28 (2.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 23 (1.85%) AIX
7 18 (1.45%) Solaris
8 10 (0.80%) Apple iOS
8 10 (0.80%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.48%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.48%) VMS
11 5 (0.40%) HPUX
11 5 (0.40%) Oracle Linux
11 5 (0.40%) SUSE
12 4 (0.32%) CentOS
12 4 (0.32%) Data ONTAP
13 3 (0.24%) Windows Server 2008
14 2 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.16%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 238 (19.13%) Migration
2 211 (16.96%) Problem-Solving
3 145 (11.66%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 130 (10.45%) Stakeholder Management
5 121 (9.73%) Infrastructure as Code
6 117 (9.41%) High Availability
7 114 (9.16%) ITIL
8 109 (8.76%) CI/CD
9 101 (8.12%) Roadmaps
10 99 (7.96%) Agile
11 89 (7.15%) Continuous Improvement
12 86 (6.91%) Load Balancing
13 83 (6.67%) Validation
14 82 (6.59%) Change Management
15 81 (6.51%) Project Delivery
16 79 (6.35%) DevOps
17 78 (6.27%) Zero Trust
18 69 (5.55%) Project Management
19 67 (5.39%) ITSM
19 67 (5.39%) Network Design
Programming Languages
1 162 (13.02%) Python
2 49 (3.94%) PowerShell
3 40 (3.22%) SQL
4 31 (2.49%) Bash
5 19 (1.53%) Java
6 15 (1.21%) Bicep
7 12 (0.96%) COBOL
7 12 (0.96%) Shell Script
8 11 (0.88%) Perl
9 10 (0.80%) ActionScript
10 8 (0.64%) PL/SQL
11 6 (0.48%) JavaScript
12 4 (0.32%) C#
12 4 (0.32%) Lisp
12 4 (0.32%) MATLAB
13 3 (0.24%) JCL
13 3 (0.24%) Korn
13 3 (0.24%) TypeScript
14 2 (0.16%) C++
14 2 (0.16%) REXX
Qualifications
1 322 (25.88%) Security Cleared
2 225 (18.09%) Cisco Certification
3 211 (16.96%) SC Cleared
4 131 (10.53%) CCNP
5 105 (8.44%) DV Cleared
6 91 (7.32%) CCNA
7 66 (5.31%) Degree
8 62 (4.98%) Network+ Certification
9 52 (4.18%) Microsoft Certification
10 45 (3.62%) A+ Certification
10 45 (3.62%) MCSE
11 30 (2.41%) CCIE
12 29 (2.33%) Azure Certification
13 26 (2.09%) AWS Certification
13 26 (2.09%) City & Guilds
14 24 (1.93%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 23 (1.85%) PMP
16 22 (1.77%) PMI Certification
17 21 (1.69%) CISSP
18 20 (1.61%) BICSI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (2.41%) SLA
2 29 (2.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 28 (2.25%) QA
4 26 (2.09%) NIST
5 21 (1.69%) PMO
6 18 (1.45%) GDPR
7 17 (1.37%) NCSC
8 10 (0.80%) Disclosure Scotland
9 9 (0.72%) GRC
10 8 (0.64%) PCI DSS
11 7 (0.56%) RMADS
12 6 (0.48%) JSP 440
13 5 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
14 3 (0.24%) NIST 800
15 2 (0.16%) Accessibility
15 2 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials
15 2 (0.16%) Government Security Classifications
15 2 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 2 (0.16%) WCAG
16 1 (0.080%) SEPA
System Software
1 117 (9.41%) VMware Infrastructure
2 71 (5.71%) Active Directory
3 44 (3.54%) VMware NSX
4 43 (3.46%) vSphere
5 37 (2.97%) VMware ESXi
6 30 (2.41%) Firmware
6 30 (2.41%) Hyper-V
7 23 (1.85%) Docker
8 22 (1.77%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.88%) NFS
10 8 (0.64%) KVM
11 6 (0.48%) Microsoft App-V
11 6 (0.48%) SRDF
12 5 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
13 4 (0.32%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.32%) Terminal Services
13 4 (0.32%) Virtual Servers
13 4 (0.32%) VMware Workstation
14 3 (0.24%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 3 (0.24%) Veritas Cluster Server
Systems Management
1 141 (11.33%) Ansible
2 113 (9.08%) Terraform
3 56 (4.50%) Kubernetes
4 51 (4.10%) FortiGate
5 34 (2.73%) Grafana
6 29 (2.33%) Prometheus
7 28 (2.25%) Microsoft Intune
8 17 (1.37%) vCenter Server
9 13 (1.05%) NetBackup
10 12 (0.96%) PowerCLI
11 11 (0.88%) vMotion
12 10 (0.80%) Dell DRAC
12 10 (0.80%) Jamf Pro
13 8 (0.64%) SCCM
13 8 (0.64%) VxRail
14 7 (0.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 7 (0.56%) Check_MK
14 7 (0.56%) EMC NetWorker
14 7 (0.56%) Tivoli Storage Manager
15 6 (0.48%) Avamar
Vendors
1 300 (24.12%) Cisco
2 171 (13.75%) VMware
3 137 (11.01%) Palo Alto
4 125 (10.05%) Microsoft
5 123 (9.89%) F5
6 94 (7.56%) Juniper
7 83 (6.67%) Dell
8 76 (6.11%) Arista
8 76 (6.11%) Fortinet
9 59 (4.74%) ServiceNow
10 47 (3.78%) Google
11 41 (3.30%) SolarWinds
12 39 (3.14%) Aruba
13 36 (2.89%) CheckPoint
13 36 (2.89%) IBM
14 33 (2.65%) Red Hat
15 32 (2.57%) Splunk
16 27 (2.17%) Oracle
17 25 (2.01%) Citrix
18 23 (1.85%) HP