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

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 138 139 93
Rank change year-on-year +1 -46 +6
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 765 612 1,024
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.03% 1.96% 2.31%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.94% 6.03% 7.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 494 365 679
10th Percentile £278 £350 £300
25th Percentile £400 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £486 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.49% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £688 £695 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £474 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.20% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 25 40
10th Percentile £22.20 £20.30 £20.08
25th Percentile £25.15 £24.15 £22.00
Median hourly rate £25.77 £24.18 £24.56
Median % change year-on-year +6.58% -1.54% -59.41%
75th Percentile £67.25 £28.75 £41.25
90th Percentile £74.16 £41.25 £76.28
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 £24.18 £23.50
% change year-on-year +175.02% +2.89% +8.44%

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 12,871 10,146 13,609
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.12% 32.43% 30.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,130 6,009 8,883
10th Percentile £280 £263 £253
25th Percentile £406 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £538
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% -1.40% -3.15%
75th Percentile £625 £660 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 617 308 734
10th Percentile £15.00 £19.03 £14.02
25th Percentile £18.50 £23.60 £17.43
Median hourly rate £28.09 £35.00 £33.36
Median % change year-on-year -19.74% +4.93% +48.59%
75th Percentile £61.50 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.20 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% -7.14% +69.04%

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 26 January 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 26 January 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 26 January 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 -7 640 £492 -6.29% 596
UK excluding London +5 432 £474 -5.20% 522
London -14 232 £525 - 153
Work from Home +39 219 £500 -6.54% 252
North of England -2 142 £475 -4.52% 106
South East -12 101 £445 -1.11% 190
North West +18 89 £519 +3.70% 39
Midlands -13 77 £411 -29.09% 50
West Midlands -12 62 £472 -18.62% 23
Scotland +28 49 £450 - 34
Yorkshire -32 44 £454 +8.10% 42
South West -26 34 £550 - 54
East of England -11 28 £478 +13.14% 76
East Midlands -19 15 £158 -70.70% 26
Wales -6 13 £203 -49.38% 24
North East -6 12 £175 - 26
Northern Ireland - 3 £425 - 9

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 (3.92%) SharePoint
2 23 (3.01%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (1.44%) Confluence
4 9 (1.18%) OpenStack
5 7 (0.92%) Apache Airflow
6 6 (0.78%) Apache
7 5 (0.65%) Apache Spark
8 4 (0.52%) HCL Notes
8 4 (0.52%) nginx
9 3 (0.39%) GeoServer
9 3 (0.39%) Smallworld
9 3 (0.39%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.26%) CICS
10 2 (0.26%) Oracle Coherence
10 2 (0.26%) ThingWorx
10 2 (0.26%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.13%) IIS
11 1 (0.13%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 51 (6.67%) Microsoft Office
2 28 (3.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (3.40%) MS Visio
4 18 (2.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (1.83%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.13%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.52%) Oracle Financials
3 2 (0.26%) DELMIA
3 2 (0.26%) 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%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 131 (17.12%) Azure
2 110 (14.38%) AWS
3 62 (8.10%) Microsoft 365
4 39 (5.10%) GCP
5 18 (2.35%) Power Platform
6 17 (2.22%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 16 (2.09%) SaaS
8 14 (1.83%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 13 (1.70%) AWS Direct Connect
9 13 (1.70%) OpenShift
10 12 (1.57%) AWS CloudFormation
11 11 (1.44%) GitHub
11 11 (1.44%) IaaS
12 10 (1.31%) Entra ID
12 10 (1.31%) PaaS
13 9 (1.18%) Amazon GuardDuty
14 8 (1.05%) Azure DevOps
14 8 (1.05%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 8 (1.05%) Nutanix
14 8 (1.05%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 228 (29.80%) Firewall
2 145 (18.95%) WAN
3 91 (11.90%) BGP
4 86 (11.24%) Wireless
5 81 (10.59%) VPN
6 79 (10.33%) LAN
7 78 (10.20%) Network Security
8 64 (8.37%) OSPF
9 53 (6.93%) DNS
10 51 (6.67%) Wi-Fi
11 49 (6.41%) VLAN
12 41 (5.36%) SD-WAN
13 40 (5.23%) SAN
14 37 (4.84%) Cisco Nexus
15 35 (4.58%) Cisco ISE
15 35 (4.58%) Structured Cabling
16 33 (4.31%) VXLAN
17 32 (4.18%) DHCP
17 32 (4.18%) IPsec
18 28 (3.66%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.22%) Power BI
2 15 (1.96%) Relational Database
3 9 (1.18%) RDBMS
3 9 (1.18%) SQL Server
4 6 (0.78%) NoSQL
5 5 (0.65%) Apache Hive
5 5 (0.65%) GIS
5 5 (0.65%) Hadoop
5 5 (0.65%) HBase
5 5 (0.65%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (0.52%) Oracle Database
6 4 (0.52%) Power Query
6 4 (0.52%) PowerPivot
7 3 (0.39%) Big Data
7 3 (0.39%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.39%) Data Vault
7 3 (0.39%) Geospatial Data
7 3 (0.39%) InfluxDB
7 3 (0.39%) Metadata
7 3 (0.39%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 24 (3.14%) Git
2 23 (3.01%) Jenkins
3 15 (1.96%) GitLab
4 13 (1.70%) JIRA
5 12 (1.57%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (1.05%) Maven
7 5 (0.65%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.39%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.39%) ER Studio
8 3 (0.39%) ERwin
8 3 (0.39%) ScriptRunner
9 2 (0.26%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.13%) Gradle
10 1 (0.13%) Selenium
General
1 190 (24.84%) Social Skills
2 124 (16.21%) Finance
3 95 (12.42%) Analytical Skills
4 93 (12.16%) Public Sector
5 55 (7.19%) Telecoms
6 51 (6.67%) Documentation Skills
7 48 (6.27%) Banking
8 42 (5.49%) Manufacturing
9 30 (3.92%) Marketing
10 25 (3.27%) Electronics
11 21 (2.75%) Presentation Skills
12 17 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 15 (1.96%) Legal
14 13 (1.70%) Retail
15 11 (1.44%) Organisational Skills
16 10 (1.31%) Influencing Skills
17 8 (1.05%) Law
18 7 (0.92%) Investment Banking
18 7 (0.92%) Local Government
19 6 (0.78%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 142 (18.56%) Network Engineer
2 117 (15.29%) Architect
3 70 (9.15%) Project Manager
4 60 (7.84%) Analyst
5 53 (6.93%) Senior
6 41 (5.36%) Network Architect
7 36 (4.71%) Solutions Architect
8 34 (4.44%) Lead
9 33 (4.31%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 32 (4.18%) Consultant
11 31 (4.05%) Data Centre Manager
12 30 (3.92%) Security Engineer
13 29 (3.79%) Data Centre Engineer
14 28 (3.66%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 27 (3.53%) Cisco Engineer
15 27 (3.53%) IT Support
16 25 (3.27%) Cisco Network Engineer
16 25 (3.27%) Desktop Support
17 23 (3.01%) 2nd Line Support
17 23 (3.01%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.01%) 802.1X
1 23 (3.01%) Middleware
2 11 (1.44%) LDAP
3 7 (0.92%) RFC 2544
4 5 (0.65%) Spark Streaming
5 4 (0.52%) ADO
5 4 (0.52%) VML
6 3 (0.39%) ARM Templates
6 3 (0.39%) Yocto
7 2 (0.26%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.26%) CSS
7 2 (0.26%) EJB
7 2 (0.26%) Elastic Stack
7 2 (0.26%) ModSecurity
7 2 (0.26%) NETCONF
7 2 (0.26%) OpenConfig
7 2 (0.26%) OpenLayers
7 2 (0.26%) REST
7 2 (0.26%) RESTCONF
7 2 (0.26%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 44 (5.75%) Hybrid Cloud
2 23 (3.01%) Public Cloud
3 22 (2.88%) Cloud Native
3 22 (2.88%) Self-Motivation
4 20 (2.61%) Onboarding
5 16 (2.09%) Analytical Mindset
5 16 (2.09%) Driving Licence
6 15 (1.96%) Fibre Optics
6 15 (1.96%) Private Cloud
6 15 (1.96%) Replication
6 15 (1.96%) SCADA
7 13 (1.70%) CMDB
8 12 (1.57%) Management Information System
9 11 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
10 10 (1.31%) Mainframe
10 10 (1.31%) PKI
11 8 (1.05%) Legacy Systems
11 8 (1.05%) NHS
12 7 (0.92%) Operational Technology
12 7 (0.92%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 99 (12.94%) Windows
2 89 (11.63%) Linux
3 41 (5.36%) Windows Server
4 35 (4.58%) Android
4 35 (4.58%) Mac OS
5 30 (3.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.44%) CentOS
7 9 (1.18%) Unix
8 7 (0.92%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.78%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.65%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.65%) VMS
11 4 (0.52%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.52%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.39%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.39%) Solaris
13 2 (0.26%) zOS
14 1 (0.13%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (15.95%) Migration
2 116 (15.16%) Problem-Solving
3 85 (11.11%) Stakeholder Management
4 66 (8.63%) Agile
5 63 (8.24%) ITIL
6 59 (7.71%) Project Management
7 58 (7.58%) Infrastructure as Code
8 56 (7.32%) Project Delivery
9 52 (6.80%) CI/CD
9 52 (6.80%) DevOps
10 46 (6.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 45 (5.88%) Continuous Improvement
12 43 (5.62%) Network Design
13 42 (5.49%) Roadmaps
14 41 (5.36%) Business Intelligence
14 41 (5.36%) Programme Management
15 40 (5.23%) Change Management
15 40 (5.23%) Customer Service
15 40 (5.23%) Cybersecurity
16 39 (5.10%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 78 (10.20%) Python
2 51 (6.67%) PowerShell
3 36 (4.71%) SQL
4 23 (3.01%) Bash
5 15 (1.96%) Java
6 13 (1.70%) Shell Script
7 12 (1.57%) Perl
8 8 (1.05%) Lisp
9 7 (0.92%) MATLAB
10 5 (0.65%) VBA
11 4 (0.52%) C++
12 3 (0.39%) Bicep
12 3 (0.39%) C
12 3 (0.39%) JavaScript
12 3 (0.39%) PL/SQL
13 2 (0.26%) Go
13 2 (0.26%) Korn
13 2 (0.26%) Ruby
14 1 (0.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 1 (0.13%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 256 (33.46%) Security Cleared
2 213 (27.84%) SC Cleared
3 123 (16.08%) Cisco Certification
4 97 (12.68%) CCNP
5 62 (8.10%) Degree
6 47 (6.14%) CCNA
7 46 (6.01%) DV Cleared
8 28 (3.66%) CCIE
9 24 (3.14%) AWS Certification
10 17 (2.22%) PMP
11 16 (2.09%) PMI Certification
12 12 (1.57%) JNCIE
13 11 (1.44%) CISSP
14 10 (1.31%) A+ Certification
14 10 (1.31%) MCSE
14 10 (1.31%) Microsoft Certification
14 10 (1.31%) Network+ Certification
14 10 (1.31%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 9 (1.18%) Azure Certification
15 9 (1.18%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (2.75%) PMO
2 20 (2.61%) SLA
3 16 (2.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (1.83%) NIST
4 14 (1.83%) QA
5 13 (1.70%) PCI DSS
6 11 (1.44%) Data Quality
6 11 (1.44%) GDPR
7 7 (0.92%) NCSC
8 3 (0.39%) GRC
9 2 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.26%) Disclosure Scotland
9 2 (0.26%) ISO 22301
9 2 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 2 (0.26%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.13%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.13%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.13%) RMADS
10 1 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 82 (10.72%) VMware Infrastructure
2 57 (7.45%) Active Directory
3 51 (6.67%) VMware NSX
4 21 (2.75%) Docker
5 20 (2.61%) Virtual Machines
6 16 (2.09%) Hyper-V
7 15 (1.96%) vSphere
8 10 (1.31%) Firmware
9 8 (1.05%) KVM
9 8 (1.05%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.65%) HDFS
11 4 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.39%) Lustre
13 2 (0.26%) Ceph
13 2 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.26%) NFS
13 2 (0.26%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 2 (0.26%) SRDF
13 2 (0.26%) vCloud
13 2 (0.26%) Xen
Systems Management
1 83 (10.85%) Ansible
2 72 (9.41%) Terraform
3 40 (5.23%) FortiGate
4 24 (3.14%) SCCM
5 22 (2.88%) Kubernetes
6 19 (2.48%) Grafana
7 10 (1.31%) Microsoft Intune
7 10 (1.31%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.18%) Prometheus
8 9 (1.18%) Puppet
9 8 (1.05%) Check_MK
9 8 (1.05%) SCOM
10 7 (0.92%) Podman
10 7 (0.92%) Red Hat Satellite
11 6 (0.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.78%) CASB
11 6 (0.78%) SCOrch
12 5 (0.65%) Hadoop YARN
12 5 (0.65%) vMotion
12 5 (0.65%) vRealize
Vendors
1 262 (34.25%) Cisco
2 108 (14.12%) VMware
3 105 (13.73%) Palo Alto
4 87 (11.37%) Microsoft
5 68 (8.89%) Dell
6 67 (8.76%) Juniper
7 54 (7.06%) F5
8 46 (6.01%) HP
9 45 (5.88%) CheckPoint
10 38 (4.97%) ServiceNow
11 37 (4.84%) Aruba
12 36 (4.71%) Meraki
13 35 (4.58%) Apple
14 32 (4.18%) Fortinet
14 32 (4.18%) SAP
15 31 (4.05%) Oracle
16 19 (2.48%) Citrix
17 18 (2.35%) Red Hat
18 16 (2.09%) Arista
19 15 (1.96%) NVIDIA