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

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 116 136 100
Rank change year-on-year +20 -36 -8
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,006 621 974
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.20% 2.12% 2.21%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.75% 6.28% 7.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 625 408 647
10th Percentile £318 £333 £295
25th Percentile £410 £413 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.88% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £638
90th Percentile £725 £675 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £474 £475 £535
% change year-on-year -0.21% -11.21% +7.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 27 46
10th Percentile £16.01 £24.17 £16.25
25th Percentile £18.25 £24.18 £21.25
Median hourly rate £21.46 £24.66 £24.87
Median % change year-on-year -12.98% -0.84% +14.77%
75th Percentile £72.00 £41.25 £40.00
90th Percentile £79.50 £43.75 £52.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.34 £24.66 £24.00
% change year-on-year -21.57% +2.75% +11.81%

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 14,900 9,884 13,385
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.55% 33.82% 30.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,340 6,336 8,582
10th Percentile £300 £299 £263
25th Percentile £412 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £536
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.05% -2.55%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 709 380 899
10th Percentile £15.97 £16.95 £12.25
25th Percentile £20.00 £22.27 £15.32
Median hourly rate £45.00 £32.50 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.46% +16.07% +24.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £85.40 £83.22 £66.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £31.76 £26.00
% change year-on-year +49.56% +22.15% +18.18%

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 9 April 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 9 April 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 9 April 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 +9 828 £492 -6.29% 436
UK excluding London 0 566 £474 -0.21% 306
London +8 302 £530 +0.95% 184
Work from Home +15 260 £478 -10.75% 123
North of England +25 189 £464 +9.12% 53
South East +8 172 £475 -4.28% 115
North West +22 97 £500 - 28
Yorkshire -6 78 £365 -5.93% 17
Midlands -36 60 £474 -22.61% 32
Scotland +4 50 £475 +11.76% 29
West Midlands -37 50 £474 -24.16% 14
South West -34 40 £525 -4.20% 31
East of England -24 34 £485 +14.79% 45
Wales -2 30 £400 - 11
North East -1 16 £175 +59.09% 8
East Midlands -29 9 £179 -67.50% 18
Northern Ireland - 3 £425 - 4

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 18 (1.79%) Confluence
1 18 (1.79%) SharePoint
2 16 (1.59%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (0.99%) CICS
4 4 (0.40%) nginx
4 4 (0.40%) OpenStack
4 4 (0.40%) WebLogic
5 2 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.20%) HCL Notes
5 2 (0.20%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.099%) Mendix
Applications
1 30 (2.98%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (2.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (1.79%) MS Visio
4 16 (1.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (1.29%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.30%) Adobe Illustrator
6 3 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.60%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.30%) Primavera
2 3 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
3 2 (0.20%) DELMIA
3 2 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.099%) Maximo
4 1 (0.099%) Oracle Financials
4 1 (0.099%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 186 (18.49%) Azure
2 153 (15.21%) AWS
3 65 (6.46%) GCP
4 49 (4.87%) Microsoft 365
5 22 (2.19%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 18 (1.79%) SaaS
7 17 (1.69%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 17 (1.69%) Entra ID
7 17 (1.69%) IaaS
8 14 (1.39%) GitHub
8 14 (1.39%) Power Platform
9 13 (1.29%) OpenShift
10 12 (1.19%) Azure DevOps
10 12 (1.19%) PaaS
11 11 (1.09%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 11 (1.09%) AWS CloudFormation
11 11 (1.09%) AWS Direct Connect
12 9 (0.89%) Amazon S3
13 8 (0.80%) Nutanix
14 7 (0.70%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 297 (29.52%) Firewall
2 176 (17.50%) WAN
3 153 (15.21%) BGP
4 115 (11.43%) OSPF
5 108 (10.74%) VPN
6 107 (10.64%) LAN
7 104 (10.34%) Network Security
8 86 (8.55%) SAN
9 79 (7.85%) VXLAN
10 75 (7.46%) Structured Cabling
11 74 (7.36%) DNS
12 68 (6.76%) VLAN
13 60 (5.96%) DHCP
14 55 (5.47%) Ethernet VPN
14 55 (5.47%) Wireless
15 49 (4.87%) SD-WAN
16 43 (4.27%) Wi-Fi
17 41 (4.08%) Cisco ISE
18 37 (3.68%) Cisco Nexus
19 36 (3.58%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (0.99%) DataStage
2 9 (0.89%) Power BI
3 6 (0.60%) Relational Database
3 6 (0.60%) SQL Server
4 5 (0.50%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (0.40%) Big Data
5 4 (0.40%) MongoDB
5 4 (0.40%) Power Query
5 4 (0.40%) PowerPivot
5 4 (0.40%) SAP Data Services
6 3 (0.30%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (0.30%) InfluxDB
7 2 (0.20%) Data Lake
7 2 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (0.20%) Elasticsearch
7 2 (0.20%) GIS
7 2 (0.20%) Oracle Database
7 2 (0.20%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.099%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.099%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 35 (3.48%) JIRA
2 34 (3.38%) Git
3 22 (2.19%) Jenkins
4 18 (1.79%) GitLab
5 9 (0.89%) Maven
6 7 (0.70%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (0.50%) JMeter
8 4 (0.40%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 4 (0.40%) Eclipse
8 4 (0.40%) Subversion
9 3 (0.30%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.30%) ScriptRunner
10 1 (0.099%) AppScan
10 1 (0.099%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.099%) LoadRunner
10 1 (0.099%) Metasploit
10 1 (0.099%) Postman
10 1 (0.099%) Rational DOORS
General
1 260 (25.84%) Social Skills
2 149 (14.81%) Finance
3 124 (12.33%) Analytical Skills
4 86 (8.55%) Public Sector
5 55 (5.47%) Documentation Skills
6 46 (4.57%) Banking
7 39 (3.88%) Telecoms
8 31 (3.08%) Legal
8 31 (3.08%) Manufacturing
9 21 (2.09%) Influencing Skills
9 21 (2.09%) Retail
10 19 (1.89%) Marketing
11 15 (1.49%) Presentation Skills
12 14 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 11 (1.09%) Electronics
14 9 (0.89%) Investment Banking
14 9 (0.89%) Law
14 9 (0.89%) Military
14 9 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
15 7 (0.70%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 181 (17.99%) Network Engineer
2 173 (17.20%) Architect
3 95 (9.44%) Senior
4 79 (7.85%) Project Manager
5 73 (7.26%) Data Centre Engineer
6 52 (5.17%) Network Architect
7 47 (4.67%) Solutions Architect
8 46 (4.57%) Analyst
8 46 (4.57%) Data Centre Manager
8 46 (4.57%) Lead
9 45 (4.47%) IT Engineer
10 40 (3.98%) Field Engineer
11 39 (3.88%) Field Service Engineer
12 38 (3.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 36 (3.58%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
14 35 (3.48%) Infrastructure Manager
15 31 (3.08%) Technical Architect
16 29 (2.88%) IT Support
16 29 (2.88%) Senior Network Engineer
17 28 (2.78%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (3.88%) Middleware
2 34 (3.38%) 802.1X
3 11 (1.09%) LDAP
4 6 (0.60%) Elastic Stack
4 6 (0.60%) Redfish
4 6 (0.60%) Spring
5 5 (0.50%) Jinja
5 5 (0.50%) NETCONF
6 4 (0.40%) ADO
6 4 (0.40%) ARM Templates
6 4 (0.40%) OpenConfig
6 4 (0.40%) REST
6 4 (0.40%) RESTCONF
6 4 (0.40%) Spring Boot
6 4 (0.40%) VML
6 4 (0.40%) XML
6 4 (0.40%) YANG
7 3 (0.30%) Kafka
7 3 (0.30%) RFC 2544
7 3 (0.30%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 47 (4.67%) Hybrid Cloud
2 46 (4.57%) Analytical Mindset
3 27 (2.68%) Clustering
3 27 (2.68%) PKI
4 24 (2.39%) Management Information System
5 22 (2.19%) Onboarding
6 21 (2.09%) Driving Licence
6 21 (2.09%) Fibre Optics
7 20 (1.99%) Cloud Native
8 19 (1.89%) Public Cloud
8 19 (1.89%) Replication
8 19 (1.89%) Self-Motivation
9 17 (1.69%) CMDB
10 16 (1.59%) Private Cloud
11 15 (1.49%) Enterprise Storage
12 14 (1.39%) NHS
13 13 (1.29%) Mainframe
14 12 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
14 12 (1.19%) SCADA
15 10 (0.99%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 129 (12.82%) Windows
2 122 (12.13%) Linux
3 42 (4.17%) Windows Server
4 36 (3.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 19 (1.89%) Unix
6 17 (1.69%) AIX
7 16 (1.59%) Android
7 16 (1.59%) Mac OS
8 14 (1.39%) Solaris
9 11 (1.09%) CentOS
10 8 (0.80%) VMS
11 7 (0.70%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.50%) Ubuntu
13 3 (0.30%) Embedded Linux
13 3 (0.30%) Windows 10
14 2 (0.20%) Data ONTAP
14 2 (0.20%) Oracle Linux
14 2 (0.20%) SUSE
14 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
14 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 175 (17.40%) Problem-Solving
2 169 (16.80%) Migration
3 102 (10.14%) Stakeholder Management
4 87 (8.65%) ITIL
5 80 (7.95%) Roadmaps
6 79 (7.85%) High Availability
7 74 (7.36%) Continuous Improvement
8 71 (7.06%) Project Management
9 70 (6.96%) Infrastructure as Code
10 69 (6.86%) Load Balancing
11 64 (6.36%) Change Management
12 62 (6.16%) CI/CD
12 62 (6.16%) Project Delivery
13 60 (5.96%) Agile
14 57 (5.67%) Customer Service
15 55 (5.47%) Break/Fix
16 54 (5.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 52 (5.17%) DevOps
17 52 (5.17%) Technical Leadership
18 51 (5.07%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 98 (9.74%) Python
2 51 (5.07%) PowerShell
3 29 (2.88%) Bash
4 28 (2.78%) SQL
5 23 (2.29%) Java
6 18 (1.79%) Perl
7 14 (1.39%) Shell Script
8 12 (1.19%) COBOL
9 9 (0.89%) MATLAB
10 7 (0.70%) Bicep
11 6 (0.60%) VBA
12 5 (0.50%) C
12 5 (0.50%) C++
12 5 (0.50%) Lisp
13 4 (0.40%) JavaScript
14 3 (0.30%) Korn
14 3 (0.30%) PL/SQL
15 1 (0.099%) Groovy
15 1 (0.099%) Scala
15 1 (0.099%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 315 (31.31%) Security Cleared
2 236 (23.46%) SC Cleared
3 207 (20.58%) Cisco Certification
4 136 (13.52%) CCNP
5 89 (8.85%) CCNA
6 69 (6.86%) Degree
7 67 (6.66%) DV Cleared
8 45 (4.47%) Network+ Certification
9 38 (3.78%) Microsoft Certification
10 37 (3.68%) A+ Certification
10 37 (3.68%) MCSE
11 28 (2.78%) CCIE
12 24 (2.39%) PMP
13 22 (2.19%) PMI Certification
14 20 (1.99%) AWS Certification
15 18 (1.79%) Azure Certification
16 16 (1.59%) JNCIS
17 14 (1.39%) JNCIP
18 13 (1.29%) CISSP
18 13 (1.29%) City & Guilds
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (2.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 27 (2.68%) SLA
3 25 (2.49%) NIST
3 25 (2.49%) PMO
4 24 (2.39%) GDPR
5 17 (1.69%) PCI DSS
6 16 (1.59%) QA
7 10 (0.99%) NCSC
8 6 (0.60%) GRC
9 5 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
9 5 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
10 4 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
11 3 (0.30%) RMADS
12 2 (0.20%) Data Quality
12 2 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.20%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 1 (0.099%) COBIT
13 1 (0.099%) NEBOSH
13 1 (0.099%) SOC 1
System Software
1 92 (9.15%) VMware Infrastructure
2 65 (6.46%) Active Directory
3 50 (4.97%) VMware NSX
4 23 (2.29%) Firmware
4 23 (2.29%) Virtual Machines
5 22 (2.19%) vSphere
6 18 (1.79%) VMware ESXi
7 17 (1.69%) Docker
7 17 (1.69%) Hyper-V
8 10 (0.99%) KVM
9 4 (0.40%) SRDF
10 3 (0.30%) NFS
10 3 (0.30%) PowerHA
10 3 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.20%) Ceph
11 2 (0.20%) Lustre
11 2 (0.20%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 2 (0.20%) vCloud
11 2 (0.20%) Veritas Cluster Server
11 2 (0.20%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 101 (10.04%) Ansible
2 79 (7.85%) Terraform
3 56 (5.57%) FortiGate
4 41 (4.08%) Kubernetes
5 34 (3.38%) Grafana
6 24 (2.39%) Prometheus
7 17 (1.69%) SCCM
8 15 (1.49%) Microsoft Intune
9 10 (0.99%) Check_MK
10 9 (0.89%) NetBackup
10 9 (0.89%) Podman
10 9 (0.89%) Red Hat Satellite
10 9 (0.89%) vCenter Server
11 7 (0.70%) SCOM
12 6 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.60%) Dell DRAC
12 6 (0.60%) EMC NetWorker
13 5 (0.50%) Nagios
13 5 (0.50%) PowerCLI
13 5 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 293 (29.13%) Cisco
2 132 (13.12%) VMware
3 124 (12.33%) Palo Alto
4 99 (9.84%) Microsoft
5 97 (9.64%) Dell
6 88 (8.75%) Juniper
7 70 (6.96%) F5
8 48 (4.77%) Arista
9 44 (4.37%) Fortinet
10 43 (4.27%) Aruba
10 43 (4.27%) CheckPoint
10 43 (4.27%) ServiceNow
11 37 (3.68%) Meraki
11 37 (3.68%) SolarWinds
12 34 (3.38%) Google
12 34 (3.38%) Red Hat
13 31 (3.08%) HP
14 30 (2.98%) IBM
15 29 (2.88%) Splunk
16 26 (2.58%) Citrix