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

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 100 126 104
Rank change year-on-year +26 -22 -16
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,199 667 934
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.36% 2.22% 2.15%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 7.20% 6.42% 7.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 710 432 619
10th Percentile £318 £300 £300
25th Percentile £406 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year -1.00% -6.54% -2.73%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £725 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £538
% change year-on-year - -11.63% +7.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 23 53
10th Percentile £16.00 - £12.08
25th Percentile £16.01 £24.66 £16.25
Median hourly rate £21.00 £25.15 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.50% +4.79% +14.38%
75th Percentile £35.22 £41.25 £40.00
90th Percentile £73.53 £43.75 £41.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.34 £25.08 £22.50
% change year-on-year -22.87% +11.44% +8.67%

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 16,646 10,387 13,023
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.70% 34.59% 29.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,218 6,499 8,262
10th Percentile £313 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £539
Median % change year-on-year -1.04% -2.51% -2.09%
75th Percentile £630 £650 £663
90th Percentile £750 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 859 464 934
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.84 £12.25
25th Percentile £21.00 £19.97 £15.28
Median hourly rate £42.50 £32.41 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year +31.13% -9.97% +60.11%
75th Percentile £70.00 £58.75 £62.00
90th Percentile £85.60 £80.70 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £31.63 £35.65
% change year-on-year +39.00% -11.29% +62.05%

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 24 June 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 24 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Centre in the UK

Data Centre
Top 18 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 24 June 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 +21 987 £500 -3.85% 268
UK excluding London +2 679 £475 - 210
London +14 354 £550 +2.33% 109
Work from Home +20 323 £485 -3.00% 83
North of England +6 242 £474 +5.33% 37
South East +9 208 £475 +5.56% 78
Yorkshire -2 126 £365 -16.57% 18
North West +1 92 £500 -1.48% 15
Midlands -46 59 £467 -15.12% 27
Scotland -3 55 £463 +5.71% 9
West Midlands -44 54 £474 -13.82% 19
South West -28 49 £495 -12.00% 28
East of England -11 40 £492 +64.00% 19
Wales +5 37 £468 +16.88% 15
North East -6 30 £625 +468.18% 4
East Midlands -23 4 £363 -29.70% 8
Northern Ireland - 2 £425 - 3
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 25 (2.09%) Confluence
2 18 (1.50%) SharePoint
3 11 (0.92%) CICS
3 11 (0.92%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (0.33%) Apache
4 4 (0.33%) CloudStack
4 4 (0.33%) OpenStack
4 4 (0.33%) WebLogic
5 3 (0.25%) nginx
5 3 (0.25%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.083%) IIS
6 1 (0.083%) Mendix
Applications
1 15 (1.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 12 (1.00%) Microsoft Project
3 10 (0.83%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.75%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.42%) AutoCAD
6 3 (0.25%) Adobe Illustrator
6 3 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.17%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 3 (0.25%) Primavera
1 3 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
2 2 (0.17%) DELMIA
2 2 (0.17%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 2 (0.17%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 255 (21.27%) Azure
2 219 (18.27%) AWS
3 75 (6.26%) GCP
4 40 (3.34%) GitHub
4 40 (3.34%) IaaS
5 38 (3.17%) Microsoft 365
6 34 (2.84%) SaaS
7 30 (2.50%) OCI
8 25 (2.09%) Entra ID
9 20 (1.67%) PaaS
9 20 (1.67%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 16 (1.33%) Azure DevOps
11 15 (1.25%) OneDrive
11 15 (1.25%) OpenShift
12 13 (1.08%) Power Platform
13 11 (0.92%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 11 (0.92%) Azure Sentinel
13 11 (0.92%) Nutanix
14 9 (0.75%) Amazon EKS
15 8 (0.67%) Amazon GuardDuty
Communications & Networking
1 332 (27.69%) Firewall
2 200 (16.68%) WAN
3 190 (15.85%) BGP
4 147 (12.26%) OSPF
5 125 (10.43%) VPN
6 124 (10.34%) VXLAN
7 120 (10.01%) SAN
8 118 (9.84%) LAN
9 114 (9.51%) Network Security
10 112 (9.34%) DNS
11 100 (8.34%) VLAN
12 94 (7.84%) Structured Cabling
13 89 (7.42%) SD-WAN
14 86 (7.17%) Ethernet VPN
15 80 (6.67%) DHCP
16 60 (5.00%) BIG-IP
17 54 (4.50%) TCP/IP
18 53 (4.42%) Cisco Nexus
19 49 (4.09%) Wi-Fi
20 48 (4.00%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (1.17%) SQL Server
2 10 (0.83%) DataStage
3 8 (0.67%) Power BI
4 7 (0.58%) Big Data
5 6 (0.50%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (0.33%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (0.33%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
6 4 (0.33%) MongoDB
6 4 (0.33%) Oracle Reports
6 4 (0.33%) Relational Database
6 4 (0.33%) SAP Data Services
7 3 (0.25%) GIS
8 2 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.17%) Data Lake
8 2 (0.17%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.17%) Oracle Database
8 2 (0.17%) Oracle Database 12c
8 2 (0.17%) Power Query
8 2 (0.17%) PowerPivot
Development Applications
1 66 (5.50%) JIRA
2 38 (3.17%) GitLab
3 37 (3.09%) Jenkins
4 31 (2.59%) Git
5 7 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
6 5 (0.42%) JMeter
7 4 (0.33%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 4 (0.33%) Eclipse
7 4 (0.33%) Maven
7 4 (0.33%) ScriptRunner
7 4 (0.33%) Subversion
8 3 (0.25%) Zephyr
9 2 (0.17%) MSI
10 1 (0.083%) AppScan
10 1 (0.083%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.083%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.083%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.083%) LoadRunner
10 1 (0.083%) Metasploit
10 1 (0.083%) Postman
General
1 296 (24.69%) Social Skills
2 161 (13.43%) Finance
3 129 (10.76%) Analytical Skills
4 81 (6.76%) Public Sector
5 65 (5.42%) Documentation Skills
6 47 (3.92%) Banking
7 39 (3.25%) Telecoms
8 38 (3.17%) Legal
9 24 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
9 24 (2.00%) Manufacturing
10 20 (1.67%) Retail
11 17 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 11 (0.92%) Military
13 10 (0.83%) Law
13 10 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
14 8 (0.67%) Aerospace
14 8 (0.67%) Financial Institution
14 8 (0.67%) Marketing
14 8 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
15 5 (0.42%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 204 (17.01%) Network Engineer
2 192 (16.01%) Architect
3 136 (11.34%) Senior
4 96 (8.01%) Data Centre Engineer
5 95 (7.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 70 (5.84%) Project Manager
7 63 (5.25%) Lead
8 56 (4.67%) IT Engineer
9 54 (4.50%) Network Architect
10 53 (4.42%) Field Engineer
11 49 (4.09%) Field Service Engineer
12 44 (3.67%) Solutions Architect
13 39 (3.25%) Technical Architect
14 38 (3.17%) Infrastructure Manager
15 37 (3.09%) Analyst
15 37 (3.09%) Data Centre Manager
16 35 (2.92%) Support Engineer
17 34 (2.84%) Senior Network Engineer
18 31 (2.59%) Administrator
18 31 (2.59%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (4.42%) Middleware
2 32 (2.67%) 802.1X
3 12 (1.00%) LDAP
4 10 (0.83%) Redfish
4 10 (0.83%) REST
5 7 (0.58%) Elastic Stack
5 7 (0.58%) Spring
6 5 (0.42%) Jinja
6 5 (0.42%) Kafka
6 5 (0.42%) XML
7 4 (0.33%) ADO
7 4 (0.33%) GeoJSON
7 4 (0.33%) NETCONF
7 4 (0.33%) RESTful
7 4 (0.33%) Spring Boot
7 4 (0.33%) YAML
8 3 (0.25%) OpenConfig
8 3 (0.25%) OpenLayers
8 3 (0.25%) RESTCONF
8 3 (0.25%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 70 (5.84%) Hybrid Cloud
2 56 (4.67%) Analytical Mindset
3 39 (3.25%) Management Information System
4 35 (2.92%) Cloud Native
5 31 (2.59%) Clustering
5 31 (2.59%) Enterprise Storage
6 30 (2.50%) Onboarding
6 30 (2.50%) PKI
7 26 (2.17%) Fibre Optics
7 26 (2.17%) Private Cloud
8 21 (1.75%) CMDB
9 19 (1.58%) Driving Licence
9 19 (1.58%) Public Cloud
9 19 (1.58%) Replication
10 17 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
11 16 (1.33%) SCADA
12 14 (1.17%) NHS
13 13 (1.08%) Mainframe
13 13 (1.08%) Operational Technology
13 13 (1.08%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 162 (13.51%) Windows
2 150 (12.51%) Linux
3 40 (3.34%) Windows Server
4 39 (3.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 27 (2.25%) Unix
6 23 (1.92%) AIX
7 18 (1.50%) Solaris
8 11 (0.92%) CentOS
9 10 (0.83%) Apple iOS
9 10 (0.83%) Mac OS
10 9 (0.75%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.50%) VMS
13 5 (0.42%) HPUX
13 5 (0.42%) Oracle Linux
13 5 (0.42%) SUSE
14 4 (0.33%) Data ONTAP
15 3 (0.25%) Windows Server 2008
16 2 (0.17%) Embedded Linux
16 2 (0.17%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 210 (17.51%) Migration
2 202 (16.85%) Problem-Solving
3 124 (10.34%) Stakeholder Management
4 122 (10.18%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 115 (9.59%) High Availability
5 115 (9.59%) Infrastructure as Code
6 109 (9.09%) ITIL
7 104 (8.67%) CI/CD
8 97 (8.09%) Roadmaps
9 93 (7.76%) Continuous Improvement
10 88 (7.34%) Agile
11 86 (7.17%) Validation
12 84 (7.01%) Load Balancing
13 83 (6.92%) DevOps
14 77 (6.42%) Change Management
15 76 (6.34%) Project Delivery
16 71 (5.92%) Project Management
17 69 (5.75%) Zero Trust
18 68 (5.67%) Customer Service
19 67 (5.59%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 151 (12.59%) Python
2 42 (3.50%) PowerShell
3 37 (3.09%) SQL
4 26 (2.17%) Bash
5 19 (1.58%) Java
6 17 (1.42%) Shell Script
7 16 (1.33%) Bicep
8 12 (1.00%) COBOL
9 11 (0.92%) MATLAB
10 10 (0.83%) ActionScript
10 10 (0.83%) Perl
11 7 (0.58%) JavaScript
11 7 (0.58%) PL/SQL
12 4 (0.33%) C
12 4 (0.33%) C++
12 4 (0.33%) Lisp
13 3 (0.25%) C#
13 3 (0.25%) JCL
13 3 (0.25%) Korn
13 3 (0.25%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 314 (26.19%) Security Cleared
2 234 (19.52%) Cisco Certification
3 228 (19.02%) SC Cleared
4 140 (11.68%) CCNP
5 104 (8.67%) CCNA
6 77 (6.42%) DV Cleared
7 73 (6.09%) Degree
8 64 (5.34%) Network+ Certification
9 54 (4.50%) Microsoft Certification
10 47 (3.92%) A+ Certification
10 47 (3.92%) MCSE
11 30 (2.50%) Azure Certification
12 26 (2.17%) CCIE
12 26 (2.17%) PMI Certification
12 26 (2.17%) PMP
13 25 (2.09%) AWS Certification
13 25 (2.09%) City & Guilds
14 20 (1.67%) BICSI Certification
14 20 (1.67%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 18 (1.50%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (2.75%) SLA
2 27 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 26 (2.17%) NIST
3 26 (2.17%) QA
4 22 (1.83%) PMO
5 19 (1.58%) GDPR
6 16 (1.33%) NCSC
7 10 (0.83%) GRC
8 9 (0.75%) Disclosure Scotland
8 9 (0.75%) PCI DSS
9 7 (0.58%) RMADS
10 6 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
11 4 (0.33%) JSP 440
12 3 (0.25%) NIST 800
13 2 (0.17%) Accessibility
13 2 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials
13 2 (0.17%) Data Quality
13 2 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
13 2 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 2 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 107 (8.92%) VMware Infrastructure
2 66 (5.50%) Active Directory
3 36 (3.00%) VMware ESXi
4 34 (2.84%) VMware NSX
4 34 (2.84%) vSphere
5 30 (2.50%) Firmware
6 27 (2.25%) Hyper-V
7 23 (1.92%) Virtual Machines
8 15 (1.25%) Docker
9 11 (0.92%) KVM
10 8 (0.67%) NFS
11 6 (0.50%) Microsoft App-V
11 6 (0.50%) SRDF
11 6 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (0.33%) BitLocker
12 4 (0.33%) Terminal Services
12 4 (0.33%) VMware Workstation
13 3 (0.25%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 3 (0.25%) UAG
13 3 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 139 (11.59%) Ansible
2 109 (9.09%) Terraform
3 56 (4.67%) FortiGate
4 48 (4.00%) Kubernetes
5 35 (2.92%) Grafana
6 30 (2.50%) Prometheus
7 27 (2.25%) Microsoft Intune
8 15 (1.25%) vCenter Server
9 13 (1.08%) Check_MK
9 13 (1.08%) NetBackup
10 11 (0.92%) Podman
10 11 (0.92%) PowerCLI
10 11 (0.92%) Red Hat Satellite
10 11 (0.92%) vMotion
11 10 (0.83%) Dell DRAC
11 10 (0.83%) Jamf Pro
12 9 (0.75%) SCCM
13 7 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (0.58%) EMC NetWorker
13 7 (0.58%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 305 (25.44%) Cisco
2 164 (13.68%) VMware
3 147 (12.26%) Palo Alto
4 117 (9.76%) Microsoft
5 114 (9.51%) F5
6 92 (7.67%) Juniper
7 91 (7.59%) Dell
8 74 (6.17%) Arista
9 68 (5.67%) Fortinet
10 58 (4.84%) ServiceNow
11 50 (4.17%) Aruba
12 46 (3.84%) Google
13 42 (3.50%) Red Hat
13 42 (3.50%) SolarWinds
14 36 (3.00%) CheckPoint
14 36 (3.00%) IBM
15 29 (2.42%) Splunk
16 26 (2.17%) Oracle
17 25 (2.09%) HP
18 24 (2.00%) Citrix