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

6 months to
8 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 117 130 100
Rank change year-on-year +13 -30 -8
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,002 624 971
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.19% 2.14% 2.21%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.73% 6.30% 7.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 621 408 644
10th Percentile £318 £325 £295
25th Percentile £409 £413 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.37% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £603 £638
90th Percentile £700 £675 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £472 £475 £535
% change year-on-year -0.63% -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 14,884 9,897 13,357
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.54% 33.87% 30.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,337 6,345 8,564
10th Percentile £300 £295 £263
25th Percentile £411 £410 £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 708 380 895
10th Percentile £15.79 £16.95 £12.25
25th Percentile £19.75 £22.22 £15.39
Median hourly rate £44.50 £32.50 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.92% +16.07% +24.44%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.57 £57.50
90th Percentile £85.40 £83.20 £66.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £31.76 £26.00
% change year-on-year +43.14% +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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +11 825 £485 -7.62% 436
UK excluding London -3 564 £472 -0.63% 306
London -1 302 £530 +0.95% 184
Work from Home +23 258 £475 -10.80% 123
North of England +27 188 £460 +8.24% 53
South East +12 170 £475 -5.00% 115
North West +27 96 £500 - 28
Yorkshire -5 78 £365 -5.93% 17
Midlands -31 63 £474 -24.16% 32
West Midlands -41 51 £474 -24.16% 14
Scotland -2 50 £475 +11.76% 29
South West -41 39 £525 -4.20% 31
East of England -22 33 £478 +13.14% 45
Wales +1 30 £350 -12.50% 11
North East -3 16 £175 +59.09% 8
East Midlands -23 11 £201 -59.75% 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 (1.80%) Confluence
1 18 (1.80%) SharePoint
2 16 (1.60%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (1.00%) 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 (0.100%) Mendix
Applications
1 30 (2.99%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (2.20%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (1.80%) MS Visio
4 16 (1.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (1.30%) 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 (0.100%) Maximo
4 1 (0.100%) Oracle Financials
4 1 (0.100%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 185 (18.46%) Azure
2 152 (15.17%) AWS
3 65 (6.49%) GCP
4 49 (4.89%) Microsoft 365
5 22 (2.20%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 18 (1.80%) SaaS
7 17 (1.70%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 17 (1.70%) IaaS
8 16 (1.60%) Entra ID
9 14 (1.40%) GitHub
9 14 (1.40%) Power Platform
10 13 (1.30%) OpenShift
11 12 (1.20%) Azure DevOps
11 12 (1.20%) PaaS
12 11 (1.10%) Amazon GuardDuty
12 11 (1.10%) AWS CloudFormation
12 11 (1.10%) AWS Direct Connect
13 9 (0.90%) Amazon S3
14 8 (0.80%) Nutanix
15 7 (0.70%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 296 (29.54%) Firewall
2 175 (17.47%) WAN
3 152 (15.17%) BGP
4 114 (11.38%) OSPF
5 108 (10.78%) VPN
6 106 (10.58%) LAN
7 103 (10.28%) Network Security
8 83 (8.28%) SAN
9 78 (7.78%) Structured Cabling
9 78 (7.78%) VXLAN
10 74 (7.39%) DNS
11 68 (6.79%) VLAN
12 60 (5.99%) DHCP
13 55 (5.49%) Wireless
14 54 (5.39%) Ethernet VPN
15 49 (4.89%) SD-WAN
16 42 (4.19%) Wi-Fi
17 41 (4.09%) Cisco ISE
18 36 (3.59%) Cisco Nexus
18 36 (3.59%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (1.00%) DataStage
2 9 (0.90%) 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 (0.100%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.100%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 35 (3.49%) JIRA
2 34 (3.39%) Git
3 22 (2.20%) Jenkins
4 18 (1.80%) GitLab
5 9 (0.90%) 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 (0.100%) AppScan
10 1 (0.100%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.100%) LoadRunner
10 1 (0.100%) Metasploit
10 1 (0.100%) Postman
10 1 (0.100%) Rational DOORS
General
1 259 (25.85%) Social Skills
2 147 (14.67%) Finance
3 120 (11.98%) Analytical Skills
4 86 (8.58%) Public Sector
5 55 (5.49%) Documentation Skills
6 45 (4.49%) Banking
7 39 (3.89%) Telecoms
8 31 (3.09%) Legal
8 31 (3.09%) Manufacturing
9 21 (2.10%) Influencing Skills
9 21 (2.10%) Retail
10 19 (1.90%) Marketing
11 16 (1.60%) Presentation Skills
12 15 (1.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 11 (1.10%) Electronics
14 9 (0.90%) Investment Banking
14 9 (0.90%) Law
14 9 (0.90%) Military
14 9 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
15 7 (0.70%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 180 (17.96%) Network Engineer
2 171 (17.07%) Architect
3 93 (9.28%) Senior
4 79 (7.88%) Project Manager
5 73 (7.29%) Data Centre Engineer
6 52 (5.19%) Network Architect
7 47 (4.69%) Analyst
7 47 (4.69%) Solutions Architect
8 46 (4.59%) Data Centre Manager
9 45 (4.49%) Lead
10 42 (4.19%) IT Engineer
11 38 (3.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 37 (3.69%) Field Engineer
13 36 (3.59%) Field Service Engineer
13 36 (3.59%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
14 35 (3.49%) Infrastructure Manager
15 31 (3.09%) Technical Architect
16 29 (2.89%) Senior Network Engineer
17 28 (2.79%) IT Support
18 27 (2.69%) Cisco Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (3.99%) Middleware
2 33 (3.29%) 802.1X
3 11 (1.10%) 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 (4.69%) Hybrid Cloud
2 42 (4.19%) Analytical Mindset
3 27 (2.69%) Clustering
3 27 (2.69%) PKI
4 24 (2.40%) Driving Licence
4 24 (2.40%) Fibre Optics
5 23 (2.30%) Management Information System
6 22 (2.20%) Onboarding
7 19 (1.90%) Cloud Native
7 19 (1.90%) Replication
7 19 (1.90%) Self-Motivation
8 18 (1.80%) Public Cloud
9 17 (1.70%) CMDB
10 15 (1.50%) Enterprise Storage
10 15 (1.50%) Private Cloud
11 14 (1.40%) NHS
12 13 (1.30%) Mainframe
13 12 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
13 12 (1.20%) SCADA
14 10 (1.00%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 130 (12.97%) Windows
2 120 (11.98%) Linux
3 43 (4.29%) Windows Server
4 34 (3.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (1.70%) Unix
6 16 (1.60%) Android
6 16 (1.60%) Mac OS
7 15 (1.50%) AIX
8 12 (1.20%) Solaris
9 11 (1.10%) 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%) Windows Server 2008
14 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
15 1 (0.100%) Debian
15 1 (0.100%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 171 (17.07%) Problem-Solving
2 166 (16.57%) Migration
3 105 (10.48%) Stakeholder Management
4 85 (8.48%) ITIL
5 79 (7.88%) High Availability
6 78 (7.78%) Roadmaps
7 71 (7.09%) Project Management
8 70 (6.99%) Continuous Improvement
8 70 (6.99%) Infrastructure as Code
9 69 (6.89%) Load Balancing
10 63 (6.29%) Change Management
10 63 (6.29%) Project Delivery
11 62 (6.19%) CI/CD
12 60 (5.99%) Agile
13 54 (5.39%) Customer Service
14 53 (5.29%) DevOps
14 53 (5.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 52 (5.19%) Break/Fix
16 51 (5.09%) Validation
17 50 (4.99%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 98 (9.78%) Python
2 51 (5.09%) PowerShell
3 29 (2.89%) Bash
4 28 (2.79%) SQL
5 23 (2.30%) Java
6 18 (1.80%) Perl
7 14 (1.40%) Shell Script
8 12 (1.20%) COBOL
9 9 (0.90%) 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 (0.100%) Groovy
15 1 (0.100%) Ruby
15 1 (0.100%) Scala
Qualifications
1 312 (31.14%) Security Cleared
2 233 (23.25%) SC Cleared
3 202 (20.16%) Cisco Certification
4 135 (13.47%) CCNP
5 86 (8.58%) CCNA
6 68 (6.79%) Degree
7 67 (6.69%) DV Cleared
8 42 (4.19%) Network+ Certification
9 35 (3.49%) Microsoft Certification
10 34 (3.39%) A+ Certification
10 34 (3.39%) MCSE
11 28 (2.79%) CCIE
12 24 (2.40%) PMP
13 22 (2.20%) PMI Certification
14 20 (2.00%) AWS Certification
15 17 (1.70%) Azure Certification
16 16 (1.60%) JNCIS
17 14 (1.40%) JNCIP
18 13 (1.30%) City & Guilds
19 12 (1.20%) JNCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (2.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 27 (2.69%) SLA
3 26 (2.59%) PMO
4 24 (2.40%) NIST
5 23 (2.30%) GDPR
6 17 (1.70%) PCI DSS
6 17 (1.70%) QA
7 10 (1.00%) NCSC
8 5 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
8 5 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
9 4 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
9 4 (0.40%) GRC
10 3 (0.30%) RMADS
11 2 (0.20%) Data Quality
11 2 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.20%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.100%) COBIT
12 1 (0.100%) NEBOSH
12 1 (0.100%) SOC 1
System Software
1 91 (9.08%) VMware Infrastructure
2 65 (6.49%) Active Directory
3 49 (4.89%) VMware NSX
4 23 (2.30%) Firmware
4 23 (2.30%) Virtual Machines
5 22 (2.20%) vSphere
6 18 (1.80%) VMware ESXi
7 17 (1.70%) Docker
7 17 (1.70%) Hyper-V
8 10 (1.00%) 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%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 2 (0.20%) UAG
11 2 (0.20%) vCloud
11 2 (0.20%) Veritas Cluster Server
11 2 (0.20%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 101 (10.08%) Ansible
2 79 (7.88%) Terraform
3 56 (5.59%) FortiGate
4 41 (4.09%) Kubernetes
5 34 (3.39%) Grafana
6 24 (2.40%) Prometheus
7 17 (1.70%) SCCM
8 15 (1.50%) Microsoft Intune
9 10 (1.00%) Check_MK
10 9 (0.90%) NetBackup
10 9 (0.90%) Podman
10 9 (0.90%) Red Hat Satellite
10 9 (0.90%) 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%) Endace
13 5 (0.50%) PowerCLI
13 5 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 292 (29.14%) Cisco
2 131 (13.07%) VMware
3 123 (12.28%) Palo Alto
4 97 (9.68%) Microsoft
5 93 (9.28%) Dell
6 88 (8.78%) Juniper
7 69 (6.89%) F5
8 48 (4.79%) Arista
9 44 (4.39%) Fortinet
10 43 (4.29%) Aruba
10 43 (4.29%) CheckPoint
10 43 (4.29%) ServiceNow
11 37 (3.69%) SolarWinds
12 36 (3.59%) Meraki
13 34 (3.39%) Google
14 32 (3.19%) Red Hat
15 30 (2.99%) IBM
16 29 (2.89%) HP
16 29 (2.89%) Splunk
17 26 (2.59%) Citrix