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 15 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 101 127 103
Rank change year-on-year +26 -24 -9
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,113 643 919
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.33% 2.21% 2.15%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 7.28% 6.53% 7.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 693 421 618
10th Percentile £318 £350 £299
25th Percentile £406 £413 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.90% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £724 £675 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £469 £475 £535
% change year-on-year -1.26% -11.21% +7.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 22 44
10th Percentile £16.00 £24.18 £14.33
25th Percentile £16.01 £24.66 £20.51
Median hourly rate £19.34 £27.50 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year -29.67% +14.58% +10.75%
75th Percentile £33.75 £41.25 £40.00
90th Percentile £74.16 £43.75 £41.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.34 £24.66 £23.25
% change year-on-year -21.57% +6.06% +9.36%

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 15,280 9,849 12,966
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.04% 33.89% 30.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,488 6,289 8,351
10th Percentile £313 £300 £270
25th Percentile £413 £411 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £509 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -3.14% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £670
90th Percentile £738 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £482 £500
% change year-on-year - -3.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 726 393 901
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.79 £12.25
25th Percentile £20.00 £20.75 £15.17
Median hourly rate £42.60 £32.05 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year +32.93% +1.75% +40.09%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £87.50 £83.37 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £30.93 £30.00
% change year-on-year +53.70% +3.10% +36.36%

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 15 May 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 15 May 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 15 May 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 +18 905 £485 -7.62% 466
UK excluding London +8 633 £469 -1.26% 295
London +11 315 £550 +4.27% 204
Work from Home +34 293 £475 -8.21% 151
North of England +21 209 £464 +9.12% 79
South East +3 197 £463 +2.78% 89
Yorkshire -7 97 £365 -14.12% 25
North West +17 92 £481 -3.75% 40
Scotland +9 55 £466 +9.59% 19
South West -30 51 £495 -9.84% 32
Midlands -59 51 £465 -15.45% 38
West Midlands -54 45 £466 -15.29% 29
East of England -10 42 £487 +77.18% 34
Wales +4 34 £464 +15.94% 5
North East +2 22 £400 +263.64% 14
East Midlands -28 5 £400 -27.27% 9
Northern Ireland - 3 £425 - 6

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 22 (1.98%) Confluence
2 13 (1.17%) SharePoint
3 11 (0.99%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.90%) CICS
5 5 (0.45%) nginx
6 4 (0.36%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.36%) WebLogic
7 3 (0.27%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.18%) Apache Airflow
9 1 (0.090%) Apache
9 1 (0.090%) CloudStack
9 1 (0.090%) Mendix
Applications
1 18 (1.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (0.99%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.99%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.27%) Adobe Illustrator
5 3 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.18%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.18%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 3 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
1 3 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
2 2 (0.18%) DELMIA
2 2 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 2 (0.18%) Primavera
3 1 (0.090%) Maximo
3 1 (0.090%) Oracle Financials
3 1 (0.090%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 216 (19.41%) Azure
2 178 (15.99%) AWS
3 66 (5.93%) GCP
4 34 (3.05%) Microsoft 365
5 23 (2.07%) SaaS
6 21 (1.89%) Entra ID
6 21 (1.89%) GitHub
7 20 (1.80%) OCI
8 19 (1.71%) IaaS
9 17 (1.53%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 15 (1.35%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 13 (1.17%) PaaS
12 12 (1.08%) OpenShift
12 12 (1.08%) Power Platform
13 11 (0.99%) Azure DevOps
14 10 (0.90%) Azure Sentinel
15 9 (0.81%) Amazon GuardDuty
15 9 (0.81%) AWS Direct Connect
15 9 (0.81%) GitHub Actions
15 9 (0.81%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 311 (27.94%) Firewall
2 193 (17.34%) WAN
3 173 (15.54%) BGP
4 140 (12.58%) OSPF
5 119 (10.69%) Network Security
6 117 (10.51%) LAN
6 117 (10.51%) VPN
7 106 (9.52%) SAN
8 105 (9.43%) VXLAN
9 89 (8.00%) Structured Cabling
10 83 (7.46%) VLAN
11 82 (7.37%) DNS
12 74 (6.65%) Ethernet VPN
13 65 (5.84%) SD-WAN
14 64 (5.75%) DHCP
15 53 (4.76%) Cisco Nexus
16 51 (4.58%) Wi-Fi
17 41 (3.68%) BIG-IP
17 41 (3.68%) NX-OS
18 37 (3.32%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (0.99%) SQL Server
2 10 (0.90%) DataStage
3 7 (0.63%) Power BI
4 6 (0.54%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (0.45%) Relational Database
6 4 (0.36%) Big Data
6 4 (0.36%) MongoDB
6 4 (0.36%) SAP Data Services
7 3 (0.27%) GIS
7 3 (0.27%) Oracle Database
7 3 (0.27%) Oracle Reports
7 3 (0.27%) Power Query
7 3 (0.27%) PowerPivot
8 2 (0.18%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.18%) Data Lake
8 2 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.18%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.18%) InfluxDB
9 1 (0.090%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.090%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 45 (4.04%) JIRA
2 36 (3.23%) Git
3 32 (2.88%) GitLab
4 27 (2.43%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.72%) Sonatype Nexus
6 7 (0.63%) Maven
7 6 (0.54%) ScriptRunner
8 5 (0.45%) JMeter
9 4 (0.36%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 4 (0.36%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.36%) Subversion
10 3 (0.27%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.27%) Zephyr
11 1 (0.090%) AppScan
11 1 (0.090%) Burp Suite
11 1 (0.090%) LoadRunner
11 1 (0.090%) Metasploit
11 1 (0.090%) Postman
General
1 275 (24.71%) Social Skills
2 150 (13.48%) Finance
3 132 (11.86%) Analytical Skills
4 80 (7.19%) Public Sector
5 62 (5.57%) Documentation Skills
6 45 (4.04%) Banking
7 32 (2.88%) Legal
8 28 (2.52%) Telecoms
9 25 (2.25%) Manufacturing
10 23 (2.07%) Retail
11 22 (1.98%) Influencing Skills
12 12 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 10 (0.90%) Military
13 10 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
14 9 (0.81%) Law
15 8 (0.72%) Aerospace
15 8 (0.72%) Financial Institution
15 8 (0.72%) Marketing
16 6 (0.54%) Organisational Skills
17 5 (0.45%) Portuguese Language
Job Titles
1 201 (18.06%) Network Engineer
2 180 (16.17%) Architect
3 122 (10.96%) Senior
4 82 (7.37%) Data Centre Engineer
5 72 (6.47%) Project Manager
6 64 (5.75%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 59 (5.30%) IT Engineer
8 56 (5.03%) Field Engineer
9 54 (4.85%) Lead
10 53 (4.76%) Field Service Engineer
11 52 (4.67%) Network Architect
12 45 (4.04%) Data Centre Manager
13 41 (3.68%) Solutions Architect
14 39 (3.50%) Analyst
15 38 (3.41%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
16 35 (3.14%) Senior Network Engineer
17 33 (2.96%) Technical Architect
18 32 (2.88%) Infrastructure Manager
18 32 (2.88%) Support Engineer
19 31 (2.79%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (4.13%) Middleware
2 32 (2.88%) 802.1X
3 13 (1.17%) LDAP
4 8 (0.72%) Redfish
5 7 (0.63%) Elastic Stack
5 7 (0.63%) Spring
6 5 (0.45%) Jinja
6 5 (0.45%) REST
6 5 (0.45%) XML
7 4 (0.36%) ADO
7 4 (0.36%) Kafka
7 4 (0.36%) NETCONF
7 4 (0.36%) Spring Boot
7 4 (0.36%) VML
8 3 (0.27%) ARM Templates
8 3 (0.27%) EJB
8 3 (0.27%) Java EE
8 3 (0.27%) OpenConfig
8 3 (0.27%) RESTCONF
8 3 (0.27%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 60 (5.39%) Analytical Mindset
2 58 (5.21%) Hybrid Cloud
3 33 (2.96%) Management Information System
4 28 (2.52%) Clustering
4 28 (2.52%) PKI
5 25 (2.25%) Fibre Optics
6 24 (2.16%) Cloud Native
7 20 (1.80%) CMDB
7 20 (1.80%) SCADA
8 19 (1.71%) Driving Licence
8 19 (1.71%) Onboarding
8 19 (1.71%) Public Cloud
8 19 (1.71%) Replication
9 18 (1.62%) Enterprise Storage
10 17 (1.53%) Self-Motivation
11 16 (1.44%) Private Cloud
12 14 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
12 14 (1.26%) NHS
13 12 (1.08%) Mainframe
13 12 (1.08%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 139 (12.49%) Windows
2 138 (12.40%) Linux
3 38 (3.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 38 (3.41%) Windows Server
4 22 (1.98%) Unix
5 21 (1.89%) AIX
6 17 (1.53%) Solaris
7 12 (1.08%) CentOS
8 9 (0.81%) Windows Server 2019
9 7 (0.63%) VMS
10 6 (0.54%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.45%) Mac OS
12 4 (0.36%) Apple iOS
12 4 (0.36%) HPUX
12 4 (0.36%) Oracle Linux
12 4 (0.36%) SUSE
13 3 (0.27%) Embedded Linux
13 3 (0.27%) Windows Server 2008
13 3 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 205 (18.42%) Problem-Solving
2 187 (16.80%) Migration
3 103 (9.25%) High Availability
4 100 (8.98%) Stakeholder Management
5 97 (8.72%) ITIL
6 95 (8.54%) Infrastructure as Code
7 91 (8.18%) Roadmaps
8 88 (7.91%) Continuous Improvement
9 82 (7.37%) CI/CD
10 79 (7.10%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 79 (7.10%) Load Balancing
11 75 (6.74%) Validation
12 72 (6.47%) Change Management
13 70 (6.29%) Project Management
14 67 (6.02%) Customer Service
14 67 (6.02%) Project Delivery
15 65 (5.84%) Break/Fix
16 63 (5.66%) DevOps
17 62 (5.57%) Technical Leadership
18 61 (5.48%) Agile
Programming Languages
1 118 (10.60%) Python
2 39 (3.50%) PowerShell
3 36 (3.23%) SQL
4 25 (2.25%) Bash
5 23 (2.07%) Java
6 16 (1.44%) Shell Script
7 12 (1.08%) COBOL
8 11 (0.99%) MATLAB
9 10 (0.90%) Perl
10 9 (0.81%) Bicep
11 7 (0.63%) PL/SQL
12 5 (0.45%) C
12 5 (0.45%) C++
12 5 (0.45%) JavaScript
13 4 (0.36%) VBA
14 2 (0.18%) Groovy
14 2 (0.18%) Korn
14 2 (0.18%) Lisp
15 1 (0.090%) R
15 1 (0.090%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 311 (27.94%) Security Cleared
2 236 (21.20%) Cisco Certification
3 234 (21.02%) SC Cleared
4 143 (12.85%) CCNP
5 108 (9.70%) CCNA
6 66 (5.93%) Degree
7 64 (5.75%) Network+ Certification
8 62 (5.57%) DV Cleared
9 54 (4.85%) Microsoft Certification
10 51 (4.58%) A+ Certification
10 51 (4.58%) MCSE
11 26 (2.34%) CCIE
12 23 (2.07%) Azure Certification
12 23 (2.07%) PMP
13 22 (1.98%) City & Guilds
13 22 (1.98%) PMI Certification
14 19 (1.71%) AWS Certification
14 19 (1.71%) BICSI Certification
15 16 (1.44%) JNCIS
16 15 (1.35%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (2.79%) SLA
2 24 (2.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 24 (2.16%) PMO
2 24 (2.16%) QA
3 22 (1.98%) NIST
4 18 (1.62%) GDPR
5 11 (0.99%) NCSC
6 9 (0.81%) Disclosure Scotland
6 9 (0.81%) PCI DSS
7 8 (0.72%) GRC
8 6 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
9 4 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
9 4 (0.36%) RMADS
10 3 (0.27%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.18%) Data Quality
11 2 (0.18%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.090%) COBIT
12 1 (0.090%) JSP 440
12 1 (0.090%) NEBOSH
System Software
1 93 (8.36%) VMware Infrastructure
2 59 (5.30%) Active Directory
3 41 (3.68%) VMware NSX
4 31 (2.79%) Firmware
5 30 (2.70%) vSphere
6 25 (2.25%) VMware ESXi
7 24 (2.16%) Virtual Machines
8 20 (1.80%) Hyper-V
9 14 (1.26%) Docker
10 10 (0.90%) KVM
11 6 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (0.36%) SRDF
12 4 (0.36%) VMware Workstation
13 3 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
13 3 (0.27%) NFS
13 3 (0.27%) PowerHA
13 3 (0.27%) UAG
13 3 (0.27%) Veritas Cluster Server
14 2 (0.18%) Ceph
14 2 (0.18%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 122 (10.96%) Ansible
2 92 (8.27%) Terraform
3 59 (5.30%) FortiGate
4 42 (3.77%) Kubernetes
5 34 (3.05%) Grafana
6 26 (2.34%) Prometheus
7 17 (1.53%) Microsoft Intune
8 13 (1.17%) Check_MK
9 12 (1.08%) NetBackup
9 12 (1.08%) SCCM
10 11 (0.99%) Podman
10 11 (0.99%) Red Hat Satellite
10 11 (0.99%) vCenter Server
11 9 (0.81%) PowerCLI
12 8 (0.72%) Dell DRAC
12 8 (0.72%) vMotion
13 7 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.54%) EMC NetWorker
15 5 (0.45%) Avamar
15 5 (0.45%) Endace
Vendors
1 301 (27.04%) Cisco
2 142 (12.76%) VMware
3 141 (12.67%) Palo Alto
4 100 (8.98%) Microsoft
5 99 (8.89%) F5
6 95 (8.54%) Dell
7 86 (7.73%) Juniper
8 61 (5.48%) Arista
9 53 (4.76%) Aruba
9 53 (4.76%) Fortinet
10 48 (4.31%) CheckPoint
11 47 (4.22%) ServiceNow
12 40 (3.59%) SolarWinds
13 37 (3.32%) Google
13 37 (3.32%) Red Hat
14 33 (2.96%) IBM
15 30 (2.70%) Splunk
16 29 (2.61%) Meraki
17 27 (2.43%) Oracle
18 26 (2.34%) NVIDIA