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 12 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 119 130 114
Rank change year-on-year +11 -16 -26
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,198 724 797
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.20% 2.19% 2.07%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.49% 6.17% 6.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 724 452 501
10th Percentile £318 £297 £363
25th Percentile £406 £397 £459
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -1.87% -1.34%
75th Percentile £645 £611 £619
90th Percentile £745 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £490 £538
% change year-on-year +2.15% -8.93% +7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 42 39
10th Percentile £16.01 £20.25 £11.75
25th Percentile £18.32 £25.07 £12.08
Median hourly rate £30.00 £25.15 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +19.28% +25.75% -6.98%
75th Percentile £50.94 £34.00 £24.59
90th Percentile £79.13 £43.75 £28.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.34 £25.08 £16.50
% change year-on-year -22.87% +51.97% -12.51%

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 18,463 11,731 11,703
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.84% 35.54% 30.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,091 7,182 7,228
10th Percentile £320 £300 £300
25th Percentile £423 £406 £418
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £543
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -5.07% -1.36%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £745 £763 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,146 584 496
10th Percentile £14.11 £15.13 £14.06
25th Percentile £18.00 £18.87 £21.25
Median hourly rate £37.50 £30.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% -40.00% +13.84%
75th Percentile £67.50 £55.25 £70.00
90th Percentile £82.31 £74.63 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £30.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year +29.07% -47.69% +25.00%

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 12 September 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 12 September 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 12 September 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 -3 1,007 £525 - 1,170
UK excluding London -25 626 £500 +2.15% 458
London +20 421 £550 - 748
Work from Home -6 281 £525 +1.60% 433
North of England -3 219 £500 +6.33% 107
South East -7 174 £550 +12.24% 136
Yorkshire 0 130 £480 +6.67% 39
North West -13 72 £503 -6.42% 45
South West -25 65 £600 +9.09% 55
Midlands -74 53 £438 -12.50% 61
Scotland -18 49 £375 -11.24% 27
West Midlands -64 42 £474 -5.20% 40
East of England -9 37 £474 -21.08% 59
Wales +5 36 £468 +55.83% 15
North East -23 23 £625 - 24
East Midlands -24 10 £413 -21.43% 21
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 7
Channel Islands - 1 £575 - 2

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 32 (2.67%) Confluence
2 19 (1.59%) SharePoint
3 16 (1.34%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.58%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.42%) Apache
5 5 (0.42%) CloudStack
6 4 (0.33%) IIS
7 3 (0.25%) CICS
8 1 (0.083%) nginx
8 1 (0.083%) SAS
8 1 (0.083%) Tomcat
Applications
1 25 (2.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (1.59%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.92%) Microsoft Project
4 8 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.58%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.42%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.17%) EPLAN
7 2 (0.17%) Navisworks
7 2 (0.17%) Revit
Business Applications
1 13 (1.09%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.17%) OpenText MBPM
2 2 (0.17%) Oracle BPM
3 1 (0.083%) Cloudability
3 1 (0.083%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 249 (20.78%) Azure
2 214 (17.86%) AWS
3 54 (4.51%) GCP
4 52 (4.34%) GitHub
5 44 (3.67%) Microsoft 365
6 41 (3.42%) IaaS
7 37 (3.09%) SaaS
8 32 (2.67%) Entra ID
9 29 (2.42%) OCI
10 18 (1.50%) PaaS
11 17 (1.42%) Azure DevOps
12 16 (1.34%) Power Platform
13 15 (1.25%) OneDrive
14 14 (1.17%) OpenShift
15 13 (1.09%) Azure ExpressRoute
16 11 (0.92%) Nutanix
17 10 (0.83%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 7 (0.58%) Azure Sentinel
18 7 (0.58%) GitHub Actions
19 6 (0.50%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 294 (24.54%) Firewall
2 186 (15.53%) WAN
3 176 (14.69%) BGP
4 127 (10.60%) VPN
5 125 (10.43%) DNS
6 116 (9.68%) VXLAN
7 114 (9.52%) OSPF
8 113 (9.43%) Network Security
9 110 (9.18%) LAN
9 110 (9.18%) VLAN
10 102 (8.51%) SAN
11 87 (7.26%) DHCP
12 85 (7.10%) TCP/IP
13 81 (6.76%) Ethernet VPN
13 81 (6.76%) SD-WAN
14 75 (6.26%) Structured Cabling
15 63 (5.26%) Wireless
16 59 (4.92%) Wi-Fi
17 55 (4.59%) Cisco Nexus
18 49 (4.09%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (3.09%) SQL Server
2 15 (1.25%) Power BI
3 11 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 10 (0.83%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 10 (0.83%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 7 (0.58%) Oracle Database
6 6 (0.50%) Db2
6 6 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
7 4 (0.33%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.33%) Azure SQL Database
7 4 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (0.33%) Oracle Database 12c
7 4 (0.33%) Oracle Reports
7 4 (0.33%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.25%) Big Data
9 2 (0.17%) Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.17%) DataStage
9 2 (0.17%) Flink
9 2 (0.17%) Metadata
10 1 (0.083%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 79 (6.59%) JIRA
2 36 (3.01%) GitLab
3 32 (2.67%) Jenkins
4 25 (2.09%) Git
5 7 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.25%) ScriptRunner
6 3 (0.25%) Zephyr
7 2 (0.17%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.17%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.17%) MSI
7 2 (0.17%) Toad
8 1 (0.083%) Claude Code
General
1 290 (24.21%) Social Skills
2 161 (13.44%) Finance
3 103 (8.60%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (4.92%) Banking
5 57 (4.76%) Public Sector
6 50 (4.17%) Telecoms
7 48 (4.01%) Documentation Skills
8 26 (2.17%) Retail
9 24 (2.00%) Legal
10 19 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
11 17 (1.42%) Manufacturing
12 14 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 13 (1.09%) Organisational Skills
14 9 (0.75%) Police
15 7 (0.58%) Financial Institution
16 6 (0.50%) Law
16 6 (0.50%) Marketing
17 5 (0.42%) Investment Banking
18 4 (0.33%) Cyber-Physical System
19 3 (0.25%) Military
Job Titles
1 198 (16.53%) Network Engineer
2 194 (16.19%) Architect
3 161 (13.44%) Senior
4 118 (9.85%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 88 (7.35%) Data Centre Engineer
6 76 (6.34%) Project Manager
7 65 (5.43%) Lead
7 65 (5.43%) Network Architect
8 50 (4.17%) IT Engineer
9 48 (4.01%) Consultant
10 44 (3.67%) Senior Network Engineer
11 41 (3.42%) Data Centre Manager
12 38 (3.17%) Technical Architect
13 37 (3.09%) Field Engineer
14 34 (2.84%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
15 33 (2.75%) Infrastructure Manager
16 32 (2.67%) Support Engineer
17 31 (2.59%) Field Service Engineer
17 31 (2.59%) Solutions Architect
18 28 (2.34%) Cabling Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (9.43%) Terraform
2 40 (3.34%) Middleware
3 27 (2.25%) REST
4 16 (1.34%) 802.1X
5 14 (1.17%) YAML
6 12 (1.00%) JSON
7 9 (0.75%) .NET
8 8 (0.67%) LDAP
9 7 (0.58%) NETCONF
10 6 (0.50%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (0.50%) Redfish
10 6 (0.50%) SAML
11 5 (0.42%) Kafka
11 5 (0.42%) OpenConfig
11 5 (0.42%) RESTCONF
11 5 (0.42%) YANG
12 4 (0.33%) GeoJSON
12 4 (0.33%) RESTful
13 3 (0.25%) .NET Framework
13 3 (0.25%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 77 (6.43%) Hybrid Cloud
2 38 (3.17%) Analytical Mindset
3 37 (3.09%) Public Cloud
4 36 (3.01%) Private Cloud
5 33 (2.75%) Management Information System
5 33 (2.75%) PKI
6 32 (2.67%) Cloud Native
7 30 (2.50%) Fibre Optics
8 29 (2.42%) Replication
9 28 (2.34%) Data Protection Act
9 28 (2.34%) Enterprise Storage
10 27 (2.25%) Clustering
11 25 (2.09%) Onboarding
12 23 (1.92%) Operational Technology
13 19 (1.59%) SCADA
14 17 (1.42%) Driving Licence
15 16 (1.34%) CMDB
15 16 (1.34%) Self-Motivation
16 15 (1.25%) Distributed Systems
17 13 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 189 (15.78%) Windows
2 131 (10.93%) Linux
3 63 (5.26%) Windows Server
4 33 (2.75%) Unix
5 21 (1.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (1.42%) AIX
7 13 (1.09%) Mac OS
8 10 (0.83%) Apple iOS
8 10 (0.83%) Solaris
8 10 (0.83%) VMS
9 8 (0.67%) Windows 10
10 7 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
11 6 (0.50%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.42%) HPUX
12 5 (0.42%) Oracle Linux
12 5 (0.42%) SUSE
12 5 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.33%) CentOS
13 4 (0.33%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 251 (20.95%) Migration
2 181 (15.11%) Problem-Solving
3 153 (12.77%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 151 (12.60%) Stakeholder Management
5 117 (9.77%) Infrastructure as Code
6 114 (9.52%) ITIL
7 105 (8.76%) High Availability
8 98 (8.18%) Agile
9 97 (8.10%) CI/CD
10 89 (7.43%) Project Delivery
11 87 (7.26%) Validation
12 86 (7.18%) Roadmaps
13 81 (6.76%) Disaster Recovery
14 77 (6.43%) Continuous Improvement
14 77 (6.43%) Zero Trust
15 73 (6.09%) Technical Leadership
16 72 (6.01%) Change Management
17 71 (5.93%) DevOps
17 71 (5.93%) ITSM
18 69 (5.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 159 (13.27%) Python
2 69 (5.76%) PowerShell
3 46 (3.84%) SQL
4 33 (2.75%) Bash
5 13 (1.09%) ActionScript
6 11 (0.92%) Bicep
7 9 (0.75%) C#
7 9 (0.75%) Shell Script
8 8 (0.67%) Perl
9 7 (0.58%) PL/SQL
10 5 (0.42%) T-SQL
11 4 (0.33%) Go
11 4 (0.33%) Java
11 4 (0.33%) JavaScript
11 4 (0.33%) MATLAB
12 3 (0.25%) COBOL
12 3 (0.25%) JCL
12 3 (0.25%) Lisp
12 3 (0.25%) TypeScript
13 2 (0.17%) REXX
Qualifications
1 308 (25.71%) Security Cleared
2 208 (17.36%) SC Cleared
3 177 (14.77%) Cisco Certification
4 107 (8.93%) CCNP
5 98 (8.18%) DV Cleared
6 68 (5.68%) CCNA
7 61 (5.09%) Degree
8 40 (3.34%) Network+ Certification
9 38 (3.17%) Microsoft Certification
10 36 (3.01%) A+ Certification
11 30 (2.50%) MCSE
12 29 (2.42%) AWS Certification
12 29 (2.42%) CCIE
13 25 (2.09%) CISSP
14 24 (2.00%) City & Guilds
15 23 (1.92%) Azure Certification
15 23 (1.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 22 (1.84%) PMP
17 20 (1.67%) BICSI Certification
17 20 (1.67%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (3.01%) QA
2 28 (2.34%) SLA
3 27 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 22 (1.84%) NIST
5 16 (1.34%) PMO
6 12 (1.00%) GDPR
7 9 (0.75%) GRC
7 9 (0.75%) JSP 440
7 9 (0.75%) NCSC
8 6 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
9 5 (0.42%) PCI DSS
10 4 (0.33%) RMADS
11 3 (0.25%) Data Quality
11 3 (0.25%) ISO 31000
11 3 (0.25%) ISO 9001
11 3 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 3 (0.25%) NIST 800
11 3 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.17%) HIPAA
12 2 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 145 (12.10%) VMware Infrastructure
2 95 (7.93%) Active Directory
3 49 (4.09%) vSphere
4 43 (3.59%) VMware NSX
5 39 (3.26%) Hyper-V
6 38 (3.17%) VMware ESXi
7 30 (2.50%) Docker
8 26 (2.17%) Firmware
9 16 (1.34%) Virtual Machines
10 12 (1.00%) NFS
11 6 (0.50%) Microsoft App-V
11 6 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
11 6 (0.50%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.42%) PowerHA
13 4 (0.33%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
13 4 (0.33%) SRDF
13 4 (0.33%) Terminal Services
13 4 (0.33%) Veritas Cluster Server
14 3 (0.25%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 144 (12.02%) Ansible
2 53 (4.42%) Kubernetes
3 32 (2.67%) FortiGate
4 21 (1.75%) Prometheus
5 19 (1.59%) Microsoft Intune
6 18 (1.50%) Grafana
6 18 (1.50%) vCenter Server
7 15 (1.25%) SCCM
7 15 (1.25%) VxRail
8 12 (1.00%) Microsoft Clustering
8 12 (1.00%) PowerCLI
8 12 (1.00%) vMotion
9 11 (0.92%) SCOM
10 10 (0.83%) Jamf Pro
10 10 (0.83%) NetBackup
11 9 (0.75%) Dell DRAC
11 9 (0.75%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 8 (0.67%) Nagios
13 7 (0.58%) Check_MK
14 5 (0.42%) EMC NetWorker
Vendors
1 298 (24.87%) Cisco
2 198 (16.53%) VMware
3 148 (12.35%) Microsoft
4 126 (10.52%) Palo Alto
5 109 (9.10%) F5
6 70 (5.84%) Dell
7 69 (5.76%) Arista
7 69 (5.76%) Fortinet
8 68 (5.68%) ServiceNow
9 66 (5.51%) Juniper
10 41 (3.42%) Aruba
11 38 (3.17%) CheckPoint
12 35 (2.92%) Red Hat
13 29 (2.42%) Veeam
14 28 (2.34%) Google
15 27 (2.25%) Oracle
16 25 (2.09%) IBM
17 23 (1.92%) Zscaler
18 22 (1.84%) SolarWinds
19 21 (1.75%) Commvault