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 28 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 128 132 97
Rank change year-on-year +4 -35 +4
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 897 620 996
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.15% 2.03% 2.24%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.44% 6.10% 7.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 566 379 655
10th Percentile £289 £350 £295
25th Percentile £400 £422 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.32% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £580 £626 £638
90th Percentile £681 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £469 £500 £507
% change year-on-year -6.20% -1.28% +1.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 25 43
10th Percentile £20.89 £21.64 £17.10
25th Percentile £25.15 - £22.00
Median hourly rate £26.14 £24.18 £25.12
Median % change year-on-year +8.09% -3.72% +11.62%
75th Percentile £72.34 £29.25 £41.25
90th Percentile £74.26 £52.50 £71.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.33 £24.18 £24.00
% change year-on-year +195.00% +0.75% +10.75%

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 13,929 10,163 13,536
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.44% 33.21% 30.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,788 6,196 8,700
10th Percentile £281 £275 £258
25th Percentile £406 £407 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £766 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 652 336 826
10th Percentile £15.35 £18.36 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.74 £23.00 £16.31
Median hourly rate £33.09 £32.91 £31.25
Median % change year-on-year +0.55% +5.30% +38.98%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £78.98 £82.85 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £32.50 £32.75
% change year-on-year - -0.76% +48.86%

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 28 February 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 28 February 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 28 February 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 -1 736 £481 -8.01% 333
UK excluding London +3 516 £469 -6.20% 242
London -16 261 £525 +0.96% 130
Work from Home +39 256 £475 -11.21% 98
North of England +12 179 £474 -5.20% 52
South East +7 133 £445 -1.11% 109
North West +14 101 £500 - 29
Midlands -24 73 £470 -21.67% 30
Yorkshire -31 63 £383 -8.93% 19
West Midlands -23 59 £475 -20.92% 20
Scotland +28 57 £463 +2.78% 11
South West -40 34 £550 -1.79% 25
East of England -16 30 £478 +13.14% 26
Wales +2 24 £350 -12.50% 2
North East 0 17 £175 - 4
East Midlands -15 14 £158 -70.70% 10
Northern Ireland - 3 £425 - 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 28 (3.12%) SharePoint
2 19 (2.12%) Microsoft Exchange
3 18 (2.01%) Confluence
4 8 (0.89%) CICS
5 6 (0.67%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.45%) nginx
6 4 (0.45%) WebLogic
7 3 (0.33%) GeoServer
7 3 (0.33%) HCL Notes
7 3 (0.33%) Smallworld
8 2 (0.22%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.22%) Oracle Coherence
8 2 (0.22%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.11%) Mendix
Applications
1 51 (5.69%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (2.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (2.90%) MS Visio
3 22 (2.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (1.56%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.33%) Adobe Illustrator
5 3 (0.33%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (0.45%) Oracle Financials
1 4 (0.45%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
3 2 (0.22%) DELMIA
3 2 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.11%) Epicor iScala
4 1 (0.11%) Maximo
4 1 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.11%) Primavera
4 1 (0.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 169 (18.84%) Azure
2 127 (14.16%) AWS
3 67 (7.47%) Microsoft 365
4 57 (6.35%) GCP
5 21 (2.34%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 19 (2.12%) SaaS
7 18 (2.01%) IaaS
7 18 (2.01%) Power Platform
8 16 (1.78%) Entra ID
9 15 (1.67%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 14 (1.56%) PaaS
11 13 (1.45%) OpenShift
12 12 (1.34%) Azure DevOps
12 12 (1.34%) GitHub
13 11 (1.23%) Amazon GuardDuty
13 11 (1.23%) AWS CloudFormation
13 11 (1.23%) AWS Direct Connect
14 10 (1.11%) Nutanix
15 9 (1.00%) Amazon S3
16 7 (0.78%) AWS CloudTrail
Communications & Networking
1 266 (29.65%) Firewall
2 159 (17.73%) WAN
3 122 (13.60%) BGP
4 100 (11.15%) LAN
5 90 (10.03%) Network Security
6 88 (9.81%) OSPF
6 88 (9.81%) VPN
7 82 (9.14%) Wireless
8 67 (7.47%) DNS
9 57 (6.35%) VLAN
10 56 (6.24%) Structured Cabling
11 53 (5.91%) VXLAN
12 51 (5.69%) DHCP
13 49 (5.46%) SAN
14 47 (5.24%) Wi-Fi
15 43 (4.79%) Cisco ISE
16 41 (4.57%) SD-WAN
17 36 (4.01%) Cisco Nexus
17 36 (4.01%) Ethernet VPN
18 33 (3.68%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (1.78%) Power BI
2 11 (1.23%) Relational Database
3 8 (0.89%) DataStage
3 8 (0.89%) SQL Server
4 5 (0.56%) GIS
4 5 (0.56%) RDBMS
5 4 (0.45%) MongoDB
5 4 (0.45%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (0.45%) Power Query
5 4 (0.45%) PowerPivot
6 3 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
6 3 (0.33%) InfluxDB
6 3 (0.33%) QGIS
6 3 (0.33%) SAP Data Services
7 2 (0.22%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (0.22%) Azure SQL Database
7 2 (0.22%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.11%) Data Mining
8 1 (0.11%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.11%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 29 (3.23%) Git
2 25 (2.79%) JIRA
3 20 (2.23%) Jenkins
4 16 (1.78%) GitLab
5 10 (1.11%) Maven
6 6 (0.67%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (0.56%) JMeter
8 4 (0.45%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 3 (0.33%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.33%) Eclipse
9 3 (0.33%) ScriptRunner
9 3 (0.33%) Subversion
10 2 (0.22%) Rational DOORS
11 1 (0.11%) AppScan
11 1 (0.11%) Burp Suite
11 1 (0.11%) LoadRunner
11 1 (0.11%) Metasploit
11 1 (0.11%) Postman
General
1 229 (25.53%) Social Skills
2 152 (16.95%) Finance
3 100 (11.15%) Analytical Skills
4 96 (10.70%) Public Sector
5 59 (6.58%) Documentation Skills
6 52 (5.80%) Telecoms
7 46 (5.13%) Banking
8 43 (4.79%) Manufacturing
9 30 (3.34%) Marketing
10 24 (2.68%) Electronics
11 23 (2.56%) Legal
12 21 (2.34%) Influencing Skills
13 20 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 20 (2.23%) Presentation Skills
14 12 (1.34%) Investment Banking
14 12 (1.34%) Organisational Skills
14 12 (1.34%) Retail
15 9 (1.00%) Military
16 7 (0.78%) Law
17 6 (0.67%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 160 (17.84%) Network Engineer
2 138 (15.38%) Architect
3 78 (8.70%) Project Manager
4 73 (8.14%) Senior
5 66 (7.36%) Analyst
6 49 (5.46%) Data Centre Engineer
7 45 (5.02%) Network Architect
7 45 (5.02%) Solutions Architect
8 42 (4.68%) Lead
9 38 (4.24%) Data Centre Manager
10 36 (4.01%) IT Support
10 36 (4.01%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 34 (3.79%) Infrastructure Manager
12 31 (3.46%) Consultant
13 27 (3.01%) Cisco Engineer
13 27 (3.01%) Support Engineer
14 26 (2.90%) Infrastructure Project Manager
15 25 (2.79%) Cisco Network Engineer
15 25 (2.79%) Desktop Support
15 25 (2.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (3.34%) 802.1X
2 28 (3.12%) Middleware
3 9 (1.00%) LDAP
4 6 (0.67%) RFC 2544
4 6 (0.67%) Spring
5 4 (0.45%) ADO
5 4 (0.45%) ARM Templates
5 4 (0.45%) Spring Boot
5 4 (0.45%) VML
6 3 (0.33%) NETCONF
6 3 (0.33%) OpenConfig
6 3 (0.33%) REST
6 3 (0.33%) RESTCONF
6 3 (0.33%) XML
6 3 (0.33%) YANG
6 3 (0.33%) Yocto
7 2 (0.22%) CSS
7 2 (0.22%) EJB
7 2 (0.22%) Jinja
7 2 (0.22%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 45 (5.02%) Hybrid Cloud
2 24 (2.68%) Analytical Mindset
3 23 (2.56%) Self-Motivation
4 22 (2.45%) PKI
5 20 (2.23%) Driving Licence
5 20 (2.23%) Public Cloud
6 19 (2.12%) Cloud Native
6 19 (2.12%) Onboarding
7 18 (2.01%) Management Information System
8 17 (1.90%) Clustering
8 17 (1.90%) CMDB
9 14 (1.56%) NHS
9 14 (1.56%) Replication
10 13 (1.45%) Fibre Optics
11 12 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
11 12 (1.34%) Mainframe
11 12 (1.34%) SCADA
12 10 (1.11%) Private Cloud
13 8 (0.89%) BYOD
13 8 (0.89%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 120 (13.38%) Windows
2 111 (12.37%) Linux
3 41 (4.57%) Windows Server
4 35 (3.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 32 (3.57%) Android
5 32 (3.57%) Mac OS
6 17 (1.90%) Unix
7 11 (1.23%) CentOS
8 10 (1.11%) Solaris
9 9 (1.00%) AIX
10 7 (0.78%) VMS
10 7 (0.78%) Windows Server 2019
11 5 (0.56%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.33%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.33%) Windows 10
13 2 (0.22%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.11%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 156 (17.39%) Migration
2 146 (16.28%) Problem-Solving
3 104 (11.59%) Stakeholder Management
4 75 (8.36%) ITIL
5 71 (7.92%) Project Management
6 69 (7.69%) Agile
7 63 (7.02%) High Availability
7 63 (7.02%) Infrastructure as Code
8 62 (6.91%) Continuous Improvement
8 62 (6.91%) Project Delivery
9 61 (6.80%) Roadmaps
10 60 (6.69%) CI/CD
11 56 (6.24%) Load Balancing
12 51 (5.69%) Change Management
12 51 (5.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 50 (5.57%) DevOps
14 45 (5.02%) ITSM
15 44 (4.91%) Cybersecurity
16 43 (4.79%) Change Control
16 43 (4.79%) Network Design
Programming Languages
1 76 (8.47%) Python
2 54 (6.02%) PowerShell
3 35 (3.90%) SQL
4 28 (3.12%) Bash
5 22 (2.45%) Java
6 16 (1.78%) Perl
7 12 (1.34%) Shell Script
8 9 (1.00%) Lisp
9 8 (0.89%) COBOL
10 7 (0.78%) Bicep
10 7 (0.78%) MATLAB
11 5 (0.56%) VBA
12 4 (0.45%) C
12 4 (0.45%) C++
12 4 (0.45%) JavaScript
13 3 (0.33%) Korn
13 3 (0.33%) PL/SQL
14 1 (0.11%) Groovy
14 1 (0.11%) JCL
14 1 (0.11%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 296 (33.00%) Security Cleared
2 231 (25.75%) SC Cleared
3 165 (18.39%) Cisco Certification
4 124 (13.82%) CCNP
5 65 (7.25%) CCNA
6 64 (7.13%) Degree
7 57 (6.35%) DV Cleared
8 26 (2.90%) CCIE
9 23 (2.56%) Network+ Certification
9 23 (2.56%) PMP
10 22 (2.45%) PMI Certification
11 21 (2.34%) AWS Certification
12 18 (2.01%) Microsoft Certification
13 17 (1.90%) A+ Certification
13 17 (1.90%) MCSE
14 16 (1.78%) JNCIS
15 13 (1.45%) JNCIP
16 12 (1.34%) Azure Certification
16 12 (1.34%) CISSP
17 11 (1.23%) JNCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (3.12%) PMO
2 21 (2.34%) NIST
3 20 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 20 (2.23%) SLA
4 19 (2.12%) PCI DSS
5 15 (1.67%) GDPR
5 15 (1.67%) QA
6 9 (1.00%) NCSC
7 7 (0.78%) Data Quality
8 5 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
8 5 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
9 4 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
9 4 (0.45%) GRC
10 3 (0.33%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.22%) ISO 22301
11 2 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.22%) SOC 2
12 1 (0.11%) COBIT
12 1 (0.11%) RMADS
System Software
1 74 (8.25%) VMware Infrastructure
2 59 (6.58%) Active Directory
3 47 (5.24%) VMware NSX
4 24 (2.68%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (2.12%) vSphere
6 17 (1.90%) Hyper-V
7 16 (1.78%) Docker
8 15 (1.67%) Firmware
9 10 (1.11%) KVM
9 10 (1.11%) VMware ESXi
10 3 (0.33%) SRDF
11 2 (0.22%) Ceph
11 2 (0.22%) Lustre
11 2 (0.22%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 2 (0.22%) vCloud
11 2 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.22%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.11%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.11%) RHEV
12 1 (0.11%) UAG
Systems Management
1 85 (9.48%) Ansible
2 76 (8.47%) Terraform
3 54 (6.02%) FortiGate
4 29 (3.23%) Kubernetes
5 24 (2.68%) Grafana
6 21 (2.34%) SCCM
7 13 (1.45%) Microsoft Intune
7 13 (1.45%) Prometheus
8 8 (0.89%) Check_MK
9 7 (0.78%) CASB
9 7 (0.78%) Podman
9 7 (0.78%) Red Hat Satellite
9 7 (0.78%) SCOM
9 7 (0.78%) vCenter Server
10 6 (0.67%) PowerCLI
10 6 (0.67%) SCOrch
11 5 (0.56%) vMotion
12 4 (0.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.45%) Nagios
12 4 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 284 (31.66%) Cisco
2 118 (13.15%) Palo Alto
3 109 (12.15%) VMware
4 93 (10.37%) Microsoft
5 82 (9.14%) Dell
6 78 (8.70%) Juniper
7 66 (7.36%) F5
8 52 (5.80%) ServiceNow
9 45 (5.02%) HP
10 44 (4.91%) Aruba
10 44 (4.91%) CheckPoint
11 37 (4.12%) Meraki
12 36 (4.01%) Fortinet
13 32 (3.57%) Apple
14 31 (3.46%) Oracle
15 29 (3.23%) SolarWinds
16 28 (3.12%) SAP
17 27 (3.01%) Arista
18 26 (2.90%) Citrix
18 26 (2.90%) Google