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

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 124 125 112
Rank change year-on-year +1 -13 -22
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,189 720 797
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.18% 2.22% 2.10%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.42% 6.21% 6.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 726 454 497
10th Percentile £318 £293 £366
25th Percentile £413 £392 £459
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £515 £535
Median % change year-on-year +1.46% -3.74% -0.47%
75th Percentile £650 £600 £619
90th Percentile £750 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £490 £538
% change year-on-year +2.15% -8.93% +7.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 42 37
10th Percentile £16.00 £20.25 £11.75
25th Percentile £19.04 £25.07 £12.08
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +29.22% +11.78% -2.17%
75th Percentile £55.13 £34.00 £27.00
90th Percentile £79.25 £43.38 £29.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.00 £25.08 £14.75
% change year-on-year -16.25% +70.00% -35.87%

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 18,521 11,596 11,578
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.94% 35.70% 30.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,107 7,089 7,058
10th Percentile £320 £295 £294
25th Percentile £425 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £540
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -4.63% -1.82%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £750 £750 £807
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,196 585 455
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.00 £15.11
25th Percentile £18.00 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £37.88 £29.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.39% -41.00% +12.36%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.75 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.36 £30.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year +31.20% -47.69% +17.04%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 -1 996 £525 - 1,658
UK excluding London -24 629 £500 +2.15% 716
London +19 407 £550 - 939
Work from Home -6 281 £525 +2.94% 437
North of England +3 224 £500 +4.17% 152
South East -14 167 £550 +22.22% 218
Yorkshire +5 135 £485 +7.78% 39
North West -25 72 £525 -3.67% 73
South West -20 65 £621 +12.82% 61
Midlands -69 57 £474 -5.20% 94
Scotland -15 49 £388 -8.82% 48
West Midlands -62 46 £475 -5.00% 72
East of England -19 38 £479 -20.21% 101
Wales +9 36 £468 +55.83% 28
North East -13 23 £625 - 41
East Midlands -20 11 £413 -21.43% 22
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 20
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 33 (2.78%) Confluence
2 19 (1.60%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
4 9 (0.76%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.42%) Apache
5 5 (0.42%) CloudStack
5 5 (0.42%) IIS
6 3 (0.25%) CICS
7 1 (0.084%) nginx
7 1 (0.084%) SAS
7 1 (0.084%) Tomcat
Applications
1 24 (2.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (1.60%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.93%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.84%) MS Visio
5 8 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.42%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.25%) Navisworks
7 3 (0.25%) Revit
8 2 (0.17%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 11 (0.93%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.17%) OpenText MBPM
2 2 (0.17%) Oracle BPM
3 1 (0.084%) Cloudability
3 1 (0.084%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.084%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.084%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 255 (21.45%) Azure
2 214 (18.00%) AWS
3 62 (5.21%) GCP
4 59 (4.96%) GitHub
5 46 (3.87%) IaaS
6 45 (3.78%) Microsoft 365
7 38 (3.20%) SaaS
8 35 (2.94%) Entra ID
9 29 (2.44%) OCI
10 18 (1.51%) Azure DevOps
10 18 (1.51%) PaaS
11 17 (1.43%) OpenShift
12 15 (1.26%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 15 (1.26%) OneDrive
12 15 (1.26%) Power Platform
13 12 (1.01%) Nutanix
14 10 (0.84%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 9 (0.76%) AWS Direct Connect
16 7 (0.59%) Azure Sentinel
16 7 (0.59%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 290 (24.39%) Firewall
2 184 (15.48%) WAN
3 173 (14.55%) BGP
4 127 (10.68%) DNS
5 124 (10.43%) VPN
6 116 (9.76%) Network Security
6 116 (9.76%) VXLAN
7 108 (9.08%) LAN
8 107 (9.00%) OSPF
8 107 (9.00%) VLAN
9 94 (7.91%) SAN
10 86 (7.23%) DHCP
11 85 (7.15%) Ethernet VPN
11 85 (7.15%) TCP/IP
12 79 (6.64%) SD-WAN
13 63 (5.30%) Wireless
14 62 (5.21%) Structured Cabling
15 59 (4.96%) Wi-Fi
16 54 (4.54%) BIG-IP
17 53 (4.46%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (3.36%) SQL Server
2 15 (1.26%) Power BI
3 11 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 10 (0.84%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 10 (0.84%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 7 (0.59%) Oracle Database
6 6 (0.50%) Db2
6 6 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
7 4 (0.34%) Azure SQL Database
7 4 (0.34%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (0.34%) Oracle Database 12c
7 4 (0.34%) Oracle Reports
8 3 (0.25%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.25%) Big Data
8 3 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (0.25%) PostgreSQL
9 2 (0.17%) DataStage
9 2 (0.17%) Metadata
9 2 (0.17%) Sybase ASE
9 2 (0.17%) Sybase IQ
Development Applications
1 81 (6.81%) JIRA
2 38 (3.20%) GitLab
3 37 (3.11%) Jenkins
4 28 (2.35%) Git
5 7 (0.59%) 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 (0.084%) Claude Code
General
1 280 (23.55%) Social Skills
2 169 (14.21%) Finance
3 100 (8.41%) Analytical Skills
4 63 (5.30%) Banking
5 54 (4.54%) Public Sector
6 52 (4.37%) Telecoms
7 48 (4.04%) Documentation Skills
8 26 (2.19%) Retail
9 25 (2.10%) Legal
10 19 (1.60%) Influencing Skills
11 17 (1.43%) Manufacturing
12 14 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 14 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
13 7 (0.59%) Police
14 6 (0.50%) Financial Institution
14 6 (0.50%) Investment Banking
15 5 (0.42%) Cyber-Physical System
15 5 (0.42%) Law
15 5 (0.42%) Marketing
16 3 (0.25%) Military
Job Titles
1 201 (16.90%) Architect
1 201 (16.90%) Network Engineer
2 158 (13.29%) Senior
3 113 (9.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 87 (7.32%) Data Centre Engineer
5 75 (6.31%) Project Manager
6 70 (5.89%) Lead
7 67 (5.63%) Network Architect
8 48 (4.04%) Consultant
8 48 (4.04%) IT Engineer
9 45 (3.78%) Senior Network Engineer
10 42 (3.53%) Data Centre Manager
11 39 (3.28%) Technical Architect
12 34 (2.86%) Infrastructure Manager
12 34 (2.86%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 33 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
13 33 (2.78%) Support Engineer
14 32 (2.69%) Field Engineer
15 29 (2.44%) Administrator
15 29 (2.44%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 116 (9.76%) Terraform
2 38 (3.20%) Middleware
3 30 (2.52%) REST
4 17 (1.43%) 802.1X
5 16 (1.35%) YAML
6 14 (1.18%) JSON
7 12 (1.01%) .NET
8 8 (0.67%) LDAP
9 7 (0.59%) 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 (0.34%) GeoJSON
12 4 (0.34%) RESTful
13 3 (0.25%) .NET Framework
13 3 (0.25%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 83 (6.98%) Hybrid Cloud
2 45 (3.78%) Public Cloud
3 38 (3.20%) Private Cloud
4 34 (2.86%) Analytical Mindset
5 33 (2.78%) Cloud Native
6 32 (2.69%) PKI
7 31 (2.61%) Management Information System
8 30 (2.52%) Replication
9 28 (2.35%) Enterprise Storage
10 27 (2.27%) Onboarding
11 26 (2.19%) Clustering
11 26 (2.19%) Data Protection Act
12 25 (2.10%) Operational Technology
13 20 (1.68%) SCADA
14 19 (1.60%) Fibre Optics
15 18 (1.51%) Self-Motivation
16 16 (1.35%) Driving Licence
16 16 (1.35%) Legacy Systems
17 15 (1.26%) Distributed Systems
18 14 (1.18%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 199 (16.74%) Windows
2 135 (11.35%) Linux
3 69 (5.80%) Windows Server
4 34 (2.86%) Unix
5 21 (1.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (1.35%) AIX
7 13 (1.09%) Mac OS
8 10 (0.84%) Apple iOS
8 10 (0.84%) Solaris
8 10 (0.84%) VMS
9 8 (0.67%) Windows 10
10 7 (0.59%) 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 (0.34%) CentOS
13 4 (0.34%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 252 (21.19%) Migration
2 182 (15.31%) Problem-Solving
3 158 (13.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 150 (12.62%) Stakeholder Management
5 127 (10.68%) Infrastructure as Code
6 110 (9.25%) ITIL
7 106 (8.92%) CI/CD
8 104 (8.75%) Agile
9 98 (8.24%) High Availability
10 92 (7.74%) Roadmaps
10 92 (7.74%) Validation
11 91 (7.65%) Project Delivery
12 85 (7.15%) Continuous Improvement
13 83 (6.98%) Disaster Recovery
14 80 (6.73%) Zero Trust
15 74 (6.22%) Technical Leadership
16 72 (6.06%) DevOps
17 71 (5.97%) Change Management
17 71 (5.97%) Cybersecurity
18 69 (5.80%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 165 (13.88%) Python
2 69 (5.80%) PowerShell
3 49 (4.12%) SQL
4 33 (2.78%) Bash
5 17 (1.43%) ActionScript
6 12 (1.01%) C#
7 10 (0.84%) Bicep
8 9 (0.76%) Shell Script
9 8 (0.67%) Perl
9 8 (0.67%) T-SQL
10 7 (0.59%) PL/SQL
11 4 (0.34%) Go
11 4 (0.34%) Java
11 4 (0.34%) JavaScript
11 4 (0.34%) 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
1 304 (25.57%) Security Cleared
2 204 (17.16%) SC Cleared
3 171 (14.38%) Cisco Certification
4 103 (8.66%) CCNP
5 99 (8.33%) DV Cleared
6 64 (5.38%) CCNA
7 62 (5.21%) Degree
8 37 (3.11%) Network+ Certification
9 35 (2.94%) Microsoft Certification
10 33 (2.78%) A+ Certification
10 33 (2.78%) AWS Certification
11 28 (2.35%) CCIE
12 27 (2.27%) MCSE
12 27 (2.27%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 26 (2.19%) Azure Certification
13 26 (2.19%) CISSP
14 22 (1.85%) PMI Certification
14 22 (1.85%) PMP
15 18 (1.51%) City & Guilds
16 17 (1.43%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (2.94%) QA
2 28 (2.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 27 (2.27%) SLA
4 24 (2.02%) NIST
5 16 (1.35%) PMO
6 12 (1.01%) GDPR
6 12 (1.01%) GRC
7 9 (0.76%) JSP 440
7 9 (0.76%) NCSC
8 6 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
8 6 (0.50%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.34%) ISO 31000
9 4 (0.34%) ISO 9001
9 4 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27005
9 4 (0.34%) NIST 800
9 4 (0.34%) RMADS
10 3 (0.25%) Data Quality
11 2 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.17%) HIPAA
System Software
1 146 (12.28%) VMware Infrastructure
2 96 (8.07%) Active Directory
3 52 (4.37%) vSphere
4 49 (4.12%) VMware NSX
5 39 (3.28%) Hyper-V
6 36 (3.03%) VMware ESXi
7 33 (2.78%) Docker
8 25 (2.10%) Firmware
9 14 (1.18%) Virtual Machines
10 12 (1.01%) NFS
11 6 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
11 6 (0.50%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.42%) Microsoft App-V
13 4 (0.34%) ISA Server
13 4 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
13 4 (0.34%) PowerHA
13 4 (0.34%) SRDF
13 4 (0.34%) Veritas Cluster Server
14 3 (0.25%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 3 (0.25%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 153 (12.87%) Ansible
2 55 (4.63%) Kubernetes
3 36 (3.03%) FortiGate
4 20 (1.68%) Microsoft Intune
5 19 (1.60%) Prometheus
6 17 (1.43%) vCenter Server
7 16 (1.35%) Grafana
8 15 (1.26%) VxRail
9 14 (1.18%) SCCM
10 12 (1.01%) Microsoft Clustering
10 12 (1.01%) PowerCLI
11 11 (0.93%) NetBackup
11 11 (0.93%) SCOM
11 11 (0.93%) vMotion
12 10 (0.84%) Jamf Pro
13 9 (0.76%) Dell DRAC
13 9 (0.76%) Tivoli Storage Manager
14 8 (0.67%) Nagios
15 7 (0.59%) Check_MK
16 5 (0.42%) EMC NetWorker
Vendors
1 297 (24.98%) Cisco
2 199 (16.74%) VMware
3 150 (12.62%) Microsoft
4 128 (10.77%) Palo Alto
5 113 (9.50%) F5
6 70 (5.89%) ServiceNow
7 67 (5.63%) Arista
7 67 (5.63%) Fortinet
8 65 (5.47%) Dell
9 64 (5.38%) Juniper
10 42 (3.53%) Aruba
11 37 (3.11%) CheckPoint
12 36 (3.03%) Red Hat
13 32 (2.69%) Oracle
14 31 (2.61%) Google
15 30 (2.52%) Veeam
16 25 (2.10%) Zscaler
17 23 (1.93%) IBM
18 22 (1.85%) Commvault
18 22 (1.85%) SolarWinds