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

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 98 129 103
Rank change year-on-year +31 -26 -11
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,156 628 915
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.38% 2.20% 2.16%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 7.43% 6.45% 7.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 721 408 622
10th Percentile £318 £325 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.96% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £725 £688 £706
UK excluding London median daily rate £469 £475 £528
% change year-on-year -1.26% -9.95% +5.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 21 45
10th Percentile £16.00 £24.18 £13.35
25th Percentile £16.01 £24.66 £18.27
Median hourly rate £19.34 £27.50 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year -29.67% +14.58% +11.81%
75th Percentile £33.75 £41.25 £40.00
90th Percentile £74.11 £43.75 £41.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.34 £24.66 £22.50
% change year-on-year -21.57% +9.60% +5.83%

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 15,555 9,735 12,900
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.02% 34.03% 30.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,637 6,209 8,319
10th Percentile £313 £295 £270
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £663
90th Percentile £749 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £486 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.32% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 745 378 903
10th Percentile £16.00 £16.50 £12.25
25th Percentile £19.64 £19.98 £15.17
Median hourly rate £40.96 £31.76 £32.12
Median % change year-on-year +28.97% -1.11% +44.92%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.38 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.40 £82.15 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £29.90 £31.25
% change year-on-year +50.50% -4.32% +43.68%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 +29 942 £488 -6.25% 450
UK excluding London +12 664 £469 -1.26% 270
London +8 323 £550 +4.76% 208
Work from Home +34 305 £480 -5.88% 157
North of England +22 225 £472 +1.29% 61
South East +5 207 £463 +2.78% 100
Yorkshire -6 105 £365 -14.12% 25
North West +17 97 £481 -4.47% 27
Scotland +8 58 £469 +7.20% 19
Midlands -60 54 £465 -15.45% 30
South West -30 50 £495 -10.00% 32
West Midlands -53 48 £466 -15.29% 24
East of England -9 41 £487 +62.42% 24
Wales +5 35 £468 +16.88% 4
North East -2 25 £513 +365.91% 9
East Midlands -30 5 £400 -27.27% 6
Northern Ireland - 3 £425 - 7

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 (1.90%) Confluence
2 13 (1.12%) SharePoint
3 12 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.87%) CICS
5 5 (0.43%) nginx
6 4 (0.35%) Apache
6 4 (0.35%) CloudStack
6 4 (0.35%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.35%) WebLogic
7 3 (0.26%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.17%) Apache Airflow
9 1 (0.087%) IIS
9 1 (0.087%) Mendix
Applications
1 16 (1.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.12%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (1.04%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.95%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.26%) Adobe Illustrator
5 3 (0.26%) AutoCAD
5 3 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.17%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 3 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
1 3 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
2 2 (0.17%) DELMIA
2 2 (0.17%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 2 (0.17%) Primavera
3 1 (0.087%) Maximo
3 1 (0.087%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 229 (19.81%) Azure
2 185 (16.00%) AWS
3 70 (6.06%) GCP
4 37 (3.20%) Microsoft 365
5 27 (2.34%) GitHub
6 26 (2.25%) IaaS
7 25 (2.16%) SaaS
8 24 (2.08%) OCI
9 23 (1.99%) Entra ID
10 17 (1.47%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 15 (1.30%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 13 (1.12%) OpenShift
12 13 (1.12%) PaaS
13 11 (0.95%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (0.95%) Power Platform
14 10 (0.87%) Azure Sentinel
14 10 (0.87%) OneDrive
15 9 (0.78%) AWS Direct Connect
15 9 (0.78%) GitHub Actions
15 9 (0.78%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 331 (28.63%) Firewall
2 203 (17.56%) WAN
3 180 (15.57%) BGP
4 146 (12.63%) OSPF
5 126 (10.90%) Network Security
6 123 (10.64%) LAN
7 121 (10.47%) VPN
8 114 (9.86%) VXLAN
9 112 (9.69%) SAN
10 94 (8.13%) Structured Cabling
11 91 (7.87%) DNS
11 91 (7.87%) VLAN
12 81 (7.01%) Ethernet VPN
13 71 (6.14%) SD-WAN
14 68 (5.88%) DHCP
15 52 (4.50%) Cisco Nexus
16 51 (4.41%) Wi-Fi
17 48 (4.15%) BIG-IP
18 43 (3.72%) NX-OS
19 40 (3.46%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.12%) SQL Server
2 10 (0.87%) DataStage
3 6 (0.52%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (0.52%) Power BI
4 5 (0.43%) Relational Database
5 4 (0.35%) Big Data
5 4 (0.35%) MongoDB
5 4 (0.35%) Oracle Database
5 4 (0.35%) Oracle Reports
5 4 (0.35%) SAP Data Services
6 3 (0.26%) GIS
7 2 (0.17%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (0.17%) Data Lake
7 2 (0.17%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (0.17%) Elasticsearch
7 2 (0.17%) Oracle Database 12c
7 2 (0.17%) Power Query
7 2 (0.17%) PowerPivot
8 1 (0.087%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.087%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 50 (4.33%) JIRA
2 37 (3.20%) GitLab
3 36 (3.11%) Git
4 32 (2.77%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.69%) Sonatype Nexus
6 6 (0.52%) Maven
6 6 (0.52%) ScriptRunner
7 5 (0.43%) JMeter
8 4 (0.35%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 4 (0.35%) Eclipse
8 4 (0.35%) Subversion
9 3 (0.26%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.26%) Zephyr
10 1 (0.087%) AppScan
10 1 (0.087%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.087%) LoadRunner
10 1 (0.087%) Metasploit
10 1 (0.087%) Postman
General
1 283 (24.48%) Social Skills
2 155 (13.41%) Finance
3 133 (11.51%) Analytical Skills
4 83 (7.18%) Public Sector
5 61 (5.28%) Documentation Skills
6 47 (4.07%) Banking
7 32 (2.77%) Legal
8 29 (2.51%) Telecoms
9 26 (2.25%) Manufacturing
10 23 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
11 22 (1.90%) Retail
12 12 (1.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 10 (0.87%) Military
14 9 (0.78%) Law
14 9 (0.78%) Presentation Skills
15 8 (0.69%) Aerospace
15 8 (0.69%) Financial Institution
15 8 (0.69%) Marketing
16 7 (0.61%) Organisational Skills
17 5 (0.43%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 207 (17.91%) Network Engineer
2 183 (15.83%) Architect
3 129 (11.16%) Senior
4 85 (7.35%) Data Centre Engineer
5 76 (6.57%) Project Manager
6 73 (6.31%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 59 (5.10%) IT Engineer
8 57 (4.93%) Lead
9 56 (4.84%) Field Engineer
10 53 (4.58%) Field Service Engineer
10 53 (4.58%) Network Architect
11 47 (4.07%) Data Centre Manager
12 43 (3.72%) Solutions Architect
13 38 (3.29%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
14 37 (3.20%) Analyst
15 36 (3.11%) Infrastructure Manager
15 36 (3.11%) Senior Network Engineer
16 34 (2.94%) Technical Architect
17 32 (2.77%) Administrator
18 31 (2.68%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (4.15%) Middleware
2 34 (2.94%) 802.1X
3 13 (1.12%) LDAP
4 9 (0.78%) Redfish
5 8 (0.69%) Elastic Stack
6 7 (0.61%) Spring
7 5 (0.43%) Jinja
7 5 (0.43%) Kafka
7 5 (0.43%) REST
7 5 (0.43%) XML
8 4 (0.35%) ADO
8 4 (0.35%) NETCONF
8 4 (0.35%) Spring Boot
9 3 (0.26%) ARM Templates
9 3 (0.26%) OpenConfig
9 3 (0.26%) OpenLayers
9 3 (0.26%) RESTCONF
9 3 (0.26%) RFC 2544
9 3 (0.26%) YANG
9 3 (0.26%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 60 (5.19%) Analytical Mindset
1 60 (5.19%) Hybrid Cloud
2 34 (2.94%) Management Information System
3 28 (2.42%) Clustering
3 28 (2.42%) PKI
4 25 (2.16%) Fibre Optics
5 24 (2.08%) Cloud Native
6 22 (1.90%) Onboarding
7 21 (1.82%) CMDB
7 21 (1.82%) Private Cloud
8 20 (1.73%) Enterprise Storage
8 20 (1.73%) Public Cloud
9 19 (1.64%) Driving Licence
9 19 (1.64%) Self-Motivation
10 18 (1.56%) Replication
10 18 (1.56%) SCADA
11 16 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
12 14 (1.21%) NHS
13 12 (1.04%) Mainframe
13 12 (1.04%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 151 (13.06%) Linux
2 144 (12.46%) Windows
3 40 (3.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 38 (3.29%) Windows Server
5 23 (1.99%) Unix
6 21 (1.82%) AIX
7 17 (1.47%) Solaris
8 12 (1.04%) CentOS
9 10 (0.87%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.78%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.61%) VMS
12 5 (0.43%) Apple iOS
12 5 (0.43%) Mac OS
13 4 (0.35%) HPUX
13 4 (0.35%) Oracle Linux
13 4 (0.35%) SUSE
14 3 (0.26%) Embedded Linux
14 3 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
14 3 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.17%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 208 (17.99%) Problem-Solving
2 193 (16.70%) Migration
3 108 (9.34%) High Availability
4 104 (9.00%) Stakeholder Management
5 103 (8.91%) Infrastructure as Code
6 101 (8.74%) ITIL
7 95 (8.22%) Roadmaps
8 93 (8.04%) Continuous Improvement
8 93 (8.04%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 91 (7.87%) CI/CD
10 83 (7.18%) Load Balancing
11 78 (6.75%) Validation
12 73 (6.31%) Project Delivery
13 72 (6.23%) Change Management
13 72 (6.23%) DevOps
13 72 (6.23%) Project Management
14 71 (6.14%) Agile
15 67 (5.80%) Customer Service
16 64 (5.54%) Break/Fix
16 64 (5.54%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 130 (11.25%) Python
2 42 (3.63%) PowerShell
3 38 (3.29%) SQL
4 26 (2.25%) Bash
5 22 (1.90%) Java
6 16 (1.38%) Shell Script
7 12 (1.04%) COBOL
8 11 (0.95%) MATLAB
9 10 (0.87%) Perl
10 9 (0.78%) Bicep
11 8 (0.69%) PL/SQL
12 5 (0.43%) C
12 5 (0.43%) C++
12 5 (0.43%) JavaScript
13 4 (0.35%) ActionScript
14 3 (0.26%) VBA
15 2 (0.17%) Groovy
15 2 (0.17%) Korn
15 2 (0.17%) Lisp
16 1 (0.087%) REXX
Qualifications
1 320 (27.68%) Security Cleared
2 241 (20.85%) Cisco Certification
3 240 (20.76%) SC Cleared
4 147 (12.72%) CCNP
5 111 (9.60%) CCNA
6 69 (5.97%) Degree
6 69 (5.97%) DV Cleared
7 66 (5.71%) Network+ Certification
8 54 (4.67%) Microsoft Certification
9 51 (4.41%) A+ Certification
9 51 (4.41%) MCSE
10 25 (2.16%) CCIE
11 24 (2.08%) Azure Certification
12 23 (1.99%) City & Guilds
13 21 (1.82%) PMI Certification
13 21 (1.82%) PMP
14 20 (1.73%) BICSI Certification
15 19 (1.64%) AWS Certification
16 16 (1.38%) JNCIS
16 16 (1.38%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (2.77%) SLA
2 25 (2.16%) NIST
3 24 (2.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 23 (1.99%) PMO
5 22 (1.90%) QA
6 18 (1.56%) GDPR
7 11 (0.95%) NCSC
8 9 (0.78%) Disclosure Scotland
9 8 (0.69%) GRC
9 8 (0.69%) PCI DSS
10 6 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
11 5 (0.43%) RMADS
12 4 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
13 3 (0.26%) NIST 800
14 2 (0.17%) Data Quality
14 2 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
14 2 (0.17%) JSP 440
14 2 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 1 (0.087%) COBIT
15 1 (0.087%) NEBOSH
System Software
1 98 (8.48%) VMware Infrastructure
2 62 (5.36%) Active Directory
3 39 (3.37%) VMware NSX
4 32 (2.77%) Firmware
4 32 (2.77%) vSphere
5 25 (2.16%) Virtual Machines
5 25 (2.16%) VMware ESXi
6 23 (1.99%) Hyper-V
7 14 (1.21%) Docker
8 12 (1.04%) KVM
9 6 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
10 5 (0.43%) NFS
11 4 (0.35%) Ceph
11 4 (0.35%) SRDF
11 4 (0.35%) VMware Workstation
12 3 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.26%) PowerHA
12 3 (0.26%) UAG
12 3 (0.26%) Veritas Cluster Server
12 3 (0.26%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 132 (11.42%) Ansible
2 100 (8.65%) Terraform
3 59 (5.10%) FortiGate
4 45 (3.89%) Kubernetes
5 35 (3.03%) Grafana
6 28 (2.42%) Prometheus
7 20 (1.73%) Microsoft Intune
8 14 (1.21%) Check_MK
9 12 (1.04%) NetBackup
9 12 (1.04%) SCCM
10 11 (0.95%) Podman
10 11 (0.95%) Red Hat Satellite
10 11 (0.95%) vCenter Server
11 9 (0.78%) Dell DRAC
11 9 (0.78%) PowerCLI
12 8 (0.69%) vMotion
13 7 (0.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.52%) EMC NetWorker
14 6 (0.52%) Tivoli Storage Manager
15 5 (0.43%) Nagios
Vendors
1 311 (26.90%) Cisco
2 152 (13.15%) Palo Alto
3 150 (12.98%) VMware
4 107 (9.26%) F5
5 105 (9.08%) Microsoft
6 94 (8.13%) Dell
7 87 (7.53%) Juniper
8 66 (5.71%) Arista
9 57 (4.93%) Aruba
10 56 (4.84%) Fortinet
11 50 (4.33%) ServiceNow
12 49 (4.24%) CheckPoint
13 41 (3.55%) SolarWinds
14 39 (3.37%) Google
15 38 (3.29%) Red Hat
16 34 (2.94%) IBM
17 30 (2.60%) Splunk
18 28 (2.42%) Oracle
19 26 (2.25%) Meraki
19 26 (2.25%) NVIDIA