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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 98 129 104
Rank change year-on-year +31 -25 -14
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,167 625 920
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.39% 2.19% 2.16%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 7.44% 6.41% 7.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 722 408 627
10th Percentile £318 £324 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £725 £688 £704
UK excluding London median daily rate £469 £475 £538
% change year-on-year -1.26% -11.63% +7.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 21 44
10th Percentile £16.00 £24.18 £13.33
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 £36.10 £41.25 £40.00
90th Percentile £76.51 £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 15,676 9,743 12,933
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.17% 34.10% 30.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,687 6,210 8,336
10th Percentile £313 £289 £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 £488 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.63% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 763 383 912
10th Percentile £16.00 £16.22 £12.25
25th Percentile £19.85 £19.99 £15.17
Median hourly rate £41.00 £31.76 £34.11
Median % change year-on-year +29.09% -6.88% +55.02%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.40 £82.22 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £31.29 £32.12
% change year-on-year +43.84% -2.58% +51.06%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 +22 954 £492 -5.84% 475
UK excluding London +10 669 £469 -1.26% 264
London +10 332 £550 +4.76% 234
Work from Home +32 311 £480 -5.88% 165
North of England +25 228 £474 +1.83% 67
South East +17 212 £463 +2.78% 95
Yorkshire -2 107 £365 -14.12% 27
North West +15 97 £481 -4.47% 31
Scotland +8 58 £463 +5.71% 15
Midlands -59 55 £466 -15.29% 24
South West -25 50 £495 -10.00% 29
West Midlands -51 49 £467 -15.12% 20
East of England -9 39 £492 +64.00% 28
Wales -1 34 £468 +16.88% 5
North East +2 28 £625 +468.18% 9
East Midlands -31 5 £400 -27.27% 4
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 (1.89%) Confluence
2 13 (1.11%) SharePoint
3 11 (0.94%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (0.86%) CICS
5 5 (0.43%) nginx
6 4 (0.34%) Apache
6 4 (0.34%) CloudStack
6 4 (0.34%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.34%) WebLogic
7 3 (0.26%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.17%) Apache Airflow
9 1 (0.086%) IIS
9 1 (0.086%) Mendix
Applications
1 15 (1.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.03%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (1.03%) Microsoft Project
3 11 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.94%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.26%) Adobe Illustrator
4 3 (0.26%) AutoCAD
4 3 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
5 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 (0.086%) Maximo
3 1 (0.086%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 235 (20.14%) Azure
2 191 (16.37%) AWS
3 69 (5.91%) GCP
4 36 (3.08%) Microsoft 365
5 28 (2.40%) GitHub
5 28 (2.40%) IaaS
5 28 (2.40%) OCI
6 27 (2.31%) SaaS
7 22 (1.89%) Entra ID
8 17 (1.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 15 (1.29%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 13 (1.11%) PaaS
11 12 (1.03%) OpenShift
12 11 (0.94%) Azure DevOps
12 11 (0.94%) Azure Sentinel
12 11 (0.94%) Power Platform
13 10 (0.86%) Nutanix
13 10 (0.86%) OneDrive
14 9 (0.77%) AWS Direct Connect
14 9 (0.77%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 335 (28.71%) Firewall
2 203 (17.40%) WAN
3 184 (15.77%) BGP
4 149 (12.77%) OSPF
5 125 (10.71%) LAN
5 125 (10.71%) Network Security
6 122 (10.45%) VXLAN
7 120 (10.28%) VPN
8 115 (9.85%) SAN
9 96 (8.23%) Structured Cabling
10 95 (8.14%) VLAN
11 94 (8.05%) DNS
12 84 (7.20%) Ethernet VPN
13 75 (6.43%) SD-WAN
14 72 (6.17%) DHCP
15 54 (4.63%) Cisco Nexus
16 51 (4.37%) BIG-IP
17 49 (4.20%) Wi-Fi
18 46 (3.94%) NX-OS
19 44 (3.77%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.11%) SQL Server
2 10 (0.86%) DataStage
3 6 (0.51%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (0.51%) Power BI
4 5 (0.43%) Relational Database
5 4 (0.34%) Big Data
5 4 (0.34%) MongoDB
5 4 (0.34%) Oracle Database
5 4 (0.34%) Oracle Reports
5 4 (0.34%) SAP Data Services
6 3 (0.26%) GIS
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 (0.086%) MS Access
8 1 (0.086%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.086%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 52 (4.46%) JIRA
2 38 (3.26%) GitLab
3 35 (3.00%) Git
4 32 (2.74%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.69%) Sonatype Nexus
6 6 (0.51%) Maven
6 6 (0.51%) ScriptRunner
7 5 (0.43%) JMeter
8 4 (0.34%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 4 (0.34%) Eclipse
8 4 (0.34%) Subversion
9 3 (0.26%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.26%) Zephyr
10 1 (0.086%) AppScan
10 1 (0.086%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.086%) LoadRunner
10 1 (0.086%) Metasploit
10 1 (0.086%) Postman
General
1 286 (24.51%) Social Skills
2 160 (13.71%) Finance
3 133 (11.40%) Analytical Skills
4 83 (7.11%) Public Sector
5 64 (5.48%) Documentation Skills
6 46 (3.94%) Banking
7 34 (2.91%) Legal
8 31 (2.66%) Telecoms
9 28 (2.40%) Manufacturing
10 23 (1.97%) Retail
11 22 (1.89%) Influencing Skills
12 12 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 10 (0.86%) Law
13 10 (0.86%) Military
14 9 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
15 8 (0.69%) Aerospace
15 8 (0.69%) Financial Institution
15 8 (0.69%) Marketing
16 7 (0.60%) Organisational Skills
17 5 (0.43%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 209 (17.91%) Network Engineer
2 184 (15.77%) Architect
3 136 (11.65%) Senior
4 90 (7.71%) Data Centre Engineer
5 78 (6.68%) Project Manager
6 75 (6.43%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 58 (4.97%) IT Engineer
7 58 (4.97%) Lead
8 56 (4.80%) Field Engineer
9 54 (4.63%) Network Architect
10 53 (4.54%) Field Service Engineer
11 47 (4.03%) Data Centre Manager
12 44 (3.77%) Solutions Architect
13 38 (3.26%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
14 36 (3.08%) Infrastructure Manager
14 36 (3.08%) Senior Network Engineer
15 35 (3.00%) Analyst
15 35 (3.00%) Technical Architect
16 32 (2.74%) Administrator
17 30 (2.57%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (4.11%) Middleware
2 33 (2.83%) 802.1X
3 12 (1.03%) LDAP
4 9 (0.77%) Redfish
5 8 (0.69%) Elastic Stack
6 7 (0.60%) Spring
7 6 (0.51%) REST
8 5 (0.43%) Jinja
8 5 (0.43%) Kafka
8 5 (0.43%) XML
9 4 (0.34%) ADO
9 4 (0.34%) Spring Boot
10 3 (0.26%) Java EE
10 3 (0.26%) JSON
10 3 (0.26%) NETCONF
10 3 (0.26%) OpenLayers
10 3 (0.26%) RFC 2544
10 3 (0.26%) VML
10 3 (0.26%) YAML
10 3 (0.26%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 62 (5.31%) Hybrid Cloud
2 59 (5.06%) Analytical Mindset
3 34 (2.91%) Management Information System
4 28 (2.40%) Clustering
4 28 (2.40%) PKI
5 26 (2.23%) Cloud Native
6 25 (2.14%) Fibre Optics
7 22 (1.89%) CMDB
8 21 (1.80%) Driving Licence
8 21 (1.80%) Enterprise Storage
8 21 (1.80%) Onboarding
8 21 (1.80%) Private Cloud
9 20 (1.71%) Public Cloud
10 19 (1.63%) Replication
11 18 (1.54%) Self-Motivation
12 17 (1.46%) SCADA
13 16 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
14 14 (1.20%) NHS
15 12 (1.03%) Mainframe
15 12 (1.03%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 153 (13.11%) Linux
2 146 (12.51%) Windows
3 40 (3.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 36 (3.08%) Windows Server
5 23 (1.97%) Unix
6 22 (1.89%) AIX
7 17 (1.46%) Solaris
8 12 (1.03%) CentOS
9 9 (0.77%) Ubuntu
9 9 (0.77%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.51%) VMS
11 5 (0.43%) Apple iOS
11 5 (0.43%) Mac OS
12 4 (0.34%) HPUX
12 4 (0.34%) Oracle Linux
12 4 (0.34%) SUSE
13 3 (0.26%) Embedded Linux
13 3 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
13 3 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.17%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 207 (17.74%) Problem-Solving
2 193 (16.54%) Migration
3 113 (9.68%) High Availability
4 108 (9.25%) Stakeholder Management
5 106 (9.08%) Infrastructure as Code
6 102 (8.74%) ITIL
7 98 (8.40%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 97 (8.31%) Roadmaps
9 92 (7.88%) CI/CD
9 92 (7.88%) Continuous Improvement
10 85 (7.28%) Load Balancing
11 76 (6.51%) Agile
11 76 (6.51%) Change Management
11 76 (6.51%) Validation
12 74 (6.34%) Project Delivery
13 73 (6.26%) Project Management
14 72 (6.17%) DevOps
15 67 (5.74%) Customer Service
16 64 (5.48%) Break/Fix
16 64 (5.48%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 135 (11.57%) Python
2 39 (3.34%) PowerShell
3 36 (3.08%) SQL
4 27 (2.31%) Bash
5 22 (1.89%) Java
6 16 (1.37%) Shell Script
7 12 (1.03%) COBOL
8 11 (0.94%) MATLAB
9 10 (0.86%) Perl
10 9 (0.77%) Bicep
11 8 (0.69%) PL/SQL
12 5 (0.43%) ActionScript
12 5 (0.43%) C
12 5 (0.43%) C++
12 5 (0.43%) JavaScript
13 4 (0.34%) Lisp
14 3 (0.26%) VBA
15 2 (0.17%) Korn
16 1 (0.086%) Groovy
16 1 (0.086%) Scala
Qualifications
1 325 (27.85%) Security Cleared
2 249 (21.34%) Cisco Certification
3 243 (20.82%) SC Cleared
4 155 (13.28%) CCNP
5 114 (9.77%) CCNA
6 70 (6.00%) Degree
6 70 (6.00%) DV Cleared
7 68 (5.83%) Network+ Certification
8 55 (4.71%) Microsoft Certification
9 51 (4.37%) A+ Certification
9 51 (4.37%) MCSE
10 26 (2.23%) CCIE
11 24 (2.06%) Azure Certification
11 24 (2.06%) City & Guilds
12 23 (1.97%) PMP
13 22 (1.89%) PMI Certification
14 20 (1.71%) AWS Certification
14 20 (1.71%) BICSI Certification
15 17 (1.46%) Server+ Certification
16 16 (1.37%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (2.91%) SLA
2 26 (2.23%) NIST
3 23 (1.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 22 (1.89%) PMO
4 22 (1.89%) QA
5 18 (1.54%) GDPR
6 10 (0.86%) NCSC
7 9 (0.77%) Disclosure Scotland
7 9 (0.77%) PCI DSS
8 8 (0.69%) GRC
9 6 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
10 5 (0.43%) RMADS
11 3 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
11 3 (0.26%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.17%) Data Quality
12 2 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.17%) JSP 440
12 2 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 1 (0.086%) COBIT
13 1 (0.086%) NEBOSH
System Software
1 98 (8.40%) VMware Infrastructure
2 61 (5.23%) Active Directory
3 37 (3.17%) VMware NSX
4 32 (2.74%) Firmware
4 32 (2.74%) vSphere
5 25 (2.14%) VMware ESXi
6 24 (2.06%) Virtual Machines
7 23 (1.97%) Hyper-V
8 13 (1.11%) Docker
9 12 (1.03%) KVM
10 6 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
11 5 (0.43%) NFS
11 5 (0.43%) SRDF
12 4 (0.34%) Ceph
12 4 (0.34%) VMware Workstation
13 3 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
13 3 (0.26%) PowerHA
13 3 (0.26%) UAG
13 3 (0.26%) Veritas Cluster Server
13 3 (0.26%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 134 (11.48%) Ansible
2 101 (8.65%) Terraform
3 59 (5.06%) FortiGate
4 43 (3.68%) Kubernetes
5 35 (3.00%) Grafana
6 28 (2.40%) Prometheus
7 19 (1.63%) Microsoft Intune
8 13 (1.11%) Check_MK
9 12 (1.03%) NetBackup
10 11 (0.94%) Podman
10 11 (0.94%) Red Hat Satellite
11 10 (0.86%) SCCM
11 10 (0.86%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.77%) Dell DRAC
12 9 (0.77%) PowerCLI
13 8 (0.69%) vMotion
14 7 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 6 (0.51%) EMC NetWorker
15 6 (0.51%) Tivoli Storage Manager
16 5 (0.43%) Nagios
Vendors
1 317 (27.16%) Cisco
2 155 (13.28%) Palo Alto
3 151 (12.94%) VMware
4 112 (9.60%) F5
5 103 (8.83%) Microsoft
6 95 (8.14%) Dell
7 88 (7.54%) Juniper
8 70 (6.00%) Arista
9 63 (5.40%) Aruba
10 58 (4.97%) Fortinet
11 52 (4.46%) CheckPoint
12 50 (4.28%) ServiceNow
13 41 (3.51%) SolarWinds
14 39 (3.34%) Google
15 37 (3.17%) Red Hat
16 34 (2.91%) IBM
17 29 (2.49%) Oracle
17 29 (2.49%) Splunk
18 26 (2.23%) NVIDIA
19 23 (1.97%) Meraki