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 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 138 124 100
Rank change year-on-year -14 -24 -1
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 763 683 1,039
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.06% 2.02% 2.39%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.91% 6.32% 7.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 489 412 706
10th Percentile £277 £351 £319
25th Percentile £405 £425 £417
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% +2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £601 £650
90th Percentile £700 £698 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% +7.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 28 23
10th Percentile £20.25 £11.75 £17.89
25th Percentile - £20.30 £21.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £24.18 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.01% +5.13% -63.49%
75th Percentile £35.00 £27.81 £70.00
90th Percentile £70.42 £38.81 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.00 £24.18 £23.00
% change year-on-year +11.66% +5.13% -58.63%

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 12,908 10,806 13,708
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.88% 32.00% 31.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,080 6,454 9,110
10th Percentile £275 £268 £263
25th Percentile £406 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £535 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.70% -2.73% -
75th Percentile £625 £661 £668
90th Percentile £738 £775 £768
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 643 335 495
10th Percentile £13.96 £17.35 £16.50
25th Percentile £18.02 £22.72 £20.13
Median hourly rate £27.21 £33.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.55% -22.35% +21.43%
75th Percentile £60.75 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £79.50 £76.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.21 £32.50 £45.21
% change year-on-year -16.28% -28.11% +53.25%

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025. 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 -16 661 £506 -3.62% 747
UK excluding London -7 419 £475 -5.00% 575
London -7 259 £525 - 241
Work from Home +20 208 £530 -0.93% 283
North of England -11 134 £490 -1.51% 126
South East -18 92 £465 -7.00% 181
Midlands -1 89 £451 -22.24% 83
North West +12 85 £543 +8.50% 56
West Midlands -1 69 £470 -18.97% 48
Yorkshire -37 44 £390 -7.14% 58
Scotland +12 38 £450 - 30
South West -21 38 £550 +0.18% 70
East of England -24 27 £600 +42.01% 76
East Midlands -6 20 £203 -61.81% 28
Wales 0 14 £276 -30.94% 10
North East -6 8 £175 - 13
Northern Ireland - 1 £425 - 8

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 31 (4.06%) SharePoint
2 23 (3.01%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (1.83%) Confluence
4 11 (1.44%) OpenStack
5 7 (0.92%) Apache Airflow
6 6 (0.79%) Apache
7 5 (0.66%) Apache Spark
8 4 (0.52%) HCL Notes
8 4 (0.52%) nginx
9 3 (0.39%) CICS
9 3 (0.39%) GeoServer
9 3 (0.39%) Smallworld
9 3 (0.39%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.26%) FileNet
10 2 (0.26%) Oracle Coherence
10 2 (0.26%) ThingWorx
10 2 (0.26%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.13%) IIS
11 1 (0.13%) OpenEdge
11 1 (0.13%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 56 (7.34%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (4.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (3.41%) MS Visio
4 18 (2.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (1.70%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.13%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.52%) Oracle Financials
3 3 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.13%) Epicor iScala
5 1 (0.13%) Maximo
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.13%) Primavera
5 1 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.13%) StreamServe
Cloud Services
1 145 (19.00%) Azure
2 113 (14.81%) AWS
3 71 (9.31%) Microsoft 365
4 45 (5.90%) GCP
5 23 (3.01%) Power Platform
6 20 (2.62%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 18 (2.36%) Entra ID
8 17 (2.23%) OpenShift
9 13 (1.70%) SaaS
9 13 (1.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 12 (1.57%) AWS Direct Connect
10 12 (1.57%) IaaS
10 12 (1.57%) PaaS
11 10 (1.31%) AWS CloudFormation
11 10 (1.31%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 8 (1.05%) npm
13 7 (0.92%) GitHub
13 7 (0.92%) OCI
14 6 (0.79%) Nutanix
15 5 (0.66%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 221 (28.96%) Firewall
2 136 (17.82%) WAN
3 92 (12.06%) Wireless
4 86 (11.27%) VPN
5 79 (10.35%) BGP
6 70 (9.17%) LAN
7 63 (8.26%) Network Security
8 57 (7.47%) DNS
9 56 (7.34%) OSPF
10 53 (6.95%) Wi-Fi
11 44 (5.77%) SD-WAN
12 40 (5.24%) VLAN
13 39 (5.11%) Cisco Nexus
14 36 (4.72%) Cisco ISE
14 36 (4.72%) SAN
15 35 (4.59%) MPLS
15 35 (4.59%) VXLAN
16 34 (4.46%) DHCP
17 29 (3.80%) TCP/IP
18 27 (3.54%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (2.62%) Power BI
2 19 (2.49%) Relational Database
3 12 (1.57%) RDBMS
4 10 (1.31%) SQL Server
5 9 (1.18%) GIS
6 6 (0.79%) NoSQL
7 5 (0.66%) Apache Hive
7 5 (0.66%) Hadoop
7 5 (0.66%) HBase
7 5 (0.66%) Oracle Database
8 4 (0.52%) Data Mining
8 4 (0.52%) InfluxDB
8 4 (0.52%) PostgreSQL
9 3 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
9 3 (0.39%) Big Data
9 3 (0.39%) Data Warehouse
9 3 (0.39%) DataStage
9 3 (0.39%) QGIS
9 3 (0.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 23 (3.01%) Git
2 16 (2.10%) Jenkins
2 16 (2.10%) Sonatype Nexus
3 14 (1.83%) JIRA
4 11 (1.44%) Maven
5 9 (1.18%) GitLab
6 8 (1.05%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.39%) ER Studio
7 3 (0.39%) ERwin
7 3 (0.39%) Gradle
7 3 (0.39%) Selenium
8 2 (0.26%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.13%) Fiddler
9 1 (0.13%) Postman
General
1 190 (24.90%) Social Skills
2 130 (17.04%) Finance
3 86 (11.27%) Public Sector
4 82 (10.75%) Analytical Skills
5 69 (9.04%) Telecoms
6 64 (8.39%) Banking
7 37 (4.85%) Documentation Skills
8 36 (4.72%) Manufacturing
9 27 (3.54%) Marketing
10 25 (3.28%) Electronics
11 22 (2.88%) Presentation Skills
12 19 (2.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 16 (2.10%) Organisational Skills
14 13 (1.70%) Retail
15 11 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
16 7 (0.92%) Front Office
16 7 (0.92%) Investment Banking
16 7 (0.92%) Local Government
17 6 (0.79%) Law
17 6 (0.79%) Legal
Job Titles
1 124 (16.25%) Architect
2 118 (15.47%) Network Engineer
3 70 (9.17%) Analyst
4 68 (8.91%) Project Manager
5 53 (6.95%) Senior
6 46 (6.03%) Network Architect
7 39 (5.11%) Data Centre Manager
8 36 (4.72%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 32 (4.19%) IT Support
9 32 (4.19%) Security Engineer
10 31 (4.06%) Consultant
11 30 (3.93%) Solutions Architect
12 29 (3.80%) Data Centre Engineer
13 28 (3.67%) Infrastructure Manager
13 28 (3.67%) Support Engineer
14 25 (3.28%) Desktop Support
14 25 (3.28%) Lead
15 23 (3.01%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
15 23 (3.01%) 2nd Line Support
15 23 (3.01%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.01%) 802.1X
2 19 (2.49%) Middleware
3 12 (1.57%) RFC 2544
4 5 (0.66%) Spark Streaming
5 4 (0.52%) Jinja
5 4 (0.52%) LDAP
5 4 (0.52%) VML
6 3 (0.39%) REST
7 2 (0.26%) .NET
7 2 (0.26%) ARM Templates
7 2 (0.26%) eBPF
7 2 (0.26%) EJB
7 2 (0.26%) Elastic Stack
7 2 (0.26%) Java SE
7 2 (0.26%) ModSecurity
7 2 (0.26%) NETCONF
7 2 (0.26%) OpenLayers
7 2 (0.26%) RESTCONF
7 2 (0.26%) Spring
7 2 (0.26%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 45 (5.90%) Hybrid Cloud
2 32 (4.19%) Cloud Native
3 24 (3.15%) Public Cloud
4 19 (2.49%) Self-Motivation
5 18 (2.36%) Driving Licence
5 18 (2.36%) Replication
6 17 (2.23%) Onboarding
7 16 (2.10%) Fibre Optics
8 15 (1.97%) Mainframe
8 15 (1.97%) Private Cloud
9 13 (1.70%) SCADA
10 12 (1.57%) PKI
11 11 (1.44%) Analytical Mindset
11 11 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
12 9 (1.18%) CMDB
12 9 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
12 9 (1.18%) Product Ownership
13 8 (1.05%) Clustering
13 8 (1.05%) Management Information System
14 7 (0.92%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 94 (12.32%) Windows
2 69 (9.04%) Linux
3 42 (5.50%) Mac OS
4 41 (5.37%) Android
4 41 (5.37%) Windows Server
5 16 (2.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (1.97%) Unix
7 7 (0.92%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (0.79%) CentOS
8 6 (0.79%) Windows 10
9 5 (0.66%) VMS
10 4 (0.52%) Solaris
10 4 (0.52%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.52%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.26%) AIX
11 2 (0.26%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.26%) zOS
12 1 (0.13%) Apple iOS
12 1 (0.13%) Embedded Linux
12 1 (0.13%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 138 (18.09%) Migration
2 109 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
3 88 (11.53%) Stakeholder Management
4 67 (8.78%) ITIL
5 62 (8.13%) Agile
6 57 (7.47%) Infrastructure as Code
7 53 (6.95%) Project Management
8 52 (6.82%) Project Delivery
9 49 (6.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 48 (6.29%) Change Management
10 48 (6.29%) CI/CD
11 47 (6.16%) DevOps
11 47 (6.16%) Network Design
11 47 (6.16%) Roadmaps
12 46 (6.03%) Service Management
13 45 (5.90%) Customer Service
13 45 (5.90%) Load Balancing
14 43 (5.64%) Cybersecurity
15 42 (5.50%) Business Intelligence
15 42 (5.50%) Data Centre Operations
Programming Languages
1 79 (10.35%) Python
2 48 (6.29%) PowerShell
3 37 (4.85%) SQL
4 21 (2.75%) Java
5 20 (2.62%) Bash
6 10 (1.31%) Perl
7 8 (1.05%) Lisp
8 6 (0.79%) Go
8 6 (0.79%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.52%) C
10 3 (0.39%) Bicep
10 3 (0.39%) JavaScript
10 3 (0.39%) PL/SQL
10 3 (0.39%) VBA
11 2 (0.26%) C#
11 2 (0.26%) C++
11 2 (0.26%) Ruby
12 1 (0.13%) COBOL
12 1 (0.13%) JCL
12 1 (0.13%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 235 (30.80%) Security Cleared
2 195 (25.56%) SC Cleared
3 102 (13.37%) Cisco Certification
4 77 (10.09%) CCNP
5 58 (7.60%) Degree
6 45 (5.90%) DV Cleared
7 31 (4.06%) CCNA
8 29 (3.80%) CCIE
9 21 (2.75%) AWS Certification
10 14 (1.83%) CISSP
10 14 (1.83%) JNCIE
11 11 (1.44%) PMP
12 10 (1.31%) PMI Certification
12 10 (1.31%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 9 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
13 9 (1.18%) Microsoft Certification
14 8 (1.05%) Azure Certification
14 8 (1.05%) BPSS Clearance
14 8 (1.05%) Network+ Certification
15 7 (0.92%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (2.75%) NIST
2 20 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 18 (2.36%) PCI DSS
3 18 (2.36%) PMO
4 17 (2.23%) SLA
5 14 (1.83%) QA
6 13 (1.70%) GDPR
7 11 (1.44%) Data Quality
8 6 (0.79%) NCSC
9 4 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.26%) ISO 22301
10 2 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 2 (0.26%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.13%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.13%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.13%) GRC
11 1 (0.13%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 78 (10.22%) VMware Infrastructure
2 55 (7.21%) Active Directory
3 45 (5.90%) VMware NSX
4 28 (3.67%) Docker
5 18 (2.36%) Virtual Machines
6 16 (2.10%) Hyper-V
6 16 (2.10%) vSphere
7 8 (1.05%) Firmware
8 7 (0.92%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.66%) HDFS
9 5 (0.66%) KVM
10 3 (0.39%) Lustre
11 2 (0.26%) Ceph
11 2 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
11 2 (0.26%) NFS
11 2 (0.26%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 2 (0.26%) SRDF
11 2 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.26%) Xen
12 1 (0.13%) Samba
Systems Management
1 80 (10.48%) Ansible
2 74 (9.70%) Terraform
3 33 (4.33%) FortiGate
4 25 (3.28%) Kubernetes
5 24 (3.15%) SCCM
6 15 (1.97%) Grafana
7 12 (1.57%) Microsoft Intune
8 10 (1.31%) SCOM
8 10 (1.31%) vCenter Server
9 9 (1.18%) Puppet
10 7 (0.92%) CASB
10 7 (0.92%) Prometheus
10 7 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
11 6 (0.79%) SCOrch
12 5 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (0.66%) Control-M
12 5 (0.66%) Hadoop YARN
13 3 (0.39%) Nagios
13 3 (0.39%) OPNET
13 3 (0.39%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 250 (32.77%) Cisco
2 98 (12.84%) VMware
3 95 (12.45%) Microsoft
4 81 (10.62%) Palo Alto
5 66 (8.65%) Dell
6 58 (7.60%) F5
7 57 (7.47%) Juniper
8 49 (6.42%) HP
9 41 (5.37%) Apple
10 38 (4.98%) SAP
11 37 (4.85%) CheckPoint
11 37 (4.85%) ServiceNow
12 35 (4.59%) Fortinet
13 33 (4.33%) Meraki
13 33 (4.33%) Oracle
14 25 (3.28%) Aruba
15 20 (2.62%) Arista
16 19 (2.49%) Citrix
17 15 (1.97%) NetApp
17 15 (1.97%) SolarWinds