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 24 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 139 135 94
Rank change year-on-year -4 -41 +7
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 777 616 1,022
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.04% 1.95% 2.32%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.97% 6.02% 7.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 501 367 679
10th Percentile £278 £350 £300
25th Percentile £400 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £688 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £474 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.20% -0.04% +0.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 25 38
10th Percentile £22.20 £20.30 £16.25
25th Percentile £25.15 £24.15 £21.44
Median hourly rate £25.77 £24.18 £24.56
Median % change year-on-year +6.58% -1.54% -60.86%
75th Percentile £67.25 £28.75 £41.25
90th Percentile £74.16 £41.25 £76.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 £24.18 £23.00
% change year-on-year +175.02% +5.13% -65.15%

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 13,007 10,237 13,561
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.23% 32.38% 30.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,213 6,075 8,860
10th Percentile £278 £263 £256
25th Percentile £406 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £538
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% -1.40% -4.02%
75th Percentile £625 £663 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 622 310 706
10th Percentile £14.59 £18.51 £14.19
25th Percentile £18.26 £23.65 £17.66
Median hourly rate £27.63 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.07% - +56.74%
75th Percentile £61.25 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £74.97 £82.25 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.36 £32.50 £35.50
% change year-on-year -15.83% -8.45% +77.50%

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 24 January 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 24 January 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 24 January 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 -15 652 £492 -6.29% 553
UK excluding London +9 438 £474 -5.20% 488
London -20 236 £525 +0.48% 148
Work from Home +34 224 £492 -8.04% 243
North of England -7 148 £475 -4.52% 98
South East -5 100 £445 - 174
North West +11 89 £519 +3.70% 37
Midlands -13 77 £411 -29.09% 43
West Midlands -23 62 £472 -18.62% 20
Yorkshire -41 50 £438 +4.29% 37
Scotland +19 48 £450 - 35
South West -27 34 £550 - 50
East of England -12 30 £485 +14.79% 74
East Midlands -19 15 £158 -70.70% 23
Wales -8 13 £203 -49.38% 25
North East -4 12 £175 - 25
Northern Ireland - 3 £425 - 9

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 30 (3.86%) SharePoint
2 23 (2.96%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (1.42%) Confluence
4 9 (1.16%) OpenStack
5 7 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
6 6 (0.77%) Apache
7 5 (0.64%) Apache Spark
8 4 (0.51%) HCL Notes
8 4 (0.51%) nginx
9 3 (0.39%) GeoServer
9 3 (0.39%) Smallworld
9 3 (0.39%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.26%) CICS
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%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 51 (6.56%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (4.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (3.35%) MS Visio
4 21 (2.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (1.80%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.13%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.51%) Oracle Financials
3 2 (0.26%) DELMIA
3 2 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.13%) Epicor iScala
4 1 (0.13%) Maximo
4 1 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.13%) Primavera
4 1 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 136 (17.50%) Azure
2 114 (14.67%) AWS
3 64 (8.24%) Microsoft 365
4 42 (5.41%) GCP
5 24 (3.09%) Power Platform
6 17 (2.19%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 16 (2.06%) SaaS
8 14 (1.80%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 13 (1.67%) AWS Direct Connect
9 13 (1.67%) OpenShift
10 12 (1.54%) AWS CloudFormation
11 11 (1.42%) Entra ID
11 11 (1.42%) GitHub
11 11 (1.42%) IaaS
12 10 (1.29%) PaaS
13 9 (1.16%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 8 (1.03%) Amazon GuardDuty
14 8 (1.03%) Azure DevOps
14 8 (1.03%) Nutanix
14 8 (1.03%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 231 (29.73%) Firewall
2 146 (18.79%) WAN
3 93 (11.97%) BGP
4 86 (11.07%) Wireless
5 81 (10.42%) VPN
6 80 (10.30%) LAN
7 78 (10.04%) Network Security
8 66 (8.49%) OSPF
9 53 (6.82%) DNS
9 53 (6.82%) Wi-Fi
10 49 (6.31%) VLAN
11 41 (5.28%) SD-WAN
12 40 (5.15%) SAN
13 37 (4.76%) Cisco Nexus
14 36 (4.63%) VXLAN
15 35 (4.50%) Cisco ISE
15 35 (4.50%) Structured Cabling
16 32 (4.12%) DHCP
16 32 (4.12%) IPsec
17 28 (3.60%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (2.83%) Power BI
2 17 (2.19%) Relational Database
3 9 (1.16%) RDBMS
3 9 (1.16%) SQL Server
4 6 (0.77%) NoSQL
5 5 (0.64%) Apache Hive
5 5 (0.64%) GIS
5 5 (0.64%) Hadoop
5 5 (0.64%) HBase
5 5 (0.64%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (0.51%) Data Mining
6 4 (0.51%) Oracle Database
6 4 (0.51%) Power Query
6 4 (0.51%) PowerPivot
7 3 (0.39%) Big Data
7 3 (0.39%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.39%) Data Vault
7 3 (0.39%) Geospatial Data
7 3 (0.39%) InfluxDB
7 3 (0.39%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 26 (3.35%) Git
2 24 (3.09%) Jenkins
3 17 (2.19%) GitLab
4 13 (1.67%) JIRA
5 12 (1.54%) Sonatype Nexus
6 9 (1.16%) Maven
7 6 (0.77%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.39%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.39%) ER Studio
8 3 (0.39%) ERwin
8 3 (0.39%) ScriptRunner
9 2 (0.26%) Gradle
9 2 (0.26%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.26%) Selenium
General
1 195 (25.10%) Social Skills
2 132 (16.99%) Finance
3 101 (13.00%) Analytical Skills
4 92 (11.84%) Public Sector
5 55 (7.08%) Telecoms
6 51 (6.56%) Documentation Skills
7 50 (6.44%) Banking
8 42 (5.41%) Manufacturing
9 30 (3.86%) Marketing
10 25 (3.22%) Electronics
10 25 (3.22%) Presentation Skills
11 17 (2.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 15 (1.93%) Legal
13 13 (1.67%) Retail
14 12 (1.54%) Organisational Skills
15 10 (1.29%) Influencing Skills
16 8 (1.03%) Law
17 7 (0.90%) Investment Banking
17 7 (0.90%) Local Government
18 6 (0.77%) Billing
Job Titles
1 144 (18.53%) Network Engineer
2 119 (15.32%) Architect
3 70 (9.01%) Project Manager
4 66 (8.49%) Analyst
5 56 (7.21%) Senior
6 41 (5.28%) Network Architect
7 36 (4.63%) Solutions Architect
8 35 (4.50%) Lead
9 32 (4.12%) Consultant
9 32 (4.12%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 31 (3.99%) Data Centre Manager
11 30 (3.86%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 29 (3.73%) Data Centre Engineer
12 29 (3.73%) Security Engineer
13 28 (3.60%) Cisco Engineer
14 27 (3.47%) IT Support
15 26 (3.35%) Cisco Network Engineer
16 25 (3.22%) Desktop Support
17 23 (2.96%) 2nd Line Support
17 23 (2.96%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (2.96%) 802.1X
1 23 (2.96%) Middleware
2 11 (1.42%) LDAP
3 8 (1.03%) RFC 2544
4 5 (0.64%) Spark Streaming
5 4 (0.51%) ADO
5 4 (0.51%) VML
6 3 (0.39%) ARM Templates
6 3 (0.39%) Yocto
7 2 (0.26%) .NET
7 2 (0.26%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.26%) CSS
7 2 (0.26%) EJB
7 2 (0.26%) Elastic Stack
7 2 (0.26%) HTML
7 2 (0.26%) Java SE
7 2 (0.26%) Jinja
7 2 (0.26%) ModSecurity
7 2 (0.26%) REST
7 2 (0.26%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 44 (5.66%) Hybrid Cloud
2 26 (3.35%) Public Cloud
3 23 (2.96%) Cloud Native
4 22 (2.83%) Self-Motivation
5 20 (2.57%) Onboarding
6 16 (2.06%) Analytical Mindset
6 16 (2.06%) Driving Licence
6 16 (2.06%) Fibre Optics
7 15 (1.93%) Private Cloud
7 15 (1.93%) Replication
7 15 (1.93%) SCADA
8 14 (1.80%) Mainframe
9 13 (1.67%) CMDB
9 13 (1.67%) Management Information System
10 11 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
10 11 (1.42%) PKI
11 8 (1.03%) Legacy Systems
11 8 (1.03%) NHS
12 7 (0.90%) Operational Technology
12 7 (0.90%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 102 (13.13%) Windows
2 91 (11.71%) Linux
3 43 (5.53%) Windows Server
4 35 (4.50%) Android
4 35 (4.50%) Mac OS
5 30 (3.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.42%) CentOS
7 9 (1.16%) Unix
8 7 (0.90%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.77%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.64%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.64%) VMS
11 4 (0.51%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.39%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.39%) Solaris
13 2 (0.26%) zOS
14 1 (0.13%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (15.70%) Migration
2 118 (15.19%) Problem-Solving
3 86 (11.07%) Stakeholder Management
4 69 (8.88%) Agile
4 69 (8.88%) ITIL
5 60 (7.72%) Infrastructure as Code
6 59 (7.59%) Project Management
7 57 (7.34%) Project Delivery
8 54 (6.95%) CI/CD
8 54 (6.95%) DevOps
9 46 (5.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 45 (5.79%) Continuous Improvement
11 44 (5.66%) Business Intelligence
11 44 (5.66%) Roadmaps
12 43 (5.53%) Network Design
13 41 (5.28%) Change Management
13 41 (5.28%) Customer Service
13 41 (5.28%) Cybersecurity
13 41 (5.28%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 41 (5.28%) Programme Management
Programming Languages
1 80 (10.30%) Python
2 52 (6.69%) PowerShell
3 39 (5.02%) SQL
4 24 (3.09%) Bash
5 16 (2.06%) Java
6 13 (1.67%) Shell Script
7 12 (1.54%) Perl
8 8 (1.03%) Lisp
9 7 (0.90%) MATLAB
10 5 (0.64%) VBA
11 4 (0.51%) C++
12 3 (0.39%) Bicep
12 3 (0.39%) C
12 3 (0.39%) Go
12 3 (0.39%) JavaScript
12 3 (0.39%) PL/SQL
13 2 (0.26%) Korn
13 2 (0.26%) Ruby
14 1 (0.13%) Groovy
14 1 (0.13%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 260 (33.46%) Security Cleared
2 217 (27.93%) SC Cleared
3 124 (15.96%) Cisco Certification
4 98 (12.61%) CCNP
5 62 (7.98%) Degree
6 48 (6.18%) DV Cleared
7 47 (6.05%) CCNA
8 29 (3.73%) CCIE
9 24 (3.09%) AWS Certification
10 17 (2.19%) PMP
11 16 (2.06%) PMI Certification
12 12 (1.54%) CISSP
12 12 (1.54%) JNCIE
13 10 (1.29%) A+ Certification
13 10 (1.29%) MCSE
13 10 (1.29%) Microsoft Certification
13 10 (1.29%) Network+ Certification
13 10 (1.29%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 9 (1.16%) Azure Certification
14 9 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (2.70%) PMO
2 20 (2.57%) SLA
3 17 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 15 (1.93%) NIST
5 14 (1.80%) PCI DSS
5 14 (1.80%) QA
6 13 (1.67%) Data Quality
7 11 (1.42%) GDPR
8 7 (0.90%) NCSC
9 3 (0.39%) GRC
10 2 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.26%) Disclosure Scotland
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%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.13%) RMADS
11 1 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 83 (10.68%) VMware Infrastructure
2 59 (7.59%) Active Directory
3 51 (6.56%) VMware NSX
4 23 (2.96%) Docker
5 20 (2.57%) Virtual Machines
6 17 (2.19%) Hyper-V
7 15 (1.93%) vSphere
8 10 (1.29%) Firmware
9 8 (1.03%) KVM
9 8 (1.03%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.64%) HDFS
11 4 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.39%) Lustre
13 2 (0.26%) Ceph
13 2 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
13 2 (0.26%) NFS
13 2 (0.26%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 2 (0.26%) SRDF
13 2 (0.26%) vCloud
13 2 (0.26%) Xen
Systems Management
1 85 (10.94%) Ansible
2 74 (9.52%) Terraform
3 40 (5.15%) FortiGate
4 25 (3.22%) SCCM
5 24 (3.09%) Kubernetes
6 19 (2.45%) Grafana
7 10 (1.29%) Microsoft Intune
7 10 (1.29%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.16%) Prometheus
8 9 (1.16%) Puppet
9 8 (1.03%) Check_MK
9 8 (1.03%) SCOM
10 7 (0.90%) Podman
10 7 (0.90%) Red Hat Satellite
11 6 (0.77%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.77%) CASB
11 6 (0.77%) SCOrch
12 5 (0.64%) Hadoop YARN
12 5 (0.64%) vMotion
12 5 (0.64%) vRealize
Vendors
1 265 (34.11%) Cisco
2 110 (14.16%) VMware
3 107 (13.77%) Palo Alto
4 90 (11.58%) Microsoft
5 68 (8.75%) Dell
5 68 (8.75%) Juniper
6 54 (6.95%) F5
7 46 (5.92%) HP
8 45 (5.79%) CheckPoint
9 38 (4.89%) Aruba
9 38 (4.89%) ServiceNow
10 36 (4.63%) Meraki
11 35 (4.50%) Apple
12 33 (4.25%) SAP
13 32 (4.12%) Fortinet
14 31 (3.99%) Oracle
15 20 (2.57%) Citrix
16 19 (2.45%) Arista
17 18 (2.32%) Red Hat
18 15 (1.93%) Google