Data Centre Contracts

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

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 129 101 93
Rank change year-on-year -28 -8 +18
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 635 966 1,574
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.17% 2.22% 2.64%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.40% 7.29% 7.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 411 643 1,137
10th Percentile £325 £300 £350
25th Percentile £411 £403 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% +5.77%
75th Percentile £598 £625 £640
90th Percentile £675 £723 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £457 £538 £500
% change year-on-year -14.93% +7.50% +6.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 48 22
10th Percentile £24.18 £16.25 £20.00
25th Percentile £24.66 £21.25 £20.22
Median hourly rate £26.08 £24.44 £21.67
Median % change year-on-year +6.73% +12.76% -22.26%
75th Percentile £41.25 £40.00 £55.56
90th Percentile £43.75 £41.25 £74.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.66 £24.00 £21.26
% change year-on-year +2.75% +12.89% -1.12%

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 9,915 13,252 19,898
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.91% 30.40% 33.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,331 8,505 13,670
10th Percentile £300 £263 £308
25th Percentile £413 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.42% -2.18% -
75th Percentile £650 £660 £680
90th Percentile £775 £788 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £496 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.90% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 394 910 640
10th Percentile £16.46 £12.25 £9.80
25th Percentile £21.00 £15.17 £10.63
Median hourly rate £32.05 £30.00 £22.49
Median % change year-on-year +6.83% +33.42% -18.24%
75th Percentile £63.75 £60.66 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.99 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.93 £27.75 £22.00
% change year-on-year +11.46% +26.14% +9.64%

Data Centre
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Data Centre as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Data Centre in the UK

Data Centre
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Data Centre.

Daily rate trend for Data Centre in the UK

Data Centre
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Centre over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Data Centre in the UK

Data Centre
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Data Centre.

Hourly rate trend for Data Centre in the UK

Data Centre
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Centre over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Centre in the UK

Data Centre
Top 16 Contract 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 30 April 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 -31 512 £525 - 886
UK excluding London -21 334 £457 -14.93% 461
London -31 213 £525 - 458
Work from Home +14 192 £519 -5.68% 307
South East -5 93 £470 -6.00% 170
North of England +1 68 £389 -10.06% 85
Scotland +2 49 £425 -24.78% 29
South West -12 49 £547 -0.55% 68
Midlands -11 40 £550 -8.33% 51
North West +10 36 £500 +15.61% 43
West Midlands -14 34 £583 -2.92% 31
Yorkshire -5 31 £375 -16.85% 27
East of England +36 22 £385 +28.33% 68
Wales +3 19 £400 +339.56% 7
East Midlands +6 6 £550 -4.35% 20
North East -6 1 £110 -75.42% 18

Data Centre
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 28 (4.41%) Confluence
2 22 (3.46%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (2.05%) SharePoint
4 7 (1.10%) OpenStack
5 2 (0.31%) BizTalk Server
5 2 (0.31%) IBM Notes
6 1 (0.16%) Apache
6 1 (0.16%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
6 1 (0.16%) CMS
6 1 (0.16%) IIS
6 1 (0.16%) Mattermost
6 1 (0.16%) Tomcat
Applications
1 18 (2.83%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (1.89%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.42%) Microsoft Project
4 8 (1.26%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.79%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.63%) AutoCAD
6 4 (0.63%) Revit
Business Applications
1 4 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.16%) Maximo
3 1 (0.16%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 121 (19.06%) Azure
2 75 (11.81%) AWS
3 32 (5.04%) Microsoft 365
4 28 (4.41%) Entra ID
5 21 (3.31%) GCP
6 20 (3.15%) SaaS
7 16 (2.52%) IaaS
8 15 (2.36%) OpenShift
9 13 (2.05%) PaaS
10 12 (1.89%) OneDrive
11 9 (1.42%) Azure AKS
12 6 (0.94%) Azure DevOps
13 5 (0.79%) Mimecast
13 5 (0.79%) Power Platform
14 4 (0.63%) GitHub
15 3 (0.47%) Azure ExpressRoute
15 3 (0.47%) Cloud Computing
15 3 (0.47%) Nutanix
16 2 (0.31%) GitHub Actions
16 2 (0.31%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 160 (25.20%) Firewall
2 82 (12.91%) WAN
3 69 (10.87%) Network Security
4 68 (10.71%) VPN
5 57 (8.98%) BGP
6 56 (8.82%) DNS
7 55 (8.66%) LAN
8 48 (7.56%) OSPF
9 46 (7.24%) Wireless
10 40 (6.30%) Cisco Nexus
11 38 (5.98%) DHCP
12 30 (4.72%) VXLAN
12 30 (4.72%) Wi-Fi
13 28 (4.41%) TCP/IP
14 26 (4.09%) SD-WAN
15 24 (3.78%) Ethernet VPN
16 20 (3.15%) VLAN
17 19 (2.99%) Cisco ASA
18 16 (2.52%) NetScaler
18 16 (2.52%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.99%) Oracle Database
2 16 (2.52%) SQL Server
3 12 (1.89%) Oracle Reports
4 11 (1.73%) Amazon RDS
4 11 (1.73%) Big Data
5 9 (1.42%) Elasticsearch
6 7 (1.10%) Relational Database
6 7 (1.10%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 6 (0.94%) PostgreSQL
7 6 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 5 (0.79%) MongoDB
8 5 (0.79%) MySQL
9 4 (0.63%) Power BI
10 3 (0.47%) Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.31%) Azure SQL Database
12 1 (0.16%) Data Lake
12 1 (0.16%) GIS
12 1 (0.16%) NoSQL
12 1 (0.16%) RDBMS
12 1 (0.16%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 26 (4.09%) JIRA
2 13 (2.05%) Jenkins
3 12 (1.89%) GitLab
4 11 (1.73%) Sonatype Nexus
5 5 (0.79%) Git
6 3 (0.47%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.47%) Oracle Forms
7 2 (0.31%) JMeter
7 2 (0.31%) TestDirector
8 1 (0.16%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.16%) ER Studio
8 1 (0.16%) ERwin
8 1 (0.16%) Gatling
8 1 (0.16%) Maven
8 1 (0.16%) ScriptRunner
8 1 (0.16%) Selenium
8 1 (0.16%) WebDriver
General
1 153 (24.09%) Social Skills
2 152 (23.94%) Finance
3 77 (12.13%) Analytical Skills
4 48 (7.56%) Banking
5 37 (5.83%) Public Sector
6 28 (4.41%) Telecoms
7 19 (2.99%) Legal
7 19 (2.99%) Retail
8 13 (2.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 11 (1.73%) Documentation Skills
10 9 (1.42%) Aerospace
10 9 (1.42%) Investment Banking
10 9 (1.42%) Manufacturing
11 8 (1.26%) Law
11 8 (1.26%) Organisational Skills
12 7 (1.10%) Electronics
13 4 (0.63%) Marketing
13 4 (0.63%) Military
13 4 (0.63%) Retail Banking
14 3 (0.47%) Italian Language
Job Titles
1 108 (17.01%) Architect
2 102 (16.06%) Network Engineer
3 48 (7.56%) Consultant
3 48 (7.56%) Senior
4 45 (7.09%) Project Manager
5 41 (6.46%) Lead
6 33 (5.20%) Data Centre Engineer
6 33 (5.20%) Solutions Architect
7 32 (5.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 30 (4.72%) Infrastructure Manager
9 27 (4.25%) Analyst
9 27 (4.25%) Network Architect
10 25 (3.94%) Senior Network Engineer
10 25 (3.94%) Support Engineer
11 20 (3.15%) Data Centre Manager
11 20 (3.15%) Infrastructure Architect
11 20 (3.15%) Infrastructure Project Manager
12 18 (2.83%) Security Architect
12 18 (2.83%) Server Engineer
13 17 (2.68%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (2.36%) .NET
1 15 (2.36%) 802.1X
2 8 (1.26%) Kafka
3 5 (0.79%) LDAP
3 5 (0.79%) RFC 2544
4 4 (0.63%) JSON
5 3 (0.47%) ADO
5 3 (0.47%) Middleware
5 3 (0.47%) SAML
5 3 (0.47%) YAML
6 2 (0.31%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.31%) REST
6 2 (0.31%) XML
7 1 (0.16%) ASP.NET
7 1 (0.16%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.16%) OpenTelemetry
7 1 (0.16%) PySpark
7 1 (0.16%) RESTful
7 1 (0.16%) SOAP
7 1 (0.16%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 28 (4.41%) PKI
2 27 (4.25%) Replication
3 17 (2.68%) Data Protection Act
3 17 (2.68%) Management Information System
4 16 (2.52%) Public Cloud
5 15 (2.36%) CMDB
6 14 (2.20%) Cloud Native
7 13 (2.05%) Fibre Optics
8 12 (1.89%) Clustering
9 11 (1.73%) Driving Licence
9 11 (1.73%) Hybrid Cloud
9 11 (1.73%) SCADA
10 8 (1.26%) Enterprise Storage
11 7 (1.10%) Mainframe
11 7 (1.10%) Onboarding
11 7 (1.10%) Private Cloud
11 7 (1.10%) Security Posture
12 6 (0.94%) Enterprise Software
12 6 (0.94%) Linux Command Line
13 5 (0.79%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 110 (17.32%) Windows
2 93 (14.65%) Linux
3 48 (7.56%) Windows Server
4 22 (3.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 20 (3.15%) Unix
6 11 (1.73%) Windows Server 2019
7 8 (1.26%) HPUX
7 8 (1.26%) Solaris
8 7 (1.10%) Mac OS
8 7 (1.10%) Windows 10
8 7 (1.10%) Windows Server 2016
9 6 (0.94%) Android
10 5 (0.79%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.63%) Windows Server 2003
12 3 (0.47%) CentOS
13 2 (0.31%) zOS
14 1 (0.16%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.16%) VyOS
14 1 (0.16%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (22.52%) Migration
2 99 (15.59%) Problem-Solving
3 67 (10.55%) Agile
4 65 (10.24%) Project Management
5 56 (8.82%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 56 (8.82%) Stakeholder Management
6 49 (7.72%) DevOps
7 47 (7.40%) Roadmaps
8 45 (7.09%) Change Management
8 45 (7.09%) ITIL
9 44 (6.93%) Disaster Recovery
9 44 (6.93%) Network Design
10 40 (6.30%) Customer Service
11 38 (5.98%) Project Delivery
12 37 (5.83%) High Availability
12 37 (5.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 36 (5.67%) Network Architecture
14 34 (5.35%) Break/Fix
14 34 (5.35%) Risk Management
15 33 (5.20%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 49 (7.72%) Python
2 32 (5.04%) PowerShell
3 22 (3.46%) SQL
4 12 (1.89%) Bash
5 5 (0.79%) Go
5 5 (0.79%) Java
5 5 (0.79%) Perl
5 5 (0.79%) Tcl
6 4 (0.63%) SystemVerilog
7 3 (0.47%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.31%) Groovy
8 2 (0.31%) JCL
8 2 (0.31%) REXX
8 2 (0.31%) Ruby
9 1 (0.16%) Bicep
9 1 (0.16%) PHP
9 1 (0.16%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 164 (25.83%) Security Cleared
2 116 (18.27%) SC Cleared
3 62 (9.76%) Cisco Certification
4 58 (9.13%) Degree
5 47 (7.40%) CCNP
6 41 (6.46%) DV Cleared
7 17 (2.68%) CCIE
8 15 (2.36%) Azure Certification
9 13 (2.05%) Computer Science Degree
10 12 (1.89%) AWS Certification
11 11 (1.73%) CCNA
11 11 (1.73%) CISSP
12 10 (1.57%) PMI Certification
13 9 (1.42%) Microsoft Certification
13 9 (1.42%) PMP
13 9 (1.42%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 8 (1.26%) BPSS Clearance
14 8 (1.26%) TOGAF Certification
15 7 (1.10%) Network+ Certification
16 6 (0.94%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (4.88%) QA
2 22 (3.46%) SLA
3 12 (1.89%) GDPR
3 12 (1.89%) NIST
4 10 (1.57%) PCI DSS
5 9 (1.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 8 (1.26%) PMO
7 6 (0.94%) JSP 440
7 6 (0.94%) RMADS
8 4 (0.63%) COBIT
9 2 (0.31%) Accessibility
9 2 (0.31%) Data Quality
9 2 (0.31%) Disclosure Scotland
9 2 (0.31%) GxP
9 2 (0.31%) ISO 14001
10 1 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.16%) GRC
10 1 (0.16%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.16%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.16%) NIST 800
System Software
1 89 (14.02%) VMware Infrastructure
2 65 (10.24%) Active Directory
3 32 (5.04%) VMware ESXi
4 29 (4.57%) Docker
5 22 (3.46%) Hyper-V
5 22 (3.46%) VMware NSX
6 17 (2.68%) vSphere
7 12 (1.89%) Microsoft App-V
8 11 (1.73%) Virtual Machines
9 9 (1.42%) BitLocker
9 9 (1.42%) Terminal Services
10 7 (1.10%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.63%) KVM
11 4 (0.63%) NFS
12 2 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.31%) Time Sharing Option
12 2 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
13 1 (0.16%) Firmware
13 1 (0.16%) SRDF
13 1 (0.16%) Terminal Server
Systems Management
1 50 (7.87%) Ansible
2 36 (5.67%) Kubernetes
2 36 (5.67%) Terraform
3 28 (4.41%) vCenter Server
4 19 (2.99%) FortiGate
5 15 (2.36%) Puppet
6 14 (2.20%) Microsoft Intune
6 14 (2.20%) Oracle RMAN
7 10 (1.57%) Nagios
8 9 (1.42%) Progress Chef
8 9 (1.42%) vMotion
9 7 (1.10%) SCCM
9 7 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
10 6 (0.94%) VxRail
11 5 (0.79%) Grafana
11 5 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
11 5 (0.79%) WSUS
12 4 (0.63%) Cisco Prime
12 4 (0.63%) NetBackup
12 4 (0.63%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 150 (23.62%) Cisco
2 118 (18.58%) VMware
3 82 (12.91%) Microsoft
4 64 (10.08%) Palo Alto
5 58 (9.13%) Dell
5 58 (9.13%) HP
6 38 (5.98%) IBM
6 38 (5.98%) ServiceNow
7 31 (4.88%) Oracle
8 27 (4.25%) Fortinet
9 26 (4.09%) Arista
10 25 (3.94%) F5
11 23 (3.62%) Meraki
11 23 (3.62%) Red Hat
12 22 (3.46%) CheckPoint
13 21 (3.31%) Citrix
14 20 (3.15%) Juniper
15 15 (2.36%) Commvault
16 13 (2.05%) Google
16 13 (2.05%) SolarWinds