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

6 months to
29 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 138 89
Rank change year-on-year +6 -49 +11
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 779 624 1,016
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.02% 1.98% 2.32%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.94% 6.09% 7.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 504 372 677
10th Percentile £278 £351 £300
25th Percentile £400 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £489 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.01% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £688 £686 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £474 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.20% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 25 40
10th Percentile £21.83 £20.30 £20.08
25th Percentile £25.15 £24.15 £22.00
Median hourly rate £26.14 £24.18 £24.56
Median % change year-on-year +8.09% -1.54% -57.70%
75th Percentile £67.25 £28.75 £41.25
90th Percentile £74.21 £41.25 £76.28
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 £24.18 £23.50
% change year-on-year +175.02% +2.89% +8.44%

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 13,125 10,246 13,479
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.10% 32.55% 30.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,288 6,069 8,796
10th Percentile £275 £263 £255
25th Percentile £405 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -3.60%
75th Percentile £625 £657 £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 624 310 734
10th Percentile £15.00 £19.18 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.45 £23.65 £17.29
Median hourly rate £28.50 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.56% - +55.66%
75th Percentile £62.63 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.90 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £35.50
% change year-on-year -15.38% -8.45% +71.46%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -17 650 £492 -6.29% 424
UK excluding London -1 441 £474 -5.20% 333
London -27 234 £525 - 153
Work from Home +45 222 £492 -8.04% 146
North of England -12 144 £478 -4.50% 62
South East -12 104 £445 -1.11% 145
North West +15 90 £519 +3.70% 29
Midlands -22 78 £425 -26.72% 30
West Midlands -9 63 £474 -18.28% 19
Scotland +26 52 £456 +1.39% 25
Yorkshire -39 44 £470 +11.90% 21
South West -24 34 £550 - 29
East of England -12 27 £478 +13.14% 48
East Midlands -20 15 £158 -70.70% 11
Wales -6 14 £203 -49.38% 11
North East -5 13 £175 - 13
Northern Ireland - 3 £425 - 2

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 (3.85%) SharePoint
2 24 (3.08%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.54%) Confluence
4 10 (1.28%) 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 50 (6.42%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (3.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (3.34%) MS Visio
3 17 (2.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (1.80%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
5 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
1 138 (17.72%) Azure
2 113 (14.51%) AWS
3 64 (8.22%) Microsoft 365
4 41 (5.26%) GCP
5 18 (2.31%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 17 (2.18%) Power Platform
7 16 (2.05%) SaaS
8 15 (1.93%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 14 (1.80%) Entra ID
10 13 (1.67%) AWS Direct Connect
10 13 (1.67%) OpenShift
11 12 (1.54%) AWS CloudFormation
12 11 (1.41%) GitHub
12 11 (1.41%) IaaS
13 10 (1.28%) Amazon GuardDuty
13 10 (1.28%) PaaS
14 9 (1.16%) Azure DevOps
15 8 (1.03%) Nutanix
15 8 (1.03%) OneDrive
16 7 (0.90%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 230 (29.53%) Firewall
2 151 (19.38%) WAN
3 95 (12.20%) BGP
4 85 (10.91%) Wireless
5 84 (10.78%) LAN
5 84 (10.78%) VPN
6 79 (10.14%) Network Security
7 68 (8.73%) OSPF
8 55 (7.06%) DNS
9 52 (6.68%) Wi-Fi
10 50 (6.42%) VLAN
11 42 (5.39%) SD-WAN
12 41 (5.26%) SAN
13 37 (4.75%) Cisco Nexus
13 37 (4.75%) Structured Cabling
14 35 (4.49%) Cisco ISE
15 34 (4.36%) DHCP
15 34 (4.36%) IPsec
16 33 (4.24%) VXLAN
17 29 (3.72%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (2.05%) Power BI
2 15 (1.93%) 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%) 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%) DataStage
7 3 (0.39%) Geospatial Data
7 3 (0.39%) Metadata
7 3 (0.39%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 24 (3.08%) Git
2 22 (2.82%) Jenkins
3 15 (1.93%) GitLab
4 14 (1.80%) JIRA
5 11 (1.41%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (1.03%) Maven
7 4 (0.51%) 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%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.13%) AppScan
10 1 (0.13%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.13%) Gradle
10 1 (0.13%) Metasploit
10 1 (0.13%) Selenium
General
1 194 (24.90%) Social Skills
2 127 (16.30%) Finance
3 95 (12.20%) Analytical Skills
3 95 (12.20%) Public Sector
4 55 (7.06%) Telecoms
5 52 (6.68%) Documentation Skills
6 46 (5.91%) Banking
7 43 (5.52%) Manufacturing
8 30 (3.85%) Marketing
9 25 (3.21%) Electronics
10 20 (2.57%) Presentation Skills
11 17 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 15 (1.93%) Legal
13 13 (1.67%) Retail
14 11 (1.41%) Organisational Skills
15 10 (1.28%) Influencing Skills
16 8 (1.03%) Law
17 7 (0.90%) Investment Banking
17 7 (0.90%) Local Government
18 6 (0.77%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 144 (18.49%) Network Engineer
2 120 (15.40%) Architect
3 72 (9.24%) Project Manager
4 58 (7.45%) Analyst
5 52 (6.68%) Senior
6 41 (5.26%) Network Architect
7 38 (4.88%) Solutions Architect
8 35 (4.49%) Lead
9 33 (4.24%) Consultant
9 33 (4.24%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 32 (4.11%) Data Centre Manager
11 30 (3.85%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 30 (3.85%) Security Engineer
12 29 (3.72%) Data Centre Engineer
13 27 (3.47%) Cisco Engineer
13 27 (3.47%) IT Support
14 25 (3.21%) Cisco Network Engineer
14 25 (3.21%) Desktop Support
15 23 (2.95%) 2nd Line Support
15 23 (2.95%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (2.95%) 802.1X
1 23 (2.95%) Middleware
2 11 (1.41%) LDAP
3 7 (0.90%) 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%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.26%) CSS
7 2 (0.26%) EJB
7 2 (0.26%) Elastic Stack
7 2 (0.26%) ModSecurity
7 2 (0.26%) NETCONF
7 2 (0.26%) OpenConfig
7 2 (0.26%) OpenLayers
7 2 (0.26%) REST
7 2 (0.26%) RESTCONF
7 2 (0.26%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 45 (5.78%) Hybrid Cloud
2 23 (2.95%) Public Cloud
3 22 (2.82%) Self-Motivation
4 21 (2.70%) Cloud Native
5 20 (2.57%) Onboarding
6 17 (2.18%) Analytical Mindset
6 17 (2.18%) Private Cloud
7 16 (2.05%) Driving Licence
7 16 (2.05%) SCADA
8 15 (1.93%) Fibre Optics
8 15 (1.93%) Replication
9 13 (1.67%) CMDB
10 12 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
10 12 (1.54%) Management Information System
11 10 (1.28%) PKI
12 8 (1.03%) Legacy Systems
12 8 (1.03%) Mainframe
12 8 (1.03%) NHS
12 8 (1.03%) Operational Technology
13 7 (0.90%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 103 (13.22%) Windows
2 92 (11.81%) Linux
3 43 (5.52%) Windows Server
4 34 (4.36%) Android
4 34 (4.36%) Mac OS
5 30 (3.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.41%) CentOS
7 9 (1.16%) Unix
7 9 (1.16%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (0.77%) Windows 10
9 5 (0.64%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.64%) VMS
10 4 (0.51%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.39%) Embedded Linux
11 3 (0.39%) Solaris
12 2 (0.26%) zOS
13 1 (0.13%) Kali Linux
13 1 (0.13%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 125 (16.05%) Migration
2 120 (15.40%) Problem-Solving
3 89 (11.42%) Stakeholder Management
4 67 (8.60%) Agile
5 63 (8.09%) ITIL
6 61 (7.83%) Project Management
7 59 (7.57%) Infrastructure as Code
8 56 (7.19%) Project Delivery
9 52 (6.68%) CI/CD
9 52 (6.68%) DevOps
10 47 (6.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 45 (5.78%) Continuous Improvement
12 44 (5.65%) Roadmaps
13 43 (5.52%) Network Design
14 42 (5.39%) Change Management
15 41 (5.26%) Change Control
15 41 (5.26%) Cybersecurity
15 41 (5.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 41 (5.26%) Programme Management
16 40 (5.13%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 78 (10.01%) Python
2 53 (6.80%) PowerShell
3 35 (4.49%) SQL
4 24 (3.08%) Bash
5 15 (1.93%) Java
6 13 (1.67%) Shell Script
7 12 (1.54%) Perl
8 9 (1.16%) Lisp
9 7 (0.90%) MATLAB
10 5 (0.64%) VBA
11 4 (0.51%) Bicep
11 4 (0.51%) C++
12 3 (0.39%) C
12 3 (0.39%) JavaScript
12 3 (0.39%) PL/SQL
13 2 (0.26%) Go
13 2 (0.26%) Korn
13 2 (0.26%) Ruby
14 1 (0.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 1 (0.13%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 260 (33.38%) Security Cleared
2 217 (27.86%) SC Cleared
3 127 (16.30%) Cisco Certification
4 100 (12.84%) CCNP
5 62 (7.96%) Degree
6 48 (6.16%) CCNA
7 45 (5.78%) DV Cleared
8 28 (3.59%) CCIE
9 24 (3.08%) AWS Certification
10 18 (2.31%) PMP
11 16 (2.05%) PMI Certification
12 12 (1.54%) JNCIE
13 11 (1.41%) A+ Certification
13 11 (1.41%) CISSP
13 11 (1.41%) MCSE
13 11 (1.41%) Microsoft Certification
13 11 (1.41%) Network+ Certification
14 10 (1.28%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 9 (1.16%) Azure Certification
15 9 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (2.82%) PMO
2 19 (2.44%) SLA
3 17 (2.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 15 (1.93%) NIST
5 14 (1.80%) PCI DSS
5 14 (1.80%) QA
6 12 (1.54%) GDPR
7 11 (1.41%) Data Quality
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%) COBIT
11 1 (0.13%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.13%) RMADS
System Software
1 85 (10.91%) VMware Infrastructure
2 61 (7.83%) Active Directory
3 51 (6.55%) VMware NSX
4 21 (2.70%) Virtual Machines
5 20 (2.57%) Docker
6 17 (2.18%) Hyper-V
6 17 (2.18%) vSphere
7 11 (1.41%) Firmware
8 9 (1.16%) 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 84 (10.78%) Ansible
2 72 (9.24%) Terraform
3 40 (5.13%) FortiGate
4 24 (3.08%) SCCM
5 22 (2.82%) Kubernetes
6 20 (2.57%) Grafana
7 11 (1.41%) Microsoft Intune
8 10 (1.28%) Prometheus
8 10 (1.28%) vCenter Server
9 9 (1.16%) Puppet
9 9 (1.16%) SCOM
10 8 (1.03%) Check_MK
11 7 (0.90%) Podman
11 7 (0.90%) Red Hat Satellite
12 6 (0.77%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.77%) CASB
12 6 (0.77%) SCOrch
13 5 (0.64%) Hadoop YARN
13 5 (0.64%) vMotion
13 5 (0.64%) vRealize
Vendors
1 265 (34.02%) Cisco
2 111 (14.25%) VMware
3 107 (13.74%) Palo Alto
4 89 (11.42%) Microsoft
5 71 (9.11%) Dell
6 67 (8.60%) Juniper
7 54 (6.93%) F5
8 46 (5.91%) CheckPoint
9 45 (5.78%) HP
10 39 (5.01%) ServiceNow
11 38 (4.88%) Aruba
12 37 (4.75%) Meraki
13 34 (4.36%) Apple
14 32 (4.11%) Fortinet
14 32 (4.11%) SAP
15 31 (3.98%) Oracle
16 19 (2.44%) Citrix
17 18 (2.31%) Red Hat
18 16 (2.05%) Google
18 16 (2.05%) SolarWinds