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

6 months to
1 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 141 124 90
Rank change year-on-year -17 -34 +10
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 730 738 1,126
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.04% 2.05% 2.47%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.74% 6.53% 7.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 458 432 757
10th Percentile £248 £358 £325
25th Percentile £380 £449 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% +2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £610 £650
90th Percentile £707 £700 £733
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -9.52% - +6.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 37 25
10th Percentile £20.25 £11.87 £17.72
25th Percentile - £12.08 £21.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £24.15 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.14% +5.00% -63.35%
75th Percentile £31.00 £25.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £67.25 £30.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £23.51 £23.00
% change year-on-year +6.96% +2.23% -49.56%

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 12,707 11,294 14,463
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 35.56% 31.39% 31.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,895 6,665 9,693
10th Percentile £275 £285 £270
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.79% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £630 £663 £669
90th Percentile £738 £788 £770
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 656 373 496
10th Percentile £13.50 £16.77 £16.80
25th Percentile £18.00 £22.50 £20.74
Median hourly rate £26.50 £35.00 £43.42
Median % change year-on-year -24.29% -19.38% +24.04%
75th Percentile £56.06 £66.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.16 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.50 £32.50 £45.88
% change year-on-year -18.46% -29.16% +55.53%

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 1 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 1 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Centre in the UK

Data Centre
Top 16 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 1 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 -18 640 £506 -3.62% 262
UK excluding London -18 402 £475 -9.52% 206
London -3 258 £525 -1.18% 99
Work from Home +1 183 £533 -3.18% 110
North of England -4 142 £490 -2.10% 36
Midlands 0 93 £431 -25.69% 19
North West +14 81 £548 +9.50% 24
South East -40 73 £447 -10.60% 105
West Midlands +1 70 £465 -19.83% 15
Yorkshire -26 56 £405 -3.57% 7
South West -28 34 £550 +0.36% 23
Scotland +3 32 £425 -5.56% 6
East of England -21 26 £600 +45.90% 18
East Midlands +2 23 £358 -32.48% 4
Wales +5 16 £276 -19.34% 7
North East -5 8 £175 - 5

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 (4.11%) SharePoint
2 21 (2.88%) Microsoft Exchange
3 19 (2.60%) Confluence
4 10 (1.37%) OpenStack
5 6 (0.82%) Apache
6 5 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.68%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.55%) HCL Notes
8 3 (0.41%) CICS
8 3 (0.41%) GeoServer
8 3 (0.41%) Smallworld
8 3 (0.41%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.27%) FileNet
9 2 (0.27%) nginx
9 2 (0.27%) Oracle Coherence
9 2 (0.27%) ThingWorx
9 2 (0.27%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.14%) IIS
10 1 (0.14%) OpenEdge
10 1 (0.14%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 59 (8.08%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (4.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (3.42%) MS Visio
4 19 (2.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (2.05%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.14%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.82%) Payment Gateway
2 5 (0.68%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.55%) Oracle Financials
4 2 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.14%) Epicor iScala
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.14%) Primavera
5 1 (0.14%) StreamServe
Cloud Services
1 131 (17.95%) Azure
2 106 (14.52%) AWS
3 69 (9.45%) Microsoft 365
4 41 (5.62%) GCP
5 23 (3.15%) Power Platform
6 21 (2.88%) Entra ID
7 16 (2.19%) OpenShift
8 15 (2.05%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 13 (1.78%) SaaS
10 12 (1.64%) IaaS
10 12 (1.64%) PaaS
10 12 (1.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 11 (1.51%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 7 (0.96%) AWS Direct Connect
12 7 (0.96%) npm
12 7 (0.96%) OCI
13 6 (0.82%) Akamai
13 6 (0.82%) Nutanix
14 5 (0.68%) AWS CloudFormation
14 5 (0.68%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 202 (27.67%) Firewall
2 124 (16.99%) WAN
3 104 (14.25%) Wireless
4 74 (10.14%) BGP
5 66 (9.04%) VPN
6 62 (8.49%) DNS
7 58 (7.95%) LAN
8 49 (6.71%) OSPF
9 46 (6.30%) Wi-Fi
10 45 (6.16%) SD-WAN
11 43 (5.89%) Cisco Nexus
12 42 (5.75%) Cisco ISE
12 42 (5.75%) Network Security
13 37 (5.07%) DHCP
13 37 (5.07%) SAN
14 34 (4.66%) MPLS
15 33 (4.52%) VXLAN
16 32 (4.38%) VLAN
17 31 (4.25%) TCP/IP
18 25 (3.42%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (2.74%) Power BI
2 19 (2.60%) Relational Database
3 12 (1.64%) RDBMS
4 9 (1.23%) GIS
4 9 (1.23%) SQL Server
5 6 (0.82%) NoSQL
5 6 (0.82%) Oracle Database
5 6 (0.82%) PostgreSQL
6 5 (0.68%) Apache Hive
6 5 (0.68%) Hadoop
6 5 (0.68%) HBase
7 4 (0.55%) Data Mining
7 4 (0.55%) InfluxDB
8 3 (0.41%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.41%) Big Data
8 3 (0.41%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.41%) Data Vault
8 3 (0.41%) Geospatial Data
8 3 (0.41%) Metadata
8 3 (0.41%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 17 (2.33%) Git
1 17 (2.33%) JIRA
2 15 (2.05%) Sonatype Nexus
3 14 (1.92%) Jenkins
4 11 (1.51%) Maven
5 9 (1.23%) SonarQube
6 8 (1.10%) GitLab
7 4 (0.55%) Gradle
7 4 (0.55%) Selenium
8 3 (0.41%) ER Studio
8 3 (0.41%) ERwin
9 2 (0.27%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.14%) Fiddler
10 1 (0.14%) Postman
10 1 (0.14%) TeamCity
General
1 176 (24.11%) Social Skills
2 137 (18.77%) Finance
3 79 (10.82%) Public Sector
4 74 (10.14%) Analytical Skills
5 71 (9.73%) Banking
6 70 (9.59%) Telecoms
7 36 (4.93%) Documentation Skills
8 34 (4.66%) Manufacturing
9 27 (3.70%) Marketing
10 25 (3.42%) Electronics
11 22 (3.01%) Presentation Skills
12 20 (2.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 15 (2.05%) Influencing Skills
13 15 (2.05%) Organisational Skills
14 9 (1.23%) Retail
15 7 (0.96%) Investment Banking
15 7 (0.96%) Legal
15 7 (0.96%) Local Government
16 6 (0.82%) Front Office
16 6 (0.82%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 114 (15.62%) Network Engineer
2 108 (14.79%) Architect
3 73 (10.00%) Analyst
4 56 (7.67%) Project Manager
5 41 (5.62%) Senior
6 34 (4.66%) Network Architect
7 33 (4.52%) Data Centre Manager
7 33 (4.52%) IT Support
8 32 (4.38%) Consultant
8 32 (4.38%) Security Engineer
8 32 (4.38%) Support Engineer
9 31 (4.25%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 28 (3.84%) Infrastructure Manager
11 27 (3.70%) Data Centre Engineer
12 25 (3.42%) Business Analyst
12 25 (3.42%) Desktop Support
13 24 (3.29%) Lead
13 24 (3.29%) Solutions Architect
14 23 (3.15%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
14 23 (3.15%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.01%) 802.1X
2 19 (2.60%) Middleware
3 18 (2.47%) RFC 2544
4 5 (0.68%) Spark Streaming
5 4 (0.55%) Jinja
6 3 (0.41%) LDAP
6 3 (0.41%) REST
7 2 (0.27%) ARM Templates
7 2 (0.27%) eBPF
7 2 (0.27%) EJB
7 2 (0.27%) Java SE
7 2 (0.27%) ModSecurity
7 2 (0.27%) NETCONF
7 2 (0.27%) OpenConfig
7 2 (0.27%) OpenLayers
7 2 (0.27%) RESTCONF
7 2 (0.27%) Spring
7 2 (0.27%) VML
7 2 (0.27%) YANG
8 1 (0.14%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 41 (5.62%) Hybrid Cloud
2 29 (3.97%) Cloud Native
3 23 (3.15%) Public Cloud
4 22 (3.01%) Driving Licence
5 21 (2.88%) Replication
6 20 (2.74%) Onboarding
7 19 (2.60%) Fibre Optics
8 16 (2.19%) Private Cloud
9 14 (1.92%) Mainframe
9 14 (1.92%) Self-Motivation
10 12 (1.64%) SCADA
11 11 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
11 11 (1.51%) PKI
12 9 (1.23%) Clustering
12 9 (1.23%) Legacy Systems
12 9 (1.23%) Management Information System
12 9 (1.23%) Product Ownership
13 8 (1.10%) CMDB
14 7 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
14 7 (0.96%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 96 (13.15%) Windows
2 67 (9.18%) Linux
3 47 (6.44%) Android
4 45 (6.16%) Mac OS
5 40 (5.48%) Windows Server
6 18 (2.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 17 (2.33%) Unix
8 7 (0.96%) CentOS
9 6 (0.82%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.68%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.55%) Apple iOS
11 4 (0.55%) Solaris
11 4 (0.55%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.41%) Ubuntu
13 2 (0.27%) AIX
13 2 (0.27%) VMS
13 2 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.27%) zOS
14 1 (0.14%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 136 (18.63%) Migration
2 90 (12.33%) Problem-Solving
3 81 (11.10%) Stakeholder Management
4 71 (9.73%) Agile
5 58 (7.95%) ITIL
6 51 (6.99%) Infrastructure as Code
7 50 (6.85%) Service Management
8 49 (6.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 48 (6.58%) CI/CD
10 47 (6.44%) Change Management
10 47 (6.44%) Customer Service
10 47 (6.44%) Roadmaps
11 45 (6.16%) Network Design
12 44 (6.03%) DevOps
12 44 (6.03%) Project Delivery
13 43 (5.89%) Load Balancing
13 43 (5.89%) Project Management
14 42 (5.75%) Business Intelligence
15 41 (5.62%) High Availability
16 39 (5.34%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 76 (10.41%) Python
2 47 (6.44%) PowerShell
3 38 (5.21%) SQL
4 19 (2.60%) Bash
4 19 (2.60%) Java
5 10 (1.37%) Perl
6 9 (1.23%) Shell Script
7 8 (1.10%) Lisp
8 7 (0.96%) Go
9 4 (0.55%) C
10 3 (0.41%) Bicep
10 3 (0.41%) JCL
10 3 (0.41%) Korn
10 3 (0.41%) VBA
11 2 (0.27%) AWK
11 2 (0.27%) C#
11 2 (0.27%) JavaScript
11 2 (0.27%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.27%) Ruby
11 2 (0.27%) sed
Qualifications
1 218 (29.86%) Security Cleared
2 182 (24.93%) SC Cleared
3 87 (11.92%) Cisco Certification
4 59 (8.08%) CCNP
5 57 (7.81%) Degree
6 43 (5.89%) DV Cleared
7 27 (3.70%) CCIE
8 25 (3.42%) CCNA
9 19 (2.60%) AWS Certification
10 13 (1.78%) CISSP
10 13 (1.78%) JNCIE
11 11 (1.51%) PMP
12 10 (1.37%) Computer Science Degree
12 10 (1.37%) PMI Certification
13 9 (1.23%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 8 (1.10%) BPSS Clearance
15 7 (0.96%) Azure Certification
16 6 (0.82%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 6 (0.82%) CCSP
16 6 (0.82%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (2.74%) NIST
1 20 (2.74%) PCI DSS
1 20 (2.74%) SLA
2 19 (2.60%) PMO
3 18 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 13 (1.78%) GDPR
4 13 (1.78%) QA
5 11 (1.51%) Data Quality
6 5 (0.68%) NCSC
7 3 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.27%) ISO 22301
8 2 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 2 (0.27%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.14%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.14%) GRC
9 1 (0.14%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 72 (9.86%) VMware Infrastructure
2 59 (8.08%) Active Directory
3 36 (4.93%) VMware NSX
4 26 (3.56%) Docker
5 17 (2.33%) Hyper-V
6 15 (2.05%) vSphere
7 14 (1.92%) Virtual Machines
8 8 (1.10%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.68%) Firmware
9 5 (0.68%) HDFS
10 4 (0.55%) KVM
10 4 (0.55%) NFS
11 3 (0.41%) GPFS
12 2 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
12 2 (0.27%) Virtual Desktop
13 1 (0.14%) Samba
13 1 (0.14%) SRDF
13 1 (0.14%) Veritas Cluster Server
13 1 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.14%) Xen
Systems Management
1 68 (9.32%) Ansible
2 65 (8.90%) Terraform
3 31 (4.25%) FortiGate
4 27 (3.70%) SCCM
5 23 (3.15%) Kubernetes
6 14 (1.92%) Microsoft Intune
7 12 (1.64%) Grafana
8 10 (1.37%) vCenter Server
9 9 (1.23%) Puppet
9 9 (1.23%) SCOM
10 8 (1.10%) Control-M
10 8 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (0.96%) CASB
12 6 (0.82%) SCOrch
13 5 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 5 (0.68%) Hadoop YARN
13 5 (0.68%) Prometheus
14 4 (0.55%) Argo
15 3 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
15 3 (0.41%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 241 (33.01%) Cisco
2 103 (14.11%) Microsoft
3 92 (12.60%) VMware
4 64 (8.77%) Dell
5 61 (8.36%) F5
5 61 (8.36%) Palo Alto
6 54 (7.40%) HP
7 50 (6.85%) Juniper
8 44 (6.03%) Apple
9 39 (5.34%) ServiceNow
10 37 (5.07%) SAP
11 33 (4.52%) Fortinet
11 33 (4.52%) Oracle
12 32 (4.38%) Meraki
13 23 (3.15%) CheckPoint
14 22 (3.01%) SolarWinds
15 21 (2.88%) Arista
16 18 (2.47%) Citrix
17 16 (2.19%) Remedy
18 15 (2.05%) NetApp