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 3 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 122 133 111
Rank change year-on-year +11 -22 -23
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,191 720 805
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.22% 2.21% 2.10%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.58% 6.26% 6.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 725 452 523
10th Percentile £318 £300 £363
25th Percentile £410 £390 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.14% -2.33% -0.46%
75th Percentile £650 £607 £622
90th Percentile £750 £724 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £490 £538
% change year-on-year +1.07% -8.88% +7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 71 40 38
10th Percentile £16.01 £20.25 £11.75
25th Percentile £17.50 £25.04 £12.08
Median hourly rate £21.00 £25.15 £19.38
Median % change year-on-year -16.50% +29.81% -3.13%
75th Percentile £40.13 £32.00 £25.83
90th Percentile £80.00 £43.75 £28.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.34 £24.87 £15.00
% change year-on-year -22.23% +65.78% -15.35%

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 18,107 11,509 11,605
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.77% 35.41% 30.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,951 7,070 7,265
10th Percentile £320 £300 £300
25th Percentile £423 £405 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.92% -6.35% -
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £750 £763 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,082 569 543
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.13 £13.22
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.87 £19.19
Median hourly rate £38.25 £30.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.50% -33.33% +4.65%
75th Percentile £67.65 £57.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.56 £30.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year +45.20% -42.86% +15.61%

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 3 September 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 3 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Centre in the UK

Data Centre
Top 18 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 3 September 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 +9 995 £525 - 1,460
UK excluding London -15 618 £495 +1.07% 618
London +25 420 £550 - 954
Work from Home -1 277 £533 +1.43% 432
North of England -4 212 £497 +8.57% 126
South East -8 175 £537 +9.04% 176
Yorkshire +1 127 £465 +12.05% 45
North West -16 70 £500 -6.54% 48
South West -19 66 £600 +6.67% 85
Midlands -70 49 £453 -9.40% 55
Scotland -15 48 £375 -10.71% 59
Wales +5 40 £468 +38.52% 17
West Midlands -67 39 £475 -5.10% 38
East of England -14 35 £479 -20.21% 100
North East -22 21 £625 - 33
East Midlands -25 9 £400 -25.93% 17
Channel Islands - 1 £575 - 2
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 10

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 29 (2.43%) Confluence
2 19 (1.60%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.59%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.42%) Apache
5 5 (0.42%) CloudStack
6 3 (0.25%) CICS
7 2 (0.17%) IIS
8 1 (0.084%) nginx
8 1 (0.084%) SAS
8 1 (0.084%) Tomcat
Applications
1 25 (2.10%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (1.60%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.84%) Microsoft Project
4 8 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.59%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.42%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.17%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 13 (1.09%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.17%) OpenText MBPM
2 2 (0.17%) Oracle BPM
3 1 (0.084%) Cloudability
3 1 (0.084%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 247 (20.74%) Azure
2 217 (18.22%) AWS
3 57 (4.79%) GCP
4 48 (4.03%) GitHub
5 43 (3.61%) Microsoft 365
6 37 (3.11%) SaaS
7 36 (3.02%) IaaS
8 29 (2.43%) Entra ID
8 29 (2.43%) OCI
9 18 (1.51%) Power Platform
10 15 (1.26%) OneDrive
10 15 (1.26%) PaaS
11 14 (1.18%) Azure DevOps
11 14 (1.18%) OpenShift
12 13 (1.09%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 11 (0.92%) Nutanix
14 10 (0.84%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 8 (0.67%) Azure Sentinel
16 7 (0.59%) GitHub Actions
17 6 (0.50%) AWS Direct Connect
Communications & Networking
1 293 (24.60%) Firewall
2 188 (15.79%) WAN
3 180 (15.11%) BGP
4 127 (10.66%) VPN
5 123 (10.33%) DNS
6 122 (10.24%) VXLAN
7 118 (9.91%) OSPF
8 111 (9.32%) LAN
9 110 (9.24%) Network Security
9 110 (9.24%) VLAN
10 107 (8.98%) SAN
11 90 (7.56%) DHCP
12 85 (7.14%) Ethernet VPN
13 84 (7.05%) SD-WAN
14 83 (6.97%) TCP/IP
15 77 (6.47%) Structured Cabling
16 61 (5.12%) Wireless
17 59 (4.95%) Wi-Fi
18 54 (4.53%) Cisco Nexus
19 49 (4.11%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (2.85%) SQL Server
2 15 (1.26%) Power BI
3 11 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 10 (0.84%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 10 (0.84%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 7 (0.59%) Big Data
5 7 (0.59%) Oracle Database
6 6 (0.50%) Db2
7 5 (0.42%) Elasticsearch
8 4 (0.34%) Amazon RDS
8 4 (0.34%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (0.34%) Oracle Database 12c
8 4 (0.34%) Oracle Reports
8 4 (0.34%) PostgreSQL
9 2 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.17%) DataStage
10 1 (0.084%) EDMS
10 1 (0.084%) GIS
10 1 (0.084%) Oracle Exadata
10 1 (0.084%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 73 (6.13%) JIRA
2 36 (3.02%) GitLab
3 28 (2.35%) Jenkins
4 25 (2.10%) Git
5 7 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.25%) ScriptRunner
6 3 (0.25%) Zephyr
7 2 (0.17%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.17%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.17%) MSI
7 2 (0.17%) Toad
8 1 (0.084%) Claude Code
General
1 289 (24.27%) Social Skills
2 156 (13.10%) Finance
3 113 (9.49%) Analytical Skills
4 55 (4.62%) Public Sector
5 54 (4.53%) Telecoms
6 53 (4.45%) Banking
7 48 (4.03%) Documentation Skills
8 28 (2.35%) Retail
9 24 (2.02%) Legal
10 18 (1.51%) Manufacturing
11 17 (1.43%) Influencing Skills
12 14 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 10 (0.84%) Organisational Skills
14 9 (0.76%) Police
15 7 (0.59%) Financial Institution
15 7 (0.59%) Law
16 5 (0.42%) Investment Banking
16 5 (0.42%) Marketing
17 4 (0.34%) Cyber-Physical System
18 3 (0.25%) Military
Job Titles
1 201 (16.88%) Architect
2 200 (16.79%) Network Engineer
3 160 (13.43%) Senior
4 117 (9.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 90 (7.56%) Data Centre Engineer
6 77 (6.47%) Project Manager
7 65 (5.46%) Network Architect
8 63 (5.29%) Lead
9 54 (4.53%) IT Engineer
10 47 (3.95%) Consultant
11 45 (3.78%) Senior Network Engineer
12 43 (3.61%) Field Engineer
13 42 (3.53%) Data Centre Manager
14 38 (3.19%) Technical Architect
15 37 (3.11%) Field Service Engineer
16 36 (3.02%) Infrastructure Manager
17 35 (2.94%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
17 35 (2.94%) Solutions Architect
18 33 (2.77%) Support Engineer
19 29 (2.43%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (9.07%) Terraform
2 44 (3.69%) Middleware
3 25 (2.10%) REST
4 17 (1.43%) 802.1X
5 13 (1.09%) YAML
6 12 (1.01%) JSON
7 9 (0.76%) Elastic Stack
8 8 (0.67%) .NET
8 8 (0.67%) LDAP
9 7 (0.59%) NETCONF
9 7 (0.59%) Redfish
10 6 (0.50%) SAML
11 5 (0.42%) OpenConfig
11 5 (0.42%) RESTCONF
11 5 (0.42%) YANG
12 4 (0.34%) GeoJSON
12 4 (0.34%) Kafka
12 4 (0.34%) RESTful
13 3 (0.25%) .NET Framework
13 3 (0.25%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 74 (6.21%) Hybrid Cloud
2 44 (3.69%) Analytical Mindset
3 36 (3.02%) PKI
3 36 (3.02%) Private Cloud
4 33 (2.77%) Cloud Native
5 31 (2.60%) Management Information System
5 31 (2.60%) Public Cloud
6 30 (2.52%) Clustering
6 30 (2.52%) Fibre Optics
7 28 (2.35%) Enterprise Storage
7 28 (2.35%) Onboarding
8 27 (2.27%) Replication
9 26 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
10 23 (1.93%) Operational Technology
11 18 (1.51%) SCADA
12 17 (1.43%) Driving Licence
13 16 (1.34%) CMDB
13 16 (1.34%) Self-Motivation
14 15 (1.26%) Distributed Systems
15 13 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 186 (15.62%) Windows
2 132 (11.08%) Linux
3 57 (4.79%) Windows Server
4 31 (2.60%) Unix
5 21 (1.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (1.43%) AIX
7 13 (1.09%) Mac OS
8 10 (0.84%) Apple iOS
8 10 (0.84%) Solaris
8 10 (0.84%) VMS
9 7 (0.59%) Windows 10
10 6 (0.50%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.42%) HPUX
11 5 (0.42%) Oracle Linux
11 5 (0.42%) SUSE
11 5 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
11 5 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.34%) CentOS
12 4 (0.34%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 247 (20.74%) Migration
2 185 (15.53%) Problem-Solving
3 149 (12.51%) Stakeholder Management
4 146 (12.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 114 (9.57%) Infrastructure as Code
6 112 (9.40%) ITIL
7 107 (8.98%) High Availability
8 96 (8.06%) CI/CD
9 92 (7.72%) Agile
10 89 (7.47%) Roadmaps
11 87 (7.30%) Validation
12 86 (7.22%) Project Delivery
13 81 (6.80%) Continuous Improvement
14 77 (6.47%) Disaster Recovery
15 76 (6.38%) Zero Trust
16 75 (6.30%) Technical Leadership
17 70 (5.88%) Change Management
18 69 (5.79%) Load Balancing
19 67 (5.63%) Network Design
19 67 (5.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 155 (13.01%) Python
2 62 (5.21%) PowerShell
3 41 (3.44%) SQL
4 31 (2.60%) Bash
5 10 (0.84%) ActionScript
5 10 (0.84%) Bicep
6 9 (0.76%) Shell Script
7 8 (0.67%) C#
8 7 (0.59%) Perl
8 7 (0.59%) PL/SQL
9 5 (0.42%) Java
10 4 (0.34%) COBOL
10 4 (0.34%) Go
10 4 (0.34%) JavaScript
10 4 (0.34%) MATLAB
10 4 (0.34%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.25%) JCL
11 3 (0.25%) Lisp
11 3 (0.25%) TypeScript
12 2 (0.17%) Korn
Qualifications
1 307 (25.78%) Security Cleared
2 208 (17.46%) SC Cleared
3 184 (15.45%) Cisco Certification
4 108 (9.07%) CCNP
5 97 (8.14%) DV Cleared
6 74 (6.21%) CCNA
7 61 (5.12%) Degree
8 46 (3.86%) Network+ Certification
9 44 (3.69%) Microsoft Certification
10 41 (3.44%) A+ Certification
11 36 (3.02%) MCSE
12 31 (2.60%) AWS Certification
13 29 (2.43%) CCIE
14 26 (2.18%) Azure Certification
15 24 (2.02%) City & Guilds
16 23 (1.93%) CISSP
16 23 (1.93%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 22 (1.85%) PMP
18 20 (1.68%) BICSI Certification
18 20 (1.68%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (3.02%) QA
2 29 (2.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 28 (2.35%) SLA
4 24 (2.02%) NIST
5 14 (1.18%) PMO
6 13 (1.09%) GDPR
7 11 (0.92%) NCSC
8 9 (0.76%) JSP 440
9 7 (0.59%) GRC
10 6 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
10 6 (0.50%) RMADS
11 3 (0.25%) Data Quality
11 3 (0.25%) NIST 800
11 3 (0.25%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.17%) Accessibility
12 2 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials
12 2 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 2 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 143 (12.01%) VMware Infrastructure
2 91 (7.64%) Active Directory
3 49 (4.11%) vSphere
4 44 (3.69%) VMware NSX
5 39 (3.27%) VMware ESXi
6 37 (3.11%) Hyper-V
7 32 (2.69%) Docker
8 26 (2.18%) Firmware
9 15 (1.26%) Virtual Machines
10 12 (1.01%) NFS
11 6 (0.50%) Microsoft App-V
11 6 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
11 6 (0.50%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.42%) PowerHA
13 4 (0.34%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
13 4 (0.34%) SRDF
13 4 (0.34%) Terminal Services
13 4 (0.34%) Veritas Cluster Server
14 3 (0.25%) KVM
Systems Management
1 145 (12.17%) Ansible
2 56 (4.70%) Kubernetes
3 35 (2.94%) FortiGate
4 25 (2.10%) Prometheus
5 22 (1.85%) Grafana
6 19 (1.60%) Microsoft Intune
7 18 (1.51%) vCenter Server
8 15 (1.26%) SCCM
8 15 (1.26%) VxRail
9 12 (1.01%) Microsoft Clustering
9 12 (1.01%) vMotion
10 10 (0.84%) Dell DRAC
10 10 (0.84%) Jamf Pro
10 10 (0.84%) NetBackup
10 10 (0.84%) PowerCLI
10 10 (0.84%) SCOM
11 9 (0.76%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 8 (0.67%) Nagios
13 7 (0.59%) Check_MK
14 5 (0.42%) EMC NetWorker
Vendors
1 296 (24.85%) Cisco
2 198 (16.62%) VMware
3 141 (11.84%) Microsoft
4 126 (10.58%) Palo Alto
5 106 (8.90%) F5
6 77 (6.47%) Dell
7 71 (5.96%) Arista
8 70 (5.88%) Fortinet
9 68 (5.71%) Juniper
10 64 (5.37%) ServiceNow
11 41 (3.44%) Aruba
12 38 (3.19%) CheckPoint
13 35 (2.94%) Red Hat
14 30 (2.52%) Google
15 27 (2.27%) Veeam
16 26 (2.18%) Oracle
17 25 (2.10%) IBM
18 23 (1.93%) SolarWinds
19 22 (1.85%) Zscaler
20 20 (1.68%) NetApp