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 9 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 143 121 93
Rank change year-on-year -22 -28 +8
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 706 730 1,176
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.04% 2.01% 2.50%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.72% 6.55% 7.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 444 438 790
10th Percentile £243 £363 £325
25th Percentile £374 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% +2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £650
90th Percentile £721 £716 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £525 £515
% change year-on-year -9.52% +1.94% +5.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 34 22
10th Percentile £20.25 £11.81 £17.72
25th Percentile - £12.08 £20.88
Median hourly rate £25.15 £22.69 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.85% -1.36% -63.20%
75th Percentile £31.00 £24.18 £71.25
90th Percentile £67.25 £28.75 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £21.59 £23.00
% change year-on-year +16.49% -6.13% -41.77%

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 12,353 11,144 15,122
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 35.72% 30.75% 32.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,609 6,586 10,188
10th Percentile £278 £277 £275
25th Percentile £406 £409 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £656 £669
90th Percentile £750 £788 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 676 353 505
10th Percentile £13.50 £16.90 £17.00
25th Percentile £17.93 £22.40 £21.05
Median hourly rate £27.00 £37.50 £43.84
Median % change year-on-year -28.00% -14.46% +61.89%
75th Percentile £50.00 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.16 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.58 £40.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year -36.06% -13.38% +100.78%

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 9 November 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 9 November 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 9 November 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 -23 618 £520 -0.95% 1,052
UK excluding London -14 392 £475 -9.52% 766
London -5 247 £525 -1.18% 529
Work from Home +22 195 £525 -4.55% 344
North of England -11 135 £490 -2.00% 92
Midlands -3 94 £437 -25.04% 65
North West +9 76 £550 +10.00% 68
South East -28 72 £419 -19.47% 476
West Midlands -13 71 £470 -21.67% 44
Yorkshire -16 54 £450 -7.22% 16
South West -19 36 £550 - 53
Scotland -3 31 £438 -2.78% 10
East of England -15 25 £600 +60.00% 55
East Midlands -2 23 £358 -18.68% 18
Wales +3 14 £288 -11.54% 25
North East -9 8 £175 -58.82% 8

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 28 (3.97%) SharePoint
2 22 (3.12%) Confluence
3 19 (2.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 11 (1.56%) OpenStack
5 6 (0.85%) Apache
6 5 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.71%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.57%) HCL Notes
7 4 (0.57%) nginx
8 3 (0.42%) CICS
8 3 (0.42%) GeoServer
8 3 (0.42%) Smallworld
8 3 (0.42%) ThingWorx
8 3 (0.42%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.28%) FileNet
9 2 (0.28%) Oracle Coherence
9 2 (0.28%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.14%) IIS
10 1 (0.14%) OpenEdge
10 1 (0.14%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 53 (7.51%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (4.53%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (3.68%) MS Visio
4 16 (2.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (2.12%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.14%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.85%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (0.57%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.42%) Oracle Financials
4 2 (0.28%) 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 (18.56%) Azure
2 107 (15.16%) AWS
3 65 (9.21%) Microsoft 365
4 39 (5.52%) GCP
5 20 (2.83%) Entra ID
5 20 (2.83%) Power Platform
6 15 (2.12%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 15 (2.12%) OpenShift
7 12 (1.70%) SaaS
8 11 (1.56%) IaaS
8 11 (1.56%) PaaS
9 10 (1.42%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 9 (1.27%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 7 (0.99%) AWS Direct Connect
12 6 (0.85%) Akamai
12 6 (0.85%) GitHub
12 6 (0.85%) npm
12 6 (0.85%) Nutanix
12 6 (0.85%) OneDrive
13 5 (0.71%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 197 (27.90%) Firewall
2 124 (17.56%) WAN
3 101 (14.31%) Wireless
4 74 (10.48%) BGP
5 63 (8.92%) DNS
6 62 (8.78%) VPN
7 61 (8.64%) LAN
8 51 (7.22%) SD-WAN
9 49 (6.94%) OSPF
10 45 (6.37%) Cisco Nexus
11 39 (5.52%) Cisco ISE
11 39 (5.52%) SAN
11 39 (5.52%) Wi-Fi
12 38 (5.38%) Network Security
13 37 (5.24%) DHCP
13 37 (5.24%) VXLAN
14 35 (4.96%) VLAN
15 34 (4.82%) MPLS
16 30 (4.25%) TCP/IP
17 24 (3.40%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.69%) Relational Database
2 17 (2.41%) Power BI
3 12 (1.70%) RDBMS
4 9 (1.27%) GIS
5 8 (1.13%) SQL Server
6 6 (0.85%) NoSQL
6 6 (0.85%) Oracle Database
6 6 (0.85%) PostgreSQL
7 5 (0.71%) Apache Hive
7 5 (0.71%) Hadoop
7 5 (0.71%) HBase
8 4 (0.57%) Data Mining
9 3 (0.42%) Big Data
9 3 (0.42%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.42%) Data Warehouse
9 3 (0.42%) DataStage
9 3 (0.42%) Geospatial Data
9 3 (0.42%) InfluxDB
9 3 (0.42%) QGIS
9 3 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 20 (2.83%) JIRA
2 17 (2.41%) Git
3 15 (2.12%) Sonatype Nexus
4 12 (1.70%) Jenkins
5 11 (1.56%) GitLab
6 10 (1.42%) Maven
7 9 (1.27%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.57%) Gradle
8 4 (0.57%) Selenium
9 3 (0.42%) ER Studio
9 3 (0.42%) ERwin
9 3 (0.42%) TeamCity
10 2 (0.28%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.28%) Rational DOORS
11 1 (0.14%) Fiddler
11 1 (0.14%) Postman
General
1 161 (22.80%) Social Skills
2 134 (18.98%) Finance
3 75 (10.62%) Public Sector
4 70 (9.92%) Telecoms
5 66 (9.35%) Banking
6 63 (8.92%) Analytical Skills
7 33 (4.67%) Manufacturing
8 31 (4.39%) Documentation Skills
9 27 (3.82%) Marketing
10 25 (3.54%) Electronics
11 19 (2.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 19 (2.69%) Presentation Skills
12 15 (2.12%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (1.98%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (0.99%) Front Office
14 7 (0.99%) Investment Banking
14 7 (0.99%) Legal
14 7 (0.99%) Local Government
15 5 (0.71%) Billing
15 5 (0.71%) Retail
Job Titles
1 115 (16.29%) Network Engineer
2 109 (15.44%) Architect
3 71 (10.06%) Analyst
4 48 (6.80%) Project Manager
5 39 (5.52%) Senior
6 35 (4.96%) Network Architect
7 33 (4.67%) IT Support
8 31 (4.39%) Consultant
9 30 (4.25%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 30 (4.25%) Infrastructure Manager
10 29 (4.11%) Security Engineer
11 28 (3.97%) Data Centre Engineer
11 28 (3.97%) Support Engineer
12 27 (3.82%) Data Centre Manager
13 24 (3.40%) Cisco Engineer
14 23 (3.26%) 2nd Line Support
14 23 (3.26%) Business Analyst
14 23 (3.26%) Desktop Support
14 23 (3.26%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
14 23 (3.26%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.40%) RFC 2544
2 23 (3.26%) Middleware
3 18 (2.55%) 802.1X
4 5 (0.71%) Spark Streaming
5 4 (0.57%) Jinja
6 3 (0.42%) REST
7 2 (0.28%) ARM Templates
7 2 (0.28%) eBPF
7 2 (0.28%) EJB
7 2 (0.28%) Java SE
7 2 (0.28%) LDAP
7 2 (0.28%) ModSecurity
7 2 (0.28%) OpenLayers
7 2 (0.28%) Spring
8 1 (0.14%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.14%) LAPP Stack
8 1 (0.14%) ONNX
8 1 (0.14%) OpenTelemetry
8 1 (0.14%) PyTorch
8 1 (0.14%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 34 (4.82%) Hybrid Cloud
2 26 (3.68%) Cloud Native
3 23 (3.26%) Fibre Optics
4 22 (3.12%) Driving Licence
5 20 (2.83%) Public Cloud
6 19 (2.69%) Replication
7 18 (2.55%) Onboarding
7 18 (2.55%) Private Cloud
8 14 (1.98%) Mainframe
9 11 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
9 11 (1.56%) PKI
9 11 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
10 10 (1.42%) Management Information System
11 9 (1.27%) Product Ownership
11 9 (1.27%) SCADA
12 8 (1.13%) Clustering
12 8 (1.13%) CMDB
12 8 (1.13%) Legacy Systems
13 7 (0.99%) Enterprise Storage
13 7 (0.99%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 93 (13.17%) Windows
2 74 (10.48%) Linux
3 43 (6.09%) Android
4 41 (5.81%) Mac OS
5 32 (4.53%) Windows Server
6 22 (3.12%) Unix
7 20 (2.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (1.70%) CentOS
9 8 (1.13%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.57%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.57%) Solaris
10 4 (0.57%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.57%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.57%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.28%) AIX
11 2 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.28%) zOS
12 1 (0.14%) MVS
12 1 (0.14%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 128 (18.13%) Migration
2 83 (11.76%) Problem-Solving
3 72 (10.20%) Stakeholder Management
4 67 (9.49%) Agile
5 56 (7.93%) Service Management
6 53 (7.51%) ITIL
7 49 (6.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 48 (6.80%) Disaster Recovery
8 48 (6.80%) Roadmaps
9 46 (6.52%) High Availability
10 45 (6.37%) Change Management
10 45 (6.37%) Infrastructure as Code
11 44 (6.23%) Customer Service
11 44 (6.23%) DevOps
11 44 (6.23%) Network Design
12 42 (5.95%) CI/CD
13 40 (5.67%) Data Centre Operations
14 39 (5.52%) Business Intelligence
14 39 (5.52%) Project Delivery
15 38 (5.38%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 77 (10.91%) Python
2 41 (5.81%) PowerShell
3 34 (4.82%) SQL
4 19 (2.69%) Bash
4 19 (2.69%) Java
5 10 (1.42%) Perl
5 10 (1.42%) Shell Script
6 8 (1.13%) Lisp
7 7 (0.99%) Go
8 5 (0.71%) C
9 3 (0.42%) Bicep
9 3 (0.42%) C#
10 2 (0.28%) AWK
10 2 (0.28%) JavaScript
10 2 (0.28%) JCL
10 2 (0.28%) Korn
10 2 (0.28%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.28%) Ruby
10 2 (0.28%) sed
11 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 200 (28.33%) Security Cleared
2 171 (24.22%) SC Cleared
3 87 (12.32%) Cisco Certification
4 58 (8.22%) CCNP
5 55 (7.79%) Degree
6 38 (5.38%) DV Cleared
7 28 (3.97%) CCIE
8 25 (3.54%) CCNA
9 17 (2.41%) AWS Certification
10 13 (1.84%) CISSP
11 11 (1.56%) JNCIE
12 10 (1.42%) Computer Science Degree
13 9 (1.27%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 8 (1.13%) BPSS Clearance
15 7 (0.99%) Azure Certification
15 7 (0.99%) PMI Certification
15 7 (0.99%) PMP
16 6 (0.85%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 6 (0.85%) CCDP
16 6 (0.85%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (2.97%) NIST
2 19 (2.69%) PCI DSS
2 19 (2.69%) SLA
3 16 (2.27%) PMO
4 15 (2.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 11 (1.56%) Data Quality
5 11 (1.56%) GDPR
6 9 (1.27%) QA
7 4 (0.57%) NCSC
8 2 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.28%) Disclosure Scotland
8 2 (0.28%) GRC
8 2 (0.28%) ISO 22301
8 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 2 (0.28%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.14%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.14%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 64 (9.07%) VMware Infrastructure
2 59 (8.36%) Active Directory
3 26 (3.68%) VMware NSX
4 25 (3.54%) Docker
5 18 (2.55%) Hyper-V
5 18 (2.55%) vSphere
6 13 (1.84%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.99%) Firmware
7 7 (0.99%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.71%) HDFS
9 4 (0.57%) KVM
9 4 (0.57%) NFS
10 3 (0.42%) GPFS
11 2 (0.28%) Microsoft App-V
11 2 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
12 1 (0.14%) Samba
12 1 (0.14%) SRDF
12 1 (0.14%) Veritas Cluster Server
12 1 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.14%) Xen
Systems Management
1 71 (10.06%) Ansible
2 57 (8.07%) Terraform
3 28 (3.97%) FortiGate
4 23 (3.26%) SCCM
5 22 (3.12%) Kubernetes
6 14 (1.98%) Microsoft Intune
7 11 (1.56%) Grafana
8 9 (1.27%) vCenter Server
9 8 (1.13%) Puppet
10 7 (0.99%) Control-M
11 6 (0.85%) CASB
11 6 (0.85%) SCOM
12 5 (0.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (0.71%) Hadoop YARN
12 5 (0.71%) Prometheus
12 5 (0.71%) SCOrch
12 5 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
13 4 (0.57%) Argo
13 4 (0.57%) OpenView
14 3 (0.42%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 232 (32.86%) Cisco
2 97 (13.74%) Microsoft
3 86 (12.18%) VMware
4 64 (9.07%) F5
5 57 (8.07%) Dell
6 55 (7.79%) Palo Alto
7 50 (7.08%) HP
8 46 (6.52%) Juniper
9 40 (5.67%) Apple
10 39 (5.52%) ServiceNow
11 37 (5.24%) SAP
12 33 (4.67%) Fortinet
13 30 (4.25%) Oracle
14 27 (3.82%) Meraki
15 23 (3.26%) Arista
15 23 (3.26%) SolarWinds
16 18 (2.55%) Citrix
17 16 (2.27%) CheckPoint
18 15 (2.12%) Red Hat
18 15 (2.12%) Remedy