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 26 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 116 129 107
Rank change year-on-year +13 -22 -19
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,201 730 835
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.24% 2.23% 2.15%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.67% 6.33% 7.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 734 460 553
10th Percentile £318 £300 £350
25th Percentile £413 £400 £459
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -
75th Percentile £650 £610 £625
90th Percentile £769 £719 £711
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £491 £538
% change year-on-year +0.41% -8.65% +6.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 39 39
10th Percentile £16.01 £20.25 £11.75
25th Percentile £17.13 £25.04 £12.08
Median hourly rate £20.43 £25.15 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.79% +25.75% -
75th Percentile £38.75 £34.50 £25.83
90th Percentile £82.93 £48.45 £28.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.34 £24.87 £16.50
% change year-on-year -22.23% +50.71% -6.88%

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 18,018 11,535 11,761
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.59% 35.26% 30.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,898 7,083 7,454
10th Percentile £321 £300 £300
25th Percentile £423 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -5.45% -
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 1,065 575 570
10th Percentile £14.68 £15.13 £12.30
25th Percentile £19.25 £18.87 £18.39
Median hourly rate £41.00 £30.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.67% -33.33% +2.86%
75th Percentile £68.75 £57.50 £69.45
90th Percentile £84.60 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £49.00
% change year-on-year +46.53% -38.78% +7.91%

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 26 August 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 26 August 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 26 August 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 1,011 £525 - 917
UK excluding London -8 638 £493 +0.41% 422
London +12 417 £560 +1.82% 566
Work from Home -2 283 £543 +3.33% 302
North of England -5 222 £481 +6.89% 88
South East -10 183 £531 +7.82% 104
Yorkshire +6 137 £465 +14.81% 28
North West -16 70 £500 -4.31% 36
South West -26 67 £588 +6.82% 66
Midlands -70 52 £456 -11.02% 53
Scotland -8 46 £388 -2.88% 39
West Midlands -68 45 £475 -5.10% 42
Wales +4 42 £468 +55.83% 4
East of England -18 34 £483 -19.58% 70
North East -22 21 £625 +468.18% 25
East Midlands -23 6 £400 -26.61% 11
Channel Islands - 1 £575 -

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 (2.41%) Confluence
2 19 (1.58%) SharePoint
3 10 (0.83%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.58%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.42%) Apache
5 5 (0.42%) CloudStack
6 4 (0.33%) CICS
7 1 (0.083%) IIS
7 1 (0.083%) nginx
7 1 (0.083%) SAS
7 1 (0.083%) Tomcat
Applications
1 24 (2.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (1.58%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.00%) Microsoft Project
4 9 (0.75%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.42%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.17%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 13 (1.08%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.25%) Primavera
3 2 (0.17%) OpenText MBPM
3 2 (0.17%) Oracle BPM
4 1 (0.083%) Cloudability
4 1 (0.083%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 257 (21.40%) Azure
2 222 (18.48%) AWS
3 60 (5.00%) GCP
4 47 (3.91%) GitHub
5 40 (3.33%) Microsoft 365
6 36 (3.00%) SaaS
7 35 (2.91%) IaaS
8 30 (2.50%) OCI
9 27 (2.25%) Entra ID
10 18 (1.50%) Power Platform
11 15 (1.25%) OneDrive
12 14 (1.17%) Azure DevOps
12 14 (1.17%) OpenShift
12 14 (1.17%) PaaS
13 13 (1.08%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 13 (1.08%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 9 (0.75%) Nutanix
15 8 (0.67%) Azure Sentinel
16 7 (0.58%) GitHub Actions
17 6 (0.50%) AWS Direct Connect
Communications & Networking
1 302 (25.15%) Firewall
2 189 (15.74%) WAN
3 182 (15.15%) BGP
4 132 (10.99%) VPN
5 125 (10.41%) VXLAN
6 123 (10.24%) DNS
6 123 (10.24%) OSPF
7 109 (9.08%) LAN
7 109 (9.08%) SAN
8 105 (8.74%) Network Security
8 105 (8.74%) VLAN
9 92 (7.66%) DHCP
10 87 (7.24%) Ethernet VPN
10 87 (7.24%) SD-WAN
11 84 (6.99%) TCP/IP
12 79 (6.58%) Structured Cabling
13 61 (5.08%) Wi-Fi
14 56 (4.66%) Wireless
15 53 (4.41%) Cisco Nexus
16 50 (4.16%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (2.41%) SQL Server
2 15 (1.25%) Power BI
3 10 (0.83%) SQL Server Analysis Services
3 10 (0.83%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 10 (0.83%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 7 (0.58%) Big Data
4 7 (0.58%) Oracle Database
5 6 (0.50%) Db2
6 5 (0.42%) Elasticsearch
7 4 (0.33%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (0.33%) Oracle Database 12c
7 4 (0.33%) Oracle Reports
7 4 (0.33%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.25%) DataStage
8 3 (0.25%) SAP Data Services
9 2 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.17%) Data Lake
9 2 (0.17%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.083%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 74 (6.16%) JIRA
2 35 (2.91%) GitLab
3 27 (2.25%) Git
3 27 (2.25%) Jenkins
4 7 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (0.25%) ScriptRunner
5 3 (0.25%) Zephyr
6 2 (0.17%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 2 (0.17%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.17%) JMeter
6 2 (0.17%) MSI
6 2 (0.17%) Toad
7 1 (0.083%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.083%) Eclipse
7 1 (0.083%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.083%) Maven
7 1 (0.083%) Postman
7 1 (0.083%) Subversion
General
1 285 (23.73%) Social Skills
2 165 (13.74%) Finance
3 119 (9.91%) Analytical Skills
4 58 (4.83%) Public Sector
5 54 (4.50%) Telecoms
6 52 (4.33%) Banking
7 43 (3.58%) Documentation Skills
8 31 (2.58%) Retail
9 23 (1.92%) Legal
10 19 (1.58%) Influencing Skills
11 17 (1.42%) Manufacturing
12 16 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 10 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
14 9 (0.75%) Police
15 8 (0.67%) Law
16 7 (0.58%) Financial Institution
17 6 (0.50%) Marketing
18 5 (0.42%) Investment Banking
19 3 (0.25%) Cyber-Physical System
19 3 (0.25%) Military
Job Titles
1 202 (16.82%) Architect
2 194 (16.15%) Network Engineer
3 157 (13.07%) Senior
4 120 (9.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 96 (7.99%) Data Centre Engineer
6 77 (6.41%) Project Manager
7 64 (5.33%) Lead
8 61 (5.08%) Network Architect
9 52 (4.33%) IT Engineer
10 46 (3.83%) Senior Network Engineer
11 44 (3.66%) Field Engineer
12 43 (3.58%) Consultant
12 43 (3.58%) Data Centre Manager
13 40 (3.33%) Technical Architect
14 39 (3.25%) Infrastructure Manager
15 38 (3.16%) Field Service Engineer
16 36 (3.00%) Solutions Architect
17 32 (2.66%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
18 31 (2.58%) Support Engineer
19 28 (2.33%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (9.08%) Terraform
2 47 (3.91%) Middleware
3 21 (1.75%) REST
4 18 (1.50%) 802.1X
5 12 (1.00%) JSON
5 12 (1.00%) YAML
6 9 (0.75%) Elastic Stack
6 9 (0.75%) Redfish
7 8 (0.67%) LDAP
8 7 (0.58%) NETCONF
9 6 (0.50%) OpenConfig
9 6 (0.50%) SAML
9 6 (0.50%) YANG
10 5 (0.42%) .NET
10 5 (0.42%) RESTCONF
11 4 (0.33%) GeoJSON
11 4 (0.33%) Jinja
11 4 (0.33%) Kafka
11 4 (0.33%) RESTful
12 3 (0.25%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 75 (6.24%) Hybrid Cloud
2 46 (3.83%) Analytical Mindset
3 40 (3.33%) PKI
4 34 (2.83%) Clustering
4 34 (2.83%) Enterprise Storage
4 34 (2.83%) Private Cloud
5 33 (2.75%) Cloud Native
6 32 (2.66%) Management Information System
7 30 (2.50%) Fibre Optics
8 29 (2.41%) Onboarding
9 28 (2.33%) Public Cloud
9 28 (2.33%) Replication
10 26 (2.16%) Data Protection Act
11 19 (1.58%) Operational Technology
12 18 (1.50%) Driving Licence
13 16 (1.33%) CMDB
14 15 (1.25%) SCADA
14 15 (1.25%) Self-Motivation
15 14 (1.17%) Distributed Systems
16 13 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 183 (15.24%) Windows
2 133 (11.07%) Linux
3 52 (4.33%) Windows Server
4 33 (2.75%) Unix
5 20 (1.67%) AIX
5 20 (1.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.83%) Apple iOS
6 10 (0.83%) Mac OS
6 10 (0.83%) Solaris
7 9 (0.75%) VMS
8 6 (0.50%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.50%) Windows 10
9 5 (0.42%) HPUX
9 5 (0.42%) Oracle Linux
9 5 (0.42%) SUSE
9 5 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
9 5 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (0.33%) CentOS
10 4 (0.33%) Data ONTAP
10 4 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 255 (21.23%) Migration
2 191 (15.90%) Problem-Solving
3 147 (12.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 143 (11.91%) Stakeholder Management
5 116 (9.66%) Infrastructure as Code
6 111 (9.24%) ITIL
7 106 (8.83%) High Availability
8 98 (8.16%) Agile
8 98 (8.16%) Roadmaps
9 96 (7.99%) CI/CD
10 91 (7.58%) Validation
11 90 (7.49%) Project Delivery
12 80 (6.66%) Continuous Improvement
13 77 (6.41%) Change Management
14 76 (6.33%) Zero Trust
15 74 (6.16%) Disaster Recovery
16 72 (6.00%) Technical Leadership
17 71 (5.91%) Load Balancing
18 70 (5.83%) DevOps
19 68 (5.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 162 (13.49%) Python
2 57 (4.75%) PowerShell
3 37 (3.08%) SQL
4 31 (2.58%) Bash
5 10 (0.83%) ActionScript
5 10 (0.83%) Bicep
6 9 (0.75%) Perl
7 8 (0.67%) Shell Script
8 7 (0.58%) Java
8 7 (0.58%) PL/SQL
9 5 (0.42%) C#
9 5 (0.42%) COBOL
10 4 (0.33%) JavaScript
10 4 (0.33%) MATLAB
11 3 (0.25%) Go
11 3 (0.25%) JCL
11 3 (0.25%) Lisp
11 3 (0.25%) TypeScript
12 2 (0.17%) Korn
12 2 (0.17%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 301 (25.06%) Security Cleared
2 202 (16.82%) SC Cleared
3 190 (15.82%) Cisco Certification
4 111 (9.24%) CCNP
5 94 (7.83%) DV Cleared
6 75 (6.24%) CCNA
7 63 (5.25%) Degree
8 47 (3.91%) Network+ Certification
9 43 (3.58%) Microsoft Certification
10 41 (3.41%) A+ Certification
11 37 (3.08%) MCSE
12 30 (2.50%) CCIE
13 28 (2.33%) AWS Certification
14 27 (2.25%) Azure Certification
15 26 (2.16%) City & Guilds
16 22 (1.83%) PMP
16 22 (1.83%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 21 (1.75%) CISSP
17 21 (1.75%) PMI Certification
18 20 (1.67%) BICSI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (3.16%) QA
2 29 (2.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 26 (2.16%) SLA
4 22 (1.83%) NIST
5 15 (1.25%) GDPR
6 14 (1.17%) PMO
7 11 (0.92%) NCSC
8 9 (0.75%) JSP 440
9 7 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
10 6 (0.50%) GRC
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
1 134 (11.16%) VMware Infrastructure
2 84 (6.99%) Active Directory
3 46 (3.83%) vSphere
4 43 (3.58%) VMware NSX
5 37 (3.08%) VMware ESXi
6 33 (2.75%) Hyper-V
7 30 (2.50%) Docker
7 30 (2.50%) Firmware
8 15 (1.25%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.92%) NFS
10 7 (0.58%) PowerHA
11 6 (0.50%) Microsoft App-V
11 6 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
12 5 (0.42%) Virtual Servers
13 4 (0.33%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.33%) SRDF
13 4 (0.33%) Terminal Services
14 3 (0.25%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 3 (0.25%) Veritas Cluster Server
14 3 (0.25%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 145 (12.07%) Ansible
2 59 (4.91%) Kubernetes
3 38 (3.16%) FortiGate
4 26 (2.16%) Prometheus
5 25 (2.08%) Grafana
6 24 (2.00%) Microsoft Intune
7 17 (1.42%) vCenter Server
8 15 (1.25%) VxRail
9 13 (1.08%) SCCM
10 12 (1.00%) Microsoft Clustering
10 12 (1.00%) NetBackup
11 11 (0.92%) vMotion
12 10 (0.83%) Dell DRAC
12 10 (0.83%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.83%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 7 (0.58%) Check_MK
13 7 (0.58%) EMC NetWorker
13 7 (0.58%) Nagios
13 7 (0.58%) PowerCLI
14 6 (0.50%) Avamar
Vendors
1 286 (23.81%) Cisco
2 188 (15.65%) VMware
3 140 (11.66%) Microsoft
4 123 (10.24%) Palo Alto
5 104 (8.66%) F5
6 71 (5.91%) Dell
6 71 (5.91%) Juniper
7 70 (5.83%) Arista
8 69 (5.75%) Fortinet
9 57 (4.75%) ServiceNow
10 42 (3.50%) Aruba
11 36 (3.00%) CheckPoint
12 34 (2.83%) Red Hat
13 32 (2.66%) Google
14 30 (2.50%) IBM
15 27 (2.25%) SolarWinds
16 25 (2.08%) Veeam
17 23 (1.92%) Oracle
18 22 (1.83%) NetApp
19 21 (1.75%) Zscaler