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 2 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 137 137 93
Rank change year-on-year 0 -44 +6
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 781 605 1,044
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.03% 1.95% 2.32%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.99% 5.97% 7.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 506 353 694
10th Percentile £276 £350 £300
25th Percentile £400 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £486 £518 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.04% -1.43% -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £628 £638
90th Percentile £688 £723 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £474 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.20% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 25 44
10th Percentile £21.46 £20.30 £20.73
25th Percentile £25.15 £24.15 £22.06
Median hourly rate £25.77 £24.18 £31.31
Median % change year-on-year +6.58% -22.77% -46.07%
75th Percentile £67.25 £28.75 £41.25
90th Percentile £74.26 £41.25 £75.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 £24.18 £24.00
% change year-on-year +175.02% +0.75% +10.75%

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 13,048 10,135 13,842
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.96% 32.62% 30.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,248 6,003 9,019
10th Percentile £273 £263 £253
25th Percentile £402 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £531
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.13% -3.45%
75th Percentile £625 £656 £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 623 310 799
10th Percentile £15.04 £19.77 £13.95
25th Percentile £18.50 £23.89 £17.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +7.69% +44.54%
75th Percentile £63.53 £65.00 £58.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.90 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.05 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -13.71% -7.14% +66.59%

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 2 February 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 2 February 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 2 February 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 -18 649 £492 -5.84% 431
UK excluding London +5 445 £474 -5.20% 290
London -30 229 £525 - 191
Work from Home +39 221 £492 -9.48% 149
North of England +2 151 £475 -4.52% 66
South East -6 103 £445 +1.14% 120
North West +16 91 £519 +3.70% 34
Midlands -24 72 £465 -19.83% 26
West Midlands -18 57 £474 -18.28% 23
Scotland +32 54 £456 +2.82% 27
Yorkshire -41 46 £454 +8.10% 21
South West -27 35 £550 - 26
East of England -19 28 £478 +13.14% 36
North East 0 17 £175 - 11
East Midlands -15 15 £158 -70.70% 3
Wales -3 14 £203 -49.38% 7
Northern Ireland - 3 £425 - 1

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 (3.59%) SharePoint
2 24 (3.07%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (1.41%) Confluence
4 9 (1.15%) OpenStack
5 7 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
6 6 (0.77%) Apache
7 5 (0.64%) Apache Spark
8 4 (0.51%) HCL Notes
9 3 (0.38%) GeoServer
9 3 (0.38%) nginx
9 3 (0.38%) Smallworld
10 2 (0.26%) Oracle Coherence
10 2 (0.26%) ThingWorx
11 1 (0.13%) CICS
Applications
1 50 (6.40%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (3.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (3.33%) MS Visio
3 18 (2.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (1.79%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.26%) Adobe Illustrator
6 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
3 2 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
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%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 135 (17.29%) Azure
2 109 (13.96%) AWS
3 65 (8.32%) Microsoft 365
4 36 (4.61%) GCP
5 18 (2.30%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 17 (2.18%) Power Platform
7 16 (2.05%) SaaS
8 15 (1.92%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 14 (1.79%) Entra ID
10 13 (1.66%) AWS Direct Connect
10 13 (1.66%) OpenShift
11 11 (1.41%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 11 (1.41%) AWS CloudFormation
11 11 (1.41%) IaaS
12 10 (1.28%) PaaS
13 9 (1.15%) Azure DevOps
13 9 (1.15%) GitHub
13 9 (1.15%) Nutanix
14 8 (1.02%) OneDrive
15 7 (0.90%) AWS CloudTrail
Communications & Networking
1 225 (28.81%) Firewall
2 145 (18.57%) WAN
3 95 (12.16%) BGP
4 83 (10.63%) LAN
5 81 (10.37%) Network Security
5 81 (10.37%) VPN
6 80 (10.24%) Wireless
7 68 (8.71%) OSPF
8 51 (6.53%) DNS
8 51 (6.53%) Wi-Fi
9 50 (6.40%) VLAN
10 42 (5.38%) SD-WAN
11 39 (4.99%) SAN
11 39 (4.99%) Structured Cabling
12 35 (4.48%) Cisco ISE
12 35 (4.48%) Cisco Nexus
13 34 (4.35%) DHCP
14 33 (4.23%) VXLAN
15 31 (3.97%) IPsec
16 29 (3.71%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (2.05%) Power BI
1 16 (2.05%) Relational Database
2 9 (1.15%) RDBMS
3 8 (1.02%) SQL Server
4 5 (0.64%) Apache Hive
4 5 (0.64%) Hadoop
4 5 (0.64%) HBase
5 4 (0.51%) DataStage
5 4 (0.51%) GIS
5 4 (0.51%) Power Query
5 4 (0.51%) PowerPivot
6 3 (0.38%) Big Data
6 3 (0.38%) Data Lake
6 3 (0.38%) Data Vault
6 3 (0.38%) Data Warehouse
6 3 (0.38%) Geospatial Data
6 3 (0.38%) Metadata
6 3 (0.38%) NoSQL
6 3 (0.38%) QGIS
6 3 (0.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 23 (2.94%) Git
2 18 (2.30%) Jenkins
3 15 (1.92%) GitLab
4 12 (1.54%) JIRA
5 9 (1.15%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (1.02%) Maven
7 3 (0.38%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.38%) ER Studio
7 3 (0.38%) ERwin
7 3 (0.38%) ScriptRunner
7 3 (0.38%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.26%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.13%) AppScan
9 1 (0.13%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.13%) Gradle
9 1 (0.13%) Metasploit
9 1 (0.13%) Selenium
General
1 199 (25.48%) Social Skills
2 129 (16.52%) Finance
3 98 (12.55%) Analytical Skills
4 97 (12.42%) Public Sector
5 53 (6.79%) Documentation Skills
6 51 (6.53%) Telecoms
7 45 (5.76%) Manufacturing
8 44 (5.63%) Banking
9 31 (3.97%) Marketing
10 25 (3.20%) Electronics
11 20 (2.56%) Presentation Skills
12 16 (2.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 16 (2.05%) Legal
13 13 (1.66%) Retail
14 12 (1.54%) Influencing Skills
15 11 (1.41%) Organisational Skills
16 7 (0.90%) Investment Banking
16 7 (0.90%) Law
16 7 (0.90%) Local Government
17 6 (0.77%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 141 (18.05%) Network Engineer
2 121 (15.49%) Architect
3 72 (9.22%) Project Manager
4 59 (7.55%) Analyst
5 53 (6.79%) Senior
6 43 (5.51%) Network Architect
7 38 (4.87%) Solutions Architect
8 36 (4.61%) Lead
9 33 (4.23%) Consultant
9 33 (4.23%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 32 (4.10%) Data Centre Engineer
11 31 (3.97%) Data Centre Manager
12 29 (3.71%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 29 (3.71%) IT Support
12 29 (3.71%) Security Engineer
13 28 (3.59%) Cisco Engineer
14 26 (3.33%) Cisco Network Engineer
15 25 (3.20%) Desktop Support
16 23 (2.94%) 2nd Line Support
16 23 (2.94%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (2.69%) Middleware
2 19 (2.43%) 802.1X
3 9 (1.15%) LDAP
4 6 (0.77%) RFC 2544
5 5 (0.64%) Spark Streaming
6 4 (0.51%) ADO
6 4 (0.51%) VML
7 3 (0.38%) ARM Templates
7 3 (0.38%) Yocto
8 2 (0.26%) .NET
8 2 (0.26%) AWS CDK
8 2 (0.26%) CSS
8 2 (0.26%) Elastic Stack
8 2 (0.26%) HTML
8 2 (0.26%) ModSecurity
8 2 (0.26%) NETCONF
8 2 (0.26%) OpenConfig
8 2 (0.26%) REST
8 2 (0.26%) RESTCONF
8 2 (0.26%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 45 (5.76%) Hybrid Cloud
2 23 (2.94%) Public Cloud
2 23 (2.94%) Self-Motivation
3 20 (2.56%) Cloud Native
3 20 (2.56%) Onboarding
4 17 (2.18%) Analytical Mindset
4 17 (2.18%) Private Cloud
5 16 (2.05%) Driving Licence
5 16 (2.05%) SCADA
6 14 (1.79%) CMDB
6 14 (1.79%) Fibre Optics
6 14 (1.79%) Replication
7 12 (1.54%) Management Information System
8 10 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
9 9 (1.15%) PKI
10 8 (1.02%) Legacy Systems
10 8 (1.02%) NHS
10 8 (1.02%) Operational Technology
11 7 (0.90%) Security Posture
11 7 (0.90%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 102 (13.06%) Windows
2 92 (11.78%) Linux
3 42 (5.38%) Windows Server
4 34 (4.35%) Android
4 34 (4.35%) Mac OS
5 29 (3.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.41%) CentOS
7 10 (1.28%) Unix
8 9 (1.15%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.77%) VMS
9 6 (0.77%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.64%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.38%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.38%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.26%) Solaris
14 1 (0.13%) AIX
14 1 (0.13%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 126 (16.13%) Migration
2 122 (15.62%) Problem-Solving
3 92 (11.78%) Stakeholder Management
4 66 (8.45%) Agile
5 64 (8.19%) ITIL
6 61 (7.81%) Project Management
7 57 (7.30%) Infrastructure as Code
7 57 (7.30%) Project Delivery
8 50 (6.40%) CI/CD
8 50 (6.40%) DevOps
9 49 (6.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 46 (5.89%) Continuous Improvement
10 46 (5.89%) Roadmaps
11 43 (5.51%) Network Design
12 41 (5.25%) Customer Service
12 41 (5.25%) Programme Management
13 40 (5.12%) Change Control
13 40 (5.12%) Cybersecurity
13 40 (5.12%) High Availability
13 40 (5.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 77 (9.86%) Python
2 53 (6.79%) PowerShell
3 33 (4.23%) SQL
4 23 (2.94%) Bash
5 13 (1.66%) Shell Script
6 12 (1.54%) Java
6 12 (1.54%) Perl
7 9 (1.15%) Lisp
8 7 (0.90%) MATLAB
9 5 (0.64%) VBA
10 4 (0.51%) Bicep
10 4 (0.51%) C++
11 3 (0.38%) C
12 2 (0.26%) Go
12 2 (0.26%) JavaScript
12 2 (0.26%) Korn
12 2 (0.26%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.26%) Ruby
13 1 (0.13%) JCL
13 1 (0.13%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 258 (33.03%) Security Cleared
2 215 (27.53%) SC Cleared
3 127 (16.26%) Cisco Certification
4 101 (12.93%) CCNP
5 62 (7.94%) Degree
6 49 (6.27%) CCNA
7 44 (5.63%) DV Cleared
8 27 (3.46%) CCIE
9 22 (2.82%) AWS Certification
10 18 (2.30%) PMP
11 16 (2.05%) PMI Certification
12 11 (1.41%) A+ Certification
12 11 (1.41%) CISSP
12 11 (1.41%) JNCIE
12 11 (1.41%) MCSE
12 11 (1.41%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (1.41%) Network+ Certification
13 10 (1.28%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 9 (1.15%) Azure Certification
14 9 (1.15%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (2.94%) PMO
2 19 (2.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 19 (2.43%) SLA
3 17 (2.18%) NIST
4 16 (2.05%) PCI DSS
5 14 (1.79%) GDPR
5 14 (1.79%) QA
6 11 (1.41%) Data Quality
7 7 (0.90%) NCSC
8 5 (0.64%) GRC
9 4 (0.51%) 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%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 84 (10.76%) VMware Infrastructure
2 59 (7.55%) Active Directory
3 50 (6.40%) VMware NSX
4 23 (2.94%) Virtual Machines
5 18 (2.30%) Docker
5 18 (2.30%) vSphere
6 17 (2.18%) Hyper-V
7 11 (1.41%) Firmware
8 9 (1.15%) KVM
8 9 (1.15%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.64%) HDFS
10 4 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.38%) Lustre
12 2 (0.26%) Ceph
12 2 (0.26%) Microsoft App-V
12 2 (0.26%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 2 (0.26%) vCloud
13 1 (0.13%) NFS
13 1 (0.13%) SRDF
13 1 (0.13%) Xen
Systems Management
1 81 (10.37%) Ansible
2 68 (8.71%) Terraform
3 40 (5.12%) FortiGate
4 24 (3.07%) SCCM
5 20 (2.56%) Grafana
5 20 (2.56%) Kubernetes
6 11 (1.41%) Microsoft Intune
7 10 (1.28%) Prometheus
7 10 (1.28%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.15%) SCOM
9 8 (1.02%) Check_MK
9 8 (1.02%) Puppet
10 7 (0.90%) Podman
10 7 (0.90%) Red Hat Satellite
11 6 (0.77%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.77%) CASB
11 6 (0.77%) SCOrch
12 5 (0.64%) Hadoop YARN
12 5 (0.64%) vMotion
12 5 (0.64%) vRealize
Vendors
1 258 (33.03%) Cisco
2 111 (14.21%) VMware
3 110 (14.08%) Palo Alto
4 90 (11.52%) Microsoft
5 72 (9.22%) Dell
6 62 (7.94%) Juniper
7 46 (5.89%) F5
8 45 (5.76%) HP
9 43 (5.51%) CheckPoint
10 40 (5.12%) ServiceNow
11 39 (4.99%) Aruba
12 37 (4.74%) Meraki
13 34 (4.35%) Apple
14 33 (4.23%) Fortinet
15 32 (4.10%) SAP
16 27 (3.46%) Oracle
17 20 (2.56%) Citrix
18 17 (2.18%) Red Hat
19 16 (2.05%) Arista
19 16 (2.05%) SolarWinds