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 18 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 130 113 89
Rank change year-on-year -17 -24 +18
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 717 801 1,266
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.18% 2.08% 2.57%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.13% 6.84% 7.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 452 497 869
10th Percentile £293 £363 £350
25th Percentile £388 £459 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £535 £540
Median % change year-on-year -3.74% -0.93% +2.86%
75th Percentile £602 £619 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £538 £500
% change year-on-year -9.77% +7.50% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 40 14
10th Percentile £20.25 £11.75 £17.72
25th Percentile £25.07 £12.08 £17.93
Median hourly rate £25.15 £20.80 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.94% -9.59% -61.98%
75th Percentile £34.00 £25.50 £26.17
90th Percentile £43.75 £28.99 £74.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.08 £18.00 £21.50
% change year-on-year +39.31% -16.28% -

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 11,702 11,714 15,947
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 35.52% 30.41% 32.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,164 7,180 10,922
10th Percentile £300 £294 £300
25th Percentile £406 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.63% -1.82% -
75th Percentile £638 £675 £675
90th Percentile £754 £807 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 587 473 447
10th Percentile £15.13 £14.41 £16.78
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.25 £21.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £50.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -40.00% +11.11% +69.81%
75th Percentile £55.00 £70.00 £66.72
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.11 £57.35 £49.00
% change year-on-year -47.51% +17.04% +124.98%

Data Centre
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Data Centre as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Data Centre 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 18 September 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 18 September 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 18 September 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 -13 606 £525 -2.10% 794
UK excluding London -13 411 £485 -9.77% 583
London -3 224 £546 +2.10% 346
Work from Home +2 194 £510 -7.27% 385
North of England -1 112 £475 -13.64% 88
South East -2 102 £450 -14.29% 262
Midlands -17 78 £500 -16.67% 90
Yorkshire +4 70 £450 -20.35% 24
West Midlands -15 61 £496 -17.33% 40
South West -7 45 £550 +2.56% 50
Scotland -2 43 £425 -34.62% 33
North West -15 42 £540 +8.00% 59
East of England +3 25 £600 +35.75% 56
East Midlands -2 17 £525 +17.98% 46
Wales +2 14 £300 -7.69% 13
North East -5 1 - - 5

Data Centre
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 32 (4.46%) Confluence
2 19 (2.65%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (1.95%) SharePoint
4 12 (1.67%) OpenStack
5 6 (0.84%) Apache
6 5 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.70%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.56%) nginx
7 4 (0.56%) ThingWorx
8 3 (0.42%) CICS
8 3 (0.42%) HCL Notes
8 3 (0.42%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.28%) FileNet
9 2 (0.28%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.14%) IIS
10 1 (0.14%) OpenEdge
10 1 (0.14%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 29 (4.04%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (3.07%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (1.67%) MS Visio
5 10 (1.39%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.42%) AutoCAD
6 3 (0.42%) Revit
7 1 (0.14%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 6 (0.84%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.42%) Oracle Financials
3 2 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
3 2 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.14%) StreamServe
Cloud Services
1 115 (16.04%) AWS
2 113 (15.76%) Azure
3 40 (5.58%) GCP
4 35 (4.88%) Microsoft 365
5 22 (3.07%) OpenShift
6 19 (2.65%) IaaS
7 17 (2.37%) PaaS
8 16 (2.23%) Entra ID
9 15 (2.09%) Power Platform
10 10 (1.39%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 10 (1.39%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 10 (1.39%) SaaS
11 6 (0.84%) Cloud Computing
11 6 (0.84%) OneDrive
12 5 (0.70%) AWS Direct Connect
12 5 (0.70%) GitHub
12 5 (0.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 4 (0.56%) Akamai
13 4 (0.56%) Nutanix
13 4 (0.56%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 182 (25.38%) Firewall
2 123 (17.15%) WAN
3 71 (9.90%) BGP
4 66 (9.21%) VPN
5 65 (9.07%) Wireless
6 60 (8.37%) LAN
7 56 (7.81%) Cisco Nexus
8 54 (7.53%) Network Security
8 54 (7.53%) OSPF
9 52 (7.25%) DNS
10 48 (6.69%) SD-WAN
11 35 (4.88%) Ethernet VPN
11 35 (4.88%) MPLS
11 35 (4.88%) Wi-Fi
12 32 (4.46%) SAN
13 31 (4.32%) VXLAN
14 28 (3.91%) TCP/IP
15 26 (3.63%) DHCP
16 21 (2.93%) VLAN
17 20 (2.79%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.37%) Relational Database
2 15 (2.09%) Oracle Database
3 12 (1.67%) Big Data
3 12 (1.67%) Power BI
4 11 (1.53%) Amazon RDS
5 10 (1.39%) Elasticsearch
5 10 (1.39%) RDBMS
6 9 (1.26%) Oracle Reports
6 9 (1.26%) SQL Server
7 6 (0.84%) GIS
7 6 (0.84%) NoSQL
7 6 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
8 5 (0.70%) Apache Hive
8 5 (0.70%) Hadoop
8 5 (0.70%) HBase
9 3 (0.42%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.42%) Data Mining
9 3 (0.42%) Data Warehouse
9 3 (0.42%) DataStage
9 3 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 31 (4.32%) JIRA
2 18 (2.51%) Sonatype Nexus
3 15 (2.09%) Git
4 14 (1.95%) GitLab
5 13 (1.81%) Jenkins
6 9 (1.26%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.98%) Maven
8 4 (0.56%) Gradle
8 4 (0.56%) Selenium
8 4 (0.56%) TeamCity
9 3 (0.42%) ER Studio
9 3 (0.42%) ERwin
10 2 (0.28%) Bitbucket
11 1 (0.14%) Fiddler
11 1 (0.14%) Postman
General
1 163 (22.73%) Social Skills
2 134 (18.69%) Finance
3 67 (9.34%) Analytical Skills
4 64 (8.93%) Banking
5 62 (8.65%) Public Sector
6 49 (6.83%) Telecoms
7 16 (2.23%) Documentation Skills
8 13 (1.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 13 (1.81%) Legal
9 12 (1.67%) Presentation Skills
9 12 (1.67%) Retail
10 9 (1.26%) Influencing Skills
10 9 (1.26%) Manufacturing
11 7 (0.98%) Front Office
11 7 (0.98%) Organisational Skills
12 6 (0.84%) Law
13 5 (0.70%) German Language
13 5 (0.70%) Publishing
14 4 (0.56%) Billing
14 4 (0.56%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 122 (17.02%) Architect
2 116 (16.18%) Network Engineer
3 70 (9.76%) Analyst
4 46 (6.42%) Senior
5 43 (6.00%) Project Manager
6 32 (4.46%) Consultant
7 31 (4.32%) Network Architect
8 30 (4.18%) Infrastructure Architect
8 30 (4.18%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 29 (4.04%) Data Centre Engineer
9 29 (4.04%) Infrastructure Manager
10 26 (3.63%) Security Engineer
10 26 (3.63%) Support Engineer
11 24 (3.35%) Data Centre Manager
12 23 (3.21%) Solutions Architect
13 22 (3.07%) Lead
14 21 (2.93%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
15 20 (2.79%) Cisco Engineer
16 19 (2.65%) Business Analyst
16 19 (2.65%) Cisco Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (3.77%) RFC 2544
2 20 (2.79%) Middleware
3 14 (1.95%) 802.1X
4 5 (0.70%) Spark Streaming
5 4 (0.56%) Jinja
6 2 (0.28%) eBPF
6 2 (0.28%) EJB
6 2 (0.28%) Java SE
6 2 (0.28%) JSON
6 2 (0.28%) LDAP
6 2 (0.28%) ModSecurity
6 2 (0.28%) OpenLayers
6 2 (0.28%) OpenTelemetry
6 2 (0.28%) REST
6 2 (0.28%) Spring
7 1 (0.14%) ARM Templates
7 1 (0.14%) Java EE
7 1 (0.14%) JSP
7 1 (0.14%) Web Services
7 1 (0.14%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 30 (4.18%) Hybrid Cloud
2 29 (4.04%) Cloud Native
3 24 (3.35%) Replication
4 23 (3.21%) PKI
5 22 (3.07%) Fibre Optics
6 20 (2.79%) CMDB
6 20 (2.79%) Private Cloud
7 19 (2.65%) SCADA
8 18 (2.51%) Driving Licence
8 18 (2.51%) Mainframe
9 17 (2.37%) Clustering
9 17 (2.37%) Public Cloud
10 16 (2.23%) Onboarding
11 14 (1.95%) Data Protection Act
12 11 (1.53%) Management Information System
13 10 (1.39%) Enterprise Storage
13 10 (1.39%) Self-Motivation
14 9 (1.26%) Legacy Systems
15 8 (1.12%) Linux Command Line
15 8 (1.12%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 99 (13.81%) Windows
2 86 (11.99%) Linux
3 28 (3.91%) Windows Server
4 26 (3.63%) Unix
5 22 (3.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (2.09%) Android
7 13 (1.81%) CentOS
7 13 (1.81%) Mac OS
8 12 (1.67%) Solaris
9 10 (1.39%) Ubuntu
10 8 (1.12%) HPUX
11 5 (0.70%) Windows 10
12 4 (0.56%) Apple iOS
12 4 (0.56%) Windows Server 2003
12 4 (0.56%) Windows Server 2008
12 4 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.28%) AIX
13 2 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.28%) zOS
14 1 (0.14%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 148 (20.64%) Migration
2 83 (11.58%) Problem-Solving
3 66 (9.21%) Disaster Recovery
4 65 (9.07%) Agile
5 62 (8.65%) DevOps
6 56 (7.81%) Service Management
6 56 (7.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 55 (7.67%) Change Management
8 50 (6.97%) Project Management
9 49 (6.83%) High Availability
10 48 (6.69%) Stakeholder Management
11 45 (6.28%) Risk Management
12 43 (6.00%) Customer Service
13 41 (5.72%) ITIL
13 41 (5.72%) Roadmaps
14 40 (5.58%) Infrastructure as Code
15 39 (5.44%) CI/CD
15 39 (5.44%) Network Design
16 36 (5.02%) Infrastructure Engineering
17 35 (4.88%) Data Centre Operations
Programming Languages
1 71 (9.90%) Python
2 35 (4.88%) PowerShell
3 27 (3.77%) SQL
4 17 (2.37%) Java
5 12 (1.67%) Shell Script
6 11 (1.53%) Bash
7 9 (1.26%) Go
8 5 (0.70%) C
9 3 (0.42%) Bicep
9 3 (0.42%) Ruby
10 2 (0.28%) AWK
10 2 (0.28%) C#
10 2 (0.28%) JavaScript
10 2 (0.28%) JCL
10 2 (0.28%) Korn
10 2 (0.28%) Perl
10 2 (0.28%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.28%) PromQL
10 2 (0.28%) sed
11 1 (0.14%) C++
Qualifications
1 221 (30.82%) Security Cleared
2 167 (23.29%) SC Cleared
3 86 (11.99%) Cisco Certification
4 61 (8.51%) DV Cleared
5 53 (7.39%) Degree
6 43 (6.00%) CCNP
7 30 (4.18%) CCIE
8 20 (2.79%) CCNA
9 14 (1.95%) AWS Certification
10 13 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
11 10 (1.39%) CISSP
11 10 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
11 10 (1.39%) JNCIE
11 10 (1.39%) PMP
12 9 (1.26%) PMI Certification
13 7 (0.98%) CISA
13 7 (0.98%) Microsoft Certification
14 5 (0.70%) ACCA
14 5 (0.70%) CIMA
14 5 (0.70%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (2.93%) SLA
2 18 (2.51%) PCI DSS
3 16 (2.23%) NIST
4 14 (1.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (1.81%) QA
6 11 (1.53%) PMO
7 6 (0.84%) Data Quality
7 6 (0.84%) GDPR
8 4 (0.56%) JSP 440
8 4 (0.56%) RMADS
9 3 (0.42%) GRC
9 3 (0.42%) NCSC
10 2 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.28%) Disclosure Scotland
10 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 1 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.14%) GxP
11 1 (0.14%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 74 (10.32%) VMware Infrastructure
2 57 (7.95%) Active Directory
3 30 (4.18%) Docker
4 29 (4.04%) Hyper-V
5 23 (3.21%) VMware NSX
6 19 (2.65%) VMware ESXi
7 16 (2.23%) vSphere
8 11 (1.53%) Microsoft App-V
9 9 (1.26%) BitLocker
9 9 (1.26%) Terminal Services
9 9 (1.26%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.98%) Firmware
11 5 (0.70%) HDFS
12 4 (0.56%) KVM
13 3 (0.42%) GPFS
13 3 (0.42%) NFS
13 3 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
14 2 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
15 1 (0.14%) SRDF
15 1 (0.14%) Veritas Cluster Server
Systems Management
1 76 (10.60%) Ansible
2 46 (6.42%) Terraform
3 34 (4.74%) Kubernetes
4 19 (2.65%) Puppet
4 19 (2.65%) vCenter Server
5 16 (2.23%) FortiGate
6 13 (1.81%) SCCM
7 10 (1.39%) Microsoft Intune
8 9 (1.26%) Grafana
8 9 (1.26%) Nagios
8 9 (1.26%) Oracle RMAN
8 9 (1.26%) vMotion
9 7 (0.98%) Control-M
10 6 (0.84%) VxRail
11 5 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 5 (0.70%) Hadoop YARN
11 5 (0.70%) SCOM
11 5 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
12 4 (0.56%) OpenView
12 4 (0.56%) OPNET
Vendors
1 185 (25.80%) Cisco
2 100 (13.95%) Microsoft
3 94 (13.11%) VMware
4 56 (7.81%) F5
5 46 (6.42%) Palo Alto
6 43 (6.00%) Juniper
7 42 (5.86%) ServiceNow
8 38 (5.30%) HP
9 34 (4.74%) Fortinet
10 32 (4.46%) Oracle
11 30 (4.18%) Dell
12 28 (3.91%) SolarWinds
13 25 (3.49%) Arista
14 22 (3.07%) Google
15 20 (2.79%) CheckPoint
15 20 (2.79%) IBM
16 19 (2.65%) Citrix
17 18 (2.51%) Meraki
18 15 (2.09%) SAP
19 14 (1.95%) NetApp