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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 116 120 105
Rank change year-on-year +4 -15 -16
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,195 749 844
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.24% 2.28% 2.17%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.68% 6.47% 7.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 712 473 570
10th Percentile £325 £300 £350
25th Percentile £413 £400 £457
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £538
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -3.26% -
75th Percentile £650 £600 £625
90th Percentile £775 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £490 £538
% change year-on-year +1.12% -9.01% +7.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 38 39
10th Percentile £16.01 £20.25 £11.75
25th Percentile £17.50 £25.04 £12.08
Median hourly rate £21.00 £25.15 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.50% +25.75% -
75th Percentile £38.75 £36.25 £25.83
90th Percentile £81.95 £50.80 £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 17,890 11,575 11,822
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.51% 35.17% 30.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,850 7,129 7,574
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £425 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £750 £765 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 997 563 603
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.13 £12.40
25th Percentile £19.34 £18.87 £18.35
Median hourly rate £43.50 £29.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +47.46% -34.44% +11.23%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £67.20
90th Percentile £85.00 £78.46 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +46.53% -33.33% +10.86%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 +6 1,010 £525 - 832
UK excluding London -12 647 £495 +1.12% 429
London +17 400 £568 +5.58% 467
Work from Home -9 289 £550 +5.92% 233
North of England +6 226 £493 +9.56% 121
South East -6 199 £523 +6.09% 118
Yorkshire 0 132 £365 -9.88% 31
North West -1 79 £538 +2.87% 41
South West -31 66 £525 -4.55% 43
Midlands -58 55 £456 -13.24% 42
West Midlands -56 49 £465 -7.00% 30
Wales +5 42 £468 +38.52% 14
Scotland -10 40 £413 -2.83% 32
East of England -19 29 £479 -20.21% 62
North East -24 21 £625 +468.18% 49
East Midlands -29 5 £400 -26.61% 12
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 (2.43%) Confluence
2 17 (1.42%) SharePoint
3 12 (1.00%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (0.59%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.42%) Apache
5 5 (0.42%) CICS
5 5 (0.42%) CloudStack
6 2 (0.17%) nginx
6 2 (0.17%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.084%) IIS
7 1 (0.084%) SAS
7 1 (0.084%) WebLogic
Applications
1 23 (1.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (1.34%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.92%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.84%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.42%) AutoCAD
6 2 (0.17%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 12 (1.00%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.25%) Primavera
3 2 (0.17%) OpenText MBPM
3 2 (0.17%) Oracle BPM
3 2 (0.17%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.084%) Cloudability
Cloud Services
1 255 (21.34%) Azure
2 225 (18.83%) AWS
3 64 (5.36%) GCP
4 45 (3.77%) GitHub
5 39 (3.26%) IaaS
6 35 (2.93%) Microsoft 365
7 34 (2.85%) SaaS
8 29 (2.43%) OCI
9 26 (2.18%) Entra ID
10 19 (1.59%) Power Platform
11 15 (1.26%) OneDrive
11 15 (1.26%) OpenShift
11 15 (1.26%) PaaS
11 15 (1.26%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 13 (1.09%) Azure DevOps
13 12 (1.00%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 9 (0.75%) Nutanix
15 8 (0.67%) Azure Sentinel
15 8 (0.67%) GitHub Actions
16 6 (0.50%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 311 (26.03%) Firewall
2 183 (15.31%) WAN
3 182 (15.23%) BGP
4 134 (11.21%) DNS
5 130 (10.88%) OSPF
6 129 (10.79%) VPN
7 128 (10.71%) VXLAN
8 117 (9.79%) SAN
9 108 (9.04%) LAN
10 101 (8.45%) DHCP
11 98 (8.20%) VLAN
12 97 (8.12%) Network Security
13 90 (7.53%) Ethernet VPN
14 84 (7.03%) Structured Cabling
15 83 (6.95%) SD-WAN
16 80 (6.69%) TCP/IP
17 58 (4.85%) BIG-IP
18 57 (4.77%) Wireless
19 54 (4.52%) Wi-Fi
20 50 (4.18%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (2.43%) SQL Server
2 15 (1.26%) Power BI
3 10 (0.84%) SQL Server Analysis Services
3 10 (0.84%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 10 (0.84%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 7 (0.59%) Big Data
4 7 (0.59%) Oracle Database
5 6 (0.50%) Db2
6 5 (0.42%) Elasticsearch
6 5 (0.42%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (0.33%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.33%) DataStage
7 4 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (0.33%) Oracle Database 12c
7 4 (0.33%) Oracle Reports
7 4 (0.33%) SAP Data Services
8 2 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.17%) Data Lake
8 2 (0.17%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.17%) GIS
Development Applications
1 77 (6.44%) JIRA
2 32 (2.68%) GitLab
3 27 (2.26%) Jenkins
4 26 (2.18%) Git
5 7 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.25%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 3 (0.25%) JMeter
6 3 (0.25%) ScriptRunner
6 3 (0.25%) Zephyr
7 2 (0.17%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.17%) Eclipse
7 2 (0.17%) Maven
7 2 (0.17%) MSI
7 2 (0.17%) Subversion
7 2 (0.17%) Toad
8 1 (0.084%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.084%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.084%) Postman
General
1 284 (23.77%) Social Skills
2 157 (13.14%) Finance
3 125 (10.46%) Analytical Skills
4 61 (5.10%) Public Sector
5 49 (4.10%) Banking
6 48 (4.02%) Telecoms
7 42 (3.51%) Documentation Skills
8 30 (2.51%) Retail
9 24 (2.01%) Legal
10 21 (1.76%) Influencing Skills
11 18 (1.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 15 (1.26%) Manufacturing
13 11 (0.92%) Organisational Skills
14 9 (0.75%) Law
14 9 (0.75%) Police
15 7 (0.59%) Financial Institution
16 5 (0.42%) Marketing
16 5 (0.42%) Military
17 4 (0.33%) Billing
17 4 (0.33%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 204 (17.07%) Architect
2 186 (15.56%) Network Engineer
3 149 (12.47%) Senior
4 121 (10.13%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 98 (8.20%) Data Centre Engineer
6 79 (6.61%) Project Manager
7 61 (5.10%) Network Architect
8 58 (4.85%) Lead
9 51 (4.27%) IT Engineer
10 48 (4.02%) Field Engineer
11 43 (3.60%) Data Centre Manager
11 43 (3.60%) Field Service Engineer
11 43 (3.60%) Senior Network Engineer
12 42 (3.51%) Infrastructure Manager
13 41 (3.43%) Technical Architect
14 39 (3.26%) Solutions Architect
15 35 (2.93%) Consultant
16 32 (2.68%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
16 32 (2.68%) Support Engineer
17 29 (2.43%) Infrastructure Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (4.10%) Middleware
2 29 (2.43%) 802.1X
3 17 (1.42%) REST
4 10 (0.84%) Redfish
5 9 (0.75%) Elastic Stack
5 9 (0.75%) JSON
5 9 (0.75%) YAML
6 8 (0.67%) LDAP
6 8 (0.67%) NETCONF
7 7 (0.59%) OpenConfig
7 7 (0.59%) YANG
8 6 (0.50%) RESTCONF
8 6 (0.50%) SAML
9 5 (0.42%) .NET
9 5 (0.42%) Jinja
10 4 (0.33%) GeoJSON
10 4 (0.33%) Kafka
10 4 (0.33%) RESTful
11 3 (0.25%) .NET Framework
11 3 (0.25%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 74 (6.19%) Hybrid Cloud
2 52 (4.35%) Analytical Mindset
3 50 (4.18%) PKI
4 44 (3.68%) Clustering
5 35 (2.93%) Management Information System
6 34 (2.85%) Cloud Native
6 34 (2.85%) Private Cloud
7 32 (2.68%) Enterprise Storage
8 27 (2.26%) Data Protection Act
8 27 (2.26%) Fibre Optics
8 27 (2.26%) Onboarding
8 27 (2.26%) Public Cloud
9 25 (2.09%) Replication
10 17 (1.42%) CMDB
10 17 (1.42%) Driving Licence
10 17 (1.42%) Operational Technology
11 15 (1.26%) SCADA
11 15 (1.26%) Self-Motivation
12 14 (1.17%) Distributed Systems
13 13 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 178 (14.90%) Windows
2 129 (10.79%) Linux
3 49 (4.10%) Windows Server
4 35 (2.93%) Unix
5 21 (1.76%) AIX
5 21 (1.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (0.92%) Solaris
7 10 (0.84%) Apple iOS
7 10 (0.84%) Mac OS
8 7 (0.59%) VMS
9 6 (0.50%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
10 5 (0.42%) HPUX
10 5 (0.42%) Oracle Linux
10 5 (0.42%) SUSE
11 4 (0.33%) CentOS
11 4 (0.33%) Data ONTAP
11 4 (0.33%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 243 (20.33%) Migration
2 202 (16.90%) Problem-Solving
3 149 (12.47%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 138 (11.55%) Stakeholder Management
5 114 (9.54%) ITIL
6 113 (9.46%) High Availability
7 112 (9.37%) Infrastructure as Code
8 100 (8.37%) Agile
9 96 (8.03%) CI/CD
9 96 (8.03%) Roadmaps
10 88 (7.36%) Project Delivery
11 85 (7.11%) Validation
12 84 (7.03%) Continuous Improvement
13 80 (6.69%) Change Management
14 79 (6.61%) Load Balancing
15 72 (6.03%) Technical Leadership
16 71 (5.94%) Zero Trust
17 70 (5.86%) DevOps
18 68 (5.69%) Project Management
19 67 (5.61%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 157 (13.14%) Python
2 57 (4.77%) PowerShell
3 41 (3.43%) SQL
4 30 (2.51%) Bash
5 10 (0.84%) ActionScript
5 10 (0.84%) Bicep
5 10 (0.84%) Java
5 10 (0.84%) Perl
6 9 (0.75%) Shell Script
7 8 (0.67%) PL/SQL
8 6 (0.50%) COBOL
9 5 (0.42%) C#
9 5 (0.42%) JavaScript
10 4 (0.33%) MATLAB
11 3 (0.25%) JCL
11 3 (0.25%) Korn
11 3 (0.25%) Lisp
11 3 (0.25%) TypeScript
12 2 (0.17%) Go
12 2 (0.17%) REXX
Qualifications
1 305 (25.52%) Security Cleared
2 202 (16.90%) Cisco Certification
3 197 (16.49%) SC Cleared
4 109 (9.12%) CCNP
5 102 (8.54%) DV Cleared
6 80 (6.69%) CCNA
7 64 (5.36%) Degree
8 56 (4.69%) Network+ Certification
9 48 (4.02%) Microsoft Certification
10 42 (3.51%) MCSE
11 41 (3.43%) A+ Certification
12 30 (2.51%) CCIE
13 28 (2.34%) Azure Certification
14 27 (2.26%) AWS Certification
15 26 (2.18%) City & Guilds
16 23 (1.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 21 (1.76%) CISSP
17 21 (1.76%) PMI Certification
17 21 (1.76%) PMP
18 20 (1.67%) BICSI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (3.10%) QA
2 29 (2.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 29 (2.43%) SLA
3 23 (1.92%) NIST
4 18 (1.51%) PMO
5 15 (1.26%) GDPR
6 13 (1.09%) NCSC
7 9 (0.75%) JSP 440
8 7 (0.59%) Disclosure Scotland
9 6 (0.50%) GRC
9 6 (0.50%) RMADS
10 4 (0.33%) NIST 800
11 3 (0.25%) Data Quality
11 3 (0.25%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.17%) Accessibility
12 2 (0.17%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.17%) WCAG
13 1 (0.084%) SOC 1
System Software
1 129 (10.79%) VMware Infrastructure
2 79 (6.61%) Active Directory
3 47 (3.93%) vSphere
4 43 (3.60%) VMware NSX
5 37 (3.10%) VMware ESXi
6 34 (2.85%) Hyper-V
7 31 (2.59%) Firmware
8 30 (2.51%) Docker
9 14 (1.17%) Virtual Machines
10 11 (0.92%) NFS
11 7 (0.59%) PowerHA
12 6 (0.50%) Microsoft App-V
12 6 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
13 5 (0.42%) Virtual Servers
14 4 (0.33%) BitLocker
14 4 (0.33%) SRDF
14 4 (0.33%) Terminal Services
14 4 (0.33%) VMware Workstation
15 3 (0.25%) EMC RecoverPoint
15 3 (0.25%) Veritas Cluster Server
Systems Management
1 141 (11.80%) Ansible
2 109 (9.12%) Terraform
3 60 (5.02%) Kubernetes
4 48 (4.02%) FortiGate
5 26 (2.18%) Grafana
5 26 (2.18%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (2.18%) Prometheus
6 16 (1.34%) vCenter Server
6 16 (1.34%) VxRail
7 12 (1.00%) Microsoft Clustering
7 12 (1.00%) NetBackup
8 11 (0.92%) Dell DRAC
8 11 (0.92%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 10 (0.84%) Jamf Pro
9 10 (0.84%) SCCM
9 10 (0.84%) vMotion
10 8 (0.67%) PowerCLI
11 7 (0.59%) Check_MK
11 7 (0.59%) EMC NetWorker
12 6 (0.50%) SCOM
Vendors
1 277 (23.18%) Cisco
2 184 (15.40%) VMware
3 129 (10.79%) Microsoft
4 121 (10.13%) Palo Alto
5 115 (9.62%) F5
6 82 (6.86%) Juniper
7 76 (6.36%) Dell
8 69 (5.77%) Fortinet
9 68 (5.69%) Arista
10 57 (4.77%) ServiceNow
11 37 (3.10%) SolarWinds
12 36 (3.01%) Google
13 35 (2.93%) Aruba
14 34 (2.85%) IBM
15 33 (2.76%) CheckPoint
16 31 (2.59%) Red Hat
17 29 (2.43%) Splunk
18 25 (2.09%) Oracle
19 21 (1.76%) Veeam
19 21 (1.76%) Zscaler