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

6 months to
3 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 114 122 102
Rank change year-on-year +8 -20 -13
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 1,211 752 857
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.28% 2.27% 2.20%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 6.82% 6.52% 7.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 711 477 579
10th Percentile £325 £300 £350
25th Percentile £413 £399 £459
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £506 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.19% -5.86% -0.34%
75th Percentile £638 £600 £625
90th Percentile £750 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £477 £538
% change year-on-year +3.25% -11.43% +7.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 31 39
10th Percentile £16.01 £20.25 £11.91
25th Percentile £17.50 £24.66 £12.08
Median hourly rate £23.00 £25.15 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.55% +25.75% -
75th Percentile £42.73 £33.00 £25.83
90th Percentile £79.85 £43.75 £28.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.34 £24.66 £16.50
% change year-on-year -21.57% +49.45% -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 17,766 11,525 11,925
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.43% 34.81% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,811 7,109 7,681
10th Percentile £320 £302 £300
25th Percentile £420 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £640 £675
90th Percentile £750 £775 £820
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 969 552 619
10th Percentile £15.72 £15.13 £12.30
25th Percentile £19.64 £18.87 £18.12
Median hourly rate £43.96 £29.50 £44.74
Median % change year-on-year +49.02% -34.06% +19.31%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £65.88
90th Percentile £85.00 £76.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +46.53% -33.33% +1.12%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 +10 1,020 £519 -1.14% 752
UK excluding London -14 664 £492 +3.25% 383
London +18 395 £550 +2.80% 412
Work from Home +2 302 £519 +2.77% 217
North of England 0 228 £486 +11.14% 117
South East -2 210 £520 +10.64% 126
Yorkshire -5 131 £365 -9.88% 27
North West -12 82 £525 - 39
South West -26 63 £498 -9.55% 39
Midlands -51 60 £456 -13.24% 30
West Midlands -55 55 £465 -7.00% 18
Scotland -9 43 £425 -5.56% 12
Wales +5 40 £468 +24.67% 10
East of England -11 31 £491 -5.53% 50
North East -19 21 £625 +468.18% 51
East Midlands -25 4 £363 -33.49% 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 31 (2.56%) Confluence
2 15 (1.24%) SharePoint
3 9 (0.74%) Microsoft Exchange
4 8 (0.66%) CICS
5 6 (0.50%) OpenStack
6 5 (0.41%) Apache
6 5 (0.41%) CloudStack
7 4 (0.33%) WebLogic
8 3 (0.25%) nginx
8 3 (0.25%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.083%) IIS
9 1 (0.083%) Mendix
9 1 (0.083%) SAS
Applications
1 20 (1.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (1.40%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.83%) MS Visio
5 8 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.41%) AutoCAD
7 3 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.17%) EPLAN
9 1 (0.083%) Adobe Illustrator
Business Applications
1 9 (0.74%) 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 (0.083%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 262 (21.64%) Azure
2 229 (18.91%) AWS
3 71 (5.86%) GCP
4 43 (3.55%) GitHub
5 39 (3.22%) IaaS
6 35 (2.89%) Microsoft 365
7 34 (2.81%) SaaS
8 29 (2.39%) OCI
9 25 (2.06%) Entra ID
10 17 (1.40%) OpenShift
10 17 (1.40%) PaaS
11 16 (1.32%) Power Platform
12 15 (1.24%) Azure DevOps
12 15 (1.24%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 12 (0.99%) OneDrive
14 11 (0.91%) Azure ExpressRoute
15 10 (0.83%) Azure Sentinel
16 9 (0.74%) Nutanix
17 8 (0.66%) GitHub Actions
18 6 (0.50%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 330 (27.25%) Firewall
2 193 (15.94%) WAN
3 184 (15.19%) BGP
4 139 (11.48%) OSPF
5 134 (11.07%) DNS
6 132 (10.90%) VPN
7 125 (10.32%) VXLAN
8 119 (9.83%) SAN
9 116 (9.58%) LAN
10 106 (8.75%) Network Security
11 103 (8.51%) VLAN
12 101 (8.34%) DHCP
13 86 (7.10%) Structured Cabling
14 85 (7.02%) Ethernet VPN
14 85 (7.02%) SD-WAN
15 78 (6.44%) TCP/IP
16 60 (4.95%) BIG-IP
17 58 (4.79%) Wireless
18 54 (4.46%) Wi-Fi
19 50 (4.13%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (2.23%) SQL Server
2 12 (0.99%) Power BI
3 7 (0.58%) Big Data
3 7 (0.58%) DataStage
3 7 (0.58%) Oracle Database
3 7 (0.58%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (0.58%) SQL Server Analysis Services
3 7 (0.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 7 (0.58%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 6 (0.50%) Db2
5 4 (0.33%) Amazon RDS
5 4 (0.33%) Elasticsearch
5 4 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
5 4 (0.33%) MongoDB
5 4 (0.33%) Oracle Database 12c
5 4 (0.33%) Oracle Reports
5 4 (0.33%) SAP Data Services
6 3 (0.25%) GIS
7 2 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
7 2 (0.17%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 78 (6.44%) JIRA
2 30 (2.48%) Jenkins
3 29 (2.39%) GitLab
4 26 (2.15%) Git
5 7 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
6 6 (0.50%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 5 (0.41%) JMeter
8 4 (0.33%) Eclipse
8 4 (0.33%) Maven
8 4 (0.33%) Subversion
9 3 (0.25%) ScriptRunner
9 3 (0.25%) Zephyr
10 2 (0.17%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.17%) MSI
10 2 (0.17%) Toad
11 1 (0.083%) Claude Code
11 1 (0.083%) LoadRunner
11 1 (0.083%) Postman
General
1 298 (24.61%) Social Skills
2 160 (13.21%) Finance
3 122 (10.07%) Analytical Skills
4 72 (5.95%) Public Sector
5 51 (4.21%) Banking
6 48 (3.96%) Telecoms
7 45 (3.72%) Documentation Skills
8 29 (2.39%) Retail
9 26 (2.15%) Legal
10 24 (1.98%) Influencing Skills
11 17 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 14 (1.16%) Manufacturing
13 12 (0.99%) Organisational Skills
14 9 (0.74%) Law
15 8 (0.66%) Police
16 7 (0.58%) Financial Institution
16 7 (0.58%) Military
17 6 (0.50%) Investment Banking
18 5 (0.41%) Marketing
19 3 (0.25%) Billing
Job Titles
1 196 (16.18%) Architect
2 188 (15.52%) Network Engineer
3 150 (12.39%) Senior
4 118 (9.74%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 109 (9.00%) Data Centre Engineer
6 80 (6.61%) Project Manager
7 62 (5.12%) Network Architect
8 59 (4.87%) Lead
9 52 (4.29%) IT Engineer
10 47 (3.88%) Field Engineer
11 44 (3.63%) Field Service Engineer
11 44 (3.63%) Infrastructure Manager
12 43 (3.55%) Technical Architect
13 42 (3.47%) Data Centre Manager
14 38 (3.14%) Solutions Architect
15 37 (3.06%) Senior Network Engineer
16 35 (2.89%) Support Engineer
17 32 (2.64%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
18 31 (2.56%) Consultant
19 30 (2.48%) Infrastructure Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (4.21%) Middleware
2 32 (2.64%) 802.1X
3 12 (0.99%) REST
4 10 (0.83%) Redfish
5 8 (0.66%) Elastic Stack
5 8 (0.66%) LDAP
6 7 (0.58%) NETCONF
6 7 (0.58%) Spring
7 6 (0.50%) OpenConfig
7 6 (0.50%) RESTCONF
7 6 (0.50%) SAML
7 6 (0.50%) YANG
8 5 (0.41%) .NET
8 5 (0.41%) Jinja
8 5 (0.41%) XML
9 4 (0.33%) GeoJSON
9 4 (0.33%) RESTful
9 4 (0.33%) Spring Boot
9 4 (0.33%) YAML
10 3 (0.25%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 74 (6.11%) Hybrid Cloud
2 52 (4.29%) Analytical Mindset
3 49 (4.05%) PKI
4 43 (3.55%) Clustering
5 36 (2.97%) Management Information System
6 35 (2.89%) Cloud Native
7 32 (2.64%) Enterprise Storage
8 28 (2.31%) Fibre Optics
8 28 (2.31%) Private Cloud
9 27 (2.23%) Onboarding
10 24 (1.98%) Replication
11 22 (1.82%) Data Protection Act
11 22 (1.82%) Public Cloud
12 18 (1.49%) Driving Licence
13 16 (1.32%) CMDB
14 15 (1.24%) Operational Technology
14 15 (1.24%) Self-Motivation
15 14 (1.16%) Distributed Systems
15 14 (1.16%) Mainframe
15 14 (1.16%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 169 (13.96%) Windows
2 134 (11.07%) Linux
3 47 (3.88%) Windows Server
4 37 (3.06%) Unix
5 27 (2.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 24 (1.98%) AIX
7 15 (1.24%) Solaris
8 10 (0.83%) Apple iOS
8 10 (0.83%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.50%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.41%) HPUX
10 5 (0.41%) Oracle Linux
10 5 (0.41%) SUSE
10 5 (0.41%) VMS
10 5 (0.41%) Windows Server 2008
10 5 (0.41%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.33%) CentOS
11 4 (0.33%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.17%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.17%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 249 (20.56%) Migration
2 206 (17.01%) Problem-Solving
3 147 (12.14%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 134 (11.07%) Stakeholder Management
5 116 (9.58%) High Availability
6 112 (9.25%) ITIL
7 109 (9.00%) Infrastructure as Code
8 104 (8.59%) CI/CD
9 99 (8.18%) Agile
10 93 (7.68%) Roadmaps
11 90 (7.43%) Continuous Improvement
12 86 (7.10%) Change Management
13 85 (7.02%) Load Balancing
13 85 (7.02%) Project Delivery
14 81 (6.69%) Validation
15 75 (6.19%) DevOps
16 74 (6.11%) Zero Trust
17 70 (5.78%) Project Management
17 70 (5.78%) Technical Leadership
18 68 (5.62%) Network Design
Programming Languages
1 161 (13.29%) Python
2 55 (4.54%) PowerShell
3 44 (3.63%) SQL
4 31 (2.56%) Bash
5 19 (1.57%) Java
6 14 (1.16%) Perl
7 13 (1.07%) Bicep
8 12 (0.99%) Shell Script
9 10 (0.83%) ActionScript
10 9 (0.74%) COBOL
10 9 (0.74%) PL/SQL
11 6 (0.50%) JavaScript
12 5 (0.41%) C#
13 4 (0.33%) MATLAB
14 3 (0.25%) JCL
14 3 (0.25%) Korn
14 3 (0.25%) Lisp
14 3 (0.25%) TypeScript
15 2 (0.17%) REXX
15 2 (0.17%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 323 (26.67%) Security Cleared
2 211 (17.42%) Cisco Certification
2 211 (17.42%) SC Cleared
3 120 (9.91%) CCNP
4 107 (8.84%) DV Cleared
5 88 (7.27%) CCNA
6 65 (5.37%) Degree
7 59 (4.87%) Network+ Certification
8 49 (4.05%) Microsoft Certification
9 42 (3.47%) A+ Certification
9 42 (3.47%) MCSE
10 28 (2.31%) Azure Certification
11 27 (2.23%) AWS Certification
11 27 (2.23%) CCIE
12 26 (2.15%) City & Guilds
13 23 (1.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 22 (1.82%) PMI Certification
14 22 (1.82%) PMP
15 20 (1.65%) BICSI Certification
15 20 (1.65%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (2.81%) QA
2 32 (2.64%) SLA
3 28 (2.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 23 (1.90%) NIST
5 19 (1.57%) PMO
6 16 (1.32%) NCSC
7 15 (1.24%) GDPR
8 9 (0.74%) Disclosure Scotland
9 8 (0.66%) JSP 440
10 6 (0.50%) GRC
10 6 (0.50%) RMADS
11 5 (0.41%) PCI DSS
12 3 (0.25%) NIST 800
13 2 (0.17%) Accessibility
13 2 (0.17%) Actionable Recommendations
13 2 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials
13 2 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
13 2 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 2 (0.17%) WCAG
14 1 (0.083%) SEPA
System Software
1 120 (9.91%) VMware Infrastructure
2 75 (6.19%) Active Directory
3 43 (3.55%) vSphere
4 41 (3.39%) VMware NSX
5 36 (2.97%) Hyper-V
5 36 (2.97%) VMware ESXi
6 31 (2.56%) Firmware
7 27 (2.23%) Docker
8 18 (1.49%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.91%) NFS
10 7 (0.58%) PowerHA
11 6 (0.50%) Microsoft App-V
11 6 (0.50%) SRDF
12 5 (0.41%) KVM
12 5 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
13 4 (0.33%) BitLocker
13 4 (0.33%) Terminal Services
13 4 (0.33%) Virtual Servers
13 4 (0.33%) VMware Workstation
14 3 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 137 (11.31%) Ansible
2 111 (9.17%) Terraform
3 58 (4.79%) Kubernetes
4 50 (4.13%) FortiGate
5 27 (2.23%) Grafana
6 26 (2.15%) Microsoft Intune
7 25 (2.06%) Prometheus
8 17 (1.40%) vCenter Server
9 14 (1.16%) VxRail
10 13 (1.07%) NetBackup
11 11 (0.91%) Dell DRAC
11 11 (0.91%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 10 (0.83%) Jamf Pro
13 9 (0.74%) Microsoft Clustering
13 9 (0.74%) PowerCLI
13 9 (0.74%) vMotion
14 8 (0.66%) SCCM
15 7 (0.58%) Check_MK
15 7 (0.58%) EMC NetWorker
16 6 (0.50%) Nagios
Vendors
1 285 (23.53%) Cisco
2 173 (14.29%) VMware
3 131 (10.82%) Palo Alto
4 123 (10.16%) F5
5 122 (10.07%) Microsoft
6 87 (7.18%) Juniper
7 77 (6.36%) Dell
8 74 (6.11%) Fortinet
9 71 (5.86%) Arista
10 55 (4.54%) ServiceNow
11 41 (3.39%) Google
11 41 (3.39%) IBM
12 40 (3.30%) SolarWinds
13 37 (3.06%) Aruba
14 35 (2.89%) CheckPoint
15 34 (2.81%) Red Hat
16 32 (2.64%) Splunk
17 28 (2.31%) Oracle
18 23 (1.90%) HP
19 22 (1.82%) Extreme Networks