SAN Contract Job Trends

Storage Area Network (SAN)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring SAN skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 404 351 297
Rank change year-on-year -53 -54 +63
Contract jobs citing SAN 159 217 392
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.58% 0.82%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.23% 4.77% 6.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 114 133 257
10th Percentile £329 £268 £212
25th Percentile £428 £350 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £548 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year +9.50% +11.11% -2.23%
75th Percentile £584 £588 £575
90th Percentile £638 £609 £728
UK excluding London median daily rate £545 £500 £425
% change year-on-year +9.00% +17.65% +1.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 20 6
10th Percentile £28.40 £11.75 £22.75
25th Percentile £29.00 £12.00 £25.81
Median hourly rate £34.00 £23.80 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +42.86% -40.50% +60.00%
75th Percentile £41.45 £48.75 £69.75
90th Percentile £65.91 £50.38 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.45 £30.00 £59.00
% change year-on-year +38.17% -49.15% +22.92%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

SAN falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 3,763 4,545 6,470
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.33% 12.07% 13.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,404 2,616 4,055
10th Percentile £213 £225 £225
25th Percentile £356 £369 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £677 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £480 £465
% change year-on-year -6.25% +3.23% +3.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 186 180 323
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.15 £17.22
25th Percentile £20.00 £24.80 £22.75
Median hourly rate £34.00 £48.56 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -29.98% -14.04% +37.73%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.50 £53.75 £57.42
% change year-on-year -22.79% -6.38% +27.59%

SAN
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SAN relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

SAN job vacancy trend in the UK

SAN
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SAN.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SAN

SAN
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SAN over the 6 months to 15 October 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SAN in the UK

SAN
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SAN.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SAN

SAN
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SAN over the 6 months to 15 October 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for SAN in the UK

SAN
Top 14 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SAN within the UK over the 6 months to 15 October 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 -21 150 £550 +10.00% 153
UK excluding London -9 123 £545 +9.00% 147
South East +43 57 £500 -14.16% 63
Work from Home +7 31 £400 -16.14% 186
East of England +15 30 £550 +41.94% 25
London -38 26 £615 +53.75% 61
North of England -32 21 £545 +1.40% 20
North West -19 15 £548 +4.78% 12
Midlands -22 7 £437 +45.91% 14
Yorkshire -23 6 £447 -19.82% 6
Northern Ireland -2 5 £350 +125.81%
East Midlands -2 4 £127 -74.01% 8
South West -6 3 £475 -12.04% 15
West Midlands -24 3 £525 +75.88% 6

SAN
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 15 (9.43%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (6.92%) Exchange Server 2010
2 11 (6.92%) Exchange Server 2013
2 11 (6.92%) SharePoint
3 10 (6.29%) Exchange Server 2003
3 10 (6.29%) Exchange Server 2007
3 10 (6.29%) Office Communications Server
3 10 (6.29%) SharePoint Server
3 10 (6.29%) Skype for Business
4 5 (3.14%) WebSphere
5 4 (2.52%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.63%) CICS
6 1 (0.63%) Confluence
6 1 (0.63%) OpenEdge
6 1 (0.63%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.63%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 12 (7.55%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.63%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.63%) StreamServe
Cloud Services
1 38 (23.90%) Azure
2 20 (12.58%) Cohesity
3 14 (8.81%) AWS
4 10 (6.29%) Microsoft 365
4 10 (6.29%) SaaS
5 9 (5.66%) GCP
6 8 (5.03%) IaaS
7 7 (4.40%) PaaS
8 6 (3.77%) Entra ID
9 4 (2.52%) Azure Storage
9 4 (2.52%) Cloud Computing
10 3 (1.89%) GitHub
10 3 (1.89%) OpenShift
11 1 (0.63%) Amazon EC2
11 1 (0.63%) AWS CloudFormation
11 1 (0.63%) Google Ads
11 1 (0.63%) Microsoft Purview
11 1 (0.63%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 61 (38.36%) DNS
2 35 (22.01%) NAS
3 30 (18.87%) Firewall
4 24 (15.09%) DHCP
4 24 (15.09%) TCP/IP
5 21 (13.21%) VPN
6 15 (9.43%) WAN
7 13 (8.18%) iSCSI
8 12 (7.55%) LAN
8 12 (7.55%) VLAN
9 10 (6.29%) DDNS
9 10 (6.29%) Fibre Channel
9 10 (6.29%) Wi-Fi
10 6 (3.77%) VSAN
11 5 (3.14%) BGP
11 5 (3.14%) Ethernet VPN
11 5 (3.14%) OSPF
12 4 (2.52%) IPv6
12 4 (2.52%) MPLS
12 4 (2.52%) Spanning Tree
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.52%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.63%) NoSQL
2 1 (0.63%) Oracle Database
2 1 (0.63%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 9 (5.66%) GitLab
2 6 (3.77%) JIRA
3 5 (3.14%) Git
3 5 (3.14%) Jenkins
4 4 (2.52%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.63%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 1 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 40 (25.16%) Social Skills
2 14 (8.81%) Analytical Skills
2 14 (8.81%) Finance
3 12 (7.55%) Public Sector
4 8 (5.03%) Banking
5 7 (4.40%) Local Government
5 7 (4.40%) Telecoms
6 4 (2.52%) Front Office
6 4 (2.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 2 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (0.63%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.63%) Investment Banking
8 1 (0.63%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.63%) Retail
Job Titles
1 21 (13.21%) Architect
2 20 (12.58%) Administrator
3 19 (11.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 13 (8.18%) Support Engineer
5 12 (7.55%) Senior
6 10 (6.29%) Exchange Engineer
6 10 (6.29%) Exchange Support
6 10 (6.29%) Infrastructure Architect
6 10 (6.29%) Network Engineer
7 9 (5.66%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 9 (5.66%) Backup Administrator
7 9 (5.66%) Consultant
7 9 (5.66%) Storage Administrator
7 9 (5.66%) Storage and Backup Administrator
7 9 (5.66%) Storage Engineer
8 8 (5.03%) Server Engineer
8 8 (5.03%) Systems Administrator
9 7 (4.40%) Analyst
9 7 (4.40%) Technical Architect
10 6 (3.77%) 3rd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (8.81%) Middleware
2 2 (1.26%) YAML
3 1 (0.63%) .NET
3 1 (0.63%) EDI
3 1 (0.63%) LDAP
3 1 (0.63%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 34 (21.38%) Data Centre
2 29 (18.24%) Replication
3 22 (13.84%) Enterprise Storage
4 7 (4.40%) Clustering
5 6 (3.77%) Hybrid Cloud
5 6 (3.77%) Legacy Applications
5 6 (3.77%) Linux Command Line
5 6 (3.77%) Management Information System
5 6 (3.77%) Private Cloud
6 5 (3.14%) HP Storage
6 5 (3.14%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (2.52%) Distributed Systems
7 4 (2.52%) Onboarding
8 3 (1.89%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (1.89%) CCTV
8 3 (1.89%) CMDB
9 2 (1.26%) Public Cloud
9 2 (1.26%) Smartphone
10 1 (0.63%) Driving Licence
10 1 (0.63%) EMC VNX
Operating Systems
1 83 (52.20%) Windows
2 58 (36.48%) Linux
3 46 (28.93%) Windows Server
4 30 (18.87%) Windows Server 2016
5 28 (17.61%) Windows Server 2019
6 17 (10.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (9.43%) Unix
8 14 (8.81%) Windows Server 2003
9 11 (6.92%) Ubuntu
10 9 (5.66%) CentOS
11 5 (3.14%) Debian
12 4 (2.52%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (1.89%) VMS
14 2 (1.26%) AIX
14 2 (1.26%) Solaris
15 1 (0.63%) Data ONTAP
15 1 (0.63%) MVS
15 1 (0.63%) Windows 10
15 1 (0.63%) Windows XP
15 1 (0.63%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (26.42%) ITIL
2 26 (16.35%) Disaster Recovery
3 24 (15.09%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 22 (13.84%) SIEM
5 20 (12.58%) Build Automation
5 20 (12.58%) Deployment Automation
5 20 (12.58%) High Availability
5 20 (12.58%) Operations Management
6 18 (11.32%) Problem-Solving
7 16 (10.06%) Capacity Planning
8 14 (8.81%) Agile
9 13 (8.18%) Customer Service
10 12 (7.55%) Performance Optimisation
11 11 (6.92%) Architectural Design
11 11 (6.92%) Migration
12 10 (6.29%) Containerisation
12 10 (6.29%) Content Management
12 10 (6.29%) Enterprise Search
12 10 (6.29%) Project Delivery
12 10 (6.29%) Storage Management
Programming Languages
1 38 (23.90%) PowerShell
2 20 (12.58%) Python
3 15 (9.43%) Shell Script
4 10 (6.29%) SQL
5 6 (3.77%) Bash
6 5 (3.14%) Java
7 1 (0.63%) Bicep
7 1 (0.63%) C++
Qualifications
1 72 (45.28%) Security Cleared
2 36 (22.64%) SC Cleared
3 35 (22.01%) DV Cleared
4 12 (7.55%) Cisco Certification
5 11 (6.92%) Degree
6 8 (5.03%) Azure Certification
6 8 (5.03%) CCNA
7 7 (4.40%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (4.40%) Microsoft Certification
8 6 (3.77%) CCNP
9 4 (2.52%) AWS Certification
9 4 (2.52%) MCSE
9 4 (2.52%) Server+ Certification
10 3 (1.89%) A+ Certification
10 3 (1.89%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (1.89%) ISEB
10 3 (1.89%) ISTQB
10 3 (1.89%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 3 (1.89%) Network+ Certification
11 2 (1.26%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (3.14%) PCI DSS
2 4 (2.52%) GDPR
2 4 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (1.89%) SLA
4 1 (0.63%) Government Security Classifications
4 1 (0.63%) NCSC
4 1 (0.63%) QA
System Software
1 65 (40.88%) Active Directory
2 51 (32.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 22 (13.84%) Hyper-V
3 22 (13.84%) Virtual Servers
4 20 (12.58%) Microsoft Virtual Server
5 10 (6.29%) Brightmail
5 10 (6.29%) ISA Server
6 8 (5.03%) vSphere
7 4 (2.52%) Ceph
7 4 (2.52%) Firmware
7 4 (2.52%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (2.52%) VMware NSX
8 3 (1.89%) DFS Replication
8 3 (1.89%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (1.26%) NFS
10 1 (0.63%) Samba
10 1 (0.63%) SRDF
10 1 (0.63%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.63%) Veritas Cluster Server
10 1 (0.63%) Xen
Systems Management
1 35 (22.01%) Ansible
2 23 (14.47%) SCCM
3 20 (12.58%) WSUS
4 17 (10.69%) NetBackup
5 10 (6.29%) Microsoft Clustering
5 10 (6.29%) vCenter Server
6 6 (3.77%) EMC NetWorker
6 6 (3.77%) EMC VPLEX
6 6 (3.77%) FortiGate
7 4 (2.52%) Terraform
8 3 (1.89%) Microsoft Intune
8 3 (1.89%) vRealize
9 2 (1.26%) Argo
9 2 (1.26%) Backup Exec
9 2 (1.26%) Kubernetes
10 1 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 1 (0.63%) Cisco CUCM
10 1 (0.63%) Puppet
10 1 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.63%) yum
Vendors
1 84 (52.83%) VMware
2 64 (40.25%) Microsoft
3 43 (27.04%) NetApp
4 40 (25.16%) Cisco
5 37 (23.27%) Dell
6 24 (15.09%) Red Hat
7 21 (13.21%) HP
8 20 (12.58%) Splunk
9 17 (10.69%) Veritas
10 15 (9.43%) Isilon
11 14 (8.81%) EMC
12 11 (6.92%) Veeam
13 10 (6.29%) 3PAR
13 10 (6.29%) F5
14 9 (5.66%) Brocade
14 9 (5.66%) Nimble Storage
14 9 (5.66%) Oracle
15 6 (3.77%) Citrix
15 6 (3.77%) IBM
15 6 (3.77%) Palo Alto