Data Centre Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Data Center
England > West Midlands

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Data Centre in contract job vacancies in the West Midlands. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Data Centre over the 6 months leading up to 29 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 72 73 68
Rank change year-on-year +1 -5 +5
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 69 37 48
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 3.02% 2.24% 2.64%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 8.59% 7.66% 7.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 40 29 33
10th Percentile £350 £410 £430
25th Percentile £380 £513 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £580 £600
Median % change year-on-year -18.62% -3.33% +26.32%
75th Percentile £602 £625 £725
90th Percentile £638 £651 £750
England median daily rate £500 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.41% -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 5
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £60.00 - -
Median hourly rate £65.00 £60.00 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% +160.87% -
75th Percentile £69.99 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £25.15 £24.18 £23.00
% change year-on-year +4.01% +5.13% -64.62%

All Generic Skills
West Midlands

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 in the West Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 803 483 652
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 35.10% 29.20% 35.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 482 294 406
10th Percentile £250 £202 £275
25th Percentile £380 £396 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year -11.36% +10.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £588 £626 £625
90th Percentile £652 £709 £700
England median daily rate £514 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -6.55% - -3.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 21 38
10th Percentile £18.00 £15.22 £16.95
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.30 £17.79
Median hourly rate £19.00 £24.18 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.42% +5.13% +29.80%
75th Percentile £27.21 £33.54 £67.50
90th Percentile £50.00 £55.25 £67.88
England median hourly rate £28.13 £37.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -23.99% -12.94% +28.79%

Data Centre
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Data Centre relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

Data Centre job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

Data Centre
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Data Centre.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Data Centre

Data Centre
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Centre in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 29 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Data Centre in the West Midlands

Data Centre
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Data Centre.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Data Centre

Data Centre
Contract Job Locations in the West Midlands

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 West Midlands region over the 6 months to 29 December 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
Warwickshire +3 33 £390 -35.75% 3
Birmingham +5 24 £472 -18.62% 7
Coventry -8 7 £500 +25.00% 9
Wolverhampton +4 1 - - 7
Herefordshire - 1 £625 -
Data Centre
England

Data Centre
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands 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 7 (10.14%) SharePoint
2 4 (5.80%) HCL Notes
3 3 (4.35%) Apache
3 3 (4.35%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (4.35%) Apache Spark
4 2 (2.90%) FileNet
Applications
1 7 (10.14%) MS Visio
2 4 (5.80%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (1.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (1.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (1.45%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 14 (20.29%) Azure
2 6 (8.70%) AWS
3 5 (7.25%) GCP
4 4 (5.80%) Azure ExpressRoute
4 4 (5.80%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 3 (4.35%) Power Platform
6 2 (2.90%) AWS Direct Connect
6 2 (2.90%) PaaS
7 1 (1.45%) Azure Stack
7 1 (1.45%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 27 (39.13%) Firewall
2 21 (30.43%) Wireless
3 19 (27.54%) DNS
4 17 (24.64%) VPN
5 15 (21.74%) WAN
6 13 (18.84%) BGP
7 12 (17.39%) DHCP
7 12 (17.39%) VXLAN
8 10 (14.49%) Cisco ISE
8 10 (14.49%) NX-OS
9 8 (11.59%) Cisco IPT
9 8 (11.59%) Cisco Wireless
9 8 (11.59%) DMVPN
9 8 (11.59%) IPsec
9 8 (11.59%) LAN
9 8 (11.59%) SSL
10 7 (10.14%) MPLS
10 7 (10.14%) Network Security
10 7 (10.14%) SD-WAN
11 6 (8.70%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (4.35%) Apache Hive
1 3 (4.35%) Hadoop
1 3 (4.35%) HBase
2 1 (1.45%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 1 (1.45%) JIRA
1 1 (1.45%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 19 (27.54%) Social Skills
2 14 (20.29%) Analytical Skills
2 14 (20.29%) Finance
3 11 (15.94%) Banking
4 10 (14.49%) Telecoms
5 9 (13.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 7 (10.14%) Investment Banking
7 4 (5.80%) Law
7 4 (5.80%) Presentation Skills
7 4 (5.80%) Public Sector
8 3 (4.35%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (2.90%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (1.45%) Aerospace
10 1 (1.45%) Automotive
10 1 (1.45%) Billing
10 1 (1.45%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 14 (20.29%) Network Engineer
2 11 (15.94%) Analyst
3 10 (14.49%) Architect
3 10 (14.49%) Project Manager
4 9 (13.04%) Network Architect
5 7 (10.14%) Cisco Engineer
5 7 (10.14%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 7 (10.14%) Cisco Wireless Engineer
5 7 (10.14%) RF Engineer
5 7 (10.14%) Wireless Engineer
5 7 (10.14%) Wireless Network Engineer
6 6 (8.70%) Security Engineer
7 5 (7.25%) 1st Line Support
7 5 (7.25%) 1st Line Support Analyst
7 5 (7.25%) IT Analyst
7 5 (7.25%) Solutions Architect
8 4 (5.80%) 1st Line Service Desk Analyst
8 4 (5.80%) Junior
8 4 (5.80%) Junior Support Analyst
8 4 (5.80%) Network Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (11.59%) 802.1X
2 3 (4.35%) Spark Streaming
3 2 (2.90%) Middleware
3 2 (2.90%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 7 (10.14%) Self-Motivation
2 3 (4.35%) Cloud Native
2 3 (4.35%) Data Protection Act
2 3 (4.35%) Onboarding
3 2 (2.90%) Mainframe
3 2 (2.90%) SCADA
4 1 (1.45%) Fibre Optics
4 1 (1.45%) Hybrid Cloud
4 1 (1.45%) IoT
4 1 (1.45%) Private Cloud
4 1 (1.45%) Replication
4 1 (1.45%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 5 (7.25%) Linux
2 4 (5.80%) Windows
3 2 (2.90%) Windows Server
4 1 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (18.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
2 12 (17.39%) Problem-Solving
2 12 (17.39%) Stakeholder Management
3 10 (14.49%) Change Management
4 8 (11.59%) Customer Service
4 8 (11.59%) Inventory Management
4 8 (11.59%) Time Management
5 7 (10.14%) Conflict Management
5 7 (10.14%) Load Balancing
5 7 (10.14%) Network Design
5 7 (10.14%) Network Virtualisation
5 7 (10.14%) User Experience
6 6 (8.70%) Configuration Management
6 6 (8.70%) Data Protection
6 6 (8.70%) ITIL
6 6 (8.70%) Migration
6 6 (8.70%) Roadmaps
6 6 (8.70%) Zero Trust
7 5 (7.25%) Proactive Monitoring
7 5 (7.25%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 7 (10.14%) Lisp
1 7 (10.14%) Python
2 3 (4.35%) Shell Script
2 3 (4.35%) SQL
3 2 (2.90%) Java
Qualifications
1 21 (30.43%) Security Cleared
2 20 (28.99%) SC Cleared
3 15 (21.74%) Cisco Certification
4 14 (20.29%) CCNP
5 6 (8.70%) CCIE
6 4 (5.80%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 4 (5.80%) AWS Certification
6 4 (5.80%) CCSP
6 4 (5.80%) CISSP
6 4 (5.80%) Degree
7 3 (4.35%) Azure Certification
7 3 (4.35%) CCIE Security
8 2 (2.90%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (2.90%) JNCIE
8 2 (2.90%) JNCIP
9 1 (1.45%) CCNA
9 1 (1.45%) CWSP
9 1 (1.45%) DV Cleared
9 1 (1.45%) Network+ Certification
9 1 (1.45%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (7.25%) GDPR
1 5 (7.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 5 (7.25%) NIST
1 5 (7.25%) PCI DSS
2 2 (2.90%) PMO
3 1 (1.45%) Data Quality
System Software
1 7 (10.14%) VMware Infrastructure
1 7 (10.14%) VMware NSX
2 3 (4.35%) HDFS
3 1 (1.45%) Active Directory
3 1 (1.45%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 10 (14.49%) FortiGate
2 9 (13.04%) Ansible
3 5 (7.25%) Terraform
4 3 (4.35%) Hadoop YARN
4 3 (4.35%) Puppet
5 1 (1.45%) Dell DRAC
Vendors
1 38 (55.07%) Cisco
2 18 (26.09%) F5
3 15 (21.74%) Juniper
4 12 (17.39%) ServiceNow
5 10 (14.49%) CheckPoint
6 9 (13.04%) Microsoft
6 9 (13.04%) Palo Alto
7 8 (11.59%) Blue Coat
8 7 (10.14%) Ekahau
8 7 (10.14%) Remedy
8 7 (10.14%) VMware
9 6 (8.70%) Fortinet
10 5 (7.25%) Meraki
11 4 (5.80%) Lotus
11 4 (5.80%) Netskope
11 4 (5.80%) SolarWinds
12 3 (4.35%) Broadcom
12 3 (4.35%) IBM
13 2 (2.90%) Adobe
13 2 (2.90%) Oracle