Data Centre Contracts

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 have cited Data Centre over the 6 months to 5 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period over the previous 2 years.

6 months to
5 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 102 91 112
Rank change year-on-year -11 +21 +12
Contract jobs citing Data Centre 955 1,572 2,159
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.21% 2.66% 2.43%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 7.30% 8.00% 7.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 638 1,130 1,553
10th Percentile £300 £350 £310
25th Percentile £405 £450 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £520
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +5.77% +9.47%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £600
90th Percentile £725 £750 £679
UK excluding London median daily rate £535 £500 £475
% change year-on-year +7.00% +5.26% +7.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 21 27
10th Percentile £14.88 £20.00 £15.25
25th Percentile £21.25 £20.22 £20.75
Median hourly rate £24.00 £21.67 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.75% -19.74% -43.16%
75th Percentile £40.00 £25.00 £66.03
90th Percentile £41.25 £70.00 £69.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.00 £21.26 £21.50
% change year-on-year +12.89% -1.12% -30.65%

All Generic Skills
UK

Data Centre is in the General and Transferable Skills category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 13,086 19,646 29,347
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 30.32% 33.26% 33.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,417 13,497 20,479
10th Percentile £263 £309 £313
25th Percentile £413 £450 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.18% - +10.00%
75th Percentile £656 £676 £657
90th Percentile £798 £800 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £475
% change year-on-year - +5.26% +11.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 902 642 722
10th Percentile £12.25 £9.80 £14.25
25th Percentile £15.17 £10.63 £17.00
Median hourly rate £30.14 £22.49 £27.25
Median % change year-on-year +34.04% -17.49% +3.52%
75th Percentile £61.30 £64.44 £50.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £66.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.25 £22.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +28.41% +10.00% -16.67%

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
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Data Centre.

Daily rate trend for Data Centre in the UK

Data Centre
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Centre over the 6 months to 5 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Data Centre in the UK

Data Centre
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Data Centre.

Hourly rate trend for Data Centre in the UK

Data Centre
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Centre over the 6 months to 5 May 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Centre in the UK

Data Centre
Top 16 Contract 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 5 May 2024. 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 -10 813 £525 -4.55% 608
UK excluding London +3 535 £535 +7.00% 347
London -5 338 £525 -12.50% 283
Work from Home -59 235 £550 - 263
South East +18 159 £488 -2.50% 121
South West +13 117 £600 +9.09% 48
North of England -15 95 £433 -17.62% 74
Midlands -13 74 £600 +14.29% 39
West Midlands -3 64 £600 +20.00% 24
Scotland +19 53 £555 +11.00% 29
Yorkshire +10 51 £451 -18.00% 26
North West -25 37 £433 -13.50% 33
Wales +25 22 £91 -78.59% 11
East of England -24 21 £350 -19.54% 44
East Midlands +9 10 £575 +9.52% 15
North East +7 7 £448 -29.80% 15

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 34 (3.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 31 (3.25%) Confluence
3 16 (1.68%) SharePoint
4 15 (1.57%) IIS
5 7 (0.73%) IBM Domino
5 7 (0.73%) OpenStack
6 5 (0.52%) SharePoint 2013
7 4 (0.42%) WebSphere
8 3 (0.31%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
8 3 (0.31%) IBM Notes
9 2 (0.21%) Apache
9 2 (0.21%) CMS
9 2 (0.21%) Exchange Server 2010
9 2 (0.21%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.10%) Apache Airflow
10 1 (0.10%) Cloud Foundry
10 1 (0.10%) GeoServer
10 1 (0.10%) nginx
Applications
1 38 (3.98%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (1.57%) MS Visio
3 9 (0.94%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (0.52%) AutoCAD
4 5 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.42%) Revit
6 2 (0.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 1 (0.10%) Weka
Business Applications
1 12 (1.26%) Elite 3E
2 4 (0.42%) Shopify
3 3 (0.31%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 2 (0.21%) Refinitiv Enterprise Platform
4 2 (0.21%) RMDS
5 1 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.10%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.10%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 169 (17.70%) Azure
2 81 (8.48%) AWS
3 52 (5.45%) SaaS
4 47 (4.92%) Microsoft 365
5 46 (4.82%) IaaS
6 42 (4.40%) PaaS
7 40 (4.19%) Cloud Computing
8 28 (2.93%) Entra ID
9 23 (2.41%) GitHub
10 16 (1.68%) GCP
11 14 (1.47%) OCI
12 12 (1.26%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (1.15%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 11 (1.15%) Power Platform
14 10 (1.05%) Amazon S3
15 9 (0.94%) Azure Sentinel
15 9 (0.94%) Nutanix
16 8 (0.84%) AWS Direct Connect
16 8 (0.84%) Mimecast
17 6 (0.63%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 188 (19.69%) Firewall
2 137 (14.35%) WAN
3 128 (13.40%) LAN
4 102 (10.68%) DNS
5 85 (8.90%) SAN
6 77 (8.06%) DHCP
7 63 (6.60%) Network Security
8 62 (6.49%) Cisco Nexus
8 62 (6.49%) Wireless
9 58 (6.07%) VPN
10 55 (5.76%) MPLS
11 53 (5.55%) Wi-Fi
12 52 (5.45%) SD-WAN
13 49 (5.13%) BGP
14 42 (4.40%) OSPF
15 35 (3.66%) IPsec
16 32 (3.35%) Cisco ASA
16 32 (3.35%) Internet
17 26 (2.72%) VSAN
18 25 (2.62%) DMZ
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (2.72%) SQL Server
2 13 (1.36%) Big Data
3 10 (1.05%) Amazon RDS
4 9 (0.94%) Amazon Redshift
5 7 (0.73%) NoSQL
6 6 (0.63%) Oracle Exadata
7 5 (0.52%) Elasticsearch
7 5 (0.52%) Oracle Database
8 4 (0.42%) Data Lake
8 4 (0.42%) Data Warehouse
8 4 (0.42%) PostgreSQL
8 4 (0.42%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.31%) Metadata
9 3 (0.31%) Power BI
9 3 (0.31%) RDBMS
9 3 (0.31%) Redis
9 3 (0.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 3 (0.31%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 2 (0.21%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (0.21%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 50 (5.24%) JIRA
2 43 (4.50%) Jenkins
3 6 (0.63%) GitLab
4 5 (0.52%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 4 (0.42%) Git
6 3 (0.31%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.31%) Hudson
7 2 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.10%) Robot Framework
General
1 232 (24.29%) Social Skills
2 136 (14.24%) Finance
3 103 (10.79%) Public Sector
4 63 (6.60%) Telecoms
5 56 (5.86%) Analytical Skills
6 40 (4.19%) Banking
7 26 (2.72%) Law
8 18 (1.88%) Marketing
8 18 (1.88%) Organisational Skills
9 17 (1.78%) Documentation Skills
9 17 (1.78%) Mandarin Language
10 16 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
11 12 (1.26%) Manufacturing
12 10 (1.05%) Aerospace
12 10 (1.05%) Legal
13 9 (0.94%) Financial Institution
13 9 (0.94%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (0.73%) Electronics
14 7 (0.73%) Local Government
14 7 (0.73%) Retail
Job Titles
1 184 (19.27%) Network Engineer
2 152 (15.92%) Architect
3 89 (9.32%) Senior
4 75 (7.85%) Data Centre Engineer
5 74 (7.75%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 65 (6.81%) Project Manager
7 54 (5.65%) Network Architect
8 53 (5.55%) Support Engineer
9 36 (3.77%) Consultant
10 34 (3.56%) Analyst
11 31 (3.25%) Applications Engineer
11 31 (3.25%) Lead
12 29 (3.04%) Server Engineer
13 28 (2.93%) Infrastructure Manager
14 27 (2.83%) Applications Support
14 27 (2.83%) Applications Support Engineer
14 27 (2.83%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
14 27 (2.83%) Solutions Architect
15 26 (2.72%) VMware Engineer
16 24 (2.51%) Infrastructure Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (2.41%) YAML
2 20 (2.09%) Web Services
3 13 (1.36%) LDAP
4 12 (1.26%) REST
5 10 (1.05%) Middleware
6 8 (0.84%) Node.js
7 7 (0.73%) 802.1X
8 6 (0.63%) JSON
9 5 (0.52%) .NET
9 5 (0.52%) Loki
10 3 (0.31%) EDI
10 3 (0.31%) Kafka
10 3 (0.31%) SAML
10 3 (0.31%) VML
11 2 (0.21%) Elastic Stack
11 2 (0.21%) NETCONF
11 2 (0.21%) RabbitMQ
11 2 (0.21%) Redfish
11 2 (0.21%) Software Packaging
12 1 (0.10%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 41 (4.29%) Private Cloud
2 30 (3.14%) PKI
3 27 (2.83%) Public Cloud
4 25 (2.62%) Hybrid Cloud
5 22 (2.30%) Clustering
6 20 (2.09%) Replication
7 18 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
8 16 (1.68%) Management Information System
9 15 (1.57%) Onboarding
10 12 (1.26%) Client/Server
10 12 (1.26%) Linux Command Line
11 10 (1.05%) CCTV
11 10 (1.05%) Distributed Systems
12 9 (0.94%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 9 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
12 9 (0.94%) Virtual Team
13 8 (0.84%) Analytical Mindset
13 8 (0.84%) SCADA
14 7 (0.73%) Legacy Systems
14 7 (0.73%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 170 (17.80%) Windows
2 155 (16.23%) Linux
3 58 (6.07%) Windows Server
4 50 (5.24%) Unix
5 31 (3.25%) Windows 10
6 28 (2.93%) Windows Server 2016
7 23 (2.41%) Windows Server 2012
8 20 (2.09%) Windows Server 2019
9 19 (1.99%) zOS
10 17 (1.78%) Windows XP
11 13 (1.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 12 (1.26%) VMS
12 12 (1.26%) Windows 7
13 10 (1.05%) CentOS
14 9 (0.94%) Windows Server 2008
15 6 (0.63%) Debian
16 5 (0.52%) Mac OS X
16 5 (0.52%) Windows 8
16 5 (0.52%) Windows Server 2003
17 3 (0.31%) Windows 2000
Processes & Methodologies
1 216 (22.62%) Migration
2 125 (13.09%) Problem-Solving
3 102 (10.68%) Agile
4 97 (10.16%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 88 (9.21%) ITIL
5 88 (9.21%) Project Management
6 70 (7.33%) Project Delivery
7 64 (6.70%) Stakeholder Management
8 60 (6.28%) Cybersecurity
9 57 (5.97%) Computer Science
10 56 (5.86%) Disaster Recovery
11 53 (5.55%) Network Management
12 47 (4.92%) High Availability
13 46 (4.82%) Change Management
14 44 (4.61%) Data Migration
14 44 (4.61%) DevOps
14 44 (4.61%) Storage Management
15 42 (4.40%) Server Management
16 41 (4.29%) Capacity Management
16 41 (4.29%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 76 (7.96%) PowerShell
2 74 (7.75%) Python
3 42 (4.40%) SQL
4 24 (2.51%) Bash
5 18 (1.88%) JCL
5 18 (1.88%) REXX
6 13 (1.36%) Java
7 8 (0.84%) C
8 7 (0.73%) Go
8 7 (0.73%) VBScript
9 5 (0.52%) Ruby
10 4 (0.42%) ActionScript
10 4 (0.42%) C++
11 3 (0.31%) Perl
11 3 (0.31%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.21%) C#
13 1 (0.10%) Bicep
13 1 (0.10%) JavaScript
13 1 (0.10%) Kusto Query Language
13 1 (0.10%) VBA
Qualifications
1 219 (22.93%) Security Cleared
2 130 (13.61%) Cisco Certification
3 117 (12.25%) Degree
4 116 (12.15%) DV Cleared
5 110 (11.52%) SC Cleared
6 74 (7.75%) CCNP
7 68 (7.12%) CCNA
8 38 (3.98%) Computer Science Degree
9 30 (3.14%) CCIE
10 27 (2.83%) Microsoft Certification
11 20 (2.09%) Network+ Certification
12 18 (1.88%) A+ Certification
13 17 (1.78%) MCSE
14 12 (1.26%) MCSA
15 10 (1.05%) PMI Certification
15 10 (1.05%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 9 (0.94%) Azure Certification
16 9 (0.94%) CCIE Data Center
17 7 (0.73%) Master's Degree
17 7 (0.73%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 53 (5.55%) SLA
2 11 (1.15%) GDPR
2 11 (1.15%) NIST
2 11 (1.15%) QA
3 9 (0.94%) COBIT
4 6 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (0.31%) Disclosure Scotland
5 3 (0.31%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.10%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.10%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.10%) IASME
7 1 (0.10%) PMO
System Software
1 134 (14.03%) VMware Infrastructure
2 101 (10.58%) Active Directory
3 63 (6.60%) vSphere
4 56 (5.86%) Hyper-V
5 49 (5.13%) VMware ESXi
6 43 (4.50%) VMware NSX
7 24 (2.51%) Docker
7 24 (2.51%) KVM
8 19 (1.99%) Virtual Machines
9 18 (1.88%) NFS
9 18 (1.88%) Time Sharing Option
10 17 (1.78%) Virtual Servers
11 15 (1.57%) VMware Workstation
12 10 (1.05%) Firmware
13 5 (0.52%) vCloud
14 3 (0.31%) BitLocker
14 3 (0.31%) Microsoft App-V
15 2 (0.21%) Terminal Services
15 2 (0.21%) VMware Server
16 1 (0.10%) Citrix Presentation Server
Systems Management
1 57 (5.97%) vCenter Server
2 50 (5.24%) Ansible
3 42 (4.40%) Kubernetes
4 39 (4.08%) SCCM
5 37 (3.87%) Terraform
6 26 (2.72%) NetBackup
7 24 (2.51%) SCOM
8 23 (2.41%) Puppet
9 19 (1.99%) Nagios
9 19 (1.99%) Tivoli Storage Manager
10 15 (1.57%) Progress Chef
11 14 (1.47%) EMC NetWorker
11 14 (1.47%) Microsoft Intune
11 14 (1.47%) WSUS
12 12 (1.26%) Grafana
12 12 (1.26%) Microsoft Clustering
12 12 (1.26%) VxRail
13 11 (1.15%) FortiGate
14 7 (0.73%) Prometheus
14 7 (0.73%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 216 (22.62%) Cisco
2 190 (19.90%) VMware
3 134 (14.03%) Microsoft
4 106 (11.10%) Palo Alto
5 93 (9.74%) Dell
6 63 (6.60%) Juniper
7 55 (5.76%) F5
8 48 (5.03%) HP
9 37 (3.87%) Oracle
10 36 (3.77%) IBM
11 34 (3.56%) CheckPoint
12 32 (3.35%) Citrix
13 27 (2.83%) Red Hat
14 26 (2.72%) Fortinet
15 24 (2.51%) Brocade
16 23 (2.41%) Arista
16 23 (2.41%) Atlassian
16 23 (2.41%) SolarWinds
17 22 (2.30%) Symantec
18 19 (1.99%) EMC