SDH Contracts

This section looks at the demand for Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) skills across the UK with a comparison to our Communications & Networking category. Included is a guide to the contractor rates offered in IT job ads that have cited SDH over the 3 months to 4 July 2008 with a comparison to the same period last year.

Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH)
Location Basingstoke Berkshire Bracknell Bristol Cheshire City of London Coventry East Midlands East of England East Sussex England Feltham Hampshire Hertfordshire Hounslow Ipswich Lancashire Livingston London Manchester Midlands North West Nottinghamshire Reading Scotland Solihull South East South West Suffolk Swindon UK Warrington West Lothian West Midlands Wiltshire	3 months to 4 Jul 2008	Same period last year
Rank	485	470
Rank change on same period last year	-15
Matching contract IT job ads	103	184
As % of all UK contract IT job ads sampled	0.136 %	0.195 %
As % of the category below	1.002 %	1.383 %
Daily rates quoted	21	23
Average minimum daily rate	£287	£354
Average daily rate	£313	£367
% change on same period last year	-14.63 %
Average maximum daily rate	£339	£379
UK excluding London average daily rate	£307	£345
% change on same period last year	-11.06 %
Hourly rates quoted	2	16
Average minimum hourly rate	£31.00	£22.94
Average hourly rate	£32.25	£24.44
% change on same period last year	+31.96 %
Average maximum hourly rate	£33.50	£25.94
UK excluding London average hourly rate	-	£13.80
% change on same period last year	-
Communications & Networking UK
Matching contract IT job ads	10283	13303
As % of all UK contract IT job ads sampled	13.56 %	14.11 %
Daily rates quoted	2823	3227
Average minimum daily rate	£336	£350
Average daily rate	£358	£369
% change on same period last year	-3.06 %
Average maximum daily rate	£380	£388
UK excluding London average daily rate	£341	£344
% change on same period last year	-0.74 %
Hourly rates quoted	1224	1649
Average minimum hourly rate	£24.05	£25.99
Average hourly rate	£25.70	£27.80
% change on same period last year	-7.54 %
Average maximum hourly rate	£27.35	£29.61
UK excluding London average hourly rate	£25.58	£28.53
% change on same period last year	-10.35 %

We calculate average IT contractor rates directly from the figures quoted and do not attempt to derive hourly rates from daily rates or vice versa.

SDH
Demand Trend

The chart provides the 3-month moving total beginning in 2004 of IT contractor jobs citing SDH within the UK as a proportion of the total demand within the Communications & Networking category.

SDH
Daily Rate Trend

The chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in IT contract jobs citing SDH within the UK.

SDH
Daily Rate Histogram

The chart provides a histogram of daily rates quoted in contract IT jobs citing SDH within the UK over the 3 months to 4 July 2008.

SDH
Hourly Rate Trend

The chart provides the 3-month moving average for hourly rates quoted in IT contractor jobs citing SDH within the UK.

SDH
Hourly Rate Histogram

The chart provides a histogram of hourly rates quoted in contract IT jobs citing SDH within the UK over the 3 months to 4 July 2008.

SDH
Top 30 Contract Locations

This section looks at the demand and provides a guide to the average contractor rates quoted in IT job ads citing SDH within the UK over the 3 months to 4 July 2008. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 3 month period last year. A positive number indicates a relative increase in demand.

Location	Rank Change on Same Period Last Last	Matching Contract IT Job Ads	Average Daily Rate Last 3 Months	Average Daily Rate % Change on Same Period Last Year
England	-15	95	£300	-18.20 %
South East	+33	36	£313	-34.21 %
Berkshire	+39	24	£338	-28.94 %
London	+29	16	£323	-22.35 %
East of England	-25	12	£294	-8.48 %
Hampshire	+24	9	£213	-
West Midlands	-20	9	-	-
Hertfordshire	-3	8	-	-
South West	+26	6	-	-
Midlands	+4	6	£215	-
North West	-8	6	£250	-
Basingstoke	-	6	£213	-
Reading	-	5	£350	-
City of London	-21	5	£240	-47.82 %
Solihull	-	5	-	-
Suffolk	+3	4	£294	+33.52 %
Ipswich	+3	4	£294	-
Manchester	-18	4	-	-
Swindon	-	3	-	-
Wiltshire	-	3	-	-
Coventry	-	2	-	-
Feltham	-	2	£375	-
Scotland	+29	2	-	-
West Lothian	-	1	-	-
East Midlands	-	1	-	-
Hounslow	-	1	£400	-
Bracknell	+20	1	£300	-
Livingston	-	1	-	-
Warrington	-	1	£250	-
Bristol	-	1	-	-

SDH
Top 30 Related IT Skills

For the 6 months to 4 July 2008, IT contractor jobs within the UK citing SDH also mentioned the following IT skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the number of jobs and their proportion against the total number of contract IT job ads sampled that cited SDH.

1 124 (59.05 %) Telecoms 2 56 (26.67 %) DWDM 3 45 (21.43 %) ATM 4 43 (20.48 %) Nortel 5 41 (19.52 %) 3G 6 38 (18.10 %) Ericsson 7 31 (14.76 %) Network Planning 8 30 (14.29 %) LAN 8 30 (14.29 %) MPLS 9 29 (13.81 %) Cisco 10 23 (10.95 %) Lucent 10 23 (10.95 %) VoIP 10 23 (10.95 %) Ethernet 11 21 (10.00 %) BGP 12 20 (9.524 %) Cramer

12 20 (9.524 %) SLA 12 20 (9.524 %) Project Planning 13 19 (9.048 %) TCP/IP 14 18 (8.571 %) VPN 14 18 (8.571 %) Fujitsu 15 17 (8.095 %) 2G 16 15 (7.143 %) Frame Relay 16 15 (7.143 %) OSPF 16 15 (7.143 %) Nokia 16 15 (7.143 %) WAN 16 15 (7.143 %) GSM 17 13 (6.190 %) Migration 18 12 (5.714 %) ISDN 18 12 (5.714 %) Cisco Certification 19 11 (5.238 %) HP

SDH
Top Related IT Skills by Category

For the 6 months to 4 July 2008, IT contractor jobs within the UK citing SDH also mentioned the following IT skills grouped by category. The figures indicate the number of jobs and their proportion against the total number of contract IT job ads sampled that cited SDH. Up to 20 skills are shown per category.

Application Development 1 8 (3.810 %) CSS 2 3 (1.429 %) Adobe Flex 3 2 (0.952 %) X-Windows 4 1 (0.476 %) Hibernate	Application Platforms 1 1 (0.476 %) CMS
Applications 1 1 (0.476 %) MS Office	Communications & Networking 1 56 (26.67 %) DWDM 2 45 (21.43 %) ATM 3 41 (19.52 %) 3G 4 30 (14.29 %) MPLS 4 30 (14.29 %) LAN 5 23 (10.95 %) VoIP 5 23 (10.95 %) Ethernet 6 21 (10.00 %) BGP 7 19 (9.048 %) TCP/IP 8 18 (8.571 %) VPN 9 17 (8.095 %) 2G 10 15 (7.143 %) Frame Relay 10 15 (7.143 %) WAN 10 15 (7.143 %) GSM 10 15 (7.143 %) OSPF 11 12 (5.714 %) ISDN 12 11 (5.238 %) UMTS 13 9 (4.286 %) SS7 14 8 (3.810 %) Broadband 15 7 (3.333 %) PSTN
Database & Business Intelligence 1 6 (2.857 %) ETL 2 2 (0.952 %) MS Access 3 1 (0.476 %) PostgreSQL	General 1 124 (59.05 %) Telecoms 2 5 (2.381 %) Finance 3 2 (0.952 %) Education 3 2 (0.952 %) Publishing 4 1 (0.476 %) Financial Institution 4 1 (0.476 %) Advertising
Job Titles 1 64 (30.48 %) Radio Access Network Engineer 2 25 (11.90 %) Network Engineer 3 20 (9.524 %) Support Engineer 4 13 (6.190 %) Project Engineer 5 11 (5.238 %) Project Manager 6 9 (4.286 %) Technical Engineer 6 9 (4.286 %) ATM Engineer 7 8 (3.810 %) NOC Engineer 8 7 (3.333 %) Support Technician 9 6 (2.857 %) Cisco Engineer 9 6 (2.857 %) Technical Support Engineer 9 6 (2.857 %) Design Engineer 9 6 (2.857 %) Technical Support 10 5 (2.381 %) Network Technician 10 5 (2.381 %) Performance Engineer 11 4 (1.905 %) Technical Manager 11 4 (1.905 %) Technical Project Manager 11 4 (1.905 %) Consultant 12 3 (1.429 %) Developer 12 3 (1.429 %) Programmer	Miscellaneous 1 3 (1.429 %) VHDL 2 2 (0.952 %) PMI 2 2 (0.952 %) DTV 2 2 (0.952 %) PKI 3 1 (0.476 %) CCTV 3 1 (0.476 %) German Language 3 1 (0.476 %) Field-Programmable Gate Array
Operating Systems 1 10 (4.762 %) Unix 2 4 (1.905 %) Windows 2 4 (1.905 %) Linux 3 3 (1.429 %) VMS 3 3 (1.429 %) OpenVMS 3 3 (1.429 %) Solaris 4 2 (0.952 %) HPUX	Processes & Methodologies 1 31 (14.76 %) Network Planning 2 20 (9.524 %) Project Planning 3 13 (6.190 %) Migration 4 11 (5.238 %) Network Design 5 8 (3.810 %) PRINCE2 6 7 (3.333 %) Project Management 6 7 (3.333 %) Problem Management 6 7 (3.333 %) Incident Management 7 4 (1.905 %) Service Delivery 8 3 (1.429 %) Workflow 8 3 (1.429 %) Performance Management 9 2 (0.952 %) Load Balancing 9 2 (0.952 %) Business Continuity 9 2 (0.952 %) Risk Management 9 2 (0.952 %) Service Management 9 2 (0.952 %) SOA 10 1 (0.476 %) B2B 10 1 (0.476 %) OOA/OOD 10 1 (0.476 %) Quality Management 10 1 (0.476 %) Change Management
Programming Languages 1 11 (5.238 %) C 2 3 (1.429 %) Perl 2 3 (1.429 %) SQL 3 2 (0.952 %) VB 4 1 (0.476 %) C++ 4 1 (0.476 %) Java	Qualifications 1 12 (5.714 %) Cisco Certification 2 6 (2.857 %) Degree 3 5 (2.381 %) CCIE 3 5 (2.381 %) CCNA 4 4 (1.905 %) CCNP 4 4 (1.905 %) PRINCE2 Certification 5 3 (1.429 %) CCIP 6 2 (0.952 %) CCDA 7 1 (0.476 %) CCDP 7 1 (0.476 %) CCVP
Quality Assurance & Compliance 1 20 (9.524 %) SLA	Systems Management 1 11 (5.238 %) Netcool 2 6 (2.857 %) OpenView 3 1 (0.476 %) CiscoWorks 3 1 (0.476 %) Netcool/Proviso
Vendors 1 43 (20.48 %) Nortel 2 38 (18.10 %) Ericsson 3 29 (13.81 %) Cisco 4 23 (10.95 %) Lucent 5 20 (9.524 %) Cramer 6 18 (8.571 %) Fujitsu 7 15 (7.143 %) Nokia 8 11 (5.238 %) HP 9 6 (2.857 %) Alcatel 9 6 (2.857 %) Huawei 9 6 (2.857 %) BT 10 4 (1.905 %) Microsoft 10 4 (1.905 %) Sybase 10 4 (1.905 %) MetaSolv 10 4 (1.905 %) CheckPoint 11 3 (1.429 %) Sun 11 3 (1.429 %) Xilinx 12 2 (0.952 %) Mitel 12 2 (0.952 %) Progress 12 2 (0.952 %) Remedy