DNS Contract Job Trends in England

Domain Name System (DNS)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring DNS skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 29 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 138 121 113
Rank change year-on-year -17 -8 +17
Contract jobs citing DNS 654 589 778
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.07% 2.09% 2.13%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 19.34% 16.33% 15.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 409 369 505
10th Percentile £219 £223 £211
25th Percentile £400 £330 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £485
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -2.06% -7.62%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £593
90th Percentile £688 £702 £650
UK median daily rate £525 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +10.53% -2.56% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 6 15
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.40 £25.40
25th Percentile £25.70 £19.65 £31.25
Median hourly rate £57.50 £23.90 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +140.64% -56.55% +109.52%
75th Percentile £77.50 £28.83 £67.25
90th Percentile £85.60 £40.00 £74.80
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £23.59 £55.70
% change year-on-year +143.75% -57.65% +112.19%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
England

DNS 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 in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 3,381 3,606 5,120
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.72% 12.77% 13.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,188 2,118 3,180
10th Percentile £206 £220 £207
25th Percentile £356 £375 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -1.96%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £682 £700
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 167 103 310
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.04 £18.51
25th Percentile £20.09 £20.30 £23.22
Median hourly rate £34.00 £35.00 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -38.04% +48.66%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £65.98
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.25 £76.12
UK median hourly rate £32.00 £35.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year -8.57% -38.04% +61.40%

DNS
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

DNS job vacancy trend in England

DNS
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing DNS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing DNS

DNS
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing DNS in England over the 6 months to 29 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for DNS in England

DNS
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing DNS.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing DNS

DNS
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing DNS in England over the 6 months to 29 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for DNS in England

DNS
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing DNS within the England 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
London -1 222 £550 +4.76% 159
North of England -28 135 £470 +17.50% 172
Midlands +14 118 £401 +4.16% 119
South East +4 115 £500 +8.11% 232
West Midlands +36 113 £401 -5.65% 62
North West +2 91 £500 +5.26% 96
South West -13 61 £575 +12.20% 85
Yorkshire -30 51 £447 +49.00% 62
East of England -22 38 £363 +28.32% 122
North East -13 7 £575 +283.33% 16
East Midlands -37 5 £363 -3.33% 52
DNS
UK

DNS
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 86 (13.15%) Microsoft Exchange
2 71 (10.86%) SharePoint
3 32 (4.89%) Skype for Business
4 23 (3.52%) Confluence
5 11 (1.68%) nginx
5 11 (1.68%) SharePoint Server
6 10 (1.53%) Exchange Server 2010
7 9 (1.38%) Exchange Server 2013
8 8 (1.22%) IIS
9 7 (1.07%) Exchange Server 2003
9 7 (1.07%) Exchange Server 2007
9 7 (1.07%) Office Communications Server
10 5 (0.76%) Apache
11 4 (0.61%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.46%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.31%) Apache Spark
13 2 (0.31%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.31%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 2 (0.31%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.31%) WordPress
Applications
1 45 (6.88%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.53%) Mozilla Thunderbird
2 10 (1.53%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.61%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.31%) Windchill
6 1 (0.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.31%) Remedy ITSM
1 2 (0.31%) SystmOne
1 2 (0.31%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.15%) Eikon
2 1 (0.15%) Eze OMS
2 1 (0.15%) Fidessa
Cloud Services
1 214 (32.72%) Azure
2 162 (24.77%) AWS
3 140 (21.41%) Microsoft 365
4 91 (13.91%) Entra ID
5 66 (10.09%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 55 (8.41%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 54 (8.26%) Amazon S3
8 53 (8.10%) Amazon EC2
9 47 (7.19%) GitHub
10 44 (6.73%) GCP
11 42 (6.42%) Amazon ELB
12 33 (5.05%) IaaS
13 30 (4.59%) SaaS
14 29 (4.43%) Amazon ECS
14 29 (4.43%) AWS CloudFormation
15 24 (3.67%) Serverless
16 23 (3.52%) AWS KMS
17 22 (3.36%) AWS Lambda
17 22 (3.36%) GitHub Actions
18 18 (2.75%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 277 (42.35%) DHCP
2 225 (34.40%) Firewall
3 220 (33.64%) TCP/IP
4 163 (24.92%) VPN
5 99 (15.14%) Network Security
6 97 (14.83%) SSL
7 74 (11.31%) HTTP
8 70 (10.70%) WAN
9 58 (8.87%) LAN
9 58 (8.87%) VLAN
10 50 (7.65%) SMTP
11 46 (7.03%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
12 42 (6.42%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
13 41 (6.27%) Wireless
14 38 (5.81%) FTP
15 36 (5.50%) DMZ
16 35 (5.35%) BGP
17 33 (5.05%) Wi-Fi
18 32 (4.89%) Wireshark
19 29 (4.43%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (4.43%) Amazon RDS
2 23 (3.52%) PostgreSQL
3 21 (3.21%) SQL Server
4 13 (1.99%) Amazon Aurora
5 10 (1.53%) MongoDB
6 5 (0.76%) BigQuery
6 5 (0.76%) Data Hub
7 4 (0.61%) Big Data
7 4 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
7 4 (0.61%) Relational Database
8 3 (0.46%) DynamoDB
8 3 (0.46%) MySQL
9 2 (0.31%) Apache Cassandra
9 2 (0.31%) Delta Lake
9 2 (0.31%) Hadoop
9 2 (0.31%) NoSQL
9 2 (0.31%) Parquet
9 2 (0.31%) Power BI
9 2 (0.31%) Redis
10 1 (0.15%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 83 (12.69%) Jenkins
2 68 (10.40%) Git
3 46 (7.03%) GitLab
4 42 (6.42%) JIRA
5 21 (3.21%) Fiddler
6 17 (2.60%) Vagrant
7 8 (1.22%) Terragrunt
8 5 (0.76%) Subversion
9 4 (0.61%) CircleCI
9 4 (0.61%) TeamCity
10 3 (0.46%) Visual Studio Code
11 2 (0.31%) Browser DevTools
11 2 (0.31%) MLflow
11 2 (0.31%) Poetry
11 2 (0.31%) PyCharm
11 2 (0.31%) SonarQube
11 2 (0.31%) Vite
11 2 (0.31%) webpack
12 1 (0.15%) Postman
12 1 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 208 (31.80%) Social Skills
2 111 (16.97%) Analytical Skills
3 76 (11.62%) Public Sector
4 51 (7.80%) Banking
5 46 (7.03%) Finance
6 38 (5.81%) Investment Banking
7 36 (5.50%) Documentation Skills
8 18 (2.75%) Presentation Skills
9 17 (2.60%) Telecoms
10 16 (2.45%) Legal
11 10 (1.53%) Law
11 10 (1.53%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.38%) Military
13 7 (1.07%) Aerospace
13 7 (1.07%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (0.76%) Marketing
15 4 (0.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 3 (0.46%) Financial Institution
16 3 (0.46%) Front Office
16 3 (0.46%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 86 (13.15%) Network Engineer
2 74 (11.31%) Support Engineer
3 68 (10.40%) Architect
4 67 (10.24%) Senior
5 66 (10.09%) Analyst
6 64 (9.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 49 (7.49%) Platform Engineer
8 47 (7.19%) DevOps Engineer
9 41 (6.27%) IT Support
10 36 (5.50%) Security Engineer
11 34 (5.20%) AWS Engineer
12 26 (3.98%) 2nd Line Support
12 26 (3.98%) Cloud Platform Engineer
13 24 (3.67%) AWS DevOps
13 24 (3.67%) AWS DevOps Engineer
14 23 (3.52%) Lead
14 23 (3.52%) Operations Engineer
14 23 (3.52%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
14 23 (3.52%) SOC Analyst
15 21 (3.21%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (6.57%) LDAP
2 23 (3.52%) SAML
3 17 (2.60%) OAuth
4 15 (2.29%) OpenID
5 14 (2.14%) OAuth2
6 13 (1.99%) Elastic Stack
7 12 (1.83%) 802.1X
8 10 (1.53%) Middleware
9 9 (1.38%) Kafka
10 7 (1.07%) AngularJS
10 7 (1.07%) React
11 6 (0.92%) cloud-init
11 6 (0.92%) Keycloak
11 6 (0.92%) REST
11 6 (0.92%) YAML
12 5 (0.76%) Flask
12 5 (0.76%) JSON
13 4 (0.61%) ASP.NET Web API
13 4 (0.61%) AWS CDK
13 4 (0.61%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 52 (7.95%) Management Information System
1 52 (7.95%) Replication
2 51 (7.80%) PKI
3 49 (7.49%) Data Centre
4 29 (4.43%) Analytical Mindset
4 29 (4.43%) Onboarding
5 22 (3.36%) Enterprise Software
6 20 (3.06%) Cyberattack
7 19 (2.91%) Security Operations Centre
8 17 (2.60%) Cyber Threat
9 15 (2.29%) Hybrid Cloud
10 14 (2.14%) Cloud Native
11 13 (1.99%) CSOC
12 11 (1.68%) Self-Motivation
12 11 (1.68%) Video Conferencing
13 10 (1.53%) Clustering
13 10 (1.53%) Private Cloud
13 10 (1.53%) Public Cloud
14 8 (1.22%) SCADA
15 7 (1.07%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 329 (50.31%) Windows
2 147 (22.48%) Linux
2 147 (22.48%) Windows Server
3 62 (9.48%) Windows 10
4 28 (4.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 26 (3.98%) VMS
6 23 (3.52%) Windows Server 2016
6 23 (3.52%) Windows Server 2019
7 22 (3.36%) Unix
8 20 (3.06%) Amazon Linux
9 19 (2.91%) Windows Server 2012
10 18 (2.75%) Android
11 16 (2.45%) Ubuntu
12 14 (2.14%) CentOS
12 14 (2.14%) Mac OS
13 13 (1.99%) Apple iOS
14 11 (1.68%) Windows Server 2003
15 8 (1.22%) Windows 7
16 5 (0.76%) Solaris
17 3 (0.46%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 152 (23.24%) Problem-Solving
2 122 (18.65%) ITIL
3 116 (17.74%) DevOps
4 114 (17.43%) CI/CD
5 106 (16.21%) Load Balancing
6 94 (14.37%) Infrastructure as Code
7 87 (13.30%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 73 (11.16%) Change Management
9 72 (11.01%) Cybersecurity
10 64 (9.79%) High Availability
10 64 (9.79%) Incident Response
10 64 (9.79%) Migration
11 56 (8.56%) Root Cause Analysis
12 55 (8.41%) Platform Engineering
13 52 (7.95%) Continuous Improvement
13 52 (7.95%) Disaster Recovery
13 52 (7.95%) Service Management
14 50 (7.65%) SIEM
15 45 (6.88%) Containerisation
16 44 (6.73%) Agile
Programming Languages
1 195 (29.82%) PowerShell
2 162 (24.77%) Python
3 77 (11.77%) Bash
4 44 (6.73%) SQL
5 20 (3.06%) Perl
6 19 (2.91%) Groovy
7 17 (2.60%) Java
8 13 (1.99%) Bicep
9 11 (1.68%) Shell Script
10 10 (1.53%) Go
11 8 (1.22%) Kusto Query Language
11 8 (1.22%) Ruby
12 7 (1.07%) Lisp
12 7 (1.07%) VBScript
13 6 (0.92%) VB
14 5 (0.76%) C++
15 4 (0.61%) JavaScript
16 3 (0.46%) C#
16 3 (0.46%) T-SQL
16 3 (0.46%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 251 (38.38%) Security Cleared
2 177 (27.06%) SC Cleared
3 82 (12.54%) DV Cleared
4 64 (9.79%) Degree
5 61 (9.33%) Microsoft Certification
6 49 (7.49%) Cisco Certification
7 41 (6.27%) CCNP
8 39 (5.96%) Azure Certification
9 23 (3.52%) AWS Certification
10 18 (2.75%) CISSP
11 17 (2.60%) CCNA
11 17 (2.60%) Network+ Certification
12 12 (1.83%) CompTIA Security+
13 11 (1.68%) MCSE
13 11 (1.68%) Server+ Certification
14 10 (1.53%) CCIE
15 9 (1.38%) Computer Science Degree
15 9 (1.38%) ITIL Certification
16 8 (1.22%) BPSS Clearance
16 8 (1.22%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (4.43%) GDPR
2 18 (2.75%) SLA
3 12 (1.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 12 (1.83%) NIST
4 10 (1.53%) NCSC
5 8 (1.22%) Cyber Essentials
6 7 (1.07%) Accessibility
7 6 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 5 (0.76%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.61%) Data Quality
10 3 (0.46%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 2 (0.31%) JSP 440
11 2 (0.31%) QA
11 2 (0.31%) WCAG
12 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.15%) Government Security Classifications
12 1 (0.15%) SOC 2
System Software
1 288 (44.04%) Active Directory
2 168 (25.69%) VMware Infrastructure
3 88 (13.46%) Docker
4 46 (7.03%) Hyper-V
5 41 (6.27%) VMware NSX
6 29 (4.43%) Virtual Machines
7 24 (3.67%) vSphere
8 20 (3.06%) DFS Replication
8 20 (3.06%) Firmware
9 18 (2.75%) VMware ESXi
10 16 (2.45%) Dovecot
10 16 (2.45%) Postfix
11 13 (1.99%) Terminal Services
12 10 (1.53%) Squid
13 9 (1.38%) Virtual Servers
14 8 (1.22%) Virtual Desktop
15 7 (1.07%) BitLocker
15 7 (1.07%) Brightmail
15 7 (1.07%) ISA Server
16 5 (0.76%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 134 (20.49%) Terraform
2 106 (16.21%) Ansible
3 74 (11.31%) SCCM
4 73 (11.16%) Microsoft Intune
5 59 (9.02%) Kubernetes
6 41 (6.27%) Grafana
6 41 (6.27%) vCenter Server
7 39 (5.96%) Single Sign-On
8 35 (5.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 31 (4.74%) Prometheus
10 19 (2.91%) WSUS
11 16 (2.45%) Nessus
12 15 (2.29%) Argo
13 14 (2.14%) FortiGate
14 13 (1.99%) Packer
14 13 (1.99%) Proxmox
15 12 (1.83%) SCOM
16 10 (1.53%) Microsoft Clustering
17 9 (1.38%) Progress Chef
17 9 (1.38%) Puppet
Vendors
1 248 (37.92%) Microsoft
2 203 (31.04%) VMware
3 109 (16.67%) F5
4 96 (14.68%) Cisco
5 73 (11.16%) ServiceNow
6 52 (7.95%) Palo Alto
7 51 (7.80%) CheckPoint
8 48 (7.34%) Splunk
9 38 (5.81%) Citrix
10 36 (5.50%) Blue Coat
11 32 (4.89%) SolarWinds
12 31 (4.74%) Red Hat
13 25 (3.82%) Juniper
13 25 (3.82%) McAfee
14 24 (3.67%) NetApp
14 24 (3.67%) Veeam
15 19 (2.91%) Zscaler
16 17 (2.60%) Fortinet
16 17 (2.60%) Google
17 16 (2.45%) Dell