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 12 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 123 153
Rank change year-on-year -4 +30 -22
Contract jobs citing DNS 935 636 534
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.05% 2.30% 1.60%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 21.79% 18.62% 12.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 578 416 364
10th Percentile £298 £263 £256
25th Percentile £407 £400 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -0.60%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £599
90th Percentile £648 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £488
% change year-on-year -4.76% +7.69% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 31 15
10th Percentile £26.00 £29.00 £20.00
25th Percentile £31.25 £34.38 £23.45
Median hourly rate £58.74 £57.50 £24.20
Median % change year-on-year +2.15% +137.60% -27.76%
75th Percentile £74.00 £82.55 £49.38
90th Percentile £98.82 £89.63 £63.51
UK median hourly rate £58.49 £57.50 £24.20
% change year-on-year +1.73% +137.60% -39.50%

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 4,291 3,415 4,186
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.41% 12.34% 12.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,598 2,119 2,572
10th Percentile £263 £250 £243
25th Percentile £403 £375 £369
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £588 £600 £613
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £488 £500
% change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 336 167 282
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £14.48
25th Percentile £19.50 £25.15 £20.50
Median hourly rate £27.75 £44.00 £54.94
Median % change year-on-year -36.93% -19.91% +3.66%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £86.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £46.88 £49.50
% change year-on-year -44.53% -5.30% -5.71%

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 12 August 2026.

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 12 August 2026.

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 12 August 2026. 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 -38 320 £500 -1.96% 322
North of England +30 227 £475 -5.00% 69
South East +9 200 £538 -2.27% 115
North West +37 152 £492 +5.70% 38
Midlands -14 115 £450 -5.26% 49
West Midlands -17 94 £431 -9.21% 33
South West +3 85 £500 -13.98% 58
Yorkshire -15 64 £475 -13.64% 23
East of England -52 32 £450 -18.18% 40
East Midlands +3 19 £413 -26.67% 16
North East -40 11 £438 +7.36% 9
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 96 (10.27%) Microsoft Exchange
2 77 (8.24%) SharePoint
3 18 (1.93%) Confluence
4 16 (1.71%) Apache
5 14 (1.50%) nginx
6 13 (1.39%) IIS
7 6 (0.64%) Skype for Business
7 6 (0.64%) Tomcat
8 3 (0.32%) Exchange Server 2013
9 2 (0.21%) IBM HTTP Server
9 2 (0.21%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.21%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.21%) WebSphere
9 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Portal
10 1 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
10 1 (0.11%) SharePoint Server
10 1 (0.11%) Traefik
Applications
1 25 (2.67%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (0.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (0.96%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 2 (0.21%) Houdini
4 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.21%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 9 (0.96%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 371 (39.68%) Azure
2 190 (20.32%) AWS
3 161 (17.22%) Microsoft 365
4 160 (17.11%) Entra ID
5 104 (11.12%) GCP
6 67 (7.17%) GitHub
7 52 (5.56%) IaaS
8 49 (5.24%) OneDrive
9 38 (4.06%) SaaS
10 36 (3.85%) PaaS
11 35 (3.74%) Azure DevOps
12 33 (3.53%) Azure Monitor
13 30 (3.21%) OpenShift
14 29 (3.10%) GitHub Actions
15 28 (2.99%) AWS CloudFormation
16 26 (2.78%) Google Kubernetes Engine
17 24 (2.57%) Azure ExpressRoute
18 21 (2.25%) Serverless
18 21 (2.25%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 20 (2.14%) Akamai
Communications & Networking
1 445 (47.59%) DHCP
2 350 (37.43%) Firewall
3 273 (29.20%) TCP/IP
4 267 (28.56%) VPN
5 134 (14.33%) WAN
6 122 (13.05%) Network Security
7 117 (12.51%) VLAN
8 116 (12.41%) LAN
9 102 (10.91%) BGP
10 93 (9.95%) SSL
11 79 (8.45%) BIG-IP
12 69 (7.38%) Wireless
13 66 (7.06%) HTTP
14 63 (6.74%) Wi-Fi
15 60 (6.42%) OSPF
16 55 (5.88%) SAN
17 48 (5.13%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 45 (4.81%) DMZ
19 41 (4.39%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
20 34 (3.64%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (5.24%) SQL Server
2 10 (1.07%) Azure SQL Database
2 10 (1.07%) Elasticsearch
2 10 (1.07%) Power BI
3 9 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
3 9 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
4 8 (0.86%) MySQL
5 5 (0.53%) Data Lake
5 5 (0.53%) NoSQL
6 4 (0.43%) Db2
6 4 (0.43%) MongoDB
7 3 (0.32%) Big Data
7 3 (0.32%) Redis
8 1 (0.11%) BigQuery
8 1 (0.11%) Cloud Spanner
8 1 (0.11%) DynamoDB
8 1 (0.11%) Flink
8 1 (0.11%) KDB
8 1 (0.11%) Metadata
8 1 (0.11%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 65 (6.95%) JIRA
2 56 (5.99%) Jenkins
3 38 (4.06%) Git
4 30 (3.21%) GitLab
5 16 (1.71%) Fiddler
6 10 (1.07%) Browser DevTools
7 7 (0.75%) Bitbucket
7 7 (0.75%) Chocolatey
7 7 (0.75%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.53%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 3 (0.32%) MSI
10 2 (0.21%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.21%) Introscope
10 2 (0.21%) Selenium
10 2 (0.21%) Spinnaker
10 2 (0.21%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 1 (0.11%) Maven
11 1 (0.11%) SonarQube
11 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio
General
1 223 (23.85%) Social Skills
2 108 (11.55%) Analytical Skills
3 84 (8.98%) Finance
4 73 (7.81%) Public Sector
5 67 (7.17%) Banking
6 41 (4.39%) Documentation Skills
7 31 (3.32%) Investment Banking
7 31 (3.32%) Telecoms
8 19 (2.03%) Legal
9 17 (1.82%) Military
10 11 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 11 (1.18%) Local Government
10 11 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
11 10 (1.07%) Police
12 8 (0.86%) Manufacturing
13 6 (0.64%) Influencing Skills
13 6 (0.64%) Law
13 6 (0.64%) Publishing
14 5 (0.53%) Aerospace
14 5 (0.53%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 175 (18.72%) Network Engineer
2 153 (16.36%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 104 (11.12%) Senior
4 91 (9.73%) Support Engineer
5 87 (9.30%) Architect
6 70 (7.49%) Cloud Engineer
7 56 (5.99%) Security Engineer
8 47 (5.03%) IT Support
9 46 (4.92%) Analyst
10 45 (4.81%) IT Engineer
11 40 (4.28%) Azure Engineer
11 40 (4.28%) Network Security Engineer
12 38 (4.06%) Cisco Engineer
12 38 (4.06%) Web Engineer
13 37 (3.96%) Administrator
14 36 (3.85%) Cisco Network Engineer
15 35 (3.74%) DevOps Engineer
15 35 (3.74%) Platform Engineer
16 34 (3.64%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
17 32 (3.42%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (5.56%) 802.1X
2 30 (3.21%) SAML
3 28 (2.99%) LDAP
4 22 (2.35%) ARM Templates
5 18 (1.93%) OAuth
6 17 (1.82%) OpenID
7 14 (1.50%) OpenTelemetry
7 14 (1.50%) REST
8 13 (1.39%) JSON
9 12 (1.28%) YAML
10 8 (0.86%) CSS
10 8 (0.86%) Kafka
11 7 (0.75%) Middleware
12 6 (0.64%) Elastic Stack
13 5 (0.53%) RabbitMQ
13 5 (0.53%) Software Packaging
14 4 (0.43%) .NET
14 4 (0.43%) HTML
14 4 (0.43%) RESTful
14 4 (0.43%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 130 (13.90%) Data Centre
2 103 (11.02%) PKI
3 65 (6.95%) Onboarding
4 63 (6.74%) Hybrid Cloud
5 49 (5.24%) Cloud Native
5 49 (5.24%) Management Information System
6 46 (4.92%) Clustering
7 41 (4.39%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 26 (2.78%) Public Cloud
9 23 (2.46%) Replication
10 21 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
11 19 (2.03%) Enterprise Cloud
12 17 (1.82%) Security Posture
13 16 (1.71%) Linux Command Line
14 14 (1.50%) Cyber Threat
14 14 (1.50%) Enterprise Software
15 12 (1.28%) Driving Licence
16 9 (0.96%) CMDB
16 9 (0.96%) Distributed Systems
16 9 (0.96%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 444 (47.49%) Windows
2 236 (25.24%) Windows Server
3 188 (20.11%) Linux
4 60 (6.42%) Windows 10
5 38 (4.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 37 (3.96%) Windows Server 2019
7 31 (3.32%) Unix
8 27 (2.89%) Mac OS
9 23 (2.46%) Windows Server 2012
10 20 (2.14%) Ubuntu
11 15 (1.60%) CentOS
12 14 (1.50%) Windows Server 2016
13 13 (1.39%) Apple iOS
13 13 (1.39%) Windows 7
14 11 (1.18%) Android
14 11 (1.18%) VMS
15 8 (0.86%) Windows Server 2008
16 7 (0.75%) Rocky
17 4 (0.43%) Windows Server 2003
18 3 (0.32%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 218 (23.32%) Problem-Solving
2 214 (22.89%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 177 (18.93%) Load Balancing
4 172 (18.40%) ITIL
5 161 (17.22%) Infrastructure as Code
6 154 (16.47%) Migration
7 143 (15.29%) DevOps
8 140 (14.97%) High Availability
9 138 (14.76%) CI/CD
10 115 (12.30%) ITSM
11 95 (10.16%) Observability
12 92 (9.84%) Continuous Improvement
13 89 (9.52%) Cybersecurity
14 85 (9.09%) Agile
15 78 (8.34%) Project Delivery
16 77 (8.24%) Technical Leadership
17 75 (8.02%) Disaster Recovery
18 70 (7.49%) Identity Access Management
19 68 (7.27%) Platform Engineering
20 67 (7.17%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 211 (22.57%) PowerShell
2 181 (19.36%) Python
3 132 (14.12%) Bash
4 57 (6.10%) SQL
5 38 (4.06%) Bicep
6 23 (2.46%) JavaScript
7 14 (1.50%) Shell Script
8 11 (1.18%) Go
9 10 (1.07%) Perl
10 9 (0.96%) ActionScript
10 9 (0.96%) VBScript
11 7 (0.75%) VBA
12 6 (0.64%) Groovy
12 6 (0.64%) Java
12 6 (0.64%) VB
13 5 (0.53%) Ruby
14 3 (0.32%) C
14 3 (0.32%) Lisp
15 2 (0.21%) Jython
15 2 (0.21%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 350 (37.43%) Security Cleared
2 195 (20.86%) SC Cleared
3 143 (15.29%) DV Cleared
4 106 (11.34%) Cisco Certification
5 72 (7.70%) CCNP
6 71 (7.59%) Degree
7 53 (5.67%) CCNA
8 45 (4.81%) Microsoft Certification
9 44 (4.71%) Azure Certification
10 30 (3.21%) Network+ Certification
11 18 (1.93%) CCIE
12 17 (1.82%) AWS Certification
13 16 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
14 15 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
14 15 (1.60%) Server+ Certification
14 15 (1.60%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 13 (1.39%) JNCIS
16 12 (1.28%) CISSP
16 12 (1.28%) JNCIP
16 12 (1.28%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (3.53%) SLA
2 24 (2.57%) NIST
3 15 (1.60%) NCSC
4 14 (1.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 11 (1.18%) QA
6 6 (0.64%) GDPR
7 5 (0.53%) NIST 800
8 4 (0.43%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 4 (0.43%) JSP 440
9 3 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.21%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.11%) Data Quality
11 1 (0.11%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 400 (42.78%) Active Directory
2 241 (25.78%) VMware Infrastructure
3 111 (11.87%) Hyper-V
4 68 (7.27%) VMware ESXi
5 65 (6.95%) vSphere
6 63 (6.74%) VMware NSX
7 54 (5.78%) Docker
8 40 (4.28%) Virtual Machines
9 37 (3.96%) Virtual Desktop
10 23 (2.46%) Firmware
11 18 (1.93%) NFS
12 14 (1.50%) BitLocker
13 13 (1.39%) vCloud
14 9 (0.96%) Microsoft App-V
14 9 (0.96%) Postfix
15 8 (0.86%) VMware Workstation
16 7 (0.75%) Virtual Servers
17 6 (0.64%) Varnish
18 5 (0.53%) Squid
18 5 (0.53%) UAG
Systems Management
1 199 (21.28%) Terraform
2 137 (14.65%) Ansible
3 113 (12.09%) Kubernetes
4 100 (10.70%) Microsoft Intune
5 72 (7.70%) SCCM
6 57 (6.10%) vCenter Server
7 54 (5.78%) Grafana
8 50 (5.35%) Single Sign-On
9 43 (4.60%) FortiGate
10 41 (4.39%) Prometheus
11 30 (3.21%) WSUS
12 27 (2.89%) SCOM
13 15 (1.60%) VxRail
14 14 (1.50%) Argo
14 14 (1.50%) Jamf Pro
14 14 (1.50%) Nessus
14 14 (1.50%) Puppet
15 11 (1.18%) NetBackup
15 11 (1.18%) Packer
16 10 (1.07%) Nagios
Vendors
1 342 (36.58%) Microsoft
2 294 (31.44%) VMware
3 191 (20.43%) Cisco
4 139 (14.87%) F5
5 90 (9.63%) ServiceNow
6 66 (7.06%) SolarWinds
7 64 (6.84%) Splunk
8 63 (6.74%) Google
9 61 (6.52%) Infoblox
10 60 (6.42%) Juniper
11 57 (6.10%) Citrix
12 41 (4.39%) Palo Alto
13 40 (4.28%) Red Hat
14 31 (3.32%) NetApp
15 29 (3.10%) Dynatrace
16 26 (2.78%) Blue Coat
16 26 (2.78%) CheckPoint
16 26 (2.78%) Fortinet
17 25 (2.67%) Zscaler
18 23 (2.46%) McAfee