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 23 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 136 122 118
Rank change year-on-year -14 -4 +4
Contract jobs citing DNS 658 570 756
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.03% 2.13% 2.04%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 19.51% 16.59% 14.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 425 357 499
10th Percentile £219 £223 £203
25th Percentile £400 £325 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% - -9.52%
75th Percentile £613 £600 £588
90th Percentile £688 £714 £650
UK median daily rate £513 £500 £486
% change year-on-year +2.50% +2.83% -7.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 5 20
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.78 £24.15
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.50 £31.25
Median hourly rate £39.50 £23.59 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.44% -41.03% +3.90%
75th Percentile £74.26 £25.30 £57.30
90th Percentile £78.00 £40.12 £70.80
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £23.59 £40.00
% change year-on-year +67.44% -41.03% +3.90%

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 3,373 3,435 5,212
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.39% 12.82% 14.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,188 1,986 3,202
10th Percentile £204 £220 £206
25th Percentile £353 £365 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £490
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% +2.04% -5.77%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £680 £687 £700
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 155 106 348
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.11 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.46 £23.53
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% -36.36% +150.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £65.25
90th Percentile £74.26 £70.63 £75.20
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year -14.29% -36.36% +161.90%

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 23 January 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 23 January 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 23 January 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 +2 230 £550 +4.76% 62
North of England -25 139 £465 +9.41% 80
South East -8 116 £505 +9.19% 119
Midlands +10 112 £385 -9.41% 52
West Midlands +26 108 £390 -3.70% 23
North West -2 95 £488 +2.90% 28
South West -21 63 £575 +4.93% 53
Yorkshire -34 49 £449 +49.50% 43
East of England -27 36 £475 +72.73% 55
North East -21 7 £575 +155.56% 13
East Midlands -40 4 £275 -38.89% 28
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 89 (13.53%) Microsoft Exchange
2 66 (10.03%) SharePoint
3 34 (5.17%) Skype for Business
4 24 (3.65%) Confluence
5 15 (2.28%) nginx
6 9 (1.37%) SharePoint Server
7 8 (1.22%) Exchange Server 2010
7 8 (1.22%) IIS
8 7 (1.06%) Exchange Server 2013
9 5 (0.76%) Apache
9 5 (0.76%) Exchange Server 2003
9 5 (0.76%) Exchange Server 2007
9 5 (0.76%) Office Communications Server
10 3 (0.46%) OpenStack
10 3 (0.46%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.30%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.30%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.30%) WebLogic
11 2 (0.30%) WordPress
Applications
1 43 (6.53%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (2.13%) MS Visio
3 9 (1.37%) Mozilla Thunderbird
4 2 (0.30%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.30%) Windchill
5 1 (0.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
1 2 (0.30%) SystmOne
1 2 (0.30%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 229 (34.80%) Azure
2 167 (25.38%) AWS
3 130 (19.76%) Microsoft 365
4 100 (15.20%) Entra ID
5 69 (10.49%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 57 (8.66%) Amazon S3
7 54 (8.21%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 51 (7.75%) Amazon EC2
9 44 (6.69%) GCP
9 44 (6.69%) GitHub
10 39 (5.93%) Amazon ELB
11 32 (4.86%) AWS CloudFormation
12 31 (4.71%) Amazon ECS
13 29 (4.41%) Route 53
13 29 (4.41%) Serverless
14 27 (4.10%) AWS Lambda
14 27 (4.10%) IaaS
15 22 (3.34%) SaaS
16 21 (3.19%) GitHub Actions
17 19 (2.89%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 291 (44.22%) DHCP
2 211 (32.07%) TCP/IP
3 208 (31.61%) Firewall
4 174 (26.44%) VPN
5 88 (13.37%) Network Security
6 85 (12.92%) SSL
7 83 (12.61%) WAN
8 67 (10.18%) LAN
9 65 (9.88%) HTTP
10 61 (9.27%) VLAN
11 43 (6.53%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
12 40 (6.08%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
13 39 (5.93%) Wireshark
14 38 (5.78%) BGP
15 37 (5.62%) BIG-IP
15 37 (5.62%) Wireless
16 36 (5.47%) Wi-Fi
17 35 (5.32%) DMZ
18 33 (5.02%) Skype
19 32 (4.86%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (4.41%) Amazon RDS
2 23 (3.50%) PostgreSQL
3 21 (3.19%) SQL Server
4 15 (2.28%) Amazon Aurora
5 10 (1.52%) Elasticsearch
6 9 (1.37%) MongoDB
7 7 (1.06%) DynamoDB
7 7 (1.06%) MySQL
8 6 (0.91%) Redis
9 5 (0.76%) Data Hub
10 4 (0.61%) DocumentDB
10 4 (0.61%) NoSQL
10 4 (0.61%) Relational Database
11 3 (0.46%) BigQuery
12 1 (0.15%) Apache Cassandra
12 1 (0.15%) Data Warehouse
12 1 (0.15%) Electronic Patient Records
12 1 (0.15%) Geospatial Data
12 1 (0.15%) Oracle Reports
12 1 (0.15%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 75 (11.40%) Jenkins
2 59 (8.97%) Git
3 46 (6.99%) GitLab
4 38 (5.78%) JIRA
5 25 (3.80%) Fiddler
6 14 (2.13%) Vagrant
7 8 (1.22%) Terragrunt
8 6 (0.91%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.76%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.76%) Subversion
10 4 (0.61%) CircleCI
10 4 (0.61%) TeamCity
11 1 (0.15%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 1 (0.15%) GCC
11 1 (0.15%) MSI
11 1 (0.15%) Octopus Deploy
11 1 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.15%) Travis CI
11 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio Code
11 1 (0.15%) webpack
General
1 195 (29.64%) Social Skills
2 97 (14.74%) Analytical Skills
3 69 (10.49%) Public Sector
4 52 (7.90%) Banking
5 41 (6.23%) Documentation Skills
6 40 (6.08%) Investment Banking
7 39 (5.93%) Finance
8 16 (2.43%) Telecoms
9 15 (2.28%) Legal
9 15 (2.28%) Presentation Skills
10 8 (1.22%) Military
11 7 (1.06%) Influencing Skills
12 6 (0.91%) Law
12 6 (0.91%) Organisational Skills
13 5 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 4 (0.61%) Financial Institution
14 4 (0.61%) Marketing
15 3 (0.46%) Aerospace
15 3 (0.46%) Local Government
16 2 (0.30%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 93 (14.13%) Network Engineer
2 87 (13.22%) Architect
3 64 (9.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 64 (9.73%) Support Engineer
4 63 (9.57%) Senior
5 62 (9.42%) Analyst
6 44 (6.69%) Platform Engineer
7 40 (6.08%) DevOps Engineer
7 40 (6.08%) IT Support
8 32 (4.86%) Security Engineer
9 30 (4.56%) AWS Engineer
10 26 (3.95%) 2nd Line Support
10 26 (3.95%) Web Engineer
11 23 (3.50%) Cloud Platform Engineer
11 23 (3.50%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 22 (3.34%) Lead
13 21 (3.19%) AWS DevOps
13 21 (3.19%) AWS DevOps Engineer
13 21 (3.19%) Operations Engineer
14 18 (2.74%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (7.90%) LDAP
2 40 (6.08%) SAML
3 35 (5.32%) OAuth
4 26 (3.95%) OpenID
5 20 (3.04%) OAuth2
6 12 (1.82%) 802.1X
6 12 (1.82%) Kafka
7 10 (1.52%) REST
8 8 (1.22%) Elastic Stack
9 7 (1.06%) Middleware
9 7 (1.06%) OpenTelemetry
10 6 (0.91%) AWS CDK
11 5 (0.76%) AngularJS
11 5 (0.76%) cloud-init
11 5 (0.76%) Keycloak
11 5 (0.76%) React
11 5 (0.76%) RESTful
11 5 (0.76%) YAML
12 4 (0.61%) ASP.NET Web API
12 4 (0.61%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 63 (9.57%) Replication
2 50 (7.60%) PKI
3 47 (7.14%) Data Centre
4 39 (5.93%) Management Information System
5 27 (4.10%) Onboarding
6 22 (3.34%) Enterprise Software
7 21 (3.19%) Analytical Mindset
7 21 (3.19%) Cloud Native
8 14 (2.13%) Security Operations Centre
9 13 (1.98%) Cyberattack
9 13 (1.98%) Hybrid Cloud
9 13 (1.98%) Public Cloud
10 11 (1.67%) Clustering
10 11 (1.67%) Private Cloud
10 11 (1.67%) Self-Motivation
11 10 (1.52%) Cyber Threat
11 10 (1.52%) Video Conferencing
12 9 (1.37%) NHS
12 9 (1.37%) SCADA
13 7 (1.06%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 330 (50.15%) Windows
2 165 (25.08%) Windows Server
3 123 (18.69%) Linux
4 63 (9.57%) Windows 10
5 28 (4.26%) Windows Server 2019
6 21 (3.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 21 (3.19%) Windows Server 2016
7 19 (2.89%) VMS
8 17 (2.58%) Amazon Linux
8 17 (2.58%) Android
8 17 (2.58%) Unix
8 17 (2.58%) Windows Server 2012
9 14 (2.13%) Ubuntu
10 13 (1.98%) CentOS
11 12 (1.82%) Apple iOS
12 10 (1.52%) Windows 7
12 10 (1.52%) Windows Server 2003
13 7 (1.06%) Mac OS
14 5 (0.76%) Solaris
15 4 (0.61%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (22.34%) Problem-Solving
2 117 (17.78%) Load Balancing
3 111 (16.87%) DevOps
3 111 (16.87%) ITIL
4 106 (16.11%) CI/CD
5 87 (13.22%) Infrastructure as Code
6 83 (12.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 79 (12.01%) High Availability
8 71 (10.79%) Change Management
9 65 (9.88%) Migration
10 63 (9.57%) Disaster Recovery
11 60 (9.12%) Cybersecurity
12 55 (8.36%) Incident Response
13 52 (7.90%) Service Management
14 51 (7.75%) Platform Engineering
14 51 (7.75%) Root Cause Analysis
15 49 (7.45%) Mentoring
16 46 (6.99%) Continuous Improvement
17 45 (6.84%) Identity Access Management
18 42 (6.38%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 203 (30.85%) PowerShell
2 142 (21.58%) Python
3 67 (10.18%) Bash
4 40 (6.08%) SQL
5 19 (2.89%) Java
6 18 (2.74%) Perl
7 14 (2.13%) Groovy
8 12 (1.82%) Bicep
8 12 (1.82%) VBScript
9 10 (1.52%) Shell Script
9 10 (1.52%) VB
10 8 (1.22%) Go
10 8 (1.22%) Ruby
11 7 (1.06%) Lisp
12 6 (0.91%) Kusto Query Language
13 5 (0.76%) C++
14 3 (0.46%) C#
14 3 (0.46%) JavaScript
14 3 (0.46%) T-SQL
15 1 (0.15%) PHP
Qualifications
1 257 (39.06%) Security Cleared
2 185 (28.12%) SC Cleared
3 81 (12.31%) DV Cleared
4 61 (9.27%) Degree
5 56 (8.51%) Microsoft Certification
6 41 (6.23%) Cisco Certification
7 38 (5.78%) CCNP
8 37 (5.62%) Azure Certification
9 25 (3.80%) AWS Certification
10 18 (2.74%) Network+ Certification
11 15 (2.28%) CCNA
12 11 (1.67%) Server+ Certification
13 10 (1.52%) CISSP
13 10 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
14 9 (1.37%) CompTIA Security+
15 8 (1.22%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 8 (1.22%) CCIE
15 8 (1.22%) ITIL Certification
15 8 (1.22%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 7 (1.06%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (5.17%) GDPR
2 20 (3.04%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 19 (2.89%) SLA
4 18 (2.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 16 (2.43%) NIST
6 9 (1.37%) NCSC
6 9 (1.37%) PCI DSS
7 8 (1.22%) Cyber Essentials
8 6 (0.91%) QA
9 5 (0.76%) Accessibility
10 3 (0.46%) Data Quality
10 3 (0.46%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 2 (0.30%) JSP 440
12 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.15%) Government Security Classifications
12 1 (0.15%) SOC 2
12 1 (0.15%) WCAG
System Software
1 295 (44.83%) Active Directory
2 168 (25.53%) VMware Infrastructure
3 84 (12.77%) Docker
4 47 (7.14%) Hyper-V
5 43 (6.53%) VMware NSX
6 26 (3.95%) Virtual Machines
7 25 (3.80%) vSphere
8 21 (3.19%) Firmware
9 18 (2.74%) VMware ESXi
10 17 (2.58%) DFS Replication
11 14 (2.13%) Squid
12 12 (1.82%) BitLocker
13 10 (1.52%) Postfix
14 9 (1.37%) Dovecot
14 9 (1.37%) Virtual Servers
15 8 (1.22%) Virtual Desktop
16 6 (0.91%) Microsoft App-V
16 6 (0.91%) NFS
16 6 (0.91%) Terminal Services
17 5 (0.76%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 131 (19.91%) Terraform
2 109 (16.57%) Ansible
3 78 (11.85%) Microsoft Intune
4 76 (11.55%) SCCM
5 61 (9.27%) Single Sign-On
6 60 (9.12%) Kubernetes
7 49 (7.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 37 (5.62%) vCenter Server
9 36 (5.47%) Grafana
10 28 (4.26%) Prometheus
11 19 (2.89%) FortiGate
12 18 (2.74%) WSUS
13 13 (1.98%) SCOM
14 12 (1.82%) Argo
14 12 (1.82%) Proxmox
15 11 (1.67%) Packer
16 10 (1.52%) Nessus
17 9 (1.37%) Puppet
18 8 (1.22%) Microsoft Clustering
19 6 (0.91%) Kibana
Vendors
1 261 (39.67%) Microsoft
2 204 (31.00%) VMware
3 114 (17.33%) F5
4 99 (15.05%) Cisco
5 74 (11.25%) ServiceNow
6 47 (7.14%) CheckPoint
6 47 (7.14%) Palo Alto
7 44 (6.69%) Splunk
8 41 (6.23%) Blue Coat
9 34 (5.17%) Citrix
10 32 (4.86%) SolarWinds
11 30 (4.56%) McAfee
12 26 (3.95%) NetApp
13 25 (3.80%) Red Hat
14 24 (3.65%) Veeam
15 23 (3.50%) Juniper
16 21 (3.19%) Okta
17 19 (2.89%) Dell
18 18 (2.74%) Fortinet
18 18 (2.74%) Zscaler