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 25 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
25 Apr 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 129 111 127
Rank change year-on-year -18 +16 -4
Contract jobs citing DNS 783 590 677
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.96% 2.40% 1.82%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 20.66% 18.34% 13.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 486 416 457
10th Percentile £263 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £545 £475
Median % change year-on-year -8.26% +14.74% -9.52%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £599
90th Percentile £651 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £535 £475
% change year-on-year -6.54% +12.63% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 10 28
10th Percentile £16.84 £23.08 £19.55
25th Percentile £24.18 £32.44 £23.80
Median hourly rate £60.25 £80.68 £36.25
Median % change year-on-year -25.32% +122.55% -26.20%
75th Percentile £74.26 £81.35 £40.00
90th Percentile £75.75 £82.29 £62.25
UK median hourly rate £60.25 £67.59 £40.00
% change year-on-year -10.86% +68.97% -23.27%

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 3,790 3,217 5,081
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.51% 13.08% 13.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,381 2,001 3,073
10th Percentile £238 £220 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £488
Median % change year-on-year - +2.56% -7.14%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £490 £490
% change year-on-year +2.04% - -5.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 196 124 403
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.20 £13.57
25th Percentile £21.25 £16.30 £17.69
Median hourly rate £42.60 £36.57 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.49% -8.57% +111.30%
75th Percentile £68.07 £65.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.01 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £42.25 £37.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +12.67% -6.25% +110.53%

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 25 April 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 25 April 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 25 April 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 -42 252 £500 -4.14% 52
North of England +7 227 £446 -6.11% 56
South East -3 161 £525 -4.55% 69
North West +31 148 £447 +5.24% 24
Midlands +24 111 £390 -29.73% 31
West Midlands +27 97 £380 -23.43% 18
Yorkshire -34 76 £447 -18.77% 23
South West -61 44 £575 - 35
East of England -40 41 £450 -14.29% 24
East Midlands -33 13 £394 -30.62% 13
North East -25 6 £306 -9.93% 10
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 91 (11.62%) Microsoft Exchange
2 36 (4.60%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.66%) nginx
4 11 (1.40%) Confluence
4 11 (1.40%) IIS
5 9 (1.15%) Skype for Business
6 8 (1.02%) Apache
7 3 (0.38%) Exchange Server 2010
8 2 (0.26%) Exchange Server 2013
8 2 (0.26%) IBM HTTP Server
8 2 (0.26%) Oracle HTTP Server
8 2 (0.26%) WebSphere
8 2 (0.26%) WebSphere Application Server
8 2 (0.26%) WebSphere Portal
8 2 (0.26%) WordPress
9 1 (0.13%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.13%) Traefik
Applications
1 27 (3.45%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (1.66%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.13%) Cloudability
1 1 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 265 (33.84%) Azure
2 135 (17.24%) AWS
3 134 (17.11%) Entra ID
4 112 (14.30%) Microsoft 365
5 85 (10.86%) GCP
6 57 (7.28%) GitHub
7 44 (5.62%) IaaS
8 40 (5.11%) SaaS
9 36 (4.60%) Serverless
10 35 (4.47%) PaaS
11 34 (4.34%) AWS CloudFormation
12 31 (3.96%) AWS Lambda
13 29 (3.70%) Amazon S3
13 29 (3.70%) Route 53
13 29 (3.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 27 (3.45%) Amazon EC2
15 24 (3.07%) Amazon EKS
16 23 (2.94%) OpenShift
17 21 (2.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 21 (2.68%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 339 (43.30%) DHCP
2 242 (30.91%) Firewall
3 186 (23.75%) VPN
4 185 (23.63%) TCP/IP
5 105 (13.41%) WAN
6 99 (12.64%) LAN
7 85 (10.86%) Network Security
8 79 (10.09%) SSL
9 77 (9.83%) BGP
9 77 (9.83%) BIG-IP
10 72 (9.20%) VLAN
11 67 (8.56%) HTTP
12 49 (6.26%) Wi-Fi
13 45 (5.75%) OSPF
14 44 (5.62%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 39 (4.98%) Wireless
15 39 (4.98%) Wireshark
16 37 (4.73%) DMZ
16 37 (4.73%) Kerberos
17 30 (3.83%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (3.45%) SQL Server
2 18 (2.30%) Elasticsearch
3 13 (1.66%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (1.28%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (0.89%) DynamoDB
6 5 (0.64%) Amazon Aurora
6 5 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
6 5 (0.64%) Data Hub
6 5 (0.64%) MongoDB
6 5 (0.64%) MySQL
6 5 (0.64%) Power BI
7 4 (0.51%) DocumentDB
7 4 (0.51%) NoSQL
7 4 (0.51%) Redis
7 4 (0.51%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.13%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 1 (0.13%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 50 (6.39%) Jenkins
2 44 (5.62%) JIRA
3 28 (3.58%) Fiddler
4 26 (3.32%) Git
5 25 (3.19%) GitLab
6 9 (1.15%) Browser DevTools
7 7 (0.89%) Bitbucket
7 7 (0.89%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.77%) Chocolatey
9 4 (0.51%) CircleCI
9 4 (0.51%) Terragrunt
10 3 (0.38%) Sonatype Nexus
11 2 (0.26%) Introscope
12 1 (0.13%) Artifactory
12 1 (0.13%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 1 (0.13%) Subversion
12 1 (0.13%) Travis CI
General
1 169 (21.58%) Social Skills
2 79 (10.09%) Analytical Skills
3 71 (9.07%) Banking
4 62 (7.92%) Finance
5 56 (7.15%) Public Sector
6 42 (5.36%) Documentation Skills
7 40 (5.11%) Investment Banking
8 22 (2.81%) Legal
9 18 (2.30%) Telecoms
10 17 (2.17%) Military
11 9 (1.15%) Organisational Skills
12 8 (1.02%) Law
13 7 (0.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 6 (0.77%) Financial Institution
15 5 (0.64%) Local Government
16 4 (0.51%) Manufacturing
17 3 (0.38%) Aerospace
17 3 (0.38%) Influencing Skills
17 3 (0.38%) Police
18 2 (0.26%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 145 (18.52%) Network Engineer
2 111 (14.18%) Architect
3 87 (11.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 68 (8.68%) Analyst
5 60 (7.66%) Senior
6 55 (7.02%) Security Engineer
7 49 (6.26%) Web Engineer
8 38 (4.85%) Network Security Engineer
8 38 (4.85%) Support Engineer
9 32 (4.09%) Cisco Engineer
9 32 (4.09%) Cisco Network Engineer
10 31 (3.96%) IT Support
11 30 (3.83%) Administrator
11 30 (3.83%) IT Engineer
12 29 (3.70%) Data Engineer
12 29 (3.70%) Data Network Engineer
13 28 (3.58%) Cisco Security Engineer
13 28 (3.58%) Lead
14 27 (3.45%) Azure Engineer
15 24 (3.07%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (8.56%) LDAP
2 44 (5.62%) SAML
3 36 (4.60%) OAuth
4 35 (4.47%) 802.1X
5 25 (3.19%) OpenID
6 22 (2.81%) OpenTelemetry
7 12 (1.53%) OAuth2
8 10 (1.28%) JSON
9 9 (1.15%) Kafka
9 9 (1.15%) REST
10 7 (0.89%) Elastic Stack
10 7 (0.89%) XMPP
11 6 (0.77%) ARM Templates
12 5 (0.64%) Microsoft Graph
13 4 (0.51%) gRPC
13 4 (0.51%) Hibernate
13 4 (0.51%) Middleware
13 4 (0.51%) Spring
13 4 (0.51%) Spring Boot
13 4 (0.51%) Spring Cloud
Miscellaneous
1 66 (8.43%) PKI
2 64 (8.17%) Data Centre
3 49 (6.26%) Cloud Native
4 42 (5.36%) Replication
5 38 (4.85%) Clustering
6 37 (4.73%) Management Information System
7 32 (4.09%) Onboarding
7 32 (4.09%) Public Cloud
8 25 (3.19%) Hybrid Cloud
9 22 (2.81%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 18 (2.30%) Self-Motivation
11 15 (1.92%) Cyber Threat
11 15 (1.92%) Cyberattack
11 15 (1.92%) Enterprise Software
11 15 (1.92%) Legacy Systems
11 15 (1.92%) Security Operations Centre
12 13 (1.66%) Analytical Mindset
13 12 (1.53%) Enterprise Cloud
13 12 (1.53%) Product Ownership
14 11 (1.40%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 335 (42.78%) Windows
2 192 (24.52%) Windows Server
3 102 (13.03%) Linux
4 46 (5.87%) Windows 10
5 28 (3.58%) Windows Server 2019
6 21 (2.68%) Unix
7 19 (2.43%) Windows Server 2012
8 16 (2.04%) Android
9 15 (1.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 14 (1.79%) Windows Server 2016
11 11 (1.40%) Windows 7
12 10 (1.28%) Apple iOS
12 10 (1.28%) Mac OS
13 8 (1.02%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.77%) VMS
15 4 (0.51%) CatOS
15 4 (0.51%) CentOS
15 4 (0.51%) Ubuntu
16 3 (0.38%) Amazon Linux
17 2 (0.26%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 160 (20.43%) Load Balancing
1 160 (20.43%) Problem-Solving
2 130 (16.60%) Migration
3 125 (15.96%) High Availability
4 110 (14.05%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 104 (13.28%) DevOps
6 103 (13.15%) ITIL
7 100 (12.77%) CI/CD
8 96 (12.26%) Infrastructure as Code
9 73 (9.32%) Disaster Recovery
10 72 (9.20%) Identity Access Management
11 66 (8.43%) Cybersecurity
12 65 (8.30%) Observability
13 61 (7.79%) ITSM
14 55 (7.02%) Agile
15 53 (6.77%) RBAC
16 49 (6.26%) Continuous Improvement
17 48 (6.13%) Service Management
18 47 (6.00%) Change Management
18 47 (6.00%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 176 (22.48%) PowerShell
2 120 (15.33%) Python
3 65 (8.30%) Bash
4 36 (4.60%) SQL
5 19 (2.43%) JavaScript
6 14 (1.79%) Bicep
7 12 (1.53%) VBScript
8 11 (1.40%) Go
8 11 (1.40%) Java
9 10 (1.28%) Ruby
9 10 (1.28%) Shell Script
10 9 (1.15%) VB
11 6 (0.77%) VBA
12 3 (0.38%) C
12 3 (0.38%) Groovy
12 3 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
12 3 (0.38%) Lisp
12 3 (0.38%) Perl
13 2 (0.26%) Jython
14 1 (0.13%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 261 (33.33%) Security Cleared
2 175 (22.35%) SC Cleared
3 83 (10.60%) DV Cleared
4 69 (8.81%) Cisco Certification
5 43 (5.49%) Degree
6 39 (4.98%) CCNP
7 29 (3.70%) CCNA
8 27 (3.45%) Microsoft Certification
9 23 (2.94%) Azure Certification
10 19 (2.43%) CompTIA Security+
11 17 (2.17%) Network+ Certification
12 12 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
13 11 (1.40%) AWS Certification
14 10 (1.28%) Computer Science Degree
14 10 (1.28%) JNCIA
14 10 (1.28%) JNCIS
15 8 (1.02%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 8 (1.02%) JNCIP
16 7 (0.89%) CCIE
16 7 (0.89%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (3.32%) SLA
2 25 (3.19%) GDPR
3 21 (2.68%) NIST
4 19 (2.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 15 (1.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 8 (1.02%) NCSC
7 7 (0.89%) Cyber Essentials
7 7 (0.89%) QA
8 4 (0.51%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.38%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 2 (0.26%) Data Quality
10 2 (0.26%) JSP 440
11 1 (0.13%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.13%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.13%) COBIT
11 1 (0.13%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.13%) RMADS
System Software
1 323 (41.25%) Active Directory
2 171 (21.84%) VMware Infrastructure
3 72 (9.20%) Hyper-V
4 49 (6.26%) VMware NSX
5 43 (5.49%) Docker
5 43 (5.49%) vSphere
6 30 (3.83%) Virtual Machines
7 27 (3.45%) VMware ESXi
8 26 (3.32%) Firmware
9 18 (2.30%) BitLocker
10 15 (1.92%) Virtual Desktop
11 10 (1.28%) Squid
12 9 (1.15%) NFS
13 8 (1.02%) Microsoft App-V
14 5 (0.64%) Postfix
14 5 (0.64%) Sendmail
14 5 (0.64%) Terminal Services
14 5 (0.64%) Varnish
15 4 (0.51%) XenApp
16 3 (0.38%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 135 (17.24%) Terraform
2 99 (12.64%) Ansible
3 90 (11.49%) Kubernetes
4 79 (10.09%) Microsoft Intune
5 71 (9.07%) Single Sign-On
6 59 (7.54%) SCCM
7 49 (6.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 43 (5.49%) FortiGate
9 40 (5.11%) vCenter Server
10 38 (4.85%) Grafana
11 22 (2.81%) Argo
11 22 (2.81%) Prometheus
11 22 (2.81%) WSUS
12 13 (1.66%) SCOM
13 10 (1.28%) Puppet
14 9 (1.15%) HAProxy
14 9 (1.15%) Nessus
14 9 (1.15%) vMotion
15 8 (1.02%) Consul
16 6 (0.77%) Nagios
Vendors
1 258 (32.95%) Microsoft
2 210 (26.82%) VMware
3 140 (17.88%) F5
4 136 (17.37%) Cisco
5 68 (8.68%) ServiceNow
6 67 (8.56%) Splunk
7 50 (6.39%) Citrix
8 44 (5.62%) SolarWinds
9 41 (5.24%) Infoblox
10 39 (4.98%) Google
10 39 (4.98%) Juniper
11 38 (4.85%) Red Hat
12 36 (4.60%) Blue Coat
13 32 (4.09%) McAfee
14 31 (3.96%) NetApp
15 28 (3.58%) Palo Alto
16 22 (2.81%) Extreme Networks
17 18 (2.30%) CheckPoint
17 18 (2.30%) Dynatrace
17 18 (2.30%) Pure Storage
243 DNS jobs in England