Network Design Contract Job Trends in England

Network Design
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Network Design skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 3 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 469 364 309
Rank change year-on-year -105 -55 +17
Contract jobs citing Network Design 177 157 222
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.38% 0.56% 0.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.45% 0.62% 0.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 119 112 124
10th Percentile £400 £400 £404
25th Percentile £450 £413 £452
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year +7.89% -9.52% -9.26%
75th Percentile £594 £600 £603
90th Percentile £650 £650 £684
UK median daily rate £500 £475 £525
% change year-on-year +5.26% -9.52% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 3
10th Percentile - - £43.00
25th Percentile £45.00 - £55.00
Median hourly rate £60.00 £55.00 £75.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -26.67% +13.67%
75th Percentile £69.00 - -
90th Percentile £80.81 - -
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £55.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -16.64%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

Network Design falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 39,417 25,490 28,010
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.73% 90.96% 86.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,890 16,169 17,141
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £645
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,936 1,564 1,197
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.44 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.59 £17.87 £20.25
Median hourly rate £40.08 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.36% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.00 £67.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.43 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £25.15 £42.27
% change year-on-year +53.96% -40.49% -0.55%

Network Design
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

Network Design job vacancy trend in England

Network Design
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Network Design.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Network Design

Network Design
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Design in England over the 6 months to 3 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Network Design in England

Network Design
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Network Design.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Network Design

Network Design
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Network Design in England over the 6 months to 3 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Design in England

Network Design
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 Network Design within the England region over the 6 months to 3 October 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 -72 53 £500 +11.11% 107
South East -61 38 £553 +10.50% 41
North of England -66 31 £575 +21.05% 23
North West -46 24 £575 +21.05% 14
Midlands -50 22 £450 +5.88% 16
West Midlands -42 21 £450 +5.88% 9
South West -43 11 £535 -16.41% 18
North East -39 7 £650 +18.18% 2
East of England -22 6 £500 +21.21% 7
Yorkshire -33 6 £519 -9.74% 8
East Midlands - 1 - - 7
Network Design
UK

Network Design
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 10 (5.65%) OpenStack
2 4 (2.26%) Apache
3 3 (1.69%) CloudStack
4 2 (1.13%) Confluence
5 1 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.56%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.56%) nginx
Applications
1 8 (4.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 7 (3.95%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (2.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (2.82%) MS Visio
4 3 (1.69%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.56%) CPLEX
Cloud Services
1 55 (31.07%) Azure
2 49 (27.68%) AWS
3 15 (8.47%) OCI
4 11 (6.21%) GCP
5 10 (5.65%) GitHub
5 10 (5.65%) SaaS
6 7 (3.95%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 7 (3.95%) OpenShift
7 6 (3.39%) Entra ID
7 6 (3.39%) IaaS
8 4 (2.26%) Azure Sentinel
8 4 (2.26%) GitHub Actions
9 3 (1.69%) AWS Control Tower
9 3 (1.69%) AWS Direct Connect
9 3 (1.69%) Azure Storage
10 2 (1.13%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 2 (1.13%) Azure AKS
10 2 (1.13%) Azure Monitor
10 2 (1.13%) Datadog
10 2 (1.13%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 80 (45.20%) Firewall
2 62 (35.03%) BGP
3 54 (30.51%) WAN
4 44 (24.86%) OSPF
5 35 (19.77%) LAN
5 35 (19.77%) Network Security
5 35 (19.77%) VLAN
6 28 (15.82%) VPN
7 27 (15.25%) SD-WAN
8 23 (12.99%) VXLAN
9 22 (12.43%) Wi-Fi
10 20 (11.30%) Ethernet VPN
10 20 (11.30%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
10 20 (11.30%) MPLS
11 19 (10.73%) 4G
11 19 (10.73%) 5G
12 18 (10.17%) WLAN
13 17 (9.60%) BIG-IP
14 16 (9.04%) Wireless
15 15 (8.47%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.69%) Metadata
2 1 (0.56%) Big Data
2 1 (0.56%) Data Lake
2 1 (0.56%) Elasticsearch
2 1 (0.56%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 14 (7.91%) GitLab
2 3 (1.69%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.13%) JIRA
4 1 (0.56%) Git
General
1 42 (23.73%) Social Skills
2 26 (14.69%) Telecoms
3 21 (11.86%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (10.17%) Public Sector
5 11 (6.21%) Manufacturing
6 9 (5.08%) Legal
7 7 (3.95%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (3.39%) Finance
8 6 (3.39%) Retail
9 3 (1.69%) Agriculture
9 3 (1.69%) Automotive
9 3 (1.69%) Billing
9 3 (1.69%) Cyber-Physical System
9 3 (1.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (1.13%) Local Government
10 2 (1.13%) Military
11 1 (0.56%) Banking
11 1 (0.56%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (0.56%) Polish Language
11 1 (0.56%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 60 (33.90%) Network Engineer
2 41 (23.16%) Senior
3 35 (19.77%) Architect
4 21 (11.86%) Network Architect
4 21 (11.86%) Network Specialist
4 21 (11.86%) Senior Network Engineer
5 17 (9.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 13 (7.34%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
7 11 (6.21%) Design Engineer
7 11 (6.21%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
7 11 (6.21%) Senior Network Specialist
8 10 (5.65%) Network Design Specialist
9 9 (5.08%) Consultant
9 9 (5.08%) Designer
10 8 (4.52%) Network Design Engineer
10 8 (4.52%) RAN Engineer
10 8 (4.52%) Security Architect
11 7 (3.95%) Lead
11 7 (3.95%) Network Designer
11 7 (3.95%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (24.86%) Terraform
2 9 (5.08%) NETCONF
2 9 (5.08%) YANG
3 7 (3.95%) 802.1X
4 6 (3.39%) REST
5 4 (2.26%) Azure Blueprints
5 4 (2.26%) OpenConfig
5 4 (2.26%) RESTCONF
6 3 (1.69%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.56%) eBPF
7 1 (0.56%) Kafka
7 1 (0.56%) Spark Streaming
7 1 (0.56%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 58 (32.77%) Data Centre
2 41 (23.16%) Hybrid Cloud
3 25 (14.12%) Cloud Native
4 8 (4.52%) Operational Technology
4 8 (4.52%) Public Cloud
5 6 (3.39%) Analytical Mindset
5 6 (3.39%) Private Cloud
6 5 (2.82%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (2.82%) IoT
6 5 (2.82%) Management Information System
6 5 (2.82%) PKI
7 4 (2.26%) CMDB
7 4 (2.26%) Handset
7 4 (2.26%) SCADA
7 4 (2.26%) Security Posture
8 3 (1.69%) Data Fabric
8 3 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
8 3 (1.69%) Product Ownership
9 2 (1.13%) EMC VNX
9 2 (1.13%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 17 (9.60%) Linux
2 15 (8.47%) Windows
3 8 (4.52%) Ubuntu
3 8 (4.52%) Windows Server
4 4 (2.26%) Alpine Linux
4 4 (2.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (1.13%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (22.03%) Stakeholder Management
2 34 (19.21%) Infrastructure as Code
3 33 (18.64%) Zero Trust
4 31 (17.51%) High Availability
5 30 (16.95%) Network Architecture
6 29 (16.38%) DevOps
7 28 (15.82%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 28 (15.82%) Migration
7 28 (15.82%) Roadmaps
8 25 (14.12%) Problem-Solving
8 25 (14.12%) Project Delivery
9 24 (13.56%) Load Balancing
10 23 (12.99%) CI/CD
11 21 (11.86%) Validation
12 19 (10.73%) Cybersecurity
13 17 (9.60%) Technical Leadership
14 15 (8.47%) Agile
14 15 (8.47%) Continuous Improvement
15 13 (7.34%) Decision-Making
15 13 (7.34%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 41 (23.16%) Python
2 7 (3.95%) Bicep
3 6 (3.39%) PowerShell
4 3 (1.69%) Bash
5 2 (1.13%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.56%) ActionScript
6 1 (0.56%) C#
6 1 (0.56%) Java
6 1 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
6 1 (0.56%) SQL
Qualifications
1 53 (29.94%) Security Cleared
2 35 (19.77%) SC Cleared
3 34 (19.21%) Cisco Certification
4 23 (12.99%) CCNP
5 14 (7.91%) CCIE
6 13 (7.34%) DV Cleared
7 10 (5.65%) AWS Certification
7 10 (5.65%) JNCIE
8 9 (5.08%) Degree
9 7 (3.95%) Azure Certification
10 6 (3.39%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 5 (2.82%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 5 (2.82%) CISSP
12 4 (2.26%) CISM
13 2 (1.13%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 2 (1.13%) CCNA
13 2 (1.13%) ISSAP
13 2 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
13 2 (1.13%) NCDA
13 2 (1.13%) NCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (6.78%) NIST
2 9 (5.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.26%) SOC 2
4 3 (1.69%) Actionable Recommendations
4 3 (1.69%) NIST 800
5 2 (1.13%) GDPR
5 2 (1.13%) GxP
5 2 (1.13%) HIPAA
5 2 (1.13%) QA
5 2 (1.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.56%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.56%) Def Stans
6 1 (0.56%) GLBA
6 1 (0.56%) NCSC
6 1 (0.56%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.56%) SLA
System Software
1 13 (7.34%) VMware Infrastructure
2 9 (5.08%) vSphere
3 7 (3.95%) VMware NSX
4 6 (3.39%) Active Directory
5 4 (2.26%) FreeRADIUS
6 3 (1.69%) Docker
6 3 (1.69%) Firmware
6 3 (1.69%) Hyper-V
6 3 (1.69%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (1.13%) EMC RecoverPoint
7 2 (1.13%) NFS
7 2 (1.13%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 42 (23.73%) Ansible
2 11 (6.21%) Kubernetes
3 10 (5.65%) Grafana
3 10 (5.65%) Prometheus
4 8 (4.52%) FortiGate
5 3 (1.69%) Check_MK
5 3 (1.69%) vCenter Server
6 2 (1.13%) Argo
6 2 (1.13%) EMC NetWorker
6 2 (1.13%) EMC VPLEX
6 2 (1.13%) NetBackup
6 2 (1.13%) SnapMirror
6 2 (1.13%) SnapVault
7 1 (0.56%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.56%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.56%) QRadar
7 1 (0.56%) SCCM
7 1 (0.56%) Suricata
7 1 (0.56%) vRealize
Vendors
1 68 (38.42%) Cisco
2 42 (23.73%) Fortinet
2 42 (23.73%) Palo Alto
3 36 (20.34%) F5
4 24 (13.56%) Arista
5 21 (11.86%) Aruba
6 19 (10.73%) Juniper
7 18 (10.17%) Microsoft
8 15 (8.47%) Nokia
8 15 (8.47%) VMware
9 14 (7.91%) Ericsson
10 9 (5.08%) Zscaler
11 7 (3.95%) CheckPoint
11 7 (3.95%) Splunk
12 6 (3.39%) Google
13 5 (2.82%) Huawei
13 5 (2.82%) Meraki
13 5 (2.82%) ServiceNow
13 5 (2.82%) SolarWinds
13 5 (2.82%) Veeam