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 2 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 413 337 308
Rank change year-on-year -76 -29 +138
Contract jobs citing Network Design 174 148 240
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.43% 0.61% 0.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.51% 0.67% 0.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 121 83 121
10th Percentile £413 £403 £363
25th Percentile £472 £463 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £550 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.73% +15.79% -5.00%
75th Percentile £576 £625 £575
90th Percentile £675 £720 £650
UK median daily rate £519 £525 £486
% change year-on-year -1.19% +8.02% -2.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 4
10th Percentile £27.85 - £23.55
25th Percentile £33.25 £66.25 £24.00
Median hourly rate £54.25 £67.50 £47.25
Median % change year-on-year -19.63% +42.86% -32.50%
75th Percentile £71.76 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £72.23 - -
UK median hourly rate £54.25 £67.50 £47.25
% change year-on-year -19.63% +42.86% -32.50%

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 34,330 22,247 32,169
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.96% 91.17% 86.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,953 14,553 21,080
10th Percentile £318 £310 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £509 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.05% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,133 913 2,254
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.67 £12.94
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £30.00 £35.95
Median % change year-on-year +50.00% -16.55% -4.13%
75th Percentile £67.50 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £79.97 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £41.56 £29.00 £35.50
% change year-on-year +43.29% -18.31% -2.53%

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 2 May 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 2 May 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 2 May 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 -56 60 £525 +7.14% 15
South East -47 45 £500 -13.04% 13
North of England -70 26 £522 +4.40% 14
North West -49 19 £522 +4.35% 12
South West -30 15 £500 -4.76% 5
West Midlands -56 10 £463 +5.71% 9
Midlands -64 10 £463 +5.71% 9
East of England -25 8 £500 +25.00% 1
Yorkshire -46 7 £585 +16.90%
North East -18 2 - - 2
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 7 (4.02%) OpenStack
2 2 (1.15%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.15%) Skype for Business
3 1 (0.57%) ArcGIS
3 1 (0.57%) Confluence
3 1 (0.57%) Smallworld
Applications
1 8 (4.60%) MS Visio
2 6 (3.45%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (2.87%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (2.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.57%) Autodesk Inventor
5 1 (0.57%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 2 (1.15%) DELMIA
1 2 (1.15%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 43 (24.71%) Azure
2 30 (17.24%) AWS
3 7 (4.02%) OCI
4 5 (2.87%) Azure ExpressRoute
4 5 (2.87%) GCP
4 5 (2.87%) GitHub
4 5 (2.87%) PaaS
5 4 (2.30%) IaaS
5 4 (2.30%) SaaS
6 2 (1.15%) Dynamics 365
6 2 (1.15%) IBM Watson
6 2 (1.15%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (0.57%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (0.57%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (0.57%) Azure Storage
7 1 (0.57%) Datadog
7 1 (0.57%) Entra ID
7 1 (0.57%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (0.57%) Mimecast
7 1 (0.57%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 69 (39.66%) Firewall
2 60 (34.48%) WAN
3 46 (26.44%) BGP
4 37 (21.26%) LAN
4 37 (21.26%) VPN
5 32 (18.39%) OSPF
6 30 (17.24%) Network Security
7 26 (14.94%) Wi-Fi
8 25 (14.37%) MPLS
9 23 (13.22%) 5G
9 23 (13.22%) SD-WAN
10 22 (12.64%) VLAN
11 17 (9.77%) VXLAN
12 16 (9.20%) TCP/IP
13 15 (8.62%) 4G
13 15 (8.62%) Radio Access Network
14 14 (8.05%) IPsec
15 13 (7.47%) DNS
16 12 (6.90%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 11 (6.32%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.57%) GIS
Development Applications
1 5 (2.87%) GitLab
2 2 (1.15%) Git
2 2 (1.15%) JIRA
3 1 (0.57%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 41 (23.56%) Social Skills
2 25 (14.37%) Telecoms
3 19 (10.92%) Public Sector
4 14 (8.05%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (5.75%) Finance
6 9 (5.17%) Legal
7 8 (4.60%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (2.87%) Police
9 4 (2.30%) Manufacturing
10 3 (1.72%) Banking
11 2 (1.15%) Electronics
11 2 (1.15%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (1.15%) Military
11 2 (1.15%) Retail
12 1 (0.57%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.57%) Aviation
12 1 (0.57%) Local Government
12 1 (0.57%) Marketing
12 1 (0.57%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.57%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 53 (30.46%) Network Engineer
2 35 (20.11%) Architect
3 34 (19.54%) Senior
4 28 (16.09%) Network Specialist
5 26 (14.94%) Network Architect
6 22 (12.64%) Designer
7 20 (11.49%) Network Design Specialist
8 17 (9.77%) Network Designer
9 14 (8.05%) Design Engineer
10 12 (6.90%) Network Design Engineer
10 12 (6.90%) Senior Network Engineer
11 11 (6.32%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 9 (5.17%) Senior Designer
12 9 (5.17%) Senior Network Designer
13 8 (4.60%) Lead
14 7 (4.02%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
14 7 (4.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 6 (3.45%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
15 6 (3.45%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
15 6 (3.45%) Senior Network Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (5.17%) NETCONF
1 9 (5.17%) YANG
2 7 (4.02%) 802.1X
3 5 (2.87%) REST
4 4 (2.30%) OpenConfig
4 4 (2.30%) RESTCONF
5 2 (1.15%) Django
5 2 (1.15%) OpenID
5 2 (1.15%) SAML
6 1 (0.57%) JSON
6 1 (0.57%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 48 (27.59%) Data Centre
2 24 (13.79%) Hybrid Cloud
3 15 (8.62%) Cloud Native
4 9 (5.17%) Data Protection Act
5 4 (2.30%) Analytical Mindset
5 4 (2.30%) IoT
5 4 (2.30%) Management Information System
5 4 (2.30%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (1.15%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 2 (1.15%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (1.15%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.15%) Operational Technology
6 2 (1.15%) PKI
6 2 (1.15%) Private Cloud
6 2 (1.15%) Security Posture
7 1 (0.57%) Enterprise Storage
7 1 (0.57%) FPGA
7 1 (0.57%) Hedge funds
7 1 (0.57%) Replication
7 1 (0.57%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 9 (5.17%) Windows
2 8 (4.60%) Linux
3 6 (3.45%) Windows Server
4 2 (1.15%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.57%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 37 (21.26%) Network Architecture
2 28 (16.09%) High Availability
3 25 (14.37%) Load Balancing
4 24 (13.79%) Migration
5 20 (11.49%) Problem-Solving
6 19 (10.92%) Infrastructure as Code
7 17 (9.77%) Zero Trust
8 16 (9.20%) CI/CD
9 15 (8.62%) Roadmaps
10 14 (8.05%) DevOps
11 12 (6.90%) Data Protection
11 12 (6.90%) Network Segmentation
12 11 (6.32%) Capacity Planning
12 11 (6.32%) Stakeholder Management
13 10 (5.75%) Continuous Improvement
13 10 (5.75%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 10 (5.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 10 (5.75%) Technical Leadership
14 9 (5.17%) Project Delivery
14 9 (5.17%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 26 (14.94%) Python
2 6 (3.45%) PowerShell
3 4 (2.30%) Bash
4 3 (1.72%) Bicep
5 2 (1.15%) SQL
Qualifications
1 64 (36.78%) Security Cleared
2 45 (25.86%) Cisco Certification
3 39 (22.41%) SC Cleared
4 33 (18.97%) CCNP
5 23 (13.22%) DV Cleared
6 18 (10.34%) CCIE
7 13 (7.47%) CCNA
8 10 (5.75%) Degree
8 10 (5.75%) JNCIS
9 9 (5.17%) JNCIE
10 8 (4.60%) Azure Certification
11 6 (3.45%) AWS Certification
12 3 (1.72%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (1.72%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 2 (1.15%) Computer Science Degree
13 2 (1.15%) ITIL Certification
13 2 (1.15%) JNCIP
13 2 (1.15%) PMI Certification
13 2 (1.15%) PMP
13 2 (1.15%) Project+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (2.87%) NIST
2 3 (1.72%) NCSC
2 3 (1.72%) SLA
3 2 (1.15%) Def Stans
3 2 (1.15%) GDPR
3 2 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.57%) DO-160
4 1 (0.57%) NIST 800
4 1 (0.57%) QA
System Software
1 14 (8.05%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (5.75%) VMware NSX
3 8 (4.60%) Active Directory
4 6 (3.45%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.72%) KVM
5 3 (1.72%) vSphere
6 1 (0.57%) Docker
6 1 (0.57%) EMC RecoverPoint
6 1 (0.57%) Firmware
6 1 (0.57%) NFS
6 1 (0.57%) RHEV
6 1 (0.57%) SRDF
6 1 (0.57%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.57%) Xen
Systems Management
1 26 (14.94%) Ansible
2 17 (9.77%) Terraform
3 11 (6.32%) FortiGate
4 7 (4.02%) Kubernetes
5 5 (2.87%) Nagios
6 2 (1.15%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (1.15%) McAfee ePO
6 2 (1.15%) SCCM
6 2 (1.15%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.57%) Argo
7 1 (0.57%) Cisco Prime
7 1 (0.57%) EMC NetWorker
7 1 (0.57%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (0.57%) Grafana
7 1 (0.57%) NetBackup
7 1 (0.57%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.57%) Nmap
7 1 (0.57%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.57%) Proxmox
7 1 (0.57%) vRealize
Vendors
1 81 (46.55%) Cisco
2 38 (21.84%) Palo Alto
3 32 (18.39%) Juniper
4 28 (16.09%) F5
5 24 (13.79%) Fortinet
6 22 (12.64%) Microsoft
7 19 (10.92%) VMware
8 14 (8.05%) Aruba
8 14 (8.05%) Meraki
8 14 (8.05%) Nokia
9 11 (6.32%) Arista
9 11 (6.32%) Ericsson
10 9 (5.17%) CheckPoint
10 9 (5.17%) Huawei
11 8 (4.60%) SolarWinds
12 5 (2.87%) Zscaler
13 4 (2.30%) Ekahau
14 3 (1.72%) IBM
14 3 (1.72%) McAfee
14 3 (1.72%) NetScout