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

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 372 304 295
Rank change year-on-year -68 -9 +178
Contract jobs citing Network Design 171 179 260
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.55% 0.67% 0.71%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.62% 0.75% 0.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 120 109 138
10th Percentile £400 £400 £425
25th Percentile £424 £450 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -8.70% +27.78%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £627
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £575
% change year-on-year -4.76% -8.70% +21.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 13
10th Percentile - - £36.40
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £74.26 £75.00 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% +13.67% -5.74%
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - £69.20
UK median hourly rate £74.26 £75.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year -0.99% +13.67% -5.74%

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 27,375 23,793 32,010
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 88.27% 89.07% 87.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,424 14,594 21,607
10th Percentile £304 £310 £305
25th Percentile £410 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,725 761 1,484
10th Percentile £15.13 £15.53 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.88 £20.30 £18.93
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -26.03% -20.00% +21.43%
75th Percentile £57.50 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.86 £75.00 £77.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.25 £40.50
% change year-on-year -22.00% -20.38% +16.41%

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 12 January 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
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 12 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 -8 73 £500 -4.76% 53
South East -20 35 £500 +5.26% 50
West Midlands -15 24 £400 -23.15% 11
Midlands -28 24 £400 -25.27% 24
North of England -58 20 £539 +7.70% 19
North West -23 18 £531 +8.92% 8
South West -34 9 £450 -16.28% 24
East of England -17 6 £419 -16.25% 24
North East -6 2 £550 - 2
Yorkshire -56 1 £650 +30.00% 9
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 6 (3.51%) OpenStack
Applications
1 6 (3.51%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.75%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (1.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.17%) DELMIA
1 2 (1.17%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.58%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 41 (23.98%) Azure
2 31 (18.13%) AWS
3 12 (7.02%) GCP
4 5 (2.92%) PaaS
5 4 (2.34%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 4 (2.34%) Dynamics 365
6 3 (1.75%) AWS Direct Connect
6 3 (1.75%) Microsoft 365
6 3 (1.75%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 2 (1.17%) IaaS
8 1 (0.58%) Akamai
8 1 (0.58%) Cloud Computing
8 1 (0.58%) Cloudflare
8 1 (0.58%) Google Ads
8 1 (0.58%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 85 (49.71%) WAN
2 74 (43.27%) Firewall
3 53 (30.99%) LAN
4 43 (25.15%) VPN
5 42 (24.56%) BGP
6 38 (22.22%) MPLS
7 35 (20.47%) Network Security
8 29 (16.96%) Wi-Fi
9 26 (15.20%) SD-WAN
10 23 (13.45%) VLAN
11 18 (10.53%) TCP/IP
12 17 (9.94%) Radio Access Network
13 16 (9.36%) Cisco ISE
13 16 (9.36%) IPsec
14 15 (8.77%) 4G
15 13 (7.60%) OSPF
16 12 (7.02%) 5G
16 12 (7.02%) DNS
17 11 (6.43%) NetScaler
18 10 (5.85%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.75%) GIS
Development Applications
1 5 (2.92%) Git
2 2 (1.17%) GitLab
3 1 (0.58%) Robot Framework
3 1 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 47 (27.49%) Social Skills
2 38 (22.22%) Telecoms
3 21 (12.28%) Public Sector
4 18 (10.53%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (4.68%) Finance
5 8 (4.68%) Manufacturing
6 5 (2.92%) Documentation Skills
6 5 (2.92%) Legal
7 4 (2.34%) Influencing Skills
7 4 (2.34%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (1.17%) Aviation
8 2 (1.17%) Electronics
8 2 (1.17%) Military
8 2 (1.17%) Police
9 1 (0.58%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.58%) Law
9 1 (0.58%) Local Government
9 1 (0.58%) Marketing
9 1 (0.58%) Publishing
9 1 (0.58%) Retail
Job Titles
1 60 (35.09%) Network Engineer
2 54 (31.58%) Architect
3 43 (25.15%) Network Architect
4 19 (11.11%) Network Specialist
5 17 (9.94%) Network Design Specialist
6 15 (8.77%) Senior
7 14 (8.19%) Design Engineer
8 13 (7.60%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
8 13 (7.60%) Network Design Engineer
9 10 (5.85%) Performance Specialist
10 9 (5.26%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 8 (4.68%) 3rd Line Engineer
11 8 (4.68%) 3rd Line Support
11 8 (4.68%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
11 8 (4.68%) Designer
11 8 (4.68%) IP Specialist
11 8 (4.68%) Network Designer
11 8 (4.68%) Senior Designer
11 8 (4.68%) Senior Network Designer
11 8 (4.68%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (7.02%) 802.1X
2 10 (5.85%) YANG
3 9 (5.26%) NETCONF
4 6 (3.51%) REST
5 4 (2.34%) OpenID
5 4 (2.34%) SAML
6 2 (1.17%) JSON
6 2 (1.17%) OpenConfig
6 2 (1.17%) RESTCONF
7 1 (0.58%) gRPC
7 1 (0.58%) Jinja
7 1 (0.58%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 44 (25.73%) Data Centre
2 16 (9.36%) Hybrid Cloud
3 10 (5.85%) SCADA
4 8 (4.68%) Cloud Native
4 8 (4.68%) Operational Technology
4 8 (4.68%) PKI
5 7 (4.09%) IoT
6 6 (3.51%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (2.34%) Management Information System
7 4 (2.34%) NB-IoT
7 4 (2.34%) Security Posture
7 4 (2.34%) Self-Motivation
8 3 (1.75%) Distributed Architecture
8 3 (1.75%) Onboarding
9 2 (1.17%) Analytical Mindset
9 2 (1.17%) Fibre Optics
9 2 (1.17%) Insider Threat
9 2 (1.17%) Life Science
9 2 (1.17%) Product Ownership
9 2 (1.17%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 8 (4.68%) Windows
2 3 (1.75%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 52 (30.41%) Network Architecture
2 32 (18.71%) Load Balancing
3 20 (11.70%) High Availability
4 19 (11.11%) Problem-Solving
5 17 (9.94%) Roadmaps
5 17 (9.94%) Root Cause Analysis
5 17 (9.94%) Stakeholder Management
6 16 (9.36%) Network Management
7 15 (8.77%) Cybersecurity
8 14 (8.19%) Migration
8 14 (8.19%) Network Segmentation
8 14 (8.19%) Network Virtualisation
8 14 (8.19%) Zero Trust
9 13 (7.60%) DevOps
9 13 (7.60%) ITIL
10 12 (7.02%) Impact Assessments
11 11 (6.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 11 (6.43%) TOGAF
12 10 (5.85%) Data Protection
12 10 (5.85%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 22 (12.87%) Python
2 7 (4.09%) SQL
3 4 (2.34%) Bash
3 4 (2.34%) PowerShell
4 2 (1.17%) Perl
Qualifications
1 74 (43.27%) Security Cleared
2 46 (26.90%) Cisco Certification
3 43 (25.15%) SC Cleared
4 35 (20.47%) CCNP
5 28 (16.37%) DV Cleared
6 21 (12.28%) CCIE
7 17 (9.94%) Degree
8 15 (8.77%) CCNA
9 12 (7.02%) CISSP
10 11 (6.43%) JNCIS
11 10 (5.85%) JNCIE
12 7 (4.09%) AWS Certification
13 5 (2.92%) Azure Certification
13 5 (2.92%) Computer Science Degree
13 5 (2.92%) JNCIP
14 4 (2.34%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 4 (2.34%) CCSP
15 3 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
15 3 (1.75%) CCIE Security
16 2 (1.17%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.85%) GDPR
2 8 (4.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (4.09%) PCI DSS
4 6 (3.51%) NIST
5 2 (1.17%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 1 (0.58%) Def Stans
6 1 (0.58%) DO-160
6 1 (0.58%) QA
System Software
1 5 (2.92%) VMware Infrastructure
1 5 (2.92%) VMware NSX
2 3 (1.75%) Firmware
3 2 (1.17%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.17%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.58%) KVM
4 1 (0.58%) RHEV
4 1 (0.58%) Xen
Systems Management
1 19 (11.11%) Ansible
2 15 (8.77%) FortiGate
3 10 (5.85%) Terraform
4 4 (2.34%) Nagios
5 1 (0.58%) Cisco Prime
5 1 (0.58%) Dell DRAC
5 1 (0.58%) Failover Clustering
5 1 (0.58%) Grafana
5 1 (0.58%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.58%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 70 (40.94%) Cisco
2 39 (22.81%) Palo Alto
3 38 (22.22%) Juniper
4 22 (12.87%) F5
5 21 (12.28%) Fortinet
5 21 (12.28%) Meraki
6 15 (8.77%) Microsoft
6 15 (8.77%) Nokia
7 11 (6.43%) SolarWinds
8 10 (5.85%) Ericsson
9 9 (5.26%) Actix
9 9 (5.26%) CheckPoint
10 7 (4.09%) Aruba
10 7 (4.09%) VMware
11 3 (1.75%) LogicMonitor
12 2 (1.17%) Arista
12 2 (1.17%) Forcepoint
12 2 (1.17%) Rockwell
12 2 (1.17%) Virgin Media
12 2 (1.17%) Zscaler