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 5 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 388 323 295
Rank change year-on-year -65 -28 +178
Contract jobs citing Network Design 168 165 283
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.50% 0.63% 0.75%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.57% 0.70% 0.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 117 101 141
10th Percentile £400 £400 £425
25th Percentile £413 £450 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £565
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -7.08% +25.56%
75th Percentile £575 £613 £601
90th Percentile £658 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £575
% change year-on-year -4.76% -8.70% +21.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 12
10th Percentile - - £25.03
25th Percentile - - £57.49
Median hourly rate £74.26 - £65.98
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - £69.60
UK median hourly rate £74.26 - £65.98
% change year-on-year - - -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 29,288 23,559 32,969
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.67% 89.65% 87.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,737 14,462 22,056
10th Percentile £306 £310 £300
25th Percentile £410 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £640 £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 1,829 754 1,953
10th Percentile £15.16 £15.62 £13.41
25th Percentile £17.88 £21.01 £16.66
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% - +1.21%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £61.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +9.38%

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 5 February 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 5 February 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 -36 67 £475 -9.52% 13
South East -27 38 £500 -9.09% 7
West Midlands -19 25 £400 -16.49% 6
Midlands -37 25 £400 -23.15% 7
North of England -66 21 £537 +7.40% 10
North West -21 17 £525 +5.00% 8
South West -25 7 £450 -13.46% 13
East of England -18 6 £419 -16.25% 3
Yorkshire -66 3 £650 +30.00% 2
North East -12 2 £550 -
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 (4.17%) OpenStack
Applications
1 6 (3.57%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.79%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (1.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.19%) DELMIA
1 2 (1.19%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.60%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 44 (26.19%) Azure
2 31 (18.45%) AWS
3 11 (6.55%) GCP
4 5 (2.98%) PaaS
5 4 (2.38%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 4 (2.38%) Dynamics 365
5 4 (2.38%) Microsoft 365
6 3 (1.79%) AWS Direct Connect
6 3 (1.79%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 2 (1.19%) IaaS
7 2 (1.19%) IBM Watson
8 1 (0.60%) Akamai
8 1 (0.60%) Azure Sentinel
8 1 (0.60%) Cloud Computing
8 1 (0.60%) Cloudflare
8 1 (0.60%) Entra ID
8 1 (0.60%) Google Ads
8 1 (0.60%) Mimecast
8 1 (0.60%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 80 (47.62%) WAN
2 74 (44.05%) Firewall
3 49 (29.17%) LAN
4 45 (26.79%) BGP
4 45 (26.79%) VPN
5 43 (25.60%) MPLS
6 35 (20.83%) Network Security
7 28 (16.67%) Wi-Fi
8 25 (14.88%) SD-WAN
9 24 (14.29%) VLAN
10 20 (11.90%) TCP/IP
11 17 (10.12%) Cisco ISE
11 17 (10.12%) Radio Access Network
12 16 (9.52%) IPsec
13 15 (8.93%) OSPF
14 14 (8.33%) 4G
15 13 (7.74%) 5G
15 13 (7.74%) DNS
16 11 (6.55%) NetScaler
16 11 (6.55%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.79%) GIS
Development Applications
1 5 (2.98%) Git
2 2 (1.19%) GitLab
3 1 (0.60%) Robot Framework
General
1 48 (28.57%) Social Skills
2 36 (21.43%) Telecoms
3 20 (11.90%) Analytical Skills
3 20 (11.90%) Public Sector
4 11 (6.55%) Finance
5 7 (4.17%) Documentation Skills
5 7 (4.17%) Legal
6 6 (3.57%) Manufacturing
7 4 (2.38%) Influencing Skills
7 4 (2.38%) Presentation Skills
8 3 (1.79%) Aviation
9 2 (1.19%) Electronics
9 2 (1.19%) Military
9 2 (1.19%) Police
10 1 (0.60%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.60%) Law
10 1 (0.60%) Local Government
10 1 (0.60%) Marketing
10 1 (0.60%) Publishing
10 1 (0.60%) Retail
Job Titles
1 58 (34.52%) Network Engineer
2 46 (27.38%) Architect
3 35 (20.83%) Network Architect
4 18 (10.71%) Network Specialist
5 17 (10.12%) Senior
6 16 (9.52%) Network Design Specialist
7 14 (8.33%) Design Engineer
8 13 (7.74%) Network Design Engineer
9 10 (5.95%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 9 (5.36%) Designer
10 9 (5.36%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
10 9 (5.36%) IP Specialist
10 9 (5.36%) Network Designer
10 9 (5.36%) Performance Specialist
10 9 (5.36%) Senior Designer
10 9 (5.36%) Senior Network Designer
11 8 (4.76%) 3rd Line Engineer
11 8 (4.76%) 3rd Line Support
11 8 (4.76%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
11 8 (4.76%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (7.14%) 802.1X
2 11 (6.55%) YANG
3 10 (5.95%) NETCONF
4 7 (4.17%) REST
5 4 (2.38%) OpenID
5 4 (2.38%) SAML
6 2 (1.19%) Django
6 2 (1.19%) JSON
6 2 (1.19%) OpenConfig
6 2 (1.19%) RESTCONF
7 1 (0.60%) gRPC
7 1 (0.60%) Jinja
7 1 (0.60%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 40 (23.81%) Data Centre
2 15 (8.93%) Hybrid Cloud
3 10 (5.95%) SCADA
4 8 (4.76%) PKI
5 7 (4.17%) Cloud Native
5 7 (4.17%) Data Protection Act
5 7 (4.17%) IoT
5 7 (4.17%) Operational Technology
6 4 (2.38%) Management Information System
6 4 (2.38%) NB-IoT
6 4 (2.38%) Onboarding
6 4 (2.38%) Security Posture
6 4 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (1.79%) Distributed Architecture
8 2 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (1.19%) Insider Threat
8 2 (1.19%) Life Science
8 2 (1.19%) Private Cloud
8 2 (1.19%) Product Ownership
8 2 (1.19%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 7 (4.17%) Windows
2 5 (2.98%) Linux
3 2 (1.19%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (26.19%) Network Architecture
2 33 (19.64%) Load Balancing
3 20 (11.90%) High Availability
4 19 (11.31%) Problem-Solving
5 18 (10.71%) Roadmaps
6 17 (10.12%) Migration
6 17 (10.12%) Network Segmentation
7 16 (9.52%) Network Management
7 16 (9.52%) Root Cause Analysis
7 16 (9.52%) Stakeholder Management
8 15 (8.93%) Cybersecurity
9 14 (8.33%) DevOps
9 14 (8.33%) ITIL
10 13 (7.74%) Zero Trust
11 12 (7.14%) Impact Assessments
11 12 (7.14%) Network Virtualisation
11 12 (7.14%) Security Architecture
11 12 (7.14%) TOGAF
12 11 (6.55%) Data Protection
12 11 (6.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 27 (16.07%) Python
2 7 (4.17%) SQL
3 5 (2.98%) Bash
3 5 (2.98%) PowerShell
4 2 (1.19%) Perl
Qualifications
1 63 (37.50%) Security Cleared
2 49 (29.17%) Cisco Certification
3 39 (23.21%) SC Cleared
4 38 (22.62%) CCNP
5 24 (14.29%) CCIE
6 20 (11.90%) DV Cleared
7 17 (10.12%) Degree
8 15 (8.93%) CCNA
9 12 (7.14%) JNCIS
10 11 (6.55%) CISSP
10 11 (6.55%) JNCIE
11 7 (4.17%) AWS Certification
12 6 (3.57%) JNCIP
13 5 (2.98%) Azure Certification
13 5 (2.98%) Computer Science Degree
14 4 (2.38%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 4 (2.38%) CCSP
15 3 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
15 3 (1.79%) CCIE Security
16 2 (1.19%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.95%) GDPR
2 9 (5.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (4.17%) NIST
3 7 (4.17%) PCI DSS
4 2 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 1 (0.60%) Def Stans
5 1 (0.60%) DO-160
5 1 (0.60%) NCSC
5 1 (0.60%) QA
5 1 (0.60%) SLA
System Software
1 8 (4.76%) VMware NSX
2 7 (4.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (2.38%) Active Directory
4 3 (1.79%) Firmware
5 2 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.60%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.60%) KVM
6 1 (0.60%) RHEV
6 1 (0.60%) Xen
Systems Management
1 23 (13.69%) Ansible
2 16 (9.52%) FortiGate
3 10 (5.95%) Terraform
4 4 (2.38%) Nagios
5 2 (1.19%) Cisco Prime
6 1 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 1 (0.60%) Dell DRAC
6 1 (0.60%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (0.60%) Grafana
6 1 (0.60%) Iperf
6 1 (0.60%) Nmap
6 1 (0.60%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.60%) Proxmox
6 1 (0.60%) SCCM
Vendors
1 73 (43.45%) Cisco
2 41 (24.40%) Palo Alto
3 37 (22.02%) Juniper
4 23 (13.69%) Meraki
5 21 (12.50%) F5
5 21 (12.50%) Fortinet
6 18 (10.71%) Microsoft
7 14 (8.33%) Nokia
8 12 (7.14%) SolarWinds
9 11 (6.55%) CheckPoint
9 11 (6.55%) VMware
10 9 (5.36%) Ericsson
11 8 (4.76%) Actix
12 7 (4.17%) Aruba
13 4 (2.38%) Arista
14 3 (1.79%) LogicMonitor
15 2 (1.19%) Rockwell
15 2 (1.19%) SevOne
15 2 (1.19%) Splunk
15 2 (1.19%) Zscaler