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 29 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 346 297 329
Rank change year-on-year -49 +32 +179
Contract jobs citing Network Design 177 224 270
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.61% 0.72% 0.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.67% 0.83% 0.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 130 125 149
10th Percentile £398 £400 £413
25th Percentile £410 £450 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £579
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -13.58% +23.10%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £663
90th Percentile £650 £635 £750
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £575
% change year-on-year -5.00% -13.04% +15.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 3 11
10th Percentile £58.85 £43.00 £54.00
25th Percentile £64.63 £55.00 -
Median hourly rate £74.26 £75.00 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% +13.67% -5.74%
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK median hourly rate £74.26 £55.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +35.02% -16.64% -5.74%

All Process and 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 26,341 27,134 35,505
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 90.82% 86.62% 88.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,711 16,570 24,437
10th Percentile £300 £313 £313
25th Percentile £405 £418 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,680 999 1,489
10th Percentile £14.54 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.22 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -10.11% +27.14%
75th Percentile £44.75 £66.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £74.45 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £37.00 £43.86
% change year-on-year -32.03% -15.64% +25.31%

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 29 October 2025.

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 29 October 2025.

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 29 October 2025. 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 -3 67 £450 -14.29% 33
South East -13 33 £500 +1.27% 32
West Midlands +1 29 £400 -46.67% 6
Midlands -12 29 £400 -27.27% 10
North of England -59 22 £488 -2.50% 26
South West +3 20 £630 +40.00% 7
North West -13 20 £475 - 18
East of England -10 5 £413 -19.51% 2
North East -14 2 £550 - 1
Yorkshire -52 1 £500 - 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 7 (3.95%) OpenStack
2 2 (1.13%) nginx
Business Applications
1 1 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 34 (19.21%) Azure
2 27 (15.25%) AWS
3 14 (7.91%) GCP
4 5 (2.82%) SaaS
5 4 (2.26%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 4 (2.26%) PaaS
6 3 (1.69%) AWS Direct Connect
6 3 (1.69%) Microsoft 365
6 3 (1.69%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 2 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
7 2 (1.13%) Dynamics 365
7 2 (1.13%) Entra ID
7 2 (1.13%) GitHub
7 2 (1.13%) IaaS
7 2 (1.13%) Serverless
8 1 (0.56%) Akamai
8 1 (0.56%) Cloudflare
8 1 (0.56%) Google Ads
8 1 (0.56%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 82 (46.33%) Firewall
2 80 (45.20%) WAN
3 58 (32.77%) LAN
4 47 (26.55%) BGP
5 43 (24.29%) Network Security
6 38 (21.47%) MPLS
7 37 (20.90%) VPN
8 33 (18.64%) SD-WAN
9 31 (17.51%) Wi-Fi
10 19 (10.73%) Cisco Nexus
10 19 (10.73%) IPsec
11 18 (10.17%) VLAN
12 17 (9.60%) Radio Access Network
13 15 (8.47%) 4G
13 15 (8.47%) DNS
14 14 (7.91%) TCP/IP
14 14 (7.91%) Wireless
15 13 (7.34%) OSPF
16 11 (6.21%) 3GPP
16 11 (6.21%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.69%) GIS
Development Applications
1 5 (2.82%) Git
2 4 (2.26%) GitLab
3 2 (1.13%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.56%) Robot Framework
4 1 (0.56%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 42 (23.73%) Telecoms
2 41 (23.16%) Social Skills
3 21 (11.86%) Public Sector
4 15 (8.47%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (3.39%) Manufacturing
6 5 (2.82%) Aviation
6 5 (2.82%) Documentation Skills
6 5 (2.82%) Legal
7 4 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
7 4 (2.26%) Presentation Skills
8 3 (1.69%) Finance
9 2 (1.13%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.56%) Fire and Rescue
10 1 (0.56%) French Language
10 1 (0.56%) Law
10 1 (0.56%) Local Government
10 1 (0.56%) Military
10 1 (0.56%) Police
10 1 (0.56%) Publishing
10 1 (0.56%) Retail
Job Titles
1 68 (38.42%) Architect
2 57 (32.20%) Network Engineer
3 52 (29.38%) Network Architect
4 18 (10.17%) Network Design Specialist
4 18 (10.17%) Network Specialist
5 14 (7.91%) Network Design Architect
6 12 (6.78%) Senior
7 11 (6.21%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 11 (6.21%) Support Engineer
8 10 (5.65%) 3rd Line Support
8 10 (5.65%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
8 10 (5.65%) Performance Specialist
9 9 (5.08%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
9 9 (5.08%) Solutions Architect
10 7 (3.95%) IP Architect
10 7 (3.95%) Senior Architect
10 7 (3.95%) Senior Network Architect
11 6 (3.39%) IP Specialist
11 6 (3.39%) Juniper Engineer
11 6 (3.39%) Network Design Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (5.65%) 802.1X
2 7 (3.95%) YANG
3 6 (3.39%) NETCONF
3 6 (3.39%) REST
4 4 (2.26%) Middleware
5 2 (1.13%) OpenID
5 2 (1.13%) RFC 2544
5 2 (1.13%) SAML
5 2 (1.13%) Web Services
6 1 (0.56%) eBPF
6 1 (0.56%) gRPC
6 1 (0.56%) Jinja
6 1 (0.56%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 38 (21.47%) Data Centre
2 17 (9.60%) Hybrid Cloud
3 15 (8.47%) Operational Technology
4 12 (6.78%) SCADA
5 11 (6.21%) Cloud Native
5 11 (6.21%) PKI
6 10 (5.65%) Onboarding
7 8 (4.52%) IoT
8 5 (2.82%) Fibre Optics
9 4 (2.26%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (2.26%) Management Information System
9 4 (2.26%) NB-IoT
10 3 (1.69%) Private Cloud
10 3 (1.69%) Product Ownership
10 3 (1.69%) Security Posture
11 2 (1.13%) Distributed Architecture
11 2 (1.13%) Insider Threat
11 2 (1.13%) Legacy Systems
11 2 (1.13%) Public Cloud
11 2 (1.13%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 8 (4.52%) Windows
2 3 (1.69%) Linux
3 1 (0.56%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (24.29%) Network Architecture
2 30 (16.95%) Load Balancing
3 20 (11.30%) Cybersecurity
3 20 (11.30%) Roadmaps
4 18 (10.17%) Migration
5 17 (9.60%) Root Cause Analysis
6 16 (9.04%) Network Segmentation
6 16 (9.04%) Zero Trust
7 15 (8.47%) DevOps
7 15 (8.47%) High Availability
7 15 (8.47%) Network Virtualisation
7 15 (8.47%) Problem-Solving
7 15 (8.47%) Stakeholder Management
8 14 (7.91%) TOGAF
9 13 (7.34%) Network Monitoring
10 12 (6.78%) Incident Response
10 12 (6.78%) Network Management
10 12 (6.78%) Strategic Thinking
11 11 (6.21%) Data Protection
11 11 (6.21%) Enterprise Architecture
Programming Languages
1 22 (12.43%) Python
2 5 (2.82%) SQL
3 2 (1.13%) Bash
3 2 (1.13%) Perl
3 2 (1.13%) PowerShell
4 1 (0.56%) C
Qualifications
1 79 (44.63%) Security Cleared
2 45 (25.42%) SC Cleared
3 40 (22.60%) Cisco Certification
4 31 (17.51%) DV Cleared
5 27 (15.25%) CCNP
6 19 (10.73%) CCIE
7 17 (9.60%) Degree
8 13 (7.34%) CISSP
9 12 (6.78%) JNCIE
10 10 (5.65%) CCNA
11 6 (3.39%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (3.39%) JNCIP
12 5 (2.82%) AWS Certification
13 4 (2.26%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 4 (2.26%) BPSS Clearance
13 4 (2.26%) CCSP
13 4 (2.26%) JNCIS
13 4 (2.26%) Master's Degree
14 3 (1.69%) Azure Certification
14 3 (1.69%) CCIE Security
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.08%) GDPR
2 8 (4.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (4.52%) NCSC
3 7 (3.95%) NIST
3 7 (3.95%) PCI DSS
4 2 (1.13%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 1 (0.56%) QA
System Software
1 6 (3.39%) VMware Infrastructure
1 6 (3.39%) VMware NSX
2 5 (2.82%) Firmware
3 2 (1.13%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.56%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.56%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 20 (11.30%) Ansible
2 9 (5.08%) FortiGate
2 9 (5.08%) Terraform
3 2 (1.13%) Cisco CUCM
3 2 (1.13%) HAProxy
3 2 (1.13%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.56%) Cisco Prime
4 1 (0.56%) Dell DRAC
4 1 (0.56%) Functional Safety
4 1 (0.56%) Grafana
4 1 (0.56%) Kubernetes
4 1 (0.56%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 72 (40.68%) Cisco
2 32 (18.08%) Juniper
2 32 (18.08%) Palo Alto
3 27 (15.25%) Fortinet
4 19 (10.73%) F5
4 19 (10.73%) Meraki
5 15 (8.47%) VMware
6 12 (6.78%) Nokia
7 10 (5.65%) Actix
7 10 (5.65%) Ericsson
8 9 (5.08%) CheckPoint
8 9 (5.08%) SolarWinds
9 8 (4.52%) Microsoft
10 6 (3.39%) Zscaler
11 5 (2.82%) Aruba
12 3 (1.69%) Arista
12 3 (1.69%) HP
12 3 (1.69%) LogicMonitor
13 2 (1.13%) Rockwell
13 2 (1.13%) Virgin Media