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 25 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 374 311 305
Rank change year-on-year -63 -6 +183
Contract jobs citing Network Design 183 208 260
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.58% 0.72% 0.71%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.65% 0.82% 0.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 135 123 143
10th Percentile £400 £400 £430
25th Percentile £413 £450 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £520 £579
Median % change year-on-year -8.65% -10.12% +28.57%
75th Percentile £571 £588 £638
90th Percentile £650 £648 £745
UK median daily rate £475 £525 £575
% change year-on-year -9.52% -8.70% +21.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 14
10th Percentile - - £38.60
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 - - £69.10
UK median hourly rate £74.26 £50.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +48.52% -24.22% -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 28,083 25,497 32,413
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 88.56% 88.71% 88.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,857 15,730 22,001
10th Percentile £300 £311 £308
25th Percentile £406 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £648 £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 1,811 841 1,406
10th Percentile £15.18 £15.62 £14.75
25th Percentile £17.89 £20.30 £19.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -22.22% +22.56%
75th Percentile £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.45 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.97% +27.14%

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 25 December 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
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 25 December 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 -5 78 £460 -12.38% 11
South East -38 34 £500 -1.23% 13
West Midlands -6 31 £400 -23.15% 1
Midlands -17 31 £400 -25.27% 3
North of England -71 21 £537 +7.40% 6
North West -24 19 £525 +10.53% 5
South West -31 11 £450 -13.88% 9
East of England -19 6 £419 -16.25% 2
North East -6 2 £550 -
Yorkshire -65 1 £650 +30.00% 1
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 (3.83%) OpenStack
Applications
1 5 (2.73%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.64%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (1.09%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.55%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 36 (19.67%) Azure
2 29 (15.85%) AWS
3 12 (6.56%) GCP
4 6 (3.28%) PaaS
5 4 (2.19%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 4 (2.19%) Dynamics 365
6 3 (1.64%) AWS Direct Connect
6 3 (1.64%) IaaS
6 3 (1.64%) Microsoft 365
6 3 (1.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 2 (1.09%) SaaS
8 1 (0.55%) Akamai
8 1 (0.55%) Cloud Computing
8 1 (0.55%) Cloudflare
8 1 (0.55%) Google Ads
8 1 (0.55%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 87 (47.54%) WAN
2 85 (46.45%) Firewall
3 59 (32.24%) LAN
4 47 (25.68%) VPN
5 44 (24.04%) BGP
6 41 (22.40%) MPLS
7 37 (20.22%) Network Security
8 36 (19.67%) Wi-Fi
9 35 (19.13%) SD-WAN
10 19 (10.38%) Cisco Nexus
10 19 (10.38%) IPsec
10 19 (10.38%) Radio Access Network
11 18 (9.84%) VLAN
12 17 (9.29%) TCP/IP
13 16 (8.74%) 4G
13 16 (8.74%) Cisco ISE
14 13 (7.10%) DNS
15 12 (6.56%) 5G
16 11 (6.01%) 3GPP
16 11 (6.01%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.64%) GIS
Development Applications
1 5 (2.73%) Git
2 2 (1.09%) GitLab
3 1 (0.55%) Robot Framework
3 1 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 46 (25.14%) Social Skills
1 46 (25.14%) Telecoms
2 26 (14.21%) Public Sector
3 19 (10.38%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (3.28%) Finance
4 6 (3.28%) Manufacturing
5 5 (2.73%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (2.19%) Influencing Skills
6 4 (2.19%) Presentation Skills
7 3 (1.64%) Legal
8 2 (1.09%) Aviation
8 2 (1.09%) Electronics
9 1 (0.55%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.55%) Law
9 1 (0.55%) Local Government
9 1 (0.55%) Marketing
9 1 (0.55%) Military
9 1 (0.55%) Police
9 1 (0.55%) Publishing
9 1 (0.55%) Retail
Job Titles
1 62 (33.88%) Architect
1 62 (33.88%) Network Engineer
2 50 (27.32%) Network Architect
3 21 (11.48%) Network Design Specialist
3 21 (11.48%) Network Specialist
4 15 (8.20%) Design Engineer
5 14 (7.65%) Network Design Architect
5 14 (7.65%) Network Design Engineer
6 13 (7.10%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
6 13 (7.10%) Senior
7 11 (6.01%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 11 (6.01%) Performance Specialist
8 10 (5.46%) 3rd Line Support
8 10 (5.46%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
8 10 (5.46%) Support Engineer
9 8 (4.37%) Designer
9 8 (4.37%) IP Specialist
9 8 (4.37%) Network Designer
10 7 (3.83%) IP Architect
10 7 (3.83%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (6.56%) 802.1X
2 10 (5.46%) YANG
3 9 (4.92%) NETCONF
4 6 (3.28%) REST
5 4 (2.19%) OpenID
5 4 (2.19%) SAML
6 2 (1.09%) JSON
6 2 (1.09%) OpenConfig
6 2 (1.09%) RESTCONF
7 1 (0.55%) eBPF
7 1 (0.55%) gRPC
7 1 (0.55%) Jinja
7 1 (0.55%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 42 (22.95%) Data Centre
2 18 (9.84%) Hybrid Cloud
3 13 (7.10%) Operational Technology
4 11 (6.01%) PKI
4 11 (6.01%) SCADA
5 9 (4.92%) Cloud Native
6 7 (3.83%) IoT
7 6 (3.28%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (2.19%) Management Information System
8 4 (2.19%) NB-IoT
8 4 (2.19%) Onboarding
8 4 (2.19%) Security Posture
8 4 (2.19%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (1.64%) Distributed Architecture
10 2 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (1.09%) Fibre Optics
10 2 (1.09%) Insider Threat
10 2 (1.09%) Life Science
10 2 (1.09%) Product Ownership
10 2 (1.09%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 8 (4.37%) Windows
2 3 (1.64%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 51 (27.87%) Network Architecture
2 35 (19.13%) Load Balancing
3 19 (10.38%) Problem-Solving
4 18 (9.84%) Roadmaps
5 17 (9.29%) Cybersecurity
5 17 (9.29%) High Availability
5 17 (9.29%) Root Cause Analysis
5 17 (9.29%) Stakeholder Management
6 16 (8.74%) Network Management
7 15 (8.20%) Network Segmentation
7 15 (8.20%) Network Virtualisation
7 15 (8.20%) Zero Trust
8 14 (7.65%) Migration
9 13 (7.10%) DevOps
10 12 (6.56%) Impact Assessments
10 12 (6.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 11 (6.01%) ITIL
11 11 (6.01%) Strategic Thinking
11 11 (6.01%) TOGAF
12 10 (5.46%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 23 (12.57%) Python
2 5 (2.73%) SQL
3 3 (1.64%) Bash
3 3 (1.64%) PowerShell
4 2 (1.09%) Perl
5 1 (0.55%) C
Qualifications
1 84 (45.90%) Security Cleared
2 51 (27.87%) SC Cleared
3 44 (24.04%) Cisco Certification
4 34 (18.58%) CCNP
5 28 (15.30%) DV Cleared
6 22 (12.02%) CCIE
7 18 (9.84%) Degree
8 13 (7.10%) CISSP
9 12 (6.56%) CCNA
10 11 (6.01%) JNCIE
11 10 (5.46%) JNCIS
12 5 (2.73%) AWS Certification
12 5 (2.73%) Computer Science Degree
12 5 (2.73%) JNCIP
13 4 (2.19%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 4 (2.19%) BPSS Clearance
13 4 (2.19%) CCSP
14 3 (1.64%) Azure Certification
14 3 (1.64%) CCIE Security
15 2 (1.09%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.46%) GDPR
2 8 (4.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (3.83%) NIST
3 7 (3.83%) PCI DSS
4 2 (1.09%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 1 (0.55%) Def Stans
5 1 (0.55%) DO-160
5 1 (0.55%) NCSC
5 1 (0.55%) QA
System Software
1 5 (2.73%) VMware Infrastructure
1 5 (2.73%) VMware NSX
2 3 (1.64%) Firmware
3 2 (1.09%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.09%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.55%) KVM
4 1 (0.55%) RHEV
4 1 (0.55%) Xen
Systems Management
1 20 (10.93%) Ansible
2 14 (7.65%) FortiGate
3 11 (6.01%) Terraform
4 3 (1.64%) Nagios
5 1 (0.55%) Cisco Prime
5 1 (0.55%) Dell DRAC
5 1 (0.55%) Failover Clustering
5 1 (0.55%) Grafana
5 1 (0.55%) Kubernetes
5 1 (0.55%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.55%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 76 (41.53%) Cisco
2 40 (21.86%) Juniper
3 39 (21.31%) Palo Alto
4 29 (15.85%) Fortinet
5 21 (11.48%) F5
5 21 (11.48%) Meraki
6 16 (8.74%) Nokia
7 14 (7.65%) Microsoft
8 11 (6.01%) Ericsson
9 10 (5.46%) Actix
9 10 (5.46%) CheckPoint
9 10 (5.46%) SolarWinds
10 8 (4.37%) VMware
11 6 (3.28%) Aruba
12 3 (1.64%) Arista
12 3 (1.64%) LogicMonitor
12 3 (1.64%) Zscaler
13 2 (1.09%) Forcepoint
13 2 (1.09%) Rockwell
13 2 (1.09%) Virgin Media