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

6 months to
19 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 410 327 305
Rank change year-on-year -83 -22 +155
Contract jobs citing Network Design 160 173 263
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.46% 0.67% 0.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.53% 0.74% 0.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 112 104 130
10th Percentile £371 £410 £425
25th Percentile £413 £461 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% +22.22%
75th Percentile £575 £625 £601
90th Percentile £675 £696 £701
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% +15.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 11
10th Percentile £72.88 - £24.25
25th Percentile £73.40 - £48.99
Median hourly rate £74.26 - £65.98
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - £70.00
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 30,349 23,302 32,721
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.42% 89.94% 87.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,395 14,514 21,728
10th Percentile £311 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £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 1,903 732 1,999
10th Percentile £15.18 £15.62 £13.39
25th Percentile £18.26 £21.20 £16.25
Median hourly rate £26.78 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.49% - -
75th Percentile £61.18 £64.79 £60.13
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.23 £73.05
UK median hourly rate £25.50 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -21.54% -7.14% -

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 19 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 19 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 -50 66 £475 -9.52% 22
South East -29 35 £500 -11.11% 13
West Midlands -40 22 £400 -16.49% 9
Midlands -49 22 £400 -16.49% 10
North of England -95 19 £537 +7.40% 11
North West -37 15 £525 +5.00% 10
South West -26 8 £475 -9.09% 16
East of England -20 6 £419 -9.46% 1
Yorkshire -67 4 £663 +32.50%
North East -15 1 - - 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 5 (3.13%) OpenStack
2 1 (0.63%) Confluence
Applications
1 6 (3.75%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.88%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (1.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (1.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.25%) DELMIA
1 2 (1.25%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.63%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 45 (28.13%) Azure
2 32 (20.00%) AWS
3 12 (7.50%) GCP
4 6 (3.75%) PaaS
5 5 (3.13%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 4 (2.50%) Dynamics 365
6 4 (2.50%) Microsoft 365
7 3 (1.88%) AWS Direct Connect
7 3 (1.88%) IaaS
7 3 (1.88%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 2 (1.25%) IBM Watson
9 1 (0.63%) Akamai
9 1 (0.63%) AWS CloudFormation
9 1 (0.63%) Azure Sentinel
9 1 (0.63%) Cloud Computing
9 1 (0.63%) Cloudflare
9 1 (0.63%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.63%) Google Ads
9 1 (0.63%) Mimecast
9 1 (0.63%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 71 (44.38%) Firewall
2 70 (43.75%) WAN
3 46 (28.75%) LAN
4 44 (27.50%) VPN
5 42 (26.25%) BGP
6 39 (24.38%) Network Security
7 38 (23.75%) MPLS
8 25 (15.63%) VLAN
8 25 (15.63%) Wi-Fi
9 24 (15.00%) SD-WAN
10 21 (13.13%) TCP/IP
11 18 (11.25%) OSPF
12 16 (10.00%) Radio Access Network
13 15 (9.38%) DNS
14 14 (8.75%) Cisco ISE
15 13 (8.13%) 4G
15 13 (8.13%) 5G
15 13 (8.13%) IPsec
16 10 (6.25%) DHCP
16 10 (6.25%) IPv6
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.88%) GIS
Development Applications
1 5 (3.13%) Git
2 2 (1.25%) GitLab
2 2 (1.25%) JIRA
3 1 (0.63%) Robot Framework
3 1 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 47 (29.38%) Social Skills
2 34 (21.25%) Telecoms
3 21 (13.13%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (10.63%) Public Sector
5 11 (6.88%) Finance
6 7 (4.38%) Documentation Skills
6 7 (4.38%) Legal
7 6 (3.75%) Influencing Skills
8 4 (2.50%) Manufacturing
8 4 (2.50%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (1.88%) Aviation
10 2 (1.25%) Electronics
10 2 (1.25%) Police
11 1 (0.63%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.63%) Banking
11 1 (0.63%) Law
11 1 (0.63%) Marketing
11 1 (0.63%) Military
11 1 (0.63%) Publishing
11 1 (0.63%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 54 (33.75%) Network Engineer
2 46 (28.75%) Architect
3 35 (21.88%) Network Architect
4 17 (10.63%) Network Specialist
4 17 (10.63%) Senior
5 15 (9.38%) Network Design Specialist
6 14 (8.75%) Design Engineer
7 13 (8.13%) Network Design Engineer
8 9 (5.63%) Designer
8 9 (5.63%) Network Designer
8 9 (5.63%) Senior Designer
8 9 (5.63%) Senior Network Designer
9 8 (5.00%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
9 8 (5.00%) Performance Specialist
9 8 (5.00%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 7 (4.38%) IP Specialist
10 7 (4.38%) Network Security Architect
10 7 (4.38%) Security Architect
10 7 (4.38%) Solutions Architect
11 6 (3.75%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (5.63%) 802.1X
1 9 (5.63%) YANG
2 8 (5.00%) NETCONF
3 5 (3.13%) REST
4 4 (2.50%) OpenID
4 4 (2.50%) SAML
5 2 (1.25%) Django
5 2 (1.25%) JSON
5 2 (1.25%) OpenConfig
5 2 (1.25%) RESTCONF
6 1 (0.63%) gRPC
6 1 (0.63%) Jinja
6 1 (0.63%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 38 (23.75%) Data Centre
2 15 (9.38%) Hybrid Cloud
3 8 (5.00%) SCADA
4 7 (4.38%) Data Protection Act
4 7 (4.38%) IoT
5 6 (3.75%) Cloud Native
5 6 (3.75%) PKI
6 5 (3.13%) Operational Technology
7 4 (2.50%) NB-IoT
7 4 (2.50%) Onboarding
8 3 (1.88%) Distributed Architecture
8 3 (1.88%) Management Information System
8 3 (1.88%) Self-Motivation
9 2 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
9 2 (1.25%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 2 (1.25%) Private Cloud
9 2 (1.25%) Product Ownership
9 2 (1.25%) Security Posture
10 1 (0.63%) Fibre Optics
10 1 (0.63%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 8 (5.00%) Windows
2 5 (3.13%) Linux
3 3 (1.88%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 38 (23.75%) Network Architecture
2 27 (16.88%) Load Balancing
3 21 (13.13%) High Availability
4 20 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
5 18 (11.25%) Migration
5 18 (11.25%) Roadmaps
6 16 (10.00%) Network Segmentation
6 16 (10.00%) Root Cause Analysis
6 16 (10.00%) Stakeholder Management
7 15 (9.38%) Security Architecture
7 15 (9.38%) Zero Trust
8 14 (8.75%) Cybersecurity
8 14 (8.75%) ITIL
8 14 (8.75%) Network Management
9 13 (8.13%) DevOps
10 12 (7.50%) TOGAF
11 11 (6.88%) Data Protection
11 11 (6.88%) Mentoring
11 11 (6.88%) Network Monitoring
11 11 (6.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 25 (15.63%) Python
2 7 (4.38%) SQL
3 5 (3.13%) Bash
3 5 (3.13%) PowerShell
4 2 (1.25%) Perl
5 1 (0.63%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 59 (36.88%) Security Cleared
2 47 (29.38%) Cisco Certification
3 38 (23.75%) CCNP
4 35 (21.88%) SC Cleared
5 22 (13.75%) CCIE
6 21 (13.13%) DV Cleared
7 17 (10.63%) Degree
8 13 (8.13%) CCNA
9 12 (7.50%) JNCIS
10 11 (6.88%) CISSP
11 9 (5.63%) AWS Certification
11 9 (5.63%) JNCIE
12 6 (3.75%) Azure Certification
12 6 (3.75%) JNCIP
13 5 (3.13%) Computer Science Degree
14 4 (2.50%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 4 (2.50%) CCSP
15 3 (1.88%) CCIE Security
16 2 (1.25%) ITIL Certification
16 2 (1.25%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.25%) GDPR
2 8 (5.00%) NIST
3 7 (4.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (4.38%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.63%) Def Stans
4 1 (0.63%) DO-160
4 1 (0.63%) NCSC
4 1 (0.63%) QA
4 1 (0.63%) SLA
System Software
1 8 (5.00%) VMware Infrastructure
1 8 (5.00%) VMware NSX
2 5 (3.13%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.25%) Firmware
3 2 (1.25%) Hyper-V
3 2 (1.25%) KVM
4 1 (0.63%) Docker
4 1 (0.63%) RHEV
4 1 (0.63%) Xen
Systems Management
1 21 (13.13%) Ansible
2 16 (10.00%) FortiGate
3 12 (7.50%) Terraform
4 5 (3.13%) Nagios
5 2 (1.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (1.25%) Cisco Prime
6 1 (0.63%) Dell DRAC
6 1 (0.63%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (0.63%) Grafana
6 1 (0.63%) Iperf
6 1 (0.63%) Kubernetes
6 1 (0.63%) Network Intrusion Detection System
6 1 (0.63%) Nmap
6 1 (0.63%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.63%) Proxmox
6 1 (0.63%) SCCM
Vendors
1 70 (43.75%) Cisco
2 38 (23.75%) Palo Alto
3 35 (21.88%) Juniper
4 22 (13.75%) Fortinet
5 20 (12.50%) F5
5 20 (12.50%) Meraki
6 18 (11.25%) Microsoft
7 13 (8.13%) Nokia
7 13 (8.13%) SolarWinds
8 12 (7.50%) CheckPoint
9 11 (6.88%) VMware
10 8 (5.00%) Ericsson
11 7 (4.38%) Actix
11 7 (4.38%) Aruba
12 4 (2.50%) Arista
13 3 (1.88%) LogicMonitor
14 2 (1.25%) SevOne
14 2 (1.25%) Splunk
14 2 (1.25%) Virgin Media
14 2 (1.25%) Zscaler