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 30 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 356 304 326
Rank change year-on-year -52 +22 +165
Contract jobs citing Network Design 187 213 268
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.61% 0.69% 0.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.68% 0.79% 0.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 136 120 151
10th Percentile £400 £400 £413
25th Percentile £412 £450 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £578
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% -9.17% +28.44%
75th Percentile £576 £588 £644
90th Percentile £659 £639 £750
UK median daily rate £463 £525 £575
% change year-on-year -11.90% -8.70% +21.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 2 14
10th Percentile £58.85 - £38.60
25th Percentile £64.63 - -
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 £75.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year -0.99% +13.67% -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 27,380 27,022 34,479
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 89.64% 87.64% 88.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,423 16,566 23,536
10th Percentile £300 £313 £313
25th Percentile £405 £418 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £549
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% -4.42% -0.14%
75th Percentile £625 £649 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,778 979 1,450
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.22 £14.64
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.24 £19.15
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +19.85%
75th Percentile £50.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.75 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £33.00 £43.63
% change year-on-year -23.79% -24.36% +24.64%

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 30 November 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 30 November 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 30 November 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 +12 78 £450 -14.29% 13
South East -21 32 £500 -4.76% 27
West Midlands +8 31 £400 -46.67% 4
Midlands -3 31 £400 -42.86% 7
North of England -68 22 £519 +3.85% 13
North West -11 21 £519 +9.16% 9
South West -8 16 £475 -9.52% 7
East of England -8 7 £419 -16.25% 3
North East -10 2 £550 - 2
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 (3.74%) OpenStack
2 2 (1.07%) nginx
Applications
1 2 (1.07%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (1.07%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (1.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 2 (1.07%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (1.07%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.53%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 37 (19.79%) Azure
2 29 (15.51%) AWS
3 13 (6.95%) GCP
4 6 (3.21%) PaaS
5 5 (2.67%) SaaS
6 4 (2.14%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 4 (2.14%) Dynamics 365
7 3 (1.60%) AWS Direct Connect
7 3 (1.60%) IaaS
7 3 (1.60%) Microsoft 365
7 3 (1.60%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 2 (1.07%) Entra ID
8 2 (1.07%) GitHub
8 2 (1.07%) Serverless
9 1 (0.53%) Akamai
9 1 (0.53%) Cloud Computing
9 1 (0.53%) Cloudflare
9 1 (0.53%) Google Ads
9 1 (0.53%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 84 (44.92%) Firewall
2 83 (44.39%) WAN
3 60 (32.09%) LAN
4 47 (25.13%) BGP
5 42 (22.46%) VPN
6 40 (21.39%) MPLS
7 39 (20.86%) Network Security
8 36 (19.25%) Wi-Fi
9 34 (18.18%) SD-WAN
10 22 (11.76%) IPsec
11 19 (10.16%) Radio Access Network
12 18 (9.63%) Cisco Nexus
13 17 (9.09%) VLAN
14 16 (8.56%) 4G
15 14 (7.49%) DNS
15 14 (7.49%) TCP/IP
16 13 (6.95%) Cisco ISE
17 12 (6.42%) Wireless
18 11 (5.88%) 3GPP
18 11 (5.88%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.60%) GIS
Development Applications
1 5 (2.67%) Git
2 4 (2.14%) GitLab
3 2 (1.07%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.53%) Robot Framework
4 1 (0.53%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 45 (24.06%) Telecoms
2 43 (22.99%) Social Skills
3 26 (13.90%) Public Sector
4 17 (9.09%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (3.74%) Manufacturing
6 6 (3.21%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (2.67%) Finance
8 4 (2.14%) Influencing Skills
8 4 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (1.60%) Aviation
9 3 (1.60%) Legal
10 2 (1.07%) Electronics
11 1 (0.53%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.53%) Law
11 1 (0.53%) Local Government
11 1 (0.53%) Marketing
11 1 (0.53%) Military
11 1 (0.53%) Police
11 1 (0.53%) Publishing
11 1 (0.53%) Retail
Job Titles
1 67 (35.83%) Architect
2 65 (34.76%) Network Engineer
3 50 (26.74%) Network Architect
4 20 (10.70%) Network Design Specialist
4 20 (10.70%) Network Specialist
5 14 (7.49%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
5 14 (7.49%) Network Design Architect
6 11 (5.88%) 3rd Line Engineer
6 11 (5.88%) Design Engineer
6 11 (5.88%) Performance Specialist
6 11 (5.88%) Support Engineer
7 10 (5.35%) 3rd Line Support
7 10 (5.35%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
7 10 (5.35%) Network Design Engineer
8 8 (4.28%) IP Specialist
8 8 (4.28%) Senior
9 7 (3.74%) IP Architect
9 7 (3.74%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 7 (3.74%) Solutions Architect
10 6 (3.21%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (6.95%) 802.1X
2 9 (4.81%) YANG
3 8 (4.28%) NETCONF
4 6 (3.21%) REST
5 4 (2.14%) OpenID
5 4 (2.14%) SAML
6 3 (1.60%) Middleware
7 2 (1.07%) OpenConfig
7 2 (1.07%) RESTCONF
7 2 (1.07%) Web Services
8 1 (0.53%) eBPF
8 1 (0.53%) gRPC
8 1 (0.53%) Jinja
8 1 (0.53%) JSON
8 1 (0.53%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 43 (22.99%) Data Centre
2 17 (9.09%) Hybrid Cloud
3 14 (7.49%) Operational Technology
4 12 (6.42%) SCADA
5 11 (5.88%) Cloud Native
5 11 (5.88%) PKI
6 8 (4.28%) IoT
7 7 (3.74%) Onboarding
8 5 (2.67%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (2.14%) Fibre Optics
9 4 (2.14%) Management Information System
9 4 (2.14%) NB-IoT
9 4 (2.14%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (1.60%) Private Cloud
10 3 (1.60%) Product Ownership
10 3 (1.60%) Security Posture
11 2 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (1.07%) Distributed Architecture
11 2 (1.07%) Insider Threat
11 2 (1.07%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 8 (4.28%) Windows
2 3 (1.60%) Linux
3 1 (0.53%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (25.67%) Network Architecture
2 33 (17.65%) Load Balancing
3 20 (10.70%) Cybersecurity
4 18 (9.63%) Roadmaps
5 17 (9.09%) Migration
5 17 (9.09%) Network Segmentation
5 17 (9.09%) Root Cause Analysis
6 16 (8.56%) High Availability
6 16 (8.56%) Problem-Solving
6 16 (8.56%) Zero Trust
7 15 (8.02%) DevOps
7 15 (8.02%) Network Management
7 15 (8.02%) Network Virtualisation
7 15 (8.02%) Stakeholder Management
8 12 (6.42%) Incident Response
8 12 (6.42%) ITIL
9 11 (5.88%) Network Monitoring
9 11 (5.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 11 (5.88%) Strategic Thinking
9 11 (5.88%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 24 (12.83%) Python
2 5 (2.67%) SQL
3 2 (1.07%) Bash
3 2 (1.07%) Perl
3 2 (1.07%) PowerShell
4 1 (0.53%) C
Qualifications
1 83 (44.39%) Security Cleared
2 50 (26.74%) SC Cleared
3 44 (23.53%) Cisco Certification
4 32 (17.11%) DV Cleared
5 31 (16.58%) CCNP
6 21 (11.23%) CCIE
7 17 (9.09%) Degree
8 12 (6.42%) CCNA
8 12 (6.42%) CISSP
8 12 (6.42%) JNCIE
9 8 (4.28%) JNCIS
10 6 (3.21%) JNCIP
11 5 (2.67%) AWS Certification
12 4 (2.14%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 4 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
12 4 (2.14%) CCSP
12 4 (2.14%) Computer Science Degree
13 3 (1.60%) Azure Certification
13 3 (1.60%) CCIE Security
14 2 (1.07%) JNCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (4.81%) GDPR
2 8 (4.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (3.74%) NIST
3 7 (3.74%) PCI DSS
4 4 (2.14%) NCSC
5 2 (1.07%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 1 (0.53%) Def Stans
6 1 (0.53%) DO-160
6 1 (0.53%) QA
System Software
1 6 (3.21%) VMware Infrastructure
1 6 (3.21%) VMware NSX
2 5 (2.67%) Firmware
3 2 (1.07%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.07%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.53%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 24 (12.83%) Ansible
2 11 (5.88%) Terraform
3 10 (5.35%) FortiGate
4 2 (1.07%) HAProxy
4 2 (1.07%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.53%) Cisco Prime
5 1 (0.53%) Dell DRAC
5 1 (0.53%) Functional Safety
5 1 (0.53%) Grafana
5 1 (0.53%) Kubernetes
5 1 (0.53%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 77 (41.18%) Cisco
2 40 (21.39%) Juniper
3 39 (20.86%) Palo Alto
4 24 (12.83%) Fortinet
5 21 (11.23%) F5
5 21 (11.23%) Meraki
6 14 (7.49%) Microsoft
7 13 (6.95%) Nokia
8 11 (5.88%) Ericsson
8 11 (5.88%) VMware
9 10 (5.35%) Actix
10 9 (4.81%) CheckPoint
10 9 (4.81%) SolarWinds
11 6 (3.21%) Zscaler
12 3 (1.60%) Arista
12 3 (1.60%) LogicMonitor
13 2 (1.07%) Forcepoint
13 2 (1.07%) Infoblox
13 2 (1.07%) Rockwell
13 2 (1.07%) Virgin Media