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 28 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 416 335 317
Rank change year-on-year -81 -18 +122
Contract jobs citing Network Design 170 152 229
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.42% 0.62% 0.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.50% 0.68% 0.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 119 87 116
10th Percentile £412 £406 £363
25th Percentile £464 £463 £422
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £550 £475
Median % change year-on-year -6.36% +15.79% -5.00%
75th Percentile £576 £625 £551
90th Percentile £675 £731 £638
UK median daily rate £519 £538 £475
% change year-on-year -3.53% +13.16% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 4
10th Percentile £27.85 - £23.55
25th Percentile £33.25 £66.25 £24.00
Median hourly rate £54.25 £67.50 £47.25
Median % change year-on-year -19.63% +42.86% -32.50%
75th Percentile £71.76 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £72.23 - -
UK median hourly rate £54.25 £67.50 £47.25
% change year-on-year -19.63% +42.86% -32.50%

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 34,120 22,289 31,993
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.96% 91.13% 86.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,809 14,625 20,976
10th Percentile £318 £310 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £523 £525
% change year-on-year -4.40% -0.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,143 919 2,227
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.74 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.38 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £44.00 £30.45 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +44.50% -13.00% -6.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £40.25 £29.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +38.08% -16.71% -6.27%

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 28 April 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Network Design in England over the 6 months to 28 April 2026.

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 28 April 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 64 £525 +2.44% 12
South East -57 43 £500 -13.04% 10
North of England -89 22 £519 +3.70% 14
South West -36 15 £500 -5.88% 6
North West -47 15 £515 +0.49% 11
West Midlands -55 10 £463 +5.71% 8
Midlands -61 10 £463 +5.71% 8
East of England -25 7 £475 +18.75% 2
Yorkshire -60 7 £585 +19.90%
North East -18 2 - - 3
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 6 (3.53%) OpenStack
2 2 (1.18%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.18%) Skype for Business
3 1 (0.59%) ArcGIS
3 1 (0.59%) Confluence
3 1 (0.59%) Smallworld
Applications
1 8 (4.71%) MS Visio
2 6 (3.53%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (2.94%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (2.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.59%) Autodesk Inventor
5 1 (0.59%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 2 (1.18%) DELMIA
1 2 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 40 (23.53%) Azure
2 26 (15.29%) AWS
3 5 (2.94%) GCP
3 5 (2.94%) GitHub
3 5 (2.94%) OCI
4 4 (2.35%) Azure ExpressRoute
4 4 (2.35%) PaaS
5 3 (1.76%) IaaS
6 2 (1.18%) Dynamics 365
6 2 (1.18%) IBM Watson
6 2 (1.18%) Microsoft 365
6 2 (1.18%) SaaS
7 1 (0.59%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (0.59%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (0.59%) Azure Storage
7 1 (0.59%) Datadog
7 1 (0.59%) Entra ID
7 1 (0.59%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (0.59%) Mimecast
7 1 (0.59%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 65 (38.24%) Firewall
2 57 (33.53%) WAN
3 41 (24.12%) BGP
4 37 (21.76%) LAN
5 36 (21.18%) VPN
6 30 (17.65%) Network Security
7 28 (16.47%) OSPF
8 24 (14.12%) MPLS
8 24 (14.12%) Wi-Fi
9 23 (13.53%) 5G
10 21 (12.35%) VLAN
11 20 (11.76%) SD-WAN
12 16 (9.41%) 4G
12 16 (9.41%) Radio Access Network
12 16 (9.41%) TCP/IP
13 14 (8.24%) IPsec
13 14 (8.24%) VXLAN
14 12 (7.06%) DNS
15 11 (6.47%) Wireless
16 10 (5.88%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.59%) GIS
Development Applications
1 3 (1.76%) GitLab
2 2 (1.18%) Git
2 2 (1.18%) JIRA
3 1 (0.59%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 41 (24.12%) Social Skills
2 27 (15.88%) Telecoms
3 17 (10.00%) Public Sector
4 14 (8.24%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (6.47%) Finance
6 9 (5.29%) Legal
7 8 (4.71%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (2.94%) Police
9 4 (2.35%) Manufacturing
10 3 (1.76%) Banking
11 2 (1.18%) Electronics
11 2 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (1.18%) Military
11 2 (1.18%) Retail
12 1 (0.59%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.59%) Aviation
12 1 (0.59%) Local Government
12 1 (0.59%) Marketing
12 1 (0.59%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.59%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 52 (30.59%) Network Engineer
2 36 (21.18%) Architect
3 30 (17.65%) Senior
4 28 (16.47%) Network Specialist
5 26 (15.29%) Network Architect
6 22 (12.94%) Designer
7 21 (12.35%) Network Design Specialist
8 17 (10.00%) Network Designer
9 14 (8.24%) Design Engineer
10 12 (7.06%) Network Design Engineer
11 11 (6.47%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 11 (6.47%) Senior Network Engineer
12 9 (5.29%) Senior Designer
12 9 (5.29%) Senior Network Designer
13 8 (4.71%) Lead
14 7 (4.12%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 6 (3.53%) IP Specialist
16 5 (2.94%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
16 5 (2.94%) Senior Network Specialist
16 5 (2.94%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (4.71%) NETCONF
1 8 (4.71%) YANG
2 7 (4.12%) 802.1X
3 4 (2.35%) OpenConfig
3 4 (2.35%) RESTCONF
4 3 (1.76%) REST
5 2 (1.18%) Django
5 2 (1.18%) OpenID
5 2 (1.18%) SAML
6 1 (0.59%) JSON
6 1 (0.59%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 43 (25.29%) Data Centre
2 20 (11.76%) Hybrid Cloud
3 11 (6.47%) Cloud Native
4 9 (5.29%) Data Protection Act
5 4 (2.35%) Analytical Mindset
5 4 (2.35%) IoT
5 4 (2.35%) Management Information System
5 4 (2.35%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (1.18%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 2 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (1.18%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.18%) Operational Technology
6 2 (1.18%) PKI
6 2 (1.18%) Private Cloud
6 2 (1.18%) SCADA
6 2 (1.18%) Security Posture
7 1 (0.59%) Distributed Architecture
7 1 (0.59%) FPGA
7 1 (0.59%) NHS
7 1 (0.59%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 9 (5.29%) Windows
2 8 (4.71%) Linux
3 6 (3.53%) Windows Server
4 2 (1.18%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.59%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 34 (20.00%) Network Architecture
2 26 (15.29%) High Availability
3 23 (13.53%) Migration
4 21 (12.35%) Load Balancing
5 20 (11.76%) Problem-Solving
6 17 (10.00%) Infrastructure as Code
7 14 (8.24%) Zero Trust
8 13 (7.65%) CI/CD
8 13 (7.65%) Roadmaps
9 12 (7.06%) Data Protection
10 11 (6.47%) Capacity Planning
10 11 (6.47%) DevOps
10 11 (6.47%) Network Segmentation
11 10 (5.88%) Continuous Improvement
11 10 (5.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 10 (5.88%) Stakeholder Management
11 10 (5.88%) Technical Leadership
12 9 (5.29%) Security Architecture
13 8 (4.71%) Customer Requirements
13 8 (4.71%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 23 (13.53%) Python
2 6 (3.53%) PowerShell
3 4 (2.35%) Bash
4 2 (1.18%) Bicep
4 2 (1.18%) SQL
Qualifications
1 64 (37.65%) Security Cleared
2 44 (25.88%) Cisco Certification
3 39 (22.94%) SC Cleared
4 33 (19.41%) CCNP
5 24 (14.12%) DV Cleared
6 17 (10.00%) CCIE
7 13 (7.65%) CCNA
8 10 (5.88%) Degree
8 10 (5.88%) JNCIS
9 8 (4.71%) JNCIE
10 7 (4.12%) Azure Certification
11 5 (2.94%) AWS Certification
12 3 (1.76%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 2 (1.18%) BC Cleared
13 2 (1.18%) ITIL Certification
13 2 (1.18%) JNCIP
13 2 (1.18%) PMI Certification
13 2 (1.18%) PMP
13 2 (1.18%) Project+ Certification
13 2 (1.18%) VCDX
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (2.94%) NIST
2 3 (1.76%) NCSC
2 3 (1.76%) SLA
3 2 (1.18%) Def Stans
3 2 (1.18%) GDPR
3 2 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.59%) DO-160
4 1 (0.59%) NIST 800
4 1 (0.59%) QA
System Software
1 13 (7.65%) VMware Infrastructure
2 9 (5.29%) VMware NSX
3 8 (4.71%) Active Directory
4 6 (3.53%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.76%) KVM
6 2 (1.18%) vSphere
7 1 (0.59%) Docker
7 1 (0.59%) EMC RecoverPoint
7 1 (0.59%) Firmware
7 1 (0.59%) NFS
7 1 (0.59%) RHEV
7 1 (0.59%) SRDF
7 1 (0.59%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.59%) Xen
Systems Management
1 24 (14.12%) Ansible
2 15 (8.82%) Terraform
3 11 (6.47%) FortiGate
4 7 (4.12%) Kubernetes
5 5 (2.94%) Nagios
6 2 (1.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (1.18%) McAfee ePO
6 2 (1.18%) SCCM
7 1 (0.59%) Argo
7 1 (0.59%) EMC NetWorker
7 1 (0.59%) EMC VPLEX
7 1 (0.59%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (0.59%) Grafana
7 1 (0.59%) Iperf
7 1 (0.59%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.59%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.59%) Proxmox
7 1 (0.59%) SnapMirror
7 1 (0.59%) SnapVault
7 1 (0.59%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 81 (47.65%) Cisco
2 35 (20.59%) Palo Alto
3 32 (18.82%) Juniper
4 24 (14.12%) F5
5 23 (13.53%) Fortinet
6 22 (12.94%) Microsoft
7 18 (10.59%) VMware
8 15 (8.82%) Nokia
9 14 (8.24%) Meraki
10 12 (7.06%) Aruba
10 12 (7.06%) Ericsson
11 9 (5.29%) CheckPoint
11 9 (5.29%) Huawei
12 8 (4.71%) Arista
12 8 (4.71%) SolarWinds
13 5 (2.94%) Zscaler
14 4 (2.35%) Ekahau
15 3 (1.76%) IBM
15 3 (1.76%) McAfee
15 3 (1.76%) NetScout