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 5 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 370 312 311
Rank change year-on-year -58 -1 +160
Contract jobs citing Network Design 179 192 255
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.57% 0.70% 0.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.64% 0.79% 0.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 129 117 138
10th Percentile £400 £400 £425
25th Percentile £413 £450 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year -5.71% -8.70% +27.78%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £627
90th Percentile £670 £660 £700
UK median daily rate £495 £525 £575
% change year-on-year -5.71% -8.70% +21.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 13
10th Percentile - - £36.40
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 - - £69.20
UK median hourly rate £74.26 £50.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +48.52% -24.22% -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 27,850 24,270 31,879
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 88.47% 88.85% 88.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,794 14,913 21,576
10th Percentile £304 £310 £306
25th Percentile £409 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £645 £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 1,749 797 1,433
10th Percentile £15.21 £15.62 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.96 £20.30 £19.05
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £43.86
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -20.20% +23.55%
75th Percentile £57.50 £64.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £42.25
% change year-on-year -22.62% -23.07% +20.71%

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 5 January 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 5 January 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 +4 78 £475 -9.52% 224
South East -31 34 £500 -1.23% 154
West Midlands -15 29 £413 -20.75% 2
Midlands -15 29 £413 -22.93% 27
North of England -64 20 £539 +7.70% 7
North West -20 18 £531 +11.79% 4
South West -25 10 £450 -15.29% 38
East of England -13 6 £419 -16.25% 30
North East -10 2 £550 -
Yorkshire -66 1 £650 +30.00% 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 (3.35%) OpenStack
Applications
1 5 (2.79%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.68%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (1.12%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.12%) DELMIA
1 2 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 40 (22.35%) Azure
2 31 (17.32%) AWS
3 12 (6.70%) GCP
4 5 (2.79%) PaaS
5 4 (2.23%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 4 (2.23%) Dynamics 365
6 3 (1.68%) AWS Direct Connect
6 3 (1.68%) Microsoft 365
6 3 (1.68%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 2 (1.12%) IaaS
8 1 (0.56%) Akamai
8 1 (0.56%) Cloud Computing
8 1 (0.56%) Cloudflare
8 1 (0.56%) Google Ads
8 1 (0.56%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 88 (49.16%) WAN
2 80 (44.69%) Firewall
3 58 (32.40%) LAN
4 45 (25.14%) VPN
5 40 (22.35%) BGP
6 39 (21.79%) MPLS
7 35 (19.55%) Network Security
7 35 (19.55%) Wi-Fi
8 33 (18.44%) SD-WAN
9 20 (11.17%) VLAN
10 18 (10.06%) Radio Access Network
11 17 (9.50%) IPsec
11 17 (9.50%) TCP/IP
12 16 (8.94%) 4G
12 16 (8.94%) Cisco ISE
12 16 (8.94%) Cisco Nexus
13 12 (6.70%) 5G
13 12 (6.70%) DNS
14 11 (6.15%) LTE
14 11 (6.15%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.68%) GIS
Development Applications
1 5 (2.79%) Git
2 2 (1.12%) GitLab
3 1 (0.56%) Robot Framework
3 1 (0.56%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 48 (26.82%) Social Skills
2 42 (23.46%) Telecoms
3 23 (12.85%) Public Sector
4 19 (10.61%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (4.47%) Manufacturing
6 7 (3.91%) Finance
7 5 (2.79%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (2.23%) Influencing Skills
8 4 (2.23%) Legal
8 4 (2.23%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (1.12%) Aviation
9 2 (1.12%) Electronics
10 1 (0.56%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.56%) Law
10 1 (0.56%) Local Government
10 1 (0.56%) Marketing
10 1 (0.56%) Military
10 1 (0.56%) Police
10 1 (0.56%) Publishing
10 1 (0.56%) Retail
Job Titles
1 59 (32.96%) Architect
1 59 (32.96%) Network Engineer
2 48 (26.82%) Network Architect
3 19 (10.61%) Network Design Specialist
3 19 (10.61%) Network Specialist
4 14 (7.82%) Design Engineer
5 13 (7.26%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
5 13 (7.26%) Network Design Engineer
6 12 (6.70%) Senior
7 11 (6.15%) Network Design Architect
7 11 (6.15%) Performance Specialist
8 9 (5.03%) 3rd Line Engineer
8 9 (5.03%) 3rd Line Support
8 9 (5.03%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
8 9 (5.03%) Support Engineer
9 8 (4.47%) Designer
9 8 (4.47%) IP Specialist
9 8 (4.47%) Network Designer
10 7 (3.91%) Senior Designer
10 7 (3.91%) Senior Network Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (6.70%) 802.1X
2 10 (5.59%) YANG
3 9 (5.03%) NETCONF
4 6 (3.35%) REST
5 4 (2.23%) OpenID
5 4 (2.23%) SAML
6 2 (1.12%) JSON
6 2 (1.12%) OpenConfig
6 2 (1.12%) RESTCONF
7 1 (0.56%) gRPC
7 1 (0.56%) Jinja
7 1 (0.56%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 43 (24.02%) Data Centre
2 18 (10.06%) Hybrid Cloud
3 13 (7.26%) Operational Technology
4 11 (6.15%) SCADA
5 9 (5.03%) PKI
6 8 (4.47%) Cloud Native
7 7 (3.91%) IoT
8 6 (3.35%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (2.23%) Management Information System
9 4 (2.23%) NB-IoT
9 4 (2.23%) Security Posture
9 4 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (1.68%) Distributed Architecture
10 3 (1.68%) Onboarding
11 2 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (1.12%) Fibre Optics
11 2 (1.12%) Insider Threat
11 2 (1.12%) Life Science
11 2 (1.12%) Product Ownership
11 2 (1.12%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 9 (5.03%) Windows
2 3 (1.68%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 53 (29.61%) Network Architecture
2 33 (18.44%) Load Balancing
3 20 (11.17%) Problem-Solving
4 19 (10.61%) High Availability
5 18 (10.06%) Roadmaps
5 18 (10.06%) Root Cause Analysis
6 17 (9.50%) Cybersecurity
6 17 (9.50%) Stakeholder Management
7 16 (8.94%) Network Management
8 15 (8.38%) Network Segmentation
8 15 (8.38%) Zero Trust
9 14 (7.82%) Migration
9 14 (7.82%) Network Virtualisation
10 13 (7.26%) DevOps
10 13 (7.26%) ITIL
11 12 (6.70%) Impact Assessments
11 12 (6.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 11 (6.15%) TOGAF
13 10 (5.59%) Enterprise Architecture
13 10 (5.59%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 22 (12.29%) Python
2 7 (3.91%) SQL
3 4 (2.23%) Bash
3 4 (2.23%) PowerShell
4 2 (1.12%) Perl
Qualifications
1 78 (43.58%) Security Cleared
2 46 (25.70%) SC Cleared
3 45 (25.14%) Cisco Certification
4 34 (18.99%) CCNP
5 27 (15.08%) DV Cleared
6 21 (11.73%) CCIE
7 17 (9.50%) Degree
8 14 (7.82%) CCNA
9 12 (6.70%) CISSP
10 10 (5.59%) JNCIE
10 10 (5.59%) JNCIS
11 7 (3.91%) AWS Certification
12 5 (2.79%) Azure Certification
12 5 (2.79%) Computer Science Degree
12 5 (2.79%) JNCIP
13 4 (2.23%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 4 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
13 4 (2.23%) CCSP
14 3 (1.68%) CCIE Security
15 2 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.59%) GDPR
2 8 (4.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (3.91%) NIST
3 7 (3.91%) PCI DSS
4 2 (1.12%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 1 (0.56%) Def Stans
5 1 (0.56%) DO-160
5 1 (0.56%) QA
System Software
1 5 (2.79%) VMware Infrastructure
1 5 (2.79%) VMware NSX
2 3 (1.68%) Firmware
3 2 (1.12%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.56%) KVM
4 1 (0.56%) RHEV
4 1 (0.56%) Xen
Systems Management
1 19 (10.61%) Ansible
2 15 (8.38%) FortiGate
3 10 (5.59%) Terraform
4 3 (1.68%) Nagios
5 1 (0.56%) Cisco Prime
5 1 (0.56%) Dell DRAC
5 1 (0.56%) Failover Clustering
5 1 (0.56%) Grafana
5 1 (0.56%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.56%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 72 (40.22%) Cisco
2 39 (21.79%) Palo Alto
3 38 (21.23%) Juniper
4 26 (14.53%) Fortinet
5 21 (11.73%) F5
5 21 (11.73%) Meraki
6 16 (8.94%) Nokia
7 15 (8.38%) Microsoft
8 11 (6.15%) Ericsson
9 10 (5.59%) Actix
9 10 (5.59%) CheckPoint
9 10 (5.59%) SolarWinds
10 7 (3.91%) Aruba
10 7 (3.91%) VMware
11 3 (1.68%) LogicMonitor
12 2 (1.12%) Arista
12 2 (1.12%) Forcepoint
12 2 (1.12%) Rockwell
12 2 (1.12%) Virgin Media
12 2 (1.12%) Zscaler