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 6 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 411 331 297
Rank change year-on-year -80 -34 +163
Contract jobs citing Network Design 163 160 268
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.45% 0.63% 0.71%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.52% 0.69% 0.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 112 96 139
10th Percentile £400 £405 £363
25th Percentile £424 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% +6.67%
75th Percentile £575 £625 £600
90th Percentile £675 £694 £684
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 8
10th Percentile £72.88 - £23.95
25th Percentile £73.40 - £55.55
Median hourly rate £74.26 - £65.98
75th Percentile - - £66.99
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 31,620 23,110 32,887
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.89% 90.44% 87.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,216 14,677 21,786
10th Percentile £313 £308 £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 £617 £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 1,956 785 2,096
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.50 £13.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.24 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.60 £35.00 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.43% +2.94% -4.23%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.11
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.15 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £28.00 £32.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year -13.85% -1.52% -5.71%

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 6 March 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 6 March 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 -28 68 £475 -5.00% 14
South East -44 36 £500 -13.04% 8
West Midlands -33 21 £400 -16.49% 4
Midlands -41 21 £400 -16.49% 4
North of England -81 19 £537 +7.40% 9
North West -36 15 £525 +5.00% 8
South West -30 11 £490 -6.22% 8
East of England -22 5 £425 -8.11% 6
Yorkshire -63 4 £663 +32.50%
North East -14 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 3 (1.84%) OpenStack
2 2 (1.23%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.23%) Skype for Business
3 1 (0.61%) Confluence
Applications
1 8 (4.91%) MS Visio
2 5 (3.07%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (2.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (2.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.23%) DELMIA
1 2 (1.23%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.61%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 43 (26.38%) Azure
2 30 (18.40%) AWS
3 12 (7.36%) GCP
4 6 (3.68%) PaaS
5 5 (3.07%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 4 (2.45%) Dynamics 365
6 4 (2.45%) Microsoft 365
7 3 (1.84%) AWS Direct Connect
7 3 (1.84%) IaaS
7 3 (1.84%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 2 (1.23%) GitHub
8 2 (1.23%) IBM Watson
9 1 (0.61%) Akamai
9 1 (0.61%) AWS CloudFormation
9 1 (0.61%) Azure Sentinel
9 1 (0.61%) Cloudflare
9 1 (0.61%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.61%) Google Ads
9 1 (0.61%) Mimecast
9 1 (0.61%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 71 (43.56%) Firewall
2 67 (41.10%) WAN
3 42 (25.77%) BGP
4 40 (24.54%) LAN
5 39 (23.93%) VPN
6 38 (23.31%) Network Security
7 35 (21.47%) MPLS
8 26 (15.95%) Wi-Fi
9 25 (15.34%) VLAN
10 21 (12.88%) SD-WAN
10 21 (12.88%) TCP/IP
11 19 (11.66%) OSPF
12 17 (10.43%) 5G
13 15 (9.20%) Radio Access Network
14 14 (8.59%) Cisco ISE
15 13 (7.98%) 4G
15 13 (7.98%) DNS
15 13 (7.98%) IPsec
16 12 (7.36%) Wireless
17 10 (6.13%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.84%) GIS
Development Applications
1 5 (3.07%) Git
2 2 (1.23%) JIRA
3 1 (0.61%) GitLab
3 1 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 49 (30.06%) Social Skills
2 33 (20.25%) Telecoms
3 23 (14.11%) Analytical Skills
4 19 (11.66%) Public Sector
5 11 (6.75%) Finance
6 8 (4.91%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (4.29%) Legal
8 6 (3.68%) Influencing Skills
9 4 (2.45%) Manufacturing
9 4 (2.45%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (1.84%) Aviation
10 3 (1.84%) Police
11 2 (1.23%) Electronics
12 1 (0.61%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.61%) Banking
12 1 (0.61%) Local Government
12 1 (0.61%) Marketing
12 1 (0.61%) Military
12 1 (0.61%) Publishing
12 1 (0.61%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 56 (34.36%) Network Engineer
2 46 (28.22%) Architect
3 36 (22.09%) Network Architect
4 20 (12.27%) Senior
5 18 (11.04%) Network Specialist
6 15 (9.20%) Design Engineer
7 14 (8.59%) Network Design Engineer
7 14 (8.59%) Network Design Specialist
8 9 (5.52%) Designer
8 9 (5.52%) Network Designer
8 9 (5.52%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 9 (5.52%) Senior Designer
8 9 (5.52%) Senior Network Designer
9 8 (4.91%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
9 8 (4.91%) Solutions Architect
10 7 (4.29%) IP Specialist
10 7 (4.29%) Network Security Architect
10 7 (4.29%) Security Architect
10 7 (4.29%) Senior Network Engineer
11 6 (3.68%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (6.75%) 802.1X
2 8 (4.91%) NETCONF
2 8 (4.91%) YANG
3 4 (2.45%) OpenConfig
3 4 (2.45%) OpenID
3 4 (2.45%) RESTCONF
3 4 (2.45%) SAML
4 3 (1.84%) REST
5 2 (1.23%) Django
6 1 (0.61%) JSON
6 1 (0.61%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 41 (25.15%) Data Centre
2 15 (9.20%) Hybrid Cloud
3 9 (5.52%) Data Protection Act
4 8 (4.91%) IoT
5 6 (3.68%) SCADA
6 5 (3.07%) Operational Technology
6 5 (3.07%) PKI
6 5 (3.07%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (2.45%) Analytical Mindset
7 4 (2.45%) Cloud Native
7 4 (2.45%) NB-IoT
8 3 (1.84%) Distributed Architecture
8 3 (1.84%) Management Information System
8 3 (1.84%) Onboarding
9 2 (1.23%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 2 (1.23%) Private Cloud
9 2 (1.23%) Product Ownership
9 2 (1.23%) Security Posture
9 2 (1.23%) Virtual Team
10 1 (0.61%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 10 (6.13%) Windows
2 5 (3.07%) Linux
2 5 (3.07%) Windows Server
3 2 (1.23%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 38 (23.31%) Network Architecture
2 26 (15.95%) Load Balancing
3 23 (14.11%) Problem-Solving
4 18 (11.04%) High Availability
5 16 (9.82%) Migration
5 16 (9.82%) Roadmaps
6 15 (9.20%) Security Architecture
7 14 (8.59%) Network Management
7 14 (8.59%) Stakeholder Management
8 13 (7.98%) Cybersecurity
8 13 (7.98%) Data Protection
8 13 (7.98%) Zero Trust
9 12 (7.36%) ITIL
9 12 (7.36%) Network Segmentation
9 12 (7.36%) Root Cause Analysis
10 11 (6.75%) DevOps
10 11 (6.75%) Mentoring
10 11 (6.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 10 (6.13%) Infrastructure as Code
11 10 (6.13%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 26 (15.95%) Python
2 7 (4.29%) PowerShell
2 7 (4.29%) SQL
3 5 (3.07%) Bash
4 2 (1.23%) Perl
5 1 (0.61%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 63 (38.65%) Security Cleared
2 47 (28.83%) Cisco Certification
3 38 (23.31%) CCNP
3 38 (23.31%) SC Cleared
4 23 (14.11%) DV Cleared
5 22 (13.50%) CCIE
6 17 (10.43%) Degree
7 12 (7.36%) CCNA
7 12 (7.36%) JNCIS
8 11 (6.75%) CISSP
9 9 (5.52%) AWS Certification
9 9 (5.52%) JNCIE
10 6 (3.68%) Azure Certification
10 6 (3.68%) JNCIP
11 5 (3.07%) Computer Science Degree
12 4 (2.45%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 4 (2.45%) CCSP
13 3 (1.84%) CCIE Security
14 2 (1.23%) ITIL Certification
14 2 (1.23%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.13%) GDPR
2 9 (5.52%) NIST
3 7 (4.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (3.07%) PCI DSS
5 2 (1.23%) NCSC
6 1 (0.61%) Def Stans
6 1 (0.61%) DO-160
6 1 (0.61%) QA
6 1 (0.61%) SLA
System Software
1 10 (6.13%) VMware Infrastructure
1 10 (6.13%) VMware NSX
2 7 (4.29%) Active Directory
3 4 (2.45%) Hyper-V
4 2 (1.23%) Firmware
4 2 (1.23%) KVM
5 1 (0.61%) Docker
5 1 (0.61%) RHEV
5 1 (0.61%) Xen
Systems Management
1 21 (12.88%) Ansible
2 15 (9.20%) FortiGate
3 12 (7.36%) Terraform
4 5 (3.07%) Nagios
5 2 (1.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (1.23%) McAfee ePO
6 1 (0.61%) Cisco Prime
6 1 (0.61%) Dell DRAC
6 1 (0.61%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (0.61%) Grafana
6 1 (0.61%) Iperf
6 1 (0.61%) Kubernetes
6 1 (0.61%) Network Intrusion Detection System
6 1 (0.61%) Nmap
6 1 (0.61%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.61%) Proxmox
6 1 (0.61%) SCCM
Vendors
1 74 (45.40%) Cisco
2 40 (24.54%) Palo Alto
3 36 (22.09%) Juniper
4 24 (14.72%) F5
4 24 (14.72%) Fortinet
5 23 (14.11%) Meraki
6 21 (12.88%) Microsoft
7 13 (7.98%) VMware
8 12 (7.36%) CheckPoint
8 12 (7.36%) Nokia
9 10 (6.13%) SolarWinds
10 8 (4.91%) Aruba
11 7 (4.29%) Ericsson
12 4 (2.45%) Actix
12 4 (2.45%) Arista
12 4 (2.45%) Ekahau
13 3 (1.84%) McAfee
13 3 (1.84%) NetScout
14 2 (1.23%) Forcepoint
14 2 (1.23%) IBM