SDH Contracts in England

Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England requiring SDH skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited SDH over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 460 516 625
Rank change year-on-year +56 +109 +129
Contract jobs citing SDH 25 26 28
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.10% 0.070% 0.055%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.79% 0.52% 0.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 12 12 18
10th Percentile £308 £508 £371
25th Percentile £395 £575 £376
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £650 £450
Median % change year-on-year -30.77% +44.44% +28.57%
75th Percentile £452 £688 £500
90th Percentile £509 - £591
UK median daily rate £450 £625 £450
% change year-on-year -28.00% +38.89% +28.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 7 2
10th Percentile - £19.55 £20.00
25th Percentile - £23.75 £20.75
Median hourly rate - £30.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year - +33.33% -18.18%
75th Percentile - £33.13 £24.25
90th Percentile - £33.75 £25.00
UK median hourly rate - £30.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year - +33.33% -18.18%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
England

SDH falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 3,178 5,012 6,158
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 13.05% 13.48% 12.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,963 3,022 4,045
10th Percentile £220 £206 £231
25th Percentile £363 £350 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -6.67% +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £650
90th Percentile £675 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £488 £495 £519
% change year-on-year -1.52% -4.53% +3.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 127 399 439
10th Percentile £13.81 £13.50 £9.80
25th Percentile £15.22 £17.35 £10.63
Median hourly rate £28.00 £40.00 £18.82
Median % change year-on-year -30.00% +112.54% -21.29%
75th Percentile £63.50 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £81.01 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £40.00 £19.00
% change year-on-year -27.50% +110.53% -32.74%

SDH
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing SDH as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for SDH in England

SDH
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing SDH in England.

Daily rate trend for SDH in England

SDH
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SDH in England over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SDH in England

SDH
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing SDH in England.

Hourly rate trend for SDH in England

SDH
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 SDH within the England region over the 6 months to 1 May 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
South East +57 19 £450 - 21
London +38 5 £319 -36.25% 6
Midlands +21 1 £510 +36.00% 18
West Midlands +13 1 £510 +36.00% 11
SDH
UK

SDH
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Communications & Networking
1 22 (88.00%) MPLS
2 21 (84.00%) Ethernet
3 19 (76.00%) VPN
4 18 (72.00%) ATM
4 18 (72.00%) Frame Relay
5 17 (68.00%) WAN
6 16 (64.00%) GPRS
6 16 (64.00%) GSM
6 16 (64.00%) LAN
6 16 (64.00%) LTE
6 16 (64.00%) SAN
6 16 (64.00%) UMTS
6 16 (64.00%) Wireshark
7 4 (16.00%) VoIP
8 3 (12.00%) BGP
8 3 (12.00%) EIGRP
8 3 (12.00%) OSPF
9 1 (4.00%) DWDM
9 1 (4.00%) RIP
9 1 (4.00%) SONET
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (8.00%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 1 (4.00%) GitLab
1 1 (4.00%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 20 (80.00%) Telecoms
2 19 (76.00%) Social Skills
3 2 (8.00%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (4.00%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 15 (60.00%) IP Engineer
2 14 (56.00%) Test Engineer
3 7 (28.00%) Network Engineer
4 5 (20.00%) IP Network Engineer
5 4 (16.00%) Consultant
6 2 (8.00%) Analyst
6 2 (8.00%) Architect
6 2 (8.00%) IP Consultant
6 2 (8.00%) IP Network Consultant
6 2 (8.00%) Network Analyst
6 2 (8.00%) Network Architect
6 2 (8.00%) Network Consultant
6 2 (8.00%) OSS Consultant
6 2 (8.00%) Senior
7 1 (4.00%) Fault Management Consultant
7 1 (4.00%) Network Infrastructure Analyst
7 1 (4.00%) Network Migration Engineer
7 1 (4.00%) Network Systems Engineer
7 1 (4.00%) Operations Consultant
7 1 (4.00%) OSS Expert
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (4.00%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 16 (64.00%) Self-Motivation
2 2 (8.00%) Clustering
2 2 (8.00%) SCADA
3 1 (4.00%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 18 (72.00%) Linux
2 16 (64.00%) Unix
3 2 (8.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (8.00%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (72.00%) Fault Management
1 18 (72.00%) Problem-Solving
2 16 (64.00%) Project Management
2 16 (64.00%) Regression Testing
2 16 (64.00%) Test Strategy
3 4 (16.00%) Root Cause Analysis
4 3 (12.00%) Network Management
4 3 (12.00%) Stakeholder Management
5 2 (8.00%) Analytics
5 2 (8.00%) Data Enrichment
5 2 (8.00%) Disaster Recovery
5 2 (8.00%) ITIL
5 2 (8.00%) Migration
5 2 (8.00%) Network Monitoring
5 2 (8.00%) Server Management
5 2 (8.00%) Service Delivery
6 1 (4.00%) Budget Management
6 1 (4.00%) High Availability
6 1 (4.00%) Release Management
6 1 (4.00%) System Testing
Programming Languages
1 16 (64.00%) Java
2 2 (8.00%) Perl
Qualifications
1 18 (72.00%) CCNP
1 18 (72.00%) Cisco Certification
2 16 (64.00%) ISEB
2 16 (64.00%) ISTQB
2 16 (64.00%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 4 (16.00%) SC Cleared
3 4 (16.00%) Security Cleared
4 2 (8.00%) CCNA
4 2 (8.00%) Degree
5 1 (4.00%) HNC
5 1 (4.00%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (4.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 1 (4.00%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 1 (4.00%) Nagios
1 1 (4.00%) OpenView
1 1 (4.00%) OPNET
1 1 (4.00%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 17 (68.00%) Cisco
1 17 (68.00%) Juniper
2 16 (64.00%) Microsoft
3 2 (8.00%) EMC
3 2 (8.00%) Nokia
3 2 (8.00%) Oracle
3 2 (8.00%) Splunk
4 1 (4.00%) Ericsson
4 1 (4.00%) Hitachi
4 1 (4.00%) HP
4 1 (4.00%) Nortel
4 1 (4.00%) Virgin Media