Software-Defined Networking Contract Job Trends in England

Software-Defined Networking
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Software-Defined Networking skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 13 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 586 457 529
Rank change year-on-year -129 +72 +72
Contract jobs citing Software-Defined Networking 21 27 21
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.049% 0.11% 0.056%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.52% 0.85% 0.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 10 15 13
10th Percentile £477 £440 £388
25th Percentile £520 £481 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £563 £573 £535
Median % change year-on-year -1.75% +7.01% -15.42%
75th Percentile £625 £738 £600
90th Percentile £709 £775 £734
UK median daily rate £550 £573 £535
% change year-on-year -3.93% +7.01% -13.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 0
10th Percentile £56.75 - -
25th Percentile £59.39 - -
Median hourly rate £66.27 - -
75th Percentile £70.66 - -
90th Percentile £71.79 - -
UK median hourly rate £66.27 - -

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
England

Software-Defined Networking 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 4,040 3,160 4,823
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.46% 12.85% 12.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,501 1,969 2,875
10th Percentile £263 £225 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -3.85%
75th Percentile £590 £600 £607
90th Percentile £675 £675 £690
UK median daily rate £500 £484 £500
% change year-on-year +3.31% -3.20% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 272 125 387
10th Percentile £16.50 £14.40 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.33 £16.30 £17.28
Median hourly rate £30.77 £39.32 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.74% -1.70% +117.75%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.00 £81.80 £72.66
UK median hourly rate £27.69 £44.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -37.07% +10.00% +110.53%

Software-Defined Networking
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Software-Defined Networking relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Software-Defined Networking job vacancy trend in England

Software-Defined Networking
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Software-Defined Networking.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Software-Defined Networking

Software-Defined Networking
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software-Defined Networking in England over the 6 months to 13 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Software-Defined Networking in England

Software-Defined Networking
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Software-Defined Networking.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Software-Defined Networking

Software-Defined Networking
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 Software-Defined Networking within the England region over the 6 months to 13 June 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 -64 13 £575 +0.44% 3
South East -62 3 £650 +8.33% 2
North of England -62 2 £225 -55.45% 2
South West -20 1 - - 3
North West -39 1 £225 -55.45% 2
West Midlands -55 1 - -
Midlands -59 1 - -
Yorkshire - 1 - -
Software-Defined Networking
UK

Software-Defined Networking
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:

Cloud Services
1 8 (38.10%) Azure
2 7 (33.33%) Azure Stack
3 2 (9.52%) AWS
Communications & Networking
1 8 (38.10%) OSPF
2 7 (33.33%) BGP
2 7 (33.33%) Firewall
3 5 (23.81%) WAN
4 4 (19.05%) DHCP
4 4 (19.05%) DNS
4 4 (19.05%) LAN
5 3 (14.29%) MPLS
5 3 (14.29%) Network Security
6 2 (9.52%) Cisco ASA
6 2 (9.52%) Intrusion Detection
6 2 (9.52%) NGFW
6 2 (9.52%) SD-WAN
6 2 (9.52%) VLAN
6 2 (9.52%) VPN
6 2 (9.52%) Wireless
7 1 (4.76%) IPsec
7 1 (4.76%) PSTN
7 1 (4.76%) RIP
7 1 (4.76%) SNMP
General
1 3 (14.29%) Telecoms
2 2 (9.52%) Finance
2 2 (9.52%) Social Skills
3 1 (4.76%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 6 (28.57%) Azure Engineer
1 6 (28.57%) Network Engineer
2 4 (19.05%) Cloud Engineer
3 3 (14.29%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
3 3 (14.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 2 (9.52%) Architect
4 2 (9.52%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
4 2 (9.52%) Consultant
4 2 (9.52%) Senior
4 2 (9.52%) Senior Network Engineer
4 2 (9.52%) VMware Consultant
5 1 (4.76%) Analyst
5 1 (4.76%) Azure Platform Engineer
5 1 (4.76%) Cloud Platform Engineer
5 1 (4.76%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
5 1 (4.76%) Network Analyst
5 1 (4.76%) Network Security Engineer
5 1 (4.76%) Platform Engineer
5 1 (4.76%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
5 1 (4.76%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (14.29%) REST
2 1 (4.76%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 9 (42.86%) Hybrid Cloud
2 3 (14.29%) Data Centre
3 2 (9.52%) Management Information System
3 2 (9.52%) PKI
4 1 (4.76%) Driving Licence
4 1 (4.76%) Fibre Optics
4 1 (4.76%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (4.76%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 4 (19.05%) Linux
2 2 (9.52%) Windows
3 1 (4.76%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (42.86%) Infrastructure as Code
2 7 (33.33%) RBAC
3 6 (28.57%) Network Virtualisation
4 5 (23.81%) Cloud Security
4 5 (23.81%) Validation
5 4 (19.05%) Computer Science
5 4 (19.05%) Deployment Automation
5 4 (19.05%) DevOps
5 4 (19.05%) Runbook
6 3 (14.29%) High Availability
6 3 (14.29%) Incident Management
6 3 (14.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 3 (14.29%) Migration
6 3 (14.29%) Network Design
6 3 (14.29%) Project Delivery
6 3 (14.29%) Root Cause Analysis
6 3 (14.29%) Technical Leadership
7 2 (9.52%) ITIL
7 2 (9.52%) Network Monitoring
7 2 (9.52%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 7 (33.33%) PowerShell
2 4 (19.05%) Bicep
2 4 (19.05%) Python
Qualifications
1 12 (57.14%) Security Cleared
2 11 (52.38%) SC Cleared
3 6 (28.57%) Degree
4 4 (19.05%) Cisco Certification
4 4 (19.05%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (9.52%) CCNA
5 2 (9.52%) CCNP
6 1 (4.76%) DV Cleared
6 1 (4.76%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (4.76%) NIST
System Software
1 8 (38.10%) Hyper-V
2 5 (23.81%) VMware Infrastructure
2 5 (23.81%) VMware NSX
3 1 (4.76%) Active Directory
3 1 (4.76%) Firmware
3 1 (4.76%) KVM
Systems Management
1 7 (33.33%) Terraform
2 4 (19.05%) Ansible
3 2 (9.52%) vRealize
4 1 (4.76%) Cisco CUCM
Vendors
1 5 (23.81%) Cisco
1 5 (23.81%) Microsoft
1 5 (23.81%) VMware
2 4 (19.05%) Palo Alto
3 3 (14.29%) Nokia
4 2 (9.52%) CheckPoint
4 2 (9.52%) F5
4 2 (9.52%) Fortinet
4 2 (9.52%) Meraki
5 1 (4.76%) Becrypt
5 1 (4.76%) Dell
5 1 (4.76%) ServiceNow
5 1 (4.76%) SolarWinds