DNS Contract Job Trends in the North West

Domain Name System (DNS)
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring DNS skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 29 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 52 81 99
Rank change year-on-year +29 +18 -25
Contract jobs citing DNS 150 44 29
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.05% 2.04% 1.18%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 31.58% 14.15% 10.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 67 24 22
10th Percentile £352 £278 £215
25th Percentile £375 £428 £309
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £488 £456
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% +6.85% +11.96%
75th Percentile £608 £541 £511
90th Percentile £633 £614 £542
England median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 1
10th Percentile £42.58 - -
25th Percentile £62.95 - £46.25
Median hourly rate £74.26 - £47.50
75th Percentile - - £48.75
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £37.50 £57.50 £24.59
% change year-on-year -34.78% +133.83% -38.53%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
North West

DNS 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 the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 475 311 285
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.81% 14.40% 11.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 306 180 198
10th Percentile £265 £153 £213
25th Percentile £374 £325 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £487 £450 £514
Median % change year-on-year +8.23% -12.41% +10.48%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £675
90th Percentile £630 £650 £833
England median daily rate £500 £498 £500
% change year-on-year +0.45% -0.45% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 2 10
10th Percentile £15.71 £25.02 £20.48
25th Percentile £17.06 £32.54 £28.44
Median hourly rate £17.75 £45.08 £46.69
Median % change year-on-year -60.63% -3.45% +179.92%
75th Percentile £32.54 £57.62 £51.68
90th Percentile £74.26 £65.14 £57.11
England median hourly rate £26.72 £45.00 £50.50
% change year-on-year -40.62% -10.89% +1.00%

DNS
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing DNS relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

DNS job vacancy trend in the North West

DNS
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing DNS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing DNS

DNS
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing DNS in the North West over the 6 months to 29 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for DNS in the North West

DNS
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing DNS.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing DNS

DNS
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing DNS in the North West over the 6 months to 29 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for DNS in the North West

DNS
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing DNS within the North West region over the 6 months to 29 July 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
Merseyside +17 55 £425 +44.07% 6
Manchester -22 34 £375 -30.88% 19
Cheshire +17 32 £446 -25.75% 7
Cumbria -7 16 £611 +33.99%
Lancashire +1 11 £261 +49.29% 7
DNS
England

DNS
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 7 (4.67%) SharePoint
2 6 (4.00%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (2.00%) IIS
Applications
1 5 (3.33%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (2.67%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.67%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 33 (22.00%) Azure
2 26 (17.33%) AWS
3 13 (8.67%) Microsoft 365
4 8 (5.33%) GCP
5 6 (4.00%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 5 (3.33%) Akamai
6 5 (3.33%) IaaS
7 4 (2.67%) Entra ID
7 4 (2.67%) GitHub
7 4 (2.67%) PaaS
8 3 (2.00%) Asana
8 3 (2.00%) Google Drive
8 3 (2.00%) Google Workspace
8 3 (2.00%) SaaS
9 2 (1.33%) Azure AKS
9 2 (1.33%) Azure Monitor
9 2 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (1.33%) Rubrik
10 1 (0.67%) Azure App Service
10 1 (0.67%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 46 (30.67%) VPN
2 38 (25.33%) DMZ
3 37 (24.67%) TCP/IP
4 35 (23.33%) BGP
5 33 (22.00%) Firewall
5 33 (22.00%) Multicast
6 31 (20.67%) DHCP
7 28 (18.67%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 25 (16.67%) SSL
8 25 (16.67%) Wireless
9 23 (15.33%) HTTP
10 22 (14.67%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
11 21 (14.00%) BIG-IP
11 21 (14.00%) Wireshark
12 18 (12.00%) Cisco IOS
12 18 (12.00%) SAN
12 18 (12.00%) VLAN
13 16 (10.67%) NAS
13 16 (10.67%) NX-OS
13 16 (10.67%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.67%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 18 (12.00%) Fiddler
2 9 (6.00%) JIRA
3 3 (2.00%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.67%) Git
4 1 (0.67%) GitLab
4 1 (0.67%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.67%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 40 (26.67%) Banking
2 32 (21.33%) Investment Banking
3 28 (18.67%) Social Skills
4 14 (9.33%) Documentation Skills
4 14 (9.33%) Finance
5 12 (8.00%) Analytical Skills
6 5 (3.33%) Public Sector
7 3 (2.00%) Legal
8 1 (0.67%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.67%) Military
8 1 (0.67%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.67%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 67 (44.67%) Network Engineer
2 39 (26.00%) Security Engineer
3 33 (22.00%) Network Security Engineer
3 33 (22.00%) Web Engineer
4 32 (21.33%) Cisco Engineer
4 32 (21.33%) Data Engineer
4 32 (21.33%) Data Network Engineer
5 31 (20.67%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 31 (20.67%) Cisco Security Engineer
6 16 (10.67%) Analyst
6 16 (10.67%) Blue Coat Engineer
6 16 (10.67%) IP Network Engineer
7 15 (10.00%) Architect
8 12 (8.00%) Systems Analyst
9 9 (6.00%) Senior
10 8 (5.33%) Cloud Engineer
10 8 (5.33%) Technical Architect
11 7 (4.67%) 2nd Line Support
11 7 (4.67%) Administrator
11 7 (4.67%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (4.67%) 802.1X
2 5 (3.33%) LDAP
3 3 (2.00%) OAuth
3 3 (2.00%) XMPP
4 2 (1.33%) JSON
4 2 (1.33%) Software Packaging
5 1 (0.67%) ARM Templates
5 1 (0.67%) Azure Blueprints
5 1 (0.67%) ODBC
5 1 (0.67%) OpenTelemetry
5 1 (0.67%) REST
5 1 (0.67%) XML
5 1 (0.67%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 24 (16.00%) Data Centre
2 23 (15.33%) Management Information System
3 11 (7.33%) Enterprise Cloud
4 8 (5.33%) Public Cloud
5 7 (4.67%) Hybrid Cloud
6 6 (4.00%) Cloud Native
6 6 (4.00%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 6 (4.00%) Onboarding
7 5 (3.33%) Cloud Security Posture
7 5 (3.33%) Driving Licence
7 5 (3.33%) Security Posture
8 4 (2.67%) PKI
9 3 (2.00%) Fat Client
9 3 (2.00%) Freedom of Information
9 3 (2.00%) Product Ownership
9 3 (2.00%) Thin Client
10 2 (1.33%) iPhone
11 1 (0.67%) Data Protection Act
11 1 (0.67%) Handset
11 1 (0.67%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 21 (14.00%) Windows
2 10 (6.67%) Linux
2 10 (6.67%) Windows Server
3 9 (6.00%) Unix
4 6 (4.00%) Windows 10
5 4 (2.67%) Windows Server 2012
6 3 (2.00%) AIX
6 3 (2.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (1.33%) Android
7 2 (1.33%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.67%) VMS
8 1 (0.67%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (39.33%) Load Balancing
2 26 (17.33%) Migration
3 21 (14.00%) Data Loss Prevention
3 21 (14.00%) Project Delivery
4 18 (12.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 18 (12.00%) ITIL
4 18 (12.00%) ITSM
4 18 (12.00%) Malware Detection/Protection
5 17 (11.33%) Network Segmentation
6 16 (10.67%) Agile
6 16 (10.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 14 (9.33%) Continuous Improvement
7 14 (9.33%) Infrastructure as Code
7 14 (9.33%) Validation
8 13 (8.67%) Problem-Solving
9 12 (8.00%) CI/CD
9 12 (8.00%) Waterfall
10 11 (7.33%) Workshop Facilitation
11 9 (6.00%) Systems Analysis
12 8 (5.33%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 14 (9.33%) Python
2 10 (6.67%) PowerShell
3 8 (5.33%) Bicep
4 3 (2.00%) SQL
5 2 (1.33%) Bash
5 2 (1.33%) Perl
6 1 (0.67%) ActionScript
6 1 (0.67%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.67%) Kusto Query Language
6 1 (0.67%) Lisp
6 1 (0.67%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 31 (20.67%) Cisco Certification
2 27 (18.00%) Security Cleared
3 26 (17.33%) CCNP
4 25 (16.67%) CCNA
5 22 (14.67%) SC Cleared
6 18 (12.00%) Network+ Certification
7 15 (10.00%) Server+ Certification
8 8 (5.33%) CompTIA Security+
8 8 (5.33%) Degree
9 6 (4.00%) Azure Certification
9 6 (4.00%) BPSS Clearance
9 6 (4.00%) CCIE
9 6 (4.00%) Microsoft Certification
10 5 (3.33%) CISSP
10 5 (3.33%) MCSA
10 5 (3.33%) MCSE
11 3 (2.00%) AWS Certification
11 3 (2.00%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (1.33%) ITIL Certification
13 1 (0.67%) OCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.00%) SLA
2 1 (0.67%) Data Quality
2 1 (0.67%) NIST
System Software
1 29 (19.33%) Active Directory
2 27 (18.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (11.33%) Firmware
4 6 (4.00%) VMware NSX
5 3 (2.00%) NFS
5 3 (2.00%) Veritas Volume Manager
5 3 (2.00%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (2.00%) vSphere
6 2 (1.33%) Docker
7 1 (0.67%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.67%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.67%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 11 (7.33%) Terraform
2 8 (5.33%) Ansible
3 5 (3.33%) CASB
3 5 (3.33%) Nessus
4 4 (2.67%) Kubernetes
4 4 (2.67%) Progress Chef
4 4 (2.67%) SCCM
4 4 (2.67%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (2.00%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 3 (2.00%) PowerBroker
5 3 (2.00%) Tivoli
5 3 (2.00%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 3 (2.00%) WSUS
6 2 (1.33%) AirWatch
6 2 (1.33%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.67%) Grafana
7 1 (0.67%) Microsoft Clustering
7 1 (0.67%) NetApp OnCommand
7 1 (0.67%) vMotion
7 1 (0.67%) vRealize
Vendors
1 65 (43.33%) F5
2 60 (40.00%) Cisco
3 32 (21.33%) VMware
4 27 (18.00%) Microsoft
5 23 (15.33%) ServiceNow
6 20 (13.33%) McAfee
7 19 (12.67%) Blue Coat
8 16 (10.67%) Infoblox
8 16 (10.67%) NetApp
9 8 (5.33%) Splunk
10 5 (3.33%) Citrix
10 5 (3.33%) CyberArk
10 5 (3.33%) Red Hat
10 5 (3.33%) Remedy
10 5 (3.33%) Tenable
11 4 (2.67%) Oracle
12 3 (2.00%) Arista
12 3 (2.00%) Aruba
12 3 (2.00%) Google
12 3 (2.00%) Veritas