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

6 months to
29 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 61 94
Rank change year-on-year +5 +33 -57
Contract jobs citing DNS 100 63 47
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.82% 3.02% 1.68%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 27.70% 17.85% 10.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 21 36 28
10th Percentile £175 £250 £204
25th Percentile £315 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £474 £395
Median % change year-on-year +5.54% +19.94% -28.18%
75th Percentile £630 £556 £522
90th Percentile £690 £750 £633
England median daily rate £525 £477 £475
% change year-on-year +10.06% +0.42% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £15.50 - -
Median hourly rate £16.00 - -
75th Percentile £69.00 - -
90th Percentile £74.26 - -
England median hourly rate £33.50 £23.59 £40.00
% change year-on-year +42.01% -41.03% +3.90%

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 361 353 439
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.77% 16.90% 15.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 205 194 315
10th Percentile £184 £202 £275
25th Percentile £356 £350 £395
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +1.21%
75th Percentile £555 £538 £616
90th Percentile £667 £600 £672
England median daily rate £490 £500 £488
% change year-on-year -2.00% +2.56% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 5 13
10th Percentile £15.50 £20.74 -
25th Percentile £18.50 £22.98 £17.72
Median hourly rate £41.94 £24.76 £41.23
Median % change year-on-year +69.39% -39.95% +99.13%
75th Percentile £67.25 £51.00 £46.88
90th Percentile £74.26 £51.90 £49.38
England median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £51.65
% change year-on-year -14.29% -32.24% +140.24%

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 January 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 January 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 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
Merseyside +19 51 £238 - 2
Cheshire -14 29 £425 +6.25% 4
Cumbria +3 9 £626 - 5
Manchester -27 9 £575 +21.05% 15
Lancashire -13 2 - - 8
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 12 (12.00%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (9.00%) Skype for Business
3 8 (8.00%) SharePoint
4 1 (1.00%) IIS
Applications
1 9 (9.00%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (7.00%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 16 (16.00%) Azure
2 11 (11.00%) Microsoft 365
3 9 (9.00%) SaaS
4 6 (6.00%) Power Platform
5 5 (5.00%) Entra ID
6 4 (4.00%) AWS
7 3 (3.00%) Nutanix
8 2 (2.00%) Azure Logic Apps
8 2 (2.00%) Azure Monitor
8 2 (2.00%) Azure Sentinel
9 1 (1.00%) Akamai
9 1 (1.00%) Amazon EC2
9 1 (1.00%) Amazon ELB
9 1 (1.00%) Amazon S3
9 1 (1.00%) Azure DevOps
9 1 (1.00%) Dynamics 365
9 1 (1.00%) GCP
9 1 (1.00%) IaaS
9 1 (1.00%) PaaS
9 1 (1.00%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 40 (40.00%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
2 38 (38.00%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
3 37 (37.00%) TCP/IP
4 35 (35.00%) DMZ
5 30 (30.00%) SSL
6 27 (27.00%) BIG-IP
6 27 (27.00%) HTTP
7 26 (26.00%) Wireshark
8 25 (25.00%) DHCP
9 22 (22.00%) Network Security
10 20 (20.00%) VPN
11 16 (16.00%) BGP
12 15 (15.00%) Wi-Fi
13 14 (14.00%) VLAN
14 10 (10.00%) LAN
14 10 (10.00%) WAN
15 9 (9.00%) Firewall
15 9 (9.00%) Skype
16 8 (8.00%) Multicast
17 7 (7.00%) Cisco ISE
Development Applications
1 26 (26.00%) Fiddler
2 2 (2.00%) Git
2 2 (2.00%) JIRA
3 1 (1.00%) GitLab
3 1 (1.00%) Jenkins
General
1 41 (41.00%) Banking
1 41 (41.00%) Investment Banking
2 14 (14.00%) Social Skills
3 9 (9.00%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (7.00%) Public Sector
5 4 (4.00%) Finance
6 3 (3.00%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (2.00%) Legal
8 1 (1.00%) Military
8 1 (1.00%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 44 (44.00%) Network Engineer
2 26 (26.00%) Web Engineer
3 15 (15.00%) Cisco Engineer
3 15 (15.00%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 13 (13.00%) Blue Coat Engineer
4 13 (13.00%) IP Network Engineer
5 12 (12.00%) Junior
5 12 (12.00%) Junior Network Engineer
5 12 (12.00%) Operations Engineer
6 10 (10.00%) Security Engineer
7 9 (9.00%) Automation Engineer
8 8 (8.00%) Architect
8 8 (8.00%) Cisco Security Engineer
8 8 (8.00%) Data Engineer
8 8 (8.00%) Data Network Engineer
8 8 (8.00%) IT Support
8 8 (8.00%) Network Security Engineer
9 7 (7.00%) RF Engineer
9 7 (7.00%) Technical Architect
9 7 (7.00%) Wireless Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (2.00%) JSON
1 2 (2.00%) XMPP
2 1 (1.00%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 30 (30.00%) Management Information System
2 9 (9.00%) Data Centre
3 8 (8.00%) Onboarding
4 6 (6.00%) Enterprise Software
5 5 (5.00%) Low-Code
5 5 (5.00%) Public Cloud
5 5 (5.00%) Video Conferencing
6 4 (4.00%) Private Cloud
6 4 (4.00%) Replication
7 2 (2.00%) Fat Client
7 2 (2.00%) Product Ownership
7 2 (2.00%) Thin Client
8 1 (1.00%) Cloud Native
8 1 (1.00%) Clustering
8 1 (1.00%) Cyber Defence
8 1 (1.00%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 1 (1.00%) PKI
8 1 (1.00%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 25 (25.00%) Windows
2 10 (10.00%) Windows 10
3 9 (9.00%) Windows 7
4 8 (8.00%) Windows Server
5 7 (7.00%) Windows Server 2019
6 3 (3.00%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (1.00%) Apple iOS
7 1 (1.00%) Linux
7 1 (1.00%) Mac OS
7 1 (1.00%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 60 (60.00%) Load Balancing
2 23 (23.00%) Data Loss Prevention
3 22 (22.00%) Malware Detection/Protection
4 17 (17.00%) Problem-Solving
5 16 (16.00%) Business Strategy
6 13 (13.00%) User Experience
7 12 (12.00%) Design Patterns
8 11 (11.00%) Project Delivery
8 11 (11.00%) Service Management
9 10 (10.00%) Change Management
9 10 (10.00%) ITSM
10 9 (9.00%) Disk Encryption
11 8 (8.00%) Customer Service
11 8 (8.00%) Cybersecurity
11 8 (8.00%) Migration
12 6 (6.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 6 (6.00%) Problem Management
13 5 (5.00%) Network Segmentation
13 5 (5.00%) Proactive Management
13 5 (5.00%) Ticket Management
Programming Languages
1 21 (21.00%) PowerShell
2 16 (16.00%) Python
3 9 (9.00%) VB
3 9 (9.00%) VBScript
4 7 (7.00%) Lisp
5 2 (2.00%) Kusto Query Language
6 1 (1.00%) Bash
6 1 (1.00%) SQL
Qualifications
1 22 (22.00%) Security Cleared
2 13 (13.00%) SC Cleared
3 12 (12.00%) Degree
4 7 (7.00%) CCNP
4 7 (7.00%) Cisco Certification
4 7 (7.00%) DV Cleared
5 2 (2.00%) Azure Certification
5 2 (2.00%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (2.00%) NIST
2 1 (1.00%) SLA
System Software
1 39 (39.00%) VMware Infrastructure
2 19 (19.00%) Active Directory
3 14 (14.00%) VMware NSX
4 13 (13.00%) Firmware
5 9 (9.00%) BitLocker
6 4 (4.00%) Docker
6 4 (4.00%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (4.00%) vSphere
7 3 (3.00%) Hyper-V
8 1 (1.00%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 18 (18.00%) SCCM
2 17 (17.00%) Ansible
3 10 (10.00%) Microsoft Intune
4 8 (8.00%) FortiGate
5 6 (6.00%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (3.00%) Kubernetes
6 3 (3.00%) Terraform
6 3 (3.00%) vCenter Server
7 2 (2.00%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (1.00%) CA Single Sign-On
8 1 (1.00%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 63 (63.00%) F5
2 54 (54.00%) VMware
3 28 (28.00%) Blue Coat
4 27 (27.00%) McAfee
5 21 (21.00%) Cisco
5 21 (21.00%) NetApp
5 21 (21.00%) ServiceNow
6 20 (20.00%) Microsoft
7 7 (7.00%) Ekahau
7 7 (7.00%) Remedy
7 7 (7.00%) Veeam
8 5 (5.00%) Computacenter
9 4 (4.00%) Dell
9 4 (4.00%) SolarWinds
10 3 (3.00%) Citrix
11 2 (2.00%) LogRhythm
12 1 (1.00%) Apple
12 1 (1.00%) CheckPoint
12 1 (1.00%) Fortinet
12 1 (1.00%) Palo Alto